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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 145: Slade 297
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Cooper 119
The echo of the voice had barely faded when it said something else, something Slade thought was almost panicking: “Why can I not crush you? What is wrong with my power?”
Slade took several guidelooks, marking landmarks in his mind. If this planet was similar in size to Earth, the Mindlord was perhaps eight miles away. Shella had gathered things, and he took his pack, and turned to her with a smile.
“Ready to run?”
“You’re just happy because you’re not going to lose again in Ragnarok checkers,” she said with a teasing smile.
“I? Lose? Hah!” With that, he turned and began to run. Shella followed him, and he prayed to the Hunter for help in making sure that his prey did not escape. Last time he had done such was with the Parakeets as he was chasing down the southern spy. The spots to step to move faster, the best spots became apparent, and his pace stepped up.
He heard Shella pushing harder to keep up, and knew he needed to stop. With a quick stop, he took her carry bag, and put it over his shoulder.
“Follow in my footsteps.”
“You have longer legs than I, m’lord.”
“I’ll shorten up.” He ran and prayed again, but this time he put in mind that he needed to match Shella’s pace. This was slower, but still quite fast. He wanted to push on faster, but Shella did not have his level of conditioning, so he kept himself moving at about twenty miles per hour over the rock smooth landscape. Occasional leaps over crevices, and dashes into low passes and climbs with burning legs took them onward.
Four miles on he gave them a three minute break. Shella could use it, although for him, he was feeling good, even excited. War had come, and war against someone Uncle Omigger, known in at least one world as Merlin the Enchanter, identified as terribly evil. He was confident that Thor was looking down on him right now with a smile on his face.
Three more miles, and another break, this one five minutes. Shella was panting, and red-faced, but game. She knew as well as he did the benefits of attacking fast. He had talked to her about such things on many occasions. She was not much of a fighter, but she understood war better than many. Pushing onward, and in another two miles they ran into dust in the air. It was not thick, and he could see it floating down to the pebbled and grit-strewn ground.
Not sure what he was facing, he cut his pace by a half. Passing some larger chunks, he came to a crater. In the midst stood a short man dressed in a blacker than black, vantablack padded jumpsuit. He looked at Slade with the expression a snake might use on a mouse, but hotter, more intense, and said, “Come to me.”
Slade walked forward a couple dozen steps with Shella following him until the man said, “I read you. Stop.” Slade stopped.
“Clever, pretending to be controlled, but I am reading you both.”
Slade shrugged.
“Then you should be ready to meet your gods. I am Lord Robert Elvis Slade. I am your enemy.”
“But why, Lord Slade? The High Wizard commands you? No, I see in your mind, you count him a friend, an uncle even. Interesting. Very strange that he left his blood relations with me, a Dreadlord. Must not actually care for you that much. A simple emotional manipulation,” the voice chuckled, “and you will be mine.”
“No.” Slade smirked. Shella just outright laughed.
“How is it that this did not work?” The man yelled, and Slade carefully kept the notion of low levels of psionics out of his brain by thinking about sword strikes he would soon do.
“Your uncle, well-meaning as he may be, is mistaken. You should not kill me.”
“Oh?” Slade raised one eyebrow, and tensed and untensed his fingers.
“I’m a good being.”
“You do know I heard you say you ate the whole Town of--where was that?”
“Manta’s Bay,” Shella provided.
“Well, yes, but you need to understand. I am not some ephemeral mayfly, here today, gone tomorrow. I am a Psi-Clone, and a great Mindlord among them. I spoke truly when I said I have transferred myself from brain to brain and outgrown a human mind. The cost for these vast powers, this potential godlike immortality, is that sometimes I need to refuel certain vital energies.”
“By drinking the minds of normal people!” Shella spat.
“Now I see in your mind that you two are not normal either. You live great ages, perchance, like me. Imagine you were not your age, but three thousand years old like I am. What does the tiny flicker of life of a normal matter? One or a dozen or a hundred or a ten thousand?”
“I have a friend who says that it is because of their mortality that their lives are precious--they have so little of it, and we should protect that. You have had three thousand years, many times the life of most mortal creatures, but you have stolen it from others. That makes you a thief. As for me, I will go to my doom at Ragnarok. Thor, Odin, Baldur, Freyja and I will stand against the Giants and we will lose. It is a good thing to choose this doom. If you are afraid, I can speak to the gods for you before I take your head,” Slade grated out.
“Afraid?” The denial was high-pitched; the charge clearly stung. “Gods? Let me tell you, servant of the magic-using fool, I am on the way to becoming a god. Now, as a god might, let there be slow.”
Slade felt something congeal around him, perhaps the air, perhaps time itself, but his blaster was already moving. Up it came and energy poured out, and shattered the man, even as Shella a second later struck with her force spell. The man fell apart to reveal he was nothing but a pile of rocks.
A clapping sound came from their left, and an exactly similar man stood up. This one moved his feet, and deliberately kicked up dust and pebbles. The congeal effect was gone.
“Yes, I am real--not the illusion I prepared before you came here. I was and am impressed. You are extraordinarily fast. However, you both struck with variations of force effects. A kinetic energy sphere, and a wedge of force. I recognize the magic. It’s one of the spells the High Wizard’s disciples learn. The gun is strange to me, but I can detect the energy. Slade, I can sense you getting closer to shooting and waiting not to shoot yet. You are very fast, but you cannot surprise me. Besides, I have the ability to dissipate energy of that kind. I also can Cause Fire.” Nothing happened, and the Mindlord blanched. Slade opened fire, and the Mindlord fell back, clearly the blasts were damaging him, but to judge by the moving stones and dust around him, the energy was being spread about so that only a small fraction hit him.
“I will Sup on Your Souls!” he screamed, but nothing happened as Shella launched yet another magic wedge of force to hit him, which also was spread about, but this time his nose started to bleed.
“You die here, Mindlord. Slow or fast,” Slade pronounced, sending bolts of kinetic force on target with no wasted time beyond what was required for the blaster to reset itself.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
