Patricia Wilson
Stories
10
Chapters
3,347
Words
163.4 K
Comments
0
Reading
13 h, 37 m
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Truth had never expected life to be fair. The concept had never occurred to him. It did, however, seem noticeably It’s just that, growing up, people wore clothes. Even the people who took off their clothes professionally kept them on almost all the time. It was just common sense. If you were leaving your house, you did so wearing clothes. Not much of his current life conformed to “common sense.” Still, it stung a little that “routinely wears clothes” was one of those deviations. Truth had…-
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Truth kept quiet. There wasn’t any benefit to lying to the seniors, but he didn’t know what to say, either. The mists had enclosed the hot spring now, the green trees on the mountain had blurred into nothing. The jutting stones now looked like looming demons coming out of the mist. Ironic, really. “Well, it’s something to do. It’s become our passion.” The big man’s grin inspired unpleasant questions about what else he was passionate about. “It pushes us to continue improving and…
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Truth kept his breathing steady. Incisive hadn’t warned him, so these two were not a threat. Probably. At least for the next few fractions of a second. They looked melted in the hot water of the springs. The outdoor bath was enormous, larger than the hotel it was attached to. Cristal clear blue water covered wide, flat stones. Here and there, boulders rose from the steaming water, adding even more charm to the scene. The pool narrowed at the back, where the spring rose from the mountain, and widened…
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Truth hung in a void of fuzzy gray. Bursts of color and noise broke in and faded away without cause or sense. It was a void so total, his mind was inventing stimuli. He didn’t know how long he was there. “Forever” and “For the smallest unit of time possible” seemed equally likely. Truth hung in a void so total, he wasn’t even aware of how long he hung here. And then there was an angel. The angel’s size was impossible to define- nothing to compare it to. Truth had no idea if it was close by…
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Truth didn’t look back a second longer. He knew what was behind him. All that mattered was forward. Or more to the point, He was already running flat out. He tried to go faster. He didn’t dare use Abner’s Amble, not a single extra scrap of energy beyond what was needed to hide. His body could move fast enough. It would have to be fast enough. Truth raced along his escape route. Most of the obstacles had been demolished by the explosion or the strange aftermath. Dead animals, long dead, littered…
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The few survivors were shattered, exhausted. Confused. Hurting. Their energy had been spent to the last drop, keeping themselves alive any way they could. They were very smart, possessed of abundant magical power, and surrounded by the best talismans and personal protections money could buy on this planet. Empowered by a System that gave them access to a bewildering number of spells in an instant. For most of the people on the sky lily, it hadn’t been nearly enough to survive the explosive collapse. For…
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The floating sky-lily was tilting over. Systems were exploding now or activating without reason. Mindlessly running. The defenses raked the village, shattering homes, shattering the streets. Shattering lives. Truth looked carefully, but it seemed the heavy needles weren’t coming anywhere near him. Small mercies. Some people on the flower were trying to evacuate, but for some reason, the clouds of butterflies weren’t coming together like they should. They were just… swarms of insects with no notable…
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The dim twilight was no hindrance to Truth- he watched the needle fly towards the wards through the magnifier. It hit the ward… and went straight through. He lost track of it there, but he didn’t see anything bouncing off the flesh of the flower. He bounced out of his spot as soon as the needle vanished, this time running three kilometers away before going to ground. He waited, watching, holding his breath. Every nerve strained. The trees rustled. Were the birds coming? Or was it the wind? The cries…
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Truth sat in Borges’ living room. The deadly coin was safely trapped under one of the doctor’s slippers, waiting to be scooped up and returned to the shelf. He needed a moment. It was all kind of a lot. He was gently steaming just sitting there. Sooner or later, the alarm spells would start getting cranky. Probably “sooner,” but he still needed a minute. Just to pull himself together. He had experienced flashes of unreality before. That sense that reality was a soap bubble, a thin film of being,…
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Truth felt the security systems brush past him, like walking through cobwebs. Knowing that somewhere in them, spiders still hunted. His work cracking the system, his own spells, and the seeming “invitation in” by the lady of the house was enough to get them to look the other way. For now. Borges' house was curiously decorated. Superficially, it was the same suburban blandeur- imposing sofas in grays and browns, a big scry ball, what was clearly intended to be Maysi went upstairs to get changed.…
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