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somewhere in between the worlds.
The fact that she still held the sword told her that she was still Yoni, still
in Yoni's body. There were solid things in the blackness, and a path
between. She felt her way with the sword, then found a wall and walked
to it, feeling along it with her hands. She pushed when something seemed
loose, and a shutter opened.
She looked out on the street below the room at the inn, dimly lit by oil
lamps. "Oh, thank God!"
she breathed, and sank down, crying softly for a while.
Her other hand held the jewel. She looked at it glowing in the dark.
It started to burn her.
"Goodbye and thank you, Yoni the Thief," she said aloud. "May good fortune
follow you.
"
Inside her head, there seemed to be a feeling of thanks and relief.
The jewel was terribly hot now; she had to go before it killed the woman it
had been used to save.
"Take me to Asmodeus Mogart!" Jill McCulloch demanded.
The nothingness took on a new texture as she sped back to her world.
Shed learned some
'
valuable things, though, this time out, although some seemed of doubt-ful use.
She'd learned that human beings, too, could command the jewels.
She'd learned something about herself, too. She hoped it would not be tested
again, for next time there might be no demon in man's skin or magical way out.
She prayed that she be spared that most terrible of choices.
Main Line + 2076
MOGART WAS EASY TO LOCATE IN THE BAR.
"I went down to the Saint James Infirmary,"
he was bawling, horribly out of tune, "to see my poor bay-be there!"
"Mogart!" Jill McCulloch yelled to him. "Sober up!"
Mogart clutched a drink uncertainly, spilling a little. He didn't seem to
hear her. "Damn, can never 'mem-ber the rest of it." He swigged on the
glass, then looked up, seemed to brighten. "Oh, yeah." He mumbled to himself,
then started, "Come to me my melancholy baby!"
"
Asmodeus Mogart!" she practically screamed at him. "It's me! Jill
McCulloch! I have the jewel!"
He halted in midword, seemed to realize that he was not alone in this time
frame, and looked around to see her standing there. He grinned stupidly.
"Hi, there, girlie! Have a drink and siddown!"
She had not left the chalk pentagram on the floor the last time, and decided
not to leave it this time, either. She suspected that to do so would require
set-ting up another, and Mogart was in no condition for that.
She held up the jewel, which burned no longer, for she was now in her own body
and holding an alien jewel. "Look, Mogart! See what I've got!" she invited. He
looked, couldn't seem to focus, then looked again and seemed to see it. He
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grinned drunkenly, got up from the stool, and started making his way to her
with extreme difficulty.
"A jewel!" he exclaimed, amazed, then stopped and stood unsteadily a few feet
from her. "It-it is one, isn't it?"
"
It is," she affirmed, then glanced at the clock. It was almost midnight.
Mogart had been wrong about the time differential.
The drunken demon reached for the jewel, missed it, finally grabbed it on the
second try, and looked at it in bleary amazement. "Bedamned," he mumbled.
Lemme shee, now." He reached into
"
his pocket, missed it three times, finally found it and got into it by using
his other hand to steady the coat, and brought out the other jewels.
Jill McCulloch's heart leaped. Four! He had four!
That meant that the man, Mac whatever his name was, had gotten one! Two to go,
and almost five hours on the clock. They could make it!
Mogart seemed to be just staring at the jewels, and she suddenly realized that
he'd gone to sleep like that, standing up and holding the glowing orbs.
"Mogart!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.
He started. "Umh? Huh?" he managed, and shook his head for a moment, then
looked up at her. "Yesh?"
"Send me after the next jewel! We have a chance to get all six!"
He seemed to struggle with himself, to bring himself together. It was a losing
proposition, but he did manage to pocket the jewels on the first try.
"Shorry," he mumbled apologetically. I-I drink, y'know. I I don' think I can
go with you thish
"
-
time, you'll have to go yourself," he added. I'd just screw things up.
"
"
"But you've got to!" she pleaded. "How will I know whose body to use or what
the rules are?"
He shrugged. "Itsh a counterpart world," he told her. "Same short
of shtuff as this one.
Alternate ideas -controls and all that sort of rot. Magic works,
machines don't, otherwisch the same. You don need no body 'cause youre
already there!" he explained mys-teriously.
'
'
She wasn't sure she liked this, but she had no choice. "Walters!" she shouted
at him, suddenly remembering the man's last name. "If Walters gets back, send
him to me!"
Mogart nodded. "Why not?" he said. "Sho go-got lotsa time there. One hour, one
week. Lotsa time. But Theritus, he loves the good life but he's
dangerous, like me." He drew himself up straight, but the figure was
more ludicrous than terrifying.
"Asmodeus, King of the Demons!" he proclaimed, and fell flat on his face. The
drink and glass shattered and splattered everywhere.
He looked up at her drunkenly. "Before you go, can you please help me?"
"
I dont think I should get out of the pentagram," she responded dubiously.
'
"
Oh, no, no, don't get out," he murmured. "Just tell me one thing-do you know
the next four lines to
Saint James Infirmary?"
She sighed, exasperated. "Yes, sure I do," she told him.
"Excellent!" he cried triumphantly. "Now go!" There was blackness.
Main Line +2000 Training Ground #4
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1
"
I DARE NOT EVEN ENTER THIS PLANE, MOGART HAD told him as they'd
traveled.
"
"Of all the problems, this is the one that I fear the most. It is a
training area for adepts in the
Probabilities Department-not very large as universes go, and tremendously
malleable. Unlike most of the planes, this one has no fixed rules. It is
designed to respond to the willpower of the utilizer.
Thus, you're going to encounter not an old sot or a nut case but someone fully
in good with the powers that be."
Mac was nervous about that. Then with the jewel and no weaknesses, I'll be a
sitting duck for
"
him," he'd objected.
"
Not at all," the demon had responded. The jewel is of no consequence here
except to get you
"
in or out. Nor did I say that brother Abaddon had no weak-nesses. He has a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]