Before he could ask, the sound of metal scraping against metal filled the air. Will turned and saw a whole flock of bronze vultures flying through the air toward the valley. While they moved as gracefully as real birds in flight, he could see they were constructs that worked with sprockets and springs and gears. Their feathers had been forged with incredible skill and welded on to their wings. Their cruelly hooked beaks opened and closed with a click, as a mechanical call issued from their throats.
Three of the life-sized metal birds drifted down to circle over the two men. Will went for his machine-pistol, but Crowley reached over and stayed his hand. "Don't bother. You can't shoot them down, and they're not interested in us anyway. Whoever created them has given them a simple program. When the sun is in the sky, they feed on the Titan. That means, for them, lunch is the biggest thing in sight."
Will remained uneasy until the trio of archaeo-mechanical vultures swooped down and in toward the Titan Tityus. "Their beaks don't look particularly sharp."
"No, bronze is notorious for not holding an edge." As the vultures landed and started tearing at the Titan, Crowley added, "However, I don't think keeping a sharp edge and sparing him any pain was part of the program here."
The Titan's agonized bellows echoed back and forth in the valley. Will watched as the vultures tore his belly open from sternum to navel, then ducked inside and emerged to fight over his intestines. He turned away when two of the blood-soaked birds rolled across the Titan's chest, tussling over a piece of liver. "How can those vultures function. Is it magic?"
Crowley shrugged as he led the way back down toward the bed. "it is the nature of this place, that is all. Dimensions have, by design or chance, their own rules of physics, their own rate of time flow and their own connections."
Will folded his arms across his chest. "And their own dangers?"
"And their own dangers." Crowley glanced toward the cave and the returning Yidam. "You and the Yidam will find that out as you scout for a beachhead for us to use. I wish you luck."
"Thanks." Will frowned. "While we're off hunting, what will you be doing?"
"Healing for a bit," Crowley laughed, "Then I'll show the Warriors of the Aryan World Alliance that Earth has dangers of its own."
Concentrating on his breathing, Will Raven let the Yidam lead him away from the Titan's dimension. He kept his eyes open, but a black fog stole his sight as the sound of Greek oaths faded away. He blinked once, but everything remained dark for another two steps, then a harsh red world appeared before his eyes. A hot wind brought the sticky, cloying scent of burning candles to his nose.
The landscape wavered like a heat-mirage, but Will realized he was not seeing an illusion. The whole world appeared to be made of semi-molten wax. A thick rivulet slowed on a hillside off to his right, with the surface growing opaque, then a split in its skin appeared and liquid wax splashed down to cover his boots.
The Yidam dropped to one knee and dipped a finger into the liquid. He raised his hand up and sniffed at it, then tasted it. "Wax."
Will frowned. "A world of wax? How is that possible?"
The Yidam shrugged. "There are many possible explanations. Perhaps this is the repository for all the wax ever lost through the 'lost wax' method of casting metal."
The Native American chuckled. "I hadn't thought of that." He looked down as more wax puddled around his feet and began to harden. "This place does not look stable enough for the sort of operation we are planning."
The four-armed godling shook his head. "No, it is not. It is a high-energy dimension, which is good, but so chaotic that we will have problems. However, it is good to find, because its energy is likely to bleed into the surrounding dimensions. We need that."
Will pulled his feet free of the dimension's substance. "Shall we move on?"
The Yidam nodded and gently took Will's wrist in his lower left hand. Two steps forward and the waxworld parted like a curtain. A cold chill settled over Will as they moved into a gray zone, then they came out in a verdant world of rolling hillocks and a green stream moving sluggishly through the heart of a grassy valley. Twin suns hung in the sky and washed them with the warmth of a spring afternoon.
"Not bad." Will squatted down and ran his hand through the long-leafed grasses. "Ouch! Dammit, this is saw-grass." He held his bloodied fingers up for the Yidam to see.
The Yidam grunted, but Will barely heard him as the gurgle of the stream shifted into a rhythmic clicking sound. Standing with the breeze at his back, will looked down at the stream and saw it shift in its bed. While the farthest part of the stream continued flowing on toward the horizon, the rest of it started to flow up the hill and toward them.
Will's jaw dropped open as he realized what the stream really was. Millions upon millions of iridescent green beetles left the valley core and marched inexorably toward the two dimension-walkers. Behind them, where the long column broke in half, Will saw the ground had been stripped of the saw-grass cover and the rocks had been polished to a gemlike quality by the tread of countless insect steps.
"This is not the place for us, I think." The Yidam grabbed Will by the waist and leaped upward effortlessly. Will shivered, thinking the Yidam's maneuver would carry them straight into the center of the beetles, but an opening to a new dimension swallowed them before they came down in the bug-stream.
They landed in a twilight world with broad-leafed, blue vegetation and broad, wooded valleys, it felt cooler than either of the other two dimensions, and the breeze that blew past them carried the hint of an evening chill. In the hazy blue sky, Will saw what he took to be the world's sun, but it appeared smaller and, therefore, more distant than the sun did in relation to the Earth. That quickly explained for him the lack of warmth.
The Yidam released him, setting him down on a blue-green outcropping of rock. "I think, for the moment, we will be safe. You are well?"
Will nodded. His torso ached a bit from where the Yidam had grabbed him, but he knew the pain would fade quickly enough. His hand had already stopped bleeding. Looking out toward the azure savannah spreading out below them, he saw what he took to be a herd of grazing animals milling about and a pride of carnivores sleeping in the shadow of tall tree.
"Looks like someone with a liking for blue went and colorized an old Tarzan movie."
The Yidam smiled as if he realized that was the correct reaction to what must have been a joke, but Will sensed no comprehension of it from the creature. The Yidam took Will's hand gently in his lower hands and studied the grass cuts. "Superficial."
Will nodded. "Are you going to heal me?"
"Heal you?"
Will frowned. "I thought you could do that. Rajani — she is your daughter, isn't she — healed Hal Qarrett from two gunshot wounds. These cuts should be easy for you."
The Yidam squatted down, bringing him just below Will's eye level. "Yes, she could have done that. It is a skill, not a genetic trait, and I never learned it. And, yes, I suppose she is my daughter."
"Suppose? I didn't think there was much mistaking things like that."
The Yidam smiled and even laughed sincerely. "She is indeed the product of the union of my genetic material with that of the female who was my wife. I knew them both well, and we lived as a family until my daughter was in her teens. Then things changed."
The Native American felt puzzled by the emotions pouring out of the Yidam. He caught an undercurrent of paternal pride and love that he regularly associated with a father/child relationship. A distancing and confused sensation effectively smothered the paternal feelings, and it came tinged with some fear. "What things changed? She is still your daughter."
"True, but I am no longer her father." The Yidam shrugged with all his shoulders. "When I was her father, I was known as Vikram and I was not that much different, save my coloration and gold tattoos, from you or Crowley. Properly attired and at night, I could have passed for human. When the Dark Lords reopened pathways to Earth, I took refuge in Kanggenpo, a Tibetan monastery that
shielded me from the Dark Lords' influence. Unfortunately, it placed me at the center of some very specific and strongly held belief systems."
"I'm not sure I understand."
"My race is psychomimetic. Like a chameleon, we change to resemble the dominant life form in our environment. This ability usually ends early in our life, but my religious sect has isolated a form of mediation that allows us to change and improve ourselves. This sort of change, because it leaves us vulnerable to outside influences, is normally begun in isolation." The Yidam raised his lower set of hands to tap his tusks. "I hid away in the monastery's Gonkhang, the area below the main worship center. It is the traditional home of the Yidam, the temple's guardian spirit. All of the monks — and these monks are strong-willed and devout in the extreme — concentrated their influence on me and changed me from being Vikram — Rajani's father — to their Yidam."
Will knelt and picked up a loose blue pebble. "But surely you still recognize her as your daughter."
"I do, but my change has been more than morphological. I have assumed the physical form of a guardian spirit, and I have learned how to think like one." The Yidam hesitated, then plunged on ahead. "The time spent in the monastery has been a process of transfiguration for me. While I am more than proud of my daughter and yet love her, I have changed so I can no longer know her."
Will let the turquoise stone roll back and forth across his palm. "I...if my son...I do not envy you losing your daughter in that way. I met her once and was impressed by her. You have every right to your pride."
The Yidam smiled and moved down the outcropping to where blue grasses gently swayed in the breeze. "Thank you. She is yet special to me, as I am sure your son is to you. Though I regret the loss, I did then what had to be done."
"And that is what I am doing here, now." Will tossed the pebble into the distance, then smiled. "I think my grandfather would very much enjoy meeting you. He would not find you odd or puzzling at all, but would treat you as another facet of the world being made known to him."
The Yidam snapped a grass stem off and nibbled on it.
"My daughter told me of her adventures since waking from stasis. Your grandfather figured prominently in the accountings, as did Hal and this Sinclair MacNeal. Do you know him?"
Will smiled as the paternal undertow dragged on him. "A bit. He does not remember it, but I was his caddy at a golf tournament once. He is smart and witty. He's also rich."
The Yidam fixed him with a bloody eye. "If you had a daughter, would you want her in love with him?"
The distant thunder of hooves distracted Will for a moment. Down in the plain, the carnivores had attacked the herd, starting a stampede. As he watched, the carnivores — looking a lot like wolves with zebra striping in dark and light blue — coursed and brought down a yellow wildebeest analog. Snarls and howls of victory echoed through the dusk as dust settled on the plain, and the herd regrouped beyond the carnivores' range.
"I think, had I a daughter like Rajani, I would trust her judgment." Will shrugged. "She is intelligent and able to think for herself."
"Agreed." The Yidam turned his face into the wind and sniffed the air. "The question still stands, however: How would you feel about her being in love with him?"
Will suddenly realized what the Yidam was asking. "I would feel exactly how you are feeling now, I think. Happiness mixed with apprehension has to be the universal state of any father when his daughter chooses a man as her lover. What I sense from you is normal. You have not changed so much that your feelings are inappropriate."
Dropping to his haunches, the Yidam raked the claws of his upper right hand through the earth and brought one of the grass plants up, roots and all. Aside from the blue hue, the plant looked normal to Will. "Tell me, Will, what do you think of this place?"
The Native American hooked black hair back behind his right ear. "it looks normal. I heard a theory once that suggested that all plant life on Earth would be blue, except that an algae was that color and absorbed the blue wavelengths from sunlight. For other plants to compete, they had to draw energy from the green wavelengths. It seems temperate, and the steady breeze is probably enough to power some windmills for electricity."
"I concur."
Will looked at the Yidam. "Is this close enough to Pygmalion's dimension to suit our needs?"
"I believe it is." The Yidam tossed the plant aside and stood. "What we shall do is return to Phoenix and give our compatriots a preliminary report. We can return with measurement devices that will clock the wind and determine other things to see if this is good for us. As you have pointed out, the flora and fauna are close enough to Earth to minimize shock for our other workers."
"Most of them come from Eclipse and have never been outside of Phoenix. You could tell them this is Kenya, and they would believe you." Will smiled. "I think this place would do nicely. Peaceful and beautiful."
"Let's hope it stays that way." The Yidam reached out for him. "As much as I have changed and as much as this place appeals to me, I cannot think it is the place where I want to die."
Sinclair MacNeal sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. The swivel chair tipped back until the seat hit a 45° angle, and Sin's feet dangled in the footwell of his desk. Aside from the backglow of the computer screen and the harsh glare of his desk lamp, the office he had been given in the Lorica Tower remained dark.
He closed his eyes for only a second as numbers scrolled up the screen, but he still saw the glowing figures racing through his brain. No matter how many times he ran the numbers, the answers came up the same. While that precision was to be applauded, the numbers it produced meant the expedition to the dimension code-named Turquoise would be a lot tougher than they had originally imagined.
"A penny for your thoughts, Sinclair."
Sin sat bolt upright and spun his chair around, narrowly avoiding a collision between his kneecaps and the edge of the desk. Standing in the half-light, a vision of dreamlike seduction, Rajani smiled at him. Her golden hair spilled over the shoulders of her light bluejacket. The padded shoulders helped emphasize her slender waist, while the white blouse contrasted sharply with her jet-black flesh. Her gold-lozenge pupils struck him as reptilian for a second, but her almond eyes and smile bore him no malice. Blue jeans and white sneakers completed her casual outfit, yet on her it seemed elegant.
Sin smiled openly. "You're the telepath, you tell me what I'm thinking."
Rajani shook her head. "I only want to know if you want me to know."
"Okay. Right now I'm thinking you're a vision of beauty."
That broadened the smile on her face. She looked beyond him toward the computer. "I sensed some worry when I came in. Is something wrong?"
Sin stretched and stood up. "Not really. The place your father and Will Raven found is probably the best we're going to do for a staging area for the invasion, it is stable, not overtly harmful and enough like Earth that we can probably avoid giving our workers nightmares when they get there. For our people, it is close to ideal."
He threw an arm over her shoulders and relished the warmth of her closeness. Sin steered her toward the office's conversation alcove, then dropped onto the brown leather couch beside her. He put his feet up on the coffee table, displacing a stack of printouts and leaned his head on the back of the couch. "It's perfect for our people."
Rajani tucked one leg under another and leaned back against the couch's padded arm at the other end. "Then there must be other problems or you would not be so disturbed."
Sin nodded. "Nero Loring gave me the numbers on how much power we'd need to actually activate the dimensional gateway. It's the rough equivalent of having Hoover Dam running at full, which would be great if Turquoise had a river we could dam and tap for power."
"It doesn't?"
"Not even close."
"But I thought my father said it had wind." Rajani's eyes glowed catlike in the shadows. "We can use wind-generators, can't we?"
"We can, we want 5000 of them r
unning in a gale." Sin closed his eyes and rubbed wearily at his temples. "It's not quite that bad, but the breeze in Turquoise averaged five miles per hour, and we need at least four times that to give us the minimum amount of power Nero thinks he needs."
He heard her shift around on the couch, then felt her gently tug on his shoulders. "Come here, Sin." She pulled him around and toward her, letting him stretch out on the couch. Her bent knees pressed gently against either side of his chest as he lay back, and she slowly massaged his neck and shoulders. "There may be a number of solutions to this problem. Vetha has gone off to Plutonia to take a census of the creatures there and, for all we know, they have some ability that will help us."
Sin slowly rolled his head around as her strong fingers unknotted his muscles. "A bit lower and to the left...yes, right there. Sure, from what Bat said about the Plutonians they'll make fine beasts of burden, which cuts down on our need for heavy equipment. I don't think they have the technical skill to create more efficient generators, though."