ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY-SIX: Worlds

186
******

Alden ended up sleeping another night at the cottage and returning to Earth on Wednesday morning. As soon as he stepped out of Matadero’s teleportation chamber, he ran into a wizard in emerald green who asked him for his opinion, as a human, on housing design. Specifically ceilings—how low was too low?

Thrown for a loop by the randomness of the question, Alden said that humans preferred not to have their heads bumping into things. Then, he suggested that the inquirer talk to whoever would be living in the new building. Hopefully, the Artonan would listen to that last part more than the first. Alden didn’t want to be partially responsible for the creation of an apartment complex that was hostile to tall people.

Rapport I, Matadero, Celena North, he thought. A rotating set of places that are all new to me. I’m a vagabond who can’t even stick to one planet, so I definitely shouldn’t be consulted about other peoples’ home construction.

He wanted to get back to steadier and more predictable sleeping arrangements, but not enough to focus on it right now.

Thanks to his experience on the inward path, he had some fresh positivity and a concrete goal that neatly matched what he’d told both Neha and Stuart he wanted out of life right now. More disaster-proof than I was when the System went down that day. I want to be able to use my magic to protect myself and stay alive, and I want to know there are some people out there who are better off because I lived.

Proving that the person who he was now could save himself and Kibby sooner was so exhilarating that he wanted to call all his friends and tell them he was trying to do it. The only reason he wasn’t already getting into the nitty gritty of it with Boe and Jeremy was because he had calmed down enough to realize that his plans to go on an extended cross-moon camping trip with an Artonan child and kill a demon—in his dreams—went beyond the realm of quirky interest into unique personal obsession territory.

He’d roped Stuart into it, but at least demons and chaos were relevant to Stuart’s own future. Nobody wanted to hear about the hour Alden had already spent researching the nutritive value for humans and Artonans of a bunch of different foods that had been stored at the lab. Pink rice was really healthy. He’d feared poison, in that case, for no reason at all.

Flood Trap 2, he thought, as he passed the sign on the wall that labeled this section of the cube as such in multiple languages. I wonder how many ways Matadero has to kill a demon.

There was a point Stuart had made during their planning session, when Alden was insisting he wanted to destroy the demon with his skill—magic wasn’t the only way.

He had pretty much known that. The demon bugs did “die” eventually. Ones that hit bodies or magical objects were more likely than not to disperse immediately, but all of them had been gone from the area around the lab long before the end.

“Reality has strength,” Stuart had explained. “Because you and I don’t have a full <<cache of nuts>> or time to gather more, I’ll speak only of demons. Simple, unintelligent ones like the bokabv we’ve been imagining.

“The chaotic effect of the demon damages reality, but that damage isn’t always beneficial for it. And it doesn’t make reality unable to impact the demon. The creature probably requires air. It probably still runs on the ground. I suppose it wouldn’t be impossible for a demon that once existed as a bokabv to fly, but it’s very unlikely. And many of the things that would kill a bokabv may still kill the demon, as long as they make it through the chaos that accompanies it.

“Do you understand what I mean?”

Alden did. Flood Trap—a nonmagical way to kill demons that can’t survive in an Earth ocean.

Stuart thought that encouraging the demon to hit an object Alden was shielding was a bad idea. He thought Alden would agree with him after he figured out a few bokabv-equivalent spells to launch at him. So they would be planning other ways, too.

Kibby will definitely be on-board with other ways.

He’d already gotten a reply from her; speedier communication was one of the perks of staying at the art’h house. She was interested in being included in his dream planning process, and he could already tell she wanted him to re-bomb the lab. She’d dropped a couple of hints about how no weak demon could survive such a large explosion, and why didn’t they just lure it there? He was sorry he’d needed to drop a couple hints of his own when he replied, to remind her that she ought to avoid showing too much glee about the destruction of a bajillion-argold research facility.

I’ll make it up to her when I see her in person. But she’s definitely been getting a little more feral since she’s been hanging out with Kraaaa, hasn’t she? He didn’t mind, but he would have thought her new instructor and the Quaternary would outweigh griveck influence.

He headed upstairs and met Porti-loth on the way. The healer thought an elevator was a fine place to discuss a person’s private medical matters. Things like: Any sign of my mud potion still affecting your digestion? There should be a few signs if you pay close attention.

What does Yenu-pezth think of your mind? Did you talk about me with her at all? Why not?

And what happened to your bag?

“My friend’s pet ryeh-b’t happened,” said Alden. Porti-loth was standing in the way of the elevator door so that it wouldn’t close and cut off their conversation before he’d gotten all of his curiosities satisfied. “She keeps scratching it and biting it, and then he repairs it for me.”

Porti-loth looked up at him over the rims of his spectacles for a long moment. “Interesting friend.”

Alden didn’t know what to make of that comment, so he just nodded.

“Did you see the ship?” Porti-loth seemed to feel absolutely no need to let the elevator go about its business.

“Ship?”

“The one being built near the Grove of the Thoughtful outside Vethedya.”

So he’s familiar with Yenu-pezth’s House of Healing. I wonder if it’s ranked, like schools are on the Triplanets.

“I saw the Sdyelis Branch,” said Alden. “It’s very large.”

“Do you think I would like it?” Porti-loth asked.

Before Alden could reply, the healer answered his own question. “I don’t think I would like it. ‘Better than other ships for your work,’ they say. ‘Maybe you should try it out for a while once it’s finished! You could always change your mind later.’” He huffed. “That sounds like a trap.”

“Someone’s trying to persuade you to work on the Sdyelis Branch?”

Alden supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised to hear that, since Porti-loth was connected to Esh-erdi and Lind-otta. They would be joining the campaign to reopen the way to that chaos-stricken part of the universe. A good healer who worked well with knights would obviously be invited to travel along.

“Not persuade,” Porti-loth said. “Trick.”

Alden nodded in understanding. “Esh-erdi.”

“Him!” Porti-loth scoffed. “He couldn’t trick me up a wevvi tree. Lind-otta is the danger. So respectable. So wise. She makes you feel honored to be invited up to the roof to discuss the future with her, and then she says the spaceship might be almost as good as a planet. That isn’t true. She knows it. I know it. Maybe even human adolescents know it.”

“If I had to pick comfortable planet or comfortable spaceship for a long stay, I’d pick planet,” Alden agreed.

“The problem,” Porti-loth continued, “is she says try it ‘for a while.’ When I get out there, how do I leave? I will come to know all of my patients. Many of them are like those two, and they’re staying. One day I’ll look behind me and realize I haven’t seen a real healing grove in nine of the Mother’s years!”

He looked at Alden like he was waiting for a reply.

“Traveling on the campaign’s oasis ship for years would be a difficult decision,” Alden said, hoping that was a suitable response.

Porti-loth sighed. “Only one person in the whole building is safe and not annoying to talk to about this, and he hasn’t even watched Kwoo-pak yet.”

“I’ll watch an episode tonight! I swear!”

Porti-loth shook his head. “Don’t swear oaths about Kwoo-pak. It’s not that serious. Go to school.”

They looked at each other.

“I can’t,” Alden said finally, “until you let go of the elevator door.”

******

******

On the flight to campus, Alden checked his inbox and told himself that receiving over a thousand messages since he’d last looked wasn’t frightening. As was his usual habit, he focused on communications from the growing list of people he actually knew and left the rest of it for another day. Although that cut the number down to a more manageable size, he still had to field texts that ranged from Jeffy sending him a string of confusing emojis before inviting him to cook a vegetable of his choice on the next episode of “My Grandpa Shows Us How to Grill Right,” to Vandy telling him she was forming study groups for finals starting now, to Lexi warning him that the news about his commendation from Alis-art’h had, at last, found traction at school.

Alden would have realized that anyway, given a few of the other messages.

I could turn around and hide at the cube some more. Big news is happening every couple of days. I can just wait for Aulia Velra to announce she’s going to take over the country or move her whole family to Mars, and they’ll all be distracted again.

He resisted the idea because he wanted to say hi to his roommates, attend MPE, and manage whatever it was his classmates thought about him…as well as he could.

He scrolled through several more messages until he came to one from Principal Saleh, asking him to call her when he had the chance.

Why does hearing from the principal make me feel like I’m in trouble when I haven’t even been here?

After trying to come up with reasons why eight thirty in the morning might be a bad time to call, he admitted defeat and asked the System to connect them.

Lesedi Saleh, dressed in a sharp suit and putting away a laptop by shoving it through the top of her desk, answered. “Alden.”

“Hello. I got your message. I’m on the way to campus now. I did miss some more classes than I expected to, but I haven’t been on Earth, and I was told that was an excused absence.”

“It is. I’m not sure why you’re confessing like you’ve committed a crime. I hope your trip went well?”

“It went great. I’m seeing a slightly prestigious healer there, so I can’t ask her to work around my schedule. I’ll be missing some more days, but I’ll take care of all my homework, and—”

“And you’re still confessing,” she said in an amused tone. “You’re really not in any trouble. I asked you to call me because I wanted to mention some media requests that have come through the school and talk to you about how you’d like to handle them.”

He winced. I would like to not handle them.

She looked like she knew what he was thinking. “We can say you’re currently focused on your education and recuperation, which doesn’t leave you time for interviews. That’s an option—a good one, if you want my advice. But considering how things seem to be going for you, you should probably talk to someone who specializes in image management sooner than the average student. If you don’t want to take advantage of the university’s advisement services, there are private options.” She paused. “Please understand that I’m not saying you need to craft a hero persona in the near future. If someone tells you that you should, I would hesitate to listen to them.”

“That’s very, very far from my thoughts,” Alden said.

“Probably for the best. Find a faculty member you trust if you do want to talk about it. For now, I think you might want to acquire some assistance. Someone to help you sort the nonsense so that you don’t miss any opportunities you might really find worthwhile. I’m not sure if you realize that people have been trying to get in touch to see if you’d like to do a few events with members of the hero team in your old hometown?”

Alden stared at her. “Like…in Chicago with them?”

“The request isn’t firm, so don’t count on anything. They want to talk to you and present some possibilities. If you’re interested, and, to be frank, if everybody else who would be involved continues to like the idea, then it could turn into a rare chance for you to spend more time with family and friends than you’d usually be able to manage.”

I want to do that! thought Alden. And also, What kind of things do I have to agree to if I want to do that?

“No excitement yet,” Principal Saleh cautioned. “It’s just feelers at this stage, and there are some unusual tensions right now that will probably delay any offers they might make. But you might want to answer their emails.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“And one final thing—I wanted to talk to you about taking Artonans on campus tours.”

“Esh-erdi wanted one,” Alden said.

Her lips quirked. “Then he can have one. Of course. But the next time something like that happens, maybe make a quick call or text me. Or someone else who represents the school. I’ll give you a few names…”

Alden soon got the impression that Principal Saleh really didn’t care, but someone, somewhere was definitely freaking out over the fact that he and Haoyu had shown Esh-erdi bathrooms and introduced him to Cappuccino Girl instead of whatever it was you were supposed to do when you took knights around to see the sights at Celena North.

“We were going to take him to the MPE Building and show him the gym. Only we didn’t want to mess up anybody’s practice time without warning.”

“It would be best to give advanced notice of that, too, if you can. Nobody reasonable is going to ask you to manage a wizard’s schedule, but if you tell people you’re on the way, we can stuff skeletons back in closets and present ourselves as well as possible.”

Alden was of the opinion that Esh-erdi would prefer to play with all the skeletons, but he agreed to try to text her if they had another tour.

“That’s all I have to bother you with, Alden,” she said at last. “Is there anything you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“Thank you for your time, and have a good day. Your MPE class might be rowdy this evening.”