Defender greymantle chro.., p.1
Defender: Greymantle Chronicles: Book Four, page 1
DEFENDER
Greymantle Chronicles: Book Four
J DAVID BAXTER
Copyright © 2022 by J David Baxter
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actions, events, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Design, production and editing by Silver Paw Publishing.
Cover Design by J David Baxter
Hardcover: 978-1-953708-21-2
Paperback: 978-1-953708-20-5
Ebook: 978-1-953708-19-9
For more on the Greymantle Series see: JDavidBaxter.com or GreymantleChronicles.com
This book is dedicated to:
My wife for her support, patience and invaluable assistance in getting this novel polished and completed.
My children for inspiring me.
My oldest friend, Lawrence, without whom this particular world would never have evolved.
My beta readers, especially Martin, without whom the story would have suffered.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Also by J David Baxter
About the Author
Chapter One
Energy crossed the void between universes. It had no consciousness; it was just information and a soul encoded in a form of energy that could survive in the place between.
At least for a time.
Though it had no mind, it did have a target and programmed instructions. Its target was the universe that housed Earth, and the time was a day after Nate had initially left. For a mindless construct, it came pretty close to its target. Upon arrival and transition into the space-time of the universe, it carried out the remainder of its preprogrammed instructions. It created a new body and clothed it with identical items to what Nate had been carrying. They were built atom by atom like he had been rematerialized by a transporter or replicator. Unlike its point of origin, however, this place did not have a rich abundance of mana. It had to power the reconstruction through its own energy and what meager residual mana was left in the area. Consequently, Nate’s items arrived, but they were no longer filled with mana and needed to be recharged. It took all that was available just to assemble all he carried.
Several hours after his arrival, Nate opened his eyes and immediately recognized his room.
He was home but didn't know what to do with himself now. He had barely regained thought and began to feel a great sense of relief at being home before memories tried to wash over him from dozens of different lives. Memories of what it felt like to come home after being gone for a long time. Memories of waking up after being sick and near death. Memories of trying to get home to loved ones he had missed while away at war. He clamped his eyes shut, trying to block out the cacophony of competing visions, but the darkness behind his eyelids made it worse. He opened his eyes and looked around, desperate for something to take his mind off the past and focus on his immediate surroundings.
What should I do first?
He called out Elizabeth's name, but there was no answer. He was a little surprised, given that the lights were on in the apartment.
Failing that, he was at a loss. He had taken his cellphone with him to Greymantle, and he hadn't seen it in three years. How was he supposed to call Els? No one had a landline these days.
As he lay there on the bed he remembered being Mara; that must have been his most recent life before this one. She had been amazed by the telephone and so excited to have a line connected to her apartment. She was young like he was and had just moved to the big city a few months before. Maybe it was Nate's dark mood, but his memory of her went straight to her untimely end. She had been killed; attacked at a party. She was pulled into a back room by a handsome man with a strange dark charisma to him, and her excitement turned to horror as he slashed her wrist with something sharp. She had laid dying on a bed looking at the room around her just as he was doing now.
"NO!" He jumped off the bed almost as if reacting to that attack but then got himself under control. He needed to focus on the here and now, not lives lost that he could do nothing about. They were dead now, and it was in the past. Even so, they were still part of him, like his own ghosts and those memories he had created with his actions in this life. He couldn’t tell the difference between the memories except that those from his own lifetime felt newer, more vibrant.
Focusing on the mundane, he tried to find clothes to change into, but his jeans wouldn't fit, and all his t-shirts were skin tight over the muscles he had put on over the last four years or so. It was hard to keep track since a year on Greymantle was longer than the one on Earth. He settled for a pair of sweat pants and pulled on an old pair of sneakers when he heard the front door open.
He called out, "Els, is that you?"
There was a high-pitched squeak of surprise, followed by a blur as his sister flew into the room, threw her arms around his neck, and squeezed like she would never let go. "Oh, my Gawd, you are home! I thought you were lost forever. What the hell was that, by the way? You faded out like Scotty was beaming you up, only it happened in super slow motion!"
She stepped back, confusion on her face as she looked him up and down. "Uh, Nate… that is you, isn't it?"
He couldn't help but smile. "Of course it's me. It's just not the me you remember. For me, it's been a lot longer than for you. By the way, how long have I been gone?" Seeing that she was safe relieved a lot of fear and worry that had built over the time he had been gone. It made his inner world seem just a bit brighter for it.
She looked skeptical but answered, "Four days, well, three and a half. You left the morning of June 6th, just like those damned dreams always said. You just didn't leave by any normal means." She was about to stop talking when his words sunk in. "Hey, what do you mean it's been longer for you?"
Looking at his sister reminded him of that time he had returned from a trading expedition…, his younger sister Ciara had pestered him about his trip. She had always wanted to know everything and loved when he would bring her ornaments for her hair…
Nate shook off the unwelcome memory of another life and tried to focus on the world around him. "Uh, it's been about four years for me. I’m not exactly sure since they count weeks and months differently. I was magically kidnapped to another world, only I never found out who did it or why."
He redirected the conversation, not wanting to get into what had happened to him yet. "What about you? I've been worried about you this whole time. I tried to target as close to the time I left as possible, but I was off by a couple days. I wasn't sure how good my aim would be considering I was traveling through the void between universes and time flows at different rates."
"Worried about me? Are you nuts? I'm fine. You were the one stolen from their bedroom in the middle of the night, like some bad alien abduction drama." She smirked and added, "You didn't get probed, did you? Tell me everything!"
That was the last thing Nate wanted to do right then. Between what he had done in the Arena and the loss of another person he cared about, he didn't want to think about anything. All he wanted was to sink his teeth into a good burger, and said as much.
"Fine, let's go get some food, but you ARE going to tell me everything!"
He worked up the energy to smile, "Okay, have it your way."
They got to Ye Old Butcher Shop just before the grill closed and placed an order. They were the only people there besides the owner and his son wearing their ever-present cowboy hats, and cleaning up for the day. He wanted their buffalo burger with cheddar cheese… it had been so long, and he'd been craving that since he left Earth. Nate decided he was going to need to find an equivalent to cheddar cheese once he got back to Greymantle. The burgers at the Champions’ Blade just weren’t the same without it.
While they ate, he told her how he had taught the cooks at the tavern near the castle how to cook Earth foods and how burgers and pizza had become very popular. He enjoyed talking about the fun stuff but clammed up as he got near painful subjects, like his friends. He didn't want to think about that right now, but deep down, he knew getting back to save them was one of the only things that gave him the courage to not buckle under the weight of it all.
Els must have sensed
When they were done eating, Nate asked Els to take a picture with him posing in front of the stuffed buffalo that jutted out of the wall. He used the sapphire data crystal in which he had kept all his other information. He had even recorded images of Belan's village before he had left and showed those to his sister. She was awed at the precious gemstone that would be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars here on Earth and how it could store and display information.
That led to a discussion about magic items. He told her about all the different enchanted things he had owned and seen.
"I really wish I had my storage ring with me so I could bring hundreds of these burgers back to Greymantle. Then I wouldn't have to worry about cravings. I could just pull one out anytime."
Els made a face, "Eww, wouldn't they get old and gross?"
Chuckling, he described how time didn't flow inside a storage device because the storage space existed outside the space-time of the universe.
“Basically, the second it goes in, it is frozen in time and doesn’t change at all until you withdraw it. I could stick one of these burgers in there, and ten years from now I’d pull it out and it would still be just as hot and juicy as the second it came off the grill. Note to self… buy a bunch of cheddar cheese!”
Then an idea hit him. When he had talked with Dorvin about taking a storage ring between universes before, he had been a novice at magic. He hadn't understood fully how such devices worked. Now, however, he had a vast magical knowledge base downloaded into his brain. Or my DNA or something, he thought.
He knew he was spacing out and not responding to his sister, but his brain was on fire, sifting through the magic knowledge trying to understand the implications of 'traveling' with a storage ring. To his surprise, the more he considered it, the less sure he became that it wasn't doable, and the bigger the grin on his face grew. If he could really do it, it would be like having a cheat code in a game to give yourself unlimited storage. You wouldn’t have to have enough mana to rebuild everything on the other side, because all the junk you transported would be in a different dimension entirely. It wouldn’t even be that hard. The only downside was that he wouldn’t be able to access the storage space until the ring recharged with mana upon arrival!
Finally, Els couldn't take it any longer, "What? What are you thinking about?"
With a bit of wonder and awe in his voice, he said, "I think I can do it."
"Do what?" She clearly wanted in on his thoughts.
"Make a storage ring. It's like a magic inventory bag from the RPG games or the Tardis; it's bigger on the inside because the space inside is not really part of the same space-time you occupy. It's only tethered to the object by mana, which has no problem existing outside the regular dimensions of the universe."
She grinned expectantly, "Okay, sounds cool; when ya gonna make me one?"
That question brought Nate back to reality, and he frowned.
"Well, crap. I hadn't even thought about it until now." He gestured around the place, really giving it a good look. Since arriving back on Earth and waking up a couple hours ago he had been too busy with all the other thoughts crowding into his brain to think about mana.
“I can see tiny traces of mana, but it’s in such small amounts it would take me weeks to gather enough power to create something like a storage ring."
Not having mana to draw on gave him a sick feeling in his guts. He had promised himself he would never be without mana again after what had happened in the Arena. Except here he was, back on Earth, and there was only enough energy in the entire restaurant to cast the most basic light spell. "Uh, I'd like to go now."
They had finished eating a few minutes before, so Els shrugged. "Sure. I'll drive again, though. You haven't driven in way too long."
That actually made him laugh, "You just want to drive my new truck again!"
Her guilty grin said he'd hit the mark. She didn't deny it, though.
"Okay, yeah. It's a really sweet truck, gas mileage isn't great, but it's so much better than that old clunker you used to drive."
"Hey, don't diss the Orange Blur!" He laughed at the argument they always had about his old Honda CRX.
"The only thing making that heap of junk blur is the sweat that gets in your eyes in the summertime, because it sure isn't speed!" Els couldn't help but get one last dig in.
It felt good to be back with Els and know she was safe.
He had to grab onto the side of his truck as another memory surfaced. He was a twin and seeing his brother for the first time in several years due to living in different cities. They would get back together every year or two, and it would be just like this. No matter how long they had been apart, they could fall back into the same old jokes and arguments as if they had never parted.
He shook it off but tossed Els the keys. "Okay, so maybe you'd better drive."
She was very serious as she asked, "What was that, Nate? You looked like you saw a ghost or had a seizure or something. What just happened?"
He waved it away, not wanting to talk about it, and tried to smile. "I'll tell you tomorrow. Right now, I just want to hang out and forget everything, just for a little while…."
Chapter Two
Every night since the Arena, his dreams were filled with memories of other lives playing through his mind. Some were happy and pleasant, like hunting in the Rhine forest with his favorite dog. While others were more like nightmares, being a street thief in India and having his hand cut off when caught, then living the rest of that short life as a starving beggar.
He woke the following day in a cold sweat remembering the last dream of the night. In it, his best friend had sold him out to the inquisition as a secretly practicing Jew to save himself. If only he had fled to Portugal with the rest of his family the year before! He would have avoided a gruesome death. A death that Nate remembered vividly because his past self had experienced every excruciating minute of it.
Not that he had always been a good person. He had many memories in which he was on the wrong side of history and had done terrible things to good people. He was tortured even more when remembering those memories than of being on the receiving end. If he wasn't sure these were actual memories, he would believe he was going crazy. Unfortunately, he was absolutely certain. He could not know the things he did in those memories if they weren't real.
Worse, he was actually able to look up records of his most recent life before this one. Mara Blackwood lived in Edinburgh, Scotland 1868 - 1892. When he did an web search on her he even discovered an article about her dying under mysterious circumstances, but that her body had not been found. There was even a picture. She looked exactly as she did in his memory. He even remembered the day she sat for that photograph, and how she had primped for it and how nervous she had been. Getting your photograph taken had been a big deal in those days.
That morning he also tested himself, and sure enough, he could read the hieroglyphs on ancient Egyptian artifacts. It wasn't the translation magic at work. He could remember being there and studying how to write. In one life, he had even been a tomb artist carving the figures into the limestone of the pharaoh's mastaba. That was in the days before the pyramids. Of course, that man had been illiterate and only copied in stone what he was shown by the priests.
