Cubicle Hermit

Queen Sara Memorial Academy, Feldaren, Union of the Etciv
Main Administration building
Afternoon

The Foreign Service officer, Hull, decided to strike up a conversation with me.  “That book you were reading on the bus — did I see right that it was a biography of their first emperor?”

“Yeah,” I said.

When I didn’t say anything more, he asked, “What do you think of it?”

“It’s pretty good.  I’m not very far along, but it’s an easy read.  If you mean the subject, it’s really hard to wrap my head around the way they’re describing him.”

“How so?”

“Nothing about his story makes sense.  If he’d lived longer ago, it would be pretty easy to write him off as a legendary figure like King Arthur, but he didn’t really live that long ago. Especially around here. From what I can see, they recorded history better than we did.” I pointed out what appeared to be a photo in the book. “They had magic that worked basically like a camera in his lifetime, so it’s not even like we just have a painting of the guy like we would someone who lived the same time back on Earth.”

“I’ve read his entry in the encyclopedia they provided,” said Hull, “and I’ve read some of my predecessors’ notes about Joel’s mother and this place.  I’m still not sure he’s any harder to believe in than anything else we’ve learned about this world. Does the author there take a side on one of the theories about where he came from?”

“Yes,” I said, “the author thinks he must have come from a more technologically advanced world, one of those occasional arrivals that the Legatus was telling us about.  It makes sense.”

“Why do you think that it makes sense?”

“If he’d just invented gunpowder, it would be one thing, but he jumped over a lot of steps, and it’s not like that was his only invention. It’s straight out of Connecticut Yankee.”

Hull laughed. “That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

“Well, it’s the original.  I read a lot of science fiction, and there are more books on that theme — modern guy goes back to the past. Usually becomes crazy powerful.  I liked Lest Darkness Fall better than most because the main character in that one doesn’t succeed at everything he tries.”

“It sounds like their first emperor pretty much succeeded at everything,” said Hull.

“Yeah, pretty much,” I said, “or at least until he tried to fight one dragon too many.  At almost 120 years old, if the stories are true.” I shook my head. “That would not be believable if someone put it in a novel.”

“And yet it’s accepted as history here.  It’s an interesting place; I’m looking forward to my posting.”

“Your colleague, Agent Delgado, said your goal was to set up more trade with the US?”

“If I can, yes,” said Hull. “Getting some American students over here to study and share our culture and values would be a good start.”

“Some students?” I asked. “It’s just going to be Joel, right?”

“That’s the plan for now,” he said.  “It would be good to have more. Like a friend of Joel’s who could remind him of home, given that he’s got a career path that leads him away.  It’s something you could consider.”

I shook my head.  “This place has been interesting to visit, but my moving here sounds like a bad idea.”

Hull shrugged. “I don’t know for certain that we could make the arrangements, but it would be a good thing for our long-term presence here, and I think it would be good for Joel.” He stopped for a moment, took out a business card, and gave it to me. “Just think about it. It would probably look good on college applications for you, too.”

Joel and his parents were in the office for a few more minutes.  They didn’t look unhappy when they came out, but I’ve never been good at reading people.  The group — Legatus Matsumoto and Count Dormer especially — said their goodbyes to the Dean and Head of School, and we headed out.

We took the bus a few minutes away to a large parking lot, where the flying carriage — or perhaps another one like it — awaited us.  Matsumoto let us know that this was the last stop, and that she’d be staying here, as would Hull. Morgan would come with us, and then double back once we were through the gate.

The flight back was not so novel as the one out, and there was less to see from this end of the suburbs out to the Gate complex. It was still mid-afternoon, and two weeks ago the Legatus had said we might be returning after dinner time.  I asked Brother Oliver about that, and he told me, “The gate’s schedule is variable, but we can predict it in advance within an hour or two of accuracy.  Today, things aligned to both open and close earlier in the day than usual.”

“What things aligned?” I asked.

“Some of the magical forces involved.  It’s not my area of specialty so my trying to explain it wouldn’t do justice to the topic, even if you had the background to understand it.  A big part of it, though, is literally gravitation and celestial bodies.

“Every habitable alternate world we’ve found, including yours and this one, has the same solar year.  Most, but not all of them, are in sync with our seasons.  The moon, or moons, vary a lot more, as does the rest of the solar system.  Your world, and the one the main gate event came from, has only one moon, and a relatively large one.  Our world has two.  The larger is not so different from yours, but it’s got a smaller companion, farther out.

“We’re not clear on why it matters, but the alignment of the two lunar schedules correlates pretty closely with the limits of how long we easily can keep the Gate open, and how often it will reopen.”

“Interesting,” I said.  “So, if Joel comes to school here, he’d only be able to come home if he had a two-week vacation that aligned with the openings?”

Brother Oliver nodded. “Mostly, yes.  There are a few alignments every year where it will naturally open more often, and if there is an anchor, like with your world, we can open it out of schedule if we’re willing to spend enough magic on it.  There’s been discussion of that as a contingency plan, if Joel comes here and ends up in danger.”

“Thanks.  Is this something I could learn more about?”

“Unless you move here and then join the Brotherhood, probably not much more.  Having people from another world here has always been a one-way trip in the past, or vice versa in very few cases like Joel’s mother’s.  We’ve opened up more about the general workings of the Gate than we have in the past, just to allow the possibility of formalizing relations with your world.

“We’ve kept most of the details about the Gate secret for as long as it’s existed, and I don’t see us changing that any more than we have to.”

“Ah, bummer,” I said, and figured it was time to read some more of my book.

Queen Sara Memorial Academy, Feldaren, Union of the Etciv
Early afternoon

I was interrupted in my reading when the bus stopped. The road we were on ran beside what looked to me more like a college campus than a high school, but the sign made clear that this was our destination. There was a low masonry fence on either side of the entrance, which consisted of a narrow driveway and wide sidewalks. A few small buildings were near the entrance, with larger ones farther off. A streetcar stop was just outside; judging by the uniforms, the handful of people waiting were students.

Legatus Matsumoto got out first, entered the nearest building, and after a few moments came back and told us it was time to get off the bus.  A few minutes after we’d unloaded, a bearded man, possibly younger than my parents but probably not by much, came down the driveway.  He greeted the Legatus, and she introduced him to the rest of our group.

“This is Henry Jerdew, Dean of the Upper School,” she said. “For the Americans, that’s grades ten to twelve; the lower school is grades seven to nine.  As I understand it, that’s not quite how you divide Junior and Senior High School, but it may be easiest to think of it that way.”

She went on to introduce us all, notably introducing Joel with his family as the potential visiting student being co-sponsored by her government and the Americans, and no mention was made of Joel’s mother or why he was actually here.  I was introduced as Joel’s friend, purely here to observe.  She ended with “…and you may remember Carl, Count Dormer?”

“Yes, of course,” said Dean Jerdew. “Does Obdrest have some interest in student exchange these days?”

“Obdrest has the same interest in increased trade as the Union, of course,” replied Dorner, “but in this case I’ve been borrowed to help with security arrangements.”

One of the Dean’s eyebrows went up, but he did not press further.  Instead, he addressed our whole group, saying, “Welcome to Queen Sara. It’s an honor to host the first young people to be allowed through the Gate, and doubly so if Joel and his parents choose for him to attend next year.

“The academy has been here for 110 years, we were funded by a gift from Queen Sara of Penrose and Kala, to commemorate the young men from Feldaren who died fighting as her ally in the Second Slave War.  We moved to this location about 20 years later; the land here was a gift from the Senate on the condition that we admit young women as well.”

“If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you around campus and the upper school buildings in particular.”

The main driveway ran a short block, ending in a small roundabout at one end of a fairly large open area; a narrower alley or driveway threaded off to one side away from the open area.  Along the way, there were several small buildings which he told us were for staff use.  The open area was about a short city block on each side, grass in the middle with sidewalk around it. The grass was broken by a few benches and picnic tables around the edges, and in the very center was the statue of a woman made of a smooth white stone, atop a low pedestal.

When we got to the roundabout, Dean Jerdew pointed out the statue.  “That’s Queen Sara on the center of the green. It’s a pity you couldn’t come earlier; we could have dropped by a class in session, and on a nice day like this the green is a popular lunch spot.”

I think I grimaced, and Joel spoke up. “So, there are Saturday classes?”

“Yes,” said the Dean.  “We’ve a five-and-a-half-day schedule. It does vary, but most Saturday morning classes are science labs and electives.  A fair number of clubs use Saturday afternoon to have a longer block of time on campus for club activities.”

Joel’s dad asked the next question, “What are the electives here?”

“I’ll go over a little more about our electives when we tour the academic building,” said the Dean, “but we have a pretty set curriculum in English, math, history, and sciences unless students place ahead in one or more of those.  Second years can take one or two electives; a lot take an advanced honors follow-up to one of the first-year classes, and we offer a fair number of other subjects. We’ll send you back with a full curriculum.”

From there, our first stop was the high — or as he said, upper — school buildings, which were an L shaped pair of structures connected by open walkways at one end.  Each was three stories, and when we entered the nearer one, the first sight was a large bank of lockers.  From there, the first thing he pointed out was the cafeteria, which was mostly empty but there were a few students still hanging out after lunch.  They had uniforms, and formal ones to my eye — almost a suit, although rather than matching, the pants or skirts were grey and jackets dark blue.  The Dean pointed out the hot lunch line — already closed, and the menu blackboard wiped clean — and a separate line for packaged snacks that remained open with a very bored student behind it.

Joel and I went up to check it out; it seemed picked over, but there were several wrapped sandwiches and pastry, as well as potato chips and similar snacks.  Most amusingly, the main brand of chips was “Wiz” — with a cartoon wizard, but oddly close to a brand from our world.

When we came back, the Dean was talking to Joel’s parents.  “As you can see, we’ve got a formal uniform.  The new student council president ran on changing it. Those discussions will happen after final exams, but I expect if Joel joins us, that things will be a little more relaxed by the time he starts.”

I wanted to ask how much more relaxed, but I wasn’t the one who might be attending, and Joel didn’t bring it up.  His father moved to asking about when exams were — around three weeks off at the end of June — and it sounded like the school year ran about the same as ours in New York, just a little longer into the very beginning of July.

We went on to tour the rest of the building, which was mostly similar looking classrooms.  They were very nice and modern, and well provisioned with windows. William Jennings Bryan HS, where we went, was an old and dark building and like many NY schools had bars on the first-floor windows, but it could have been worse — I’d visited Hunter once, and their converted armory had almost no windows at all.

One thing that caught my attention was that the first two rooms we checked out had no clear specialty, so at the second I asked, “What subject is taught here?”

“Except for subjects needing special equipment, like science labs or music, students stay with the same room throughout the day,” replied the Dean.  That seemed odd, coming from the system in NY, but I didn’t suppose it actually made much difference.

After that, we took the walkway over to the second building.  Apparently, the homerooms were mostly divided by a year per floor – first-year classrooms on the second floor of the building we’d first entered, second-years on the top floor of that one, and third-years on the top floor of the other.  The lower floors were a mix of science labs, specialty classrooms, and the school nurse’s infirmary.

Our next stop was the central building on the river side of the green — the Dean pointed out that it was the oldest academic building on campus.  At one point it had been the main school building, but when the new upper school building opened it was repurposed into the “arts center,” with specialty classrooms and studios, and from the sound of it, club rooms used by both the upper and lower schools’ non-athletic clubs.  Unlike the academic building, that was mostly cleared out, many of these rooms were occupied and busy, and we got to peek in at a few.  The building was also home to a big auditorium at one end, called the main hall.  The dean said it was big enough to hold the entire upper school or lower school student body and faculty, although not both at once.

We skipped the lower school building on the far side of the arts center, which was a single structure although it was one floor taller than the upper school buildings.  We next went to the sports center, which was again shared between the upper and lower schools; it consisted of a few low, connected buildings all along one side of the green.  As a gym building, it lost my interest, right up until the Dean said something that caught my attention — “Most students don’t take physical education classes in the upper school, but instead satisfy the requirement by joining one of the athletic clubs.”

“Are there try-outs for the teams?” Joel asked.

“It depends on which,” replied the Dean.  “Right now, for the boys, only baseball has a separate competitive team and open club.  Some of the others like soccer have a single club, but still have try-outs within the club for a competitive team.”

They had a large pool, although from the look of it, it might not be usable socially; the entire thing was in use by the swimming clubs when we looked in.  One other thing that caught my attention was at the stairs at the back of the main gym, a sign said “Dueling Club.”

When I asked about that, the Dean replied “The school was founded a long time ago and has some equally old traditions.  Keeping that sign up is one of the odder ones that the Fencing Club has kept.”

Our last stop was the main administration buildings; we were all briefly introduced to Doctor Mittari, the head of school, and Joel and his parents met with him briefly in private.  During that time, the Foreign Service officer, Hull, decided to strike up a conversation with me.  “That book you were reading on the bus — did I see right that it was a biography of their first emperor?”

Queen Sara Memorial Academy, Lunch time

Elise Shevariet had hurried out of her biology lab to the student council room and hoped not to have to stay too long.  Saturday trains were less predictable, and she did not have a lot of time to get to her job.  Still, this was probably the last time this year’s and next year’s student councils would all be together in one place.

The council room was on the top floor of the Arts Center and had been there since the school first moved to this site; dark paneling lined the walls, and a large painting of Queen Sara of Penrose overlooked a large conference table.  It showed her in middle age, shortly before she died, rather than the younger woman whose statue graced the campus green.

Several people were already there; the rest came in not long after her.  After the elections, she knew them all at least a little although her loss for Vice President still hurt.  From what she could see, the new VP, Neil Mayhan didn’t seem like a bad person, and he knew the new President, Anson Gramm, quite well. It just didn’t seem right to her – Neil hadn’t even been involved in the Student Council here at all in the past year, while Elise had been the first-year representative and had been on the lower school council for all three years before that.

Diane said a few words thanking her and the other class representatives, and Anson talked about his plans to ask the administration to soften the dress code.  Elise understood the appeal but wasn’t sure what to think about it; her family was perpetually short on cash and rotating the same couple of uniforms, rather than casual clothes, made things much simpler.

There was a little business to discuss after, and then Diane formally passed the record books on to Anson.  People were staying after, but Elise said her goodbyes and headed for the streetcar.

Saturday, May 30th
City of Feldaren, Union of the Etciv
Morning

As we approached the city, Brother Oliver started pointing out the geography; we were approaching from the east, towards the Little Darien River — the old city was located where the Great and Little branches of the river met. Most of the city’s suburbs had grown up along the east bank of the Little Darien — Great Darien having been too wide to bridge until much more recently.  We would backtrack to the Queen Sara Memorial Academy, our second stop, which was located along the East bank of the combined river, a bit south of the old city.

The city got much denser as we approached the river; houses gave way to low apartments, and then to taller buildings, most of them looked to be around 6-8 stories.  Close to the river, the railroad line we followed disappeared into a large station building, and near it a cluster of taller still and surprisingly modern-looking buildings.  A few hundred feet separated the station from the river, and across from it, a larger cluster of tall buildings, most built in an older style — reminiscent of the art deco of the Chrysler and Empire State but more ornate.  Just south of them, at the far end of the old city, a massive stone fortress stood, with the top level covered in grass and looking like it had been converted to a park.  Several bridges were visible, and from our height we could see the curve of the wider Great Darien on the other side of the old city, and a single very tall bridge crossing it.  Suburbs appeared to spread out into the distance on that side.

We circled around the end of the island, and came in to land in a parking lot at a park just on the far side of the old fortress.  A fenced area enclosed a few of these flying carriages; most were smaller, and some had other livery.  A tour bus, familiar in all but the exact design, sat outside the fence. A pair of security guards let us out of the gate, and onto the bus we went.

It was Saturday there as well — calendar reforms in the generation of the event had led to synchronizing their week with the newcomers’, and when trade had started with ours it had been discovered that it was the same there as well.  Shops were mostly open on Saturday, but the business district was quiet – most people with office jobs had the day off.  The fortress we’d seen was apparently the old imperial garrison, and now as I’d thought, a park on top and a museum and art space below.  Oliver told us that later in the day, it would be quite busy.

We spent our first hour or so on the ground viewing several civic buildings; the Legatus seemed particularly proud that they had both the Imperial and Union legislatures here.  I found it very surprising when she implied the Union was the greater body, and I decided I’d ask Joel to loan me the history book when he was done with it.

The highlight of the morning was visiting the old train station.  The Legatus told us that all the train lines into and through the old city were now underground, but the original central station had been preserved.  The first two floors looked like solid, brick buildings and while the carvings on the outside were fanciful and ornate, with paired dragons around each entrance, the third floor and the roof were like nothing I’d ever seen.  The third-floor walls and roof appeared to be almost entirely seamless glass, with walls coming up and curving into a series of larger domes toward the center, with only a tall stone clock tower piercing them.  The color of the glass seemed to change depending on what direction we looked at it from.

Part of the first floor remained in use for people going to the underground lines, but the remainder of the building was now a shopping mall.  Dormer told Joel and his parents, “If you see something you like, the Obdresti crown would be happy to pay for it.”  He went on to say that if we thought of an Imperial as basically a hundred dollars, that would be close enough to give us a sense of the prices.

In the end, we spent over an hour shopping, much to Oliver’s amusement and Legatus Matsumoto’s annoyance.  April found a toy shop and came away with a stuffed toy dragon and a model airplane.  Joel’s mom and dad disappeared into a fancy cookware store for some time, while Joel and I managed to find a bookstore.

He discovered that they had quite a range of comics.  I went first to the history section but groaned when I discovered the name of their first emperor from one of the books: The Life of Marcus the Conqueror — I’ve never been fond of the long form of my first name.   It looked like most of the big paperback history books were marked 1/10th of an Imperial or “90 mil”, which by Dormer’s comparison would be $9-10, so not out of line with what they’d have been back home.  I ended up with two books – the biography I’d picked up almost immediately, and a young adult story collection Thrilling Tales of Mages at War! – and Joel was happy to drop them into his basket with an impressively large pile of comics and paperback comic collections.

After shopping, Legatus Matsumoto brought us to a crepe shop for a snack.  Brother Oliver didn’t eat, but most of the group got savory-filled crepes full of egg or ground meats.  I got a sweet apple-filled crepe, and not to be outdone on dessert by a big kid, Joel’s sister got strawberry and whipped cream, with chocolate sauce.  Interestingly, neither bananas nor peanut butter were on the menu.

Leaving the mall, we passed a newsstand.  The head           lines on the daily papers were all something forgettable about transit funding, but a magazine The World Weekly caught my attention: “Crisis in the Obdresti Succession.”  When we returned to the bus, I mentioned it to Joel, and he asked Dormer about it.  “That’s about my mother’s family, right?”

“Your family too, your Highness, although you didn’t grow up with them.”

“What is the crisis?”

“As I told you, there is no other heir to the throne, and that you exist is a secret.  Your family has had a long sequence of tragedies, but most significantly about three and a half years ago, rebels bombed the marriage of your cousin Christina Brissena.  She, your uncle King Alexander James, and both of his children died in the blast.  Several others were crippled, including your uncle Carl.  He died a little over a year later.  Two cousins of yours, both young children, were next in line for the throne but neither lived to their majority to be crowned. Now your great-great-uncle Philip is our king. He is an old man and has been heartbroken since his only granddaughter died, and even more so for his two cousins dying so young.”

“The founder of the present House, your great-great-grandfather Alexander Marius, and his son, Alexander VIII, ruled for nearly eighty years between them.  There are claimants from a prior house, but they are separated from the monarchy by over 100 years, and distant relatives at that.”

“I don’t know if the king will live long enough to see you graduate high school.” Dormer shook his head. “I am sure that any council of regency would delay the coronation to let you graduate high school and reach your majority, but the situation is reaching a boiling point.”

“High school?” asked Joel’s dad. “Coronation?  My son is going to attend college.  They do have universities here, right?”

“Yes, of course,” said Legatus Matsumoto.  “Some exceptionally good ones. I believe there are a few good ones in Obdrest as well.”

Dormer had started shaking his head but stopped at the mention of Obdrest.  “Under the present circumstances, the sooner Joel could be present on his throne, the better.  I’d sleep much easier if he took a degree there, after being crowned, rather than here. I think that would be true for almost any of his family’s loyal subjects.”

Joel’s dad looked at Matsumoto, and she replied. “That matches my understanding of the domestic situation there.  If you’d like to know more, I can get one of our intelligence analysts to discuss it further.”

“Speaking of the domestic situation there,” Joel’s dad went on, “if there have been so many deaths over the past few years, how would my son possibly be safe there?”

Matsumoto looked at Dormer, and at the US Diplomatic Security agent, Morgan.  Both nodded, and then Dormer half shrugged, before Matsumoto spoke.  “First, Mr. Ross, let me be clear that I have great confidence in the ability of our country to keep your son safe while in high school, especially with the very able assistance of Count Dormer and Agent Morgan.

“It does make it easier that very few people know that a child of Princess Christina exists at all, and your son’s precise circumstances and identity are known only to the group of people present here.”

She paused and took a breath before continuing. “I also need to be clear that once your son takes the throne, or if he chooses to go to Obdrest in advance of that, we can’t offer anywhere near the same degree of confidence.  Obdrest is a critical ally, and we have been giving every possible security assistance to the present King and will do so for Joel if he chooses to take the throne.

“Part of the problem is that both recent deaths only show evidence of being a matter of natural disease and an accident respectively but coming so closely on the heels of political violence, it is difficult not to suspect some unknown form of foul play.

“We’ve already provided intelligence files on this situation to your government. Mr. Hull, if you and Agent Delgado can provide the Ross family access to them, or if they’d prefer, give them your assessment…” — here Hull nodded — “…we would appreciate it given how short their time is on this side of the Gate today.”

She looked at Joel before going on, “I would also encourage you to at least look through the history textbook we provided last time, as I think it would make clear the importance of Obdrest as our ally, and the importance of your family in keeping the peace there.”

There was a brief silence, before Dormer spoke.  “Obdrest is my country, and I have sworn myself to the service of the crown.  While Joel is here, my obligation is to him, and I will protect him — with my life, if need be.”

Joel’s father looked glum.  “We’re going to need to think about this. Just to be sure, if Joel attends school here but he does not choose to stay, he’ll be able to return?”

“Yes, of course,” said Matsumoto.  “Nor can he stay or take the throne without your consent, at least until he reaches legal majority.  In Feldaren, that’s 18, as I believe is the case in your country.”

Joel’s father nodded. “OK, like I said, we’ll think about it.”

“That’s all we can ask,” said Matsumoto, and while Dormer looked like he wanted to say something, he did not.

Our next stop, and the last before heading to the high school, was a brief pass through one wing of the Imperial Museum of Natural Science.  Much to the delight of April, they had an exhibit of dragon skeletons, including one giant that dwarfed any dinosaur at the Natural History Museum back home.  There was a crucial difference, however — these weren’t fossils.

When I asked about the conversion to our calendar, the date the monster was taken down — by the first emperor at that, the same Marcus the Conqueror I’d bought a book about — was less than 500 years ago.  For all the surface similarity to our world, some things were not at all like home, and I decided to start leafing through the biography as we took the bus to see the school Joel might attend next year.

Saturday, May 30th
Manhattan, New York City, United States, Terra, and City of Feldaren, Union the Etciv
Early morning

So here we were, outside the Federal Building once again, with a bigger crowd this time.  Joel had beaten me there — on a Saturday morning, their taxi was faster than the subway — and he was there with his dad, his mom Laura, and his sister April.  Or as he’d have put it, “stepmom” and “half-sister.”  Joel and I had been friends for a couple years in elementary school, albeit not super-close — I was a year ahead of him in school back then. Then his family moved a couple miles farther out in Queens and he ended up at a different elementary school.

By the time we met again — both in 7th grade after I ended up a year behind in school — his mom had passed away, and he had a new two year old sister.  She was a good kid, and going into first grade in the fall; for all that Joel seemed a bit distant from her or his step-mom, he got along with them better than I did with my folks, or my devil of a younger brother.

“Mark, are your parents OK with your coming along?” asked Joel’s dad.

I shrugged. “They signed the waiver.  I don’t think they actually believe me about where it was, but when I mentioned it was to check out a school out of town, they seemed to like the idea.”  My folks had stopped threatening to send me to boarding school whether I’d like it or not since my brother hit his teens and had his own discipline problems, but given how generic the liability release was, I’m pretty sure they thought I was just taking a trip up-state for the day.

After a few more minutes of small-talk, Count Dormer arrived, still early — this time dressed in a contemporary outfit rather than his masterpiece theater get-up.  He looked a lot younger without it; not that much older than us.  I’d heard from Joel that he’d been out to see Joel and his parents a few times.  “Good morning, your highness.”

At 6:30 sharp, a security guard came out to get us, and escorted us inside to see Delgado and Hull. We took the elevator to the same basement conference room, and Delgado began explaining the day ahead of us.  “Thank you for coming.  As you’ve probably guessed, what they call the ‘anchor’ is in a secure room in this building, so we’ll be departing from here. We’re expecting the gate to open shortly — it’s plus or minutes about 30 minutes and could be opening right now, or as late as 8 from what they told us last week — and to allow for an early closure we will have to be back no later than nine hours from when it opens. Except for Hull, who will be staying here, none of us want to be cooling our heels there for a week or two.

“Their embassy has arranged transport from the gate to see both the capitol in downtown Feldaren and the school Joel would most likely be attending if you choose to go forward.  If time permits we had a request for you to see the Obdresti embassy in the capitol, but right now the time looks unlikely to permit it.

“Right now, we are the first civilians to be going through to their side, so” — and here she gave Joel and me a concerned glance — “I expect you to be on your best behavior.  We don’t have any formal customs arrangements, but anything you bring back through will be inspected.  Do you have any questions for us, while we wait for the gate to open?”

“What’s it like going through the gate?” asked Joel.

To this, Dormer replied: “Just like stepping into the next room — one moment I was there, and then I was here.  While it’s open, you can hold a conversation between the two spaces.”

“Really?  So do radio waves pass through?”  I asked.

Dormer shrugged in reply, but Delgado was able to answer — “Yes.  It’s been a useful source of information about their side, and before we moved the anchor to the sub-basement here, I’m sure it was for them as well.”

“You have radio?”

Dormer gave me a look.  “I told you we weren’t barbarians. I don’t think many on our side of the gate realize how quickly we’re falling behind in technology, but at least in the big cities we’ve most of the same day to day comforts as here. His High – Joel –” and he looked a bit pained not to be so formal, “mentioned that you were something of a fan of computers — and we do have them, some built there, and some purchased through the gate.”

I meant to ask him whether they had trade with other technological worlds, but I didn’t have the chance — the door opened, and two people came through.  The first, who we’d met, was Brother Oliver.  The other, unfamiliar to me, looked like a fed — dark suit, a short non-nonsense haircut, very upright posture, and while he wasn’t a large man, he had a strength and intensity about him.  Delgado introduced him as her colleague, Special Agent Thomas Morgan.  He’d been there since the prior opening, looking into security arrangements both for our trip and for Hull, who would be staying behind with Morgan to begin the work on the ground for a diplomatic post.

They escorted us down the hall to a door we’d passed on the way in; for a “secure, undisclosed location,” it looked very innocuous.  Inside was what looked like another conference room, this one empty except for stacked boxes and a large open space at one end.  In that open space, on the floor, you could see a stone slab, mostly obscured by the gate itself — this must have been the “anchor.” The opening itself had hazy boundaries.  There was a clear area about 7 feet tall and equally wide looking out into a well-lit room, with tall columns and several people.  It had a hard bottom edge at the floor, but the top and sides had perhaps a foot of mist, and it was not clear if there was any depth to it — I wanted badly to peek around the back.

I didn’t get the chance; on the far side, Ambassador — Legatus — Matsumoto waved to us and said, “You can come through.” Morgan went through first, followed by Hull, and then Joel’s family.  I was towards the end, with Delgado and Brother Oliver coming through last. It was very odd to step through to another world inconsequentially. I glanced up as I walked through, and there was just enough depth of mist above and to the sides of the opening to feel like a doorway, but the entire passage was two steps. In a couple of minutes, we had all gotten through.

The room we stepped into was nothing like the federal building basement; it was a bright, long space with large windows to either side and large double doors well ahead of us.  Most of the surfaces looked like marble.  The gate we’d just come through was set into one end of the room, with no visible empty space around it.  A couple of large pillars stood ahead of us about halfway to the doors, standing up without reaching the ceiling, inscribed with some text in an alphabet I didn’t recognize.  There were piles of wood crates on one side of the room, and there were a handful of people in loose fitting, dark-colored clothes much like Brother Oliver’s.  They had a fair range of hairstyles, so it seemed Oliver’s bare crown was some combination of age or genetics.

Standing directly in front of us was Legatus Matsumoto.  “Welcome to Feldaren,” she said.  Between herself and Special Agent Delgado, they made a full round of introductions.

From there, we went outside; it was warmer than New York had been at this hour but still Spring weather.  The building we’d come out of looked like a bank, or as if someone had made a modern attempt at Greek Revival.  Around it were clustered a number of low one and two story buildings, none of which would have been out of place in an office park, and further out, small homes.  Beyond that, though, a very solid-looking wall surrounded the place to a height of some of the second story windows.  A road, with rail tracks embedded, ran practically to the base of steps up to the building we’d come out of.

To the side of that, off the tracks, stood what looked like a trolley car.  It was enclosed, appeared to be made of metal with large glass windows and was painted red with a golden dragon at one end.  “If you’ll follow me,” Matsumoto said, and she started walking towards it.

Inside were two rows of pairs of padded seats, with more rows than our group would need.  Joel sat with his sister, his folks together — the rest of us spread out with seats to ourselves.  Two drivers sat at the front, and when we were all seated Brother Oliver stood up again and said — “I realize those of you from the other side won’t have ridden in a flying carriage before, but I understand aircraft are common on your side.  Just keep calm and enjoy the ride.”  With that, the doors closed, and our vehicle began to float slowly skyward — straight up initially, and then at a height not much above the tallest buildings here, accelerating forwards over the wall.

Joel’s dad and mom looked more than a little scared, and Joel looked a little nervous.  I’d always loved flying — even the loud little helicopter which had taken people up for rides to raise money for the volunteer fire department near my grandfather’s cottage one summer — and this was incredibly smooth and near silent.   April, meanwhile, was leaning across Joel and looking out the window looking very happy — I think I heard her whisper “Coolest thing ever!”

We didn’t start off very high — it was below what would have been the tallest buildings in Manhattan — but we passed over the walls, and outside it, large, triangular earthworks which reminded me of pictures of old Napoleonic or Civil War era fortifications.  I really wish I’d brought a camera.

We sped up, rising slowly, roughly following the road and railroad.  Oliver told us that the trip would take about half an hour, and that he’d let us know when there would be a view of downtown.

“How fast are we going?” I asked.

Oliver took a moment to ask the drivers “About a hundred and fifty kilometers per hour, although we’ll slow down when we get nearer to the city.  The movement is purely magical.”

That got a very surprised reaction from Joel’s parents, and the State Department folks.  For me, though… once you had a magic gate between worlds, this didn’t seem all that odd.  So about 70 kilometers to get there — that was what, 40 or 50 miles?  Quite a way out of the city, even with cars and trucks — which we saw a few on the road, unfamiliar and blocky looking but recognizable for what they were.

Below us, scattered villages gave way to what looked more like suburbs — and the single tracked rail by the side of the road to double tracks with overhead wires.  April spotted an airplane — two propellers, not especially large — and got very excited.  Add another question about the technology and economics here to wonder about.

Friday evening, May 29th
South Riverside, inner Eastern suburbs of Feldaren

Dinner was over, and Violet Conniello had a question for her parents.  “Dad, Mom, can I ask you something?”

“Of course, sweetie,” said her mother.

“Would it be alright if I start riding the streetcar to school?  My friend Tess lives near here so I wouldn’t be alone.”

“What’s wrong with having your mother drop you off?” asked her father.

“Nothing, dad,” said Violet, “but it feels childish, and I’m almost in high school.”

It was deeply embarrassing; dropping her off really meant a ride in one of the mission’s official cars, with her mother in the back with her.

“We’ve talked about this before, Violet,” said her mother. “I don’t mind dropping you off, and your father worries.”

“She’s getting older, I suppose. This is the Tess we met at last year’s festival, yes?”

Violet nodded.  Tess had been her best friend practically since they’d started middle school two and a half years ago, but she wasn’t surprised that her father didn’t remember that.

“Well, how about this, then,” said her father. “You can start taking the streetcar for your Saturday classes until graduation as long as Tess joins you.  If that goes well, you two can take it regularly when you start high school in the fall.”

Monday, May 18th
Manhattan, New York City, United States, Terra
William Jennings Bryan High School
3rd floor hallway by the Computer Lab

“You two don’t really expect me to believe this story, do you?” asked Anne.  The textbook the Legatus had given him sat closed in front of Joel; another friend, Martin, was sitting there looking incredulous, while a couple of our other classmates sat nearby, probably pretending to do homework so it wouldn’t be so obvious they were eavesdropping.

“I wouldn’t believe it myself,” said Joel, “but this is way too much effort for a hoax.  Besides, what would they have to gain?”

“Doesn’t your family have money?” asked Anne.

“Not really.  My dad’s business has been doing pretty poorly, and my stepmom has been back at work part time.”  Joel’s dad owned a catalog sales business that brought discount electronics in from Asia.  They’d hadn’t had any really big hits recently, but this was the first I’d heard about financial trouble.  He went on, “Besides, it sort of fits.  My mom hardly talked about her family at all, and she always seemed kind of foreign.”

Anne was not satisfied with his answer. “It’s not like a blackmailer would know that.”

“I don’t see how it could be blackmail,” I said, finally speaking up. “I don’t know how this can be real, either, but the government types were legit.”  Hull had made a point of giving me one of his business cards as well, which I showed her.

She glared at me.  “Why am I not surprised that you’ve gone along with this nonsense?”

“It beats video games.” I shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve been invited to another world, I just tagged along to the meeting, so he’d have a witness.”

To Joel, then, she said “And you’re seriously considering transferring schools there?”

He nodded. “At least for a year.  I mean, what do I have that’s keeping me here?  Who wouldn’t want to be a prince?  If it sucks, I can come back.”

Martin spoke up, which he rarely did.  “I dunno, man, it sounds like a hassle.”

“Didn’t you say that the family had been dying out over there?” asked Anne.

“Yeah,” Joel nodded slowly, “how vague they’ve been about what’s happened to that part of my family is weird… worrying… or something.

“Right now, all I’m going to do is tour the school and hear more.  My dad’s supposed to be checking with the school here that I can come back for Senior year if it doesn’t work out.”

“Tour… as in go through this gate thing? In the basement of the federal building? What a joke.”  Anne picked up her backpack, turned to me and asked, “Hey, Mark, are you taking the train today?”

When I nodded, she tilted her head in the direction of the stairwell.  “See you guys,” I told Joel and Martin, and I followed her out.

On the train home, she grilled me about everything Joel and I had heard, her mood getting worse and worse.  When we got a few blocks from our station on the #7 line and it was time to split up to head home, she finally told me, “Look, I don’t know how this can be real, but you’re right, it would be really hard for this to be fake with everything you’ve seen.  Just don’t let Joel get you involved in anything dangerous, OK? If something happened to you, I wouldn’t forgive either one of you.”

Sat afternoon, May 16th, Imperial Year 2472 (Earth year 1992)
Queen Sara Memorial Academy, suburbs of Feldaren
Student council room, after meetings

Gwen Mallory shook her head, once again.  “My mind is made up, Diane.  I won’t run to replace you.”

Diane Cho was the student council President, an outgoing senior.  “The school needs you, Gwen.  I need… someone I can trust to look after things once I’m off in college.”

“The school needs a President who can give her all to the council,” said Gwen. “I’ve had too many other obligations this year as Vice President.  You’ve been too polite to say it, but you’ve been doing more than your share because I’ve been going in different directions.”

Diane sighed. “I know you’re right, but I’d hoped to get you to commit here.”

“I really can’t, D,” said Gwen. “Acting is going to be a career for me, and I can’t abandon the fencing club entirely.”

“Speaking of acting, how did it go with that commercial you auditioned for?”

Sat, May 16th, 1992
Manhattan, New York City, United States, Terra

A little more than a week later, Joel, his father Vince, and I ended up going to one of the Manhattan federal buildings.  We were greeted by an older woman, who introduced herself as Special Agent Helen Delgado.

“You’re FBI?” I asked.

“Diplomatic Security Service, actually.  We’ve got a room prepared; please follow me.”

The room turned out to be in the basement, a long table which had seen better days and a room-length mirror.  A chalkboard sat at one end opposite the door, and a bored looking man in a suit sat at one end.  “My colleague from the Foreign Service, Richard Hull.”

Once we got settled, Delgado continued: “We realize the circumstances are quite odd, and we appreciate your coming in today.  Before we continue, we want to make clear that while no part of this briefing is classified, it is our strong recommendation that you do not speak to anyone else about this.  Anything we say here would be officially denied by the government, and if we have to spend time debunking a ‘hoax’ that really limits our ability to help you.”

Joel and I nodded, and Joel’s father replied, “I understand. Who’d believe us?  I’ve known a bit of this for nearly 20 years and it still feels like it was just one of my wife’s eccentricities.”

“If it weren’t for your late wife, Mr. Ross, we wouldn’t know what little we do,” said Delgado, “and it’s likely we wouldn’t have even our limited contact with the countries on the other side.”

“So here is what we do know: a little less than twenty years ago, your mother showed up in the gate’s old location.  She had the luck to be found by some good people, but without friends or identification she came to the attention of my first predecessor.  Initially, nobody believed her, but she indicated that the gate would re-open periodically, and when we left a guard there — sure enough, someone popped out and had a look around.

“The visitor was unarmed and introduced himself as one of the gate’s guardians — we think that may be a formal title — and said that he’d like to speak to someone in charge.  Unfortunately, the gate remains open for less than a day at a time, roughly once every two weeks, so we had to wait for that.  In the meanwhile, we learned all we could from your mother about the governments on the far side.

“When it reopened, we received our first official envoys — one from the guardians, and one from the government on the other side.  They call themselves the Union of Feldaren and claim to be descended from people who came from our Earth or a very close parallel.  The gate is located near their capital, but the guardians are independent of them and limit access. There are a huge number of parallel worlds, a few closely related to theirs or to our earth, and most very different.  Only a few, ours included, have permanent anchors and open up on a periodic cycle — the others are, in essence, a one-way trip.

“We can’t confirm that they never sent anyone through to our side before we found it, but it’s been under guard since.  They seemed happy to open relations and we’ve kept up a very limited and discreet trade.”

At this point Hull spoke up, “We have not, however, been able to send someone through to them — until now.  Whatever the situation is –” he paused to check a note “– in Obdrest — the leadership in Feldaren wants to keep them happy.  After two decades of asking, we’ve been allowed to send an envoy through and will be getting some first-hand observations back when the gate next opens, and we’ve got more visitors on our side than we‘ve ever had at one time.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” said Delgado.  “Hull here sees visions of opening a market of a few hundred million consumers to American goods, ignoring that you can only put so much through a gateway the size of a large doorway in a few hours.  We’ve hosted their people under supervision a few times in the past, but I’m already concerned about our sending professional diplomats over there. If you accept their invitation, we’ll do what we can, but there’s very little we can do on the other side if you end up in danger.”

“What are they proposing for my son to do, Agent Delgado?”

“I think it’s best they explain it themselves, but as they’ve said, your son is believed to be the heir to the throne in Obdrest. Their desire is to have him complete his education there and to be ready to take the throne.  Perhaps it’s time to introduce our other guests?”  She tapped on the mirror, and she and Hull both moved to our side of the table.

Moments later, three very mismatched people walked into the room.  The first fit Joel’s description of the Dormer, who’d spoken to him before — a blonde man in his early 20s, dressed with too much gold braid on a uniform that looked like he stepped out of a particularly Victorian PBS drama. The second was an older man in dark loose-fitting clothes that resembled a gi or pajamas; he was balding or perhaps tonsured. The last was an Asian woman, not so young as Dormer but probably still in her 20s, and the dark skirt suit she wore didn’t seem like it would have been out of place in an office in our world.

Delgado introduced them: “Carl, Count Dormer, two of you have already met,” at this Dormer bowed slightly — “…and the other two are Brother Oliver, of the Guardians of the Gate, and Ambassador Matsumoto, representative of the Union of the Etciv.”

“Thank you, Agent Delgado,” said Matsumoto in unaccented English.  “We appreciate your help in locating our ally’s lost child, and for the opportunity to speak with Joel and his family.” Turning to Joel and his father, “and we appreciate your being open to hearing what we had to say.”

“As Count Dormer has already told you, your mother Christina was a princess from the royal family of Obdrest. As the child of a younger prince, and with two older brothers and one younger, it was only a minor source of diplomatic friction when she disappeared through the gate. She was not seen as critical to the succession.  In the intervening decades, a series of mishaps have befallen the Imperial family, and at this point as her child, Joel is the last person in a direct line for the throne.”

Here Brother Oliver spoke up: “I was not yet part of the brotherhood when the Princess was allowed to pass through the gate, but I am told that at the time she seemed legitimately facing what would have been a coerced marriage, and in fear for her life if she declined.  She was given a humanitarian exception then; the interests of stability in both Obdrest and Feldaren compel us to make an exception now.”

Finally, Count Dormer spoke — his accent was faint, and unplaceable: “The age of majority in Obdrest is normally twenty, and as I understand it Prince Joel is in his sixteenth year, so even if the king passes sooner he could certainly wait to assume official duties.  While it is inconceivable to me that he would not want to take his throne, both your diplomats and Legatus Matsumoto” — was that Latin? it seemed a bit odd to me — “have impressed upon me that to someone unused to the idea of our world, or of having a title, this may come as something of a shock.

“She made the suggestion to me that you and your family come through as a guest of Feldaren, and attend school there.  Learn about our world, our nations.  If you truly wish to return here, and do not wish not to take your rightful place, we are not barbarians — no one will force you, you can abdicate and the guardians will see to your return here.”

Matsumoto spoke again.  “My government is prepared to guarantee your safety, and those of your government’s diplomats.  Even so, we know relocating your schooling is a big step; if I may suggest, the gate opens for the better part of a day — I’d like to invite you and your family to see our capitol on one of the upcoming openings, and we can have you back here in Manhattan in time for a late dinner.”

Joel’s father looked very skeptical.  “Joel has a comfortable life here, and mentions of mishaps in my late wife’s family are not at all encouraging.  She did speak with some fondness of her schooling there — in your country, Ambassador, at least by my hazy memory of her stories.”

Dormer gave a proud smile.  “Queen Sara Memorial Academy.  I’m a recent graduate, and the Legatus graduated a few years before me.”

She nodded.  “The crown jewel of our education system, and it was the first school in our world to exclusively use modern English.”

Joel and I kind of boggled at that; oddly, neither of the State Department folks nor his dad showed any surprise.  “Christine told me she learned English growing up, even though it wasn’t her first language,” said Joel’s dad. “She said something about a lot of folks coming through from yet another world like ours, something like in her grandfather’s childhood?”

“The event, yes,” said Matsumoto. “Before it, people came through to our world in small numbers and at an unpredictable pace. Enough had come through from various ‘Americas’ that we had some English-speaking population in Feldaren before the event.   The event was different; some scientific experiment had gone awry on their side, in a world much more like yours.

“My great-grandparents came through with a group of more than a hundred thousand, mostly students and academics, and most of them Americans.  Even for those who weren’t, English was very much their common language.”

She reached into her bag and produced a hardcover textbook; it was labelled World History, 5th Edition. “With your permission,” and here she looked at Special Agent Delgado and Joel’s father, “I’d like to give this to Joel.  I think it can answer his questions about our history in a great deal more depth than I can. In today’s trade crates, we’ve got another copy for your government, as well as some longer works and an encyclopedia.”

“You couldn’t find something more readable than that textbook?” asked Dormer.

Matsumoto chuckled. “We could have, but it’s a good textbook and most of the popular works assume a certain level of background knowledge.  This one doesn’t, and it’s what a transfer student his age would should know for entrance exams.”

Dormer shook his head again.  “Surely the prince doesn’t need to take exams; we would sponsor him.”

“We didn’t talk about this in advance, but think about it, Count.” She looked over at Joel’s father, “If we were to convince you to allow your son to spend a year getting to know our world, I think you would want to keep things discreet.  There’s no sense in making his potential future as King of Obdrest public.  The fewer people know about that, the easier it is for both our security arrangements and his potential return here.”

Dormer looked a bit deflated. “I don’t like sneaking around, but it makes sense.”

“I’m sure I can get our ministry to sponsor him as a friend of the Senate without having to say why if he doesn’t pass, but I suspect he’ll have no trouble; it’s not like he needs to get a scholarship, and from what I’ve heard his high school is already a very selective one.”

“It isn’t a public school?” asked Joel’s father.

“The Academy is independent, but part of the class is there on scholarships either from its endowment or on public funds. Some others are the children of, as you’d say, ‘VIPs,’ and the tuition is not significant for them.  From what we’ve seen in trade, incomes tend to be lower on our side of the gate, but the tuition is generally within the means of our middle-class families.”

“Not that it would be necessary; as I said, there’s no expectation that Joel would need to win a scholarship, and I suspect we’re more likely to see some argument about whether we or the Obdresti treasury would get the honor of paying his expenses.” She glanced at Dormer.

“Yes,” he said, “I think not being able to pay the prince’s expenses would lead to some offense on the part of my government. The king is already asking why I haven’t set up arrangements for allowance for his living expenses already.”

“Allowance?”  Joel perked up.

“I’m fairly sure that he imagines you living in a crowded garret, and by tradition you should have a household and servants.”

“Like maids and a butler?” Joel asked.

“A bit more than that, but yes.”

I suppressed a chuckle.  Joel’s family had a nicer than average house for our part of Queens, but that mostly amounted to being in a neighborhood new enough to have a one-car garage and central air.  They had a spare bedroom which his dad used as a home office, but I’m not sure where they could have put servants.

Joel’s father had a lot of questions about the logistics of Joel possibly going to school there, and about his late wife’s life before she came through.  They had a lot of answers for him about the logistics, and very few answers about her life.  None of the three had known her; Brother Oliver had been a young man and not yet one of the guardians when she passed to our world and the other two had been small children.  What Brother Oliver knew was passed on through his organization; the other two mostly from legend.

In the end, Joel’s father accepted the offer of a tour of their capitol and the school, to be arranged a few weeks later.  On the way out, I asked Joel: “Hey, have you told anyone at school about this?”

“Not yet.  How likely is anyone to believe me, anyway?”

“If you’re really thinking of going, you should at least tell Anne about it sooner rather than later.”

He grimaced a bit. “You two are closer than we are, but yeah, we’ve known each other a long time and hang out enough.”

I’d known Anne even longer than I’d known Joel — we’d started in kindergarten together, and had been two of a very few “smart kids” at an elementary school where that stood out in a less than positive way.  While we weren’t as close anymore, she lived a few blocks from me — we took the subway home together often enough if she didn’t have practice and I didn’t need to ride my bike home.  She had been bugging me about getting more exercise for years, and I’d started bicycling to school at her suggestion around the end of the prior year, occasionally at first and pretty regularly more recently.  I’ve always been on the chubby side, but not as much as I’d once been.

22nd day of the month of Kan, Imperial Year 2379
(Saturday, May 13, 1899 in the Terran common era)
6th year of the Wizards’ War
Blockade around the Isle of Mages

Admiral Marius Nement looked on with satisfaction as a flight of bombers returned to his carrier, the flagship of a fleet that his nation had built in a few short years since the newcomers had arrived.  The Admiral had started his service in the Second Slave War, almost thirty years prior. He had been a lieutenant on one of the battleships that had bombarded Pandac at the end of the war, and ships had not changed much in the first 25 years of his career.  The knowledge the newcomers had brought with them had changed the world very swiftly.

The blockade around the island was as tight as modern technology could make it. The prior winter’s bad weather had broken, and from what he could see, the Wizards’ stronghold was on the verge of collapse.  If they had anyone left to assail the steel ships directly, they did not send them out, and the balls of fire or ice flung from the island were more sporadic while bombs fell more regularly, limited mostly by their ability to fuel the planes.

One of the newcomers, an engineer named Harry Hoyle, was on board as an advisor.  He knew as much about the big planes as anyone who could be spared for the fleet and had apparently made a study of what the newcomers called the Second World War.  Most of all, though, he was the newcomers’ expert on the big bombs that the fleet held in reserve.

“Do you think we’ll need to use them?” Hoyle had asked at the captain’s dinner the prior night.

“I certainly hope not,” replied the Admiral, “but I’m glad I don’t have to make the choice whether to land an army if they don’t surrender.”

The conversation moved on, but today he had called Hoyle to the flag bridge to discuss flight operations.  Their conversation had wound down, and Hoyle would likely have returned to consult with the engineering staff had they not been watching the bombers return.

Then, suddenly, there was a very bright flash in the eastern sky, almost blinding, and as vision returned he could see it was followed by a gigantic plume of smoke or steam past the horizon rapidly rising as high as one could see.

“Holy cow,” said Hoyle. “They’ve actually got one.”  Then, after a moment: “We’ve got minutes before a shockwave reaches us, Admiral.  Possibly a tidal wave after that.”

Orders went out first, questions later. “Mr. Hoyle, does this mean that they’ve got these bombs as well?”

“That looked too large to be anything else from my world. Given magic, I couldn’t say for sure.  I think it must be something like this, not straight magic, though – if they had that much power left, rationally, they’d have used it on us.”

“You’ve seen the photos of what they left of Behele and their own people. The wizards are anything but rational.”

The fleet was far enough away from the island that it weathered the blast, and Hoyle was wrong – tidal waves do not form in deep water.  Instead, the wave hit all along the coast of the Etciv and of Toyeri, with many lives lost, a final retribution of the guild – indiscriminate to whether it killed enemies or their former allies.

The cloud had gone up into the stratosphere, but it also spread out across the fleet, terrifyingly dark but there was no obvious ill effect; Hoyle and the ship’s senior magician had each taken measurements, and come to the same conclusion – this was the result of some kind of magic, not the physics that Hoyle’s bombs would have used, and if there was any danger to it, it was deeply hidden.

The cloud took hours to settle, and left a fine ash on every surface.  After the decks were cleared, the fleet sent out a reconnaissance plane.  As it approached where the island should have been, no anti-aircraft fire, neither magical or fired from guns, greeted it.  Indeed, where the island should have been there was an open ocean and the only sign of it was scattered floating debris and odd new volcanic rocks floating on the waves.

Whatever magic the Wizards had used, it was something of remarkable subtlety for the amount of power it had unleashed; destroying an island that large directly would have echoed throughout the world in ways even untrained but magically sensitive people would have felt. It was debated by the greatest magicians of the age, or at least those who had not stayed part of the guild after it broke its traditional neutrality and thus perished with the Island.  The consensus they came to was that the guild had somehow tapped into the natural magic and geologic forces that had led the guild to settle its headquarters there in the first place.

To the rest of the world, that the guild was gone and had blown themselves up was enough; the war was over.  The newcomers’ bombs, useless in peacetime, were dismantled and remained a great secret of the war.

Wed, May 6, 1992
Queens, New York City, United States, Terra

“…so other worlds with magic are real, and supposedly my mom was a princess from one of them and they’re asking me to go there because I’m next in line for the throne.”

My best friend, Joel, was out of breath having just shared the craziest story — twice, since the first time around I’d had the presence of mind to reply only with “Huh? What?”

Less than an hour earlier, I’d been at home trying to beat Civilization at a higher difficulty level without cheesing out by using the Earth map and starting in the Americas… without much luck.  The phone rang, and my younger brother Sammy yelled upstairs “Hey Mark! Joel is on the phone,” and all Joel had said was he’d had a really weird day and that he needed to talk to someone.  Could we hang out?

So here we were at the BK near his house, and while the story was utterly unbelievable, there was just too much detail there.  There had been three strangers sitting with his dad at home when he got home from band practice — the first two introduced themselves as coming from the US state department.  The third, who Joel said looked young enough to be in college or newly out of it, introduced himself as a Count Dormer — and Joel hadn’t been able to tell whether that was his name, or where he was Count of.

After the introductions, his dad told him what he’d gone on to tell me — that his mom had been a princess from the same country as the Count and had somehow run away through something called the Gate Between Worlds when she was a teenager.  As long as she’d been a younger daughter from a large family, the guardians of the gate — whoever they were — had protected her privacy but something “tragic” had happened to the rest of her family, and the guardians had reluctantly revealed that she’d gone to our world and let the royals send through the Count as their representative.

From what the two State Department officials said, the US had known about the Gate for some time and guarded its own side of it. Someone well above their pay grade had some record of his mother’s arrival, her family, and her passing and at least some idea that she was a VIP.  So the Department of State had agreed to allow the Count to approach the family, but it was clear that there was a division of opinion between parts of the government — some folks wanting to open diplomatic relations further with the nations on the far side of the gate, while others were very concerned about the possible dangers to Joel or his family.

The choice, they made clear, was his.

The Count, meanwhile, seemed horrified that the Prince — he was refusing to refer to or address Joel by name, only as “the Prince” or “Highness” — had been raised in such common surroundings, and that there was even the possibility that he wouldn’t “return.”

Joel stammered out that he’d need to think about it and asked how he’d find out more about the country and other worlds.  “We can give you a briefing about what we know, and perhaps the Count can present more about his world at that time.”

Dormer agreed, and the state department officials told Joel and his father to call their office when they were ready to talk further.  And with that, they left.  What followed was a far less calm conversation with his dad — followed by Joel storming out and calling me from the Burger King on Northern Boulevard where we now sat.

“That’s crazy.  Your dad believed them?” I asked.

“Yeah.  He’d said that he’d always known that she wasn’t from here.  ‘Here,’” he shook his head, “since when do we have to qualify Earth as ‘here’?  Not the princess part — just that she’d been getting away from her family, and that there was a ‘there.’”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

He gave a frustrated sigh. “I guess I’m going to go to their briefing.  I can only spend so much time on video games” – he gave me a look here – “or at band practice.  This feels like way too much effort for a hoax and even if I end up saying ‘no’ it does have me curious.”

“Man, you, a prince?”

Joel laughed.  “Yeah, really.  Or not really.   Hey, do you want to come along for the briefing? If they’ll let you, when this all blows over, nobody is going to believe me if I don’t have a witness.”

“Sure. I probably can” – and I glared back at him – “spend that long in front of my computer, but what are friends for?  And like you said, even if it’s a hoax, it’s an interesting one.”

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