From: Kelly J. Cooper Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [JWW] Jameson W. Walker: The Long Walk Home, part 2 Followup-To: alt.pub.dragons-inn Date: 07 Oct 1996 04:50:29 GMT Organization: Rancho Apocalypse Lines: 103 Distribution: world Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: asylum.sf.ca.us "I'm not one to believe in magic, though my memory has a second-sight. I'm not one to go pointing my finger, when I radiate more heat than light." - unknown ** --- < <<< --*-- >>> > --- ** The carvings were right, the timing was right, the placement was directly in line with her maps... but the doorway wasn't there. Actually, that wasn't entirely true. She could still pick up faint readings, the residue of an otherworld passage. Some of it was instinct, some registered on her instruments. But the door itself was closed, locked and sealed over - as close to gone as possible in the fabric of such things. As Jameson pulled the first readings, she began to quietly curse. By the time she satisfied herself that it was well and truly not there, she had covered thirty-seven languages and increased her volume considerably. Nearby shrubbery wilted. Finally, she sat down on the ground and leaned back against a rock. Under the warmth of the dark red sun, she closed her eyes and began to think. This world had been clearly and neatly mapped years ago by another Onari Walker. She herself visited the planet, whose name for itself translated to "Mudball," a few hundred years ago and found the folds and passages in the time-space fabric that connected so many worlds completely stable. But all true evidence of the doorways was gone. All that was left were anomalous local plant life and a few pieces of residual folklore. Minimal. Unacceptable. Unbelievable. And frustrating. This was the ninth doorway she had visited since she arrived and she'd been stuck on Mudball for well over a standard year. All of them had been sealed off in the same way. It was much more than coincidence. Now, according to her maps, there was only one other door on the planet. As she considered the doorways and the traveling, her mind drifted on a tangent and for the thousandth-some-odd time, she remembered her arrival here - pulled from a standard transport between the GateWay of the Worlds on Nexus and Shadow, homeworld to Kardia Xvaramene. Remembering Kardia, she pressed her fingers lightly to the corners of her eyes - she did not need tears now. The transport started with the normal slip-tug feeling of change but it was interrupted by a nerve-numbing distortion and she was ripped from her stream by _something_. It dragged her cross-ways, rending her mind and shredding her senses, through the universe and unceremoniously dumped her in a fallow field near the edge of a forest where she lay half-unconscious in the muck for some time. How long exactly, she did not know, but when she eventually awoke she found herself coated in dried mud. Nothing and no one contacted her or explained the detour. She was not greeted by prophesy nor guided to some specific action by a needful Godling. It was eerily Fate-free and chance-driven. (Although each time she thought that, it seemed as though somewhere, far away, Chaos Gods were laughing at her. But then again, that could just be an overactive imagination). From that first muddy field onward, she wandered this world looking for a way off, so she could begin the journey back to Nexus. There was no way to know whether the shift had been intentional or due to some random anomaly. And no way to find out. A part of her nursed a tiny hope that she'd get picked up by a search party from Nexus, but anyone who had the ability to manage that was far and away too busy. Or, more likely, ignorant of her disappearance. Her return punch-through was slated at six months standard, with monthly iterations if she missed the rendevous. Traveller had no way of knowing what had happened if he hadn't observed the disturbance in her travel path. For all he knew, she was working on Shadow and too busy to come back. Her jaw clenched in frustration. She had invested so much time and energy on Shadow, stringing together cover stories and informants and data flows, in anticipation of finding and bringing Kardia's family back to Nexus. But instead, she was trapped here while all of that was surely unraveling. Loneliness threatened to rush from her heart and stage a coup upon her mind but she pushed it away and instead stood up, brushed herself off, and began to walk. In the rhythm of movement, some part of her mind kept her on track as she aimed her steps toward the final possible gateway off this world. The rest of her thoughts were occupied by a frenzied need to review everything leading up to her unexpected trip. She needed to touch each moment and try to pull some connection, some reason, some hint as to why she might be here on this ball of mud. -- Kelly J. Cooper kjc@apocalypse.org Writer for Jameson W. Walker Keeper of the Mage Guild FAQ http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/kjc/dragon.html "How long before wings?" -mary szmagaj, "nocturne"