The Law of Nines

24

ALEX COULDN’T BRING HIMSELF to accept her story as true — it just seemed too far-fetched and there were too many things that didn’t seem to fit with what he knew of the history of the world. Yet at the same time it had a haunting quality to it, some kind of lingering whisper that he couldn’t entirely banish. There had been vast dark stretches in human history about which virtually nothing was known.

“I don’t have an answer for you, Jax, but just because I don’t know the answer doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. For all I know, it could be that your history is really the one based on legend and myth.”

“Have it your way, Alex,” she said with a sigh. “If it’s too much for you right now, then let it be. Besides, that isn’t what matters at the moment. What matters now is that the Law of Nines indicates you are the one named in the prophecy from my world, where prophecy is magic and magic is real.”

He knew that she was right about at least some of it. He knew that what was going on now was real. His muscles ached from the shocks Bethany had given him with the Taser. He’d seen bodies vanish. He’d seen a man appear out of thin air.

He didn’t know the truth about the past or if he could ever believe the whole far-fetched notion, but he did know that something was going on now, and it most definitely involved him.

“All right, I’m listening,” he said. “What matters now?”

“We believe that Cain’s people have been coming to this world to find something that will help them tip the balance to their side once and for all. We don’t know what it is they’re after, but they’re expending a lot of resources on it, so we fear that if they find what they’re after, we’re finished.”

Alex lifted his hands in exasperation. “But if your people believe in prophecy and that I’m the one who can save your world, then why would they want me dead? I die, you all die.”

She regarded him with the kind of expression that made him a little uncomfortable. “Prophecy can mean something very different from what you think it does. What if you were to cooperate with Cain’s people? What if you were tortured into helping them? What if you helped them without realizing what you were doing? Any of those would result in the same end. You would be directly responsible for the deaths of millions.

“If any of those things turned out to be true, then the only way you could be our salvation would be if you died before you could help Radell Cain.

“The prophecy, you see, does not say that you must be alive to save our world. It could mean that you must die if our world is to be saved.”

Alex ran his fingers back into his hair and held his head. He wanted the whole nightmare to be over. He hated the deliberately vague nature of prophecy. Prophecy always tried to make any outcome look like a prediction or else it spoke of war, floods, and droughts because there would always be war, floods, and droughts. As far as Alex was concerned, prophecy, like magic, was childish nonsense that depended on the gullible.

“Why then,” he finally asked, “didn’t you kill me?”

“If I believed that version of the prophecy you would already be dead.”

“So you believe this prophecy, but the other way around?”

“We have a saying: ‘The House of Rahl is not ruled by prophecy; the House of Rahl reigns over prophecy.’

“The first time you saw me, you pulled me back to save me. It was a test. My test. You passed that test. Had I judged you to be the kind of man to help the enemy I would have killed you on the spot and have been gone before you hit the ground.”

“So, because I pulled you back from getting run over by pirate plumbers, you decided not to kill me?”

“In part. I subscribe to the Rahl view of prophecy, that it needs the balance of free will in order to exist. Free will in the House of Rahl meant that they did not abide by prophecy.”

That bit of common sense made him feel better. “So the Rahl line in your world didn’t believe in prophecy, either.”

She laid a hand on his forearm. “I came because of prophecy — not because I believe it, but because Cain does. I believe that you, Alexander Rahl, are the key to solving what’s going on. Radell Cain believes it as well.”

“If he needs me, then why hasn’t he acted? You said they’ve been coming to this world for some time. Why haven’t they done what they came to do? Why haven’t they snatched me?”

“I asked myself that same question,” she said. “What I finally decided is that he must not know enough about what he’s looking for. I’m sure that he knows in general, but I don’t think he knows nearly enough, yet, to act.”

“How could he be here looking for something and not know what he’s looking for?”

“Well, let’s say, for the sake of argument, that when the worlds were parted, besides sending people here, an important book was also sent here. Things like that have been done before to keep dangerous information out of the wrong hands.”

“You think he’s looking for a book?”

“I’m just using that as an example. How would he find it here? He couldn’t use magic here to help him — magic doesn’t work here, remember? Where would he look?”

“So for some reason he’d try to find it through a Rahl?”

“Do you know where to find such a book that came from my world and didn’t belong here? How would you know where it was, or even what it was? You couldn’t. Maybe he’s already killed members of your family trying to make them tell him and he found out that that didn’t work. So, what’s he to do, now?”

“I’d like to know the answer to that question,” Alex said.

“He knows that you’re involved in all this — that’s why he has been watching you through mirrors, tracking you with your phone. He’s trying to find answers. But since you’re his last lead, he has to be careful.”

For the first time since they had fled his house Alex felt a bit of optimism. “So if Cain needs me, then those men who tried to run us down when I first saw you must have been Bethany’s men.”

“No, they were Cain’s men.”

Alex lifted his hands in frustration. “That doesn’t make sense. If he needs something from me, if he’s been watching me, then why would he suddenly have his men try to run me down?”

“They weren’t trying to run you down. They were watching you. When they saw me, they recognized me. They were trying to run me down. You prevented them from doing so.”

Alex paused a moment. “You recognize them? You know them?”

“I know the big one, the one who was on the side closest to us. His name is Yuri. I killed his brother.”

Alex sighed. This was one determined woman.

“That was my first, brief visit here. I wasn’t able to stay long.

When I returned home we immediately began making preparations so I could come back again, but it takes time. It was while I was watching the gallery through the mirrors, looking for you, that those preparations were finally completed. That was when I saw Vendis. When I returned to this world you gave me that painting.

“You have no idea what it meant to me.”

“I think I do,” he said softly.

She smiled a little but shook her head. “When I saw that painting I knew that you are central to solving what is going on. So, I thought that if I told you some of the nature of the trouble, you might be motivated to help me. But. .”

“But I made you angry instead.”

Jax smiled as she nodded. “When I went back I told people how you so faithfully painted the Shineestay, the place I told you about. People understood, then.”

“Just because I painted a forest that looked similar?”

“No. Because I told them how you painted the exact place, down to the placement of every tree — except the one tree I mentioned that was missing from the scene.”

Alex remembered. He had painted over that particular tree because it didn’t fit the composition. He didn’t say so, though, as he listened to her go on with her story.

“You see, it’s said that long ago the Rahl leader at the time — the one who is said to have separated the worlds — believed that magic involved art, that the creation of new magic in some ways involved the application of artistic principles at the least and maybe even artistic ability.”

“Oh come on. Now you’re telling me that art is magic?”

“No, not at all, but Lord Rahl believed—”

“Who?”

“The man who was the leader at the time of the separation event was a Rahl, the last Rahl we know anything about before the House of Rahl vanished somewhere in history. Back then he was called simply ‘Lord Rahl.’ He fought and won much the same battle of survival that we find ourselves fighting now. The title of Lord Rahl has since come to represent the preservation of magic and individual liberty, to represent for us the very concept of freedom.

“We don’t know a great deal about the time back then, but it is known that Lord Rahl’s victory against all odds ushered in a period of peace and prosperity known as the Golden Age that lasted hundreds of years. This man was its architect. His victory over tyranny and the banishment of those who wanted to eliminate the gift made it all possible.

“For this reason the very concept of the Lord Rahl is hated by Radell Cain and his ilk.

“Anyway, Lord Rahl believed that new forms of magic are acts of creation that necessarily involve elements of artistic visualization. Art — good art — involves principles of balance, flow, placement, and composition, among other things. These elements must be in harmony, each element working with all the others, in order for art to have deep meaning to us, for it to truly touch our souls. So magic and art, he believed, were inescapably linked. When you painted a picture of my world, you were somehow tapping into that elemental concept that he used to bridge worlds, time, and space.”

“Does this mean that you’re not going to try to kill me?” he asked with a smile.

She returned a sleepy smile. “I’m here to protect you, Alex. I need your help if we’re to solve this. Other than finding you and trying to keep both of us alive, I don’t know what to do next. That part is up to you.”

Alex blinked in surprise. “Me? How should I know? These people came here from your world. I’m in the dark about the whole thing. Why would you expect me to know what to do?”

She stared at him as if it should be self-evident. “You’re Alexander Rahl.”

“Jax,” he said at last, looking away from her eyes as he considered how to put his thoughts into words, “I don’t know if you really have the right person.”

“The Law of Nines says you are the right person.”

“That’s not what I mean.” He lifted a hand in a weak gesture. “I think that maybe you’re putting too much faith in me. This Law of Nines business is just superstition. I fell into the prophecy by chance, that’s all. None of it says anything about me as an individual. I’m just a guy who paints pictures for a living. I don’t know about any of this. I don’t know how to fight people from another world.”

“You’ve done all right so far.”

He shrugged off the notion. “I was just trying to stay alive. That doesn’t mean you should put your faith in me. Even if people from the House of Rahl really did come here, exactly as you say, that was an awfully long time ago. I can’t live up to what they could do in your world.” He ran his fingers back through his hair in frustration. “I just don’t think you—”

“Alex, listen to me.” She waited until he looked at her. “There is a mirror in the room where you paint. When I was waiting for the preparations to be made for me to make a longer visit here, I sat for hours at a time watching you paint, wishing I could find a way to warn you through that mirror of all the forces homing in on you.”

Alex had remembered well her advice when he’d first met her that people could watch him through mirrors. He had been careful with mirrors even before that warning. And he had purposely placed that one in his studio, hoping he would be watched — hoping that Jax would see him through that mirror and decide to return. He had placed it there specifically for her.

“I learned a lot watching you through that mirror.”

He smiled a little. “A lot about how to paint, maybe.”

“No. A lot about you. When you watch a person for a long time you come to understand their dedication, their focus, their moods, their emotions — the way they think, or don’t bother to think. You come to learn what’s important to them.

“One day, as you turned to wipe your brush, I saw a picture catch your eye. It was the picture of your grandfather that you kept on the desk beside you. You laid down your brush and picked up that picture and sat staring at it for a time until tears ran down your face.”

“It’s human to grieve,” Alex said. “There’s nothing meaningful about that, nothing special.”

She nodded. “I know. It’s natural to grieve, to be sad, to pine for one lost, to have a broken heart. But as you wept, your other hand fisted. Your jaw clenched. Your face turned red with rage. You pounded your fist on the desk as you wept.”

Alex swallowed at the memory of the heat of that emotion. “What of it? I was angry.”

“You were angry at death for taking him. You were raging against death itself. You raged against death because life means that much to you. You’re the right man, Alexander Rahl. You’re the man I came here to find.”

Alex listened to the rain as he thought about her words.

“Then that bell rang,” she said. “I saw Bethany’s reflection in a window.

“In that instant I saw all that was about to be lost.

“We’re still struggling to learn to come here. It’s very difficult and takes us quite some time to craft a lifeline. Passing into the great void is daunting beyond imagining.”

Alex couldn’t picture such a thing. “In what way?”

Jax stared off into the memories for a moment. Flashes of lightning cast her face in an otherworldly bluish light.

“It’s like leaping off a cliff into eternal night. . falling without end. Every second you expect to hit the bottom. Your muscles and nerves ache in expectation of a sudden, bone-shattering impact. An eternity of fear is compressed into every one of those moments that you exist in a place without anything but that fear.

“At first you may feel like you have leaped into endless night, but a point comes when you realize that there is no up, no down, no hot, no cold, no light, no sensation of any kind, not even breathing, not even your own heart beating. You are without anything that makes you feel alive.

“In that moment comes panic.”

When lightning hit nearby, giving off a loud crack of thunder that shook the Jeep, Alex jumped. Jax didn’t. It was as if she was in another place beyond the reach of the real world.

“How long does it take?” Alex finally asked after she had been silent for a time. “How long must you endure such a thing?”

Her haunted eyes stared unblinking into memories. “You feel as if you have somehow plummeted into eternity. You feel alone beyond anything I could explain.

“There comes a time when you begin to believe that you’ve died. You can’t see anything, you can’t hear anything. You feel as if you must be dead.”

Jax seemed to force herself to abandon the memory, as if staying there any longer might cause the place to snatch her back. She took a purging breath and looked over at him.

“When I start for this world I have a reference point found with the aid of magic, so from here there is no way for me to find a reference point in my world, no way to know where to return to. That’s why I need a lifeline to pull me back through that eternal void to my world. Without a lifeline there is no way to return.

“When I went back the last time I took the painting you gave me, but I lost it in the void. I loved that painting and wanted more than anything to take it back with me for others to see. I held it as tightly as I could, but I lost it. I don’t remember where or how it was gone, it just was. That experience proved what we had thought — things can’t be brought back from this world to ours.

“I’m sorry, Alex, that I lost your beautiful gift.”

He offered her a smile of comfort. “I’ll paint you another.”

She nodded her thanks for his understanding.

“When I saw Bethany and her thugs at your door I knew that I didn’t have a moment to lose. I had to come immediately, even though I had no lifeline ready.

“I had to come because you are the right man, Alex.”

Alex listened to the rain drumming steadily against the roof of the Jeep and the distant rumble of thunder. He remembered the day in his studio that she had described. He had forgotten all about the mirror by then; he thought that he would never see her again. That hadn’t been the only day he had raged against death for taking Ben. If she had been watching him, she would know that, too.

Ben wouldn’t be dead were it not for these people coming to his world, coming for his family, coming for him.

If he didn’t stop them, who would? How many more would die?

Jax laid a hand on his arm. “Are you all right, Alex?”

He nodded. He wondered how she could be all right, knowing that she had no way to get home.

“We need to stop them,” he said with quiet resolve. “I don’t know if I’m the right man, but I’m the only Rahl you’ve got. If I can do anything to help, I will. If we can figure this out and stop them, then maybe other people won’t needlessly lose their loved ones.”

“Thank you, Alex,” she whispered. She again gently rested her hand on his arm, as if to say she understood all that his words conveyed, and was sorry to have to ask so much of him.

He knew that, for her, there was no turning back. There wasn’t any turning back for him, either. No matter what happened, they were now committed.

Her face brightened with a small smile. “So, any ideas?”

“Well,” he said, “Bethany knew something about what these other people were after. She wanted to bear my successor. That could only gain one thing: the inheritance that came to be mine when I turned twenty-seven. I think we need to find out about this land that I’m inheriting.”

“I suppose that it makes sense for us to look into it. But I can’t see how it would have anything to do with what they’re after. What do they need with land?”

“I don’t know, but Bethany sure seemed intent on having it.”

“Not necessarily. It makes more sense to me that what she was really after was your child, a Rahl child.”

“What good would a Rahl child do her?”

“A Rahl in my world would be currency of immense value. A Rahl heir would have made her far more important than she otherwise was.”

“You think she intended to get pregnant and return to your world? You just said that you can’t take anything back.”

“But if she got pregnant, the child would have been hers as well. It would have been a part of her. That, I’d be willing to bet, she could have taken back through the void to my world.”

“I was sure it had to be something to do with the land,” Alex muttered.

“It may be,” Jax said. “I’m only saying there are other important reasons she would have wanted you to get her pregnant. I can see why she would want a Rahl child, but I can’t imagine what she would want with land. She has land — a lot of it.”

“So you’re convinced it’s not the land they’re after?”

Jax shrugged. “I’m only pointing out that there are other reasons people from my world might be interested in you.”

Alex let out a sigh. “Well, as far as I know my mother is the only other living Rahl. I’ve heard her say that people always want to know things from her.

“The land is far away, but my mother is close. Before we consider the land angle I think we should go ask my mother what these people want to know from her. I’m not sure if she’ll be able to talk, but we can try.”

“You said she was crazy.”

“Maybe she isn’t as crazy as I thought. Maybe they’ve driven her crazy. Anyway, it’s a place to start.”

Jax watched his eyes for a moment. “That makes sense. Tomorrow, then, we go see your mother.” She lay back and yawned. “You were right, we’d better get some sleep.”

Alex nodded as he yawned in turn. He watched as she rearranged her duffel-bag pillow. Her eyes closed.

“Jax, you’re someone important where you come from, aren’t you?”

“I’m just a woman, Alex. A woman who has no powers here. A woman who is afraid that she will never see her home again. A woman who is afraid for the lives of those she loves.”

“Those you love. Like a man you love?”

“No,” she whispered, her eyes still closed. “Not that kind of love. I have no one like that.”

He watched her breathing slow for a time. She looked bone-tired. Traveling from a distant world through that void had sounded like more than merely an exhausting experience.

“Jax,” he asked softly, “are you like a queen or something?”

She smiled sadly without opening her eyes, “In my world, queens once bowed to those like me, but not anymore. Now they bow to Cain.” Her voice seemed halfway into the world of sleep. “Now I’m just a frightened, desperate woman a long way from home. A woman who often fears she is foolish to think she can win against these people.”

He watched her for a time. “I don’t think you’re foolish in the least,” he whispered as he tucked the jacket around her, “I think you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

She was already asleep and didn’t hear him.