"We, ah, we weren’t expecting this."
We know, the voice came again and there was amusement in the rolling words. But you called and we answered.
"Why did you bring us here?"
To serve.
"Then you want to make a deal, right?" Mikey said, the words low and fast, as if he was desperate.
We have a bargain, the voice thundered inexorably. Sealed in blood. Craig thought of his finger, still throbbing where Mikey had pricked it, and moaned aloud.
Your talents will serve us. Your magic will be the spearhead of our power. You will bring down those who stand between us and our fulfillment and lay waste to their world.
Craig closed his eyes tightly and moaned again. The thing and its words were awful and terrifying and…
Attractive.
Nine: WORLDS’ MEETING
Come closer, the thing said. Come closer and watch.
As if moving through a zoom lens Craig and Mikey were sped to the side of the Ur-elf. Craig still couldn’t form a clear impression of what it looked like and for that he was just as glad.
Craig had the impression of two huge, shaggy hands cupped before him, hands with claws for nails. There was something glowing in the hollow, like a living coal. The radiance expanded and grew brighter until his face was bathed with yellow light. The light turned cloudy. Then it cleared and they were looking down on a world held in the Ur-elf’s palms.
There was deep blue ocean and spotted through it were islands. As Craig watched the islands formed as faceted images, then smoothed and took on color and texture. Vaguely he sensed that one end of this place connected to his own world and the other end to the world of magic.
Again the zooming effect and they were falling toward a large island in the center of the ocean. The place was long and narrow, with reddish brown desert shading from mountains at one end down through brown-yellow plains in the center to lush gray-green at the other end.
Faster and faster they fell, closer and closer to the mountains at the desert end. Craig sucked in his breath as the mountain peaks rushed up toward them.
Then suddenly they were standing on the tallest peak of all, looking out over the mountains and desert.
In this place the magic of both worlds works, the voice inside their heads told them. It is yours for now. Make good use of it.
And then they were alone on the crag.
Craig tasted bile on his tongue. His head hurt with a roaring, throbbing ache that threatened to take the top of his skull off with every beat of his hammering heart. Mikey didn’t look too much better.
The two looked at each other for a long moment while the chill mountain wind whipped around them and tugged at their clothing.
"Come on," Mikey said at last. "Let’s get to work."
The amazing thing was, Craig realized, he already knew this stuff. He didn’t have to think about how to do it, he could already make magic.
Working alongside Mikey, he sketched out the form of their new home, the citadel and fortress which would be their base for the attack into the new world.
Shadowy cloud forms hovered around the peak as the pair pushed and shaped the outlines of their castle. It would be small at first, covering no more than the top of the peak. But already Craig could visualize its spread as a great stronghold and arsenal to pour forth the sinews of conquest.
It was somehow right that they should conquer this world of magic. It was the natural order of things, meant to be. As he shaped and formed, Craig realized in the back of his mind he hadn’t always felt that way. But that was immaterial, like a long-ago dream. This was fated and he would bend all his talents to seizing this other world.
Something told him that those talents were now considerable.
A push, a twist, a sudden shimmering coalescence and their magic castle was done! Craig breathed a sigh and admired their creation.
The walls soared straight up out of the sides of the peak. Towers and turrets sprouted everywhere, flags flew from the staffs and whipped in the incessant wind. It was magnificent!
At least it was magnificent for a first effort. He had to admit that the walls leaned askew in a couple of places and that some of the towers slumped as if half-melted. Some of the windows were funny shapes too. And somehow it wasn’t as big as he had imagined it would be.
"Needs a lot of work," Mikey said.
"It’s pretty good for a first effort."
Mikey shrugged. "Come on. Let’s get the hell out of this wind."
Together they strode over the canting drawbridge and through the lopsided gate of their redoubt.
Craig looked at his handiwork sitting in the flagged stone courtyard and suppressed a pang of disappointment. It was smaller than he had thought it would be, maybe ten feet from wingtip to wingtip. The color was a nice battleship gray, just like a real F-15, and the twin tails stood proudly above the jet exhausts, but somehow it didn’t look just right. It looked kind of like an F-15 Eagle, or maybe a Russian Foxhound or Flanker interceptor, or maybe even a Navy Tomcat. He tried to remember just exactly what an F-15 looked like and found he couldn’t separate the images of twin-engine, twin-tail interceptors in his mind.
Well, all right, it would have to do. They needed air defense, didn’t they? This might not be exactly right, but it could fly and it could fight. That was good enough.
Anyway, there was some good stuff. The conformal fuel tanks along the sides of the fuselage under the wings were right. And the missiles and drop tanks hanging from the pylons beneath the wings and body looked right. Who cared if it wasn’t perfect? It was wicked and it was all his.
"Hey Mikey," he yelled, "look what I’ve got."
"Yeah?" Mikey came out of the main keep, wiping his hands on a rag.
"There," Craig gestured proudly. "It’s a robot F-15."
Mikey walked over to the plane. "Bullshit."
"Huh?"
"Bullshit. Look, you’ve got a missile under the left wing and a drop tank under the right."
"So?"
"So what happens if you drop the tank or fire the missile? You’ve got an unbalanced load on the plane. And anyway, that missile isn’t off an F-15. It looks Russian or something. And you’ve got the center drop tank painted with a red nose, like a bomb."
"So who the hell cares? It will fly and it can fight. All right? That’s what’s important, isn’t it?"
"Who’s it going to fight?" Mikey demanded. "We’re the only people in this world. You think the Russians are going to come swarming in here or something?"
"We’re here to fight someone," Craig said stubbornly. "They told us so."
"Oh yeah," Mikey agreed. "We’re gonna have to fight all right. But shit like this," he gestured at the plane, "isn’t going to be what decides that battle."
"Oh yeah? Well, what will decide that fucking battle, hotshot?"