Fenzy by Robert Liparulo Read Free Book Online

greased by blood.
    Taksidian shook his head. In one way Atlantis was indeed the perfect society, in that it represented man’s nature: greedy, violent, unapologetic. He had witnessed hundreds of cul-tures, societies, and times. In every one of them, these traits ruled. Those who embraced them instead of fighting them became the kings of their time. Taksidian embraced them, so he deserved the luxury and power he was amassing.
    He realized others disagreed, but they were wrong.
    Phemus finally reached the terrace, his massive shoulders rising and falling by the exertion of moving his bulk up the hill. The man had been captured by the Atlantians as a child. He’d fought many battles, some for Atlantis, many for Taksidian. The dumb brute was like a massive attack dog: vicious and obedient to his master.
    Taksidian slapped the man’s arm, and told him in Phemus’s language, “Good job, my friend. Now come.” He walked to the other side of the terrace and stopped at a sundial. The gnomon —a pencil-like shaft—rose from the center of an intri-cately carved dial face. Its shadow pointed at a symbol, showing that it was about three in the afternoon.
    He selected a black marble from a stone cup and dropped it in a dimple above the symbol that represented seven o’clock. “I have to get back to Pinedale before Time comes for me,” e said, eyeing Phemus. He pointed at the marble. “Go to the house when the shadow strikes this marble. If an opportunity presents itself . . .” He smiled. “Do some damage.”
    Phemus nodded.
    “We’re almost finished ridding ourselves of this current enemy,” Taksidian said. “Rest now.” He opened the door to the house and entered.
    Phemus followed, trudged to the bed, and sat.
    Taksidian thought Phemus’s “waiting mode” was like a vacuum cleaner waiting to be used. The man would have no life at all without me .
    He caught sight of an empty peg on the wall and sighed. “That kid took my tunic. I tell you, those boys were a thorn in my side to the end. Get me another one.”
    Phemus nodded.
    Taksidian approached the heavy door that blocked the por-tal to the other house. It was counterbalanced, which allowed it to open with a light touch in just the right place. He opened it now. Through the doorway, black shadows swirled through slightly-less-black shades, like different types of oil mixing together. A cool breeze touched his skin, and he paused.
    Normally, the Atlantian portal led directly to the house— thanks to the items from there he had stolen and affixed to this portal’s doorframe. Time, as it always did, tried to pull the items through the portal so it could deposit them where they belonged: in the Pinedale house. Instead, he and Phemus used this conduit to move to and from the house. An ingenious setup , Taksidian thought with smug pride.
    But, like a closet, the antechambers were normally breeze-less and without temperature variations. The cool breeze told him the portal wanted to take him on a brief detour before delivering him to the house. The only time it did that was when he possessed a specific antechamber item. Then the item itself directed the portal to take him to the time and place it repre-sented . . . then to the house.
    Not that he minded the detours. Usually, they showed him boring scenes of woods or streets. But sometimes they treated him to history’s most entertaining action sequences: hordes of screaming families snatched up by the tsunami that devas-tated Alexandria in the year 350; the nuclear age’s equivalent at Hiroshima; the slaughter of General Custer’s 7th Cavalry by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull’s warriors.
    Those detours he expected, because of an antechamber item he had brought with him; this one puzzled him.
    He scanned the items around the portal, thinking maybe the boys had messed with them. A plank of wood, a scrap of wall-paper, a doorknob, a nail, a shingle. They all seemed in order.
    He patted his pockets and pulled out the