The Hero King by Rick Shelley Page A

know, Gil. I’ll go crazy if I don’t.”
    I picked Joy up and held her against me. She seemed very fragile just then, close to the breaking point. I could see the hysteria lurking behind her eyes, looking for a chance to break loose. That meant that I couldn’t even begin to tell her what the elflord had said was waiting for everybody—or what I would have to do in order to save anything at all.
    “Aaron can make a spell to protect us from the radiation,” Joy said. “We can ride horses if we have to. I’ve been taking lessons, remember? And if the bridges are out, horses can swim.”
    “Aaron’s spell against radiation barely lasted the few seconds I had that doorway open, remember?”
    “I have to find out, Gil, one way or another.”
    And she had a set of the rings.
    “I’ll talk to Aaron. Don’t you go doing anything foolish. Even if there is a way to go back and get to St. Louis, you can’t go. You’re pregnant, remember. You can’t take any risk of radiation, spell or not. You can’t risk the baby.” It hurt talking about the baby, but you have to go on as if there was a certain future. It’s either that or curl up in a corner and suck your thumb until the end comes.
    “Promise you won’t do anything foolish like trying to go through one of the doors to Louisville?” I said.
    “I have to know, Gil.”
    “Not that way, Joy. Not that way.”
    She turned away from me for a moment, and I wondered if I was going to have to tie her up to keep her from doing something stupid.
    “You’ll find out for me?” she asked.
    “If there’s any way possible,” I promised.
    “If you don’t, I will try myself,” Joy said. “I have to know.”
    Baron Kardeen knocked and came in when I called. Aaron and Lesh were back. Annick was “safely” in the hands of Sir Compil at Castle Curry. The others were in Parthet’s workroom. Aaron was briefing Parthet on what the elflord had said.
    “Come on, Joy,” I said. When I stood up, I was still holding her. I let her down and put my arm around her. “We’ve got a lot of business to deal with, and not just seeing how we can find out about your family, I’m afraid.”
    I hesitated. She had to know how desperate the situation was, but I was still afraid that she wouldn’t be able to handle it—and not just what I was going to have to try to do to rescue some part of our universe.
    “There’s worse trouble than World War Three back home,” I said. “There’s only the slimmest chance that I’ll be able to do anything to help, but nobody else has even that much chance.”
    She didn’t respond. As much trouble as I was having relating to the greater crisis, I couldn’t expect her to get beyond her worry over her family, not without a little time … and maybe some news.
    Parthet seemed almost cheerful.
    “What are you so tickled about?” I asked. I’m sure it didn’t sound very good-natured.
    “The news was much better than I expected,” Parthet said. “Much, much better.”
    “You think the End of Everything is better?” I asked.
    “No, no, the beginning, the beginning . Haven’t I told you?”
    “Told me what?”
    “We all recreate our past, and some people do it more effectively than others.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of my groin. He wasn’t close enough for me to need to flinch, though. “If you can find the Great Earth Mother and, ah, get close enough, you have the balls to do the job right.”
    “What’s he talking about?” Joy asked.
    Thanks a lot, Uncle, I thought. I took a deep breath. “It means that I have a chance to save something of this universe by doing what Vara did back at the beginning of time.”
    “Does that mean what I think it means?” Joy asked.
    “It means that I have to try to track down a mythological being who may or may not be the goddess who gave birth to our universe, and I have to use the family jewels we swiped from her shrines to get her to do it all over again. It’s the only hope any of