Beware the woman who does not exist, yet is everywhere. Paymaster Stenstrom and his Countess-in-Waiting, Lady Gwendolyn of Prentiss, are paid a bounty of riches to perform a simple task, and then everything changes. The weight of the Universe comes down upon them. Paymaster Stenstrom learns he is in the gaze of the destroyer of universes, the Shadow tech Goddess, and also that he is in a race with sinister forces hoping to curry her favor and bring about the end of all things. It is a race he and Gwendolyn must win. They will investigate ancient places hidden in plain sight and travel to long lost worlds unseen in ages. They will feel fear such as they have never known and walk in a Garden of Horrors where all is revealed and Stenstrom comes to know the truth of his place in the universe. The Shadow tech Goddess silently watches the doings from her throne in the Hall of Mirrors, seeing all, collecting information, and her verdict might finally be cast one way or the other.
Ren Garcia is a Science
Fiction/Fantasy author and Texas native who grew up in western Ohio. He has
been writing since before he could write, often scribbling alien lingo on any
available wall or floor with assorted crayons. He attended The Ohio State
University and majored in English Literature. Ren has been an avid lover of
anything surreal since childhood, he also has a passion for caving, urban
archeology and architecture. His highly imaginative "League of Elder"
book series is published by Loconeal Publishing
Connect with the Author here:
From Chapter 10: The Shadow tech Goddess
The storm of chaos subsided. Dull obscurity sharpened into ebon clarity. Stenstrom was sitting in a vast room. Smooth marble, lofty columns and fine accessories, it reminded him of a great Vith hall with the lighting turned down. The gothic décor appeared to be all black, but it might have been dark blue or possibly brown, it was difficult to tell.
He was seated at the end of a long table. How long did it go, a hundred feet, two hundred, possibly longer? A legion of high-backed black chairs were tucked neatly in at either side of the table. Each chair, and there were too many to count, was occupied by silent figure, all sitting straight with practiced posture, he could see their elegant silhouettes.
All the people at the table appeared to be female; it reminded him of his mother’s table back in Tyrol, full of his twenty-nine sisters. His sisters, except for a few, also sat with perfect posture, chin up, shoulders back, slender and stately in their chairs.
The figures were all lock-still in their seats, like wax statues rendered in sitting positions.
He got out of his chair with a loud drag across the floor and approached a nearby figure. “My lady?” he asked. The woman seated in the chair did not move, her gaze fixed on the table surface. He stooped down to get a look at the side of her face. It was a somber black-haired woman.
“Recognize her?” a soft voice asked, filling up the room. It startled him.
“Who’s there?” he asked, reaching for his NTHs, which were not present.
A figure sitting at the distant far end of the table moved slightly and responded. “Me. I’m here.”
He squinted. The figure was seated too far away to make out clearly. “Show yourself!”
“As you wish.” The figure stood and walked around the table. It approached with slow, measured patience, its footfalls noisy and hollow. It too, like all the others in the hall, was female. She was wearing an odd, tight-fitting costume, like an Astro Trader in their body-fitting elastic suits he often saw scrubbing down the hulls of shipping at port. In the dim lighting, her costume mystically seemed to be made out of black liquid. Her costume flowed seamlessly into her shoes which sported impressively long heels making a din of noise with each step:
POCK! POCK! POCK!
The sound of each step she that took bounced across the room:
“Do you recognize her?” the figure asked again. She wore a light cape which took flight in fluttering rolls as she walked.
“Where am I?” he asked as he watched her approach.
“Where? Where have you been for the last month or so?”
He thought a moment. “The Hall of Mirrors?”
“Yes. Well done.”
The woman arrived at his side at last. In addition to her odd costume, she wore a bizarre helmet that was perfectly round, like a ball. The only part of the woman’s face that could be seen was her pale chin, her mouth and her nose, the rest was covered up by her helmet. “You’re sick, right now. Gift-Valve, I think they call it.”
“I don’t have Gift-Valve.”
“Yes you do.”
He looked around the hall. “If this is the Hall of Mirrors, then where is the Anatameter?”
“Over there.” She pointed down the hall. Stenstrom looked but didn’t see anything. “Don’t bother,” she said, “it’s not yours.”
She gestured to the lady seated at the table. “Not to change the subject, but I’ll ask again: do you know this woman? I’m quite curious.”
“I can’t really see her face, just her profile.”
“Oh? Look again.” Stenstrom turned his attention back to the woman. She was now looking up directly at him over her left shoulder. She was pretty and proud, her expression was small-mouthed and somewhat sad.
“I don’t know this woman,” he announced.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, I am certain.”
“I didn’t think you might. You couldn’t know them all, could you? You aren’t the All-in-One, are you?” She stood there, her liquid-like costume flowing around her.
“What? Who are you?” he asked.
“Me? I am the person who has been worshipped for ages. There are many who follow me. There are many who seek me out.” She bowed with a flourish. “I am often called the Shadow tech Goddess.”
He was taken aback. “You are the Shadow tech Goddess?”
“That is correct.”
Stenstrom looked her over. She seemed to radiate some sort of innocuous other-worldly power, she was alluring and charming, but certainly was not what he had expected. He had expected something more grand, something incalculable, inconceivable, incomprehensible and irresistible. Standing before him was a shapely and oddly dressed woman, but nothing more. She seemed to be something that could be faced, could be dealt with if need be. His personal impression of the Shadow tech Goddess had her more like a force of nature radiating fear rather than a singular individual, an elusive beast always just out of reach. He touched her hand; she did not react or pull it back. She allowed him to examine it. Her hand was small and delicate, and perfectly tangible. Her costume felt like warm latex. She took his hand and laced her fingers with his. “I am flesh and blood, sir, I assure you.”
“And you are the destroyer of all things?” he asked.
“I destroy things from time to time, yes. Why must you be so glum?”
“I was expecting something different.”
“Like what?”
“Something more impressive, I suppose.” She made a slight surprised expression with her mouth. He quickly responded. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. You are certainly attractive and stately, that’s not how I envisioned the Shadow tech Goddess. Why am I not quaking in fear right now?”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Would you like to be? What is it about men and being afraid? Men love to be afraid, I’ve observed. Perhaps it’s that little rush of excitement you receive afterwards, like you’d just withstood something or accomplished something important. Fear has an addictive quality to it.”
“I don’t enjoy being afraid.”
“Ah well, then. I apologize for not being what you expected.”
He called her attention to the table. “Who are all these people?”
Still holding his hand, she led him down the length of the long table, passing one silent female after another. “These are your loves, Lord Belmont, across the various realms, realities and pocket-plains of the Universe. There are so many of them, aren’t there?”
“These are my loves?”
“Indeed. As you touched on earlier, you are in the Hall of Mirrors, and what comes out of the Hall of Mirrors, I’m certain you’ve been told; your loves, and here they are.”
They passed woman after woman and he didn’t recognize a single one. The woman who called herself the Shadow tech Goddess lifted her hand. “Here at this table, sit the also-rans, the one-timers, the ones who are more infrequent in your life. If you took an accounting of each one, you would, no doubt, begin to see a few here and there you know.”
“How can I not know them?”
She shrugged. “There are many of you. Their exploits took them on vastly different paths. Here are the results, a lot of ladies at a lot of tables. Might be a man or two mixed in here somewhere.”
He ran his gaze up and down the table; so many. An army of souls sitting there motionless.
“I’m told you killed one of these ladies sitting here, horribly I might add, and that you stole my Anatameter at Clovis.”
She placed a demure finger to her chin and tapped it. “Did I? I have no memory of that. I don’t steal things.”
They reached the end of the table at last. There was an open doorway leading to a colorful outside area, a harsh contrast from the dim, dark hall.
“Are you saying it didn’t happen?”
“No, I’m saying I didn’t do it.” She looked around, holding her helmet still with her left hand. “You did lose the Anatameter, that’s certain enough, and you’ve been stuck here in the Hall ever since, barely managing to avoid my wraith.” She smiled. “So far you haven’t annoyed me. Unfortunately there’s more to worry about in the Hall besides simply me. There are quite a number of horrors residing here, all focused in on you at the moment. Would you care to see?”
“What are they?” he asked.
“Come with me outside. I’ll show you.”
She held her gloved hand out for him to take and she led him outside into the glare leaving the infinitely long table and the ladies sitting there behind.
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