The crimson witch

your assumptions-do you think he won't want to conquer a piece of it for his kingdom? He is a vain old man. Knowing a world lay untouched by his power would be too much for him.”
        Jake laughed.
        “What's so funny?”
        “Yeah,” Kaliglia questioned, too. “What?”
        “It's just that neither of you understand my world,” Jake said, standing and waving his arms wide. “It's big. Damn big. Bigger, by far, than that old fart Lelar. So big it could swallow him up. It could gobble him whole in less than a day, and he would be lost and afraid and no threat at all. My world is much like what your world must have been before the nuclear war here. The cities number in the millions, not in the thousands. Your castles would fit into the lobbies of our largest buildings. On our highways, there are great chemical-eating dragons, some larger than Kaliglia, that prowl all hours of the day and night, mechanical dragons built by the people of my world, tamed by them. Lelar would be the little fish in the big pond, and he wouldn't last.”
        “Tell me something,” Cheryn said, eyeing him wisely.
        “What?”
        “Do they have Talenteds in your world?”
        “My God, no! That's what's so wonderful about it. In my worldline, a man doesn't spend his entire life suppressed and oppressed by witches and warlocks and sorcerers!”
        “Then your world would fall to Lelar.”
        “Huh?”
        “Imagine a Talented set loose in your world, hiding and unknown. Imagine a man set loose in your world who could control the weather, bringing great floods, great blizzards, hurricanes, hail storms. A man who can maneuver matter with his mind, moving it where he wants it as quickly as he wants, a man who could cause the earth itself to shift beneath your cities and tumble them into ruins. A man who can even work to bend another man's will somewhat. A man who-it has been rumored among the Talented for sometime now, rumored by those least given to deceit-can, when his powers are at a peak, even read the basic thoughts of another man. He's the only mind reader ever reported among the Talenteds-a formidable power even if an erratic and weak one. What could such a man accomplish in your world?”
        Jake sobered. He felt his dreams crashing down inside his head, and his skull ached from the mortar of hope showering up in chip and clouds. “Well-”
        “Wouldn't he eventually rule?”
        “They have great weapons in my world-”
        “He can deflect them.”
        “Fire-”
        “Will roll off him like water, leave him unscathed.”
        Jake sank down on the ground once more, sucking a tooth and rubbing his scraggly beard, pushing fingers through his copious fall of hair. “I see the picture. Big and clear. And I don't like it at all. He could take over. Easily.”
        “So you can't just approach him and volunteer to go through the wall. He musn't suspect that you are interested in the wall in any way.”
        “But how will I get through, then?”
        “I will take you.”
        He looked at her, somewhat astonished, realizing that it was the natural thing to expect and wondering why he had not, therefore, expected it. “You?”
        “Didn't you mean what you said back there when we made love? Don't you love me, too. Don't you? Like you said?”
        “Sure. Of course I do!” He grabbed her, pressed her close.
        Kaliglia grunted.
        “Then you would not leave me if you found the portal, you would either stay-which you have repeatedly sworn you will not do-or you would take me with you. If you work with me and swear to take me along, I will help you with my magics, help you to reach the throne room on the base of Castle Lelar- see, you would not even know which floor to look on-and I will get us through it. Shall we agree to that?”
        “Well, it might be dangerous-”
        “Is this a brushoff so soon?”
        “No. I agree.” He hugged her, bit at her neck, rubbed his beard over her face, smelling the warm femaleness of her, enjoying the yielding curves of her young body.
        “Do they shave in your worldline?” she asked.
        “Sometimes.”
        “I like you smooth. Smooth, long hair and smooth face.”
        “I promise.”
        “ Now” she said, “we ought to go.”
        He grinned. They started to stand, jumped erect. A sound from something very large and very near came booming through the