Chapter 1

 

    It was a quiet night: the kind of night when lovers would walk hand-in-hand down the street, stop, and start making love. Or sit on benches and make love there. Or in bus-stops, or under awnings, or in alleys. The kind of night when a crazy old man holding a musty bouquet of fake flowers would approach you and ask if you happened to have thirty-six cents. Or the kind of night when a bunch of guys lying on the sidewalks outside of bars would make cooing sounds at you, which really didn't mean anything except that they were intoxicated.

    All of which Kjeck saw as he walked down the sidewalk, ruddy green in circular patches under the electric lighting, dark grey everywhere else. He kept one hand in his pocket, next to his knife, and scratched at his beard with the other. Living on the street made a lot of things unavailable, like mirrors and showers, so he knew that the half-disgusted, half-pitying stares he received from civilized folk as he made his way to the tiny wilderness refuge--a technical term; the place actually was home to no wild things--weren't just coincidence. He used to smile and wave at the people who gave him such looks, but he'd since grown bored with seeing their flabbergasted expressions (how could a hobo be happy?) every time. Instead, now, he would look them in the eye, reach inside of his other pocket for his flask, and take a long swig with his head tilted back. It didn't matter if it was empty or not; he just liked seeing the looks on their faces. Usually it wasn't empty, though. Like tonight.

    The entrance to the little grove was marked with a white, plastic arch, which stuck off of the top of the white, plastic enclosure fence that surrounded the place. Kjeck kicked aside a beer can as he walked under the arch, sending up a little cloud of cigarette dust that twinkled under the orange security lamp. The place was less populated than usual tonight. Off to his left, hiding in the darkness under an old elm, was a group of twenty-something-year-olds passing around a joint. They looked warily up at him as he walked by, but went back to their adventures in La-La Land as soon as they saw his long disheveled hair and the piece of thrown-out bed sheet that held it away from his face. Further in was a park bench, on which was sleeping another homeless man, this one dressed in a dun jacket and wool cap even in the warm city air.

    Kjeck passed these artifacts by, making his way toward the back of the little forest, where the trees were a little denser and the people a little thinner. The light from the security lamp gradually fell away, leaving the place a kind of lead color. Even under the trees, everything was clearly visible, though; the city lights were bright enough to penetrate the canopy no matter how thick it might have been. The gravel path gradually disappeared, replaced by dirt made from rotted leaves no one ever bothered to pick up. Small round mushrooms grew in little patches near the trees' roots, which made Kjeck smile. No matter what kind of poisons the Parks Department used to eradicate them, they just kept coming back. At least it made some people happy. Probably people like those twenty-something-year-olds.

    As he approached the back wall, Kjeck suddenly noticed a dim white light coming through a gap in the trees, flashing back and forth haphazardly, like someone searching for a contact lens with a flashlight. As he came nearer, it stabilized, and a voice whispered something. Kjeck walked a little more slowly, hoping he hadn't run into a drug-deal or something else. Figures appeared in the white light, either hunched over or wearing hoods.

    Kjeck stopped and peered at the figures from behind a particularly thick maple. He could see now that his latter guess was right; they were actually wearing hoods. There were four of them, standing in a circle around the light-source, which Kjeck could now see was a bug-zapper. Below the zapper, though, was a short, round table, on which sat a little black cauldron.

    Seeing as how it was the most bizarre thing Kjeck had seen all month, he made himself a bit more comfortable and sat down to watch.

    The four hooded figures stood stock-still, heads seemingly bowed, hands clasped in front of their faces like they were praying. They were all mumbling, or maybe chanting; it was difficult to tell. Occasionally their voices would rise in unison, but then they would all quickly drop back to disorganized murmuring and stay that way for several minutes. The first thing it made Kjeck think of, oddly enough, was school, back when their class learned about ritual and other archaic practices. The teacher had them all stand in a circle, holding hands, and recite an incantation about bringing peace to the world. It hadn't worked.

    The group went suddenly silent, and the figure on the left side stepped up to the cauldron and dropped something in. A faint plopping sound indicated that the cauldron was filled with some kind of liquid. Kjeck toyed with the notion that they were making a magic potion.

    Once the whatever it was had been placed in the cauldron, the group once again bowed heads and made some kind of final, murmuring prayer, then stepped back and removed their hoods. To complete the bizarre and in many ways hilarious picture, Kjeck now saw that they were all teenagers. Two had long spiked hair, and all had at least four rings somewhere on their faces. They all were smiling now, discussing their ritual and patting each other on the back.

    "So," one said. "Who wants to try it out?"

    This brought a bit of nervous laughter, and no one said 'me'. The one who asked--Kjeck subconsciously denoted him 'leader'--looked around at everyone's faces, and raised his hands in a "why not?" kind of gesture. "We made a damn potion; someone's gotta' try it out to see if it works. So who's it going to be?"

    Kjeck had to stifle a laugh; it actually was a magic potion. These kids were practicing magic.

    He couldn't hold it back any longer. With a huge grin on his face that he couldn't erase, Kjeck stepped out of the shadows into the bug-zapper's white glow. The four magicians stared at him with wide eyes as they noticed him, and each one subsequently turned dark in the face. Kjeck raised his hand with a laugh, and said, "Me. I want to try it."

    "Man," the 'leader' remarked under his breath, "I can't believe somebody else came back here."  The others just stared at Kjeck, mouths hanging partway open.

    Kjeck shrugged. "What's the matter?  I said I'd test your potion for you. You've got a volunteer. You should take it."

    "You some kind of bum?" a different kid--one with spiky hair--asked. He had a teen-aged vacant look in his eyes, which to Kjeck explained the lack of tact.

    "Totally," Kjeck replied. "Now give me some of that damn potion. No one's going to miss a bum, right?"

    He noticed a stack of paper cups sitting on the table beside the cauldron, so he picked one up and dunked it into the black pot. It came out with half a cup of a thick kind of sauce, looking a bit like apple-butter in the bug-zapper light. The 'leader' stepped forward with a hand outstretched, then hesitated, and finally simply shrugged his shoulders. "I guess... sure, why not?  I do want to see if it works, and I don't want to try it myself. You don't wanna' know what's in that stuff, man."

    "You're probably right," Kjeck replied. He lifted the cup forward, said "Cheers," and downed the whole thing as quickly as he could. It tasted like a mixture between tar and cranberry juice. Or, at least, something like that. It wasn't pleasant, anyway.

    But Kjeck was already a bit tipsy, and he swallowed every drop of it, smacking his lips afterwards and pretending like he didn't really want to vomit it right back out. He raised the cup again. "Marvelous," he said, then let the cup drop to the ground. "Here's a good question," he continued, taking out his flask so he could have something to wash away the taste of the goo. "What exactly is this potion supposed to do, anyway?"  He took a long gulp until his flask was dry, then screwed the cap back on and replaced it in his pocket.

    The boys were all looking at him with either abhorrence or admiration, or maybe both. "It's actually supposed to be a love potion," the 'leader' replied. "Makes you more... you know. Desirable."

    "Glad I drank it, then," Kjeck replied. "I don't get a lot of that these days. Can't imagine why."

    As he spoke these words, he felt a strange feeling, like a tug, only not on his body. It was a bit like when you spin really fast and then stop; a tug on your brain and the fluid in your ear canals, which makes you feel like the world is spinning, when really it's just you. He put a hand to his forehead to steady himself, and quickly found that he was leaning against a tree, the young men all surrounding him and looking a bit frightened.

    "You all right, man?" the 'leader' said, then more quietly to his friends, "Damn. I hope we didn't kill him."

    Kjeck rubbed his face with both hands. "Oh hell," he said. "Maybe I shouldn't have had that brandy right afterwards. I think it started a chemical reaction."

    "Dude, you're..." one of the boys said suddenly, but he stopped in mid-sentence and backed up a few steps, looking quite white in the face. The others repeated the gesture.

    "What's the matter?" Kjeck replied. "Am I mutating or something?"

    "It looks like he's fading away," he heard one of the boys say, but the voice was suddenly indistinct, like it came from everywhere at once. Kjeck looked down at his hands. They looked fine, but his eye was drawn to one of those little groups of mushrooms. It was fuzzy all of the sudden, blurry, like a photographic artifact. He looked back up at the kids, and saw that they were suffering from the same effect.

    "What the hell...?" he muttered, the humor of the situation now gone from his mind. The world dissolved slowly before him, and he felt like gravity was losing its hold. Everything became solid white, except for a few grayish blobs floating in space in front of his eyes. The backdrop became incredibly bright, and he shut his eyes. His skin felt like it was freezing off, and a pressure began to build up inside his body, making him fear an explosion.

    Suddenly, he felt a wetness on his arm and then begin to seep through his shirt and build up in his hair. A gust blew freezing air at him, and he opened his eyes. All around him was a snowstorm, white blanketing the sky, the ground, and the trees.

    The trees!  Kjeck closed his eyes again, then looked twice. The trees were pines, evergreens. At the base of one of them was a little frozen pond being immobily fed by a frozen stream. A white rabbit stood at the crest of a short hill a distance away, looking down at him, and then scampered off into the white curtain that was falling, leaving behind elongated tracks.

    Kjeck held out his hand and looked at the little crystals, beautiful symmetrical patterns, like something you'd see in a stained-glass window in some old church.

    But it hadn't snowed for decades.

    As much as he wanted to stand there and ponder the white flakes, though, he thought he felt his skin turning black with gangrene. He had to find some kind of shelter, no matter what might have happened to him. With a hand before his face to keep the winds from his eyes, he trudged off into the white curtain after the rabbit, hoping beyond hope that he wouldn't end up an iced corpse. The thought brought a wry chuckle; first he'd been afraid that he was going to explode from inside, and now he was worried about becoming a TV dinner. He made sure to mark today as the weirdest anyone had ever experienced.

    Rubbing his arms now to keep them from numbing, he walked up over the little hill where the rabbit had stood, and down the other side. A copse of trees stood before him, so he made for it. On the other side, he could just make out a dark shape against the white, rigid and rectangular: a building. He pushed ahead, imagining some kind of scientific outpost, complete with central heating and a coffee machine. Coffee sounded really good right then.

    When he reached the structure, though, his heart sank. The walls, stone, as odd as that would have been (but who would be beyond such a notion today?), were mostly gone, weathered smooth and caved in in several places. Parts of a roof still stood, but only in irregular slabs, some of which were tilted toward the ground, looking like they might fall at any second if too much snow piled on them.

    Still, as run-down as it was, it was shelter. Kjeck ran into the place. One corner, at least, was somewhat dry, so he made his way to it and huddled down against the stone. The wind whistled outside, occasionally brushing his face. He stuck his hands in his armpits and shivered.

    Despite all that had happened in so few minutes, he wasn't thinking about any of it. All that was going through his mind just then was survival.

         

Chapter 2

 

    Some undefinable number of hours later, the blizzard settled down into a soft drizzle. Sitting huddled against the stonework, shivering like crazy and rubbing his arms and legs and face whenever he could, Kjeck felt like his blood had turned into glass shards. His muscles groaned and creaked as he forced himself to stand up and go take a walk. The air was still bitter cold, but it wasn't wet, and that was the important thing.

    The thick white curtain now gone, he was able to see his surroundings as he walked outside of the ruin, and, just for a moment, he stopped rubbing his skin. Tall white peaks rose up in the south (was it south?), with foothills carpeted in thick woods. To the east ran a dip in the snow, maybe a path, bordering a thin river, covered in ice right now, but big enough to carry fish during warmer weather. More mountains rose in the northeast, more distant and blue, and to the west of them was a thin view of sea-green glaciers floating on a distant ocean.

    And there were no people, anywhere. No cities, no towns, no factories, no oil lines, nothing. It was like a picture out of a historical textbook, an artist's rendering of what the world used to look like before it was converted into a giant slab of concrete.

    "I'll be damned," he said to himself. Maybe it wasn't love that he got, but those kids' potion really worked. He shook his head.

    In a kind of daze, he wandered the premises, keeping close to the stone wall in case it started to flurry again. He stepped around a corner, his eyes drawn to a red fox, its lush coat flecked with white flakes, doing a kind of weird jerky dance like a robot, its nose pointed down and its ears fixed forward. It hopped up into the air in an arch, then landed in the snow. A few seconds later, its head popped up with a field mouse caught in its mouth.

    Out of the corner of his eye, he found another attraction; a snowman, with sticks for arms and a smile made out of rocks picked up from the ground. Kjeck walked up to it, looking at it closely. It almost seemed like it had pointy ears, like a cat. Or a fox, why not.

    It was wearing a scarf and mittens, too. Kjeck pulled the scarf off the snowman's neck and wound it around his own, then detached the mittens as well. They were stuffed with snow--probably to keep them looking like hands--so he turned them inside out and beat them against the stone wall. They were a bit small for him, but after a few minutes, when he could feel his fingers again, he didn't care.

    Dressed now in the girly raiments and feeling slightly more comfortable, his brain started to work again. He had no idea where he was, or if anyone lived around here. His only shelter was a broken old stone building that was really only useful for blocking wind, and he didn't know a damn thing about hunting or foraging. Not to mention, all he had on him was a knife, an empty flask, and some cash.

    His situation was seeming better and better.

    But there was the snowman, at least. A dumb animal probably didn't build it, so that meant that people (or maybe something else?) did live in this place, somewhere. He couldn't see them from where he stood now, obviously, but someone had to build the snowman. Right?

    He walked back around the building, following his tracks in the snow, until he came to where he could see his first view of this place. There was that dip by the river. He found himself walking toward the dip and kneeling atop it, brushing aside the snow. Several inches down, he found dirt. He swept aside an arch of the stuff with one arm, and saw that the dirt was bordered by grass. Dead, frozen grass, but not a dirt path. He looked ahead, following the dip as far as he could see. It seemed to wind among the trees, following the river, where, he thought, it might end up at a city.

    With a shrug, he began making his way along the path. It was his best chance to find whoever built that snowman, he supposed.

         

    Though it was strange walking through so much uninhabited land, Kjeck came to enjoy the peacefulness of it all. His head was still buzzing with memories of traffic, police sirens, and shouting matches between drivers, but he found that, as he walked, all of that began to fade away. Now there was just wind and the occasional call of some distant creature. His only memories of things like that were from a long time ago, when he lived in that little desert town near the mountains when he was a boy, before the place was annexed into the aptly and uncreatively named Southwest Vertex City. He used to spend a lot of time in those mountains, climbing around the rocks and pretending he was a hunter. He even made himself a sling shot, which he used to scare desert hares, if he saw them, or break the skin on saguaros to see the pulpy water flow down the side. Once, he tried to drink that water, but it was horribly bitter and burned his tongue, so he never tried again.

    As he walked, the sun broke through the clouds, feeling wondrously pleasant. He still felt fatigued beyond reason, but that, at least, was a good pick-me-up. He walked for quite some time, taking in the warm rays and feeling the kind of euphoria that only comes with lack of energy. It was in this kind of daze that he wandered into the village.

    It took him a moment to register what was going on. As he came across the ginger-bread style houses, complete with white frosting in this wintery atmosphere, he stopped for a moment and slapped himself to make sure he hadn't collapsed on the road and started dreaming. The houses were small and made of wood, with red brick chimneys from which drifted thin trails of smoke, and blue trim around their bases. The largest building, only two stories tall, had a massive stained-glass window showing a man kneeling before yellow rays of sun, his hands outstretched. A cobble-stone path ran through the town square and circled a fountain that, even in this weather, was shooting a stream of water into the air. Right beside Kjeck on the road was a small graveyard: something else he hadn't seen in some thirty years.

    As he wandered into town, he heard singing coming from the building with the stained-glass window, which he subconsciously began calling a church. He debated walking in. If it was like the old churches, the people would be kind and welcoming, telling him that God loves him and blesses him and won't you stay for some tea. Or so he'd read, anyway. But if it was like the new churches, well... he wanted to keep his flesh for a while longer.

    Another building stood out, so he avoided the church and approached it instead. On the front door hung a sign reading, simply enough, "Inn". Though it was archaic, Kjeck was relieved, at least, to find that he spoke the same language as these people. Maybe he was on the same planet after all. He pushed open the door, ringing a small bell, and walked inside.

    A lovely fire burned in one corner of the place, keeping it toasty enough that he removed his little girly mittens and scarf. The owner stood behind a counter, a brunette woman wearing a long green dress with frills at the sleeves. She was giving him the should-I-be-afraid-of-this-man look he'd long since come to accept as everyone's first reaction toward him. After a minute of her staring at him as he looked around the place, she asked, "Is there something I can do for you, sir?"

    "Don't call me sir, first of all," he replied.

    She eyed him with one eyebrow raised. "Do you need a room or a meal?"

    "I could use both, actually," he replied, reaching into his pocket for some money. He pulled out his old wallet and slipped from it a number of crinkled bills and a card. "Cash or credit?" he asked.

    The woman stared at the money for some time, then looked back up at him. "I'm afraid we don't accept... paper... here. A room is five Silver."

    Kjeck stared at her. "Silver, is it?  Well, I don't have any of that."  Last he checked, no one carried silver. The gold standard was eradicated, what, some four centuries ago?

    "Then I'm afraid I can't give you a room."

    "Am I allowed to just hang out here for a bit, until I get a little warmer?"

    Her mouth twisted into a kind of grimace. "I suppose that would be fine," she muttered.

    "Thanks a lot," he replied, and dragged a chair from a nearby table closer to fire. His hands burned with the sudden change in temperature, but it felt great. He'd have to try hard not to fall asleep right there.

    "So how come you're not at church with everybody else?" he asked after a minute, in an effort to keep his eyes open. He turned to look at the woman from over his shoulder.

    She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, then turned and began pretending to be busy with some papers, pulling some keys off of the wall behind the desk. Kjeck continued watching her, until she turned again to look at him and grew red in the face. He smiled. "I'm not from here," she replied, as though that answered his question.

    "Do people from other towns not go to church?" he asked. He tried to keep his voice friendly, but her behavior was making him want to laugh.

    "Not as much as these people," she replied. "It's every day with them. I just get tired of it, is all. Same thing practically all the time."  She brought a stack of papers over to the front desk and sat down, staring at them and sifting through them, a pen now in her hand. Kjeck noticed now an inkwell built into the desk. One more oddity to add to the list, he supposed. "Why do you ask?  Where are you from?"

    "Where am I from..." Kjeck replied, letting his voice trail. At the moment, he didn't exactly know how to answer that. "It's been so long since I've been there, I don't know if I remember anymore."  A little town that used to be called Grid, before it was annexed. "It's in the south."

    "Everything's in the south," the woman replied.

    "Have I reached the top of the planet, then?"

    She merely snorted. The way she was inanely messing with the papers told Kjeck that she really didn't want to be talking to him anymore, so he turned back to the fire and began warming his hands once more. After a few minutes, the sound of rustling papers ceased, and a chair creaked as the woman sat on it. Another time passed, in silence.

    "Do you know Cordelia somehow?" the woman asked suddenly.

    Kjeck turned back around, his arm over the back of the chair. "Who?"

    "I thought I saw her wearing that scarf some time ago," the woman continued. "Cody, the Preacher's daughter."

    "Oh, these?"  Kjeck chuckled a little, waving the filched clothing in the air before him. "Kind of a long, stupid story. You know who these belong to, huh?  Maybe I should return them to her."

    The innkeeper made some kind of noncommittal noise. Kjeck knew what she was probably thinking. No one said a thing for another few minutes, so, when the situation became a little awkward, Kjeck decided to ask the best question he could. "Since I can't stay here, do you know of a place I could stay tonight, for free?"

    "The church," the woman replied immediately.

    Kjeck stood up, his wooden chair scraping across the wooden floor. "Thanks a bunch," he replied, then left the inn, most likely to the relief of the woman.

    He stood outside of the church for some time, looking up at the edifice, feeling generally weirded-out and uncomfortable. He'd had an unfortunate experience for several years of his life because of certain religious people, who managed to somehow worm their way up into the highest ranks of government. He'd witnessed a lot of his friends die awful deaths in prison, in the cells right beside his own.

    With that in mind, he walked inside and found a seat at the back. The ceiling was built so it appeared vaulted, with large columns standing every couple of meters, carved out of wood but painted to look like marble. Some twenty people sat elsewhere, not nearly filling up the place, despite that practically every villager was apparently present. They all chanted some kind of hymn in another language while an old man sat up at the front, behind the altar, playing a pipe organ. Whoever the preacher was, he must not have arrived just yet.

    Kjeck tried to keep himself inconspicuous by huddling down and picking up one of the copies of the little holy books that inserted into pouches on the backs of the pews. He flipped it open to a random place and started reading. By the fourth mysterious phrase and sixth 'thou', he began pretending to read instead. At least it was warm in here.

    Everyone soon stopped chanting, and he set the book back in its pouch, copying the other church-goers and respectfully folding his hands in his lap and bowing his head while the preacher came down a flight of stairs in the far corner of the building.

    When the soft footfalls ceased, everyone raised his head once again, including Kjeck. He had to stifle a gasp.

    The preacher wasn't a human.

 

Chapter 3

 

    Cordelia cleared her throat and tried to suppress the butterflies that were in her stomach. She wasn't exactly comfortable yet giving sermons, but with her father gone on a mission, she was the only villager left available to do it. She knew the scriptures practically by heart, but that didn't stop from worrying about misquoting something or putting something in poor context. Her father was so good at telling parables; she knew for a fact that she didn't have his talent. Not even an ounce of it. All she really had was a decent singing voice, but she couldn't just sing the whole sermon, could she?

    As she began speaking, she caught the gaze of a wild-haired, bearded stranger sitting in the back, staring at her like she was a demon, or maybe an angel. She knew she'd never seen him around the village before; he looked like he might have been crazy. His clothes were strange, unnatural looking things, dull colored and grimy, and he wore a piece of red torn cloth across his forehead as a bandanna. 

    His presence, along with the way he was staring at her, made her feel suddenly twice as uncomfortable. She stopped giving the sermon for a moment and took a drink of water from a glass on the altar. Just as long as her ears didn't start twitching. She couldn't stand it if people started laughing at her.

    Maybe she should try a parable. "My father told me a story once," she began, "about a man who left his family and his village to go on a journey to climb the world's tallest mountain."  She began to pace back and forth, like she'd seen her father do so many hundreds of times. She understood now why he did it. "He traveled long and far, fighting cold and hunger the whole way. When he finally reached the mountain, he barely had any food and water left to him, but he began to climb anyway. He wanted to reach the top so he could be closer to God.

    "So he pushed himself, his noble idea the only thing giving him the strength to keep moving. His hands froze, his ears fell off, his nose became a black wart stuck to his face. He could feel himself slipping away with each new step up the mountain's face.

    "But his faith and his conviction persevered, and he finally reached the top. Now, what do you suppose he found there?"

    She turned to look at the few people populating the rows out before her. Most of them were smiling, at least. Except for the crazy man, who was slouched down with his arms crossed, still staring at her. His eyes were starting to droop. Maybe she would get lucky and he would fall asleep soon.

    She began pacing again. "Nothing," she said. "He found nothing that he didn't have back on the ground. Now, as he lay on the mountain top, his heart and body weary, wondering if would simply pass away then without ever having gotten closer to God, the Lord spoke to him. 'Why do you seek me on a mountain top?' God asked the man.

    "'Because, Lord,' the man replied, 'you are mighty in all things. Surely you must live at a high place, a place where you can watch over us all, above the clouds where the sun shines always.'

    "'My dear son,' God told him, 'I do not have to live on a high place to watch over my children. Surely you must know that I live amongst my children, no matter where they are. You should not have abandoned your family to come see me, for I am always with you. Now go; I will give you the strength to return home.'

    "The man listened to the Lord's words, and he knew that He was right, so he returned home to his family, who were very happy to see him return. 'Did you find God, father?' his only son asked him.

    "'I did,' the man replied. 'But he was not on the mountain top.'"

    She let the parable seep in a little bit once she had finished. The crazy man in the back, she could see now, had closed his eyes, and his mouth hung open slightly. He must have drifted off at some point.

    As she was examining the strange homeless man, everyone suddenly started clapping, startling her. She looked around the church and saw everyone standing, large smiles on their faces. When she fully grasped that they were clapping for her, she couldn't help herself; her ears began to twitch wildly. She took another drink of water.

    Once everyone had settled down, she cleared her throat again, feeling hot in the face, her tail wanting to curl itself up between her legs. "Thank you," she murmured, not exactly sure how to take the response to her parable. Everyone chuckled slightly. "If you would, please turn to Mote 5 and sing along with me. Or if you know the words, you can just sing along."

    Only two people, two young children, pulled out the little books from their places at the backs of the pews. Everyone simply stood up and put hands to their hearts. Dreyfus began playing the tune on his organ, and Cordelia led the group in the ancient chant. Singing would help her calm herself down.

    She saw that the crazy homeless man had awoken once again, perhaps because of the applause. He was no longer staring at her; instead, he was flipping somewhat randomly through the holy book. Maybe he was trying to find the song they were all singing so he could join in. He must not have been familiar with the holy book, else he would have located it by now.

    As they finished, he was still flipping through the book. When everyone stopped singing and sat back down, however, he looked around, a bit like a cat who heard the squeak of a mouse but didn't know from where it came, and set the book back where he'd found it. It was a bit comical, Cordelia thought.

    "Thank you all for coming," she said. "I hope I did an acceptable job filling in for my father."  This brought about another small chuckle washing through the crowd. Everyone stood, chattering as they put on their coats for the short walks back to their houses. The two children made to put the little holy books in their coat pockets, but their parents stopped them and replaced the books in their pouches. Cordelia laughed a little, and both children looked up at her. She smiled and waved, and they smiled and waved back: big, quick arches in the air. Their parents forced them to put their hats on and began pulling them out through the row and into the main aisle, which was filling up with people leaving. Cordelia waved goodbye to everyone one last time, then returned to the prayer room upstairs to meditate on her performance today.

    Once there, she knelt on the small round rug and clasped her hands together, pressing her muzzle against her chest. She tried to clear her mind, but all she could think about was the crazy homeless man, for whatever reason. She wondered why in the world he decided to come to her church, today, she supposed. Who he was. Where he came from.

    Suddenly, she realized why she was thinking about him so much. She opened her eyes and turned around, watching the staircase as someone clomped upwards in hard boots, smelling of... something strange. Oddly familiar. It was a pungent odor, like some kind of metal coated with grease. It was the kind of smell that, even though one might never have smelled it in one's life, reminded a person of something important. Cody couldn't imagine why she thought this way, though.

    The man's grimy head poked up from the stairwell, and he opened his eyes wide as he saw her, kneeling on the floor with her hands still clasped. "Oh," he said, his voice rough and gritty, like he'd been breathing bad air his whole life. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to disturb you. I'll just wait downstairs."

    He turned to walk back down to the main floor, but Cody stood up and said, "No, wait."  The man stopped and turned back to her. Seeing him up close, he appeared less threatening. Maybe it was his eyes; despite the ragged, crazy looking face, his eyes seemed clear and intelligent, if a little hazy with fatigue. He just looked like a man who had a hard journey. "Do you need something?"

    He smiled briefly underneath his prodigious mustache. "Food and shelter, but I actually just came up here to return these to you."  He held out a pair of mittens and a scarf.

    Cordelia looked at the apparel for a moment, then frowned. "Where did you find these?" she asked. She picked them off of the man's hand and examined them. It was a set she started wearing recently, which used to belong to her mother. She felt like she'd seen them recently, but she couldn't remember what she'd been doing with them.

    "Are they yours, then?" he asked. She nodded, still looking the things over. "I picked them off of a snowman out by some ruins a bit, um, west of here."

    "Ruins...?"  Suddenly it clicked; she'd brought these with her when she went to visit the old temple with her father just a few days before he left. "Oh, yes," she replied. "I must have forgotten them when I left. Um... thank for bringing them back to me, sir."

    "I'm not a sir," the man replied, "but you're welcome."  He turned to leave again, but again she stopped him.

    "You said you needed food and shelter?  You are welcome to sleep in the church tonight. I can prepare a meal for you, if you'd like."

    "Oh, well, I don't know if you need to trouble yourself, really. I can tell I freak you out just by being here."  He grinned after stating this.

    "Oh, no, it's not..." she made to reply, but he cut her off.

    "No sense lying about it. My feelings don't get hurt all that easily anymore. If it would make you feel better, I could tell you that I was freaked out when I saw you, too."

    She didn't know whether to laugh or be offended at his blunt manner. She took the best route and laughed. "And why is that?"  He was right, after all, though. His presence did scare her a bit.

    "Well," he replied, suddenly seeming at a loss for words. "You're... I mean, I've never...."  He sighed. "I'm not from around here, you could say. You're the first, you know. Dog person. The first one I've ever seen. Aside from people in costumes, I guess."

    "Is that so?"  It seemed an odd thing to say. "Where are you from, if I may ask?"

    "That's a good question," he replied. "Right now, I probably couldn't tell you exactly. Somewhere south."

    "Everything is..."

    "South, I know. The innkeeper said the same thing. I'm from a place called Southwest Vertex City. Maybe you've heard of it?"

    She blinked a few times, wondering about the strange name. "Can't say I have," she replied. "Is that near Lorukat, by chance?"

    "Lorukat?  Never heard of that."  He watched her for a time, and she couldn't think of anything else to say. She hadn't heard of Southwest Vertex City, after all. Maybe she had been right before. Maybe this man really was a little crazy. Who hadn't heard of the Lorukat empire?  Only the extraordinarily undereducated.

    "Well, I'm sorry I can't help you with that," she finally said. "In any case, why don't you follow me, and I can show you to the guest quarters. I'll start preparing you some soup, if you'd like."

    The man blushed a little bit, though it was difficult to tell through his mottled, dark skin. "I really didn't mean to interrupt your... prayer."

    "Nonsense," she replied. "That was my first time giving a sermon by myself; there's no way I'd be able to concentrate enough to connect with God right now. I'm still too edgy."  She pushed past him and began walking down the stairs, toward the little room with the cots they kept for travelers. After a few seconds, the man followed behind her.

    She opened up the door and stood aside, and he entered. With a final, apologetic look, he went into the room and sat on one of the cots. Cordelia smiled at him and shut the door, then went to the kitchen to prepare some hot water and find some meat in the cellar.

    As she idly prepared the soup, she thought a bit about the man's peculiar smell, wondering what it was that it was supposed to be making her remember. It was funny, how the mind worked. The part that processed olfactory information was closely connected to one of the parts that processed memories, so smells were remembered much more easily than anything else. If a person suddenly came across, say, a certain spice her mother might have used often in her cooking, her mind might flash back to the very first time she'd experienced that smell; her mother standing beside the stove with a white apron, cutting carrots into a black pot, while her father sat nearby on a wooden chair the local carpenter made for him as a gift one holiday. She had been just a baby, then, not even old enough to walk.

    The memory, she found, was making her choke up, so she stopped thinking about it. That was another amazing thing about the mind; some eight years after her mother's death, the emotions she felt then still somehow managed to seep up to the surface every now and then, like they'd never healed. Just gone into hiding for a while.

    But the man's smell wasn't really like that. It brought back memories, but they were fuzzy and confusing, like a dream one couldn't quite remember after having woken up. She said a small incantation and started a fire underneath the pot of water to start it boiling. More like a succession of memories, all piled on top of each other, one picture that was supposed to be many.

    She shook her head. Why would such a man remind her of her mother, anyway?  It was silly. She threw the meat into the pot and sat down to watch it boil. She would be happy to leave the fellow to himself and go take a nice, long nap at home. She was tired, anyway.

 

Chapter 4

 

    ("You're a heartless bastard, Kjeck.")

    ("You could say that.")

    ("I guess we'll have to get ice-cream some other time. Did you hear the news this morning?  They said some crazy medical scientist was arrested for trying to, like, mix DNA of different species together.")

    ("I thought you could do anything you wanted to animals.")

    ("Well, one of the species was human.")

    ("No kidding?  That guy must have huge balls. Was he successful?")

    ("I don't know. They cleared out his lab, trashed most of it, I think. Including his records, so no one could try to repeat his experiments.")

    ("But they didn't find any, like, weird pseudo-human embryos floating in giant containment units or anything like that?")

    ("Didn't hear anything about it. I don't think they'd discuss something like that in too much detail on the news. Gotta' protect us from all the bad people, you know.")

    ("Heh. No kidding. Stupid fucks.")

    ("Well, I gotta' go. You enjoy your day at work tomorrow, Kjeck. I'll see you later.")

 

    Kjeck woke up to thin bands of sunlight streaming in through the curtains of the church's guest room, his empty bowl of soup having gone missing at some point in the night after he'd drifted off. He felt full and rested; two things he hadn't experienced in who knew how long. Time was something of a mystery in this place without any clocks to tell it, but he felt like he must have slept more consecutive hours than he ever had before.

    His head felt a bit fuzzy; he was still in the process of shifting focus out of dream mode, it seemed. He couldn't remember the dream he'd just had; all that remained of it was a long-ago kind of feeling left in his gut. Something about ice-cream.

    His bones creaked a little when he stood up, then popped. He stood for a moment, hands on his hips, feeling the blood tingle back into his legs. His circulation was slow these days.

    Phillis. That was her name. Phillis Johnston. A real simple girl from a real simple family, except that she happened to be a genius of absurd quality. He never did figure out why she agreed to go out with him for so long; she must have known that he was a complete idiot compared to her. He supposed it was because his rude and brash mannerisms appealed to her tomboyish side. Right; they used to go out for ice-cream a lot. She was way into that. That must have been what the dream was about.

    But why the hell was he thinking about that now?  The last time he saw her was... well, he didn't remember the last time he saw her. Some number of decades, probably. It would be interesting to know what she was doing now. Last time he'd seen her, she was working hard to get a PhD in biochemistry or something like that. And he was doing what?  Working for a tire manufacturing company.

    He shook his head. Stupid of those memories to come back like that. What he should have been thinking about was where he was now and where to go next. He stepped over to the window and pulled the curtain back, letting light flood into the room, from the sky, and also blindingly reflected from the snow that covered everything. A couple of quaint little houses were visible, which he'd passed by earlier, both with brick chimneys from which slowly drifted thin trails of whitish smoke. He wondered how many little places like this one there were in this part of the world, and why he'd never heard of them before. Unless it was some weird magical place in his imagination, and he was really just sitting against that tree in the park, apparently dead, but really just way the hell tripping-out. He supposed that was a possibility.

    Some amount of time passed. He knew he wanted to go somewhere, but he didn't really know where, and he was feeling good standing in the quiet church with a full stomach and a clearer head than usual. He probably would have stood there a great deal longer had the priestess not returned to check on him.

    When he heard the church's front door open, he shook his head and brushed his hair back, trying to make himself look sort of half-way presentable, if he could. For a brief moment, he thought it was odd of him to care about something like that.

    The fox woman stuck her head in through the door, her greenish eyes flashing in the light. "Good morning," she said. "I hope you slept well?"

    "Better than usual, I'm sure," he replied. "Anyway, I suppose I need to be getting out of here. Do you know where..."

    "You can stay for breakfast, if you'd like," she said. She was smiling a kind of funny smile. Probably it was just the fact that she was a dog making human expressions that made Kjeck think that way.

    "I, uh..."   He thought for a moment. Free meal. "Sure," he replied, "if you don't mind."

    "Oh no, not at all. I'm not a terribly good cook, so it won't be anything special, but I just thought you might like a little something before you go."  She motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen, so he obliged.

    Once in the kitchen, she set two white plates on a table--one for each of them, presumably--, and a large one in the center, then set to work making up a batter, for bread or muffins or some other thing, and while she worked, she looked over her shoulder at him, ears pointed forward and expression intent. "I wanted to ask you again. What was the name of the city you came from?"

    "It's not anywhere near here; I'm sure of that now," he replied.

    "I know. But what's the name?"

    He raised an eyebrow. "Southwest Vertex City. That's what they changed it to some twenty years ago, anyway. It used to be called Jetport Island. Who knows why."

    "Jetport..."  The priestess's eyes widened considerably, and some amount of liquid spilled out of the bowl where she was mixing the batter and splashed on the counter. She turned back to it and cursed something under her breath, attempted to push the liquid back into the bowl, spilled some more of it out of the bowl and onto the floor, grew frustrated, and set the bowl on the counter and turned to him. "You said Jetport Island?" she asked, her white hands, half caked with yellow batter, on her hips.

      Kjeck nodded. "Used to be called that, then when it took over the entire continent, it was officially renamed Southwest Vertex City, which everyone calls SVC. There's also a North Vertex City and an Eastern Vertex City."  She was looking at him with a nearly unreadable expression, so he shrugged. "You've never heard of any of them?" he asked.

    "I've heard of a place called Jetport Island," she replied, "a long time ago."

    "Oh?"

    "From my mother. She said that's where she came from."

    Kjeck pursed his lips. "Well it's obviously not the same place."

    "And why not?"

    "Because, like I said yesterday, or whenever that was: you're the first, you know... animal person I've seen. Ever. So I don't think your mother could have come from the Jetport Island I'm thinking about."

    The priestess frowned at him, obviously wanting to disagree but not quite knowing how. He tried to help her out. "I don't suppose we could get more details from your mother to verify?"

    She shook her head. "She's moved on."

    Kjeck's brain took a few seconds to work this phraseology out. Finally, it clicked. "Oh hell," he replied. "I'm sorry."

    "Why should you be sorry?  I doubt it was your fault."

    He felt himself growing a bit red in the face. "Well no, it's just a thing.... If it's not too brash of me to ask, how did it happen?"

    The priestess sighed, then stood up and went back to the batter, picking up quickly hardening pieces from the countertop and throwing them back into the bowl, then beginning once again to stir. "I don't know. No one knows."

    They both stood in awkward silence for some time. The priestess finished stirring the batter and placed the bowl atop a burner and recited an incantation. A fire started up under the bowl. The odd mixture of technology and medieval culture wasn't ceasing to amaze Kjeck. Finally, she turned back to him. "Did you know a Doctor Elengway, by any chance, when you used to live there?"

    Something about the name sparked a vague memory for him, but he couldn't quite get a hold of it. He shook his head. "Afraid not."

    She tapped a claw on the counter for a few seconds. "That was my mother's father's name. Maybe caretaker is a better word. I don't know anything about him except that he was a human. I just thought that maybe...."

    Kjeck shook his head. "SVC is a big place; there's a real small chance I'd know anybody you might mention."  He smiled. "Hell, maybe there were really dog-people there, and I just never saw them. I suppose it's possible."

    "Perhaps."  She was trying to maintain a dour expression, but Kjeck could see that the idea brightened her up a little bit. Even if it was a complete lie. She thought for a minute longer. "I wish my father were here. I think he'd be interested to talk with you. I can't put my finger on it, but something about you.... Well, I'd best not say. It doesn't really make any sense."

    "I've seen and heard a lot of things that don't make sense. Go ahead and try me."

    She frowned and gave him a side-glance, then looked down at the table and started making designs with the claw on her index finger. "Well, I was going to say that you remind of my mother. But that's not really what I mean. Maybe it's more like you make me remember my mother."

    Kjeck shook his head slightly. "Okay. That is a bit odd. Seeing as how I didn't know your mother, I guess I can't really say why that would be the case."

    "I know. I said it doesn't make any sense."  She laughed slightly. "It's not even a concrete feeling. Just... something about you makes me think of her. Your scent, maybe."

    "My scent?"  He couldn't imagine that he'd smell like anything but sweat, dirt, and gasoline. Maybe a little hashish and alcohol, too.

    She nodded. "Something pungent on you, like... well, I don't know what to compare it to. It's not anything you can find around here, anyway. An odd chemical smell that my mother used to have about when I was really young."  She laughed again, softer this time. "It's funny how you remember certain things and not others."

    Kjeck had to admit; he was perplexed. "A chemical smell?  I don't suppose you can be more specific?"

    She glanced at him again, and her hand stopped making designs on the tabletop. "Oh.... I don't know. Like I'd be afraid to light a fire near you. Something that smells volatile, active. Something gassy that moves around a lot. I don't know really how to describe it."

    Kjeck frowned. "You're not talking about oil, are you?" he asked.

    She shrugged. "No, not really. I don't think you could cook with it."

    He shook his head. "Not cooking oil. Oil oil. Gas."  She was giving him an odd look, so he waved his hand in the air, trying to elaborate. "Petroleum?"

    She just shook her head. "I don't know that word," she replied.

    "You use it in cars and other machines, to make things go. You spray some vapor of it into a chamber and compress it with a piston, it ignites and shoves the piston back to where it came from, the cycle repeats. Gasoline. I don't know what it's called."

    "Makes machines work?" she said, tilting her head to the side like a curious canine. She shook her head. "That's not what makes machines work."

    He raised an eyebrow. "Oh?  What makes machines work around here, then?"

    "Magic."

    He took a minute digesting that. When he realized that she was completely serious, his lips curved upward, and he began to guffaw. After a few minutes, when his eyes cleared up enough from their tears, he saw that she wasn't at all amused, so he tried to calm himself down. Between chuckles and wiping his eyes, he said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just wasn't expecting that particular answer."

    She simply frowned and turned away.

    He sat watching her for a time, on the verge of another outbreak. Probably he hurt her feelings somehow. "I think what you're talking about is oil, anyway," he said. "It's real pungent and volatile, and I haven't smelled it since I've been in this part of the world. You say you used to smell it on your mother, huh?"

    Her pointed face turned to look at him again. "Back when I was young, yes," she replied, "but it's been a long time."

    "I have to say, that is a little bizarre. Maybe your mother and I really did come from the same place."

    Her head turned toward the stove, and she stood up and picked up the stirring spoon again. She poked the bread, or whatever it was, a little bit, then removed the pot from the fire. Another small incantation, and the fire was out. She then sat back down at the table. "It has to cool," she said, "but it's ready."

    "I was thinking," Kjeck said. "You kind of remind me of somebody I used to know. I had a dream about her last night, actually."

    "Oh?"

    "Just an old girlfriend I had back when I still cared about making an honest living."

    "What do you mean?"

    He shrugged. "Not much more than that."

    "So you just, what?  Travel around, go places?"

    "For the most part."

    "Sounds romantic."

    He laughed again. "That's a funny thing to say."

    Again, she tilted her head to the side. "Why do you say that?"

    "Well, when you travel around, it's hard to find places to eat, to bathe, to sleep peacefully, your legs never stop aching, your lower back starts to hurt, you get worn and weathered, and people always look at you like you're a piece of trash who can't get a job. It's not really romantic."

    "It is in stories. I'm sure it's hard, but it must be an adventure?"

    "Stories only ever tell you the good parts. They leave out the other ninety-nine percent, which is all misery."

    "Hmph."  She stood up again and walked to the pot, pressing the pad on one finger against it to test for temperature. It must have been fine, because she brought the pot over the dining table and turned it over above the white plate she had previously set out. A golden cake plopped out, smelling buttery and quite good. Without a word, she reached into a drawer set under the table and pulled out a knife, which she used to cut the cake into fourths. She lifted one section off of the plate and carried it to his plate, where it landed with a soft plop, then repeated the gesture for herself. After a short prayer, she began to eat.

    Kjeck waited a moment, then began eating his too. Buttery, warm, sugary, soft... it was absolutely amazingly good. He didn't know if he'd ever had anything so good. It was real food, made with real, actual ingredients, without a health plan or diet in mind. He had to restrain himself to keep from tearing into it.

    The two ate their meals in silence. When both had finished, the priestess folded her hands in her lap and looked across the table at him. "Nonetheless," she said, continuing their previous conversation as though there hadn't been a long break, "I think I want to go with you."

 

Chapter 5

 

    "Damn," Kjeck replied. "You really are like her."

    "I am serious, you know."

    He shook his head. "You'd just take off like that?  Just leave everything behind?"  You'd do what I did?  "I thought you were filling in for your father while he was away."

    "I am. I'm not talking about leaving right away. In a couple of days, when Father returns."

    "You think I'm going to stay that long?  I was planning on leaving right after breakfast."

    "Was?"

    "Am. Am planning on leaving. In fact," he continued, pushing his chair back and standing up, "I don't have any reason not to leave right now."

    She stood up as well, suddenly looking a bit worried. "Please don't go yet. At the very least, I want you to meet my father. I want him to tell you the story of how he met my mother. It might interest you."

    He stared at her for a time, frowning. "How old are you anyway?"

    She seemed taken aback, or maybe embarrassed. Looking away, she replied, "It's rude to ask a lady her age."

    "I'm guessing twenty?"

    She didn't respond.

    "And I'll bet you've lived in this little village your whole life. Do you know anything about traveling?  And I don't mean traveling to the little ruin two kilometers from here; I mean taking off and walking for days, knowing your destination is still weeks ahead of you, or maybe not having a destination at all. How far was the farthest you've ever gone?"

    Again, she didn't respond.

    "I'm guessing not very far."

    "You shouldn't assume so much."

    "You're not really leaving me much choice in the matter."

    "Look; neither of those things matters to me, and they shouldn't to you either. I thought a long time about this last night, and I decided that I want to go with you, back to where you came from. This is very important to me. I don't think you could possibly understand how important this is to me."

    Kjeck shrugged. "You're one strange girl. I've been here, what, a day?  And now you're telling me that you're so close to me that you want to be by my side for the next couple of months, maybe years. Did you know I'm a drunk?"

    She made to say something, then cut herself off. "What?"

    "I drink a lot. Too much. And I smell bad most of the time."

    The priestess shook her head. "I'm going to be stubborn about this, you know."

    "We don't even know each others' names!"

    She stuck out a white padded hand. "Cordelia, but most people call me Cody."

    He didn't shake it. "Nice to meet you, Cody. Now I'm out of here."

    He turned to leave, but she grabbed his arm. "Where are you going?"

    "To find some rope. I know at least one way to make sure you can't follow me."

    "Oh, you're just awful."

    "I'm glad you think so."

    "But it doesn't change my mind."

    Kjeck sighed and began walking toward the kitchen door. He'd just go until this girl got tired and couldn't follow him any farther.

    "Phillis was her name?"

    Kjeck stopped and turned around. "Was I talking in my sleep?"

    She nodded. "Dr. Elengway had an assistant who came in every weekday to his lab. A student of some kind. Her name was Phillis."

    "Oh?"

    "Daddy can tell you more."

    He frowned. "You're not very good at it, you know."

    "Good at what?"

    He rolled his eyes. "I take it it's considered a sin in your religion, or something?  It's just obvious that you don't get much practice."

    "I'm not lying!  Mother really did know a woman named Phillis. She used to talk about her almost as much as the Doctor. Since she wasn't ever allowed outside of their house, she didn't have much else to talk about..."

    He didn't reply right away. The conversation was leading places he didn't expect. Some things were starting to click together; he just didn't quite know what yet. Wouldn't it be the biggest, most bizarre coincidence of a million lifetimes if it turned out he had some kind of connection to this girl?  "I meant you're lying that your father can tell me more than you, so thanks for proving my point," he said. "Now what's this about not being allowed outside?"

    "She never knew why. Just that the Doctor told her it was dangerous outside."

      "It was dangerous," he muttered, then, louder, "When does your father get back?"

    "In three days."

    He supposed he was going to regret this. "So what can I do to earn my keep for three days?"

    Her face brightened considerably. "So you will wait for him?"

    He nodded, then shook a finger in the air before her face. "Wait for him. That's all. That doesn't necessarily mean that you're coming with me."

    "What if father agrees that it's okay?"

    "We'll jump that hurdle when we come to it."

    She shrugged. "At least I've managed to jump one," she muttered. "Now finish your breakfast, and I'll show you what I'll have you do. Have you ever chopped wood before?"

 

    He hadn't, but it turned out to be a fairly simple job. Same as sweeping the chimney and going to the market a half-mile out of town to pick up eggs, milk, vegetables, and whatever else the priestess, Cody, asked of him. The only difficult part was explaining to a certain old woman, whose name he never bothered to learn, every morning what it was he was doing at Cody's house with an axe and a pipe cleaner. But he only had to do that three times.

    In the afternoon of the third day he spent at the village, the fox's father returned. It wasn't at all evident.

    Kjeck glanced south from his pile of chopped logs and saw a man walking into the village, his head covered with a leather cap, his shoulders covered with a thick wool cloak, his hands grasping a gnarled branch that he used as a walking stick, his face covered with a light gray beard and mustache. As he approached the village, people began clambering out of their houses, shouting their greetings and running up to him to give him kisses and hugs. He welcomed them warmly and returned the affectations, but his eye was constantly kept fixed on Kjeck. Kjeck dropped an armful of logs on the pile and returned the fellow's expression.

    Cody poked her head out of the door, sniffed the air, then turned her face to the old man with a  large smile. She, too, ran to meet him, and he caught her up in his arms and spun her around. They passed a few words, inaudible to Kjeck, and the old man once more shot him a glance. Cody gained a somewhat apologetic expression and seemed to be explaining something. With another glance his way, they both walked over to the house.

    Kjeck put on as warm a grin as he could manage in the face of such suspicion and stuck out a hand for the old man. "Kjeckliah Udanne," he said. "It was her who asked me to stay."  He nodded his head toward the fox girl.

    "So I've heard," he replied, shaking Kjeck's hand slowly. "Reverend North. It's nice to meet you."

    Kjeck did a double take. "Sorry. I must have been off somewhere else. I didn't quite catch your name?"

    "Jonathan North. The Reverend North."

    Kjeck looked to Cody and raised an eyebrow. She shrugged. "Please; let's all go inside," she said, pulling her father toward the door. "You can tell us all about your journey, Father."

    They all sat down at an old wooden table, and Cody immediately went to the cabinet to get cups for tea. The man, the human man, slipped his travel pack off of his back and threw his coat on top of it, then sat at the table facing Kjeck, his hands clasped before him and his eyes fixed pointedly toward Kjeck's. After a minute of extraordinarily uncomfortable silence, he took a deep breath, then turned his face toward Cody and said, "My dear, would you mind telling me what this is all about?"

    She set the cups down before everyone, with a kettle full of hot water placed in the middle, from which hung a little metal ball full of leaves. She made herself comfortable and folded her hands just as her father was doing. "Father," she replied, "Kjeck came from the same city as Mother."

    "Hold on a minute," Kjeck replied. "That's what we're all here to find out."

    If Cody's intention was to shock her father, it worked. He stared at her with his mouth partway open, his eyes looking more than a little disturbed. This bizarre expression turned once again to Kjeck. "Is she telling the truth?" he asked.

    Kjeck sighed. "I'm from a place called Southwest Vertex City, but that's a fairly recent name. Back in the day, it used to be a bunch of little towns and suburbs of a smaller city called Jetport Island."

    "Did you know a Doctor Elengway?" the reverend asked.

    "I... no," he replied. "The place is huge. I mean, it's probably bigger than anything you could conceive of. Take the population of this village and multiply it by one hundred million, and you'll still be short by about forty million people. So no, I didn't know a Doctor Elengway."  Cody was looking at him with impatience or something, like she wanted him to go on. He shrugged. "But I did know a girl named Phillis."

    "My God," the reverend replied.

    Kjeck shook his hands in the air. "But that doesn't really mean anything. For all I know, there could be two million people named Phillis, and I knew one and your wife knew another. So let's move away from names."  He leaned in a little closer to the preacher. "Your daughter told me that I'd want to hear the story about how you met her mother. Seeing as how you're quite clearly a human yourself, I definitely want to know some details about that."  He leaned back again. "Would you mind?"

    The reverend took a deep breath, then picked up the tea kettle with a shaking hand and poured everyone a cup. He held his with both hands and stared down into the brownish water. After a while not saying anything, he shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm just a little shocked about all of this. Hearing about Jetport Island again made me remember so many things. I suppose it hasn't been that long since she passed away, has it?  I didn't realize just how little I've been thinking about her lately."  He sighed. "Yes," he said, eyes fogging over a little bit. "Yes, I can tell you about my wife."

    Kjeck picked up his cup of tea and took a small sip, then leaned forward to listen.

    "The story of the day we met isn't long," the reverend began. "I was coming home from a mission trip to the south, much like today. It was raining hard. Dark clouds, heavy drops, winds powerful enough to make the rain blow almost horizontally. The lightning was so frequent it was almost like the sun was out. Surreal.

    "In the midst of all of the noise, I heard a cry from nearby. At first I dismissed it as my imagination, but with the next flash of lightning I saw a body moving about in the bushes a short distance from my campsite, an animal-kin, so I went to investigate. That was Cordelia's mother; when I found her, she was completely naked, her fur soaked all the way through, and her belly full with a child. I took her to my tent and tried to dry her off as well as I could, started a fire, wrapped her in my coat and blankets. I was almost certain she was going to die.

    "But, in fact, she made it through the night, and I took her back to the village with me. While I took care of her, I came to realize that she was a very mysterious woman. She spoke often of her father, a Doctor Johann Elengway, and his assistant Phillis. She told me that she lived in a laboratory for scientific research in a city called Jetport Island. She told me that she was born inside of a glass tube, and that her father placed her baby inside of her with a needle. Fanciful things. At the time, I thought she was probably delusional.

    "My second hint that something was awry came a bit later. Priests are meant to help people; they are symbols of goodness and hope in a violent world. This is why I thought it so strange when she cried out in terror and tried to flee when she learned that that was my occupation. I had to calm her down and very carefully explain to her that I didn't intend to harm her, nor would I ever. The fear in her eyes was mortal; I'd never seen such a thing.

    "It wasn't anything she ever wanted to talk about with me. For the rest of our time together, she never once went into a church or participated in any religious ceremony. It was a phobia for her; fear of religion and the practice thereof. I still wonder what happened to her to make her feel this way."

    "I think I might have an idea," Kjeck muttered. Cordelia's ears perked up, but her father continued speaking.

    "After only a week, though, it became clear to me that she was actually quite intelligent. She had a prodigious skill with mathematics; some of the things she showed me echoed what I'd seen in the highest universities in the world, and others may even have surpassed the greatest masters. She said that her father taught her a great deal of mathematics and science. Her knowledge of medicine and the body was vast; I used a great deal of what she knew to augment my own healing abilities.

    "But she had some very peculiar ideas. For instance, she firmly believed that everything was made up of extremely small particles called 'atoms'. She said that the 'atoms' themselves were made up of even smaller particles, which she called 'electrons', 'protons', 'quarks', and a whole host of other funny names. These particles, she said, weren't even concrete things; she said that they were just mathematical formulas, probabilities in space and time, which means that they exist everywhere at the same time, but only manifest themselves in certain places, where they're most likely to be. She said that sometimes they can even pass through solid substances just by nature of it being possible for them to exist on the other side. It was all very strange. One second; let me find something."  With that, he stood up and walked a short distance to his small room, fiddled around in the bottom drawer of his dresser, and came back with a large envelope full of papers. He lay it in front of Kjeck. "These are some drawings of things she made to try to explain to me some of the concepts I was telling you about. Maybe you could look through them while I continue the story."

    Kjeck nodded, then pulled out some of the papers. They were mostly scientific drawings; a few models of electron orbitals, a graphic representation of an electromagnetic wave, the like. He slowly made his way through the pile while the priest continued speaking.

    "By the second week she was in my care, her baby had grown to such a size that it was impossible for her to go out anymore, so I gave her my bed and took care of her until she gave birth to the child. During that time, we became quite close. I had grown quite fond of her strange stories and ideas, and she loved hearing me talk about my trips to the south. We decided to get married once the baby was born."

    The preacher stopped for a time and took a few sips from his tea, which was probably lukewarm by now. Kjeck was enthralled by the story. The last thing he expected to hear coming from this small-town preacher's mouth was an overview of quantum mechanics. He took another sip of his tea, and realized that it was the second one he'd taken. His tea was lukewarm, too. "And so you lived happily ever after, until?"  He set the papers aside for a minute.

    He nodded. "Some number of years ago, she suddenly became quite sick. Her fur began falling out in large clumps, and she often got nosebleeds. Within just a few weeks, her eyes formed cataracts, and she went completely blind. She often complained of pain in her chest and lower back. I used everything I knew about healing to cure whatever it was that ailed her, but her condition continued to worsen. Within only two months, she died."

    The last word came out choked, and the preacher set his undrunk cup of tea on the table and rubbed his face with both hands, leaving a wet smear to shine in the sunlight streaming through the windows. Kjeck chose not the speak for a few minutes. The look of anguish on the man's face, even so many years after his wife's death, was a testament to his devotion to her. Kjeck had never felt that way about anyone; it was either the most beautiful thing in the world, or the most horrible. Maybe it was both.

    After what might have been ten minutes, Cordelia stood up and put her empty tea cup in the sink. She was the only one who'd finished hers. "Well, Kjeck?" she asked. "Did any of that make sense to you?"

    He took a deep breath and let it out of his nose, then picked up the papers again. There were quite a few; he'd only made it through half the pile. "It was very... intriguing."  The name Johann Elengway was running through his head. Where in the world had he heard that name before?

    "Mr.... Udanne, was it?" the preacher asked. "If you believe you are from the same place as my wife, I wish to know."

    Mathematics, quantum mechanics, medicine, artificial insemination.... In this world, where people believed in God and magic at the same time, and where plants and animals were the dominant life-forms, those things didn't seem like they could possibly exist. The only other answer was that she was from a different planet than both Kjeck and these two preachers, and that seemed just as far-fetched, if not more. He found her in a bush during a rainstorm. He appeared by a pond during a snowstorm. Nothing was concrete, but he had a feeling....

    "I suppose it's possible," he said.

         

         

Chapter 6

 

    Cordelia broke out into a large smile. It wasn't a definite yes, but she didn't need a definite answer yet anyway. This was the chance she needed to get her father to agree to let her go with Kjeck, to search for her mother's birthplace. She was just about to put out the idea, when her father spoke.

    "Then I must ask you, Kjeck; would you want to take my daughter back to your home with you?  That is, as long as you wish to go, Cordelia."  He turned to her and smiled, the corners of his eyes wrinkling.

    Kjeck's face went completely slack for a few seconds, and he stopped sifting through the papers. Cordelia grinned; easy victory. Kjeck shrugged once he regained composure, and went back to the little pile. "Home isn't as pleasant a place as you folks seem to think. To be honest, I'm not even completely sure I want to go back myself. I haven't seen so much natural beauty for decades, and vagrants here are treated as guests and are fed wholesome meals and given free lodging for a night or two, rather than spit on and occasionally thrown in prison."

    "Perhaps it is too much to ask..." her father replied.

    Cordelia shot him a harsh look, then, quickly putting a more pleasant face on to face Kjeck, decided to butt in. "This is the only way we can think of to find out what it was that killed my mother. Surely you can understand why that would be important to us?"

    Kjeck shook his head. "I can understand that you'd want to know, but... I mean, I don't even know where to start looking. Neither do you, I'm assuming?"  He shot her a quick look coupled with a smile.

    She didn't, of course, because her mother was the same way. All the more proof that he was from the same place, but she knew that wasn't what he cared about. He didn't want to take a little religious girl along with him on his journey, was the only reason he continued making excuses. She watched him examine the papers, one at a time, always frowning slightly but making no other sign of emotion.

    Just as she was about to speak again, he stopped and stared hard at one thin yellow sheet of onion paper. "What was the subject of this one?" he asked, then handed the paper to Cordelia's father.

    Her father took it and held it a distance from his face, squinting his eyes in an attempt to see better. Suddenly, he laughed. "Oh, this. I remember."  He handed the paper back to Kjeck. "This was the product of one of our biggest philosophical arguments, actually. My wife, you see, believed that certain things could be passed down from parents to children, whereas the Holy Book clearly states that each new life is a pure form, to be shaped by its experiences. She said that that object there was the mechanism through which those traits are passed. She was very firm about it; as I recall, we never did come to an agreement about that."

    Kjeck's brows furrowed deeply, and he set the paper atop the rest. He crossed his arms and stared hard at it for some time. "I didn't think of that," he muttered. He shot a quick glance at Cordelia, then took a deep breath and again let it out of his nose. 

    She leaned over to look at the paper. It didn't seem to be anything particularly intriguing; just a shape, a bit like a spiral staircase. "I was thinking," Kjeck said suddenly. "I think I'm just being stubborn, is all. And selfish. I'm just used to traveling by myself, having all sorts of freedom; I just didn't want any of that to be spoiled by having to take care of a girl on the way. But you know... maybe I could do one good thing in my life, and help someone else gain experience in the world."

    Cody felt her chest constrict. "You mean...?" she squeaked out.

    He just nodded.

    Cody's chest welled up with a mixture of victory and gratitude. "Oh Kjeck... You are a good person after all. I'm so glad!"  She ran over to him and put her arms around him. "Thank you so much!"

    Kjeck looked over to her father one more time. "You sure you're okay with this?"

    He nodded solemnly, though his lips were curved up about as far as they could go. "It's a difficult decision to make. This is why I made it so quickly. I know if I dwell on it for too long, I'll change my mind, and in the end I think that we would both be worse off."  He looked to Cordelia, his eyes tired and watery, but smiling. "If ever there was a better reason to go on a pilgrimage, I can't think of one," he said. "And I know it's what she wants."

    The sound of pride in his voice was almost unbearable. She hugged him tight, holding back sobs. "Thank you so much, Daddy."

         

    The following day marked a turning point in Cordelia's life. She packed together all of the things she thought might be necessary on a journey, leaving behind many things she wanted but knew she wouldn't enjoy carrying on her back for days, had one last breakfast at home with her father and Kjeck, and left the village to a chorus of teary goodbyes from the villagers. Their destination was south, because, really, there wasn't anywhere else to go.

    She quickly learned just how inexperienced she really was with such things; the first few hours were quite pleasant, and she felt confident that she would have no problems, but at a short and indistinguishable time later her level of fatigue began to increase exponentially. Her paws ached tremendously, her legs felt stiff and sore, and her lower back protested the weight of her own body. She tried to put on a pleasant visage to hide these sudden grievances, but Kjeck seemed able to tell nonetheless that she was having problems. Despite seeming annoyed, however, he offered that they rest for a time. His behavior toward her continued to be so benevolent during the following many days, for which she was incredibly grateful. It did seem a bit odd that he change his comportment so much since she first posed her idea to him, though. She wondered what it was that he saw in that simple drawing.

    Though their progress was slow because of her, they reached the foothills of the mountains within only a week of setting out. She never did ask.

    Sitting at the base of a hill only a few hours travel from the mountains, she could see the signal fires that were constantly kept alight to mark the path, small red glows in the midst of dark daggers of earth that were visible only because they blocked the light of the stars behind them. Kjeck sat a short distance away, heating some dry sausages over the fire. She watched him for a time. "I was wondering," she said, causing him to look up at her. "Why do you think mother was afraid of going to church?  You made a comment when Daddy spoke about it before we left."

    He pursed his lips slightly and shrugged. "It's because of what happens when people in high places try to clandestinely force their beliefs on others. I experienced a lot of unpleasant things because of that kind of mix of religion and politics. I'm assuming it was the same way with your mother."

    "What do you mean, unpleasant things?"

    Again, he shrugged. "It's complicated."

    "Tell me more."

     This produced a sigh, but within a few seconds he started speaking. "The image of the perfect society, in the eyes of the church, was a city full of four-member, cozy families, where the father worked to support the household, the two children played with their brand-name toys, and the mother cooked and cleaned all day long in her unrevealing clothing, finishing in time enough to kiss her husband when he came home from his job running a flourishing business selling computers. 

    "Everyone needed a job, a house, a spouse, and children. The people who were lacking one or more of those things weren't treated the same as everybody else."  He sniffed and rubbed his fingers through the hairs on his chin. "Vagrancy, which was my occupation, really, became illegal again, after some number of centuries where all it would get you is a concerned look and maybe a bit of money in your hat. I got thrown in prison, along with all of my drunken street-hobo buddies.

    He paused a second to collect his thoughts. "The major problem with that was that some of my buddies were only homeless because they didn't quite have the brains enough to earn their own keep working a job. If you catch my drift."  He looked to her, but she could only return a blank expression. "Mental handicap, was the official term."  She hadn't heard the expression before, but she could guess the meaning. She nodded. "They mostly just called themselves loonies, though.

    "In any case, prison life was doubly hard for them. People in jail tend to target people who are different or somehow stand out, and when they hear your cell-mate babbling to himself at night about pennies in the toilet or what have you, they tend to react. Violently, sometimes. And since I was affiliated with them, and since other people knew that, I had a hard time staying alive, too."  He stopped for a minute and scratched a small spot beneath his ribcage. Maybe an old scar?

    "It was like that for a real long time, until the end of the president's term, when a new, less faith-oriented cabinet was elected. In effect, that was the end of a long reign of terror for a lot of us. All us vagrants--everyone who was still alive, anyhow--were let out of prison."  Pursing his lips, he looked off into the distance for a second.

    "We were all offered a government pension as recompense for the time we spent in jail, but I refused it."  She inclined her head, wondering why. He seemed to get the sense of her gesture, because he replied, "I didn't want to be in any way in the government's debt. The next thing I did was make friends with some hackers so I could get my identity erased from public record. That was the only way I could feel safe."

    Cordelia could only wonder what kind of religion Kjeck's people believed in. It sounded to her almost more like a cult. But he never really answered her question. "So then, what do you think happened to mother?  She told me that she always lived in Dr. Elengway's laboratory."

    Kjeck shrugged. "Depending on what kind of research Dr. Elengway was doing, maybe she was apprehended at some point as an accomplice to a crime, just by virtue of being there. I'm not entirely certain."  As he said this, he gained a thoughtful expression for a time, then began tapping his fingers on his knee and shook his head. "It could be any number of things," he muttered. "In any case, I'm hungry. Let's finish these things off."  He pulled the little logs of meat from the stick above the fire and handed a few to Cordelia. She wanted to discuss a bit more, but something about his demeanor suggested that he wasn't in the mood anymore. They ate the minuscule meal in silence, and went to sleep for the night shortly thereafter.

    Passing through the mountains took much longer than it probably should have. Cordelia had no idea just how much more difficult it was to move uphill for such long periods of time. By the second hour, her legs were wobbling with each step; so much so that Kjeck decided it best to stop and rest for a while. By the end of the first day, she could barely stand up.

    The second day was worse, so they decided to sit at a camp for another day, just so she could recuperate. Even Kjeck was having a somewhat difficult time; he explained that SVC was mostly a flat place, so one never really had to exercise his legs quite so much to get around. Plus, the path was thin and slippery with mud and snow, and often quite treacherous. Simply keeping one's balance took a great deal of energy.

    As such, with incredibly slow progress, they made their way through the pass. At each beacon, they were greeted by the monks of the monasteries in the mountains who guarded the lights, and were welcomed into the little wooden buildings for food and lodging. The rest of the time, however, the path was quite lonely; it was so cold and so high up that other creatures were a rare sight. Cordelia noticed only the occasional long-horned mountain goat easily making its way up steep cliff sides. She yearned to have its ability.

    Two weeks after their initial climb, they reached a warmer climate, and trees quickly replaced snow and rocks. The path became more well-tended; flat stones lay here and there, not yet completely weathered away by fierce conditions, though mostly half sunk into the soft earth at odd angles. The frost from the cold morning having melted in the sunlight, the path itself was slick and muddy, but at least now there were trees to hold onto for steep descents and rocks to add a source of friction to climbs. And the forest was simply more pleasurable than the barren heights; more birds could be heard, more plants gave off pleasant aromas, more brightly colored mushrooms sprouted on fallen tree trunks.

    The land soon flattened out, and they came to a river whose slow flowing water was a deep green color. This was what they were to follow to reach the city of Theltrielle, far still in the south. The road became a real thing once the land flattened out; it was paved with old stone that was soft and covered with lichens, but it was paved nonetheless. Two deep ruts ran along the edges where merchant wagons traveled whenever they came by this way.

    The presence of the road made the journey quite a bit easier on Cordelia, and their progress went much faster. Within a few days, they reached a small forest town called Foreeville, where they spent the night in soft beds: a welcome relief.

    The following morning, they continued their journey. Beyond the farmlands surrounding Foreeville, the land was completely devoid of human life for days and days. As they traveled farther south, everything became greener and more thickly verdant. Cordelia knew, from her father's stories, that they were nearing the Great Forest, the name given to the land at the far south side of the continent that was completely covered in thick woodlands. Beyond the countless thousands of square kilometers of forest was the city of Theltrielle. Beyond that somewhere, across an inlet and even farther south, was the former site of the capital of the Lorukat Empire, which waged war against the peoples of the north for nearly a century some time in the distant past. The site was forbidden now; the end of the empire came in a mysterious fashion that still wasn't understood completely, and everyone believed the land to be cursed.

    But that was a long distance away.

    Several more weeks passed, and the two of them encountered only a few more farming communities and small villages, most of which had no name to speak of and were only populated by one or a few families. Cordelia could sense that Kjeck was becoming a bit agitated by the lack of civilization; if what he said about his home city was true, she could see that this kind of comparatively wild landscape would be completely strange to him. She thought, herself, that she would have approximately the same reaction to his city; the presence of so many people all the time would become incredibly aggravating, she was sure. So she could sympathize.

    Two months after they first set out, they reached the edge of the Great Forest, marked by a small monastery, where monks in brown robes meditated here and there, performed slow exercises elsewhere, sat quietly reading texts in other places. They were greeted at the gate by an esteemed monk and his entourage, who invited them into the temple for a meal and lodging. Kjeck seemed surprised that he knew they were coming.

    "We have eyes and ears in the trees," the monk simply explained. "Do not be alarmed. We adore having guests. It is quite a rare opportunity to share company with others."

    This was proven a bit later when they were both served a wonderful meal of fruits, several different kinds of birds, nuts, and fresh vegetables from the small gardens planted around the monastery, and were subsequently treated to take part in a ceremony to honor the spirits that protected them and the forest. Cordelia was delighted; she didn't share quite the same faith as these men, but she could see the passion in their eyes, so she knew that they felt the same kind of wonderful consciousness of spirit she did in her own church. Kjeck seemed mostly to be trying to not offend anyone.

    With the coming of night they were shown to a very old site in the main temple; an obelisk of a musty reddish color, decayed and quite smooth, with some kind of writing adorning its face. She peered at the stone for some time, but couldn't make out what it said. The dignified monk leaned his head closer to hers and read with a powerful tone. "There are many truths in this world. Mankind's gift is to put those truths to good use. Always remember, however, than every gift can be abused."

    Cordelia nodded appreciatively. "Is this part of your doctrine?"

    "No," the monk replied, "but it does make sense, does it not?"

    "How old is this?" Kjeck asked, looking closely at the stone.

    The monk thought for a minute. "One can't be entirely certain, but we believe it dates back to the discovery of magic. It probably served as a kind of warning to the old inhabitants of the forest not to abuse their new-found abilities."

    Kjeck considered this for some time, then simply shook his head. "I guess you can't be sure," he replied.

    Cordelia watched him for a minute, wondering what he might have been thinking. When she grew tired of his silence, she spoke. "Let's get to bed, shall we?  We have a long trip through the forest, yet, you know."

    "Of course," he replied. Nonetheless, he continued to regard the stone for some time thereafter.

 

Chapter 7

 

    Cordelia woke in the night to the sound of music outside, a flute playing softly. It was a mysterious tune; slow, without a consistent meter. She listened to it for a minute, then began to softly hum alongside it. Suddenly, it stopped, and she felt a chill run down her spine all the way to her tail. Why did she know that tune?

    In fact, when she tried to reproduce it, she realized that she didn't. She lay her head back on its pillow, ran a claw along the side of her muzzle. Her heart was beating too fast; she'd never be able to get back to sleep. She threw her sheets off and quietly stepped out into the main hall, then followed the path outside. Fresh air would be good.

    The forest air was cool and sweet smelling. Night creatures rummaged about in the bushes nearby, invisible to the eye but obvious to the ear and nose. Cody looked up into the sky at the stars, half-obscured in all directions by branches thick with leaves and birds' nests, and took a deep breath.

    An odd shape caught her eye. Off near the gate to the main road was a creature with long ears that seemed to be sitting on a thin fog of air, like a small cloud. Its large eyes shined in the darkness; it was looking at her. In one of its paws was a small wooden flute.

    Before all of this registered in her brain, however, the creature turned and floated off into the darkness of the canopy. "Wait," she began to call out, stretching forth a hand, but didn't want to wake the others. Her hand fell limp at her side, and, after a minute or two, she walked back into the temple to her bed. Maybe in the morning this all would start to make more sense. Without another thought about it, she drifted off to sleep.

 

    The following morning, she and Kjeck started off on the final long leg of their first journey. In effect, the forest was so thick that the scenery quickly became quite boring to look upon. One could only see so many trees and bushes. This went on for countless kilometers, however, broken only by the occasional small stream or lake, and, once, a wooden sign that read, simply, "Beware of bandits", which was moist and half covered in fungus.

    Days passed by much more slowly in this monotony. After another week, they finally emerged upon a clearing, where they decided to make camp. Even though it was the middle of the day. From that location, they could see the sky, and that was all that mattered.

    As they sat, listening to the ever present and ever varying chitters of birds, the broken whistle sound of cicadas, and the chalk on blackboard sound of crickets, Cordelia decided that maybe now was a good time to bring up the question that had been bugging her for the past month or two. She wasn't sure why now was the time; perhaps it was the lack of anything better to think about. She coughed lightly to get Kjeck's attention. He looked up from the pile of firewood he was collecting and raised an eyebrow. "Need something?" he asked.

    She looked away for a second and began drumming her claws on her leg. "Why did you finally decide to take me with you?" she asked.

    "Kind of a silly question to be asking now, don't you think?" he replied.

    "No, I don't think so. It was extremely abrupt; one minute, you were stretching to find reasons why I couldn't come with you, and the next you call yourself selfish for not wanting me to come. What was it about that picture of mother's that changed your mind?"

    "I don't think you'd be able to understand."

    Cody huffed and planted her hands on her hips. "What a rude thing to say. What wouldn't I understand?"

    Kjeck shrugged. "You believe that all new life is completely pure, right?  Clean slate?"  She nodded. "Then you wouldn't understand what it was about that drawing that made me change my mind."

    "You don't mean to tell me that you believe the same as my mother did?"

    "Or, at least, you wouldn't want to accommodate for my beliefs in the matter, so it's pointless that I explain it to you."

    "You're treating me like a child."

    "You never did tell me how old you were."

    Her nose wrinkled a little, and her ears pointed backward, like a dog being threatened. "That's because it's not right for a man to directly ask a woman her age. It's absolutely improper."  In response, he gave her a look that simultaneously conveyed sarcasm and sincerity. Her claws started drumming on her leg again. "I'm eighteen, alright!  Eighteen!"

    "I'm fifty two. Nice to meet you."

    Fifty two?  She wasn't sure if she believed it. He sure didn't act like an adult. She simply crossed her arms and looked away.

    He sighed. "Adults give each other respect, you know. How about this; I'll explain it to you when we get to where we're going. I think you'd accept it a little easier there, anyway."

    "I'm not sure why you have to hide it at all," she replied. "It's immature."

    His face fell into a kind of mask; it was something he did whenever he didn't want to discuss a topic further. Despite that she was feeling affronted by his lack of respect, as he put it, for her, something about this expression mollified her. It was a mask, she supposed; there was always something behind a mask. She bit her lip and turned away from him. "I suppose it can wait," she murmured.

    She didn't bring the subject up again.

 

    Within another few weeks, they came to the south side of the forest, where the land cleared out. At the base of a small patch of mountains stood a tall structure; a castle of a majestic height surrounded by a city standing on three different tiers of stone, with a ring of cottages and huts sitting on the land around the structure. Farther away were large swaths of farmland: golden rows of wheat, red and green fields of apple trees, short white forests of cauliflower. The ocean glistened in the sun some distance away, a deep blue that didn't exist far in the north. They'd finally reached Theltrielle. 

    They immediately tried to find an inn. The forest floor was not a particularly comfortable place to sleep.

    Cody knew it was making her look like a bumpkin, but she couldn't stop herself from gazing wide-eyed at everything. It was a strange city, in any case. No one had a lawn or yard to himself, because everything was situated on different levels of stone plateaus; as such, the roads, staircases, walls, and everything else were all made of stone. The houses were all quite tall and packed together; in some cases, it was difficult to tell where one house ended and another began. The roofs were deeply slanted, tiled with curved green clay slabs, which led rainwater to gutters that carried it down into grooves in the streets, and finally through metal grates. Where it went from there, one couldn't be certain just by looking. And the amount of people out walking was enormous; in certain parts of town, it was difficult to move forward without nearly crashing into somebody moving the opposite direction. There must have been thousands living there.

    Above it all stood the castle, gray and imposing, with numerous spires and towers on the corners of the walls and on the roof, and along the sides were the odd architectural phenomena known as flying buttresses, from each of which hung red and white banners bearing what must have been the royal family's sigil, a red and white eagle swooping downward. The front gate was taller than three men and was completely made of iron. Two guards stood before it, both wearing a full suit of plate mail, with joints designed for optimal movement, and bearing halberds, also adorned with the King's sigil. The whole place was frightening for Cody, but, at the same time, it was exciting.

    On their way to the inn, Cody locked eyes with a man who was standing with his back against the wall of a nondescript building. Nothing seemed particularly strange about him, but he gave her a bad feeling nonetheless. She quickly averted her eyes and moved on. Odd city folk, she supposed.

    As she walked forward, however, she noticed that Kjeck was no longer by her side. Feeling a sudden knot in her stomach, she turned, scanning the faces and heads of people in the street for the familiar red cloth that the man refused to get rid of. When she located it, she pushed herself through the crowds to him, heart beating fast. She touched his arm. "Kjeck, what are you doing?" she asked.

    He backed up a step and raised an eyebrow at her. She could see the man from before turning to walk away; Kjeck must have been asking him something. "Just asking the locals where to find a room," Kjeck replied. "You scared or something?"

    Her mouth opened slightly in surprise, but she firmly closed it. "No. I was checking to see if you got lost."

    He laughed.

    Once they found a room for the night and stored their belongings therein, Kjeck turned to Cody and smiled. She waited for him to say something, but it never came. Ears twitching, she asked, "What do you want?"

    "I wanted to say that I'm going to the bar."

    She raised an eyebrow. "You seem really pleased about that."

    "I don't know how long it's been since I've last had a drink. You coming with?"

    She frowned. "I can't drink alcohol. It's against my religion."

    He shrugged. "Then I guess you're on your own."

    She frowned. "On my own?  In this huge place?  Kjeck, you can't just leave me alone here!"

    A smile emerged on his face that proclaimed, 'I knew it'. "You'll be fine," he said, patting her on the shoulder. "Just act confident, even if you're not. People only target people who seem like they're lost or confused, or otherwise easy to take advantage of."  With that, he turned and left the room.

    "Wait, Kjeck!" she called after him, but he didn't come back. She sat on her bed, looking at the open door, mouth hanging partway open. Her heart started to beat hard. How could he just... how he just leave her like that?  She was counting on him for protection!  She didn't understand it... he'd been so nice to her the past two months, taking breaks to let her rest, hunting for them both when necessary even though he barely knew how himself, putting up with her incessant questioning and chatter. Why would all of that change now?

    She didn't know what to do. She didn't want to go out into the city by herself. Don't act afraid, even if you are... what kind of advice was that?  How could she not act afraid?

    She stood up and shut the door. She'd just stay put until he came back.

         

    He never did return. Several hours after the sun went down, Cordelia was still sitting on her bed, worrying that someone was going to try to break into their room. The activity outside the window seemed to have slowed down; the only things she heard pass by for the past hour or two were a couple of stray dogs and one raccoon.

    She was at her wits' end; if that man didn't come back before the sun came up, she'd.... Well, she didn't know what she would do. She'd be stranded in this huge city. She'd have to go out at some point, because the inn's owner would kick her out, and then what?  Someone would club her out, rob her, and leave her for dead. Or maybe worse. What was that man thinking, leaving her alone like this?  She was delicate, a priestess!

    Her head was buzzing through all of these thoughts, but even so, out of the corner of her consciousness, she heard the sound of a flute playing.

    Suddenly, she stopped thinking about Kjeck and the city. Her ears perked up, and she quietly opened up the shutters and peered out. From further down the street, a familiar melody drifted: strange, without a real meter.

    She closed the shutters and locked them, then dashed off of her bed, put on her boots and traveling cloak, and ran outside. Halfway down the hall, she realized that she forgot to lock the door, but she didn't care.

    The restaurant on the main floor was completely empty and dark; it must have been later than she thought. She pattered down the stairs and made her way to the main entrance, unbolted it, ran outside. The sound of the flute drew her to it. She ran down dark streets in between tall houses, lights all out and windows shuttered, her footfalls echoing off their stone walls.

    The song grew louder, and she found herself in a square with a fountain, turned off for the night. Sitting in the center of the square, visible only by the stars, was a small creature with long ears, looking like it was sitting on a thin bank of fog, a flute held up to its mouth.

    Its eyes opened, shining in the dim light, large and black, and it lowered the flute. Cordelia put a hand out. "Please don't run away again," she said, softly. She approached it, slowly, trying not to scare it away. It simply continued to stare at her. A few paces from the creature, she stopped and lowered her hand. She knelt down on one knee and looked into the creature's face from eye-level. She'd never seen such a creature before; it looked a bit like a brown rabbit, but with no nose and a much longer tail, and fur patterns that seemed somehow artificial. "Will you play me the song again?" she asked.

    It said nothing, but Cody thought she heard someone nearby whispering something inaudible. She felt another chill run up her spine as it raised the flute once again to its mouth. As it played, she hummed along with it. Though she knew she'd never heard the song before, she never missed a note. All she felt was a soft warmth in her breast, tickling her throat to sing the notes with the flute. She felt like if she started to concentrate on the song, she'd lose it.

    When it was finished, the creature held up the flute in its paw, and it disappeared in a twinkle of fairy-lights. It then turned around, gliding atop the little cloud that was its cushion, and began drifting away. This time, Cody simply watched it go.

    Suddenly, it stopped and reversed direction. Its large ears were standing aright and pointing toward Cody. She watched it for a second, tilting her head to question what it was looking at, then pointed her own eyes behind her. She then heard it, too; a low growling sound, coupled with a distant pattering of paws. The wind carried a scent of wolf.

    The creature appeared in front of her, swiftly gliding toward the source of the smell. Cody backed up to the fountain. What was a wolf doing in the city?  She hated wolves....

    Everything went completely silent. The creature turned around, and from out of the shadows jumped a giant beast of a dog, its shoulders standing up to Cody's chest level. Its mouth was open, snarling, frothy, and it lunged for the creature. Cody could only stand stock still, suddenly terrified.

    A bolt of light filled the square. Cody raised her arm to shield her eyes, then squinted in the sudden brightness. All she could see was a silhouette of the wolf, standing before the creature with its head bowed low, its hackles raised. The light dimmed, and she blinked to clear the spots from her eyes. A darker patch on the ground marked where the wolf had been standing, a thin trail of blood leading up to a dark swath on its side, where a small stream continued to pour, twinkling dully every now and then. The beast limped along in a circle around the creature, which simply sat on its little cloud, following it with its head.

    When the wolf came around a second time, Cody saw a glint as it turned to look at her. A thin rope of saliva fell from its mouth, and its nose wrinkled into a fierce growl. With a heave of its back legs, it leaped into the air, right toward her. She stared at its immense form bearing down on her from above, her eyes wide and fearful, her heart beating hard enough to bruise her lungs.

    A tongue of fire suddenly appeared behind the wolf, then ballooned into a veritable explosion. The wolf's trajectory shifted from the force of it, and its head slammed into the fountain's basin. Its body crumpled onto the stone walkway, a large dark pool forming quickly under it.

    Cody watched it for some time, then, realizing what she was doing, started and leaped aright. The creature still sat before her, its eyes shining with starlight. A hand to her heart and eyes drawn back to the smoking corpse of the large wolf, she took a deep breath, then whispered, "You... saved me."

    Once more, she heard someone whispering nearby, hardly even a sound. The creature held up a paw and pointed down a nearby alley. Cody's ear twitched once, and she slowly made her way to the mouth of the thin path. Peering down into the darkness, she heard a slight moaning. A smell drifted up to her nose; a mixture between alcohol, urine, vomit, and....

    She ran down the alley and turned Kjeck over onto his back, looking him over with a worried eye. His face was a bit bruised, but otherwise he seemed alright. Unconscious, but alive. She lifted his arm up over her shoulder and heaved his limp body aright, then began the long trek back to their room at the inn.

    When she reached the mouth of the alley, the creature was gone. Looking up into the sky, she cast a quick prayer for it, and a thank you. 

    As she dragged Kjeck through the stone streets, she threw a quick glance over at the corpse of the wolf one more time, and did a double-take. The shape was different. The dark puddle was still there, but the form sitting atop it was human.

 

Chapter 8

 

    Pounding, firey pain spread all the way through his body when he opened his eyes. His hair even felt like it hurt. Little gremlins were inside of his eyeballs, drilling away at his brain with welding torches.

    And he was hallucinating. Hadn't they gotten a room at an inn the night before?  Inns didn't have iron bars across the windows.

    When recognition finally came, he shot upright, then very quickly regretted it. A hand touched his shoulder as he cradled his face in his arms, trying to get the spots to stop swimming before his eyes. "Kjeck," a voice said.

    He looked up into the face that produced the voice, and saw a fox. Cordelia, right. The girl he'd been travelling with for some number of months. Vaguely, he wondered how many brain cells he killed last night. He supposed it was better not to know. "What's up?" he asked, cradling his head again. Polka dots, is what they were. Not spots; polka dots, like on a clown suit.

    "We... um..."

    She never finished the sentence, so he took a risk and looked up into her face again. "We um what?"

    Her eyes trailed off to a different direction, and she tilted her head slightly; a very feminine way of saying that something was wrong. "There's been an... accident."

    "We're in jail, aren't we?" he asked. The bars on the windows... right. He knew he'd seen those somewhere before. She simply nodded. "And I suppose it's my fault?"

    "Oh no no!" she replied, shaking her hands in the air before her. "It's actually... well, in a sense, it's my fault."

    He raised an eyebrow, then lowered it. Even that action was painful. "I'm trying real hard to think of what you might have done that got us thrown in jail."

    She continued to look everywhere but at his face. Her claws started drumming on the stone floor; an action Kjeck had quickly come to associate with bad tidings. "You could say..." she started, then stopped, took a deep breath. "I killed someone," she finished.

    Kjeck's face went slack for a minute. "You killed someone."

    She just nodded.

    "You killed someone," he repeated.

    "Well, it wasn't me, persay, who killed him. But I was right there, and I was the only logical culprit, so it was assumed that I killed him."

    Kjeck wanted to shake his head, but he stopped himself. "I don't think I'm following you."

    "She told the town guard that an alien creature did it," another voice, gruff and sooty, replied. Kjeck looked over to its source, and noticed that they had two guests; a human with short brown hair, dull clothing, and a face that you couldn't remember even if you were his brother, and a wolf-hybrid with black and grey-streaked fur. The wolf was looking at him through half-closed lids, like he was annoyed that they were there.

    "We have cellmates," Kjeck muttered. Cordelia nodded.

    "Thanks for noticing, bum," the wolf replied. "Can't hold your liquor, or something?"

    Kjeck grinned. "You try staying conscious after drinking a half-pint of Gutbuster."

    Cordelia stared at him, shocked, but the wolf looked at him out of the corner of his eye and raised a white eyebrow. "Never heard of it," he replied. "Strong stuff?"

    "You better believe it," Kjeck replied. "It's not ethyl alcohol, I don't think. It's gotta' be something else, because I've had Everclear, and this stuff was worse than that."

    "You gotta' be kidding me. Worse than Everclear?"

    Cody was looking back and forth between the two of them, a bewildered expression on her face. "Everclear?  Ethyl alcohol?  What in the world are you people talking about?"

    "You've never heard of Everclear?" Kjeck asked her, frowning. She shook her head. "But you have?" he asked the wolf. He nodded. Kjeck tapped a finger to his lips. There was no way.... "Must be something unique to this area, I guess. So," he continued, smiling, "how'd you guys end up in here?"

    "You make shit for small talk, man," the wolf replied, looking away.

    His partner coughed slightly.

    Kjeck shrugged. "Not much else to talk about, is there?"

    "We didn't do nothing," the wolf muttered. "Absolutely nothing."

    "Well, actually..." his friend started, but the wolf cut him off.

    "Shut the fuck up, Lerk!  That was not our fault!"

    His friend, Lerk, simply shrugged.

    Kjeck looked between the two, amused. "So you did do something. What was it... vandalism, theft, murder?"

    The wolf glared at him through half-closed eyes, his lip rising just a little bit to show off his canines. "Murder," his friend said suddenly, and the look turned to him.

    "Hey, me too, apparently!" Kjeck replied.

    "Ours wasn't our fault, either," Cody mumbled from beside him.

    "Right," the wolf replied, still sneering. "An alien did it. To protect you."

    "Well what's your excuse?" Cody snapped.

    The wolf sighed through his nose, and didn't respond. Lerk made to comment, but the wolf interjected. "Lerk, I'm gonna' rip your fucking tongue out if you say anything else."

    "Because our story is just as unbelievable?" Lerk replied, face calm, as it had been since Kjeck first saw him.

    The wolf made to snap back at him, but a rattle on the cell door stopped him. Everyone turned to look as the door opened, letting in light from a torch. A guard stepped inside, followed by two others, all fully armed. "Prisoners," the lead guard said. "Which amongst you is called Kjeck?"

    Kjeck's brow furrowed, and he looked to Cody. She smiled shyly. "They wanted our names," she whispered.

    Kjeck shrugged and raised his hand. The guard looked at him, his nose almost in the air, and huffed once. "Due to the circumstances of your arrest, in the event that you were unconscious at the time of the crime of which you are accused, you are free to go."

    "Really," he replied. Cody's eyes suddenly popped wide open, and she grabbed at his sleeve, shooting worried glances over at the wolf and his partner. He got the gist of what she was trying to say. "I think I'll go ahead and stay, anyway," he replied.

    The guard raised an eyebrow. "And why is that?"

    He shrugged. "Don't have anywhere else to go. And I can't leave my lady behind."  He gave Cody a wink. She stared at him; maybe she was blushing. It was hard to tell.

    The guard fidgeted, suddenly unsure of what to do. It didn't seem that Kjeck's decision was part of protocol. The guard stood for a moment, thinking about how to get it back within that realm. He turned to his two partners and whispered something. Finally, he turned back to Kjeck. "Do you mean that you wish to appeal her case?" he asked.

    "Oh," Kjeck replied. "I can do that?"

    The guard nodded. "Of course."

    "Then sure. How does that work?"  He stood up and approached the guard.

    The guard cleared his throat. "You must take her with you to the scene of the crime and collect all of the necessary evidence to clear her name. If you manage to convince the High Court of her innocence, you are then both free to go."

    "Take her with me?" he asked.

    "If you try to escape the law, you will be found and executed," the guard replied.

    Kjeck shook a finger in the air beside his head. "That's the catch. I get it. In that case..."  He looked to Cody, who was giving him a hopeful gaze, then to the other two cellmates. Lerk was staring off into space, expression flat, and the wolf was glaring at him again. "Can I appeal for the other two in here as well?"

    The guard and the wolf both raised eyebrows. "I... suppose, yes," the guard replied. That must not have been protocol, either. The poor fellow.

    "Then what are we waiting for?  Show me what I gotta' do."

 

    The wolf, Hyuldrek, as Kjeck learned shortly after getting him out of jail, stopped a short distance from the jailhouse's door and turned to face Kjeck, his hefty arms crossed on his chest. "Alright, I give. What the fuck are you trying to do?"

    "Some way to treat the guy who just busted you out of prison."

    Hyuldrek rolled his eyes. "Busted us out, hell. You filled out a couple of papers and promised to return us when you can't find any evidence to clear our names."

    "Are you telling me that you really did kill someone?"

    "Not on purpose, no."

    Kjeck laughed; he couldn't help it. "Now I'm intrigued. What the hell did you guys do, anyway?  And come to think of it," he continued, turning to Cody, "what did you do?  It'd probably be useful to know what I'm dealing with here."

    Cody looked to Hyuldrek, who looked to Cody. "You first," she said.

    He shrugged. "Let's get moving, first. We're supposed to go to the scene of the crime, right?  That's about a mile from here."

    Kjeck shrugged. "As you say. Maybe we should stop by our room and pick up our stuff?" he said, turning to Cody. Her lips started to quiver a little bit, and she didn't look at him. He took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. "It's not there, is it?"  She shook her head. He rubbed his eyes with both hands. "Okay. Let's just go."

    No one said a word until they reached the open air of the country. They were heading for a short range of mountains, through which led a thin path that ended up at a small pit, maybe part of a mine. Once they were completely alone, Kjeck urged Hyuldrek to get to it. "Let's talk when we get to where we're going, okay?" he replied, eyes fixed forward. Kjeck looked to Lerk, who simply shrugged.

    "As you wish, sir," Kjeck replied.

    They walked in silence for a while more, until Cody decided to speak up. "You didn't come back last night," she said. Kjeck turned to watch her. "I waited for a long time, because I didn't want to go out by myself. Then I heard a flute playing. I'd heard it before, right before we went into the forest, so I went out to investigate. When I got to the square, I saw the little creature playing it. That's when... well, that's when the wolf attacked."  Kjeck raised an eyebrow, but she didn't break her pace. "I couldn't do anything, but the little creature must have had magic powers, because it managed to kill it. It pointed out where you were to me and left. I went to find you and carry you back to the inn, but when I looked at the place where the wolf died I saw.... Well, it was a man, I guess."

    Kjeck wasn't entirely sure how to respond. He rubbed his chin, scratched at his beard. "Why do I get the feeling both of these cases are going to be really hard to prove?" he asked himself.

    "It's really what happened," she replied, casting him a worried glance.

    "I guess I believe you. It's just, you know. What the hell?"

    She must not have known what the hell, because she went back to staring at the ground.

 

    Within a quarter of an hour, they reached the mouth of the mine. Kjeck had to take a moment to steady himself; the place smelled like a barn for undead animals. Hyuldrek stepped in front of him and looked into the mouth of the cave. "Yep," he said. "This is the place."

    "What are they mining in here, manure?" Kjeck asked, holding his nose and mouth.

    "Must be run by the Pizzo," Cody said, sniffing the air.

    "Is that what they're called?" Hyuldrek asked. "I just called them ant-people."

    "Ants?" Kjeck replied. He didn't know whether or not that made sense.

    His stomach beginning to protest, they entered the mine, which, despite that it was ants working it, was fairly well-lit with clean-burning torches. Working around large outcroppings of some kind of blue crystal, Kjeck caught sight of the miners; short, red, six-legged people with a thorax, antennae, and mandibles like an ant but hands like a human. Well, if humans had only three claw-like fingers. He would have been surprised by the sight of them had he not been traveling with a fox-person and a wolf-person.

    They, however, seemed surprised to see him and his group. As they walked past, the ants put down their picks and saws and drills and watched them go by, clicking their mandibles together in complicated patterns. Kjeck simply waved and continued following Hyuldrek, who walked like he had a real purpose in being here.

    Finally, they reached a deserted part of the mine, where they stopped. "This is where it happened," Hyuldrek told them.

    "Great," Kjeck replied. "You ready now to tell me what, exactly, it was that happened here?"

    Hyuldrek shrugged. "Lerk?"

    "My guess is it was a space-time distortion," Lerk replied. "The fellow just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

    Kjeck mulled over this for a minute, then shook his head. "I'm sorry, what?  Could you maybe try again?  This time, explain it."

    Meanwhile, Hyuldrek went off deeper into the mine, looking around the walls and ceiling, peeking behind rocks, reaching a hand into piles of discarded crystals. Lerk nodded toward him. "He seems to be searching for the explanation right now," he said.

    Kjeck planted his palm to his forehead and sighed deeply. "Look, I can't be of any help to you guys if you don't let me know what's going on...."

    As he spoke, however, Hyuldrek's voice suddenly emerged from a small passage dug into the wall, victorious. Kjeck shook his head and walked to the small opening, sticking his head inside. "You find something?" he asked.

    Just as he caught sight of him, Hyuldrek jumped forward, hands outstretched, like he was pouncing on a rabbit. Kjeck followed his trajectory and saw a... something. Maybe. What was it?

    The wolf landed face-first in a pile of softer dirt, shaking the walls of the cavern and causing a bit of dust to fall from the beams that held everything up. He raised his head, tinted red now with dust, and spat several times. "Dammit!" he yelled out. "What the fuck!"

    Kjeck chuckled a little to himself. "That's what I should be asking."

    "You shut your fucking face!" the wolf shot at him. "Damn thing had to disappear as soon as I fucking found it..."

    Kjeck's face screwed up with confusion, and he turned to Lerk. "What were you saying about space-time just a minute ago?" he asked.

    Lerk shrugged. "A distortion. We were somehow transported through space and time and ended up in this cave, in the exact spot as one of the workers here."

    "You were..."  Kjeck was having a hard time understanding how the fellow could be so frank about that kind of story. The man must have been born with a permanent poker face.

    But, of course, the story wasn't unbelievable. Just the circumstances of it. He looked over to the wolf Hyuldrek, rubbing his face with paw-like hands to wipe off the red dust, spitting occasionally and cursing all the while, then back at Lerk, looking at him with a mouth straight enough to be a mathematical limit. Something about it made sense, but other things.... 

    "I don't think," he said slowly, "that we're going to find anything useful in here. You guys want to come outside with me?  I've got something to ask you."

 

Chapter 9

 

    The area surrounding the mine had been stripped completely bare; it reminded Kjeck a bit of the pictures of the mountain ranges on the moon taken by the first astronauts to make it up there, minus the craters. Their campfire was made with thin sticks of a dry, brittle wood that they found in the dirt; remnants of when a forest used to grow here. The blackened husks were beginning to twist with the heat, making them look like some kind of worm that lives in the digestive track.

    Kjeck threw another one on the fire and looked the wolf Hyuldrek in the face. Hyuldrek just sneered back. "So where'd you get that body?" he decided to ask him.

    The wolf's expression went completely blank, making his dark eyes look more feral than ever. "The hell kind of a question is that...?" he muttered.

    "Lerk already explained what you were looking for. You guys came here through a portal of some kind, right?  Where'd you live before that?"

    Hyuldrek snorted, then looked to Lerk. Lerk gave him his usual featureless look, which made Hyuldrek roll his eyes. He picked up a stick and broke it in half, then used the splintered end to clean his teeth. Once he was finished, he threw it on the measly fire. "In an apartment, close to a research institute. Since Lerk's gonna' tell you anyway."

    "Research institute...?" Cody muttered. Her ears were twitching, and she had a faraway look in her eyes.

    "Which vertex?" Kjeck followed up.

    Hyuldrek's eyes widened considerably. "You..." he tried, but couldn't seem to think of what to say next.

    Kjeck shrugged. "Tell me if my guess is completely wrong, or what, would you?"

    "North," Lerk replied. "And you?"

    Kjeck slapped his knee. "I knew it. I knew you guys weren't from around here."  He stuck out a hand for Lerk, who shook it, somehow even managing to do that without an ounce of emotion. Kjeck frowned slightly; the guy was like a doll or something. Maybe he was a robot?  "Southwest," he replied. "I was born in the Grid and worked around there for a while. So then; you gonna' answer my question, doggy boy?"

    Hyuldrek's lip curled up again. "Doggy... what the fuck."

    "You born in a lab, or something?"

    "No, I wasn't fucking born in a lab."  He raised his hand, pads facing Kjeck, claws bared. "This came later."

    "No kidding?"  Kjeck looked to Cody. Her eyes were still a little unfocused; he didn't know if she was following their conversation or not. She was probably just completely bewildered by the second biggest coincidence in history, just like him. "A new kind of tattoo, or something?"

    Hyuldrek shrugged. "You could say that."

    Kjeck leaned forward, a large smile on his face. "That kind of thing would be legal in North. Damn I wish I'd have been born there instead. You guys get all the cool gadgets first."

    "It's a novelty, actually," he muttered, turning the claws toward himself and examining them. His tail started to flip up and down. Kjeck wondered if he was doing it on purpose or not. His arms crossed again, and he gave Kjeck a rather doggish look, with one ear pointing up and the other folded a little down, eyes fixed in his. "You want to know the whole story, then?"

    "Of course."

    "You gonna' tell us yours?" he replied softly, turning his head a little in suspicion.

    Kjeck spread his hands. "Of course. Let swap."

    "Fine."  A rough gargling sound came from his throat, and he spit a good-sized loogie into the fire, where it sizzled for a second and disappeared into the smoke. He took a deep breath, then started talking. "Lerk and I are hackers. We've been partners for... I don't know how many years. Started off with pretty small stuff; making viruses and sending out mass e-mails so we could get IP addresses, credit card information, all that kind of stuff.  Worked our way up the ladder after that. Banks, law firms, insurance agencies."  He picked up another dry twig and lanced it into the fire. "I would get into the servers, Lerk would cover my trail. We worked real well together.

    "We got ourselves a bit of fame on the Internet. Rumors flying all over the place about us; some people thought we were a malicious computer program, some thought we were a child genius who plugged his brain into the net, some thought we were some kind of greedy spirit made up of data bits. Pretty stupid-ass stuff, if you ask me. But... I guess you could say, I totally got into it, myself.

    "We were so good, I figured, why stick with just companies and peoples' private information?  Why not fuck a little with the government?"

    Kjeck made a low whistle. "That takes some kind of hefty balls."

    Hyuldrek scratched at the fur on his arm. "We did it, though; we got into the military's secret weapons files, the Secret Intelligence database, you name it. It wasn't even for money, or anything; we just wanted to know if we could do it. Or, at least, I did."

    "Sorry to interrupt," Kjeck interjected, "but I've got a question. You find anything?"  Hyuldrek just stared at him, looking murderous. Kjeck shrugged. "Okay fine. Tell me later. Keep going."

    He snorted a little, then shrugged. "You know, when you get confident, you make mistakes. Eventually, we got tracked to a public terminal in a mall, and they got our DNA. I erased our private files from the government's record, but they still had the original disks. We had to do something to hide before they managed to locate them.

    He stopped for a minute, looked off into the distance. "This next part's going to sound really stupid."

    Kjeck put out his hand as a signal to continue. "I've seen enough stuff over the past couple of months to make me a very open person. Go ahead and lay it on me."

    Hyuldrek let out a long breath through his nose. "That was when this old man found us. I'd seen him before; this ratty old guy with hardly any hair and more age-spots than a ten year old apple. I always thought he was just some crazy old beggar. But, and I still don't know how, he knew who we were and what kind of trouble we were in, so he offered us a deal. We pay him a hundred million of the money we got from all our other projects, and he'd help us change our physical identities."  He looked to Lerk, mouth slightly open, then turned back to Kjeck and furrowed his brow. "I didn't see any other option, so I agreed to it."

    "Well that doesn't make any sense," Kjeck said.

    Hyuldrek's eyes closed halfway again. "Why not?"

    Kjeck shrugged. "Like it wouldn't be obvious who you were?  Two hackers disappear, then all of a sudden two wolf-people are seen walking around."

    "You could try letting me finish my fucking story," Hyuldrek grunted.

    Kjeck raised his hands in mock defense. "Okay, fine. I thought you were finished."

    Hyuldrek's eyes closed three-quarters of the way this time, but he continued. "I had the same thought, if you want to know, but his idea was this: we be his test-subjects to lead the way for others to do the same thing. Within a couple of years, he said, there'd be a sizable enough portion of the population walking around with new bodies, we'd never be found out. We would just have to wait out those couple of years in his lab, in hiding."  He raised a claw to his teeth and dug around a bit, then pulled it out and looked at it. With a flick of his hand, he continued.

    "I thought it was a dumb idea: especially once he showed us his lab. It was this little shabby underground place, stuck way out in the mountains, about as far from anywhere as you can get without leaving the planet. And I wasn't real keen on being somebody's guinea pig. But it's not like we had much of a choice, so I agreed to be his first subject. I figured, you know; either die here and get it over with, or rot in a federal prison for the rest of my life. At least I had a chance of success in this place, you know?  You could say I was real desperate.

    "The funniest part came next, though. The crack knew what he was doing. I guess he'd been doing weird shit all his life; just got banned from his home country for it, is why he had to move out into the middle of the mountains like that. But we saw some of the results of his work, sitting in big old containment tubes in his lab. They looked like aliens you'd see in some kind of sci-fi horror flick, except... you know. More realistic. And that made me feel a little better about my decision.

    "Within a couple of weeks, I started to see real big changes in my appearance. It was painful as fuck; like the worst kind of growing pains all over your body. I didn't get a whole lot of sleep while it was going on, either."  He chuckled. "I don't think Lerk did, either, seeing as how I kept him up all night by screaming every ten minutes. But at the same time, it was so cool. My eyes got real wild looking, my ears grew out, I got real sharp teeth, claws.... And the end result is what you're seeing now."  He flexed his arm and stretched out his fingers, displaying the five dark hooks that adorned them.

    "My first thought was, so many people are gonna' want this. You could be anything you wanted with this kind of treatment; vampires, dragons, centaurs, whatever. The geek crowd, at least, would be all over. Looking at myself in the mirror was like being on an acid trip. I was real confident it was going to work out great for us.

    "And in the middle of thinking that, I got transported here, to this place."  His face fell into a kind of frown. "Lerk was in the room with me. When he saw me disappearing, he grabbed my arm. I guess that's how he got taken with. I think I must have blacked out for a while, because I woke up a little bit later in a pile of ant guts, a bunch of freakish monsters with pickaxes standing around me clicking like they were crazy. We got picked up and drug into that city, where we got thrown in prison. Hung out in there for... maybe a week. Then you guys showed up."

    He sat for a minute, looking into the fire, then crossed his arms and looked up at Kjeck. "That's the story, bud. Now it's your turn."

    "Mine's not nearly that exciting," Kjeck replied. The wolf raised an eyebrow and a lip, so Kjeck chuckled. "Found some kids in the woods making a magic potion, drank some, and ended up in a snowy field during a blizzard. I ran into Cody the next day, and she convinced me to let her come with me to try to get back to where I came from."  He shrugged. "That's the whole of it."

    Hyuldrek made a show of licking his canines. "You tryin' to jip us?"

    "What was the old man's name?" Cody asked, suddenly, her eyes looking a little wet as she stared into the fire.

    Hyuldrek looked over at her, then back at Kjeck, then over at her again. "You're not from the same place as us, are you?" he asked. She didn't respond, or even look at him. To Kjeck, it almost seemed like she was on the verge of crying. Hyuldrek shrugged. "Elengway."

    Cody burst into tears.

 

Chapter 10

 

    There was no way. Just no way. It just couldn't have been possible.

    But what if it was?  What if... what if it was?

    Cordelia felt someone's hand gently land on her back, and she smelled Kjeck's presence nearby. "What's the matter, Cody?" he asked, his voice soft and cautious.

    She raised her head and wiped her eyes, spreading the tears around in her already damp fur. She took a deep breath, tried to calm herself. "I just..." she started, but a sob broke her words apart, and her face fell back into her hands. "Dammit!" she yelled, pounding a fist on her knee. It hurt, which made her feel worse.

    Kjeck backed off a bit. "Hey now," he said, voice still soft. "Calm down. What's all of this all of the sudden?"

    She tried as hard as she could to control her sobs. Her throat hurt from holding them back, so her voice was hoarse when she finally spoke. "You were..." she tried, swallowed, then tried again. "You were right, Kjeck. And so was Mother. Her stories weren't just... weren't just fantasy."

    "What's wrong?" Hyuldrek's voice asked from behind her.

    Kjeck scratched at his beard, then took a deep breath and patted Cody on the back again. "I think I have an idea," he replied.

    "Kjeck," she asked suddenly, turning her face to his. His image was edged with rainbow from her tears, giving him a celestial look. "Can you show me that drawing of Mother's again?  I want to know.... I mean, I think I know, but.... Could you explain it to me?"

    He frowned, and his eyes took on a quality she'd never seen before. His visage suddenly seemed much darker than it had been. She began to notice all of the deep lines running through his face, the hardness of his flesh, weather-beaten, sun-dried. With solemn movements, he reached into his pocket where she knew he'd been keeping it since he first saw it and pulled out the yellow folded piece of paper. Slowly, like it was made of ancient silk, he unfolded it and handed it to her.

    She took it with ginger fingers and held it up to her face, to shine the light of the mid-afternoon sun on it as best she could. There were two lines drawn circling each other, like they were doing a kind of dance. A ladder of smaller bars connected them at even intervals, each of which was divided in two pieces, both marked with one of four certain letters. AGCT. "You said this is how traits are passed down from parent to child?" she asked.

    He nodded. "Those molecules are carried over from both the father and mother, so they mix during the creation of the child. The way those four chemicals are arranged is a kind of code for what shows up where."

    "And sometimes... this structure is a little broken?"

    He didn't respond for some time. Hyuldrek and Lerk sat behind her, perceptible only by their smells. Eventually, Kjeck just nodded.

    She set the drawing on her lap and folded her hands on top of it. "And if the structure is broken, the child is broken, too," she whispered.

 

    Before the sun went down, they returned to Theltrielle and spent the night in the prison, because they knew it was available to them, and because they had no money. But Cordelia couldn't bring herself to fall asleep during the night. It was odd conceding that, yes, in fact, her mother had been born in a glass tube, and yes, in fact, she herself had been injected into her mother's womb with a needle. But the story the wolf told the day before, unless it was all completely made-up, confirmed just that. And it wasn't like they'd told him anything about her mother's story beforehand. It all came from an outside witness; someone else who obtained an animal hybrid body by way of a Doctor Elengway; someone else who lived in a lab, who saw creatures growing in transparent containers, who lived near a place that used to be called Jetport City.

    And it wasn't just that. If they were telling the truth about all of that, they were telling the truth about everything else, too. The Holy Book said... well, it didn't say what they said. But the Holy Book wasn't from a place where people could create living creatures with their own hands. How you could create a being, or even change one so drastically as had been done to Hyuldrek, without knowing how the body works?  The Holy Book was....

    Well, it was wrong about that.

    Life just wasn't simple anymore. If people could randomly teleport to different worlds, if the book written by God Himself could be wrong about something, if she could be dying from an incurable disease just like her mother....

    Just then, Cody had an epiphany.

         

    When the sun rose, Cordelia walked around the dank cell and shook everyone awake. Watching their dull blinking eyes try to focus on her smiling face, she sat down, clapped her hands together, and draped her thick tail across her legs. "I have an idea," she told everyone.

    "Me too," the wolf grumbled. "Going back to sleep for another three or four hours."

    "We're not going to be able to prove your guys' case with normal evidence, so..." she continued, ignoring the remark. She put her hands on her knees and looked everyone over one more time. It was early; they weren't getting it. "So," she said again, feeling quite proud of herself, "we make up our own."

    Kjeck yawned and scratched at his beard. "That's surprising."

    "What?" she replied, turning her head to the side.

    "That lying isn't a sin in your religion."

    "It is."

    He opened his eyes a little farther, then let his face fall back into the neutral position. "Oh."

    Hyuldrek had been looking at her with a small amount of interest. "What'd you have in mind?" he asked, his ears pushing forward a degree.

    She smirked. "While we were in the forest, I remember seeing a sign, warning about bandits."

    "Yeah," Kjeck replied, his brow furrowing.

    She shrugged. "Is it obvious what I'm going to say next?"

    Hyuldrek chuckled and looked to Lerk, who didn't react, then turned back to her with a slightly flabbergasted expression. "What, blame it on the bandits?"

    She nodded. "Precisely."

    His eyes widened. "The fuck kind of an idea is that?  We were sitting in a pile of ant guts when they found us. Why would they believe such a piece of bullshit...?"

    She grasped her tail, felt the fur between her fingers. "But it was the Pizzo who led you to the town guard, right?"

    "What the fuck does that matter?"

    "Because," she replied, gaining an even bigger smile, "the Pizzo language consists of clicking the mandibles and putting out a series of chemical signals. No one but the Pizzo can understand the Pizzo language. Which means that no one asked any questions at the time of your arrest; whatever kind of signs the Pizzo gave that you killed someone was sufficient. So you plead that you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and no one is going to be able to say for certain that you're lying."

    Lerk nodded slightly. "And so the bandits...?"

    "Right. Substitute. Somehow we've got to convince them to lend us a few of their men to take your places."

    Hyuldrek snorted. "Alright, fine. Sounds like a great plan. Now how exactly do we do that?"

    Cordelia's grin fell a bit. "Well," she replied, hesitating. "I hadn't... well, I hadn't thought that far yet."

    Kjeck chuckled to himself. "How about we bribe them?" he muttered with a dopey grin.

    Cody ran a claw along her muzzle. "I wonder...."

    Hyuldrek rolled his eyes, exasperated. "We don't have any fucking..."

    "I know that," Cody retorted. "But that doesn't mean we can't get some."

    "How?  Where?" he replied, eyes nearly bulging with indignant anger.

    She tapped her claw on her chin and stared up at the bars on the windows. "There's a legend," she replied, a measured pace to her words. "Supposedly, in a village near the coast, there's a mansion that belongs to a kind of eccentric noble. This noble is supposed to have a golem made out of solid gold. The challenge is, whoever wants to try can fight against this golem, and if he wins and destroys it, he gets to keep the golem's body."

    When she finished talking, she noticed that everyone was staring at her with bewilderment. Kjeck leaned forward, pointed a finger at her. "Are you... serious, Cordelia?  That's your plan?"

    She shrugged. "Does anyone else have a better idea?"

    "Just... hold on," Hyuldrek interjected. "Assuming this 'golem' or whatever actually exists, do you think it'd even still be around?"

    "Well, yes," Cody replied. "The legend also says that..."

    "No one ever managed to defeat it," Hyuldrek finished for her. He raised an eyebrow.

    It took her a second to realize what he was getting at. Her shoulders slumped a little bit. "Well, that doesn't mean that we can't, does it?"

    "Do you think the guards would even allow us to go anywhere but here and the scenes of the crimes, anyway?" Kjeck asked suddenly. "I mean, assuming that, contrary to all evident logic, there really is a solid gold golem that we can somehow bust apart and take back with us, even though no one else has ever managed to do it before?"

    "That's a good point," Hyuldrek replied, waving a finger in Kjeck's direction. "What the hell kind of excuse are we going to have to think up for a side-trip like that?"

    Cody thought for a minute, then snapped her claws together. "The bandits again. We say we're on the real killers' trail, and it leads to that village."

    "Is it just me, or does this city have the dumbest system of laws in the history of civilization?" Kjeck added suddenly. Cody looked to him, and he shrugged. "Well, I mean, first of all they let me just take you guys outside with me without any supervision, and second of all, you're saying we can just fool them into letting us go wherever we want by telling them we're 'on the killers' trail'. I mean... it's ridiculous."

    "If we stray from our designated path or commit any other crimes, Kjeck, they will kill us."

    Kjeck raised his hands in the air. "How?  How will they do that?"

    "It's a magic spell. If we leave a certain perimeter around the city, our hearts will all stop."  Everyone stared at her, once more, like she was completely out of her mind. This time, it was her turn to raise her hands in the air. "You don't believe me?"

    "How the fuck does that work?" Hyuldrek asked, eyes narrowing.

    "I don't know. No one but the court magicians know how to perform the spell."

    A long silence reigned. "I still can't decide whether or not that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Kjeck said to break it.

    "Kjeck," Cody replied, putting her hands on her hips, "how can you still not believe in magic?  You've seen me do it probably a hundred times."

    He shrugged. "This is news to me."

    She began rapping her claws against her boot. "How do you think I got all of those fires started on our journey?"

    He shrugged. "I never really looked. I always figured you had some kind of a device, like a match or a lighter."

    "You're being ridiculous!" she replied. Her tail began to whip a little bit. "It's magic!  I use magic!  The same kind of magic my father taught me, the kind of magic his father taught him, and so on down the family line. You understand how something works, you can put that to use through magic."

    "I thought that was called technology," Hyuldrek muttered.

    "Do you want me to prove it to you?" Cody replied, heat in her voice. Hyuldrek and Kjeck looked to each other, then simultaneously shrugged. Cody huffed. "Fine. Watch."  She put out her hands to show them that she wasn't holding any kind of device. Turning her right hand palm-up and placing the other one directly below it, she closed her eyes and concentrated, slowly repeating an incantation in her mind to help her focus. She thought about fire, heat, the matter in the air above her hand moving faster and faster, the particles of air crashing into each other, splitting each other apart, into tiny, fast pieces. With the image clear in her mind, she said the incantation out loud and put forth her greatest effort to bring her mind's picture to reality.

    A small fire sprouted right above her hand, hovered for a second or two, and dissipated into a thin breeze, leaving behind a thin scent of ozone.

    The others were staring at her again. Kjeck's mouth was slightly open, and Hyuldrek's lower lip was flopped down, showing a hint of black gums. "That..." Kjeck said, raising a hand to point to where the fire had been. "How did you do that?"

    She rubbed a hand across her eyes. "Magic, Kjeck. It's called magic."

    "I can't believe I never noticed that before," he muttered.

    "So you finally believe me?"

    "Well... I mean, I suppose, maybe."  He rubbed a hand through his beard. "That was a really bizarre display," he grunted.

    Lerk was simply watching the whole thing, his face straighter than a ray of sunshine. Cody couldn't tell if he was surprised or not.

    Hyuldrek crossed his arms. "Well, whatever, then. I think I'll just take your word that they've got some protection against us running off."

    Kjeck just continued to rub his beard. He had a familiar thoughtful expression on his face. After a few minutes, he shook his head. "Since that little show just blew my mind, I'll just go ahead and say that I can't think of any better idea than Cody's about how to get you guys out of trouble. I mean, what do you guys think?"

    Hyuldrek crossed his arms tighter and shrugged. "Not like we've got anything to lose, I guess."

 

    Convincing the guard to allow them passage to Ielia turned out to be a fairly simple task. They only had to have Kjeck fill out a few more papers. Cody didn't bother telling him that the ink he was using to write his name was what allowed the court magicians to track them all.

    She didn't quite know the way to the village, herself; she'd only heard of the place and the legend from her father, who'd visited this area several times in the past. As such, they attempted to map out the route by speaking with several random people in town. They ended up with a route that made very little sense, but which, when correctly edited, led along the coast to the west. The village, as it turned out, was to be found nestled in between two cliff-faces about a kilometer away from the waterline.

    Knowing this, finding the village was about as difficult as finding a bull in an outhouse. Within only half a day, they reached it.

    The place was comprised of six thin but tall houses, each of a distinct style, with tall, sloping red roofs, round windows, multiple thin chimneys, small open porches standing just to the right of the front doors, and the occasional garden, where stood piles of grey rocks and dry branches here and there. Above all of this were two enormous cliff-faces; barren rock, straight but reaching so high that they seemed to arch toward each other at the top, with stone shelves bent at a forty-five degree angle to the ground in places. Sitting on a large shelf high up, accessible only through a thin road zig-zagging where it could up the side of the west-most cliff, was a large mansion built in a similar style to the other houses, but on a much, much grander scale.

    Cody stopped and pointed to the place, smiling. "You think that's it?" she asked.

    "Only one way to find out," Kjeck replied, a hint of sarcasm in his voice, and led the way to the mansion. Everyone followed closely behind him.

    The path seemed imposing at first, but Cordelia realized, after a short time, that all of her hard work climbing mountains and hills to make it to this country had actually paid off; her legs felt strong, and her breath came easily even as she pushed against the steep slope of the road. Kjeck must have felt the same way, for he barely pushed out a bead of sweat. The others, however, huffed and puffed like they just came up from a twenty-minute stay underwater.

    But they soon reached the top and stood at the mansion's porch, alternately staring up at the imposing edifice and looking down at the rooftops of the buildings below. Small stands of trees stood in distant places, surrounded by short mounds of greenery and bare granite beds jutting up from the earth like tombstones. Just beyond all of this was the ocean, a thick line of pure blue bordered by the blue of the sky, giving the impression that one was standing in a box. Cordelia breathed in the air, slightly salty with a hint of seaweed, as the two city-folk recovered their energy.

    As they sat there, Kjeck took it upon himself to go to the door and make their presences known. A small white button embedded in the door's handle served as a bell that resonated through the mansion and echoed off of the cliff walls, spreading out from there over the whole village. A flock of birds took flight from a tree in the nearby garden, nestled against the rock, and spread out into the approaching sunset until they became but black moving dots against the blue.

    Several minutes passed before anyone came to answer the call. Just as Cody made to sit down to wait, however, the door opened and an old peacock showed himself. He wore a white shirt with a black bow tie and small, round glasses on the tip of his beak, his tail folded behind him and his winglike hands clasped in front of his chest. "Sirs, madam," he said, his voice soft and musical. His beady black eyes looked them over, examined their clothing and makeshift backpacks they fashioned in the forest only a few hours ago. "You are here to attempt to slay the golem?" he asked.

         

Chapter 11

 

    They were led into an absurdly large entry hall, with a roof reaching so high above their heads it seemed to meld into the sky, which shone through glass plates at the roof's apex. Everything was adorned with gold, and everything else was either marble or silver, or studded with some thousand different kinds of large, precious stones. Kjeck had the distinct impression that whoever lived in this place had some kind of psychological issue.

    The peacock took them through this grand entryway and into a smaller waiting room, where he asked them to sit on a large, velvet-cushioned couch shaped like a viper bearing fangs. A table with a baroque design sat before them. Kjeck watched Cody as she stared around the place, her lower jaw practically stuck to her chest, and chuckled. He supposed she hadn't seen this kind of exorbitant wealth before. Him... well, he'd seen it in pictures. His kinds of people weren't allowed in places like this. Hyuldrek's face was just as neutral as Lerk's; maybe he was the same way.

    They waited in near silence for almost an hour before anyone came by to greet them. After that hour, however, came a procession; six or seven servants arrived in the room carrying platters full of breads, cheeses, thinly sliced meats and sausages, bowls full of yogurts and exotic fruits, and several other things that Kjeck couldn't exactly place or describe. Something like if a doctor decided one day to try giving a dove a pig's tail and accidentally killed it in the process.

    At the head of this parade was a man, very well-dressed in the finest of fine felts, leathers, velvets, and jewels. On his head were two large, fake-looking cat-ears, and behind him was a fluffy cat's tail that stuck up into the air in the form of a lazy question-mark. He wore a tremendous smile on his face, and his eyes shined brightly as he entered, hand outstretched.

    Kjeck regarded him for a minute, then stood up and shook his hand. "How do you do?" the lord, or whatever he was, asked, an absurd and extravagant accent flavoring each word.

    "Dandy," Kjeck replied. "Is this all for us?"

    "Of course, of course. You will need a full stomach if you are serious about taking up my challenge. These must be your compatriots?"  He waved his hands outward, like he wanted to give everyone a great big hug.

    "Yeah," Kjeck replied, turning his face toward the others. Cody was still staring off into space, and the others were sitting, Hyuldrek with his arms crossed and looking pissed like usual, Lerk... well, looking like Lerk. Kjeck motioned for everyone to stand up, and, after a moment, they all did.

    "No no no... please sit down and eat," the noble said, waving his hands frantically downward. "While you do so, I will explain the rules of my little game to you."

    Hyuldrek sneered at Kjeck, who shrugged, and everyone sat. Kjeck decided to start sampling things, and, after another minute, everyone followed. The noble watched them for some time, a large silly grin on his face, and then sat down himself, a servant rushing to fill the gap on the floor with a chair before he fell.

    "Now," the noble began. "You wish to fight against my golem, is it?"  His eyes were twinkling, possibly with mischief. Kjeck just nodded, his mouth full of turkey. "Splendid, splendid. Just splendid."  He watched them eat for several more minutes. Taking a deep breath, he started up again. "The rules are really quite simple. All you have to do is find my golem, and then destroy it. If you win, you are allowed to keep the golem's remains--approximately valued at four and a half million silver--and I will give you a certificate of achievement as well. If you lose, I suppose, unless you run, you lose your life."  He watched them for a minute more. "Any questions?"

    Kjeck swallowed a mouthful of half-chewed cheese and bread and turned to his friends. "What are we gonna' do about weapons?" he asked.

    The noble's face fell for a second. "You brought no weapons?"

    He turned back to the noble, blinked twice, then shook his head. "We're only doing this because we're totally broke, so no, we've got no weapons."

    Hyuldrek coughed slightly, then tilted his head to the side, like he wanted to say, 'check this out.'  Kjeck looked down and saw Hyuldrek's paw grasping the butt of a black pistol. He looked back into the wolf's eyes and shrugged. Hyuldrek shrugged in return. Kjeck turned back to the noble. "You know where we can get any?" he asked.

    The noble pursed his lips and tapped a finger to his chin, a quick, repetitive motion. "Normally when people decide to take on my challenge, they bring arms with which to take it on. It's... highly unfortunate that you have none."

    "What I'm asking is, can you lend us some?"

    The noble thought about this for a minute, and his face brightened considerably. "Lend them to you... why yes, yes I suppose I could do that!  Quite the brilliant thinker you are!"

    "Uh..." Kjeck replied, not entirely sure what to say to that.

    "Parry!" the noble suddenly yelled, turning his head to the side. A thought of fencing flicked through Kjeck's brain, until he realized that it was somebody's name. "Parry, go bring my guests here some weapons!"

    After a short time, the peacock who greeted them stuck his quilled head in the door. "Weapons, my Lord?" he asked.

    "Yes yes. Weapons. A cart full of weapons of various kinds. My guests have need of them."

    "As you wish."  With that, the peacock's head disappeared, and the room went quiet. The noble continued to stare in his direction, his eyes wide with anticipation. This went on for some fifteen minutes, broken when the peacock returned, oddly enough, bearing a wheeled cart full of weapons. Mud stuck to the wheels, leaving behind four trails of brown as the bird entered the room. The noble didn't seem to notice this oddity.

    Hyuldrek's eyes suddenly went wide, and he stood up, setting a large strawberry half-eaten on the plate where he found it. He walked to the cart slowly, like in a trance, and put a hand on the sharp metal objects. After a second, he turned to Kjeck. "That was probably the best decision you've ever made, man," he said.

    Kjeck decided to stand up himself and see what the fuss was about. The cart was spouting jagged points every which way; swords, daggers, morning stars, maces, short spears, even a halberd. A cornucopia of death. Kjeck looked back to Hyuldrek as the wolf's paws fell upon the mess of metal, wondering whether or not he should feel worried about his behavior. Not that it wasn't totally cool.

    Cody stood up and stared into the pile, a blatent frown on her face. Kjeck stepped aside and bowed to permit her passage to the cart, but she didn't step forward. "Kjeck," she said instead, looking hesitant. "I don't know how to fight with any of these."

    Kjeck stood up from his bow and put his hands in his pockets. "Well, then just take a mace or something. All you've got to do is swing it real hard and hit stuff, from what I gather. How hard could that be?"

    "I... well...." she replied, her voice falling off. She seemed to want to express something else, but either didn't know how to say it or was too embarrassed.

    "Suit yourself," Kjeck replied, then went to the pile himself. He didn't know how to use most of the things in there either, so, to start, he picked out a couple of daggers to replace the knife he lost. It wasn't probably useful against a monster made of gold, but he needed them anyway. Hyuldrek had created a pile for himself and was trying to find places to strap each arm to his body. A couple of short, broad swords, two spiky chains that looked as deadly to the user as to the target, and a double-edged battleaxe remained. Kjeck picked up the last and looked it over, spun it around, swung it a few times. It was damn heavy, but he could see it doing a good deal of damage if he got off enough good hits.

    Hyuldrek stood up, the halberd strapped to his back, two swords in his belt, and a pair of spiked gauntlets adorning his hands. Lerk still sat on the couch in front of the table of food, picking at it slowly. Kjeck caught his eye and shrugged slightly. "You not gonna' fight with us?"

    Lerk watched him for a minute, stood up, walked to the cart, picked out a light sword, and sat back down. After a second of reflection, Kjeck decided not to comment.

    Cody took a step back, a hand to her breast. He looked to her, and she caught his gaze. "If you're not comfortable carrying a weapon, you don't have to," he told her. "I've got a better idea of what you can do to help."

    Her face became perplexed, but he turned to Hyuldrek, who was struggling valiantly to move around with the extra fifty pounds of metal strapped in random places on his person, before she could ask what he meant. "Why don't you just stick with one?" he asked the wolf.

    Hyuldrek sneered at him, but when the halberd fell off of his back and nearly sliced through the velvet cushion on the couch behind him, the sneer turned into a grimace, and he dropped everything but the gauntlets. It wouldn't have been Kjeck's first choice, but they looked formidable on the large paws and burly arms of the wolf. Vaguely, Kjeck wondered how the fellow became so strong if all he did was hack computers for a living. He hadn't thought too much about it until now, but it did seem a little odd.

    Looking around the room, it seemed as though everyone was prepared. They'd had their fun, he supposed. It was time to get to business.

    "You are ready, then?" came the noble's voice then, his hands clasped before his chest like he was in prayer. Kjeck casually swung the heavy instrument back and forth, and nodded. "Then I will leave you to the quest. Good luck."

    With that, the noble turned to leave. As all of the servants picked up the trays and began to walk out, however, Kjeck stopped the noble. "You said we're supposed to find this thing, right?" he asked. The noble, a silly half-smirk on his face, nodded, twice. Kjeck raised his hands. "Do we have free reign in the mansion, or might it also be outside somewhere, or what?  Where do we start looking?"

    The noble waved a finger before his face, and said, "Ah ah ah. No questions. Simply find the golem and kill it. Simple, yes?  Simple."  Before Kjeck could make a retort, the noble dashed out of the room, his cat's tail bobbing up and down behind him.

    Kjeck turned to the others. "Well," he said. They looked back at him, all with similar expressions. He supposed he didn't need to say anything more.

 

    Several hours later, they still hadn't located the thing. Kjeck was becoming edgy; he felt like they'd explored every square inch of the mansion. If it turned out that the golem was hidden in some cave somewhere a thousand kilometers from here.... Well, at least then he'd know why no one had ever beaten it before. Or worse, what if it turned out not even to be real?  How many days were they prepared to spend looking for this thing, anyway?

    By the end of the first, they all met up in the waiting room where they'd been greeted when they arrived. Kjeck looked to everyone, and everyone tried to avoid everyone else's gaze. Obviously, no one had found any hints of the thing yet. He sat down with a sigh, letting his new axe fall to the floor, where it made a slight dent in the woodwork.

    "Well," he said after a minute. "What's the plan?  Short of tearing up the walls, we've frisked this place for all its worth by now."

    The others just shrugged. Cody was staring at the trails of dirt that still hadn't been cleaned up. She seemed either tired or contemplative. "What was your idea, Kjeck?" she asked after a minute.

    He raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

    She waved a hand around in the air. "You said that I didn't have to use weapons. What was your alternative?"

    He thought for a minute. When it came to him, he snapped his fingers. "That's right. You know how you can make fire appear out of nowhere?"  She looked to him, curious, then nodded. "How big do you think that fire can be?"

    "Kjeck," she replied, scandalized, "I can't use magic as a weapon."  Kjeck made a 'why not?' kind of gesture, but she merely shook her head. "Kjeck," she replied, her voice indicating how ignorant he was, "that's not what magic is for. You can't just go around starting things on fire or freezing them. Magic is a tool, not a weapon."

    "Weapons can be tools, too," Kjeck replied. "Or the other way around. I'm just saying that, if it came down to it, do you think your magic could help us win the fight with this golem?"

    "And what would I do with it?  You can't light gold on fire."

    "I don't know offhand, but it's something to consider, isn't it?"

    Hyuldrek chuckled. "You could try to melt it. Then we could make it into bullions."

    Cody let out a breath and looked away. "The situation will determine what happens, I suppose," she muttered. "But it's not like it matters. We're not finding the stupid thing anyway."

    This comment caused a silence. Running in circles tended to tire people out; this was no different. The aggravation of the situation had been making Kjeck's hands tingle, like hotter blood was running through them. He lay back his head and sighed, deeply. "Where do you suppose that bird got these weapons from, anyway?" he decided to ask, if only to alleviate the silence.

    "The garden," Hyuldrek answered. "Fuck, I don't know. Why does that matter?"

    Suddenly, Cody sat upright, her ears perked forward and her brow furrowed. Kjeck lifted his head again and looked at her quizzically. "What's up?" he asked.

    Her eyes made their way to the dirt tracks on the floor, and she watched them for a time. "I wonder..." she whispered, and stood up.

    Kjeck raised an eyebrow as he watched her, but said nothing. She knelt down and put a hand on the dirt track, then raised a padded finger to her nose and sniffed it. Her tail began to twitch. "Why would a noble have these kinds of weapons, anyway?" she asked no one in particular. Turning her head back to the group on the couch, she asked, "Did anyone follow these tracks?"

    Kjeck shook his head. "Nope. We were saving outside for tomorrow, remember?"

    She stood up and crossed her arms, her tail waving slowly in the air behind her, ears still high on her head. "I think..." she muttered, then began walking, following the tracks. Everyone else just watched her go, wondering what idea she'd gotten in her head.

    A long time passed without her return. Just as Kjeck began to push himself off the couch to go find her, though, Cordelia came running back. "That was it!" she cried. "I figured it out!"

 

Chapter 12

 

    Ridiculous fucking quest....

    Hyuldrek felt like they were just wasting time, dealing with morons and their stupid fantasies. Why would anyway keep a living golden statue anyway?  Did people really have so much money that they'd come up with a dumbass contest like this just so they could give it away?

    This whole world was fucking insane. He didn't even know how they got here. One minute he was sitting in the doctor's lab, drinking coffee and having a good time, the next he was lying in a pile of ant-guts and getting arrested for murder. The whole point of getting this new body, even if it was a stupid idea and a longshot, was to avoid getting arrested. It was like somehow God or some other bastard up there decided to pick on him and Lerk. Like that one chance in infinity that two people could randomly appear in another location through quantum tunneling took effect at that moment on them. This kind of thing probably never happened before in the history of the universe.

    Except for that guy Kjeck. Hyuldrek wondered what he might have done to merit God's wrath, too. From the look of it, he was just another bum who didn't want to get a job. Silently, he laughed; maybe the religious nuts from SVC were right.

    "You coming or not, Hyuldrek?" Kjeck asked, his head peeking around the doorway. Hyuldrek grimaced, then looked to Lerk, who continued to stare off into space.

    "Come on, bud," he said, and stood up. Lerk followed him to the doorway, where Kjeck and the fox girl were standing. She looked real excited. Maybe she was proud of herself for doing something useful. Teenage girls were the same no matter where you went, he supposed.

    "It was the weapons that gave me the clue," she was saying as they followed the mud trail. "I just thought, 'why would a noble like this have so many weapons in his mansion?'  And then it hit me; they weren't his weapons!"

    "Oh?" Kjeck replied. "You mean... what?  They used to belong to the folks who failed at his test, or something?"

    "Exactly right!" she replied, face beaming. "So I figured, where better place to keep them than where they dropped!"

    The trail led them through several different rooms and hallways, until it finally stopped at a whitewashed wall. The tracks, like you see in mystery movies where there's a secret entrance, stopped short right there. Hyuldrek got ready for people to kneel down and start tapping.

    But it seemed like Cody already figured it out, because she simply pressed a hand to a certain spot with a slightly darker hue, and the wall swung inward and upward, revealing a long dirt path carved out of the soft reddish rock of the cliffside, leading down beyond his range of vision. It was slightly damp inside; maybe there was a water reservoir somewhere nearby. "Congrats," he muttered. Even if her logic was idiotic and didn't make any sense. But that was the way to get around in this world, after all. "We going now?"

    Kjeck shrugged. "You tired?"

    Hyuldrek rolled his eyes. "Shut the fuck up and get your ass down there."

    With a smirk and a gleaming eye, Kjeck did just that. Hyuldrek followed behind him, checking to make sure his gauntlets were on right. At least he got something cool out of this whole trip, he supposed. He was sure ready to pummel the crap out of this golem by now.

    They descended a long way into nearly utter darkness. Kjeck eventually had to back up a step and let Cody go first; he must not have been able to see anything. Hyuldrek looked behind him to make sure Lerk was doing all right. Same blank expression; everything was going good. After another distance, a soft orange glow began to shine in the distance, and Hyuldrek smelled pitch. As they approached it, the light grew larger and warmer, until they finally reached the bottom of the stairs.

    The torch lit a larger room, roughly shaped out of the mountainside with crude tools. In front of them was a large, steel door with no obvious handle or other way to open it. Hyuldrek's eyes widened slightly then as he caught an odd detail; light glinted off of partly exposed wires, which ran from a small metal box embedded in the door along the stone wall, where they disappeared into a finger-sized hole. It was the first sign of electricity he'd seen since he'd gotten here.

    Everyone else stopped in front of the door and regarded it for a time. Kjeck ran his hand across it in several spots where he thought the door handle might be, then stood back and crossed his arms. He turned to Cody. "See any way to open this baby?"

    She looked at the thing up and down for a minute or two, then shook her head. "No. Not really. What should we do?"

    "Try to bust it down?" Kjeck suggested with a shrug. He looked to Hyuldrek. Hyuldrek's lip curled up slightly.

    "Yeah right," he replied. "Better luck having Cody melt it with her 'magic'."

    "I couldn't get through a door like this," she murmured.

    Hyuldrek sighed heavily and stepped over to the little box, which he tapped with the claw on his forefinger. "Think you could through this piece of it?" he asked.

    She tilted her head to the side, then knelt down beside him and squinted her eyes at the little box. With one hand, she followed the wires a short distance down. "What's this?" she asked.

    "Well, that's what I want to find out," Hyuldrek replied. "How concentrated can you make that fire of yours?"

    Kjeck came wandering by, and he too knelt down beside the little box. His eyes took a minute to focus, then a small smile sprouted on his face. "Well well," he said. "What do we have here?  That's odd."

    Cody frowned. "What do you want me to do, Hyuldrek?"

    Hyuldrek stood up and took Kjeck by the shoulders, then moved him out of the way. He knelt in his spot and ran a claw along the top edge of the box. "Can you burn a slit right along here?  Big enough for me to fit a knife blade in there?"

    She sat back for a second, maybe planning out how she was going to do it, then nodded. "I suppose I could try," she replied. She placed her hands just above the little box and closed her eyes. Her mouth started to move like she was speaking, but only whispers came out; the same nonsense word, over and over. After a minute of this, she opened her eyes and shouted the word, and a bright light lit up the place as sparks began to fly from the top of the metal box. Hyuldrek backed up to avoid catching his fur on fire and watched as the white firecracker made its way in a straight line wherever Cody's hands directed it to go. The way the light danced in her reflective eyes made Hyuldrek think of those old stories he used to read as a kid, about evil sorcerers and princesses and stuff. Maybe this thing really was magic.

    When she was finished, she sat back and rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. Wetness glistened on her cheeks before it was absorbed into her fur. "I shouldn't have done that with my eyes open," she muttered. "Now I'm seeing spots."

    Hyuldrek sat back forward and looked at her work; a nice, clean line of melted metal made a mouth in the box, just big enough for him to slip in a knife blade. He could see more wires inside, these all completely covered with a brittle rubber casing, color coded somehow.

    "Kjeck," he said, and looked over at the old man. "You wanna' hand me one of those daggers you pocketed?"

    Kjeck nodded and slipped one out of his pocket, flipped it, caught it by the blade, and handed it to him. Hyuldrek grabbed it and shoved the blade into the fissure, being careful to avoid cutting the wires. Bracing himself against the wall with one leg, he pulled back with all his force. The metal groaned slightly and began to give way. He pulled harder, and the metal began to bend under the weight. Jagged edges formed as he stripped the front panel of the box away from the door. The steel curled, looking like a piece of paper getting ready to burn.

    When he pulled back enough of the box to get at the wires inside, he handed the dagger back to Kjeck. The metal was bright red where it had made contact with the original fissure, and the blade was slightly bent from the pressure. He supposed he could have waited for it to cool down before he tried to pry it open. "Thanks," he muttered.

    "What's all this stuff, Hyuldrek?" Cody asked him, leaning in closer to the box.

    "Probably the key," he muttered, and moved away the foremost bunches of wires to see how everything was connected, and to see if he could make heads or tails of the electronics code used for the connections. Cody leaned in closer, a curious look on her face, and he grimaced at her. "Get out of my light, would you?"  She leaned back, apologetic.

    Nothing about it was any different than what he was used to. That was a problem. Why in world would that be the case?  He sat back and thought about it for a minute. Supposing everything just looked the same. How would he be able to tell?  More importantly, what if he ended up permanently jamming the door shut, thinking the system was the same?  He looked over at Lerk, whose eyes were fixed on the box. Hyuldrek made a motion with his head, telling him to come look at it.

    Lerk did so, then simply shrugged. "Everyone here speaks the same language, too, Hyuldrek," was all he said.

    Well, it was true. Hyuldrek hooked a claw around one of the wires and pulled back, popping the old thing out of its tiny socket. If he screwed it up, they could just axe the thing down, he supposed. Maybe there wasn't even any current running, anyway, and this was a wasted venture. He supposed he didn't have much to lose.

    A knock came from his right, which echoed through the room on the other side of the door. He turned to look at Kjeck, and his eyes narrowed. "You think someone's gonna' answer?" he asked.

    "Just testing to see how thick it is."

    "You don't think I can figure out this wiring?"

    "I don't even know how wiring got there in the first place," he remarked. Hyuldrek watched him for a minute, then shrugged and went back to work. The tapping continued to come, in various places. Hyuldrek sat back and looked at the box again. Something was moving in it, all of the sudden. A little spring he hadn't seen before. Each time Kjeck tapped the door, the spring vibrated ever so slightly.

    "What's the matter?" Kjeck asked, continuing to tap.

    "Maybe you should..." Hyuldrek made to say, but a tap near the box cut his words short.

    The spring jumped a bit more, and Hyuldrek's sensitive ears picked up a slight click. A sourceless red light suddenly lit up the small room, and everyone turned around as they heard a loud crash behind them. Another steel door had slammed down, barring the way back up the stairs. A soft seeping sound reached everyone's ears, and Hyuldrek's heart began to pound a little harder. At least he knew the electricity was still on.

    "You fucking moron!" he yelled at Kjeck. "What did you have to do that for?  I had it under control!"

    "Oh God oh God oh God..." Cody was saying.

    "Bloody fuckin'..." Hyuldrek muttered, then sat back down before the little box. "Lerk, give me a hand, would you?"

    Lerk sat calmly down beside Hyuldrek and took a few of the wires in his hand, examining each one carefully. Hyuldrek shifted through a bundle of them until he found the one he was looking for, then yanked it out. Lerk plucked one himself. Hyuldrek moved aside another bundle and shoved the broken end of one of the wires he held in his hand into an empty hole. Lerk took it and held it there for him, then handed him another wire. Hyuldrek broke off a small resistor, then inserted the other wire into another small socket. Sparks leapt up to meet the wire, and the whole thing suddenly burst out into a white fire. The red light dimmed for a second.

    The sound of metal grating against metal reached his ears, and the door beside him ground slowly open. The hissing stopped, leaving only a faint hint of carbon monoxide in the air.

    Heart beating hard, he lay back and took several deep breaths. Vaguely, he thought that Kjeck and Lerk probably couldn't smell the carbon monoxide. At least he knew now why no one was ever able to beat this golem thing. They probably couldn't even get past the first door.

    After a minute, he sat up again. Everyone was watching him, relief on their faces. "The fuck you all looking at?" he asked.

    "Oh, just wanted to apologize for almost killing us," Kjeck muttered. "What say we move on?"

    Hyuldrek sneered and pushed himself off of the floor. Nothing about this world made any sense. Electronics in some crazy rich guy's basement, set up with exactly the standard system that he'd learned and had been using his whole damn life, ten dimensions from here. Which made him wonder, of course....

    Cody walked back and took the low burning torch off of the wall, which she then handed to Kjeck, and they all walked through the doorway. The room beyond was a hallway, carved the same way as the previous room out of the soft rock, which ended at a small wooden door. Before they opened the door, Hyuldrek searched the whole thing for any sign of more traps. Oddly enough, he didn't find any, so they opened it.

    Hyuldrek's breath stopped short. The room was full of computers.

         

Chapter 13

 

    Mercury lamps gave the room a soft light, shining like patches of iridescent milk off of the grayish green walls and floor. Five old monitors were set up on or below steel desks, their respective CPUs sitting on the floor below them or beside them. The model was one Hyuldrek recognized; Betelgeuse, a real antique. Clunky-looking rectangular keyboards were hooked up to each computer, and there were no mice. He approached this pile of ancient equipment, hands twitching underneath the steel of his gauntlets. This was a pile of gold, right here. Collectors would pay their life savings for this kind of machinery.

    "What in the world are these things?" Cody asked from behind him.

    He turned around, a gleam in his wolf eye. "This is my line of work," he replied. 

    "Damn," Kjeck said, rubbing a hand through his beard. "I think my great-grandfather's great-grandfather might have had one of these as a kid. Are they Betelgeuse?"

    Hyuldrek nodded. "Looks a lot like version 1.1, too. This company went out of business some sixty years ago."  He smiled, showing off large white fangs. "You want me to try turning one these babies on?"

    "Well, the gas-trap in the other room seemed to work just fine," Kjeck replied. "Maybe these will, too."  He crossed his arms for a second, looking intently at the computers, then shook his head. "I'm just having a hell of a time figuring out why all of this stuff is down here. You've never seen anything like this before, Cody?"

    The fox shook her head. "Metal strings, plastic boxes with windows. Does it all run on magic?"

    "Something like that," Hyuldrek muttered as he sat in an old roller chair; rather, the metal frame of a chair, which might once have been covered in leather or some other material. A practiced hand swept down to the CPU and hit a gray steel switch, and a pleasing hum started up inside of the black box. A soft green light appeared in the center of the monitor, then grew to fill the screen. White words scrolled across the glass; code language he remembered learning back in college, telling him what the operating system was doing. A long bar on the bottom began filling up, rectangle by rectangle. The bar was completed, the screen blanked out, and a low hum began to accompany the first, probably a fan.

    "It's for writing?" Cody asked, her head peeking around Kjeck's shoulder to get a view of the screen.

    Hyuldrek swiveled around. "This particular machine, yeah. I mean, you could do other stuff with it if you wanted to, but it didn't have a lot of capacity for anything big."

    "It's called a computer, Cody," Kjeck explained to her, his eyes fixed on the green screen. The retro light the monitor was giving off made everyone look ghostly, like characters in a horror flick. "It's a machine used to store data and run mathematical programs. You can play games on it, too, but that's only on the commercial models."

    As he explained, the computer made a satisfying beep, and Hyuldrek swiveled back around. Rather than seeing the usual operating system logo, all that came up was a blinking line. It seemed like this baby was the simplest of the simple. Hyuldrek laid his hands on the keyboard and began clacking away. His fingers being what they were at this stage of his life, he made quite a few more mistakes than he was used to. It was a bit like typing with gloves on; possible, but just barely. Difficulties typing weren't a huge problem, though. At least he hadn't forgotten any code.

    A few lines later, he brought up a list of all of the documents stored on the computer. Six or seven lines popped up, all simple text files. At the bottom was an amusing line, which made him chuckle. "Kjeck," he said, pointing a claw at the screen. "Check this out."

    Kjeck leaned in a little closer, then barked a laugh. "A hundred kilobytes?  You've got to be kidding me."

    "I guess now I know why there are so many of these in here," Hyuldrek replied, his chest bouncing as he laughed. "Let's see what all's stored on here, anyway."

    He opened up the first file, and a short line of text appeared on the screen. "It appears that the Bridge is often preoccupied. This rejects my original theory that it was an omnipresent entity. This proves, however, the reverse case; the Bridge must be based somewhere physically, and must have a limited processing capability.

    "How I know this: Yesterday, I finished the construction of my seventh processor, and still no sign of being transported back. It's almost as though the Bridge only makes one transition per person. Of course, if this is true, it presents a problem for another of my theories, explained in my journal on ee7625 14 Autc. And, of course once more, it means that I may never get back to my own world.

    "ee7625 22 Hokk."

    Hyuldrek blinked at the screen a few times, read the document over. If it wasn't so fucking cryptic, it sounded almost like they'd stumbled onto an incredibly pertinent piece of information. He turned to Lerk and motioned for him to come read the document. His blank-faced friend slowly strode up to the console, leaned over, scanned through the white text, then leaned back and crossed his arms. "Pull up the other documents," he said. "It may be best if we can find the beginning."

    Hyuldrek nodded. "Why don't you get to turning on all those other computers while I'm at it?" he suggested.

    "Bridge, huh?" Kjeck said from behind.

    Hyuldrek turned to look at him, then happened to catch Cody's expression. Her brow was deeply wrinkled, her ears pointed forward, her tail whipping back and forth behind her. "What's up?" he decided to ask her.

    The expression disappeared instantly, and she smiled at him. "Oh, nothing," she replied. "I was just thinking... there really isn't a golden golem down here, is there?"

    Hyuldrek glanced around the room. There weren't any other doors or anything; it did seem that this place was just these couple of rooms. "Maybe it's in a different secret underground heavily guarded room," he muttered.

    "But if it's not here, I was just thinking... well. I mean I was thinking about the noble."

    Kjeck raised his eyes to look off into space, and an eyebrow shot up. "That's a damn good point," he replied. "What's he been killing all these money-hunters for?"

    Hyuldrek looked between the two of them, both of whom were looking in different directions with thoughtful expressions, and he shrugged and turned back to the green monitor. By that time, Lerk had managed to start up the rest, and was sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of one monitor reading another document. Hyuldrek turned back to his screen and typed in the command to open the second document in the list.

    "Very recently, I overheard a couple of farmers in Theltrielle talking about an interesting legend. I took it upon myself to interrupt them and get the details, for reasons I have mentioned in previous journals. Supposedly, in the far northeast there is an island on which sits an abandoned castle. This castle used to belong to a dragonness queen; her name was quite odd sounding, but I will attempt to reproduce it in letters here: Itslyar Tsicalsitran. This is my phonetic interpretation.

    "The story itself was fairly typical of this world; this dragonness reigned over an army of monsters and was eventually taken down by some hero in shining armor. This was not the interesting part. According to the legend, all of these events occurred only one hundred years ago. This is very nearly the time I believe the Bridge may have been created. As such, tomorrow I plan to...."

    "Hyuldrek," came Lerk's voice. Hyuldrek turned to him and leaned over to look at the screen. "This is the first entry."

    Hyuldrek grunted, then pushed himself back up. "Why don't you read it out loud for me."

    Lerk turned to look at him for a second, then turned back to the screen and began to dictate. "Continued from paper journals. I've built this computer as a way to fool the Bridge into sending me back. 'There are many truths in this world. Mankind's gift is to put those truths to good use. Always remember, however, than every gift can be abused.'  So said the philosopher Erwyst, four hundred years ago. If the Bridge really is trying to maintain the balance between our worlds, it will see that I am disrupting that balance, and it will send me back.

    "Or so I was thinking while I built this computer. But, as should be evident, this plan didn't work. I will attempt to build the rest of the computers with the parts I have remaining; subtracting what I used for the electronics in the door trap, one crate of parts should have held enough materials for four more. Perhaps more will get the bridge's attention. No reason not to try.

    " ee7618 07 Coru."

    Hyuldrek frowned and tapped his claws across the keyboard of his own machine. "Sounds like that wasn't the first entry this person ever made, anyway."

    "Lerk?" Cody asked suddenly from behind. "There was a quotation in there somewhere. Could you read it again?"

    Lerk, eyes never having left the monitor, read back the line. "'There are many truths in this world. Mankind's gift is to put those truths to good use. Always remember, however, than every gift can be abused.'"

    "That was the one," she said. Hyuldrek swiveled around and looked to her, but her attention was focused on Kjeck. "Why would that sound familiar to me, Kjeck?" she asked him.

    The old man's brow was furrowed, and he was rubbing at his eye with a thumb. "Wasn't it that statue?"

    She raised an eyebrow. "Statue?"

    Kjeck waved his hand in the air. "That big old plate thing in the shrine, before we went into the forest."

    Cody thought for a minute, then snapped her claws together. "That was it!  That quotation was carved into that big stone in the forest temple. Do you think the person who wrote these journals visited the temple?"

    "Maybe," Lerk replied. Everyone turned to stare at him, including Hyuldrek. He never spoke out of turn unless he had something really important to say. "But Erwyst was a philosopher from our world."

    Hyuldrek's face showed fierce incredulity. "How the fuck would you know that?" he asked.

    Lerk shrugged. "Philosophy was a required course for honors credit. Erwyst was the philosopher who wrote 'The Nation and Law,' and a number of other books."

    "I forgot; you were in the honors fucking program," Hyuldrek muttered. "Can't believe you remember anything from college."

    "Hold on just a minute," Cody interrupted. She was holding her head in her hands, and her eyes were closed. "You're telling me that that stone had a quotation from an ancient philosopher from your world written on it?  For just how long have people been transported between our worlds, anyway?"

    "I've got an idea," Kjeck proposed. "Since finding the first entry didn't help any, why don't we try to find the last?  This fellow obviously was trying pretty hard to get off of this planet; maybe he eventually did."

    Hyuldrek nodded, then scooted his chair around, looking at the dates on all of the document titles. 7618, 18, 19, 21, 23, 23, 24.... He leaned over and looked back at the screen on the first computer he'd opened. 25, right. With a shrug, he scooted himself back in front of it and opened up the last document on the list. "qwoiuehdlihqencicpoxihenonc8991273p5-20135hiondsf,nzxv,..."

    "The fuck is this shit...?" he muttered. He closed the document and opened up the one previous. "zcnvoihposaidhfeonf...."  The previous. "ngoihkdsan;nv801230r8...."  The previous. Same thing. He threw his hands up into the air. "Either some douche bag was screwing with this computer, or these files all somehow got corrupted," he remarked. "None of the rest of these things make any sense."

    "So what does the last one that makes sense say?" Kjeck asked.

    "Some story about a dragon," Hyuldrek replied, shoving himself away from the desk and standing up. "You can go ahead and read it."

    Kjeck shrugged and sat in his place, then stared at the screen for a minute. "Which one is it?" he asked. Hyuldrek leaned over and pointed a claw at the file name. Kjeck watched it for a little longer, then looked at the keyboard, then looked at the screen again. After a second, he turned back to Hyuldrek, a silly smile on his face. "And what do I type in to open it?"

    Hyuldrek rolled his eyes, then leaned over and opened the document for Kjeck. Kjeck grinned and shrugged, then tipped his head in close to the screen and read the document. After a minute, he fell back in the chair. "This is the last document this person wrote on these, huh?"  Hyuldrek grunted. "Well then I know what our next destination should be, once we get your guys' names cleared."

    "What, that island?" Hyuldrek asked.

    "No reason not to, right?  You ever hear about this legend, Cody?" he asked the fox. She simply stood back and shook her head. "Well, even so."

    "Wouldn't we need, like, I dunno'... a fucking ship?" Hyuldrek decided to add.

    Kjeck shrugged again. "I'm sure we'll be able to hire one somewhere, once we get some money."

    "Money," Cody muttered. "Right. What were we going to do about that, again?  The golem obviously isn't here. For all we know, it might not be anywhere."

    Hyuldrek rubbed a padded hand under his jaw. An idea struck him, and his mouth became white with teeth. "Maybe we don't need to worry about any golems," he muttered.

         

Chapter 14

 

    Lerk knew from the expression that Hyuldrek was making that violence was coming soon. Or something similar. Even with his new face, he was quite easy to read.

    "Where are you going?" Kjeck asked as the wolf stood up from the old chair and headed for the exit.

    "You all gotta' come with me. Get moving and follow my directions, okay?  We're gonna' be rich after this no matter what happens."

    "No matter what happens?" Cody asked in a soft voice, putting a hand to her chest. Nonetheless, she followed Hyuldrek back toward the gas-trap room. Kjeck's only response was to shrug, and Lerk followed after him once he was through the door.

    Once everybody was inside the deadly room, Hyuldrek knelt down in front of the electrical panel again. A few minutes later, another spark flew out, and the door began to noisily slide shut again. A few seconds after this was complete, the entryway door ground open. Hyuldrek turned around and moved to a spot right beside the closed door, where he laid himself on his back, then waved an arm to try to get everybody to do the same. "Make it look like you're dead," he said.

    Lerk understood the plan now, so he followed instructions. Psychological trickery. It took the others a few seconds to follow orders; both had bewildered looks on their faces. When the sound of cheery whistling suddenly came down the stairwell, however, Cody and Kjeck jumped and fell to the ground, putting themselves in agonized positions. Lerk closed his eyes and waited.

    A soft squelch of mud underneath boots sounded in the room, accompanied by a soft and joyful hum. Somebody walked up to Lerk, turned him over rather roughly, and slid the sword from off of his body. Hands then began reaching into his pockets, feeling for money or other goods. His pistol was lifted out of his back pocket, and the figure stood up to examine it. Lerk briefly opened his eyes and saw a felt cat's tail dragging on the ground beside his head.

    When the noble had finished frisking Lerk--something that didn't take long, as Lerk had barely anything on him--he moved on to the next closest person: Hyuldrek. It was only a matter of seconds, now.

    "Hey," Hyuldrek voice growled from nearby. 

    A scream sounded then. Lerk lost his breath when a body fell on top of him and scrambled away. His gun fell and splashed a little mud on his forehead, so he reached out and picked it up. When he caught the noble's eyes, the man screamed again. "The retribution has finally come!" he shouted, mouth forming a rictus. 

    Hyuldrek climbed over Lerk and bore down on the huddling figure of the noble, raising a gauntleted fist and bringing it to the man's face. "You'd better fucking believe it has," Hyuldrek growled. "This how you make a living?  There is no fucking golem, is there?"

    The noble let out another wail, and Lerk saw tears glistening on his round face in the dim torchlight. Hyuldrek leaned in closer with the spikes of his gauntlets, pressing them lightly against the noble's flesh. "No no no no no!" the noble cried. "There's no golem!  I'm sorry!"

    "You'd better be fucking sorry!"  Hyuldrek growled deeply in his throat and lifted the noble off of the muddy floor, then carried him into the center of the room. The wolf raised an eyebrow at the others and made a slight motion with his free hand. Lerk took the hint and stood up, slowly, like a zombie rising from the dead. The others watched him for a minute, then followed suit once realization dawned on them. The noble's eyes flitted this way and that, his head delaying a moment before following. A string of saliva dangled from his lower lip.

    Hyuldrek eyes glided over his companions, slowly and carefully, then turned back to the noble. He gave him a theatrical slimy grin. "We're all not very happy with you, you know," he muttered, almost whispered. The noble sputtered something incomprehensible, and Hyuldrek put a hand on his mouth. He brought the man's face incredibly close to his own, nose wrinkling and teeth showing underneath his black gums. "But... there's one thing you can do for us that'll make us happy again."

    The noble's face contorted into an unnatural mixture of happiness and utter terror. "Wh-what is it?  What do you need?  I can give you anything!"

    Hyuldrek smiled then. "'Anything' is just what we need. How about this; we'll spare your life... if you load us up three wagons full of gold bullions. What do you say to that?  I'd almost call it a deal."

    "Yes yes, a deal!  It's a wonderful deal!  Are you sure you don't want four?"

    Hyuldrek's eyes widened a little, probably involuntarily. "Four it is," he muttered. Slowly, he lowered the sputtering noble to the ground, then gave him a jab in the back, moving him in the direction of the stairwell. "Four sounds just fine."  He turned and gave the others a wicked smile. Kjeck gave him a thumb's up. Cody frowned. Lerk had no reaction.

 

    With the help of a number of servants, it only took three hours to load up all of the wagons. Due to their enormous weight, it took another four to move them a few miles away, out of sight of the village and the cliffs, and out of sight of the bandits, save one.

    From the middle of the forest glade where they stopped to rest the horse teams, Hyuldrek stood for the third or fourth time staring at the enormous bounty, eyes glistening with success. Lerk took it upon himself to get the horses water and food. Having seen the gigantic piles of bullions, he could only wonder if his lupine friend hadn't let himself get carried away with just a little greed. One wagon full would surely have sufficed.

    Cody approached him and stood a short distance away, her arms crossed over her chest as she, too, regarded the shimmering pyramid of metal. She shook her head and sighed, and Hyuldrek turned to her. "What's up?" he asked.

    She licked her gums and looked elsewhere. "I was just thinking... this is all stolen, isn't it?  The only thing we did to earn it was to intimidate the man who used to own it."

    Hyuldrek regarded her for a time, looking a little incredulous. "What, are you kidding me?  The guy gassed swarms of people to earn himself a little extra dough. You think a fine is too harsh a punishment, or what?  I think we let the fucker get off easy, if anything."

    The fox sighed. "I suppose you're right. I'm just not certain that we should have taken it into our own hands like that. We are still trying to clear our names from other crimes, you know. Running off with four wagons full of gold might not be the best way to prove our innocence."

    Hyuldrek just shrugged, then began filling a sack with a large number of bullions. "This was all your idea in the first place, you know."

    She turned to him, mouth opened like she wanted to retort, then tilted her head to the side and shrugged. She knew he was right.

    Lerk brought the last bucket of water to the last horse and set it on the ground before it, then hopped up onto the driver's seat and let himself collapse to a sitting position, elbows on his knees. 'Always remember, however, than every gift can be abused.'  It was about technology, of course. Not even one of the better quotes. It was written during the first age of technological advancement, when the world became less a place of magic and miracles. The rest of the paragraph went like so: 'The planet can be thought of as a circus tight-rope walker; at all times, he must keep his balance. He can certainly use aids: a long pole, for instance, or an umbrella, but if ever he becomes too confident and tips himself too far one way or the other, there is no going back. In this way, mankind must be wary of what he has discovered. He has the power to tip the balance.'

    Whoever wrote those computer records must have been a fan of Erwyst. A lot of what he or she wrote echoed many of the sentiments expressed in the book from which that particular quote came. The idea of the Bridge, for instance. Maybe that was one of the planet's aids to maintain its balance?  What intrigued Lerk the most, however, was that the author of those journals seemed to believe that this Bridge was something tangible. The reason they were all here, even. But then... who could be controlling it?

    "Lerk," came Kjeck's voice. Lerk looked to his right and caught the old man's gaze. "Hyuldrek and I are gonna' go find a place to cash the stuff we're keeping. You okay guarding everything with Cody while we're gone?"  He nodded, and Kjeck gave him a thumb's up and headed out into the forest with Hyuldrek.

    The fox girl climbed up onto the wagon as well, and stared off into the foliage. Her tail lay perfectly still, but her ears continuously turned this way and that, like she was listening intently. Or thinking. Lerk went back to his original position and cupped his face in his hands. If it was a device, did someone invent it?  Someone who knew that both worlds existed, and sought to keep both in their most pristine states of development, perhaps?  But how would such a person have discovered a different world in the first place without the help of the Bridge?

    A long time ago on his own planet, there was what modern day scholars considered a great disaster for human-kind. All of the world's great minds--philosophers, scientists, engineers, you name it--disappeared. Everyone blamed their 'deaths' on the church, which, at the time, was the most powerful government entity in most countries. Could it have been, maybe, that these minds discovered this other world?  Perhaps it was they who built this Bridge in the first place?

    It was a thought.

    "Lerk," came Cordelia's soft voice. Lerk raised his head and turned to her. Her brow was furrowed, and her claws were tapping rhythms on her kneecaps. "What got you involved with Hyuldrek?"

    Lerk regarded her for a time, then shrugged. "College friends."

    "But what I mean is... you don't seem to have much in common with him. You seem so nice and reserved, and smart, and he's, well.... You know what I mean. He's a brute."

    "We don't need to be like our friends to enjoy their company."

    Her mouth opened slightly, then shut. "I suppose that's true," she muttered. She must have been thinking of Kjeck.

    Once more, her mouth opened like she wanted to say something, but this time it was cut short by a noise coming from deeper in the forest. She stood up, ears turning like radio dishes on a battleship, tail silently whipping back and forth in the air behind her. Lerk's eyes tried to pinpoint the source of the sounds, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

    Soon thereafter, a group of men burst out of the trees, tattered clothing on those with bare flesh, mere loincloths on those with fur or scales, aiming dozens of knocked bows at the two of them. Cordelia let out a cry and nearly fell onto the pile of bullions, her hand to her chest. 

    Lerk passively watched as a creature emerged from behind one of their ranks; antennae the length of a man's arm, small black eyes hidden on a shiny chitinous face, six jointed legs lined with hazardous spines, and a tough brown shell covering its flat, compost-smelling body. It skittered to the wagon's side, antennae moving this way and that like divining rods, and stood erect on its back four legs, supporting itself on the front left wheel. Its mouth, if one could call it that, opened, and it spoke in an accent impossible to describe or replicate; an accent only a cockroach could make. "I thought I smelled gold."

    Cody merely stared at the creature, eyes wide and everything frozen. It turned its small head toward Lerk and flexed enormous wings. "This all for us?  Too kind. Too kind."

    "In a sense," Lerk replied.

    The roach's head tilted ninety degrees to the right. "What, sense?"

    "We obtained the gold with you in mind. We have a proposition. Would you care to hear it?"

    The insect turned its head another ninety degrees to give a look at its men, then returned to Lerk and barked out a noise similar to a rusty buzz-saw trying to cut through stainless steel, which Lerk took to be a laugh. "Wha' ho!  Proposition for us?  You've got arrows at you, friend!  I got proposition too: we take gold, you not leave here alive?"

    At that moment, Lerk was blinded by a flash of light as every single archer's bow spontaneously burst into fire. The roach turned around at the sound of two dozen voices crying out in alarm, and nearly fell over seeing the flaming arms falling to the ground. When they landed, the fires instantly went out; all that was left of the weapons were gray and black smoking husks.

    Lerk turned to his vulpine partner and saw her standing atop the wagon seat, her hands outstretched in the air. Her breath moved her chest in and out rapidly, and sharp teeth showed through a wild grimace on her face. After a moment, she caught Lerk's eye, and her hands fell back to her sides. Her gaze then scanned the ring of archers, finally coming to rest on the giant roach in front of her. "Now do you want to hear our proposition?" she asked at the top of her voice.

    "Magics...?" it asked weakly.

    "We're not here to mess around," she continued, appearing more fierce than Lerk had ever seen her. Like an evil sorceress about to turn all her subjects into frogs. "Do you want to hear what we have to offer, or am I going to have to turn you all into piles of smoldering ashes?"

    The roach's small, indistinct eyes looked over its men, who all suddenly seemed a bit less confident in themselves. "You bring gold to buy us as slaves?" it asked in almost a whisper, or perhaps a hiss. It seemed a funny question. Lerk almost laughed.

    From Lerk's right came a hard thudding sound accompanied by a grunt, and two of the former archers fell to the ground. Hyuldrek then charged out of the bushes, snarling, his hands bunched into spiked fists that were ready to break somebody's skull open. Kjeck popped out right behind him, his new battleaxe grasped tightly in his right hand, and both charged for the roach.

    Seeing this, the roach finally completed its fall and landed on its back, its six legs kicking the air wildly and its wings beating against the ground to try to turn the body over. Hyuldrek ran behind it and grappled it around the neck (if it had such a thing), his claws unsheathed and ready to tear into the chitinous flesh. Kjeck raised his axe and menaced anyone he happened to look at.

    "You okay?" he shouted to Cody, who was regarding the new scene with as much surprise as the bandits. She merely nodded. Two major defeats in less than a minute, Lerk mused. The bandits were not doing well.

    "Yes yes yes!  What you want, please?" the roach shrieked, a sound like a knife cutting across a chalkboard.

    "We've got a proposition for you bastards," Hyuldrek said.

    The troop of bandits began muttering amongst themselves. Lerk leaned in toward his lupine friend. "We've been over this already," he whispered.

    Hyuldrek shot him a perplexed look, then turned back to the bandits before him. "Take us to your leader!" he shouted. Kjeck sniggered from nearby, and Hyuldrek growled at him to shut up.

    "We show you to leader, yes!" the roach replied, kicking its legs in the air. "You turn me around and I show you the way?"

    Hyuldrek looked down into the creature's face, then up at Lerk, who shrugged, over at Cody, who might have blushed, at Kjeck, who raised an eyebrow and a shoulder, and back down to the roach, who winced. "Alright," he said, suddenly a bit less sure of the situation. "Let's do that."

 

    The bandits had a fairly large operation, as it turned out. Along the shore of a large lake, in an area completely cleared of trees and most of its grass, was an army of tents and small wooden huts. Poorly dressed frogs, rabbits, badgers, crows, humans, and many other sorts stopped their various menial tasks as the gold-filled wagon strolled into their camp. 

    They were led to the largest wooden hut in the place, a two-story building with red clay tiles that stood on a grassy knoll near to the water, where they parked their wagons. The roach skittered ahead of them into the interior of the building, and the weaponless bandits all spread out into the village toward their respective homes. Lerk followed the rest of the group into the cottage.

    Despite the noble exterior, the inside was a trash-pit that reeked of decay. A staircase near the entrance led to an upstairs that didn't exist, as the floorboards had long since deteriorated and fallen to the ground floor, where they still lay in a heap in some places. On one of these heaps, covered with a number of expensive tapestries and furs eaten through by fungus, was a cockroach even bigger than the one who led the way to his lair. The smaller one turned to Cody. "Treat the boss with respect," it hissed. "And don't call him by name. He don't like that from strangers."  Lerk briefly wondered when it had told them its boss's name.

    Seeing the new arrivals, this enormous insect, as long as a dinner table for ten and wider than a sportscar, waved its front two legs in the air before it in greeting, its antennae pushing forward to give them a better look. "This little girl is the sorceress who terrified my men?" it asked. The smaller roach took this time to leave the room, skittering out on its belly.

    Hyuldrek and Kjeck both showed their surprise, but before they could say anything, Cody stepped forward and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "We need your help with something," she said, her voice hard and commanding.

    "You have funny ways of asking for help," the roach replied, its body shaking up and down with might have been a laugh. Insect laughs were very artificial, Lerk noted. As was their human language. "Look, little girl," it continued. "I heard what happened already. You got some wicked magic powers, something I can't fight against without losing a whole lot of men. 

    "But that's not all, is it?"  Its antenna lifted into the air like it wanted to form a question mark.  "You went around wandering the woods with a wagon full of gold. You brought this wagon with you here, to me. And I'm looking in your eyes right now, and you know what I see?  A frightened little girl trying to act tough."

    Cody's firm expression vanished at these words. Kjeck took this as his cue to step forward. "That's because she's not the leader here, is all," he replied. "The thing is, we're not here to get anything from you. We're here to offer you a deal."

    "Of course you are," the roach replied. "Otherwise you wouldn't have brought so much gold."

    "That's not even the half of it," Kjeck replied. "You want your men to live in luxury for the next forty years, you'll accept our offer."

    "Not the half of it?"

    Kjeck nodded. "You ever hear about the legend of the gold golem of Ielia?"

    The roach's antennae shifted positions, and its head tilted slightly to the side. "What does that have to do with anything?"

    "We finally killed it, is what it has to do with anything," Kjeck replied. "That wagon full of gold is exactly one fourth of the money we got by doing this, is what it has to do with anything."

    "Four wagons full of gold bullions...?" the roach muttered. With a great effort, the roach pushed itself off of its pile with its wings and landed with a loud whump on the wood floor below it, then skittered up to Kjeck. Even standing flat on its belly as it was, the top of its shell still reached Lerk's thighs. Its antennae lifted high into the air, pointed right to Kjeck's face. "You have four wagons full of gold?"

    Kjeck nodded. "And they can all be yours if you help us out with a little something."

    "A little something?"

    Kjeck nodded again. "You'll laugh, too. This is probably the best deal you'll ever get in your life."

    The roach lifted its face up to look at Kjeck with its eyes, scanned the other three, fluttered its wings a little bit. Then it turned around and headed back to its rotting pile and climbed back to the top. "You are an amusing bunch," it said as it flipped itself onto its back once more. "Why don't you come and have a seat, and we can discuss this deal of yours.

    "And oh yes," it continued, laying its front two legs across its segmented stomach. "You can call me Gregor."

 

Chapter 15

 

    Once upon a time, on a small island in the cold waters of the north, lived a mighty dragon queen. No one was her match, in strength, intelligence, cunning, or cruelty. In the clutches of her talons were all of the most terrible of beasts; magical creatures all with a lust for blood. With these hoards of demons under her control, she terrorized the peoples who lived in the flat lands across the inlet. They raised food for her and her legions, they built monuments to her, created items of great wealth for her, and she in turn worked them to death without pity. If she was feeling generous, she would raze a village, thus setting those inhabitants free.

    For one hundred years this went on, until a boy was born. Witnessing the suffering of his people, this particular boy vowed to wrest himself and those he loved from the ruthless grasp of the dragon queen. In secret he trained himself with the sword and the bow, gained strength, learned the way of the warrior. His family starved themselves so that he could become strong and healthy. His fellow villagers risked certain death to grant him quality weapons and armor. He wouldn't let their sacrifices go to waste.

    Thus was how, on the one hundred and twenty first year of the dragon queen's reign, the boy became a man, and set out on a quest to slay the queen and disperse her horrific monsters. He fought long and hard, alone save for those brave enough to accompany him on his quest. After a long journey and many battles, he arrived at the dragon queen's castle.

    The queen admitted his prowess in coming, but still she laughed. After all; he was just a human. A hairless piece of meat, with a brain the size of a cantalope. With this cocky attitude, she accepted a duel with the warrior, assuming sure victory.

    This was to be her greatest mistake, for she underestimated the warrior's determination. In that same one hundred and twenty-first year, the dragon queen's reign ended, and the people enslaved under her were finally freed. The warrior's name was Althaira; no one would ever forget.

 

    ...was the legend being told these days about her. While it was creative, none of it was the slightest bit true. Itslyar Tsicalcitran, the 'dragon queen', looked down upon her decaying tomb, a broken sword even having been placed there to 'prove' the legend's veracity.

    She swatted at the blade, spit anger at it, but of course it didn't move. Just continued to sit there, defacing history itself, demeaning the real sacrifices that were played out that day.

    It was never a cruel reign; humans just couldn't stand the fact that a different species of creature had control of them for a time. They were an insecure lot; they only worshipped deities that resembled themselves, built monuments to those humans who did the most to contribute to their incredibly pervasive arrogance, philosophized only about the 'human condition', what it meant to be 'human', et cetera. When she built her castle on the abandoned island in the north and began overseeing their activities, they collectively felt insulted and demonized her because of it. After that...

    Well, after that, things happened.

    That was a long time ago, though. She was only thinking about it now because of the humans who were planning on coming for a visit. Her perception shifted to the far west and settled on a group of travelers. Two who resembled canines (but names were names: they were all just different breeds of human to her), two of the most common ape variety, and two others that they just recently acquired for some devious plan of theirs to subvert the local authorities. 

    Which appealed to her; laws were such a silly concept. Restrictive to no purpose.

    They were being led, it seemed, if only by coincidences. But what did that ever mean, anyway?  Were coincidences ever that?  Their plan seemed to be to find a ship that would take them to her castle, where they would continue the investigations of that other.

    It had been a rather long time since that particular visit. Some number of revolutions ago; she didn't remember quite how many. Unless she continuously counted, it was easy to lose track. Some things just feel different after one dies. 

    She had been a small woman, not the kind one would expect to make such a long journey. Poor eyesight augmented with thick focusing lenses, thin frame of body, pale skin soft from years of little outside activity. But she was a clever one; she bypassed the castle's old traps with little effort and made her way almost systematically to the tomb at the lowest level, her mind set on a goal she wouldn't let go of. Fairly admirable, that one was.

    She came seeking some way to get across a certain bridge, she called it. Not a physical bridge, but one that could interact with the physical world anyhow. It sounded like a concept he would have enjoyed pondering immensely....

    Stop thinking about that.

    The group of humans emerged from the forest with their two companions, making their way to Theltrielle, not the slightest bit aware of her presence. Well, non-presence. She wasn't exactly there, after all. She wasn't anywhere anymore, not in the traditional sense of the word. This group, she knew, was looking for the same thing as the woman before, and, having discovered a record she left, decided to follow her same path to see if they could find it. 

    They would be disappointed, she knew. All that was left in her castle anymore were self-resetting traps and several families of desert rodent. And a couple of kit foxes.

    How should she greet them?  Since the woman before had been alone, she had revealed herself slowly, mystically, like a sacred spirit awakening from a long slumber to give a cryptic phrase to the treasure hunter searching its tomb. This group might not fall for that one quite so easily, though; they seemed a bit more cynical. Perhaps she could fill the room with smoke and show them red glowing eyes, then boom her voice at them, angry for having disturbed her resting place. Maybe even throw objects at them if they still weren't buying it.

    She gave an ethereal snigger. Even as an old corpse, she was still a playful youngster, wasn't she?

    The bland one in the back stopped walking as she laughed. A quick snap of his head, and his expressionless eyes turned in her direction, looked right into her.

    Immediately her laughter ceased. She searched the man's face. No sign of anything, but she felt activity there. Activity in his brain, seeking confirmation that he'd heard a laugh.

    But how?  She wasn't even a physical being anymore; all that was left of her was buried under a stone some four months by boat to the northeast. How could he have heard her laughter?

    A minute passed by, and the man's eyes moved away again. A short run brought him back up with his companions. The wolf one turned to give him a look, but he said nothing, appeared completely calm.

    "Who are you?" a voice asked her.

    Her vision became blurred, disoriented. Now was the time to cease this spying. She would speak with them when they arrived.

    All went black as she reentered the Void.

 

Chapter 16

 

    "It wasn't me, Kjeck."

    Kjeck turned to Cordelia and raised an eyebrow, a silent question in his face.

    Cody shook her head. Her hands were clasped on her stomach, like she was praying. "The fire that destroyed all of those bandits' bows. I didn't actually cause that. You should know... I don't have that kind of power."

    The two bandits--a grungy pigeon and his warthog friend--who were accompanying them now also turned their heads to give her a look. Kjeck returned the gesture with a worried expression; it might have been an interesting topic, but why did Cody decide to discuss this right now?  He looked the pigeon in the eyes and shrugged. "It doesn't matter now, does it?  We're still giving you guys a bunch of gold."

    Cody glanced at the two future prisoners and suddenly seemed ashamed. Turning her head away, she sighed heavily. "It's just been bothering me, is all. I wanted to talk about it. Things like that don't just happen, right?"

    "Maybe it was God," Hyuldrek muttered from nearby.

    "I thought about that," Cody replied.

    "I was kidding."

    She turned her eyes to him and frowned, seemed ready to retort. 

    "You do seem to have some odd things happen to you, Cody," Kjeck interjected before things got nasty. "Which reminds me; we've got these guys for Hyuldrek and Lerk, but you're not off the hook yet."

    "Well, that's just the thing. The creature that protected me that night... I wonder if it didn't do it again yesterday?"

    Kjeck shrugged. "Even so, it's not showing itself. The best it can do for you now is make its presence known to the guards who want you in jail, right?"

    "But if it's protecting me, you'd think it would know that, too, wouldn't you?  I just wish I could see it again, talk with it."

    "What's that?" Hyuldrek asked suddenly, perking up his ears.

    Kjeck looked to him with a frown. "What's what?"

    "It sounds like a flute."

    Cordelia's ears jumped up as well at that remark, and she began looking around in every direction. "Where is it?  I don't hear anything."

    "Neither do I," the wolf replied with a grin.

    Cody's ears fell back, then, and she snarled at Hyuldrek. 

    Kjeck rolled his eyes. "You happy or something, Hyuldrek?  You seem to be in a much more playful mood today."

    "I'm happy 'cause I'm getting my freedom back. You know how long it's been since I could walk the streets without looking behind me every five seconds to check for cops?  Knowing that these two blokes are going to be taking my place is great."

    "Well settle down a little, would you?  You're not off the hook yet, you know."

    "Yeah yeah. How hard could it be to bust these guys out of jail afterwards, anyway?  Once we're cleared, the magic fairy dust gets taken off our heads. Then we can do whatever we want."

    "Dangerous attitude," Kjeck muttered, but Hyuldrek let it slide with a smug grin.

    They made a little more progress to pass the time. The city of Theltrielle appeared once they reached the crest of a short hill, a little model of a castle against a painted green and blue backdrop. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Lerk standing a short distance behind them all, head turned toward the south and staring intently at something. After a minute he jogged to catch up with them. 

    Hyuldrek gave him a look. "What's with you?"

    Lerk simply shrugged. "Nothing important."

    Kjeck looked toward where the man's eyes had been fixed, but of course he saw nothing. He got the feeling that Lerk saw a lot of things no one else could. Though he wasn't sure what exactly that might have said about Lerk.

    Lerk's always unreadable gaze turned to him for a second. For whatever reason, Kjeck felt compelled to shrug apologetically.

    Gregor emerged from the bushes, then, antennae wriggling contentedly as his six legs carried him across the ground, a rabbit caught up in his mandibles and maxillae. It folded up with a sickening crunch sound and disappeared in a short jet of red as the roach once again joined the group. "Alright," he said. "Let's get going."

 

    "Let me be straight-forward," the head officer said. "I can't find the words to express properly the level of my disgust right now."

    Gregor clicked his mandibles together with indignation and turned the other direction. "You would throw two men in jail for the death of an ant, but would you if it had been a roach they killed?  I find it hard to understand your morals, officer of the law."

    Kjeck stood far back as he watched the scene unfold. Gregor's presence there was invaluable; his stench combined with his incredible ability to get what he wanted, when he wanted it, made him the perfect diplomatic machine. A dangerous creature in several parallel ways.

    Gregor's antennae reached forward and tried to touch the head officer's face, who put up a hand to defend himself. "I also find it hard to understand why you would throw these two in prison when they claimed so very forcefully that they were innocent of the crime of which they were accused."  A small red foam escaped his mouth and dripped on the floor. Remnants of the rabbit, probably.

    "May I please ask what this is leading to, Mr. Roach?" the officer asked, eyes fixated on the red spot slowly spreading into the cracks in the stone floor.

    Gregor hefted himself back onto his stomach and scuttled over to his two men, who now had their hands tied and were blindfolded. He set himself behind them and reared up, then gave them both a shove forward. When they landed on their faces before the officer, he climbed atop them and reared himself up once more onto his four back legs to look the officer in the face. "It was my men who did the crime, you see. These two, specifically. My point is that you were quick to judge innocent men, officer of the law."

    The officer cracked a small grin while he examined the two on the floor. Kjeck couldn't tell whether it was sarcastic, worried, or what. "They were found in a pile of ant guts, Mr. Roach."

    "It's Gregor."

    "Mr. Gregor. How can you expect me to believe that someone else committed the crime?"

    "And what was their story, again?"

    The officer looked to Hyuldrek, who had his arms crossed and was giving him a dirty look. With a shrug and a sigh, he said, "That one minute they were somewhere else, and then the next thing they knew they were in the mine."

    "In other words," Gregor replied, his antennae making arches in the air, "they didn't know how they'd gotten there."  He hopped up and landed heavily on the two bandits, who grunted under the weight. "Why don't you low-lives tell the nice officer how it all went down?"

    The pigeon spoke up once he regained his breath. Kjeck admired his complacency; maybe he got this a lot, working for a cockroach. "Drugged... drugged them. We used 'em as scapegoats so no one would suspect us."

    An eyebrow on the officer's face shot up, and he rubbed his lightly bearded chin. "Is that so...?  And why would you have interest in killing one of the Pizzo?"

    "Honey," the warthog replied.

    A non-expression took over the officer's face. "Honey," he repeated.

    "Yeah, honey. We had a business going with the people of Ielia. 'Cept they didn't know where the honey was coming from."

    "Bees make honey, you idiot."  The officer took a deep breath and turned his attention back to the roach. "Why did I even bother listening to this?  You're a bandit lord. I don't know why I can't just arrest you all right now and be done with this."

    Gregor waved a claw in the air before his face. "You know you can't do that. You'd lose your job. Technically, I've done nothing wrong, and there's no way you can prove otherwise."

    "And that's precisely what annoys me so much about our silly system of laws. But at the very least you shouldn't come here making stupid lies like selling ant-honey to villagers."

    A cackle sounded. "Funny fellow. There is a certain kind of pizzo worker whose job is to furnish the miners with extra energy during the day. He thus carries around an abdomen full of a thick glucose syrup, which he regurgitates into the mouths of those who need it. Honey."

    Brief astonishment cross the officer's face, then slowly settled into wonder. "Is that... so..." he muttered.

    "You bloody humans," the roach grumbled. "All you use those ants for is your own profit. You don't even bother learning anything about them. It's a wonder they put up with you."  He made a sound a bit like a sigh, though Kjeck knew it was just for show. Anything remotely human the roach did was something he learned in order to better communicate with and manipulate humans. "In any case, I may be the overlord of a group of people you so incorrectly term 'bandits', but I don't put up with this kind of dishonest and violent behavior. Crimes against the Pizzo should not go unpunished, in my book. Especially as a fellow insect. As such, then, I'm turning these two in."

    Still full of wonder, the officer nodded and reached onto a nearby stack of papers, then began flipping through. He found the right document, read through it, and nodded. "I thought that was right..." he muttered to himself. Pursing his lips and shaking his head, he slipped the paper out of the pile and handed it to Kjeck. "I believe it was you who was in charge of clearing these two's names?  To be honest--and believe me when I say I'm very surprised about this--everything seems to check out."  He took a deep breath as Kjeck took the paper from his hand, then came to Kjeck's side and pointed a finger at a spot on the page. "Just sign your name right there and these two will be free to go."

    Kjeck looked the paper over; a whole lot of legal jargon and complicated phraseology. He gave the officer one last look before signing the paper. "This is just up to you?  No jury of peers to hear us out or anything?"

    The officer returned a quizzical look. "I did study for this position, after all."

    "Study for, huh?" Kjeck replied, smiling ironically as he jotted his name across the little black line. "The law system here never fails to amaze me."

    "Is there a jury who decides such things where you are from?" he asked as he took the paper back and signaled for two guards to take the two bandits to their cells. Gregor pushed himself off and went to sit in a corner, watching Kjeck and the officer with unreadable eyes.

    "An unbiased jury of random people, who listen to a lengthy trial, hear both sides, and make a decision based on what they hear."

    The officer rubbed a hand on his chin. "Commoners deciding?  Sounds open to corruption to me."

    "Everything is," Kjeck replied with a smile. Cody's eyes were on his back; he could feel it. He knew what she wanted to ask, of course. "As for my other case I'm working on..." he began.

    The officer cut him off. "You wanted to discuss that one, right?" he asked, pointing a finger at the fox behind him. Cody put a hand to her heart, eyes widening ever so slightly and tail beginning to whip behind her. The officer returned to his pile of papers and slipped the one out that had been just underneath Hyuldrek and Lerk's. He eyed it a minute, then handed it to Kjeck as well.

    Kjeck took it into his hand, looked it over, raised his hand like to sign it, then lowered it and met the officer's gaze. "Wait, hold on a minute. What am I signing this time?"

    "The release," the officer replied.

    Cody gave a small gasp. "What do you mean?" she asked, voice almost cracking like an adolescent.

    The officer gave her a look, then nodded his head in recognition. "Oh yes, maybe you didn't receive the news, since you were out searching for the other two culprits. There was another murder, very similar to the one in which you were involved, my lady, just a day or two ago. The man present there as well spoke of a small long-eared creature. Upon further examination, we discovered that the men who were killed in both yours and the other incident were lycanthropes."

    "Lycanthropes..?" Cody asked, her ears tilting backwards. "Then that explains...."

    "It's actually something of a problem around here," the soldier continued, waving a hand around in the air as though to dismiss the incident as something trivial. "I should have suspected it in your case, as well, but it had been a long time since the last such incident, you see. Around here it's something of an epidemic; people losing their heads on clear nights and changing into beasts. But in any case," he continued, nodding his head toward the paper in Kjeck's hand, "your case was solved while you were gone."

    Kjeck exchanged looks with Cody, then simply shrugged and signed the second paper as well. "Luck's on our side today, I suppose," he said. "That everything, then?" he asked.

    The officer nodded. "Very good. Now would you get this roach out of my office?"

    Gregor simply laughed.

 

    Kjeck stuck out a hand for the roach, who watched it a minute before giving an odd cackle and taking it in his spiny claw. "You would touch a roach, now would you?"

    "I've touched people dirtier than you," Kjeck replied. The bandits had formed a large ring around them all, staring with incredulity at the four wagons filled with pyramids of gold bullions, gleaming in the dappled forest light. "All of our problems are solved because of you. The least I can do is shake your... hand."

    Another cackle of a laugh. "My friend, you are a horrible businessman."

    Kjeck shot the wagons a look. "It's not like we could do anything with four wagons full of gold, anyway," he replied. "We're all travelers; it'd just be a hindrance. So in the end, we got everything we needed, and you got enough gold to start an empire. I think I did a fine job dealing business."

    "So you say, so you say. You amuse me too much, I think. I normally wouldn't have put up with this kind of ridiculous manipulation."

    "Manipulation?"

    "I assure you, it's mutual. Which is why I wouldn't normally put up with it."

    Kjeck wasn't completely sure what to think about that. Best just keep on the positive fa\xE7ade around these kinds of people. Roaches. Whatever. "Now for the last part," he said, pushing onward. "We head back and free your men, yes?"

    "If you want."

    Kjeck raised an eyebrow. "Sorry?"

    Another robotic laugh. "I kid, of course. My men would never follow my orders if I didn't take care of them. Of course I want you to go break those two out of jail."  His nearly invisible eyes were fixated on the wagons. "Why don't you get to that now?  No need to waste any more time here."

    "Of course," Kjeck muttered in reply, eying the roach. His tongue made one circulation of his mouth as he thought, but finally he decided that getting going would indeed be the best option. He turned to his friends. "Let's mosey, then."

    They all just nodded.

 

Chapter 17

 

    It was early in the morning, when the sky was still speckled with stars twinkling in the low winds, when Kjeck set out from their inn room, paid for with the sack of gold they'd buried the other day before meeting with the bandits. It had been agreed the day before; he would go alone, and the others would leave the city only an hour after he began his little escapade. If he didn't come find them within twenty-four hours, they would leave him behind in order to preserve their own freedom.

    Dangerous for him, of course, but he was used to being alone, after all.

    In the dark streets and alleys, laid out in no particularly organized fashion, he made his way toward the prison where he'd spent one night of his life. Every light was out save the occasional street lamp in a large square, rendering the gray stone a soft orange, and not a soul was outside save him. Thus, when he heard the clink of chain mail and the yawn of a night-watchman, he knew he'd reached his destination.

    Peeking around the wall of a house, he got himself a view of the situation. Two guards, one on each side of the iron door in the ground that led to the prison cells below. Both armed and armored, to be expected, with several lamps stationed around them, illuminating the whole area. No bushes, trash bins, or anything else to hide behind. A sneak attack didn't seem much of an option.

    Kjeck readjusted his mask, his breath making his face hot, the night air making everything else cold. The only ever time he'd attempted something like this was back during the religious regime that landed him in prison for so many years. Then, though, it was a twenty-four hour process of staying out of sight, which, in reality, was much more difficult than this. He kept it up for a good five or six weeks, until a lack of sleep and food caused him to get careless.

    No need to think about that now, though. He shot another glance at the two guards. The one on the right yawned, and the other had drooping eyes: a good sign. Maybe all he needed was a distraction. He turned his head and searched the ground around him for a rock, and, finding one of decent size, looked around the vicinity for something to throw it at. Nothing particularly interesting stood out; a wall would have to do. He lined one up in his view and prepared to chuck.

    Just then, however, he heard a flute playing.

    He lowered the rock, glanced left and right for the source of the sound until his eyes drifted back to the guards. Did they hear anything?  Blank expressions said no, or they chose to ignore some late-night musician. He shook his head and made to aim the rock once again.

    But the tune was making it extremely difficult to concentrate. He wasn't even certain why; it didn't even have a melody to speak of, nothing to catch on to. But it gave him a chill down his spine, and he shivered from a completely different kind of cold than the night air.

    He lowered the rock again. He was too old for this sort of thing. "Stop that, you crazy little animal," he muttered.

    Kjeck nearly leaped out of his skin when the guard to the left of the entrance suddenly came more alert, lowered his halberd into a ready position and sneered at something off in the distance. "Gods be damned, it's that creature!" he grunted. Kjeck relaxed, though his heart took its time. "I'll teach you to take justice into your own hands, you little dung heap!"

    "Ulrey, wait a minute," the other guard said, putting a hand out to stop his friend. Both seemed much more alert, now. "It was for the better, don't you know?  He would have suffered if...."

    "That little fuzzball fried my cousin, Freydik. I'm not letting that slide so easily. Stay here and keep watch. I'll be back."  Lips curled back to show teeth, the guard, Ulrey, charged off into the night.

    "Ulrey, stop!  You can't just...."

    Kjeck, though touched by the story, decided not to waste this advantage. While the guard watched his friend go running off into the night, Kjeck snuck up behind him and unsheathed a dagger. In a burst of adrenaline, he flung himself out of the shadows and bore down on the guard. A thrust of a hilt into the nape of the man's neck, and he had himself an unconscious body on his hands.

    A heavy, unconscious body. Despite his valiant efforts, he couldn't keep the guard from crashing to the ground. His steel armor clanged against the stone ground like a warning siren. With a worried 'shit', Kjeck turned the guard over and slashed off the leather ring that held a number of keys, then ran to the door in the ground and began trying each one in the keyhole.

    "Freydik?" the other guard's voice came from a dark alley across the plaza. "What's the matter?"  Hard steps marked his quick approach.

    Kjeck's hands scrambled to fit in each key, until one finally clicked. Just as he made to open the door, however, the other guard emerged from the darkness, spear at the ready. Kjeck turned to him and locked eyes through his mask. He waved. "Should have been paying attention instead of chasing after rabbits, huh?" he said.

    This rendered the man's face into a contorted rage, and without another word, he charged.

    Fighting a fully armored, well-trained guard in an honest scramble not being the best idea that came to his mind, Kjeck instead flung open the prison door and darted inside, shutting it after himself and jamming the key back in the lock. One hearty click later, and he felt safe for a few seconds.

    "Ulrey?  Freydik?  That one of you guys?" asked a voice from down a short stone staircase. "What's with all the commotion?"

    Kjeck rolled his eyes, then, as silently as possible, skittered down the stairs. He replaced the knife in his hand with a blackjack he'd purchased yesterday from a local arms dealer whose shop was set up just outside of town, in the shadow of the wood and thatch apartments thrown together just underneath the castle's rear ramparts. As a helmeted head peeked around the corner, hand holding a covered lantern, he swung the little bag hard into his temple.

    The door above opened, and just as he slid to the side of the stairwell and pressed himself against the wall, quick steps told him that the remaining guard was in pursuit. Trying to calm his heavy breathing, Kjeck waiting for him to reach the bottom.

    The guard ran past, nearly tripped over his partner on the ground, then turned just in time to witness the sack of iron bits swinging toward the side of his head.

    He ducked it. Kjeck's arm was suddenly caught in the guard's gauntleted grasp and pulled behind him, his head pulled into a lock. "Trying to bust a buddy out of jail, are we?" the guard hissed into his ear. Kjeck let out a cry as his arm was tugged tight behind him. If he didn't do something about this right away, his shoulder wasn't going to make it.

    Desperate times. With his free hand, he reached into his other pocket and pulled out the weapon he borrowed from Lerk before he left the inn. Trying his best to aim blind, he pointed the gun at the ground and pulled the trigger.

    A soft chirp of a sound, and the guard's grasp loosened as he let out a cry. Kjeck broke himself out of the guard's grasp and swung the blackjack hard into his face.

    Another clatter of metal on the ground, and Freydik was soon lying atop his friend, a circle of punctured metal on the toe of his boot, oozing red. Kjeck shivered at the sight;  in the dim firelight, it looked like something out of a horror film.

    Shaking his head, he picked up the lantern from the ground before its oil ran all over the floor and caught fire, then fished the prison-door keys off of the guard's body and headed down the hall, lit only with smoky pitch torches in three spots on the walls. He was definitely too old to still be pulling this kind of shit. But no sense worrying about that now.

    He still walked quietly, even though he knew it wasn't exactly necessary at this point, holding the lantern up to each cell in turn as he walked by to see who was inside. Most of the inmates were awake at this point, sitting on dingy cots that hung from chains attached to the walls and staring with dull, wide-eyed faces into the soft lantern light that shined through the bars on their cell doors. 

    Several wrong doors and empty rooms later, he came across his two bandit buddies, who were standing by the door with their faces pressed against the bars in a vain effort to see what was going on. When Kjeck raised the lantern and looked inside, they both stood back and crossed their arms. "You actually made it?  With all that noise, we thought for sure you'd gotten caught," the pigeon remarked.

    Kjeck chuckled. "My sentiments exactly."  He fit the key into the lock and pulled open the iron door, and the two stepped out of their cell. "We're just gonna' have to leave right away, is all. Lots of broken bodies for people to see."

    As though triggered by the comment, a clash of arms and shouting voices suddenly came down the stairwell through which he'd entered the prison. The warthog pointed a finger toward the other end of the hall. "Castle," he said.

    Kjeck raised an eyebrow. "I'd think there'd be more guards that way."

    "Nah," the pigeon replied. "Last time we were here there was just two in the other hall, and then gettin' out the window was just a matter of finding a heavy enough piece of furniture to break it. If ya' can land okay at the bottom of the wall, gettin' out that way's not a problem."

    "Just how many times have you been here?" Kjeck felt obligated to ask as they made their way to the other exit.

    The bird shrugged. "Five or six."  He held out a scaly hand and twitched his fingers, asking for the keys. Kjeck handed them to him, and he quickly picked out the correct key and unlocked the door.

    "Five or...?" Kjeck made to confirm, but his next sight stopped any words he might have been thinking of.

    The second entrance was completely blocked. Six large bodies stood in the way, all brandishing longswords and wearing expertly crafted platemail. From behind came six more, quite similar in appearance.

    Kjeck backed up two steps, then shot a look to the pigeon. "Five or six, huh?" he finished.

    The pigeon's legs were stiff and straight, and he continued to hold the door open even as the six armed guards advanced on him. Only with the aid of a tackle from his friend did he move back, a sword blade nearly plunging into his feathery chest.

    Kjeck backed himself into the darkest corner he could find and popped open the cartridge on Lerk's pistol. Twelve bullets: one for each guard, if he could make them all find a mark. Besides the spare he had in his back pocket, but something told him he wasn't going to have time to reload.

    The boar's hair bristled as he raised himself from the ground, appearing menacing even from all fours on the ground. He turned himself around and threw his whole weight into the oncoming group of guards, taking one down and flinging heavy fists into his helmet, sending a ringing sound through the stone with each blow. Despite the situation, Kjeck found himself wincing in sympathy for the man inside.

    With a click, he replaced the pistol's cartridge in the butt and aimed into the throng of metal that was piling atop the bandits. To kill or not to kill.... his original plan was to leave everyone unconscious but very much alive. But his original plan didn't take into account twelve elite soldiers attacking him in a tight space. The pistol leveled with one soldier's head in its sights.

    A gust of fresh air, then blackness.

    Kjeck blinked, then lost his breath as a body slammed him into a cell door. A hand seized his and ripped him away from the wall hard enough to dislocate his shoulder. Helpless to do otherwise, Kjeck simply tried to keep his balance while the body drug him through the room, toward the dim light of the outside. Clatters of metal against stone shouted behind him, the only light in the subterranean hallway coming from sparks.

    Breathless, shoulder flaming hot, and muscles alternating between numb and acidic, Kjeck witlessly followed his captor up the stone staircase and toward the orange light of lanterns. From behind him, he heard the sound of glass shattering, followed by cries of outrage. Echoing through the streets came a loud crash, the sound of wood splintering, pots and pans clattering to a hard floor, surprised shouts and cursing.

    His wrist was released, and his vision blurred when his head hit the street. Dazed, he tried to raise himself off of the ground, look around.

    Bad move. His head swam, and he managed to lose his balance even lying on his stomach. Spots swam before his eyes. Vaguely, from behind him, he heard more shouts and curses and the clattering of steel greaves on stonework. His muscles wouldn't react; he couldn't lift himself off of the ground to get himself to safety. Heart pounding like it never had before, it was all he could do to maintain consciousness.

    (Must be getting old.)

    His eyes popped open at the thought. It wasn't his.

    (Take a break. I'll do what I can.)

    Suddenly, everything cleared up, like he had woken up from a dream. His vision and his head were both clear as they ever had been. Guards began spilling out of the prison entrance behind him, he saw, so he pushed himself off of the ground and propelled himself into the darkest alley he could find, his feet barely even touching the ground, it seemed. Like he was running on the wind.

    A ledge called out to him, and he snatched at it and flung himself up onto someone's windowsill with the grace of a squirrel monkey swinging through the trees in the jungle. With strangely sharp eyes, he watched as the troop of soldiers ran underneath him, probably some three meters down, not the slightest bit aware that he was above them.

    Within seconds, they had all passed by. He waited on the ledge a bit longer, then slowly slid himself down to the street again. As though none of it had ever happened, everything was calm and quiet, save a few crickets chirping and night birds twittering in some distant tree. A slow buzzing began in his head, but he ignored it as he ran back through the winding streets toward the inn. He'd never felt in such good shape in his whole life. It was like he was twenty years old again, but a twenty years old that hadn't grown up on junkfood and too many video games. It gave him the chills.

    A soft glow illuminated a wooden sign bearing the name of the inn he'd left only an hour ago. He creaked open the door and stepped inside. It was dark inside. He couldn't see a thing.

    Like someone dropped a sack of bricks on his head, all of the pain and weariness came back, and he slumped to the floor. 

    That was it, he supposed. His body just couldn't take anymore tonight.

    Groping about in darkness, his mind managed to push out one last question: who had pulled his hand?

 

Chapter 18

 

    Soft rocking...

    Was it just in his head again?  Reality was getting so much harder to understand.

    Kjecks' eyes cracked open. At first, there was only white, so he closed them again, squinted hard. Another try brought a few images, silhouettes of things. A desk, maybe, with someone sitting at it.

    His other senses began to return as well. Wind was blowing nearby. Wind, and the sound of fabrics flapping with it. Seagulls. A scent of briny air drifted into his nose. It made him think of a shell he found once in the desert, when he was much younger. A bright white object, with the most beautiful mathematical form. Someone told him that if you put a shell to your ear, you could hear the waves of the ocean no matter where you were.

    "Kjeck?" a soft feminine voice asked.

    His eyes opened again, and he saw Cody's tan and white form a short distance away, a feather pen in her pawlike hand, while her slit-pupiled eyes were fixed on his face. Her large, fluffy tail was laid out behind her on a wooden plank floor, the white tip shining in the sunlight streaming through a circular window.

    The pen dropped onto the desk as she stood aright, almost knocking over the chair she was sitting on, and she leaned over Kjeck, white patterns of fur bunched up above her eyes. Those bunches relaxed, and she smiled, a long row of sharp teeth. "You're finally awake, sleepyhead?" she asked in a soft voice.

    Kjeck groaned. He felt incredibly weak, and his mouth felt dusty. "Have I been drinking?" he moaned.

    Cody chuckled. "I sure hope not," she replied. "You had a mission to accomplish, remember?"

    He sort of did. Something about cockroaches. "Which?"

    The frown returned. "You don't remember anything?"

    He raised a hand and rubbed his eyes. His forehead was cold and sweaty, he noticed. "My name's Kjeckliah Udanne, and you're Cordelia North. We're also traveling with a couple criminals named Hyuldrek and Lerk Something-Or-Another."

    "Well at least you don't have amnesia," she muttered. "You know you've been out for about a day?"

    That explained the... well, the everything. "And you dragged my unconscious body aboard a ship?"

    She might have blushed. "Well, after what you did that night, we figured it was better to leave town in a hurry than to...."

    He cut her off with a laugh. "I know, I know. I was just joking. And I'm still alive, so it all turned out alright."  He took a look around. "Where we going now?" he decided to ask.

    "On our way to Latshia. The captain of this ship said that his route only goes between there and Theltrielle, so he can't take us all the way to the Dragon Queen's castle, but he thinks we could hire someone in Latshia to finish the trip."

    "Dragon Queen...?"  He tried to remember what that whole thing was. Something about it seemed familiar.

    "We were going to go there, because that was the last entry in that person's journal. The one that was stored in those boxes."

    Boxes...?

    He stopped rubbing his eyes. Right... of course. The old castle that supposedly belonged to a dragon queen. The computers they found under that mansion, where they got the gold that they used to....

    "I think it was that little creature," he said. "Say, could you get me something to drink?  I'm parched."

    Cody's mouth opened like she wanted to say something, but she stood up without any actual words and nodded, then headed out the door of the little wooden room. The flute distracting the guards, the wind blowing the torches out, the hand pulling him to safety, and that....  He really didn't do a damn thing himself, did he?  It was all that little creature.

    Cody returned a minute later holding a glass full of an amber liquid and set it on the desk. She then took his hand and helped him sit upright and handed him the drink. One whiff told him that it was some kind of beer. He raised an eyebrow at her while he took a sip. She shrugged. "It was that or water, and I figured you'd rather have this."  Kjeck smiled at the kindness and took another sip. It was pretty good, in any case. He was expecting grog. "Now what's this about Phozo?" she asked.

    "Phozo?"

    Her mouth opened a bit in surprise, then she smiled. "Oh yes... that's just what I've been calling it. The creature. I thought it needed a name."

    He shrugged. "As you like."  The sip became a gulp as the liquid spread around his dry mouth. Damn did he need this. His stomach beginning to feel warm with the alcohol, he decided to answer Cody's original question. Now that his head was a little clearer, he told her the story of that night, every odd event that happened, until he finally ended up passed out on the floor of the inn. "Is there a magic spell or something that can do that?  Heighten the senses like that?"

    Cody had been sitting with her hands folded in her lap while she listened to the story. Now she began drumming her claws on her knee. "There could be. That's not something that's easy to do, though. Especially on an unwilling subject."

    Kjeck took another sip of beer while she spoke. Once finished, he replied, "Didn't it fry a couple of werewolves, though?  Sounds to me like this little bugger has some kind of crazy powers. I wonder if we even know what we're dealing with."

    She shook her head. "Makes you think, doesn't it.... Why do you suppose it keeps following us and giving us help?"

    He swallowed another large gulp. His stomach shifted uncomfortable; he'd better slow down if he wanted to keep it all inside of him. "No idea," he replied. "I guess it likes us."

    "Yeah..."  Cody stared out the porthole for a time. Her ears twitched then, and she gave a wry smile and stood up. "Sorry... I have to go take care of our lupine friend. He doesn't take too well to all this rocking back and forth, I guess."

    Kjeck raised an eyebrow. "The big smack-talking tough guy who gets seasick?  That's so cliche."

    "Shut the fuck up, Kjeck!" came the wolf's angry voice. Cody smiled and went to the door.

    "Hey Cody," Kjeck asked, stopping her. She turned back to him. "Why Phozo?"

    At the question, her ears started twitching. "Oh... it was just the name of.... Well, that's what I called my first stuffed... companion. I just thought...."  Her eyes flitted between Kjeck and the door. "Look, I gotta' go."

    "Of course," Kjeck replied with a laugh.

 

    After another day bedridden, Kjeck finally regained enough strength to start taking walks around the deck. It was sad; he wasn't even old persay--not yet, anyway--but his body really didn't take kindly to being pushed that far anymore. But at least he didn't have Hyuldrek's problem. The poor wolf spent most of his time in his cabin, breathing deeply and slowly to keep his stomach calm. Some people just didn't enjoy the ocean very much, he supposed.

    On the third day of their voyage, he found Lerk standing at the ship's helm, his hands cupped before him and his eyes fixed off in the distance. Just barely visible on the horizon were a few mountain peaks, a dark blue smudge against a light blue sky that could have been a part of the water were it not so solid. Lerk's lips were moving slowly, the way Cody's did whenever she made to cast some kind of magic spell. Kjeck leaned against a nearby railing as he watched him.

    A few minutes passed. Lerk's eyes eventually came back from their distant reverie and fixed on his cupped hands. A whispered shout; Kjeck could see the word 'fire' form on his lips.

    As this word was pronounced, a small flame sprouted in his hands, then disappeared in the next puff of sea wind.

    Kjeck's mouth dropped open. Did Lerk just...?  The generic-looking young man turned his head up and caught Kjeck's gaze. A minute of silence, and Lerk made his way back to his cabin without a word. A chill ran down Kjeck's spine as he watched him go.

 

    On the sixth day of the third week, they made landfall at a port town. The weather was balmy there, which showed in the kind of vegetation present. Palms, orange trees, lemon trees, papaya, as well as a certain kind of enormous tree that Kjeck couldn't recognize, with roots and branches looking the same entity, gnarled fingers stretching into the ground and sky, covered with bark like a fabric draped over bones. Every house was painted white, with Mediterranean blue trim and flat rooftops, giving the town a real salt-water feel.

    As soon as they made landfall and the gangplank was lowered to the stone dock, Hyuldrek flung himself onto the ground and lay on his back, staring up at the sky and panting like a sick dog. Which is exactly what he was, Kjeck mused. Everyone else walked by him, happy to be back on land as well, but amused by his reaction. When Kjeck approached, a furry gray hand shot up, and he grabbed hold of it and pulled the wolf to his feet.

    "Feeling better?" he asked.

    The dog responded with a raised lip and followed after Cody and Lerk, one hand on his stomach.

    Most of the passengers, dock workers all, headed straight into town, most likely to find their preferred bars. Of course, because there hadn't been enough alcohol on the ship. Kjeck followed after them until he caught up with his three partners. "So where to now?"

    Cody shot a brief look at Hyuldrek before answering. "We should probably spend a couple of days here before we head out again, don't you think?  Just for a break."

    Kjeck stopped himself from chuckling again, coughed into his hand. "Yeah," he replied with a big smile. "We should go find a place to spend the night, then."

    "You bastards are never gonna' let me live this down, are you?" Hyuldrek murmured.

 

    Shortly thereafter, they found a quaint little inn at a dead-end near the edge of town, and they paid for three nights' stay. Hyuldrek, of course, decided to stay in the room for a while. Lerk went out by himself without a word, and Kjeck decided to do a little wandering as well to get his landlegs back. Cody accompanied Kjeck.

    There wasn't much to the town; lots of small outdoor shops selling fresh fruit or seafood, the usual unplanned winding roads leading to odd places between buildings, at least one prominent church. After a few hours' wandering, the two of them sat down at a table at a kitchen overlooking the sea, where they paid for a soggy, seaweed flavored lunch that Cody couldn't seem to get enough of, while listening to the gulls cry out as they flew overhead.

    By happenstance, Hyuldrek walked by, noticed them, and sat down at their table. Kjeck gave him a smile while he pushed a piece of fish around in a gob of white sauce on his plate. "I hope you're feeling better now?"

    He shrugged, looked down at the ground. "Not really. But lyin' on the bed, my head kept making it feel like my body was rocking, so I thought I'd try walking instead."

    "And?" Kjeck inquired, taking another mouthful of Pollock and rice. It was like drinking a bowl of fishskins. He somehow managed to swallow it, then went back to pushing the rest around on his plate.

    Another shrug. "I was feeling better. What's that crap you're eating?  It smells like bilge water."

    Kjeck set his fork down and pushed the plate away. So much for trying to finish.  "Thanks for your input, Hyuldrek," he muttered. Cody, having already consumed what was on her plate, was eying Kjeck's. He pushed it toward her, and, after a brief feign of surprise and thanks, she began tearing into it as well. She must have known that he wasn't enjoying it. "So," Kjeck recommenced, placing his elbows on the table. "You find anything interesting on your walk, Wolfy-boy?"

    "Wolfy... what the fuck, Kjeck."

    "Nothing?"

    "Just a library," he replied, looking at Kjeck from the corner of his eye. "Looked like something from a history textbook. Art-nouveau style. This place is pretty boring, though."

    "A library?" Cody asked. She stacked one empty plate on top of the other and licked her lips. "For books?"

    Hyuldrek grunted. "What the hell else do you put in a library?"

    "Kjeck, could we go there?  I love libraries."  Her eyes were lit up like a child's at a carnival. "The only other one I've been to was at Hefgui Castle, and I wasn't allowed to borrow any books because they were all the King's private collection."

    Kjeck looked to Hyuldrek, whose lip curled up into a sneer as he looked out over the ocean. He turned back to the expectant fox. "Not sure why you're asking my permission. You mind showing us the way, Hyuldrek?"

    He shrugged and sighed. "Not like I got much else to do, I guess."

    The library, it turned out, was fairly small, but Cody's eyes shined nevertheless at the sight. In reaction to seeing the maybe ten shelves full of books evenly spaced over one small floor, like she had lost her voice to excitement, she breathed, "It's huge!"

    Kjeck made to get Hyuldrek's reaction to this, to see if maybe he wasn't getting really old after all, but the wolf was busy looking off in some other direction, toward the place's welcome office. In the corner was a small wooden partition with a desk, and sitting at the desk was a lupine woman wearing robes orange enough to have belonged to a Buddhist monk, small glasses balanced at the tip of her muzzle, amber eyes reading a small leather volume. Kjeck looked between the wolfess and the wolf, then nudged Hyuldrek. "Losing our humanity, are we?" he asked.

    Hyuldrek just put out a slight chuckle, then walked toward the woman behind the desk, his tail a bit higher than Kjeck was used to seeing it. He rubbed his forehead and went to find Cody.

    She already seemed to have found something that interested her, for she was sitting on the floor in between shelves, legs crossed, with a heavy book on her lap. She too now had a pair of small glasses on her nose. Kjeck vaguely wondered where she'd been keeping them. "I thought foxes had great eyesight," he said as he stood beside her.

    "Dogs can't read without glasses, Kjeck," she muttered in response, not looking up.

    "Oh yeah?"  He made himself comfortable beside her, pulled a random volume from the shelf and opened it to a random page. He caught the words 'flippant waste of' somewhere on the page before Cody spoke again.

    "Our eyes are made for hunting, so all we're really good at seeing is movement. Picking out details is hard for us."

    "The more you know..."

    "What's that?"

    "Nothing," he replied. He looked down at the book on his lap. A brief run through the contents told him that it was about economics and the shipping industry. Oddly enough, he found himself entranced by the unusual methods that seemed to be detailed out in the book. To reduce the need for bookkeeping, shipments were all placed into color-coded groupings, so any given ship would be carrying a set number of various groupings of materials, with names like 'one treblem', or 'two gofflehouses'. A whole dictionary of odd words to learn. And if one was caught intentionally mislabeling the contents of one's ship, that person's merchant license (a license to be a merchant; weird indeed) would be revoked and he would be imprisoned for five years as punishment.

    "Kjeck?" a voice interrupted him. He looked up and met Cody's catlike eyes. "What was the name of that philosopher Lerk told us about?  The one who wrote that passage on the stone at the shrine?"

    "Erwyst. Why?"

    "Is that Erwyst, spelled like this?" she asked, tilting her book's title page toward him. 

    It was handwritten in ink and a little messy, but Kjeck managed to make out the words 'New Studies on Multiple Existences: Morov Erwyst.'  He stared at the page for some time, re-read the words. After a minute of silence, he looked back up at Cody. "You found that here, just now?"

    She nodded. "We're both thinking the same thing."

    Kjeck put his own book back in the empty slot it had left and stood up. "Keep reading. I'm gonna' go find Lerk."

 

Chapter 19

 

    It came a lot easier in this world. Psychic powers, what they called 'magic' here, seemed just another way of applying the brain in order to solve problems. Another method, like science, but a bit less technically involved and a lot more biological. He wondered if mankind on his own world would have 'discovered' it if they'd have remained more illogical through the ages and never pondered certain questions, like 'why does a rock always fall downward?'

    Or perhaps it was because of the religions chosen that he never learned about his own brain. The fear of taking his intelligence too far because of certain writings that forbid it. Kjeck certainly seemed fearful when he saw him performing the small feat of magic aboard the boat. Lerk privately wondered what religious principle might have caused man on this world to avoid metals and machines. If it was a religion at all.

    The air smelled like salt and soggy plants, algae and oysters, old volcano dust floating in a gigantic soup of life and H2O. Out from the dock where he stood expanded a long plain of blue, in three dimensions if you counted the sky. Despite all appearances, the oceans were the dirtiest and most populated part of a planet; every cubic inch was filled with organisms, whether microscopic or macroscopic, a translucent sac of organs that fed on sulfur vents, a scaled monstrosity with enormous fangs, an immobile log that only had to not get broken in order to keep existing. 

    Why, he wondered, was it exactly the same here?  Humans, trees, flowers, fish, reptiles... they were all here, in basically the same shapes and sizes. If it was a different planet, somewhere else in the universe, it would be a little disappointing. He always expected variety. A sun with a slightly different peak wavelength ought to make different kinds of plants, a planet of a different radius ought to make slightly different sizes of mobile creatures, an additional part of a chemical in the air should have changed the way lungs were formed. At least. That there could be another planet just like his own made very little sense.

    Unless it was the same planet.

    He turned around and met Kjeck's eyes as the old man approached, seeming rather excited about something. "Enjoying the sea?" Kjeck asked him.

    He nodded.

    "Sorry to interrupt. We need your opinion about something. You mind following me to the library?"

    Lerk watched him for a time. He found a book written by Erwyst, and he wanted to know if it was one that existed on the other world. If it wasn't, of course, it meant that Erwyst himself had been here, which meant a whole host of other things in turn. "No, not at all," he replied.

 

    Cody was sitting at a small round table with the book open in front of her when they arrived, while Hyuldrek was off near the welcome desk chatting it up with the lady who ran it. When they entered, Cody's ears twitched, and she raised her eyes from the text and gave the two a look. "Lerk," she asked, "Did Erwyst ever write anything about a 'bridge between worlds' in any of the works that you read?"

    A thought flitted across his mind. He crossed his arms and shook his head.

    Consternation wrote itself out across Cody's face as she looked back at the text. "That's all this book is about. A theory he's exploring regarding a certain passageway that links this world and the one you guys came from. I've just been skipping around reading passages, but so far it's all been fascinating. But I can't imagine why such a book would... be here."

    Lerk came to the table and flipped the book to its title page. 'New Studies on Multiple Existences', handwritten in ink. More thoughts flitted across his mind. "Never heard of this one," he remarked.

    "I don't suppose we're allowed to borrow books from here?" Kjeck asked himself, turning to look toward the wolfess with whom Hyuldrek was speaking.

    Cody softly closed the book and pushed her chair back. "We can always go find out. Would you want to read it first, Lerk?"

    One more thought. He nodded.

    "That settles it, then."  She picked up the book and brought it to the welcome desk, where she set it down somewhat noisily. Both the wolfess and Hyuldrek turned toward her, similar annoyed expressions on their faces.

    "Please don't damage the books," the wolfess said. She had an incredibly deep voice for a woman, suitable for jazz but not much else.

    "I'd like to check this one out, if I could," Cody replied, seeming a mite embarrassed.

    The wolfess regarded her, eyelids lowered, then nodded. A bit of shuffling through a stack of papers behind her, and she slapped a form down beside the book, along with a pen. "And make sure you're familiar with the rules," she added, pointing to a notice on the wall behind her. It read simply, 'Books must be returned to the library on the date agreed upon, in the condition in which they were issued, or a replacement cost shall be paid, followed by one year jail time.'

    Cody read the notice with wide eyes, then picked up the pen with a slightly shaking hand and began filling out the form.

    Lerk noticed that the sun was beginning to go down outside. He couldn't remember what he'd done all day.

 

    On the way back to the inn, Cody carried the old volume wrapped several times in the hem of her dress, cradling it against her body like it was a thousand year old glass box. Hyuldrek was shooting glances at Kjeck, who walked with a queer smile on his face. After a minute, Hyuldrek shouted at him. "You didn't think she was hot?"

    "She was a wolf, Hyuldrek. Not exactly my type."

    "Whatever, man. You're missing out."

    He turned to Lerk. "He always been like this?"

    "It's a taste for the exotic," Lerk replied.

    "Why do you only ever open your fucking mouth at times like these?" Hyuldrek retorted.

    "Does that mean you find me attractive, too?" Cody asked, a soft smile gracing her muzzle.

    Hyuldrek gaped at her. "Well, I mean.... yeah, but... I wouldn't ever.... You're a little young."

    "A little young for what?"

    "Fuck, man. We shouldn't even be having this conversation."

    "I don't see why you should be embarrassed about it," she replied, shooting him a seductive look.

    A pause, then everyone burst out laughing. Save Hyuldrek.

    "You're just too much fun sometimes," Kjeck said, patting the wolf on the shoulder. Hyuldrek's lip curled up, but Lerk was saved from hearing his reply, for they arrived at their inn, where the noise from the pub on the first floor drowned out everything else. Sailors from other ships all spent a bit of time, here, it turned out. It was good that their jobs required them to wake up early, at least.

    "May I?" he asked the fox. She nodded and slowly unraveled the old tome from its fabric cocoon and handed it to him.

    "You gonna' go up to our room to read it, then?" Kjeck asked him. 

    A nod.

    "I'm gonna' go get shitfaced," Hyuldrek announced, then stalked off to the bar to ask for a drink or three. The wolf did have a bit of a temper, Lerk mused. Though it didn't stop him from being a good friend.

    Kjeck grinned, patted Lerk on the back. "Me too. Good luck with that, and let us know if you find out anything interesting."  With that, he too strode over to the bar.

    Cody stood around for a minute, occasionally glancing at Lerk. "I think," she said after a minute, "I'd better keep an eye on those two."

    Alone, then, Lerk walked up the rickety wooden staircase to their room. Black silhouettes of short, flat trees stood against the horizon, a wide plain that stretched out behind their inn's window, like a natural park. The sky was orange and red, pink underneath clouds, giving the picture the feel of an old sci-fi apocalypse movie.

    He lay the book open on the bed and sat down before it, cross-legged, back hunched over, and began to read.

    "I'd like to begin this book with a discussion of dimensions. The common misconception is that our universe only has four possible dimensions: height, width, depth, and time. For an object to exist, it must have a longevity in all four of these dimensions, we say. We don't consider any others, since we cannot perceive but these four.

    "I ask you, then, what of the most basic of particles?  The electron, for example, has only one dimension, and yet we know it to exist. We can measure its properties, its charge, its mass. The only thing we cannot measure is its size; it seems to us to exist only at a probable location, which may change depending on how one looks at it. And yet this particle combined with many others creates a tangible substance, visible in four dimensions. Is it not possible, than, that we in our four dimensions might make up an object tangible in several others?"

    Lerk's eyes unfocused as he read the material, skimming the words quickly and automatically registering their meaning. The ideas were too modern. Erwyst's colleagues all believed that time was a constant, linear process, and thus not a dimension of reality. The atom was the smallest unit of matter possible. Probability functionals weren't to be thought of for several centuries.

    His mind went gray, and the world faded around him as he continued to read. Discussion of reality, the susceptibility of the world to the senses, the power of creation with the mind and the hands. The other dimensions, where time mattered a lot less and was much more malleable. The denizens of that other world, the same world but completely impossible to perceive from a physical standpoint. Dark matter, an effect of their presence, a power strong enough to reach into the unknown and touch things there.

    And the Bridge. What was it?  A playful creature, a concerned creature, a creative creature?

    "Hey Lerk. Good read?"

    Lerk ignored Kjeck's voice, the others coming in to the room to get ready for bed. A creature capable of interacting with the first three dimensions, moving things around like a child building a castle out of wooden blocks. Taking interest in the activities, the advancements of the races of two parallel worlds, doing its best to make them two distinct places.

    (You're getting warmer)

    It was there, nearby, watching him and listening to him as he processed the information in the book. The book wasn't real; Erwyst didn't write it. It only had his name on it, maybe to catch their attention. That was the other force in this game, tugging them all along as the black pieces to combat the white across the board.

    (Yes, of course)

    Sending Cody to prison so that they would all meet. Giving her a way out so that they could all be free.

    (Because you're all special, somehow)

    Because there's something about us that makes us useful. Our personalities, pasts, abilities, desires. But should we play along?

    (Do you mind playing along?)

    Should we allow ourselves to be manipulated?  Even if it is to get what we all want?

    (Do you mind helping me get what I want?)

 

    The sky was the dark blue of nautical twilight when Lerk finished the book. At some point, the day had ended, the night came and went, and everything started again. Cody was up, her back against the bedpost, looking at him. When he caught her eyes, she smiled. "Must have been an interesting read."

    "Yes," he replied. He closed the cover. "Quite."

    From somewhere off in the distance, he heard a flute playing.

 

Chapter 20

 

    The sky was only just beginning to clear up when Cody brought herself out of her reverie to look at the horizon. She hadn't been able to see it the past couple of days, though the humans aboard all said it was there: the Dragon Queen's castle. Dark and gloomy even in the new light, made of decaying gray stone spun up into impossible seeming turrets, the overly long pediment that marked the entrance supported by rows of flying buttresses like the ribs of some long-dead beast, a tower, half-fallen, jutting from the top like some kind of tortured rock formation. It must have been built with terror in mind. Vaguely, Cody wondered if the queen herself had designed it so.

    She laid her head back on the railing and gazed out at sea, now sparkling in the sunlight as it hadn't been for the past several days. In the end, she couldn't get through even half of the book. And because she knew Lerk managed to finish it all in one night, she felt pressed to do so, like she was competing with him. Which didn't make any sense, really, but his perspicacity had that effect on her, and so she sped along, missing a great majority of the details along the way. As a result, she came away only half-done with only half a comprehension of what she'd just read.

    And it was still gnawing on her mind, two weeks later. The book was important; she knew it was. Lerk even seemed a little different after having read it. More mysterious and reclusive, as impossible as that might have seemed, like now he wasn't just a weird fellow but also had something to hide. And whatever it was he had to hide, Cody knew, he'd found in that book, which she couldn't finish.

    She sighed and lifted her chin from the railing, then went to take a walk around the deck. It was probably only a matter of hours now until they reached the island and their goal, which was good; maybe a little hiking and dungeon-prowling would help clear her mind. The captain was coming out of his quarters as she passed by, eyes directed toward the imposing edifice before them. He smelled strongly of fear, and, a bit to her surprise, Cody found herself scorning him for that. Normally she was a very sympathetic person, especially about spiritual matters, but today, for whatever reason, she couldn't find any empathy for anyone. Maybe it was the just the redundancy of the long sea voyage starting to grate on her nerves.

    "What's the matter?" Kjeck's voice asked from behind her suddenly, making her jump. She didn't even hear him approaching. Odd.

    Trying to mask her frayed nerves, she turned to him with a smile. "Matter?  Nothing, really."

    His mouth formed a sarcastic grin. "I said it before and I could say it again."

    "It's not really a lie. I'm just a little tired."

    "Well, you must have been a little tired for the past couple of weeks, because you've hardly been yourself since we shoved off on this boat."

    "Oh?  I haven't noticed."

    "You might as well just stop trying. It doesn't suit you anyway."

    She rolled her eyes. "You're such a clever fellow, Kjeck," she replied. "If you really must know, I'm a little disappointed in myself that I couldn't finish that book."

    "Book?"

    "The one we found in the library, by Erwyst. I mean, Lerk finished it in one night, and me.... Stupid, I know. It shouldn't even bother me."

    "Nah, it shouldn't. Lerk's obviously some kind of savant, so it'd be stupid to expect yourself to be at his level."

    She shot him a look. "He's a what?"

    "A savant, you know. Someone who can learn something perfectly on their first view of it, extraordinarily quickly. Usually they're called 'idiot-savants' because they're only specialized in one area, but I think with Lerk it's safe to say he's just a plain ol' 'savant'."

    She thought this over, her tail waving slowly underneath her. "I don't think I've ever heard of such people."

    Kjeck shrugged, though he seemed a bit surprised. "It's not real common, I suppose. Last I heard it was linked to autism, but I could be wrong. That would explain... you know."  He let his face go slack and his eyes droop halfway, just like Lerk.

    Cody couldn't suppress a giggle. "It's a thought," she remarked.

    "Anyway, we're almost to shore. I'm gonna' go tend to our fuzzy friend for a little while. I don't think he's ever going to get used to the ocean."

    She laughed softly again. "Alright, Kjeck. I'll see you at the shoreline."

 

    It was a necklace they'd come to find, in the end; during the time they spent before leaving on this voyage, Kjeck and Hyuldrek managed to learn about the Dragon Queen legend from the people who she had supposedly oppressed so long ago, and everyone they talked to mentioned some sort of necklace with special powers that the queen always wore. It was a technology they wanted, as indicated by the journal they'd read so long ago, and most such things would come in the form of some mythical magical object. So said their logic.

    With that in Cody's head, they landed on a short stretch of sand at the base of the island's steep cliffs. The place, with its sharp protrusions of dark granite, complete lack of vegetation, and near total inaccessibility save a steep staircase carved into the rock, had an overpowering sense of the cliche built into it, which made it hard for Cody to take it completely seriously. When she looked upon it, after all, all she could see was a ruin; an old building long abandoned and weathered away by the sea and the air. She was beginning to get a feel for this Dragon Queen; less terrorizing dictator of legend, more joueur d'emotions.

    After a moment's reprieve for the seasick wolf, they ascended the rocky staircase and came to a level with the castle, whereupon they entered through the front gate. Inside was a great cavern of a building, with a ceiling so high it demanded that one raise his head to look. The only light came from murderholes set high up on the walls on a level with indoor parapets. At the end of the central hall, lined with crenelated pillars of intricate design, was a pedestal and the gold frame of a throne long-since diminished in its luster. The walls, the tiles on the floor, the bases of the pillars, everything almost was marked with a sinuously curving insignia. In the old alphabet, she supposed it must have read I.T., Itslyar Tsicalcitran.

    "So," Kjeck said, rubbing his hands together. "Where should we start?"

    "Good fucking question," Hyuldrek murmured, looking around the large building. "How are we supposed to find damn necklace in this place?  It's a heap."  He kicked aside a stray stone, which clinked off a distant floor tile.

    "Well, if it was her special necklace," Cody attempted, "she ought to have been buried with it, right?  So we should try to find her tomb."

    It was agreed, and they all set out to frisk the place up and down to search for the queen's burial chamber. Hyuldrek climbed to the uppermost level, Kjeck went back outside to search the environs, Lerk searched through the atria around the main hall, which left Cody to search the hall and near the queen's old throne.

    She started near the entrance and began working her way forward, turning aside stones, brushing away dust and gravel to uncover inscribed panels and random dips in the floor, peering down into crevices of unknown purpose. She tapped on the floor in places, on the pillars in others, put her ears to the ground and listened. Nothing obvious emerged.

    After a good twenty minutes of fruitless searching, she reached the throne, beside which she sat herself down to rest. She ran her hand along the framework of the old chair, scraped at it vaguely with a claw. Thin tendrils of metal gave way, shining bright yellow on their undersides and leaving bright yellow grooves beneath. Was it really solid gold?  How did it support the weight of a dragon, anyhow?

    The idea intrigued her, and she stood up to take a better look at the chair. Why in the world hadn't she noticed it before?  The chair was human-sized; made for a human. Not a dragon. Putting a claw to her muzzle, she dashed back out into the open hall where she'd just searched and began retracing her steps. When she came back across one of the dips in the floor, she stopped, knelt down, then took a look around her. Upper left corner, near the throne. She ran to the right, found another dip. The third was located perpendicular to the first two, down the hall, and the fourth to the left of that one.

    "This was it..." she muttered to herself, tapping the stone. "The real throne was here."  Her head raised, ears perked forward as she looked back at the gold framework at the end of the hall. "Then what is that one for...?"

    A mark caught her eye on the floor below, and she knelt to give it a better look. There was an indentation in the indentation that she hadn't noticed before, if only because at first glance it appeared just to be another sign of decay. But she could see now that it was too smooth and well-formed to be random. She dipped a claw into it and scraped out some dirt, revealing a small imprint of a snake.

    Excited, she ran to the other three panels and dug at them until she uncovered their secrets. Three more snakes, all in different formations. Two S's, tilted diagonally to the right and left, a circle, and a wavy M-shape.

    She glanced back up at the throne at the end of the hall. The back was formed with the same M-shape as the snake on the top-right panel. Maybe the other shapes were there as well?  Even more excited, she ran back to the throne and gave it a looking over. There!  The seat was a circle. The S's... where were the S's?  She knelt down, peered up through the framework from underneath, walked all the way around it, looked at it from every angle she could. Aha!  On the back two legs, two S's making their way up to the meet the frame of the seat.

    And that was all. She'd found everything, but couldn't imagine what it might have meant.

    Annoyed, she looked at the four shapes again. The circle meeting the two S's on the legs, the M raising itself from the back of the circle, also in contact with the S's. It was a very pretty shape, but it hardly seemed the key to any sort of puzzle.

    Then she saw it; a detail that wasn't present in the four symbols. There was a thin bar coming down from the apex of the M to meet the circle at the back. Eyes gleaming, heart pounding, head suddenly extremely clear, she put a hand out to grasp the bar, felt contact beneath her pads, and softly, slowly, gave it a tug.

 

Chapter 21

 

    A noise brought her out of the void.

    A noise?  She hadn't heard a noise since....

    Well, since that woman showed up. It was that noise. The one that meant that they'd arrived and discovered the entrance to her tomb.

    Slowly, she brought herself back into reality, focusing on vision first and foremost. Her grave stood where it always had, still and quiet in the dark, below the castle and the waves. That famous inscription stared at her, and she back, to focus. "Thus slain, the Evil Queen was laid to rest forever in the deep, and the people rejoiced for many years to come."

    So stupid, all that. If only they really knew. But she'd come to accept it after so long.

    Sounds then, to bring her astral form further into the physical world. The bubbling of a small stream of water tumbling down from the ceiling, then slowly drifting into a drain in the center of the hall, only to be recycled back to where it just was. That was the only sound down here; the ocean was blocked by too much stone, the wind was too high above, and no animal dared come live with her. But it was enough.

    Two senses were all she could manage, without a physical form. Lacking the ability to touch, then, she projected herself through the long passageway leading to her crypt, back up to the surface from which that sound had come.

    Ah good. They were all there: the wanderer, the fox, the wolf, and the bland one, staring down into the new hole they'd opened up in the floor behind her secondary throne. The older man patted the fox on the back, whose tail was wagging like the dog she was, happy for being useful. "So who wants to head down first?" he asked.

    They looked to each other, and finally the wolf shrugged. "If I can make it down there, the rest of you shouldn't have any problem."  With that, he slipped into the square hole and began descending the precarious stone ladder that led below.

    His voice echoed up from the bottom after a few minutes, letting the others know the state of his health. The Dragon Queen gave an ethereal smile; she wanted to see how he felt in just a few seconds, when he met her little pet.

    Just as the fox began descending after him, a cry sounded out from below, and she stopped. Silence, interrupted by a few sounds of struggle. "Hyuldrek?" she asked, looking down into the darkness. "Is everything all right?"

    Itslyar focused her vision on the scene below. It was always fun to watch peoples' reactions to her pet. The woman who came before had been rather clever about it; rather than trying to fight, like most tended to do, she blinded the creature with light from a device in her pocket and sped farther down, out of its reach.

    The wolf, she could see, was trying to fight. The gargoyle's massive stone hands were locked in his, its toothy maw gaping open in his face, dripping toxic saliva over enormous canines. The wolf grunted hard with the effort of keeping the beast at bay, his muscles working, adrenaline and blood pumping fast through his body. With a snarl that soon became a roar, he shoved forward and...

    ...overcame the gargoyle. Istlyar couldn't hold back her surprise as the wolf jumped atop the fallen guardian and began pounding at its stone face with a spiked gauntlet. Stone chips flew every direction, clinking off the walls like bullets, the gargoyle's face looking less and less like it used to. One horn broken, then two. Furiously it tried to raise itself, pushing it great wings against the ground, shoving at the wolf with its arms, but the canine kept it pinned with so many well-timed blows in between hits to the face. At the end of a minute, the gargoyle's head had become a pile of rubble, a black liquid leaking from its stump of a neck. It moved no longer.

    The wolf stood himself back up, breathing hard and bleeding in a few places, but otherwise in good health. "Yeah," he shouted back up the well. "Everything's just fine. Come on down."

    What a monster, that wolf. Istlyar wanted to shiver; not even Althaira had been able to take down one of her gargoyles that easily. Where were these people from, that they could build up their bodies so?

    The others followed the wolf's orders and came down to the lower level, shooting glances at the broken corpse of Itslyar's gargoyle. The wolf said nothing about it and directed them toward another stair that led further down, where they all descended.

    Well, test one complete. Rippling muscles didn't usually help with test two, at least.

    Silently, for she couldn't do otherwise, she watched as the group made their way through the dark cavern. The dogs could still see well despite the low light, but the humans had to resort to igniting torches they must have carried with them in order to progress. The place was becoming more and more damp as they descended, the sea around leaking in wherever it could in the craggy rock walls. The stairs, too, were becoming slippery, as evidenced by the numerous near-trips the old human experienced.

    Bottom stair, and they reached test number two. The older human came out of the stairwell before the others, pushing his way to get a better view of the enigma he now saw before him. On the wall was a stone plate, engraved with a series of letters and numbers. He put the torch up close to the plate, looked it over, grinned, and turned back to his companions.

    "Get this thing," he said. "I feel like we're stepping into to some corny movie. What do you think; riddle we got to solve?"

    The others bunched in to take a closer look at the plate. It was actually a new one; when the woman from before had gone to leave, Itslyar had asked her to replace the old plate with a new riddle so that the trap would be reset. The woman obliged, even going so far as to come up with the puzzle herself. Istlyar had seen it, and thought it was good.

    "Complete the sequence," the fox read. "1, 11, 21, 1211, 1231, 131221."  She paused for a moment. "The last line's blank. Are we supposed to engrave our answer here, or something?"

    The group stared at the puzzle for some time, thinking hard. Itslyar could see it very easily: they all were going through mathematical formulas in their heads, trying to determine just what in the world was going on to produce such a series of numbers. The older man was frowning, shaking his head and running his eyes across the numbers over and over again. The fox was looking at the numbers hard, her mouth following along with her mind as though their physical presence might materialize the answer. The wolf and his human friend... had dull expressions on their faces. Perhaps they weren't trying.

    After a few moments, the older man stepped back and made a show of shrugging. "What the hell," he muttered. "This doesn't make any sense. There's no pattern here."

    The fox by now had raised an eyebrow, though she still mouthed the numbers as she read them. Finally, she too stepped back. "It's... very strange. There doesn't seem to be any mathematical relation between the numbers at all. It just goes up randomly."

    The wolf simply shrugged and turned his eyes away. "Don't ask me," he grunted. "I've always sucked at this kind of shit."

    The fox cradled her chin in her hand, an expression of deep concentration written on her face. "But they're numbers. Surely there's some kind of relationship between them. Does 131221 have a square-root, or anything?"

    The older man shook his head. "Not a finite one, I'm sure. What if the relationship isn't mathematical?"

    "What relationships can numbers have besides mathematical ones?" the fox replied, still thinking hard.

    It was the important question, Istlyar mused. She knew this would be the stumper for whoever made it down here; a puzzle of numbers to which the answer involves no mathematics at all. One sees numbers, one immediately begins to run through his knowledge of their numerical relationships, losing himself in a sea of theory and equations until he strays so far off-shore it takes him days to find himself back where he needs to be. Such puzzles generally just required a different way of thinking about things, which is where their difficulty always fell.

    Itslyar sat back and watched the scene unfold, content to wait for many days while she laughed at the foolish mortals below.

    The blank-faced man had been regarding the puzzle the whole time without expression, as he seemed always to show. That was the one who had seen her invisible form that day; she was curious what was going through his mind at this moment. 

    A minute of reflection later, and she knew. The man stepped forward and pulled a kind of pen from his pocket, then wrote in the space provided, without hesitation. 

    "132231." 

    The tablet broke, and a door previously invisible opened from behind it.

    Had she had a mouth, it would have dropped open at that moment. Itslyar herself, with all her wisdom and time on this planet, hadn't been able to solve the riddle for an hour. And here she thought it was clever.

    "Damn, Lerk," the wolf commented. "Sometimes your genius just plain old creeps me out."  The human shrugged in response. "So what was the trick?"

    "Simply read the previous number as it appears and write it down," he replied. "One. One one. Two ones. One two, one one. Etc."

    The old man crossed his arms. "Huh. I guess we were all thinking about it the wrong way."  His eyes took in the broken tablet for a moment, and he shrugged. "Guess we move on."

    In a way it was frustrating, Itslyar thought to herself, that these people were moving through her little dungeon so quickly and easily. It was a mystical place, the end of a long journey with a wondrous magical goal. In history, songs had been written about the quest here, legends told about the beasts of her castle vanquished by heroes, the genius of the wizards who solved her puzzles. And now, not even two hours after they'd made their landing, this group of misfits was already making its way down to the third level of her tomb. There was something different about them all.

    Another long stair, the light now gone but for their torches, the level of masonry dwindled to simple chiseled rock, and they came to the third level. A long corridor stretched out before them, at the end of which was a wide gap cut into the floor. Adorning the bottom of this gap was a field of stone spikes, littered with the remains of fools who had made it this far and no farther. 

    This test was much more difficult than the last two, for it dealt with an abstract concept. No amount of brain or muscle power would help here. Just the opposite, in fact, was required to pass this test.

    The group approached the pit, holding their torches out before them to attempt to illuminate it. Orange light shined from the tips of sharp rocks below, glistening as though from fresh blood. White, rotted bones showed up at the bottom in places, filled with holes or fractures from points of contact. A few of those had been chucked in on purpose, just to add to the effect. What an amusing day that had been.

    With a grimace, the older man turned his torch away from the pit to illuminate another panel that adorned the left wall and read the inscription there. "'Show no fear and you will meet the other side'," he read aloud.

    The wolf wiped a paw across his face in exasperation. "What the fuck is with all this shit?  I thought this was just a tomb. What's with all the goddamn tests?"

    "I wonder if we can just climb down there?" the older man said, once more shining his torch into the pit. Large spikes jutted nearly to the top, with smaller spikes set in between, and between those even thinner ones, like needles. Istlyar had asked herself the same question, and decided that no, one shouldn't be able to just climb down. Aside from mice and other small creatures. All else would be pierced, one way or another. Of that, at least, she was certain.

    "Doesn't look too easy," echoed the fox, peering down at the grisly terrain. "What was that inscription again?"

    "'Show no fear and you will meet the other side'," the older man repeated.

    The fox smiled, a pointy-eared, tongue lolling kind of smile. "Well then it's easy. We just have to walk out there and have faith that we won't fall. I'll bet there's a magical support or something that we can't see."

    "If it was that easy, then what's with all the damn bones?" the wolf asked, pointing at the white piles.

    The fox shrugged. "Probably just there to scare you. Make the test harder. I don't know, really."  She turned to the edge of the pit and put her leg out over the spikes.

    "Whoa, hold on a minute, woman!" the older man cried out, grabbing her arm. "You trying to commit suicide?  That's not what we came here for."

    She shrugged his grasp off and gave him a harsh look. "No, I'm not trying to commit suicide. Didn't you hear what I said?  We just have to walk across the pit to the other side."

    "What if that sign is just there to make morons walk off the edge of a cliff onto a pit of spikes?" he retorted. "Let's think about this one a little before we go killing ourselves, eh?"

    "Kjeck... just trust me for a minute, would you?  It's simple what's going on here: the first test was a test of strength in the form of a monster, the second was a test of intelligence in the form of a puzzle, and this test is a test of faith. 'Show no fear' means that you have to believe that there will be a bridge supporting you. Otherwise you fall."

    Kjeck looked to the others, pleading. "Does this seem unnecessarily dangerous to either of you?"

    The wolf shrugged. "You know how those old societies were," he remarked. "Real big into religion and stuff. Being willfully ignorant was a virtue, right?  So I could see how this could be a test of faith."

    "That's not exactly what I meant, Hyuldrek," Cody replied, a little agitated. "It's not ignorance; it's belief. There's a difference."

    Again, the wolf shrugged. "Whatever you wanna' call it. Way I see it, nothing in this world makes much sense anyway, so I could totally see some magic bridge appearing beneath you when you walk out there. Give it a shot."

    The older man raised his hands in the air. "Compromise," he said, then lowered them. "Cody, try throwing a rock out there. You think there's a bridge, so a rock ought to bounce off it, right?  Give it a shot."

    The fox shrugged, then knelt and picked up a small rock from the ground. "I suppose if the bridge supports me it would support a rock," she murmured, then gave it a toss. The older man shined his torch toward it, following its path. It arched into the air, stopped, came back down.

    Plink.

    The rock landed in midair, bounced twice, and hovered there, supported by an invisible bridge. The fox turned to the human with a sly smile. "Told you so," she stated, then followed her rock. Nothing at all supported her weight as she walked out over the spikes. On the way, she picked up the rock from the air and began bouncing it in her hand.

    The older man looked to his companions, who both shrugged, and the other three followed the fox's lead.

    Test three was complete. Now there was only one more, and they would find her tomb. After they were gone, Itslyar noted, she would get someone to made these tests more difficult. It was hardly fun this way.

    At the end of a long corridor, they found a door. Simple, wooden, nothing extravagant. On the other side, however, as the group saw once they opened the door, was the largest, most absurd collection of ancient art, statues, jewelry, and coins that the world had ever seen. Istlyar made another ethereal smile; this was one thing that came from being ruler of a country for so long. Most of these gifts she didn't even ask for. She didn't have to; the people feared her so much they gave it themselves. It was all very silly; she wasn't even able to use most of what was in this room for anything productive. The money she spent on various urban projects or palaces and the like all came from taxes; these gifts and other niceties were mostly just for show. But every dragon had to have its hoard, right?

    The wolf let out a low whistle. "Take a look at this shit," he muttered. "You could buy a fucking planet with this much gold."

    The older man rolled his eyes. "And what do you suppose we can't touch any of it?"

    "Test of morals, perhaps?" the fox replied, looking left and right with wide eyes. "To deter the greedy?"

    "Maybe just to be safe we should assume that," the older man replied. "Speaking to you of course, Hyuldrek."

    The wolf scoffed. "Speaking to me?  What the fuck, Kjeck."

    "You're the one who took four wagons of gold from that noble, after all."

    "And we still have enough gold to buy ourselves whatever we want," he replied with a dry tone. "And frankly, I'm getting tired of lugging it around with us."

    "That's because it keeps getting converted to smaller change when we use it," the older man said with a chuckle. "We probably have more weight now than we started with."

    "And you always fucking make me carry it. So why the hell would I want more gold?"

    By the end of this discussion, they had reached the end of the hall without touching a single coin, and they passed through the door on the other side. Without even hardly realizing it, they had passed test number four. Itslyar could only shake her non-existent head in wonderment. This was a special group of characters, wasn't it?  The era of naivety and weak souls, perhaps, was over.

    There it was now, before them: her tomb, with its old inscription, the old fountain gurgling away as it had been for centuries. Lonely, dark, yet still somehow grandiose. The group approached the headstone, now suddenly quite silent. It towered over their heads, the height of two men, each letter as long as a forearm. They almost seemed reverent as they regarded it.

    "This must be it," the wolf said, his voice low.

    The older man looked to the ground. "Think we're standing on the burial place right now?"

    "I'll bet. This was a dragon, after all. I'm guessing she was huge."

    The fox looked around, her ears standing high on her head. "You know, I was thinking," she said. "We're looking for some kind of special necklace, right?  What if it's in the other room, with all the treasure?"

    A necklace?  Itslyar took a moment to think about this. Then it came to her: the necklace spoken of in popular legends, which was said to have been very important to her. In reality, she never had a necklace, or any other kind of article of any kind; she didn't believe in using trinkets and other useless items. Her power rested with herself alone; she needed nothing but her own body to display her majesty to the people.

    They wouldn't find a necklace here. Perhaps it was time to come out of hiding.

    She prepared herself, concentrated. The room's temperature dropped, the light of the group's torches went down, the sound of the fountain diminished. She could feel the group going silent, little sparks of alarm dancing around in their brains coupled with the unknown. Unknowns always had that effect on these creatures: fear. And it was fear she had always been so good at manipulating.

    (Manipulating....)

    A voice?  Damn it!  Her concentration was breaking. Bloody spirits and their....

    (We're all manipulators in our own ways, after all.)

    That voice.... Why did it sound so familiar?

    (Sorry, old friend, but you're going to have to come out of retirement for a bit, I think.)

    Suddenly, her presence began to shift. She felt the weight of dirt piled atop her, the grasping claws of fungus that had taken up residence on the soil that was her body. She began to lose sight of the four travelers below, all her vision turning to black beyond her control. But it wasn't the black of the void this time, no. It was much brighter than that. It smelled like dirt, like rock and soil and living things. Worms crawling about her body, feasting on her long-rotting bones. And did they rot long: thousands of years, and she could still feel some her flesh clinging to her.

    But why?  Her flesh... she was through with her flesh, finished when it finally fell apart under the blade of that buffoon. She remembered; it was a sacrifice. A powerful sacrifice that no one ever knew about but her and... that one other.

 

    A scream echoed along the walls of the underground tomb, powerful enough to steal the breath from the four travelers' lungs, and the ground began to shift.

 

Chapter 22

    "An earthquake?" Cody shouted above the noise.

    The ground was indeed shaking, rising and swelling and falling back down again, but Kjeck was almost certain that this wasn't a rift moving or anything of the sort. Something was underneath them, wanting to come up. "Cody," he asked, holding onto her arm to keep her from falling, "Can magic ever... raise the dead?"

    "Can magic do what?" Hyuldrek shouted in reply, but before their conversation could continue, a great upheaval of ground threw them all to the corners of the room.

    Kjeck spat a small rock from his mouth and turned to look at where they had just been standing. The ground was raising itself in a great hump, shots of broken rock fragments spraying into the air and off the ceiling. The mound shifted left and right, two appendages pushing higher than the rest. In the dim gleam of their remaining torches, scattered who knew where in the room, Kjeck saw white bone.

    "Kjeck!" Cody called. "What's going on?  That's not...?"

    "I think it is," Kjeck replied as more bone broke its way out. Two battered wings surfaced, bits of old scaly flesh still clinging to them in places. Horns rose from farther down, then a skull. The tip of a tail, the arch of a back. One front leg, wicked curving claws raking across the cracked ground leaving long grooves of powdered rock behind.

    Another horrid scream filled the small cavern, and the dragon's body finally broke out of its tomb. Its mouth opened, sucking air down its withered, rotten neck, one red eye gleaming in the torchlight, the other merely an empty socket in bone. That red eye first swirled wildly, like a frightened horse, then slowed and came to a halt right on Kjeck. In a methodical arc, the head followed.

    "You!" the dragon corpse bellowed. Kjeck's heart, already racing, began to sprint. "What did you do?" it cried.

    "Me?" Kjeck asked, meekly.

    The dragon put a paw to its forehead, its single eye closing tightly underneath thin, decaying flesh. "Gods burn in hell for this!" she shouted. Her eye came back to Kjeck. "It had to have been you. One of you!"  Her head swiveled to look at each member in turn. It stopped on Lerk.

    The dragon queen raised a paw and pointed it straight to Lerk. "It was you, wasn't it...?  You who was able to see me, you who never says a word but has so much to say. This is inexcusable. I do not care if this particular mind is brilliant: I must have vengeance for this!"

    With that, she raised the paw and brought it down with incredible force where Lerk was sitting. Hyuldrek cried out as his tail was smashed by the blow, then continued to roll his friend of out danger. When he stood again, his tail was bent at an awkward angle, and his fangs were leaking saliva through an uncontrollable rage. "You don't fucking touch my buddy," he snarled, then threw himself at the dragon.

    "Hyuldrek, you moron!" Kjeck called out as the wolf latched himself onto the dragon's bony neck. The queen reared and let out a roar, swinging her head forcefully back and forth to shake her passenger, but the wolf held tight and even managed a few solid blows at the base of her skull. The dragon's tail thrashed about the room, breaking the floor and walls in places where it made contact. In the midst of the carnage, Kjeck pushed himself aright.

    "Cody!" he called out. "You all right?"

    He saw her huddled form a short distance away, her hands over her head as rubble rained down all around her. Kjeck flung himself toward her and scooped her up into his arms, then made a run for the doorway that led them to this room. Hyuldrek, he could see, had finally been dislodged from the dragon's neck, and was dancing left and right to avoid her blows while trying to find a way back on. Cody uncovered her head and looked into Kjeck's face, suddenly aware that she was out of danger.

    "Kjeck?" she said in a soft voice. "Should we have come here?"

    Kjeck shook his head to clear it. "Look," he said. "We've got to help Hyuldrek out. He'll never make it by himself, and I don't think he's gonna' stop. How big a fire you think you can make on that corpse?"

    Cody's eyes widened in surprise, then shrunk as she gave it more thought. "I don't' know," she finally decided. "But I'm willing to find out."

    Kjeck winked at her, then ran back into the room, picking up a large rock fragment along the way. He could see Lerk now, wielding the sword he'd taken so long ago in the noble's mansion to fend off the dragon's menacing claws. Kjeck ran forward and threw the rock into the beast's face, knocking its jaw a little unhinged. Once recovered from the shock, the dragon turned her head to face him, one eyebrow lowered in anger, then roared when Hyuldrek latched himself back onto her neck.

    Kjeck ran forward with his own weapons now, his daggers, and danced around the great beast to find a sensitive spot, if she had any that hadn't rotted away. He participated in the same dance as the others, now another target for the already somewhat overwhelmed queen of dragons, then rolled himself underneath her and thrust a blade into the inside of her thigh, where there was still flesh. A deafening roar sounded, and he narrowly escaped getting smashed as the dragon collapsed her backside to the ground to try and dislodge the offending blade. Apparently some nerve endings still worked.

    The melee continued for several more minutes, the tomb becoming more and more unstable, until a warm orange light appeared from the hall leading to the room of treasures. Kjeck turned to his friends, each turning to him, and yelled, "Out of the way!"

    Just as everyone leaped off, a great ball of liquid fire came racing forward, engulfing the dragon. Burning flesh smell exploded into the room, the bits of it still clinging to the beast becoming dark flecks in the starlike medium that surrounded her. A wail sounded out from her mouth, her head thrown back by the pressure of hot air, and her body flipped backwards. The great ball hit the back wall and exploded outward, releasing a great wave of heat that singed the bottoms of Kjeck's boots, then flickered off into the darkness like fairies on a moonlit night.

    When Kjeck raised his head and blinked the blindness from his eyes, he could only see the dim outline of the dragon queen lying on its side, her back cradled against the broken tombstone that used to mark where she was buried. Kjeck pushed himself aright, and turned back to the entryway. A small light appeared as Cody relit what was probably their last remaining torch and stepped forward.

    She approached the queen's body, cautious, the others following slowly behind. As she raised the light, the outline came into full view. Her sides rose and fell--breathing still, somehow, and her head lay like a dejected dog's, staring off toward a fractured wall. Cody approached this head, saw the one eye wide open and looking forward. "Is she...?" she eked out into the silence.

    "Dead, no," came the dragon's voice, and everyone jumped back. "Defeated," the dragon continued, raising its bony head to look at them, "yes."

    "What a relief," Hyuldrek muttered, sliding some blood out of a deep cut on his arm and watching it glisten in the torchlight. "You're one tough bitch."

    "You're all looking for a necklace?" the dragon asked, lowering its head once again. Kjeck nodded, then replied in the affirmative. "I don't have any necklaces."

    "You don't...?" Cody asked, putting a hand to her heart.

    "There was a woman, once," the dragon continued. "I believe she was looking for the same thing you were. She wanted a gate key, a way to unlock the door that led back to her own world. This is what you seek, is it not?"

    Cody merely nodded, but Kjeck stepped forward. "How do you know so much?  You've been underground."

    "Gods burn in the fires, don't remind me," she replied, covering her face with her paws. "I used to be free, until you showed up."

    Kjeck hesitated a moment before replying. "Is that why you attacked us, then?" he finally decided to ask. "You think we brought you back to life, somehow?"

    Her right paw lifted and pointed a claw at Lerk, who stood with just as calm a face as always despite the rivulets of blood streaming down his face. "That one did it, did he not?  He has powers beyond anything you could ever imagine."

    Everyone turned to Lerk, who shrugged. "No one I know of can raise the dead," he said simply.

    "Lerk here isn't a magician," Kjeck told the dragon, though he shot Lerk a look. "Cody's our best, and I don't think even she could bring a creature back to life. I don't think it was us, to be honest."

    The dragon raised its head. "Then who was it?  Why is it that I sleep peacefully for so long, only to be risen when you all show up?  And you claim it was not you who did this?"

    "No, it couldn't have been," Kjeck replied. "Despite how silly that sounds in the face of the evidence, it couldn't have been us."

    "Then who?" roared the dragon, tendrils of smoke streaming from her snout. Was it her or remnants of the blast?

    "I... wonder," Cody said in a soft voice. "But I don't know why it would have done so...."

    The dragon raised its head to look to Cody. "What are you thinking, priestess?"

    Everyone else looked to Cody as well, though Kjeck was fairly sure they all knew what she was talking about. She shrugged. "There's been a force acting in our lives lately. All throughout this trip, actually. We don't know exactly what it is, but it takes the form of a small rabbit-eared creature. It's saved me several times, and aided Kjeck during a dangerous mission. We are certain it has incredible power."

    "A creature...?" the queen replied, the anger suddenly dissipated from her voice.

    Cody merely nodded.

    The queen gave this some silent thought. After a minute of such reflexion, she slowly pushed herself upright, standing as tall and proud as she could in the small burial chamber. "I have no necklace," she said, looking down upon the group, "but I may have something else of import to you. And since you have defeated me in combat, I will give it to you. But there is one condition."

    Kjeck shrugged. "Shoot."  Would he regret saying that?

    She hesitated a moment, looked off into the darkness, then returned her gaze to Kjeck. "I wish to come with you," she replied.

 

Chapter 23

 

    "This is humiliating," Itslyar grumbled, lifting one bony paw and glaring at the chain wrapped around it in a sorry attempt to make her appear less dangerous to the captain of their ship.

    "Too bad your fucking wings rotted off, huh?  Could have just flied off that rock," Hyuldrek replied, eyes closed and head resting against the ship's railing. It was the only way they could get the captain to agree to take on their new passenger; Itslyar had to be chained up on the ship's deck, and everyone had to take turns keeping watch over her. "Probably would have been more pleasant, anyway."

    "You dislike the sea," the dragon commented.

    "What was your first hint?"

    Her one red eye turned down to him. "You smell positively green."

    "I'm getting used to it."

    He cracked open an eye as he smelled Kjeck approaching. The old man waved at him. "How you doing?  Need me to take over for a bit?"

    Hyuldrek waved him off. "The rotting flesh smell offsets the seasickness a little," he replied. "I'm fine."

    "Doesn't this captain realize that I would gain nothing by sinking his ship so far out at sea?" the dragon asked. "The waters and all that lives in them would dissolve me completely in a matter of days."

    "He's just a little uncomfortable having you on board, Itslyar," Kjeck replied, leaning against the ship's railing and staring out at the blue expanse of water they'd just finished crossing in the other direction not even two days ago. "Try to see it from his perspective: we ask him to bring us to a cursed island, something he's not real keen on in the first place, and then we come back with an undead dragon we want to bring on board. It's a wonder he's even going along with us this much."

    "It's not like you're uncomfortable," Hyuldrek muttered. "You don't even sleep, do you?"

    "This is beside the point," she replied. "It's the principle of the matter."

    "Well, you'll be happy to know, at least, that the captain's got the whole crew down there with the oars a couple hours every day, so we should have a shorter trip going back than we did coming," Kjeck said. He turned back to the wolf. "You sure you're fine for a while yet?"

    Hyuldrek waved him off, saying nothing, his eyes remaining shut. When the old man had left, the dragon, a talkative bitch if ever there was one, opened her dull white maw again. "Perhaps you would like now to inform me of the purpose of your journey?"

    Hyuldrek once more cracked open an eye, but just for a second. "I thought you'd been keeping an eye on us this whole time anyway."

    "I only hear what I do through your own conversations. I know few details beyond that."

    The wolf sighed and tilted his head further back. The rocking of the boat was already well on its way to getting to him. It always began in the head, a dull throbbing at the base of the skull. Any amount of movement, even massage, brought that throbbing further down his body like a flow of poison, until it finally settled in his gut. From there, it sat like a lump of clay, sliding around his stomach with a heavy wetness, sticking, never passing through. Any motion moved that lump around. He never wanted anybody to know, but he got the same feeling from riding in cars and buses. Deep breaths were the only thing he could take that alleviated the feeling even a little, but out here at sea in the salty air or on a car with the pollution of burning fuels and polyester seats, the air was never fresh enough to bring much relief.

    "No reason not to let you know, I guess," he finally replied. "Not that I understand any of it, myself. You might be better off asking Kjeck or Cody. Or Lerk, I guess. He never says anything, but I'll bet he knows a lot more than I do about everything."

    She snorted lightly. "Your friend Lerk, " she muttered. "Where did you meet such a strange creature?"

    Hyuldrek's eyes popped open, and he gave her a look. "The fuck's that supposed to mean?"

    Her one red eye locked on him. Talkative, and fucking creepy too. Damn. "To be honest," she replied, "he reminds me quite a lot of an old friend of mine. A human himself, actually."

    "That so."

    She watched him for a time, then turned her red gaze elsewhere. "It is. You still haven't answered my question."

    "You interrupted me," he replied with a slight grin, then he gave a heavy shrug. "I don't know.... It's complicated. We all weren't born in this world, except for Cody, but her mom wasn't. I guess Cody wants to know what her mom's world's like, and the rest of us just want to get back, so we're trying to find our way."

    "And how, exactly did you arrive in this... world?"

    Again, he shrugged. "Something we're still trying to figure out. We thought we might get the answer from your place."

    "You were following the woman who came before you?"

    He turned to her for a second. "Woman?"

    "Who wrote a journal that you discovered in a cave, and who came to my castle some time ago seeking the same thing as you."

    He closed his eyes again. "Didn't realize she was a woman. But yeah."

    A moment of silence passed then, until Itslyar once again broke it. "What brings you to want to go back to your own world?  Are you not a criminal there?"

    Hyuldrek let out a half chuckle. "Yeah, but that was being taken care of before I got drug here. This world doesn't make any sense to me, anyway. At least I had control over in the other one."

    "And Kjeck?  What of him?"

    "What about Kjeck?"

    "He seems rather in his element in this world. I was wondering what his reason for going back might have been."

    Hyuldrek thought about this a minute before coming up with an answer. "Something to do with Cody, I guess. Don't know if I ever asked him. I think he was just a bum in the other world, come to think of it."

    "He is in love with the girl?"

    Hyuldrek couldn't help but burst out a harsh laugh. "I'm keepin' my mouth shut on that one. You go ahead and ask him."

    "What, pray tell, is the problem?"

    Hyuldrek raised an eyebrow at the dragon zombie. "You kidding me?  He's gotta' be pushing fifty. I couldn't see her being any more than twenty."

    "An age difference is such a barrier to love?"

    "We all hope, girl," he replied, still grinning.

    The remark didn't amuse her. Rather, she almost seemed to frown; as much as a near-skeleton could. "Perhaps we dragons think of love differently than you in your world."  She nearly whispered this comment. Something told him he didn't want to pursue the subject.

    Another long silent moment followed, and Hyuldrek found that he had nearly drifted off when the dragon queen spoke again. "Then where do you plan to go next?"

    Hyuldrek let out a long breath through his nose. "Don't think anyone knows yet. We've been groping in the dark this whole trip anyway; we'll probably just run across some random bullshit that points us some direction and go that way. Seems to be the way we run."

    "Destiny, perhaps?"

    He shook his head. "You ask me, feels more like we're being manipulated."

    "This rabbit-like creature, would you say?"  Her red eye was fixed on him again. It almost made him laugh; here he was, on a ship out on the sea of a foreign world, having a pleasant little chat with a dragon corpse. A person could get used to anything after a while, he supposed.

    "Cody seems to think so, and I'm sort of inclined to believe her. Don't think I've ever seen this thing for myself, though, so I don't know. But the way things've been running these past couple of months, I wouldn't discount it."  A thought sprung into his mind, and he turned to her. "What about you?  You got any ideas on where to go next?"

    If she had had any flesh left above her eye, it would have raised in a question. "Me?" she asked.

    He chuckled. "No, the other dragon I'm talking with."

    "I ask because I fail to see what I could know of use to you in your quest. I was mostly unable to help the woman who came before you as well."

    This brought a grim expression to his face. "She never did make it back, did she."

    The dragon shrugged, a heaving of giant bony shoulders. "It is outside of my knowledge."

    "Well, what'd you tell her?"

    "The Lorukat Empire..."

    He raised an eyebrow. "What?"

    "I told her the story of the Lorukat Empire. It was the closest event I could think of that reminded me even a bit of her own situation."

    Hyuldrek turned himself over, leaning on one arm, so he could give the dragon a better look. She was staring off blankly at the sea, a thin film of flesh covering her red eye. "The whose empire?  What's this all about?"

    "I suppose you wouldn't have heard of it, though the story is rather well-known on this world. Are you asking to hear it as well?"

    He shrugged. "Yeah, sure. Not like we got anything better to do."

    "Very well then."  She made an odd whistling sound, maybe like she was clearing her throat, then began to narrate.

    "Many centuries ago, there existed a grand kingdom, named Lorukat after its first king. This kingdom was blessed with a great wealth of resources: fertile land, large deposits of iron ore, largely sought-after gems and stones, all sitting atop a great shelf of granite, which was used to build an immense castle and surrounding city. This kingdom used its riches to promote scientific study and advancement; many things we use today were invented there, including even our architecture and government. They had a worldwide influence.

    "It wasn't until a discovery was made, however, that the Lorukat Kingdom made its transition to the Lorukat Empire. One of the king's royal researchers stumbled across a fundamental secret of the universe. Only by using his mind, he discovered, he was able to manipulate the air, the ground, everything around him. At first, this was all done in very small degrees, and had few uses save entertainment. But the king at the time, Lorukat the seventh, saw much potential in the discovery, and put forth a great deal of money in order to expand on the original research. That was how the discipline of magic was born.

    "The king then had, at his disposal, an unlimited source of power, and he hardly hesitated to use it. Wielding magic as a weapon, he ceased friendly trade with the neighboring countries and instead began an invasion. Having nothing to defend against this new weapon, these countries bent like so many blades of grass under the winds of a tornado, and the Lorukat Empire began its worldwide expansion.

    "There was some amount of resistance, but news quickly spread of the unbeatable power wielded by Lorukat's soldiers, so most countries simply allowed themselves to be integrated in the Empire. Quickly, the Empire spread itself, until it engulfed the world. Diversity in language, culture, and even flora and fauna in some places was wiped clean by the encroaching armies, until every country took on a resemblance to Lorukat. You may have noticed this effect remains visible even today.

    "But, of course, nothing can last forever. One day, news began to spread across the globe of a great catastrophe that had befallen the heart of the Empire, the city of Lorukat itself. The king, the castle, the town, and every citizen living within, simply disappeared. Gone from the face of the world, never to be seen again.

    "The Empire dissolved then, with no one left to preserve it, bringing to end a long and unusual era in the history of our world. The mystery of the city's disappearance has never been solved. Some claim that the king became so enamored with his own power that he forced his researches to find a path to other worlds, that he may conquer those as well. Others say the gods themselves intervened, feeling that no one man should hold a seat at the top of the entire planet, above all other men. These are all, of course, simply hypotheses; the true answer will probably remain hidden forever."

    She stopped speaking for a moment, then turned back to Hyuldrek with a strange sort of smile gracing her nearly non-existent lips. "You can see why she might have been interested in the story, I suppose. Perhaps you are, too?"

    Hyuldrek had nearly fallen asleep during the telling of the tale; all the details he needed he got from the conclusion, anyway. "Wouldn't it just be dandy if it turned out the Bridge was invented there, too?" he asked with a whimsical smile on his face.

    "Bridge?"

    Hyuldrek shot a wide grin to the dragon queen. "That one you're really gonna' have to ask Lerk about. So how far is it to Lorukat?"

 

Chapter 24

 

    "The land is sealed, of course," Itslyar told them all from their campsite a few hours from town. A wisp of gray smoke curled from her mouth as she spoke. "After the city disappeared, it was declared to be an accursed place, and so the world's greatest magicians came together to raise the land on which it sits."

    Cody gasped involuntarily. "You mean in the air?"

    Itslyar shook her head. "No, but not far away. When the act itself was performed, the oceans around the continent boiled away, which brought about worldwide catastrophic weather for centuries to follow."  Kjeck let out a low whistle, but stopped himself from commenting when she turned a fierce look to him. The dragon enjoyed exposition, it seemed. "The sea near the land is now a hazardous pool of sulfur-spewing submarine geysers," she continued, "making the water poisonous to any edible creatures. One would have to sail across this aquatic wasteland, breathing the poisoned air that bubbles up from the ocean's surface, fighting across leagues of rough undersea terrain that can puncture a ship's hull like a knife through a leaf, and which are completely invisible due to the murkiness of the waters. If one somehow manages to make it to the shore, one has to scale a vertical cliff-face that reaches far into the clouds. It is rumored, as well, that the land is populated with the blood-thirsty ghosts of the ancient people of Lorukat, who can kill people through their own dreams."

    "Some of that's gotta' be bullshit," Hyuldrek muttered.

    "The tales of ghosts, I admit, seem a mite implausible," Itslyar replied.

    "I don't suppose," Kjeck put in, fingers digging through his beard as he thought, "that you've ever been there, Itslyar?"

    The dragon shook her head. "I never had the time or the desire. I do know of someone who once tried to visit, however, and his tales mimic what I just related to you."

    Cody had been thinking the information over, when an idea came to her. "Could you have gone, though, if you'd wanted to?"

    Itslyar tapped her considerable claws on the ground for a time, then nodded. "You wish to know if the place can be reached by air, I am assuming," she replied.

    Cody had her turn to nod. "If it's not reachable by land or sea, the only other option is by air, isn't it?"

    Kjeck turned to her, an eyebrow raised. "Has anyone here invented a way to travel through the air?"

    Her brow drew down. "Well," she replied, then paused. "I don't know," she finished.

    "Probably can't make somebody fly with 'magic'," Hyuldrek grumbled.

    "Not for that long, I doubt," Cody replied. "Unless..."

    After a long pause, Kjeck shot her a quizzical look. "Unless what, Cody?  You have something in mind?"

    She turned back to him with mild surprise on her face; it had been an old memory. Something her father related to her when she was very young. When her mother was still alive, in fact. "I have... something in mind, but I don't know how useful it would be," she finally replied. "Itslyar," she continued, turning to the dragon queen, "have you ever heard of the Sky Palace?"

    The dragon put on what mostly amounted to a grin. "Vague rumors, one could say, of their exploits."

    "The Hell is the Sky Palace?" Hyuldrek interjected.

    Cody shrugged. "It's a... well, I don't know that many details. Or at least I don't remember that many. My father once told me about a castle that was built in celebration of the first ever flying machine. All I remember, though, is that he saw a full-scale model of the contraption on display, and that access to the Palace was limited somehow. I... it was a long time ago."

    "So what've you heard, Itslyar?" Kjeck asked the dragon.

    She waved a bony paw in the air. "The Palace lies to the southeast of here, but what the fox said is true; all that remains of those days is a model. Personally, it is my opinion that that's all there ever was."

    "You don't think people ever flew?" Kjeck asked.

    "The rumor seems to say that they have, but I know otherwise. People tried, many times, but their systems were foolhardy. Little did they know all that was required of them was to copy my physical structure, and they would have their solution. But of course, I wouldn't have told them that, even if they'd have asked."  She chuckled lightly, air whistling through holes in her neck.

    "So then what are our other options, folks?" Kjeck asked, raising his hands. "I get the feeling none of us here known anything about building an airplane?"

    "We ought to try patching up queenie's wings, here," Hyuldrek said with a slight laugh.

    "And what, carry you one at a time over the sea?" the dragon retorted.

    "I don't suppose there's, like, a blueprint of this supposed first flying machine in this palace?" Kjeck asked, turning to Cody.

    She shrugged. "Could be. I'm not sure."

    Kjeck returned the shrug. "I'm wondering how many other options we have on the table. It's a lead, after all. Why not head there for now?"

    Everyone gazed wearily at him for a time, but no one disagreed. Cody took a deep breath and simply let her head fall into her hands; one more trip leading to another. They'd crossed a mountain range, the world's largest forest, the ocean three times, and they were still just chasing shadows. At this rate, she foresaw, it would take decades before they found anything out. After the first month or two, she found it necessary not to dwell on their goal too much in order to focus on the tasks at hand. But it had been a very long time since she and Kjeck first set out, and patience had its limits.

    Kjeck seemed to see what she was thinking on her face, for he turned to her once more and asked, "That sound okay to you, Cody?"

    She just nodded and let out that deep breath. He hadn't forgotten, had he?  She didn't have as much time as the rest of them.

 

    Kjeck and Hyuldrek woke up early the next day and headed into town to resupply for their coming trip. Traveling with a giant decaying monster made it rather difficult to spend much time in civilization. That, and Itslyar had a penchant for deliberately spooking anyone they came across. It was in her nature, she said, but as a result, their journey was a rather lonely one.

    Their sixth day traveling toward the Palace, the day Cody found herself beginning to notice the long-sustained absence of the little creature, the group stopped near a clear lake to rest and eat a little something. The land became more and more deserted as they ventured south. The fruit trees and palms thinned out, replaced by large patches of a short, spiny plant that Cody didn't recognize. The grass became scratchier and drier, and was often interspersed with thistle and thornbushes. The weather itself seemed much harsher, less forgiving to life.

    While her companions sat grouped together, discussing the route they would take, Cordelia went to take a long drink from the lake and lay down for a minute. The dryness was really getting to her; she'd never experienced anything quite like it. Her fur coat, while it hadn't felt completely clean for many months now, was gritty and harsh to the touch, and her nose often felt on the verge of cracking. After gulping down her third flask-full, she found a flat stone she could use as a pillow, curled up on the dusty ground, and closed her eyes. Pain filled them as they tried to wash some of the dust out.

    The sound of their conversation lulled on in her ears, until it seemed to drift away and become part of the sirocco blowing in from further south and making things even hotter. She cracked open an eye, assuming someone would come get her up so they could continue their journey. She really didn't want to move; if she could just take a short nap, maybe she'd feel better. Even the rock felt comfortable under her head.

    The light taken in by her eyes, however, didn't match up with what it had been when she'd closed them. Suddenly, she realized that her sense of smell was missing, and her eyes popped all the way open.

    The scene before her made no sense. Pushing her head from the rock (it wasn't a rock anymore, was it?  It was a real pillow after all), she gazed with wide-eyed wonder at her new surroundings. Beneath her was a spring mattress, dirty and broken and laying on the floor, but more comfortable than the floor itself, which was in most places composed of a harsh metal grating. The walls were redding steel, sheets of it interspersed with skeleton-like beams and girders. Grass poked in through a spot in the floor by a short metal table, nailed to the ground and covered with glass containers of all shapes and sizes.

    She pushed herself upright, suddenly very worried. The Bridge... had the Bridge acted already?  Had it taken her away, put her in the place where her mother had been born?

    Without any reason to do so, she looked down at her hands, and saw that they were covered in black leather gloves. The fingers were much longer than she was used to, and when she curled them and stretched them out, they made an odd creaking sound. "I did this," she thought. It wasn't her thought. "I made myself into this monster, and for what?  I only proved that I knew nothing."  It wasn't her thought, but she could hear it clearly as though it were. And she knew she'd had it many times before.

    She pushed herself upright, and suddenly realized that she wasn't really in control. That other, whoever made those thoughts, was doing everything for her. Long legs carried her across the room, to a small mirror made of polished metal hanging on a wall above a water basin. Those gloved hands reached into the basin, full of brackish water, and splashed some of it into her face. She felt nothing. When the hands dropped from her face, she saw a spot of some dark liquid swimming in the water, spreading out hundreds of little arms as it expanded and diluted. She knew that liquid. It was like blood, but it only coursed through the veins of... nothing that was alive.

    She then looked into the mirror, and saw a face staring back at her that wasn't her own.

 

    Cody awoke with a scream, and the others turned to look at her. They all still sat together in a circle, and they all had still been talking about their route. Maybe only a few seconds had passed. "Sorry," she said, half to herself. "I must have dozed off."

    "Nightmare, Cody?" Kjeck asked her.

    She didn't hear. A thought had entered her mind, very loud, very clear. "It's..." she said, then shuddered slightly. "We need to be heading southwest," she told the group.

    They all stared at her for a time. "But the Sky Palace is..." Kjeck began.

    Cody interrupted him. She pronounced each syllable very clearly. "South-west. We need to go southwest."

 

Chapter 25

 

    They all stared at the building for a long time before any of it registered in their minds. Two rows of three smokestacks along the top, their tips black with soot, a short tower outside with a chute leading to an outcropping of the main building, a wall below of concrete lined with pipes and a pool of the waste they ejected over the years, now just a sandy pit where nothing would probably ever grow again, glass windows graying and warped with age, some covered by steel sheeting. Everything was manufactured materials; even the bricks that made up the edifice. And nothing about it belonged.

    Kjeck was the first to step forward, though it was an autonomous action performed by his legs more than anything. Cody was rooted to the spot where she first laid eyes on the building, Hyuldrek and Lerk both had crossed their arms to give the building a going-over, and Itslyar had sat back on her haunches to take in the sight with her single red eye. In one way or another, the sight was a shock to each of them; nostalgia for some, and an uneven mixture of horror and wonderment for the others.

    "At this point," Kjeck remarked, breaking the almost minute-long silence, "I'm not even going to ask you how you knew this was here, Cody."

    "I'm much more interested in what exactly this is," Itslyar commented. "This is from your world, perhaps?"

    "An entire fucking factory?" Hyuldrek replied. "Is that even possible?"

    "Factory, is it?" Cody asked, a hand to her heart. "People don't live in buildings like these, do they?  It smells... terrible."

    Kjeck simply shook his head. Something had caught his eye; a small black something or other right outside the building's front door. It was hunched over and scampering about like some kind of humongous rodent. Maybe that's what it was, he mused; maybe factory waste in this magical world might produce some of the biggest damn vermin anyone had ever seen.

    "Perhaps they do not normally," Itslyar said suddenly, breaking Kjeck's reverie.

    He turned to her. "You mean that black thing?"

    "Thing, it is not. It's a person."

    Cody was looking at the spot, ears tilted forward, nose twitching just a little to pick up any scent it might have. "All I can smell is garbage, and...."  Her eyes widened a little, and she looked to Kjeck.

    "A person, really," Kjeck replied. They all stood for a moment more, watching the black hump moving about, the steel facing on the windows glistening in the powerful sun. Finally, he shrugged. "Well, why don't we go say hello?"

 

    The reason it--he, she, whatever--seemed hunched over, Kjeck soon realized, was because it had been. Looking completely odd and out of place in front of the large sooty edifice of the old factory was a small garden; perennials, roses, mint, lamb's ear, amongst a number of other things Kjeck couldn't exactly put a name to, all growing beautifully. As they approached, the hunched figure stood to full height and turned to look at them.

    Or, at least, he assumed so. For whatever reason, the man (woman?) was wearing a great deal of clothes; a black trench coat, buttoned all the way up and down, leather gloves, a black wide-brimmed hat that shielded view of his (her?) eyes, even a black cloth to cover the mouth and nose, like a ninja. Kjeck glanced briefly up at the sun and felt sick to his stomach before he hailed the fellow. "Hello there!" he called.

    The featureless face scanned their crew left to right, and the spade it carried in its gloved hand fell to the ground, where it stuck upright. An odd croaking sound came from its throat, which led to a bought of violent coughing. Kjeck stepped forward to lend a hand, but the cloaked fellow signaled him to stop. It coughed for a minute or two more (was that dust coming from its mouth?) before calming down, then raised its face once more, hit its chest twice with a fist (and did it rattle?), then spoke. "Terribly sorry. You startled me, is all."  Kjeck had been hoping to get a sex from the voice; no such luck. It sounded rather like the computerized voice program you used to hear give the local forecast, only without the odd inflections.

    "Do you, um, live here?" Kjeck asked. Stupid question, but he couldn't think of a whole lot else to say.

    The person first turned toward the building behind it, then nodded. "In a... manner of speaking, yes."  Its face seemed focused mostly on their largest friend, Kjeck noticed. Good sign, at least; it was actually a person, and not something totally unnatural, despite how it looked and sounded.

    Kjeck took the visual sign and turned to his companions. He turned back to the figure with a smile and stuck out a hand. It tentatively took it and shook; it had an incredibly strong grip, and he felt like its hand was all bone. "My name's Kjeck," he said, "and these are my traveling companions. Why don't you guys introduce yourselves?"

    Cody stepped forward first and gave a short bow. "Cordelia," she said, her voice soft and a little shaky. He supposed it must have been exciting for her; this was her first taste of the world her mother came from.

    Hyuldrek put out his own padded hand and shook the fellow's. "Hyuldrek, and this is Lerk."  He nodded toward his silent friend. Lerk simply nodded.

    Itslyar gave the fellow a cold stare for a minute, then curtly spat out, "Itslyar Tsicalcitran, former queen of dragons."

    "You are, an undead?" the cloaked figure asked her. The voice, Kjeck now noticed, was nearly as emotionless as Lerk's.

    "Not by choice, I assure you," she replied.

    "I didn't mean to offend," the figure replied. "It's just that I've never seen the living dead before now. Well, I mean, not in this sense. But everything is possible, I suppose."

    "Indeed," Itslyar replied, keeping her expression grim.

    A moment of silence passed, until the figure broke it once more. "Would you like to come inside, perhaps?  I'm afraid I don't have much to offer in the way of amenities, but at least you would be out of the sun."

    "Thank you. That would lovely," Cody replied immediately.

    With that, the figure turned toward the steel double doors and tapped a pattern of buttons on a panel embedded into the wall, and the door slid open noisily. A musty smell puffed out, but it was a cool must. Kjeck could hear, oddly enough, the low hum of a distant air-conditioner. "Please," it said, motioning for them to step inside.

    Everyone hustled in, save Itslyar, who stared dubiously at the small entryway. "Can't fit, Itslyar?" Kjeck asked her with a small smile. "Not like the heat bothers you anyway, does it?"

    "The dryness gives me an unpleasant sensation."  She stood looking grumpy for a time, then sighed. "If it must be, it must be."

    Kjeck waved her off and went to walk inside the building, when he was startled by a sudden grotesque squelching sound, like soggy bread being slapped against a wall. He turned to the source, and saw that the dragon had suddenly become... smaller. A suddenly bipedal, human-sized Itslyar walked past him into the cool dimness of the factory, her body still rotting and dragon-like, but now with a very homo-sapien physique to it. Kjeck watched her pass, as did everyone else, then slapped his forehead. "Wait a minute," was all he could think to say.

    "You can change into a fucking...." Hyuldrek grunted. He turned around and rubbed a hand across his eyes, slapped his muzzle back and forth a few times. "You're fucking lucky we're such good friends, bitch. Mother fucking lucky."  The last was almost whispered.

    The dragon turned to them and grinned, a real grin, white and yellow teeth showing up to the non-existent gums. Kjeck just shook his head; he could see why people might have had reason not to want her as a ruler. The backhanded... nevermind. He didn't want to think about it.

    With all of them inside, the cloaked figure closed the door once again and went to go find something for them to sit on. Kjeck to the time to take a look around; the inside was just as he thought it might be, though he could see a lot of the normal manufacturing machinery had been modified for purposes other than what it had been designed for. The upper levels seemed mostly unused; several of the staircases and ladders leading to the catwalks above seemed a mite untrustworthy. Kjeck heard the sound of pigeons roosting above him, which was another sign that things weren't as well taken care of as they could have been. That also explained the musty smell. Pigeons could live anywhere, couldn't they?

    The figure returned, carrying five chairs, two with one arm and three with another, and set them around a mostly empty table. Everyone walked slowly to their places and took a seat, with the cloaked figure at the head. The latter, however, left the room once more, then returned a short time later carrying a tray full of glasses of water, with ice. It set one before each person, then took its seat at the head. "I'm sorry I don't have anything more spectacular to serve you," the figure said. "It's a little remote out here, and I don't get out often these days."

    Cody set her glass down, half empty already after only those few words spoken, and simply smiled a very dog-like smile. Everyone else took equally large gulps, save Itslyar, who simply sat back in her chair with her arms crossed.

    Kjeck looked to everyone, then back to the figure. "So," he began, "I don't believe you've introduced yourself yet. What's your name?"

    The figure lowered its ninja-mask a little to take a sip of water. Kjeck caught a slightly disturbing hint of gray before it replaced it. "Of course, sorry. My name is Valerie Shellengway."  Woman, Kjeck noted, finally. He was still waiting for her to take off the getup. But then again, if she didn't take it off outside in the blazing sunlight, why would she here?  "I'm a... magician, I suppose."

    "A magician, huh?" Hyuldrek asked. His glass was already empty. He kept a straighter face than Cody, but Kjeck couldn't imagine he'd been comfortable in that nearly black fur of his. "You make this place appear, or something?"

    "Sorry?" the woman, Valerie, asked. There was a hint of surprise in her voice this time.

    Hyuldrek waved his hand around, as though to indicate the building they were sitting in. "This place hasn't always been here, that's obvious. Just look at those pipes;" he pointed toward a large set of steel channels that ran along the ceiling, high above them. "That kind of steel tubing doesn't just make itself. And that--" now he pointed to an instrument panel, its facade covered with meters, like in a power plant. "That symbol there on those dials is from Fullert Energies, isn't it?"

    Kjeck did a double take and looked at the dials himself. They certainly were; he was surprised he didn't recognize it sooner. Certainly spent enough time of his life working with machinery designed by those guys. Old company, that; been around for at least a century and a half.

    Valerie seemed to stare at Hyuldrek for a while. He didn't bother staring back; his concentration was on Itslyar's untouched glass of ice-water. "That's right," the woman replied then, causing Hyuldrek's attention to turn back to her. "It is Fullert Energies who designed the machinery here. What did you say your name was, again?"

    "Hyuldrek," the wolf replied. "It's an NVC name."

    "NVC?" the woman asked.

    Kjeck decided to interject. "On Gaulogg. The city took over the whole place, just like the other two continents, so they just call them North, South, and East Vertex City now."

    "So I'm not the only one," Valerie muttered into her glass. She'd barely taken two sips. How could she not be thirsty after working outside in that outfit?  Something just wasn't right here. "Well, me and this factory, I suppose."  She might have chuckled; with her voice, it was difficult to tell.

    "Fucking figures," Hyuldrek remarked. He frowned as Itslyar slid her full glass to Cody's spot. "Anything weird happens, you know we're on the right track."

    "So have you been living here for a long time, then?" Kjeck asked. "I guess maybe a better question would be, how long have you been stuck on this world?"

    Valerie shook her head. "I... It's been a long time. A very long time."

    Itslyar had been watching the woman the entire time, her body completely still. Kjeck briefly found himself wondering if she had maybe finally gone back to the Void, or wherever she claimed she came from, when she spoke up for the second time. "It's strange, your voice," she said. "It's much different than what I remember from the first time."

    Everyone turned to her. "First time?" Valerie asked her.

    "Yeah," Kjeck added. "First time?"

    Itslyar shook her head slightly. "I suppose it would be difficult for a human to recognize a dragon she only met once before. And I admit, I was incorporeal at the time. You certainly have lived a long time for a human, though, haven't you?  Does this rather unrevealing clothing have something to do with that, I wonder?"

    "You are..." the woman replied, her voice fading away.

    "I've already said my name. I am offended that you would have forgotten it so easily."

    "It was such a long time ago."

    "Longer than most human lifespans, indeed. I suppose I can forgive you for it, that being the case."

    "And a lot of things have happened since then."

    Kjeck's eyes had been flicking between the two women as they spoke. Things were clicking together for him, but....

    But the timespan. It made no sense. From several different angles, it made no sense. "Hold on a minute," he interrupted. "Slow down, maybe stop. You can't be... the person who...."  He shook his head to clear his mind a little, but it didn't work. It was almost like he was drunk.

    "Wrote those journals," Lerk finished for him.

 

Chapter 26

 

    The day turned into a day of stories and admissions, most of which seemed rather uninteresting to Itslyar. The woman, Valerie, had done extensive traveling after her long ago meeting with the dragon queen, searching for further answers and information about her home world. It was a despairing trip--the world, she admitted, was an interesting one, but she simply couldn't ignore the call of where she knew she belonged. She had a family over there; two children--boys--and a loving husband, as well as a wonderful collie she'd raised from puppyhood. When every path she took led to a dead-end, her options seemed more and more limited, and she became more and more desperate.

    On one of her journeys, she got lost and ended up in the factory in which they all now sat. Her immediate conclusion followed what her research had already shown her; primary examples of artifacts from times of technological advancement on her world always ended up on this one, until they began being mass-produced. The Bridge (oddly enough, that was also her name for it) only had so much carrying capacity, and so when a thing became more common on the other world, it could no longer transport said thing to this one. This factory, then, was a relic from the first days of machine-run mass-production on her world. Cordelia's mother and Hyuldrek must have been sent here because the kind of biological technology from which they were made was new, and so the Bridge took action. Why it did such things was outside of her knowledge.

    Possibly due to the aridness of this region, the factory was still in relatively good shape, she noted, and so used a magical trick she learned to induce current in its machinery (much as she had done with the mechanisms in the cave she first landed in, she explained, including even the trap door she used as a security measure) and got everything running.

    "I think you've solved the energy crisis," Hyuldrek told her, following this, with a laugh. Itslyar didn't comprehend the joke.

    "I have a question about that," Cody interjected at this point. "Why did you think it was necessary to kill all intruders into your cave?  Why not just lock them out?"

    The woman went silent for a second, then replied, "That was never my intention."

    Hyuldrek's smile faded, and he grunted. "Then what else did you have in mind for a sealed room filling with carbon monoxide?"

    "Carbon monox...?  I only ever installed one door, to keep people and animals out of my computer room. I don't know why you might have encountered a carbon monoxide trap."

    Hyuldrek eyed the masked woman for a time, then shrugged. "Rich dude must have been more clever than we gave him credit for, I guess. Go on with your story."

    She did. The factory, she said, had a working water system that had only to be linked to ground water (which, with the extensive piping it already contained going deep underground, wasn't all that difficult a job in the end), and it had fairly comfortable temperature control mechanisms, so she decided to use the place as a sort of home-base. Her thought was simple: if the Bridge wanted to keep both worlds a certain way, she could simply build something that would only belong on her own world, and the Bridge would be forced, by its own morals (if one could call them that), to send her back with her machine. And so she got to work, rebuilding the factory, adjusting its contraptions, experimenting. She hadn't been alone; she'd met a young man during her travels who decided to stay with her, to protect her, he said. She knew what he really wanted, but she was married, after all. Still, she appreciated the company.

    Until he passed away.

    "Passed away?" Cody asked. "What happened?"

    "It was... a natural death."  This was all she could bring herself to say on the subject.

    Kjeck had remained silent and contemplative during the whole of the conversation. It was now that he decided to speak up. "When did you say you discovered this place?  About how many years ago?"

    She watched him for a moment, then shrugged. "I haven't kept exact count. Maybe a decade or two. I don't know."

    "And Itslyar," he asked, turning to the dragon, "when did she come speak with you?"

    Itslyar waved it off. "Oh, I have hardly an idea anymore. It's difficult to keep track. Perhaps eighty years or so, to give a rough estimate."  She knew where Kjeck was headed with this line of questioning, so she smiled.

    Cody gasped a little. Kjeck turned back to the woman. "Would you agree with that?  It's been almost a century since you talked with our dragon friend, here?"

    She nodded, slowly and deliberately, as though she was second-guessing whether or not she should have been nodding at all. "Maybe something like that, I suppose," she replied, very quietly. Her voice sounded almost like static.

    "So you're trying to tell me that you spent sixty years wandering around the planet before you found this place and settled down?  When did you first get on this planet?  Those computers you were using to store your journals... that particular brand was ancient even when I was a kid."

    Hyuldrek nodded. "They were invented over a hundred years ago, at least. Things were fucking old."

    "What about that, then?" Kjeck continued. "You said the Bridge only brings stuff over here when it's new, right?  So why else would it bring you and those computers over here, if they hadn't have just been invented?"

    "Over a century ago..." Cody muttered. She seemed a little stupefied. Itslyar was merely impressed with Kjeck's deduction. For a human, he wasn't too stupid.

    "And just how long did it take you to learn magic enough to run those things anyway?" he continued. "That's not something you can just pick up."  His eyes flitted to Lerk for a second, for some reason.

    Valerie's blank faced looked everyone over, and her hands folded calmly into her lap. "Well, I didn't want to speak much of this because I didn't want to shock any of you."  The way she said it, even under her mechanical voice, told Itslyar that that wasn't the reason at all. She was embarrassed about something. "It's... well, okay. I lied before, when I said I lost track of time. I've never lost track of time; it's been very important to me to keep a record of just how long I've been here. I wanted to know... wanted to know what might have changed when I returned. Whether my children would have become adults, gotten through school okay and gotten jobs. If my husband was still alright, if he hadn't ever been injured doing construction work. Things like that.

    "I've been on this planet for one-hundred thirty years and sixteen days. That makes me one-hundred sixty-three years old."

    Hyuldrek's jaw almost literally dropped. "You're shitting me," he replied.

    Cody asked the question that was most likely on everyone's mind. "How?  How could you have lived for such a long time?"

    They all waited expectantly. Valerie shifted in her seat, her nearly untouched glass of water now free of ice. "It was my last resort, I just want you all to know that. After so many years' wandering, you can imagine I was... desperate. My husband would be dead now, my children adults with wives and children of their own, probably even grandchildren. They would have left me behind, I know, assuming I was dead.

    "All of the other things I'd tried failed. I built a number of computers, even improved on the technology quite a lot from what I knew, I would say. I refined the machinery in this building, even added a few things. Magic is a wonderful thing, you know; it makes work a lot easier, and you can manipulate materials with incredible ease. But none of these things worked. I'm one woman; something told me after a time that, even with magic at my disposal, I couldn't keep up with the technological developments of our world.

    "So the only thing I had left to try was something I knew would be... illegal in the other world. Something I knew wouldn't ever be developed because the governments of the planet wouldn't allow it."

    Itslyar's traveling partners had been all leaning forward as the listened to her speak. When she removed her hat and mask, they all nearly fell backwards in their chairs.

    Underneath was a machine.

 

    Conversation nearly halted at that time, and it was beginning to grow late anyway. They were shown to an area in the basement where they could rest for the night, and most of the group decided then to settle down and let the day's information seep in during a good night's sleep. Excepting, of course, Itslyar.

    She was growing rather weary of her more human form. It was only something she used to use when she wished to meet in person with monarchs during the early stages of her rule, for convenience and nothing else. She wasn't terribly fond of it; humans were always marveling at themselves and their forms, but she saw nothing particularly special about it. Walking upright for so long made her back ache. Naturally-born humans were the same way, she knew.

    So she slipped outside once the sun had gone down completely, and changed herself back. Besides... she wanted to look her best right then.

    "I've been wondering, my dear friend, why you choose to appear as a floating rabbit rather than your true form. It seems a comical choice."

    A small shape materialized out of the shadow of the factory, its large black eyes gleaming in the dim light. Itslyar turned toward it with a frown. "Would you care to explain yourself?" she asked.

    (Perhaps somewhere more private.)

    Itslyar's eye widened for a time, then she gave a small dragon's grin and nodded. Her consciousness faded into blackness, and she felt herself being lifted out of her body. Just like old times. This was where she was most comfortable; where, in fact, she was certain everyone was most comfortable, if ever they could find out how to get here.

    "Itslyar."

    "Yes."

    "Can you hear me, then?"

    "Of course."

    "I'm sorry for everything."

    Itslyar gave a mental frown. "That's a terrible way to begin our first conversation in so long, friend. There's nothing to be sorry for."

    "I shouldn't be sorry for killing you?  And I shouldn't be sorry for bringing you back?"

    "No."

    A silence rang out in the void for some time. "You're kind."

    "To those I love, yes. Others would say differently."  A short pause, then, "Would you answer my question?"

    "About my body?"  He seemed hesitant. "It's convenient, is all. The people I want to notice me do, and those I don't look elsewhere."

    "You couldn't simply spend your time in the Void to hide?"

    "It's complicated."

    Itslyar let out a feeling of reassurance. "I will not press, then. Perhaps we should move on to other matters?"

    "It's not pressing right now, but yes, I suppose we should. I've been very busy lately."

    "I couldn't help but notice. How exactly have you been spending the time since we last parted?  Researching Lorukat?"

    "In a sense. It's a bit of a long project; not everything is clear-cut."

    "I can imagine. Your projects were quite involved even while you were alive. Now that you have so much time...."

    "You really aren't angry that I've involved you?"

    Itslyar thought about the question for a time. "I can't say," she replied, "unless you tell me why you did, I suppose."

    "Well that's very good. I wanted to talk to you about that right now, if we could."

    "By all means."

    Her old friend took an ethereal deep breath, gathering his thoughts. Then he spoke.

    "I had been researching Lorukat for a long time after we parted ways. Despite their imperialism and how badly they used the people of this planet for their own personal gain, it was still my country. I strongly desired to know what happened, where it went.

    "During my research, though, I stumbled across something else. Something a bit more... shall we say pertinent. Much like this factory we're standing in front of right now, I'd been noticing strange artifacts appearing the world over. And not just artifacts; people as well. Strange folk who arrive dressed in strange clothes, utterly confused by their situations and who don't seem to know quite where they came from. At first, I simply ignored it, assuming it was just an anomaly, like ghost phenomena and the like, but the frequency began to pick up at an alarming rate. I couldn't ignore it any longer.

    "I suppose I thought it had some connection to Lorukat's disappearance, is why it became important to me, but I pursued these people and things for a long time. It became apparent rather quickly that they were all coming from the same place. I must have wondered if perhaps this wasn't evidence of a mass disappearance like Lorukat's in the works. And if so... well, of course I assumed it would shed light on my original line of research.

    "I delved deeply into it, watching the people from this other place quite carefully and making connections between them. I was working with quite literally no hints. Groping in the dark, you could say. To me, for the longest time, there seemed to be nothing the people had in common with each other aside from this circumstance of being taken here from somewhere else.

    "But I eventually realized that I made no connections because I wasn't delving deeply enough. As it happened, I had been looking into the lives of these people several months to years after they had arrived, in the majority of cases. A great deal of them had fairly well integrated themselves into the various societies where they had been taken, and seemed to have left their pasts behind them. As a result of this, I had gathered the data that only thirty-three percent of them were original transported alongside a mechanism of some kind. That figure was quite wrong.

    "I listened in on conversations with the other sixty-seven percent, looked into their origins a lot closer, and sure enough I revised my original data. Ninety-eight percent, in fact, had actually come alongside a machine of some kind. It's not often you get such clear results, so I knew then that I was on the right track.

    "Eventually this brought me to knowledge of what I've taken to calling the Bridge, a link between the two worlds. Over the years, the machinery that accompanied each new arrival became more and more complex. First small orbs with a filament inside that could produce light when heated, then a device used to communicate across great distances using wires of metal, a motorized transportation vehicle that could reach speeds twice as fast as a horse at full gallop, until incredible progress later on that not even the people who came with could fully explain: pocket-sized wireless communication devices, black panels that convert sunlight to usable power, enormous panel-like devices used to view the recorded or live actions of people and places the world over. Some of these were verging on pure magic.

    "The Bridge, I came to realize, was making choices. At first I thought it might have been a perfect algorithm, designed perhaps to maintain a balance between our world of magic and that of technology, where your companions all come from. But some of the time, you see, it made mistakes.

    "The woman who lives here is a good example of this. In order to maintain a balance, as I've said, it would be necessary to hinder the progress of seemingly magical machinery to a great degree. This could most easily be done by taking the inventor of the technology before he can make his ideas known worldwide. And this is what usually happened. The other world has made remarkable progress, but it could have been much faster, you see, if the Bridge hadn't have been actively removing the inventors of some rather incredible pieces of work.

    "But as in the case of Valerie, the Bridge made a mistake: Valerie knew bits about the technology she was carrying the day she disappeared, but she was simply a worker. An assistant, if you will. My only thought is that the Bridge happened to turn its attention to these 'computers' right at the moment Mrs. Valerie was carrying the first completed samples out of the laboratory in which they were made, and so it mistakenly assumed she had created them.

    "A perfect magical algorithm, of course, would not make such a casual error. I can't think of any way it could. This kind of error signifies a lack of attention, and an algorithm of that type would simply activate on the emergence of a new technology, and nothing more.

    "This was further confirmed when I realized that the Bridge had limited capacity. The other world has been exploding with machinery and people at an almost ridiculous rate, as you may know from the conversations of your companions. Such an explosion would not hinder a perfect algorithm; it's already pre-determined to pick out new technologies and remove them, and so it would simply do so at a faster rate than before. But the Bridge was confused by this explosion; it couldn't stop it from happening. While its attention was focused on one piece of technology, another would spring up elsewhere that it would miss.

    "It began making very odd errors. A child dressed up as a witch for a festivity might find herself transported here. A group of children interested in role-playing as magicians or warriors in a game could be taken. Stage magicians, who I suppose make a profession out of rather complicated illusion, could find themselves suddenly in this world. Any act that even mimicked the magic present here could trigger it. It had never done this before.

    "This worried me. There was a similar explosion of magical technology in Lorukat, and Lorukat disappeared. What if, at some point, the Bridge decided it simply couldn't handle all of the choices it had to make anymore, and just transported everyone and everything in the other world to ours?

    "We would be flattened. Destroyed. All of our progress and civilization, lost underneath a sprawling landscape of stone and metal. Millions would perish.

    "And so very recently I decided that I direly needed to visit this other world, to see just how far things had gone. This is where you and the others came in."

    Itslyar smiled into the blackness. "So it is. Do tell."

    "To be honest, I'm mostly concerned with three of your group; Cordelia, Lerk, and you. Kjeck was a handy intervention, certainly, but he wouldn't have had any desire to return to his world if he hadn't have gotten to know the fox. Hyuldrek was merely useful as a way to bring Lerk to this world.

    "But as for the other two.... Cody may not bring herself to discuss it much, but she has a very strong desire to find her roots. I believe it's partly psychological, but of course one cannot neglect the fact that her life may depend on reaching the doctor who created her mother. That desire, I think, will help us greatly.

    "And Lerk is unlike anyone I've ever met, to put it simply. He learns things unnaturally quickly--almost upon sight. If I can bring him to the place most marked by the Bridge's influence, I feel fairly certain that he will somehow be able to uncover its methodology, how it works. He may be the key to bringing everyone back there.

    "And finally, you, my friend Itslyar. I need you because...."

    Itslyar waited for a moment. "Because?"

    Her friend paused briefly, then replied, "Because I couldn't bear making the journey alone."

    Another silent moment passed, until once again her friend spoke up. "So are you angry with me?"

    Itslyar thought about this for a long time before replying. "No," she finally replied. "I'm not."

 

Chapter 27

 

    In the morning, Kjeck was the first to wake. He hadn't gotten a great deal of sleep the night before; thoughts constantly buzzed in his head, about the woman, what she had done, the fact that she still was here, in this world, after over one-hundred years. They wanted to go to Lorukat, but they didn't know how to get there, and they didn't even know what to look for when they arrived. What's to say they'd ever figure out how to leave this planet?  Fact was, they'd been on the same track as this woman. They'd only gotten as far as they had because....

    Because they'd had help, he supposed. They'd had some kind of help, and she hadn't.

    He shook his head and pushed himself out of bed to go wash his face. The water that ran in this place was clear and cold; directly from underground, so it seemed. Woman must have gotten to be a damn good magician if she could build a pump system like that by herself.

    He ran the faucet for a little bit and splashed some of that reservoir water on his dry face, then stared at his image in the mirror. He'd been keeping his beard shorter since he joined up with Cody, maybe subconsciously, and he'd replaced the dirty bedsheet headband with a clean white one at some point. Despite the vagrant life he was continuing to live on this planet, he'd gone up the social scale. It was a nice place, really; somehow, it just didn't feel quite so appropriate to let the body maintenance go when one was traveling through such natural splendor, such clear air and pristine land. Every now and then, he found himself wondering why exactly it was that he wanted to go back to where he came from so badly.

    He shot a glance over at Cody, lying still on her side, an old blanket underneath her and folded slightly to cover her middle. Her tail was curled up over her legs and twitched every now and then, like she was dreaming. She was a pretty little thing, after all. He was never sure what exactly the biologist who made her mother might have been thinking, what use for that kind of organic modeling he might have had in mind, besides maybe money. Such people already existed on this world, seemingly a long time before this Doctor Elengway ever thought of the idea. Kjeck supposed their existence here had to do with magic, but... magic was just this world's form of technology.

    Itslyar's bed was empty. It had been since last night, he knew, because he heard her get up and leave. It was obvious she knew a lot more about their situation than she was letting on. It might have been just a dragon thing, he supposed, but her ability to draw correct conclusions was remarkable. So he couldn't help but wonder why it was that she'd gone outside, when she'd said the dryness bothered her.

    He splashed a bit more water on his face, then reached over to dry his hands on a towel hanging from a ring by the sink. An oil stain stopped him; he supposed he knew where it came from. Joints like hers didn't lubricate themselves. 

    His hands would dry eventually without the towel.

    A door opened upstairs, and heavy footsteps made their way across the steel sheeting on the floor. The lack of claws clacking told Kjeck that it must have been their host, so he decided to head upstairs. Maybe not to talk so much as to apologize.

    Valerie was standing at a makeshift stove when he stuck his head up from the basement. She turned her face--once again shrouded by black cloth--toward him for a second, then went back to whatever she might have been about to fry on a pan. "It's still a little dark outside," she said. "Couldn't get much sleep?"

    "Not as much as I usually can, anyhow," he replied, then went to join her over by the oven. It was built in an old style, something his grandmother might have kept sitting in the corner of the living room as decoration. "Listen," he began, but she cut him off.

    "I know what you're going to say, and you don't need to say it."  She poured a small amount of some kind of oil (olive?) into the pan, which started to sizzle, then began cracking some small, brownish eggs into a nearby glass bowl. "In fact, I'd simply prefer you just didn't bring the subject up again."  She whisked the eggs until they became a soft, yellowish-white liquid, then poured the mixture into the sizzling oil. "I guess I should have asked first, but I hope you like your eggs scrambled."

    Kjeck watched the mixture solidify and puff up while she batted it around in the pan, letting what was still liquid touch the oil and flipping the rest to brown the other side. "Scrambled is just fine. I'm low enough class not to be very particular."

    This brought a short, static-like laugh. Around a minute and half later, she tipped the pan and poured the now cooked egg mixture onto a plate, then handed it to him with a fork. "Enjoy."

    "Thanks," he replied, taking the plate from her hand. It smelled a little different than what he was used to in an egg, but he was pretty hungry, so he supposed it didn't matter. "How'd you know I was up?" he asked, taking a bite. Yeah... it was good.

    "Heard the water running."  She turned the burner off and moved the pan to another to let the oil still present cool down.

    At this point, Itslyar walked in the door, still in her humanoid form. She had a funny expression on her face: something like a mixture between sadness and amusement. When she caught sight of Kjeck, however, the expression disappeared, and she resumed her normal stoicness. "Good morning," she said.

    He raised his plate of eggs to her.

    "There's a field of old parts out behind the factory," she continued. "I was just talking a little walk around there. Perhaps you would find it amusing to take a gander yourself, once you're done with your eggs?"

    Kjeck raised an eyebrow, then swallowed his food. "Like, what kind of old parts?  Parts to what?"

    "This is hardly my area of expertise, friend Kjeck."

    He shrugged, then turned to Valerie. "You mind?  These all old projects, or something?"

    Valerie nodded. "I had a number of unsuccessful attempts at things. This factory floor used to be quite a bit fuller. Some are projects I just gave up on, though."

    Kjeck chuckled a little as he had a dumb thought. Valerie continued to stare at him, like she had a question, so he decided to voice the thought anyway. "I was just thinking to myself, wouldn't it be great if you had a plane engine out there, or something?  Then I realized how stupid that was to...."

    "I actually do," she replied, turning to the sink and filling a cup with water. After sprinkling a bit of it on the pan with a hiss, she picked up the pan and began scrubbing at it with an old rag to remove the bits of egg that fried a little too well. "I attempted at one point to build a bi-plane, but I never could quite figure out how to keep it in the air for any length of time. I never studied aerodynamics."

    Kjeck temporarily forgot he was holding a plate full of food, and nearly dropped it. "You're kidding me."

    "Why do you ask?  Do you need to get somewhere by air?"

    "I... uh, well, yeah. We do," Kjeck replied. Suddenly he didn't feel quite as hungry as before. He finished off the eggs anyway.

    "A plane is something that allows one to fly, than?" Itslyar asked suddenly.

    Kjeck nodded in the middle of a swallow. Valerie set the pan aside and watched him for a second. "I don't suppose you know how to build a plane, Kjeck?"

    "No, I don't. But I'll bet I know someone who does."

 

    Lerk stared down at the old mechanism, a rusted hunk of tubes and pumps and fans sitting in a field of other rusted hunks of tubes and pumps and fans. "Basic gasoline, old design. It does what it's supposed to do, but not much more."

    "The important thing is, will it allow us to fly?" Cody asked.

    Lerk knelt down, picked up a grease-stained washer that had been slowly adhering itself to the engine over the years and flipped it back and forth in his fingers. "It would require some adjustments," he replied.

    "'Some' is a fucking understatement," Hyuldrek remarked from over his shoulder. "You'd probably have better luck building one from scratch."

    "If we must," Lerk replied.

    "Look, we'll help you out in any way we can," Kjeck interjected. "I don't pretend like any of us here knows how to make a craft that can actually get off of the ground, but we're here to lend a hand if you need us, alright?"

    "Of course, Kjeck," Lerk replied. He was already working at a nut as his first step to taking the thing apart. Kjeck could almost see the schematics and numbers flying around through his eyes, teaching him from out of the void everything he needed to know about the device and how to make it better. The mind was a mysterious thing, and Lerk's mind was among the best. Kjeck had confidence that this, at least, was going to work out for them.

         

    The building of the craft took several days, for despite his clarity of thought when it came to such things, not even Lerk could get it right on his first try. They went through several models, each having to undergo a somewhat destructive test-run before it became obvious to Lerk what was wrong. Valerie put her magical skills to use, along with Cody and Itslyar, though the amount of direction and instruction required for those two make it almost not worth it. A little understanding of the machinery was, in fact, somewhat necessary.

    Kjeck's and Hyuldrek's help, as it turned out, wasn't too much needed during those days, so they spent their time making food for everyone (though it was fairly obvious that neither had much talent in that area) and tending to Valerie's garden, which continued to bloom nicely under the sprinkle of reservoir water from the sinks indoors. It was a pleasant time, despite Hyuldrek's apparent boredom.

    Though it wasn't without its tension. The calm before the storm, Kjeck thought of it. In the background of everything they did was the thought that... well, that this was it. It wasn't clear where the thought came from, but it was strong enough that Kjeck couldn't help but believe it.

    On the third day, after the third failed test-run, Kjeck once again found himself unable to sleep much. He hadn't the other nights either, or at least not very well. Itslyar was usually never there at night--she preferred to go outside and wander in her dragon form, doing who knew what--but when Kjeck's eyes popped open hours before sunlight once more, the first thing that materialized out of his grogginess was a single pupilless red eye staring at him.

    "You will become weak if you continue this habit of yours, Kjeck," the dragon queen told him.

    He blinked fatigue from his consciousness and sat upright, stretching his arms above his head. "Can't help it," he pronounced through a yawn. "Might be some kind of insomnia."

    "It's because you are getting close. You can feel it in your heart, and it's keeping you from relaxing enough to stay asleep."

    "Maybe that's it."

    "Not maybe."

    He raised an eyebrow at her. The left side of his face had been feeling numb from his pillow; it began to burn just then as his nerves came back to life. "You know, do you?  You've probably always known."

    "Indeed."

    "You've got some connection to that little bunny that's been following us around, too?"

    It was Itslyar's turn to raise her eyebrow, what little remained of it that wasn't just bone. "Sometimes you surprise me with your intuition, Kjeck."

    "It's all a matter of looking for signs and putting them together. I guess the clincher was that you came along with us in the first place. You were real angry until we told you about the little creature that'd been directing us. Then you basically dropped it all and asked to tag along."

    "This is true. Sometimes I wonder if humans notice things like this, though. Yours is still a mysterious race to me; it is often that the most obvious of connections are never made."

    "So what is your connection, exactly?  Do you know what the creature is?"

    "My connection is... ancient history, to be quite honest."

    "Not something you like to talk about?  I can understand that. I've got a few of those kinds of issues myself."

    "Everyone finds one eventually. It's the way the world works."

    Kjeck cupped his cheek in his hand. "Seems to be that way, I suppose. You can't be happy all the time."  A pause ensued. "So are you coming with us?" Kjeck asked eventually.

    "I wouldn't dream of doing otherwise. Though I cringe at the thought of having to spend so much time in a humanoid form."

    Kjeck chuckled dryly. "Oh, you wouldn't have to all the time. We could use you as a circus side-show kind of thing to make money. I'll bet everybody would pay a load of money to see a real zombie dragon."

    "This joke is not particularly amusing, Kjeck."

    "Dragons are pretty proud creatures, huh?"

    "They used to be."

    This gave Kjeck a pause. "What do you mean?"

    She sighed through her nose, a puff of dust sparkling in the dim light coming through the basement windows. "Nothing. That, too, is ancient history."

    He shrugged. "If you say so. So how's the plane coming along?"

    "I could see it being ready today. Your friend Lerk is quite the character. Something tells me he's the key to getting you all back."

    "Easy assumption to make. I know he has a clearer picture of what's going on than any of the rest of us."

    "Indeed he does. Do you know why he is the way he is?"

    "I don't know a whole lot about him, to be honest. Hyuldrek just said he met him in college, and they got to be good friends somehow, but so far as things like where he grew up, if he has any family, anything like that... total mystery."

    "I see."

    "Any reason you want to know?"

    "No," the dragon replied. Something in her eye told Kjeck that there was, though, but he didn't press.

    A minute or two passed, so Kjeck let out a wide yawn and went over to the sink to wash some of the sleepiness from his face. Once he had and dried himself, he turned back to Itslyar. "I'm gonna' go make myself some breakfast. You gonna' hang around here?"

    "I will probably talk a walk," she replied, and turned and went up the stairs without another word.

 

    The engined gleamed in the sun without a coat of rust, nested comfortable at the front of the plane with a wide propeller fastened to the end. A double set of wings stretched out from either side of the cockpit, and behind ran a long body with two sets of double passenger seats carved into it; enough room for six people. Lerk stood in front of the mechanism and spun the propeller downward, which initiated a coughing, choking sound and let out a plume of black smoke that made way for a pleasant but noisy buzz.

    Kjeck let out a low whistle that nobody could hear. "Looks great, Lerk," he said, "but can it carry us across the ocean?"

    Cody stood back with her hands on her hips, one member of a team of artists admiring their work. "I don't know about across the ocean," she answered, "but it will carry us."

    Lerk climbed into the cockpit and took handle of the control mechanism, flipped a few switches and pulled a few knobs like he'd been doing this his whole life, and the huge wooden vehicle slowly began crawling forward down the makeshift runway they'd carved out of the hills for their first test-run so many days before. The bi-plane picked up speed, rattling as it made its bumpy way down the dirt path. Everyone watched with increasing anticipation the further away it got.

    Finally, the nose lifted, and the wheels soon thereafter found themselves rising from the ground. A small dot in the sky, Lerk was aloft, and rising.

    Even Hyuldrek joined in on the cheering; there wasn't anything about this event that wasn't amazing for them all. Even if it was only in small ways, they all had helped Lerk to essentially reinvent the airplane, and now they were seeing his work and their work flying around in the sky above them, a tiny gleaming shape among the clouds, the only machine of its kind to grace the skies of this world for thousands of years.

    Lerk received many pats on the back and words of good will when he returned safely to the ground, hair windblown and eyes dry from the flight, but successful. "That's really something, Lerk," Hyuldrek told the man with an enthusiastic clap. "It's gonna' carry us all, right?"

    "Perhaps," Lerk replied. "If it can get off of the ground, there should be no problems."

    Valerie stepped back a little from the machine at these words. Kjeck was the first to notice, so he turned to her. "Something the matter?" he asked.

    Everyone else quieted down after a moment and looked to the cloaked woman, sudden concern showing on a few faces. Valerie's invisible eyes and face flitted between them all, then back to the plane. "Well, I just.... You're using this to get back to our world, yes?  I can't... go with you."

    Kjeck's eyebrow shot up. "Oh?  But...."

    "It's been.... It's been a century. There's nothing...."

    "Nothing left for you," Lerk finished. "We understand."

    Everyone turned to Lerk, a little surprised both at what he said, and at the fact that he took the initiative to say it. "Well, we won't be leaving until tomorrow, anyhow," Kjeck replied. "I'm sure you've given it a lot of thought, but go ahead and give it a little more. In the end--" he turned back to her--"it's your decision, of course."

    "It..." she replied, then paused for a moment. "Yes, of course."  Another pause. "My decision."

 

Chapter 28

 

    Valerie stayed behind, probably left to a slow and unproductive existence up until her eventual death, when her circuits ran out of juice and the metal inside her rusted from the contact with the oxygen flowing in her blood. But that was what she wanted, and no one was about to deny her that. She'd already been denied everything else. Everyone she knew and loved was dead, after all. It was only logical that she join them.

    And so, with a roaring of engines, the group of five took to the skies and made their way over the desert-like landscape, toward the raised continent that held the old and dead land of Lorukat. Though the trip was uneven, populated by a number of stops for troubleshooting (supposing one could call it that) and minor repairs. It was risky, flying over the open ocean, so Lerk veered the plane off to the northwest, landing one final time for one final checkup on the beaches only a few miles from their entry point into this world, the tiered city of Theltrielle. From there, they had one shot to make it all the rest of the way.

    While they were stopped, Hyuldrek couldn't keep himself from pacing. Lerk was fairly certain he knew what the wolf's problem was, but he listened anyway when Kjeck voiced the question that was on everybody's mind. "Something bothering you, Hyuldrek?"

    Hyuldrek turned to him with a vague snarl, like he wasn't really in the mood to be angry. "Yeah something's bothering me. We're going all this way in this rattletrap Lerk invented. What the fuck are we gonna' do when we get to Lorukat, anyway?  Do any of you guys even have the slightest idea?"

    Itslyar smiled, decaying scaly lips pulling up to reveal old yellowing bones. "I'm certain we will know when we arrive."

    "Fuck lot of good that does us," the wolf replied. "I mean seriously, you guys; what if we can't even make it all the way up there?  Scaly over here seems to think that the place got transported up into the stratosphere; what if our little plane can't even make it up that high, huh?  We fall into a sea of rocks and poison, and then we fucking die. Are we really sure this is worth the risk?"

    "Perhaps you would inform us about your alternative, then," Itslyar replied, maintaining her grin.

    "Well then tell us," Hyuldrek responded, turning to her with a small stream of spit, "what the fuck makes you so fucking confident that we're on the right path, huh?  Why are you acting like you know so fucking many things that we don't?"

    "Are there a lot of people in your world that talk like Hyuldrek?" Cody asked Kjeck, leaning in close to whisper it into his ear.

    "Hyuldrek," Lerk said. Everyone went silent and turned to him. "Don't worry. We'll make it."

    Hyuldrek watched his friend for a time, then simply let out a deep breath and spat on the ground. "If anyone needs me, I'll be taking a really long piss in the woods," he mumbled, then walked to a thicket of trees and disappeared.

    "He can be really pleasant sometimes," Kjeck remarked.

    "I think he's just the only one confident enough to voice all our fears," Cody replied.

    Lerk continued his work in silence.

    Despite the protests, Hyuldrek reappeared by the time they were ready to make the final leg of their journey. He didn't say a word as they all strapped themselves back into their respective seats. A shadowy cloud of apprehension hovered over everyone as the engines came to life once more, and the plane made its bumpy way across the white sands of the beach. The takeoff was rough, but they got airborne eventually and turned to the south. A hazy shape was visible on the horizon far ahead, deep blue against a gray overcast sky. Lorukat, Lerk assumed. He wondered if he was even supposed to be seeing it yet.

    Hours went by without conversation, though this would have been impossible anyway with the noise of the wind buffeting in their ears. Lerk shot a glance back at Cody, who stared listlessly down at the waters beneath them, watching as they gradually changed from a deep blue to a soft gray to a sinister maroon. White foam eddied underneath every now and then when they flew over crags on the ocean floor, black claws poking up through the surface, their shadows most likely serving as homes for colonies of strange creatures, whatever was hardy enough to live off of the toxic chemicals that for whatever reason populated the sea here.

    The blue mass that Lerk had spotted was growing larger, flattening out and seeming to elongate as they approached. There was something rather strange about a continent-sized plateau, its base hidden amidst a nest of crazy jutting spikes of silicates that had hardened too fast after they'd been ousted from their semi-liquid environment deep below the surface. Such a sheer wall reaching so far into the sky was a feat of engineering that Lerk assumed not even his own people could have accomplished.

    As they approached, it became even more surreal. Sheer cliff faces came into view, glistening with quartz crystal, diamonds, and other precious materials near the base, flat and plantless farther up, and smooth as a billiard ball at the very top, where the stone had been buffeted for centuries by the turbulent winds and storms of the upper troposphere. Scaling it, Lerk could see now quite clearly, would have been quite close to impossible.

    Lerk turned the nose up and began to climb higher, making ready for the final ascent to the top of the enormous plateau. The air grew much colder and wetter the higher they went, biting into Lerk's skin and frosting his hair, and the rapidly lowering pressure made everyone's ears pop painfully. A thick gray fog encompassed them as they passed into the cloud layer.

    A few minutes passed, whereupon they rose above the clouds and into a layer of a pure sky blue. Cody leaned forward and gasped, a feeble sound with the lack of air, but conveying the feeling everyone felt; the sun far to their right was slowly lowering itself below the horizon, now a deep red ball reaching out across millions of miles to paint the edges of the cloud layer with fingers of color. Behind them, the sky was turning darker, letting some of the brighter stars shine through, appearing so much crisper up so high in the air. "It's beautiful," the fox whispered, her voice melding into the wind.

    And ahead of them was the continent, tips of jagged mountains poking up through the clouds like the fingers of a snowy god. The little plane could make it after all.

    "Lerk," Itslyar said suddenly from behind, her voice somehow incredibly clear. He turned to face her. "Prepare yourself."

    He nodded.

    Kjeck turned and attempted to ask him a question, but his voice was carried far away before it ever could reach Lerk's ears.

    "Keep your seatbelt fastened," Lerk replied.

    With those words, the plane suddenly began to rock about violently, and sprays of bright colors began to stream along the wings like liquid aurorae. "The fuck?" Hyuldrek shouted from behind, loud enough to be discernible. "The fuck?" he shouted again when Itslyar pushed herself out of her seat and began to climb on top of the plane's wings.

    The dragonness locked herself in place with the claws on her feet, then spread her arms wide and closed her eyes, her body somehow rigid against the ferocious headwind that had suddenly appeared. The colors magnified, now flowing not just around the wings, but skipping across everything, even the clouds below them and the sky above, and trailing far off into the distance behind them, swirling like milk freshly poured into coffee. Itslyar's fingers clutched and unclutched, grasping the colors in bundles and letting them go. The air became thicker and harder to push through, and the wall of clouds below them began to grow in size, but no one took notice. All eyes were fixed on the dragon queen, now huddled in on herself and glowing with a milky film of fluorescent light.

    Time seemed to slow down, the wind buffeting them seeming to drift out of their conscious thoughts, the lack of air and heat no longer seeming to make a difference. All they could think of was Itslyar's glowing form, clinging like a gargoyle to the top of the wings on the little biplane, the aura of colors surrounding them constantly growing, and yet not growing at all. Centuries later, the egg of color came to encompass them all, then stretch back beyond even the plane's tail.

    Everything turned white, erasing every other perception. They might all have been dead; it was impossible to tell.

    Itslyar stood, her arms falling limply to her sides, tail flapping in the air behind her. Above and below them, a shell of white dissipated. A single long gap formed through the clouds below them, left behind from where the shell had parted it. Above them, it arched up into the sky, scintillating with the red sunlight now finally able to pass again. Within seconds, it was gone.

    A few moments passed. There was no more wind, making every sound suddenly that much more obvious. Hyuldrek took a deep breath, then released it. Cody let out a soft whine from the back of her throat. Kjeck scratched his beard, a sound grating on the ears like a knife on a chalkboard. Itslyar turned around and climbed back into her seat, landing on the cushion with a plop like a bass drum in an echo chamber.

    "What... in the world... was that?" came Hyuldrek's voice.

    The reverie was broken, and everyone turned to Itslyar. "Itslyar," Kjeck said, his brow creased into four deep lines, "why do I get the feeling that you just saved all our lives?"

    She nodded. "A magical barrier, to keep the land sealed. It appears those who sealed this place took all precautions."

    "That was..." Hyuldrek muttered. "I mean, just...."

    "Remind us not to tangle with you again," Kjeck finished for him.

 

    The land on top of the risen continent was a desert of snow and rock, with gray and white patches strewn about like the fur on an aging Dalmatian. Another hour in, near a great basin that may once have been a lake, the group saw the outline of a city wall, ancient stone nearly crumbled into dust.  Any sign of buildings had long since been erased, except for a faint square near the north that maybe once had been part of the castle. Lerk tilted the nose down and began the long descent, finally landing in a barren rocky field only a mile or two from their destination.

    Stars filled the sky. The great white band of fuzzy white that was the galactic plane was as clear as Lerk had ever seen it, and the stars shone down in all their colors with only the scantest of flickering. It was a strange place; they were so high up, and it even felt as though there was little air around them, but Lerk and the others had no trouble breathing. Everything seemed like it was how it shouldn't have been. Lerk leaned down and picked up a handful of snow, then let it tumble through his fingers. It was warm and soft like desert sand.

    Itslyar changed herself back into her more reptilian form, and they all proceeded toward the ancient city, feeling like aliens on an alien world. No one seemed to feel it was appropriate to speak.

    The walls must have been enormous when they were first built, for now there was only a square a few feet high that encased the ancient city, its top worn into a smooth curve. There was no snow anywhere within these boundaries: only featureless gray rock. They all stood at the edge of the city for a time, gazing around them, until Kjeck took the first step inside. They watched him take a few more before following themselves.

    After a moment, he turned to them. "So," he said. "What do you suppose we do now?"

    (It is aware)

    Lerk turned to Itslyar, who turned to him. "Perhaps we should simply

    (that you are here.)

sleep here for the night," the dragon responded, "and decide what to do in the morning."

    "Sleep?" Hyuldrek replied. "Here?  I'd have better luck shooting a mosquito with an arrow than getting to sleep out here."

    "Well," Kjeck replied, "it's either try to sleep or just sit around thinking about what to do. It's been a pretty long trip, after all. Maybe we should try to get some rest."

    Cody simply nodded.

    "It's agreed, then," Itslyar said, then walked off to a spot by the wall and curled up like a giant, scaly, rotting cat. Hyuldrek simply shrugged and plopped himself onto the flat stone, using his hands as a pillow. Soon thereafter, everyone followed suit.

    Save Lerk.

    (Are you ready, Lerk?)

    Lerk nodded and sat himself cross-legged on the ground. One could only be so ready for such a thing.

    (Then close your eyes, and we shall begin.)

    Lerk closed his eyes.

 

Chapter 29

 

    Hyuldrek opened his eyes to blackness. He could feel his own presence, but any smells or noises indicating the presence of the others seemed to be missing. A dim white light stared at him from a long distance. Maybe a star?

    "Must be dreaming," he told himself. It wasn't unusual, after all, to have an unusual dream in a place like this, surrounded by dirt and snow and... magic.

    The light grew brighter, then, and Hyuldrek noticed that it wasn't flickering like a star. A planet, maybe?  This seemed the more logical answer as the light continued to grow, becoming a sphere of a definite size, finally turning blue. Maybe he was in space, and he was going toward some blue planet. That made sense.

    He blinked. Above him now was a blue sky, devoid of clouds yet still hazy, with an orange sun shining through air that tasted like the inside of a garage. Dark rectangular shapes towered above him, and the ground beneath him felt cold and hard and scratchy, like....

    Concrete.

    Hyuldrek bolted upright and looked around him. He'd been here before; this was his neighborhood, back when he had one to call home. There was the Prometric Research Institute headquarters, all thirty-five stories of it reaching high above him, with its chain-link fence and multiple small gardens scattered about. Across the street was the squat building that took up a whole city block, the supermarket, where he always went to buy booze and whatever else he was running out of. Everything there was absurdly cheap, because the company at one point bargained with the government to become tax-exempt. It was amazing what kind of crap companies could pull if they hid their real purpose under enough meaningless garbage. Just up the street were the apartments, all identical twenty-story buildings mashed up against each other, laundromat in the basement, pool and ping-pong tables in the lobbies on each floor.

    But something was odd. Hyuldrek swiveled his head, looking left and right, up and down the street. No cars. No people. Even the supermarket's enormous parking lot, which took up the whole next block, was void of vehicles. That didn't make any sense. None at all; Hyuldrek remembered waking up early one morning on a particularly low-traffic night, the lack of noise having disturbed his sleep. This quiet was unreal; it just never happened.

    "Hey guy," a woman's voice said from behind him.

    Hyuldrek turned around, and saw before him four familiar faces. "You guys?" he shouted, then stood up to face them.

    "Yeah, us guys," the woman replied. Her long red hair shined in the murky sunlight, tumbling over the shoulders of a black trenchcoat. Deep green eyes bore into him above permanent crows' feet, set just a little too deeply into pale yellowish skin. She flicked a lock of hair from her face with a gloved hand, then lit a cigarette and took a long drag.

    "Ginger," Hyuldrek muttered. He scanned the other three: Vakka, that fat-ass with a green spiked mohawk and at least twelve rings all over his face, still dressing in jean everything with some kind of comic hero t-shirt underneath his jacket; Beggum, the bald-headed street-fighter, with arms like ropes of beef jerky always poking out of a white wife-beater, and with Neanderthal-like brows jutting off of his robot-like face; and Fenny, a dull-faced brunette who was insecure about her weight but nonetheless never passed up an opportunity to stuff her face with greasy sweets, still dolled up with makeup and wearing all-too revealing clothing for her figure in order to attract potential clients.

    "Heard you got into trouble, dawg," Vakka said. "That your new style, huh?"  He pointed to Hyuldrek's face, then made a snarling kind of sound and laughed.

    "The fuck is this shit?" Hyuldrek asked. "This has got to be a dream or something."

    "You think we're a dream?" Beggum asked him. "What about this?"  Hyuldrek suddenly felt a powerful pain in his stomach and doubled over, gasping for air. Beggum stepped back and raised a fist in the air. "Like that shit, you little bitch?  That kind of shit ever happen to you in a dream?"

    Hyuldrek bared his teeth at the baldy. "F-fuck you," he gasped.

    Ginger leaned down, then, taking his muzzle with the tips of her nicotine-stained fingers and lifting his face up to meet hers. "Where you been all this time, doggy?  I missed you."

    "Fuckin'..." Hyuldrek wheezed. "Nothing about this is right."

    This produced a grimace on Ginger's face. "You still think this is a dream, huh?  Then I've got an idea."  She dropped Hyuldrek's face and stepped back, spreading her arms wide. Hyuldrek grunted and lifted himself upright. "You think this isn't real, Hyuldrek, than why don't you kill me?"

    Hyuldrek raised an eyebrow. "Kill you?"

    "Yeah. If this isn't real, then you're not really killing me, right?  But if it is real, I'll be gone forever, and these guys will never forgive you, huh?  So go ahead; you don't believe in us, prove it."

    Hyuldrek stared at her for a moment. Beggum brought out a knife from his pocket, flipped it in the air, and handed it to Hyuldrek. Hyuldrek took it, his fingers naturally flicking out the blade. His eyes scanned everything; the silent street, the empty parking lot, the four old friends standing before him. The test: they were testing him. "Nah..." he muttered, then shoved the blade through his old girlfriend's stomach. She let out a gasp and a cough, and her mouth formed a red O. "This isn't like you guys at all. None of this is like anything. This just isn't real."

    "I can't believe..." Ginger gasped, "you really did it."  Hyuldrek let her slide to the ground, her blood flowing out of the wound and staining his shirt and pants, plopping to the sidewalk like drops of  mercury.

    "I can't... can't... ca...."

    The images around him began to flicker and grow foggy, then everything went black.

 

    (A base in reality is important, after all. The strength of conviction here seems to be confusing the programming. Keep pushing and we shall all break through.)

 

    Cody opened her eyes, and she was back home, in the north. The land was a blanket of white, the branches of the trees piled to the brink with powder, and soft flakes continuously drifted down from an overcast sky. She blinked a number of times, then sat upright.

    "Where is... everyone?" she asked herself. The place seemed empty. Completely empty: she didn't smell any creatures, any hidden lairs, see any tracks, anything.

    "Fear not, my child," came a deep voice from above, and suddenly, before her stood the figure of an old man, a human with a long white beard and bushy eyebrows, adorned in simple robes and nothing else. "You are not alone. I am here."

    "You...?"  She peered at the figure for several minutes without saying a word. "Who are you?" she finally asked.

    "You needn't ask, Cordelia. You know already who I am."

    "God...?"

    The old man nodded. "That's correct. You must be wondering why it was that I brought you here to speak with me."

    Cody merely tilted her head forward slightly. She couldn't bring herself to say any more words.

    The old man began to pace back and forth, stroking his beard. "Cordelia... your faith has been wavering. Ever since you met that man, Kjeckliah, you have been questioning the word that is written in the Holy Book. I would like to ask you: why would you accept his word over mine?"

    "I..." she began, then swallowed. "It was what my mother said as well. And it... please forgive me, but it made sense."

    "But I have stated that every man is born a clean slate. I was very clear about this, and yet you choose to accept a different idea than mine?  What about this other theory makes sense to you?"

    Was she really doing this?  Arguing with God?  It wasn't arguing, she supposed; she was simply answering His questions. Again, she swallowed. "I just... but Kjeck's people have actually manipulated the mechanism that passes traits down. Hyuldrek is a perfect example. How could they accomplish those kinds of changes if they were ignorant of the way the world actually works?"

    "You would take a physical change as true evidence?  People have accomplished much in the way of technologies without truly understanding what it was they were working with. It is very possible Kjeck's people have simply found a theory that seems to work for what they apply it to; one day, they may discover something that throws their whole perception out of balance, and the theory will become obsolete. It has happened before."

    "But if it isn't true, then I'm not at risk, and this whole journey has been a waste."

    "True."

    "But why would you wait until now to tell me this?  Surely you must have taken note of my flagging faith much before now."

    The old man raised a bushy eyebrow. "You must not question God, my dear Cordelia."

    "But life is a precious gift. How can you declare this, and then proceed to play around with mine so?  Kjeck's coming was random, a chance occurrence that changed my life. Surely you had a hand in it?  Why, then, would you send Kjeck to me if you were simply going to end up telling me not to listen to him?  I don't understand."

    "It's not for you to understand."

    Cody's brow furrowed with a frown. Something wasn't right, here. These were rather human answers; if anyone was to be able to explain to her how God operated, she was fairly certain that it would have to be God. "Why do you appear to me as a man?" she asked him.

    "I am a man. I am everything."

    He answered her question. 'You must not question God,' He'd said. Something definitely was funny. Cody curled her legs under her body, wrapped herself in her tail, still not confident enough to stand up before God. What might be God. But... "You appear as a man because you are a man. You're not God."

    The old man's face slackened with surprise.

    "The Holy Book... not all of it was written by God, was it?  There are aspects that lead us to hate one another right beside aspects that preach love and acceptance. These tenets... that God is jealous, that he wishes us to fight against non-believers, these kinds of things; these are clearly human ideas. That He placed us on this planet with free will, only so that we could constantly fight it in order to be one with Him. These are not the things we preach in church every day; most people, in fact, pay little attention to them, accepting only that God wishes us to be good and kind. That's the point of religion, isn't it?  Not to ensure one's own success in the eyes of a deity, but to alleviate an otherwise painful existence on this world.

    "My faith in God Himself is not flagging. It's only my faith in the particular Holy Book that I was raised to believe that's flagging. I think, after a certain point, we all need to wean ourselves away from our particular doctrines, our dogmas, and realize that what is important in religion is not custom, but rather the basic teachings. The Holy Book can be your guide, but in the end, one must be able to determine which lessons are God's and which are not. That, I think, is what faith should mean; not a stubborn persistence in following ancient customs, customs that belonged to a culture with different abilities, different needs than ours.

    "Isn't that right?"

    The old man was stunned. His mouth began to move like that of a fish out of water. "Impudent..." he muttered.

    Everything around her faded, and then turned to black.

 

    (She's caught on to ideas from the other world, it seems. Very new age, all this. Its presence here seems to be confusing the program. I wonder if she realizes that it's only a desperate fear making her think this way?  No matter. Push onward, then.)

 

    Itslyar felt herself being transported through the void. It wasn't a sensation, because that implied sense, but rather a knowledge, like a memory of what it was like to be still in the void, and knowing then that this was not being still. A light opened before her, and she welcomed it. Her friend was playing with the Bridge, she knew.

    Suddenly, she saw before her her old castle, as it stood back in the days when she was still ruler there. The rocky island on which it stood was greener, the dark spiraling towers flecked with her banner, wooden outposts still standing around the premises for the guards who made a living acting as her sentries. But it was all empty.

    She walked up to the front gate, placed a paw on the old wood and ran her claws lightly along the grain. Her old home. Some days, she still found herself pining for those times.

    "Scaled witch," a voice breathed from behind her. She turned to meet it, red eye narrowing. Before her stood a tall human figure, long blond hair flowing freely in the wind, a wide sword grasped in gauntleted hands.

    "Althaira," she murmured.

    "I have come here to bring peace to our fair kingdom once and for all."

    Itslyar laughed, small trails of smoke wisping out of her mouth. "You mean to my kingdom. You humans often forget this."

    "Nonsense. You are a thief, a usurper."

    "I won't deny it."

    "We have lived under your oppression for far too long. I have been sent by my people to slay you, to restore our rightful lineage to the throne of our once great country."

    "I've been through this already. We both know the outcome, I am certain."

    Althaira lowered his blade to the ground and leaned on it, letting it sink into the ground. He tilted his head back and barked a laugh. "Of course. Of course we do. We both know quite well how it ends. And we know what position you are in now, with your tail turned, fleeing the very world to escape your destiny. You always were a coward, after all. This is why it was so easy to kill you."

    "Cretin. You are fully aware that it was not you who took my life. I would never have given that honor to such a small-minded barbarian."

    "Such a silly excuse. I would expect less childish behavior from the so-called Queen of Dragons."

    "Those times are long passed, friend. Do not tempt me now, or you may find that I am no longer lack the capability of erasing your existence from the world."

    "Historians everywhere know that it was I who slew you and liberated our country. You can't ever change that."

    "Of course not."

    "What a worthless sacrifice, then."

    Itslyar placed a paw over her heart. "You would dare...?"

    "Don't you know what happened after you were gone?  We had centuries more of the old kingdom: the old, corrupt monarchy, and the oppression that went along with it. Your reign did nothing for us. We all ignored the benefits that came of it, because we are human and we are stubborn. We couldn't bear the thought of a dragon bringing us peace and prosperity. So we promptly made ourselves forget that you were ever there. How foolish of you to trust that we would have ever come to accept your ideas after you were gone!  We are human: we are not logical.

    "Your sacrifice was worthless."

    Itslyar grasped the man around his middle with two hooked claws and bit his head off, spitting the helmet off into the sea when she had finished chewing it into a ragged piece of scrap, then blew a gust of pressurized fire at the rest of his body, turning it into a smoldering pile of ash and partially melted armor. His sword still stuck out of the ground, now bent like a candy cane and glowing orange.

    "It was not only my sacrifice you are insulting, silly fool."

    Everything around her began to fade, and all turned to black.

 

    (Odd outcome. I suppose a dragon's rage is nothing to tamper with. It was powerful enough to confuse the program. One more to go, then.)

         

    Kjeck opened his eyes, then shut them again immediately. "What the hell...?" he muttered.

    Bed springs. Those same bed springs he'd gotten so used to seeing every morning for so many years of his life. If he turned his head to the right, he would see a dirty old metal toilet, and to the left a concrete wall with a poster of a naked woman taped onto it. Sleeping above him would be a large man with a ponytail and tattoos of snakes running around both arms, in their mouths a symbol meant to provoke the rage of those who didn't also sport it.

    "You remember this place, don't you, Kjeck?" a voice whispered in his ear.

    His eyes popped open once again, and he saw... her face. Phillis. "What in the world are you doing here?"

    The face receded, and he sat upright. She was sitting on a metal chair by his bedside, hands folded neatly in her lap, dirty blond hair done up in a bun atop her head, green contacts in place, because she always hated the true color of her eyes, face still marked by the occasional freckle, and that one oblong birthmark on her forehead, reaching down and making part of her eyebrow white. When he'd first met her, she'd used dye to correct that discoloration, but he eventually convinced her to stop. He was glad she had. "You really want to come back here, huh Kjeck?  You letting your fuzzy memories of this place cloud your judgment?  It was a hard life."

    He rubbed his eyes, trying to blink the odd visions out of his eyes. It didn't work. "Phillis..."

    "You know I was kicking around the idea of marrying you some day. But then you just took off. Work too hard for you, huh?  Couldn't handle the monotony anymore, so you just ran off and left me?"

    He sighed. "Something like that."

    "So why are you coming back?  The other world is a blessing for you. Best thing you could have ever imagined. It's the romantic days of your youth again, minus the expanding cities and high crime rates. You could stay there forever, get yourself a pretty wife in some little town and spend your days doing whatever you like for a living. You stopped drinking, you know that?  As soon as you come back, you're gonna' start again."

    He shook his head. "But I can't stay. I've got a responsibility to Cody."

    Phillis threw her hands up in the air. "Oh, Cody, sure!  Another woman, like me, huh?  You didn't seem to have a problem leaving me behind. But you know, this one's a dog; she's way more important than I am."

    Kjeck recoiled a bit at the violence of her words. "You're hardly being fair."

    "Think about it for a while, Kjeck. Wouldn't you rather leave this girl to her own devices?  She's got the others to take care of her now, huh?  You left me behind because you knew I was well-off, what with my education and opportunities. This girl will do fine without you. Why not stay behind and let the others bring her to the doctor?  You'd be much happier."

    Kjeck didn't really know what to say. It's not like what she said was untrue.

    Phillis stared at him for a long time, until her face turned down into a grimace. It was an expression he'd never seen there before. She suddenly looked a lot older, a lot meaner. "You're disgusting, you know that?  Despicable, disgusting. A waste of space. You don't deserve her."

    The world began to go fuzzy.

         

    (Kjeck, oh Kjeck, what are you doing?)

 

    It was hypocritical of him, but....

 

    (Kjeck, take control, Kjeck....)

 

    But....

 

    (Yes, that's it. But what?)

 

    But that didn't matter. It was... he was allowed to wrong a right, wasn't he?  He may have left Phillis, but that didn't mean that he had to leave Cody as well. She was... she'd grown to be like a daughter to him. He turned to face the woman before him. "You're the one who's being heartless," he told her. "Cody is my responsibility, no matter what. I promised her, I promised her father.

    "You knew what it was like for me at that place, didn't you?  They called it The Hole. No natural light, poor ventilation, hazardous working conditions, and very little pay. I was scrounging along, living off of the cheapest of cheap foods, relying on you every month when I couldn't pay my utility bills. Your parents wanted us to separate, because they knew I would never be the breadwinner, and they didn't want a man relying on you. But there was nothing I could do about it; job opportunities were low; we were at the highest unemployment we'd been at for decades. I couldn't afford to keep the job, but I couldn't afford to look for another one, either.

    "And then... then when I thought I'd hit rock-bottom, the money I'd gotten from cashing in my paycheck was stolen by a group of punk kids. I was out of groceries,  my lights and hot water had been turned off, I could barely even afford the subway ticket to work, and then bam!  Out of nowhere these kids come up to me and rob me for everything I was worth.

    "You were on the brink yourself: if I'd have asked you for money, you wouldn't have been able to pay your school tuition, and then you'd be in the same boat I was. Your parents would have shunned you, everything would have been ruined. I've got to ask you... what would you have done in my position?

    "I took off so you wouldn't have felt obligated to bail me out. I wanted you to succeed, you know. I wanted you to succeed, so I went ahead and failed. And you know... my life's been better for it, I'd have to say.

    "Yeah, I always seem to act in my own interest, and I did then too. Which is precisely why I can't leave Cody behind and stay on the other world; I could never live with myself. Just like I couldn't have lived with myself if I'd have stayed with you. Simple as that."

    Phillis watched him for a time, eyes unseeing. Finally, she shrugged. "What a load of baloney."

    Her form faded, and everything turned black.

 

    (...)

    (He did it after all. It was close. I didn't know that Kjeck was so insecure about his choice. He hides it well. Even from himself. Well, Lerk?  What say we take complete control now?  The Bridge has lost its bearings on our dimension; it should be easy to manipulate it at this point.)

    (Proceed, then.)

    (Welcome back to your home.)