by Paul Barrett
Sabotage had been a big problem during the war. A lot of dragons had been brought down by the Demon Twins’ spies. After the war, Gosley instituted measures at the dragonport and all government buildings to check people for destructive magic. Just because the Twins were banished didn’t mean all their sympathizers had disappeared. There were also radical factions that disagreed with Gosley’s policies. The various Fringe races all had their share of rabid citizens’ rights groups and agitators. Though mostly hot air, they spawned enough crazies that the security was warranted. Annoying, but necessary.
I took my place in line and waited. And waited. Dragonport security was thorough. It also moved as fast as a Pixie in a footrace. I amused myself making up stories about the various people in line. It helped me ignore Crizlyk, who made pathetic whines at frequent intervals.
Eventually, I arrived at the front. Four of the guards looked at me with the bored expression of guards everywhere, while the two with the wands waved me forward. “Any magic you need to declare?” one of them asked.
“No,” I said. Then I remembered. “Wait. This necklace.” I pointed out the amulet Siralanna had given me. “Protection.”
The other guard ran the wand across the necklace. The rod turned bright green and then yellow before going dull as he pulled it away. “That’s a positive. Beneficial and neutral magic.”
“Neutral?” The first guard said.
“Probably a binder spell, a primer for the necklace.”
“Makes sense.” He looked at me. “Anything else?”
“Just my charming personality,” I offered.
They each took a side and ran the wand slowly down my body. When one of the wands reached the pocket where Archer hid, it turned dull red.
“I’ve got an unknown here,” the guard with the glowing wand said. “Sir, what’s in your pocket?”
“My little lizard.”
The other one grabbed me by the shoulder. “Sir, this is no time for jokes. What do you have in your pocket?”
I reached into my pocket, and Archer crawled on to my hand. Both men tensed, and the formerly bored guards grew interested. Hands reached toward wands. I cautiously pulled out my hand with Archer sitting on it. “See, it’s just…”
“Unidentified biological organism,” the guard screamed. “Engaging anti-magic sweep.”
The back of my neck tingled as the magic in the necklace faded. I knew what was about to happen. Archer was a magical race, something we should have considered when I decided to sneak her in. I dropped her quickly so she wouldn’t hurt me. Or herself.
She landed on the floor just as the anti-magic beam hit her. Suddenly, where there used to be a six-ounce salamander, a seven-stone chizard sat on her ass, flushed dark green with embarrassment or anger. Her magic longbow and quiver of arrows lay next to her.
“We’ve got a stowaway,” said the excitable one.
Three guards moved over, their wands aimed at Liz. The other four pointed their weapons at me and a quivering mass of sauro on the floor.
“I want to go home,” Crizlyk whined.
Liz stood up. She dusted off her tunic and pants, for all the world unconcerned that death pointed at us and on-lookers huddled around the excitement.
“I am not a stowaway.” She looked at me, her expression not pleased. “My good friend, why did you not wake me? I told you I only wanted to nap until we arrived.” She turned to the guard and offered a toothy smile. “My friend is most forgetful. You see, I was tired from giving a tour for the Mordants. Are you familiar with the Mordants? They are personal friends of the Great Wizard Gosley, as am I, by the way.” She extended her scaly hand, which the guard didn’t seem inclined to take. “Lizaria Archer at your service. Archer’s Tours. You may have heard of it.”
As she spoke, her head swayed in a gentle, almost imperceptible motion. “Anyway, as I was saying, I was tired and decided to nap in my friend’s pocket. My friend is Snazdaggin Kundarik. You may have also heard of him. Great war hero, now a renowned investigator. We are traveling on assignment, and he was walking here while I napped and-”
“Stop,” the guard said, his eyes glazed and face slack. He looked ready to fall over. “There’s been a mistake.”
Liz has two negotiation tactics. One is intimidation, as she demonstrated earlier. When that won’t work, as it clearly wouldn’t in this situation, she falls back on blather. With her chipper tone and hypnotizing head movement, she can bore and confuse anyone within thirty seconds.
“I should say there’s been a mistake,” Liz continued, “and I do believe-”
The guard held up a hand. “A moment’s peace. Can you pay for fare?”
“Why, I-”
“Just yes or no.”
“Yes.”
“Then go get your chit and come back through. Your friends can wait on the other side.”
“Thank you, good sir. I shall hasten now to do that very thing.”
“Please do,” the guard looked like he was seriously considering another line of work.
Liz picked up her weapons, gave me another dark stare, and walked toward the ticket counter.
They finished scanning me and did the briefest pass over Criz. I think they just wanted to be rid of us. We stood on the other side of the funnel and watched people walk through. A few gave me disapproving glances. A frown and clenched fists convinced them to go about their own business.
“I need a drink,” I said.
“I need a better job,” Crizlyk said. I ignored him. He threatened to quit on a regular basis. I always offered to let him. I’ve never been married, but I imagine it as very similar.
Archer eventually returned, weaponless, chit in hand. The guards waved her through. They didn’t even bother to run the wands over her. Mostly because she looked like she would bite their heads off if they tried.
“That was exciting,” she said, sounding anything but. “Apology accepted.”
“Thanks.” I stink at apologies, and Archer knows it. In this case, I didn’t feel much need to apologize. It was her idea to sneak through in my pocket. Okay, I forced the issue since I didn’t have the money for her flight. She had agreed to the plan. She could have paid for her flight to begin with.
“I’m going to have to fund the rest of this expedition, aren’t I?” Archer said as we walked toward our waiting area.
“Until I get the rest of my pay from the elfette, yes,” I said.
“Next time you ask me to join you on one of these adventures, remind me to say no.”
“I reminded you on this adventure.”
“Next time, make sure I actually do it.”
” Can I have a rat stick?” Crizlyk asked as he pointed at the halfling vendor who stood with a cart in the walkway. On his grill sizzled rats the size of my forearm stuck on wooden skewers. A goblin had purchased one and was slathering mustard on it.
“Sure, it’s your money.”
“What money?” Crizlyk asked.
“Exactly. They have food on the dragon.”
“Dragon food sucks,” Crizlyk muttered. “That’s what everyone says.”
“It comes with the flight so you can eat it instead of a two-copper rat stick, which is two coppers more than I have. That’s what I say.”
His eyes drifted toward Liz.
“No,” I snapped.
We walked the rest of the way in sullen silence.
A dragon can carry up to a hundred passengers, yet each portal only has enough stone benches for maybe thirty. We arrived to find every waiting area seat taken. We settled ourselves against the stone wall near the walkway to our dragon. I stared out the one window that broke up the barrier and saw the beast. A giant red one. It had its mouth stuffed into a trough the size of my office. It lifted a whole cow and bit in, tearing Bessie in half. The back half fell into the trough where it landed among the carcasses of a dozen other farm animals. I turned away, knowing I would see that in my sleep tonight.
Archer and I stood there in semi-co
mfortable silence while Crizlyk chewed at the horny protrusions that served as his fingernails. I studied the other passengers who sat beside each other or stood in small clusters. A typical collection of types you would expect going south: goblins, hobgoblins, a few kobolds, a scattering of orcs, and a handful of humans. It was going to be a smelly flight. I was the only dwarf, and Criz the only sauro. Not a surprise. It’s not exactly hospitable territory for us. But it’s where the job was taking me. If I could make myself keep my smart mouth shut during the flight, we’d be fine. A big if.
After about fifteen minutes a female gob stepped up to the counter and spoke in such an apathetic voice I almost lost hope in living. “Now boarding South Gap Red flight number six to Slagbottom. All those boarding the dragon in front of the wings may now board.”
I checked our stone chits. Over the wings. No view of the ground sitting there. I didn’t care. I had no plans to be awake or sober for most of the flight. We waited.
My confidence that my hobgoblin friends had been successfully misdirected got derailed when I saw them running down the hallway. They reached the portal sweaty, out of breath, and annoyed. They spotted me. The male’s frown turned to a snarl. He started walking my way. I sidled closer to Liz. He must have missed the implication because he kept coming. His bond mate was obviously the smarter of the two. She grabbed his arm and pulled him away. They resumed their place at the back of the line. The male crossed his arms and stared at me with murder in his black eyes.
“My luck they’ll be seated right beside us,” I muttered.
“What are you muttering about?” Liz asked.
“See that hob at the back with the ugly red shirt and the even uglier flutter beside him.” They were speaking to each other. The male flailed his hands. The female tried to calm him.
“I do.”
“We had a dust-up at the counter.”
“Really? You? Exchanging words of an inhospitable nature with another being? I find that difficult to believe.”
“You can drop the gold coin sarcasm, shoe bait. They got a little too inquisitive about my travel plans, pumping shorty there for information.”
“They didn’t pump me,” Crizlyk said. “They asked a question.”
“Couldn’t have been just polite curiosity?” Liz asked.
I shook my head. “Something didn’t sit right. I trust my intuition, which has kept me alive more often than my smarts. I think they might be following us.”
“Wouldn’t they attempt to be a bit more circumspect about it if they were following you?”
“Not necessarily,” I said, running a hand across my beard. “And it’s us now, sister.” The female had finally calmed the lug down. They stood there looking anywhere but at me. “Sometimes the best way to go unnoticed is to make yourself noticeable.”
Liz shrugged and flipped her scaly head in a dismissive gesture. “They just look like run-of-the-mill tourists to me.”
“That’s why you’re the tour guide, and I’m the detective. They said they were taking a vacation. When was the last time you ever heard of anyone, even hobs, going south for a holiday?”
“Fair point,” Archer admitted.
“I could be wrong. Keep an eye on them anyway. I don’t know what their game is yet. I don’t want to find out too late that it’s sticking a knife in my back, compliments of my good friend Quinitas.” Before my visit to the sewer, I would have never imagined such a highbrow elf even talking to hobs, much less hiring them. Siralanna’s use of them was a double surprise given her professed dislike for all things goblinoid
A bell dinged in my skull. Siralanna. Had she sent these hobs to follow me? If yes, why? To make sure I did my job? If Siralanna had hired them, then they knew my destination. So why make themselves known?
Too many questions, not enough information. Typical of how I spend my life. All I could do was keep an eye on them, make sure they learned nothing about me, and lose them as soon as possible.
“All those with seats over the wings may now board,” the bored goblin intoned. I had a brief urge to throw myself into the nearest chasm.
We walked across the wooden gangplank onto the dragon’s back. Then up two steps into the wood and canvas cabin, which was strapped on with seven ropes thick as my body. We fumbled our way past the people already seated. Why they board dragons front to back is a mystery I’ll never solve. We took our seats. I grabbed the one next to the canvas so I could rest my head against it. The covering that kept us from being yanked off the dragon by the wind had holes cut next to each seat. A magically created clear film covered each hole so passengers could see the world beneath them as they flew. Why they put these holes beside the seats over the wings was another conundrum. Maybe the people who designed these things were just idiots. Not a comforting thought as we prepared to lift several hundred feet into the air.
There are more comfortable ways to travel, but teleportation is too expensive and our time constraints didn’t allow for any other manner. Dragon flights are loud, cramped, and smelly. They shove people in like arrows in a quiver. In flight, wind rushes around the cabin with enough howling to make a banshee envious. And the worst, most goblinoids don’t accept the concept of hygiene. The cabin already smelled like overcooked broccoli wrapped in twice-baked dog shit. I knew the only thing that would keep the flight in the realm of tolerable was the free whisky. The dragonlines knew it too. That’s why they offered it.
The useless gods smiled on me for a change. As the hobgoblin and his floozy walked by, I had Crizlyk peek over his chair to see where they sat. They had the last row. The roughest area because of the movement of the dragon’s tail. That made me smile.
After everyone had seated, a goblinette in a sickeningly low-cut green dress and bright red lip color stood at the front and screeched the safety lecture at us. We should use the ropes on our seats to strap in. The dragon could be rough, especially when he flapped his wings. We should stay seated except to use the water closet, and only then if we absolutely couldn’t hold it. In the event the dragon died in mid-flight we blah blah blah.
Her tirade done, she took her seat at the front of the cabin. Crizlyk put the rope around his waist and tied a double knot in it.
“You know that just makes it tougher to remove when we have to jump out because the dragon is going to crash, right?”
Crizlyk’s face contorted in such fear I almost felt sorry for him. He glared at the rope as if it had betrayed him, then undid one of the knots. “You suck, boss.”
“You are a wicked person,” Liz said. She had also placed the rope over her waist.
I attached my rope with a quick release hitch knot. You learn these things working in a mine. “You wouldn’t have me any other way.”
Five minutes later, the lumbering creature stepped off the cliff and launched itself into the air. Five gobs who hadn’t strapped into their seats bounced down the aisle. Laughter from the other passengers rewarded their idiocy. Once the dragon had settled into steady flight, the pedantic goblinette started down the row between the seats with her rickety wooden cart of joy.
“Whisky,” I said when she reached me. “A bottle.”
Not an unusual request, judging by her lack of surprise. She handed over an unlabeled brown ceramic bottle. “If you puke, you clean it up. I ain’t your mother.”
“Neither is my mother,” I said as I popped the cork. I took a slug. It burned like acid and tasted like week-old prunes. Perfect. I downed the rest of the bottle in several large gulps.
“A skin of water,” Liz requested.
“I’d offer you a lemon,” the attendant said as she handed over the leather skin, “but I see you brought your own.”
“Wake me when we get there,” I told Crizlyk as he glared in saffron fury at the goblin. I rested my head against the canvas and passed out within five minutes.
A slap to my face woke me up.
“What the hell was that for?” I asked as I opened my eyes to see Archer staring down at me. Th
e rest of the dragon’s passengers were already gone.
“Because gently shaking you and stating your name didn’t have the desired effect.”
“Was the desired effect to have me wake up with a headache?” I asked as the throbbing started.
“I imagine the bottle at your feet has more to do with that than my gentle tap.”
“The dragon has landed. You need to depart.” This from the flutter who had given me the bottle. Her lipstick had smeared, and wiry black hair had become disarrayed. Her disposition also didn’t seem quite as friendly as it had earlier.
“Rough flight?” I asked her.
“The dragon has la—”
Archer flicked her tongue in irritation. “I am aware the dragon has landed. We were preparing to depart.”
“Well, hurry up. We’ve got a schedule to keep.”
Archer slipped her hands under my armpits. She lifted me up from the seat and into the aisle, and stood me there. I wobbled a moment and then settled.
“Where’s Criz?” I asked, only now noticing the absence of my long-nosed assistant.
“I sent him ahead to get your baggage and rent us a carriage.”
“Carriage? I can’t afford that.”
“No, but I can. And as you said, I will be reimbursed when the elfette pays your fee.”
It was a generous assumption of Liz to think her reimbursement would ever actually happen. I owe her enough gold for three lifetimes. Not that I don’t want to pay her. It’s just that before I ever get a chance to find her, the money always seems to disappear to rent or booze. Not necessarily in that order.
“Thanks,” I told her.
The goblinette crossed her thick green arms and tapped her foot.
“We’re leaving,” I snarled.
“Thank you for flying South Gap Reds. We hope you choose us again,” she said, her voice all goblin smiles, as we left the cabin.
