“Hey, uh, ‘goddess?’” he asked, using air quotes in his voice to show that he didn’t really mean the term, “Turn around and give me a little privacy, would you?”
Quiris looked at him incredulously for a moment and then broke out laughing. Jason’s cheeks reddened as he realized she did not intend to move.
“Fine!” he snarled, embarrassed. He scooted around on his knees and presented his back to her, the muscles of his shoulders tightening in embarrassment.
Jason dropped the pile of fabric to the ground and hurriedly sorted out the clothing. There was a thick, flexible, black leather sleeveless tunic, a big sleeved white cotton shirt to go underneath it, a pair of small white shorts which looked something like men’s boxers with a string to hold them closed, loose grey leggings also with strings, black ankle boots, and a grey cloak. It was all medieval clothing, which made him frown. But as he didn’t want to be naked in public, he tried to put them on without delay. Quiris strolled around to watch him dress. His face grew redder under her cool mocking gaze as he struggled with the unfamiliar clothes. But he didn’t bother to ask her to turn around again because he knew that she’d just laugh and ignore his request. Once he was comfortably dressed, he stood up, took a deep breath, and let it out. He felt the flames of the embarrassment in his face recede.
Composure regained, he asked her, “So, you say you’re a goddess. I’m sorry, but I really don’t believe that. But I do believe that you’re a pretty good sleight-of-hand magician with some crazy good assistants. I just don’t understand why you’re picking on me. I’m not one of the extras for your set.”
Quiris blinked at him. “For the last time, Human, understand that you are not in the Human world anymore. You are on Our side of the worlds’ split, which happened many years before you were born. This world is a world of magic, where danger can happen in the blink of an eye to someone who is not prepared. Whether you survive is up to you.”
Maybe there is something to her words after all, Jason thought. This is way too complicated for a movie set, and by now some director would have rushed in calling “Cut!” Whether I want to believe it or not, somehow I’ve stumbled into another world!
The idea made his head swim again.
“Believe it or not, I am helping you and not ‘picking on you,’ as you call it,” Quiris meanwhile went on. “Though I admit I am not helping you as much as I could, since you did not pass My test.”
Jason threw his hands up in the air. “Again with the test! Just drop it already, bruja, will you?”
Quiris shook her head slowly from side-to-side. “Were I to place a bet about you, My guess would be that you would not last one phase of the moon here on your own.”
That stung him, since he’d been pretty much camping for survival as long as he could remember.
“Hey, dama, I can probably survive out here better than you could, so back off already!”
Quiris frowned. “If you are going to be insulting, I can just as easily take back what I have given you.”
“Now, wait a minute,” he said, annoyance changing into concern. He didn’t want to have those little folk crawl all over him again, making him naked once more. “I wasn’t trying to be insulting—I’m just a little out of my depth here, and I’m not sure what to say.”
“How about ‘thank you?’”
Jason had the grace to look down. He mumbled, “Thank you, uh, Quiris.”
Quiris quirked her face. “You are welcome. Now, My loose end, you can have a chance to prove to Me you are not full of empty words, because you are now on your own. Good luck.”
She started to fade away, like someone cutting the power to an old-time TV tube.
“Wait, wait!” he cried, filled with a mixture of wonder that she could still somehow pull off a high quality magic trick right in front of him and a scared feeling at the thought of her going and leaving him alone. “You can’t just leave me like this! Can’t I at least have my own knife back? Don’t go. I don’t know anything about this world! I need help, please?!”
Quiris re-solidified.
“I cannot take the time to teach you what you should already know. Things like ‘be polite to others’ and ‘never draw your sword unless you mean it’ are things that you should have learned at your mother’s knee. However, you do have a point. I cannot leave you completely unarmed although you would certainly cease being a loose end in short order if I did,” she mused out loud, tapping a long slim finger against her mouth.
Jason looked pleadingly at her, and she finally said somewhat less than graciously, “Oh, very well. Here you go.”
She waved her hand again and another hanging black hole opened up in the air beside her. Two arms presented to Quiris a short bow, a quiver of arrows, a pair of long daggers with sheaths, a pair of throwing daggers, a bunch of leather straps held together by metal rings that looked vaguely shirt-like, and a small burlap sack with straps attached to it. Jason was disappointed to see his personal fighting knife from the Urban Survivalists wasn’t there, but he thought that asking for it again might not be a good thing at this point. Quiris physically threw the equipment one piece after the other at him, and it didn’t look like she cared whether he caught them or was hit by them.
While throwing, she said, “If you really feel that out of place, go join Analise. She has a better grasp on social interaction, and at least she has the grace of Caelestis. She is off in that direction.”
Quiris pointed behind him and slightly to the left when her hands were empty. Jason, scrambling to catch the things being thrown at him, looked in the direction she indicated. He saw the beginnings of what seemed to be the foothills of a mountain range. When he looked back to ask Quiris another question, he discovered the self-proclaimed goddess was gone.
“Damn!” he swore, looking through the stuff in his arms. “I’ve no real gear—just these knives, and they don’t even look like steel. Great, Quiris, just great. And a bow and arrows? Really? Are you mental? And this strappy thing? What is it? What use is it? Is it a harness or something?”
He pawed quickly through the bag but saw only a couple of things off the top that he recognized. “And to make matters worse, you couldn’t have been bothered to give me any real camping equipment or regular supplies in here, could you, Quiris,” he groaned in disgust. “Well, that’s just great. How am I gonna take care of myself, goddess?”
He started to toss the harness on the ground, but a prickly feeling on the back of his neck made him decide otherwise. He opened up the sack and shoved it inside instead.
“Well, there’s nothing left to do but join this Analise, I guess. Who’d’ve believed I’d ever be talking to some Goddess-type in a land of magic away from the regular world? But I just somehow don’t believe you, Quiris, when you said that there’s no way back. Analise and I managed to get here, so there’s got to be a way we can get back to New York.”
He shut his mouth firmly and started off in the direction that Quiris had indicated, which happened to be back the way he’d come. Jason came out from the woods back to the lake shore he’d first appeared near. Now that he truly realized this wasn’t Central Park, he took the time to look around. He found it was very pretty, if weird.
This isn’t so bad, he thought, scooping up a stone and skipping it into the water.
He decided to take a rest on the beach and re-think everything that had happened since walking out of the mist. The stone made about four skips, and then it plunked beneath the surface of the water. He watched the ripple spread out from the stone but grew nervous when the ripples didn’t stop spreading. He stood up and backed up as something rose from the water where the stone had gone in. It was a woman made of water, with lake plants twined throughout her literally flowing hair. She turned her watery gaze upon him and smiled a translucent smile as she stretched out an open palmed hand toward him. That was enough for Jason. Remembering what Quiris had said about danger, he jumped up and ran away from the shore line towards the foothills as f
ast as he could.
The water nymph, an expression of surprise on her face for his turning down her mute offer of help, shrugged and retreated back under the water.
CHAPTER 7
Though he tried to watch where he was going, a hole partially concealed by dried leaves soon caught at his foot and he fell flat, face first. It knocked him groggy for a minute, but it also knocked some sense into him. Running blindly through the woods was a recipe to get himself killed. He lay there for a few minutes, getting his breath back and waiting for his head to settle down. When he felt he was able to get up, he started walking the direction Quiris had told him to go.
Some unknown time later Jason entered a grassy meadow which looked kind of like ones he’d seen pictures of in books back home—except this one had the addition of black-headed wild grain and huge, blooming red flowers bigger than his head scattered here and there. Jason shuddered. With every new sight, it seemed, this world wanted to hammer home to him that he was not on the human side of it anymore. As he walked, he saw someone riding on a golden-colored horse on the other side of the field. A person! Someone who could maybe help him get home despite what Quiris wanted him to believe, or who could at least get him some more help of some kind! He bounded across the field at an angle to the rider so that they would intersect.
“Hey! Excuse me! Could you wait up a minute?” he called out, hoping to attract the rider’s attention.
The person on the horse reined up and waited for him, thankfully. When he was close enough he could see that it was a white girl. She was a teen like himself, but she wore chainmail armor like the kind that could be found in pictures in the New York Library’s history books. The armor had a large white and gold winged circle emblazoned on the front, which was probably a symbol for some brotherhood—or, maybe that was “sisterhood” instead. Her loose, wavy blonde hair hung to her shoulder blades. She wore a saber sheathed at her side, thick brown pants, a floppy white shirt under the armor, and brown riding boots. She didn’t say anything as he approached but eyed him warily, waiting for him to make the first move.
Fair enough, thought Jason, slightly out of breath as he neared her.
However, the first move was not made by either of them. From out of nowhere a huge green monster-cat-like thing jumped him and slammed him to the ground!
“Aaaaarrrgh!” screamed Jason, instinctively twisting from side to side under it in order to avoid the sharp claws trying to cut him into pieces.
He grabbed the face fur tufts of the thing and locked his elbows in an effort to keep the overgrown housecat from biting his face off. But though he could avoid the claws because it was so much bigger than him, he knew that he had a matter of seconds to live before the thing overwhelmed him with its weight, locked elbows or not. Saliva started dripping from the cat-thing’s mouth as it attempted to eat him. Jason jerked his head to the side to try and protect his eyes from it. He didn’t want a faceful of dribble. Who knew if feline drool was acidic or something over here?
“Madre de Dios, I don’t wanna die! Not like this! Not like this!” he half screamed, half prayed as he tried to fight off death.
The sound of hoof beats coming closer gave him hope.
Come on, horse girl! he prayed, hope lifting him.
Trusting that the armored teen would help him, he shoved his feet and knees into the belly of the cat creature, startling it enough to stop it from trying to tear his guts out for a moment. Then the sweetest sounds he’d ever heard, that of hoof beats combined with sharpened metal being unsheathed, sounded almost right next to him.
The cat-thing raised its head to look for the source of the noise, probably trying to determine if it was a threat. It roared loudly as bright metal flashed in the sun and bisected its eye. Jason took the chance to slam both of his boots into its stomach so that it would flop off of him. He rolled away from it to get enough clearance to draw the double daggers he’d hung off his belt for easy access and dropped into a fighting crouch. But surprisingly the great cat scrambled to its paws and bounded away, roaring and leaving a trail of blood behind.
Jason stood up slowly and breathed hard, not quite believing that it was all over and that he had survived without needing a trip to the hospital. If there was such a thing as a hospital in this world. The sound of tall, semi-dry grass stalks being crushed made him whirl around, knives at the ready again, but it was only the armored horse girl running up to him.
“Are you all right? Did it bite you?” she asked as she watched the creature disappear from sight, the tip of her sword dripping cat blood.
“Nah, I’m fine; I’m fine. It didn’t bite me, thank god. What the hell was that?” he replied in a scared and angry tone as he put away his daggers.
All of a sudden the girl grabbed at his arm and pulled him with her, clearly headed to the road. Thinking that she saw some danger that he didn’t, Jason made no protest but ran with her without question, taking out his knives again. Amazingly, the rider-less horse joined them, and the three of them made it without trouble to the road. Or rather, to the dirt track, since the word “road” would have been too dignified for the pathetic little trail. The armored teen swung up onto the horse, probably to get a better vantage point. Jason stayed close to her in a fighting stance, with weapons out and ready for anything. A couple of minutes passed with nothing happening except the horse girl swiveling her head from side to side. He was just beginning to feel silly when she sighed and sheathed her sword.
“I think it’s gone,” she said.
Jason stood up straight and sheathed his daggers. He rolled his head from side to side to get the kinks out and took big breaths to help calm his hammering heart. He looked down at his clothes. Fortunately, the blood from the monster had pretty much missed him. For where it didn’t, he grabbed some nearby grass to wipe the worst of what he could off.
After he’d gotten his breath back, he said unevenly, “Thanks for the help.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied, leaning forward to pat her horse’s neck.
“I was beginning to doubt that there was anybody real or alive out here. You’re the first person I’ve seen since—well, the first person I’ve seen,” he said, relief creeping into his tone.
“Oh?” she asked noncommittally.
“Well, actually, I am looking for . . . .” Jason’s voice trailed off as he rubbed his hand through his black hair, and a perplexed look crossed his bronzed face.
He realized that what he was about to say might make him sound crazy, and he was afraid of scaring her away before he could convince her to help him.
“Yes? What are you looking for out here in the wilderness?” she asked with a trace of impatience.
He took a deep breath and trusted to fate. “Well, this may sound a little weird, but I’m looking for a chica—umm, a girl—from another world. Her name is Analise Baxter, and I was told I could find her around here somewhere. Have you seen anybody that you might consider, well, unusual?”
“No one that I would consider unusual. Why do you want this ‘Analise’ anyway?” she asked.
“Well, I’ve been told she understands this world better than I do, so some mujar named Quiris who calls herself a ‘lesser goddess,’” he said, using air quotes with his fingers, “sent me to find her. You’re the first person I’ve seen in these mountains since Quiris, uh, left, so I was wondering if you could help me? It just figures, you know,” he went on, lowering his voice in confidence, “where I come from, Analise and I are sort of on unfriendly terms, but since we are both from the same place. . . .”
She was silent for a moment, like she was trying to figure out what he meant, and then she asked, “Unfriendly terms? You mean, you are foes?”
Jason shook his head. “No, no, nothing like that. Well, not for now, anyway, but that’s another story. Quiris told me that Analise would be a natural ally because she’s human. But so are you, aren’t you?”
“Well of course I’m human!” she exclaimed. “But I am not ever
y human’s ally. Why should she be yours after the way you tried to hurt her?”
“If she hadn’t butted in, then she . . . hey, wait a minute,” he interrupted himself, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “How’d you know that?”
“I made an assumption,” she quickly replied. “You did say you were on unfriendly terms, didn’t you? Well, that implies to me that you are foes, and enemies try to hurt one another.”
“Oh, right. Well, that’s over for the moment. I’m here now, and I’m trying to make the best of it, so I’m looking for Analise,” he said breezily.
Her face turned to stone, and then she said, pointing back behind her, “Look, I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen the one you seek. Why don’t you try that way? But I warn you: stay to the trail wherever you can.”
“Why?” Jason asked.
“Because . . . because the trail is partly charmed to help keep travelers from casual harm.”
That didn’t sound promising to Jason. And he really didn’t want to go it alone anyway, not after everything that had already happened to him today. He needed companionship.
He heaved a big sigh and looked at her with what he hoped were soulful eyes. “Since I dunno where I’m going, and I dunno where she is right now, I was wondering—hoping—I could travel with you? While I look for her? I could use the company, I’ve got almost no equipment of any kind, and I’m kinda lost. And it sure is creepy-looking here.”
He gestured with one hand at one of the huge red flowers for emphasis.
“No,” she said. “I’m in service to the Goddess Caelestis, and I’m traveling right now to aid some people at her behest. It’ll be dangerous, and you wouldn’t want to get hurt, so you should just go on your way.”
Jason’s ears perked up. “Caelestis? Hey, I recognize that name! Quiris said that she was working for someone called that and a bunch of others as well. So since it seems I’m stuck here for now, I think I ought to try and get in good with Quiris and this Caelestis. Won’t you let me come with you and help you? Please?”
The Urban Survivalist Page 4
