by Ramy Vance
Suzuki jumped out of the way as he drew his axe. He rolled across the jungle floor as Stew turned his attention toward Beth, slashing at her erratically with his swords. Beth pulled out her shield and blocked the attack. She unsheathed her sword and took a step back. “Sandy!” Beth shouted.
Sandy looked at Stew, and he glared at her from across the jungle. He ran toward her, dropping his swords and grasping the massive battle-axe that hung from his shoulders. He swung at her head.
Sandy ducked, pivoted the side, and drew her wand.
A concussive force burst from her wand and tore up the ground in front of her. She didn’t pull any of her strength. It still wasn’t enough to move Stew, who raised his axe, ready to cleave her in half.
“Oh, shit,” Sandy muttered as she dodged Stew’s axe, her body breaking up into a thousand small pieces of ash and reorganizing behind Stew, where she could see the source of Stew’s sudden violence.
A slug-like creature had attached itself to the back of Stew’s head. It was covered in slime and veins and was pulsing rhythmically. A tube from what could have been its mouth was plunged in the back of Stew’s neck. “What the fuck is that thing?” Sandy yelled.
Diana came up behind Sandy and pointed to the slug. “That is a glarry leech,” Diana noted. “They live in the vines Suzuki and Beth were admiring. They’re relatively harmless when they’re that size.”
“What do you mean, that size?”
“Well, it’s just using Stew for a host. Hold on. Let me take care of this.”
Diana stepped forward and waved her wand in Stew’s direction.
Stew’s feet floated off the ground. He continued trying to walk, his eyes still dim and stupid. He didn’t even realize his feet weren’t touching the ground.
Diana motioned for Chip to go to him. “You’ve removed one of those before, right?” Diana asked.
As Chip reached out for the back of Stew’s neck, her hand separated into thousands of small mechanical pieces—the advanced tech of the Dark One. Chip’s hand contorted into a spindly, delicate operating device. “I’ve picked off a leech or two,” Chip answered as her fingers lifted the leech, revealing the long tube filled with blood attached to the back of Stew’s neck. “I’ll make sure not to pull out his brain stem. Leave all the gray, juicy stuff where he needs it.”
Chip’s thumb shot a small laser bolt that severed the leech from Stew’s neck. She tossed the leech to Diana, who caught it and put it in a bag. “Can be used for a valuable neurotoxin,” she commented as she walked over to Stew to observe his wound.
Sandy was doing her best not to look too worried, but Suzuki could see she was freaking out. Chip put her arm around Sandy’s shoulder.
Diana leaned over Stew as he relaxed onto the ground and rolled him over. “Oh, there’s nothing to worry about,” Diana said. “The leeches don’t have a lasting effect, and Chip expertly removed the creature. Stew should wake up in no more than half an hour with a very interesting story to tell. They say that once the leech has you under its control, your mind melds with its mind. That being said, though, Chip, would you be a dear and check the vines for any other leeches?”
Chip saluted Diana and pointed at Beth. “You fancy coming along?” she asked. “Noticed you guys are a little heavy on swords that swing all about, but none of you know anything about tracking or that type of shite. You could benefit from rogue-ing. Eyes look sharp enough on you. Come on, pick up your britches. Today you’re learning how to tree-run.”
Beth shook her head and lifted her sword and shield. “I’m a fighter, not a rogue.”
“One of the things you newbies need to learn, especially military brats like you, is that you can always learn new skills. Don’t mean you have to toss down your pointy and shieldy things.”
Beth took a step toward Chip. “I’m not a fucking brat,” Beth growled.
“Then come along for the ride. Unless you’re feeling bratty…”
Beth looked ready to fight, then she smiled and laughed. “All right, I’ll check it out,” she finally said. “Beats sitting around waiting for that douchenozzle to wake up.” Beth followed Chip as they walked toward where the vines connected with the ground.
The rest of the Mundanes sat beside Stew. Sandy anxiously bit her bottom lip as she held his hand. Diana sat down next to Sandy and smiled sweetly at her. “Really,” Diana offered, “I’m not just saying this to make you feel better. He might as well have gotten bitten by a bee. It’s just that in Middang3ard, the bees bite a little bit harder than back at home. Don’t worry about him. You should put up a barrier around us, though, just in case any more leeches fall from above. It’ll give you a chance to work on your rune and sigil work. I’ll critique, all right? Now come on.”
Sandy nodded and sniffed as she stood up. She walked the circumference of the area around the remaining Mundanes, then, with her index finger, she traced a circle around them all and walked into the center. When she was done, she drew a sigil in the air with her finger, which caught fire immediately, the shape burning bright for a few seconds before exploding and casting a magical barrier around the MERCs. The half-sphere shimmered light-blue and looked as if stars hung from its top.
Suzuki whistled as he admired Sandy’s work. Even though he was something of a mage, he could not handle magic like Sandy did. Her work not only was powerful but beautiful. The last time they had been drinking at the Red Lion, one of the MERC mages had walked up and asked Sandy for tips. From the rumors Suzuki had heard, Sandy’s prowess was starting to rival Diana’s. Diana was one of the MERC’s strongest mages, so that was saying a lot. Diana couldn’t have been prouder of her protégé.
Diana inspected the barrier, clicking her tongue as she made her observations. Then she came to Sandy and explained how it could be improved. Sandy nodded as she took notes in her small notepad.
Suzuki felt a pang of heartache as he watched Diana and Sandy together. It hadn’t been that long since Chip and José had mentored Suzuki. Now José was gone, and Chip was broken. She hadn’t been the same since they had returned. Still, she was at least out with them on a mission, and she had taken Beth with her. Chip might not have been all there yet, but she was working on it. That much was certain.
That left Suzuki.
He didn’t know how he was handling everything. His mentor had died. He’d fallen in love with Beth. The war with the Dark One. He was looking forward to having a breather soon and being able to figure out how he felt.
But life wasn’t slowing down.
Chip and Beth stood in front of a very large tree covered in what could easily have been confused for Spanish moss.
Chip pointed to the top of the trees and along the branches. “That’s where we’re going.”
Beth folded her arms as she looked up. “I can jump up there, but after I do, I’m up Shit Creek without a paddle.” Beth sighed. “I’m not exactly what you would call graceful.”
Chip nodded as she laughed. “Oh, you don’t have to tell me that. I’ve seen you in a fight. Fast as lightning but lacking in any subtlety. ‘Pointy end goes in’ type of thing, right?”
“You don’t have to dodge if it’s dead.”
“Right you are. But lacking in grace? Far from the truth. Rarely have I seen a fighter who looks as natural as you. A lot more than pointy, stabby things, you know? Got a sense of rhythm. Flow.”
“Okay, maybe, but I’m not going to be able to Naruto this shit.”
“Yet. You Mundanes might have been raised on games, but you’re forgetting the most important part. This is real life, which means you can learn. And the ol’ HUDs will help out along the way.”
Beth took off her HUD and looked at it. “How’s this thing going to help?”
“Plain and simple? You saw how I’m all gears and whistles inside? After the battle, I had to be locked up for a bit. Quarantine, seeing as how I went all bang-bang on my fearless leader under the Dark One’s influence. The powers that be found out the HUDs share a lot of si
milarities with the shiny stuff in me.”
“How the hell did that happen?”
“MERC doesn’t know. Our HUDs were based on mil-tech. Maybe the military bigwigs got their hands on Dark One tech and reverse-engineered. Either way, we noticed something about the adaptive processing unit’s integration with the cerebral cortex and familiar human synergetic adaptation in relation to—”
Beth held her hands up to cut Chip off. “Dude, I don’t speak cyborg or nerd. What the fuck did you just say?”
“Oh, laymen, laymen.”
Chip cleared her throat. When she spoke, her voice changed dramatically, an almost perfect replication of Diana’s studious, bookwormish, lecturing tone. “In short, HUDs learn. The skills you access and the way familiars help with the wiggle room for connecting you to magic? All of that’s learned behavior. We ain’t gone far enough to see if the buggers are alive, but they’re something. So, if—”
“If I try rogue-like shit, the HUD will learn and help me.”
Chip’s voice returned to normal. “Bingo. Feeling a little more comfortable?”
Beth cracked her knuckles and leapt onto the closest branch. “Fuck, yeah. Don’t tell anyone, but I fucking love learning new shit. I never got to try anything new in the military. So, you gonna teach me how to be the next Hokage?”
Chip landed next to Beth. “Even show you why running all flail-armed makes sense. Now follow my heels.”
Stew woke up giggling, holding his sides, his face bright red, gasping for breath. After he finished choking, he laid there quietly for a few seconds before getting to his feet, stretching and chuckling.
The first thing Stew did was give Sandy a huge hug. He lifted her off the ground and spun her around, kissing her on the cheeks and the lips. “I love you so much,” Stew shouted.
Sandy, bewildered, looked at Diana and Suzuki. “Uh, I love you too, babe,” she said. “Are you feeling all right?”
Stew put Sandy back on the ground and touched his toes. “Yeah, I feel great,” he answered. “Feels like my head is on straight. Kinda want to go for a run. Don’t know why, but I feel like I could run for a while. How are all of you feeling?”
Sandy threw her arms around Stew and kissed him, knocking him over. They rolled over in the lush grass for a second before they became aware of those around them and sat up, blushing and giggling before standing and smoothing their clothes out. “Glad to see you’re up and ready to go,” Sandy joked.
Stew was all smiles. He looked like he had been given an injection of youth. “Yeah, I’m ready to fucking get going,” he exclaimed. “What are we doing next?”
Suzuki stepped forward and broke into the conversation. “We’re waiting for Beth and Chip to clear out the leeches,” he explained. “Same leeches that were gnawing on your brain.”
Stew gave Suzuki a confused look. “My brain? Are you telling me I had a leech sucking on my head?”
“Dude, more than sucking. That thing was using you like a puppet.”
Stew grew solemn for a moment as he tried to recall what had happened. “Are you saying I got mind-controlled? I don’t remember anything. The last thing I can remember was you guys talking about boring shit. And then I felt…I don’t know, I thought it was Sandy giving me a kiss on the neck. I woke up here.”
Diana sat down and scooted close to Stew. It was obvious she was interested in what Stew had to say about the experience. She looked like she was staring at a specimen to be dissected. Her eagerness was palpable to all the Mundanes. “Do you remember dreaming anything?” Diana asked. “In the time you…weren’t yourself?”
Stew scrunched his face as he thought, stroking his chin. “Now that you mention it, I do remember dreaming,” he finally admitted. “They were confusing. You know, I don’t dream much. Never have. But I did have a dream. It was weird, and you were all in it. We were out in…space or something like that. Floating along. I was choking. I couldn’t breathe, no matter how much I tried to. And there was a dragon. It was thrashing around against the stars. It looked sad. I tried to do something to make it feel better, but it was moving away from me. And Suzuki, you were there while it was happening. You reached out and grabbed the dragon, and it started breathing fire everywhere. The stars caught fire, and then we were in the sun. And the Dark One was there. He was watching everything, but it was hard to tell he was watching because, you know, he doesn’t have a fucking face or anything. But it felt like he was watching. It was unbelievable. But, yeah, that was the dream.”
Diana stood up, looking somewhat disappointed. “Hm. That wasn’t what I was expecting. If you have any more dreams like that, please let me know.”
As Diana spoke, leeches started to fall from the branches overhead. They hit the barrier Sandy had built with sickening thuds. Their dead bodies littered the jungle around them.
Chip and Beth jumped down from the branches, landing in a pile of dead leeches that exploded and sent blood and entrails flying. Chip reached down and grabbed one of the leeches. She tossed it in the air, smiling. “Your girl is a prime assassin-in-training,” Chip said to Suzuki. “Picked most of it up in a jiffy. Wouldn’t be surprised if she ditched the sword and shield and started doing something a little bit more sophisticated.”
Beth was blushed brightly as she stepped away from everyone and picked up one of the leeches. She brought it to Chip and asked, “So, what can you use these for?”
Chip grabbed the leech from Beth and twisted it in her hands. The leech bled a blue substance that Chip caught. She tasted it on a fingertip. “Oh, there are all sorts of fun things you can get up to with this one’s guts,” she said. “But none of them are ‘work appropriate’ at the moment. If we start sucking on leeches, we might be in the jungle for a fortnight. Everyone might see a god or two. Much better to enjoy that tucked away under your blankets, I’d say. So, the big one is finally awake. Time to get moving instead of wasting time talking about slugs and leeches, eh?”
Suzuki nodded as he helped Stew to his feet. “Yeah, might as well get going. That ambrosia isn’t going to find itself.”
4
The Mundanes and the Horsemen wandered through the jungle. They had no clear-cut plan of action. The jungle was just too much, and despite them trying to point out landmarks they had seen before, the jungle continued to confuse and surprise them.
At first, they marked trees they had seen, behemoths of bark and leaf that were as distinctly individual as any of them. Yet after an hour of walking in one direction, they were in front of the tree again.
Diana cautioned that the jungles were known for causing madness. Many a traveler had spent days to months in the forest, ruminating over their life among the trees that dominated the landscape, their ancient weight hanging heavy over all who walked into their grasp.
It was sobering for all who walked through the black and green jungle that day. Nothing was said, yet it was evident to all who paced through the trees, ferns, and vines. Something weighed heavy on them. All the MERCs seemed to be trapped in pits of their thoughts and anxieties. Except for Stew.
Stew smiled and chatted throughout the entire walk. His optimism knew no bounds. He was a different man than he had been before. To everyone’s surprise, when Beth mentioned she was tired of walking, that she felt like they had been meandering through the same circle of vines the entire day, it was Stew who suggested the MERCs sit down and rest. Once everyone had taken up a comfortable station, Stew asked Beth why she felt so depressed. When Beth was hesitant to answer, Stew pressed the subject delicately, which surprised the MERCs who sat huddled together in the dim jungle.
Beth stared wide-eyed at Stew, unable to explain why she was so uncomfortable with this sudden change of character. “What the hell, Stew? Are you saying you want to talk to me about my feelings?”
He laughed as he struggled to make his chain mail kilt more comfortable. “Yeah, I’m asking you how you feel,” Stew exclaimed. “You seem like you’re having a hard time out here. I was just wonder
ing what was making this so difficult for you? I know we’re all tired. It feels like we’ve been at this for a really long time. But you seem to be more bothered by it than anyone else. I just wanted to make sure you were feeling all right.”
The rest of the MERCs looked on in confusion and awe. No one quite knew how to put into words how bizarre it was to see Stew showing the slightest modicum of human decency and understanding. Suzuki thought it was odder than Stew being controlled by a leech and attacking them. Somehow that made more sense.
Beth scooted away from Stew and eyed him with growing suspicion. “I’m okay,” she said. “Just tired of walking. It feels like we aren’t getting anywhere.”
Stew leaned forward, his eyes bright with intensity, focus, and empathy. “I was thinking the same thing,” Stew exclaimed. “We’ve been walking for hours, and we haven’t gotten anywhere. What do you think is the reason for that?”
Beth continued to eye Stew as if she were worried he was not who he said he was. “Uh, I don’t know,” she finally said. “I just know it’s bugging the fuck out of me.” At that moment, Chip beckoned to her, and they went aloft again.
Stew laughed and rocked back and forth, holding his kneecaps. “I know!” he shouted. “I’m very tired of walking around in circles. This jungle is obviously fucking with us.” Stew turned to Suzuki. “What do you think we should do about it?”
Suzuki was caught off-guard by the question. Even though he had been wandering the jungle for the better part of four hours, he hadn’t once thought about how he or the rest of the MERCs were going to find a way out. Now that he thought about it, it was kind of odd that he hadn’t entertained the idea. He had just accepted they were going to wander for as long as necessary.
Listening to Stew talk and reflecting on his thoughts, it became very apparent there was some force in the jungle that was hindering his ability to think, and maybe his ability to feel. The assurance he felt that everything was going to be all right in the jungle seemed to come from outside his mind, almost as if it had been planted there.
