by Eric Vall
Chapter 1
“What can you tell me about Orebane and the dwarves?” I asked Yaxin. “It’d make it easier to prepare for the journey if I knew who and what I’m going to be facing beforehand.”
Of course, I’d read plenty about dwarves in the fantasy novels I’d devoured back when I was just an ordinary guy on Earth, but I didn’t want to make any assumptions. I had so many questions, but I thought it best to just let the trader talk about his bosses and listen carefully.
We were in my workshop outside the city of Eyton, seat of King Davit, where we had completed the railway line hundreds of miles from Magehill, the location of my original mine, a foundry, and a village of mages. From there, we built through to the capital city of Serin, on to the Illarian baronies of Westrock and Rajenne, before we helped the little mining colony of Durch become our second mining town and supplier of railroad ties and tracks. We continued south into the kingdom of Cedis and created stations in the cities of Keld and Pautua before we reached the terminus here in Eyton. Eight depots now linked the two kingdoms together.
In the workshop with Yaxin and me were four of the people who helped make all this possible. Aurora, the half-elf Ignis Mage, the first person I met when I came to this land and one of the loves of my life, sat at the workbench, her emerald eyes focused on the conversation. Next to her, my other love, Davit’s beautiful daughter Princess Cayla Balmier sat, her long legs crossed. Haragh, the half-ogre Terra Mage, stood by the window beside Shoshanne, healer and novice Aer Mage. Since she grew up on a remote island, the prospect of new lands was just as exciting to her as it was to me.
“Orebane is in the mountains north of Illaria,” Yaxin explained as he scratched at his chin. “The dwarves who live there never leave as far as I know. The terrain forms a natural boundary to the outside world, which seems to suit them just fine.”
“If they never leave, how did you ever end up in business with them?” Cayla asked curiously.
“Well, that happened by pure fate,” Yaxin replied with a wry grin. “I was in Illaria involved in … well, let’s just say transporting some artifacts I wasn’t one hundred percent licensed to be moving … ”
“You were a smuggler,” Aurora said as she cocked an eyebrow.
“If you want to put it bluntly, then yeah, pretty much,” the trader chuckled, evidently not the least bit embarrassed. “Though I never moved anything that could hurt anyone, and I never got caught, so does that count? The point is I was in the north near Garioch when my men and me spotted a royal patrol on the same path, and we didn’t want no trouble. One of my guys said he knew about a mountain pass we could use to go around them. I guess we were in there for a couple hours before he confessed he might’ve been thinking of a different pass. We decided to camp out for the night and wait for the patrol to have time to pass by before we came back out.”
I felt a slight movement on my arm and looked over to see my little four inch tall metal automaton named Stan climb up onto my shoulder. When he reached the summit, he took a seat, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, and looked at the smuggler with expectation. He was as ready for the story to continue as I was.
“And that’s when you met up with the dwarves of Orebane?” I asked.
“Aye.” Yaxin nodded, his tone thoughtful as he recalled the fateful meeting. “First we heard footsteps in the dark, and we thought the patrol had found us. We were hurrying to get packed up when they came out of the dark and into the light of our campfire. Little guys, about twenty of them, maybe four feet tall, all decked out in the most beautiful armor and weapons you ever saw. The leader of the group was a guy named Thrungrig, and he did most of the talking.”
“You must have been frightened,” Shoshanne murmured, her warm brown eyes wide as she imagined it.
“They gave me quite a start, I’ll admit,” the trader chuckled, “but it didn’t take long to tell they weren’t hostile, they were just curious. We showed them all the stuff we were carrying, junk, really, and everything was as interesting and new to them as their stuff was to us. It was only natural we started talking business. In the end, we came to an agreement. They’d give me what they had, and I’d take it out and exchange it for the stuff they couldn’t get their hands on up in the mountains.”
“What did they have?” I asked, intrigued as I imagined the handiwork of the dwarves.
“I’ve traded away most of it, and what I had left was destroyed by that fire bird you blew up,” the trader answered with a grimace. “My words won’t be able to do justice to what they looked like. The most delicate and intricate jewelry that looked as though a spider had spun them out of gold and silver. The purest, shiniest gems you ever saw. And armor and weapons of the finest metal, wrought like masterpieces, every one. Nobody I showed them to had ever seen anything else like ‘em.”
“What did the dwarves want you to bring back in return?” Haragh asked gruffly.
“Like I said, stuff they couldn’t get their hands on up in the mountains,” Yaxin replied with a shrug. “Things like herbs, medicine, fruit, cotton goods, sugar, just about anything. They are just hungry for everything they can’t get. I picked them up maps and books too, but all of it burned up.”
“We can get all of that for them,” Cayla declared with confidence. “We don’t want to show up empty handed.”
“That would be great, though I think connecting them with your train tracks would overshadow any trinkets you could possibly offer,” the trader said with a grin. “They’d finally be able to open up to real trade with the outside world.”
“Building tracks through the mountain is definitely going to be a challenge.” I frowned. “You said you were near someplace called Garioch in Illaria when you met up with them?”
Yaxin nodded. “Yes, it’s in the northeast of the kingdom.”
I pulled out a scroll from my desk and began to scribble a quick rough map of the region from what I knew of it, with notations for the names of places I visited, and the rest of the group gathered around to give corrections.
“The border between Cedis and Nalnora along the eastern side actually curves in toward us slightly in the north,” Cayla remarked as she pointed to the region on the drawing.
“And it’s straight up from there into Illaria,” Yaxin said and traced his finger along the map, “until right about here, three-quarters of the way up, where it goes a few miles east. Garioch is right here about ten miles from the border.”
“So we could complete a circuit,” I said as I drew an irregular circle across the map to go along each station point, “and put depots along the eastern sides of Cedis and Illaria up to the north to connect to Orebane, and then down south to finish back at Magehill.”
“It would be a lot faster if we just rode the train from here directly back to Magehill, and then added tracks north to Orebane,” Aurora pointed out with a slight frown. “It’ll take a month to get to the dwarves if we’re building new tracks the whole way up the eastern borders.”
“Just speaking for myself, I would like to see the other side of the kingdom,” Shoshanne said quietly.
“I would, too,” I agreed with a nod. “Besides, if we don’t continue the line with some more depots along the east, there are a whole lot of people who will be pretty much cut off. The best time to do it is now.”
Aurora nodded her head, but I saw wariness in her green eyes. It seemed there was another reason she didn’t want to go along the eastern border, but she wasn’t comfortable talking about it.
I wasn’t going to press her on it in front of everyone, but I made myself a mental note to talk to her about it when we were all alone.
“It don’t change the fact that laying tracks through the Draconis Mountains ain’t gonna be easy, like you said,” Haragh grumbled
as he crossed his massive arms over his barrel chest. “No matter how many Terra Mages you take with you, we can’t flatten ‘em.”
“No,” I agreed with a scratch of my beard. “I’m going to need the mages, I’m sure, but they’re all part of what’s going to make it possible. I need to do some thinking, but minimally, I need to create a better brake system for all the cars and some higher traction rails because I’m sure we are going to have to lay tracks on some steeper inclines. I can create what I need right here in the mine.”
“We can all go back to Eyton and put together supplies for the trip, including some of the items the dwarves want,” Cayla said as she headed to the door.
“The four of you can take Bobbie,” I said before I turned to Aurora. “I’ll need help smelting the iron ore here.”
“No problem,” Aurora replied, but there was something in her tone which said the exact opposite.
Cayla detected it as well and gave me a concerned look as she ushered the others out through the door.
I waited until I heard the sound of Bobbie’s engine roar and then fade away into the distance. Then I turned to my beautiful half-elf.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” I said simply, my silver eyes on her emerald ones.
“It’s nothing.” Aurora shrugged and headed for the door. “Shouldn’t we get started?”
“Not until you talk to me,” I replied as I grabbed her hand. “There’s something about this plan that’s bothering you, and we don’t keep things from each other, do we?”
Aurora sighed and then nodded.
“You know my history, that I grew up in an orphanage on a border town with Nalnora,” the half-elf said as she let me pull her closer to my body. “There really wasn’t a place for someone like me, so that was the best my parents could do, I guess. It wasn’t … the easiest way to grow up.”
“That was something we have in common,” I said gently. “It was a different world, but the feeling of being unwanted, no place to call home, the bullying of the other kids, yeah, I went through all that, too.”
“I remember when you told me that.” Aurora gave me a half smile. “I think that might have been the very moment I started to fall in love with you. And my love has just gotten deeper from that point on.”
“I feel the same way,” I said as I embraced her, and I could feel her slim but curvy body tremble against mine. “And I always will.”
“We’ll be passing by that border town on our way up to Orebane,” the Ignis Mage finally said after she gathered her words. “It’s called Toroth.”
“When was the last time you were there?” I asked softly.
“I ran away when I was a kid,” Aurora explained, and I could hear the pain from her memories. “First, I snuck across into Nalnora. I don’t know why, I just thought the elves would be kinder than the humans had been to me. All it did was prove that mutts like me don’t have a home in any world, and I was on my own.”
“You were just a kid?” I asked as I felt anger rise up in me. “Those bastards.”
“It’s something that’s ingrained in both cultures, that humans and elves shouldn’t mix,” the half-elf sighed. “I actually met a little girl, an elf about the same age as me, and I thought for a moment I had made my first real friend. I remember her name was Zathena, and she had the most beautiful hair. Bright pink like a cherry tree blossom. After we played together, Zathena took me home, but her family wouldn’t let me in their house. They told me to go inland, far from the borderlands. I think Zathena was as heart-broken as I was.”
“So what did you do?” I asked as I felt my own heart break at the thought of a little Aurora alone and friendless in Nalnora.
“I had no choice but to leave,” Aurora replied as she dropped her emerald eyes away from mine. “The interior of Nalnora is like a never-ending garden filled with lagoons and waterways. Very difficult to cross when you’re just a kid on your own. I tried for a few weeks, and then I turned around and returned to Illaria.”
“No one else even tried to help you?” I grumbled.
“I got a few scraps of food if I begged for it,” my Ignis Mage said with a shrug. “I was hoping someone might recognize something in me, like my hair or my eyes, and maybe they could point me toward any family members. Maybe even my parents. But it was like I was invisible. I decided I preferred the hostility in Illaria to the indifference in Nalnora.”
“And you wound up in Serin, and the Oculus, and the Order of Elementa,” I said as I gave her a squeeze, “and finally to here.”
“You’ve given me a lot of strength, Mason, more than you know,” Aurora said, her green eyes soft. “I’m strong enough to go back to the place that terrified me as a little girl.”
I kept her in my arms for a while longer. My chest swelled with pride to hear that I gave her strength, but she was a pretty badass Ignis Mage with a talent for blade battles in her own right when I had first met her. It would probably be good for her to face her childhood fears, ultimately healing, but it wouldn’t be easy.
Another thing Aurora and I had in common besides our childhood experiences was the absolute joy we felt when we exercised our powers. It might be exhausting at times, but I knew she needed it as much as I did.
“Do you want to take your mind off all this and smelt down some iron ore?” I asked with a smile.
“Ah, Mason, you know just how to treat a girl right,” Aurora giggled as the shadows from her past fell away from her face. “Let’s go!”
It didn’t take long before it was clear that this was the right way to help Aurora get her head together. I used my power to float chunk after chunk of iron ore out of the mine, and the fields around the workshop were soon awash with the smell of evergreen as she let blue flame pulse from her fingers to melt and refine the metal. One look in her emerald eyes as she cast out the flame, and it was clear the Ignis Mage was, quite literally, in her element.
When the metal was reduced to a large glowing silver glob, I reached out with my power to begin to lift and shape it. First, I created a dozen identical wide gear wheels with a groove down each one about two inches thick. I made a twenty foot long pole and connected it to an arm to create the framework for a winch. Then, when Aurora had more molten metal for me, I began on the work for the brake system.
I wanted to make one hand brake per car, so seven altogether. I would have to wait to create the connecting mechanism when I had the trains in front of me, but I knew I would need lots of chain. I found myself singing the ogre work song Haragh had taught me to keep time while I melded together link after link after link.
“What are you going to do with these?” Aurora asked as she picked up a length and gave it a tug.
“I want to start adding some pulleys at the station so I don’t have to move all the tracks,” I said with an additional pulse of power to string more together.
“That’s a lot of chain for just a couple pulleys,” Aurora observed with a quirk of her eyebrow. “You must have another project in mind.”
“Can’t hide anything from you.” I smiled. “I’m also adding a brake system to the cars.”
“A brake system?” the half-elf asked, curious.
“There will be a lever in each of the cars, and when you pull it, it pulls all the connected chains,” I explained as I finished the last of the links. “Each goes to a piston and spring next to the rail. When it’s taut, this brake drum will stop all the wheels simultaneously.”
“So you still have to make the brake drums?” Aurora asked with a tilt of her head.
“Yes, but I can’t do that without the trains here to fit them to,” I replied. “They’re going to have a lot of friction on them, so I’d like them to be made out of titanium like Big Guy’s shield. I’ll need Shoshanne here so we can create a vacuum to keep it from oxidizing.”
“I’m sure she’d be very happy to lend a hand,” Aurora said with a sly grin. “So you’re saying there’s nothing else we need to do right this minute?”
“
What did you have in mind?” I asked as I picked up on the innuendo.
“I was just wondering,” the gorgeous half-elf mused as she held up the length of chain, “whether there was anything else we could use this chain for?”
With a push of my power, I brought the chain to life and allowed it to slither up Aurora’s wrists and arms like a snake. Then I gave a little tug and pulled her to me.
Aurora giggled as she pretended to resist.
“Do we need another lesson in friction?” I asked with a wide grin.
Aurora smiled with lust in her emerald eyes. “I’m ready, teacher.”
I pulled the chain and led her into the workshop. The half-elf yelped in delight as I let my power over the metal chains draw her to the bed and tie her down. I took my time, stepped over to her, and slid my hand up her thigh as she writhed on the bed.
“The output of friction is heat,” I murmured as I slid her robe open to reveal her shapely, nubile, naked body. “I don’t think I have to teach an Ignis Mage about heat, do I?”
Aurora moaned in response as I kissed and licked my way up the inside of her thigh. I teased her slit with my tongue hungrily, and she began to pull on the chains, but they would not yield. Nibble by nibble, I worked my way deeper into her, and she thrashed on the bed, helpless to get away, and screamed in ecstasy.
When I pulled down my breeches and climbed onto her, she was wet and ready. I entered her slowly, all the way to the base of my cock, withdrew just as slowly, and then repeated.
Aurora’s eyes locked onto mine, ablaze with desire, and I felt her body warm to match, as if she had a fever. Her power enveloped me as I pushed into her, and I dripped with sweat.
There had always been a special charge between us when we made love, mage and mage, fire and metal. Aurora ground against me as if she begged for more, and I was happy to oblige. My thrusts began to pick up speed, and she met me, push for push.
Aurora came with an uninhibited scream of raw passion, and I continued to push myself in and out of her as I felt my own orgasm build. That’s when I heard another moan, but it didn’t come from Aurora beneath me. It came from the door.
