by Dan Koboldt
God, it was better not to think about it.
“Knew I should have asked for more money,” Quinn shouted to himself. He ground his teeth together and spurred the horse onward.
He couldn’t say how long it was before the wyvern finally broke off and flew back toward her nest. Evidently she’d put enough of a scare into the interlopers to satisfy any territorial ambiguity. Quinn and Chaudri reined in, panting for breath. Their mounts licked at the snow, their flanks lathered and heaving.
“Think we gave them enough time?” Chaudri asked.
“I hope so. I’m not doing that again,” Quinn said.
They picked their way back to the rendezvous point. Quinn was drenched in sweat, but the cold quickly seeped in to chill him. And it still hurt to breathe.
A few hours in, and I definitely hate this place.
On the bright side, Logan and Kiara rode up a moment later. Logan had something in his arm, a white sphere about the size of a watermelon. “Look what we found.”
That had to be it. Quinn didn’t know a thing about Alissian magic, but the sphere was too symmetrical, and gave off a slight hum. “Thank God,” he said.
“Wasn’t easy to get, either,” Logan said. “Hatchling in the nest tried to bite my arm off.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Tough little fella.”
“Please,” Quinn said. “You should meet his mother.”
“The den was about four hundred square feet and littered with bones. Some of them were fresh, and a few looked to have been horses.”
—R. HOLT, “SURVEY OF THE ALISSIAN HIGHLANDS”
CHAPTER 4
EGGBREAKING
The wild dogs had fallen quiet during the wyvern’s show of force, but something told Quinn they were still nearby.
Logan held up the egg so they all could see it. “Feels almost like glass,” he said.
“Maybe it’s a miniature version of the barrier,” Quinn offered. “Like a voodoo egg.”
“In voodoo, you break a curse by burning or destroying the effigy,” Chaudri said. “Will it burn?”
“No, but it might break,” Logan said. “I’ll have to do it on the ground.”
He dismounted, found a bare patch in the snow for the egg, and drew his sword. Then the yipping of the wild dogs rose up again. All around them—and they sounded hungry.
“Make it fast,” Kiara said. “Bradley, covering fire!”
Quinn took up the bow lashed to his saddle. It was a modern compound disguised as an Alissian longbow. A high-tensile resin gave it a seventy pound draw, with a concealed cam to provide the let-off at full draw. He’d learned to bow-hunt with his grandfather, back in Nevada. Made the mistake of mentioning that to Logan, and now look where it got him.
He fumbled an arrow out of the quiver and nocked it. The familiar grip of the bow was comforting, and the glow of the fiber-optic pins was just enough to aim by.
He drew to his cheek, just as the first wild dog lumbered into view. It had a shaggy coat of gray-brown fur, bared teeth, and moved with the easy gait of a predator. It halted for just a moment, sniffing the air. Quinn checked the range and loosed. The bow thrummed, but the wild dog hunched low at the sound. His arrow struck high shoulder. Probably not fatal, but enough to send it whining into the night. Kiara fired a crossbow, cutting down a second member of the pack.
Logan raised his sword with both hands and brought it down like a hammer. The glass sphere shattered. Blue lightning crackled up the length of Logan’s blade. He shouted and dropped it before it reached his hands.
Quinn couldn’t stop to help; he was trying to find a target for his next shot. The dogs were wary now, slinking among the shadows where it was harder to see them. There were at least four or five still hunting. Quinn picked one at random, aimed, let the arrow fly, but missed.
“Damn!” he muttered. Got to aim lower. He’d spent about half of his first quiver, and he only had two. No time to regret that now. He bit his lip and drew again.
Then the rest of the pack rushed right at them, growling and snapping at the legs of their mounts.
“Protect the horses!” Logan shouted. He had his sword back and was trying to scramble into the saddle.
The mountain pony whinnied in fright as a dog circled it. Quinn drew again, aiming low, and fired. His arrow hit center mass and pinned the dog to the ground.
The dog yelped and whined. The rest of the pack fell on it in a frenzy.
“That’s our cue!” Kiara shouted. “With me!” She turned her horse and took off. Chaudri was right after her.
Quinn jerked the mare around and Logan was with him, the pack animals in tow. They galloped to catch up. One or two of the wild dogs started to follow, but most of the pack was with the frenzy. They stopped and loped back.
After half a mile or so, Kiara slowed them to a trot. The horses were tired, but still jumpy. Quinn couldn’t blame them.
“I hate dogs,” Logan said. “There’s no way my daughters are getting a puppy. I don’t care how bad they want one.”
“Never seen a dog attack a horse before,” Quinn said. “That was unreal.”
“That’s probably what they were after, more than us,” Logan said. “One would feed their pack for a week, and who knows how long they’d been trapped within the dome.” He rode forward to confer with Kiara.
Chaudri dropped back. “So, what do you think of Alissian wildlife so far?”
“Everything I’ve seen has tried to eat me. So, not really a fan.”
“You should see some of the data our biological surveys have returned. Alissia seems to have undergone fewer of the mass extinction and evolution events than Earth did. There’s an incredible diversity of wildlife here. A lot of it we can’t even classify.”
“Have they done any DNA testing?” Quinn asked. “Does that even work on Alissian creatures?”
“It works on anything with DNA, and most species here seem to have it. But the company’s been very cautious about that kind of thing.”
“For safety reasons?” Quinn asked.
“I think more for secrecy. Someone gets ahold of it, and even a grad student could tell you that we have access to a new ecosystem.”
They halted at the spot where the barrier had stopped them before. Logan moved forward tentatively, his eyes on the ground.
“Think it worked,” he said. He pointed down at a clean line in the snow that crossed the trail. “Here’s where the barrier was.”
Quinn felt coolness on his left cheek; a sound whispered through the treetops. “Wind,” he said. “The wind is blowing.”
Logan threw a stick through where the barrier had been, and nothing happened. That was enough to convince Kiara.
“Let’s get going. We’re way behind schedule,” she said.
They crossed the line where the barrier had been without incident. The only thing Quinn noticed was a faint smell of ozone.
“This barrier, the wyvern, the dogs,” Logan said. His voice came in across the comm link, clear as day. “It’s too cute to be circumstantial.”
“I agree,” Kiara said. “And I sense Holt’s hand in this.”
“I can’t picture him wrangling a wyvern into position by himself.”
“Not to mention the casting of the barrier,” she said.
“I’m guessing he had help.”
“I don’t know much about the magic or the mythical creatures,” Quinn interjected. “But it looks like Holt’s been planning this for some time.”
“That was his way,” Chaudri said.
“If you’re not sure why he left, can you at least tell me why the company wants him back so badly?” Quinn asked.
“You don’t have the security clearance,” Kiara said.
“Screw the clearance. I’m in here now, same as you.”
“This is still the company’s domain,” she sa
id.
“Really?” Quinn asked. “In that case I want to file a complaint about unsafe work conditions. I almost got eaten by a dragon back there.”
“A wyvern,” Chaudri said.
“Call it whatever you want,” Quinn said. “But you guys brought me here, so I’d like to have some idea of what we’re up against.”
Kiara sighed. “All right, Bradley. When Holt left, he took a backpack with him.”
“What’s in it?”
She had her console out and must have pulled up a list. “Genetically modified corn, soybean, and wheat seeds. A butane lighter. Waterproof binoculars, ten times magnification. A compact portable generator. Military frequency scanner, infrared goggles. A solar-chargeable laptop.”
“And a Beretta .45 caliber handgun,” Logan added.
“Jesus, is that all?” Quinn asked.
“It’s enough,” Kiara said.
They made camp at around two in the morning, by Quinn’s best guess. He’d have checked the watch but he almost didn’t want to know.
Logan unpacked four shoebox-sized bundles that proved to be self-assembled, insulated pup tents. Each one came with a tiny portable heating unit about the shape and size of a grapefruit.
“Know what powers these?” Logan asked.
“I’m guessing a battery that will be in my cell phone in two years,” Quinn said.
“Nope, but close. Hydrogen fuel cells.”
“Are they safe?”
“Nope, but close,” Logan said.
“Don’t listen to him,” Chaudri interjected. “I’ve been assured that they are.”
“Even so,” the big man said, “I’m sleeping on the far side of the tent from it.”
Far side of a pup tent. That was all of two feet.
Quinn hoped it was enough.
Kiara had a wood-framed device about the size of a King James Bible in her hand. It had to be digital, from the sound of the soft, persistent beeping. Logan wandered over to check on her. Quinn followed.
“Any signal on Holt?” Logan asked.
“Nothing yet,” she said.
“Wait,” Quinn said. “You can track him?”
“We can track anyone who spent time at the island facility,” Kiara said.
“How?”
Kiara ignored him. Logan said, “It’s an isotope with a long half-life. They put it in the food on the island.”
“I’ve been eating that food!” Quinn said.
Kiara glanced at her console. “I can see that.”
“Aw, hell.” Yet another little surprise the company hadn’t bothered to read him in on.
“It’s perfectly harmless, Mr. Bradley,” Kiara said.
“Big corporations say that all the time.”
“Relax, Bradley,” Logan said. “Been eating it for years, and look how healthy I am.”
“You’re also twice the size of a normal person.” He turned to Kiara as Logan chuckled. “Next time you put radioactive stuff in the food, I’d like to know in advance.”
Once the tents were set and warming up, Logan established a perimeter around their little camp. For this he had six identical metal stakes that he drove into the ground with a rubber mallet. Each housed an infrared heat/sensor grid and short-range transmission chip. Facing outward, the stakes provided a hexagon-shaped field of surveillance about fifty yards in each direction.
Anything giving off heat and movement triggered an alert to consoles carried by Logan and Kiara. Pinhole zoom cameras from the company’s covert surveillance division would feed videos to the consoles Logan and Kiara kept at hand.
“Get some rest, everyone,” Kiara ordered. “Daybreak is in about six hours; we’ll get moving then.”
“Should we set a watch, Lieutenant?” Logan asked.
“Let’s rely on the sensors. I want everyone fresh tomorrow.”
No such luck.
An hour after they turned in, something set off the infrared sensors. Quinn woke reluctantly to a persistent beeping noise in his communicator, followed by Logan’s voice.
“Sensors picked up something. Stand by.”
Quinn heard something crunching heavily through the snow.
“Looks like a bear,” Kiara said. “Logan, hit the pulse.”
The infrared sensor posts also had an ultrasonic emitter, something Logan called a “pest deterrent.” In truth, it was about a hundred times more powerful than similar devices sold for home use. The frequencies were just beyond the range of human hearing.
“Seems to be working,” Logan said. “He’s moving off. Wait, I was wrong. Who left their food out?”
“Hit it again,” Kiara said.
The ultrasonic emitter kept the bear away from the tents, but only just. Try as he might, Quinn couldn’t go back to sleep with a golf-cart-sized carnivore just outside and a persistent beeping in his communicator. Logan gave him a little update each time.
Beep. “Just the bear again.”
Beep. “Just the bear.”
Beep-beep. “Oh, now we have two bears.”
The bears didn’t bother them, or the horses, but they kept Quinn up most of the night. He thought Kiara might push back their timetable, since no one had gotten a good night’s sleep. But no, wrong again. She had them up and moving just after daybreak.
Quinn crawled out of his tent, already missing his bunk on the island complex. The Alissian sun was almost white; it cast the open woods around them in grayscale.
“Morning all,” Chaudri said. She stood and drew a deep breath. “I love the sunrise here.”
“You’re chipper this morning,” Quinn grumbled.
“Why not? With that portable heater I slept like a baby.”
“What about the bears, and the constant alarm beeps?”
“There were bears? Oh. Sorry.” She winked at Quinn. “Must have switched off my comm unit.”
“I believe I asked you to keep it turned on,” Logan said.
“Of course, of course. Won’t happen again.”
Wink.
Kiara, already dressed and armored, had engrossed herself in her digital console and the map of Alissia. The material was woven cotton, just like U.S. currency. It proved lightweight, waterproof, durable, but felt remarkably similar to good quality Alissian parchment. Graphite ink added to the illusion that it was drawn by hand.
“Still nothing on Holt,” she announced. “We’re going to need intel if we want to track him down anytime this year. We’ll make for the nearest village. It’s called Wenthrop.”
Quinn couldn’t wait to meet some Alissians. He hadn’t decided whether or not they counted as aliens. Maybe on this side of the gateway, he was the alien. One thing was certain: they’d not yet met a Vegas illusionist, which meant he had a completely naive audience.
Also known as a magician’s favorite thing.
“Here’s the deal,” Kiara said. She’d called a halt in the slushy mess that counted for a road in Alissia’s rural areas. Two hundred yards downhill, a village crouched beneath a haze of smoke. “We like the Wayfarer because it caters to travelers. It’s the only place in this area that we can resupply. But it does attract a rough crowd.”
“Define ‘rough,’ ” Quinn said.
“Mercenaries, cutpurses, bounty hunters, and smugglers,” Logan said. “Any of ’em would gut you like a pig if he thought he might find a few coins in your pockets.”
“Sounds delightful. I think I’ll wait here,” Quinn said. Logan had showed him some video footage of street fights and muggings he’d recorded while on scouting expeditions here. The idea of entering a building crowded with violent criminals was terrifying.
“We’re all going,” Kiara said. Her tone said there would be no argument.
“How do I keep from getting gutted like a pig, as you so delig
htfully put it?” Quinn asked.
“Stay right by me, and don’t stare at anyone,” Logan said. “Make yourself invisible. You’re supposed to be good at that.”
“Great,” Quinn said. Helpful as ever.
The village was nothing more than a dozen ramshackle buildings that squatted on either side of the slushy road. All of them were wood, but no two looked alike. They were practically on top of one another in hodgepodge fashion, like a city inspector’s nightmare. The thatch roofs were at least a foot thick, maybe more, and sagging under the weight of the snow.
The whole village looked like it could collapse any minute.
The area outside the Wayfarer boasted a variety of animals lashed to wooden posts. Most were mules and half-starved packhorses, but a few stood out. They were armored in some kind of animal hide, and bristled with swords, spears, even longbows.
“Merc horses,” Logan said.
“That’s a lot of weapons,” Quinn said.
“They’ll have even more inside. Good weapons are sort of like a mercenary résumé.”
“Why do you think they’re here?” Quinn asked. Armed men weren’t exactly his first choice, if he had to meet the natives. Just seeing their horses made him nervous.
“Hard to say. Anyone with a level head is probably looking for work farther south where it’s harder to freeze to death.”
Which, sad to say, sounded perfectly reasonable.
They secured the horses to a set of hitching posts, as far away from the other animals as possible. Kiara pulled open the inn’s stout wooden door. The inside was poorly lit. The warm air reeked of soot, sweat, and ale.
“Make sure your weapons are visible,” Logan muttered across the comm link.
Quinn loosened his cloak enough that the hilt of his short sword poked through. Chaudri and Kiara did similar with their blades. It was a casual but concerted gesture; more than a few of those in the common room took notice that the newcomers were well-armed. Not to be trifled with.
One such cognizant fellow was the proprietor, a slender, middle-aged man wearing a white apron. He greeted them with the nervous smile of a guy who doesn’t want any trouble.
Logan held up four fingers, and then led them into the smoky back half of the common room.
