by Eric Vall
I held up my fingertip and sent out a little burst of magic again as I racked my brain for a suitable name. The stickman lifted his arm in response to my power’s call, and he executed another perfect high-five. I rubbed the top of his head in praise.
“What about Stan?” I suggested as the idea struck me.
“Stan?” Cayla echoed, and when I looked up, her face was scrunched in distaste. “That is not a very cute name.”
“Oh, come on,” I cajoled with a grin. “He’s a little steel man. Steel man. Stan. It’s funny.”
“You and your word play,” Aurora teased with a roll of her eyes, but her lips twitched upward with amusement.
“What do you think, Stan?” I asked as I looked down at the stick figure. “Do you like that name?”
I sent out another little tendril of magic, and a moment later he bobbed his head in a nod.
“He likes it,” I said as I looked back to Cayla.
The princess sighed and bowed her head. “Then Stan it is, I guess.”
“Hurray,” I cheered, and Stan jumped a centimeter off my palm in response to my happy and swirling magic.
“Now that Stan is settled,” Aurora said as she reached for her food again, “I think it is time we eat.”
“Hear, hear,” I agreed, and I set Stan on my knee as I picked up my parcel of lunch.
“You know,” I added a moment later as I chewed on a piece of dried and salted prairie dog meat, “this isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It’s actually pretty tasty.”
“It’s a little… gamey,” Cayla said as she wrinkled her delicate nose. Her piece of sod poodle was barely more than a sliver, and it looked like she had substituted it with a larger piece of bread.
“I have had worse,” Aurora remarked with a shrug, and then she dug her teeth into a piece of meat and washed it down with a swig of water.
“I’m sure the palace cooks will fix us up something more appetizing when we reach Eyton, Princess Balmier,” I teased with a grin.
The raven-haired maiden pursed her lips and set her food down on a piece of cloth beside her. “Actually, I wanted to speak to you about that, about reaching Eyton.”
“What about it?” I asked with a frown.
Cayla sighed and then turned to dig through our saddlebags again. A moment later she withdrew a folded piece of parchment that she then spread out on the grass between us.
“I do not think we should stay on the main road for the rest of our journey,” the princess said as we bent our heads over what I realized was a map of Cedis. “There are several large towns between us and the capital, and if Keld is any indication, I suspect most if not all of them will be overrun with bandits.”
“So what do you suggest?” Aurora asked with a tilt of her head.
“We should take the back roads,” the princess replied, and then she pointed to a series of faint, barely discernible lines on her map that wound through the plains and hills of the kingdom. “The terrain is a little rougher, and it would add a few hours to our total travel time, but the back roads are less traveled, which means that bandits probably don’t use them much either since there are fewer people to pillage and plunder.”
Her face twisted into a dark scowl as she said this, and she clenched her fist atop the map until the paper crinkled.
I reached out and wrapped my hand around hers. Then, as if he already sensed what I wanted, Stan hopped off my knee, waddled over to our overlapped hands, and patted gently at the princess’s knuckles. Cayla blinked as if she came out of a daze, and her fist unclenched beneath my palm.
“No offense,” I said gently as I looked into Cayla’s deep blue eyes, “but doesn’t that mean we should stay on the main road? It’s the people in the towns that need our help.”
“I know,” the princess responded, and genuine pain shone in her face, “and I want nothing more than to help them, Mason, you know this. Their suffering is why I came and found you. But…”
“But what?” I prompted when she trailed off into silence.
Cayla sighed. “But we could spend days upon days rooting out the bandits, searching for Camus Dred, and repairing every town from here to Eyton. Under any other circumstances, I would spend every waking hour doing just that, but we have bigger issues at stake. The longer it takes for us to reach my father, the longer it takes for us to investigate the strange attacks that brought us together, the more time this ‘master’ has to regroup and plan his next attack, whatever it may be.”
I frowned as I considered her words. As much as I wanted to deny it, she was right. Whoever this “master” asshole was, he wasn’t good news. I remembered the manic light in Abrus’ eyes as the Lux Mage spoke of him, and I also recalled Nemris’ warning the night of the feast. She called him a “formidable adversary.”
Coming from a goddess, that sure as hell was cause for concern.
I sighed heavily and scrubbed at the beard on my cheeks. “You’re right, Cayla. This ‘master’ mystery takes priority. But I just…” I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers harshly into the sockets. “I don’t like the idea of abandoning all those people to the likes of Camus Dred.”
“I hate it, too,” the princess replied softly as she leaned forward and pried my hands away from my face.
Spots of various colors danced before my eyes, and I squinted to focus on Cayla’s face. “I’m sorry. This has to feel shitty for you, too, even more so I imagine.”
“My father is not the only one who has lost sleep,” she whispered as she averted her eyes. “Nor is he the only one sickened by what has befallen our home.”
I leaned forward, cupped her delicate chin, and tilted her face back toward me. “We’ll find a way to help everyone. I promise.”
“How?” Cayla asked, and her ice-blue eyes shone with unshed tears.
“I don’t know exactly yet,” I admitted, “but I’ll try anything and everything.”
Cayla smiled weakly. “You always have a plan, Mason, don’t you?”
“I’m the man with the plan,” I replied with a grin, “and a couple dozen ideas for new weapons I can’t wait to try out on bandits and evil mysterious bastards alike.”
“New weapons?” Aurora piped up, and she leaned forward with bright eyes. “Like what? Have you made any prototypes yet?”
“Ever the warrior, looking for new toys,” I teased the half-elf, “and seeing as I was busy up until the moment we left Illaria, and given the fact that we’ve been driving for two days, no I haven’t made anything yet.”
“Oh.” The half-elf deflated and sat back on the grass again.
“Sorry to disappoint,” I chuckled, “but I do have some designs.”
I turned and dug around in the saddlebags myself for a moment, and then I extracted my own leaflets of parchment.
“They’re not as detailed as Elias’,” I warned as I handed Aurora the schematics, “but I’ll figure out the logistics when we reach Eyton and I have the space and materials to work with.”
The half-elf studied the sketches that I had thrown together whenever I had a spare moment in the last week. Her eyebrows knitted together as she considered the illustration on the first page.
“Does this weapon… break in half?” she asked in bewilderment.
“That’s called a top break revolver,” I replied with a grin. “There’s a hinge that twists on the bottom.”
“Why?” Aurora questioned as she tilted her head and brought the page closer to her face.
“So I can reload faster,” I explained. “Right now, I have to load the bullets and eject the casings from my revolver one by one. With a top break or even a full double-action piece, though that will take a little bit more planning and experimentation to make, I can load and eject all six at once. It’s much more efficient, especially when we take on Camus Dred or this ‘master’ character.”
Aurora pursed her lips and looked up into my eyes. “And these are all things from your… other world, correct?”
I winced and
then nodded. “Yes. Guns were a common human invention in my world. They’ve been around for hundreds of years. The revolver and rifle I’ve already made are archaic models, some of the first that were made. Not as efficient or deadly, but a little easier to put together with limited resources. The more modern and larger types in my world could rapidly fire nearly a thousand bullets a minute.”
The Ignis Mage’s eyes went wide and then she glanced back at my schematics. “Your world sounds like a dangerous place.”
“It was,” I replied with a solemn nod of my head, “but I’m here now, and I plan to make the most of it. I’m not only planning to make guns once I have some more ore on my hands.”
“What else were you thinking of?” Cayla questioned, and I looked over to find Stan cupped in the princess’s hand once again.
“Well for starters, I want to give Bobbie some upgrades,” I said with a grin as I leaned over and patted my bike on her warm side. “Then I think I should give Stan some brothers, don’t you? Well, maybe cousins. I don’t think we need any more stickmen, but who knows what else I can bring to life. I feel like Dr. Frankenstein!”
Aurora and Cayla looked equally puzzled by the unrestrained glee in my voice.
“Who?” the half-elf asked with a frown.
I waved my hand dismissively. “He’s a man in a story from my world, not important. What is important is us getting back on the road now because I’m pumped to test what else my magic can do.”
I jumped to my feet with a flourish as my heart pounded wildly beneath my ribs and my magic eddied excitedly through my veins. Then I held a hand out to the women still seated in the grass.
“Are you with me, ladies?” I asked with a roguish smile.
Cayla took my hand as she returned my grin, and I easily pulled her up and against me. The princess giggled against my collarbone.
“It seems your enthusiasm is infectious, Mason,” the raven-haired beauty remarked. Then she lifted her hand to show me how Stan was jumping up and down in her palm, which was quite a feat since he didn’t have knees.
Huh. I made a mental note to look into upgrades for Stan later, too. It seemed he had somehow become a part of our little ragtag team. He deserved a little TLC.
“Stan knows awesomeness awaits us on the horizon,” I chuckled.
“Is that what that is?” Aurora asked as she shielded her eyes against the sun and squinted into the distance. “I thought that was more scrub brush.”
“Come on,” I cajoled as I wrapped my arm around the half-elf’s waist and tugged her up against my other side. “Aren’t you just a little bit excited?”
Aurora rolled her eyes again, but her smirk betrayed her.
“Just be careful of that growing head of yours,” she remarked as she reached up and tousled my hair.
I pouted, but then the Ignis Mage rose onto her tiptoes and pressed a warm kiss to my cheek. Not one to miss an opportunity, Cayla did the same on my other side, and I sighed with contentment.
Being sandwiched between, and kissed by, two insanely hot women wasn’t a bad way to go through life.
“Eyton awaits us,” Cayla whispered in my ear, and then she pulled away and moved back over to Bobbie. The princess lifted her hand and pecked a gentle kiss against Stan’s head before she bent down and stowed him once again in the saddlebags.
We packed up quickly after that, and within ten minutes, we had started up Bobbie again and were pulling back onto the road.
Cayla had pointed out the paths we needed to take before we had disembarked, and when we encountered the first side road half an hour later, I steered Bobbie to the left, and we rumbled onto rougher terrain.
The side road was little more than a dirt inlet into the heart of the prairie. The metallic studs that wrapped around Bobbie’s wheels tore into the hard-packed ground and kicked up a cloud of dust in our wake. I squinted into the debris for a moment, and then I sent out a small burst of magic.
The dust cloud scattered around us, and I kept up a constant-if-negligible stream of power to clear our way.
As we rode deeper and deeper into the desert country, the only life we encountered were the soaring birds above our heads. The roar of the engine had faded into the background, and as we coasted, I found myself tuning out. I basked in the warm sun that arched toward the western horizon, and I leaned back into the solid presence of Cayla wrapped around me. For a moment, just a moment, I could let myself believe I was back on Earth, the Midwest open before me, no bandits gunning for our blood, no mysterious and evil master plotting our demise. I was just on a Sunday drive with the women I loved, and we were happy, we were safe.
Which, of course, is when something went wrong.
It happened between one moment and the next. I was sitting there, enjoying the languid rush of the moment, and then my magic snapped to attention inside of me. At first, it hummed beneath my skin like a tuning fork, a low but steady vibration, but then, the frequency and urgency increased until it felt like I had a siren blaring inside my head.
My eyes refocused on the dirt road before us, and I scanned for any threats that could set me on edge like this, but the country was as empty and barren as ever. Just the usual tall grasses and scrub brush waved back to me.
Still, I couldn’t ignore this feeling.
“Stop the bike,” I called to Aurora as I squeezed her hip.
The half-elf glanced over her shoulder, her brow furrowed in confusion, but I let off the accelerator and gently began to apply the brake.
“Stop,” I repeated, and this time the Ignis Mage listened.
I steered the bike to the edge of the road, and a moment later, Aurora killed the engine.
“What is it?” Cayla asked as I lowered the kickstand. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied as I lifted my head and scanned our surroundings again with a critical eye. “I started to get a bad feeling. My magic was going haywire.”
“Is it still?” Aurora questioned as she turned in her seat to study me.
I paused for a moment to assess. “It’s not as bad as when we were moving, but the edge is still there. It feels like a warning.”
Aurora frowned sharply and whipped her head around in search of impending threats. Her emerald eyes dilated in the bright sunlight, and she squinted her powerful gaze into the distance.
“I do not see anything,” the half-elf announced a moment later. “Nor do I smell or hear anybody within a hundred-yard radius.”
“Are you sure?” I asked as I released the handlebars and rubbed at my sternum. “My chest feels sore from how hard my heart’s beating, and my magic feels like angry snakes writhing through my veins. It’s trying to tell me something.”
“Can you determine what exactly it is trying to say?” Aurora questioned.
“No,” I responded as I shook my head. “It’s just like… an alarm going off.”
“Try harder,” the Ignis Mage replied as her brows formed a sharp ‘v’ over her eyes. “Close your eyes and focus. Your magic is an extension of yourself. Listen closely.”
“Okay, I’ll try,” I said with a nod, and then I closed my eyes to follow the half-elf’s instructions.
At first, I couldn’t pinpoint anything. My magic just whirled inside of me like a maelstrom, agitated and untamable, but then I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as I willed myself to calm down.
Slowly but surely, my power began to untangle itself, like vines unraveling. The vague sense of danger and urgency became clearer and more focused. I inhaled sharply, and then I let all my mental walls come crashing down, and my magic flowed out of me like a tidal wave.
It rushed forward along the dirt road, and it sent me back shadowed impressions of what laid before us. I could feel the way the earth breathed and moved, the way the rocks slid together, the way the ground had composed itself. For a twenty-yard radius, nothing stood out to me, everything was normal.
But then I found it.
I snapped open my eyes with a
grunt, and anger swirled with my power to make the dirt beneath us quake.
“Mason?” Cayla asked as she reached out and laid a hand on my arm. “What is it?”
“Booby trap,” I replied through gritted teeth.
“Where?” Aurora questioned sharply, and the half-elf leaned to the side of the bike to grasp her sword that was strapped to the frame.
I lifted my right arm, splayed my fingers wide, and set out a small shockwave of magic. It rushed forward like a dirt devil across the plains, and then thirty yards ahead of us, the road gave way with a sharp crack, and dust billowed into the sky in the shape of a mushroom cloud.
Cayla gasped and clenched my elbow tightly. Aurora’s frown only deepened.
“Do you think it is an ambush?” the half-elf asked me out of the side of her mouth.
“I don’t know,” I replied as I glanced across the prairie again. The fields were flat and endless around us. “There aren’t many places to hide.”
“And I still do not sense anyone,” Aurora added as she pursed her lips. Then she cut a sidelong glance at me. “Think it is safe for us to move forward?”
“I think it’s our only option unless we want to go back to the main road,” I replied grimly. “Keep your eyes peeled for any movement or signs of life.”
“Understood,” Aurora responded with a nod, and then she turned back around and started the engine again.
“Careful,” Cayla whispered in my ear as we began to creep forward.
“Always am,” I said lightly, and I tried to throw a smile over my shoulder, but it probably came out more like a grimace.
We inched along the dirt road as we approached the site of the still-settling dust. I sent out another burst of magic, and then the dust fell back to the earth all at once, like a hazy rain, as we came to a stop again. When the air had cleared, Aurora cursed, and Cayla inhaled sharply.
There before us was a pit about ten feet wide and maybe fifteen feet deep. The fall alone would probably be enough to injure someone permanently, but it looked like the bandits didn’t want to take any chances because the bottom of the pit was also lined with jagged, wooden stakes nearly as tall as I was.
