by V. Moody
“Only,” continued Maurice, “instead of being able to see dead people, he can see dickheads. Like, from a mile away. Don’t know how he does it, really.”
“Far as I can tell,” said Claire, “it works off the basic principle of takes one to know one.”
“He’s a useful person to have around,” chipped in Flossie, “even if he’s real fookin’ annoying most of the time.”
Maurice started picking up his gear, as did the others. “So we’ll be sticking with him, for now.”
“Better the devil you know, and all that,” said Dudley.
It was strange hearing them talk about me. It made me realise they must have discussed these things when I wasn’t around, which in itself was a strange experience. I’ve never been too bothered about people speaking behind my back, because no one cared enough to do it. Most people weren’t aware of my existence, even when standing right next to me.
These people very definitely did know I existed. Was this how it felt to be part of a group? I didn’t know how I felt about this kind of relationship where people treated you like you mattered. I didn’t hate it.
“You’re all crazy!” screamed Sonny. “You won’t get away with this. I’ll make sure of it.”
“You should go find your sword,” I said, pointing into the dark with my own sword. “I think it’s over there somewhere.”
“We should get going before the ogre decides it wants dessert,” said Maurice.
I nodded and grabbed my gear and we headed back to the road. It was dark and hard to see where we were going, but I just followed the person in front of me. They seemed to know the right direction.
9. The Goodbye Girls
We got back on the road and started walking. It was already dark and we were tired, but no one felt like waiting around.
I still wasn’t sure what to make of my companions’ view of me. I don’t think you could call it a compliment. Given the choice of superhero powers, I’m pretty sure most people wouldn’t consider being able to spot a dickhead at five hundred paces an insta-pick.
To be honest, though, I had no magical spidey-sense when it came to horrible people (despite Claire’s theory that my ‘gift’ was due to the old playground adage of ‘it takes one to know one’). A more accurate description would be to say I considered everyone I met to be a dick, and statistical probability just happened to always be in my favour.
“Do you think he’ll come after us?” asked Maurice.
“Sonny? I doubt it,” I replied. “He hasn’t got a horse so he’ll probably go to the farm to get one. Of course, he’s going to bad mouth us to the farmer, but that might turn out to be a good thing.”
“How’s that a good thing?” said Claire.
“The farmboys may already have figured out why we skipped out on their hospitality. If they’re worried we might blab about what they get up to, they could decide to help Sonny take care of us. But if he makes it sound like we’re even bigger psychos than them, they might think twice. I don’t know, it’s probably fifty-fifty, but I don’t think they’ll want to waste time chasing us when they have work to do and an ogre that still needs to be dealt with.”
We didn’t take a break until sunrise. It was much easier to find our way back to the river with a little light to guide us. We washed up, refilled our waterskins and picked some berries for breakfast.
There was still no sign of the city on the horizon, but from what the farmer’s wife had said, we still had a couple of days to go. I wasn’t too worried about our physical condition—even though my body was aching all over from my recent attempts at getting fit—my main concern was Sonny.
Even though I had made it sound unlikely that he would bother to come after us, the truth was Aussies knew how to hold a grudge. I could easily imagine him forgetting about the ogre and convincing the farmer to lend him his wagon. Even with those tired old horses, he’d easily catch us up.
Lunch was handled surprisingly efficiently. Two of us caught fish, two of us started a fire and then prepared the fish as they were caught, and the last person stood out on the road keeping a lookout. We were back on our way in under an hour.
By the time it was dark, we were properly wiped out. I insisted we take turns keeping watch, even though the suggestion received groans all round. Nothing had bothered us for the whole day, not even a questionable sound from the woods. I made various excuses why we needed to not let our guard down, but the real reason was the image I had in my mind of Sonny riding those horses into the ground trying to get his revenge on us. And by us, I mean me.
Maurice and Claire kept the first watch. Flossie and Dudley kept the second. And I kept the third alone, which I didn’t mind. Although I did wonder if the others had spent theirs talking about me. My watch was also the shortest, as I got everyone up as soon as the first rays of the sun appeared over the horizon.
We got going, the day passing much the same as the previous one, save for two things.
First, I had to stop for a toilet break and ran into the woods while the others waited for me. I got past the belt of trees that ran alongside the road and was about to drop trou, when I saw something strange through the trees on the other side of the river. Cliffs.
I splashed through the shallow water and ran to the treeline, very nearly falling to my death. Beyond the trees, the ground fell away in a sheer drop to a canyon below with a rocky bottom. I held on tightly to the tree trunk I had grabbed to stop myself running out into mid-air like Wile E. Coyote.
In a land named for its flatness, it was strange seeing such a shocking gash in the landscape. But not as shocking as what I saw lying at the bottom of the canyon.
I had to get on my stomach and peer over the edge to make sure it really was what I thought, but there was no doubt. Four women lay with their limbs twisted in unnatural positions. It was the four girls who had arrived in the clearing with us, and who had disappeared after the first day. Judging by the way they were positioned, and the fact two were still holding hands, it seemed obvious they hadn’t fallen, they’d jumped.
I made my way back to the others who complained loudly at my inability to do my business in a timely fashion. Which is when I realised I had forgotten to go, and still needed to. Rather than have to explain what I’d been doing, I squeezed my buttocks shut and decided to wait it out.
There was no reason not to tell them what I’d seen, but something told me to keep it to myself, at least for now. I think the others could tell something was on my mind, but they didn’t say anything. I guess they were used to my strange moods.
Those four girls had probably struck out for the city on the first day, thinking that civilisation might offer them something other than murder as an occupation. They would have had water, from the river, but who knew if they found much food. The berries we picked were a nice supplement, but even with all the fish we were still hungry. They must have been starving, and with no sign of their destination, it must have been hard to keep going.
The fact they refused to simply kill because it was expected of them was admirable. That they would rather die than play the role forced on them was kind of brave, I guess. I had succumbed to that pressure, and despised myself for it. Fortunately, I already despised myself for a bunch of other stuff, so I was used to it and didn’t feel the need to throw myself off a cliff. But who’s to say I wouldn’t end up wishing I had?
And if this really was a game, maybe the moment they died here, they woke up back home. Or maybe they woke up in another world, even crazier than this one.
It was because all these thoughts were swirling around in my head that I was the last to notice the second thing. I was a little behind the others so I walked into the back of Dudley before realising they had all stopped. I had to step past him to see what they were all staring at.
In the distance, right on the horizon, tall spires reached up like fingers. Their symmetrical sides and even spacing very clearly indicated they were man made. The towers of a city.
W
e all looked at each other, elated that our journey really did have an end point, and one we looked like reaching. I felt a strange sadness, too. If those girls had kept going for a couple more hours, they would have seen the same sight, and maybe they would have made it. Then again, did Fengarad offer anything Probet didn’t? Perhaps their decision to log out early and take their chances with whatever lay on the other side was the smart move. Only time would tell.
10. Fengarad City Limits
The vision in the distance gave us all a boost. We set off again with renewed purpose, eyes fixed on our goal, although I couldn’t help but occasionally glance backwards to see if there was anyone on our tail.
Whatever Sonny was up to, we didn’t seem to be his main priority as there was no sign of him.
The trees remained as belts on either side of the road, but the forest had faded away and now we were flanked by farmlands. Farmhouses appeared at regular intervals and we even saw people working in the fields.
By the end of the day, the city’s outline had become clear and distinct. A high wall with turrets, behind which rose an assortment of tall buildings, dwarfed by a series of spires. Rather than rest for the night, we excitedly pushed on.
By sunrise the next morning, we were exhausted but within a stone’s throw of the city walls. The most noticeable feature from this distance, however, wasn’t the architecture, it was the huge line of people. As we got closer, I realised they weren’t just waiting for the gates to open—the gates were already open. It wasn’t like a line at the supermarket checkout, it was like a line outside a phone store waiting for the new iPhone to be released.
The people looked like they’d been waiting there for days, maybe longer. Many had little camps set up and were making breakfast around small fires.
“Should we get in line?” said Maurice, anxiously pushing his glasses up his nose. It was a massive queue that went all the way along the wall and disappeared around the corner.
“Let’s check the front first,” I said.
There are some people who can go to the head of a line with a swagger, loving the feeling of being more important than the plebs. And then there are others, like us, who feel horribly embarrassed to be cutting ahead of people who have been waiting for much longer.
We made our way to the gates, heads down, avoiding eye-contact with any of the people to our right, although I could hear them grumbling as we passed.
The entrance was a large archway with a raised portcullis. Four soldiers, their chests covered by leather scale and wearing rounded metal helmets, high boots and baggy shorts, guarded the entrance with long pikes. The soldiers looked pretty relaxed, using the pikes to lean on rather than intimidate.
An officer of some kind—I assumed this from his fancier uniform and the fact he had a clipboard—was talking to the man who was first in line. After a brief conversation, the man and his family picked up their gear and followed the officer through the archway.
At the same time, a wagon, loaded with barrels and pulled by large dray horses, rolled past us. The driver waved at the guards and rode through the gates without fuss.
I took out the card Grayson had given us. On our journey here, we had all attempted to learn how to read, which had been surprisingly easy. Grayson had given us a kids’ alphabet book and we quickly worked out it wasn’t all that different from our own language. Their alphabet used different symbols, but they matched our own letters one-to-one. So, while we used ‘A’, they used a small spiral. For ‘B’ they used two curves on top of each other. But in every other way they followed the same rules we did; made the same sounds, formed the same words. This seemed very suspicious to me.
Anyone who’s seen Planet of the Apes (the good version) knows the scene at the end where the Statue of Liberty rising out of the sand reveals to our hero that he is in fact on Earth. But this shouldn’t have been a surprise, since the apes he’d encountered all spoke English. Bit of a giveaway.
Since arriving in this world, I’d noticed that when people spoke to us, the words didn’t seem to match the movements of their lips. Some kind of magic that allowed us to understand them, I figured. But their alphabet being a simple coded version of our own seemed too simple to be anything other than a cheap way to make this world seem alien while keeping it easy to understand, like you would in a game.
Although I still hadn’t found any concrete proof this world was some kind of VR simulation, the circumstantial evidence was continuing to mount; in my mind at least. I definitely felt someone out there was pulling the strings, although it could just as well be a Sauron as a pizza-guzzling software engineer.
The card Grayson had given me said we were Visitors and were to be allowed full access to all cities under the Treaty of the Four. Considering how we had attacked Grayson, I had been worried it might contain instructions for our immediate imprisonment, but it was a very short statement we had been able to decipher easily, despite Grayson’s terrible handwriting. Although that may have had something to do with me stabbing him just before he wrote it.
I walked up to one of the soldiers holding a pike, and held up the card. “Can you tell me if we have to wait in line?”
He casually glanced at the card, and then his eyes widened. “Wait here.” He turned and ran through the archway.
A moment later, the officer with the clipboard came jogging out, followed by the same soldier.
“Ah, hello. Right this way. Follow me, please.” The officer, who was younger than I’d thought he’d be, spoke in a bright, cheerful voice.
There was a bit of a commotion along the line as people watched us receive special treatment, but it was more out of curiosity than animosity, I’d say. A bunch of hobos in rags suddenly getting whisked past the velvet rope would raise a few eyebrows in any world.
We were led through the archway where there were a number of low buildings. We weren’t actually in the city as there was another wall ahead of us, with another archway. Through that, I could make out numerous buildings.
The officer, who hadn’t introduced himself, showed us into one of the buildings. The room was full of benches and a number of people, including the family we had seen enter earlier.
“Please wait here while I inform the Commander of your presence,” said the officer. He nodded to the soldier who remained with us.
We sat down, all glad to have a chance to rest. We’d walked through the night to get here, and the adrenalin rush of finally reaching our goal had worn off. We were too knackered to do anything other than sit there.
“I hope you have something to offer the great city of Fengarad,” said a large man with a painted face. I don’t mean he had makeup on, I mean he had paint on his face. Black panda eyes, bright red cheeks, and a white strip from his nose down to his chin.
“I hope so, too.” I smiled politely and looked at the others. They were all very studiously looking elsewhere.
“I’m Cordibar the Tremendous, magician and sage. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
On hearing the word magician I suddenly perked up. For someone like me with poor fighting skills and a terrible physique, there was only one way to become OP—learn magic.
I shuffled along the bench. “You can do magic?”
“Of course. Birthdays, parties, functions of all sorts—Cordibar will keep your guests entertained!” He twirled his hands and produced a rather limp bouquet of flowers out of nowhere. Or possibly from his voluminous sleeves.
Disappointed, I again smiled politely, and slid back down the bench.
The officer returned and I looked up expectantly, but he rushed past me. He stopped in front of Cordibar the Tremendous. “We’ve checked the records and have a report from the City of Dargot about a children’s entertainer called Candimar the Terrific.”
“Never heard of him,” said Cordibar.
“If you think we’re going to expose our children to a pervert like you, you’re sadly mistaken. Guards!”
Four guards appeared. Cordibar leapt to his fe
et with surprising agility considering his large girth.
“This is a travesty. You have no proof. No proof!”
There was a puff of smoke and Cordibar disappeared. Everyone was left baffled, until Cordibar appeared from behind a bench, crawling towards the exit on all fours like no one could see him.
The guards grabbed him and man-handled him out of the door.
“This is an outrage! I’m not a pervert, I’m an entertainer!”
“I do apologise,” said the officer. “The Commander will see you now.”
We followed him down a corridor into a large office. Behind an impressive desk sat a stern-looking soldier with a walrus moustache, a bald head and a monocle. He rose as we entered and came over to shake out hands.
“Commander Ducane. Charmed. Delighted. Charmed. Please sit. It’s an honour. A great honour.”
