by Jae Vogel
Sean had found the aquarium with Emily. Both of them were looking at the strange creature inside it. Sean tried to move close to her, but she only let him casually make contact. The moment he brushed up against her, she pulled away. He doubted she would do that if Dion bumped into her.
“You have any idea what this thing it?” she asked Sean. “It doesn’t appear to be a mouse or any kind of rodent I’ve ever seen. Wait, I think there it is again.”
The creature poked its head out of a hole and crawled over to a water pan where it took a long and slow drink out of it. Now that she could see it better, Emily realized it was some sort of lizard. It only had two front legs, but resembled a reptile in every other fashion. It was about ten inches long and turned to look at her with a scowl. Whatever it was, the creature didn’t seem to like them starring at it.
“A tatzelwurm,” Hobbs called out to them. “Be careful and don’t get too close. He’s harmless most of the time. I keep him around because he lets me know if anyone is trying to shoplift.”
“It can do that? How would it know?”
“Go ahead and reach behind the counter,” Hobbs told her.
Emily shrugged and stuck her hand on the other side of the glass case.
The moment her hand touched the other side of the case, the creature in the aquarium turned and looked at her. She looked back at Hobbs with a “Well?” expression on her face. Nothing had taken place.
Then a loud wail came from the aquarium, which caused every other customer in the store to turn in its direction. The wail emerged from the small lizard inside it. As Emily jumped back, she heard it continued to make the wail with its snout open. How could a little thing like that make such a loud noise? The moment her hand was down by her side, the wail began to die down. Soon it was gone, but the tatzelwurm continued to glare at her, its tail twisting inside the aquarium.
“Now do you understand?” Hobbs said. “Just don’t do it to spite him, because then he’ll get really mad.”
Emily backed away slowly from the tank and walked over to Dion. Sean followed. He made a mental note of how she’d instinctively gone to Dion and ignored him when she was frightened.
What am I, invisible? he thought to himself. All this time and she still can’t fall back to me when she’s scared. It made him recall all the other times Emily had called him for support, only to find reasons not to take his calls later.
“Where did you get that monster?” Emily asked Hobbs. “That thing scared me to death with that scream.”
“I thought it was time I showed him off. I’m sorry if he frightened you, but it’s been too long and people tend to forget he’s in the aquarium.”
Hobs turned back to Dion. “So what did you need this time?”
“Those security guards are a nuisance,” Dion explained. “Whoever owns this mall has them following me all over the place. Every time I turn around, they are there. Do you have something which will let me know when they’re about to show up?”
“I have just the thing for you,” Hobbs announced as she ducked below the level of the counter again and brought up another carved box. This box was much larger than the last one and he sat it again on the counter. As the four friends looked on, Hobbs unlocked it with a key from a collection of them in his pocket. He opened the lid to let them see what was inside.
It was a crystal ball. A plain crystal ball. The exact same kind used by fortunetellers. The ball was the size of a sixteen-pound cannon ball and polished to a smooth finish. Light passed through it, but was bent in strange patterns as it came out on the other side. The ball sat on a base of black velvet and was in the shape of a complete sphere. This one had no flat resting side ground into it. It had no fissures, cracks, or any imperfections on the surface.
“Where did you get that?” Dion asked. “I haven’t seen one of these in a very long time.”
“I doubt you’ve ever seen one like this. I bought it from a clairvoyant who was down on her luck. Too many unforeseen circumstances.” Hobbs snickered on the last comment.
“So if it didn’t work so well for her, how is it supposed to work for me?”
“It works just fine,” Hobbs said, his hairy fingers in movement across the smooth surface. “But it won’t work for just anyone. You see, the ball will tell you what you should know, not necessarily what you want to know. She bought it from some place I know nothing about, but I’m sure whoever made it knew what they were doing. You might ask how I would know this. I know this because the ball has allowed me to see things I found out later were true. Sometimes it shows me future events, but if I take precautions, they don’t come true. Now how is that? If it was something from the future, should it not happen anyway? I don’t know, but I suspect the ball fixes on the person who looks into it and allows them to see what they should. I think the ball is good at making estimations. It estimated that there would be a revival of black light art and I bought the stock of posters you see in the shop. It estimated water beds would pass as an interest, but they still sell in some parts of the country, just not like they used to sell.”
“How does it work?” Lilly asked him.
“Simple, you look into the crystal ball. Just like in the movies. You don’t ask it anything; you look and see what it will show you. If the ball decides you are worthy, it will let you see what you should know. The fortuneteller thought the ball would tell her the future, but it doesn’t always do that. Try and use it to make money and it will tell you falsehoods. Too many of her customers found this out and abandoned her. Now she’s selling real estate in Florida. Maybe she’ll be able to predict the market future, but I doubt it.”
“I don’t want to look into it,” Lilly said and turned away. “There is too much in the future and present that I don’t want to know. I’m afraid and I don’t want to know any more.” She moved away from the ball and turned her back on it.
Sean looked at the ball. It drew him in. The surface was smooth and the depths of it clear. Was there something inside the ball? He couldn’t tell. It was a clear crystal, but there seemed to be some reflection of light on the inside. He looked closely at it again and the light merged into a face. Sean blinked his eyes and the face became focused. It changed color and merged into the image of Randi, the cheerleader. She blew him a kiss.
Sean shook his head and the ball was clear on the inside again. He moved away from it. That thing was dangerous.
Then he saw Emily looking at Dion with the same look of longing she always showed him. She hadn’t looked in the ball, but Sean didn’t need to do it again to know what that represented. He turned away from the ball and faced the wall too.
Dion stared into the crystal and watched closely. He needed to know where the security guards would appear again. He might return and use the ball for more information, but he needed to know what they were up to at that very moment. He waited and the ball allowed him to see where they were throughout the airside of the mall.
The second thing he wanted the crystal ball for was to locate some place Karanzen and his goon squad would leave them alone. There had to be some place where they could go that the security chief would avoid. Within the mall were many places unknown to the regular shoppers who frequented it. All they had to do was to find the right place and make a straight line to it. But where could he find it?
Dion looked into the ball and the sparkles on the inside began to swirl and shift. He found himself pulled into the vision before him. Inside the ball, he saw a man working at forge of some kind. He had long hair and a beard to match. In one hand, he wielded a big hammer, which he used to pound at a piece of hot metal on an anvil before him. The man, a Viking from his clothing, began to sweat as he slammed down the hammer on the object in front of him. He constantly pounded away until the metal began to flatten out. This was serious work and he applied himself with diligence to it. Dion could hear the ringing of the hammer as it pounded downward on the hot steel before him.
Then the vision began to swirl again and he sa
w a stand in a market where the same man sold his wares. Other Vikings walked up to the objects on display and examined what he had for sale. The man who had pounded them into shape now expounded on the value of each one as his potential buyers nodded and looked them over. A few men reached into pouches and their hands emerged with gold coins to drop into the hand of the smith.
Finally, the vision faded away and the sphere was blank on the inside. The crystal ball had shown him what he needed to see that moment.
Dion looked up; he knew exactly where to go in the mall to get away from the security staff.
“There is a knife shop,” he told his companions. “We need to go there.”
“A knife shop?” Lilly said. What was it with the quest he was on and kitchens? “You mean like the cookware store where we lured the bull into yesterday?”
“No, this place sells collectable knives and weapons. They have a large medieval reenactor client base. I’ve been in it before and the ball advised me to go there. I suspect there is something to do with what it sells and Karanzen. We need to go there as soon as we can.”
Dion looked up at Hobbs. “I don’t know how to thank you for your help, but I can’t lug this ball around with me. How much do I owe you? Is there some way I can have it shipped to my aunt and uncle’s house?”
“Don’t worry about it. You can come back and use it whenever you need to. You family helped me out a lot over the years and I don’t forget people who do me favors.”
Hobbs closed the box and locked it. In one swift motion, he returned it to the space under the counter.
They found the knives shop quickly with the aid of the map. It showed them the best way to get to the location by way of a spotted line when Dion touched the shop’s location on the map with his finger. The line drew itself across the map and through the mall, avoiding the passageways, which only the mall employees knew about. It was a simple matter to walk the distance and consult the map at each junction. Dion noticed it changed directions several times, which he decided had to do with the locations of the guards and the human traffic in the mall. It was crowded in the main concourse, as the shoppers were there to take advantage of all the sales. A few times, he noticed the spotted line fade away, then reappear on the map, and show a better way to get to the shop.
“How does that thing work?” Lilly asked him as she watched him consult the map. She was astonished how effective it was when the lined reappeared a second time.
“I have no idea. It’s part of a system I know nothing about. But it seems to be actively finding us the directions we need.”
“Imagine having something like that in your car,” Emily said. “You’d never have to pull over and ask directions again. I used to work in a grocery store near an exit ramp from the interstate. We had to give people direction four and five times a day who were lost. With this map, it would never happen. All they would need to do would be to ask it for a location.”
“It’ll never happen,” Sean spoke up as they looked at the map. “No way would the map companies every allow that to take place. Not to mention all the stores which depend on people wandering in, trying to find something that isn’t there?”
“At least it works for us,” Dion said. He rolled the map up and placed it under his arm. Now that he had a chance to see what it could do if it was truly needed, he understood why so many of the elementals wanted to get it away from him. The map was a unique device and was worth its weight in gold many times over.
Chapter 7
Sharper Edges stood in front of them. In the display case a selection of bladed instruments were available for passer-byers to look at. Some were fancy, some plain, but all were the product of exquisite craftsmanship. They could see the blue reflection in some of the weapons at the distance and admired the scabbards and other accessories, which went with them. So far, they did not see any of Karanzen’s men anywhere around the store, but they might show up without warning.
Thor Chariot stood at the counter where his wares were on display. He watched the four young people enter the small knives shop he maintained inside the mall and looked at the display. Thor liked to stay on the customer side of the display cases as it allowed him a chance to interact with his potential buyers. This was his first store inside a shopping mall and he had a difficult time when he bought the permits to open it. The local zoning board looked at a knives store only slightly better than a tattoo shop and those were restricted to outside the township limits. It took him an entire day and a suit with tie to convince the hearing board his knives were works of art and would not be coveted by the average street criminal. It was only when he offered to post a large indemnity bond they relented and approved his permit to sell edged artisanal creations in the mall.
He’d expected these four. Something was in the air today. The people who worked in the mall, both human and not, told each other what was going on at any given time. There was an informal network of gossipers who were sure to let the store managers and their employees know if gangs of shoplifters or building inspectors were on the prowl. The mall was free of most thieves because the ones which escaped, or were lucky enough to be arrested, warned the others what waited for anyone who was caught. No one wanted to spend an hour or two in Karanzen’s holding cell. It wasn’t what was done to you; it was what you saw while you were inside it.
Thor was aware of the true nature of the mall and what it hid the first day he opened his store. He cast the runes on the counter that day and they told him all he needed to know. The place stood over an entrance to something ghastly. It seemed Valhalla was relocated and placed on the plains of Ohio for people to find at their own pace. But something was brewing inside that clock tower and he didn’t like it. Should the sensations he received become too intense, he would look elsewhere for a store location.
The word on the sales floor was that the mall management had it in for some tall kid who would be in the mall all week. He was trying to find something and they didn’t want him to locate it. What it was, no one knew, but the cleaners had unsuccessfully tried to keep him from reaching a pharmacy in the other section of the mall. Today he was in Thor’s side of the mall and things were stirring in the air. He’d seen the cheerleaders with a whole group of enthralled men who watched them in silence as they did their routines in the main concourse. It wasn’t the sort of thing the mall management would normally permit, so they had to have some kind of reason to have them there.
“Would you like to see anything?” he said to the group as they walked inside. “We have some of the finest steel on this side of the planet.”
Dion walked over the nearest case and looked inside. The prices were steep, but he could see the signs of the metal folding in some of the knives. He noted the expert care which went into the construction of the handles. Each of these weapons was designed to hold up under the worst situations imaginable. Not one of these blades would snap if pressure were applied to them.
Emily couldn’t understand the reason for this shop, but she followed Dion into it because he said the security staff wouldn’t come inside. Right now, there were no other people in it besides themselves.
Sean was surprised at how Emily reacted to the display of cold steel. She walked around and looked at each one with keen interest. For the first time she turned her attention away from Dion and stared at the edges and patterns before her. None of them could be handled unless the storeowner took them out of the case, but it didn’t stop her from gazing over them. The knives and swords, which he had on display behind him, held her fascination. What was it that attracted her attention in a way he’d never seen until now?
“And you must be the kid who has attracted the mall management’s attention,” Thor said to Dion. “I don’t know what you did, but they are looking for you today. They don’t seem to want to prevent you from coming into the mall, which makes me believe you’re not a thief. So you must have something they really want down in the tower.”
“It’s what they don’t want me
to possess,” he said. “There are places in this mall they never want me to reach. If I succeed in my quest, they never will be able to carry out all their plans.”
“Plans? What kind of plans? I didn’t think that bunch in the tower cared about a thing other than the bottom line.”
“I’m not sure what they’re up to,” Dion said. “But whatever it is, they want me out of the way. They’ll do anything to keep me under control. Right now, they’ve managed to get several people into the mall I need to see. So long as I have to see them, they can control my access.”
“How long have you had this store?” Sean interrupted. “It looks pretty new.”
“Five weeks, at this location. I was in several places before I signed the lease for this one. I hope I made the right decision coming here. The foot traffic is much better than the old place, but the sales haven’t picked up that much. I’ll see how they look in the upcoming months. I had three other locations before I came here. None of them seemed to generate the foot traffic I needed to make this a going concern. Two of them had enough space for my foundry, but I’ve since moved all my equipment out to a shed behind the house where I live. I decided it was time to separate the production end from the sales part. I spend two days in the shop and five here. Haven’t had a vacation in years, but it’s the price you pay for being your own boss. I spent years on the renaissance fair circuit chasing sales that way, but I got tired of all the moving around. Finally decided to settle down in one location and here I am.”
“Wow,” Sean said, “you’ve always made swords and knives for a living? That is so cool. It sounds like the life we’d all like to lead.”
“Not so exciting when you have to get a blade forged to have something to sell because you don’t have any money left to pay bills. I’ve been up until two in the morning pounding steel because I needed inventory for a show. I’ve worked as a vendor all weekend only to have one sale, a ten dollar polishing cloth. But at the same time, I’ve sold enough steel in one hour to make the next month tasty. You can never tell in this trade how you will do from one year to the next. And by the way, I’ve done a lot of jobs beside this one while I was learning the trade.”
