It was just about sunset when Longfellow announced, “We be coming up on your Dragonfly.”
“Not according to the map,” protested Dangalf.
“Your map be wrong.”
“The map is never wrong,” insisted Dangalf. Longfellow didn’t bother to argue with Dangalf as Dragonfly came into view in rebut. “The map has just changed,” said Dangalf as the name Dragonfly was erased on one spot and reappeared at the correct location.
The town was comprised entirely of boats and ships. Residences, merchants, and government offices were all shipboard so that when threatened they could haul in their anchors and docks and depart en masse like a dragonfly skittering across the water. As such they occupied no permanent spot on the map but instead rotated through a trio of locations. Dangalf figured the map must have first indicated where Dragonfly was located when Icil had last visited.
“Finally,” said a wan Nerdraaage. They had only stepped onto the dock when they were greeted by the port-reeve, who was also the town scrivener. Portsmouth had sent word that the Keepers would be arriving. He welcomed them with genuine excitement, which flattered the Keepers, and introduced them to the sergeant of the guards and the smithy. Dragonfly was so small a town that the smithy was on the short list of village dignitaries.
They asked about lodgings and the port-reeve walked them down to the commercial dock. On the way, the port-reeve proudly pointed out the landmarks of his town, which where in fact not landmarks in the traditional sense. Keeping the town on boats was thought to be more practical than installing the substantial defenses necessary for a river town so close to enemy lands.
The tour ended at the tavern and inn, two sister ships opposite one from the other on the same dock. The tavern was called the Astrolabe after the ancient navigation instrument. Painted on the side of the tavern was the promise “Where the longitude meets the labitude!” Already the tavern was full and boisterous, sailors being the same in every universe.
They thanked the port-reeve and went first to the inn, the Anchor Watch. The rooms were small and oddly shaped and without portholes. This required that they each take their own room, but the cost was not much. They offered a room to Longfellow, but he asked for the coin instead and slept on his boat.
The inn and tavern were both owned by Captain Gordon, who ran the tavern and left his widowed sister in charge of the inn. The Keepers put their things away in their rooms and met back on the bow. Nerdraaage announced that he had had enough of this rocking ship and was heading to the Astrolabe. He did not stop or even respond when Ashlyn said the tavern was also a rocking ship. The others followed.
As the Keepers were about to push into the Astrolabe, two rough dwarves limped out, each with one boot on and the other boot full to the brim with beer. And all along Dangalf had thought Donald had been speaking euphemistically: There comes a time when every dwarf must stop drinking beer from his boot.
The Astrolabe was crowded with human sailors and fisherman and travelers, but there were also a few women who will be charitably described as entrepreneurial. Dangalf noticed how the ruffians leered at Ashlyn, and he stood close to her.
Doppelganger pushed his way up to the bar. The patrons he bumped turned to him angrily, looked at his size, and begrudgingly made room for him and the Keepers. Dangalf apologized to one relocated human, but that just seemed to make the man angrier. Dangalf moved quickly to put Doppelganger between him and the crazy-eyed man.
Captain Gordon was well decorated with ink and was very fit. Dangalf was glad to see him smile. The customers looked rough, but at least the owner was kindly. Dangalf was already missing the quiet civility of Templa Taur.
“What’s your poison?” Gordon asked. He was a great talker especially with people just hearing his stories for a first time. He told them he had gotten lucky as a privateer and decided to take his substantial booty, buy a couple of old whaling ships, and retire to a safer profession before he got unlucky.
Behind him was the largest and most explicit portrait of a mermaid that any of them had ever seen and seemed to answer the ancient riddle of how a human could have intercourse with the legless beauties. “I like your painting,” said Nerdraaage when Gordon returned with the beers.
“Thank you, master dwarf,” said Gordon. “That is Vaylana, the only lass I ever loved.”
Dangalf laughed and then on Gordon’s hurt look said, “Oh, you’re serious.” Gordon turned his back and moved down the bar. “I’m such an idiot,” Dangalf said to his friends. “Mermaids are real here.”
“Everything is real here,” added Ashlyn.
And the drinking began in earnest.
Doppelganger and Nerdraaage stood at the bar. Dangalf and Ashlyn sat at the first table that became available. Ashlyn had become quite the tease since she had come to terms with her sex while sobbing on Dangalf’s shoulder. She could not imagine hiding her long legs under the table, so she sat on the table with her feet resting on a chair.
They kept drinking until even the drunks had tired of drinking and moved on. Gordon snoozed behind the bar. The Keepers and only a few diehards remained in the tavern. “The more I drink, the steadier this boat becomes,” said Nerdraaage with a laugh. “Maybe I will set to sea with you after all,” he told Doppelganger, following up on a topic introduced by Gordon a few hours ago. “Kraken don’t scare me!”
But Doppelganger was fixated on an elf at the other end of the bar. “How did an elf merchant get a sword like that?” he grumbled.
“Walmart,” said Nerdraaage laughing.
“Elf,” he shouted in the otherwise subdued bar. “I like your sword. Where did you buy it?”
Dangalf and Ashlyn turned from their own conversation. Dangalf’s expression said, What now? He knew sword buying was a Red School insult. Weapons were handed down, awarded, captured, or made with your own hands. Gordon’s tavern keeper’s sense caused him to blink awake, and the stragglers in the bar, despite their drunkenness, quieted and turned to the elf for his response.
“If you would like it, come and take it,” said the elf without looking. His dispassionate response would have been a sober man’s first warning.
But Doppelganger was drunk. And he had faced many opponents, and none had bested him. And he had killed now, and he was good at it. “I will duel you,” said Doppelganger. “And I will take your sword when I win.”
“A wager,” said the elf, finally looking up to Doppelganger. “And what do you wager in return?”
“I have nothing as valuable as your sword. Only some gold coins.”
“Keep your coins,” said the elf. “If I should win, I will take the she-elf for the night,” he said turning to Ashlyn.
“No!” Dangalf said as he rose.
“We are not slavers, elf,” said Doppelganger. “She is not mine to wager.”
“You sport such confidence,” said the elf. “I thought your companion might share it. My sword against a night with your she-elf.”
“We accept!” shouted Nerdraaage.
“No we don’t!” shouted Dangalf.
“I hear so many voices, but not the one that matters,” said the elf, fixing his gaze on Ashlyn.
“She’s off the table,” said Dangalf. “Well, I mean she’s on the table. But she’s off the table as far as any wager is concerned.” And then he said angrily, “Doppel, you’re drunk.”
“Listen to your friend, Doppel.” And the elf turned back to his drink.
“I don’t need to be sober to beat your likes,” said Doppelganger.
“Then just duel him and forget the sword,” said Dangalf.
“I won’t insult my friend,” said Doppelganger. “What else can I wager?”
“As you said, nothing of the value of this sword,” said the elf.
“What of this?” said Doppelganger, and he exposed his adamantine breastplate.
The dwarf turned to him, for the first time not looking dispassionate. “And how would you come by adamantine?” said the elf softly, almost
to himself.
“No,” said Ashlyn standing. “Not that. If you win, I will spend the night with you.”
“No,” protested Dangalf, but the wager was set, and no one wanted to hear his protests.
“It’s a sure thing,” announced Nerdraaage. They walked out to the dock.
“Here or on land?” asked Doppelganger.
The elf removed his cloak and looked down the forty feet of pier. “Here. I do not want the walk to last longer than the duel.” Ashlyn had never seen such a mesomorphic elf before. He was packed with bulging muscles. “You are a healer?” he asked her.
Ashlyn hesitated before answering. She nervously clutched her druid collar and realized how he had guessed. “Yes.”
“Be ready to help your friend.”
Nerdraaage approached Ashlyn urgently. “Don’t heal Doppelganger until the duel’s over,” he said. “That’s cheating.”
“You said the elf didn’t stand a chance,” whispered Dangalf.
“He might get lucky,” said Nerdraaage.
Doppelganger took his axe from his sheath and crouched for combat. He had six inches and a hundred pounds on the elf. “Take out your sword, elf!” he commanded.
“I am ready,” said the elf.
“I won’t tell you again,” shouted Doppelganger. This elf mocked him, and it was good. His rage was overtaking his drunkenness.
“I am ready.” Doppelganger did not like attacking an unarmed opponent, not of a righteous race anyhow. But this elf mocked him and needed to be punished. It would be up to Ashlyn to heal him.
Doppelganger raised the axe to strike the elf with the bottom of the handle. Before he could move the axe forward, the elf stepped in close to Doppelganger and also took hold of the axe handle. Doppelganger saw the elf’s muscular upper body. It was as if an elf head had been planted on a human body. A powerful human body. And the elf now had a better grip and more leverage on the axe than Doppelganger had. Doppelganger was in jeopardy of being knocked backward to the ground unless he released his own axe.
The elf struck his palm to Doppelganger’s nose and in the same movement pulled Doppelganger’s axe away from him and held it, laughing. This infuriated Doppelganger. Though logic dictated that he concede at this point, the bloodwarp had begun and would not let him. He grabbed and took the elf’s sword from its scabbard. The cocky elf grabbed quickly for his sword but was too late. Doppelganger took it and thrust it at the elf’s chest. The elf, however, was too fast and turned what could have been a deathblow into a flesh wound across his chest.
The elf cried out more in rage than in pain. And then it happened almost instantly. The elf was overtaken by his own bloodwarp. If it hadn’t been apparent before, all now knew that Doppelganger fought another of his own class. And one much better. They faced off now as warped human and warped elf, with reddened skin and blackened veins pulled tight over bulging muscle and bone.
The elf was expert, though, and had experienced many bloodwarps both involuntary such as now or at will when battle required it. And to a certain extent he had the ability to sublimate the bloodwarp when outside of true and frenetic combat. He heard in the background, over the coursing humors that pounded in his ears, the plea of the she-elf but he couldn’t immediately understand her. And so he abated his instinct and desire to behead Doppelganger. It would have been easy for him to do but he was all too aware of the consequences of killing a duelist so much below his own rank. Murder, the lawful good called it. And he had known too many of his elite brotherhood felled by that charge. But this human was so stubborn and strong that he might not allow the duel to end until he was mortally wounded.
With blazing speed, the elf struck Doppelganger with the axe, blade sideways, so it bashed him like a mace. He next relieved Doppelganger of his sword and sliced it across his belly so that the beer he had drunk but not yet digested poured out onto the pier. Let the smell of his beer and blood and belly juice let him know what a terrible mistake he has made tonight, thought the Elf.
Doppelganger, dazed from the bash, fell backward. He had enough sense to hold his sliced belly with his hands to keep his guts from exploding out when he crashed back onto the dock. And he was mostly successful at that as he landed with a bang and a squishy sound.
The elf now registered Ashlyn’s cries that her healing was “not good enough.” He felt a bitter chill pass through his body, and he spun around looking for the source. The mage of the group stood holding a wand, wide eyed with terror. But all of those of the elf’s kind were warded against such low-level spells. “Put that wand away,” he commanded.
Ashlyn kneeled beside Doppelganger to heal him. He was still taken by the bloodwarp, which was good. He would not feel pain, and his clotting would be rapid. First she cast a healing spell to stop his bleeding. It did not work. He was losing the redness of the bloodwarp, and even the normal tan of his face turned pale as his humors poured from his belly. She had seen enough in her training to recognize that his very life was draining away, and she was not good enough to prevent it.
“Ashlyn,” said Dangalf dumbly.
“He’s over water!” shouted Ashlyn. “I can’t heal him away from the land! Drag him to the shore!”
“He’ll die first,” said the elf. “Use your well!”
Her well of electroplasm. “I haven’t enough,” she cried.
Suddenly, Captain Gordon pushed his way past the gathered bystanders and kneeled next to Doppelganger. He lifted his head and held a potion in an ornate bottle to his lips. The Keepers had seen that bottle before. Doppelganger’s eyes were rolled back in his head and he could not drink.
“You must heal him!” said Gordon. “Bring him back enough so that he can drink!” So she cast her best healing, and without being able to draw on the protoplasm of the living land, it took all of her small electroplasm pool. She fell forward on her palms, almost fainting.
Doppelganger blinked back to consciousness, and Gordon poured the potion into his mouth. Doppelganger swallowed. The bleeding stopped. Organs repaired themselves and were drawn back into his body’s cavity. New pink flesh stitched up his gaping wounds. “That tastes terrible,” complained Doppelganger.
Dangalf recognized the signs of electroplasm depletion in Ashlyn. He kneeled to her, but she waved him off. He checked on Doppelganger, who was still recovering but would clearly live. Then he went to Gordon. “Can we pay you for that potion?”
“You cannot just buy these,” said Gordon. “And what of the next fool dying on my pier? Will I just throw your coins at him? You’ll replace it, you will.”
“I have a gravewhisper flower,” said Ashlyn weakly. “You can have it.”
“There you go, Captain,” said the elf. “A master alchemist can make three healing potions from a flower. He’ll keep one for himself, and you will have two.”
“I suppose that will do.”
“It will do tomorrow,” said the elf. “She has other obligations tonight.” He stepped to Ashlyn. “Heal me.”
“I cannot,” she said without looking at him. “I am empty.”
“I will fix that soon enough.” And then he turned to Doppelganger, who was getting off the ground with the help of Nerdraaage and Dangalf. “Because I am ever magnanimous, I will say this to you stranger: You are not the disgrace that you originally presented. You fight well enough for your station. You may even have a trace of honor when you are sober. May this defeat make you a better fighter.” Doppelganger turned away from the elf wordlessly with the help of his friends. The memory of his rage and near death and his present humbled state would not allow him to be magnanimous.
Dangalf and Nerdraaage helped Doppelganger onto the Anchor Watch. Dangalf looked back to Ashlyn and was distressed to see that she was remaining behind, limply, on the dock. He would drop Doppelganger in his room and rush back to her.
The elf turned back to Ashlyn and smiled down at her. “I have traveled this world for many days without fair haven,” he said. “And I can not imagine that
any is as fair as yours.” Ashlyn then realized that, despite the violence of the night, the elf still intended to collect on his wager. She looked up at him angrily for what he had just done to her friend, but there were other emotions that began to rise in her as well. She ran her hands across his chest and was able to stop the bleeding. “What is your name?”
“Ashlyn.”
“Dream,” he smiled. “Tonight you are my dream. My name is Niall. Do you have a room here?”
She thought this is how every female should be taken, as the prize in a battle between two dashing warriors. But how to act? She did not want Niall to think of her as a coney. (A drunken dwarf had called her that in Hammersmith. To her immense pleasure, Nerdraaage had risen and punched his brother dwarf to the ground. She teased him mercilessly about it, but she was flattered that he had risen to her defense while Dangalf had closed his eyes in semislumber and researched what a coney was. After all the violence was done, Dangalf opened his eyes and announced that a coney was a rabbit but it was also used to describe a promiscuous female. And then he asked why there was a dwarf on the floor.)
Ashlyn had felt sexual desire before in this world, especially since coming to terms with her sex, but nothing like her desire for this Niall. But she was also fearful of this strange elf with supreme confidence and violent prowess. And this fear only fed into her desire. And the desire fed into her fear. It was intoxicating. She looked up at him with the innocent expression of a virgin on the cusp, because in this world, in this gender, she was just that. “I have a room,” she said. Niall took her hand and took her to her room, and then he took her.
Cronica Acadia Page 31
