Call of the Hero

by Robert J. Crane

  “How did you not know that?” Curatio asked. “For as long as I've been in this city it's been commented on, and that's obviously quite some time.”

  “Forgive me for not living my life in the gutter, mind always on the filthiest of common denominators like the rest of you,” Vara said.

  “Well, you're married to Cyrus now, so I'm sure that's changing,” Vaste said, drawing a sour look from Curatio. “What? I believe her; he's still alive.”

  Alaric clenched his teeth, but turned back to find the customs inspector wagging a finger at Captain Mazirin, whose eyes followed the finger with a very subtle hint of irritation beneath her near-implacable facade.

  “...I don't know how they do things in Amatgarosa, but the last thing we need here is more lost souls trapped without any hope, and if you don't speak a whit of the language, how are you supposed to have a dollop of hope? They can't even find the loo, and let me tell you,” the customs inspector leaned in, a little smile on her face, “I know my most hopeless moments have been those where I've needed one and can't find it, if you know what I mean. And I'm sure you do. We ladies know, don't we?”

  Mazirin's eyebrow twitched slightly. “So...if I provide them a translator, you will let us offload our cargo?”

  The customs inspector held up a lone finger. “Yes. But...so help me, if I catch wind that you've dumped them off, if I see you sneaking back through the dockyard gates without them in a few minutes, I will force your takeoff immediately. I might even suspend the right of all Amatgarosan freighters of this class to land for a week or two.” The inspector cocked her head, clear threat made obvious by her manner and bearing. “Don't think I don't know you carry extra ship plaques in your hold to change your names.” She chortled. “I wasn't born yesterday. I expect an earnest effort to guide these travelers, you hear? Or else.”

  Mazirin just stared at her. “As we say in my land: 'You strike a fair but equitable bargain'. It will be done as you say.”

  “Ah. Jolly good,” the customs inspector said, and signed off on her paper with a flourish, little pencil scratching out something on her clipboard. “Make your mark here.”

  Mazirin did so, then handed it back to the customs inspector. “We will begin offloading our cargo as soon as our broker arrives dockside.”

  “Very well,” the customs inspector said. “You going to be using local labor to unload?”

  “Some,” Mazirin said. “But also my own crew to speed the process. We have new cargo coming in tomorrow and a quick turnaround back to Firoba once it's aboard.”

  “Ah, the glamorous life of a freighter captain,” the inspector sighed. “Always sailing the ten winds. Breakfast in Vanreis, lunch in Farthoon, dinner in Mianguang.” She shuddered in pleasure, squealed in excitement. “Always thought it'd be an exciting life.”

  “If you ever decide to undertake it, let me know,” Mazirin said, back to expressionless. “I could use a chief negotiator with your skills. Though your grasp of distances is a bit lacking.” She said the last part under her breath.

  “Oh, you're too kind,” the inspector gushed, reddening. “I'll get out of your way and let business proceed apace.” She gave a glance toward Alaric and the others. “Very. Nice. To meet. You!” She said nearly every word with a slow halt between them, and loudly.

  Alaric cocked his head at her, then bowed at the waist, sharply. “You are a very odd woman,” he said in ancient. “And a busybody.”

  “You really are terrible at this,” Curatio said, also in ancient. “Did you just call her a whore?”

  “I think he was aiming for saying she's busy with her body,” Birissa said, in perfect ancient, much smoother than Alaric's, he had to concede, “but it came out that she uses her body often and unpleasantly.”

  “Such a lovely language,” the inspector said, turning to leave. “Do you have any idea what they're saying?”

  “I think I understand the basics,” Mazirin said, casting a dark look back at Alaric. He doubted she did, but then again, he wouldn't have predicted Birissa, a traveler from other lands, would know it. “Good day, madam.”

  The customs inspector disappeared over the gang plank, and a few moments later, Mazirin turned back and nodded once, signaling that she was away.

  “How in the hells do you know the language of the ancients?” Vaste asked Birissa.

  “And I thought you were pleased not to be romancing a moron,” Vara said.

  “I, too, wonder at the answer to this,” Curatio said.

  “Am I the only one wondering what they were saying?” Hiressam asked.

  “Does your crew always chatter this furiously among themselves?” Mazirin asked, reaching Alaric's side again. There was, once more, he noticed, a veiled aura of danger hanging around her – and perhaps a bit of exasperation, too, a feeling he knew all too well from hanging around with this lot.

  Alaric shrugged apologetically. “I try to get them to take these things seriously, but...”

  “Some of us are never serious,” Vaste said. “Oh, sure, we're mostly serious when facing death, but...not entirely. Never entirely. I promise you, I will never let threat of death nor peril stand in the stand in the way of a good wisecrack.”

  “That is a promise as good as gold,” Curatio said.

  “Which you owe me–” Vaste said.

  “I'm not paying you anything for being vaguely certain that Malpravus was malingering about somewhere in all this when I never accepted that bet,” the healer said, hackles rising. “Now stop whining like a child about it.”

  “I am sorry for the difficulty you are being put to in all this,” Alaric said, focusing on Mazirin.

  She raised a thin black eyebrow at him. “To which difficulty do you refer? Leaving the dock and saving you from certain death at the Citadel? Or being forced to assign one of my valuable crew to shepherd you around your own city in order to preserve my ability to land here?”

  “She was probably bluffing about that threat, don't you think?” Hiressam asked. “A single customs inspector suspending all Amatgarosan freighter traffic for a week? That'd cost Reikonos a fortune.”

  “Given that word has probably not trickled down to her about one of our class of ship appearing at the Citadel before it exploded,” Mazirin said, “no, I don't think the threat is idle. I think it likely it will happen regardless, and I want my ship at least unloaded before it does.” She turned and snapped a quick word at a man standing behind her. He answered back in the affirmative, and the crew, already moving, scrambled to a higher speed of effort.

  “Again, I am sorry for the troubles,” Alaric said. “If you'd let us borrow Dugras for a short bit, we will be reaching our destination in an hour or less, and he could even leave us shortly after—”

  “No,” Mazirin said.

  Alaric cocked his head at her. “'No' to giving us Dugras? Or 'no' to him leaving us within an hour to—”

  “No to both,” Mazirin said, turning to shout another command at a waiting crewman. He nearly fell over, changing direction mid-run, altering his course to bolt inside a door beneath the raised rear deck where the ship's wheel stood. He was only inside for a moment when he appeared again, a thick belt in one hand with a long, curved sword on one side of it, a shorter curved sword on the back, and a pistol holstered at the other side.

  Captain Mazirin took the belt and snugged it around her waist. Alaric looked at the gun with distaste, which Mazirin caught as she fastened the buckle. “I cannot spare Dugras at the moment. He has an appointment with the ship's engines, and I trust no one else to work on them. Similarly, the rest of my crew will be hurrying to offload cargo as quick as possible, in fear that an interdiction order will be passed down soon, halting our work.” Smoothing her coat about her thin frame, she brushed out a stray wrinkled on one of the lapels. “There is only one member of my crew that is non-essential in the next hours, and it is I.”

  “I...very much doubt you are ever non-essential—”Alaric started to say.

  Mazi
rin snapped her fingers, and the crewman who'd brought her belt hurried back to work. “Come now, Ghost of Sanctuary. As leaders, our final task is making sure that the people in our command are ready to succeed us, or else we have failed in our most important of responsibilities – the care of our crew.” There was a certain knowing glint in the depths of her eyes, a strange commonality Alaric found, a resonance in what she said. “I will come with you and fulfill this promised task.”

  “I hate to think of the difficulty we have given you in this,” Alaric said, bowing his head. “Truly, I owe you a debt I am uncertain I can ever repay.”

  “Indeed,” Mazirin said, long coat stirred by the wind just beyond her knees. “But every moment we waste talking here only adds to it, so perhaps it would be better for you if you made any further apologies as we walk.” Her lips tightened into a thin line, almost a smile. Though not quite.

  “Very well,” Alaric said, and gestured for her to go first down the gangplank.

  She shook her head, then matched his gesture, causing Alaric to pull up short, his manners causing him to lock up as Mazirin turned and shouted something to a crew member on the edge of the ship's cargo hold, the deck doors now open wide and a crate being lifted out by a whistling, steaming, mechanical crane.

  “Oh, fine, I'll go first, then,” Vara said, bumping past Alaric as she headed down the gangplank.

  “You must admit, though,” Vaste said, following her, Birissa walking a pace ahead of him, “it is rather hilarious watching Alaric trip over his manners trying to make a lady like that go first while she's having none of it.”

  “I am not—” Alaric started, but stopped himself midway through his fruitless denial. Hiressam went next, offering him a pitying look as he passed. “You should look into acquiring some manners of your own, all of you.”

  “Realized the futility of your denial part way through, did you?” Curatio asked, not even bothering to hide his smirk as he headed for the gangplank.

  “Shut up, you,” Alaric said, falling in behind the healer. A quick look over his shoulder and he knew that Mazirin was only a dozen paces behind, finishing her shouted conversation in her own language with the crewman at the cargo bay.

  “I must say,” Curatio dropped his voice lower, “Vaste's witticism aside, it is rather amusing to see this, you know?”

  “Me 'tripping over my manners'?” Alaric asked, a step behind the elf, balancing on the gangplank. It was a long fall, the ship's deep hull rested in a neat artificial canyon of wood designed to keep it from tipping one way or the other. A curious design decision, Alaric thought. Wouldn't it make more sense to build a ship's hull square? So that it didn't require a dock like this? “I'm sure it's quite amusing, watching this old knight fumble around in a new world, trying to match the expectations I find here.”

  “Oh, it's not that at all,” Curatio said, a bit lightly. “You've adapted to changes in the world before, my friend, grumbling all the while, of course.” The healer turned back to him, eyes sparkling. “No, it's not the change in the world I'm laughing at, though I think the others probably are.” He slowed his pace, leaned in close, as Alaric neared him. “It's the change in you I'm enjoying. After all – it has been a thousand years or so since I've seen you smitten.” And with a wink, Curatio started moving again, flawlessly down the gangplank, leaving Alaric behind.

  “Something the matter?” Mazirin asked, reaching him.

  Alaric blinked and looked back at her. “No. Sorry.” He waved a hand to indicate the narrow plank, only a little wider than his shoulders, and at the ground some twenty feet below. “Just had a moment of discomfort is all.” He picked up his pace again, closing the last few steps to the waiting, wider platform at the end of the plank. Stairs waited to take him down, down to the yard floor and the cobblestone road that ran past the ship, on which his crew waited. He paused, giving but a glance back to Mazirin as she effortlessly covered the last steps to the platform. “It is quite the interesting life you have here. A fascinating occupation. At least to me. Sailing the winds, to lands unknown.”

  Mazirin gave him a wary eye. “But not to me, you think?”

  Alaric forced a smile. “You are worldly, I suppose. Have seen much more than I. Much that is beyond the grasp I have of such things.”

  Mazirin nodded slowly. “We all have to start somewhere. Perhaps, in time, you will find yourself sailing the winds as well, increasing your knowledge of the world.”

  “Perhaps,” Alaric said, and for a moment he envisioned just that, a bright horizon flaring to life, a distant city on it, so different from the ones he had known here in Arkaria or Luukessia, even in days of antiquity. There was an element of excitement to it that took his breath away, even for that brief instant, and his skin prickled in anticipation of that mere idea. To see the world, to feel the wind, to be on the bow of that ship as it cut through the sky, bearing him toward some new and thrilling destination – that would be a hell of a thing, filled with wonder and yet familiarity, if he but had a guide at his side to show him the way.

  Someone like—

  Alaric quickly put that thought aside, with but a nod. “I have much to do here before I could even consider such a journey.”

  Mazirin seemed to understand, and nodded once more, only slightly. “Of course.” This time, she raised her hand to indicate he should go first. “Shall we?”

  Alaric looked her in the eyes, but briefly, then lowered them and looked away, afraid she might see him redden. “Of course,” he said, and descended the platform to where the others waited, Mazirin following closely – but not too closely, he noticed, embarrassed that he did – behind.

  Chapter 10

  Cyrus

  “Could you possibly weigh any more?” Guy asked as Cyrus hit a particularly uneven set of cobblestones and nearly bowled the smaller man over. Cyrus, for his part, was quite used to dealing with smaller people in every facet of his daily life, and thought little of the fact that Guy was nearly five heads shorter than him. At a certain point, it became difficult to tell – from his heightened perspective – exactly how short someone was, comparatively. Past a couple heads lower, they all looked roughly the same shortness. That was, perhaps, one of the things he appreciated about Vaste, really – he was the one person left that Cyrus had to look up to in a literal way.

  Thinking then of Vaste, Cyrus replied, “Yes, I could weigh more. Instead of honing my strength and keeping myself fit and compact, I could have gone slovenly and let my arse and waist expand in all directions without regard to whatever poor unfortunates may have to help carry me in the future. Fortunately for you, I have not done that.”

  “You sure?” Guy asked, grunting as he tried to keep Cyrus from toppling over on a busy avenue, the smaller man's eyes darting frantically, scouring the crowds for trouble as he pushed Cyrus back to upright. “Because I'm becoming more and more certain that your arse, expanded or not, is a bloody leaden weight.”

  Cyrus did not bother to offer reply to that. What could he say? He was having difficulty walking, probably owing to injury sustained from being flung out of the Citadel and catching himself on the downward arc only by repeated – and barely effective – uses of the Falcon's Essence spell. It had resulted in a sort of weak stair-step down, keeping him from taking all the impact of the fall in one hard landing.

  Still...the landing he'd had? It had been plenty hard.

  The only thing keeping him going at this point was the help of Guy, which was not the most comforting thought Cyrus could recall experiencing in his years of life and struggle and battle and war. Far from it, in fact, given that he was in a strange (to him) city, recognizable only at the most basic level. Some places in Reikonos seemed passingly familiar; others were so alien to him they might as well have been some unknown elven labyrinth, with their reddish brick and piping smokestacks and ashy dusting everywhere you went.

  “Watch where you're going!” some fellow in a rounded-top hat said as Cyrus staggered, bumping him with a pa
uldron and nearly turning the man around.

  “I see where I'm going very clearly, thanks,” Cyrus called after him as the fellow disappeared into the crowd. “I just can't control it very well.”

  “Might help if you weren't buried under a ton of armor,” Guy said, seizing Cyrus by the arm and hauling him back to upright. He was showing a remarkable tendency to slump and weave, Cyrus noted. There wasn't much he could do about it, the slump a natural reaction to the pain radiating from his ribs, and the weave originating from the swells of agony coming from his left knee with every step he took.

  “That armor plating saved my life and, by extension, yours,” Cyrus said. “So it stays.”

  “I hate that I can't really argue with that point,” Guy said, seizing hold of Cyrus just before he threatened to become unbalanced and topple over again, “but I hate more the fact that I'm having to drag your arse upright again and again to keep you from crashing into the people passing by or smashing through the windows of 'dese shops.”

  Cyrus took a couple staggering steps over to a bare patch of brick wall, nearly wiping out a woman in a frilly dress with a train that stretched behind her like a silken centipede. He finally stepped over it, crashing shoulder-first into the brick to keep from falling over, the woman letting out a little shout of surprise and fleeing, probably afraid he was going to plow into her.

  “Let me rest here for a moment,” Cyrus said, trying to calculate in his head how long it had been since he'd had his flight from the Citadel. Probably a half hour, forty-five minutes. Not good. He focused his thoughts on the healing spell, and let the words flow through his mind. His hand glowed with white light, then turned starkly red at the tail end of the casting. He felt a little sting deep within him as a little more of his life bled out into his spell. The pain in his ribs and knee subsided by a fractional amount, and he straightened only a bit.

  “We can't stay here in the open for long,” Guy said, looking up and down the street as though a dragon was going to come swooping down and eat him at any second. “The Machine is everywhere, and everywhere they're not, they've got eyes.”