by C. M. Carney
The Mayor was finishing his speech and turned to me. “Does the condemned have any last words?”
“I do.” I cleared my throat in an overly dramatic and obnoxious fashion. This went on for several seconds before the Mayor’s irritation boiled over and he snapped at me to get on with it. “There are no perfect men nor many perfect women. I am not a perfect man, nor a... Umm… perfect woman, but I have tried to live my life by the ideals I believe in. Sure sometimes those ideals have led me to unfortunate incidents of mass murder, and maybe, just maybe, occasionally, I liked the killing, but I ask, does that make one a bad person?”
Numerous nods and several confused mumbles of “yes” filled the crowd, even from some of those who had, until then, been real supportive. This isn’t going quite the way I’d hoped. “Anyway, my point is, that we all try to do the best that we can in this life. That, I guess, is my message to all of you fine folks gathered here today.” I paused, and aside from the occasional cough, the crowd looked at me with confused silence.
“Okay, anyway, that’s about all I have to say today, apart from this. Kids, say no to drugs, just do it and, uh, stay in school.“ I looked right at the Mayor and grinned. He scowled through his thin lips and his weasel eyes glared judgment.
“Catch ya on the flip side,” I said, and I sent a mental command to the port stone. I felt Vonn grab me a bit too tightly, like a girlfriend really turned on by a ride on her hunky boyfriend’s new motorcycle. I only had a moment to feel uncomfortable however before the world turned inside out. Light expanded and contracted in concert. Up became down, left became right and then we shifted and we were somewhere else. I fell to my knees and the thin gruel and rock hard bread they’d fed me in the pokey came back up.
“You okay,” I heard Vonn say. I waved my hand back at him in annoyance. Why does everyone else seem immune to that shit? At least this time I was on some soft grass. After a minute I regained my composure and stood. Vonn handed me a water skin. I drank heartily and then passed it back to him. “Thanks,” I said. “For everything.”
He nodded and then pointed at my face. “You got a little something in your beard there.”
I reached up to find my beard had not survived my retching unscathed. Bits of partially digested muck crusted my thick facial hair. “Uggh, I need to shave this thing off.”
Vonn handed me a satchel that looked remarkably like my own. I opened it to find all my gear. My eyes snapped up and he answered me before the question even formed on my lips.
“I told you I was more rogue than knight. While everyone was all distracted with the mass arrests and your interrogation, I took some liberties with the town evidence locker. Got me some good stuff too.”
I jumped at the man and gave him a huge hug. “You’re my second best friend in all the Realms,” I said, struggling to hold back a sniffle. “Of course that may have something to do with the fact that I’ve killed almost everyone I know a few times too many.”
“Yeah, you should probably leave that habit in the past.”
I grinned, suited up and had a look around. We were in a valley, between a few tall peaks. Up ahead was an ancient looking tower. It was circular and made of more metal than stone. Around its base was a mound of dirt and grass that resembled the opened peels of a banana as if the tower had recently pushed itself up from under the earth.
“That is Thalmiir architecture,” Vonn said in a stunned tone.
“Yeah, so?” I said.
“The Thalmiir have been extinct for centuries, and their cities were all lost.”
“Gryph,” I said. “What have you done?”
With nothing else to do, Vonn and I walked towards the doorway into the tower. I knew that my Player was somewhere in this ancient lost city, and he needed me.
THE END.
I Hope You Loved Killing Time.
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The Realms Book Two : The Lost City
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Acknowledgments.
I couldn’t have made this book what it is without the help of numerous people.
Thanks to Erica, my first reader, and my biggest champion. I’m sorry I’ve made you a dork (or perhaps I just revealed that you always were).
Thanks to my sister Melissa, who will only hear about this from others who actually read the book.
Thanks to Charlie and Mary Lou Adams for so generously letting me house sit their home in Colorado. Without your roof over my head I’d still be slogging away at the book before this book.
To all of my friends, including Rob, Sean, Clint, Erika, Kyle, Wade and too many others to name.
And Finally to my awesome Beta Readers, including Zach Goza, Robert Peterson, Doug Loshe, Thomas Garst and Erica Rasborn. Without you guys, Killing Time would be a shell of what it is today. Thank You.
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