Return of the Dwarf King

by Charley Case

  Pulling up the photo gallery app on her phone, she started scrolling through pictures until she found the one she was looking for. She’d had made a scan of Jeff’s note and was planning to post it to Reddit to see if anyone could translate it for her. She didn't really want to do that, just in case it was personal, but so far, nothing else had worked. Maybe this guy could help. He did seem to at least understand runes, or his tattoos wouldn’t be so perfect.

  It was a long shot, but at this point, she didn’t have anything to lose.

  Pressing the ignition button again, she shut the engine off and climbed back out of the car. Before she could change her mind, she marched toward the convenience store, her phone in hand.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” she reasoned when she was about ten feet from the door.

  A blue flash of light from inside the store made her stop in her tracks. A second later, a young man in the store’s uniform slammed the door open and sprinted out and around the building. He was gone before she could say anything, and when she turned back to the door, the large bearded man was pushing his way out, his face full of confusion.

  “Hey! Stop! I just wanted to trade for some information!” the man shouted, throwing his hands up, and disturbing his pet lizard.

  The lizard lost its balance and, to Mila’s horror, unfurled two, foot-wide butterfly style wings to steady itself, before folding them back and settling on the man’s shoulder once again.

  Mila’s mouth hung open, her hand outstretched, holding her phone, as she began to take a step back.

  The man glanced her way and leaned in to take a look at the small screen. Then a huge smile spread across his face.

  “Finally!” he said, his eyes locking with hers. “Someone who still knows the script!” He frowned, reading further. “However, I have to say this is a pretty dour letter to show a stranger.” His smile returned slightly. “Are you a dryad?”

  A whole lot of information was fighting to be heard first in Mila’s mind; the thing on his shoulder that was definitely some kind of dragon, the fact that this guy could obviously read Jeff’s note, the store clerk running off into the night, just how big this guy was, the fact that they were now alone and he out-sized her by at least a factor of three, the blue flash of light that was not in any way natural.

  But the thing that won out over all of that other stuff was his last statement.

  “A dryad?” she asked, blinking dumbly.

  His face fell a little. “Oh, sorry. I see now that your teeth aren’t sharp. That was my bad.” He held out a huge hand. “My name is Finnegan Dragonbender. It’s a pleasure to meet you…?”

  She didn't know why she did it. She should have turned and run, but instead, she reached out with her free hand and shook his. “Mila Winters.”

  “Mila, that’s a good name. Sounds almost elvish.” He hiked a thumb to his shoulder. “This is Penny. She’s glad to meet you too.”

  Penny rolled her eyes and snorted a small flame from her nostrils.

  That little jet of flame was what put Mila over the edge. It was too much.

  Her mind shut down. The world went black, and she fainted.

  Chapter Five

  Finn quickly reached out and scooped up the short black-haired woman before she could hit the ground. He had seen the wild look in her eyes and figured she was about to run like the store clerk, so he was a little surprised when she’d fainted instead.

  He looked down at her, cradled in his arms, appreciating her fine features and olive skin. A warm feeling spread through him, and he glanced up at Penny, who craned over his shoulder to get a good look at the small woman.

  “You know, Penny…” Finn gave her an earnest look. “I’m starting to think magic isn’t really a thing here on Earth.”

  Penny rolled her eyes and locked gazes with him. “Squeeeee?” she drew out sarcastically.

  “Yeah, all right. Enough attitude. It was your shooting flames into the night that finally pushed her over the edge.”

  Finn looked around the empty gas station, not wanting to have to answer any questions about why he was holding an unconscious woman. That sort of thing didn’t go over well on any planet.

  “Is that black vehicle hers?” Finn asked Penny, jutting his chin at the Hellcat.

  Penny shrugged, then hopped off Finn’s shoulder and onto the woman’s stomach. With careful hands, she began searching the pockets of her jeans. After a few seconds, she pulled out a red key fob with a few metal house keys, attached by a frog keychain.

  Penny pressed a button, and the lights on the Hellcat flashed. She pressed another button, and they flashed twice.

  “I guess that’s hers.” Finn started for the car. “Hey, Penny, grab her screen device thing. She dropped it.”

  Penny swooped off his shoulder and grabbed her phone from the ground, the bulk of it making her flight unstable.

  Finn awkwardly opened the door of the car and gently set the woman in the driver’s seat, closing the door after her. Then he walked to the other side of the car, opened the passenger door, and climbed in, but left the door open.

  Penny came around the open door, flying low, the weight of the phone keeping her down. Her teeth were gritted in effort. Finn reached for it, and Penny gratefully released the heavy thing and landed on his lap to take a quick breather.

  Finn looked at the woman, making sure she was doing okay, then read the note again.

  “Penny, take a look at this.” Finn held the phone screen out so Penny could get a look at it from her perch on his knee. “Does it seem like it was written by a dwarf?”

  Penny scanned the note and shrugged. After a second’s more consideration, she shook her head. “Squee scritt?” she suggested.

  Finn frowned and looked back at the screen. “Yeah, I was thinking troll too. I thought we didn't find any trolls on the manifest.”

  Penny again shrugged, “Clich sri cree.”

  “True, it wasn’t an official manifest, but we paid good money for that thing.”

  Penny raised an eye ridge and puffed some smoke out of the sides of her mouth.

  Finn waved her comment off. “Just because it was wrong about a few things doesn’t mean it was fake. Maybe it was just an early copy or something.”

  This time, Penny rolled her eyes, but before she could comment, her head snapped to the side to look at the woman in the driver’s seat.

  Finn turned and saw that she was awake. “Oh, hello. Sorry, we didn’t know where else to put you. Hope you don’t mind, but it seemed like your friend was in trouble,” Finn held up the phone and shook it, “so I thought I’d better stick around. Plus, Penny is really sorry for the scare she gave you earlier.”

  Penny smiled, showing rows of sharp, white teeth against her blue skin. Finn knew she was trying to be friendly, but he also knew that seeing a smiling dragon was a mixed bag for the recipient.

  The woman tensed when she saw Penny baring her teeth at her and slowly reached down between her seat and the door. She never took her eyes off the dragon, and Penny, for her part, glanced Finn’s way while trying to hold the smile, which was quickly slipping from genuine to forced.

  In a sudden move that made both Finn and Penny jump, the small woman pulled a short bat from beside her seat and brandished it at them in the confined space.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Her voice was high and tight with mania, but it also had a musical quality that Finn really liked. “Why are we in my car? What the fuck is that thing?” The last was said with a shaky finger pointed at Penny. “Is it a dragon?”

  Penny’s smile grew and she began nodding. “Squee. Click shii!” A small jet of flame punctuated the statement, making the woman jump back against the door and point the end of the bat at her again.

  “Whoa, let’s all just calm down here,” Finn said, holding up his hands.

  The end of the bat swung to point at Finn’s face. “Don’t you tell me to calm down, Mountain Man! You tell me what the fuck is going on right n
ow, or I will beat you both to bloody pulps.”

  “Um, okay.” Finn carefully smoothed down his beard, then held out the phone for her to take.

  She snatched it out of his hands and looked at the note on the screen. Her demeanor changed instantly, as if she remembered she was the one who’d approached them.

  “You can read this?” she asked, raising a manicured eyebrow.

  Finn nodded. “It’s in the language of my people. Well, mine and a couple other races. Why did you show it to me?”

  She swallowed, then glanced down at the note. “Because I don’t know what it says, and you have markings on the side of your head that match the note. I thought you might be able to read it.”

  Finn and Penny glanced at one another.

  “You can see the marks on my head?” He lifted his hair and turned to give her a better look.

  She stared, her face scrunching, then leaned in, the bat still between them. “What the hell? I swear you had runes tattooed on the side of your head earlier.”

  Finn’s hopes fell slightly. He did have runes tattooed on the side of his head, but they were only visible if the person looking at them was a magic-user. This woman obviously wasn’t, and neither was the clerk in the store. The guy who’d hit him with his truck had been odd, but Finn was pretty sure he wasn't a user, either.

  Earth was turning out to be nothing like he thought it was going to be.

  “You know, your friend is in real trouble, according to that note.” Finn sighed and looked at Penny, who knew what he was about to say and gave a sigh of her own. “I’m guessing you don’t have any experience finding people?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll help you find your friend if you help me navigate this odd place.”

  “This odd place?” She raised an eyebrow. “The Kum & Go?”

  Finn furrowed his brow. “I thought you called this Earth?”

  “Where are you from, exactly?”

  “We hail from—”

  Penny cut him off with a puff of flame and a stern look.

  “Uh, Canada. We’re from Canada.”

  “That actually explains a lot.” She bit her lip and frowned at the note on her phone. “You say he’s in trouble?”

  “Afraid so. From the looks of it, he was kidnapped, but he knew it was coming. I have a ship with scanners that could find him, but I need a few parts to get it working.” Finn smiled.

  Penny smacked her forehead with a taloned hand.

  “A ship? Like, a boat? In the mountains?” The bat was thrust into his face. “Who the fuck are you? No lying, just the straight truth.” She pointed at Penny as an afterthought. “And what the hell is that?”

  Finn and Penny exchanged looks. Finally, Finn shrugged, and Penny waved for him to continue. She crossed her arms and huffed.

  “Well, as I said before your unplanned nap, this is Penny. She is one of the last Faerie Dragons in the universe and my stalwart companion.” That elicited an eye roll from the little blue dragon, but Finn pressed on. “And I am Finnegan Dragonbender, third son of His Majesty, four hundred and sixty-seventh of Yimr, King of the Dwarves. You can just call me Finn.” He held out his hand for her to shake.

  The bat didn’t waver as she stared at him, then down at Penny who was standing on his knee.

  Penny nodded and flashed her a smile.

  “One of three things is happening here.” The woman put the bat in her lap and held up a finger. “One, I’ve gone completely insane.” She held up a second finger. “Two, you’re completely insane, but have also trained a lizard that can breathe fire, and looks a whole lot like a dragon, to understand human speech.” The third finger went up. “Or three, this is all true, and my friend is in real trouble, and you are the only person I’ve come across that knows how to find him.”

  She was quiet while she considered. Then she turned and started the car.

  “Close the door and buckle up. And don’t even think of trying anything, I have a taser, and I have no problem using it.”

  Finn smiled and pulled the door closed. After a second, he found the seatbelt and secured it with a click. “Where are we going?”

  “My office,” she said, pulling out of the gas station, and taking the entrance ramp to 70 East.

  She punched the gas, and the Hellcat roared to life, rocketing them onto the freeway. Finn felt the thrill of power rumbling through his seat and let out a laugh of joy.

  She smiled and glanced at him. “Mila. Mila Winters.” She reached over and quickly shook his hand. She started to pull back but saw Penny had a small hand out ready to shake. To her credit, Mila only hesitated for a few seconds before offering a finger, which the dragon gripped and shook.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mila. This vehicle is quite invigorating.” Finn was all smiles as they passed cars and underpasses.

  “You are a strange man,” she said, changing lanes with a quick flip of the turn signal.

  “I’m not a man. I’m a dwarf.”

  Mila shook her head. “Dude, you can’t say that. They’re ‘little people,’” she mumbled.

  Chapter Six

  “Why don’t you use the towers for housing like everyone else?” Finn asked, staring out the window at the passing city. “Having a city spread out this way seems like a poor use of resources.”

  “Towers?” Mila said, cocking her head to the side. “I mean, there are skyscrapers downtown, but those are mostly businesses. I suppose a lot of people live in them, too. Do people from Canada live in towers?”

  “What?” Finn looked her way and caught Penny giving him the eye. “Oh, uh, yeah. I suppose they do.”

  “How long have you been in the states?” Mila asked, switching to the exit lane.

  “The States? I don’t follow. What are the states?” Finn felt he was starting to lose her, but he was so far out of the loop, he wasn’t aware there was a loop to begin with. The only information he knew about Earth people and places was from the black and white movies he had recorded from TV signals he and Penny had happened to find. He was starting to think those movies were rather old, and perhaps a little out of date.

  Mila gave him a sidelong glance. “The United States of America. The country we’re currently in?”

  Finn saw her look. He’d better play it cool, or she was going to reconsider helping him.

  He gave a forced chuckle. “Oh. Up in Canada, we call it The United. We’ve been here for about three hours.”

  Mila laughed. “Three hours? What were you driving, a jet or something? I thought you had a boat.”

  “No.”

  Finn didn’t know what else to say. This place was very confusing to him. There didn't seem to be any magic, even though everyone he had come across so far had shown that they themselves had the ability to use magic. He could see the aura around them all from the corner of his eye, but not one of them so far had shown the slightest magical ability. He decided a change of subject would be better.

  “So, what is it you do, Mila Winters?”

  “I’m an anthropologist at the Museum of Nature and Science,” she said, sitting up a little straighter in her seat.

  “What’s that?” Finn asked.

  Mila shrank back down. “I find and study ancient civilizations and their cultures. I also study artifacts.”

  That caught Finn’s attention. “You find artifacts? That’s what me and Penny do!”

  Mila took the exit for Colorado Street and turned right on a red light after checking for traffic. “You find artifacts? You’re an archaeologist?”

  “No, I’m a treasure hunter.”

  Mila was quiet, but the frown on her face was not a good sign.

  Finn felt he better elaborate before whatever he had said was taken wrong. “We do research on lost or stolen objects and find out where they were taken, then we take them back.”

  That seemed to mollify her. “So, you’re not a grave robber?”

  Finn ha
d done his fair share of grave robbing, but only when the object was important enough that if it were lost forever, it would be a tragedy. Or if it didn’t hurt anybody. And he only went after dwarven-made objects, which, according to dwarven law, all belonged to the royal family anyway. But he felt like here on Earth, “grave robber” was a dirty word.

  “I’m sure some would label me that out of spite, but they’re usually just mad that they didn’t find the artifact first.”

  “What do you do with them? The artifacts?” Mila asked, turning into a large, open, green space with a huge, sleek building to the left. She turned left toward the building, taking the speed bumps slowly as the engine growled, wanting to be let loose.

  “Usually, I give it back to whoever hired me to find it. But if it’s too dangerous, I will return it to the family vault. Sometimes, if I’m working on my own, I sell them,” Finn said, leaning down so he could see the whole building out the passenger-side window.

  Mila pulled into a spot up front and shut the engine off. “That sounds suspiciously like you’re a for-profit tomb raider.”

  Finn smiled and glanced her way. “Sort of. But I try to stay out of tombs on principle.”

  “I’m not going to lie, Finn. I don’t know how I feel about that. But I need your help, so come on.” She climbed out of the car and waited for Finn and Penny to follow before locking the doors.

  She led him to a side entrance and used her key card to unlock it. Holding the door open for him, she motioned for him to enter. “After you. Take a right, then the second door on the left.”

  Finn walked past her, having to turn slightly sideways to fit past her and the door. Penny scurried up onto his shoulder and glanced over her wing before quietly saying, “Scrich, crii squeek?”

  “I don't know that I completely trust her,” he replied in a whisper, walking down the carpeted hall. “I just think she can help. Plus, what are the odds that one of the first people we meet is in need of someone who can read the dwarven script? It’s fate.”

  Penny rolled her eyes so hard she nearly fell off his shoulder. “Chir? Squeech cri.”