Return of the Dwarf King

by Charley Case

  Fragar unfolded and sliced through the magical thread as if it were a simple string. A shockwave ran back along the line and sparked when it hit Lithor’s fingers, making him scream in pain. The other half vanished the instant the line was severed, and Mila slumped to the ground and sucked in a deep breath.

  Penny dug her claws into Lithor’s face, eliciting a scream of pain, and making him fall to the pavement. He held his right eye with his good hand, blood pouring from a gash in his cheek and the eye.

  Finn grabbed the arm of the Kashgar with the knife, allowing the two with bats to hit him across the shoulders. His rage let him shrug off the blows with barely a twitch. He pulled the wrist with the knife, making the man stumble forward out of control, and sent him knife-first into the Kashgar behind Finn, who had his short sword raised for a killing blow. The knife sank into the swordsman’s chest, making his eyes go wide as he collapsed onto his comrade.

  Finn spun to the bat wielder on his left and charged, lifting him in a low tackle and slamming him to the ground, knocking the wind out of his opponent by driving his shoulder deep into the Kashgar’s stomach.

  He ripped the bat from the downed man’s hands and lifted it to block the downswing of the other bat, but it wasn’t there. Instead, he saw Mila slashing the walking pole across the other man’s back and shoulders.

  He cringed in pain and turned to face Mila, but Finn threw his bat as hard as he could. A crack resounded as the wooden implement slammed into the back of the Kashgar’s head and dropped him instantly.

  The sound of slamming doors and squealing tires made Finn jump to his feet and get ready to dodge a van, but the vehicle was speeding away from them.

  Finn breathed deep, letting the rage subside as best he could to assess the situation. There were only three Kashgar left, the one with the knife and the mage both fleeing the scene without them.

  Penny landed on his shoulder and fed some of her calming magic into him, resulting in the smell of spring flowers filling the area and his rage being sucked from him. He took a deep breath, his calm self once again reestablishing control.

  “Thanks, friend.” He patted Penny’s small shoulder, and she tooted a ring of smoke in reply.

  Finn turned to see the three remaining Kashgar’s heads surrounded in a bubble, which popped, wiping their memories and rendering them useless for interrogation.

  “Are you okay?” he called to Mila, who was still in a fighting stance and breathing heavily as she wielded the walking stick like a sword.

  She gave a few sharp nods. “Yeah, I’m good. You?”

  He gave her a thumbs-up, then slowly climbed to his feet. “We should get out of here before the police show up. These guys won’t remember a thing.”

  “Should we call an ambulance? That guy was stabbed.” She pointed the end of her walking stick at one of the guys crumpled on the ground.

  “No point,” he grunted, leading her back to the car. “He’s already dead. But don’t worry, he would have happily killed you first.”

  “That shouldn’t make me feel better,” she said, falling into the driver’s seat after he opened the door for her.

  Finn leaned into the open door and gave her a half-grin. “But it does anyway, right?”

  Mila bit her lip, then nodded. “Yeah. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  After a short stop at Mila’s condo to lock all but a couple of stacks of bills in her safe, and to change into travel-appropriate clothing, they walked a few blocks to the train and headed for Denver International Airport.

  Finn had been worried about leaving Danica alone when the Dark Star’s people presumably knew where Mila lived and could come back at any time, but Penny had assured him she would take care of it, and began working a complicated bit of dragon magic. By the time Mila had come out of her room, her black tights and puffy vest replaced by jeans and a hooded gray long-sleeved shirt, Penny had finished her draconic spell.

  It was pretty simple, and Finn was ashamed he hadn’t thought of it first. Basically, she’d laced the entire top floor of the building with an out of mind spell. Usually, a spell like that would target everyone who wasn’t the caster, making the object slide out of the viewer’s mind as soon as they saw it. What made Penny’s version so good was she targeted anyone of gnome descent, which the Kashgar were. To everyone else, the place would look normal, but gnomes would think it was just a three-story building.

  During the walk to the train and the subsequent long ride to the airport, Mila had been quiet. Finn was worried she was mad at him for some reason he couldn’t fathom, a habit he found most of the women in his father’s court doing all the time, but a talon in his back from where Penny rode in her hammock on his harness let him know he should say something.

  They were walking toward the counters at the airport where they would buy their tickets to Ontario when he finally spoke up.

  “Are you doing okay?”

  Mila stopped and turned to him, grimacing. “Yeah, I’m fine. That’s what bothers me. I saw a guy get stabbed right in front of me, and I’m fine. I think there might be something wrong with me.”

  Finn laughed, relief flooding through him. “Oh, I was afraid you were mad at me. I didn't know that was the first stabbing you had ever seen.”

  One of Mila’s eyebrows rose slowly as she regarded him. “When would I have ever seen someone stabbed to death?”

  Finn shrugged. “I don’t know. Things happen. Haven’t you ever had to fight someone for an artifact?”

  “No. That’s not how things are done here on Earth.”

  They arrived at the counter, and Finn was glad to see there was no one in line.

  A young woman at the computer terminal smiled at them. “How may I help you today?”

  Mila was still shaking her head at Finn’s comment, but she quickly jumped in, to his great relief. He was still having trouble talking to Nonmagicals.

  “We would like two tickets to Toronto, please. first class.” She jerked a thumb at Finn, “He’s paying. We will be returning in the morning. The earlier, the better.”

  The woman laughed politely as she clacked away on her keys. After a few minutes, she nodded. “Okay, I have a flight leaving in thirty minutes. The return flight leaves Toronto at five AM. Do you both have your passports?”

  Mila handed hers over the counter, having to stand on her tiptoes to do so, while Finn handed over a piece of printer paper that had been folded into fourths. The look on Mila’s face almost made Finn laugh out loud, but he contained himself for the sake of the transaction.

  Mila opened her mouth to say something but stopped when she saw the woman looking over the folded paper as if nothing was out of the ordinary. She entered the information she saw and handed back both of their passports.

  “Two first-class tickets. That will be $3,748. How will you be paying today?” she asked politely, as Mila looked from the paper to the attendant and back again, her eyebrows threatening to crawl off her face from shock.

  “Cash, I think.” Finn pulled out a stack of hundreds and began counting.

  “Oh, that’s unusual,” the attendant said, glancing from the cash to the large, bearded man counting it out.

  “Is it?” He smiled and handed her thirty-eight hundreds. “It’s a work thing, so they sent us with what was in the office.”

  The attendant shrugged and printed their tickets. “You’ll be leaving from gate B22. You should probably hurry since they will be boarding in just a few minutes.”

  Finn took the tickets and gave her a warm smile. “Thank you so much.”

  Security was even less of a problem, to Mila’s amazement. Finn showed the same folded piece of paper and was waved through without a second glance. The scanner concerned Finn, not knowing if Penny would be able to hide from the tech, so he opted for a pat-down instead. He almost laughed when Penny had to scramble around in his jacket—her talons tickled something fierce—but he was cleared without a problem.

>   They had to run to the gate and made it with only five minutes to spare. Twenty minutes after that, they were in the air, sipping cocktails.

  “Okay, how did that work?” Mila asked after taking a sip of her G&T.

  “How did what work?” Finn was genuinely confused.

  She huffed and threw a hand up. “The paper thing. Passports are notoriously hard to fake, and you just gave her a blank sheet of paper.”

  Finn chuckled and pulled out the “passport,” handing it to her.

  “It’s not blank,” he told her.

  She opened the paper and saw that there were small purple runes etched on the corner. They glowed slightly, and she could smell a hint of pine coming from them.

  “I don’t understand. I mean, I get that it’s magic, but it still looks like a piece of paper to me.”

  “That’s because there is something special about you. You haven’t woken up, like the Peabrains at the market, but you know there’s more to the world than you understand. This is a very simple spell that makes the viewer see what they think they should be seeing. If they expect a passport, then it looks exactly like it should to them. It only works on people who are either nonmagical or not paying very close attention. Usually, it’s pretty worthless, but I can see us getting some real mileage out of it here on Earth.”

  “You’re telling me you have a literal pass to everything?” Mila asked, the gears in her head turning so hard, Finn would have sworn there was smoke.

  “Well, it won’t fool electronics, but pretty much, yeah.” He settled back in the large chair and sighed.

  “Chi chi.” Penny poked him in the side, where she was wedged out of sight between him and the armrest.

  Finn handed her his package of cookies, then closed his eyes. He was beat, and he fully planned on using the four-hour flight to catch up on some sorely missed sleep. Mila must have had the same thought because he didn’t hear another peep from her.

  Four hours later, the plane landed and jarred him awake with a start.

  Finn saw that the entertainment screen was playing a movie that he hadn’t turned on, and when he glanced down to his side, he saw Penny sitting on her haunches, watching with rapt attention, the complimentary headphones held up to her tiny head.

  Finn chuckled. “Good flight, was it?”

  Penny shrugged, kicking several empty cookie bags onto the floor. She never took her eyes off the screen, enthralled by the ending of Deadpool 2.

  If Finn knew anything about Penny, she would have made it a mini-marathon, and started with the first one.

  “Where did you get… You know what, I don’t even want to know.”

  He turned and saw Mila had slept through the landing. Her head was lolled to the side, facing him. Her lips were parted slightly, with a bead of drool glistening in the corner of her mouth.

  He smiled, taking in her peaceful expression. She was a person who liked to know what was happening and figured out how to solve the problem. In the short time he had known her, she had been willing to stretch her understanding of her world to the maximum, but only after she was given evidence, like the market and seeing Fragar for herself. Seeing her at peace, the weight of the world not pressing down on her, made him want to let her continue resting, but the plane was pulling up to the gate, and the stewardess was making the rounds.

  He reached out and lightly shook her shoulder. “Mila. We’re here,” he said gently.

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she smacked her lips a few times, wiping the drool from her cheek with an embarrassed smile. “God, I needed that. I hadn’t realized just how tired I was.”

  “Me too. Since landing on Earth, the only sleep I’ve had was the few hours on your couch.”

  Mila looked past him at Penny, who was putting the headphones back in the bag now that the credits were rolling on her movie.

  “Doesn’t Penny ever sleep? She didn’t even take a nap last night,” she pointed out.

  Finn glanced down at the little blue dragon. “She only needs to sleep every few days, and even then, only for a few hours. Dragons run on magic more than calories, though she does use calories to make magic, which is why she is always eating.”

  He had a thought and checked his jacket pocket. The box of Charleston Chew Minis was empty.

  “It’s also why she will steal the food from your pocket when you’re not looking.”

  Penny had the good grace to look bashful, but she didn’t apologize. They had been together for far too long for Finn to expect anything different from her.

  He chuckled at her. “It’s fine, we’ll pick some more up on the way out of the airport.”

  That made Penny’s eyes sparkle before she slipped into his jacket and worked her way back into her hammock at the small of his back.

  Mila rented them a car, since they needed a credit card on file, and was bitterly disappointed they didn’t have any Challengers available. They ended up in a subcompact that made Finn do some serious folding to get into and out of. When the attendant asked if she wanted to purchase insurance, she started to say no, but then looked at Finn, and furrowed her brow before saying she would take the coverage. Finn wasn’t sure if that was a dig at him or not but decided it was better to let it go if it was.

  Half an hour and one stop for Charleston Chews later, they pulled into the employee parking lot at the Royal Ontario Museum. The sun was well past set, and the museum had closed for the day, but a very old man stood at the back door. He held it open with a foot and waved to them when they got out of the tiny car.

  Mila waved back as she started toward the slightly stooped old man. “Hello, Gregory. Thank you so much for helping us out.”

  “It’s no problem for my favorite student. Who’s your large friend there?” he asked, his voice strong despite his age.

  “This is Finn. Finn, this is Dr. Gregory Hoffensteffer. He was my professor in graduate school. He’s the one who got me fascinated in history,” Mila said by way of introduction, an affectionate smile on her face.

  Finn held out a hand and was surprised by how firm Gregory’s grip was. It seemed the old guy was sprier than he looked. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Doctor Hoffensteffer.”

  “Please, call me Gregory. I’m too old to wait for you to get that out every time.” He waved them inside. “Come on in. It’s a little too chilly outside for these old bones.”

  Finn like the old man instantly. No fuss, no mess, just get on with it. He was just the kind of person Finn liked to work with.

  Gregory moved at a pretty good clip, considering he looked to be in his eighties. They passed through some storage rooms, dark now that the place was shut down for the night, but Gregory never missed a step.

  Eventually, they came to an office that was very similar to Mila’s, except that it was bigger and messier. Wooden crates lined one wall, the tops removed and leaning against their sides. Each one was filled with straw packing material, and several bagged items were poking out. Most of the items were rusted or in some other form of disrepair, except for three which had been moved to the center table and removed from their labeled bags.

  Finn moved to the center table and smiled when he saw the Helm of Awe front and center.

  It was a steel bucket helmet with very little ornamentation, aside from some scrollwork carved into the mirror-like surface. It looked as though it were brand new, untouched by tarnish. Finn leaned in and inspected the scrollwork. Sure enough, there was Fafnir’s signature nestled into the spells written across the helmet’s surface.

  “I’m really sorry to have to ask you this, Gregory, but can you tell me where the nearest bathroom is? I haven’t gone since Denver, and I think I might pee myself after having the coffee I picked up on the way out of the airport.” Finn turned to see Mila nearly dancing with her need to relieve herself.

  Gregory chuckled. “Just out in the hall and to the left. Then the second right, and that will take you to the lobby. The office bathroom is in the middle of a remodel, so we have to ho
of it all the way out there. Here, take my key card to get back through the security doors on your way back.”

  She grabbed the offered card and nearly ran from the room, waving the card over her shoulder. “Thanks! I’ll be right back.”

  Gregory and Finn watched her go, then the old man turned to him, and his smile was replaced with a frown. “I can’t quite figure it out.”

  Finn’s eyebrow rose slowly. “Figure what out?”

  A bony finger shot toward Finn and the old man stood up straight and tall, not showing any of the previous signs of his age. “You, my boy. What are you? You’re not an elf, and I’ve never seen a gnome that tall, unless you count those damn Kashgar. Which I don’t, mind you, but you have a similar smell about you.”

  Ten talons poked into his back in alarm, and he nearly cried out from the pain. He was going to have to trim those things if she was going to keep stabbing him.

  As far as Finn was concerned, the jig was up, to some extent.

  He opened one side of his jacket. “Come on out. This fella seems to know a thing or two. No use hiding, especially if you’re going to be stabbing me every ten minutes.”

  Penny’s head slowly came around his torso and blinked a few times at Gregory. The old man raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  Penny frowned up at Finn and huffed a bit of flame before climbing out and up onto his shoulder. “Squee shiri, chi?”

  Finn rolled his eyes and handed her the new box of mini chews. “Gregory, meet Penny. Penny…well, you were there.”

  She regarded Gregory with a critical eye, nearly as hard as the old man did to her. They seemed to be sizing one another up. Finn was glad this guy knew about the magical world. It would make convincing him to hand over the helm that much easier.

  Eventually, Gregory smiled. “Hello, there. Am I to assume you are a faerie dragon, then? I didn’t think there were any left on Earth after the great hunts during the Dark Ages.”

  Both Finn and Penny sucked in breaths at that. “Wait, you hunted the intelligent dragons? Wyverns I can see, but the sentient ones as well?”