by Mark Eller
"Oh--Well." Aaron shifted nervously and wondered what a Talent Master was. Some sort of illusionist? "I knew there had been trouble, but I didn't know the particulars of it."
"We've a lot of new people since then. The rest of us, we don't like to talk about it much."
Feeling uncomfortable, Aaron sat silent for a time because he did not know how to respond to the telling of tall tales. "I really have to go," he finally said.
"Then go. Just remember, in two days you belong to me again."
"Why does that make me uncomfortable?"
She gave him a wicked smile. "You tell me."
* * *
Rearranging things that did not need rearranging seemed to be Cathy's favorite pastime. Aaron entered the store to find the leather goods against a completely different wall, while the fruit now rested on a shelf near the window. Looking around, Aaron could see other changes. Why, he wondered, had she put the vegetables way in the back?
"How did it go?"
She started, jerked her head around, and stared at him. Her brown eyes looked enormous in her narrow face. Why had he never noticed that before? What he had taken for thin and fit was nothing more than hunger. Doyle and Missy were not so delicate looking. Did she give them her food?
"I've had three customers since you left. The bank clerk, Mister Banks, bought a full dozen of your magic writers. He said Mister Doland liked their neatness and the time they saved. Since there was no price on them I had to guess what you would charge only Mister Banks didn't like the price I set so we had to haggle until he agreed to pay two and a half gold ten for each writer. About an hour ago Mistress Averys bought two measures flour and a half measure sugar, and then a Mover came in and bought lemon drops."
"You did good," Aaron said absently. "I never managed to sell a writer for more than two gold. Uh--why are you doing a rearrange?"
"I hope you don't mind." Running her fingers through work dampened hair, Cathy gave him a weak grin. "I'm trying to make things look more appealing and to put basic necessary things in the back. That way people have to walk past the stuff they normally don't buy, and they might pick some of it up on a whim."
Aaron shook his head. "I never thought of that." He looked at the jars again. Streaming sunlight through the windows created a sparkling shimmer inside the thick syrup, highlighting the fruit in a rather mouth-watering way.
"Maybe it's a good idea," he confessed. "I never thought too much about where I set things. Generally, I just put stuff down wherever there was an empty space."
Her smile brightened. "I can move it all back if you like,"
"No," Aaron said. "Leave things where they are. I'll just have to learn where everything is again."
"Sure. Are you going to the dance?" With a lazy sigh, she stood erect and brushed her hands off on her clothes, canting her head to one side as she did so.
Aaron smiled. "Why do people keep asking me that? Do you think you can run an inventory? All you have to do is write down each item and how many of them there are." Suddenly, his face grew warm when an unwelcome thought struck him. "That is if you can write. There is no shame in not having an opportunity to learn."
"Oh no, sir. I mean yes, sir; I can read and write. Mama tutored the Manor children and some of the townspeople. Me and Missy are teaching Doyle."
"Good. Good," Aaron said uncomfortably. "I'll be in the back room if anything comes up.
"Yes sir."
* * *
The back room was a mess. Spilled grain and flour decorated the floor where bags had torn. He had never gotten around to putting away three crates of coffee and one of tea. Hiring Cathy full time had probably been a good idea. He was too busy to properly care for everything himself.
It took him two hours to clean the back room, longer than it should have taken, but his bruises ached, and his arms still protested the abuse he had put them through. Moving two flour sacks revealed the trapdoor leading down to the cellar, but he had no need to go down there today because the cellar was always kept perfectly neat. The potatoes and onions he kept down there were too new to need checking for rot or mold. In a separate room, ice cut from nearby lakes last winter, was packed in thick layers of sawdust. He looked at the now neat room, cast a small curse at the flour sacks and swore he would never again be so stupid as to cover the trap door.
"I won't!" Cathy's voice rose high from inside the main store.
Quickly turning, Aaron lifted his head, suddenly alert to trouble. Cathy knew better than to argue with customers.
"No!"
Something crashed. Cathy screamed, and Aaron ran into the store.
Crazed eyes set in a thin whiskered face surrounded by wild uncut black hair jerked toward him. One hand held Cathy pressed against the counter. The other hand groped under it.
"Prong it," the man cursed when he saw Aaron. Releasing Cathy, he raced around the counter and out the door. Voices shouted outside. Cathy slid slowly to the floor.
Glancing at the open door, Aaron ignored the thief and ran to the girl. Her shoulders shook with noiseless sobs.
"How badly are you hurt, Miss Bayne?" He reached out to touch her hair, thought better of it because she was a young girl, and drew his hand back. The spilled money box lay beside her; coins scattered across the floor.
`"Mister Turner--I'm so sorry. I tried to--to stop h--him." With a rough swipe, Cathy rubbed angrily at her damp eyes. "I'll pay back what is missing. I--I swear it, sir." Her voice dropped to a whisper.
Pity and grim anger welled up inside Aaron. He rubbed his own eyes with a quick flick of his wrist. "There will be none of that, Miss. There's nothing for you to pay back. Being robbed is one of the chances a person takes when they open a business. However, in the future, Miss Bayne, don't resist. Let them have what they want. Your well-being is worth far more than the money from a single day's sales."
Her silent sobbing slowed and then stopped. "In the future?"
"Good gods, I'm not going to fire you because you were robbed."
"I can--?"
"Mister Turner, are things well in here?" Wearing a worried frown, the bow-legged miller peered through the doorway.
"Miss Bayne has been struck, Mister Townsend, and some money is missing. The money is of no account, but I am extremely angry over the treatment Miss Bayne received."
"I tried to stop the thief," Townsend said, "but I'm afraid he is much quicker than I."
"Is he a known person?"
"Not to me." The miller shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "This is a bad time for you, but I have an order out here on the wagon. I've a need to get back to the mill. My boys will lax off if I don't hurry."
Aaron sighed. "Just set the order outside the door. How much do I owe you?"
"Pay me later. I've no fear of your account, Mister Turner. Your word is always good. Besides, if it wasn't I'd just tell my Sarah to whack you harder during your next lesson."
"There are advantages to having the Town Marshal as your daughter," Aaron observed.
"That there are, and one of them is that I usually know where she is. Mister Turner, don't you worry about a thing, I'll tell my Sarah about what happened here. Cathy. Miss Bayne, I wish you well." With a half wave, the miller turned away from the door, closing it behind him. Moments later a thump sounded as the first hundred pound sack hit the boardwalk.
Cathy pulled herself upright. "Did you really mean it? I'm not fired?"
"I mean it."
"Oh--thank you." Even with the darkening bruises on her left cheek, her thin face turned almost beautiful. Leaning forward, she suddenly hugged him. "Thank you, sir."
Aaron shifted uncomfortably, far too aware of her breasts against him. The sensation of her soft roundness pressing into his body was…was--unsettling: new. Due to the crippling effects of his childhood injuries, physical contact with any female except impersonal nurses was something he had not experienced since he was a child. In fact, intimacy of this type was not something he had ever dared dream of before comi
ng to Last Chance and discovering that his body somehow miraculously healed itself when it entered this world.
Fingers trembling, Aaron tried to draw slightly away to lessen the feel of Cathy's body pressed against his.
Sensing his discomfort, she released him and pulled back. "Forgive me, Mister Turner. I'm just so relieved. I'll continue the inventory after I clean this mess up--that is, if you have no objection?"
With a supreme act of will, Aaron kept his eyes from straying down to the faint hint of her cleavage. Damn-it, Cathy was a child--but the hug had felt good. "Um, I'll clean up here, Miss Bayne. You go ahead and finish the inventory."
Apparently oblivious to the direction of his thoughts, Cathy nodded. "Yes sir."
Once Aaron gathered himself back together, he took stock of the damage done. The thief had only stolen one gold and a dozen coppers. The two quarter silvers, each one worth twenty-five gold, had been missed by the thief's hurried grab; however, the cabinet containing the knives had taken some small damage. Aaron made a mental note to have the damage repaired.
Cathy finished inventory at five, and he paid her, telling her to call it a day. She tried to buy some food, but he forced her to take it for free since she had worked through her lunch, and then he chased her out of the store, telling her she was not to return until noon the next day. After all, she deserved something for her bruises.
It was only when he went to close up that he saw the flour and meal sitting outside his door. He had forgotten all about the order Townsend had left. More than a half-hour passed before he finished hauling and stacking it all into the back room. By the time he finished, his bruises ached even more, and his arms trembled. Looking at the quivering limbs, Aaron felt a small sense of pride. One year ago he could not have managed one tenth of the effort he had expended this day.
Just as he finished his moment of self admiration, Sarah Townsend entered the store, wearing worried eyes and a slight sheen of sweat.
"Did you catch him?" Aaron asked.
She shook her head no. "I don't know who he is or how he escaped. Mistress Gunther saw him hanging around with three or four other men when she went to the bank earlier in the day, but they aren't to be found either."
Momentarily frowning, Aaron looked down Last Chance's dusty street. "I suppose he's gone for good. Thank you for your efforts, Marshal Townsend."
"If he's not gone for good, he's going to regret it."
Aaron took care to close his door tightly when she left. After a few quiet moments passed, he went into the back room, lifted the trapdoor, and entered the cellar. Bags of onions, potatoes, and carrots were stacked neatly against three of the walls. The fourth wall was bare except for two large doors which closed off a single six foot opening. He pulled one door open and was enveloped by the cold air of the ice room. Walking inside, he closed the door and then lifted another trap door set in the corner of the room. At the bottom of the ten foot ladder was a thirty foot by thirty foot room. Two of its walls were rough hewn rock showing jagged crevasse where miners' tools had marred its surface. The other walls were wooden structures that sealed his secret room off from the rest of the abandoned salt mine beneath Last Chance. Crates filled just under a quarter of this room from floor to ceiling. The rest of the space was empty. A hoist hung from a beam over his head, its hook shiny from recent use.
Aaron reluctantly climbed down the ladder. Standing at the bottom of the rungs, he worked to build up the want, the need. Longing rose, more reluctant than ever before. It rose from deep inside his being, pulled at that part of him that was his soul. His breathing grew shallow and slow. Like a slow rising pool of reluctant magma, his ability rose, filling him, strong, more consuming than when he used it for his smaller needs.
Heart stopping, his mind grasped unto something that was not there.
Flicker
Aaron looked at his new location and frowned.
"Damn."
He was home.
Chapter 5
Sergeant Aimes was pissed. "You're more than an hour late Turner."
Squinting against the light, Aaron rubbed his eyes and studied his personal nemesis. Like always, Aimes wore his perpetual frown. Deep lines cut in around the deeply tanned skin of his mouth, cheeks, and eyes, making his face look like the puckered asshole he was.
"Sorry, sir." Aaron winced in anticipation of the forthcoming explosion.
"Sorry doesn't cut it," Aimes snapped. "Brass are waiting for you in the Yellow Room. I have two noncoms lounging around outside this room, sitting on top of your new supplies, and I have duties of my own to attend to." His voice echoed in the bare eight-foot square room. "Now get your ass down the hall."
"Yes sir!" Aaron saluted and hurriedly left. Corporals Hill and Gore sat on his supplies in the corridor outside his arrival room. Smoke drifted lazily from Hill's cigar. Silently cursing, Aaron hurried past them because Aimes really was an ass, and Aaron's legs were beginning to tingle and ache again. His pace slowed to a lurching limp. By the time he reached the door to the Yellow Room, his left shoulder had fallen. His left arm had curled up, and his fingers were folded into a half-fisted claw. As always. Legs trembling, his knees threatened to give way as his body once again twisted into that of the cripple he was.
Cursing his crippled body, Aaron reluctantly reached up with his good hand and hesitantly knocked on the yellow room's door.
"Get in here!" The door jerked open. Corporal Benson stood before him, a lone sentinel to a room filled with brass from two different militias. General Field's glare fastened on Aaron. From his chair at the conference table, Klein gave him a sympathetic smile. A dozen and a half other men, mostly Hispanic or Asian, sat in the black leather chairs surrounding the rectangular table. Every eye in the room rested on Aaron. Nervous sweat ran down Aaron's back because he knew what they saw. Just under five and a half feet tall, he was a narrow-faced, broken caricature of a militia recruit who probably looked more ridiculous than usual because this now unaccustomed pain made the tendons in his neck bulge.
More than a dozen dusky faces stared at him with contempt. Aaron shifted before squaring his shoulders as best his broken body would allow. As a rule, he seldom felt uncomfortable because he was a pale man in a dusky land, but that was only because Field's militia leaned heavily towards Angelo recruits. In this room, now, Aaron felt both somewhat dirty and thoroughly defiant.
Firming his will, Aaron saluted General Field with his good arm and tried to focus on the pointillist art decorating the light yellow walls behind the General's head so he would not have to meet the eyes of men who judged him because he was the wrong color. The sweet scent of lilacs rose from a single vase set in the table's center. More pollen, so his nose instantly started to clog, which he was sure would further the impression he was making.
"Private Turner reporting."
"You are late, Turner."
"Unavoidable, sir," Aaron crisply replied, ignoring his churning stomach. "There was a robbery at the store. It was late before I became free to report."
"So this is the thing we waited for," a voice asked with contemptuous derision. The speaker, the only white man in the room who was not part of Field's Militia, wore a gray uniform with insignia Aaron did not recognize, but his position at the table indicated that he did not hold much power, a not unusual occurrence. Though the race wars had ended a few decades ago, color prejudice was not dead.
"This thing," General Field said, "is Aaron Turner, a private in Field's Militia and a good man for the assignment he has been handed."
"He's a damn cripple!" the only black man snapped. "He looks like a little broken arthritic scarecrow."
Firming his lips, Aaron stared hard at the black man. Broad shouldered, probably well over six feet tall, possessing graying hair and deep set eyes, he showed no clue where he stood in the room's hierarchy, despite the fact that his too dark skin should have handicapped him almost as much as Aaron was handicapped by his pale complexion. To further the mystery, the black man
's dark blue uniform bore no insignia, and his seat was in a position that Aaron usually associated with people who were merely observers.
"Turner is a soldier with special abilities just like I am a soldier with my own abilities," Colonel Klein defended. "He and I are the only people who can access the other world. Yes, he is handicapped because he was involved in an accident when he was ten years old, but he is the only person other than me who has learned how to transport over to the other world. Furthermore, for reasons we do not yet understand, once he is over there the difficulties caused by his injuries seem to disappear."
"None of that is important," Field said impatiently. "What matters is that the two of them can access a world where technology is low, and gold is almost as plentiful as copper. Silver is the rare metal over there. They have little iron. The few steel items we have transported over are thought to be wonders. More importantly, their weapons are as primitive as their society. Sit down, Turner."
"Thank you, sir." Finding an empty chair, Aaron sat down gratefully. Living in constant pain was no longer second nature to him. The muscles in his back were not acclimated to the strain his unnatural posture placed on them.
"Why are they operating in separate areas?" the black man demanded.
"Good question," Klein answered. "As a rule, we can only teleport safely to an area that we are familiar with. Unfortunately, our first visit to the new world forced us to travel blind, and I'm here to tell you that the thought of having to make that jump had me sweating buckets for months. The least bit of bad luck could have put me anywhere from a mile above the ground to fifty feet beneath it. A pure crapshoot where we both got lucky, but it's not a chance either of us will take again so we always return to the same area where we first arrived. Unfortunately, we don't know where each other's theater is located.