by Jamie Davis
For everyone else, he bought the cheap replicas in bulk from China to sell to the masses. There were a few customers, like Hal, who knew he also had some of the real thing if you knew enough to ask.
Hal glanced around the booth. Steve usually had a new item or two he was proud enough to display for those who knew what to look for. Hal didn’t see anything that caught his eye, though.
“Working on anything new?” Hal asked.
“I got the hankering to work on a classic medievil long sword last week,” Steve replied. He bent down and lifted up a long bundle of black cloth.
“Is that it?” Hal pointed to the bundle.
“Yep. Today’s the first day I brought it out in public. I was hoping I’d run into you or another of my regular blade fans.”
“Well, don’t keep me waiting. Show me this masterpiece,” Hal said.
Steve unwrapped the bundle until the leather and wire wrapped hilt was revealed. The pommel at the end of the grip was shaped like an eagle’s talon gripping a polished steel ball. The hilt’s cross piece was a plain bar of steel, lightly etched with runes, beyond which extended a gleaming three-foot length of sharpened steel.
There was a fuller on both sides over the widest first third of the blade giving it strength while lightening the overall weight in much the same way a steel I-beam worked. It was often called the blood groove, though it had nothing to do with channeling blood.
Hal stared at the blade, transfixed. It was a work of art, even though it was plainer than the replica blades from the movies.
“That is a beauty, Steve. May I have a look?” Hal asked extending a hand.
“Here you go. Careful, though. It’s got a razor’s edge.”
Steve handed Hal the sword hilt first and Hal took it from him with care. Looking around to make sure no one was near, Hal took a few experimental swings. The balance was excellent and the grip felt like it was molded to his hand.
Hal handed it back. “I’m afraid to ask how much that would set me back.”
“Three-fifty,” Steve replied. “That includes a custom wood and leather scabbard and leather sword belt. I’m in the process of finishing the scabbard up now. I’m just waiting for some tool work to be done by my leather guy.”
Hal handed it back and stared at the blade as Steve wrapped it back up in the black cloth. It called to him in the same way the daggers had.
“I can’t spend that much right now,” Hal said. He was thinking about the cost and how it would look if he bought the sword and then got booted from the management training group.
With the coming Management Warriors Weekend, Hal had no business spending money he might not have. Maybe if he survived the cut at work, he could afford to treat himself to the sword. He didn’t feel all that confident, though.
“Steve, I might be able to swing it after a work thing I have coming up this week. Can you hold if for me for a week?”
“Sure, Hal. I won’t have the scabbard finished until then anyway,” Steve said. “I’ll hold it until the end of business next Friday. If you come back, I’ll know you’re interested. If not, I’ve got a few other collectors who will be interested.”
“Thanks, Steve. This gives me something to look forward to.”
A glance at his watch told Hal he was already going to be late getting home. He wanted to make sure he had dinner with Mona and Cari tonight before he left for his trip the next day.
“I gotta bolt, Steve. Thanks for holding that baby for me. Hopefully, things will work out and I’ll be back next week.”
Steve waved and turned to chat with another potential customer who’d wandered by. Hal smiled when the new customer picked up a replica of an elvish scimitar that was popular with a lot of amateur collectors. Let the noob buy the garbage blade. It kept Steve in the money he needed to make the real thing.
Heading back to the street, Hal crossed to the parking lot and jumped in his car to head home. He didn’t want to keep his wife and daughter waiting. Mona and Cari both deserved some of his time before he went away for the five-day retreat tomorrow.
2
After dinner, Hal spent the early part of the evening playing with Cari. She was eighteen-months-old now and she enjoyed playing simple games like peek-a-boo and chasing daddy around the house.
He worked at wearing out the energetic toddler so she’d go to right to sleep later. Hal hoped that would give he and Mona some time to enjoy a few glasses of wine together before bed. He left for the MWW retreat first thing in the morning.
The plan worked for once. Cari settled in her crib without fussing and Hal returned to the first floor carrying the portable baby monitor.
“She’s all settled,” Hal announced. “God bless good sleeping babies.”
“Come sit down, Hal,” Mona said, patting the sofa cushion next to her. “I’ve poured you a glass of wine.”
Hal settled into the spot next to his wife and took the offered wine glass from her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She’d showered after dinner while he played with Cari and her damp blonde hair, pulled back in a ponytail, had a floral scent from her shampoo.
“You smell nice,” Hal said.
“Thanks. A woman has to keep up appearances, you know.”
Hal laughed. “You don’t have to do that with me. I know how lucky I am to have you, more so than you’ll ever know.”
“I’d love to know what happened to you while I was on that weekend away six months ago,” Mona said. “You’ve been quite the attentive husband since then.”
“I just decided to turn over a new leaf, to show off a newer, more confident me.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Hal,” Mona said. “I like the new you, I just wonder what precipitated it. People don’t just change overnight.”
“Am I that different than the guy you married?” Hal asked.
“No. In fact, you’re more like the man I met when we first started dating. It’s like you started to believe in yourself again, at least until the last few weeks. Is there something going on at work you’re not telling me?”
“No. I just have to remember to trust myself and my own version of luck, that’s all. It got me this far in the management trainee program, didn’t it?” Hal tried to bluster a little to hide the nervousness about the upcoming retreat.
Mona saw right through him.
“Hal, you don’t have to pretend with me. I can tell you’re worried about making the cut this weekend. Don’t be. Just be yourself and let the chips fall where they may. We’ll find a way to make it through. We’ve got my engineering salary after all and if this doesn’t work out, you’ll bounce back and find something even better.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Hal said. “You’re the quintessential rising star where you work.”
“It is easy for me to say, but not because of that. It’s easy because it’s true,” Mona said. She leaned forward until she was whispering in his ear. “If you come upstairs right now, I’ll show you how much confidence I have in you and send you off to this retreat with a little bounce in your step.”
“Promise?” Hal said, a grin spreading across his face as Mona got up and started for the stairs.
“Come on and find out for yourself, Hal.”
Hal woke up early the next morning to his phone’s alarm telling him to get up and get ready to catch his flight. He untangled himself from Mona, trying not to wake her. She was working from home today and didn’t have to get up for a rush hour commute.
He jumped in the shower and let the water play over his face to help him wake up. The flight the travel office had arranged for him and the other trainees left at ten-thirty AM and that meant he’d be driving to the airport at the height of rush hour. Given the security lines at the airport, he didn’t want to be late. He was hoping for an exit aisle seat for some extra leg room and he had to wait until he got to the gate for his seat assignment.
Hal got dressed and popped into Cari’s room on the way downstairs. He l
eaned over the crib railing to kiss the blonde-haired little girl goodbye. She stirred a little but didn’t wake up. She was dressed in a one-piece sleeper and curled around her favorite stuffed bunny.
Closing the door, Hal went downstairs and loaded up with his laptop bag and carryon before hitting the road for the airport. It turned out traffic wasn’t as bad as he expected and he arrived at the long-term parking lot with time to spare.
He smiled to himself as he climbed on the shuttle bus to head to the terminal. Everything was going smooth as glass today and Hal hoped it was an indicator of how the rest of the retreat was going to proceed.
Getting in the security line, he put his shoes and work laptop in the plastic bin and slid his carry-on suitcase up on the scanner belt next to it.
He made sure his items were sliding into the X-ray scanner then stepped through the body scanner. The TSA agent waved him through and he stepped over to the belt to grab his bags. His laptop and shoes were there along with the leather laptop bag Mona had bought him when he got into the management program. All he needed now was his carry-on suitcase.
There seemed to be some sort of discussion between three TSA agents by the video screens for the X-ray scanner. One of them looked his way.
“Is this your bag, sir?” The agent said while pointing to his bag now sliding down the belt. The agent intercepted it before Hal could reach for it and set it down next to him.
“Yes, that’s my bag,” Hal said. “Is there some sort of problem, officer?”
“Come with me, please,” the agent said.
Hal assumed this was a normal, random check by the airport security team until two other guards fell in beside him and escorted him through a locked security door and into a room with a table and two chairs.
“What’s your name?” The first agent asked directing Hal to sit with one hand.
“Hal, Hal Dix. Do you need to see my ID?”
Hal remained standing and started rummaging through his laptop bag for his wallet.
“Have a seat, Mr. Dix. We have a problem with something in your bag, sir, and we need ask you a few questions.”
Hal sat down, confused and running through the list of things he’d packed the night before. He’d put in travel sizes for all his toiletries and he couldn’t think of anything else that might be in there. This wasn’t his first time flying for work like this.
The two agents who’d escorted him stood by the door while the first agent put his carryon bag up the table and unzipped it and turned it around so Hal could see in side.
“Would you care to explain these, Mr. Dix?”
Hal’s eyes widened when he saw what was inside the bag, laying right on top of the clothes he’d packed the night before. Two familiar daggers lay side by side atop his favorite golf shirt. At first, he thought they were the pair of blades he bought from Steve at the flea market and he couldn’t understand why Mona had thought this would be funny.
Then he looked closer and realized these weren’t the blades he bought at the flea market. There were marks of hard use on the hilts and blades. These blades had seen real combat.
He knew these daggers well, though he hadn’t laid eyes on them for over six months. These were the blades he’d used to fight his way through the streets of Tandon while he defeated the Emperor’s Wardens there.
How had they gotten here? All his gear from Fantasma had disappeared when he returned home from his travels there.
“I asked you a question, Mr. Dix. Can you explain these blades in your bags? Do you recognize them?”
“Uh, no, I mean yes,” Hal stammered. He was a terrible liar and he knew it. Better to just tell the truth.
“Which is it, Mr. Dix? We take airline security very seriously.”
“I do recognize the daggers, but I don’t understand how they got in there,” Hal said, trying to come up with some sort of plausible explanation for the agent. “Honestly, officer, all I can think of is my wife was playing some sort of bad joke on me.”
“We don’t find this kind of thing funny, Mr. Dix. Do you?”
“No, officer, I don’t think this is funny at all. I assure you I’m not the kind of guy to try and smuggle these on a plane. What kind of idiot would think you could get these past the X-ray scanner to begin with?”
“We see all kinds of idiots here, Mr. Dix. All kinds.”
The agent stood up, taking the daggers from the case with him.
“I’ll need to speak to a supervisor about this, Mr. Dix. Remain here while I go see what we should do about this.”
Hal stayed in his seat while the first agent left the room. He never even said his name and Hal was too nervous to remember to check the man’s name tag. The other two TSA agents remained by the door behind him, watching his back.
The whole situation made Hal sweat and itch between his shoulder blades. He resisted the urge to turn and look at the two remaining guards.
He sat like that, staring straight ahead over the top of his opened carryon bag for several minutes.
The door opened behind him and a voice said, “Leave me alone with the suspect.”
It dawned on him the voice was familiar, though he hadn’t heard it in a while. He spun around in the chair to see a diminutive woman of about five feet in height, dressed in a TSA supervisor’s uniform. She was shooing the two officers by the door out with one hand and shutting the door with the other. The woman shut the door and turned around.
“Hello, Hal,” Tildi the Elder said.
“Tildi?” Hal said. “What are you doing working for the TSA? Am I part of some secret government program or something?”
“I don’t work for your government, Hal. That would be absurd. This is just a ruse to get a chance to talk with you alone.”
“You put the daggers in my bag and had me scared half to death just so you could have a chat with me?” Hal asked. His voice was rising in pitch and he was starting to get angry.
“Careful, Hal. If you make too much noise, the other guards might come back in and then I won’t be able to help you out of this mess.”
“A mess you got me in to begin with, Tildi,” Hal said, trying to take even breaths and working to keep his voice level and calm.
“A mess I can get you back out of, too. Now be quiet and listen. We don’t have too much time,” the old mage said.
“I know. I have a flight to catch, Tildi. You’re lucky I got here early.”
“No, you’re lucky you got hear early. Now I don’t have to yank you back to Fantasma against your will like the last time.”
“What do you mean, back to Fantasma?” Hal asked. “I can’t go back there. I have things that need to get done here. I fought the Wardens and won Tandon back from the Emperor. You said that would be enough.”
“For a time, it was enough. As we hoped, other cities in the west country rebelled against their Wardens and the Emperor’s control over the western lands has decreased for a time. Then it all changed,” Tildi said.
“What changed?” Hal asked.
“The rumors started of a great army being raised by the Emperor to the east. He sought to reconquer the lands he’d lost. We needed someone to find out where the army was being organized and what the Emperor’s plans were. Kay had been looking for her lost siblings and discovered they had been taken somewhere to the east. She volunteered to go in search of this army and send back reports on its composition and size.”
Tildi paused before continuing.
“What is it?” Hal said. “What aren’t you telling me.”
“Kay stopped sending us messages three months ago. They were traveling back to Duke Korran in Tandon via caravan. It took weeks for a single message to travel to him so it was a long time before he realized another message was not coming. We realized she had been lost.”
“She’s dead?” Hal said. He couldn’t believe it and he shook his head. Kay had been his closest companion while in Tandon. He would never have succeeded if it weren’t for her.
“I
know she’s not dead,” Tildi said. “She is in grave danger, though, and will surely die if help does not arrive in time.”
Tildi met Hal’s eyes and held his gaze for a long time.
“Tildi, if I leave now, everything I’ve achieved since I’ve been back will be lost. I have an event this weekend that I can’t miss. If I went with you, I’d be gone too long.”
“You let me worry about that, Hal,” Tildi said “Remember, time works differently between our two worlds. I can make it so you can still attend your work event. My question for you is will you undertake this quest and rescue your friend?”
Hal thought back to his previous trip to Fantasma. Kay had pulled him through more than one close scrape. They’d fought their way out of a death sentence, destroyed a slaving ring, and liberated a city together. She stood by his side the entire time.
He couldn’t leave her to face certain death.
“What do I do?” Hal said.
“Get on your plane. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Before he could get a word of complaint out, Tildi walked past Hal and left him alone in the interrogation room. A few minutes later, the original TSA guard returned.
“Mr. Dix, my supervisor says you’re free to go. She’s confiscated your weapons. They belong to the TSA now. Please try and be more careful with what gets packed in your luggage in the future.”
Hal zipped up his carry-on bag, nodded at the officer and left the interrogation room to find his flight. On the outside, as he strolled down the terminal, Hal appeared the calm business traveler. On the inside, he trembled with anticipation and more than a little anxiety over his pending return to Fantasma.
3
Hal arrived at his gate just as the plane was starting to board. He found out he had been upgraded to business class tickets so he was able to get on the flight among the first travelers to pass through the gate to the plane. He was surprised but figured Tildi had something to do with it. He settled into his seat and waited for the rest of the passengers to board. He particularly enjoyed the puzzled look on Barry’s face as he walked past Hal’s spacious seat at the front of the plane on his way to the coach section in the back.