“You’re ridiculous.”
“Says the person who pulled off a con to get me and Jacob dating.” She craned her neck and peered ahead. “Okay, this is the final location. It looks like a…hotel? What the fuck?”
“Don’t look at me. I don’t know.” They scrambled out and Amber handed the car keys to a valet who had hurried over.
“In we go, I guess.” She shrugged and led the way to the revolving doors. “Ah, yes, and along comes our shadow. It’s a wonder he can still walk by now.”
“I’m honestly impressed,” he told her.
“So am I. So much so that I may recommend him for a bonus. Anonymously, of course.”
The lobby was brightly lit with crystal chandeliers and gleaming marble floors. Nick, as usual, felt out of place next to the executives in their tailored suits. Amber, meanwhile, strode along in her blazer and black jeans as if she owned the establishment.
They heard the door open behind them and her lips curved into a smile. She slowed fractionally.
Nick wondered if Brooks was confused. He certainly was. Even Amber looked mystified.
She scanned the signs and led him down a broad hallway with plush red carpeting. At one of the conference rooms, she gave a little shake of her head. “Jacob. Captain.”
“Hey. I was told to meet you here.” Jacob smiled at her.
“Hello,” DuBois said gravely. “Do you think there will be popcorn here?”
“I…don’t know,” she said. “Is Price in there?”
“I think so.” Jacob shrugged. He very conscientiously did not look at where Brooks skulked behind them. “Shall we?”
Everyone nodded and they pushed the doors open.
It was dark inside but there were people present. Nick had the sudden sense that this might be some kind of trap. Was Price in cahoots with Brooks? Panic seized him.
When the lights came up in a flood, his jaw dropped.
“Surprise!” dozens of voices chorused.
“Oh…my…God,” he whispered.
At his side, a strangled kind of sound gurgled. “Oh…my…God,” Gary Brooks agreed weakly.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kural was right. They finished the climb not long after dark and even managed to catch the few last rays of sunshine from the top of the mountain.
Of course, what he hadn’t said was how exhausting it would be to reach the peak. They trudged up long paths that sloped enough to make their backs and necks ache. Some parts were carved into rough stairs but not evenly, which meant countless stubbed toes.
Numerous sections of the trail had collapsed over the years or hadn’t been crossed in so long that boards or rope bridges had rotted away. Climbing around them took constant ingenuity and resulted in everything from pulled muscles to skinned palms.
Jamie reflected often, and with increasing sadness, that he had not known exactly how many muscles were in the human shin. It was a deceptive number.
Also, it didn’t seem fair that an AI could so accurately reproduce the physical pain of climbing when none of it was real. Why couldn’t he simply spring up the mountain like a video game character without slowing?
This was some bullshit.
“Don’t sit,” Kural warned when they reached the top.
Jamie, who had been trying to determine how to sit without crumpling into a heap, responded with a noise of complaint.
“As soon as you stop moving, things are essentially over,” the wizard explained. “Keep yourself going with tasks—setting the camp up and preparing supper are recommended.”
“Shouldn’t we…” Esak swayed on his feet. He peered ahead of them. “Shouldn’t we get Taigan to the key?”
“A young person’s sentiment. No. Right now, we should rest and recover our strength. Tomorrow, Taigan will have to face her greatest fear, and that is not something to do after an exhausting climb up a mountain. I would wager that more than one person has failed in this enterprise because they didn’t stop to rest.”
The three younger people looked at him with various levels of incomprehension and exhaustion.
He sighed. “Who wants to make the fire?”
Esak raised his hand.
“Good. Now, are there tents? No? Then who will lay bedrolls out?”
“I can do that,” Jamie said.
“Make sure not to leave rocks beneath them. No skimping. I’ll throw every one at you that I find.” Kural glared. “That leaves cooking dinner and being an all-purpose go-for.”
“I don’t care,” Taigan said numbly.
“I prefer my food to be made by someone with rather more enthusiasm, so I will cook dinner.” Kural began to rummage around in his pack. “I have…ah, yes, a bulb of garlic I found the other day. It’s quite pungent. Some cheese. I don’t suppose any of you have grain or vegetables.”
“Grain.” She shrugged her pack off and began looking through it. “Here. Other than that, it’s only dried meat.”
“Mmm. Well, give it here. Now, you take Jamie and head down the slope to get water. The sunward side, mind you. I don’t want you two taking a tumble in the dark.”
It wasn’t far from the top to the start of the stream, but every step downhill made Jamie’s thighs scream. The twins filled the skins with water and trudged up the hill with them, while he reflected that he had not appreciated indoor plumbing before this.
It seemed the wizard had, over the centuries, perfected the art of cooking good meals. He set aside some of the dried meat in a little water while he chopped the garlic roughly and put it in the pan with a dollop of something from a jar. From the sizzle and the heavenly smell, Jamie realized it was pork fat. Grain followed, toasted with the garlic and fat, then water and the rehydrated meat. When it was close to done, a few chopped chunks of the cheese followed to melt into the pottage.
The result was unlike anything he had eaten before, but it was delicious. He reflected that some of the deliciousness might be due to his day of exertion, but he honestly didn’t care. He savored it as much as he could and wished he had about four times as much.
When they were finished eating, they sat around the fire for a while in silence. They weren’t worried anymore about someone sneaking up on them in the night. In fact, Jamie was inclined to think that anyone who climbed the mountain at night to attack them had earned whatever they could steal.
He realized after a while that Taigan was humming one of the bawdy songs from the caravan. Even without the words, it didn’t pass as a particularly pretty tune, but it was catchy.
“I beg your pardon,” Kural said finally, “but how did you come to know that song?”
“Oh.” It was too dark to tell if she was blushing but she certainly sounded embarrassed. “They sang it in the caravan we were with. It kind of gets stuck in your head.”
“I always wondered about the mechanics,” the wizard said meditatively. “Wouldn’t the dragon’s talons do some real damage?”
Everyone stared at him.
He frowned. “I sense the lyrics may have changed since I last heard the song. I knew it as ‘The Dusk Dragon and the Kraken Fair.’”
“Yeah, that is not the version we heard.” She was trying to keep a straight face but not doing a very good job. “Ours was, um…”
“The Knight With No Armor,” Esak interjected. As if he felt a need to fill the silence, he added, “It details his…adventures. He used very creative ways of getting out of problems. There was a considerable play on the term ‘fencing’—”
Kural held a hand up to stop the rambling.
“Thank you,” the young man said faintly.
“I wonder what kind of deranged mind comes up with that kind of thing,” Jamie said wickedly. After all, he knew exactly what kind of deranged mind it was.
“Keep it up, bucko, and they’ll be singing about you in caravans from now on. It’ll be the Dusk Dragon and Jamie. Or would you prefer the kraken?”
From Taigan’s expression, she had heard this as well.
> Kural, thankfully, was unaware of the exchange. He puffed meditatively on his pipe. “There’s little enough to do in a caravan. My guess is that the knight with no armor was, perhaps, a caravan guard whose companions played a prank on him and detailed his hypothetical exploits without armor or weapons.”
Jamie made a vague noise and tried to come up with some way to change the subject. “Uh…so, the weather is nice up here.”
Taigan gave him a look that clearly said, “Is that the best you can do?” She responded, however. “Yeah. I hope it doesn’t rain tonight.”
The wizard was either well-versed enough in social pleasantries to accept the desperate conversational gambit or he was too vague to have noticed. He nodded.
Esak yawned widely and made a huge stretch. “Anyone else for bed? I feel like I could sleep for a year.”
“I’d rather do that than go down the mountain,” Taigan joked. “Or maybe not. I wonder what my deepest fear is. I suppose I’ll find out tomorrow.”
“You’re taking this rather well,” Kural commented as he put his pipe out and went to lie down.
“Exhaustion will do that,” she said with a shrug. “I know I should be more afraid but I also know I’ll be scared enough tomorrow to make up for it.” She propped herself up on her elbows. “Are you two sure you can get down the mountain safely without us?”
“Yes,” the man said, wearily amused. “Sleep, young woman. You have quite a day ahead of you.”
Jamie settled onto his back and looked at the sky. He wouldn’t ever have thought that he could tell what stars should look like, but it was amazing how jarringly different these looked to him. There was no milky way, for one thing. He missed that.
Gradually, the others’ breathing changed and settled. Kural tended to blow his breath out in puffs, which was comical.
With a brief grin, Jamie rolled onto his side and stared into the darkness. Why couldn’t he sleep? He should sleep and wanted to sleep.
The snores started then. He peeked and discerned that they came from Esak’s bedroll. They were immensely amusing, almost a caricature of snores. Sometimes, they trailed off and then resumed. He pondered crawling over to roll the young man onto his side, but that seemed more familiar than he was comfortable with.
He’d simply put up with it. When he rolled his head sideways, Taigan’s eyes were open. She jabbed a finger silently in Esak’s direction and shook her head. He grinned and shrugged.
They settled down to watch the stars together. Knowing she was also awake made him more relaxed. He wasn’t alone with his thoughts but instead, was one of two people thinking about tomorrow’s trials. His sister would face her worst fear and he couldn’t help but wonder what that was.
While he had ideas, he had no clue how she could face any of them. He knew she had always been afraid of falling into a coma while mad at someone and dying without mending things. She often told them all that no matter how angry she was, she still loved them.
It was one of those things that warmed your heart and broke it at the same time.
Whatever she faced tomorrow, he thought sleepily, he would be there for her. She wouldn’t face it alone. He let his eyes drift closed. The snoring had stopped. That was good.
He had just achieved that light-all-over feeling when his sister sat bolt upright nearby, pushed herself up, and raced away.
“Wha—” Jamie scrambled to his feet.
Then he saw what had happened. He stood, tripped, and almost fell into the fire before he jogged in pursuit of the other two. Esak had been raised in this world and he was more used to the kind of workout they’d had today.
But Taigan was fast.
She tackled the fugitive to the ground, only to have Midnight come out of nowhere and bark his head off.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.
Esak ripped himself away from her. “I’m getting. The. Key.”
“You’re—” She clutched her head. “No. You’re not. We agreed that it makes more sense for you to stay here, find a cure, and be with your friend.”
“No. You agreed and you got that wizard to try to talk me into it!” he snapped in return.
“So, those snores were fake,” Jamie commented.
“That’s your takeaway here? Truly?”
Taigan waved her hands in exasperation. “I cannot believe we’re having this conversation. What part of ‘you won’t find a cure in my world’ do you not understand? Esak, I don’t even know if you exist there. You might merely stop existing everywhere! It’s—” She stopped and put her hands out as she spoke very slowly. “Esak, this plan won’t get you anything you want.”
“Says you.” He looked murderous now. “What was your plan, huh? Convince me to not go for the key, sure, but what if you couldn’t? Would you have killed me? Would you have snuck out in the middle of the night?”
“No! I…don’t know.” She shook her head. “Ugh. I wouldn’t have killed you. But yes, to keep you from killing yourself by using that key, I might have snuck off.”
“Oh, sure, it was all for my good.” His tone was mocking. He looked at Midnight and his face softened as he scratched the dog behind the ears, but one look at Taigan hardened his expression again.
“Not all. But if you’re angry at me for not letting you kill yourself, I don’t know what to tell you.” She folded her arms. “You…I can’t believe you. You made us think you were helping us.”
“You made me think you were helping!”
“Oh, for the love of all gods.” Kural came to join the group. “Young people will find anything to argue about. Anything at all. Young man, I am not as corruptible as you seem to believe and I am not doing this young woman’s dirty work for her. I happen to believe she is both correct about the cure and your ability to go between worlds. Come back to the mat and lie down. Your friend will be cured.”
“No.” Esak stepped back and drew a short sword he’d worn on his back. Where he had hidden it while they were on the road, Jamie didn’t know. “No. She and I will fight for it and whoever wins gets to go on.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“You realize this is stupid,” Taigan told Esak. She went to get her staff and looked frequently over her shoulder to make sure he wouldn’t simply shank her and win the fight illegally. “Like…seriously stupid.”
“It’s the only way to resolve it,” he said.
“No. No, it’s not. It’s you trying to find a way to get out of living for the rest of your life. I mean—you know what I mean.” She wiggled her shoulders and tried to find the energy within herself to start this fight. “And what if you lose, huh? What then? Who will save Ella?”
“We’re not fighting to the death,” he snapped.
“See, I did not know that. That makes it less stupid but only marginally. How do we know who wins?”
“We’ll know.” He made a pass in the air with the sword and air whistled.
“See, that’s the kind of sloppy set-up that results in disagreements.” Taigan stepped back as he made another pass in her direction. “What are the terms and what are the rules?”
“Also,” Jamie interjected, “you thought this was a fight to the death and you still intended to do it?”
“I have the same question.”
“I…” Taigan didn’t know what to say to that. “Well, I didn’t plan to kill him.”
“Frankly, I care more about whether you planned to die,” her brother muttered.
“Oh. Right.” She shrugged and pointed with the staff to an open patch of ground. “Over there.”
“Right.” Esak backed away.
“You two should not do this,” Kural said. “There is no point in endangering yourselves for this.”
“I’m doing it for Ella!” the young man snapped.
“No, you’re doing it to kill yourself. It would be much easier—and, frankly, more polite—to simply throw yourself from the mountain.” The wizard raised an eyebrow. At the twins’ incredulous stares, he ad
ded, “But you should also not do that. Your odds of living long enough to find Ella a cure are significantly better if you work with me.”
“This is about…principles.” Esak settled into a fighting stance.
“Taigan, don’t do this.” Jamie put a hand on her arm.
“No. If he wants to do it, then we’ll do it.” She shook his hand off and stepped forward.
To tell the truth, she wasn’t entirely sure why she was so determined to have this fight. It was a ridiculous thing for him to ask and even more ridiculous for her to agree. Between her, Jamie, and Kural, they could doubtless stop it if they wanted to.
Her opponent had learned from the caravan attack. He came in swinging lower than she had ever seen anyone do with a sword—a slash low enough to take her out at the shins. She sidestepped and blocked with a downward thrust of her staff and the blade bit into the wood. He wrenched it free with a curse.
“Young man,” Kural said, “that is no way to treat a weapon.”
Esak darted him a dangerous look and attacked with a series of overhand hacks and slashes. Taigan backed away a few steps, ducked, and spun under his arms to circle behind him. His back was open but she didn’t take the chance to strike his exposed spine.
She wasn’t sure why she did that either.
“You’ve dreamed about this for a long time,” she said to him when he turned to face her again.
“Fighting you? Not really.” He managed a cutting smile.
“Not that, you loon. Finding a way to run away from everything that makes you feel inferior.”
He said nothing.
“You accepted that there was a better way to help Ella,” she pressed, “but then you lay there and you realized you couldn’t give up on the plan. Because it hasn’t ever been about Ella at all, has it?”
Esak responded with a yell and surged toward her in a fury. He wasn’t well trained but in the end, neither was she. Her experience with weapons was only a few weeks old, hardly better than his.
It was, she reminded herself, possibly even worse. She had rarely seen people work well with weapons and he had been through years of training, even if he hadn’t taken to it. He would have a better instinctive grasp of tactics.
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