by A. L. Knorr
"Quiet, Willen," one of the men said. The tallest one, with the yellowest teeth, bore more than a passing resemblance to a rat himself.
The silver rat drew himself up as straight as he could, then pawed at the folds of skin that covered his sides and drew out a gold talisman.
Allan blinked, shocked sober. "I come in p-peace," he finally said. That is what one says when faced with aliens, right? Or as an alien, rather…
"You come in pieces, if we decide so," another man said, this one shorter than the first, with a back as broad as he was tall, and muscled like a workhorse. The rough terrain of his dried-out skin seemed to reflect the sun in patches.
"Bo, you don't speak with him," the first guy said. "I speak with him."
Bo pursed his thick, dusty lips and then snarled like a dog, spittle spraying onto his chin.
The rats actually chuckled, looking at one another. It was a strange sound—a high-pitched sort of purr, accompanied by a gnashing of their sharp front teeth.
"Look at the gypsies, yes? Look how they argue." The rat on all fours pawed at the hot sand, throwing it up like it was confetti.
This is madness, Allan thought. Please tell me Jordan did not fall into these creatures’ paws. ‘Gypsies’ was a term he recognized. The gypsies back home were trinket collectors and nomads. Perhaps these folk would be the same. "I don't mean any harm," Allan said in a calm soothing tone.
"He don't mean harm," the man called Bo sneered, and whipped off his thick goggles, one eye pointed inward at the bridge of his nose. "He don't mean harm, Kam." He chuckled.
Kam, the tall one, snorted. "Harm found you, portal hopper. You hop portals all the time, do you?"
The standing rat shook his golden talisman, and then pointed a long thin claw toward the mountain range in the distance. "Long ways to go yet. We find the stash, we leave him behind, yes?"
"No," Kam growled.
Allan pushed his hands outward in what he hoped counted as a gesture of supplication. "I'm not a… portal hopper, as you call it. I came here by accident. I don't want to cause any trouble. You can understand that, surely, fine men and–uh–rats, such as yourselves. I'm sure you've seen your fair share of trouble in the past." He went for a charismatic grin but it translated as a rictus of fear.
"This one talks too much. Cut out his tongue, yes?" the standing rat suggested. Then his expression changed, and he seemed to think better of it. He shook the trinket again. "No time, no time, though. We must go."
"Wait." The sitting rat rose onto his hind legs, pink nose probing the air. "He smell like good meat."
"We no eat no men," Bo grunted. "We say so already, too many times. Rats don't listen."
Kam socked his comrade on the arm. "We no eat no man," he agreed then gave a "Ha!"
"Then what to do with him?"
The four surreal characters tapped their chins or snouts and sniffed the air. They huddled closer together while Allan stood statue-like. I could run while they talk, but to where? The mountain is miles away. They'd be on me in moments. They look like they live out here; this is their territory.
Allan found himself hoping they might be able to help him. Though the whole 'good meat' thing wasn't a promising sign. He cleared his throat, thinking he'd try for some empathy. "Do you have families? Sons? Daughters?"
The group ignored him. "Portal hopping illegal," one of the rats said for the second or third time. He scratched underneath his eyepatch. "Warden pay good gold for him. Maybe more than what we find at mountain stash."
"Warden one day walk from here," Kam replied. "We no walk a day for bad pay. We go to mountain."
"We go to mountain, he die, we have good meat, yes?" The rat with the eyepatch brightened, hopeful that his companions might change their minds about having man for dinner.
"We no eat no man." Bo folded his muscly arms across his open leather vest. His sand-coated goggles sat on top of his dreadlocks like a bulbous second set of eyes.
The men and rats descended into a flurry of ill-spoken protests and arguments. Allan could barely keep track, and looked from one to the other while they decided his fate.
Allan tried again. "I've lost my daughter. Have you seen—" then he second-guessed himself. Maybe telling this horde of degenerates about Jordan would be a bad idea. He closed his mouth, but none of them acknowledged that he'd spoken. Allan's mind raced for a way out of the situation. He looked down at his Rolex, thinking.
Finally, the rat with two healthy beady eyes flashed a look at Allan, then back to his companions. "Warden not a day, only four hour walk from here," he said. His snout gave a jerk, like a punctuation mark after his statement.
"Why you no say before?" Kam raised a meaty fist, but the rat glared at him, and Kam lowered it slowly with a frown. He wouldn't strike the rat. Interesting, thought Allan. These four seem like uneasy business partners. Perhaps I can take advantage of that.
"If not for the meat, then for the money," the rat said coldly.
"I'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement that doesn't involve ransom or… or cannibalism," Allan said, then added, "or the warden," as an afterthought. If using a portal was illegal, he didn't want to know what this warden fellow would do about it. Did they have prisons here? "You see, where I'm from, I am an excellent spokesperson and negotiator. You seem in a desperate way; perhaps I can help improve your positions. We can help each other."
"Too much talk!" Bo pressed his palms to his ears.
"You cut out the tongue," one-eyed rat said. "He don't need his tongue for the warden. Also tongue is nice, very tasty."
"Stop with the talk-talk," Kam shook his head. "Too much long words."
Allan swallowed. "I can help you, is what I'm saying," he continued. "I know ways to get things done that others don't. I'm experienced in diplomacy; perhaps I can help negotiate on behalf of your people. I can be very helpful—" Allan listened to himself and cringed inside. I sound like a desperate fool. He clenched his eyes tight with frustration. I am a desperate fool.
"What's this ‘diplomacy’?" the one-eyed rat snapped.
"Type of fish?" Ko shrugged.
"No, it's—" Allan stuttered weakly. This situation was completely out of control and rapidly heading south. There was nothing in all his years of political experience that had prepared him to face two bloodthirsty talking rats and two steampunk gypsies with snakeskin.
"We no want no fish," Bo said. "We need gold." He tapped a golden front tooth. "Dipolmacee taste bad to me."
"The warden we come." Ko marched forward and grabbed Allan's hands. He jerked them behind his back, and cold metal looped across his wrists.
Allan shuddered. "No, please. Please, listen to m—"
There was a terrific crack, and pain blasted through the back of Allan's head. He careened forward, unconscious before even hitting the desert floor.
***
Allan became conscious first of the driving pain in the back of his head, and then of the sensation of cool humid air, and the sound of waves crashing onto a beach. Slowly, memory returned to him. Talking rats. Ignorant, muscular men covered in pale sand and wearing dusty goggles. A negotiation that went so poorly it had ended with a crack of something hard across his skull. The oak tree. The bugs… had he dreamed them? Allan's eyes cracked open. His mouth felt dry and thick, like it was coated with sawdust. He blinked and stretched an arm up over his head. "Ow," he said as his knuckles scraped against something rough and hard. A stone wall. He pushed himself to sitting, rubbing his hand and then the back of his head. He winced at the tender lump there.
His bed was nothing but planks of wood balanced on concrete blocks. Sunlight streamed into the space from a slatted narrow window high above his head, and the light hit the floor in stripes. Stripes? Allan looked up, his hand still cradling his poor head. There were bars on the window. Allan rubbed his eyes and looked around properly. Cold dread poured into his gut like ice water, and he fought to quell the panic rising in his breast. He was in a small but very tal
l cell, with a single low door that had a single low slatted window. The cry of gulls made him cock his head, and he closed his eyes as a fresh breeze of sea air swept through.
Allan got up and climbed up onto his sleeping pallet. The window was still too high for him to peer out of, but he hooked his fingers over the ledge and gave a short jump. Locking his arms, elbows bracing against the stone wall, Allan was able to get a view. His prison was not far up a grassy slope covered in sand the same color as in the desert he'd ported to. Long grasses swayed in the wind coming off the water, and dark waves broke along a pebbly beach. Allan just caught sight of a rickety-looking gray dock standing on posts and jutting out into the waves. There was no living soul in sight, save for the sea birds that screamed and dove into the waves.
The sound of a door slamming made Allan release his grip and drop back onto the pallet. He scooted off the bed and went to crouch at the door and peer through the bars. A plate with a few dry crusts of bread on it and a cracked tin cup half-filled with water were sitting just inside the door. Allan sniffed the water and darted out his tongue to taste it. Satisfied that it was fresh water, he drank it all at once. He peered out through the bars. Only the sight of another cell door greeted him.
"Hello?" he called out into the dark hallway.
"Bonjour," answered a dry, grating voice in the cell across from Allan. Something moved, making a sort of heavy slithering bump. Allan trained his eyes on the small barred window in the door. A face appeared, a man's face with big pockets of fat under his eyes and a thick grizzled beard. "You sound American," said the man, squinting across the hall at Allan.
"You sound French," replied Allan. He wrapped his fingers around the bars of the window and then snatched them back when he felt that they were as cold as ice.
"French I am and French I'll stay," said the man, his accent thick and soothing to the ears in spite of his raspy voice. "Until my dying day." He gave a throaty chuckle, which transformed into a deep chest cough.
"You don't sound so well," said Allan.
"I earned it." The man thumped his chest and gave another cough. "I like the tobacco."
"Ah." Allan could relate. He liked the bourbon. "I wondered if you might tell me where we are?"
"Vischer," replied the man, peering at Allan through the bars. His gray eyes looked weary but intelligent. "The butthole of the Saour Desert, where it shits you out into this miserable sea." His head jerked sideways in the direction of the water. "This is a pisse-froid endroit oublié. Nothing but a cooler for living slabs of meat. There is nothing on these coasts for hundreds of miles. Nothing but stupide gypsies and stinking rats and oiseaux démon."
"Where are you from?"
"Je suis de Paris. Et toi?"
Allan gaped at the face across the hall. "You're from Paris? How did you end up here? In this… universe?"
"Ah," the man sighed dramatically. "That is a very long story. To make a very long story a very short story, I was caught importing Pont l'Evêque without the paperwork, and…" Dirty fingers poked through the bars and waved meekly, "here I am."
"You're here for importing French cheese?"
The man nodded. "Oui. I will not be here long. That caca boudin Jenner, if he has sent my letter to Operyn how I asked, I have powerful friends who will make miserable his life. Such a waste." He sighed again. "These Oriceran laws are made by idiot."
"Oriceran?"
The finger tapped on the window ledge. "This place. Where we are." An eyeball pulled closer to the space between the bars. "Et toi? D'ou êtes-vous?"
"I am from Virginia. I'm Allan." He brought his face closer to the bars so the man could see him better. "Allan Kacy. Enchanté," he added with a weak smile.
"Marceau." The eyes bobbed as the man nodded. "It is a sad thing to meet you here, mon ami."
"Enough words!" Bellowed a loud voice from the end of the hall. The sound of a door banging against a wall made Allan jump, and Marceau narrowed his eyes in the direction of the noise.
"Je te chie dans le cou!" Marceau yelled down the hall with his mouth to the bars. He gave a coughing laugh at his own insult and squinted at Allan. "He understands no French. L'idiot."
Loud thumping steps drew near, and a pair of legs stopped in front of Marceau's cell. A wooden baton cracked against the bars. Marceau snatched his fingers back just in time.
"Shut your face, cheese-man."
The legs took a few steps toward Allan's cell, and a face appeared, pockmarked and scarred. The guard scratched his cheek with blunt fingers as he peered at Allan. "Awake?" A cloud of foul breath assaulted Allan's nose, and he jerked his face back. The guard produced a set of keys and rattled away with them in the lock. "Out!" He belted as the short door swung open.
Allan crouched and went through the door, standing to face his captor. The brute clamped iron chains around Allan's wrists and shoved Allan down the hall ahead of him. Marceau's face appeared in the bars, his eyes full of sympathy. According to Marceau, he had friends in high places and wouldn't be in here long. Allan had no such friends and didn't know where he was or exactly why he was in prison. If the gypsies were to be believed, it was for falling through a portal. Allan had claimed it was accidental, but that wasn't entirely true. He'd seen the messenger bugs clear the way from one universe into another, and he'd stepped through with the understanding that he was passing through some kind of astral door. What he hadn't known was that anyone considered it illegal. Surely that’s worth something?
Allan found himself ungraciously shoved through the door at the end of the hall, and plunked on a hard wooden chair in front of a small desk—behind which sat a small balding man with a red face.
"Unlock him," said the balding man without so much as a glance at Allan.
With a grunt, the guard took the chains from Allan's wrist. "I'm right behind you," the guard breathed the words into Allan's face. Allan turned his nose to the side and couldn't help but make a face of disgust at the man's reeking breath. It smelled like every tooth he had was rotting in his head. A hand grabbed Allan's jaw and straightened his face so the two men were eye to eye. "Give us a kiss." He made a smacking sound.
"That's enough, Wilmot," said the balding man, clearly the superior here. The guard gave one last smack into Allan's face and then moved to stand behind him.
The balding man finally graced Allan with a look. Allan shivered. They were cold, dead eyes, void of feeling—even void of that shine of life, for they were dull, colorless. "Do you understand why you are here?"
Allan considered his jailer. How to approach this? He felt instinctively that the man would not respond well to weakness. Allan himself was in a place of power back home; if all that time spent making authoritative speeches wouldn't help now, what good was he? "I understand," began Allan, forcing strength into his voice that he didn't really feel, "that I was accosted by criminals in the desert, assaulted, and brought here against my will and under duress." Allan kept his voice calm and his eyes on the man's face, unwavering and loath to show weakness. "I suspect that wild accusations were likely made by my captors while I was unconscious and unable to defend myself, and that, in all likelihood, money was exchanged for my person. Do I have any of that wrong?"
The man across the desk was unmoved throughout this speech. He did not react, he did not melt. The only change was a slight lifting of the upper lip, an expression Allan recognized as disdain. Allan's heart fell. That expression belied a lack of respect that was critical for negotiation. The man leaned forward, his eyes penetrating. "Do you deny illegally using a portal to pass from Earth to Oriceran?"
Allan's lips parted and he hesitated. Did he tell the truth here, or did he lie only to get caught out later? He had no idea how to confound anyone into thinking he was native here. "No, I do not deny using a portal. But I do deny having any knowledge of it being illegal. If I had known that—"
"Ignorance is no defense," the man replied dismissively. He grabbed a large wooden stamp and pounded it on the page in front o
f him. He picked up a quill and wrote something on the bottom of the document with a flourish. "Thank you for your full confession." He picked up the page, folded it and handed it to Wilmot, who snatched it with a grunt and shoved it into a pocket inside his coat. The balding man waved a hand, and Wilmot grabbed Allan under the arm.
"Wait, now what?" Allan said. His voice cracked, and he felt all his bravado fall away.
"Now you go where all portal jumpers go," grunted Wilmot.
"Yes," murmured the balding man, looking down and shuffling through the papers and books on his desk, in search of something. "As soon as I can arrange some blasted transport—"
"Where is that?"
"Trevilsom Prison," Wilmot sneered into Allan's face as he dragged him from the office.
"Wait! Please don't do this," Allan pleaded, kicking the door as Wilmot dragged him through it and back toward his cell. "My daughter. I need to find my daughter!" His cries echoed down the hall, bringing Marceau back to the bars on his window.
Allan found himself unceremoniously dumped back in his cell, and the door locked behind him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Arpaks spread their wings and climbed from the platform on the water. Just as they took off, a huge gust of wind blasted them from beneath, catching their wings like a parachute snapping open and hurtling them into the sky.
"Wooo hoooo!" Jordan startled with a laughing scream. "What was that?" She was clutching Blue, who'd squirmed in surprise at the sudden velocity.
Sol laughed at Jordan's reaction. "Courtesy of the Republic of Rodania, a little send-off to help its winged citizens and guests make their way home." Sol did a spiral in the air beside Jordan, grinning and curling his wings tight around him like a bullet, only to snap them open again. Man, it feels so good to be home. He was enjoying showing Jordan his home more than he thought he would. It was fun to introduce an uninitiated to the beauty of his city.