by Martha Carr
“I believe I warned you not to rescue a troll in the first place,” Correk said, turning around to watch the approaching lights.
“No one likes somebody who has to be right, Bert.”
“Correk.”
“What?”
“Correk, my name is Correk,” he said, doing his best to control his own anger and not sing the words.
“Well, then, Correk, it sounds like your voice is breaking and you finally hit puberty. How about if we leave all the talking to me and you sit way back in the seat and say nothing at all,” Leira said.
The black and white police cruiser pulled up neatly behind the Mustang, the lights still spinning. The traffic slowed even more. She did her best not to look in their direction.
She kept an eye on the rearview mirror and watched as the officer called in her plates. “Good,” she mumbled, “he’ll find out this is a slick top.”
She watched him get out slowly and walk over to her window where he could see the badge she was clutching between her fingers. He signaled to her to lower the window and she removed one hand to push the button. He glanced back at the lines of traffic and then at Leira, a look of confusion on his face.
“He’s wondering where the monster is,” whispered Correk.
“Not now,” hissed Leira. “Shut Up.”
“Are you Detective Leira Berens?” he asked, bending down to get a better look at Correk in the backseat. He stifled a smile.
Leira refused to acknowledge that there was anything strange about having a grown man in what looked like a costume in the back of a police cruiser.
“Sir,” he said, nodding at Correk. “Detective, are you okay? We got a report of a large wild animal, maybe a lion, loose in someone’s car.”
“Nothing like that here. We’re in one piece with no animals on board. Just about to call a tow truck.”
“You see anything? We got more than one call. They said a green Mustang. Any chance you saw another car like yours pass through here?” he asked, puzzled, peering into the distance as if the car would appear.
“Haven’t seen another Mustang but I haven’t been looking. No large wild animals of any kind either.”
Correk cleared his throat and gave the cop a cross between a grimace and a tight smile. Leira saw the look in the rearview mirror.
“Yes, we’re fine,” she said, trying to distract the officer. “Headed out of town and thought I heard something rattling. Something must be up with the steering,” she said, hoping her lie would pass muster. “I took out an innocent highway sign.” She smiled, hoping the questions would stop.
“Sure it wasn’t a lion?” asked the officer, smiling back. “Tear off a hose or something?”
Leira slid her right leg over just enough to cover the rip in the seat. It looked too new and she couldn’t easily explain where it came from. He laughed like they were all in on a joke, and leaned down to get a better look at Correk. She watched his face as he took in what Correk was wearing, and the pointed ears.
“Can you tell me where you’re headed?” he asked, his smile growing wider.
“Chicago Comicon,” said Leira, wondering how that idea came to her. “Big fans. Bert back there couldn’t wait. He’s Lord of the Rings. You know the story.”
“That’s a long drive to wear your costume the entire way. I admire your dedication. What’s your costume going to be?” he asked Leira, bending down again to get another view of Correk who was rolling his eyes.
“A hobbit,” she said, doing her best to own the statement. It was the first thing that popped into her mind. She could hear a snort from the backseat but kept looking at the officer.
“That’s an interesting choice,” he said. “You’re from Region Two, right? Make sure you get a lot of pictures. There’ll be a lot of interest.”
Leira did her best dead fish look and added a hint of menacing. “You work in traffic, right?” she asked in an even tone. She was trying to push just enough to slow him down on sharing some of the details when he got back to the station, without annoying him to the point where he asked everyone to get out of the car.
The expression on his face changed and he stood up a little straighter, hooking his thumbs in his belt. Message received.
“Well, you get a tow truck here as soon as you can, Detective, and make sure they check out the steering,” he said, giving her a sharp nod, and knocking the roof with his fist.
Leira instantly regretted being such a dick and started to say she heard there were openings in the CRASH unit when a high-pitched whine came out of her pocket.
“That’s what regret sounds like from a troll,” Correk whispered, leaning forward. “They’re emotional truth-sayers, hobbit.” He drew the last word out into two long syllables.
“You were going to say something, Detective Berens?” asked the officer.
“No, we’re good. Thank you, Officer.” She watched him walk back to his patrol car, glancing over his shoulder twice before finally getting in his car and speeding off, sending a little dust in their direction.
“Someone is going to get a helluva ticket off that guy today,” she said.
“What’s a ticket?” Correk asked.
"Yeah, that’s the biggest question on my mind, too,” said Leira sarcastically, twisting in her seat. The troll squeaked. “What if we start with why the hell are you dropping in unannounced while I’m speeding down the highway, instead? Was it that big of an emergency?”
Yumfuck slipped out of her pocket and scrambled up to the top of the front seat, shaking his fist at Correk.
“Trolls are annoying in general,” he remarked, plucking him off the seat and depositing him next to Leira. “To answer your question, yes, it was an emergency but not for the reasons I was sent here. There are now two groups that seems to want Bill Somers and the necklace back, but for different reasons.”
“Can you get up here in the front seat so I don’t look like a glorified Uber driver? You just squeeze the handle right there.”
“We may not have the same level of technology,” Correk said, climbing into the front seat, “but I’ve used a handle or two in Oriceran.”
“I thought maybe with magic you didn’t bother.”
“Lazier than I aspire to.”
“Going to have to get a tow truck out here. It’s going to delay things for at least a day.”
“Good, then we can talk about what you may find in Chicago.”
“Good? I would think you’d be antsy to get moving. That makes no sense. You dragged me to your world, just one day ago, and told me to hotfoot it because this rock Bill Somers stole has a timer on it. I found him, and by the way, he’s halfway across the country. A very long drive.”
“You have planes. I’ve seen them. Yes, we can see you.”
“Creepy and we’ll talk about that later. But, I’m absolutely certain trolls aren’t allowed on planes. TSA would have a field day.”
“Go back to Austin,” he said seriously. “There’s a lot to explain and things have gotten a lot more complicated.”
“Is that why you were sent here? I saw that big helping hand you got.”
“That was the Ogre prophet. They felt you needed some assistance in order to get the job done in the time that’s left.”
“If that’s true, why aren’t they opening up a hole from Austin to Chicago and just shoving me through it?” she asked steering back onto the road.
“Portals between two places on Earth are even more dangerous for both the conjurer and the traveler. That’s a last resort option.”
“Good news. We’re not at last resorts but it’s more complicated. How complicated?” she asked, looking over at Correk.
“Oriceran was not always a peaceful planet,” he started.
“You’re going back to the beginning of time? Fuck me.”
“It’s necessary if you’re to understand all of the pieces of this puzzle.”
“All of that magic literally crawling under your skin and you can’t make
people tell you the truth.”
“Even magic has its rules and its limits. Breaking those rules or testing those limits has very real consequences.”
“Here we call that prison,” said Leira.
“We do as well. Trevilsom Prison in the middle of the largest ocean.”
“How do you keep a magic creature in a cell? We have a hard-enough time with human beings. Can’t figure out how to just hold down a regular job but they can make a knife out of almost anything.”
“Trevilsom is cursed. Magic turns in on itself there and the mind follows. The entire island gives off a gas that only the jailers who are from the island can tolerate and remain sane. No one comes out of Trevilsom unchanged.”
“That’s not justice,” Leira said.
“I’ve seen your justice system. I’ve been particularly interested in watching how you enforce laws. Your system has just as many problems, and breaks just as many people.”
“We’re really going to have to talk about the watching thing,” said Leira, her voice growing cold. She was learning how to get her point across without getting angry and growing a bigger troll.
Enough with the deep breathing, she thought. She called an old friend of her mother’s who owned a repair shop. He came out with an old Toyota with one of his young employees following behind in a tow truck.
“Nice to see you again, Leira. Seems like the only time I hear from you is when a car breaks down.”
“Sorry about that, Ralph,” said Leira. “I meant to call you…”
“It’s okay,” he said, patting her shoulder with a leathery hand. “I expect it’s tough to run into your mother’s old friends. I get it.”
“Same deal?” she asked.
“Same deal. You pay me cash and no one has to know you bent up the police cruiser. Looks like your radiator. You’re in luck. I think I have one that’ll fit back at the shop. This really important?”
Leira nodded her head.
“Then, I suppose it’ll be ready by morning. Promised your mother I’d look out for you, when you’d let me. You should let me more often,” he said with a smile.
Leira didn’t even wait for the Mustang to get on the bed of the tow truck. She gave Ralph a hug and drove off in the Toyota, looking at him in the rearview mirror. He gave her a wave and watched her drive off.
She took the Cesar Chavez exit and turned on to 5th Street, headed for home. Traffic was heavy along the popular route. It was the time of year when tourists from the north flooded Austin for the warm air and cold margaritas. Austin was never meant to be more than a sleepy capital of Texas. The roads were always clogged with cars and bikes.
It was all Leira had ever known and she was used to the slow crawl.
“You say this puzzle is key to this case. All you’re talking about are some leads that look connected. Fine, tell me the whole story. If I can’t get on the road, I’d like to know why,” Leira looked over at Correk.
“And what might be hunting me,” she asked him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Thousands of years ago, all the different kingdoms of Oriceran were at each other’s throat over as many different disputes, some of them even forgotten. Still, the fighting continued and everyone lost people they loved.”
“Including your family?”
“Everyone. Light Elves see everyone who is a Light Elf as family. We don’t break into smaller clans like the Dwarves. The war raged on for hundreds of years, across generations and over many lands. It is a long story, and it’s worth the telling but we don’t have time for all of it now. Someday, I hope to tell you more.”
“What finally ended the conflict?”
“A treaty was proposed. Not the first time that had happened, but this one came from the prophets. Like your Supreme Court. A ruling body that serves for life with a member from every society. They oversee everything on Oriceran, across our world. Everyone was weary of hating their neighbor by then, and there was almost unanimous acceptance.”
“I suppose the key word there is almost.”
“Yes, it is. One tribe, the Atlanteans, refused to even listen. They were a privileged race who did their best to forestall the treaty.”
“Atlanteans like Atlantis, like underwater lost city?” asked Leira.
“There are connections. The Atlanteans are distant cousins of the race from Earth. Originally, they came from the sea and looked just like humans except for their hair, which were actually very clever tentacles.”
“Here on Earth we don’t normally refer to hair as clever.”
“These tentacles are detachable and can be used to track others. It’s racial memory from when they had to hunt for their food.”
“You were going to say prey,” said Leira. “That’s what one of these Atlanteans would see me as, prey. I can assure you that’s not the case.”
“I agree or I would have already moved you somewhere safer. The Atlanteans managed to stay out of most of the fighting and were quite happy to let the rest of us wipe each other out. In the end, they were the ones wiped out.”
“Sounds brutal,” Leira said.
“It was complicated,” Correk replied. “They had managed to stay out of much of the fighting by using dark magic. A kind of magic no one else was willing to practice.”
“Even to stop a war?”
“They saw it as an outside issue for hundreds of years until there was talk of a real treaty. My father told me stories when I was a boy about the Atlanteans and how they were suspected of using their dark magic to plant seeds of jealousy and hatred in the different kingdoms. There were stories that the Atlanteans’ dark magic was responsible for hardening hearts against each other and that’s what had taken down earlier treaties.”
“Like an epic tale of Dungeons and Dragons.”
“That game was started by a Light Elf who lives among your people.”
“So many questions I want to ask right now. Like a hundred different rabbit holes I could get lost in,” said Leira, as she turned the car onto Rainey Street. The lunch crowd was in full swing with lines in front of all the food trucks. As usual, Carra’s Taco Truck, painted a bright red with the lettering in yellow and blue had the longest line.
“But I’m more interested in how this all pertains to you showing up out of nowhere in my car,” she said.
“The Atlanteans saw that the treaty was gaining ground and they did the unthinkable. They used a kind of dark magic that has only been used once before and was forbidden, even during the wars. They tried to send the prophets to the world in between. A nether world that is full of the living and the dead where nothing ever happens and no one ages. I think your people call them ghosts.”
“That’s really a thing?” she asked, a chill running down her back.
“The kings from all the realms, all across Oriceran, finally came together and in a battle that raged for days, weeks even, they managed to kill the Atlanteans. The ground was soaked with the blood of both sides but the wars were over. Somehow, that tragedy from thousands of years ago reared up again, six hundred years ago to poison the mind of a half-Atlantean named Rhazdon who turned Oricerans from everywhere into his own apostles.”
“A resentment that spanned across millennia is impressive,” said Leira.
“He was seeking revenge and probably enjoyed the irony of using the different races to avenge his forgotten race. To join his movement every follower had to swear to purity of mind and embrace Rhazdon’s philosophies.”
“We’d call that a cult on Earth. I’m familiar with what it can do to human beings when they drink the poisoned Kool-Aid.”
“Rhazdon didn’t care about anyone or anything else. Vengeance was his only motivation. To prove the Atlanteans, this part of himself he had embraced, were superior. He used his followers to cause dissent, eventually leading them into small battles that were only growing worse. The kings stepped in and there was one enormous battle that wiped out most of Rhazdon’s followers. A great painting to commemorate the wor
st and best day on Oriceran hangs in our post office.”
“So many things I want to ask. The only things in our post offices are wanted posters and ads for stamps.”
“After that, lasting peace came to Oriceran,” he said.
“An entire group of people had to be wiped out, twice. That is intense. What about their leader, this Rhazdon. What became of him?”
“The king of the Light Elves chased him into the castle. He was cornered in the tower when it began to burn in a fire set by magic, engulfing everything. Rhazdon was trapped inside. The tower collapsed. He couldn’t have survived in the burning rubble. Their magic, their books, their potions, all of it was taken and locked away by the prophets. Gnomes protect it to this day.”
“Sounds like a happy ending,” she said. There was no place to park right in front of Estelle’s, which was unusual for Leira. She even circled the block once, she was so sure that something would open up.
Instead, a Chevy truck backed out of a space in front of the food court and Leira gave in, sliding into the spot.
“I suppose my luck had to run out sometime,” she said. She started to open her door but Correk grabbed her arm.
“There’s something more to the murder of the prince. The pieces all fit into something. The Prince’s murder by a human being, the willen warning me of something not extinct. Then, there’s the scarab,” said Correk, pulling a small drawstring pouch out of his pocket. Inside was the green stone set into a scarab. He turned it over to show Leira the figure eight, the sign of infinity.
“This is a symbol of Rhazdon’s old dark magic.”
“You think one of his followers survived the last battle,” said Leira in a hushed voice, her eyes growing wider.
“If one did, and passed this down through their family then Rhazdon’s dark magic may still be out there where it can be used. Magic most of us have never heard of and do not know how to combat.”
“What does all of this have to do with the sudden urgency from all sides to get Bill Somers and return the necklace?”
“You’re a good detective, Leira Berens. I don’t have all the answers yet. I wonder if you’re also somehow the key to solving this mystery. I saw what happened when you reached out to the fireball.”