Dream

by RW Krpoun

  “No, sir.” In situations like this a respectful formality worked best, Shad felt.

  “The Plain is one large field of it, but the surface deposits have long since been gathered up. Digging would be easiest, but tends to take time and attract attention. Your best method is to explore stream banks, or look for barrows or mounds as the Plains were once home to primitive Men who used white stone for the supports of their barrow-homes and burial mounds. Speaking of which, if you uncover any of their bronze weapons or goods I have a contact who will pay top price for them.”

  “We’ll get on it at once,” Shad promised. “By any chance, do you know of a reasonable map-maker?”

  “Eight shillings for a map!” Shad fumed. “Not today, that’s for damned certain. Not even with the shilling we got for the amber.” He glanced up at the sun. “Coming on noon. We could grab a meal, buy some rations and vinegar for the trip, and head out.”

  “Sounds good,” Jeff agreed. “How many days rations?”

  “Thirty miles one way, three days walking round-trip at least, call it four to be safe. Four more for looking. What about digging tools?”

  “Small stuff,” Fred suggested. “We need to free up weight for the stone.”

  “Good point. My pack is pretty empty, maybe twenty, twenty-five pounds all told. Our ration load will get lighter each day. Let’s get going.”

  The Twilight Way left the City-State to the north-northwest, sweeping through the broad farm and pasture lands that fed the city.

  “OK, ten miles up the road is Havenhall, which marks the end of the City-State’s reach,” Derek checked his notes. “About eight miles further on the road turns more or less due north, and at that point we should head southwest for about ten miles, which will put us on the Plains.”

  “How big is Havenhall?” Jeff asked.

  “About four hundred people, and a small castle nearby that acts as a border watch.”

  “What are they watching for?” Shad wanted to know.

  “Not much. Naturally, there’s the usual baddies around, but small scale stuff. From what the merchant said, aside from the City-State there’s only a stronghold to the north. For a hundred-fifty miles in any direction it is just small independent communities and tribes of non-Humans.”

  “I’m surprised the Ultimate Master hasn’t expanded his borders,” Jeff observed as they trudged along. “Looks like all he would need to do is send out a few troops to establish security. I bet the locals in the boonies would be glad to see fighting men.”

  “Good point.”

  The four trudged on, ignoring the peasants in the fields who were carefully ignoring them.

  “How far today?” Fred asked.

  Shad glanced at the sun. “I figure we’ll camp out-that will give us a little edge on things. Get as far past Havenhall as we have light. Eighteen miles from Havenhall to the Plains, but ten of that is cross-country, so I figure that’s a full day.”

  “At least we came in with boots that were broken in,” Jeff observed. “Small favors.”

  Havenhall was laid out in a square, surrounded by a palisade of clay-covered timbers on three sides and a stone wall on the fourth. The fighting towers at each corner were stone, as were the gatehouses on the north and south sides.

  The four bypassed the town, cutting through fields.

  “Well, now you know why the Ultimate Master hasn’t pushed out further,” Shad told Jeff. “There’s a lot of gold going into that place.”

  “What an idiot,” the handsome ex-Ranger and present Night-grifter shook his head. “He already has a castle overlooking this place.”

  “I’m feeling a little better about our chances for taking him out,” Shad grinned. “If it was me, I would have put the money either into troops to secure more land, or to build a fort on the edge of the Direwood so loggers could push the trees back faster.”

  Discussing the options of a ruler with a city-state at his dispoal they slogged on.

  As the miles trudged by one step at a time the Talons found themselves relaxing, and resuming the bickering that had characterized their years-long relationship. Derek was hazed about fictional sexual oddities, Shad was mocked for his abrasive and dismissive personality, Fred for his slovenly living habits, and Jeff for his habit of running corrupt characters and a tendency to say things that came out horribly wrong.

  “What are you doing?” Jeff asked as he approached Shad, who was sitting next to his pack.

  “Working on a charm. I put in two hours last night, and am about an hour in today, and I’m almost done.”

  “Three hours per? That’s rough.”

  “It will get better. All we have to do is survive a few more levels.”

  “Yeah, same old story. Here’s some sort of stew we concocted. We flipped for watches, you got last watch.”

  “Good, I can work on another charm.”

  Jeff sat on the grass, sitting off-set and facing so his field of view covered Shad’s blind zone. “Man, this feels too much like Iraq.”

  “Worse than Iraq; there we had the firepower and a multi-layered organization. Here we’re very small fry with no one watching our back. The only advantage we have is that no one is gunning for us specifically, so all we have to worry about is the stuff labeled ‘to whom this may concern’.”

  Jeff snickered. “No IEDs or RPGs, at least. I can’t say using cold steel is easier, but a spear-thrust is less scary than incoming tracers.”

  “Or mortars. And I have to say, Goblins are easier to kill than people, even if the people are firing AKs at you. Mentally, I mean.”

  “The stars look the same,” Jeff stared up. “Of course, I have no idea what our stars should look like, other than the Big Dipper and the North Star, which are still here.”

  “Welcome to the Silvermist Plains,” Derek announced as the four crested a small rise in the late afternoon sun.

  “How can you be sure?” Jeff surveyed the expanse of rolling highlands. “It’s just a little flatter than what we’ve been crossing.”

  The Shadowmancer pointed to a small stand of trees. “See? They look like willows with gray leaves, almost silver. Silverlines. The alchemist apprentice I talked to mentioned them, they’re native to the Plains.”

  “Great.” Shad sat on a log and dropped his pack. “Now all we have to do is find buried rocks.”

  “That’s where it gets complicated,” Derek admitted. “We’re hardly the first. The easy stuff will be gone. I guess head deeper into the Plains, see what we see.”

  “No,” Fred shook his head. “High ground.” He pointed to the hills that lined the plain.

  “Why high ground?” Shad asked.

  “Visibility,” the warehouseman-turned-barbarian gestured towards the hills. “You bury a warrior worthy of a mound, you either put him on a battlefield or you put him up high, someplace dominant. I saw that on NatGeo.”

  “OK,” Shad nodded thoughtfully, idly tucking a couple pieces of bark into his charms pouch. “But wouldn’t everyone know that?”

  “No,” Jeff shook his head. “The study of ancient people for purely intellectual purposes is a post-medieval thing. On Earth only the Catholic Church maintained that sort of intellectual research during the Dark Ages and Medieval times. I didn’t see a big religious presence here.”

  “From what whats-her-face said, I bet these are not religious people,” Derek nodded. “Not as we understand the concept.”

  “What about the mages?” Shad asked.

  “They would look into stuff that would connect to power,” Derek admitted. “But not just for the sake of knowledge, at least not as a group. These barbarians are only noteworthy for their use of whitestone. I doubt much is really known about them.”

  “All right, we have an edge. What else you got, Fred?”

  “If the mound wasn’t in an area under direct control, or if they were nomads, they would conceal the mound by making it look natural while leaving a method of marking it so future tribesmen could find it.
”

  “What do we look for?”

  “A method of marking that won’t look man-made, but which is distinctive. Nomads in the plains of the Ukraine planted trees on top of the mound. Certain types of trees.”

  “What about these trees?” Shad gestured towards the silverlines.

  “They only grow on the Plains,” Derek said thoughtfully. “Well, places like the Plans. Something in the soil.”

  “When did you get a lecture on trees?” Jeff snickered.

  Derek flushed. “Hey, she was cute. And she was prepping the leaves.”

  “Too bad we didn’t get a contract to gather leaves, too,” Shad shook his head.

  “They grow them, the alchemists. You just have to prep the soil…” Derek’s voice trailed off.

  “Yeah,” Fred grinned. “I wonder if those nomads knew how to prep the soil?”

  “Worth looking into,” Shad heaved his pack back on. “Lets go.”

  “Sum bitch,” Shad gasped, dumping his pack and collapsing into the dry grass. “That’s pretty damn steep.”

  “Its been a while since I marched up a slope with a pack,” Jeff gasped, dropping pack-first onto his back and then wriggling out of the straps.

  “I hate this place,” Fred sat on his pack and rubbed his left knee. “I still think they left some metal in here. Military doctors suck.”

  “Go easy on the water, Derek,” Jeff warned. “Our canteens are all we’ve got, and we’re not getting any more until tomorrow.”

  “Speaking of tomorrow, let’s make camp in that dip over there, no fire, and we can look at trees tomorrow. We’re almost out of light.”

  “That clump Fred spotted is only about three hundred yards from here, more or less,” Jeff dragged his pack into the depression Shad had indicated.

  “Might as well start there tomorrow.” Shad picked a spot and carried his pack over. “You know, you forget how much fun it is to hump a pack,” he observed as he pulled off his boots. “Oh, man, I needed that.”

  “You know, Fred had a good point,” Derek kept his voice low so it would not carry. “We all have knowledge from a more advanced society.”

  “You mean the History Channel, the Military Channel, and NatGeo,” Jeff dusted his feet with talc.

  “Whatever. Thing is, we know stuff that other people here don’t.”

  “Well, Fred’s theory has yet to be proven, but if he is right, what’s your point?” Shad asked. “There’s only so much application we can bring. Knowing what made the Roman Legions great doesn’t do much for four guys with chump change between them.”

  “Well, for one thing me and Fred saw a documentary on codes,” Derek persisted. “I bet there is a demand for that. We take some down time, we can work it up and sell it.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Jeff nodded. “Modern coding is far advanced over what they had in medieval times.”

  “Only problem I see is word getting to the Ultimate Master,” Shad pointed out. “A modern code popping up means he’s got a hit team on his tail.”

  “Choose your buyer,” Fred mumbled. “Somebody who will just use it, not re-sell it. And he knows he has hit teams on him-we’re not the first.”

  “Good point,” Shad conceded. “And good ideas. We need to drop assumptions and give every documentary and history book a good thinking over.”

  “Are we really going to try to kill the Ultimate Master?” Derek asked as he dug out his mess kit.

  “That’s up to a vote, which I suggest we postpone for a while,” Shad shrugged. “We have to level up quite a bit before we try, and frankly, I’m not terribly enthused about being an assassin. Self-defense and non-Humans I can live with. Of course, I want to go back home, too. Way I see it, we have two options to get home: frag the five and hope Yorrian was telling the truth about these tats, or locate the five, choose the most approachable, and see if they can get us home.”

  “Or find Yorrian and hold her feet to the fire until she sends us back,” Jeff suggested.

  “Three options,” Shad conceded.

  “What about hiring a mage?” Fred asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Derek shook his head. “Class knowledge, but an undertaking like getting us home would require something extremely special. I bet Yorrian was part of a group effort. Remember, these guys have been stuck here for thousands of years.”

  “But the rules are different for us,” the Shadowmancer continued. “If my class knowledge is right, we can get back because we’re not native.”

  “Well, we’ll call getting home the core quest,” Shad broke a hardtack on the pommel of his dagger. “Lotta research before we get a glimmer of a plan. Derek, could a mage detect that we are outsiders?”

  “No.”

  “Could they detect where we came through…or into, or whatever?”

  The Shadowmancer pondered the question. “Maybe. If they were actively looking. But there would be a delay, like a sonar ping. How long, I don’t know.”

  “So assuming the watcher or magic tracking item was in the city, the Ultimate Master wouldn’t know we had arrived for a while,” Shad mused. “We came by the most direct route, and we didn’t encounter anyone hunting us, so either he wasn’t watching, or no response was organized until after we were within the walls. He can’t locate us by magic, so all he has is old-fashioned detective work.”

  “We came through the most logical gate, and cashed in Goblin ears,” Jeff pointed out. “We would be remembered.”

  “Derek ditched his robes yesterday, and that’s the most memorable thing about us,” Shad countered. “I saw several bear barbarians in the city. If all he knows is that we came through, there’s no guarantee we came to the city.”

  “So do we stick to the job?” Fred asked.

  “Yeah. We need the money.” Shad thought hard. “But when we go back we use another inn, just to be safe, and we buy a map. We better look for another base of operations.”

  “What if they make sketches of us?” Derek asked.

  Jeff shrugged. “You saw how many people were there. None of us really stand out since you ditched the robes.”

  “It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Shad said. “We need the money. If we get a good haul of this whitestone we’ll cash in, get a map, and head to new digs. We wait a month and we can come back without a worry. He can’t detect us, so as long as we don’t draw attention to ourselves by blurting out something modern, we’re OK.”

  “Could he detect the tattoos?” Fred asked.

  Derek concentrated. “No. They’re inert. Plus Jinxmen hang charms and runes on people. If he has his men actually looking for the ink, though…”

  “He doesn’t,” Jeff grinned. “The gate guards just made sure we knew the rules.”

  “Why doesn’t he?” Fred asked. “That would be simple.”

  “Because they’re not all in the same place,” Shad nodded to himself. “Yorrian’s group must have been careful to avoid putting them on the same part of the body.”

  “What about covering them?” Jeff asked. Would that affect them?”

  “Not if it was by ink, not a tattoo,” Derek shook his head. “Man, it’s weird knowing stuff that I shouldn’t know. But we could have a tattoo artist paint a design over it, and get it renewed regularly.”

  “Excellent idea,” Shad slapped Jeff on the shoulder. “But we don’t do it in the City State. The artist would see the actual tats we’re wearing.”

  “So, the core quest is to get home, with its next step to gather information,” Derek mused. “Currently we’re on the Whitestone side-quest.”

  “Lets flip for the watch roster and get some sleep,” Shad suggested. “Tomorrow’s another day.”

  Chapter Four

  “This sucks,” Fred pronounced with great finality.

  “You’re the one being vindicated,” Derek reminded him.

  “Still sucks.”

  It had required careful examination to reveal that the area the clump of silverlines grew on was in f
act a man-made mound. Using Fred’s recollection of the documentary, they started examining the compass points beginning with the east side, and had discovered a slight depression which the barbarian believed would lead to the doorway of the burial chamber. Their short spade and pickaxe dealt with the dirt easily enough, hindered only by Shad’s instruction to keep the hole as small and covert as possible.

  “Now what?” Derek threw a pebble at the doorway their dig had revealed. Blocking it was an assembly of logs that was more of a palisade than a door.

  Crouching in the hole, Shad dug the point of his dagger into the wood. “Pretty damn old. OK, two thoughts: figure out how they put this thing in place from the outside, or hack our way through.”

  “I thought you wanted the hole kept small,” Derek shook his head.

  “I do. Look, assuming they used whitestone here, there’s going to be more stone in this place than we can carry. So we hide the hole and return when we need more money. Anyone else looking for whitestone sees a fresh hole, they’re going to investigate.”

  “Good idea,” Derek conceded.

  “They dug down,” Fred announced, leaning into the hole. “To put the logs in. Probably several feet.”

  “That’s OK,” Shad sheathed his dagger. “These things are eaten up with dry rot and bugs. Too bad we didn’t bring a hatchet.” He looked up at Fred. “I hate to ask you this…”

  “It’s OK,” Fred unslung his axe. “Gimme some room.”

  “If they used whitestone we’ll be standing tall,” Jeff commented, weighing a torch in his hand.

  “We could use a break,” Shad agreed. Below them Fred was making short work of the barrier. “Let’s get the torch lit-looks like you’re up.”

  “Send in the thief,” Derek laughed.

  “Watch the color of your torch,” Fred advised. “The air might be bad.”

  Torch before him, Jeff eased through the door. “Hey, we got the stone! Wait…HEY!” The lean man shot back out the doorway, torch-less and grabbing at his rapier.