by Bryan Fields
“The originals were illustrated with simple line sketches. When my children were young, a new edition of the stories came out, illustrated by Ti’en Alar. I read them to my children, over and over again.”
Aiyliria sighed. “Five hundred years ago, a new edition of the stories was in development. This edition was to have statues carved of jade with each volume. Each statue was designed by Ti’en Alar, based on a scene from the book it accompanied. The entire project was wrapped in secrecy, including the details of what the designs were and where they were being made. When Otfas Red-Hand slaughtered the jade-working cities, Alar was one of those killed. It took five hundred years and a dozen expeditions, but Tranquility in Jade is mine at last.” She fell silent, stroking the runes embossed on the box.
Rose exhaled, shaking her head. “If I’d know what you were sending us after, our price would have been higher.” She raised an eyebrow at Aiyliria and added, “I love the Tranquility series. My mother also read them to me at bedtime.”
Aiyliria nodded. “As you will for your children. Go now, and save their world. When your time there is finished, you may visit my library and appreciate the results of your work.” She started to turn away, but stopped and added, “You’re welcome to use the courtyard for your transition. I’ll also need the translator necklaces back, please.”
I collected the necklaces and returned them. “Could your porters carry our cargo trunks out to the courtyard? It would help us get out of your hair and ensure that nothing accidently got damaged while we were moving them.”
Aiyliria smiled. “Well argued. Best of luck dealing with the Caretaker.” She gave her boys a nod and the Beefcake Brigade maneuvered our trunks back outside. Harmony produced the soil and water she’d taken from our backyard and sprinkled both in a circle around us. She drank the last of the water, and Rose’s world vanished.
Chapter Eight
Even Death May Die
We reappeared back in the workout room. We stood around looking at one another for a moment before the rush to the bathrooms started. Three days with nothing but that tissue-paper thin stuff packed in our MREs had given all of us a keen appreciation of having real toilet paper again. It wasn’t the only thing we’d forgotten to bring along, but it was the one that caused the most complaints.
The clocks said we’d been gone three and a half hours. I would have loved to call it a night, but having the crystal in-hand gave everyone a sense of urgency and a desire to see this done. We left the gear packed and changed into street clothes while Ember called some friends of hers who had been part of Occupy the Dragon. The girl we were looking for had been part of that group, so we kept our fingers crossed.
Her third contact delivered. Evelyn Mayhew, the cancer survivor touched by a Unicorn, was holding a prayer vigil for a friend at a local hospice. Doesn’t matter which one; I’ve changed the details to make sure they aren’t identified. They don’t deserve any hassle from this. The important part was us knowing when and where to find her. Time was short, so off we went.
As we drove, I patted my jacket to make sure the crystal was still there. “Rose, how do I use this thing? Is there a magic word I should use or something?”
“It’s best if you can get her to touch it. If not, point it at her from a few feet away and will the spell to take effect.” She mimed, pointing a wand at someone. “You can even do it through your coat pocket if you want.”
“I’ll try the handoff. Think Smith will have a fallback plan?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” she said. “Do you have one?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.” I didn’t want to admit my backup plan consisted of hoping we didn’t need one.
When we arrived, Evelyn was outside, holding hands in a prayer circle. Her hair was growing back in and she’d regained a bit of weight, but neither of those could account for the vibrant, energetic glow she radiated.
I took the crystal out of my pocket and concealed it in the palm of my right hand. We walked up to the hospice door, where I stopped and waited for the group to finish praying. As soon as they finished, I stepped forward.
“Evelyn? I’m David. I was hoping to meet you here.” I reached out to shake hands with her. “I wanted to congratulate you on your remarkable recovery.”
“Thank you.” She smiled and took my hand. “I’m sorry, have we…?” She looked down at our hands. I felt the crystal pop like a soap bubble as the spell discharged into her. No flash of light or sparkling aura gave the spell away; she simply looked dizzy for a moment and let go of my hand. What I did see was her glow, fading away. She yanked her hand back, staring at it. She looked up and whispered, “What have you done?”
“What I had to do,” I told her. “The sad thing about miracles is that they’re unique. They can’t be explained, or shared, or duplicated. And they absolutely cannot be captured and made to perform on demand. If that day ever came, our world would die for lack of wonder.” I straightened my jacket. “Good night, Evelyn. I hope you have a long and wonderful life.” I turned and started back to the car.
The front doors of the hospice flew open with a resounding crash and a middle-aged guy in an Armani suit stormed out into the night. He looked like a senior executive for a bank or stock brokerage; six foot and a few inches, lightly tanned, salt-and-pepper hair, blue tie, and this neon salmon-colored shirt—the kind of color nobody wears unless they’re able to fire anyone who has enough taste to avert their eyes. He could have been anyone, but I knew him the moment I met his eyes. His irises might have been blue, green, or brown, but I saw the black holes hiding behind the mask.
Evelyn reached for him and tried to take his hand. “Joshua, what is it? What did they do to me?”
He shook her loose without moving his hand. “Mister Fraser. I was expecting you to try some manner of heroic intervention, but I hadn’t counted on this degree of assistance being afforded you. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give me a name, so that I may respond with an appropriate thank-you card?”
I didn’t take the bait. “Hello again, Smith. The Collective demands you return home. They’re not happy with you. I don’t know what happens in these cases, but I expect your mind is going to undergo an extreme makeover.”
He turned with me. “At the very least, Mr. Fraser. I think it far more likely my deluded brethren will simply unmake me. You’ll pardon me if I find such an outcome undesirable. I’m afraid you’ve left me no alternative but to accelerate my plans.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Give it up. It’s over. Your own people have disavowed you and ordered you to surrender. They won’t let you ‘fix’ them, even if you had the energy to do it. Your world likes things the way they are. End this with some dignity and honor.”
“I don’t intend to simply surrender, Mr. Fraser. In fact, I think the reason you don’t understand why I’m doing this is that your own perceptions and cognitive processes are tainted by the link binding you to your lady friend.” Smith waved his hand at me. “Allow me to remove it, and restore clarity to your thought and vision.”
Just like that, the acceptance was gone. Without Rose’s presence in the back of my mind, I felt utterly alone—even more alone than I’d ever felt before meeting her. Just as Smith had said, I recognized how my thoughts and feelings had been influenced. Unfortunately for him, I didn’t care.
“It didn’t change my mind. Restore the acceptance and get the Hell off my planet.” I took a step forward, and the familiar weight of my two-handed sword settled into my hand. I brought the blade up into a ready position. “I don’t want to kill you.”
“I think you do. The issue is that you cannot,” Smith sneered. “You have no weapon capable of harming me. You have failed, Mr. Fraser, and now you have no purpose at all, beyond watching as I reduce your world to a burnt-out cinder.”
Evelyn moved close to Smith. “Joshua, what’s going on? You all are talking like you’re from another planet.”
“He is from another planet,” I s
aid. “I’m just from Boulder.”
“I’d hoped to do this with love and adoration, Evelyn.” Smith shrugged and shook his head. “Fear will work just as well. It’s just less efficient. Where to start, where to start?” He brushed his hand against Evelyn’s cheek and she physically recoiled. “I believe I’ll allow you to keep your miracle, dear. I did give my word to you. Your friends in the building, however, just aren’t so lucky.” He turned to walk back inside.
I heard cloth rip and Rose let loose with a very Draconic roar. Blood sprayed and bone cracked. Smith dropped to his knees, staring at the sword-like blade of Rose’s tail sticking out of his sternum. Rose shoved her tail further through him before yanking it out, gutting him like a trout.
All the civilians but Evelyn scattered. She fell to her knees and stared as Smith reverted to his true form. He tried to say something to her, but Rose’s tail blade slashed out and down, slicing the horn from his skull. Smith burst into flames from the inside out, screaming and writhing until the flames rendered him to ashes.
Rose’s tail absorbed back into her body leaving a huge hole in the back of her jeans and a nice view of her ass. I grabbed her long trench coat out of the Land Rover and wrapped her in it. She looked at me. “I’m so sorry, David.” She convulsed, grabbing her stomach and falling to the ground. I grabbed her arm and lifted her into my lap. Under her clothes, she was burning up.
I looked up at Harmony. “Can you do anything for her?”
Harmony shook her head. “I can’t even touch her. The same thing would happen to me.” She looked away, wiping tears out of her eyes. “Simply be there for her. Foolish child…it will be over soon.”
Evelyn knelt next to me and looked down at Rose. “What’s happening to her? What in God’s name is going on here?”
I looked at Evelyn and tried to explain, but the words got caught in a flood of anger and utter frustration. “Tell her,” I snapped.
Miranda took Evelyn’s arm and pulled her back. “She’s paying for your life,” Miranda said. “She sacrificed her ability to ever have children in order to destroy that thing. Your friend over there was planning on triggering a religious holocaust so that he could absorb the life energy of everyone who died. You were being used to start a war that would incinerate the world.” Miranda jabbed Evelyn in the chest with her finger. “We tried to solve this peacefully. The last thing we ever wanted to do was kill that damn Unicorn. He didn’t give us a choice, and she stepped up to pay the price.”
Evelyn said, “He was a Unicorn.” It wasn’t a question. “What is she?”
“She’s a Dragon,” Ember said. “She’s not the only one here. Dragons have been coming to our world for thousands of years. They do it because it helps them have more children. Except that, when Rose wakes up, she’s going to be sterile.”
Evelyn looked at the severed Unicorn horn, now surrounded by dust and ashes. She looked back at me. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to know the price she paid. I just don’t want you to be able to discuss it.” I fixed her with my eyes and felt a torrent of energy flood out, along with my words and pent-up anger. “I want you to remember everything you’ve seen here. Remember all you know of the Unicorn, all you know of any miraculous cures, and all I’ve told you. Remember and nothing more. You can’t communicate it in any way, shape, or form, to anyone for any reason. More than that, you have no desire to. You will treasure this secret and draw what you will from it, but it is, and will always remain, a secret, until death silences you forever.” I paused for a moment, and almost reconsidered what I was doing. I leaned forward. “Go, and do as you have been commanded.”
Evelyn stood up, staring at me and clutching her throat. She backed up, shaking her head, and ran to her car.
Chapter Nine
Aftermath
“Not bad,” Harmony said. “I didn’t know Humans could learn the imperative form.”
“Rose told me once that the words don’t matter, and that it was saying them with authority that counts.” I kept stroking Rose’s hair. “I don’t blame Evelyn, but I wanted her to know what this cost.” I looked up at Harmony. “Did you know what she was planning?”
“Yes.” She sat down next to me. “I knew when I found her with a cut on her arm, smearing blood on her talons and tail.”
“You didn’t stop her.”
“Her mind was made up. It was the only way to stop him. I couldn’t do it. The curse could have killed my children, or their children. She knew the price, and she paid it for your world. Foolish child, but very brave.”
I looked away until my anger at Harmony passed. “So, what does the final math come to? All we went through, all the lives we upended, just to get some collector’s swag for a children’s book. We were sent in to find a set of teddy bear figures. The spell we got didn’t work, since Smith decided to remain here, so all that was wasted effort. Rose should have just killed him on sight.”
Rose took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “My mother is going to kill me,” she whimpered. She buried her face in my shoulder and started crying. I cradled her in my arms as I stood, and Miranda opened the passenger door to the Land Rover so I could get Rose in.
Once I had her seatbelt on, I asked Harmony “Is there some way to restore the acceptance? I can’t lose her.”
“Restoring it is a magic beyond anything I know,” she said. “I don’t know if it can be done. Rose’s mother may know a way. She has studied healing magic to a far greater degree than I have.”
Jake handed me the severed Unicorn horn. “You two should hang on to this,” he said. “You never know if any of those old stories are true.” I nodded and tucked it into my inside jacket pocket.
Rose was lucid by the time we got back to our house. She stayed curled up on the couch while the rest of us sorted out our gear and got everything packed up so the others could go home. Everyone was bone tired, bruised in at least a few spots, and all the Humans had badly chafed thighs. Adventures make great stories, but the day after really sucks. They don’t mention that in most heroic fantasy stories.
The last items Harmony removed from her black lacquered travel trunk were three sealed wooden boxes marked with bamboo leaves. “I kept these back,” she said. “No sense in going through all this trouble and having nothing to show for it in your hoard.” She looked at Rose and said, “I should have asked—do you feel up for this? We can do it another time.”
Rose nodded. “Go ahead. I want to see them too.”
Harmony passed one to Miranda, one to Ember, and the last to Rose. “Who wants to go first?” she asked.
Miranda hesitated. “Doesn’t this violate our contract or something?”
Harmony shook her head. “She declared our contract fulfilled and said she was satisfied. These are ours now.”
“Wicked awesome,” Miranda replied. She flicked the blade of her pocket knife open with her thumb and carefully sliced through the seal. The scent of rain water, pine, and cedar filled the room, topped by a hint of cinnamon. She moved the wood shavings and unspun cotton aside, revealing a statuette roughly eight inches square, with two six-inch figures sitting facing each other.
Karira the panda was dressed in rough, homespun farmer’s clothes, facing a fox wearing an elaborate silk robe. They were playing Go, while a tanuki (a badger with a teapot on his back) tried to peek over the edge of the table and see how the game was going. The detail was exacting, from the texture of the panda’s clothes and fur to the colors and shapes of the Go stones.
“Ahh...” Harmony sighed. “Karira’s contest against the Eminent Fox of Reason. A wonderful choice. ‘When reason clouds the mind, listen to your heart’. As true today as it was when those words were written.”
Miranda and Jake carefully put the statue back in its box. “Thank you,” Jake said. “I know the perfect place for this.”
Ember opened her box and removed a statuette of Karira performing a pirouette, with one hand over her head holding a
cricket. She passed it to Harmony. “What is this from?”
“It’s from A Big Favor for a Small Friend. Karira is teaching Cricket Who Drinks No Beer what it is to be drunk, so he knows if the name he was given is correct. It’s a wonderful story. Karira’s lesson is, ‘the favor is less important than the friend’.”
Rose sniffled and rubbed her eyes. “I’m not sure I want to know what’s in here.” She handed the box to me. “Could you do it?”
I borrowed Miranda’s knife and slit the seal. The statue was heavier than I expected, due to the four figures it depicted. Karira, of course, with her tanuki friend basking over a small fire in the middle of the display. There was also a white tiger holding a parasol and a teacup, a peacock eating rice with chopsticks, and a raccoon in a coolie hat rolling balls of rice. All around them were pieces of broken wood and smashed furniture.
Harmony gasped. “The tea party at the end of Looking for Home!” She looked around at us and smiled. “Everyone in the Forest of Whispering Jade loses their homes to a tsunami. Karira finally rescues all her friends and brings them together. White Paw the tiger, Strut-Strut the peacock, and Old Man Bandit. All just as I always pictured them.”
“What was the motto for that story?” I asked.
Rose snuffled. “‘It’s love that makes a home, not walls’. That was always my favorite.”
Harmony handed her the statue. “I may have to come over and look at it from time to time.”
“You’re always welcome.” Rose set the statue down on the coffee table. “I think I’m going to need my friends in the days to come. I don’t even know how I’m going to tell my mother about what happened.”