Rogue Ragtime

by K Alexis

  "Get that one," she commanded Agra and Danielle, pointing to the right section of the door.

  "I've reconsidered my stance on Junko," Agra said as he hobbled over to the panel. "I think she should count for one kill."

  Tath slid under Mea's armpit and helped her over to their half. When they reached the door, Tath pressed her back against it. "One?" she called out to Agra. "I can't believe what I'm hearing. She's worth at least three. She was a mage and a Corsair. That's two right there. Plus, she was your ex. That must count for something."

  Mea noted the administrators had almost made it to the entrance. It seemed like they were two teleports away. She and Tath shoved their half of the door as hard as they could, but they were not fast enough—the administrator's hands and arms slid through the gap between the separate sections.

  "I'm not going to be able to hold this for long," Danielle said, her feet sliding forward as the administrators on the other side pressed against her part of the door.

  Mea had had enough and lifted her hands back. She swung down as hard as she was able to on both sections. When she hit them, they slammed closed and the lock clicked shut.

  "You should get away from there," Jetta whimpered with her face firmly planted on the ground.

  The four of them stepped back. A few moments later, the entire entranceway compressed into a dot and disappeared.

  "Physics to the rescue," Jetta commented.

  Mea fell onto her knees and looked at her hands. She could not believe they had gone through all of this for a cuckoo clock. If it was not elegant and made from a distant planet's stones that granted them all supernatural powers, she was going to be disappointed.

  * * *

  KEKERIWAI STOOD IN front of the group's booth at the hotel bar. "See, I am an honorable man," he said to Mea. He placed a brown sack on the table and pulled it open. Inside was a clock two-hands tall and poorly carved. None of its wood had been sanded, the clock-face was missing and the bird that came out made a sound like a crow. "It is worth ten million credits," he said.

  Danielle ran her fingers over a strand of her white hair. "It seems like you are underpaying for their services," she said, her voice gruff yet soft spoken. "I was there when they salvaged your inadequate plan to rule Ras Al Khaimah."

  "Rule what?" Tath spat. She unwrapped her arm dangling from Agra's shoulder and slid her legs off his thighs. "You wanted us to replace one set of tyrants with another?"

  Kekeriwai pulled at his collar. "It was not a strategy per se, more an opportunity. Danielle was already the shakaya here when I stumbled upon her secret. You see, the Aras might have been less willing to trust her to rule their prize jewel if they had learned she was a little less … human than they had originally thought."

  "You blackmailed her," Mea said flatly. "The same as you did with the other Navigator I saved from your schemes."

  "Please do not bring him up at this moment," Kekeriwai snarled. "You and …" He stopped mid-sentence and smiled at them. "You caused me problems. Now is not the time for past anguishes. Jetta is here … and with her comes new possibilities."

  Agra squinted and looked around the table as if he was confused. "Jetta's always been here," he said.

  "Of course," Kekeriwai agreed. "Let us drink to that." He raised his glass. "Let us drink to friends forever. Let us drink to a task well done!"

  Everyone except Mea seemed to greet Kekeriwai's toast with great cheer. She clinked her glass to the rest of the group's but drunk her beer in silence. The reflection on Mea's mug revealed Agra toying with Tath's hair, and the Navigator's previous lover laying her head on Agra's chest.

  "I need to … go to the bathroom," Mea said.

  "Take your time," Agra called out after her. "We'll be here all night."

  Mea headed toward the toilets and then veered right and went straight to the hotel's foyer. She exited the building and kept walking until she was far enough along the corniche the hotel could not be seen. After climbing over the railing separating the walkway from the ocean, she sat on the seawall. She skimmed a small stone across the inlet. It bounced fifty times and then sank. Another pebble flew past hers, reaching almost a hundred.

  "Not my best form," Jetta said. "Or the sea is out of balance. Pick one."

  "Could you leave me alone?" Mea asked.

  "No. Not after you had me tortured to save your ex."

  Mea went quiet and skimmed two more stones across the ocean. "I'm sorry."

  "You also had me cursed. I bet you're sorry about that too." Jetta threw another small pebble. It hit one hundred and fifty bounces. "Everyone's sorry when they take another person's freedom."

  "I gave Steh his," Mea said.

  "Why do you think I haven't slaughtered you yet?" Jetta formed the shape of a gun with her fingers and shot a silver projective at the ocean. It bounced until it could be seen no more.

  "I'm happy for Tath," Mea said. "Her happiness is my happiness."

  "Sure. I'll buy you a breakup card with that written on, if it's not trademarked." Jetta patted Mea on the back and sat next to her. "Honestly, I really want to be madder and yell at you some more, but you gave me the power of a universe." Jetta opened her palms and two silver beams shot into the sky. "That's a fair trade for everything I've suffered since the swap. Just to be clear, it wasn't the only move you had. After all, I did give you the Doom Blade on Nucia, but rookies have to begin somewhere." Jetta put a hand on Mea's back. "Sorry it didn't work out as planned. You and Tath were a great couple."

  "She was going to break up with me in the old universe," Mea replied. "So, I guess it doesn't matter either way."

  "Oh, I see. You're not only a Navigator but also the Future Keeper. Turieans, demi-gods and my new abilities be damned, you must be the most powerful person in this universe." Jetta made a clicking sound. "No-one knows the fate-of-all things. And, Hell be a real place, even if she had, you still could have taken a second swing at her peach. Breakups aren't always forever and a year of happiness is better than a marriage of misery." Jetta tapped the seawall. "Look, as much as I'd love to see you both back together, we're the only two who know about that other life, and I'm not into ruining people's relationships. Tath's not yours to take or to win. She gets to choose, like you did.

  "I don't need a lecture," Mea sulked.

  "Everyone needs lectures. We've got to regularly hear how dumb and selfish we are to keep us humble. You don't have a sister to smack you back to reality, so I'm filling in."

  "Again, could you please leave me alone?" Mea requested.

  "Not yet. We've got to do something about this curse. Six years is a long time to be someone's bitch."

  "Ristie's more powerful than you think," Mea countered.

  "And I'm smarter than you know. We'll figure something out." Jetta stood and brushed her pants down. She held out her hand to Mea. "Ready to go home? The right way this time."

  Mea swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. "Yes," she rasped. "I really am."

  Epilogue: Freedom

  STEHLAN PLACED HIS hand in the crystal-blue waters of Aotearoa. He stared out at the ocean and listened to it crash and yawn against a rickety pier. Seagulls flew above him and cawed.

  He lay down on the sand at the back of his house and stared up into the sky. A fluffy white cloud went by and then another. He slid his hand down his suntanned body, over his abdominals and pulled at the cord on his bright-blue board-shorts. After a while, he reached into one of his trunks' pockets and pulled out a pebble. He threw it up in the air and caught it. He repeated the action over and over again.

  Despite the ambient noise, he heard his wife, Oba, walk toward him across the beach. Each of her footsteps squeaked when it pressed against the sand until she eventually stood next to him, her shadow hiding the sun. He threw the pebble once more, and Oba snatched it. She snapped her fingers and made it float above them before lying down next to him.

  "Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Those days are gone."

  "Habit," h
e replied.

  She rolled on top of him and straddled his stomach. Her long dreadlocks swayed gently against his nose while her melanin-infused skin contrasted sharply with his sun-darkened whiteness. She slid her hand and into his trunks and tickled him in all the right places to make him groan.

  "There are better habits we could be forming," she said. Stehlan lifted himself up and kissed her, attempting to undo her bikini top. She stopped him. "My cousin is arriving soon," she reminded him.

  He exhaled. "She could have come on a less perfect day."

  "In Aotearoa? That's very unlikely."

  He smirked. "Couldn't you do something? Cast some weather-controlling spell and delay her boat?"

  "Oh, and make the winner of the Sorceress' Cup angry? You're the funniest. Let's all have a chuckle with the great Stehlan Ehrans."

  Stehlan sat up. He ran his thumb and finger along one of her locks. "Nine out of ten of my apprentices think I'm funny."

  "Then only one is telling the truth," she retorted.

  "My lady," he said, pretending to hold a trophy in his hands. "I give you the award for 'Funniest Spouse in Our Marriage.' Be brave who you show it too." He acted out passing it over.

  Oba stood up. As Stehlan admired her athletic form from an upwards angle, he thought about how lucky he had been to have avoided the Navigator's attention all those years ago. He knew Oba thought the stone reminded him of the three years he had been tortured, but it was the opposite: it stressed how fortunate he had been at a critical moment in his life.

  "Fine," he mumbled. "I'll be on my best behavior. I won't even show her my robotic-frog invention."

  "Please don't."

  Agra got up and collected the stone. "So, which cousin are we lucky enough to host this time? The spoilt brat from the Old Isles or the rebel from the United Country?"

  "She's not that rebellious anymore. But yes, she's from the United Country and her name's Ristie. You might like her. She has her own collection of books after all."

  The name faintly tugged at a murky memory lodged somewhere in Stehlan's brain, and his back itched. He did not know why, and he hoped it was not a sign of things to come. "Well, maybe she won't hex me like the last one who visited. I haven't done anything to annoy casters for a long time."

  Special Thanks

  I would like to thank Eric, Jharrod and Kyle for undertaking the herculean task of beta-reading Rogue Ragtime and their invaluable insights on how to improve it.

  About the Author

  K. Alexis was raised in several far-flung countries such as the United Arab Emirates, New Zealand and Australia by a pair of intergalactic movie-lovers. Due to his erratic childhood, he became fascinated with humanity's adaptability and now writes stories about people who face adverse conditions in fantasy and sci-fi settings. Though an avid reader of Western writers such as Alistair Maclean, J.K. Rowling and R.K. Milholland, he can be found in Tokyo enjoying a book under the shade of a cherry blossom tree.

  You can contact him at the following email address: storiesfromalexis@gmail.com.

  Notes

  [←1]

  A number of theorists have postulated there are multiple universes in existence outside of ours and these are where Turieans and Navigators appear from. However, bar a few abstract mathematical models, there has been negligible proof that this theory is an accurate depiction of the greater cosmos.

  [←2]

  A number of journals and anecdotal reports reference this type of magic. Unfortunately, it has proven impossible to verify as no human seems capable of using it.

  [←3]

  While I am aware of the research being undertaken to artificially force, or "punch," magic into a human, I am not in support of it. There is much we need to learn about this new resource before we begin inserting it into living, sentient beings.

  [←4]

  For, as yet, unknown reasons, some casters do not possess sufficient magical power to move beyond beginner-level spells. It is misguided, and dangerous, to assume any mage can perform any incantation that you have acquired. Please do not risk a mage's life for your pride.