Crusader

by Andrew Smith

  “Imagine my surprise.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll do the whole sleeping-eating thing soon. We’re almost done here.” She turned to the two other people at the work site, two young aids from the British Museum, who were making sketches of the area. They would trace out the lines with the tips of their wands, and the pictures would fill themselves in, in magnificent perspective. “Guys! Coffee!”

  The aids scrambled eagerly over and thanked Mme. Rumella profusely

  “Pet, they’re not taking exact drawings of the Standard, are they?”

  “Oh, no. We’re mainly recording the event. The Standard itself appears in the pictures as a blank cylinder. We wouldn’t want to accidentally crack open the universe and pour out the secrets of life and death or anything,” she smiled

  Mme. Rumella laughed. “No, we wouldn’t at that.” She looked over to the out-of-place marble table to which the Standard had been fused. The Crusader stood nearby, leaning on his sword. Mme. Rumella waved to him. Rather to her surprise, he waved back. “I brought you a coffee,” she called to him.

  “Do you have any tea?” the Crusader’s tinny voice asked

  “I’m afraid not. Are you sure you don’t want the coffee?”

  “No, thank you,” the Crusader replied

  Leila looked at her. “That was odd.”

  “Speaking of which, have you asked him how he was transformed back?”

  “Yeah, nice segue. All he said was that his masters wanted him that way, and so he was.”

  “Let’s pray we never meet them.”

  Leila made a hum of agreement. “Anyway, I think I’ve almost got the Standard off that slab. It’s great practice, let me tell you. I haven’t done any field work since I got here, but they showed me the spells they use for tricky stuff, you know, when the tiny brushes won’t do.” She removed the pen from her breast pocket and crossed to the Standard

  The aids appeared to be finished with their sketches. They flipped their pads shut. One shouted to Leila, “Leila! We’re done, so we’re gonna take off, okay?”

  “Alright. Later, Ted, Johnny.”

  They walked off unnoticed as Leila told Mme. Rumella about her efforts to free the Standard. “Every time that I cut too close to the Standard, the marble heals itself over. So it may have to have a slight attachment. Do you think you could pull as I cut?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Lase,” she said. A beam of coherent light shot forth from the tip of her fountain pen, and she reached around the artifact as far as she could, cutting as shallow an angle as she dared, to avoid injuring herself or Mme. Rumella. The circle cut, Mme. Rumella lifted the object out. A cone of marble clung to the bottom. Its point was already started to heal back to the slab via a thread of stone. Leila severed it and Mme. Rumella set the Standard gently on the ground. The Crusader took a few steps forward.

  Leila knelt down and sliced off most of the cone, leaving a half-inch-deep cylinder attached to the bottom of the artifact. The Crusader bent over and picked up the artifact.

  “Thank you,” he said, and turned to leave.

  Leila and Mme. Rumella stood for a little while and watched as he headed out of the city, cradling the Standard of Uruk against his chest plating.

  “We never did find out whom he worked for,” Mme. Rumella commented, “and in this city, I’m afraid that can only mean one thing.”

  “Let me guess,” Leila lazily interjected

  “We’re going to see him again some day,” Mme. Rumella finished

  “I just hope it’s not soon. I need to catch up on my sleep.”

  “You lie, pet,” said Mme. Rumella, and started back inwards

  “Alright,” Leila admitted, as she threw her coat over her shoulder and followed. “I need to catch up on my reading.”

  About the Author

  Andrew Smith enjoys music, writing, traveling, martial arts, and switching colleges and majors, just to keep things interesting. He is Syracuse University class of 2006, with a degree in Religion and minor in Music Industry, because they clearly go so well together.

  Andrew grew up in the Rockies, where he drank, drinks, and will continue to drink more coffee than is probably advisable. He is currently at work on other projects, such as more Woven City novels, some non-Woven City novels, and learning to speak Portuguese so he knows what all that Brazilian pop music is really saying.

  Crusader is Andrew Smith's first published novel. He owes the completion of it to the fabulous coffee chicks, who fueled his addiction with coffee in all its myriad forms. Except decaf.