by James Duvall
It's close...
Another quarter mile perhaps. At least it wasn't snowing tonight. He paused again, this time to listen and to check his compass. He verified he still had the correct bearing and jammed his hands back into his pockets for warmth.
As he trudged up another hill with the biting cold stinging his cheeks he tried not to think about the fact that this would be only half of his journey. Every step out was another step back. How long had it been? Nearly an hour? The snow really slowed him down. He debated following the road itself for a while instead of keeping to the trees but if he ran into someone...
A light!
Joshua froze mid-stride then scrambled behind a tree and poked his head out, studying the squat building hidden among the trees. This close to the river the sound of rushing water drowned out the wind and the crunching of snow beneath Joshua's boots. This would have been about where Brian had been a few days before. It was no wonder he couldn't make out any of what had been said. For a few minutes Joshua waited in silence, watching for a patrol that did not come. Whoever was on watch must've withdrawn into the warmth of the building. Satisfied that no one was about to stumble into him, Joshua fished his father's coins out of his pocket.
The coins were a little bigger than a quarter, polished silver with though not as precisely round as one. On one side a rampant lion stood, encircled by the words Unshackled and Unshaken. On the obverse, a gryphon peered somberly into the distance. Joshua wasn't sure what the creature was looking at, the symbol was faint and covered in wavy lines. Perhaps most strange was the color of the engravings. The coin was silver, but the lion and the words were deep blue and sparkled when they caught the light as though there was a thin disk of sapphire pressed into the metal. The lion's figure glowed, but only faintly with a dull blue light, like a child's toy car that advertised it would glow in the dark.
That's strange...
It should have been brighter. Usually it was brighter. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, then squinted at the power shed. It provided the only real source of light here, a single bulb positioned in the small alcove that contained the door. Yes, he was definitely close enough, but still the coin wasn't glowing. He checked the other, this one of distinctive Ryvarran design. Both sides of this coin were marked by dragons. The inscription read “Keep Us and Guide Us.” Again, the dragons glowed with faint blue light. Not nearly as bright as memory served. For a moment both coins fell dark, then flickered back on like an old television struggling to find a signal. Both coins emitted a pulse of brighter light, then faltered, returning to their drained state.
Joshua's thoughts turned to the events at Chip's Corner Cafe earlier in the day.
“I've been here an hour,” Brian had said, folding up his copy of the Ashcrest Gazette as Joshua arrived.
“We've been here an hour,” Stacy corrected.
“Well, I have,” Brian said, giving her a wry grin. “You went to the Miner's Mart to talk to your friend.”
“and to get cheese for tonight's chili!” Stacy added. Brian grinned at her and drew her up against his side.
“Oh yes, and I love you dearly for that you magnificent woman.”
Stacy grinned back and relaxed against his shoulder.
“It's perfect chili weather,” she explained.
Joshua chuckled and flopped into the booth across from them. “It's cold enough, that's for sure.”
“Do you think that's why they call it chili here?” Brian asked. “Because you eat it when it's cold as Fendiss out?”
“You mean it's chili because it's for when it's chilly?” Joshua asked. “But it's not spelled that way.”
“Now don't you two look at me like that,” Brian said, his voice bright with mocked offense. “It's a valid hypothesis.”
“Hardly,” Joshua said, rolling his eyes.
“Okay, then why is it called chili?” Brian asked, folding his hands and gesturing to the empty table. “You have the floor, sir.”
Joshua foundered. “Well it's because... It's because... Look they don't exactly cover things like that in “Basic Earth History.”
“In Calderr its called a Spiced Stew. Of course they don't have the same kind of cattle on that side of the Cold, so you probably wouldn't recognize it by taste alone.”
“In Fendiss they call it Dragonfire Stew,” Stacy chimed in. “They use hotter peppers, and can you blame them?”
The three of them looked out the window at the snowed under parking lot, still arrayed with snow mobiles.
“How is Tarus?” Joshua asked, voicing what they were all thinking.
“I took him some lunch. He's... frustrated about the mayor's decision on Casual Fridays,” Stacy said.
“And he's not the only one,” Brian said quietly. “It's quite the point of contention, if the conversations here at Chip's are any metric. She's right, people like Tarus are harder hit than the rest of us. It's all people are talking about.”
“Well, not all,” Joshua corrected. “The barrier...”
“Ah, yes, that. Well, of course there will always be that,” Brian said with a sigh. He picked up the top half of the newspaper and spun it around so Joshua could see the headlines. Across the front page in bold font: Is Ashcrest Out of Power?
“Frankly,” Brian said, wistful, “I get tired of hearing it over and over. Three days and it's all just rumors and speculation. I've half a mind to walk up to the shed myself and demanding an explanation. If not for my own curiosity, then for the sanity of this place. Casual Fridays are gone but even most of the humans are hiding in their houses. Not in solidarity, mind you. Everyone that's not here debating these things is locked away in their homes. It's shameful really, frightened by phone books.”
Brian harrumphed and shook his head in dismay. “They've traded one prison for another, most of them.”
“They're afraid,” Stacy said, lightly massaging his neck.
“And they're entitled to their fear but to act on it this way. I had hoped we were not so... fragile.”
“Are we?” Joshua asked, still staring at the special edition of the Ashcrest Gazette.
“Hm?” Brian asked.
“Are we running out of power? Wouldn't that explain the problems with the barrier?”
Brian paused for a moment, rubbing his stubbly chin. “Unlikely,” he said after some thought.
“Think so? I mean, wouldn't it explain the problems though? Unlikely or not.”
“Certainly, but Ashcrest is not so new an idea. You've lived here your whole life haven't you?”
“I have...”
“If it was a simple matter of needing... for lack of a better term, a new battery, then why go through all of this mess? Why not just fess up that someone did the math wrong and the next one's coming late?”
“Because...” Joshua said, thinking it over. They would know, right?
When Joshua failed to provide an answer Brian continued. “We could only hope for such a simple problem. No, this is bigger than that I think. It's certainly not a move against Casual Fridays. As so many seem to be suggesting!”
The last part he blurted out particularly loudly, glowering at another young man across the aisle.
“Yes, you, I heard that,” Brian said, pointing.
“It's true,” the man said. “Mayor Weslin just needed an excuse.”
“An excuse to bring the scorn of the town down upon her?” Brian asked, scoffing. “Preposterous.”
“She's Calderrian,” the man retorted.
“Yes, and?” Brian asked, though his tone indicated he knew where this was going.
“...and so the fendians are the one's most affected by her suspending Casual Fridays.”
“You see,” Brian began. He took a quick sip of his water and licked his lips. “You see, the problem with your logic here is you're conflating magic with the fendians and anti-magic with Calderrian migrants like myself. If Mayor Weslin and myself were so concerned about the use of magic do you think we would have used it to leav
e home? To come here. To Ashcrest. A place that exists only by the benefit of magic?”
“Fine,” he spat. “If you're so smart, what do you think it is?”
Brian cracked his knuckles. “I think something's broken, and they can't figure out how to fix it. I'd bet my bottom dollar they've already got a half-dozen specialists from Fendiss and Arcamyn crossing over in the morning to look at things. Won't you be eating your hat when Weslin fixes this by Fendian hands?”
The young man glowered back, then rose and left quickly with two of his friends.
Brian sighed a belabored sigh, sinking back into his seat and drawing Stacy up against his side again. “You know when I was still in university we had so much better debates here.
“That was three years ago, hon,” Stacy said.
“Ah what a difference a few years makes.”
“Do you really think something's broken...?” Joshua asked, the idea tinging all of his thoughts with the edge of panic. If the barriers failed completely...
Brian nodded grimly. “I've been asking the other mechanics and none of them have been tapped for a project yet, but... That's what the signs point to.”
Joshua quietly turned one of the coins over in the palm of his glove. Twenty minutes and still not an iota brighter. Hinges creaked. Joshua closed his fist tight around the coins, crushing out their light. For a moment he sat there with his back pressed tight against the tree. Slowly he turned, peeking out from behind the trunk. A man had emerged, bundled up in a heavy jacket. His flashlight scanned the snowy woods, driving Joshua back behind the tree as the beam swept dangerously to his hiding place.
When Joshua dared to look again, the man was adjusting something on his wrist. Light pulsed faintly there. It looked like...
Joshua relaxed his vice-grip on the coins, the light of the coins pulsing faintly in tandem with the device on the sentry's wrist. All at once the lights faded away entirely. The sentry yelped in alarm as the air around him shimmered. The distortion washed over him like a bubble breaking in slow motion. Wherever the strange ripple in the air retreated, the man's appearance changed. Left behind was a sadean panther, a centauroid creature, human from the waist up with the body and legs of a silvery-furred snow leopard from the waist down.
Tarus...?
But no, it wasn't him. There were maybe a dozen sadean panthers in Ashcrest, and while this was surely one of them, Joshua couldn't make out the man's face from this distance. The panther gave a heavy, defeated sigh as he realized his illusion had been stripped away. Seeming comfortable in the dark and isolation he stretched his feline legs and only then hurried inside.
The electric light over the door flared brightly a few seconds later and once again Joshua's coins began to glow, albeit still only faint echoes of their former glory. The sentry did not emerge again, perhaps considering it too much of a risk. Casual Fridays were suspended, after all.
It's true then... we're running out of power.
Chapter 4
The Coins
Ashcrest, Colorado
Memo to all Watchmen
Presently Ashcrest is capable of accepting Sadean Panthers, Faryian Panthers, and Syrrellian gryphons, as current cloaking and concealment methods can allow these creatures to pass for human during breaches and downtime. In regards to last week's werewolf applicant, it was found that instability persisted in the presence of Earth's moon and the application was denied. The werewolf has been returned to Ryvarra.
~from Solomon's Watch records in Ashcrest Library
Joshua debated telling Brian about the coins all the way back. It felt hypocritical, scolding Brian for going to the power shed and then sneaking off to do so himself only a few days later. He didn't have to get far from the power shed before the glowing began to fade and by the time he kicked off his snow-covered boots the coins had become completely inert. He had not expected to make progress on this particular trip. Riddling out the purpose of his father's coins had become one of those puzzles that he and Brian mulled over every now and then but long ago had both conceded that whatever their purpose, they lacked the tools or knowledge to unlock them.
Thus far, the power shed had been the only real lead either of them had found. The coins glowed brightly usually, though as Joshua prepared for bed and felt the sting of sensation creeping back into his ears, he found himself wondering if it hadn't been a little duller the last time he'd tested them. When was that? Late summer? It hardly mattered now.
In the morning he went to Brian's and confessed. By midday Stacy had convinced them both that despite the consequences, it was something that ought to be reported to the town council and perhaps also Solomon's Watch. Joshua cringed at the thought, wondering if there weren't some way to keep Solomon's Watch or his father's coins out of it. The Watch was not often keen on strange magical artifacts wandering around Ashcrest unmonitored and he had, so far, succeeded in keeping them beneath the Watch's notice.
The sun seemed to set almost as soon as it had begun to rise. That's how it was in the Rockies, the town falling into the shadow of the mountains in the mid-afternoon. The wind seemed a lot colder then, and it howled and whistled past Mayor Weslin's shuttered windows as Joshua waited with Brian. Another winter storm was blowing in.
The doors opened and admitted not Mayor Weslin, but Tarus. By force of illusion he seemed quite human, a long-haired man in his early thirties. The illusion was nearly perfect, save the sound of his footsteps, which did not match up well with his stride and there far too many of them. He seemed surprised to see Joshua and Brian, and paused midstride as his eyes fell upon them. “Ehm... the mayor will be along shortly. I didn't realize...”
“We didn't either,” Joshua said. “It's about my dad's coins.”
Tarus nodded slowly, the significance of his own summon finally revealed to him.
“They don't like to tell people much here, do they?” he asked.
“No,” Brian said dryly. “They don't.”
“How are you Tarus?” Joshua asked.
Tarus put on a brave face but his hand kept twitching and he couldn't seem to help but constantly fiddle with a device clipped to his belt. It was a well-known fact that the illusion devices were not comfortable. Joshua had tried Tarus's on once before and the entire time he felt like the air around him was electrified, as though he were about to be struck by lightning. Fine body hair would stand up on end and his ears often felt like they needed to be popped or were clogged with water.
“Well I hate this blasted thing,” he said, a low growl rumbling up from the invisible part of him. He adjusted the settings for a time, both humans silent as they gave their friend a moment to concentrate on righting himself. Instead, Tarus grew increasingly frustrated, the electric hum building as he growled and muttered until he cursed loudly, yanked it from his belt and slapped it down on the mayor's desk like a fiery-worded resignation letter. The illusion winked out in a heartbeat, leaving Tarus standing on his own four legs, silver-furred and sturdy.
Tarus heaved a sigh of relief that reminded Joshua of how he'd felt when he was finally able to take off a pair of very uncomfortable shoes he'd been required to wear to an all-day wedding the previous year.
Tarus wobbled for a moment as though disoriented and took a clumsy side-ways step before finding his center again.
“...are you alright?” Joshua asked, reaching to steady him. Brian too was up and out of his chair.
Tarus waved them both off. “Damn things. Always a little wobbly after a few hours.”
“Tarus Darro, are you out of your mind?” a woman's voice demanded.
Mayor Cassandra Weslin had entered the room and based on her furrowed brow and stiff posture she was not at all happy to find what this world would think of as a mythical centaur standing in her office.
Tarus puffed up his chest, rising up to full height. “Now listen you. You asked me here to work on some magical artifact and you know damn well there ain't a soul in this building that hasn't seen a panther before. S
o if someone comes in here pokin' their nose where it doesn't belong, we're just as screwed if they see a human workin' on some mystical artifact as a sadean. Got it?”
While there were citizens of Ashcrest that would find a riled up sadean man just as frightening as a lion set loose, Mayor Weslin was not one of them. She stood her ground, arms folded. Silent and unyielding as stone.
“And besides!” Tarus continued. His confidence flagged as he seemed to realize this was not working. “I can't damn concentrate with that mess going on all around me. Have a heart!”
The unflappable mayor simply waited for him to stop, then spoke with a measured tone.
“Mr. Darro, I am sympathetic to your situation and I do have a heart. I have a heart for all twenty eight panthers living in Ashcrest. Did you know there are twenty eight of you? Eleven sadeans, seventeen faryians. Seven men, eight women, five adolescents, eight cubs and two more on the way. I know that because I met with each of them today to express my most sincere sympathy in what is a trying time. That is also why I cannot be seen making exceptions. It is difficult enough with the rumors going around, imagine how much worse things would be if the rules were not applied evenly. I would be accused of favoritism, and rightly so.”
Tarus wilted visibly, begrudgingly reaching for his illusion device. The piteous look on his face seemed to find a crack in her armor and the mayor let out a frustrated sigh. She strode to the door and informed her assistant that the door was not to be opened and then closed it behind her.
“Is it true that the device could interfere with your work?” Weslin asked with a reluctant tone.
“Yes, it is,” Tarus said, giving her a nod.
“Very well. After this we will have the necessary equipment taken to your home so that you may work there. That will satisfy the requirements set forth by Solomon's Watch.”
Tarus rumbled his pleasure. “Of course, I'd rather be holed up there than standing around wit that damn buzzing in my ears all day.”