Vestigial Surreality: 18: Dragon Warriors

episode EIGHTEEN

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Dragon Warriors.

Nobody spoke as the close group stood in their tight circle in the dimly lit foyer of some dark mansion, a rustic lord’s mansion of giant timbers with only two lamps that oddly did not flicker. The amber-orange light seemed frozen. In fact, the entire atmosphere seemed unnaturally still. Jack and Wolf looked at each other. Wolf the wolf whined softly. Six stood unmoving, looking uncannily like a mannequin. Wolf the wolf turned in a half circle and paced to the heavy double doors, and stood there, head cocked, listening, whining insistently. Something was coming. Something was on the other side of the doors. Something was out in the night.

“What is it, boy?” Jack said, his voice sounding too heavy and too thick in the frozen room. Breath emitted visibly from the youth’s mouth as he spoke, and he shuddered, realizing for the first time just how cold it was in this weird room.

“Don’t call him boy, he’s not a dog,” Wolf the man said.

“Do I really have to start calling you...Wolf?” Jack said, snorting. “I like Stacey better.”

“In this world, apparently I’ve been brought here to fight, and Wolf is my fighting name,” Stacey, Wolf the man, replied, sinking into his deep cloak, reflected light catching and sparking briefly on his eyes as he looked to the double doors where the great wolf stood listening to something. “Plus, with a name like Stacey, my whole life, I’ve almost been the boy named Sue.”

“Made you tough, though,” Jack said, containing his snicker, almost. “You know, the whole my name is Sue, how do you do!”

“Probably just gave me a lifelong bad attitude,” Wolf said, his cool black shillelagh extending from his hand like a walking stick, its tip delicately touching down on the shiny wood planks of the floor.

“I don’t know, that’s the first thing I noticed about you,” Jack said, grinning, his bow sliding off his shoulder, an arrow nocking almost magically between his nimble fingers. “It’s unusual, your great attitude.”

“Six,” Wolf whispered, cuffing the man on the arm. He glanced at Jack. “What is going on? He’s catatonic.”

The big man stood like a pillar of plastic, mouth slightly open, eyes unfocused, one hand extended for their Three Musketeer salute, the other hand clasping a medallion extended on a chain about his thick neck. Jack thought he looked like some statue they would put out at the entrance to a Renaissance Festival.

“This whole place is catatonic,” Jack replied, shivering, “and cold. I didn’t get a cool Aragorn cloak like you did. In a few moments I’ll be as frozen as him.”

Wolf slipped out of his big cloak, and held it open for the kid.

“Really?” Jack said, “I don’t think that thing is going to fit me.”

“In this place, it will probably size itself to fit you perfectly,” Wolf said, aiding Jack into the warmth of the cloak.

But the cloak did not resize itself to Jack’s slim build. He stood with the garment swimming huge on him.

“I feel like I’m trying on my Dad’s clothes,” Jack laughed, nervously, smiling up at Wolf, tugging back the sleeves.

Wolf hugged him, briefly.

“Whatever happens next,” he said, with gravity, “I want you to stay safe, try and stay behind me. Don’t let the beauty of this world fool you, it’s dangerous. Let me do the rough stuff.”

Wolf the wolf whined softly, and scratched at the door.

“What is it, boy?” Wolf said, moving stealthily to the great beast’s side, and then he realized what he had just said and chuckled. “Sorry, what is it, Wolf?”

The big wolf growled and lapped out with his huge tongue, catching Stacey under the chin.

“You know, I kind of like it, don’t be sorry,” Wolf the wolf said, eyes glowing amber lamps.

Wolf the man ruffled Wolf the wolf’s fur, and scratched up between his ears.

“You be careful out there, too. I don’t want you getting hurt, just be ready to back me up if a six-armed giant punches me in the head,” Wolf the man said.

Wolf the wolf scratched at the door again.

“Do you know what’s out there?” Jack said, joining them at the doors, his bow at the ready, clasped in his left hand.

“Men,” Wolf the wolf growled deeply. “Bad men. And many of them.”

Wolf the man tucked his shillelagh beneath his left arm and seized the heavy beam across the door.

“You sure you should open the door, I mean while Six is in this state?” Jack said, unable to suppress the quaver in his voice.

“Open the door,” Wolf the wolf growled.

Wolf the man easily lifted the beam out of the brackets and propped the beam up on its end beside the door.

“You did that so easily,” Jack said, measuring the beam with his eyes. He doubted he could have moved it, as it must be seven feet in length, and twelve inches by six inches in girth, and it looked solid. Jack felt maybe they should have left the beam in place, because it could probably hold off a battering ram.

“Ready?” Wolf the man said.

Wolf the wolf nodded his big head, once.

Jack swallowed, hard. It sounded like an egg was stuck in his throat.

Wolf the man pulled upon the huge ring on the right-side door and swung the eight-foot-tall door inward, bracing himself. Wolf the wolf immediately shot through the door, his large paws strangely quiet in the night. Wolf the man stood in the open doorway, listening. There was nothing. The strangeness inside the manor extended beyond its door, with the world hushed and resting. Yet there was that sense, that the night crouching outside the door waited, ready to pounce.

“What the hell are you doing!”

Jack and Wolf started, whirling about. Six stood a few paces away, his sword in his hand, crouching.

“Shut the door, you idiots!” he cried.

Wolf ushered Jack back into the manor and gently, quietly closed the door, and remained with his shoulder against the monstrously heavy door, leaving a crack which he could peer through, as Six came forward.

“Glad to see you’re okay,” Jack said, “but you almost gave us a heart attack sneaking up like that.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Six said, “you don’t know what’s coming. Close the door! Lock it, put the beam back in place.”

“The lamp,” Wolf said.

They turned to the lamp upon the table. The amber flame flickered in the rippled, smoky glass. And everything felt different. While they focused on the door, the whole world came back into existence.

“Oh no, we’re not ready, but it’s happening, now, they’re here, right now, outside the door,” Six said, his sword lowering until the tip rested upon the floor, and his left hand clutched at his heart as if he were suffering an attack.

“Calm down,” Wolf commanded, his voice low, almost a growl. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

“Yuh-yes,” Six stammered, “buh-but I’m not ready. This is our very last chance, and you don’t even know—”

Rough voices sounded outside. Wolf tensed at the door, crouching. Jack scrambled back, raising his bow, an arrow ready, and Six finally steadied himself and flanked Wolf to the right.

Six felt frozen throughout his bones, because he had lived this moment, too many times, it seemed countless times, and here it was again, the two giants outside the door. The seven-foot tall brute with the ax—Six had felt that ax, right here, in his breast—and the squat brute with the spear, and Six had experienced that particular delight, as well.

Except now this incredible Stacey guy was here, taking charge, that was decidedly different. And the wisp of a kid, he was here too, with his bow up and an arrow sighted.

Okay, Six thought, this time we’re all in. I’m fighting, and even if I have to die, I’m doing it, I’m going for it, I don’t care anymore.

Loud boots sounded on the porch outside, the dragon warriors not even attempting stealth.

The first crash would strike the door in moments, and Stacey was just standing there, the blow would drive the door into him and he’d fall backward, but when the giant went to kill Stacey, Six would take him, oh yes, this time he would pay back some of the torment these raiders delighted in so much. This time.

Then Wolf pulled the door inward.

Six cried out and scrambled backward as the two hulking figures appeared in the doorway, the seven-foot giant swinging his ax.

Wolf twirled his shillelagh in his left hand and caught the downward swing of the ax crosswise, smashing the giant’s fingers and driving the mighty ax swing to the side, and with one continuing fluid movement he stepped in close and drove his right fist (garbed in the ludicrous thorny snakeskin MMA glove) directly upward into the giant’s chin. The gloved fist cracked upon the tip of the big chin, and the giant’s head snapped backward, tilting almost comically upward, and suddenly the monstrous attacker was doing little mincing ballerina steps, backward, crashing over.

The spear! Six was about to shout out in warning, the squat brute, the one with the long spear, he was already driving forward, and Six meant to cry out, he intended to warn his new friend, but there just was no time, everything was happening sickeningly fast, and yet everything seemed to be moving slowly, dreamlike, and it was too late to issue any kind of warning.

Wolf snapped his shillelagh around and knocked the head of the spear, deflecting the very deadly tip, if only the fragment of an inch to the side, and impossibly Wolf was moving forward, his shillelagh never ceasing, snapping up between the squat warrior’s splayed legs, and it whumped loudly, but Wolf did not pause, but rocked a right elbow forward and smashed the bracer on his arm into the squat warrior’s face.

Six swallowed hard and glanced to Jack. The kid was moving forward, the same arrow nocked at ready, his face grim and resolute. Six moved in close behind the kid. He’d watch their backs, make sure nobody snuck up on them.

The squat warrior did not fall, but staggered backward, and it looked like Wolf was giving him little love taps with the end of his black stick, just a rapid tap-a-tap tapping, all about the warriors head, but still the massively wide warrior did not fall. He tried to bring his spear back into play but Wolf stomped down on the staff of the weapon, smashing it from the warrior’s grasp.

The fallen giant was scrambling to his feet, growling. With an almost leisure consideration Wolf swung his black shillelagh to the right and tapped the giant on the head, knocking him back down.

Torches appeared all about the porch as a multitude of warriors rushed forward.

Wolf drove in again and smashed the wide end of the black fighting club into the squat warrior’s face, driving him end-over-end backward, tumbling down the steps that lead from the porch.

Wolf turned his attention again to the fallen giant, who had flipped over and was crawling away, and Wolf could not resist the cheap shot and swung his boot up between the giant’s scrambling legs. Yes, it was a dirty shot, but who did these creeps think they were, invading a man’s home and castle by night, sneaking in like thieves. Wolf thought better of it and drove his shillelagh into the same tender place where his boot had just struck. The giant groaned loudly and collapsed face down. Wolf strode over his back and stood on his neck, his shillelagh ever twirling.

For a moment everything went still, with Wolf astride the giant’s neck, the wide warrior sprawled flat on his back at the base of the stairs, a ring of perhaps twenty invaders encircling the front of the manor, torches lifted high and wielding massive battleaxes.

Jack stood behind Wolf, his first arrow still nocked, ready to fly, sighting from warrior to warrior. Thank goodness there did not appear to be any bowmen present.

“This is my manor!” Six cried, raising his sword, moving around Jack. He wanted to cut off the giant’s head, because he clearly remembered all the many times before. All the repetitious attacks, played over and over, always with the same result of death, rape, and destruction (not necessarily in that order). This giant, this squat warrior, they were the rapists.

“Wait!” cried the squat warrior, pushing himself into a crouch, appearing remarkably undamaged—undiminished—despite the brutal caning the man with the black shillelagh had just delivered.

Wolf leaped from the top of the stairs, a full ten steps, and crashed down into the squat warrior, flattening him again. He tapped the warrior on the back of the head with the end of his stick.

Six howled and rushed at the giant, slashing down, his sword striking at the prone warrior’s neck, but impossibly the giant rolled over and batted away the sword strike with a bracer on his arm. The giant kicked up with both legs and struck Six at the knees, buckling him over. Grinning despite his bloodied face, the giant rolled at Six with a wicked dagger.

Jack tracked the knife and with hardly a thought, loosed the arrow. The dagger fell from the giant’s pierced hand.

The giant howled and snapped the arrow in his wounded hand, and with jutting teeth he came at Jack, who stepped back a quick shuffling dance, and smashed the widest part of his bow across the man’s snarling face. But the giant was hardly deterred and swung his arms to seize Jack, but Jack surprised himself and leapt to the bannister along the porch and balanced there, another arrow nocked and sighted on the giant’s chest.

Six swung and punched the giant squarely in the eye and the brute came back upon him and they grappled. Six was a big man, six-foot-four and more than two hundred fifty pounds, but the giant dwarfed him, and they snarled and twisted at each other.

A torch-bearing axman rushed across the grounds at Wolf but Jack placed an arrow through his ax hand. The raider dropped his torch and fell to his knees, grasping his wounded hand. Yes, Jack nodded, he could do this. He had Stacey’s back.

“Wait! Wait!” the squat spearman hollered, scrambling away from Wolf on his back and elbows, his legs kicking frantically.

“What, you want to talk?” Wolf growled, tapping at the scrambling feet with the shillelagh.

“The Pugilist!” one of the raiders cried, waving his torch.

“It’s the Pugilist!” another raider cried, stumbling backward, and surprisingly, the ring of raiders drew back, still in violent postures, but undecided in their next actions. All along the line of raiders, like crickets beginning a chorus, they began to say that word, pugilist, over and over again.

“Maybe we should hear what he has to say?” Jack said, easily striding the length of the bannister, his boots sure upon the narrow railing, another arrow nocked.

Six continued to struggle with the giant. He had his hands on the brute’s throat, but despite his savagely twisting fingers, he was unable to effectively throttle the monster, who had him in a bear hug and was squeezing for all he was worth. Six groaned and dug deep his fingers. This was his first chance to get in a few licks of his own, and he was taking some delight in the life-and-death struggle. The bastards! Finally, he would show them how it felt. He squeezed harder with all his considerable strength and felt some slackening in the giant’s deadly embrace.

“I think I might enjoy knocking you down again,” Wolf growled at the squat warrior who continued to scramble away. “Get up.”

The squat warrior complied, rising to a crouch. His face was bloodied and swollen, but he still seemed to have a lot of spite ready, glowering at his shillelagh-wielding tormentor.

The giant lifted Six off his feet and slammed him into a wooden pillar, cracking the mighty wood. But Six did not release his hold. Think pitbull, he commanded himself.

“We did not know you were present, Pugilist,” the squat warrior snarled. “We raided the rich lords, as is our right. They are our enemies, and killing them is our right. Raping their women and children is our right.”

“No, it’s not your right,” Wolf said, going still, the shillelagh for the first time frozen, held parallel along his left arm. He was going to kill this self-righteous savage. For the first time in his life, he felt the killer instinct, deep down. The killer instinct always missing when he was a boxer. And he was almost ashamed to acknowledge that it felt pretty...good.

“I don’t look kindly on rapers.”

“Rapists,” Jack corrected.

Wolf sighed. That kid.

Six and the giant came crashing down the stairs, Six with his fingers buried in the giant’s throat, the giant yet squeezing the smaller man in a bear hug.

Stacey glanced to watch the savage encounter but made certain to maintain the squat warrior clearly in his peripheral vision.

Six gritted his teeth and got up close to stare into the giant’s eyes.

“Not this time,” Six whispered, and clamped his hands, not looking away, watching the giant’s bulging eyes glaze and finally roll up into his head, but still he squeezed, trying to make his palms meet. He wanted to interlock his fingers with the giant’s throat between his hands. The giant legs and arms spasmed, then fell limp.

Six collapsed across the giant’s chest.

“He killed the Krogurr,” many of the raiders muttered, aghast, disbelief evident in their voices. But the truth was, they didn’t sound very outraged, not at all.

“Plant your torches!” the squat warrior thundered, raising his fists at his ears in the classic muscleman pose. Without pause, the raiders obeyed, slamming the ends of their long torches into the loamy soil. Even the raider with the arrow through his hand managed to retrieve his torch and plant it in the soil.

“Now you fight me, and prove if you are the Pugilist of legend,” the squat warrior snarled, stripping off his shaggy armor and dashing each piece to the ground.

Wolf spun his shillelagh and planted it in the soil. He’d keep his cool MMA gloves.

The warrior stripped down to a loincloth, and his body proved tattooed on every inch of flesh, tattoos that glowed iridescent in the torchlight. He had a barrel of a chest, a big man’s body, like a powerlifter, ripe with jiggling fatty muscle, with quite a pair of breasts, to boot.

“Be careful, Stacey,” Jack called, “you know he’s going to cheat.”

“Wolf,” Wolf the man called back.

Jack sighed. “Yes, I know, I know, Wolf.”

“I love fighting a cheater,” Wolf said.

Six pushed himself to a sitting position, gasping, his head whirling.

“Get him,” he croaked.

Wolf marched toward the squat tattooed warrior.

The squat warrior snarled and hurled himself upon Wolf, who sidestepped and tripped the rushing warrior. But to his credit, the squat warrior did not fall, but merely stumbled, and swung back around and lashed out with a fist, which Wolf ducked. The squat warrior kept his fists up as if he were flexing his biceps, and from this stance threw punch after punch in swiping motions, like a cat.

“You’ve been watching too much Chuck Liddell,” Wolf muttered and stepped in close and snapped a machinegun jab into the warrior’s face, peppering him three times, even breaking his nose.

The warrior sat back with a grunt and landed on his butt. Dazed for a moment, he stared up at his tormentor and then flinched, thinking Wolf would kick him while he was down.

Wolf almost did kick him, right in the face, but held himself back. He motioned with his fingers, come on, get back up—let’s play.

The watching raiders murmured.

Jack noticed more raiders slinking in from the darkness, joining the outer ring. These too had torches, which they lit from the flaming stakes planted about the clearing. They waved their torches and began to call out encouragingly to their leader. Jack couldn’t count how many raiders were present, but he figured thirty to forty to be a good ballpark figure. Perhaps, fifty. He kept his bow half-drawn, an arrow nocked. He figured he had perhaps twenty arrows, at best, but he also had his nifty dagger on his belt. He danced nervously on the railing.

Out in the darkness Jack caught sight of a large shape moving quickly around the ring, just on the very edge of the light. It must be Wolf the wolf, he thought.

The squat warrior surged to his feet and attacked, throwing punch after monstrous haymaker punch, all of which Wolf slipped and dodged, ducked and eluded.

Wolf considered. He had certainly never fought anyone like this in the ring, neither in sparring or professionally. The guy was a brute, a big, strong, meaty warrior, even dangerous, but he certainly didn’t know how to fight. Heck, with this new body, he could fight like this for hours. He wasn’t even winded, not a bit, with nary a sign of asthma. He danced in close and planted a fist deep in the squat warrior’s body, just beneath the ribs. The warrior woofed. It was like hitting the heavy bag, with only a little more gush from inside. Wolf half-blocked another powerful blow, and then he snapped down his right fist in a short, driving blow, catching the warrior in the mouth.

The leader of the raiders tumbled over backward.

Surprisingly, many of the raiders cheered.

The warrior rolled onto his hands and knees and glowered up at Wolf. Sheesh, Wolf thought, the guy is just full of piss and vinegar. He had certainly never meant an opponent like this. The guy was scary.

Wolf tittered his fingertips at the warrior, come on, get up again.

The warrior got up again. Wolf knocked him down again.

The raiders cheered again, only now more were cheering.

The warrior, enraged threw himself on Wolf, and they grappled. The warrior stomped down on Wolf’s foot, but Wolf was watching for that and moved his foot, and when the warrior attempted to seize him by the nuts, Wolf hurled himself upward, seized the warrior around the neck, and when his feet touched down he launched himself up and around the man’s broad back, but didn’t release his hold on the man’s neck—he flipped up and over, to land on his feet—the warrior gurgled, strangled, and Wolf applied all his vast strength and pulled the heavy man up and around onto his own back, so that they were back to back, with Wolf’s stranglehold sinking in deeper.

Utterly helpless, balanced on Wolf’s back, the warrior’s neck stretched and twisted about, his feet up in the air, kicking, arms flailing.

The watching raiders roared, and now there were even more of them gathered, perhaps more than a hundred, and they were cheering, watching their chief strangled. Many were chanting.

Pugilist! Pugilist!

In a second or two, the warrior’s neck would snap. The fact that it hadn’t snapped already was a testament to the warrior’s powerful body, but the dynamics of this unheard stranglehold would not allow even the strongest neck to survive such pressures, all of Wolf’s strength, all of the huge squat warrior’s weight, and Wolf felt it, what he always felt in his boxing career.

He felt sorry for the other guy.

Wolf flipped the warrior over and slammed him into the ground. He stood away from the fallen warrior, breathing hard. He looked at the roaring, cheering raiders. They shook their axes and spears above their heads, many of them clashing their weapons together with whoever stood closest to them.

“Anyone else?” Wolf thundered, planting his fists upon his hips.

As one, the encircling raiders quieted and dropped to their knees, placing their weapons reverently upon the ground.

The squat warrior, the once leader of this group, lay gasping and coughing.

Six appeared at Wolf’s side, woozy and gasping.

“You did it, you actually did it, you turned the whole raid aside!” Six said with wonder, placing his arm about Wolf’s shoulders.

“Was this your chief?” Wolf called about the unnaturally quiet glade. For so many violent men to be so silent, it was weird.

Jack leapt lightly from the deck bannister and landed gracefully upon his feet, and quickly trotted to Wolf’s side.

They looked and were surprised to see the leader of the raiders kneeling, placing his forehead in the dirt, taking handfuls of the soil and rubbing it into his head. It appeared to be some form of symbolic gesture of humiliation.

“That’s incredible,” Six said, shaking his head. “Never heard of anything like this, not with dragon warriors.”

“They’re your guys now,” Wolf said, shaking out his muscles. He was exhausted, utterly drained. It truly had been a long couple of days. He thought of the six-armed monstrosity. The vast serpent and their duel under the sacred fruit tree. The sky falling like shards of crystal. The bug-eyed Martians in the alley.

“I don’t think so,” Six said doubtfully, certain any one of the raiders would cease their prostrations and leap for his throat at any moment.

“I do not care what your mission in life was before,” Wolf boomed. “I do not care what you thought your rights were. There will be no more raping. The dragon warriors will from hereon be a people of honor, and your primary goal in life is to protect the lands and life and peoples of...”

He glanced to Six and whispered: “What in the world is your name, here? Your full name?”

“Lord Meren Dulance of High Vale,” Six said, feeling a little self-conscious. It was a good name, right? He could have picked any name he desired, and he’d gone with Lord Meren Dulance, of course that was years ago, and in those days he was just playing a very cool game.

“Your mission in life is to protect the lands and life and people of Lord Meren Dulance of High Vale, this good man standing here beside me,” he boomed.

The raiders bowed and scraped, murmuring like a wave: “Pugilist. Pugilist. Pugilist.”

“You are the protectors of this land and its people. Any harm you have caused here, you will repay,” Stacey boomed, to cries of Pugilist! Pugilist! Pugilist!

“Can you think of anything else?” Wolf whispered to Six.

Six shook his head, feeling dizzy, and liberated, and free.

“How about tributes?” Jack whispered in Wolf’s ear.

“Yes, you will make tributes to Lord Meren Dulance, every year!”

“Twice a year,” Six said, automatically, blinking his eyes.

“Yes, you will make tributes to Lord Meren Dulance twice a year! Tributes of ten percent of your profits, twice a year!”

“Twenty percent, no, twenty-five percent!” Six said, getting into it.

“Don’t be greedy,” Wolf snapped.

“Oh look,” Jack said with glee, “the moons are coming out, one on either side!”

And sure enough, there on their left (Wolf didn’t know the directions here) was the big swollen moon, and right on cue was the smaller moon emerging on the right.

Hours later Wolf reclined in a plush wingchair that fitted his body suspiciously like a La-Z-Boy recliner, a tall tankard of Dark (what Six called it) in his fist. His eyes were drowsy, and he could see the first light of dawn illuminating the windows.

“I couldn’t do without my Guinness Stout,” Six said, sipping appreciatively at his own tankard. “I actually brought some Stout over here and had my brewmeisters work to get it as close as possible. “We’ve just called it Dark, but from hereon, it’s Wolf Dark!”

“How about Dark Wolf?” Jack contributed.

“I’d prefer White Wolf, but then that would be an odd stout, wouldn’t it?” Wolf said, sleepily.

“Dark Wolf it is!” Six laughed.

“A stout named after me, it’s always been one of my highest aspirations,” Wolf said. He usually would not drink anything this strong in the morning, but he really needed it now.

“In about half an hour my cook will be up and I’ll have him rustle up some breakfast, you have to try the bison bacon, it is really good, much better than pork,” Six said.

“Vegetarian,” Jack and Wolf said as one, and laughed.

“We’re still doing that,” Jack said.

“I’m glad one thing is still solid from the old world,” Wolf said.

“I like your goatee,” Jack said.

Wolf felt at his chin. “Funny, I haven’t seen myself in this new world. You’ve got one too, you know?”

“I do?” Jack said, delighted, feeling at his own chin. “I have a real moustache! I’ve always wanted a goatee! Awesome!”

“Yeah,” Wolf said, yawning, “don’t worry, it’ll fill in, give yourself a couple of years.”

Jack looked crestfallen.

“No, I’m kidding, you look like Errol Flynn,” Wolf said, chuckling. “Very dashing.”

“Yeah, Robin Hood, that’s me,” Jack laughed.

“Well come on,” Six burst, “you guys don’t have to be vegetarian any more, come on, live a little. It’s not like you’ll be eating real meat, not in High Vale.”

“I think for us,” Wolf said, glancing at Jack, “the rules probably don’t change too much, as the animals here are as real as the animals back where we came from.”

“Where I come from,” Six said, “everyone is vegetarian; it’s literally a crime to eat any kind of animal—there just aren’t that many of the critters left—so here, I cut loose. Everyone thinks that eating animals is barbaric, and disgusting, but I think we are all pretty much animals, so we just love to rip into other animals. It’s the blood that is so good. When you live with the animals, live like the animals, am I right?”

“I think I just need to conk out,” Wolf said, blinking his eyes.

“Me too,” Jack said, stifling a yawn.

“Conk out? What’s that, some kind of vegetarian thing?” Six said.

“No, it means we’re pooped. We need to keel over and sleep the sleep of the dead,” Jack explained.

“Coma, it’s calling, I’m about to meet a coma,” Wolf said.

“We have two or three guestrooms; you can take your pick. Stacey, you take the room right over there, and Jack there’s one right at the top of the stairs on the second level.”

“Not to be weird or anything, but you don’t have a room with two beds, do you? I don’t want to let Stacey out of my sight,” Jack said.

Wolf did not correct them. He supposed his name would follow him, wherever he went. He was Stacey the Wolf and Wolf the Stacey. But his former self seemed far away. He was in a whole new world, after all.

In their room Wolf did not even remove his boots. He fell face down on one of the small beds, and was instantly asleep.

Jack grinned and removed the older man’s boots. Then he fell onto the other bed and was snoring before his head hit the fluffy pillow.

Six paced in the great hall. He felt overjoyed. Finally, they had done it. Thanks to Old Ben, with a little of the hoped-for luck, they had done it.

He wished the guys could have remained awake long enough to meet Varra, who should be waking soon. Ah, Varra, love of my life, our future is open to us! I gave up everything from my old world, for you, Varra. He slammed his right fist into his left palm. Ah, but he felt good.

Six heard a tiny wind chime on the periphery of his hearing. He called up a window and received a notification of an incoming visitor. He opened the notice. Hey! Great! Seven was coming! This would be truly epic! She should be arriving in the High Vale visitor center on the morrow. Lovely. He couldn’t wait to see her.

Seven could meet his two new friends, Jack and Wolf.

Next Episode.

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Vestigial Surreality: 17: Lewis & Lewis

episode SEVENTEEN

01 02 03 04 05 06 07

08 09 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33 34 35

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Lewis and Lewis.

Stacey opened his eyes, and for just a few seconds, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out where he was. His apartment ceiling looked utterly alien. He moved to the edge of the bed and sat, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Nope, nothing alien here, just a mess, as usual, clothes strewn about. But the look of his Spartan room was enough to kick off a migraine, and he even tested his eyes, rolling his gaze up and down, all around, but there were no tell-tale twinges of pain behind his eyes, and the top of his head felt screwed on properly.

He couldn’t remember what he had just been dreaming, but he knew it was big, and weird, and that was funny, because big weird dreams he couldn’t remember were another sign of an impending sick headache. But he felt fine, if a little bit groggy. Had he been drinking? His mouth certainly didn’t feel pasty.

Stacey abruptly stood and walked to the window, peeked through the curtains, and it looked like a bright Spring morning out there. Everything appeared normal, but something nagged at the back of his mind. Was it something he needed to remember? Something he was supposed to do?

He glanced to the side and started, body tightening, but his mind quickly resolved the pattern of what he was looking at—two black socks on the carpet, slightly entwined, each stretched out, unnaturally posed, as if the two socks were frozen in the moment of death struggle—he almost laughed, because for just a second he was sure a snake was moving there, right here in his bedroom. His eyebrows came down and together, and his forehead clenched. What? What was he trying to remember? Something about a snake?

The Aurora Borealis, lights in the northern sky, why was he thinking about that? For a few moments, he could almost see the swirling lights, but not just in his mental view, but in his actual vision, but he knew he had certainly never seen the lights, he had never lived far enough north. He shook his head, yet checking for signs of one of his sick headaches, and now he was starting to freak himself out, he was getting weirded, suffering some willies, because things just didn’t seem right...real?

Maybe he should run to the park, do a few circuits? Who was he kidding, he’d die of an asthma attack before clearing a mile. And he was certainly not going anywhere near that park. But why in the world would he think that, there was nothing negative about the park, so why did it suddenly fill him with dread?

Stacey heard something out in his apartment. He quietly padded from his bedroom into his small study. For a moment he paused, sniffing, something didn’t smell right? Not smoke, but something else threatening, some chemical smell, and the books stacked all about his study, there was something wrong. He blinked, but couldn’t read any of the titles, not the titles of the books in stacks, nor the books in the shelves. Didn’t he have his contacts in?

Okay, something weird was going on, because his eyesight was perfect, he most certainly had his contacts in, he could see everything properly, except for the titles of the books. With disbelief he stepped toward the nearest bookcase and reached for a book. He snatched a book by random and held it before his eyes. All the text was blurred out, as if someone had replaced his real book with this fake book, and he knew what he would find before he even cracked the book open, the lines of text inside would be nothing more than fuzzed lines of gray, and when his now trembling fingers split the book in half to a random page, that is exactly what he found, gray lines that looked like a cartoonist’s bare suggestion of writing in a book.

The cover of the book was something he didn’t remember, something generic, a minimalist presentation of science fiction, or science fantasy, a guy standing in space, perhaps an alien world, with an atom in the sky in the place of a moon. But no, it was not an atom, as he had first interpreted, but the planet Saturn, or a rather childish delineation of Saturn, with a wobbly ring about a bloated ball.

Stacey dropped the book. This wasn’t real. He felt uncanny. As if he were dreaming, and yet this obviously wasn’t a dream. He knew reality, he knew this was real, and yet half of him realized this wasn’t real, he knew and recognized everything, and yet at the same time he knew this was an alien place, that nothing was familiar. And he felt weird, unsettled, as if something stalked him. He turned abruptly and found himself in a defensive stance, his fists up, he was cocked and ready to fire, and yet nobody was here, nothing was here, there was no threat, nothing was coming from the bedroom—nobody attacked, and yet he felt it, all about him, wrongness, danger.

“Oh my goodness, what in the world is wrong with me?” he breathed, and his faint voice nestled within his whisper scared him more than he already was terrified, and that was it, that was the alien element—the fear—Stacey actually felt fear; he was suffused with terror, he reeked with fearsweat, and fear was an alien sensation, to Stacey, but he certainly knew it now, this was fear, this was sick dread. He was a little boy on an alien beach and great fins were cutting the dark waters, fins as large as sailboats, reflecting the light of three moons.

Moons, that was another thing, multiple moons in a brilliant night sky.

Stacey blinked his eyes, reaching for the doorjamb, dizziness suffusing him, because that image of himself, a boy on that beach, that was too real, the image in his mind was almost an image in his eyes. He could almost hear the fins cutting the waters. He smelled sea salt.

He placed the fingers of his right hand upon the underside of his left forearm and dragged his nails hard and deep, going from about wrist to elbow, and he truly scratched, leaving snaggy scratch trails which went from white to red in an instant. Yes, it hurt. He just damaged himself. The pain was real. This was no dream. He stood here, in his study. But nothing was right. Everything was too gray, like the faked lines on all the books.

“Wake up Stacey, come on, wake up,” said someone.

Stacey jumped, glancing about him. The disembodied voice was right here. It was real.

“Stacey, you dingbat, open your eyes, come on, please Stacey, just open your eyes,” the voice said, desperate, pleading.

“Jack?” Stacey said, looking at the ceiling.

That was Jack’s voice, he knew it. Jack.

Stacey put his hands in his hair and tugged. He seized great handfuls of hair and yanked.

Jack? From the park, that Jack? The kid. They met in the park, coincidentally, yes, that was it, coincidence. Coffee. The Coffee Dump. The strange businessman that was not Murakami. Joshua’s bellowing laughter. Michael’s strained, terrified face, the too-big eyes looking through round lenses, round eyeglasses. Pancakes. Tentacles. Pancakes and tentacles. Old Ben standing in the corner. The girl, the ghost girl, Sandy, making gestures in the air on an invisible tablet.

Yes, that was all in the dream he had just been dreaming. And Kali, looming above, six fists flying. And a vast snake, Oros, all of this was in the dream. A whacky, distended dream that just went on for far too long.

“Stacey, please, you can’t die, just wake up, please, open your eyes!” the weeping voice pleaded, too real, right here, right now, all surrounding, everywhere at once.

Stacey opened his eyes and gasped. The weird, vivid colors were all about him. And shifting his gaze, there was Jack’s worried face. Jack, dressed like...Robin Hood!

“You look like Robin Hood,” Stacey said, blearily.

Jack burst out in laughter, relief flooding his face.

“Thank God!” Jack bellowed. “Oh thank God! We were sure you were dead!”

“Why are you dressed like Robin Hood?” Stacey queried, lying upon his back, in grass and soft soil. Another man was there too, a strange man, a beefy man, bearded, looking at Stacey with worried eyes.

“I know! I know! It’s not fair!” Jack laughed, tears pouring from his eyes, pulling Stacey up into his arms, hugging him. Jack, kneeling in the grass, squeezed Stacey for all he was worth. “I got Robin Hood, and you got freaking Aragorn! I should have traded with you while you were dead. I mean, I got the Errol Flynn Robin Hood, why couldn’t it have been the Kevin Costner or even the Russell Crowe Robin Hood!”

Stacey didn’t know what any of that meant, but he looked about himself, over the kid’s back, and he remembered the fantasy world, High Vale, he remembered it all, the running through the night, his hand buried in the ruff of a giant wolf, and there he was too, Wolf the wolf, his wolfish face actually smiling at Stacey, long tongue hanging out of the wide smiling mouth, panting.

“Thank you,” Jack said, reaching out and ruffling the wolf’s fur. “You saved him, thank you! And it looks like his eye is going to be okay, too.”

“You are very welcome,” Wolf the wolf said, in his deep, elegant voice. “I am quite fond him, as well, you must understand.”

“Wolf the wolf,” Stacey said, smiling at the great beast, pushing himself into a full sitting position, but Jack wouldn’t let him go, and so he found himself seated in the grasses crookedly, pulled into Jack’s embrace. It was very uncomfortable, but he couldn’t bring himself to push the kid away.

“Welcome back, Wolf the man,” Wolf the wolf said. Somehow, the two tusk-like fangs protruding from its upper jaw hardly looked threatening, not in such a friendly face.

“That’s just weird, but I like it,” Jack laughed. “We finally made it to Narnia, Stacey. Talking animals and everything.”

“High Vale,” Six corrected. “Narnia must be some other online world.”

Jack and Stacey shared a laugh, thinking the bearded man was making a joke, but the look on his face revealed the truth.

“C.S. Lewis, Narnia?” Jack tried. “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Aslan?”

“Never been there,” Six said, shrugging. He had no idea.

“I’m Wolf,” Wolf the man said, extending his hand to the crouching beefy man.

“Six,” Six said, clasping Wolf’s proffered hand, but strangely, he grabbed him about the wrist and squeezed, and Wolf found himself gripping the beefy man’s wrist in the same fashion, as if he had always shaken hands in that way.

“Six?” Stacey queried, unsure of what the number meant.

“He’s Lord Somebody or Other, but we can call him Six,” Jack explained.

“How in the world did you get a dire wolf as a guide?” Six said, studying the great animal. A small head peered over Six’s shoulder, some small creature creeping from the beefy man’s cloak.

“Whoa, who’s the little guy?” Jack said, smiling at the furry little face.

“This is Rex, my guide, he’s a ferret,” Six said, snatching the too-long creature from the back of his neck and rolling it about in his hands—the ferret chittered and tried to bite his fingers—and then Six tossed the little animal to Jack.

Jack caught the animal, careful of its sharp teeth, but it cuddled against Jack’s chest, cooing and squeaking.

“What a cutie, hello Rex,” Jack said, “but where’s my guide? How come I don’t have a guide?”

“You both are recent IBBs, so your guide should appear whenever you need a little help, but I’ve never known any IBB to get a wolf, let alone a dire wolf. Plus, guides never help out in a fight, so I don’t know what’s going on there.”

“Ibb? What’s an Ibb?” Jack asked.

“Newby...noob. It’s an acronym—I.B.B.—it means In the Belly of the Beast, to get to High Vale you have to come through the snake, everyone does, it’s kind of a nasty joke, but I guess it makes us all appreciate High Vale that much more, you really suffer a lot of delusions, and then you end up having to dig out of the snake crap,” Six explained. He extended his hand and Rex the ferret twisted out of Jack’s hands, leapt to the ground, and scampered across to Six, and easily scrambled up his leg and body and up and around to whisper in his ear before disappearing again into the beefy man’s cloak. He stared from Jack to Stacey, incredulous.

“What?” Jack and Stacey said as one.

“Rex says neither of you were IBB, that you’re not IBBs, but that’s not possible,” Six said.

“I don’t care what kind of a game world this is,” Wolf the man said, “but I’m not going into any snake’s belly. We kind of worked out a deal between us, me and...the snake.”

“And I...got away,” Jack said, unable to tell them exactly what measure he had inadvertently employed to make that escape. That would be just a little too humiliating, but still, the thought of all that goop dripping off the snake’s face, that thought made Jack almost snicker. He covered by rubbing his arm across his mouth, but still could not suppress the most minor of giggles. Tossing your cookies on a snake god! Throwing up on its head! He chuckled but still suppressed the bubbling laughter. If he allowed himself to reflect on the experience even for a full second, he would fall to the ground with laughter. He would laugh his ass off, literally, if that was literally possible.

“But that’s not possible,” Six said, shaking his shaggy head. “It’s part of the introduction, you have to get swallowed. Everyone takes the fruit. Everyone breaks the commandment, and you spend thirty days and nights digesting in the belly of the beast. I don’t think you really spend that long, not really, but it sure seems like it. You feel your skin dissolving. It’s great.”

Jack and Stacey looked at each other, then burst into laughter.

“It’s not funny,” Six said. “It’s all really wonderful.”

“We didn’t exactly come here by choice,” Wolf the man said.

“So, somehow the two of you managed to elude being consumed, both of you did this, and to the best of my knowledge, that’s never happened before—everyone gets swallowed. And nobody, absolutely nobody starts off with a dire wolf as a guide.”

“I’m kind of known for that,” Wolf the man said. “It’s kind of in my nature, to buck the system.”

“He’s a boxer,” Jack said, proudly, as if that explained everything. “And he did say buck the system!”

“Pugilist!” snarled Crood, sitting up, a giant hand clasped to his head. An angry red knot the size of a goose egg lumped in the very center of the creature’s forehead.

The three men scrambled to their feet, moving away from the giant, who sat glaring at them with eyes as red as a seven-day drunk.

“Forgot all about that thing,” Wolf the man said.

“I thought it was dead,” Jack said.

Wolf the man’s black shillelagh twirled in his hands and Wolf the wolf was already circling wide around the clearing, always facing the giant. Six crouched with his sword in hand and Jack had an arrow knocked.

“Should have cut off his head when he was down,” Six said, shaking his head, keeping close to Jack and decidedly behind Stacey. “I don’t know if these things can even be killed.”

“Well?” Wolf the man said, “I’m standing right here.”

“And I am standing right here,” Wolf the wolf said, now on the far side of the clearing, behind the giant.

“Done,” Crood snarled, struggling to his massive hooves. “Crood done. No fight.”

“Want me to turn around?” Wolf the man said, actually turning his back on the giant again, black shillelagh now still, held parallel to the ground before the man.

“What are you doing?” Six whispered, eye bulging in fury or fear.

The crooden stood swaying, his massive egg-shaped head tilted forward, viewing Wolf the man, his enemy, through the tops of his blood-filled eyes, flexing his six fists. He seemed to be considering it, delivering another massive sucker punch to the back of the man with the black stick.

Jack was ready this time. This time, he would not hold back. As soon as the giant roared, Jack would loose the arrow.

“No trick,” Crood snarled. “No fight. Pugilist, you win.”

Then the giant coughed, bent forward at the waist, and vomited up a mass of bloody noodles, or maybe it was snakes. The giant wadded the bloody, squirming goo into a ball, and then tossed this mess at Wolf the man’s feet.

“Crood see Pugilist again. Promise,” the giant snarled, and then turned and lumbered away through the trees at the edge of the clearing, great hooves clopping loudly.

“Watch out, Stacey,” Jack muttered, “the thing can be quiet when it wants to, it’s probably going to sneak around and come at you from another angle.”

“Good call,” Six whispered, “get ready.”

“I don’t think so, that’s not the way games work,” Wolf the man said, “unlike the real world, there seems to be honor running throughout this place, plus Wolf the wolf is following him.”

He thought of when he faced down the snake, when it threatened to eat him, after everything, as it poised above him—he had trusted the great serpent at its word, that it would not kill him, that it would not eat him, digest him. He trusted it. But in the real world, any such snake would have struck down and swallowed him. But this place was not the real world. Somehow, in many ways, he preferred this place to the real world. At least you could count on consistency here. Honor seemed to have more to do with consistency in action than any oath or code of conduct.

“See, guides don’t do stuff like that,” Six said with disgust. “You’ve got something working in your favor, that’s for sure. One of the old wyrms must be looking out for you, Stacey, and Old Ben said you were my man.”

Wolf the man, lowered his shillelagh to the ground, tapping the soil.

“Here, I am Wolf. That’s who I am, Wolf the man. And hey, if Old Ben said it, it must be true,” he said. “Let’s get onto the next part of...all this. I’m your man.”

“This isn’t a game, not to me,” Six said. “This is my life. And from what Old Ben says, this is your life, too.”

“Well, I for one, am all for it,” Jack said, in his perky way. He snatched Stacey’s cloak from the ground and shook it out, and then offered it to his friend. “I can’t wait to see just how far down the rabbit hole actually goes.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Six said, turning on Jack, anger in his face.

“You’re kidding,” Jack said. “Where are you from, anyway, I mean in the real world?”

“Texas, originally,” Six said, anger evaporating. “But I’m all High Vale, now. This is all I’ve got. Right here.” He slid his sword into his scabbard.

“You have never heard of C.S. Lewis?” Wolf the man said, tugging into his cloak, aided by Jack. He felt better in the warm cloak, because in truth, he was still a little shaky. He prodded at his left cheek with his fingers and found the skin beneath his left eye tender, and felt bruised to the bone. But he could see fine out of his eye.

“Wolf the wolf licked you clean, he must have some kind of healing tongue or something,” Jack said, looking closely at Stacey’s face, studying it. “But it does look like you’re going to keep a very nasty scar, or two scars, or one big scar that goes up to your eye, and comes down on one side just beneath your eye.”

Jack traced the scar beneath Stacey’s eye. It went from just beneath the center of the left eye, down to almost the jawline, and on the other end it trailed back from the corner of the eye into Stacey’s mane of hair.

“Looks cool,” Jack said. “Now you’ve got a great scar to go with the big white stripes.”

“Never heard of C.S. Lewis,” Six said, and then he did something with his hands, very reminiscent of the girl in the back of the truck, when she accessed her invisible tablet. “But I can look him up, if it will make you happy.”

“What are you doing?” Jack said.

“Sorry,” Six said, distracted, but then he turned a window in the air, now visible, he turned it like a screen so that both Jack and Stacey could see. It looked more a Macintosh window than Microsoft, but more real, it was palpable, hanging in space, like a very real screen. Six resized it, and zoomed in, all accomplished with little flicks of his fingers and swipes of his hands.

“Awesome,” Jack breathed, and Wolf the man crowded in close to have a better look. “Just what you thought, the Ghost Lady was looking at one of these.”

A full text biography appeared titled Clive Staples “Jack” Lewis, and details leapt out. Six deftly pulled a photograph of Lewis, the historical figure, straight out of the window and left an image of the man hanging in space. The face was full color, and both Jack and Stacey recognized the author, and amazingly, the face peered back at them, good-naturedly smiling, and nodded its head at them. Jack and Stacey leaned back, away from the smiling man’s face, as if he might pose some sort of threat, and the simulated author tracked them with his eyes. His face moved and breathed, and blinked normally. It was breathtaking, like meeting the author face to face—meeting a live, breathing version of the author more than fifty years beyond his death.

“Wow,” Wolf the man said. “This is incredible.”

“Standard Wiki stuff,” Six said, frowning briefly at them. “Okay, I see he was an author, and religious figure, that lived a long, long time ago, like back when the dinosaurs did the peppermint twist—that’s an expression, right? But I don’t see anything about a rabbit hole.”

“No, that’s Lewis Carroll,” Jack said. “Alice in Wonderland. Come on, you’ve heard of Alice.”

“So C.S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll, they’re not the same guys? Let me guess, another old-timey author, right? What is it with you guys and old books, anyway? Nobody actually reads text anymore.”

“It’s kind of our thing,” Jack said, sounding a little wounded.

Wolf the man sighed and closed his eyes, briefly, and rubbed his forehead with both his hands.

“What year is it?” he said, suddenly opening his eyes and looking hard at Six.

Six flicked his fingers and the window disappeared.

“What do you mean, what year is it?” Six said, frowning at Wolf.

“What I mean is, what is the date? For you, what’s the date?”

“For me, what’s the date? The same as it is for you, what kind of question is that? It’s April 23, 2285,” Six said, shaking his head.

“Did you just say twenty-two eighty-five?” Jack yelped.

“Yes,” replied Six, “twenty-two eighty-five. The twenty-third of April. So, what about it?”

Wolf the man placed an arm about Jack’s shoulders. “Well, Jack, it is along the lines of what we were thinking, at the pancake house.”

“A house...made of pancakes?” Six said, staring blankly. “Does this have something to do with the rabbit hole, and Alice, and C.S. Lewis?”

“But that’s like,” Jack said, looking up, inside his head, “that’s like three hundred years. Are you saying that Six time travelled three hundred years to us?”

“No,” Wolf the man said, “it would more like us travelling more than two hundred and fifty years forward, to his time, but that’s not what’s going on. Not exactly.”

“Well what in the hell is going on, anyway?” Jack cried, punching Stacey in the arm.

“Six, our friend here, is in a simulation for the Year 2016,” Wolf the man said.

“I am not in a simulation for the Year 2016,” Six snapped, “that’s ridiculous. I am in my year, the only year, you know, the year of today? There’s no such thing as time travel. Yes, we are in a simulation, but not like you’re thinking, this is a real world, created in the real world, matching it molecule for molecule, and in some cases, this is more real than the real world. This is just merely digitized reality, only it is somewhat enhanced, in every way.”

“You are really confusing me,” Jack said, “all of this, none of it makes any sense.”

Wolf the wolf came trotting back into the clearing and sat down on his haunches next to Wolf the man. Without thinking Wolf the man dug his hand into the fur at the great wolf’s throat, and scratched and tugged idly.

“He’s gone?” Wolf the man said.

“Yes, moving swiftly, perhaps more than a mile away already, muttering all the while how he will one day twist your limbs slowly from your body. But I think he meant it all with the utmost respect, as he has never been bested before,” Wolf the wolf said, taller sitting—by a few inches—than Wolf the man standing.

“What year is it?” Wolf the man asked of Wolf the wolf.

“It is the Year of the Snake,” Wolf the wolf replied.

“No, out in the real world,” Wolf the man clarified his specified criteria.

“I am sorry, but I do not comprehend the phrasing of your question,” Wolf the wolf said, grinning and panting.

“Well I’m sorry,” Jack snapped, “but I do not comprehend the phrasing of anything that’s happening. I don’t know who we are, where we are, when we are, or why we are. Does that cover everything?”

“How we are?” Wolf the man supplied, helpfully.

“What we are?” contributed Six, grinning wickedly.

“Okay, knock it off already, that’s not what I meant. Yes, I’ve taken Journalism 101, it’s a pre-college course at my high school, I know the questions, but I’m just not digging any of the answers.”

“Digging?” Six said, “what’s that supposed to mean?”

Wolf the man turned his left arm over and looked at the underside flesh, and traced the fingers of his right hand down along the four furrows in his skin. Little beads of blood had dried up and down the scratches.

“What’s that from?” Jack asked.

“It’s from me, when I woke up in my apartment, or a very twisted version of my apartment,” Wolf the man said.

“When you—” Jack began but Wolf the man cut him off.

“I guess the only thing we need to go on, Jack,” Wolf the man said, slowly, somewhat sadly, “is that none of this is possible, when we are, at least the when we are from, but it is possible when Six is, and so we are just going to have to accept what we have, for us, that this is all reality. Hell, it’s the only reality we have left.”

Jack frowned, puzzling it out in his head, and then he grinned, and put out his fist. “I can live with that. All for one?”

“And one for all!” Wolf the man laughed, slapping down his fist on top of Jack’s, seizing it, squeezing. And Six, looking puzzled, but attempting to participate, put his hand on Stacey’s, and then Wolf the wolf’s great paw came down on them all.

“We’re your guys,” Wolf the man said, grinning at Six.

“Lead on Macduff!” Jack laughed.

“It’s actually lay on Macduff,” Wolf the man said.

“Yeah, but I don’t want to lay on Macduff, I’d prefer if he would just do the leading, if it’s all the same to you!” Jack laughed.

“Do you have all your gear?” Six queried. “We’re in the noob zone, so I can teleport us to my manor, but I have to warn you, things will start snapping when we get there.”

“Hold on, just be one second,” Jack said, racing into the small cottage, reappearing in seconds, a small leather knapsack held on his left arm. He looked to be stuffing a wine bottle into the pack as he emerged through the open doorway. He closed the door and patted the wood, then joined the party in the clearing. “Did you know the two books are in this pack? Both of them, 1Q84 and Simulacron-3, but now both have leather bindings! It’s like everything that was in my normal backpack is here, only it is changed, transformed into urban rustic, if that makes sense.”

“Don’t forget that,” Six said, nodding with his chin toward the slop at Wolf the man’s feet.

“What, I’m supposed to bring this along? In case we get hungry?” Wolf the man said.

“No, that’s probably an artefact,” Six said. “Probably a real biggy.”

“Allow me,” Wolf the wolf said, snagging the mess of what looked like bloody noodles with one of his protruding tusks. The great wolf shook the mess and the entire globule broke apart, revealing something perhaps twelve inches long, and glistening black.

Wolf the man retrieved the item from the grass. It appeared to be some kind of equipment, perhaps a piece of armor.

“That’s a bracer, probably magical,” Six said, and whistled appreciatively. “I’d guess it’s worth one hundred diamonds, and probably a whole sack of gold besides.”

“Magical?” Wolf the man said, sighing, “really?”

Wolf the wolf coughed and nodded his nose at Stacey’s arm.

“Place the bracer upon your right arm, it is armor to protect your strong arm, and may be used to deflect the full cut of a sword, or the strike of an ax,” Wolf the wolf explained.

“You are full of information, aren’t you?” Wolf the man said, and as he moved the bracer near his right arm it suddenly snapped into place, like a bear trap, upon his right arm, covering his arm from wrist to elbow, but unlike a bear trap, it felt good. It felt really good. Like a spandex legging for the arm—an arming? Only not so shiny.

“Whoa,” he said, “I feel it all through my body. I feel strong.”

The armor fit him like an athletic bandage, and it was smooth, and flexible, and somehow comforting.

“Probably hitpoints,” Six said, “as well as pluses, to your strength, dexterity, speed, and healing. The big artefacts usually cover a lot of bases. And considering that came out of an unbeatable crooden warrior giant, I’d say it’s a powerful artefact.”

“Hey,” Jack noticed, “it matches your fingerless gloves, and your boots, and hey, really, everything you’ve got matches, that is just so not fair.”

“Didn’t you get anything from the snake?” Wolf the man asked.

“Yeah, just a promise that he was really going to mess me up next time we meet,” Jack said, uneasily. He didn’t really want to think about the snake or the next time they met.

“How in the world did you survive the snake, without being swallowed?” Six demanded.

“I ran,” Jack said. That was true. Boy, did he run.

“You can’t outrun Northern Eyes,” Six said. He was looking at Jack as if he were telling tall tales and mighty whoppers.

“Well, I got to the forest, and I climbed a tree,” Jack said, defiantly.

“That’s still not going to do any good, even if you could reach the forest,” Six said.

“Jack’s telling you the truth,” Wolf the man said, “but we can talk about all this later. Right now, get us to where you need us to be, and I’ll deal with your problem, whatever it is.”

“Yeah, right,” Six concluded, turning his mind to the weightier matter of what awaited them, and the impossibility of it, of them surviving, of Stacey the Wolf being able to deal with the dragon warriors. True, Six had witnessed the man taking on a crooden warrior giant, almost single-handedly—he had witnessed the man absorb a punch that would kill an elephant—and if it was also true that the man had somehow bested the serpent, well, maybe he could handle close to a hundred dragon warriors.

Six held out two black stones, one on each hand, offering them to the two men.

“Keep these safe, in one of your deeper pockets. These are traveling stones, and will allow you to move wherever you need to go. I’ll guide you this first trip, but after, you will pretty much have carte blanche in High Vale, though I’d strongly suggest you stay out of PVP zones, at least for a couple of weeks, until you get your footing.”

“Lay on Macduff,” Wolf the wolf said.

“Or, you know, just do, do, do dat tang!” Jack snapped, grinning.

“I have no idea what either of you mean,” Six said, “but we’re going now. Stand close, hold onto your hats, and try not to vomit.”

“All for one,” Jack breathed.

“And one for all,” Wolf the man returned.

They vanished, leaving little trace of their ever having been in the clearing, save for the decapitated corpse of a once beautiful white destrier.

A little girl came out of the trees and strolled about in the clearing. Then, laughing, she hurried to the small cottage and entered, closing the door behind her.

Next Episode.

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