I laid there on the ground, gun still in hand and the corpse of a felled beast on my chest, pinning me. It was a wolf, a large black one. I was surprised it went down in a single shot, but a bullet through the head would tend to kill a lot of things I suppose, large or small. I tried to roll the body off of me to no avail, Lais attempted to help me in this but she was unable to move the beast either. She was visibly shaken.

  “It's no use,” I gave up and simply laid there motionless. “I bet if Kalom were here he would be able to move this wolf, eh?”

  Lais had also stopped trying to roll the body off of mine, instead sitting next to me.

  “Yes I believe he could, he may not be the brightest but he is very strong.”

  As we sat there and tried to figure out how to solve the problem, I thought back on my old mercenary days. I laughed at those memories, making Lais curious as to what I thought was so funny.

  Turning to her, I stopped. The remnants of the smile still lingered in my expression. “Back during my days as a mercenary, I was in a similar position to this. Though it was on purpose, that's what I figured was funny.”

  “You were a mercenary?”

  “Yeah, I was a damn good one too.” I paused. “Though, I don't have alot of fond memories of those days.”

  “I’d imagine not, from what I know about mercenaries, they lead a hard life.” Lais’ worry was evident.

  I kept my up my facade, if only for her sake. We sat there not talking for a long while after, listening to the sounds of the forest. Birds sang their melodies as an orchestra of cicadas and grasshoppers added to the rhythm.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Gregori~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  A group of two dozen gray and black hooded figures along with a single one wearing a brown cloak ,rode on horseback at a steady pace down the winding forest roads. Their destination was the village where I was staying, and the purpose of that trip was a nefarious one. As they rode along in a line, the second in this convoy, an older man with a full beard spoke up.

  “How much further till we hit the village?”

  His voice was deep but strained, like he was mimicking what an elderly man would sound like.

  “I don’t know. Now keep quiet, Berma.” The brown hooded leader had replied.

  Berma said nothing else from then on until they all had reached a cliff, overlooking the village valley. The sight was magnificent, as despite all the enormous trees, the village from this vantage point was in perfect view. The hustle and bustle of the people below was noisy even from up on the cliff. A few of the riders had started setting up tents and a small campfire with a spit, intending to stay several nights if need be to accomplish the goal they came to achieve. Which I later learned was my capture. The man in the brown hood was none other than the assassin Gregori, once again set out to bring me to his king. One of the other men took off his hood, revealing a clean shaven face with red hair. He was elderly but age hadn’t caught up with him.

  “So, sir Gregori.” He began, “The king wants the otherworlder alive, so how are we going to do this?”

  Gregori lowered his own hood and leered at the speaker, giving him a stern and silent warning.

  “Ok, I get it. No fires, no killing, no fun. Right?”

  Gregori tore his gaze away from the man, and began unpacking his saddlebags, taking out a sleeping roll and a cloth tent. As the others had also begun doing, Soon a thriving campsite had started to bloom, and in secret from the townsfolk below.

  “Set up anything left, I’m going to scout the area.” Gregori commanded as he stood there, leering down in disgust at the village below.

  He began towards the cliff's edge, and dove down. As he fell, the men topside gasped in horror. Berma guffawed at the reaction, before slapping his knee in delight.

  “What the fuck did he do that for, Berma?” One of the hooded men asked.

  “He’s a Cith, a darkling.” Berma said, “they live in the mountains, old bastard probably latched onto a ledge below, take a gander”

  Sure enough, the men collectively did just so and saw that Berma had been correct. There Gregori was, scaling the cliff face and descending into the dense treeline below which bordered the village. The red haired man, who had also been watching the spectacle, was impressed.

  “By Vrill that's impressive.”

  Berma came up behind him and smacked him gently on the back, startling the man.

  “Hey now, don't be invoking the lord in this. It’s all skill.”

  Berma sat down at the edge of the cliff, dangling his feet over the side and leaned back. The other men had all returned to their duties with the exception of the red haired man, who sat down beside Berma.

  “What do you know about the boss?” He asked.

  Berma thought for a moment on how to respond, thinking about how much he should or could reveal.

  “Gregori and I go a ways back,” he began. “I met him during the siege of Ramaede. Mistook him as being younger than me on account of his looks, turned out the bastards older than fuckin’ dirt. Got about a couple hundred years on me, and still more nimble than myself. Anyhow, we fought together to capture Duke Merriam's wife as a bargaining chip for Eli. Things went south, Gregori saved my life, that's basically how our first meeting went.”

  Berma opened his cloak and pulled out a waterskin, the listener beside him could tell by the smell that it was some kind of alcohol. He took a few big gulps and replaced it, satisfied. Down below, Gregori was nearing the bottom of the cliff face, effortlessly scaling its jagged surface. His mind was blank, focused only on the task at hand, for one small slip would seal his fate. As he descended, he could hear the laughing of a few of his compatriots above, slowly getting quieter the lower he got.

  “Idiots. Don't they know how to be covert?”

  He reached the bottom after quite some time, just as the sun was setting over the trees. The perfect time for reconnaissance. Slipping into the treeline and the underbrush, Gregori methodically began creeping towards the village, carefully as to not make a sound. When finally getting close enough, he took in the senses of the place. The bright night time lanterns bathed the streets in an orange hue, and the scent of baked goods and burning firewood filled the air with their potency, the streets were lined with shadowed alleys and shrubberies; a perfect place for him and his retinue to work in.

  “Damn, these high-bloods have a grand place to live.” Gregori bit his lip, drawing blood. “Must be nice to be able to live out here, the pricks.”

  By the time he noticed what he had done, blood already trickled down his chin and onto his cloak. Wiping it away with his sleeve, he began to take mental notes on the village's layout and where he and his men could stage an ambush. Several homes were under construction, and were most likely unoccupied for the time being, thus making them good candidates for setting up a temporary grab team. But if they timed it wrong, the construction crews might discover them, it was clear that he had to infiltrate further and discover their schedules. As Gregori snuck further inside the village, he spied the grand carvings on the trees, and their imposing figures overlooking everything in sight.

  “What a joke of a people,” he whispered to himself. “To slip from such grace, and into the hands of the humans. What shame we have brought upon ourselves.”

  Tearing away from them in disgust, Gregori continued his mission, and his search for information to use. Never saying another word the entire night.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Goldwater & Co~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  As I lay there, waiting next to Lais, her brother finally arrived right after the sun began to set. She got up and ran over to Kalom, at first I thought she was going to ask for him to help me. Then she began yelling.

  “What took you so long, didn't you notice something was wrong when we didn't return, didn't you hear that loud boom?!”

  Kalom stood there, taking the verbal beating almost like a child being scolded. Lais’s face was beet red with fury, which told me that I should probably avoid ever getting her angry. She had reminded me of a woman I once knew back during the latter days of my work. Always kind, unless you pissed her off. Then she would lay into you, throw things sometimes. Got hit with a lot of wrenches in the company motor pool back then. After a few more minutes of yelling, Lais strode back to me with her brother in tow.

  “Hey Kalom,” I said.

  He smiled, though still flistered at the verbal assault he had just endured, “Nice to see you still alive, thought you two had died out here. Well, maybe you, not Lais.”

  “You seem pretty unphased by that possibility,” I said.

  “Yeah, well my sister is able to handle herself, you on the other hand I know pretty much nothing about.”

  Kalom began to pick up the wolf and hoist it over his shoulder. I was impressed.

  “How the heck could you not move this?” He looked over to his sister. “Damn things not even that heavy, either you're getting soft or just lazy.”

  Lais ignored Kaloms comment, instead focusing on me. When she knelt down, and began pressing down on my legs, I winced for a second. It felt like needles stabbing into me, painful and yet numbing.

  “Ah, good. You still have feeling in them.” She pressed harder.

  “Hey, that one does hurt, you know?”

  My voice nearly a plea for mercy, she stopped and an amused smile rose to her face. It was clear she thought that my predicament was funny, after all, that was the second time she had found me in that situation.

  “Kalom,” she said. “Can we wait until his legs regain their strength before we have to go back?”

  “No can do, pa' is probably already worried sick by now.”

  Kalom eyed me up and down, examining me, trying to think of a solution. Then he grinned something wicked.

  “How about you carry him, since I'm carrying the big game?”

  Lais didn't move her head. she eyed over at me, then back to Kalom, and then to me again. She was clearly trying to decide what to do. I tried to get up, bending my knees ever so slightly to minimize the pain. Lais pushed me back down, and shook her head disapprovingly.

  “Don’t try to act like your fine, you're not walking anywhere numb like that.”

  She then got up, bent down and picked me up as if I were weightless, tossing me over her shoulder. I was dumbstruck, she really was stronger than she seemed, just as Kalom had implied. She showed no strain, no weakness, like she was used to that kind of thing. I looked over to see Kalom smirking, silently chuckling to himself. Which begged the question, why was she not able to move the wolf, but could move a grown man?

  “See, I told you she could have lifted this thing herself.” He jostled around the wolf over his own shoulder. “Why she didn't is beyond me.”

  Lais whipped around to face Kalom, annoyed at her brother's remarks and snapped back. As she did so, I felt nauseous from the sudden movement.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I was panicking, you know I don't do well under stress!”

  “Alright, alright. Settle down sis, your gonna hurt the poor kid by swinging him around like a madwoman”

  Lais, shook her head in annoyance, turned and with me still slung over her shoulder trekked back into the dense forest and towards the path home. Her brother silently followed, not daring to say anything else to upset his sister.

  As Lais, Kalom and I were on our way back, I thought of something important, something I had yet to ask. I hadn’t asked Lais how I had become poisoned in that clearing where she found me. Perhaps it was some plant I had touched while out there, it seemed likely at the time due to her insistence on me wearing gloves to prevent similar things from happening. Then another thought struck me, an unnerving and intrusive thought; that it was her who poisoned me and that the whole chance meeting with her was planned to gain my trust, or to kill me. Then in the next moment I discounted that as ridiculous, because had she wanted to harm me, she would have done so already. I silently chastised myself for that idea, it was true that during my years as a hired gun I had been betrayed and had betrayed others for money and survival. But to think these two random people who took me in and showed me kindness were of any threat to me at all, was a terrible thing to believe. I purged that idea from my mind, refusing to acknowledge its cynical paranoia.

  I looked up at the night sky as Lais carried me, and for the first time got a good look at the stars. Looking past Kalom’s silhouette was a beautiful void of obsidian black, dotted with the candles of a million worlds. I recognized none of these stars, no constellations, but the moon looked similar enough to the one I knew back home. The last time I remembered looking at the stars prior to that night was on my porch during the summer. The dry heat, the owls and frogs singing, the black above giving way to the spiraling oval of the galaxy so far from my troubles. I had always wanted to see the stars up close as a child, hearing about how almost a century ago man had walked on the moon, had built a space station to learn about the little spots of light in the far distances of the cosmos. They had sent a probe far beyond the reaches of our solar system and into the all consuming mystery that is deep space.

  To me, it was those moments which brought me peace, at least for the moment. In the next, the fleeting awe would always wander back to the things I had done, perhaps my actions in life were what drove me from my love of the stars, never to walk on any other rock but this one. Had I gone to school for my dreams instead of parading around the world playing soldier, I might have had a chance. It was too late to care now, all that mattered was moving forward and evading the thoughts of the past. Surviving was always more important than fantasies. I lowered my head once more, I no longer wanted to see the stars, just to focus on the trip back to the village.

  “Hey Lais,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “How did I end up poisoned in that field where you found me, was it a plant or something?”

  Lais didn't say anything for a long while, I thought for sure she would avoid answering or at least evade. Either way, it would have made me uneasy. But she decided to say something finally, but the answer was worse than I thought it would be.

  “The poison you were affected by was an alchemical mixture, used primarily to restrain prisoners for transport.”

  “So it was deliberate?”

  Lais sighed, “It seems that way, yes. Though I found no cuts on you or dart marks, so it's likely whoever did so made you drink the poison while you were sleeping.”

  “That’s strange, I just got here and already seem to have made an enemy, I wonder why.”

  She slowed to a stop. “Let’s see if you can walk on your own now. You’re pretty heavy.”

  “Is that your way of calling me fat?” I joked. I wasn't fat, we both knew that.

  She set me on my feet and I slowly regained my bearings. It took a minute, but soon I was walking alongside her on my own two feet again, no worse for wear than when we entered the forest. Kalom, still following behind in silence, except for the occasional under-breathed insults to the wolf he was carrying for slowing him down.

  As we walked along the dark paths back towards the village, I looked up at Lais from the corner of my eye. She was quite beautiful even in the dark, her skin almost looked as if it was giving off her own moonlight. I quickly shook myself back to the task at hand, not daring to risk her catching my gaze. The forest was getting foggy, as a thin blanket clouded us, turning the path home into a more treacherous journey. The birds in the forest were not singing, the mist shrouded the stars and the path looked more and more like an endless road to nowhere. As we strode along, Kalom spoke up suddenly, alert and dire.

  “Stop.” he said, “don't move.”

  We stopped dead in our tracks. I waited for Kalom to continue, though he paused for a long while. He slowly walked up behind us and then passed, positioning himself ahead of us. I watched as he dropped the wolf onto the ground, and took out his spade. He held it at the ready, like a sword.

  “Whoever’s there, come out. Hiding is a coward's move.”

  Lais’ face turned to a stern, serious expression. I stood there, frozen in place not daring to move, as I watched Kalom stand there before the both of us, facing down whatever was in the fog. I watched my flanks, looking for any sign of movement. As if on command, a shadowed figure appeared from the cloud, and stood before Kalom. Donning a bright green cloak, topped with a hood concealing most of his body, say for a bizarre mask hiding his face. The figure held no weapons, and made no attempts to move further than the very boundaries of the fog. The mask he wore was horrific, violently contorted in a scream of anguish. Its blue coloring made it take on an even more ominous appearance. Kalom shook slightly at the sudden appearance of the cloaked stranger, whether he was afraid or tense, I had no idea at the time.

  “Who-” Kalom tried to talk, but the stranger interrupted him.

  “My name is not important at this time,” the strange man began. “But my reasons for being here are.” His sing-song voice was eerie, not human.

  All three of us waited in both cautious anticipation and curiosity for the stranger to continue.

  “I come bearing both news and well wishes for you,” he pointed at me, “dearest Goldwater.”

  Lais and Kalom both turned to look at me, curious, but still on edge at the whole situation. I didn’t know what to do, it was confusing for me. But I decided that keeping my cool and playing along was my only real option at that point in time. So I spoke up.

  “What news, And how do you know my name?” I asked.

  The stranger chuckled, “Oh, foolish little man.” he began, “I know more about you, than you do yourself.”

  He paused briefly before speaking again, letting his words sink in. His heavy breathing audible from where I was standing, made thick clouds with every exhale, it seemed like he was straining to simply breathe. Lais and Kalom had turned back fully to face the man by now, fixing their gaze on him. They were watching him intensely, prepared to counter any move he might have made.

  “I come bearing troubling news for you, a would-be assassin and his cronies are preparing to take you prisoner.”

  At first, nobody said anything. It was silent for a while, as everyone then present, myself included, processed what they had just heard. An assassin, a kidnapping, multiple conspirators; it was quite literally unbelievable. Also heavy, given it was all laid out in a single sentence.

  “Nice story,” I replied finally. “But why would anybody want to kidnap me? Nobody around here say for my friends here know who I am or that I even exist.”

  The man laughed heartily, coughing and wheezing as he went. It hurt to listen to, it sounded extremely painful. I looked up at Lais, and saw that she was looking down at me. At the moment our eyes met she looked away hastily, not wanting to make contact. Kalom still stood there like a wall between us and the stranger. Finally the man calmed down, and thumped his chest a few times to clear his throat.

  “Why indeed, ‘Goldwater’. Why would someone also poison you in your sleep, eh?”

  “You know about that?” I asked.

  “Yes, as I said before, I know more about you and your deeds than you care to admit to yourself. That noggin of yours,” he tapped his own head with his thumb, “is filled to the brim with sins and personal torments.”

  I said nothing, instead allowing the man to ramble on. I wont say that I wasn't disturbed, but I sure as hell wasn't going to let him know that.

  “The men who wish to claim you are doing so under the orders of the imperial majesty himself, King Eli 'the Gladius.' ”

  I said nothing, I had no idea who this Eli was, or why he wanted me, but Lais and Kalom were spooked. Lais particularly looked pale, like she had seen a ghost. While Kalom, usually calm and collected, backed away a few steps from the stranger. As I looked back and forth between them both, I knew something was wrong.

  “Who’s Eli?” I asked Lais.

  Lais was still fixated on the stranger, her eyes filled with dread, and with a shaky voice replied,

  “H-he’s the ruler of the Imperium, how could you not know this?”

  She turned to me, her confusion at my ignorance only making the situation worse. It was not my fault that I didn’t know who this Eli was, just as it was not my fault that I somehow came to this land, But at that moment it did not seem to matter. I turned back to the masked stranger, more intrigued than horrified now.

  “Keep talking.”

  The man nodded, and cleared his throat once more.

  “The king wants you for his own reasons, however that is where I must remain discreet.”

  “Why?,” I asked.

  “My brothers and sisters are already furious at my intervention here today, it’s best that I don't push my luck or the verbal thrashing I'll receive will only escalate.”

  “Who are your brothers and sisters? Why would they be angry?”

  “I’m afraid that is a tale for another day, mister Goldwater. Now, I must take my leave.”

  The man spun around and began to walk back into the thick fog, but as he did so he stopped, Turned back, and looked at me.

  “One last thing, ol’ boy.” the stranger said.

  “You might want to work on your pseudonym a little bit.”

  I froze, a chill ran down my spine. He really did know about me, but how much I didn’t dare guess at.

  “What do you mean?”

  The man chuckled and shook his head disapprovingly, before wagging his finger in the air back and forth. It was covered with a red glove, but I could see that his hand was slim, almost bony.

  “Tsk-tsk-tsk. Goldwater, my boy, I already told you. Though I am quite happy you chose a new name for this exciting journey through the world of Lemuria, ‘Goldwater’ is a last name.”

  “And your point being?”, my response was quite unintentionally rude.

  Lais and Kalom both looked at me, trying to figure out what was going on at that point. The entire conversation was confusing, for them and for me. The man continued,

  “Well, you don’t expect to introduce yourself by last name the whole time, yes? Why not use a first and last name, like a normal person?”

  Kalom spoke next, “Wait, I thought ‘Gold’ was your first name and ‘water’ was your last name.

  “Are you serious?” Lais said, now turned to her brother, “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “It makes sense if you look at him,” Kalom pointed at me, spade in hand. “His hair is blonde, looks like gold.”

  Lais ignored Kaloms remarks, and instead concentrated on me. “What is your name, if not Goldwater?”

  Both of them stared expectantly, waiting for my response. I sighed, it was a good time to tell them at least some of my real name, given that the stranger had already let the cat out of the bag so to speak, regarding my pseudonym. Besides, I may not have known them all that much, but I trusted them enough to give them something that small.

  “My first name is Nelson, so Nelson Goldwater is my full name.”

  Lais smiled a little, before laughing.

  “What's funny?”

  “I’m sorry, I was just expecting something more I guess. But Nelson is a nice name.”

  I cracked a smile in return, “Thank you Lais. Sorry I didn’t tell you or Kalom sooner, but I had my reasons.”

  As we talked back and forth, Kalom was surveying our surroundings, the man had disappeared into the fog, leaving the three behind and with more questions than answers. He wondered who the man was, and what his motives were, but came to the conclusion that it was useless to think about those things now.

  “Come on you two,” he began, “let’s get moving. I don't want to meet any more strangers out here.”

  She and I stopped chatting, and resumed walking down the path back to the village, Kalom that time leading our group, searching for any more unexpected visitors. After what felt like an eternity, we arrived at the edge of the forest and saw the village's lights, could smell its food and the smoke from the fireplaces. Lais was exhausted, and was barely trudging along, and I was no better. Kalom seemed alright at the time, but the journey had taken its toll on him as well. As we walked down the oddly smooth streets and back to the house, I remembered what the stranger had said. The idea that there was some plot to kidnap me still sounded absurd at the time. But figured that it would still be best to prepare for such an unlikely event.

  “We should be careful, that man sounded serious about the kidnapping thing.”

  “Why?” Kalom said, “they are supposedly only after you, not us. We should be fine.”

  “Yeah, but what if they strike when we are all together?”

  Kalom chuckled, “then using you as a bargaining chip should be easy then.”

  Lais had strode up and smacked her brother on the back with an audible thud. He showed no pain or reaction, and just kept walking.

  “That’s not funny,” she said.

  “What? I thought it was, besides the kid can take a joke if he can take on a wolf by himself.”

  “Still, it’s rude.”

  Kalom turned back to see me, smiling. As did Lais, but with a bit of worry. I wasn’t phased by jokes at my expense. In the company, I would get called names by others in my squad all the time. “Yankee” and “black-back” (a derogatory term for anarchists), were among the most frequent. Jokes about my heritage, being from the Free territories, was also poked fun at. Luckily, in my homeland, we are born with thicker skin so to speak.

  “Sorry Goldwater, didn’t mean to joke about that. Just trying to get rid of the tension, you know?”

  “Yeah, I hear you Kalom, no harm no foul.”

  Kalom turned back to his sister and stuck out his tongue, like a little kid. Causing Lais to reply in kind. I wondered if this is how siblings usually acted, I had no frame of reference given my own life. As we passed the buildings and up the streets, I saw shop signs, written in that weird language that Malkolms books were in. Luckily the signs also had symbols on them, like money-bags, merchants scales, and one with flowers in a bouquet. I speculated the first was probably a bank or lending house, the second a pawn shop and the last one most likely a flower store. The facades were beautifully decorated and ornate with carved wood, and ribbons lining the trims. Much more interesting than the buildings back home, which were mostly log cabins or the occasional brutalist concrete office. I wondered what was going on back home, had anyone else come to this world or perhaps had anyone survived the blast that sent me here? We continued to walk, approaching Malkolms home. The familiar sight of the house and the white arches gave me a sense of comfort after such a long trek, more still with all the night's events. As we reached the door to the dining room, Lais turned to both me and Kalom, blocking the entrance.

  “Listen,” she began, “father will be worried that we did not return in time.”

  She looked away and off into the distance, she was nervous about something.

  “So please, Goldwater,” she lifted her gaze to mine.

  her eyes were sparkling in the moonlight, so full of life and beauty. It felt like a few minutes before she spoke, though it was just a moment.

  “You cannot tell our father about you using the, uh, ‘gun’.”

  I nodded, “I promise to keep my mouth shut.”

  Lais let out a sigh of relief, and smiled. She then looked to Kalom, who also agreed. When she was satisfied with these results, she then turned, and just as she was about to touch the knob, the door swung open. There stood Malkolm, red in the face.

  “You three took your sweet time, didn’t you?” He said, very calmly despite his visible anger.

  Kalom, Lais and I stood there, unsure what to say next, but before any of us dared speak up Malkolm was ushering us into the house, and with the last of us inside he gently shut the door. We stood around the table, the wooden surface still bearing the visible wet marks of the coffee we had earlier that day. Malkolm sat down, and motioned us all to also sit which we did.

  “I want to know everything,” he began, “what caused you to be so late tonight?”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Gregori~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Gregori and his men had begun to infiltrate the village, they had decided to set up a snatch team in a nearby construction site. It hadn’t been worked on in months, which gave them the perfect place to prepare. The basement was dark say for a dim lantern, the water on the floor puddled in places, while the air was dank with wood rot. Gregori sat alone down there, the only sounds heard were the scraping of a whetstone against a dagger, and the assassin himself humming a tune quietly.

  The dagger was long, dull from use, and the blade was an oily black color. Despite the lack of sharpening, it was quite well taken care of. The hilt was wrapped in a red and blue ribbon, which was stained with blood.

  The sound of footsteps on the stairs made Gregori cease his humming. He looked up to see Berma standing on the last step. They both stared long at each other, then the man nodded and went back up the steps. Gregori knew what it meant, that the team was in place and set up. The operation was to begin soon, and this time he would not screw it up. He had been doing his best to keep himself and his sister alive, and this was his last shot at redemption.

  He would not fail, not this time. He swore to himself that he would take me alive, even if it took his own dying breath.