CharlesEBrown

  David West was on cloud nine. Sure, he had overspent his budgeted money at OmegaCon on food and new games and now, instead of taking a cab or rideshare, he had to walk the six blocks home carrying all of his books, new purchases and the miniatures for his War Master 6000 army in his oversized backpack, but the show was over, and he had earned two awards this year. Okay, one of the awards was only a third-pce win, with said War Master army, but the other was an award for role-py of his Dungeoneers Wizard Thengarian. Maybe next year he would finally finish the costume for his character.

  As he walked down the street, he realized he could shave two blocks off of the walk by cutting down a dark alley. He knew it was probably a bad idea, but he was looking forward to getting back to his apartment, partly to get some much-needed sleep after a sixteen-hour day of gaming and other “nerd” activities, and partly because his roommate, Malcolm, was out visiting family and would not be back until the end of the week, so he had the pce to himself.

  Deciding that his imagination was his own worst enemy and that nothing bad would happen, he took a few steps into the alley. When nobody jumped out with a knife or gun demanding his money, he let out a breath he had not realized he had been holding and proceeded along the gloomy passage. He did not look up or might have seen two figures watching his progress from a fire escape overhead.

  He felt himself rexing about a third of the way down the alley when what seemed to be a green fsh of light caught his attention, followed by some other sounds that seemed to be someone swearing in a foreign nguage.

  “Hello? Is someone there?” He called out nervously.

  After a brief pause, he heard the same voice he thought he heard cursing say something else he could not understand. He was not sure but believed the speaker was female.

  “My name is David. If I can help you, I’ll try,” He offered nervously.

  Again, there was a slight pause, then he heard the voice again, but now she spoke English and was definitely female, even if her words seemed somehow clipped and her inflections were odd.

  “I would thank you David, I seem to be stuck in this object?”

  His eyes had grown more accustomed to the dimness of the alley, and he could finally make out some details of the speaker, though at the moment those details were mostly that she appeared to be wearing some kind of bizarre headgear and was talking from inside a dumpster. He climbed up the side and reached out to her “Can you see my hands? Grab them and I’ll try to lead you to the side where you can climb out.”

  She managed to push a bag of trash to one side. “This pce smells vile, like the heart of a crowded city in the hottest part of summer,” she replied as she reached for where his hands were.

  “Make sure you have a good grip,” he said. She nodded and almost broke his fingers as she grasped the outstretched arms. He winced and hoped that she had not noticed.

  “OK, I’m going to pull now,” he informed her. The woman was heavier than he had expected; only the weight of the backpack he wore pulled him backwards and kept him from tumbling in beside her. Quickly he got her to the edge of the dumpster, where she let go and scrambled up and over the side with the grace of a cat. She nded in the alley in an alert crouch, just as what sounded like mocking appuse broke out around them.

  David looked around and saw that a group of five young men dressed in leather jackets, one of those jackets sleeveless, had surrounded them while he had helped the woman out of the dumpster.

  One of the men, speaking with a very faint accent that David thought was Spanish, spoke first: “Thank you for that show. Now you must pay the toll for passing through our turf without permission.”

  “I’m sorry,” David replied nervously, “I’m just trying to get home; I live three blocks that way,” he added, pointing.

  “So, two blocks of our territory. That ups the toll. We’ll take that heavy bag off your back and whatever you have in your pockets.”

  David saw that the man held a knife and that another of the figures had a hand in the pocket of his jacket, holding what looked to be a gun-shaped object. The only other one he could make out any detail of from his position seemed to be holding a length of chain.

  The strange woman, still in her low crouch, her head slowly swiveling to take in as much detail as she could, spoke up in her odd tones and said, “Unless you produce a valid toll collector’s badge, we will not be paying you anything.”

  The figure who had been speaking for the gang ughed. “Oh, she has fire. I like that,” and then he brandished the knife at her and said, “this is the only badge I have or need, chica, though you don’t have to pay in coin, you could just be my, ah, date for the night,” he offered. The other guys all chuckled menacingly at this.

  Before anyone could react, the woman suddenly shot up from her crouch, covered the distance between herself and the speaker, grabbed the arm holding the knife at the wrist and spun him around. As the knife cttered to the ground, he cried out in pain and surprise, and then shouted: “you broke my arm, bitch!” It was almost a scream.

  “I will break much more than that if you and your minions do not immediately leave,” she hissed at him, then shoved him away with surprising strength.

  The man stumbled but did not go down. Muttering what David suspected were swear words in Spanish, the man looked from the odd woman to David and then back to her. Then he cursed again and shouted: “Kill them!”

  What happened next went by almost too quickly for David to follow. The man who seemed to be carrying a chain began swinging it around and stepped forward as the woman did an odd roll that went past the knife on the ground, which fshed through the air and imbedded itself in the chest of the man swinging the chain; it threw off his rhythm and the chain wrapped itself around his arm and struck him in the face; he staggered back and tripped over something in the alley, crashing to the ground.

  Meanwhile, the woman emerged from her roll standing on her feet, with what appeared to be a gleaming silver rapier in her right hand. Two of the men had pulled knives and started to advance; when they saw her weapon they both instead moved to fnk the one who had been talking, shifting from aggressors to bodyguards. The other pulled his hand out of his pocket, revealing that he did, in fact, have a gun.

  David realized that no matter how fast the woman was, this guy would be able to fire his gun before she could do anything else, but also that he was closer. He lowered his head and rammed the man with his backpack. The gun went off with a deafening boom, and David heard the bullet impacting the stone or brick of one of the alley walls, but he fell over backwards from the impact and the shooter fell to the other side.

  Knowing he could not stand up without help while wearing that pack on his back, David slipped his arms out and attempted to get up quickly. While he was struggling, the man with the gun regained his bance and trained the gun on David, only to have a thin length of metal sever his hand at the wrist. He screamed and staggered back as his panic elevated his heart rate and caused his blood to spray wildly out into the alley as he stumbled around.

  One of the men who had been fnking their apparent leader ran to his side and tried to calm him while wrapping the jacket he had just removed from his own back around the stump.

  The leader and his remaining guard gave a rapid-fire exchange in Spanish, and then turned and fled.

  David had just managed to get to his feet as they took off. The woman resumed her crouch, her weapon out, but made no further moves. Realizing that the fight was over, David took out his cell phone and dialed nine-one-one. He reported “what sounded like a gang fight” in the alley off of Cormorant Street by the convention center and asked for an ambunce, then hung up before they could ask more questions.

  He then walked over to the woman with his palms up: “Hi again, I’m David West, and we really should get out of here unless we want to spend several hours answering questions from the police.”

  “Thallissandra, Daughter of Nyreen Gryphonsyer, Battle Sister of the Rhyven,” the woman replied, giving a slight bow and then straightening up. Somehow, she no longer held the sword, but David could not see a sheath of any sort. He also noticed that, impossibly, only her face and hands showed any traces of blood even though the stuff was all over the alley, David and his backpack.

  With a series of movements that it had taken him days of effort to master, David slipped his arms into the straps of the massive, heavy backpack and swung around to stand up straight. “That is the only trick I know,” he told her, grinning. “Come on, we can get cleaned up at my pce and then you can be on your way.”

  “Lead and I will follow, David West.”

  As they left the alley moments ter, David turned back to take a better look at his companion under the streetlights. She was tall, slender and clearly in amazing shape. What he had originally thought to be headgear of some sort was her hair, braided and fixed somehow into seven points that resembled spikes. Makeup that brought to his mind thoughts of Native American warriors kept him from getting a good look at her face, or even from telling what was blood from the fight and what was makeup. Her surprisingly clean clothing all seemed to be made of soft leather or suede of some sort. He could see nothing that looked like a sword or scabbard on her person.

  “Wow, were you cospying at OmegaCon? That is fantastic. I’m sorry I missed it,” he said, impressed.

  “The Transtion Stone must be damaged,” she replied after giving him a bnk look for a moment, “only half of that made any sense at all,” and she plucked a stone out of the leather band around her neck. After a few seconds, she returned the stone to its fitting and said: “I will need better light to examine it properly, but it seems fine.”

  “There is better light at my pce. Transtion Stone?”

  She looked at David as if addressing a simpleton and said: “It is a stone that transtes my speech to that of those I encounter and makes their speech understandable to me. I thought the name would expin that?”

  David resumed walking, but a little more slowly. “Well, yeah, it did but that makes it sound like magic, which is impossible.”

  The woman ughed at this. David thought she had a nice ugh. “Would that it were, David West. I would be back in my rooms at the temple training instead of on an alien world hunting a renegade sorcerer.”

  David stopped and stared at her: “Wait, what?” He spluttered.

  “I am here tracking the Dark Mage Elgarin,” she replied. “His servants broke him out as he stood trial for crimes against all Creation and he escaped into another world. This is one of the five possible worlds he fled to. Four of my Battle Sisters are exploring the others while I am here.”

  David met her gaze for a moment as he considered her words. “If I were not a gamer of many years who often dreamed of something like this happening, I’d be running away right now, because either you’re telling the truth or you are a dangerous lunatic, and I’m not sure which would be more frightening. But to be honest, I’m intrigued. Regardless, we should hold off further discussion while out in the open.”

  “You have a good strategic mind, David West," the strange woman replied.

  “Please, just David. David West sounds so formal. And … Thellissandra was it? Do you mind if I just call you Sandra? It’s a lot easier to remember.”

  “It is not my name, David, but I have no objections,” was her reply.

  “Good, Sandra. I live in the second building on the next block. Come on.