Keystone (Gatewalkers) Read online

  The center of the floor was pushed clear and swept clean, save for a series of chalk markings. The room’s occupant - a tall, gangly young man with wire-rim glasses - crouched over the markings, adding notations. His blond hair was long, but more like he didn’t care enough to cut it than out of vanity.

  “Do not come any closer,” he ordered, squinting at the text in the open book in his hand. “This must be absolutely precise.”

  “Creating another unholy mess, Jack?” Taryn’s nose wrinkled in disdain.

  “It is not an unholy mess,” Jack protested. He paused thoughtfully, pushing his glasses up his long, thin nose and leaving a white chalk smudge behind. “This time anyway.” He looked up, and for the first time noticed Charlie. His thin eyebrows shot upward. “Oh. Hello. Sorry about the mess,” he said, offering her a smile. He went back to his chalk markings and made a few squiggling lines.

  “There.” Jack snapped the book shut, sending up a small cloud of chalk dust, and set it aside. He brushed more chalk dust from his hands – though there were already several chalk prints on his trousers – and held them over the markings.

  “Soldier of flame –” he began to intone solemnly. His eyebrows shot upward. “Oops! Wait a moment!” Jack took the metal sheets and arranged them on raised pads among the chalk markings. “Almost forgot the most important part.” He straightened, cracked his neck, and started again, holding out his hands palm down. “Soldier of flame, I summon thee to aid me in dire need. Dance on the wind.”

  Wind swirled through the room, ruffling papers. A small, freestanding flame appeared in the middle of the chalked area. It rapidly grew to a foot high, taking on a vaguely human shape with wings.

  “If you set fire to my shop,” Taryn said calmly, “I will peel the skin from your body and cook you for supper.”

  Pleased with his work, the skinny mage rubbed his hands together. “If you would be so kind,” Jack said, gesturing toward the metal sheets.

  With an air of resigned dignity, the flame creature passed its wings over the metal sheets. The lumps of beige dough melted and started to cook.

  When Charlie recognized the smell of baking cookies, she couldn’t hold back a grin. Well, that’s a unique way to do it.

  “Thank you very much,” the mage said, then intoned, “Soldier of flame, return from whence you came.”

  The fire creature folded up into itself until it vanished with a small puff of ash.

  The mage gleefully collected the cookie sheets using a pair of tongs and set them on pads on one of the tables. From there he used a wide, polished wood spatula to transfer the cookies onto cooling racks.

  “Have one?” the mage said, holding out a steaming cookie.

  Taryn took it delicately between two blue fingers and nibbled it with evident relish. He offered one to Charlie, but she declined.

  He held up his hand, palm outward, instead. “I’m called Jack Danielson, journeyman with the mage guild of Iomara, at your service.”

  Charlie automatically gave his upraised hand a high five.

  Jack’s smile faltered into confusion. He turned his hand to examine his assaulted palm. “Is that how you give greeting in your lands?”

  “Was that wrong?” Charlie’s cheeks turned pink.

  “Well, ah… the common custom is….” Jack pressed his palms together. “It’s how mages give a greeting,” he said. “It’s left over from the days when lords had their mages test the intentions of visiting dignitaries. Oh, but your version is interesting,” he said hastily, as if afraid he insulted her. “In a… violent sort of way.” His discomfort quickly cleared away. “Oh, but you cannot imagine how delighted I am to see a fellow human!” Charlie could almost imagine anime stars in his bright blue eyes.

  “Oh!” Charlie said inarticulately. She hadn’t noticed that his ears were rounded instead of pointed. The first set of regular ears she’d seen in the game. “I’m Charlie, of the Lady Dragons.”

  “Now, Jack,” Taryn said, still only half through her cookie. “Can you really call yourself human?”

  “I am,” he said defensively, pushing his hair back behind his rounded ears to show them off better. “Human enough.” He returned to Charlie. “Wherever did you come from? It’s clear by your garb and manner that you’re not from Seinne Sonne.”

  “Oh, I’m from….” She hadn’t really thought about it. “Apple Blossom City, in the Marchlands of Doom. I was called to Seinne Sonne to help with your troubles.”

  Taryn raised her hand to her mouth, as if imparting a secret. “Gate walker.”

  “Really?” Jack lit up like a firework. “You came through a Great Gate?” Jack plucked at the fabric of her sleeve. “Was it a difficult journey? What is your world like? Is it very similar to ours? What did the Gate feel like? Was it the same as passing through a minor gate? Or was it…” he gestured expansively, searching for the right word. “Greater?”

  “Um…” Charlie said, uncertain how to respond to his ream of questions. She still didn’t know half of how things worked in this game yet. “Greater?”

  Jack nodded sagely. “I thought it must be so.” He peered closely at her dragon pendant, leaning in until his long nose was less than half a foot away. Charlie barely refrained from slapping him. Instead, she lifted the pendant to eye level. Fortunately his eyes followed it; otherwise she would have had to kill him.

  “Is that an Orb of Night Eye?” he said, indicating the purple marble in the dragon’s claws. “I’ve always found them fascinating.”

  “No,” Charlie said. “It’s just a marble.”

  “Oh,” Jack said, sounding slightly disappointed.

  “She needs your help,” Taryn said, the cookie apparently having put her in a mellower mood, “to rescue the kidnapped princess.”

  “Really?” Jack said, suddenly reminiscent of a school child on a snow day. “Just let me get a few things together….”

  Jack started scrambling through the piles, tucking bits and odds under his arm. “Where is that bag…? Aha!” Jack cried, holding up a battered blue pack. “Knew it was somewhere.” He finagled his armload into it and started stuffing in more pieces and ends. “Very useful thing, this,” he said. “Larger on the inside than outside.”

  “Ah,” Charlie said. “A bag of holding.” Or a portable TARDIS.

  Jack paused, looking thoughtful. “Bag of holding. That’s a clever way to put it.”

  “Right,” Charlie said, refraining from rolling her eyes. Like he had never heard that one before. “So, what can you do?”

  “Do?” Jack said absently, thoughtfully eyeing a piece of apparatus that looked broken.

  “What are your abilities? Do you have a specialty?”

  “Ahm…. Fire?” Jack smiled a little sheepishly. “Fire elemental spells come most easily for me, but I suppose that could be because I like them. I can also weave gate spells if given sufficient time, but I haven’t traveled very much yet so I’m limited on where I can take you. Still a journeyman.” He dug a medallion out of one of the piles of junk and showed it to her, a bronze disc stamped with a symbol.

  “He also can’t die,” Taryn said, a little too casually. “At least, not for long.”

  Jack frowned. “Well, obviously eventually I am going to die. Permanently, that is. And I really wish you wouldn’t –” he said hastily, backing away as Taryn moved toward him.

  Taryn’s hand shot out, electric blue nails flashing across his face. They left behind three long gashes.

  Jack clutched at the wounds, his cheek beginning to swell and darken to an alarming purple. He swayed on his feet, though he still tried to look at Taryn sternly. “I really…” he said, his breath coming in short gasps. “Wish you… would not do that… so often.”

  Taryn poked him solidly in the chest. Jack dropped like a felled tree, his lips turning purple. His glassy blue eyes stared blankly at the ceiling through his crooked lenses.

  Taryn held up her index finger, a drop of blood still clinging to the nail. �
�Poison.”

  “You killed him?” Charlie nudged Jack’s lifeless form with her foot.

  “It is nothing lasting.” Taryn turned toward the door. “You may as well come downstairs. It will take him a while to revive.” She swept out the door and down the stairs.

  “Interesting,” Charlie said slowly, not sure what to make of that. Though if it were true, having a party member who couldn’t die certainly was more useful than Taryn seemed to think.

  Charlie returned down the stairs to the shop. So her little party had a mage now. A mage and a … whatever Rhys was. Not an alchemist, apparently. Cleric? Rogue? Assassin, maybe? Technically, if he was supposed to be the wise old mentor archetype he was probably another mage or a cleric. That left them a little short on muscle. A good thing to find next would be a tank of some kind. Maybe a paladin, though they could get annoying if there was a rogue or thief in the party. Or if anything illegal was called for, since paladins as a general rule opposed lawbreaking.

  Charlie made a mental note to ask Jack and Rhys if either of them were a healer. Somehow she always had the bad luck of getting stuck in a party without a healer. Oh, and of course they had the pixies.

  The pixies! How could she have neglected them? Charlie went to pry open the lantern’s door but stopped, remembering the brownie’s admonition not to set them free in the shop.

  Charlie left the shop and plunked on a stone step. She pried free the lantern’s latch and swung the door open. Lallia shot out. If she were a cat she would be hissing and spitting.

  Tom crawled out of the lantern into Charlie’s lap, calling piteously, “Sanctuary! Sanctuary!”

  “I am so sorry about that, guys,” Charlie said honestly. “I didn’t mean to neglect you like that.”

  Lallia cast creative epithets at an invisible Rhys, including “May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpit hair,” “May gnomes enrich your life and meddle in the affairs of your household plumbing,” and “Your mother was a blue haired hamster.”

  “His mother couldn’t have been a blue haired hamster,” Tom said chidingly. “If you want to insult someone, get your facts straight.”

  Lallia stuck her tongue out in response.

  “All right, all right,” Charlie cut in. “You’re mad at Rhys. Understood.” Charlie pulled out her pocket computer and checked the time. No signal, she noted absently. Probably electromagnetic fields from the VR projectors, causing interference. “Five minutes left. Let’s get into trouble, shall we?”

  “I like her,” Lallia said happily. Tom agreed.

  ***

  Charlie continued down the street, adding to her rough mental map. She was fairly certain she could find her way back to both Taryn’s shop and Rosethorn Manor with reasonable accuracy. Pity they probably wouldn’t get much further on the main quest today. Maybe she could find time to play again soon.

  The street abruptly opened up to busy dockside. The boardwalk as far as she could see stretched the length of the coast between the ends of the town’s encircling wall.

  There were a few long, low boats out in the water, piled with canvas bags. The people manning the boats leaned over the sides, talking with divers in the water. Divers with flashes of colored scales covering their bodies. For a second Charlie thought they were scaly suits, but then, of course! Fantasy setting. They were mer-people.

  “What are they doing?” Charlie pointed at one of the boats as the elf on board lowered a bag into the mer-person’s eager webbed hands.

  “Trading,” Tom said matter of factly. “Mer folk love new things, especially things they can’t make themselves. Though, once a man tried to trade them a bag of sugar to get his sunk boat back. Ended up with two sunk boats.”

  “Sugar dissolves in water,” Lallia said solemnly, as if Charlie hadn’t known.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Charlie said, equally solemn. “Any pirates around?” Pirates were usually good for a fight and for making a bit of gold.

  “I has pirates,” spoke up an old man with rotting teeth. He sat on a small pile of crates stacked by the door to an alehouse, a burlap sack lying beside him. “A whole crew of ‘em. Swore their undyin’ loyalty to me years ago.” He leaned forward, a conspiratorial gleam in his cloudy eyes. “Know where I keeps ‘em? In this ‘ere sack.” He patted the burlap bag.

  “Right,” Charlie said, starting to carefully inch away. “I will leave you to them then.”

  “Don’ believe me, do ye,” he said, looking smugly proud. “No one ever does, ‘till they see ‘em.”

  He reached into the sack and pulled out a large rum bottle. Inside was a tiny ship, complete with sails and rigging, floating on an inch deep “sea.”

  The masterful detail of the ship drew Charlie in. She stepped forward to get a better look. It even flew a tiny jolly roger, a white skeleton holding a spear against a black field. Tiny little men crawled all over the tiny deck and rigging.

  The old man cackled. “They depends on me, yeh see. Ta break their curse.” He shrugged. “But I can’t do it.”

  “Why not?” Charlie said, smelling a quest thread.

  He held up a gnarled hand. “Aint gots the strength to pull the cork out a the bottle.” He titled his head, leaning in toward Charlie. “But I am thinkin’, nice young thing like ye, with yer nice strong fingers, could do it.”

  Well, that was easy enough. Charlie reached for the bottle. Tom grasped her hair and yanked hard enough to pull her head sideways.

  “Ouch!” Charlie cried, only just stopping herself from trying to sweep him from her shoulder. Then Lallia pulled her hair from the other side. “What’s gotten into you two?” Charlie demanded.

  “Don’t do it!” Lallia said.

  “If you pull that cork – ” Tom said.

  “You’ll get sucked straight into the bottle,” Lallia finished.

  Charlie jumped back, eyeing the old man suspiciously.

  “Aw, come on, duckie,” he said, glaring at the pixies. “Ye’ll not be listenin’ to a pair of spiteful pixies, would ye?”

  “If it’s as easy as all that,” Charlie said, “I am sure you can find someone else to help you.”

  “That was close,” Tom said as Charlie walked away.

  “Really, you must be more careful,” Lallia chided. “Getting into trouble is all well and good, but you must use some sense!”

  “That did seem like it was too easy a solution,” Charlie admitted. Avoid strange old men with rum bottles. Got it.

  Lallia paused, fluttering midair. “Now I see a chance for some proper trouble.” She pointed a tiny finger, but Charlie already spotted what she’d seen. Rhys, with his heavy, hooded cloak, distinctive among everyone else going about their business more sensibly dressed for warmer weather. He ducked through the doorway of a tavern, the sign above the door depicting a green harp.

  Charlie hurried to follow him inside.

  The place seemed to be of slightly better quality than the rest of the dockside establishments. The common room felt too warm, though the raised fireplace in the middle of the room didn’t have a fire lit. The bare beam ceiling was almost low enough for her to touch. The long wooden tables and benches, gray and polished from years of use, were only about a quarter full. A wooden stair led to a second floor, and Charlie caught sight of a dark cloak disappearing to the upper floor.

  Charlie managed to cross the room and get up the stairs pretty fast, taking the stairs two at a time, but when she reached the upper hallway all she caught was the closing door.

  Charlie went to the door and knocked. No answer.

  “I don’t like this,” Tom said. He vanished from Charlie’s shoulder.

  “Tom?” Lallia called, suddenly sounding frightened. She zipped back down the stairs.

  Charlie pressed her ear to the door. She couldn’t hear a sound from inside. She tried the brass doorknob. Unlocked. She knocked again as she pushed open the door. “Hello? Rhys?”

  The room inside was dim, the shutters closed over the wind
ow.

  The door swung shut behind her, locking with a click. Charlie spun, her heart giving a jolt, and then it skipped for another reason.

  The cloaked man had taken down his hood, and this Adonis definitely wasn’t Rhys. The strong features his hood had concealed were breath-stealingly handsome. Long, golden blond hair fell with a slight wave past his broad shoulders, and his smooth jaw came to a narrow point. His lips drew into a slight smile as his bright green eyes took her in, strange garb and all.

  “You are certainly not who I expected to meet.” he said.

  “Charlie of the Lady Dragons.” The answer came more naturally this time.

  He reached out and took her hand, lifting her knuckles to his lips. “A pleasure to meet you, Charlie of the Lady Dragons.” His vivid green eyes never left hers.

  A strangely numb feeling stole over her. She made a mistake following him. Charlie tried to step back, but her feet didn’t want to move.

  “I’m looking for Rhys,” her voice broke the momentary silence.

  He seemed startled.

  “I need him,” she continued. “For my quest. He’s my –” she almost belted out “my guide,” but stopped herself, “– my alchemist.” Charlie pursed her lips, more words crowding against them. Unless this guy ended up being part of a quest, she had no reason to be here at all, much less spill her guts to him.

  He gave her the creeps, Charlie abruptly realized. A genuine gut vibe of wrong. Charlie tried to tug her hand away, but he held it fast.

  “I really need to get going,” Charlie said, and bit down on a renewed flood of words.

  “You only just arrived.” He turned her hand palm up, the cool fingers of his other hand lightly brushing her wrist, as if searching for her pulse.

  “Let me go.” The words from her own mouth surprised her.

  He paused, eyes flicking down to her captured hand then returning to hers. He lifted her hand and pressed his cool, dry lips against the skin of her wrist. Then she felt his fangs slide into her skin like a nick from a razor or the sting of a needle.