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CHAPTER TWO

The clatter of dice and shuffling of cards and general cacophony of the gaming tables did little to salve my wounded pride. There was a time when I was able to find solace in the tumble of polyhedrons and the sweet smell of plastic tokens, when I could pretend to be something completely different from what I was—stronger, or more charismatic, or clever (the number of times I fell back on “I say something clever to the barmaid” *rolls dice*), or even brave, simply because there was nothing to lose. Times had changed. I was braver than I had been. Cowards don’t kill dragons, after all. But I was still John Rast—lanky, gawking, awkward, quiet, and frequently alone.

Even in the company of Knight Watch, I was something of an outsider. After all, it had been my best friend who nearly destroyed the organization, barely six months ago. Eric used me as a battering ram to sneak into the Unreal, pulling me and Chesa along with him. While the team seemed to accept Chesa well enough, I was still having trouble acclimating, even after a lifetime of hoping for this kind of chance. Yet here I was, wandering the gaming tables of some small-town nerd convention, while my ex swooned over the new guy.

“You are looking glum, Sir John of Rast.” Tembo’s smooth voice rose over the exultations of a crowded table of Interstellar Soldiers hooting heresy. The bald mage ambled up beside me. Dark blue robes, custom tailored and exquisite, slid quietly across the floor, while the luminescent tattoo that surrounded his right eye shimmered weakly under the fluorescent lighting of the convention center. He walked with his hands clasped behind his back. I had seen this man hurl fireballs, and summon shimmering shields of light, and transform into a hulking elephant creature, as majestic and as powerful as any Ken Burns documentary. But under those fluorescent lights, Tembo looked like a cheap parlor trickster, a deck of marked cards in his pocket and silver highlighter smeared across his cheek. The mundane has a way of degrading us. I made a mental note to avoid any mirrors. If Tembo looked this bad, I must look truly pathetic.

“Nope! Everything’s great, Tem. Just doing the patrol thing,” I said. “Checking out these game tables, just in case one of them is a portal to another dimension. There was a lot of that going on back in the eighties, I’m told. Lotta”—I waggled my fingers, as though casting a spell—“demon summoning. Dice and an active imagination are a very effective tool for calling forth hell-beasts.”

“That was a story, told mostly by demons, it turns out. A publicity stunt,” Tembo said. He looked around casually, then leaned in close. “You do not like the new guy.”

“What? No, don’t be ridiculous! Gregory Hosenlinger Von Froo Froo is my favorite guy!” I insisted. “If you asked me to line up the guys I like best, why, old Froo Froo would be top of the list.”

“I am glad to hear that, Sir John. Because we are a team. Each member of the team is very important.” Tembo’s tone reminded me of a schoolmaster in a Victorian drama. “We are a single body: the healer, the warrior, the mage, the warden.” He nodded to me when naming my role. I never wanted to be a warden, but the myths chose that role for me, so here I was. All shield, no glory. “Each part of the body must function correctly. And it must trust the other parts. A warrior cannot heal. The mage cannot ward. And the healer—”

“The healer isn’t even here,” I said. “So let’s not act like we’re some kind of superhero squad. You can’t expect me to like a guy like Gregory. But I can work with him. He fights, he gets the girls, and I get smacked in the face so he can act heroic. I get it. You don’t have to rub it in.”

“You are important, Sir John. We value you.”

“Thanks, Counselor Rick. Now if you don’t mind, there’s an anomaly around here somewhere. Be best if we spread out,” I said.

“It would be best if we stuck together,” Tembo answered. “But I see you are not interested in that. If I am attacked, I will start screaming like a butchered calf.”

“Butchered calf. Got it. If I don’t hear a calf being butchered, I’ll just mind my own—”

Somewhere, not so far away, someone started butchering a calf.

“Sweet hell, Tem! That’s a neat trick. You scared half the life out of me!” I said.

“That is not me,” Tembo answered. He flicked his hand, and a long staff of silver-bound wood appeared out of nowhere, bouncing off the floor to smack meatily into his palm. He made another gesture with his left hand, and the runes engraved on the staff flashed to life, followed closely by the tattoo surrounding his eye. “We have found our monster.”

“Or the monster has found us,” I said, reaching for my sword. The peace knot kept me from getting more than an inch of steel out of the scabbard. Swearing, I did the little trick Bethany had taught me, flicking at the knot with thumb and forefinger before drawing the sword again. This time I got less than an inch of steel, and somehow managed to get my pinky tangled in the knot itself. The rope pulled tight, cutting off circulation to the digit. “Damn it! I just . . . ” Hooking my thumb around the knot and tugging only managed to trap the entire hand. “Bee, you bitch! What’d you do to my sword?”

“Pull and flick, Sir John. We don’t have time to screw around,” Tembo said.

“I know, I know.” A long strand of rope uncoiled from the knot, giving me the false impression of progress. “There it is!” I grabbed the rope with my other hand and gave it a pull. Something tightened around my belt, and then the blood traveling to my right leg was cut off. I yelped and dropped the rope, but somehow the fraying ends had woven themselves around my wrist, and when I tried to reach down to the loop around my leg, I instead cinched my arm firmly against my waist. I stumbled forward, but found that all I could do was hop on one leg, as my other was already numb and tingling. “Bethany!”

“Good grok, Rast, you’re a mess,” Bethany said. She appeared from the same nowhere as Tembo’s staff, bouncing excitedly in front of me, like a puppy who needs to pee. She wore her usual black braids, only today she had them curled tightly against her head, pinned in place with a crown of tiny silver daggers. The rest of her outfit was nondescript; maudlin leather, a belt of pouches, and a thin cloak that I knew hid more knives than could ever possibly be necessary. She eyed me up and down, her green eyes laughing as she took in my predicament. “You even found a way to break my rope trick! You’re something else.”

“What I am is going to kick your ass when I get out of these ropes!” I shouted.

“So maybe I just leave you in them, then,” she said. “Besides, you’re kinda cute when you’re tied up. You and Ches ever get into that kind of thing?”

“I . . . what . . . ? That’s none . . . ” I sputtered.

“My dear Bethany, we are needed quite urgently in the direction of the screaming, so if you would be so kind as to free our warden,” Tembo said anxiously.

“Sure, sure. Just having some fun,” she said, her eyes twinkling. Bethany drew a hefty dagger and pointed it at my belly button. Her eyes darted at the various knots and entanglements holding me in place. “Okay, Rast. Don’t. Move. A muscle.”

“I hardly think—” I started. Then Bethany moved in a blur of dark hair and cold steel. My breath caught in my throat. I could feel the razor-sharp blade pass between my skin and rope, at wrists, at elbow, somehow against my thigh and between my fingers. It was over in a heartbeat. The ropes fell to the ground.

“There now. All better,” she said, sheathing the dagger. She winked at me. “But let me know if you change your mind about that rope thing.” Then she was gone, another blur in the crowd.

Tembo growled and rushed into the crowd, staff in the lead. Free and blushing like a sunburned Irish bride, I drew my sword and swung the clever shield down from my shoulder. The shield was the embodiment of my mythic self, the very essential thing that made me a warden. It was magic, able to change shape and size to meet the needs of the moment, incredibly strong, even capable of entombing me in an impervious shell for brief moments. Nothing could hurt me while I wielded it, as long as I knew the threat was coming and could keep my wits about me.

Nothing except a cute girl’s wit, apparently. And a difficult knot.

The crowd that surrounded us seemed generally nonplussed by the screaming, or Tembo’s glowing face, or even Bethany’s knife tricks. That’s the way it was with the mundane, when the Unreal broke the surface of the world. The world would carry on, acting as if everything was perfectly normal, right up until the point it wasn’t. And by then it was usually too late.

Passing Tembo, I lowered my shield and bulldozed my way through the closely packed crowd. Shoving through the steaming mass of body odor and cheap costumes drew a lot of angry words and the occasional threat, but I didn’t care. These people were mundanes, and I was the hero, making my entrance, here to save the day. I reached the edge of the crowd and burst into the open.

My leather boots squeaked as I slid across the linoleum floor, finally coming to a stop in the middle of a small clearing in the murmuring crowd. I was in full action pose: crouched forward with my heater shield covering me from throat to thigh, longsword at a guard position in my other hand. Tembo followed close behind. The lanky mage towered over me, his staff held aloft in one arm, magical bracelets rattling as he formed runes in the air with his casting hand. Silver light crawled across his tattoo, matched by the scintillating light of the staff. Bethany darted into the clearing, appearing and disappearing in a quick drumbeat of shadowsteps, each time leaving a cloud of curling smoke behind. She finally settled just to my left, displaying a collection of wicked daggers that would have made a Scotsman blush. Bethany’s cloak hovered in midair, as though she were still flying through the air.

Three people, two men and a woman, stood in the middle of the clearing. They wore a cross between fool’s motley and punk garb, mixed jeans and wallet chains across patchwork vests and pirate shirts that were three sizes too large. The woman had collapsed into the arms of one of the men, caught mid-swoon by our interruption. A dagger protruded from between swelling breasts held in place by a highly structured corset that barely seemed up to the task. Several red streamers coursed down from the dagger, fake blood in the form of linen.

Bloody actors. We had interrupted some kind of impromptu play.

All three of the actors stared at us with open mouths. The woman was still screaming, only much more quietly and with less curdling of blood. The man holding her slowly lost his grip, and didn’t recover until she hit the convention center floor with a thump of gathered skirts and jiggling flesh. Then both men rushed to her aid, which she firmly refused with sharp elbows and sharper tongue. Everyone was still staring at us.

“Tembo,” I said as quietly as I could manage, though the silence around us was so absolute that I might as well have been shouting. “Cut the light show.”

“Hm?” the mage muttered, then realized he was still manifesting his mythic self. “Oh, yes. Sorry. Show’s over, folks!” He straightened, letting the glowing runes that hung midair around him dissipate, his tattoo fading back into silver highlighter, and the laser show that crawled across his staff disappeared with a sizzle. Bethany followed suit. Her cloak dropped to the ground and her daggers disappeared, as though they had never even existed. I sheathed my sword and tried to stand normally. I’ve never been good at standing normally, even when I was normal. There’s nothing harder than doing something “normal.” Especially when everyone is staring at you.

There was a smattering of applause from the audience. The mundane world taking over, convincing them that we were part of the show. The three actors took the cue, bowing extravagantly, hands clasped together. The commotion must have drawn Gregory, or maybe it was the applause, because he and Chesa burst into the circle seconds later. The paladin’s arms were bare and bulging, the ridiculously large zweihander sword held vertical and gleaming. Chesa danced over the tops of the crowd, landing to my right with her own brace of crescent-shaped swords drawn. There was another round of awkward silence, then the crowd went wild. Gregory took it in stride, bowing majestically, all smiles. Chesa looked at me and rolled her eyes.

“Can’t keep from making a fool of yourself, Rast?” she asked.

“It’s not my fault this time! She was screaming. Like, really screaming.”

“Whatever. Just try to not drag the rest of us into it next time.” Chesa slid the two crescent blades together, locking them into a single short scythe, then magicked them away under her cloak. “We have enough trouble with the mundanes, without you making it worse.”

“Don’t be so hard on the boy, Chesa,” Gregory said, somehow without moving his gleaming smile. “He’s doing the best he can.”

“I’m not just some ‘boy,’ pretty man,” I snapped. “I’ve been part of this team longer than you. Let’s not forget that.”

“And yet you still keep screwing up,” he answered. “But I imagine it’s hard to find a good warden. Such thankless, drab work, isn’t it? So little glory. Why, it’s hardly heroic at all.”

“Alright, Smiles, that’s it.” I snapped my left wrist, triggering the magic in my shield and transforming the heater into a Viking-style round. I ran my sword along the steel rim of the shield, drawing sparks from the blade and applause from the audience. Gregory just watched me, one eyebrow cocked at a jaunty angle. “Let’s settle this!”

“John, you’re being an idiot,” Chesa whispered quietly.

“Let him be an idiot,” Bethany said. She stepped back, arms folded across her chest. “Let the boys fight. Take off your shirts! No shirts!”

“That is not helping the situation,” Tembo chided. “Please, if everyone would just calm down.”

A woman stepped out of the crowd, clapping slow and loud. She was dressed in leather armor and Viking bling, with a batwing tiara that didn’t really contain the complicated braids of golden hair, and thick eye black that ran a stripe across her face. Her features were so Nordic as to appear alien. And she was hot as hell, which of course had nothing to do with the fact that I just stood there, staring at her in dumb fascination, rather than stepping up smacking the obvious villain in the face. She didn’t appear to be armed, but something about her dress and manner marked her as different from the rest of the crowd. Her armor looked ancient and functional. Her boots were flat and heavily scarred, not the wedge heels that cosplayers often subjected themselves to. She cut across the clearing to stand next to the gawping actors.

“Bravo, bravo. A well-rehearsed exchange. A maiden in distress, and now the heroes have arrived. The audience recognizes them clearly enough. So brave, and handsome, and foolish.” She smiled at me when she said that, and I felt a shiver run down my bones. Something about the woman looked familiar, as though I had seen her before. “But enough with the introduction. It is time for the villain to make their appearance.”

“I know a villain when I see one,” Bethany said. She had wrapped herself in her mythic presence again, all cloak and dagger, with a side of shadow. “It’s always the creep in the black armor who’s talking too much.”

“Oh, but I’m not the villain in this story, child,” the woman said, her smile as sharp and as cold as an iceberg. “At least, not yet. No, I am merely the chorus. This”—she gestured to the crowd—“is your villain. But I will allow him his own introductions.”

And, of course, the mask-wearing edgelord with the propaganda sword stepped into the clearing. His mask looked more substantial, the paper replaced with pale metal, the simple grimace now a full-on death’s howl. His uniform still felt oddly out of place, not as medieval as it should be. Yet when he drew that sword, there was no question it contained magic. Oily smoke dripped from its fuller, gathering in puddles of sick shadow at his feet. The hilt was all skulls and gravestones and cloaked figures, and the ornaments on his armor followed the theme.

Honestly, he looked like a castoff from a goth metal band, the kind of guy who might have been cut from the lineup for trying too hard. I had to laugh. That didn’t sit well with King Edgelord.

“I am the Totenschreck! Terror of the Dead! Master of the Veil! Lord of—”

“Sure you are, kiddo,” I said. “And I’m the Tatertot King. Playtime’s over.”

Knight Watch fell in behind me, weapons glowing and mythic spells powering up. The high keening sound of Tembo’s fireball shrieked through the enclosed space of the convention center. Even Gregory stood at my side, his smirk for once directed at someone else. My shield unfolded into a full tower, the face emblazoned with my golden dragon. I raised my sword overhead and charged forward, screaming at the top of my lungs. The rest of Knight Watch flowed in behind me.

Edgelord Prime cackled, then slammed his sword tip-first into the tiles of the convention floor. The ground erupted into a spiderweb of pale green light, fracturing like an eggshell, and stopping us dead in our tracks. Tendrils of thick mist uncoiled from the earth, instantly obscuring the area.

Hands crawled out of the broken earth. Skeletons, their bones translucent, their eyes glowing with ghostly light, dragged themselves out of ruptured graves. They surrounded the cloaked figure of the edgelord.

The crowd, which had up until now been watching with keen interest, finally decided that something was badly wrong with this show. Screaming, they ran in all directions, lost in the mists and driven by pure animal terror. The skeletons fell on them, tearing at stained black shirts and mismatched cosplay, cutting into flesh with blunt teeth and bony fingers. The screams grew desperate. The mists rose, turning the convention center into a hellscape. Half-obscured shapes stumbled through the darkness, their screams mingling with the dirge-like moans of the risen dead. The only thing I could see clearly was the cloaked figure and his grim sword.

I put my head down and charged.


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