Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

“Guess we’re in luck.” I surveyed the ship dubiously. Compared to the Royal Vlachian airships I was used to, this one looked kind of like a flying murder van. “Let me think about it for a minute.”

“Think all you like.” Gar shrugged, pulled a tin of cigarettes from his coat, bumped one to the top, and lit up.

My HUD purred and chirped: a PM from Suri. “What do you think?”

“I think Gar here is a good ol’ boy who thinks his life is a country music song, but I’m not getting anything weirder than that,” I replied. “Karalti?”

“He seems okay.” Karalti yawned, briefly flashing her fangs. “He doesn’t smell like he’s lying. He’s just lonely, I think.”

I flashed her an odd look. “I didn’t know loneliness had a smell.”

“Yeah, it does. Like hand lotion and old cheese.” She nodded. “This ship definitely smells like loneliness.”

Gar looked over at us, raising one eyebrow expectantly.

“Well, my dragon says you check out,” I said. “If anything we run into fucks up the airship, we’ll cover it. If you’ve got a clunky gear or need refueling or something, that’s on you.”

“Suits me,” Gar said. “As long as you’ve actually got the money.”

“We do,” Suri said.

“So if I meet you here at five in the morning tomorrow, you’ll be here with your suitcases and three thousand olbia, plus a screenshot showin’ me you’ve got the rest?” He turned his face and blew a cloud of smoke toward the water.

“We’ll briefly have you join our party, and I’ll transfer it digitally. You’ll be able to see the reserve, read-only. We won’t be carrying any physical gold,” I said. “No offense, but we haven’t exactly always had a great experience with other Starborn since landing in Archemi.”

“Neither have I. A transfer’s fine with me.” Gar jammed his cigarette in the corner of his mouth and held out his hand. “Shake on it.”

I slapped my palm into his. Suri did the same. When he offered to shake with Karalti, she offered her fingers to him like she had with Ignas. A look of confusion passed over his face as he took her hand, frowned at it, then cleared his throat and shook it once before stepped back.

“Dragon, huh?” Gar looked between us. “That some kind of character Path-Class thing?”

“No. Karalti here is an actual dragon.” I unconsciously lay a hand on Karalti’s shoulder, giving it an affectionate squeeze. She leaned into it, her eyes half-closing at the attention.

“Bit small, ain’t she?” Gar grunted, looking her up and down. “No wings or scales.”

“Not yet.” I winked. “Zero five hundred, on the dot. See you at quarter to the hour.”

“Sure. Y’all get home safe, now.” Gar shrugged, then trudged up the gangplank to his ship—which was apparently also his house.

“Cheerful bugger, isn’t he?” Suri said, once the hatch had closed.

“Sure is.” I shook my head and started on my way back. “But as long as he can fly us to Meewhome, then as far as I’m concerned, he’s my new best friend.”

***

By the next morning, we were all kitted out and looking sharp. Suri had her new sword over her back and a fresh haircut. Rin had filled up on mana and had a new spellglove and a nice leather satchel, all ready for field work. She’d bought three Skill Tomes for the Meewfolk language out of her own money. She and Suri were able to use them just fine. I held mine in my hands and tried to psych myself to open the cover.

“Seriously, you should let me try it,” Karalti urged, pacing anxiously. “What if you have a stroke or a heart-attack or something?”

“I don’t think you can use skill tomes, Tidbit,” I replied. “And because you’re an NPC, you have to learn languages the hard way.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately.” Rin winced. “It’s okay, though! We’ve got medicine. We can resuscitate him, probably.”

“I know how to give mouth to mouth.” Suri had her arms crossed, a bemused smile playing over her lips.

Karalti scowled. “I’ll fight you.”

“Well, just… stand by, okay?” I drew a deep breath, braced myself for agony and-or unconsciousness, and opened the cover to view the Skill sigils. I didn’t have to read them—the bright lines of magic writhed, imprinting on my corneas like a flash of sunlight. My head throbbed painlessly, and the world darkened for a moment… then cleared, leaving me on my feet, the book still in hand.

Rin, Suri, and Karalti waited breathlessly for me to keel over.

“I’m fine.” I closed the book, blinked until my eyes cleared, then lifted my head to look at them. “Barely even felt the upload. Try speaking to me in Meew?”

“Can you understand me?” Rin asked, in that language.

“Yeah. Sure can.” I replied in the same tongue. It was fun to speak: Mau, as humans called it, was a tonal language like Chinese or Thai. “I didn’t feel a thing.”

“I wonder why the fuck you collapsed when you learned Dakhari from me?” Suri scratched her head, ignoring Cutthroat as the hookwing chirped and bumped at her other hand. “That language fuckin’ knocked you out.”

“One of the many mysteries of Archemi.” I stared down at the Skill Tome. “Anyway, I’m good. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Twenty minutes later, the group of us strolled up the pier where the Strelitzia was warming her engines. Gar was hanging out at the base of the gangplank, smoking in the company of one of the most unusual Mercurions I’d ever seen. He was short and well-muscled, with pearly golden skin, a yellow mohawk of crystal spikes, and six gem-like eyes in a circle around his face. He was a juchi, a variant Mercurion, and a guaranteed outcast from his own people.

“Ha! That’s some nice-looking gear.”