Chapter 10: Hitching a Ride

Chapter 9

Julie

I woke a few moments later to the sound of Duke grunting. I opened my eyes and turned my head, and saw him climbing out of the window carrying Max. I heard a thump, then more grunting and Duke climbed back inside. He grabbed our bags and tossed them out the window, then he carefully picked me up. I tried to object.

“The air smells like bacon,” which was not what I meant to say.

“That’s nice Julie, just don’t struggle, I need to get you off this train before the mortals interfere.” He carefully climbed out of the window with me in his arms and jumped down. Max was forcing himself up off the ground, struggling with the effort.

“You able to walk boy?” Duke asked him.

“I have no idea,” Max said. He got a knee under himself and sat back. He started to reach for his glove.

“Don’t. Save the Venti. Were near an Amish commune. We’ll buy a carriage from them and use the Venti to get us out of here.” Max grunted, then got up and, wobbly, started to move towards the forest ahead of us.

When we reached the tree line, Duke put me down, leaning against a tree. The he started to check my wounds. I had only started to feel them recently anyways. I had a cut scalp, some glass stuck in my arm and some more in my leg.

“You two really don’t hold back at all do you?” He asked.

“What do you mean?” Max groaned.

“You with the giant lightning bolt in there, her with the freezing of the lake back at camp. If you children of the big three do something, you don’t do it small. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up as the targets for a nationwide manhunt. Those poor mortals probably think were terrorists or something.”

“Good point.” Max got up and he tried to get up, but unsuccessfully. Duke, roughly, pulled the glass out. He pulled out a cube of ambrosia, broke it in half and fed me one of the halves. I tasted blueberries. My body warmed up and my skin started to crawl. Duke was feeding the other half to Max, who blinked his eyes in surprise, and started to get up.

“Tastes like raspberries,” he said in surprise.

I looked over myself, the wounds were closing. Still raw, but closing. I got up.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Head North,” was all Duke said. So we walked North. Forever. The forest here sucked. After about an hour we heard the sound of horses hooves on cobblestones. As we left the treeline we saw a road made of cobblestones complete with horses and figures dressed like old fashion folk. By old fashion, I mean 1700-1800 attire. Very out of fashion. One of the soldier looking chaps pulled up by us.

“Hold, from where do ye come from travelers?” He asked in an English accent.

“I thought you said Almish, not medieval,” Max whispered. Duke ignored him.

“Good morrow, serrah, we are travelers from the land of New York. We have come seeking Horrace the blacksmith.” The soldier fellow looked at us strangely.

“We do not get too many travelers from the lands of New York, young sir. We shall escort ye to Horrace, and if he doth not know the, then it shall be a trip to the stocks.” He motioned for us to follow behind the carriage. Well, now we are under arrest, lovely.

“I thought you said we were trying to not get mortals in trouble.” Max said.

“Were not. These mortals are already in trouble. This land has been removed from time, they are stuck here, doing the same things for all time. It was an experiment by the gods to tap into Kronos’s power. Didn’t work well. Horrace was assigned here to keep an eye on them, and for other reasons.”

“What other reasons?” I asked.

“He pissed off his other set of ancestors.” Duke would not elaborate any further. Rather annoying, that. The officers looked at us curiously, but did not talk to us at all. Neither did the people in the carriage, although they did call us things like ‘heathen’ and ‘ruffian’ and ‘vagabond.’ I was going to slap them with the water from their tea, but Duke stopped me. No fun.

As the sun was going down we reached Horrace’s workshop, and we were tired. A big dark man came out at the call from the officer.

“Sir Hortense, what brings ye to my humble shoppe?” The big dark dude asked.

“These young....folk said that they were coming to thy shop. Dost thou know them?” Officer Hortense asked. Horrace looked at Max, his eyes widening when he saw Max’s electric blue eye. Then Horrace looked at me, raising an eyebrow at my red hair and green eyes. Then he looked at Duke, and scoweled. he was about to say something when Duke lifted an Axe from his pack.

“Before you speak good sir, does this workmanship remind you of anything?” Duke handed the axe, handle first, to Horrace. The axe itself appeared rather impractical to me. it was a simple blade with no balance spike sticking out of its back. The blade also looked rather dull...it was flat. Horrace’s eyes widened.

“These children were in fact coming to see me Sir Hortense. They are delivering to me some materials and picking something up. I shall care for them while they are here, have no fear.” He motioned for us to go inside.

“We shall stop by in the morning to ensure nothing is wrong,” Officer Hortense said as he turned his mount and lead the carriage away. Horrace watched them until they had gone out of sight, then followed us into the workshop.

“Duke, you bastard. What are you doing here?” He demanded, dropping the old English.

“Good to see you too Horrace, we need a ride.”

“I don’t think I need to tell you I cannot leave here. Not yet anyways.”

“I know, just give us a carriage that can take air travel, and we shall be out of your hair.”

“Why?” Horrace asked as he tossed the blunted axe to Duke. “And take better care of my work.” The axe was now balanced and sharpened, Duke caught it easily.

“We are on a quest. The camp was attacked.” When Duke finished the first sentence Horrace had started to laugh, as the second sentence finished, Horrace’s face was ashen.

“Any casualties?”

“Thanks to these two, no. But we are trying to find out why.”

“And why are you going? As I remember, you don’t leave camp. Monster magnet and such.”

“True enough. Dad didn’t give me much of a choice.”

“Ha. Fine, you kids head upstairs and get some sleep. Monsters cannot enter the time bubble around the city. I should have something for you in a couple of hours.” A clear dismissal from Horrace, Duke started to head up stairs but I had to ask.

“Umm, Horrace sir. Duke said that you were...avoiding your ancestors. What did he mean by that?” Max also looked interested in the answer to this question.

“He said hiding, and that’s what it is. I am Egyptian girl, at least my mortal half. My mortal half also comes from a long line of Pharaohs. My family is wealthy, and when I left for camp they hired...lets call them private investigators to find me and bring me back. That is why I am here.” With that he turned and entered the shop proper. I turned and followed Duke.

Upstairs there were four bedrooms, one was obviously in use by Horrace. Hieroglyphs and artwork and a bunch of other strange things were decorating the walls, and work that was partially completed was lying around also. The other three bedrooms were empty of anything other than a bed and a washstand. Duke walked into one and closed the door. Max shrugged and went into another. I picked out the last remaining unused bedroom, collapsed on the bed, and went to sleep.

My dream showed me a place that looked like a resort. Only instead of cars, it had a plane and old fashioned boats lying around. Some really dirty fellows were running around ruining everything, and the women were waving their hands around, the results of which indicated they were casting spells.

The scene turned and I saw two people standing on top of a building. One was Eos. The other was a beautiful woman with green eyes and gold braided dark hair. As my little vision got closer I could hear what they were saying.

“Well auntie, I don’t like the idea of giving up my island. I have lived here long, it is an extension of my power.” The green eyed woman was saying.

“Don’t worry dearie, you will get it back. I need to bring up another island, and the only way to keep old salt brains from finding out about it is to keep his water levels balanced and to move quickly. That means one must sink while I raise the other. Once I get what I need from there, we send it back to the bottom, bring your island up again and he wont know the difference.” Eos replied.

“What is it your looking for anyways? We stole my fathers helm back.”

“It is....we are being watched dearie. Take care of it please.” Eos turned and floated inside of the building. The green eyed woman looked straight at me.

“Silly child, you shouldn’t be spying.” She waved her hand and a sphere of fire was flying straight at me.

Chapter 11