Clarence dropped from the sky into the long grass. Moments later the girl came through too. What had happened? When he stood his head swam, and he fell back to his knees. The girl wasn't moving. Clarence crawled towards her and looked at her. She gazed up at the sky; her face pale whilst silent tears rolled down her cheeks.
"You-" he ran a shaking hand across his face and switched to Joining Earth Standard, "I'm in so much trouble." He sat back in the grass; she didn't look good, her side still bleed. "Let me see the cut."
She blinked, sniffed and pulled up her top whilst she ran her hand across the grass as if she couldn't believe it was real. The cut looked deep, but it wasn't life-threatening; the blood had clotted, but she had lost a lot. His relief confused him. It was awful that she was here. "Welcome to Joining Earth."
Had she listened? He lay next to her and closed his eyes. He would get some rest whilst she dealt with her shock. Jumping with two people had put so much strain on his body he felt like he'd done twelve rounds in the sparring ring. He wouldn't feel normal or have the strength to use his magic for days but as soon as he lay down she stood up and turned on the spot with her hands over her face as she shook. "You're okay," he moved and put his hands on her arms, turning her so he could study at her. "We're in Ireland but I'm not sure where. When you came through with me I-" he took a deep breath and gave her a sheepish smile. "Sorry."
"Ireland's uninhabitable," she told him. Her face contorted as she tried to lie to herself to explain what was happening.
"In this world it's fine. See?"
She shook her head, her brain not yet allowing her to accept what was in front of her. "No," she muttered and then said something he didn't understand. "I'm dead."
"You're very much alive. I don't suppose I can send you back?"
Her response was blank incomprehension.
"Is there anywhere? Back there. That I can take you?"
"It's all gone."
"Light!" Clarence swore, and he scratched the back of his neck. "Everywhere?"
"The war-"
"The entire world?"
She nodded. "Famine, plagues and the 'Endless Night'. Can you time travel?"
"Nobody can time travel," he told her. "What's your name?"
"Beatrix Sung-Smith." She continued to look around, lost in her own wonder. Sheep grazed. in the distance he saw a farmhouse. Clarence squinted through the heat haze. Just how welcoming would they be, considering that Beatrix dressed in clothes that marked her out as very different, and they were both covered in blood?
"What was the white flash? What would have happened if we had stayed longer?" His question brought her back to reality. She fixed him with her deep brown eyes, the force of her stare made him take a step back. Her eyes were mesmerising.
"Boom." She said, her hands rose and her fingers spread out to show the explosion. "Killing everything within thirty miles. The land won't be inhabitable for hundreds of years."
If anybody else had said that, he would have laughed at them, but it terrified him. Her people were barbaric, her world made little sense, and he'd seen things that he couldn't comprehend. The Humans of Earth had created their own magic, but in doing so had developed the ability to kill people with frightening ease. Thirty miles. That was horrific. "Can you make things like that?" His hand inched to his dagger, but it wasn't there.
Beatrix shook her head, "No."
"Can you make the elektrisate?"
"Electricity, and no."
"What can you do?"
"Nothing." Her face contorted, she pressed her hand to her side and studied the blood. "How much did I bleed?"
"A lot." Clarence decided she wasn't a threat and returned to study the farmhouse. "We're covered in gore and you look odd. If we ask anybody for help, they will turn us away and report us to the Druids."
"Druids?"
"They police the portals and administer the Council of the Light's laws. If they find out about you, they will get the Necromancers to interrogate you and then they will kill you." He watched her digest what he said. "Necromancers are-"
"I know, they control dead stuff."
"They do much more than that."
"Why do they want to kill me?"
"Nobody knows Earth exists. The Council of the Light will either want to keep it that way, or use you to learn Earths secrets- either way they will torture you for it and eventually kill you."
"I've put you in danger?" Not the question he expected her to ask after telling her that she was the one very much in danger.
"You're alive, that's what matters." It would be better to kill her. "But you're speaking a dead language."
"Should we be speaking Joining Earth Standard?" she asked.
"It is the standard language across the Transworld Network, there're thousands of worlds. We need to understand each other."
"Thousands?" she muttered as she checked her side again. "All like this one? All like Earth? You said we are in Ireland- My world had an Ireland."
"Not like Earth. No." The breeze lifted his hair from his neck, it was so hot it was making it hard to think.
"What's your name?" She asked.
Clarence considered lying, but his name wouldn't mean anything to her. "It's Clarence O'Leary, though I wouldn't use my surname around here. I go by the name Ren Green."
Her eyes flicked up, missing nothing. She touched her side again, her skin glistened with sweat.
"Can you walk?"
She took steps forward and her face said, 'I can.'
"I'm going to rob that farmhouse," he told her.
"Now?" another unusual response to somebody declaring their intention to commit a crime.
"Later, tonight when everybody is asleep. I'll get us some food and some clothing and try to work out how to get us back to Gelding Town."
"Gelding Town is where you live?"
He pointed at a copse of trees, "let's get some rest in the shade."
Under the trees, Clarence cleared a space on the floor. He built a circle of stones, then set kindling and dry leaves as tinder. A fire was lit with a flint stone that he always had in his pocket, and Clarence tended the flames until they had reduced to a hot and steady bed of glowing embers that gave off very little smoke. A fire wasn't really needed, it was just a way to stave off the boredom of waiting until dark.
Life slowed down.
He sighed and kicked off his boots. The sun was not yet at its peak so he lay back amongst the trees watching a fat spider spin a web between two sagging branches. From the parched grass outside of the copse, Clarence could hear a cricket calling. It had been the hottest summer Joining Earth had seen in over a century. It was okay by the sea where a wind chill always swept in off the ocean, but here in this stagnant countryside, the earth seemed to stand still in the furnace, sleeping because it was too hot to move.
He was in Ireland, perhaps close enough to Gelding Town, but he could have come out anywhere within two days of his destination. There was a certain amount of pride because he had exited the portal without ending up spliced into a tree. Next to him, Beatrix settled. She hardly said two words to him. He prepared himself for a barrage of questions, but she didn't want to ask anything else. After a while, he fell into a light slumber. In his half-conscious state, his brain had detached from the reality of the days passed. As he lay on his back, billions of people were being killed in a war of technologies he did not understand. He had saw this, yet he did not dare ponder, he did not dare dwell on what he had done and what he had seen. So he listened to the cricket and watched the spider and wondered why the weather was so uncommonly hot.
~
An owl hooted, and Clarence's stomach rumbled. He looked around in the darkness. The fire was almost burnt out and he used the dying embers to orientate himself as he worked out where Beatrix was. She slept by the fire, her breath rising and falling like the tide. The night was warm, but her skin felt cold. It was time to attack the farm.
Nobody was around when he entered the farmyard. A single light shone from a lantern hanging by the stables and he went there first. The farmer had passed out in a stall, one hand down his sackcloth trousers and the other around a brandy bottle. Clarence drew his dagger from his boot and crept up to him, then crouching down he poked the farmer with his left hand, ready to strike with his right. When he didn't wake, Clarence clicked his fingers close to the farmer's ears, then shook him from side to side. Still no response. He took the brandy bottle for himself and looked around.
They stabled a cart horse and Clarence offered it some straw. The enormous creature seemed good-natured, so he found the tack and harnessed the horse to a small cart from the shed next door. He took it to the road close to the trees where Beatrix waited for him. "I'm going back to see what else I can grab."
"Be quick," she hissed. "I'm cold."
The farmer had fallen on his side and was snoring, so Clarence made his way towards the farmhouse. The backdoor was unlocked. An unsettling wave of repugnant lavender made him cringe.
Door bolted behind him, Clarence edged into the kitchen. A rotund woman slept by her fire. There was no alcohol smell in here. The woman muttered whilst she dozed. He found the pantry and slipped inside.
Smiling, he helped himself to a truckle of cheese and a leg of salt-cured meat. Then he packed a skin for water, some honey in a jar and on another shelf, some old hard bread. Clarence looked for a bag. He couldn't find anything so, empty-handed, he looked back into the kitchen. Hanging on the back of the woman's rocking chair was a linen sack. Clarence bit his lip again and crept towards her. She gave a heavy sigh and muttered something about low folk. Clarence reached out and tried to slide the bag off the chair, but it stuck under her shoulder. He pulled harder, and the movement disturbed her sleep; she reached up and scratched at her neck and with that; the bag went free.
Once packed, he moved through the house looking for clothing, blankets and anything else he could use. As he was studying a map of the local area that hung on the washroom wall the bolted door rattled and the farmer shouted in slurred tones that his horse had gone. Clarence cursed his awful luck, opened the window shutters and clambered out.
He ran until he reached the horse. Chucking all the stolen goods onto the cart, he clambered up next to Beatrix, who had the horse standing ready. They were away before the farmer had time to leave, but he would pursue them. The map he had seen showed a large forest two days' ride along the river and if they hacked through the night, they might be there before the farmer caught up.
Beatrix held the reins differently to how he would, but she did it with confidence. He left her to it and climbed into the back; if set upon, he would fight. They drove the carthorse for longer than was kind, but at no point did anybody come for them. "Don't you think it's odd?" Clarence asked, but she was crying again. He crawled up next to her, "Get some sleep, Bea," he took the reins.
"I'm fine," she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and looked out over black fields. "I just can't-" she paused, wiping her eyes again with her sleeve. "I can't stop thinking about my godfather."
"You were close?"
"He raised me like I was his daughter. I think it's the horse that's made me go all funny." She sniffed and hugged her arms to her body. She was quiet for a long time, but Clarence had the feeling she would speak again so he didn't ask the myriad of questions burning the tip of his tongue.
"When the ash first fell, the army took some of my horses. Later, when the rest got hungry- I had to kill them. The village took them as meat. That was the day I accepted my Godfather was gone. The day I killed the horses was the day he died. Now I'm here and Earth's a memory. Like an unpleasant dream. Why should I survive?"
"Who knows," Clarence shrugged, having to kill horses was horrific. "Before the Council of the Light people used to worship magic, they believed in fate and all that nonsense. I've no time for it, the things that happen to us don't happen for a reason, they just happen." He sounded a little more bitter than he wanted to, and Beatrix noticed, but she took his words personally.
"I'm sorry, Clarence. If it's easier I'll go back, there's nothing here for me."
"If you go back, you will die."
She didn't disagree.
"No," he told her. "It'd eat at me for the rest of my life if I let you do that."
"Then what happens to me now? Earth's history looked like this- women were little more than pets with no law to protect them other than as property. I don't want to be beholden to you and I don't fancy a life as a whore."
"I know plenty of whores who enjoy-" Clarence stopped talking when he saw her face. "It's not sex you need to worry about. Women and men don't have different laws."
"Oh?"
"But there is a caste system."
The cart lurched, Beatrix swore and clutched her side, and Clarence saw her hands come away bloody. "It will get infected if I can't clean it properly."
"There's brandy in the sack, that's supposed to help, right?"
She turned and climbed into the back of the cart and cleaned her wound, swearing as the alcohol stung her. He saw her rip some fabric to make a bandage and pad the wound closed before tying it tight around her. Clarence slowed the horse and diverted the cart off of the road, "We'll make a camp here. We've come far enough and they would have caught us by now if they were coming. You stay there and rest, I'll get it sorted."
It took him an hour to make them comfortable, but by the time he finished they had a fire and the horse was resting. He laid out everything that stolen on the ground so he could take stock. There was a dress for Beatrix, a tunic for him, a cloak and a clean cotton top. Already on the cart was a bedroll and a cooking pot, and the river wound by the road so it was easy to get water to boil. They shared the bread and cheese and sat swigging from the brandy bottle as they waited for the water. "It will be an uncomfortable night," he told her. "But we'll sleep upon the cart and share the cloak."
"Do you know where we are going?"
"Vaguely, there was a hand-drawn map on the wall in the farmhouse- but it could be half an hour or three days' journey to get back to Gelding Town."
He spent the rest of the evening teaching her how to speak Joining Earth Standard and was delighted to find she was a quick study. Once told something she didn't seem to forget it, though her pronunciation was poor. "I studied classics at university and learnt Old English, Latin and Greek to support it. I specialised in direct translations of the old texts. I knew I would work with my godfather after University, so I took a subject that interested me."
"You can read and write?"
"Yes." She gave him an odd look, as if it was strange not too.
"Humans don't get an education unless they can pay for it here. I'd keep it quiet that you can do it."
"You're not a Human are you?" her eyes scanned him, she looked shocked at her words, as if she couldn't quite believe she was asking them.
"I'm a Leprechaun."
A smile spread across her face, but when it he didn't return it, it faltered. "You're too tall. Can you pull gold out of thin air?" she asked. He smiled, remembering what Jacko had told him about Earth's ideas of Leprechauns.
"No, and I don't shit rainbows either."
"Your hair isn't the right colour. Are you lucky, can you fly?"
"No, to all the above."
Beatrix seemed disappointed. "What can you do then?"
"Our unique talents include Persuasive Voice, Split Projections, Accelerated Healing and Jumping. We have personal magic, which means our body generates its own powers- we don't draw it from our surroundings as Elementals do. My mother was an Elemental though, and I have inherited a bit of her skill, but it's weak magic."
"What's a Split Projection?"
"It's where you make yourself appear in lots of places at once. Each physical copy of you can move and fight independently. These skills take years to master. We have other abilities standard across the races, being able to channel magic to enhance your senses, reflexes and strength, to alter our state, like becoming invisible. Most Leprechauns can't do much though, it takes dedication and intense training to master our powers."
"So why did you light the fire with a flint stone and tinder?"
"Because it's exhausting to use your powers, I'm expecting an attack and my ability to command fire is very poor."
"Can all Leprechauns do that Jumping thing- that's how you got us here, isn't it?"
"Most Leprechauns can't Jump. I am rather good, but I won't be able to Jump again for near on a week. In fact, I won't be able to do much at all until my powers recharge. That little sleep under the trees did me good, but I'm powerless."
"So Jumping us to Gelding Town would be out of the question?"
"I'd need to rest to do it. I messed up when you came through. The strain on my body was huge- but it could be worse. Had I been in good shape I would have been able to Jump us back to the outskirts of the town, but your people worked me over."
"Are you good- at 'magic'?" she winced at how ineloquent she sounded and how clunky her use of the second language was.
That made Clarence laugh, "I'm trained," he told her.
"So there're Necromancers and Druids, Leprechauns and Elementals, what else?"
"You name it, we've probably got it. There are so many subspecies you lose count. The Eight Empires of the Council of the Light represent the ruling species, Leprechauns, Elementals, Druids, Windlords, Witches, Shapeshifters, Dragon's and Humans."
"So Humans are in charge too?"
"Bea, I'm sorry but being Human means you don't get a look in. The only reason the Human High King is on the Council is the number he represents. They say ninety percent of the Transworld Network is Human."
"Probably for the best," Beatrix sounded rather dejected and now was not the time to argue with her. "There are Eight Empires, together forming the Council of the Light?"
Clarence chewed his bread, "um hum," he agreed.
"Thousands of worlds, each with a ruler?"
Another affirmative noise from Clarence followed. He enjoyed watching her work it out. "And those rulers form what? Some kind of court?"
"Yes. Every Empire has a Council."
"And under those rulers are more rulers?"
"The country monarchs."
"And under those monarchs are the Lords?"
"Sometimes, it depends on the world," Clarence told her. "The High King or Queen rules each Empire, except in the Dragon Empire where the ruler is the Pendragon. Recently, the Pendragon was assassinated. The Dragons and their riders have left the Transworld Network to hold a moot. Until they choose the next Pendragon, they won't come back."
"Right, Dragons." She picked at some dried blood under her nails as she tried to settle that in her brain. "How big are they?"
"Large enough for the Dragon Lords to ride them."
"Do they eat people?"
Clarence laughed, "only if they are hungry, they usually spend their time being as unhelpful as possible."
He expected her questions would ask 'what does this do?' She was fine in his environment. He hadn't expected her to ask about his government.
"Did your people have this?" He motioned to the horse and cart.
"A long time ago, yes."
Well, that solved one question. "When we get to Gelding Town, I will say you are from the Fringe."
"What's that?"
"The worlds farthest away from Joining Earth that don't have good portal networks, they are lawless backwards places but we should be able to make a story for you that's difficult to verify."
"What did I do on the fringe?"
"Maybe you worked for a lord as his scribe?"
"So I've left a steady job to..."
"Perhaps he wasn't very nice?"
"So I ran away- I'm assuming these portal things are expensive, where did I get the money?"
"What's your story then?"
"I'm your cousin, from the fringe."
Clarence shook his head. "That doesn't work." He picked some dirt from under his nail as he thought. "You could be Fred's grandfather's friend's grandchild- his grandfather was a sailor who started the Flying Dutchman, that's the tavern I live in. Your grandfather paid for you to come to Joining Earth hoping that you will have a better life in the tavern started by his best friend, and I went to fetch you to take you to Fred."
"Fred?"
"My friend. My landlord, too."
"He'll let me stay?"
"Hopefully," Clarence told her, though rather sheepishly. Fred's displeasure already cognisant.
"And if he says no?"
Clarence shook his head, "I'll sort something out," he told her. "But you need to be quiet, Beatrix, don't make trouble or it'll bring more."
She ran her teeth through her lip; she was growing suspicious of his answers. Perhaps she was deciding about him and deciding he wasn't a trustworthy person, and she'd be right, but he wasn't about to tell her that.
~
They took turns to sleep, always expecting the farmer to come to reclaim his goods, but he never showed up. The more they waited for him, the more convinced Clarence became that something was wrong. When insignificant towns got robbed, they banded together to get their things back. He was ready to fight, he'd taken a horse- things like that were unforgivable. But come the morning, Beatrix woke him with a cup of boiled mint water and some cured beef. "All quiet," she told him. "I thought I heard somebody. It was a heron."
They packed up and drove the horse back onto the road. Already it was boiling hot, the sun had parched the ground but had not yet bleached the grass yellow and a fine mist clung in the shadows by the trees. In the heat, it was evaporating fast. Despite himself, Clarence felt all right. Nervous, anxious and sick to his core at the thought of having somebody so dangerous to him so close, but despite all the risks he was calm. She was beautiful, her long black hair seemed to absorb light, her eyes were so dark they were obsidian mirrors. To Clarence, there were women you lay down with, women you fought against or alongside, and women who were just bland people not worth considering. Beatrix didn't seem to fit in any of those categories. She was just mesmerising. Fred would like her. Given time. She was his type, dark-haired, shapely, nice teeth- though she was picking at them with her nail and looking rather uncomfortable. "What are you doing?"
"I don't have a toothbrush."
"What's that?"
She looked at him like he was crazy, "A toothbrush- a thing you clean your teeth with. What do you use here?"
"Teeth sticks, you chew them and use them to pick at your teeth, I like the tea tree and olive ones, but you can only get walnut, oak, hazelnut and willow around here. You can use a bit of salt with them, and we chew cardamom pods to freshen our breath."
"You clean your teeth with a stick-" she sighed. "Right."
Clarence laughed, "You've asked a normal question."
"Normal?" She echoed as if it were laughable. "I have one other pressing question- Pooping- how do I..." She trailed off, motioning to the surroundings and appeared to try hard not to blush. Clarence burst into floods of laughter.
"Well, we just open up our mouths and-"
"That's a joke- right?"
He wiped his eyes, and she crossed her arms. "Leaves."
"And-" she breathed as she fought her own embarrassment, "What about, you know, that time of the month."
"Blood moss," Clarence shrugged, wondering how he knew that. "You can buy pads in the market."
She didn't seem happy- "they will find me out."
"Then don't ask questions unless you're speaking to me or Fred," Clarence told her as if it were so simple.
"You will tell him?"
"He will know as soon as he sees you."
"I won't be able to speak to him, will I?"
Clarence shook his head, "Not until you learn the language."
The river glinted in the sunlight; the cart rattled over the dirt road, and they shared the driving. Sometimes, they would get down to walk and they rested the horse often, but they travelled for most of the day before the land changed from rolling uninhabited grassland to shrubs. There was a forest in the distance and he pointed it to Beatrix who nodded, "Are we going that way?"
"We need to cross through it to get back to Gelding Town. Whoever drew that map should hang- it wasn't to scale at all."
She ran a hand over her head and crawled onto the back of the cart; it was hot, but she looked pale. "I think the cut has become infected," she told him. "It feels boiling, and it's throbbing in time to my heart."
"I can't heal you, only myself."
"Does that mean somebody can?"
Clarence nodded, cursed the thoughts that whispered in the back of his brain to slow the horse down and let the infection run its course, and continued on his way.
By mid-afternoon the road wound into the trees, Beatrix slept on the back of the cart and Clarence stopped the horse by a spring and made a camp. He washed his hands and face, which were thick with dust and sweat, and he pulled off his boots and cooled his feet in the water. The forest looked ancient; the trees were thick and twisted, and patches of sunlight fell in mottled green. The scent of baked earth and moss wound its way to his nose and the stream burbled as he sat. He hummed a tune he used to play on the fiddle to entertain the crowds of drinkers in the tavern, but moments after he started the second verse he was no longer alone. A man stood on the other side of the spring, hidden amongst the foliage but at ease, his thumbs hooked into his belt as he leaned with his legs crossed. Behind him, even more camouflaged, were several well-armed people.
"You stole that horse," he told Clarence, "The cart too."
"Did I?" Clarence asked. He let his magic reach out to the man, but he gave off no indicator of his race- which meant he was human or expertly trained. "I wouldn't know."
"The village people don't come here. They leave us alone."
"I'm just passing through."
"On a stolen horse with a stolen cart."
Clarence said nothing. The man lounged in the shade.
"You sing well."
"I play the fiddle better."
"Oh? Musician, are you?"
Clarence nodded. "The best," he said. "Some might say I rival Don Lucie."
Laughing, the man moved from the shadows. He crouched on the far side of the stream. He was a handsome man in his late fifties, with an opportunist glint in his eyes. Though his weaponry wasn't of any quality, some maintenance was clear. He had two battle axes, a hand and a half sword and a bow and quiver too.
"The girl on your cart is sick."
"She has an infected wound."
"You do it?"
Clarence shook his head, "I might as well have done, but no. It was my fault she got hurt."
"I need a musician."
Clarence nodded, "Do you have a fiddle?"
"Aye, but my men can't make it sound better than a dying cat." he looked over at the cart. "Play for the next two nights. If you make my men happy you can go on your way."
"If I don't?"
The man smiled at him; it wasn't very pleasant, and his eyes travelled to the girl on the cart.
"Do what you want to me but if you hurt her, I'll kill every one of you," Clarence told him, which made the man's smile grow even wider. At least Beatrix couldn't speak the language yet, at least if they questioned her they would get nowhere.
"My name is James Cain."
Clarence had heard it, an outlaw- he'd once been the Lord of the Giant Isles. He'd quarrelled with the Druids over taxation and stolen back a lot of money for his people. When the Druid army came to get him, he had gone.
"I see you know my name."
"You wouldn't have told me your name if you intended to let me leave."
James smiled at him. "We'll see. What's your name, fiddler?"
"Ren Green."
James nodded, but he didn't look convinced, "Well Ren, follow me to my camp."
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