The Days of Knights

[AlienZookeeper]

Vincent L. Cleaver (July 5th, ~2700 words)

I woke up on a mountain top. It was cold and crystal clear, and the wind blew, and the stars shined down on me, including a spiral galaxy on the horizon where the first moon was setting-

I sat up and pain tore at me so that I almost went on over. I steadied and sat there panting and tasting smoke and blood on the air, that and worse, burnt meat, noxious chemicals and human filth. I was hurting and confused, but somebody else was having a very bad night indeed. My ribs were sore. I felt a little blood on my chest and torn clothing there. But I found that I could stand.

I was in a mountain pass, at the very top where there was an excellent vantage point. But I had no time for the view. Men and horses and *things* lay dying, including a big impossible scaly thing the size of an attack helicopter that was staring at me and bleeding out.

The dragon chuckled. It's rank breath nearly knocked me down. "It falls to you, human- Surely the Gods are laughing at us, now."

It lay it's mighty head down and stared at me some more, until I realized, after a while, that those great green eyes were empty. A little bit of hope and magic died out of the world with him, Essinath Truth-Speaker, King's Friend and my friend. I sat down, my back against his chest, and remembered how I had come to be here.

***

My name is Sergeant Thomas O'Donnell, United States Army, Air Calvary. I fly attack helicopters, Cobras and Apaches. I even flew an A-10 warthog, once, but fixed wing aircraft aren't my thing. I want something maneuverable, that can hover behind a ridge, pop up and let loose a few missiles at a couple of tanks dug in on the opposite hill, and drop down again before they can shoot me back.

I'm an orphan. My mother died in childbirth and my dad disappeared somewhere in central Asia thirty years ago, when I was eight. I spent the next ten years in the system, and I'm here to tell you, the 80's sucked. I also learned that I'm the only person I could depend on, until I joined the Army and discovered duty and order. I'm a big fan of both.

I'm a lover and a fighter, but I'm not a husband or a father. I'm afraid of screwing up, and I won't do that to another kid... It's ruined a lot of very good things for me. One or two women have called me a coward for that, and they're right. Did you ever see the Magnificent Seven? Off course you did. I've got a lot in common with those gunslingers, but the Charles Bronson character said it best- "'I never even tried starting anything like that, and I never will.'"

I was in the 1st Iraqi 'liberation', and a decade later we did it again, a few years after 9/11. No comment; just no comment. I had a few things to say back then, but I learned better, lessons paid for in blood, sweat and tears. I've met a lot of widows and orphans. The Long War goes on and on, and it goes on without me; through no fault of my own, I'm AWOL.

***

I was sleeping when it happened. Really exciting, huh? I went to bed in Iraq, and woke up somewhere else. The air was muggy and smoky and smelled of ozone and too many unwashed bodies. I lifted a bleary head to look around a stone-walled room lit with flickering candle-light, and my first thought was that I'd been abducted off the street by insurgents. As it happens, I wasn't far wrong...

There was a grey-beard in grey robes, with tear tracks down his dusty cheeks, smiling like he'd just won the Powerball, and he turned to a woman in armor right out of Middle Earth. He spoke excitedly, some language that was not English, Iraqi, Russian or French- I speak all of those. It was tonal, but I don't think it was Mandarin or Cantonese. Xena, Warrior Princess, nodded, then looked at me. Her eyes weighed me and found me wanting.

She was raven-haired, like the rest of the people in that room who weren't old, which was most of them. She had startling blue eyes, the same ones I see in the mirror, haunted and light blue, just ten years younger. Then she smiled, and it was my dad's smile. She leaned down and kissed me, a peck on the forehead.

"Welcome, brother, to my kingdom."

She helped me up from a stone slab, and turned away servants who rushed to take over for her. I leaned heavily on her. I felt like throwing up, like the worst hangover or flu I'd ever had. I glanced over at another stone table next to mine, and saw my father, old and white-haired. A woman was weeping by him, and I knew that he was dead. She looked up and met my eyes, and she gasped. With a heavy accent, she said, "You look just like him, when her first came to save us."

The warrior princess got me out of there, for which I was grateful.

***

"I'm going to need you to explain everything," I told the woman who's armored shoulders I was leaning on.

"There is so much... Where shall I begin?" she mused.

"Begin at the beginning-" I told her, but she jumped in, "-and go on to the end."

She smiled sadly. "I've heard that so many times from him, in English and in Tol-yah-kewl," she mused and said something in that tonal language. She glanced at me. "The fish is caught in the net we weave, from the string we spin, from the fibers we strip, from the Ooh-tah tree our grandmothers planted. No thing is complete unto itself, and no thing begins and ends, but goes on and on..."

"Lady, who the hell are you, and where the hell am I?"

"I am your half-sister, Sarah, Princess Sarah and my father's heir, now that our brother is dead to us-" she began.

"Wait, I've got a brother, too!?"

"Had a brother, Prince Solomon, my twin. It runs in our mothers' side of the family."

"Mine, too. I had a little brother, but he died with my mother, in childbirth. It was very rare, for women to die in childbirth, where I come from..."

"Infant mortality rates fell, here, after our father came to this world. It is our blessing and our curse."

"What do you mean?"

"So many changes, brought by 'Good King William', gun powder, guns, germ theory, a population explosion, universal literacy and what he called 'a half-assed Industrial Revolution'. Cannon and a new model army, snipers and railroads. Welcome to the thunderstorm, Thomas O'Donnell."

"What do you need me for?"

"I honestly don't know. The magicks took you from your world to this when we used the same ritual that called Good King William to us. We were in trouble then and he saved us, made our kingdom strong enough to keep outsiders, out. But times changed again, and we have need of another hero-"

"I'm no hero, lady. I'm a soldier. We don't go in for hero-work... Heroes... a hero gets folk killed."

"I'm so glad you aren't cynical," the warrior princess purred. There was real warmth in her eyes, affection. I swallowed and looked away, looked down. I was uncomfortable with the emotions that I was feeling. I was home; I belonged someplace. That's a powerful thing, any orphan can tell you that. Regular folks with family take that for granted most of the time. It was the feeling that had kept me in the Army for twenty years.

Sarah had come over to me and laid a hand on my shoulder. "Our father speculated often on what kind of man you might have become. I don't know what you thought of him-"

"I thought that he'd gone off to some godforsaken corner of the world and died. He left me all alone."

"He didn't. He never stopped trying to find a way home... But he was here, and we needed him. My mother and her people, and later my brother and I, we needed him. He made a life, here. Thomas, forgive him and help us to bury him. Later we can figure out what to do with you."

So we buried a king. We buried my father. And I came to meet the rest of the people in my father's new life and know the rest of the story in all it's gory particulars. It was sanguine; bloody and hopeful.

***

The Kingdom lies in a great river valley between two mountain ranges. It's about the size of the Ohio country, from the great lakes to Tennessee, and from Western Pennsylvania to the Mississippi. To the north lie the Old Bones and the Great Desert. Beyond that, steppes and taiga. It all sounded a lot like central Asia and the 'Stans. To the south and east lies the Shards of Heaven, like the Himalayas, only most of the rest of the Indian subcontinent has piled up into the foothills. To the east through a pass and down the Golden Road lies a vast rich coastal plain with city-states and a culture which sounds to me like China during the warring states. To the west, the big muddy river empties out into a sub-tropical delta to the southwest, with mangrove swamps and a troublesome, bustling city that is part New Orleans, part Saigon and Venice. I'm dying to see it. There's some more stuff to the west, but not much. The map of the known world, such as it is, is like Asia without Europe or Africa. Japan, most of India and 'Australasia', the Philippines, and south east Asia, from Indonesia to Oz and Middle Earth, are missing, too.

These people are actually pretty much justified in thinking that they are the center of their world. One way or another, every thing passes up and down that river, or through the port at it's mouth. The farmers grow all the grains I'm familiar with, including wet and dry rice cultivation, and there are at least two cultures among the common people, besides the aristocratic elite, who are descended from a people who came over the mountains from the north five hundred years ago. Their cousins went east and conquered the coastal plain, then got acculturated and absorbed in the vastness of that people, some of whom went to sea and set up colonies all along the south coast of a continent, including that port city, Mengdoa.

All that, and I haven't even started in on religion and magic. I'm keeping a journal, trying to explain all this, to myself. That and keep track of all the players, make notes about relatives, friends and enemies. I have a stepmother who doesn't trust me, half-sibs, one dead, undead, actually, and the other is my commander-in-chief, and a niece and a nephew, with more on the way. And then it gets weird...

I'm not even going to try to sort out religion, here, yet. I never got it sorted out in 38 years on the third rock from the sun, so I don't expect to do any better with a pantheon as alien to me as that of India or Mesoamerica. For him, the man, there was one service, given by a minor priest and old friend of my father's, that covered the Christian basics- 'I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me shall never die.' And there was another, for the King. That one was a state ceremony and a trial. A few friends of the Kingdom were there, as well as enemies.

For friends, among others we have a city-state at the other end of the pass, the next stop along the Golden Road. I suppose they are a protectorate, but it seems like 'Good King William' offered them help with an open hand, and some of his subjects don't love him for that. The City of the Three Veils does (They provided a magnificent death-gift and presented it, third place in line and first foreign power). It is a place of beauty, creativity and energy, where trade, industry and water power collide at the foot of three great falls, right before you get to that coastal plain. It's also a city under siege.

Dad brought along a scientific revolution, and an industrial one. Some places are already in the early steam age, with railroads no less. And the Kingdom's chief export is guns and gunpowder. The city-states of the East learned how from craftsman hired away by handsome sums, and they predictably fell into an arms race. The Kingdom invested in guns and butter, not just guns, and we (dear diary, when did it become 'we'? are bootstrapping our way into parity with people who spent capital to try to get one up on each other, and then fell like dominoes to the one that did the best job.

That would be the Big Bad, the Evil Empire, the Republic of Daopai, up in the north. Their First Citizen, Tse Moh Ren (that's him, cooling his heels down in seventeenth place), doesn't fancy himself an emperor, but I'm thinking he's studied his Napoleon, since Dad was kind enough to publish a brief history of Earth early in his reign (thanks for the vanity project, Dad!). And also his Lord Palpatine, probably. He's a great magic user, which just doesn't track with what I know from D&D and fantasy novels. It's more like Chinese alchemy, which makes some sense, or neo-pagan ritual. One of the proofs of their superiority is that they have conquered Death, Itself. Oh, and they grabbed my half-brother's corpse off of the battlefield in front of the Three Veils, and made him into a Ring Wraith.

(See, that was me, trying to be funny, and it all came out inappropriate. Sorry!)

Sarah grabbed my arm at that point. We were in the middle of things and somebody had just gotten around to explaining all this. I had a place of honor by the Crown Princess, but really she just wanted me close in case I decided to do something stupid and unilateral-like. Smart, half-sis is.

"Do not go over there. That is exactly what they want. Do not legitimize what he has done, in any way."

"They waltzed my brother's corpse in here like a rotting meat-puppet. This is a farce!"

I heard a sob, and remembered, too late. Sarah's grip on mine went death-like, and we both looked over to where our sister-in-law, Prince Solomon's eight-month's pregnant wife, was sobbing, and standing with help to flee. I gritted my teeth.

"Some 'Summoned Hero' I am, making pregnant widows cry..."

"Then go apologize. I can't leave, and Mother-" She caught her eye and said something in Tol-Yah-Kewl. Step-Momma sat herself back down with dignity and a smoldering fury, at both of us, I suspect. "-shouldn't. Please don't think of this as my proof of legitimacy, brother. This is the last act of a great king..."

Princess Half-Sis can do snark gracefully and well. And she never does just one thing. Her motto is 'All paths to victory!"

TBC

Vince, who writes because he's a browncoat, and full of stories (Free the words!)

A random act of kindness or ARK, A Random Kindness -Evan Almighty (was pretty kewl)

When you pray for courage, does God give you courage, or the opportunity to be courageous?

I don't know about a lot of things, but God as George Burns and Morgan Freeman? Excellent!

You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might get what you need...

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes, well you might find
You get what you need

Daily Goals-

July 3rd-I began, and wrote ~300 words
July 4th-(Happy Birthday, USA!) my running total is X and a poem...
July 5th- ~2700 words

[AlienZookeeper]

I went looking for a weeping woman, but as I navigated the grounds away from the public ceremony, I quickly got lost. I think that the point is that, if you're here, you're supposed to know your way around. I wandered and heard a deep, gravelly voice singing in Tolyahkewl. It led me down towards the river and a gazebo, no, a shelter of woven shrubs and awnings, rather. This arrangement provided shade and let the breezes flow.

I turned the corner and saw the singer, a dragon and my first encounter with one. I'd seen them, flying over. The Kingdom accords them 'human rights' both by custom and royal decree, but my hand went to my sword rather foolishly. It was all I had, though I wanted an RPG launcher, but at least I know how to use one. I had collected US Army Calvary swords, among other kinds, and practiced kendo and the full-contact western style between deployments.

The dragon was big and 'forty shades or green' close up, his scales iridescent. It was splemdid and resplendent in understated martial valor. The talons were wickedly sharp, and it had teeth like a sharks, the better to eat you with. But the great green eyes were very human, somehow, humane. Old, wise and full of empathy for the widow, the bride of the little boy he had known. But my reaction was typical; I wanted to recruit him into Air Cav, right then and there. Only that and rational thought kept me from gibbering in monkey fear at the five ton winged reptile or charging to fight him to my death.

The dragon was singing to my sister-in-law. Peenaya is a typical beauty of these folks, raven-black haired, golden-eyed, bronze skinned and tall, even for an American like me. She wore fine court clothes, blackened with soot. That annoyed me, because the expense was coming out of the sweat of commoners, mostly still muscle-powered labor, at that.

Peenaya was very pregnant, like Juno the 'cautionary whale'. I could readily believe that she was carrying twins, but I had heard that she wasn't. Magically augmented diagnostics, that. Her niece and nephew, Sarah's twins, were with her. David was hanging on every word of the song, while Dorothy was doting on her aunt.

I will have to learn, but my Tolyahkewl is the despair of my several tutors, including Sarah. I can't get the tones right and sound like a drunken bum, slurring and mispronouncing. My ear for it is a little better, and the song was a love song, apparently an old staple. It reminded me of Scarborough Fair, and like that song, it was deep and thought-provoking, sad and sweet. It spoke of the ridiculous trials that two lovers put to each other to prove their love, and the ending was vague, incomplete, purposefully so. Like the lady and the tiger. The title, as near as I can translate, is Two Lovers, The River and The Land. So it's an allegory, too.

TBC

The dragon chuckled. It's rank breath nearly knocked me down. "It falls to you, human- Surely the Gods are laughing at us, now."

Are you going, to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Remember me, to one who is there.
She was once, a true love of mine.

[AlienZookeeper]

When the dragon finished his song, I wandered up to them. They were not alone, servants and friends were about, but it was a good a time to start to get to know them all as any. I looked up at his great green scaliness and said, "That was a beautiful song. I've not heard anything quite as good since I came over here, but the language is a barrier."

Then I wondered if the dragon knew English and felt like a fool. But he did.

"I have not had the pleasure, Thomas O'Donnell. I am Essinath Truth-Speaker, King's Friend; that is to say, I knew your father, William, since before he was our king, and didn't quarrel with him, too much, after..."

The little girl giggled shyly, and waved up at the dragon. He dropped his great head down next to her and she whispered. Somehow they achieved some measure of privacy, despite his head being the size of a horses' chest. The dragon rumbled, and I realized he was laughing.

"Son of my friend, this niece of yours thinks you look fiercer that the northern snow cats. Fiercer, perhaps, than I?"

I looked out over the river, a quarter mile wide at this point. "One definition of my job is to help other soldiers die for *their* country. I never had any problem with helping the 'muj' martyr himself for his cause. I think people should get what they've got coming to them as efficiently as possible."

"And did my husband have to die for his country, too?" Peenaya said. She had pulled it together, but was tense. I didn't know what she wanted to hear, and I didn't know what the right thing to say was, so I said what I thought. It gets me into trouble about as often as not.

"No, but he did, anyway. I'd have liked to meet him... what that-" I glanced at my niece and nephew and edited myself, "What that man did to your husband, my brother, doesn't go unpunished."

"What will you do?" the dragon asked. The widow nodded.

"Something. I expect you'll find out at about the same time as I do."

Peenaya smiled. The sun and the moon were in that smile; summer sunshine, and winter moonlight on the windswept snow. This noblewoman had what my grandpa would have called grit. "Frank words. Too many people think I am too fragile for the truth, for the harsh realities. Thank you, Thomas O'Donnell."

Someone shouted then, something in Tolyahkewl about the river, and I spun around to face it. Two dozen figures came up out of the water, and up the river bank as palace guards rushed to meet them. Four of the amphibious attackers paired off and set up something complicated, an arrangement of metal tubes and legs, and the first pair fired at Essinath as he grabbed some sky and pulled. He spun towards them and then fell away, his right wing tangled in barbed netting. Some idiot was screaming and waving his sword, and I realized it was me. I went down towards the riverbank, right behind the guards, and we fought, outnumbered four to one.

I am what I am, and there is nothing I love more that flying, fighting and... the other thing. A sword fight is second-best, but I'm not too bad, and, in this world, I imagine the learning curve is steep. The frogmen, if you will were encumbered, but not bad either. They were fighting uphill in that gear, advantage us, and we used the layout to provide choke points. I began to see the design of the palace grounds in a different light.

Now, I'm Air Cav, and our biggest advantage, to my mind, was out of play because of those two teams with the net-cannon. It looked like they'd reloaded the first one and were prepared to provide anti-dragon coverage til doomsday, or their special forces achieved their objective, so I fought my way through the knot of frogmen and ran that way. From the cries of the palace guardsmen, they thought I was nuts. Maybe.

One of their laggards saw me coming and decided to get in the way. As I ran up to him, he feinted to my left, and I parried. He was quick and was already trying to sneak his sword point in under my guard, but I blocked with our swords screeching together, guard to guard, and I threw all my weight into a punch to his face. I was cocky, but I got lucky and he didn't see it coming. Stunned momentarily, the edge of my sword slid under his throat in passing, and he went down clutching at it and trying to hold his life's-blood in.

The gunner and his spotter, of the nearest team, realized then that I was going to get to them. The spotter drew his blade to come to meet me, but the gunner panicked and fired the net, at me. I threw myself out of the way, but it caught my lower legs in passing, entangling me and cutting the right boot clean away. The pain was- well, like somebody had tried to debone your foot, without first removing it. I almost missed Essinath coming in on the other team, skimming low on the river, and dipping a wing into the water to jink left as they fired. He faltered, the net passing just barely over his partially shredded right, and rolled over and raked the second net cannon team with all four claws. Body parts went rolling and blood sprayed like a fine red mist...

I never said I was good human being. It was glorious, and I will cherish the memory, always.

The spotter was on me then, and I got busy, parrying without being able to move very much. A few desperate blows and all I had to show for it was a lot of blood, very little of it belonging to the spotter. Then he thought he had an opening and lunged, trying to spit me. I smashed his sword down. It sliced into my outer thigh, and bit deep in the earth under me. While he tried to get it back, instead of backing off, I got my sword back just far enough to return the favor, running him through the shoulder and twisting the blade. He dragged the sword out of my hand, falling back and clutching at his shoulder. Panting and wondering how the hell you do this, all damn day, I fumbled out the wicked little dagger that came with the damn sword, and crawled after him. This was graceless and not in any way heroic. I grabbed his hands as he tried to fend me off and stuck the point up under his ribs.

I looked around then. Essinath pounced on the remaining net-man like a cat landing on a mouse, with similar results. I certainly did not begrudge him the meat... Up-hill, the defenders had mostly gone down under a dozen or so remaining frogmen, but the supposed targets were fleeing in good order, and reinforcements were arriving. I tried to stand and hobble over that way, but I wasn't going anywhere. I looked at the foot and winced. If I was lucky, I'd keep it, and maybe get some use out of it again. Damn. I looked over at the dragon again. He was looking at me.

"You did pretty good, son of my friend. Do all Air Calvary soldiers fight like you?"

I lay back and laughed my ass off. When I pulled it together again, I sat up and said, "I'm crazier than most, but, yeah. They do. But I think, maybe I get that from my ancestors-" I quoted a bit of verse I've always liked.

"... the men that God made mad.
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad."


***



I lived. That's more than I can say for the guardsman, all but one of whom died, and the frogmen tried to go down fighting. I can imagine what their orders were. They were not pinned on our friends from the Republic of Daopai, which was all kinds of disappointing. Statecraft and diplomacy have no interest for me. If somebody comes over the border and kills my people, they better start running, and keep running. Or not bother, because I will find them. But Sarah has said 'no', and so we wait.

Magic is a wonderful thing, if you're rich and privileged. I got much better and I got a lot of company late at night, which I mostly turned away. I'm not a bloody saint! I survived and I enjoyed that survival with a willing partner, enough said. Said partner was also teaching me Toyahkewl, and my studies significantly improved.

I was at lose ends, and spent some of that time talking with Essinath and getting to know my new family. I like Sarah's kids; their father was with Prince Solomon, and died with him, but, fortunately the First Citizen didn't insist on making him into zombie. Before the month was out Peenaya gave birth to my brother's first and only child, a little girl. She named her Zya, which means 'Hope'.

I explored the palace some more and hit the jackpot, a royal museum called the House of Treasures. It was full of books, ninety-nine percent of which I couldn't read, of course, but I was learning that, too. Also maps, antiques and priceless object d'art. I was like a kid in a candy store, with unlimited credit.

There were some pretty strange things. Swords and armor, check; but dragon scales, and the heart of a usurper from three hundred years ago, pickled and on display as a warning, like they used to display heads? Grisly. I took notes as all the various treaties and royal concessions were explained. Here was a city charter for a new community importing several useful skills from the far east, in exchange for the right to practice their own religion; local autonomy, royal patronage. And then there were the eggs...

The inside of an egg is round but surprisingly bright, as the fire-light through the translucent shell was all I needed. The Rok's Egg (they called it something else in Tolyahkewl, but I knows a Rok's egg when I sees one!) was a special gift from the far north, where the giant birds nested on the plains. This one had either been painstakingly reassembled after use, or the original occupant had died for the cause... I peered closer and found the fine cracks. The egg-thieves had cut their way in, after doing away with momma and poppa, and sacrificed junior, and possibly his siblings, to their greed. Or simple hunger. That seemed to me like an awful lot of protein, for an awful lot of work. Oh well. Let Sierra Club police it. I like meat, and provided that it's raised and slaughtered with a minimum of fuss, don't much care how it makes it's way to my plate.

The artisans had taken austere perfection and built on it, staining scenes into the wall of the egg, so that it was rather like a wrap-around stain glass window. I was drawn into a panorama of the northern plains, layered with shell cunningly laminated in place, both to form the whole into on solid piece, and to give the illusion of depth. Total winter in the far north was three months long, on the tundra at the edge of the northern ocean. I guess you can really get going on materials worthy of great art.

I'm not like that. I know what I'm meant to do with my talents, and I'm at peace with that, with doing what is necessary, and doing it well, without doing evil. God-given, or from other source, the violence and fighting is never a problem. The killing sometimes is.

One of the royal documents was a treaty of peace and perpetual alliance between one clan of dragons and Queen Zya the second. Signing for the dragons was Essinath Truth-Speaker. The parchment was four hundred years old. I asked the custodian if he was sure, and he cackled. In Tolyahkewl he said, "This is is the very thing, master."

"What is? What do you mean?"

"Essinath, of course. 'This teaching I give to you, for as surely as the sun rises and sets, and the harvest follows planting, Humans and Dragons must come to live in peace, or one kind will exterminate the other. This is the truth as I see it, and I will say it again; Humans and Dragons must live peaceably, or surely die violently.'"

TBC

[AlienZookeeper]

)Over 700 more words, nearly 6K- I crashed, wrote a little yesterday morning 8-(

There's a long sequence in the middle of Bridge on the River Kwai where William Holden's character is recovering in a British hospital. It's subtropical, peaceful, a paradise. But you know, somewhere, people are dying in the jungle. Somewhere the movie is still rolling on inexorably to a downer, where everybody dies, honor is wiped clean with blood, and you can shed a manly tear in the darkness of the theater...

I didn't feel like that at all. In the mornings I studied, then played with my niece and nephews, and studied some more while they took a nap. Then, with a little remedial writing, I joined them for their afternoon class of Readin', Writin', 'Rithmatics and Rulering. Sometimes we copied out a passage from the histories, or a poem in Tolyahkewl, and sometimes we had a guest lecturer. The warrior princess, now Queen Sarah, stopped in and gave the lecture one day.

"What makes me Queen?"

"The nobles?" David answered, tentatively.

"You've got the most troops," I said. Dorothy giggled and Sarah shook her head.

"Perhaps I phrased the question wrong... What say you, Dorothy? You are the eldest and you will be Queen, not your brother-"

"Coz he would be King, otherwise-"

"You are not setting a good example, Brother." Sarah said sternly, but with a twinkle in her royal eye. "Dorothy?"

"Grandpa said that we, our clan, have a contract with the land and people of the Kingdom. 'Ours to command, so long as we lead and protect.'"

"Very good. Without the backing of the Houses, or the Army, that would be meaningless, yes, but the moral justification, the 'mandate of heaven', if you will, is service. Ask any shopkeeper in the land, 'Do you own this business?' and if they are honest, they will reply 'You don't own a business, it owns you.' It is the same with the Kingdom. You will serve the land and the people, not the other way around."

Good words, and sometimes pretty words are all you have. If the youngsters took them to heart, and were shrewd and able, then all would probably work out. I'm in favor of Demo-crazy, myself, where the people get exactly what they deserve. We discussed a few more problems in Applied Monarchy, with essay questions assigned, and then she turned them loose early. She asked me to stay behind, and they ran off to go horse-back riding.

"Uh-oh, teacher's gotta talk with the problem child..."

"You are my problem, and no one else's," she said seriously. I shut up and sobered. "How's your Tolyahkewl?" she asked me in that language.

"I'm improving," I answered, also in that language.

"I've had good reports," she said, deadpan. "Also, that you're fully recovered."

I blinked and kept my mouth shut, merely nodded.

"Excellent. Then I've got a job for you..."

"Do I still have to write the essay?"

***

She took me to see the commander of the Queen's Own Regiment, only in Tolyahkewl, King or Queen, it was the same, Special Force for the Monarch, Danyar Yost dib Zeigah, or Ding-Yob-Zeb in the new alphabet. The DYZ was going to be my new home. That suited me fine. I was gonna be an officer. That didn't. I raised hell and at last Sarah, the Zeigah, mind, turned to me and hissed, "Shut up and soldier!"

So, in short order, I got knighted, nobled up, and commissioned, in that order, I think. It was all a blur and, yeah, I was still upset. I like officers, they're good people, mostly. But I'm not meant to be one, and I never wanted to be one. They have to worry about the external things, and I'm happiest dealing with the internal, the unit and my soldiers. A concise, manageable brick of responsibility. I've been Sergeant Thomas O'Donnell for over ten years, and now I'm Lord High-muckity-muck of Tweedledee, Knight of the Mirror and an officer and a gentleman in Her Majesties' Army. Damn.

Only it was Baron Tlatl'ding, Knight of the Smoky Glass, with a newly minted and paid-for-commission, the ink barely dry. The Third Company was getting a fifth platoon, cadre cherry-picked for experimental warfare. For my sins I get to figure out how to save the Kingdom from whatever the First Citizen and his evil schemers have come up with for the Army of the Republic. Joy, frabjous joy.

TBC

Problem- The story I think I'm writing, I'm in no way qualified to write, not that that will stop me, coz it's got me hooked... Sarge and his new company, making nice with the regimental commander while at the same time getting them ready for ??? Balloons and gliders and heavier than air vehicles. I think the Kingdom can swing a diesel engine, but is that too heavy for a canvass and bamboo biplane?

Free Writing Prompt - Without using color names, describe a fish.
Nothing, nothing at all. Oh, the halibut!-

Fishing with a dragon is a bit over-kill, like shooting gnats with grenade launcher. I think most of the fish Essinath caught died of fright... He made a game of it, batting fish after fish out of the river, along with twenty gallons of water at a time. It's the wettest I've ever been, fishing.

[AlienZookeeper]

Queen Sarah took me to see the commander of the Queen's Own Regiment, only in Tolyahkewl, King or Queen, it was the same, Special Force for the Monarch, Danyar Yost dib Zeigah, DYZ or Ding-Yob-Zeb in the new alphabet. The DYZ was going to be my new home. That suited me fine. I was gonna be an officer. That didn't. At last Sarah, the Zeigah, mind, turned to me and hissed, "Shut up and soldier!"

So, I got knighted, nobled up, and commissioned, in that order, I think. It was all a blur and, yeah, I was still upset. I like officers, they're good people, mostly. But I'm not meant to be one, and I never wanted to be one. They have to worry about the external things, and I'm happiest dealing with the internal, the unit and my soldiers. A concise, manageable brick of responsibility. I've been Sergeant Thomas O'Donnell for over ten years, and now I'm Lord High-muckity-muck of Tweedledee, Knight of the Mirror and an officer and a gentleman in Her Majesties' Army. Damn.

Only it was Baron Tlatl'ding, Knight of the Smoky Glass, with a newly minted and paid-for-commission, the ink barely dry. The third company was getting a fifth platoon, cadre cherry-picked for experimental warfare. For my sins I get to figure out how to save the Kingdom from whatever the First Citizen and his evil schemers have come up with for the Army of the Republic. Joy, frabjous joy.

The regiment, the Yost, is the basic unit of the Royal Army. The old way of doing things was to commission an officer, who bought his commission, a bribe which was later made an official part of the process, sort of proof that they had the where-with-all to raise a regiment, or force, yost, of men. The size varies, but the Kingdom has the equivalents of squads, platoons, companies and regiments, fifty guys to a platoon, three or four platoons to a company, three or four companies to regiment, anywhere from four to eight hundred guys. Fifth platoon of third company is the thirteen platoon, and put the DYZ at six hundred and fifty troops, at least on paper.

The New Army, of which the DYZ was decidedly not a part, is made up of a levy raised by village and province, lead by officers from Good King William's Armed Forces Academy. They've done okay, but nobody in the old army believes in the new-fangled way of doing things, and my impression is that these are second class troops, used as cannon fodder. I don't much care for that, and after I met my new platoon, I didn't much care for the 'ancient regime'. But I didn't consciouslessly set out to undermine it, things just went from bad to worse.

The Yosteg, Dareed Lengbin, Baron Daiweng, KSG, introduced me to the platoon, who were busy moving in to our new barracks on the edge of things. The men were almost all nobles, second sons from good families, first sons from land-rich, cash-poor families, and the best of the commoners. The second sons had servants, some of them commoner soldiers, batmen who did for them in addition to their other duties, and the poor nobles had debts and green eyes. There were a few women, as well, and not servants or bed-mates, but soldiers.

"What's with her, Yosteg, sir?" I said, indicating a young female soldier who'd come to attention by her cot in the midst of the bedlam.

Lengbin looked at me blankly, and then blinked. "Oh, you don't understand. It's our way... if a woman wants to be in the Army, she can, but she's not, er, she's no longer-" He coughed. "First, she must replace a man, so she has to fight a soldier and win. It's a face-saving way for a merchant's son to duck his obligation, sometimes, and we have what your father, the old king, called conscientious dissenters. Not cowards, but pacifists," he added quickly, as if he needed convincing.

"Second, she's treated exactly as if she was the man she replaces, which for some of them, is exactly what they wanted. Honorable service, the king's land after ten years, marriage, etc. And she's out if she, uh, gets pregnant... But that's not likely." The slodier blushed.

For me, the penny dropped. There are three ways for a woman to become independent, here- Marry well, survive your husband and become a widow. Succeed as a prostitute and become a madam. Or, if you have talent, become a witch or accredited magic-user. This was a fourth.

We had been speaking in English, for my benefit, but I switched to Tolyahkewl and asked the woman, "How do you like the Army?"

"Sir?" She blinked and glanced nervously at the Yosteg.

"I work for a living-" I groused, and stuffed that down in a bag with 'Sergeant, US Air Cav'. "Is this what you were born for, soldier?"

She smiled. "Yes, sir."

I smiled, nodded, and moved on, looking at the rest of them and muttering to myself in English. "That's two of us, sister. Let's see about the rest..."

***

It didn't go well. I used to pride myself in being able to reach any soldier, even truly messed up punks, homesick in boot, with attitudes, lost and asking themselves what they'd gotten themselves into. Not that I'm special; I'm a sergeant and I stand on the shoulders of giants. Not these guys, at least not the first time around. It started with the servants, and went from there. By the end of the first week, they'd asked to transfer, pretty much en mass, and I let them. Good riddance.

I was cooling my heels, waiting to meet with the Yosteg, when the solution presented itself. A punishment detail of New Army soldiers was being heckled by some of my rejects outside, and I got to see and hear it all. Fascinated, well, animated by the idea, I stood in the open doorway and didn't hear the Yosteg until he was speaking sharply by my elbow. I turned to him and said, "I'll take them."

Lengbin blinked and nodded at the regulars picking up trash and being abused. "Those men are New Army. The very dregs of the dregs. The levy is mostly unemployed losers swept up by the local magistrates and headmen to satisfy the Royal obligation, to meet a quota." He looked uncomfortable. "We don't expect very much of them..."

He'd never seen The Dirty Dozen or Stripes, and would have laughed if he understood. Life isn't a movie; it can be far more weird and perverse, because it isn't obligated to make any sense... of course a bad movie doesn't, either.

What I understood is that whatever the new situation called for, it was going to need to work for the whole army, most of which was the New Army. Like Stalin is supposed to have said, the bastard, 'Quantity has a quality all it's own.'

"If you expect them to fail, then they probably will. If you demand more of them than they know they can give... then they just might surprise you, and themselves. Sir, can you please get me some of the shiftiest, laziest, angriest soldiers we've got?"

"As you wish, baron. I hope you know what you're doing..."

"No sir. I'm making this up as I go along." I walked out of there whistling.

***

I got them two or three at a time. Enrai, 'Henry', was the first, a con-man and grifter who used his brains, charm and good looks to make a living- until he had a one-night stand with the magistrates' little girl gone slumming. I tried real hard not to tag him with 'Face'. With him was a thundercloud of angst and violence, so much of a stereotype that almost immediately I started calling him 'Grunt'. He turned to the female soldier, all that was left of my platoon, and said, "Who's meat is she?"

I met her eyes briefly and winked. Then I took Enrai by the arm and led him away. "Corporal Hazard is going to explain a few things to Grunt; why don't you and I have a talk?" Over my shoulder I added. "Corporal, don't break him."

Varjing Hasrig is about twenty, with three years in the Army. She got into the DYZ through luck, brain-sweat and gallons of blood, most of it not her own. Grunt was right off the farm, probably used to being the local bully. I judged it to be a 'fair' fight; her wits, his stupidity and no deadly force. I snuck a glance and watched him rush her, her terms, her ground. He was ready for her to sidestep, and wasn't ready for her to run forward and jump, a hand to his shoulder as she rolled over his back and elbowed him in the kidneys. Grunt staggered into the wall and to one knee, looking back with disbelief written all over his face. He got up, his face wrinkled up in concentration and came at her again, slowly and feinting. Varjing was smiling and moving back, staying out of his reach.

"Ah, corporal? Less with the dancing, more with the finishing him off. You've got nothing to prove to me, to him, or to yourself." Startled, the corporal looked up and neglected her defenses. Grunt rang her bell pretty good. Then she staggered back and Grunt pressed in on her. Varjing seemed to cling to a pile of vegetables in sacks. Then she boosted one, forty or fifty pounds, into Grunt's face and swept her feet around in a kind of break-dancing move, knocking his feet out from under him. She attacked the prone soldier, low blows indeed, a nasty strike to the knee-cap and a punch each to the groin and solar plexus. Grunt's shriek was cut off as he struggled for breath.

"I said not to break him."

"And he's not broken, sir. He'll remember the pain..."

I shook my head and kept walking away with Enrai. Grunt needed a chance to mull over his destruction and I didn't want to make it any harder for him to get his brain working. If he could get around his machismo, then he'd realize that a woman had taken him down by being better, and maybe there was some things he could learn from her. Maybe. It was a start.

"Fa- I mean, Enrai, have you ever made Stone Soup?"

"Uh, no sir?"

"I work for a living- Uh, well. Stone soup. It's all about trust and sharing, stuff we learn in Kinder- Do you guys have Kindergarten? I guess not. Anyway, these three soldiers are on the road, with nothing to eat, and they come to a village. Now the village is afraid of them, coz this is during a war, things are iffy, but three guys are not an army. They are worrisome and interesting, especially when they set up a cook pot with water over fire. The villagers can't believe it; what are these fools gonna cook, their boots, or cobblestones?"

Face seemed to enjoy the story, especially the scam where the soldiers talk the villagers into parting with some of the food they've been hoarding. He suggested a few things that the soldiers could have asked for, for the pot. Later on, he took that story and made it his own. When we got to the part where all people in the village have warm, full bellies, he said, "Sir, this isn't really about soup, is it?"

"How can you say that, Face? It's called 'Stone Soup'." I smiled at him. "Alright, lemme bottom-line it for you. Do what you can, where you are, with what you've got. And then, hopefully, you'll do okay, but at least you will have done your best, and maybe helped some people."

"Uh, is this still the Army?"

"Yes, soldier, it is. I'm going to run you into the ground, and you're going to learn to depend on the man, or the woman next to you. We're going to kill the enemy, if that's what the Queen tells us to do, and we're going to figure out how to destroy them as a threat to the Kingdom. Now, does that sound like the Army to you?"

"Oh, and Face? If I ever catch you stealing from the unit, I'll end you. Stealing for the unit- Okay. Stealing from the unit- not okay. Do we have an understanding?"

"Yes sir."

I groaned and turned back to my other soldiers. "Damn it all, Sis, I work for a living..."

***

Dragons have all kinds of ways of living. Not as varied as people, but some nest in volcanic regions, and use steam vents to incubate their eggs, every few decades. Others build a pile of rotting plants and keep an eye on it; egg-stealers are a good source of protein, too. They live a long time, and breed very slowly. Essinath's people have a great range, fishers by the river and the ocean, plains hunters, the occasional deer taken unaware in a forest meadow, that sort of thing. Their metabolism must be magic, because they don't starve on a few hundred pounds of meat every week or so, and somehow they get five tons of winged reptile into the air and manuever like an A-10 warthog, or an Apache attack helicopter.

We were detouring into Dragon Country, a Royal Preserve, to see Essinath's sister, a clutch-mate, who was incubating her half-dozen eggs in a swamp between the main river and a substantial stream. The place had been a small city during the Usurpation, ten generations ago, a nest of willing collaborators. Queen Zya the third had crushed the Usurper, pickled his heart and turned out the inhabitants before giving the land to the dragons, so that "Those with those with unstinting loyalty may breed up a new generation, and long after this day remember to serve the Kingdom..."

The Kings and Queens, the 'Zeigah', are pretty hard-core, around here. But so are the dragons.

The approaches are watched by humans in towers and at least two dragons in the air at all times. This excludes the ones on nursery duty, or getting food. The Freindlies who live in close contact with dragons are some of the strangest and freest spirits in the Kingdom. Many are bards and artists, come to learn and to do art, in oils, tapestries, spidersilks, wood and clay.

Their little village lies in the ruins of the town. Generations of Friendlies have salvaged and quarried the old buildings of the town for materials to repair the old inn, the smithy, and a few other buildings, and grow a little food in the plots outlined by the old city blocks. Being Friendlies, they painted the outside of the Inn with a mural, in pastels that would have been more at home in Miami, with expressionist and realist themes at war like an Artist's brawl on the left bank of the Seine. The effect was creepy, startling, thought-provoking; the latter is a hallmark of good art, of course.

(I'm not getting anywhere, adrift. But I will plug away, never the less

Villagers are the backbone of the Kingdom, and sometimes they're straight out of Seven Samurai or The Magnificent Seven, and other times they are more complicated. The 'silk' for the balloons is spidersilk, from tree spiders in the forests on the southern slopes of the Old Bones. Little guys, like Ewoks or Hobbits, only with beady black eyes and too many legs. The hunter-gatherers they share their woods with are the only ones they trust, if that's what it is. I suspect that they are merely each others' closest enemies. The fierce Mestlindi scar their faces with extra eyes burned into the flesh of their foreheads, painted and stained to match, and the the Twendi tree spiders likewise paint human faces on their abdomens. Gestures of admiration, fear and respect, 'eating the other' is the shrink's term for it.

[AlienZookeeper]

Roma Eterna? The Eternal City, on seven hills? Well, Capitol is an old city. The current management has been running things for about 500 years, but the civil bureaucracy of the place was coopted by the invaders, and that runs nearly back to the first cities in this river valley. Only some places in the East, where the ur-civilization on the coastal plain first appeared, are older, but not by much. I've been learning about my adopted hometown, all of it truly fascinating. Capitol lies at the place where three rivers come together and is a city of bridges. The Island, with the palace and the castle-fort and government buildings, sits in the middle of things. All around it, on banks facing it, lie the old villages that grew together into a city, fell apart and wasted away, and then grew together again. At one point it was three different capitols, of three different kingdoms. Maybe one day it will be so, again.

The Golden Road runs down the river valley staying mostly to the north side of the main river, and a caravan route leads from the city up into the foothills of the Old Bones and through the Middle Pass into the Great Desert beyond. Two routes lead south and southeast into the Shards of Heaven, the great mountain range that reaches up into the sky and haunts the morning. The sun sets the western slopes aglow in the evening like a golden rock.

(If this seems like an extended love-letter to my new home- it is that, and more. A man was never readier than I was for a new start, and never less aware of that readiness. If I throw myself into this new life with a will, it is not without a sense of belated self-discovery, of the man that I was and the man that I'm becoming.)

In three days I'd acquired over three dozen malcontents. As promised, I worked them hard and ran them everywhere, giving a tour of the city. As I said, I like the place, on so many levels. Good defenses and natural choke-holds, a central marshaling area; it lacks for very little in history, culture, industry, commerce or war.

I'm a bit of a booster, y'see. Yes, sir, I am.

"A happy little song, boys and girls!"

Tramping along in a jog, nearly forty soldiers cried out-

"We are the Queens Own, oh yes we are!
Fifth platoon of the Third, the best by far!
We're goin' out for a little run, up yonder hill,
Later on we'll be back down, with the butcher's bill!"

It was in English of course. I didn't insist that they learn it, and they mangled it pretty good when they did. But the Bastard Tongue has seen worse use and abuse, I expect. The platoon took to it as sort of a secret language, like carny-speak, ixnay noay ethay nglisheay, that sort of thing.

I saw a familiar face and barked, "Sergeant Hazard! Take 'em around to the New Quarter and return to barracks! Be sure not to miss the sights- the tannery, the lumber yard or the rifle-works!"

"Yes sir, Lieutenant O'Donnell, sir!"

I fell out as they jogged on and launched into what I call Face's Revenge. I will end him for it, one fine day.

"We're O'Donnell's Outcasts, yes we are!
Fifth and last of the Third, but the best by far!
If you've got a dirty job, we'll get it done,
And along the way, we'll have a little fun!"

The woman was dressed like the servant of a proper, prosperous house, which in a way she was. Her clan had been in silent service to my sister's for a very long time, providing confidential support and intelligence. They are the last line of defense and provide occasional wet-work. If the nobles and soldiers are high and low samurai to the Kingdom, she and hers are ninja.

"Well met, Thomas. Are you well? Does the new duty suit you?" The corners of her mouth turned up in a smile and I silently added 'Do you miss me?' to the list of questions.

"Yes, all around, Dosa," which rhymes with Rosa, "And how are you? What are your new duties?" I asked, taking her hands. She squeezed them back and broke cover, pressing up against me on the tips of her toes and kissing me. Her light brown eyes, almost golden, twinkled, and I had strange thoughts, for me, of children, some with blue eyes and some with golden eyes, her hair and beauty, the physical comeliness and and the supple toughness of mind. She let go and turned to pick up her half-full basket, then took my arm in hers and led me off shopping.

"I am fine. On standby for something, taking what you called R&R, 'recovery and recreation', I call it. I'm cooking one of my aunt Mella's special dishes for the girls, tonight, but you're welcome to join us..."

"Tempting, very tempting, Dosa. That turtle soup was strange and good; it sort of sneaks up on you with that one spice." I suspected that the spice in question was a natural aphrodisiac, which was just stacking the deck, in my opinion. Dosa did not blush, but smiled slyly.

"That won't be in tonight's dish, unless I accidentally drop a dash into your plate..."

I nodded absently, thinking that that kiss tasted like more, then shook myself. "I shouldn't. Busy, busy, what with all the new guys to break in-"

"You sound like you're training wild animals," Dosa said, laughing.

"Some of them are," I said, and told her about dumping 'Animal' into the river and giving him a bath, or the guy that was setting snares for the rats. Before the Army, he'd been working for his father, the rat-catcher. They kept the family fed on that and collected the bounty for the tails. I left him too it; if he caught them all, no more vermin, right? But the American in me went 'ew'.

"Just another day in the Kingdom," I finished up.

"Don't you miss your old life?"

I took her free hand and kissed her fingers. "Is that you asking, or my sister?"

Dosa nodded. "Would you accept that both of us want to know? And that my duty, to my clan and to the Kingdom, is something that is a important to me as... you?"

"I'm sorry. I just never let myself get caught up in certain, uh, complications, before. Then I got spell-jacked, for god-knows-what, and-" I laughed. "Somebody sent a ninja hottie to seduce me, and it worked."

"I'm glad. And, Thomas, those complications you mentioned? Those are good for the soul, my love."

(Dosa is Deirdre and Rosa, run together. Not nearly as pretty as either name, but serviceable. I think, in the unlikely event, I'd like to name my daughter Sarah or Deirdre. Hannah is another good one)

[AlienZookeeper]

(11,800 words)

We walked up to the Plaza of Flowers on the South Bank, a place a little bit like the left bank of the Seine or Greenwich Village. There is a school of magic, but it's nothing like Hogwarts or the Unseen University; it's tied pretty strongly to the Temples, the pantheon I haven't gotten around to figuring out. They teach medicine and magic, but for Law and the Arts, you have to apprentice yourself to the Crown Court, hire a lecturer or pull yourself up by your bootstraps. The students who've come here to learn law, or art, or fancy swordplay, and sometimes all three at once if they're over-achievers, have created something a bit like the secular universities of Europe, especially the one in Bologna. They've organized against the priests and mages to a certain extent and hired lecturers, set wages, guaranteed standards and certification.

That just means that town vs. gown is a three-cornered brawl sometimes, and some of the students can fight. Even more dangerous, some of them think that they can fight, and these fools have rich and/or noble families behind them. So it's part of learning the lay of the ground and potential challenges, or opportunities. Plus, some of the art is pretty good, the food is great, and interesting things are happening, like a new school of engineering, or political speechifying. I saw one fellow, a charmer, addressing a bemused crowd about the social contract and representative democracy. He seemed to be advocating a constitutional monarchy. I dropped a couple of crowns in his cap as we passed.

"Is that a good idea?"

"I've always been in favor of letting our kooks spend money on pamphlets instead of bullets."

"The Kingdom is not ready for the commoners to have a say in running it-"

"Spoken like a true member of the established government. You have a vested interest in the way things are-"

"The way things are is just fine! There is a reason why things are done the way that they are, the way that they've always been done." Dosa's eyes flashed. Politics as we know it, in America or on Earth, just don't exist. What they have are the nobles, split into Loyalists and various loyal oppositions, and a few wealthy commoners. The peasants have little say and few rights. They are probably the most dangerous part of the political equation; nothing much to lose and perhaps everything to gain.

"Thomas, not to concede or change the subject, but are you aware we're being followed?"

I was not, and had to stop myself from looking around. "No. My situational awareness, in a city, not so good. What do you see with your mad spy skills?"

Dosa looked at me curiously, smiled and said in English, "You're doing horrible things to my language, love."

"That happens when foreigners are speaking your talk-talk. Of course, the Bastard Tongue really encourages a loose interpretation of the rules, in addition to grand theft grammar. I might even help myself to a few good ones from Tolyahkewl..."

"Enough. Three youths have been shadowing us for the last ten minutes, switching off the, what was the term, 'tail', between them, to try to confuse me. It is amusing..."

"Hmm?" I was looking for them out of the corner of my eye, concentrating on not being obvious about it. Dosa pulled me into a clinch in a hole between the stalls and the goods in front of them. Her body pressed up against mine in the small space was a kinds of distracting, but I made heroic efforts to pay attention.

"Are we necking, now, or working?"

"Both. I'm trying to draw them in. Let's move along, see what happens." We moved out, away from a merchant of cabbages who was trying to sell us a few of his fragrant little leafy green balls of happiness.

"I'm just watching an expert in action- ouch! Sharp, ninja elbows..."

The street kids got bolder, and there were more of them, which I didn't like, at all. "Dosa, we're being herded."

She was chewing on her lip, concentrating. "If we break contact, we don't find out what they want, and I'd really like to find out. It's the first thing my superiors will ask."

"I'm not a big fan of letting myself be caught to collect intel for the 'silent servants'. How about we grab one of them, and run? Dosa?"

She was turned away from me and suddenly *moved*, like a mongoose dancing with a cobra. She pulled in a squirming street kid, one of the three, who had gotten very close to us. A little dagger, just a shank, really, clinked on the cobblestones. She trussed up his hands and passed him to me. "We run. You carry him and I'll be right behind you- Don't argue!"

"Yes ma'am!"

I don't remember much of it, just dark alleys, crowds, pursuit giving tongue almost like bloodhounds and then going silent at an unmistakable command. We were hunted by somebody with no business in the Kingdom, and suddenly that was even more important than our lives. Or his life; the two of us ducked a crossbow bolt that I think was meant for him, and the little guy suddenly stopped squirming. I looked over my shoulder into eye wide with fright.

"It'll be okay, kid," I told him, and wondered if I was lying.

We ran and we ran, and we ran some more, going to ground in a bolt-hole that Dosa found, or had been looking for. Not five minutes passed before something horrible happened. The kid screamed and seemed to go out of focus. This was the first time I'd seen malevolent magic in action up close. The spell was warping the kid, twisting the bones within, stretching the flesh and gathering it in folds. He was dying in great pain, wrapped around himself for what little comfort there was in that.

Dosa spoke quietly to him, asking him for a name, "A sister, brother, or your mother, child. Someone who-"

"Who *are* you?!" he gasped, and spit up some blood.

"Hush." She found what she was looking for, a sharp little knife, and pinned him with difficulty, preparing a coup de grace. His muscles spasmed and I heard bone crack. I looked away.

"I am Dosa for the Paitlan, daughter of Wenjee and Rukpai, and I have killed you, child-"

"Not yet!" The street kid said through gritted teeth. I looked back and where I expected to see fear in his eyes, I found angry defiance.

"Good- good boy!" Dosa choked out. "Fight!"

Even I could see it was hopeless, but we waited with him for the next little while. He told us about his small, dirty, desperate life. Not making excuses, just telling us. Giving testimony, to my way of thinking. I am proud to have known him. He died like a man when he could have taken the easy way out; just one more stone for Dosa to carry away with her. The light died away from those golden eyes and then seemed to empty out a little more. Something which had been watching and enjoying his work said, "So sad... one less street rat to scrabble for food and shelter. You should pay me the bounty for destroying vermin."

I found that my hand was on my sword hilt. I took it away and hissed, "Tell me-" I swallowed, "Where you are. I've got something for you."

Dosa suddenly stabbed the corpse in the right eye, pulled out the little knife, and stabbed again. I was frozen, unable to react as the corpses' laughter was cut off when she stabbed out the left eye. She was shaking and tears fell on her hand. She would not look at me as she cleaned the blade and said, "You are not going to do such a thing- Think! He wants us to do exactly that... To kill us, or take both of us back to his masters. Think like a soldier! This is a battle you can't win, and don't have to fight, today."

Her words were sensible and the red tide in my veins went out, leaving a few sad, wet, ugly things flipping over in my brain. "So change the rules, change the ground, and remember what my job is- to make some other poor bastard die for his country. If I have to; No, Dosa, I won't forget, not that, and not this."

I picked up the body and we went looking for his people. A good troop carries away its wounded and dead.

***

For a death-gift, I gave my sword. That was great fortune, for a poor family, and I replaced the gilt thing with a perfectly serviceable one from stores, and paid for it from my own moneys as Baron Tlatlding. There was trouble about it; my brother officers were offended when I appeared with a plain sword. Sarah even wrote me a note that the sword had been a gift. I wrote her back-

'This is the sword that The Kingdom has seen fit to issue to the troops. It serves me and I serve The Kingdom.'

I wasn't ready for what she sent me then. It was a letter, from my father.

Dear Thomas- Tommy,

I don't think that we'll be meeting, but if things go as I expect, you will finally know what happened to me. You'll know that I didn't abandon you, which has been the hardest part, for me, that you might think that I left you alone in the world. I have tried to come back to you, and even though that has failed, I never forgot.

I did make a new life for myself here, and I've tried to help these people. They are a good people, Thomas, and you can make a new life for yourself here. They ask for a lot; they ask for everything, every bit of energy, but it's worth it, Thomas. At least, I think so.

I don't pretend to understand magic. There is mysticism here, and the divine, and it acts openly, for the good of the people and the land. It called me here, to The Kingdom, in the midst of a crisis, and now it needs another hero to solve another crisis. That won't be me, and can't be me. I'm old, and I'm dying. There are things that could be done to save my life, but the price is too steep to pay, I won't let them...

I became their King, Tommy-boy. Mere words? Not at all. To be King is to put the welfare of the land and people ahead of your own. I have given freely of myself, and drained to the dregs I'm afraid that I must ask the same of you, if you will.

I trust in the magics. They will know what is in your heart, and you will be asked to choose. If you say 'yes', then the magics will need for me to give up the last remaining bit of myself, but I will be so happy, Tommy. I will know what kind of man you have become, I'll know that you've come to stand with the family I've made here, and I will die a happy man.

Your father,

William O'Donnell

I added a few tear-stains of my own to the ones that I found there. After a bit, I washed my face and got pen and paper, a fountain pen manufactured here and paper from a cloth paper mill, both establishments partly owned by my family. I smiled, and wrote Dad back.

Dear Dad,

I'm actually well versed in communicating with the dead- there are a bunch of guys that I know, in Arlington and a few other places, and I miss them. But I got in the habit of talking to dead people when you disappeared, and we thought that you were dead. So this is not my first letter to you, but it is the first one where, if I want, I could go down to your grave and have a chat with you, instead...

So I'm being flippant. I calls them like I see's them, and this kinda sucks, Dad. What if I'd had a family, over there, to leave behind? But I didn't, just some Army buddies, and they know the score. You just never know. They probably think I was abducted, or something. None of them would think I was AWOL, which is good. So, all in all, it's kewl. That family understands, and I have blood, over here, that needs me. A bossy younger half-sister, and an undead half-brother, true, but my blood.

As far as your kingdom goes, it's a family business, all around. I look to Sarah for guidance and I'm the older brother but she's the head of the family. That's just the way it is. The Army is like all the good and bad things from home, and I see where I can fit in, there. What I don't get, and what I don't understand yet, is magic. Magic and Dragons. I'll work on that, okay?

I'll write you some more, maybe even go down and have a talk. I've got business to see to, but I'm not lost, like I was just a while ago. Things happen for a reason, even if it's just to remind us to hold onto what we've got. Thanks, Dad.

Love, your son,

Tommy

[AlienZookeeper]

My dad gave his last full measure to this place of magic and mystery, and that makes it home. Perhaps you are familiar with Robert Frost's The Death of the Hired Man? Frost was the last of the common man poets; the only modern poets I can stand to read are dead, or Maya Angelou, and her only sometimes. I'm more a fan of Kipling, for all his faults, and they are legion. Perhaps because of his faults. I've been to some of the same places, walked a thousand miles in his shoes.

In Frost's poem, the hired man comes to the farm he has worked on so many years to die. The farm-wife has let him sleep inside and tells the farmer when he comes in at the end of the day. They talk it out, not like a sit-com, with the man saying stupid things, or the woman, but a practical discussion. Like, ‘How is this his home? What claim does he have on us?’ And the woman says that home is a place where, when you go there, they have to take you in, that it's not a place that you deserve. It just is.

I'm not sure that the people over there, in my other life, would understand this, but I think that some of them would. I have this new family, and they have me, and it really doesn't need to be any more complicated than that, does it?

***

The thing with the sword turned a little 'Gift of the Magi' on us. I went to apologize to the Queen at a full levy for all the nobles who wanted to press her with things that they needed, and the Crown had better provide for, or else. At least, I saw the implied threat there, and didn't like it. The way the Kingdom operates doesn't automatically sync with 'European Monarchy'; sometimes it's more like an Eastern Despotism. But some of the nobles see her as merely the first among equals and are upset that she has too much power. Politics sucks wherever you go. I joined a crowd of them, and waited my turn to see my sister, my Queen.

Sarah turned a wary eye towards me when I finally reached the head of the line, and that hurt, just a bit. But I manned up and stepped forward.

“Baron Tlatlding seeks to speak with her Majesty, Queen Sarah,” I said, and hastily added, coached by a steward, “Ruler of all the Great Valley, Protector of the Three Veils, Commander-In-Chief,” and the steward began to sputter as I departed the script, “Righter of Wrongs and my Big Little Sister.”

“Approach the Throne, you scamp!” Sarah hid a smiled behind her hand. “To what alignment of the moons and stars do I owe this, ah, performance?”

I had bowed deeply coming up to see her, as was customary, but now I took a knee. I only do that when I bow my stiff neck to God. “I apologize, my Queen, for the words that I wrote you before. I submit that you know better than I what my purpose is, and how I can best serve the Kingdom.”

Sarah made a very un-regal sound, “Huh,” and she looked to the steward. “Are they here?” He nodded. “Then bring them in; we can look them over together.” She stood and walked down to me and made me get up.

“You're learning, brother. Ninety-percent of this is show.”

“Then the other ten percent must be sheer terror...”

“It is.” My sister is twenty-six, going on twenty-seven next month. There were wrinkles on her skin that didn't come from laughing, plus nearly as many grey hairs as I have. Do you know how, with most presidents, it looks like the job is eating them alive, and they age before our eyes? Queen Sarah looked ten or fifteen years older than Princess Sarah.

They brought in boxes and opened the one on top. There were two hundred fine swords for my men. "And one for you, of course."

Protocol be damned, I hugged her, full court or no.

***

There are no DVDs or TV over here and I can read most of the books only with difficulty. Borrowing my niece or nephew for an afternoon and asking them, every other line, 'what's this say?', can be awkward, but we've made it work. Dorothy is especially patient, but David mostly wants stories. I have a lifetime of pop culture to draw upon and I've told them all the good ones that I know- Spartacus, the 300 Spartans at the Hot Gates, Robin Hood, Treasure Island, Huckleberry Finn, The Princess Bride and Star Wars. Dad had told them about Bilbo Baggins and The Lord of the Rings; Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pan, too. In turn, they've told me certain tales of dragons and mages, heroes and villains the likes of which would never have come out of mass-market fantasy, over there. Weng and the Blood Wood, The Dragon Who Could Not Fly, and The Lost Kitten. That last turned out to be a recurring series that Dorothy came up with on her own- if the monarchy doesn't work out, I think that she's got a decent future as a story-teller.

The Dragon Who Could Not Fly is a parable, I thought, but Essinath later told me that it was based on a real dragon and that the events went down more or less as they do in the tale. It seems that dragons are equally strong swimmers, a bit like giant alligators, and that's how this dragon made a living. He worked with the locals and got along especially well with one family; The whole tale recounts his deeds, and theirs, for five generations. He gave warning of Tsunamis and storms, and then he saved both a ship and a city, when he saw to it that word of an invading fleet got through. This last bit I had from Essinath, who added simply, “My son died well.”

Weng and the Blood Wood is about sacral kingship, as near as I can figure. It gave me a lot to think about.

But the big surprise was when Essinath knew and sang Puff the Magic Dragon... which strikes a different chord, in a country with real dragons and without the California Drug Culture references. The boy, when Essinath sang, was my half-brother, and Puff was Essinath, of course. I do not understand how he does it, generation after generation. It must be rather like Kipling's The Power of the Dog, only we humans are the dogs, and the Dragons are us. I asked him.

“Oh, it hurts, like a tooth that has broken off and fallen out to be replaced in turn. But each human life is different, and worthy of reflection. I admire what you are capable of, in your short time. Many a dragon lives and dies without really living...”

“Humans, too.”

“Perhaps, but the ones I've known and loved have each been remarkable in some way.”

***

I had a legacy issue come up, involving the street rat who died. His brother, his older brother, was in the army, posted up in the foothills to the north, and he asked to transfer into my new unit. The Yost came to me first, thinking that I wouldn't want him, but I took him. He and his have earned the extra crown a week of the special forces, and if he wanted a piece of me, I'd humor him.

The kid was a head taller, with close-cropped black hair and the same golden eyes. The Army had put a little meat on him, extra food in his belly that he'd turned into muscle patrolling the frontier for smugglers. The Republic is sneaking things in, along with the typical illicit things, drugs and goods that folks don't want to pay taxes on. I hummed The Smugglers Blues, and Sergeant Hazard looked at me like I was crazy, which happens at least twice a day.

“Put him in with Grunt's bunch. Those reformed poachers and smugglers can compare notes with him.” I looked back at the kid. “You sure you want to do this, soldier?”

“Sir?” He said blandly. I wasn't buying.

“You volunteered- Why? Hazard wants to be all she can be, 'In the Army', and Animal is happy with three hots, a cot and somebody to beat up, when I tell him to. Grunt... Grunt has the makings of a sergeant, maybe. Why are you here, son?”

He got an evil little grin. “Somebody out there doesn't like you, and that got my brother killed. I want to be right here, when they try it again, and then I'm going to kill them.”

“Not here to stick a knife in my back?” Hazard was giving me another one of those looks. Being an officer and scandalizing the noncoms is much more fun than I expected.

“No sir, just here for the fun and mayhem, and a little revenge. I can share.”

http://www.internal.org/Robert_Frost/The_Death_of_the_Hired_Man