The door banged open, and two young men slipped into the common room of the inn. Lady Towaal recognized one who had been at their table the previous evening when they’d returned from the forest. He was the adopted brother of her new recruit. He was the one who had fended off the demon and dragged the injured boy to safety.
Evidently, he was the only man in the village who had the courage to face the demon. With only a quarterstaff, no less. She’d almost laughed at such a notion, until she’d seen the seriousness of the young man’s face and Rhys’s earnest interest in the story. To use a blunt weapon against a demon was crazy, but evidently it was the kind of insanity that the rogue appreciated.
She shook her head, looking at the boy. The line between bravery and foolishness was a thin one. Even now, he’d barged into the room as if there was something he could do. An entire gathering of villagers stood outside, neither brave nor foolish enough to interfere with a mage taking one of their own.
Lady Towaal rolled her eyes and glanced around, preparing to leave the little village, when suddenly both Megan and her father began begging for the boy to escort the girl safely to the City. As if the boy’s involvement would somehow add to the presence of a mage, a blademaster, and a rogue.
Lady Towaal began to shake her head no, but Rhys cleared his throat and caught her eye. “He did fend off a demon and save that kid.”
She frowned, but the rogue held her gaze, his face serious. She looked back to the boy and saw his clear-eyed, eager confidence. He had no idea what he was getting into.
She busied herself adjusting the straps of her pack, looking around the room as everyone watched her breathlessly. The boy was adopted, no blood relative of the girl Megan. She felt no magical potential when she looked at him, but his will burned with an intense fervor. There was something . . .
“I don’t think he’ll slow us down much,” added Rhys, holding her gaze.
She shook her head. Rhys was a rogue, but that was not all. He’d seen more of the world than her, and for far longer. That was an extraordinarily rare feat. Most of the time, the man was only interested in himself. If he was speaking up for the boy, there must be a reason. A reason she could not fathom, which worried her.
The boy shifted his feet, waiting for her answer. He looked at her unafraid, though by now he knew what she was. She held his gaze, but he did not look away. A fine line between bravery and foolishness indeed. If the boy accompanied them and survived, she wondered if there might not be a great adventure ahead of him.
Finally, she decided. “Fine, but he’s not my responsibility.” She nodded at the boy’s sudden grin. “We’ll stay at the way station tomorrow night and leave the next morning. If you are there, you can come with us. If not, we’ll leave you behind.”
With that, she hitched her pack and led her party out the door.
“You will not regret it, ah, m’lady . . .” stammered Megan. “He’s a good man.”
“We shall see,” remarked Lady Towaal. “We’ve a long, dangerous road to travel, and the journey is just the beginning. Tell me again, what was the young man’s name?”
“Benjamin Ashwood.”
AC Cobble
AC Cobble is the author of the Benjamin Ashwood and the Cartographer series. Benjamin Ashwood is a modern take on classic coming of age fantasy, and the Cartographer is a dark fantasy adventure with dashes of Sherlock Holmes. AC resides in Houston, Texas, with his wife, their three young boys, and his wife’s dog. A refugee from the corporate world, AC now writes full time in his home office, at least until the boys batter down the barricades and drag him out to play. He loves cooking and spending time outdoors, but his only claimed hobby is travel. AC enjoys finding the fantastical places in the real world and using them as inspiration for his stories. You can find more information about AC Cobble and his books at: https://www.accobble.com.
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SEB DREAMS OF REINCARNATION
by Aimee Ogden
5,600 Words
THEY UNPLUGGED SEB’S neurodes at the end of his ten-year tour of duty. He’d known it was coming, had been told before he ever signed the contract that if they left him in any longer, his health would start to deteriorate. What they hadn’t mentioned was that his health would deteriorate anyway.
Once, Seb had kept six hundred people alive, responding instantly to their needs, and their wishes too when those fell within his power. He had carried them all in his belly, made them part of himself. He thought he would implode under the emptiness of having lost them.
Today, his only job was to leave his apartment: something he hadn’t done since the first week he’d moved in. He had groceries delivered, the occasional takeout, odds and ends as he needed them. Supermarkets and corner stores might as well have been on another planet. If they were, he might have actually cared to visit them. He stared out his ninth-floor window while trying to summon up a reason to go out, let alone the will to do so. His fleet-assigned shrink had given him the task and called it homework. Which was of course the exact opposite of what it actually was: out-of-home work.
He paced the length of the living room a few times, until the 3D printer on his telemedicine kiosk chirped: his painkillers had printed. He dry-swallowed his pain pills and walked to the apartment door before he could think twice. No one else was in the ninth-floor elevator lobby, and Seb jabbed his finger into the interface to call for a ride to the ground floor. Once the door opened, he realized he should have put on a jacket. Too late—the two women already in the car stared at him as he hesitated. He ducked his head and took a place in the elevator’s front corner, as far from them as possible. Not a peep from either woman as the elevator dropped groundward, but their eyes burned on the neurode stumps that stood out at the base of his skull and the back of his neck. He imagined he could feel the photons pinging off him and into their greedy retinas and tried not to laugh. Phantom photons to go with his phantom limbs. He should have gone back for a jacket. One with a high collar and with thick padding to hide the swells of the additional stumps that traced the contour of his spine.
When he made it out of the downstairs lobby, evening shaded the street outside. Gaudy displays advertised burgers, sushi, movies, liquor. Seb’s head swung back and forth, trying to force a familiar constellation to appear from the pattern. He should have planned a route before departure. Burgers, then. That was closest.
Tires screeched as he stepped out into the street. Three cars abreast, one for each lane, came to a stop. Each of them maintained the same precise ten-foot stopping distance. Behind them, more traffic began to pile up. A woman in the middle car set aside her laptop and lowered her driver’s-side window. “This isn’t a crosswalk,” she yelled. “Are you impaired or something?” Seb fled to the far side of the street and crashed through the doors into the restaurant he’d chosen.
The boy behind the counter at the burger restaurant stared at Seb. “Welcome to Marilu’s,” he said finally. “Can I—”
“Burger.” Seb realized too late that he was interrupting. So slow, waiting for the clerk to invite him to order. Much faster, much better, to just shoot the data to a waiting computer that would have already started up the grill. “Fries. Chocolate malt.”