Rogue Ragtime Read online

  Tath started back for camp. She slammed her shoulder into Agra's chest as she passed him. His knives thudded onto the ground. "Prince Charming is for kids and fan clubs," she called out while continuing toward her destination. "Real women take what they want, when they want and enjoy it. They also win bets, and right now I'm losing."

  Agra was already beside her, his long strides covering the distance easily. She could see a smidgen of curly, black hair peeping out from his scalp and loved how it accented his oval face and full lips. She had asked him to grow an afro a few years ago, but—like most things she had suggested—he had ignored her.

  "Which bet?" he asked as he stashed his knives in the sheath on his back. It contained an assortment of daggers, blades, shivs and shurikens. Some of them glowed gold, blue, purple or other colors she had forgotten the names of. Their hues indicated what enchantment had been cast on them. "I thought I won everything?" Agra continued.

  "Everything?" Tath snorted. "Barely half. And you're telling me that the overly dead bounty hunter from Auckland wasn't your kill? You're not one ahead of me in the kill count? Because that's great news, if true."

  "Then I have some good news: I didn't kill her," Agra replied. "She wasn't a threat. We agreed, all of the group agreed, we wouldn't take a life unless necessary."

  "Why was she floating in my goddamn river then?"

  Agra rubbed his forehead. "I don't know. I was having a shave, checking my N-Comm and polishing my blades. Regular things people do to pass the time when making the rounds."

  Tath feigned indignation: "How are you giving me shit about patrolling? You weren't fucking patrolling either."

  "Maybe I completed my sweep of the area before having a little me-time," he replied. "Or maybe I didn't. One more mystery we'll never solve. And besides, you were the one who wanted to go patrolling. I'm the reluctant, law-abiding buddy-cop here."

  "I meant go patrolling together," Tath spat the last word out as if it was a plate of Mea's cooking. She quickened her pace, not caring about the twigs snapping underneath her feet nor the small, nocturnal creatures scuttling away from the racket she was making. "Travelling companions always go together. That's how patrols happen in normal camps. People go out, wander the forest and occupy themselves. We were supposed to occupy ourselves together. Not have a goddamn shave. Wait, did you say you were checking your comm? Were you messaging that girl we met at the pub? Joy? Josey? Joni?"

  "Jaya," Agra corrected her. "And maybe I was. "

  "I can't fucking believe you. You have a goddess of sex right here, two feet away, and you're passing up my cosmic fuckableness for some bar chick? Is it because my name doesn't start with a 'J'? Or because you enjoy me saving you from the shithole prisons your dates leave you in?"

  "Y'know," Agra replied, "I'm going to ignore your swipe at Jaya—and your oddly venomous attack on good hygiene habits—because you seem to think the world is like a romance novel. Sex while patrolling only happens in those books because the heroes' biggest danger is a mutilated metaphor."

  A rank smell hit Tath's nose, and she gulped down some bile. She could make out the flickering light of their campfire through the trees.

  "Get a new fucking scapegoat," she responded to Agra's baiting. "I haven't read that shit for years. Your imagination watching is the reason you don't want all this." Tath smacked her ass. "All those women trussed up in skimpy clothes and fawning over chiseled men to come save them—that's what's bullshit. If you want to fuck someone, fuck them hard and get on the next zeppelin out of town. Plenty of good-looking, spread legs out there. Imaginations are fantasies for cowards. Men who won't appreciate what they have. Men who would rather beat off to some poorly remembered pinup than deal with a living, breathing, reincarnated sex deity."

  Agra rubbed his scalp. "I can't believe you're still going on about the tiny bit of misogyny in the old imaginations. Yes, there's a little sexism in the vids I watch, especially the re-mastered movies from before the Cataclysm. We can all agree the early twenty-first century had issues with its depiction of women. But, and 'but' is the key word here, that doesn't mean they aren't good. Tell me that you haven't wanted to watch a squid fight a ninety-foot, metal monster."

  Their makeshift home was minimalist by nature with two canvas bags, one log-seat and a light-brick that provided heat for cooking. Mea, their assault specialist in mutant form, was reading a book on her lap. She was absent-mindedly stirring the broth, seemingly indifferent to the fact the pot had boiled over.

  Agra was still talking: "… a hamster with kung-fu skills that goes against an ocean of cats? A cat full of oceans? How about a seedy fantasy where a woman ties a man to a sinking ship and has tragic, but bittersweet, sex with him? Okay, maybe that last one is a bit—"

  "Sexist?" Mea added softly but with an unmistakable edge of authority. She looked up from her novel and scooped out a serving of the meal she had prepared from the pot. She poured it into a cracked bowl.

  Tath's mild hunger pains disappeared as she stared at the outstretched concoction. A brown lump popped to the surface. It was as if the substance was belching at its own monstrosity. "I'm good," Tath said. "I had something on the way."

  "You found a restaurant … in a forest?" Mea asked, holding the bowl steady. It burped again, this time with a grey lump.

  "It was an elf … takeout bar," Tath replied. "Agra saw it too."

  Agra grabbed the bowl. He slurped down both of the blobs in one go. "Delicious as always, Mea."

  "You didn't eat at the elf restaurant?" Mea asked him, her hand resting on another bowl.

  "The elf eatery? No. They only feed women with great asses. And Tath's is like a seven, so she got a pass."

  Tath winced and smiled as valiantly as she could. Best friend or not, his lie had been one of the most pitiful she had ever heard, and she had once gone out with a streamer who had claimed they were a fashion expert while wearing nothing but denim. She could already feel the mushy meatball slither down her throat and ruin her taste buds for a week.

  Mea looked at both of them and then took her hand off the bowl. She adjusted her spectacles and resumed reading her novel. "Elf restaurants are called 'eateries,'" she concluded.

  Agra winked at Tath. "So, you agree? Tath's ass is only a seven?"

  "Yes." Mea turned a page.

  The comment caught Tath by surprise. Not the clear lack of insight into what made an incredible ass, but the implication Mea had noticed hers enough to give it a ranking. After six years of sharing lodgings together, Tath had never caught Mea's flat emerald eyes undressing her when she had strolled around their room in a bath towel. Even when they had swum naked under the noonday sun, Tath had never felt Mea's glimpses were those of a lecher trying to sneak a peek at what was not theirs to admire.

  In contrast, Tath spent at least a few hours every other month picturing how different Mea would look in four-inch stilettos. With heels, Mea could downplay her slim hips and accentuate her shapely legs—making her appear like an Amazonian supermodel.

  And, in the rare case where one of Tath's dates had delivered a less than average return, Tath had often found herself wishing for the familiarity of Mea's long legs and strong arms to encircle her until the dawn broke. On those evenings, it was not difficult for Tath to imagine how her friend's sex-ruffled, terra-cotta hair would complement her own ochre-colored cheeks as they whispered sweet nothings to each other in the stillness of the morning.

  Tath sat down on the log and glimpsed at her friend's shirt. It had "Read Me, Bitches" scrawled on it. The text glowed green, an indication of a spell gone wrong. Tath studied her friend and began to wonder if she had misinterpreted Mea's active disinterest in one-night stands. Her friend's seeming lack of sexual urges might not have been due to her being a mutant, as Tath had originally thought, but because she had already found the person she desired.

  "Where’s Steh?" Agra asked Mea through a yawn.

  "He saw dinner and went out," she replied.

  "So
, he’ll be back soon?"

  She shrugged.

  "Relax, rake man," Tath said as she arched her back toward the sky, the Mea issue promptly put on the backburner. "There are plenty of things for us to do under a moonlit sky."

  * * *

  STEH LAY IN the river and stared at the stars through the holes in the tree canopy. He pointed the late bandit's sword toward the celestial and looked down its edge. There was no doubting its precision craftsmanship: the intricate grooves in the grip made it easy to wield when fighting, and the hilt and blade were perfectly weighted. Even the cross guard had an enchanted ruby set in its middle. He guessed the spell was a softener so when the combatant blocked, the shock from the clashing blades did not ripple through the sword-holder's arm.

  There was only one person who made weapon like this, Clarice. He had not needed to see her logo on the bottom of the hilt to know. He had already guessed who had forged it from the moment it had been unsheathed. It would never get blunt or break. It would never slip from a hand in a fight. It was perfect.

  Yet, he was also aware that someone had given up their dreams to obtain it. Maybe even the same person he had taken it from, but he doubted that. The lifespan of Clarice sword-wielders was incredibly short, and the weapon he held was one of her older designs.

  Steh adjusted his head on the rocks that were stopping him from flowing down with the current and moved the life-taker gently through the air. Childhood memories flooded his mind: girls with pony tails, the thudding of wooden blades, and sneaking into his father’s workshop to melt steel and create elegant weapons—ones designed for a better age.

  When he righted himself, his feet touched the mold-covered rocks on the bottom. Everything below his neck stayed immersed. Carefully, he lowered the sword into the water and then let it go, watching it sink to the river’s floor. Methodically, patiently, he worked his way back to his clothes.

  "I'm finally getting the full show," Steh heard Tath call out.

  He paused and sunk lower into the river until his mouth was submerged.

  "Don't be shy," she said. "I’ve seen lots of them." Tath appeared carrying his tattered cotton pants, black shirt, worn hiking boots and coat. "I even saw Agra’s once. Not erect though, just hanging there. He keeps that mountain for the 'Jayas' of this world, apparently."

  "I thought you were at dinner," Steh replied, only lifting himself up enough to speak.

  "And I thought you were supposed to join us … an hour ago."

  "I didn't want to annoy Mea by throwing up again," Steh said. Tath was sitting in front of him now and clacking two of his metal cards together. "I had fish instead," he finished.

  "I saw the grill," she responded. "Nice of you to invite the two people who went patrolling to keep everyone else safe."

  "And you did a great job. You must have been so busy with your 'patrolling' that you didn't notice the bandit making for our camp."

  "Eh," Tath replied. "I was busy … with my woo. And Mea could've handled it. What's her tally so far on the bet? Three hundred?"

  Steh lied: "I don't know." He searched the surrounding area for an alternative way to exit the river, but there was none—and if he waited any longer, the other two might show up. He got out of the water and took one of his cards from Tath. After tapping it, a faint heat went up and down his body, drying him.

  She handed him his underwear. "Would this go easier if I told you dick jokes?" she asked.

  "Do you know some good ones?"

  "Agra."

  He took his clothes from her extended hand and started to put them on. "Uh," he grunted when the T-shirt was half over his head. "Because he's a dick that jokes. You aren't funny."

  "I'm fucking hilarious, and you know it." Tath paused, her tawny eyes watching him stick his arms through his coat's sleeves. "I don't think I've seen the whole you before."

  "I'm sure you have." Steh leaned down and carefully collected his other metal card. "My body is easy to forget."

  "The scar on your back disagrees."

  "Maybe in the years we’ve been travelling together, you've missed it—but my inventions don’t always go to plan."

  "Neither do my strategies," Tath countered. "But if I get a scar from a fucked-up plan, I share. And I'd be singing my own fucking praises from every tree branch there is if I'd survived an explosion that left a mark all the way from my shoulder blades to my crack."

  Steh pressed the card he had just picked up, and a portal opened. An oak bench fell out of it and thudded, awkwardly, next to the stream. "Perhaps you've been too busy staring at Agra to notice until now," he said. "I got it before I met you." He sat down and patted the seat next to him; Tath accepted his invitation.

  They did not say anything else for a while. Some creatures shuffled in the darkness; a kiwi-bird glared at them and then scurried back to its bush. A cloud concealed the moon before continuing on its way.

  "Are we ever going to find this book?" Tath asked faintly.

  "The map said it's in Huntly. The Speaking Sack of Ristie proclaimed it's in Huntly. It has to be there."

  "No," Tath corrected Steh. "They said the last recorded sighting was in Huntly. Technically, it could be anywhere. It could be back in Auckland or down in Wellington. Asides from the asshole you killed, we haven’t been in a fight for weeks."

  "That’s good, right?" Steh asked. He raised his hand and twisted it slightly; the two cards he had been holding floated into the air. They rotated around each other. "Conflict-free quests are a vacation."

  "Yeah, but that’s it: a vacation. We relax; our skills get rusty … but there’s always another battle. Another note from the bag; another fucking quest from Ristie." Tath's voice became even quieter. "Lara was just after a vacation."

  Steh put his hands in his pockets. The cards continued to dance. "Do you remember that imagination series Agra stole? The one with the ship and the captain in space?"

  "Tranquility?" Tath suggested.

  "Something like that. And the captain says he’ll die alone. We all die alone."

  "Yeah."

  "Lara didn’t. You were right there holding her hand. I was there. Agra risked everything to keep us safe. You won’t die alone, Tath. I won't let it happen."

  Tath pulled at her curls. "You getting better at this fortunetelling shit, or are you yanking these promises out of your ass?"

  Steh sat up. His heart was pounding, and his mind felt as if it was dashing from one universe of existence to another. In his visions, his end was clear: he fell from the Nucia to his death. And when he hit the ground and passed into celestial nothingness, his only consolation was that Earth had become a little safer because there was one less Starfire.

  He took his hands out of his pockets and lifted up Tath's chin. "I promise you," he said, "I'll be there when it happens. After all, I can't die until I know if Hemi cheats on Nor with Arry. She deserves much better than that buffoon of a wizard."

  Wed, 15 Oct 65 P.C.T., 7:53pm: Azra [P. Watcher 18034568X]

  Yes, I am. No thanks to you.

  And did you run out of real missions so we have to hunt indestructible space demons?

  8:54pm: Junko [Channel 37A4R]

  Navigators aren't space demons. (—_—) The Corsair apocrypha says they save universes by eliminating overly powerful mages and monsters.

  Despite slaying me in the sheets, I don't think you're on their list. (^_<)

  Three: The Sack

  MEA HAD BEEN SEARCHING for the complete series of Hemi ngèr and the Tales of Her Legendary Squeezebox ever since she had arrived on Earth. It had been the main reason she had volunteered to eliminate the cosmically powered Starfire, Stehlan Ehrans, on this inconsequential planet. However, from the moment she had met him, everything had gone awry. Rather than killing the Starfire, she had ended up caring for him—an emotion that had led to her saving Stehlan from death a dozen times over. And instead of taking a few short years to find the novels, she had spent over a decade hunting for them and was still missing t
wo.

  Not that anyone—Grinner, Ara, Leaguer or Corsair—would believe she possessed five out of the seven Hemi ngèr novels if she told them. The entire series was supposed to have been destroyed in the First and Second Great Book Burnings. Yet, Stehlan—or "Steh" as he called himself to avoid Tath and Agra learning about his past—had located a map that had helped Mea track down the novels, more or less. And it indicated that the sixth book, Hemi ngèr and the Tales of Her Legendary Squeezebox: The Moderate Monarch, should have been directly in front her. It was not.

  She hoped her problem lay in a misreading of the maps' directions. After all, the atlas looked more akin to the survey notes of an insane cartographer than the oft-shown treasure map in an imagination. There were no straight lines or precisely sketched areas anywhere on the worn cloth. Everything on it appeared to have been hastily scribbled, as if its maker had been in the middle of a life-or-death battle when they had passed by the places depicted. Mea hoped she had made a mistake, but doubted it. She was in the same library as the one sketched on the cloth, but there were no books to be found. All the shelves lay empty.

  Mea circled the building once more and scanned each section, hoping to notice something she had missed the first time. It looked like every other pre-Cataclysm archive the group had visited in a Grinner tract: devoid of books and filled with crystal-like statues of the town's old residents. They were still laughing, jumping, crying, yelling, sitting, knitting and dancing just as they had been when the Cataclysm had swept across the globe. The multi-colored walls of the facility, with their bright reds and blues, failed to bring any joy to the scene.

  After walking over to a pink CD player sitting on a neon-green librarian's desk, Mea pushed its power button. Nothing happened. She sat on the nearest chair to her and pushed the button again. Still nothing came out. No music played; no self-help lecture burst forth from the speakers. She lifted her fist and brought it down, shattering both the player and the desk. Their pieces scattered into the air, disrupting the hovering dust in the room.