---Chapter 19
Everyone looked around as Lenny exclaimed, “You’re injured! And...”
He could not finish the sentence. The purple blood gradually stained the black cloak like a symbol of everything which they were fighting.
“He’s one of them!” Patch strode up, brandishing his sword. “All this time and he’s a traitor! Well, I know what to do about that sort.”
He drew the sword back for a blow, face set in cold anger. But Jax jumped up and stayed his arm just in time. “No, wait! Maybe he’s a double agent on our side. Think of all he’s done for us. He saved my life!”
Getting over his first shock, Lenny realized that this was true. Leaflow had been given plenty of opportunities to harm them if he wished and had never used them. Moving forward, Lenny reached out and tried to move the cloaked one’s hand away to see how bad the wound was, intending to stop the bleeding if he could.
Leaflow pushed him away gently with his free hand. “No.”
“But you’ll die.” Lenny looked at him, puzzled.
“No, I won’t. I can’t die,” Leaflow met his gaze calmly. “I’m not alive.”
The young man’s mouth came open, but no words came out. He blinked and stared, before stuttering, “W-what do you mean?”
“This bullet hole can destroy me here, but not forever. I’m not the real Leaflow. The Keeper of Light and Dark...he is the real Leaflow. And the Power Core. I’m just his avatar, a creation to do for him what he cannot. Like all of these things made by the Power Cores to serve them.” Leaflow pressed his hand harder against his chest. “Don’t interrupt now. There are things I must tell you. But before I do...promise me that you will set the real Leaflow free.”
Lenny nodded, with no hesitation in his mind. “I will.”
“Good.” The cloaked one’s eyes closed for a minute as he slid slowly down into a crouch beside the wall. The green orbs jerked open and he went on. “Listen. Every Power Core is chosen because they have, in some way, altered the world they are on, according to their willpower. The stronger the will they have, the harder it is for the central power to control them entirely. With the power the central core gives them, the Power Cores can alter the world they are on, as well as create beings to carry out their will on it. I am one of those creations. Leaflow made me in defiance of the master, who is trying to force him to hold the world. My purpose was to find someone to rescue him.”
“But...why didn’t you tell us earlier?” Lenny pressed, “we could have freed him long ago!”
“Would you have? Could you have?” The avatar looked at him with a glint of his old mocking humor. “We have not yet tried to free a Power Core. You will have to find a way to do it. Besides, I could not trust you right away. And honestly--”
His voice sunk to a murmur. “I wanted to live.”
For a moment he seemed to have nothing more to say. He appeared only half-conscious. With an effort he went on, “the real Leaflow’s will is sustaining me for now, but it will soon leave me. Too much of a strain at this distance. The important thing...the Keeper is connected to the central power core. He knows who the central power was looking for and who some of the Power Cores are. The most important Core...he’s on your world.”
“Who is it?” Lenny leaned down next to his hood to hear better. “Who is the Power Core on my world?”
“His name...Dr. Yohan Devi...”
The cloaked one collapsed forwards and said no more. Lenny jerked back, repeating the name with a gasp, “Devi!”
He looked up and met Jax’s gaze. The traveler had come to kneel beside them, also listening to the confession. In his eyes there was tears, but they were also wide open with surprise. The two young men looked at each other without a word. Lenny was remembering the morning he had found a purple smear on Devi’s laboratory and how upset it had made the doctor when he pointed it out.
“‘Ay, they’re coming back!” Patch called suddenly. He had moved to the entrance of the alleyway to watch the road and now hurried back towards the boys. “The horses and men have some new friends, lads! And they’re coming back for revenge.”
The pirate’s face was lit up with a savage joy. He really seemed to be enjoying their predicament. “Aye, it will be a fight to the death now, lads! What weapon do you have, Lenny my friend?”
Lenny scrambled to his feet. He felt a dread of using his cybernetic weapons now, but they were all he had. He tried forming an energy lance to see if it would work better than the gun, but all he got was a fizzle and crackling in his head. No lance would form.
“I--”
What he was about to say was cut off as a pair of strange shapes lumbered into the opening of the alley. They were somewhat like a wolf but much larger and stood on their hind legs. They were also a little like buffalo, except for that they had paws on their legs instead of hooves and snouts full of sharp teeth. They were monsters, a terrible mix of beings with heavy fur, glinting eyes and claws stained purple at the tips. Behind them came the remaining two men and three horses.
“You might as well just give up, children,” one of the men intoned, gripping a rifle in one hand and a blade in the other. “The master ain’t happy with you. But if you give up now, you won’t have to die. He might let you live.”
“On our own worlds, with no world-traveling allowed and no trying to stop him?” Jax’s angular face showed utter scorn. “I’d rather be a cement statue in Crossover Square!”
At his words, the ugly beasts in the front charged, teeth bared. Patch jumped forward to meet one of them, his cutlass bouncing off of its swinging claws as he parried a blow. Jax darted past the other, dashing around it with his little electronic taser held ready if he could get in reach. Beyond him the man who had been talking raised his rifle, aiming for the running lad. Without any other weapon to hand, Lenny picked up a large stone, preparing to fling it in order to stop the deadly shot. It was all he had, and he was strong enough to fling a stone fairly hard.
At the same moment, Patch didn’t block a blow in time and was knocked to the ground by a swipe of the beast’s claws. They were in desperate straights.
Crack! A shot went off from beyond the alley.
Lenny shouted “No!” and flung the rock, afraid that he had been too late to save Jax. The rock missed, striking the second creature square in the snout. But instead of the yellow head of the dimension traveler falling, the man who had been aiming the gun stumbled and dropping it, collapsing to the ground. There was a second shot from somewhere beyond, felling the second masked man. The beast Lenny had hit on the nose stumbled around, clasping its snout in both paws. Jax jumped up behind it and hit it with his taser, making it shriek and turn, shambling towards the mouth of the alley as Jax jumped out of the way. As the monster ran a third shot was fired, and a forth, both of these from a slightly quieter gun in the same direction.
The monster fell to the ground. All three horses broke and ran, trampling away in a cloud of dust. Lenny ran over and pulled the fallen beast off of Patch. It was stuck through with the cutlass, but so heavy in death that the pirate could only wiggle under it feebly. There was blood on his arm, red blood, coming from three long gouges on his shoulder from the creature’s claws.
“Thanks, matey,” he gasped as Lenny crouched beside him. “It’s just a flesh wound.”
“But who fired all of those shots?” Lenny turned his head towards the head of the alley, where the dust was starting to settle and Jax was staring in surprise.
The form of a man was walking towards them between the buildings. Like the masked men, he wore a wide-brimmed hat, but there was a face clearly visible under it. It was a weather-worn, tanned face, with eyes sunk far back in it. The man was carrying a rifle loosely in one hand, hanging with its point down. The other hand held a six-shot pistol, stiff and alert. It had been what fired the last two shots.
One of the masked figures was still rolling and groaning on the ground. The man stopped beside him, pointed the pistol at his head and made sure that he would never move again. Lenny could not help giving a little jump and wince. It was a grim necessity.
The stranger walked over between the silently staring young men, and stopped at Leaflow’s body. After tapping it with a foot, he remarked in a worn, cracked voice. “Stone dead. One of yours?”
“Yes.” Lenny stood up from beside Patch. “You...were you the one who shot from the top of the hotel?”
“That was me.” The man met his gaze, the eyes far back in the shadow of his brows sparking like half-buried coals. “Jeffrey Hind, known around here as Jackal.”
He took off his hat, bowing his head just a little. “The last living inhabitant of Spring Gulch, at your service.”
Jax had, by now, recovered his normal equilibrium. Stepping up, he shook Jackal’s hand vigorously. “No, we’re at yours. Gosh, we would have been overrun if it weren’t for you. Thanks.”
Jackal withdrew his hand swiftly, sticking the hat back on his head with a decided motion. Moving over by Lenny, he nodded down at Patch. “you’ll need to have his wounds tended to as soon as possible. Those Furbears have poison on their claws. Can kill a man, if you let it.”
“Yes, thank you.” Lenny bent down again and helped Patch to his feet. “We have a friend who is a healer. Back by the train platform.”
“Train, hm?” Jackal looked back and forth between them. “The train hasn’t stopped here in two weeks. Hasn’t even gone by on the mainline in the last three days. You come on the train?”
“On a private one,” Jax explained, looking around at the dead creatures, then shuddering and turning his gaze away. “What happened here? In this town, I mean. Has everyone been killed by this sort of things?”
“Or run off.” Jackal’s voice sounded dead-weary. “I’m the last. Used to be the carter, bringing in goods over the prairie by wagon. Then the rails were laid and I became a guard on the mail train, now and then. Ain’t nothing now. Just a dead man walking. I’ve buried everyone else who stayed. You’d better get moving along. More reinforcements could get here any time. Been coming in waves pretty solid for the last three days.”
Jax laid a hand on his arm, which the shooter just flicked away. But the young man persisted verbally, “why don’t you come with us? This place is empty. You could ride our train to any nearby town...or just stay with us.”
Jackal let out a gruff, mirthless chuckle. He looked between them for a minute, the two young men and the injured pirate. Then he surprised them even more by saying, “dimension travelers, aren’t you? I know the look of them. Right, I’ll come.”
“What, how did you know?” Jax followed him as he began to stride towards the open end of the alley. For just a minute, Jackal paused and looked back at him with his low-burning coals of eyes. “That’s my business. You asked me to come: I’m coming.”
Lenny was feeling both confused and weary, the latter more than anything. He still felt a little sick from the shock he had received earlier, trying to shoot his cannon, and his head was spinning with everything Leaflow had told him.
“Can you walk, Patch?” he asked, glancing at his injured friend.
“Aye.” The pirate winced, holding a hand to his injured arm. “I’ll make it.”
“Then I’ll be along in just a moment.” Lenny let him to follow the others, as he went over to where the black cloak lay crumpled on the ground. It looked small now and flat, too small to hold a person. He reached down and, beyond amazement by now, found that the cloak was empty. There was nothing there except for a silver bracelet, laying gleaming in the watery gray light. Even as he picked up the cloak, the black cloth faded away and evaporated between his fingers. Reaching down again, he picked up the bracelet, half expecting it to disappear as well. But it seemed more solid than the rest had been, firm even when he squeezed it in his hand. Running a finger over the leaves and tree embellishing it, he murmured solemnly, “don’t worry, Leaflow. We’re coming to find you.”
He tucked the bracelet into his pocket and walked away.
---
As soon as most of the menfolk had left the train, Amber declared that she was going up on top of the passenger car to check on the Gatling guns there.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“This place feels like danger to me. I want to make sure that they’re in good condition in case we’re attacked,” she explained, picking up a few of her tools and tucking them under one arm.
“Be careful.” Soleeryn gave her a motherly look. “We don’t know what’s out there and anything can see you up on the roof.”
“I’ll have the guns if I need them.” Amber gave her a smile, then turned and walked out. Raggsy followed her, but stayed down on the ground instead of climbing to the top of the car. He walked around on the wooden platform, bending down to sniff at a few scuff marks on it. There was a musky, heavy scent there, like some sort of wild beast. He wrinkled his nose, square teeth sticking out in a silent snarl. It smelled like the purple evil. He had become all too familiar with that scent since the Change.
Something hard and small bounced off of his helmet with a tink and he looked up, thinking that Amber was playing jokes on him. But it was a piece of hail, soon followed by more of them.
Amber swung down from the roof onto the platform, holding a handful of wrenches above her head to ward off the hard precipitation. “Get inside, Raggsy! You’ll catch a cold out here.”
She disappeared through the door into the car. He shrugged and followed, though his helmet and coat protected him from the worst of the hail. Inside, Amber was moving towards the last bench at the back of the car. “my hair’s wet already. Let’s see, I have a few extra blankets I can use as towels over here...”
She reached down under the bench, pulling out a woolen blanket. A moment later she let out an astonished cry and jumped back. “Why, there's a--!”
She didn’t finish the words, as a slim arm and leg protruded from under the bench, then a lithe figure scrambled out. He had hair and eyes that were both dark on a round face and was dressed in simple black clothing.
The stow-away jumped to his feet, looking wildly out of the window before heading for the door. But he was stiff from being cramped under the bench for so long and not as fast as he could be. Amber jumped at him, grasping his shirt to hold him back. There was a ripping sound and the man stumbled, giving Raggsy just enough time to join the fray. He was not much shorter than the interloper and launched himself at his side, knocking them both to the ground. Amber found herself holding a square of black cloth, staring at it uselessly. She dropped it, jumping onto the struggling figures and helping to hold the stranger down. He fought with surprising strength and agility, almost getting away from them multiple times. Once, he drew a knife, but Raggsy bit his wrist and made him drop it.
Then Soleeryn hurried over from where she had been sitting, bringing a quantity of thick yarn with her. Working together, they all three were able to hold the little man down and tie him up. They put so many loops of yarn on him that he was like a fly in a spider’s web.
Finally he lay still, panting and gazing up at them, while they got to their feet. Amber pushed back her hair, which had become tangled and fallen in her face.
“Oh my, it’s Dansei!” she exclaimed, looking down at the object of their endeavor. His hair was ruffled, face bruised and wrist bleeding. With his shirt ripped and half-pulled off of him he looked quite a sight. But his eyes were calm and alert, when she spoke that name, a small smile crossed his face. But he said nothing.
With an effort, Raggsy dragged him over and propped him against a bench, sat on the floor. Sticking his snout in the man’s face, he growled, “so, it’s you again, eh? I always knew you were trouble. Now, you’re gonna tell me what ya’ up to in here, see? What were you doin’, hiding under Miss Amber’s bench and blankets? A spy, aren’t you?”
Dansei said nothing, just gave him a soft, quiet smile. Raggsy slapped one of his clawed paws across the prisoner’s face, leaving a red mark behind. But, after wincing slightly, the prisoner’s face resumed the impenetrable smile and he still said nothing.
“Talk! Who sent ya?”
Both of the women looked surprised at the Ratperson’s sharpness, but did not interfere.
Just then, there came an echoing report from somewhere in the town, followed shortly by others. Raggsy whisked around, tail waving behind him in Dansei’s face. Amber went pale as she hurried to the window. “Those are gunshots!”
The prisoner forgotten, they all three pressed their faces to the windows and looked out. A small puff of smoke arose from the center of the town, then drifted away. The firing went quiet for a long, agonizing space, before returning with redoubled speed.
Soleeryn and Amber exchanged glances.
“I hope none of them are hurt,” the healer murmured, moving over to open up her bag of supplies, “but just in case...”
She began laying out bandages and tins of salve, along with a few labeled vials. Amber listened, but after another quick volley of gunshots, silence fell over the town once again. Finally, she could not stand it any more. “I’m going to stoke up Sophia, then go see what is happening in town.”
“I’m comin’ with ya!” Raggsy drew his sling from a coat pocket and wrapped it around his wrist, loading an iron ball into it. Amber checked her pistol. Together, they ran across to the engine, making sure that it was ready to back out at a moment’s notice.
Leaving the engine, they jumped out onto the platform and ran across it, skipping to the ground. They had not gone far along the road towards the town when four figures appeared, walking towards them. Amber stopped in the road, gripping her gun and half-drawing it. Raggsy stood in front of her, sling ready to twirl. The figures approached closer, looking up at them. Amber let out a sigh of relief.
“It’s our friends! Or at least, three of them are. I don’t recognize the forth.”
“Yeah, wonder what happened to that cloaked guy?” Raggsy began to unwrap his sling, and they were soon joined by the adventurers. Lenny was helping along Patch, who was starting to feel his wounds, while Jax came in front and the stranger walked off to one side a little.
Amber came up to them, glancing anxiously at Patch’s arm. “What happened? Who is this and...where is Leaflow?”
Lenny shook his head. “We were attacked. I’ll explain once we get moving again. More bandits might come any moment.”
They all went up to the train, where Soleeryn was waiting for them with her medicines laid out on the bench. The prisoner was sitting casually on top of the back of one bench, straightening his hair with short brushes of his hand. The yarn lay on the floor in a tangle.
“How’d he get out?” Raggsy snarled, making Soleeryn jump and turn around. She had not noticed the escape of the prisoner at all. The Ratperson started towards him aggressively, curling up his paws into fists. But Dansei held up his own hands to placate him. “Please, be calm. I will not go anywhere. But the floor is uncomfortable when one is tied up.”
“You’d better not try anything,” Raggsy glared at him. “‘Cause we’ll can all beat you up now if’n you do!”
---
While Soleeryn began to work on doctoring Patch, Lenny and Jax explained all that had happened in the town. Lenny kept back nothing, though he still felt carried away in a whirlwind by all that had happened and what they had heard.
When they got to the end, he added, “so you see, there is at least two people we know of that the central power has enslaved and we have to set free. Leaflow and my friend, Dr. Devi.”
“How do you know that Devi wants set free?” Jax asked, “I mean, for all we know he could be happy to have your world at his feet, right? That’s how some of the Power Cores feel about it.”
Lenny felt his face set into hard lines as he looked sharply at his friend. After a moment, he said softly, “Dr. Devi is not that sort of man! He is a good friend of mine. I owe him everything; my life and health, the knowledge he taught me...almost everything! He would not do this sort of thing. If you can trust Leaflow, I can trust him. More so, because I knew him longer!”
“Whoa.” Jax held up his hands with a surprised look. “Alright, it was just a question. But Leaflow...or his avatar, I guess, said something about Devi being the most important of the Power Cores. What does that mean, do you think?”
“I don’t know.” Lenny hung his head, thinking. After a few minutes of silence he looked up. “Maybe the central power needs Dr. Devi because of his scientific knowledge.”
“Hey, yeah, that could be it.” Jax put a hand to his chin, pacing up and down. His face showed absorption in the question at hand.
While they were talking, Jackal had gone to lean against the wall at one end of the car, his hat shading his face and rifle leaned up beside him. The pistol was in a holster at his side. Though he had been introduced to everyone, he barely returned their greetings. His eyes often strayed to the window, looking out across the town with a mixture of sorrow and suspicion.
Dansei sat on top of the bench, leaning his chin in one hand as he listened to the conversation with deep interest. His slanted eyes sparkled, but his face gave nothing away. Meanwhile, Raggsy watched him as closely as a cat watching a mouse, ready to jump on him at any instant. Amber and Soleeryn were tending to the pirate while listening to the debate.
“But there’s one big problem I foresee in the future,” Jax said after a few minutes of his revolutions.
“Oh, what’s that?”
“I miss Leaflow already! I liked him, even when he was a pain. And I’m starting to worry about my own home!” Jax threw himself suddenly down on an empty bench, covering his face with his hands. “What of its been taken over with this purple stuff, too? I don’t want to come back and find everyone dead!”
None of the crew had ever seen Jax so depressed before, except for perhaps when he was sick from poison. It startled Lenny out of his own apathy, so that he started to apply his mind to how to move forward instead of useless conjecture.
“Everything will be alright, Jax. We’ll find a way to stop this corruption. And I doubt everyone will be destroyed on your world. This is a small town with little people or defenses; it can easily be overrun. But your world, from what I have heard, is a little more sophisticated. Everyone won’t run away or die at once.”
“You really think so?” Jax looked up between his fingers.
Lenny moved over to pat him on the shoulder. “Yeah, I do. And don’t worry about Leaflow, either. We’ll find a way to get him out of this mess. Here, I found this on the ground after he, um, disappeared. You can keep it.”
He held out the silver bracelet, with its leaves and pine tree. Jax took it, turning it around once before tucking it in his pocket. He looked up with a thin smile. “Thanks, Len. But I would still like to go home soon. I want to check on things there.”
“That shouldn’t be hard,” Amber put in, coming over to join them. “In fact, isn’t your world the next one in the ring? Counting every world you’ve stopped on, or just the amount of people we’ve picked up, it should be the ninth world we’re heading to next.”
“You’re right!” Jax’s face brightened further. “Gosh, what will my 'ol pops think when I bring all these people home? Or Grummage think of our train? By the way, where did that guy come from?”
He pointed at Dansei, who was still listening avidly.
“Oh, that’s Dansei, the man who translated for me in the market of Li’tanwa.” Amber gave him a puzzled look. “We found him hiding under a bench and tied him up, but he must have got free. I don’t know what he wants here.”
At these words, Dansei jumped down from the bench, ignoring Raggsy’s growl, and gave a bow that included them all. “I will explain myself, if you please.”
“Yeah, why don’t you do that?” Raggsy was still belligerent, even now that the stranger was being pleasant.
“I have been listening to your conversations.” Dansei waved a hand around at everyone. “And I have come to understand some things. First, you have found a means of traveling to different spheres, that is, otherworldly plains of existence. In them, you seek to fight the corruption that is destroying our people. That is honorable of you and matches my own quest closely. But at first, I did not know that this what what you were doing. In fact, I took you to be agents of the enemy.”
“So that’s why you were hiding, spying on us, and following us through the woods?” Soleeryn inquired.
“Exactly. You are very observant, madam.” Dansei gave her another, separate bow. “But there is more. You see, I am also on a quest to find the source of this corruption and destroy it. As the emperor’s Shinobi--”
“What’s that? His shoeshine?” Jax asked curiously.
“Shinobi? It means a practitioner of Ninjutsu.”
“Ninjutsu?” Jax looked at him with more interest. “You mean that you are a Ninja? Cool! A Ninja on a quest through 'otherworldly plains’ looking for the source of corruption that’s destroying his world. Sounds like the neatest movie plot ever.”
He clapped his hands, making a symbol with them as if cranking an old-fashioned movie camera.
“You may call me Ninja if you please.” Dansei gave him a slightly cold look. “But to continue. My emperor sent me on this quest and I followed you, as you were trying to enter the castle of Lord Kei Shushan, a man who has been acting strangely since the plague began to take over our world. I hid in your 'train car’ to watch you, not expecting to be brought into other spheres of existence by it. But now that I am here...I wish to join you in this quest. It would be the best way to serve my emperor.”
He finished the monologue with yet another bow, looking around in readiness to see how it would be accepted.
“This lord Kei,” Lenny said cautiously, “in what way was he acting strangely?”
Dansei outlined, briefly, everything he had heard from the emperor about the arrest of Kei Shushan. When he was through, Jax nodded firmly.
“Another Power Core.”
“You’re right,” Amber agreed, “it has to be him. But there is still something I can’t understand about these Cores, though I’ve been thinking of it all along. How could Leaflow have been...well, not real? We talked to him, touched him, he ate our food and drank our drink. How could he be just a, well, mental projection?”
“Remember when I hit Mendo Drann on the head and it made his creatures flicker?” Lenny reminded her, “but at the same time, they could be shot down by our guns and one of them found a way through worlds to bite Jax? There must be some way that Power Cores can make things that are almost real, but entirely dependent on their masters for life. It’s like...well, you’ve never played video games. It’s like...a puppet show, I guess. The puppets you can touch and they seem to talk, but it is only their master speaking through them.”
Jax frowned. “I think it’s a little more complicated than that. Remember what Leaflow, our Leaflow, said? He wanted to live.”
“Aye,” Patch put in from where he was sprawled on a bench, shoulder comfortably bound up. “Did he mean that he wanted to live so that he could complete his mission, or just because he was enjoying life? For, if we freed this Power Core Leaflow, his apparition would most likely disappear, if ye know what I mean.”
Amber shook her head. “It still sounds strange to me. But if we can free some of the Power Cores instead of destroying them, all the better. For now I had better go start the train moving on the mainline before anything else shows up.”
Raggsy gave one more suspicious growl at Dansei, then followed after her as she left the room.
The rest sat in silence after that, letting the day sink in. Jackal’s head drooped towards his chest, his hat almost falling off. Dansei twiddled his thumbs, looking about at the wide variety of characters he had fallen in with. They all sat in poses indicative of their character, musing.
The engine backed, bumping the passenger car and shoving it into the caboose, until all three were rolling smoothly towards the switch. When they got to that point there was a pause, before the switch was thrown by Raggsy and the train started forward across the prairie again.