Bel didn’t feel at all prepared to go into a crowded city full of strangers. She had nightmares where someone saw her snakes and called up a mob to drown her in the nearest water. Her guts were so twisted up that she could barely swallow the hard lump of travel bread that Beth had given her, and now her hunger was making her dizzy and unfocused.
It didn’t help that all she’d had to eat was a hard lump of travel bread that Beth had shoved into her hands. Now her hunger made her so dizzy and unfocused that she had to concentrate on her feet to keep herself from tripping over every loose rock and errant root.
“Hey James,” she began, desperate for a distraction.
She spoke in English, as was usual when they were alone or wanted to talk privately. To James, it was just the language that he found most comfortable, but to Bel it was the language of free thought, radical ideas, and stories of a far-off land.
“What’s up?”
“Do you think, if that ritual works and my body is healed, that I’ll be able to see things better?”
“Sure,” James grinned, “the gorgons in the myths from my world never wore glasses.”
She frowned at him before looking back to her feet. “Nobody in this world wears glasses.”
“Exactly. If you’re healed then I’m sure you won’t either.”
“I’ve had it with your circular reasoning,” Bel huffed. “I can’t even tell if you’re serious.”
James laughed in response and Bel decided to ignore him. Her mood had improved though, so she decided to focus on the joys of spring. The last four years of freedom had been a pure rush of new sights and sounds, smells and sensations; Bel would never take them for granted. She smiled at a small flock of happily chirping birds and grinned at the sensation of her sandals squishing into the moist ground.
“Ah, this is great, isn’t it?” she beamed.
“If you like your feet wet and your skin covered in insect bites, then sure, it’s great,” James griped.
Bel jumped in a puddle and laughed at her brother’s desperate attempt to get away.
“Gods, you’re still a kid,” he complained, but without any real heat.
Bel flashed him a victorious grin. “You’re just cranky because Beth didn’t let you sleep in.”
“I’m always cranky. I still can’t believe your days are so short. Seventeen and a half hours – what the hell is up with that?”
“Are you about to go on a rant?” she asked with a quirked eyebrow.
“Of course I’m going to go on a rant! Short days, no toilet paper, no internet, food that’s bland at best and intestine twisting at worst, everyone smells like ass…”
He waved his arms at the world. “This magical fantasy world sucks.”
Bel pointed at a small, indigo bird perched on a nearby tree. “Aren’t the birds nice?”
He looked at her with anger burning in his eyes, but he couldn’t keep the flames stoked in the face of her innocent joy. “Yes,” he admitted. “The birds are cute.”
Bel grinned and bent down to poke some blooming flowers, marvelling at the small insects crawling over them.
James stood still for a moment before waving away a fly that was buzzing his face. “Hey, we can’t dawdle too much. For all we know, Beth plans to blow up the town at noon.”
“Fine,” Bel sighed. She spent a few more seconds watching a bright green bee visit a cluster of delicate flowers. “I’m coming,” she said, hurrying after her brother.
As the morning passed and they drew closer to Baytown, the environment changed from a muddy field to a small coastal pine forest. The woods separated the flood-prone lowlands from the dryer area where the town was built, and was also a good barrier to keep prying eyes away from their camp. The steady coastal breeze disappeared and the air became stifling and humid as they entered the woods. Bel was soon sweating heavily as she struggled uphill, so she pushed her hood back so that she could breath.
James looked around in a panic. “You need to keep your hood up,” his hissed. He pulled the fabric of her cloak back over her head before she could object.
“But it’s so hot and stuffy, and I can barely see,” she complained. “I keep tripping on these stupid roots.”
“Here,” James said, offering his hand, “just lean on me, and we’ll slow down a bit. I don’t know why Beth wants us to rush, but she’s not being reasonable. As usual.”
Bel sighed, but held on to her brother’s arm, letting him guide her along their route. She soon appreciated the extra support when the trail became rocky and even more root infested.
James broke the silence with a question. “Do you ever think about running away? From Beth and her expectations? The whole ‘weapon of the gods’ thing?”
Bel took her time answering. “Well, of course I think about a lot of things. The first time I saw a bird – remember how excited I was? The first time I saw one I thought about having wings and flying away.”
She pointed at a woodpecker hopping along the trunk of a tree. “But… I don’t have wings, do I? I wouldn’t get very far on my own. Birds are only bold because they can fly.”
Bel nodded to herself. “But of course I’ve thought about leaving. I just think I’d be screwed without Beth. It’s not like she’s a bad person either – I mean, she rescued us, right?”
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She looked up at her brother. “You could leave though. You could go off and find that fantasy princess that you’re always talking about.”
James looked at her skeptically. “You know that I wouldn’t do that. You’re still a kid; how could I leave you alone with Beth? She’s nice sometimes, but she’s still a psycho.”
Bel grinned. “Beth’s alright, James. I think this world is just different from yours. Without Beth around would you really feel safe wandering around a town in Satrap with someone like me?”
“Uh, you realize that’s exactly what we’re doing now,” he pointed out.
Bel waved her hand at a biting fly and grimaced when she noticed the welt it left behind. “Yeah. This doesn’t feel safe, does it?”
James grunted in assent.
They proceeded in silence. Closer to the town and started to see signs of human activity: beaten down paths through the underbrush and the occasional discarded bits of rubbish that built up around human settlements.
James stepped in front of her as he greeted a pair of hunters who were making their way into the forest. He leaned close to Bel after they passed. “Your snakes are coming loose again,” he whispered.
Bel reached up to her head and found that their trek had loosened the tie holding her dead snakes back from her face. She stepped behind a tree as James served as a lookout. “Maybe we should just cut them off,” she muttered as she retied them and pulled her hood forward.
“Geez, stop it with all this self-harm stuff.”
“But they’re dead,” she complained. “I’ve got a bunch of dead snakes on my head, James. It’s not self-harm because they’re already dead.”
“I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to be there, Bel. Maybe Beth’s ritual will fix them too. I’ve told you over and over again that gorgons are a thing.” James grabbed her hand and they resumed their walk to Baytown.
“Oh yeah?” she grumbled. “Then why aren’t you turning to stone right now? That’s how the gorgons work in your stories, right?”
Bel opened her eyes wide and stared at her brother.
“Hey,” James said, his face brightening, “have I told you about cars?”
“Changing the subject, huh? Cars are the carts that move by exploding, right? They still sound dumb.”
Bel looked up to see the outskirts of Baytown. The path they were walking ran through a rocky area unsuitable for farming, so the land was undesirable. The path emerged directly into some ramshackle buildings with mudbrick walls, making something that James called a slum. Bel pulled her cloak tight around her body, protecting herself from a few young children who were running down the dirt path. They hurried forward until they reached a more heavily travelled road paved with actual stone. Then Bel slowed down again, looking at the variety of clothing and decoration in the city.
“Are you sure I can’t stop and get a tattoo while you do the shopping?”
James grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her forward. “This place isn’t sanitary, Bel. You would probably get sick.
He pointed at the roadways made from cut stone.
“I mean, just look at this road. It’s basically paved in lizard shit. You may not believe me, but our exploding carts were better than the walking shit-machines here in Satrap.”
Bel rolled her eyes, but then grinned with mischief. Riling James up was always a good time.
“It’s mostly between the stones though,” she challenged. “And a big storm rolls through often enough to clear it out.” The streets were paved with calf high stones that left large gaps for cart wheels to roll through. Another gap in the center captured the mess left from the lizards that pulled the carts. Bel thought that the system worked well enough.
“It is literally a shitty system,” James insisted. He pointed down as they hopped over the gap. “See? Shitty.”
He grimaced with disgust as he looked into the muck. “God, that looked like a hand.” He shoved his hands through his hair, stressed by the mere sight of something distasteful.
Bel peered into the cesspool of waste that collected between the stones. “It’s a glove.”
“If you say so.”
James began walking once again. He was quiet for a few steps, but soon resumed his ranting.
“Back in my world, we had sewers under the streets rather than on top.” He gestured at a pair of large lizards sitting in a dirt courtyard as grunting men unloaded their carts. “And we built machines to move our things for us rather than using these roving sources of poop.”
“Yes, machines like your magical exploding cars,” Bel replied.
“They weren’t magical. They were gas powered.”
“That’s, what? Magic burning water, right?”
“No. Yes, it burned, no it wasn’t magic.” James ruffled his hair with frustration. “I was going to buy a car for college, before I got sucked into a portal,” he said wistfully.
Bel frowned. Talking about the Old World was like walking through a field of Beth’s traps. The smallest thing could bring up sad memories. James had lived in paradise – or something close to it – before being kidnapped and brought to Satrap, where he’d been tossed into the basement of Technis’ temple with her. In his world, he’d been on the cusp of some kind of training for highly skilled people. Here in Satrap a person without a core was basically a cripple.
It didn’t help that Technis’ church would probably kill him on sight either.
The worst part of it was that neither of them could figure out why he’d been pulled from the Old World into Olympos, or what Technis’ priests had planned to do with him. They had used threats of violence against James to motivate Bel to follow their instructions, but stealing a person from another world seemed like too much trouble to go through just for that.
Beth shook her head when she noticed that James’ expression had darkened. He was still thinking sad thoughts, so it was her responsibility to change the topic.
“Okay, forget about the burning water, let’s talk about the tiny slabs of glass that hide thousands of differently colored candles. How isn’t that magic? Flames that are trapped without air smother and go out.” She flashed her brother a smug grin. She had spent some free time thinking over her brother’s stories and had come up with what she thought was a strong enough objection to tie him into knots. Not that she doubted his stories, she just delighted in his frustration whenever he couldn’t explain them.
“They’re not real flames though,” he objected.
“But you said that I could think of them–”
“Think of them, not that they were. They’re actually tiny, uh, wires I think. That glow when you put energy into them.” He tousled his red hair with frustration. “Look, I can’t explain how computers work. What about all that other stuff I told you and Beth about? How planets move? And how the moons create the tides? What about continental drift and evolution and how light moves faster than sound?”
“Pretty convenient that all of that stuff is useless,” Bel proclaimed. She waggled her finger at her brother. “If you build us one of those planes so that we can fly out of Satrap then I may forgive you for your exaggerations, but until then I’m going to have to insist that your glowing glass doesn’t make any sense.”
Bel smirked down her nose at James. She was a full hand shorter than him, but she did her best to stand tall and put on a haughty air.
“Maybe we could make a hot air balloon, but we don’t have the proper metals or tools–” he started.
He stopped abruptly, in mid-sentence and mid-step. Bel turned to see what had so affected him, but his hand clamped around her arm and he pushed her down a different street so quickly that she nearly slipped into the shit slurry running between the stones.
“Lempo’s left tit James, what–”
“Inquisitor,” he said tensely. “I recognized the robes, but he was just getting out of his carriage. I don’t think he saw us.”
Bel shivered as terror crawled down her spine on little needle legs. Inquisitors only left the capital and Central City to purge heretics. “Do you think he knows we’re here?”
“Dunno. Let’s not find out.” James pulled her into a throng of people waiting to enter a building. “We’ll hide with these people.”
Bel looked up to see where the crowd was heading and grimaced. She leaned over to her brother and whispered, “you do know we’re heading towards a temple, right? A temple for the same god that sent the inquisitor?”
He shrugged. “It’s the last place he’ll think to look. After morning prayers the street will be full of people. We’ll disappear with the crowd.”
Bel cringed as the bodies pressed closer to her, trapping her like a fish caught in a net. She didn’t like this plan.