The Beginning:

The Scroll of Rohan Hanuman

Last of my Line,

I will be avenged.

A storm prevents me now.

Rains end, my journey begins.

I, Rohan, record that which has been.

My words are true, their witness is time.

—Cylinder Seal for The Scroll of Stoic Rohan Hanuman: the Spicer, the Sly, Failed Kingslayer, Whelp of the Mighty Hunter, from The Travelers’ Library

Keeper’s Note:

The actual Scroll of Rohan is faded ink on misshapen, cured animal skin. It is protected in a mobile Traveler archive. This rare translated copy proves Traveler history is a thousand years greater than assumed. The translator is unknown, but near modern: the word “gypsy” didn’t exist in Rohan’s time. Gir Lugal and Gir Nin are rendered “Gypsy Father” and “Gypsy Mother”, but could be “Stranger King” and “Stranger Queen”. “Stranger” is rendered “gypsy”, though “Traveler” isn’t despite being synonymous. “Plains of Shinar” is “Shining Plain”. Untranslatable words or phrases are capitalized and transliterated as proper nouns. This document is privileged. You are known to The Travelers’ Library. If not returned properly, you will be held to account.

Testament of Rohan, Gypsy of Gypsies, Heir of the Golden Crystal Cube

Survivors of The Great Dying sought to prevent such a thing ever repeating. As populations grew, rival schools of thought pursued this ambition. Old Magic was reborn, consolidated, and refined. Powerful men captured the hearts of the Families, seventy in total, who contrived to alter reality itself. In short time, this produced a different sort of dying.

During pristine cobalt summer night this blight began, as winged serpents grew restless, pacing, making grumbling noises; leaping to the height of enclosures, thrashing chains. Gypsy Father knew their ire, and knew the same only in the presence of purest gold. For the serpents called dragons covet precious metals; these exercise a magnetism on the beasts. Deny them, and face consequence. Satiate them, and they roll about as young lions in bushes of mint. It inebriates them. Most lose reason, in what capacity such reason is possible to begin.

Gypsy Father nurtured a regiment of winged ones. He was a young man, and mostly concerned with his immediate family—particularly, the leader of the city, his own distant father: Chief of Security for The Undertaking, emperor in all but name. With seventy families approaching thirty thousand members each, a certain amount of criminal mischief was constant—so the need for its management. Except for the fringes beyond, where scattered agrarians held to Old Ways, all lived in that city. There was no greater gathering of humanity. Even so, this represented only a drop in an ocean, compared to what was.

Men steadfastly built an expanse of architecture further than the eye could see, spiraling up from The Undertaking: Star Tower. It came in stages, requiring foundational infrastructure and permanent lodging for builders—thus the city. Several generations produced an escarpment whose apex was lost in clouds; and this was only the first of six advancements. Star Tower was deceptive, in that from a great distance, it did not appear so high as it was. As you came closer, its immensity was evident: a mountain in Shining Plain, too tall even for a day’s journey.

Each advancement in the tower required a particular energy conduit. Old Magic was in full application, pieced together from legends of the time before, and Forbidden Wisdom. The Seventy, under such new thinking, consulted false wisemen who predicted favorable outcomes. None consulted The First Family—not even that controversial “representative” of The First Family who was also of The Seventy.

It was perilous to live apart from The Undertaking then. Even so, a tenth of mankind survived estranged. Their hermit villages were isolated one from another, and made no competing tribe. Under color of time, they are remembered as wise. Among their number were The First Family, who helped keep mankind from total destruction. It is said these fringe dwellers, closer to The Timeless One, preserved First Speech, when the Second Dying, the Dying of Unity, came.

Not all who lived amid The Undertaking were of The Seventy. Half a dozen tribal roving gangs of mixed blood violently exchanged territories throughout that ancient flawless architecture. Gypsy Father was counted such an outcast; for he was a bastard.

Gypsy Mother was also cast from the Families, indeed The First Family. But she came from the fringes to The Undertaking; from the outside in. So Gypsy Father and Gypsy Mother were suited one to another. Opposing currents dance when they meet in seas, and so did Gypsy Father and Mother.

Her kind knew animals, and were skilled in husbandry. This she brought to the serpents Gypsy Father oversaw. Among other things, the beasts enabled slave management and transportation, of which Gypsy Father’s own patriarch exercised a control so merciless it is remembered as evil. Legends recall him as a hunter not of game, but Man. Human life meant nothing to him, but his excesses were politically rationalized, and his grip was iron. His enforcers knew every alcove of every space throughout Shining Plain.

Even so, it would not extend his destiny.

The Timeless One purposed to visit The Undertaking.

Gypsy Father and Mother were without “Family”, and not of means, so when The Timeless One came, the promises of Star Tower were no temptation to them. Would a bastard and an outcast benefit from the ambitions of The Elite? If anything they were opposed. This could be a reason why that night, in her heart, Gypsy Mother saw the serpentine restlessness, so similar to gold mania, as a portent. She feared the worst.

Like Gypsy Mother, in his core Gypsy Father knew trouble approached. So he unloosed the wisest, most obedient of the serpents, and riding astride, directed the dragon to join its brethren in the flight of security forces soaring a spiral round Star Tower. Gypsy Father flew high, soon piercing clouds to uncover the furthest, highest point of the gargantuan ziggurat; a monstrosity conceived to change reality from the tiniest grains of sand to the grandest stellar bodies. The heads of The Seventy and their attendant retinues were gathered for a critical ceremony of initiation: the ziggurat’s activation. Star Tower’s apex was like a crown, or perhaps a grasping hand, awaiting forthcoming segments; preparatory infrastructure naked to stars. Amid the “fingers” of that hand was a wide, circular space, as a palm. Those standing within seemed tiny creeping things. Gypsy Father’s keen eyes saw all heads of The Families under the glow of Old Magic. He even saw beasts kept only to boast of wealth: one Family brought an entire pride of Loyal Lions managed by attendants, tails twitching fiercely.

Among The Seventy, Gypsy Father’s sharp eyes perceived his own father, The Mighty Hunter, and another he could not recall. A stranger.

The Timeless One had become this stranger.

Gypsy Father could not know. It is said his spirit knew, not his mind. I cannot say. Another thing said, but which I do not know, is that to change what is real, Star Tower functioned as a great machine. Old Magic gave it a sort of life; a kind few Families remember since Unity died.

What Old Magic does remain in my days will not continue long. Such forces require dedicated labor from hundreds of thousands of men over many generations. As now, there were slaves. Human sacrifice is the spirit of Old Magic—so rationalized The Seventy, chief of whom The Mighty Hunter.

The initiation ceremony commemorating Star Tower’s activation went as expected at least for several minutes. Then, without warning, The Fleeing Light came.

It was bright, mysterious, terrifying, unique.

It was a deep flash that not only impacted the body, but the soul, and even dreams, spreading through the city around Star Tower. It came with a deafening roar, followed by a louder silence, a shaking, and a wailing. Fires began everywhere. Great dismay was embodied, a sandstorm sweeping across Shining Plain, a rogue wave crashing on an evil seaside village to leave nothing. The Fleeing Light started a continuing event; one destruction built upon another, upon another. A sea of fractures spread over time, becoming more difficult to trace with years. For The Families were specialists, and organized compartmentally. Though together, each group was isolated even from adjacent brethren. When The Fleeing Light came, the widest wave on a massive sea, it banished Old Magic from the city, and so its source of power. That great metropolis became as The First Family, after The Great Dying: helpless and naked before The Timeless One.

Those beyond The Families in the city, that handful of tribal Gypsy gangs—not all benign as our Gypsy Father—preyed one on another, and so unto the present day, and so the concern of this writing, which will be shortly addressed.

It is said Gypsy Father saw The Timeless One as though he were disappearing from The Seventy, none of whom ever registered his presence. Instead they passionately cast blame one on another. However, being unused to such continual interaction, patterns of speech unique to The Families impeded understanding. Somehow The Fleeing Light contributed. There came unknown clouds to the mind. Walls around thoughts. What was understood, now was not. Distrust, accusation, and violence followed; among the greatest ever known.

Gypsy Father was barely able to pull The Mighty Hunter from this maelstrom. The retinue of The Seventy, attendants, guards, advisors, and more, were loyal to leadership that reflected their specialty. In the confusion, all took up arms for their masters. The fighting was clumsy and fierce. Loyal Lions became crazed, ravenous furies of death. Half The Seventy would never return from Star Tower. None escaped injury.

But such mad danger did not stop Gypsy Father. Even as Old Magic died in The Fleeing Light’s wake, he soared into the fray. Bastard he might be, but he only had one father: The Mighty Hunter, who should have been the most powerful, but was the first attacked.

The breath of Gypsy Father’s dragon became a flashing torch scouring the night, bringing further disarray to terrorized leaders of The Undertaking in the claw of Star Tower. The serpent sensed gold, and its flight was swift. Without hesitation it gripped The Mighty Hunter’s unconscious form in multicolored claws, pulling him from where he lay in the perforated darkness atop the tower. A Loyal Lion roared at the dragon with a swipe, but a spurt of fire sent the beast scurrying.

The unconscious Mighty Hunter was not all Gypsy Father’s dragon saved.

That clever, nigh-berserk beast wrapped an iridescent claw around the Golden Crystal Cube.

In the center of Star Tower, where before, the conduit for Old Magic was tragically activated, now a flawless cube of gold lay. It was so pure it could be peered through as glass, and those such as I who have seen it say there are stars inside. This was a consequence of the harnessed magic, a byproduct reflecting the dedicated effort of almost all mankind. But it was an unexpected byproduct, an enigma. Some say it is because Star Tower was made to engineer destiny; to alter what was meant so it suited what The Seventy desired. But an element of power was absent Star Tower, one beyond synthesis, involving aligned spirit; not just of mankind, but of that great artist who sang life into being.

So. Was it The Timeless One, halting evil designs? Was it a failing of men who sought such outcomes? Was it both?

I say it was The Timeless One.

The Seventy were unsuccessful, the Golden Crystal Cube a testament to their failure, all that remained from the blow of The Fleeing Light, removing all vestiges of Old Magic. Pure confusion and chaos could only follow.

Out of chaos bloomed war.

Communication gone, The Families clashed gruesomely until the city was waste; every underhanded blackguard and trickster doing his best to seize wealth where possible. So the secret of Old Magic was lost. In our time, pockets of cannibalized, mechanized Old Magic may be found, and those who wield such things fashion themselves gods of their own tiny fiefdoms. They dig the earth for Old Power, but others attack, and take it for themselves in its weakened capacity.

In those days some flew without dragons, though dragons were more sensible. In these days, it is vanity, as The Families seek nationhood, the Gypsies avoid it, and Old Ways fade like youth. In that night, Gypsy Father brought The Mighty Hunter to his humble dwelling among outcasts. This was not accomplished without cost. Other riders in the serpent traffic rode mounts sensitive to gold, and Gypsy Father’s beast stole the Golden Crystal Cube. It flew like a hurricane, pursued by a rabid spiral of less keen reptilian beasts in their hundreds, eyes red with desire for gold. Neither Gypsy Father nor The Mighty Hunter could withstand such violence. Even the keen dragon took fatal injury, though his mania drove him on.

After outmaneuvering other riders through hidden air currents, Gypsy Father and The Mighty Hunter made their journey to the Coming Realm, and even that wise and brave dragon on which they rode did not wake again, instead passing on, injured but numb through mad joy of the Golden Crystal Cube, expiring with a grin on its evil face.

Gypsy Mother found these dead ones and knew what was done. In the days of Old Magic, fragile stone tables held visions inside, if only there were magic eyes to feed them. This serpent wore such a magic eye as a necklace. That eye told what it saw to a little stone table; I do not know how, it was a function of Old Magic. Gypsy Mother saw all, and listened to Gypsy Father’s own observations from astride the dragon, for such magic eyes “heard” as well. And Gypsy Mother remembered these things, and recorded them in written words for time. Fragile stones require Old Magic or they become dead rock, then sand. But words truly writ persist a greater time. So Gypsy Mother wrote her words. So I write mine.

Gypsy Mother mourned, even in chaos, but not idly. From the dead dragon, she took the Golden Crystal Cube, then gathered our own grandfathers, children at the time, and the rest of that household, now chief among all gypsies. In this way, at the fringes of the city, as the Dying of Unity began, many gypsy folk were preserved and have wandered between nations for generations.

Such is the song of the Gypsies of Gypsies.

Such is the ballad all Traveling Keepers of Good Secrets and Herds learn.

These verses are recorded here, in our words, for a testament and a record of what has been lost.

The Golden Crystal Cube is shepherded by the dragon of my caravan, and my lineage is directly to Gypsy Mother, through Chief Jarouh, and his father, Chief Remath, unto his father, Michelandispar, eldest of Gypsy Mother; Our Gypsy Mother, who took wives for her sons of her own people, as we gave our daughters to them. Thus my line ties directly to The First Family, and also The Mighty Hunter.

Even with our connections, these generations have meant unending loss. The world is colder, dragons die. As dragons die, factions among our kin have turned, making league to destroy us, the remaining line to The First Family among Gypsies of Gypsies. They are determined to see us wiped from the face of the earth.

Only I remain of nine hundred, all killed by the dragon of another, who should be an ally, but is an enemy, and who I do not know. I pursue vengeance against these Travelers who have so despitefully used us. For as I sought the Timeless One in early morning, ere daylight broke the night, they came with one of the last winged serpents, of the mightiest class, who overcame our own aging beast, and so fermented his own mighty rarity.

In frenzy at the Golden Crystal Cube, their beast began a rampage that not only destroyed our people, but the very Travelers sent to control it. It killed ours, it killed theirs, and now has gone for its nest, which will without doubt be in the camp of the enemy.

Of my family, of my tribe, of my caravan, all save myself are dead, and my place in this world is shaken. These words remain, a witness to Rohan of the Travelers for time. I go to retrieve the Golden Crystal Cube from their beast, and take my vengeance.

Here ends the lineage of Gypsy Father and Mother of the First Family.

—Rohan of the Travelers

***

Rohan laid down his writing implement and looked to the decaying magnitude of his family’s dragon. Even when alive it was old, fat, withered of wing and dim of eye. A feeble, near senile beast more livestock than defense, transportation, or reconnaissance vehicle. According to old legends, they were not supposed to lose their strength in such a way. But the world was changing.

Multicolored, iridescent scaling of the beast was faded to gray, and its scarlet mane, thin and pink. It was no match for the attacker. Its dead carcass testified as much, still smoldering despite the rain, and crunched in a cindered rictus with only one side unburned, scarlet entrails exposed to elements.

The storm was three days with Rohan in his grief. Slowly came the dawn. The rains first arrived as Rohan returned from the mountain into breaking day. Like his sorrow and rage they hammered, washing away blood, leaving burnt wagons and dead bodies, then fading to be replaced with what remained. There was no possibility for immediate pursuit of that evil beast, a monster responsible for the death of his caravan, and the theft of the Golden Crystal Cube. Not in the downpour. And now, half the remains of its destruction were swept away.

More storms would come.

In short time, none would even know the evil visited on Rohan and his caravan. The thick green vines of fertile goodlands would confederate with other flora to overcome and decompose what had been.

So Rohan was at a crossroads.

If he remained to perform proper rites sending off the dead, there would be no chance of finding the authors of his caravan’s destruction. If he did not, there was honor to consider. Easing his decision was the utter impossibility of even identifying the dead. Those uneaten were ashes.

In shelter cobbled together from the destruction Rohan mixed his own ink and transcribed his record to animal hide dried by fire sheltered from the rain, in the way passed down from Gypsy Mother. The fabric was previously part of the chief’s tent. Rohan’s tent. Of his heirs, his children, he could not even identify fragments. They were once men grown. He reflected for the first time that perhaps his wife’s own journey through death to the Coming Realm years earlier was a kind of mercy.

The pain of it all was a shock that took turns fully registering in his mind, and becoming something remote and intangible from which Rohan’s conscious self was separated. It would stay obscure like that a while, until some detail brought the monstrosity of the situation squarely before him again, and so he would become consumed in grief. Somewhere in his mind, his questions of “why” were directed in full emotion at The Timeless One, even as he knew he had no legitimate right to such bitterness.

Rohan rolled the cured animal skin that held his writing into a tube, which he nestled inside half of a smooth and hollow ceramic axle that remained relatively undamaged amidst the ashen caravan. He etched his family’s crest onto the outside of the hollow axle, and sealed either end with clay he fashioned using the fire.

The axle was once part of a smaller carriage, self-propelled; likely one of the few used by scouts, and borne by Old Magic. Originally the vehicle would have had three wheels, two in the front, one in the back. A scout would recline in a seat made for one, and activate the vibrations relying on charged metals within the carriage. No one really understood the mechanism, only that it worked when proper rituals were completed. It was from the time of Unity, when wicked Star Tower split the world.

Now it was just another burnt relic to be cannibalized, and Rohan did so to preserve the record of his people. Only about the span of an arm, the axle went in a satchel which he bound about himself snugly, finishing his preparations to pursue the killer of his people.

A ray of light from the mountains to the east came upon him, a swarthy-skinned man with rare gray eyes and a thick black beard. Rohan was in his prime, six decades strong and approaching middle age, but with many decades to go. He was taller than average, broad, and well-stricken with hair. Many scars seasoned him—organic tattoos—and his clothing was that of his people; a multicolored patchwork of silks from the Time of Unity. Their make was such they survived over centuries—mingled with less refined patchwork repairs, of course.

As the leader of a family group, his garments retained greater quality than most, and were designed for protection, ease of movement, and airflow. He wore boots of hide into which were tucked snug-fitting pants of wool and ancient patchwork colored similarly. Around his shoulders went a short coat that included a hood. It tapered around the arms to keep flowing fabric from being an impediment to movement; especially in the jungle. Two belts crossed his chest, and connected with one around his waist. These belts were regimented with knives, their commanding officer a saber at his side. In his short coat were tools and more. The satchel across his back contained fire-producing implements, what preserves he could find amidst the disarray, rope, and a Far-Eye with lenses made to extend what one could see form a distance; a very valuable relic from the golden time, and one of the most useful items he salvaged from the wreckage. Now nestled among these items was the hollow axle Rohan sealed with clay and his family emblem, to be put somewhere safe before the light of his destiny met final extinguishment.

So he cast a last glance at the sky, and his heart said a prayer to The Timeless One, that his journey would prove fruitful, and his vengeance upon the destroyers of his line successful. Whether such a goal were in line with The Timeless One’s intentions or not, Rohan did not consider, for in his soul, his purpose was set.

He found where the dragon raged through the underbrush. A great dragon it must have been; wide as ten men and long as a caravan. No wonder it made short work of Rohan’s family.

A cold rage, a detached psychopathy, dominated Rohan’s mind by this time, feeding it with a singular purpose. All else was a collateral necessity to support this purpose. Eating, sleeping, walking. Through it all, one thought consumed Rohan, and against this thought nothing could intrude.

He was making excellent progress in pursuit of the beast. Grief and monsoon maelstrom waylaid him three days, but the dragon was obstructed in its return as well. The journey was indeed a long one, and apparently included no flight.

The precise reason for this was unknown to Rohan.

What was known is that dragon flight could always be perceived in terms, at least, of where it began. A dragon must breathe very quickly to animate its members with energy requisite to achieve lift, and survivors of the First Family say this has to do with the new atmosphere, which is not as thick as dragons prefer. So to fly, a given dragon will begin a sort of hyperventilation that becomes a friction which often produces flame from mouth and nostrils. They vent fire at launch, and such fire leaves markings. Dragon riders have a procedure when taking to the air, one which requires a particular sort of location for such beasts to be kept, and particular safety protocols around launching and returning. But the increasing coldness of the world, the thinning air, and the changing times made habitable locales for dragons rare. In the days of Rohan, only a handful of dragons in the husbandry of men remained. Beyond such husbanded beasts, there were only wild ones; but these also became increasingly scarce.

The dragon Rohan trailed must not have liked flying, though he was loathe to believe it made its entire transit by ground. And he was also loathe to believe it was wild, for it attacked at a time and in a place where wild dragons would be unlikely, and when the caravan’s defenses were at their lowest. This was too strategic, and out of place. Does one find waterfrogs in snow? Does one find white bear in the jungle? In the low mountains, there were dragons, and in the plains, and the deep, deep jungles. Rohan’s caravan was apart from such extremes on a known route of passage to the high mountains, southeast of the Shining Plain by the breadth of several seas. They had been in an open area up from the jungle and down from the mountains, out of any territory of any beasts that would be an impediment to travel. And they kept their own dragon, after all. Old though it was, it would leave a sort of trail as it lumbered along with them like a domestic dog the size of a hillside. This alone warded off most beasts.

Finally, the carcass of that old dragon was neither eaten nor taken. A wild dragon would have eaten the old one first as a show of dominance. A dragon under the direction of competent handlers would have helped retrieve the carcass, as its varying elements, from scales to teeth, were of the greatest value; a value keeping company with jewels and fine gold. Only the Golden Crystal Cube was taken, and the dragon left. A domesticated dragon wild with gold mania was the best answer, and so it would find its way to its nest with its prize.

Even with the storm, by now, the dragon must have returned. But how far away its nest could be was another question entirely.

The dragon chose routes through the jungle that put it in proximity to trails peopled by man. Rohan came upon several areas exhibiting evidence of carnage, where the beast must have surprised those traveling on their way and made a snack of them. At one such place, Rohan found something that thrilled him.

It was a Wind Circle.

A Wind Circle is an open wheel used for personal transportation. It uses reactive metals for power, and can be energized for a week’s journey with the right stone. Wind Circles are a costly, rare holdover from The Undertaking. Rohan had only seen a few in his lifetime, and those almost exclusively in fixed residences either for display, or used sparingly. Someone of status had lost their life along the road. Or, a true thief indeed.

Along these roads were many who, like the dragon, preyed upon travelers, and took them for all they had. Woe was to those in expensive, ancient conveyances who could neither defend themselves nor outrun adversaries. There was a possibility this Wind Circle was stolen from such a person by such highwaymen. Now, the dragon had taken it back.

Saber drawn, Rohan came down to the crude clearing that indicated a travel artery through the overgrowth. It had been a real road, once; perhaps even before The Great Dying. As it was now, soon it would appear to be a seam of minerals naturally deposited. Rohan only knew by its shape and breadth what it had been. Indeed, it looked as though it were grown over by seagoing things when submerged in the days of catastrophe, and so had cracked down the middle as many ancient roads.

The surest Wind Circle could be knocked out of alignment by a bad enough road. But from what Rohan could see, it was a ball of flame that discomfited this man from his machine.

Behind on the road were withering limbs and garments, and a pair of sooty eye protectors still usable. The dragon had waited on the hill, then spit a ball of flame at the man. Scrapes and a certain discomfiture of pebbles indicated where at least one other man in a Wind Circle must have turned around and sped away. Apparently that man escaped, the dragon ate its prize, and moved on, continuing parallel the road.

From the markings on the ground, Rohan could tell this all happened recently.

He was closing in.

Rohan stood the Wind Circle with some effort. It was several spans higher than he, and heavy. With a grunt, he opened the box where power stones were kept, and looked inside. A rock about the size of his fist was halved in a receptacle shaped precisely to fit its contours. The vehicle held another two days’ journey, if Rohan could find a way to make it live again.

He closed the box and pulled a lever behind a contoured seat designed to fit a man. Inside he could see a faint blue glow. Some sort of lightning weave. Little delicate strands would carry miniature lightning surges from the power stones. Such a strand was dislodged. Very carefully, Rohan connected it, then replaced the seat as it was, and reopened the box with the fitted stone. He slid his finger over a colored portion of crystal. It lit up, and suddenly the Wind Circle stood without his support, balancing with the ancient magic of gyroscopery. It also began to make a gentle whirring noise.

Rohan closed the box and positioned himself in the seat of the Wind Circle, nestling his pack in his lap and pushing his feet into the stirrups. At his left hand was a balance handle, and at his right was a bone-shaped grip for what amounted to a rudder, but did not lead to any actual rudder; it just directed the Wind Circle. Pushing gently forward and keeping his eyes on the road, Rohan let the vehicle begin to run, which it did.

He was within the wheel, and it rolled around him, circulated by some sort of chain that drew energy from the magic rocks. Rohan could pick bits of detritus from the innards of that chain if he had to, or maybe connect a disconnected lightning strand; but he was far from enlightened enough to do anything else with such Old Magic. He knew there was a way to open a false window that made steering easier, as it came down in front of the driver, and hid the wheel that otherwise bisected one’s view from the steering seat. However, he couldn’t remember just how such a thing were done, and so made do with the wheel occluding what he could see immediately ahead.

To his left, as the road led toward greater civilization, Rohan could see the trail of the dragon. It had only kept itself a short distance from the road, a distance Rohan himself could have covered in the blink of an eye. It must have been very hungry, and very undisciplined.

Someone not paying attention was easy prey.

A day’s travel at the speed a man can run did not reveal the end of the dragon’s path. In fact, until the jungle faded, and a new plain began, the animal kept pace with the road. As the new steppe yawned outward, the beast must have stopped and walked in circles a while, toward the mouth of the old road and then away from it, before apparently becoming bored, and lumbering northward along the treeline, away from the path.

As it was almost dark, Rohan made camp just within the treeline, with a view on the steppe. He fell asleep fast, but was almost immediately awakened by a harsh voice and a razor sharp arrow inches from his face.

“Who are you that rides the Wind Circle of Inar the Short?”

This was repeated several times, each coming with a prod from the speaker.

It took Rohan a moment to understand what was being asked. It was in a dialect adjacent to his Family, but many words differed. Finally he managed to parse the statement, and approximated the man’s tongue as best he could. “A man minding his business in sleep, and riding no Wind Circle.”

“What is this against the tree?”

“A Wind Circle.”

“Were you not riding it?”

“I was.”

“Then who are you who rides the Wind Circle of Inar the Short?”

“I rode, and I will ride, and I am not riding now.”

The voice behind the arrow in the bow scoffed, and its owner leaned in close over flickering embers of the mellowing fire. “How do you know that you will ride it?”

“Because a quarter of its stone remains, and so does my journey.”

“And if it is taken from you?”

“If the taker should leave me alive, that would be a mistake,” Rohan replied.

The other man faltered at these words, and so came the necessary moment. In one motion, Rohan, kicked embers into his face and rolled out of the way as a sharp implement pierced where he lay an instant earlier.

Before the other could realize what was going on, Rohan cast him to the ground atop the fire’s coals and looped the bow he deprived him of under the man’s shoulders, splaying the fellow’s arms out behind. This made it so his belly was in what remained of the fire.

The would-be thief shrieked, but did not call for help, so after a moment’s torture, Rohan concluded he was alone, kicked him off the fire, rolled him over, and stuck a boot to his throat. The bow he left holding the man’s arms, keeping him uncomfortably restrained. With a few final kicks, Rohan communicated the defect in any strategies to trip him up with unbound feet.

Rohan removed a sharpened dagger from his person, leaned into the gasping, shrieking man, and said: “Now. Who are you that disturbs Rohan, Whelp of The Mighty Hunter?”

“You’re not related to Him!” Yelled the man.

“Who are you?”

The fellow struggled a moment more, then became convoluted with platitudes and apologies, revealing himself to be the compatriot of the highwayman the dragon consumed before. He was scared to come back for days, then things happened in the nearby community that changed his mind, so he sold his own Wind Circle and returned on foot, intending to retrieve Inar’s lost vehicle, only to find Rohan at the old road’s mouth had already beaten him to it.

“This dragon,” Rohan said. “Describe it.”

“It lost its mind, it was drunken, it played with Inar like a lion with a sheep, and I will never forget his screams. It had eyes that went either direction, and they stayed red. It was thick and wide and misshapen. It had a look to it like the natural-born fools among men. It was a damaged creature, deranged, hungry, confused. And its rider was as deranged as the dragon, malformed, bloody, disfigured in the face, mad, and in total approval of his beast’s untempered murderousness. And they’re still out there, and they will eat you too!”

Rohan laughed. “That dragon will eat something alright. Whose dragon is it? Who is this deranged rider?”

Here the man began to struggle a bit, to Rohan’s curiosity. Rohan dug his foot into weak ribs, and the man succumbed. “Ach. It is the beast of Poros the Burned.”

“Poros the Burned?”

“He led...a...a double cross, with scoundrels in the land. Days ago. He was returning to start his treachery when his mount ate Inar. Now it is known that he has killed Rajah Akbar the Serpent King of Qalandar, and taken his place, and his dragon, and makes war with the surrounding cities. He...has the Jewel of the Mighty Hunter from Star Tower itself, and the mad dragon of Akbar, and none can stop him! I have seen his terror in the city, and so came to retrieve the Wind Circle of deceased Inar and take my leave.”

“Again I say...Poros the Burned?”

“It is his new name. For he is an evil son full of resources and plenty, who has come from nowhere, and in no time, is unstoppable. So he is Poros. And he is burned. So he is Poros the Burned.”

Rohan stood back and let the man regain his feet, moving quickly to where his pack lay by the Wind Circle, saying: “How long has the dragon been with this Poros?”

“Days. I told you, it killed Inar quite recently. A week ago maybe.”

“Thank you. In gratitude, though you threatened me into wakefulness, I will let you live,” Rohan said.

“And Inar’s Wind Circle?”

“Where there is no Inar, there is no thing that is Inar’s,” Rohan replied, and returned to packing.

“But what if I expected to recoup the relic of my lost partner?”

“You would have given up that opportunity when you rendered threat to my person.”

Before the highwayman could finish replying: “That’s not good enough,” and raise a hidden weapon, Rohan threw a blade that pierced his throat, percussively interrupting the man’s pronunciation of “enough” and knocking him to the ground, where he writhed until he could do no more, then ceased.

“I told you I’d let you live,” Rohan returned. “Why would you take that as an invitation to betray me?”

He kicked a handheld piece of nastiness with a poisoned dart at its front out of the man’s hands, picked it up, examined it, then secreted the thing away.

In truth, Rohan expected the rogue would try something. There were many gangs, some in twos, some in twenties, who roamed the world. Some became nations, many imploded. Rohan suspected one of these to be the foundation behind Poros the Burned and the death of his caravan—whatever power was at fault must be bloodthirsty indeed, to destroy nine hundred souls in one fell swoop. Still, all these things did suggest to Rohan a new possibility he did not find appealing.

When one group got big enough, they expanded, and took over other tribes, caravans, and nations. Every Family was doing this, seeking to make a Name for themselves; a Name lost since Star Tower was abandoned, and the world changed. Those with enough might and ingenuity could wreak havoc, and were themselves seeds of empire.

A seed of empire might be harder for Rohan to impart his vengeance upon.

Indeed, his suspicions were soon confirmed.

The dragon had returned to a substantial walled city, where a special entry through a surrounding moat represented the only unguarded point. Worse, Rohan knew who the previous king was. He presided over one of the most treacherous unaffiliated families in the time of Star Tower, a group who made it their business to oppose all caravans in Rohan’s line. They were known as the Qalandar, and until now, Rohan did not know them to cease from nomadic tradition. Apparently there was a change in attitude over the years.

Quite capable of living in the land of spices from the great resources that bloomed there, Rohan did not seek overnight shelter in the city. He kept his distance, collected the rarest herbs he could find, pressed them, cured them, packaged them crudely, and spent any remaining time watching for highwaymen. In such a way, days led to weeks, months, and seasons.

As Rohan watched the city, troops came and went, and eventually Rohan realized there was a knowledge gap relating to immediately available spices in the region. Rohan thus began his reconnaissance from the inside out, trading in spices during the day to learn how things worked in the city, and how he might avenge himself on Poros the Burned, retrieve the Golden Crystal Cube of his family, and keep it from any other would-be dragon masters.

He soon became known to other merchants in the walled city. This population center was no minor undertaking; it was twenty times the caravan Rohan once lead, and fast becoming a true regional center. Eventually he traded the Wind Circle of Inar the Short for residence in the city’s walls, and even adopted a nickname: Hanuman, the Broken Chin. When he sold his spices during the day, he told a story of being caught in the night and forced to start over in life, as though being impacted on the chin by an unexpected blow.

So Rohan Hanuman waited, and worked, and learned, and even from that great divide separating “common” people from “royalty”, devised a way by which he might regain the cube, and avenge himself. It would have done no good to enter the city as the minor king he was, not unless he preserved his own dragon, and brought it behind him; or kept an army. Rohan had neither. But he had knowledge, and knowledge is leverage.

Trading spices brought Rohan into a position where he would regularly interact with the “King’s” culinary retinue. Said retinue was also tasked with keeping the dragon healthy, as it was the powerful right arm of Poros the Burned, who used its terror to overcome Rajah Akbar, and take control of the city. Poros used the Golden Crystal Cube in ways none fully understood, but which Rohan knew well.

So the seasons became years as Rohan Hanuman graduated from social circle to social circle, until he was Stoic Hanuman of the High Court, who could find rare spices.

Stoic Hanuman soon entered the furthest reaches of political orbit around Poros, in the palace hall of conquered Qalandar. He was unknown to the local royalty, but known very well to their support staff. And it was in this way Rohan finally managed to poison the dragon, and get himself sought by Poros the Burned to remedy the situation. For Rohan let it be known that his herbs could have an effect on even the strongest dragon, intending later to cure the beast of a malady he himself arranged. Stoic Hanuman knew what things would make such creatures ill, and why, and what could be done.

It was another summer evening, and there was a military campaign planned against a far city, and that campaign included strategies that necessarily incorporated the dragon, who was named Ajagara, and represented unequaled military might in the region.

To the dismay of Poros the Burned, out of nowhere Ajagara became wilder than usual, sprinting at full speed around the arena beneath the city’s palace where it was kept, shaking the premises very much like an earthquake, and showing no sign of surcease. This arena was part of a natural cave system reinforced and configured to hold a dragon. There was an exit the dragon had access to as it was allowed, and through which it would always return. This exit connected to the water surrounding the city, and included a tunnel almost too long for a single breath, but something a capable swimmer could manage.

Round and round Ajagara ran, beating at the gate secured over his traditional exit, and burning everything he could. He refused any food, and leapt madly at those who tried to feed him, torching them if they were foolish enough to remain still. The dragon was in a particular madness, and many slaves were lost trying to satiate or calm him. This madness continued for days. Usually, such a thing may have represented a mood of the beast, one which could be quelled with The Jewel of the Great Hunter, as Poros called the Golden Crystal Cube. Now, nothing could change the dragon. It was fierce, in its prime, angry, and quite stupid.

When Rohan Hanuman was finally able to lay eyes on it through his activities as a spice purveyor, the creature he saw was like none of the dragons he ever encountered. There was absolutely no intelligence in its eyes, only lust; pure, undefiled, violent lust.

It was a great dragon, one that could swallow half a dozen men in a gulp; like some titanic wicked salamander. Its exterior was brightly colored scales that were absolutely dazzling and hypnotic in their iridescence, shifting under any illumination and temporarily blinding the viewer. The creature was painted in jewels. It had huge eyes, eyes the size of goats, with irises bisecting their sickly yellow coloration, and a pale face without color except for deep red defining a wide nose, the same color stretching like blood over what passed for lips on a lizard’s mouth.

Its wings were red beneath, and its tail stretched away like a narrowing thorn bush. It had many ridges across its body, spiked, and unforgiving. It was long of limb, with clawed fingers that were opposable and could grasp anything in an embrace stronger than iron. It had a broad wide chest, and between its seldom-used wings, its back reminded Rohan Hanuman of a biting turtle’s armored shell. It would shriek, eat what it was given, and nearly kill itself leaping toward the food ‘chute for more. It was always hungry, thoroughly mindless, and absolutely terrifying.

Rohan Hanuman never saw a dragon of Ajagara’s like before.

But he knew how to destroy it.

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In the dead of night, from his room near the palace, bribing guards with herbal blends designed to have certain intimate effects on their wives, Rohan Hanuman crept into the palace kitchen, to the dragon’s feeding ‘chute, where he dropped a pungent package of meat the size of a small goat, and containing a peculiar compound that would have several effects.

Firstly, the creature would not be able to resist the meat, so it would swallow this quickly. Then it would become stimulated, and agitated, and desirous of a mate; a mate that would likely be impossible to find any time soon, even in the wild. In its frenzy, no gold or meat would entice Ajagara. He would exhaust himself trying to escape, and if he didn’t find release, he would not be satiated for weeks at least—well beyond the window for the approaching military campaign.

So the dragon drove Poros the Burned madder than he already was, ruining his careful strategies for conquest, and forcing him to explore all opportunities to fix the problem. Livid, Poros took out his frustration on wisemen who did not have the knowledge of Stoic Hanuman, and could not assuage the dragon.

Poros was a young man despite the hideous visage which made him seem quite old. It was rumored he was once pleasant enough to look upon, before he attained his wife’s wedding gift. His wife, Laveena, was the daughter of the previous king of that particular Qalandar city. But when Poros returned, riding the mad dragon and wielding the Jewel of the Great Hunter, he quickly directed the dragon to eat the old king, and under threat of the beast, established his rule. He came to the city with his face grossly burned, disfigured to the point of being inhuman. The hair was singed away such that it only grew back in patches, and only the right side of his face retained any of its previous grace.

Poros the Burned was hard before his dragon became incapacitated. Now, he was foreign to mercy. And he was in rage.

That day, he first took it out on his wife and child, yelling: “Laveena, you cursed whore of the Qalandars, your mindless people have bewitched my dragon, and now the city will die,” after which point he dramatically backhanded his four-year-old son Moksha, conceived on the night when he took rule of the Qalandar city with the dragon. Moksha knew better than to cry out, as did Laveena.

“The city will not surely die, my lord,” she replied, eyes on the ground of the palace bedchambers.

“Won’t it? With every community in the land waiting for one mistake—one mistake—from our Qalandar throne? Will they not seize the opportunity? Perhaps you stupid people deserve to be overcome,” and he left without another word, seizing the nearest official without his bedchambers and ordering him to produce wisemen that could remedy the issue. So it was that Rohan, Stoic Hanuman, was eventually sought, and brought to see Poros the Burned.

He was announced with pomp and circumstance by a court attendant. The leadership of the city were gathered together uncomfortably atop the great enclosed cavern representing the den of the dragon. All eyes were trained on the massive winged serpent where it paced, a safe distance at fifty times the height of a man below them.

“Stoic Hanuman, the Spicer, of No Significant Lineage,” bellowed an official with a stone table, then beckoned Rohan Hanuman to step forward.

“Lord Poros,” Rohan said, and bowed deep.

This was his first time seeing the king any closer than the distance needed to shout a greeting. The burns had scarred over, leaving a wrinkled face with a dead eye and a skeletal veneer that looked as though it were in perpetual pain. As such, Poros the Burned seldom looked at anyone head on. Yet despite it all, there was something very familiar about the man, and this left Rohan Hanuman feeling unexpectedly ill at ease.

Poros said, without ever looking his way, “Hanuman, observe,” and gestured to the cavern.

Rohan Hanuman leaned over the side and had a look at the dragon in its herbal, pheromone-induced rut. The animal was acting just as he knew it would. He gave it a few moments, to appear as though this were something requiring thought, then turned back and said: “It will continue so until it dies, unless you feed it the right medicine.”

“You lie, Hanuman,” Poros roared through scarred vocal chords. “Think you that a man who rides the dragon has no knowledge of dragons? I grew up with dragons, and I know of the rut. It will not die. But if it is not controllable, we, and our city, will. You are some wizard of spices? If you will fix this problem, anything you desire is yours, up to half my wealth. For without this beast, we are surely undone.”

Rohan Hanuman swallowed, feeling increasingly uneasy at the speech patterns of the man Poros, Poros the Burned, self-crowned king of the first Qalandar city. For the man’s accent in the Qalandar tongue was the same as Rohan’s, and this was an impossible thing. It led Rohan to a suspicion he could not thwart; a fear, and an anger, and a rage he did not know he could still feel. He knew one sure test, and used it quickly: “Have you not the Golden Crystal Cube? Will the beast not respond to its lust for gold?”

“It will not, and nothing we do can change that, as is the case with dragon rut. The rut passes, we find the creature a mate, or we kill it. And we do not have time, Hanuman the Spicer. See here,” and Poros produced the Golden Crystal Cube from a gated cubby in the throne on which he sat. He walked to the edge of the overlook and bellowed at the dragon, holding up the cube.

Ajagara didn’t even glance his way, but continued his roaring and pacing and leaping about the enclosure below. Eventually Poros the Burned put the cube away again.

Stoic Hanuman nodded as calmly as he could, his test having confirmed his suspicion. At length he said this: “Great Poros. I have constructed a cure, it is even now in my chambers.”

“What is this cure.”

“I have combined a vat of fat with the hair of a hundred cattle, and enough pitch to fill a carriage. It will be one bite for our dragon Ajagara. His heated insides will digest the fat, and the hair will cause the unit to lodge in the beast’s stomach, which will initiate an illness response, and you will have two days and two nights of control until Ajagara expurgates, then returns to rut.”

Poros turned to Hanuman for the first time, and their eyes met. Something passed between the two, a recognition, a recognition of a sort that shocked Poros into dropping his own veneer, if briefly. Finally he said: “Even now my men go to your chambers for to retrieve this cure. And I request that you meet with me in mine. Immediately.”

“As you wish,” Stoic Hanuman said, and rendered a bow.

An hour went by as these orders were fulfilled. A dozen men hauled the ungainly hairy pill Stoic Hanuman made to the dragon’s chamber, and dropped it in the food ‘chute. Meanwhile Stoic Hanuman was cleaned by women of the court, and brought, in new garments, to the chambers of the king, where were Laveena and Moksha, the queen and prince, as well as their attendants.

After Stoic Hanuman was once more announced to Poros’ private chambers, Poros said: “All leave, save Laveena, Moksha, and the Spicer.”

The attendants obeyed.

As soon as the door closed, Rohan said: “You noticed when I said Golden Crystal Cube.”

“There are only a very few who call the Jewel of the Great Hunter the Golden Crystal Cube,” Poros replied.

“My son, what has been done to you.”

“The name of Rohan is dead,” Poros replied, “but I knew you would be on the mountain when the dragon came.”

“What is this?”

“You see this daughter of a whore,” Poros replied, and roughly backhanded Laveena, who took the blow without crying out.

Rohan winced. “She has no control over her history, just as we do not, son.”

“She is how we preserve our line, and our destiny. It’s true what you say, father. And I am the great, great, great, great, grandson of a Mighty Hunter before The Timeless One. A legacy you have not kept, but a destiny which I will keep.”

It was in that instant that it all came to him.

Here, Stoic Rohan Hanuman the Spicer had been concerned with vengeance against the people that killed his own, but his rage was misplaced.

It was not a people that were responsible.

It was a person.

His own blood.

His own son.

Unthinkable.

“But I saw you, Lengar. I saw your body in the ruins.”

“My name is Poros. And you saw a Qalandar soldier who did not understand dragons, and got in the way of Ajagara, and incidentally, now I am burned. See, our people...were a thorn in the side of many Travelers, this you knew. And so...destroying them...was a bridal present for the whore, so that I could ride the dragon, and The Mighty Hunter could have the world again. Through me.”

“Why spare me in giving our Travelers as an offering? I understand presenting dead enemies to a new king. Yet you spared your father.”

“Did I? You let the line devolve into intransigent Travelers with no home, dying between real families, when we could be our own dynasty. Because you are weak, and I am strong. And I knew you would have no power. And I wanted you to see, and remember, until you no longer saw.”

“Yet here I am.”

“Here you are. So then. Was it I, or The Timeless One, who spared you?”

“My son, how many people have you made war with in these years?”

“Not nearly enough.”

“You seek to be The Timeless One, but can never be. We are dust. Your mindless dragon, too.”

At this point the child, Moksha, managed to gather enough of what was going on to ask his mother, Laveena, a question in the Qalandar tongue, which she answered. This caused the child to light up with a smile and begin babbling. Poros, previously Lengar, answered harshly back in Qalandar and roughly hit the child, who bit back tears, but was then silent.

“I was never that harsh with you,” Rohan said.

“And your people are dead, Hanuman.”

It was then Rohan understood what must be done.

He said immediately: “Let me see the Golden Crystal Cube once more, for if you will rule, you must know all, my son.”

“Oh?” Poros narrowed his eyes between burn scars, then called for an attendant, who he sent away to fetch the cube. All sat in silence until the cube was returned on a violet cushion, shining in its geometric brilliance, somehow transparent and golden at the same time. Poros indicated it. “Show me.”

Rohan Hanuman looked around the chamber, finally saying: “Is there somewhere we...won’t be overheard?”

Poros nodded, and walked behind the stone bed frame where was a cabinet. He pushed this aside to reveal a stairway that spiraled to a small room filled with old scrolls. When they were alone, he held up the cube: “So?”

“Let me hold it a moment,” said Rohan Hanuman.

“Of course.”

Rohan took the cube, held it between them, and looked deeply into it. Poros did the same. After a moment, Rohan exhaled knowingly, nodded, and said: “There. Beyond all those little glimmers like stars inside. You see?”

“See what?” Growled the burned king.

“Do you see The Timeless One?”

Poros squinted. “No.”

“Look closer.”

The burned king leaned in and Rohan slammed the cube into the unblemished side of his face as hard as he could before wrapping an arm around the younger man’s neck and choking him limp.

For a moment Rohan stood over the broken monster that was once his son, and fought his soul’s attempt to mourn. “I am rightly called Hanuman, by nickname,” he said, finally, “for you have broken my jaw and bruised my chin, from a treacherous blow I never could have seen. I am rightly called Hanuman. But now you are with our fathers, and can tell them yourself.”

He leaned against a wall, caught his breath a moment more, then straightened, accepting the new mandate thrust upon him by circumstance. It was his rotten seed that killed so many, and that wasn’t enough to satiate the beast. Thus the dragon’s madness. Lengar’s own broken mind infected the serpent, and they had become a unit as he sicced it on Qalandar’s soldiers, and took over. Now, upon his death, the city would be overrun by the survivors of those his son slaughtered under the name Poros the Burned.

The Vengeance of Rohan was realized.

Somehow this didn’t enliven or satisfy him.

It was simply...a thing that was done.

He quickly made his way back to and through the bedchamber, calling the woman and the boy, his apparent grandson. Here is what Rohan said, very quickly and very quietly: “The dragon will explode in an hour’s time, and we will be exposed. You must flee. You must never return. I will escort you from these chambers. I tell you to head to the north, and the west. I will head to the north, and the east. They will follow me. You, they will not follow. We will take the horseless relics from the gallery at the back wall of this keep, opposite where the soldiers wait.”

Laveena had tears in her eyes, and fast embraced her father-in-law around the neck. “You could not know, but The Timeless One sent me this. I mean...he showed me...this moment, in a dream. And it has been fulfilled.”

“A very good omen, then.”

The child was finally able to speak, and said: “Are you dead, grandpa?”

Rohan ruffled his hair. “I am not dead. Now come.”

On leaving the bedchambers with Laveena and Moksha, Rohan Hanuman said to the head eunuch beyond the doors: “Poros the Burned wishes me to tell you he does not expect to be disturbed until the dragon has calmed, and has asked me to escort the royal mother and heir to...the room of Old Magic? Is that what it is called?”

“The Room of Relics,” replied the eunuch.

“Yes. I apologize, but must confess I do not know the way.”

“I will show you,” the eunuch nodded to several others who stood before the bedchambers facing outward. They returned his nod and took position. They would do nothing until their superior came back.

The eunuch took Rohan, Moksha, and Laveena to a room with four Wind Circles, and a number of other machines from The Great Undertaking; those which used Old Magic. It took a good fifteen minutes to get from the palace bedchambers to the Room of Relics. When they arrived, the eunuch bowed low and left.

At the far end of the room, Rohan perceived a great gate of wood activated by a pulley system. A direct route away from the compound. One had to have an easy place to launch such Relics, if they were to be played with.

By the entrance of the wide room, there was a cupboard full of power stones.

One of the machines in the wide chamber was a magical old carriage, of the three-wheeled variety once known by Rohan’s people. He put a stone in the box and held his finger over the crystal area until the machine hummed to life.

Rohan turned to Laveena and the child, saying: “Go. Do not stop until the machine does. It will run for days. Follow the salt trail to the Shining Land, then follow the sea to the frozen lands, and be seen of the fewest you can. If you can reach the Shining Land, they will not pursue you. But there is not enough energy in the power stones to get you there. And if you stop where are people, you will be overcome for this olden magic. It is sought ravenously. I would tell you to stay, but you cannot stay. In this, Poros was right: without dragon, this city will be overcome in vengeance from Poros’ enemies, and you will be of the spoil. Meanwhile, the beast will burst asunder soon, for what I have given it will cause gasses to expand within his stomach, and Ajagara has no way of releasing the pressure; for dragons only breathe fire, they cannot belch it. So the gas will tear him up the middle, and his insides will come out, and he will tremble, and die, and the palace will know what I have done. They will go to Poros, and they will find him as I have left him, where I have left him, and they will know what you have done.”

All Laveena said was: “Why...do you help me, when he has taken all from you?”

“Not everything,” Rohan said, and grabbed up the child under his armpits to toss him playfully in the air, before catching the boy, ruffling his hair, and handing him back to his mother.

“Grandpa?” Said the child.

“Not everything,” Rohan repeated, then: “No man should treat you as my broken son. This is not what he learned from me. Or his mother. He was the youngest, and weakest, of his many brothers. He was mischievous. I never knew he was evil. Now he is gone… And. So am I.”

Rohan turned to one of the Wind Circles, and recognized it as the very same he sold to secure lodgings within the city’s walls several years ago; somehow it made its way to the keep of the king. He activated the Wind Circle and it whirred to life. He walked to the far end of the room and pulled a handle on a chain, which released a counterweight that opened the wooden gate. The door let down to become a path that slowly fell outward, soon crossing the moat.

Flickering torches were the only light, a dim illumination of the chamber full of magic relics from the land of the Great Undertaking, relics from before mankind’s speech changed. The dim light danced out from the chamber, giving on the wide, dark, empty plain.

The voices of watchmen could be heard along the battlements of the city’s wall, unaware any plans to use relics were on the table.

Rohan said to Laveena: “Take this scroll, it is the story of my people, and your son.” He handed her the words he he had written on animal skin, and sealed in the hollow axle of the old magic. It was something, until that point, he always kept about his person. He then said: “Go. There is no more time.”

Laveena hugged him, gathered little Moksha, and situated him in her lap in the vehicle. Rohan lowered the transparent shell that guarded the driver from wind and kept the vehicle’s insides warm.

He nodded at her, and she pushed the lever forward—taking the machine right into a wall and shaking the whole chamber. After a moment, she got the machine realigned, then turned to smile at Rohan once more before exiting down the ramp, and disappearing into the night; thankfully not into the moat.

“Okay,” Rohan breathed, and he looked to the sky, his mind on The Timeless One: “Was this not the right thing to do?”

No answer came to him immediately.

He exhaled, then retrieved the Golden Crystal Cube from an interior pocket, looking at it thoughtfully for an instant before replacing it and muttering: “Sure they’ll want it back,” and activating the Wind Circle. As he pulled onto the ramp over the water, he braked the vehicle and yelled to the watchmen on the wall: “HEY!”

One looked over and said: “I didn’t hear anyone was going to use the southern cartroad!”

“That’s because your king is dead!” Rohan yelled up, then slammed the navigation stick forward to zoom down the ramp in his one-wheeled gyroscopic conveyance, proving why a wind circle was called a wind circle.

They would certainly follow him now, and they would never catch him, for in his heart, Stoic Rohan Hanuman the Spicer purposed to keep driving until the Wind Circle was dead, and then keep walking until his legs failed, and then to crawl until his fingers wore away, and so to die, for the psychopathy had returned in his inner mind, and was taking over with a vengeance greater than his own.

However, in his haste, and in the wise opportunism that inspired Rohan to seize the moment, he yet neglected to confirm several things; namely, that his son was fully expired.

Poros was severely burned by the dragon that gave him power, and as he healed, his body became strong enough to sustain injuries that would easily kill others. He should have suffocated when his father choked off his wind in that chamber of scrolls. Instead, he had an unexpected, uncomfortable nap and woke with a headache. After a moment’s angry disorientation, he realized what was done to him, bounded up the stairs, and exploded through the exterior doors of his bedchamber so suddenly he brained one of the eunuchs.

He quickly realized the depth of trickery from Rohan, and now suspected treachery in the man’s prescription for the dragon.

Poros the Burned bellowed for attendants, and they were able to get to Ajagara in the nick of time. The creature was already breathing in a pained, labored way, and its great belly was distended with gasses from the fat and tar it had been fed at the request of Hanuman who was Rohan.

Poros instructed men to climb atop the creature and relieve pressure by stabbing a hole into its abdomen, which they did, and which resulted in a pungent searing steam that scarred those who made the puncture.

The creature was sick enough it could not protest, but once enough putrid gas leaked from the tiny hole, it began to attempt resistance, at which point Poros ordered its limbs, wings, and mouth be restrained. They had to cut a hole into the creature and remove the tar ball piece by piece against the dragon’s rumbling, mindless protestations.

The procedure took twenty hours, and when finished, a hole bigger than a man was covered in thick cloth attached to the dragon’s belly with herbal adhesive and stitching. Poros fed the creature a number of underperforming bureaucrats to help it heal, then very carefully took his place atop the dragon, who by then was beginning to realize its golden cube was no longer near.

“That’s right, fool,” Poros yelled from atop the sobering serpent. “Your love is stolen. Now, you will take me to he that stole from you!”

But the dragon did nothing, and they had to entice it as before, with human bait.

Watchmen on the battlements of the city informed Poros that Hanuman the Sly, as he became known from that time, stole a Wind Circle, first headed south out the south gate, then swung wide to head north, and eventually east. The watchmen said they saw another of the elder magic chariots come southward in a similar arc before racing north and west, but they were unable to say whether they saw the queen or Poros’ heir. The vehicle made a sudden exit, and none of the watchmen got a good look, as it sped away too fast and unexpectedly.

Had Poros pursued Laveena and Moksha, he would have overtaken them soon, for Laveena proved a poor pilot of the machine, and they only managed to get a few days ahead before she crashed into a tree—thankfully, with no injury to herself or her young son. However, Poros was little concerned with his wife of conquest. His lust was for the Jewel of The Mighty Hunter, the Golden Crystal Cube, and was as insatiable as that of Ajagara the dragon.

What Poros should have done was focus on upcoming military maneuvers, but in the stupidest decision of his life, he ordered troops from the battlefront to the city for defense against expected attacks, then hand-selected from them his ideal picks to pursue Hanuman the Sly.

So it was that Poros the Burned abandoned his kingdom, and began a journey to nowhere.

Poros’ hunting party took off in the direction of the Wind Circle, which rolled as fast as the wind, but was yet limited by physics. It took a week for the dragon to recall its lust for gold. It caught whatever electromagnetic “scent” such beasts perceive, and would have flown to follow; but Poros kept its wings tied, forcing the beast to track on land. This was for the better. If it got in the air, there was little telling what it may sense, and whether it would keep after the gold of the cube, or some other electromagnetic “wind” it happened across. Rohan could have kept such a beast on task, but despite appearances, Poros was not his father’s equal in handling dragons.

So it was, several weeks after the Wind Circle became still, and Rohan confirmed its power stone was turned to sand, that he noticed smoke on the far horizon for the first time, following in his stead. This could have been from any traveling group of nomads, except Rohan Hanuman specifically chose to transit a great desert, and other barren regions of the world, knowing he would be followed, and knowing he did not expect to end this journey alive. Nor did he intend to give any pursuers the Golden Crystal Cube.

Smoke on the horizon like that was little save a pursuit indicator.

If he could have seen the pursuing party, he would have had a temptation to panic. There were at least a hundred of them besides the dragon, many of whom piloted self-propelled carriages of the Old Magic, several of whom had Wind Circles, and all of whom were armed to the teeth. Varying bows were attached to the self-driven carriages, but certain weapons used energy from stone reactions to impart destruction, and could be combined with the magic of the carriages. Poros the Burned took every relic available to him in his pursuit, and those without relics nurtured livestock bearing energy stones, provisions, and more. It was a respectable war party, and it was gaining on Rohan.

Hanuman cleaned up his camp, prepared his pack, and went on his way. If they did find him, he would be a world away from his daughter-in-law, and his only remaining kin; for as yet he did not realize Poros survived.

The cold, though.

Things were becoming more cold.

Every step he took to the north and the east, the air was a little sharper, the ground a little harder. Animals wore thicker coats as well, which he transferred to himself through careful hunting wrought from years among his caravan in the jungles of the goodlands.

These were no goodlands.

He managed to overcome a great plain with only the barest of foliage and little water. The Far Eye allowed him to discern his pursuers had a dragon with them, and that they were more in number than expected. This was not a welcome revelation.

They must have thwarted his poison pill.

He accelerated his pace as much as he was able. No longer did he seek cold vengeance, he kept thinking of Laveena, and her son, and his own, and the pain these things brought began to be their own motivation over the weeks and months of his journey. He began to wonder if there were a better way.

At length Rohan Hanuman came to a wide forest full of tall thin evergreen trees and valleys of snow up to his chest, or higher. The dragon would have trouble in the cloying trees and deep snow, especially if they kept its wings bound, for it would become afraid of the cold and the confined space, and seek to rise above the trees, and when it was disallowed, it would be wroth, and difficult to handle until it was free to fly.

Rohan was correct, but he did not realize what an interval this would be, for he would travel a horizon away from his pursuers and another full month before something finally changed in him, and he realized what it was.

Somewhere along the journey he remembered he still wanted to live.

But the guilt over his son…

In some degree he was able to assuage this by remembering he freed his daughter-in-law and grandson; but would they live?

Had he, actually, ended his own line?

As he traveled, the cold increased ever more, and he was loathe to make fire, as this would give him away. Much of what he killed he ate raw. Much of what he drank was the cold snow, and together, these tendrils of freezing death were working over him, wearying him, and causing him to slip in his thinking.

Rohan Hanuman was on the edge of sanity when, after such endless travel across deserts and plains and this infinite northern forest at the end of the world, he let himself sink to his knees, opened his arms to Heaven, and cried: “Timeless One, I make not my own destiny! Is mine to die in wilderness?”

All was silent as he exhaled clouds in the snow-silent forest. Rohan closed his eyes and continued to respirate until his breathing was less violent, and he was still.

Something reminded him of the Golden Crystal Cube, and he withdrew it, regarding its otherworldly form as it glittered in freezing air. He looked at the sky again, and bellowed: “Am I to die in the frozen lands, or be dismembered at the hands of my wicked enemies? What shall I do? What will you have me do? I will do it, whatever it be!” And he bowed into the snow.

The next thing that happened was hard for Stoic Rohan Hanuman the Spicer and the Sly, Whelp of The Mighty Hunter, to understand; or even remember in proper detail.

There was a low growl, and looking up, ahead of him, at a notable distance, he saw a great lion—but it was not a lion as he knew them, with tawny coat and knife-like incisors jutting from its mouth. This lion had stripes, great black and white stripes, and though it was huge, its mane was short, and barely discernible against its long, wispy pale fur. In fact it blended into foliage of that winter forest so well, Rohan was continuously struck with the impression he saw no creature, but some trick of the eyes. It’s worth noting Rohan Hanuman had never heard the term “tiger”, or “snow tiger”. If he had, he would have perhaps conceded the term fit the beast.

This tiger was very large, but it was also in a bad way. It shook, and lowed as a heifer, and was skinny, with ribs evident against the sides of its body. It was clearly fatigued, and old, and hungry, which made Rohan still himself, as he wondered whether the animal yet perceived him. The wind was in his face, and the animal in front of him, meaning he should have been downwind. But such animals had sharp eyes and perfect hearing.

The tiger was the distance a man could run at full speed on one breath, and it did not seem to care for him. It lumbered slowly forward, deaf to the sound of its own footfalls, breathing hard, leaving clouds of exhalation in the cool air that followed, and occasionally moaning its feline cattle call. Finally the animal slumped down, barely managing to preserve any regal quality in its haunches as it panted.

Rohan kept still.

After a moment or two, the tiger looked around again, somehow not registering Rohan, then returned its eyes forward, and began to growl in a low insistent way like the sound of many waters. The tiger’s purr echoed through frozen waves of white in and throughout that icy forest, reverberating louder than seemed possible as a result of the snow.

As the tiger growled, the world right in front of it seemed to split in two, down the middle; a green line of light bisecting reality until, like curtains, the scene was parted in a gaping elliptical maw of twilight darkness, through which the tiger stepped carefully.

Its tail was about to fall into the fissure, when Rohan Hanuman heard a voice, clear as a bell, say: “Follow, Rohan. Return what was lost.”

Rohan looked around wildly and saw no-one.

He scanned the horizon at the edge of his vision in every direction, and for several minutes stood motionless except to exhale as he felt himself freeze, ever more weary, ever colder, despite a pounding heart that echoed its protestations in his very temples. At length Rohan held up the cube; for there was no doubt this is what was meant by the disembodied voice, and there was no doubt the voice belonged to The Timeless One, and there was no doubt a king cat had appeared and opened a door in the world with its noble mind.

But then, there was some doubt on that point, for now there was no tiger, and only the fissure, and Rohan wondered if there had been any great panting snow cat growling regally to open a fissure in the first place, and if this were merely his mind playing tricks on him as he himself deteriorated. Was he the tiger? Old, weary, pained, and bound for another life?

Had there been such an animal?

Was he seeing a vision?

The cube began to vibrate in his hand, and grew warm. He stared at it, then at the fissure, then at the cube, then at the rip in space and time, a mighty arc of a doorway open several minutes now, on the other side of which was darkness camouflaging a tiger.

Then Rohan Hanuman looked at the sky, and said: “I have asked, you have provided. Thank you.”

He tightened the satchel about his back, straightened the clothing he had fashioned into winter coverings, put away the cube, and stepped into the wide fissure.

***

The dragon Ajagara struggled and cried, shrieking and huffing smoke. Finally there was no choice but to let it fly; for between claustrophobia in the tight forest and what it sensed of the Cube, the dragon was greatly disturbed.

Poros and a hundred men trailed the Failed Kingslayer Hanuman the Sly for months; over deserts, through snow, over mountains, over plains, and now, in the forest at the top of the world, in a land of naught but ice and cold, the dragon could no longer be satiated. Half the men Poros started with were expired, but Poros’ own drive was at least equal to that of his prey, and so when the men who remained were too weak for the increasingly agitated dragon, he climbed astride the beast behind its ears, gripped the stabbing implement that kept Ajagara from snatching him off its shoulders, and told his men to let the animal go. The beast’s wings were unbound, and it breathed fast, scorching the ground to rise bellowing into frozen air.

Ajagara made his way high in the sky, roaring flame and flapping wildly through that cold, a cloud of fire and steam from heat exchange making a nimbus about the monster. He flew fast and hard toward the far horizon until he came to a clearing and pulled up short, dropping wings to sides and spiraling down to ground in the woods near two perpendicular trails in the snow. One, prints of a great lion bigger than any Poros ever encountered, the other, the faltering uneven footsteps of a dying man.

Both sets of footprints led to...what was that?

A void?

A rift?

It was a twilight pool floating sideways in the air, rippling wickedly.

It was unnatural, and green, and violet, and disorienting, and big.

Poros dismounted the dragon and stood away.

The beast first approached the strangeness, sniffing around in great clouds of steam. Then he let out a low growl and with no further preamble entered the fissure, barely able to squeeze through. Just before Ajagara’s tail was fully in, whatever the disturbance was slammed shut in a percussive way that sent a shockwave through the woods. This action sliced the furthest portion of the dragon’s tail; a piece about the length of a man which thrashed around a few moments before whatever life force animating it abated. The fragment of dragon tail bled until frozen atmosphere halted flow, and flesh began to freeze. It barely took a minute, in that cold.

Somehow, Poros knew he was thwarted, and roared his dissatisfaction at the sky.

His retinue found him in due time, and they would build shelter to ride out the winter in that spot. Even so, Stoic Rohan Hanuman the Spicer, Hanuman the Sly, Failed Kingslayer, Whelp of The Mighty Hunter, would never return, or be seen by any who knew of him in that era; nor would Laveena, or Moksha, though for another reason.

So it was Poros left those who survived the journey, for they had no ambitions to chance a return trip. Poros let them pursue their own designs in the woods. There they would eventually find a nomadic community with ready daughters and establish a village. In generations to come, their origin would be distorted with legend; but their dark beginnings would perpetuate anyway.

Meanwhile, Poros spent another year returning to the city of Qalandar. He came back with only twelve men of a hundred, but when they arrived, the kingdom was naught, as Poros’ prophecy proved true: in vengeance, other cities quickly overcame the poorly protected keep of the dragonrider. His men deserted, and learning his life was wanted, Poros made himself scarce from the region. So the wealth of Poros the Burned was lost, and he became a vagabond, fugitive to the lands he tormented, until he died.

Chapter 1

Two Jokers in the Same Deck

“Is it really impossible to come into contact with the gaming table without at once becoming infected with superstition?”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Gambler

The successful card shark is an expert in plausible deniability. The most successful card sharks are those who control the game, and the game was this: milk the big fish.

A big fish needs bait.

The more succulent and desirable the bait, the more likely a catch is. Sometimes a winning streak at the tables is truly a winning streak, sometimes it is bait. That afternoon in Caesar’s Palace, the streak was bait, and the fish was a mobster of the Russians. The card shark was one Melor Romanov.

Now Mel wasn’t doing well, though he was savvy enough not to show it. He wasn’t doing bad...but he wasn’t doing well.

In his mid-thirties, Melor could have passed for ten years either direction. He kept himself mostly healthy, skinny, and clean-shaven. He didn’t dress up or down, but reasonably, and professionally forgettable. He played cards like he played chess; giving away as little as possible—or at least seeming to.

Mel knew the fish, and much better than the crew he was press-ganged into by local wise guys(he was indeed in the operation against his will, but only just).

The wrinkle was, the fish also knew Mel.

Right now, only Melor and the fish were aware of this, and maybe one or two other guppies in the hidden school the fish brought with him to the poker chip seas. No one on Mel’s team knew, though, or they wouldn’t have put him on the table. The implications were pretty staggering.

Sometimes you lose a hand to hide your tells or establish a bluff. Sometimes you sacrifice a pawn, sometimes you sacrifice a queen. Sometimes you walk into somebody else’s trap because you’ve got your own trap.

As regarded Green Kolya, this was the case.

Mel knew half a dozen guys in the room were on the crew he had been pulled into; they were on his side. One of the wise guys was actually employed with Caesar’s Palace, though he was from a different gang than those at Caesar’s. Since this was an extra-territorial operation, a couple ladies of the night were in on the op as well. The room had five tables, about two hundred people in various states of exultation and seriousness, and where all the action was, where Mel was, were a nest of vipers.

Mel’s part in the operation was to lose, and do so with a variety of exhortations in Russian to the mark, the fish. Which he did, right on script, and which his fish reciprocated, to no one’s astonishment. “How’s the border game these days, by the way?” Melor asked, checking the bet with his fingers on the table.

The bet checked twice more until it came to the fish, Nicolai Petrovich Blavatsky—Green Kolya, as he was known. He was a man as big as his name. He caught Mel’s eye and smiled through a wide face under a bald head tattooed in scars: “Lucrative,” he replied, and pushed a five thousand dollar chip into the pot.

The bet came around, it was on Mel to fold or call. He called. “But it’s chilly.”

One of the two players between Melor and Kolya also called the bet, leaving three in the round for the next card. Green Kolya replied: “It’s Russia,” and examined his new card.

Mel had a Flush, royal and spaded. It was a rare big hand, his first good one, and he was going to have to fold it.

He could take Green Kolya, but the crew would think he had gone rogue, and would be thrown. Meanwhile, Green Kolya would know Melor was changing the game’s dynamics, and would suspect a caper. He would take his trophy regardless, but there would be business with Mel afterward; business of an unwelcome extracurricular variety. Though, now Melor thought about it, the same would happen if he played his part.

He was in a box, a serious box, and he knew it.

He would need a miracle.

Experienced though he was, Melor’s composure was fleeing, and his soul did, perhaps even subconsciously, cry out. Somewhere, that little boy that got stuck in the mad world and had to endure it to adulthood was still alive, and he said something to the effect of, “Well, God, now how am I supposed to act?” But this was all in his inner monologue, and far at the back of it. A half dozen other mental conversations were taking place in his head collateral to this plea. For example, he knew he couldn’t inform his crew that, in fact, they were being targeted; because if he did that, Kolya would certainly kill him. He also knew he couldn’t side with Kolya, his crew would then don the murder hat, and he’d get it from that end. Though, to be sure, their response would be less severe than Kolya’s. There was a reason Mel was in America in the first place.

He needed a way out.

The hand had to be ruined, the game had to end, he had to run.

With wise guys outside the game all around, he couldn’t just leave for the restroom and split...they’d keep him in. He’d need something big to happen, something none could reckon with. He’d need an earthquake, or an air-raid.

The bet came round again. Mel caught Green Kolya’s eye, pushed another five thousand dollar chip in, and said: “Well, God Bless Russia.”

Kolya held eye contact for a second too long, enough to communicate just what kind of trouble Mel was about to be in. Behind him, a man in a Caesar’s Palace uniform that said “Tanner” suddenly made eyes at Melor, but it was too late. The bet went to the remaining player at the table between Mel and Kolya, a Japanese man with a loud golden pen in his shirt pocket that said “Las Vegas” on the clip, and emotions of stone. He carefully considered his position.

The Japanese man was about to make a move, when there was a popping sound like pressure changing in a wide space, followed by a wet, liquid noise, and abruptly, right atop the poker table, a technicolor portal out of a horror movie opened from nowhere, spitting out what appeared to be a government agent with a red mustache, mirrored sunglasses, and a kitten.

The little black cat came first, tumbling end-over-end through the portal and landing right in front of Mel.

The man with the red mustache followed immediately after, bellowing: “NOBODY MOVE, FBI!”

He was covered in suds; a multicolored soap of some kind that hissed like carbon dioxide in a soda can.

Abruptly the cat puked all over Mel’s flush.

The “portal” snapped closed with another thumping sound and a violet coruscation of light, temporarily blinding everyone. The cat ran to the end of the table, and the man with the mustache covered in suds ran after, but wasn’t fast enough to stop the cat from doing a swan dive off the edge.

The man with the “Tanner” name tag tried to obstruct the mustachioed interloper as he ran across the table, reaching out and yelling: “HEY! HOLD IT! STO—”

Mustache half kicked him in the head, using his face like a stepping stone and dancing off the green felt, then snatching the cat, rolling, and fluidly rising again with a gun, which he immediately discharged three times into the ceiling, causing everybody in the room to duck, shriek, and scatter.

Melor Romanov took his opportunity.

He grabbed as many poker chips as he could from the table and split, heading the opposite direction of Mr. Mustache and his barfing cat.

Mel beat it for a kitchen door to a smoker’s haunt that doubled as a fire escape. Surveillance certainly recorded his exit, but plenty of chaos as well. It didn’t matter if the wise guys in the casino crew were after him now. The Russian Mob was a bigger problem. They were there for the wise guys, he was just a bottom feeder caught with the rest of the tuna in a net. If Green Kolya’s presence were any indication, there was a possibility of ownership change at Caesar's Palace very soon.

Even worse than that, though. Kolya and Mel shared a secret.

Mel was supposed to be dead.

And he would be, very soon, if he did not get out of Las Vegas and as far away from Sin City as was absolutely possible. It was a pity; he had invested several years to hit any sort of rhythm in the region’s underbelly. It looked very much as though he would have to start over yet again. He wondered if he would get a freebie when his “start again” punch card were filled.

The mystery of the teleporting man was indeed intriguing. In fact it was terribly strange and inexplicable. On some level, Melor knew he would have to face up to what he just saw, and he expected that whatever events were interlinked with this situation, he was not done with them just yet. But there are only so many emergencies a human mind can process in a day, and Mel was approaching his threshold.

His first priority was to get off the strip.

And he had to get rid of his phone. It was a burner anyway. Mel tossed the phone in a storm drain at the bottom of the fire escape, coming around a corner to a staff parking lot. The sirens were wailing in earnest, he could see red and blue lights rushing past the exit of the lot; even in the middle of the day. Then there were running boots.

Mel had a split-second to figure out his cover, then the cops rounded the corner:

“FREEZE!”

Mel made a show of terror: “The guy’s got a gun! He’s got a gun! He fired it at the roof! Up there, up there!”

Four cops peeled off from several others headed up the road, the one who shouted kept his weapon trained on Mel. He said to his fellows, “Get up there,” then turned back to Mel. “How many?”

“I don’t know, I saw one guy, red mustache, he said he was FBI.”

“FBI?”

“Yes.”

“They’re already on him?”

“No, the FBI guy is the shooter.”

“Where you from with that accent?”

“Canada.”

“Canada?”

“Eh.”

The cop squinted at him, then his radio made a noise: “We’re in pursuit, get to the food court, we have a report in the food court, west side.”

He leaned into his radio, “Coming up, over,” then gestured with his gun at Mel.

“You. Get out of here. The situation is under control,” and ran up the fire escape.

Mel walked slowly with the show of the terror he evinced earlier. As soon as the cop was out of range, he bolted around the corner to the east. This sent him right toward the strip, but the exit to the interstate south and west of Caesar’s Palace would not be passable for a time.

He’d have to find Tom and move the poker chips in his pocket. Tom would know the chips were authentic, and he could trade them for cash in Caesar’s. Tom did that kind of thing all the time with the tweakers about town. But Tom was ten miles away, in a neighborhood called Whitney north of Henderson, and it was indeed hot.

Mel kept running until he put a block between himself and the strip. He had a few hundred in cash; an occupational necessity in his line of work. There was a thrift store half a mile to the north and east from where he was, he had already put as much distance between himself and Caesar’s Palace. Keeping to back roads and parking lots, Mel quickly made his way there and spent twenty bucks on the only bike he could find with decent tires. It would be the same price as a cab, but they wouldn’t be on him as fast.

Mel was known to most in...seedier circles through town. Las Vegas is a huge city. But it’s a huge city built on tourism, and industry supporting that tourism. Year-round residents have a cadre of intersecting, floating communities. While not always friendly, people do tend to remember one another. Mel couldn’t risk any smartphone ride services for a variety of reasons, not least of which his abandoned phone. He couldn’t risk a cab, or take a ride on the tram across Bellagio; someone might know him. His present vehicle was a no-go because it was new and easy to follow on the web...options were limited. His crew were clever, their bosses were even more clever, and the Russian Mob was like the gangster CIA. In all likelihood, they knew he would be at that table. Kolya registered no surprise on seeing Melor, who was ostensibly dead many years. While he doubted he was the sole aim of Kolya’s ambitions, Mel would certainly be a fine bonus trophy.

The neighborhood called Whitney was diagonally situated from his present position, but this was to Mel’s benefit. There was a hidden way across town.

Mel made his way to the culverts underground.

It was good, just as he was leaving Caesar's Palace, that the cop’s radio distracted him from taking Mel more seriously. He wasn’t a shooter, but he was a person of interest, and was always armed to the teeth.

This was the case now. Mel pedaled the cheap fixed-gear conglomeration of jangling stickers and tweaker sweat from the thrift store with a precise, determined speed. Gripped in his right hand at his lap was a cheap pistol, nine millimeter. His left was on the handlebars, and his eyes were sharp as diamonds in the twilight of the drainage tunnels.

Every now and again he’d have to dismount and walk the bike down a set of stairs, or over a cement deck. He knew the route. There shouldn’t have been any permanent residents in this area of the drainage system, as to the southeast of the network was low ground, where water was deliberately channeled. Such areas were more prone to inundation during the city’s brief wet season. Still, he passed a good thirty persons in worse shape than himself, and wondered how much fentanyl was in the vicinity. Most avoided him and yelled insults to his back.

There was an intersection, and a man came at him from the darkness like a rabid dog, yelling at him to: “Get the hell outta here! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!”

Mel fired one shot that made a sparking ricochet on the cement near his feet, inducing a reaction like a spasm and waking people up half a mile away in the system. The gun was powerful loud, and its reverberating bark certainly had the desired deterrent effect.

No other substantial incidents impeded him, he came out of the culvert in a prefab neighborhood and left the bike behind for a mole person to find. The daylight was blinding for an instant as his eyes readjusted. Up from the culvert there were plenty of passerby, plenty of impatient drivers, and plenty of heatwaves from the relentless Las Vegas sun.

Mel didn’t see anybody that concerned him.

He was looking for guys on fixed-gear bikes like the one from the thrift store he just abandoned. They were usually part of gangs, they were selling, and they were keeping their blocks clear of would-be competitors. They had to use bikes because none of them could drive legally. In Las Vegas, a given neighborhood either has an ice cream truck or one of these guys.

Mel didn’t see anybody and jumped over a fence to a number of backyards which were clearly neglected. Tom’s was the fourth one on the left. Mel went to a sliding door covered in blinds and knocked on the glass.

It took a minute, but Tom showed up, clearly having just rolled out of bed, with gray stubble, a wife beater, stained boxers, and a robe he stole from a hotel somewhere. He opened the slider in a way that was communicative, if comical. “Mel, you ain’t puttin’ money in my pocket, I better never see your track-suit vodka sucking commie ass again.”

“It is your lucky day, for I have money, and no track suit. And Marx was a fop.”

“Why didn’t you say so. Come in, fix yourself a drink, gimme a sec, I gotta piss.” Tom shuffled off, yawning and scratching a bald spot.

Mel pushed his way through swinging blinds, quickly slid the door shut to keep the cool air in, and immediately began unloading his pockets on a table built-in to Tom’s unit. Like every other on the block, this “house” was a cookie cutter cottage prefabricated into mediocrity several years before. As he unloaded, Mel said: “Listen, Tom, today I skip the drink. This. It is not social call. I have to move.”

Tom was still yawning as he shuffled out of the bathroom, checking his phone. He blinked a few times. “Hey, you know Antonio’s looking for you?”

“One reason you are getting money from me is to forget that.”

“Oh?” Tom looked up from the phone for the first time, starting to understand the situation. Very quickly his eyes moved to the table where Mel offloaded poker chips. The phone was forgotten and fell on an easy chair that probably spent more time in the street than indoors before Tom got ahold of it. He leaned over the table: “That’s...what. You got at least fifty—jeez, are they all five grand? That’s… You got a quarter mill there!”

“No, Tom. You have a quarter million. Just give me any cash you have.”

“Uh.” Tom blinked at him, then finished the thought internally, turned around, locked the door in the bathroom, and came out a moment later with five tightly bundled stacks of bills. “My exchange rate is sixty percent”, he said.

“What a bargain.”

“Plus time and trouble, a convenience fee, and of course I’m going to have to clean the cash I get myself. So. Here’s Eighty large.”

Mel snatched it greedily. “Thank you. And. When you send your man in to Caesar’s, find the cage with Anya, tell her Green Kolya is sooka blyat. She’ll know what you mean.”

“Your wish is my command, but...say, if I’m reading this right, maybe I oughta just go get my cash and not talk to anybody about it?” Tom was rummaging about a freezer for a spirit of some variety.

“Do as you like, that’s just a pickup line for Anya in case I am ever back in town.”

“Well hell. Ballsy, but I guess if Kolya doesn’t get you in about twenty minutes he never will?”

“That’s the idea. Dosvedonya,” and Mel backed out the slider with his eighty grand, beating it for the far fence of the neighborhood’s identical backyards. The next move was to find a local private mechanic and take one of the vehicles some tweaker abandoned when a check engine light came on alongside a meth binge.

There were always one or two cars at private shops that were fixed and sitting, and would be that way forever until the chief grease monkey decided to sell them.

Full Auto Transmission, Tires, and Engine Repair read the sign, with each initial in red text, and a fluffy acronym at the top: Full Service FATTER’s.

It was certainly an angle.

Mel knew the place.

In fifteen minutes he had a set of keys, a late-nineties four-door with a rebuilt engine, and a blank spot where eight grand previously took up space in his vest pocket. The car was worth maybe a thousand. But the other seven went to “lost paperwork”. It just had to get him to the Mexico border, anyway. And turn over one more time; because he wasn’t about to travel anywhere further till dark. He needed to park somewhere. There was a bank in a shopping center with a free garage. Mel knew none of the vendors there were affiliated with mob activity.

He found the garage, parked behind a support pillar in the corner, curled up in the back under his vest, and thought repetitive thoughts until he was able to drift off.

He woke with a start at three in the morning to the noise of sloppy homeless courtship somewhere else in the facility. Electing not to investigate, he jumped out of the back seat, stretched, spit, cracked a few knuckles and joints, then eased into the driver seat and hit the road.

At night, A/C wouldn’t be an issue, and they were unlikely to identify him on the highways immediately, especially in such a clownish conglomeration of rust and sadness as that particular vehicle.

He took Highway Ninety-Five south to Bullhead, and stayed with it until he crossed Interstate Ten. Six hours in, no cops, no mobsters, no Russians. They probably raided his apartment already. A few Italian or Russian Goombas were no doubt irritated he didn’t make his way back to the SUV in the garage of Caesar’s Palace. Bought cops were definitely looking for him, but they were going to start on the main arteries first owing to the law of averages.

In a few hours he hit Yuma, Arizona. Just short of San Luis he ditched the four-door and made his way over the border. Border crossings were a cinch in Summer of 2023; one simply had to decide to cross.

It was late morning by then, and the border town was fully awake. Mel made his way to a Mexican auto dealer, where he was able to get twice the car he just ditched at the border for another two thousand dollars. In less than twenty-four hours, Mel was halfway through Mexico with his own transportation and a little under seventy large left.

If he could make it to Panama in the next week, he’d be alright.

Starting over? No big deal. This had to be the tenth time since he was a kid.

But who was that mustache man with the cat?

The longer Melor Romanov thought about it, the more uneasy he became.