From out of the blue and grey clouds of the early morning, the emerald and amethyst spaceship — resembling a mechanical squid with two pairs of giant dragonfly wings mounted to its oblong body, its segmented metal “tentacles” slowly rotating in the air behind it, exchanging colorful bolts of lightning — descended in a smooth arc, zooming over the tops of Boston’s skyscrapers. It swooped over their rooftops, grazing air conditioner units and antennae and satellite dishes alike, impenetrable to the prying rays and eyes of the government’s, the military’s, or any civilian’s monitoring equipment . . . though it did cause quite a lot of television static, and quite a few laptops to randomly reboot themselves on the top floors of those skyscrapers. To watch it move, one might’ve thought its pilot was hunting for something; looking for some unseen quarry . . . scanning the city’s rooftops for any sign of its prey. The vertically-aligned dome embedded in the forward section of the craft — opposite the end where its section of flexible metal tentacles churned and traded arcs of rainbow-hued lightning — would have appeared — to Human eyes — to be made of translucent glass, almost like a thick soap-bubble. It was in fact not glass, but an impenetrable transparent metal, forged on a planet that lay far across the stars from Earth. And presently, on the other side of it — and through the transdimensional bulk between — sat the ship’s pilot, Trixie Anjaladatanagra, a shapeshifter who was indeed hunting, searching the city for signs of the game that ze had come halfway across the galaxy to find. To find, and to destroy . . . but before that, to use as a weapon in an ancient war. Before it was to late for Humanity. And eventually, zer own race, too.

“So this is Earth, huh? In all its glory, the real thing, at last,” ze said to zirself. “The planet the Alethiaeon prize above all others . . . except maybe mine. Or hell, maybe even that, I dunno.” Zir English, in zir opinion, was flawless. Ze had practiced it relentlessly in a thousand Simulations, training for this mission, thinking the chance would never come to demonstrate zir worthiness as a Field Agent. Afraid that ze would be stuck behind a desk, grading papers until well past zir prime. Heh. “Grading papers.” Zir words betrayed zir age. That saying still existed even on zir world, the Planet Shyphtor, nine hundred and eight cycles — and counting — since the last tree had been pulped and paper had become a thing of the past. But ze was young compared to the Eldar, who ruled Shyphtor with the wisdom and grace that could only come with Age. And it was they, who after communion with the Alethiaeon, had sent zir on this mission. Why they had chosen zir — ze had terrific training, but little actual experience — was anyone’s guess . . . But dammit, ze intended to succeed, no matter what. The Alethiaeon’ Will Be Done, come — as the Humans might say — “Hell or high water.”

Trixie was the designer, pilot, sole crew-person, and commander of The Renegade Angel, the craft ze now arrived in. Ze sat at the Helm on the ship’s expansive bridge — which had been designed for a much more comprehensive crew, but ze could be flown by just a single Shyphtorilaen, if the need arose — and carefully guided zir in with one hand on each joystick — one that controlling the ship’s power and pitch, and one controlling zir roll and yaw. The Renegade Angel responded instantly to the slightest of touches, zir motion through the clouds as fluid and smooth as warm butter. Trixie smiled. Ze was eminently proud of zirself, and even prouder of zir ship. Ze had slaved over the blueprints for zir — and especially the equations for zir next-generation engine core — for over a decade, and had fought a ton of bureaucratic red-tape and committees in order to get the funding secured for the dream of bringing zir to life, year after year, until finally, the Angel had rolled off the assembly line, as beautiful as any other baby’s birth. And now, Trixie zirself piloted the Angel on zir maiden voyage — and on zir maiden voyage, as well: They had finally granted zir what ze had wanted since the dawn of the Third of zir Nine Lives: An actual assignment in the field: Investigate the threat of a Zarcturean invasion of the Off-Limits planet known as Earth, a “special project” of the Alethiaeon, a planet they also “loved,” insofar as they were still capable of feelings like “love.” Some of the Eldar thought the Alethiaeon long divorced from such emotions; others thought the Alethiaeon had become love in its purest form, surpassing all negative emotions when they had Ascended to a higher plane of existence thirty thousand years before. Trixie wasn’t sure what ze believed.

Descended from shapeshifters, they had long ago sacrificed most of their transformative ability; they had long since grown skeletons, and could now only shift between quadruped and biped forms. For this mission, Trixie had assumed zir ailuro sapien form, in order to pilot the ship and potentially interact with Humans. Many of zir kind — the Shyphtorilaen, their race was called in the Human tongue — stayed that way most of the time. It was simply the most efficient package that nature had come up with, they had observed. The simian body structure was unique in its utility and versatility. With a few tweaks, of course. For instance — if you took the Human form, and you added a muscular prehensile tale — like a monkey’s — only that could grasp and lift objects — you’d instantly have more utility. Also, the face: If you added whisker-like sensory feelers — like a cat’s — you would have better directional sense (if they carried an electrostatic current). In fact, if you changed the facial configuration to be more feline in general — zir culture had developed a fascination with the Earth species Felis silvestris catus — you’d be better equipped all around (the larger nasal passages; the ability to “taste” certain smells; the ability to see in the dark; much better hearing, with the larger ears; more and sharper teeth, for chewing food). Except, of course, in the speech department; if you wanted to use verbal communication, you’d have to slightly adjust the mouth, adding more muscles and finer-grained control over the lips and larynx than a normal, Earth-originated house-cat had. And fur, of course; one needed fur to protect one from the cold, and from sharp objects, and to cushion from close-range impacts.

The only thing Trixie hadn’t decided upon yet was zir gender. Ze was late in life. Normally, in zir society, one had decided upon one’s gender by now. A Shyphtorilaen usually decided to “fix” their gender — setting it in stone, changing from being “Of The Third” to being either Masculine or Feminine — by their seventeen hundredth cycle. Trixie was twenty-three hundred cycles old, and ze had not yet chosen a gender for zirself. A Shyphtorilaen could only truly “set” their gender once, and could only shift their gender once every two thousand cycles . . . and could only usually do so twice in one lifetime, usually around eight thousand cycles. And doing so involved elaborate rituals, ceremonies; it was a big deal, culturally speaking. Not to mention that doing so involved the biophysical process known as Chrysalis. Trixie hadn’t the patience for elaborate ceremonies. Nor the twelve-cycle-long process of Chrysalis. Dear Alethiaeon, what would ze do in there? Read a really long book? (That whole “paper” thing, again. Ze would really have to get better at this whole “dating” zirself thing with zir references.)

“Well, well, well . . . what do we have here?” ze muttered to zirself, as ze closed in on zir destination. The cybernetic hololenticular implants in zir eyes drew zir attention to a large, stately building outlined with glowing red lines in zir eye-displays, with tiny indicator arrows pointing toward the Zarcturean ship that had already landed there. Ze throttled back zir velocity and prepared The Renegade Angel to land. Ze set zir down about ten yards away from the Zarcturean ship, zir foursome of steel-wheeled pods gently crunching into the rooftop’s gravel. Like the Zarcturean ship, Trixie’s The Renegade Angel was far larger on the inside than zir exterior suggested, by way of transcendental dimensional technology. However, there the similarities ended. For example, zir ship’s engine core — the part ze was really proud of — was definitely superior to the other ship’s basic faster-than-light drive: zir engine — which ze’d dubbed “the Con-Fusion Drive” — was a device whose reaction chamber contained a rift in spacetime that took the form of a ten-dimensional Möbius loop . . . one wherein multiple parallel universes — which were always supposed to remain parallel and never cross paths — all intersected. The bottom line? It made everyone onboard the ship utterly immune to the effects of Temporal Paradox whenever ze flew the ship through a time-warp. In other words, it took a spaceship, and turned it into the ultimate time machine. Now, thanks to Trixie, the Shyphtorilaen had a time-ship that could visit any place or time that the Eidolon had touched — via the agency of the Zarcturean or any other race that had grown malignant and dangerous under their evil tutelage — and then work to uncorrupt, reboot, or “correct” that species’ timeline or evolution, without having to worry about a Paradox Fracture swallowing their world whole . . . and without risking permanent damage to Time itself.

Trixie shut down the Con-Fusion Drive and the ship’s Antimatter Propulsors, and put the Main Reactor into stasis mode. Ze then locked the controls to zir genetics and brainwaves, so that only ze could operate them. Ze rose from zir seat at the Helm, and walked into the Captain’s Ready Room, which sat off to the left of the bridge. Ze touched a glowing panel there on the wall, and it slid open. There, ze beheld what Ops called a “basic Planetside Wanderer’s outfit.” A smallish backpack unit featuring two pulse-thrusters; a long, thick, crimson duster made of what humans might’ve identified as a heavy, leathery material, with readouts and sensors attached to its left fore-sleeve. A dark pair of pants with air-seals at the cuffs and above its utility belt, and a special slit in the back for zir tail to poke through, along with a matching, long-sleeve tunic with air-seals at the neck, sleeve cuffs, and waist, with both it and the pants created from a soft-weave poly-alloy — comfortable and stretchy, yet capable of blocking almost any and all projectile fire and completely airtight — along with a pair of bright-red rocket boots that almost matched the duster. Finally, hanging there also, ze found zir gun-belt, meant to criss-cross around zir waist, its pair of Decimator pistols meant to sit on either hip. In the top compartment of the cabinet lay zir atmospheric-conversion helmet, with a built-in model of another of zir inventions, the Thought-Transilience Transmission Interoseter, and a pair of red, poly-alloy soft-weave gloves with seals at the wrists. An Earthling might’ve pegged zir headgear as looking like an ordinary motorcycle helmet . . . albeit one with a fancy illuminated face-shield and a rubber-and-metal seal around the neck, with hoses and bits of tech bolted to it in places, and with a pair of tall antennae on either side.

Ze got dressed, adjusted zir guns, and then put on the helmet and locked it in place — mostly just as a precaution, as ze wasn’t yet positive ze could breathe the Earth’s atmosphere. Zir superiors had told zir that it featured nitrogen-oxygen-rich air, the same as planet Shyphtor, but had also told zir that the humans wantonly toxified their atmosphere with harmful pollutants, even though in doing so, they actively murdered their only planet, and they knew it. Next, ze put on the red, soft-weave poly-alloy gloves, which featured magnetic grips on the underside, and connected the power-couplings to the tubes that fed from the duster’s wrists. Lastly, ze donned the small pulse-thruster unit, and strapped it in place between zir shoulders. Then, ze closed the compartment, turned, and exited back onto the bridge, then went to the glass elevators that stood in the rear. The doors slid open, then closed behind zir. The transparent elevator carriage began lowering itself on antigrav beams, moving through the ship’s lower levels — the mess hall, the engine room, the various storage and landing bays — then through a water-like membrane and the transdimensional bulk, the higher dimensional space between the inside and outside of the ship. Soon, the elevator gently touched down outside the craft, landing feather-light upon the gravel of the rooftop, and its glass doors parted.

Trixie ventured out, one Decimator pistol at the ready as ze scanned the rooftop for movement of any kind, zir hololenticular implants aiding zir. Dozens of sets of footprints — Humanoid, bipedal footprints, led back and forth all over the gravel rooftop, to and fro from the Visitor’s ship. Hmm, curious.

Ze approached the Zarcturean ship. Looking upon it, ze sighed, shook zir head, and said aloud, “Dear gods, how pragmatically fugly can you get?” One of zir briefings back home, entitled “Human Languages: English: Formal, Informal, and You” had been filled with some very strange words with even stranger usage contexts. It was a ruffian’s tongue, vulgar yet clever and sharp; colorful and oddly efficient, though at times bizarrely wasteful. Ze liked it a lot, and had made a mental note then to try and learn more about it, especially its more “colorful” side. Ze put zir hands on zir hips and shook zir head again. “What kind of species doesn’t even try to make their ships more streamlined and beautiful? Jeeze . . . what a piece of space-trash. Now then . . . if I were a Zarcturean Visitor, why would I come to this place, of all places?”

Just then, ze felt a stabbing pain slice through zir head, like someone had suddenly shoved an ice-sickle through zir eye and straight into zir brain. Ze dropped to zir knees, short of breath and with sweat beading on zir forehead as ze fumbled for the controls that governed the Thought-Transilience Transmission Interoseter. Ze turned the Gain control all the way down from +11 to +0. The pain receded, but did not go away completely. It was directional, as well . . . if ze turned to the right or the left, the pain abated. Not all of it, but some. Only when ze faced forward — and only when ze looked directly at the Zarcturean ship — did it come back in full force. So, that was it: the Zarcturean ship had a telepathic security system, one with a limited kind of sentience . . . it wasn’t fully sapient, but it was alive enough to defend itself, and alive enough to be deadly whenever it chose to be. It would have to be Mind-hacked in order for anyone other than its pilot to get aboard.

Luckily, one of zir electives during zir field training had been in a skill-set called “Affinity-Tech Hacking,” which had covered how to hack into systems similar to this ships’ psionic security system. Ze only hoped ze remembered at least part of the mental protocols correctly. Doing so would mark the difference between getting aboard the ship, or getting zir synapses fried from within. With a deep breath taken, ze sat down on the roof, zir legs crossed over one another, and put zir hands on zir knees. Ze slowly turned the gain-knob up once more, until ze could hear the thing whispering in zir head. Ze closed zir eyes, and began to work . . .

The ship’s psychic signature stuck out like a bright pulsar in a field of the corpses of burnt-out stars. In zir mind’s eye, it became an enormous, black, castle-like fortress of doom, a stone monstrosity towering over a forest of dead trees and a landscape of used-up, failing farmsteads, the face of its central tower a large, circular, jewel-like window that had a spiderweb-like pattern of ironwork as its frame. Behind and beyond the fortress, the world simply ended; the land came to a cliff-edge, then simply disappeared, fading into a darkness lit by stars which seemed to stretch out into infinity; the sky ended there as well, the clouds above tapering off into nothingness, the blue sky fading into the blackness of outer space. The black fortress — itself blending with the darkness surrounding its other side — glowed with a sickly green light, as ghostly wisps of noxious green power encircled it protectively, their voices whispering arcane spells in forbidden tongues. Ze stood before the fortress dressed in the sterling steel armor of a bygone age, zir only weapons a longsword — which ze held in zir right hand — a dagger in a sheath on zir hip, and on zir back, a quiver of arrows, along with a bow with which to shoot them. Zir left hand held a circular, convex metal shield, upon the interior of which zir mind had inscribed the spiraling, star-like figure of the Novenis Virtutes Felium — the Nine-Fold Virtues of Feline-Kind — the ancient sigil of zir race, and upon the exterior of which zir thought had writ the sigil of zir Noble House, Coven Anjaladatanagra. On zir head, ze wore a rounded helmet with a barred face-guard. Thus armored, ze stood before the black fortress and its giant spiderweb-of-ironwork eye, awaiting the lowering of the drawbridge so ze could cross the moat — a thick, black, ichorous pool filled with gigantic, sharp-fangéd eels whose bodies crackled with electric potential. All who came forth to challenge the Dark Knight had to first pass over the drawbridge, and thus cross over into his grimdark netherworld . . . if one could get him to lower said bridge. Ze somehow how knew that he did so only for opponents he found “worthy.”

“I come to challenge the Dark Knight for passage through this realm and on through the barriers to the Inner World!” ze called out from where ze stood. “If he be not a dandy and a milquetoast, then let him come forward . . . and present himself to me!” Ze waited a moment longer, but no answer came. The only sound ze heard was the wind, blowing gently through zir fur, the clink of the chains that held up the drawbridge, and the odd call of the odd bird here or there in the sky. Not so much as a whisper from the fortress itself, save those of the wraiths that encircled it, whispering amongst themselves in ghostly, forbidden tongues. Ze twitched zir tail in irritation. Ze grew tired of waiting. “What am I to make of this, then?” ze continued. “Does the Dark Knight not think me worthy? Or is he himself the candy-arsed ninnymuggins that some rumor him to be? Can he not face an honest fight with one such as myself? I, who have faced dangers untold and hardships unnumbered . . . I, who have fought my way here, to his fortress, beyond the Goblin City . . . I, who now demand that the Dark Knight show himself, or let him be labeled a coward and a fool who hides in his keep, afraid of single a Catperson’s wrath! Come now, Dark Knight . . . surely you jest . . . Surely thou posseseth a backbone, somewhere on thy person!”

The ground beneath Trixie began to tremble; only slightly at first, then with greater rancor and violence, until the spot ze stood upon shook with tumultuous convulsions and ze could no longer keep zir feet. Cracks appeared below zir, and ze stumbled first one way and then the other as the earth heaved beneath zir, tossing zir flailing in one direction, then another, and then, at long last, after a few more minutes of this, finally started to settle down and quiet itself once more. As ze grabbed onto a nearby outcropping of rock to help stabilize zir so ze didn’t overcorrect and fall flat on zir face, zir stomach lurched to one side and ze almost vomited. Ze plunged zir sword into the soil and turned loose of it for a moment, long enough to get a grip on herself and regain zir balance. Ze wiped the sweat from zir palms and then renewed zir grip on zir sword, once again wielding it with confidence. A deep, rumbling voice — so loud that it echoed off the mountains in the distance — filled the air around zir as it said:

“TELL ME, LITTLE ONE . . . DO YOU BLEED?”

Unsure of herself in the extreme, ze screwed up as much courage as ze could and responded: “Not . . . not by your hand, I won’t.”

The voice laughed — a low, thunderous chuckle that sounded like boulders crushed into pebbles. “YOU WILL.”

“I’m — I’m not afraid of you,” ze lied, and swallowed. “Not in the least.”

“WE SHALL SEE.”

The drawbridge began lowering itself, the chains that suspended it clinking and clanking, together with the sound of two great wooden wheels turning and creaking on their shafts. As the drawbridge landed on zir side of the ichorous moat, ze saw revealed within the fortress naught but a dense, swirling cloud of fog that obscured whatever else might’ve lurked inside. Ze could hear a horse neighing and whinnying, and the steady clip-clop approach of hooves sparking against stone, as though someone approached from far away on a paved road . . . The fog, however, hid any sight of whomever it was. Ze watched the fog for a moment, uncertain of whether or not to proceed. But just as ze had made up zir mind to advance, and had taken a few trepidatious steps toward the drawbridge, the Dark Knight fell upon zir: He rode out of the fog like a lion tearing after some idiotic human that had dared disturb its territory, riding upon a huge, jet-black destrier, a stallion of immense proportion. His armor was of a polished, gleaming obsidian metal, his cylindrical helmet featureless save for a slit to see through and another to breathe through, the sigil on his right-hand shield a red, inverted pentagram, and the sword in his left hand a strange curiosity: In his hand lay its handle, a metal cylinder of sorts, and from that sprang the blade — a single blazing column made of iridescent scarlet-red light, about the length of a longsword. And, fastened to the side of his mount, he kept a formidable-looking wooden lance. Curiosity or not, ze nonetheless intuited that the Dark Knight’s light-sword could both cut through — or kill — damned near anything or anyone in its path. And here all ze had was this useless steel beam ze pathetically called a “sword!” Why, he could chop zir blades to ribbons with such a weapon!

The Dark Knight’s rode past zir, his steed galloping to a point about fifteen yards away, where the Dark Knight reined him in and came to a stop, then turned him around so he could face zir. “YOU HAVE COME TO CHALLENGE ME?” More laughter that sounded like rocks breaking. “WHAT POOR MANNER OF JEST IS THIS?”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Ze started to respond, but didn’t; there was nothing to say but “yes,” but ze feared zir voice might crack and give away just how deeply scared ze felt, and ze had resolved not to give him that satisfaction. Besides — zir mouth had gone dry, as had zir throat. Ze licked zir lips — also dry — and thought for a moment . . . and then, ze remembered something important. Ze looked back over zir shoulder, toward the drawbridge, moat, and fortress, and saw something ze needed to see: There, sitting on the drawbridge, stood another of zir — a perfect copy of zir, in fact, one wearing a crimson duster, gloves, rocket boots, and a helmet with antennae on it — with electrical arcs crackling between them — and with zir feline tail curled around zir legs, as ze sat in a meditative position, zir eyes closed and zir hands situated on zir knees. Zir face looked relaxed yet focused, pensive yet peaceful.

Oh, damn that’s right, I forgot, ze thought. This realm is consensual . . . this whole place is a co-creation of my mind and the ship’s “mind,” if it can be called that. I can’t control all of it, nor all of what happens . . . but I should be able to control me, or my avatar. I have at least some say-so over what I look like and can do . . .

Ze looked back to the Dark Knight, who still stood about fifty or so feet away, awaiting zir on his black stallion, which presently snorted fire from its nostrils as it stood, trotting in a half-circle and then impatiently pawing at the ground and kicking up dirt as it did. The fire gave zir an idea, though. Ze wondered . . . if the simulation she’d gotten sucked into existed in the mind of the ship’s computer and in zir mind simultaneously, then it had to be made-up of both sets of ideas about this period of Shyphtorilaen history, and its — amazingly — corresponding period of Earth history . . . including the less scientific and more overtly mystical notions found in the romances of the time on both worlds. Therefore, if ze wanted an action to happen here, even if there existed no logical justification for it, ze simply had to flip zir paradigm, and reframe that action as an act of magic. Of course, ze had no idea if such a far-out idea would work at all, and even if it did, the results might be unpredictable . . . However, the premise that this world acted more on magic and intuition than it did on scientific principle was, ze thought, a solid hunch to act on . . .

To hell with it, ze thought. Ze took zir sword and plunged it into the Earth again, this time right in front of zir, and went to one knee before it, with both hands on the grip in a prayerful position. Ze closed zir eyes again as ze intoned, the wind catching zir voice and amplifying it, carrying it out to the four corners of the world:

“Darksome night and shining moon,

East, then South, then West, then North;

Hearken to the Witches' Rune —

Here I come to call ye forth!

Earth and water, air and fire,

Wand and pentacle and sword,

Work ye unto my desire,

Hearken ye unto my work!

Cords and censer, scourge and knife,

Powers of the Witch's blade —

Waken all ye into life,

Come ye as the charm is made!

I ask of you, sylphs of the East,

To forge for me a mighty steed,

With intellect of steel, and speed,

Unequaled but by winds of the West,

And a light-sword to equal Excalibur,

With which I can dispatch the best,

And find myself the Viktor,

When I face the ultimate test.”

“AH, MAGIC,” said the Dark Knight, deactivating his light-sword; the blade of light disappeared, leaving only the handle for him to clip on his belt. “THE LAST REFUGE OF THE COWARDLY, THOSE WHO CANNOT FACE THE WORLD ON ITS OWN TERMS, AND THUS MUST INVENT THEIR OWN.”

Trixie rolled zir eyes. Thunder rumbled in the clouds above as ze spoke the words “Come ye as the charm is made,” and the sky clouded over, the clouds rushing over the two of them and casting wild shadows on the country and fortress below as they headed toward the blackness of outer space that lay on the other side. A bolt of lightning struck a nearby tree, catching a few of its branches blaze; a second bolt, right on the heels of the first, severed the tree in twain and half of it fell to the ground in a shower of sparks, but smothering the first fire. The brush around them blew, dust-bunnies whipping past them on the wind, which had picked up considerably. The Dark Knight held his ground, though, and Trixie hers. The ground began to shake again, as though another quake took hold of the imaginary earth beneath zir, but ze found it easier to stand strong this time, for ze became the quake’s epicenter. Ze took zir sword from the ground, and where it had lain, there appeared a crack in the earth, then another splinter, then two more cracks, then a fourth and fifth, with each crack growing larger than the one before it. As ze backed away from the cracking earth, ze saw a pattern emerging: The cracks formed a round shape in the dirt, about seven meters in diameter.

“WHAT HAVE YOU SUMMONED, LITTLE ONE?” the Dark Knight asked in a mocking tone. “A LION TO GIVE YOU COURAGE, PERHAPS? A SCARECROW TO ADVISE YOU? OR, MAYHAP A TIN MAN, TO SYMPATHIZE WITH YOUR PLIGHT? OR, MAYBE, A SMALL DOG, TO REMIND YOU OF HOW INESCAPABLY INFINITESIMAL YOUR EXISTENCE REALLY IS.”

Finally, at last, the ground simply exploded upward, as though someone had set off blasting charges beneath it — causing Trixie to stumble backward a few paces — and standing there, in the crater that remained, ze beheld an awesome sight: A horse, but one made of metal and clockwork, his legs hydraulic and gear-driven at the elbows, ankles, and shoulders, his body made of a steel ribcage and various pipes, hoses, and pistons; the beast’s ribcage lay open to view, a complex assembly, inside of which one could see gears turning, wheels moving, and various lights flashing, as well as vents where steam leaked out of assorted tubes and valves. His head armored head was all of apiece, with two large, glowing blue orbs for eyes, and two pointed satellite-dishes for ears, as well as a mouth that looked articulable, with a dozen tiny motors and dozens of translucent, bendable pieces, behind which ze could see steel teeth lurking. His mane looked like a mass of fiber-optic cables, as did his tail, and on his back sat a seat-like saddle — what the Earthlings would have called an English saddle — and there, in a clip attached to the saddle, lay the handle-grip base of a light-sword of the kind the Dark Knight had, this one with a bluish crystal plugged into its bottom compartment.

And still, off in the distance — and still about fourteen meters away, keeping his own council and waiting — stood the Dark Knight, calmly regarding zir with his expressionless black eye- and mouth-slit, his destrier stallion anxiously pawing at the earth. C’mon, let’s get this over with, the stallion seemed to say with each neigh or whinny.

The robotic horse turned its head toward zir and addressed zir. “Dost thou need a lift into battle, M’lady?” it said, its voice masculine and smooth. Ze would’ve preferred its personality be feminine, but oh well. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, ze supposed.

“Indeed, I do find myself in need of a lift,” ze said, inclining zir head politely. “But I’m afraid that though the Alethiaeon have been kind enough to provide me a light-sword and a gallant steed, I find myself in want of a lance with which to joust.”

“Nay, they’ve not neglected you in your need, M’lady,” said the robotic horse. “Look there, to that fallen tree, the one the lightning hast cloven in twain. Look closely.”

Trixie looked at the tree, the one that lightning had struck twice in a row and severed in half. Then ze walked over closer to it, to get a closer look. There, buried in the center of the tree, right where the lightning cloven it, lay a long wooden shaft the approximate length of the Dark Knight’s lance, and almost in the proper shape of one too, handle and all, connected to the tree’s inner mass via tenuous fibers and splinters of wood . . . as though something had placed it there aeons ago, and the tree had grown in around it, and the lightning had done nothing but merely set it free — well, mostly free.

“COME, LITTLE ONE,” came the voice of the Dark Knight, rumbling in the hillocks all around zir. “I GROW WEARY OF YOUR STALLING. PERHAPS YOU SHOULD COME BACK ANOTHER TIME WHEN YOU’RE FEELING SOMEWHAT . . . BRAVER.”

“I’d pay a pretty penny if he’d just shut the Hell up for a few damned minutes,” grumbled Trixie. Ze sheathed zir sword, unsheathed zir dagger, and dug it into the inner wood of the tree, trying to cut the lance free of its prison. It took zir about ten solid minutes, but ze finally manage to carve all around it and free it from the burnt wreckage of the tree; it felt good in zir hands . . . weighty, but not too heavy. It would make for a fine lance. If she’d had the time, ze would’ve sanded it down and maybe even tried to smooth it over, maybe paint it with the colors of zir House. But not right now. No, for now, ze had a Dark Knight to meet in fair combat.

Trixie situated herself upon zir robotic mount and adjusted zir metal shield and helmet. About a thirty meters away from zir, stood the Dark Knight on his eager, fire-snorting steed. The Dark Knight had proved to have magic of his own, the hypocrite. Only a few moments before this, he had held up a hand and clenched it into a fist, and the wraiths surrounding his black fortress had come forth and summoned a hundred foot wooden rail from the ground, stretching it from one end of the “jousting field” to the other, with the Dark Knight aligned on one side, and with Trixie aligned on the other, and with each of them at an opposing end. All around them, erupting from the ground, Trixie saw there arise ghostly pavilions packed with the souls of the dead, their green-glowing, phantasmal specters matching their corpses’ various states of decay: Some had faces half-eaten by worms, others had misplaced an eyeball or a nostril, or their lower jaw, or had gaping holes here and there in their heads, faces, or bodies, or rips and tears in their burial garb, from where rats or wild dogs had gnawed at them. Some had broken necks, from where the executioner had hanged them, whereas fire had burned — even all but consumed — others, while still others bore burns from boiling oil or acid, and others still looked as though tortured to death. Trixie tried to avert zir eyes from their piercing gazes, eyes that hated zir for living while they had all died, glares that wanted more than anything to see zir blood spilled, set in heads that featured minds that knew nothing but eternities of pain, and thus, had forgotten most of what they had known in life, save for how to inflict their pain upon others.

Well, ze thought, if he can do it, I can do it, too. The ghostly pavilions the Dark Knight had raised stood on his half of the battlefield, on his side of the dividing railing. So, Trixie closed zir eyes, and concentrated on zir side of it, visualizing what ze wished would happen, what ze needed to happen. Ze had little hope of such magic actually deciding the outcome of the tournament or joust itself . . . the hard-coded rules built into the sentient Zarcturean ship’s “superego” would likely determine that, just as the Dark Knight was a projection of its ordinary identity, its “ego,” if it had such a thing. As ze concentrated and focused all zir will on the concept ze hoped to manifest, ze heard the ground begin to rumble again, and just as ze opened zir eyes, ze saw them: Five great, wooden pavilions that formed a semi-circle around the field, all of them empty of people, rose up out of the muddy ground like upended, ancient shipwrecks come unburied during a sea-storm, tree roots and stumps overturning and snapping, breaking over the top of the pavilions as they came up out of the soil. And there, streaming into these seats from all directions, all over, as though from nowhere and everywhere at once, came commoners and lords alike, though the commoners stood on lower ground, closer to the action, and the lords took their appropriate seats in dedicated viewing boxes and balconies, all decorated with the vibrant colors of their various Noble Houses. They all gave a cheer as Trixie waved to them from zir electromechanical mount, who pranced around prettily, showing off the power and majesty of his form, gleaming in the light for all to see.

“So what on Shyphtor do I call you?” ze asked, stroking the mechanical beast’s mane of fiber-optic cables.

“My name, once upon a time, was Widdershins,” said the positronic-clockwork unicorn. “I suppose it can be so again, here.”

“Widdershins,” ze repeated, and nodded. “I like that. What does it mean?”

“In an old Earth-language,” he replied, “it means ‘counterclockwise.’”

“Ha! And with you, being mostly clockwork. How ironic.”

“I do believe that’s what my creator was going for, yes. If you want to be really on-the-nose with it.”

Just then, trumpets sounded, signaling that the joust had begun. Both Trixie and the Dark Knight took their positions on the battlefield, on either side and at the far ends of the dividing rail in the center. Trixie lowered zir suit of armor’s face-shield, and ze lowered zir lance, pointing it toward the Dark Knight, whose horse once again snorted fire at zir. This was it.

The trumpets sounded again — and they set off. The Dark Knight’s horse galloped toward zir, his lance lowered and his shield before him, his steed at full run, just as Widdershins galloped forward as well, Trixie situated atop him, zir lance also lowered and zir shield also deployed.

WHAM!

The Dark Knight’s lance struck zir shield — it felt like someone had slammed a spaceship into zir chest, blasting the wind out of zir in one sudden explosion and nearly tossing zir from Widdershins’s back, the only thing saving zir a firm grip on the reins — but ze regained zir balance at the last moment and managed to remain mounted as their paths crossed and ze wound up on the other end of the field. When ze reached it, ze turned Widdershins around and then, they galloped back the other way . . . lance down, shield up, just as the Dark Knight came at them again. Zir chest burned and ached under the armor; it felt like ze had fractured something . . . or several somethings. It was hard to breathe; no, it hurt to breathe; it ached to breathe. But ze had no time for pain. This time, zir lance struck the Knight’s shield, right in the center of its red, upside-down pentagram. The vibration traveled up zir lance and rushed into zir body, almost knocking zir out of the saddle. The Dark Knight’s lance struck zir shield as well, but only on the very edge . . . though that nearly spun zir off the top of zir mount due to the colossal force with which the two connected. Neither shield gave nor broke, but instead each’s lance skipped off the other’s. The Dark Knight quickly regained any balance he might’ve lost — the blow seemed not to have upset him at all — and his mount galloped onward. Damn! They criss-crossed paths again, and once more wound up on opposite ends of the field, where they each paused for a moment, steeds prancing, each one sizing up the other; Trixie’s arms hurt and zir body cried out in agony and protest against the punishment. Then, the Dark Knight spurred his mount onward, as did Trixie Widdershins, who this time seemed to put an extra kick of speed into his charge . . . an accelerative boost that a flesh and blood horse would have a hard time putting forward. Trixie aimed zir lance carefully, right at the center of the Dark Knight’s shield, holding onto it for dear life and trying to lock zir arm in place, forcing it to stay true with every ounce of strength that ze could. The lance connected with the Dark Knight’s shield full-force, and —

So too did his lance with zir shield, unfortunately. As his lance rammed into zir, ze felt herself go flying backward through the air, the wind rushing past zir, and ze landed on the ground with a loud thud — the armor smashing into zir backside and, of course, with an agonizing rush of pain in every limb, as well, zir body quaking with the impact. The Dark Knight reined his mount to a stop, dismounted, grabbed the grip that remained of his light-sword, and powered it up. The shining blade of scarlet-red light WHOOSHED as it appeared in the air above the hilt with a crackling hum that pervaded the air around it, and he approached zir. Trixie scrambled to zir feet — not an easy task while wearing heavy armor, but once ze managed to turn herself over and push herself into a kneeling — and then a standing — position, much easier — and raced toward Widdershins to retrieve zir own conjured light-sword. Ze grabbed it and fumbled with it for a moment, unsure of how to turn it on. Ze finally found the switch on the side — and made sure that ze hadn’t accidentally pointed the business-end at herself! — and activated it. A bright, blue-white-glowing blade of light emerged from the other end. The grip remained light as a feather in zir hands. Ze had never fought with such a weapon as this, not even in zir training for the mission on Shyphtor. Ze knew how to handle a sword . . . but much of that lay in knowing how to handle the weight of a sword, how to balance it properly, how to manage it. This had no weight at all, hardly. Ze hoped ze didn’t sever zir own arms or legs with the damned thing.

Sensing movement behind zir, ze spun around, light-sword at the ready, and sure enough, it collided with the Dark Knight’s light-sword in midair — he had been ready to strike zir from behind, the coward! Ze reared back to strike him with zir blade of light, but he parried the blow and blocked it with his light-blade. So — the light-swords could cut through anything, except each other; those were the rules. The two light-blades slashed through the air again and again, meeting and blocking one another time and time as the two of them battled for supremacy, the light-swords locking together at the hilt now and then, the sound of their energies sparking against each other like the sound of rusty nails drawn across slate. First Trixie would lose ground then gain it, a foot or two at a time, then lose three or four as ze backed up under the relentless assault of the Dark Knight’s flurry of moves. Ze would lunge, he would parry. Ze would move in with a swipe or a slash, and he would dodge and counterattack.

Long ago on zir world, a traveling bard named Jobért Rordan, a prolific scribe, a favorite in many an Elder’s court, had tried to write down all the various motions and moves of the arts known as fencing and sword-fighting, and had attempted to give to them poetic names, such as Avalanche Crushes The Climber, Buck Prances In Winter Streams, Cornstalk Kisses The Harvest Moon, and so forth. Before ze could complete zir training, Trixie had to memorize about sixty of the buggers — and their names — and she’d had to pass a test on them, as well. Now, here with the Dark Knight, the virtual avatar of the Zarcturean ship’s security system, in this consensual dreamworld of sorts, ze executed Cornered Cat Lashes Out, a maneuver that relied on three quick strikes at one’s opponent done in quick succession, meant to catch off-guard and disorient.

The Dark Knight countered with a version of Frond Shelters The Nest, a move designed to deflect a flurry of quick strikes with one overarching move. They continued on like this for another few minutes, hacking and parrying, lunging and swiping . . . and then came the Dark Knight’s use of Blacksmith’s Hammerblow, a tough move to execute, but one of immense power, designed to overwhelm one’s opponent and force them into submission, cornering them and overpowering them, literally forcing them to their knees.

Once down on one knee, Trixie answered his next blow — Fire Strikes The Elder Tree, meant as devastating finishing move, a downward, stabbing strike part-lunge, part-almost-sacrificial-bludgeon — with a defensive move called Porcupine Shows His Quills, a move where one could forcefully knock away one’s attacker’s blade with a sweeping sideways blow, even from a weakened position, surprising them with one’s rally at the last. Ze took advantage of his surprise and rose up from where ze knelt, striking back hard with Dagger Cuts The Skin, a series of swipes and forward lunges designed to put him on the defensive and force him back, back, and further back still, forcing him to defend and deflecting any possibility of attack, until finally ze had him on the ropes, so to speak; he countered at the last with a spin-around-and-attack, in a move known as Brisk Wind Stirring, swinging his sword around in a wide, arcing move, intending to behead zir.

He succeeded. She felt the blade cut into her neck, slicing open her carotid artery. She choked, and blood gurgled from the wound as she stumbled to the side and fell on her ass. Pain shot up through her side and her legs, but it was nothing to the searing pain in her neck and head. She grasped at the wound but it was no use. Consciousness was fading. The Dark Knight stood over her — the last thing she saw before the psionic link terminated — and he laughed. The bastard laughed. Her vision blurred then, and she faded . . .

Trixie fell over onto the gravel of the rooftop, zir eyes flicking open, and ze gasped for breath, awakening from the Psionic Link. Dear Alethiaeon, that had been close! Had ze been immersed any deeper in the Link, ze might have actually died! Thank the Alethiaeon that hadn’t happened. Ze tried to sit up, and winced. Zir body was covered in bruises, cuts, and scrapes. Ze fell back down onto the gravel. Egads did ze ache. Ze had pains in places ze didn’t know ze even possessed muscles. And ze was bleeding. Badly. Zir legs were too severely wounded for zir to walk. Ze quickly tried to calculate how long ze had until ze bled to death from internal hemmoraging. Not long. The odds of zir survival were not good. Well. This had been a short goddamned mission, now hadn’t it. Fuck. What an embarrassment.

Well, not if ze could help it. Ze put all zir effort into zir hands, and began to pull herself across the rooftop’s gravel toward zir ship. The cloaking device was still engaged, so ze couldn’t see it without using zir hololenticular implants, and the psionic link had burned them out. But ze knew exactly where it was, and one inch at a time, ze made zir way there. The gravel was rough beneath zir as ze gradually yanked herself closer, pulling with all the strength ze could force into zir fingers and palm, pressing down into the gravel as mightily as ze could, and groaning with the effort. Ze even threw zir tail into the act, not that it helped much. But by and by, ze would make it to zir ship, Alethiaeon-damn it. Ze had to. To save Earth. To save Humanity. Ze had to get on board the Zarcturean’s ship. There was of course another option; the weapons-system onboard zir own ship could easily take the Zarcturean ship . . . But they would also cause that ship’s engines to explode, and the transdimensional tesseract construct within it to collapse . . . Which would decimate the surrounding area, leveling at least a hundred square miles of Human terrain in the process, killing millions of people. Ze couldn’t allow that. Not in a million cycles. So ze had to get onboard, somehow, and kill the Visitor that way. But how? How would ze do it? And especially in zir current condition?

Ze had to try again. That was all there was to it. Try again, and this time, beat the Dark Knight. Joust him a second time, and this time, destroy his ass. But for right now, ze needed medical treatment from zir ship’s robotic med-assistants. Ze was fading fast, damn it, and ze knew it. Could feel it. Later, ze would make another attempt at hacking the Zarcturean ship’s security system . . . But for now, it had beaten zir, and badly. It was all ze could do to crawl; crawl, and hope there was a way to somehow win the day.