This is, of course, why we’ve never been able to verify the existence of a dimension above ours in the dimensional travel “river.” Though gateways indicate that something might be there, not even electrons or photons can make the trip.

  For now, such a destination remains theoretical. Regardless, if dimensional physics work the same way in all realities, the chances of someone dimensionally upstream from us locating our dimension are small. Basically nonexistent. So don’t worry about it.2

  (Note: While you can use your gateway to travel farther “downstream” to dimensions that branch off of yours, we highly recommend against it. These dimensions tend to be unstable.)

  * * *

  1 Frugal Wizard Inc.® complies with all dimensional treaties, laws, and jurisdictions. We are the only commercial dimensional travel provider who has never been convicted of a major dimensional legal code violation!*

  *In Canada

  2 See FAQ: Can You Recommend a Therapist to Help Me Cope with the Existential Dread Caused by the Realization That My Reality Might Just Be an Offshoot of Another Dimension with More Substance Than Ours?

  Ryan was here.

  Did he know he was being hunted? I had to find him—both to warn him, and to finally get some damn explanations.

  “Where did you see him?” I asked Thokk.

  “Heading into Wellbury,” she said. “Two days ago.”

  “You know this man, honored aelv?” Ealstan said.

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s one of my kind. A mighty soldier among us. We should try to join him.”

  Ealstan leaned in to study the picture. “Wellbury was already our destination,” Ealstan said. “Perhaps he may aid us with the release of Wyrm, or in stopping Ulric and Quinn. We could ask the midfather about him.”

  I focused on the drawing, clinging to my memories in the academy with Ryan and…Jen? No, she hadn’t been a cop. But we’d often gone out at night, the three of us. Friends. Then Jen and I had become a thing.

  “Pardon, Little Father,” Sefawynn said. “But I was hoping to retrieve Wyrm without talking to Wealdsig. The reeve is…not my favorite person.”

  “The midfather’s devotion to Woden can be uncomfortable at times,” Ealstan said.

  “Uncomfortable?” Yazad said. “Pardon, but didn’t the man once nail himself to a tree?”

  Wait. What?

  Ealstan looked to me, chagrined. “Woden required a sacrifice before the battle of Far Strength,” he explained. “Some forty years ago now. Sacrificing directly of oneself to Woden is a…way to tip the scales in your favor.”

  “Woden forgets himself and thirsts for increasing devotion,” Thokk said softly. “Like a drunkard calling for more wine.”

  “You should not say such things, hearth-tender,” Sefawynn said.

  “I’ll say what I want,” Thokk snapped. “It’s true.”

  Yazad grinned widely.

  “Don’t give me that,” Thokk said to him. “I’m not converting to your feely-lovey god with his pillows and smiles. He wouldn’t want me anyway.”

  “Ahura Mazda wants everyone, no matter how lowly or incapable,” Yazad said. “I am proof of that!”

  “Can we talk about the nailing to a tree?” I said. “That part sounds important.”

  “Wealdsig needed strength for the battle,” Ealstan said. “He considered sacrificing one of his warriors, but felt that would give them the honor. In one of the old tales, Woden nailed himself to the world tree. So, to draw upon that strength, Wealdsig…emulated him. His right hand isn’t of much use now, but people respect him.”

  “Fools respect him,” Yazad said.

  “You can’t fault his heart,” Ealstan said. “That’s one part of him that remains unbroken.”

  “Unlike his brain…” Thokk said.

  Great. I settled onto the floor beside the hearth.

  Ryan had come through this region two days ago—and yesterday, Ulric and Quinn had followed. They’d left this morning, probably toward the earl’s seat. They’d told Ealstan they represented the earl, and if I knew Ulric, he’d make his base impressive and well fortified. If he had a portal out of here, he’d keep it there—at the center of his power.

  Maybe Ryan was tracking their activities in this dimension? Maybe I was making too many assumptions. I barely knew my own name; it seemed a stretch to try to guess at other people’s motives.

  “If you trust Wealdsig,” I said to Ealstan, “it seems like it would make sense to talk to him.”

  “But Ulric said Wealdsig was working for them,” Sefawynn said.

  “Wealdsig is not the type to give outlanders his devotion,” Ealstan said. “He’s not that...dependable, honestly. He’ll do what he finds amusing at the moment. For now, that might be listening to Ulric—but it also might mean listening to me when I talk to him.”

  I wasn’t certain if I liked that idea or not. “We should try to see what Wealdsig knows.”

  “We are decided then,” Ealstan said. “We ride in and announce ourselves, then plead our case.”

  “No,” Sefawynn said quickly. “We should sneak into the city. Even if we’re going to talk to him, we should be certain not to be seen entering. In case the enemy left someone at the gates to watch. They might recognize…an aelv.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. There was something familiar in her eyes, her posture.

  She glanced away, arms folded.

  “Oh!” Yazad said, clapping his hands together with a joyous crack. “I can help with this! I often bring fruit from the orchard and our storerooms to distribute to the townspeople! The hearthmen rarely take much note of those I bring with me. You shall accompany me with sacks of fruit, and nobody will think to look at you. It is a way I can repay you for your service to me!”

  I supposed it was a good idea, and Ealstan obviously thought so as well, because the two of them went to see how many sacks of apples were ready for transport. Thokk tended the fire, as Leof was still dozing in the corner.

  I looked at my sketch. Ryan would be annoyed at me if he knew I was here. The thought confused me. We were partners; didn’t we get into problems together?

  No… I thought. Something happened between us…

  I flexed my hand. It was something to do with these augments. They weren’t standard police equipment. Where had I gotten them? And why had I frozen when that Hordaman attacked me?

  Flashes of light. Shouts of anger.

  I started to wonder again. About myself, my heart, who I’d been…and what I’d done. For the first time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to remember. I knew, deep down, that I’d latched on too tightly to the memory of being a cop. It didn’t explain everything I could do, my instincts for lying and hiding.

  No. I was a hero. I had to be a hero. I’d always wanted to…

  To be like Ryan. But things hadn’t turned out like I’d wanted, had they?

  Hell. I spent a few minutes digging through my submenus, and again could not enable the inactive platings. I was baffled. Why did I have them, if not to use them? I poked and prodded, until—oddly—a new message came up.

  Platings forcibly disabled by external command, it read. You aren’t getting them back, Johnny. Stop trying.

  Oh, hell. Someone had done this to me. Intentionally. I exited out of my menus, and felt a distinct impression to hide. I wanted to stop digging into my past, stop looking for answers beyond what floated at the surface. I wasn’t going to like what I found.

  Shame almost overwhelmed me.

  I knew that emotion well. But why had I seen it in Sefawynn a few minutes ago?

  Both Sefawynn and Thokk had left the room while I was distracted. So I stood up, brushed myself off, and poked my head out of the hut. Several women were working on the thatching of the roof, while others worked in the orchard. One fellow was replacing the stones in the pathway. Life didn’t leave people with a lot of leisure time around here.

  I did notice several bowls of berries out front, with various requests in front of them. Worn-out shoes, a pile of reeds for weaving a mat, some milk? I couldn’t decide if that was an offering, or if they wanted it turned into butter. Guess even mysterious invisible forces had to work for a living.

  Feeling a little foolish, I said, “You want to give one of those a try while I look for Sefawynn?”

  No reply, of course.

  I eventually found Sefawynn sitting on a stump, staring into the dark forest. I strolled up, hands in my pockets, wind tugging at my cloak. Handy piece of clothing, that. I didn’t need the warmth, but I sure felt more dramatic wearing it. (Four stars. The weird kids might be onto something.)

  “Hey,” I said to her.

  She nodded.

  “Leof thought he recognized you,” I continued. “Now you’re worried the guards at the city gate might too. And you’ve been acting strange ever since we got here. Like you’re…ashamed of something.”

  She sighed, elbows on knees, resting her head in her hands. I leaned back against a nearby tree.

  “Our boasts don’t do anything,” she whispered. “The skops all know it. I think they used to work. I mean, the Hordamen skalds make theirs work, so it’s possible ours used to as well, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said softly. “I don’t know much about any of this.”

  “You baffle me, Runian,” she said, finally looking at me. “I’ve figured out the voice trick—I met a skop once who could make it sound like objects around him were talking, even though he didn’t move his lips. It’s something like that, isn’t it? That’s how you run that grift?”

  “I’m not a grifter,” I said, with too much force. That was a raw nerve. “But it is a similar ability.”

  “I have no room to chide you,” Sefawynn said. “We skops should admit that we can’t loose wights, or bind them, or intimidate them. But…it helps people to believe we can.” She grimaced. “That’s a justification. Truth is, if we were honest with everyone, they’d throw us out and we’d starve. So we keep acting like we know what we’re doing…”

  “And Wellbury?”

  “I came through here a few years back,” Sefawynn said, “after the Bear took my parents. He was pushing this direction, so the midfather asked for bindings on a nearby settlement. Extra protections, because the runestones…well, you know.

  “I performed my best boasts, though I knew they wouldn’t do anything. Wyrm and I got paid, then moved on.”

  “And that settlement?” I asked.

  She nodded out into the forest. “Used to be right there.”

  I followed her gaze into the dense forest, past stone-column trees that had to be a hundred years old. There couldn’t have been a settlement out there.

  Though, what did I know? I’d started talking to the air and believing in ghosts or whatever. So I looked closer. As I studied the forest, I saw shadows that might have been old stone walls, or foundations.

  “People are starting to figure it out,” Sefawynn said. “When I loose a bog, it returns the next night. The protections I promise don’t materialize. People die, and their kin wonder why they fed that skop. Why they listened and believed… There aren’t many places these days where I won’t be recognized—I keep forgetting where I’ve been.”

  No wonder she thought I was a grifter; she was living that very life. She was the medieval version of a psychic. In my time, those people were mostly harmless. But here, where some of it was real? Maybe the psychic comparison was a bad one. She was more like a scam artist, selling bad augments that didn’t protect you.

  None of my business either way; I had mob bosses to deal with. I just wished that tone in her voice didn’t feel so uncomfortably familiar. The look in her eyes made her seem hollow, like a cheap plastic toy. The kind painted to look like metal, but you knew the difference the moment you held it.

  “I’m so tired of lying,” Sefawynn whispered. “Of always being worried…”

  “Of never staying in one place too long,” I said, “because you’re afraid it will catch up to you. Of being worried that each person you pass is someone you stole from. Of never sleeping except when you have to, because even your friends are…the kinds of people you don’t sleep easily around.”

  She glanced at me. For a moment, I worried her show of vulnerability had been an act to get me to admit to something. Then she nodded.

  I tried to summon a rousing speech. Tell her something properly honorable, like the honest detective I’d once trained to be. Turn your life around, kid, or Get an honest job. Go volunteer at a shelter for diabetic kittens.

  “Life is awful sometimes,” I said instead. “So you cope.”

  “Others cope without grifting,” she said. “Ealstan does it by helping people survive.”

  “And those Hordamen do it by ripping people apart,” I said. “Burning down villages. On that scale, you’re not doing so bad.”

  She stretched, then stood, brushing off her dress. “Thanks,” she said. “For not judging.”

  “You think I’m a grifter too. Why would I judge?”

  “That’s the first thing you’ve said that makes me doubt,” she said. “Because every grifter I’ve known is a judgmental aers.”

  There it was again. They called people ears as an insult? (Two stars. Better than calling someone a nose. I think.)

  “The midfather might recognize me,” she said as we walked toward the preserve. “He might not. But it might be best if I’m not there when Ealstan chats with him.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “It might be best if I approached him.”

  “You’re going to try to convince Wealdsig that you’re a lizard, aren’t you?”

  “Wizard,” I said. “And yes. I am. It’s supposed to work quite well. My book says so. And I impressed those Hordamen.”

  “Your eyes should have burned out reading all that writing,” she noted. “You have a strange wyrd to you.”

  “All of your words are strange, really.”

  “Wyrd,” she said. “Fate or luck or… It’s not really either, but…how do you not know any of this? Where are you from?”

  “Seattle.” I glanced at her. “We don’t have many Anglo-Saxons there. Good coffee, though. And great bookstores. I’m telling you the truth, Sefawynn. I’ve only been in your country for a few days.”

  “And yet, you speak our language.”

  “You speak my language.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Stop that,” I said.

  “I was checking the time of day.”

  “The sun is literally behind us.”

  “Which one knows by looking at the sky.”

  “There are plenty of shadows. They’re long enough to tell the time by.”

  She stopped in place and squinted at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I’m seeing if the shadows are dark enough.”

  “For what?”

  “To obscure your face. Nope. I can still make it out. It’s not nearly dark enough for my taste.”

  I caught a smile on her lips. An unspoken honesty grew between us. We both had uncomfortable bits to our pasts. I didn’t want to confront mine, but they were there, just beneath the surface. But we kept moving forward. Now that we’d admitted a few things, her lack of powers in particular, the air seemed clearer. She walked a little closer to me.

  I froze in place.

  “Wait,” I said. “Was that flirting? Were we flirting?”

  She rolled her eyes again and kept walking.

  Nice, John, I thought. That’s a pro move. I appeared to be terrible with women. Good to know.

  I hurried to catch up. People gathered around the front. What was wrong?

  Oh. They were staring at a stack of some twenty woven mats. And a mound of butter the size of a small child.

  The shoes, though, had been unraveled into their component pieces. Even the laces had been stripped down to bits of fiber. It was like the wight was saying, “I did what you asked—but to show you I’m not a pushover, I ruined the shoes. So there.”

  Leof reverently picked up one of the mats. “What manner of wight could do this… ?”

  Sefawynn looked at me, then pulled me away.

  “What?” I whispered when we were out of earshot.

  “Did you do that?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know how to weave mats. I can barely make ramen.”

  “Their wight is nice,” she said. “But weak. I talked to the kids this morning—it can only manage one small task at a time, and does it over many days. Did you ask your wight to do that?”

  “Look, it’s not a big deal. Maybe the one following me has a better work ethic.”

  “How have you bound such a powerful wight?” she demanded. “And not to a place, but to a person. You make no sense!”

  “I know!” I said. “Try being me! Zero stars! Worse than diet soda with sugar dumped in it!”

  Wait.

  How in the hell did I know what that tasted like?

  There really were some things in my past it would be best to forget.

  Sefawynn frowned. “What is zero?”

  “Seriously,” I said. “That’s the part of my statement that confused you?”

  “It’s the confusing part that I almost followed,” she said. She glanced back at the preserve. “Come on; let’s talk to Yazad about specifics. I want to see my brother.”

  Wellbury wasn’t the giant fortress the others had made it out to be. It was larger than Stenford, sure, and had a wooden wall surrounding the entire place. But the only stone structures I saw on approach were the two towers beside the gate.

  I was beginning to think I wouldn’t see any castles. Still, if I were an invading Hordaman, maybe that thick log palisade would be daunting. Certainly, the moat would be annoying to cross, assuming the archers up on the wall were filling you with splinters.

  The town wasn’t far enough inward from the coast to make me comfortable, though. Ealstan had been telling me of invasions of dozens, or even hundreds, of Hordamen ships.

  I tried to picture that as I walked up along the road, surrounded by Yazad’s faithful, lugging a basket of apples tied to my back. A hundred ships, flooding this approach with burly men and their manicured beards. I tried imagining the people of the preserve, who didn’t have a fighter among them, running for their lives.