room."
She examined it and decided he was right, if she lay lengthwise. Still: "Are you sure?"
"Of course. If you're worried about propriety, while I would love to ravish you, as my guest I am bound by the demands of hospitality to protect you and treat you well." He glanced up at her with a grinning leer, and winked.
She realized he was being facetious again. "Hmph. Well, if you do, and I ever find out about it, I'll hurt you good, little man."
He laughed. "My word, such wit! As Speedy Gonzales might say, 'I like you, you're silly.'"
She removed her coat and hung it over the closest upright support of the lean-to. "That isn't as obscure a reference as you might believe."
"You've heard it before?"
She unbuckled the harness over her sleeveless doublet. "From a friend in the Waking World." It was one of Sunny's favorite lines.
"Ah, so, you're a Dreamer--good heavens, woman!"
She glanced at him and saw him staring at the six pistols hanging in the harness. She had two more in belt holsters, along with a rondel dagger and a few pouches.
"Expecting bear?"
She flashed a lopsided grin. "I get it. In a manner of speaking. I'm a pistol marksman in the Waking World. I feel more comfortable with a gun in my hand than a blade, and even if these are not what I'm used to, they're still better than nothing. Having eight of them just makes it possible to get off multiple shots before having to reload."
Then the shilling dropped. "You don't seem too surprised to see these."
He shrugged. "I've seen matchlock guns before, but nothing like those. Are they flintlocks?"
She slipped off the harness and laid it over the coat. She understood his confusion. Nothing more recent than 1500 could exist in the Dreamlands. "No, they use a mechanism called a wheellock. It was developed just before the 16th century. A spring-driven wheel turns against a piece of pyrite to create sparks." She unbuckled the belt and hung it off the harness.
"Are they common?"
She removed her red, wide-brimmed hat and laid it on top of the coat. "No; I believe my collection is the only one so far, but these were made by a weaponsmith in Ulthar, and he offers others for general sale. So you may see more of them as time goes on." She untied her pink ascot from around the doublet's high collar and draped it over the hat.
"Ulthar, you say. They could make my life a bit easier; safer, too."
She untied the lacings on her doublet and draped it over her pack. Underneath she wore a chemise tucked inside a pair of tight-fitting trousers. "It takes a goodly amount of practice to be a passable shot, and they require a great deal of care and maintenance to keep in working order, but for all that, they're still easier to master than a knife or a bow."
"Might be difficult finding a teacher."
She knelt and unbuckled the straps on her boots. "The smith in Ulthar can show you all you need to know. After that, it's just a matter of practice making perfect." Standing, she leaned with one hand against the cave wall and pulled them off, dropping them beside the pack.
He didn't say anything more, and the tapping of flint on steel resumed.
She walked over and knelt down to watch. Eile and Sunny had shown her how to start a fire that way, but she had had little opportunity to practice. After about a minute, she saw a wisp of smoke rise from the tinder. He bent over and blew into the pyramid of wood, and in seconds the tinder blazed up. He quickly added fresh material, then larger pieces of kindling, and in no time the center blazed strongly. He then stood and went over to the other side of the lean-to.
"Is there anything I can do?" She watched as he rummaged around inside his own pack.
He shook his head. "You're my guest. Aside from seeing to your own needs, nothing."
"I'm a fairly good cook."
He pulled out food packs. "I'm not too bad myself."
"I meant no offense."
He straightened up and came back to the fire, carrying half a dozen parcels. He had that wry grin on his face again. "None taken. Feel free to kibitz."
"I just think I should pull my own weight."
He passed the packages to her and she laid them beside the cooking gear. Then he knelt beside the growing fire. "Would you consider traveling with me? I could use the company."
He looked and sounded rather earnest, almost like a child frightened of the dark. It made her wonder if, for all his confidence and high spirits, he wasn't in some measure intimidated by the huge world around him.
She smiled and extended her hand. "As would I. I would be honoured."
He beamed at her with what seemed like ecstatic relief, and took her hand in both of his. "Then that would be good enough."
He flashed that wry grin and winked as he recovered his composure. "Besides, it never hurts to have a big person by your side, does it? Especially one as alluring as you."
She chuckled. "You are outrageous, you know that?"
"It has been said of me," he replied in a mischievous tone as he unwrapped one of the packs.
Coming in March.
From "The Differential Damsel"
Differel crept up the trail towards the wall as Eile and Sunny followed. The ruins were part of an ancient manor abandoned long ago, and while most of the buildings had long since collapsed and fallen into rubble, the protective curtain wall remained largely intact, except for a handful of breaches. The trail led to one, and she stopped on one side, keeping out of sight of the interior. The Girls fell in behind her as she took off her glasses. They were really a fashion statement; though myopic in the Waking World, she had perfect vision in the Dreamlands. But there could be a danger they would reflect light.
She peered in a cautious manner around the broken masonry into the central courtyard, fingering one of her wheellock pistols just in case. A few rods away four Men of Leng sat around a fire beside one of the few intact buildings, eating, drinking, and telling stories as they whiled away the evening before going to sleep. Though they wore dark-colored tunics and traveling coats, the flames illuminated their bulbous turbans and round faces in the growing twilight, with their wide frog-like mouths and wicked grinning leers. From the way they talked and laughed, she figured they were well pleased with the progress of their adventure so far.
But she felt less concern about them than the man they held captive. Strung up by his wrists inside the building's open doorway and stripped to the waist, Victor looked none the worst for his ordeal.
Which is good, she thought. She had resolved before she arrived that if they had harmed her husband in any way, she would kill them instead of take them captive. She was a crack marksman, and at that distance could pick them off easily, even with her primitive firearms.
She stepped back from the gap and turned to look at the Girls. They had volunteered without hesitation when she asked for their help, and she had been glad of it. She would rather have them at her back than an SAS troop in full battle gear. They were her friends in the Waking World as well as the Dreamlands, and called themselves Team Girl in both places.
She held up four fingers, and they nodded. She pointed at Sunny and motioned for her to remain behind. She crinkled her azure-blue eyes behind her granny glasses and smiled, then slipped off and strung her reflex composite bow. The Mercutio of the pair, she called herself White-lion in the Dreamworld, though she seemed more golden with her huge mane of gamboge hair and her buff complexion. She preferred comfortable traveling clothes, such as a long skirt, a sleeveless shirt that bared her midriff, and an open jacket, all of which did little to hide her voluptuous figure, along with leather boots and gloves, and a Robin Hood hat with a large golden plume. Her costume often led assailants to underestimate her, but her prowess with the bow and her magical talent prevented most attackers from getting close, and those few who did discovered she was equally adept with a quarterstaff or dagger.
Differel removed her hat and passed it to Sunny. The broad floppy brim provided excellent shading from the sun, but it would be more of a hindrance t
han a help in clandestine activity. She focused on Eile and indicated for her to start before her. Eile responded with a grin and a wink of an indigo-blue eye. Differel gave them both an a-okay sign as she pulled out a pistol, before turning and darting across the opening of the break to the other side. When she looked back, she saw Eile peeking into the courtyard. The sober, rock-solid member of the duo, she went by the name of Braveheart. She was thinner and tougher than her partner, with a long seal-brown ponytail and forelocks dyed a vivid fuchsia framing her ochre-toned face. She preferred to duel with her opponents face-to-face, and like a typical knight-errant she wore armor: a hauberk of cuir bouilli covered with bronze metal scales, an armoured bustier, and shoulder guards over a leather unitard, with gloves and boots. She had no helmet, but carried a wooden shield faced with metal strapped to her back, which she used to good effect with her broad, short-bladed sword.
Eile glanced at her and flashed a thumbs up. She put an arm around Sunny and gave her a quick smooch on the lips, then waited as her partner aimed high and fired an arrow over the wall. It whistled as it flew and clattered against rocks behind the Leng Men. As soon as they turned to see what had made the noise, including Victor, Eile slipped inside and made off along the wall's inner perimeter. Her destination was a collapsed tower further down the circumference that would put her behind and to one side of the Leng Men. Differel let her make the first move because