Power Trio

“All travelers to Vatramor south, assemble at the mustering grounds. Your portal will open in twenty minutes.” The tinny voice pipes through dozens of PAs posted across the portal station. “Repeat. All travelers to Vatramor south, your portal opens in twenty minutes.”

“Oh, tits.” Anise’s red ale is only half drained. She grabs her stein and tilts it vertical. Her long neck works as she pounds most of the remainder in one hurried gulp.

Nick was about to offer a helping hand/gullet, but damn. The elf’s got it under control, huh? With a second slurp, the stein’s empty; it thumps back onto the beer garden counter. The orcish bartender lets out a low whistle. “Hard drinker, neh?”

Anise wipes her upper lip. “Waste not, want not.” She looks to Nick, who polishes off his crisp, cool amber and joins her.

“You really know how to slam ‘em back, boss,” he says.

“I was young too, once.” She smirks. “And then I got a few extra decades of practice to boot. Come on, kiddo. Let’s buy some of those gnomehat pastry things for the trip.”

She lists somewhat as they navigate through a teleportation waystation that’s decked out more like a country fair. “Oof. They brew their beer stronger out here, don’t they. Hail, dwarf sir! We seek confections!” She waves eagerly at the carnival-barking dwarf baker, his beard bound up in a mesh net.

Dee’s appointed him as Anise’s Girl Friday whenever he isn’t busy learning, teaching, or lifting. Mostly that means accompanying her as she shops and eats. Anise Cantator loves discovering old world culture, and she doesn’t seem to give a shit about how much she ends up spending while doing it. Her per diem is as generous as her job is strenuous.

He hasn’t told her yet. Boss, I’m teaching Dee magic. She’s got me incanting on the regular.You should make her release me from the pack. That’s all he has to say. It would work.

Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe the doubt is why he hasn’t acted yet.

“Mmm, God. Nick, try this.” She shoves a box of flaky conical pastry into his hand. He picks one out and bites into a reservoir of velvety, tart filling. “Get these away from me, young man,” Anise says. “They are seriously going to obliterate my waistline.”

Despite how frequently she speaks on this theme, Anise is thin and graceful. Even now, tipsy on old world ale, she moves with a light, ethereal step, looking more like she’s dancing than faltering. Nick has seen plenty of elves. They share an unearthly beauty; Anise is no exception.

He’d tell her that, if it wasn’t a wildly inappropriate thing to tell a client of the pack. Still, he gets the sense that her self-esteem isn’t where it deserves to be.

“My daughter would adore these.” She’s snuck another pastry. “I need to send her some. Nick, c’mon. Keep them away from me.”

“I didn’t know you had a daughter,” Nick says.

“Mhmm.” Anise wipes crumbs off her jacket. “Senior at NYU.”

Nick surveys Anise as she sways with breezy unawareness. How old is she, anyway? He would have guessed mid 30s or well-preserved 40s. Certainly not the mother of an adult daughter. Elves are tight-lipped about this stuff.

Now that she's not bundled up all the time, maybe he can see a little of that cushion she’s always complaining about around her hips and thighs. It doesn’t look much like the problem she makes it out to be. His guess is she used to be retro-thin when she was a youngster and hasn't caught up with the fact that in the modern era it's okay to have an ass.

A perky, peach-shaped, hypnotically swaying ass.

Okay, Nick. It’s time to admit to yourself that your boss is a MILF. Her shadowy eyelids, her green heart-shaped lips. She’s always wearing these structured pantsuits and pencil skirts that cinch around her little dancer waist and bloom out to accentuate the generous curve of her behind. Everything on her is lithe and graceful. Her neck, her slender limbs, her shapely legs. She’s supple and bottom-heavy, like one of those TV cartoon moms people bring up when retrospectively discussing their sexual awakenings—hey, did you ever notice how sexy Mrs. Incredible was? She’s started calling him kiddo and every time it’s like a gong ringing in his gut, standing him at attention.

What is it with him, lately, with women in places of authority over him?

Gated stanchions divide the mustering grounds into a few dozen zones of varying sizes. Legendary’s tour takes up two of the largest ones. “Hello, Dee and Dee’s pack,” Anise sings, as they step through into their territory. “Nicholas and I have brought dessert. Fuel up, buttercups.”

A battalion of appreciative hands picks pastries out from the assortment on offer. Anise gives a light smack to a wrist going for a second. “Hey, hey. Leave a few for the band.” She ducks into Legendary’s trailer, then ducks out, face flushed.

“Sorry. Sorry.” Kell Kamiyon opens the door a moment later. “Forgot to lock it. Sorry, Anise. Come on in. Those look delish.”

Nick stands next to Dee as they wait for the portal to open. Her holster is empty; she had to check her revolver, along with the rest of the pack’s munitions, into a sizable armored truck that idles at the front of the checkpoint. It’s almost a comfort that the headaches of customs echo on both sides of the Door.

“Ani’s in a good mood,” Dee observes.

“Ani’s drunk,” Nick says. “Did you know she’s a mom?”

“May have mentioned it,” Dee says. “She’s kinda MILFy, huh?”

Another loudspeaker announcement spares Nick the need to formulate an answer: “Vatramor South travelers, meet at the muster ground. Your bard has arrived. The Vatramor South portal is scheduled to remain open from 2:25 to 2:40. Please ensure you are on queue and prepared to travel before the portal opens.”

Around them, the muster ground shifts into preparation. A pretty human shares a tearful goodbye with her orcish mate. A clutch of squabbling, chameleon-skinned kobolds on ATVs initiates an extensive headcount.

“Nicky.” Dee nudges him. There’s a thick envelope in her hand. “I gotcha something.”

He takes the envelope and cracks the seal on it. “What’s this?”

“Little incantation for ya. Remote manipulation.”

Nick’s fingers tighten on the paper. On Earth, this is worth more than most cars. “Holy shit, Dee,” he murmurs. “This… I don’t know what to say.”

“You’re the Voraag bard now. You pledged your word and your magic to the pack.” She gathers his hand in hers and gives it a squeeze. “Means the pack pledges back.”

She may have only meant this as a quick touch. Her fingers are already untangling. But Nick’s interlace with them, and he holds it there. She glances down at their clasped hands, then up at Nick’s face. Her eyes dilate.

You shouldn’t accept this. You’re not staying. You’re lying to her. You need to get out. “Thank you,” he says.

She smiles. Her ears wiggle as she blushes. “You’re welcome, Nicky.”

But what if you didn’t? He can’t take his eyes from her as she turns her attention back to the rest of the pack, giving easy orders in packtongue. What if you stayed in the Old World with Pack Voraag?

What if you stayed with Dee?

He’s been with humans and fairfolk, girls and boys, good people and assholes. The one commonality has been that he’s never given more than he got. He’s never let someone get one up on him. He’s never locked himself into anything. He’s never been with anyone even close to Diak’zinae of the Voraag River Pack.

Probably a good reason for that.

A flatbed’s backed up to the front gate of the muster field. A grand piano sits on its platform. A tall, gray-haired orcish woman in a crisp violet uniform steps imperiously up to its bench and sits. Her lips purse as she begins a looping, polyrhythmic rainstorm of notes across its keys. A lumpy black-iron generator, twice the piano’s size and mounted behind the truck’s cab, cranks to life. Blue, wispy hearthsand exhaust rising from its vents.

The pianist’s shoulders flex as her playing intensifies. She shuts her eyes and tilts her face up to the sky. Nick’s chest is tight. Most of the travelers in the muster field keep their conversations going or only pay half attention to the incantation being woven. But this is the largest, most extraordinary spell he’s ever seen cast.

With a crashing chord, the generator before the pianist crackles to a halt.
“Open the way,” she commands, in a voice that reverberates across the muster field.

A hole the size of a house tears open in reality. “Vatramor South portal is open.” The loudspeaker is distorted and crackly as the energy draw wears off. “Zones one through four. Proceed through the portal.”

The Voraag/Legendary party is near the back. Nick watches with awe as the pianist continues her song with machinist precision, her eyes still shut.

“Someone’s impressed.” Parag chuckles. “First time porting, huh?”

“Yeah, man. How is this not blowing your mind?”

“I guess it oughta.” Parag rubs his chin. “But planes don’t blow yours, do they?”

A chirping click. Dalma Kamiyon has taken a picture of him. “Your mouth is deceptively extensile when it opens in awe.” She peers over her viewfinder. “If you’d let me make a plaster cast, I could turn it into a small bowl for you.”

“Maybe later,” Nick says.

Parag leans down toward Dalma. “Dee giving you permission to take pictures?”

Dee shrugs. “She does what she wants.” Nick feels a strong sense of accomplishment at his comprehension. “She’s a tua’zkar.” He doesn’t catch that last word.

“You are named Parag, yes?” Dalma scrutinizes the orc.

“That’s me.” Parag fidgets under her gaze.

“You will model for me.” She doesn’t phrase it as a question. Parag casts Dee a look of silent anxiety.

Their zone is next. Nick swings up onto Doink and scratches the rhino’s shaggy noggin.

“What’s tua’zkar mean?” he asks Dee, sotto voce.

“It’s a word for a specific kinda person to be respected,” Dee says. “Like a cross between ‘boss’ and ‘weird motherfucker’.”

“Eccentric patron?” Nick tries.

“Eccentric. That’s a fun one.” She reaches over and cinches his saddle tighter. “You’re gonna wanna hold on to Doink there. He’s had a few ‘ports under his belt, but it’s never easy.”

Zone twelve is called over the loudspeaker and the tour lurches into motion. “What’s it feel like?” Nick asks.

“No big deal.” Dee twists her reins around her forearm. “Just hold on, hon.”

Nick grimaces as they wind their way toward the shimmering portal.

As Doink carries him through, he experiences a full-body rush of vertigo. It reminds him of the sudden dropping weightlessness that lurches him sometimes as he’s dozing off, drawn out over ten sour seconds.

Every limb falls asleep in unison. He slides sideways as Doink grunts and shakes himself. A hand shoots out and catches him, pulling him back straight. Dee winks.

The snowy Packland steppes are gone. Before them stretches a verdant grassland, fretted with wildflowers and shaded by feathery striations of cream-colored cloud.

Staked flags mark a well-trod path through the meadow. A quarter mile away, the Vatramor South station waits.

Anise opens the trailer door. “Thank Christ. A sensible climate.”

Kell squeezes past her, pulling her no-longer-necessary jacket off as she hops into the grass. “Vatramor!” she cries out into the clear, temperate air. “Legendary has motherfucking arrived!”