The Messengers Menagerie (The Courier Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Sterling kept the dwarves gaze as he reached over and lowered the flame on the griddle, grabbing a towel and wiping the browning butter off the griddle.

  “Never catch a falling knife,” He warned.

  “Ever.” Booker punctuated, calmly bending down and retrieving the blade. Moving back to his sink faucet and turned the water on, “A falling knife is a knife that has no handle,” he quoted as he scrubbed the knife. Setting his sponge aside he looked back to Delvar, “Outside of actually poisoning yourself, attempting to catch a knife is probably the most dangerous rookie mistake you can make.” He cautioned while flexing his right hand, making extra effort to test his pinky finger.

  The Dwarf nodded as Booker resumed preparing the meal. By the time Mordecai awoke to the scent of the peppers Sterling had chopped and tossed in with the potatoes, it was just past dawn, and sunlight slowly came through the windows to change the room to go from its somber blue hues to the golden rays revealing the real colors of everything.

  Mordecai stretched his arms apart, fingers grazing the stucco ceiling as he questioned, “What’s that smell?”

  “French toast and country style hash browns,” Sterling announced after tapping white powder atop rows of bread he had dipped in his mix and set on the griddle all the while throwing ingredients such as onions into a pan of cubed potatoes.

  Mordecai looked over to Delvar, “Do he know how much trolls eat?”

  Delvar shrugged, “I tried.”

  “I did too,” Booker answered, “Now help yourself, just take a plate.” Booker passed along a couple of larger plastic plates and cutlery, turning back and grabbing a plastic plate so he could help himself to a few slices of bread and a spoonful of the potatoes.

  Mordecai was the first of the two to realize what to do, moving over and using the spatula to slide food onto his plate. Delvar followed suit seeing as Mordecai often knew what to do in new scenarios before he did.

  Booker leaned against his counter, holding his plate with one hand, giving himself a generous serving of Aunt Jemima before carving away pieces with his metallic fork.

  While everyone was munching away at their food, there was a knock at the door reminding everyone that they were technically missing someone.

  Sterling set his plate aside and wiped his mouth off with a paper towel he ripped off the bulbous spindle near his sink. Almost jogging to his front door to answer.

  When he undid his door’s latch and pulled it open, Auralee spoke before she could be seen.

  “Good to know you didn’t leave me behind,” She voiced, strutting past Booker, dressed in what Booker would describe as mid-calf boots along with the elvish equivalent of joggers.

  “Eyes up here,” Auralee called back as Booker squinted at her legs.

  “What? No, I was,” Booker tried to answer but soon realized how futile it was, “Oh dammit, fell right into that one.”

  “Uh-huh, sure you did,” Auralee agreed, looking at Delvar and Mordecai in the kitchen quickly scarfing their plates down, each of them had a tear sliding down one of their eyes as they ate.

  “Are you two OK?” The Princess questioned the crying freelancers.

  “It hurts to eat,” Delvar answered, breathing heavily, “But it’s so good.” He continued.

  Booker followed the elf back into his kitchen and paused at the sight of the Dwarf and Troll who now had rosy cheeks and a glimmering trail on the side of their faces from tears, “Why are you guys crying?”

  “Why does it burn my mouth?” The dwarf replied.

  “Just some red pepper,” Booker answered, “I didn’t think I added that much.” He leaned over his raised bar counter and plucked his fork, spearing a small stack of hash browns to eat. Making a small show of chewing the food and swallowing, “Yeah there's isn’t much, well there is a little and some onion.”

  “It’s so…” Delvar searched for a word, “fiery.”

  “Spicy,” Booker corrected.

  Mordecai cleared his throat and coughed, “Is that what you call it?”

  “What is your word for it?” Booker questioned.

  “We don’t have a word for it, none of our foods are like this,” Mordecai informed him.

  “You don’t have peppers in your world?” Booker questioned.

  The both of them shook their heads, and Auralee only looked over to Sterling with a confused look.

  A wicked grin spread on Sterling’s face, “Hey Auralee,” He moved back to his kitchen and pulled a fork from its drawer. Spearing several cubes together and offered the fork to her, “Try this.”

  “No,” She answered, going off of the Dwarf and Trolls reaction.

  “Please?” Booker tried.

  She shook her head and held a hand out, “No.”

  Booker snapped his fingers and ate the collected food, covering his mouth with his hand as he asked the troll, “So is spice not a thing where you’re from?”

  The trio looked at each other, unsure.

  Booker then changed his question, “Do any of you cook?”

  Auralee shook her head and pointed to herself. “Royalty,” she answered.

  Delvar pointed to Mordecai, the troll shook his head, “Not like this at least.” He offered.

  “Sometimes I wonder if I ever take everything for granted,” Booker was nearly done with his plate of food, tapping his fork on the side to keep the attention on him so he could finish his thought, “And that answer, I find, is always found to be yes pretty soon after I ask myself the question.”

  “Gentlemen,” Auralee spoke to gather their focus, “I’d like to remind everyone that today we are breaking a legend out of stone and should probably go over the plan.”

  Booker looked back to Delvar with a quizzical glance, wondering what happened to Auralee who wanted almost nothing to do with this project just last night. He kept silent on the possible chance that reminding her of her previous thoughts on the idea might make them resurface.

  “It’s honestly pretty cut and dry,” Booker answered, licking his lips for the syrup as he placed his dishes in the sink, “Step one, drive up to MOMA in New York, Step two…” Booker shrugged not exactly knowing what made up stage two but moved on, “And then step three; we have a tiny dragon and a mythical ranger. Imagine my bonus when I hand you back to Alphonse without a hair out of place and an ancient warrior as a new bodyguard.”

  The gold coins that lined Delvar’s pocket suddenly became a lot heavier at that thought.

  “It’ll be a cakewalk,” Booker shrugged.

  Auralee didn’t seem satisfied with his positive answer, “You still remember that there’s still a bounty out for you right?”

  Booker's tune changed quick at that reminder, stopping him in his place as he cycled his plan back through his head with that information. “I’ve already dispatched two attempts; you don’t think the word has spread back by now that the bounty might be a little low for such a challenge?”

  “Ehhhh,” Delvar sounded, “I’m sure I’ve told you before how pretty a coin you are, plus it’s a job out for a ‘Sterling Wells’ not ‘The Booker’”

  Booker's resilience began to waver as it was tested with more damaging information, “Alright fine, even then they have to have a reliable mode across the planes or have to already be on this side of the fence to do the job. I would think that the surge of first prospectors would already have come and gone.”

  “We are still, wholly sorry about the confusion on who was Sterling Wells and his relation to The Booker,” Delvar told Sterling.

  “Are they not synonymous with each other?” Sterling asked.

  All three of them shook their head and Sterling's ego deflated.

  “Well then,” Booker stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and swiped a set of sunglasses he kept on the counter with other miscellaneous items such as coins and a necklace, “Let’s go change that, shall we?” He started toward his door as Mordecai and Delvar set their dishes with his. He walked out with the three of them as they set out on
their long car ride North to New York.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The first hour of the ride seemed rather short as it was filled with discussions about spices and breakfast, Booker trading his knowledge on the delicacies for what cuisine was like on the other side.

  “Seems rather boring and bland,” Booker complained about the food he had never tried.

  “I thought it wasn’t bad,” Delvar answered, “Then again we don’t have paprika.”

  Booker chuckled and then remember something from all his time spent on trading routes in high school history class, “What about sugar? The stuff that makes things taste sweet?”

  Delvar looked up to Mordecai for a better understanding of what Booker was trying to describe, the troll told his friend something that Booker couldn’t understand, but it led to Delvar nodding once Mordecai got the point across.

  Mordecai chose to answer Booker’s question, “Those are rare where we are from, delicacies reserved only for royalty.”

  Booker's eyes slid over to look at Auralee as he drove along the barren stretch of road, “Any comments?” He prompted the Princess.

  She shrugged with her hand in front of her face to block the sun.

  Booker frowned, squinting his eyes behind his sunglasses as his brain made some comparisons between their culture and West Europe around the start of the first millennia.

  “How do you not have any technological progress?” Booker questioned almost frustrated, “Like how do you get from one town to the next promptly?”

  “Horses,” Delvar responded.

  “Or portals depending on a few factors,” Auralee added on.

  Booker found Auralee’s statement to conflict with his current understandings, “I thought portals were supposed to be almost ceremonial in use?”

  “What gave you that idea?” Auralee scoffed, “Perhaps around a couple of hundred years ago, but since the preoccupation of Peace between the Kingdoms allowed for more cultivated magics to flourish, gold and intelligence have primarily limited portal travel.”

  “How are those the main factors for portal travel?” Booker inquired.

  “Gold to hire the people intelligent enough to maintain the mental upkeep of portals to accurate locations,” Auralee answered, “So those places had better be important and often traveled to make it worth it.”

  Booker nodded in understanding, “Then what makes now such a renaissance of portals?”

  “A what?” Mordecai questioned.

  “Ren-” Booker sighed to himself, “Why is now the time for portals to be successful versus,” he gestured to the elven princess, “about a couple of hundred years ago according to Auralee?”

  Auralee answered first, being the residential expert on magic, at least until Booker could get his toes into the water. “For the longest time, it was seen as a more volatile magic. There are horror stories of early, eager magi taking their attempts toward that school of magic, while it was still just Orc magic, never to be heard from again. At least based on the journals nearly all reputable magi kept.”

  “You specified Talion era,” Mordecai observed, “Why then.”

  Auralee smiled, “Good question. Since portal magic was written off soon after the Orc war because it had no military use. Instead, you could see the improvements in more combat and defensive magics, once everything became calm between the kingdoms. My Grandfather was talked into letting his magi experiment with some more utilitarian magic like kinetics and some animated magics while digging around for old spells lost to the ages. Someone found portal magic information, and it spread like wildfire.”

  Booker took a guess at the outcome of such a finding, “More horror stories of people disappearing?”

  “No actually,” Auralee corrected, “Since the only rush was the scholar's excitement of potentials and not pressures from superiors to make an army appear out of thin air. It managed to keep the danger rate lower.”

  Mordecai nodded, “Makes sense.”

  “Mordecai, where is your race in all of this?” Booker questioned, “I hear about the elves, and orcs, and an occasional dwarf, but never the trolls. Did you guys hide during all of this?”

  There was a sudden silence that Booker could almost immediately read as awkward, Auralee’s eyes went wide as she turned around and locked eyes with Delvar who had an identical look.

  “They,” Auralee started but soon lost her voice.

  “Trolls were…” Delvar tried to pick up but lost the courage.

  “We were the bad guys,” Mordecai admitted after their failed attempts.

  “What?” Booker sounded his confusion.

  “During the Last Orc War,” Mordecai leaned forward as he gave Booker a history lesson. “It wasn’t only orcs, there were another two races, trolls, and a race that is closest described to you as Diablo.”

  “Huh,” Booker could feel the wave of guilt go down his cheeks as he had no doubt brought up something that was probably rather not mentioned.

  Mordecai continued nonetheless, “While the orcs were made extinct or at least driven underground depending on who you ask.”

  “Dead,” Auralee confirmed

  “Underground,” Delvar countered, “There are some odd tunnels no dwarf remembers makin'.”

  “Dwarves forget what they had for breakfast, let alone digging one of the many holes that they do for fun.” Auralee retorted.

  Mordecai moved a hand between the two, gesturing them to steady down with his four fingers, “So when that happened, the trolls chose to stay above ground, but since things were a little tense, to say the least, they became isolated. Troll’s don’t have the best record keeping and since there was no one else wanting to do it either it gets sketchy.”

  Now Auralee was interested in the conversation, “So what do you know?”

  Mordecai tilted his hand back and forth to show how unconfident he was on the subject, “Mostly, just ritual dances and war practice for the next awakening as they call it.”

  Booker scoffed, “Well, that’s not ominous in the least,” he remarked sarcastically.

  Mordecai shrugged, “It’s a prophecy of sorts, but it relies on some faulty logic. As long as we don’t cause the white to crawl out the ground, and the dead aid the living, we should be fine.” The Troll answered nonchalantly.

  “Auralee…” Booker started.

  “Why would I be the one to do something like that?” Auralee defended herself, “If it’s any of us in this cart it would be you.”

  “What?” Booker sounded astonished, “Do you know how hard it is for the dead to help me? I can barely get the living to help me if I could’ve had Abraham Lincoln help with any of the Civil War projects I had to do, I would most definitely not be here, right now.”

  Auralee and Booker continued to bicker, slinging claims and counterclaims at each other for their causes.

  “And- oh great!” Booker exclaimed, using his left hand to steer, allowing him to use his right arm to point out the large 16-wheeler they were approaching. “Now we have Jabba the Truck here going twenty miles per hour under what I’m doing, and the nearest place for gas is another half hour or so.”