Hanzorian

  "I am serious, and don't call me Shirley," he turned to the princess, "always wanted to say that. Thing is my car only seats a total of six; three in the back, three in the front, including the driver."

  The king thrust his arm forward, fingers spread, and declared, "very well. Hanzorian, choose three of your best agents to accompany you."

  Only three? Oh. I saw that the princess was jumping up and down. That's why.

  "So we get to try that experiment even sooner than we thought," she was quite excited.

  "P-please…your majesty, I beg you, allow me to go too!"

  The king said, "it could be dangerous, master Potter. You aren't a mage like the princess."

  That's Popper, sire. I sighed.

  "I don't care, your majesty, I want to see them again! They're scared without me I'm sure of it!"

  The king nodded, "very well. Hanzorian, make that two."

  I obeyed. I knew exactly which agents to choose. They were among our best archers, experienced in rescue operations. Danzorian and Chiyorielle were their names, but their backstory is hardly germane at this time. Forthwith I called them to their duties Danzorian was practicing his aerobics and Chiyorielle was on her ordinary patrol.

  We quickly made our way to the front gate of the palace where I saw the object called a Cadillac outside - of course I had seen it before, parked in front of the Platinum Flagon, but this was going to be the first time I'd ridden inside it. When we got there, the princess was busy casting some magic - first earth magic, and then wind. She was about to open the front door on the right hand side when-

  "Now, now, your highness, remember what I told ya; that one thing you have to say before jumping into the front seat when there's more people than just you and the driver," said the otherworlder, waggling a finger.

  Impudence! No matter. The mission was what was important.

  The princess shouted "Shotgun!" and then hopped inside. The merchant got inside next, sitting in the middle of the back row of seats - ordered my subordinates to sit on either side of him, while I supposed that I would need to sit between the princess and the otherworlder.

  After we were all in, he adjusted the mirror mounted above his head; there was a noise like a roaring tiger. We started moving, slowly at first, towards the north gate - not that impressive, only about as fast as a carriage, but then after we left the city and were on the road he pushed down harder with his foot, depressing a strange sort of switch.

  Everyone inside the strange carriage apart from the otherworlder screamed as we accelerated faster than any living creature was meant to travel! This was far and away faster than a horse, the speed beggared belief! Incidentally, the princess was screaming for joy and the rest of us were terrified.

  Somehow there was music issuing from a grill mounted on the vehicle's frame. Of course the princess was singing along, I didn't have her gift so I had no clue what the song was even about. Oh. Now she was looking at me, magical energy was forming in her hand, I sighed, nodded, and allowed her to cast comprehension on me. Hm. So this is a ballad from that other world, is it?

  The problem with comprehension is that it was like receiving a translation from a blind idiot; the lyrics didn't always rhyme when they needed to and of course it didn't substitute idioms and metaphors either. Why am I suddenly focused on this? Because it was all I could do to not eject the contents of my stomach at the speed we were going!

  "What did I tell ya," said the otherworlder, "It's like there's no wind resistance at all," he stuck his hand out of the window, the long sleeves of his coat didn't so much as buffet, "see, doing the wave thing doesn't feel quite the same, but we're saving a lot of fuel! You're the best, princess!"

  "Y-you're welcome, Sir Victor!"

  Her highness' royal cheeks had turned from their usual alabaster sheen to a rosy tint. Ah. I suddenly understood. I decided to keep my own counsel on the matter.

  The otherworlder was musing aloud, "be as swift as the wind, silent as the forest, fierce as fire…well we ain't exactly immovable as a mountain but we also ain't exactly on the defensive here."

  I blinked. This sounded an awful lot like one of the answers I gave the king so many years ago.

  I enquired, "is that another saying from your world?"

  "Yeah, it comes from the Art of War by a brilliant strategist - Sun Tzu."

  "Hardly feels like we're being very silent."

  "The enemy doesn't know we're coming, right? So we did a pretty good job of being silent about our plans. Besides, weren't you gonna stealth in there like a ninja?"

  I balked. He had the right of it. "Just what is a nin-" I sighed, "never mind."

  "Sun Tzu also said that knowing is half the battle," he laughed, "I'm kidding, you could paraphrase it that way but what he really said was:"

  Know yourself, know your men, and know your enemy, and victory will be yours. Yes. I really had underestimated this man. He was far more tactically minded than I gave him credit for.

  Indeed, the reason why I had turned the Shadar'kethal into the greatest intelligence gathering force of its kind, perhaps the only one on the entire star, was because I understood the value of knowledge in times of war and in times of peace. The king understood this too, which is one of the reasons why I came to respect him so.

  "Hey Hanzo, you gotta relax every once in a while," he said, "take it eeeeeeasy. Have a break, go on vacation, take a girl out for drinks. Too much stress and you'll burn out, collapse, and die of a heart attack!"

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  Just when I had begun to think better of him he goes and makes a jab like that. I remained "silent as the forest", indeed, for the remainder of our drive. We arrived at dusk - the Cadillac was put to rest at the foot of a grassy hillock; from the top we could see a dilapidated farm house. The scent of bluebells filled our nostrils.

  Whispering, the merchant confirmed this to be the correct location, and that he didn't know how many were inside. My subordinates and I patrolled the grounds - in a broken old larder, we found a human woman huddled together with a boy and a girl.

  They were bound and gagged but still breathing. Two guards stood at the entrance to the larder. Danzorian and Chiyorielle cut their lives short, and set about cutting the Popper family's bonds. I snuck back out to the Cadillac and reported what I had seen and the size of their force.

  "My subordinates are watching over them now, but it is too dangerous to move them. There are six others that we could count."

  "So how about we lure them out into the open?"

  "Wait," I said, "you don't mean to-"

  "You better believe it," said the otherworlder.

  Without "turning on the engine" as he called it, only turning the key two steps forward, he turned a knob on the glowing device in front of my erstwhile seat. A loud clamor erupted, as a man started singing about having returned from a long journey, having changed into black garments at some juncture tore the heavens and shook the earth with its sound.

  The otherworlder lay on his belly, holding some sort of long narrow object - it sort of resembled a dwarf thunderbuster but it was far longer and far too narrow. With my superior vision I made out persons leaving the farmhouse, and I could hear confused cries ringing out.

  The princess was crouched down a ways back, she was wearing some sort of headgear which covered her ears, and she urged us all to cover our ears too. I caught on just in time to protect myself - it didn't resemble a thunderbuster for nothing.

  There was a tremendously loud noise, and I saw one of the ruffians fall dead. He quickly pulled back on the part of the weapon that I later learned was called a "bolt" and pulled the trigger again. Two down. Four more thunderclaps rang out causing me immense pain and discomfort.

  That was it.

  They were dead.

  Every last one of them.

  A thunderbuster took a long time to reload, but this man was able to slay all six of them in quick succession. The princess cast a healing spell on the otherworder's head, then on mine - ah my ears stopped ringing immediately. She did the same for all present, actually.

  There was an obstinate silence, then my subordinates came running, with the merchant's family in tow. There were many tears shed as they embraced one another.

  "Well," said the otherworlder, smiling, "feel like helping us now, Mr Popper?"

  "Yes, yes of course! I can't even begin to thank you, I thought I'd never see my family ever again, just say the word and I'll continue the preparations I was instructed to make as planned."

  I put in, "then your family should stay here for now. If they are spotted on the road or in Tor Anaura, it may foul our strategy," I turned to my subordinates, "you two are hereby ordered to stay and guard these three."

  "Understood," they said in unison,I turned to the hero of the hour, "then shall we hie ourselves back to the city at once?" Surprisingly, he shook his head.

  "Nah, there's something I wanna do first. Could one of ya gather some firewood?"

  The princess said, "I can handle that."

  Of course she could; with a wave of her hand she could call kindling, tinder, and fuel to her and arrange it in any way she desired; a novice level nature spell I regarded as useless.

  "What are you playing at?" I muttered aloud somehow.

  The otherworlder grinned, and presented some sort of transparent sack full of large white cylinders. I raised an eyebrow but bided my time. Somehow I had managed to get myself coaxed into sitting around a campfire, on a log, holding a stick. With one of those cylinders skewered at the end.

  "I reckoned since those kids were probably in a bad state, it might be a good idea to treat em, so I made sure I brought these special ingredients with me whenever I went to fetch the car."

  The princess asked, "What are we making?"

  "A special kinda canape," said the otherworlder

  A canape he said. He brought out a peculiar box, and a number of foil-wrapped rectangles that proved to be - is that not chocolate? That expensive, hard-to-find confection? How came he by such a bounty of it? After he had roasted his sproingy thing, he placed a square of that chocolate on some sort of biscuit, pinched the sproingy thing between the biscuit with chocolate, and the biscuit lacking any, and squished it together.

  I see, that is what he meant by a canape. The biscuit was the base, the chocolate the main ingredient, the melted admixture of that white stuff and the chocolate the sauce, and the fluffy thing the garnish. We all followed along.

  "A campfire tradition: s'mores."

  I bit into the concoction. True it was sweet. But it was also chewy, and gooey, with an unpleasant mouthfeel. The consistency was all over the place - crumbly and hard to bite into without it getting everywhere.

  But you know what the absolute worst part was?

  I liked it.

  So much so that I had another. Some more. Ah-ha. I understood. So, comprehension may not have translated idioms, but it did do contractions fairly well. I was overcome with a strange feeling that lingered. I looked up at Azune, pensively.

  Then the merchant said, "mister hero, sir"

  "Please, don't call me sir, I work for a living," he laughed, "just Victor or Mr. Kirkland is fine."

  "I have to know why you went to so much trouble to help us."

  "Well it just seemed like the right thing to do. I did swear an oath to do a good turn daily. But more than that, my grandpa used to say that if you're ever in the position to save someone, and you got the ability, just do it.

  My friend Kenny had a quote from a vid - er- from one of his favorite stories. You don't need a reason to help people. That one always kinda stuck with me too. So the answer is, no reason."

  So he wasn't just a hero in name only - he was a kind and brave soul. The princess was looking at him, speechless. So was I, frankly, but I think that the way she was looking at him was for different reasons. Well anyroad, we made our way back to town shortly thereafter and left Mr. Popper to do his part. Naturally, I had my agents watching him closely from the shadows.

  The trap went off without a hitch - myself and four of my agents laid in wait for the right time to strike. The second prince wanted to taunt then for a bit; I knew that he could have dispatched them himself but I insisted on supplying backup. The court wizard was there too, invisible, but she didn't even have time to be of any assistance much to her disappointment.

  The hero from another world incapacitated the ringleader without killing him, so after making sure he was healed to the point where he'd survive I took him in for interrogation. I did so enjoy working with the high inquisitor, so professional and focused.

  Hmph. Loosen up he said. Relax he said. I'd rebuked such advice from the second prince and the fourth princess numerous times. The events of the past few days were still rolling around in my mind. We found out a great deal from our interrogations, and of course the inquisitor's powers ensured that he wasn't lying to save his own skin.

  I'd have to give a report to the king, and, I realized, I should like to have the otherworlder be there to receive it. The inquisitor and I were walking through a long stone hallway with a vaulted ceiling. At length I turned to her.

  "Madam inquisitor," I said, she stood at attention, "after we have finished with our duties for the day…would you join me for a bottle of wine?"

  Only a brief twitch of her eyebrows betrayed her shock, then she smiled, something I'd never seen her do, "I would be delighted."

  I smiled, something I only did rarely, and said, "I look forward to it."

  I shall see you soon, otherworlder. No.

  Friend.