Blink stared down at the strange traffic below. She was used the carriages and horses, but the metal creatures rumbling on the streets were beyond anything she could ever have imagined. Horses made of iron, making the sound of metal grinding on metal, trailed by wagons with heavy wheels.
“Clockwork horses,” Baird said softly as he stepped out of the window and onto the patio. “Run by gears and bottled lightning.”
“Bottled lightning?” she asked, chuckling halfheartedly. “I thought you said that magic doesn’t exist here.”
“It doesn’t. Machine makers call it electricity. They use the steam factories to put it in things they call batteries. I don’t really understand it.”
Blink shrugged. “Enchanters in my world can imbue things with lightning. It seems that machines can do the same.” She went quiet for a few moments. “This world is so different… but in some ways the same.”
“What do you mean?
“The constelations are the same,” she said, pointing up through the smoke at the sky before turning to gesture at the horizon. “And those mountains. Even the hill in this city… but the city itself is different.” She pursed her lips. “Like two sides of the same coin. One a world of magic and the other of machines.”
Baird raised his eyebrows. “That was almost poetic.”
“You’re not the only one who likes to tell stories,” Blink replied sourly. “If those damned reapers hadn’t attacked I’d still be at home with my little ones. Telling them their stories.”
“Little ones?” asked the writer. “Do you have children?”
Blink shook her head. “No. I’m an orphan. I like to help other orphans. The city guard helped me build an orphanage for them.”
Baird stared at her the armor and mask that she still wore, in spite of his offer of new clothing. The sword was still on her hip, glittering with a chilly light. “I would have taken you for a warrior, not the mother of an orphanage.”
“I am a warrior,” growled the woman, shooting him a dangerous glare. “I am Mauradin’s last Warden.”
Baird quailed slightly under her fierce glare. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m sorry Blink.”
“It’s fine,” she replied, watching the vehicles. “I’m not quite like the other warriors in my city. I’m not a part of the guard but I work with them.”
“Sounds like our watchers,” said the writer. “They don’t like the heavy armor that the Knight Wardens do.” He gestured at Blink’s dark leather and steel. “You kind of remind me of them.”
“Your Knight Wardens, they like big suits of armor and big swords?” she asked. The leather rustled as she lifted the mask from her face, blinking against the sudden headache. “I bet they like your machines too. Your guns?”
Baird nodded slowly. “Yeah, you might say that.”
“The Golden Knights of Mauradin are the same,” Blink said. “They are the city guard and the protectors of the entire realm. What’s left of it at least.”
“What’s left of it? You’re under attack?”
She nodded. “People in my world worship the Celestials that live on Luna, our second moon. In the south, people began to follow a Celestial named Thune, who they believe is the god of war. They overcame most of the south and then they made their way north. They drove the elves back into the wilds and began to attack the gates at Mauradin.” She hugged herself with slender arms, suddenly looking smaller. “The blood knights killed my parents in the battle when I was fourteen. I stole my father’s extra armor and joined the guard as the Thunnites tried to force their way to the palace.”
“What happened?” asked Baird, transfixed by the girl’s story.
“I killed their leader,” she replied softly. “It was the first time I used my… ability. They retreated and eventually made a peace treaty with us. I always knew they were just waiting for an excuse to attack again and now they found these… these creatures.”
Baird swallowed. “Reapers? What are they?”
Blink shrugged. “No one really knows. They have magic that no one has ever seen before. They don’t use enchantments, they just wave their hands and things happen. It’s like being in a dream.” Her head tilted down and Baird heard her voice begin to break. “They take people in the night… and they aren’t the same after, if they ever return at all.”
The writer felt a sudden chill. “You said that they captured you… what happened.”
“They tied me to a table and dressed me in a reaper’s armor. They… did something to me or tried to.” She went quiet for a moment, turning to face Baird with the strange, eyeless mask. He quailed slightly, somehow feeling her gaze in spite of the thick metal plate covering her eyes.
“They tried to make me into a reaper,” she said softly before she turned away once more. “I fought them and somehow I ended up here.” Her blade rasped on it’s sheath as she drew it, staring down at it in what might have been disgust. “They changed me. They made me like them.”
Baird looked down at his feet, thinking quickly. “You said that their magic is different than anything you’ve ever seen before right?”
“Yes,” she replied. She glanced at him, this time raising the half mask to reveal her bright, silvery eyes. “What of it?”
“Maybe turning people into reapers has an effect on their minds. Maybe it’s part of the magic, to make them forget who they were before.”
Blink’s eyes narrowed in thought. “When they captured me they said something about joining me to the Dreaming. I was too busy trying to fight them off to listen much.” She snorted. “Maybe the seers aren’t so crazy after all, saying that dreams have power.”
Baird pursed his lips. “The Dreaming? That sounds familiar.” He snapped his fingers. “Come on, I think I know someone who can help.”
Blink followed him back into the house. “Your world doesn’t have magic. How is anyone here supposed to help?”
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