Fortress City Ballard

Preparations finished, I crossed back into the world of Gaia. Through the gate I had opened in the cave, I stepped once more into the commercial city of Lorenzo and went looking for the slave merchant, Modric.

Two and a half gold coins a head. They were younger than Hassan and Amin, the pair I had sold him last time, and that was reason enough. Seven and a half coins in all — three hundred and seventy-five grams. Another thirty thousand dollars, near enough.

A fine line of work. The net was so fat it felt like a swindle. Not that I had never turned over the idea of hauling something else across to sell. I just doubted anything else could match the return.

I was turning that over when Modric spoke.

"You wish to travel with us?"

"Yes. I thought I'd leave home for a while and learn the trade. I heard you were headed northeast."

"True enough, but..."

I had heard Modric's caravan was bound for Drail, capital of the Drail Kingdom, a realm lying northeast of Lorenzo. Set it on Earth and it would have fallen somewhere around Syria. Whether the axis tilted at a different angle here or not, the continents wore a familiar shape, but climate and country were another matter entirely.

The difference showed at once. The land around Lorenzo, which on Earth would have been desert, was walled in on every side by dense forest, and farther north, I was told, grassland gave way to desert instead. The Drail Kingdom itself, I had heard, was a city raised on the steppe at the desert's edge.

I meant to travel through the year of my temporary contract. Before anything else, I needed to understand what kind of world this was. And if I was going to commit in earnest to a ten-year contract, I would also need a gate point with a direct line into Korea. I could not keep shuttling all the way to Cairo every time. So I had planned the journey with an eye toward planting gate points across as much of the world as I could, and if I was going to do it, better to follow a caravan than to go alone.

"I'll keep my distance, so I won't be in your way."

"If that's the arrangement, I've no objection."

From where Modric stood, a minor noble who could work magic was no loss as company on the road. If bandits turned up, they might even be of use to each other. Having settled it that way, he answered.

"Very well, then. We'll do it so. We were meaning to wrap up our affairs in any case. We depart the morning after next."

"Understood."

I pocketed the gold and turned away, watching the tear-soaked bastards get beaten and dragged off. Time to get ready for the road.

With steel pipe and cement blocks bought on Earth, I set about walling off the cave. The blocks were not ordinary rectangles. They were interlocking units, made to lock top to bottom and along the sides — fit them together, stack them, and they held. I laid them course by course and fixed each course with cement mortar, working from a video I had pulled off the internet. Slow at the start, but the pace came quickly. I began with one block at a time; with magic I was setting three or four at once, and before long ten or more in a single pass. Once the stacking was finished, I packed mortar into the joints and waited for it to cure.

From behind the blocks I hauled out a heap of steel pipe.

Properly, it was a spell for driving a spike of stone up into an enemy. Turned to this use, it bored straight through a cave wall. Hitting the depth and width I actually wanted took a fair amount of practice, but once the knack settled in, a power drill did not even bear comparison. I understood all over again why the building and civil works of this world stood as high as they did.

The wall answered with a long grinding drone — drrrrr, drrrrr — as I bored holes into the ceiling and the floor behind the cement blocks, stood the steel pipes in them, and braced the wall. That much done, I could breathe easier.

The next day was construction from dawn to dark. I drove through the cave wall toward the cellar I had dug beneath the container. Far harder than simply shifting earth, but the dungeon had held hundreds of kinds of magical goods. For civil work, low-grade items of only the third or fourth circle were more than enough, and the dungeon had been overflowing with that common stock.

Coordinates and heading, the necklace confirmed for me.

"A little higher, if you please."

"Continue up along the diagonal, just as you are."

"From there, you'll need to open it a little farther to the right..."

In a single day I burned through six earth-attribute items, cut the passage, and at last opened a space joining the cave to the cellar beneath the container. I barred the entrance again with steel pipe, hung a door, and locked it with chain and padlock. Then I used magic to conceal the mouth of the passage that led that way.

The necklace sounded satisfied.

"There. That should do it."

To mark the occasion, I gave it a gate number.

If I kept adding gate points as I traveled, they would be an enormous help. Cross a border at will, whenever I needed to. Move freight quickly between Gaia and Earth. On the map, plenty of places that were sea on Earth were dry land here, joined to the continent — which meant I could run vehicles back and forth between the two worlds and shift cargo that way as well.

With the first gate open, I stepped outside to mark it. A second entrance, a little removed from the cave mouth, lay hidden behind rock and trees, invisible from inside the cave. It had been a small hole, a passage only a goblin whelp could squeeze through, but I had widened it with magic. It stood well apart from the front entrance, and rock and moss screened it so thoroughly it did not catch the eye. I came out that way and climbed into the Humvee I had stashed there. The engine caught with a deep, shuddering rumble, and from beyond the rocks the goblins at the cave mouth shrieked — kkiririk, kieeeeek!

The young ones I had caught, I had turned loose at the front of the cave. Hardy little survivors, they were growing fat and fast, hunting bugs and rats on top of the grain I left them. There were not many of them yet, and they were still small, so they were no threat. And they would do just fine at keeping curious eyes off my hideout.

Preparations finished, I headed for the city. It was time to set out.

I was accompanying the caravan, or so I had said, but in practice I traveled well apart from it. They moved by horse and wagon, oxen hauling the freight. Two hundred souls, more or less, and most of them slaves bound for sale. The bulk were shut in barred cages built atop the ox-drawn carts. Among them, the women who would sell dear, and the men who were easy enough on the eyes, rode in carriages of their own. Pretty and handsome, as ever, paid for the separate seat.

Besides them, twenty-odd mercenaries under contract to the caravan — light armor, crossbows, bows — guarded front and rear, and another thirty were caravan staff. Not even ten of those were proper employees. The rest were slaves in the caravan's own service.

Even so, two hundred people moving by horse and ox were not particularly slow. There were two reasons.

The first was the roads, which were in surprisingly fine repair. The highway cutting through mountain and forest was wide enough for two wagons abreast, level besides, and dressed with fine gravel so a carriage rolled without much complaint. Another exhibit of the civil engineering in this place.

The second was the animals. They looked much like the horses of Earth, but in size and strength there was no comparison. Then again, the first time I had come here I had taken the towering trees for apartment blocks. Whether it was the blessing of mana or something else, the beasts of this world could not be set beside Earth's in bulk or power — three or four times over, easily — and the oxen looked like African buffalo. Wagons drawn by pairs of those horses and oxen ran the graded road without strain.

Not that the Humvee I was driving was about to come off worse. I followed the slave caravan at a leisurely two hundred meters, somewhere around twenty to thirty kilometers an hour. Morning and afternoon together, we covered about a hundred and fifty kilometers a day. Faster than I had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠expected.

I drove, watched the country roll past, and set my thoughts in order, talking things over with the necklace as I went. Once the journey through Gaia was properly underway, I found myself speaking with it often, and that raised the question of what to call it. So I gave it a name. The name I settled on was Aphago.

Mostly I listened to what Aphago knew of Gaia. One thing those talks made clear was that Aphago had crossed to Earth two hundred years ago. Fortunately, this world changed about as little as a medieval age. Things had shifted, of course, but in geography and history the difference was not great.

The continent on the left was Europa; the one on the right, Peterkan. The land lying on the road between them was the great steppe called Tollione. With that vast grassland between them, the two competing continents had a long history of raising kingdoms and empires, watching them fall, invading one another, and holding one another in check. And the country that had grown by trading the goods of both sides across that steppe was Drail.

The first objective was to keep pushing east until I could establish a gate point inside Korea.

Five days of that, and the company arrived at the Drail Kingdom's outer fortress — Fortress City Ballard.

Ballard Fortress was a garrison city and a trading city in one. The market at its heart overflowed with merchants come to buy goods brought in from Europa in the west. And the largest establishment, in the best spot in that market, was of course the slave market.

Strange sight. Elves and dwarves, the sort I had only ever seen in novels, stood on the auction platform with shackles around their necks. Where the men who ran workshops and factories bought the dwarves, nobles and moneyed men bought the elves as sex slaves.

And I learned something else.

Other races sold for far more. So did the humanoid beastmen with something like cat ears sprouting from their heads, and the native beastmen whose faces ran closer to a dog's. The nearer they were to human shape, I learned, the higher they went.

Elton, a junior mage with the mercenary company I had gotten to know on the road, put on a knowing air.

"Elves and dwarves are Europa's specialty. Beastmen are the Drail Kingdom's chief goods."

I also learned that elves lived in Europa's dense forests, dwarves beneath the stony peaks along the ranges, and beastmen scattered across Tollione's wide grasslands. I watched with interest as merchants of the Drail Kingdom bought elves and dwarves, and merchants come from Europa bought beastmen.

I was watching when an amusing sight caught my eye. Caravan master Modric had climbed onto the auction platform. Beside him stood a figure draped in a fine robe of woven silk. The silhouette was strangely familiar.

"Now, attend. A black-haired native — a rare article, to be had only in the desert lands of the east. I unveil it before you now."

His hand swept the hood of the robe back, and there stood Go Yumi, washed, groomed, and dressed for the block.

The moment she showed herself, gasps broke from the crowd gathered below the platform.

Go Yumi's character had hit rock bottom, but her looks were nothing to complain about. After the wedding she had quit work and done ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nothing but shuttle between the house and the yoga studio, tending her figure and her skin — which was precisely why that smug, high-handed son of a bitch Park Dongseon had sweet-talked his way into her bed.

Meeting all those eyes, Go Yumi's face was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠full of bewilderment and fear.

Modric's voice rang out over the platform.

What?

A curse tore out of me before I could catch it.

Fuck! How hard did I just get fleeced?!