1.17

With Arghus’s prophe­cy lin­ger­ing uneasi­ly in the air behind them, Car­nelia and Doro steps car­ried them for­ward a lit­tle faster than nor­mal. But as soon as they round­ed a cor­ner, Car­nelia tugged on Doro’s sleeve and brought them bot to a stop.

Tucked in the shade of a near­by build­ing, she pre­sent­ed him with a few bills her trav­el fund. Some of the larg­er denom­i­na­tions.

“Here. For ser­vices ren­dered!”

Doro took the bills from her hand with the imme­di­a­cy of some­one who nev­er reject­ed mon­ey as a pol­i­cy, but he also didn’t pock­et it right away.

“Actu­al­ly--”
     “Hey, um--”

Car­nelia halt­ed, and Doro did too. As they laughed awk­ward­ly, like two peo­ple who kept run­ning into each oth­er pass­ing through a hall­way, Doro waved for her to go first. Car­nelia clasped her hands behind her back coy­ly.

“Sooo…” she said, wrig­gling in her shoes. “I was kin­da think­ing of ask­ing if you want­ed to keep this arrange­ment going. Even though that thing with Arghus was fun, I also feel like I just dodged being squashed by a big rock, y’know? I think I could real­ly use some­one like you watch­ing my back.”

A grin appeared on Doro’s face widened before she even fin­ished. “You read my mind, kid. That’s exact­ly what I was going to pro­pose. But are you sure you can trust me?”

He dropped his voice low, and arched an eye­brow. There was a famil­iar twin­kle in his eyes, sim­i­lar to one her grand­fa­ther got when­ev­er he dragged her along to do some­thing ter­ri­bly bor­ing errand. Enjoy­ment in play­act­ing the heel, she rec­og­nized. But where Gramps had cho­sen the role, the young man in front of her had been draft­ed into it, maybe because he looked the part of vil­lain to oth­er peo­ple. He had found what joy he could in it, but there was some­thing still ter­ri­bly sad about that.

At least, that was what her gut vague­ly insin­u­at­ed to her in its lan­guage of qui­et roils and bur­bles. Car­nelia tried ask­ing her brain, y’know, for specifics jus­ti­fi­ca­tions, but it regard­ed her with hap­less con­fu­sion say­ing, ‘Hey, girl. I’ve got noth­ing to do with the hun­gry guy down­stairs. You’re on your own.’

So she just shrugged.

“I dun­no. They say ‘bet­ter the dev­il you know’… but I just have a good feel­ing about you. Is that a bad rea­son?”

The vague­ness of her answer seemed, odd­ly, to land bet­ter than any­thing clever she could have said. The grin on his face warmed, like an old car engine revving up. He slapped his chest, and let out a hearty, bom­bas­tic laugh.

“Of course not! I’m the most trust­wor­thy guy around! Doro the Depend­able, they used to call me!”

“Real­ly?”

He snort­ed at the thought. “Nah. But as long as you under­stand that I don’t plan on leap­ing in front of any swords for you, we’ll prob­a­bly be fine. Back­stab­bing pret­ty young women isn’t real­ly my style any­ways.”

He gave her a fat wink, full of emp­ty flirt. Car­nelia held out her hand with an all-too enthu­si­as­tic smile in response.

“Then it’s a deal! You’re my hired mus­cle!”

Her eager­ness took him a step back, against the wall. With a bemused chuck­le, he pushed down her hand.

“Don’t be so hasty, kid. We’ve estab­lished inter­est, but we haven’t dis­cussed terms yet. And on top of that--” he checked his watch “--I have a thing I got­ta get to. We might not have time to ham­mer things out right this sec­ond.”

“Aw. Where are you going?”

“To a meet some asso­ciates I devel­oped on the net. I just need to fig­ure out which direc­tion…”

Car­nelia deflat­ed slight­ly as Doro pulled out a fold-out map from his pock­et and began try­ing to nav­i­gate it right in front of her. As he flipped the map side­ways then back again, Car­nelia glimpsed the time spelled out by the nee­dle-like hands on his watch.

Half-past ten. Oh crap!

She clapped her­self on the head as she recalled the impor­tant thing com­ing up on her itin­er­ary. Actu­al­ly, she real­ized, giv­en where they were in the city right now, there was a good chance she might end up being late. Not a good first impres­sion, that.

Gramps was right. I real­ly have to be bet­ter about keep­ing track of time.

It seemed they were both busy peo­ple, today. A shame. She’d been look­ing for­ward to find­ing out more about Doro.

As Car­nelia began cran­ing her head around in search of the near­est street sign, Doro glanced up from his map and grinned.

“Looks like you’re some­where to be too, huh? Where­abouts you head­ed? Maybe we can coor­di­nate a meet-up lat­er.”

Aha! Car­nelia spot­ted a sign, crooked and slight­ly fad­ed, near­ly blocked by a sag­ging con­denser unit, that told her exact­ly where she was. She did­n’t even need a map. Two blocks over and it was a straight shot to her des­ti­na­tion. She began pack­ing up, steps already quick­en­ing as she began to head out.

“There, then there!” she called out, ges­tur­ing in broad direc­tions toward the down­town of the city. “Text me! My num­ber is in the mon­ey I gave you.”

Doro was still focused on his map--he turned it again--but he held up his pay­ment and used a thumb to pop the paper up out of the stack to show that he had heard her. The fur­row in his brow sud­den­ly cleared, and he looked up.

“That way, yeah?” he con­firmed, point­ing west. When she nod­ded, he jogged to catch up. “Lucky coin­ci­dence! I’m head­ed down­town too. Do you have an address? Maybe we can talk busi­ness on the way.”

Car­nelia blinked, per­fect­ly hap­py with the coin­ci­dence. She dodged around a trash bin, waft­ing the dull, nox­ious scent of sun-baked garbage. She dug around her bag for her note­book again.

“Erm, it’s a cafe in the city square. Gosh I can’t remem­ber the name right now-- Cop­per--no, Ca-ve--”

Behind her, Doro’s foot­steps stopped. She glanced over to see him stand­ing stock still in the mid­dle of the street. Some­one, cut­ting through the back streets of Cam­mec, gave him an annoyed look as they were forced to cut around him.

“Cavé Cazve?” he asked, very slow­ly.

That was exact­ly right. But the relief of fig­ur­ing out the word on the tip of her tongue was blast­ed away by the sud­den ques­tion of--

Wait! How the heck did he know that?

Her con­fu­sion was mir­rored iden­ti­cal­ly on Doro’s face. Slow­ly, he reached into his inside jack­et pock­et and pulled out a crum­pled scrap of new­pa­per that he knew had been left there, untouched, since before his voy­age on Bulk Car­go Freighter 9. Car­nelia sprint­ed towards him and read the words on the paper that were scrawled and under­lined three times on it in heavy black mark­er.

Noon­ish, Cavé Cazve. Meet­ing.

Car­neli­a’s jaw dropped to the dusty stone pave­ment of the alley­way. She pulled out her note­book and flipped to her sched­ule for today in response. Boxed in col­or­ful ink in the eleven AM slot was:

11am: Get-togeth­er at Cavé Cazve! Don’t be late!

The two gaw­ped at each oth­er’s pieces of paper--at the total and unbe­liev­able coin­ci­dence of exis­tence--and at each oth­er. They had only one thing to say.

“No effin’ way.”

“What are the odds?” exclaimed Doro. “The two of us run­ning into each oth­er like this. Must be a mil­lion to one!”

“A bil­lion to one!” Car­nelia agreed emphat­i­cal­ly.

The two were seat­ed now, at the win­dow-side table in they had reserved in Cavé Cazve, for the sup­posed ini­tial meeting—belated now— of their secret online group. Doro kept snag­ging the hon­ey-dripped dates they had ordered from the gleam­ing cop­per plate beneath them as the next one would tell them the answer behind their insane meet­ing. And she could­n’t help but agree.

It was utter­ly crazy. It turned out, she already knew Doro! Not as this tall, broad-shoul­dered street hus­tler, of course, but as a fel­low mem­ber of a Chal­lenger forum that she had fre­quent­ed dur­ing her many hours of Chal­lenge research, with the user­name ‘greenbacks777′. And Doro knew her by the han­dle ‘rock­ythechal­lenger’, which more than one per­son had com­ment­ed was an auda­cious one giv­en the site where they were post­ing on--but that was besides the point! They were both part of a group of aspir­ing chal­lenger-can­di­dates that had agreed to meet up in Cam­mec so that they could work togeth­er to pass the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge, and it was a plain and straight mir­a­cle for them to have stum­bled across each oth­er, before their meet­ing, in this city of mil­lions.

They had been shout­ing about as much to each oth­er the whole way here, mak­ing a fool of them­selves to every­one on the street. They kept rec­og­niz­ing more and more aspects of each oth­er from the thread--the words they used, the way they talked, lit­tle things that felt like boul­der-like rev­e­la­tions. In their excite­ment and adren­a­line, they arrived at their des­ti­na­tion near­ly as fast as if they had sprint­ed, with­out either of them feel­ing a lick of tired­ness. They had tak­en their reserved seat, hop­ing for one of the oth­er to already be there, so they could tell them what hap­pened.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, no one had shown up yet. Which was sur­pris­ing. It was almost mid­day, now, and a whirl­wind of urban life was pass­ing by their win­dow. The cafe was busy too, serv­ing a long line of cus­tomers wait­ing for their var­i­ous orders. Every time a new cus­tomer entered and let the sun inside, the pol­ished cop­per cook­ware dec­o­rat­ing the walls of Cavé Cazve scat­tered beams of light in a kalei­do­scop­ic pat­tern. After one such beam made him wince by cross­ing face, Doro checked his watch and broke the ice for oth­er top­ics.

“Well, kid, I guess we have a bit of time until the oth­ers arrive. What do you want to do?”

“Eam­pht!” Car­nelia replied, through a mouth­ful of dessert. Doro chuck­led light­ly, but gen­tly kept her from grab­bing anoth­er treat to stuff down her gul­let. The Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge was com­ing. They had to get ready.

“Right, right. But why don’t we hash out that deal we were talk­ing about, right now, while we have the time?”

“Oh.” Car­nelia swal­lowed the last lump of sug­ary con­fec­tion in her mouth. “I fig­ured we didn’t need to do that any­more, cuz, you know, we’re going to make an alliance or some­thing at this meet­ing right? …for the Chal­lenge?”

Car­nelia whis­pered the last part, cast­ing her gaze about for any eaves­drop­pers. Doro nod­ded agree­ably at her cau­tion.

“That’s my bet too. But to be hon­est, my mind’s already made up. I want to part­ner up with you.”

Car­nelia blinked, then a joy­ous smile spread across her face. She leaned in on her elbows as he explained--near com­pelled--while stir­ring a pack­et of sug­ar into his mug of roast-red cof­fee. The scent of it, speck­led with rich creams and sug­ars, suf­fused even the hard­wood floor­ing of the cafe.

“Look,” he said, “I’m a gam­bler at heart. So believe me when I say that when I look at us--me, a pen­ni­less nobody with no cash or con­nec­tions to speak of, and you, a bright-eyed bushy-tailed teenag­er who’s nev­er left her home­town before--I know per­fect­ly well that we’re a los­ing hand.”

Pin­ning the stir­ring spoon to the side of the mug with a spare fin­ger, he took a deep gulp of his cof­fee. It was, casu­al­ly, the best cof­fee he’d ever had in his life. Bet­ter by far than the swill they’d served on the ship he’d been on for the last sev­er­al months. He set the mug down, wip­ing the excess from his lips.

“But here’s the thing about gam­blers, Car­nelia. We believe in luck just as much as odds. So when the uni­verse sends a sign, I lis­ten. And I’d say the coin­ci­dence of our meet­ing is as big a sign as any, would­n’t you? That’s why, unless the Direc­tor him­self walks into this cafe and offers me a free pass, I’m in. All in.”

“Me too.”

Car­nelia grinned as her quick answer made Doro splut­ter mid-sec­ond sip. She her­self, had already known her answer long ago. The coin­ci­dence of their meet­ing was just a sign she was on the right track. Besides, even if she was­n’t, who could resist such a juicy sto­ry?

Chal­lenger Car­nelia Blaze­bright met their long-time friend and con­fi­dant, Doro, through a mir­a­cle of hap­pen­stance. And like a shoot­ing star flash­ing over­head, it sig­naled the start of a long and leg­endary career…

The except flashed through her mind dur­ing a quick glance out the win­dow. It filled her with good vibes.

“Like I said, I have a good feel­ing about you,” she explained sim­ply.

Doro snort­ed. “Not exact­ly what I’d call due dili­gence kid. Let alone for the--” he dropped his voice too “--the Chal­lenge.”

“Oh, phooey. What’s the worst that could hap­pen?”

Car­nelia gig­gled as she invoked bad kar­ma on her­self with full con­fi­dence. And for a moment Doro looked ready to rebuke her for it. Instead he sat back, and smiled behind his cof­fee. He seemed to take a sec­ond appraisal of her.

“You’re either the dumb­est kid alive, or the cra­zi­est,” he con­clud­ed at last. He thrust out his hand with a gleam in his eyes. “Part­ners?”

Car­nelia near­ly shook his arm off.

“Part­ners!”

By the time Car­nelia let Doro take his arm back, he was laugh­ing and pre­tend winc­ing. Pre­tend, she knew, because once he set­tled back into his seat and popped anoth­er date into his mouth, he let that same arm sprawl across the chair next to him.

Darn it. She’d need to work on her hand­shake if she ever want­ed to match her grand­fa­ther’s. Now there was a grip that could crack stone.

“Well,” Doro said, total­ly igno­rant of her hand­shake inse­cu­ri­ties, “if we’re going to work togeth­er, I sup­pose I bet­ter intro­duce myself prop­er­ly. The name’s Doro Qucha­suna. I hail from the streets of Icom, where I grew up rough and tum­bling in the most rough and tum­bling parts of town. I’ve been a deck­hand, farm­hand, a handy­man, and more. If there’s any job out there on this green and pleas­ant Aerth that pays under the table, you can bet I’ve spent a week­end workin’ it. I’m good with mon­ey, I hold up pret­ty well in a scrap, and I’ve got a stom­ach that can han­dle any­thing. Oh, and I love gam­bling. Nice to meet’ya.”

Doro fin­ished his bar­rage of an intro­duc­tion with a wink and a wave. It was all very prac­ticed, show­ing it was­n’t his first time estab­lish­ing him­self amongst strangers. The only thing that was miss­ing was an over­wrought busi­ness card.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, all the intro­duc­tion did was make Carnelia’s head spin. When she didn’t imme­di­ate­ly respond with one of her own, Doro cocked his head.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Oh, well, um, it’s just that you had a lot of cool stuff to share, and I’m not sure I can say the same.”

Car­nelia frowned, but Doro only seemed to find her wor­ry amus­ing. He dis­missed it with a wave.

“Breathe kid. You already got the part. Just tell me who you are, and what you bring to the table. As part­ners, we should know at least that much, right?”

Car­nelia nod­ded. But had­n’t been the thought of shar­ing her name, her home, or any­thing like that to a stranger that stayed her tongue. It was the sec­ond, and more impor­tant part of the intro­duc­tion.

What did she bring to the table?

Before Car­nelia could find an answer, the door to the cafe chimed.

Of course, the chime had rung many times dur­ing Doro and Carnelia’s conversation—it was prime brunch hours. But this time, some­thing about it drew their atten­tion. Maybe it was because the host­ess didn’t fol­low up the chime with their typ­i­cal greet­ing. Maybe it was because the flood of street noise didn’t abate like it usu­al­ly did once the door closed again. Or maybe it was because they felt eyes watch­ing them from across the room.

Car­nelia and Doro both turned.

A young woman stood in the entrance to the cafe, hold­ing the door open and ignor­ing the host­ess ready to greet her. She was star­ing right at them, her gaze grey and cut­ting beneath a cur­tain of black bangs.

Yaeno Khonoronezeni was here for the meet­ing as well.