The Uncharted Lands by Mike Thayer

Author:Mike Thayer [Thayer, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hooligan Press

28

Fool’s Errand

Zienna’s Council of Champions convened at the top of Trotterian’s highest tower. Sam had to pop his ears as he, Roanna, Hannigan, and Willow rode the aether-driven elevator to the top. Sam couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he just decided to drain the elevator mid-ride. It had to be insulated from sabotage somehow, but then again, it wasn’t like Avalon saw a lot of Void drainers. They might never have accounted for someone like Sam. They certainly hadn’t during the Champions Match.

Just as the elevator came to a stop at the top of the tower, Sam jumped in place, experiencing a brief sensation of weightlessness before landing. He smiled and then looked up and noticed the entire elevator staring at him. “What?”

“You are a strange boy, Friend Sam,” Willow said through her veil.

“Without any fools, there wouldn’t be any fun.” The phrase echoed in his mind. It had come out so naturally that it took him a moment to realize where it had come from. For as long as Sam could remember, every time he had ridden in an elevator with his dad, he would take Sam’s hand and jump when it came to the top. Even if it was a two-story motel elevator, his dad still treated it like it was the Guardians of the Galaxy ride at Disneyland. Sam vividly remembered being in an elevator in Salt Lake City, surrounded by towering men in gray and black suits. Sam thought there was no way his father would do it, but when they reached the top, Sam had never seen his dad jump higher. The action had garnered quite a few stares, but Sam’s dad just shrugged and said what he always said. “Without any fools, there wouldn’t be any fun.”

Maybe Sam had taken that particular phrase a little too much to heart over the years, but exercising a bit of calculated foolishness was what had kept Sam alive, oddly enough. It took a bit of foolishness to go into a dinner banquet and play good cop, bad cop with someone like Logan Carpinto. It had taken foolishness to walk into the mongrel-infested sewers at Trellston or climb to the top of a hogmen debris pile.

Well, maybe foolishness wasn’t always a sound strategy, but he still thanked his dad for the life lesson.

Before the elevator doors parted, Sam could already hear muffled yelling coming from the Council. There was a loud clang followed by a grunt. What on earth was going on in there?

The doors opened, and Sam saw what looked more like the arena floor than a throne room. A long-limbed man with crocodile skin and feathers for hair leapt out of the way as Zienna swung down from an overhead rafter. She barely touched the ground as she sprung into the air and kicked the crocodile man straight in the chin. Other warriors closed in around her, blunted sticks and clubs at the ready. She bounded forward, grabbed one of the clubs, and twisted it free of the warrior’s hand only to crack the man over the head with his own weapon.

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