A NOTE TO THE READER: A life-of-the-party rogue would be known in Ft. Worth as a good ol' boy but in London as a regular Jack the Lad.
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I met her on a train.
The Express to Sodom City had been oversold. I observed the girl struggling down the aisle with her valise through the mass of passengers. The chances of her finding an empty seat were nil. In a beret and cloak, the fabric of her satchel as worn as her clothing, she was nevertheless young and pretty enough to have smiled a gentleman right out of his seat for the rackety journey. Next to me a dreadfully imposing fellow crowded the armrest with a rude elbow. His abundance of luggage spilled catastrophically into my limited foot space. To top everything off he began to unwrap a cigar.
I'd wanted to take the Air Shuttle into Sodom City but risked being recognized at the terminal. When those big busses land, the police are as thick as the passengers at all the stations, this time of year especially. High rollers from other colonized worlds like movie stars and politicians aren't the only ones drawn to the Slave Fairs. The illicit festival attracts a criminal milieu from foreign capitols and, due to our small solar system, offworld. A domino mask would not have been out of place, lots of folk don them during the season. But to wear a mask is to invite closer scrutiny of authorities.
No one had been watching as closely a week ago when I had made my reconnaissance. Arriving by air with the fairgrounds and display platforms still under construction I managed to get a hotel reservation. Five days ago I booked a room prior to my departure from Sodom City and paid in advance for ten days to ensure myself lodgings. Stranded at the height of the season would've wrecked all my meticulous planning, and that of others. I had traveled back home for some final preparations, but now returned for opening night.
By train. A bumpy and uncomfortable trip, but necessary to avoid being identified the second I set foot in town during the Slave Fairs. Make no mistake, there's always a layer of police or their agents watching every incoming portal regardless of air or rail. Security is less vigilant of visitors before the season even though they watch people arriving at the stations around the clock all year. I stroked absently at the fake beard glued to my face. It itched.
The girl drew closer. A magician's Guild badge dangled from a slender silver chain around the handle of her valise. The bag was tattered enough to have belonged to her parents, the badge maybe passed on with the suitcase to a daughter on her way to university. My curiosity bristled. The pockets of my longcoat are filled with a number of items, few of which Security would be pleased to find if they shook me down. I cupped one of them in the palm of my right hand and tapped the man in the seat next to mine to get his attention.
"May I offer you a light?" I asked kindly.
My fellow passenger looked askance at me as I held my hand up to the cigar jutting from his mouth. I didn't hold a lighter but a magic charm resembling a sigil or seal. The object caught his attention, and held it. I deplored using the charm negligently, it wore down with every use and had to be recharged, but not by batteries.
I intoned more than said to the man with the cigar, "You have a sudden urge to stretch your legs, do you not?"
"How did you know?" he asked, amazed.
"You desire to stand for the duration of the ride, don't you?"
"Indeed!" he stated with conviction. He rose to his feet, the cigar clenched in his teeth, and began gathering up his parcels and baggage. Before breaking eye contact with him I suggested one more thing as he edged into the aisle of the car.
"Offer the lady in the beret your seat before you exit." He did so; and one final admonition came to mind: "Remember, no smoking on the train."
He nodded dumbly and I stuck the charm back in my pocket.
The girl gave me a tight grin as she squeezed by me to reach her seat. She doubtless thought the man beside me relinquished it out of chivalry. I wanted her to think that and certainly not I'd engineered her sitting beside me. She got herself and her valise settled. I smelt the soap and shampoo she'd used recently. The light spray of freckles across her nose I found as endearing as the untamed mop of red hair. I wagered she wore the beret to keep her red curls out of her face when traveling, or working, not from some sense of fashion.
A loud whistle blew. The old steam locomotive lurched away from the station beginning the four-hour journey. I couldn't keep my eyes from straying just beyond my knee to the Guild badge less than a meter away. The magician emblem, definitely. We rode in silence, the girl and I, she watching the scenery outside. After another kilometer I removed a small book from my longcoat and opened it in my lap. I didn't read it, couldn't read it if I tried, just flipped a page now and again.
That tome never fails to incite conversation from strangers.
Presently she asked me, "Is that a grimoire?"
I pitched my voice unnecessarily low, not because I had to, the drone of conversation aboard the train would make our own indistinguishable as anybody else's, I merely wanted to sound mysterious. Perhaps a hint of intrigue would help break loose some of her secrets. "What would a young lady know of such things?"
She said guardedly, "Not much, but I am interested in magic."
"Are you now?" I remarked, leafing through the moldy leather book. I felt her eyes peering at the pages.
"My grandmother used to be a great magician."
Confiding in me already, I love my grimoire. "Would that be her Guild badge on your valise?"
"Yes, it belonged to her, it's sentimental to me. Are you a, you know, uh, magician?"
She said it a little loudly to be heard over the railway noise. I glanced around before answering but no one paid us any mind. "Hardly. I'm a collector, it's only a hobby, but an expensive one. How about you, are you a member of the Guild?"
She stared out the window at the empty fields flashing by to give her time to formulate her answer. When it came it was defensive, and in the form of an inquiry: "What makes you ask?"
Cagey, like me. I pasted on an avuncular grin. "Just making small talk, thought you might be following in your grandmother's footsteps, you're old enough to have an apprenticeship." I said, "My apologies if I intruded."
"No, it's quite all right. Are you going to Needle City too?"
"Only to Sodom," I lied. "On business." Not a lie.
I saw the gears churning in her mind; the Slave Fairs began tonight. "What kind of business are you in?" she asked a little suspiciously.
"Not slavery if that's what you're thinking. Like I said I deal in collectibles. Precious stones, small valuables like this book." I gestured with it. "Are you visiting Needle City?"
More caginess. "What makes you think I'm going there and not Sodom?"
"You're not the type to be going to Sodom, especially during this time of the season. Needle City is renowned for its cabal of magicians, your grandmother being one and all." I underplayed the city's reputation, a seething hotbed of wizards and sorcery was more like it, their atrocious Court rife with back-stabbing intrigue.
The girl admitted, "I know somebody in Needle City, except I have to pass through Sodom to get there."
"If you take the red train next time instead of the blue one," I said offhand, "you can go directly to Needle City. The red train doesn't make a stop there."
She shrugged. "I didn't know, thanks for telling me."
I let a moment elapse. "Your first time to visit?"
Her nod told me it might be her last. She extended her hand to shake, smiling suddenly. "I'm Diana Duffy-Maguire."
