Installment 5: "...created for a time such as this."

Trees were down all over the property. Riders Oz and Dyb picked their way through the intersecting limbs, up the muddy path to the front porch of the Homestead.

Three raps on the door, followed after a short pause by one. The door swung open. El Dur stood there with a small jack-o-lantern in his hand, poised to toss. When he saw his visitors, he set the jack-o-lantern down on a shelf by the door and opened his arms in greeting.

“Dear gentlemen!” Dur enthused. “What a delightful surprise. I have not seen either of you since the UH book signing.”

“It is good to see you,” Oz said.

Dur was a man of slim build, like unto Dyb, his hair and thin beard brown with just the slightest touches of gray. He wore a flannel shirt and jeans and hiking boots, clothing that showed the wear of a man who liked to spend much time outdoors. There were laugh lines around his eyes, which shone with that peculiar childlike look possessed by all the Cross-Plane Riders. Though they all wore the weathering marks and scars of hard-fought battles and long journeys, there was a touch of Peter Pan about them, a part of them that would never grow up.

The three old friends exchanged hugs.

“Dyb, my friend, how are you holding up?”

“Well, to quote the old song, ‘Now she’s gone, and I don’t worry / ‘cuz I’m sittin’ on top of the world.’”

“The Cure?” Dur asked.

“No, some old blues song Dylan covered. I brought you a translation of Manic Runes.”

“Ah—a welcome gift indeed. Come inside; I’ll put some coffee on. Unless you’d prefer a glass of Sake? I don’t care for the stuff myself, but I have a couple bottles.”

“I have a bottle of Knob Creek” Oz said. “But I’ll try a glass of Sake, and I’ll have a cup of coffee…and a glass of iced tea, if you have some made up.”

“You’re the only person I know who drinks four different beverages at once.”

“Well, not strictly at once,” Oz replied. “They wouldn’t taste good at all mixed together.”

“He drinks like he reads,” Dyb said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “Four books going at once—polish off a chapter in one, set it aside, pick up another for a couple chapters...”

“Perhaps my taste buds also have ADHD,” Oz said. “Say, Dur, do you have a hose out back? I need to spray this duster down; the last gal I put my arms around complained it reeks of cigars.”

“Oh?” Dur asked. “I didn’t notice.”

“How could you, over the cigarette smell in the Homestead?” Dyb asked.

Dur put some coffee on the stove. “Are you two dropping by to catch up, or does business bring you to my door?”

“Business is a good excuse to catch up,” Dyb replied. “We don’t see enough of you, Dur.”

“No, these reunions are far too rare” Dur agreed, setting out glasses. “You’d think a couple fellows who can traverse the continent in a day cross-planing would get down more often.”

“Alas,” Oz said, setting down his gift, a bottle of bourbon, “the Code only allows us to cross-plane on business. And the business this time around is Torfuck.”

“Ahhh, yes,” Dur nodded. “Pleasant chap, except for his megalomanic drive to destroy all that is good and beautiful in the world.”

“That’d be the one,” Oz affirmed. “I should’ve taken him out in the Devil’s Rift War.”

“If I recall correctly, the Code also prevented you from doing that.”

“It can be inconvenient sometimes, that Code,” Dyb said.

Oz lifted his lowball of bourbon. “Here’s to the Cross-plane Riders, who manage to accomplish much, even burdened by the Code.”

They clinked glasses and drank.

“It looks like you had quite a storm out there,” Dyb said, peering out the window at a maple tree that looked like a mastodon had used it for a hairbrush.

“That ice storm last winter, the one that knocked out power for days.”

“When we were cut off from email contact with you,” Dyb asked, “and had to resort to old-fashioned Ritnalap communication?”

“Good thing the power came back when it did,” Dur said, “I was starting to get some kind of cross-channel bleed-over on the Ritnalap—kept seeing a single, great Eye.”

“I kept getting porn on mine,” Oz said. “Real fuzzy, though.”

Dyb and Dur fixed him wry looks, eyebrows raised.

“Not that I watched it! Real S&M, bondage stuff. Bleed-over from the shadow planet, I suspect.”

“Gor?” Dyb asked.

“Aye. The planet where they think women find their true fulfillment in being slaves to men. Real sick.”

“An entire planet stuck in a teenager’s masturbatory fantasy,” Dyb shook his head.

“Speaking of patriarchal wet dreams,” Dur interjected, “just what is Torfuck up to?”

“He’s up to the River of Potentialities.”

“I was trying to think of a worst-case scenario,” Dur said, frowning. “That’s worse than the scenario I came up with.”

“Obviously, we need to get to him right away, before he can totally f*** with our present to line up with his envisioned cesspool of a future,” Dyb said.

“Just getting to the River will be a great challenge,” Dur informed them, “beset by dangers and obstacles. I can provide some aid in that regard. Let me show you something.”

Dur stood and they followed him into a back room. The wood-paneled walls were lined with shelves full of models—intricately detailed ships, siege weapons, unidentifiable contraptions, and scale figures of men and beasts.

“These are fancies. I have about half-a-dozen prepared and ready for service. Speak the words of empowerment and they will manifest as full-scale, solid constructs, and will sustain their ‘reality’ two to five hours.”

“What happens when their force wears off?” Dyb asked.

“They revert to passing fancies, and disintegrate in a shower of glitter and fairy dust.”

Dur took one, a strange ship-like structure, down from a shelf. “This is a grimwind. Full size, it is big enough to transport a dozen people across the sky. I reinforced it with extra suspension of disbelief spells, so it’s certain to sustain its solidity the full five-hour duration. You wouldn’t want it to lose its verisimilitude when you were riding a thousand feet above the ground in it.”

He set it on his workbench, then picked up a winged lion.

“This one’s Rankin, Protector of Misfits…and here’s Fini, a Samoan giant. Let’s see…”

He rifled through the clutter, picking out three more.

“Stage-Roach, a living beast that can carry up to six passengers inside and another couple on top…Nortlov, a twenty-foot tall manga-bot...”

The last one he held up was of a warrior woman in black chainmail armor, a katana in her hand, black paint around her eyes—a Goth Joan of Arc.

Dyb reached out, almost instinctively, and plucked her from Dur’s hand. He peered strangely at the fine features of the three-inch tall model.

“This is Malia,” Dur said. “I’m rather fond of her, but she was created for a time such as this. Use them wisely, friends. Once their role is played out, they’re gone forever.”