The crowd screamed in excited horror, as titillated by the carnage of such an accident as by the thrill of victory.Everyone knew not to touch ley lines without a carriage between them and the dust, but—outside of the races—few people ever witnessed what it did to a person.Even the ubiquitous and less harmful Obsidian black dust used by most of the human realms for basic transportation was dangerous and humans learned in early childhood to never, ever touch the stuff.
Pixie dust came from the fae realms.Even though everyone agreed it (most likely) had nothing to do with actual pixies, given their nasty and decidedly non-sparkly nature, the term persisted.Live pixie dust corrupted human nervous systems, mortal flesh unable to handle magic in such a distilled form.The Moonstone white race line was a full energetic level above the standard black, so it fried humans all that much faster.
Cha couldn’t spare more than momentary sympathy for the unfortunate ley rider.She was too busy jockeying amidst the pack of carriages and navigating the line that raced Katu toward the ramp and a tentacle disaster of their own.No way would they be taking that ramp.
At the last moment, she wrenched their direction, sending Katu leaping at an acute angle, grazing the side ley and shooting straight for the apparently fragile line coursing across the lake’s surface.A major risk, given that whatever that tentacle belonged to obviously lurked below, but she was gambling that the tentacle-beast had been enchanted to snag only airborne carriages taking the jump.Besides, she’d be cursed if she’d take the plodding amateur trail going all the way around.
The crowd gasped, a few people screaming as the jag hit the uneven ley line and shimmied, wobbling dangerously toward a dunking.Not far away, Garaile and his cheetah—the carriage back in animal form now that they were off the ley line, the enchantment broken, the cat none too happy for being soaked—paddled toward shore.Cha couldn’t risk a glance at the snarl-up at the base of the ramp behind her, though by the sound of the shrieking, it was an unholy mess.She focused on Katu and his connection to the ley line, using her considerable skill and talent to hold them to the unstable magic.
Then she poured on the speed.
Katu’s immaterial claws dug into the magic of the ley line, catching and gaining purchase, Cha guiding them toward the richest streaks of Moonstone magic in the cocked-up composite.As she’d hoped, the line wasn’t a red herring.The wily mages had built just enough stability into the base of the ley line to get a carriage across.It reminded Cha of the bog tracks she’d once ridden over the drowned fae cities in her backwater home.
A tentacle shot overhead, and Cha ducked instinctively, showered with lake water in the open two-seater carriage.Pulling her sword, mostly because it would make the crowd happy, she swung it in a silver arc, nicking the tentacle and adding a bit of yellow ichor to the spatter.Sure enough, the crowd went wild.Bandit!Bandit!Bandit!
Time to go all out.Urging Katu into a final sprint, Cha guided them over the bumps and pits of the uneven ley line, taking advantage of the magic potholes to goose them forward—all while using her mental connection to Katu to maneuver as best she could on the narrow track to avoid the lashing yellow tentacles that arose on either side.The beast flailed at her but, as she’d hoped, not with serious purpose.The tentacles that did connect flinched away after a few well-aimed swipes of her sword.In addition—bless that ley rider’s bold and foolish heart—another carriage tried the ramp, arcing overhead, only to be smacked down mercilessly, diverting the tentacle creature from Cha and Katu.
The din of the crowd roared in Cha’s ears along with the hot-blooded pulse of victory coursing through both Katu and her.Bandit!Bandit!Bandit!
They hit the other side and skidded across the finish line.With a mental nudge to Katu, Cha added a spin and a flourish.Never hurt to play to the crowd.Cha sprang to her feet, standing up in the low-slung, gleaming black carriage, pumping one fist in the air and brandishing her sword in the other.Scarlet banners unfurled from the heights of the nosebleed sections of the stands, proclaiming another win for her, the reigning champion, Cha’s image on them ten times life-size, showing her tall, lanky form, cocky smile, and dark curls bobbed in the cut she’d made famous.No one would call her beautiful, but she possessed style in spades and that made up for a lot.
Another victory and a tidy purse to go with it.It wasn’t like the old days with Dy, running contraband under the noses of the fae, but it was something.
And, except for the faithful Katu, it was all she had.Most of the time, that was enough.Unfortunately, Cha wasn’t great at settling for “enough”—if anyone even knew what that was.
~2~
A Bit of Hot Goss
“Yo, Bandit!”Soakingwet, Garaile shouted across the tournament arena and jogged toward her through the still-settling clouds of scintillating white pixie dust, harmless now that it was separated from the ley magic.“Hold up, Bandit.I have news.”
Cha climbed out of the jag parked at the terminus of the ley line, making sure to jump onto non-magical ground—people tended to get careless on the slow-moving parking leys, paying a fast and ugly price—and patted Katu’s steaming hood.Accepting a towel from one of the arena-workers, she pulled off her goggles and mopped her face and hair clean of lake water and yellow ichor.
The crowds still roared for her victory, calling out her handle and sometimes her name, the die-hard fans even shoutingKatu!while waving giant gloves with jaguar claws.They dispersed from the arena slowly, reluctant to leave the excitement of the race for their shops in town or the outlying farms that made up the six human principalities of Torocca.
The win felt great—especially as today’s steeplechase had been particularly challenging with that last trickster of a hazard—but the prize money felt even better.The purse would nearly double her dwindling hoard.Even as the reigning champion of quasi-legal racing, she didn’t earn anywhere close to what she and Dy had once raked in on their smuggling runs.It wasn’t like she had expensive habits, either.But the big races like this one only happened every so often, and the fae—and their human business flunkies—raised prices and taxes a lot more frequently.Each coin stretched thinner every day.
Cha didn’t blame Dy for retiring and going legit with a steady job, what with the wife and kids to support, but the tournament gig left a lot to be desired—in income, the excitement of real danger, and having a purpose besides titillating the crowds.Maybe if Cha had ever found anyone she liked enough to settle down with, she’d be okay with the rest of it.She might as well wish to meet a fae prince and be crowned a faerie queen, however.
“Good news or bad?”she asked Garaile as he skidded up.“And nice showing out there.You would’ve won by taking the ramp if that tentacle hadn’t snagged you.”
“Hurt like a manticore sting, too.”Garaile grinned ruefully, kicking his boot at the shoulder of the ley line and sending up a puff of sparkling motes.“Kind of you to say, but I know I ate it on that one.How’d you know not to take the ramp?”
Cha tapped her temple.“The wisdom of experience.”
“Comes with age, I guess,” he allowed, oblivious to Cha’s huff of indignation.It didn’t help that the prideful straightening of her spine made it twinge.She was only thirty, which wasnotgetting old.“Kidding, Bandit,” Garaile continued with a charming, dimpled smile.“It’s a privilege just to be in the race with a legend like you.And Katu.”He stepped back to admire the jaguar race-carriage.“He’s got sexy lines, just like you.”
Garaile was attractive, no lie, with his big shoulders and obvious hero worship.Still, while Cha might not be actually old, he couldn’t be more than twenty, which was certainly too young for her.Probably.“Thanks.”She kept the easy grin on her face.“News, you said?”
“Oh, yeah.”Garaile’s grin faded.“The bad kind.Monat got arrested.”
“Damn.”That was bad news indeed.Monat was savvy at her job, with a big-rig transport carriage that had eluded the authorities in any number of the human principalities, and even the occasional run to the first fae realm, Obsidian.“You got details?”
He pulled off his hat and cast a wary glance around them.With the final, climactic race of the tournament over, the other ley riders were dispersing, their race-carriages returning to animal form as the riders pulled them off the ley lines.Aware she should be setting a good example, Cha called Katu off the parking ley and onto neutral ground, mentally tapping the sequence that triggered the enchantment from being a carriage capable of traveling the ley line and carrying a rider and back to his natural, animal form.
Magic shimmered in a wave, the light-bending properties of the fae enchantment creating a prismatic effect.The carriage gave a last cooling purr, then shivered into the jaguar that was his original body.The metallic scales of the jag’s shell clicked smoothly back into glossy black fur, the carriage compacting into feline form, legs extending and becoming big, soft paws that touched ground.The big cat settled happily onto his haunches at her side, Katu panting lightly from the race.He sawed a hoarse greeting and shoved his head under her hand for ear skritches.
The track manager gave Cha a salute of thanks for her effort.The ley lines in the arena were maintained by hired mages and expensive to keep active.The magic workers were already busily sealing the lines for the day.These weren’t the locally and principality-maintained black ley lines governed by stable enchantments and regularly serviced by government mages employed by the human realms.No, to get the power and flexibility needed for high-velocity races and regularly tweaked obstacle courses, the arena owner paid out the nose for these ley lines, as well as for the Moonstone white pixie dust to keep them working at maximum speed.
