A Horse With No Name

After years of wizardly planning, everything’s coming together, but first, I needed to reach the toilet paper. I leaned over, careful not to tip over the five-gallon bucket I sat on to reach the roll that fell off the other, upside down one I’d set nearby. Once I’d gotten ahold of it, I checked for scorpions; just dirt and those sticker things. That’s when I heard the vehicle roll up, and car doors open.

“Alex! Where are you?”

Skit. Crappy timing. I rushed to finish up before they started looking for me and found a scorpion or rattlesnake. “Hang on! Stay put,” I shouted from behind the tree where I’d set up the bucket-based latrine. Once I completed my business (and washed my hands), I walked out from the brush and Latreen to cross the field where an old driveway used to be and Rain’s teal SUV parked. I’m still workshopping the name for the bathroom. It’s been a lonely week camping out here and clearing brush.

It's Tyrsday. During Turkey Week, that meant presenting new magic. And here, all the technomages were at our new proving grounds. I’d spent the last week getting it ready. Our shell company, TMI, finished buying it a month ago. My wife hugged me before I could finish the explanatory thought about why we were here.

“You kinda smell, hon.”

“It was hot last night. I sweated.”

Rain stepped back to look me over. “Did you use the sunscreen? You’re like reddish.”

“Ja. I missed you, too.”

A black truck pulled up next to the SUV. Attached to it, a horse trailer rocked as it rolled over the uneven grassland. The shiny yet dusty vehicle stopped when the driver’s window pulled even with us. The tinted glass rolled down, revealing Haridass’ mahogany skin, bright smile, and ten-gallon hat. “Well, howdy. I reckon this’ll do, pardner.”

Rain waved at Haridas. “Are you going to cosplay a cowboy all week?”

“Y’all bought some land in the middle of Texas, hell yeah. I even brought my sixgun.”

Another face leaned into view; her short dark hair framed a paler face. “He played country music the whole way from my place.”

“Hey Trigoth. Was it the eighties stuff or modern?”

“Beats the fuck out of me.”

Haridas climbed out and gave me a hug. “You, uh, got a shower out here?”

“It’s more like a sponge bath each night while avoiding rattlesnakes and scorpions.”

“Damn man, I guess it’ll be okay if you don’t have anything new to present.” I was best man at his wedding, so he can rib me. However, I decided not to ask about Jen.

I shrugged and looked back at Rain’s car. Moderatus and Arctura were pulling chairs and a pop-up canopy from the back. “You guys need a hand?”

Arctura called out, “No, we heard you smell.”

I pointed to the table I’d set up in the middle. “Set up over there. If anybody has dangerous stuff, I picked out a spot over yonder. Also watch out for rattlesnakes and scorpions.”

Moderatus dragged his bundle over to the makeshift table, a plank and some cinderblocks. “It’s been a long drive to the middle of nowhere Texas. Where do you take care of business?”

I pointed to the tree I had come from. “The Latreen. There’s a bucket behind there. Use it.”

Moderatus headed that way. He came from Boston. I doubt he’d ever been in the middle of nowhere before. I suspected he didn’t listen to Rain about the sunscreen, so his poplar skin will end up red like mine by tonight. Oh well.

Everyone busied themselves, leaving Rain still standing next to me. She looked me over once more. “I guess you survived the week alone out here. How was it?”

I brought a hand up and felt the weight on my chest. “It kind of reminded me of Afghanistan.”

“Really?”

“Just being isolated out here. I’m okay. Had time to think.”

“And weedwhack. You cleared out a good chunk.”

I motioned to the acre-sized zone I’d cleared out. “Just enough for us to work, I think. Figured you’d want time to think about the land use. Let’s help them set up that pop-up.”

After a few minutes unpacking the ten-by-ten pop-up cover, and the chairs, we all sat in the shade while everyone figured out turn order. Given our outdoor setup, the element of surprise suffered a bit. Arctura ended up drawing the shortest twig, so she went first. They didn’t bother giving me a twig.

She brought a laptop over to my table, which stood about six feet from us. “Is this blood?”

“Ja. Caught a rabbit in a snare.”

“Alex, have you heard of washing?”

“Yes, I had to ration water for the week. Blood dries; rain washes it off.”

Rain chimed in, “Except, I wasn’t here.”

“I meant the stuff from the sky.”

Arctura frowned and set her laptop down at the far end of the plank. “Can you see from over there? I thought I was going to use a projector, but we’re in a field.” To be fair, she flew in from Brazil. I might have neglected to mention the change in venue.

We got up from their chairs to stand around the laptop. “This was a good plan to put the table away from the shade, Alex.” Technically, Moddy put the pop-up here, but I didn’t feel like arguing with him on that point.

“The whole reason we are out here is because of the smoke marks on our living room ceiling from last year.”

Moderatus shrunk in a bit. “I said I was sorry. Didn’t Alex repaint it when you said the pipe leaked last winter?”

Arctura cleared her throat. “Let’s stay on topic, por favor. I give you ScryOS Tres.” She opened the lid of the laptop, and the screen came to life. Albeit washed out in the sun. “This looks cooler when you can see the screen. Do I have to use the table?”

Trigoth shook her head. “No, what I brought won’t fit on this thing. Let’s go back into the shade before Alex turns any redder. Are you allergic to the sun?”

We all made our way back to the shade and rearranged our seats so we could see the laptop on Arctura’s lap. On the screen, we saw nothing but a field of black. Then she brought her hands together, index and forefingers touching tips together in front of the screen, and pulled them apart. A fiery red oval sparked into existence and stretched out across the screen, following the movement of her fingers as she pulled it into shape. With a few finger movements more and a web page’s four oh four error page appeared. ‘’There’s no cell signal out here, is there?”

“Nope,” I said.

“Well, I guess I can’t conference Yasunori or Kagogo since they couldn’t come this year.” She waved a hand to shift a flaming circle around on screen.  “But otherwise, everything is in this new windowing framework. I can spawn new windows, open connections, and format data so it looks mystical, providing there’s an internet connection.” She made another hand motion, and a flaming circle spiraled open to reveal network settings. “I don’t get it; there’s a Wi-Fi connection out here.”

I shrugged. “It’s probably my phone. I must’ve had tethering mode on when I left the house.”

Haridas twisted around to look at me in his chair. “You ain’t got enough water to wash off your table of animal sacrifice, but have enough power to keep your phone alive?”

I pointed to my tent on the opposite side of the field. “solar charger over there. Plenty of sun.”

Moderatus leaned in to look closer. “So, uh, how is this going to be used?”

“Run this on a big-screen TV or projector. Setup camera or voice commands, maybe with a foreign language.” Rain glanced back at me, her mind connecting dots and predicting probable outcomes.

Trigoth said, “Alright, I can see that being cool for calls, and showing information if you can make it look good. Maybe show something else if it can’t connect?”

Arctura frowned. “I’m sorry guys, this looked way better at home. I didn’t know we’d be doing this outside.”

Moderatus stood. “It’s alright.” He held up a slightly longer short twig. “Look, I’m next. Mine will top this.”

Rain asked, “It’s been dry out here; is it likely to set a fire?”

Moderatus walked over to stand behind the table of insufficient cleaning. “Um, no? Wood doesn’t burn, right?”

“What?!” came from somebody as Moddy’s hand came flying down toward the table. A flash with a voluminous puff of gray smoke engulfed the area. As the breeze blew it away, the man had vanished.

Neat trick. It hadn’t worked last year in my living room, so he must’ve perfected the formulation in the lab at college.

“Where’d he go?” Haridas stood up and looked around.

From my seated vantage point, I couldn’t see much past the others, the table, and opposite that, the pile of fluffy bags for the chairs and pop-up. “Hey, watch out for rattlesnakes and scorpions!”

Moddy popped up from behind the pile. “Oh shit! Are there really rattlesnakes and scorpions out here?”

“I saw a couple of rattlers my first day, but my noise might’ve driven them away. I know they get scorpions in Austin, so I just figured they could be anywhere in Texas that isn’t Houston.”

Haridas went to his truck and pulled a case from the back seat. “I liked Moddy’s ninja smoke thing, but check this out.” He set the box down on the table. He gave the handle at the top of the case a twist and the sides fell away. On the table now stood a large obsidian bird statue. I’d estimate two feet from beak to tail. Then it turned its head and looked at us all.

A moment later, it spread its wings and flapped off as a stiffer breeze swooped in.

“Well,fuck.” Haridas watched as his artificial bird flew off-script. Despite the setback, it looked great. He designed drones with propellers for a living. A flappy flying machine couldn’t be done, but here it flew circles over us.

Everyone stood up and stepped out from the pop-up. Arctura’s laptop sat on her seat where she had left it.

Haridas fiddled with a control he pulled out of his pocket. “Okay, it’s supposed to follow voice commands and stay near this. The recall button ain’t responding either.” The bird did a lap over us and then landed in my Latree.

Rain stared at it. “How long does the battery last?”

“About forty minutes flying, twelve hours on watch.”

“It looks real, like a giant crow.”

“I couldn’t make it any smaller and still flap. Kagogo wanted one. It was hard to balance everything. It flies at least.” He tapped his controller on the table. Maybe it’ll return later.” He glanced over at Rain. “I used that code you sent me for bird behavior.”

She shrugged, “I only trained it in simulation. I didn’t realize you were ready with this.”

Trigoth smirked. “Well then, that means there’s room for me to top all this. I think Moddy’s smoke bomb is in the running as it worked the best.” She walked over to the horse trailer.

Moddy leaned over to Haridas. “What’s in there? A horse?”

“Ain’t mine. She just asked me to swing by Ohio to pick her up with my trailer.”

“You have a horse?”

Haridas smiled. “Sure I do. But I left Trigger back in Arizona. I don’t know what she put back there.”

The sound of the trailer door groaned as it opened, and something shifted inside. A series of clopping sounds drifted back, like a herd climbing out. We couldn’t see much because of the angle from our vantage point, and the back of the trailer being furthest. The trailer itself rocked as something heavy exited. The big reveal approached until Trigoth shrieked and a giant horse’s head reared up higher than the truck cab. Its coat glistened with a wet oil slick sheen of metal and rainbows. Then the monstrosity galloped and bucked across the field.

Everyone’s eyes followed the movement as too many legs pistoned and flailed in the air.

I hobbled over to find Trigoth standing on the truck’s step. A rattlesnake sat below, shaking at her. She spared me a look, her face whiter than normal. “You weren’t kidding. What do I do?”

The weight on my chest reminded me of my options. My staff that shot bullets sat by my tent back on the far side of the field. I had nothing but what covered my heart. I reached into my shirt and pulled out the gold-painted medallion.

“Huginn, komdu til mín.” I reached out my hand, and the artificial raven took off from its perch and landed on my index finger. Its plastic talons dug into my skin. “Reka snákinn burt.” I’m certain my parents would cringe at my rusty Icelandic, but the rudimentary syntax for spells worked.

The plastic and carbon fiber raven cawed and swooped from my hand to fly over the snake. The rattler retreated a foot and then rattled some more. Huginn circled and landed a yard away from it. Its wings spread out, casting a wide shadow. The snake turned tail, so to speak, from the larger threat and slithered into the grass.

“Finna snáka á svæðinu.” I made the hand motions I learned from practice and memory of specifications I’d read each night. Arctura’s laptop screen flared as a birds-eye view opened up.

I limped back over and checked the screen. The eight-legged beast continued its rampage, going farther in the grass than the initial clearing I’d made. I looked up to see Rain walking slowly to the bucking machine, her hand outstretched.

I glanced down at the screen. A few red dots painted over the landscape where Huginn detected snakes. My spell and amulet worked. One dot lay in the path of Rain by my reckoning. “Rain, stop!”

“I programmed it, so I can calm it down.” She at least stopped.

Moderatus perched on the chair, watching the laptop screen. “Uh, why don’t we have Haridas shoot the snakes? Isn’t he an expert gun guy?”

“Nationally ranked Wild West quick-draw shootist. If I can see it, I can hit it, but I ain’t drawing with people near the target.” His right hand hung low near the pearl inlaid grip of his revolver, which remained in its holster. Haridas sidled away from the others, to get Rain out of his line of sight, where he assumed the snake might be. “Alex?”

From the screen, I estimated the snake might be five feet away from her. “I don’t think it’ll chase her if she backs up toward us.”

Moddy’s voice raised up a pitch. “You don’t think? Aren’t you like a master of everything? Super hunter and stuff. Just kill it.”

Rain made her way back to us with no trouble. “I would rather he not.” Her eyes snapped onto the laptop screen. “Besides, the contest is done.”

I directed my focus to the eight-legged beast. “Komdu til mín.”

The horse with shimmering metal skin trotted over, its mood calmed. The animal stopped in front of me and waited. I reached out and touched its shoulder. Metal, slick, and cool to the touch greeted my fingers. I moved my hand up along its neck to its snout. None of which was soft, but the horse responded just the same, sniffing at my hand. The metalskin rippled over fiber actuators and titanium bones. Four legs in front, four in back. The outer legs shifted to the side as the horse sidestepped, smooth as oil on a puddle.

Rain joined me with the horse and placed a hand on its flank. “Alright, Alex hacked us all.”

Haridas and the others came over to check out the horse as my new raven, Huginn, landed on my shoulder. The claws dug in through my t-shirt. Trigoth stepped with trepidation off the truck and joined us. “You just took control of my robohorse, didn’t you?”

“And my bird.”

Arctura raised her laptop. “He wins.”

Moderatus moved between me and the horse to face me. “Did you make anything this year?”

Rain reached over and hefted the amulet hanging on my chest. “This is new. Spray paint, some plastic gems from the craft store. Wrapped around a smartphone, it looks like.”

“It’s an amulet. Channels my power, attunes to things I can control.”

Moddy stomped off to the edge of the clearing to pout a bit. So, I started to pack everything up. Sure, it’s a couple hours drive from our place in Houston, but this would’ve been crazy trying to do in our backyard. And it all worked out, as I planned. I looked back across the clearing, where Moddy still stood. The whole point of the day was to present abilities that added to our repertoire. To try it out, and one-up each other. Now Moddy was new at this, but he caught on quick that I won every year. Maybe that’s not working anymore if I wanted to keep us on track.

I hefted my packed tent to the center, while leaning on my staff. A little cloud of dust rose when I dropped the tent. “Hey guys, we forgot a step. Let’s circle up.”

Haridas tossed something into the back of his truck. “I thought you said it was always cooler at the end of November. You sure you want to do this now and not Woodie's Barbecue?”

I positioned myself so I could see everybody with my one eye. “It’ll be like that B5 episode where they argued under a laser beam and got to the point quicker.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that was how that worked, pardner.”

I’m not sure what he was worried about; he had a wide brim hat. That is until he plopped it onto my head. “There. You are getting too red. You’re fixin’ to overheat if you start monologuing.”

Moddy walked over last to join our circle. “Not sure what the point is, you won again, by taking everything.”

The sun bore down on me, even with the hat, I could feel it cooking me. Everything seemed upside down from the time I hung in a tree. I tightened my grip on my staff. Flashbacks weren’t good for me. “We all made progress. But an important part is performance. Which demonstration had the best showing?”

Trigoth squinted and held a hand up to shield her eyes. “Moddy disappeared in broad daylight. Better than a ninja. Every part of his demo worked. I’m not sure what Haridas and I could’ve done to spice up a hardware reveal.”

Sweat rolled from the hat brim into the seam of my eyepatch. “Exactly. Until now, we all needed to work on the flourishes to make these effects look right. And everyone worked solo. But we’re getting to the stage where we’re already working together on bigger things.” I hefted my amulet up. “I need help to make this look better. So next year, we partner up to come back here, show our best projects, prepared for the field.”

“Wait, does that mean I won?”

Haridas clapped a hand on Moderatus’ back. “Yeah, hoss, it does. So let’s finish packing so we can get lunch in Centerville.”

Moddy frowned and planted his feet. “You’re just good with him taking your bird? Trigoth’s horse?”

The sun bore into me as the sky in my mind darkened. I gripped my shooty staff tighter and counted to ten. Haridas spared a look back at me and did the needful. “How long you been Kagogo’s apprentice now? Two years? How’s school going?”

Moderatus opened his mouth, but Haridas kept going. “You work for TMI. We paid for your school. We paid for the horse, and the bird, and the software. We all get horsies, birds, and software.” He paused and pointed a thumb back at me. “So what if the one-eyed man gets the first production model. We all get to be wizards. What’s your problem?”

Haridas didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he picked up the last bagged chair and lugged it over to Rain’s car. Moderatus stared at the horizon. I stared at him. The tension passed. I knew my problems, they came from long ago. Moddy’s problem was his. I imagine from a different point of view, if Haridas’ hand rested on his pistol, everything he said took on a darker meaning. But the lesson should’ve been simple. Be thankful for the opportunities, the friends. Gather. Help load up the stuff. 

Which they did. The gang made short work of getting the rest of my camp into the truck. Rain handed me a water bottle. “You’re starting to look the part.”

“Hmm?”

“Staff, raven. Eight-legged horse. I read up a little when I found the email sent from my account suggesting more legs. Sneaky.”

The water swirled down my gullet and into my roots of the tree I’d become. My feet rooted to this land as a one-eyed man watched the sun arc across the sky nine times. I blinked, and the weird feeling left me. “Will the horse fit in the garage?”

Rain grabbed my arm and uprooted me from my spot. “Let’s get you out of the sun.” She whistled, and the horse trotted up to follow us. “Come on, Sleipnir. We’re going home.”

---

Happy Turkey Week. This year’s story shows where our wizard, Alex Rune, gets his toys. I always had the idea that every year the technomages would gather and show off a new ability or feature, and I found the right mix of advanced, but early stuff to showcase.

If you missed subsequent year's Thanksgiving story or other snippets, click the link below:

 https://www.klforslund.com/alexrune