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Mawatari nodded, understanding what I was telling him. I was a well-loved lord, and my people would avenge me if he or his master did something to me. I bowed to Okita and his men, then to Aboshi before climbing into the traveling box. Keno climbed in after me, making himself as small as possible to give me more room.

We were lifted, and the carriers set off at a smooth but quick pace. After a couple of minutes of silence, I smiled at Keno. “You are now going to see how Aboshi spoils us. I don't think of this as a pleasant way to travel."

Keno nodded, looking slightly sick from the swaying of the box. He had traveled this way with me once before, but it had been a more leisurely journey. “If I had known,” he muttered.

I tried not to laugh when I saw the look on his face when I told him, “We're traveling like this for at least a week."

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Mason

So we all got to go through the fun-sparkly-bad special effects tunnel again. It was just as nasty as before, and I wanted to puke at the end of it. But we all made it this time, and that was all that mattered. We'd had two weeks of learning to shoot a bow, swing a sword, and learn a few basic words in a couple of different languages, like Greek and Mayan. I was hopeless in all of them beyond “hello,” “goodbye,” and “touch her and I'll kill you.” The last one amused the fuck out of McGann. And I was shit with the sword. Wolf took to his like he was a natural. McGann was an okay fighter, but I didn't know if she would be able to gut someone who was after her. I knew I could. I had been barely legal and an okay-looking kid when they convicted me, so I had learned to fight back and had been left alone. Got the rep as being a mean, crazy fucker, and that had kept me going for the time I was in the joint. I still wasn't too handy with a longbow or a sword, so I hoped I didn't have to use them, even if I knew I could kill someone.

We were better armed and armored this time, with replicas of broadswords, bows and high-tech “primitive” armor, lots of supplies, and a couple of maps. We just had to figure out where the hell we were.

Wolf was looking around and smiling. “This place reminds me of home."

"Boston?” I asked, wondering if he had gone nuts. The place was wide open, covered with grass. There were woods and a couple of rolling hills in the distance, but nothing in the way of people or buildings. The place smelled nice, no pollution. This wasn't Boston. Not even the Arboretum looked or smelled this good.

"Norway,” Wolf said. “My grandmother lives in Oslo, but we also spent summers in the country."

McGann smiled sadly, and I bet that she was thinking of home, too, but not in a happy way. I had noticed that she didn't mention family too much. Not that any of us did, but sometimes, some of the TCs weren't that cut off from their family. Not as close as Murphy was, but enough so that they talked to them.

"Which way do you want to go?” Logan asked.

"North?” McGann suggested.

"Sounds good to me,” I said. “But before we really go anyplace, what's the plan? I don't want it to be like the last time, when Murphy was the only one with the plan."

"It won't be like the last time,” Wolf said roughly.

He was in charge of this mess. If he had any brains, which I knew that he had, he'd listen to McGann. I'd just be keeping an eye on Logan. Not that I didn't trust him; it was just that he was barely two steps away from being a lab rat. He needed someone to make sure he didn't get munched on by a nasty.

"We're supposed to be someplace in the Mayan Empire,” McGann said. “That's why Dr. Sawyer's here with us."

"And why do the Trustees think these people are going to talk to us?” I asked. “Weren't they like cannibals or something?"

"Mayans weren't cannibals,” Logan said. “I think that you're thinking of the Aztecs."

"Whatever,” I told him, not really caring one way or another. He made a face at that. “But it still comes back to why these people would want to talk to us? Our track record with this shit ain't too good."

"I don't think we're going to make the same mistakes we did last time,” Wolf said.

I noticed McGann was still looking good, so she might not be have the trouble she'd had last time we came to the Dreamlands. Something about being a ‘path and being here had messed her up. But it could also be that we were still alone. Or it could also be that she wasn't trying to herd fuckin’ cats now, since Murphy and Anya, the ones who had caused her the most trouble with Tamazusa, weren't here.

"I think the question should be why do a Central American people have an afterlife, for lack of a better term, that resembles this?” McGann asked. “That is, if I understand what the Dreamlands are exactly."

"Mayans and Aztecs lived in the jungle. This isn't anything like that,” Logan said. “I doubt that this is a landscape they would be familiar with."

"So that means we don't know where we are,” Wolf said, sounding really frustrated.

I really couldn't add anything to that, and I managed not to laugh my ass off at the fact that we were screwed again, because we had no clue where we had been dropped,
again
!

We headed off north. We hiked for a couple of hours before we ran into people. We were on a leisurely stroll, almost, with Wolf in front, McGann and Logan in the middle, me as tail-end Charlie. We were found by about a dozen really big guys, bearded and long-haired, wearing woolen tunics and pants with boots. They smelled of beer and a bunch of other things. They were downwind of us. I figured it had been a couple of days since they'd had a shower. They all stopped short when they saw us and stared at us for a couple of minutes before someone shouted something out at us. Wolf shouted back at them in what sounded like the same language.

"What are they saying?” Logan asked.

"Fuck if I know,” I said.

"They're speaking Norwegian, I think. Or one of the Scandinavian languages,” McGann said. “Other than that, I don't know what's going on."

"They want to know who we are,” Wolf told us. “And why we are here."

"Shit, that would be a good idea, if
I
knew what the fuck we were doing here,” I said under my breath.

McGann shot me a dirty look for that one. Seriously, even with the briefings and Mrs. Adams saying why we were here, I still had no clue what was going on—and I had been paying attention to the briefings. Making allies sounded like a bullshit reason to me, given the fact that the Trustees were more likely to screw anyone than ally with them. They were after something, and I couldn't figure out what it was. This place was backward, with no technology or anything that would make an alliance with anyone worthwhile. I knew that from the little discussion with Tamazusa. It had been in my report, and I was certain it was in everyone else's.

So
why
were we here? And more importantly, how long were we staying?

"You know why we're here,” McGann said patiently, sounding like my mother more than my boss.

Logan didn't say anything for a couple of minutes. “They're Norse,” he finally said. “Other than that, I don't know anything, because Norse covered a lot of different cultures. All I know is that I don't think this is where we're supposed to be."

"Why don't that sound about right,” I muttered. So they aimed us at the Mayans, and we ended up... someplace else. Why didn't that surprise me? Good thing Wolf spoke Norwegian, or we'd have been screwed, and not in a good way.

McGann shot me another annoyed look. I grinned at her. “Have you ever known me to be polite?"

She shook her head and relaxed a bit. Logan continued to split his attention between us and Wolf. Wolf was relaxed and acting like meeting these guys was the best thing in the universe for us. After a couple of minutes of talking to them, he came back to us.

"These men are from the farm of Grima Njalsson,” Wolf said. “They would like us to go back and guest with them."

"Don't look at me,” Logan said when we all looked at him, expecting him to pull the answer out of his ass. “My expertise is on the Mayans. Anything else was covered on long-ago undergrad days."

"Shit, tell me that you were a good student,” I practically begged him. Fuck! We were stuck again someplace where we had no fucking clue about what was going on. I was beginning to hate that.

"Fair,” he said. “I don't know anything more than the basics. Most primitive societies think that guesting is a sacred custom, and they don't attack or harm their guests. But for all I know, these people are brigands or worse."

"I told them that we would be glad to go with them,” Wolf said. He hesitated for a second. “They were curious about you, Mason, why you were so dark, were you sick. I just told them that was the way your people looked."

He sounded embarrassed, but I wasn't too pissed. I didn't think that a lot of Vikings saw too many African Americans, and being curious about what I looked like was what had happened at Tamazusa's place too.

"And?” I asked, knowing there was an “and” to this. He had been talking with those people for too long for there to not be more to the story.

"That you were my sworn men, you and Logan, and that McGann was my wife."

I laughed, and McGann glared at me. “Congratulations, the two of you. I'll buy you both a round when we get back."

"Mason,” McGann hissed at me, trying not to check out the Vikings’ reaction. They might figure out it wasn't true, or they just might think I'm a loon or that it was something I did because I didn't look like one of them.

"Telling them you're married is the best thing,” Logan said. “If you were his sister or an unmarried woman, there might be trouble."

"Yeah, when we run across Amazons, he gets to be the little woman,” I teased them. “Shit, this ain't Nippon. These people seem to be less civilized than they were."

That wasn't too nice, but it was true. These people looked really rough, something I had never seen when we were at Tamazusa's place in what was called Nippon, which looked like it should have been in a bad samurai movie. They had been so civilized there it had made my head ache most of the time. Granted, that's what saved Murphy and Anya the ice bitch's ass when she had seriously pissed off that samurai with something she'd said to Wolf in Russian and exactly what Murphy had done after spending an afternoon with Tamazusa that ended with her dumping his ass back into the room under house arrest. But the politeness had been wearing on my nerves. I never knew what I would do to set Tamazusa off so she'd turn my insides into fuckin’ Jell-O. Not that I'd thought she would, since even the way I had acted was way better than Murphy and Anya had. Shit, I had been treating McGann the same way, so Tamazusa had probably figured out I hadn't been dissing her.

"That is something that we can discuss later,” McGann told me.

"Nippon?” Logan asked.

I shrugged while Wolf looked... not pissed, but hurt. “I'll tell you later,” I promised. “Right now, let's go meet our new best friends."

One of the big guys was looking at McGann funny. I was ready to reach out and smack him, while Wolf looked uneasy. “You're wearing men's clothing,” he finally said. “That's something of a taboo. I had forgotten about that."

"Too late to tell them that she's your younger brother?” I asked. While she had long hair, she was kind of flat-chested for a woman. Not like the skinny chicks in Nippon, but she didn't have a lot of excess weight, really. I knew we couldn't have pulled something like that with Anya. The bitch was all woman and let everyone know it.

Fuck, it figured Wolf knew about this shit. The guy was smarter and better educated than he let on. I was just glad someone had a clue and hoped that between him and Logan, we'd get out of this with our asses intact.

There was some back and forth about it, and Wolf was looking more and more uncomfortable, until he barked something out that sounded like he was telling them to fuck off.

"He can divorce her for that,” Logan sort of hissed at me while watching the argument between Wolf and the others to see if it was going to get nasty.

I shrugged. “Not like they're really married. Can it be like a vow or something that she has to wear it? Hell, having her run around in pants makes me feel a lot better."

"There were rules,” Wolf said when the argument was over. “I don't really remember the sagas. So I don't know how much trouble we're in. But I know that it can be bad that she's dressed like that."

"We can always leave,” I said. “Just hang around until we have to go back or look for someone else. It don't matter to me either way, ‘cause I thought that this was a really stupid plan."

We ended up in a small settlement on the edge of the ocean. There were a couple of fishing boats pulled up on the rocky beach and a collection of houses built out of dirt and grass. Pigs and goats were wandering around, and the place looked like it belonged on one of those ads for adopting a kid out of a Third World pest hole. Not that there weren't places in Boston looked worse than this, but this place was poor, and it showed.

"Did I mention that I missed Tamazusa's place?” I asked the air. Wolf gave me a dirty look for that comment. Hell, the Nips might have been assholes some of the time, but they knew how to bathe, at least. I wasn't betting that there was going to be a daily bath in my future, from the looks of this place. Not that I was fanatic about stuff like that. It then dawned on me that I was sort of insulting Wolf's ancestors. “Shit, man, I liked the gardens and the cute chicks,” I said. “Not trying to diss your people or shit like that."

Wolf nodded and relaxed. I wasn't going to remind him that I grew up in a west-bum-fuck area like this before I was sent to prison. It wasn't quite as poor, but it was sure as shit out in the back end of nowhere South Dakota.

I didn't like the fact that everyone and their uncle had come out to stare at us. Mostly at me, it seemed, because there was a lot of pointing in my direction and nudging going on. Finally, a really big guy came hurrying over to us. “I'm Grima Njalsson,” he announced in halting English. “This is my farm. Welcome."