The human warrior waited awkwardly outside the hatchlike door of the Shopkeeper’s caravan, flanked by his grumbling automaton.

  The Shopkeeper only stared back. His expression was completely concealed by the odd bony mask on his face, but somehow Cutter could feel the arched eyebrow, the expectation. He had the sudden sensation that this man, or monster, or whatever the fuck he was, was waiting for a reaction. Cutter determined not to give him one.

  When Cutter supplied no reaction, the Shopkeeper leaned forward, casually, propping both elbows on the counter. “I know you’ve figured out that it’s not a dream, Cutter.”

  “I’d still like to know how you-”

  The Shopkeeper just kept speaking. There was a flicker of danger in the air suddenly and Cutter became deathly aware that he couldn’t see this man’s bracer. He had no idea what his level was. A glance told him that the monsters used to pull his cart were all iron-banded.

  The Shopkeeper said, “I can’t judge you, nobody can judge you, for deciding this was all a dream at first. An event as bizarre and impossible as this one needs some kind of explanation. Deciding you’re asleep, or mad, or delirious from an overly long juice fast actually makes more sense to me than deciding you’ve been transported to another world. So far be it from me to pass any kind of judgement. But there comes a time when you’re replacing logical explanation with dimwitted denial. Wandering around in denial will only see you drowned.”

  The Shopkeeper paused for a moment, waiting for an acknowledgement of his joke. Again, Cutter could nearly see the shit-eating grin hidden by the bone mask. Again, he gave him nothing. Free belt or not, he was starting not to like this Shopkeeper.

  “Anyway, the facts are simple. You very much are here, and you very much know it. You’re letting out the slack by convincing yourself that this is still a dream. Again, understandable. If you acknowledge that this is reality then you’ll have to deal all over again with the impossibility of it all, your separation from your family, the incredible task of finding a way back. But it’s time for you and I to talk business, and I can send you back. For a price. You see what this is? We’re talking about a trade, Cutter. And we can’t very well make a trade if you don’t believe the goods exist or are worth anything at all, can we?”

  “I’m listening,” he said, face devoid of the emotion that was burbling deeper down.

  The Shopkeeper gave a curt nod. “Very well. At the least I expect I have your attention. I have a means of sending you home, but it is truly precious to me. I can’t part with it for less than ten million gold coins-”

  “TEN MILLI-” Cutter erupted, but then took hold of his senses again.

  “Or bartering, which I’m always happy to do. You seem like you’re going to be the cutty-choppy sort. I’ve no doubt you’ll gather many a sigil. I will, in this exchange, offer you the retail price on sigils, a deal you will get nowhere else. Don’t doubt me. I will consider ash sigils to be worth one hundred gold coins, cinder worth a thousand, blaze ten thousand, and so forth. And… if you can’t find a way to make enough cash in that manner I could always… no, never mind…”

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s probably ridiculous, but I’d trade it all for the red syntra?”

  “The red what?”

  “Syntra. You’ll have to do your own homework on that I’m afraid.”

  Cutter’s pupils darted mutely as he tried to calculate the scale of this. “But… that means killing like a hundred thousand kobolds! How long… I could be years at this!”

  “What? Oh, that’s right, I didn’t give you the time speech yet. Well, I must be off, so listen sharp my friend. Your saving grace is that time moves at a sixtieth the speed here. Each hour here is a minute in your world. The beauty of that is, even if it did take years, that would be only weeks or months in your world. Time is something you have plenty of. If only you could trade that you’d be a truly rich man already!”

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  “Weeks! Months! My family…”

  “My, you people do get worked up about your family attachments, don’t you. Well, condolences, I did not create this situation for you. I only humbly aim to offer a solution. With that, my friend, I must be on my way.”

  The wagon started to roll even before the Shopkeeper had finished talking. The wooden flap slammed shut, and Cutter found himself watching it roll away.

  Words echoed to him from the rapidly departing hulk, “You’ll find a town due east! Plenty of work there for the choppy-stabby types!”

  Cutter just looked on, his face twitching. His eyes took on a glassy sheen and he had to blink hard to contain himself. Under his breath he muttered, “Red fucking syntra…”

  Lita said, “What’s that bruh?”

  Cutter turned to him, his face suddenly smiling broadly, eyes wide with a near-feral intensity, “I said… this is one fucked-up dream I’m having. Come on, which way is east?”

  “The heck should I know, dude?”

  Cutter said, “Well, the sun is… can’t you use the sun?”

  Lita looked up, “Ooooh, the sun! That’s what that is! I was totally sure that was a fireball coming to wipe us all out, bruh. The sun? Sweet…”

  Cutter sagged slightly and took his bearings. “Sets in the east, doesn’t it? It’s pretty low now… so it’s either morning or evening. I guess we could head that way, and if it doesn’t look like it’s setting in a while we turn around and go the other way.”

  “Sounds like we should stay here, dude, and wait to see if it’s coming up or going down, otherwise we’re just wasting a bunch of-”

  “Not staying fucking here. I need to be moving.”

  “Okeeee… Let’s go, bruh.”

  Lita shot forward, propelled by whatever technology or magic kept him suspended above the ground. Cutter cried out, “Whoa, slow down.”

  Already twenty yards ahead of him, Lita skittered to a stop, “What’s up, bruh?”

  “I can’t go that fast!”

  “How fast can you go, bruh?”

  Cutter started walking. Lita sagged in dismay. “THAT FAST? Awww, dude…”

  Cutter eyed Lita, eyes twinkling. “Can you really keep that pace up?”

  “Duh… I’m an automaton… I don’t get tired.”

  “Hmmmm.”

  Lita said, “Hmmm what, dude?”

  Cutter said, “Just got an idea…”

  Lita backed up, “Whoa, no way. I know what you’re thinking, bruh, and it’s not happening. Gots my dignity!”

  Cutter said, “Come on… you don’t want to be stuck moving at my slow-ass bipedal pace, do ya?”

  “Better that…”

  Cutter said, “Aw, come on… stone robot…”

  Lita’s head jerked up, “Whassat?”

  “I said, come on, stone robot, help a buddy out.”

  “St… stone robot? Not Lita, dude?”

  Cutter nodded slowly.

  “That’s what you’ll tell the people in town my name is?”

  Cutter said, “All the way…”

  Lita paused, swaying slightly. “Ohhhhh… okay, dude. But this is a personal favor.”

  “The personalest!” Cutter said, striding up. “Okay, how do we do this? You’re a fair bit smaller than me. These sections aren’t actually touching. I wonder if I could…”

  “Hey dude! That tickles!”

  “If I could squeeze this bit forward…”

  “Dude, ow!”

  Cutter pushed on the segments of Lita’s border, stretching their magnetic, or magical, tethers until the torso had been slid forward into a narrow slope, and the chest and head section dangled in front of Lita like a horse’s head.

  Cutter, hands on hips, nodded firmly. “This might work.”

  “Okay bruh… we can try at least.”

  Cutter stood up and swung a leg over, seating himself on the stretched sloping torso, supporting himself by grasping the broad stone shoulders in front of him. He’d been worried his weight would overload the levitation and force Lita to the ground, or that he’d be too much for the stone sections to hold together. But the automaton’s form did not so much as budge.

  Cutter said, “How’s that?”

  Lita said, “Surprisingly okay, dude.”

  “Yeah, you know it is. Bit hard on the ol’ butt cheeks. We might need to get a saddle for the long term…”

  “A SADDLE?”

  Cutter said, “Shhhh… don’t worry about that. A conversation for another day. Come on, transform and roll out!”

  “Bruh! I’m already transformed. Why’d you say that?”

  “It was just… a thing…”

  “Weird thing, dude. Why would you say something so totally out of context?”

  “Ugh, never mind. Let’s go.”

  Lita started, then paused. “Bruh… could you… you know…”

  “What? Uh, okay. Let’s go… stone robot!”

  Lita whipped forward instantly and started whirring toward the setting (or possibly rising) sun. Cutter was startled by just how fast the automaton could go while mounted by a grown man. This was easily as fast as an e-scooter could buzz along.

  “You know we’re kinda like Bravestarr and his transforming horse thingy… what was he called? Thirty-Thirty? How ’bout we just call you that?”

  Beneath him Lita said, “Dude… I like Stone Robot. Let’s just call me Stone Robot.”

  Cutter settled in. The sun was definitely dropping in the sky. He wondered how far away this town the Shopkeeper had mentioned would actually be. He didn’t like the idea of sleeping out here in this desolate blankness. For that matter, how the heck could a world just be… blank?

  It didn’t matter. Before they reached the town they encountered an island of grass, trees and crops, and the waving hands of a little blue man.