Victor

  So there I was standing dumbfounded, looking at this strange woman who up until this point had been speaking some unearthly language. Then she went and invaded my personal space, did something to me, and now she was speaking English.

  She once again placed a hand to her breast and lowered her head, "then please allow me to thank you once again, O brave hero torn from the heavens. Had it not been for your timely arrival those assassins surely would have ended my life this night."

  "Huh? Assassins? What do you mean?"

  The woman waved her hands towards the crushed and crumpled remains strewn about and said, "these men were sent to murder me. They attacked my carriage and killed everyone in my retinue before pursuing me. But then you appeared, and flattened them with your contraption"

  Contraption? The unadulterated audacity…I pointed to the car, my brow furrowing, "hey now you see here! That is not a contraption. I will have you know that this is a 1967 Cadillac deVille equipped with a 7L V8 engine capable of 340 horsepower and 480 pounds of torque, it comes out of the box with a turbo hydra-matic transmission, a positraction differential, and a leather interior. I've been meticulously caring for this car and I've even made some modifications of my own - such as a new stereo system and a retrofitted transmission…contraption. Humph". I crossed my arms.

  She held her hands up, "my word, you're certainly passionate about it. Do forgive me, I didn't mean to cause you any offense."

  I blanched, "er um. I'm sorry too I shouldn't have snapped like that - I'm still rather shook up about what happened. Speaking of which, you got any ideas of what just happened?"

  She placed a finger on her chin and wagged her head ever so slightly. Oh stop, please, not the Ema Skye pose. I can only take so much cute. Yeah, I'd played that game on a long flight - what of it?

  "I think that you were summoned here. From my perspective, a portal-like opening appeared in thin air and you came out of it in your," she paused, and slowly sounded out "Ca-dil-lac."'

  I scratched my head, "summoned here, huh? Well that begs the question - where is here exactly, and for that matter, who are you?"

  She started again, a hand over her mouth, "my apologies! I failed to formally introduce myself," she grabbed the hem of her skirt, lifting slightly, and executed a curtsy, "I am Illiana, fourth princess of the elf kingdom of Anaura, daughter of King Illorend II. At the risk of belaboring the matter, you have my eternal gratitude for having saved my life. I would have your name as well, sir hero."

  Elf kingdom. So, she was an elf of some sort as I suspected; I didn't want to say it though. It still seemed unreal. Wait, what was that other thing she said? Something about being a-

  "P-p-princess?" I sputtered, then cleared my throat and stood erect as though I were one of those stiff royal guards at Buckingham palace, "your um, highness, it is an um, honor to meet you, I am Victor Alexander Kirkland; I come from San Antonio, Texas, in the USA."

  The princess tilted her head quizzically, "I do not know those names. Is that somewhere across the Wide Sea?"

  I shook my head, "no, your highness," I said, sighing deeply, "the truth is, I suspect that I've come from another world."

  "Another world?"

  I nodded, "yeah. I started to suspect something was up when I looked at the sky. On Earth we only have one moon and it's kind of a silver gray, and I didn't see any of the stars I was familiar with either. I've seen enough scifi to know that the wrong number of moons generally equals not being on Earth. Then of course there's you."

  "Me?"

  "Y-yeah. We don't have elves where I come from, anywhere, except in fiction. Books, movies, anime, games and the like."

  She stared in confusion, "Movies? Anime?"

  Ah, the swords should have been my first clue but if this gal didn't even know what a movie was, then that settled it - wherever I had wound up was only advanced to about the medieval times of my world. Great. A world of swords and sorcery? Oh. Sorcery.

  "Never mind," I waved my hand, "I actually had another question - does magic exist in this world?"

  The princess nodded, "aye, in fact it is because of magic that you and I are presently able to converse. That spell I cast upon you, Comprehension, allows you to understand the speech of any sentient being."

  "Huh. That seems handy," I mused, "so how long does it last for?"

  "With the amount of power I put into it, just over a day I believe."

  "Amazing…what else can you do?"

  "Alas, nothing spectacular at the moment - I've used up so much magic energy that I can only manage the most basic of utility spells. But when I've rested I can heal wounds, abolish disease from a person's body, and manipulate nature to a degree. I am also quite good with wind magic, if I do say so myself."

  Her ears drooped, "I'm only a novice at earth and water magic though. Huh. So who decided to name your world after a synonym for dirt anyway?"

  I laughed, "you got me. What, isn't this world named after your word for ground too?"

  "No, of course not, our world's name means beautiful home."

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  I smiled, well you do learn something new every day, but..."What now?" I said aloud.

  "Now I suppose I must needs hie myself home immediately. I fear that these men may not have acted alone - my sisters, my brothers, and my father may all be in danger. I must warn them!"

  I shrugged, "all right. Reckon I'll give you a ride then. Where's there a road?"

  The princess pointed off in one direction, "the way I fled from. The carriage is probably still there, as well as," she stopped, her face darkened.

  Of course. The ones who she left behind. "All right. Let's figure out how to get my car through the woods and we'll give your friends a proper burial, how about that?"

  She sniffled, but managed a nod and a slight smile. Before anything else we set about searching this world's first victims of vehicular manslaughter for anything useful or valuable. The princess explained that this world had a finder's keeper's policy when it came to the belongings of monsters and bandits - essentially, people caught in a self-defense situation and won had the right of plunder.

  That and the fact that I did play a bit of a certain famous massively multiplayer online role playing game back in high school made me a bit more comfortable with the idea of looting corpses. All told we found six swords, twelve daggers, six glass vials full of red liquid, one vial full of green liquid, some kind of trail food resembling thick crackers - wait, this is obviously hardtack, a snuffbox, and a long manzanita stick which the princess assured me was a magic wand.

  I wasn't terribly interested in any of the weapons - after all, I had already packed a bowie knife and rifle for my hunting trip - but the princess assured me that they were of a fine quality and could be sold. Their armor was rendered unusable due to all of the blood and gore which had soaked them thoroughly - gambeson, huh? Here I thought brigands and assassins would wear leather. Damn lying games.

  We packed up all of the extra stuff into the trunk of my car and I had the princess sit in the passenger seat. The princess explained to me the general lay of the land - normally I wouldn't want to try off-roading it in an unfamiliar forest but it sounded like it wasn't a very far trip, the land was relatively flat, and the trees weren't very thick. Furthermore, she mentioned that her people possessed a sixth sense about forests and could navigate them with greater ease than a human could.

  The sound of my engine turning on startled her at first, but she settled in quickly otherwise. On the way she told me the full story about what happened in detail - I no longer felt any guilt about having accidentally killed those guys.

  With her guidance, we managed to make our way to the main road - it was a somewhat wide dirt road, not a fancy roman road or anything of the sort, but it wasn't a particularly windy one. Sure enough, there it was - a scene of absolute carnage. There was an overturned carriage and a veritable ocean of blood. There were three more bodies clad in the same outfit as the assassins from before, as well as a number of dead men in armor - they had pointy ears just like the princess.

  Fuck. Those bastards had even killed the horses! I hopped out of the car and peered inside the carriage; as expected there was a dead elf maiden inside. Ugh. No way I was gonna get used to seeing stuff like this. I had done my part, served in the army as a mechanic, but I'd never actually seen active combat - in other words, I saw my first real corpses today.

  This one may have been the most recent in a string of sightings, but by far it was the one that made me sickest - here was an innocent girl. Not a soldier who knew the risks when he signed up, nor a wretched thug entering the "finding out" stage…just a girl with a ponytail. From what I'd heard though, she was also very brave. She put her life on the line so that the princess could escape and I'm a sucker for loyalty. But still, she didn't deserve this.

  I thought, "I can't let the princess see her like this."

  I opened the trunk of my car and pulled out a blanket, one of the two picnic blankets I'd brought, which I laid upon the maiden's corpse. When I was finished, I saw that the princess was already tearfully collecting something from the bodies of the spearmen - a small medallion of some metal, perhaps tin.

  "What are those?"

  "Their identification badges," she said, "all members of the royal army wear them."

  Oh, dog tags, only these were perfect circles. Interesting how some ideas crop up even on other worlds. "That makes sense. You'll need to inform their next of kin and such. Um, so what sort of burial rituals do your people have anyway? Is it okay burying them by the roadside?"

  She nodded, solemnly, "yes, although, I fear we won't have the time to do it properly especially with such a long journey ahead."

  "How long are we talking here?"

  "It was…about twenty leagues to my home city from here."

  Twenty leagues? I wondered, "um so when you say league you mean-"

  "The amount of distance an average person can walk in an hour."

  I nodded, "so the word means roughly the same thing here as it does back in my world. That makes things easier. So if it's three miles to the league that means-" I laughed. A deep belly laugh.

  This startled the princess, "huh? What is it?"

  I crossed my arms and smirked confidently, "your enemies probably think you're dead, right? And they're probably operating under the assumption that you're at least two days out by carriage, am I right?"

  "I suppose, but what are you-"

  I smote my chest, "I've got a plan. We're going to seal them bodies in the carriage so they don't get preyed on, hightail it to your home, warn your pops, and then send back people to help with the burials."

  "Huh?" Her eyes widened in shock "but how?"

  I stuck a thumb out, and gave the hood of my car a good lovetap. "Just leave it to me, princess."

  Something about the way I said that seemed to have put her at ease, and she nodded resolutely. Oh! The way she furrowed her brow there, now that's a look of courage; what a nice surprise! As a first step I checked the edge of the forest for signs of passage; sure enough there were traces of footprints leading from the road into the wood, and a bit further in I found evidence of horses lying in wait.

  Hoofprints going deeper into the forest; in the immortal words of Cesar "they go cross country". Ha, you thought I meant Julius and not Vialpando? Once the carriage had been emptied of luggage and supplies, I loaded the dead elves into the carriage and then set about looking for ways to keep them safe for a few days.

  The windows had iron bars on them, which was helpful, and the carriage itself was just off the path so it wouldn't be in anyone's way. From the trunk I produced a very special piece of cloth - a camouflage sheet that I was planning to use to cover the car up while on the hunt. You know the sort, the kind that's cut to look like foliage. It was big enough to where it almost covered the stagecoach up completely - the rest I would supplement with tree branches gathered from nearby.

  Even if it got stolen by scavengers, well, it's not like I was gonna be able to go hunting now. Shoot, and I'd bought an out of state license and tags too. Once satisfied with my work I instructed the princess to get in the car once more - this time I insisted that she fasten her seatbelt. I turned the engine on.

  "Hang on tight," I said, then I stepped on the gas. The princess let out a surprised cry. Now, usually the '67 Deville went from zero to sixty in nine seconds - with the modifications I'd made, I had managed to get that down to seven.

  Realization seemed to dawn on the princess, why I had been so confident before; she never imagined that my "strange contraption" could have reached such speeds. We were off, with not a moment to lose.

  So there I was, cruisin' another world in my Cadillac.