Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2016 15:22:04 +0000
From: George Gauthier <georgegauthierdc@gmail.com>
Subject: Elf-Boy's Friends 30

			Elf-Boy's Friends 30
			Corps of Discovery
 			by George Gauthier

[The further adventures of characters from the novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends']

			Chapter 1. Autogyros

"Axel, you're back!" Drew Altair cried happily as his roommate, friend, and
lover walked into their suite of rooms at their residential hotel in the
capital. Seated at his desk in his study, proofing the galleys of his
latest book, as always when he was at home Drew was in a state of nature,
putting his trim and taut body totally on display, a sensual combination of
intellectuality and physicality.

"Hello Drew. Yes, I'm back though it's just me and the twins. Corwin is
still in Amazonia. The other three members of the Klarendes clan are in
Elysion along with our druid friends. And Sir Willet is resting at home."

"You look like you could do with a good rest yourself, Axel. You are as
worn out as I have ever seen you."

"That's true enough, but it is less a physical exhaustion than a tiredness
of the soul."

"The horrors of war, eh?"

"Exactly, and I don't just mean the terrible things our enemies did but
also what we did. It is worse when you are not just an eyewitness but a
participant. I know we had to do those things, and that we are the good
guys, but all that killing and destruction isn't easy to live with. Anyway,
what have you been up to lately, Drew? Besides working on your book."

"Taking flying lessons."

"Huh? You can fly just fine already with one of those yokes."

"This is with my new autogyro. I am putting it through its paces. The
latest model has a stronger rotor and wings for greater lift. The Army Air
Corps lets me keep my autogyro at a landing field not far from here so I
can use it on official business such as when I am called to duty with the
reserves for relief work in earthquakes and floods. Flying gets me to the
scene so much faster than conventional transportation. Sure I could fly
with a yoke, but that would tire me out just getting to the scene."

"I also bought one of Eike's new model bicycles for local travel for
visiting or for fun, but I also ride to office and when on assignment
around the capital. It has an improved chain drive, though I can roll it
along telekinetically. The twins of course will have to pedal theirs. Yours
is stored next to mine on the ground floor, a present from your father."

"Sounds good. You'll have to take me up in your aerocraft. With your
strength in telekinesis I'll bet it can go really fast."

"That's true, though I won't use it for anything as frivolous as
racing. Like the bicycle my autogyro is a means of transportation, not a
toy, a much better way of getting around than on horseback."

Axel nodded his understanding.

Drew was only passable as a horseman. Riding always made his short legs
ache from having to stretch them around the barrel of his mount, even with
ponies. The fact is that Drew simply did not like horses. They smelled,
they sweated, they made the rider work at posting when in a trot, which
unfortunately was the gait horses used to cover any real distance. And
horses had minds of their own, and dim ones at that. They might startle and
rear up, dumping their rider butt first on the hard ground or take the bit
in their teeth and go haring off at a gallop leaving their hapless rider
hanging on to the saddle horn for dear life, though a fetcher like Drew
could always Lift himself out of the saddle telekinetically via the wooden
yoke built into his leather cuirass. Bicycles and autogyros were far
superior as personal transportation.

Smiling slyly Drew added:

"You'll never guess who is taking flying lessons with me. Two someones
actually."

"It can't be Liam. He is on duty with the Navy and Nathan. And Eike may
have invented the autogyro, but he cannot propel it. OK, I give up. Just
tell me."

"The first flyer is none other than our friend and lover Finn Ragnarson!"

"Finn! A flyer? How is that even possible? Finn's no fetcher."

"Finn uses his control over the planetary magnetic field to push the steel
frame of his autogyro. As you know his magical powers have grown stronger
over the past few years. And he is physically stronger too now thanks to
Dahl and the New Forest."

"Before they left on campaign the druids helped a chosen few establish a
psychic connection to the New Forest which changed their constitutions much
as with Aodh and Madden Sexton only the Forest and the druids worked most
of the magic. These changes include tensile fibers to make bones stronger,
denser muscles, more resilient tendons and ligaments, sharper sight and
hearing -- the works. Finn's not any bigger, mind you, just stronger, able
now to draw even more physical power from lightning without overtaxing his
constitution."

"No poison claws or sonic weapons, of course. Finn is plenty formidable
already as a Frost Giant cum avatar of a thunder god especially since he
can now throw lightning bolts directly at a target not just rain them down
from the sky."

"Oh and Thor -- I mean Finn -- has a new war hammer too. It was a gift from
the dwarves of New Varangia for services to their community. Finn tracked
down renegades who were raiding and looting their caverns. The dwarves
forged the steel hammerhead from an ultra-alloy of meteoric iron which they
named Uru in keeping with the legend of Thor. It's twice the weight of the
old Mjolnir though shaped the same with octagonal faces. The haft is part
ironwood for strength and part ash for flexibility."

"What's this about a new hammer?" Jemsen asked as the twins walked into the
room. Having dropped their soiled army uniforms in the laundry basket, the
twins had showered but hadn't bothered putting anything on afterwards. They
weren't particularly trying to be sexy. Jemsen and Karel simply preferred
going around skin-clad as their good friends the elves called their
clothing free life style.

So Drew had to go over everything again, just as for Axel.

Karel nodded:

"It looks like all of us roommates can take to the skies, one way or
another. Drew and now Finn too can propel an autogyro; Drew and Liam can
fly with a yoke, I can fly too, though only clumsily with the aid of those
bat wing extensions to the yokes, and Jemsen can Lift himself by countering
the force of gravity. While he cannot fly hither and yon, the ability to
Lift yourself out of trouble can come in handy."

"And I," Axel noted, "can Jump anywhere not already occupied by something
solid, like up in the air."

"I wondered about that." Jemsen said. "So on your arrival your body just
pushes the air out of your way?"

"Actually I don't push the air aside mechanically with my body as you
thought. Instead the magic displaces the air from where I am arriving to
the void I created when I teleported. Which is why it all happens so
quietly. There is no tattletale sound to give me away, which is important
to an army sniper."

"Ah!"

"You never said who else was taking flying lessons with you. And no I won't
even try to guess."

"OK, Axel. I'll just tell you straight out that it is Finn's boss, Baron
Jarmond.

"Baron Jarmond, the Chief Hand of the Commonwealth?"

"None other. He's a fetcher too, you know."

"Actually I didn't know."

"So fellas, why not come with me to the airfield tomorrow morning? Oh and
we'll bring Eike too. He is always happy to explain how his inventions
work."

"Fine," the three returnees said, "but why isn't Finn staying here with
us?"

"Because he's been Baron Jarmond's house guest during their flight
training. If you can believe it those two are getting quite chummy. I am
sure though that Jarmond will understand if Finn wants to bunk with us from
now on."

"Bunk with us?" Karel asked. "You mean punk us. Don't you?"

Jemsen rolled his eyes while Drew and Axel shook their heads. That was
Karel all right, always ready with a quip or a bad pun. And when he wasn't
ready then Jemsen was.

The next day the boys rode out to the airfield on Eike's new model bicycles
which featured two wheels of the same size, a horizontal frame, and a drive
train where the pedals drove the rear wheel rather than the front via a
toothed belt which engaged both the drive sprocket under the down tube and
and the hub of the rear wheel.

Having the pedals under the saddle allowed for an upright posture which let
the rider stand up on the pedals and put his weight on them when climbing
steep slopes. Also with the chain drive the pedals stayed in one place
compared to pedals on a front wheel that turned left and right when that
wheel turned to steer the bicycle.

The residential streets along the way were lined with sturdy stone-built
town houses and brick tenements three or four stories high. Shade trees
grew out of tree boxes or the larger patches of ground called rain gardens,
built and planted to absorbed rain water. Flowers in window boxes and
planters were ubiquitous.

A system of aqueducts, sewers, public and private latrines, and storm
drains kept the paved streets dry, clean, and mostly odor free, especially
since the sharp decline in animal drayage due to the prevalence of
bicycles, tricycle cabs, push carts operated by Frost Giants to deliver ice
or as ambulances, and delivery vans, canal barges, and street cars powered
by fetchers.

Canals and tributaries of the Long River crisscrossed the city dividing it
into districts connected by bridges. A short sets of steps at each end
indicated a pedestrian bridge while the strongest and widest bridges were
for wheeled traffic. Every so often the network of residential streets was
interrupted by tracts set aside for amenities like parks, public gardens,
schools, palestra, athletic fields, and temples to the various
pantheons. Often situated nearby were the red brick dormitories called
youth lodges where the town's youth dwelt till they came of age.

Nearly half of the capital's inhabitants were of mostly human stock with
complexions ranging from pearly white through peaches-and-cream to light
olive though many were tawny from constant exposure the sun, especially the
young males. The rest of the populace were elves, dwarves, and giants who
resided either in their own districts or in dwellings or at least in homes
with furnishings sized to match their dimensions but otherwise intermingled
with the other races.

Axel and his friends passed happy school children skipping their way to
class, groups of bare-ass youths at the athletic fields engaged in
scrimmages or flinging the Gemini Zinger around, artisans and clerks
commuting to work on foot, by bicycle, or by fetcher powered street
car. Frost giants pushed ice delivery carts. A crowds was gathered at the
weekly farmers' market in one district while an election rally filled a
square in another.

It was just an ordinary morning really, but it reminded Axel that the
Commonwealth was a decent society, one where ordinary people could lead
good lives, raise families, and realize the potential of their gifts,
natural and magical. It was a society worth fighting to preserve. Seeing
all that helped put the horrors of war in perspective.

At the airfield Drew got to show off his brand new autogyro. Its plywood
fuselage was shiny red on top but blue grey below to make it harder to pick
out against the sky. Its streamlined body and sleek lines showed it was
built for speed.

But it was Finn's aerocraft that stole the show. Custom-built and sized
specially for him, the first frost giant ever to take to the air, the
autogyro had a steel frame and a cockpit large enough to accommodate even
Finn's eight-foot height and six hundred pounds of mass. The wings and
rotors were longer and stronger too as well as the control surfaces at the
end of the tail which controlled pitch and yaw.

Like all personal autogyros it was a two-seater with separate wells for
each passenger open to the sun though with a windshield of safety glass to
deflect the flow of air. The nose was decorated with a heraldic device
consisting of a shield with a hammer dexter and a lightning bolt sinister
to proclaim the aerocraft as the personal transport of Finn Ragnarson,
avatar of Thor Odinson, thunder god of the Norse, the remote ancestors of
the Frost Giants.

"It cost twice as much as Drew's new autogyro," Eike explained. "Though a
government grant covered only the price of an ordinary model, Finn chipped
in the rest."

"That's right." Finn confirmed. "I may not be as wealthy as you guys, but I
am a person of means and that's without counting the handsome salary we
Hands are paid. With this aerocraft I am as mobile as you humans are riding
horses only faster."

Frost Giants were much too large and heavy for horses. So they had to go on
foot all the time or ride in a conveyance.

To get around Finn might ride in a coach driven by a human teamsters but no
frost giant ever handled the team himself. It made no sense for a giant to
be a teamster. That was simple economics. A team of horses could haul only
so much weight, but the driver himself was deadweight, neither a paying
passenger nor profitable freight. Better then that the driver be a
lightweight human or possibly an elf massing only a quarter or a fifth of a
giant, thereby increasing the payload.

That was how Finn and Drew and the twins had met Liam who had started out
as as a coachman, a coach-boy really, in New Varangia. The frost giants had
invited humans from the Western Plains to settle among them to care for and
drive the teams of horses which hauled freight and passengers on the new
roads the Commonwealth had built across their new homeland. The nomads of
the Western Plains were born to horses.

The only teams frost giants themselves ever drove were the aurochs who drew
their plows.

Finn reminisced:

"The only time I was ever traveled mounted was in New Varangia atop that
friendly brontothere we named Tyr after the smaller of Haven's two
moons. Now there was a mount. Talk about heavy cavalry!"

Karel brightened. Here was a chance to tell his "lancer" joke again, but a
small shake of Jemsen's head warned Karel to curb his enthusiasm for the
lame quip out of consideration for Axel.

"Finn is getting to be a pretty fair pilot." Baron Jarmond assured them,
"though he'll never be able to match the acrobatics of the picked team of
the Army Air Corps. Now those boys can make one of these beauties loop the
loop!"

"It sounds like you yourself are really enjoying flying, Baron Jarmond."
Axel enthused.

"Son, flying is the most fun I've had wearing clothes in... let's just say
in more years than I usually care to own up to!"

That brought a chuckle from Jarmond's interlocutors. You didn't often get
to see the Chief Hand of the Commonwealth in so informal a setting or with
him in so relaxed and jocular a mood.

Tall and lean and with a stern no-nonsense look Jarmond was ordinarily not
the most congenial of men though that was partly by design. It went with
the job. Jarmond could be friendly and talkative when he allowed himself to
be. It was a mark of Jarmond's trust and confidence in Finn that he had set
aside the mask he usually presented to the world.

"My powers as a fetcher are modest. I am just strong enough to get myself
into the air and fly with one of those yokes, but it is not easy for
me. This autogyro lets me fly long and far without exhausting myself."

"Mind you, my powers were always formidable enough in combat. It doesn't
take much strength in telekinesis to yank eyeballs out of your opponent's
skull or to grab the blade out of his hand to disarm him. And once I
learned how Drew whirled a pair of steel spheres as weapons, I added a pair
to my own armamentarium. I also like having the ability to soar out of
harm's way or zip along the nap of the earth far faster than I can run or a
horse can for that matter."

"Now we have three pilots and three aerocraft" he continued. "So who wants
to go up for a ride?"

They all did, and so they did, and a good time was had by all. Who doesn't
enjoy the thrill of flight, the speed, the acrobatics, and the feeling from
on high that you are the lord of all you surveyed? The flight of an
autogyro is quiet and smooth and pretty much always on an even keel. Pilots
pitched the aerocraft forward only during acrobatics or for an emergency
descent. And you never banked an autogyro with ailerons as you would one of
the rigid wings which the Navy used for long range patrols. The stubby
wings of an autogyro were strictly for lift. They didn't even have
ailerons.

Afterwards all of them except Baron Jarmond repaired to one of their
favorite restaurants in Twinkle Town, where Konrad Quentin the proprietor
welcomed the party of regulars to the Sign of the Whale. In honor of Axel's
and the twins' safe return from the war he sent a couple of bottles of
sparkling wine to their table, on the house.

Despite his proportions Finn had no trouble finding a seat. Quentin catered
to all races, and all that a giant really needed was a larger and sturdier
chair. The tables might be a tad low for them. Humans and elves found them
a tad high -- that was all. Dwarves found the tables just the right height
since they perched themselves atop tall stools. High chairs made for human
or elven toddlers were too flimsy for the heavy boned and strongly muscled
dwarves.

As always Finn lived up to the Frost Giants' reputation as
trenchermen. Which was why restaurants had to charge higher prices for
servings sized for giants. Nobody overindulged in alcoholic beverages. Much
as Frost Giants liked to cite their hoary proverb that cold beer was surely
proof that the gods loved us and wanted us to be happy, that was mostly
talk. With their size they could put it away and not show it or even feel
it really. Beer was drunk not the effect but for the taste , to complement
a meal.

Little guys like Drew and Axel really had to watch how much they drank,
especially when the Frost Giants ordered the potent peach schnapps for
which they were justifiably famous and which could affect even them.

As they toasted their good fortune, Finn lifted his glass of schnapps and
assured his friends that the fiery libation would put hair on their chests
and maybe elsewhere.

"Gosh, I sure hope not!" Karel wailed facetiously.

Everyone knew that the healing magic which had prolonged their lives and
their youth had permanently suppressed the growth of beard and body
hair. All of them prized the smooth and glabrous look everywhere on their
bodies, not only on their chests and limbs, but even at the fork of their
legs.

That evening Finn brought his gear over from Jarmond's place. He would bunk
with the twins. Drew spent the night in Axel's bedchamber. The reunited
couple had a lot of time to make up for. Aside from Liam, Drew was Axel's
closest friend with the twins not far behind. All of them were lovers
though each had other close attachments as well such as Finn with the twins
and Drew, Drew with Corwin Klarendes, and Liam with Nathan and Eike, and
the twins with Aodh and Dahl.

Axel's and Drew's lovemaking that night was less about lust and sexual
release and more about companionship and physical and emotional
closeness. Drew might be a social butterfly with many casual lovers, but no
one knew better than he the difference between mere recreational sex and
the kind of romantic love, the true love they all shared.

			Chapter 2. What Next?

"So that was when Sir Willet suggested I talk with you about how I might
use my powers constructively."

Axel was explaining to Drew about his recent bout of despondency and how
Sir Willet had counseled him to find a constructive outlet for his powers
and talents.

"Sir Willet is right about that. I've been to war more often than I care to
remember. It comes with the territory as a war correspondent. That's a job
somebody has to do to keep the public informed, and since I am good at it,
it might as well be me, and that's no brag. I don't sugar coat the
brutality of war in my reportage, something my public respects me for."

"Besides all that, I do like to think I have made a positive contribution,
not only with my journalism and my best selling books, but also with with
rescue work. You get a lot of satisfaction saving victims of earthquakes
and floods. When you free a mother and child from a collapsed house that
might have become their tomb, well it gets to you. Or even lifting a mama
cat and her kittens stranded in the loft of a barn by a flood."

"Most of all I am proudest of being named a Peacemaker. As you know the
twins and Finn and I were the catalysts for the process which produced
lasting peace and prosperity in the Far West. Our efforts helped prevent a
nightmare scenario of decades of war, insurrection, slaughter, and
destruction that would have taken hundreds of thousands of lives and left
millions destitute amid the ruins."

"You're can be proud of being a Peacemaker yourself, Axel. You were a
catalyst for making friends with the brontotheres in New Varangia, the
Medkari in the Hot Lands, and the orcs in the Eastern Mountains and now
with your brontothere allies against the trolls in the campaign to save the
Amazons. So never doubt that you are a good person or that you haven't made
this troubled world of ours a better place for good people to live."

"Thanks for that, Drew, but what's next? I'd like to do something positive
as with your recurring call-ups for rescue work, only I have no idea
what. Any suggestions?"

"Nothing specific, only that I don't think the civil authorities really
need a Jumper. These days rescue workers can get to the scene fast enough
in autogyros flying from the many airfields that have been built during the
last few years, not just for the military but for air mail, passenger air
lines, and air freight."

The autogyro had revolutionized aviation. No longer was flying the
exclusive province of the military and civilian enthusiasts. The postal
service used autogyros to distribute a premium class of mail between
between regional distribution points. One very long route linked the
Commonwealth proper with New Varangia and the Far West. A much shorter
route over the the Great Inland Freshwater Sea served the Scilly Isles,
while a third route hopped over the northern end of the Eastern Mountains
to the town of Harben, an important terminus of iron-roads.

Stretch versions of the autogyro with broad wings transported eight
passengers on flights that cut the transit time to a fraction of its normal
duration. More recently companies had used the transports to offer freight
service for lightweight, high-value, and time-sensitive cargo.

One example was cut-flowers and starter pots of medicinal and culinary
herbs difficult to grow from seed. The elves had created an industry to
supply blossoms to the major cities. Flower shops were no longer limited to
what grew locally but could offer exotic blooms nurtured by the Green
Thumbs elves were famous for. The elves consigned their flowers to
auctioneers and florists. The culinary herbs were sold to wholesalers who
in turn sold on to green groceries and such while the local Associations of
Healers handled sales and distribution of medical herbs, some of which were
not only hard to grow from seed but had to be fresh rather than dried.

"Meanwhile" Drew continued, "let's go out for a run. All right we work in
offices but that's no excuse to slack off and not keep fit. You never know
when we might be sent out to the field again."

"Nor has it escaped my attention," Axel observed shrewdly, "that a run
through the park would give you a chance to show off that trim and taut
body you love to flaunt."

"And who would know better than a journalist like myself that it pays to
advertise?" Drew gave back.

"Which is why onlookers so often conclude that you are a rent boy trolling
for custom." Axel said.

"I'd make a good living at it, if I were. You have to give me that, Axel."

Axel just shook his head at his friend's brazenness, but then that was part
of his charm, wasn't it? No one ever called Drew Altair a shrinking violet.

With that the boys took off, running slow and easy as they warmed up and
then picked up the pace. It was a fine day for a run, sunny but not too hot
with a pleasant breeze blowing. The runners loped along the running paths
of a nearby park, arms pumping, legs scissoring metronomically, sweat
glistening on their glabrous skins. Axel always liked to feel the kiss of
the sun's warmth on his bare bum. It made him feel that much more naked and
sexy.

The two runners made a striking pair: short, slight of build, boyishly
cute, lithe, clean-limbed, hard bodied, and evenly tanned from much time
spent outdoors in the nude. Both were red-heads, Axel a copper-top and Drew
an auburn haired beauty. Thanks to the druidical healing magic which had
enhanced their constitutions the boys practically glowed with good health
and sex appeal. They turned heads as they ran past. Both guys and gals did
double-takes asking themselves how anyone could be so good-looking much
less two someones.

Drew and Axel took that as no more than was their due. It wasn't mere
vanity to acknowledge the simple truth that they were extraordinarily cute
and sexy. They both would admit to being shameless show-offs, but where was
the harm in that? Boys with their sort of good looks practically had a
moral obligation to share their physical beauty with the world at large, or
so they maintained, only half in jest.

The pair recognized a trio of elven runners they encountered as the wine
boys from the Sign of the Whale. Wine boys ran regularly not only to keep
their bodies pleasing to customers but also to troll for custom, though
only to advertise. When accosted they just told their admirers to come by
the restaurant to arrange a tryst.

Wine boys would never do anything so low-class as to duck into the bushes
with chance-met males. That sort of thing was for boys of the street. Wine
boys were near the top of the hierarchy of rent boys which ran, in
ascending order of exclusivity, from street boys, who were often amateurs,
to professionals like brothel boys, called boys, wine boys, and kept boys,
with elf-boys outranking humans in each stratum since they would stay young
and cute and sexy for centuries. Itinerant entertainers like minstrels and
acrobats and jugglers who also rented themselves out as a sideline fell
somewhere between brothel boys and called boys in the hierarchy.

Like Drew and Axel, the trio of wine boys loved to show off their sexy
bodies, which was not surprising. Wine boys were nearly as dedicated to a
skin-clad existence as elf-boys and this trio was both. Which was why they
didn't own a single item of clothing, and why no one had ever seen them
clothed or was likely to. That thought gave their clients an extra frisson
of naughtiness, thinking how utterly naked these bodies they grappled with
were.

The two groups of runners waved as they ran past headed in opposite
directions. The wine boys knew that Drew and Axel were not the competition;
indeed the pair would always direct anyone who asked them for an
assignation to the Sign of the Whale.

A little while later even while the sun shone bright a gentle rain began to
fall. The boys laughed as they ran through the sun shower enjoying the
cooling effect of what was only a drizzle. Axel's runner's high had
brightened his mood as Drew had hoped. He looked over at Axel and said:

"Don't you just love the feel of the rain on your body? I know I do. It's
practically erotic, flowing over me, touching me everywhere at once like a
lover with a hundred hands, and making me feel so very naked."

Axel shook his head.

"Shameless!" he chided facetiously.

"Utterly!" Drew agreed, a big grin on his face.

The next day Axel consulted the wizards and mages who worked at or visited
the Institute of Wizardy and Magic but were not actual war wizards. These
wizards and mages focussed on practical applications for magic in other
fields from agriculture to transport to communications. It was this group
that had thought of using infrasound for long distance communication and
devised the aural version of the code employed by heliographers.

The wizards often trained the delvers who worked for the civil
authorities. Anyone intending to excavate in the big cities for foundations
or to dig up the streets needed a permit which included an on-site
inspection by a delver so the digging would not damage underground
utilities or weaken the foundations of neighboring buildings, etc.

More recently air wizards had teamed with industrialists to use air mirrors
to generate intense heat for metallurgical and alchemical processes. A
parabolic air mirror with a surface as shiny as a mirage could concentrate
the heat of the sun onto a very small target.

Solar firing was clean. It generated neither ash nor smoke nor dust and
left no alchemical residue behind. It provided steadier heat than that of
even a powerful firecaster, and it could be turned on and off with the
blink of an eye. If guided through a slit or hole in a refractory shield,
the narrow beam could cut shapes out of a steel plate faster than machine
tools. The steel plate itself likely had been forged in a crucible heated
by sun mirrored solar power.

Air wizards also aided navigation on the the Great Inland Freshwater
Sea. Normal winds filled the sails to provide the push to move the vessel,
but a jet of air from the port or starboard quarter helped steer it on a
more direct course, or bent the course closer to straight when tacking left
and right against the wind. That got ships to their destinations faster and
let them keep to a published schedule of arrivals and departures, something
practical in the past only for ferries across rivers, lakes, or bays.

The Navy recruited air wizards to help steer their vessels tactically in
combat or training exercises, giving it yet another qualitative advantage
over any potential adversary.

Axel learned a lot about how magic was being used for civil purposes, but
Jumpers were rare. Moreover jumpers could only reach points they could
actually see, including through a far-viewer. Jumping beyond the horizon
took a series of hops between visible landmarks. A truly long-distance jump
could be only to a location the jumper himself had once arrived at via a
space portal.

But the use of portals was very new. No other jumper had trained as Axel
had with war wizards, traveling via portal to dozens of strategic points
around the Commonwealth.  So only Axel might conceivably set up an instant
transport business, but that was not the kind of positive contribution he
hoped to make.

A couple of weeks of consulting and research in the Institute's library
eliminated a lot of impractical or unappealing possibilities in Axel's
mind, but he still had not hit upon a really good idea, the kind that
jumped out at you and made you wonder how you had not thought of it right
away.

In Axel's case he got that idea from the twins. They suggested that Axel's
talent would be ideal for exploration. Jemsen pointed out that there were
areas on the continent of Valentia about which little was known except for
travelers' tales and sketchy maps. Karel picked up on his idea about
exploration.

"Exploration by autogyro! That's the answer to Axel's despondency and to
Jemsen's and my wanderlust. Remember we two started out as hunters and
explorers. Then, after we hooked up with Balandur and Dahl and Aodh, we
crossed much of the continent and later the Hot Lands. And we two lead the
epic Long March of the Frost Giants to New Varangia."

"And since those early days," Jemsen continued, "there were our expeditions
to the Far West and later to the Barren Lands now called South
Varangia. You were with us Axel on that one. And more recently the war
wizards took you through a whole bunch of portals, which would provide us a
wide choice of jumping off points, you should pardon the expression, for a
venture into the unknown. How about it Axel? Are you game? And what about
you Finn?"

"Count me in!" Axel enthused. This would be history's first exploration via
autogyro and with a jumper along as well, though I am not sure just what my
role would be."

"First off you would transport the whole team, the autogyros, and the
supplies to the er, jumping off point, again no pun intended." Karel
said. "Also you can jump anyplace you can see, right? We won't always be
able to land our autogyros every place we want to examine close as in dense
forest cover. So you could jump yourself and maybe another of us down to
the ground.  Also a series of short hops would make it easy to thoroughly
examine an area much faster and without effort or sweat. And your powers
would be handy in a tactical situation to jump us out of danger. Look how
effective your powers were against the trolls."

"Count me in too," Finn said, "One benefit of being a Dread Hand of the
Commonwealth is the leeway we have to pick our own assignments. Many of
them anyway. This is just the kind of off-beat job we Hands relish. These
days Jarmond pretty much gives me a free hand."

"My presence will make the expedition an official venture letting us charge
expenses to the state exchequer. True, the cost would be trivial compared
to the financial resources any one of us commands, but an official
expedition could enlist the aide of officials and let us use public
facilities like airfields and hangers, visiting officers' quarters, local
transportation and so forth."

"I trust nobody will object if I appoint myself the commander of what we
should call our Corps of Discovery."

They all shook their heads. Finn was a natural leader and more important,
their leader. And didn't he look the part. Physically imposing, he stood
eight feet tall and weighed six hundred pounds. And despite his
well-deserved reputation as a trencherman, none of that was fat. And thanks
to his enhanced constitution and the strength he could draw from lightning,
he was three times stronger than normal. Finn might not be the largest of
the Frost Giants, but he was far and away the most physically powerful.

Jemsen pointed out that there must be unsuspected mineral resources out
there which just begged to be discovered by an enterprising delver. And
wouldn't you know it, one such was one hand, or rather an earth wizard,
namely himself. His powers could not only find and identify buried ore
bodies but bring samples up to the surface for proper analysis later, in an
alchemical laboratory. And since Axel knew his way around an alchemical lab
he would analyze the samples.

Travel by autogyro would also let the team map and sketch the landforms
from their vantage point in the sky, dropping down from time to time to
survey the underlying geology.

The twins also realized that the maps and terrain sketches they would draw
during the expedition would allow them to expand the geographical coverage
of their successful line of maps and guides for commercial travelers and
tourists, a steady moneymaker over the years.

They might even gather enough material for another one in their popular
line of field guides. Published under their imprint Gemini Field Guides,
each volume described some aspect of the natural world. So far the imprint
had issued guides on land navigation, tracking, landforms, tree
identification, song birds, raptors (eagles, hawks, and owls), social
insects, and edible wild plants. The subject of the most recent guide was
the identification and care of ferns, cycads, and bromeliads, decorative
plants near and dear to their hearts.

Written and illustrated with maps and drawings by the twins, the field
guides were printed on sturdy linen rag paper for durability but with soft
covers and in a small format that let readers slip them into a pocket or
pack. In a sense the guides were the fruit of the endless questions the
insatiably curious twins had plied their sometimes exasperated
interlocutors with over the years, offering the excuse that questions where
how you learned things not written down in books. Now they were, at least
on the subjects covered by their field guides.

The twins were the only members of their circle without a formal
job. Nevertheless and despite their wealth they had no use for
idleness. Leisure, fun, and frolic were all part of a good life to be sure,
but they needed to be balanced by work, accomplishment, and adventure. In
between their many expeditions and missions they worked long hours in their
study at compiling, writing, drawing maps and illustrations, and revising
galley proofs. In between such short-term writing projects they continued
gathering material for a biography of their mentor the late great
Balandur. To do him justice would take more than than a single volume to
relate his many adventures during a life that spanned a millennium
including four centuries as a Dread Hand of the Commonwealth.

Finn raised an issue no one else had thought about, pointing out that their
company of adventurers would share the standard ten percent royalty for any
mineral rights discovered on public lands.

"Friends, even with only one part in ten divided among all of us, there are
fortunes to be made out there! We'll all be rich!"

"We already are." the twins chorused. "Or hadn't you noticed?"

"Our team should do more than just explore for minerals." Finn
continued. "This would be as much a diplomatic mission as an exploratory or
mapping expedition. We should visit the Medkari in the Hot Lands, a number
of elven vales, the caverns of dwarves, and the League of Independent Towns
strung along the Trade Road in the northwest. We might even push all the
way to the shores of the Northern Ocean."

"And as usual," Drew noted, "I'll do double duty as the keeper of the
expedition journal and as a reporter for the Capital Intelligencer. When we
get back I'll write a book about our adventures. I'll use your phrase Finn
as the title: Corps of Discovery, which not doubt will be another
bestseller and make us famous!"

"We already are." the twins chorused.  "Aren't we celebrated everywhere as
the famous twins Jemsen and Karel?"

"Not quite everywhere, not where we three have just been." Axel reminded
them. "Or is that memory just too painful to recall?"

Abashed, the twins fell uncharacteristically silent.

"Oh? Would one of you three care to explain?" Drew asked. "I sense a story
here."

"All right", Axel agreed. "I'll tell you how the famous twins got taken
down a peg, but only if it's not for publication."

			Chapter 3. The Corps of Discovery

The twins and Finn Ragnarson along with Drew and Axel and Eike were seated
around a table in a conference room at the Institute of Wizardry and Magic
talking over the plans for their expedition. A short while later they were
joined by the two forest rangers, the shape shifter Madden Sexton and the
elf-boy Dylan whom Drew and the twins had recruited for the expedition.

That left only one late arrival -- Liam. When he finally strolled in he
waved and said airily:

"Hi fellas. I just flew in by autogyro. Headwinds slowed me down, but no
harm done. It seems that I am only fashionably late after all."

"Glad to have you with us Liam," Finn said for all of them. "Now I knew you
could fly using a yoke to Lift yourself, but I hadn't heard that you had
trained on an autogyro too."

"I have." Pointing to the wings on the chest of his uniform, he
explained. "I took flight training both at the naval base at Alster and at
sea, flying from one of the Navy's new aerocraft carriers, as they are now
calling them. I've gotten to be a pretty fair pilot, if I do say so
myself."

"Fine, we've needed a third pilot, and now you are it. Thanks to Eike, I'll
be piloting my specially built autogyro with the twins in the passenger
seat. It has a steel frame, and since the cockpit is sized for a frost
giant, there is plenty of room for two slender human youths in back."

Eike enthused:

"It was actually Finn's idea to fly an autogyro with magnetic propulsion
rather than the telekinetic powers of a fetcher. This opens up a whole new
market for autogyros: masters of magnetism. And just like with fetchers,
you don't have to be particularly powerful. All is takes is a push to get
the air flowing over the wings and spinning the rotor. That is what
provides the lift. Well, the wings also help there too."

"Now Drew I expect you'll write an article on Finn and magnetic
propulsion. My company will soon advertise autogyros with steel frames to
those whose gifts give them control of magnetism. There aren't so many of
them as fetchers but that's still a good sized market."

"Sounds good." Karel said. "At the same time you should write an article in
your journal Magic describing how Jemsen and I got the druids to come clean
about how they levitated. I'll bet lots of earth wizards would like to
levitate with gravitational repulsion."

"Maybe it is time for a whole book about the development of flight, from
fetchers lifting their sandals to yokes and rigid wings, to autogyros with
magnetic, telekinetic, and counter gravitational propulsion. A complete
account can only burnish the credentials of all the Pioneers of Flight: you
twins, Axel, Nathan, and Eike."

"Let's add Finn to that list. It was he who thought up magnetic
propulsion." Axel proposed. Everyone nodded. Eike said he would mention it
to Admiral Van Zant who would get the ball rolling to make it official.

"So our expedition will comprise three aerocraft: Finn's custom job with
the twins in back, Drew in his speedster with Axel as his passenger, while
Liam can take up one of the new cargo transports with the rangers in the
passenger cabin. The transport will also carry our supplies and equipment
plus tools and spare parts."

"What about a mechanic?" Liam asked.

"Ideally it would be me." Eike pointed out, but the spoilsports in the Navy
won't let me out of their sight. They tell me that I am too valuable to
risk in the wilds."

"And we're not?" Liam asked but only rhetorically. Liam understood
perfectly how important Eike was to the future of the Commonwealth. What
might the young tinkerer not invent over the next half millennium or more.

"Which is why I have personally trained Axel in the care and maintenance of
my autogyros." Eike concluded.

Finn resumed his scrutiny of the forest rangers. He hadn't met them before
but was impressed right off by their demeanor and what Drew had told him of
their backgrounds.

Dylan was a dark- haired lad graced with the pretty-boy good looks and
willowy physique typical of elves. He had left the sylvan vale where he had
come of age to seek adventure, though not too so much he was ready to march
off to war. So he had taken a job as a forest ranger. Elves made good
rangers. Their woodcraft was unsurpassed. Many of those who left the vales
worked as hunters or trackers or hired out as scouts for the military or as
wilderness guides for hunters and tourists.

Dylan had the gift of Unerring Direction which helped not only with land
navigation but also with his archery. Then there was his gift of empathy
which was a big help in law enforcement and would let them better gauge the
people they encountered on their travels. Dylan's empathic sense would
detect covert hostility and treachery.

Dylan and the twins were good friends and lovers. The ranger had
immediately bonded with his fellow hunters and woodsmen Jemsen and
Karel. Dylan after all was an elf and the twins were elf-friends with all
that implies: going around skin clad as often as possible, same gender
sexual orientation, and a physical beauty beyond the norm.

It wasn't just a case of sexual attraction though that was a big part of
it. Dylan and the twins were just the same sort of people. And since they
could looked forward to centuries of youth, they hoped theirs would be a
lasting friendship.

The three youths certainly looked good together. Dylan was taller than the
twins and darkly handsome with the glabrous skin, lithe build, and smooth
musculature of his kind. Dark eyes twinkled over the killer cheekbones
characteristic of his race. For their part the twins were a pair of
palomino colts who exuded good health and sex appeal.

His partner was something else. A ruggedly handsome human looking to be no
more than thirty with brown hair and a physique like Finn Ragnarson's only
scaled down to six feet, Madden Sexton was powerfully built and massed two
hundred fifty pounds of muscle and bone and sinew. Definitely a tough
customer, he was a man who could clearly hold his own in a fight whether in
his human form or when he morphed into his animal shape.

Sexton was a wir or shapeshifter much like Aodh except he transformed into
a wolverine, a predator with an outsized reputation for toughness and
ferocity. Thanks to his psychic connection to the New Forest Sexton had
reconstituted his physique, giving him stronger bones and tendons and
denser muscles as well as the ability to see body heat. With three times
the natural strength for one his size, Sexton was as strong as a normal
Frost Giant.

During a career of three centuries mostly spent on the eastern continent of
Karelia he had been variously a soldier of fortune, a successful general, a
courtier, and a gentleman farmer with estates and noble titles.

At that point Liam spoke up and asked:

"So when do we leave and where are we headed?"

"That's just what we were talking about. One thing is settled, the jumping
off point. Axel will teleport the whole expedition to Grayling. From there
we will take to the air."

After considerable discussion the group concluded that the first stage of
their expedition proper would be a survey of the northernmost range of the
Eastern Mountains. That region was not part of the New Forest. The northern
edge of the hawthorn hedge which marked its border ran along a high cliff,
the southern wall of a deep but narrow gorge on the far side of the
mountains.

Next they would cross the Hot Lands and visit the Medkari and see how they
are doing. At some point the adventurers would visit the League of
Independent Towns whether outbound or on their return and stop at elven
vales and the labyrinths of dwarves.

The boys put the rangers up in the guest quarters of the enlarged suite of
rooms they all shared at a residential hotel in the capital. Their three
leased suites had been altered and combined into a single suite for the
eight of them: the twins Jemsen and Karel, Drew Altair, Axel Wilde, Corwin
Klarendes, Liam, Karl-Eike Thyssen, and Nathan Lathrop. Finn stayed there
too when in town though not in the guest quarters. He usually shared a bed
with the twins or Drew and occasionally with Liam though not yet Axel,
Nathan, Eike, or Corwin.

At supper at the restaurant on the ground floor, the eight members of the
expedition plus Eike chatted, which helped Finn get better acquainted with
the rangers.

"Of course I know of you both by reputation." Finn said. "You forest
rangers have made quite a name for yourselves, taking down the murderous
robber gang called the Vanishing Bandits and then the ring of poachers
which trafficked in brontothere horns, not to mention your valiant defense
of that mountain resort against rampaging orcs."

"The Sign of the Bow it was called. That was mostly Madden's doing." Dylan
said diffidently. "He was both in command and a a powerful close-quarters
fighter as well, especially when wielding that fearsome Morningstar of his
or the mighty bow for which the resort was named. I was just one archer
among many."

"Ah but you are an uncannily accurate archer according to the twins, thanks
to the gift you all share of Unerring Direction. Don't sell yourself short,
Dylan, just because you cannot match the raw power of a major magical gift,
you will still be pulling your weight.

"It doesn't matter how powerful you are as a fetcher or earth wizard like
Jemsen or an air wizard like Karel who can incinerate a cavalry regiment
with sun mirrors. That kind of power doesn't protect you against treachery
or deceit. We all can be poisoned or knocked out by drugs in food or
drink. Or persons of ill intent might lie to us or misdirect or lead us
into a trap."

"The clues I get from my own ability to see changes in body heat are
ambiguous. As a trained interrogator yourself you know that subtle clues
like a rush of blood to a man's face might be from anger just at being
questioned or suspected. When a man blanches and his face cools he might
only be recalling an embarrassing incident or has suddenly realized that
someone he cares about might be the guilty party. Only empathy is reliable
and only then with the kind of training you have had from your shire reeve
dad plus that keenness of mind for which you are well-regarded."

"That is why we are counting on you and your empathic gift to protect us."

"Thanks, Madden." Dylan said brightening. "I hadn't thought of it that
way. So OK, you can rely on me."

"I know I can. We all can."

"Er, Liam," Sexton ventured. "I don't know a lot about the military
establishment of the Commonwealth of the Long River but am I right that
those two badges on your uniform indicate that you have won its two highest
awards for valor?"

"That's right, Lord Sexton. This green one indicates the Shield of the
Commonwealth which I got for my actions during the frigate Petrel's
unprecedented single ship action against a flotilla of troll
longships. More recently they gave me the top award, the Sword of the
Commonwealth, indicated by the blue badge. I won that for destroying a
troll relief force which was about to fall upon two regiments of Frost
Giants from behind."

"Liam took three arrows doing it, hence the trio of Wound Stripes on his
sleeve," Axel explained. Axel wore a wound stripe himself, while Jemsen and
Karel wore four each.

"Don't forget his new tattoo." Drew said pointing to the small blue tattoo
on Liam's left shoulder. "That marks him as a giant-friend, a person to
whom all giants will automatically extend their hospitality and
protection."

"I see a lot of friendship tattoos in this company. You yourself Drew are a
giant-friend and the twins are famous for being not only giant-friends but
also elf-friends and dwarf-friends, all three, the only living humans to
bear that distinction."

"When you think about it, you really have to be alive to earn all three,
don't you? Tattoos are never given to the dead unlike military decorations
which can be awarded posthumously." Karel told him.

"As the Sword nearly was for Liam." Axel declared fervently.

"It was a close thing then, Liam?" Sexton asked.

Liam nodded and conceded:

"It doesn't get much closer..."

"Since I had thrown white fire no less than four times, I was too spent
magically to hold a missile shield or to open a portal for my getaway. I
flew into the air but got picked off by archers. I would have fallen to the
ground at their feet, but Sir Rikkard was watching through a far-viewer
tube. He caught me telekinetically and dropped me right onto the operating
table in the hospital tent. Now that is what I call ambulance service!"

Everyone could see that Liam was trying to underplay his own conspicuous
heroism. Liam was one of those who simply believed that sometimes a guy
just did what a guy had to do or he wouldn't be able to live with
himself. So his friends indulged Liam and did not insist on calling him a
great hero. But he was.

"Axel, your blue tattoo is different. What does it indicate?"

"That I am an orc-friend, the first and only one in living memory. During
the peace conference the orcs learned that I was the catalyst for the peace
which ended their war with us and brought them over to our side as allies
against the trolls. You must have read how hard they have been fighting in
Amazonia. They have been fired by prospect of liberating a new and larger
homeland for their people. Emigrant orcs from the lands of the eastern
barbarians have augmented their numbers."

"Orcs eh? And you earned it as a peacemaker, as so many of you are as well
as being great fighters. Your deeds speak for themselves. I feel honored to
be in your company."

"I don't doubt that you have deeds of your own to relate like the story of
how you conquered Sogdiana." Drew began

"And we all saw your leadership and fighting progress at the Sign of the
Bow. So since we are speaking of mighty deeds, when will you tell me more
about your own? I am sure they would fill a book."

"Not just a single book, my young friend." Madden corrected, one finger
raised. "Volumes!"

That brought a chuckle all around.

			Chapter 5. Setting Off

At the air field early the next day the three pilots readied their
autogyros while the other five loaded the transport with supplies and
equipment plus tools and spare parts for the flying machines. Then they
suited up settling their weapons around their persons. Not that they
expected trouble on the first leg to Grayling. Far from it. It was just
good practice, a final check on their readiness and equipment.

The twins and Dylan carried their long bows unstrung plus a quiver with a
mix of hunting and war arrows with extras stowed in the transport. Pouches
on their belts held small vials of Aodh's powerful venom. Ordinary arrows
alone might not stop the charge of a slash bear, but no creature no matter
how enraged could ignore the excruciating pain caused by the venom, giving
an archer the chance to put enough arrows into the beast to kill him by
blood loss even if an arrowhead did not hit its heart. Another vial held a
silvered lacquer effective against ensorcelled creatures like trackers and
slashers.

No quarter staffs for any of them. They were too long and clumsy for a
cockpit and they wouldn't be preceding on foot all that much anyway. The
quarterstaff was as much a hiking pole as it was a weapon. Of course Jemsen
could call on his powers as an earth wizard and Karel as an air wizard
regardless of the weapons they bore.

Axel hung a kukri in a scabbard on his belt, a pair of very short scabbards
for his fist knives, plus a pouch with a vial of Aodh's venom and his sling
and some lead bullets, thought that was now just a backup. His main
distance weapons, besides his powers of teleportation, were Eike's air
guns. By preference he carried the shorter carbine version which the
cavalry used though he also brought along the longer infantry version which
was better for sniping. After his combat experience against the trolls Axel
was a dead shot.

Drew also had a kukri plus a pouch with two steel spheres the size of
peaches and another with soporific darts to put foes to sleep plus a couple
of pouches of double-pointed dowel nails. For this trip he hung a circular
wooden holster from his belt. Borrowed from the Navy it held one of their
anti-rigging discs.

Made of steel the size and shape of a discus only with a keen edge all the
way around, in naval combat it was used by fetchers to cut apart the
rigging of enemy vessels. Both Army and Navy had adopted it as for use
against enemy flyers in the "anti-personnel role" as the military
chillingly put it. Though both spheres and discus relied on their momentum
for their devastating effect, the spheres were intended to smash where the
discus would cut apart, whether rigging or bodies. Wielded by a powerful
fetcher like Drew, a discus could kill virtually any creature including
slash bears though it might take more than a single cut.

Madden Sexton hung a kukri, a morning-star, and a buckler on his
belt. Instead of a bow, his distance weapon was the infantry version of the
airgun which had a longer barrel than Axel's carbine did. But then he was a
much bigger guy, foot taller and two and one half times the mass. And when
he invoked his gift, Sexton transformed into a wolverine five times larger
and fifteen times stronger than any natural wolverine which were fearsome
enough creatures at only fifty pounds, able to take prey many times their
size including deer and elk.

As a war wizard Liam was a living weapon in his own right, a combination of
a fetcher, a weather wizard, and a water wizard with additional powers of
levitation and flight, concealment and white fire though not ordinary
firecasting. And he could open space portals. He too carried a kukri but
more as a camp tool than as a weapon and, following Drew's lead, a discus.

Finn Ragnarson looked every inch the avatar of Thor, the thunder god of the
Norse, eight feet tall and a massive six hundred pounds. He wore helmet,
breastplate, buckler, and steel gauntlets for defense. For offensive power
he relied on his mighty war hammer Mjolnir, the Mountain Crusher. Finn drew
strength from lighting and used it as an area weapon raining bolts on
enemies not just from clouds but out of a clear sky. Stronger in magic than
ever, he could now throw lightning bolts directly, precision targeting them
with Mjolnir.

A gift of the dwarves, Mjolnir was forged by heat and magic out of steel
made from meteoric iron so it would never rust and was virtually
shatterproof. The head was shaped like that of a sledge with octagonal
faces only more tapered to concentrate the impact. The haft was as long as
a human arm and made of both ironwood and ash to give it strength and
flexibility. Wrapped in leather for greater strength, the haft had a loop
at the end by which it might be swung in an arc with devastating effect.

Axel gestured at their weaponry. "To look at us, armed the way we are, you
would hardly think we were on a peaceful mission of exploration and
diplomacy."

Sexton shook his head. "What we look like is a tough bunch of travelers no
one would care to tangle with. Not if they have any sense. Our looks alone
will likely deter aggression."

With that thought they climbed into their autogyros, all except
Axel. Standing next to Finn's custom autogyro he rested his hand on its
hull then instantly Jumped himself, the aerocraft, and its crew to the air
field serving the town of Grayling, the most northerly port on the Long
River.

Jumping had advantages over passing through a portal. The magic itself
rather than the mage adjusted for the difference in rotational speed of the
planet's surface at different latitudes. A Jump happened in an instant and
could transport virtually anything the jumper touched -- even a house. It
wasn't a matter of mass but of size.

Axel made the round trip twice more till all three aerocraft and all eight
adventurers were on the field at Grayling.

"And at the end of our mission Finn, just give me the order and I'll jump
us all back to either Grayling or to the capital." Axel said proudly.

"Good work, Axel."

"That's got me thinking, Axel," Liam said.

"We actually have two ways to get back to Grayling or the capital since I
can open a portal to either location. I can even doing it during flight. We
would just guide our autogyros through the portal and zip right back. Or I
could open one at ground level and we would just roll through it."

"I thought you still had trouble with opening big portals?" Drew asked.

"I've gotten much better at it. Size is no longer the problem it once was,
but I still can't hold a gate open for very long. Not yet anyway."

Grayling was the first town on the Long River below a series of rapids and
cataracts marking the head of navigation. It was at once a river port, an
industrial town, a district capital, and the provider of services to the
rural area around it.

Already sizable at that point, the river ran south along the foot of a
steep escarpment. Tributaries and dramatic waterfalls ran off the
escarpment to augment its flow. A good sized town occupied the triangle of
land where one of the smaller rivers joined the greater one. That town was
Grayling.

Leaving their machines and gear in the care of the staff at the Army
airfield, the company of adventurers took rooms at an upscale inn and dined
at a fancy restaurant, treating themselves to a bit of luxury before
setting off on their great adventure.

At bedtime they paired off: Finn with Drew, Dylan with Jemsen and Karel,
and Axel with Liam.

Finn and Drew's relationship went all the way back to the war against the
centaurs in what became New Varangia. And if Finn was famous among his
people as half of the team of Old Arn and Young Finn in the Breach during
the Battle of the Ravine, Drew was equally celebrated as the Brave Little
Fetcher who had stood with them.

Dylan's relationship with the twins was much more recent. Besides the
strong physical attraction, their personalities were compatible. Of this
trio of beautiful young people, one was a full-blooded elf while the other
two were elf-friends with all that implied about same-gender sexual
orientation and a preference for a clothing free or skin-clad life
style. Expert archers and professional adventurers they also shared the
magical gift of Unerring Direction.

For Axel, Liam was his first real lover. Only seventeen when they had met,
the two had taken an instant shine to each other when Liam presented
himself at the office of the well-regarded war wizard Sir Willet Hanford at
the Institute seeking an apprenticeship in wizardry. He carried a letter of
introduction from Drew who was himself a protege of Sir Willet's.

Regardless of who slept with whom on a particular night, the youths were
practically family. Only Dylan and Finn did not live in the
capital. However on the twins' frequent visits to Elysion, if the young elf
wasn't out on patrol, he shared their rooms. On Finn's visits from
Flensborg where he was stationed Finn stayed at the enlarged suite of rooms
that all eight boys shared: the twins, Drew, Axel, Corwin Klarendes,
Karl-Eike Thyssen, Liam and Nathan Lathrop, that is when the last two were
not away on duty with the Navy.

Madden Sexton was the odd man out. The burly ranger consorted exclusively
with the female half of the species. His attitude was one of detached and
bemused puzzlement at all the fuss so many men made over pretty
boys. Madden just didn't understand what some men saw in cute young guys,
or rather he didn't feel what they felt. Pretty girls, now that was
something he could understand, though thankfully he was well beyond the
urgency of the teenage years. He wasn't interested in a casual encounter in
Grayling.

All the others, knowing they couldn't always count on proper beds in their
travels, made the most of their opportunity.

In the morning, Axel gave the machines a final check.

"There is not much that can go wrong with these machines, but the rotor
bearings need to be oiled every other day and the wheel bearings
greased. We do need to keep an eye out for bad weather. The rule is that
you settle to the ground before the blow reaches you. Otherwise we should
be safe enough. Even with no forward speed to spin the rotor, an autogyro
will land itself safely. As the autogyro sinks to the ground the rotor
spins from the air it passes through providing enough lift for a safe
landing."

Rolling the autogyros onto the field, the pilots invoked their telekinetic
gift or in Finn's case his magnetic one, and pushed their aerocraft down
the field for the short take off run typical of the autogyro. These
machines couldn't take off vertically or hover. The rotor of the autogyro
turned freely, spun by the force of the wind created by the forward motion
of the autogyro. Both rotor and stubby wings generated lift.

Pointing their aerocraft toward the mountains, the Corps of Discovery set
forth toward the unknown.

			Author's Note

This story is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any
person living or dead.

If you have enjoyed this story and others like it, consider making a
donation to the Nifty Archive. It is so easy. They take credit cards. Point
your browser to http://donate.nifty.org/donate.htm

This story is one of an occasional series about the further adventures of
the characters introduced in the fantasy novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends' and
published by Nifty Archive. The chief protagonist of the novel, Dahlderon,
elf-boy and druid, will appear in these stories in a supporting rather than
starring role. Each story in the sequence stands on its own, with the focus
on one or a few of the original characters.

Readers who like these stories might want to try my two series 'Daphne Boy'
and 'Naked Prey' in the Gay/Historical section of the Archive. My 'Jungle
Boy' series of Hollywood tales is posted in the Gay/Authoritarian
section. The recent series 'Andrew Jackson High' relates the trials and
tribulations of five of its gay students. For links to these and other
stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.