Chapter 2

The next day, John served breakfast to his house guests, then fed himself. He put his plate into the dishwasher just as Lisa showed up with a smiling Tom and Andrew in tow. His offer of breakfast was met with feigned horror from the men, as Lisa replied in mock outrage, "I've already fed them, you worm. I do know how to cook, you know, at least for breakfast."

John smiled, enjoying the banter that had eluded the two of them since Beth's passing, then spoke to Matthew.

"We'll feed and water your mounts, and my stock, and then we can head into Helena to cash out some of your gold. The story we'll tell Bill is that you and Connie are father and daughter, and that you were working an animal act for a circus, when your circus master decided to cut you loose, for reasons we won't discuss. The story is that he's a rich eccentric, and that he paid you off in gold coins he had minted privately, to punish you further for thwarting his unspecified plans.

"Do you have any idea how pure your gold coins are, and what they weigh in ounces?"

Matthew nodded, glancing briefly at something only he could see, and said, "The best of them are nine parts in ten of gold, and one of silver. And each weighs about one-half of what you call a troy ounce."

John leaned back, figuring in his head for a moment, then said, "If you can spare four of those coins, that will cover gas down and back, browse for your mounts, and meals for us and yourselves, and a nice supply of 'trail rations' from our world, which will at least taste better than what I suspect you're carrying. We may be able to buy some silver or other rarity with what's left over, so you don't have to take worthless paper back with you."

Matthew glanced at his team, then nodded, "Yes, agreed. Connie, are you willing to play the part of my daughter?"

Connie smiled a wry smile, and said, "Yes, Grandfather, I think I can manage that."

Matthew and John were of a size, and Connie was able to wear some of Lisa's clothing, so once his guests were suitably attired, and thereby disguised, the three of them headed off for Helena, and John's friend, while the rest of the party helped Lisa stow their supplies and some additions from John's barn in the two large horse trailers behind the house.

The trio's ride into Helena went quickly. John passed the time and distracted his guests from their first high-speed driving experience by pumping Matthew as thoroughly as he could about the nature and practice of magic, applying his fascination with science and analysis to the 'mysteries' of Matthew's magical world. The view that he formed of magic was strange to his guests, but his questions made it clear that he had grasped the basic concepts almost immediately, much sooner than any apprentice Matthew had ever encountered.

Magic, it seemed, was the process of gathering and internalizing the magical 'auras' that ebbed and flowed through the world, organizing them, and applying them to meet a goal. The creation of a spell 'used up' the aura, which John thought of as 'mana' in the sense that Larry Niven had used it in his Warlock stories. The parallel held to some extent; it was possible to 'use up' all of the mana in an area, preventing new spells from being created, but unlike Niven's creation, in Matthew's world 'new' mana somehow arose over time, or flowed in from elsewhere, in a manner that none of the inhabitants had ever investigated in detail.

Once a spell was created, and bound to an object, anyone could use it, but only a small fraction of the people could create, cast, and bind spells. The basic ability was inborn, but required considerable training to be put to use. "Wild Talents" of the sort common in the less sophisticated fantasy stories were unknown in Matthew and Connie's world.

As they approached their destination, John turned the discussion to his friend Bill, and reiterated the story they would tell to explain the gold they wished to sell. He also started describing the layout of the city to his passengers, and explained what a parking garage and a high-rise office building would be like. Both of his guests were familiar with the concept of a city, and of multi-story buildings, but he suspected that even Helena's relatively modest skyline would be a shock to them. They decided to include a certain degree of 'county bumpkin' in their story, the better to explain if either Matthew or Connie grew distracted by the view outside the office windows.

They entered the city easily enough, the morning office-worker rush hour having passed, and the afternoon shopping rush not yet begun, and found the high-rise where Bill's company had their offices. John pulled his truck into the basement parking garage, and they found a spot easily enough. It was rather far from the nearest elevator, but none of the three were the slightest bit put out by exercise, so they didn't think anything of it.

Bill greeted John warmly when he entered the reception area after being called by the young blond-haired beauty who buzzed them through the front door, then led his three guests back into a conference room to hear their story.

John told his tale to Bill, with Matthew and Connie listening closely and nodding all the while, perfectly presenting themselves as non-native speakers of English who nevertheless understood it quite well.

"So when one of Beth and Lisa's old horse-riding cronies heard about Matthew's problem, he thought of us. What with one thing and another, we've got a bit of time to spare, and we can get Matthew, Connie, and their critters back to L.A. in time for the ship to sail without any trouble at all. Only thing is, Matthew's sense of honor won't let him take charity, and he's not confident enough that that asshole didn't rip him off to just give me the coins and let me take my chances."

Matthew chimed in at that point, perfectly imitating a Eastern European accent, without overdoing it. "I have been convinced that you can provide a good estimate of their true value, if any, and I am willing to accept that estimate and allow John to act on it, even if it takes you longer than we wish to wait to actually convert them to cash."

John said, "I've looked around the Internet, and I haven't found any actual antiquities that look anything like the coins, but the color is right, the density is right as far as I can tell with kitchen measurements, and they sound authentic enough, but all I can actually promise you is that I trust Lisa's friend to be honest, and I trust his ability to gauge Matthew's honesty, and that they agree that the asshole gave the coins to Matthew and asserted that they were genuine gold, and that they weren't stolen."

Matthew spoke again, suppressed anger in his voice, and said, "This is what he said. I know nothing to prove him a liar, but after what he tried to do, I will never trust a word from his mouth."

Connie and Matthew were very convincing as they pretended to avoid each other's eyes. Trying to conceal it from Matthew, Bill met John's eyes carefully, and John just as carefully shrugged his shoulders, announcing his ignorance of Matthew's meaning.

Moving back to the business at hand, Matthew surrendered one of his coins to Bill, who did some quick chemical and physical tests, then nodded.

"It's at least mostly gold," he said with a slight smile, "but we'll want to do a bit more digging to be certain. Come this way."

Bill lead them into another room, where a large machine with a computer sitting on top stood against a wall. Placing one of the coins over a hole in the machine, and holding it in place with a clamp attached to the machine, he typed a few commands into the computer, and then pressed a red button on the machine. There was a loud humming noise, then a sharp cracking sound.

Bill recovered the coin, and handed it to Matthew, saying, "It will be a bit warm." There was a newly shiny spot in the middle of the coin, where part of the design seemed to have been polished off.

"Mass Spectrometer," Bill explained to John, "It blasts a few million atoms off the surface, ionizes them, and sorts them by weight and electrical charge." The computer beeped, and Bill pulled a small printout from the machine. "89 percent gold, ten point five percent silver, and the odd bit of copper, iron, and carbon. Looks like the guy didn't clean his ladle between pours of the blanks. If it was anyone else, I'd drill for a sample to make sure we weren't dealing with a thin cladding of color over a base-metal core. In this case, a simple density measurement, and the fact that the damned things obviously aren't hollow is good enough for me."

Suiting actions to words, he weighed one of the other coins, then dropped it into a beaker full of water, carefully measuring the volume of the water that flowed out of the overflow pipe, and entered the resulting numbers into the computer.

"Right on the nose," Bill said smugly, "Just like I figured." Gathering the remaining coins, taking the original one back from Matthew, and tossing them onto the scale, he did a quick calculation and named a dollar amount a bit higher than John had expected.

At John's questioning look, Bill said, "I know somebody crazy enough to pay a premium to the precious metal content for something none of his friends will be able to acquire copies of. I'm factoring that in to the offer. If that falls through, I've got a market for the bulk material as a jewelry base; actually saves me the cost of mixing up a batch of alloy. I'm such a nice guy that I'll even pay you off in cash, instead of making you wait for the check to clear. Deal?"

John and Matthew both nodded, as Connie smiled demurely. John felt a bit bad about lying to Bill, but on the other hand, it was in a good cause, if Matthew's story could be believed, even if it wasn't the cause Bill thought it was.

On the other hand, Bill thought that even if the coins were solid lead, it was worth it to see John out of the depression that Beth's death had thrown him into. They weren't particularly close friends, but even John's casual acquaintances thought the world of him, and wanted to see him happy. He never seemed to notice the effect he had on people, which was a considerable part of the attraction.

After the cashier delivered Matthew's payment, and took the coins off to the vault, John and Bill exchanged goodbyes, and promises to get together in a few weeks, after John's "good deed" was complete. The three of them left the office and headed for John's truck.

They were almost at the truck when a somewhat seedy looking man stepped out from behind a car and said, "All right assholes, let's see your wallets before someone gets hurt." The guy had a hand in his pocket, but no obvious weapon, but John wasn't really in the mood to take chances under the circumstances. He was pissed though, and about to say something he'd regret, when Matthew raised his hands in a warding-off gesture, and muttered under his breath.

John felt a weird sensation on the back of his neck as the would-be thief suddenly lurched forward, then stumbled and fell to the ground, his hand still jammed into his pocket as he fell onto that arm with a rather sickening snapping sound. John noticed out of the corner of his eye that Connie had made a similar warding gesture, but the crawling feeling on his neck seemed to be associated with Matthew, rather than with her.