Delivery Service
Trani walked along the light tunnel. Transport was easy this way, but every time she thought it could be improved further. Granted, the tunnels were too narrow for most vehicles, but surely one could use, say, scooters. They could be made of aluminium, for instance. Walking nowadays seemed… odd.
Still she couldn’t deny that she enjoyed the trip. After all, it wasn’t every day that one could use the old ley line network, though her work allowed her that simple pleasure often. Many people never had the chance to use it in their entire lives.
Her thaumocompass buzzed and Trani stopped. She checked the device and turned the hands on the dial. She clicked her tongue. Trani was a town girl. To her, these things were… vintage. A thaumocompass no less. And so… analog. But company regulations were company regulations, and most customers appreciated the fact that the Ways of Old were respected. No matter that modern thaumology had demonstrated that the same results could be achieved using current technology, no sir. You always had people insisting that the same old customs be respected.
With a sigh, Trani braced for the pull. There was a flash of light, and she sidestepped through the portal. She closed her eyes and fought the usual bout of nausea. She had it down to a science these days. Not like that first time, when she had puked on the feet of her first customer. Oh, people still laughed back at the office. Trani knew they did it just to piss her off, since everyone got sick when traversing the portals.
She opened her eyes, and she could barely suppress a cry of surprise. She was on a small mound made of stones, six concentric circles extending beyond her, marked with rocks on the ground, as if she was on a circular staircase for giants. Which, she thought, could have been the case. The circle lied on a valley of luscious green grass, surrounded by hills. Near the horizon, she could see the sun setting over the sea, its beams reddening the evening sky.
The portal glowed with a golden light right behind her for one more second, then it disappeared.
Trani looked around her. Something was wrong.
“Hello?” she said. “Hello?”
She walked away from the center of the circle. As soon as she stepped off the first circle, she felt the power of the ley line dissolving. The points of her eyes twitched. She scratched her nose and grabbed her satchel. She checked her badge.
“Hello?” she insisted. “Fae Delivery? A package for, er…, Mr McAlasto?”
Several seagulls squawked above. The sea waves murmured. The wind sang. Mr McAlasto didn’t appear or say anything.
“Damn,” Trani said.
She rummaged in her satchel and extracted something small and rectangular she held in her hand. She opened the case and then traced a pattern on the surface of the device.
“Oh, great! No network! Where the hell am I then? OK, let’s see if the GPS works…”
Trani called up the GPS app on her smartphone and waited. The GPS didn’t work inside the ley line tunnels, so it had to align. The phone beeped and showed a map.
“Ireland? I’m in bloody Ireland?” she said. Her ears were now twitching uncontrollably. “Damn this stupid thaumocompass! I’m going to…!”
Trani stopped just as she was going to smash it. She forced herself to inhale deeply, once, twice. Ten times.
“Well, at least I’m close to Scotland. Not like when Kahn got sent to Barbados. Barbados must be nice,” she said. She checked the time on her phone. “If this useless piece of junk doesn’t fail me again, I can still deliver on time.”
She turned the hands on the thaumocompass again. The portal shimmered to life before her.
“There we go. Fae Delivery always delivers!”
~~~~
This is my accompanying entry for the Weekly Writing Exercise: October 31–November 6, 2016 on the Writer’s Discussion Group in Google+. I am responsible for creating the prompts for the Exercise, so I don’t take part, but I still like to write a story each week.
With such a beautiful, celtic-themed image this week it was difficult to choose a different subject. So I relented and used it. I think this is definitely the third story I write in a setting where magic and technology live together.
