“The chief, the shaman and the elders have agreed that everyone’s interests would be better served if you were elsewhere, so you’ll be banished three days from now. You may wish to take some time to prepare.” The Vith warrior said, leaning easily on a stone spear as he spoke to Tom. A half dozen men were emptying out Tom’s house, gliding past him with his stuff in their hands.

But not just the stuff he’d received from the village. Other things like his rear-view mirrors and his bloodsword were being hauled out into the open and perused by milling villagers like it was a freaking garage sale.

Tom kept a lid on his anger.

In the time he’d been here, he’d seen these men lift each other and throw each other around with their pinkies. Tom had magic, but it was more of a ‘quality of life’ magic, rather than a straight-up ass-kicking magic.

No sense yelling at the messenger when the messenger could kick your ass.

“So why my stuff?”

“There’s no defined rule for banishing an outsider. Some suggested that we simply kill you and be done with it, but that didn’t sit right with Vol, given the amount of good you’ve done while you were here. He suggested we treat you as we would one of our own.

“When we banish one of our own, they’re sent away with a very specific care package with all the tools they’ll need to survive the trip to the nearest village, along with a modest supply of food and water. Their other possessions are redistributed around the village where they’re needed.”

“So you’re –“ Stealing my shit anyway. Tom bit down before he finished the sentence.

“Of course, you’re welcome to go with him, or stay, Nema.” The man said, glancing over at the furious little woman standing beside Tom.

She gave the warrior the Vith equivalent of ‘the finger’. The warrior didn’t seem surprised.

“I finally get my own man and you bone-sucking roughtongues are bending me over a sun-bleached cactus!”

“As you will.”

“Five! FIVE TIMES!” She said, holding her hand up in front of the warrior’s unimpressed face.

“Is there a way to stop this?” Tom asked, gently pulling Nema back and petting her hair to calm her down.

The warrior shrugged. “Probably?” he said with a shrug. “Honestly, none of us think you really did anything bad enough to get kicked out, but the chief called it a ‘preventative measure’, and it’s not my job to question the decisions of my elders.”

“What’s that word mean? ‘preventative measure?’” Tom asked.

Nema gave him a short description, which made him roll his eyes. The chief and Vol had a vested interest in getting rid of him, all they’d have to do was convince one or two elders he might cause problems in the future, and he was out on his ass.

Tom could think of one elder that might want him gone, actually.

He’d been standing on thin ice for so long that he’d kind of forgotten about it. No wonder they voted me out so easy. Two thirds of their power structure was already against him. Tom was briefly thankful Vol hadn’t pushed the murder idea, then he recoiled away from that line of thinking.

No. To hell with that. The only reason Vol didn’t try to have me killed was because he needed to sway the vote of one of the more moderate elders. If he could have, I’m sure he’d have me strung up in that cave in a heartbeat. I have absolutely no reason to be thankful towards that animal-mutilating sonofabitch.

Tom clenched his fist, but he didn’t do anything more. If he swung public opinion from neutral to negative, he might actually wind up on the chopping block.

“Who can I talk to about this?” Tom asked.

The warrior frowned. “Anyone you want.” He glanced over to Nema. “Are you sure he’s as clever as you say he is?”

“He IS!” Nema stamped her foot.

“Who can I talk about it that can change the em…”

“Decision,” Nema supplied in Vith.

“Right. Who can change the decision?”

The warrior shrugged. “Oh. You’d either need to change the Chief’s mind, Vol’s mind, or the elders. I suppose you could talk to the women about it, and they could apply pressure on your behalf, but it would take a while.”

Tom combed his fingers through his unruly hair. Two months without a cut, and it was started to get pretty long, bleached by the constant sun.

When Tom looked at himself in the mirror now, he didn’t see Tom Graves, Fred Meyer freight crew, he saw a homeless Hawaiian surfbro, with the jutting ribs and the sun-leathered reddish-brown skin.

“I’ll talk to some of my friends,” Nema said, patting him on the side. “This is wrong, and they know it.” She cast a dismissive glance at the warrior. “Even if they’re too much of a Fenka to do anything about it.”

“Yeah, I’d be pissed too.” The warrior shrugged.

Nema let out a tiny squeal of anger at the man’s blasé attitude before slipping past him to go make some inquiries.

Vol, the chief, or the elders? Tom scowled. Vol and the chief were dead set on getting rid of him. They were not an option. Was the Elder?

Tom stepped out of his home and went to track the bitter old man down.

It only took him a minute, as the old man was sitting crosslegged in his hut, deftly using his single hand and a peg arm nub to weave rope. He didn’t look surprised to see Tom.

“Tom. I’d ask what brings you here, but we both know.”

“What do you want?” Tom demanded, his heart hammering in his chest with barely restrained anger.

“What do I want for what?” Elder Gunn asked.

“To change your vote. to stop that rough-tongued Vol from stealing all my stuff!”

“Oh, that.” Gunn said, looking back down at his rope in a nonchalant way that made Tom wanna punch him. “I voted to keep you around.”

Tom felt like he’d been doused with a bucket of cold water.

“What?”

“You heard me. I voted not to banish you.”

“I thought you hated me. You told Nema that story about how you lost your arm and everyone else you knew in the dinamore stretch.”

He glanced at Tom askance. “Boy, you’re obviously far too young to have been there at the time, and while you may have the weapons of the enemy, you’re clearly not one of them.”

He folded his hand over his lap and stared Tom in the eye.

“To me, you represent a valuable resource. Your possessions, your knowledge and the seed of a foreign Alia. I figured if Nema could give you a reason to stay, you could mix your blood with ours, and the village could profit from all three of those things. Vol and the chief are shortsighted, blinded by your fancy ‘mirrors’, the crypts, the ‘truck’, and the blade of blood.”

He rose to his feet, reached up and tapped Tom on the temple.

“They don’t understand that the strange oddities you carry with you must be a small fraction of what your eyes have seen.”

“Fine, you were practicing selfish altruism. Who actually voted to banish me?”

“Jeffra, but I wouldn’t bother,” Gunn said.

“Why’s that?” Tom asked.

“Because you cannot offer the man anything he won’t already gain by banishing you.” Gunn said.

We’ll see about that, Tom thought, heading for the door.

“There’s another way to keep your ‘stuff’, Gunn said, freezing Tom in his tracks.

“What is it?” Tom asked over his shoulder.

“If I tell you and you succeed, you won’t have to repay me, and if you fail, you will die. So I want payment now.”

“What kind of payment?”

“There is a saying in Vith, one that likely has an equal across all cultures: ‘Knowledge is a well all it’s own’. Now that you know our language, I want you to tell me exactly how you came to be here. Do that, and I will tell you how you can keep your property.”

Tom gritted his teeth for a moment.

It wasn’t just his property that was at stake, it was his mission, even his life. If he was sent out into the desert with nothing but mundane camping supplies instead of all his magical stuff, he’d have a hard time living.

Let alone rescuing Ellie.

“Fine.”

Tom sat down crosslegged and started to talk.

Though the story was halting and slow because Tom constantly needed to find ways to explain modern human concepts in ways the Gunn would understand, but he spared no detail. Everything from the time he met Lily, up until now.

Gunn listened patiently, interjecting with questions only to clarify something he didn’t understand, and accepting Tom’s talk of ‘another land beyond the sun’ without flinching. He listened.

At the end, he nodded, and thanked Tom for his time.

Indeed, the sun had begun to go down, giving Tom even less time to figure out what he was going to do before the deadline was up.

“Okay, so how do I stop them? Is it some kind of loophole? I gotta get someone pregnant or buy land or something?”

“You can challenge Vol to Kla’desh.”

“What?” Tom asked.

“A contest between Alia to determine the role of shaman. Pit your well and your skill against each other, the last man standing is the shaman.”

“A fight? That’s all I gotta do is challenge him to a fight?” Tom could hardly believe his translation of the Vith language. “Why don’t other people challenge Vol to a fight?”

“They don’t meet the requirements. An Alia has to have something unique about their ability, otherwise what would be the point?”

“Why would I be allowed to do it?” Tom asked. ‘I’m not one of you.”

“Yesterday that was true. But since Vol put forward the idea to banish you with supplies as we would one of our own, that means you have a way to force us to treat you as one of our own…for the next three days.”

Tom considered it for a moment.

That’s a stupid, desperate option. And if I win, don’t I wind up getting even more involved with these people? And if I lose, don’t I die?”

“Is it to the death?”

“No, but accidents happen.”

“Lemme think on it.” Tom said, leaving the hut. He still had an extra day to think on it. Three, if you counted tonight and tomorrow night.

Tom was halfway back to his hut, deep in thought weighing the pros and cons of getting into a glorified knife-fight over his property, when a bit of motion caught his eye.

Tom glanced up and spotted Vol casually insert himself into a conversation between Nema and two other women, much to Nema’s dismay. Somehow the shaman felt Tom’s attention, and for a moment, the two locked eyes.

Vol winked.

Oh, that fucker is gonna have an ‘accident’. Tom thought, scowling back.