"Open, you blasted rock!" Goldfist slammed his mechanical fist into the stone door covering the portal. "I won''t lose to you when I''m this close!"


    Dust shook off the portal''s stone pillars as Goldfist hit it again. Behind him, the slaves watched him. He could feel their eyes drilling into his back. They were laughing at him. He knew it. They were too scared to do it openly, but he knew they enjoyed every second of his failure. He stood on the threshold of the power he had always wanted, but a simple stone door kept him away.


    Slam.


    He hit the stone with his left fist, placing his forehead against the stone immediately after. The door was cool to the touch and rough against his skin. He had to think. He needed time. Where was Silvertooth when Goldfist needed him?


    He opened his eyes and turned to the slaves. Only ten remained after they had built the bridge across the pond. The weak lay at the bottom of the black pool. At least what was left of them lay there. Goldfist had made sure that they had walked across with him to prevent any sabotage. He found the slave he was looking for and pointed to her with his left hand.


    "You, come here."


    The woman, the former bounty hunter, came over, her dark eyes glaring up at Goldfist as she stood before him. Goldfist resisted the urge to squash her outright. If she could prove herself, she might be as useful as Silvertooth. If Silvertooth had been too weak, she might even be his replacement.


    "Prove your worth, slave. Figure out this portal''s puzzle, and I''ll give you the status deserving a worthy man!"


    He thought he saw a smirk cross her face, but it disappeared in the blink of his eye. Goldfist clenched his fist closed tight. He took a deep breath to keep his anger at bay inside his chest. If she couldn''t solve it either, he would take out his rage on her and then move to the next slave. Until then, she could still prove useful.


    She walked past him, and Goldfist stepped back. His left hand went to the holster on his hip, and he kept his eyes on the slave as she looked over the stones. It could be better described as a small cannon, built for his large size. The butt of his gun was cold in his hand. If she solved the stones, he would need to move fast. He couldn''t let her go in first.


    "There''s writing on these stones," the woman said as she walked around the pillars. "They run up and down the pillars and down to the dais below. Did you notice?"


    "Of course I did," Goldfist said through gritted teeth. "Do you take me for a fool?"


    The truth was, he hadn''t noticed them at all. He hadn''t even bothered to look around him in the rush to go over to the portal after the bridge was complete. He moved closer to the dais, keeping his hand on his gun.


    "See these?" The woman knelt and pointed along the rim of the dais. "The line break along the dais probably represents the beginning of the script. That''s where you would start reading, following it around the circle, up the pillars, and back down the dais until you reached the break again."


    "And you can read it?" Goldfist smiled, spreading his beard wide.


    "With years of research, a team of assistants, and access to things left behind in another world," the woman said, and Goldfist saw the smirk return. "I know languages, but I can''t just look at a script and tell you what it means without a reference."


    "So you''re useless to me?" Goldfist pulled his gun from his holster and pointed it at her.


    She didn''t flinch in the slightest, staring down the barrel and up at him with her dark eyes. The barrel was the size of her head, but she didn''t seem to care. Goldfist gritted his teeth as his finger tensed against the trigger.


    "You''ll kill me, outlaw, because I can''t read a text that no one here could figure out in a lifetime?" she asked. "Think about it. What use am I to you dead? With me alive, you at least have a chance to figure it out."


    "You said it would take you years. Are you saying it won''t?"


    "I''m saying I might get lucky.” She shrugged her shoulders. "I need time, and I won''t have time if you blast my head off. You''ll just be stuck here, no closer to your goal."


    "You were the bounty hunter.” Goldfist split his face with a smirk. "I''m surprised you survived this long. I didn''t know you were smart, too. Where''d you learn all this stuff?"


    "In another world, I wouldn''t be a bounty hunter.” She shrugged again. "I studied ancient languages at Oxford in Britain. Not that it matters anymore."


    Goldfist tilted his head. He hadn''t heard a lot of those words before, but he understood that she was like him. He came from Hajh, and she came from Britain. They had both come to this new world and made themselves into who they were now. The past was behind them.


    "This Britain is like Xing?"


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    "The people there, do they look like me?" she asked.


    Goldfist nodded, reholstering his gun.


    "Then no. Your ''Xing'' people would be from countries near China."


    "What''s your name?"


    "Li Wen."


    "As a courtesy to another outworlder, I''ll give you five minutes to figure out this puzzle, Li Wen. If you can''t figure it out in that time...I''ll have to try more drastic measures."


    The woman looked at him, but she wasn''t angry. Even with the threat to her life and his unreasonable demands, she didn''t even flinch. Instead, she knelt in front of the dais and began to run her finger across it.


    She worked her way around the dais, following the script with her finger. She followed it when it broke from the rim, went up the pillars, and back down until she returned to where the script began. She mumbled to herself the whole time, but Goldfist couldn''t hear what she said.


    Goldfist watched her closely, but he didn''t see anything special. After a few moments, she seemed to give up on the script and made her way over to the two stone doors that stood between the pillars. She rubbed her finger across the stone, but nothing happened.


    Goldfist''s patience was wearing thin.


    "Aah!" A woman''s scream broke the silence, echoing out from the entrance to the cavern with a warbling tilt.


    Thump.


    Something heavy landed in the tunnel next. Goldfist put his hand back on his gun. The thump repeated itself through the tunnel in an echo, but no other sound came out. As the echo faded, only silence remained.


    "A slave must have fallen down the shaft," Goldfist thought as he turned toward the bridge.


    He couldn''t see down the tunnel from where he was. He was torn between keeping an eye on Li Wen and checking out the tunnel, but he couldn''t do both at once. Again, he questioned where Silvertooth was, but that wouldn''t solve the problem.


    Tap. Click. Tap. Click. Tap. Click.


    Sweat trickled down Goldfist''s back. He stood at the bridge, the stone portal behind him. Throughout the cavern, the sound echoed, but there were no words. Silvertooth wouldn''t have jumped down.


    Goldfist swallowed a lump that had formed in his throat. He remembered what Silvertooth had told him. ''Tin Man'' Ortega.


    "Silvertooth! Is that you?" he called to the tunnel, pulling his gun out of his pocket and pointing it at the entrance. "Tell me if it''s you, deputy!"


    Tap. Click. Tap. Click. Tap. Click.


    From the tunnel, a man emerged, dressed in a shredded leather duster. Goldfist gritted his teeth. It was the same dark-skinned whelp who had fought them at the train. Silvertooth had failed, which meant Goldfist would have to clean up the mess.


    The whelp looked like a mess. Dried blood ran down his lip, and his eyes looked sunken and dark. Silvertooth had bought Goldfist that with his life, at least. The whelp was weak.


    "Ortega, I presume.” Goldfist leveled his gun at the man as he stood at the tunnel''s entrance with his staff. "You killed my deputy to get here. I won''t let you get away with that lightly."


    "Hah." Ortega laughed, holding up one hand. "Silvertooth isn''t dead. He is beaten, but he isn''t dead. I left him in the care of the townsfolk so I could come down and pay you a visit."


    "And what do you want with me?"


    Thump.


    "I need to return the punch you gave me, for one." Ortega smiled as he planted his staff against the stone. "For two, you have something I want."


    Goldfist couldn''t help but look back at the inert portal.


    Click.


    "You know about it?" He cocked the hammer on his gun.


    "I''ve seen one before." Ortega shrugged. "It looks like you weren''t ready when you found it. You don''t even know how to open it."


    "And you do?"


    "Should work the same as the last one," Ortega said. "You want me to tell you how it works."


    "Like you would."


    "True. You''re not someone I would want mucking about with a core. I like this island so far, and I wouldn''t want to see it getting messed up by someone like you."


    "So we''re at a crossroads. You know how to get in, but I want to get the core. There''s only one way to solve this."


    "You''re right about that." Ortega sighed as he looked over the cavern. "I''ll give you this one chance then. Come over here alone and give up, and I''ll make this easy for you."


    "Whelp!" Goldfist yelled, shaking dust loose from above him with his voice alone. "Do you think you''re strong? I can flatten you with one punch."


    "I''m not strong." Ortega''s voice barely reached Goldfist''s ears in the booming echoes of his outburst.


    "But you''ll stand against me?" Goldfist demanded.


    "Yeah."


    "Then you''ll die!"


    Boom!


    The gun shook in Goldfist''s hand as the gunshot sent ripples of force up his arm. Even though he was a giant, the gun was built to the limits of what steel could handle. The black powder in each cartridge alone could blast a wide hole in the mine''s stone walls. Goldfist smiled as the bullet careened toward the outlaw, black smoke rising from his hand.


    Out of habit, he popped the gun open, tossing it in the air, ripping a cartridge from his vest, and slamming it in before catching the gun. With a click, it closed again.


    Ding. Crack. Thoom.


    Goldfist looked back up from reloading. His eyes turned to the tunnel entrance. Ortega still stood, his left hand outstretched and a smirk on his face. Beside him, embedded in the stone above the tunnel entrance, Goldfist''s bullet rested in a crater, stuck.


    "Silvertooth warned me you had a power," Goldfist said, holstering his gun, his voice dull in his ears as they still rang from the gunshot.


    "Last chance!" Ortega''s voice was also muffled, but Goldfist could still hear it.


    Ortega began to walk to the side of the tunnel, going along the wall and tapping his staff with each step as he made his way toward the bridge. Goldfist''s heart beat loudly in his chest. His breath quickened. In and out. He looked around him and could see the eyes of his slaves on him again. He could feel them laughing at him. The loss of Silvertooth. The stupid puzzle kept him from the door. Now a challenger, ready to stop him before his dream was fulfilled.


    They were all laughing at him. They wanted him to fail. Goldfist gritted his teeth, clenching his mechanical fist and bringing it up to point at Ortega. Everything had gone wrong the second the outlaw had shown up. Everything was that man''s fault.


    "The weak deserve to die!" Goldfist raised up his fist and aimed it at Ortega. "GOLDEN BULLET!"


    Boom!


    A second time, the cavern shook with the explosion. Goldfist''s metal hand shot out and across the pond, the chain clicking behind it. Goldfist smiled as he looked at Ortega. There was no way Ortega could survive.


    "Step!" Ortega disappeared from beside the tunnel, and Goldfist''s hand shot past where he had been standing.


    Slam!


    Goldfist''s hand slammed into the wall, cracking through stone and lodging itself inside. Ortega reappeared across from it, holding his staff ready as he stared down Goldfist. Silence crept up in the room in the thundering echoes of the attack.


    "Okay," Ortega said through the ringing in Goldfist''s ears. "Let''s do this."