[b]Caleb "Cal" Mercer
The Next Near-Death[/b]
[hr]

Cal sat cross-legged on the narrow bunk, the volt-rifle balanced across his knees like a sanctified relic. Copper coils winked in the sliver of sunlight filtering through his cabin's porthole as the Intrepid’s engines thrummed somewhere amidships—steady, unhurried, as though the airship had struck a private bargain with the fickle winds Mr. Wright claimed guarded Omon. Methodically he ran the brass rod through the barrel, pausing to listen to the faint electrical crackle that lived inside the weapon, hungry for a charge. It sounded uncannily like the Khartoum dynamo that had once blown a Nubian sapper into mist and carved the thin scar along Mercer’s cheek.

Adventures flickered through his mind as if projected on the cabin bulkhead: the tiger that flowed out of Malayan fog, teeth flashing; the Russian packet boat groaning open beneath his boots in the Bering gloom; bullets, claws, ice, and fever—all of them missing by a whisker. Each escape had bought him a purse of gold and a greater craving for the next wager. The expedition’s pay was handsome, true, but he knew the sovereigns would spend like salt water if Omon’s legends proved half as feverish as the maps.

The intercom crackled overhead: [b]“Landfall in one quarter hour—prepare for first sight.”[/b] Mercer laughed under his breath, snapped the side-plate shut, and murmured, “Here’s to the next near-death.” Hat, gauntlets, cartridge belt—he shrugged into each piece with a pilgrim’s solemnity, then strode into the dim passage where oil-lamps nodded like conspirators.

Moments later he stood on the observation deck, his palms resting on cool brass rail. The cloud-veil ahead parted like theater curtain to reveal a continent that had no business existing. A green ocean stretched to the horizon, its canopy heaving in the heat like the hide of a sleeping beast. The flowing of rivers flashed in the sun, veins of life in untouched land. No chart had traced those arteries; no lighthouse had ever blessed those shores.

A wicked thrill unfurled in his chest—the same bright sting quinine leaves on the tongue—reminding him that every heartbeat hence was an ante thrown onto a table none of them truly saw. He grinned at the rolling jungle, the molten sky, whatever gods kept tally in forgotten realms. Deal the cards, that grin seemed to say, and mind you play fair—though I certainly won’t. And with that silent challenge, Caleb Mercer waited for Omon to blink first.