Authors: Mark Anthony
Grace hesitated. Yet it couldn’t hurt to wait until she was warm and dry to start asking questions about where she was. She reached out to take the seneschal’s hand. As she let go of the blanket, it slipped back around her shoulders, away from her face.
Alerain sucked in a hissing breath. “My lord!” he said to Durge. “Why did you not tell me who your companion was?”
The seneschal dropped to one knee right there on the muddy ground in front of the stable. Grace cast a startled look at Durge. The knight gave a nod, as if something he had suspected had just been confirmed. Then he too bent to one knee before her.
Grace watched the men in confusion. What was going on? As if to answer her question, Alerain bowed his head and spoke in a ritual tone.
“Welcome to Calavere, Your Highness. How may we serve thee?”
The door shut behind Grace and she was alone inside the drafty bedchamber. Outside, footsteps faded away as the two maidens who had led her through the castle’s labyrinthian corridors retreated. She let out a deep breath.
“What would a princess do in this situation, Grace?”
She grimaced. It had been absolutely no use trying to convince Lord Alerain she was nobody special. In the courtyard, after the flustered seneschal had managed to recover his composure, she had attempted to explain he had made a mistake. Her name was Grace Beckett. She was not royalty, and there was absolutely no need to keep bowing his head or calling her
Highness
.
Despite her repeated protests, Alerain had given her a conspiratorial wink. “As you wish, Your Highness,” he had said. “It is not my place to question why a lady of high station might desire to travel in disguise. It is a curious happening, to be sure, but these are curious times. Though I confess, I cannot fathom from whence you hail. The line of your jaw speaks of the noble houses of northeast Eredane, but your cheekbones could belong to a duchess of southernmost Toloria. And your eyes are like those of no royal family I can think of.” He had stroked his short beard. “It is part of my office to know every noble in the Dominions on sight, whether we have met before or no. But I know you not. This Beckett must be a dominion far distant from Calavan.”
“Very far,” Grace had replied.
After that she had given up. It was simpler that way. Besides, she was too numb really to protest. Alerain had summoned a half-dozen servants, and with crisp commands gave orders for a room to be prepared for her. Most of the servants had dashed off at breakneck speed, but two pretty women—barely more than girls—clad in dove-gray dresses had remained behind. Each took one of Grace’s elbows and had led her at a more careful pace toward one of the wings of the keep. She would have shaken off their hands and told them she could walk on her own, but she wasn’t entirely certain
that was true. Her knees shook, and she felt light and hollow.
She had wondered then what had become of Durge in all of the chaos, and had glanced over her shoulder. Gloomy as he was, she rather liked the knight, and though she seldom made friends, she thought she could use one in this unfamiliar place. However, the brown-eyed knight had been nowhere in view, and before she could ask about him the maidens had led her through a door into the keep.
Now Grace let her gaze wander over the room. It was perhaps five paces across and nearly twice as long. One end of the room was dominated by a gigantic four-posted bed. The top of the bed was so high off the floor that a stepping stool placed before the footboard was the only practical means of climbing up. At the other end of the room was a fireplace in which a cheerful blaze crackled, and on the far wall was a narrow window glazed with thick glass. All around the room colored tapestries hung against the walls and depicted flowering trees, lushly tangled vines, and clear fountains. So vivid were the images in the weavings that if she half closed her eyes, Grace could almost believe she stood in an idyllic spring glade. Almost. For despite the fire and the tapestries, and a worn carpet beneath her feet, a chill radiated from the stone walls and floor. By this, and the musty odor that lingered on the air, she suspected this room had not been used in some time.
Grace decided to look out the window in an effort to get her bearings—she had lost all sense of direction in the castle’s mazelike corridors—and moved toward the far wall. Halfway there she halted—something she had not noticed before caught her eye. In a corner near the fireplace was a large wooden tub filled with water. Even as she watched, a crisp curl of steam rose from the water’s surface. On a stool next to the tub lay a neatly folded cloth towel, a brown lump she took for soap, and a porcelain bowl filled with dried herbs and flower petals.
Grace cast another look at the window. She wanted to learn more about where she was. However, the window wasn’t going anywhere, and right now her chilled body ached to feel itself immersed in hot water. She debated the issue—window or bath?—for a second more.
Bath won out.
She stood before the fire, kicked off her cold shoes, and started to unbutton her blouse. It was only then she noticed her left hand was clenched shut in a tight fist. She thought about it and realized it had been so all along. With her right hand she had clutched the blanket around her while on the knight’s horse, and it was also with the right she had reached toward Alerain. Her left hand had remained closed throughout all of it, so numb with the cold she had not noticed. Now, with her right hand, she unclenched the left.
Something small and silver shone on the palm of her hand.
Grace peered at the object she had clutched so tightly. It looked like half of a coin. There was a design on each side, but she could not make them out, for the half-coin was too worn. It must have been very ancient. Yet where had it come from?
A raspy voice seemed to speak again in her mind.
It is merely a token. Yet in it there may reside some small reservoir of strength
.
Of course.
He
had given it to her. The weird preacher man in black. Brother Cy. She remembered something small and cool being pressed into her hand, just before she had opened the door of the orphanage. Just before everything had gone white and she had awakened to find herself here, in this …
“… world?” she whispered aloud.
Yes. That was the word that had been hovering on the edge of her understanding, waiting for her to voice it. This was not present-day Earth. Nor was this even Earth as it had been in some past century. She wasn’t certain how she knew this, only that she did. Perhaps it was some deep and primeval human instinct, embedded in her chromosomes over the course of millions of years of evolution—sensitive to slight discrepancies in the color of the light, or the force of gravity, or the chemical composition of the atmosphere—that told her
this was not her world
.
Yet that did not seem entirely right. If that were truly the case, then the knowledge she was no longer on Earth—that she had somehow stumbled through an impossible doorway into another, alien world—should have flooded her veins with fear and adrenaline. Wasn’t that how instincts worked?
However, for all its strangeness, there was something about this place that felt oddly … comfortable.
None of this served to answer her primary question. How had she gotten here? Had
he
sent her to this world? But the preacher had told her what lay beyond the door of the orphanage was up to her. Perhaps something deep inside of her had wished to find a way to another world.
She dug into the pocket of her chinos and pulled something out. It was damp and rumpled but still legible: the business card Hadrian Farr had given her. Farr had told her it was the mission of the Seekers to search for and study strange occurrences.
A jolt of grim humor hit her. “You should have stuck with me, Farr. It doesn’t get any stranger than this.”
A shiver reminded Grace of the steaming tub of water. She set the card and the half-coin on the mantel above the fire place, then took off her necklace and placed it beside them When she got back to Earth—
if
she got back, she amended, then suppressed the thought—she would call the number on the card and talk to the Seekers. However, right now there were other matters to concern her, the most immediate of which was survival.
As quickly as she could with her stiff fingers, she shucked off her wet clothes and piled them in a heap before the fireplace. Then, without even testing the water, she climbed into the tub.
She let out a gasp. The water was shockingly, painfully, and deliciously hot. A series of violent shivers surged through her body, and needles of pain danced across her skin. She forced herself to stay submerged. Her shuddering eased, and the bright pinpricks faded to a pleasant tingling. Finally the heat seeped into her chilled core, and her shivering ceased. She let out a luxuriant sigh and sank deeper into the tub as her stiff muscles melted.
She decided it was time to scrub and reached for the lump of soap. It was soft and fatty, and its smell was faintly rancid. However, it was soothing as salve when she rubbed it on her skin. She sprinkled the dried herbs and flowers into the water, and a sweet fragrance rose upward, effectively masking the unpleasant odor of the soap, as was clearly their purpose.
After this, Grace leaned back, soaked, and drowsed for a
time. At last the water started to cool. With a sigh, she climbed from the tub and toweled off in the glow of the fire. Soon she was dry and warm. And, she realized, quite naked. She eyed the clothes piled on the hearth. They were steaming now, but still sopping.
She gazed around the room, and her eyes fell on a tall cabinet in a corner. She threw open the cabinet’s doors, and this action confirmed her initial suspicion. It was a wardrobe. Inside were several gowns, each a different color, but all fashioned of soft wool. Folded on a shelf above were some sort of undergarments, made from undyed linen. All looked to be about her size. No doubt these things had been brought here ahead of her, along with the tub of water. Grace gave the odd clothes a dubious look. None of them were exactly her style—chinos and a blouse were about as dressy as she ever got—but she supposed necessity superseded fashion.
The undergarments were easy enough to comprehend. They were soft and not unlike a pair of long underwear. She slipped them on, then started to reach for one of the gowns, but at that moment a wave of weariness washed over her. Between her ordeal in the woods and the warmth of the bath, she was exhausted. Her gaze drifted toward the massive bed, and immediately her only thoughts were of sleep. She clambered up the stepping stool, flopped onto the bed, and sighed as she sank down into expansive softness.
Goose down
.
Then, for a time, she did not think of all that had happened to her. She did not think of the man with the heart of iron, or of Hadrian Farr, or of Brother Cy. She did not think of this strange world, or of how far away from Earth she might be. She did not even think of the hospital, or of the endless stream of broken people that streamed through the Emergency Department’s door.
Grace’s last conscious effort was to burrow under the heavy bedcovers. Then she shut her eyes and drifted into a deep and peaceful sleep in which she thought of nothing at all.
Travis and Falken reached the ancient keep just as the sun sank behind the rim of the valley and the lake turned from copper to slate.
“Shall we see if anyone is home?” the bard said. His black-gloved hand slipped to the knife belted at his hip, and belied his light tone. Travis didn’t need a magical translator for
that
message. He swallowed hard and gripped the hilt of his stiletto. Falken made a fist of his left hand and pounded on the door—a huge slab of scarred wood—three times.
There was a grating sound. Then, with a groan, the door opened a crack—just enough to reveal a single, bulbous eye. The bloodshot orb rolled back and forth, then focused on the two men.
“Who goes there?” a chalky voice said.
Falken answered in a formal tone. “Two travelers seeking shelter against the coming night.”
“Well, then you had better find another keep,” the voice said in a croak. “We’ve already taken in our share of vagrants. We couldn’t possibly squeeze in another, let alone two. Good-bye!”
The door started to shut, but Falken wedged the toe of his boot in the crack to keep it open.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, there
are
no other keeps,” the bard said. “We might be on the far frontier of the Dominions, but even here the laws of hospitality hold sway. Or have you forgotten?”
This resulted in a burst of cackling. “I have forgotten nothing. Yet I’m afraid King Kel doesn’t go in much for laws—except for ones he makes up himself, of course. Still, I doubt you’ll find a lord more hospitable to those he favors—or more harsh to those he does not.” The eye squinted to a slit. “Which be you, Falken of the Blackhand? Friend or foe?”
Another burst of laughter answered Falken’s surprised expression.
“Yes, I know who you be, wanderer. Of little worth would be the doorkeeper who did not know the sight of the Grim
Bard coming!” The eye rolled in Travis’s direction. “But what is this delicious morsel you’ve brought with you?”
Travis squirmed under the orb’s scrutiny, uncomfortable for a reason he couldn’t quite name.
Falken glowered at the eye. “Just answer my question. Are you going to let us in or not?”
“Oh, very well,” the voice said. “If you absolutely must, you may pass. But you would be wise to answer
my
question, at least to yourself. Be you friend or foe? As I recall, King Kel was not altogether pleased with the name Falken Blackhand when last you left here.” With that the eye vanished.
“What was that supposed to mean?” Travis whispered.
“I’m not entirely certain.”
Travis didn’t like the sound of that, but before he could question the bard further the door swung inward with a creak. Torchlight spilled out. The doorkeeper was nowhere in sight. Travis took a deep breath and followed Falken into the passageway beyond. There was a great booming as the door slammed shut behind them. The two men spun around.