Authors: Mark Anthony
“I think you’ve helped me enough today.”
Grace winced again. “I’m sorry.” She forced the words out one by one. “For running into you. And for thinking you were a servant. Back in the great hall. That was stupid.”
He cast his gray eyes toward the floor. “No, it wasn’t stupid. You’re right. I might as well be their servant. It seems like they always have plans for me, but they never bother to tell me what they are.”
Again she did not know what to say. “Are you lost? I can help you back to your chamber.”
He lifted his gaze and glared at her. “No, I don’t need your help. I don’t need anyone’s help. You’ve said you’re sorry, and I’ve accepted, so just leave me alone, all right?”
Indignation rose in Grace’s chest. Didn’t he know who she was? But then, she wasn’t really anybody.
Besides
, the dry, clinical voice inside her spoke,
you’ve heard those same words a hundred times before in the ED. The frightened will never ask for help. It means admitting they’re hurt, admitting they’re lost. You know that, Grace
.
He had turned from her now, and he bent over, searching the floor. “Where is it?” he muttered. “It’s got to be here.”
She remembered the flash of silver, then picked up the hem of her gown and moved toward him. “What was it you dropped?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t … I can’t explain it. But it’s important.”
She crouched down beside him. “Then let me help you.”
He ran a hand through his tangled hair and looked up at her. “Look, I already told you, you don’t need to—”
He stopped, and his gray eyes went wide. Grace shook her head. What was he staring at?
“I can understand you,” he whispered.
Grace frowned. For one simple almost-servingman, he certainly had the ability to confound her.
“What are you talking about?”
He leaped to his feet and pointed at her. “There. That. What you just said—I understood it!” He shook his head. “But that’s impossible.…”
She rose. A queer feeling crept into her chest. “Why shouldn’t you be able to understand me?”
Their eyes met, then as one they glanced down at a small glint of silver in the corner of a nearby alcove.
“There,” Grace murmured. “What you dropped, it’s in the alcove.”
He moved to the recess in the wall, bent down, then stood and turned around. Somehow Grace wasn’t surprised at what she saw. The spectacles were an obvious clue, of course. She had seen no others on Eldh. And his boots, now
cleaned of mud, were not the flat-soled boots the peasants wore. They were cowboy boots. She forced her eyes down to the object in his hand. It was a half circle of silver, engraved on both sides. One edge was jagged and broken.
“What is it?” he said, quiet now.
Yes, he sensed it. She was certain.
Grace approached, and from the pouch at her waist she drew out her own silver half-coin. He stared, then held his coin out. She brought hers up to meet it. Grace had no doubt the two broken edges would match perfectly, but she let out a gasp all the same when they did.
“The man in black?” he said, not really a question.
She nodded. “Brother Cy.”
“Then you’re from Earth, too.”
A tremor ran through Grace. It was wonder. And joy. And relief. “Yes,” she said. “I am.”
The words had rushed out of them in a flood.
Eldh. The coin. Brother Cy
.
They had fit their half-coins together, but the symbols on either side—though now whole—had still made no sense, just like so much about this. Then they had gone to her chamber. For a moment, at her door, Travis had hesitated. After all, he didn’t know this woman. She seemed to be someone here in this world, someone important. What was he doing even talking to her? He should get back to his own room before Melia noticed he was gone. Yet in that same way two Americans—who would have passed each other without speaking on any New York street—could become instant friends when meeting in a Paris café, he felt an instant connection with this woman. He had taken a breath and stepped through her open door.
“I’m Grace Beckett,” she said. “I’m from Denver.”
Only when she spoke these words did he realize they had been staring at each other for well over a minute.
“Travis,” he said. “Travis Wilder. And I …” Saying it
seemed to emphasize the impossibility of it all. “I’m from Castle City. It’s a small town up in the …”
Grace nodded. “… the mountains. Of course, it makes perfect sense. Where else would you be from?”
“You know it?”
She moved to a sideboard and picked up a pewter flagon. “I hope you want a drink, because I certainly do. And this time I’ll pour.”
Travis scratched the back of his neck. “I’m sorry about that, too.”
“Don’t be. It doesn’t matter. Here, drink.”
She pushed a goblet into his hand. He gripped the cup in two hands and took a sip. Cool smoke and warm cherries. No peasant’s wine for her. He gulped the rest of it down.
“Thanks,” he said, breathless.
Grace paced before the fireplace now, her violet gown whispering like secret voices. She seemed at home in the garment—assured, even regal—far more at ease than he felt in his rough tunic after a month of living inside it. Was she really from Earth? Yet she had to be—there was no other answer.
“Have you been here long?” he said. “In Eldh, I mean.” The question sounded absurd, but she would understand.
“Just under a month.” She locked her green-gold eyes on him. They were vivid and striking. “It’s been the same for you, hasn’t it?”
Travis nodded, amazed again. How did she know?
“We probably met Brother Cy on the same night. It’s the simplest answer. One thing I’ve learned as a doctor, the simplest diagnosis is almost always the right one.”
“I don’t think there’s anything simple about this.”
She took a gulp of her own wine. Now she did look unnerved. Somehow that made him feel better.
“No,” she said. “No, I don’t suppose there is.”
She gestured for him to sit by the fire. It felt a little strange. They were both from Colorado—there was no reason he should be uncomfortable with her. Yet she was dressed like a noble lady, and he wore the clothes of a commoner. It was hard not to slip into the role ascribed by one’s costume. He forced himself to sit, and she took the chair opposite him.
“So, who should go first?” he said with a nervous laugh.
“This is my chamber, so that makes you my guest,” she said. “I’m not really used to entertaining, but I suppose you should go first. That would be polite, wouldn’t it?”
She looked at him, her expression truly uncertain, which he found odd.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll start.”
Grace smoothed her gown, obviously relieved.
Travis thought a moment. Where could he possibly begin? He opened his mouth, and to his surprise words came to him.
“It all started when I heard bells.”
When he finished she said nothing. She only stared into the fire. He started to fear she would not speak at all, then she spoke in a quiet voice.
“I’ve seen it, too.”
He clutched the arms of the chair.
“The symbol.” She looked up at him. “The one that looks like an eye. I saw a man in a black robe carving it into a door in the castle.”
“A Raven cultist,” he said, more to himself than her. So they were here, too, in this castle. That couldn’t be good. “Maybe you’d better tell your story now, Grace.”
She nodded, then licked her lips. “I was in the Emergency Department at Denver Memorial. I’m a—I mean, I was—a resident there. It was just a night, like any other night. A few burn victims, that was all. Then I met the girl in the park, the girl with purple eyes.”
A chill coursed up his spine. “Child Samanda,” he whispered.
“So that’s her name.” She drew in a deep breath, then continued her story.
By the time Grace was done the fire had burned low on the hearth. Travis closed his eyes a moment, trying to take it all in—the man with the heart of iron, Hadrian Farr of the Seekers, Grace’s own flight into the mountains, and her wintry rescue by the knight Durge.
“So they think you’re a duchess.” He couldn’t help a wry smile. “And here I get mistaken for a servingman.”
Grace bit her lip and shrugged. “Sorry.”
Travis shook his head. It was hardly her fault, and he was
glad to have met her. Yet in some ways it had been easier when he was the only one, the only Earthling on Eldh. Easier to believe it was just some fluke, or that maybe he was dreaming, or lying in a padded cell somewhere hugging himself inside a straitjacket. Now he had met another traveler from Earth, and that changed everything. If he wasn’t the only one, then it couldn’t be a dream, and it couldn’t be chance. There had to be a reason they had sent him here, and her as well—the dark ones at the revival.
Travis stood—he felt trapped. He rushed to the window and threw it open. Frosty air billowed into the chamber. He should have asked Grace if she minded, but he wanted to feel the wind against his face. No, he
needed
to feel it, to feel that sense of possibility, that maybe everything would be all right somehow. He gulped in the cold air, then turned to face her. “So what do you think we should do?”
She rose from her chair. “I don’t know, Travis. I think … I think maybe this world needs us. Why else would we be here?”
They gazed at each other in silence, then a flat voice spoke a single word.
“Judgment.”
Travis guessed his own expression was as shocked as hers. He didn’t know where the word had come from, or what it meant. He hadn’t even thought about it.
“It’s late, Grace,” he said. “I should go. We can talk more tomorrow—if you want to, that is. And I’d like to see the door you found, the one with the Raven symbol.”
She shut her eyes, then opened them. “All right, Travis.”
He moved to the door, and she opened the way for him. Then the door shut, and he was alone in the corridor outside. Travis listened to the silence of the castle. A crisp wedge of moonlight spilled through a high window onto the stone floor. He supposed Melia would be angry with him. Then again, what was new about that? With a bitter sort of half smile he turned to go.
A crash sounded from the other side of the door.
Travis turned back and stared at the flat plane of wood. There was another noise—sharp, like something breaking. Terror plunged a stake through his body, into the floor, and
pinned him cold and rigid to the spot. What should he do? He didn’t know. It was so hard to decide.…
A muffled scream pierced the wood and shattered Travis’s paralysis like glass. Instinct replaced indecision. He threw his body against the door, ignored the bright flash of pain in his shoulder, and burst into Grace’s room.
It scuttled toward her from the open window. Travis’s first reaction was to turn his head and vomit. The creature was utterly alien. The only image his groping mind could hold on to was that of a blurred juxtaposition of a wolf and a monkey. The thing was malformed, like a breeding experiment gone awry, its limbs twisted and trailing lank hair.
Despite its ungainly shape it moved quickly, alternating between loping on all fours and hobbling on its hind legs. The thing stretched spindly arms toward Grace and opened a blunt muzzle to display a mouthful of fangs. Fey light shone in its round eyes. It had backed her into a corner. Spittle flowed from its mouth.
“Hey!” Travis waved his arms. “Over here!”
It was a stupid thing to say, but there wasn’t time to think of anything witty. Grace looked up, shock written on her face, and the creature whirled around, hissing. Now that he had its attention he wasn’t sure he wanted it. He fumbled for the stiletto at his belt—the gem blazed with crimson light—but before he could draw the blade the creature sprang onto the high four-poster bed and peered down at Travis. He could not rip his gaze from it. The thing licked the mucus from its muzzle with a gray tongue and tensed its hind legs.
“Travis—run!”
Grace’s shout spurred him to action. He stumbled to the side, barely out of the thing’s path. A hot line sliced down his arm where its claw caught him. He tried to lurch around the farside of the bed, but a long arm snaked out, and thin, strong fingers caught his boot. He went down hard on the floor. The air rushed out of him with a painful grunt, and a fetid scent washed over him. He gagged and managed to roll over.
The creature crouched above him. Its matted hair brushed his face. He gazed into its eyes—they were hungry, and tortured, and horribly intelligent. Then it lunged for his throat.
Before teeth contacted flesh, the creature squealed and fell
back. Dark blood oozed from a wound in its side. Travis jerked his head up. The iron poker that had been propped on the hearth a moment ago now dropped from Grace’s hands. She watched as, enraged, the creature sprang toward her.
Now Travis did have time to grab his stiletto. In one swift motion that surprised even him, he pulled himself to his knees and brought the knife down. The Malachorian steel sank easily into the thing’s flesh. It let out a shriek and arched its back. However, the blow had missed its spine. It whirled and jerked the knife from Travis’s hand. Twisted as he was on the floor there was no way to move quickly enough. He braced himself for the sensation of fangs ripping into his throat.
The beast went limp and, without a sound, slumped to the floor.
Travis looked up. Grace stood behind the creature, her face a marble mask, her hand smeared with black ichor. The hilt of a small knife protruded from the thing’s neck. With anatomical precision she had slipped the blade into the base of its skull and up into its brain.
“I guess medical school paid off,” Travis managed to say.
Grace only gave a jerky nod.
The sound of booted feet rang out. Travis staggered to his feet in time to see several figures rush into the room. First was the dark-haired knight Durge, followed by Beltan, Falken, and Melia.
“By the blood of the Bull!” Beltan said. “Are you safe, Travis?” He gripped Travis’s arm to steady him.
“I’m all right,” Travis said.
“No, you’re not,” the blond knight said, the line of his jaw hard. “You’re bleeding.”