Hope (11 page)

"Keep your heads firmly on the log." An unnamed knight bellowed to the room.

Three knights stood around an upraised dais in the front of the chamber. She was too far away to hear the incantation and felt a buzzing in her head as the spell passed into her body from the log. The buzzing turned into a tingling that slowly spread from her head down to her back. The tingling turned to discomfort, then suddenly to a pain so intense she thought someone scraped a knife along her back, peeling the skin off one layer at a time. She wasn’t the only one who screamed for that whole hour.

The pain subsided and turned into discomfort. She remained in the pools for two more hours as the spell gathered the organic material around her back to form her wings. It was the longest two hours of her life where she thought of nothing but each particle slowly gathering to her back. When the generation finished, she noticed the clear water for the first time. She tried to look at her wings, but agony accompanied any movement of her neck or back.

"Come." A suit of black armor with wings offered her his hand.

Her wrinkled fingers reached for the faceless comfort and he gripped her arm to draw her from the pool. She shivered in the cool air as a second knight toweled off her body, then gently let the damp towel absorb the liquid from her wings. Without the weight of the water, the wings felt much lighter, almost like carrying a backpack with a few books.

The black knight escorted her back to her room and gestured to the bed.

"You should lie on your stomach and rest your new muscles." He helped her do just that. "They’ll be sensitive for a while, but it will pass. You should feel better in the morning. Be safe, Lady Kathryn."

She heard him leave the room, but the throbbing of her new back muscles had the rest of her attention. Her foggy mind realized Sir Lanclor had escorted her, not some stranger. At dinnertime, she found she had no appetite and chose to spend the remainder of the evening and night in a fitful sleep.

The next morning, Kathryn arose from her bed stiff and sore. She had a hell of a time trying to squat over the bucket without toppling from the added weight on her back. Discovering how to use her new muscles was like a video game without an instruction manual. After a while, she could lift her wings a few inches. A long time after that, she extended them to their full width, their ends brushing the walls.

She turned her back to the full-length mirror in the corner of the room. The contrast between her light skin and the dark wings unsettled her. It almost looked like someone had just glued them to her back until she moved them and saw the unusual ripple of her new back muscles. Her stomach flipped and she decided if she thought about them too long, she would never see the beauty of them.

Her new gray uniform opened in the back with a flap of fabric that extended down between her wings. Straps connected to clasps on each side. She practiced folding her wings slightly apart on the bottom so she could sit in a chair without bending them. Even walking was a chore when she had to concentrate to keep her swinging arms from hitting her wings.

"These are a pain in the ass."

A few hours after she awoke, Kathryn finally found her way down to the Meal Room. Hal and some of the other new knights sat at a table in the corner where she went to join them. They all nodded to her, too sore to do much else. The other knights in the room went about their business and occasionally glanced their way with empathy in their eyes.

As the days passed, so too did her discomfort. Her wings still felt foreign, but she often found herself forgetting about them while walking or doing other tasks. She stroked the edge of her wings while standing in line inside the armory. The idea of having to wear armor all of the time made her nervous. Her training armor had been uncomfortable and only a fraction of the size worn by the knights. The line moved along and she reached the tables lined with mounds of chainmail, plate armor, helmets, and what looked like gray spandex suits.

"Ah, Lady Kathryn. I’ll have someone help you to get your armor and carry it to the courtyard." Sir Garrent gestured to a knight she didn’t recognize.

The knight gathered items from each pile, handing her the smaller pieces and carrying the larger ones himself. By the time he finished and led her to a corner of the courtyard, she staggered under the weight. How the hell would she walk in it, let alone fly? She wasn’t strong enough. The knight stepped away and she stared at the pile of metal, forcing the tears from her eyes.

"Now that you have your new armor, it’s time to put it on and finalize the spells." Sir Lanclor’s voice boomed across the courtyard as he paced among the new recruits. "What’s piled in front of you is crude, heavy and not very functional. You’ll first don the gray jumpsuit, then a knight will assist each of you with the proper way to put on the rest. The jumpsuit will bridge the magic between your wings and that of the armor and mold itself to your body. You’ll barely notice the weight once we’re done. Now get started!"

Kathryn eyed the jumpsuit. Spandex-clad bikers came to mind and she groaned as she pulled the fabric over her gray uniform and then pulled the hood over her head. It exposed every curve of her body and she flushed with embarrassment. The same unknown knight handed her the chainmail first, gesturing where it fit while muttering the names of each piece. She pulled on the hauberk with slits for her wings and then came the chausses and coif. Clenching her jaw, she willed the spell to work before she collapsed in front of everyone.

Warmth spread across her skin and she felt the weight of the chainmail suit lessen as it hugged her body. She bent her arms and legs, feeling no more resistance than wearing denim. Next, the knight helped her into a cuirass, fauld, cuisses, greaves, spaulders, sabaton, gauntlets and finally her helmet. The names of the armor felt familiar although she knew the words were alien to her.

The plate armor forced her to her knees and she counted each second until the spell took effect. She cried out as the heat from the plate burned along her entire body. Cries echoed around the courtyard. Just as she feared her cheeks would blister from the helmet, the heat lessened and the armor molded itself around her. She rose to her feet and did her best to look at the final product through the eye slits of the helmet. Her helper chuckled, showing her the ways she could manipulate the sections of the visor.

She’d never realized the helmets had various latches to allow for more visibility or easy access to meals. With her visor fully open, she glanced at her new armor and tested her range of motion. The chain mail and plate reminded her of snow gear. She could move and bend in it, but it wasn’t the most comfortable. Its color and bulk masked her gender. Not sexy or showy, but functional. Gray. Plain. Kind of like her.

"I know that wasn’t pleasant, but I’m sure you’ll agree the final product is well worth the discomfort." Sir Lanclor said. "Getting in and out of your armor isn’t as time consuming as it was in the past. We’ll teach you the spells to Call the armor and Dismiss it, which believe me will take a lot of practice."

A small feast in less than an hour would officially welcome them into the Knighthood. Kathryn washed her face, brushed her teeth with an odd finger brush and donned a fresh uniform. She glanced at her mound of armor on the table and sighed. The mouse appeared on her bed and sat upon its haunches, watching her.

"It was never like this in the fantasy books back home. The main character could just jump out of bed without having to do anything and would look great the rest of the day." The mouse just stared at her. "I know, welcome to the real world—or one of the real worlds."

Kathryn joined Hal and the others in the common room and they walked down to the feast together. The feast was in a small ballroom with large windows, ten-foot doors that opened to high balconies and several chandeliers. It barely contained all of the nobles, clergy, Council and the experienced knights.

The experienced knights herded the newcomers into the ballroom like a bunch of scared sheep. Presented to anyone of importance, the new knights had to wait for some type of response before they could move onto the next group of people. If the guests would have addressed them as a group, Kathryn would have felt more comfortable, but they all insisted on randomly addressing each individually. She had the misfortune of standing toward the front.

The guests either politely asked what she thought of the feast or the Knighthood in general, or gave her a rude snort of contempt. At times, they even glared and completely ignored her while engaging those around her in polite conversation. She spent a couple of hours just meeting and greeting the members of the nobility, clergy and Council.

The politics of this world were beyond her. The stuffiness and snobbery of this group of people drove her to slip out onto one of the many balconies just to relax before the next onslaught. They reminded her of the CEOs and managers of her clients back on Earth—out of touch with the everyday work and in their own little worlds of reports and numbers. Outside, she found the older knights had retreated from the crowd already and enjoyed the cool night with friendly chatter. None seemed to notice her, and for that, she was grateful.

She moved slightly to her left to be out of the direct light of the ballroom and in the quiet seclusion of the night. Staring up at the alien stars and the twin moons, she tried to calm her nerves and prepare herself for another round of mingling, leaning on the rail to lessen the strain on her back from her wings.

"Needed to get some air? I don’t blame you with all of that stuffiness in there." Lord Alextor leaned on the rail to her left. The shadows hid his eyes, but his tone of voice suggested a hint of humor.

She straightened before the Leader of the Knighthood. "I was merely taking a breather, Lord Alextor. I’m not used to dealing with so many people of high rank." Her response sounded stiff even to her own ears.

"Relax, Lady Kathryn, the night’s almost over. There’s no reason to speak formally on my account. I’m only the son of a farmer. I’m sure the nobles loved it when I became the leader of the Knighthood." He had turned his helmeted face toward her and she could see the amusement in his eyes by the light of the ballroom. "Tell me, what do you think about the Knighthood? Is it what you were expecting?"

She relaxed slightly before answering his questions. "It’s not quite what I expected. It reminds me of going to school on Earth, but I can’t compare it to anything I’ve experienced back home. I wasn’t expecting the wing ceremony." She said the last with a grimace of remembered pain.

"I remember my wing ceremony. They never told us until they congratulated us for making it into the Knighthood. I think they do that on purpose so you can’t get out of it. You’re all excited about getting in; you think it’s not such a big deal to go through a little pain now that you’ve reached your goal. What do you think about the feast?"

"It’s different. I don’t know about the politics of this world, so it’s hard to know whom I should be approaching. Not everyone has been welcoming," she added, not sure how else to explain some of the rude greetings she had received. "Perhaps I just haven’t mastered the art of communication on this world."

"I think you’re doing just fine."

She jumped in alarm. Sir Lanclor had snuck up on her right as she spoke to Lord Alextor. Kathryn knew he was smiling underneath his helmet at her startling.
Smug bastard
.

"You probably don’t realize that you’ve been speaking to Lord Alextor in Av’lorish this entire time." Sir Lanclor chuckled. "I suspected you had a better grasp of our language several weeks ago during drill."

Busted. She prepared herself for some type of reprimand from him when he continued.

"I’m not complaining, Lady Kathryn; I’m just making an observation. You need every advantage you can get on this world. The politics can sometimes be overwhelming."

"Thank you, Sir Lanclor." There seemed to be some kind of tension between Lord Alextor and Sir Lanclor, and she was caught in the middle of it. Trying to avoid the verbal crossfire, she excused herself and retreated to the chaos within.

"I don’t know if I’m surprised both of the Earthlings made it into the Knighthood," Alextor said.

Lanclor followed his lead and didn’t see the point of bringing up their latest argument. He knew Alextor would never change his mind and he’d be stuck investigating with the Royal Guard. He’d never get anything done if he spent all of his free time dealing with others’ problems on top of his own.