by Joy Nash
He felt the pain as if it were new.
* * * * *
Gina waited until Derrin’s breathing slowed, then deepened. When she was sure he was asleep, she eased out of the lean-to. If her kidnapper thought he’d scared her into abandoning her escape plans, he was sorely mistaken.
Night was falling fast, but it was not yet too dark to navigate in the forest. If she wanted to cover a good chunk of distance before morning, she’d better make use of every available scrap of twilight. She pulled a branch from the fire and brandished its glowing tip. It would have to serve as flashlight and weapon.
She found the path by the stream and set out in the direction of the water’s flow. She hoped the nearest town wasn’t too far.
If there was one.
You are no longer in your world.
Gina tried to squelch the thought, but found it just wouldn’t die. Her footsteps slowed. Things were a little too weird. Derrin’s speech, for one. If he talked some unknown foreign language, why could she understand it? She’d thought it was the drug, but now…
The trees were another problem.
Oh, they had looked normal enough at first glance, but after a whole day of hiking, she’d begun to notice the color of the foliage looked a bit off. The leaves were a little too blue, and their shape was odd. Too square.
The sky, on the other hand, seemed a little too purple, and the sun a little too white.
And let’s not forget the bugs.
Derrin had called them ghilla. The tiny fireflies rose in a glittering, multi-colored cloud whenever their resting place was disturbed. Enchanting, really, if Gina had been in the mood for enchantment. They were like no insects she had ever seen.
She had a nasty feeling that wasn’t a good thing.
Had she traveled to another dimension? Was the city with the pyramid a real place?
No. It was too preposterous a theory. And yet…
“Just where is it you imagine you’re going this time?”
Gina spun about, heart pounding. Derrin loomed over her, only about three feet away, yet she hadn’t heard even a whisper of his approach.
How the hell did he do that?
He stalked closer. “Answer me, Gina. Where do you think you’re escaping to?”
“A town. Help.”
His answering laugh was harsh. “If you found such a place, who would you ask for help?”
“The police, for starters. I bet you have a record a mile long.”
“Police?” She could hear genuine puzzlement in his voice. “Record? I know not what these words signify in your world, but I assure you, they don’t exist in mine.”
Gina’s stomach churned. “You don’t really expect me to believe I’m in another world.”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.” He shifted again, drawing even closer.
“Stop there,” Gina said. She lifted her stick. The glowing tip had faded to ash.
“Listen to me, Gina. You were brought to this world by a high wizard named Balek. He’s a very powerful man, but for all his power, he is ever seeking more. He sought to use your mind in that quest.
“I took you from him. No doubt he’s now searching for both of us. If you are so sure of your own powers, then by all means, seek him out. Though I’m unsure how you can hope to battle Balek without your crystal.”
“My crystal? Do you mean the rose quartz from my costume?”
Derrin didn’t answer. Gina would have pressed him further, but at that moment a bloodcurdling shriek pierced the stygian gloom. Gina froze. Not a human call. An animal. And it was much, much too close.
Suddenly, escaping Derrin didn’t seem like such a great idea.
“What was that?” she whispered, instinctively drawing closer to him.
“A tarma hunts nearby.” Before Gina could protest, Derrin grasped her icy hand with his own large, warm one. “Come. We must get back to the fire.”
A second otherworldly shriek rattled the night. Gina wanted to run, but Derrin held her to a slow, silent pace as they made their way back to camp. Once there, he built up the fire to a roaring blaze and settled into his side of the shelter.
“The beast won’t approach the flames,” he said.
A small comfort, at best.
Gina wedged herself into her corner of the lean-to as the tarma gave a third cry.
* * * * *
Ariek passed his gaze over the single, glittering crystal fragment suspended in the glass vial. His thoughts dropped away, leaving the landscape of his mind unblemished, like sand after a wash of the tide. The precise pattern of the crystal seed leaped into the void, filling his consciousness.
He touched the stone with his mind and circled, searching the surrounding liquid for the elements of the crystal’s form. One by one, he drew the grains to the seed’s surface and dropped them into place. The crystal grew.
An image appeared in his mind, unbidden, seeping through a crack in his awareness before he had a chance to stop it. A woman with red curls and honey skin, her soft green eyes flecked with gold. The seed trembled. Ariek gripped the edge of the worktable and struggled to maintain the concentration he had so carefully assembled. One grain refused to take its place in the crystal lattice.
Another grain defected, then a stream of particles broke away, skewing the pattern. He muttered an oath. With a wrenching effort, he pushed Danat’s image from his mind and tried to sharpen his focus on the crystal.
Before a heartbeat had passed, the leering smile and narrow eyes of Solk sprang to life behind Ariek’s eyes. The high priest leaned forward. His smooth hands parted Danat’s legs, his long fingers clawed at the delicate skin of her inner thigh…
The particles were spinning in confusion now, the pattern of the lattice damaged beyond repair. Ariek’s fist crashed into the glass vial. It skidded across the table and hit the floor with shattering force. This time, his curses rang out against the walls of the workroom.
He pushed away from the table. His existence, once carefree and unencumbered, had become unbearable. A year ago, he’d viewed his liaison with the Bride of Lotark as a challenging game, a thrill he’d assumed would fade quickly enough. It hadn’t. Somehow, his heart had followed his passion, until now all that mattered were the few stolen moments he shared with Danat in her attic room.
Leaving the broken fragments of glass where they lay, Ariek went in search of a distraction. A short time later, he entered the Stronghold’s common room and scanned its perimeter. Only a few pairs of wizards were positioned at the polished gaming tables, intent on the three-dimensional grids before them.
He approached one of the empty tables and studied its grid, a multi-chambered cube. The games were popular, designed to improve the clarity of mind vital to the practice of wizardry. A match would keep his attention away from Danat until he returned to the Temple that evening.
“Game, Ariek?”
He glanced up, surprised. “Hello, Maator.”
The youth took the opposite chair. “Would you do me the honor of a round?”
“You jest.” An apprentice rarely challenged a full wizard.
Maator leaned back in his chair. “My work is much improved. Master Balek has submitted my name again for the Wizard’s Trial.” He produced three crystals. “Shall we begin?”
Ariek shrugged and poured out his own crystals on the table. Not wishing to defeat Maator too badly, he chose three of average clarity and returned the rest to the pouch.
He turned his attention to the game board. Twenty-seven chambers, suspended a short distance above the table, composed a cubic matrix. Twenty-six chambers held white crystals, a blood red stone occupied the very center of the cube. The crystals were crude, and purposely so, to increase the difficulty of the game. A small wire basket was mounted on each face of the cube, awaiting the players’ own crystals.
“I’ll choose first,” Ariek said with an air of condescension. Maator would need the advantage.
“No. The first move is mine, as challenger.” Maa
tor dropped a crystal into position on the upper face of the cube. Ariek extended his mind toward the stone and frowned. It was a surprisingly pure specimen.
He set one of his own crystals on the cube’s opposite face. Maator made his second move, with another powerful stone. Again, Ariek countered it.
His frown deepened. The quality of the youth’s stones was well above that of an average apprentice, but the rules of the game required each player use crystals he alone had created. While Ariek pondered this anomaly, Maator made his third move.
Another flawless crystal. Ariek dropped his final stone into place and leaned forward, considering. It was unlikely that Maator, who had failed the Wizard’s Trial a year ago, had improved his concentration to such a degree in so short a time. He thought of the webstone, the mysterious crystal Derrin claimed acted as a catalyst, producing stones of astonishing purity. A five-sided crystal…
Impossible. Ariek returned his attention to the board and signaled the beginning of the game. He sank his will into his stones, using their purity to draw power from the crude crystals set in the cube. Each cubic chamber of the matrix could belong to only one player and would be lit with a white or yellow light when taken. After claiming thirteen chambers, a player could then claim the center, winning the game.
The first chamber filled with white light, sending a jolt through the center of Ariek’s concentration. Maator soon controlled a second cube, then a third. Ariek struggled to keep pace with the apprentice, trying to block the force flowing from Maator’s crystals by the power he drew from his own.
A bare half-hour later, the apprentice had claimed eight points on the matrix to Ariek’s seven. Ariek grimaced. Maator took quick advantage of Ariek’s surge of emotion and added another cube to his tally.
Three more crystals fell to Maator, two to Ariek. Ariek struggled, commanding the last drop of power from his crystals. He succeeded in adding another chamber to his credit, then another. Maator also claimed one. The count stood at eleven yellow, thirteen white. Ariek swore softly. The game was slipping away.
The red chamber flared, causing the entire cube to flash with a white light. Ariek sat back, stunned.
Maator cleared his throat. Ariek recovered quickly and rose, extending his hand.
“Congratulations, Maator. I’m sure you’ll be a full wizard at the close of the upcoming Trial.”
The apprentice nodded as he clasped Ariek’s hand. “Thank you.” He met Ariek’s gaze. “Will Derrin meet you here soon? I’d like to challenge him as well.”
Ariek sent the youth a measured glance. He plucked his crystals from the game grid and returned them to his pouch. “Derrin is not in the city.” A fact Maator surely knew.
“Where has he gone—to Sirth?”
“I have no idea.”
“But he’s your partner,” the apprentice insisted. “Surely he discusses his plans with you.”
“He doesn’t tell me everything.”
“Will he return for the Wizards’ Council?”
“I don’t know.” Ariek’s anger flared, though whether its target was Maator or Derrin, he couldn’t say. He turned and strode from the room.
He returned to his chambers, snatched up his cloak and fled the confines of the Stronghold. Danat’s arms awaited him. For a brief moment, he allowed the familiar yearning to sweep over him. Soon, very soon, he would lose himself in her heat.
Across the High Plaza, twilight silhouetted the gaudy façade of Lotark’s Temple much as the shadows of the Lower City hid the painted faces of whores. Ariek looked up and stopped dead. Danat’s lamp should have been visible beyond the carving of the pediment just below the edge of the roof.
His gut twisted. There could be only one explanation for the light’s absence. Danat had been called to the Inner Sanctuary to feed the sacred lust of some fat patrician. And Ariek, his wizard’s powers notwithstanding, could do nothing to stop it.
White with a rage that stole his breath, he threw himself down a side street. He passed through the Upper Gate into the twisting alleys of the Lower City, not stopping until he reached a grimy tavern huddled along the water’s edge. He slammed the door open and shoved across the crowded room to the bar, ignoring the stares of the patrons.
He slapped a coin onto the counter and barked an order. A barmaid hurried to comply. Ariek snatched the bottle from her hand and spun on his heel. A cacophony of gasps and mutterings burst aloud as the door banged shut behind him.
He tore out the cheap cork and downed a huge swallow of the bitter spirits before he reached the end of the alley. He turned, his steps slowing as he waded through garbage and filth. He had no destination.
He wanted only to forget.
Forget that the woman he loved lay under the weight of a man who had paid well for her pleasures while her lover cowered in the shadows.
Chapter Five
The song began as a faint breath.
Balek cocked his head. The strains pulsed again, louder. The flush of triumph heated his skin, as if having heard this particular melody was an incredible feat, worthy of praise. And indeed it was. The song existed only in the webstone, the perfect crystal he had created.
His attention faltered. The music, like a jilted lover, withdrew. He hastened after it, pleading.
He could not bear to contemplate its end.
“That’s it. I can’t go any further.” Gina lowered herself to the ground and pressed her back against a tree trunk.
Derrin, several strides ahead on the trail, turned. “What do you mean?” A flash in his eyes underlined his sharp tone.
Gina couldn’t summon enough energy to care. “Look, you may be used to this kind of thing, but I’m not. I can’t take another step.” A day and a half of hiking in this God-forsaken wilderness and she’d had it. She rubbed the back of her neck. She’d barely slept the night before, unnerved by the tarma’s shrieks and by the man sleeping beside her. At dawn, she’d crawled out of the lean-to cramped and dirty, insects crawling in her clothes and hair.
Derrin came back down the trail. He stood with one hand braced against the tree and glared down at her. Since her escape attempts, his mood had deteriorated.
Well, guess what? So had hers.
She scowled at him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
For a moment she thought he would argue, then he straightened and shrugged. “It makes no difference. We’ll stay here.”
He set about preparing the campsite. She watched him move, all easy strength and masculine grace. Arousal flickered low in her belly, but she quenched the spark before it caught and blazed. She would not allow herself to be attracted to her captor.
Derrin finished starting the fire. As he rose, he sent her a pointed look. “I’m going to fish. This time, don’t let the fire go out.”
Gina fed the flames grudgingly, wincing every time she shifted her legs. She wasn’t cut out for this survivalist lifestyle. Her idea of roughing it was a hotel without room service.
A flicker of movement in some nearby brush caught her eye. Gina went still, hoping whatever animal lurked there was a gentle herbivore. A silent heartbeat passed, then the leaves stirred a second time.
A pudgy creature with blue-green fur waddled into the clearing. It had the size and shape of a rabbit, but looked more like a mouse, with rounded ears and a pointed nose. It snuffled in the dirt, looking, Gina supposed, for insects. After foraging in one area, it moved closer on its six stubby legs, swishing its bushy forked tail behind it.
Six legs. Blue-green fur. A forked tail.
No. It just couldn’t be.
But Gina had a sinking feeling that it was. She was no longer on Earth. Or, if she was, it wasn’t the Earth she knew.
She jumped to her feet. The furry creature let out a sound like a ringing bell and scampered back into the underbrush. If she were truly in another world, had Derrin told her the truth when he’d said a wizard summoned her here? It was as reasonable a hypothesis as any other she could come up with at the moment.
But which wizard? Derrin’s rival? Or Derrin himself? Gina had no way of knowing. Derrin insisted she had been a captive of a high wizard named Balek, but she had no memory of the man. Was he even real—or had Derrin invented him in an attempt to gain her trust?
Yet even if she didn’t know who had brought her to this world, she did have an idea why they had done so. It could only be because of her knowledge of crystals.
Crystals were magic in this world. It seemed just a little too coincidental that someone would bring in a crystallographer from another dimension by pure accident. Derrin had taken the rose quartz crystal from her costume. Did he fear she would use it on him? Or did the stone have something to do with how she got here? It had glowed just before the glittering strands Derrin called the web appeared in the forest outside The Wizards’ Ball.
Derrin claimed he’d left the rose quartz with Zahta. Gina supposed it was true—he didn’t carry a pack and God knew his leather shirt and kilt left little room to hide a stone that size. As far as she knew, the only crystal he carried was the one on a chain around his neck.
He hadn’t wanted her to see that one. Why? Could it help her get home?
She needed to get a closer look at it. Perhaps if she held it in her hand, she could figure out how to trigger its power. It was worth a try.
“I’m pleased to see you didn’t run this time.”
Gina whipped her head around. Derrin was standing nearly on top of her, holding three fish strung on a piece of vine. Again, she hadn’t heard him approach. The man moved with the stealth of a cat.
A large, sleek cat, with gray eyes that looked into her soul. A hot flush crept to her cheeks. If this was really another world, complete with magic and telepathy, then the mental orgasm Derrin had forced on her had been real, not a drug-induced hallucination.
He’d been inside her mind, had touched emotions Gina rarely acknowledged to herself, let alone anyone else. The union had been more intimate, more erotic than physical sex. Almost in spite of herself, she met his gaze. His gray eyes darkened, and she knew he remembered. She knew he wanted to touch her that way again. She saw it in the way he raked her body with his cool scrutiny, sensed it in the way he held his limbs taut when she was near him. If he decided to act on his lust, there would be little she could do to stop him. If he had stripped her naked, she would have felt less vulnerable.