by Dale Olausen
She expected the gold-robed woman to argue, and try to persuade her to stay but she did not do that. Instead, she nodded knowingly.
“Come then,” she said. “We will find a way back for you.”
They were standing on the castle steps and the woman turned to face the massive double doors that led inside. Slowly these opened while they watched.
The feeling that by coming to the castle she was stepping out of the peaceful world of the grassland, had grown stronger within Sarah as she had walked through the forest that surrounded the building. That forest had been very unlike the one in which she had found herself after the fall through the darkness – it had been shadow-filled, and not one tree had had “friendly” bark. The shadows that had darkened the sandy road had not lifted when she had reached the empty courtyard of the castle, and she had grown a little frightened. But then, while she had hesitated inside the open gates, she had caught sight of the golden-robed woman, and had decided to walk up to her, and talk to her. And now it seemed that she was one of those who were to help her on her way.
The castle was even gloomier inside. The corridor which the two women entered was poorly lit although wide and spacious. Its walls appeared to be covered with intricate murals which Sarah would dearly have liked to examine, but her companion was leading her along at such a fast pace that there was no opportunity to linger.
After walking the length of the corridor they crossed through several empty rooms, just as shadowy, also with murals covering the walls. Then they travelled down another hallway and through more empty rooms while silence seemed to press around then like a heavy weight. The gold-robed woman did not initiate conversation, and Sarah was feeling too timid to do so. Her usually lively spirits had been dampened by the gloomy stillness around her; the castle, like the forest and the meadow before it, had infected her with its mood.
They came to a stairwell. The woman in gold had been walking a couple of paces ahead of Sarah and now paused at the bottom of the stairs to wait for her to catch up. She looked at the girls’ sombre face and smiled.
“You are welcome to ask questions about the things that puzzle you,” she said and the lightness of her voice pushed aside some of the shadows that had gathered around them. “I will try to answer them as best as I can.”
“Oh?” Sarah grinned back in surprise. Questions? Certainly she had questions, dozens of them. But which ones of those crowding her tongue-tip should she ask?
“What place is this?” she blurted out with a definite lack of originality, as they started climbing up the stairs.
“This castle?”
Sarah nodded.
“We call it the Castle Fortune.” The gold-haired woman smiled again, almost impishly this time. “Does the name mean anything to you?”
Sarah pondered this for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders.
“I guess it doesn’t explain anything,” she answered truthfully, “but it does suggest something, although I’m not sure what.”
“That’s good enough,” replied her companion mysteriously, making no further comment.
Sarah shrugged again and went on to her next question.
“And this world?” she inquired.
“It is known as Eden,” came the reply. “Think of it as a place of rest for the weary.”
“A place of rest for the weary.” Sarah thought about that for a moment. “But I haven’t seen a soul but yourself here, the whole time since I arrived,” she protested.
There was a smile on the gold-robed woman’s face as she turned to reply: “You were not looking for companionship, were you now, my friend?”
It was hardly the kind of an answer that Sarah had expected. She turned it carefully over in her mind. It was true, she conceded, that she would not have been pleased to have found herself surrounded by people, when she first fell into this world. She was something of a loner, and like many loners, when her energies were spent she preferred to do the necessary recharging alone, away from contact with other people. When she was worn out, she experienced interaction with other people as an additional drain on already depleted resources. Thus, the solitary walk through the forest and the grassland had been exactly right for her, under the circumstances; nothing else would have suited her quite as well.
However, the fact that she had found exactly what she needed on entrance to Eden implied to Sarah something strange and unexpected about the place. Had her companion meant to suggest that this world was different things to different people in accordance with their needs and desires? Suppose that Sarah herself had been looking for a cheerful evening spent among pleasant companions? Was that what she would have found?
“Yes, more or less,” the gold-clad woman answered, when Sarah put the question to her. “You could say that our world operates on basic premises that are very different from those of your world.
“We try to give to those who come to us what they require.” She paused, then continued: “We are limited, of course, by the natural laws that operate here. But, you needed rest from worry, and comfort and kindness also, in order to put your ordeals behind you. You would not have accepted concern for your welfare if it had come from another person; therefore we relied on our trees, our grasses and flowers, our earth, wind and the sky to care for you. They did the job quite well, don’t you think?”
Sarah nodded while a pleasant glow warmed her insides as she remembered her first impressions of Eden. They all had been good.
“And now you need to return to your own world,” added her companion, “so we shall find a path there for you.”
They walked in silence while Sarah tried to sort out her thoughts. This silence did not seem oppressive at all even though they were crossing empty rooms and passing through long hallways. Some of the shadows appeared to have fled from the Castle Fortune.
“Do you have a lot of people coming here and looking for rest?” was Sarah’s next question.
“Many consciousnesses,” came the reply with a smile. “Most of them come to stay, however, and rarely do they find themselves here accidentally, like you did.”
The answers the gold-haired woman was giving generated more questions in Sarah’s mind, instead of satisfying the old ones. Eden was a puzzling place, that much was clear, and she did not have the time to unravel even the smallest of its mysteries. Would she be able to find out anything more about it once she was back in her own reality? Not likely – unless the Witches of Kordea knew something. They had worked with amartos for ages, and it was the Stones that had sent Sarah out-of-body in the first place. Most likely they had provided the catalytic push behind her successful flight from the pursuing fires into this other world.
“This is such a beautiful place,” she said to the woman beside her, “that I would very much like to explore it. But there is so much left for me to do back home…”
“You must go,” her companion interrupted firmly. “It is not good to leave loose ends behind.”
They climbed up another set of stairs. Then came more hallways, and more empty rooms, and finally, they stood at the bottom of a winding stair case that led up into one of the towers that, from a distance, had made the Castle Fortune look like a fairy tale castle out of a storybook-vid.
“We’re almost there,” said the gold-robed woman, and began to climb up the spiral stair. They climbed past two landings to what must have been the topmost room. The staircase ended there.
In that room they were met by another gold-gowned woman. She appeared younger than Sarah’s companion but had a similar air of concern and helpfulness about her.
“This is my assistant, Aris,” said the first gold-robed woman. “She has done the basic work necessary to enable you to make the trip back to you own reality. How is it coming, Aris?”
“Very well.” Aris smiled. “We are lucky. There are those in your reality, Sarah, who have some of the Knowledge and want you back there. The Circle of the Twelve has been searching the dimensions for you.”
“The Circl
e of the Twelve?” Sarah was puzzled. The term was a new one to her and she hoped that it had no connection with The Organization.
“The largest of the Sacred Circles of the Kordean Witches,” explained the older gold-clad woman but this did not clarify things much for Sarah. The Kordean Witches – she knew so little about them, or about anything else in her universe. How could she hope to learn the secrets of a place like Eden when she did not even know her own universe?
“I was able to get in touch with them,” continued Aris, “and to let them know that the one for whom they searched, was here in Eden and ready to return home. They are building a bridge right now, and will come and fetch you, Sarah. They felt that it was the easiest way since you know so little about the Powers.”
The other woman mulled this over for a minute and nodded.
“That is perhaps the best way,” she agreed. “Let us form a circle and wait for them to ready their bridge, and come.”
The tower room was large, with a stone floor and stone walls. Four big windows, one set in each wall, let in the light of the luminous sky which, however, seemed incapable of banishing all the shadows that lurked in the corners. It was, Sarah thought, as she watched Aris fetch three cushions from a pile of them in one corner of the room, as if the brightness and warmth of Eden could not quite reach the Castle Fortune. It had been touched by sadness and pain which were not of the world that lay outside it.
Aris lay the cushions to form a triangle in the middle of the floor. She motioned to Sarah to come and sit down on one of them, then seated herself on another. The older gold-robed woman completed the circle and smiled encouragingly at Sarah.
“Let us hope that our wait will not be a long one,” she said, bowing her head as if in prayer.
Sarah and Aris did likewise, and, for what seemed like a long time to Sarah, all three sat thus, not speaking, each one of them apparently absorbed in her own thoughts.
What had Aris meant when she had said that the Witches were building a bridge? If they needed a bridge to cross to Eden how was it that Sarah had ended up there, after a prolonged fall, under a canopy of leaves? She had crossed no bridge, only torn through a barrier when, terrified, she had been fleeing from the fires that pursued her.
Was building bridges between realities the kind of activity that the Witches of Kordea ordinarily engaged in? Did they explore other dimensions the way the Explorers charted stars and planets? What was it that Aris had said – that they had some of the Knowledge? What knowledge? Was it knowledge about other realities such as Eden and how to reach them? If that was so, it was no wonder that the Mistresses of the Stones looked upon the Terrans, and technological culture, with contempt! When you can travel across realities at will, what fascination can hopping from planet to planet hold?
“They come.”
The softly spoken words yanked Sarah out of her thoughts. She raised her head to see the other two women stare past her at the window and wall behind. She twisted around to look – her eyes fell wide open.
The big window and the stone wall had disappeared! Instead, she saw a long, narrow corridor, stretching out into the distance. Walking towards her in the corridor was a human figure, looking small and indistinct at first. While she waited her heart pounding and her fists growing clammy, the figure came closer and became the form of a tall, black-haired woman in a long, dark-green, hooded robe.
When the woman stepped out of the corridor, and onto the stone floor of the tower room both of Sarah’s gold-clad companions rose onto their feet, and walked over to greet her courteously. Sarah, too, got up but she hung back from approaching the newcomer. She was suddenly horribly aware of how childish she must seem in the silly, yellow smock-dress that she still wore. The woman in the green robe, in contrast, looked regal and mature in a manner that Sarah easily understood. Her tall body was ramrod-straight and she held her shoulders erect. Her striking, white face was deeply lined with wrinkles, and the steel grey eyes measured the small, pale girl coolly.
The older gold-robed woman turned to smile at Sarah, and that eased her discomfort a little.
“So this is the first time that you meet face to face,” the woman in gold said. “Sarah, this stern lady is Marlyss, the Eldest of the Sacred Circle of the Twelve, the Circle of Witches at Ferhil Stones on Kordea. And, Witch Marlyss, meet Sarah, the one whom you seek, she who passed from your universe into ours, accidentally.”
“Your appearance is certainly deceiving, Sarah,” the Witch Marlyss said drily. “Looking at you it is hard to believe that you had the strength to break through a barrier between realities.”
It was the wrong comment to make. Sarah’s timidity vanished; she saw red.
“What was I supposed to do?” she demanded. “I was being attacked from both sides. I had to do something!”
A thin smile flicked across the Witch’s’ face.
“We, the Circle of the Twelve, were one of the two that you choose to call attackers,” she said.
For a second Sarah only stared at her, dumbfounded. Then her anger returned but now it was cold as ice.
“Thanks a lot,” she hissed from between clenched teeth.
“We were protecting you from being swallowed up by those others – the Terrans you call The Organization,” the Witch Marlyss explained coolly.
“Protecting!” Sarah spat the word out. “Protecting! You were trying to swallow me whole, just like the other fire! Protecting you call it!”
The Witch’s form wavered, rippled in the air, as if whatever matter that composed it was shifting subtly. Then it steadied and the strong-featured face broke into a smile.
“Yes,” replied the Witch, “you are right Sarah. We were trying to take your mind into our control, but it would have been only for a while. I’m afraid that we underestimated you.”
Sarah could not think of an answer to make. Her fury ebbed away in the face of the simple confession, leaving her once again only a young girl in a foolish dress and bare feet.
“Well, let us get on with the matter at hand,” added the Witch Marlyss briskly when Sarah had said nothing. “Even the Twelve cannot hold a bridge between realities indefinitely, nor can we keep up a viable body form in another reality for very long. You are coming back with us, aren’t you, Sarah?”
“I feel that I must,” she murmured. “It’s my fault really that The Organization got the Stones – I’m the one who set them afire. I must go back and get them away from them.”
The Witch stared at her.
“But, Sarah, don’t you know?” she asked. “The Organization didn’t get the Stones.”
It was Sarah’s turn to stare.
“What? But I saw a ship…”
“A ship picked up the cat and yourself. It wasn’t an Organization ship; it was an Agency ship.”
“Really?”
Sarah stood rooted to the stone floor. What the Witch said took her off the hook. She did not have to go back to her own world to right what had gone wrong. She could stay in Eden.
So why, when only moments ago she had profoundly regretted the need to leave the paradise, now that she was free to remain suddenly she did not want to? She gazed around the room anxiously, as if hoping to find the answer there, but it, of course eluded her. The gold-robed woman’s flecked eyes caught hers.
“Perhaps you have some other unfinished business in your life, Sarah?” she asked. “Something that you have not thought about for a while.”
Sarah inhaled deeply, thinking, remembering, then exhaled slowly. There was something. It concerned the disappearance of her father and brother. The explanation had never sat well with her. That must be it. She had to keep faith with Cam’s memory, that of her father, and her own need to know the truth about them. Yes, she had to return to her own reality.
“Thanks,” she whispered to the gold-clad woman with a thin smile.
The woman stepped over to her side and lay a light hand on her shoulder.
“Sometimes,” she said in a comforting ton
e of voice, “the shortest distance between two points is the long way around.”
Sarah let this riddle pass, and allowed the green-robed Witch to take her arm and pull her towards the narrow corridor.
“Come and visit us, Sarah,” said Aris as she waved goodbye. “As soon as you learn the road here and back.”
Sarah, too, waved goodbye as she stepped into the corridor. For a few paces she followed the Witch Marlyss obediently and then turned around for a last glimpse of the tower room and her two new friends.
The room was not there. Only dark mist hung in the air where the corridor ended, inches away from her.
Chapter Nineteen
“The Firedragon!”
Coryn stared in disbelief at the pilot’s grinning face.
“What in hell are you trying to pull off?” he demanded, his face colouring with anger.
The grin did not disappear from Steph’s face. He ignored the Agent’s ire, and, looking very satisfied with himself, rubbed his hands together. His demeanour was that of someone who has just brought off a successful coup.
“The best route to Kordea,” he said happily.
“Really?” Coryn’s eyebrows shot up as high as they could go. “If we don’t get fried to a crisp on the way.”
“We won’t. Don’t you worry, we won’t.” Steph’s grin stretched from ear to ear. “And I don’t think The Organization Hounds will come looking for us around here!”
“That point I’m not about to argue,” Coryn conceded dryly.
The Firedragon was the most notorious star in the galaxy. It had been given its name for a reason – it did, indeed, breathe fire, in the form of intense X-rays and gamma rays. A neutron star of the type known as a soft gamma repeater, it poured out incredible amounts of energy in short, unpredictable bursts. In less than an hour, these flares had been known to produce more energy than Earth’s sun produced in decades. And those were routine bursts of the Firedragon – a super-flare was beyond imagining, capable of sterilizing an unlucky planet at the distance of tens of light years.