by C. G. Garcia
CHAPTER SEVEN
The first thing Allison saw after waking was the face of the strange, white-haired man. For a few seconds, she stared up at him blankly, her mind still muddled and heavy with sleep. Then movement within the room caught her attention, and she tore her gaze from his face to the penetrating eyes of the three men at the foot of her bed. Her eyes widened as she took in the appearances of her new—visitors.
Like the white-haired man, the others wore similarly strange and lavish costumes, though of different colors and levels of elegance. The one that stood on the outside right wore a sapphire-blue robe completely embedded with gold braiding and jewels. Everything about him screamed “I am in charge,” not only in the obvious wealth of his clothing and his noble carriage, but also in his severe, controlled expression as he looked down on her as though studying an interesting new specimen.
The old man standing on the other end of the trio eyed her with open mistrust and something a little like contempt. He wore rather ornate, white robes of the strange silk-like material, and many jeweled rings encircled his bony fingers. His hair was as white as the hair of the younger man standing beside her, except for a few strands of silver.
Standing in the center of them and dressed in garments similar to the younger white-haired man’s except for their deep green color, a twenty-something redheaded man stared down at her warily, his face pale and his stance so tense that his entire body quivered. His hand unconsciously fingered the hilt of a sheathed dagger on his belt, and Allison was quite certain that he would not hesitate to use it if provoked.
On the verge of panicking, Allison whimpered and attempted to scramble out of their reach, but the large headboard behind her prevented her from moving back very far.
Who are these people? she thought frantically, cowering against the thick headboard under the intense stares of the others. Where in the hell am I?
Then the younger, white-haired man spoke, and Allison nearly choked on a sharp gasp when she clearly understood the strange words. Her mind had interpreted their meaning effortlessly as though he was speaking a second language she had known fluently all her life.
“How—how—” she sputtered aloud in English.
The white-haired man gazed down at her in confusion, his pale-violet eyes burning into her own, but as before, she couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from those eyes—so imploring, so full of—concern? He glanced over at the old man, who merely shrugged, before turning his eyes to her again.
Then his expression changed to one of understanding. His eyes brightened, and a ghost of a smile began to form on his lips. She found that smile unnerving, and she couldn’t fathom why it disturbed her as much as it did. She shivered and hugged her body more tightly in a subconscious effort to protect herself as her eyes darted fearfully between the four men.
None of this is real. These people aren’t real. This has to be a dream! None of this craziness can be—
“I assure you this is very real, we are very real,” the white-haired man suddenly said firmly in that strange tongue.
Allison’s mind jolted to a halt. It was as if he had plucked the thoughts right out of her mind. Coincidence—it has to be a coincidence. My thoughts must have been clear through the expression on my face—nothing more…
“Your language is unknown to us,” he continued, offering her a gentle smile, “as is your appearance. Although you may not understand why you can suddenly understand our tongue when you couldn’t before, you’ll also find that you can speak it with the ease of your native tongue. I ask that you use it, for we cannot understand yours.”
This can’t be—I do understand him, she thought in utter bewilderment. Is he right? Can I speak his weird language even though I’ve never heard it until today? She slowly relaxed her huddled posture and cautiously looked at all the alien faces at the foot of the bed more closely. Although tense and eying her with what appeared to be mistrust, none of the men had made any hostile moves towards her, or, in fact, moved at all.
Yet.
Then there was the strange, yet handsome man who looked to be old, but wasn’t. He had assured her that they meant her no harm, but could she trust his words? He seemed sincere enough, his smile genuine, but what had he done earlier to cause her temporary paralysis? Allison was sure he had caused it, but she had absolutely no clue on how he had done it.
She looked back at the man beside her. There was no doubt that he frightened her, but at the same time, her curiosity was peaked. She had too many unanswered questions whirling around in her mind, questions she desperately needed answers to if she hoped to make sense of what was happening to her. She decided to give their language a try.
Clearing her throat nervously, Allison said in a small voice, “Who are you?”
Immediately after those words left her lips, she let out a tiny gasp of shock. The words she had just spoken were not English but in a language that was both foreign and familiar. She hadn’t really believed that she would be able to speak his language. She had formed the question in her mind in English, but when she had opened her mouth to speak, the words had mysteriously converted to the strangers’ language.
Ignoring her gasp, the white-haired man replied rather amusedly, “I think that the more important question, milady, is who are you?”
The humor in his voice disconcerted her, and Allison once again shrank away from him in uncertainty. She didn’t know what she had expected him to reply, but it had not been this casual rebuttal of her own question as if he was mocking her.
Just as fear began to creep in again, a warm sensation enveloped her body, causing her tension to immediately melt away and her limbs to relax until she was more or less lying slumped against the headboard. She felt comfortable, at peace, and that nothing would ever hurt her, almost as if someone was whispering those reassurances into her mind.
“My name is Allison McNeal,” she said abruptly without realizing that she was going to speak, breaking the heavy silence in the room.
“Allison,” the white-haired man repeated as if testing the way the word felt on the tip of his tongue, “such a strange name. Very strange, indeed.” He tilted his head to the side curiously. “Not knowing our language, you are obviously far from home. How is it that you came to be in the Forest of Illusions?”
“Where?” Allison asked in surprise, forgetting for the moment that she was speaking their language as casually as her own.
“The Forest of Illusions,” he repeated patiently, as if talking to a small child. “Do you not know where you are?”
When she shook her head, he frowned and said, “This is the kingdom of Lamia, but that is not what’s important.” His eyes narrowed. “How you came to be in our kingdom without the level of your powers being detected at our borders is what concerns us.”
Lamia? Kingdom…?
“I don’t know!” Allison cried, clutching the blanket pooled on her lap. “I’ve never even heard of Lamia! What do you mean, ‘my powers’? Oh, God! Will somebody please tell me what’s going on? Why do I suddenly understand your language? What did you do to me?”
The fear and confusion had returned with a vengeance, erasing the strange languidness that had overtaken her body. She longed to be able to just melt into the bed, anything other than face this impossible situation.
The white-haired man abruptly reached a hand towards her, and Allison shrieked, causing him to immediately jerk it away as if singed.
“Don’t touch me!” she moaned, hugged her knees to her body and shutting her eyes tightly, willing herself far away even as she automatically braced herself for an all-too-familiar blow.
This can’t be real! Allison thought miserably, remembered pain and old fears coming to the forefront of her entire being and threatening to strangle her. We got out! I got out! No one was supposed to be able to hurt me again. This is only a nightmare—just a nightmare. I’m still in bed in my apartment. Soon I’ll wake up, and this will all be just a bad memory. Just a—
; Her frantic self-reassurances were interrupted by a loud voice that seemed to emerge from the back of her mind, a voice that exclaimed, “Selwyn, for Seni’s sake, calm her!” The same security and warmth that she had experienced earlier immediately followed that voice, dragging her out of the dark pit she had fallen into and back into the here and now so suddenly that she knew it couldn’t have been natural. With a newfound horrible clarity, she now realized that she was being manipulated.
“Stop it!” Allison shouted, her fear instantly melting away into anger as she lifted up her head to glare at the redhead, whom she inexplicably knew had caused her to feel that warmth.
She suddenly felt violated in the worst way. Through all her past beatings and verbal abuse by her once stepfather, at least her emotions, her reactions, had been totally hers, something he couldn’t have, and now this stranger had suddenly changed that.
“Whatever it is you’re doing to me, just stop it!”
The redhead visibly paled and took a couple of steps back away from the bed. He swayed a little before he took a deep, audible breath and seemed to control himself with considerable effort.
Satisfied that she had unnerved him, she then turned to the white-haired man, who was staring at her with wide eyes, and demanded, “Who are you? What are you? Who the hell is Selwyn?” She pointed to the redheaded man and asked, “Is that Selwyn?”
Before the white-haired man could open his mouth to reply, she continued almost in the same breath, “How did I get here? You must know! What was it that he was doing to me?”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Allison knew that she was only able to face these men and boldly demand answers because the redhead had taken away her fear, and that realization only made her angrier.
The man held up his hands as if he was afraid she was about to go for his throat and said, “Please calm yourself, milady. I’ll gladly answer your questions, but only one at a time and only when you have settled down. We mean you no harm, as I said before, but we do wish to understand how you entered into the kingdom as well. That’s a question that we had hoped you could answer.”
His eyes narrowed as Allison opened her mouth to speak but immediately bit back on the retort she had been ready to spat at him when she suddenly felt a chill go up her spine.
“If you don’t calm yourself,” he said slowly, his voice low and warning, “then I’ll be forced to spell you into immobility again until you are willing to be civil.”
Allison’s anger died away, and she shivered when she heard the coldness in his voice. In that instant, she knew that this was an extremely dangerous man. She felt her entire body go rigid as she stared back at him, afraid to even blink.
Nodding with satisfaction at her reaction, the man said, “To answer your first question, my name is Aidric Stanisnik. I am the Mage-general of Lamia and also court mage to King Diryan Lasha.”
“—which would be me,” the auburn-haired man at the foot of the bed said suddenly, speaking for the first time in her presence and nodding slightly when her eyes acknowledged him.
Her eyes were dangerously close to popping out of their sockets. A King—it was no wonder he had such an aura of authority about him!
As she gawked at the king, a particular word in Aidric’s introduction of himself suddenly sank into her shocked mind, and she realized the implications of the title he had introduced himself as.
She turned back to Aidric. “You said you were—a m-mage?” Allison asked, her voice stuttering over the last word that she was certain that she had misheard.
Aidric exchanged an unreadable look with the king. “Yes,” he answered, watching her face more intently.
“But—you can’t be,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.
“Is that so?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because mages don’t exist,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.
“Don’t exist?” Aidric echoed in bewilderment. “Of course they exist.”
Allison shook her head. “Not where I come from,” she insisted.
“Most peculiar,” King Diryan interjected. “I have never heard of a land in all of Seni’s World that does not possess at least the knowledge of mages in general. Even the most remote village in Sonon knows of mages.”
“Seni’s World?”
“Yes, Seni’s World,” the king repeated. He raised an eyebrow at her blank expression and asked, “Surely you are not ignorant of Seni as well, milady.”
The look of utter disapproval on the king’s face made Allison uneasy. It reminded her too much of the looks her stepfather used to give her when she had squirmed too much as a child during the excruciatingly long and often times disturbing “church” services he had dragged all of them to every day. Depending on his mood, the consequence of those looks had led to anywhere from a tongue-lashing to a few whacks across her back with a belt for her “disrespect” to the cult’s leader. Was “Seni” the name of their god?
“I’m afraid that I am,” Allison said hesitantly, not daring to meet the king’s steely gaze. Something in those piercing smoky-blue eyes unnerved her, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it—something familiar. Yet, she couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes for more than a few seconds to determine why.
“Where exactly have you come from, Allison?” King Diryan asked with an edge to his voice sharp enough to draw blood.
She instantly shrank back in renew fear at the sudden cold fury and suspicion that flashed within his eyes.
“Please,” Allison pleaded weakly, “I meant no offense—”
Frowning, Aidric opened his mouth to speak, but a sharp look from the king instantly silenced him.
“Answer,” King Diryan commanded in a chillingly calm voice, ignoring her words completely as if she had never spoken them.
“I-I’m from California,” Allison stammered as she forced herself to form her incoherent thoughts into words.
Now it was King Diryan’s turn to look puzzled, his harshness melting away almost as quickly as it had appeared. He turned and glanced at first, Aidric, then Selwyn, and finally at the old man who had not so much as uttered a single word in Allison’s presence, asking the others the same, silent question with his eyes. He received the same slight shake of the head in return from each of them.
“Where exactly is this—Cali-fornya?” the king asked, the name of the city rolling off his tongue awkwardly.
Allison’s heart sank. She knew there were probably tiny, obscure countries in the world she had no idea about, but for someone not to know about a place as well-known as California…
“In America,” she replied, a tinge of desperate hope in her tone.
“I’m afraid that I’m not familiar with the village you call Cali-fornya or the kingdom of America.”
“I don’t believe we should be, Your Majesty,” Aidric said slowly. “Don’t you see? By her own admission, she is of a place alien to our knowledge just as the prophecy foretold. We cannot deny it any longer. It is she. I’m now completely certain of it.”
“Oh?” King Diryan inquired. “And what makes you so certain about her identity now when you had doubts earlier?”
“The name of her homeland,” Aidric said without hesitation. “You know as well as everyone else present in this room that I have traveled to the ends of Seni’s World and back, and I have never heard of the kingdom she speaks of. Before you ask, let me ease your mind by saying that she is speaking the truth. I took the chance of darting in quickly to read the information directly from her mind. The only questions that really remain are how she ended up in the Forest of Illusions and why did a miniature Mage-field suddenly appear out of nowhere around her?”
Prophecies? Allison thought with confusion. Mage-fields? What in the world is he talking about?
“Yes, milady,” King Diryan said, turning back to her, “how did you end up in our kingdom without being detected by our guards at the Lamian-Sononese border as being one of the mageborn?”
/> “I really don’t know!” Allison insisted, clutching anxiously at the blankets again. “Believe me when I say I don’t know! One minute I’m at a local park walking with my sister, and the next minute a bright light suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of me. A force pulled me inside into a world of complete madness, and then the next thing I know, I’m lying on my face in a place so alien to me that I thought the whole thing had been a dream!”
“You journeyed through a portal, no doubt,” Aidric said, “a portal that could have only been constructed by the will of Seni if there truly are no mageborn in your world.”
“There’s that name again—Seni,” Allison said. “You keep mentioning his name. Who is he, or is it a she?”
Aidric and King Diryan exchanged peculiar glances.
“Seni is our divine master,” Aidric answered simply, “our creator, and I believe it’s by His will that you were brought here as you were. Long ago, a Seer from the Order of the Providence—those priests gifted with powerful Foresight abilities—foretold your coming. Ever since, the people of Lamia have long awaited your coming with much anxiety and fear.”
“Fear? They’re afraid of me?” Allison asked incredulously. “Just who am I supposed to be?”
Aidric didn’t answer her right away. He exchanged uneasy looks with King Diryan, who merely shrugged and waved a hand in a gesture of assent. Aidric nodded slowly, then fixed his gaze on Allison, his unusual, pale-violet eyes boring so intently into her own that she immediately looked away uncomfortably.
“Can it be so terrible,” Allison said quietly, careful not to meet those overpowering eyes, “that you hesitate to tell me?”
“Yes, I hesitate to tell you,” came his even reply, “but not because it’s necessarily terrible. I hesitate because I’m not certain of your reaction given that you don’t believe that I am a mage.”
Allison sighed and raised wary eyes to him again. “Given everything I’ve experienced today, I shouldn’t doubt what you’ve told me so far. You pretty much proved it earlier by paralyzing me and then removing my paralysis later with literally a wave of your hand. I’ve been running it over and over in my mind, and although it’s completely crazy, the only explanation that makes sense is that you are what you profess to be.”