Alesia made the decision to push on, even as her resolve to continue began to wane. The idea of marching through the forest in search of a man from her dreams was silly at best. He had been a presence in her mind for so long that she had convinced herself he was real. But in the loneliness of the night, far from the familiar surroundings of her village, the truth had begun to reveal itself. She had, most likely, driven herself mad with years of worrying about her inevitable fate.
Still, the thought of sleeping on the ground with the rats and spiders and snakes had no appeal, and going home wasn’t an option. She extracted the oil lamp from the feed sack and used the two flint stones to light it. The sun had been her companion in the forest, lighting her way, warming her face with its rays and giving her the confidence to travel where so few others ever dared, but now it totally abandoned her. She hugged herself and shuddered as a breeze chilled her through the thin fabric of her dress. The broken shovel handle gave her some sense of security. So far she hadn’t seen anything larger than a squirrel, but she knew wolves and mountain lions frequented the area. She had seen them occasionally through the years, though never up close.
There were numerous vicious, carnivorous creatures that hunters told of fending off during their outings. Most of them were said to have an insatiable thirst for human blood. So many stories were spun throughout the village that no one ever knew what was true and what was myth. There were some ancient documents that described monstrous beasts created by genetic manipulation during the Great War, but no one had found convincing evidence that any survived the mass annihilation that brought the war to an end.
The lamp’s feeble light did little to help her see. It cast long shadows from the trees and gave her surroundings an eerie glow. The only things visible to her lay within her tiny circle of light. What manner of terrors lurked just beyond, heaven only knew. The shadows took on sinister shapes, conjuring images of bloodthirsty creatures. Her mind ran wild imagining the things that could be following her, just out of sight. The lamp was a beacon that would allow all the horrible monsters in the forest to find her, but she couldn’t travel the unknown terrain without light. She gripped the shovel handle tightly, readying herself to use it on anything that approached.
As the full moon broke through the trees, a wolf howled in the distance. Every step on the ground produced a crunch that echoed, amplified by the stillness of the night. Another set of footsteps seemed to come from behind her, but every time she stopped she heard nothing. Things scurried across the ground just out of sight, further unnerving her.
Each time she questioned her decision to come into the forest, she had only to think of Baron Volga and the things he would do to her on their wedding night to shore up her resolve. Her stomach turned from the memory of the baron touching places on her body that no man had ever touched.
Now that she had time to contemplate its meaning, Marco’s betrayal stung even more severely than it had at the ball. Marco had convinced her that she could be loved. His callous lie devastated her heart. Standing in the council chambers, she had felt her dream hero calling to her as surely as she could feel the heart beating in her chest. Her last hope of happiness had been the man in the castle atop the hill. With every step that took her farther from the village his subtle, but ever-present beckoning had diminished until the notion that he was there waiting for her faded completely away. It made no sense that he could touch her mind so clearly from such a great distance. Drawing nearer to him should have strengthened his presence. For the first time she truly realized how ridiculous she had been for believing in her fantasy. The reality that she was utterly alone in the world and would be until the moment she died, finally hit her.
Bitter tears welled up from deep inside. Alesia collapsed to her knees and sobbed for a moment but quickly fought back her sorrow, determined not to cry for the loss of a man who obviously never loved her or for one who never existed.
Chapter Three
Gil sat at his workstation, tapping his keyboard.
Day 392, Gil Thorn’s technical log. The Barrier Emitter Nodes are failing at an alarming rate. The United World Brotherhood has apparently stumbled upon a weapon setting that taxes the Barrier beyond its limits to cope. All I can do to keep it up is replace the damaged parts as quickly as possible. With no one left to assist me, I cannot devise an upgrade to stave off this new threat. I can barely stay ahead of the failing components. Given the current rate of failure, I estimate the Barrier will last seven days at the outside.
My latest attempt to establish communications with my colleagues has yielded negative results. All of the Alternate-Reality Doorways are permanently locked and have begun to dissipate. I am at a loss to explain why the junction point has not collapsed completely. Our initial assumptions about the nature of this structure may have been incorrect. Something is holding the junction point together, but I cannot locate anything in this Reality that is responsible.
The Window to the second site went undetectable this morning with no prior warning. It was stable and behaving normally one second and gone the next. On a positive note, the Window to the third site has been returning anomalous readings and growing in strength. I can only speculate that the fabric of that Reality is somehow moving closer to this one. If the two Realities come in contact, a new Doorway may form, thus providing me with a means of escape.
Speculation and fanciful thinking have no place in the log. I should strike those last lines, but what difference does it make? No one will ever read it.
Gil didn’t regret staying behind to facilitate his colleagues escape; he only regretted the bad timing of an equipment failure that had trapped him. Can’t start wallowing in self-pity now. Too much to do. He pushed his chair back from his workstation and stretched. A loud warble caused by a high-energy pulse splitting the atmosphere rattled everything sitting on his desk. A low-pitched boom from the beam striking the Barrier reverberated through the control room. The graphical display on the Barrier Sphere monitor barely registered the hit. Only one percent of the total allowable deformation was reached, but the output capacity of the Emitter Nodes servicing the area of the impact was reduced by five percent. A few more hits on that spot and the Emitters would have to be changed. Fortunately the Brotherhood didn’t appear to realize they had found a weapon setting capable of breaking through, because they were still utilizing a random targeting pattern.
Gil opened an application on his workstation and tweaked the settings of the active noise-canceling system he had cobbled together from spare parts. It wasn’t sophisticated enough to dampen every decibel, but it reduced the constant booms to a level that allowed him to keep his sanity.
A beep came from a workstation across the room. Gil hurried over to see what was happening. A red dot was pulsing on the screen. He tapped the dot with his finger. Well, hello, gorgeous. What are you, and how can I detect you from the other side of reality? He played his fingers across the keyboard. A window containing data opened on his screen. You’re not a malfunction or a random energy spike. You’re definitely coming through the Window to the third site, but if you’re alive, why can’t I detect anyone else? Surely you couldn’t be all alone—like me. Maybe you are alone. He opened another window and gathered what information he could about the signal, but the results were inconclusive. If I had known I was going to get stuck here, I wouldn’t have let them erase so many applications. I can’t even do a decent signal analysis. Maybe you’re not a life sign. Perhaps just a Locater Beacon, but why are you showing up now? Someone must have set you off. If you’re trying to get my attention, why aren’t you transmitting coordinates? He sifted through the data for a moment. No message at all, just noise. You’re not calling to me, are you? The real question is who would use a Transuniversal Locater Beacon in a Reality with no detectable technology?
Gil grabbed his Junction Locater and headed to the position of the Window to the third site. Chances were slim that it would form into a Doorway. As long as the scientific commun
ity had been studying the junction point, no Windows had ever morphed into Doorways. Most appeared briefly and disappeared permanently after only a short time, but this one connected to the third site and perhaps, was special somehow. It had never exhibited any unusual readings before the second site disappeared. Gil could only hope that some realignment of the sites was taking place.
The muffled noise from the constant bombardment on the protective Barrier reminded him of thunder far off in the distance. A terrible storm raged overhead, getting ever closer to unleashing its fury upon him as each hour passed. Gil had come to accept the relentless determination of his enemy to destroy him, but knowing his death was inevitable didn’t help him make peace with the universe. He had gotten a bum deal and wanted a chance to play a new hand. His purpose for existing had to be something more than holding the fort while his colleagues escaped. He was thrilled they had gotten away and believed in his heart they were safe, but that one small act had left him unfulfilled. A greater purpose had to be awaiting him.
He strolled into the corridor and took a reading of the Window. The sensor on the corridor wall was functioning normally. The beacon signal coming through was real. On the surface everything appeared normal, but a more detailed check of the data showed tiny energy spikes and variations in the emission frequency. Something apparently unrelated to the beacon was disrupting the Window’s normally placid state, like an unshielded electrical device causing interference in an analog radio broadcast. Whatever it is, it’s getting stronger.
***
Regardless of how frightening walking through the forest all night had been, nothing bad happened to Alesia. With the first rays of dawn, she saw the castle rising up out of the trees in front of her. The canopy was so thick she couldn’t get a good look, but it was there, not too far away.
Not one shred of hope remained that she’d find her hero waiting for her in the castle. Short of returning to the village, her life had been reduced to two possible paths, and one of those was extremely unlikely. If the castle spirits proved to be a myth, she would climb to the highest window and dive onto the rocks below. But not before having a nice long nap. At least taking refuge in the castle would provide her with some solitude to contemplate her limited options. No one would dare to look for her there. The villagers were too afraid of the things that they believed lived within. No matter what happened now, she’d not see another sunrise on her world.
The outer gate, which had most likely been made of wood, had long since deteriorated, leaving the main entrance open for all to pass. Deer trails led up to and around the perimeter of the outer wall, but none ventured inside. The forest vegetation grew along the ground but refused to encroach on the stones, as if they had some property preventing it from taking hold. Not even a bit of moss was visible on the stone anywhere she looked. Alesia placed her hand flat against the wall. The cold, smooth stone soothed her hand, but nothing unusual happened.
She stepped through the entranceway in the thick, high wall and emerged inside the compound. From a distance, the scale of the castle was deceptive. Under the canopy of the forest it was hardly visible, but up close it was truly colossal. Six cylindrical guard towers capped with pointy roofs rose above the highest part of the main building. Dozens of smaller buildings were scattered throughout the compound. All were joined by a series of interconnecting walls obviously intended to provide people safe passage between the buildings during battles. Archer’s gaps lined the tops of every building and ringed each of several shorter towers. Narrow windows dotted the walls here and there, apparently intended as additional defensive positions.
A set of the wide stone steps led from the walking path up to the castle’s main entrance. As with the outer wall, the door was missing. Alesia took a deep breath and proceeded inside. Flickering light from the lamp cast shadows from every outcropping on the walls and through every doorway. The massive structure had maintained its integrity for centuries. Other than a slightly musty smell, it showed no obvious signs of decay, a testament to the craftsmen who built it.
She could only wonder about the lives of those who once called the place home. Romantic images of knights in shining armor riding white stallions and rescuing damsels in distress filled her head. Those were the stories quietly whispered among the women of the village. Alesia overheard such tales when the mistress loaned her out to cook at parties for the ladies of high society. No one knew the truth of the structure, and nothing but the stone remained. Some claimed it had been there for many millennia before the Great War and had been the only structure in the entire world left standing at the end. After nine centuries, so few records from the war survived that people doubted the validity of the ones that did. The odds were slim that the ancient structure could have remained intact when entire cities fortified with the best technology humankind could create were completely obliterated. Many outlying towns were said to have been leveled by nothing more than the concussive force from attacks on the metropolitan areas.
At the end of a long corridor, a doorway led to a steep spiral staircase that wound its way around the inside of one of the cylindrical guard towers. That would be a perfect place to jump. She could ascend to the top of the stairs and simply step into the central void. Impact with the flat stone floor from such a great height would kill her instantly. But if anyone ever found her, they might believe she had accidentally slipped. No. It would be better to dive from a window so everyone will be certain that I jumped deliberately, to escape the baron.
How resilient the human spirit is, desperately clinging to hope when the mind knows for certain there is none. Despite the revelation that her hero was merely a fantasy, she had never truly given up hope of finding someone living in the castle until she saw its emptiness for herself. That’s what had kept her traveling ever forward rather than lying down and letting the forest claim her. Even standing there inside the walls with air as her only companion, Alesia found herself wishing for him to ride up and rescue her. He’s not away for the day, he doesn’t exist. Bonnie was right; there are no heroes for the likes of us.
The climb to the top of the tower proved grueling, even for someone accustomed to hard work. She lost count of the steps somewhere around 150, but the reward was well worth the effort. The little windows in the top of the tower overlooked the forest she called home. While she had always known the forest encompassed a vast territory, viewing it from above gave her a new perspective. It stretched on as far as she could see, apparently extending beyond the horizon. Her village was minuscule by comparison. The lake she had swum in all her life was positively huge. The extent of its deep blue waters wasn’t fully visible even from her current perch.
The windows were easily large enough for her to fit, so she stepped through to the outer edge and stood gazing down at the piles of jagged boulders lying below. The fall would surely kill her, but the day was much too beautiful to die. A clear blue sky stretched from horizon to horizon. Fragrant scents of midsummer floated on the breeze. The happy songs of a dozen types of birds echoed through the forest. An abundance of life was simply everywhere. To ruin it with the shrill scream of terror that would surely peal from her throat as she fell and the blunt thud of her body impacting the rocks would be a crime against the world.
She climbed back inside from the window, descended the guard tower steps, and continued her exploration. A grand ballroom with a huge balcony lay just off the main corridor. She could imagine dancing the evening away in the arms of some handsome gentleman, then accompanying him to his bedchamber for a night of passionate lovemaking. But there was only vacant space inside the castle walls. Everywhere she went was more of the same. Empty room after empty room. After so many centuries, it wouldn’t be logical to expect to find anything inside. Still, something of interest would have been nice: ancient wooden furniture, an iron door pull, a hinge, a bolt, anything. But absolutely everything had either been taken or deteriorated to dust and floated away on the wind.
The immense beauty and cold em
ptiness of the castle stood in stark contrast to each other. Alesia’s spine suddenly twinged between her shoulder blades, sending shivers throughout her body. She hugged herself, longing for the presence of another human being. No place so wonderful should be so completely devoid of life. If the castle had ever been inhabited by spirits, they had all surely fled to escape the unbearable loneliness inside the stone walls.
As the flame of her lamp began to burn down, she made her way toward the main entrance, not sure what her next move would be. She had come to be taken or die and not planned to stay until night. She stopped in a corridor and sat on the floor to consider her next move. Tears that she had refused to loose escaped her hold and spilled down her cheeks. Death and the baron were her only options, but both were the same, save the fact that one would be quick and painless and the other slow and torturous. The castle spirits hadn’t been riled by her presence, not that she truly believed in their existence any longer. The heaviness of her eyelids became too great to bear, and they fell slowly shut.
***
The Window to the third site was buzzing with interference so strongly that Gil nearly convinced himself he could hear it. He could absolutely feel it, but this was a completely different sensation from when it was pulsating. It registered as a tingling sensation between his shoulder blades, the sort of chill up the spine one gets when someone is approaching stealthily from behind. The Alternate-Reality Junction Locater wasn’t sophisticated enough to analyze what was happening to the Window. All but the most rudimentary monitoring applications had been erased from the supercomputers, to keep the Brotherhood from discovering how to manipulate the junction point.
The Fabric Of Reality Page 3