The Illusions In Between

by J M Robison

  “Another sacrifice to diavolo won’t make that a problem anymore. Where is your amulet?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No matter. We’ll find it. Your blood will lead us to it, according to the book. Crank.”

  Tic-tac-tic-tac…

  The clacking winds up again, ticking away my life. I rest my head against the chair, my pulse thudding slower. Tears rush down both sides of my face.

  “I loveth thee, Brynnella Eldenshod. Forgive me. I should not have left the undercroft.” May an angel sweep my words toward Brynn’s ears so she might still know them before the Faewraith come.

  The machine cranks, but there can’t be any more blood left in my body. They’re taking my soul now. My head slumps forward. I’ve no more strength to hold it. I’m chilled. I know I’m only moments from death when Eudora appears in front of me, so close she’s touching my knee.

  Touching my knee.

  “Fǽder?”

  I’ve only a split second to question it when I’m slammed with tastes, smells, sounds, and thrown into a weightless whirlwind.

  Part III

  Chapter Forty

  Jaicom

  I’ve lost Joseara in the crowd. Trying to peer between hats and bustles to find her again, my gaze jerks to a white Faewraith which pops into view above everyone’s heads. I can’t fathom where it came from, or how, and I stare at it in a muddled stupor until someone fires a shot at it, drawing the attention of everyone in the square.

  People scream and push to get away from the porch. The bullet punches into the Faewraith, and it cries, wings shuddering as it lowers to the ground. Those who don’t run away stare transfixed. The Faewraith whimpers and lies on its side. Blood runs down the steps.

  Whispers erupt all around me, interrupted by a frigid scream. The whispers turn into murmurs as everyone looks all around them, trying to decipher where it came from.

  The man who showed up with Joseara appears next to me. “Did she make it inside?” he asks.

  I look at him, wondering from where and how Joseara knows this man. “She…did. Sorry, who are you?”

  “Darik Vandazmer.” He holds out his hand. I shake it hesitantly. He’s sopping wet, and his nose looks previously broken. “You’re Jaicom Whaerin?”

  “I am. How do you know Joseara?”

  His eyes shift away from me to Joseara, who also suddenly appears by my side. Funny. I didn’t see her run out of the Pantheon.

  She latches onto Darik’s arm. “I put Brynn on that roof.” She points, and I look. Put her on a roof? How? “Zadicayn fell through a magicked hole in the floor created by Black Magicians.”

  My breath hitches in my chest and I cover my mouth, forgetting about Brynn being put on a roof. Maybe Zadicayn isn’t the wizard I thought he was to defeat the Black Magicians.

  “Is there a chamber beneath the Pantheon?” Joseara demands of Darik.

  “Oh, uh…” Darik shuts his eyes, lips moving as if debating with himself. “Si, si! There is. I know an entrance two blocks from here. Though the entrance is in a building locked up this time of—”

  Joseara pulls on his arm. He stumbles to get his feet under him, but together they are running off, and I’m left to panic, thumping my cane on the ground. I’m helpless and useless. I came all this way from England…to stand in front of the Pantheon while the wizard I came to help gets captured.

  The square is emptying because of the Faewraith, but the middle and lower-class citizens still at its edges holler and start grabbing at the escaping upper class, which summons the shrill of the Italian constables who swing at them with clubs. A riot is on the boil, so I don’t dare stay, but I can’t leave while Zadicayn is still in the hands of the Black Magicians.

  I must do something. I walk forward with purpose toward the porch. A man is kicking at the Faewraith.

  My foot touches upon the first step of the porch, and my mouth fills with unexplainable tastes, a voracious roar in my ears, and enough scents to lambast my too-small-nostrils for it all, that I vomit.

  And then I’m flying skyward.

  Visions spin across my eyes faster than a spin-top. I’m too startled and confused to do much else than hold my hat to my head and grip my cane as I spin.

  I see nothing and everything. Like a mix of oil and water, the visions glom together and separate again in a vortex of shattered reality. My body continues to whirl, but I have this unexplainable knowing I’m standing still.

  I try moving, but I’m walking on air. I vomit again, spinning visions colliding with the stagnation in my mouth and taint in my nose. I’d be deaf with the clamor in my ears if it’d been any louder.

  I’m nauseous from this collision of senses, but the visions slow and orient, the smells shrink to nothing more than rain on hot brick and coal-like exhaust from a train–only much dirtier. The sound dies down to a mechanical purring.

  The thousands of visions finally combine into one, spinning languidly around me, and stops.

  I have no idea what I’m looking at.

  A loud blare startles me. I whirl around. A hulking metal horseless carriage moves toward me. The carriage driver sits behind a sheet of glass. From within the carriage booms a ruckus and a clamor, and a female shrieking the words, “…crashed my car into a bridge, I don’t care! I love it! I don’t care! I love it; I love it!”

  I step out of the carriage’s path, and it zooms by, carried along on four black, round wheels, spinning impossibly fast. Two red lamps flare to life on the back of it, and the carriage stops. There are many of these carriages parked in line with each other, all shaped differently with outrageous colors. Nearby is a building to rival the size of Parliament in London. Massive letters across the top read Sportsman’s.

  “Jaic…”

  I turn to my name and see Zadicayn bound to a chair. He’s death-white.

  I forget my injured leg and sprint to him, throwing my cane aside to loosen him from the straps binding him to the chair. He slumps into my arms.

  “Help!” I shout at a woman walking out of Sportsman’s. She’s wearing pants, but I’m more devastated about Zadicayn’s predicament than about her horrendous clothes. “Call a doctor!” Zadicayn’s head falls into the crook of my arm.

  The woman pulls a square black thing out of her pocket and pushes it to her face.

  Useless.

  “Help!” I shout again to the bystanders who have wandered over. Maybe they don’t speak English. Maybe I’m not on earth. Maybe I’m dreaming, caught up in whatever magical clash happened between Zadicayn and the Black Magicians.

  The useless woman hustles over. She’s incredibly fat. Maybe that’s why she doesn’t wear a corset.

  “Sir,” she asks in weird accented English, “dispatch needs to know how old this man is.”

  “Who in the bloody hell is dispatch? Get me a doctor!”

  “I am. Dispatch needs to know what’s wrong with him, first.”

  “Are you blind? He’s dying!”

  She steps back and puts the black square thing to her ear. “The man is Caucasian,” I hear her say, “looking to be in his early twenties. His friend says he’s dying but won’t tell us…”

  “Help!” I shout again to the gathered crowd. They all stare, and they all have those little black flat square things either out in front of them or pressed into their ears. They all wear pants. One woman only wears half-pants. I fight mighty hard not to look at her ankles. The fat woman spoke English, but this isn’t England. Clearly. English women are tied in their dresses.

  Several minutes lapse. Zadicayn’s breathing shallows further. Not dead yet. I can’t imagine what’s keeping him alive.

  His body shudders. He stops breathing.

  “Zadicayn?” I shake him.

  His head lolls side to side.

  “Zadicayn!” I fight with myself to believe this is a dream, but I’ve never dreamed before of metal carriages, half-pants, and Sportsman’s.

  A big white, horseless carriage rolls toward me an
d stops, and three people jump out the back, one holding a long board. They jostle me out of the way and surround Zadicayn.

  One presses a finger to Zadicayn’s neck. “Pulse is weak,” the man says.

  In a flash, they have the wizard bound to the board. At first, I thought they were in some way going to help him until they lift him up and scurry to the white carriage.

  “Where are you taking him?” I charge after, going to beat them all with my cane. But when I get to the back of the carriage, they beckon me inside. They don’t appear to be malicious, and I’m not about to become separated from Zadicayn. I step inside the carriage ahead of the closing doors. A roar rumbles under me, and I fall sideways as the floor moves. One of them–a woman–catches me before I crash into a glass window shielding odd-looking bottles and bandages beyond.

  “Have a seat,” she beckons, pulling on my arm to guide me around Zadicayn. Still strapped to the board, he takes up most of the space in the exact middle of the carriage.

  With limited walking or standing space, I’m glad to follow her lead and sit beside her on a bench along one side of the wall while the other two buzz around Zadicayn.

  “Who are you people?” I ask. They showed up out of nowhere and took Zadicayn without question. It’s clear we don’t belong here–wherever here is. My imagination drums up all sorts of awful things before even giving the woman time to answer my question.

  “We are…” The woman’s gaze lowers and rises up my body. I sweat. My clothing is remarkably different from the two men who share this cramped space with us. They don’t wear suits. Not even vests. They look atrocious. “Paramedics,” she finishes with hesitation.

  “Med–medics?” I inquire.

  “Yes.”

  I nod my head in satisfaction. Zadicayn is in good hands, after all. I turn my head to look out the small window behind me. Buildings and trees whizzing by shows we are moving really, really fast.

  Magic.

  A deafening, whirling blare screams outside the carriage, following us.

  The medics have stuck a red tube into Zadicayn’s right arm. A clear, rubbery device covers his mouth. I’m inclined to trust it’s not to suffocate him, though I can’t imagine what else it might be doing. I wish Zadicayn were awake. I don’t understand what’s happening to us. He might recognize it as one of the realms he visited and explain how we came to be upon it.

  A flat, even tone shrills inside the carriage and gets all the medics in a panic. One of them rips Zadicayn’s shirt wide open in the front. I don’t see his amulet. Must be in his pocket. Another man grabs two of what looks like Clarissa’s clothing irons, and lays it on Zadicayn’s chest.

  “Clear!” a medic shouts, and Zadicayn’s chest bucks upward violently.

  “Get your hands off him!” I leap to his defense, but the woman medic grabs me and forces me back onto the bench.

  “It’s all right,” she says. “We’re restarting his heart. Haven’t you heard of an AED before?”

  I won’t take my eyes off Zadicayn. Restart his heart?

  “Clear.”

  Zadicayn’s body jolts again. The flat, even tone transitions into a steady beep…beep…beep, and everyone looks relieved.

  “Where am I?” I ask the female, unable to go without that answer a moment longer.

  “Where? Sir, you’re in an ambulance.” She speaks English–they all speak English–but lacking the English accent. “Are you in shock?”

  “No, I’m not in bloody shock!”

  She presses a hand to my forehead the same time a damned light flashes in my eye. I sweep the light away.

  “Where do you think you should be?” she asks.

  “In Rome. In front of the Pantheon not ten minutes ago.”

  “Do you remember hitting your head really hard?”

  “I didn’t bloody hit my head.”

  “You can stop with the British swearing, sir.”

  “I’ll say whatever I bloody want to say.” This attitude is not going to get me answers. Worse, she somehow knows about the Queen’s great country, which waters down my hope that we were in one of Zadicayn’s realms. With a forced breath, I say, “Sorry. I did hit my head and can’t remember what city I’m in.”

  “You’re in Pocatello.”

  “Where is Pocatello?”

  “In Idaho. Your eyes look normal. I don’t think you hit your head—”

  “Is Idaho a country? Who’s your king?”

  She snorts as if containing a laugh. “President Trump. Idaho is in the United States. Rick, I think he’s in shock. Do we have…”

  All my blood shoots to my feet, so I feel as deathly as Zadicayn looked a moment ago. I cease questioning, lest I lose my mind with one more answer I can’t understand. Wake up, Zadicayn. Please…

  “Looks like you came from a costume party ten minutes ago.” She smiles at me. “Your English clothes are impressive.” Then she attempts a terrible English accent by saying, “God save the Queen.”

  I want to hit her with my cane. I reassess Zadicayn so I won’t. His skin has returned to a pink hue, and he’s breathing normally.

  The carriage stops, and I tilt sideways, ramming shoulders with the female.

  The back door opens, and I’m ushered out, the medics jumping out with Zadicayn, though he is attached to a table with wheels. I trail after, following them to a glass wall which splits open by magic and yields an opening to us. The ceiling floods me with gas light.

  This isn’t real. Whatever magic conflict happened between Zadicayn, and the Black Magicians has created this terrible, alternate reality I somehow got sucked into.

  Zadicayn is wheeled into a room with a curtain, and tubes stuck to him all over. Mechanical things beep, and numbers and lines come alive on the flat, black, square surfaces.

  I sit down as the medics buzz around Zadicayn. The confusion and panic about what happened to me have numbed to dull fatigue.

  “Nice costume!”

  I look up. A male medic grins at me. “Having a British party at ISU?”

  “Sod off.”

  He ducks his head with a frown and turns away.

  “Sir, I need to ask you a few questions.”

  I look up to a female medic who remained in the room, facing one of those square black things buzzing with letters and pictures. Her long fingernails clack against a board with many buttons.

  “Is he going to be okay?” I ask.

  “Yes. He lost a lot of blood. His heart stopped because of it, but they put more blood back in him, and he’s right as rain. He’ll just be weak when he wakes up. What’s his name?”

  “Zadicayn Eldenshod. Thank you for–”

  “Now how is that spelled?”

  “What?”

  “His name. How do you spell his name?”

  “I…I’m not sure.”

  She clacks away on the buttons.

  I’m not sure what she meant by “put blood back in him,” because I certainly don’t know how such a thing could be accomplished, and nothing they did in the big white carriage looked like that’s what they were doing.

  Her fingers fly across the button board. “How old is he?”

  I cannot fathom why everyone so far has been obsessed with his age. But now that I’m reassured Zadicayn won’t die on me, I answer. “Twenty-four. I think. There’s been some debate since he can’t recall exactly what year he was born.”

  “Does he have any allergies?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Is he allergic to anything?”

  I must have blinked five times before she looks back at the flashing screen of numbers, words, and lines. “Does he smoke?”

  “No.”

  “Does he drink?”

  “Mead occasionally.”

  “Drugs? Medications?”

  “Ah, no.”

  “Any family history of illness?”

  “What the bloody hell does the health of his ancestors have to do with him almost dying?”

  She flips b
ack to the flashing surface and ceases asking any more questions. Her smile upon me strains when she walks out of the room.

  I nudge Zadicayn in the shoulder. “Zadicayn, I beg of you. Wake up.”

  “Huuuuu…” His eyes flutter heavily.

  “Something has happened to us. Someone told me we are in the United States, but the women dress like strumpets and drive these horseless, metal carriages. I’m so confused. You need to wake up and use your magic to make it right again.”

  Wet green eyes open a slit, widening more after each breath. “Ye…said…united…states?”

  “Yes.”

  He mumbles. “What…year?”

  “Year? It’s 1848. March eighteenth.”

  “No…ask…what…year.”

  “All right.” I fear his temporary absence of blood has scrambled his head.

  I lean on my cane, pain clawing at the six-year-old damage. I limp out of the room and stop the first person who walks by. “Excuse me, but what year is it?”

  “The year?” He looks mightily concerned. “2017.”

  “That’s not a year, you fool.”

  “Sorry.” The man hurries away.

  I return to Zadicayn. “Some fool just told me it was 2017. Can you believe it?”

  Zadicayn, though resting on the bed, somehow sinks further into it. A sheen glistens on his forehead. “We’re in trouble.”

  “Why?”

  He stares at the ceiling, shaking his head, muttering beneath his breath.

  “Zadicayn…” I say, slow and deadly, “what happened?”

  He closes his eyes. “’Twasn’t my fault.”

  I hold my breath, waiting. When he doesn’t continue, I press slower with more grit. “What happened?”

  He thrashes a shaking hand through his black hair. “I saw Eudora.”

  “Where?”

  “In front of me, before we ended up here.”

  “You’d lost a lot of blood. Could have been a hallucination.”

  He shakes his head. “Real.”

  “How? You left her in the Fae Realm.”