The Illusions In Between

by J M Robison

  “I thought the world was supposed to end before the year 2017.”

  “Jaicom…I think it did.”

  We both silently concede to keep our gazes to our boots until we arrive at the glass doors of the building. We stop inside, immediately washed in cold air. Jaicom removes his hat.

  “Welcome to Jaker’s,” a tall blonde female in pantaloons greets. “How many?”

  “How many what?” Jaicom asks.

  A delicate eyebrow lifts. She’s wearing more makeup than a strumpet. Blue. She has blue paint above her eyes. She looks hideous. “How many are here to eat?”

  “Oh! So, this is a restaurant. Ah, there are just the two of us, as you can clearly see here.”

  The girl eyes Jaicom’s grip on my arm and our clothes, which are at devastating odds with what she and every other patron in this establishment wear.

  “This way.” Her ponytail flips as she turns.

  Jaicom hangs his hat on a peg by the door where other, unusual-looking hats hang.

  “Do try to blend in and act natural,” I murmur to him as we follow her. “We don’t know this society. We are the odd ones here.”

  “If I hadn’t helped in freeing you from the undercroft, I wouldn’t be an odd one anywhere!” he hisses.

  The female indicates a table between two padded benches. We sit side-by-side, and if the female thought it odd that two men should be so intimate, she does not indicate so.

  “Where’s the costume party?” she asks brightly.

  Jaicom grumbles.

  “Out of town,” I say, noting both mine and Jaicom’s accent are much different than anyone we’ve met so far. “We were traveling back home.”

  “Was it a historical party? Because he looks British from the 1800s, and you look…” She tilts her head. She must be analyzing my torn drawstring tunic and pantaloons tucked into tall black boots–something I’ve not seen anyone else wear post-undercroft. “Middle Ages?”

  “Yea. Ye art well versed in thy history.”

  “Oh my gosh! And you speak Old English! And you…” She points at Jaicom. He doesn’t lift his head, currently mashing his napkin inside a fist, “have nailed your British accent perfect. My friend loves men with accents. She works tomorrow. Her name is Jennifer.” She winks at us and leaves.

  Jaicom spins on me. “I will not suffer to be so disrespected and accused of wearing play clothes by these bloody colonials!”

  “Humans fear insanity. Always have. Always will. If we do not concede to agree with their first assumptions, they shall haul us away into a place where all the insane go. The Fae shall find us soon.” I hope.

  He growls.

  A different woman approaches our table. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

  “Water,” I say, because in every realm I’ve been to, one thing has always been manifested: every living thing needs water to live, so it’s to be expected they will have it. Always.

  “Bubbly water,” Jaicom says, not catching my caution.

  “Oh, you’re so cute. What flavor of ‘bubbly water’ would you like? I’ve got Coke and Pepsi products.”

  Jaicom looks at me. I look at my knuckles. He got himself into this mess. He can talk his way out of it.

  “Surprise me,” he drawls. He opens the book laid on the table in front of us, and the woman walks off. “Appears to be a list of food they serve. Hamburger comes with fries. How are we to pay for this?”

  Our beverages are set in front of us. My water appears safe, though I don’t know how they’ve acquired ice in the summer. Jaicom’s drink looks like liquefied coal. He sniffs and pushes it away.

  “You ready to order?” she asks.

  “Give us another moment.”

  She nods and leaves.

  “They speak English,” I begin in reply to Jaicom’s question. “Pounds should suffice, yea?”

  Jaicom replies with a heartless, “Yea.”

  A long clear tube sticks out of Jaicom’s glass. He stirs his drink with it. “I’m—”

  “Sssh!” I sit up straighter, squeezing his arm. “I feel something.”

  “What?”

  “The first Fae layer is knowing. I feel like something is going to change. If my taste excels, we are as good as gone from here.”

  “You’re certain they’ll take me with you?”

  “Yea. The chair came with me when we relocated here because I was bound to it.”

  “Should you sit on my lap then? I’ll wrap my arms and legs around you.”

  I look at him slowly. He doesn’t even flinch. Sweat glistens on his forehead. “I’m not going to be left here.”

  Taste floods my mouth, and I hold my breath for the sudden assault to my nose. Jaicom says something, but I don’t hear him for the clamor in my ears. I suck his arm into my gut as the dining room busts into a thousand pieces and scrambles around me in a pattern as predictable as water.

  Jaicom sighs in relief next to me. “Home. Do you suppose we’ll be dropped off at exactly the same place and time we were pulled from? Maybe you’ll go back into the chair?”

  The visions stop spinning and thread together. My boots settle on the creaking floorboards of a ship. The horrible smell of animals in a small space greets us.

  “Zadicayn…this isn’t home.”

  A startled gasp behind me causes both of us to turn around. A woman backs away from us, a shawl wrapped around her head. She wears a dress and sandals. “Min 'ant?”

  “Zadicayn…”

  The woman scurries away, muttering more of her language I suspect to be Hebrew.

  The Fae can track my blood, true, but I have very little of my own blood for them to track. They’re trying to put me back in my own time and place because they can’t shout at me for what my daughter did until they call me to the Fae Realm. And they can’t call me into the Fae Realm until I’m back.

  Because Fae are eternal, I can’t be sure they even know where I’m supposed to belong. I do trust, however, that with Joseara having my blood, they can better align me with where she is. It’s like having a ball inside a giant box and trying to get the ball to drop into the only hole in its bottom by rotating the box around to make it roll. Problem is, the hole is small, and the box is vast.

  “The Fae are pinging me,” I tell Jaicom.

  “And that means what?”

  I sum up my assumptions. He’s no less enraged, but having an explanation to rely on brings him a quiet moment for him to consider it.

  “So, we are going to be relocated all over the world and time until we fall into the hole?”

  “I believe so.”

  “So, genius, where and when do you think we are now if we just left the year 2017?”

  “Noah’s ark.”

  “…Of course we are.”

  “The Fae could have dropped us into the ocean. I say they’re pretty good shots at landing us here since it’s the only spot of land on the whole earth right now.”

  “We should hide. If that woman comes back, she’s going to bring reinforcements, and I can’t pretend I came from a costume party, even if I could speak Hebrew.”

  Still holding onto each other, we shuffle along the raised walkway arching above the pen of animals below us. We walk through the doorway and down steps to a lower level. Two elephants sleep together. We maneuver around them and lay flat. Hopefully, they won’t look too hard for us. That is if anyone believes the woman who saw us in the first place.

  “It smells like rubbish here.” Jaicom’s body stiffens. “I left my hat in Pocatello!”

  “Sssh!”

  The elephant turns its massive head toward us. Lifting its trunk, it prods first at me and then Jaicom. He slaps it away. The elephant puffs indignant air on him, resting its head on the straw.

  Jaicom moans. “How am I going to explain this to Clarissa?”

  “What, being molested by an elephant, or lying next to me on a bed of straw?”

  “The punching your teeth out part.”

  “I’m not
responsible for this.”

  “But you are for walking into the Pantheon without your bloody amulet!”

  “I think ye art only upset about leaving thy hat.”

  He grumbles.

  The steps near us creak. The woman who spotted us accompanies a man with a long white beard and robe, with sandals. He walks down the aisle, looking side-to-side with the woman chatting incoherent noises. The elephant hides us well, and the man doesn’t appear interested in doing more than what he’s already doing to look for us.

  “Do you suppose we’ll end up in the Bible?” Jaicom whispers. “‘And it came to pass, two strange men appeared aboard the Ark in strange clothing and then vanished. Amen.”

  I punch him in the shoulder with a grin. “Oh, I feel it coming on again.”

  Jaicom sucks my entire arm under him. His leg slides over the back of mine.

  I buck it off. “No.”

  His fingers dig into my arm. He leans so closely to my ear I feel his breath. “I may not have liked Pocatello, but I refuse to be left on Noah’s ark.”

  “Get ready.” Tastes, sounds and smells swarm my senses. As our scenery bursts apart and whirls into an unpredictable ebb and flow, it occurs to me I’ve no idea where we’re going to end up, and lying down might be a disadvantage.

  I’ve no time to do anything but tense and brace. The images jolt to a stop, and my left arm is ripped painfully out of Jaicom’s grasp as I hit the dirt, splashed with water from a trough Jaicom fell in.

  He pushes his body up, sputtering words unfit for even a pirate and leaps out, angrier than a wet cat. I’m less concerned about him and more interested in the new place we’ve landed. We’re on a dirt street, hemmed in on both sides by wood buildings. I see one labeled Wells Fargo and General Merchandise. Men on horseback rush into town, trailing a flurry of dust.

  “I’m going to kill you!” Jaicom shouts.

  “It’s just water.”

  “I’m wet, I’ve lost my hat, and I’m still not home!”

  “Ye should hold onto me. We weren’t in the ark for very long.”

  “I’ll hold onto your dead body!”

  “Ye can’t kill me. The Faewraith will come, remember?”

  He growls and twists his cane as if it were my neck.

  “How about we find out what year and place we’ve landed, to see if we are any closer to home?”

  He adjusts his hat and latches onto my arm. Together, we walk into the closest building. A man standing near the door greets us with a, “Howdy, gents. You both look like you could use a haircut! Ten cents off if you get one within the next ten minutes.”

  He speaks English.

  We both make a quick assessment of the man. He’s dressed nearly identical to Jaicom.

  “Excuse us,” I say, “but we are traveling through time and would like to know what place and year we’ve landed in.”

  He chuckles heartily. “Welcome to Tombstone in the great state of Arizona, year 1881.”

  Jaicom shakes me. “We’re closer!”

  “Closer to what, gentleman?”

  “1848, Rome.”

  “Rome? You’re a few countries and an ocean off, my friends.” His cheeks are rosy in mirth. “Entertain me…how are you traveling through time? If it’s not such a bother, I’d ask for you to go back three years and pull my trollop of a wife onto the train, so she won’t scamper off to another man’s bed. Hell, I’ll give both of you free haircuts if you do that!”

  I laugh at the joke, Jaicom following belatedly. We decline the haircuts gratefully and walk out.

  “I close at three!” the man hollers.

  “Jaicom, it’s coming on again.”

  We brace, holding onto each other like shy lovers.

  “Good thing I know you as well as I do,” he says. “Any other man and I’d drive my cane–”

  The town and all its buildings vanish into a blur.

  The relocation is getting quicker. We land on a snowy mountain top. I see nothing except more mountains.

  “Any–”

  “No idea.”

  We stand in absolute silence, shivering. After considerable minutes, in the same order–knowing, taste, smell, sound, sight–and we’re thrown into the vortex of shifting reality, pieces rearranging according to location and time. I’m starting to fear where we’ll land. There are plenty of places not safe for humans to set foot in.

  Our next landing puts us safely in a building. It doesn’t take the bard in the corner or honeyed scent of mead to know where and when we are. Joy flowers inside me.

  “Goblet to ye, wizard!” shouts a patron in the room, raising his wood tankard to me. He’s wearing a drawstring shirt similar to mine, and a sword is drooping off his hip. He drains his beverage in five heavy stomps of his fat Adam’s apple. The rest of the room cheers.

  I wave my hand at them all and push Jaicom outside the door. I want to see the Middle Ages before we’re whisked away again.

  It’s sunny and bright, and the landscape looks familiar to…Valemorren.

  Jaicom notices, too. He tilts his head. “Right place…wrong time.”

  Some poor chap is stuck in the pillory beneath the clock tower. Someone hollers, “Gardy loo!” and throws a pot of dirty water out the window and onto the street.

  “I bet you feel right at home, Zadicayn.”

  I grin.

  The landscape scrambles. We hold tightly to each other, and our feet drop into the water. An ocean.

  I holler before I sink under. Jaicom, too. Neither of us knows how to swim. Panic flares in me. I flail my arms to resurface, but once the knowing layer comes on, it will be too late to grab Jaicom. I kick toward his sinking body instead, grabbing his outstretched hand the moment I relocate into the know layer. The other layers don’t come fast enough. I’m losing consciousness. Jaicom appears already to be so. I force my will to hold onto Jaicom’s hand even as I start to slip, and then the ocean vanishes to leave us suspended in the air. Jaicom hangs limp.

  We land in a field next to a cow, dropping five feet. I release Jaicom and catch myself before I smash my face, the impact jarring my arms.

  Jaicom lands on his back. He rolls onto his hands and knees and vomits water, gasps. Vomits again.

  “I…hate…you…” he says between breaths.

  I straddle his back and wrap my arms around him.

  We arrive next to a vent in the earth, spewing magma. I can’t worry about its intense heat. I kick Jaicom’s knees out from under him, and he drops onto his chest. I lay on top of him, arms wrapped around his chest and I roll over, hooking my ankles around his waist.

  “Get your–!”

  “Can’t!”

  We relocate, my back barely touching snow when we relocate again. The relocations come in such rapid succession now that I don’t have time to take a breath upon our landing.

  Jaicom has braced his body against mine for whatever impact might separate us. The landscape changes beneath my back: hard, soft, hot, cold, wet, dry, changing so fast I don’t feel them. I desire to vomit, with the constant buzz of sensations in my nose and mouth. For the moment, the constant relocation doesn’t appear as if it will stop soon.

  The visions spinning around us wrench to a stop, and my back hits a spinning disc of gold light. I’m looking up into an endless expanse of ethereal, moving images.

  And Joseara. Without her mask.

  I release Jaicom who leaps away from me, straightening his burned, wet, muddy, torn coat.

  “Zadicayn?” Her eyes widen as if Joseara can’t believe it.

  “Joseara?” I ask with equal astonishment. “What happened to ye after we entered Rome?”

  We all cover our ears against the shrieking female voices emanating from everywhere inside the Fae Realm.

  “You’ve torn thee layers!”

  “Me?” I walk to the edge of the spinning disc of light hovering above an endless drop. I haven’t been back here since the time I begged the Fae to give the Human Realm more wizards.<
br />
  “Youu!” the collective female voices shriek. I’ve never known them to be this hysterical. “Your begging too give thee Human Realm more wizardss forced uss too give magic too your daughter whoo hass now torn a hole in the layerss! Wee pulled your blood through thee tear, too bring youu here, but shee arrived. What madness have youu created?”

  I look at Joseara. She shrugs helplessly.

  “Why does she have your blood?” Wailing continues when their collective voices stop speaking.

  “She has my blood because that is how I saved her life,” I say without any remorse. “I didn’t realize what it would do.”

  “Wee did not employ her. Wee gave youu a wizard daughter and youu take more. Wee need too have full control of all our wizards.”

  “Then employ her. She’s clearly nary done any harm, now has she?”

  “A discussion for later. For now, the tear youu are responsible for.”

  “Dost nary lay the blame on meself!” It’s not often Old English consumes my speech in a fit of passion, but I’m warranted my vulgarity for what I’ve just endured, starting from Brynn’s kidnap. “Ye be the ones who approved me daughter’s spell.”

  They hiss so loud all three of us cover our ears. “Wee alwayss answer spells, and question later. That spell iss too complicated, which would warn us maybee it’ss not a spell wee would approve, but she spoke thee spell soo simply wee approved it.”

  “Nary me problem.”

  “Wee warned youu that femaless could not bee wizards. They are much too powerful, holding both thee life and thee protection.”

  “Again, I can’t help ye.”

  “Teach your daughter not to attempt such spells!”

  I nod to show I heard them, but if it wasn’t for Eudora tearing through the layers when she did, I’d be dead.

  “Wee cannot seal thee tear. Wee must place an Arch there soo noo one will fall intoo thee tear and get lost in time and place, like youu.”

  I nod again.

  “Promise uss youu will teach her better!”