by Kristal Lim
Walking through the pathways between worlds can be overwhelming, especially if one is not used to the journey. The senses get assaulted by an endless barrage of new experiences and sensations with each step and there are no defenses against them at all. So one step, and Trevor was frozen to his very bones in a world where everything, even the sun, was made of ice. Another step, and he was gasping for air in the bottom of an ocean where luminous leviathans opened their sleepy eyes to gaze at the three strange travelers curiously before going back to their slumber. One more step, and he was burning in the heart of a star as it sang and pulsed a song of fire. It only took those three steps before he was begging Raven to please, please stop for a bit and, when they did, he promptly threw up. Beside him, Meran did the same. Afterwards, they both glared at Raven with cold anger.
"It was the fastest path for us to take since we're in a hurry," the Prince only said by way of explanation. He, of course, looked completely unruffled, which just annoyed them more. "We're deep within the bowels of Silverhaven's castle now."
Trevor looked around and saw that they were in what appeared to be some kind of dungeon. It was surprisingly dry and pleasant-smelling; well-lighted by rows of torches on the walls as well. In fact, the only reason he even realized that the place was actually a dungeon was the presence of small cells with thick bars of black iron. From high above them, seeping through the small cracks in the stone, came the very faint sound of music. Raven was right. He had brought them quickly to his brother's Court.
"I wouldn't have minded going through all those groves again," Meran grumbled, "not even if the leaves kept cutting me." She inspected herself carefully to see what damage walking through the pathways had done. But her appearance was immaculate, like Trevor's, as if they had not even passed through any of those strange places. Raven, though, wasn't really listening to her. He was looking around the dungeon with distaste, and he especially reserved his expression of loathing for the cells. Or, rather, their bars.
"Sky iron!" he spat. "What madness possessed Benwyr to put these filthy things in here? Even the stones feel the cold poison of these bars."
"Well, sometimes," Meran's voice was so soft that Trevor almost missed it, "Aline would get so tired that she would refuse to dance. Then the Prince would become furious and lock her down here for days." As she spoke, she moved almost as if she was in a trance until she was near one cell in particular. She reached out a hand and, with a small wince, wrapped her fingers around a single iron bar. "At other times," Meran went on, "Aline would dance more than once with other men, and he would have those men locked up, too. The Prince also kept me here, when he saw that Aline preferred to be with me every time she didn't have to attend to him. Once, I spent years in this place." To Trevor’s astonishment, he saw that the skin on her hand touching the metal was slowly turning red, as if she was getting burned. "It turned out to be too many years." She released her grip on the iron bar with a hiss, then held out her palm before Trevor and Raven. They both saw that it had been burned quite badly.
Trevor was horrified. "Oh, God. Wh–How did it do that to your hand?"
"The longer you stay in the Strangelands, the more like the creatures of this place you become," Meran answered. "But don't worry. Only sky iron, or iron that they get from meteorites has this kind of effect. That's why most of the Lords hoard it and make weapons out of it. That's why the Prince uses them for the bars in his prisons."
Without a word, Raven went to her side and took her injured hand in his while carefully avoiding her eyes. Their joined hands glowed briefly and, when they finally broke apart, Trevor saw that Meran’s burn had been healed. A silence came over the three of them then. None of them knew quite what to say after that little exhibition. But, at last, Raven faced Meran and Trevor. He was looking unusually subdued. "This has reminded me to give the two of you some protection while we are here." He tried to make his tone light, but he didn't quite manage it.
"Here." He held out his hands, palms up, towards them. In each palm was a delicate-looking leaf made of silver threaded through a spiderweb-thin chain of the same material. "These are from the trees that surround Silverhaven. They have protective powers that can repel enchantments and other magicks." He glanced at Trevor. "However, they will only work so long as you remember to resist the spells that are being worked on you. Once you decide to succumb to a spell, then the leaves will lose their powers. So keep them close to your body at all times."
The two humans both nodded their understanding and took the leaves. "Here's what we're going to do," Raven said next. "We are going to the ballroom and I will find my brother to speak to him and distract him. The two of you will search for the Princess and do what you can to convince her to accept this leaf." And he produced another one out of thin air. "It still won't break the enchantment over her, but it will weaken it enough so she will start getting a bit of her old self back. It should at least call to the silver leaf she possesses within and spark her remembrance of the person she used to be."
"Wait," Trevor cut in. "Aline already has a silver leaf like this? Why didn’t it help her before?"
Maybe he was just imagining it, but Raven sort of looked shifty. "It didn’t prove to be very effective," the other man simply said. "Now the thing you must remember is that for the enchantment to be rendered powerless, regardless of whether the one who cast it willingly breaks the spell or not, Aline must not be in Silverhaven by the time the sun rises after the third night. The spell trapped her on the third night after it was cast, so it has to be broken before the end of the time Benwyr strengthens it for another seven years. And she must choose not to be here of her own will. Benwyr will not be able to do anything then."
"And, just like that, Aline will be free?" Trevor asked doubtfully. It sounded too easy.
Raven snorted. "You can be sure it will not be just like that. My brother has had seven years to influence her. Though she'll never be the Rosamund he knew in the past, I'm certain he has still managed to change her into someone who pleases him. And, never forget, there is always the possibility that she would not want to leave him."
That particular unpleasant thought had actually occurred to Trevor. He had no idea what they would do if that turned out to be the case. Perhaps he hadn't really considered all the aspects of this rescue operation and their possible consequences all that well. But it was too late to back out now. "Let's do this then," he said.
Raven sighed. He had a strange, pensive expression on his face before he shook it off and looked like his old, cavalier self again. "Very well." He then led them out of the dungeon and up an incredibly long flight of stairs that twisted and spiraled in a bizarre pattern. The stairs seemed to wind upwards for an unbelievably long stretch, but it didn't seem to take any time at all for them to climb the steps and, soon, they reached the very top and Raven pushed open a door that revealed a hallway full of moonlight and shifting shadows. They walked through it quickly, and Trevor fancied that he saw their three shadows being joined by others or moving in ways that their bodies were not. But when he tried to ask Meran if she also saw the same things, the words that came out of his mouth were not sounds but script written in moonbeams. Meran read them in the air and gave him her answer in the same manner. Trevor would have said something else, marveling at what was happening, but then Raven opened another door, and they were in the most fantastic ballroom Trevor had ever seen.
Even with the protection of the silver leaf, he could feel the seductive allure of the magic in the air. It was an actual physical sensation that pressed up against his skin, warm and inviting like a kiss. The very air itself had a scent that evoked images and memories of entwined limbs and intimate caresses. He suddenly felt hot in the clothes he was wearing. He felt even more uncomfortable when he got a good look around the place and he saw what some of the guests were doing in the darkened corners of the room. Flushing, he caught Meran’s eye. "Is it always like this here?" he asked in a voice that squeaked a bit in embarrassment.
She nod
ded. "It can get even more intense sometimes," she replied, nodding pointedly at a group of revelers in one part of the room who were writhing against one another on the floor, their beautiful naked bodies oiled and gleaming. The sight caused Trevor's face to turn a bright red.
Raven then touched Meran on the shoulder to get her attention. "I see Benwyr," he said. "Look out for him," he gestured to Trevor, "and make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble. And be careful." He looked like he wanted to say something more to her, but he noticed that Trevor was watching the two of them quite avidly, so he just nodded at the other man then left.
Trevor huffed, but Raven had already disappeared from their side before he could protest that he didn’t need looking after. At least, he was planning to say something like that. But then a woman wearing a blindfold of gold cloth suddenly grabbed him and spun him around while pressing her lips against his mouth. By the time she let him go, or Meran finally pulled her off him, Trevor wasn’t really sure which, his head felt like he had drunk an astonishing amount of liquor. There must have been something in her kiss because he was now finding it very hard to concentrate and to focus on things. In fact, the whole ballroom seemed to have become blurry. Not that it was important or anything, because he was feeling terrific, like he could skip in the air and dance and–oh, the ceiling lights were so pretty.
"Stupid nymphs can never keep their mouths off anything in pants," Meran grumbled. "Hey, you okay?" She must have seen that he still looked goofy because, without any warning, she suddenly slapped him. Hard.
"Ow!" He rubbed his cheek where he was sure her hand print had permanently marked itself. "Did you have to make it hurt that much?" However badly his cheek hurt, he was glad to note that his senses now felt very sharp and his head was clear of the confusion that had claimed it earlier.
"You were starting to fall into her spell," she told him, not looking sorry about slapping him, at all. Then Meran became very still and her eyes widened as she caught sight of something over his shoulder. "Trevor," she now said in a half-whisper, "she’s over there."
Suddenly feeling his heart start to pound faster, he slowly turned around and looked at where Meran was staring. And there she was.
Aline.
She looked like the girl in Raven's memories, but older somehow, even though her face was still as young as Meran's. Maybe it was her eyes. They were darker and full of emotions he couldn’t define. She was dressed in a gown of the deepest blue, which was the exact color of the sky as all the light bleeds out of it at night. Her hair fell in glossy black waves. While she sat lazily on some kind of throne adorned with gold leaves and emerald flowers, several people clustered around her, telling her stories it seemed, though she looked quite bored with them all. Instead, she seemed to be far more interested in the silvery smoke that curled out of the black and gold pipe in her hand. She stared at the eerie patterns it made through half-closed eyes as if they were the most fascinating things she had ever seen. By her side was a woman clad only in flowers and scraps of silk whose only job seemed to be to fan her with unusually large peacock feathers. However, this didn’t seem to affect the smoke at all, for it continued to twist and curl in the air. All in all, Aline presented the image of a queen–pampered, flattered, and powerful. She looked like she completely belonged in the ballroom, not someone who needed to be rescued from it.
Trevor couldn't help himself. He gulped. His throat suddenly felt very dry and he was almost shaking with nervousness. For a moment, he felt like he was sixteen again, suffering from embarrassment at being too tall and too thin, awkwardness incarnate. "Okay. Okay then." He took a deep breath then looked at Meran. "So, how do we do this?"
She took a deep breath before she grabbed his arm and started to lead him towards Aline. "Let’s try it this way," she said. She walked with a purpose, and Trevor had no choice but to march alongside her and try to match the confidence she exuded. People looked at them curiously as they moved through the crowd, but no one seemed to view them as threats or intruders, and no one tried to stop them. So in no time at all, the two of them were standing before the person they had come to save.
"Aline?" Meran said her friend’s name with a little catch in her voice. "Aline, it’s me."
Slowly, Aline lifted her eyes and met Meran’s worried ones. A dreamy smile appeared on her lips. "Meran," she said, her voice low and husky. "Where have you been? I was waiting for you." Then her gaze drifted, and she looked distracted for a moment, but her eyes eventually came to rest on Trevor. A frown then marred her face. "You." She looked back at Meran, and the first spark of something other than languor came over her expression. "What is this?" Her eyes flashed with a bitter anger. "Do you think this is amusing? How dare you!" she hissed. She suddenly moved forward with alarming speed and her right arm lashed out, striking a hard blow against Meran's face.
Both Meran and Trevor cried out–Meran because of pain, and Trevor because of shock. After a frozen second of simply staring at Aline, he finally remembered that Meran might need his help. She had fallen to the floor, so he quickly got on his knees to check if she was all right. When he saw her face, another cry escaped from his lips. An ugly slash of crimson stained her left cheek and, as he frantically tried to wipe away the blood from the wound using the cuffs of his shirt, he saw that the raw-looking skin was smoking and turning black at its tattered edges. His eyes wide with a sudden fear, he swung his gaze back to Aline.
She was standing over them, and her face was so devoid of expression that it could have been a mask. In her hand was a curved knife of glittering blackness, its razor edge shining dully with a ruby bead of blood. While she just stood there, still as a statue, Trevor's eyes were caught by the sight of that blood. Slowly, the bead grew bigger and thicker as more blood ran down the knife's sharp edge until, finally, the bead dropped to the black stone floor where it disappeared.
Trevor gradually came to realize that the noises of the ballroom had faded away. Silence now filled the space and everyone had stopped whatever they were doing and were now all focused on the little tableau he, Aline, and Meran presented. He knew he should be terrified because surely he and Meran would be taken away and imprisoned now, or worse. But, as Aline only stared at him without giving any such orders, his nervousness eventually dissipated and he found the courage to speak.
"Aline," his tongue felt awkward saying her name, "please. This isn't what you really want to do. Meran's your friend and you have no right to hurt her like this. We came here to help you, for God's sake."
She was silent and merely looked at him for a long moment, seemingly taking his measure. Then she took a step forward and reached out a hand to his face. Her fingers were soft and light as they tentatively traced his features. He closed his eyes, his skin tingling from the familiarity of her touch though he had no memory of ever feeling it before. When he opened his eyes again, he saw that she was now kneeling before him and their faces were close enough to be bridged by a single kiss.
A soft smile appeared on her lips. "Trevor," she whispered his name, and he almost, almost felt like he could remember loving her. Then a mad light shone in her eyes and she plunged her knife into his heart.
~~~
Chapter 23