by Kim Fielding
She turned away from the laptop to face him fully. She was smiling. “I want you to be a hero. A savior.”
“By doing what? Going to your hippie church on Sundays? Making some kind of donation? Renouncing my heathen homosexual ways? What?”
“I’m afraid… it’s going to be a little more difficult than that.”
“More difficult than renouncing? ’Cause lady, in case my porn selection didn’t clue you in, I’m riding the rainbow unicorn for sure. And I’ve been firmly in that saddle ever since my sister made me watch Dead Poets Society and I discovered Ethan Hawke.” His voice sounded slightly hysterical, but then, he felt slightly hysterical.
“Unicorns? I didn’t think you had them here.”
It occurred to him, rather belatedly, that he could call the cops. He looked around for his phone, but it was on the coffee table right next to her. He’d have to use the landline. “Um, look. I gotta… I’ll be right back.”
He started to edge away, but she moved amazingly fast and grabbed his arm. She was very strong. “I think it is better we have this conversation somewhere else,” she said. “Away from distractions.”
“Great! Let me go get dressed and I’ll meet you at, uh, IHOP. They’re open late.” And it was located far across town, where the cops could scoop her up with a minimum of fuss while Mike cowered happily in his apartment.
She shook her head. “We are going to travel in any case. We might as well do it now.”
“Travel?” he said. Or started to say, because before the word had fully formed, the woman’s ordinary brown eyes became very extraordinary, all crackling lightning bolts and swirling stars against flashes of orange and indigo. Mike’s ears filled with a buzz like a million angry hornets as every hair on his body stood on end. He tried to pry himself out of her grip, but it was useless. And then he got an odd feeling in his belly, as if his stomach were zooming and swooping like a deflating balloon. He smelled hot metal and ozone and burning meat.
His vision went completely, utterly black.
And then the sun was out, and all he smelled was dust and, very faintly, horse manure. He was standing in his briefs on soft greenery beside a rutted dirt road. The sun was high overhead, filtered through a canopy of tree branches. Birds tweeted. And the Ren-faire lady was next to him, calmly smoothing her skirt.
“Wha-wha-what,” Mike stuttered. “What?”
She smiled sweetly. “Welcome to my world, Michael Albert Carlson.”
Chapter 2
HALLUCINOGENS. THAT had to be the explanation. Some psycho prankster had slipped something into his burger before handing it out the drive-through window and wishing him a good evening. Mike had never been much into drugs—a joint now and then, occasionally some poppers, and of course a little alcohol, but that was it. He didn’t know what was causing his current symptoms. Acid? Mushrooms? Jesus, what if it was something really toxic and he was lying on his apartment floor right now with drool puddling under his cheek and his liver turning to goo?
“I’m sorry,” the Ren-faire lady was saying. “The transition is difficult on human bodies.”
“Transition?”
“Between worlds, of course.”
“Of course.” He wasn’t sure of the best approach for dealing with a bad trip. Were you supposed to humor the hallucination until it went away?
“I am Agata.” She said it the same way Madonna or Cher might introduce herself to someone who should have already recognized her but whom she was humoring nonetheless.
“Hi. Mike. But you already knew that.”
“Of course I did. I went through a great deal of difficulty to fetch you.” She started to say something else but stopped, her ear cocked toward the road. “I think it might be best to move away from the road before somebody spots you.”
He docilely allowed her to take his hand and lead him deeper into the woods. Leaves crackled under his bare feet. The deep shade was chilly. He wished he’d hallucinated more clothes.
They came to a little stream that burbled happily over mossy rocks. Agata sat on a fallen tree that immediately reformed itself into a throne, albeit a rustic one with little twigs sticking out here and there. “Sit,” she said regally, waving at the ground in front of her.
Mike sat. He wasn’t very comfortable. There were sharp pebbles under his ass.
“This is my world,” Agata began. “We are currently in the kingdom of Dalibor. It’s a rather modest little kingdom, but pleasant. You will be journeying through it to the neighboring kingdom of Nenahde, which is considerably larger. Fortunately for our purposes, Dalibor and Nenahde are at peace. In fact, the young king of Nenahde recently married the king of Dalibor’s oldest daughter. There were huge celebrations. Dalibor sponsored a tournament that was attended by all the lords and ladies, and all the greatest knights competed for days.”
Mike didn’t understand this hallucination. He’d never liked fantasy. All that crap with the wizards and elves and unpronounceable names full of random apostrophes and misplaced consonants. And as for royal weddings… well, okay, maybe he had watched William and Kate get hitched, but only because he was dating a Canadian at the time.
Agata’s face grew very serious. “Unfortunately, that tournament was the source of our problem. One lordling who attended managed to offend the goddess Alina, and as a result, she cursed his entire village. He could make amends but refuses to do so. That is why I brought you here.”
He blinked at her. “Me?”
“Yes. You will make amends in his place. It requires a pilgrimage and—”
“Why me? Am I the Chosen One, like Buffy or Harry Potter?” He felt his forehead to see if he’d hallucinated a lightning bolt scar, but his skin felt the same as always.
“Not exactly. You’re—well, perhaps it would be best if I simply showed you. I suspect that would be more persuasive than a description.” As soon as she stood, the throne turned back into a fallen tree. “Come along. We’ve a walk ahead of us, and I’d like to arrive before nightfall.”
He padded after her, following the stream as it wound through the trees. He’d never realized that hallucinations could be so detailed, but he could make out the dozens of shades of green and the dots of bright-colored flowers and berries. He smelled earth and water and growing things, and when they walked through a patch of something with thorns, his legs looked and felt authentically scratched. He even had to wave away clouds of tiny insects that kept hovering around his face, finding their way up his nose and into his mouth. He noticed with resentment that the bugs never bothered Agata.
His feet became sore after a while, and although the walking warmed him up a little, he was still cold. He concentrated, trying to conjure sweats and Reeboks, but they didn’t appear. And he was still tired, and his stomach began to rumble. If he survived this experience—if his liver didn’t disintegrate and he didn’t choke on his own vomit—he would make sure never, ever to touch recreational pharmaceuticals. He came to a halt.
Agata looked at him over her shoulder. “We must keep going.”
“Can’t we just skip this part? You zapped me to another world, so why can’t you just teleport us to wherever we’re going?”
She sighed. “Because I must be very circumspect. I’m really not supposed to be doing this at all, so I am using my powers only when absolutely necessary. Right now, they’re not necessary. You can walk.”
“Powers? What are you supposed to be, my fairy godmother?”
She looked at him as if he were crazy. “There are no such things as fairies.”
Well, of course not. Fairies wouldn’t make any sense. “Then what? A witch?”
Agata drew herself up to her full height and glared. Her eyes did that lightning thing. In a deep, loud voice, she announced, “I am a god!”
His memory briefly flashed to Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis standing atop a skyscraper, her ’80s perm whipping in the wind. “Gozer?” Mike whispered.
“I told you—my name is Agata. Hurry up.”<
br />
Not Gozer. That was a relief, but still he found himself peering through the trees anxiously, half expecting the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man to come lumbering his way. Apparently his subconscious was a much stranger place than he’d realized.
At long last, when he was footsore and limping badly, the trees began to thin. Up ahead he could make out a broad field covered in neat rows of seedlings. Just at the edge of the field, another creek met up with the one they’d been following, broadening it into a small river. Mike realized he was very thirsty, so he knelt on the bank and dipped a handful of water. It was sweet and refreshing even though it had a slight metallic tang.
Agata frowned at him when he was standing upright again. “You can’t go into the village looking like that.”
He glanced down at himself. Bare chest, a pair of blue briefs that were now somewhat worse for wear, dirty knees, scratched and scraped legs. “I tried to imagine myself a warmer outfit, but it didn’t work.”
“Why in heavens would it?”
“It’s my hallucination.”
She shook her head. “I assure you, Michael, this is no dream.” She looked thoughtfully across the field and then back at him. “I can’t conjure you anything either, not now. Go back to the trees and wait for me. I’ll be back soon.”
He considered arguing with her, but she hurried away. Besides, resting for a while sounded like a good idea. He positioned himself at the edge of the trees so he could catch some of the late-afternoon sunshine. At first he sat on a large rock, but it was uncomfortable, so he soon moved to the ground instead. He drew his legs against his chest and wrapped his arms around them. It felt very good to be off his feet. He watched a large bug with green and pink spots trundle by as he listened to birdcalls. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d simply sat without an electronic gizmo close at hand.
He’d almost dozed off when Agata returned—but you couldn’t sleep in a hallucination, could you? She was holding a pile of fabric. “Put these on.”
He took the fabric from her. The colors were all browns and heathered grays, and the material had that slightly uneven handmade look. “Clothes?”
“Of course!”
“Where did you get them?” Surely he had hallucinated something more interesting than Walmart, at least.
Agata looked slightly embarrassed. He had the sense that wasn’t an expression she wore often. “I stole them from a farmhouse,” she said.
“A god who steals?”
“Out of necessity, yes.” She shrugged. “I’ll grant them a blessing in return. Maybe next time the farmwife is pregnant, I’ll give her twins.”
“You can do that?”
“Of course. I’m a fertility goddess. That’s why I had the power to bring you here now: it’s spring.”
It was summer, actually. Late July—in the real world. This place did look decidedly more March or Aprilish, however.
Mike unfolded the clothing and looked at it uncertainly before putting it on. There was a pair of trousers that fastened with wooden buttons, a long collarless tunic with billowy sleeves and a wide V-neck, and an equally long vest thing. The vest was decorated with embroidered floral patterns along the hem and front edges. It fastened with three wooden toggle buttons, and it also sported a hood. Everything was patched and frayed, and most of the embroidery had faded from red to pale pink. The pants and sleeves were a little too long for him, but at least he was warmer. “No shoes?”
“If the farmer owns any shoes, they are most certainly on his feet right now. And probably wouldn’t fit you anyway. But here, you’ll need this as well.” She unfastened from near her waist a swath of silky dark-green fabric, which she wrapped around Mike’s neck and lower face. When she pulled up his hood, only his eyes were uncovered.
“Are we going to rob a bank?” he asked.
“The people in the village must not see what you look like.”
No use asking her why—he’d just get an answer that didn’t make any sense. He felt a lot like Alice after she’d fallen down the rabbit hole. He hoped he didn’t end up shrinking or growing, and he was most certainly going to avoid hookah-smoking caterpillars.
Mike followed Agata around the edge of the field and through a hedgerow, across another field that had been freshly plowed but not yet planted, and over a low stone wall. That brought them to a dirt track—perhaps the one near which they’d first appeared—and they walked down the middle. They passed more fields. Every now and then, they walked by tiny stone houses. A few people hurried to pull weeds or plant seeds before it got too late, and others carried water or loads of firewood into the houses. Everyone watched Mike and Agata, but only briefly before getting back to work. Nobody waved or called out.
The village was on top of a small hill. It was surrounded by an ancient-looking stone wall, but the huge wooden gate was unguarded and propped wide open. Agata and Mike walked right through. Inside the walls, the streets were roughly cobbled, lined with two- and three-story buildings. The buildings tended to lean this way and that, windows and doors were oddly placed, and narrow alleys appeared out of nowhere, running crookedly away. Houses with laundry hanging from the upper floors were jammed next to shops selling meat, housewares, bread. Apparently Mike hadn’t managed to hallucinate city planning.
Agata obviously knew the way, based on the confidence of her footsteps. Within only a few minutes, they’d reached a square that seemed to be at the center of town. Three sides were lined with the fanciest houses Mike had seen yet, while the fourth was dominated by a columned structure that he guessed might be a church or temple. In the middle of the square was a large well; old men and women sat on benches near the structure, chatting. Agata was making a beeline to a stone statue near the well. The statue was a man on a pedestal with his back toward their approach.
She walked around the statue, stopped, and gestured at it. “See?”
Oh yes, he saw. The statue was slightly larger than life-size and sculpted of white stone, but clothing—richly decorated clothing—had been painted on, and there was a painted face and hair as well. The man had a compact, lean body. His chin was square with a deep cleft that was kind of a pain to shave, his lower lip was full but the upper one thin, and if his mouth had been open, it would have been clear that his top canine teeth were considerably longer than his incisors. His nose had a slight bump in the middle. He had deep-set blue eyes and slightly arched eyebrows. And although his sandy-colored hair was long and bound with a thin cord, the cowlick that defied all attempts at taming was still obvious over his forehead.
Jesus. Was he really so self-centered as to hallucinate a statue of himself?
“That is Lord Meliach,” Agata said very quietly. “The man who offended my sister.”
“It’s me,” Mike hissed back.
“Yes. And now you see why I had to fetch you specifically.”
“I don’t remember pissing off any gods.”
Actually, the god in front of him looked ticked off at his lack of understanding. But not curse-level anger—more sighing and eye rolling, like his sister, Marie, when he insisted she join him for lunch with their mother.
“It wasn’t anything you did,” said Agata. “It was Meliach.”
“But I’m him. He’s me.”
“Yes. But you are not the same person.”
“Um….” God, he was so tired, and he couldn’t think straight anymore, and he was really sick of trying to make sense of this crap.
Agata’s expression softened a bit. She took his hand in hers—hers was calloused, he noticed, and she had dirt under her fingernails—and towed him out of the square and down one of those serpentine alleys. When they rounded a corner, he nearly tripped over a table that was placed in front of what looked like a café. Two other tables were set out as well, as was a small assortment of chairs. “Sit,” Agata commanded, then pushed him into a chair. She disappeared inside. When she reappeared a few minutes later, she carried two large clay goblets. She plopped them down on the table
before sitting across from him. “He’ll bring us something to eat shortly.” She picked up her cup and sniffed at it, then took a small sip. “Oh, that’s awful!” she exclaimed with a grimace.
He pushed his scarf slightly aside to take a taste too, and had to agree. It was probably supposed to be wine, but it was more like vinegar. Still, he was very thirsty and intended to drink it. But Agata grabbed the goblet, set it next to hers, and stared intently at both. For just a second, her eyes sparked. She took another mouthful of her wine, but this time she grinned. “Much better! I shouldn’t use my powers like this, but who can abide bad wine?”
“Could I have coffee instead?” Drinking hallucinated coffee was unlikely to sober someone up, but he could give it a try.
She shook her head. “There’s wine or ale. And the ale tastes like piss.”
He drank his wine. He was no connoisseur, but it was very good. The best he’d ever had.
A teenage boy came outside with his not-especially-clean hands full. He dropped a hunk of bread on the table, set down a pair of wobbly bowls full of something vaguely stew-like, and, after a moment’s consideration, pulled spoons from his pocket. “’Thing else?” he mumbled. “We got cheese too, but that costs extra.”
Agata answered. “This is sufficient.” The boy went back inside.
The food was not very good: gristly meat, mushy vegetables, bland broth, and stale bread. Mike waited for Agata to zap some improvement into the meal, but she just ate, and then so did he. He was ravenous.
Over empty bowls and a second round of wine, Agata finally decided to explain in more detail. “You see these spoons?” she asked, setting them side by side on the table. “They were made from the same mold. A poor one, but that’s immaterial. The design is the same, this little flaw here on the handles. They were once nearly identical, yes?”