Illustratia
brought them to a windy landing in a small clearing just in time to
see this classic, tall-dark-and-handsome kinda guy doing something
that looked like kung fu. Best of all he wasn’t wearing a
shirt and his nut-brown skin was shiny with sweat. The thick
black cord of a braid caressed his spine to well below his belt,
barely moving as he worked his way meticulously through each
movement. Ember firmly wished he wasn’t Jerome; he had become
increasingly disturbing with each incarnation, or whatever it was, he
went through.
Their
landing didn’t go unnoticed though - it really couldn’t after
all. Illustratia was really quite large. The man watched
them land and as soon as Illustratia had come to rest, he bowed his
head. “I am honored, Eldest. What can I do for you?”
Illustratia
melted down into a human female, causing Ember to step to the side in
surprise, but Illustratia paid the move no mind. Standing over
six feet, Illustratia’s features were very angular, very exotic,
and her hair was, of all things, blue. It was cut straight
around just short of her shoulders, and her bangs were cut straight
across her forehead at her eyebrows. She smiled. “Oh
Derrick; you are always so formal.” She wrapped an arm around
Ember. “I brought you a friend. Everyone knows you’ve
been very lonely lately.”
Ember
stepped forward, extending her hand. “Hello, I’m Ember.
I take it you’re Derrick.”
He
accepted her hand. His gaze was very intense, as if she
occupied all of his attention at that moment, though there was no
change in his expression. It was impossible to tell if he was
happy to see her or if he hated her.
“I
am.” He glanced at the grinning Illustratia. “How is
it you met up with one of the . . . with a dragon?”
“Oh
good, you’re getting to know each other,” said Illustratia.
“I knew you would like her, Derrick.”
Derrick
looked at her in confusion.
“So
you didn’t send for me?” said Ember. Now she too was
looking at the blue-haired ex-dragon.
“How
could I send for you? I don’t know you.”
Illustratia
just grinned, and with a very dragon-like chuckle, she turned back in
to a dragon and flew off, buffeting them both with the wind from her
wings.
“Now
what do I do?” said Ember, feeling quite stranded.
“I
have no idea,” said Derrick, then he smiled. He had a very
nice smile. It softened his brown eyes. “You could come
into my house, if you like. You can tell me how you met up with
a dragon. They keep themselves in hiding most of the time.”
With
a gentle hand in the center of her back, Derrick started them toward
the house. It was a log house, and part of it was two stories.
He snagged up a flannel shirt from a small table in passing.
Ember
paused at the little table. “This is beautiful. Do you
make furniture?” She caressed the smooth surface; every inch
of it was sanded to a fine finish, leaving no edge or corner
untouched - none she could see anyway.
“Uhm
. . . I do, sometimes. Would you like to sit here? I
could bring out a little something to snack on, or perhaps something
to drink.”
Forgetting
all about any manners, Ember said, “Food? I’m starved.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a decent meal.”
When as she heard her own words, she cringed. What would Aunt
Elspeth say? “Oh - well, if it’s not an imposition.”
With
a warm chuckle, he said, “No imposition at all.” He then
disappeared into the house.
While
she waited for him to return, Ember looked around the clearing.
It looked very wild and yet cared for. No dead trees were
visible and several flowers could be seen, having grown in wild
abandon along with everything else in sight. The wild grass
wasn’t mowed, but it did look grazed somewhat.
She
saw something move in the trees and decided to investigate. If
it was a deer, she would have stayed put, but it looked like a person
or perhaps a child. Did he have kids? Would he produce a
wife when he came out of the house?
“Hello?
Honey?” she called out quietly so as not to frighten the kid.
“It’s alright. I just want to talk.”
A
few minutes later, she found a tiny clearing with a picturesque pond
in the middle. Just a bit to the right was a large block of
stone. It was partially buried in the soil, but it still looked
like it might have been shaped, though why someone would go to the
trouble of shaping a rock into a square, she couldn’t fathom.
She
went on to the pond. It was a tiny thing. A trickle of
fresh water fed it from one side and another trickle led off down
hill. Not quite half way between the two and only a step from
the edge was a small flat stone, perfect for sitting if it wasn’t
surrounded by water.
‘This
place is so peaceful,’ thought Ember with a sigh. She was
just turning, intending to go back to that big block of stone and sit
for a little while, when she saw Derrick. If his expression was
stone when he first saw him, it was thunder now.
“What
are you doing here?” Without waiting for her to answer, he
grabbed her arm and propelled her from the clearing. Though his
grip didn’t hurt, and though the pace he insisted on wasn’t
enough to make her stumble, there was no resisting and no escaping
his hold.
At
the table again, he spun her around and plopped her into her chair.
“You are a guest here so long as you . . . .” He clamped
his jaws closed on whatever he was going to say. Pointing back
to where they had just come from. “Do not go there again.”
“Why?”
asked Ember.
“I
will not be so nice next time.”
She
studied his face. Gone was the warm smile. The furious
thundercloud was mostly gone now too, leaving the stone. But
the contents of the table smelled so good and her stomach didn’t
care what his expression was.
On
the table was a wooden tray holding two steaming bowls, also made of
wood, full of what looked like oatmeal only it also had chunks of
meat stirred in and a couple boiled eggs on top. Also on the
tray was a round loaf of bread, two wooden cups and a wooden pitcher
of water.
“Eat.
I didn’t know if you wanted breakfast or lunch but this pretty much
covers both. It’s simple.” He took his bowl and
strode off to come to a halt several paces away.
“I’m
sorry,” Ember called after him. She was more than sorry; she
was devastated. Whatever caused her to go nosing around this
kind stranger’s property? Maybe she was just tired. She
ate numbly, but she’d only eaten a few bites when her host returned
to sit at the table.
“You
never did tell me how you met up with a dragon,” he said as he set
his bowl down and sank into the other chair.
“I’m
really sorry. I won’t go there again.”
He
lifted his bowl again and leaned back in his chair, waiting for her
tale while he ate.
“Oh
it’s really crazy.” She sighed. “I think I’m
having this horrible nightmare. You see, until now, the last
normal thing I remember was falling asleep at my computer.
Suddenly I was in some side remnant of the movie Gattaca and Jude Law
and Uma Thurman, only they insisted they were Jerome and Irene, were
running away from security.” She stopped. Why was she
pouring out a dream to this stranger?
He
was looking at her and there was a small quirk to one corner of his
mouth. “Please continue.”
“Oh
it’s so stupid, and it gets worse.”
“Is
the dragon in your nightmare somewhere?”
“Well,
yeah. She saved me from becoming lost in cyberspace.”
“In
what?” His words came out with a chuckle and the quirk was
more pronounced.
Now
he was going to laugh at her. She hoped he didn’t laugh at
her. She washed her meal down with a mouthful of water and then
broke off a chunk of the bread - there was no knife. “Well,
that’s what she told me it was. Anyway we were supposed to go
to the Kormosny village where we could hide, and from there we were
supposed to go to the Mystic Falls. Well, I thought that, if I
had fallen asleep at my computer, I could wake up if I thought of
myself hitting the right keys and exiting the program.”
“I
thought this was a dream.”
“Oh
it’s such a bad dream. Anyway, it didn’t work and I got
lost. I went from King Arthur’s castle in the winter to being
baked into a watery tart. And then I woke up in a river and
Jack Sparrow was helping me out, only he wasn’t Jack Sparrow or
even King Arthur, he was Jerome again. I don’t know what
happened to Irene.” She tore into the bread, certain she was
blushing furiously. “He took me to the Empress. Um . .
. there were others there . . . um . . . they were all naked or
mostly so. The Empress made me give up my brother’s email so
I could leave.” She dropped the bread to her bowl and felt a
tear slide down her cheek. She knew he was in no danger, but it
sounded so selfish now that she was explaining it to someone else.
“Why
do you cry?” asked Derrick. “Is your brother now dead?”
He
had leaned forward to look at her lowered face.
“No,
he’s not dead, but he’s her love slave now, until she tires of
him.” She sniffed and he was holding a hanky for her to
take. She blew her nose and wiped her tears away. With an
exaggerated sigh, she continued. “I got away alright but the
next place made no sense at all. And I don't know what part is a
dream and what part is real. Next I knew I was falling through
this black whirl, lit only by twisted letters and numbers. That’s
where Illustratia found me. She took me to the Misty World,
telling me to look for Arial Hollyberry. I rescued this girl
from a falling . . . something. It looked like a giant bat -
sort of. I don’t know what it was, but it would have crushed
her if it had hit her.
“It
was dark and she was afraid of wandering around in the dark so we sat
there and talked. She told me her name was Tami and that her
best friend was Princess Arial, daughter of Queen Orlaith, the High
Queen of the Frost Faeries and ruler of the Winter Realm.”
“Did
you say Orlaith?” asked Derrick, leaning forward again.
“Yes.
Do you know that name?”
“Maybe.
Keep going; this is interesting.”
“I
almost fell asleep only Perhluna starts throwing berries at me.”
“Who’s
Perhluna?”
“Oh
he’s supposed to be my guide; he’s not a very good guide.
He’s a Kormosny - from the first.”
“A
Kormosny? Oh - the village where you were supposed to hide.
I remember. Go on.”
“We
ate the berries and thank goodness, cause then we could hear each
other’s thoughts, and the trees too. Then the trees snatched
us up off the ground. They said they were saving us from the
Shahinian. They had come looking for Tami. We had to be
very quiet.”
“Shahinian
- what did they look like?”
“Do
you know them too?”
“Maybe.”
“They’re
really ugly. They look like they just crawled out of a mucky
swamp, and not the kind with a lot of water either, all covered with
sticky mud and dead leaves and things, and they had really big eyes.”
Derrick
groaned. “Where is this Misty World?”
I
don’t know. You’ll have to ask Illustratia. I
certainly don’t want to go back there. Anyway, we were just
reuniting with the faeries when she came and got me again. She
said it was real urgent that I come here, that you had asked for me.
And here I am.” She started to cry again.
“Now
what?” asked Derrick as he reached over and brushed away a new tear
with a gentle thumb.
“I
just realized - I can’t tell if this is still the nightmare or
not. I don’t know if I’m sleeping or awake.”
“Well,
I do know that you are very tired. I can see it. Why
don’t you go upstairs and sleep in my bed for a while. I have
a few things I need to do. When I get back, we can discuss how
to get you home.”
“Really?
You will do that?”
“I
can make no promises. This place is a long ways from most
anywhere. I like it that way. Go on upstairs and take a
nap. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
Ember
rose, and Derrick followed suite, showing her to the door and opening
it for her.
“The
stairs are on through there.” He pointed as if there might
have been some kind of choice.
She
took a few steps and then turned to tell him thank you, only he
already had the door closed. But then she was this gorgeous bow
hanging above the door, and beside the door, on one of the three pegs
there, was a quiver full of arrows. She pulled one out and
looked at it. It was two, many three times as heavy as any
arrow she had ever seen. It was nearly as thick as her thumb,
and had a tiny chip of black flint for a tip, and the feathers - as
she was fingering the grayish brown feathers, she realized that the
arrow had to be hand-made. Standing on tip-toes, she lifted
down the bow. It too was quite heavy. It was also quite
exotic. She couldn’t even tell what it was made out of since
it didn’t look like wood, but it didn’t look like metal either.
She gave a tip an experimental flex and instantly knew that, if it
was strung, she likely wouldn’t have been able to move the string,
let alone launch one of the heavy arrows from it. As she
stretched to replace it, she wondered what mountain of a man had used
it. Though Derrick was well built, he didn’t look strong
enough to draw that heavy bow.
Turning
back to the rest of the room, she saw a fireplace and could tell that
it was open into the next room. Despite the heat, a tiny fire
burned on the hearth, fed by a tiny pile of woodchips.
Curious,
she ventured on through. As promised, there was the stairs but
the novelty of this room took some time to figure out. There
was a wide assortment of pots and pans and utensils, and yet she saw
no stove for cooking. As soon as that realization settled in,
she realized that there was no refrigerator or even a sink.
She
looked at the tiny fire again. Hanging there to the side of the
fireplace, was an iron pot, but when she looked in it, it was
spotless. He had only been in here for a few minutes, and he
had produced a hot meal. When had he cleaned up? There
was no obvious answer so she turned for the stairs.
As
soon as her head cleared the upper floor, she spotted something she
never expected to see. Standing in the corner of the room was a
suit of armor complete with a sword. It wasn’t the standard
knight’s armor either. On a six-foot T was a chain mail
shirt, and over that a green enameled breastplate was buckled.
On a small shelf under that were other pieces of green enameled
metal. Next to that was the bed; it looked totally inviting.
Looking
around as she ascended - there was no short wall around the stairwell
- the first thing she saw was another fireplace, also with a tiny
fire. But the most welcome sight of all was the small table
sitting in the next corner. On it - of all things - was a
satellite phone. She couldn’t get up the stairs fast enough.
Rushing the rest of the way up the stairs, she slid to her knees in
front of the small table. She snatched it up and found the
power button. The sound of the dial tone caused her heart to
swell choking her ability to speak but just as she was going to start
punching numbers, she realized that she didn’t know anyone’s
phone number. She never called anyone on the phone, though she
took calls all the time. Sobbing, she turned the phone off
again and stumbled to the bed. The thought that she just might
be tired didn’t help much, but it didn’t stop her from falling
asleep. She really was so tired....
(Originally Posted 3/12/10 on
http://annalwalls.blogspot.com/2010/03/ember-in-wrilogozia-episode-11.html )
