Out of the Faold (Whilst Old Legends Fade Synchronicles) (36 page)

“Yes,” he told her.

“When you made that place, the girls told you not to make a well like at home.”

“Yes, I didn’t make one!”

“I know,” she smiled. “But I want you to make one now. Are you able to? In that place? Just like at home?”

“Yes.”

“Can you take us all there?”

“All of us?” he asked surprised. “Even the King?”

Coral hadn’t thought of that possibility. He wasn’t a Marshall. He hadn’t entered the first well and the gods told her never to bring any others to their spot. Ju
st the girls and the Marshalls.

“Yes, the King too,” Pearl told him and nodded at Coral. “That’s our place, not theirs.”

Darius nodded. Pearl held Fredrick’s hands as she faced him. The Marshalls all took deep breaths waiting for the sensation. They were yanked sideways and then forward into a blizzard of bright colour that settled around them peacefully. The Marshalls all gasped in surprise and delight, recognizing the Doran estate. The King almost toppled over at the adjustment he had to make in balance
but Pearl’s hands steadied him.

Coral rushed over to the new well in the copse of trees behind them. It shone bright blue surrounded by the familiar white stone with markings. She slipped off her riding boots and stockings and looked back once
before stepping into the pool.

Amias turned on the spot looking at everything. A tear ran down his cheek. “Da
rius, you made this?” he asked.

The boy nodded guiltily. “We made it together. The grey was so…I didn’t like it so we come here sometimes.”

“It’s wonderful,” Amias tol
d him, tousling the boy’s hair.

The image in the arch moved as the puppies in the kennel jumped around their crate. Pearl smiled. The King walked for
ward.

“Can we see where the boys are?” Fredrick asked.

An image of Tomas waking in his father’s library chair appeared, to the King’s disappointment. The friends were there too amid a mess of food and ale and ashes. A deep frown crossed his face. Jimm was animatedly talking to a maid, who led him into the Doran suite. He picked up Glory’s pillow sham, held it to
his face and smelled it gently.

Glory’s face turned red. Pearl looked at her curiously. They watched as Jimm took the sham back out to the kennel master. The image strayed to the puppies again but Pearl tapped Darius’ shoulder and he went back to Jimm who held out the fabric to the mastiff.

“They a
re looking for me,” Glory said.

“Jimm is looking f
or you,” the King said gruffly.

The puppies filled the arch again as everyone waited for Coral. It took some time but she finally emerged dry and safe and looking serene but puzzled. The others went. They had a debate whether they should let Darius go. Coral and Amias took differing opinions. One reasoned that he wouldn’t understand what he saw. The other reasoned it was his well and he’d never been in one before and it may help give him a skill that could help protect him in the future like it did for th
e girls. That argument won out.

After what she witnessed in the Well, Coral insisted the King enter. Pearl looked at her questioning because she hadn’t seen anything of Fredrick at all and she worried. He emerged baffled at what he saw. He saw futures of the people around them, events in which they performed heroically, of what they would become. But he saw nothing of himself. He saw nothing of Pearl. And he worried.

Coral asked them all to keep information about others to themselves, as it is not good to share too much of the future. They agreed, knowing that just by knowing a tidbit could cha
nge the course of things to be.

Most of the day had been spent waiting as people took turns at the Well. When Darius drew them back to the camp they found they were no longer alone. The Marshalls scrambled to positions protecting the King and the women.

“Where did th
ey go?” Vunn screeched in fury.

The goddess said nothing, just stood watching the arch. The other god step
ped closer. The others watched.

“They were right there. Now they are gone. The horses are there. The beds, the fire. They aren’t here. Where are they?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” she finally replied.

“Have you given them a world of their own?” he snarled getting into her face.

“No,” she insisted. “I can’t do that. How did you get yours?”

“I took a wrong turn,” he mumbled, turning toward the arch.

“And they destroyed it,” she said. “So you came here.”

“Yes, to annoy you.”

“You don’t annoy me,” she told him, turning away. She walked over to the other god. They shared a look of fear. She put her head on his shoulder and took a deep breath, bra
cing herself for the onslaught.

Vunn yanked her arm, pulling her away from the other. “No, I don’t annoy you. I excite you. Don’t I?”

“If that’
s what you think,” she laughed.

And Vunn took her. Right there. The god stood over them watching the arch, saddened, pleading with the god-
smiter
s. What Caris had to do to keep Vunn’s focus off of the god-
smiter
s was destroying her. And destroying the rest of them with her. He looked around at the empty shells of the images of gods around them. The two struggling on the ground and he were the only three left.

Jimm and his guardsmen stood in the middle of the camp wondering where everyone had gone. The Marshall’s horses were there, the fires still smoldering or had gone out, bedrolls still spread on the ground. Yet no people. There had been no thievery. His father’s overcoat was folded neatly like it had been used as a pillow. He sent a guard to see if they could be found within walking distance. In the late afternoon sun he stood baffled. First Glory and now everyone else.

He turned to build up one of the fires to settle in to wait when the world seemed to twist. In front of him appeared his father, the Marshalls and the others. He fell over backward in his shock, the guard pulling his sword.

“Whoa, whoa,” Amias’ voice called out, advancing on the guard as the Marshalls surr
ounded the King and the ladies.

“Jimm?” Fredrick called out.

The boy jumped up, still unsure if he had seen what he thought he saw. His eyes swept the crowd in
front of him, landing on Glory.

“Oh, Glory,” he cried. “How did…I was so worried. I couldn’t find you.”

“I’m okay,” she said, smiling at him.

“That dricker Tomas wouldn’t…” he began.

“Jimm!” his father barked.

Glory patted King Fredrick’s arm and said, “That’s alright. Tomas
is
a dricker. Thank you, Jimm for your concern.”

Pearl snorted at Glory’s use of profanity. Coral coughed and the rest of the Marshalls laughed at seeing their littl
e princess talk like a ruffian.

The consensus was that they would spend the night where they were and just head back to Danyc in the morning. They’d send the two guards to the garrison to inform them the King was not coming as planned. The fires were lit again and people settled in to welcome Glory and Jimm into the campfire stories. The men smiled when Glo
ry sang for them the old tunes.

Jimm turned to her and asked, “How are you going to ride back to Danyc in that dress?”

Glory demanded, “Why is everyone so concerned about my dress?”

She stood up, lifted the top layer and yanked the crinoline down to her ankles and stepped out of it. Pearl howled in laughter, falling down onto her bedroll, the men cheered and whistled and Jimm turned bright red. Darius grabbed the frilly layered underskirt and ran away with it into
the dusk. Krisa ran after him.

Fredrick propped himself on his elbow looking down at Pearl still laughing. “This ride has been good,” he told her. “Thank you for inviting me.”

She smiled at him. “It was like this. Friends, out here. No castle walls, courtiers, just being with each other.”

“You miss it. You miss being the child hanging from the tree. Riding with the Marshalls.”

“I can still do those things,” she laughed.

“So why did you arrang
e the ride?” he asked, curious.

“Coral says it best.”

King Fredrick sat up and looked at Coral. He asked, “Why did we come on the ride?”

Coral paused then smiled at Pearl. “I think I said, ‘A woman wants to feel the road under her horse, listen to stories and the voices of men. Hear the sounds of leather and tack and feel the air on her skin. She wants to catch the eye of her man across a camp fire and smell the pipe smoke in his beard.’ Is that how it went?”

Pearl nodded and lay back down. Coral and Amias smiled, the married men thought of their wives and families. Krisa had wrestled Darius back to camp so she and Pat disappeared together. Fredrick leaned back again, resting his head on his hand, watching Pe
arl as she avoided eye contact.

“I don’t have a beard,” Jimm s
tated loudly. Everyone laughed.

Fredrick leaned closer to whisper, “So you didn’t come out here to be a little girl again?”

She looked at him a little surprised. “No.”

He waited for a response to his unasked question. She took a long time, stared at a button on his jacket, before looking like she was going to answer. “Well?”

“It’s nice not having people call you ‘Your Majesty’ and bow and curtsy all the time isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he nodded, realizing the people around him hadn’t treated him like the King
all day. He was just Fredrick.

“I am Pearl. You are Fredrick.”

“No robe, no crown,” he said.

“A woman and a man.”

“You came here to be a woman, n
ot a little girl,” he told her.

“Coral became a woman out here. She fell in love with a wonderful man over a campfire. I think I just wanted to test my luck.”

A shiver went down his spine as he realized what she was saying. She really was giving herself to him. In a precious way. He touched her face
softly and she closed her eyes.

Darius called out, “Pearl, Pearl.”

She sat up, taking him into her lap. “Did you think you’d be able t
o outrun Krisa?” she asked him.

“No one
can outrun Krisa,” he laughed.

Fredrick stood and walked away from everyone into the dark. Pearl’s eyes followed him with a worried look. Amias noticed. Coral nudged Amias to follow Fredrick during
one of Jimm’s hunting stories.

Amias found Fredrick squatting down in the field just before the trees. “Are you okay?” he asked him.

“Yes.”

“You do
n’t look okay,” Amias told him.

“I guess I’m just…shaken.”

“The Well is unusual.”

Fredrick nodded. “It tells us much but leaves things unanswered.”

“It does,” Amias agreed. “What is troubling you?”

“Pearl.”

Amias hesitated. As her guardian he became defensive, but he realized the man before him needed him to listen. As a friend. “Yes?”

“I care about her a lot. You know that. She tells me all the time the reasons I shouldn’t, why I’m a silly old fool.”

Amias smiled. He could imagine Pearl telling the King he was a fool. “I’m sure that’s one of the reasons you care about her.”

The King chuckled. “You are right. But I’m scared. It was the Well.”

“What about it?”

“I didn’t see her. Where did she go? It’s like she’s disappeared,” he spoke, straining to withhold emotion. “I saw everyone else.”

Amias stood there remembering the feelings he’d had when he had first gone into the pool of blue. He came out worrying about Coral because he didn’t see her. He didn’t see himself and he didn’t see the woman he loved.

“I am not going to tell you what I saw of you or Pearl,” Amias told Fredrick. “But I will tell you something that may help you.”

The man stood up, his face emotional in the darkness. “Please.”

“I have a question for you,” he said, already knowing the answer. “Do you care about her because she is god-
smiter
, the li
ttle girl who took down a demon
, the person who stands by you in your war room as a trophy? Or do you care about her as a friend, as a woman.”

“She has been in my heart from that first day I found her in my garden. Not in the same way,” he added quickly. “She was a spunky little dragon making me laugh. And she still does. She keeps me on my toes, she’s my friend, and I can’t imagine being without…”

Amias nodded, not making him say anymore. “When I went into the Well, I saw nothing of Coral. Coral saw nothing of me. Pat saw nothing of Krisa, and she nothing of him.”

Fredrick’s eyes met Amias’ in the near darkness. He wiped away an invisible tear and nodded his thanks. “I think she feels the same way.”