The Nemisin Star (69 page)

Who was
he?

It was a large
cottage with a mixture of stone and adobe walls, low ceilings, and
skewed doorways without doors inside, stone floors strewn with
faded rugs, old copper containers, wood furniture, and dried
flowers everywhere. Haphazard, but homely.

Eileen called
out as she led him into the cool interior. “Jamie! We have a
guest!”

Jamie, bald
with kindly blue eyes, approached carrying a tray on which two
steaming mugs stood along with a plate of homemade rusks.

He beamed at
his wife. “We’re fortunate then, my dear, for I brought a new face
into our humble home also.” He smiled at Eileen’s stray. “Welcome,
stranger … I’d give you my hand …” and he gestured with his chin at
the tray.

“He fell from
his horse, Jamie, or so he thinks,” Eileen thankfully put in before
he needed to answer for himself. “He has forgotten everything, even
his name, poor thing. We must help where we can.”

Jamie’s face
was a study in astonishment. “Really? The man I found in the woods
- nearly gave me an attack, that did - also has trouble recalling
who he is. Maybe you two know each other. You know, Eileen, those
brigands were spotted not far from Old Rebel’s homestead. It’s
likely our guests were beset upon and we know they are none too
gentle.”

She put a hand
to her mouth. “We must set watch again from tonight.” She
brightened. “Well, if you two know each other, let’s get you
together and hopefully it will jog memories.” She set her flowers
aside and straightened to look at the stranger.

He liked her
spirit. “I hope so.”

“Good, we’ll
hope then. Jamie, bring two extra mugs.” She shooed her husband,
who departed with a long-suffering sigh, and led her guest to the
parlour where they evidently received visitors.

The other man
sat on a chair covered in polka dot fabric, resting with eyes
closed. Fair, lean and pale. Lines of tension pulled his chiselled
face tight. He wore black breeches and boots, but had a loose white
shirt on, the upper buttons undone, sleeves rolled. Grass stains
marred the fine linen. He was weaponless, wearing an empty
scabbard.

He knew this
man, but where from he could not begin to guess, and as to a name -
that was as lost to him as his own.

The stranger
opened his eyes. Blue eyes. He rose and his gaze locked onto the
yellow eyes next to the lady of the house.

“I know you,”
he said, frowning in concentration. “But …” and he shook his head
in frustration. “I’m sorry, I know this might sound foolish, but do
you know who I am?”

Eileen looked
from one to the other, seeing in their similar garb they were known
to each other, probably hailing from the same place - the
coincidence could not be denied. Her husband entered with the tray
and set it down, whispering to her, “Anything?” She shook her
head.

“Actually, I
hoped you would know me,” her guest replied. He was wary of this
man.

The blue-eyed
one sighed. “Something happened to us, then. It seems likely we
were travelling together.”

“Brigands,”
Jamie said. “A plague on honest, decent folk. They steal the horses
from under people, leave folk for dead, break into houses; why,
last month a young girl was abducted for money! Money, I ask you!
Do they actually think we hang onto those worthless pieces of
paper? It’s been, what, sixty years since it held value.” He busied
himself with passing out mugs. “You may not remember now, of course
… sit, and help yourselves.”

They sat and
the yellow-eyed man asked, “Where are we?”

Jamie said,
“We’re in Lanshire, and that is the larger region of the Falcon
Isles.”

Falcon Isles.
Falcon. A flash of a blue plumaged bird, intelligent eyes, flying
to meet him, communicating without words. Goddess, what was that?
Goddess? His deity?

The blue-eyed
man frowned as if he recalled something and asked, “Which
world?”

Eileen and
Jamie looked at each other in consternation. “
World
?” they
echoed as one, and Jamie added, “We’re unfamiliar with the
concept.”

The two
strangers looked at each other, and neither knew how to proceed.
The yellow-eyed one looked away first and sipped at his coffee,
leaving the other to be the thorn. The blue-eyed man placed his mug
on the tray and faced their benefactors.

“Planet?” he
said, making a circular motion with his hands.

Eileen and
Jamie mutely shook their heads, glancing at each other.

“A globe,
round, with continents and islands surrounded by ocean, turns on an
axis about a sun,” the stranger continued, attempting to explain
and serving to make matters worse.

Jamie stood as
if burned, dragged his wife up and the two backed towards the
doorway, shaking their heads.

“Please,” the
blue-eyed one spoke. “We mean you no ill.”

“You know
whereof he speaks?” Eileen demanded of her guest, liking him
despite her growing disquiet. Her hazel eyes were round, begging
for familiarity. Familiarity meant safety.

While he did
not desire to frighten these people, they were at this point now
and the obvious disparity was a cause for concern. He required
mechanisms to cope in an environment bound to find him wanting -
ignorance could lead to trouble.

“I am sorry if
this scares you, but please understand we are lost. We need to
understand. Perhaps we are visitors from … Goddess, I have no idea
how to formulate that thought.”

“
Goddess
?” Eileen echoed.

The Goddess
was personal and not part of Bluebell worship.

“We had better
leave,” the blue-eyed stranger said.

“Yes,” Jamie
said, relieved. “We want no trouble. Please go now and we won’t
report you to the authorities.”

“Jamie!”
Eileen was horrified.

The two men
rose. The blue-eyed one was marginally shorter and appeared the
more fragile of the two. “Authorities? What form does that
take?”

“I know what
you are thinking, maybe they can help and so on, but you don’t want
to bring attention to yourselves, not with that lot. They’ll string
you up from the nearest tree, no questions asked! Cutthroats, worse
than brigands. In fact, Jamie and I have speculated they are the
leaders of those thieves …”

“Eileen!”
Jamie blurted out. “Do we even know who they are?” He rolled his
eyes at the strangers.

She paled.
“Oh!” She faced the strangers head-on. “Are you from the
authorities?”

“Eileen!”

Her stray
smiled at her. “I assure you we are not with the authorities. I
realise you have to accept that on trust, but it is true.”

“See?” Eileen
said to her husband.

“How would he
know for certain, wife?”

“My companion
speaks the truth, although I cannot say how I know that,” the
blue-eyed one put in.

“See?” Eileen
said again.

Jamie studied
the two, recalling how skittish the one was in the woods, like a
deer; hunted, lost. It could not be easily faked. He nodded as if
reaching a decision. “We can’t help you further, but I’ll point you
towards someone with more to offer. She, a long time back when she
arrived here, spoke of the round lands.”

“Jamie, are
you sure?”

“Eileen, maybe
there is a connection.”

“Who is this
woman?” Yellow-eyes prompted.

“She was, poor
thing, branded as a witch … what?” Both strangers paled, glancing
at each other.

“Someone who
delves into the supernatural,” Eileen explained.

“Hush now,
wife,” Jamie whispered.

“I know what
it means,” the yellow-eyed man said, and the other fiddled with his
hands.

“Hogwash, that
is what it is!” Jamie burst out. “What you see is what you get!”
Obviously he warmed to a favourite topic. “She says it’s magic, but
we all know sleight of hand …”

The
yellow-eyed stranger stumbled and gripped at his head.

Eileen wanted
to go to his aid, but her husband gripped her arm and hissed at her
to leave him be. The stranger lifted his eyes - stark, staring.
Eileen quailed.

He
hyperventilated, shook, stilled and closed his eyes. For long
moments nothing happened, nothing was said. All attention was on
him, even the other, although his was an odd kind of curiosity.

The stranger
opened his eyes and gazed about him in dawning comprehension,
amazement, confusion … horror. He lowered his hands, stared at
them, touched them to each other, touched his legs, his chest, his
mouth.

“Mother
Universe, it is done.”

His tone was
so bleak that Eileen’s heart went out to him.

Yellow-eyes
turned to look at the other, his expression unreadable. Blue-eyes
returned the look and there was confusion there, and even trusting
Eileen noticed there was fear also.

“You remember
something?” she whispered.

He looked at
her, opened and closed his mouth, and then nodded. He dared not say
more. Goddess, it should have happened somewhere more private, but
then no one would have mentioned the trigger word - magic. It had
to be like this, then. The warring emotions on his face - visible
for only an instant - cleared, and he took a few deep breaths, the
kind that generally followed after shock.

“Thank you for
your hospitality, but we must be on our way.” He reached out and
took the blue-eyed man’s arm and jerked him to his side, holding
him there.

“I do not
understand,” his companion complained, but did not fight the
grip.

“You will, but
I would you do so somewhere else. Eileen, Jamie, once more, our
thanks.” He dragged his companion out with him, past the
flabbergasted couple, down the short passage, through the front
door and into the sun, and pushed him ahead. “Keep walking, I will
explain soon.”

Eileen and
Jamie followed. They were more afraid than earlier, but also agog.
The men were leaving and therefore the danger was leaving.

Eileen plucked
up the courage to call out, “Wait! Your name at least,
stranger!”

He turned. “I
dare not, good lady.”

“We won’t say
anything, I promise,” she returned, and then gasped. The other one
gripped his head hard, buckled, his eyes as wide as the other’s was
minutes ago.

A giggle
escaped. A nasty kind of giggle, and Jamie yanked his wife
closer.

His companion
whirled around. “Walk!”

“Come,
Torrullin … we need test our abilities.”

“These are
good people. Walk!”

The blue-eyed
man laughed, stumbled to the ground and sat there stunned and
staring at his hands. “Well, this is
not
what I expected.
Gods, that hurt! This is the invisible realm? Why, it is more real
than anything - we are more real!” He looked up, mirth gone. “This
is not the place I was in before.”

Torrullin
leaned over him. “Did you honestly think I would follow you into
familiar haunts? Idiot, you followed me here.”

The front door
of the cottage slammed loudly in the still air and a bolt slid
home.

Torrullin
started walking. It was not what he had expected either.

After a moment
Margus followed, still shaking his head.

When they were
well away, Torrullin waited for him. “It is a flat existence.
Tangible. We could walk forever and never see a curve.”

“How did you
do this?”

“I learned a
thing or two from a High Priestess of Rebirth. I chose one she was
familiar with and had my Throne open the neutral pathway and
brought you with me. All I had to do was choose and die first. I
died first, Margus. The trigger word was
magic
.”

“Why this
place? It is like Valaris.”

“Not quite,
and all is not as it seems. Time moves slowly here, as if we have
conquered inertia entirely, hurtling great distances in no time at
all. How long do you think we have been here?”

“Six, seven
hours.”

“Sixty,
seventy years have already passed where we come from. You wanted
time.”

“Here, not
there!”

“You desired
to play in the etheric for time out of mind and return to Valaris
as if no interlude passed. I knew that, idiot, and it was not to
happen. This way we shall finish it as swiftly as possible and I
shall return after sufficient time has elapsed back home to
facilitate forgiveness and forgetfulness. A new order, Margus.”
Torrullin shrugged. “A few days, a week, to finish it between us,
lending us the urgency, and enough time will have passed for an
anonymous return.”

He had said
two thousand years; it gave him exactly ten days to deal with the
Darak Or. So much for distance - this would be the most frenetic
period in his entire life.

Margus
muttered. Then, having caught a nuance, “You have it figured
out?”

Torrullin
started walking. “I have no idea how to get back.”

“Do you know
how to finish it between us?”

Torrullin
glanced at him and laughed. “No.”

“We are
looking at years here at best, old friend. Nobody will remember
us.” Margus lifted his hand and pointed it at a sapling growing
sturdily beyond the shade of its parent tree. His lips moved
soundlessly … and nothing happened. He drew breath, concentrated,
and tried again. “No magic?”

Torrullin
shrugged. “Let me try.” He lifted his hand - no result. “Obviously
not.”

He continued
walking, keeping to the cultivated growth to spare the fragile
wildflowers for Eileen, and because one needed to respect the land
at all times. A strange existence lay ahead, but it was a lovely
place; at least here in Bluebell County. He wondered if he would
see bluebells.

“Maybe it will
return with time, like our memories. We must adapt,” Margus
murmured, staring at his useless hands.

“I doubt it.
Different rules.”