Woman of Silk and Stone (6 page)

Dark smoke hovered all around me like a
blanket, pressing against my skin in an almost tangible way. Alarm
crept up my spine, but almost immediately the smoke became less
dense, and I could have sworn I heard a voice whisper in my head,
"
Peace, ti summu. No fear
."

The door swung open and the smoke
dissipated, leaving only the aromatic steam of the water and the
dying embers in the brazier.

The water was cold.

"How do you feel now, Honey Sullivan?"
Mistress Damki asked, smiling knowingly as she helped me from the
pool and draped me in a silky, sleeveless robe not unlike a
toga.

Shaking off the peculiar end to my bath, I
gave her arm an affectionate squeeze. "Call me Honey. I feel
wonderful, Mistress Damki, thank you."

Grinning widely at me with her strangely
unlined face, she led me out of the room and down the never ending
hall of pastel doors. "Good. Now we will treat your injuries and
find you some suitable clothing for meeting with the Royal
Council," she said, showing me through a baby-pink door and urging
me to lie down on a padded table. Three other women, all round and
olive-skinned like Damki, entered the room, carrying bowls of odd
smelling pastes. They smiled at me, but didn't speak when I greeted
them, only clucked disapprovingly over my still heavily bruised
skin before conferring with each other over which paste to use.

"Mistress Damki, can you tell me what to
expect? I mean, I'm a little lost here..." I pleaded nervously,
wondering what she meant by Royal Council. Visions of the Red Queen
chasing me down with an axe danced through my head.

"Poor child! Of course you're afraid."

Damki patted my arm gently and gestured for
the other women to begin ministering to my poor, abused body. They
removed the gown, and I panicked as it finally dawned on me that I
was naked in a room of strangers. It faded after a while, the
women's impersonal demeanor assuring me they were completely
professional. By the time I began to enjoy all the gentle
attention, I was smeared with some kind of pea-green muck and
wrapped snugly in heated towels. Damki rubbed warm,
peppermint-scented oil on my temples, keeping her voice low and
soft as she spoke.

"You are in the Golden City of Solis, the
Royal city, the greatest civilization in all of Edin."

By now I no longer doubted I was in another
world, but somehow hearing this plump little strawberry of a woman
say it so plainly made the unreality fade and the bleakness of my
situation sink in.

"Edin...is that the name of your planet,
your world?" I asked hesitantly, feeling like it was time I got a
few things straight. Damki nodded and continued to dig her talented
fingers into my skull.

"So, Solis is the name of your country,
right?" Another helpful nod.

Now for the important question.

"Can I get back home?" I asked, not holding
out any real hope.

Damki's fingers paused in their massage and
she sighed as she reached down to give my shoulder a reassuring
squeeze. "I have never heard of a
Halqu
returning to their home world. I am sorry, Honey." She squeezed my
shoulder again and continued rubbing the sweet-scented oil into my
temples, politely ignoring the tears silently spilling over onto my
cheeks.

Despite everything that had happened,
somehow I had still been holding out a tentative thread of hope
that my visit to another dimension was somehow temporary, that I
could still find my way back home. But the genuine regret in
Damki's voice snapped that fragile strand and left me dangling,
unanchored; lost in a free fall all too similar to the one that
brought me here. For a few moments, I struggled to catch my breath,
the overwhelming sense of loss threatening to choke me.

It wasn't that I had such a great life. I
was living alone, working a job I hated and technically no longer
had; I didn't have a husband, or kids, or even a boyfriend, and I
hadn't really made many friends since moving to D.C. My parents and
I weren't close, hadn't been in years. I didn't even have a pet to
worry about, since my crappy tin box of an apartment was a pet-free
zone.

But it was still my life, and I was so
young. I hadn't really gotten the chance to make much of it.

A sudden stabbing pain speared through my
lungs as I sucked in a too-huge breath.

"Oh, dear. Please don't cry, Honey.
Everything will be well, you'll see. Edin is a magnificent world,
and you are destined for great things here. Otherwise you would not
have been called. It is as it is meant to be. As they say in the
old tongue, '
Ana harrani sa alaktasa la
tarat'—
the road does not turn back." Damki gently brushed
the tears from my cheeks before continuing in her task.

I just nodded and drifted in my own misery
for a while, acknowledging the sad fact that my voicemail was
probably sitting empty, and with my recent job loss, I wouldn't be
reported missing anytime soon. I couldn't even guess at the length
of time I spent trapped in the limbo space, and had no real
understanding of how much time had passed since I arrived in Edin.
Maybe I had even been missing from my world for weeks or months.
Not that it would make much of a difference.

As the women began peeling the now tepid
towels from me and urged me toward what looked like a fairly
traditional shower stall lined with more pastel-colored tiles, I
forced myself to stop obsessing. I would grieve for the life I
lost, for the parents with whom I never reconciled, later. If I was
going to survive on Edin, I needed to get more information about my
new world, and more particularly, this royal city everyone seemed
so psyched about.

I got control of myself while rinsing the
dried mud mask from my skin and the oils from my hair. By the time
I stepped out and was wrapped in a fluffy robe made from something
that felt a lot like cashmere, I had dried my tears and
metaphorically girded my loins.

"Thank you, Mistress Damki. I feel much
better," I assured her as I emerged to rejoin the powder-puff
brigade. There was a loud gasp and then the women flocked to me,
exclaiming unintelligibly and stroking curious fingers over my arms
and hair. Surprised, I glanced around to catch Damki's eye with a
questioning look.

She was staring at me with a glint of wonder
in her eyes, shaking her head slightly. Confused, I looked down at
myself and sucked in air like it was going out of style.

All of my bruises, the scrapes and cuts,
every injury I had acquired since dropping through the void had
disappeared, as though someone had taken a great big eraser and
just rubbed them all out in one great swoop.

"How...how?" I stuttered, now frantically
surveying my legs and arms, which were as pale and perfect as the
day I was born. As I peered closer, I was stunned to realize that
even my freckles had disappeared, along with the faded scars I had
acquired over an adventurous adolesence. The porcelain texture of
my skin unnerved me, making me feel as though I had lost something
precious, something so intrinsic that I would walk with a limp for
the rest of my life.

"All impurities have been removed, Honey. We
did a full body scrub," Damki announced shakily, her cheeks dark
with emotion. "Although, I've never seen it work quite this well,"
she muttered under her breath.

I nodded numbly, submerged in the sense of
unreality that had plagued my every step in this new land.
Strangely enough, it was the loss of my scars that hit me
hardest.

"Your skin is...I have never seen skin that
color, like the petal of the
melammu
flower. And your hair..." she broke off self-consciously, sensing
my discomfort. She shook herself and refocused, returning to her
earlier brisk manner.

"I will find you something to wear,
something appropriate for attending the Royal Chamber. Then I
imagine Sandu will escort you to the palace, where you will be
greeted by some of the Council members and brought to the king.
After that, I do not know what will become of you, but it can only
be good, Honey. No one will harm you here.
Halqu
are treated like visiting royalty," Damki
assured me, her expression sincere.

"So no one's going to dump me in a dungeon
somewhere?" I asked, only half kidding.

Damki gave me an appalled look before she
relaxed and emitted a reluctant chuckle. "No, Honey. No dungeons.
The worst thing you'll have to experience, I imagine, will be the
tedium of greeting every aristocrat who believes you have been sent
here just for their benefit. It has been a decade since the last
Halqu
came to Solis, and he was taken
across the sea to the kingdom of Shuru, and the one before died
nearly twenty years ago. And you're a female! And so...unique!
Quite the novelty, my dear. I doubt you'll get many moments
alone."

I frowned at Damki's cheerful declaration,
thinking that my future of being the shiny new toy would pall
swiftly. "I see. Well, thank you for everything, Mistress Damki.
You've been so kind," I finally said, thinking that I might as well
wait to form my own impressions rather than continue to listen to
Edin's one-woman tourist bureau.

She just nodded and hustled me into a plush
chair resembling the one at the dentist's office a little too
closely for my taste. Another flock of short, plump women fluttered
around me, exclaiming over my hair, my skin, the color of my eyes.
Their agile fingers darted all over my head, brushing out my hair,
dusting my face with a shimmery mineral powder, painting my lips
with something that looked like blackberry juice.

At long last, Damki reappeared with a long,
diaphanous green gown draped across her outstretched arms, a smug
expression on her face. The other women backed away from me,
clearly pleased with their efforts, and I began to long for a
mirror, wondering what on earth they had wrought with their deft
but lengthy attentions.

With Damki's motherly encouragement ringing
in my ears, I soon found myself clad in the gauzy gown, my feet
encased in soft suede slippers the shade of an early morning
mist.

"Honey, you are...exquisite!" Damki
breathed, her voice full of awe.

At long last, one of the women brought in a
tall looking glass and propped it up in front of me.

My heart stopped.

It wasn't the gown, or the tastefully
executed cosmetics, or the way my red hair seemed to glow like a
multi-faceted ruby against the pearl-like tone of my skin.

For the first time in my life, I was
beautiful.

I'm not saying that I was a hideous hag my
whole life or anything; I've always been tall and curvy, if at
times just on the edge of being rubenesque. I got my fair share of
attention from men, but I was usually the girl they were friends
with first. I'd never thought of myself as either gorgeous or
plain, just a happy medium somewhere in between.

The woman in the mirror was an enhanced
version of the old me, without all the imperfections and unsightly
extra tummy fat. I was smooth and perfect, my eyes bright and
crystalline green, features chiseled from alabaster in unspoiled
symmetry. Unreal. A lovely, flawless doll.

Unsettled, I forced a weak smile so as not
to appear ungrateful and turned my eyes away. I wasn't sure how
this change had happened, but I figured that some of the strange
healing that had gone on since I landed on this strange world had
gone a step further than strictly necessary. I remembered the
incredible pain I suffered in the void, the sense of being unmade
and smashed back together again, the petrified wooden plank that
had somehow melted into my body, and all the other physical changes
I'd noted and dismissed for the sake of my sanity. On a very basic
level, I was no longer the same woman as the one who wandered
aimlessly on the streets of D.C.

Probably sometime very soon I would get used
to my new appearance, and maybe even be glad of it, but for now it
was simply one more thing too unfamiliar.

When I didn't comment any further, Damki
dismissed the other ladies and led me back down the long hall of
pastels, finally emerging back in the foyer where Sandu was
slouched on the pillowed couches, looking bored.

When I shuffled into the room, Sandu blinked
and then dropped his jaw. While I chewed nervously on my lower lip,
he got himself under control and began mumbling compliments at me,
never quite loud enough for me to fully discern.

"Very well, very well. You'd best get her
off to the castle before the king starts wondering where she is,"
Damki admonished, her earlier prim attitude resurfacing in the
presence of the guard.

"Of course," Sandu mumbled, opening the door
and gesturing for me to proceed.

I turned around and gave a very surprised
Damki a quick hug, whispering my thanks before hurrying out the
door. Despite her assurances that I was here for good, I was still
holding out some hope that someone in the palace might have more
information. Surely at least one
Halqu
had
made it back home at some point, and if not, then I intended to be
the first.

I wanted my freckles back.

By the time we reached the palace, I was on
sensory overload. All the beautiful details of the city that had at
first enchanted me now left me feeling weary and slightly queasy.
Everything was too bright, too loud, the colors too bold, the
people too excitable. Sandu's steady onslaught of meaningless
chatter turned into a painful buzz that bounced around my head
unceasingly.

The thought of doing anything other than
simply lying down and going to sleep for a week had me near tears.
Knowing that I still had to meet a king, not to mention all the
other hangers-on I was sure would be in attendance, sent me into a
waking coma; I walked, I talked, but nothing really made it
through.