crystal pillar that encased a column of flame. It provided all the light and heat the cavern needed.
In the center stood two bearded priests wearing long, flowing colorful robes and ornate hats that looked like bishop mitres. They had a youthful appearance with dark hair and eyes, but they always seemed to exude a sense of age greater than she could comprehend. Their names were Nasht and Kaman-Thah, and they served as guardians and gatekeepers.
They bowed, which she returned. "Welcome back, Differel Van Helsing, to the Land of the Dreams of Men. We trust you are well?"
"I am, and I trust all is as it should be?"
"Everything and nothing."
"As always, the Lands are whatever you wish and will make of them."
She grinned; they never did give straight answers. They were probably driving Margaret mad.
That reminded her: "I came with a companion whom I wish to introduce to the Lands. Is she worthy?"
"She is worthy, and welcome."
"You shall meet her again in the Enchanted Woods."
She nodded her head. "Thank you." She hurried passed them and around the Pillar of Fire. On the other side lay a second smaller chamber that contained two tables of green malachite. One had clothing, the other weapons and equipment. The components of her costume never changed: braies for underwear, a long chemise and a pair of tight-fitting trousers, buckled boots, a sleeveless doublet with a high collar, an ascot and gloves, and a red great coat and matching hat with a wide floppy brim. A pair of glasses with large round rims rested on top of the folded apparel. From the other table she took a belt with two holstered pistols along with a pouch of paper cartridges, her greatsword Caliburn attached to a pack harness, a poignard dagger, a canteen, a pack of travel bread and jerky, a tin of cigarillos, and a purse, then she turned towards the exit. The arched opening revealed a set of steps leading down, and beside it stood a makila walking stick. She took hold of the handle, wrapped the lanyard around her wrist, and started down.
As with the Seventy Steps, the Seven Hundred seemed to take forever to descend, until she stepped out into the Woods, when it felt like no time at all. She stepped away from the bole and gazed around. The trees were cyclopean oaks, taller than redwoods, more massive than sequoias, and older than the world. Their crowns combined to form an unbroken canopy that closed off the sky. Their deeply gnarled bark, thick and strong as steel plate armour, served as a foundation for bracket fungi that glowed a weird, eldritch green, creating an environment as dim as twilight. She stood on the head of a gravel path made with crushed pearly-white stones that shown with a black light fluorescence.
"And just when I thought this place couldn't get any weirder."
She turned and saw Margaret emerge from an archway in a tree. Then she did a mental double take.
"What's with the costume?" She resembled a cavalier of Charles I, complete with linen shirt, jerkin, waist sash, reticella lace collar and cuffs, breeches, and tall narrow boots with turned-over tops and boothose, complimented by gloves, a short cape, and a plumed wide-brimmed hat. Her bouncy, billowing cinnamon-sorrel hair looked like a wig typical of that period. She had armed herself with a rapier hanging from a baldric and a main-gauche parrying dagger in her sash. Differel noted, however, not without some irritation, that her attire did little to conceal her statuesque figure. It made her own stick-like body seem even more boyish than normal, and her long, flat, stringy, smoke-gray hair would do little to dispel that illusion.
"It was all that was available. You're one to talk; don't you think the redcoat look is overkill?"
She glowered but ignored the barb. "Where's your equipment?"
"I didn't know what I'd need, except these." She reached under her sash and held up a set of lock picks.
"Hmph. The tables offer you everything you would need, or want, within reason. Though why you'd want to look like that I can't fathom. Fortunately we don't have far to go, so you can share my food and water."
"Where are we, exactly?"
"We're in the Dreamlands proper."
She wore a dubious expression. "Not what I expected."
"This is the Enchanted Woods--"
Margaret barked out a laugh, but it had an anxious note. "Are you off your nut?"
"Don't be fooled by the name. It can be a very dangerous place, particularly for novices. Just stick with me, and don't go wandering off, no matter what you see or hear. Clear?"
"Crystal."
"Our destination is a town called Ulthar. It's like a pre-industrial holiday village. Trust me, you won't be disappointed."
"Oh, bugger. Look, can we just get going?"
"In a moment." She looked around, but didn't see anything stirring. "Is anyone here?"
Margaret blinked a questioning look. "What?" But Differel ignored her. A singular creature crawled around the trunk and came to rest above the stair exit, facing down. Margaret heard the scratching of its claws on the bark and looked behind her.
"Aaah! Blimey!" She danced away and hid behind Differel. It looked like a short, squat, tailless rat, half again as big as a rabbit, with large rounded ears and huge peat-brown eyes whose pupils glowed an iridescent neon green. It had short bronze fur tinged with verdigris, while stripes of tarnished silver lined its face. Its front paws were thumbed hands, while wriggling pink tendrils bestrewn its long flexible nose.
"What the bleeding hell is that?"
"A Zoog. Behave yourself; they eat rude people."
She flashed a consternated look, as if she couldn't be sure she wasn't serious.
"Welcome back, My Lady Elissa," it said in a high-pitched voice. "I trust thou art well?"
Margaret's exotic copperish eyes bulged out and her jaw dropped. "Bugger!" Then she whipped her head around to stare at her. "Lady Elissa?!"
Differel returned a grinning leer. "Oh, didn't I tell you? I'm a marchioness here. I outrank you now."
She scowled. "What an appalling thought."
Differel smirked and turned her attention back to the Zoog. "I am well, thank you, and I trust all in the village are well?"
"We be'st well. Thou art early this eventide."
"Yes, I wanted to introduce a friend to the Dreamlands. This is Lady Margaret Rose Chesham, daughter of the Duke of Anglin."
The Zoog focused on Margaret. "I be'st pleased to meet thee, My Lady Chesham. Thou art welcome."
She nodded. "Thank you." Her voice sounded uncertain, but for once more deferential.
"I would like to make a withdraw."
"Of course, My Lady Elissa. Proceedest ye to the edge of the Woods, and we shalt deliver thy goods." It then turned to face up the trunk and scampered out of sight around the bole.
She touched Margaret on the elbow. "Come on, let's get out of here. This place gives me the collywobbles." She headed down the path and Margaret fell in beside her.
"What's up with all that theeing and thouing?"
"Zoogs have an archaic way of speaking. I sometimes think they learned English from reading Shakespeare."
"Does everyone talk like that here?"
"Fortunately not."
"Wait, how could they know about Shakespeare?"
"He was a Dreamer, like me, but the Woods also touch on a number of places in the Waking World. There are Zoogs in Sherwood Forest."
"Waking World?"
"That's what our home universe is called here."
She fell silent and said nothing the rest of the way. Differel got the impression she had come close to information overload.
When they emerged from the Woods, the bright sun momentarily blinded her, but her eyesight adjusted quickly.
"My god! It's beautiful!" Margaret stared at the vista with a dumbfounded expression. A meadow sloped gently down to a river in the distance. Beyond it, a grassy plain stretched to the horizon, and at the extreme edge of vision sat the hazy mass of a town.
"You know what this reminds me of? That scene in The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy steps out of her house and everything explodes into colo
ur!"
"I know what you mean. I've been coming here for over thirty-five hundred nights, and the sight still awes me."
"Bugger!"
She glanced at her and found her staring at her with an astonished look.
"What?"
"I couldn't be sure inside that bleeding forest, but you look twenty-five again!"
She grinned, satisfied she had gobsmacked her again. "So do you."
Margaret reached up and touched her face in wonder.
"Dream bodies tend to be healthier, stronger, and sturdier, too. For example, my eyesight here is perfect, while in the Waking World I'm blind as a bat."
Margaret smiled. "I always thought that appropriate. Wait, if you don't need glasses, why wear them?"
She shrugged. "Matter of habit, I guess. That, and they're probably part of my identity. These just have plain glass."
"My Lady Elissa!"
She turned, and a leather pouch dropped out of a tree. She caught it, and tipped her hat. "My thanks!"
"Mayest ye fair well, on your adventures!" She didn't see anything, but she heard the Zoogs scramble deeper into the Woods. They didn't like bright light.
She opened the pouch as she faced Margaret, and poured a number of golden coins into one hand.
"Bugger! Is that real...?"
"They're called crowns, and yes, each is an ounce of pure gold. Hold out your hand." She divided them up. "I have the Zoogs keep some money for me, because I like to have traveling expenses on hand as soon as I arrive." She separated the lot into two piles of ten coins each and poured one into her purse. The rest she put back in the pouch. "These are yours. Try not to spend them all in one place."
Margaret grinned like a kid at Christmas as she took the
Differential Damsel Page 10
