The Ultimate Linguist

by T. Mason Gilbert

patrons as a woman in a tragedy mask came out onstage and bowed to the crowd. She wore faded jeans and a leather coat, her lithe figure moved across the stage like a cat. She began to tell a story of woe about a woman seeking her husband who had been captured by evil demons, holding me and the patrons spellbound. In the story, she enlisted a hero to help her find her husband but tragically ended up falling in love with the hero. The story ended with her consummating her love with the hero, and leaving her husband to suffer his own karma.

  Watching her I thought there was something oddly familiar about her movements, and the sound of her voice. The feeling nagged at me during her entire heartbreaking performance, which turned out to be quite moving.

  With the unfaithful wife and hero on horses riding off into the sunset the woman brought her tragic story to a close, “As they drove toward the sunset he could see a tear in her eye but could not hear the hysterical laugh in her heart.”

  The house blew up. The audience stood and applauded loudly. There were shouts of, “Bravo, Lady Gail. Bravo!”

  Standing and applauding, I heard the cries and turned to look at Radeir, who smiled at me and winked. I turned back to look at the masked Lady Gail and my heart sank because this was not the old woman, my next door neighbor. Now what will I do? Could there be some other Lady Gail? This woman’s voluptuousness and voice revealed her to be a much younger woman.

  There were shouts of, “Take it off!” and “Remove thy mask!”

  The woman yielded to their pleas and withdrew her mask. I nearly fainted and grabbed the table to steady myself.

  Radeir noticed and touched my shoulder. “Are thee well? Is this not your friend?”

  7

  Allyson in Wonderland

  I sat down, shaken. “No. It’s her all right. I just wasn’t expecting her.”

  “I should have told you she performs here. I was trying to surprise you. I apologize,” he said, misunderstanding why I was upset. I thought about explaining it to him but as I looked back to the stage and the applause wore down, the performer’s eyes met mine.

  Abby recognized me.

  She flew off the stage, ran over and embraced me as I stood up. We both laughed and then began to cry. I should have figured it out. Abigail. We sat down and the inn went back to normal.

  Radeir stood up. “It looks as though you two have a lot to discuss. I’ll take my leave now.” He leaned over and kissed Abby’s hand. He looked at me and I walked up to him and gave him a hug and lay my head upon his strong chest.

  “Thank you, Radeir. Thank you for bringing me to my friend.”

  He cleared his throat and I looked up at him. Abby’s sad tale flashed through my mind and made me uneasy.

  “At your service, milady,” he said, stepping back with a slight bow he turned and departed. I watched him go a little too long. Looking back at Abby, she gave me a look like she knew my innermost thoughts, the ones I revealed to no one.

  “Something you want to say, girlfriend?” she asked with a slight smile.

  “Shut up.” I sat back down. “Yes, as a matter of fact. Where the hell are we? And how the hell do we get back home?”

  “Right. Let’s go where we can talk.”

  Abby led me out of the Bucket of Gold. I thought the three cheeseburgers would have given me an overeater’s sluggish regret but instead I felt strangely exuberant. We walked down a cobblestoned street to a dark alley. Walking about thirty paces into the alley, we came to a blue wooden door which Abby unlocked. Inside, Abby went about turning up the lights and the blue glow filled the room. Closer to the light source, I noticed the bulbs appeared filled with a luminous liquid. A kitchen with a wood burning stove sat on the left. On the right were large sitting pillows all about the floor, surrounding a low table. In the center was a hookah.

  “Make yourself at home. I’ll grab a few drinks. You’re gonna need it.”

  I sat on a big midnight blue pillow that had silver embroidery, soft and comfortable. Some incense sat on the table with matches. I struck a match and lit one. The smell of cedar filled the room. Abby walked over with two goblets and a jug. She poured a purple liquid.

  “Wine?” I asked.

  “Of a kind,” she said, taking a sip.

  I took a sip and it tasted like a slightly tart pear. “Delish. Why do the lights have a bluish hue?”

  “There is no electricity here. The lights are filled with a liquid loaded with Gadsees, a type of plankton. It is quite ingenious. The whole city is pipelined with a massive network of tiny tubing. When you turn on a light the switch opens the tubing and the bulb is filled with the luminescent liquid. The light is literally alive.”

  “Wow. Amazing,” I said, looking at the lights. I turned back to Abby. Now, where in the hell am I?”

  Abby took a deep breath and launched into her story.

  She had no idea of this planet’s location in the universe or if it even was our universe. Her husband Will had taken their two boys hiking through the forest one day. After several hours they had not returned and Abby had gone to look for them. She followed the same path I had been on myself, and came upon Peabody. The Arboralum told her that Will and the boys had been captured by Cloven warriors right outside the forest by the Roll River. The warriors had taken them to the Cloveneich city of Zanassas where they had been pressed into servitude. She had been trying to rescue them for ten years now.

  “Ten years?! That’s impossible. You haven’t aged,” I said.

  “Time is a funny thing. Here we don’t age like we do on Earth. I’m not sure what the ratio is but it seems to be every ten years here is like a week on Earth. So my ten years aged me only a week. Every time I’ve returned to Earth I’ve had a witch place a spell on me that turns me into an old woman to make you and everyone else think I’m my mother.”

  “A witch?”

  “They have them here. They’re revered.”

  “The old woman, your mom, was you? How come you never told me?” I asked.

  “Think about it. Would you have believed me?”

  Her question cut me in two and the guilt hit me like a ton of bricks. “I’m sorry. You’re right. If that old woman had claimed to be you I would have had her hauled away on a fifty-one fifty. But why did you keep coming back?”

  “Each time out-worlders (that’s someone like us) return home, the power of our qua increases upon our return here by twenty percent. Sometimes the qua will evolve to some other aspect that is unforeseen. We can only arrive in this world five times and still return to Earth. If we return here a sixth time, we cannot return to Earth. We become permanent inhabitants of Lakusia. I’m now eighty percent Lakusian. If I go back to Earth one more time I will not be able to return here. If I do, I will have to stay here for good. And don’t be sorry. I tricked you into coming here, by hoping you would help my old lady.”

  “It worked,” I said. “But why didn’t you just wait for me in the forest?”

  “Look at it. You follow the old lady’s voice into the forest and meet me standing there. And I tell the story that I just told you. You see where I’m going with this?”

  I nodded.

  “You needed to meet Peabody, Nodd, Busterro, and Radeir.”

  “Wait a minute. I never told you about Busterro or Nodd. I didn’t even tell you that I’d met Peabody.”

  Abby smiled.

  I punched her in the arm. “You set this all up?”

  “I couldn’t have you getting into trouble nor getting captured by the Cloven, could I?”

  “Did you have to pick someone so ruggedly handsome? He made me feel like a girl back in high school.”

  “Yikes. Sorry. I’m not saying nothin’, girl.”

  “Thanks. The less the better. So what am I doing here?”

  “Truth? I need help rescuing my husband and children,” Abby said. It felt like she had punched me in the stomach.

  “I’d like to help but I don’t know. Cade won’t let me go to another world; he’ll lock me up i
n a loony bin.”

  “No he won’t. He won’t even know you’re gone. Very little time is passing on Earth for you.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’ve been back five times in one week and ten years have gone by here. Remember?”

  “I don’t know. I …”

  Abby’s face looked desperate. “I know it’s a lot to ask.”

  “Abby, this world is dangerous—waitresses-kill-you-for-too-small-of-tip dangerous.” I looked hard at my best friend. “If you die here, do you …”

  She shrugged. “The truth is I don’t know. I haven’t died here. But I’m assuming if you die here, you’re dead. You don’t wake up at home from a bad dream. Sorry.”

  We sat in silence.

  After a moment, Abby said, “But we will have help in my quest too. And when you discover your qua, I’m sure that will help us too.”

  I withheld from Abby that I thought I already knew my qua. “But you have already been trying for ten years. Will, Ron, and Roger could be …”

  “Dead? Yes. They could be. But they’re not. This I know for a fact. At least they were alive as of a couple of days ago. That is why I went back to Earth: to gain in power for the last time. I know where they are now. It has taken me ten years to find them all. I wanted to enlist your help. I needed someone from Earth. Someone I can trust to help me.”

  I pondered her request. “I can’t answer you now, Abbs. I really should talk to Cade.”

  “By the time you speak to him months will have gone by here. Besides, do you think it’s wise telling him about any of this? You know he’ll