They snapped to attention as Sam approached at the head of her little party. The ebony doors before her slid open without a whisper of sound. As they followed inside, Jenny nearly gasped. The gigantic room they had entered seemed to have no ceiling, although the sky could not be seen. It appeared to be an endless tunnel of blackness. The walls, black as the outside of the building were lit dimly by flaming torches spaced far enough apart that the light from one did not fully extend to the light of the next one.
The floor beneath their feet glistened like black slime, but their boots rang hollowly as they moved forward. There didn't appear to be anyone there in all that empty space. They walked and walked, the torches fading behind them as they went and new ones appearing before them.
At some point, two lights appeared ahead, as if they had just come into being. Between the two lights were two black thrones that appeared to be cut from obsidian, all ragged, sharp edges and points. The personages seated on the thrones were also dressed in black, so that their faces, seemed to float in mid-air.
The woman was so like Sam as to be recognizable immediately as a close relation, either a sister or a mother. The man had a vibrant streak of white on his right temple and his brows were thin and arched.
The guard who still held Jenny in a firm grip, threw her sprawling onto the floor. One of them placed his boot on her back, preventing her from rising
The thought of the man on the throne pierced Jenny's mind like a spike of fire. "Is this the Gatekeeper you bring us, daughter?"
Sam had dropped to one knee. "It is, father. And the sly one, Tarafau in his cat-like guise. I do not know why he has not transformed, but he is now in your power."
Jenny started. That's right, she thought. Miriha had told him he would not transform. Was this an effect of the alien portal? Jenny knew in his cat form he was vulnerable. He had already been injured as Tidbit. What would they do to him?
Even with everything that had already happened, up until this moment, Jenny had not felt afraid, confident that Miriha would not lead her astray. Had she once again put her trust in the wrong place?
The woman inclined her head toward the man and sent, "This bears some consideration, Your Majesty. We should put them somewhere so that we and they can consider their fate."
The king nodded. "It is the decree of King Namal and Queen Ohaz of Fleist, that Jenny and her cat," and he arched one brow in Tidbit's direction, "be placed in the 'thinking room' until we determine what fate will serve us best."
Once again, the two Guards grasped Jenny by the arms and hauled her up to her feet. Without a word, they marched her through a door to the right of the throne room and into a nearly pitch black hallway. The guards seemed to have no problem with the lack of light, stomping along beside her, her arms tightly in their grip. But Jenny had no thoughts of escape. She had absolutely no clue where she was or how she could even consider getting home, much less to any place of safety.
Besides, she still didn't know why she was there or what she was supposed to do. Miriha had said she would know when she needed to know. So now she would wait.
The guards came to an abrupt halt before what appeared to be a stretch of wall, no different than any other. A part of the wall slid open at no command or gesture that she could discern. The guards shoved her forward into the darkness. She landed on her hands and knees, and she heard a small thud and a yowl just ahead of her. The door, such as it was, slid silently closed behind her.
"Tidbit?" she queried silently. There was absolutely no glimmer of light.
"I'm all right. A cat always lands on its feet, you know." She felt his head butt up against her shoulder.
"Can you see anything?" she asked, "I understand cats can see in the dark."
"While it's true cats are nocturnal creatures, they can't see any more in a complete absence of light than you can," he replied, and she thought she detected a wry twist to his sending.
"OK, so OODA still applies. I'm going to stay on hands and knees and feel my way to the edges of the room to start with. Then I want your thoughts on our situation."
"Very slow, very careful," he agreed.
"Very careful," Jenny echoed, her mind considering how many things might potentially be waiting in the pitch black. "I'd get a light out of the MDP, but I'm afraid that would give us away. The night goggles won't work unless there are critters in here with us, since there doesn't appear to be a source of light in here." Her skin crawled with the idea there might be some kind of alien rat-things in here with them. She scooted carefully back, putting her back against the doorway they had just come through.
"I smell nothing but the two of us," Tidbit replied, almost conversationally.
She crawled warily forward, sliding her hands and knees and counting her crawling steps as she tried to determine the edges of their captivity. Just as she was beginning to wonder if there were no edges, a silly thought under other circumstances, her hand hit air. She almost pitched forward, but pulled back onto her heels.
"I've found an edge, but be careful. It appears to go out into nothing, and I don't know how far down the nothing goes or how far it is across." She had a picture in her head of Alice falling down the rabbit hole.
She took a coin out of her pocket, hung her hand over the hole and let it drop. There was a long moment and then a soft faraway ping as the coin hit something hard. Jenny shivered. Sliding her hand carefully to the left until she found the wall she started from, she then edged around in an undulating circle that circled back around to the same wall.
When she got to the wall, she took out her quarterstaff and held it at arm's length past the gap, trying to determine how far the pit extended before it hit another wall, with no success. Her staff was 5-1/2 feet long and the gap was definitely farther than that. Whether that was an inch or mile farther really made no difference at this point. She moved away from the pit and sat with her back to the wall.
"Tap lightly on the floor in front of you," sent Tidbit, "so I can find you."
Jenny did as instructed, and Tidbit curled up beside her. "Now let's think. It is, after all, 'the thinking room'."
Jenny wondered what her team was doing, as she and Tidbit sat here, mentally twiddling their thumbs. She thought of her family and friends back on Earth, blithely going about their lives, unaware of the threat that hung over them. She wondered if the portal device had made it to the Alliance and, if even now, they were shutting down the portal, not realizing that Jenny was stuck on a planet, in a dimension, neither she nor they knew anything about.
Then she brought herself up sharply. No pity parties for her. She needed to stay focused.
"Tidbit, what do you know about this place? Have you ever heard of Fleist before?"
"Although I have heard of Fleist, I don't know what dimension they are from. I don't think they have an Alliance gateway here, however."
A gong sounded above their heads, making Jenny jump. Its sonorous vibrations filled the dark space. The echoes went on and on for what seemed like several minutes. From the sound of it, the ceiling to this room was very high and the pit below them also threw the echoes upward, bouncing them and multiplying them until they finally faded away.
"Any chance that was the dinner bell?" Tidbit sent hopefully.
Jenny couldn't help herself. She laughed. She pulled some rations from her MDP and the two ate in silence. When they were finished, Jenny felt around where they were sitting for any crumbs or wrappers. She wanted to leave no clue of what their resources were to inform their captors. She had a strong suspicion they were being monitored somehow. When she and her family had played rummy when she was a kid, her dad was always admonishing her, "Don't show anyone your cards." It was good advice. Especially now.
Within minutes a bright light flared and filled the room only for a moment. In that moment, Jenny was grateful she hadn't attempted to walk around in this room. The after image on her retinas showed that the pit that surrounded them was a good 20 feet across. There was absolutely
nothing else in the room except her and Tarafau.
Soon after the brilliant light the gong sounded again. It dawned on her that they were trying to assure that she and Tarafau didn't just curl up and go to sleep while they waited to hear from their captors. She had heard of political prisoners being mentally assaulted, deprived of sleep and randomly stimulated with a variety of frightening images, sounds and even electric shock to soften them up for interrogation.
She decided. She told Tidbit, "I am going into hibernation," a term Lova used for distancing the mind from outside stimuli. During her practice sessions with Lova, she had become nearly as proficient in this aspect of mind control as her instructor. Now was the time to use what she had learned.
After drifting for a time, she set herself to working through her dilemma about what to do next. She knew the simple act of surrendering herself to Sam was only the first step and she almost understood why she was only given that part of the puzzle to start with. In her hibernation state, she could concentrate. She vaguely felt the continual racket and odd lights inflicted on them in the thinking room, but it was something she could placidly ignore. She knew Tidbit was doing the same.
She had set her mental alarm to sound when the door finally opened. At that time, she would instantly be awake and alert and ready to confront whatever came next.
She tried to work through it all logically. She found herself in Dorothy's situation, which might work to her benefit. Just as the ruby slippers would not work for the wicked witch if she murdered Dorothy, the key and the MDP would not work unless they were given willingly by the one they were connected to.
In this case, at the moment, she was probably not in danger of her life, but potentially her sanity and maybe being damaged in such a way that she lived, but would be unable to function physically for the rest of her life. So, in the words of the witch, "These things must be done delicately."
Her best strategy might be to be patient until she knew more about the actual situation and her location and surroundings. When they opened the door to their prison, they would expect them to be broken and pliable and ready to spill their guts. She would find a way to use that. What concerned her most was what they might do to Tidbit. She would have to cross that bridge when they came to it.
Tidbit's mental voice came drifting into her mind. He was the one person who could do this with her under her mental protection. Lova had taught her how to give him a key that would allow him to pass her mental barriers.
"I must tell you something important," he said. "It was never time to say this before, but it is vital that you understand it now. There are things about me that I determined not to reveal until I was sure the time was right. I had hoped it would be a long time from now, but here we are.
I was probably as surprised as you were when Lizzie revealed you would be her choice for replacement when she passed. At that time, the crisis was far away, or so we thought. You were still in college and she and I had just come off of a series of missions for the Alliance, exploring potential dimensions to determine whether they were ready for the general population to know about the gate network. There are relatively few that are admitted to the Alliance at that level. Most of them are similar to Earth. They have Guardians, but the beings of that world and that universe are not ready to know that the gateways exist.
When Lizzie told me she had chosen an heir, I was skeptical. I knew you were very young and although you had a lot of the qualities we require, I couldn't see how you could take on this responsibility, even though your aunt was about the same age when she became a Guardian.
I have since learned that you have all of the qualities your aunt did and some I did not expect. I'm telling you this, so you may understand that it has only been the last couple months that I have finally been at peace with Lizzie's decision. You are worthy of your position, although you still need to grow into it. I want to give you the chance to do that.
Therefore, I need you to know that besides long life and the ability to change my form, my people have an additional natural talent. We can pass dimensional barriers without a gate. There is no gate to my world. We have been travelling the dimensions for eons of time, since before the organization of the Alliance. If things look grim, and if it is necessary, I may leave you, if only to bring aid to you. But our captors will not realize I am gone. I will appear to exist in a shadow form that will feel tangible to them and will respond naturally to whatever they do to me, but it will be a mere shell, so that nothing that happens to it will actually harm me. Do you understand why this is important?"
In Jenny's calm mental state, technically she knew what he was telling her. She understood his words. She also knew that it meant that at some point she might be very alone here. "I understand," she said, but she somehow knew she really didn't.
"I'm going to do something cruel to you, Jenny. When you come out of your meditation, you won't remember I told you about my additional talent, because the enemy must not know, but when you truly need to know, it will return to you. Your reactions to what will surely follow in this place must be genuine. I want you to know that I think of you as a daughter. I would rather give you temporary pain than to lose you entirely. On a subconscious level, you will know this. It will give you strength to overcome the darkness."
Tidbit faded from her consciousness. She didn't know how long she had floated in the void she had created for herself, with the distant lights and sounds only a slight disturbance, when she actually drifted off to sleep.
She awoke to someone shaking her shoulder. It surprised her that she had not woken when the door had admitted this person. Evidently, she had been more tired than she realized. She looked up muzzily to see a little man, about as tall as she was seated. She had slept in a sitting position, her back against the rough black wall. His short white hair was meticulously coiffed with deep waves and he wore a crisp white shirt, deep red velvet vest and a cravat, underscored with dark pants and shiny black shoes.
"You must have been very tired, young miss," he said repeating her own thought with something like concern in his large dark eyes.
Jenny nodded. She unconsciously put her hand out to touch Tidbit, who was curled up by her side.
"I am to take you to bathe and eat and then we will get started."
Get started with what, Jenny wondered. He gestured for her to rise. When she stood, his head was slightly higher than her waist. "Follow me, young miss." He gestured without a backward glance. Back they went through the dark hallway. As they walked the end came into sight. It was a stairwell, once more torchlit, of black stone.
They ascended what seemed like forever. Jenny was bemused by the lack of guards, but once again she realized that escape was not an option, at least not until she knew more about this place and what she was supposed to do here. So she followed the little man up several flights of stairs. You'd think, she thought grumpily, that a culture smart enough to use portals would have invented an elevator.
They came out of the stairwell into a well lit corridor of black stone. This was utterly different than any place she had seen in this fortress. There were tapestries along the walls, although not of pleasant scenes as she had seen when she visited a castle in the Bavarian alps long ago when her father had been stationed in Germany. These were of battle and slaughter and what appeared to be ritual sacrifices, all very meticulously worked and in what had probably been brilliant colors when they were created. Now they gave off a look of worn antiquity.
All in all, she could see where anyone living in such a place wouldn't have much of an optimistic attitude towards life, if they had to look at those every day for any length of time.
They stopped in front of a large gray door and the little man pulled out a large ring of keys, selected one and let them in.
Jenny was shocked. This room did not correlate with her picture of this dreary place. The room was decorated with shades of beige and white with damask-like wall covering, somewhat in the style of French Provincial. The flow
ing and soft lines of the furniture and the delicately embroidered framed tapestries on the walls were soothing and lovely.
He turned to her. "My name is Mynah and I will be your tutor and servant, while you are here. You need not consider yourself a prisoner, but you may not leave the castle without express permission of the Queen. My job is to teach you the niceties of noble life and about the culture of our realm. I will also see to your needs, including appropriate clothing," and he eyed her up and down, not looking at all impressed.
"Seamstresses and some lady's maids have been assigned to you and they will attend you shortly. Once you have been attended to, bathed and properly dressed I will return. There is a necessary for you and your, ahem, cat, on the other side of that doorway, as well as bathing facilities. Please make yourself comfortable. Your attendants will arrive shortly."
Before Jenny could acknowledge anything, he had said or ask a question, he turned on his heel and left. She heard the lock click from the other side and sighed.
She turned to Tidbit. "What do you think of this? I admit to being more than a little confused."
"You can rely on it being a very carefully thought out stratagem, 'young miss'," he sent back, parroting Mynah's term for her. "Keep your eyes and ears open and your guard up."
"You sound like Arvid," Jenny retorted.
"Where do you think I got it?" and his tail went up with that peculiar curve that always looked like a question mark to her.
"So, which of you is older, you or Arvid?" but before he could reply, there was a soft knock followed by the entrance of three women, one with a tray in her hands, with the same skin tones and facial characteristics as Sam. Instead of being dressed in black robes, however, they were attired in what seemed to be typical servant's attire no matter what dimension you came from; grey skirts, white blouses and small aprons with no lace or adornments.
The House on Infinity Loop Page 35
