What about me?
You’re welcome to come. I wouldn’t recommend staying here.
The thought of traveling to another world both frightened and intrigued her. She didn’t have much to keep her anyway, other than her parents, and her current situation didn’t offer any good alternatives. Karen nodded, “I’l come.”
Matthew pointed to Desacus, “Climb up there.” He didn’t have the vocabulary to be more descriptive, but he thought the idea should be fairly clear .
The thought of climbing up on the massive beast was a fairly daunting one, but the dragon crouched low and extended one forelimb, obviously offering her an easy route up to his back.
It turned out to be more difficult than she had expected, mainly because she was limited to using one hand. The other had to keep a good grip on her blanket or it would slip off. It’s a little late to be worrying about your modesty now, Karen, she thought. You’ve already given them quite a show.
Don’t worry. I’m only interested in your body as a gustatory experiment.
The voice in her head wasn’t Matthew’s and she knew instantly it came from the dragon. It startled her so badly she almost slipped and fel.
Matthew watched from below with some concern, ready to catch her if she lost her grip entirely.
“I didn’t realize he could talk the same way you do,” she announced.
Imagine my shock, said the dragon. How would you feel if you suddenly discovered your food could talk?
“That’s enough, Desacus,” cautioned Matthew. “This is unsettling enough for her without your bad jokes.”
Karen kept her attention on what she was doing until she had firmly seated herself. Matthew clambered up next to her and sat in front of her, just behind the dragon’s neck.
“He doesn’t realy eat people, does he?” she asked, hoping the dragon wouldn’t be able to understand her language.
Matthew laughed, “No.”
Not yet, added Desacus, guessing at their conversation.
Matthew laughed, and Karen forced herself to relax. The creature was obviously trying to be funny—she hoped.
Tell her that skin to skin contact is best, neither of you is wearing a shirt after all, the dragon’s remark carried a mental smirk.
Matthew tensed, uncertain whether the message had been relayed to both of them or whether it was private. That isn’t funny, Desacus.
You were thinking it, the dragon told him.
No, I wasn’t.
You are now.
Karen broke in, What isn’t funny?
His magic will be easier if you cuddle, explained Desacus.
“Ok,” she answered aloud.
“What?!” exclaimed Matthew, but before he could say more he felt her arms around his waist, and her head came to rest on his shoulder. He
tensed, but then he realized the blanket was stil between them. A faint tremor ran through his back as Karen began to laugh.
She has a better sense of humor than you do, announced the dragon.
“I should leave both of you behind,” muttered Matthew, and before they could tease him further he shifted them between worlds.
Chapter 12
He didn’t want to return to the cave. Matthew was sick of mountains in general, so he tried to land in a different place. He didn’t realy have any way to pinpoint his arrival, aside from directing them away from the place he had left before. As a result, they appeared somewhere unknown to him.
“This seems nice,” opined Karen, squinting to keep dust out of her eyes. A strong wind was blowing, and it kicked up sand from the hard-
baked earth that stretched out around them in every direction.
Desacus shuddered and began to move beneath them. The two humans slid off quickly and watched curiously while the dragon began to retch.
Karen laid a sympathetic hand on the creature’s shoulder, Are you alright?
I’m never going to get used to those shifts. It gets worse every time, complained the dragon.
Karen felt fine. The moment between worlds had been a little disorienting, but it hadn’t bothered her stomach at al.
“It’s just a hairbal,” commented Matthew spitefuly.
“I don’t have hair,” argued Desacus.
“You wil when I’m done with you,” responded the wizard, “if you don’t stop making jokes at my expense.”
Several minutes later, once Desacus had recovered, they mounted up again and began searching for a better place to rest. They flew north,
since they had no idea where they were, one direction was as good as any other.
Karen had some serious reservations about their mode of transportation. She had never been afraid of flying, or had any problem boarding
commercial planes, but being on dragonback was a different matter. Their altitude was a brute fact, far more immediate than the sterile heights she had experienced looking out of a passenger window.
She kept her cool, but she had to keep forcing herself to unclench her hands which were digging into her felow passenger’s ribs like claws.
The strangest part of it al was the complete lack of wind. When Desacus took off and began to gain speed Matthew did something. She sensed it for a moment, a flickering around them, some sort of domed enclosure. Within it the air was calm and relatively warm, which was a necessity considering Matthew’s bare skin. He didn’t even have the benefit of a blanket.
A quarter of an hour passed and the desert continued to stretch on before them with no end in sight. While the temperature was fine in their protected bubble, the sun was brutal. She saw the tops of Matthew’s shoulders begin to turn pink and she began to feel bad for him. Having lived her entire life covered in sunscreen she had a healthy respect for the effects of ultraviolet rays.
The solution was obvious.
“Don’t think about it, Karen. It’s a purely practical matter,” she muttered to herself.
“What?” asked Matthew, failing to catch her words.
Unfolding her blanket, she puled it around his torso to wrap them both within it. “Shut up,” she told him. “Don’t say a word.”
He held himself as stil as a statue from that point on, hardly daring to move. Karen scooted back slightly, keeping a smal distance between them. There was no need to get closer after al—until the dragon suddenly dropped several feet, pretending to have encountered some unexpected turbulence.
The distance between them vanished as she held on for dear life.
Desacus sent a thought to his young master, You’re welcome.
I’m making steaks out of you after this is over, Matthew responded privately, count on it.
Oh! So, it’s fine for you to eat dragon, but it’s somehow wrong if I want to indulge in the same sort of culinary exploration? How is
that fair?!
Another hour passed, and the two passengers grew more at ease with their strangely intimate situation. Karen’s fear of faling had faded, for the most part, and an important question rose to the foreground of her mind, Neither of you know where we are, do you?
Not exactly, answered Matthew.
What does that mean? she probed.
Desacus broke in to clarify, He means we have no clue.
Matthew ground his teeth, We could be in the Northern Wastes, or the Southern Desert. That’s why I chose to go north. If it’s the Southern Desert we will eventually come to Lothion, the country I am from. If we are in the Northern Wastes, we’ll end up in Gododdin
or Dunbar. Either way we won’t be lost anymore.
Unless we’re in some desert you’ve never heard of before, added the dragon.
Thanks, Desacus, thought Matthew dryly.
Don’t mention it.
***
Before another hour had finished they saw trees on the horizon. As they approached they could see a river that formed a natural boundary between the forest and the more arid lands behind them. Desacus began to descend, eventualy depositing them on the northern bank, nearest the tree
s.
The two humans managed to disentangle themselves and dismount without too much embarrassment. Karen rewrapped the blanket modestly
around herself, but she didn’t bother turning her back first. In her mind, there wasn’t much point. Most of her modesty in her previous life had been due to her bizarre blue skin. That was no longer a secret, and she had learned enough about her companion to know he wasn’t the sort to be driven mad with lust at the sight of a woman. In fact, she was fairly certain he had no interest in her whatsoever.
The dragon left to hunt for something large enough to satisfy his hunger. Matthew took advantage of the river, using his magesight and his power to lift several hapless fish directly from the water. He already regretted leaving the iron pot behind, but at least here he didn’t have to conserve his strength.
He gathered dry wood from the forest for a cook fire, then cut several long slender poles of greenwood to cook his catch on.
While he did that, Karen sorted through the pile of gear he had brought. She was excited when she found the thread and needles. Borrowing
Matthew’s belt knife, she removed the blanket and laid it out on the dry ground. She made a rough mental estimate and then cut a large square from it. She folded the square twice and then cut away one of the corners in a semi-circular fashion. Unfolding it again, it now had a relatively neat hole in the center.
She folded it again, this time only once, and cut away some material from either side, leaving it in the shape of a ‘t’ with a thick central portion.
The top horizontal part would be sleeves, with the hole in the middle making a colar. With the needle, she began sewing the sides up to form the body of her new shirt.
Matthew watched her from the corner of one eye while he roasted the fish, trying not to obviously stare since she was stil bare chested. It was her needlework he was interested in, not her supple skin, or the softly curving lines of her body as she bent over her work…
Irritated, he turned his attention back to the fish, turning it before it could burn. After a minute he risked another glance, this time keeping his eyes firmly on her handiwork. The stitching was sloppy and crude, but serviceable. Whoever it was that produced the perfectly sewn clothing from Karen’s world, she had obviously never studied with them.
Moira could sew better than that when she was eight, he noted.
Once the sides were finished, Karen cut a short slit down the front of the shirt, beginning at the makeshift colar to make it easy for her to slip over her head. She brought the new shirt up and gave it a shake to dislodge the dirt and twigs it had picked up from the ground.
Matthew’s eyes froze as Karen lifted her arms skyward and for a timeless instant her body stretched out, lean and supple, with skin that
matched the azure sky behind her. A year and one second later the rough tunic settled into place, and she looked over at him and smiled.
His heart jumped into his throat. She had to know what he had been thinking.
He pushed the thought aside angrily. He couldn’t afford that sort of distraction. Someday he would have to marry, and whoever he chose
would be required to have a long pedigree. The nobility weren’t often given the luxury of picking their marriage partners in the same way
commoners were.
It was obvious to him that Karen was smitten, but to entertain her fantasy would only be a disservice to her. Many less scrupulous noblemen abused their position by dalying with women of the lower classes before they married. Some continued after as wel, leaving a long line of
dispossessed bastards in their wake. He wouldn’t be one of them. Even if the woman in question was clearly wiling, as Karen seemed to be.
Matthew puled the sticks holding their dinner away from the fire and stuck them in the ground a few feet away so they could cool, frowning as he reordered his thoughts.
Karen noticed the frown, and she wondered if her friend’s back might be causing him pain. Half-joking, she asked him, “Want me to make you one too? There’s more than enough blanket left.”
He retrieved his undertunic and held it up to answer her question. Consulting his ever-growing vocabulary of her language he answered, “Wel made, not ugly.”
The tips of her ears turned purple as the blood rushed to her face. Angry, she stalked toward him, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
To clarify he projected his thoughts, It means no, thank you. I’m not interested.
Telepathic communication was superior in many regards, but its biggest flaw was that it carried not just the intended information but the
sender’s deeper meanings as wel. Karen received the rest of the underlying message loud and clear— not interested in you.
She resisted the urge to punch the infuriatingly bland look from his idiotic face.
Matthew turned away, taking his tunic with him. He colected the overtunic as wel and carried them both down to the river to wash them.
Karen glared at his back before taking to her feet and heading upstream. The weather was warm, so she might as wel take the opportunity to get a much-needed bath. As she walked she tried to calm herself. He’s not worth being upset over. It wasn’t as though she had feelings for him.
Hel, she barely knew him.
What she didn’t understand was why he felt the need to be so blunt about his disinterest. It was simple rudeness, and she had done nothing to merit that. Her life had been just fine until he had showed up. Now she was a fugitive, and she stil didn’t understand why.
“Who am I fooling?” she muttered. “My life sucked.”
That evening they sat quietly, staring into the fire. Desacus stil roamed the countryside hunting, and Matthew had explained that he might not return until morning.
The fish had been passable, but it left them feeling hungry stil. Karen couldn’t remember her last real meal, and she was beginning to have fantasies about bread. She was trying to imagine the taste of fresh biscuits when Matthew broke the silence, “I did not mean to insult you.”
She nodded. It was fascinating to her how quickly his English was progressing. It remained stilted and unnatural, but he was growing more
proficient by the day. “Why did you come to my world?”
Matthew struggled to put together the words, “Looking for my father.”
“You think he went there?” The question didn’t get through completely, so she repeated it mentaly with a certain amount of emphasis. She
wasn’t certain, but she felt as though he heard her thoughts when she pushed them in that way.
His eyes widened slightly, then he crossed over to sit beside her, placing his hand beside hers. She accepted the gesture and put her hand on top of his.
This will be easier, his words echoed in her mind. My father, the Count di’ Cameron, disappeared a short while back. We think he was captured by something that may have come from your world.
My world? she thought back, astonished. We don’t have the ability to travel like you do.
Someone did, he replied. But it might not have been your world specifically. There is an infinity of interwoven planes. Yours was close, but it might have been in what you would think of as the past, or future, from your perspective.
You can travel in time?
No. I can travel to places that are nearly identical to one another, but may appear to be similar to the past or future of one another.
Close enough, she thought.
Time itself is an illusion of sorts, maybe, he responded. It may be that our perceptions are merely traveling through collections of finely textured dimensions, moving from instant to instant, creating the illusion of change, of time.
Really?
I don’t know, he told her honestly. When I move in-between I can feel it, know it, but when we are here it’s too big for me to understand, or remember, or something.
Karen stared up at the stars, No man can comprehend the mind of God, is that what you mean?
Something like that, he agreed
. Nothing contained within a set can encompass the entire set.
She gave him a curious look, That sounds a lot like something I learned at university. Do your people have advanced mathematics?
Now it was his turn to be offended, We aren’t savages.
Sorry, she replied, admitting her own subconscious prejudice.
Matthew decided to move on, Your world may be similar to this world’s distant past, or its future.
That doesn’t seem possible. We have nothing like your magic.
He shook his head, Magic works there. You have it. You didn’t when I first met you, but you’ve begun producing aythar of your own.
Aythar?
It’s a force that underlies everything here, animate and inanimate. From my perspective, your world is barren, but I think it has the
potential to be like mine.
I don’t think my world wants to be like yours, she replied.
Matthew snorted, Not from the way they greeted me, but you live there, and you’re She’Har.
No, I’m not. They invaded my world. We call it the Demon War, but I am not one of them.
And yet you can use aythar, he responded.
She felt conflicted, I’ve seen some strange things, felt some things, without using my eyes, but only because you brought it there.
No, Matthew argued, even here, most people cannot sense or feel it. Only those with a gift can do that. The She’Har all have gifts, just as you do.
I have a birth defect that makes me blue, that doesn’t mean I’m a demon.
Matthew sighed, Let me show you what they look like.
She was hesitant, but she agreed, Okay.
With a word Matthew created a light sphere and set it hovering above them, then he traced a large rectangle in the air with one hand. When he finished, he spoke again and the air within it changed, becoming a mirror. Karen’s face was reflected in it.
“Very funny,” said Karen, “That’s not…”
“Wait,” Matthew said, holding up one hand. There were five Groves when the She’Har came here. Each created children with varying
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