Back Cover
A Fantasy Romance Novel by Gail Roughton
Over the hills and far away, somewhere over the rainbow, beyond the yellow brick road…
Three clichés—and a story that is fantastic in every sense of the word.
Dedicated career girl Tess Ames was on her way to a working holiday in Jamaica. But instead of eating salt-fish and dancing reggae, she ends up in a quaintly parallel world where things are almost the same as here, but not quite.
For this world runs on magic, portents, omens, and the all-important Stones of Power—she ain’t in Kansas anymore!
Has Tess been thrown to the wolves? Ah! That would be telling…
For my girls—Becca, Kim, Diane, Melody, Lori, Liz, Kate, Joyce, and Miss Louise.
You believed even when I didn’t.
Miami Days & Truscan (K)nights
Gail Roughton
MuseItUp Publishing
www.museituppublishing.com
Chapter One
“Jamaica Unicom, this is Alpha Delta Charlie…”
I was beginning to think there were no other words in the English language. Certainly, it didn’t appear there were ever going to be more by way of a reply.
This was supposed to be a combined business-pleasure trip; a short junket from Miami to Jamaica during which I would add “hostess” to my job description of personal troubleshooter to the CEO. I’d made similar trips at least ten times in this little Piper Cub during the last two years of my employment with Ramos International, with pilot Ken Hanslett at the controls. We’d become big buddies and I’d always had absolute confidence in him. I still did. It was the gray, clinging, swirling, never-ending fog I didn’t have any confidence in.
“Ken, give it a rest. You’re getting hoarse. Nobody’s answering.”
“Yeah, but you never know, Tess. We need to keep on trying.”
We’d been flying in this peasouper for over an hour, all instrument gauges oscillating wildly from one side of their respective circles to the other. I’d almost given up looking at them on purpose as the force of my stare obviously wasn’t effective in making them behave. But I glanced back down frequently anyway, in the manner of a passer-by who just couldn’t stop looking at a traffic accident.
“Ken! Look!”
I couldn’t believe it. The needles were no longer swinging crazily. And the fog—the fog was lifting and then, almost instantaneously, we were back in the blue, rushing rapidly into flashes of green and brown. I saw thick treetops and rolling hillsides. The plane seemed to skim the tops of the trees on its way down to rolling meadow and my brain screamed in protest. No way. We were supposed to be over ocean, not land. We were supposed to be cruising at 8,000 feet, not tree level.
“Ken?”
His hands flashed out to the controls and I heard the engines cut out. Kaleidoscopic colors rushed past. I felt the horrendous jolts of impact before my ears registered the noise, and then there was only the slow swishing sound of the propellers as they revolved ever more slowly into stillness.
I don’t think I was completely knocked out, and fought back to the light through dancing motes of black, wrenching nausea. The plane was at an angle and the impact had been on the pilot side—the pilot side! Oh my God!
I was lodged far back in the seat and tried to struggle up, panicking at the bonds that held me. I had visions of the plane exploding while we were trapped inside. Then I realized I wasn’t trapped at all, but still securely harnessed in. I brought my hands down to locate the release on the seat belt buckle. I rose and turned my head.
“Ken?”
The pilot side had, indeed, taken the impact. His seat was pushed forward, and he lay slumped over the wheel. My mind tried to shut it out, to deny the obvious, but I couldn’t let it. His chest was crushed. Blood trickled from his lip. No, that wasn’t right. Not from his lip. Down his lip, coming from his mouth. I lurched forward, moving too fast, and the body of the plane shifted its balance. I sat still.
“I won’t think,” I told myself. “That’s easier. Much easier. Just for a minute.” And I lay back against the seat and let my eyes shift out the window and look out at a vista that couldn’t possibly exist on any island in the Caribbean Ocean. I was looking at trees native to the deep hardwood forests of the Northern Hemisphere. The sunlight was wrong; subtly different, redder, rawer, newer.
Then my eyes shifted to Ken and I knew I couldn’t avoid thinking about it, the very thing Ken and I had joked about on different flights across this same stretch of ocean, flights ending with normal, happy landings.
I’d flown through the Bermuda Triangle and come out alive on the other side, with a dying pilot and a wrecked plane.
The riders came out of the tree shadows slowly. They were big men, all of them; broad shouldered, dressed in rough trousers and fur tunics. They were on horseback, carrying shields and swords. I shook my head to clear my eyes but the vision stayed the same, except for the rider who pulled out of the circle and moved forward.
He was bigger than the others, with dark shoulder-length hair and tanned skin, mounted on an animal that couldn’t be a horse. The other animals were horses, but this one? It looked like a horse, a beautiful solid black mount, a stallion that should have been leading a pack of wild horses on the western plains. But it had… horns! Curving, deadly horns growing out of its head, on either side of its ears, like a bull.
This was obviously the guy in charge. He raised his hand, giving a gesture, and the other riders wheeled their mounts around in a semi-circle so that they were facing away from the plane. Then he motioned to the man beside him, who dismounted and walked toward me and the wreckage of the plane. I made a conscious effort to concentrate as he drew closer. He was smaller than the others. Older, too, I thought, probably in his early to mid-fifties. He was dressed the same though, and the expression on his face was a blend of amazement and regret.
He touched the letters on the wing almost reverently, and carefully, very carefully, positioned his foot at the point where the wing joined the body of the plane, raising himself up. I felt the plane shift again and gave a small cry. I’d thought I couldn’t be any more frightened than I already was, but I’d been wrong.
He opened the door, and I pulled back away from him. He smiled and held his hand out. “American, huh? ADC 519. Been a long time since I’ve seen one of these.”
My breath exploded with the force of relief. “Oh God, you speak English! You’re American? Where is this, who are you?”
“Yeah, I’m American. Name’s Johnny and we’ll save the rest for later, no time now.” He looked over at Ken. “Your pilot?”
“He’s really bad. We have to get him out of here.”
He leaned over me and moved his hands carefully over Ken’s shoulders and arms. “Hate to tell you this, but I don’t think—” He broke off as a voice came from behind him.
“Magna se mortuus?” I hadn’t seen the leader of the group following my new American hero as he approached, but he was standing on the ground outside the door. The man must move like a cat.
“Damn, I hate this,” the man who’d identified himself as Johnny said softly. He turned his head to the door and spoke over his shoulder.
“Mortuus,” he confirmed. He turned back to me. “That’s Dalph, formal introductions to follow. C’mon, got to get you out of here. Raise your arms for me.” I complied and my new hero pulled me free of the clinging seat belts, maneuvering me over to the plane door where he passed me along to the waiting arms of the man below. His truly strapping proportions seemed more terrifying than heroic at the moment. I was sure I was in some state of shock but even so, he was well over six feet tall, maybe even six-six or six-se
ven. His shoulders seemed massive, though I supposed the fur tunic had something to do with that, too.
Johnny jumped down and spoke rapidly in a language that sounded like no other I’d ever heard. The giant identified as Dalph passed me back to Johnny and hoisted himself into the plane as Johnny hustled me back toward the horses. I stumbled, trying to keep both the plane and Ken in my sight. These people seemed as though they wanted to help but I wasn’t the trusting sort by nature or profession. A huge shadow covered my view as Dalph leaned forward and I almost allowed relief to flood over me. He was obviously about to lift Ken and get him out of the plane and they’d take us somewhere safe and—
And then I heard the sickeningly sharp crack of snapping bone. I saw Ken’s head fall, twisted at an impossible angle, as the shadow backed away.
I jerked free of Johnny’s supporting hands and started running back.
“He killed him! He just killed him—”
Johnny’s hands pulled me back against him. “No choice. No way he’d survive if we tried to move him and believe me, it’s for the best.”
Dalph called out to Johnny again in that strange language. Johnny pointed to the fuel tanks and Dalph nodded as Johnny shoved me forward.
“Get to the horses,” he said.
“No!”
“Don’t fight with me. You don’t know how lucky you are we were out here.”
“Lucky?”
The giant held up his hand to catch the small bag one of the mounted riders tossed him. The bag opened; I saw him pull something out and realized the bag was a tinderbox. Hadn’t anybody here ever heard of Bic lighters? Or even matches? Or cars, or ambulances, or 911? I fought off the rising waves of hysteria and saw a flash as a small strip of cloth ignited.
“Stop him! He’ll blow the plane!”
“Yeah, he plans to. Your pilot’s funeral pyre, he’d like that. I would have.”
The giant backed even further away and then tossed the torch at the back of the plane.
He might be big, but he wasn’t stupid. He dived forward and hit the ground as he made his toss, and now he jumped to his feet as the roar of rushing flames drowned out my continuing protests. He shouted over the roar and Johnny tugged me toward the horse-like creature sporting horns as Dalph ran forward and grabbed the reins.
“Get on Dalph’s horse. He’s stronger. An extra rider won’t slow him down much.”
“Like hell I will! He just killed my pilot!”
“Like hell you won’t! I know this ain’t exactly anybody’s idea of over the rainbow, but darlin’, believe me when I tell you this. You ain’t in Kansas anymore!”
“I will not!”
Dalph spoke again, but I doubted it was a literal translation since Johnny was talking at pretty much the same time.
“He says you got exactly ten seconds to move toward that horse.”
“Or what?”
“Or he’ll knock you out and put you on it.”
I glared at them both.
“No.”
I guess my actions or lack thereof spoke louder than words and, needing no interpreter, Dalph shrugged, moved forward, and I felt the force of his fist for only a split second before the world turned black.
Chapter Two
The smells were the first thing I noticed when I began to come round. The familiarity of odors was soothing; a good wood fire, roasting meat, and something that smelled vaguely like onion. I heard the faint hiss and crackle of the fire. I was lying on something soft that couldn’t quite disguise the hardness beneath. Moving my fingers, I identified the feel of soft fur. Finally, there being no help for it, I opened my eyes.
It was dark and I was lying near a fire on a fur rug. I raised my head and glanced around. The men were scattered about and I saw some were posted with their backs to the camp, obviously on guard. There were two of them near the line of tethered horses; the beautiful, impossibly horned mount was tethered separately a short distance away from the rest. The trees loomed large in the darkness. The two men I knew only as Johnny and Dalph were seated by the fire. I saw Dalph look at me and speak softly to Johnny, who moved the short distance over to me.
He knelt beside me. “So,” he said cheerfully, “you back with the living?”
I reached up and gingerly felt my jaw. I glared at him. He laughed softly at my expression.
“No need to get into a snit. We warned you.”
“Oh, well, that just makes everything all right!”
He laughed again. “Hold on. Let me get you something hot to drink, and then I’ll try and tell you something about where you are. You’ll understand. He didn’t have time to argue this afternoon.”
I bit back the sharp retort I wanted to make. Dalph had gotten up to pour some steaming liquid into a rough mug. He started to hand it to me and then cocked his head in brief consideration and handed it to Johnny instead, again proving he wasn’t stupid.
“Is that cup mine or is the giant your personal waiter?” I asked.
Amusement flitted over Johnny’s face. Dalph’s expression didn’t change.
“Good one,” Johnny said as he squatted and handed me the mug. It had no handles and the heat of the liquid through the sides felt wonderful to my hands. I sniffed suspiciously.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“Not exactly. It’s made from beans that are sort of a cross between cocoa and coffee, we call it friesa. Probably be a real expensive blend back where we came from.”
I drank. It tasted wonderful. Johnny settled comfortably beside me and got down to business.
“So. First things first. Formal introduction time. That giant would be Randalph of Trusca. The Truscan.” His emphasis clearly indicated capital letters as he gestured at Dalph.
“The Truscan?”
“Oh, yeah. You and me’d call him the King.”
Dalph inclined his head toward me and spoke briefly.
“His pleasure,” Johnny translated.
“Not mine,” I said. “Not real sure about you anymore, but I’m an American. Don’t have much use for kings. If he’s the man in charge, why do you use a nickname like Dalph? Shouldn’t you be bowing and scraping?”
“Well, like I said, honey, you ain’t in Kansas anymore. And Truscans don’t stand much on ceremony. You don’t just inherit the throne of Trusca. It doesn’t mean privilege, it means duty and responsibility. You have to earn it, day after day. Dalph’s family’s held the throne for over five hundred years. And every one of his bloodline before him have lived and died for this country. He lives for it. And he’ll almost certainly die because of it.”
I looked at the giant in quick re-assessment. There was no mistaking the sincerity and respect of Johnny’s tone.
“That’s where we are? Trusca?”
“Is now. Wasn’t where you crashed. Which was a major problem. Let’s start fresh, what do you say? My name’s Johnny McKay. Most everybody but Dalph calls me McKay, be nice if you’d use Johnny. What’s your name, darlin’?”
I rubbed my decidedly sore jaw before answering and he chuckled.
“Sorry ‘bout that, but I promise your jaw feels a lot better right now than the rest of you’d feel if we hadn’t gotten out of there in the next five minutes or so.”
There was no point in being stubborn and you had to swap information to get any. “Teresa Ames.”
“Terry, is it now? And what’d you do back home?”
“No, not Terry. Terry’s a cute name. I’ve been called lots of things but never cute. I use Tess. I’m a—well, I call myself a troubleshooter—for the CEO of a corporation out of Miami, Ramos International.”
“Ramos? You don’t say! I knew a Fernando Ramos back in the day. Had a little business named Ramos, Ltd. and it was growing like a weed. Wouldn’t be one and the same now, would it?”
“Yes, it probably would. Except it’s all grown up now and his grandson runs it. How long have you been here? How’d you get here, anyway?” This was a fact-finding mission. I wasn’t about to sp
ill my life story to strangers, at least not without getting something back.
“Long time, sweetie. Long, long time. I think time’s measured pretty much the same over here. Tell me something, did I miss the turn of the century? Pretty sure I did.”
“As in Twentieth to Twenty-First? Oh, yeah, by just about a decade.”
“Crap. One of those landmarks you don’t want to miss. Oh, well.” He shrugged and got back to business. “I got here pretty much the same way you did. Always wanted to fly, so I joined the Air Force for the training. Loved flying, but didn’t care much for the Air Force. So when I got out, I opened a charter flight line in Miami, all those rich folks flying out to the Caribbean Islands, you know. I was checking out a new plane, third one I’d been able to buy. Thought I had the world by the tail. I was headed out toward Bermuda, and I ran into this patch of—now, really, do I have to tell you what it looked like…?”
“No.”
“…and I fetched up here. Luckier than you two in one way, I guess. I didn’t come out that close to any trees. We could see you, you know. Looked like you came out of nowhere. Your pilot, don’t reckon he had time to do much more than cut the engines and shut off the fuel lines.”
“That’s exactly what he did, and I don’t—why did he cut the engines? It seemed like the final lunacy of the whole thing.”
“Fire, baby girl, less likely to blow you to hell and back when it crashes. Not much less likely, but it’s all you can do.”
“Oh,” I said slowly. Ken had known his stuff, I’d always known that.
“Anyway, I came out near level ground, long plateau. Prettiest emergency landing site you ever saw, not that I wanted to land, but from my fuel gauge, once it started working again, that is, I didn’t have much choice. So I put down, and I started calling on my radio. And I guess you can figure, I didn’t raise anybody. So I started walking. Didn’t intend to get too far from the plane, but I thought I’d better scout the place out, you know.”
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