by Dana Fredsti
Everything?
Just gone.
Cam put a hand on her arm, his brown eyes warm and concerned. She swallowed again, swiping stray tears away from her eyes.
“I’m okay,” she said with a feeble attempt at a smile. He looked down, lost in thought for a moment, then brightened.
“Dicite mihi de te. Unde venistis?”
Amber shrugged her shoulders, completely mystified by the question. He pointed all around them, and then pointed to her.
“Ubi in mundo?”
Amber felt terrible. She had no idea what he was trying to ask her. Frustrated, he furrowed his brow and then had another idea. He knelt down and smoothed out a spot of dry ground. Then he traced a circle in the dirt.
“Hic est totius mundi.” He looked up and gestured broadly around them, encompassing everything.
“Oh! The world.” She nodded. “Yes, I understand. Okay, mundi, the world.” She swept her arms out to indicate that she got it. Encouraged, he grinned and drew an irregular, roundish blob shape in the center. She was baffled yet again.
“Hic Mare Mediterraneum.”
“Ah, alright. That’s the Mediterranean Sea.” She made a wavy motion with her hand. He nodded, and drew a little squiggle in the center of that.
“Roma.” She nodded again. He indicated three broad regions surrounding the blob like slices of pie.
“Hic Africa, hic Asia, hic Europa.”
She smiled and nodded. It didn’t look like any world map she’d ever seen or drawn, but she recognized nearly all the places he pointed out—Libya and Aegyptus, Arabia and Anatolia, Germania and Gaul, and to the far north of his circle, Ultima Thule. Well, she recognized almost all of them. She had no idea where or what Ultima Thule was supposed to be.
Last he drew two more little kidney shapes on the left-hand side of the circle’s outer rim, which he identified as Ériu and Pritan.
No idea. Amber shook her head.
“Hibernia et Britannia?” He patted the ground. “Hic sumus, Britannia.”
“Britannia! Right. We’re in Great Britain, yes!”
Cam grinned in satisfaction and continued. He pointed out Londinium, and drew a line to represent Tamesas, the Dark River, flowing out from it to the sea.
“London… the Thames… okay.” Amber smiled, encouraging him.
He patted his chest. “Trinovantus sum.” He waved his hand over the area east of London and the Thames.
“Haec est mea patria. Terra Trinovantes.” He put a finger at a point by the sea.
“Camulodunum. Mea patria.” He patted his heart again.
“Camulodunum…” She repeated the strange word. She had no idea where Camulodunum was, but she understood what it meant to Cam. He was trying to get back there. She nodded.
“It’s your home.”
Cam nodded. “Home.” Then he reached out and touched her chest with his finger. “Unde es? Ubi est patria tuam?”
“Where’s my home? Um…” She looked at his map, unsure how to tell him her home lay far off the chart.
* * *
Amber pointed to their location, and dragged her finger westward, past Londinium, past the isles of Britannia and Ériu, and out into the rim of the World Ocean which ringed everything. She frowned, drawing a line from beyond the Pillars of Hercules to a point far, far off the map. She looked up at him, and waved her hand over the area.
“Atlantic Ocean. America. California.” She patted her heart. “San Diego.”
Cam’s eyes went wide with surprise, and after a moment he nodded. Even though he could only make out part of what she had said, he understood completely— and it explained much.
Amber was from Atlantis.
21
Amber wasn’t sure how much Cam had understood when she’d tried explaining her home to him, but he’d seemed satisfied. Having gone as far as they could with sign language and bastardized Latin, the two packed up and set off to try and find Cam’s home, if it still existed.
It was as good an idea as Blake’s notion of Whitehall, she thought. She didn’t really have any better suggestions to offer, no desire to set off on her own again. Being with Cam made her feel less of a Hufflepuff and more of a Gryffindor, both safer and braver at the same time.
They continued together without incident for the rest of the day, only slowing down when the sun started to set. They didn’t need to discuss the idea—both understood all too well the need to find some kind of shelter. Ahead lay a small stand of birch and oak and other native trees Amber didn’t recognize.
Cam led her to one of the bigger oaks and let her sit and rest while he set to work cutting branches from the nearby birch trees. Once he had a thick armful of branches and saplings, he started to assemble a lean-to against an arm of the big oak. When he began to gather bracken and leafy branches, Amber joined in, too. Soon they had enough to fill out the walls and cushion the floor of their makeshift shelter.
Amber made a pillow of her backpack and lay down, feeling at ease with her companion. He removed his cloak and gently laid it over her, then sat Indian style, watching out of the lean-to for trouble. Stray gleams of moonlight illuminated his face, and after a time she reached over and touched him softly on his back. He turned, gave a weary smile, and lay down beside her. She pulled the cloak over the two of them.
In the near dark, he turned to her.
“Nos dha, Amber. Bonam noctem.”
“Good night, Cam.”
He rolled over, away from her, and she curled up snug against the warmth of his back. In a matter of moments, both were sound asleep.
* * *
Back home in San Diego, she ran down her street as fast as she could. No matter how quickly she ran, she wasn’t tired. She took longer and longer strides, and suddenly remembered that she knew how to turn off gravity. Her running leaps grew longer and longer, until she flew in the warm sunshine over all the houses and yards.
Soon she was sailing so high that her fear of heights kicked in, so when she saw a door in the sky, she banked over and opened it. The chamber inside was made of glass, giving a brilliant view of the bright sunlit clouds.
An invisible man waited for her. She couldn’t see him, but she knew he was there all the same.
“Amber, you need to come find me,” his voice whispered in her ear. She spun around in confusion.
“Where are you? I can’t see you.”
“You will. You need to come find me. Help me, Amber. Before it’s too late.”
“But where are you?”
“Here.”
The world beneath them blurred past until the room in the sky hovered over the Great Pyramids. Far below there was a tiny figure standing between the paws of the Sphinx. He held up his hand, and suddenly she was staring into his eyes—those blue-violet pools with their endless cascade of tiny pinpoint stars falling down into darkness…
The stars pulled her down with them, and then the darkness transformed into bright light—great balls of dancing brilliance swirling all around her. It was so beautiful, so—
* * *
Harsh shouts and barking dogs tore her from her dream. Amber sat up in confusion, only to be blinded by bright lights shining directly in her face. She held up her hands to shield her eyes.
“Am-ber!”
The sound of Cam’s voice shredded away the rest of the cobwebs.
“Cam?”
The roof of their shelter crumpled beneath repeated blows even as rough hands seized her, yanking her to her feet and nearly jerking her arms out of their sockets.
22
Bound with coarse ropes around their necks and with their wrists lashed together, the prisoners were marched through the darkness. Amber felt strangely detached from the situation, most likely in shock and total denial. Yet another part of her mind fought to stay calm and alert. She was pleased to see that Cam was keeping his cool, as well, despite the ugly bruise rising on the left side of his face.
She blamed herself for that bruise. When she de
manded to know where they were going, the soldier holding her leash had started to backhand her. Cam had gone near crazy at that, almost ripping the rope tether from the hands of the soldier leading him. Three more soldiers immediately leapt in to restrain him. Even then, he’d only stopped fighting when Amber, fearing for his safety, called his name and shook her head.
Their captors were right out of a Rembrandt painting. Some had muskets, others had pikes, all had swords. They wore red coats, steel breastplates and helmets that made her think of riot cops or Spanish conquistadors, but this bunch spoke English—an old-timey Shakespearean kind of English. Not that they spoke very much.
Amber was enough of a geek to recognize that they weren’t from Ye Olde Elizabethan Renaissance Faire times, but a century or so later. From what little they did say, she gleaned that they were troops from the English Civil War—the ones on Oliver Cromwell’s side.
What were his guys called again? It was just on the edge of her thoughts. Oh yeah, Roundheads. She wished she knew more about them, but military history wasn’t her strong suit, nor was this particular time period. She’d dug into the Victorian era because of the whole steampunk esthetic. Buff coats and breeches didn’t do so much for her.
Nor could she recall if the Roundheads were Catholic or Protestant, but whichever it was, she knew they took their religion dead serious—although maybe not so much the “love thy neighbor” parts. They were superstitious, too. She filed away that fact for possible use later.
None of the soldiers would speak or make eye contact with her, and they carried her backpack on a pike as if it were radioactive. Even unlit, they didn’t dare lay a hand on her dorky cosplay scepter. They transported it on a jury-rigged stretcher as if it were the Ark of the Covenant.
Shortly after the sun rose they came to a stone road. The design seemed ancient, but the road looked brand new. They moved along the road and, before long, the stones turned into a modern two-lane blacktop, complete with dotted lines, highway signs, and the occasional scrap of litter cluttering the side of the road. Amber stared at a crumpled McDonald’s bag and crushed soda can. The sight brought a rush of emotions for reasons she didn’t dare try to figure out right then.
Something brushed her arm and she glanced up to see Cam at her side, sympathy and concern clear in those expressive brown eyes.
“None of that, you!”
The guard leading her tugged hard on the rope, causing her to stumble and nearly fall. Cam gave a low growl deep in his throat. Out of the corner of her eye, Amber saw his muscles bunch up, tensing.
“Cam, no!” she hissed. As much as she appreciated his anger on her behalf, it wouldn’t help if he got himself killed trying to protect her. He subsided, but she could tell it cost him some effort to do so.
The highway and terrain around them continued to change as they marched on. Sometimes the road was no more than a narrow footpath. Other times it disappeared altogether, so they just stuck to the direction it had been going. After a while, however, it became a wide horse-trod dirt road, and stayed that way for the last hour of their journey.
Finally, they arrived at a rise topped by a great old oak. One thick branch lurched out to the side like a massive arm, a perfect anchor for all the ropes tied there.
It was a hanging tree.
* * *
The sight of the gallows tree in front of them gave Cam a cold, hard knot in his stomach. He didn’t think he and Amber were going to be hanged. At least not right away—a squad of soldiers were currently readying another trio of prisoners for that fate.
Two were bearded warriors of Skandia, who silently regarded them with grim eyes the steely color of Arctic Sea ice. Cam gave the Northmen a short, quick nod of respect. He knew of the tribes beyond the Mór-Maru, the cold Sea of Death to the east. From the look of them, they hadn’t been taken prisoner without making their foes pay a heavy price for it, in blood.
A pair of soldiers cursed while they strong-armed the third condemned man toward the tree. A wild-eyed shaggy-headed savage who struggled and howled unintelligibly like a trapped animal, he was barefoot, dirty, and near-naked, dressed only in stinking, ragged furs. Cam had no idea where he’d come from, but still felt pity for the wildling.
* * *
Amber stared at the prisoner’s thick brow and janky overbite. With a shock, it hit her that he was some kind of Neanderthal, a real-life caveman. Her head swam at the realization.
The echoes of his primitive shrieks haunted Amber as she and Cam were led away down into the town—a Ren Faire-ready country village of quaint thatched cottages nestled at a crossroads. The intersection was dominated by a stone church. A handful of anxious villagers hurried here and there, but for the most part the town was populated by an army of Roundheads. Horsemen and knots of soldiers moved along the earthen streets, and the commons were covered with row after row of drab army tents.
She noticed four heavy rugged timber posts standing close by, and more gibbets lined the south side of the main drag. The bodies of Royalist officers dangled from them, swollen tongues protruding from slack lips. Beyond this gruesome display, a large stockade had been erected in the fields. Inside, scores of Cavalier prisoners under heavy guard awaited their unknown fate, exposed to the elements with no shelter, blankets, or fires to warm them.
The squad that held Cam and Amber waited at the crossroads while their corporal spoke to an officer. Amber looked from the line of hanging corpses to the glum captives huddled inside the stockade. The idea of joining them in there alarmed her—she could hear more than one rattling, phlegm-filled cough.
The corporal returned.
“Take them up top,” he ordered. “Master Stearne shall wish to attend to them.”
The soldiers started moving again and led them over to the church. They didn’t enter the sanctuary, but went straight into the tall bell tower, marching Cam and Amber single file up the stone steps, which wound their way to a narrow landing. There two uneasy Roundhead soldiers stood guard in front of a heavy wooden door.
One of the guards gave the newcomers a sour look, licked his lips, and then fished out a heavy brass key from his pocket to unlock the thick door. Amber noticed that someone had recently taken the trouble to nail four horseshoes to the wood in the form of a clover shape—or maybe a cross. The door opened onto another series of steps leading to the very top.
“Against the walls!” the corporal called out. After a brief pause he stomped up the steps. The soldiers pushed Amber and Cam, and they started up after him.
Originally the church belfry, the topmost chamber now served as a jail cell. It was a smallish circular room, about ten feet in diameter, and—despite the corporal’s orders—didn’t have much to offer in the way of real walls. A single waist-high rim ringed the chamber, while four thick stone columns supported the bell tower’s peaked steeple. Otherwise the room was open to the elements, and offered a view in all four directions. In one direction Amber could see smoke rising above the trees.
There were three other prisoners already there— four if she counted the body lying on the floor. At the sight of it, she gasped. It was covered by a bright yellow raincoat that acted as a shroud, with the word “POLICE” stenciled in big block letters on the back. The corporal regarded the prone figure with a dispassionate glance, then turned to the others.
“Two more to keep you company,” he announced, and he jerked his head toward Cam and Amber. A soldier cut Amber free from her bonds, and then turned to Cam.
“Put him in irons,” the corporal ordered. “He’s apt to be more of a handful than the rest, I reckon.”
His men complied, shackling Cam’s wrists together with a pair of manacles. That done, they clambered down the steps, slamming the oak door shut behind them. The moment they were gone, Amber stepped over to Cam’s side and gave him a reassuring hug before they both turned to face their three new cellmates, all of whom stared back with equal curiosity.
The first was a tall, lanky, distinguished-looking g
entleman in a black frock coat, waistcoat and top hat. He was somewhere in his mid to late forties and reminded Amber of a fox in human form, down to his sharp features and russet-colored hair and sideburns. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. He reminded her of someone from an Arthur Conan Doyle story, but didn’t seem heroic enough to be a Sherlock Holmes, nor sinister enough to be a Moriarty.
Next was a sharp-eyed, dark-haired British policewoman, attractive in a no-nonsense way. Maybe late twenties or early thirties. She wore a short-sleeve white shirt with a checkered kerchief, a black skirt and a black bowler hat with a checkered sash and badge.
Last was a young man in his twenties with tousled brown hair wearing a smirk and what had been a truly elegant outfit. Judging from the state of their clothes, all of them had been through a rough couple of days, and yet he still managed to look snappy in a charcoal-gray long coat with black velvet collar, worn over a waistcoat and tie, with tight drainpipe trousers. His outfit was Edwardian, but his attitude was pure rock and roll.
He lowered his shades to peer at them with a wry grin.
“Well, hello, hello, hello,” he said in an affected posh accent. “Welcome to the witch house.”
Seeing the others in their more or less modern dress clothes, Amber suddenly felt self-conscious in her costume and muddied high-tops. She rubbed her arms and cleared her throat.
“Hi. I’m Amber, Amber Richardson, and this is Cam,” she said, gesturing. “He doesn’t speak English.”
Cam, meanwhile, stared at the others, wearing a frown as if trying to decide whether they were friends or enemies. Noticing that Amber seemed at ease with them, he relaxed a bit after a moment, but continued to glance suspiciously at the young Edwardian in particular.
The older man looked them over with an incredulous expression.
“Curiouser and curiouser! Well now, do we have an American girl joining us? A circus performer to boot, by the look of you.”
He turned to Cam and raised an eyebrow.
“And a howling barbarian. Judging from his torc and plaid, I daresay your friend must needs be an ancient Celtic Briton. One of Queen Boadicea’s chaps, perhaps. Wherever did you find him?”
