“I’m taking her to the movies,” William said. “I know you’re upset about the past and what happened. Had you not moved, we probably would have gotten married, but maybe the move happened for a reason. Maybe I’m supposed to be with Carol and maybe you’re supposed to be with someone else. You just never know.”
He said good-bye and hung up. She stared at the phone and took a good look at her apartment. Everything looked real. Next to her, Hathor had a rather pleasant scent she guessed was from the shampoo or soap he used. And there was the faint odor of the neighbor who cooked Cajun food. Everything smelled real. She touched the buttons on the phone. They felt real. Outside a dog barked and a car drove by. Everything sounded real.
“I’m not asleep, am I?” she cautiously asked Hathor.
“Why would you think you were asleep?”
“Because…” She scanned the room again and shook her head. “Because…” Then she gestured to him. “You. And the whole appearing here thing and the freezing thing.”
“Oh, I used the Book of Spells for that.” He reached into the front pocket of his shirt and pulled out a small book that quickly expanded in his hands. “The Great Magician let me borrow this.”
Her jaw dropped. How did that book—how could that book—suddenly increase in size?
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Hathor said. “But this is your destiny, and I’ll do everything I can to protect you. I understand your heart already belongs to another, and I’ll honor that.”
She recalled the phone call. Good grief, that was real too? She bared her heart to William? She swallowed. “It’s not what you think. William doesn’t want to be with me anymore. He used to, but that was years ago.”
“That’s not a problem. As the queen, you don’t need magic spells. You can go to any time period you want. You must have my daughter before you divorce me, but afterwards, you are free to marry again. Then you can go back to Earth to the time he loved you and bring him to Raz and marry him.”
“What?” As a dream, it made sense, but it didn’t make any sense if this whole thing was real.
He turned his attention back to the book. “I’m going to recite a spell for our immediate arrival on Raz, but I suspect we might end up somewhere else first.”
Before she could ask him what he meant by that, he read a spell. A purple swirl covered them, and her apartment faded from view.
***
Alpha Head I
Planet: Pale
“Hathor is bringing the new queen to Raz,” Leader Omin said as he tracked his holographic map of the galaxies. “I have an idea of how we can stop them.” He turned his hard gaze to First Commander Paff and Second Commander Seta. Then, his lips slowly curled into a smile.
Chapter Three
Planet: Red
Galaxy: Hollow
Ann was floating through space with Hathor. She hardly had time to take note of the planets and stars that zoomed by them since they were going so fast. Then, without warning, everything came to an abrupt stop and she fell, face first, on something soft. Groaning, she blinked and dug her fingers into the ground. Sand. Cool, dry sand.
She lifted her head and spit out several grains of red sand from her mouth. She moved her arms and legs. Good. Nothing was broken. In fact, nothing hurt, something that surprised her considering that she had been going faster than the speed of light—or something like that.
She got up on her feet but stumbled forward. Hathor caught her before she fell. “Thanks,” she mumbled and straightened up. She brushed the red sand off her jeans and what used to be an immaculate white sweater. With a grimace, she shook the sand off her dark hair the best she could but some stubborn grains wouldn’t come out.
“Are you okay?” Hathor asked.
“Yeah, I think so.”
Now that she had tended to her immediate needs, she took a moment to look around. Red sand. Miles and miles of the stuff spanned in all directions. In the red sky, she saw three gold suns.
“Where are we?” she asked him as he tucked the miniature-sized Book of Spells back in his pocket.
“We’re on Red. It’s one of the planets in the Hollow Galaxy.”
“Hollow Galaxy?” Just how many galaxies were there?
“The Hollow Galaxy doesn’t have any life on it.”
“But I thought you were taking me to some place called Raz.”
“Someone has intruded on my spell and is ready to kill you.”
Her eyes grew wide. Of all the things for him to neglect mentioning, it had to be this? “Whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. You never said anything about someone wanting to kill me.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t let any harm come to you,” he replied, sounding far too confident for someone who didn’t even carry a sword.
She crossed her arms and resumed her study of the planet, though there was really nothing else to see. She’d pretty much already saw everything that was interesting. Rubbing her eyes, she wondered if she was going crazy. Was she really on another planet or had she gone insane?
“Why are we waiting here?” she finally asked, turning back to her traveling companion. “There’s nothing stopping us from going to Raz.”
“Actually, there is. We just can’t see it.”
As he finished the last sentence, the ground began to shake, and she lost her balance again. He reached out and caught her, preventing her from landing on a sharp white spear that was on the side of a cave. With a shriek, she edged away from the large cave as it finished its ascension from the ground.
“What is that thing?” she asked, stepping further away from it.
He grasped her arm. “We can’t run off. We have to go inside.”
“Are you kidding me? If you want to go in there, be my guest, but I’m not going into that thing.”
“We have to. We’re dealing with Palers.” He gestured to the cave. “This cave is white. White is their trademark. They use that color in everything they do.”
“Palers?”
“Palers live on Pale. Pale is Raz’s neighboring planet. Palers are violent creatures who don’t show mercy to their enemies.”
She grimaced. “Sounds lovely.”
“You have nothing to worry about. I’ve been training my entire life to protect the queen. I’m familiar with how to fight Palers, so I’m prepared.”
“You know, you’re awfully confident for a guy who doesn’t have a gun or a sword or any other kind of weapon.”
“The best weapon a person has is the mind.” He motioned to the cave. “We have to go in there. It’s one of the rules Palers insist on. We must pass their test before we can continue on our journey.”
“Sounds exciting,” she replied, not hiding her sarcasm. While she would have preferred he at least try a magic spell from that book of his to get them off this planet, it seemed that she had to go through with this.
“It’ll be fine,” he assured her, taking her by the hand. “Come on.”
“I don’t need you to hold my hand. I’m a grown woman. I’m perfectly capable of walking into the menacing cave.” Even if she was doing it under protest.
“Oh. I know. I just…” He glanced at her hand, his cheeks slightly pink, then cleared his throat. “Anyway, I suggest you go in after me. I want to be sure nothing’s waiting inside, ready to attack.”
“I won’t argue with you.” She wasn’t nuts enough to go in there first.
He grinned at her and headed for the cave.
Could it be possible that he enjoyed danger? With a shake of her head, she followed him, wondering if it was even remotely possible that she was dreaming. At this point, it sure would be nice if she was.
He went into the cave and called out that it was safe so she stepped inside, surprised when she saw how beautiful it was. Torches lit with white fire hung on the cave’s sparkling blue walls.
“It’s breathtaking,” she whispered. “I’ve never seen anything so gorgeous.”
“Hopefully, you’ll never have to see anything like
it again.”
He was probably right. As lovely as it looked, it really wasn’t since the Palers were trying to kill her.
They walked silently through the cave, their steps cautious. Gradually, she became aware of the sensation that someone—or something—was watching them. She wasn’t sure if a Paler was a person or a thing. Actually, it was an alien. It wasn’t from Earth. But then, she wasn’t from Red, so she was an alien, too.
She sighed. This was getting confusing, and she wasn’t sure she fully understood any of it. Why couldn’t she just wake up in class and find out this had all been some bizarre dream?
“Don’t worry. We’ll get through this,” Hathor assured her.
“Are you sure this isn’t one of those dreams that seems to span a really long time but really only happens in a few minutes?”
“You’re having trouble grasping everything that’s going on. My mother told me this might happen. If it helps you to adjust to your new life, then go ahead and believe it’s all a dream.”
If it helped her to adjust to her new life, then she should think of this as a dream? That sounded exactly like the kind of thing someone would say if something was really happening.
“Come on,” he encouraged as he motioned to the passageway in the cave that veered off to the right. “This might be the way out of here.”
Somehow she doubted it, but she followed him. With a glance behind her, she saw that no one was behind them. At least, no one she could see. Shivering, she focused on what was ahead of them as they stepped into the narrow passage. “Going back out isn’t an option?” she asked.
“No. We have to go through this.”
“Whoopee,” she mumbled under her breath.
“What?”
“Nothing. Let’s just get out of here.”
She couldn’t help but notice the further they walked down the passageway, the narrower it got and quite frankly, she wasn’t a fan of being closed off in a small space.
By the time there was only room enough for her to walk directly behind Hathor, she had to fight the urge to hightail it right back in the other direction. And not too far after that, they came to a dead end.
“Great,” she muttered. In a louder voice, she said, “I guess we have to turn around and leave now.”
“No,” he said, stopping her before she turned around and headed back out of the cave. “This is the right way.”
“Really? Because it looks like we came to a wall.”
“Exactly. That’s how it’s supposed to look. But what you see, isn’t what you get.” When she shook her head, he added, “Watch.” He brought his hand up to the wall and pressed it forward. To her surprise, his hand went through it. He pulled his hand out and wiggled his fingers. “Nothing but air.”
As he ran his hand along the rest of the wall to test its barriers, she commented, “And I’m supposed to believe I’m not dreaming, huh?”
“I said you could believe this is a dream if you want.”
“Well…yes…” He was right, of course. He had told her that.
A deep rumbling sound came from above them.
A sinking sensation welled up in her gut as she looked up at the ceiling and saw the stalactites tremble. “Tell me that noise isn’t what I think it is.”
“It sounds as if the cave is about to collapse.”
Her gaze went down to him as he ran his hand along the bottom of the wall. “I just told you not to tell me that.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I said ‘tell me that noise isn’t what I think it is.’”
He stared at her for a moment then asked, “What good would it do for me to lie to you?”
A few pieces of the ceiling fell around them, and he took her hand and pulled her into the wall. Her initial reaction was to resist because, even if he checked the wall out first, she thought it could become solid at any time. But he tightened his grip on her hand and succeeded in getting her through. He caught her before she fell on the soft ground.
Soft ground?
She looked down. The ground appeared to be made of steel, but it was hard to maintain balance on it since it felt like the material used in bouncy houses. She let go of Hathor and tried to take a step forward, but she landed flat on her behind. Her face warm, she glanced over at him, wondering if he would laugh, but he didn’t.
Extending his hand to her, he helped her up. As much as she wasn’t comfortable with a stranger putting his arm around her shoulders and supporting her as she fumbled across the floor like an idiot, she supposed it couldn’t be helped.
“Some queen I’m going to be,” she said as she stumbled again so that she was pressed right up against his side. “I can’t even walk without your help.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s the cave. Nothing in here will follow logic.”
She continued down the passage with him, still losing her balance from time to time. It wasn’t her intention to prove how ungraceful she could be, but it seemed that she was proving it all the same. Up ahead, a bright light shone, and she didn’t even bother asking Hathor if that was the next obstacle. It was pretty much a given. A dead end was really the only way out of the crumbling cave. The ground was soft when it appeared hard. So the light was probably really dark, at least in the symbolic sense.
When they came to the light, the walls grew longer until they extended a mile above and below them. The walls then grew wider until they were about a mile in diameter. Or was it radius? She had no idea which was which. She never thought Mr. Hopplesnapper’s math class would ever come into use so she hadn’t paid attention when he noted the distinction.
Looking down, she saw that she and Hathor stood on a small platform in the middle of a large cylinder. Now ‘cylinder’ was a term she did know, and that just went to prove that everything she really needed to know, she learned early on in school.
A set of stone steps formed below them until they reached a door half a mile down. But there was no railing that came with it, and quite frankly, she wasn’t a fan of venturing down some stairs when she could easily fall off them and plunge to her death.
Hathor knelt down and traced the edge of the platform they were standing on before reaching further out where the platform met with air. “Just as I thought. It’s a mirror.” He stepped off the platform.
She almost yelled at him to stop but realized he wasn’t plummeting to his death. He was right. It was a mirror.
He came back over to her. “What we’re seeing down here is really up there.”
He pointed up, and she turned her gaze upward but saw nothing but the walls. He brought his hand to the front of the platform and knocked on what sounded like metal.
“The stairs go up. This is the first step,” he told her and rose to his feet. “We need to get to the door which will be,” he looked down at where the door appeared to be and looked up, “over there.”
She turned around and saw no door, but in light of everything else that was going on, she had to take his word for it. There had to be a door up there.
He lifted his foot and set it in front of him. She almost stopped him from going up but reminded herself that he already tested the invisible step and knew it was there. He went up on the step then tested another one.
“It’s sturdy,” he told her. “Come on. I’ll help you along.”
She accepted the hand he offered her and took a deep breath to steady her nerves. As loathe as she was to do it, she followed him up the invisible staircase. And since she had no railing to hold onto, she grabbed the back of his shirt. If she could walk beside him, then she would have held his hand, but the stairs were too narrow.
She noted how far they were from the wall and sighed. This wasn’t her idea of a good time. “I was thinking,” she said as they continued to make their way up the winding staircase, “I might not be the right person to be queen. I mean, my idea of danger is running a stop sign.”
“Stop sign?”
“Yeah. You know. When you’re driving, t
here’s this big red sign telling you to stop so you do.”
“Driving what?”
“A car.”
“A car?” He paused on a step. “What’s a car?”
“You travel from one planet to another with a Book of Spells, and you don’t know what a car is?”
He shrugged. “We don’t use cars on my world.”
“It’s how we travel from one place to another,” she explained as they continued going up the steps.
“Don’t you walk?”
She wasn’t sure if he was serious or joking, so she refrained from rolling her eyes. “Yes, we walk. But cars get us to different places faster.”
“Oh. On Raz, we walk or ride a unicorn or Pegasus. But when the queen wants to go from one planet to another, she uses magic.”
“Do other,” not sure what to call the inhabitants on Raz, she continued, “things on your world use magic to go from one planet to another?”
“No. They never leave the world.”
They reached the wall of the cave, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Good. They were almost done with this part of the trial they had to endure. She kept telling herself not to look down, but once in a while, her curiosity got the best of her, and she dared a peak into what seemed like an endless abyss. Granted, Hathor told her it was an illusion, but it was a really good one. And she didn’t care for it.
Forcing her attention forward, she waited on the step below Hathor’s as he traced the wall. “The door should be in front of us,” he said. “It’s just a matter of finding it.”
She frowned. “Do you smell something strange?”
“No.”
“It’s a peculiar odor. I don’t remember smelling it before.”
She glanced over her shoulder and almost lost her balance. She slipped her arm around his waist. Under ordinary circumstances, she would never be so familiar with a stranger, but this whole thing was anything but ordinary—at least to her. For all she knew, he did this kind of thing every day.
A Royal Engagement (Enchanted Galaxy Series Book 1) Page 3
