by KH LeMoyne
He blinked once, before the fire’s flicker of yellow and bronze blended. A low ringing sound in his ears grew with a painful clarity. Fighting to hold back the connection was instinctual, but ultimately, he wouldn’t succeed. In truth, he needed information and answers. So far, this female voice had been his best source.
“What do you want?” he urged.
“Your help.”
“We’re here because of you, aren’t we?”
“Not entirely. You and Briallen are bound in your quests. She escaped only to risk greater peril, and you pursue peril to safeguard those you love. Joined in one goal, you both can create a haven.”
“Are they here, the ones who murdered my family?” His need for revenge battled with common sense.
“The creatures are soulless, without conscience or allegiance. They are born to only one purpose and can exist anywhere. Their order is to seek her. They will also follow you, because your bloodline draws them. Little difference.”
Logan swallowed, struggling against the pain splitting his head, and pushed to keep up with the conversation.
“Why can I speak with you in this dimension, and not mine?”
“You are closer to your purpose. However, even this brief conversation will damage you. I cannot allow that.”
Meaning she was almost done. Logan asked before she fled his mind. “Explain what ties my family to Briallen.”
“All things are tied together. No boundaries of space or time can sever our connections to what has been and what is yet to come. Do not mistake what you cannot see for what does not exist. Our people left your world thousands of years ago. Yet it was a grave mistake to think we are not still linked. Our greatest mistake was assuming we could separate from all we had been.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know.”
The pain radiated further. Spikes drilled into the center of Logan’s skull in pinpoint torture. Each word vibrated its own resonance of pain.
“Your mind cannot tolerate this direct touch. I will offer you a filter, a window into our past, The origins of this threat—yours and ours—will provide clarity for your decisions. Please understand, for the sake of both families. Yours is the last of the bloodline. You must endure and we will be at your side.”
The voice withdrew and, thankfully, the pain fled with it. A dull ache remained, as a surge of images played in color. A twinge of pressure pressed against his will. Logan relaxed under the push and the pressure receded.
As if zapped into three dimensions, the scenes no longer unfolded before him but around him. He stood on solid ground, but when he glanced down, the body wasn’t his own. Slender white hands, slim wool pants, and a tight jerkin were visible in the dusky-pink light of dawn. Male attire aside, the body wasn’t male. Sleek legs, not hard muscles, brushed the wool, and no familiar warmth of cock and balls nestled against his thigh. Tight strips across his chest beneath the jerkin, uncomfortably flattening a pair of breasts, dispelled any doubts. He tried to raise his hand, but his body didn’t respond.
Evidently, he could watch but not take part. A disquieting realization.
Logan sidestepped a wagon clattering along the cobblestones of a narrow street. He walked through an archway until the street stopped at the end of a procession of six other wagons.
Behind him, a hundred feet of white marble rose into the air, sparkling in the blue-pink reflection of two waning moons and a rising sun. Logan’s heart raced at the implications of yet another dimension, but he slowed his thoughts, focused his mind, and followed the vision.
The white walls connected the sheer cliffs of mountains on either side. Enclosed inside, gleaming stone spires pierced the sky. Plateau after plateau of green gardens and open porches decorated the sides like mushrooms sprouting from tree trunks.
Beautiful and stark, the city’s walled fortress was more foreign than anything he’d ever encountered.
Thirty-foot copper gates swung wide, allowing the procession of a dozen white-cloaked women to leave the city. A servant assisted each one into a wagon. Little fanfare accompanied the procession. Workers and children in clothing similar to his ran amongst the wagons and drivers. Barrels and boxes were packed with speed and efficiency.
Logan deposited the box he’d been cradling on his shoulder into the last wagon. Then he hopped onto the tailgate and crawled deep into the shadows.
The copper gates swung closed, and the wagon procession moved.
Countryside passed. Dense forests and streams gave way to open fields. Only one in every three parcels of land was furrowed for planting or yielded produce.
The sun rose and darkness fell in fast motion. A cycle of two days flew like seconds. Logan blinked and time escaped until the wagons stopped at the edge of a small village.
He remained hidden and looked through the gap in the canvas cover. A man approached the first wagon and bowed to one woman in white.
“My Lady, we welcome you and your sisters. Please join us for a meal.”
She accepted the hand down from the wagon but shook her head. “Your offer is appreciated, Magistrate. But we have too many miles left to travel. Are the parents ready?”
He nodded, but gave a hesitant glance behind him.
The women from the wagons moved away from the village toward a circle of small pillars half-buried in the ground. Each pillar rose a foot high. A stone dais, flat and round, stood at waist-level, dominating the axis.
Six couples stood at the side of the magistrate, each man beside a woman, each woman holding an infant. Pale, pinched fear diminished the youth on each mother’s face.
The twelve robed women moved inside the stone circle. From pouches at their waists, each withdrew a stone the size of an orange—each stone distinct in color, one stone for every pillar.
Logan angled his head for a better look. Villagers now gathered for the ceremony in front of his hiding place. Two older women blocked his view.
“Ah, glad I am my children are grown,” the first said.
“Hush, Maeve. The priestesses may hear you.”
“They’ll do us no harm. Over all these years, they bear as much burden of this as the parents.”
“Hardly. Besides, the children with the magic essence would be a dangerous force if not for the training and structure of the mages.”
“Perhaps you are right, but this duty does not please them. They are gentle souls.”
The cloaked priestesses did indeed spend time and patience with the first couple and encouraged the parents into the circle with their child. In the end, the husband withdrew his wife from the circle after placing their infant on the stone dais.
The twelve priestesses knelt and touched the pillars until their stone shone with an inner light. Then they stood and linked hands in a circle around the dais. Their joined hands rose with their chant. The winds and clouds shifted above. A flicker illuminated from one stone then the next until each responded. After several minutes, the flare diminished and the stones’ colors returned to their original dull shades.
With a sigh and a strained smile, the priestess motioned for the distraught mother, who raced inside the circle and claimed her child. She withdrew with her husband to the edge of the crowd. Each child, tested in turn, was cleared and returned to its mother.
A man joined the two women in front of Logan.
“There’ll be no children from our village for this testing,” he said.
“There have been none for many years now. Is this true of the other villages?”
“Much the same, I hear.”
“Hmm, a bad omen. Fewer acolytes for the citadel means less magic to protect the harvest and guard our lands. But giving up a child—”
“Hush, wife. Kind though they may be, we shouldn’t anger them. The children are well cared for. Given more than most parents could afford.”
“Except love.”
The old man wrapped his arm around his wife. “Yes, there is that.”
Logan moved deeper into
the refuge of the wagon. Anticipating the end of the tests, he settled amongst the barrels and supplies.
Night spun into day, then night, and back again. The wagons stopped at four more villages, the routine the same each time—fretful parents and wailing babies, but no change in outcome. The images fired with a rapid precision, making Logan dizzy.
Almost ready for an end to the vision, he caught himself as the wagons jerked to a halt again.
Twelve couples waited in this village, larger than the previous ones. But the priestesses were no less patient or kind, despite their long journey and the parents’ trepidation.
The stones worked their same tireless procession of color for ten children. For the eleventh infant, the seventh child of one family, the colors of orange, purple, and red radiated and expanded. With the light, the stones grew in size and the crowd gasped. Only the shrill cry of the child’s mother cut through the amazement of the witnesses.
Logan stood on the tailgate of the wagon. The crowd was so thick he didn’t risk climbing higher and for fear of detection.
“A shame,” a woman whispered beside the wagon.
“The carpenter has six others,” another responded.
“But this is the first for this wife. Her only child.”
“They will be paid more than five years of his wages. With all those mouths to feed, he’ll be grateful.”
“She had a dangerous labor. There will be no more children for her.”
“Sad. Though the child will receive an education, instead of being indentured.”
Only silence from the first woman.
“With a new priestess found in our village, we will also have a good harvest.”
“Perhaps.”
Logan sat on a barrel and watched the crowd disassemble. The cries of the carpenter’s wife echoed across the village square, joined by the pitiful wail of her child. He could feel the unease and panic within his host. The tragedy of the child and mother, he felt as well. Fear flooded him, but he knew it wasn’t his.
The scene faded away. Without the voice and only one-way images, the invasion in his mind reduced his pain. But he was left deciphering the context and relevance of every detail. Neither the priestesses’ actions, nor their purpose helped him with his problems. In fact, they added confusion on top of the difficulties all of them already faced.
Patience. She’d said he’d need patience. He was getting damn tired of being patient.
After a moment of silence, and confident the images wouldn’t return, he opened his eyes and wiped the trickle of blood from his nose with the back of his hand. He glanced around the room, unable to gauge the passage of time. The light in the cottage had dimmed, though he suspected Bri had lowered the flames so everyone could sleep. She was gone, as was Hefin. Robert sat on a bench near the door, his head propped against the wall. Too casual.
Logan waited until Robert opened his eyes and stared at him. The slight tilt of his head signaled a conversation outside.
Logan nodded and listened for sound of the storm, but no whine of wind or tap of rain echoed in the cottage. He placed a hand on the child’s chest and waited for the slow, slight rise. Reassured she’d be stable for a bit without him, he followed Robert into the sunshine.
Logan leaned against a rock overlooking the bay. The wind gusted and rippled across the top of the long grasses in snaking twists of pea green. Water from the night’s deluge shimmered on the leaves of the few trees around them in a black gloss, holding the night where the sun had yet to shine.
The contrast between today and yesterday took him by surprise. The storm, the fight, the child, his vision—all surreal from the perspective of fresh air and sunshine. However, daylight didn’t erase what they’d endured. The throbbing along his arm served as a reminder of the events.
And the realism of this world had snapped at them with teeth too vicious to ignore.
“You okay?” Robert’s look was unfathomable. He’d settled on a well-lit rock, the sunshine washing the haggard lines from his face.
Robert was difficult to read when determined to keep a secret. Which until recently had been rare, but for all his loyalty and friendship, Logan’s cousin was a private man. Lies—yes. He could detect those, but full details could be elusive between family members who knew each other well. A strange paradox, but familiarity offered the best way to keep secrets.
Tempted by his experience the night before, analyzing everyone in the cottage, Logan focused on the air around his cousin. A brief shimmer of Superman red pulsed inches from Robert’s body. Tiny, white wrinkles covered him, as if someone had done a bad job of encasing him in plastic wrap, the crinkles and folds more prominent than the red color bleeding through as a bold representation of his skill and strength.
Making no sense of it, Logan shook his head and released the image. “Good as expected. Where’d you go last night?”
Robert looked across the bay. “I checked the shoreline for anything familiar or another way to get us back. Found nothing. You chat with the pretty Miss Briallen after she finished with the kid?”
“Long enough for her to confirm we’re in another dimension.”
Robert crossed his arms and cursed. His gaze fixed on Logan. “Farfetched, but explains a lot. It’s like we stepped back in time, except magic is prevalent here.” He reached beside him and tapped a tiny flower with his finger. A delicate chime and tingle of bells floated along the breeze and two more flower buds sprouted. “All the usual noise is gone—no cars, no planes, no phone reception, no landmarks. Guess the mages haven’t evolved to the digital network yet.”
“Or they don’t need technology. You bought into her story rather quickly,” Logan said. He believed Bri, but his cousin and caution were synonymous, a healthy side effect of lifesaving skepticism.
Robert stood up and spread his arms. “You want facts. I found another shield last night, twenty feet from the cottage. Nothing heavy like the one we encountered in the bay. But strong enough the shield dragged on me as I walked through. I wondered if I’d be able to return, but after I left the cottage, I was able to get back. Initial entry is probably by invitation only.”
He gestured toward the far edge of the bay. “Hefin showed me an obelisk over the next ridge. It marks the perimeter of his wards. The land beyond the marker goes on into the highlands for hundreds of miles.”
“Beyond the bay.”
“The bay doesn’t continue farther north. The island spreads north from here in one long stretch of land. No lochs or major waterways break the horizon. The landscape is so unfamiliar. I couldn’t take a stab at what we might recognize. I’m talking structural changes to the earth we’re standing on. That brings tough questions about what else is the same or different here.”
Logan frowned, but Robert continued. “You and Briallen—you may not have physically met before, but you two are way more comfortable than new acquaintances. Even if you’re lulled by her beauty, your familiarity with her is out of character for you.” He raised his hand, stalling any interruption. “You’re holding out on me, Logan. I watched you fighting in your dream last night. When you said you experienced no pains with the visions, you’re lying to me. I don’t think it’s what you intended, so I’m going to put this so it gets through your thick, overprotective skull. I’m here to help. You don’t have to do everything alone. Talk to me.”
He finished his speech and pitched a wadded cloth across the distance between them.
Logan caught it, raised a brow, and rubbed at his nose with the cloth. Dried, rust-colored specks dotted the rag. Residual byproduct of direct communication with the voice, no doubt. The first physical evidence he could link to his pain.
Robert was right. He’d deliberately held back. With all the recent unexplainable events twisting his instincts into a knot, it felt safer locking everything down. Not his typical response, and not in line with how he normally interacted with his family. Given that they each possessed unique talents, information shared saved lives. Each
person’s complications were a heads-up to the next. “Pain is only present in certain scenarios, and the blood, only once. But I don’t expect any more problems.”
“Briallen?”
“I saw her before we came through the portal.”
“She’s the one you saw in the castle?”
Logan nodded. “There were other people. She was the only one who noticed me. Hefin was with her.” Logan looked around and rolled the cloth into a tighter wad. “The rest—only bits and pieces of dreams I’ve experienced. Until we got here. I’m led to believe this dimension strengthens what I see.”
“From the dreams?” Robert gaze hardened as he gestured to the rag, the blood. “How long did you have them before we arrived?”
“Several weeks.” He ignored any discussion of the pain. Robert couldn’t help him. He knew what worried his cousin, and he’d panicked at first, too. However, the voice eliminating direct speech in favor of images allowed him to receive information. And the pain didn’t necessarily signal symptoms of his father’s fatal ailment.
Robert turned his back on him, squatted to pick up several small stones, and rolled them between his fingers. “So if we agree Briallen’s correct, does this move us closer to our goal of finding Aaron and Emilie’s killer?”
Logan scrubbed at his face with his hands. “From what I understand, our murderer may not be constrained to waiting for portals like we are. We have to assume he—or she, or it—is here as well. We’re targets, and so is Bri. However, we have more immediate problems. How long do you figure before the men in the ship come ashore and start searching?”
“Storm’s cleared. I’m sure they arrived at the cave and found the others gone. I disposed of the bodies, but they’ll wash up eventually. Not sure how life here parallels our past history, but if Hefin’s reaction is indicative of the clan’s suspicion of strangers, but we might get help from them.”
“You both disappeared last night.”
“I checked out the area, and he kept an eye on me.” Robert’s sharp laugh broke the tension. “Wouldn’t exactly say we’ve established rapport, but we share concerns. He went on his own for a while and came back. We exchanged observations.”
