The celebratory feast held in the Great Hall was no less spectacular than those held by the dwarves. Musicians lined the hall, encouraging passersby to dance a jig or two. Heavily laden tables of food were everywhere, tempting even those with full bellies to have another morsel or two more. Everywhere they walked people stopped what they were doing and bowed, murmuring their names as they passed.
Rhenyon surprised Sarah by asking her to consent to one last dance. Giving the grinning captain one of her famous million-dollar smiles, and a small curtsy, Sarah allowed herself to be led out into the throngs of people, all dancing a slow waltz.
Feeling a small tap on his shoulder, Steve turned, surprised to see the queen before him. She gave him a small curtsy as well, holding out her hand for him to escort her to the dance floor. Swallowing loudly, Steve bowed in return, and took the queen’s soft hand in his. Thanking his lucky stars that his wife had talked him into taking a ballroom dancing class several years ago, Steve managed a passable waltz, guiding the smiling monarch around the dance floor without once stepping on her feet. He even spun her through one turn, much to the queen’s delight, her eyes opening wide with amazement.
Feeling another small tap on his shoulder, Steve turned again, discovering himself face-to-face with the king.
“May I cut in?” Kri’Entu politely inquired.
“By all means, your majesty.”
Finally able to breathe again, Steve ran a shaking hand through his hair. Where was his wife? A quick scan of the dance floor provided the answer: dancing with the young prince. Mikal, it would seem, had been well trained in the finer art of dancing, leading a laughing Sarah through several styles of dance, even spinning her much more elegantly than he had ever been able to.
“Show off,” Steve muttered, chuckling.
****
The following morning found everyone assembled in a smaller chamber off the Great Hall. Looking around the richly decorated room, Steve realized he hadn’t ever been in this part of the castle before. Tapestries lined the walls, and numerous tables were scattered about. Maybe this was a conference room of some sort? Steve shrugged inwardly. Giving his immediate surrounding a quick, cursory glance, he was startled to discover that the room didn’t contain a portal or at least something he could recognize as one.
Walking over to the far wall, Kri’Entu gave several tugs to the huge floor-length twenty foot tapestry that was hanging unobtrusively from several pegs. Dislodged from its holders, the tapestry plopped to the ground, revealing a ten foot tall door frame, complete with ancient runes carved onto every square inch. This time, the carved relief depicted castle R’Tal, in its entirety. There, smack in the middle of the closed drawbridge was a hole. A keyhole.
The king turned to the Nohrin. “Sir Steve, if ye please.”
Figuring this would be a great time to test their new portal key, Steve stepped forward and inserted Maelnar’s latest creation, automatically twisting it clockwise. Returning to his wife’s side, together they watched as the newly activated portal rapidly came to life. Grinning like a couple of enthusiastic school kids, Steve and Sarah each held their breath as the familiar chiming was heard. The surface of the wall fuzzed out, replaced by a very welcoming scene: a comfortable sitting area, with a window overlooking an immense Victorian garden.
“Okay, kiddo,” Steve said, grinning down at an amazed Mikal, “ready to check out another world?”
Nodding his head in wonder, Mikal looked back at his parents. The king was smiling, nodding his head in encouragement while the queen was doing a remarkable job of not bursting into tears.
Taking Mikal’s hand in her left, while simultaneously taking her husband’s in her right, Sarah led them into the portal, leaving the Kingdom of Lentari behind.
Chapter 16 - Surprise
“Are we back? Is this really home?” Sarah ran to the window to look outside. Sure enough, she could see the beginnings of the Victorian garden on the southern side of their newly inherited mansion. There, parked out front, was their Hyundai Santa Fe. Turning, she saw the young prince waving enthusiastically at his parents, still visible in the open portal. The Kri’yans, however, were snapping out last minute instructions to their son.
“Ye are to be on yer best behavior at all times, young man. Do ye understand?”
Mikal sighed. “Yes, father.”
“Do as ye are told. I do not want to hear of any disobedience, is that understood?”
Another sigh. “Yes, father.”
The king’s tired eyes swiveled to Steve’s. “Keep him safe.”
“Count on it, your majesty.”
With that, the portal faded back into the carved likeness of Lentari. The sudden quietness of the house spooked Sarah. Nervously, she looked around.
“This feels so weird! After all we’ve been through, I can’t believe we made it back. I mean, we must have been gone at least two or three weeks, right?”
Steve was nodding. “I’m figuring at least a month.” He absent-mindedly patted his pockets. “Without a watch, I really have no idea how long we were gone. I usually just check my cell for the date and time, and I don’t have my cell anymore. We need to find a phone. We have some serious damage control to do, m’dear.”
“Could your cell be in the pack?”
He thought a moment. No, he was pretty sure his cell was still a resident of that shabby cottage where they were temporarily held prisoner.
“No, it’s gone. Gonna have to get a new one. What about yours?”
“It’s not in my purse, or else I would have seen it. Wait! We had it charging in the car just before we got here, remember?” Sarah took Mikal’s hand as she moved to follow her husband down the two flights of stairs. Blinking profusely, they emerged into the bright sunshine. Without stopping to admire the scenery, Steve went straight to their SUV, checking the interior. With a shout of triumph, he emerged with her cell. However, as was the case with most car cell phone chargers, when the car’s engine was turned off, the ability to charge the phone was turned off, too. The cell phone was dead.
“Not a problem. We can charge it for a bit.” Certain he wouldn’t be able to find his keys, Steve climbed behind the wheel and reached beneath the seat to retrieve the spare. The Hyundai purred to life as soon as he twisted the key. Plugging the phone back into the charger cable, he was rewarded with a soft, musical chime as the cell recognized a valid power source. Mikal was staring open-mouthed at Steve. He climbed out.
“What?”
“What is that?”
“What is what? The car?”
“You’re talking to someone who has never seen a car before, sweetie.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry about that. This will take some getting used to. You see, a car is –”
At that moment shouts could be heard coming from within the house. Alarmed, Steve bolted back inside, igniting both hands as he did. Impossible! There’s no way someone could have followed them through that portal!
Sarah, however, had skidded to an abrupt stop. She was staring at her husband.
“Good, stay there,” he called as he disappeared inside the house, bolting up the stairs two at a time.
Several moments of silence ensued, followed shortly thereafter by Steve’s laughter. Sarah blinked. He was laughing? What now?
“What is it? What’s going on?”
“Stay there,” Steve called down, still chuckling. “We’ll come down to you.”
“We? Who’s there with you?”
Emerging back out of the house, Steve was shaking his head. Someone was moving behind him. It was –
“Tristan? What are you doing here?”
“As I understand it,” the soft-spoken soldier said, “the reason the two of ye went through so much turmoil in Lentari was that ye activated yer portal and then went through without the key to return, is that right?”
Sarah stared at her husband. “You forgot to take the key, didn’t you?”
Sheepishly, he handed her the sparkling purpl
e key. “Okay, we can call this even.” He smiled at Tristan. “We still have another one. We could have just gotten the new one when we report back in, what was it? Six months? Nine? A year? Man, I can’t believe I don’t remember.”
“You can’t believe you forgot already?” Sarah giggled. “I can. I married an old –”
“Hey! Play nice!”
“The whole purpose of having young Mikal on this world,” Tristan interrupted with a smile, “was so that no one from ours could make it here. If we have a key to yer world on ours, then he would not be safe. Besides,” he continued, “it has been decided that it is very important for the prince to maintain his studies, and since he is destined to be ruler one day, he will need to have an adequate understanding of our kingdom and its laws.”
“So you’re going to be his tutor, is that it? Sure, why not? Join the gang!”
“My thanks, sir Steve.”
“While you’re here, you had better just call us Steve and Sarah so that you don’t stand out,” Steve explained. More than you already do, he silently added.
“Aye, I will try to remember.”
Sarah grabbed her husband’s arm, spinning him around.
“You ignited your hands!”
“So? I’ve been doing that for a while now.”
“Not here you haven’t.”
Realization sunk in. His jhorun was working here? How could that be? Bewildered, he looked at his hands and ignited them again. Sure enough, both hands became engulfed in flames. Snuffing them out, he looked at his wife.
“You try something.”
Sarah paused, thinking of a location back inside the house. Moments later, she vanished. The upstairs window opened. She poked her head out.
“Am I supposed to be able to do this?”
“Come on back down here.”
Pulling her head back inside, Sarah closed the window and then materialized next to her husband. Steve turned to Tristan.
“No one ever told us that our jhoruns would work here.”
“Because they do not, sir Steve.”
“You just saw it work. Both of us can still use our jhoruns. Can you?”
Tristan was silent a moment as he asked his jhorun to summon a small dagger. Nothing. He again ordered his jhorun to summon a dagger, dirk, anything. Nothing appeared.
“See? I told ye that jhorun is ineffective here. The Scribes have long told us that their own jhoruns did not work here, either.”
Steve ignited his right hand, holding it before Tristan’s face. “And what do you call this, then? Think I can spontaneously combust that often?”
Tristan looked at the flaming hand in front of him. “I cannot answer ye, sir Steve. That goes against everything I was ever told about yer world.”
A car’s engine revved in the distance. Then they all heard the faint, but distinctive clang as a set of iron gates were pushed open.
“There aren’t any other driveways with gates,” Sarah recalled, eyeing her husband. “Someone’s coming.”
“Someone has keys to this place? Mikal, back inside the house. You, too, Tristan.”
Boy and tutor scrambled inside the mansion, closing the front door behind them.
The sound of crunching gravel steadily increased as the car moved closer, finally rounding the bend and coming into view. Of all the vehicles he imagined he could be looking at, this one wasn’t anywhere on the list.
The old, beat-up blue and white Ford F250 came to a stop just before the house. Stan Miller emerged, staring hard at his son and daughter-in-law.
“Steve? Sarah? What – where have you been? Where’d - you were not here last night. I searched that house from top to bottom!”
“Well, we just got back. Literally. What are you doing here, dad?”
“What do you think I’m doing here? You vanish for over a month and you think your mother and I aren’t going to worry?” He stared at his son, as if seeing him for the first time. He looked at Sarah. Had they been to a costume party? “What are you wearing? Where were you?” he repeated.
“You wouldn’t believe me. Not by a long shot.”
“Hold on, we need to call your mother. And, you get to do all the talking.” Stan pulled out his cell and got his wife on the phone. “Hon, there’s someone here that you are going to want to talk to.”
Steve took the phone. Wincing, he held it up to his ear. “Hi, mom.”
Even though Sarah was standing a full five feet away, she could still hear the distinctive squawk his mother had let out.
“No, I’m fine, really. Sarah, too. What? Ummm, I don’t think you’ll believe me. You see, we… what? WHAT?! What the f-… How could you possibly know that??”
Perplexed, Sarah studied her husband’s face. Did his mother actually suspect where they’ve been? How could that be??
“What is Steve doing, holding that thing to his ear?”
With the unexpected appearance of Steve’s father, Sarah had momentarily forgotten about Mikal and Tristan, who had just now emerged from the house. Sarah looked down at Mikal, then over at Stan. Her father-in-law stared at the boy then at the strange man.
While Steve held a fast and furious conversation with his mom, Stan sidled closer to Sarah. “Who are these two? Are they friends of yours?”
“I’ll answer that if you answer me this: what are Steve and his mom arguing about? Do you know?”
Stan scoffed. “Bonnie had some outrageous notion that since this was my parent’s house that you two might have been unarguably out of the country. Horse crap, if you ask me. What is that supposed to mean, anyway? How could you two have been out of the country?”
“Stan, what if I told you that not only were we out of this country, but out of this world, too?”
“Not you, too,” He groaned, running his hands through his hair. “Why would you go along with this charade? What you suggest is impossible.”
Sarah was nodding. “And if I can prove it to you?”
“How? How can you possibly prove it?”
Sarah turned, pointing to the third floor window overlooking the garden that she had previously stuck her head out of. “See that window up there? Top floor with the white trim?”
Stan gazed up at the closed window. “Yes, I see it.”
“Keep watching it.”
“And what am I looking for?”
Suddenly the window opened. Sarah leaned out and waved to her father-in-law.
Stan’s neck actually cracked as he snapped his head around to the spot Sarah had just vacated. “What the hell?” Stan rubbed the painful kinks that were beginning to form in his neck. “How did you get up there so fast?”
“Teleportation,” Sarah called down. “A gift I was given upon setting foot in Lentari. One I didn’t think I’d still have once we returned. But, there you go.”
“You expect me to believe that you magically appeared up there?”
“Look around you. Clearly I’m not down there, right?”
“Not unless there are two of you,” he admitted. Returning his gaze to the window, he was startled to discover Sarah was gone. A soft tap on his shoulder had him spinning around yet again. There she was!
“But…you… Do that again.”
“Let’s try this. I’ll stay in your line of sight. See that stone bench in the middle of the garden over there?”
Stan looked beyond his daughter-in-law and saw the bench about fifty yards away. “I see it.” He blinked. A figure had just materialized out of thin air and was waving at him.
“Stay there,” she shouted to him. “I’ll come back.”
Deciding to watch the spot that she kept disappearing from, Stan reeled in shock as Sarah materialized beside him. His look of disbelief was very rewarding.
“You teleported yourself! You actually teleported from here to there!”
Sarah smiled, nodding her head. “Trust me, no one was more surprised than I was once I learned I could do it.” She took Stan’s hand in her own. “Please believe me when I
say that Steve and I were stuck on another world for the past month or so. Once we learned we had inherited this house, we came up to take a look. We discovered the portal, and without realizing what we were doing, activated it and stepped through, without having any way to return home.”
“What was it like?” His voice had changed. There was no malice, no venom, just sheer unbridled curiosity.
“We’ll have to take you there. It’s very picturesque. It can be dangerous though, if you don’t know what you’re doing, but as long as you have Steve around, you’ll be fine.”
Stan looked over at his son, still deep in conversation on his cell. “Why do you say that? Does Steve have some magical ability, too?”
“Steve has the ability to summon and control fire. Very handy to have when being attacked by griffins, or trying to impress dragons, or battling huge bugs.”
“Griffins? Dragons? Are you serious??”
“Yes, I am. Apparently us showing up there was foretold in some ancient prophecy of theirs. We have the ability to protect their future king, which reminds me. May I present Kre’Mikal, prince of Lentari. Mikal, this is Steve’s father, Stan.”
Stan looked down at the small boy, who returned his gaze with equal fascination. Pausing only a few moments, Stan extended his hand. His manners kicking in automatically, Mikal grasped the forearm of the father of one of his two protectors. “Pleased to meet ye.”
“Nice to meet you as well, Mikal,” Stan answered, noting the strange manner in which the boy spoke.
Tristan stepped forward, giving a slight cough.
“Stan, I’d also like you to meet Tristan, who will be Mikal’s tutor while he’s here.”
“And are you going to be taking care of him?” Stan asked, after shaking hands with the silent, bald man.
“We are his official bodyguards,” Sarah confirmed. “Until things are safe again in his kingdom, we will be looking after him.”
Amazed, Stan looked at the boy again. At that time, Sarah heard her husband finally say goodbye and then heard the distinctive snap of a cell phone being closed. Steve joined them moments later.
Bakkian Chronicles, Book I - The Prophecy Page 40
