I had hoped the restorative herbs Lady Ariana had given me would come without side effects. Unfortunately, just as over-the-counter cold meds gave me wild dreams in my home world, the restorative herbs packed a punch of their own. At least, that’s what I thought at first.
Upon first taking them, I felt well enough. Simultaneously I slept and was aware that I did so. Slumber’s dark waters lapped at my sides. I drifted, pulled to unknown destinations by a current that knew no direction. I could feel strength returning to my limbs, though I knew as well that it would be a long time in the building.
The time came when I turned a corner literally and figuratively on this river of strange sleep. Floating on my back, I thought I saw the jagged paper edges of dragon shapes above. The black, blue, and purple of endless night gave way to a golden twilight; time was running backwards. Squinting against the light, I made out trees bathed in pale auras.
The waters deposited me at the bank. I crouched, waiting. Again, the dragons. I ran. This time, I would catch them!
But they were up to something, those lizards of the sky. Cunning glittered in their eyes, and they did not fly as fast as they could have. It was as if they were waiting for me to catch up. Once, I tested them by slowing to a walk. They circled until I was close enough to hurl arrows, stones, or spears — none of which I had on hand. I gazed up at them, shielding my face from the sun, which hovered right at eye level.
Gerry was dead!
The memory hit with as much force as if the dragons had attacked me with a dive. Dead! Dead and gone! I’d been beyond too late!
Continuing to hover, the dragons opened their mouths. No sound emerged, but I knew they mocked me.
I discovered the cause when I realized I couldn't move any closer to them. The air became solid, suffocating around me, like a cloth bag…or a sheet.
Fiona’s bedroom! I remembered where I was at last. With a burst of strength, I tried to sit up. I managed to open my eyes and discovered someone sitting with his knees locked against my sides and his fingers wrapped around my neck. After too much more of this, I was going to find out firsthand whether Gerry still lived.
Just when I thought I must lose my weakening grip on consciousness, my enemy was thrown from me and landed on the wooden floor with a thud. Air, sweet and stinging, reentered my throat and chest.
I lay gasping on the bed as torchlight flickered from the floor. By its light, I saw Faxon and Tolliver, and nightmarish glimpses of my would-be assassin. He’d felt big while he had me pinned to the bed, but his actual size surpassed anything I could have imagined. Tolliver, a stocky man, himself, looked like a child grappling with him. Night-dark hair streamed down the bigger man’s back and covered most of his face. His eyes shone yellow, cat’s eyes gleaming in car headlights. With every movement, his skin itself sparkled as though he wore skintight scale armor. Beast-like, he crouched on the floor.
My breath, still ragged from my near-strangulation, almost deserted me completely as he seized Faxon’s slender sword in mid-blow and, heedless of the blood running down his arm, broke it over one knee. That settled it. We needed help. The next blow he struck could be a fatal one.
I glanced frantically around the room for a way to aid in the fight, preferably something I could throw at him. I took a log from the pile by the fireplace, but abandoned the idea in the fear that I’d hit one of my friends.
I darted to the bedroom door. As I’d guessed, the bolt, a heavy wooden bar was still in place; Faxon and Tolliver must have entered through the secret passage. I wrestled it free, only for the door to open on an empty hall. My mouth dropped open. Where had the guards gone?
Drawing on all my vocal strength, I screamed down the hall. My voice sounded nothing like mine; the hoarse sound had more in common with an old woman’s after several months of laryngitis. I tried again, wondering if the strain on my throat would cause permanent damage.
After a third try, I could only hope that someone had heard and would come. I ducked back into the bedroom to see if there were anything I could do for my friends.
In their efforts to subdue him, Faxon and Tolliver had torn our attacker’s shirt. His massive chest showed no skin, but more of that unsettling, clinging scale armor. My friends were now backed into a corner, with Faxon huddled behind Tolliver. I glanced at the hunk of wood still in my hand. It was now or never. I aimed carefully and hurled the log, right at the back of our enemy’s neck.
As I’d expected, the enormous man brushed it off as if it were a fly. He did turn to see its source, though. When his face turned to mine, I had to grab the doorframe to keep from collapsing. His eyes held one inexplicable purpose in them: my death. The intention exploded from him in a paralyzing wave of energy. I now knew why prey was said to freeze in sight of its stalker.
Ultimately, it was Tolliver who saved me. While my attacker and I were locked in our stare, he came up from behind and slashed the bigger man’s hamstring. Unlike his torso, the hamstring was not armored, and while Tolliver was not nearly so powerful as the would-be assassin, he was still a strong man. His blow cut deep into the enemy’s sapling-sized leg. Our attacker roared and stumbled.
If not for Tolliver breaking the spell between us, I probably would have stood there until I was killed.
“Princess!” came voices from the door. Autumnstead guards with bared weapons hurried into the room. There were so many, they couldn’t all enter without getting too close to the enemy. My shouts had brought more help than I ever could’ve hoped for.
Now the big man was caught: Faxon, Tolliver, and me on one side and the Autumnstead guards on the other. He glanced from one to the other, an animal in a trap. Then he raced toward the guards, moving so fast, it was like lightning flickering in the corner of my eye. The speed of his charge, combined with his size knocked the guards down like bowling pins. It might’ve been comical if the guy hadn’t just tried to kill me.
“After him!” a familiar voice, Queen Arencaster’s, commanded.
Most of the guards dispersed at Queen Arencaster’s order, though from what I’d seen, I had the bad feeling they wouldn’t be able to catch the intruder.
Now that the danger had passed, the reality of what had happened began to sink in. Before my eyes, a black abyss opened. I used the wall to slow my fall, ultimately ending up on my knees.
“Princess!” I heard Tolliver gasp. Strong arms caught me before I toppled all the way to the floor.
{****}
The next days were a blur. Queen Arencaster, fearing more assassins would come for me, had me moved to a guest bedroom next to hers. Previously, Princess Fiona and Queen Arencaster had rooms on opposite sides of the castle. The new room had no secret passages (I made Faxon and Tolliver check). Its furnishings were actually nicer than Fiona’s: softer bed, a carpeted floor, drapes. It made Fiona’s room look military in comparison, quarters more suited to a captain than a princess.
As I’d expected, the assassin escaped. Strange stories circulated among the guards: that the man hadn’t been entirely human and had sprouted a tail as he ran through town; that he’d been surrounded by guards at one point and escaped by flying into the air.
I tried not to think about the man who’d almost murdered me, his emotionless eyes and massive hands. Still, inevitably, I dreamed nightly of him returning to finish the job, only this time Faxon and Tolliver didn’t come to my aid. The raw memory was burden enough, but in the name of investigation, Queen Arencaster made me relive that night daily.
“How long did the feeling of strangling go on?” Queen Arencaster asked the first day after.
I swallowed and involuntarily moved my hands to my neck, where his fingermarks were still dark. “It felt like hours. But it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.” What did that have to do with anything? I wondered.
“Good,” Queen Arencaster said. Over the past few days with her, I’d come to realize good didn’t meant she thought something I’d said or experienced was good or bad. It was just her crisp way of moving the conversation along. “Now then.” That was another Queen Arencaster-ism. ”Describe the intruder.”
“But I already-”
“Describe him again!” Queen Arencaster’s eyes flashed, and her voice turned sharp with her no-nonsense tone.
Though my face was blank on the outside, I was scowling inside. At least describing was better than talking about the violence that had happened to me.
“He was…enormous. He made Tolliver look like a child.”
“When the others were fighting him, would you say strength was his main asset?”
I thought for a minute. The quarters had been too cramped for anyone to show any real skill. “I guess so. He broke Faxon’s sword over his leg.”
Queen Arencaster looked impressed, a rare thing for her. “A guard’s sword is forged to last many practices and battles.”
“It wasn’t a guard’s sword,” I pointed out. ”It was a personal rapier, dainty and ornate.”
“It was still steel,” Queen Arencaster said. “We must consider this.” She glanced over at Mertwin, the secretary from the Council of War, who was present at every questioning. Most of the time, he served as a silent scribe, keeping records of the investigation. Once in a while, he would bring up an insightful point.
“Princess Fiona should be dead,” Queen Arencaster said. The lack of drama in her statement made it all the more raw. It hit me like a hammer blow in my stomach. “A man of that strength could have dispatched her in mere minutes. Why did he delay? He did not know her, or at least, Fiona did not know him.”
“He is not known in Castle Autumnstead,” Mertwin said, flipping through his notes. “Everyone we have asked has said the same: they’d never heard of a man with that description, or that night was their first time seeing such a person.”
“Think of the effect if he had used his full strength against her,” Queen Arencaster said. “Her head would have exploded like a grape underfoot.”
“But again, that raises the question: why would he care?” Mertwin said.
Appalling images and sensations - recollections and possibilities - caused me to lose the rest of what they were saying. Even when Queen Arencaster asked me a direct question, I couldn’t find my voice to answer.
I suppose my growing resentment at the investigation wasn’t entirely fair. Queen Arencaster was only trying to find out how the assassin had gotten in, who he might be, and whether he were connected to the Latule spies.
Frustratingly, after days of questioning and the pain of recollection, the mysterious stranger’s identity and how he fit in to the big picture remained unknown.
”I know this is hard for you,” Queen Arencaster said on the fifth day after I broke down in tears. ”And I’m sorry. But our only hope of figuring out the perpetrator is examining and re-examining these facts until the truth emerges.” With those words, she extinguished any hope I might have had about burying that night.
I knew I wasn’t the only one suffering. The war had started to take its toll on Queen Arencaster, as well, and no wonder! She really did spend every waking hour bustling from one war issue to another. Some nights, the candlelight under her door never went dark, and I fell asleep listening to her pacing.
From her purposeful questioning and persistence in my investigation, Queen Arencaster obviously had some theory in mind she was trying to confirm. But when asked, she answered that couldn’t share this with me. ”I cannot risk tainting your perspective of events,” she told me.
It was typical Queen Arencaster, but her unexpected explanation made me feel better, like she was actually considering how her actions might make me feel.
During the day, when the bad thoughts inevitably crept in, I tried to recall the defenses Queen Arencaster had set up for me. In addition to changing my room, Her Majesty insisted that ten guards accompany me whenever I was moving about the castle, a rare occurrence, since it was hard to get ten together. I was no longer allowed to go outside. I spent a lot of time staring out the windows — luckily the view from this side of the castle surpassed the one from Fiona’s room as well — reflecting on what had happened and all the different ways that night could have unfolded.
My days were blissful compared to the nights' torment.
No matter what I tried - teas, positive visualizations, staying awake to exhaust myself — I always dreamed myself back to Fiona's room and cowered helpless before the man who'd held my life in his hands. Unlike other dreams I'd had, these did not fade into hazy terror when I woke. They remained knife-sharp in their clarity, electrifying my body and draining it at the same time.
Day and night, a guard always stood outside my door. I remember well the first night Tolliver was part of the rotation. When he'd taken the post, he'd knocked on the door to say hi. (Actually, he said, “Good evening, Lady. I'm to protect you this night.”) His pride, his quaint formality, touched me and made me feel just a little safer all at the same time. I fell asleep smiling, wondering if I'd be free of nightmares for the first time in nearly two weeks.
It was not to be. My night terror began with all who would defend me laying torn apart on the floor, their blood-soaked remains dark in the already-dim chamber. As the statuesque man turned to me, his vacant eyes met mine, and he seemed to grow from superhero to god-like size. I ran from castle to grounds, from the deserted boulevard into town, sensing always, his shadow in the back of my mind. When I could run no more, I leaned against the sides of buildings, gripping my sides as they burned like fire. I had to press on, I knew, or he would… No, I couldn't think of that, or I'd be unable to make myself move again.
To lengths beyond human endurance, I ran. Still he came, tireless and swift. I wondered if he enjoyed the chase, if he might have flown faster and ended it.
The inevitable time came when his shadow passed over me, shrouded me in its darkness. I stopped, seized with shivers that kept me rooted to the spot.
As he descended, a horrible presence invaded my mind. I dissolved into helpless tears that had no hope of averting what was coming. Through my sobs, I heard his voice in my mind, a woman's oddly. Hush, now. Let death bear you away. So many die screaming, thrashing, clinging to the last ragged shreds of life. But it is inescapable. Accept your fate in silence.
I had little choice; his aura of darkness cut off my breath as surely as though it were a hand on my throat. So many times, he'd killed me since that night, but certain defeat and imminent death never stopped me from clawing for air.
I woke drenched in sweat. Not trusting myself to light a candle, I lay gasping in the now-familiar darkness of the guest room.
A key rattled in the lock. He had come to finish the job! my mind screamed. I seized tinder and flint. I wouldn't die without a fight, not this time!
As I'd anticipated, a big man entered the guest room. Squinting against the light surrounding him, I fought to get my candle lit; without the flame, there would be no element to command. Sparks flew but didn’t take. My hands began to shake. Halfway across the room, he hesitated.
“Lady!” he said unexpectedly. Despite the chaos of my panic, his worried voice was familiar, so much that I paused in striking my flame to life. “I heard screams! Are you alright?”
“Tolliver!” I managed to gasp out my recognition but couldn’t answer his question. Though seconds before, I’d cursed the Other World’s cumbersome means of candle lighting, now I felt breathlessly grateful that I hadn’t succeeded. To think I’d almost commanded elements against him, my most devoted protector. None of the other guards had entered the room to check on me. Or maybe they had looked in without waking me, then slipped out when they saw I merely dreamed. What a close call!
Tolliver swept his torch around the room in a brief search of the shadows. Save for ourselves, the room was empty. With the realization that I was safe, emotions took over. Tremors danced over every inch of me, and wetness slid down my cheeks.
“What happened, Lady?” From his torch, Tolliver lit my candle, the candle I’d almost used to attack him, and set his brilliant flame in a holder on the wall.
“He came back for me…” My chest tightened so I could hardly breathe.
“Who?” Tolliver loosened his sword and glanced from the window to the door.
“That man from Fiona’s room. He came to torment me and destroy me!” Now I was bawling, noisy gasping sobs that seemed like they’d never stop. Fearing the tides would drown me, I staggered from the bed and threw my arms around Tolliver, clung to him as though my life depended on it. His arms rose around me, strong and secure. He was my anchor, and no matter what storms came, he would keep me from wrecking.
It felt like a long time that we stood there, our bodies pressed together, swaying this way and that in the currents of my emotion.
When my sobs quieted, he led me back to bed and covered me with the blankets with tender expertise. I guessed he had done so for his younger brother a time or two.
“A dream,” Tolliver said. I expected that was where the conversation would end. I wasn’t in physical harm, and this wasn’t something he could fix. Maybe he would turn cold to me, disengage and edge slowly out of the room. Instead, Tolliver sat in the bedside chair and enclosed my hands in his warm, rough ones. He looked helplessly from his hands to his sword. I knew without being told that he wished he could charge into my dream and slay the nightmare, just as he would an enemy on the field.
“Know this, Leah of California. I will let no harm come to you, in waking or in sleep. If you find yourself ensnared in such a dream again, remember me and let me fight for you.”
Tolliver's dark eyes met mine. He looked so serious, my doubts that his idea would actually work wavered. It was more than worth a try, attempting to think of him when the nightmares came again.
“I will,” I said.
In the following days, I learned how literal of a man Tolliver was. He became a recurring face for guard duty, sometimes many nights in a row. I wondered how he had the time, what with his duties as a soldier. It took some prying, but I finally got him to admit (sheepishly and with shyness I hadn’t seen since our early days) that he’d requested this assignment on most of his hours off. The few he weren’t with me were devoted to his family.
I felt so touched upon learning this. Grandiose declarations were one thing, but backing them up with such a self-sacrificing action…
Sharing this difficult time with me, Tolliver was starting to become more than a crush. I’d always thought he seemed like a sweetie, but I didn’t really know him as a person. It could just have been good behavior to impress me. However, his kindness, like his patience, never wavered. I couldn’t help but notice that unlike Gerry, Tolliver didn’t try to help by repeating platitudes from motivational speakers. (Not that they had them in the Other World, but surely there were some philosophers of the day who he might have quoted for my benefit.) Most of the time, Tolliver didn’t say much at all, letting me ramble. “I won’t let you come to harm, Leah,” he’d say when I’d talked myself out. His quiet resolve had the power to temporarily halt the bad thoughts in their tracks.
When things calmed down around Autumnstead, I promised myself I would examine Tolliver’s and my relationship in greater depth. In the meantime, I permitted myself to wonder what Ger and Tolliver would have thought of one another were they to meet. Would Ger approve if Tolliver and I tried being together one day?