Beyond the Pale (15 page)

It was hard to think. He drew in a deep breath and tried to clear the buzzing from his head. The forest air was cold and moist, redolent with the tastes of ice and pine. He could not remember a time when he had breathed air this good. For a moment he almost believed these were the woods north of town. Almost. Except, now that he looked at them more closely, the trees he had taken for aspens didn’t seem quite right. They looked like aspen trees should—but they were all a little too tall, their branches spread a little too wide, and their papery bark was a little too silver. And while the occasional conifer scattered among them was as tall and straight as a lodgepole pine, he didn’t remember that lodgepoles had that purplish tinge to their needles. Where was this place? Then the fog in his mind cleared and he remembered everything. The revival, the words of Brother Cy, the beings in the light, and last of all the …

He spun around and expected to see it hovering there, like a window looking out over the moonlit highway that meandered north of Castle City. The billboard. However, there was no floating window behind him, no crisscrossed timbers of a billboard’s back side, nor was there a highway anywhere in sight. He stumbled forward and searched desperately to either side. His walk became a jog, then a headlong run through the forest. Branches whipped at his face, he batted them aside. It
had
to be here. Yet all he saw were unfamiliar trees that stretched bare limbs toward the sky.

Wherever this place was, it was not Colorado.

At last Travis halted and gasped for breath. His head spun. The air was too sharp, too thin, like that on a high mountain summit. He gripped the trunk of an aspen—or whatever sort of tree it was—to keep from reeling.

“Well now, I had not expected to have company for breakfast,” said a deep voice behind him. “But then, company is the best sort of surprise, isn’t it? Especially in a place as lonely as this. Won’t you join me?”

Travis turned around in astonishment.

The speaker sat on the ground a half-dozen paces away, cross-legged before a campfire. He was a man of indeterminate years, although he was more likely older than younger, for his dark, shoulder-length hair was shot with gray, and lines accentuated a strong mouth and eyes the exact faded blue of the wintry sky above. The man was dressed in curious fashion. He wore a long shirt of heather-gray wool, belted at the waist with a broad strip of leather, and a kind of tight, fawn-colored trousers. Leather boots shod the man’s feet, and gathered around his shoulders to ward off the chill was a cloak the color of deep water. The cloak was fastened at his throat with an ornate silver brooch.

In all, the man reminded Travis of the actors from the local medieval festival that was held each summer a few miles down the highway from Castle City. The festival workers often wandered into the Mine Shaft after the fair closed for the night, to have a drink at the bar or shoot some pool, still clad in their anachronistic costumes, posing as noblemen, ladies, knights, and thieves. However, there was something about the man’s clothes that made Travis think
they were not part of a costume. They seemed too well worn, too travel-stained, too … 
real
.

Travis’s dizziness was replaced by alarm. If the billboard really had taken him somewhere else—somewhere far enough away to have strange trees—then there was no telling who he might meet. He eyed the man in suspicion. He could be a criminal, a fugitive, maybe even a murderer.

The stranger grinned, as if he read Travis’s thoughts. His voice was like the sound of a horn. “You need not worry, friend. I am almost certainly the
least
dangerous thing you will encounter in these woods.” He gestured to the fire. “You’re cold. You should sit and warm yourself awhile. What could be the harm in that?”

After everything that had happened, Travis could think of plenty of possibilities. However, despite his sheepskin coat, he
was
cold. His hands ached, and his feet were blocks of ice in his boots. He decided it was better to fall in with an outlaw than freeze to death, so he approached the fire and sat on a cushion of pine needles. He held his hands over the flames and soaked in the warmth. Without further words, the stranger picked up a wooden spoon and stirred the contents of a pot balanced over the fire on a tripod of green sticks. The man filled two wooden bowls with thick stew and handed one to Travis along with another spoon.

“Thank you,” Travis managed to stammer.

The stranger simply nodded and began to eat. Travis hesitated, then tentatively tasted the stew. A moment later he was wolfing down the food, heedless of the way it scorched his tongue. It was delicious—seasoned with an herb he had never tasted before—and after the first bite his stomach had reminded him he had not eaten since lunch the day before.

At last he sighed and set down the bowl. Warmth crept through his body. After a moment he realized the stranger was watching him. No,
studying
him. Travis shifted on the ground. There was something peculiar about the man’s keen blue eyes. They seemed too old for the rest of his face.

The stranger winked, and his gaze was no longer so piercing. “Do not fear, friend. My eyes are not as sharp as some, and if I have seen anything at all in you, then it is neither shadowed nor wicked. Friend I call you, and so you will be considered, at least by me.”

He gathered up the bowls and spoons, wiped them clean with a handful of pine needles, and placed them inside the pot. He stowed the cooking gear in a small pack, then turned his attention back to Travis. “Well then, it is against all laws of hospitality to ply a guest with questions when his stomach is empty. Yet now we have had our breakfast, and I think the time has come for introductions.”

Travis started to speak, but the stranger held up a hand to silence him.

“Hold, friend,” he said. “One cannot make proper introductions without a hot cup of
maddok
. This may not be a civilized land these days, but that does not mean we have to act as barbarians.”

Travis bit his tongue. Something told him the stranger was not accustomed to contradiction. The man pulled a tin kettle out of the coals and poured dark liquid into two clay cups. As he did this, Travis noticed he wore a black leather glove on his right hand, while his left hand was bare. It seemed a curious affectation, but there was much about the stranger Travis found curious.

Travis accepted one of the cups and gazed into it. He had never heard of
maddok
, but it looked suspiciously like coffee to him. He raised the cup and took a sip. Instantly he knew
maddok
was
not
coffee. It was more bitter, although not unpleasantly so, and richer as well, with a nutty flavor. Almost immediately Travis detected a tingling in his stomach. He shook his head, wide-awake as if he had just had a full night’s sleep. He stared at the cup, then downed the rest of the hot liquid.

The stranger laughed, raised his own cup, and drank deeply. Then he spoke in a formal tone. “My name is Falken. Falken of Malachor. I am a bard, by right and by trade.”

Travis took a breath, it was his turn. “My name is Travis Wilder.” Somehow it didn’t sound quite as interesting as the stranger’s introduction. He searched for something to add. “I don’t know that I’m anything by right, but I’m a saloon owner by purchase.”

“A saloon?” Falken asked with a frown.

Travis nodded. “That’s right—a saloon. You know, it’s like a bar.” By his expression, Falken evidently did
not
know. Travis kept on trying. “A pub? A tavern?”

Understanding flickered across Falken’s face. “Of course, you are a tavern keeper. An old and honorable profession, at least in this land.”

Travis just shrugged, although inwardly he felt a note of pride. He had never thought about anything he did as being
honorable
before.

Falken set down his cup. “Then again, something tells me you are not from these parts.”

Travis scratched his chin. “I’m not quite sure.” A question rose to his lips. It was utterly mad, but he had to ask it. “Just where
are
these parts exactly?”

To his surprise, Falken did not laugh. Instead, the bard regarded Travis with grave eyes, then spoke in measured words. “At the moment we are deep in the Winter Wood, a vast and ancient forest which lies many leagues north of the Dominion of Eredane.”

Travis shivered at the sound of the strange names. “The Dominion of Eredane?”

Falken leaned forward, his expression suddenly one of sharp interest. “That is correct. Eredane is one of the seven Dominions which lie in the north of the continent of Falengarth.”

Travis gave a jerky nod, as if this made sense, when it made nothing of the sort. “I see.” He searched for a way to phrase his next question that would not sound utterly absurd. It was no use. He asked it anyway, doing his best to sound nonchalant. “And the world we’re talking about here is …?” His question trailed off on the cold air. He was suddenly freezing again.

Falken raised a dark eyebrow. “Why, the world Eldh, of course.”

The words struck Travis like a clap of thunder. He had not stepped through the billboard to another place, but to another
world
. The world Sister Mirrim had spoken of at the revival. There was no other explanation. The strange trees, the unfamiliar air, Falken’s odd clothes. As impossible as it seemed, it was the only answer that made sense.

This was not his Earth
.

With this knowledge came a new, terrible thought, and a wave of panic crashed through him. There was no sign of the
billboard on this side, no window that looked out over Castle City.

How was he going to get back?

Travis felt something being pushed into his hands. It was a clay cup of
maddok
. He raised the cup and gulped the warm liquid. After a moment his mind started to clear, and his panic receded a bit, although it did not vanish. Falken was beside him now, concern written across his wolfish features. “Are you well, Travis Wilder?”

Travis shook his head in a daze. Was he well? In the last day he had lost his best friend, his home, his entire world. He was anything but
well
.

“I don’t think I’m going to faint, if that’s what you mean,” he said.

Apparently satisfied with this, Falken leaned back on his haunches and rubbed his jaw in thought. He spoke in quiet wonder, almost more to himself than Travis. “So you come from a world other than this. I have heard of such things, although I never expected to come face-to-face with the proof myself. Yet I must confess, the moment I saw you I knew there was something unusual about you. And it was not simply your queer garb and manner of speaking. There is an otherworldly air about you, friend.”

The
maddok
had done its work to steady his mind, and Travis actually managed a weak laugh. “An otherworldly air? Funny, but I would have said the same thing about you, Falken. Except I suppose this is
your
world, not mine.” His hand shook as he set down the empty cup. “But if this truly is a different world, then I have just one question. What am I doing here?”

Falken clasped his hands together. “A good question, and one I would like to know the answer to. The morning is wearing on, and I had hoped to get an early start today, for I have a long way to travel, but it might be the time it would take to hear your tale would be well spent. If you would care to share it, that is.”

As peculiar as he was, there was something about Falken that put Travis at ease. Besides, right now Travis didn’t have another friend in the world. This world, anyway. A lump of loneliness welled up in his throat, but he did his best to swallow it.

He nodded. “All right, Falken. Maybe you can make more sense out of what’s happened to me than I can.”

As the sunlight brightened from silver to gold among the trees, Travis recounted everything that had happened to him since yesterday evening. It was almost a relief to share all the strange events with another. There was only one thing Travis left out of his story, although he wasn’t quite certain why. Maybe it was simply too personal, and too disturbing, to think about. Regardless of the reason, Travis did not speak of the moment when Jack had gripped his hand, and how it felt as if lightning had struck him.

Throughout Travis’s tale, Falken listened intently, and interrupted only now and then to ask about a word that was unfamiliar to him, things like
truck
or
telephone
. Travis reached the end of his story, and for a time the bard was silent, his expression thoughtful. The only sounds were the hiss of the dying fire and the music of the wind in the trees.

At last Falken spoke. “I imagine your friend Jack Graystone was a wizard of some sort.”

Travis gaped at the bard. “A wizard?”

Falken nodded. “Clearly there is magic at work in your tale, and it seems to center around your friend. Wizards often have an interest in ancient objects, just as you’ve described Graystone. While there is no way to be certain, it seems the likely explanation.”

Travis started to protest that this was impossible, then stopped. Was it really? The more he thought about it, the more magic seemed a better explanation for everything that had happened. He wasn’t sure he believed in magic, but then he wasn’t sure he
didn’t
believe in it either. As with so many things in his life, he had simply never decided one way or the other.

“It might help us to know what is in the box,” Falken said.

Travis reached inside his coat and closed his hand around the iron box. Jack had warned him not to open it, but that had been when Jack had feared his pursuers nearby. For all
Travis knew, the beings in the light were an entire world away now. Besides, he was suddenly filled with a burning curiosity to know what was inside. He drew it out and set it on the ground between Falken and himself. It looked dark and ordinary in the morning light, the symbols carved on its sides and lid barely visible. He hesitated a moment, then in one quick motion undid the box’s latch and raised the lid.

It was a stone.