Stranger (27 page)

She’s awake!

“Anyone who tries to eat me or my friend will get a punch in the face,” Gemma warned.

Shrieking, the creatures disappeared.

Forcing herself to sit upright, Gemma’s head spun for a moment. The world wobbled, then settled into … nothing normal.

She sat upon the ground, on a bed of moss, which seemed ordinary enough, if one imagined moss to be made of crushed sapphire velvet, adorned with jeweled mushrooms. The moss covered a hollow in the roots of a massive, twisting tree. Its branches shifted and sighed, yet there was no breeze. The tree was
moving,
of its own volition. And in its branches glittered miniature human-shaped creatures of every color, gold and blue and violet, their wings droning.

For a moment, Gemma could only marvel at the tree, at
the beings within it. What would Catullus think of such wonders?

Oh, God. Catullus.

Gemma shot to her feet, ignoring her dizziness, and looked around frantically. She was in some kind of forest, whose boundaries seemed to stretch on, infinite. Dark green shadows unfolded everywhere. The forest pulsed with life. But, to the massive flowers and silver streams tumbling down gemstones, she paid no attention. She needed to find Catullus. Now.

He had to be nearby. But where?

She clambered out of the hollow at the base of the tree, and stood upon one of its giant roots. She saw nothing, only more and more forest expanding out on every side.

Fear gripped her. Not for herself, but for him. What if those awful little cannibals took him? He could be injured, could be lost. Of course, she had no idea where
she
was, but maybe he’d hit his head when they crossed the boundary, and wandered around, dazed and hurt. If anyone, if any
thing,
so much as harmed a single whisker of his beard, she’d tear them into mattress stuffing.

She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Catullus!” Her voice echoed through the woods, sending a flock of … something … bursting from the trees and into the golden air. “Catullus!”

A very human-sounding groan came from someplace to her right. Heart knocking, she jumped down from the roots and scrambled over grassy hillocks and through a rivulet, toward the source of the groan.

There. In a small clearing. Catullus lay sprawled on his back, his arms flung out. Close by lay his shotgun. His eyes were closed. She ran toward him.

Gemma fell to her knees beside him, and exhaled only when she saw his own chest rising and falling. Gently, so gently, she plucked off his spectacles, set them aside, then touched her shaking fingers to his face.

“Catullus?”

His eyes blinked open. They seemed clear, but this did not quite ease her fear. Carefully, she ran her fingers along his head, searching for any cuts. He winced slightly when she touched a growing bump on the back of his head.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “So sorry.” But no blood dampened her fingers, so she was grateful for that. “Are you … all right? Can you move your fingers and toes?”

Gingerly, he did both. That, at least, was a relief.

“Can you speak?”

He rasped, “We’re forever making leaps, you and I.” A laugh, slightly frayed, burst from her. “As long as you’re beside me, I don’t mind the jump.” He smiled at that.

“Jumping later,” she said. “Let’s try sitting up now.”

At his nod, she slipped her hands beneath him and helped him to sitting. He was bigger, and heavier, than her, and she served mostly as guidance rather than actually lifting him up. All she truly wanted to do was touch him, assure herself that he wasn’t badly hurt. Lightly, he touched the bruise on the back of his head, grimacing, then glanced over at her, concern in his eyes.

“And you? Are you hurt?”

She shook her head. “Chased off some kind of pixies or elves or something that wanted to have us for supper, but fine.”

His eyebrows raised. “Carnivorous fey. That’s new.”

“All of this “—she waved to the forest around them—” is new.”

He squinted, then muttered, “Damn, I lost my spectacles. My spare pair, too.”

“Here they are.” She handed the spectacles to him.

Catullus rose to his feet, nimble and swift, and helped her to stand. Their hands clasped and held as they looked around, taking in the spectacle of the magical forest.

“We did it,” he said, low and amazed. “We traversed the boundary between the mortal and magical worlds.” He
turned to her, admiration in his gaze. “Because of you. You opened the door.”

“But we both called it into being.” Still, she savored his praise, the genuine respect when he looked at her. “And now, here we are.”

The forest stretched on around them, trees of massive size forming overhead canopies of glittering leaves, their trunks netted with twisting vines older than memory. Light from an unseen sun pierced the canopy—yet the light was not merely gold, but shifted into dozens of colors, green and blue and rose. Flowers, wide across as Gemma’s outstretched arms, chimed. Some yards distant—a dozen or a hundred, she could not tell—a waterfall cascaded into an emerald pond, and there drank animals that resembled small gray cats. When the sound of a branch snapping startled the cats, they all dissolved into a vaporous mist and wafted away.

“We’ve fallen right into a fairy tale,” murmured Gemma. “What I wouldn’t give for a microscope,” Catullus breathed.

“Can’t quantify or analyze everything.” She stared up as a slim creature of indeterminate gender and lavender skin sailed by on a dandelion the size of a parasol. “Including this whole place.” She smiled. “Wouldn’t my granda love to see this? All his old stories come true.”

Catullus bent to study flowers that looked like oversized cowslips. He started when an entirely naked, golden-fleshed girl popped out suddenly from one of the yellow blossoms. She angrily jabbered at Catullus before disappearing in a puff of floral-scented dust.

“Cannibal elves, rude cowslip fairies.” He shook his head. “An appalling lack of manners in Otherworld.”

“That’ll be our contribution to this place. Etiquette lessons.” She hardly believed that what she saw—this immense forest and all the beings that dwelled within it—could be real, and yet she knew it was. As much as Catullus longed
for a microscope, she wanted to sit with her notebook and write down everything she observed, every texture she felt and sound she heard. Yet that, too, felt wrong, as though attempting to capture something that would wither and die once confined in immobile words.

At the least, she was here now, experiencing it with Catullus. She loved to see the wonderment on his face as he beheld Otherworld as much, if not more than, seeing the place itself.

“I could spend years exploring here,” she said.

“An eternity,” he agreed; then a shadow fell over him. “Yet we haven’t that kind of time. Arthur’s on his way to London as we speak. We need to find Merlin, and quickly.”

Staring at the seemingly limitless forest, Gemma said, “Find him? We can’t even find ourselves.”

He drew his Compass from one of his pockets and looked down at its face, frowning. The needle spun, first in one direction, then another, never still. “One thing we did
not
take into account was navigating Otherworld. This will do us no good here.” He shut the lid with a decisive snap and slipped it back into a pocket.

“Maybe we can ask directions,” Gemma said, only partly joking. She figured that the native populace would either try and devour her and Catullus, or else lead them into some perilous swamp full of man-eating boggarts.

But, ridiculous as she thought her suggestion, Catullus actually looked as though he was considering it.

“Only teasing,” she said quickly. “I don’t want us to wind up trapped in some faerie equivalent of the zoo. These creatures here don’t seem particularly welcoming or friendly.”

“Not to strangers, no. Yet there may be one who might be willing to help.”

“But we’d have to find them first, which, in this place, could take decades.”

“There possibly could be another way to reach him.” He patted down his pockets, searching for something.

“Him? Who?”

“Ah, this will do.” In his broad hand he gripped a flask.

“After everything we’ve been through today, a drink sounds damned good.” She reached for the flask, but he held it away from her.

“Not for us,” he said with a wry smile. Unscrewing the cap, he added, “A little inducement for our friend.”

The aroma of fine Scotch whiskey made Gemma’s mouth water. “Couldn’t we have a sip, ourselves?”

“Don’t think Bryn would appreciate getting someone’s leftovers.” He poured some whiskey into the cap and held it out. “Bryn! Bryn Enfys!” Two more times, Catullus called the name into the woods.

“Faerie must have good hearing,” Gemma mused.

“Names are powerful things. Especially when summoning.”

“And especially when twenty-year whiskey is being offered,” added a small voice behind Gemma.

She spun around to face a man, no bigger than her hand, hovering in midair. He wore a miniature frock coat and knee breeches, the kind worn by country folk in the last century. A pair of dragonfly wings sprouted from his back, keeping him aloft. In lieu of a shirt, a bib of leaves covered his chest, and a wee tall hat perched atop his head. His oak-brown eyes glinted at her with a mixture of amusement and curiosity.

“Have you brought me a lass, too, Catullus?” the little man asked. “It can get powerful lonely in Otherworld, and I’ve gone too many centuries without a wife.”

Gemma opened her mouth to protest, but Catullus spoke before she did. “The whiskey’s yours, Bryn.” He held out the flask’s cap, but wrapped one protective arm around Gemma’s shoulders. “The woman is mine.”

She bristled to be spoken of like a disputed hound bitch ready for breeding. “The woman belongs to herself,” she said.

The little man chuckled, the sound like water lapping at
the sides of a boat. “Fire and cream, just like the goblins said.” He reached for the cap of whiskey, which Catullus handed to him. In one gulp, Bryn downed the cap’s contents, and wordlessly held it out for a refill. Catullus topped off the cap three more times before the pixie spoke again.

“In all my years knowing the Blades,” he piped, “not a one has ever come across.” Bryn fixed them with a pointed look. “’Tis a dangerous and bold undertaking, Catullus. Few mortals who make the journey ever come back. Why, in the Grey People’s court, there are dozens and dozens of mortals held in thrall, serving their Faerie Queen. Some have been there since the reign of your King James.”

Gemma fought down the swell of fear that she and Catullus might get trapped in this other world. Beautiful and fascinating it might be, but her home was not here.

“Only the most dire of circumstances has brought us to Otherworld,” Catullus said.

Bryn nodded as he held out the cap for another drink. “It’s the talk of Otherworld. The summoning of Arthur. Fey beings crossing back and forth as bold as you please.” He bolted down his drink, then looked skyward with a frown. “All the courts are worried. Seelie. Tylwyth Teg. Tuatha Dé Danann. We are to be enslaved, should the Risen King touch the Primal Source. Our magic would belong to the hard, cold men of Brightworld.”

“That’s why we’ve come,” Gemma said. “To stop that from happening.”

“Two mortals holding back all the magic of Otherworld?” Bryn’s frown deepened. “Can’t be done.”

“There’s one here who can help,” said Catullus. “One who can reach Arthur and keep the worlds apart.”

“Not a creature I do not know in this forest,” Bryn answered. “From the tiniest sprite to the biggest Fomorian.”

“Then you can help us find who it is we’re looking for,” said Gemma.

Bryn doffed his miniature hat and scratched his head. “Mayhap.”

“His name is Merlin,” said Catullus.

The pixie only shrugged. “Names are not often given. Or, if they are, they’re false names.”

“Why?” asked Gemma.

“To know someone’s true name gives you power over them.” Bryn smiled, but it was a feral little grin, and not particularly friendly. “And now I know the name of who you seek, whoever this Merlin may be.”

“He is a sorcerer of great power,” said Catullus. “Or he once had power and hasn’t it any longer.”

“You just described near half of the sorcerers wandering around here.”

Catullus strongly hoped they didn’t meet one of these roving enchanters. Doubtless they were mercurial creatures, and Catullus had no desire to be turned into a bespectacled toadstool should he inadvertently cross one of these sorcerers. “This one is special.”

“They all say that.” Bryn snickered.

“This sorcerer truly is,” Gemma insisted.

“And he wouldn’t be doing any wandering,” Catullus added. “Given that he’s trapped within an oak tree.”

The pixie grew alarmed. “You mean the Man in the Oak!”

Catullus and Gemma shared another glance, the thrill of discovery.

“That’s the one,” said Gemma. “Can you take us to him?”

“Oh, no.” Bryn’s wings fluttered in agitation, and his tiny face paled. “No, no, no. I’ll not go near him.”

“Why ever not?” Catullus demanded.

Bryn looked appalled at the idea of seeking out Merlin. “Because I want to keep my wings, that’s why!” He lowered his voice to a piping whisper. “The Man in the Oak is mad. He was mad when he came to Otherworld, and he’s grown
even more mad since he’s been trapped in the tree. He plucks the wings from pixies for sport. He turns fey into slugs and takes their tongues.”

The more he spoke, the more distressed Bryn became, until he quivered in fear.

“We’ll protect you.” Catullus tried to soothe the pixie. This only made Bryn more upset.

“You can’t! You’re only two mortals with just a scrap of magic between you! I’ll lose my wings, and you two will be turned into beetles. No. No, no, no!”

Sending them one final glare, Bryn flew away as fast as his wings could carry him.

Gemma and Catullus stood by themselves in the middle of the huge forest. They turned in slow circles, gazing at the seemingly endless woods.

The enormity of their situation hit them at the same time. Otherworld stretched all around them, an infinite place neither of them knew. The task of locating one sorcerer within this vast world felt almost impossible.