The Carnelian Legacy (4 page)

Marisa closed her eyes and paused for a moment, forcing herself to consider the possibilities. It could be some sort of weird, vivid dream. It felt too real to be a dream, though. Perhaps she had somehow ingested poisonous mushrooms in the woods and it was all just a hallucination. But she was too aware of her surroundings. She felt too alert to be hallucinating. And she would have remembered eating mushrooms.

Am I dead?

Darian stopped in front of a building with a curved metal lantern above the door and a weathered wooden sign with strange writing on it. She dismounted and tied Siena’s reins around a pole as Darian opened the door and motioned for her to enter.

Inside the dimly lit reception hall, glass bottles of every shape, size, and color filled the shelves lining the walls. A small fire glowed in the fireplace and the air smelled of smoked hickory and old wine. Several male travelers rested in sturdy wooden furniture with their drinks and pipes—all of them staring at Marisa’s strange attire.

They hadn’t been inside for more than a minute when an old woman wearing a long skirt, dark apron, and white cap approached them. Darian bowed politely and gestured toward Marisa as he handed the woman two copper coins.

She grabbed two spiral-shaped keys from a row of hooks behind the counter and handed them to Darian before disappearing into the back. A moment later, she returned and handed Marisa a neat stack of clothes.

“Thank you—”

“Aur smyden,”
Arrie interrupted, bowing deeply.

The old woman eyed Marisa with a startled expression as each grungy traveler in the darkened room watched the scene with interest. The old woman waved them off and returned to her post behind the desk.

“Perhaps it would be wise to let me speak on your behalf from now on,” Arrie whispered. He motioned toward the back. “Are you thirsty? Let’s have something to drink and discuss this calmly, shall we?”

“Yeah, okay, sure. A drink. Why not?”

Darian led them into a large room beyond the lobby with wooden tables and chairs and an ancient-looking bar.

Noticing they were the only ones in the room, Marisa quickly turned to Arrie. “Okay, maybe you can explain now what the heck in going on. I thought you said back there that I was no longer on Earth. You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m afraid not. You are in Carnelia,” Arrie said.

“Right. Where exactly is that again?”

He smiled. “You speak English, so obviously you are from Earth, which lies in a different dimension from ours. Judging from your accent, I’d wager that you’re from somewhere along the West Coast of the United States, perhaps Canada.”

Her eyes narrowed at his. “If I really am in some other world, how is it that you know about Earth and can speak English?”

“You are, in fact, still on the same planet and physical space but in another dimension. Obviously, you’ve traveled through a vortex.”

“
What!
Are you sayin’ that I’ve traveled back in
time
?”

“Shhh! Please keep your voice down. We don’t wish to draw any unwanted attention,” Arrie whispered.

“Oh, right, right, I forgot,” she said.

“No. Time travel is something entirely different. You are one of the few people to have traveled through a vortex from one dimension to another...”

Arrie broke off as a woman brought three tankards of a strange drink, plunked them down on the table, and hurried off. Darian quietly took a sip.

“What is it?” she asked, pointing to her mug.

“It’s ale. Go ahead and try it.”

“No thanks.” She pushed it away. “What’s a vortex?”

“Let’s see, how do I explain this?” Arrie tapped his finger on the table. “Did you see three separate flashes of lightning? But without the thunder?”

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “Most definitely a vortex. You can imagine it as an invisible tube or funnel, shaped like a tornado, but you can’t see it until just before it’s about to open. Animals won’t go near them. They sense them better than we humans do.”

“And that’s why Siena freaked out?”

“Indeed,” he said, taking another sip.

“So that’s how I got here? Through a vortex?”

“That is correct.”

“Can you hold on for a sec?”

“Certainly.”

Marisa pushed herself away from the table, stumbled outside, and quickly glanced around the bustling main street. With no idea where she was going, she headed down a narrow alley. She spotted an octagonal-shaped rain barrel against the wall and hurried over. She inhaled a deep breath and dunked her head under.

She gasped from the shock of the icy water and collapsed on the ground. A few bewildered passers-by stopped to stare. Coughing, sputtering, and finally convinced she wasn’t dreaming, she ran a hand through her wet hair and glanced around.

“Where am I?” she shouted.

“Marisa, what are you doing back here?” Arrie said, hurrying over. He removed his tunic and threw it around her shoulders.

“I—I...” she began, her teeth chattered.

“Are you trying to make yourself sick? Come back inside.” He guided her shuddering frame back up the alley toward the main road.

She ran her hand along the rough-hewn stones in the wall. As she felt their roughness, she forced herself to accept the truth of her new reality.

“Arrie, am I dead?”

He shook his head and smiled. “You’ve had quite a shock, milady. It would be best if you rested for a while.”

They stepped back into the dimly lit reception area. The lounging travelers stared at them as they clutched their tankards, frozen in the same positions as when she’d left.

Darian pointed silently toward the stairs. She followed him up a narrow staircase and to the end of a dark corridor where he stopped to unlock a door.

The guest chamber was small but quaint. A single, octagonal window overlooked the busy main road. Darian opened it and fresh air drifted into the room along with the sounds of people, horses, and wagons. Marisa peered out across the valley up to the mountains from where they’d come, still trying to figure out where she was.

Arrie coaxed her into the chair as he leaned over to examine her temple.

“It’s just a small gash which should heal fairly quickly. Nothing to worry about,” he said with a smile. “Will you be all right here by yourself?”

“I guess so,” she managed.

He patted her hand. “Stay here and rest for a while. We’ll be back to fetch you for supper a little later. The proprietor was kind enough to find some clean clothes for you. Rest well, milady.”

Arrie followed Darian out into the hall and shut her door.

Marisa studied the strange, dark green walls of her room. Where was this Carnelia, anyway? She stared at the pile of clothes on the bed. What had she gotten into this time? What would her uncle think when she didn’t return after her ride?

Her head was pounding, and the blood pulsed through her neck. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to calm down. Then she remembered the bottle of aspirin in her satchel and removed a little white pill. She found a crude water pump in the bathroom and pumped it up and down, collecting just enough water to wash it down.

As she glanced up into the mirror, Marisa was startled by her pale, grimy reflection. There was a streak of dried blood on the side of her face, and her hair was disheveled.

She grabbed a small linen towel and moistened it to scrub the blood and dirt off. A tear ran down her cheek and then another. Unable to stop the flow, she threw the towel in the sink and collapsed onto the bed. Was it really only just this morning that they had buried her father?

She sobbed into her pillow and a wave of exhaustion consumed her. Her body, mind, and spirit had all been stretched past their breaking point.

CHAPTER 3

ANDRESIS

MARISA
AWOKE
TO
THE
sounds of soft flute music drifting up from below. The fact that she was no longer in Oregon came flooding back like a tsunami. She stood to look out the window.

The soft glow of street lanterns pierced the darkness. The street was still busy below, but all the shops had been closed. She peered up into the hills where they’d emerged from the forest and wondered what Mark and Uncle Al were doing. They were probably worried sick about her by now.

Marisa shut the window and spotted the pile of clothes still folded neatly at the foot of the bed. The two men would be returning for her soon and she needed to get dressed. She slipped into the corset-like underwear and pulled on the long-sleeved shirt. It felt odd until she realized it was on backwards. The dress was a scintillating shade of deep ocean blue, with a rich, royal feel to it, like thick velvet. When she tightened it around her waist by pulling on the drawstrings, she noticed how it flattered her figure.

A loud knock at the door startled her. It was Arrie.

“How are you feeling, milady?”

“Honestly? I feel as if I’ve just been hit by a Mack truck.”

“Trust me, that’s a perfectly normal reaction,” he chuckled.

She followed him down the stairs and through several other rooms before they entered a noisy, crowded dining hall.

The beamed ceiling was nearly fifty feet high. Gigantic wrought-iron chandeliers hung down and emitted a warm glow. A large stone fireplace created a welcoming, cozy atmosphere in spite of the enormous size of the room.

Marisa gasped when she spotted several trophy heads of a hideous, apelike wolf hanging along the walls. Each of the heads varied in size, but they all had the same sharp teeth and menacing yellow eyes. She hoped never to see one alive.

Arrie motioned toward a table in the far corner of the room where Darian chatted with a pretty young woman. The woman set a jug down on the table and when he said something to her, she smiled shyly at him.

As Arrie and Marisa sat, the woman quickly curtseyed and left to attend another table. Darian poured the ale into three large mugs and handed both of them one before raising his own.

“
Ap eirie,”
Darian said.

“
Ap eirie,”
Arrie said. “It means ‘here’s to fulfilling your destiny.”

“Cheers.”

Marisa was finally able to get a closer look at the handsome young ambassador as he sat across the table from her. At least six feet six, he had to have been one of the tallest men she had ever seen. She quietly admired the way his armored uniform emphasized his athletic physique.

He grasped the tankard with a strong hand and raised it to his lips. His square features were softened by the candlelight, but his countenance remained suspicious of her. His eyes intrigued her as they shifted nervously between staring into his cup, roaming around the room, and gazing directly at her.

“You seem to be in shock, milady. Are you well?” Arrie asked.

Marisa blushed. “No—I’m not. In fact, I think I may be going crazy,” she said. “How can I still be on the same planet but in a different dimension?”

Arrie took his napkin, folded it, and wrapped it around his tankard to demonstrate. “Think of it as many layers of cloth compressed tightly around a planet. The fabric is made up of hundreds of threads running parallel and perpendicular to each other. Each strand is distinct and separate from the others, yet they are all weaved together.

“If you were able to look down closely on those threads, you’d see that they lightly touch each other in certain places. Where they meet, they are compressed—overlapping slightly and essentially occupying the same space. Are you still with me?”

“Barely.”

“The thread or strand you are living on is one dimension, and we are on another. The vortex is the physical location in space and time where both worlds meet and overlap. You slipped through that vortex from your world into ours.”

“So according to your explanation, it’s possible for two different worlds to coexist in the same space at the same time?”

Arrie’s face brightened. “Not just two worlds—but
many
. You can’t see the other dimensions even though they’re right here, converging through the same space we’re occupying.”

She digested that for a moment. “So right now, there are people in other dimensions all around us?”

“Probably. We are oblivious to them, and they to us, and yet, they exist. Some call them parallel universes, but they aren’t skewed tangents of our own universe. In other words, there aren’t multiple versions of Marisa or Arrie running around out there as scientists in your world like to claim...” Arrie broke off as the woman returned with plates of steaming food.

Marisa was starving. She grabbed her fork and started to dig in but stopped when she noticed the others weren’t eating yet.

“We always give thanks to Garon before a meal,” Arrie said.

“Who’s Garon?”

“He is the author of the universe and of all things.”

She said nothing but set her fork down, bowed her head, and closed her eyes.