A dead-head, when used the way Rhoswen meant it, referred to someone who had no Power or magic ability whatsoever. It did not refer to a Grateful Dead fan. If Rhoswen didn’t have much magical ability, then she didn’t have many magical defenses. Rune shook his head. “Right. Well, magic is spilling out of that room, just like sunlight, and I’m not inclined to trust any of it. I want you to stay here.”
The Vampyre’s chin firmed. “Carling might need me.”
He refrained from rolling his eyes. It wasn’t his responsibility if Rhoswen chose to risk her life, and who knew, maybe she was right and Carling would need her. He said, “Fine, but I’m going in first.”
Rhoswen stayed behind him as he stepped into the doorway, into both magic and light. The soles of his boots landed on something shifting and pliable. He looked down. That looked like sand. It felt like sand.
If it walked, talked and quacked like a duck, if it tasted like a duck when he caught and ate it . . .
He took another step, and another. The barest outline of a shadowed room surrounded him. Superimposed upon the room was a brighter, hotter reality. He looked up and squinted into a pale blue, cloudless sky that held a burning yellow-white sun.
“Sentinel?” Rhoswen called him again. This time she sounded panicked. “Rune! You’re fading.”
He could just see her. She was a pale, insubstantial ghost-like sketch, as was the rest of the room. He called back, “I’m here. Can you hear me?”
“Barely,” she shouted. She sounded far away. “You’re disappearing right in front of me. What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” he shouted back. “I’m going to look around and see what I can find out. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“I’d much rather you didn’t,” she called. “I would like for you to come back now, please.”
But the mystery that lay spread out all around him was too compelling to ignore. Ahead of him was desert, and greenery, and the blinding glint of sunshine on distant water. Behind him was Rhoswen, the doorway and the island.
Son of a bitch, this kinda felt like a crossover to an Other land. Crossovers were the dimensional passageways that lay between Earth and Other lands. They had been formed when the Earth had been formed, when time and space had buckled. Crossover passageways followed physical faults in the landscape. The crossover passage that led to the island was part of a fissure at the ocean’s bed. He had never before heard of one existing in a manmade structure, such as in a second-story bedroom in a house.
But this also felt different somehow than a normal crossover. He fumbled for a way to describe it to himself, to understand what he was sensing. It felt . . . bent, as if it turned a corner that other crossover passages didn’t. And if this was a crossover point, why didn’t Rhoswen sense it and cross over as well? Was it because of her lack of Power? Carling had a hell of a lot of Power. He would have thought she would have noticed by now if there was a dimensional passageway in the middle of her bedroom and considered it worthy of some mention. If it was a crossover passage, where did it cross over to? Or was he caught in some kind of elaborate illusion?
And where, in all of this mystery, was Carling?
He rubbed the back of his neck. He had always thought he was more of a Cheshire Cat than an Alice, but this really was curiouser and curiouser.
There was only one way to try to understand it.
He strode forward, into the full light of a scorching desert day.
At first he heard nothing but the vast, lonely howl of the wind as it sang its eternal song. Then the harsh, wordless cry of a bird sounded overhead. Heat hammered down and sand blasted him in the face. He paused to pick three landmarks to triangulate his position so he could return to this point if it really was a crossover passageway and the area ended up being his only route back to the house.
He put at his twelve o’clock a sere, squat bluff that rose above the rest of the landscape. That put the silvery glimmer of water at ten o’clock, a little too close to the bluff for the best triangulation, but it would have to do. He looked over his right shoulder, and saw nothing but desert dunes. He picked the tallest dune, at five o’clock. The dune would be useless for long-term navigation, of course, since the wind and the dunes would shift over time, but hopefully it would do for his purposes. He didn’t plan on staying . . . wherever here was . . . for very long.
Then like discarding a suit of clothes, he let his human facade fall away as he shifted into his Wyr form. He stretched massive wings out and crouched, his lion’s tail lashing, and he leaped into the air to fly through the brutal heat toward the bluff. Usually when he flew in an urban area, he cloaked himself to avoid complications with air traffic control systems, but this scene looked rural enough that he didn’t bother.
His flight gave him a bird’s-eye view of the land. The watery shimmer became a great, winding river bordered on either side with lush green vegetation and gold fields of grain that came to an abrupt end at a bordering desert.
Realization battered him. Hells bells. Unless he was very badly mistaken, that had to be the Nile. He had flown the length of the Nile several times in years gone past. He had seen it in all three stages of its ancient flood cycle, before the Aswan Dam in 1970 brought all seasonal flooding to an end. With the fields ripe with rich barley and wheat, this looked like Shemu, the Season of the Harvest, which fell roughly between the months of what would be May and September on a modern calendar.
He banked and flew in a wide circle as he scoured the landscape. With his eagle-sharp eyes, he could see for miles.
He saw no power lines, no satellite dishes, no motored boats on the river, no vehicles, nor any paved or gravel roads. No modern irrigation techniques or machinery. No plumes of smoke from distant refineries. No airplanes.
Simple dwellings made of mud-baked bricks dotted the riverbanks. A plume of dust rose from a group of brown-skinned men traveling on horseback along the western bank. They were over a mile away. From what Rune could see, they wore shentis, or loincloths, and were armed with copper-headed spears and wooden shields.
Okay, he was still looking for something to make sense here.
He inclined his eagle’s head to study the land below him.
He saw a tiny upright figure, staring directly up at him with eyes shaded, about five hundred yards away from a cluster of eight buildings. A bundle of grain and a knife lay on the ground at the figure’s feet.
And here he was with no Rand McNally atlas or GPS system. Not only did Rune like chick flicks and women’s fashions, but he also knew how to stop and ask for directions when he was lost. Plus he was secure in his masculinity. He might be one of the world’s only four gryphons, but he figured if you added those qualities up with all the rest, it made him unique as all shit.
Keeping the figure in sight, he slowed into a spiraling descent.
It was either a child or a small adult. Well okay, if he suspended all disbelief and just went on empirical evidence (which was patently impossible, but he was really trying to go with the flow here), any adults he might encounter would also be small, at least smaller than those in the twenty-first century.
The figure wore a shenti as well, and nothing else. The grubby scrap of cloth was wrapped around narrow hips. Child or adult, every line in the figure’s posture shouted amazement, but at least it wasn’t running away in a panic. So far, so good.
Rune shapeshifted as he landed about twenty yards away. He paused to give the other figure time to react. He was betting it was a female child. She appeared frozen in shock. Her skin was darkened from the sun into a rich nut brown. She had a light delicate bone structure, dirty feet, and a small rounded belly under a narrow rib cage.