The Fabric Of Reality (3 page)

Brilliant.

***

Mr. Smith sat in a chair on the front porch of his cottage, watching the young women working in his field. Alesia waved to him as she headed out to join them. He threw up a bony, feeble arm and motioned for her to come to him. She hadn’t expected to see him outside.

He must be feeling better.

He grinned broadly as she approached. “Well, young lady, I didn’t think I’d see you today.”

Alesia curtsied. “You look much better. Mrs. Smith’s treatments must be helping.”

“Yep. Her herbal potions taste so bad I had to get better so she’d quit making me drink them. What are you doing here? I thought you’d be off making wedding preparations.”

She sighed and pressed her eyes closed for a moment. “I thought I’d...” She clasped one hand over her face and motioned to the field with the other. “Has Baron Volga already told everyone in the village?” Alesia drew a sharp breath and dropped her hands to her side, determined not to cry in front of the old man.

Mr. Smith shook his head and sat up straight. “The baron? What about your young man,
um,
Marco? You’ve told me so much about him I thought for sure he’d pick you at the ball.”

She turned her gaze to the ground, unable to look Mr. Smith in the eye any longer. Regardless of her determination, a tear trickled down her cheek. “Marco chose to court Miranda Tillman.”

Mr. Smith slapped his palm on his thigh. “Well, that boy is a damn fool. He’ll have his hands full with her. Lazy as the day is long, and a spoiled rotten brat to boot.”

Alesia stepped closer to Mr. Smith’s cottage and grasped the porch railing to steady herself. “Miranda’s mother had four sons, so you can see Marco’s incentive.”

Mr. Smith caught his head with his hands and raked his fingers through his thin white hair. “I still say he made a mistake. She’ll cost him more in the long run than you ever would, and I don’t mean wealth. Life is about happiness. You have to choose the person who can share that with you and help it grow. It’s a damn shame about the baron. You’re such a good girl. You deserve so much better than him.”

“Women aren’t given many choices in this life.”

His eyes began to glisten. “Oh, honey, that breaks my heart. If I wasn’t so old, I’d get my sword and go put that bastard in the ground.”

Alesia shook her head, still unable to meet his gaze. “I couldn’t let you do that. There’s no sense worrying over me. I’ll be just fine. I’m going around back to say hello to Blue. I have an apple core for him.” She pulled the apple core from her apron, held it up where he could see, and forced a smile.

Mr. Smith nodded. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate that.”

She waved good-bye to Mr. Smith and headed to the back.

Don’t settle for what this life offers you. Go out and get what you want. That’s what I told Bonnie. I said I’d make my own destiny. That’s what I have to do.

Just beyond the barn lay the perimeter wall that surrounded the village. It was the only real obstacle standing between Alesia and her freedom. Now that the baron had made a down payment for her, the guards wouldn’t let her leave through the gate. Behind the Smith’s barn, an oak tree with low-hanging limbs grew close to the perimeter wall. Some of its branches extended over to the outside. She could easily climb it, scoot across a branch, and drop down on top of the wall, but getting down would require a rope. She had an idea where to get one.

She couldn’t bolt straight for the wall; the girls working the field would be bound to see her, but she couldn’t wait until nightfall either because if she didn’t keep her appointment with the baron, the whole village would be searching for her.

There were also forest creatures to consider, the ones the wall had been constructed to keep out. Traveling through the forest in a group with armed escorts was relatively safe, but a person alone and unarmed was a different story altogether. No matter. While not desirable, being eaten by an animal was still preferable to marrying the baron.

Alesia gave the apple core to the horse, then slipped inside the barn. An array of tools hung neatly in a row along one wall, with a rope on a hook at the end. An oil lamp, with a small canvas bag containing two flint stones tied to it, dangled just beside the rope. She found a broken shovel handle leaning in the corner that would be handy as a weapon and an empty feed sack. She put the lamp inside the sack, wrapped it tightly, and used her apron to tie the bundle together.

Alesia didn’t know what the items she was taking were worth. Mrs. Smith had mentioned that she fancied Alesia’s bonnet. Her hand mirror was practical and possibly valuable. She removed her bonnet, hung it from the hook, and placed the mirror inside, hoping the Smiths would consider it a fair trade.

One plank on the back of the barn was loose. Alesia pushed it out far enough to slip through. She peeked around the edge, looking toward the field. All of the girls were working hard, pulling weeds and facing away from her. With a bit of luck, no one would turn around. She hooked her arm through a loop in the apron cord so she could carry the lamp and still have use of her hands. Two more minutes and no one would ever see her again. She took one last glance at the field workers, making sure no one was looking, then hurried toward the tree. It only took a moment to climb the oak and shimmy out to the wall. She tossed the shovel handle to the ground, tied off the rope, and rappelled down to freedom.

Alesia dropped onto the ground, grabbed the shovel handle, and ran quickly into the forest. She ducked and weaved to avoid low-hanging branches, being careful not to damage the oil lamp swaddled inside the feed sack. An occasional branch slapped her face as she ran, but she had to get far from the village as quickly as possible before anyone noticed she was missing.

Laughter welled up from deep inside and burst forth into the wilderness. In a few short hours, she’d be well beyond the baron’s grasp and would never have to concern herself with him again. Mr. Smith probably wouldn’t bother looking for her when she didn’t come back from feeding the horse. He’d most likely assume that she had gone on her way without saying good-bye. No one would know she was missing until evening, and they wouldn’t venture into the forest after dark. Her life was her own now to live as she pleased.

Something was waiting for her at the fortress on the hill. Even as that thought occurred to her, an odd sense of loss began to grow inside her. Alesia’s destiny lay ahead, but a nagging sensation that she was leaving something behind kept urging her to go back.

***

The sun began its slow descent toward the horizon, and Alesia’s abundance of energy rapidly drained away. Sprinting through the forest proved far more tiresome than she would have thought. The gentle incline of the landscape didn’t feel so gentle to her aching legs. They refused to run any longer. She settled for walking and watched the sun slip closer to the ground with every step. Only occasional glimpses of the castle were visible through the canopy of the forest, but as long as she kept heading uphill, she knew she was going the right direction.

Marco had looked so dashing in his dress uniform the night before that she had nearly melted when he entered the ballroom. Thoughts of him taking her into his arms and dancing the night away had filled her mind leading up to the selection ball. She had impatiently awaited her twenty-first birthday when she’d be old enough to attend. He had all but told her that he planned to ask for her hand on that magical night. When the moment had finally come, she stood hand outstretched waiting for him, but he passed her by, grasped Miranda Tillman’s gloved hand, and kissed her knuckles.

The world began to drop from beneath Alesia’s feet the way it had at that terrible moment the night before. She found herself flat on the ground, staring into a deep ravine. A narrow, fast-moving brook flowed along the bottom, which served to heighten her awareness of the dryness in her throat. The bank was too steep to safely reach the water, so she followed it until she found a spot to climb down without worry of slipping. The water was pure and refreshing and chilled her throat going down. She splashed her hot face, reveling in the relief provided by the cold mountain stream.

As the last remnants of twilight faded away and night blanketed the forest, stillness and silence befell her. Something was missing. Something she hadn’t even noticed until it was gone. It was like the mellow thrumming of the village orchestra had been coming from off in the distance and suddenly stopped. The vibrations that had ceased left her skin tingling. She rubbed her arms, trying to soothe away the sensation.
Nothing is different. There was no silent music. I’m letting my imagination play tricks on me. It’s just cold chills, that’s all.

Alesia made the decision to push on, even as her resolve to continue began to wane. The idea of marching through the forest in search of a man from her dreams was silly at best. He had been a presence in her mind for so long that she had convinced herself he was real. But in the loneliness of the night, far from the familiar surroundings of her village, the truth had begun to reveal itself. She had, most likely, driven herself mad with years of worrying about her inevitable fate.

Still, the thought of sleeping on the ground with the rats and spiders and snakes had no appeal, and going home wasn’t an option. She extracted the oil lamp from the feed sack and used the two flint stones to light it. The sun had been her companion in the forest, lighting her way, warming her face with its rays and giving her the confidence to travel where so few others ever dared, but now it totally abandoned her. She hugged herself and shuddered as a breeze chilled her through the thin fabric of her dress. The broken shovel handle gave her some sense of security. So far she hadn’t seen anything larger than a squirrel, but she knew wolves and mountain lions frequented the area. She had seen them occasionally through the years, though never up close.

There were numerous vicious, carnivorous creatures that hunters told of fending off during their outings. Most of them were said to have an insatiable thirst for human blood. So many stories were spun throughout the village that no one ever knew what was true and what was myth. There were some ancient documents that described monstrous beasts created by genetic manipulation during the Great War, but no one had found convincing evidence that any survived the mass annihilation that brought the war to an end.

The lamp’s feeble light did little to help her see. It cast long shadows from the trees and gave her surroundings an eerie glow. The only things visible to her lay within her tiny circle of light. What manner of terrors lurked just beyond, heaven only knew. The shadows took on sinister shapes, conjuring images of bloodthirsty creatures. Her mind ran wild imagining the things that could be following her, just out of sight. The lamp was a beacon that would allow all the horrible monsters in the forest to find her, but she couldn’t travel the unknown terrain without light. She gripped the shovel handle tightly, readying herself to use it on anything that approached.

As the full moon broke through the trees, a wolf howled in the distance. Every step on the ground produced a crunch that echoed, amplified by the stillness of the night. Another set of footsteps seemed to come from behind her, but every time she stopped she heard nothing. Things scurried across the ground just out of sight, further unnerving her.

Each time she questioned her decision to come into the forest, she had only to think of Baron Volga and the things he would do to her on their wedding night to shore up her resolve. Her stomach turned from the memory of the baron touching places on her body that no man had ever touched.

Now that she had time to contemplate its meaning, Marco’s betrayal stung even more severely than it had at the ball. Marco had convinced her that she could be loved. His callous lie devastated her heart. Standing in the council chambers, she had felt her dream hero calling to her as surely as she could feel the heart beating in her chest. Her last hope of happiness had been the man in the castle atop the hill. With every step that took her farther from the village his subtle, but ever-present beckoning had diminished until the notion that he was there waiting for her faded completely away. It made no sense that he could touch her mind so clearly from such a great distance. Drawing nearer to him should have strengthened his presence. For the first time she truly realized how ridiculous she had been for believing in her fantasy. The reality that she was utterly alone in the world and would be until the moment she died, finally hit her.

Bitter tears welled up from deep inside. Alesia collapsed to her knees and sobbed for a moment but quickly fought back her sorrow, determined not to cry for the loss of a man who obviously never loved her or for one who never existed.

Chapter Three

Gil sat at his workstation, tapping his keyboard.

Day 392, Gil Thorn’s technical log. The Barrier Emitter Nodes are failing at an alarming rate. The United World Brotherhood has apparently stumbled upon a weapon setting that taxes the Barrier beyond its limits to cope. All I can do to keep it up is replace the damaged parts as quickly as possible. With no one left to assist me, I cannot devise an upgrade to stave off this new threat. I can barely stay ahead of the failing components. Given the current rate of failure, I estimate the Barrier will last seven days at the outside.

My latest attempt to establish communications with my colleagues has yielded negative results. All of the Alternate-Reality Doorways are permanently locked and have begun to dissipate. I am at a loss to explain why the junction point has not collapsed completely. Our initial assumptions about the nature of this structure may have been incorrect. Something is holding the junction point together, but I cannot locate anything in this Reality that is responsible.

The Window to the second site went undetectable this morning with no prior warning. It was stable and behaving normally one second and gone the next. On a positive note, the Window to the third site has been returning anomalous readings and growing in strength. I can only speculate that the fabric of that Reality is somehow moving closer to this one. If the two Realities come in contact, a new Doorway may form, thus providing me with a means of escape.