The World Ends at Five & Other Stories (2 page)

The grass was tall, thick and heavy with morning
dew. Not being much of an outdoor person, I found tramping through the forest tiring and difficult, the hiking boots
weighing
down
my
feet.
I
also
developed
a headache, which made me wonder if I had allergies.

I was grateful when a little past noon I arrived at
the lake my map identified as
Tuy
. I chose the lakeshore for my breaking point. I pulled out my blanket to sit on and stopped to eat. The surface of the water moved gently, the sun sparking off the tiny waves that bobbed and swayed. Their brightness forced me to squint, and I found it difficult to believe I was really there at all; I kept seeing myself as if from outside my body, this person dangling their bare feet in the cool water. And yet, in this vision of myself, I looked like her.

I awoke with a start. The sun was no longer high overhead; now it danced over the treetops, escaping their embracing limbs, although it wouldn’t be long before they
captured
it,
only
to
have
themselves
burned
for
their
trouble.

I
shook
my
head
to
clear
it.
Where
did
these strange thoughts come from?

I
packed
myself
up
and
headed
out
again.
I wanted to reach
Steorra
before full nightfall. I wanted to see it gleam in the purple twilight; I might never have the chance again.

I did get there before nightfall, but only just. Hiding in a thick stand of trees, I took a few moments to just look at it.
Steorra
, the Star of the Forest.
It seemed to shine in the dark, its white walls radiating some kind of stored-up luminescence.

After a long look, drinking it up as if I’d been dying of thirst for the sight of it, I decided I’d better get moving. I opened my backpack and swiftly changed my clothes. But when it came time for the necklace, I froze.

It sat at the bottom of my backpack, still wrapped in the padded envelope in which it had arrived. I could see the silver chain glinting faintly where it had escaped the package, in what light I couldn’t tell. After a moment of staring, I realized that it was glowing in the light of the necklace’s blue stone, which was shining inside the envelope that concealed it.

“I can’t put this on,” I whispered aloud. “They’ll see me coming.”

If I expected
a response, I was disappointed.

A low hissing sound from the bottom of my pack caught my attention. The padded envelope began to smolder, the smell of the burning plastic bubble wrap causing me to gag.
Now the blue stone shone without obstruction, as its wrappings burned away.

When my bag started to burn, I knew I had no other
choice. I snatched up the necklace. The minute it touched my hand, it ceased to glow.

I heaved a sigh of relief and clasped the silver-ensconced jewel around my neck. I waited a moment to see what would happen, but nothing did.

Leaving my pack crammed in the roots of a tree, I started
off
across
the
open
thicket
that
surrounded
Steorra
. I was thankful it was now dark out, although the compound continued to blaz
e softly, like a star fallen to
Earth.

I was amazed at the lack of security. No sentries.
No one to question me.
Even as I came to the gate in the outer wall, there was no one. The place was silent. All around me, the only sound was the hum of crickets and other insects of the night.

Then, as I came forward to test the gate itself, a bright light flashed out at me, like a camera going off. I
blinked rapidly in its wake, and felt my chest burn with a cold heat. The stone was glowing again, and the gate responded by swinging open.

I moved into the inner courtyard. Empty. Was the
whole place abandoned?

I pulled the map from the back pocket of the jeans and ventured into the dark yard. Even with the white walls of
Steorra
gleaming around me, the courtyard remained pitch black. I couldn’t walk quickly if I wanted to keep from tripping. Nor could I read the map in the dark.

I looked up at the central dome of the compound that stood before me. I had the sense that whatever I was looking for would be in there. I made the assumption that there were no obstacles between where I stood in the courtyard
and
the
white
structure
in
front
of
me
and started forward. Two steps later I was face down in water.

“What the—?” I growled, more loudly than I should have done.

From nearby shrubbery came the sound of movement, voices.

“Did you hear something?” a man’s voice asked. “Water, I thought.” Another man.

“The reflecting pool?”

“Probably just some of the fish splashing.”

Fish?
Even
as
I
thought
it,
I
felt
them
moving around my body as I lay on my stomach in the shallow
pool.
One
curious,
scaly
beast
made
soft
attempts
to nibble my hand. It tickled, and I had to stifle a giggle.

A beam of weak light swept over my head, and I
froze.

“What is that?” one of the voices queried. The light
traveled away. I heard them move closer, across the grass. My heart began to race. What would they do to me if they found me here? I stood up, thinking to get out of the water and hide, but the beam of light found me again. It traveled up my body to my face and wavered.

“M-madam
Aerwyth
?” a small and frightened voice asked. There came the sound of something falling into the grass. No, someone. The second guard had fainted.

“Eh?” I said aloud before composing myself once
more. They thought I was
her
? Clearing my throat, I added as regally as I could, “Yes, it is I.”

“But you—” He thought better of what he intended to say and knelt on the grass. “Forgive me; I did not mean to address you so familiarly.”

“It’s okay,” I said without thinking. “Hey, stand up. I
need to borrow your flashlight.”

The guardian hesitated then did as I requested. He stood and handed me his light.

“What’s your name?”

“
Waeyth
.”

“Well,
Waeyth
, I think you should get your friend inside.” I gestured toward the unconscious figure on the
grass
.

I stepped out of the reflecting pool and swept the flashlight’s beam over the dark yard. It proved to be quite a garden, including a maze of low hedges, gravel and cobblestone paths, and statuary, in addition to the reflecting pool. I never would have managed it in the dark, and I was once again amazed at how all of it had seemed not to exist until touched by the light. Even as the beam swept away from this bush and that statue, those things melted into nothingness until the light passed over them once more.

“It’s an illusion of some kind,” I murmured.

“Maybe you need a guardian?”
Waeyth
asked from where he still stood, not having moved from the spot. “Please, Madam, let me serve you!”

“You know,
Waeyth
, you might not be far wrong,” I
told him. “Being dead a few days has made my memory fuzzy. Can you guide me to the, uh, atrium?” I resisted the urge to check my map again. Was the atrium what I was looking for?

“Certainly, Madam! Oh,
ah.
. .” He gestured vaguely
at the flashlight.

“Sorry,” I said and handed it over. He led me swiftly through the maze of paths and shrubbery, his short and stocky body held erect with pride at his important duty.

“Maybe we should have
carried your friend,” I said
after
a
moment,
having
forgotten
the
unconscious guardian.

“Oh,
Borwyn
will be all right,”
Waeyth
assured me. “Won’t he be worr
ied for you when he sees you’re
gone?” I asked.

“Probably not. He’ll probably think he dreamed the whole thing. He tends to,
you
know.
. .”
Waeyth
paused; it was clearly not the kind of thing he might usually tell the Regent.

Finally we arrived at the smooth white wall of
Steorra’s
largest dome.
Its gleaming prompted
Waeyth
to turn off his flashlight.

I looked to my right along the wall. I looked left. I
looked up at the pure white, sloping stone.

“There’s no door,” I said.

There wasn’t a door.
Or a window.
Not even a
drain pipe
.
Or any other viable way to get in.

Waeyth
gave me a strange look. “Well no, Madam. You need special clearance to—to access—well, to get in.” His eyes darted to my necklace to emphasize his meaning.

“Oh, yeah,” I replied faintly. And waited.

“Do you want me to go?”
Waeyth
asked after a moment.

I swallowed hard. What was I doing here?
Some clothes and a map and a moment in the mirror.
And the fact
that these people seemed to
think I
was
Aerwyth
. “Yes,
Waeyth
, I think you can leave me here. Thank you for your help.”

He nodded and shuffled off. I mumbled through some strange words, not sure where they were coming from and getting them wrong twice, until the charmed third try, which resulted in a searing blue-white bolt of lightning striking forth from the stone at my throat and leaving a swirling blue-black hole in the wall of the dome, waiting to suck me inside.

I, on the other hand, backed away.

I thought about her, about the time we’d met. But what could I really say to defend a couple minutes of time that passed twenty years before? A couple minutes that had
changed my
life,
bringing me
to
this,
the
brink
of ruining
it.
. . and countless others’ besides?

I sighed. I’d come this far, and momentum moved me forward.

The sense of being on a roller coaster sang through my stomach, making it drop and my throat rise. For a terrible
moment I thought I’d surely stepped out into nothingness, that I would fall into a void, that I had been tricked. But just as you sometimes feel that way when you accidentally miss a step on a staircase, only to land safely on solid ground,
so
did
I
find
my
feet
supported
by
cold
white
marble.

“Floor’s cold,” I muttered, but even a whisper carried through the chamber, bouncing off the tall columns and rounded walls.
I noticed then that my shoes were gone. And yet somehow I wasn’t surprised. Something in me had known to expect it, had known that shoes weren’t permitted in the atrium.

I
took a
long look around me.
Steorra
, the one place I’d longed all my life to see, and there I stood in its innermost sanctuary. All of it was white marble: the walls, the columns, the floor,
the
high curve of the ceiling. Lights burned up near the top of the dome, their brilliance seeming to soak into the room, causing it to glow. Only one place was dark. The zenith of the dome was open to the night sky. I wondered if it was glassed in or really just open to the air.

But then, I knew the answer to that too, didn’t I? I knew that there was retractable glass in the skylight, and that it was pulled back during rainstorms.

“The rain?” I asked, and wondered a moment afterward whether I’d said it aloud or just in my head.

“To catch it in the well.”

Was I talking to myself now?