"Are you a paramedic?" Zach asked.
Ignoring him, the man said with awe: "Impossible."
"What?"
Still ignoring Zach, the man began to pace around him in circles. He inspected him the way a sculpture inspects his latest work to look for any scratches or lumpy areas, his thumb and index finger on the point of his chin.
"Clothes two centuries too old. Shoes just the same, and the backpack," he pointed out. He drew his face close to Zach's and said, sounding a little accusing: "You're clearly not from this point in time. Who are you? How'd you get here?"
Zach stepped away from the strange man, almost tripping on a small branch on the ground, holding out his hands in a "slow down there, partner" gesture. "Who are you, sir? That's what I want to know," he said. "Are you supposed to be a paramedic? You don't look like one."
"A paramedic?" the strange man asked, sounding as though he had been asked the most ridiculous question in the world. "No, no, I'm not a paramedic—although I could be, if you put it a certain way—"
Zach, who did not know that the strange man was actually talking to himself when he said the second part of his response, said brightly: "Great! Can you take me to the police then?"
"Hold on a second," the man said, "you didn't answer my questions. How did you get here? Vortex manipulator? Dimensional rift? Wormhole?"
Ignoring all of the strange terms the man had just listed, Zach said: "Long story. Look, can you just take me to the police? I have to get back home and tell my parents what happened and—"
Now it was Zach's turn to be cut off, because at that moment a horn blared its way through the trees. This was followed by the guttural calls of what sounded like men, who shouted: "There he is! Get him! Get him!" Upon hearing these two things the strange man and Zach turned in their direction, the man's face flooding with panic, his eyes bulging.
"What's that?" Zach asked.
"Trouble. Gotta run," the man said, and did exactly that. He went south, opposite from the calls, and Zach looked to see what the man was running from. The fern bushes were too thick for him to see any proper figures, but near the far end of the forest he thought he could see four shapes that appeared to be men on . . . horses. Yes, that seemed to be it—horses, big walnut-colored ones. Squinting so that he could get a better look, Zach saw that three of them were wearing strange shirts that were light-gray in color and had sunlight glinting off of them. What kind of clothing allows for sunlight to glint off of it? He wondered. He did not have time to figure that out, because by then the strange man had grabbed him by the arm and said, "Well, come on, unless you want them to catch you!" and pulled him so harshly that Zach heard his arm pop.
Zach ran behind the man, gripping his hand even though he didn't know why. As they flew past the birch trees, which became long skinny blurs to his eyes, Zach cried: "You didn't give me your name!"
Not turning around or stopping even in the slightest, the man answered: "The Doctor."
"Doctor? Doctor what?"
"Just the Doctor, that's all. Why, are you expecting anything else?"
Before he could say anything, Zach heard the thundering of hooves against earth and calls of, "Catch him! Don't let him get away!" to his left. The man who called himself the Doctor took a hard right so quickly that Zach almost slipped, leaped over a fallen birch, Zach almost getting his foot caught under it when he did the same, and began to head towards a new sound, one that was quiet but growing louder as they ran: rushing water.
They were now running in a less-woody area of the forest, and Zach saw clearly for the first time the men who were chasing them. To his astonishment, the three he assumed to be wearing gray shirts weren't wearing shirts at all; they were wearing shining suits of armor and had baldrics tied around their waists with long scabbards attached to them. In their hands, they all gripped longswords that they held to their sides, longswords that Zach had only seen behind glass in trips to the local museum. And they were all riding behind the fourth member of the group—a man wearing a black coat whose tail flew out behind him—and were closing in very quickly, their horses leaving behind a thin trail of dust.
The man in the black coat, who Zach assumed to be the leader, yelled "Surround them!" and one of the men split off from the group and went to Zach and the Doctor's right. Another member of the group went behind the two. Together they boxed in on Zach and the Doctor, and when they were close to the place the Doctor was headed, which was most likely a river, the man in black rode his horse in front of them, cutting them off from the Doctor's apparent point of salvation. He was tall, had dark brown hair that ran to the base of his neck, wore a vest as black as his coat with many silver buttons going down the center, and had a stony face that would have surely intimidated even Zach's father. The stoniness, however, was cut by a triumphant smirk.
"Well, if it isn't the Doctor," he sneered.
"Oh, uh, hello there Septimus," the Doctor said with a mixture of both confidence and nervousness, "it's been a while since I last saw you, huh? Changed much also—if we can call chopping off six heads a day instead of seven a change."
"Enough nonsense," Septimus snapped. "Who is this companion of yours?"
"Companion? I don't have a companion," the Doctor said, sounding as though this concept was absurd. Then he noticed that Septimus was looking at Zach and said, "Oh, you mean him. No, I don't know him at all, actually; I just ran into him. Literally."
"Don't lie to me, Doctor," Septimus said, "you don't want to do that. Now tell me who your companion is. Better; let him tell me who he is himself." He leered at Zach.
Zach was too befuddled to even utter a sound. First the tornado, then the strange man who called himself the Doctor, and now this—a posse of knights straight out of a storybook a kid at his school might've read. But surely this all couldn't be real, right? The tornado could've been real—probably was real in some outlandish way—but this? No, this was simply too absurd to be real.
"Speak," Septimus ordered, and if it wasn't for the way his cold green eyes glared into his own, Zach might not have. Instead of giving him a proper response, however, he asked: "Wait a minute, what's going on here, anyway? Is this all supposed to be a joke?"
"Tell me!"
"N-n-no, I'm not his companion," Zach said, cringing back a little. "You heard what he said. He doesn't know me."
"Right, you heard him," the Doctor agreed.
"You were running with him, however. I saw you with him. You are with him."
"I'm not, though!"
Septimus ignored him and faced his men. "Take them. We'll bring them to the castle."
The three knights dismounted from their horses, two of them pulling out chains and cuffs. As they went to Zach and the Doctor, Zach, whose annoyance at not understanding the situation reached its peak, said: "Can someone please tell me what's happening?"
The knight closest to Zach held out his pair and barked, "Hands out! Now!" Zach disobeyed him by standing back and bumped into the knight behind him, who shoved him to the ground harshly. Zach landed roughly on his chest and chin and heard his teeth click together in his mouth.
"Not very heavy, is he, eh?" the shoving-knight said, and he and the other knights chuckled. "Now get your hands in those cuffs, or else I'll shove 'em in for you."
Zach got up, his face reddening, his clothes now patted with dirt, and cried indignantly: "That was completely ostentatious! I'll get the police on you for doing that! What is all of this anyway, some kind of battle recreation?" This caused the knights to explode into laughter, one of them holding his chest while doing so. Zach's face got even redder. The Doctor, who was in his cuffs, said, "Just do as they say, you'll be fine," and looked at him with some sympathy.
"Alright, enough," Septimus said. "Get in those cuffs, brat, or else"—he gave the Doctor a smug look—"I'll have to break my oath not to cut off seven heads a day." Zach felt like resisting again, but once he saw in Septimus's face that he meant the truth, he begrudgingly obeyed. Soon after this he was riding pillion with a knight, the metal cuffs around his wrists feeling heavier than they looked in his schoolbooks, his head down, having no idea where he was going.
He didn't want to admit to himself that he was feeling it, but he felt like crying, more out of frustration than true sadness.
Fifteen minutes or so later, Zach finally saw his destination.
The birch forest ended at the series of foothills coated with a fine blanket of pale green grass, and it was at the edge of these foothills and the start of the snow-capped mountain range that Zach saw the kingdom. It was huge, miles high, built in between two mountains that made up the range, and was nearly as high as them, as if challenging them at a height contest. Of course, Zach had expected to see a kingdom as his captors' home place, but not something as grandiose as this. It stood on a huge base of granite, and its buildings seemed to be stacked up in a pile like a child's building blocks, the lower districts on the bottom and the richer ones on top. The buildings themselves consisted of towers with colored domes and spires and turrets and bridges connecting parts of the kingdom together. And at the very top of it was the main castle, looking sort of like the Colosseum in Italy, with a great tower at its back.
All in all, it was the most beautiful kingdom Zach had ever seen, and nothing, not even the fact that he was captured or in a world beyond his understanding, could break his captivation. For a moment he completely forgot he was captured in the first place until Septimus said, "Behold the view, for it may be the last one you ever have."
Coming back to reality—if you could call this place reality—Zach asked, "What is this place? We're obviously not in Los Angeles, that's for sure."
The Doctor, who was riding pillion with the knight alongside Zach, said, "Stormhold. You're in the kingdom of Stormhold. Nice, isn't it?"
"Never heard of it before."
"Well, I'm sure you'll grow to like it. Reminds me a little of St. Basils, whose architect did not, in fact, have his eyes burned out. I know because I saw him on a trip a few weeks ago."
"Quiet," the knight Zach was riding pillion with said coldly. "You two can jabber all you want later, but not here. Not with me having to listen."
The Doctor gave the knight a dirty look that said I'll talk when I want but obeyed. Zach did the same. Septimus, who was at the head of the knights, led the group towards a winding stone pathway that led up to Stormhold's lower districts and spiraled its way upwards to the top. When they arrived at it they followed its course, passing by white brick buildings and various streets lined with colored booths and vendors selling anything from freshly cut meat and exotic spices and filled with people. Most of these people wore things that looked straight out of the 19th century to Zach—top hats and tail-coats and bonnets and corsets and big fluffy dresses. These people looked at Zach and the Doctor with dismissive glances that only lasted seconds, but Zach stared back at them for quite some time. He had never seen so many people wearing the things they wore before unless they were playing a part in some silly play at the local theatre or were attending one of those so-called conventions in the city.
Finally, they reached the castle, and that was where their trip ended. They all dismounted and were taken into it, the Doctor and Zach rather forcefully.
As one would expect, however, they weren't given a grand tour of the place.
In the dungeon cell they sat across from each other, their legs chained to wooden posts made of strong cedar. The floor was matted with moist, mildewy hay and strewn with small rat bones. In one corner was a small clay jar where one could do their personal business. The walls of the cell were built out of cold stone blocks, and there was only one window, a small rectangle with metal lattice that showed the way to the mountain range, which was partially obscured by a thick veil of gray clouds that reminded Zach of the tornado.
Zach sat with his legs drawn up to his chest and his arms around them in an embrace. He was looking out the window, but his mind wasn't on the sight beyond. He was thinking about how he had gotten himself into this awful situation in the first place. He had a slight headache, and his stomach groaned every now and then but he didn't eat; the only thing given to him was a piece of stale bread on a cracked ceramic plate.
He wondered what might have happened if he hadn't run back into the classroom to get his backpack. Maybe he would have been home right now, safe and sound with his parents. Or maybe he would be at the hospital, laying in a warm bed with doctors to tend to him. But nope, he was in Stormhold now—wherever that was—far and away from everything he knew, and all because he worried a little too much about his books. His father would have scoffed at him.
He thought about possibly escaping this place, but how he would do that, he didn't know. He thought about the Doctor and wondered if maybe he had any plans, but he didn't really think so—the Doctor was just sitting where he was, looking at him, his legs splayed out casually before him, as if he was sitting in a park on a summer day. And still, even now, most of him believed that this was all some sort of elaborate set-up; it had to be. But if it was, then what was the reason behind it? What was the cause of it? Wh—
"I never got your name. What is it?" the Doctor asked, cutting the silence.
"Huh?" Zach said, the question waking him from his trance.
"Your name. I asked who you were in the woods, but I never got to hear it."
Zach hesitated for a moment, then answered quietly: "Zach. Zachary Bennett."
"Zachary Bennett," the Doctor repeated slowly, as if tasting the name on his tongue. "Sounds like the name of a multi-millionaire. How'd you get here, Zach? You never told me that, either."
"Didn't you see the tornado?"
"Tornado? No, I didn't see any tornado. To me, you just popped out of nowhere. I guess you could say that I did the same for you. Tell me about it."
Zach shrugged lightly. "Well, I was in school, having an important test, when all of a sudden this tornado just came in and sucked me here to . . . to . . . what was it called again?"
"Stormhold."
"Yes, that. It just took me here to Stormhold, and now I'm sitting in some old jail cell with no idea how to get back. A rather unhygienic one as well."
The Doctor chuckled, but unlike the knights it was light and meant no harm. "Having a long day, aren't we?"
Zach shook his head in disbelief. "There has got to be some kind of explanation for all of this; there has to be. It can't be a joke because even the worst of the pranksters at my school wouldn't take it this far, and we're clearly not in the United States because I've never seen a kingdom like this before. And why was everyone wearing those outdated uniforms when we got here?"
The Doctor sighed. "Because we're no longer in the 21st century, as I assume you're from," he said academically. "We're in 1853, to be exact, the year Levi Strauss and Co. is formed and the year George Speck invents the potato chip for every couch-potato in the world."
Zach laughed when hearing this, a laugh one makes when they hear something so unbelievable that they just have to regardless of the subject matter. The mind's coping mechanism for these sorts of things, you could say. "That's absolutely insane. If we're in 1853, then I must be dreaming. Which I'm sure it is, probably. I must've been chloroformed by someone, or maybe I hit my head on some—"
It hit Zach like a clean slap to the face, illuminating the dark corners of his mind where forgotten memories are stored and waiting to be given attention once more. He remembered everything now, every single thing, as though they were all painted over in sparkling gold.
"I remember now!" he shouted jubilantly, his eyes widening, his mouth a white crescent, his face the expression of a man who has had a great revelation. "The window! Ugh, how could I have forgotten the window! It hit me when I tried to run away! This is all a dream, and you"—he pointed at the Doctor—"must be some figment of my imagination! Maybe a memory. You kind of remind me of my science teacher, or maybe my history one. I don't know and I don't care. But this! This is all just fake; I knew it was!"
The Doctor looked at Zach confused. "But it isn't, Zach, I can promise you that. Everything happening here is really happening."
Zach, still smiling, said: "No, it isn't, and I'm going to prove it. I'm going to close my eyes, think real deep about waking up, and then I'll do just that. Watch."
Zach did just what he said, and then he chanted: "One . . . two . . . three!"
His eyes sprang open, expecting to see the roof of his bedroom ceiling (or a hospital one). Instead he saw the Doctor sitting in front of him, looking quite bemused, his arms folded over his chest. He tried again, this time counting slower, but opened his eyes to the same thing. He tried once more and still got nothing different. He might as well have been playing peek-a-boo with the Doctor.
"How . . . how is this not working? I'm supposed to be awake now," Zach said, frustrated.
"Because you're not dreaming, that's why," the Doctor said.
Zach shook his head again and tilted it towards the ceiling, which was made of planks supported by wooden beams. A few drops of water occasionally fell from in between the planks, landing in the moist hay with a light pat.
"But if I'm not dreaming, then why am I here?"
"Don't you remember? After I blundered into you, they thought you were with me."
"Yes, I remember. But what's the reason behind it, exactly? In fact, why were they chasing you—you never told me that. If this is a dream, then you should be able to give me a good description."
"Oh, I've got a good description," the Doctor said, sounding almost excited to tell his story, "don't you worry. Just you sit back, get comfy, and listen . . ."
