When Jess woke up, she was lying on a pallet in a stone room, and the first thing she noticed was that there appeared to be beads hanging over her face. Then, shortly afterwards, she noticed that the right side of her face felt very stiff, and different from the left side, but she put a hand up to touch her cheek and it didn't actually seem any different. After a while, she noticed that the stiffness continued down her right side, including her neck, shoulder and down her side. Then she noticed that she was wearing a dress, and wondered suspiciously who had put her in it.

She sat up, accidentally knocking the beads out of the way in the process, coughed as she inhaled the clouds of smoke that several incense sticks around the pallet had created at about hip height in the room and then hauled herself to her feet through the tangible haze of lavender-smelling smoke. Waving some of it away, she walked towards the door, and then remembered about the crossbow bolt. She couldn't feel any pain, even when she pressed on the area where the wound had been, and wondered suspiciously if the smoke was really dope, a condiment the Scythians had had a lot of fun with once they discovered its vision-inducing properties.

She held her hand over her face and waded towards the door, but when she opened it she stumbled out into a room where all of the knights and all of their girls were sitting and listening to something Merlin was saying. They all looked at her as she slammed the door after her and then began to cough again.

"I thought you said it would take her a couple of hours to wake up," Arthur said, looking at confusedly at Merlin and then back Jessamine.

Merlin nodded. "That's what I thought I said, too. Perhaps the incense was a little strong."

"You don't say," Jess said weakly, stepping down off the stairs.

Cimmeria, Ytria and Guinevere all hugged her at the same time, and she could tell by the look in Lancelot's eyes that there would be a bit of private hugging there later.

"Has anyone got anything to eat?" she asked them all, and Arthur laughed and sent Jols to find some food for her.

She sat down beside Lancelot and then looked around at the full compliment of knights that Arthur still had. "I take it the plans for going home have come into question?"

They all looked at each other and then grinned at Arthur.

"I hope you don't object to us staying around for a while," Gawain said, laughing.

Arthur sighed. "Just when I thought I'd gotten rid of you all,"

Jols came back holding a plate with some burnt chicken and some bread on it, and a goblet full of wine. She looked resignedly at the unappetising food and then took the goblet. It was good red wine, but after she had taken a mouthful of it, it was her reflection in the liquid that had her attention.

She put her hand up to her right cheek as the reason for the stiffness on her right side became obvious. The same symbol that had adorned the top of her pennon was tattooed in black and light blue ink on her right cheek, surrounded by swirling Celtic circle patterns that continued down her neck.

Guinevere smiled at her from beside Arthur. "Cimmeria and I did it while you were out. Do you like it?"

Jess looked at the pattern as it continued down her shoulder and thought about how she had always wanted a tattoo. "Yeah, it's great. You must have been bored, though. It would have taken ages."

Cimmeria shrugged. "You were unconscious for a while,"

She nodded, raising her eyebrows. "Obviously,"

Merlin emerged from the room, coughing from the smoke fumes. "I think perhaps someone should have stayed to watch over those incense sticks."

Jess began to laugh, and after a while everyone joined in.

"So, Jessamine," Dagonet said, turning to face her. "Will you be continuing with that story any time soon?"

She laughed. "I suppose I could be prevailed upon after dinner this evening. But only if you'll continue to help me with the telling."

"Done," Tristan said, grinning, and they laughed again.

----------------------------

Roughly two months later

(21st December)

Stonehenge

They were all camped outside Stonehenge in preparation for Arthur and Guinevere's wedding later that day. There had been some fairly extensive work done on the standing stones – mostly restoration and a few new carvings, but they had also placed capstones over the gaps left between each vertical stone, and it now looked a lot more like the photos of it that Jess had seen in 2007.

Today was Yule, the solar festival that the Wodes celebrated on the winter solstice, the day from which the days got longer and warmer and the nights shorter and milder. It was therefore an appropriate time for the wedding of Arthur and Guinevere, because from then on the newly fledged kingdom of Britain would grow and flourish after the winter of the Roman occupancy.

Miraculously, the sky was clear, and it looked like the rain would hold off at least until that afternoon, much to everyone's relief, especially Guinevere, who was stressing immensely. Jess and Cimmeria had nearly had to tie the Wode girl's hands behind her back to keep from biting her nails.

Jessamine was attending Guinevere, for the simple reason that the bride-to-be had approached both Jess and Cimmeria with the problem that she couldn't choose between them and Cimmeria had shrugged it off, saying that Jess looked better in a dress. Lancelot, of course, was attending Arthur.

Egreyne, Eunyphore and Vanora were fussing over Guinevere as she got ready, and Ytria, Cimmeria and Jess stood to one side, watching amusedly.

"In a few minutes, that'll be you," Cimmeria said, nudging Jess in the side.

Jess sighed. "Please. Don't remind me,"

Ytria shrugged. "I don't know. It might be nice to see you scrubbed up for a change."

Jess gave her a dirty look. "I bathe, thank you,"

Cimmeria grinned. "She means wearing a dress,"

Jess sighed again. "Did you not come on our mission? Where I wore a dress almost every second day?"

Both girls were silent, but they were grinning. They turned their attention back to Guinevere just in time to hear her ask rather timidly if they should be helping Jess get ready as well.

Jess sighed and pulled her tunic off over her head.

"What are you two wearing to the wedding?" Egreyne asked Cimmeria and Ytria.

They looked at each other and both felt a rather pressing need to be somewhere else.

-------------------------------

The wedding was smaller than it had been in the movie, basically just friends and family on both Arthur and Guinevere's sides from amongst the Wodes. Merlin did officiate, and there was a squad of Wode archers ready to fire their flaming arrows into the sea to symbolise the renewal of the sun, but there was no cheering crowd of peasants.

Jess led Guinevere out into the centre of the circle and then turned to face her, taking the veiled circlet that Guinevere wore and then leading her to her father, Merlin, who gave her away to Arthur as well as performing the service. Guinevere wore a long, trailing light green dress, her hair piled into a knot on the top of her head, and Jess wore a fairly simple but still beautiful darker green dress that Eunyphore had helped her steal off Troy – or at least, Eunyphore, being Greek, knew how to make such dresses and helped her with that one.

She had to stop herself from laughing at Lancelot's face when she took her place to Arthur's left. I should wear dresses more, she thought to herself as she bit her lip to keep herself from ruining the ceremony. Gawain and Egreyne, Galahad and Eunyphore, holding Maechises, Tristan and Cimmeria, Cynric and Ytria, Dagonet and some Wode girl and Lucan, and Bors, Vanora and all their children stood around them in a circle, as well as Jols, Ganis, a few Wodes and Saxons they had become friends with, Arthur's long-lost Wode uncle and Guinevere's mother.

"Arthur. Guinevere. You are one now, as are your people," Merlin said, handing them a goblet full of sacred wine for them both to drink. "Briton and Roman, Sarmatian and Greek, Scythian and Saxon, it matters not. All who live in this land now will henceforth be known as one thing only; and that is free."

Arthur and Guinevere kissed, and everyone clapped politely – except for the knights, led by Lancelot, who cheered and made inappropriate comments.

Bors, holding his youngest – who had recently been named Éomer – raised the infant to his eye and sighed. "Now I'm really going to have to marry your mother,"

"Who says I'd have you?" Vanora said dryly, taking the baby and shooing Pippin and Frodo away (after finishing the story, all children who had been involved had henceforth refused to answer to any other name but Frodo, Samwise, Merry and Pippin).

They all watched as the archers fired new life into the sun with their fiery arrows, and then, the future of the world duly ensured, they all went about their separate businesses. While the others gathered around congratulating the newly married king and queen, Lancelot rather firmly took her hand and led her off into the forest, still looking amazedly at her dress.

----------------------------

It was lunchtime, it was 2007, the weather was just turning thundery and Fulwood was nervous. Seeing as it was the holidays, she had had to run away from her parents' property out near St George, pick up Pascoe in Dalby and Campbell in Maryborough and then get all the way back to Toowoomba by bus. The reason for all this was simple. Fulwood knew quite a bit about the Celts, and she had managed to deduce basically what had happened to Jess as soon as she knew the date when Jess had disappeared.

Thankfully, the school was abandoned when the three of them broke in, carrying Jess's laptop, a DVD a torch and two mobile phones. They sat in their dorm, thinking – or at least, Fulwood was thinking. Pascoe was a little too confused to be thinking about much, and Campbell had gone to keep watch.

"So you're saying that Jess is in another dimension?" Pascoe asked.

Fulwood sighed. "You have already asked that question twice, Sarah, and the answer is still yes."

"How?" Pascoe asked, a rather more intelligent question.

Fulwood sighed. "The day that Jess disappeared was an ancient Celtic festival day when the veils between the worlds are thin. Not only that, you know how those scientists discovered that the solar winds happened about every 1500 years? We were watching the DVD King Arthur, and it's set approximately 1500 years ago."

Pascoe gasped. "So she's inside the movie?"

Fulwood shook her head. "You know how Jess always used to get worked up about sad movies? And we would always say that it wasn't real, it was just a movie, and then she would shake her head and say that the universe is infinite so therefore somewhere everything must exist. I think she might have been right. I think she might have gone into the dimension where King Arthur really did happen like that."

Pascoe sat down on her old bed and then shook her head in disbelief. "So what are we going to do about it?"

Fulwood cleared her throat. "Right. Today is also one of the Celts ancient ceremonial days, and we're going to re-enact what happened that night with the movie and the mobile, and hopefully we'll end up where she is."

Pascoe nodded, sighing. "So how do we get back?"

Fulwood coughed uncomfortably. "That's the part I'm still working on,"

Thunder rumbled quite close to them and then, suddenly, there was a massive crack and it started to pour rain, the lightning forking through the sky. Fulwood sprinted outside, grabbed Campbell and pulled her back into the dorm room. She then turned the computer on, plugged it in at the wall, threw one of the phones at Pascoe and then motioned for her to call her number.

Since all Jess's computer would do now was load the King Arthur DVD, it came up straight away, and Fulwood pressed play, put one hand on the computer and motioned for the others to do the same.

"What are we doing?" Campbell asked confusedly (she had been outside for the explanation).

"I'll explain later," Fulwood shouted, as the computer began to spark.

---------------------------

Kelermes, tired, bored and now holding a bitter grudge against Jess, waded out of the ocean – she didn't technically have a body but it was a bit of a habit – and started walking up towards the revelry at Stonehenge. Then, she felt the veil between the worlds slip open and three new girls fall through. She briefly considered stealing one of their bodies, but, seeing as the doorway was still open, she had a better idea.

Far away, Gilioneron sighed and decided that this was going to be an end on things.

---------------------------

Fulwood, Pascoe and Campbell all woke up at the same time, lying under the huge tree outside the north gate of Hadrian's Wall. Fulwood sat up and then rubbed her hand where it had been touching the computer. Then she looked around.

"Holy crap, it worked!" she said, pulling herself to her feet with a low-hanging branch and then bending over to wait for her blood pressure to recede.

Pascoe was looking around her in mixed wonder and horror, but Campbell, who still didn't know what was going on, was talking constantly. "We must have been in a fire, or something, and a search and rescue team or whatever has put us somewhere safe and gone to put the rest of it out. I think I've seen this place, before, anyway; it's kind of familiar. Oh, I know! We're in Webb Park! You know, the place just down the hill from Fairholme? I remember standing here and laughing at something. Yeah, we're in Webb Park."

Pascoe shook her head and pointed at Hadrian's Wall, which Campbell was facing away from. "We're definitely not in Webb Park, Sarah,"

The three of them sat on a hill just outside the town, contemplating things.

"So there's absolutely no way to get back?" Campbell asked anxiously, for the tenth or so time.

A muscle in Fulwood's cheek twitched a couple of times and Campbell shut her mouth and looked at the ground. "Sorry,"

Fulwood sighed. "Well, the first thing we need to do is find Jess,"

Pascoe nodded. "If they haven't killed her yet,"

Fulwood frowned. "Oh, yeah. I never thought about that,"

"It's not fair!" Campbell wailed. "I don't want to die! At least not until I meet Tristan! And preferably in the 21st century, too."

She looked at Fulwood and Pascoe, who were staring in a mixture of terror and wonder at something just behind her. She turned slowly and looked up into the face of a very angry-looking local, whom she surmised probably didn't speak English. Seeing as Pascoe and Fulwood looked too scared to do anything, she stood up, brushed the dirt off her pants and then held out a hand for him to shake.

"Hello," she said, very slowly. "Me Sarah," she said, pointing at herself. "Who are you?"

He shook his head at her and then grabbed Fulwood and Pascoe by the backs of their shirts, dragging them with him toward the north.

"Well," Campbell said, affronted, and then ran after them to catch up.

----------------------------

The official wedding party was over, the rain having dampened their celebrations, and the knights and their consorts rode home in the rain. It was a lot quicker going back than it had been getting there, and by late afternoon they could see the Wall in the distance. They stopped to take refuge from a particularly strong deluge of rain, mostly for the sake of the ladies and the children, under a stand of trees, and Guinevere and Arthur disappeared for a while.

"Tell us another story!" Pippin begged, running around Jess in a circle and then hugging her knees, which were the highest part of her he could reach.

"I think it'll have to wait," Gawain said, pointing off into the rain.

A tall, blonde man wearing black leather armour and the angriest scowl she had ever seen came striding through the rain, dragging two people she supposed had done something wrong. She had no idea who it was until she could clearly see his face, when she realised in shock that it was, in fact, Gilioneron, the Sarmatian war god. They all bowed low with respect as he threw the two people he had been dragging onto the ground in front of him.

She rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things and then looked at them again.

"Fulwood? Pascoe?"

Another figure came stumbling, breathing heavily, into the shelter and collapsed on the ground. "Well," she said, in an offended tone of voice, and Jess sighed as she recognised the voice as well as the person who it belonged to.

"Campbell?" she asked, incredulously.

All three of them looked up at her. "Jess?" Fulwood asked tentatively.

"Do you know these people, Jessamine?" Lancelot asked her, standing beside her and looking down at them.

"It's a long story," she said, a chill of fear creeping over her. How the hell was she going to explain this?

"It'll have to wait," Gilioneron said, looking at her. "I need to talk to you. Now."

"Of course," she said, and walked off, before realising that she was abandoning her friends.

She turned and appealed to them all. "Look… just… don't kill them, please. And no raping, either. If you could spread that around, that'd be great."

Pascoe and Fulwood exchanged a horrified look.

"And if you could find them… something to keep them warm, that'd be good too. Thanks," she said, before Gilioneron roared her name and she dashed off to see what it was he wanted.

They stood under a drooping tree that didn't do much to keep the rain off them. He still looked thunderous, and she stood before him apprehensively.

"I get the feeling I've done something wrong," she said, looking at his face.

He sighed. "No. It's not you,"

She let out an explosive breath of relief. "Thank God! I though you were going to kill me."

He sighed again and looked at the ground. "I have… some bad news. Do you remember, when you were fighting the Saxons at the frozen river, when something took over your body?"

Jess nodded. "It's not the sort of thing you forget in a hurry,"

"Indeed," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "That was the spirit of one of the greatest gildatorae who has ever lived. She was seeking to destroy the knights."

Jess looked at him, confused. "But why? I mean, if she was a gildatore…"

He nodded. "She believes that any knight who submits to the ruling of the Romans is weak, and a danger to the future of the Sarmatian race."

Jess sighed. "Right. But what has this got to do with me?"

"When you entered this world, you fell through a veil between the our world and yours." She opened her mouth to speak and he continued quickly, obviously wishing to conserve as much time as possible. "Yes, I know everything. I know how your friends got here, replicating the event that brought you here. You see, when you – for want of a better word – fell into our world, Kelermes, seeking a way to return to the world and… punish those knights who remain under the domination of Rome, took the opportunity to go through the gap with you. You're very lucky you got rid of her at the river, or things could have been much worse."

Jess shook her head in confusion. "So what's this bad news?"

He sighed again. "When your friends fell through the same gap, Kelermes… well, her delusions of subverting Sarmatia by herself may have fallen through, but she retains her tenacity. So, she therefore went through into your world, seeking souls as sustenance to make her more powerful."

Jess was silent for a while, digesting this. "She's taking people's souls?"

He nodded. "I'm afraid so,"

"I have to do something," she said helplessly. "You have to help me get back to my world. I can't just let some psycho, delusional sixth-century warrior use people I might have known as fodder for a war,"

He nodded. "I thought you might feel that way. But, I will only have the power to send you, and I may not be able to bring you back. That, and I won't be able to send you until midnight."

"What do you mean you mightn't be able to bring me back?" she screamed at him. "You're a God, aren't you?"

He looked down at his feet. "I never expected that I would need to be transporting people backwards and forwards through worlds, so I never acquired a great amount of power in that area. I'm sorry,"

He walked off, back to the knights, but she stood still, frozen in absolute horror and indecision. The idea of letting her entire world be consumed by a maniacal female warrior and staying here with the knights was tempting, especially when she thought about Lancelot, but if she had acquired anything substantial from her time here, it had been a sense of duty, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to abandon those people like that.

She began to cry, the tears blending with the rain on her face. The past two or so months had been the happiest of her life, free of worries about school, or money, or how she was going to manage living by herself. And now, when she finally felt like she was completely free of all that crap, when she had finally put it behind her, she had to go back to save the people of their entire world, and then stay there forever. While Fulwood, Pascoe and Campbell got to live a life of luxury here in the sixth century. While Lancelot would think forever that she had abandoned him; would probably go on and marry some other girl, and then be happy for the rest of his life.

She cried until her throat hurt so much that she couldn't cry anymore, and then just started punching things. After about twenty-five minutes she finally managed to pull herself together, and walked back to camp, sniffing and wiping the tears off her face. She came across her three friends from 2007, and noticed that Campbell looked a bit sad as well.

"It's terrible!" Campbell exclaimed when she saw Jess. "I can't believe how unfair it is!"

"So, Gilioneron told you, did he?" she asked, her voice hoarse from all the crying she had done.

"Tristan's got a girlfriend!" Campbell wailed at the top of her lungs, and buried her head in Pascoe's shoulder.

Jess stood silently for a moment, clenching her fists at her sides. She must have looked pretty angry because Fulwood stood up and put a calming hand on her arm.

"Jess-"

"Why the fuck are you here?" Jess asked her, quietly. "Why the fuck did you have to come here? Why? Why couldn't you have just stayed where you belonged?"

Fulwood took a step backwards, shocked. "We were just trying to help, Jess,"

"Help?" Jess screamed at her. "Help! Do you know what you've done? You've unleashed the greatest evil this world has ever seen on our world! And now I have to go back there and sort everything out and save their arses while you three sit here and do fuck-all, whatever you want, and then, to top everything off, I can't get back! Because fucking Gilioneron never thought he'd have to transport people between worlds, so he hasn't got enough power to bring me back! So, because of your help I have to give up the one chance I ever had of happiness. One chance. And now it's gone. Forever."

She walked off towards the camp and Pascoe burst into tears. Fulwood stood staring in utter shock at her best friend as she walked away and then sat down on the ground, too devastated even to cry.

-----------------------

Jess sat by herself in a log in front of their campfire and cursed herself for being so emotional. She knew she shouldn't have shouted at Fulwood and Pascoe and Campbell but she hadn't been able to help herself. She needed someone to blame, and shouting at a God, even one as humanised as Gilioneron, was probably likely to be hazardous for her health.

The knights were all off talking to Gilioneron, and the girls were all sitting over the other side of the campfire, but Guinevere came and sat beside her, looking concerned.

"Is there anything you want to talk about?" she asked quietly, and Jess shook her head. Even if talking about things made them better – which she doubted could possibly apply to this situation – she couldn't tell Guinevere the whole story because she would then find out that Jess had been lying to her for the whole time they had known each other, and, similarly, she wouldn't even be able to say goodbye to Lancelot for the same reason.

"Do you have any parchment handy?" she asked the Wode girl, her voice still croaky from all her crying. "And some ink?"

She put her armour on in silence, thankful that she now knew how to do up the strings at the back of her top by herself. She looked at the letter she had left lying on Lancelot's bedroll and hoped briefly that he could read. She let her hair out of its slide and then caught sight of her reflection in Dagonet's shield. She put a hand to her face briefly to touch her tattoos, thinking that it was no wonder that Fulwood and the others hadn't recognised her.

Bartatua, who was tethered to a tree near her, came over and nudged her shoulder and lipped at her face, and she hugged him, putting her arms around his neck and burying her head in his shoulder to smell his horsy smell. Then she blinked a couple of times and walked away, ignoring his inquiring noises and then his whinny that was on a par with "Hey! Come back here!"

She stopped in front of Fulwood, Pascoe and Campbell, Bartatua still trying to get loose to come and talk to her, and sighed.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking at the ground. "I shouldn't have shouted at you, and I don't want that to be your last ever memory of me. I'm really sorry."

Fulwood stood up and hugged her. "We're sorry too,"

Jess shook her head. "It's not your fault. This isn't anybody's fault except for that freak who's trying to eat people's souls back in our world." She looked down at her feet for a while. "I missed you guys,"

"We missed you, too," Pascoe said, also hugging her.

She saw the knights come back from their secret conversation with Gilioneron and decided that now would be a good time to disappear, just in case Gilioneron had told them already.

"I have to go," she said to her friends, extracting herself and walking away, but she came back a second later. "Please. If I could ask one thing it would be that you don't sleep with Lancelot. Just… for the sake of preserving my memory, just don't, please."

She saw Lancelot looking curiously at something sitting on his bedroll and knew that she had to disappear fairly quickly.

She walked off into the night and found a nice hill to sit on to wait for Gilioneron. By the moon she could tell that it was about midnight, so she knew he would turn up soon.

"Lancelot can read, can't he?" she asked the empty night.

Gilioneron laughed. "I wouldn't have let you leave him a letter if he couldn't read."

She sighed. "How comforting,"

He sat down beside her. "You don't have to go, you know,"

She glared at him. "Don't be stupid."

He was silent for a while. "All right, I guess I deserved that."

He cleared his throat. "I don't know if anyone's told you – probably not, really, because they all think you already know – but when a girl becomes a gildatore, she chooses a particular one of my qualities to emulate. We never got around to it with you, but would you like to choose one?"

She looked at him. "What possible help could it be now?"

He looked down at the ground. "It might help you survive the fight with Kelermes,"

She shook her head. "Frankly, Gilioneron, I think I'd rather die."

He nodded uncomfortably. "Right,"

He stood up and helped her to her feet. "Good luck," he said quietly.

She ignored him and closed her eyes, and, after a while, when she opened them, she was standing in a quiet back alley of a 21st century city. She punched the wall a few times and then walked out of the alley to look for Kelermes. A body lay on the ground behind her.