pt. 19
Marianne frowned as she paced the bedchamber one of the Jinn's trembling servants opened for her. "You have got to be kidding," she said, poking at a pile of wet, moldy bedclothes with her toe. "You don't actually expect me to stay in here, do you?" She looked around in disgust at the spider webs in the corners of the room, one of which held the skeletal remains of a small bird. Dust lay almost an inch thick on every piece of rotting furniture, most of which wasn't fit even for the fireplace. The curtains barely covered the open space where a door to the balcony must have once hung. Glass fragments from the room's one window dully reflected the sick light from the misshapen candles that filled the room. The stench was abhorrent, a mixture of mold and something she dare not examine too closely.
"Is there something wrong with the room?" the servant asked tremulously, glancing around in a panic. "It is the Master's finest room, given only to his most special guests."
"Oh, my mistake. And here I thought he was just trying to be insulting." Marianne peered into the dull surface of a mirror that hung beside the bed. She glanced around again, noticing how careful the servant was to lay her saddlebags – which she had sent for from the Inn – on the tattered quilt covering the rickety bed. "Tell me what you see when you are in this room," she commanded, leaning carefully against the dusty wall.
"What do I see, Mistress? My eyes see the comforts and riches of my Master's house. I see finely polished wooden furniture covered in richly embroidered cloths. The crystal mirrors reflected the gleam of a hundred candles, all set in finely wrought silver holders. Colorful flowers were strewn from one end of the room to the other, their scent heavenly to breathe." The slave clutched at her painfully thin arms, her haunted eyes reflecting a hunger she dare not openly express, especially not to her Master's guest.
"I see." Marianne replied, apologetically. "It should have occurred to me, especially after walking through the village, what I was likely to find here." Her eyes swept over the cowed form before her. The serving girl the Jinn had commanded to attend her was as slight as a child, though her eyes were older than a crone's. Her paper-thin skin still bore the marks of her Master's whips. Not even the layers of rags the girl wore could hide her painfully thin form. Marianne wondered, briefly, what the girl saw when she caught sight of herself in a mirror – if the Jinn's magic of illusion extended to his servants self-image as it did to the rooms in his castle.
"Is there a problem with your accommodations?" The Swordsman entered the room quietly, gliding in on cat feet to stand behind the serving wench. The girl ducked her head instinctively, a reaction born of experience and fear. The Swordsman ignored her reaction, also from long experience.
"That will be all," Marianne ordered, waving the cowering girl away. She waited until she could no longer hear the servant's nervous shuffle moving down the corridor before she spoke again. "What do you see in this room, Swordsman?"
"The same as the girl," he replied, standing stiffly before her. He did not bother to glance around him, having seen this room many times before when his Master had "invited" local gentry to discuss the continuing terms of their arrangement with him.
"Liar" Marianne glared at him in exasperation, then moved swiftly towards the bed. "The room the girl described is all a glamour, a spell of concealment meant to impress and divert. But divert from what? What does the old beast not want me to look too closely at?" She poked at the cobwebs and cracked pottery on the bedside table, wrinkling her nose at the cloud of dust that rose from everything she touched. Then, with a sly grin, she bent and reached behind an empty chamber pot. "Well, what have we here?" She lifted an awkward object – a distorted sculpture of a satyr playing his pipes beside a stunted tree – and set it on the table. The statute was crudely done, with no fine detail to either the body or face. Only the satyr's eyes were painted, appearing to gleam with a lecherous glee. Marianne smiled cruelly then reached for her saddlebags. She fished out a small dagger and began to play with it, tossing it lightly from hand to hand then twirling it in intricate circles as she studied the statue.
"What are you doing?" the Swordsman asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer. "You should be preparing for dinner."
"I'm not finished yet," Marianne replied, tapping the tip of the blade on her teeth. "Someone, it seems, started a little art project. Seems such a shame to leave it unfinished, don't you agree? Maybe I'll just make a few alterations – starting with the eyes…" Suddenly, she leaned forward and poked the statue in one of its finely painted eyes, viciously digging the tip of the dagger deep into the clay.
A shrill screeching filled the air and suddenly the inanimate statue became very animate, grappling with the sharp object that was blinding it in a futile attempt to save itself. Blood flood down its half-formed face as Marianne completed her task, running the blade's edge across both sockets. Its little wooden flute dropped with a slight thud as the beast fell back in agony. Marianne watched it writhe on the table for a moment then plunged her dagger straight through its chest, pinning it to the table. It screamed once more then was still, turning from living statue to lifeless clay in a matter of moments. She pulled the blade from the mass of clay and calmly wiped it on the rags that covered the bed. "Looks like your Master has lost himself a pet – or was it a spy?"
The Swordsman shrugged, unconcerned. "He has others."
Marianne tucked her blade back into her bag, then tossed it all towards the silent figure at the door. "I'm afraid I must insist that if I'm to be spied on that it at least be in a room where the dust bunnies aren't larger than live rabbits and there is something resembling clean linen on the bed. Let's find other accommodations for me, shall we?"
"Where did you have in mind?"
"Your room."
Gideon trailed after the woman as she confidently entered his conference room and took her place at the head of his table. "So, you were saying..."Gideon began, pulling out a chair for himself.
Alwyn glanced around the conference room, noticing a slight glow from behind the woman's head. "We were discussing your visit to this ship," he said, placing himself in a corner of the room with his back to the wall. He watched as the glow coalesced behind her head, noticing with interest that no one beside himself could see it.
"I thought we were going to talk about getting your friend out of his ship," she replied with a smile. She could feel the older mage's eyes, watching her like a hawk watches its prey.
"Okay, let's talk about that," Gideon tossed a quick look at the elderly mage.
"Yes, let's talk about Galen's situation," Sarah spoke up impatiently. "Do you know what's happening to him?"
"He's in the midst of a Dreaming - a coma like state where his subconscious mind is disconnected from reality. He is experiencing the events of a past time as an observer, much as you would watch a data crystal. But the longer he continues in this state, the more the dream becomes his reality. Soon, he won't just be watching events unfold, he'll be participating in them."
"Is that possible?" Sarah asked skeptically. "After all, these are not events from his past."
"What was the last thing he spoke to you about before he locked himself in his ship?" Marianne asked, leaning her sword carefully against the table.
"He was having dreams about your Swordsman meeting you probably for the first time," Sarah replied.
"Not a good event to be trapped in," Marianne mused, tapping her fingers on the tabletop. "What's your opinion on this brother?"
The glow Alwyn had been watching suddenly flared, now visible to all in the room. When it subsided a man stood behind the visitor's chair, looking at the crews stunned faces with amusement. "I think I really love to make an entrance," he said, making a short bow in the direction of the Excaliber's crews. "Let me introduce myself. I'm Andre, once know as Professor McMasterson and now only known as Dragon. And to answer my sister's question, I've got a pretty good idea what started your friend on this Dreaming. Someone wants something you have, Captain Gideon. And he's used your friend Galen as a lure to bring you right to our door."
"Oh blast it all!" Marianne looked up at her brother in annoyance. "He didn't!"
"Oh yes he did," Andre responded happily. "Our big brother went looking for a certain pretty box and it looks like he's found it."