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CHAPTER THREE

Kate stood in front of the huge mirror, slash motion picture screen. She didn't see Castle anywhere in her view because the movement of the scenery had passed where he would have landed. That was, if he had landed within whatever countryside she was currently seeing.

She fought off the shakes she was having and bit down on her lower lip. After taking one large breath, she closed her eyes and launched herself straight at the large motion picture mirror.

She felt a brief freezing chill, then she found herself stumbling forward on a grassy mound.

"Castle!" She yelled as loud as she could as her head swiveled back and forth looking one way, then the other.

The sun which hung high in the sky was very bright, and the barely there breeze was warm. It was definitely warmer here, wherever that was, than where she'd been standing just seconds ago.

"Castle!" She shouted again as she used one hand to shade her eyes from the glaring sun. She swiveled her head from one direction to the other in a 180 degree sweep of the pleasant meadow she was standing in. The mirror had already disappeared from her sight.

She thought she saw something moving off to her right, but it was more like a rounded lump trying to shuffle along. She wondered if it were some animal that had come out of the woodlands not far behind it.

Just then she saw a flash of sunlight reflecting from something in front of the lump. She knew immediately what that was. She began to run toward it.

"Castle!" She continued to call out his name as she got closer to the lump which by now could be seen as Rick trying to use his new sword to lever himself up to a standing position.

It was evident that he'd heard her because he turned toward her as she came running toward him.

She wanted to throw her arms around him when she reached him, but he looked too unsteady on his feet to be able to stand the impact of her crashing into him.

"Ohmygod Rick, I was so scared that I'd lost you." She helped him by putting his arm around her shoulders so he could stand. "Are you alright?"

He grimaced. "I twisted my ankle a bit when I tripped over that rock and fell through the magic mirror."

Kate raised her brow. "Oh, so it's a magic mirror now?"

Rick gave a half shrug. "Well what else would you call it? One second it's showing us our reflections, and the next it's showing us some unknown countryside and allowing us to enter."

With Kate's help, and using his sword like a cane, they managed to hobble over to a large rock sticking up out of the ground near the edge of the forest.

Once they managed to seat themselves, Rick checked his sword and then re-sheathed it. Kate let him lean against her while she used her walking stick Shillelagh to steady herself.

She looked down at his ankle. "Does it hurt?"

He started to smile, but ended up grimacing. "Yeah, some. I'm more worried about being able to walk any distance on it."

Kate pursed her lips. "Were you ever a boy scout?"

Rick chuckled. "For about a week. Mother didn't have the resources to let me go on camping trips and the like."

She nodded. "Well I was a girl scout for a time one summer and did go to camp once." She gave him a hard stare. "Lend me your sword."

Suddenly his expression became guarded. "Why do you need my sword?"

She shook her head. "I'm not going to steal it." She nodded toward the tree line a handful of yards away. "I'm going to see if I can find some soft inner tree bark and some vines that we can use to wrap that ankle up. Or we can sit on this rock for a couple days until your ankle is better and you can walk again."

He glared at her as he pulled the sword from its sheath. "It's not a hatchet you know."

She stood up. "I know, but it's the only thing we have with a sharp edge."

He grumbled as he gave his latest acquisition to her. She just grinned as she took it.

Not having much of a botany background, Kate didn't really know one tree from another, but she did recognize a few patches of birch trees which would serve her needs just fine.

She found one that had a pretty good circumference and scored a line vertically down the trunk. Then she scored horizontal lines from that mark about five or six inches wide. She then was able to peel off a long, thin strip of the white bark from around the tree.

She then turned her attention to the mass of ground cover and the abundance of ground crawling vines that liked to trip one up as they walked through the forest. She pulled and wacked a large handful of the vines.

Feeling satisfied with herself she walked back to the big rock and sat down next to Castle.

He looked at what she was holding in her hands. "So, what are we going to do with that stuff?"

Kate took a deep breath. "We are going to make you a walking cast out of this stuff." She made herself sound more confident than she was.

She grabbed the sleeve on his cable net shirt and pulled about six to eight inches out past his hand. At first he gave her a confused look, but when she brought the sword up his expression became alarmed.

Luckily the sword was very sharp and she sliced a length of his shirt sleeve off with hardly any difficulty. She gave Rick a smile and tucked his sword back into its sheath.

Castle cocked his head. "What did you do that for?"

Kate moved over and knelt in front of her confused boyfriend. "I needed something that could cushion your ankle a bit more than just your socks. The bark is going to be stiff enough as it is." She switched to a soft voice that he couldn't hear. "It's going to hurt enough as it is."

She carefully wrapped the truncated shirt sleeve carefully around his ankle, then took the bark and wrapped it over the sleeve.

"Hold this." She pointed to the shirt/bark wrap she was holding around his injured ankle. He reached down and did as he was told.

Kate then took up some of the vines that she'd brought back and wrapped them tightly around the make shift cast she had made from the shirt and bark. She did several wraps with the vines as tight as she could before she tied them off.

She leaned back and inspected her handy work. "I hope that will help support and keep the swelling down." She grabbed the shoe she had originally pulled off the damaged foot.

She pulled out the laces and stretched the shoe as open as she could. She then carefully slipped it over his twisted foot. She then loosely laced the shoe as tight as his injury would allow.

She stood up in front of him and helped him to his feet. She quickly put her Shillelagh walking stick into his hand.

"Use that to take as much pressure off your foot as you can, but you are going to have to walk because there is no way I can carry you."

As she steadied him as he stood he took advantage of her close proximity to kiss her. "I don't have a merit badge to give you, but you'd have made any boy or Girl Scout proud."

She just rolled her eyes. "Now put your left hand around my shoulders and use your right to help take as much pressure off your foot as you can with the walking stick."

He nodded. "Got it."

Kate took a deep breath. "Okay, which way do we go?"

Rick let himself take a long look at their surroundings as he scanned around them.

He nodded off toward the grasslands to their left. "I don't see anything that looks at all like a place where people might be." He looked back toward the woods. "But if you listen carefully, I think I can hear that running water I heard through the mirror somewhere in that direction. If we find a large creek or a small river than we can follow it because people are more likely to be near water than not."

Kate raised her brow. "Oh, and how did you come up with that theory?"

He grinned. "I read it in a book when I was ten."

"Of course."

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Rick was surprisingly able to keep up a respectable pace while hanging onto Kate and using her fancy walking stick to provide support and balance. Moving carefully in the woodlands they reached the expected river in less than an hour.

Even with Kate's help and that of the walking stick, Rick was grateful to find a large boulder near the bank of the river where he could sit and take the weight off his very sore ankle. He was pretty sure that it was just sprained and not broken, or suffered any tears of ligaments or tendons.

Kate sat next to him, and snaked her arm around his back and began to massage the tight muscles she could feel.

The river was more of a large stream that was moving along quite rapidly. There were a few small rapids, and several eddies in the shallow depths as the water made its way swiftly round the several large rocks and boulders.

Kate glanced both ways. "So which way should we go, upstream or downstream?"

Rick pursed his lips into a tight frown. "I'm not sure." He looked both ways as she had. "Can't really tell how far the forest goes either way. We'd be more likely to find some kind of settlement where the land opens up and becomes more like grasslands that could support farm animals."

Kate stood up and stood next to the stream, then walked upstream for several yards, then turned around and walked downstream for several yards. She came back and sat next to Rick. He turned toward her waiting for her to speak.

"If I can trust my inner ear, and my feelings of balance, going upstream feels more like I'm moving upward. And it's the reverse when I walk downstream."

Rick nodded. "That makes sense. It would be the reason for its direction. This little stream could be flowing down from some highland lake toward some outlet into a sea or an ocean. Or even another lake."

Kate shook her head. "There's a lot of could be's and maybe's in that logic."

He grinned. "Very true, but do you have a better idea?"

"Maybe we should have tried to follow wherever that damn mirror doorway went. It very well could be the only way we can get home."

Rick spread his arms as he shrugged. "It was gone so quickly, I doubt we could ever have caught up with it. You came through only a few seconds after I did, and you entered several yards away from where I was. I don't see how we could have caught it."

Kate frowned. "And we don't even know if it was a two way gateway." Kate clenched her hands into fists. "So how do we find a way back home?"

Rick leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "We have faith that a solution will make its self-known to us sometime. And when it does, we'll be ready to take advantage of it."

She raised her brow. "I'll remind you of that when we are a couple of gray haired old codgers sitting in front of a fireplace in our rustic little log cabin wrapped in a bear skin so we don't freeze to death."

He smirked. "That doesn't sound all that bad to me."

She rolled her eyes and punched him in the arm, then stood up. "Shall we follow this stream and see where it goes?"

He nodded. "What have we got to lose?" He struggled to his feet. He could tell that Kate so wanted to come back with some snarky comment but held her piece.

Their progress was unsurprisingly slow due to Rick's ankle, but they kept at it. The sun was now just barely above the tops of the trees and they estimated that they'd been walking for nearly three hours, but the forest still surrounded them as they followed the stream to where ever it would lead them.

After another hour of hobbling, they found themselves leaving the woodlands for an expanse of rolling grasslands which were frequently dotted with the large rocks and boulders here and there.

They were now following the stream mostly by twilight. There was a three quarter full moon rising, and stars began to make their presence known. Unfortunately, neither recognized any familiar constellations in the darkened sky.

They had just reached the crest of the latest rolling hill when Kate suddenly pointed and shouted.

"Look, up ahead." Her voice held a note of hope. "Doesn't that look like a small group of buildings?" She squeezed his arm. "Maybe it's a small village, or a farm, or just a local watering hole type of gathering place."

Castle squinted as he tried to identify the few dark shadowed blobs that lined one side of the stream. He pointed toward the biggest blob.

"Look at that one. Doesn't it look like it has a cross at the peak of its roof?"

Kate gave him a squeeze. "Come on, maybe there is someone down there who can help us."

Rick gave her a weary look. "Maybe who's ever there has some food. I'm starving."

Kate rolled her eyes and shook her head.

Kate so wanted to hurry toward the building she'd chosen, but Rick couldn't move very fast. They found themselves in front of an impressive wooden double door. Now that they were standing next to it they could tell that there were carved reliefs covering the wooden entrance. But it was too dark to make out what was actually carved into the surface of the door.

Kate took Rick's sword that she'd been carrying during their journey so far and handed it back to him. She would need a free hand to knock on the large door. From the cross on the roof's eve she hoped that it was some sort of church and that there might be some caretaker who lived there, or some member of the clergy that made the place their home as well as their calling.

Kate took in a deep breath and pounded as loudly as she could on the large thick door. She waited a few moments, then tried again. After her third attempt she thought she heard some movement. Then a somewhat angry voice called out.

"Hold your horses. Do you want to wake the dead?"

Suddenly, one of the large doors was pulled partway open. A short, plump woman in a wrinkled nightgown and a shawl still not fully over her shoulders.

The woman had to crane her neck to be able to look directly into Kate and Rick's faces.

"You know it's the middle of the night don't you? Why are you pounding on the church's door? Don't you know there is nobody here but me?"

Kate placed her hand on the woman's shoulder in what she hoped was a friendly gesture.

"I'm so glad you were here. We are a couple of lost travelers who've been wandering over the countryside most of the day." Kate indicated Castle with a nod of her head. "And as you can see, my partner has suffered an injured ankle and has been walking on it the whole day." Kate gave her the neediest expression she had. "We need help."

The woman frowned but stepped aside. "Well, come on in then. I'll try and get a fire started before the temperature drops much more. The mornings can get pretty chilly."

The small round woman waddled into a great room just off the obvious temple. Kate helped Rick follow. The two of them sat down on a large bench that faced the fireplace that the woman was fussing in front of.

"I'm Sadie, I've been appointed as caretaker of the church until the town's folk come back." She called over her shoulder.

Kate held Rick' hand while the woman worked to get a fire lit. She worked in silence for a few more minutes until she was able to get the spark from the flint to catch and start a fire building in the hearth. Kate squeezed Rick's hand as the woman turned toward them.

"Okay, tell me what you two were doing wandering around the countryside at a time like this?"

Kate held her hand up. "First, may I ask? Where is everybody? The whole time we approached there were no fires, no movement of any kind. We didn't even notice there was a town here until we were almost on it."

Sadie rolled her eyes and shook her head. "It seems like nobody is here in Green Meadows is because, except for me, there is nobody here."

Rick finally spoke. "You're the only one here? The rest of the town's folk just left you behind?"

"No," she shook her head. "I volunteered to stay and guard the church."

Kate scrunched up her face. "Why? You're all alone here. Are you in any danger?"

Sadie waved Kate's concern away with a quick flip of her hand. "Not much. But when is someone like me going to have a chance to sleep in a real bed and have enough food to eat two filling meals every day? It may be a little lonely for a while, but someone like me doesn't get opportunities like this very often."

She walked over to where Rick and Kate were sitting. She pointed at Rick's sword.

"Are you a knight or just a sell sword?" There was an edge to her voice.

Kate patted Rick's hand. "He's a knight. He is Sir Richard Rogers. When we suddenly found ourselves in this realm without our steeds we were forced to find our way on foot." For some strange reason it just felt wrong for Kate to use the name Castle.

As soon as Kate took a breath Rick jumped in. "And this is the lady knight Dame Katherine Beckett."

Sadie nodded. "If you say so. I guess I'm in some pretty big deal company." She raised her eye. "So how did you get here?"

Rick gave Kate a quick smirk before turning back to their host. And the teller of tales did what he did so well. He constructed a story of danger and terror that eventually left them nearly helpless in this land completely unknown to them. Kate had to bite down on her lip the whole time, and as she watched Sadie she wondered if the plump woman wasn't completely buying Rick's tale either.

Sadie walked over to another bench and sat down. "It sure sounds like you suffered quite an adventure there. I'm surprised that you only sprained your ankle." The woman shrugged her rounded shoulders. "I don't know how much I can help you out. You are welcome to get some rest in front of the fire until morning. There are a few horses in the barn behind the church and some tack."

She stood and walked in a circle a few times. "If you two really are who you say you are, the King could use all the help he can get." She appeared to make up her mind. "In the morning I'll take you out to the barn and you can get a couple of horses tacked out and I'll point you toward the center of this land; Avoria and Castle Rock Ridge. If you are both the knights you say you are, King Zachariah could probably use you two. Maybe all the stuff that you went through is also a part of the troubles that threaten the kingdom now."

Kate furrows her brow. "What kind of trouble is this kingdom in?"

Sadie chuckled. "I can't say that I've actually seen it, or I even believe what I've been told, but a lot of folks from farther out at the edges of the kingdom swear they saw it, and have witnessed terrible acts of destruction."

Kate shook her head. "Okay, what have you been told? What kind of trouble is this kingdom in?"

The woman wobbled her way out to the doorway of the room, then stopped and turned to them.

"Talk says it's a dragon." She smiled. "Would you two like a blanket? That fire won't last until morning."

After getting the single blanket Kate asked for and had wrapped it around themselves as they huddled together and stared at the fire. As tired as they were, neither seemed able to doze off.

After several minutes of silence Kate turned toward Rick. "Why did you call me 'Dame' Katherine Beckett?"

"Because female knights, and there were female knights, were called Dame just as male knights were accorded the sobriquet Sir."

She frowned. "It's not like I have a sword and shield or anything. Not very knightly of me."

He pulled her head against his shoulder. "You don't need a sword to be a knight. You have your staff and maybe if there is a bow with some arrows around you could borrow them once morning comes."

Kate glanced up at him. "This church does seem a bit well-armed for a house of god." Her eyes landed on several swords and battle axes hanging on the wall. "But I don't see any bows or arrows."

Rick shrugged. "I'm not really surprised. We apparently wound up in a land that seems to mirror life in medieval times. Nearly everyone had to be able to protect themselves from danger from multiple sources. And if there is a dragon to be dealt with, even more than our ancestors had to deal with."

She shook her head. "You don't really believe that there is an actual dragon terrorizing the countryside do you?"

He smirked at the disapproving tone to her voice. "When you recall that we both entered this unknown realm through a large mirror, I'm not about to ignore any possibility."

"Great." She snuggled closer to him. "So what do you think this "dragon" really is? Are we talking about some out of time creature like a T-Rex that survived the extinction, or Smaug?"

Rick chuckled. "Should we ask if there are any Hobbits around?"

She glared at him briefly, then wrapped her arm around his back. "So how do we find our way out of here?"

Rick let his head rest on top of Kate's head. "Well, if we are going to meet the local king, maybe he'll have a handy wizard. Whether he be an Arthur's Merlin, or Bilbo's Gandalf, I'm more than willing to work with either."

She punched him in the arm. "I'm guessing this king we're more likely to come across is some nearly senile old man who has never used a sword except when he wore it to palace events. And has been led by the nose by a gaggle of advisors who spend most of their time finding ways to steal a soft life with their positions."

Rick took her hand in his. "I never realized you were so jaded when it came to the people who work for those in power. Why are you so cynical?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm a cop."

"Not here you aren't. You'd be a sheriff." He laughed. He pulled her in tighter next to him. "Try to get some sleep. I have the feeling that we are going to need it."

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Kate was surprised that she had actually fallen asleep as a shaft of early morning sunlight beamed into the room through a small window in the opposite wall. She allowed herself a small smile. She always felt safe and secure when she was in Rick's arms.

She carefully detangled herself from his arms as a huge yawn cracked her jaw. After that, she felt the stare of a pair of deep blue eyes fall on her. She turned her head toward him and gave him back a tired smile. He quickly gave her a morning kiss.

Kate could only imagine what either of their breaths would be like this morning after yesterday's sampling so many different foods that she'd never had before.

She smiled. "Morning," she said softly.

He answered with a second kiss to her hungry lips. Things might have escalated had Sadie had not chosen that moment to burst in on the still tired couple. She had a crooked smile on her face. She obviously knew what she was interrupting.

The woman caretaker had her arms full of some white strips of cloth and a jar of something.

Sadie knelt in front of Rick and reached for his sprained ankle. He pulled his leg back.

"What are you planning to do?"

The round woman leaned back on her heels. "Well, I may not be a healer, or a vet, but I've wrapped up a few sprains and twisted ankles in my time on this earth. I raised four rambunctious boys."

Kate smiled. "Oh, you have a family? Where are they?"

The expression on Sadie's face hardened. "My man passed on a while back. The boys all became soldiers in the King's army. Two of them were still alive last I heard."

Kate sucked in a gasp. "I'm so sorry."

The woman shrugged. "None of them were farmers. I just thank the gods," she looked up. "Or god, that they had a few years where they were fed good food, were able to make some friends, and lived for a purpose."

She had stripped off Kate's makeshift ankle cast. Sadie looked up at her. "You do this?" Kate nodded. "Pretty clever. I've never seen tree bark used like this." She ran her hand over Rick's injured ankle. "Not nearly as much swelling as I'd expect."

Kate just shrugged as the woman tightly wrapped Rick's ankle with the white bandage cloth. After a couple of snug wraps she tied the wrap off.

She was able to slip Rick's tennis shoe onto his damaged foot, but she had to leave the laces quite loose.

Sadie stared over at Kate's high tops and back at Rick's shoes.

"Can't say I've ever seen boots made from canvas with some sort of squishy material for the soles."

Kate gave her shoulders a quick shrug. "Their some new footwear from the far, um, eastern lands. They're built for comfort, but not too rugged."

She nodded. "Yeah well, they should be fine for riding a horse, but I don't know how well they'll hold out if you have to do a lot of walking."

"Oh they are designed for comfortable walking." Rick quickly added.

Sadie raised a brow. "Through these rocky paths? You're going to be traveling through some mountainous lands from here on out." She chuckled. "There's a reason that horses are shoed with iron."

Sadie stood up and walked toward the door. "Once you're ready, come into the kitchen and I'll get something filling in you before we go out to the stable and find you a couple of horses that have enough left in them to give you a good chance to get you to Avoria and Castle Rock Ridge.

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All Readers are Appreciated, Review if you wish

A/N: I mentioned in my opening for this story that it was going to be ten chapters and an Epilogue. It didn't quite work out that way, so I had to restructure the story to have eleven chapters with a short Epilogue tacked on the end. Just letting you all know.