The Hall of Worlds

The Hall of Worlds (working title)

Description: In an attempt to escape from the mysterious men bent on his death, sixteen-year-old Nathan leaves Earth for a magical world called Rhean. There he discovers his own powers and is swept away on a quest to learn if his parents, gone these last eleven years, still live. The journey takes Nathan and his five companions across Rhean with only a cryptic riddle as a guide, and into the Hall of Worlds itself—a place of legend and ancient magic. Nathan must find his parents and the King and Queen of Rhean, foil an evil plot for world domination, and face his own greatest fear: the truth that will change Nathan’s world forever.

Author's note: This is the second draft. I'll be adding chapters as I finish proofreading/rewriting them. When this static item runs out of space I'll leave a link to my site where further chapters can be read (unless I end up upgrading my port so I can have an actual book item in here).
Enjoy!

Part I: Nathan

Chapter I

Nathan awoke suddenly. Sitting up in bed, he looked about for the man who had spoken his name, but his eyes could not penetrate the darkness of his room.

         "Nathan.” There was the voice again. Or was he still dreaming?

         “Who is there?” Nathan asked the darkness.

         “I need your help.”

         Nathan continued to look around. His vision had adjusted enough for him to vaguely make out the shapes of his roommates’ beds and their sleeping forms. “Are you a ghost?”

         “I am as alive as you are, but I am far away.”

         “Then how can I hear you?” Nathan asked, with growing uneasiness. He was beginning to hope this was just a dream. He was not the sort of person extraordinary things generally happened to, and he was glad of it. “How do you know my name?”

         “Your father told me much about you.”

         Nathan was surprised and intrigued. Both his mother and father had disappeared eleven years ago, when he was five years old. No one knew where they had gone or why. Nathan thought of them often and wondered if they were still alive. “You knew my parents?”

         “Yes. That is why I need your help.”

         “What do you mean?”

         “Are you at Aspenfield?”

         “No,” said Nathan slowly. Naturally his father would have mentioned Aspenfield. It was where both his parents had worked as servants from the time they suddenly appeared there, to the time they mysteriously disappeared, leaving Nathan to be cared for by Mr. and Mrs. Jones—both also servants. When Widow Smithson, Aspenfield’s elderly owner, learned of Nathan’s circumstances she took him on as her ward. As she had no children or close relations, Nathan was to inherit the entire estate after her death. “I’m at school, but this is the last night of term. I will be going home tomorrow. Why?”

         “I know what happened to your parents Helen and Michael.”

         “You do?” Nathan exclaimed before he could stop himself. A dozen questions boiled up inside him, but he forced himself to be calm and ask only: “Where are they?” Nathan did not care who the voice was or how he was able to hear it. He could believe anything if this person would give him answers.

         “Have patience. I will explain everything when I arrive at Aspenfield in a few days,” said the voice.

         “But why not now?”

         “I have much to do if I am to go to Aspenfield at all, Nathan. I shall see you soon.”

         He had waited eleven years; Nathan could wait a day or two longer. “Do you promise to tell me then?”

         The man did not answer.

         Nathan called quietly to the darkness. “Hello? Are you still there?”

         The voice, whoever it had been, was gone.

         “Who’re you talking to?” asked one of Nathan’s schoolmates, raising his head off his pillow and blinking blearily.

         “No one.”

         Nathan lay back, pulling the covers up to his chin. He reflected on what the voice had said. If it had been real, he would soon learn what had become of his mother and father. Nathan had asked Mr. and Mrs. Jones about them numerous times and been told only that his father, Michael, had walked right out of the park’s woods one day and asked to borrow a horse. Widow Smithson, intrigued by the stranger, had given him one, and he’d ridden off. A year later Michael came back with his wife, Helen, returned the borrowed horse, and asked for employment at Aspenfield. There he and Helen lived and worked for over five years before leaving Nathan with the Jones’ and vanishing off the face of the earth. Nathan fell asleep wondering what might happen if the voice had spoken true.

         Too soon he was awakened by sounds of movement from his roommates. He got out of bed, dressed, and went down to breakfast, fully prepared for the summer holidays to begin. Amid all the hurry and bustle of packing and saying goodbye to his friends and speculating on what may have happened at Aspenfield since the last letter from home, Nathan did not think about what had passed the night before until he was climbing into a carriage bound for the train station. He happened to see, out of the corner of his eye, a man in a black cloak staring at him, but then two other schoolboys got into the carriage, and obstructed Nathan’s view. He looked out of the window as the carriage moved off. The man was gone.

         For some reason that stare had unnerved him, and caused him to recall the voice during the night and its peculiar request for aid. The two incidents were, of course, completely unrelated except that they were both strange, and strange things did not happen to Nathan outside of being abandoned mysteriously eleven years ago.

         By the time he arrived at the station, Nathan had convinced himself that he had been mistaken, and the man had not really looked at him, but at something behind him. Last night was a dream, a product of his imagination brought on by excitement for the end of term. Shielded by these conclusions, when he saw another cloaked man at the train station, Nathan decided it was pure coincidence. He was angry with himself for being so relieved that the man didn’t board the train.

         As the train chugged into motion, Nathan thought of home. He couldn’t wait to arrive back at Aspenfield, and to see the Widow Smithson, the Jones’, and Thomas and Rowan again. Thomas and Rowan were the Jones’ two children, and Nathan’s only friends. He considered his acquaintances at school more as allies than true friends—brought together solely by mutual dislike for the professors and headmaster.

         Thomas was two years older than Nathan, and Rowan a year younger. They and their parents were as close as Nathan had to a family. Thinking of them drove out any lingering fear of cloaked men—imagined or real. Soon Nathan would be home; nothing could touch him there.

         The train hissed and squealed to a halt at his platform. Nathan collected his luggage and disembarked. Thomas and Mr. Jones were waiting for him.

         “Welcome home, Nathan,” said Mr. Jones, drawing him into a fatherly embrace.

         “How was school?” Thomas asked as he loaded Nathan’s trunk into the carriage.

         “Boring, as usual—nothing interesting since Jeremy accidentally set his bed on fire last month. How is Mrs. Jones?”

         “My mother is well. She is happy you are coming home. Rowan too.”

         “And the Widow?”

         “She had us leave an extra hour early to be sure you wouldn’t have to wait a single minute on the platform,” said Mr. Jones. They began the five-mile ride to Aspenfield.

         Soon enough the carriage trundled around a bend and the manor came into view. It was an old house and the gardeners were constantly at war with the ivy and climbing vines that threatened to cover all the walls, but it was beautiful and the park and grounds even more so. The house, inside, was neat and well ordered. Mrs. Smithson was quite a stickler for propriety—and rather disapproved of Nathan’s closeness with the servants, although never openly discouraging it.

         Nathan took in the sight and smells of his home with satisfaction. There was no place in the world he would rather be.

         While Mr. Jones tended to the horses and carriage, and Thomas carried Nathan’s things upstairs, Nathan went to say hello to the widow. Afterward he asked around for Rowan, and was told she was in the kitchens with Mrs. Jones. Nathan went down to see them and found Rowan there, baking pies with a few other servants.

         “Good afternoon,” said Nathan, coming up behind her.

         “Nathan!” She turned, wiping her floury hands on her apron. “When did you get back?”

         “Not long ago. How have you been?”

         “Very well. And you?”

         Nathan looked around the kitchen. “Better now that I am home. Would you like to take a walk in the park with me?”

         “Of course, just as soon as we finish these pies,” said Rowan.

         She went to work again, and Nathan stayed a moment, watching her work. Rowan’s hair was a lighter shade of brown than Thomas’s—who’s was really almost black. Her eyes were the same color as her brother’s: dark brown. They both highly resembled Mrs. Jones, while Mr. Jones’s once blonde hair was now somewhat grayer and thinner, and his eyes were quite blue. Nathan caught a glimpse of his own brown-haired, grey-eyed reflection in a washbasin as he turned to leave. In the doorway he found himself nose to nose with Mrs. Jones herself—so to speak, for Nathan was taller.

         Mrs. Jones smiled at him, then glanced past Nathan to her daughter and said, “Let me do the pies, Rowan. I’m sure you have something else you would rather be doing.”

          Rowan removed her apron and tied on a clean one, beaming gratefully at her mother. Nathan led the way outside and down toward one of the many stands of aspen trees that gave the place its name. Thomas caught up with them as they came under the shadows of the first boughs. It was a beautiful, early summer day. The sky above was deep blue almost empty of clouds, and not too hot, as the sun was beginning to drift toward the horizon. The grass was bright spring green.

         Nathan walked in comfortable silence with Thomas and Rowan for some distance until a sudden sound of rustling leaves and a glimpse of something black caused him to start violently. His heart hammered against his ribs like a caged thing even as he realized that it was only a black bird, taking flight after being startled by their approach. Nathan slumped against a tree, relieved. He had been sure it was one of the cloaked men.

         “What’s the matter, Nathan?” asked Rowan, alarmed.

         He took a deep, steadying breath, and shook his head. “You would not believe me if I told you.”

         Thomas’s eyebrows shot up. “Try us.”

         “It is going to sound mad,” Nathan warned, but he told them about what had happened that morning and the night before.

         “What do you think it all means?” Rowan asked after he finished.

         “Means?” retorted Nathan. “It probably means I am going mad!”

         “But assume for a moment that the…voice was telling you the truth, and that those men really were following you,” said Thomas. “Are the two related?”

         Nathan considered this. “I don’t know. The voice said he would come here in a few days, not right away. Also, he did not sound unfriendly. The staring men seemed far more threatening. Does it matter whether they’re related or not?”

         “The more clues we have about this, the easier it will be to figure out—”

         “What?” exclaimed Nathan, interrupting Thomas. “You two are treating this like it is all real!”

         “That is the only thing that makes sense, Nathan,” said Rowan, “because we know you are not insane.”

         “I cannot believe this!” snapped Nathan. He veered off into the trees alone. When he had stormed some way Nathan stopped and sat down on a log. He did not want to think about the voice or the men, and regretted telling Rowan and Thomas of either. Their automatic assumptions that the events had been real made him perversely want to reject the possibility. The truly infuriating part was that something inside him still yearned to believe.

         The voice had promised Nathan answers he desperately needed. All the mysteries in his past had gnawed at him for eleven years now. Why did his parents leave? Why did they not take him with them? Where were they now? Did they ever think of their son? Were they even alive? Nathan’s face grew hot. His eyes prickled, and his hands trembled. The old anger, bitterness, and sorrow he always strove to keep inside were bubbling up, about to burst forth in a flood of despair.

         A twig cracked. Nathan spun around. It was Rowan. She averted her eyes and apologized, embarrassed to have come upon him thus. She started to leave, but he halted her.

         “Wait.” Nathan swallowed and pulled out his handkerchief to wipe his face. “I’ll be alright in a moment. Where is Thomas?”

         “He went back to the house.”

         Nathan was bothered by the way Rowan looked at him. True, he didn’t usually display emotion in public, but her new awareness that he did feel emotions beyond what he showed was no reason for her to appear so distressed.

         “I am fine, really,” he assured her. “It is just that after all these years the only reasons I can think of why my mother and father never came back is that they are dead or—” Nathan felt a pang as he considered the alternative, “—that they do not want to come back. In either case I do not want to know about it, but at the same time I do.”

         “You are not happy here at Aspenfield?”

         Nathan winced. “Of course I am, but have you never felt like there is somewhere else out there where you would be happier than where you are now?”

         Rowan shook her head. “I cannot imagine anywhere better than Aspenfield.”

         Nathan sighed, and looked around at the trees. “I do not mean to seem ungrateful for everything your family and Mrs. Smithson have done for me. I love it here, but I just want to know what happened to my parents. That is not wrong is it?”

         Rowan did not answer. She was biting her lip and staring at the ground. Nathan sighed again and stood. “We should go back.” As they started for the house, Nathan drew her arm through his, and though Rowan looked surprised she did not pull away. Nathan did not care if Mrs. Smithson saw him walking arm in arm with a servant. The Jones’ were as close as he had to a family.

         Nathan and Rowan had not gone more than ten paces before they heard sounds from behind and turned. Coming in their direction through the trees were no less than eight cloaked men. Nathan’s blood chilled and Rowan clutched at his arm in fright. An instinctive fear of those men drove all thoughts from Nathan’s mind save one: escape.

Chapter II

Nathan turned and sprinted for the house, pulling Rowan along by the hand, not daring to glance back, knowing any second they would be overtaken. As they broke out of the trees onto the lawn he stumbled and fell, twisting his right ankle in a small hollow in the grass. Rowan waited for him to get up.

         “Go!” he said, waving at her to keep running. She took off. Nathan glanced back and saw the men not far behind him. He got up and hurried after Rowan as fast as he could, wincing with every other step. Nathan was almost halfway to the house when he saw Rowan disappear inside. He could hear the footsteps of his pursuers pounding closer and tried to go faster. A hand caught his shoulder and jerked him backwards. He fell, pulling the man down with him. For a moment it was all flying grass and thrashing limbs and hot breath, and then Nathan was up and running again, but it was too late. The men had him surrounded now. He spun around, looking for an opportunity to break out of the circle but seeing none. One of the men knocked Nathan face first onto the ground and held him there with his boot on Nathan’s back. Pressed as he was to the grass, Nathan could see only the feet of his attackers.

         “What is your name?” asked one of them, his voice deep and grating.

         Nathan managed to gasp out an intelligible answer.

         A few of the other men muttered words Nathan couldn’t make out, and then were silent. “Who are your parents?” asked the first man.

         “Michael and Helen,” panted Nathan, struggling to breathe against the weight pressing down on him. “What do you want?”

         The only answer was a kick to Nathan’s ribs, which rolled him over onto his back. He stared up at the men, gasping for breath, his side aching from the blow. There was something wrong with their faces—Nathan didn’t know why, but they looked unnatural somehow. He dared not repeat his question.

         “We might as well do it here as anywhere else,” said one man. The others nodded. “Hold him.”

         Nathan found all his limbs pinned to the ground. He fought against the men, but they were stronger.

         “Help!” he shouted. “Help!” Hadn’t anyone in the house seen what was happening? Nathan’s cries were cut off as one of the men bent down and started to strangle him with his bare hands. Nathan struggled for breath, writhing with all his might against the men holding him.

         His lungs were on fire. His head was about to explode. Nathan’s struggles gradually slowed. The face of the man choking him swam before his eyes. As he began to lose consciousness, Nathan thought of his pitifully short, wasted life and wished he could have at least said goodbye to the Jones’.

         All of a sudden the grip released and Nathan was jerked painfully back to consciousness. It hurt to breathe. He rolled over onto his stomach, coughing and shaking. The ground beneath him trembled, and there seemed to be a lot of noise, though he couldn’t tell what it was. Hands grabbed him and he lashed out weakly.

         Nathan was turned over and saw Mr. Jones’s face above him before being lifted off the ground and laid like a sack over the shoulders of a horse. Thomas mounted behind Nathan and held him steady as the horse galloped away. He looked back and saw riders armed with shovels, rakes, and pitchforks driving the cloaked men back into the trees. Then he retched into the grass whizzing by beneath him. His throat burned anew.

         “Almost there,” said Thomas, patting his back. In the next moment he had reigned in the horse and dismounted. Nathan’s legs gave way under him as Thomas set him on his feet. Mrs. Jones and Rowan came running out of the house and half-carried Nathan inside, where he promptly passed out.

         Nathan awoke disoriented. Blurry faces hovered over him, talking to each other. The cloaked men! He shouted for help—or tried to shout. What issued from his lips was more of a hoarse growl. He started to sit up, but someone pushed him gently back down. It was then that the pain, and the memory of being rescued, came back to him. He put a hand to his aching throat. Nathan now saw that he was in bed in his own room, and the faces belonged to Mrs. Smithson, who was seated on the edge of his bed, and Mrs. Jones, who was standing by the other side.

         “Where—” Nathan winced at the pain in his throat. “The men. Where—”

         “They’re gone,” said Mrs. Smithson. “The servants are still searching the woods for them.”

          Nathan started to sit up once more, but again he was pushed back by Mrs. Jones. “Please lie still. A doctor is on his way.”

         “I’m fine,” said he. Neither woman believed his lie.

         Mrs. Smithson’s countenance turned grave. “Who were they, Nathan? Did you get into trouble at school? You must tell us.”

         “I have no idea who they are,” Nathan said, “or why they attacked me. I saw one of them as I was leaving school, and one at the train station. I thought I was imagining things, and never dreamed they’d follow me here.”

         Mrs. Smithson looked somewhat relieved. “You don’t know what they were after?” she asked.

         Nathan frowned. “No. Though they asked me what my name was, and who my parents are. That’s all.”

         Mrs. Jones paled, but the widow seemed only puzzled. “Strange,” said Mrs. Smithson. “I can’t make anything of it.” She patted Nathan’s shoulder. “You have been through a lot today. Try to rest until the doctor comes. I’ll make certain all the doors and windows are secured, and send up some food.” She stood and swept from the room, Mrs. Jones quickly following.

         Nathan wondered at Mrs. Jones’ sudden fright. Perhaps she knew something about his parents she hadn’t told him—something that could link them to the strange men. He found he could not sleep and got out of bed and paced about the room, despite the soreness in his side and a slight headache—although the ankle he’d twisted felt fine. Nathan stopped at one of the tall windows and looked out over the lawns. The sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows across the world. His room was on the wrong side of the house to see the place where he’d been attacked, but Nathan could view a good portion of the woods into which the men had retreated. As he gazed out Nathan gingerly explored his tender neck with his fingers, and wondered what shade of purple the large bruises were.

         There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” said Nathan, and then realized that the person had not heard his quiet, rasping voice, and went to open the door himself. There stood Rowan and Thomas, bearing trays of food. “Come in,” he said again. They entered and set the trays on the table by Nathan’s bed.

         “How are you?” asked Rowan for the second time that day. How much the meaning of the question had changed in those short hours!

         “Still a little shaken,” admitted Nathan, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “I’m not actually hungry,” he added, glancing at the trays.

         Thomas shrugged; Rowan said nothing, but they did not turn to leave, and merely continued to stand by his bed.. Again Nathan was annoyed by the way Rowan looked at him, and Thomas was surreptitiously watching Nathan’s every movement, as though afraid he might suddenly faint or disappear, or grow a third arm. Nathan wished Thomas and Rowan would sit down. The differences between their station as servants and his as Mrs. Smithson’s ward did not seem of any significance anymore. After his brush with death, Nathan found that several things had been put in perspective.

         “I need to talk to your parents,” said he abruptly, standing up. Nathan swayed with momentary dizziness, but steadied himself against one of the bedposts and shook off the spell. “Do you know where they are?”

         Thomas answered. “My father is still searching the woods for the men. My mother was in the kitchens a few moments ago.”

         Nathan nodded and headed for the kitchens. Thomas and Rowan followed him. They had not gone far when they rounded a corner and came suddenly upon a man in a black cloak. The stranger’s face split in a nasty grin, but before he could call for the other men Nathan, Thomas, and Rowan were running back the way they came.

         “How did they get inside?” cried Rowan as they ran.

         Nathan didn’t bother to answer. He was busy thinking. He knew a few places to hide, didn’t like the thought of sitting still and waiting while the chances of being discovered grew, and then being trapped when they were found. However, he and his friends would not be able to run for long. He was already tired.

         They had gone all the way back past his bedroom and along another passage when all at once a white, shining disk appeared in the air before them, and three cloaked men emerged from it.

         “What on earth—” Nathan stared at the disk, and then wheeled around, but he and his friends were cut off. Nathan felt panic rising in his chest, and knew that he and Thomas together could not fight off more than one or two of the men. He did not want to die.

         The men advanced. Nathan backed up a step, his will to live raging fiercely against the impending doom. He glanced over his shoulder at the white disk, thinking quickly. Then he grabbed Rowan’s wrist and pulled her toward the disk. Yes, it might be some sort of gateway to a place full of cloaked men, but this was not the time to be picky. For a crucial fraction of a second the strange men were too startled to stop them, and the three friends leapt into the disk, Nathan holding tight to Rowan, and Thomas following them. Out of the frying pan, thought Nathan apprehensively.

         The world flipped over. They were falling and falling through blinding, empty whiteness. Past them flashed bits of color, too quickly to see. Nathan closed his eyes, feeling nauseous. A moment later he felt his feet slam into the ground and he crumpled, sick and dizzy. Nathan rolled over onto his back, and heard a groan nearby, but didn’t know if it was from Thomas or Rowan. Everything spun wildly before him.

         He lost consciousness hoping he hadn’t led his friends into the fire.

Chapter III

The first thing Nathan noticed when he woke was that the sun was once more high in the sky. The great blue dome stretching above the deciduous treetops was empty of clouds.  Squinting up at the branches, Nathan realized that the white disk had only transported them back to Aspenfield’s woods. A small part of his mind noted and wondered at the sweet, slightly minty smell in his nostrils, which was vaguely familiar, but entirely out of place here. The rest of him was busy thinking that the altitude of the sun meant he'd been unconscious for hours. Why hadn't the men found him yet? As Nathan started to sit up to see how his friends fared, he heard a startled yelp from behind him. He twisted around.

         Two boys dressed in long black robes and hooded cloaks were staring at Nathan in alarm. So, thought he, the men had found them after all. The boys were guards to ensure none of them escaped. Nathan saw Rowan lying a few feet away. She was unconscious but seemed to be uninjured. Thomas was—nowhere to be seen.

         Nathan looked all around but didn’t see his other friend anywhere. He turned back to the boys. “Where did they take him?” he demanded hoarsely.

         “Take who?” asked the older of the boys.

         “Thomas, the other servant,” Nathan snapped, scanning his surroundings again. Which direction was the house? This part of the woods was unfamiliar. “He came through the disk with us. Where are all the other men?”

         “What other men?”

         “Quit playing stupid!” Nathan shouted. He started to get up, the boys backed away, and Rowan stirred.

         Rowan's eyes fluttered open. “What happened?" she asked, and then added after lifting her head to look around, “Where is Thomas?”

         “We are still at Aspenfield, and I do not know where Thomas is.” Nathan turned a hostile glare on the boys, and found them gazing at him in confusion.

         “What’s Aspenfield?"

         “Here! This park! That house!” Nathan waved his arm in what he hoped was the right direction. He was very tired of this game, and he could feel a headache beginning behind his eyes. “Just tell us what they did with Thomas.” Nathan got to his feet, and helped Rowan up.

         “We don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the younger of the boys. “We found you here a few minutes ago. Did something go wrong with your portal?”

         “Portal,” Nathan said, mystified. “What is a portal?”

         The boys looked at each another in astonishment. “I told you they aren't wizards,” one muttered to the other. “What is taking Yandran so long?”

         Nathan let out a frustrated sigh; this was going nowhere. All at once there was a flash of light and a white disk burst into existence beside the boys. One of the cloaked men stepped through.

         “Where is he?” Nathan yelled, advancing toward the newcomer, too angry to be afraid.

         “Nathan!” the stranger exclaimed. “How did you get here?”

         Nathan stopped short, bewildered. This man could not be one of the men from before. His face didn’t have the perplexing wrongness that the others’ faces did. Neither did the boys’ faces, now that he thought about it. Why were they dressed the same way?

         “You’re Yandran?” Nathan asked at last. The man was taller than him, with black hair and a full beard. He appeared to be forty or fifty years of age.

         The man nodded. “I see Friedrae and Deraek told you they Sent for me.”

         Nathan frowned at the outlandish names, but realized he was referring to the two boys, and nodded. This man's voice was strangely familiar. "Have we spoken before?”

         “Yes. Last night.”

         So this was the owner of the disembodied voice at school—the voice which had promised to explain everything when it arrived.

         “But you said you would come to Aspenfield in a few days,” said Nathan. “Why are you here already? Who were all those other men?”

         Yandran raised an eyebrow. “Other men?”

         “The men that tried to kill me,” answered Nathan in exasperation. “They have Thomas. I do not know why they have not found us yet. Aspenfield is not the largest place. Do you know who they are?”

         “I have a good guess already,” said Yandran. He turned to the boys. “It’s time you were getting back to school. I’ll see to Nathan and his friend.”

         The boys—Friedrae and Deraek—paled at the mention of school. “You aren’t going to tell Father about this are you?”

         “Tell Kotol his sons were skipping class? I certainly should, but I won’t. In return I’ll expect you both to have perfect attendance in the future. Agreed?”

         Friedrae and Deraek nodded vigorously and ran off through the trees.

         Nathan didn’t know what to make of this exchange. What kind of names were Yandran, Friedrae, Deraek, and Kotol? He didn’t know which school the boys could be attending inside Aspenfield’s grounds, let alone why they might be dressed in such a manner.

         Yandran watched Friedrae and Deraek go and then returned his attention to Nathan and Rowan. Addressing the latter, he said, “I don’t believe we have been introduced.”

         “Rowan Jones,” she said with a curtsy, “one of the housemaids.”

         “Will you help us find Thomas?” interrupted Nathan.

         “Of course,” said Yandran, giving him a dry smile, “but first you will have to explain to me everything that has happened since we last spoke.”

         He wouldn’t ask that, thought Nathan, if he was one of the men who attacked us—unless he’s clever. Either way, Nathan could not see how telling the old man could be dangerous.

         “All right,” said Nathan, and summarized his adventures. When he spoke of the questions the men had asked, Yandran’s countenance grew grave.

         “I’m afraid all my previous plans have been disrupted,” said Yandran when Nathan finished. “We will find Thomas first. Come with me. I will attempt to explain the more crucial facts to you on the way.”

         With that Yandran turned his back to them, reached out, closed his fingers, and dropped his hand as though pulling an invisible string. An opaque white disk leaped into existence, causing Nathan and Rowan to flinch back, startled. Yanran turned to them again.

         Nathan eyed the bright circle with distrust. “Will this take us back to the house?” He did not understand how the things worked, but he could not deny that he’d awoken in the woods after jumping into a disk in the house. Probably it was a kind of firework that knocked one senseless so as to be taken somewhere else. But that did not explain how the cloaked men had seemed to come through one into the house, completely conscious.

         “Not to your house,” Yandran answered. “We are not in Aspenfield’s woods, as you believed.”

         That explains rather a lot, thought Nathan. “Where are we, then? And how does that thing work? How did we get where we are?”

         “Which would you like to hear first?” countered Yandran, appearing amused. “I promise you won’t like any of the answers.”

         Nathan glanced at Rowan, who sent back an equally concerned look. This man had to be out of his mind.

         “You were transported here by magic,” said Yandran.

         Nathan and Rowan stared, unspeakably incredulous. Yandran seemed, if anything, more amused.

         “’Magic’ is what you would call it. We call it ‘tarin.’” Yandran continued.

         “You are mad,” said Nathan, taking a step back and pulling Rowan with him.

         “Then you must be as mad as I am,” said Yandran. “You did leap into a large, white, floating hole and expect it to take you somewhere.”

         “We had no choice. They were going to kill us!” Nathan exclaimed.

         “But you escaped,” Yandran pressed, “by tarin.”

         “You mean to say that those men were some kind of wizards?” asked Nathan. There had to be some other explanation.

         “Yes, and the worst sort of wizards.”

         “If they were wizards why didn’t they blast us to pieces with magic?” Nathan voiced the obvious question.

         “Very few types of tarin work on Earth, Nathan. There is not enough of it in the air. I’m sure you have noticed the tarin here—it has quite a distinctive smell.”

         Nathan paused, realizing the contradiction. “But you just said there is none on Earth.”

         “Indeed.”

         Nathan refused think about what Yandran meant by that. It couldn’t be true. Where could they be if not on Earth? “Let’s go, Rowan. He can’t help us find Thomas.” Nathan turned his back on Yanran and started walking.

         “Where do you propose to go?” Yandran called after him.

         “Home,” Nathan snapped without turning his head.

         Nathan barely caught Yandran’s quiet reply: “You won’t find many answers there.” Nathan slowed to a halt. “Even if you could get back,” added Yandran.

         Nathan stayed where he was.

         “Come with me,” said Yandran. “We will locate Thomas—” Nathan glanced at Rowan who gave him a pleading look—“and then I will explain everything.”