10. Robust Theory
10
ROBUST THEORY
Quiet conversation, a mutter of laughter. Ari rubbed at her eyes; the wind was up, soughing through treetops. It was a lovely sound, but a tinge of woodsmoke added itself to the minty grass and damp dirt, the vast freshness of outside. That was another strangeness—no breath of petroleum exhaust, discernible even in the most remote camping locations. It smelled like this place had never known an internal combustion engine.
But that was nuts. Certifiable. Of course, so was the rest of this bullshit.
Her neck was slightly stiff, but other than that Ari felt fine. No hunger, no thirst, though she wouldn’t have minded more of that clear cool pondwater. Her past self had managed a good decision on that count.
Still, the voices were… concerning. They were male. And plural. Cops, looking for her? Or people from the castle, maybe searching for the chained man?
A nap hadn’t returned the world to its usual dimensions, just given her more to worry about.
Ari pushed herself upright, slowly and very quietly. She listened hard, and decided the woodsmoke was most likely a campfire. So, maybe campers? Or castle people—the chained man’s warning could have been a bit of psychological fakeout to gain her help, and they might be perfectly nice.
Or not. And if they found out she’d set him loose…
Was she wandering around in a psychotic daze, unable to feel her body’s demands? Should she take a look at the speakers, make herself known? They might be able to help her, true.
But they also might have entirely different ideas. Ari hugged her knees, staring at the jeans’ denim nap. Faint grass stains showed; the chained man’s magical laundry service was great, but apparently only a one-time deal. She lifted her head, blinking and shaking away dark curls.
Jesus, I’m a mess.
The same long glossy leaves on the shrubs, the same moss and grass, the same smooth grey trees with fanlike leaves. Now there were fallen trunks too, heavy with moss, providing shelter for small bushes and other flora. The birdsong was different once more, shadows lengthening. The light was still odd, reddish and falling in slants through openings in the canopy, dust and small winged things fluttering in columns of what had to be sunshine. It was sunset glow but at strange angles, and oil pastels would probably be best for capturing the view.
Maybe she could teach art classes or practice painting in prison, if Earl and Wanda Lee didn’t pay someone to shank her in the shower.
Go ahead, Ari. Go to the cops. See what happens .
Even now she couldn’t get Mike’s hateful sneering out of her head. Maybe she should give herself up? But even if she was wandering around in a delusional, hypothermic daze, it was better than rotting in a cell waiting for the Hardisons to strike.
Or so it appeared to her at the moment. Which could be another symptom of hypothermia or insanity.
A short, crisp branch-break snap brought her head up with a jerk. Ari stared, and the man stared back.
He was dressed in green and brown, like a Hildebrandt illustration of Robin Hood—jerkin, blousy shirt, trousers, a long shape poking over his shoulder she decided had to be a bow, supple leather boots. But no illustration had hair so vivid Kool-Aid blue tucked under a dashing, broad-brimmed buckle-your-swash hat with a small black feather in its band, nor could it show the creases and folds of hard use on every piece of clothing.
Hazel eyes narrowed, and not only did his eyebrows match his hair but his lashes were tipped with cerulean as well. He was clean-shaven, lean and rangy; the glittering knob at his hip was a filigreed hilt, his fingers resting easily upon it, the rest of a sheathed rapier jutting behind him.
Ari considered screaming. Hauling herself upright to run away was another attractive option, even if the mere thought tired her out all over again. So she simply hugged her knees, hunched her shoulders, and watched him steadily, waiting for some indication of whether he was a cop, a hunter, a hiker, or whatever-the-fuck.
It seemed to take forever, but she had nowhere to be and maybe if she seemed harmless he’d leave her alone?
But that wasn’t how the world ever worked. The blue-haired man turned his head slightly, pursed his lips, and gave a shrill whistle. The voices fell silent, and Ari decided she’d better be on her feet. She rose, slowly, not quite creaking in every joint but certainly a little stiff.
The man spread his hands, holding them up in the classic stance of peaceful intent. “Easy, my lady.” He had a nice even tenor, and Ari’s pulse jolted into overdrive.
Because he spoke in the same rolling near-Spanish language as the chained man, and apparently it hit the same invisible translator just as it entered her ears. There was an infinitesimal delay; the lag between what he said and the meaning arriving was like tiny differences in flooring between the rooms of an old house, tripping up even long-time inhabitants.
Talk or run? Ari couldn’t decide, and in any case she was now surrounded. More shapes faded out of the forest, half a dozen men total, all in green and brown. One had flaming red hair—not auburn but actual crimson. Another was brunet, and two were platinum, nearly white-blond. Another fellow had bronze hair and deeply tanned skin to match; one of the blonds was pale and the other ebon-skinned. There was a vague similarity in their cheekbones and the shape of their eyesockets, and they all wore rapiers. Two had no bows though they carried quivers of dark-fletched arrows, and each regarded her solemnly.
At least they weren’t shouting for her to put her hands up or get on the ground. But the silence was uncanny, and she kept finding new details that shouted this is real, this is not a dream . The tiny hits were cumulative, and who knew what would happen once she reached the end of her ability to absorb them?
“Well?” the dark-skinned blond said, finally, in a resonant baritone. “What is it, Jazarl? A breathing statue?”
“Strange cloth,” the crimson-haired one added. “But no reek of his curst, rotting Law.”
They both spoke the chained man’s strange rolling language, too. Ari took a deep breath. None of them stepped closer, so that was all right. Could she get between the two to her right? Their ring was loose, but…
“Dazed, perhaps.” Blue-haired Jazarl tilted his head, his hands still raised and relaxed. “We shall not harm you, lady, if you be not of the Bright King’s servants. Can you speak?”
“Perhaps we should dispatch it, to be certain.” The paler blond tapped his swordhilt with a fingertip. “Quick and painless to be merciful as well.”
Oh, fuck. Ari snapped another glance to her right. There was a temptingly open space between the bronze one and the ebon-skinned blond who maybe didn’t want to kill her.
“Pay no mind to Darjeth, my lady.” Jazarl took a step forward; he was probably some kind of leader. And their names were strange, but that was becoming par for the course. “’Tis clear you are no servant of the usurper, no matter how odd your raiment.”
I’m not dressed weird, she wanted to say. You are . But when in Rome and all that—and she was most definitely not in Kansas anymore.
Not that she had been in the first place, but it was the principle of the thing.
“Mortal,” the crimson-haired one said, softly. “At least, very recently. Can you not tell?”
Now that was concerning. Mortal —did the word mean what she thought it might? Ari’s brain attempted to process all this, but without a sane, reasonable framework for what she was seeing and hearing the effort was immense, Sisyphean, shoving a mental boulder uphill.
“Is that what that is?” Blond Darjeth’s eyebrows raised. “But then, how…”
“Clearly she understands.” The other blond caught Ari’s gaze, his hazel eyes kind and warm; his smile was probably meant to be encouraging, too. “But she cannot speak if we chatter so.”
Silence fell. The men regarded her expectantly.
How in the fuck did I get here? Maybe she’d been bonked on the head during the landslide, and everything around her was being passed through a weird filter?
“H-hello.” The word trembled; it was clearly in their language. Her mouth shaped the syllables without any trouble, attempting to mimic their accent, and Ari hoped she didn’t sound like a gibbering loon. “I’m… I’m not from here. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Well, she is no clockwork nor other foulness, ’tis clear.” The stocky brunet smiled encouragingly as well. “In any case we cannot leave a lady unprotected, especially so close to the Keep.”
Jazarl took another step. Ari stiffened, but there was nowhere to go.
There never had been.
“Come,” he said, almost gently. “There is a fire, and you need fear nothing in our company. The Bright King’s servants respect our blades, at least for some little while longer.”
That sounded encouraging—except for the implications of king and violence —and at least they weren’t handcuffing her. So Ari tried a smile, nodded like a good little girl who knew she had to propitiate authority to get along, and followed him.
The others surrounded her as they walked, and if the paler blond watched her narrowly, she more than returned the favor.
They listened to Ari’s halting explanation—not the I killed my husband part or the I got a guy out of a chain burrito chapter, but a short, heavily edited there was a storm and I ended up in a pond version. And though they did indeed have a campfire—small, expertly built, near-smokeless despite the tang she’d detected upon waking—there was nothing approaching dinner. Which was fine because she wasn’t hungry… but it was deeply abnormal as everything else in this hallucinatory place.
Between them and the chained man, she was wondering if she’d somehow stumbled into a RenFaire camping retreat and gotten a dose of heavy psychedelics to boot. If that was the case, she simply had to wait for the drugs to wear off. The idea was vaguely cheerful, a sign that she was thinking rationally.
Or at least, attempting to.
“The water did not gripe you?” Darjeth exchanged a meaningful look with Jazarl. If this was a good-cop-bad-cop routine, it was a reasonably gentle one. Maybe she was really in an interrogation room, and the strange foreign language was her scrambled brain putting a protective layer of fantasy over the whole deal. That was another reasonable attempt to understand what the hell was happening.
If only she could just get a single clue which prospect was most likely, even the tiniest indication, it would stop the sickening, spinning sensation of being unable to trust her own eyes and ears.
“No.” Huddled on the ground, her back against a dry, moss-covered log—there was a lot more litter on the forest floor now—Ari tried not to look guilty. Now she was feeling bad that she hadn’t gotten dysentery; it was ridiculous, but the reflex of shame had been ground into her for years and simply wouldn’t turn off. “I thought it might, but I was thirsty.”
The crimson-haired guy, Alzarien, piped up. “Could you find the pond again?” He was examining each arrow in a quiver, sometimes paring the fletching with a small curved knife. The blade looked very sharp and the hilt ended in an oversized pearl, glowing under reddish daylight.
The canopy was too thick to see much of the sky, but sunset was lasting a long damn time. “Probably not,” Ari had to admit. “I… I thought I should look around. I found the road.”
“Will none of you say it?” The stocky brunet was Sarle, and he finally spoke up again. “The forest is renewing itself.”
“It does look different, even from when I…” Ari quickly looked at her boots when every eye settled on her. Served her right, opening her big mouth. She had no choice but to go along with whatever she understood of this place, but that didn’t mean she had to be stupid about it.
“Indeed the change has been swift,” Jazarl said, thoughtfully. “When did you arrive, my lady… Ari? Have I the name aright?”
Her name sounded nearly exotic in their rolling accent, but she nodded. “Last night, I think.” She probably sounded like a liar, though it was strict truth. “The sun came up while I was running away.”
Naturally, he seized on the important word. “Away?”
“On the road.” Make it a good lie, if you have to . Her conscience pinched. “I heard hoofbeats.” It wasn’t really a falsehood, just omission, like letting Mike think she’d come straight home from the grocery store, or hiding the remains of a broken glass under something else in the trash can so Wanda Lee wouldn’t start in on her.
Self-protection was reasonable. She hated it anyway, and the persistent sense of unreality, of spinning insanity, made it so difficult to think . She almost wanted to be alone in the woods again, even if they had a fire and presumably some supplies.
A charged silence, prickling with unheard static, surrounded the campfire. The wood burned normally enough; it looked dry and well-seasoned.
Where was the damp from the storm? Was it possible to wander for miles after being hit on the head with a landslide and then…
Jesus Christ, Ari, pay attention . She needed to figure out what was really happening, pronto. Had the entire world decided to gaslight her like Mike and his mother loved to do, or had Ariadne herself gone gratefully, entirely insane? Was she babbling to invisible people in an asylum’s garden? She didn’t think she was the type to get violent… and yet.
Dry clicks, the .38 heavy in her bruised, aching hands.
“Darjeth. Naithor.” Jazarl still sounded thoughtful. “But carefully, using night as a shield.”
“We shall leave now, then.” The blue-eyed blond stood in one fluid motion, stretching with catlike grace. Like the chained man, they moved with dancers’ economy; they handled both rapiers and bows with the ease of long habit, just as he’d swung that heavy broadsword. Tiny details threatened to swamp Ari again. “And creep in at dusk, like mice.”
Bronze-haired Naithor followed suit, though his clear green gaze rested speculatively on Ari for a long moment. He finally nodded in Jazarl’s direction and set off with the blond, both men fading into the trees almost immediately. Even with their funky hair choices—although the colors looked natural, undyed, and utterly real—they had great camouflage.
She wanted to ask where they were going, figured it was none of her business, and swallowed the question. But Jazarl answered anyway.
“They will see what is afoot at the Keep. The Bright King keeps a garrison there, and a prisoner who should be told of your arrival.” He stretched out his hands to the fire, and Ari was suddenly certain that he had fingerprints. That they all did, whorls and ridges just as unique as the trees’ bark-sheaths.
No way was this a simple dream or hallucination, or even a brain injury from Mike throwing her against the wall. The hell theory was still pretty robust, though there was no hint of brimstone. Simple insanity couldn’t be this detailed and seamless.
What was left? Aliens? Another wrenching internal effort to pay attention, to find something reasonable to say, almost made sweat prickle under her arms, at her lower back.
“The Keep.” Ari nodded. “Okay.” Only what came out of her mouth wasn’t okay , it sounded like a shortened version of their very well . The invisible translator was working overtime, and she wondered what would happen if she tried to explain the concept of steam engines or cell phones.
This place seemed pretty pre-industrial. It was a pity she didn’t have the .38, but even the thought of threatening these guys with it if she had to escape sickened her as the pond surrounded by pearl-cabbages hadn’t. She was a coward; maybe Mike was right and the world belonged to the brutal. Any empathy was a sucker’s game.
“We should make haste to Gesthel.” Sarle shrugged when Jazarl shot him a sharp glance. “We cannot care for a lady here, my friend. And if she is what you hope?—”
“Do not.” Jazarl’s tone clearly said he wasn’t having any of this hope nonsense, thank you very much. “So long as we are still in these woods, the garrison at the Keep is threatened and the Mere at least a little safer. That is our charge. And…” His sharp face softened. “And if he can be saved we shall spend our lives in the attempt, but we must use them well and that requires planning. In any case the lady must be weary and in deep confusion. Haring pell-mell along the Road will achieve nothing.”
Gethsel. What you hope . She stored the terms away, trying to arrange all her questions in order of importance or, failing that, in order of those she could possibly get some answers for through careful observation. Ari hugged her knees, staring at the fire. So many had tried to capture the evanescence of flame. Artists largely had to paint around it, catching the effects and not the fire itself. There was always something lost in translation.
Or gained, maybe? You could peer through van Gogh’s eyes at sheaves of wheat, through O’Keefe’s at the desert, through Varo’s at ruddy-tinted dreams with their own owl-faced logic.
She’d thought Mike could see the world differently through her, and vice versa. But he wasn’t interested, the goalposts constantly shifting; Ari didn’t even know what he wanted or she would have given it to him.
If he’d just asked instead of hurting her, seeming to delight only in her pain.
The shadows were definitely longer now, twilight instead of late afternoon. The trees didn’t creak or grow in fast-forward anymore, and the sounds of wildlife had settled into a low hum. Her new acquaintances—or captors—spoke quietly, but she focused on the fire’s voice instead. It was time for some heavy thinking, though she doubted her battered, stressed-out neurons were up to the task.
It wasn’t Past Ari’s fault. She’d had a lot to deal with.
Come on. Focus . Of course the Keep had to mean that huge, spire-topped castle. She could claim she had no idea why the chained guy was roaming around free, and maybe they would believe her. Was he the ‘prisoner’ they talked about?
She kept tripping over that word, mortal . Maybe the invisible translator had a false cognate, but it didn’t seem likely. Ari huddled as small as possible, watchfully quiet, trying to look reasonably sane, considering her options.
None were very attractive.