Rayya moved to the side, letting me past her.\u00a0 She stood behind me for a moment, gauging my reactions, watching my butt, making faces at me… I didn’t have eyes in the back of my head, so I don’t know.\u00a0 I smelled a faint flowery scent from the open windows, probably some kind of linen perfume.\u00a0 I was not on the first floor; I’d guess maybe…eight levels up? The windows looked down into a green park, and some streets with bad parking options, and I could see a hotdog vendor on the sidewalk.\u00a0 I checked my phone out of amusement.\u00a0 It was looking for a network, so I didn’t have any reference for the time zone. I looked in the drawers for hotel paraphernalia, like a menu, or a writing pad or a pen with their logos. (I had an old Lakewood Sheraton ballpoint that was one of the best pens I’ve ever had; smooth lines, consistent ink, and comfortable to use.)\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 There was a telephone with no numbers on it, no area code or something I could use to track down exactly where I was.\u00a0 The door closed after a moment, and I looked up at the noise.\u00a0 Rayya was gone, and so was the door.<\/p>\n
Of course.<\/p>\n
“But what if I want room service to bring me up an extra pillow?” I asked of the air.<\/p>\n
Nothing responded, for which I was both relieved and annoyed at the same time.\u00a0 Relieved because it would have made me jump, annoyed because I was not sure where I was.\u00a0 I presumed I was back somewhere near my own Reality, but that was a guess at best.\u00a0 It could be unicorn meat in the hotdogs, after all.<\/p>\n
The bath looked more luxurious than anything I’d been exposed to outside of a paranormal romance.\u00a0 It had steps up to it, and a faucet that looked a bit like a bronze dragon.\u00a0 I froze for a moment, then relaxed.\u00a0 More teasing, I presumed.\u00a0 Looked nothing like Her, at any rate.\u00a0 Wings were all wrong.<\/p>\n
Talons were wrong.<\/p>\n
Teeth were wrong.<\/p>\n
I wrenched my gaze away from it.\u00a0 The sink was one of those extra long rectangular ones with two faucets and drains, and one long and elegant brass mirror.\u00a0 The towels were oh-so-fluffy.\u00a0 A bathrobe was included. The floor was cork or bamboo or something under my feet.\u00a0 I washed my hands, and, thinking about it, pulled out the silver ring from my pocket.\u00a0 (I have to take off my rings when I’m doing the dishes.)<\/p>\n
I saw the engraving in the shadow, a single endless branch with faint leaves.<\/p>\n
I made it into the bedroom, where there were six large pillows, and a plush carpet that made me wiggle my toes just to enjoy it.\u00a0 I sat down on the bed, and sank into it.\u00a0 Alarmed, I poked it a couple of times. Oh, it was just one of those “space age” materials that always made me think of the word, “squamous,” or at least the way the word sounds.\u00a0 I know it means “scaly,” but it ought to be something that just burbled into spontaneous generation from a swamp.\u00a0 Or a gumbo.<\/p>\n
It was comfortable enough. I stretched out.\u00a0 I knew I was too wound up to actually sleep, which is why when Rayya woke me it was so startling.<\/p>\n
“Door-closer,” she said.<\/p>\n
“You can call me ‘E,'” I mumbled.<\/p>\n
“You are summoned to the Seven King.”<\/p>\n
“Again?” I wasn’t serious. \u00a0I was just suddenly hungry. \u00a0I used my fists to clean out my eyes.\u00a0 Bad habit, and my eyes made that dry squeaking noise.<\/p>\n
“You are required once you have broken your fast,” Rayya amended.<\/p>\n
Food!\u00a0 “I could kiss you,” I said.<\/p>\n
“Please do not!” she backed away from me.<\/p>\n
“Uh-huh,” I grunted.\u00a0 Literalists.\u00a0\u00a0 “Where is this… food?”<\/p>\n
She waved to a sideboard out of the bedroom where, once I stood, I could see that there were bloom-down-cheeked peaches, melons, and raspberries. Apples, russet and dun.\u00a0 The fruits of the Goblin Market. A pitcher of milk that didn’t smell like I was used to, but I took a glass anyway.\u00a0 Probably gryphon milk or something. (I’d hate to have nursing gryphlets.\u00a0 Those beaks look pretty sharp.)\u00a0 No pineapple. Amazing grapes that actually tasted like grape.\u00a0 I took a handful of some of the stuff I didn’t recognize, just in case they were snozzberries. \u00a0I wanted to taste snozzberries. \u00a0After all, weren’t all of us dreamers of the dream?<\/p>\n
“There are also garments available to you.”<\/p>\n
“Shoes?” I asked.\u00a0 I live in Colorado.\u00a0 This means that three-fourths of the year I can wear flip-flops, and the other fourth I’m in snow boots.\u00a0 Barefoot is always a possibility, but it was more suited for beaches or grassy green fields while you run after kites and watch out for what geese leave behind.<\/p>\n
Rayya stared at me blankly.<\/p>\n
I sighed.\u00a0 “Why the garments?” \u00a0That was a disturbing word. \u00a0Loincloths? \u00a0Hose? \u00a0Fishnet?<\/p>\n
“Hospitality,” she said.\u00a0 “You are our guest, and have insufficient fur to call your own.”<\/p>\n
I munched on an apple, thinking.\u00a0 Rayya stood at attention and continued to stare.<\/p>\n
“The obligations of a host,” I thought aloud.\u00a0 I guess I do make housecalls.<\/p>\n
Rayya looked at me as if I were going to say something interesting, but then her curiosity faded.\u00a0 She waited while I chewed and swallowed.<\/p>\n
I laughed aloud. \u00a0“I’ve read of pocket dimensions, but you have enveloped a piece of Reality in a pocket. I bet this room doesn’t exist to the hotel it’s in, maybe always rented by an organization controlled by the Seven King, maybe forgotten, cleaned by brownies instead of maid service. \u00a0That’s why there was no chocolate on the pillow.”<\/p>\n
Rayya didn’t respond. \u00a0I shrugged. \u00a0The food was delicious, actually. \u00a0Not what I would have ordered, given a choice, but sweet and satisfying. \u00a0The milk was good as well, rich and very different. \u00a0“I wouldn’t order this, mind you. \u00a0Do I tip the waiter, or is that like giving thanks?”<\/p>\n
Rayya’s hands clenched, and there was a dark look to her expression. \u00a0She walked over and opened the closet with a bit more force than it probably warranted. \u00a0But maybe it was stuck. \u00a0I don’t know. \u00a0The closet door crashed against the wall, and vibrated for a moment. \u00a0The closet was packed full of clothing, little of which I could recognize if I hadn’t been to a Renaissance Faire a few times. \u00a0(Okay, every year since I was little.)<\/p>\n
I gestured at the closet. \u00a0“Is it safe, or will it suck me up into Narnia if I push too hard?”<\/p>\n
Rayya continued to glare.<\/p>\n
“I’m not changing with you in the room,” I pointed out.<\/p>\n
“You. Try. My. Patience, Door-closer,” she said, spitting the words out one at a time. \u00a0“I do not know why the Seven King has chosen to punish me with your presence, but I will abide.”<\/p>\n
“You’re no slice of sweet cake yourself, Water-Daughter,” I responded. \u00a0“You’re bitter icing and dry pastry. \u00a0I’m here because a Dragon didn’t give me much choice in the matter.”<\/p>\n
Her manner changed almost immediately. \u00a0“A Dragon?” she asked.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, you know, big, scaly, lots of places at once, breathe fire, occasionally do crazy powerful magic. \u00a0Dragons.” \u00a0I made wing motions with my hands.\u00a0 “I would have come because I was invited, but apparently it was important for me to get out of town, or something.”<\/p>\n
“This is information the Seven King must have,” she said. \u00a0“You must hurry and don what you would so we may sooner be in Our Majesty’s keeping.”<\/p>\n
I pulled out a couple of pieces. \u00a0There were, indeed, boots in there.<\/p>\n
“Where do the clothes come from?” I asked. \u00a0“Or is this where all the socks go?”\u00a0 I would have expected a number of mismatching, single boots in that case.\u00a0 “It’s okay, I really don’t expect an answer for my rhetorical questions.”<\/p>\n
“You may maintain your expectations,” Rayya suggested.\u00a0 There might have been the slightest hint of amusement in her voice.<\/p>\n
The clothing fit remarkably well, although if I didn’t have aspirations to being a LARPer, I would probably have felt ridiculous.\u00a0 I didn’t know what to call the boots, other than high leather boots, soft heeled.\u00a0 It was in a green that I’m sure accented my eyes.<\/p>\n
“Acceptable.”\u00a0 Rayya led me through the door that wasn’t there, and down deeper into the hill.<\/p>\n
I followed, feeling much better wearing shoes.\u00a0 It’s funny how little things like that change your entire mood.\u00a0 It was like when I lost my watch and tried getting acclimated to checking my cellphone for the time.\u00a0 I felt lost, and at a disadvantage.\u00a0 I now felt I could handle the Seven King.\u00a0 Or, well, maybe not handle, just endure.<\/p>\n
I put my jacket back on, because it had pockets and this faire-wear did not.<\/p>\n
The stairs continued the way the stairs had begun, irascible and patternless except in their continuing annoyance.\u00a0 The wash of red along the walls continued to remind me of blood, as if the heart of the mountain was less and less a metaphor and more a literal situation.\u00a0 If I started hearing drums, I was fleeing Khazad-d\u00fbm.<\/p>\n
We entered a set of dark blue doors with bars made of metallic bone.\u00a0 They opened before us with a silent but abrupt slamming, as if caught just before they hit the walls.\u00a0 Black caryatids lined an overpass leading to a large round space, open like the floor of a coliseum.<\/p>\n
Across from the overpass were bones, bleached white as if from the sun.\u00a0 Not nasty bones, like you’d see as dungeon dressing, but smooth, semi-metallic ones.\u00a0 They made up a nest, and within it was an egg.\u00a0 The egg was lit up, perhaps with something inside it, and it looked humanoid, only very thin, like being able to see to the bones in your hands without x-rays.\u00a0 Hard to describe, sure.\u00a0 Perched next to it was the Seven King, in the guise Rayya called her form of war.<\/p>\n
“He promised to serve me seven years, through well or woe, as chance may be,” she said to me.<\/p>\n
“So it’s the standard Rich and Famous contract?” I said in response.\u00a0 It was the shoes talking.<\/p>\n
“Mortal years, and mortality, but the form of it chances to be my choice.\u00a0 Remade into the egg, and what he becomes you must voice.”<\/p>\n
“Your doorman does the work of Dragons,” Rayya interrupted.\u00a0 Her voice was heavy with meaning.<\/p>\n
“River daughter, queen of ice, what lies drip from your lips? They do not entice!” The Seven King glared at my handler, blind grey eyes glowing, and shadows beginning to seep from her form, like as if she sweated darkness.<\/p>\n
I cleared my throat.\u00a0 “I am guessing that it matters that I came here through the Peredur Express?\u00a0 I mean, he punched my ticket.”\u00a0 I pretended to look at something in my hand.\u00a0 “Is this Disappointment City?”\u00a0 That’s the destination I have frequent flyer miles to, at least.<\/p>\n
“Did he have eyes of banked embers, and did he breathe the black smoke of wood? Would he eye you if he remembers, does he meddle or do good?” The Seven King jumped from the nest of bones and came almost within reach.<\/p>\n
“Describes him pretty well, actually.\u00a0 I can tell you, though, he’s a meddler.\u00a0 I have this,” I pulled the tooth out of my pocket.\u00a0 “Traded for it,” I explained with a shrug.<\/p>\n
The Seven King laughed.\u00a0 It was more on the level of a cackle, this one, like paint splattering against a wall, and the crack of an egg as it hit the floor.\u00a0 “Oh, we know what to do with Dragons, we fear them not, my dear.\u00a0 The rattle of bones, the tattle of tomes, they’re nothing to us here.”\u00a0 She gestured with her long talon-like claws towards the nest.\u00a0 “Do you work through Dragons?\u00a0 Must I add another to my list of slain?\u00a0 The bones you see are their bones indeed.\u00a0 We need them for our play.”<\/p>\n
I took a deep breath.\u00a0 “Rayya, is the King telling me that that’s a bunch of Dragon bones?”<\/p>\n
Rayya nodded, a sharp, almost human movement.<\/p>\n
“Oh.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You’re no slice of sweet cake yourself, Water-Daughter. You’re bitter icing and dry pastry. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-eight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1119"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1151,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119\/revisions\/1151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}