The Quickening

Chapter Five

It registered in Glace's mind that the strange young man had vanished before her very eyes, while holding her hand no less, but she was having trouble accepting it. It was as nonsensically bizarre as her commanding the light emanating from the gateway. And yet that too had happened. Her world, which had been strange and somewhat incomplete as it was, had suddenly taken another dramatic turn. As things currently stood she couldn't say yet for the worse or the better. For now she had the matter of her present location to puzzle out.

The gateway still stood sentinel across the room, the glow having receded back into a simple pulse through the golden filigree. Glace couldn't help but be curious about the monolithic object. It defied logic and even seemed to display signs of intelligence. She had no doubts that it had responded to her command a few moments ago. But why? And how had she known it would?

Unlike the peculiar young man who had appeared and even more mysteriously disappeared, the gateway seemed the be the only stable object in this place. Things seemed capable of appearing and disappearing but not it. Almost as if it were anchored in some manner. It certainly was a puzzle.

Glace turned her thoughts to the bigger puzzle. Where was she and how was she going to get home? Obviously she had been brought in here by someone so logic would dictate that there was a way of leaving. She wondered if Simon and Lillian knew that she was even missing. The challenge was that she didn't have a single clue in what manner she had been taken. Had she been kidnapped? If so, were they hurt in her capture? She remembered being knocked unconscious but she wasn't even sure how that had happened, just that she had been in contact with Simon at the time.

She continued standing in the same spot while mulling over these things. For lack of a single thing more comprehensive to do, she moved closer to the gateway. Unlike last time, it remained unresponsive to her movements. She couldn't help but be curious about it. It was incomparable to anything she had ever seen before and evoked in her feelings of familiarity that were completely at odds with her ignorance of this place.

In a moment she had reached the medial of the gateway's four pillars. She fully expected something to happen and because of this sense of expectation, her heart rate increased as did the rate of the pulses flowing through the gold filigree. She considered that it may be reading her somehow, but for what purpose? A sense of frustration blossomed in her chest at the growing sense that she should know more about what was happening to her. There was no doubt in the part of her mind she had been living out of for the past six months that this shouldn't be so much of a mystery to her. That she was meant to understand.

She closed her eyes and balled her hands into tight fists. She had grown somewhat accustomed to the feeling of helplessness that came with her unexplainable case of amnesia, but this was different. She wished Simon was with her. She knew little of him except that he appeared to have a stronger understanding of who she really was. The recognition she had seen dawn in his eyes when he had first looked at her had shown her the first rays of genuine hope and she was loathe to let go of that.

An image of Simon solidified in her thoughts. He cut an imposing figure with his graceful bulk, long cloak and dark hair. He seemed a man both to be feared and trusted. Yet there was something comforting in his presence. She recalled the powerful sense she had felt from him of a natural protective instinct before he had cut off that odd connection.

Something deep in her chest shifted slightly. She brought her hand up to her chest with a gasp and opened her eyes to the startling image of Simon staring down at her with a deeply concerned expression in his eyes. The only sound that escaped her lips was a shocked squeak.

Lillian's head came into focus above his left shoulder. "Glace, are you alright?" The panic in her voice was unmistakeable.

Confusion clouded her mind and she tried to scoot up and away to get her bearings. The pain that ripped through her torso and head forced her to freeze in place a half second later. Her breath shortened to small, shallow gasps in an attempt to manage the agonizing sensation as her head swam in bewilderment. What was going on? Where was the stone room and the gateway? Was this real? It must be as no dreamed up pain could be this intense.