The Adventure of the Peril Gem

expression. "Not what I expected."

  "This is the Enchanted Woods--"

  Margaret barked out a laugh, but it had an anxious note. "Are you off your nut?"

  "Don't be fooled by the name. It can be a very dangerous place, particularly for novices. Just stick with me, and don't go wandering off, no matter what you see or hear. Clear?"

  "Crystal."

  "Our destination is a town called Ulthar. It's like a pre-industrial holiday village. Trust me, you won't be disappointed."

  "Oh, bugger. Look, can we just get going?"

  "In a moment." She looked around, but didn't see anything stirring. "Is anyone here?"

  Margaret blinked a questioning look. "What?" But Differel ignored her. A singular creature crawled around the trunk and came to rest above the stair exit, facing down. Margaret heard the scratching of its claws on the bark and looked behind her.

  "Aaah! Blimey!" She danced away and hid behind Differel. It looked like a short, squat, tailless rat, half again as big as a rabbit, with large rounded ears and huge peat-brown eyes whose pupils glowed an iridescent neon green. It had short bronze fur tinged with verdigris, while stripes of tarnished silver lined its face. Its front paws were thumbed hands, while wriggling pink tendrils bestrewn its long flexible nose.

  "What the bleeding hell is that?"

  "A Zoog. Behave yourself; they eat rude people."

  She flashed a consternated look, as if she couldn't be sure she wasn't serious.

  "Welcome back, My Lady Elissa," it said in a high-pitched voice. "I trust thou art well?"

  Margaret's exotic copperish eyes bulged out and her jaw dropped. "Bugger!" Then she whipped her head around to stare at her. "Lady Elissa?!"

  Differel returned a grinning leer. "Oh, didn't I tell you? I'm a marchioness here. I outrank you now."

  She scowled. "What an appalling thought."

  Differel smirked and turned her attention back to the Zoog. "I am well, thank you, and I trust all in the village are well?"

  "We be'st well. Thou art early this eventide."

  "Yes, I wanted to introduce a friend to the Dreamlands. This is Lady Margaret Rose Chesham, daughter of the Duke of Anglin."

  The Zoog focused on Margaret. "I be'st pleased to meet thee, My Lady Chesham. Thou art welcome."

  She nodded. "Thank you." Her voice sounded uncertain, but for once more deferential.

  "I would like to make a withdraw."

  "Of course, My Lady Elissa. Proceedest ye to the edge of the Woods, and we shalt deliver thy goods." It then turned to face up the trunk and scampered out of sight around the bole.

  She touched Margaret on the elbow. "Come on, let's get out of here. This place gives me the collywobbles." She headed down the path and Margaret fell in beside her.

  "What's up with all that theeing and thouing?"

  "Zoogs have an archaic way of speaking. I sometimes think they learned English from reading Shakespeare."

  "Does everyone talk like that here?"

  "Fortunately not."

  "Wait, how could they know about Shakespeare?"

  "He was a Dreamer, like me, but the Woods also touch on a number of places in the Waking World. There are Zoogs in Sherwood Forest."

  "Waking World?"

  "That's what our home universe is called here."

  She fell silent and said nothing the rest of the way. Differel got the impression she had come close to information overload.

  When they emerged from the Woods, the bright sun momentarily blinded her, but her eyesight adjusted quickly.

  "My god! It's beautiful!" Margaret stared at the vista with a dumbfounded expression. A meadow sloped gently down to a river in the distance. Beyond it, a grassy plain stretched to the horizon, and at the extreme edge of vision sat the hazy mass of a town.

  "You know what this reminds me of? That scene in The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy steps out of her house and everything explodes into colour!"

  "I know what you mean. I've been coming here for over thirty-five hundred nights, and the sight still awes me."

  "Bugger!"

  She glanced at her and found her staring at her with an astonished look.

  "What?"

  "I couldn't be sure inside that bleeding forest, but you look twenty-five again!"

  She grinned, satisfied she had gobsmacked her again. "So do you."

  Margaret reached up and touched her face in wonder.

  "Dream bodies tend to be healthier, stronger, and sturdier, too. For example, my eyesight here is perfect, while in the Waking World I'm blind as a bat."

  Margaret smiled. "I always thought that appropriate. Wait, if you don't need glasses, why wear them?"

  She shrugged. "Matter of habit, I guess. That, and they're probably part of my identity. These just have plain glass."

  "My Lady Elissa!"

  She turned, and a leather pouch dropped out of a tree. She caught it, and tipped her hat. "My thanks!"

  "Mayest ye fair well, on your adventures!" She didn't see anything, but she heard the Zoogs scramble deeper into the Woods. They didn't like bright light.

  She opened the pouch as she faced Margaret, and poured a number of golden coins into one hand.

  "Bugger! Is that real...?"

  "They're called crowns, and yes, each is an ounce of pure gold. Hold out your hand." She divided them up. "I have the Zoogs keep some money for me, because I like to have traveling expenses on hand as soon as I arrive." She separated the lot into two piles of ten coins each and poured one into her purse. The rest she put back in the pouch. "These are yours. Try not to spend them all in one place."

  Margaret grinned like a kid at Christmas as she took the pouch and stuffed it inside her sash. "How much is it?"

  They started down the slope together. "It's hard to say, exactly. Crowns are minted in the kingdom of Ooth-Nargai, but outside that realm they are used pretty much for credit transfer. More common is the tahler, which is an ounce of pure silver. The exchange rate is fifty tahlers per crown, so carrying crowns is easier than the equivalent value in tahlers. Though the value of silver in pounds Sterling is considerably higher, you can think of a tahler as having the purchasing power of one pound. Since there are no coins of smaller denominations, everything is priced in whole tahlers, and the only items priced at less are those purchased in bulk. You have the equivalent of 500 tahlers; that's a lot, but no better or worse than having 500 pounds."

  "I didn't ask you how to make a clock." Margaret sound piqued.

  "Oh, shut it, you slag."

  A gigantic shadow passed overhead and a scream like that of a titanic eagle split the air. Margaret shrieked, covered her head, and collapsed to the ground. Differel couldn't help bursting with laughter.

  Margaret sat up and looked out over the meadow. A huge raptor soared low over the ground. Even in the bright sunlight the wing tips glowed with St. Elmo's Fires as sparks danced between the pinions of its crest. Once it reached the river it gave a ponderous flap and rose into the air.

  "What the bleeding hell is that?!"

  "That's my faithful Wakiya, Eleanor d'Aquitaine." She held out her hand. "We share an empathic bond, so she always knows when I'll arrive. That's just her way of saying hello."

  Margaret took it and Differel hauled her to her feet. "A what?"

  "Another name is 'thunder bird'. She can pick up and store static electricity in her feathers, and discharge it at will as lightning."

  "You and your dodgy companions."

  "Hmph. You're one to talk."

  They started off again, but just before they reached the river they came to a road. Differel crossed over and went on down to the river to fill the canteen, but Margaret paused and squatted, running a hand over the rust-red surface. "Is this concrete?"

  She looked back as she pulled the brown glass jug out of the leather pouch. "No, it's called laterite. It's a form of subsoil rich in iron. When mixed with sand, small stones, and water, it forms a slurry that can be poured like concrete, but it dries
in the sun, forming a hard, brick-like surface. It's brittle, so it cracks easily, but it can be repaired with minimum effort."

  She knelt by the bank to fill the jug, and Margaret kneeled beside her. "This is the River Skai, and it's one of the major waterways in this part of the Dreamlands."

  But she didn't seem to pay attention as she examined her cute round face in the water. "Oh, bugger. I wanted to see what I looked like."

  Differel understood what she meant. The water appeared so clear it seemed invisible.

  Margaret eyed the canteen. "You sure that's safe to drink?"

  She stood up as she stopped it. "Perfectly. Further down it picks up junk from the fields, but here it's practically pure." She placed the jug back in the pouch.

  Margaret took off a glove and filled her hand, then slurped it up. "Mmmm, fantastic! I've never tasted water that fresh and clean before!"

  "Part of it's because there's no pollution, but part is due to the nature of Lands themselves. Hungry?"

  "I could eat." She stood up and Differel handed her a piece of bread and a handful of jerky.

  She chuckled when Margaret made a face. "The bread looks like hardtack, but it lasts three times longer and tastes like pastry. But you can only get it in the Cavern of Flame." She watched as she nibbled at it, and laughed when he face lit up in surprised enjoyment.

  While Margaret ate, she loaded her pistols. She took a practice shot with each and reloaded them.

  "I thought you said this place was sword and sorcery." She spoke around a mouthful of food.

  "That's basically correct, but not strictly so. Nothing that was invented after 1500 in the Waking World can exist here. No one knows why, though most believe it's because it takes 500 years for something to become embedded in the collective unconscious.