"Who knocks at the Golden Gate?"
"What the hell?" Estelle grabbed for her bow and an arrow...but there was nothing to aim at. Just a sheer rock face, flanked by forked jungle trees and nearly covered with vivid green fronds. "Who's there?"
"We are." Smiling, Jason turned to the rock. "One who has seen the Light and wishes to follow it."
"What?" Kui, spear in hand, blinked. Estelle shot him a glance.
Crack! A line shot up from the dirt, rising nearly twice Estelle's height and splitting the rock in two. Dust fell and stone ground against stone, and the outline of a door appeared as it swung open with a shudder on groaning hinges.
"Oh." Estelle couldn't make herself put her weapons away, but she did lower them. "Invisible door. Magic?"
"Magic." Jason turned back to the opening in the mountain face. Bright light spilled out, reflecting off white marble floors and walls lined with mosaics of gold and bronze.
"Welcome." The light framed a woman in a long robe: one with the same voice as had come from the rock. From under her white hood, cautious gray eyes probed the trio, flicking over Estelle and Kui from head to toe before settling on Jason. "How is the weather?"
"Enlightening." He performed a specific gesture with thumb and ring finger. The woman nodded, very somberly...and all at once, she brightened considerably.
"Come in! Come." She positively beamed, and even if her short brown hair was the furthest thing from Estelle's mother's, the resemblance in their manner was uncanny. She beckoned, then went ahead and took Estelle's arm, helping her over the small step at the threshold. "You look ragged, dear."
"Thanks. You too." Estelle studied the mosaics for a moment. All of men, how typical. Whatever they were doing looked like the creators had thought it was important. "How is rain enlightening?"
"It's a password." The woman waved her hand, and the stone groaned, pulling itself inward until the door was closed behind them. "If he'd said anything else, I'd have known you two had somehow managed to take him hostage. Then I'd have decided what to do about it."
This woman? She was small, and she had to be–generously speaking–twice Estelle's age. Would anyone competent enough to subdue Jason have anything to fear from her?
"Where are my manners?" She smacked her forehead theatrically. "My name is Emilia, but everyone calls me Tempest. You are...?"
"Ku'uaki, but everyone calls me Kui." He shot Tempest a lopsided grin.
"Estelle." She did not supply her surname. "You're a magician, Tempest?"
"Oh, no." She chuckled. "The spell's imbued in the door. I'm Gifted, not a mage."
"What?" Kui blinked.
"There are several types of what people call magic. There are magicians, there are witches and warlocks, and then there are the Gifted. All are different." Jason raised a hand. "More in due time. For now, you two could use dinner."
***
Dinner they got...after baths. Not a spring or a little stream to slip into and rinse the worst of the grime, no: steaming baths in stone tubs, with warm towels and lilac-scented soap. However many years ago her old life had been, Estelle would have taken it all utterly for granted. Now, she exulted in queenly largesse.
The clothes and dinner alike would have made her old self turn up her nose, which didn't stop the Estelle of today seizing them with gusto. Laughing at her appetite, Jason took the two around the underground monastery, introducing them to a dozen people whose names Estelle would never remember and showing them a dozen doors she couldn't tell apart. She kept her eyes open for Jason's elusive Messiah, but no such angelic figure appeared from the walls.
YOU ARE READING
Midnight
Fantasy"I'm not going to die" was the promise Estelle's cousin demanded...before he shot himself. Because of his sacrifice, she had enough food to get her boat to land, even if on a deserted island. Because of her promise, she learned to survive, enduring...
