The Magic of Highland Dragons (2 page)

She smiled to herself. “That just means I’m in the right field. I’ve obviously found my true calling.” On a whim, she slipped the ring onto her finger, holding it up to admire. She frowned when the stone seemed to begin to glow, sucked in a little breath when she thought she heard a voice behind her.
Come to me… come to me…

And then everything shifted.

Chapter 2
҈

There was nothing. Blackness. She felt dizzy, had she fallen off the sofa? Then she realized her eyes were closed. She opened them, and saw stars overhead. Oh yes, it was night, there would be stars. But there were no stars in D.C., it was too bright. Too many lights. There were no lights at all here, just the stars. She sat up, her head spinning. The air was different. It smelled different, unfamiliar, thicker, damper, cooler. And she was outside. How did she get outside? Slowly, as if she were rising up to the surface from the depths of a lake, her mind began to clear.

She
was
outside, and definitely not anywhere near D.C., because the sky was far too dark. But she had just been in her apartment. She had been looking up… Oh God, the ring! The last thing she remembered was slipping the ring on her finger, holding it up to admire... then nothing. She looked down at her hand, and saw the glint of gold in the star light; it was still on her finger. With a small cry she quickly tore it off. Nothing happened. She stared at it for a long moment, lying in her palm, the red stone shining in the moonlight. When it didn’t do anything unusual, she slipped it into the deep pocket of the skirt she had worn to work that day, because she wasn’t going to risk putting it back on her finger and being caught unawares if something else did happen. Reluctantly, she turned her attention to the terribly disconcerting matter at hand: she was no longer in her apartment.

Still not quite sure if she was awake or dreaming, Faith stood up shakily, looked around, turning around in a slow circle. Under her feet, the ground was soft, grassy, and uneven. It was dark, too dark, but there was a soft glow from the quarter moon that was just rising, and her eyes were slowly adjusting, until she thought she could see the hulking shapes of mountains around her. And the air smelled of… moist earth and grass, and… someplace that was definitely not home. Had the ring somehow… taken her somewhere else? Logically, she knew that was impossible. Wasn’t it? All the stories she had read, Celtic myths where enchanted objects held the power to send people somewhere else, they were
fiction
. It couldn’t
really
happen, could it? People couldn’t really be swept away to other places or other times.
Other times
. Her heart started to beat even faster. If she really was some
where
else, could she be some
when
else, too?

“Where the hell am I?” she whispered under her breath.

She started to walk aimlessly, her breath coming faster, panic rising like waves of hot ice through her veins. Then she started to run, her feet moving blindly over the uneven ground, the branches of small brushy plants hitting her legs, startling her into running even faster. But eventually she slowed, tears of fear and disbelief streaming down her face, but her burst of adrenaline spent. She sat down again and fumbled in her pocket for the ring. She held her breath and slipped it onto her finger again. Nothing. With a loud sob, she pulled it off and put it back in her pocket.

Faith took a couple of deep breaths in an effort to calm herself. Obviously something terribly strange had happened, but there had to be a logical explanation, and she was not doing herself any favors by panicking. Could she have fallen asleep and wandered away from home? Could she have been hit over the head and kidnapped? Perhaps she had been in a terrible accident, had amnesia, and only now were her memories coming back. Her mind felt confused, overwhelmed, searching for a reason for something that shouldn’t be. Maybe in the morning, when the sun came up, she would be able to make more sense of things. It was so dark, and she felt suddenly tired. It would be safer to stay put until she could see where she was going, because the last thing she needed was to walk off the edge of a cliff or something. She lay down, still trembling a little, and huddled in a fetal position on the soft ground to wait for dawn.

Against all odds, she must have slept for some time, because when she opened her eyes again, it was full light. The remnants of strange dreams still whirled in her head; someone, a man, looking for her, calling her name.
‘Come to me
.’

And she had desperately wanted to go, had searched through the darkness for him, but she had been hopelessly lost. The voice quickly fled as she arose and looked around in renewed confusion. Now, in the light of day she could see the hills, some big enough to be mountains, clumps of grass… a stream. Near her feet, heather.
Scotland?
Her mind immediately flashed to the bin she had taken out just yesterday, the one in which she found the ring. She could see the label still. Scotland. Impossible. She spun around in another circle, searching for any other explanation besides the one she couldn’t quite accept.
No! God no! I must be dreaming. This can’t really be happening. How is this happening?

Then Faith chose a direction and started walking again. What else could she do? Maybe someone had broken into her apartment, drugged her, and dropped her off in the highlands of Scotland. She almost laughed out loud. That was almost as crazy as the suspicion she would not quite let her mind voice, not yet: that the ring she had taken from that bin had somehow transported her here, a place that may or may not be Scotland, but sure as hell looked like it. She made a concerted effort to gather her scattered wits about her; she was going to need them. She hopped over a small rivulet of water, winding its way through the thick clumps of grass. She walked purposefully, and slowly, she began to feel calmer, more in control. Whatever had happened, she would figure it out, and everything would be all right. She was alive. She would be all right.

Faith had always believed in magic, secretly, just a little. And she had always harbored a secret hope that there was more to the world than what was obvious to the human senses. She had always wanted to believe in miracles and perhaps even a higher purpose. Was this her proof, then? Was
now
the adventure she had always secretly craved, the escape from a life she had never quite settled into? Either way, she didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter at this point.
Here
is where all of her lifelong daydreams and fantasies mixed with a little bit of magic had gotten her, apparently, and now it was up to her to see if she could get back out of it again.

She followed a small stream through the length of a narrow valley, stepping carefully over the uneven, boggy ground, soaking her shoes more than once as her foot sunk down. When she finally reached the top of a rise at one end, all of the breath suddenly left her body, and she was filled with awe at the site that met her eyes. She was looking out over a sea loch, and in the distance, unmistakably, was a castle. It stood on a narrow strip of land, surrounded on three sides by sparkling blue water, on the forth by a wide strip of green. Farther inland, she could just make out the tiny houses of a village and the furrows of freshly plowed fields. It could have been a scene from a postcard, an idyllic, romantic picture of the ruins of a mediaeval fortress. Only something was very wrong. The tiny hairs stood up on the back of her neck, because even from this distance the castle looked quite newly built, its outline sharp and straight against the clear sky, its mighty walls whole and standing strong. And there was smoke rising from the chimneys. And the faint sounds of people and animals, of life. Her heart began to race.

Despite herself, Faith felt the excitement rising in her blood, nearly replacing the fear that earlier had threatened to overwhelm her. What if…
just what if
she was really in mediaeval Scotland? To be able to see what life was really like
firsthand
! To hold her favorite artifacts in her hand and have them be
brand new
! Now
that
would be an adventure of a lifetime. She had to get closer, to know for sure. She started walking again, staying hidden in the hills, moving behind the cover of the dense and prickly gorse bushes that covered the steep slopes, adorning them with their bright yellow springtime flowers. As she drew closer, she moved more cautiously, not wanting to meet anyone just yet. Not until she knew what she was really dealing with, and if there was danger. She followed a small ravine down to the edge of the village, picking her way over loose rocks, until she was able to take cover in the woods at the edge of an open field.

She crouched in the low brush out of sight to watch and wait, careful to avoid any gorse. She had accidently touched one of the bushes earlier and her finger still stung where it had stabbed her. She absently brought it to her mouth to suck on the wound, and looked around. There was a strange feeling of peace here. It seemed to flow through her body, accepting her, welcoming her, wanting her here. She had never felt anything like it before. She had never felt even mildly at home in D.C., more like a visitor, or even a tourist, but never like she belonged there.

“This is crazy”, she whispered to herself. “Absolutely insane.” As she sat there, she began to wonder how long she should wait, and if perhaps she would end up feeling ridiculous when a tourist came by taking pictures of the reproduction of a mediaeval castle and village.

She almost laughed at the thought, but instead froze when she heard a soft sound just behind her. She whirled around in time to see a man step out into a clearing not twenty feet away. Now she
knew
she had somehow travelled to the past. This was no twenty-first century Scot (if this did indeed prove to be Scotland). His clothes alone gave him away: tight leather leggings and a loose linen tunic. But more than that, his very way of standing there, his way of
being
in the world, the way he was looking at her, all instinctively spoke to her of something beyond the realm of what was familiar. He belonged here, to this place, and here was not anywhere close to where she had just come from. Her heart began to pound erratically in her chest, and for a moment she just stared at him, uncertain whether she should run or hold her ground. But then he smiled at her, a genuine and friendly smile, and she relaxed a little. His expression slowly changed as she looked at him, and he seemed… smug? No, that didn’t make sense. She had always been very good at reading people’s faces, but perhaps that didn’t include people from… here.

“Hello, lass”, he said with a nod, when he had stopped only a few yards away.

“Hello.” What did one say when meeting a person from another time?
If
she was assuming she was in another time, which she wasn’t just yet. Her head was spinning, logic trying to make sense of what was happening, panic just behind it, threatening to take over again at any moment. Wonder and excitement pushing to the fore-front, only to be threatened once more by rising panic. She could only look at him mutely, waiting to see what he would say.

He was older, perhaps fifty, she thought, as his hair was graying, but still quite handsome in a dignified sort of way. Her eyes swept over him. He didn’t look like he was armed, showed no signs of wanting to harm her…

He moved closer, speaking to her as he walked, one hand held out slightly in front of him in a posture of harmlessness, as one would do when approaching a skittish animal. “What is your name?”

She took a single step back from him, just in case. That
was
a Scottish accent he spoke with, wasn’t it? “Faith. My name is Faith.”

The man stared at her for a second, smiled broadly, then laughed out loud. “Perfect. Faith. I hope ye have your fair share, lass. Ye’ll need it.” He offered her his hand, and she took it willingly and without thought, surprising herself as she did so. He brought her fingers to his mouth and kissed them chivalrously before letting her hand go. “I’m Dirc. I’ve been expecting ye for some time now; gods, it took ye a rather long while to arrive.”

“What?” Her heart sped up again, and little shocks of surprise raced to her fingertips. “Did you say you were expecting me?”

He didn’t bother to answer her, but only looked her over curiously, as if she was something he had never seen before. If her hunch was right, then she was probably just that. “Ye found the ring, aye?”

He could only mean the dragon ring, which was still in her pocket. Her hand automatically felt for it there, and his eyes followed, not missing a thing. Damn, she needed to be more careful. “Yes, but how did you…”

He cut her off abruptly with a terse and commanding wave of his hand. “Time enough for that later. There is much to do, and we’d best get started. Come.” He turned and began to walk away into the woods.

Faith, not knowing what else to do, followed. If
he
knew about the ring, she reasoned,
she
wasn’t crazy, and she might actually find out what happened… and why. Perhaps he was some sort of psychic and had foreseen her arrival. If so, maybe he could also tell her whether she would ever get back home again, and how.