[M] A Valuable Inheritance ~ IC

[Preach]

But Eliza had crossed the threshold of the dark mark on the map-- and the travelers were liked irrevocably, so in terms of lands and boundaries, they had all crossed the threshold. The woods around them shifted in a 360° degree circle and they would all be swept off their feet, unless they were able to keep up with the massive rotation. As they rotated, there was one point just to Gay's right that seemed to absorb the woods and darkness like a vacuum until they were standing in a stark moor once again.

A great wind stirred-- and an even greater one was headed towards them. They could see it coming across the sparse grass and trees by the way they bowed and bent under its strength. It was stampeding towards them-- there was nowhere to hide or run. The sound of its rushing was the only sound in the vast stretch of wilderness devoid of wildlife or birds. On the far horizon there stood mountains draped in snow, and as a dot in the landscape there stood a dramatic hill with a chalk road winding up it, its crown shrouded by tall old trees.

When the wind took them it was like being kicked in the gut. They soared miles above and could see what lay beyond the tall mountains-- other lands, other kingdoms. The air smelt faintly of sulfur in one breath, then of mint in another, then of wet stone in yet another. But it was difficult to breathe. They were swirled upwards and east towards the hill. They soared above the crest of trees and were plunged hard and fast into the mirror-like lake. It was not cold, but it was dark. They would drown in there.

Or at least it would feel like it.

With the very last breath that forced itself from their lungs they would gasp and stumble, cold, standing on a solid wooden floor. The room was warm, but the chatter had ceased. Four people had just taken a startling breath at once.

"Tarquin? Are you quite all right?" A fuddy fat woman asked, holding a glass of sweet wine in one hand and a fan in the other. Tarquin didn't bother to answer. He stared down at her with crazed eyes and looked to the window walls floors and doors. All normal. He was sweating. He glanced down a hallway and saw the other women, the ones that had been taken by the wind before them, sitting in a rather dazed way in a quieter room down the hall. They were not speaking to each other. He ran a hand through his hair and it hurt-- he was wounded. There was a mark on his palm that looked scarred, burned, then healed-over, in the shape of an eye. He yelped. He hid his hand in his pocket. His clothes were slightly dusty. He was tall. He had kept his height and looks, but no one seemed to be reacting to it. He had kept his bangles, as had the rest, but no one made comment. Eliza kept her book and her black hand, and her book-- the writing had faded to a faint, almost invisible gray. Gay kept the thing he had eaten, but it had slowed now outside of Faerie. He had brought butterflies along and they were more beautiful than any ever seen in England before. The dove had turned into a blood-red hat made of feathers. He had lost his violin. The Scot had kept his box and stone, and they would prove useful.

"I was-- I was-- I was-- I was not-- I was not h-h- I was feeling ill," Tarquin said, but that's not the words he wanted to say. "Look! Look at these?! Can you?" He shook his wrists in a woman's face, "They were p-p-p- I was b-b-b-- they were-- g-given!" But that's not what he wanted to say, either. He was incapable of expressing what he had seen or where he had been. Only Gay had retained that ability. As Tarquin took a deep breath to explain what had just happened, to ask if anyone else had fallen through the floor, or seen the trees crash through the windows, if anyone else had been transported, he ended up giving a captivating speech about the way that the Fall of Troy had really just been orchestrated by a sprite named John Longiron, who was angry that the city had built such tall walls to spite his shortness. He was incapable of explaining what had truly happened.

The priest was missing still.