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Ian hurried to the starboard side, rifle in hand, and looked over at the approaching ship. Daniel and Beth moved as quickly as they could without making any sounds, and stood a few yards behind Ian, up against the rail.
The ship coming closer had several crew, all crowded on deck, weapons in hand. Daniel couldn't see their faces yet, but the silence as the ships flew over the blackness below was palpable, like the fear that hangs over a theater while terrified movie goers prayed the buxom blonde doesn't open that door, but knowing she's about to.
As the other vessel drew closer, he could make out expressions of tension mixed with the exhaustion of trying to remain quiet for hours.
No words were exchanged, not even nods of acknowledgement as the massive airships moved passed each other above the fog. They were no more than twenty yards apart, each moving on the momentum built up from their approach. The Myst was still enjoying a burst of full speed, so the passing lasted moments, but near the end of those moments, it happened.
A sneeze. Nothing more or less important than that, but the sound rang clear and sharp as if the sailor had been standing right beside Daniel.
Instantly the silence erupted into shouts of panic. Sailors on the other ship ran about, some shouting, some cursing. Daniel looked at Ian who held his finger over his own mouth and looked sternly back at him and Beth.
The next thing Daniel heard was a whistle, sharp and approaching fast. Before he saw the source, another joined it, then another, until there was a chorus announcing the sudden hail of flaming arrows that shot up out of the black fog, slamming indiscriminately into the passing ship's hull, it's rigging, even the balloon above.
Beth opened her mouth to scream, but Daniel's hand was quick. He covered her mouth and very nearly had to cover his own as he saw the ship catch fire.
Ian was leaning over the rail, rifle ready, but not firing.
"Help us!"
"She's burning!"
"No! Don't let them take me!"
Screams echoed now from the ship, still a hundred yards from safety.
Daniel looked at Ian, who glanced back and shook his head sharply. He looked back at the other ship, now on fire in several places. Arrows were shooting up out of the black fog regularly, and from below he heard chanting, and possibly drums, though it was difficult to tell over the screams of the crewmen.
"It's sinking." Beth whispered underneath Daniel's hand.
The balloon was flaming wildly now, and the ship's forward momentum was completely lost. Men were running back and forth now, with no other purpose than panic. Some fired their weapons into the fog, others tried in vain to put out the fires.
The ship was losing altitude quickly now, the black fog licking the burning hull.
Beth turned and buried her face into Daniel's chest, and began sobbing without making a sound.
His own horror was dulled only by a morbid sense of shock and wonder as he watched the massive ship slowly slip down into the blackness. The screams of the sailors now mixing completely with chants and shouts from below.
Part of him realized, numbly, that the crew would most likely survive such a slow crash. The ship was going down, and there would be no stopping it now that the balloon was fully engulfed, but it was sinking gently, with amazing grace, and the shouting below wasn't any further down than the ground the Myst had been covering before.
That slow of a fall was survivable.
He didn't think the inhabitants who'd brought it down would be, though.
It all happened so fast, even in slow motion. Before Daniel was able to consciously absorb the horror of what had happened, the Myst was too far away for them to hear the screaming. Even the orange glow of the burning ship was lost now in the blackness of the fog.
Beth kept her face buried in Daniel's chest and he wrapped his arms around her. It was the easiest way to keep her from making any sounds, and the best way he could think of to keep himself from thinking about what had happened.
They stood that way for forty five minutes, he and Beth, while Ian kept watch over the side rail. There were occasional sounds from below, the same faint chanting and drums he'd heard the first time, but no more screams, and not a single arrow found the Myst as she sailed silently over the fog.
By the time Daniel could see the other side approaching, he'd grow stiff from standing in one place. He pushed Beth away just enough to catch her attention, then pointed to the approaching shore line.
She nodded, then pulled out of his protective embrace and moved to the rail. As she looked over the side, Daniel noticed her expression shift from a sad memory of horror to amazed curiosity. He strained to hear any sounds from below, but even the drumming had long since faded.
A few moments later, they were over the edge of the fog and once again sailing over green grass and farmlands.
Ian shouldered his rifle and moved back to the helm, with Beth close on his heels.
"What happened to that ship?" she demanded.
"It went down," Ian replied. "You saw it. And it could have just as easily been us, had we made a sound."
"Brought down by what? By who?" She marched up to the wheel and glared at him. "Where did those arrows come from?"
"The fog. You know full well what's inside the fog is a mystery. I know your parents told you about it."
"It was a child's story!" She turned to Daniel, but seemed to be still speaking to Ian. "A tale parents tell their children so they'll behave. Like the swamp. Everyone knows--"
"That swamp is real," Daniel interrupted.
Beth looked at him, eyebrows knit together tightly.
He shrugged. "I don't know what you parents might have told you about that swamp, but it's as real, and as frightening, as anything I've ever seen."
Beth's face burned red. She turned on Ian again. "What is down there?"
"No one knows," he replied. He'd put the Myst back into full speed and kept his attention fixed on the compass set in the center of the bow. "And you know that. Sometimes ships cross and never reach the other side, but it's a danger everyone knows ahead of time. It's something we all live with, on this side."
"On this side?" Daniel looked at Beth. "Do the royal folk ever leave the castle and village?"
Beth clenched her teeth, an action that sent ripples across her slender jaw line.
"No, they don't," Ian replied for her. "Most villagers don't, either. I hadn't been as far as the swamp until after Stefan ran me out."
"There's no need," Beth huffed, arms now folded across her chest. "The royal guard keep order throughout Ether, and the royal family sends regular voice transmissions three times a year, to update the citizens on the state of Ether."
"Do you realize how elitist that sounds?" Daniel asked, keeping his tone reasonable. "You've been in Otherworld long enough to know how wrong that is. Don't your people resent the royalty for it?"
"I think they appreciate it, more than anything," Ian offered. "In the city, we think of the sheriff more as our ruler than the king."
"The sheriff is following the king's orders," Beth insisted. "But you're right, Daniel. Things will change when I take the throne." She nodded toward the black fog, now a solid black line beyond their stern. "Things like that. I demand to know what, or who, is down there."
Ian laughed shortly, then shrugged. "As you like, your Highness."
"Now that's something I'd like to be here for," Daniel quipped.
Beth sighed heavily. "Those poor people." She looked at Ian again, her expression pleading. "But do we really know they're lost? If we don't know what's down there, how do you know so certainly that those men aren't coming back?"
"Because no one ever has," he replied. "Folk more curious that you two have ventured into that fog, and never come back out to tell the tale. Ships go down, none come up. It's the way of things." He looked at Daniel, then Beth, then back again. "So is that what Otherworld teaches you? To be so curious about a thing that you can't rest until you get answers?"
"Is that such a bad thing, to be curious?" Beth asked.
Ian shrugged. "I'm used to it from him, now. But you? When you were a child, you didn't care where anything came from, or what made it tick. You were only interested in how you could manipulate it to your way of thinking." When she turned on him, he winked to take the sting out of his words, then continued. "You were a child then. You're a woman now, and you're far more mature and level headed than Stefan. In fact, I'd say you two had changed places. Now he's the manipulator, and you're the one seeking answers."
"There's only one answer I'm interested in right now," Beth sighed. "How do I get my throne?"
The only answer Daniel was interested in suddenly popped into his head, and came out his mouth before he realized it.
"Why in the hell did we just do that, when I could have taken Beth back to Otherworld, then joined you on this side of the fog?"
Ian and Beth turned to stare at Daniel.
He looked at them, eyebrows raised. "I could have done that, right? Gone through the hatch back to my uncle's house, then waited an hour, and come back through to here?"
Ian blinked.
Beth began laughing. At first, it was a delicate, feminine laugh, light and lilting, but it quickly turned into a full-on guffaw as both Ian and Daniel joined in the irony. They laughed until they were tearing up, then they laughed again.
________________________
That evening, after enjoying a quiet meal, Daniel offered to take the first shift and fly the Myst through the night, staying on the course Ian set for him using the large gyro-compass. He found standing on the deck alone, with the stars sparkling against the night sky, and the sight of three moons high above, very soothing. His mind even supplied the slight sensation of ocean movement his body was missing. Now and then, one of the large winged lizards would land on deck and take a few minutes to wash itself and wander around before taking flight again and vanishing into the darkness.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?"
Daniel blinked, then smiled as Beth came toward him, wrapped in a blanket against the night's chill. "Yes, it is."
"That's one thing I really missed on Otherworld." She pointed upward. "The single moon there. The sky looked so empty with only one moon."
He nodded. "I'm trying not to think about tidal forces and complicated orbits, and all that technical stuff I only halfway understood in college."
She laughed lightly, then took a seat on the steps leading up to the helm, her attention on the moons. "Don’t," she said. "Don't analyze, or try to figure it out. It'll only give you a headache."
"You're probably right."
"I know I'm right." Beth glanced up at Daniel. "For a full year, when I realized I was in Otherworld and no one believed who I was or where I was from, I set about trying to use logic and science to prove it. Of course, I was thirteen years old, so that's how far it went. But later, when I was in college, I realized they were right. Ether couldn't possibly exist."
Daniel shrugged, trying not to grin at the irony. "And yet, here we are."
"Indeed," Beth stood and walked up the steps. "Here we are."
Standing there, beside him on the raised helm platform, the light from Ether's largest moon added sparkle to her hair. Daniel hadn't intended to lean closer, but he knew he couldn't blame the rough seas they were sailing. First, there were no seas, and second, she smelled so nice.
"Promise me there's no Missus Daniel Harper," Beth whispered.
"What? No, there isn't," he replied hastily. "Not yet, anyway."
"Not yet what?"
Closer than an inch.
Beth's lips had been closer than an inch away from Daniel's. So close, he could just about taste them, when Ian stormed up from below deck.
Daniel cleared his throat, but Beth just shrugged and smiled. She'd done nothing to be embarrassed about.
"He's not married," she replied. "I thought it prudent to check."
Ian frowned. "He is ten years your senior, though. That doesn’t register with you, but his marital status does?"
"One's more important than the other," she scolded. "Besides, you're ten years older too."
"And you weren't trying to kiss me, either," Ian retorted. "I've known you since you were a baby."
"And I've known you since you were fifteen years old," she shrugged. "Big deal. Daniel and I have only just met."
"Maybe I should go get a nap." Daniel stepped out from behind the wheel and Ian took his place.
"It's her business," Ian replied with a huff. "She's old enough to know what she wants, and I'm not in a position to tell her otherwise."
"That's right, you're not," Beth agreed. "Before this week's out, I'll be the Queen around here."
"As far as I'm concerned, Ma'am, you already are." Ian punctuated his statement with a very slight bow. "And I suppose you could do worse. But don't you think he might have other ideas? Otherworld, being just one."
"Okay, I'm going to grab some hot tea and maybe get an hour of sleep." Daniel raised his hands in surrender and started below. He walked to the galley and found a pot of water still steaming hot, and some loose tea leaves in a tin. After making himself a cup of strong, black tea, he sat down, too tired to really ponder anything more important than his aching feet and Beth's hair.
"I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that," Beth said as she stepped into the galley, smiling apologetically. "I guess being a tad aggressive isn't such a turn on for a lot of men."
Daniel laughed shortly. "Actually, I don't mind it. In the Air Force, all the women are aggressive. It's part of their training."
"And probably part of what makes them want to sign up in the first place." She poured herself a cup of tea and sat on the opposite side of the large galley table. "But I shouldn't have been so forward. After all, when you condense the last two days, we've hardly gotten to know each other." With a grin, she held out a hand. "Hi. My name's Beth. I'm the Princess of all Ether, and will soon be Queen. I enjoy long walks on the beach, sunny days, and thoughts of revenge against my murderous scum of a brother."
Daniel chuckled, but took the offered hand and shook it. "Nice to meet you. Daniel Harper's the name. I'm a doctor, formerly of the Air Force, currently a fish out of water in a land that shouldn't exist."
"Very nice to meet you, Doctor Daniel Harper." Beth laughed lightly, then sipped her tea and leaned forward, elbows resting on the table. "So tell me, Doctor Daniel Harper, now that you've come to realize my world is real, and you own a key that will bring you here anytime you wish, what are your intentions for the future?"
Daniel blinked. The sentence that explained his need to find an affordable building to start up his little family practice in town, find a decent woman, settle down and have a few of the requisite children expected of a man his age and position, caught in his throat.
"I, um, I guess I'm not sure." He wasn't, not really.
Not at all, actually, but until she asked, he hadn't realized it himself.
"Good," Beth replied. She picked up her cup and rolled it between both hands. "At least that means you're keeping your options open."
Daniel reached into his pocket and pulled out the key. Staring at it, he leaned forward, pushing his tea aside. "I'm not even sure I fully understand how this thing works. Aside from it taking me from home, to here, then home. My uncle came here, quite often, I think, but he still lived at his farm."
"Did he?"
"Well, sure, yeah. I mean, my cousins and I spent summers there every year. And I lived with him while I was in college." Daniel turned the key over in his hand.
"You spent a week here, but you were only gone from home for ten minutes," Beth reminded him.
Daniel huffed and pointed a finger at her. "But you went through the door when you were thirteen, and ten years later you returned after ten years had passed."
Beth merely nodded. "That's how it works. It makes no sense, but I don't think it's supposed to. Maybe Murphy knows more."
Daniel shook his head. "So, does that mean you could go back through, back to Otherworld, at a time before you'd arrived?"
"No, you can't." She set her tea down and placed both palms on the table. "You can only exist in once place at a time. That's why you can't go back to a time before your uncle died and speak to him. You were already alive during that time period, in another place, in Otherworld. That's also why you can't go from Otherworld to Ether to a point before you had arrived the first time, or sometime in the middle. You -- Daniel Harper -- can only be in once place at any one time."
He rubbed his temple, feeling the lack of sleep beginning to tug him down. "I'll just have to take your word for it. But how do you know all this?"
Beth put a hand over Daniel's and gave it a gentle squeeze. "It's logic, that's all. Pure physics."
At that, Daniel couldn't help but laugh.
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