"Jordan."
He woke to Grace shaking him. Consciousness came back to him reluctantly, in bits and pieces. For a moment, all he was aware of was her shaking him and his irritation at the shaking, but then he noticed more. Remembered more. And wished he could turn straight back over and fall asleep again.
But once one was painfully aware of the hard stone floor underneath them and the pervading smell of mildew and shit, it was quite hard to do that.
"Whaissit," he mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut tighter. It would all go away if he squeezed hard enough. He took in a sharp breath.
It still stank of shit.
He opened his eyes. Grace sat beside him, looming over his head in the semi-gloom. "There's someone coming."
He listened as he sat up, fighting the fog in his brain. He heard talking at the end of the corridor, but no footsteps. He pulled Grace closer. The walls of their cell glistened in the light of the single torch they'd been given, sitting in a bracket beyond the bars, and he didn't let himself contemplate what they glistened with. He hadn't let himself contemplate very much since the portal had spit them out, for fear that he'd lose what remained of his sense. One moment he had been drawing his sister shuffling through grave remains on a deserted island, and then he had been chased by a monster, and then he was falling through the roof of a market stall in what had at first seemed like Middle Ages Britain until he'd got a better look at the place. All of it combined made for a confusing puzzle at best, and a horrific waking nightmare at worst. When the guards had come for them and it had tipped further towards 'nightmare', he'd stopped thinking about anything much at all except keeping them alive.
Almost the worst part about it was that he had been allowed to sleep for so long that he was alert enough to have to face it now.
When the footsteps came, he half-expected the man from the day before. The Lord of the Reach had cut a terrifying figure at nearly seven feet tall, unnaturally pale with a cruel face and eyes that burned brilliant orange. Just the memory made his bladder twitch, but it was not the Lord who stopped outside the cell.
It was Yddris.
Before this moment Jordan had only been in Yddris's immediate presence for all of five minutes, and had only needed that five minutes to realise there was something very off about him. It wasn't that he was dressed head to toe in a thick black cloak with a deep cowl and not an inch of skin showing, though that didn't help. The air around him seemed charged, crackling and restless, and the only other time Jordan had ever felt that was right before his sister almost got eaten by a demon.
So when the man turned up outside his prison cell, he was decidedly nervous.
He made an effort not to show it. There was some degree of respect someone who had saved them from being crushed by a fanatical crowd deserved, and while it had all ended in this freezing, stinking cell, it was a relief from the staring and the requests for blessing strangers' new-born babies. Quite what kind of blessing they thought resided in Jordan's fingers he had no idea, but he hadn't been made aware of it.
"Evening," the man said. His voice was rough with a smoker's rasp and an accent Jordan couldn't place. "How are you finding the accommodation?"
Grace made a strangled noise beside him. Jordan forced a laugh.
"Is that a serious question?"
"Not at all." The man chuckled and moved closer, raising the hairs on Jordan's neck. Even Grace shuddered. "It smells like shit in here."
Jordan stared, and felt the man's gaze on him in return. He had so many questions, but wasn't sure which to ask first, or which ones Yddris would answer, if any.
"My first question, if I were in your position," Yddris said, as if he had read Jordan's thoughts, "would be 'where the fuck am I?' followed in short order by 'what the fuck happens now'." He reached inside his cloak and produced a clay pipe and a small pouch of tobacco. His heavy gaze was still on Jordan as he stuffed it.
"Okay." Jordan blinked. "Where the fuck am I?"
"Good question," Yddris said, pointing the pipe at him, "I like your thinking. The simple answer is that you're in a small cell that smells of arse in the bowels of Lord Harkenn's castle. But you knew that already." He stuck the pipe in his mouth and covered it with one hand. When he took it away again, a thin plume of smoke drifted into the air. "The less simple answer is that you fell through a portal, which I suppose you also worked out by now, and that it has dumped you in Nictaven."
"And where is Nictaven?"
Yddris spread his arms. "This place. This world. Whatever you want to call it."
"You mean we aren't even on earth anymore?" Grace blurted. Yddris seemed to notice that she was there for the first time. She shuddered as Yddris looked at her, and Jordan tightened his arm around her shoulder. She reached up and clasped his hand with icy fingers.
"Earth." Yddris puffed on his pipe for a moment. "I've heard of that one. Not for a while, mind." Another puff. "No, you're not."
Jordan frowned. Grace slumped next to him, but he almost heard her brain working at it.
"Did you truly believe yours was the only world out there?" Yddris said. He stood right up against the bars, and Jordan could smell his pipe smoke; not ordinary tobacco. It was thick and musty and made him feel a little funny.
"I guess not," he said. He paused. "How many are there?"
"Countless." Yddris shrugged. "I'd be surprised if anyone could tell you."
Jordan reached out and grabbed onto a bar. It was cold and hard in his grip, and fully solid. When he pinched himself, it hurt.
"Work it out later," Yddris said. He had gone back to staring at Jordan, and it was getting to be more than unsettling. "You've got a trial to worry about now."
Shit. He had forgotten entirely about the trial in the chaos of their arrest, but he remembered the Lord's words with painful clarity and felt a stirring in his gut. He had never been to court. Whether they really had landed in another world, or in a remote location on earth where everyone was convinced that it was all real – neither sounded particularly plausible, and yet here they were – court was something he'd rather have avoided.
And then there was the monster to factor in.
"Just came to give you a few pointers," Yddris continued. "Don't know how courts work in your world, but it's probably not like this. The heads of the religious Houses will make the ruling. The Assembly comes from all over. House of Orthan will want you dead."
"What?" Jordan almost choked. "Why?"
"They want everybody who isn't Orthanian dead. It's the others you need to sway. Kiel are the biggest, Varthi won't be present, and Nict are unpredictable bastards. The Unspoken collective will vote for your release, so don't worry about them."
"You sound sure." Grace trembled under Jordan's arm, but set her jaw and narrowed her eyes at the hooded man.
"At such short notice, the Unspoken will probably only have one speaker present," Yddris said, "And that's me. So yes, I can afford to be fairly certain."
"Oh." Jordan swallowed, and chuckled a little hysterically. "Thanks in advance, then, I guess."
Yddris snorted. "Don't thank me, boy. Executing foreigners is bad business." He tapped out his pipe on the bars. "While you're in there, avoid eye contact with anyone but the Lord when he is speaking to you. It will be taken as a sign of attempting to curry favour. Do not give out indication of any religious views, because it's bound to piss at least one of them off. And do not bloody lie, you hear me? That slave of his can tell, and she'll be present to help determine your ruling. She can detect a lie as subtle as a fart in a dinner hall and she won't have any qualms telling the Lord. Then you'll be royally fucked. Keep it simple, keep it honest."
"Who is she?" Grace asked, perking up. Jordan frowned at her. "The slave?"
Yddris's air was calculating. "Anarabelle Novae. She's been in the household for ten years, and she's dangerous if you give her the chance to be. Don't go getting tangled up with powers you don't know, girl."
"Dangerous?"
"Yes," Yddris murmured, "Exceptionally dangerous women get Harkenn's rocks off."
Grace wrinkled her nose. "Are you always this vulgar?"
"Grace..." Jordan hissed. "Don't."
Yddris just laughed and shook his head. "If I had a Shil for every time a woman has asked me that, I wouldn't have to kill demons for a living." He sniffed, and turned abruptly serious. "Someone will come for you in the next couple of hours so I'll see if I can get someone to bring you a washing basin. It really does stink of shit in here."
He turned and swept out before the thanks left Jordan's lips. He sat back on his heels, staring at the spot where the man had been standing.
"Well," Grace said, leaning her head on his shoulder. "I suppose I should apologise."
"Why?"
"I got us into this, didn't I?" She buried her face further into his jacket when he tried to look at her. "By getting us to that stupid island."
"You couldn't have known," Jordan said.
"No." She laughed, but when she finally lifted her head, her cheeks glittered with tears. "Wouldn't it be crazy if I could?"
"There's something you're not telling me, isn't there?"
"Well," she sniffed and wiped her face, "Not really. I just thought... I don't know what I thought. There was this myth I stumbled across online. That way back when the monastery was first built, a group of monks went into the crypt and vanished, and came out decades later claiming they had seen another world. And then again just before it was closed, a whole family went down there and never came out again. I just thought we could look. I didn't think there was anything in it." She gestured at the cell around them. "And look where we are now."
"That's just dumb, Grace," Jordan said, "Why would anyone think that was true? Besides," he shuddered, "I need to apologise more than you do for bringing that thing down on our heads."
They both jumped as the door clanged. A guard opened their door without a word and stood aside to let in two women carrying a large tub of water between them. When they left, the guard remained outside the closed door with his back turned.
"Do you want to go first?" Jordan asked, looking at the guard's back.
"I'm not bathing in here," Grace said hotly. "I'll have a wash and that's it."
Jordan turned away as she began stripping off her coats and shirt, keeping half an eye on the guard in case he got ideas. He only inclined his head once, caught Jordan's scowl, and didn't try again.
Jordan was just finishing a quick wash himself when someone came. Grace huddled in one corner with her clothes bundled around her, but suddenly she straightened, pulling on a jacket and peering through the bars as their guard snapped to attention with a brisk salute. Jordan's shirt clung to him as he pulled it on, and he just had time to get his coat back around him when a short, pale man in a burgundy robe stopped outside their cell. Perhaps man was too generous, Jordan thought. He looked barely more than a boy, swamped in the robe he wore.
Under one arm the boy carried a thick roll of parchment which he pulled out with a flourish. Many people Jordan had seen in this place were pale, but this boy was white as a sheet, with thin white hair and pale eyes. When he spoke, his voice was high and clear.
"By Order of his Lordship, Faellian Harkenn, fourth of his line, ruler and protector of the city of Shadow's Reach and its Districts, you are hereby summoned to court for trial by Assembly. You, Jordan and Grace Haverford of Otherworld, stand accused of summoning portal magic and using it to travel to Nictaven. Anything you say now may be used as evidence in the proceedings."
Grace's nails dug sharply into Jordan's hand as he opened his mouth to protest, and when he turned to her she held a finger to her lips. More footsteps approached, and the boy stood aside as three more guards arrived in full armour, each carrying a sword at their hip. Their visors were down so Jordan couldn't see their faces as two wrested his arms behind his back and cuffed them. The metal shackles were coarse and painful, cutting at his wrists when he moved. His heart fluttered in panic as they tightened. He stared at the back of his sister's head as she marched ahead of him, willing her to turn around laughing and telling him it had all been a horrible prank.
She didn't. When his knees buckled the guards hauled him roughly up again. They urged him along even though his legs felt like putty and his skin prickled with heat, even though he felt like weeping. He kept his eyes ahead and tried to copy Grace, who walked purposefully and with her head high. Anyone would have thought she was leading the guards, not the other way around.
The boy in the robe carried the torch ahead of them, illuminating a narrow, dirty passageway lined with cells. The points of the guards' helmets almost scraped the ceiling, scattering bugs and creatures with too many legs that Jordan didn't dare look at too closely. Inhuman squeaks and skitterings mingled with groans and pleas from cells left dark as they passed. When the staircase came into view, a grubby hand shot out from a cell door and latched onto Jordan's jacket. He gasped, reeling back out of reach where one of his guards caught and held him. The other drew a metal baton from their belt and aimed a hard whack at the fingers curled around a bar. With a crunch and a shriek, the occupant retreated. It took all of his effort not to start screaming, too.
The tight spiral staircase forced them into single file. Metal heels clicked in front and behind. Jordan tried to keep pace with the guard ahead of him, fully aware that the guard behind was still carrying his baton in his hand. He only vaguely remembered the descent from before, but he was certain it hadn't been this long. When they reached the top, it was the presence of the baton that kept him from collapsing.
They were led along towering corridors lined with ornate decoration and artwork, glimmering metal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and rich purple carpet on the floors. He saw many portraits of pale men with burning orange eyes and dark hair as he was marched along, some of whom were the Lord that Jordan had met and some who weren't but eerily resembled him. From up ahead he could sense Grace's frustration at not being able to examine any of it; his sister was craning her neck to look around, attracting ire and the occasional shove from her guards. He almost laughed; Grace could always be counted on to be Grace.
His mirth vanished when they stopped in front of a vast pair of ornately carved doors, at least fifteen feet tall and half as wide. The carving on each side depicted a warrior slaying a beast with a great axe, and their face had the same sharp, haughty features as the portraits which adorned the castle walls. Around the edge of the frame was writing in a script Jordan didn't recognise, and the handles were set into a large carved symbol that stood Jordan's hair on end when he looked on it. He frowned and reached up to rub away the sensation, only to remember he was shackled.
The boy stepped forward. He rapped on the door twice, paused, and then rapped three more times. A vast bolt slid back with a clang on the other side, and the doors swung wide. Jordan's guards grabbed him by the wrists and unlocked his manacles, and then each placed a hand on one of his shoulders to lead him in.
The light was blinding after the dimness of the dungeons and corridors, but when Jordan's eyes adjusted, he looked around the vast room and the many faces that stared back. He cast his gaze to the floor, remembering Yddris's words.
As he marched forward, he wept.