It goes on like this for quite some time. Hours. Sela is waiting for the thing to return and show itself to her, but instead something hits her from behind, hard, and she bites her tongue.
'Get that accursed thing on her now,' comes a frightened voice.
Someone is sliding something up over her wrist. A bracelet? A gift for me? Up over her elbow, and then snug against her arm. The thing she's been showing to everyone loses its teeth, yawns, goes to sleep.
What was that thing? Sela is certain that it was big and dangerous, but can't quite picture it anymore.
That voice again. 'We've got her, Lord Everess,' it says. 'She's secure.'
Secure.
Sela saw light. Light, energy, heat, all around her. She was being burned alive. But she wasn't really seeing it; she was experiencing it on some level other than sight. There were no eyes, no body.
A thread erupted out of her. A thick, ropy thread connecting her to a presence larger and more terrifying than any she had ever known. An ancient intelligence, a wisdom beyond eons, beyond stars. It saw her and knew her.
She was being incinerated in flame. She was vanishing. Then her body was jerked to the side-but there was no body, of course-and she dropped, hard, onto stone.
'Sorry about that,' came a girl's voice. Faella.
Sela opened her eyes. She was on her knees on a platform of stone. Silverdun, Ironfoot, and Faella were here as well. Faella had landed on her feet, but both Silverdun and Ironfoot were picking themselves off the hard floor of the platform.
The platform was circular, with a stone railing. Beyond the railing was nothingness. Not darkness, not light. Just ... nothing. Sela had no words for it. Emptiness without form or substance, or even absence. It was deeply unsettling.
'I apologize for almost killing all of us,' said Faella. 'But I'm afraid we didn't take into account that the fold would feed us directly into the receptacle, not into a happy landing spot. So I made an adjustment in midfold. Harder than it sounds, I can assure you.'
'Where are we?' asked Sela, her voice shaking.
'Look behind you,' said Silverdun.
Sela stood, turning. Behind her was a wide road that ended at a great stair leading up to a massive, black edifice, a squat castle without tower or battlement, streaked reddish orange. It was blocky, unadorned, huge. Larger than the Great Seelie Keep and twice as high.
Before them, at the start of the road, was a tall stone arch, and on the arch was inscribed a line of script in a language that Sela didn't recognize.
'What is that?' she asked.
Ironfoot looked up at the arch, puzzling out the characters.
'This is Thule Fae,' he said. 'I studied it at Queensbridge. But it's an odd dialect. Give me a moment.'
'What does it say?' asked Silverdun.
'It says `Beyond This Arch Lies Death.''
'Not very welcoming,' said Silverdun.
'Great. So what's the plan, boss?' asked Ironfoot.
Silverdun scowled. 'We go inside and look around,' he said.
'And that sign?'
'Pray it's a bit of hyperbole.'
'I hate to bring this up,' said Faella. 'Because you may find it a bit dispiriting, but there's something I need to tell you.'
'What now?' asked Silverdun.
'While we were in the fold, I'm afraid some time may have passed. Rather longer than you might have expected.'
'How long?' asked Ironfoot.
'I think it was about four days,' said Faella.
Silverdun swore. 'Then the war's already begun!'
Morale is worth its weight in gold. Given the choice between a hopeful soldier with a club and a disheartened soldier with a sword, I will take the one with the club
