Perhaps the wizard had created the tapestry as somewhere to send his enemies or somewhere to keep demons and monsters.
Well, maybe even now it was not too late. He had not taken a single step inside, but only put his hand through; surely that couldn’t hurt. He could simply turn around and step back out. The moment he saw that he was, beyond question, inside the scene in the tapestry, actually standing on that barren stony pathway, he lost his nerve. He gave up any thought he might have had of exploring further and stepped back, expecting to find himself again in the abandoned cottage.
Nothing happened; he was still standing on the narrow path across the rocks. He turned around, looking for the little cottage in the hills of Dwomor, but it was gone. All that he could see behind him was empty space.
He turned in a full circle, slowly, taking in his surroundings.
The only things in sight were the castle, the luridly colored void, and the path on which he stood; the path started out of nothing just a few feet from where he had entered and led nowhere but up to the castle. The rocks that supported both path and castle ended a yard or so out in every direction.
He got down on his belly and crawled to the nearest edge; leaning out cautiously he peered over, expecting to see something, a valley of some sort, far below.
He saw nothing at all, nothing but infinite empty space lit an eerie red. The rocks supporting the path were themselves hanging unsupported in midair. As far as he could discern, they extended down about six feet and across about eight feet in all.
Looking over toward that ornate and frightening castle, he saw more of the same; the rocks on which it stood were not parts of a mountaintop, but of a boulder, perhaps fifty or sixty yards in diameter, hanging in nothingness. Nor were they simply flying; below them were no distant fields or forests or even clouds, not even stars, but only endless emptiness. A wave of vertigo overcame him, and he closed his eyes.
Hot, dry wind, curiously odorless, ruffled his hair as he lay there, his eyes held tightly shut.
This place, he realized as he lay motionless, was not a part of the World he knew at all; that much was quite obvious. He inched himself back onto the path and got slowly to his feet, trying to suppress his trembling.
Quite plainly, he had only one place to go, and there could be no point in putting off going there. He walked slowly and cautiously toward the castle, taking it one small step at a time.
The rope bridge across the chasm, the chasm that was actually ten feet of nothing at all, was the worst part, but he managed it and stood at last on the lower lip of that fanged, grinning mouth that served the castle as a gate.
He was utterly terrified.
He peered in; torches blazed on either side of the gateway, which led to a huge pair of iron-bound wooden doors. He forced himself to step forward.
The doors were closed; he reached for the huge iron rings that would haul them open, then drew his hands back. He was trembling too hard to grip anything. He gritted his teeth and put his hands down at his sides, forcing them to stop shaking.
When he was as calm as he thought he was going to get, he reached out again and tugged at the iron rings.
Nothing happened; the doors were locked from inside. At first a wave of relief swept over him, but that was quickly followed by renewed terror; whatever might lurk within this grotesque structure, it could not possibly be worse than being trapped outside it forever, with nowhere to go, no food, no water, nothing but a few feet of bare rock. He dropped the rings with a loud double clunk and began hammering on the doors with his fists.
When his initial panic had spent itself, his hands dropped, and he turned around, looking out at the void and trying to think what he could do next.
A voice came from inside the castle, an uncertain female voice asking, in a very strange and old-fashioned accent, “Derry? Is that you? Where have you been?”
Tobas froze for a minute; he had not really expected an answer, certainly not an ordinary human voice mistaking him for someone else.
At last, however, he gathered his wits sufficiently to reply, “It’s not Derry; it’s me, Tobas.”
“Who?” The voice was almost plaintive.
“Let me in and I’ll explain.” He had no intention of giving up anything that might get him inside, away from all that empty nothingness, out of the ghastly colored light and the dessicating wind.
Tobas could almost hear the hesitation on the other side; although the pause could not actually have been more than five or ten seconds, it seemed like an eternity before the woman said, “Well, I suppose it’ll be all right. You feel harmless enough.” Almost immediately, Tobas heard a heavy bar being drawn back. Then a chain fell, a lock scraped, and finally the heavy doors swung outward, revealing a broad, torchlit hallway. Another equally massive pair of doors, some ten feet in, stood open; beyond that lay some thirty feet of passageway, the walls broken by side passages, and then yet another set of doors, this pair closed. The corridor was completely unfurnished save for elaborate wrought-iron brackets on the walls, holding torches, but demonic faces were carved in the stone at each corner of the ceiling, leering down at him.
Standing in the middle of the hallway was a lovely young woman, tall, slender, and dark-skinned, clad in an elegant crimson gown, her waist-length black hair spilling down across her shoulders. She watched Tobas warily.
“Hello,” he said, trying desperately to look harmless. “I’m Tobas of Telven, a wizard of sorts.”
“I am called Karanissa of the Mountains; I’m a witch. Did Derry, I mean, Derithon, send you?”
“No, he didn’t. Ah... if you’ll let me come in for a moment, I’ll try to explain.”
Karanissa hesitated. Tobas’ stomach unexpectedly emitted a loud growl, and he added, “And could you spare anything to eat?”
The self-proclaimed witch smiled, then nodded. “This way.”
She led him down a side corridor and through a small open door into the first place he’d seen on this side of the tapestry that seemed fit for humans rather than demons, a quiet, windowless, torchlit little chamber carpeted with furs, with banners on the walls, and furnished with several folding wooden chairs with fabric seats. Karanissa took one chair and motioned for Tobas to take another. When he had settled warily, she clapped her hands.
The air stirred, and Tobas shifted uneasily in his seat.
“Bring us food and drink,” Karanissa ordered, though Tobas saw no one else in the room. “Is there anything in particular you’d like?” she asked him.
“No,” he said. “Whatever is convenient. I’m hungry enough to eat almost anything.”
“Some sharp cheese, then, and the new bread, and the best red wine we have left, oh, and apples.”
The air stirred again, then stilled.
“Go on,” Karanissa said, her attention fully on Tobas now.
“Ah...” he said, “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Start with how you got here,” she suggested.
“Through a tapestry,” Tobas said. “I just tried to smooth it out, but I must have taken a step in and I couldn’t find my way back.”
“I know that story well enough! Derry left me here while he went to check on something, and I haven’t been able to get out since.”
Tobas’ spirits, which had begun to rise, quickly sank once more; did that mean he, too, was stranded here indefinitely?
Perhaps not; the mysterious Derry, or Derithon, had gotten out. “If you don’t mind my asking, who is this Derithon?”
“You don’t know?” The witch’s startlement seemed quite genuine and not just a sort of boast. “You never heard of the wizard Derithon the Mage?”
“I’m afraid not,” Tobas admitted.
“Well, this is his castle, he conjured it himself. And he made the tapestry I came here through, which I would assume is the one you came through, as well. Unless something terrible has happened, it should be hanging in a private room of his other castle, which was flying over the mountains of central Ethshar last I knew. That was some time ago, though.”
A strange realization dawned on Tobas as the witch said this. For an instant he refused to believe it, but by
