Chapter 1

John Salvatore was standing in his bedroom, talking on the phone to his sister-in-law Lisa and looking out the window when it happened.

"The fifteenth?" he asked. "I think I can make that. I've been feeling a lot better lately, and..."

His voice cut off so abruptly that Lisa said "John! What's wrong?"

John swallowed hard, and said in a near-panic, "Lisa, either I've gone completely insane, or the SCA has discovered teleportation."

John had met Lisa at a Science Fiction convention, and they'd hit it off so well, she'd been almost apologetic when she told him she was gay. "But I've got a sister who would love to meet you," she'd said. And she'd been right. Beth had been eager to meet him, and she and John had hit it off even better than he and Lisa had. The great sex had been secondary to the intellectual kinship they'd felt.

Beth had been more interested in Tolkien and the 'High Fantasy' authors that followed in his footsteps than in the SF that John favored, and had been active in the Society for Creative Anachronism, which he considered rather silly, but those were minor differences compared to the love of knowledge and learning they'd shared. Beth had willingly admitted the differences between the actual Middle Ages and the playtime that she so enjoyed, and John had gone along cheerfully enough.

Lisa had been maid of honor at the wedding, which they'd held at one of the Society's dress balls, and the next five years of John's life had been beyond his wildest dreams. Then Beth had found the lump, and everything went downhill at an abysmal pace. It had been nearly a year, and neither John nor Lisa was quite the same.

Lisa's shocked silence finally gave way to a tentative question, "What do you mean?" she asked, as if she was afraid of the answer.

In tones that grew slowly calmer, John said, "I was looking out the window at the empty paddock, and a small band of horsemen and horses popped up out of nowhere. And I do mean nowhere. One second nothing, the next six mounted men, and three pack horses are standing in the ring, looking around as if they expect to be attacked. No aluminum dust in a spotlight, no shimmering cloud, no muss, no fuss. Just a simple jump-cut in reality."

Even as John's voice steadied, Lisa's grew shaky. "And what do you propose to do about it?" she asked in tones that showed she dreaded the answer she'd receive.

"Go down and talk to them, of course," John replied.

"I'll be right over. Don't do anything until I get there," Lisa said urgently, but it was too late. She heard the click of the receiver as John hung up, and she threw her own phone down as she rushed for her truck. It would only take five minutes to get over to John and Beth's house, but anything could happen in that much time.

John didn't bother picking up the pistol he kept handy for use on his walks in the hills. He didn't know how he knew, but he was certain that his visitors were neither peaceful, nor any threat to him. He'd never served in the military, but a lot of his friends had, and he knew a warrior when he saw one, even at a distance.

He approached slowly, hands visible but not spread, and smiled as he grew close enough to make out more details of his visitors. They were dressed in classic SCA fashion, with the oddly mixed garments typical of those whose idea of historical research was to look at what the folks at the nearest Renaissance Fair were wearing.

Three of the group were the tall, slender type and only the lack of pointed ears distinguished them from the elves of folklore. Two of the others looked like linebackers, with broad shoulders and quick eyes, watching constantly for the man with the ball. The last, who dismounted as John approached, was much older. Despite his age, he moved easily, and he raised his hand in greeting as John approached.

"Please forgive us our trespass," said the man, who wore a padded vest with an odd crest sewn into the middle of his chest. "We are travelers, on a difficult journey of great importance, and wish only to pass through your lands in peace."

John had reached the gate to the paddock, and flipped up the latch before pulling the gate open.

Nodding his head slightly to the man, John said, "Then don't let me delay you unduly. You may cross my lands in peace, but I fear that you will find others in the area much less open to strangers on horseback. And if the Sheriff finds you wandering around with swords and bows, he's likely to take offense."

One of the 'elves' spoke up, saying, "If we break no law, surely he will not hinder us?"

John realized suddenly that the 'man' who had spoken was actually a woman, as were the other two 'men' he'd thought of as elf-like. The way her hand rested on her sword suggested that she felt she could take care of any ill-mannered Sheriff if she had to.

Keeping his tone light, John told her, "I'm afraid that the local laws prohibit 'knives' beyond a certain length, and I'm sure the Sheriff would say your swords qualified as knives, and try to arrest you. I suspect you'd resist, fiercely, and that would be the end of any chance of passing unnoticed. If he was stupid about it, as I'm sure he would be, you'd be able to take him, but you wouldn't get far before the SWAT team settled in, and I doubt that your well-concealed armor is up to stopping an M-16 round."

Before either the leader or the lady warrior could speak further, one of the lookouts barked out a report in an unfamiliar language, and everyone tensed up, their hands moving to their weapons. John turned slowly in the direction the lookout had pointed, and saw Lisa's truck bouncing down the road that connected her half of the ranch to the one that Beth had inherited.

John spoke firmly, telling the leader, "There is no reason for alarm. That is my sister-in-law. I told her of your arrival, and the manner in which it was accomplished, and she informed me that she would be right over. Such arrivals happen only in fiction in this world, and she must fear that I have gone mad at last. It has been nearly a year since my late wife passed, and only lately has the burden of grief begun to lift from my mind."

All six members of the party touched their foreheads, lips, and chests, muttering as they did so, and the leader said, "Our sympathies for your loss, and our apologies for our reaction, and for attempting to conceal our nature. You say, 'this world, ' as if you know there are others, which I find surprising. We did not expect to be greeted at all, as we detected no use of magic in this world, and so we assumed it was uninhabited. To be greeted by one who is wise in the arts, but clearly does not practice them, is even more surprising."

The leader broke off as Lisa's truck skidded to a stop, and she jumped out and raced to the paddock, coming to a stop in front of John and the party's leader. Despite the fact that she'd driven from her house, instead of running, she was nearly out of breath.

John took advantage of her speechlessness, and spoke to the visitors. "You may call me John. My sister-in-law here is called Lisa. I do not know your ways, so you need not name your true names if that is against your custom."

Lisa was able to speak now, and said irritably, "I can speak for myself, brother-in-law." Turning to the man before them, she said, "OK, Gandalf, or whatever you call yourself, what are you doing on my brother's land, and how the hell did you get here without crossing mine?"

John and Beth's part of the ranch was up against the hills that surrounded the valley, with steep walls, far too steep to comfortably traverse on horseback, or on any vehicle. Lisa's land was much less sharply confined, and when John felt the need to hike, he had to start by crossing over to Lisa's side of the stream before he could do anything less than a class three climb.

"Gandalf's" eyes glazed for a moment, as if he was reading something only he could see, and a smile crossed his face. "Gandalf, is it? Fascinating. But it's fiction, not history? So you have no magic, but you dream of it. And your smiths are clever beyond belief, and can do much that we need magic for, and can even do things we have never dreamed of."

Lisa still looked irritated, but she couldn't resist asking, "What were you looking at? Some kind of invisible teleprompter?"

Again, Gandalf's eyes glazed, and then widened. His voice hoarse with surprise, he said, "Sight and sound across the countryside? Through the very air? Amazing."

John's memories of SF conventions included plenty of gaming, including the odd war game. Those memories, combined with a sudden memory of an L. Sprague DeCamp story Beth had introduced him to, led him to an 'aha' moment.

Smiling, he asked, "So your 'difficult journey' is a flanking maneuver against a strong opponent? Going to toss The One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom? Rescue the fair princess from durance vile? Assassinate the enemy's king? Beard the dragon in his lair?"

"Gandalf" looked startled, and his companions looked downright aghast. But none of them were fools, and almost immediately six poker faces denied him any confirmation as to which of his shots had hit home.

Lisa's tastes leaned towards the 'hard science' and space opera forms of SF, and she'd never read DeCamp, so she was slower on the uptake than John had been, but she was at least as bright as he was, and her eyes narrowed as she spoke. "So," she began, "you're from another universe, where magic works, and you're going to move around in this one to avoid a barrier back home. And you plan to return, so either magic works here, and we haven't figured it out, or you've got a way for a magician in your home universe to pull you back."

It was John's turn to browbeat their guests, and he picked a fresh angle of attack as he said, "I'm afraid you're woefully unprepared for the world you find yourselves in, even if you're experts at survival at home. You're going to need a native guide, which means you're going to have to convince me or someone like me to trust you and that your cause is worthy of assistance. And, you're going to have to figure out if you can trust me to help you, rather than betray you.

"I have to warn you that there are very very few people in this world that would believe your tale, and most of them are fools who are likely to fail you. They'll be honestly trying, understand, but they won't be any more able to get you through this than you are to do it yourselves."

Lisa glared at John and said, "Guides, not guide. You're not that much farther from being unable to be allowed to wander on your own than they are, and we'll need both big trailers to move all these horses, or whatever they are."

John blinked at that last comment, then looked more closely at the nearest mount, which happened to be the one ridden by the woman who'd asked about the Sheriff. Now that he looked closely, it didn't look like any horse he'd ever seen. The top of the head was wider, for one thing, and he jumped in surprise as he noticed the circles just in front of and below the ears, that looked for all the world like the antler scars of a deer.

Lisa was talking even as he stared, saying, "You're lucky your mounts dropped their antlers; we'd never have been able to avoid notice if they were still attached. As it is, we'll have to avoid real 'horse people' or we'll never get away with this."

John's eyes hardened as something occurred to him, and he said, "How hard will we need to hide? Are your enemies capable of making the same journey you are? Can they track you down if they do come here? Or are we merely avoiding notice by our own people?"

Lisa held up her hand, and said, "We're not going to settle this here. Let's get your mounts watered and fed, and we'll go into the house and thrash this out. Is it safe to assume you won't be attacked from home in the next little while?"

Still somewhat shocked, 'Gandalf' nodded, and said, "Only the strongest of our opponents is capable of what was done to send us here, and he dares not act alone. If he came, his empire would crumble behind him, and he has no one to send in his place. If he were in dire straits and trying to escape, he might try it, but now that we know how to do it, we can block any such attempt."

'Gandalf' looked at his fellows, and received reluctant nods from all of them, then said, "We will accept your offer. As you both point out, we are in a far stranger country than we expected, and are not nearly so well equipped to survive in it as we believed."

The rest of the party dismounted, and they led their mounts and pack horses into the barn. John had been hit hard by Beth's death, but he hadn't been so far gone that he hadn't been able to take care of his and Beth's horses, and he had plenty of hay and oats for his new nearly-equine guests. He had to rinse out the water troughs, but that only took a few moments, and soon all nine beasts were settled in.

John had an unused tack room with a hasp on it, so he had his guests put their saddles and packs in it, then closed it up, locked it, then showed 'Gandalf' how to unlock it before locking it back up and handing him the key.

John told him, "We don't get anyone out here that's not coming to see me, and they'd no more bother your things than fly to the moon, but there's no sense in letting anyone see anything odd if we can avoid it."

With Lisa leading the way, and John and 'Gandalf' following behind, they entered John's house and settled down in the living room, pausing on the porch to brush off the dust of Earth and whatever world they'd come from. Once his guests were seated, John went to the kitchen, returning with several pitchers and a set of glasses.

Pointing at one pitcher, John said, "This is called 'iced tea, ' and is a rather mild stimulant." Gesturing at the other, he continued, "And this yellow stuff is lemonade, which is a little sweet, and rather tart."

Most of the guests opted for the lemonade, but their leader decided to try the tea. "Very good," he said, then asked, "How do you keep it so cold?"

John smiled, "More of that clever smith-craft you spoke of. Just as evaporating water cools what is left behind, the refrigerator evaporates a liquid next to the food, cooling it, then compresses the resulting gas back to a liquid elsewhere, dumping the heat away from the cold box."

"Amazing" was the reply, before the leader took another long sip and sighed in pleasure, leaning back in his chair.

John sipped his own drink, a lemonade, before settling back and starting the negotiations.

"We need something to call you," he said, "but all my instincts say that it's best if your actual names are never spoken. Since 'Gandalf' is hardly inconspicuous, we'll call you 'Matthew.'" Gesturing to the two men, he continued, "If I was an idiot, that would make the two of you Mark and Luke to my John, but even if I was that stupid, Lisa isn't. So, instead you're Tom, and Andrew."

As if to head him off, Lisa spoke up, addressing the women. "I'm sure he's just being paranoid, but better paranoid than dead, so we'll play his little game. How do 'Sarah, ' 'Tina, ' and 'Connie' strike you? None of them translate into something unfortunate in your own language, do they?"

'Sarah, ' who'd been the only one other than 'Matthew' to speak so far, shook her head, and said, "No, none of those names is a problem. I rather like the name Sarah; it is similar to the name of my favorite flower." The others in the party all made sounds of agreement, accepting their new pseudonyms with good grace.

John finished his drink, and set his glass aside. "Now that that's settled, let's hit the high points of your problem. I assume that you need to move to a general area some distance from here, then pick a point that is 'out of the way' both in this world and in your home world. Is that accurate?"

Matthew nodded, and said, "Yes, quite correct. We actually have a considerable amount of flexibility, but the biggest problem is getting to our destination in time for the next transit. Our travel requires certain alignments to be in place, and the effect is that the gate opens and closes at irregular intervals. This opening lasts for another two weeks, then the gate closes for about a month, opening for a week before closing again for two months.

"We have nearly 1800 of your miles to travel, and barely seven weeks to do it in, which will tax our mounts severely. Our opponent will do a great deal of damage before we can get there, but there's nothing we can do but make our best effort. If we miss the opening, hundreds of thousands will die before the gates open again."

Lisa looked at John, who nodded, then asked "And if you get to your destination before the gates close this time? Will you be able to return immediately? And will that save lives?"

Matthew stared at her. Shaking his head, he said in disbelieving tones, "Eighteen hundred miles, in two weeks? We need live mounts at the end, you know. We have some considerable travel back in our home world after we return, and we can't do that on foot."