The Hero of Varay by Rick Shelley Page B

door.
    “Should I unpack anything first?” Joy asked.
    “Not yet.” I pulled her to me and kissed her with all the fervor and passion I could muster, then broke the clinch.
    “Just a second. I’ve got to get something before we go.”
    Specifically, I had to get the two elf swords. I slipped the straps for the shoulder rigs in place and the blades clattered together. Joy’s eyes expanded.
    “I told you that I ran into a guy with a six-foot sword,” I said, trying to make it sound light, like a joke. “The one with the ebony handle was his.”
    “And the other one?” She wanted it spelled out.
    “That’s mine.” I kept my eyes on Joy. Her smile had already evaporated. Now, fear started to crawl across her face again. It was time to hurry.
    “You’d better carry one of your bags. That will make this a little faster.”
    She nodded automatically and picked up the smaller suitcase, still looking at the hilts of the swords sticking up behind my shoulder. I used my rings to open the doorway into Castle Cayenne, then held it open with just my left hand. I used the right hand to urge Joy through the door. Her eyes went blank as soon as I opened the passage, but she didn’t resist. Then I pushed her other suitcase through with my foot and stepped through behind it.
    Joy turned to stare at me, and past me, again. When I took my left hand from the silver tracing and my Chicago bedroom disappeared, she screamed.
        She screamed.
    In the movies, the hero slaps the heroine’s face when she screams hysterically. She stops and after a dramatic pause for a close-up, she says, “Thanks, I needed that,” or something equally trite. Maybe real life was even like that once upon a time, but women’s lib and the modern horror of even minor violence on a personal scale have killed that kind of reaction. People get more upset if a man slaps a woman he knows than they do if he murders twenty or thirty strangers. In any case, I don’t think I could ever bring myself to hit Joy, certainly not for screaming in reasonable terror.
    I shouted her name, then took her in my arms and held her tight—with almost crushing force. The scream stopped, but the blank look of horror remained. I shook her, very gently, just enough to get her attention.
    “Joy, you’re safe here.” I spoke rather loudly to make sure that I was getting through. “I love you. I love you.” I didn’t know what else to say. I had never had to deal with hysterics before.
    I started to get scared again myself. I had worried about Joy’s reaction to Varay from the beginning, but I had never dreamed that her reaction might be this extreme, that she would go hysterical or catatonic on me. I held on to her until her shaking slowed down, then led her to the bed, and we sat on the edge of it. Joy moved as if she were in a trance. I continued to hold her tight.
    “This is Castle Cayenne, my home in the kingdom of Varay. That’s in a buffer zone between our world and Fairy,” I said, speaking slowly. All I could think to do was to tell her as much of the story as I could, in simple terms, and hope that some of it would penetrate the shock and start her back to an even keel. I thought that she would be able to cope very well, once she got used to the idea, if we could just get past this initial fright.
    “Alice in Wonderland. The Wizard of Oz . The idea shouldn’t be all that impossible to accept,” I said.
    “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” Joy misquoted dully. At least she was talking again.
    There was a sudden pounding at the door, and Joy jumped just as Lesh swung the door open and charged in with his sword in his hand. He saw me, us, and stopped. He started backing toward the door at once.
    “Sorry, lord,” he said, sheathing his blade. “We heard a scream. I didn’t know you were back.”
    “It’s okay, Lesh. We just got here,” I said. I looked from him to Joy, then back. “You might fetch a bottle of the Bushmills, some water, and a