Rhys woke up on a comfortable bed. He clearly remembered being brought here in a carriage. It had been an unpleasant journey. His head had been splitting with pain along the way. Perhaps he had fallen asleep, or lost consciousness, because he could no longer remember how he had arrived here. He did not know who had brought him. In fact, he did not even know where he was now.
His head still ached dully.
"Of course. Someone smashed me over the head by the river," he recalled the last thing before that horrible carriage ride.
He opened his eyes. His vision cleared quickly.
It was barely dawn outside, but even that faint light was enough for him to know that he was not at home—and that the surroundings did not resemble Nexoria either.
"Whoever knocked me out brought me to a neat little place," he admitted after a brief inspection.
He touched his head. There was no sign of a wound or injury. Still lying on the bed, his thoughts immediately returned to the essential questions: who had hit him, why they had done it, where he was, why, and who had brought him here.
"At least they don't want to kill me," he decided.
"Or not today," he added.
This uncertainty did not stop Rhys from exploring the room more thoroughly.
He sat up and smelled the liquid placed on the bedside table. It had the scent of raspberries, mixed with something sharp and unfamiliar.
"Well now. Someone is taking care of me," he noted.
He took a sip. It tasted tart. He was tormented by thirst, but he did not dare drink more of this unknown concoction. If they wanted to poison him, if they meant to kill him, at least he wanted to see his attacker. He did not want a glass of sour liquid to finish him off. Even if death awaited him, he wanted to look into the eyes of whoever had done this to him.
He walked around the room. He felt no pain while moving.
There was a peculiar smaller room opening directly from his chamber. Peculiar, because he had never seen anything like it before. Marble tiles covered the floor and most of the walls. But that was not the strange part. In the middle of the wall there was a marble basin, with an iron spout above it. On one side of the room, on the floor, stood a larger marble vessel, also with an iron spout protruding from the wall—just like the one above the smaller basin.
He could not imagine anything more absurd than this.
Above the smaller marble basin, something else hung on the wall. Rhys stepped closer to examine it. He saw his own face reflected back at him.
"Well now. Something familiar. My holographic likeness," he thought.
Now all he needed was to know how to activate and deactivate it.
"I'll ask someone. If there's anyone to ask, of course," he decided.
He found it easy to accept that beyond his own world and Nexoria, there existed yet another world he had never even suspected.
Another door opened from his room, leading to the rest of the building, but it was locked. In the center of that door there was another iron, beak-like device.
If his situation had not been so uncertain, he might have laughed at these people and their fondness for decorating their homes with beak-shaped objects.
Out of caution, he did not touch anything he did not recognize.
By the time he finished observing the room, light was already filtering through the small window—which he had not even looked out of, because it was set so high in the wall. That window offered no escape route either.
Rhys lay back down on the bed and impatiently waited for those who had brought him here to finally appear. Only then would the uncertainty end.
Aside from the bed and the bedside table, there was one more object in the room: a tall, rectangular wooden piece of furniture. He saw that it also had a door. The difference was that this one lacked an iron spout. Instead, one of its doors was adorned with a rounded iron handle.
His survival instincts worked well. Only after thoroughly examining his surroundings did he think of the others.
He felt only mild guilt for not telling anyone about his Nexorian crossings—not even Aisling. He had tried to practice, but from this world he could return neither to his own world nor to Nexoria with his strange ability.
He was not prone to excessive worrying. Once those who had brought him here appeared, something would change.
Eventually, out of boredom, he dozed off.
Sometime in the morning hours, he awoke to a great noise. Girls, boys, women, men passed by his door, chatting cheerfully and laughing. No one entered his room. Finally, when the noise died down, he heard footsteps approaching from the opposite direction.
"They're coming for me!"
He immediately sat up in bed. He heard a scraping sound, then a click, before two people entered the room.
"They don't look terrible," he observed.
What struck him most was that both were dressed in pure white.
The blonde woman wore her hair pulled back into a strict bun. The lean, gray-haired man had a stern gaze. Yet their overall presence was neither unpleasant nor frightening.
Rhys tried to remain confident, yet relaxed.
Neither of them spoke to him, nor did they introduce themselves.
The woman walked straight toward Rhys. She passed her hand slowly over his forehead.
"He is not ready to appear before the Committee yet. He must rest today," she stated.
The man also passed his hand before Rhys's forehead.
"Indeed. He still needs rest."
"He should have drunk the syrup."
"Yes."
Rhys was beginning to be disturbed by the way the two of them conversed with each other as if his presence required no explanation at all—more than that, as if he were not even there, while they discussed his fate.
Rhys did not know what the Committee was, but he dared to ask a more important question of the two people who seemed to look straight through him.
"Why am I here?"
"Here?" the woman replied gravely. "To be healed."
"After someone struck me hard and kidnapped me."
Rhys did not want to sound complainy, but after being knocked unconscious and abducted, these two treated his presence here as the most natural thing in the world.
"The World Guardians had you brought here," the man added tersely. "You will remain here until you may appear before the Committee."
Rhys had never heard of the World Guardians, nor of the Committee.
"And which one of them had me struck from behind?" he asked dryly.
"Neither of them," the woman said, ending the interrogation. "We do not know who struck you, or why."
"Perhaps tomorrow you may already appear before the Committee," the man encouraged him.
It was clear they were accustomed to troublesome questioners like Rhys.
"You must rest. We will return tomorrow morning," the woman instructed.
"You are here so your soul may calm, your mind may settle, or you may be healed," the man added before they locked the door again.
Rhys was angry. They had barely spoken to him. After everything he had been through, he deserved to have his questions heard. But all they wanted was for him to rest. To calm down.
Now he was unbearably thirsty. In one gulp, he drank the suspicious liquid. After that, he slept the entire day.
He only woke up in the evening. On the bedside table stood another glass of liquid. He smelled it again. The same tart, raspberry-scented drink.
"Someone must have been here," he thought.
It could not have been the same two people he had seen in the morning. They had said they would only return in the morning. Rhys could not imagine them changing their minds and dropping by with a little raspberry-scented concoction in the afternoon.
Rhys was not disturbed by the thought that an unknown person had entered his room. After all, they were taking care of him. He suspected that the liquid had made him sleep so deeply that he had not heard the visitor enter. With nothing else to do in the locked room, he drank the syrup and slept until morning.
As promised, the same two people performed the same procedure the next day.
"He is still not ready to meet the Committee," the woman judged immediately.
The man also checked his condition and reached the same conclusion.
"At least tell me where I am!" Rhys demanded more boldly now.
"You are in the World of the Healers, and you are not yet prepared to meet the Committee," the man replied.
He always gave the longer answers. Rhys decided that from now on he would direct his questions to him.
"What is the Committee?" he asked quickly, before they could leave him alone again like yesterday.
"We have never met them," the man replied. "They decide whether you will go or stay."
"Where will I go? Home?" Rhys asked.
He did not risk leaving his unsettling situation unanswered again today.
"Perhaps home," came the woman's reply.
"All right. At least I know that much. If the World Guardians had me brought here, you must know who they are," Rhys stated.
"We do not," the man said. "We perform the task entrusted to us, and the Committee—"
Rhys had no patience left to hear about the Committee he could not yet face, which would decide whether he might go home. He asked a new question, this time not about his own situation.
"And it seems I still cannot appear before the Committee today. We'll meet again tomorrow. Perhaps the day after. My name is Rhys. May I know your names?"
With the same solemn tone she had used throughout, the woman introduced herself.
"My name is Ingwaz."
"I am Ansuz," the man added.
"We will lock the door again today. It is not good for you yet if someone disturbs you," the woman said.
"You will find everything you need here. This afternoon, Daeg will bring more syrup to your cup. Perhaps tomorrow you may appear before the Committee," Ansuz added before they locked the door again.
Rhys immediately doubted that he would find everything he needed here. He had not been hungry at all since being brought here. Aside from thirst, he felt nothing. It was an exaggeration to say that everything he needed was provided.
He did not mind that Ingwaz and Ansuz had left. He understood that all they cared about was getting him before the Committee.
"Perhaps Daeg will be more talkative," he hoped.
He lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He had no better idea how to pass the time until afternoon, when Daeg would bring the raspberry syrup. At least that would let him sleep deeply until morning again.