Sliced Bread 2: The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

"And you brought me along?" I demanded of the blonde chick. The princess, if she can be believed.

"Sir Greyghost and his lady will need an attendant," she told me. Greyghost avoided meeting my glare, but Perseid laughed.

I wasn't letting Greyghost off the hook so easily. "When I took this job, wasn't there an unspoken agreement that I would never be required to travel to other dimensions? Was this not your understanding?"

"Perseid, go up and scout around. Princess, do you know where we are?"

Perseid shot up into the air, trailing sparks. The girl said, "That's Honorbright. It's my father's castle."

"Fine. Lead the way."

Problem one. How could she speak English? Problem two. How could another world have developed a culture so similar--superficially, if nothing else--to that of medieval Europe? Problem three. How come I had to be here? I'm not the front-lines guy. I'm the office guy. I'm the man-the-phones guy. Occasionally I'm the roadie. I don't mind dropping off a costume or giving someone a ride every now and then. But I don't want to be Thomas Covenant.

Perseid swooped down next to me. "Does this sort of thing happen often? Going to fairyland or wherever we are?"

"First time in my experience," I said.

"I saw something queer when I was flying around up there," she said. "I'll show you--go to the top of that hill."

I climbed the hill and looked around. "I see what you mean," I said.

"It's like the landscape is organized into big hexagons," she said. "I never heard of a fairy tale like that."

"It's not from a fairy tale," I told her. "It's from something much worse."