A Step Beyond: Beyond the world we know lie alternate realities, layered like an onion. Shy and insecure Gort Treliving takes a step into the worlds beyond the fields we know and discovers some amazing things about himself. Not the least of which is finding himself riding with Arthur's fabled knights across the legendary land of Lyonesse in search of a kidnapped queen. A Step Beyond is a powerful story of coming of age, melding adventure with the inner journey Gort must take to find the courage to face the challenges before him.
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Some Reviews from happy readers:
A worthy sequel to Laurel's Miracle. ~ Tira Brandon Evans
It’s an outstanding read. Once you start, you can't stop. Looking forward to the next in the series ~ Lynne Anderson
And to tempt you further, here is short excerpt:
“Come with me for a while. Leave what is for a time, and travel with me to what was once,” GogMagog entreated him.
“Lead me to it.” Gort stepped away from the warm crystalline shoulder of the great stallion.
The farther they walked from the dank little shed and Uncle Daniel’s rage, the better he felt. The pain faded from his limbs, and strength flowed outward from the warmth in his chest.
GogMagog kept pace beside him. Rainbows of light flickered around the stallion and encompassed Gort in their radiance as well.
His steps became firmer and steadier as a golden peace flowed through him. His back straightened, and a smile broke across his face when Gog curved his huge head back toward him to lip his ear.
The darkness grew opaque and finally faded into a pearly grey; a diffuse nebulous light filled the sky. Tipping his head back, Gort was startled to see the ghostly shape of gulls winging through the mist.
The stallion stopped and shook moisture from his sleek body. Gort laid his hand on the thick neck and then pulled back quickly, holding it in front of his eyes.
Gort gazed in amazement as the large callused hand in front of him flexed its fingers. He turned and looked GogMagog in the eye, further amazed there was no need to look up to do so.
“What happened to me?” The voice sounded two tones deeper than it should.
“You are as you were once,” GogMagog said solemnly.
“Who am I supposed to be, though?” Gort fought down the panic rising in his throat; this wasn’t his body clothing his spirit. Feeling lost and strangely adrift, the boy-man turned to Gog for support.
“You are who you have always been.” Gog touched him gently with his muzzle.
At the touch of that strong soft nose, Gort let his panic slip away. Running his hands over his new and improved body, he stared down at his now humungous feet and strong calves, while his hands found the twisted cords of taut muscle in his thighs. Gort took a step forward and overbalanced as the long sword on his belt swung against him. The hilt fit snugly into his hand when he grasped it to steady himself.
Without stopping to think, Gort drew the lovely weapon from its scabbard. The metal hissed and sang as it pulled free. The blade cleaved the air in clean two-handed passes. The man gloried in the sight of his sinewy forearms and strong wrists, the large capable hands grasping the sword in a practiced grip. The air welcomed the bite of the blade, and shimmering rainbows of power danced on the tempered blue steel. The blade moved effortlessly, anticipating the desire of the one who wielded it.
“It’s like it knows what I’m thinking.”
“It is your sword. Of course it knows your wants.” GogMagog snorted gently down his neck.
“Who am I?” The warrior rested the point of the weapon on the toe of his heavy leather boot and regarded Gog over the cross of the hilt.
“You don’t remember, yet.” Gog regarded his heart friend with fathomless, starlit eyes.
Gort opened his mouth to reply and then promptly lost himself in those eyes.
With a swiftness and surety that shocked him, the knowledge entered the top of his head and filled out the forgotten corners of his body and soul.
“How did I lose this? Where did I lose myself?”
“You lost it by following the wrong path on your way to the mystery,” GogMagog answered.
“The mystery,” Gort said softly, “what mystery? Why did I take a wrong path? ”
“It is the mystery that binds us to the Beginnings. The one which lives in each of us and yet belongs to no one entity.” GogMagog lowered his head and rested his forehead against the man’s. “As to the why, we are not made perfect and so must sometimes wander away from the Light.”
“I should know, but it drifts like smoke and slips through my fingers,” Gort said in frustration.
“Give it time, Crystal Warrior.” GogMagog advised him and shook his mane so his bridle and bit jingled harshly. “Do you know how you are called in this life, or shall I remind you?” GogMagog inquired.
“I am a warrior, a knight, and my name is Gawain.”
His voice trailed off in wonderment. Images flooded his consciousness with the uttering of his name. In rapid succession, a company of large warhorses crossed his inner eye, each as magnificent as GogMagog, with knights in gleaming armour, pennants flying from their lances, a huge castle on a high hill exactly like the ones in all the fairy tales, a meeting place in a high vaulted chamber lit by torches, and a tall fair-haired man with the fierceness of eagles in his blue eyes. The face of his brother in this life, the mirror image of his own face, save for the broken front tooth that flashed as the man smiled, his face full of a fierce joy. Gaheris, my baby brother. Recognition swept through him like a flame.
Gort shook his head and leaned on GogMagog’s shoulder for a long moment. His legs threatened to fail him, and the ground was strangely mobile beneath his feet.
“Am I really that Gawain?” Gort asked GogMagog at a loss to see how it could be else wise.
“You are that Gawain.” GogMagog’s voice was tinged with laughter. “Sir Gawain, Knight of the Round Table, with your fealty sworn to the Great Bear, Arthur, High King of Britain. Brother to Gareth, Agravain and Gaheris. Son of Lot of Orkney and Queen Morgause, Arthur’s half-sister.”
“It doesn’t seem possible, too good to be true. I ride with King Arthur. He’s my liege lord, and I’m a knight, an actual knight of the Round Table.”
“You better get used to the idea, Sir Gawain.” Gog butted him with his great nose.
“It’ll take some getting used to.”
His sword whispered as it slid into the scabbard.
The knight turned to the stallion, and shook his head in wonder, past being surprised. The horse now sported a high backed saddle and elaborate tooled leather bridle. He gathered his reins up, set his left foot in the stirrup, and swung up into the saddle, being careful to settle the wonderful sword on the left side of the stallion. Gog moved restlessly under him as he loosened the reins slightly, and the big stallion moved off at a ground-covering trot.
“Where are we headed?” He thought to ask as the horse followed the track through gorse and heather.
“Where we must,” the stallion replied.
The man half formed another question and then let it drop. Time enough to sort through it all. He turned his face into the wind and inhaled the buttery coconut scent of the yellow gorse crushed beneath the huge hooves of his companion.
The sun burned off the last of the mists, and Gort found himself riding along the edge of a sharp cliff. Below him, the grasses billowed in the wind, and there was a far off glimpse of blue sea to the west. The stallion continued to move in a roughly southeast direction, letting the curve of the cliff dictate his progress. The stallion picked his course without any help from the rider.
“I suppose I should start thinking of myself as Sir Gawain now.”
“Yes, you should,” GogMagog agreed. “No one here will know you as Gort, except me of course.” GogMagog shook his head so the reins bounced on his neck.
“Where are we?” Gawain spoke to the pointed ears of his horse.
“We are close to the sacred mount, where the giants dwell.” Gog flicked his ears back at Gawain speaking into his mind.
“But where’s the sea? There should be water below the cliffs here, and all I see is land and forest.” Gawain looked at his surroundings in puzzlement.
“This is the land as it was, not as it is in your present time. We are almost in the land of Lyonnesse, the part of the kingdom that stretches from cliffs all the way out to the hills of Scillies.” GogMagog negotiated a tricky part of the descent down to the forest and farmlands beyond the cliff path.
“So, there really was a lost land beyond Land’s End? The legends are true,” Gawain whispered.
“You are looking at it this moment, and it is part of your duty to defend its inhabitants from harm, and to arbitrate their disputes,” GogMagog informed him breaking into a rolling canter as the stallion gained level ground.
“Do I live here as well?”
“We live at the castle on the Hill of Cadbury. One day it will be called Camelot, but not for a while yet,” Gog replied. “We are here on business as part of our circuit for the season.”
Gawain looked with interest at the neat farmsteads as they sped past. He glanced over his shoulder, in the distance the unmistakeable peak of St. Michael’s Mount stuck up out of a thick forest clinging to its lower slopes and blanketing the flat plain surrounding it.
Ahead of him, Gawain could make out the faint blue shapes of the hills that marked the Scillies. They were hazy with distance and disappeared from his view from time to time as the well-beaten dirt road they followed looped over the rolling farmland around them.
Something important niggled at the edges of his brain—something about an angry man and a dark shed. Gawain disregarded the annoying thoughts and concentrated on the pure joy of the horse beneath him and the strength flowing through his body.
There was time enough to worry about whether or not he could make the correct choice when it was needed to decide who was in the right between two complainants. The morning sun was warm on his face and the air cool enough he was comfortable in the linen undershirt, light surcoat, and pants.
Gawain slowed GogMagog to a walk and stopped in the shade of huge tree to allow a farmer to drive his cattle across the road and into the far pasture. The man raised his hand in greeting, and Gawain returned the salute.
“My goodwife has bread, cheese, and wine if you wish it, Sir Gawain,” the farmer hailed him.
“My thanks to you and your goodwife, Hal, but I have provision enough for my journey,” Gawain answered the man.
“How do I know his name is Hal?”
“You know because you are Sir Gawain, and this is your bailiwick. Relax and trust your responses. Everything will come to you as you need it to,” GogMagog advised him.
Gawain lifted his hand in farewell as the last of the milch cows entered the gate of the field on the other side of the road. They carried on for a distance, the knight not thinking of anything in particular and enjoying the spring morning.
Sooner than expected, they came to a small market square, nothing much, just a tiny inn which served as a roadhouse, and a few houses scattered around the junction of two narrow crossroads. GogMagog stopped in front of the inn without waiting for Gawain to signal him. The stallion turned his large head and surveyed Gawain with his dark eye.
“When did you change colour?” Gawain asked the stallion in surprise. For sure enough, GogMagog was no longer his shining crystal self, his coat was now a dark steely grey with a long silver mane liberally sprinkled with ebony hairs. His long full tail swept the ground behind him. The stallion’s lower legs were black, his muzzle and the tips of his ears were sable as well.
“This is how I appear in this time. I am still who I am, just as you are still Gort underneath.” GogMagog's mental voice held laughter, and he winked at Gawain.
“Takes some getting used to, this does,” Gawain told him. “Why are we stopping here?”
“This is your first stop. Give it a half day or so, and things will come back to you. Do you remember where we go from here?”
Gawain thought for a moment and then smiled. “There is an inn another half day’s ride from here where I usually spend the night. Good stable for you, and soft bed for me. The Hoe and Harrow, it’s called.”
“Very good, Sir Gawain, now, do get down off my back and get to work.” Gog heaved a huge sigh and lowered his head when a stable boy raced out to take the war horse’s reins from Gawain as the knight stepped down from the broad back.
The line of complainants was short, much to Gawain’s relief. Before the sun reached the zenith, they were on the road again and headed to the much larger and more sumptuous Hoe and Harrow.
Gawain turned the judgments just levied over in his mind and found himself more than pleased with his performance. He felt much more at home in this new body and had grown quite fond of GogMagog as a steel grey instead of his usual crystal self.
A sudden thought occurred to him and he laid his gauntleted hand on Gog’s shoulder in front of the high pommel.
“Do you have different name like me?” Gawain spoke out loud into the dust spangled sunlight.
“I am known as Ailim, which means silver fir, some call me Gringolet. It is actually keincaled, which is Welsh for handsome and hardy. The Welsh is mispronounced more often than not and I prefer Ailim. My name is the cause of great renown all over the realm. We are very fierce fighters, you and I.” Gog sighed lustily and snorted the rising road dust out of his large nostrils.
Gawain nodded absently and rested his right hand on his leather-covered thigh.
“Why is the pommel of this saddle so blasted high and the cantle, too? I feel like I’m stuck up here for good.” Gawain tried to settle himself more comfortably in the seat of the great saddle.
“Why, ‘tis to keep you from falling on your head when we joust.” Gog’s voice was thick with the horse equivalent of laughter.
“We joust?” Gawain asked faintly.
“To be sure, we are the champions of many tourneys. The Lady Nuina always gives you her scarf or ribbon to wear on your sleeve. Surely you remember the Lady Nuina?” Gog shook his head to dislodge the flies pestering his face.
Gawain closed his eyes and sought to put a face to the name. At long last, a face floated across his inner vision. Long dark hair caught up in a silvery net, and laughing eyes that shone for him alone dominated the lady’s radiant face. Ah, yes, he remembered the Lady Nuina.
“So I know how to joust?” Gawain was dubious.
“Yes, you great lunk head, you can joust. Just leave off worrying and follow your instincts when the time comes.” Ailim picked up his pace into a rolling canter. “Time’s a wasting, and I want my dinner sometime before sundown,” the horse told Gawain.
And from a little further into the story:
Gawain and the Lady Nuina raced down the narrow corridor with the knight counting off the doorways and passageways as they ran, depending on his survival skills to help him remember which one to open. He stopped, pulled on the latch and gulped mouthfuls of fresh clean air as the door swung open on the laundry yard. Leaving the door ajar behind him for Lancelot and the queen, Gawain sprinted for the cubbyhole and his gear.
The knight wrapped the Lady Nuina in his cloak and gave her one of his small throwing knives. She hid it the pocket of her skirt and gave him a glittering feral smile before she kirtled up her skirts and raced beside him through the kale yard. They skidded to a muddy halt at the back of the stable, and Gawain searched the interior for any sign of Alain or Ailim.
“We come.” Ailim’s mind voice was high with excitement. “Rose is with us, and Alain has managed to find gear for her.” Ailim was quite pleased with himself.
Gawain and the Lady Nuina dashed to the entrance of the stable that opened onto the courtyard. Everything was in chaos—horses raced wildly about rider-less and crazed; Arthur’s knights were everywhere with their bright swords flashing. The cobbles ran red with blood, and Gawain thrust the Lady Nuina behind him to shield her. Suddenly, Ailim appeared right beside them along with Alain and the two horses. The main gate stood ajar, and Gawain could see the gate keeper struggling to close it as Arthur’s men fought to open it. Gawain closed his eyes briefly as Gaheris ran the old man through with his sword. He pulled his mind back to the moment at hand and lifted the Lady Nuina onto the back of her palfrey. Thrusting Alain at his own chestnut lady, he caught Ailim’s reins as the page tossed them in his direction.
“Get the lady free of the castle and hide until I come for you. Guard her with your life, Alain,” Gawain commanded the lad.
“Aye, Sir Knight, have no fear, the lady will come to no harm in my keeping,” Alain’s eyes flashed in excitement at his first taste of battle. The lad looked as wild as the mare beneath him who rolled her eyes until the whites showed.
The lady in question wheeled her mount with expert hands and drew Gawain’s short sword holding it ready to use. “Aye, Sir Gawain, have no fear,” she repeated Alain’s words with a dark smile, “the lady is not defenceless.” The light of battle glittered in her eyes and bathed her face with an unholy joy.
Gawain would have fallen to his knees at her feet in reverence except for the small matter of the battle at his back. “Goddess keep you, Lady. I see the Morrigan’s hand on you this day and Epona at your side.” Gawain gave her his heart with his eyes.
“Later, Gawain, we will have later,” she promised as she wheeled her mare again and neatly leapt over a fallen body on the stones.
Gawain watched until they were safely out of the castle gate, the Lady Nuina’s cloak flying behind her as the mare took the makeshift barrier March’s men hastily erected across the gate in a graceful leap and soared out of sight.
I hope you'll fall in love with Gort aka Gawain and the Lady Nuina aka Ashling. YOu can follow the link in the cover at the beginning of the post to visit my author page at BWL Publishing Inc where you will find links to all the places where A Step Beyond is available. You will also fine Laurel's Quest the first book in The Cornwall Adventures and Go Gently, the last book in the series.
Coming this September a whole new series begins featuring Laurel and her friends. Set in lovely southern Alberta, Wild Horse Rescue deals with a subject very close to my heart.
Until next month, stay well, stay happy. Next month I'll be featuring the last book in The Conrwall Adventures Go Gently.
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