The Road to Farringale

by Charlotte E. English

  Jay raised his brows.

  ‘I’ll keep you from falling off,’ I translated. ‘Not that Addie would ever drop us.’

  Jay was not impressed, but he did not argue. Within a few moments Addie had both of us astride her elegant back, Jay sitting behind me as stiff as a board.

  ‘Try to relax,’ I told him. ‘You only make it harder for yourself otherwise.’

  He tried, with some success, but that was before Adeline rose to her feet again and began to walk. Jay clutched me so hard that it hurt, but I let it pass; he’d had a hard day already, and they don’t issue unicorns with seatbelts. No wonder he was uneasy.

  ‘Here we go,’ I murmured, as Addie began to trot, then to canter. She launched herself into a tearing gallop, her glittering wings spreading wide and beating with long, powerful strokes. Her hooves left the ground and we were away, spiralling up into the sunlit sky.

  Jay wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face in my shoulder. I suppose he didn’t want to see the view, which was a shame, because we flew higher and higher; so high, anybody who saw us from the ground would take us for a distant flock of birds. Old Winchester Hill dwindled to nothing beneath us, lost in the expanse of rolling, vibrant green countryside over which we flew.

  ‘Open your eyes!’ I called to Jay. ‘You have to see this!’

  ‘Gladly,’ said Jay. ‘As long as you’re okay with my vomiting all over your dress.’

  ‘On second thought, maybe stay as you are.’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking.’

  I was glad of Jay’s warmth as we flew, for however glorious the April sunshine, the winds were cold so far above the ground. The journey was not long, for my unicorns were fast beyond belief; those glorious wings gobbled up the miles, green meadows sailing by below us as we flew. Nonetheless, by the time we spiralled down to the ground I was frozen stiff. I did not so much dismount as fall straight off Addie’s back, landing on my feet by happy fortune alone.

  Jay walked about, waving feeling back into his arms and shaking himself. I expected him to look nauseated or petrified, but if anything he looked exhilarated.

  ‘Not so bad, eh?’ I said, smiling at him. ‘Air Unicorn, I mean.’

  He grinned at that, taking me by surprise again. ‘Eight out of ten, would fly again.’

  ‘Eight?’

  ‘One point deducted for sub-optimal temperatures. One point for the screaming terror.’

  ‘Unfair. There was no screaming.’

  ‘In my head, I was screaming the whole time.’

  ‘I salute your courage,’ I told him, matching action to words.

  He rolled his eyes and turned away from me, which was rather unfair considering I had been serious. But never mind. I certainly wasn’t going to admit that my knees were a bit weak, too; I’ve flown by unicorn a few times, but the combination of height and speed combined with the lack of safety features always takes a toll.

  ‘This is the right place,’ said Alban, striding up with his bronze stallion trailing behind him. ‘Near enough.’ The wind had done terrible things to my hair, I had no doubt, but the baron merely looked handsomely windswept. Some people spend a lot of quality time with a hairdryer trying to achieve that effect, and without much success.

  We had come down in a field, just within sight of a pretty village — Alresford, presumably. I was not worried about being spotted; Adeline is used to passing herself off as a swan, or a goose, or some other large bird, under the cursory glance of a non-magickal observer. Nonetheless, I judged it best to dismiss her and her little herd as soon as we were certain of no longer needing them.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whispered to Addie, kissing her soft nose, and she whickered at me before trotting off.

  The closer we got to Farringale, the more Baron Alban’s urgency increased. He led us off towards the old town at a storming pace, and I had little time to admire the neat terraced houses with their bright paintwork, the tiny shops, or the delightful old timber-framed mill with its crown of thatch. Sun dappled the broad streets, the air was fresh and bright, and I wished we had gone there with a picnic or something, ready to enjoy the day. But Alban looked as grim as death, which was helpful in recalling my mind to our real purpose. We passed occasional strollers and shoppers as we tore through Alresford, but the baron attracted no real notice whatsoever; no doubt he was adept at concealing his unusually tall frame, unusual features and distinctive skin colour behind a glamour charm.

  We stopped at last not far away from the lovely old mill. A sturdy bridge arched over the clear water of the River Alre, a blocky construct built from stone and brick. Clearly ancient, it must date, I guessed, from somewhere in the medieval period — a rare survival from such far-distant days. The bridge dwarfed the narrow waterway running beneath it; its pointed arch rose high enough for us to walk right underneath. We stopped on a little ledge next to the water, and looked expectantly at Alban.

  ‘Key?’ he said, looking at me.

  I withdrew my beautiful key from my pocket. To my delight, the sapphire blazed when the light hit it; was it the sun that lit its internal fire, or proximity to the gate it was intended to open?

  Baron Alban took two more keys out of his own pockets: one shining gold set with a ruby-red stone, the other glinting bronze and cradling a stone of vivid green, like emerald, or peridot. Both keys radiated coloured light, like mine, and I was moved to gratitude that we were, at least for the moment, alone at the bridge.

  I thought Alban would know what to do with the keys, but he did not appear to. He stepped back a few paces and stared at the bridge, brow furrowed, clearly perplexed.

  I could see why. There were no signs of anything like a keyhole anywhere upon that aged stonework. Not even one, let alone three. How were we supposed to open the gate?

  ‘May I borrow that?’ Alban said to me, indicating my key with a nod of his head.

  Reluctantly, I handed it over.

  ‘Thanks.’ The baron held all three keys in one of his large hands and stepped into the water, heedless of the damage to his polished boots. He walked all the way under the arch, dipping down as the roof sloped lower. Nothing happened, save that he got rather wet. He turned about and made his way back to us, shaking his head.

  ‘I thought merely holding the keys might be enough, but no.’ He went back to searching the stonework for a clue, pacing back and forth impatiently.

  ‘There.’ Rob pointed a finger over the baron’s head, at the smooth stonework just above the bridge’s pointed arch.

  I saw nothing. ‘What? What are we seeing?’

  ‘Wave those keys around a bit again, Baron,’ said Rob.

  Alban complied, looking like he felt a bit foolish. But as he stretched up his arm and waved the keys back and forth, a faint, answering glitter of colour rippled over the stones.

  ‘Well spotted,’ commented the baron.

  He was the only one of the four of us tall enough to do anything about this discovery, of course. This was troll country, all right. Alban laid each key in turn against the stones until something else happened: the gold key flashed red and sank into the stone, fitting into a perfectly-shaped depression we had not been able to see before. There it lay, twinkling jauntily red.

  The baron had no trouble fitting the second key alongside it: within moments, the bronze key with its green jewel had taken up a neighbouring spot, and the two shone side-by-side like early Christmas lights.

  Only one key, my key, was left, and its home was soon revealed by way of a sheen of blue lighting up the grey stone. But Alban hesitated.

  ‘Are we ready for this?’ he asked of us, looking over his shoulder and down at his audience of three.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rob. He looked prepared, his posture confident, his manner composed. But so he always did. I have never seen Rob at a loss, or afraid.

  ‘I am,’ said Jay, though he looked and sounded less certain than Rob.

  ‘Onward,’ I said, and tried to sound staunch and imperturbable. W
as I ready? How could you be prepared for something you could not predict?

  This was no time for doubts, for the baron nodded his acknowledgement of our enthusiasm and reached up to place the third key.

  Rather a lot happened.

  First, the light. If the keys had shone brightly before, now they fairly blazed, and a rainbow raced, swift and glittering, over the arch of the bridge.

  The bridge shuddered under some force we could neither see nor feel, shedding earth and stone dust into the water. I winced, suddenly anxious, for the bridge was irreplaceable; what if the passage of centuries had weakened it? What if it was no longer capable of bearing the pressure of the Farringale enchantments, and collapsed? Milady would never forgive us. I would never forgive myself.

  But it held. The shaking stopped, the rainbow of light faded, and all became still once more.

  With one change. A serene white light shone from underneath the bridge, marking the outline of an arched portal. A breeze gusted forth from within, bringing with it the musty scent of lost ages.

  The way into Farringale was open.

  16

  As one, the three gentlemen around me tensed, and stared into that pale light with wary intensity.

  I didn’t. I did not really believe that anything horrible was going to come barrelling out of Farringale the moment the door was opened, nor did it. Nothing happened at all, actually, save that the breeze died down, leaving the air still and fresh once more.

  I settled my bag more comfortably across my shoulders, briefly wishing that I had not filled it quite so enthusiastically. ‘Onward, then,’ I suggested, and went through the gate, water swishing soothingly about my ankles.

  The gentlemen let me go first, and alone, which was not very gentlemanly of them at all. But Rob quickly caught up with me, fine fellow that he is, and we advanced together. For a few moments we were walking near-blindly into that cool light and could see nothing that awaited us, which was a little alarming, I will admit. But nothing leapt out at us; no unpromising sounds of rapid, unfriendly approach assailed our ears; all we heard was our own footsteps ringing, curiously melodically, upon a hard floor.

  The light gradually ebbed. We passed through it, finding beyond an enveloping musty aroma, air thick with dust which caught in my throat; a noticeable drop in temperature, not at all welcome after the warm spring sunshine we had just left; and the silent remains of a dead street.

  It was curiously narrow, that road, considering where we were. I had expected more from Farringale than a thin, crooked street lined on either side by high stone walls. Those walls were golden somewhere under the caking dust, which was more promising. But still, as entrances went, it did not seem fitting for so legendary a place.

  Then we turned a corner, and there was the grandeur. The portal we had used was some kind of side entrance, I guessed, for we turned off it onto a wide, sweeping boulevard all paved in golden stone. Ornate lampposts lined the roadsides, each bearing an orb of crackling white light suspended by no obvious means. That those lights still operated appeared at odds with the deathly silence of the city; their eerie, lonely glow illuminated streets abandoned for hundreds of years. Why did they still burn?

  Houses of golden stone or white brick were spaced out along the road, set some way back from the street. Each had a wide square of empty space before it, once host to gardens, perhaps, but now as dead and empty as everything else. Pools of still water had collected in some of them and gone green and stagnant; they gave off an unpleasant smell.

  Above the hushed remains of lost Farringale rose sky upon sky upon sky. I have never seen sky like that, before or since. It was the deep, rich blue of twilight, though not because evening approached; the sun was high, the city well-lit. Airy palaces of roiling clouds hung heavy above us, as golden as the stone beneath our feet. It was a display of staggering beauty, which ordinarily would have pleased me greatly, but something about that vast sky made me uneasy. I walked a little nearer to Rob.

  The boulevard veered gracefully to the left in a smooth curve, and we followed it. Jay and Alban had caught up with us by then, and we walked four abreast, our eyes everywhere. I began to realise something else strange, which did nothing to enhance my comfort: the city was too clean. The passage of more than three hundred years ought to have taken more of a toll, surely; Farringale should have resembled Glenfinnan in its decay, only being more advanced. But the streets were pristine; not even a single leaf presumed to drift over the smooth paving stones. The houses looked aged, but they were whole and sound, not crumbling as I would have expected. I could have moved into one of them and lived happily there, untroubled by leaking roofs or collapsing walls. There was no mess, no disorder. Only the dust, thick and clinging and smelling of dirt and age.

  Was somebody keeping the city tidy? But that did not make any sense. We had seen no sign of life whatsoever, and moreover, the city felt empty. There was a depth to the silence, a profound hush, that precluded the possibility that Farringale was home to a company of fastidious street-sweepers. Something kept the city preserved — the same enchantments, perhaps, that kept the lights burning in the street lamps.

  What any of that had to do with the strange sky was anybody’s guess.

  ‘Has it always been like that?’ I asked of Alban, gesturing at the sky.

  ‘I’ve never heard anything of the kind.’ He gazed long upon those vast golden clouds, and I saw that his eyes were very wide.

  ‘Interesting.’ I was feeling deeply unsettled, this I will admit. But I smothered the feeling and walked on, for I was as intrigued and excited as I was afraid. Farringale! My scholar’s heart danced with joy at the prospect of so many mysteries, all laid out here for my perusal.

  Jay drew nearer to me. ‘I have a question,’ he said in an undertone.

  ‘Yes.’

  I expected a question about Farringale, naturally, or some related topic. Instead he said: ‘Where did you get those pipes?’

  ‘That is a secret.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it pleases me to remain a woman of mystery.’

  That won me an unfriendly stare. ‘How does that help you?’

  ‘Because I cannot otherwise get you to take me seriously. Something to do with my colourful dresses and mad hair, wasn’t it? How else am I going to hold my own with you?’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry I suggested anything of the kind. Please tell me about the pipes.’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Are you kidding? You whistled up a quartet of unicorns. Of course I want to know.’

  Fair point. ‘I can’t tell you,’ I said, and cut off his objections with a wave of my hand. ‘I really can’t. I am not allowed.’

  ‘According to who?’

  ‘The Powers That Be.’

  ‘Aren’t you the rule-breaker extraordinaire?’

  ‘When I have good reason. This isn’t one.’

  Jay gave a long, sad sigh. ‘I have another question.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why do you keep them in your, uh, undergarments?’

  ‘Imagine you suspect me of harbouring some magickal object of deep and ancient power, and you want to take it from me. Where are you going to look?’

  ‘Bag,’ said Jay promptly. ‘Pockets, maybe.’

  ‘Bra?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Very clever.’

  ‘Thank you. I know that—’ I stopped talking, distracted by a flicker of colour glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look, but saw nothing that could explain the soft flash of light, the blur of colours I’d thought I had seen. Just the same empty street, and a deserted, white-tiled plaza branching off it. Nothing moved.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Jay, who’d stopped a few paces farther up the road.

  I shook my head, and caught up with him. ‘Nothing.’

  We arrived at a wide intersection, and there we stopped, for nobody knew which of the three other stree
ts that opened before us would take us where we needed to go. For that matter, nobody knew what we were aiming for. Our plan had not been a sophisticated one; it consisted of “Find Farringale and search it for clues.” So far, so good, but since answers had yet to leap out of the air to oblige us, what did we do next?

  I looked long and hard down each street, noting that all three hosted buildings of promising-looking grandeur. ‘I wonder if any of those is the library?’ I mused aloud.

  Alban had a piece of paper in his hand, to which he kept referring after every searching glance at the streets around us. I sidled closer.

  It was a map, roughly hand-drawn in biro on basic, white A4 paper. But if I was disposed to dismiss its significance on account of its humble appearance, I was soon moved to reconsider, for Baron Alban’s thumb was positioned over the outline of an intersection just like the one we were standing on. One of its four converging streets outlined a smooth curve, from the other end of which branched a tiny side-street. Where this terminated, a blocky doorway was crudely drawn in. All of this looked… decidedly familiar.

  ‘My dear baron,’ I said. ‘Wherever did you get a map of Farringale?’

  The look he shot at me could only be termed shifty. ‘The library is here,’ he said, and I could see him dodging my question but how could I care, when instead of an explanation he offered me a library? He was pointing one elegant finger at a hastily-drawn square on his map, which I was encouraged to note was not far away. Unfortunately, he did not excel at drawing. The library seemed to be positioned about equidistantly between two streets; which one actually hosted the door?

  ‘There are four of us,’ I observed. ‘Two to take the left fork, two to go straight ahead.’

  ‘Haven’t you ever played games?’ Jay said. ‘Never split the party.’

  I looked around at the silent, empty city. ‘We don’t seem to be in any danger. Where’s the harm?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Jay. ‘But something emptied this place, and if it is the same something that destroyed Glenfinnan and is presently decimating Darrowdale, I’d rather take a little care.’

  ‘I have to agree,’ murmured Alban.