The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  The Faêran Piper looked at her wonderingly, yet knowingly.

  Woe the while! thought Ashalind, in an agony of impatience. The Faêran Herald puts the clarion to his lips.

  ‘In truth?’ said the Piper. ‘But the King shall return, he must return. The Iolaire is the very quintessence of the Fair Realm. Without him its virtue would be greatly diminished. And those that accompany him right now are the flower of Faêran knighthood, who, if they do not reach the Gateway soon, would be banished until the end of time. But thou, fair damsel, thou mayst not leave, for hast thou not eaten our food and drunk our wine?’

  ‘I have not.’

  His comely face sharpened. She caught a spark of anger in his eyes.

  ‘Stay here,’ he said.

  ‘As you love me, Cierndanel, benefactor and malefactor of my people, aid me now!’

  He paused, as if considering. Then he smiled.

  ‘Very well. Follow me to the right-of-way if you wish, but I think you will never pass through it.’

  As the Piper grasped Ashalind’s hand, she saw, through the milling crowd, Pryderi. Flailing desperately like a drowning swimmer, he was pushing his way toward her. His jaw knotted, his eyes aghast and fixed, he gasped and lunged forward, but then was gone in what seemed the blink of an eye, and the Watchtower, the assembly vanished with him.

  Cierndanel led the girl to an avenue of trees in blossom, whose boughs arched to intertwine overhead. At the far end of this tunnel, two stone columns capped with a sarsen lintel framed a scene. Thunderstorms raged in the skies of Erith, and the maelstrom of Faêran knights did battle. Behind them, distant peaks reared their heads to the racing clouds. Ice-crystals clung to the grainy surface of the Erith Door, but the perfumed trees of the Realm Door swayed gently. Ashalind and Cierndanel found themselves surrounded by a crowd of Faêran and wights, who paid them no heed, being engrossed in staring through the Gateway toward Erith.

  ‘Thou seest, every traverse has two Doors,’ said Cierndanel, speaking quickly, ‘and a passage which lies between. Before thee lies the Geata Poeg na Déanainn. In the common speech of Erith, that means the “Gate of Oblivion’s Kiss”.

  ‘Mark thee, it bears this name for a reason,’ he added. ‘Over the centuries, several mortal visitors have departed the Realm through this right-of-way and all have been given the same warning. The Gate of Oblivion’s Kiss imposes one condition on all those who use it. After passing through into Erith, if thou shouldst ever be kissed by one who is Erith-born, thou shalt lose all memory of what has gone before. The kiss of the erithbunden would bring oblivion upon thee, so beware, for then there is no saying whether the bitterbyndings of such a covenant may ever crumble, whether memory ever would return. I think it would not.’

  She nodded, trembling. ‘I heed.’

  ‘Furthermore,’ he insisted, ‘the Geata Poeg na Déanainn is a Wandering Gate with no fixed threshold in Erith. When open, it behaves like any other traverse and remains fixed in its location. But when the Gate is shut it shifts at random, as a butterfly flits erratically from blossom to blossom. Therefore, one is never able to predict its next position. Chiefly it is wont to give onto the country of Eldaraigne, in the north, somewhere in that region known as Arcdur. Always, that was a land uninhabited by your people, but perhaps no longer. Knowing these truths, dost thou still desire to pass through this perilous portal?’

  ‘I do.’

  Unexpectedly, the Faêran Piper folded around Ashalind’s shoulders a long, hooded cloak the colour of new leaves. He whispered closely in her ear, his words carried on a fragrance of musk roses:

  ‘Fear not, brave daughter of Erith. The Gates are perilous only in the rules by which they exist. If you abide by these, not so much as a hair of your head shall be harmed.’

  Ashalind closed her eyes to the strange beauties and perils of the Fair Realm, reaching for the scent of wet soil, the tang of pine, the chill of a storm wind, the cry of elindors on the wing. Her head spun and her mouth was parched taut with a terrible thirst. Easgathair’s voice roared from nowhere in the mortal world:

  ‘Return instantly, ye knights, for the time is nigh! The Gates are Closing!’

  Ashalind looked through the Gate-passage. At the Erith Gate, one or two of the knights from both sides broke away and rode hard, sparks zapping from their horses’ hooves.

  ‘Forget this quarrel!’ Easgathair’s caveat boomed from somewhere indeterminate. ‘Set aside your pride and ride for the Realm!’ But the High King and the Crown Prince, intent on their purpose, continued to ignore his warning.

  Then red lightning smote from the High King’s upraised hand, splitting the sky, and all who looked on heard him shout, ‘By the Powers, I will not again petition thee, Crow-Lord. Now thou hast truly stirred my wrath. Consequently, I swear I shall exile thee.’

  ‘No!’ Hoarse and harsh came Morragan’s vehement denial, and for the first time there seemed to be a note of alarm in his tone. He flung a zigzag bolt of blue energy from his palm. Confronted with his brother’s fury, he gave ground, but even as they battled, the long, clear warning sounded for the third time, rising like a ribbon of bronze over the treetops.

  ‘’Tis too late!’ thundered the Gatekeeper.

  Now at last the High King and the Raven Prince were riding together, flying for the Gateway at breakneck speed with their knights flanking them, and nothing stood in the path of their headlong rush; they spoke not, nor looked to left or right, and all quarrels were abandoned as the threat of permanent expatriation became imminent. Dread fell on the hearts of the assembled audience. A crash like the world’s end shook the floor of the Watchtower, the horizon shuddered, and a shadowy veil drew across the vault above. There arose a loud keening and clamor of voices fair and harsh from near and far, and as the beautiful riders almost gained the Gate, a cataclysmic tumult filled the sky and seemed to burst it asunder. The voices, of the Faêran joined in a lament like a freezing wind that blights the Spring, for the Gates were swinging shut, and those they loved most would be exiled for eternity.

  A sudden terrible gust slammed through the Gate of Oblivion’s Kiss with a mighty concussion, snatching mortal breath. It was all over. The Faêran royalty and their companions were forever excluded from the Realm. The Watchtower Windows shattered and fell out in shards, leaving shadowy apertures that stared sorrowfully across the long lawns where the Talith dancers stood poised as if in a frozen tableau.

  But with a pang of regret for the land of desire and delight, which spoke of the Langothe already reawakening to haul on its chains, Ashalind had slipped into the Gate of Oblivion’s Kiss.

  10

  DOWNFALL

  There’s a place that I can tell of, for I’ve glimpsed it once or twice,

  As I’ve wandered by a misty woodland dell.

  I believe I almost saw it on the green and ferny road,

  Or beside the trees that shadow the old well.

  And I’ve never dared to whisper, and I’ve never dared to shout,

  Even though it always comes as a swprise,

  For I fear that by my movement or the sounding of my voice

  I might make it disappear before my eyes.

  ’Tis a place of great enchantment and wild gramarye; a fair,

  Everlasting haunt of timeless mystery,

  You’ll find danger there, and beauty; strange adventure curs’d and bless’d,

  That will seem to wake a longing memory.

  But I’ve heard that if you go there you might stay for far too long,

  And you may forget the road by which you came.

  Some folk never learn the way. If you should find it then beware,

  For if you return, you’ll never be the same.

  FOLK SONG OF ERITH

  For immeasurable moments, all was confusion. Something fluttered and battered softly about her head in the colourless half-light.

  Ashalind could not comprehend her status. Had she fallen off Peri’s back, or perhaps Satin’s? Her leg ached. Sh
ould it not heal, she would not be able to follow the Piper—oh, the anguish of hearing that call and not being able to respond! She would drag herself through the dust … Such a hard bed to lie on, this, and why was everything so hushed and still?

  Stung by sudden recollection she sat bolt upright. She looked around for the stony land she had seen at the end of the Gate-passage, and the Faêran knights embattled there. But there was no open sky above her head, no Erith, no tall riders, only a dim, distorted passageway, an arched and twisted tunnel sealed by a Door at either end. The vaulted ceiling was cracked. In places it sagged down like a bag of water. The Gate-passage had been biased, damaged by the unprecedented sundering of the worlds between which it lay. Yet its structure remained viable.

  For how long?

  In each half of the chamber the walls were different. As they approached one Door they resembled living trees growing closely together, their boughs meeting to interweave as a ceiling. Toward the other portal they merged into rough-hewn rock.

  This, then, was the Gate-passage between the Other Country and Erith.

  The Lords of Faêrie had been trapped in Erith after all. In her native land, they lingered. She fancied she could hear, at the other end of the Gate-passage, beyond the silver Realm Door with its golden hinges, the sound of sweet, sad singing.

  The distraction beat her around the head again, with soft wings. It was a hummingbird. She recalled it rushing by her as she had leapt through the Realm Gate. Now in agitation the tiny creature darted about, seeking escape.

  ‘Which Door shall I open for you?’

  But the bird flew up to the wracked ceiling and perched in a niche there.

  ‘Little bird, which Door shall I open for myself? I still have a choice—how odd. I may go out from here to either place, but once out, I may never come back, for when the Doors Close for the last time they are Locked forever.’

  She empathized with mailed crustaceans entering a wicker trap; a one-way entrance with no return.

  Prince Morragan’s edict had been intended to ensure that the Gate of Oblivion’s Kiss would let no one pass through it, after its Key had been turned in its Lock and it had Closed for the final time: ‘… barring the passage of Faêran, eldritch wights both seelie and unseelie, unspeaking creatures and all mortal men …’ Yet she fitted none of those descriptions! Ashalind laughed, as it came to her that the Raven Prince had overlooked mortal women—overlooked and underestimated. Doubtless Meganwy would have said, A common trait among males.

  Enchantments must always be carefully worded. The Raven Prince had not been careful enough. The thought of this made the smile linger on Ashalind’s lips, and she recalled the remnant of some old tale she had heard during childhood, the story of a man who had outwitted a Lord of Unseelie by hiding in the walls of his home. She thought: Here in the walls where I now dwell, I am neither within the Realm nor without it … Indeed, borders are mysterious, indeterminate places.

  Gently, Ashalind pushed the stone Erith Door with one finger. It floated open easily under the slight pressure. Beyond stretched a land of towering rocks: Arcdur, empty of all signs of life. Night reigned.

  The hummingbird dashed past. Once outside, it rebelled against the darkness and tried to return, but the invisible wind formed a barricade. It flew away, leaving Ashalind bereft.

  She let her hand follow it, gingerly, through the Erith Door, out into the airs of home. Her fingertips tingled and she snatched them back. Withdrawing, she allowed the Door to close itself and sat leaning against the wall to ponder, touching the dying eringl leaves that covered the bracelet on her wrist.

  The Door would not harm a thing of flesh by snapping shut on it. Even her nails—part of her living person though dead in themselves—had prevented it from sealing.

  Now that this truth was apparent, a plan began to evolve.

  If she could somehow prop open the Erith Door, then even if she ventured into Erith she could return through the Gate-passage and thus into the Realm whenever she wished.

  Furthermore, the Gate of Oblivion’s Kiss had not yet Closed for the last time. It could not do so, while someone remained within it or partway through it. As the only living creature (bar the hummingbird) who had been locked neither in Faêrie nor in Erith, was she, Ashalind the only one who could ever pass unhindered between the two worlds? Or might anyone enter the Gate if it stood wide?

  There was no way of knowing.

  If the Doors could be propped open and the Gate could be duped to allow her passage to and fro, then she might be able to carry a message from one place to the other. What if, in Erith, she could discover the Password to the Green Casket; the Password that would release the Keys to open all the Gates again? Then the High King might be reunited with his Realm!

  The preternaturally attractive Prince Morragan, whose dark male beauty cloaked acid and steel, had asked his boon and it had been fulfilled exactly. Once fulfilled, all boons lost their power over whosoever had promised them.

  There remained only the danger of the second pledge, the unasked boon that Morragan had cleverly won from the Gatekeeper. But if she, Ashalind, could only find the High King, surely he would be able to put all things to rights, to force his brother to reveal the Password and renounce his second boon in exchange for his own return to the Realm. Surely the Crown Prince would do anything to be reunited with his beloved homeland.

  Was it possible? Could she return the generosity of the Faêran by reuniting them with their High King? She would search in Erith for him—surely it was not possible for him to have travelled too far away in such a short time—and when she found him, she would beg him to cure the Langothe, which had begun again, of course, to eat at her. Then she would tell him of her secret way back into the Fair Realm and all would be well! The only peril would lie in preventing Prince Morragan from discovering the secret first.

  But the Fithiach, the Raven Prince, did not know she was in Erith. No one in Erith knew.

  Her fingertip pushed open the stone Erith Door for the second time.

  The landscape had changed dramatically. Weather had eroded some monoliths, while others looked sharp and new, as if they had but lately been thrust up from subterranean workshops in some violent upheaval of the ground. It was no longer nighttime. Sunset tinged the air with the delicate pink of blood diluted in water. Puzzled, she took a moment to work out what was happening, and when she did her insides crawled like cold worms, her stomach flopped like a fish.

  Time in Erith was racing past while she remained in the Gate-passage. She must delay no longer—how many years might have passed already? In a panic, she tried to think quickly. Cierndanel, or someone else, had mentioned that time was running all awry because of the Closing. There was no telling how many years might have elapsed by the time she finally slipped through the Door into Erith—perhaps seven years, perhaps a hundred. All the mortals she had known, who had remained behind, might be long dead. Her world might be altered in many other undreamed-of ways. It might have evolved into a place unknown.

  ‘I shall be a stranger in my own land,’ croaked Ashalind, with difficulty forcing words from dehydrated lips.

  The Faêran, however, could not be slain; they were immortal. They could choose or be forced by serious injury to pass away into a lesser form, but unchallenged, the exiled knights, the royal lords of the Realm and the lords and ladies who had fled to join them would live on, whatever else.

  Driven by a sense of overwhelming urgency she propped her father’s knife in the open Erith Door. As soon as she let go, the Door snapped shut, breaking it.

  A living hand could keep the Door open, but not an object of metal. If only she could delude this enchanted valve, make it believe that she was partway through it, perpetually half in, half out, it would stay open for her, and her alone. Some part of her must remain in the doorway, to prop it open. A finger? No, that was too gruesome to contemplate. Other measures must be taken. She worked quickly.

  For the third and last time she o
pened the Erith Gate. Arcdur’s stony bones leaned up, even more skewed and corroded, shouting against the low-slung sky. A storm was raging, but Ashalind could not wait for it to abate—already too much time had passed. Her preparations were made. Pulling Cierndanel’s gift-cloak closer around her shoulders, she stepped out of the quiet passage.

  Chaos assailed her. Reflexively she flung herself back against an upright stone pillar, one of the Gateposts. Torrents of rain lashed all around and wind screamed through darkness. Crouching in the lee of the rock, she let the waters of Erith run down her face into her parched mouth, drinking greedily of the chill deluge, feeling it irrigate her body and send silver channels running along her veins, until she had her fill.

  Already her riding-habit was sodden. It was strange to recall that this was the very costume in which she had made the journey from Hythe Mellyn to the Perilous Realm. That journey now seemed ever so long ago and far away. The words of Nimriel came back: ‘Thy voyage is only just beginning, daughter of Erith.’ Ashalind wrapped herself more tightly in the Faêran cloak. Lightning ripped open the belly of the sky and its dazzle revealed, in a black-and-white instant, a world of tumbled rocks and oblique crags utterly different from the realm she had departed from moments earlier. Looking back, she noted that on this side the Geata Poeg na Déanainn looked to be no more than a tall crevice between leaning boulders, perilously inviting, its secret recesses wrapped in deep shadow. Intermittent flashes illuminated slanting water-curtains pleated suddenly by gusts of wind. Her thirst slaked, Ashalind felt a great weariness coming over her. She crawled under an overhang, out of the storm’s fury. Desiccated leaves flaked from her wrists and turned to dust. The Faêran cloak was warm. Briefly she wondered how this Erithan storm compared to the one in which Morragan had battled against his brother, maybe a hundred years ago.

  Then she slept.

  Pale dawn revealed a nacreous veil over the sun. Rivulets chattered swiftly over pebbles, droplets fell tinkling from ledges. Boulders had piled themselves high everywhere in fantastic, towering shapes. Water and granite surrounded Ashalind. The only signs of life were mosses and pink lichens.