by Daniel Kirk
“This is civilization,” Mary corrected him. “What you mean is your civilization. And yes, there’s another Cord that runs along the same north-south route. You’ll be able to make it back the direction you came from.” She sat back. “As I said, there are powers working on your behalf. You gotta have faith in them.”
Matt reached into his pocket and withdrew the sack with the rest of his jewels in it. He placed it on the table. “Then I’ll leave these with you. I don’t know what they’re worth, but I know it’ll be more than the cost of renting a plane. Maybe way more.”
At that moment Tomtar, who’d been hovering in the doorway, stepped into the room. “If it isn’t enough,” he said. “Tuava-Li and I still have pouches of our own in our—”
A fierce glance from Tuava-Li silenced the Troll, and embarrassed, he shot out a hand to grab a muffin from the plate on the edge of the table.
“I’m not gonna cheat you,” Mary said. “I’ll find some way to cash in these jewels, even if I have to go down to the city. When you come back this way, I’ll give you whatever money is left over, beyond the cost of your trip and gear. I don’t suppose you know how long you’ll be up there, do you?” Mary glanced back and forth between Matt and Tuava-Li.
Tuava-Li shook her head. “We have no idea how long it will take. ’Tis a long journey to the center of the earth, and time in Elf Realm has never passed at the same rate that it does here in the Human world … though that’s changed since the borders between our worlds have weakened. In times gone by, a Human who accidentally entered Elf Realm might spend a night or two with us, only to return home and discover that a hundred years had passed.”
“I wouldn’t expect Joe to wait a hundred years,” Mary snorted.
“No,” Tuava-Li said. “’Tis not like that, anymore. Several times Matt has passed over the border with no perceptible lost time. But none has undertaken this quest in thousands of moons, so ’tis hard to say with certainty.”
“Well, by the end of September, we won’t have daylight again until March. You think you’ll be done up on the Pole by then? Joe’s not gonna want to take a plane up there once winter sets in.”
“Aye,” said Tuava-Li, looking nervously at Matt. “That should be long enough.”
For his part, he felt a wave of shock pass through him, followed by despair. He berated himself for not pressing Tuava-Li harder about how long their adventure might take. If he was gone underground for too long, who knew what disasters might befall his parents? The possibility of rescuing them seemed ever more remote.
“We’ll get you a two-way radio,” Mary said, “and you can call Joe when you’re ready to get picked up. We’ll pack it with your things.”
“I’ve never used one of those before,” Matt said. Once again he was faced with his lack of survival skills. He could barely breathe.
“Look, everything will be all right. I know you’re taking a lot of risks, and that you’re bound to run into dangerous situations, but there are the three of you, after all, and I can’t help but think that Faerie Folk know how to get by out in Mother Nature. You’re on a quest, and the Goddess is working on your behalf, right?”
Matt looked at Tuava-Li. She nodded her head confidently.
Mary smiled and said, “I’ll meet you at the co-op after I’m done with work, and Joan can show you how to set up a tent and tie it down on the ice, how to use a Coleman stove, how to pack and unpack gear. Most of it’s easy stuff; you’ll get the hang of it right away.”
“Can I look on your computer?” Matt asked. “There are some things I really need to check out.”
“Help yourself,” Mary said.
Matt sat down in the battered old chair, got online, and searched for information about a fire in Sylvan Estates. There was nothing beyond an outdated Realtor’s ad for luxury housing, and a small notice in a local Pennsylvania paper about the fire. He tried to open his mother’s e-mail account, to see if there had been any activity, but none of the passwords he could think of would let him in. He was getting nowhere. He wrote his mom an e-mail from his own account. Just in case she’s somewhere she can see it, he thought. In the first draft of his note he wrote that he was fine, and that he was going to do his best to help them, and that he was so sorry that all this had happened, that it was all his fault. He wrote the letter three or four different times, erasing the messages one after the other. They all sounded awkward and insincere. Who am I kidding? he thought. She’ll never see it, anyway. He realized he’d have as much luck putting a message in a bottle and tossing it into the ocean. Then he looked up arctic survival and began scrolling through mountains of information, making notes on a pad at the side of the desk.
For Tuava-Li the afternoon crawled past. She watched Matt at the computer and Tomtar playing with the children, teaching them some games common to Trolls. He played his flute for them. There was much laughter and merriment, and Tomtar looked disappointed when the clock struck five, even though he’d spent nearly the entire day indoors. Mary shooed Tomtar, Tuava-Li, and Matt into one of the bedrooms and shut them in. She didn’t want anyone to ask too many questions about the boy; they would have surely heard about him by now. She also didn’t want to take the chance that Tomtar and Tuava-Li might be seen. They waited there in silence until all the children had been picked up by their mothers and fathers. “You can come on out now,” Mary said, calling from the other side of the door. “It’s time we head over to the co-op.”
They all tugged on their cold-weather clothes and headed out into the chilly night. “You know,” Matt said to Tomtar, “for somebody who doesn’t like to be cooped up in human dwellings for long, you did okay today!”
“I did?” Tomtar answered with a shiver.
Later, after receiving some elementary camping lessons from Mary’s daughter, Matt bought food for himself and his friends and hurried to his room at the back of the building. His mood was glum; he was pretty sure he didn’t have what it took to brave the elements at the North Pole. With no experience and little training, the whole adventure left him feeling wary. Expert polar trekkers had died because of simple mistakes; how could he expect to do better? He wasn’t very excited about seeing the northern lights, either. Mary had told him he’d get the best view of the light show around midnight, but Matt was exhausted and just wanted to eat and go to sleep. Tomtar and Tuava-Li, however, were curious about the lights. They’d both heard Faerie legends about the aurora borealis, and they were anxious to see if the display of solar lights would reveal anything about the bridge between the realms. Reluctantly Matt agreed to stay up with them.
As the hour grew late, the three sat in their room with the window cracked open. Tomtar was propped on the edge of the bed, breathing in the cold air. Tuava-Li sat with her eyes closed and legs crossed in meditation. Matt huddled by the heater in the corner, reading. In the laundry room, which scientists and travelers seemed to use as a lending library, Matt had found a book about the geological structure of the earth. “You know,” he said, “it’s four thousand miles from the surface of the earth to the core at the center. Do you guys know how far four thousand miles is?”
When he got no response, Matt continued. “Well, I’ll tell you. It’s nearly as far as going from New York to Los Angeles, and then coming back again. Do you have any idea how long it would take us to walk that distance, even if we didn’t have to face rivers of molten magma and pressure that would crush our bodies flatter than a piece of paper?”
“What’s New York?” Tomtar asked.
Matt grumbled and slammed the covers of his book. “The Human realm and the Elf realm are not the same,” Tuava-Li said softly, rousing herself from her reverie. “One cannot expect to find the same things at the center of two different worlds.”
“But we share the same world, don’t we?” Matt said, getting up. Once again he was feeling hopeless. “How could things be so different? Tell me!”
Tomtar got out his flute, hoping some music might relieve the tension. “I thi
nk it’s a good time for some tunes,” he chirped. He lifted the flute to his lips and Matt shot him a look. “People are going to start banging on the walls, Tomtar. Remember, we don’t want anybody to know you guys are here!”
“There’s nobody else staying here,” Tomtar replied. “You said so yourself, Matt. It’s just us!”
“This quest has been undertaken before, Matthew,” Tuava-Li said. “’Tis not impossible. We’ll prevail.”
Matt shrugged and got down on the carpet next to the heater. “Prevail,” he repeated, as if he found the word itself absurd. He went back to reading his book on geology. Tomtar played a long, slow improvisation on his favorite song, “The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond.” Matt felt tense; every time he heard the song, it reminded him of his dad, who used to sing it, and every time he thought of his dad, he was overwhelmed with sadness. Matt knew Tomtar meant well, but thought that the Troll ought to at least learn some new songs. He kept his mouth shut and tried to lose himself in the book.
Some time after eleven, Matt suggested to his friends that they’d waited long enough. They slipped into their coats, hats, and mittens, went out the side door, and looked up into the sky. Matt gasped. He spun around, taking in the vastness of the curtain of green that hung high across the night. It was strange, completely surreal. He could never have guessed. The wind roared, and the shapes overhead, like silk curtains lit from inside, twisted and turned in the air. “I’ve seen some crazy things,” he said, “but nothing like this! These lights are the background on my tattoo!”
“’Tis a sign,” Tomtar breathed, “clear as day!” His eyes were saucers; he blinked as if he could scarcely believe what he saw. “I knew it, I knew there would be a sign from the Goddess!”
Tuava-Li said nothing, but a tear rolled down her cheek and froze there. She wiped it away with the back of a mitten; the skin on her face hurt, burned with the cold. She shivered, realizing it wasn’t just the frigid air that was shaking her but the presence of something magick. “It’s like it’s alive, like … like the underside of some giant green jellyfish, from the bottom of the sea,” Matt cried. “I can’t think of how to describe it!”
“You don’t need to,” Tomtar shouted into the wind. “We can all see what’s happening. The Goddess is telling us everything will be all right!”
Matt walked down the steps and onto the gravel roadway, his boots crunching and his breath coming in frozen gulps. How many afternoons, he wondered, had he sat with Tomtar and Becky on the hill above his home and watched the clouds in the sky shift and change? It was nothing compared to this; nothing could compare with this. Misshapen neon faces thrust out of the darkness, then turned to ghosts, tendrils of chartreuse and jade swaying from their chins. Waves of moss and oceans of sap poured over the sky, sweeping away the faces and bringing in herds of spectral horses, stampeding across the heavens, throwing up clouds of teal and celadon. “The warring virgins, armed with helmets and swords,” Tuava-Li cried, pointing, “just like in the legends. They’re traveling through the realms, their shields shedding light!”
Matt shook his head; the Faeries were so full of superstition. “It’s solar winds, Tuava-Li, we learned it in school. It’s all particles from the sun, colliding with our atmosphere along the earth’s magnetic field. That’s all. It’s still beautiful, though!”
No one could argue with those words. Tomtar and Tuava-Li shivered, watching the luminous shapes tumble over one another, fire and ice sweeping from one end of the sky to the other. Matt gasped; as he stood transfixed at the sight, he’d forgotten to breathe. The bitter cold made him cough, and he stumbled down the road past his friends. He saw the dark shapes of houses and sheds around him, rigid and still, and there was no sign of life anywhere. Why isn’t everybody out here to see this? he wondered, then realized that such a display was probably nothing to the people who lived here, who got to see the northern lights whenever they wanted.
The parade of lights went on and on. Matt and his friends watched until their necks were sore. It was like being in a trance, watching the skies, watching the edge of the curtains of light fill, then spill back out in rivers of glowing green ink. “Let’s go,” Matt said finally. “We should get some sleep.”
Tomtar was nearly dancing as they returned to the steps that led into the co-op. Later, as Matt fell asleep in the lumpy bed, he dreamt he was in an airplane that purred and thumped through a sky filled with sparks and flashes of green, and that he could hear the hooves of the spectral horses beating in his ears. “It’s a sign,” he mumbled in his sleep.
green with rage. With his body as stiff as the trunk of an old oak tree, he stood wheezing, puffing and working his jaw, his hands clenching and unclenching, as he tried to find the words to express his fury. “The unmitigated …, ” he fumed, “how dare you, you little … you … have you no, no … shame?!”
Asra sat on the cold stone floor, glaring at the Council of Seven. They stood at a distance from the Princess, their arms folded; they looked profoundly uncomfortable in this place. Most of them had never actually stepped foot in the dungeon. Here, the art of coercion was practiced on uncooperative citizens, those unfortunate souls required to make their confessions at the point of a hot lance or a pair of sharp pincers. “I came back,” Asra cried. “I didn’t talk to anyone, I didn’t tell anyone anything, I went out, and I came back. What’s so wrong with that? If your guards hadn’t caught me slipping back into the palace, you wouldn’t even have known.”
Prashta’s jowls were shaking. “You left without permission, Elfmaid. Anything might have happened. Because of you and that Human girl, and Macta, too, as a matter of fact, the delicate balance of our leadership has been upset. You spoiled Brahja-Chi’s Acquisition, you spoiled our plans for warfare with the Humans, and now, this disobedience. Nothing can be left to chance, Asra, we must keep tight rein over the smallest events to maintain control. You deliberately showed disrespect for those who have been your kind and generous hosts.”
“Where’s Macta?” Asra demanded.
“He’s out looking for you! Do you think we could stop him? When he’s got so much preparation to do before his big speech, he’s racing up and down the streets of Helfratheim calling your name. Perhaps once you’re married to him, all this nonsense will stop.”
“You don’t care about me marrying Macta any more than I do,” Asra said venomously. “’Tis plain to see that you despise the King, and you welcomed his return as much as you’d welcome an infestation of bedbugs. You and your merry band of henchmen want all the power of this kingdom for yourselves, and Macta’s return is a thorn in your side that you can’t wait to have removed. Why else would you welcome this mission to the Arctic?”
Prashta raised an eyebrow ironically. “Oh? You think that planting the Seed of the Adri is ill advised, Princess? Oh dear, perhaps we haven’t really thought the whole thing through.” He turned to his cronies. “What do you say, gentle Elves, perhaps we should reconsider?”
Raucous laughter reverberated through the chamber. Prashta knelt so close to Asra that she could smell the onions on his breath. “If Macta returns having planted the Seed, he will be at our command, as we are united in our resolve to handle things here … properly. If he should fail in his mission, however, we will still stand united to rule Helfratheim as it should have always been run—a thriving business. Riches are the new Gods, Asra, untold riches. Royalty is dead, just like mythology, with its paper-thin heroes and villains. In our new world, dead heroes are the only kind really worth having. Don’t you agree, Princess?”
Asra spit into Prashta’s flabby face. She was shocked by her own impulsive behavior, but no more than Prashta was shocked by the sharp gust of air across the back of his neck, and the blow that sent him hurtling to the floor. The protective amulet that had hung around his neck bounced on the floor next to him; the string that held it close to his body had been cut. “Macta!” he whimpered, looking up, as his hand groped for the lost amulet.
Macta, dres
sed like a commoner, towered over Prashta. He kicked the amulet from the old Elf’s grasp. Macta gazed in delight at the polished crystal blade affixed to the mechanical forefinger of his own right hand. He was learning to use the artificial arm and hand with finesse; he’d sent the mental signal to release the blade from its sheath alongside the finger, and stretched the arm forward to slice the cord from Prashta’s neck without severing the old Elf’s spine in the process. What an improvement techmagick was over nature! he thought. But his joyful expression quickly faded. “I heard a rumor that the Princess had returned; now I find you’ve brought her here, to this foul place!”
He reached out a hand to help her up. “Are you all right, my darling?” he murmured, as she stood.
“What are you—how did you … your arm?” Asra stammered, her eyes wide in disbelief. Staring at the mechanical limb, she got to her feet.
Macta lifted the arm, turning the hand this way and that and wriggling the fingers for the Princess to see. “I owe a debt of gratitude to the Techmagicians of Helfratheim,” he said, “for my new, improved arm. But the Council owes me an explanation, and it had better be good! Why have you brought Princess Asra to the dungeon? Prashta, do your eyes long to look down upon the palace grounds from the top of a pike, where your severed head will hang?”
Prashta dragged his bulk across the floor and, with some effort, sat up. “’Tis her own fault, Macta. For her own safety, she must be kept under surveillance.”
Macta’s eyes turned to Asra. “He lies,” the Princess said. “I went out into the market, ’tis true, but only to purchase cold-weather gear for myself. I returned of my own free will, and when I entered the palace, the guards snatched me up and treated me like a common criminal. The rest, you can see with your own eyes.”
Macta approached Prashta, who held his amulet before him like a talisman. “You can’t touch me,” he cried. “I’m protected!”