by Frewin Jones
Eden pointed toward the hill. “See yonder gray stone set in the hillside?” she said. “That is the entrance to the Caer.”
Tania could see the long gray slab of stone leaning deep into the hillside in a narrow area clear of the thick cloaking trees. “You mean it’s actually in the hill?” she said. “How does that work?”
“Knock thrice upon the stone and you will see,” said Eden. “I must depart now and do what I can to bring ease and comfort to the belabored people of Faerie. But these gifts shall I bestow on you ere I go.” She turned to face the three of them. She reached out a forefinger and touched the base of each of their throats in turn. Connor flinched but only a little.
“I have gifted you the Arossa Charm,” Eden said. She pointed to the wild horses. “When your work here is done, speak gently to them and they will do your bidding.”
“That is a fine gift,” said Rathina. “I had given no thought to how we might return hence. Wild horses, ho! ’Tis better by far than to foot-slog it down all the long miles of Faerie.”
Eden looked at Tania. “And to you I give this.” She took Tania’s head between her hands and tilted it down, planting a kiss on Tania’s forehead before releasing her. “It is the Kiss of Seeking. It will help to guide you to your quarry.”
“Thank you,” said Tania.
“And now,” said Eden, stepping away from them, “I wish you good fortune in your quest. Farewell. Indeed, fare you very well!” She lifted her arms and spoke again those strange, sibilant words. She swung her arms down and the globe of fire appeared. For a moment Tania saw Eden standing in a ball of white flame, then there was a crack like thunder, and the globe went searing through the trees, trailing a ribbon of white fire as it arced across the sky and vanished.
Connor gaped.
Rathina looked at him. “Wow?” she suggested.
He nodded, closing his mouth.
“Okay, come on,” said Tania, setting off toward the long hill. “Let’s get busy.” She looked at Rathina. “Who lives here?” she asked.
“Did you not know?” Rathina replied. “None live in Caer Regnar Naal. It has been deserted now for many thousands of years.”
“Why’s that?” asked Tania.
“I never knew until today,” said Rathina. “But it is easy now to understand why this place is shunned. At the heart of the citadel stands a door of purest Isenmort, sister. None of Faerie born could long bear to be close to such an abomination.” She smiled. “None but the sixth daughter of Oberon and Titania.”
“So who made the Isenmort Portal?” asked Tania. “And why?”
“I do not know,” said Rathina.
“Well, why is easy, surely?” said Connor. “It was done to make sure no one could get at the archives.” His eyes gleamed as he looked at Tania. “There must be secrets in there that no one was ever meant to know. Exciting, huh? Maybe we’re about to find the formula for Immortality.”
“Maybe,” Tania said dubiously. She wasn’t convinced that the Immortality of the Faerie folk was something that could be pinned down quite that easily.
As they came closer to the hill, Tania became aware of a heaviness all about her, as though the air was pressing in on her. The darkness under the trees was impenetrable—as if the gloom was covering something, or as if something was hiding itself in the gloom.
“This place has a strange mood,” Rathina said. “Methinks it is the poison of the Isenmort Portal pervading the very ground beneath our feet.”
“I don’t feel anything,” said Connor. “It’s quiet, though, isn’t it? No birds. Nothing. And it’s getting hot; have you noticed that?”
“The sun stands at the zenith of the sky,” said Rathina. “See how the heat rises from yon stone doorway. What was it Eden told us to do?”
“Knock three times,” Tania said.
Up close the slab of gray stone was far bigger than she had expected. It lay impressed in the hillside, ten feet across and twice that high.
“It must weigh forty tons or more,” Connor said, kicking a corner. “It doesn’t look natural, though. How did they ever get it here?” He looked at Tania. “I’m assuming they don’t have much in the way of machinery.”
Tania shook her head. “No, not much.” Rathina was right: She could see the heat shimmering off the stone, quivering in the air and distorting the shapes of the trees farther up the hill.
She stooped and picked up a stone. As she leaned over the gray slab, the heat beat into her face. She pounded the stone three times on the slab then stepped back.
Nothing happened.
“Maybe it’s broken?” suggested Connor.
“Wait!” said Rathina.
Slowly at first, so slowly that it was hardly perceptible, the massive slab began to rise from the ground, pivoting on one side like a vast door. Cool air seeped out of the widening black gap.
The stone lifted itself, two feet thick, ragged and rough-hewn. Blackness yawned, cold and fathomless.
“Time for your flashlight, I think,” Tania said to Connor. “I don’t imagine there’ll be any lights in there.”
Connor moved forward to the very lip of darkness. He switched on the flashlight. The beam shone onto a flight of black stone steps that plunged away into cavernous depths. He looked uneasily at Tania. “Ladies first,” he said.
“Cute,” she said, stepping over the grassy threshold. “Very cute.” Cold air crept around her ankles as she began to descend.
Connor followed close behind, shining the light onto the steps, but Tania’s own shadow went racing ahead into the black gulf, swallowed up in the cool darkness. She could hear Rathina whistling softly between her teeth.
I remember that! She does it when she’s scared, to make out that everything’s okay.
Somehow that tiny flash of memory warmed Tania and lifted her heart.
She came to a black arch at the foot of the stairs. Connor was at her side shining his flashlight into the darkness. Black stone glinted, reflecting the light. A cobbled roadway stretched away.
Rathina’s tuneless whistling was close by Tania’s ear.
Tania stepped through the arch.
She gazed around herself in surprise. The subterranean darkness seemed far less intense now—only as dark perhaps as a starless night—and she could see buildings all around her. They were uniformly black, made from a smooth stone that shone with a dusky bloom. They appeared to be ordinary houses and cottages with steep-sloping, tiled roofs and tall chimneys and mullioned windows, leading away up either side of a twisty, cobbled street. Here and there she saw squat turrets or towers attached to the buildings. Elsewhere there were sunken windows behind black bars, and curved flights of stone steps leading to raised doorways. There were deep-set doors under stone lintels. Black ivy climbed the walls and black roses overhung the windows. Everything black. It was as if a village had been dipped in oil and then left wet and shining under a night sky.
Tania looked up, expecting to see the roof of this great cavern—but all she saw was a black vault so featureless that, for all Tania could tell, it might be hanging a few feet above her head or it might be a thousand miles away—or not there at all.
It was not cold in the village, but the silence was eerie, and for some reason Tania was reminded of the sinister ruins she had flown above in her dream.
“Such a sad place,” murmured Rathina. “They say that in ancient times there was light and laughter and love in Caer Regnar Naal. But I do not know who lived here nor what happened to them.” She began softly to sing.
“The living earth founded me, I lay beneath
And the flowers were as bright as stars
The womb-hill surrounded me, I lay asleep
Till the day I sought my birth
In a tapestried room in Caer Regnar Naal…”
Connor walked across the street and gingerly touched a rose head. He turned to look at Tania. “It feels real,” he said. “But it can’t be, can it? Down here? With no light or anything?”
“When are you going to get that this world runs on magic, Connor?” Tania asked. “Rathina? Do you have any idea where the Hall of Archives might be?”
“Nay, sister,” said Rathina. “But it should not be hard to find. Do you not yet sense the presence of the Isenmort Portal?”
“No, not really.”
“You shall, Tania. As we grow closer, you will feel it.”
They walked together along the street. Even though there was enough dim light for them to see by, Connor still turned the beam of his flashlight this way and that to pick out the odd details of the crooked old houses.
They came to a wide paved square. A black fountain stood in the middle, its deep basin long dry. Connor lifted the beam of light onto the statue that rose from its central plinth.
Tania gasped as the fierce white light picked out the black shape of a giant owl caught wide-winged as it surged forward from a branch, every feather carved with pinpoint detail, its predatory eyes so sharp and bright that they almost seemed to be alive.
“Which way now?” asked Connor, roving the beam of light along the several streets that led from the square.
“Close your eyes, Tania,” said Rathina. “Turn about; feel for the scorching of Isenmort on your mind.”
Tania did as her sister suggested.
“There’s nothing,” she said. “It all feels—Oh! Wait!” She opened her eyes. A sensation had touched her—like the shadowy intimation of a headache behind her eyes. She pointed. “That way.”
It was a street as strange and as ordinary as any other in the underground village, but at the far end a large square edifice loomed above the rooftops. As they approached, Tania saw that it was a tower, its blunt bulk windowless and unadorned. It was built of stone, but it was not smooth and black. Its face was rough and sharp-edged and uneven.
It was a tower made of flint, and in the center of its facing wall stood a huge door of gray iron.
Large bolts of iron studded the door, and to one side hung a braided hoop of iron attached to a massive iron lock.
As she came closer, Tania felt the dull pressure growing behind her eyes and now she could see that the face of the iron door was etched all over with intricate and unpleasant designs. In the light of Connor’s flashlight beam the unsettling shapes of centipedes and squids and spiders and crabs and worms writhed and crawled with sinister intent over the cold gray iron.
“Horrible,” muttered Rathina, shrinking away. “Most horrible!”
“I’ll say,” said Connor. “What total sicko came up with all this?”
“Like you said,” murmured Tania, “it was put here to keep people out.” She screwed up her eyes against the discomfort that was bearing down on her from the door. “Can you get it open?”
Connor looked at Rathina. “How about it?”
Rathina grimaced but nodded. She put down the leather satchel and stepped up to the door. She gripped the iron hoop with both hands and wrenched at it.
“’Tis well closed!” she said puffing. “Come, Master Connor, lend your weight to our cause!”
Connor handed Tania the rubber flashlight, and together he and Rathina took a double-handed grip on the hoop.
“Three—two—go!” said Connor.
They fought together with the hoop, and gradually inch by slow inch it began to turn with a piercing noise that set Tania’s teeth on edge.
As they managed to get the hoop to a half turn, there was a low clanking sound from deep within the door.
“The lock is free!” shouted Rathina. “Pull now, Master Connor. Pull with all your might!”
They dug their heels in and hauled back on the door—and with the terrible screeching of metal grazing stone it began to open.
Tania stepped back as the door grated toward her, the ancient iron shuddering and grinding over the threshold as it was slowly forced open.
“Ha! A hard-won struggle,” said Rathina, gasping as the door finally clanked back on its hinges. She picked up the satchel and slapped Connor on the back. “’Twas well done, Master Connor! You have muscle and sinew after all, so it would seem.”
“Thanks,” said Connor. “Same to you. Tania? Are you okay to go inside, do you think?”
Tania nodded. Now that the iron door had been shifted, she was able to walk into the tower without too much discomfort.
She found herself in an open square vestibule. She traced the flashlight beam over a series of wooden doors that lined the four walls. A heavy wooden staircase went zigzagging up to a succession of galleries that jutted out all the way to the high roof of the tower.
Rathina strode across the floor and opened one of the doors. Tania shone the light inside. The room was large and filled with tables and lecterns and bookcases—and over every surface teemed a bewildering profusion of scrolls and books and parchments. Tomes and papers clogged every shelf, and even more spilled onto the floor.
“What a mess,” remarked Connor. “Bring the light over here, Tania.” He opened another door.
A similar scene of chaos met their eyes.
“I think we’re going to be here a while,” said Tania. She frowned. “I’d hoped we’d be able to get this done quickly. I can’t bear the thought of people suffering all over Faerie.”
Connor gazed into the heights of the tower. “If every room looks like this,” he said, “I think we’re going to be here for the next ten years!”
“Let us hope not,” murmured Rathina. “For who then shall still be alive?”
“Rathina! If I felt anything, I’d tell you!”
Tania had lost all track of time. It felt as if they’d been in the flint tower for hour upon fruitless hour. For want of any other system they had worked their laborious way from the ground up, entering every room on every gallery. Connor would let the light play over the chaotic shambles of discarded books and scrolls, and Tania would stare around the crammed shelves, hoping that something would catch her eye or that there would be a tingling in her head to indicate that the Kiss of Seeking was working.
In among the manuscripts and scrolls they also came occasionally upon curious little devices and instruments, ancient-looking and inscrutable—but clearly made from metal! Rathina had no explanation for how they might have come here, and all they could assume was that in distant times, they must have been brought through from the Mortal Realm to be studied. But by whom and why they could not guess. Tania was careful to avoid touching them.
But Rathina was clearly growing impatient with the long search. And she was not the only one. Tania wished Eden had explained how the Kiss of Seeking worked. Would she feel something if she came close to the thing they were looking for? Or did she have to make physical contact with it? And what was it? A book? A scroll or parchment? What?
It was all so vague—and this whole quest had only been set in motion because of a dream. If you would cure us all, seek the Lost Caer…
But what if the words Cordelia had spoken in the dream actually meant nothing? What then?
Rathina pulled open another door. Dust revolved slowly in the flashlight beam. Its light was growing yellowish, as if the batteries were beginning to run out.
And what happens then? Tania wondered as she stepped into the disordered room. How are we going to find whatever-it-is in the dark? She stared around at the clutter of documents and books.
She was about to leave when she felt a curious sensation in her fingers: a fierce tingling like pins and needles. She stopped, her eyes widening as she looked at Connor. Rathina had already moved on to the next door.
“What?” Connor asked. “Do you feel something?”
“Yes.” Tania reached out her arms and turned in a slow circle. The tingling became so sharp that she screwed up her eyes and bit her lip. She stepped toward a heaped table. An ivory-colored parchment scroll lay among others.
Her fingers prickled and buzzed as she touched it. She gasped. “This is it.”
Connor came into the room. “I’ll make some space so you c
an unroll it.” With a sweep of his arm he cleared half the table, the papers and books tumbling to the floor with a flurry of dust.
Tania unrolled the scroll and gently spread it out on the table. The tingling in her fingers was gone now—as if the power in the Kiss of Seeking had done its work and faded away.
“What have you found, sister?” Rathina leaned over her shoulder. “Spirits of lore! ’Tis a marvelous ancient artifact.”
The scroll was a map. It had been drawn on a length of cloth—linen or something similar—but time had stained the material to a musty brown, so that in darker brown places the depicted lands were hardly discernible in the murk.
The map showed two islands: one large and eccentrically shaped, the other smaller and more or less oval. The larger landmass was full of detail: Rivers and forests and mountains were graphically represented, and there were also many dots and small squares that Tania assumed were villages and castles. There was writing, too—presumably place names—but the script was in a language that Tania could not read. The other island was entirely blank.
“It’s the British Isles,” said Connor breathlessly. “What’s a map of the British Isles doing here? And why is it lying on its side?”
“Remember?” Tania said. “Faerie is like an exact replica of the UK—well, not exactly exact but pretty close. And why should north always be at the top, anyway?”
Connor blinked at her. “Fair point,” he said.
She leaned closer and found the curved line of the south coast. “That’s Veraglad Castle,” she said. “See the little building with the towers?” The palace was represented by a simple square with three narrow triangles on its top. She slid her finger along to a writhing line. “And that’s the River Tamesis—the Thames to you.”
“Wow,” said Connor. “So that’s London.”
“Where you come from it is,” Tania said. “But here it’s the Royal Palace.”
“So where are we now?”
Rathina leaned over and touched a fingertip to the map close to the center of Faerie. “We are here,” she said, her finger just beneath a black square with a half-moon dome on its top. “In the Earldom of Sinadon, between Lang Fells and the Bight of Damask.”