A Place Beyond The Map

by Samuel Thews

  To say that Phinnegan felt uneasy about the cordial glass in his hand would only be telling the half of it. His fingers tightened on the stem of the glass as he watched Periwinkle disappear into a dizzying whirl of Faë as they danced to an unheard song. His eyes flicked to the glass and a debate raged inside him about whether he should drink it.

  It was then that the feeling of being watched began to creep up his spine. Turning, he saw one of the giants that inhabited this castle, large and brutish, but with an intelligent eye pondering him warily, a grim frown upon its face.

  Phinnegan feared the worst from the start, as anyone would who had just had their head filled with the dislike the giants have for humans, and Faë, and the somewhat questionable nature of his disguise. Could the giant have heard him whispering to Periwinkle and somehow discovered that he was not what he appeared?

  When their eyes met, Phinnegan forcefully swallowed the lump in his throat. The giant gestured clumsily in Phinnegan’s direction, pretending to drink from an invisible glass. Phinnegan made no move, and the giant gestured again, more urgently emphasizing the entire motion with a throaty grunt.

  Taking the giant’s meaning, Phinnegan raised the glass shakily to his lips and tilted his head back. The liquid trickled across his tongue to the back of his mouth and ran down his throat. It was thicker than he expected, not quite a syrup, but almost. It was sweet to the tongue, but bit sharply and left a lingering warmness in the back of his throat.

  Phinnegan lowered his glass and looked to the giant, who nodded curtly and then simply walked away.

  In the first moments after drinking the liquid, nothing appeared to happen to Phinnegan. The warm sensation in his throat lessened slightly and the sweet aftertaste lingered precipitously on his tongue. Around him the Faë still danced and hooted, but he heard no music. He blinked once, then twice, but his eyes opened each time upon the same scene. Peering into the empty glass, he assured himself that he had indeed drunk every last drop. Out of frustration, he sighed and released the glass, letting it fall towards the ground.

  As he sighed, he noticed that his tongue was thick and heavy. His other senses soon followed suit; his eyes could not focus and the sounds of the Faë came to his ears as if through a thin wall. He stepped back in a moment of dizziness and nearly lost his balance.

  Phinnegan tried to catch the eye of Periwinkle or Crimson, but to no avail. For one, he could not focus on any face well enough to recognize either Faë. But making the task even more difficult was the swimming room about him, where everything moved as if in slow motion. Fighting a nauseous feeling, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

  The sounds remained muffled, growing fainter until all at once the world was quiet around him. He felt no breeze, but he was suddenly cold. A shiver raced up his spine and his teeth threatened to chatter.

  Just as the voices of the Faë faded completely, he heard a new sound. Faintly at first, but growing in strength, a single fiddle sang a bewitching melody, beckoning him to follow. Follow where?

  He opened his eyes to total darkness save for a spot of warm, orange-tinted light, just visible in the distance. The sound of the fiddle was faint, but he guessed that it shared the same source as this small speck of light. The melody quickened its pace, belying the urgency with which it beckoned. The melody was not unlike the one he had heard in his bedroom some few nights past.

  One step and then two, Phinnegan moved towards the source of the light. Yet, the light did not seem any closer. Several steps more, but the light still seemed just as distant. He looked down at his feet and took two more steps forward.

  But his feet did not move.

  Phinnegan felt that he should be afraid, but the melody calmed him. But how to get himself to the light was a tricky problem indeed. He felt drawn to it, as though the fiddle whispered his name, again and again. In a moment of inspiration, he thought to do a thing that would have made no sense a few days ago, but the strange ways of this world required a different perspective.

  He called back. Not vocally, but with his mind, focusing on the melody of the fiddle, desiring that he should come nearer to it.

  Suddenly, his eyes sensed that he had lurched forward, though he did not feel himself move. Peering at the light, he saw that it was indeed closer and the fiddle was louder. He kept his mind focused on the sound of the fiddle and watched as the spot of light grew and grew until he was almost to it – but something blocked his path.

  A thick wall of nearly opaque glass stretched as far as the eye could see in any direction. Phinnegan noticed that he no longer felt chilled, and was in fact quite warm here in front of this glass wall. The light he had followed was bright and the sound of the fiddle filled the air around him, giving the impression that both were just on the other side.

  Phinnegan stepped closer to the glass, placing his cheek against it. The glass was warm, almost hot. He looked for a door or any opening that would allow him to pass through, but he found none. When he rapped the glass with his knuckle, the resulting sound was high-pitched, indicating the solid thickness of the glass.

  “Hello?” he said quietly, reaching out to touch the wall with the tips of his fingers.

  And then, so suddenly that the silence seemed to thunder like a cannon, the violin stopped, just as the light vanished from behind the glass. The cold returned and Phinnegan drew a sharp breath. He was once again plunged into darkness.

  “Hello?” he whispered. He moved his hand closer in the direction of the glass, but stopped just before touching it. He had heard something. It was there and then gone, a high-pitched tink like a pebble hitting a window. Then there it was again, this time high above his head. Several more followed, to his right and his left, racing towards him and away, and spreading everywhere in between.

  The glass was cracking.

  Not an instant too late, Phinnegan flung his arms in front of his face as a shield, for the glass shattered, exploding into a myriad of tiny fragments. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the fragments of shattered glass to come crashing down around him. But they never did.

  When the fiddle began to play again it was loud and clear. The song was now lively and jovial, and just as the first was finished, a second fiddle joined in accompaniment. When the first pair of hands clapped in time with the beat of the song, Phinnegan barely recognized it for what it was. A second pair joined, then a third and a fourth, and so on until Phinnegan was surrounded by clapping hands.

  But once again, everything stopped. However, only for a moment for the fiddle sprung into wild and frenzied song, joined by a flute, tom-toms and an uproarious yell.

  Phinnegan dropped his arms and opened his eyes. He was back in the courtyard with dancing Faë as far as the eye could see. But above this marvelous din, Phinnegan heard the sound of breaking glass.

  He looked down to see the glass which had held the strange, caramel brown liquid shattering on the ground.

  A glass he would have sworn he dropped some time ago.

  CHAPTER 16

  A-Door-Within-A-Door

  Phinnegan stared at the broken glass at his feet and tried to make sense of the last half hour or so. Or at least, what felt like half an hour. He remembered dropping the glass, but in his memory he had dropped it some time ago, before his strange journey through the darkness chasing a spot of light and a lone fiddle

  The fiddle. The music. His head snapped up and he took in the courtyard once again. Yes, it was the same, but then it was altogether different.

  The music was the most noticeable change. He could hear it now, and in spite of his confusion, Phinnegan smiled and filled with a sense of happiness as the music washed over him. He loved the fiddle, the airs and the chords. Those being played now were like none he had ever heard. But the music was only the beginning.

  The brightly colored Faë he had seen before were now a whirling harmony of shades and hues that was beyond his comprehension only yesterday. Even now, though he could discern their differences, he had no name
s for these colors. There were greens and reds and blues and yellows, just as there had been before, but now there were others, combinations and mixtures of colors, but not themselves a color like any he could have put a name to.

  Beyond just the Faë themselves, everything around him was vibrant and surreal; even the air defied description, being at the same time crisp like an autumn morning and fragrant as a summer’s eve. No wonder the Faë loved this festival.

  Quick as a cat, a hand grasped his forearm. The grip was gentle but with a strength that could not be ignored. Phinnegan was pulled into a ring of dancing Faë, each of his hands clasped to those of a beautiful female Faë, her bright-green hair long and straight.

  “You looked quite alone, standing there,” she said, with a small smile and a wink. “I thought surely you would like to dance.”

  Phinnegan was dumbfounded, but had no choice but to dance along. She was an inch or two shorter than him, and looked up at him with equally bright-green eyes.

  “I am called Emerald.”

  Phinnegan started to offer his own name in reply, but caught himself, remembering the warnings of Periwinkle and Crimson. She laughed at his caution and leaned close so that only he could hear.

  “A bit shy, are we? Or just cautious?” Her eyes narrowed slightly, a playful wariness crinkling her brow. “Very well. I’ve always found the mysterious to be attractive anyway.”

  Phinnegan liked her. Perhaps it was the small pursed lips of her mouth or the long eyelashes that fluttered and veiled her green eyes, he could not tell which. He was not accustomed to prolonged eye contact, his books normally occupying his gaze. But he found it easy to stare into those twin pools of emerald-green. So easy in fact that he forgot about the music, continuing to dance once the song had ended.

  “Another, another!” she cried, dropping Phinnegan’s hands to join the Faë around them in applauding the musicians, who Phinnegan spied now on a raised platform some distance to his left. When they picked up their instruments and the music began again, she turned to him and took his hands eagerly.

  “Oh! This is one of my favorites.” And just like that, Phinnegan was dancing once again among the Faë.

  Phinnegan did not know how to truly dance. But to the Faë, dancing was nothing so formal and was more akin to the spinning and frolicking of young children. As far as Phinnegan was concerned, this was as it should be. He had soon forgotten his troubles, and even laughed when one over-exuberant Faë spun himself until so dizzy he could no longer stand, dragging his partner down with him.

  “Your laugh is quite strange,” Emerald said abruptly, eyeing him again with that same playful wariness. “I’ve never heard anything quite like it…Ah, don’t look so sad! I think it’s cute.”

  Phinnegan’s heart beat in alarm. He feared that he had destroyed the Mask with a simple laugh. The fact that she thought his laugh cute did not even register with him; his mind had already given in to panic. He looked around nervously, but could not find a single eye upon him. But just as his face relaxed, a hand clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Is this one causing you any trouble?”

  Phinnegan’s shoulder sagged with relief. The voice was Periwinkle’s. There was a pause as her smile faltered when her eyes fell upon Periwinkle.

  “No trouble at all,” she said finally, her smallish smile returning. “On the contrary, he’s been the perfect gentleman, though a bit quiet.”

  “Ah well, he is a bit shy, you see. Not too many Faë as fair as yourself where he comes from,” Periwinkle said, bowing slightly to the green-haired Faë, who returned the gesture with her own bow.

  “And I am quite sure given some time he’d be very happy to know you better, but alas, I must borrow him for the moment.” Emerald nodded and then to Phinnegan’s surprise, abruptly leaned forward, her hand brushing his chest just above the pocket on his shirt, and kissed him warmly upon the cheek.

  “It has been a pleasure,” she said before turning and disappearing into the ever-moving crowd of Faë. Phinnegan tried to catch a glimpse of her once again, and thought he saw a flash of her distinct color of green, but he was jerked roughly by Phinnegan.

  “Come on, come on. No time to lose, mate. You would waste your time dancing, wouldn’t you? We must hurry.”

  “What are you talking about?” Phinnegan managed to whisper as Periwinkle pulled him through the throng. “I’ve only been dancing for a few minutes.”

  “A few minutes? Check the sun, mate. We got here mid-day if not a bit earlier and it’s late afternoon. You’ve been at it for hours.” Phinnegan caught a glimpse of the sun’s position in the sky just before Periwinkle pulled him into the castle, shutting a large wooden door behind him. As the Faë had said, the sun was just visible over the rampart, but was almost out of sight.

  “Well, it felt like only a few minutes,” Phinnegan mumbled.

  “Time is slippery here, especially when on the drink. Which is why we must hurry. They’ll lock the doors at sunset, and we want to be mingling out there and not trapped in here when that time comes.”

  The two scurried along through the hallways, their footsteps echoing throughout the cavernous castle. Periwinkle pulled Phinnegan along pausing now and then at an intersection before darting in one direction or the other.

  “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “Certainly I do,” Periwinkle said, without so much as looking in Phinnegan’s direction. “Crimson and I already scouted the castle while you were fraternizing with the ladies. He’s waiting up ahead, outside the chamber.”

  “What chamber?”

  “The chamber that holds the stone.”

  Phinnegan mumbled that he was sorry and that he had most certainly not been fraternizing at all, but the Faë either did not hear him or did not care. His brow was furrowed and he chewed his lip, contemplating a particular intersection in the hallways. It was quite a change to see him so serious.

  Several minutes and two turns later, they found themselves in a hallway wider than the others, with floors covered by luxurious carpets. Torches longer than Phinnegan was tall dotted the walls on either side, bathing the hallway in orange light. In the spans between the torches, paintings as large as the side of a house stretched from floor to ceiling. At the far end of the hall, Phinnegan could make out two large wooden doors. As they came closer, the wood was shown to be gnarled vines woven into a single piece.

  “The doors are made of vines?” he questioned more than stated as they approached the doors.

  “Aye. Indestructible by any magic that I possess, and resistant to fire as well.” Phinnegan’s hand stretched out towards the doors as the Faë spoke.

  “Don’t touch them!,” Crimson snapped appearing from the shadows and causing Phinnegan to jerk his hand back just before his fingertips touched the doors. “Their skin is poisonous to Faë and I would wager humans as well. I doubt you want to test it.”

  Phinnegan could only stare at his fingers. How close they had been.

  “If we can’t touch the doors, then how are we to get in there?” Phinnegan looked to see the knobs of the two great doors some two or three feet out of his reach. “And even if we could touch them without being burned-“

  “Poisoned,” Periwinkle interjected.

  “Right,” Phinnegan said. “Poisoned. Either way, we can’t even reach the handles to open them.”

  “First off, mate, we won’t be doing anything. Door or not, if Crimson or myself were to step across that threshold,” he paused, drawing a finger across his neck and making a choking sound. “So let’s be clear. You wouldn’t be able to reach the knobs of the door.”

  “Me, you, we,” Phinnegan shot back. “None of us can reach it to get in there.”

  The two Faë were silent for a few moments, and Phinnegan felt a twinge of sadness that he may not be able to go home, at least not how they had planned. But a sly smile crept across Crimson’s face as he stepped back and pointed to a section of the right-hand door that was the same, yet, s
omehow different than the rest.

  “How about through here?”

  Phinnegan glanced warily at the red-haired Faë, but stepped closer, peering at this same but different section of the door. His hand moved to touch it, but he halted, instead leaning closer, casting his eyes about the section until he discerned that its shape was rectangular, not unlike that of a door. A small door. His eyes flicked to the right-most edge where, sure enough, an edge was just discernable.

  “Another door,” he whispered.

  “That it is,” Periwinkle replied with a satisfied grin upon his face. “A door-within-a-door.”

  “But how are we, I mean, how am I to open it? I still cannot touch the door.” The two Faë were silent but Phinnegan caught the wink and nod from Periwinkle to Crimson. “Can I?”

  “Look just there,” Crimson said, pointing to a specific leaf on the vines that ran through the center of the door-within-the-door. Phinnegan stared for several moments before he began to notice the differences between this leaf and those around it. While the other leaves were brown, this one maintained a slight hue of green. The veins of this leaf ran diagonally to the left, while those on the surrounding leaves ran diagonally to the right. The more that Phinnegan observed the leaves, the more this one leaf began to look nothing like the others.

  “Do you see?” asked Crimson.

  “It’s…different,” he said, still comparing this one leaf to the others.

  “Indeed,” Periwinkle said, joining the other two just in front of the door-within-the-door. “It’s the one leaf, the one spot, on this whole death trap of a door that is not covered by a spell or the vine’s own poison. That,” he finished dramatically, “is how you will get in. You need only to give it a little push.

  Without thinking, Phinnegan lifted his hand and was just about to press the leaf when it occurred to him that this all seemed rather odd. And quite convenient.

  “What’s the hold-up, mate? You must hurry. Press the leaf,” Periwinkle urged, turning his head this way and that, checking the three hallways that led to the spot where they stood.