A Place Beyond The Map

by Samuel Thews

  “Perhaps it is hidden.”

  “Hidden? What do you mean?” Phinnegan turned the book over in his hands but Emerald shook her head.

  “Not like that. The words, they could be encoded somehow, intended to make someone ignore them, to make someone think they could not read it. That book contains many secrets - powerful secrets. And they are hidden in ways most will never find them. But…”

  “But what?” Phinnegan interrupted, impatient for some way to read the text that had appeared.

  “But, given the timing of this text, appearing just as it has on this day, just as the bell pealed the hour, I think it is only a simple message and would guess it appears every year on this day. Though, as we have seen, few still could see it, let alone read it.”

  “What is so special about today, anyway?”

  “It’s the equinox.”

  “The equinox?” Phinnegan said, wrinkling his brow. “That’s not possible. It’ll be only a month ‘til Christmas now. The next equinox isn’t for four months yet.”

  “Not so,” Emerald said, smiling softly. “Although our worlds are connected, time passes differently between them. They are not at all in sync. Here, today is the equinox, and it is the only day of the year when legend says the Gate can be opened.” She nodded toward the book in Phinnegan’s hands. “And as you are one of the only ways that the Gate can be opened, I’d guess that book has some instruction for you.” She paused and her eyes passed between colors. “Or a warning.”

  Phinnegan swallowed and looked down at the book.

  “Well, how are we going to figure out what it says?” he asked quietly, enlisting the Faë’s help with the question.

  “We shall just have to try some common ciphers. I can’t believe it would be too hard to get through.”

  “What’s a common cipher?”

  “One is a simple substitution pattern where each letter is replaced with another letter. The easiest is by reversing the alphabet. But these are usually obvious as there will be numerous Zs replacing As.”

  “There aren’t any Zs.”

  “Here, why don’t you copy it out so that I can see it? There should be paper and ink in the writing desk.”

  Phinnegan got up from his place by the fire and followed the Faë to the writing desk. Here they found paper, a quill and a nearly empty bottle of ink. Still, there was enough ink for Phinnegan to scribble out the coded message for Emerald to see.

  Abe ar eroft hema rkm ay

  Att heapp oint edit mean datth ea ppo inte dpl ace

  Co meupo nanen tran cetot hep ath

  Emba rkin gupo nthi spat hmus tno tbet ake nlig htl y

  Fo rtheg uar dia nwith inw illpur geth osed ee medu now rth y

  Theb ear ermus ten terw illin gly

  Th ebe arerm usten tera lon e

  After only a moment, a wry smile began to curl her lips.

  “It truly is quite simple.”

  “Simple?” Phinnegan said, with a frown, upset that she could see through this code so quickly. “How? What do you see?”

  “Look here,” she said, pointing to the first line of the script. “What if you shifted things about?”

  “You mean shuffle the letters about like a puzzle?”

  “No, not quite. Not shuffle, shift. Write the first line again, this time with no spaces. He did as she asked, now looking at something even more unusual.

  Abearerofthemarkmay

  “Now, give me the quill.”

  Phinnegan passed the quill to the Faë and watched as she drew several quick lines between the letters of the first line. When she handed the paper back to him, Phinnegan sucked in a breath.

  “Brilliant,” he whispered. Even with the letter’s jumbled together, the lines that Emerald had drawn made it perfectly legible.

  A|bearer|of|the|mark|may

  “Here, you finish the rest,” Emerald said, offering him the quill. Phinnegan hesitated a few moments over the first line, but soon he grew accustomed to the simple cipher and divided the letters in each line into intelligible words. He then wrote each line correctly spaced, revealing the cipher’s secret.

  A bearer of the mark may

  At the appointed time and at the appointed place

  Come upon an entrance to the path

  Embarking upon this path must not be taken lightly

  For the guardian within will purge those deemed unworthy

  The bearer must enter willingly

  The bearer must enter alone

  Sentences constructed of familiar words brought a smile to Phinnegan’s lips.

  “Don’t get arrogant,” the Faë scolded. “This is an incredibly simple cipher. The hidden nature of the text itself protects it more than the cipher.”

  Phinnegan frowned as he read the words twice more.

  “I’m still not sure what it means.”

  “Aren’t you?” Emerald asked. “Hear, follow along.” She drew close to him.

  “It seems simple enough. The first line is talking about you, a ‘bearer of the mark’. The next two lines describe the present - it is the appointed time and this is the appointed place. The First Gate is the entrance. The rest…a warning to you, with the last line being very clear.”

  “Yes,” Phinnegan said quietly. “I suppose it isn’t all that difficult after all. But…how could I enter alone? I’ve already said I would help him, you know, your father.”

  Emerald snapped an icy glance in his direction.

  “Yes, and as I said, a fool’s mistake. You have no idea the power that lies beyond the Gate. Nor do you understand the rules that govern our world. Bargains that are made at certain times cannot be broken. A bargain made at a feast is one of the most sacred.”

  “So…if I opened the Gate for him, he would have to send me home?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “Perhaps. Although as much as bargains are considered sacrosanct, so is the art of not fulfilling one’s own end but without breaking the bargain.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, think back to dinner. Did you actually promise to let Vermillion enter the Gate?” Phinnegan thought back to the dinner and replayed the words that Vermillion had spoken to him.

  “No, I didn’t,” Phinnegan said at last. “But I did agree to help him open it. How am I supposed to stop him from entering?”

  “I am afraid I have no answer to that. It is something you must discover for yourself. I may have helped you too much already.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I must go,” she said quietly, stepping toward the door. Phinnegan remained at the writing desk, the paper clutched in his fingers.

  “Oh, and Phinnegan,” the Faë spoke just as she reached the door, turning back to regard him over her shoulder.

  “Yes,” he responded, a hopeful tone in his voice.

  “Be careful once you have passed through the Gate. The book mentions a guardian. You never know what you may find – or what may find you.”

  CHAPTER 27

  The First Gate

  Phinnegan was awakened from a restless sleep by the shrill cries of birds outside the window of his chambers. He listened to their early morning banter for several minutes, drawing more calm and energy from that brief span than he had during the entire night. Although he had tried to sleep, he had met with little success. Vermillion haunted his mind the entire night, first in one form and then another.

  He counted the peals when the castle’s bells rang the hour.

  Seven.

  Vermillion had told him the night before at dinner that the ceremony to open the Gate would begin promptly at eight.

  Only one more hour.

  A sharp rap at the door startled him. Escaping from beneath the ivory silk sheets, he called out for the person to enter. The same servant from the night before entered, an elegant silver tray held in his right hand.

  “Breakfast, little master,” the servant said, his tone mocking the honorific that many of the Aged had bestowed upon him the prev
ious night.

  “Put it over there,” Phinnegan directed, pointing towards the small table between the chairs that sat in front of the fire.

  “Of course,” the servant sneered, striding with his nose in the air to the appointed spot.

  “Will you require anything else?”

  When Phinnegan shook his head no, the servant presented a stiff bending of the neck before striding from the room, closing the door behind him.

  Despite feelings swirling within him about the day’s coming events, Phinnegan was quite hungry. Even with the domed cover, also made of silver, covering the tray, a hint of the aroma of fresh bread wafted from it. When he lifted the cover, the smells assailed his nose, causing his hunger to grow.

  The breakfast was simple, but elegant. A still-steaming small bread loaf filled one side of the platter, while the other contained a smattering of brightly colored berries, still fresh on the vine. In the center, a half moon clod of deep yellow butter rested on a square stone plate.

  He tore ravenously into the bread, using the provided knife to spread the butter liberally over each chunk of bread he ripped from the loaf. Before long, the loaf was nearly gone. Taking the vines of berries into his hands, he took them to the window ledge of his room. Looking out he saw that his room faced the castle’s gardens. Lush greenery and flowers in all shapes, sizes and colors greeted the morning with vigor.

  A single peal of the bell broke the silence, and Phinnegan paused with a ripe purple berry paused just in front of his lips.

  That’ll be the quarter-hour bell, I’d guess.

  Fifteen-minutes had already passed while he had eaten breakfast. Now, only forty-five minutes stood between Phinnegan and the Gate. The Gate and Vermillion.

  He stomached the remaining berries before stripping and washing up in the provided basin. The water was cold and goose bumps peppered out on his skin as he washed.

  He donned his travelling clothes, just as the bell sounded again.

  Half-past.

  Phinnegan hurriedly recovered the leather-bound book given to him by Asher. The paper that he and Emerald had deciphered the riddle on marked the page where he had seen the writing the night before. He quickly scanned the paper, revisiting each line and the warnings contained therein.

  But when he glanced at the page in the book, he saw that the words had vanished. Fumbling, he flipped through the pages nearest the end of the book, searching for the passage.

  Yet they were nowhere to be found.

  Emerald had been right. The words had appeared at midnight providing the book’s bearer a warning before vanishing into the stark pages once again.

  Laying the book aside, he returned his attention to the paper with his writing and Emerald’s lines. The final line stood out to him. Alone. But to enter alone would surely destroy any chance of going home. Whether he had ever actually promised to allow Vermillion to enter, the mad tyrant surely wouldn’t help him if he felt cheated.

  Allow. He snorted to himself at the ridiculousness of the thought. Allow Vermillion to enter? How could he possible stop him?

  The gears of his mind turning, he tossed the paper into the remaining embers of the fire and watched to be sure that the paper took light.

  Reaching for the book, Phinnegan started where he sat. There, on the page that had been blank only moments before, one line of scribbled text had appeared.

  TH EYA RECO MING.

  It took Phinnegan only a moment to decipher the thinly veiled message - just in enough time for his hackles to rise before the bell pealed loudly a third time an instant before an insistent knock struck the door.

  Phinnegan was led on a winding path through the castle’s corridors. The journey was made darkly eerie by the complete absence of any signs of life, besides the guards that led Phinnegan, one just off each shoulder. At least he guessed they were guards. They wore snugly fitting dark-grey tunics and trousers. Their hair was an inky black, straight and falling to their shoulders. Their skin was pale and their eyes a flat grey, staring straight ahead the entire time that they led him through the castle. He wondered if perhaps they too were some type of gholem. It saddened him to think that Emerald could meet this same fate, pale and lifeless with an emotionless stare.

  Just as he thought of her, the green-haired Faë appeared, leaning causally against a thick marble column on one side of two large wooden doors. Phinnegan saw through the large windows on either side that the doors led outside.

  “Father is ready for him,” she said coolly. “I will take him the rest of the way.” The two black-haired guards nodded stiffly and spun on their heels, striding off in the direction they had come.

  “Come,” she said softly. “It is nearly time and my father loathes tardiness. Almost as much as weakness.”

  “The book spoke to me again,” Phinnegan whispered as he moved to stand beside her.

  “What did it say?”

  “They are coming.”

  The Faë-gholem regarded him with a raised eyebrow.

  “Truly,” she began, interrupting herself to ram the large knocker on the door twice, sending a low reverberation into the air around them. “That book holds many secrets. I’ve never known anything of magic to speak so directly, so presently.”

  When the large doors in front of them began to open, she turned for a moment, locking her now bright green eyes on his.

  “My father must not pass through the Gate.”

  Phinnegan never had a chance to respond, for the doors swung outward on their great hinges, revealing a large stone terrace. Hundreds of Aged stopped and stared at the Faë-gholem and the human boy. In silence, they moved to the sides of the terrace, leaving a large opening through the center. Beyond, large steps led down from the terrace into the gardens. A path led from the stairs, splitting in two to go around a large fountain. Beyond the fountain, the path led to a second, perpendicular path, which ran off in each direction. To the far right and far left, the path split into numerous smaller paths, which weaved in and out amongst statues, flowering trees, fountains and other displays of wealth and luxury.

  But in the center, where the path leading from the terrace met the perpendicular path, a massive hedge stood. The hedge was easily three or four times the height of a man, and its walls spread in each direction two-hundred feet or more. From his height at the top of the terrace, Phinnegan could not quite see over the top of the hedge to judge its depth.

  On the wall of this hedge running parallel to the path, stood a large black gate. The gate spanned the entire distance from the ground to the very top of the hedge. It was constructed of thick iron bars running both vertically and horizontally, forming small squares like a great metal lattice. Even from this distance, the evidence of age was heavy. Rust marked the hinges and thick gnarled vines had long ago spread from the hedge to worm their way through the bars and cover the entire façade. No leaves grew on the vines, only their thick, gnarled and knobby limbs remained.

  Standing just before it was Vermillion, bedecked in resplendent red robes, his grey-flecked red hair rippling in the morning breeze.

  It was a foreboding sight and Phinnegan swallowed hard as he took the first steps across the terrace, following the Faë-gholem as she led him toward her father. As they descended the steps from the terrace, the Gate loomed larger and larger. From this reduced height, the true size of the Gate and the hedge was more readily apparent. It was truly enormous.

  When the pair finally reached the bottom of the stairs and navigated around the large fountain, they approached Vermillion, who stood some twenty feet from the Gate, his hands clasped behind his back and a broad smile on his face.

  “Thank you, daughter. You have brought him just in time.”

  As if on command, the castle’s bells promptly tolled the hour. Eight long peals broke the still morning before fading into the breeze.

  Vermillion, with an uncharacteristic lack of pomp and circumstance, turned to face the Gate. Emerald backed away, but not before sharing one final l
ook with Phinnegan. Drawing a steady breath, Phinnegan approached the Gate to stand beside the red-garbed figure.

  “Your Highness, what-“ Phinnegan, began but a raised hand silenced him.

  “Patience. Even now the moment arrives.”

  Phinnegan followed Vermillion’s gaze to the very top of the gate. A circle of light had just appeared there and he turned to see the sun peeking through a hole in one of the tallest parts of the castle. Turning back, he saw the circle move slowly down the front of the Gate as the sun rose in the sky, the changing angle causing the circular light to move downward.

  Approximately a quarter of the way down the height of the Gate, the light reached a golden square set into one of the squares formed by the criss-crossing iron bars. It appeared to have writing or some structured design upon it but it was illegible from where they stood.

  Like a muffled crack of thunder, a sharp thud of metal-on-metal came from the Gate, piercing the quiet. Phinnegan saw no change in the Gate at first, but then only four feet from the ground an intricate disc presented itself. Even at a distance of twenty-feet, Phinnegan’s stomach flipped as he discerned the pattern presented on the disc’s center. He recognized it immediately as the same pattern now etched into his fingertip.

  “The Gate has shown us the Mark,” Vermillion thundered, causing Phinnegan to cringe. When the reddish-brown eyes turned toward him, Phinnegan shivered.

  “Go on then,” Vermillion urged him in a low tone. “The Mark will remain visible for a short time only. We have an accord, do we not?” The eyes narrowed and the intended whisper came out in a snarl.

  “Now!”

  Phinnegan leapt forward at Vermillion’s command, but soon slowed to a walk as he approached the Gate. Its iron bars now loomed before him, high overhead. When he stood just before it, the disc only a few feet away, he turned back to see Vermillion’s heated gaze still upon him, willing him forward. Just behind him, Emerald stood. A slight nod was the only form of encouragement she dared.