by Jane Yolen
As I got to about ten feet away, the Gate began to spit red and orange sparks, as if warning me to keep my distance. That close to the Gate, my head began to throb, signaling another headache on its way. But even from there, I could see the Gate was an impressive device made of some kind of metal—though not iron, or I’d already be fainting from the nearness of it.
Possibly silver. I thought. Or gold. Though it looked like neither, being a kind of dark gray. Too dark for silver, wrong dark for gold. Whatever metal, it was certainly sturdy and, in its own way, beautiful. Magick, even at its most horrific, always has a great beauty. That’s one of its glories, as Father says, one of the ways it seduces.
There were many panels on the Gate, each wrought with a fey design. The light was low because the hairy McGargles blocked much of the illumination that the single large hearth threw. All I really had for light with which to examine the Gate were a couple of torches near the Gate itself, about seven feet away on each side. So I could just about make out a rising phoenix on one panel, a dragon raining fire on another, a unicorn dipping its horn into a pool on a third, a chimera with glaring eyes on a fourth. But I couldn’t spot a handle or keyhole anywhere—which didn’t matter, as I had no key. Even if I’d had one, I wouldn’t have been able to get close enough to use it.
And, of course, I had no spell either.
Make something up, Prince Orybon had said.
But I simply didn’t know anything about the Gate, and I’d need information to make up a spell. Or at least I didn’t know anything yet. Maybe, I thought, not ever. That thought scared me most of all.
Without an idea of what to do next, I turned to the McGargles. “Tell me about the Gate,” I said slowly and as loudly as I could, hoping they’d understand me better that way. At the same time, I pointed at the Gate, though I expected nothing more than gabble from them.
“The Gate,” came a voice, coolly familiar, “is made of adamantine steel covered with a spell of No Egress. It has never been bent, moved, or tarnished under the weight of magick. Or at least never with what little magick the prince and I can muster down here in this misbegotten place.”
How Grey had managed to get here so fast was a puzzle. I couldn’t imagine that cool presence allowing himself to be carried by a McGargle, and he didn’t seem the least out of breath. But he held the torch high, and it didn’t waver even a tiny bit. That torch managed to light up the entire Gate, which was even more impressive now that I could see it whole.
“It is of Seelie design,” he added.
“Why not Unseelie design?” I asked. “Didn’t Prince Orybon’s father set it there?”
“Exactly.”
I was confused and said so. Or perhaps it was just my throbbing head that was making concentration difficult. “Why would the two courts work together?”
“Because they are not two separate courts at all, but one court long split over small Mutters that became large Matters. It is why child hostages were exchanged, me for Orybon’s youngest brother. No heirs or seconds to the throne—we called the seconds ‘spares’—could be sent away, you see. Makes us youngest ones useful and dispensable at the same time. Disposable, even, for here am I, disposed and deposed for all eternity.”
I said nothing. What he said and how he said it was too sad for comment. And I was afraid if I told him that I pitied him, he’d hate that. But probably my face showed it. Father always said that my face was as easy to read as a map.
As if he didn’t notice pity on my face, or chose to ignore it, Grey said, “There were three of them and three of us.” He paused. “Six princes in all.”
“You left that out of the story.”
“It was not important. Or did not seem so at the time. The Unseelie princes were Orybon, Fergus, and Tam, in that order. And the Seelie princes were Forest, River, and disposable me.”
“I knew you were a prince,” I said, “from what you’d said before about coming to the court.” I didn’t add that once I’d gotten past my fear of him, I’d also known he was a prince by his bearing. And his underlying beauty. This close, with the light from the torches, I could see that he was a very handsome man, with none of the snakelike, sinister quality that compromised Prince Orybon’s face.
He nodded. “A prince, but neither the heir nor the spare. So I did not really count.” He delivered this statement without any bitterness, just spoken plainly, all the while holding the torch higher. Now I could see how the Gate was shaped to the roundness of the tunnel, how it curved at either side and arched into the roof.
“Beautiful, is it not? And deadly to the touch, for Orybon, who was Cursed, and the monsters.”
“And for you?”
“I do not know,” he said.
“You don’t know?”
“I assume so. The king’s Curse was thorough. It covered Orybon and all he held dear. And as you know, I am . . .”
“Loyal.” I spoke the word softly. “So you said. However, my Father always maintains that a foolish loyalty serves neither person.”
His smile was both sardonic and sad. “Your Father is wise. For an elf.”
“You know he’s an elf?”
He smiled, not that sardonic smile this time but a genuine grin. “Finn’s Get, remember? You said elves never lie. But I knew you had elf blood the first time I saw you.” His right forefinger described a small arc, then pointed in my direction. “Your ears.”
I’d forgotten I’d admitted about Uncle Finn. But I was pleased Grey was also observant. Though I hid my ears under a mop of hair, I resembled Father in that way, not Mother. But I wasn’t going to let him see my pleasure. Hands on hips, I growled, “Well, Father is wise. Very wise. Much wiser than any of the rest of the Family.”
“And that includes Uncles and cousins, I suppose.” Now Grey was laughing at me.
I didn’t care. His hand was nowhere near his sword, because he didn’t need to defend his prince from me. Besides, he knew that, without my help—if compelled and forced labor could be called help—he and his prince might remain in the caves forever.
“It definitely includes Uncles and cousins,” I said. But I smiled to take away the sting of it.
“So, what else would you like to know about the Gate?”
“All of it. Everything you know. Everything the McGargles know. Everything.”
He set his torch into another holder near the Gate, but not too near, and we began to look at all the parts of the Gate, from the bottom—which we examined while lying on our stomachs—to the top. We even saw the top from the vantage of a McGargle’s shoulders, me on the left, Grey on the right. But always a good five to ten feet away from the Gate.
I ignored the headache. This was too important to let myself succumb to sickness. Just go on, I told myself. Grey has, for all these years. And Orybon. Surely you are as good as they. Or better.
Pointing out some of the panels on the Gate to me, Grey explained their meanings. He told me that the phoenix rises from a fire of its own ashes—which I knew—and that it was a metaphor for what the prince should be trying to do—which I didn’t.
He recited a poem about a unicorn that he said his little sister Rose had written. It began
“The pool is still, and deep, and dark.
We make our wishes, and our mark.”
• • • • • • • •
He told me a story about the last chimera and how it died.
By the time we were done inspecting the Gate—being careful never to touch any part of it or get within burn distance of the sparks—I was exhausted, and my head felt as if it had been caught in an iron cage. I knew only a little more than I’d started with, though I’d been entertained along the way with tales, poetry, and a song or two by my surprising Seelie cousin, who seemed to have read even more widely than I, though not—I hasten to add—any books fro
m the future. Since he hadn’t been able to bring any books along into exile, he’d had to do with the strong memories of books he’d read in the long ago. I was impressed by that.
As for the Gate, this is what I then knew: it was tall, reaching the ceiling, and molded perfectly to each part of the cave wall. There was no space to climb under it or over it without touching it, which was perilous for the princes and probably for me as well. I knew there was no key for the Gate. I knew there was no hammering the Gate down because it was guarded and warded by magick. And I knew this because in the years Grey and Orybon had been exiled, they’d tried everything, using the McGargles to do the touching stuff, which had killed any number of them.
I summed it up and then asked Grey, “Is there more?”
Grey looked at me as if drinking in my essence, which I found unnerving. Finally he said, “I will tell you everything else I know. Whether I think it means anything or not.”
“Fair enough,” I said, nodding.
“Nothing fair about it,” he said, sounding so remarkably like Father, my eyes filled with tears.
• • • • • • • •
We left the Gate and went back to the fire, the cave trolls giving us plenty of room. The hearth gave off a great deal of heat, as well as the strong smell. There were no chairs, but several stalagmites had been smoothed down, and they served as seats, though mighty uncomfortable ones. We sat, our knees almost touching, our backs to the flames.
Grey was telling me a final bit about the McGargles. “The tribe,” he said, “want to be able to run through the caves as they had in the great long ago, before this Gate was forced upon them. They want to be able to get out and graze on the berries and wild apples that grow in the meadows all around.” His fingers laced together as tight as a withy fence. “It is why they have been willing to sacrifice themselves, not for the prince, but for their tribe.” He sighed. “But it has been quite some time since we have explored the Gate. The McGargle losses were just too great. And even Orybon agreed that more hands-on examination was futile in the extreme—it was fast making for an angry peasantry that the two of us could only just manage to control with what glamour we could muster up together.” He finished speaking and looked down at his boots.
“I bet that annoyed him.” The fire on my back was suddenly too hot, and I began to squirm.
“I think it frightened him,” Grey said thoughtfully, rubbing a hand through his golden hair. “And that really annoyed him. He is not used to being frightened.”
“Just frightening.” I didn’t say what else I was thinking, that the prince hated not to be the one in control. But I was certain Grey already knew that.
He ignored my remark. It was as if he were the only one allowed to criticize Orybon. “So now you know it all,” he said, standing.
I stood, too, wondering, Do I? “Let me think about it for a while.”
“Think away, little cousin,” Grey said, walking far from the fire. I followed him, not trusting myself to be alone with the McGargles, in case I killed another of them.
Grey didn’t turn around, but he knew I was right behind him, for he kept on talking. “I, myself, have given up thinking about the Gate anymore. If Orybon would only truly repent—not that stupid recitation of ‘give in, regret, reproach, sorrow, stricken, remorse, and contrite,’ which he has honed over the years—we could be free. A true repentance is what is needed, for then the Gate would simply fall down. But I have no control over him, as you may have noticed.”
I ignored that, not wanting to give away what I did and didn’t notice or understand. “I don’t want to remain here forever,” I said.
“Neither do I,” Grey answered. “But wanting and getting are hard neighbors and bitter friends.”
“Maybe,” I said, “maybe now I know enough to try a spell and get through the Gate.”
He turned and stared at me. “Are you certain?”
I bit my lip. I had to be honest with him, because as much as he needed my help, I needed his. “No, not absolutely certain. But I have to start somewhere. And as you noted, time is on your side. Though . . .” I sighed, thinking about the christening and the breaking of the Oath of Bidding. “Though it may not be on mine.”
“The spell is supposed to be about regret, and there is none on Orybon’s part. He is like a child caught stealing sweets from the kitchen. The regret is only that he is caught, he has none for the deed. So there is your dilemma. I would not have you sacrificed on Orybon’s honor or lack of it.”
He had been totally honest about this, and so I had to give him back as much truth. His courage called out mine. “If I fail at this first hurdle, I don’t think I’ll burst into a thousand stars,” I said. “I think the magick will know I’m trying. The first spell will have to be about my regret, not the prince’s.”
“Ah.”
“And yours.”
He smiled. “Go on, then. I will stay close by while you try.”
So we walked back to the Gate, and once there, I closed my eyes. I began to see the spell as if it had been written out in front of me. Grey was right, it had to have regret built in, and sorrow, and something about the passage of years. It had to be well rhymed and brutally honest. I ran through it a second and a third time. It seemed pretty tight, and honest and true.
I was ready.
I went toward the Gate until it started spitting its orange bits of flame at me. Then I stopped, raised my arms, and began the spell.
Great-great-grandfather, spell for spell,
There’s something that I have to tell:
Regret, remorse, imprint these walls.
And every little fey who falls
By trap, by accident, design,
Is caught in magick so malign,
That she is in true danger grave
Unless she can escape this cave.
So help me now confound this fate
By opening the magick Gate.
And then I added, in case that wasn’t strong enough, our regular Shouting Fey Spell of Opening, which was related to the trunk spell.
Come thou, door and gate,
Open up, do not be late,
All out!
I raised my voice on the last two words, but didn’t Shout. I was saving the Shout for later, should it be needed.
The Gate groaned, and clattered a bit, and for a moment, I thought it might open.
But then, as if it had given us all it could, it went silent again.
“Well,” Grey said, “I suppose we shouldn’t have expected it to be that easy.”
My disappointment must have showed on my face, for he added, “It was a good spell, though, Pudding. Still, you are not yet the magick maker that my uncle is.”
Or was, I thought. For if Orybon’s father, who made the original spell for the Gate, was as dead as I believed him to be, I should never have mentioned him at all. But it was too late to explain this to Grey, for already my headache had announced itself again. This time, it felt as if an iron blade had pierced my skull. Surely, it would be another day before I’d be able to do anything other than stay in bed whimpering.
If there was a bed to stay in.
• 11 •
DREAM
Seeing I was about to fall over, Grey picked me up and carried me from the Gate. We were no longer enemies, but still far from friends, even bitter ones. More like comrades thrown together in a war.
He found me a bed of moss undisguised by glamour.
I thought, As long as it is soft.
One of the little McGargles came over and crawled in beside me, like some kind of tame baby bear. For a moment, I thought about kicking it away, afraid the smell would make me sicker. It turned out little trolls are not very hairy or smelly at all, sort of a mix between a rabbit smell and a red squirrel. I strok
ed its head, and it made a kind of rumbly-bumbly noise that seemed to resonate through its bones and into mine, soothing my poor head a bit. We snuggled together and Grey shrugged out of his jacket and put it on top of the two of us.
How much nicer the smelly McGargles seemed than Orybon, who’d ruled over them for so many years. They were simple, uncomplicated, joyous. If I could open the Gate and only let the tribe range free again, I’d be doing them a huge favor. And maybe, just maybe, that would make amends for killing one of them. If the prince and Grey got out of the cave as well, I wouldn’t complain. It would save me from bursting into a thousand stars.
But how to bring the Gate down without killing us all?
How to convince my Great-great-grandfather—if he was still alive—to take back his not-quite-regretful son and heir?
Or if Great-great-grandfather was dead and gone, and the rest of the Under the Hill folk with him, could I persuade the Aunts to take in the two unpredictable Seelie/Unseelie men?
And how long was it going to take?
I’d more questions than answers. And it all began with getting past that Gate.
Giving the little McGargle a soft pat on the head, and wrinkling my nose just a bit, I closed my eyes.
• • • • • • • •
I fell headlong into a dream. In it, I was a hostage in a high stone castle looking deep into a hearth fire that shed no warmth and little light. In the center of the hall, a chimera fought with a knight in gray armor for the kingdom’s crown. I jumped up, raced between them. Snatching the crown from the throne, I threw it at the castle door, where it exploded in a burst of stars.
I woke before I could see if the dream door was completely down. The baby McGargle was fast asleep next to me in the moss, thumb in its mouth. I’d no idea how long I’d slept, but my head seemed reasonably clear. That, if nothing else, was a great start for the escape.
Careful not to unsettle the little troll, I crawled out of the moss bed, all the while thinking, Dreams can be read like a book. How often Father had told me that. Everything in a dream has its counterpart in life, though one must puzzle it out. I’d found out more about dream reading in the D section of the library, and understood then it was not just a fancy of Father’s but something that people far in the future know for a fact.