by Jane Yolen
I hissed at him, saying my name like that, calling me stupid, saying what he did about Grey. Though, surprisingly, the only thing I taxed him with was the last. “Grey’s under an Oath as binding as mine,” I said. “And has been since he was thirteen years old. He doesn’t do things for the prince out of love or even out of loyalty, but because he must, or he’ll be turned into a thousand stars.”
In that single moment, Dusty’s face went from pinched anger to real compassion. He always flares up and down like that. He sat again and said in a gentled voice, “Then what do we do?”
Grey pulled us in by saying confidently, “We read the dream aright. And then we follow its instruction.”
“But . . . but . . .” Dusty began, but it was clear his heart was no longer in his protest.
“Tell us the dream again,” Grey said, “only more slowly and completely. Leave nothing out.”
And so I did.
• 14 •
A FLIGHT OF BATS
It must have been evening by the time we got back to the Gate, for we were suddenly engulfed in a new dark wind whooshing up toward the vaulted ceiling and out through the hole so far above us.
“What’s that?” Dusty asked, sounding at once startled and interested.
“Bats,” Grey and I said together.
“Does it frighten you, little cousin?” asked Orybon, who seemed to have suddenly become visible, as if he’d been wearing my Cloak, though it was bound around my waist and still not working. I realized later that the prince must have just been leaning against the wall and staring at the Gate, and we’d passed by him without noticing. Not magick after all.
“Bats don’t scare me,” said Dusty, pinched face half turned to glare at the prince.
“But I should,” Orybon said.
“You’re trying to sound like the villain in a faerie tale,” I pointed out. “But Dusty and I have both heard enough of those to know what happens to such folk. Red-hot iron shoes, barrels full of snakes, and—”
“Pushed into an oven,” Grey added.
“This is not a children’s tale,” Orybon said petulantly, and then must have thought better of his tone, and laughed. It was a forced sound and not particularly pleasant, but it served to make him seem reasonable again.
To Dusty.
Not to me.
“Cousin,” Grey put in smoothly, “the children and I have been trying to come up with a plan.”
I noticed—and so did Prince Orybon—that Grey was no longer addressing him as a ruling master. I smiled at that, but Orybon’s lips thinned out, and he positively simmered with anger.
“The simplest thing is to let them Shout again,” Orybon said, once more using his dry voice.
“It is not . . . as simple as that,” Grey said.
“Seems simple enough to me,” the prince told him. “If one of their bedamned Shouts has loosened some rocks, a second Shout will undoubtedly loosen even more.”
So he’d noticed that as well. I wasn’t sure if this was good news or bad.
Grey went over to him, holding out his hands, palms up as if making a peace offering. “You have two weapons, my prince. But they are fragile. Too many Shouts and they will be broken lances in your hands: pretty objects, but useless. However—”
“How me no evers.” The prince’s voice hardened. It was like the stone that surrounded us.
But Grey had been with him too long to be cowed by such tricks. “In Oberon’s name, my prince, stop being stupid about this and listen. We have time. It is both our Curse and our salvation. We have weapons—these fey Shouters.” He pointed to us. “And . . .” He prolonged the word till Orybon could not help but be reeled in. “We have a girl who dreams prophetic dreams.”
Orybon’s eyes widened at the mention of the dreams, but Grey didn’t say anything more, not that there was much more to say. He waited to let the prince become interested on his own. Clearly Grey knew when to lead and when to be led.
Orybon leaned in. “What about those dreams?”
I suddenly realized I was holding my breath.
“Let us read those dreams, my prince,” Grey said, “to find out what more we need to do to make these walls come down safely and in a reasonable amount of time.”
“This is not a joke?”
“No.”
“Not more of your folderol and storytelling?”
“No.”
“Then show me the evidence of these dreams.” Orybon’s mouth was hard again, like stone.
Grey shrugged, held up his hands in mock surrender, then turned and walked back toward us, saying over his shoulder, “Sometimes, my prince, faith is more powerful than evidence.”
“I am hardly a model for faithfulness,” said the prince, trying hard to disguise his interest. He followed Grey, strolling along as if that interest had not been piqued. But I knew better, for why else would he be following Grey? And Grey knew, too. Orybon wouldn’t have moved a foot otherwise.
Dusty made a harrumph sound through his nose, rather like a disgruntled horse. He thought the prince didn’t care, but he was wrong.
“Tell him,” Grey instructed as we stood six or seven feet from the Gate. Close enough to encourage us, far enough not to spit out fire.
By this time, some of the McGargles had also crept closer, including the hairless one. How much they understood what was going on, I didn’t know, though the one without the hair seemed to be doing the most explaining, almost as though he was able to understand our language and translate it into theirs. Later Grey explained it even more thoroughly to them in their own language. The prince didn’t. Either, like the Family’s king, he disdained speaking to peasants, or he’d never learned their tongue.
I said, “We need more than simple Shouts.”
Orybon said, “I thought there was nothing simple about them.”
I said, “We need something to throw at the dam.”
He said, “What is she gabbling about?”
Dusty laughed. “Maybe if you’d just listen . . .” Now he finally understood we’d gotten Orybon’s interest.
I said quickly, to soften Dusty’s insult, “The human king of our country, prince, made a bathing spot for his queen and her maidens by damming up a river near us. Though my brothers and boy cousins liked watching the girls as they bathed, they liked the flowing river even better. So they tried a simple Shout to break the dam. First one, then another, then the rest of the boys tried Shouting together. The water riffled and rippled and splashed and spilled over its banks, but the dam was too well built and the boys’ Shouts too unpracticed.”
Orybon said, “Get to the point.”
I said, “This is the point.”
Grey said, “You think, cousin, that you are subtle, but this girl is more subtle than you will ever be.”
Dusty laughed.
The prince slapped him.
Dusty laughed again, then easily ducked the next slap, at which Orybon growled, something I would’ve expected from an animal or a McGargle, not a prince. Not that particular prince at any rate.
“Tell him,” Dusty said, not a command, but a plea. “Now!”
“My brothers couldn’t Shout down the dam, so they Shouted the upstream river down. Along with all its float of tree trunks and broken boats and the leftovers from a year of winter ice storms.” I didn’t tell him that was a day later, and after Father had coached them in what to do.
Grey said, “The river did the work for them, you see.”
Orybon said, “This is madness. Just Shout the Cursed Gate down.”
I said, “That’s not what the dream told me to do.”
Dusty added, “We’re going to make the stone work for us. Since we can’t destroy the Gate itself. It’s got a lot bigger magick than we have. We’ll let the stone
drag it down for us.”
Orybon said, “That, at least, makes sense. Perhaps I’ve been hitting the wrong sibling.” He walked away from us into the dark.
Dusty turned to Grey. “Is he always like this?”
“Sometimes worse.”
The three of us laughed. It felt liberating to laugh that way, even when it rose into a kind of hysteria.
• • • • • • • •
After a while, we stopped laughing and got down to the hard part. The explosion part.
“The dam example is all very well and good,” said Grey, looking steadily at both of us, “but in actuality, it was never as dangerous as what we are about to try.”
“Why?” Dusty asked. “Water or stone, they both need moving, and can both kill you if handled badly.”
“Brother, I love you dearly,” I said to him, “but the dammed-up water in that pool wasn’t enough to drown anyone. It would have just overflowed its banks if you boys had made a mistake. However, if we aren’t careful here, there’s a lot of stone going to come down onto our heads.”
Grey’s right hand suddenly banged down on top of his left. “Bam!” he shouted.
Dusty flinched.
“And,” I added, “we need more than a few Shouts. We need—”
“Something explosive.” Dusty nodded, looking around the Gate cave. “Like Father’s skyrockets. Okay, I get it. But—”
“There is a beetle,” Grey said pensively. “It explodes fire and acid at its stalkers.”
“I’ve read about it,” I said. “Agrippa. He wrote about natural magick. He said that the beetle explosions are like the way a unicorn’s horn purifies water.”
Grey shook his head. “I have seen no such beetles in the cave.”
“And we don’t believe in unicorns,” Dusty said.
“Do you not?” A smile played across Grey’s face.
“Speaking of reading . . . I’ve got an idea,” I said. “Something I saw in a book last year. About bats.”
“Bats explode?” Dusty looked puzzled. “Sister, you read the strangest books. That can warp your mind.”
“Expand her mind, rather,” countered Grey, but to me, not to Dusty.
“No, bats don’t explode, but there’s something in their . . . their . . .” I made a motion with my hand, pointing behind me.
“Guano,” said Grey.
“Poo,” I said at the same time.
“You must be joking.” Dusty tried to laugh, but there seemed to be no laugh left in him.
I shrugged. “Well, that’s what I read.”
“Which part?” asked Dusty. “Which part of the guano poo are we talking about?”
“I . . . I don’t know. It just said it was . . . used for making explosives.” I hesitated. “Like Father’s skyrockets. Only not a toy. More powerful.”
“His skyrockets aren’t made of poo. The exploding part’s not mushy at all.” Dusty was looking disgusted and waving his hands about.
“Well, ours won’t be mushy either,” Grey said in a sensible voice as he moved toward a far wall. “Cannon powder, even back in my day, was always dry. So, let’s do an experiment.”
“Where are you—” I began.
“Going?” finished Dusty.
“To get some really tall McGargles to help in the harvest.” His voice threaded back to us, echoing off the cave walls.
“Harvest?” I stared after him.
“Of guano,” he called back. “From the cave walls.”
I started after him, stopped, turned to Dusty, waved him forward. “Come on!” I said.
“Absolutely not!”
“Dusty!”
“No!”
But in the end, of course, he came. It wasn’t brotherly love that brought him along, but plain, old-fashioned Dusty curiosity.
• • • • • • • •
After Grey had talked to the tallest members of the Tribe, the hairless one led them off to do the harvesting. Since they had no real tools except for a few stone scrapers, I expected that it would take some time, though it turned out they were dedicated and quick workers, especially once Grey had convinced them that this was a plan to get them all released from the cave.
Once they were gone, we three hunkered down by the hearth near where Dusty and I had so recently slept. There was no glamour on the bed—it was not moss, only a pile of hair. McGargle hair, at a guess. Goodness only knew what fleas and bugs inhabited it. I began to feel itchy just thinking about it. And the guano.
And of course my head still ached. But that was the least of my worries.
“First,” Grey was saying, “we have to take stock of what we have.”
“Stones,” Dusty said.
“Unhelpful.” I scratched at my hair, then forced myself to stop itching.
“Everything is helpful at this stage,” Grey reminded us. But he winked at me, so I’d know he wasn’t scolding.
“Guano,” I said, making a face.
“And fire.” Dusty pointed at the hearth where the fire made soft cracking noises.
Grey nodded. “And the oyl that feeds it. Plus my tinderbox.” He pulled at a leather thong around his neck and at the end was a silver tinderbox that had been hidden beneath his shirt and tunic. “My father gave it to me when I was a boy, before they sent me off to the Unseelie Court as a hostage, and I have never parted from it.”
“And your sword,” said Dusty, nodding at the sheathed weapon.
“Good.” Grey nodded.
“Fish and fish bones,” I said, recalling our meals. Then I remembered something else. “My spindle.” I didn’t mention the Cloak of Invisibility. It really had no bearing on any explosion and—besides—it still wasn’t working.
“Bedstead,” Dusty said, then looked around and for the first time really saw the pile where the glamoured bed had been. “Or whatever that is.”
“Hair,” said Grey. “We shear the grown-up McGargles once a year, or they’d be unable to see or walk with any comfort. Evidently out in the world, they had special trees they rubbed against, but that knowledge is useless to them here. If we didn’t shear them once a year, we would be unable to stand very close to them.” He sniffed.
“What do you use?” Dusty asked suspiciously.
Grey reached into his boot and drew out a long dagger.
“So we have a dagger, too.” Dusty smiled, touching the sharp point. He was the Family’s mumblety-peg champion. But there was no earth here on which to play the game, only stone that would blunt the knife’s end.
“And our Shouts,” I said. Then shrugged. “If those can help.”
“We don’t know yet what can help,” said Grey.
“That’s it,” I said.
“That’s it,” Dusty concurred.
Grey nodded. “That is it.”
“Bats,” I said, as a final afterthought. “Beetles, slugs, worms?” Though I hadn’t seen any.
Grey had nothing left to say. Dusty was silent as well.
So, I shut up, too, thinking instead about the list of the few—the very few—things we had to work with. The silence was only broken by the hearth fire, which snapped at us like a petulant prince. Its tongue-lashing seemed the perfect complement to our mood.
Suddenly, as if summoned by the fire, Orybon appeared. His ability to do so was beginning to wear on me. If the Cloak had been working, I’d have given him a taste of True Invisibility he wouldn’t soon forget. But the silly thing still hung grimly around my waist like an unwanted guest at a banquet.
“Are we having a meeting or a snore?” he asked, gesturing with the spindle.
“We’re considering options,” said Grey. His tone was sharp and his face sharper.
“And I was not invited?” Orybon glared do
wn at us.
“You walked out on us,” I said.
“Pull up a stone and sit down with the peasants,” Dusty told him cheekily, almost inviting another cuff to the ear.
But this time, Orybon didn’t try to slap Dusty. He seemed somehow less sure of himself than before. Or less angry. Perhaps he’d been thinking about explosions on his own. Or settling his stomach. Or considering dreams and faith. He did sit down, though, close enough to Dusty to make me uneasy, but far enough from me to give me hope.
“Have you managed to come up with anything even resembling a plan?” he asked. “Or have you spent the time trading more dreams and family reminiscences?”
Well, perhaps not less angry after all!
“We, dear cousin . . . ” began Grey.
“I was speaking to Pudding Alice.”
So the order of where we all stood with Prince Orybon had changed. Evidently, Grey could no longer serve him as well as I could, and that made me fear for Grey.
“The three of us,” I said carefully, “are thinking about explosives. And as Prince Grey has more ideas on that subject than I do . . .” I left that idea hanging and turned my back on the prince, looking instead at Grey, who knew exactly what I was doing. He gave me a genuine smile, and again I could almost see the boy in him, the one who first came into the Unseelie Court all alone, innocent, and easily manipulated by a cunning, older, angry prince.
“Explosions! How is that different from a Shout?” Orybon’s voice rose.
Grey said quietly, “As different as lightning is to a lightning bug.”
I suppressed a giggle.
“If you know so much about explosions, cousin . . .” Orybon’s voice got dangerously low and quiet. “Then why have we not blown up that bedamned Gate before now?”
“Because, as you know, we cannot get near enough to the Gate, and I didn’t know what I now know about how to make the power I need to blow up the rocks around the Gate.”
“Because of these two?”
Grey nodded. “Because of these two.” He smiled, adding, “And because of Pudding Alice’s dream.”
“And what is the magickal missing ingredient you found?” Orybon’s voice dripped with sarcasm.