by Jane Yolen
Still stung by Dusty’s challenge, perhaps even so eager to leave the cave he dismissed all considerations of safety, Orybon shrugged off Grey’s hand and continued forward.
“I am coming, Father!” he cried. “I am coming, Fergus! I am coming back to Curse you all again and again and again. And the worst Curses will be for you, Maeve, you baggage, you blemish, you wanton who broke my heart.”
“What heart?” Dusty muttered.
Suddenly Orybon was running headlong toward the Gate with Grey, the Oath-man, but a step behind.
“Grey!” I cried, heading after them, though as I ran I could feel myself shaking with an ague. Or something like ague.
“Leave them,” Dusty said, his hand grabbing mine and stopping me in my tracks. I tried to break free, but he held me fast.
By then, the two princes had gotten to the opening, with Orybon turned sideways, his back against the broken stone to the left of the Gate, inching along toward the corridor on the other side, heedless of all the sparks.
With a terrible, dark growling sound, the Gate itself began to tremble as if it—and not I—had the ague.
Grey had just entered the narrow passage as the Gate’s tremors became stronger, more pronounced. It swayed from side to side, seeking the support of the stone that was no longer there to hold it up. The growling sound got louder, scarier.
I could see Grey’s hand extending toward Orybon, seeking to grab him and haul him back out, when the whole of the wall on either side of the Gate burst outward, and the two men were carried upward in a kind of magick vortex, like a windstorm. Around and around it spun them before slamming Orybon to the ground, where he began bursting into a thousand stars and—at the same time—was buried beneath a cascade of stone. Quickly, the stone entombed him till not one of the stars could be seen.
Grey remained caught in the swirl, left spinning high up in the air. He made not a sound as he was whipped around and around. Standing far below, we were helpless to reach him and could only watch as he was stripped by the vortex of everything that we recognized as him, before the stone dust stirred up by the cruel wind obscured all.
As if released from a spell, the McGargles all began crying out at once, a great gabble of sound, a howl that was part celebration and part mourning song.
“Gone?” I whispered to Dusty. “Just like that, they’re gone?”
“Gone,” he said, scrubbing the dust from his eyes.
“The Gate’s Curse worked, then. Without true repentance, Orybon wasn’t released. And without fulfilling his Oath, Grey . . .” I couldn’t say the words.
“Looks like it.”
I snuffled. My nose was running now, as well as my eyes. I felt bereft, and I didn’t understand why.
“But Grey kept his Oath,” I whined. “It’s not fair.”
Dusty’s lips were pursed as if he’d been sucking on something sour. “Orybon wasn’t worth it. Grey needn’t have bothered.”
“Grey was the kind of man who would always keep an Oath,” I said. “He’s gone because he went to help the prince.”
Dusty nodded and put his arm around me. I could feel him shaking, or maybe it was me shaking. At that moment, I couldn’t be sure.
The McGargles’ ululations increased behind us until I could hardly hear myself think. I turned and shouted, “I thought you hated the prince!” before realizing they were weeping for Grey, as was I.
“What is all the crying about?” a boy’s voice asked.
I turned to Dusty, but he wasn’t the one talking. Instead he was staring wildly at the Gate, where a slightly familiar-looking boy about his size—but about my age—had suddenly appeared. He seemed a bit dazed, unsure of himself, and was wearing a jacket and trews that were much too big for him. Only his boots seemed to fit.
Dusty understood before I did. “Grey?”
The boy cocked his head to one side. “You know my name?” He was practically tripping over the trews. And I could see a set of grayish bat wings peeking above the jacket’s collar.
“We both do,” I said, understanding in that moment that Grey—who’d been thirteen when he was tricked into his Oath—had somehow been returned to that age. Somehow sent back to that moment just as the Oath-maker had burst into the stars. The vortex released by the fall of the Gate hadn’t killed him at all, but rather had stripped him of his cave age.
I suddenly hoped that I might be released back to the moment I’d taken my Oath about five days ago. But I’d kept my memory intact, perhaps because I hadn’t gone up in the spinning winds.
And, not surprising at all, with the fall of the Gate, my headache had almost entirely disappeared.
Grinning at the boy, who was still staring all about him, I said, “It’s a long story, Grey, but a good one.”
I turned to Dusty, holding the spindle high. “It’s time we all went home. There’s a christening to get to, and an adoption to see to.”
“You are way ahead of me, Gorse,” Dusty said.
But then, I always am.
Part III
RECIPE FOR A SPELL
A pinch of thought grated fine,
Some well-plucked words, a rack of rhyme,
Topped with herbs, and then you spin
All to be done widdershin.
Count to three or seven, nine,
And then your spell will turn out fine.
• 16 •
THE CHRISTENING
Dusty flew me with my one good wing high up over the fallen Gate, setting me down deep inside the farther tunnel. Quickly, he returned to get the bewildered young Grey, whose new-returned wings were still too weak and crumpled to be trusted.
After us came the McGargles, who sneaked through the broken rocks on either side of the Gate without a single disaster, for the fallen Gate no longer sparked. Then they pushed forward and led us through the long, twisting tunnels till we came at last out into a meadow at the far end of the Wooing Path.
Blinking in the unexpected light and breathing the fresh air gratefully, we turned and said our farewells to our hairy friends, who seemed somewhat uncomfortable in the sun.
“We’ll come and shear you once a year,” I promised, making a cutting motion with my pointer finger and long finger. “It’ll be lots faster than your trees.”
Gargle translated for me, and after he was done, all of the trolls gurgled and whooped, and the littlest one hugged me, with that rough rumbly sound in its throat. Then they all turned and disappeared back into the tunnels.
“I wonder if they’ll eat more than fish now,” I said. “And bats.”
“And mushrooms,” Dusty added.
I shuddered. I never did like mushrooms, thick slimy things.
“What is wrong with mushrooms?” asked Grey.
There would be plenty of time to tell him.
• • • • • • • •
Dusty and young Grey and I walked quickly the rest of the way home, trailing rock dust, guano dust, and a bit of still-swirling vortex that made us look like small whirling dervishes. I’d read about dervishes in the D section of the library. There was no flying. Carrying the two of us along would have exhausted Dusty, and I needed him healthy and whole.
Grey had to stop every once in a while to hitch up his trailing trews.
Finally, after about the fifth stop, I said, “Where’s that knife of yours?”
“Knife?”
“Try your boot,” Dusty said.
Grey reached into his boot and brought out the knife. I took it from him and trimmed the bottoms of his trews, and after that, we had no trouble racing down the path.
In a few minutes, we’d reached the stand of white birches, and I pointed to the slight rise where our pavilion sat. For the first time I noticed how run-down it looked, how in need of some paint on t
he columns, some scrubbing on the steps.
“What is this?” Grey asked.
“Our house,” Dusty said.
“Home,” I said.
“It doesn’t look like a house,” Grey said, head cocked to one side. “Though it does look like a home.”
We went inside, but nobody was there, and when we ran around checking in all the whimsies, reposes, follies, and belvederes, no one was there either.
“Do you suppose,” Dusty said, “they’re all at the castle, giving out gifts?”
I looked at the swirl of dust still playing about our feet. “Maybe we went back in time, too.”
Neither one of us wanted to think of the alternative, that the entire Family but us had burst into a thousand stars.
“We are still here, Dusty,” I finally said in the most sensible voice I could muster. “So they must be alive, too.”
Despite my fears of how hard it would be on Dusty, we three took to the sky. Grey’s wings stretched and strained, but held. It was as if he willed them to work. So hand in hand in hand, we headed toward the castle.
Even flying, it was a long way, because Dusty and Grey had to haul me along the sky road. Besides, we had to keep an eye on Grey, in case his wings suddenly collapsed, dragging the three of us down. The fresh air racing through me cleansed me of the last of the cave stuff, and for the first time in days, my head didn’t hurt at all.
• • • • • • • •
Once we got to the castle, we left Grey to wait outside the castle wall, on the back side where no one would see him.
“We don’t want the king to know there’s a new fey in his kingdom,” I told him, “else he’ll be expecting a present from you and”—I wasn’t sure of it but said it anyway—“you might end up tied to the land as well.”
That, of course, needed a longer explanation, but Dusty was clearing his throat and saying things like, “Time, Gorse.” And “We have to go, Gorse.” And finally, his voice rising to a near Shout, he declared, “Now!”
“I’ll tell you about it later,” I promised Grey. “Just wait.”
We left him sitting under a huge oak, went around to the front side of the castle, and in through the yett. The guards recognized us immediately as Shouting Fey—the wings gave us away.
“You two are late,” one burly guard told us. “Himself won’t be pleased.”
“He’ll like our presents, though,” Dusty told him. They laughed appreciatively, and passed us through.
The castle yett was as unlike the magick Gate as could be, for it was a small, dark, iron thing that could be raised and lowered from inside the castle, and was great for repelling human intruders. And the fey! Though I was not sure they knew that. For the first time in hours, my head began to throb.
So much for feeling well again, I thought.
Dusty said, “Come on, Gorse, don’t dawdle. Standing under iron makes me itch.”
I wasn’t dawdling. I’d just realized that the Cloak was tingling a bit, which probably meant it was working again. “You go ahead,” I said. “I want to catch my breath, smooth down my skirt, clean the dirt off my hands and face, and fix my hair.”
“Girls!” He let out an exaggerated groan, but dutifully went on without me.
I swung the Cloak over my head and shoulders. It would feel good to be invisible after all I’d been through. Nobody looking at me, threatening me, feeling sorry for me, wanting something from me. If I could just stay invisible till right before I gave my gift to the baby princess, so much the better. And maybe I could get rid of the headache that had started again under the iron yett.
• • • • • • • •
Invisible, I passed by the first set of guards, and then the next without their even noticing the way the air shifted. That made me smile.
When I found my way to the throne room, the king and queen were sitting on their high gilded chairs. Self-indulgence had thickened the king’s neck and waist in the past year, and the strong chin that had marked generations of his family repeated itself twice more. On the other hand, the queen had become lean and exhausted, the skin stretched tightly over her cheekbones, and was marked with lines like a plotter’s map. Caring for that baby, even with all the nurses and handmaids around, had clearly not been an easy job.
Before them was a canopied cradle, its silken draperies drawn back to reveal baby Talia, who, at present, screeched in a high-pitched voice that was demonstrating considerable staying power.
Dusty had already told Father that I was in the castle, and Mother had relayed the message to Great-aunt Gilda, who evidently had just spoken to the king.
“Then let the gift-giving commence with all appropriate speed,” said the king, who never used one word where three would do. “We should have been done with all this folderol and rigmarole long before now. I was planning on going hunting today with horse and hounds, and the light is already beginning to fade. If this doesn’t go as planned, I expect to see the consequences of Oath-breaking. All those stars—it should be a lovely sight.” He laughed, and it wasn’t a pretty sound.
So Great-aunt Gilda quickly offered beauty and placed a thornless rose by the baby’s head. The baby, with one tiny fist, quickly demolished it.
In birth succession, the Aunts gifted the child with bright eyes, a perky nose, good teeth, strong legs, and small feet. Aunt Goldie, who went second to last of the Aunts, probably meant to give the child a lovely voice, but said “loud” instead. I like to think it was a mistake, but the gleam in her eye as she said it argued against that.
As she explained to the king, “A ruler needs a strong voice, your majesty.” And he nodded at that, though the queen—who’d already been up too many nights with her squalling child—didn’t look so beguiled.
My mother, for her own reasons, chose to sit out that round. And then it was the cousins’ turns, and last of all, my brothers’ and sisters’. By the time they were done, the princess was so overloaded with contrasting and inconsistent virtues—like quickness and patience—that she’d probably be driven mad by her tenth birthday. Or so we could hope.
Still invisible, I stood watching it all. I think Father suspected something because he kept staring at me, though I knew he couldn’t actually see me. Elves are far more sensitive than regular fey to such things.
And then Dusty gifted the princess a good constitution, and it should have been my turn, only of course I was invisible and nobody knew I was there.
“Where is she?” Mother hissed at Father.
He looked around, then nodded in my general direction, for—with a fizzzzing sound—the Cloak failed once again, revealing me before I had time to run my fingers through my hair or straighten my one good wing or paste a smile across my face. Evidently I also had two bright spots of fever back on my cheeks, guano and stone dust in my hair, my eyes were wild, and the tattered cloth over my head and shoulders looked ridiculous.
Solange glared at me. She was not happy with what I’d done to her dress. She pinched her nose with her right hand and mouthed, “You smell.”
“Who is this ragamuffin?” said the queen. “And what is that thing on her head? No one comes into Our Presence veiled.”
“Guards!” roared the king.
Father put a hand up that stopped the guards in their tracks, then turned to the king. “This is my youngest daughter, your majesty. The thirteenth fey. She has come from a sickbed to be here for Princess Talia’s christening, wrapped up in her Great-grandmother’s Cloak, for warmth, I suspect. Don’t you think it is marvelous that she should make such an effort?”
That’s not the only place I’ve come from, Father, I thought, stepping forward.
All that Father had just said, true as it was or as he thought it was, should have been enough to stop anything bad happening from then on. But of course, there was still acciden
t-prone me, stumbling toward the cradle, the spindle thrust out before me. Without realizing what I was doing, I stepped on one of the cradle’s rockers, and the whole thing began to tilt back and forth precariously.
The queen screamed. The king roared again.
Providentially, her attention caught by the movement, the baby stopped crying. Her parents were stunned into silence by the miracle of it.
Into that sudden silence, I croaked, “For Princess Talia—a present of Life.” And I pulled on the thread wrapped around the spindle. However, it turned out to be the very thread that Orybon had snapped. He must have rewrapped it around the spindle—in a fit of tidying up or as a bad joke. I was never to know which.
I looked at the short thread in horror.
Everyone in the court gasped, and the queen cried out, “Not Life but Death.”
The king roared and thundered, “Seize her!”
The guards rushed forward again.
But at that moment, the blessed Cloak fizzzzed again, and I disappeared. I took several steps back, then dropped the spindle and thread, which became visible once they left my hand. Turning quickly—and still invisible—I headed for the door.
However, Father knew where I was the whole time, though he never told any of the Family, not even Mother, afraid that one of them might give me away, if only by a sideways glance. Instead, he bent down and picked up the spindle and thread and shook his head. Sniffed the thread. Shook his head again. All this sniffing and shaking distracted the king and queen and guards, and they stopped looking for me.
I stood silent and invisible at the door to watch what was to happen.
“What damage?” whispered Mother. Or at least she meant to whisper. It came out, as did everything the Family says in fear or haste, as a Shout. The walls of the throne room echoed with it. But since she hadn’t made a Wish at the same time, at least there was no actual breakage.
“Indeed,” asked the king, in a voice that promised difficult times ahead. “What damage?”
Father took out his spectacles—he only uses them for measuring, not reading—plus a measuring stick and a slide rule, the last being something he’d put together long ago from instructions he found in a manual from the future. He measured out the piece of thread. After a moment, he shook his head. “By my calculations, fifteen years, give or take a month.”