The Catswold Portal (6 page)

“I am king, not Briccha. You will go when I dismiss you.” His features were soft, his chin rounded. But his eyes burned with stubbornness and the haughtiness of a young man used to getting his own way.

He said, “If you will not tell me your real name, then you will learn my name. Say, Efil, King of Affandar.”

She said it hesitantly, not liking the feelings that he stirred in her. “Efil, King of Affandar.”

“Say,
Efil.
”

“Efil.”

“Say it softly.”

“Efil,” she breathed, growing frightened.

“Say it as if it means something to you, as if it is the most wonderful name you know.” His hands felt too warm on hers. His clothes were scented with vetiver, a magical herb that did nothing to calm her.

“Say it.”

But she rose and pulled away from him. As she turned, a door creaked open down the passage. He thrust her away so suddenly she stumbled. “Go on, child. Don't stand in the passage dawdling. What will Briccha say?”

She went angrily, hearing men's voices behind her. She hurried down the stairs, fighting not only anger but a more complicated feeling that she didn't like.

All day she was irritable. When Briccha released her in mid-afternoon she slipped into the storeroom boldly, too tightly strung to wait longer. Snatching the moment, she fled for the cellar door and through it, and shut it soundlessly behind her.

She stood on the narrow, dark stairs, clutching the rail, listening. A damp, vegetable scent rose from below. But there was no sound. She started down through the blackness, feeling her way, daring not the smallest light.

F
eeling her way down the cellar stair clutching the rail, straining to see in the blackness, Melissa was afraid to bring a spell-light. Warily she listened for footsteps in the storeroom above her.

At last, stumbling, she found the bottom step. On the stone floor her footsteps echoed softly, even her own breathing seemed to echo. From somewhere ahead came the faint drip, drip of water. She could smell onions and smoked meat, and a sour animal smell. After some moments, when she could hear no sound from the cellars or from above, she brought a spell-light.

Beside her, bins of vegetables flanked the narrow passage. She moved past hanging hams and barrels of pickled cabbage, past bags of nuts and grains. Shelf after shelf held jars of vegetables and fruits, and farther on stood barrels of flour and grains, and of ale, then rows of wine bottles. She lifted a bottle from its bin, brushing the dust away. Its foreign-looking label was beautifully wrought with pictures of grapes and fields, and with fancy gold lettering. This was no Netherworld label handwritten and applied with wax, this was upperworld wine, brought down through miles of tunnels from beyond doors that opened only by magic.

She didn't know whether the dungeons were on this level or a lower one, she only knew the palace cellars went deep, down into old caves and passages. Strangely, she felt a sense of repose here; the darkness seemed comforting, even the sense of being closed in seemed comforting. She felt almost as if she could see through the darkness.

Frowning, puzzled by her feelings, she searched for the dungeons, until at last, stumbling, she found a second flight of stairs. She had started down when a shriek from below made her douse her light.

She stood listening as the animal scream died. The smell of beasts rose so strongly she backed up a step. A second angry scream made her want to turn away. But she moved on, casting a strong spell-light down the steps. She found the lower corridor flanked with barred cells. Behind the bars, Hell Beasts stirred, their wings rustling in her light, their snaking coils unwinding, their eyes gleaming. Faces horned or scaled, all hostile, snarled and hissed at her. Paws and claws and deformed hands reached; she kept to the center of the aisle, moving on quickly.

She stopped, shocked, before a caged griffon.

She had never thought to see a griffon here. A griffon was not a Hell Beast; they roamed the oldest forests and were seldom seen. They were akin to the unicorns and the selkies and shape shifters. They were, like those beasts, generally creatures of goodness, though they could be unpredictable.

The Griffon slept pitifully cramped, his leonine body filling the cage, pressing against the bars, his golden wings crumpled in the tight space. His broad eagle's head, golden feathered, rested in sleep on his lion paws.

But as she drew close the Griffon came awake suddenly and raised his head, watching her with fierce, yellow eyes. She said, “You do not belong here. How did she bring you to this place?”

He didn't speak but lunged at her suddenly, roaring with uncharacterisic rage, crashing against the bars.

“What is it?” she said, coming close to him. “Oh, what has she done to you?”

He threw himself against the bars again, so hard she thought he would break through. But his yellow eyes were filled with pain. And when she reached through, stroking his face, all fierceness left him. He said, “Queen Siddonie killed my mate. And when I knelt before my dead love,
Siddonie's soldiers threw nets over me and pinioned my wings.”

His eyes blazed. “I could have ripped an ordinary net, but I could not break her spells. Her evil is powerful.”

“Maybe I can free you,” she said, reaching to stroke his broad, soft paw.

She tried for a long time, but no spell she could remember would open the Griffon's cage. She left the Griffon at last, defeated.

 

Near the end of the long row of cells, she came to a caged harpy. The beast's long bird's legs made it ungainly. It stood taller than Melissa, and its feathers gleamed white in Melissa's spell-light. Its woman's torso and breasts were sleek with white feathers, but its white wings were so ragged she thought it must beat them against the bars. Its thin bird's face was stained brownish under its eyes and around its yellow beak. It stared between the bars at her pitifully. Its voice was soft and whining. “You have come to free me.” It wrung its long white hands. “I am wasting in this cell, surely you are here to free me?” But in spite of its wheedling voice, its gaze was canny and appraising.

Melissa tried an opening spell, but she couldn't spring the lock. At last she said, “Can you tell me where to find the Toad?”

“In the next cell,” it said, suddenly not pleading anymore but irritable. “Asleep. What could you want with the Toad?”

“I want to ask it a question, I want it to tell me about my past.”

The Harpy laughed. “If you want a vision of the past,
he's
no use to you. All he does is sleep.”

“Surely I can wake him.”

“Do you no good. He has no powers left, the queen destroyed his vision-making powers. He can't tell so much as what you had for breakfast. He remembers only a few homilies, all useless.”

“But…”

“Siddonie thought the Toad could tell the future. He never could do that. No one can tell the future. The queen is a fool.
Look at the beasts she has brought up from the Pit—for what? Not one of us can tell the future. Nor would we help her if we could.”

“That's why she brought you all here? To tell the future?”

“That, and for her entertainment. She puts the fiercest among us in the courtyard to fight each other.”

“I suppose the Griffon is the fiercest?”

“Oh, she doesn't do anything with the Griffon. She can't manage him.”

“Then why does she keep him?”

“She likes to see him captive, of course. The more freedom a beast has known, the more she wants it behind bars.”

“But you were all free.”

“The Hell Beasts have been bound to the Pit of Hell. We are not totally free.”

Melissa considered this as she moved to the next cell and looked in at the Toad. He lay sprawled on the stone floor, asleep. He was huge, nearly filling the cell. A lumpish beast, his green skin was covered with warts, his pale throat ballooning with each breath. Before she could try to wake him, the Harpy reached around with an icy hand and pulled her away. “If you wake him he'll blow himself into a stinking air ball. Phew. He won't speak to you.”

Melissa's head was beginning to ache. “Are there human prisoners here?”

“Behind that wall.” The Harpy pointed a white finger toward the featureless black interior of the cellar.

Melissa cast her spell-light, picking out barrels and shadowed pillars, and beyond these, a stone wall grown over with moss. “Do you know the spell to open it?”

The Harpy laughed, darting her pink tongue between sharp teeth. “Do you think I'd be in here if could command
any
of her spells? Do you think I haven't tried?” And quite suddenly the beast began to cry. Heaving sobs shook her, tears coursed down her white feathers, darkening the brown streaks. When at last the beast stopped crying, her eyes were red, and her voice was sharp with self-pity. “I thought you came to free me, but you didn't. You wanted the human pris
oners. I'll never get out of this cell. I'll never see my little mirror again.”

“What mirror?” Melissa asked, frowning.

“My mirror was my only companion, my only legacy from my dead mother, and that bitch queen has taken it from me. If you cannot free me I'll never see it again. Never.” The Harpy combed distracted fingers through her feathers, and one white feather floated to the cell floor.

Melissa reached through the bars and took the Harpy's hand, trying to comfort her. “Why did the queen take your mirror?”

“I wouldn't bring images for her.”

“I don't understand. The queen fears images.”

“She fears images in the present,” the Harpy said patiently. “My mirror could show the past. There is something in the past she wants to see.”

“Then can you show me my past? I don't need the Toad. You can tell me who I am.”

The Harpy stared at her cannily.

“I can remember nothing of my childhood,” Melissa said. She considered the beast warily, searching its small cold eyes.

“I cannot bring any image,” the Harpy said assessing Melissa with a keen avian stare. “Unless you steal my little mirror for me.”

“Could you show me my childhood? Could you show me who my parents are? And where I come from?”

“If I had my mirror, I could show you those things.”

“Where does she keep your mirror?”

“It
was
in her chambers, but not anymore. I can speak to my mirror from any distance. I made it give her images that drove her to nervous trembles.” The Harpy laughed. “She couldn't rid herself of them. She kept taking my mirror out and looking, like digging your finger into a sore wound. At last she moved it to the king's chambers.”

“How can you know where it is if you can't bring visions without it?”

“It calls to me. Every night my little mirror calls to me. Oh, I know where it lies hidden—in a wardrobe in the king's chambers. But that is not a vision, that is love calling.”

“If I get it for you, will you show me my past?”

The Harpy reached through the bars to stroke Melissa's arm. “If you bring my mirror, I will give you whatever vision you choose.”

“It would be terribly dangerous to go to the king's chambers.”

“Two visions. And you will be safe enough; she never goes to his chambers anymore. Nor has the king slept in her bed since the weakling prince was born. The queen blames the king for the child's illness.” The Harpy smiled. “The king blames her. He was a fool to marry her. Of course, he is still a fool. Go when the queen is at supper.”

“If I were caught thieving in the king's chambers…”

“Everything in life is dangerous.”

“I could be killed for such a thing. The laws would call it treason, to steal from the king's chambers.”

“Three visions.”

“As many visions as I choose.”

“You already have the best of the bargain. The king will be no problem; any woman can twist him around one finger. All you need do is climb into his bed, and you can have anything.”

“I do not intend to climb into his bed.”

The Harpy smiled wickedly. “If you did not, that would be an opportunity lost, my dear. Think of it. The right woman has only to take herself to the king's bed to become the new queen of Affandar.” She clasped her long white hands together. “Oh, I would like to see someone dispossess that bitch.”

“If I steal the mirror, you will give me all the visions I choose.”

“Five visions. That is my last offer.” The Harpy fluffed her feathers, stirring ancient dust. “Someday the Netherworld kings and queens will fall and
we
will rule again. The Hell Beasts will rule again.”

“Five visions,” Melissa said. “But you must describe to me the queen's powers so I know them exactly.”

“Everyone knows her powers.”

“I don't. And I must know them if I am to steal the mirror.”

The Harpy sighed with exasperation, as if Melissa were very dull. “A daughter of Lillith can open all that closes and close all that opens: locks and spell-doors, of course. And she can open a were-beast to his alter shape. And she can close his power to change. But her real strength lies in this:

“Siddonie can close away truth so only falsehood remains.

“Thus does she mean to twist the peasants so they follow her: she means to close their minds to truth. Thus,” said the Harpy, “does she mean to enslave the Netherworld.”

“And can nothing prevent her?”

“Many powers united might prevent her.” The Harpy looked hard at Melissa. “The power of the Catswold might prevent her.”

“Who are the Catswold?”

The Harpy stared at her, her eyes opening wide. “The Catswold are shape-shifting folk of the eastern nations.” She searched Melissa's face. “You know nothing of the Catswold?”

“No, nothing.” Uneasily she looked back at the womanbird. “How can there be people in the Netherworld that I don't know about?” But she was reminded uncomfortably of the forgetting spells Mag wove over her when they visited the villages, those little deaf spells that had touched her in the middle of numerous conversations.

“The Catswold have many powers,” the Harpy said. “But Catswold folk are independent and stubborn.” She looked hard again at Melissa. “They will not easily unite, even to defeat Siddonie. Likely the Catswold will never organize into a formidable force against the queen, as the elven and the human rebels are organizing.”

“How many rebels are imprisoned?” Melissa said impatiently. “When were the last ones brought down?”

“There are twenty-nine rebels here. The last three were brought five days ago. Siddonie tortured them. Their screaming kept me awake.”

“You heard them through those thick stone walls?”

“My hearing, like my eyesight, is quite wonderful.”

“When the queen tortured them, what information did she ask?”

“I couldn't hear
her,
just their screams. But she would want to know the rebels' plans, and she would want to know the names of their leaders.”

“Couldn't you have shown her that, in your mirror?”

“Why should I? That is part of why she locked me here, because I wouldn't help her.” The Harpy wiped her bill on her shoulder.

“You side with the rebels, then,” Melissa said hopefully.

“I side with no one,” the Harpy snapped. “Siddonie drew me out of the Pit with her cursed spells, and then she took my mirror. I want to see her dead. But I do not side with the rebels. Now go and fetch my mirror.”