The Catswold Portal

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.”