The Catswold Portal

She reached the storeroom at last, her heart thundering. She slipped behind a row of shelves as two girls went out carrying a big bag of flour between them. When they had passed she fled for the cellar door. She didn’t breathe until she was through and closing the door behind her.

She brought no light; she felt her way down through the blackness. She hadn’t reached the bottom when she heard a man shout above, and a door slam. She raced down into the stench of the Hell Beasts and fled past them. When she reached the Harpy’s cage she was shaking. Now she brought a light, so glad to see the white womanbird she almost hugged her. She slipped the mirror from her bodice and the Harpy cried out, flapping her wings and reaching for it. Melissa held it away from her. “First show me the spell to free the prisoners. Then show me the five visions you promised, then you will have your mirror.”

“Don’t be silly. I cannot make visions until I have my mirror.”

“You can make visions at great distances. You made visions in the queen’s chambers. I will hold the mirror.”

“One vision.”

“Five visions. First, the spell.”

The Harpy sat down against the wall and turned her face away. But in Melissa’s hands the mirror clouded, then reflected a stone wall.

The queen stood beside the wall in miniature that quickly enlarged until she seemed to stand beside Melissa. She was pressing her hands against the stone, speaking a spell of opening. Melissa had never heard these cadences. She memorized them at one hearing, but she made the Harpy show her again, to be sure. As the second vision faded she fled for the wall.

“Wait! My mirror! You can’t…”

Pressing her hands against the stone, she cried out the spell. The stone under her hands vanished, and a ragged opening yawned. The stink of the cells made her gag. She stepped through, increasing her spell-light.

Inside the cages were crowded with men, ten and twelve to a cage, all watching her. They were thin, nearly naked, their beards straggling over bony chests. What clothes remained were shreds held together by matted filth. She saw hope in some eyes, fear and distrust in others. She repeated the spell and swung open the barred doors.

The prisoners surged out. As some brought spell-lights, she could see in their faces their despair etched deep. Three were not as thin as the others, and their beards were only stubble. She took the hands of stoop-shouldered Halek, and of thin little Methmen.

Methmen hugged her. He smelled terrible; they all did. She led them through the hole in the wall, then closed the barred doors and sealed the wall.

Halek said, “Did Mag send you?”

“She doesn’t know I’m here. There is food above, on the next level.”

Halek sent six men up the dark stairs. They returned with hams, a barrel of crackers, a bag of apples, canned fruit, and ale. Halek said, “Drink the juice of the fruit. Wash yourselves with the ale. We’re too weak for spirits; we’d be drunk and couldn’t fight.” They wolfed the crackers and ham, slashing the meat into chunks with Melissa’s knife. She watched them straighten the metal barrel rings into blunt weapons, and she helped them rip the apple bag apart and bind the barrel staves together as cudgels. They ate the fruit and broke the jars into weapons, tying the broken glass onto the ends of the cudgels. Then Halek took her hand. “Come, there must be passages deep within the cellars.”

She drew back, pulling her hand away. “I can’t come. There’s something I must do. I will try to follow.”

The men stared at her, then turned away. Halek, distressed, reached to touch her face. “You are certain?”

“Yes, certain.” She watched them move away and begin to search along the walls for a hidden door, then she returned to the Harpy.

The womanbird said, “One vision, then I want my mirror.”

“You promised five visions.”

The Harpy combed her breast feathers with long fingers, looking sideways at Melissa, but at last she looked inward again, her gaze remote, and began to whisper in a soft, whistling bird language. The mirror’s bright surface turned dark, then showed vast space unlike the Netherworld that faded into a dark forest with huge trees, not Netherworld trees. Images followed, quick and startling: a garden with flowers too bright to be real. A man, lean, bronze skinned, unlike a Netherworld man. Then a more familiar scene of the dark green Netherworld night. Flames reflected against the granite sky from torches set into a castle wall: not this castle but a dark, hulking structure. The vision was so real she felt that she stood beside the wall looking into the dark forest where armed shadows gathered, slipping toward her.

Chapter 15