The Catswold Portal

She moved, wondering if she dare trust Efil. If she found a way out she could come back for the prisoners. But Halek jerked her back. “No! We are not to trust him.” He clapped his hand over her mouth as Efil approached, passing within feet of them, heading straight for the Harpy’s cage. His light picked out a shock of white feathers. “Where is the girl? She brought your mirror to you. Where is she?”

“What girl? Do I have my mirror? Do you see my mirror? Do you think if I had it I’d be behind these bars? The queen has my mirror, and if you were any kind of a king you would return it to me.”

“I will search the cellars until I find her, so you might as well tell me, Harpy.”

Melissa touched Halek’s hand. “If he searches, he will find you. I can bargain with him. I—have something to bargain with.”

He held her arm hard. “If he finds us, we will kill him. That’s safer.”

“But Halek, I can make him take you out of here. I can make him free you.” She watched the king turn away from the Harpy. He approached and passed them again. Only this time he didn’t pass them, he turned back and came toward the barrels that hid them. His light shot straight into her face.

She rose, but Halek was faster. He leaped and hit the king and pinned him against a pillar, forcing a shard of glass against Efil’s throat.

Efil was very still, appraising Halek. “There’s little time; the guards will come. Free me and I’ll get you both out of here.”

“You will get all the prisoners out,” Melissa said. She nodded to Halek. “Call the men out.”

Halek stood motionless a long time, pressing the broken glass against the king’s throat. Melissa didn’t know what she saw in Halek’s face—fear, distrust—but at last he gave one soft whistle.

The men came out slowly, watching the king. When Efil saw the dozens of ragged, armed men, he blanched. “I can’t take so many.”

Halek pressed the glass harder.

“You dare not harm me,” Efil said. “You would never get away without me, there are guards everywhere.”

Melissa said, “Do you want my child?”

Halek stared at her. The men were watching her. She said, “If you get all the prisoners out, and the Harpy and Toad and the Griffon, if you see that all go free, I will bed with you.”

“I have no way to trust you,” Efil said.

“You have my promise,” she said quietly.

They were a silent procession moving through the dark cellars. The prisoners followed Efil, then came the Harpy and the Toad. Efil could not, or would not, free the Griffon. Melissa was heartbroken for the poor Griffon. He was the most free of beasts, winging the Netherworld skies over mountains and valleys unknown by any land-bound creature. It was monstrous to leave him captive.

When they had pushed far back in the black cellars, Efil paused before a pillar and cast a complicated spell that drew the side of the pillar open. His spell-light picked out a thin stair leading down. The rebels crowded in and descended single file into blackness, the Harpy and Toad behind them. Efil waited, coming last with Melissa, forcing her along before him, and closing the pillar behind them.

They went down steeply for a long way, then pushed along a tunnel so low they walked doubled over, so narrow their shoulders scraped the damp walls. Thus they traveled until Melissa thought they must have crossed under all the palace farms and orchards. When at last they came to a flight leading up, the rebels clambered up eagerly. After a long climb they reached a trap door. It opened at Efil’s voice, lifting up into a green-lit chamber. Halek’s voice came back to her filled with awe. “The Grotto of Circe,” he whispered. The others pressed behind him up into the jeweled chamber, into a mass of gem-wrought images so real they seemed alive.

The arched ceiling was mosaicked with jeweled branches tangling across it like the roof of a forest, and the branches were alive with birds made of emeralds and rubies and topaz, of lapis and garnet. The walls were filled with jeweled dragons and Hell Beasts and all Netherworld animals. A huge, carved bed stood against one jeweled wall. Melissa knew Efil must have kept this grotto hidden from Siddonie, for the dark queen would have destroyed it. She felt the power of the images, the power by which Circe, within a place of such magic, had first turned beasts into men, creating the shape shifters.

The ragged rebels trooped in followed by the Harpy and the Toad. Efil stroked a spell over the trap door so it swung closed and vanished into the mosaic floor. He stood looking the rebels over.

“The door I will open will take you into the woods south of the palace. You must go quickly; it is dusk but guards patrol the woods. You will be safe when you reach the eastern ridges.”