The Catswold Portal

She had hated taking care of the baby; she didn’t like babies. And what a difficult baby Melissa had been—mewling and spitting up. When she took her to the welfare people, she had meant to get her back when the child was old enough to be trained properly in magic. Even after Alice Kitchen’s family took her, she had thought she could get the child any time.

She had tried, during those years, to establish some closeness with Melissa. Every trip she made to the city, she visited the child. She had done all she could to shape her thoughts and create some rapport with her. The child had been difficult even when she was small, so typically Catswold—stubborn, willful, and flighty, bursting into tears of terror for no reason. Then the problem had arisen with the Catswold Portal, and that was a situation that had seemed far more than coincidence.

That portal had been forgotten for generations. Havermeyer discovered it when he followed Alice Kitchen and the child. It had seemed a fortuitous find, entering down directly into Affandar as it did. She had, at that time, just begun to court eleven-year-old Efil of Affandar. She had been twenty-four.

Once Havermeyer found the Catswold Portal, they had used it regularly. But then Havermeyer, approaching it one afternoon, had stumbled upon Alice Kitchen making a drawing of it. He had pretended to admire her work, and Alice had told him, in the typically candid way of upperworlders, that she thought the door was ancient and that she meant to trace its history.

Siddonie sipped her ale, frowning. She had gone up through the tunnel herself the next day, to get Melissa out of there before Alice Kitchen learned too much about the portal, and perhaps began to suspect things about the child. It had been time to bring the girl down anyway. She was twelve years old and should begin training.

She remembered that day sharply. When she came out of the tunnel into the tool cave, the child was playing just outside the open door, in the garden. Siddonie had spell-bound her easily, had picked her up, and had carried her back through the wall when someone cast a spell over her. She went dizzy and felt the child pulled out of her arms.

She had remained trapped for hours in a spell as confining as stone, slumped at the end of the tunnel, unconscious, knowing nothing. When she regained her senses, she was certain the child had been taken down to the Netherworld. Then as she followed the tunnel down, she found behind a boulder some bread crusts where someone had eaten—smooth, commercially baked upperworld crusts. And beside these, a dark spot of earth had smelled sweet, as if some child’s drink such as Grape Kool-Aid had been spilled.

Once in the Netherworld again, she had launched a thorough search for Melissa, but the child could not be found.

And in the upperworld Alice Kitchen began a search, too. It was later that she—Alice West by then—began to investigate the portal.

Vrech had taken care of Alice smoothly enough, crossing the Primal Laws only in a small way: a fear-spell that touched the truck driver, causing a swerve. That had been a long shot that had paid off.

Siddonie started as Ridgen squeezed her hand. She had been a long way off. Ridgen warmed her with a deep look. She winked back at him, and he smiled.

“The fire is dying. The chambers have been aired and warmed,” he said.

As they watched Moriethsten, Ridgen’s eyes narrowed, weaving a sleep-spell over the Wexten king—a simple enough charm when handling one person, though near impossible when dealing with a mob. Moriethsten yawned and began to nod.

Siddonie rose, taking Ridgen’s arm. The two of them moved toward the stair, amused by Moriethsten asleep with his head on the table.

Chapter 26

In the Hell Pit the Harpy basked among flames, easing quickly again into her old habits. Her memories of the upperworld faded. She mingled with the hell-cast souls of the dead and whispered the grim songs of the dead, and nearly forgot the vibrant goodness of the living. Old lusts gripped her. Depression and anger drugged her; soon she was wallowing in all manner of depravity.

Only slowly did her preoccupation with the morose and sullen begin to pale, only slowly did the excesses of the damned begin to lose their charm, and the dead began to seem dull. At last the Harpy grew restless and began to think that warm, living people were more interesting. On a damp night when the Hell fires sulked and smoked, the Harpy looked deep into her mirror.

She saw Melissa climbing the vines at the back of Affandar Palace. She saw her fight the king’s embrace, saw the queen storm in. She saw Siddonie change Melissa to cat, and she saw Mag agonizing beside the girl’s cage, trying to free her. She saw Mag captured.

The Harpy watched Mag huddle shivering in the Toad’s old cell, her round, wrinkled face pulled into despair. And when the Harpy tried to sleep, she could not.

What was it about this old woman that drew her sympathy?