The Catswold Portal (11 page)

But the fever he stirred was too strong, his caresses and his spells dizzied her. She fought the heat as he cupped her breasts, whispering love-spells. Stroking her, he moved her to the satin bed. He unbuttoned her dress, licking her breasts, weaving a spell that brought fire through her body. She clung to him, stroking him, begging him to caress her; all shame, all distaste vanished. All premonition of disaster vanished.

T
he Harpy flew across the night, ducking through caverns and sweeping over valleys, drunk with her regained freedom. Her little mirror swung on its chain against her feathered breast. When she perched to rest high on a cliff, she gazed into the glass and brought a vision of Melissa bedding with the king. She watched with interest for some time, then grew bored and dropped the mirror so it nestled again among her feathers. She flew on, making straight for the Hell Pit, thinking of its warm blaze. She thought of her friend the Toad, and she supposed he had returned to the Hell Pit. She was surprised that she missed him. The Hell Beasts never cared for one another. Her wings stirred a solitary wind across the dark green night and when, banking around a cliff, she saw ahead firelight reflected across the sky, she paused.

The smell of roasting meat made her drool. She glided stealthily on, and soon she came in sight of a campfire with men crowded around. She circled.

The rebels were gathered eating their supper. The Toad was with them, eating ravenously. The roast rabbit smelled mouth-wateringly good. The Harpy dropped among them so abruptly the fire surged and spat.

Halek did not seem surprised. He looked the Harpy over. She, in turn, eyed the crisping rabbits. The rebel leader speared a rabbit from the fire and handed it to her. “Did you leave the girl with the king?”

“Can't say where she went.” Intently the Harpy ate, picking the meat off with her beak.

“
Can't
say? Or won't say?”

She looked at Halek in silence, stuffing herself, smacking her beak. “Do you mean to sleep here tonight?”

Halek shifted his shoulders. “We mean to move on, make what miles we can. I did not like leaving Melissa.”

“The girl is her own mentor. You cannot choose for her. The girl's venture, this night—if she were to become queen of Affandar—could win this war.”

“I would not,” Halek said, “like to depend on a trysting by King Efil to win a war.”

“It could make more difference than you know.”

“Speak plainly, Harpy. What more difference would there be, than that she should usurp the throne of the queen?”

“There is more to it.”

Halek waited.

The Harpy studied Halek and studied his companions, then decided to keep her own counsel.

Annoyed with her, Halek rose. She turned away, sullen and mute. At once, the men stirred themselves, took up their crude weapons, and kicked out the fire.

The Harpy watched them depart. Soon she was alone, pecking at rabbit bones and dying coals. Sitting beside the dead fire, she looked forlornly into her mirror.

She watched Melissa and the king, observing their embraces with lusty interest. Then she brought a vision of a younger Melissa snug in Mag's cottage, carding wool beside the old woman. That homey scene soothed her.

She watched Mag and the girl over the years, saw Melissa as a child, stubborn minded and clever. She watched her grow up. She saw Melissa find the papers hidden in Mag's linen chest, and watched Melissa ride for the Hell Pit. She watched the Lamia rise from the flames at Melissa's bidding.

She watched Melissa leave home, and she watched Mag set out the next day to look for her. She saw Mag's useless searches, then watched Mag grieving by the cookstove. And suddenly, the Harpy did not want to go back to the Hell Pit.

She left the dead campfire and flew slowly over ridges and over a broad plain. She crossed above precipices and
sheep pastures, her faint shadow cutting steadily along above her across the granite sky.

As dawn brightened she hovered above Mag's cottage, watching the old woman slopping nine squealing pigs. She swooped suddenly down onto the sty's rail.

Mag jumped, dropping her bucket. “Where did a harpy come from? What do you want? What's a harpy doing away from the Hell Pit?”

“She's in Circe's Grotto.”

“Who is? What are you talking about?”

“The girl—Melissa.”

Mag started. “You've seen her? Well, you know to call her Melissa, all right. But of course you would,” she said, glancing at the dangling mirror. “What is she doing in Circe's Grotto? How did she find it? No one knows how to find that ancient cave.” The old woman picked up her bucket, stepping around the guzzling pigs. “Why would you bother to bring such news to me?”

“The king knows where to find the grotto.”

“So? What has King Efil to do with Melissa? And how did you get out of the Hell Pit?”

“She forced me out with spells.”

“Melissa?”

“Of course not. The queen. Brought me up from the pit against my will. Locked me in her dungeon.”

“How did you get out?”

“
She
freed me.”

“The queen?”

“Melissa. Freed the rebels, too. They were half-starved. On their way home even now.”

“Melissa freed the rebels?” Mag grinned. “All of them?”

The Harpy nodded.

“But what,” Mag said, “has the king to do with that?”

The Harpy waited for Mag to figure it out.

Mag looked at the Harpy for a long time, her eyes slowly widening. At last, she said, “The king helped her? The king—oh, no.”

“Oh yes,” said the Harpy.

Mag stood quietly. Then she took the Harpy's hand and led her toward the cottage, speaking of hot tea and biscuits.

 

When the Harpy had finished her tale, while supping up four cups of tea and a dozen biscuits, Mag said, “I will go and bring her home. What a foolish thing to do—what a headstrong, exasperating girl.”

“Leave her be,” said the Harpy.

“Why would you say that?”

“What would you do if you went there? He has already bedded her—likely she is already with child.”

Pained, Mag folded and unfolded her apron.

The Harpy said, “Why didn't you tell her the truth, old woman? Why didn't you tell her what she is?”

Mag looked at the Harpy intently. “She would have gone off among her own people. I'd have lost her. She needed to settle first. She is too headstrong; she would have done something foolish. I kept meaning to tell her.”

The Harpy said nothing.

“I was working up to it when she went off. And now…” Mag shook her head. “Couldn't you have stopped her?”

“It was not my business to stop her.” The Harpy smoothed her wing feathers. “Don't you see? What she has done could mean victory for the rebels—not that I care.”

“I see clearly that it could mean victory. And I see that it could mean her death if Siddonie learns of this.”

“Perhaps she will not learn of it.”

“Siddonie's hatred goes back a long way.” Mag looked at the Harpy. “If only your mirror could show the future.”

“You would not want to see the future. This is Melissa's destiny, let her be with it.”

“That is foolish talk—she is only a child.”

“She is seventeen. Possibly she might bear a healthy baby and become, in truth, the next queen of Affandar.”

“That, too, is foolish talk.” Mag rose, angrily poking a stick in the fire.

“You have no right to be indignant,” the Harpy said. “If she is successful, your rebels will have a bloodless victory.”

Mag sighed, and returned to her chair. “She is only a child. She knows nothing.”

The Harpy stroked her mirror, bringing a warming vision of Hell's fires. She had done all she could. Mortals were stupid and ungrateful. She wanted to be home among her own.

She waited until Mag dozed, then quit the cottage. Hours later when Mag woke, the Harpy was gone. Nothing remained of her but two white feathers clinging to the plank floor.

M
elissa woke hot and uncomfortable. The king slept sprawled across her, his leg pinning her. She slid out from under him so carefully he didn't stir.

Dawn light drifting across the mosaic ceiling made the jeweled branches seem to move. The ruby and amethyst and lapis birds stared down blindly, just as they had blindly watched the passion of lovemaking last night. She stretched languidly. In one night she had shaken off the last vestiges of Mag's little Sarah. In one night she had changed. Though the strongest change, that had nothing to do with Efil, was the knowledge of her heritage.

She pulled a satin pillow behind her and lay trying to remember a shape-shifting spell, but she could not. She could recall no such spell from Mag's book, though she remembered blank pages: pages surely enchanted so she had not seen what was there.

Slowly she brought back knowledge locked away from conscious thought. She dredged up casual remarks made by the rebels. She thought about the Catswold nation of Zzadar
ray, isolated far to the north, and about Catswold resistance to Siddonie's rule.

This was why Siddonie wanted her. To help enslave that rebellious nation.

And Efil wanted the same. He wanted her for the armies a Catswold queen could bring to support him. He had known what she was and had concealed that knowledge from her.

And she had yielded to his spells.

Remorse filled her. She had given herself freely to him. She, heir to the Catswold queens, had given herself not for love but to be used. She felt cheapened, shamed.

She told herself she had come to his bed to save the rebels, that she had kept a bargain.

Watching Efil, she understood sharply that she had lost last night more than her virginity. He had taken from her something more. An important part of her life had never occurred; she had been catapulted from child to someone already regretting the nature of that closest of alliances: wonder was missing. Joy was missing, and tenderness, and trust.

There was no honesty or trust between them. All was manipulation, playing the game.

That, she guessed, was the way Efil had lived all his life. His marriage to Siddonie had been political maneuvering as, surely, all their life together had been.

And now she was part of that manipulation.
My new queen of Affandar. My pretty Catswold queen.

Yet in spite of her disgust, her pulse quickened as she watched him. In sleep he seemed younger, seemed almost innocent. Watching him, she vacillated between shame and desire.

How dark his lashes were, curled against his cheeks. His lips were soft, faintly pouting. He slept on a silk pillow embroidered with an ancient dragon, souvenir from the upperworld where he had traded a small jewel for it. Efil said that, eons past, Netherworld dragons had found their way up through the tunnels to the upperworld. Seen by men, tales had been created and images made of them in clay and paint and silk. He had amazed her, speaking so offhandedly of his
trading journeys there. Such journeys were to Efil as ordinary as a ride to Xendenton.

He spoke just as casually of Siddonie's upperworld ventures. In the small hours as they lay talking, as he flipped open a crystal decanter causing its ruby wine to fill two goblets, he had looked deeply at her, with an expression she couldn't read. “You know nothing about Siddonie, my love. Well, but why should you?”

She had stroked his shoulder, tracing her finger down his cheek. “Tell me.”

His face went sullen, filled with old angers. “She is obsessed with power. She lusts for power, and not only Netherworld power. She has built power in the upperworld, though perhaps it is small pickings by upperworld standards.”

“I don't understand,” she had said. “I thought there were no powers there.”

“Not magic powers.” He had lifted the crystal goblet, and winked at her. “Money. In the upperworld, money creates power. And upperworlders will pay ridiculously high sums for Netherworld trinkets—diamonds, emeralds, rubies. It was easy for Siddonie to buy power.” He drained his goblet, and refilled it.

“She has established for herself a complicated investment structure, and she has recruited an army as well.”

She had stared at him, perplexed.

“Oh, yes, my dear. Siddonie now has an army of upperworld rabble, derelicts, upperworld refuse. She has collected men no one wants or will miss. She has given them food and shelter, and trained them to our weapons.”

“But why? To make war there, in the upperworld?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Of course not. She means to bring them here to fight beside our own soldiers against the rebels.” Efil smiled. “Siddonie is more afraid of the rebels than one would guess.”

“But upperworlders…Why would upperworlders fight for her?”

“When she befriended those men, few of them believed in anything. She has built allegiance among them. Now they
believe in
her,
now she is their goddess. She has changed their need for liquor, through spells, to a need to serve her. She gives them security and material comforts. She furnishes Netherworld women to tease them and drive them nearly mad with lust.” Efil smiled. “She has turned the upperworld rabble into her eager slaves.”

He had seemed filled with talk. As if, Melissa thought, once he had laid claim on her, in bed, he must tell her all his secrets. Perhaps he needed someone to share his secrets.

“Have you not wondered, my dear, why her seneschals are so often gone from the palace? Three are concerned with Netherworld intrigues. Vrech is responsible for messages and instructions to her upperworld associate.

“Havermeyer comes down occasionally, but Vrech is the errand boy; he is back and forth often. Havermeyer is titular head of the corporation. Siddonie and her brother Ithilel hold title. The company operates barely on the edge of the law, but of course no one can touch Siddonie or Ithilel. They would simply disappear.”

“But what use is power in that world, if there is no magic there? What does she gain?”

“Siddonie likes controlling others. She lusts for power, and more power.”

“And does she plan to rule the upperworld as well as our world?”

He laughed, and traced his finger down her cheek. “You are an innocent one. The upperworld is immense. Even Siddonie has more sense than to challenge the giant corporations. Though she has amassed an interesting fortune. She does it for recreation. And she does it as well, of course, as a cover of respectability for the recruiting.”

He drew her to him, stroking her hair. “Siddonie has established herself as a philanthropist. She has bought slum buildings and turned them into hostels for the poor. It is easy to recruit men without jobs or families from such a place. They welcome her offer of country air, warm clothes and beds, hot food in exchange for a few hours work each week. Once they are housed at the ranch, of course, the enchanting,
skillful women from Xendenton and Mathe make sure they will not leave.”

He cupped Melissa's face in his hands. “Do you see, my love, how vital our role will be? Do you see what we might prevent by wresting the throne from her? If she brings those hordes down, she will sweep across the Netherworld enslaving every land.”

He looked deeply at her. “We can prevent that. Together we can free the Netherworld of Siddonie's tyranny.”

Last night she had believed in him, she had believed all that Efil told her. Warm with lovemaking, feeling at one with him, she had burned to stop Siddonie. He had made her believe she would easily dethrone the dark queen, that Siddonie, without an heir, would fall and the Netherworld would be free.

He had driven away all her doubts, all her good sense. She had ignored his self-interest, had ignored the sure knowledge that within Efil there was no core of truth, no desire for good over evil. For right over wrong. She had pretended not to know that everything Efil did was for his own expediency and power. Now, for the first time in a long while she thought about the good, true things Mag had taught her, and she understood them. And she knew that Efil was not a part of that decency.

Efil stirred and woke, and lay watching her.

“I dreamed,” he said, distraught. He reached for her hand. His palm was sweaty and cold.

His distress alarmed her. “What did you dream?” Dreams were too often prophetic.

“I dreamed of a changeling child. I dreamed that Vrech carried Wylles to the upperworld and brought a changeling down. That Vrech brought a healthy boy down to take Wylles' place.”

“But it was only a dream,” she said softly, seeing the pain in his eyes. She could not hate him when he felt such pain.

“No one traffics in changelings anymore, Efil. That was all in ancient days—it was a dream.”

“It was so real. I saw Vrech carry Wylles out through an
upperworld portal. I saw him bring the changeling child down into the tunnels, and the boy looked uncommonly like Wylles. But he was stronger, rosy and healthy.”

“Maybe Wylles will get stronger. Maybe that was what the dream meant.”

He sat up against the pillows, pale, shaken, trying to get hold of himself. After several minutes he said, “I suppose it was a dream. It would take Siddonie months, years to find a child who looked like Wylles.” He drew her to him, kissing her nose and lips. “Before that our own son will be born and Siddonie will no longer be queen. Anyway, Vrech hasn't yet…” He faltered, then said too smoothly, “Vrech hasn't done anything to make me think…”

“Vrech hasn't yet what?” She pulled away, and sat staring at him, alarmed.

His face slid into a smile.

She caught her breath. “It wasn't just a dream! Siddonie
has
planned a changing!
You knew!
You knew before we—before you brought me here!”

“Of course I knew,” he said easily. “And I have to stop her. Together, we can stop her.”

She swung off the bed, snatching up her dress. “You bred a child with me. You—all the time you knew she could prevent that child from having claim on the throne.
You knew this! And you made a child in me!
I will—I will lay every spell I know to destroy it!”

He was out of bed, pulling her to him. “Our child will be stronger than any changeling. Trust me. You have the Catswold strength. And you will have the Catswold nation behind you. With our child, we will defeat Siddonie no matter if she does bring a changeling.” He cupped her face in his hands. “There is a magic among the Catswold, a power for life that can defeat her.” He backed her against the wall, stroking her, handling her too roughly, hurting her, whispering spells to dominate her.

She fought him, pushed him away. He threw her onto the bed, forcing her until in a tide of passion she clung to him.
Appalled at herself, she let him take her, driven by a wild, animal lust.

When they lay spent, she was ashamed. She hoped he would sleep. She made a sleep spell, silent and insistent. And when he did sleep, she slid off the bed and pulled on her rumpled dress. Angrily she cast the open-spell and watched the wall swing back. She was angry at herself, and angry at the powers that had lured her; angry because she could have resisted those powers. She was shamed because she had not.

Standing in the opening, she saw, away through the woods, the palace shining pale against the green-lit sky. She stood for some moments watching for guards, and when behind her Efil stirred from sleep, she spun around fiercely whispering another spell at him.

He slept deeply again.

She had stepped out into the woods when she saw riders leave the palace. She drew back, waiting until they had gone. Then a lone horseman came out the gate. It was the queen's seneschal, Vrech, hunch shouldered, booting his horse along in that ugly way he had. He was headed south, his yellow cape billowing.

She remembered that a tunnel lay to the south, and Efil's words exploded in her mind:
Vrech is responsible to her upperworld associate, he is back and forth often…I dreamed of a changeling child…I dreamed that Vrech carried Wylles to the upperworld…Vrech goes up more often…

She closed the wall behind her and moved to follow Vrech. Soon she was running, keeping in sight his yellow cape. If there was a changeling she wanted to know it. She wanted to prevent the switch. She was determined not to let the tryst happen for nothing. She ran, her emotions and purposes all in a tangle, only knowing that she must follow Vrech.