“What is so special about today, anyway?”
“It’s the equinox.”
“The equinox?” Phinnegan said, wrinkling his brow. “That’s not possible. It’ll be only a month ‘til Christmas now. The next equinox isn’t for four months yet.”
“Not so,” Emerald said, smiling softly. “Although our worlds are connected, time passes differently between them. They are not at all in sync. Here, today is the equinox, and it is the only day of the year when legend says the Gate can be opened.” She nodded toward the book in Phinnegan’s hands. “And as you are one of the only ways that the Gate can be opened, I’d guess that book has some instruction for you.” She paused and her eyes passed between colors. “Or a warning.”
Phinnegan swallowed and looked down at the book.
“Well, how are we going to figure out what it says?” he asked quietly, enlisting the Faë’s help with the question.
“We shall just have to try some common ciphers. I can’t believe it would be too hard to get through.”
“What’s a common cipher?”
“One is a simple substitution pattern where each letter is replaced with another letter. The easiest is by reversing the alphabet. But these are usually obvious as there will be numerous Zs replacing As.”
“There aren’t any Zs.”
“Here, why don’t you copy it out so that I can see it? There should be paper and ink in the writing desk.”
Phinnegan got up from his place by the fire and followed the Faë to the writing desk. Here they found paper, a quill and a nearly empty bottle of ink. Still, there was enough ink for Phinnegan to scribble out the coded message for Emerald to see.
Abe ar eroft hema rkm ay
Att heapp oint edit mean datth ea ppo inte dpl ace
Co meupo nanen tran cetot hep ath
Emba rkin gupo nthi spat hmus tno tbet ake nlig htl y
Fo rtheg uar dia nwith inw illpur geth osed ee medu now rth y
Theb ear ermus ten terw illin gly
Th ebe arerm usten tera lon e
After only a moment, a wry smile began to curl her lips.
“It truly is quite simple.”
“Simple?” Phinnegan said, with a frown, upset that she could see through this code so quickly. “How? What do you see?”
“Look here,” she said, pointing to the first line of the script. “What if you shifted things about?”
“You mean shuffle the letters about like a puzzle?”
“No, not quite. Not shuffle, shift. Write the first line again, this time with no spaces. He did as she asked, now looking at something even more unusual.
Abearerofthemarkmay
“Now, give me the quill.”
Phinnegan passed the quill to the Faë and watched as she drew several quick lines between the letters of the first line. When she handed the paper back to him, Phinnegan sucked in a breath.
“Brilliant,” he whispered. Even with the letter’s jumbled together, the lines that Emerald had drawn made it perfectly legible.
A|bearer|of|the|mark|may
“Here, you finish the rest,” Emerald said, offering him the quill. Phinnegan hesitated a few moments over the first line, but soon he grew accustomed to the simple cipher and divided the letters in each line into intelligible words. He then wrote each line correctly spaced, revealing the cipher’s secret.
A bearer of the mark may
At the appointed time and at the appointed place
Come upon an entrance to the path
Embarking upon this path must not be taken lightly
For the guardian within will purge those deemed unworthy
The bearer must enter willingly
The bearer must enter alone
Sentences constructed of familiar words brought a smile to Phinnegan’s lips.
“Don’t get arrogant,” the Faë scolded. “This is an incredibly simple cipher. The hidden nature of the text itself protects it more than the cipher.”
Phinnegan frowned as he read the words twice more.
“I’m still not sure what it means.”
“Aren’t you?” Emerald asked. “Hear, follow along.” She drew close to him.
“It seems simple enough. The first line is talking about you, a ‘bearer of the mark’. The next two lines describe the present - it is the appointed time and this is the appointed place. The First Gate is the entrance. The rest…a warning to you, with the last line being very clear.”
“Yes,” Phinnegan said quietly. “I suppose it isn’t all that difficult after all. But…how could I enter alone? I’ve already said I would help him, you know, your father.”
Emerald snapped an icy glance in his direction.
“Yes, and as I said, a fool’s mistake. You have no idea the power that lies beyond the Gate. Nor do you understand the rules that govern our world. Bargains that are made at certain times cannot be broken. A bargain made at a feast is one of the most sacred.”
“So…if I opened the Gate for him, he would have to send me home?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “Perhaps. Although as much as bargains are considered sacrosanct, so is the art of not fulfilling one’s own end but without breaking the bargain.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, think back to dinner. Did you actually promise to let Vermillion enter the Gate?” Phinnegan thought back to the dinner and replayed the words that Vermillion had spoken to him.
“No, I didn’t,” Phinnegan said at last. “But I did agree to help him open it. How am I supposed to stop him from entering?”
“I am afraid I have no answer to that. It is something you must discover for yourself. I may have helped you too much already.”
“What do you mean?”
“I must go,” she said quietly, stepping toward the door. Phinnegan remained at the writing desk, the paper clutched in his fingers.
“Oh, and Phinnegan,” the Faë spoke just as she reached the door, turning back to regard him over her shoulder.
“Yes,” he responded, a hopeful tone in his voice.
“Be careful once you have passed through the Gate. The book mentions a guardian. You never know what you may find – or what may find you.”
The First Gate
Phinnegan was awakened from a restless sleep by the shrill cries of birds outside the window of his chambers. He listened to their early morning banter for several minutes, drawing more calm and energy from that brief span than he had during the entire night. Although he had tried to sleep, he had met with little success. Vermillion haunted his mind the entire night, first in one form and then another.
He counted the peals when the castle’s bells rang the hour.
Seven
.
Vermillion had told him the night before at dinner that the ceremony to open the Gate would begin promptly at eight.
Only one more hour.
A sharp rap at the door startled him. Escaping from beneath the ivory silk sheets, he called out for the person to enter. The same servant from the night before entered, an elegant silver tray held in his right hand.
“Breakfast, little master,” the servant said, his tone mocking the honorific that many of the Aged had bestowed upon him the previous night.
“Put it over there,” Phinnegan directed, pointing towards the small table between the chairs that sat in front of the fire.
“Of course,” the servant sneered, striding with his nose in the air to the appointed spot.
“Will you require anything else?”
When Phinnegan shook his head no, the servant presented a stiff bending of the neck before striding from the room, closing the door behind him.
Despite feelings swirling within him about the day’s coming events, Phinnegan was quite hungry. Even with the domed cover, also made of silver, covering the tray, a hint of the aroma of fresh bread wafted from it. When he lifted the cover, the smells assailed his nose, causing his hunger to grow.
The breakfast was simple, but elegant. A still-steaming small bread loaf filled one side of the platter, while the other contained a smattering of brightly colored berries, still fresh on the vine. In the center, a half moon clod of deep yellow butter rested on a square stone plate.
He tore ravenously into the bread, using the provided knife to spread the butter liberally over each chunk of bread he ripped from the loaf. Before long, the loaf was nearly gone. Taking the vines of berries into his hands, he took them to the window ledge of his room. Looking out he saw that his room faced the castle’s gardens. Lush greenery and flowers in all shapes, sizes and colors greeted the morning with vigor.
A single peal of the bell broke the silence, and Phinnegan paused with a ripe purple berry paused just in front of his lips.
That’ll be the quarter-hour bell, I’d guess.
Fifteen-minutes had already passed while he had eaten breakfast. Now, only forty-five minutes stood between Phinnegan and the Gate. The Gate and Vermillion.
He stomached the remaining berries before stripping and washing up in the provided basin. The water was cold and goose bumps peppered out on his skin as he washed.
He donned his travelling clothes, just as the bell sounded again.
Half-past.
Phinnegan hurriedly recovered the leather-bound book given to him by Asher. The paper that he and Emerald had deciphered the riddle on marked the page where he had seen the writing the night before. He quickly scanned the paper, revisiting each line and the warnings contained therein.
But when he glanced at the page in the book, he saw that the words had vanished. Fumbling, he flipped through the pages nearest the end of the book, searching for the passage.
Yet they were nowhere to be found.
Emerald had been right. The words had appeared at midnight providing the book’s bearer a warning before vanishing into the stark pages once again.
Laying the book aside, he returned his attention to the paper with his writing and Emerald’s lines. The final line stood out to him.
Alone
. But to enter alone would surely destroy any chance of going home. Whether he had ever actually promised to allow Vermillion to enter, the mad tyrant surely wouldn’t help him if he felt cheated.
Allow
. He snorted to himself at the ridiculousness of the thought. Allow Vermillion to enter? How could he possible stop him?
The gears of his mind turning, he tossed the paper into the remaining embers of the fire and watched to be sure that the paper took light.
Reaching for the book, Phinnegan started where he sat. There, on the page that had been blank only moments before, one line of scribbled text had appeared.