The Bitterbynde Trilogy (128 page)

Gently, Ashalind pushed the stone Erith Door with one finger. It floated open easily under the slight pressure. Beyond stretched a land of towering rocks: Arcdur, empty of all signs of life. Night reigned.

The hummingbird dashed past. Once outside, it rebelled against the darkness and tried to return, but the invisible wind formed a barricade. It flew away, leaving Ashalind bereft.

She let her hand follow it, gingerly, through the Erith Door, out into the airs of home. Her fingertips tingled and she snatched them back. Withdrawing, she allowed the Door to close itself and sat leaning against the wall to ponder, touching the dying eringl leaves that covered the bracelet on her wrist.

The Door would not harm a thing of flesh by snapping shut on it. Even her nails—part of her living person though dead in themselves—had prevented it from sealing.

Now that this truth was apparent, a plan began to evolve.

If she could somehow prop open the Erith Door, then even if she ventured into Erith she could return through the Gate-passage and thus into the Realm whenever she wished.

Furthermore, the Gate of Oblivion's Kiss had not yet Closed for the last time. It could not do so, while someone remained within it or partway through it. As the only living creature (bar the hummingbird) who had been locked neither in Faêrie nor in Erith, was she, Ashalind the only one who could ever pass unhindered between the two worlds? Or might anyone enter the Gate if it stood wide?

There was no way of knowing.

If the Doors could be propped open and the Gate could be duped to allow her passage to and fro, then she might be able to carry a message from one place to the other. What if, in Erith, she could discover the Password to the Green Casket; the Password that would release the Keys to open all the Gates again? Then the High King might be reunited with his Realm!

The preternaturally attractive Prince Morragan, whose dark male beauty cloaked acid and steel, had asked his boon and it had been fulfilled exactly. Once fulfilled, all boons lost their power over whosoever had promised them.

There remained only the danger of the second pledge, the unasked boon that Morragan had cleverly won from the Gatekeeper. But if she, Ashalind, could only find the High King, surely he would be able to put all things to rights, to force his brother to reveal the Password and renounce his second boon in exchange for his own return to the Realm. Surely the Crown Prince would do anything to be reunited with his beloved homeland.

Was it possible? Could she return the generosity of the Faêran by reuniting them with their High King? She would search in Erith for him—surely it was not possible for him to have travelled too far away in such a short time—and when she found him, she would beg him to cure the Langothe, which had begun again, of course, to eat at her. Then she would tell him of her secret way back into the Fair Realm and all would be well! The only peril would lie in preventing Prince Morragan from discovering the secret first.

But the Fithiach, the Raven Prince, did not know she was in Erith. No one in Erith knew.

Her fingertip pushed open the stone Erith Door for the second time.

The landscape had changed dramatically. Weather had eroded some monoliths, while others looked sharp and new, as if they had but lately been thrust up from subterranean workshops in some violent upheaval of the ground. It was no longer nighttime. Sunset tinged the air with the delicate pink of blood diluted in water. Puzzled, she took a moment to work out what was happening, and when she did her insides crawled like cold worms, her stomach flopped like a fish.

Time in Erith was racing past while she remained in the Gate-passage. She must delay no longer—how many years might have passed already? In a panic, she tried to think quickly. Cierndanel, or someone else, had mentioned that time was running all awry because of the Closing. There was no telling how many years might have elapsed by the time she finally slipped through the Door into Erith—perhaps seven years, perhaps a hundred. All the mortals she had known, who had remained behind, might be long dead. Her world might be altered in many other undreamed-of ways. It might have evolved into a place unknown.

‘I shall be a stranger in my own land,' croaked Ashalind, with difficulty forcing words from dehydrated lips.

The Faêran, however, could not be slain; they were immortal. They could choose or be forced by serious injury to pass away into a lesser form, but unchallenged, the exiled knights, the royal lords of the Realm and the lords and ladies who had fled to join them would live on, whatever else.

Driven by a sense of overwhelming urgency she propped her father's knife in the open Erith Door. As soon as she let go, the Door snapped shut, breaking it.

A living hand could keep the Door open, but not an object of metal. If only she could delude this enchanted valve, make it believe that she was partway through it, perpetually half in, half out, it would stay open for her, and her alone. Some part of her must remain in the doorway, to prop it open. A finger? No, that was too gruesome to contemplate. Other measures must be taken. She worked quickly.

For the third and last time she opened the Erith Gate. Arcdur's stony bones leaned up, even more skewed and corroded, shouting against the low-slung sky. A storm was raging, but Ashalind could not wait for it to abate—already too much time had passed. Her preparations were made. Pulling Cierndanel's gift-cloak closer around her shoulders, she stepped out of the quiet passage.

Chaos assailed her. Reflexively she flung herself back against an upright stone pillar, one of the Gateposts. Torrents of rain lashed all around and wind screamed through darkness. Crouching in the lee of the rock, she let the waters of Erith run down her face into her parched mouth, drinking greedily of the chill deluge, feeling it irrigate her body and send silver channels running along her veins, until she had her fill.

Already her riding-habit was sodden. It was strange to recall that this was the very costume in which she had made the journey from Hythe Mellyn to the Perilous Realm. That journey now seemed ever so long ago and far away. The words of Nimriel came back: ‘
Thy voyage is only just beginning, daughter of Erith.'
Ashalind wrapped herself more tightly in the Faêran cloak. Lightning ripped open the belly of the sky and its dazzle revealed, in a black-and-white instant, a world of tumbled rocks and oblique crags utterly different from the realm she had departed from moments earlier. Looking back, she noted that on this side the Geata Poeg na Déanainn looked to be no more than a tall crevice between leaning boulders, perilously inviting, its secret recesses wrapped in deep shadow. Intermittent flashes illuminated slanting water-curtains pleated suddenly by gusts of wind. Her thirst slaked, Ashalind felt a great weariness coming over her. She crawled under an overhang, out of the storm's fury. Desiccated leaves flaked from her wrists and turned to dust. The Faêran cloak was warm. Briefly she wondered how this Erithan storm compared to the one in which Morragan had battled against his brother, maybe a hundred years ago.

Then she slept.

Pale dawn revealed a nacreous veil over the sun. Rivulets chattered swiftly over pebbles, droplets fell tinkling from ledges. Boulders had piled themselves high everywhere in fantastic, towering shapes. Water and granite surrounded Ashalind. The only signs of life were mosses and pink lichens.

She drank again, from a rocky cascade, wishing that she had a flask in which to carry water. She was alone in an uncertain place, probably far from human habitation, and she knew nothing of wilderness survival, but good sense told her that thirst and exposure were her two most immediate enemies, and against them she must be prepared. First—survive. Next—fulfil her quest. She decided not to proceed until she had memorized the surroundings in the vicinity of the Geata Poeg na Déanainn, to ensure future recognition.

The furor of the Closing had distorted and dislodged the entire Gate, including both of its Doors. The portal had been blasted out of alignment. Fallen rocks partially covered the Erith Door.

I think the Faêran would no longer know this Gate. Only I am here, to record it in memory
.

She began to take careful note of her surroundings, preparing to imprint every detail of the Gate's identity and location on her consciousness. Something nagged, diverting her attention, like a fly buzzing about her ears. She lost concentration …

‘—
hain?'

Crackling voices, someone calling out a name.

She took no notice. It was not her name. Or was it?

What was her name
?

The interruption faded. A fancy.

She shook her head to rid her ears of the buzzing. The voices faded, giving way to memories.

The Faêran cloak now appeared to be mottled gray in colour, exactly like granite. Its fabric, soft and strong, was unidentifiable and had remained dry, although rain and wind had bedraggled her riding-gown and other garments. Leodogran's dagger and pouch of gold swung from her belt. Ashalind emptied the water out of her riding-boots, braided her long hair, and bound it around her head for convenience, then took a deep breath of the pure, silver-tinged air. It set her blood ringing. The soft luminescence that indicated the sun's position was still low in the sky, behind dully gleaming crags that stood up like pointed teeth.

Northeast of Arcdur, she knew, lay the strait that separated Eldaraigne from Avlantia. Besides having no means of crossing it she was reluctant to return to her homeland lest devastating changes had been wrought on it by the winds of Closing, or by Time. Never had she travelled out of Avlantia, but her thorough education had included studying the maps of the Known Lands of Erith. These she now recalled.

South, a long way south, lay the Royal City, Caermelor, and the Court of the King-Emperor of Erith. It might be the best place to glean news of the whereabouts of Faêran royalty. Besides, the Geata Poeg na Déanainn had spilled her out toward the south, so it seemed somehow meet to continue in the same direction.

Now that excitement, fatigue, and thirst were behind her, Ashalind was aware that hunger, like a rat, gnawed her belly. Worse than that, the Langothe, which had coiled up like a snake temporarily dormant, now hit her with full force, redoubled now that she had not only breathed the air of the Fair Realm but also left her loved ones there. Retching, she staggered and clutched at an outcrop, half turning toward the Gate.

Now was the time to leave, and leave quickly, before the Langothe's cruel pull drew her back to the Fair Realm at the very outset of her quest. With an effort, as though walking through water rather than air, she forced herself to set out, step by step, aching to turn back, at least to take one extra glance over her shoulder at the Geata Poeg na Déanainn. Instead, as she rounded a granite shoulder she quickened her pace. To deflect her thoughts from hunger and longing she determined to focus her mind on her final glimpse of the Gate, to recall every detail so as to engrave its image deeply into memory. She must never forget.

The Door she left behind, seemingly just another rocky crevice among many, stood still and unnoticeable in the deep shadows of morning, as it had stood for many years. Yet not quite as it had previously stood—a crack was penciled down one side, where it remained slightly ajar. Only a thin crack; a hairline, one might say, as wide as the thickness of three strands of gold; three thin braids of hairs torn out, one by one, from the roots and weighed down at one end by a rock and at the other by a broken knife. A girl's fingernail might have slid into that gap, as it had indeed slid not long before, to test it.

A girl's fingernail could open that Door, as long as the girl was the owner of the hair.

‘—
hain! Rohain
!'

The girl on the mullock heap opened her eyes to darkness. Spicy, intoxicating night enclosed her in its embrace. Someone was calling. Fear drilled her brain, lacerating it with cold skewers.

‘Rohain …'

How can one move, with wooden limbs?

Closer now:
‘Where are you?'

Where indeed? On the slopes of Huntingtowers.

She stood up too late—they were upon her, two white masks of terror in the gloom.

‘She's here!'

‘My lady, hasten!'

The young woman stared at the masks, unseeing.

‘'Tis us, Viviana and Caitri—we have been searching for you all day! Quickly—night is come and danger is upon us! Wights are everywhere and not a seelie one among them!'

The urgent tones shattered meditation. An insubstantiality floated away from the dreamer's grasp. Her reverie had been interrupted just as she was about to recreate a visualization of the portal to Faêrie.

Now I shall never recall it
.

As her lady's maids grabbed her by the elbows, the damsel had enough presence of mind left to ensure that the bracelet securely encircled her wrist. Then they were off, stumbling through the mountainside's witchy darkness.

Wicked and eldritch indeed was the night. The three mortals were tripped and tricked at every turn, taunted and haunted, jeered at, leered at by the hideous, the horrible, the hateful. Unseelie energies hummed electric in the air like charged wires, for the wind or eldritch fingers to pluck or to slide down with fiendish screams; like cords to snake across their path, to catch in webs at their ankles, transmitting the throbbing menace of the darkness in thin metal slices of pain. On ran the three mortal maidens, expecting at any time to be cut down from behind, or beside, or in front, but a globe of soft luminosity illuminated their path.

This light travelled with them. It radiated from the ring worn on the finger of one of them. Things that lunged at the escapers were brushed by the edge of this orb. They yelped and ricocheted away. The boots of the three damsels hammered on the surface of a road as they crossed. On the other side a bank ascended steeply into a wood. Panting, they climbed up into the tangle of undergrowth, pushing in under muffling trees until one of them, the smallest, fell.