The Radiant Road (24 page)

“There is no safety.”

“She is stupid and spoiled, she is the teeth of the wolf.”

Like a bear teased by a pack of dogs, Clare spun around. “So how do I find the beast?”

“Find the center of the labyrinth, from which no human has ever returned.”

“Finn returned,” called a voice from the back. Was it her white-haired friend?

“Far more fairy than human, Finn,” said another. “Our child, raised by us. No
real
human has ever returned.”

Clare felt ill, recalling the hoarse, snuffling breathing, the heavy tread, ever behind her, around the corner, in the next room of every
dream. “I have a little fairy in me,” she said. “I don't know how much. Will it be enough?”

Silk and color and fur around her shrugged. None of them knew; none of them cared. Again they spoke, in voices low and rough, high and soft.

“You may never find the beast.”

“If you do, the beast will be angry indeed.”

“If you fail or die, the roads will be closed forever.”

“And that's no great loss.” There was laughter at this.

“Even if you succeed, but succeed too late, the roads will close. Your people will never dream again, nor visit our world again.”

“And good riddance to an unlovely race.” More laughter.

“But we will never see the stars again,” cried a low voice.

A brief, sad silence. Then the phrase was taken up by the whole crowd in a kind of mournful, heartbroken fugue: “The stars,” they sang. “The stars, the stars, the stars.”

Through the melancholy music, the dry voice came through clear: “We worship the stars, Clare, did you know? The stars are sacred to us. We cannot see them from our own world, because here the night never comes.”

“The stars,” the people of the Strange sang. “The stars, the stars, the stars.”

“STOP IT,” cried a voice.

It was Finn.

Clare turned at his voice and finally saw him full on. He stood straight in a loose white shirt stained with blood. A green cloth was tied over one eye, and his hairline near that eye was caked with blood. She made a small involuntary sound of pain.

Finn looked at her—and his one good eye did not, as she expected, express fury or contempt: it held only pain, which was so much worse. “She can't do it,” he said. “It's too dangerous for her. We must find some other way.”

Dumbfounded, again. He was a dumbfounding boy. Finn's whole life had been a readying to fight Balor, which was all his duty. And unless he won that fight, he could never make in the human world again, which was all his love.

How could her safety be more important to him than his greatest duty and greatest love? Especially after what she had done?

Did he like her that much?

And was the beast truly that dangerous?

As if in answer, Finn said, “Clare, don't go. It is as dangerous as they say, for you. You will likely never return.”

Clare remembered what she had learned: that in dreams and in making, you choose what you are. But you do not choose only once. Over and over, at every turning you must choose. This felt like a turning, a time to choose what she was. Her heart beat high
in her chest, and she tasted blood from a bitten lip. A whole life of dream-running from the hoarse breath of an enormous, unseen creature. And now to run toward it, and meet it, and fight it? How?

“I will do it,” she said.

No Out to Find

Finn had asked the others for a moment alone with Clare, but to her surprise, he didn't argue against her decision. For a while, in fact, he said nothing at all. They stood beside each other, facing out, close enough for her to feel the warmth, the un-Strange warmth of his arm near hers.

They could still be silent together, anyway.

Finn spoke. “You found the flag, then? Or where the flag will be found? Her of the Cliffs says she will not hunt, will not, and will not be persuaded. Without her, the others will never come. If we have no flag, we are lost.”

“I did figure it out,” said Clare, watching her feet. “I finally realized he meant Skye, not sky. No, sorry, I mean—the island of Skye, where he's from. Not the sky above. We have an old book, it was my granddad's, called
SKYE: The Island and Its Legends
, that tells all these stories from there. Including about the flag. It's in the house. I know exactly where he will have put it, even the page.”

She stopped, embarrassed by the pleased note that had crept into her voice. She made herself look up, and again, the sight of his face destroyed her. “Oh, Finn,” she said. “I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.
I could say it for a million years, and never say how bad I feel. I'm so sorry.”

A Finnishly crooked smile, but still he did not look toward her. “You make me sound a monster—am I?”

“No! no, no. Only your eye . . . oh, Finn.”

“Now, Clare, mad Clare. I know you never meant it.”

“Finn.” She wouldn't cry, would not, when he wasn't crying, and he was the one so hurt.

“Only,” said Finn, and stopped. Now he too was looking down, at his feet and hers, beside each other, her boots blue and gray and narrow, his round and scuffed and brown. “Only,” he said, almost too soft too hear, “what will I be, with a blinded beast? Can I make, will I still be a maker? And can I bear it, if I am not?”

Clare felt her heart sink, when she'd thought it could sink no more. The thought of Finn, unable to make.

“Also . . .” He hesitated. “Also: will it make me like my grandfather?” He turned his face to her, all naked anxiety. “Will it, do you think? That would be beyond bearing, oh, far beyond, Clare.”

“
No
,” said Clare. She knew her voice was cracking, did not care. “
No
, you never, that could
never
happen. And of
course
you'll still be able to make.”

“It may be.” Finn looked down again. “It may be.” He did not seem to believe it. “If I can't make, though, Clare . . . ,” he said, softly.

Clare felt vertigo-sick, seeing the plunging depths of her crime.

“Tree-guardian!” called a high, sharp voice. “You have little enough time.”

Reluctantly, Clare pulled away from Finn, letting her arm brush against his coat as she did, and hoping he felt it, and knew what it was: a good-bye. He leaned in to whisper: “Remember, you must return before Midsummer's Eve, when we hunt. That is a day from now, and no more than a day, or all is lost: Your tree destroyed. The two worlds, forever apart. You and I, forever apart. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Clare. She turned away, then turned back, impulsive. “And I'm going to make it up to you, Finn. I am somehow. I swear I am.”

He smiled sadly. “You'll have to come back, to make it up. And that will be making it up enough for me.”

Clare nodded, then walked into the crowd of fairies, who pulled back as she moved through. When she was entirely surrounded by feathers and fur, leather and bone, crimson and indigo and every peacock green of spring, she spoke.

“I'm ready,” she said. “Except”—this was probably a stupid question, but Clare was beyond caring—“do you guys have, like, a weapon or something to give me? Like in stories? To conquer the beast?”

The fairies stared at her in silence.

“All right,” said stubborn Clare. “But then once I conquer my beast”—once
I do, not if, not if
—“then how do I open the blocked tree?”

A rustle in the crowd; sprinkles of laughter. “How would
we
know?” said an airy voice. “You are the guardian. It is your gate. You contain the key.”

Clare took a deep breath. “Can someone at least tell me how to
get
to this labyrinth?”

For a moment, there was silence. Then the crowd of fairies began to whisper. The whispering rose, like a field of insects rising, as the crowd parted for the woman with the ice-threaded eyes and the long, unsmiling mouth, the one Clare had sat beside that first night.

With an expression Clare could not read, the woman stretched out one skinny arm, one skinny finger, and with just the tip of one long, dark blue nail drew a light scratch on Clare's forehead, just between her eyes.

Then all the fairies withdrew, silently, back and back, until they mingled and vanished among the trees that lined the leafy hall.

Clare stood alone, facing into the dark forest.

A wind swirled. Dead leaves, grass, twigs, spiraled upward. The leaves on the trees at the edge of the forest fluttered in agitation as the wind whipped through them.

The whirlwind moved toward her. Clare backed up, away from the wind, until she was backed up against the table and could go no farther.

But you cannot hide from a fairy wind, which gathers up everything in its path. Clare turned away, covering her face against the whirling grit and stinging sticks; she opened her mouth to scream, but instead she gagged and coughed on a mouthful of dirt and dead leaves. More than dirt was in this wind: Clare heard, though she could not see, a clamor of excited voices, men shouting, women laughing, running feet and pounding hooves. Clare was lifted up, could not find the ground with her feet, was not sure if she was upright or sideways or upside down. The wind spun her around, and around, and around. She was sick, then sicker and sicker from the spinning, and when she could not bear it another moment, the whirlwind dropped her, and spun away.

Clare lay on the ground, eyes shut tight, coughing the dirt from her lungs. The whirlwind had spun her and spun her, then dropped her, but her stomach continued to spin, and she lay.

When she finally opened her eyes, the world was gray and hard and tilting. The half-light said she was still in fairy. But the fairy hall had vanished; or she had. She was in a narrow passage; gray stone walls pressed close around her, covered with curious carvings, like the walls of her own home. But above her was no comforting
starry dome, only a pale, violet-blue sky. Was this the labyrinth?
From which no human has ever returned.

Her head was still spinning in one direction while her stomach spun in another, but Clare stumbled to her feet and looked around.

The passage's stone walls were high, much higher than she could jump. She could just spread her arms and touch the walls on each side of her. Behind her was another high stone wall, blocking the way. Ahead, the passage branched off in two directions. Because Clare was still a little dizzy—or was that why?—the spirals and stars carved on the walls seemed to shift and move and slowly spin. They felt like eyes, watching her.

A day from now, and no more than a day, or all is lost.
So she must begin, no time for dizziness or indecision. She strode forward, hesitated at the fork, then turned right. She had begun to walk the labyrinth.

At the next fork, she turned right again. At the third, biting her lip, she turned left. And so it went, fork after fork, soon she could no longer say for how long—an hour? Many hours? Uncertain, anxious, she moved through the maze making guesses, stopping herself, turning back, and turning back again.

Finally, paused before a three-way fork, she heard something. From down the right-hand path came a hollow, guttural growl that bent the way thunder bends in the air. Another, wilder howl
followed, this one rising higher, more anguished, more raging. She could almost feel the hot breath behind it.

Good intentions and brave words in the fairy hall were one thing. But Clare was an animal like any other animal, and an animal who feels she is prey has only one choice. When a third half scream, half roar burst down the right-hand passage, Clare turned down the left-hand passage and ran.

Running, never slowing, she took left turns and right turns almost at random. She ran in no direction at all, turning and twisting away from herself, toward herself, into and away from more stone walls, more spirals, more dark walls carved with eyes that watched her, tender and stony cold. Soon she had lost all trace of the monster, and all trace of a way out, all trace of anything except her own fear and anxiety.

Hurry! No more than a day!

And yet
the beast will be angry, angry indeed.

Finally, in exhaustion, she dropped to the ground and lay there, panting. She closed her eyes: enough. Enough spirals and labyrinths and endless magic hour. Curled up in a ball, she made no sound, but her chest convulsed.

In time, her breathing quieted. As it did, she heard a high, soft voice from the passage ahead. It was the voice of a young girl. “Don't cheat,” said the girl. “No peeking. Don't cheat.”

The girl said it again, and a third time: “Don't cheat!” The voice was closer each time. Perhaps she had been saying it for some time, and Clare could only now hear as her breathing slowed.

“All right,” said Clare, soft. She was so tired. She kept her head pressed into the crook of one arm, eyes shut. “I won't cheat.”

A cool hand touched her hot face. The scent of the girl's skin was a familiar, calming perfume of licorice and woody herbs.

“I've come to help,” said the girl into Clare's ear, in an exaggerated whisper. “I'm not supposed to, but I am.” A pleased pause. “So . . . what help do you need?”

Eyes tight, Clare thought hard. “I have to do something,” she said, “but I'm so afraid. So I keep running one way and then the other way, and I don't know where I am.”

“That last part's the right part,” whispered the girl, each word a breath of sweet herbs against Clare's face. “That's the right way to start a labyrinth. Say:
I don't know where I am.
And here's the right way to keep going: Forget your eyes. Forget seeing. Smell instead. Feel instead. Put your fingers out and feel one tiny inch at a time. Be like a tree. That's how you find the center.”

“And after that”—Clare was whispering now too—“how do I find my way out?”

“There is no out to find,” said the girl. “Only in, to what lives in the center.”

“I'm afraid of what lives there,” said Clare. She could no longer whisper; her voice was trembling. “How can I not be afraid? Is it something nice?” But she knew it was not. Oh, the scent of this girl was where she wanted to live forever.

“No,” breathed the girl. “Nice? No. A monster lives there. A beast lives there. But, Clare, a beast is what you need.”

“I know,” murmured Clare deep into the crook of her own arm. “I know I need it but . . . why is it so angry with me?”

The girl didn't answer, and her woody, herby, healing scent began to drift away.

“It's your birthday soon,” said the singsong, licorice-herb voice, far down the passage. “Happy birthday, Clare. Don't be late.”

“But wait, please, tell me why the beast is
angry
—” Clare began, eyes still tight closed, for she was not a cheater.

But the girl was gone.

Eyes closed, Clare turned over in her mind what the girl had said.

There is no out to find.
All right. Clare had known that in her heart, and had proved it in her mad run.

To start a labyrinth, say “I don't know where I am.”

“I don't know where I am,” said Clare aloud, curled on the ground, holding herself tight.

Forget your eyes. Forget seeing. Be like me.

Clare stood up unsteadily, eyes still shut, and felt her way down the wall to the next intersection of passages. Time was short, but she understood that she had to let time go.

Which way to go?

Silence, except her own breathing, her own heart.

She smelled the dirt under the dead grass beneath her feet.

She smelled sweat, her own and—oh.

Her own sweat, and another's. And from the right, the other-scent was stronger, and the faintest trace of an animal heat touched her face. She took a few steps in that direction, eyes still closed. Blindness was like a thread that led her on.

From the distant end of the right-hand passage, she heard a long breath, like steam from a grate.

Keeping her hand on the wall, she turned to face the scent, the heat, the hissing breath. The air felt colder.
Oh
, she thought:
it's because I'm sweating.

The stone wall was rough under her fingers; her fingers trailed through cracks and carvings. Eyes closed; no eye.