Torch

by R. J. Anderson

  She was crossing the yard on the third evening, lost in troubled thought, when Broch flashed into view beside her. Ivy whirled, ready to scold him for startling her, but when she saw the urgent look on his face her resentment vanished. “What is it?” she asked, breathless.

  “Martin’s found something important,” Broch said. “He wants you to come right away.”

  The quoit stood in the midst of a rocky heathland, its capstone of lichen-crusted granite supported by smaller pillars slumped unevenly together. Once it had been the tomb of some ancient chieftain, robed in earth and moss; but now it stood naked to the elements, with no company but the sea and a few lonely hills in the distance.

  Martin stood by the pile of stones, hands deep in the pockets of David Menadue’s old coat. Ivy changed out of falcon-shape and landed on the grass beside him.

  “It fits you,” she said in surprise, and Martin laughed.

  “You have the strangest priorities,” he said. “But yes, the coat fits—if only because I used magic to make it so. Even a beggar should be allowed some vanity.”

  Ivy put her arms around him, leaning her head on his chest. How he managed to stay clean in such a desolate place she couldn’t imagine, but his clothes were spotless and there was no trace of dirt on his skin. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “No matter.” He spoke lightly, stroking her hair. “You saved my life, and that’s the important thing. Now, let me show you.” Releasing her, he stepped back and changed to bird-shape. With a twittering cry he shot off across the moorland, angling parallel to the sea.

  Bemused, Ivy changed shape and followed, soaring above him to warn off any other birds that might be tempted to see a house martin as prey. They glided over the countryside for several minutes, then down toward a patch of woodland by the edge of a small town. The land shrugged upward here, and the storm had struck it hard: broken branches littered the landscape, and at the foot of the hill two big trees lay torn up by the roots.

  Martin landed and took his own shape, pointing at the muddy hole beneath. “Look,” he said, as Ivy touched down beside him. “Do you see it?”

  She squinted into the darkness, but all she could make out were tangled roots and clods of earth. “See what?”

  He crouched, kindling a glow-spell at his fingertips. “What about now?”

  “Martin, I don’t—”

  He caught her wrist, tugging her closer. “Here,” he said, and pressed her palm against something cold.

  A haze slid away from Ivy’s vision, revealing a square of storm-gray, weathered granite. Dirt and old lichen mottled its surface, but it appeared to be carved in a spiral pattern, radiating out from a circle on one side. It was small by human standards, but . . .

  “It’s a door,” Ivy said blankly.

  Martin flashed her a smile. He touched the spiral, and with a grating noise the door swung inward, revealing a narrow entrance and a set of steps leading up into the hill. He shrank to near-piskey height, dropped onto the threshold, and slipped inside.

  His confidence surprised Ivy: she’d thought Martin hated being underground. But he seemed unfazed by the closeness of the passage, or the weight of earth pressing in. Treading carefully past the broken floor-slates and slab walls streaked with damp, he led Ivy through the entrance and up the stairs.

  The first few steps were uneven, just flat stones staggered atop one another. But as they climbed, the stairs smoothed out, and the crude patchwork of rocks around them clustered into patterns, rippling up the walls like sea waves and curling into windy spirals of cloud-white quartz. Ivy had grown up in tunnels decorated with gems and mosaics, but she’d never seen work like this before; it reminded her more of human abstract paintings than anything piskeys would make.

  At the top of the stair stood a second door, its spiral curving opposite to the one at the bottom. Martin pushed it, but nothing happened.

  “That’s as far as I’ve been able to get,” he said, turning to Ivy. “I’ve spent hours poking at it and trying every spell I could think of, but it won’t move. Maybe you’ll have better luck.” He stepped back, gesturing for her to try.

  Chance favored spriggans more than piskeys, and even Martin’s so-called good luck tended to be mixed at best. But there seemed no harm in trying, so Ivy stepped up and pressed her palm to the door.

  Nothing happened. She traced the spiral with her fingertips, trying to activate its magic, but it stayed dark until Martin slipped behind her, so close she could feel his coat-buttons, and laid his hand over hers.

  Silver light swirled around the spiral, glowing through their interlocked fingers. A deep clank echoed through the tunnel, and with a rasp the door slid aside.

  Ivy glanced at Martin, astonished. “How did you know it would take both of us?”

  “I didn’t.” He looked equally surprised. “It just felt right, somehow.”

  Who would make a door that only a spriggan and a piskey together could open? Ivy shook her head, wondering, as Martin kindled a glow-spell and led her into the strangest place she had ever seen.

  It was a chamber, broad and deep, its walls streaked with the same pebbly stonework as the staircase. The floor was thick with sand, flour-white and dimpled with footprints, and every few paces it rose into a soft hummock, as though some enormous turtle had buried its eggs there. Ivy crouched to brush the sand from the nearest, but the lump beneath was opaque and hard as pottery, giving no clue to its purpose.

  The stillness of the air made the chamber feel solemn, even sacred. Yet it smelled oddly fresh for a room that had been sealed for decades, perhaps even centuries. Some powerful magic lay over this place.

  Martin crossed the room slowly, the light of his glow-spell casting stark shadows across the floor. “There’s another door here,” he called, and Ivy hurried to join him.

  Behind it lay another chamber, slightly smaller than the first. There were more of the egg-like bumps here, but arranged in a different pattern: these ones circled a dark, misty well in the center of the floor.

  Like a man in a trance Martin walked to the well, stooped, and reached inside it—and when he raised his hands they were filled not with water, but treasure. Gold chains dripped from his fingers, and silver coins rained back onto the hoard. “This place,” he breathed. “It’s . . .”

  “It belonged to your people,” Ivy said, equally quiet. Piskeys didn’t use coins, and faeries didn’t live underground: there was no other explanation. But she’d never seen a spriggan hoard as large as this, or so well built.

  Martin let the treasure fall again and moved to the side wall. “Another door,” he said. “How big is this place?”

  They entered one chamber after another, exploring as they went. First came a storeroom stocked with spears, shields, knives, and leather armor; then a bigger one filled with sacks of grain and sealed jars of oil, preserves, and honey. In a third, thick woolen cloaks hung from pegs, with more clothes piled on the bench beneath them: sheepskin vests and hide breeches, tunics, stockings, and other old-fashioned but practical attire. Ivy fingered a pair of knitted gloves, amazed at how new they looked. It was as though the whole place had lain in stasis for centuries.

  All in all they found eight chambers in the underground complex, and Ivy’s piskey senses told her there was plenty of room in the hill to dig more. It might not be nearly as large as the Delve, but it was safe, warm, and dry. Best of all, Betony had no idea this place existed, and no chance of finding it—even if her scouts stumbled onto the entrance, they’d never get past the inner door.

  “This place is . . .” Ivy started to say as they returned to the main chamber, then bit her lip. How could she ask Martin to help her people, after the way they’d treated him?

  “I know what you’re thinking.” He stopped with his back to her, his eyes on the hummocked floor. “And you’re right, it’s perfect. But you saw what happened the last time. Your people don’t want anything to do with spriggans. Or me.”<
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  Ivy stepped up to Martin’s back, sliding her arms around him. She knew he must be grieving for the people who had built this place—the spriggans that her folk had banished and then wiped out. “I know,” she said softly. “And you’ve got every reason to hate us for it. But if it comes to choosing life with you or death with Betony, they’ll have to change their attitude. There’s nowhere else we can go.”

  Martin was silent. She laid her cheek between his shoulder blades, waiting, until he sighed and turned to face her. “I don’t hate them, Ivy. How can I, when I’ve seen them through your eyes? I’m just tired of finding peace only to have it snatched away. But if you can convince your fellow piskeys . . .” He gave a little shrug. “Let them come.”

  Tears of gratitude sprang to Ivy’s eyes. “I know we don’t deserve it,” she said thickly. “And we’ll never be able to repay you.”

  “No.” He took her face in his hands. “But I’ve been given a few things I can never deserve or pay for either. I think I can afford it.”

  His mouth brushed hers then, achingly gentle. She moved closer to return the kiss—and her foot kicked something in the sand. Startled, Ivy pulled away and bent to pick it up.

  It was a ball the size of a knocker’s fist, sewn from scraps of cloth. She held it up for Martin to see.

  “Maybe some spriggan child dropped it, before they left. You saw the footprints.”

  “Yes, but why did they leave?” Ivy gestured around the cavern. “Your ancestors could have been safe here, and warmer than they ever were living in fogous and sea-caves. Why make such a beautiful place and then abandon it?”

  Martin’s gray eyes turned distant. “Not to mention all the supplies and the spells they cast to preserve them.” He circled one of the egg-like bumps on the floor. “And what are these?”

  A chilling thought struck Ivy. “Martin, what if it’s—”

  “A tomb? I thought of that too. But it doesn’t seem right.” He rubbed a thumb pensively over his lower lip, then knelt to brush the sand away.

  Light flickered beneath his fingers, snaked like a bright ribbon over the dome’s surface and vanished. Ivy blinked, half-convinced she’d imagined it, but then a second and then a third shining thread appeared. They rippled outward, until the whole half-shell was webbed with radiance.

  Ivy backed up and tripped over another bump, only to find that it, too, was glowing. She gasped and covered her eyes as the whole room lit up at once. The chamber echoed with loud crackling noises, and when Ivy dared to look again all the shells had crumbled, revealing a host of bodies inside.

  They lay curled up with knees to their chests and heads pillowed on clasped hands, so perfectly preserved that Ivy’s revulsion faded at once. They didn’t look dead, not really . . .

  The figures close to her began to stir, yawning and stretching in all directions. The one at Martin’s feet sat up, and with a shock, Ivy saw it was a little boy not much older than Thrift, with bleary eyes and sleep-mussed yellow hair.

  “I lost my ball, Mam,” he mumbled. Then his eyes focused on Ivy, and he let out a squeak, kicking backward and showering her legs with sand.

  “It’s all right,” Martin said, holding up both hands in a soothing gesture. “We won’t hurt you.”

  Numb with wonder, Ivy knelt to the boy’s level and held out the ball. “Here,” she said. “My name’s Ivy. What’s yours?”

  The little boy watched her suspiciously, then snatched the ball away and hugged it. “Haven’t got one.”

  Of course not. She’d forgotten that spriggan boys had to earn their names and didn’t get them until they were old enough to fight. With an apologetic smile, Ivy rose and turned to Martin.

  She’d never seen him so unguarded, eyes wide and mouth slack with awe. He gazed across the cavern, entranced, as the remaining sleepers struggled to their feet.

  They were all boys, and there had to be at least twenty. The oldest, a bony youth a year or two older than Cicely, shook out his black hair and squared his shoulders, eyes wary and one hand on his belt-knife.

  “I’m Dagger, son of Helm,” he said. “Whose son are you?”

  Helm had been the name of Martin’s protector, the gruff but loyal warrior who’d sent him into the future at the cost of his own life. Ivy caught her breath, and Martin had to clear his throat before he could speak.

  “I am the son of the Gray Man,” he said huskily, and the spriggan boys fell to their knees.

  Waking the spriggans from magical slumber had been miracle enough, but when Martin saw them all kneel to him, he looked thunderstruck. Ivy stepped close and touched his hand.

  “Breathe,” she whispered. “Talk to them.”

  Martin exhaled, long and slow. Then he said, “You don’t have to do that. Get up.”

  “But you are the one we were promised,” said a lilting voice at the back of the chamber, as a girl stepped into the archway. She was dressed in a sleeveless robe belted with leather, and her red-gold hair hung loose to her waist. “You came to save us, as the Seer said.”

  In the shock of seeing the boys wake, Ivy had forgotten about the humps in the treasure chamber. But it was the duty of spriggan women to tend their family’s hoard, so of course that was where the girls had been sleeping. The boys shuffled aside, their eyes lowered, as the red-haired girl beckoned and nine younger ones padded out of the room to join her.

  Thirty spriggan children, thin and pale as driftwood, but miraculously alive. And all of them gazed at Martin like he was the most wonderful thing they’d ever seen.

  “What Seer?” Martin asked. “Who put you here?”

  The girl looked at Dagger, who puffed up his chest and spoke. “’Twas my grandmam had the vision, when the Gray Man’s son was born. She said—”

  “If this one grows to be a man, he’ll be the saving of our people,” Ivy whispered, echoing him. Helm had told Martin that story, but when he went through the portal he’d forgotten it, like everything else from his past.

  “The piskeys and knocker-men were killing us,” Dagger went on, “and the faeries would help none but themselves.” He flicked a resentful look at Ivy. “So when they heard the Seer’s word, our clans banded together to build this place. Every fifth summer they drew lots to choose a child to sleep here, so if they lost the battle at least some of our folk would live on.”

  “Our people worked as one to cast the spell,” the girl added, her clear voice taking up the story. “They drew power from the earth of Kernow and made shells of magical clay to guard our slumber. Then they stopped time within the barrow, so that we would not age or decay before the Gray Man’s son came to set us free.”

  Ivy clutched Martin’s hand. Only a few months ago, the faery who called herself Gillian Menadue had used an ancient spell called the Claybane to trap the piskeys of the Delve in waking torment. Now it seemed that same spell had been cast by the spriggans—albeit for a far gentler purpose.

  Martin nodded gravely, so calm that Ivy knew he was acting. Despite the dark rumors about his ambition, all he’d ever wanted was to stay alive, and it had taken all his cunning and ruthlessness to do it. Being suddenly in charge of thirty children had to be the most daunting challenge he’d ever faced.

  “Well,” he said, “here I am. But the world outside this hill is not much kinder than the one you left. So my first command is for all of you to stay here, and not go out unless I say so.”

  The girl looked stricken. “But how can that be? The door to our barrow was charmed not to open until a piskey, a faery, and a spriggan came here together in peace!”

  Martin and Ivy traded glances. It seemed that if they hadn’t both been half faery, they’d have been locked out of the chamber as well. “I’m trying to teach my people about spriggans,” Ivy told her apologetically, “but they still have a lot to learn.”

  Dagger glowered at her. “A piskey! Who gives you the right to speak?”

  “You will address her with respect, boy,” snapped Martin, and Dagger blanched. He
cringed back as Martin went on, “Ivy is our Joan. You will obey her as you do me.”

  The children stared in bewildered wonder. “Our Joan?” asked the oldest girl. “But—”

  “There is no peace between the piskeys and the spriggans yet,” Martin told them. “But with Ivy’s help, there will be. You can trust her with your lives, as I trust her with mine.” He raised Ivy’s hand to his mouth and kissed it, and a nervous giggle went up from the younger girls.

  Ivy was flustered. He sounded so confident when he called her the Joan, it was as though he really believed it. But how could he, especially now?

  “Wait here,” Martin told the children. “Do nothing until we return.”

  He took Ivy’s hand and they left the chamber, heading down the stairs and shutting the outer door behind them. Martin helped her out of the hole, and they sat down on one of the fallen trees together.

  She had to say it now, before her resolve failed. Much as it hurt, it was the only right thing to do. “I won’t tell anyone about this place. It belongs to your people.”

  “Ivy . . .”

  “They’re children, Martin. They need to be safe.”

  “I know. But your people have children, too.” His thumb brushed her neck, stroking away her tension. “Don’t give up. They may come around yet.”

  Ivy looked at him, surprised, and found him smiling—not the sly curve of lips she was used to, but a broad, incredulous smile that creased his eyes and showed all his teeth at once.

  “I have no idea what I’m doing,” he admitted. “It’s a disaster. But they’re alive, Ivy. The spriggans of Kernow are alive.”

  Ivy could have leaped home to her fellow piskeys in an instant, but she chose to fly instead. She wanted to make sure the spriggan hideaway was a safe distance from both the barn and the Delve, but she also needed time to sort out her feelings. The hope that had sprung up in her when she saw the barrow had died when she saw the spriggan children wake, and now she was torn between happiness for Martin and his people and renewed grief and fear for her own.