“Starved. I always wake up hungry in the middle of the night and it must not be far off that now.”
Though she approached the now-battered bandbox with trepidation, nothing flew out when she took off the top. She served out the rolls and the cakes. A few leaves swirled down from the tree so she put the lid back on the box.
“It’s strange we can’t see the fires from here,” she said, thoughtfully chewing.
“They’ve probably gone out. Once the People knew we’d not be stopped by it, they had no further need for it. Naturally, they’d drop it.”
Clarice thought again of Dominic. Would the Fay-King decide he had no further use for him? The thought sent a shiver through her. She tugged her shawl more closely about her. “Shall we stay here for what’s left of the night?”
“No. I think we should press on.”
“You are tired, and so am I.”
“If we rest, we’ll be caught.”
“But we can’t go for days without sleep. You rest first and I’ll keep watch. Then we’ll change. For pity’s sake, Morgain,” she said in reply to his mute stubbornness, “I’m dropping with exhaustion.”
“All right. Pass me a peach, please.”
She opened the box and stared in confusion at the contents- Instead of seeing their dwindled supplies, she saw no less than had been there before they’d eaten. Each of them had eaten one roll stuffed with mushrooms. She’d had one cake; Morgain had eaten two. Now everything was in the same quantity as before. Even the first peach they’d eaten had been replaced. In addition, someone had put in a crystal flask stoppered by a cork. The liquid in it sparkled and not just because of me faceting of the crystal. “Somebody is helping us,” she said.
“Good,” Morgain replied. “I was hungrier than one roll, anyway.”
The miracle reoccurred after he’d eaten another. All Clarice had to do was replace the lid of the bandbox. When she removed it, there would be the food replaced. Unfortunately, and she hated to complain, it was always the same food. She foresaw a time when they’d be dreadfully fed up with mushroom rolls, pink cakes, and peaches.
Uncorking the bottle, Clarice took a cautious sniff. Something vaguely lemony but with a tingle as of effervescence. Sipping, she smiled. There was no possibility of growing bored with this “lemonade.” It danced on her tongue and seemed to put renewed heart into her. Plus, no matter how much she drank, the level in the bottle never grew less.
Morgain drank too, and afterward had an arrested, thoughtful look on his face. After a moment, he started stripping off his shoe and stocking. Clarice didn’t even have time to demand of him what he was doing before he’d taken the crystal flask and dribbled some of the drink over the shocking great blister on his heel. No sooner had the liquid touched the skin than it healed, leaving not even a callus behind.
“Who is helping us?”
“I know, I think. But I don’t dare say his name. If anyone should be listening, he might be punished.”
“Wise.” She took another swallow immediately after Morgain finished. “You know, I don’t feel tired anymore. Perhaps I was just hungry.”
“That must have been it,” he said decisively, putting on his footwear. “I’m not tired anymore either and I wouldn’t be surprised if we are much closer to the doors than I thought. Don’t know why I’m always such a pessimistic ass.”
“I don’t know why either,” Clarice said, and the two of them laughed as though she’d said something anthology-worthy.
She retained just enough sense to realize that their behavior was growing increasingly devil-may-care. She forgot the bandbox when she and Morgain started to press on through the trees and had to hurry back for it. Something moved in the corner of her eyes as she bent down for it, but when she turned her head, nothing was to be seen or heard. “Hello? Hallooo?” she called. “Is anyone there, friend or foe. Fay or mortal?”
No answer came but the rustle of sudden breeze among the treetops. They were very tall, those trees, with feathery leaves that gave the slender trees the appearance of a Directoire female—immensely long, thin bodies with huge bonnets over all. Everything below them was draped in shadows deeper even than the night.
“Oh, well,” she said, tripping over tree roots on her way back to Morgain. She couldn’t find him which, she dimly felt, should have filled her with terror. Instead, she sang the once-nonsense rhyme of Mag Mell and went wheeling on through the night. The closely interwoven tree branches seemed to open before her, yet when she looked behind they seemed more impenetrable than ever.
Then she came out into the clearing and saw the doors.
They stood alone. No wall touched them, though they were big enough for a cathedral. At least four times the height of a man, they were covered with sinuous vines that crossed and recrossed themselves so often that not even a finger could have traced a single line to its end. When she tried to trace a vine with her eyes, her head spun.
Amidst the vines, she saw small animals and birds, faces mortal and Fay and things that she could not recognize as either animal or sentient but some strange mingling of both. There were flowers among the vines and insects tending the buds. Some flowers looked like the stylized lotus of Egypt while she saw as well the lotus of China. She also saw roses, hibiscus, lilies, and something not unlike the treacherous bellflowers of South America which lure insects to their doom with a combination of sweet sap and irresistible odors.
The doors stood slightly ajar, just as Morgain had drawn them. In the gap, she saw a strip of clear blue sky smiling above a house that she knew as well as she knew her own face. A scent blew through the opening, the concentrated dusty sweetness of the moor in high summer.
Clarice took an involuntary step toward what she was yearning for. But she couldn’t leave without Morgain.
“Morgain! I’ve found them! Come on, Morgain, do!”
“There’s no need to shout, my dear.”
She knew that smooth, suave voice. Then a dapper creature moved against the background of the dark trees. She could see every detail of his rich costume because he seemed to glow with his own inner light.
“King Morgain?”
“Yes. ‘Tis I, myself.”
“Where’s Morgain Half-Fay?”
“Safe, my dear.”
“Has he gone through the doors?”
“Not yet.” He came closer. “I see you are admiring our doors. They are magnificent, aren’t they? Even older than I myself. Some say they are older than the People, but that’s impossible. Boadach saw the first sunrise. He was Eldest and most fit to be King of all our People.”
“Are you in league with my mother?” she asked, forgetting to guard her tongue.
“Perish the thought! I owe my allegiance to Forgall; he hath it all. Well, nearly all,” he added with a flexible wriggle of his shoulders. “I do save a particle for my family.”
“If you know where Morgain is, you must send him through the doors.”
“I shall, if it be his desire.”
He held out his hand and Morgain appeared just beyond his fingertips. He seemed unharmed, still with a dazzled look in his eyes. Clarice hurried to him and clasped her arms around him. “We mustn’t become separated again, dear heart.”
“No,” he said quite loudly. More softly, almost on the level of thought, he whispered, “Be careful.”
Clarice released the boy. “We must thank you, King Morgain, for your assistance tonight.”
“I?” he said, with something of a nervous glance at the sky.
“I thought it strange that there should be a convenient tree fallen across the flood and no heat in the fire? Then there was the food.. . .”
“No one wants you dead, my dear. You have more value living.” He smiled at them. “But we were talking about the doors. They are our main portal between the Living Lands and the Realm of Mortality. Some say they should be closed and sealed forever; that this would close all the portals—and we have many and a many throughout your world. But n
o one has ever succeeded in locking the Great Doors. I, for one, cannot repine, for through the doors I have lost my only son, and found my only grandchild.”
He turned to his grandson. “You are the light of my life. I watch you through the Veil between your world and mine. There is so much of me in you. Stay. Let me teach you to control the powers that are your birthright. You may command all material, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field. Stay.”
Morgain had been looking fixedly at the opening between the doors until his grandfather had begun to speak to him. “You are kind, Grandsire. But this is not my world and I will not stay in it.”
“You don’t understand what you are giving up. You can be more than a man.”
“But a man is all I wish to become. A man like my father. He made a choice, Grandfather. So must I.”
“And I.” The lesser king bowed his head. “I have made a bargain with Matilda. The life of my grandson for the return of her daughter.”
“What?” Clarice looked up, for suddenly the empty woods were full of soldiers. She caught a glimpse of a banner, pale gray and empty of any device. “Run for the doors, Morgain!”
“Yes, run! Both of you,” said a deeper, richer voice. Clarice turned her head, searching for the owner of that voice.
“Dominic?”
As though a black velvet curtain parted, he stepped out of the void. She could see his right leg swinging forward, but the rest of his body was hidden for a moment, until the other half of emerged from nothingness. It was as if he had been born in that moment from the night itself. In his hand, he bore a sword that flickered with the blue flames of the stars.
A hissing arose from the woods. Even King Morgain took a step back.
“Run, Morgain,” Dominic growled again. “You, too, Clarice. Run!”
Clarice’s nephew was in no doubt as to which Morgain he meant. With a war-whoop he raced across the grass toward the doors. Clarice followed after a stunned moment, snatching her skirt up in her hands.
Contrarily, the opening between the doors looked smaller and smaller as she raced near. Morgain, unhampered by skirts, jumped through the gap first. He disappeared against the blue sky.
Clarice was within a few feet when a whistling sound came through the air. Suddenly, she found herself falling, her feet tangled in some kind of sticky cord. She put out her hands to break her fall and felt a meteor of pain shoot up her arm as she landed hard.
Trying to stand up, she heard Dominic cry out, “Come on, you worthless hounds. See how dies a Son of Men!”
“No!” she gasped. This time, when the whistling came out of the night, the cord wrapped about her upper body. When she fell again, she could not even break her fall with her hands. She struck her head on the edge of a door, and the sounds of battle faded in her ears.
Clarice awoke with a feeling of well-being that had nothing at all to do with how she felt physically. There, she was quite certain that she had a blackened eye at the very least, as well as a tremendous headache. When she moved her right wrist incautiously, it told her in no uncertain terms that it was bruised and swollen. Yet, despite these ills, her heart floated in her breast, light and joyful. Morgain had made his escape.
For the first time, she awoke in a room that was not even a close copy of her own. She lay in a white-clothed bed big enough for her and all her relations. “Even their horses,” she said aloud and smiled. But her happy memory was soon lost as she wondered what had happened to Dominic.
She remembered him standing in the wood, illuminated by the blue fires of the sword he held in his hand. As he raised it above his head, the flames had poured over the blade like oil set alight. He’d proclaimed his willingness to fight and he’d urged her to run through the doors. What had happened to him after?
Clarice fought with her mind. The sense had been knocked out of her, yet images flashed behind her eyes. There must have been moments of waking when she’d looked about her. Now, though, she could make no sense of what she saw. A cold glint as of diamonds, the whisper of a sweeping skirt over a stone floor, a ringing laugh she seemed to know well. ...
The only thing to do was to go in search of the truth.
Sitting up, she took notice of her surroundings. The big bed was furnished with every luxury, from deep down pillows to silken cream sheets spread over with white cashmere coverlets. The sheer bed curtains were of the finest gauze, scented with honeysuckle, and scattered over with precious gems. The beams of clear sunshine through these were dazzling, something out of a faery tale. As she turned to climb out of bed, the curtains parted as though held back by invisible hands.
Her feet sank into a carpet of silken threads, white, ivory, and silver blended to create a tapestry picture of the goddess Diana and her hounds on a hunt. It was large enough and sublime enough to hang on a king’s wall— here it was no more than a bedside rug.
The room was vast and round, with pillars of pale pink marble set in a semicircle around the bed. More gauze curtains hung between them, glittering as they swayed in a draft she could not feel though she wore the lightest of cambric and lace night-attire. As she walked away from the bed, a set of curtains opened magically, to reveal beyond them a fountain playing musically above a pool.
Sticky from her night’s battles, Clarice approached with eagerness. The fountain was created entirely of gleaming blanche-de-chin porcelain, as white and stainless as a maiden’s thought. As she came nearer, the water pouring from the jar held by a statue of a bay-leaved crowned Daphne began to steam lightly. The scent of honeysuckle grew stronger as frothy bubbles appeared in the water.
Clarice had no sooner put her hands up to untie the laces of her pale pink nightgown than they began to untie themselves. It rather tickled. The gown slipped from her shoulders and vanished. Clarice began to feel that she was not alone. She only hoped her invisible servitors were female.
The water was divine. She’d never in her life taken a really hot bath. Water brought up from the kitchen in brass cans was usually no more than warm currents in a by-and-large frigid tub. And this was more water than a hundred servants could have brought in an entire day!
The instant she decided to wash her hair, a crystal flagon of shampoo flew out of nowhere to hover a few inches in front of her. She hesitated, recalling that the last thing she’d taken from a crystal flask had lead to disaster when it made her throw away her common sense.
The flagon just sat there in midair, unwavering, unwearying. She decided that she could take a risk when alone that she could not when someone she cared for was nearby. When she put out her hand, instantly the handle rose, the spout tipped, exactly as though a person held the flagon. A pellucid stream of soap poured into it. When she chose to rinse away the foam, the water from the fountain ceased to cause bubbles and ran clear.
Yet when she arose from the pool, her hair and her body were dry. She felt both clean and refreshed, yet did not require the use of a towel. Putting up a hand, she surmised that her hair had been arranged without her being aware of it in a high knot on the crown of her head, with soft tendrils spiraling down around her face.
“What of clothes?” she asked.
Almost before the words had left her lips, a pair of stockings and a superbly embroidered chemise appeared, closely followed by a huge petticoat-hoop. It was not the same shape as, for instance, English court dress, which demanded a narrow hoop. This was entirely circular and quite stiff.
Clarice thought she’d look a perfect scarecrow in such a strange petticoat, but as there was no one present to argue with, she climbed into the thing. Then came whalebone stays, much more severe than those she usually wore. The invisible hands laced her until she could hardly draw enough breath to say, “Stop!”
Instantly, almost apologetically, the laces were loosened.
Then came the rest—a huge skirt of deep blue satin with a separate bodice to match. The blue was the exact shade of her eyes. It was figured over with diamond-shapes in gold thread. A pearl marked each c
orner. The sleeves of the bodice were slashed to show puffs of white satin beneath. The top and bottom of each slash bore a square emerald, flashing with a deep blue light, set off with more pearls at each corner.
Clarice had never worn clothes of such richness, or of such exquisite discomfort. The wide hoop about her waist weighed like a hundredweight of stones resting on her hips. Despite these clothes being so very unusual, Clarice felt certain she’d seen them before. Even the shoes that appeared, high-heeled, embroidered, and set with her cipher in pearls on the toes, seemed very familiar.
It was not, however, until the pearl-studded ruff appeared that Clarice understood that she was being dressed in the style of the Elizabethans. She resembled in every detail a full-length portrait of the Honorable Miss Antonia Stavely, whose beauty had won her the enmity of the Virgin Queen. The only difference was that Clarice did not remember Antonia wearing quite so many fabulous jewels.
Diamond and tortoiseshell combs worked their way gently into her hair. A flawless emerald, as big as the palm of her hand, set in rock crystal carved into a dragon’s claw, attached itself onto her bodice, linking together the drape of three ropes of pearls, each pearl the size of the end of her little finger. Rings, each formed from a single gem, insinuated themselves onto her fingers. She noticed that there was neither gold nor silver, nor indeed any metals, used in the construction of these marvels.
When yet more jewels appeared, bracelets to peep out from beneath the rich lace cuffs at her wrists, Clarice said, “Enough!”
Rather meekly, a fan and a long pomander showed themselves. She took the fan, for she was hot under all the weight of her dress. The pomander, a beautiful thing of filigreed gold, slunk away. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m hungry.”
The “bath” curtains parted and Clarice passed through into the chamber where her bed was. It was difficult to walk until she realized she must take slow and careful steps instead of moving with her usual speedy cadence.
She noted that the bed had been made in her absence. Another pair of curtains parted to show a marble table set with service for one in a room that was draped in pale blue silk, a perfect foil for her gown. A chandelier of exquisite form and style with not only the pendants but also the chains made of crystal hung above the satinwood table.
Magic by Daylight Page 22
