by Karen Frost
Chapter Twelve
Reunion
Mary Jane was awakened the next morning by the sun, which streamed though the high window several feet from her bed and spilled across her face. She groaned and tried to hide her head beneath a soft pillow of goose down, but immediately threw it away when its musty smell filled her nose and made her sneeze. She barely remembered falling into the bed the night before, but now in the morning light she could see that it was covered with the fine dust of a century's years. She wriggled off of the bed and patted the dust from her velvet dress, marveling at the room as she began to see it fully. Beautifully woven tapestries depicting elaborate scenes of hunts and courtly balls covered the walls.
Inside a heavy wooden trunk at the foot of the bed, she found a wooden hairbrush whose white horsehair bristles were falling out and used it to tame her wild red hair, which she tied in a bun at the base of her neck with a length of red ribbon. She wished that she could bathe, or at least wash her face, but the metal wash bin that once had been used for that purpose was empty. Having no other use for the room and wanting to find Jack and Maude as soon as possible, she put on her shoes and then pulled open the door. The hallway outside went on in both directions for several dozen feet before ending in intersections that led in yet more directions. Mary Jane wondered how she would ever find her way to anything in the castle without getting hopelessly lost.
A voice below her said, "Good morning, Miss."
"Godrick!" Mary Jane exclaimed gratefully.
"Aye, Miss," the rat said. "While you've been sleeping like the dead I've had a good run o' the place. What a big castle she is! A rat like me could spend weeks just finding all the nooks and crannies to poke me nose into. You'll be looking to find yer family, I reckon. Well, follow me, Miss."
Godrick spun on this back feet and began to run down the hall to the left. Mary Jane closed the door behind her and followed. Meanwhile, Jack was just waking in his own room. He felt well rested for the first time in many nights. At the foot of the bed, he saw a thick green cotton tunic, a wide leather belt with a heavy metal buckle, and a pair of light green breeches. He remembered that this must be the clothing Timab had promised to send. He yawned, stretched his arms lazily, and reached for the breeches. Slipping out of his filthy pajamas, he crumpled them into a ball and threw them into a corner of the room.
When he put the new clothing on, he found to his delight that Timab had judged his size well, for the things were only slightly too large for him. He had to roll up the legs of the breeches and sleeves of the tunic, but he felt fortunate to have a change of clothing at all after so many days spent in only his pajamas. On the floor was a pair of leather shoes. They tapered at the tips into points, but they were much better than going barefoot, and Jack put them on gratefully.
Aldair met him at the door. The stag's amber deer eyes glimmered in the faint light. He rumbled, "I trust you slept well."
"Yes," Jack murmured, surprised to see him.
"I bring good tidings," the stag said. "It seems that fortune has smiled upon us. Your sister is here at Tarah."
"Mary Jane!" Jack exclaimed. "Where is she?"
"Follow me and I will take you to her."
Aldair turned and moved down the hall, his hooves clicking softly against the gray stone. Jack followed, trying to push back his black hair from his forehead with his fingers into some semblance of order. He recognized their route as the same that he, Maude, and Archipel had taken the night before, and when Aldair led him into the room where the magical beasts had held their council the night before, he half expected to see Grimkell, Shamaraan, Gildas, and Aiglon there once more. Instead, he found Alcide, Timab, Archipel, Maude, Mary Jane, and a big, piebald rat sitting at the table talking and eating fruit and bread.
"Mary Jane!" Jack cried.
Mary Jane looked up and the two ran to each other, hugging and talking all at once. After a minute, they separated and Jack joined the group at the round table, taking a seat between Mary Jane and Alcide. Maude sat to Mary Jane's right, with Archipel sitting on the ground beside her and Timab standing on the table balancing using his hairless, pink tail. Godrick crouched on Mary Jane's shoulder, his nose twitching. In whirlwinds of words, interrupted by exclamations, emotions, clarifications, and laughter, the children told each other of what had happened during their separation. It seemed half a lifetime since they had last been at home, and their parents and Mrs. Peters were all but forgotten as they became caught up in the adventure of headlong flight and brushes with danger.
Mary Jane spoke of meeting Hissarlik, the flight to Morlach, Mirrin's fearful ways, and how she and Godrick escaped just as the eternal flame died. In turn, Jack and Maude told her of the race to Tarah on the backs of the magical beasts Alcide and Aldair and of how they had been chased by wargs and a ghost in the Green Forest. Despite the fear they had felt at the time, in telling the tale they felt suddenly braver, as though the danger hadn't been as great as it seemed.
They spoke until there were no more words left to say, and then Maude asked in a voice so small it almost could not be heard, "Can we go home now?"
Silence fell over the room and gloom like a splash of cold water. It was Alcide who spoke at last. She said, "Yes. It is time for you to go home. Aldair and I will take you to the door to your world."
The children were anxious, but hopeful. Mary Jane squeezed Jack's hand. Then Maude asked, her pink lips pursed into a frown on her pale face, "What about Mirrin?"
"We can outrun…" Alcide started to respond.
"No," Maude interrupted, "I mean what will you do once we're gone. How will you stop her?"
"Little one," Alcide said gently, "it is for us to worry about her. Your only concern must be to reach home safely. Your journey here will soon be at an end."
"But, well, can you stop her?" Jack asked awkwardly.
He felt embarrassed to ask. He had been so overjoyed at the idea of returning home that when he remembered that the animals would still have to face Mirrin he felt guilty. He twisted the hem of his green tunic in his hands under the table, watching so that he did not have to meet the leopard's blue eyes. Alcide was silent for several long seconds. At last she said, "Once the door to your world has been closed, she will be unable to carry out her plan to lead her army back to the Tarah of men. I do not know what she will do then. She is resourceful."
She added sadly under her breath, "If only more beasts had returned..."
"But you're magical!" Maude protested. "You could…you could…turn her to dust if you wanted!"
"Maude, there are many different kinds of magic," Alcide explained. "Magic that makes things appear real that are not, magic that hides things, magic that destroys, magic that creates, magic that gives strength, magic that causes weakness. Each magical beast has its own unique magical gift, but not all of these gifts are the kind of magic that could, as you say, turn Mirrin to dust."
"We will leave this morning," Aldair announced suddenly. "I regret that you children must travel once more with so little time to rest, but it is several days' march west through the Green Forest, and we must begin as soon as possible."
"You cannot travel through the Green Forest!" Timab exclaimed in alarm. "Hilduin reports that Mirrin's army of half-creatures and monsters is to be found lurking in it all around Tarah, and especially to the west. You will have to go north first, skirting the base of the Far Reaches. Only once you are past Mirrin's minions may you return to the Forest. It will be longer, and dangerous, but it is the only way."
"We will go north then," Aldair agreed.
"I know the way well," Archipel said.
There was little left to say. Maude nibbled on a loaf of sweet bread that she had found, still piping hot, when she had entered the room. Archipel's head rested in her lap and she stroked it with her left hand without noticing. Mary Jane bolted down blueberries and strawberries as quickly as she could, ravenous because she had not eaten since midday the day before. Jack found he had no app
etite.
Suddenly Maude let go of Archipel's head and sat up sharply in her chair, her eyes wide. Jack knew that expression. It meant she had thought of something. Without saying a word, she slipped from her chair and ran from the room. She wore, Jack noticed for the first time, not the white nightgown she had been wearing when she passed through the mirror, but a light yellow dress made of what could have been silk. Archipel followed after her, his tail bobbing behind him as he trotted to catch up.
"Maude?" Mary Jane asked. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going to the library," Maude's voice replied from the hallway.
"Now?"
"It is a most superlative collection," Timab observed.
"But we must leave now; at once!" Aldair exclaimed in disbelief and confusion.
"It will take some time to prepare for the journey anyway, Aldair. Let the child go," Alcide said gently.
"She may have one hour," Alcide said stiffly. "No more. Then we must go."
Archipel, who had paused at the threshold of the door, promised, "I will watch her. She will be safe with me."
"In the meantime, I will provision you with what foodstuffs I have in the larders," Timab told Jack, Mary Jane, and the two magical beasts, "though I fear it is not much. Still, I am sure I can find you some nuts and dried berries if nothing else."
The small white mouse scampered along the table and down its leg, leaving by the door opposite that by which Maude and Archipel had left. Jack drummer his fingers on the table and Mary Jane admired its surface, which had been decorated in an intricate mosaic. She said curiously, "Aldair, where do those terrible creatures I saw last night come from? They were absolutely awful."
The golden stag snorted and flicked his big ears with disdain. He explained, "We speak of the history of Devorian as three ages: the age of the magical beasts, the age of man, and the age of the animals. However, it is not only we three races who have peopled the land. There have been other creatures here as well, at various times. You ask about those monsters Mirrin has gathered to her, and I will tell you how they, too, belong to Devorian. Just as the age of man was beginning, terrible monsters began to appear in Devorian; horrible, ugly creatures with fangs and claws and misshapen bodies. They bred amongst themselves and spread throughout the land. Some even bred with humans to create half-human monsters.
'Because of these creatures, man's childhood was full of nightmares. Sailors were plucked from their boats by sea monsters or lured to their deaths by the beautiful songs of semi-human sirens. Soldiers were crushed to death by the clubs of trolls or mauled by wargs. Wisps, sinister spirits that can imitate whatever shape they please, would sneak into towns and kill husbands under the guise of being their wives. So great was the relentless evil of these creatures that they attacked even the magical beasts."
"Oh my! How terrible!" Mary Jane exclaimed.
"Yes," Aldair agreed gravely. "Eventually, however, men were able to overcome the monsters. It took many, many years, but they chased the monsters from the cities, then from the fields, and at last from even the darkest parts of the forests. They killed what ones they could, and the rest they chased so far south of Devorian that they hoped it was enough to keep the creatures from ever returning. For the most part, the creatures did not, though sometimes they did. Thus it is that King Ardant fought a minotaur in the Green Forest, and King Seabeard was killed by a troll."
"I don't understand, If they were chased from Devorian centuries ago, how are they here in Devorian now? Shouldn't they all be dead?" Jack asked.
"The are semi-immortal. If they are not killed, they do not naturally die. They are like a half step between the immortal beasts and the mortal humans."
"But why have they come back now?" Mary Jane interjected.
"Like calls to like," Aldair explained. "As the eternal flame died, Mirrin called out across Devorian and beyond to any creature that harbored evil in its heart. From whatever dark pits and caves they have lived in for the last hundreds upon hundreds of years, Mirrin has called them back to Devorian. Thus does Mirrin have two armies now: the army of living stone that she created many years ago and with which she once intended to challenge the King of Tarah, and this new barbaric horde of twisted creatures that have come sensing the prospect of chaos and destruction."
"And Hissarlik is one of the monsters?" Mary Jane asked.
"Hissarlik was…is…unique. He is neither a magical beast, nor a monster."
"He wasn't immortal," Mary Jane reasoned, "because he died. How did he die?"
"Hissarlik lived in the foothills of the mountains that border the Western Plains. He had a cave there in which he kept mountains of treasure uncountable. No creature but a human has use for gold as currency, but it is beautiful, and Hissarlik was greedy for all that was beautiful. He would steal from traders in the dark of night while they slept, or threaten to set fire to villages if they did not give him gold and other previous gems. Even the King of Tarah paid him an annual tithe so that he did not attack the castle and drop stones upon it large enough to damage its walls. When a village had no gold or other thing of value to give, sometimes it would offer the dragon instead a beautiful girl. This girl was made to live with Hissarlik for a year and oil his scales every night while he slept on his treasure, for though Hissarlik's skin was hard as armor, it needed to be oiled lest it crack.
'This was a difficult and exhausting chore, for the cave would become unbearably hot with the dragon's breath, and Hissarlik was so large that it took all night to oil every part of him. In addition, it was a very lonely place, with no other humans to see or talk to. Several centuries ago, the small village of Taiz, which sat upon Devorian's southern border, found it had nothing to give Hissarlik when he came demanding payment. Having no other choice, the miller gave his daughter, for she was the most beautiful girl in the village.
'Hissarlik took her upon his back to his cave and that might have been the end of the story had she not been secretly in love with the blacksmith's son and he with her. This boy, Kaian, vowed to rescue her, and so he traveled many long, hard days to reach the Western Plains. None of the villagers he asked knew exactly where the dragon lived, so he slept during the day and watched the sky at night, because it was at dusk that Hissarlik would return to his cave. On the twelfth day, he at last saw Hissarlik flying west in the distance, and he lashed his horse into a gallop to follow. The dragon did not see him and flew unsuspectingly into his cave, which was well hidden in the shadow of a small mountain.
'Kaian climbed the mountain on foot, tying his horse to a tree at the bottom, then waited until it was midnight before creeping into the cave. He planned to take the girl while the dragon slept and ride with her to some place far away where the dragon would not find them. When he arrived at the cave, he saw the girl working by the dim light of a lantern, rubbing oil into the sleeping dragon's skin. She did not see him because her back was to him, so he picked up a gold coin and tossed it lightly at her to catch her attention. He missed, however, and hit the dragon instead. Hissarlik awakened instantly and saw the boy. He lurched to his feet and tried to run at Kaian, but the cave was small and he could not gain his full height or breadth. He bumped his head against the cave ceiling when he raised it, and he could not open his wings.
"Kaian was fast, and clever. He knew that he must fight the dragon inside the cave, for outside he had no hope of defeating him. Hissarlik breathed a jet of fire at him, and he grabbed a silver shield from the ground and held it before him to stop the flames. Fire licked around the sides of the shield, which turned orange from the heat, but the boy wore the heavy leather gloves of a blacksmith and was not burned. The dragon then struck the shield with his head and Kaian fell backward.
'Hissarlik grabbed the shield between his sharp teeth and wrested it from the boy, flinging it against the wall. Now the boy lay before him on his back, defenseless. Hissarlik let out a scream of rage and plunged his head down to bite Kaian in half, but was stopped before he could close his teeth. You s
ee, while his head was upraised, the boy's outstretched hand had found a long sword, which he drew to him. When the dragon dropped his head to kill the boy, Kaian held the sword straight up with the pommel resting on his chest so that its point went into the dragon's open mouth and into its brain. Hissarlik died before he could close his teeth. Thus was the dragon Hissarlik accidentally killed, for his hide could have withstood any blow from a sword, but the inside of his mouth was unprotected."
Aldair stopped.
"Go on," Mary Jane urged, "how does the story end? What happened to Kaian and his love?"
'Kaian and the girl were simple folk; they had no need of all Hissarlik's treasure. However, they could not give it all back to those from whom it had been taken, and if word spread that Hissarlik's treasure lay unguarded in the foothills of the Western Plain there would be much mischief in its seeking. They decided to wall up the entrance to the cave, and left the dead dragon entombed there for all eternity with his treasure. Kaian took the girl back to Taiz and they were married soon after. Many years later, when Kaian passed away, his children told the story of what their father had done, and his body was taken to be buried in the Hall of Heroes."
"Did no one ever look for the treasure?" Mary Jane asked in amazement.
"Indeed they did," Aldair replied. "When Kaian returned with the girl, everyone knew that he must have found the cave, but he claimed that he hadn't, for he knew it would be dangerous to admit that he knew where it was. And once he was dead and the tale of the slaying of Hissarlik told, adventurers young and old would go in search of the gold for centuries to come. No matter how hard they searched, however, it was never found, for we magical beasts laid a glamour upon it, which is a spell that made the cave appear to human eyes as nothing but grass and trees. Treasure breeds mischief in men, and it was too dangerous to allow Hissarlik's hoard to be found. How many men, their eyes full of dreams of riches beyond telling, sat within inches of the cave's entrance without ever knowing."
Aldair chuckled.
"What is the Hall of Heroes?" Jack asked.
"It is a castle in which Devorian's greatest human heroes were laid to rest," Aldair replied. "In it are entombed kings, queens, princes, princesses, knights and commoners who won renown during their lifetimes for their great deeds."
"Queens and princesses?" Mary Jane asked, surprised.
"Naturally. As many women are honored there as men: Lady Knight Denair, the commander of King Ivor the Fourth's army, who twice put down rebel armies raised by the king's rivals; the huntress Jenaya, who was so skilled with a bow that she could pierce the eye of a troll from a thousand feet; Captain Sirenbane, who single-handedly rid Devorian of its sirens after it was discovered that their song was effective only against men...These are just a few of the heroes who lie in the Hall of Heroes."
Just as Aldair finished speaking, there was a loud boom and the castle floor seemed to roll like an ocean wave beneath their feet. The golden stag's feet slipped from under him on the stone and his legs churned wildly, seeking to regain a hold. Mary Jane and Jack both grabbed the table and held on to it, feeling the vibration of the shock running through their chairs and into their bodies. The shaking stopped almost immediately
"What was that?" Mary Jane asked.
"I don't know," Aldair replied, puzzled.
