The Catswold Portal

THE CATSWOLD PORTAL

Chapter 1

He ran pounding through the forest, his tennis shoes snapping dry branches as he stretched out in a long lope. Running eased the tightness, the tension. He was tall and lean, dark haired. Dodging between the broad trunks of redwood trees he headed uphill toward the mountain, swerving past deadfalls, trampling ferns that stroked his bare legs like animal paws. Strange thought, Alice’s kind of thought, animal paws. He shivered, but not from the cold. It was dusk; Alice would be cleaning up, putting away her paints, washing her brushes, thinking about dinner, wondering whether to go out or open something. She wouldn’t speak to him while he was still working, would go out tothe kitchen and stand looking in the freezer.

She would have done those things. Had done them, once. The pain ran with him, he couldn’t shake it, couldn’t leave it alone.

Months after the funeral he had started to heal, to mend, the hurting began to dull, some feeling returning besides rage and grief. But now suddenly his pain was raw again, the last few days were as if her death had just happened, her body in the wrecked car…He swerved away from the ravine and ran steeply up between boulders, but at the foot of Mount Tamalpais he turned back. It was dark now within the forest, though the sky above the giant redwoods still held light. He ran downhill again for a long way before lights began to flicker between the trees from isolated houses braving the forest gloom. The chill air held the smoke of fireplaces and he could smell early suppers cooking. Alice would be saying, Let’s just get a hamburger, I don’t feel like cooking, don’t feel like getting dressed. She’d fix herself a drink, go to shower off the smell of inks and fixative, slip on a clean pair of jeans. His breath caught, seeing her body wet from the shower, little droplets on her breasts, her long pale hair beaded with water.

He was in sight of the village now; it stretched away below him, the last light of evening clinging along the street and to the roofs of the shops. He could hear a radio somewhere ahead, and the swish of cars on the damp macadam, then suddenly the streetlights burst on all at once. His feet crushed fallen branches then he hit the sidewalk and an explosion of speed took him past the library, the building’s tall windows reflecting car lights against the books. He could smell frying hamburgers from the Creek, and farther on something Italian from Anthea’s. He swerved past villagers closing up shop, and each looked up at him. “Hey, Brade!” “Evening, Braden.” He dodged the first Greyhound commuters returning from the city. “Hey there, West.” “Nice night for running.” He nodded, raised a hand, and pounded on past. His long body reflected running distortions in the shop windows. Crossing the dead-end lane to the garden where his studio stood among other houses, he glanced up the hill toward Sam’s Bar that stood at the edge of the forest, thought of stopping for a beer, but then went on.

He cooled down on the veranda, poured himself a bourbon. Pulling off his tennis shoes, sitting sprawled in the campaign chair, he stared up at the tangled garden that began at his terrace and climbed the hill above him; a communal garden shared by the six houses that circled it. It was a pleasant, informal stretch of bushes and flowers and dwarf trees creating a small jungle. Two of the three houses above were dark. The lights in the center house went off as he watched, and his neighbor came out, her dark skin hardly visible against the falling night, her white dress a bright signal. She crossed the garden to the lane with long, easy strides, waving to him.“Evening, Brade,” her voice rich as velvet. He lifted a hand, smiling, watched her slide into her convertible and turn at the dead end beside Sam’s, drive slowly down the lane and into the traffic of the busier road, heading for the city. But when a cat cried on the terraces above, he shivered, unsteady again. He could see its eyes reflected for an instant, then it was gone.

As he rose to go in, he felt for a split second the warmth of anticipation. His eager mood burst suddenly: Alice wasn’t there. Alice was dead. The loneliness hit him like a blow, and he turned back and poured another whiskey.

Evening was the worst. They had liked to sit on the terrace after a day’s work, unwinding, watching the garden darken, watching the stars come spilling above the redwood forest that crowned the hill above the upper houses. In the evenings they had shared little things, random thoughts, coming together in a new way after working all day side by side in the studio, seldom talking, just being near each other. In the evenings Alice came alive in a different way from her deeply concentrating, working self, as if the night stirred a wild streak in her. Sometimes she would rise from the terrace and, carrying her drink, would walk up the garden to stand looking at thetool shed door.

And now suddenly Alice’s death hit him as if it had just happened—his frenzy as he tore at the jammed car door, as he beat at the window. Alice lay twisted inside, her hair tangled in the steering wheel, blood running down her face. The rescue squad tried to cut the door away with gas torches, but he had fought them, crazy with fear that they’d burn her.

For forty-five minutes she was trapped, maybe dying, while the wrecking crew cut at the car slowly and methodically. The cops tried to pull him away; he kept fighting to get to her. When the door was wrenched open at last, he shoved the medics away, and her body spilled out into his arms, limp, sending a shock of sickness through him that had never, since, left him.

Her portfolio had been on the car seat beside her and she had a box in the back seat packed with ice, chilling two lobsters and a bottle of chablis. Later, when a police officer handed him the box, he’d thrown it hurtling down the cliff into the bay. He tried to kill the driver who had hit her. His plumbing truck lay on its side against a light post; it had crossed the meridian, plowing into her car. The driver was unhurt. He had grabbed the thin, pale-haired man and pounded him until the cops pulled him off.

Sometime before he left the scene a policeman had lifted her portfolio out of her car, wiped off the blood, and put it in his station wagon. Days later he brought it into the studio and shoved it out of sight in the map chest where she kept her work.

Three weeks after her death he had taken her lithographs and etchings off the walls of the studio, stripped her part of the work space, giving away everything—litho stones, etching plates, inks, handmade papers. He sent most of her work over to her gallery in the city. If he cleared away every reminder maybe he wouldn’t keep seeing her there in the studio working on a drawing or a print, her long, pale hair bound back, her smock hanging crooked, hertongue tipping out as she concentrated. Maybe he wouldn’t see her look up at him as she wiped charcoal off her hands, wanting a cup of tea, wanting to talk for a minute.

Fourteen months after she died he remembered the portfolio. He had taken it out of the map drawer and spread the drawings across his work table, searching for answers to the question that had begun to wake him at night.

The drawings were of the garden door.

The low oak door cut into the terraced hill like the door of an old-fashioned root cellar, though the small earthen room into which it opened had been built not for roots but to house gardening equipment: wheelbarrow, rake, ladder, pruning shears, sprinklers. The beautifully carved door was far too ornate to close a tool room, it belonged in medieval Europe closing away things exotic that rustled in the dark. It was made of thick, polished oak planks nearly black with age, rounded at the top beneath a thick, curved oak lintel, and carved in deep relief with cats’ faces.

Nine rows of cats’ heads protruded from the door, nine faces to a row. They were life-sized cats carved in such deep relief that two-thirds of each head thrust out of the wood. They were so real that one’s first impression was of live cats looking out—dark furred, handsome. The cats in the top three rows seemed to be smiling with some inscrutable feline glee. Those in the center rows looked secretive. The cats in the bottom three rows screamed open mouthed with rage, their ears laid flat, their eyes slitted, their little oak teeth sharp as daggers. Each cat was so alive that no matter how many times onesaw the door, the effect was always startling. As if the cats thrust their heads through some aperture in time or dimension from another place.

And after Alice’s death, as he shuffled through her drawings looking at the individual cat faces, he felt his spine go cold for no reason. He had put the drawings away, filled with the unreasonable idea that the cats had caused her death. He had not, in succeeding months, been able to shake that thought.

He knew she had intended, on the day she died, to go to the Museum of History and try to trace the door’s origin. That was why she had the drawings with her. Maybe she’d gone there, maybe she hadn’t. Strangely, he hadn’t wanted to find out.

When Alice was small and her aunt owned the house that was now their studio—that had been their studio—Alice had believed the door of the cats was magic. Though she’d outgrown that idea, she had never outgrown her fascination with its medieval aspects and with the cats themselves.

In her early childhood photographs Alice was a thin little girl, very blond, wiry and lively. She had studied at Art Institute where her father taught; she was the only child among classes of adults. She had spent hours of her childhood in the city’s museums drawing skeletons, and at the zoo drawing the animals, while other children threw popcorn at the caged beasts. She had taught herself the intricacies of bone structure and of the movement of muscle over bone; she had learned how to bring alive the bright gleam of an eye, the sudden lifting of a paw. Some of her relatives, misunderstanding, had called her a prodigy. She had simply loved animals and wanted to paint them.

She was twenty when he met her; she was a student in the first classes he taught. He had found her dedication to animals too commercial, not painterly. He had told her that a true artist strove for the abstraction, for the heart of meaning, not just to reproduce an image. She told him shewas striving for the heart of meaning, and that he was blindly misguided if he didn’t see it. She told him he was too out of touch, too idealistic. That someone who had spent four years fighting in the Pacific should see more clearly than he did. He said being a Marine had nothing to do with what he saw as a painter. He had told her that if she wanted to be a commercial artist—and he had used the term like a four-letter word—she should go across the bay to the more commercial school, and not waste her time at Art Institute.

She had been the only student at Art Institute to be making good money long before she graduated. She had established a name for herself while most of the students were still trying to find out what they wanted to do. And as he worked with her in class, he began to see that her work was not simply realistic, that it had a deep, involving power.

He still got calls two years after her death from people in other states who didn’t know Alice was dead, who wanted her to do a commission. Since the first of the year he’d talked with five thoroughbred breeders and more than a dozen hunting and show kennels. Her work had a richness and a quality of mystery that stole nothing from the strong aliveness of the animals she painted; as if she painted not only the animals, but aspects of their spirits as well.

He had given Alice’s childhood diary to her parents, though he would have liked to keep it. It contained many of her small, early drawings, mostly of the pets she had as a child. One cat in particular she had drawn many times. There was a pastel of the same cat in their favorite restaurant in the city, a small French cafe. He hadn’t been there since Alice died. The small, intimate cafe, whose walls were hung with the works of many Bay area artists, held too many painful memories of her.

In the map cabinet now were only the drawings of the garden door, and a few sketches of the child who had disappeared. He didn’t know why he had kept the drawings of the child, likely the kidnapped child had been killed though Alice had refused to believe that.

The little girl had vanished from the garden when she and Alice were visiting Alice’s aunt here, the child had been playing alone by the tool shed. Alice had searched frantically, gone to all the neighbors and into the village, and after several hours to the police, beginning the search that lasted long after Aunt Carrie died, that lasted until Alice was killed.

When he and Alice started dating, she had been so preoccupied over the child’s disappearance that she seemed, often, hardly to see him. She would be white, shaken with the things she thought might have happened to the little girl.

The wind rose, soughing through the garden and through the tops of the redwoods that thrust black against the night sky. Above the trees against the stars, pale clouds blew. He rose and went into the dark studio and did not switch on the lights.

His new paintings covered the walls, in the darkness they were only black squares. They oppressed him, he did not want to look at them, he felt constricted by them and by his commitment to finish the series.

The date for his show at Chapman’s was too close and he wasn’t ready, the work wasn’t ready. His lack of passion for the work, and his lack of professionalism in letting himself go like this, had no excuse. He told himself he’d lost the desire and thus the skill, that he wouldn’t paint anything worthwhile again. He knewthat was stupid. He wasn’t some twenty-year-old who didn’t know how to handle hard times. But he couldn’t shake the depression, and the work reflected his barrenness—stilted and dry.

He turned away from the paintings restlessly and went back outside. Without conscious thought he crossed the brick veranda and headed up the dark garden toward the door of the cats.

The carved oak door was lit faintly by the scattered house lights at the outer boundaries of the garden. In the wind under the blowing trees the cats’ faces seemed to move and change expression. They chilled him. As he stood looking, annoyed with himself for coming up here, he began to imagine space beyond the door. Unending hollowness. Deep spaces yawning down inside the hill. He imagined he could hear echoing sounds above the wind and voices whispering from deep beyond the door. And then he shook his head, and turned away, and went back to the terrace for a drink.

Chapter 2

Perhaps the universe tilted for an instant to allow Braden his perception of the dark, cavernous spaces. Surely some change in the natural forces permitted him to glimpse the tunnel plunging down, the teetering slabs of stone thrusting down into the hollow bowels of the earth. Though he didn’t, for a moment, believe in such things. It was the next morning that, deep within the earth, an old woman stood saddling her horse.

Where the black caverns dropped at last to gentle meadows and cliffs and to wandering paths, dawn was coming, its green light seeping down from the stone sky—light laid down eons past by wizards long since turned to dust. The green light drifted like fog, turning the cliffs to emerald and embracing a stone cottage perched on the rim of the steep valley.

The old woman took her time saddling the horse and tying on her baskets full of woven cloth for trading. She was roundly built, with a face as wrinkled as an ancient apple. The bay gelding she was saddling stood obediently tethered by her spell, his ears back in resentment. On the other side of the corral a pony snuffled at the hay manger. Behind them the valley dropped away, and across the ravine rose a line of cliffs jagged as dragons’ teeth. As Mag tightened the girth and mounted, she glanced toward the cottage window and raised her hand to the girl.

From the open window Sarah waved back, and watched Mag force the gelding through the orchard and down along the ridge that lipped the valley.

She was seventeen, slim, and taller than Mag. There was a deceptive softness about her, like velvet over lean muscle. The corners of her wide mouth turned up as if with some secret pleasure. Her green eyes were wide, her lashes thick and black. She had long hands, clever at weaving. Her long brown dress was the typical valley coarsespun. As she watched the old woman and horse disappear down the cliff, intently she watched the pony, too, for he did not like being left behind. He was a big, sturdy pony of elven breed. When he raised his head and charged the fence suddenly, meaning to jump it, she lifted her hand in a sign that jerked him back. He turned away, his ears flat, his tail switching.

She could not see the village below, the land dropped too steeply. She would have gone with Mag but for the sow, due to farrow and as likely to eat her piglets as nurse them. The cottage felt larger without Mag, and she liked its emptiness. Mag’s occasional absence was the only privacy she had. She loved Mag, but the cottage was small. She turned from the window, took up the mop, and began to scrub the wooden floor, mopping first without spells. When she tired of that she sent the mop alone over the boards, making it dodge around Mag’s loom and around their two cots, around the table and their two chairs.

The one room served the two of them for cooking, for sleeping, for weaving and mending, and for canning and drying their garden produce. Its stone walls were smoke darkened, its rafters low, with herbs and onions hanging from them. She seldom went beyond the cottage and garden, except when Mag took her trading to some small village. There were no neighbors; she was used to the company of the beasts. The cottage was the only home she remembered. She thought she was no kin to Mag. Mag was as sturdy as a turnip, always the same and always steady. Sarah was, Mag said, as changeable as quicksilver. In this room Mag had taught her the jeweler’s arts and taught her to weave so she could earn a living, and had taught her the spells for gardening and gentling the beasts.

She could remember nothing of her childhood. That part of her life was without form, and Mag would tell her nothing about her past. When they did travel to some small village among other Netherworlders, the old woman sometimes put the deaf spell on her so that, listening to the villagers’ conversation, suddenly she would lose meaning and know that she had for a few moments been deafened, made unaware. Though Mag would never admit to such spells.

She took up a cloth and carefully dusted the clothes cupboard and the kitchen safe, then knelt to polish a carved chest. She liked to dust by hand, rubbing oil into the ancient wood. But now as she pulled out the drawers of the chest to do the edges, the bottom drawer stuck. Kneeling, she tried to straighten it by reaching underneath.

When she felt papers stuck there, up under the bottom of the drawer, she drew back.

Then she reached again, fingering them. They crackled dryly. When she started to pull them out, one tore. Dismayed, she hissed a spell to free it. Three sheets came loose, the old, yellowed papers dropping into her hand. She spread them on the floor.

She thought Mag would not hide papers unless they had to do with her. How furtive the old woman was. Sarah was afraid to look at them. Maybe she wouldn’t want to know what they would tell her. She closed her eyes, trying to collect herself, torn between excitement and fear.

The earliest thing she could remember about her life was her ninth birthday. She had become aware suddenly, as if jerked from deep sleep, had been riding a horse double behind an old woman who was a stranger to her, had sat pressed against the woman’s soft back as the horse worked his way down a cliff. She didn’t remember ever riding a horse before; she didn’t remember the landscape around her. She had been bone tired, aching from a journey she could not recall. Below them stood a thatch-roofed stone cottage, a lonely, bare-looking hovel. The old woman had called her Sarah, but the name had meant nothing to her.

At the cottage she had stood against the fence while the woman unsaddled the horse and watered and fed him, then the wrinkled old creature said,“I am Mag. Today is your ninth birthday.”

“It’s not my birthday. I don’t remember my birthday. Who are you?”

Mag had led her into the cottage and sat her down in the rocker before the cold wood stove, had knelt and built a fire, lighting it with a flick of her hand. Then she took a clay bowl from the shelf and began to mix gingerbread. Sarah had watched, numb and angry. When the dough was rolled out, Mag made a gesture with her hands that caused ginger dolls to be cut from the dough without any cutter or tool.“The dolls are tradition,” Mag said. “Part of the birthday celebration.”

“It’snot my birthday.”

“It is now. This is the first day of your new life. You are nine years old.”

Mag had set about decorating the dolls with magic runes that appeared suddenly deep in the dough. She had baked and cooled them, and made Sarah promise not to watch as she hung them outdoors in the fruit trees.

But of course she had watched from the window, and when, after her birthday supper, Mag sent her to search for the ginger dolls she found the wishing doll at once. It was the only one with emeralds baked in for eyes, in the fading light its green eyes gleamed at her. Coming back with it, she had stopped to look in the water trough at her reflection, wanting to see her own face, and her image shone up at her as unfamiliar as the face of the ginger doll. She was surprised that her eyes were the same clear green as the doll’s emerald eyes.

But from the cottage, Mag had seen her look into the trough and had been enraged.“You must not look at reflections. Not your own, not anyone’s reflection. A reflection is an image, and it is powerful. In this kingdom the queen does not allow images.”

After that, Sarah had avoided the water trough for a long time.

Now she touched the brittle papers, knowing they held a reflection too, a reflection of her own past. Her stomach felt hollow. The yellowed papers rattled in her shaking fingers.

Two sheets had been torn from books, their left-hand edges were ragged and they had page numbers. They were made of strange, foreign paper, very smooth, and the printing was not the usual handwritten script, but rigid and precise. The third paper had thin blue lines to guide a childish handwriting, and the child’s words stirred her strangely.

May 9, 1938.

She is dead. My little Mari is dead. She was so small when I found her, just a little lost kitten alone and hungry in the garden. She had long white whiskers, she was so beautiful, her colors all swirled together like the silk tapestry that hangs in our hall. Her eyes were golden, with black lines around. She rolled over, flashing her eyes at me. She was starving, she wanted a home. Her throat was white, and her paws white, waving as she rolled. I picked her up and took her in the house and fed her leftover scrambled eggs and toast and milk. She ate until I thought she’d burst. I knew her name should be Mari, I don’t know how I knew.

She slept with me every night of our lives together. Five years. She always met the school bus, racing across the neighbors’ yards to the corner. She never went in the street after I scolded her. Sometimes when she looked at me I thought she wanted to tell me something. I thought she was trying to talk human language, but of course she couldn’t. She could only talk with her beautiful golden eyes, or by touching me with her paw.

Now she is dead. The doctor couldn’t mend her sickness.

I hate doctors.

I buried her under the fuchsia tree. I dug the hole, I wouldn’t let Daddy help. I dug it deep, and I wrapped her in her blue blanket. I put in her favorite sofa pillow and her little dish. I made a clay headstone with her name and picture drawn into the wet clay, and baked it at an art school. I will miss her forever and I will love her forever.

There was no signature. Sarah knelt on the cottage floor holding the lined paper, shivering with pain for the child’s agony.

Was this her own childhood grief, embossed into the page? Had she been that child? How could she forget such a thing as the death of a loved animal? And she didn’t think she had ever seen a cat; cats were forbidden in the Netherworld. At least they were forbidden in Affandar—the queen’s edict said cats belonged only in the upperworld among foreign evils. For an instant she felt on the brink of realization. Then the sensation of dawning knowledge vanished.

The other two papers only intensified her confusion.

I am Bast, I am beauty, I am all things sensuous. In Bubastis, in the temple of cats, my saffron fur was brushed by slaves, incense was burned to me and prayers raised to me, and kings fought for my favor. I strolled beside lotus ponds where virgins knelt at my silken paws or at my sandaled feet and served me delicacies in golden bowls.

I am Bast, child of moon’s caress. I am Sekhmet, born of fiery suns. I have confronted the Serpent whose name is Deception and I have destroyed him.

Though the serpent will rise anew. My daughters will confront him and their daughters will face him. So I bequeath to my heirs the Amulet that holds the power of truth. I tell my daughters this: only by truth can the Serpent be defeated. Only by falsehood can he survive.

She put down the paper, shivering.

To speak of Bast or Sekhmet in the Netherworld would be to invite imprisonment. Cats and the gods of cats, by edict of the queen, were forbidden—evil and unclean. Why had Mag hidden this? What did it mean?

After a long time she took up the third page, and these words were more comfortable, like the language of the Netherworld tales; though strangely this page, too, spoke of cats.

I tell you an old Irish saying that“There’s crocks of gold in all them forths, but there’s cats and things guarding them.” And the Danaan people were driven out of Irish lands into the burial mounds and secret recesses. And they went down through crypts and graves into the netherworld. And there were among them the Cat Kingsand the queens of the Catswold.

She did not know the meaning of Catswold. Yet the word alarmed her. Fearing Mag would return, she put the papers back beneath the drawer and sealed them with a spell. She rose and stood at the window, searching the dropping cliff; though if Mag had started up, she could not be seen. She stood looking, then moved to the shelf and took down the old woman’s spell book.

Leafing through the yellowed pages, she found the spell she wanted. She committed it to memory in one reading, and returned the book to the shelf, casting a spell of dust across it so Mag wouldn’t know it had been moved. Then she pulled on her cloak, snatched up a waterskin, and went to saddle the pony. The Pit of Hell lay to the east, cutting across a dry Netherworld valley where she had never been. She imagined the pit’s flame-filled gorge bisecting the valley, its fires leaping high and searing the land on both sides. She imagined the Lamia she must call from the Hell Pit, the beast half-dragon, half-woman, a beast thirsty for human souls. She had no choice. These papers had to do with her past. The time had come to learn about her past, and only from a Hell Beast would she get answers.

Chapter 3

She pressed the pony fast along the high, grassy plateau, her heels dug hard to his sides; her long skirt whipped in the wind that sucked down from the granite sky. Fear of the Pit filled her. Her imagination toyed too vividly with the Hell Beasts and their hunger for human souls, and human flesh.

But with a powerful enough spell she would be safe. If she could call from the pit the Lamia and force it to answer three questions, she might learn who she was. She might learn why Mag had kept the past secret from her.

Soon they left the plateau and the pony made his way down a steep incline toward a dry, sandy valley. No blade grew here, no beast grazed. The brown expanse was surrounded by stone cliffs eaten with holes from the ancient seas. Above her the stone sky was eroded and scarred. She pushed the pony fast across the dry plain, and when at last they reached the far side, she pressed him up a new barrier of steep stone ledges.

At the top she paused to let him blow. Their shadow on the cliff shone thin as breath. Before her the land dropped again steeply, and the granite sky rose away like the top of a bubble. Her every instinct told her to turn back to the cottage and to Mag and safety. But she urged the pony on down the bank. He picked his way carefully, sure-footed, as were all elven-bred beasts. But at the bottom where they entered into a tunnel, he snorted uneasily. She had no doubt this was the way; already she could smell the reek of smoke from the fires of the Hell Pit. The tunnel, without the green wizard light, was totally black. When she brought a spell-light the pony moved on more easily, and when he saw far ahead the end of the tunnel he hurried; the gleam of green light cheered Sarah, too. They came out at the foot of high cliffs.

The air was hot, the land radiated heat. The smoke was so strong she sneezed. They climbed again, and by mid-morning, when they reached the highest ridge, the pony was sweating and balking. Now far, far below them stretched the Hell Pit. The scorched plain was dark with smoke, and was burned black in a wide swath along the edge of the pit. The pit belched smoke and seethed with flames leaping and sputtering. It was in some places wider than the broadest river, but portions of it were as narrow as a path. It was bottomless. Its magma burned and belched fire, bubbling up from the earth’s molten core.

She forced the pony down the slick rock, the little beast skidding and sliding. The smoke smelled sulphurous. Soon sweat plastered her hair and ran into her eyes and glued her dress to her. The pony’s neck and shoulders ran with sweat. Suddenly ahead something black flew toward her, separating into three winged shapes.

Three flying lizards skimmed along beneath the stone sky. When they were directly above her, they circled, watching her. She stared up at their little red eyes and shouted a spell at them. They flapped as if jolted, and flew away screaming. The winged lizards were the queen’s spies. Why would they want to watch her?

As she drew near the bottom of the cliff, the stench of sulphur and smoke gagged her, and the pony put his ears back, wanting to bolt away. At the edge of the plain he balked completely, rearing and wheeling, fighting her. She slid off, let him run back up the cliff, then hobbled him halfway up with the strongest holding spell she knew. If he ran off, she’d walk home.

On foot she crossed the burnt plain and approached the Hell Pit, coughing from the fumes, dizzy with the heat. Near to the pit, flames licked out at her, and the heat warped her vision. She stepped nearer.

She could see deep down within the flames, dark shapes moving. Swallowing her terror, she choked out a summoning spell.

She waited, then repeated the spell. When after a long time she thought no Lamia would come, she felt weak with relief. But suddenly something dark shifted within the flames and began to rise.

A creature rose up within the licking flames, dragon-tailed and armored with scales, its woman’s face and jutting breasts covered with bright scales that glinted and changed color in the hot, warping air. Its thick tail lashed at the edge of the pit, dislodging stones that fell away into the flames. The hot air warped and shifted, and the Lamia hung before her—half-dragon, half-woman—its woman’s face fine featured but reptilian. Its mouth was red and wet, its black eyes hungry. Its hands darted out toward her: woman’s hands ending in sharp dragon’s claws. Its voice was a burning hiss. “What power have you, girl, to call me from the pit?”

Sarah had backed away, her mouth too dry to speak.

“Why do you call me, human girl? What do you want?”

“I—I call you to answer my questions.”

The beast lunged at her.“If I answer your questions, what do you offer in return?”

She moved farther from the edge.“I offer nothing. You are bound by my spell to answer me.” Her heart pounded too fast, she couldn’t make her voice steady. “My spell allows three questions.”

As the Lamia laughed, its colors changed, flickering into crimson spots and blue and silver bars that flashed across its breasts and thighs. It leaped at her suddenly, its claws pierced her shoulders and it jerked her into the smoke, swinging her out over the pit. She hung in space above the flames, the heat of molten earth and fire searing her, dizzying and sickening her. Below her, a dozen half-seen beasts writhed and reached, waiting for her to fall. She twisted, fighting the Lamia, sick with terror that she would fall, and she saw the hem of her dress burst afire. She grabbed the Lamia’s arm and stared into its scale-lidded eyes, shouting a spell to save herself. The Lamia’s eyes widened; it shifted, nearly dropped her. She screamed the spell again to ward away harm from herself, and suddenly the beast moved toward the bank and tossed her at the solid ground. She leaped fromits claws sprawling, grasping at the earth, her heart thundering as she crawled away from the edge.

She crushed out her flaming hem against the earth and rose to face the Lamia, shaken, still so dizzy she dared not look down into the pit.“Do not touch me again. You are bound by the ancient powers to obey me.”

“I am bound only by my own power or one stronger. Your powers cannot equal mine.”

“I had the power to call you here. I had the power to free myself from your obscene hands.”

Its black eyes blazed, then narrowed.“What is your question?”

“Who am I?”

“Melissa,” it said obediently, its mouth widening in a bloody smile.

A surge of rightness filled her, a wave of excitement. The name seemed right, seemed almost familiar.Melissa. I am Melissa. But a name was not enough. She stared into the Lamia’s hate-filled eyes. “I do not want to know only a name. I want to knowwho. What person? What family and history? What life did I have that I cannot remember?”

“You asked none of that. You are Melissa.”

“Butwho? The question means more than a name.”

“I have told what you required.”

She swallowed back her rage. She did not dare to lose control of herself before this beast.“Tell me about my mother.”

“That is not a question.”

“What—what was the lineage of my mother?”

“Is that your second question?”

“It is.” But even as she answered, she thought she had formed this question, too, unwisely. She had a sharp desire to attack the beast, some part of herself wanted to claw and kill the beast.

The Lamia said,“Your mother was wife to the brother of my sister.”

“That is no answer, it’s a riddle.”

“I have told what you required.”

“But she can’t have been…Wife to the brother of your sister? But my mother wasn’t…that is not possible.”

When the Lamia began to fade, Melissa went rigid.“Child of Lillith! By the Ancient Wizards you are bound. You must answer my third question!”

“Then be quick. It’s cold up here.” It licked its red lips, eyeing her hungrily.

“What—what is the entire truth of my past?”

“Too broad a question. I need not answer that.” It rubbed its dragon hands over its scaly breasts and began to grow indistinct, its body mingling with the smoke.

“By the old laws, you must answer me!” Melissa shouted.

“From—from exactly where and whom, and by what power, can I learn the entire truth of my past?”

The Lamia stopped fading. Its colors were muddied now and sullen. Its voice was hollow, but its eyes glowed at her obscenely through the hot, warping air.“You can learn what you wish from the Toad.”

“Give me the rest of the answer, child of Lillith. By the Ancient Wizards, you are bound to do so.”

The Lamia’s black eyes fixed on her throat. Its claws moved as if to tighten around her flesh. “The Toad sleeps in the dungeons of Affandar Palace. It will tell the past if you can wake it. And if it likes you.”

“No toad could be kept in a dungeon, it would slip out through the bars.”

The Lamia’s colors flashed brighter. “I did not say how big a toad.”

“Well? How big?”

“That is four questions.” It shivered and began to vanish.

“You have not completed the third question,” she shouted.

“What power will I use to make the Toad tell me?”

The beast’s voice was nearly bodiless. Flame and smoke warped her vision. “You need no special power,” it hissed. “Use your wits.” It appeared again faintly, its woman’s shape more dragonlike, its face sharpened to a dragon’s face. Then it disappeared in an explosion of licking flames.

When it was gone she turned from the pit quickly and fled up the cliff to the pony. She stood hugging the warm, sweet-scented pony, her arms around his neck, trying to calm herself.

At last she slid on and let him have his head. He leaped away up the cliff at a gallop, pounding upward as if pursued by the entire population of the Hell Pit. He didn’t slow until they were well away from the valley, on the highest ridges.

Riding, clinging to him, she thought,Melissa…I am Melissa…Something of her true self had been given back to her, a tiny core of rightness. Perhaps now that she knew her real name—like knowing the key spell to potent magic—she could unravel her past.

The pony was climbing the last ridge when suddenly fire exploded in their path and a huge tree stood blocking their way where, a second before, there had been only bare stone. Its branches spread over them broad as a cottage. Its left side was consumed by flame, every branch burned, every leaf and limb was eaten by flame. But the right-hand side was green and alive, the leaves as fresh and tender as the first new shoots of spring.

She calmed the rearing pony and made him stand, though he shivered and trembled. This tree, that had burst suddenly into being before her, was the living symbol of the Netherworld: half of natural life, half of the shifting flame of enchantment. It held her powerfully. And it was the symbol of her own life, too: the half that lived with Mag in the cottage was natural and familiar. The other half was hidden within the flames of some inexplicable enchantment. And she knew that the tree, beneath its licking fires, was healthy and alive. Just as, beneath the secrecy of enchantment, her past was alive.

She did not leave the presence of the tree, the tree left her, vanishing as suddenly as it had appeared. She went on, filled with a strange anticipatory excitement. But then coming down the bank to the cottage she saw Mag’s horse rolling in his pen, and she began desperately to invent a lie.

She dared not tell Mag she had been to the Hell Pit or that she knew her name. She led the pony into the corral and unsaddled him and rubbed him dry, delaying, unable to think of any reasonable lie.

In the cottage she found Mag kneeling before the wood stove bedding down newborn piglets in a basket, and she was filled with guilt. The sow had farrowed. Against Mag’s instructions she had left the cannibalistic sow alone.

“I saved nine,” Mag said, scowling up at her. “Who knows how many she ate.”

“I—I was hunting mushrooms. I felt stifled in the cottage, I forgot the sow—I had to get out in the air.”

“And where are the mushrooms?”

“I lost the basket down a ravine—the pony bolted, I dropped the basket. Flying lizards were everywhere.”

Mag sat back on her heels.“Lizards don’t come for nothing. What were you doing, that they would watch you?”

“I told you, hunting mushrooms. I’m sorry about the pig. Truly, I forgot her.” Why had she mentioned the lizards?

Mag searched her face cannily.“Whatever you were doing, Sarah, it was to no good. And lizards promise no good. You’d best be wary, miss. You’d best stay in the cottage until the lizards tire of you.” Mag looked deeply at her. “You could be asking for more trouble than you imagine.”

She looked back at Mag innocently, but she was shaken. What did Mag know, or guess? Mag said nothing more until supper. She was, Melissa felt certain, angry about more than the sow. Could Mag know that she had gone to the Hell Pit? Or did the canny old woman know about the papers she had found beneath the linen chest?

Or was Mag’s distress about something else, some village crisis perhaps, or something to do with the secret rebellion? The rebels’ plans for war seemed so frail to Melissa. Yet the rebels were totally committed, and their ranks were growing. Selfishly she hoped Mag’s anger was centered around their problems, and not on herself.

She waited until supper, than asked innocently,“Did you not trade well for your beautiful cloth? The blue one alone should—”

“Traded fine,” Mag snapped, breaking the bread, her round, wrinkled face pulled into a scowl.

“Was—was there trouble for the rebels?”

“Yes, trouble!” Mag spread butter with an angry thrust. She had obviously been bursting to talk, and too upset to start the conversation herself. “Three leaders from Cressteane have been captured by the queen’s soldiers.”

“Oh, Mag. But how?” The rebels’ movements and identity were so carefully hidden. It was only with well thought out plans that she and Mag ever approached a rebel cottage. Even where a whole village was against the queen, the rebels were painfully discreet.

“Betrayed by one of our own,” Mag said. “And if those captured men are tortured into talking, our plans could be destroyed.”

“Where are the captives?” she asked casually. “In—in the dungeons of Affandar Palace?” And the Lamia’s voice filled her thoughts,The Toad sleeps—in the dungeons of Affandar Palace.

“Where else would they be but Siddonie’s dungeons?”

She stared at her plate.“Who was captured? Are they men I know?”

Mag looked hard at her.“You have never asked rebel secrets.”

“If they are captive, they are no longer secret.”

“The queen will not learn their names easily. What you don’t know, you can’t be forced to tell.”

They ate in silence until at last Melissa, too tightly wound to sit another minute, rose and picked up her plate. At the stove she heated water and did up the dishes while Mag took the piglets out to the sow, meaning to guard them while they nursed. Melissa worked idly at the spinning wheel while she made plans, her mind filled with the imprisoned rebels.

Rebellion had been building a long time against Queen Siddonie’s increasing enslavement of other Netherworld nations. And Siddonie’s rule within Affandar itself was crueler and more constricting each year. She had conscripted workers by enchantment, to go into the mines, and to serve in her growing army. She had torn families apart, and destroyed many of the traditional ways of making a living, destroyed people’s will to work. As a result, villagers were starving.

When Mag came in and knelt before the cookstove, getting the piglets settled in their basket, Melissa climbed into her cot and pretended sleep. Not until hours later did she rise again and, in the near-dark, pull on her dress, pack some bread and ham, and take up a waterskin and lantern.

Chapter 4

Braden, barefoot and wearing cutoffs, set his coffee cup on the terrace table. The garden was barely light, the dawn air cool and smelling of wet leaves. He stood idly studying the tangle of flowers and small trees and bushes trying to get awake, trying to shake a faint but depressing hangover. The three houses up the hill were still dark. The studio behind him was dark, though if work had been going well it would be a blaze of light. He would already have set up a canvas, poured out turpentine and oil, and become lost in the painting.

When Alice was alive they used to walk at dawn on Sundays, Alice striding out fast but seeing every leaf and change of color, every bird, every animal in every yard. They’d end up at Anthea’s in the village for breakfast, get the papers, read the reviews of the new exhibits. And when they were remodeling the house, they’d had breakfast out here on the terrace among the sawhorses and lumber, before the carpenters arrived. The front of the house had been torn out waiting for a new glass wall, gaping open to the garden like a bombed-out war casualty. They’d nailed canvas drop cloths over the forty-foot hole and Alice said that ought to be a big enough canvas for him to work on. Some of the inner walls had been torn away, too; they’d lived for ten weeksamong bare studs and sheetrock dust. He could see Alice sitting here at the terrace table, her head bent, her long pale hair catching the light as she studied the blueprints. She’d been so happy to have the studio finished at last, to have her own place to work. The living room, dining room and entry hall had been turned into one forty-foot studio with rafters supporting the roof, and a skylight in Braden’s work area. Alice liked the softer light of the windows. She had taken a week to get her half of the studio set up, installing shelves, arranging the printing plates and handmade papersand etching and litho inks. Thinking about her was still like digging into a fresh wound.

Above him up the terraces a sound jarred him—the snip, snip, snip of garden clippers. He stared up at the dark, thin gardener who was hunched over a bush methodically trimming away. Vrech was a greasy, unpleasant man. And what the hell was he doing here so early? Waking up everyone else in the garden houses. The snap of the clippers was like gnashing teeth.

The six houses that circled the garden shared Vrech’s salary, but Olive Cleaver had hired him, years ago. The man did his job all right, kept the hillside tangle in just enough order to make the garden interesting, but he put Braden on edge; there was a cloying quality about him. Braden watched him, annoyed, pushing aside his sketch pad and pencils.

He had meant to plan a new painting this morning—as much as he ever planned, a rough start, some direction to give a model—but nothing stirred him. Nothing wanted to come to life, to make the light glow in his mind with the brilliance of a finished painting. Nothing he had considered lately had that brilliance. He felt as dull as if mind andspirit suffered from a toothache.

Sometimes he could jack up his lagging spirits by reading the reviews of his past shows or by recounting the frequent museum awards, a stupid ritual that meant nothing but would jolt his ego and get him started. He had less than two months to get the show together for Chapman, and he had only ten paintings and none of them meant a damn thing. Dull, uninspired. It would take twenty-five pieces to fill the gallery. He had thought of canceling the show—that would be the final admission of failure—but you just didn’t cancel a show with Chapman, a show you’d had scheduled for over two years, not unless you were ready to admit total defeat.

He wasn’t ready to do that. But it was nearly impossible to get himself to work. He’d done everything to avoid work—had gone sailing, climbed Mount Tam half a dozen times, even ridden a couple of times at the local stables as he used to ride with Alice, trying to make himself enjoy being out on the yellowed summer hills, maybe make some facet of the landscape come alive enough to want to paint it. But even going to the stables, glimpsing Alice’s favorite mare, had thrown him into depression.

He’d made every excuse to avoid Chapman seeing the few dull paintings he had produced since his last show—he’d gone out of town, gone down the coast to Carmel. He had remained filled with defeat, feeling like he might as well be painting soup cans.

Maybe he should be, maybe someday they’d all paint soup cans—flat designs done with a mind as flat as that of a store mannequin, passionless, sexless.

But this was 1957 and the world of painters was filled with passion: the exploding passion of Still, of Kline, the inflamed vision fostered by Picasso, and echoes of the Bauhaus, and with his own kind of painting, with the work of the Bay area action painters, their colors the glowing hues of California, opulent as stained glass.

He dumped his coffee out, looking absently up the terraces. The gardener had moved to a hydrangea bush. Snip, snip, snip—an annoying, suggestive sound. Braden stared at his sketch pad thinking of excuses to do any number of unnecessary chores in the studio: stretch more canvases for more dull paintings, make a list of supplies, sweep the floor. The garden grew lighter, the hidden sun sending a blaze of gold along the top of the redwood forest. Halfway up the terraces a yellow cat came out from beneath a fuchsia bush and slipped warily away from Vrech; the cat’s distrust of the gardener stirred sympathy in Braden even if it was only a cat.

There were five or six cats living in the garden. He ignored them and they ignored him; cats made him uneasy. Cats watched people too intently, and they weren’t loving like dogs. He glanced up the hill to Olive’s two-story house; its age-darkened siding blended into the dark forest behind it. There was a cat on Olive’s front porch, crouched, watching the gardener. To the right in Morian’s gray, two-story frame, a light had come on in Morian’s bedroom behind her bamboo shades. He could see her moving around, caught a glimpse of her dark arm reaching just behind the shade. She would be getting ready for an early class. To the right of Morian’s, nearest to the dead end lane, Anne Hollingsworth’s one-story, white Cape Cod was still dark.Three neighbors, three single women—Anne divorced, Olive a dry old spinster, and dark-skinned Morian with plenty of men in her bed. The three were the most unlikely of friends, as different as three women could be, but they were close friends; and they had looked out for him tenderly since Alice died. In weak moments he admitted he needed them in the casual, secure context of neighbors. Though Morian was more than neighbor, gracing his bed occasionally with offhand pleasure and tenderness.

As he picked up his shoes and bent to put them on, the gardener came slouching down the terraces. Vrech looked straight through him, didn’t acknowledge him, then turned and went into the tool shed, shutting the door. The action stirred a memory without any connection: he’d dreamed of Alice last night, the same nightmare he’d had a thousand times, Alice lying unconscious over the steering wheel. The flames of the cutting torches. His helpless rage. He had waked shouting and lashing out at the car in which she lay trapped.

Vrech came out of the tool room wearing a Levi jacket and carrying a brown paper bag. He shut the oak door, not turning to look at the carved cat faces that protruded from the old, darkened planks that formed the door. He headed across the garden to the lane, and quickly crossed the lane, heading toward the village.

The man usually drove a green Ford, but it wasn’t there today. Strange that he’d come to work so early and stayed such a short time. Maybe his car was in the shop, maybe he’d left to pick it up. Braden stood looking after him idly, then on impulse he went up the garden to the tool shed and, despite his repugnance at touching the door, he opened it to look inside.

He didn’t know what he’d expected to see. The dark little room contained only a wheelbarrow, the ladder, the work table, and some scattered garden tools. The table was littered with seed packets, and with clay pots to which dry earth clung. A hoe and shovel leaned against the dirt wall beside some bags of manure. He studied the stone wall that formed the back of the room, keeping the hill in check. Overhead, heavy timbers held the earth solidly. Someone had taken a lot of trouble building this hillside cellar. It had been in the garden longer than Alice’s Aunt Carrie could remember. Carrie hadplayed here when she was a child, as, later, Alice did, and then Alice’s little foster sister. The cave seemed a depressing place for a child, though usually they had played on the brick pad in front of the door, making up games that included the carved cats, and talking to the cats. He breathed in the smell of raw earth, and backed out of the cave. A tendril of the cup of gold vine that framed the door slid across his neck, startling him. He grabbed the offending limb and broke it off. Why didn’t the gardener keep the damn vine trimmed? The vine’s ancient, twisted limbs were so old andthick they formed a heavy, rough frame for the carved door. Suddenly, watching the medieval cats’ faces, he felt chilled. He turned away abruptly and headed down toward the studio; he could almost feel the damned cats watching him.

Chapter 5

Mag, I’ve gone to the Wizard in Marchell, please don’t follow me. I must do this. I love you.

Melissa wrote the note in a thick layer of dust that she made appear on the supper table. Around it she wove a tangle of spells which would confuse Mag and make her laugh; the old woman was less likely to follow her if she showed some style. She didn’t like hurting Mag, but it couldn’t be helped. She dared not tell her where she was really going—Mag would come storming after her and with harsh words, maybe with spells, would force her home again. She pulled on her cloak, shoved her knife in its sheath, and fastened on her trinket bracelet for trading. With the pack, a lantern, and the full waterskin she quit the cottage, slipping out into the dark green night.

The way up the cliffs was precarious in the dark, with drop-offs and loose stones. But when at last she topped the cliff and started down the other side, the path was easier. Where the stone sky was lowest, white bats darted and squeaked overhead, skimming along after insects. She tied her hood to keep them out of her hair, though they stayed away usually, unless someone had laid a spell. Bat-spells were a prank children played, or feuding village women. When the sky rose again, black cliffs loomed against it, and on her right a precipice dropped. She didn’t light the lantern but brought a spell-light; it could be doused faster in case of night-traveling horsemen who would surely be queen’s soldiers. She thought it must be near to midnight when she turned onto a path between cliffs too narrow to be traveled by horsemen. She didn’t want to happen on a band of rebels, either, going about some secret business. Too many of the rebels knew her and would tell Mag they had seen her. Soon she was skirting the ice caves, shivering with cold.

She had no notion how she would proceed when she reached Affandar Palace, except to ask for work in the scullery. She shivered with more than cold when she thought about descending into the palace dungeons to search for the Toad and for the captured rebels.

Soon she was in the labyrinth of the ancient, dry riverbed. She and Mag had sometimes come this way. The pot-holes and basins and thin arches were rimed with ice, and she laid a spell before her feet to keep from slipping. The Affandar River had flowed here until Queen Siddonie’s powers changed its course so it brought water nearer the palace. That change had destroyed the economy of half a dozen villages which depended on the river’s power for fulling cloth and for milling grain, but the queen cared nothing about that.

All night she followed the riverbed. As dawn began to seep down from the frozen arches above her, she scraped ice from a saucer of stone and curled up in its hollow, wrapping her cloak around her, and slept.

She woke at mid-morning filled with a fleeting dream, she could remember vast spaces reeling above her as if the stone sky had vanished, endless space filled with harsh white light. She lay puzzled, trying to understand what she had seen.

She rose finally and found a spring among the sculptured stone. Breaking the ice, she drank and washed. From the small pool her image shone back at her surprisingly clear. She looked away from it guiltily, but soon Mag’s cautions faded and her curiosity overcame her fear of images. She looked at herself and laughed, forgetting caution.

All images were forbidden in Affandar and in most of the Netherworld. Everyone knew that an evil soul would cast destructive images and bring disaster.

But all souls were not evil. She didn’t think she was evil; she didn’t understand why all images should be avoided. And no one ever talked about what she had found in Mag’s spell book, that images made with love were beneficial and that such images could heal. In Affandar there was no distinction between good images and evil; all images were forbidden by order of the queen.

There would be no mirrors in Affandar Palace. Or none that she would see. She had heard that the queen kept one small mirror for dressing, locked within her wardrobe where no eyes but her own would see it, and no spell could be cast upon her.

For a long time she knelt beside the spring looking down at her own reflection. Mag would have been furious, but Mag wasn’t there. She liked her green eyes and dark lashes, and she felt happy to like what she saw.

Toward noon she came up out of the labyrinth onto rolling green pastures. The sky dropped close above her, radiating warmth. She could see ahead the village of Sesut. There was a rebel camp there. She had gone there with Mag, and she had learned to swim in the icy Sesut River with the daughters of a rebel leader. Now, she stayed behind a ridge, regretting the warm welcome she would miss and the good hot meal.

Soon she turned onto an animal trail through a woods, then followed a spring until it ended in a thin fall of water dropping into a ravine. Beyond the ravine she entered country she hadn’t seen and knew only from hearing the rebels describe it. She knew she was passing caches of weapons and food hidden in scattered caves. Ahead the land was unstable, and she stepped lightly among shattered stone thinking of boulders imploding, of faulted, cracked caverns collapsing in landslide.Families, whole villages had died, buried in such implosions.

She came out of the faulted land at dusk to a place of firestones. As she knelt to pick up the darkest, oiliest rocks with which to cook her supper, pebbles fell from above her and a small blue dragon slid out of a cleft. It was the size of a pony, too small to be dangerous, but it snapped its forked tongue at her. She was startled by her sudden desire to kill it, an inexplicable need to leap on it and tear at it. A desire so intense she caught herself moving stealthily, stalking it. Only when she was very close did she freeze and draw back, alarmed, not knowing what was wrong with her.

She had killed game, had hunted doves for Mag when meat was scarce, bringing them down with a simple spell. Even that killing had upset her unbearably. She had never liked cleaning the birds; they hung too limply in her hands. She didn’t want to admit that she had been unpleasantly stirred by the dead birds, that they awoke a horrifying desire to eat raw meat. She was deeply ashamed of such bizarre feelings.

And now, this night, sleeping beside her fire in a cleft of stone, she dreamed of killing dragons and of shaking and teasing dragons, and she woke sick with shock at herself.

Around her the first green of dawn was seeping from the stone sky and cliffs. She drank some water, and set out walking fast, trying to escape her dream. She didn’t feel like eating. When at mid-morning two winged lizards soared over her, she started guiltily for no reason. The lizards’ thin shadows slid along the roof of sky, but their ruby eyes looked down directly into her eyes. Well, so she was journeying to Affandar Palace. If they told the queen that, what difference?

Toward evening she crossed pastureland again, approaching a herder’s cottage. She could see by the bales of reddish wool in the shed that he kept long-coated russet sheep. She thought he was likely on the high ridges where the russets preferred to graze. Entering the cottage, she found cold mutton packed in peat and ice, and some bread and onions and dried peaches. She took a small amount of food as was the custom, leaving an opal from among the dangles on her bracelet. Some said it wasn’t right to trade for food since the queen gave the common folk much of the food they needed. Mag said pay for what you get. Mag wanted nothing from the queen.

Queen Siddonie had gained her throne by marrying Affandar’s child prince when he was twelve. She had come originally from Xendenton. She had been a little girl when Xendenton fell and her father and two brothers were killed. She and the one remaining brother had escaped the battle and were not seen again in the Netherworld for many years. When they returned, they quickly rallied an army to win back their kingdom. Siddonie herself killed its ruler, and she put her brother Ithilel on the throne.

Soon after, Siddonie married the boy king of Affandar. Once she was queen of Affandar, she set out to conquer other nations. At present she controlled five of the fourteen Netherworld nations, plus Xendenton and Affandar. She had taken the thrones not with war but with lies, with spells, with intrigue. It was said that Siddonie enjoyed toppling rule from within by forming alliances that turned against the true rulers.

Mag said that few Netherworlders would fight hard enough to preserve their own freedom; she said folk had grown too weak. She said the spirit of the Netherworld was dying. Surely the powers of protective magic had weakened. Spells failed, sometimes crops wouldn’t grow. Too many babies were born dead, and many children sickened and died. Even the queen’s own child was so ill no one expected him to live long. The rebels hoped Prince Wylles would die. Without an heir, Siddonie’s rule would be weakened and she would more easily be dethroned.

Melissa came to the main road in late afternoon and crossed the Affandar River on a narrow bridge. Below her the wide water ran green and clear. She was startled to see, halfway across, three selkies swimming upriver, their dark horse heads poking up out of the fast water. She watched them with surprised pleasure, for seldom did the stocky, broad little horses show themselves. They turned in the water to look up at her with wide, dark eyes, friendly and shy. Then they swam to shore and came out of the river, galloping up the bank. And on the bank they shape shifted suddenly into stocky men—broad faced, dark eyed, their beards streaming water. She felt graced to witness such a sight.

The selkies were one of the few shape-shifting peoples left in the Netherworld. They were secretive; they clung to their own kind, their ways untouched by human concerns. When trouble boiled through the Netherworld, they disappeared into the rivers and buried seas, returning when peace was restored. She had no idea why these three would show themselves to her. They said no word, only looked at her, then the three stocky men dove back into the river and disappeared. Soon, far downriver she saw the three horses’ heads pop up and move swiftly away.

At dusk she left the main road and settled in a shallow cleft between boulders, hoping she would not have nightmares again. She ate some ham and bread, and was nearly asleep when she heard hooves strike stone.

Saddle horses approached, moving at a controlled trot. She slid deeper down between the stones, thankful she had made no fire.

Five mounted soldiers passed close above her, their uniforms red against the darkening stone sky. Queen’s soldiers. They were nearly past when suddenly the lead stallion snorted and stared behind him, sidestepping as if he had detected her scent. His uniformed soldier wheeled the horse and leaned down from the saddle, staring into the cleft straight at her.

“Come out of there! By the queen’s order, come out!”

There was nowhere to run. She came out facing drawn swords.

The five men snickered when they saw it was a girl, and glanced at one another. Her fingers itched for her knife, but it was in her pack. Three were older men. The captain was round faced and fat, his gray hair shaggy, his belly hanging over the saddle. One sergeant was dry and thin, the other a half-elven man, stocky and square faced. The two younger soldiers were Melissa’s age, one a pasty boy, the other squat and freckled, full-blooded elven.

The captain’s voice was thick and unpleasant. “Where do you travel? Why are you alone? What have you there? A pack? Where would a young girl travel alone in this wild country?”

“I come from Appian to seek work in the palace.”

He looked her over with too much familiarity.“Why did you leave Appian? Why would you want work in the palace? What kind of work?” he said, snickering.

“We were too many in family,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “My mother sent me to find work.” She wanted to run, and she suspected she knew no spell strong enough to turn aside this crude man’s attentions. Watching his eyes, she remembered every ugly story about the queen’s guard.

He dismounted and jerked her to him.“How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

He stared at her stomach.“Are you with child? Is that why your mother turned you out?”

“I am not with child. I left home because there were too many to feed, nine sisters and brothers.”

“There are never too many to feed. The queen gives food to all families.”

“There are several big families in Appian. The queen’s stores didn’t stretch so far. And our cottage was crowded. Most of us slept on the floor. I am the oldest and they sent me to work.” Why didn’t he believe her? It was common practice to send a child to work at the palace or to apprentice in some wealthier village. Surely the two younger soldiers were apprentices.

The captain glanced up at the sergeant, licking the side of his mouth, then pulled her closer. He started to say something, then he looked at her more intently, grasping her chin, turning her head to left and right.

He lifted her hair, looking so closely she wondered if it needed dying again. Mag kept it dyed with spells and snake root, she was very particular about that. He looked intently from her hair to her eyes, then looked up again at the sergeant. Then, abruptly, he pulled his horse around, loosing her as the others drew close. He mounted heavily, off-balancing the horse. His look had changed, the lust had vanished.“Get on behind.”

She thought of breaking away between the horses and running, but they would overtake her. The captain leaned from the saddle, snatched her arm, and pulled her up against the horse.“Get on. You want to go to the palace, you will come with us.” He laughed. “You will go to the queen in style.”

She had no choice. She got on, putting her foot over his in the stirrup, and sat behind the saddle clinging to it, not touching him.

Through the night they traveled, stopping only to water the horses. No one asked Melissa if she was thirsty. She fought sleep; she didn’t want to doze and lean against the captain’s fat back. She was tense with fear of what he might decide to do if they stopped to rest. It was nothing to rape a village girl—there was no law prohibiting it, not under Siddonie’s rule. She didn’t know why they hadn’t tried already. Soon she heard a fox cry out in the dark woods, then they were skirting the Affandar River; in the darkness she could hear its waters gurgling over stones. They passed through a sleeping village, and another. She was relieved when morning began to gather misty green overhead.

They came out of the woods quite suddenly, and she sat up straighter. The meadow before them was very green, the road broad and smooth. Beyond the meadow lay rich orchards and vegetable gardens, and between these rose the pale towers of Affandar Palace. She stared at the huge, delicate structure, feeling uncertain again, and afraid.

Chapter 6

The soldiers kicked their horses to a trot, moving fast toward the palace. Five pale towers rose, the tallest reaching nearly to the stone sky. The curtain wall wandered in pleasing curves, and all around it lay the orchards and vineyards and vegetable gardens. Behind the palace were fenced meadows, then two small villages, then the ancient forest.

She had never before seen windows made of real glass. She could see the road clearly reflected, could see the large oak they were passing. But she could not see horses or riders beneath the broad branches, the road appeared empty. The windows were spell-cast; neither man nor beast would reflect in them.

The captain trotted his horse through the palace gates into a courtyard crowded with villagers working at the day’s tasks. A smith pounded hot metal, vegetable carts drawn by small, stocky ponies stood at a side gate. A carpenter was mending a table, some scullery girls were husking corn. In a corner against the palace wall, six pages skirmished at sword practice.

She had thought to approach the palace at a servants’ wing, unnoticed. Now the entire courtyard stopped work to watch the soldiers, and folk stared at her, too, and smirked as if they thought the captain had a new companion for his bed. Two scullery girls looked so knowing that Melissa wanted to smack them.

But then she was forgotten as heads turned toward another gate, and suddenly folk were kneeling and there was no sound but the soft thud of approaching hooves.

Through an archway beneath the palace a large group of mounted soldiers entered the courtyard. They were led by a dark-haired youth no older than she, dressed in a red and purple uniform pointed with ermine.“King Efil,” she heard the captain mutter as, bowing, he reached back to nudge her. She bowed, looking up under her lashes.

The king was slim, dark haired, and very handsome. He rode directly past her, and he was looking at her. As his dark eyes seared hers, she felt her face go hot. He smiled intimately, and then with amusement, and then he was past. She glanced around to watch him move out the gate at the head of his uniformed troops.

“Get off,” the captain said, shoving her. She slipped down and fell under the horse’s legs, and breathed a quick spell to keep the stallion from kicking her. When she crawled out, red-faced, a soldier, the pasty one, pointed his sword to direct her ahead of him.

He guided her across the courtyard to a jutting stone wing of the palace, and flung open a door, shouting. She could hear the clang of pots and the cacophony of girls’ voices. She stepped into a huge, cluttered scullery. A woman, uniformed in white, turned away from a stove of steaming saucepans, and the young soldier pushed Melissa toward her. “Village girl. Wants work.” Quickly he was gone again, whether from embarrassment at herding women, or from boredom, she couldn’t tell.

The big woman inspected her without expression. She had a fat, lined face.“I am Briccha. I am the Scullery Mistress. If you are allowed to stay, you will answer to me.” Her braids were so tight they pulled her scalp. Her bodice clung tightly over ample breasts and belly. When Melissa didn’t answer, Briccha grabbed her shoulder and jerked her through the scullery, shoving other girls aside.

They entered a small chamber with whitewashed stone walls. It held a chair, a table, a pitcher of water and a bowl, a towel and a crock of soap.“Wash yourself. Comb your hair. Youdo have a comb?”

“No.”

The woman fished in her pocket and handed her a dirty comb.“And sponge your dress. Make yourself acceptable for the queen.”

“I do not seek audience with the queen. I want only to work in the scullery.”

“The queen sees all who seek scullery work. Don’t dawdle.” Briccha gave her a harsh stare, and left her.

Angrily Melissa spell-locked the door, then dropped her dress and scrubbed thoroughly and slowly, luxuriating in the soap and clean washcloth and clean towel.

Soon, refreshed, she washed the comb, scrubbing it with the washcloth then the towel, then she combed her hair.

She was left in the room for hours. She paced, then sat down and closed her eyes, trying to keep her temper in check. She loved idleness on her own terms. She detested idleness enforced by others. She was nearly asleep when the door rattled but didn’t open. Hastily she removed the spell that locked it.

A thin serving girl entered bearing a plate of bread and a mug of milk—a bone-thin girl, maybe thirteen, with a bluish cast to her skin. She looked Melissa over shyly. “You are another,” she said softly. “Doyou know why you were brought here?”

“I wasn’t brought. I came on my own. To work.”

“But I saw you ride in behind the captain.”

“I met the soldiers on the way. What do you mean, brought? Were you brought here by soldiers?”

The girl had gray smudges under her eyes. Her hair was lank, her eyes the color of mud. She was a valley elven child.“We all were brought here or summoned. Surely the soldiers brought you at the queen’s orders.”

“I told you, I met them by chance. Why would anyone want to bring me here?”

“The queen summons many girls. Some stay to work. Most are sent home again.”

“Why would she summon them then send them home again?”

“I don’t know why. But many of us are glad to be allowed to stay. The palace food is good, and this life is better than herding sheep.”

Melissa wondered if that was true. At least herding sheep, you were your own boss.

“What is your name?”

“Terlis.”

“What if I refuse to talk to the queen?”

Terlis stared at her.“You wouldn’t dare to do that. No one would dare.”

A long time after Terlis left her, a woman soldier came for Melissa—a sturdy creature with a scar down her neck. She herded Melissa through passages and up two flights of stairs, then down a main passage to a black door. She knocked, pushed Melissa through, and shut the door behind her.

The huge chamber was nearly dark. She could see quantities of black furniture that crouched like waiting beasts. Splinters of green light pushed in through the far shutters. Across the room, five spell-lights began to glow, circling a black throne. Within the throne’s dark embrace sat the queen of Affandar.

At first all that was visible was the white oval of the queen’s face suspended in blackness, then slowly, as Melissa approached, she made out the queen’s elaborately coiled black hair against the black throne, her black robe. When suddenly the queen moved, she revealed white hands flashing with jewels. “Kneel! You are to kneel!”

She knelt, feeling awe and fear. She thought that her own small powers of magic had likely been stripped away, that if she tried to use any spell to protect herself from this woman she would fail.

“Look up at me.”

She looked up into the queen’s black eyes, wary as a caged beast. The queen gave her a cold smile, but then her eyes widened, and her pale mouth twitched. She lifted her white hand and brought a spell-light bright across Melissa’s face.

Queen Siddonie studied her for so long that Melissa, kneeling, felt her legs cramp. She could see no expression in the queen’s black eyes. The power of the woman’s stare made her weak and angry. Stories of Siddonie’s cruelty filled her. She felt her heart pounding, and only with great effort did she keep her face blank.

At last the queen sat back and folded her hands.“You may rise. What is your name?”

“I am Sarah.”

Rage flashed in Siddonie’s eyes. “What village do you come from—Sarah? Tell me why you have come to Affandar.”

“Appian is my village. My father could not keep us all. I came to find work in the palace.”

“What work does your father do?”

“He mines a little,” Melissa said, forcing quiet into her voice, counting on Appian to be so far away and so crowded that the queen would not bother to investigate. And why should she? What difference where she came from? “He makes some jewelry, and grows barley and pigs.”

Another long silence as the queen watched her, a look that made her stomach twist with fear. But then suddenly in the queen’s eyes something almost vulnerable shone: Siddonie’s face softened, for an instant her smile was almost gentle. “You will start in the kitchens, Sarah. You will report to Briccha. If you are a good worker there may be other chores.” Then suddenly her fists clenched and she half rose. “You are dismissed. Rise and get out.Now!”

Alarmed, Melissa backed quickly to the door. And her anger rose so fiercely she had to restrain herself from hissing curses or from striking out at the queen. She fled, enraged—and shocked at herself.

Outside the door she stood, regaining her breath, almost more frightened of her own fierce reactions than of Queen Siddonie.

Chapter 7

Braden was parking the station wagon after a pointless drive up the coast when he saw his neighbor, Olive Cleaver, come down the garden and go into the tool room carrying a camera and notebook. Olive was in her seventies, a skinny woman with parchment pale skin made more sallow by her garishly flowered house dresses: Woolworth designs of raw color so terrible they were wonderful. This one featured giant orange and yellow nasturtiums on a black ground. Its garishness shocked all color from Olive’s bare legs and wrinkled arms and face. As she entered the tool room, she smiled and waved at him. He wondered what she was going to shoot in there with the Rolleiflex. Olive, strictly an amateur, did some passable work. He opened the back of the station wagon and retrieved his duffel bag and paint box. He’d packed extra shorts and socks and his razor, but he hadn’t stayed anywhere, had turned around again and come home.

He had driven north toward the wine country and Russian River on a sudden whim, wanting to get away, but something—boredom, a sense of uselessness—had made him head back again. He had felt as confined in the car as he had felt in the studio; the same stifled sense of captive panic he’d had after the war when he marked time in England for three months without any action. Driving north, he had changed his mind about going to Russian River—the place stirred too many memories. He’d wondered why the hell he had thought he could go there, and he had cut off 101 suddenly onto the narrow road to Bodega Bay.

He and Alice had gone to Russian River before they were married, in the middle of winter, and pitched a tent. They had had the place to themselves. They’d cooked on a campfire and had swum nude in the icy river. The first night, Alice spilled chocolate syrup in the sleeping bag, and for a week afterward they had made love and slept engulfed by the smell of chocolate.

Heading for Bodega Bay, passing green pastures where dairy cows grazed, he had let his mind stay numb and blank. At the shore he’d walked along the beach for several hours not thinking, watching the sea, trying to become a part of whatever it was out there—the rhythm of the waves pounding, the emptiness of sky and sea meeting unbroken, hinting at some kind of meaning he couldn’t touch. Alice had loved the sea, she would have been running out in the cold water picking up shells, would have sat on a rock shivering, drawing the gulls and plovers.

Now as he carried his bag and unused sketching things across the terrace to the studio, he glanced up the hill again toward the open tool room, trying to focus on Olive Cleaver, get his mind off Alice. He was aware of flashes of light from inside the tool room as Olive worked with her flashbulbs, likely shooting still lifes of the garden tools, arranging earthy little studies.

He went into the studio, dropped his bag and paint box, and made himself a sandwich and opened a beer. When he came out of the house onto the terrace again, Olive was crouched before the oak door, taking pictures of the cats’ faces. This should have amused him, but suddenly he wanted to tell Olive to stop it, stop taking pictures of the cats, stop fooling around with the door. He wanted to tell her to leave the cats alone, that they could be dangerous.

He didn’t like that kind of thought in himself; he didn’t like these crazy notions. Why the hell did he focus on cats? Everywhere he looked, his attention was drawn by cats; he’d gotten his mind fixated on cats. Even on the beach before he left Bodega Bay he’d seen a cat trotting along the sand, hunting among the seaweed, and he had to stop and stare at it. Black-and-white cat. It had stopped, too, and looked at him. Alice would have coaxed it to them, petted it, talked to it, given it part of their lunch. Watching the stray cat, he had imagined Alice there so clearly—her pale hair blowingin the sea wind, her fine-boned face concentrated as she talked to a stray cat. Alice had needed animals around her, had been more at home with animals than with people.

Annoyed with himself but unable to stop brooding, he got some stretcher bars and a roll of canvas and set to work stretching canvases, working on the terrace where it was cooler. Above him at the door of the cats, Olive was still at it. After a quarter hour of photographing the different cats’ heads, Olive let her camera hang idle around her neck, and knelt by the door’s lower hinge. She took a little knife from her pocket, and some envelopes, and began working the knife at the hinged edge of the door as if prying loose a splinter.

She dropped the splinter, or whatever it was, into an envelope, then pried out another from the next plank higher up, and put this in a second envelope. She stood up and took a third sample.

When she had five samples, one from each heavy oak plank that formed the door, she turned and saw him looking up at her. She smiled and waved to him again, went up the garden, and disappeared inside her dark-shingled house. He wanted to go up to the tool room and look at the door where she had cut into it; he wanted to figure out what the hell she had been doing.

But what difference? Anyway, it was her door. The way the lots were laid out in pie shapes joining in the center of the garden, the door was on Olive’s land. If she wanted to pry off splinters, that was her business. Maybe she meant to send her splinters for a carbon-14 test. Maybe Olive suddenly burned to know how old the door was.

As Alice had longed to know.

Alice said if it was genuinely medieval, it shouldn’t be in the garden but in a museum. She had thought it amazing that the door was in such good shape and not rotting. He thought the damn thing was a copy. Who would put a valuable antique in a garden? He had been singularly annoyed by her interest. She never had found out who built it into the hill, though she had gone over old land records and written to several families. Olive had been in on that little investigation—the two of them spending useless hours in the county tax office, complaining afterward because the office was not only cold but stunk of cigarette smoke. The whole thing was an exercise in wasting time, and after Alice died Olive had seemed to turn to other projects. A retired librarian, Olive had retained all her energy and interest in the world; she pursued with singleminded intensity the projects she undertook.

He finished the stretcher bars and began to cut canvas, anticipating four new canvases, pristine white and waiting.

For what? Waiting for what? Waiting for four new, dull, lifeless attempts which would be as unsatisfying as his drive up the coast.

Chapter 8

The scullery was steamy hot and noisy with the gossiping voices of two dozen scullery maids. Pots clanged, knives chopped against cutting boards, and Briccha’s frequent commands cracked like rocks banged together. Smoke from the hearthfire mixed with the steam; the flames hissed and spat as fat dripped onto them from the deer turning on the spit. Beside the deer, braces of chickens roasted. Briccha took Melissa by the shoulders and pointed her towarda counter piled with dead doves and quail. “Pluck and dress them. Don’t leave any feathers. Don’t dawdle. Wash them in that bucket.”

She set to work with distaste. Around her girls kneaded bread dough, mixed sauces, and cut and peeled piles of vegetables and fruits. She wasn’t quick at cleaning birds, even with a simple-spell, and she didn’t like doing it; their softly feathered bodies made her unbearably restless. She hated the blood and the smell of the birds’ entrails because she was unsettled by them, feeling something stirring within herself that she didn’t understand.

It was noon when she finished cleaning the last dove, but she hadn’t earned a rest. Briccha directed her to a pile of greasy pots to scrub. She washed pots for the rest of the day, her hands and arms soon coated with grease, and she was sweating from the hot dishwater. The banter of the other girls distracted her, and a few remarks were directed her way, but she did not attempt to make friends. Late in the afternoon Briccha marched her up the back stairs four flights to the attic.

They entered a long, narrow room whose steep rafters rose to a high peak, and whose walls were lined with tiers of bunks. Briccha pointed to a top bunk at the end, up beneath the rafters. A ladder led up, skirting a small window.

“You’ll sleep there. That’ll do for a few days—you won’t last longer. There’s a blanket and towel on the bunk, a hook by the window for your dress.”

Melissa looked at Briccha evenly.“Why won’t I last longer? Did my work not suit you?”

“Your work was satisfactory.” Briccha turned away. “I wake the early shift at four in the morning. You will go directly to the scullery. You will work until I release you in mid-afternoon.” As she headed for the door, Melissa moved in front of her.

“Why won’t I last?”

Briccha’s narrow eyes widened. “You will not last at all if you cannot control your rudeness.” She pushed past Melissa and strode out the attic door.

Melissa climbed into the high bunk, meaning to rest for only a little while. She didn’t know what Briccha had meant, but she would find out. Pulling the thin blanket up, she lay thinking about the palace dungeons. She had glanced into the scullery storeroom when a girl was sent to get flour. She thought it likely the cellars were near the storeroom to give easy access to the larger food stores, and she wondered if they opened from within the storeroom. Soon she slept. She didn’t wake until Briccha shouted up at her. “Four o’clock. Get down from there. Get dressed.” A lantern burned at the far end of the room.

She climbed down, cramped and uncomfortable in her wrinkled dress. There was a crock of icy water beside the window. Two girls were dipping their towels into it, dabbing at their faces. She dropped her dress and washed herself all over, shivering, trying to wake up. Most of the girls still slept. Only five had been called. She dressed and followed the other four out, crowding sleepily down the dark stair. At home she would have built up the fire and gone back to bed until the cottage warmed, then risen to wake Mag.

As she pushed into the scullery behind the other girls, Briccha was already giving orders. Melissa tried to find humor in the woman’s harsh manner, but it took her some days before she could let Briccha’s scoldings roll off as the other girls did. Only Terlis seemed unduly upset by the scullery mistress’s harshness. Melissa liked Terlis; the valley elven were shy, gentle people—though they hated to talk about unpleasant things, even to answer one’s questions. The valley elven took the view that if you didn’t talk about it, it would go away. When she asked Terlis why Briccha thought she would last for only a few days, Terlis didn’t want to answer.

“What harm to tell me? It’s too hard, not understanding.”

“Look at yourself,” Terlis said softly, “then look around you. You’re the only pretty one. We’re all either misshapen with the blood of cave dwarfs or just homely like me. You’ll be sent home soon. The pretty ones are all sent home.”

“But why are they brought here, then? Andwhy are they sent home?”

Terlis smiled patiently.“Sent home to keep them out of the king’s bed.”

“Oh,” Melissa said, her face reddening. She knew a dozen tales of the king’s adventures with various lovers. Of course the queen took lovers, too. She had a constant procession of bedmates as she tried to breed a healthy heir to strengthen her claim to the throne. Thus the kingdom was locked in a constant power struggle. Siddonie, if she could bear a healthy child, would surely throw King Efil out and make the new child’s father king. She had married Efil to become queen; she didn’t need him now. And if Efil could breed a healthy child first, he would dispossess Siddonie.

Terlis said,“Everyone knows a commoner is more likely to breed a strong baby.”

“But,” Melissa said, “if she’s afraid of the king taking servant girls to bed, why does she bring them here at all?”

“No one knows.” Terlis looked hard at Melissa. “The queen brought you here just as she brought us all, and no one knows why. Maybe her spells made you start out on your own, maybe she made you think you were coming on your own, but you can be sure that Queen Siddonie brought you to Affandar Palace.”

She knew Terlis was wrong, but she didn’t argue. What good to argue?

It was night when she found her chance to search further for the door to the cellars. She crept down from the attic after the other girls slept, and moved into the black shadows of the storeroom. Feeling her way along the shelves, her hand trailed over cloth bags of flour and jars of fruit, groping for the door that would lead down. She had tried for days to come in here, but there had always been people around. She knew that Briccha slept next to the storeroom, so she moved silently, but at last she brought a small spell-light—and froze.

Briccha stood in the shadows, broader than ever in a voluminous nightgown.“I thought so. What are you doing here? What are you looking for?”

“I was hungry. I came down for a slice of bread.”

Briccha slapped her so hard she staggered against the shelves.“You don’t need bread. The bread is in the scullery. I don’t like nosiness. Nor does the queen. Get to bed.”

For a week she didn’t go near the storeroom. But in that moment she had seen, behind Briccha, two doors. One was open into a sleeping chamber—she could see inside a rumpled bed and a wrinkled white uniform hanging on the wall. The other door looked heavier, more stoutly made, and it was closed.

Convinced that was the door to the cellars, she waited until a morning when Briccha was in the vegetable gardens, then she approached it, slipping out of the scullery past the other girls, carrying an empty bowl as if she were going to fetch something. She hurried through the storeroom…

And she came face-to-face with Briccha. The Scullery Mistress had slipped in by a side door. Briccha held Melissa’s arm with fingers like steel.

“I don’t know what you’re up to, young woman. The queen knows you have been snooping. I’m surprised she hasn’t thrown you out or locked you up.” Briccha’s pinching fingers were bruising her, the broad woman stared into her face, but then, surprisingly, she released her. “You will not come here again. If you do, you will be eternally sorry. Now go fetch the prince’s breakfast up to him. The regular girl is sick.”

Melissa moved away thankfully, amused that Briccha thought such threats would stop her. Briccha said behind her,“Don’t talk to Prince Wylles. And don’t wake him. Put the tray by his bed. Don’t wait for him to eat. He never eats.”

Free of Briccha, she hurried up the two flights. The hot porridge and bacon steaming on the tray smelled so delicious it was hard not to sample the good food. She’d had only bread for breakfast. She felt no conscience about eating the prince’s breakfast if he didn’t, but she didn’t want to get caught.

The upper hallway was lit by a jutting dormer window, with a pair of stone benches built into the recessed area, facing each other. She stepped into the deep bay, set the tray on a bench, and stood looking out through the glass.

She could see part of the kitchen gardens, and cages of doves and captive game birds awaiting slaughter for the palace table. The flutter of the birds behind the wire gave her a strange, excited urge. And there were cages of tiny birds, too, bright birds which were roasted with wine exclusively for the queen. She had heard Briccha call the birds Siddonie’s morsels of spite, and she wondered what that meant.

Idly she watched a dozen horses and ponies grazing the fenced meadow behind the palace. Most of the palace mounts were kept in the stables that were entered by an archway in the courtyard. Beyond the meadows, the far forest looked dense and cold. In that ancient woods bears still roamed, and small dragons. It was the kind of forest where one might uncover the bones of still larger creatures no longer known in the Netherworld, bones that, when touched, moldered into powder. The wildness of the old forest excited her, she felt a hot desire to rove free there. And she felt lonely suddenly, too, and didn’t know what she was lonely for.

She picked up the tray and went on. She knocked on the prince’s door, then knocked again. When the child didn’t answer, she slipped into the dim, curtained chamber.

The boy was asleep sprawled across wrinkled covers. She set the tray on the bedside table and brought a small spell-light to look at him.

His hair was dark, his face the same perfect oval as the queen’s. But the child’s face even in sleep was drawn with pain. Deep shadows stained his cheeks beneath his dark lashes. Everyone knew he was kept alive only by the queen’s spells. No one thought Siddonie protected him because of love; she kept the dying prince alive because without an heir her claim to the throne would weaken. As Melissa turned away she saw an image on the wall, and started, shocked.

She had never before seen a picture, except those that children drew before their parents forced them to stop such practices. Why would there be an image in Affandar Palace, when every effort was made to avoid images? The windows were spell-cast, and it was said that even the horse trough was covered with a wooden lid before Siddonie came to the stables.

The picture was rich with smeared colors forming hills and trees. It showed a boy standing before a wood, and surely it was the prince, though in the picture he was not as thin.

Maybe this image was a charm meant to make the prince well. Such was not an accepted practice, and she knew of no one in the kingdom who would dare make such an image, or who would know how. Yet as she touched its rough surface, a sense of recognition filled her—a strange shadow of memory. But when she tried to bring the memory clear, it faded, was gone.

She straightened the tray on the bedside table and refolded the napkin. She had turned away from the sick boy’s bed when suddenly the child spoke.

“What are you doing to my breakfast? What spell did you lay on my breakfast?”

She turned to look at him.

“Or were you eating it?”

“I’d thought of it,” she said, amused. “It seems a waste, if you only send it back. How can you get well if you don’t eat?”

He lifted an eyebrow. His pale face was regal in spite of the darkness under his eyes and his drawn look. A regal face, but emotionally empty, cold. His silk pajamas were rumpled and sweaty, and his dark hair was tangled. He said,“I don’t want to get well. I don’t like porridge and I detest pig meat. Throw it out.”

She studied his black eyes, so like his mother’s. He was pale to the point of grayness. “I can’t imagine wanting to be sick.” She looked at him for so long he began to fidget. She said, “You don’t go out of this room at all? You don’t ride? There are ponies in the pasture.”

“Of course I don’t ride anymore. I’m too sick. Horses are stupid beasts.”

“You don’t get tired of being in bed?” she said more softly. “You never want to be outside?”

“Why should I want to be outside? I’m too weak to go out. What business is it of yours?”

“It is none of my business.” She looked him over severely. The little boy deeply angered her.

She had left him and was hurrying past the deep bay window when she realized a man stood there looking out. She paused. He had his back to her. He was dressed in hunting leathers, and not until he turned did she realize it was the king. She drew back, and because his look confused her, she knelt. It seemed strange to kneel to anyone, particularly someone no older than she.

He stared down at her and laughed, then grasped her hands and pulled her up. His hands were pleasantly cold, as if he had just come indoors. Unsettled by him, she drew her hands away. She had turned to hurry off when his voice stopped her.“The queen said your name is Sarah.”

She faced him, waiting. He looked her over, then sat down on a bench, sprawling his legs comfortably in his fine soft boots, watching her. She looked back as calmly as she could.

“Come sit down, Sarah. Don’t stand there like a frightened doe.” His eyes were so dark she couldn’t see the pupils—dark eyes that burned with life. His mouth curved in the hint of a smile, but it was a soft mouth. He took her hand and pulled her down beside him. “That’s better—Sarah. That is the name you gave the queen.” He smiled again.

“What is your real name?”

“Sarah is my name.”

“You can tell me your real name. I will keep your secret.”

“Sarah is my real name. I must go. Briccha told me to hurry.”

“I am king, not Briccha. You will go when I dismiss you.” His features were soft, his chin rounded. But his eyes burned with stubbornness and the haughtiness of a young man used to getting his own way.

He said,“If you will not tell me your real name, then you will learn my name. Say, Efil, King of Affandar.”

She said it hesitantly, not liking the feelings that he stirred in her.“Efil, King of Affandar.”

“Say,Efil.”

“Efil.”

“Say it softly.”

“Efil,” she breathed, growing frightened.

“Say it as if it means something to you, as if it is the most wonderful name you know.” His hands felt too warm on hers. His clothes were scented with vetiver, a magical herb that did nothing to calm her.

“Say it.”

But she rose and pulled away from him. As she turned, a door creaked open down the passage. He thrust her away so suddenly she stumbled.“Go on, child. Don’t stand in the passage dawdling. What will Briccha say?”

She went angrily, hearing men’s voices behind her. She hurried down the stairs, fighting not only anger but a more complicated feeling that she didn’t like.

All day she was irritable. When Briccha released her in mid-afternoon she slipped into the storeroom boldly, too tightly strung to wait longer. Snatching the moment, she fled for the cellar door and through it, and shut it soundlessly behind her.

She stood on the narrow, dark stairs, clutching the rail, listening. A damp, vegetable scent rose from below. But there was no sound. She started down through the blackness, feeling her way, daring not the smallest light.

Chapter 9

Feeling her way down the cellar stair clutching the rail, straining to see in the blackness, Melissa was afraid to bring a spell-light. Warily she listened for footsteps in the storeroom above her.

At last, stumbling, she found the bottom step. On the stone floor her footsteps echoed softly, even her own breathing seemed to echo. From somewhere ahead came the faint drip, drip of water. She could smell onions and smoked meat, and a sour animal smell. After some moments, when she could hear no sound from the cellars or from above, she brought a spell-light.

Beside her, bins of vegetables flanked the narrow passage. She moved past hanging hams and barrels of pickled cabbage, past bags of nuts and grains. Shelf after shelf held jars of vegetables and fruits, and farther on stood barrels of flour and grains, and of ale, then rows of wine bottles. She lifted a bottle from its bin, brushing the dust away. Its foreign-looking label was beautifully wrought with pictures of grapes and fields, and with fancy gold lettering. This was no Netherworld label handwritten and applied with wax, this was upperworld wine, brought down through miles of tunnels from beyond doors that opened only by magic.

She didn’t know whether the dungeons were on this level or a lower one, she only knew the palace cellars went deep, down into old caves and passages. Strangely, she felt a sense of repose here; the darkness seemed comforting, even the sense of being closed in seemed comforting. She felt almost as if she could see through the darkness.

Frowning, puzzled by her feelings, she searched for the dungeons, until at last, stumbling, she found a second flight of stairs. She had started down when a shriek from below made her douse her light.

She stood listening as the animal scream died. The smell of beasts rose so strongly she backed up a step. A second angry scream made her want to turn away. But she moved on, casting a strong spell-light down the steps. She found the lower corridor flanked with barred cells. Behind the bars, Hell Beasts stirred, their wings rustling in her light, their snaking coils unwinding, their eyes gleaming. Faces horned or scaled, all hostile, snarled and hissed at her. Paws and claws and deformed hands reached; she kept to the center of the aisle, moving on quickly.

She stopped, shocked, before a caged griffon.

She had never thought to see a griffon here. A griffon was not a Hell Beast; they roamed the oldest forests and were seldom seen. They were akin to the unicorns and the selkies and shape shifters. They were, like those beasts, generally creatures of goodness, though they could be unpredictable.

The Griffon slept pitifully cramped, his leonine body filling the cage, pressing against the bars, his golden wings crumpled in the tight space. His broad eagle’s head, golden feathered, rested in sleep on his lion paws.

But as she drew close the Griffon came awake suddenly and raised his head, watching her with fierce, yellow eyes. She said,“You do not belong here. How did she bring you to this place?”

He didn’t speak but lunged at her suddenly, roaring with uncharacterisic rage, crashing against the bars.

“What is it?” she said, coming close to him. “Oh, what has she done to you?”

He threw himself against the bars again, so hard she thought he would break through. But his yellow eyes were filled with pain. And when she reached through, stroking his face, all fierceness left him. He said,“Queen Siddonie killed my mate. And when I knelt before my dead love, Siddonie’s soldiers threw nets over me and pinioned my wings.”

His eyes blazed.“I could have ripped an ordinary net, but I could not break her spells. Her evil is powerful.”

“Maybe I can free you,” she said, reaching to stroke his broad, soft paw.

She tried for a long time, but no spell she could remember would open the Griffon’s cage. She left the Griffon at last, defeated.

Near the end of the long row of cells, she came to a caged harpy. The beast’s long bird’s legs made it ungainly. It stood taller than Melissa, and its feathers gleamed white in Melissa’s spell-light. Its woman’s torso and breasts were sleek with white feathers, but its white wings were so ragged she thought it must beat them against the bars. Its thin bird’s face was stained brownish under its eyes and around its yellow beak. It stared between the bars at her pitifully. Its voice was soft and whining. “You have come to free me.” It wrung its long white hands. “I am wasting in this cell, surely you are here to free me?” But in spite of its wheedlingvoice, its gaze was canny and appraising.

Melissa tried an opening spell, but she couldn’t spring the lock. At last she said, “Can you tell me where to find the Toad?”

“In the next cell,” it said, suddenly not pleading anymore but irritable. “Asleep. What could you want with the Toad?”

“I want to ask it a question, I want it to tell me about my past.”

The Harpy laughed.“If you want a vision of the past,he’s no use to you. All he does is sleep.”

“Surely I can wake him.”

“Do you no good. He has no powers left, the queen destroyed his vision-making powers. He can’t tell so much as what you had for breakfast. He remembers only a few homilies, all useless.”

“But…”

“Siddonie thought the Toad could tell the future. He never could do that. No one can tell the future. The queen is a fool. Look at the beasts she has brought up from the Pit—for what? Not one of us can tell the future. Nor would we help her if we could.”

“That’s why she brought you all here? To tell the future?”

“That, and for her entertainment. She puts the fiercest among us in the courtyard to fight each other.”

“I suppose the Griffon is the fiercest?”

“Oh, she doesn’t do anything with the Griffon. She can’t manage him.”

“Then why does she keep him?”

“She likes to see him captive, of course. The more freedom a beast has known, the more she wants it behind bars.”

“But you were all free.”

“The Hell Beasts have been bound to the Pit of Hell. We are not totally free.”

Melissa considered this as she moved to the next cell and looked in at the Toad. He lay sprawled on the stone floor, asleep. He was huge, nearly filling the cell. A lumpish beast, his green skin was covered with warts, his pale throat ballooning with each breath. Before she could try to wake him, the Harpy reached around with an icy hand and pulled her away.“If you wake him he’ll blow himself into a stinking air ball. Phew. He won’t speak to you.”

Melissa’s head was beginning to ache. “Are there human prisoners here?”

“Behind that wall.” The Harpy pointed a white finger toward the featureless black interior of the cellar.

Melissa cast her spell-light, picking out barrels and shadowed pillars, and beyond these, a stone wall grown over with moss.“Do you know the spell to open it?”

The Harpy laughed, darting her pink tongue between sharp teeth.“Do you think I’d be in here if could commandany of her spells? Do you think I haven’t tried?” And quite suddenly the beast began to cry. Heaving sobs shook her, tears coursed down her white feathers, darkening the brown streaks. When at last the beast stopped crying, her eyes were red, andher voice was sharp with self-pity. “I thought you came to free me, but you didn’t.You wanted the human prisoners. I’ll never get out of this cell. I’ll never see my little mirror again.”

“What mirror?” Melissa asked, frowning.

“My mirror was my only companion, my only legacy from my dead mother, and that bitch queen has taken it from me. If you cannot free me I’ll never see it again. Never.” The Harpy combed distracted fingers through her feathers, and one white feather floated to the cell floor.

Melissa reached through the bars and took the Harpy’s hand, trying to comfort her. “Why did the queen take your mirror?”

“I wouldn’t bring images for her.”

“I don’t understand. The queen fears images.”

“She fears images in the present,” the Harpy said patiently. “My mirror could show the past. There is something in the past she wants to see.”

“Then can you show me my past? I don’t need the Toad. You can tell me who I am.”

The Harpy stared at her cannily.

“I can remember nothing of my childhood,” Melissa said. She considered the beast warily, searching its small cold eyes.

“I cannot bring any image,” the Harpy said assessing Melissa with a keen avian stare. “Unless you steal my little mirror for me.”

“Could you show me my childhood? Could you show me who my parents are? And where I come from?”

“If I had my mirror, I could show you those things.”

“Where does she keep your mirror?”

“Itwas in her chambers, but not anymore. I can speak to my mirror from any distance. I made it give her images that drove her to nervous trembles.” The Harpy laughed. “She couldn’t rid herself of them. She kept taking my mirror out and looking, like digging your finger into a sore wound. Atlast she moved it to the king’s chambers.”

“How can you know where it is if you can’t bring visions without it?”

“It calls to me. Every night my little mirror calls to me. Oh, I know where it lies hidden—in a wardrobe in the king’s chambers. But that is not a vision, that is love calling.”

“If I get it for you, will you show me my past?”

The Harpy reached through the bars to stroke Melissa’s arm. “If you bring my mirror, I will give you whatever vision you choose.”

“It would be terribly dangerous to go to the king’s chambers.”

“Two visions. And you will be safe enough; she never goes to his chambers anymore. Nor has the king slept in her bed since the weakling prince was born. The queen blames the king for the child’s illness.” The Harpy smiled. “The king blames her. He was a fool to marry her. Of course, he is still a fool. Go when the queen is at supper.”

“If I were caught thieving in the king’s chambers…”

“Everything in life is dangerous.”

“I could be killed for such a thing. The laws would call it treason, to steal from the king’s chambers.”

“Three visions.”

“As many visions as I choose.”

“You already have the best of the bargain. The king will be no problem; any woman can twist him around one finger. All you need do is climb into his bed, and you can have anything.”

“I do not intend to climb into his bed.”

The Harpy smiled wickedly.“If you did not, that would be an opportunity lost, my dear. Think of it. The right woman has only to take herself to the king’s bed to become the new queen of Affandar.” She clasped her long white hands together. “Oh, I would like to see someone dispossess that bitch.”

“If I steal the mirror, you will give me all the visions I choose.”

“Five visions. That is my last offer.” The Harpy fluffed her feathers, stirring ancient dust. “Someday the Netherworld kings and queens will fall andwe will rule again. The Hell Beasts will rule again.”

“Five visions,” Melissa said. “But you must describe to me the queen’s powers so I know them exactly.”

“Everyone knows her powers.”

“I don’t. And I must know them if I am to steal the mirror.”

The Harpy sighed with exasperation, as if Melissa were very dull.“A daughter of Lillith can open all that closes and close all that opens: locks and spell-doors, of course. And she can open a were-beast to his alter shape. And she can close his power to change. But her real strength lies in this:

“Siddonie can close away truth so only falsehood remains.

“Thus does she mean to twist the peasants so they follow her: she means to close their minds to truth. Thus,” said the Harpy, “does she mean to enslave the Netherworld.”

“And can nothing prevent her?”

“Many powers united might prevent her.” The Harpy looked hard at Melissa. “The power of the Catswold might prevent her.”

“Who are the Catswold?”

The Harpy stared at her, her eyes opening wide.“The Catswold are shape-shifting folk of the eastern nations.” She searched Melissa’s face. “You know nothing of the Catswold?”

“No, nothing.” Uneasily she looked back at the womanbird. “How can there be people in the Netherworld that I don’t know about?” But she was reminded uncomfortably of the forgetting spells Mag wove over her when they visited the villages, those little deaf spells that had touched her in the middle of numerous conversations.

“The Catswold have many powers,” the Harpy said. “But Catswold folk are independent and stubborn.” She looked hard again at Melissa. “They will not easily unite, even to defeat Siddonie. Likely the Catswold will never organize into a formidable force against the queen, as the elven and the human rebels are organizing.”

“How many rebels are imprisoned?” Melissa said impatiently. “When were the last ones brought down?”

“There are twenty-nine rebels here. The last three were brought five days ago. Siddonie tortured them. Their screaming kept me awake.”

“You heard them through those thick stone walls?”

“My hearing, like my eyesight, is quite wonderful.”

“When the queen tortured them, what information did she ask?”

“I couldn’t hearher, just their screams. But she would want to know the rebels’ plans, and she would want to know the names of their leaders.”

“Couldn’t you have shown her that, in your mirror?”

“Why should I? That is part of why she locked me here, because I wouldn’t help her.” The Harpy wiped her bill on her shoulder.

“You side with the rebels, then,” Melissa said hopefully.

“I side with no one,” the Harpy snapped. “Siddonie drew me out of the Pit with her cursed spells, and then she took my mirror. I want to see her dead. But I do not side with the rebels. Now go and fetch my mirror.”

Melissa turned away, both amused by the Harpy and annoyed at the feathered beast. As she moved to the next cell, she saw that the Toad was awake. It had risen to sit on its haunches, its huge, warty belly distended. It fixed Melissa with a bulging stare that seemed empty of all intelligence. Melissa glanced back at the Harpy.“What are the homilies it remembers?”

“How to sour goat’s milk. How to grow artichokes. How to please the Griffon.”

Melissa stared in at the Toad.“Will you tell me how to please the Griffon?” She doubted that the Toad would answer, it looked so dull.

“Caress of gold warmed by sun,” the Toad said in a slow, expressionless voice. “Kiss of emerald blessed by Bast, can please the steed of Nemesis.” The beast looked at her without expression.

Melissa repeated its words, then,“Toad, can you tell me about my past? Can you help me remember who I am?”

The Toad stared at her then lay down again. In an instant it was asleep.

She shouted at it and reached through the bars, but her fingers could barely reach its warty hide. It slept on, deeply.

Well, at least it had told her how to please the Griffon, though likely she would never need to know that. The Harpy, looking out at her, seemed to divine her thoughts.“The Griffon would as soon eat you as look at you.”

Melissa said nothing. She left the Harpy and approached the wall that hid the rebel prisoners, and pressed her ear to the mossy stone.

She could hear nothing. She tried all the opening spells she knew, but the wall remained solid. She drew her light over the mossy stones looking for seams, but found none. She turned away at last toward the stairs and climbed quickly.

Chapter 10

Uneasily Melissa approached the door of the queen’s solar, wishing she knew why she had been summoned this time, and afraid she did know why. Yesterday when Briccha sent her up with the queen’s new riding boots, she had paused in Siddonie’s wardrobe to listen to the queen and two men talking in the chamber beyond. She had recognized the voice of the queen’s seneschal. The dark, stooped man made her uneasy; Vrech came into the scullery sometimes to paw the girls, embarrassing most of them, and enraging Briccha. He was harsh, mean eyed, and not too clean.

Standing in the queen’s wardrobe, she had listened to talk about imported wines and medicines from the upperworld, and Siddonie had said something about the portal in Xendenton and about a caravan carrying goods to Cressteane and Ferrathil. Vrech said they should not use the southern portal, that it opened on the upperworld in too crowded a location. Siddonie had snapped that she knew that, but it was less than an hour’s ride away and he should be able to manage his affairs so no one suspected anything. The queen spoke with cool familiarity of the upperworld cities to which the tunnels led. When the conversation lagged and a chair scraped, Melissa had fled for the hall. She had reached the other end of the passage when Vrech came out, followed by a thick, stiffly moving man with grayish skin and mud-colored hair. The two men had started down the stair when Vrech glanced along the hall, looking her over.

“That’s the girl,” he said softly.

The men had paused, staring at her. She looked back boldly, but fear touched her. Finally they had moved on, laughing. She was terrified they knew she had been listening. And now, summoned by the queen, mounting the last steps and starting down the hall, she was certain she would be punished for spying.

She had been summoned not to the black door that led to the queen’s dark chamber but to the adjoining solar which opened between the queen’s rooms and the king’s. She expected another dark room with black furniture and closed draperies.

But she entered a bright room, the draperies open to the green day, and four oil lamps burning. The walls were of a pale, smooth material she didn’t recognize. The cream satin draperies, tied back, revealed a balcony then the far forest and a sweep of granite sky. The queen stood before a white marble mantel. She was dressed in pale riding pants, soft boots, and a white satin shirt clinging to her breasts and open at the collar. Her black hair was coiled elaborately, her black eyes were intense. A memory touched Melissa—she saw the queen dressed in strange clothes, a tight dress that ended at the knee. The vision filled her with fear and hatred. Even her dislike of the queen, and her knowledge of Siddonie’s cruelties, seemed not enough to support the deep, total hatred that now swept her.

“I have decided to shorten your hours in the scullery, Sarah. Will that please you?”

“I…Of course it will please me.” She was not to be punished, then? Did the queen not know she had eavesdropped?

“I plan to give you some tests. I believe you will find them interesting.”

“What—what sort of tests?”

“Why, to discover your magic skills.”

She shivered, puzzled and apprehensive.“I have no special skills.”

“Did you not bring a light to guide your way up the passages to me, just now?”

“That is cottage magic—anyone can do that. There is no power to that—not like your powers.” She didn’t like treating this woman with deference, but she sensed that it was wise.

The queen smiled.“Do you remember the winged lizards which flew over you when you went to the Hell Pit? Ah, yes, I see that you do. My lizards saw clearly what you are capable of—Sarah. It takes a special talent to call the Lamia from the Hell Pit.”

Melissa felt naked and defenseless, as if she were suddenly suspended again over the Pit, about to be dropped into the flames.

“It takes great talent to make the Lamia obey you.” The queen’s smile was so cold Melissa shivered. “I mean to train your talent in more complicated magic, Sarah.” The queen looked at her deeply. “You are to be my disciple. You are to learn the powers of a queen.”

Melissa gawked. She dare not speak. Why should the queen want to train her?

“And now, my dear, shall we begin to use your real name? I much prefer Melissa.”

She swallowed.“If you wish.”

“Why did you lie to me about your name?”

“I didn’t mean to lie. I am used to Sarah; it is what I am called. Any other name seems uncomfortable.” She was sweating, her throat was dry and constricted.

“I’m sure you will learn to respond to Melissa. It is your birth name. Come closer and kneel.”

Melissa took three steps and knelt on the pale, richly patterned rug. Coldly she listened to the queen’s spell binding her to a disciple’s rules and submissions. She had not been asked if she wished to serve. Siddonie of Affandar did not ask, she commanded.

The spells were long and complicated. The queen’s power pressed so strongly on Melissa she was hardly able to breathe. Silently, terrified, she wielded a counter-spell to block Siddonie’s enchantment. But she began to feel deeply lazy as the malaise of enchantment took her. How rich was the queen’s voice. And Siddonie was so beautiful, her pale skin creamy against the satin shirt, her black hair and black eyes gleaming like ebony.

Melissa jerked her thoughts back, alarmed. She fought Siddonie’s charm harder with all the skill she knew. But blocking Siddonie’s powers, keeping her face passive, again she imagined another room, where Siddonie sat at a desk, a very young Siddonie, no more than a child. The room glowed with a white, harsh light, and beyond the window loomed infinite space, as if the stone sky had vanished, leaving a void, a terrifying emptiness.

But then the memory faded, and she continued to fight Siddonie, keeping her eyes expressionless.

The queen watched her intently.“You may rise, Melissa.” She nodded, smiling, as if she had seen in Melissa’s face obedience to her spells. “You will return to the scullery when I dismiss you.” She moved away from the mantel and drew her fingers along the back of a satin chair. “You will tell Briccha that from this day you are to work only in the mornings. Once you have spoken to her you will go to the dressmaker to be fitted for two plain, serviceable dresses. I have chosen the fabric. Then you will go to the bootmaker for sandals. You will come to me promptly each afternoon when you are summoned, not before.

“You will like my lessons, Melissa.” She gave her a look of complicity, as if they were close now. “I mean to train you to skills you don’t yet imagine, very special skills. If you learn as I expect you to do, you will know powers perhaps to equal my own power.”

Melissa left the solar quickly, and stood in the wide passage shaking, sick with apprehension. She was exhausted from her resistance to Siddonie’s spell, all strength seemed drained from her. She tried to recall the fleeting memories that had touched her but they were gone now and without meaning, leaving her puzzled and afraid.

In the scullery she delivered the queen’s message to Briccha, then escaped quickly to find the sewing rooms. There she endured the slow ritual of being measured. She went to the bootmaker, and again was measured and prodded by strangers. And now, with Siddonie’s unexplained interest in her, she might have little time to search for the Harpy’s mirror. Once the queen’s tests began, she would likely be watched more closely.

She must find the mirror quickly, she must look into the past and learn the spell Siddonie had used to lock away the rebel prisoners, she must free them and escape with them, escape the dark queen.

But that night when she went to search for the Harpy’s mirror, slipping down from the attic toward the king’s chambers, the queen’s maid was on the landing. And the next afternoon when she tried again, two pages were waiting outside the king’s door. The third time, very late as she approached the king’s chamber, Vrech came out of the queen’s door nearly on top of her. As she turned away, he caught her wrist.

“What are you doing down here? You belong in the attic at night.”

“I’m hungry. I’m on my way to the scullery.”

“This is not the way to the scullery, my dear.” Smiling, Vrech began to stroke her cheek. She kicked him in the shin and jerked away, and went quickly up the back stairs, her nostrils filled with the smell of stale sweat.

She did not go down again that night. The queen’s testing started the next day.

On foot she followed the queen’s horse toward the woods south of the palace. She was flanked by four mounted soldiers. Walking between the horses she felt very small. And she felt stiff, sick, and cold with fear. She didn’t know what would happen if she passed Siddonie’s tests. But if she didn’t pass she would be of no use to the queen and would likely be sent away.

When Siddonie drew her horse up, Melissa paused behind her at the edge of the woods.

The queen spun her horse suddenly to face Melissa and pointed toward a broad oak.“Do you see that dove?”

“I see it.”

“Bring it down.”

“I have no weapon.”

“Don’t sass me.”

She stared up at the queen. The queen looked back impassively.“Bring it down or I will use a harsher spell on you.”

Angered, Melissa made a simple killing spell. But she intentionally muffed it. The dove bleated and flapped away unharmed.

When it landed, the queen said,“Kill it now. Do not make another—error.”

There was no help for it. She brought the dove down smoothly. The small bird screamed, fell struggling among the leaves, and lay dead.

“Fetch it,” said the queen.

Obediently she picked up the limp, warm bird. As she gathered it in her hands, a sharp excitement filled her. Suddenly she longed to tease it, to play with it. Shocked, she stared at her grasping hands. Woodenly, not understanding herself, she carried the bird to Siddonie and dropped it at the feet of her horse.

The queen rode over the bird, crushing it, and began to describe the next test.“You will call a war horse to you—that bay gelding in the pasture. You will make it obey the commands I give you.”

Melissa called the gelding. He jumped the fence and came galloping. He was tall and heavily made, and more willing than a stubborn pony.

“Make him run free to the forest then bring him back.”

It was harder to control the gelding at a long distance, but she brought him trotting back. Under Siddonie’s direction, she worked with the gelding all afternoon. Only twice did he defy her; then the queen brought him back with her own spell, quickly, deftly. It was dusk when Siddonie released her.

There were no more tests for two days. The queen quit the palace before dawn the next morning, riding out with Vrech. Melissa watched from the window beside her bunk.

She had awakened feeling ill. For two days she dragged herself about wanly, making no effort to search for the Harpy’s mirror. The illness was so sudden she thought perhaps the queen had laid a spell on her and when, the morning the queen returned, she felt completely fit, she was certain of it. An hour after her return, the queen summoned Melissa to a tiny courtyard at the back of the palace.

An armed soldier stood beside Siddonie. And there was, in the queen’s eyes, an intensity that alarmed Melissa. Siddonie said, “You will turn his sword aside when he strikes at you.”

Melissa stared at the queen, not understanding.

Siddonie repeated the order, as if to someone very stupid,“You will deflect his sword with your own powers. Only your own magic will save you from being struck through or beheaded.”

“I cannot do such a thing. I never have done anything like that.” And in truth she had not; this was beyond her powers. She watched the queen, terrified.

“He does not feign this,” Siddonie said. “You will turn the sword or you will die.”

But it was a test—surely it was only a test.

“If you cannot turn his sword, you are no use to me. He is instructed to kill you.”

Fear and rage sickened her. She had no way to know the truth. If the soldier had been ordered to kill, he would kill. He moved suddenly, his blade flashed upward toward her face. Fear shocked through her. Her terrified spell wrenched the blade from his hand so sharply he went off balance.

She drew back, faint, not believing what she had done.

The queen smiled.“Very good. We shall try a few more.”

“No. I will not do more. I don’t like this. What are you training me for?”

In two strides the queen was before her, and slapped her against the wall.“You have no choice. You will do two more. Or you will die.”

The soldier crouched, circling Melissa. When his sword thrust up at her she was so enraged, so hot with anger and fear, she shouted a spell that sent him sprawling across the tiles.

Again he came at her, crouching, dodging. Her blood pounded. She shouted a spell that turned his sword toward the queen’s throat; only at the last instant did Siddonie’s oath cast his blade aside.

“No more,” Melissa said.

The queen smiled with triumph.“Very good, indeed. Soon, my dear, I will teach you some of my own skills.”

Melissa’s hands were sweating. She didn’t like this; she was close to pure terror, close to losing control. She did not want to be Siddonie’s disciple. She was frantic with the need to escape.

But she could not run away, not until the rebels were free. She watched Siddonie narrowly, waiting for the next test.

Chapter 11

The banquet hall was noisy—laughter and drunken shouts rose over the music. Melissa glanced in as she slipped past the serving door. There were three visiting kings with their queens and entourages. She had glimpsed King Ridgen of Mathe in the grand foyer, and Terlis had pointed out the king of Wexton and Siddonie’s brother King Ithilel of Xendenton. Market Festival was the biggest celebration of the year. All day the scullery had seethed with strange servants added to the Affandar kitchen staff. And the courtyard had been in a turmoil of workers setting up the market booths and stringing colored banners. The visiting soldiers and the lesser servants were camped outside the castle, as were peasants from all over Affandar who had brought their wares for sale, their jewelry and weavings, their carvings and livestock.

Though the palace seemed bursting with people, surely at this moment with everyone at banquet, the upper halls would be empty. Melissa hurried up the back stairs and along the empty corridor toward the king’s chambers, strung with nerves. She had vowed to herself that tonight she would find the Harpy’s mirror, that she would learn her past, learn the spell to free the rebels, and get out of there. Leave the palace, get away from Siddonie’s tests and training. Now as she reached for the knob to the king’s chamber, from beyond the door she heard a woman laugh, a breathy giggle. She drew back against the wall, heard the king say, “It’s only a little ruffle, come let me remove it,” and the woman giggled again. Melissa fled for the back stairs and up to the safety of her attic chamber,both shocked and amused. The king had deliberately missed the banquet, flaunting his dalliance with some visiting serving girl, or perhaps with a visiting wife of royalty.

But not until the next morning in the scullery did she hear that the king had taken ill before the banquet, and of course she said nothing. The scullery was a turmoil of confusion as pastries and hams, sweets and sausages were prepared for the booths, as loaves were pulled from the ovens, and venison and game birds put to broil for royal breakfasts. As dawn touched the scullery shutters, Melissa stacked warm pastries onto a cart. She had been chosen to have a booth, and under the envious glances of the other girls, she wheeled her cart away to the courtyard. She was wearing one of the new dresses—a plain green wool that pleased her.

The courtyard was bright with draped booths and with colored banners blowing against the granite sky. When she had settled into her booth and laid out the pastries, she watched folk streaming in through the gates. The crowd was a mix of queen’s peasants and visiting servants. Soon she was busy selling turnovers and meat pies as folk flocked to break their fasts. In the booth across from her, cider was sold, and in the next booth a jester juggled silver balls. Farther down the row, the puppeteers were warming up with smutty jokes. Themusic of lute and rota, horns and vielle echoed against the sky like a dozen bands.

How quickly her pastries vanished. Twice she sent a page for more. It was mid-morning when she saw King Efil descend the marble stairs, swinging a red cape over his purple jerkin and trousers. He began to tour the booths, stopping to throw darts, then to laugh at the puppets. He was so young, hardly older than she. She wondered where his partner was from last night, which of the visiting young women. Though it was common practice, she found the promiscuity of royalty unsettling. This was not the way of the peasant families; there could be nothing of loyalty or deep love in such a life. When the king turned suddenly toward her booth, she felt her face go hot.

A young page followed him, carrying two mugs of ale.

“Pastries, then!” the king said, laughing, his dark eyes fully on her. “A dozen pastries. The lamb, the currant—four of those peach—some scones.” His gaze never left her. As she wrapped the pastries in a linen cloth, he leaned close across the counter. She backed off, handing him the package, but his hands lingered on hers and his voice was soft.

“Come out from the booth, Melissa. My page will relieve you. You’ve been in there since daybreak.”

“I—I can’t do that.”

His eyes hardened.“Come out now. You will join me for a picnic in the orchard.” He took the mugs from the page and nodded, and the boy slipped under the counter into the booth beside her. The king balanced the mugs in one hand. The twitch at the corner of his mouth deepened, his eyes darkened with excitement. “Wander the fair for a moment, my dear, then come through the east gate to the vineyard. Don’t be long. Come while the pastries are still hot and the ale has not gone flat.” He gave her a last deep look that made her giddy, then he turned away and was gone into the crowd.

She looked after him, cold and still. She felt heated. Shamed. Uncertain.

One did not defy a king’s orders.

Beside her the page was rearranging napkins over the pastries. He didn’t look at her. She supposed he knew every lover the king took. Embarrassed, she slipped under the counter and moved away.

She watched the puppet antics of stag and dragon, hardly aware of them. She told herself she would share the king’s picnic, that she need do nothing more. He couldn’t force her; she didn’t think he was strong enough to force her. Yet beyond her resolve her own heat built, and she saw again the dark, needing look in his eyes. She moved nearer the gate, but then paused beside the stall of a jeweler.

She need not go to meet the king. She need not if she was afraid.

Idly she examined the old dwarf’s jewelry. It was plain, unremarkable work. But suddenly a different light shifted across his necklaces, suddenly she saw a brighter jewel shining above the common jewelry like a thin dream: she saw in a vision a tear-shaped emerald, a magnificent stone. It was a pendant: the oval emerald was circled by two gold cats standing on hind legs, their paws joined as if they guarded the gem. The pendant was so lovely she reached…

The vision vanished. The dwarf’s jewelry lay dully across the counter.

She stood clutching the edge of the booth, trying to understand what she had seen. The dwarf looked at her absently as he traded with a peasant family, taking their uncut diamonds in exchange for a small pig he had tethered inside the booth. Giddily she moved away, confused and light-headed.

Had the jewel been a true vision? Some heightening of perception she didn’t understand?

Or had it been a memory from her past?

Still seeing the emerald pendant, she moved unaware through the crowd until she realized she was approaching the east wall. She stood uncertainly before the small gate.

If she didn’t obey the king, he would make her wish she had. She decided she would just go out and explain to him that she didn’t want to share his bed. Be direct was what Mag always said. She would be nice to him, but firm. She reached for the latch but then drew back.

To be nice to a man when he was primed for the bed, could lead a girl straight into that bed.

She turned away. King or not, she wasn’t going out there to share his picnic.

She began to wonder how long he would wait in the vineyard. Suddenly, feeling giddy, she knew what she must do.

She fled for the scullery and the back stairs. At this one moment she knew exactly where the king was, and if she was fast, she could be in his chambers and out again with the Harpy’s mirror while he waited for her in the vineyard.

Chapter 12

“University of Chicago,” Olive Cleaver said, dusting cake crumbs from her flowered dress. Under her brushing hand, orange birds of paradise jabbed across a purple field. She sat opposite Braden at his terrace table drinking coffee and eating the cake she had baked. Her frizzy gray hair and sallow face were not flattered by the bright afternoon light and the Woolworth dress, but her eyes were intelligent and lively. “The carbon fourteen test was developed there. It’s a wonderful new test; it will entirely change historical research.”

Braden watched Olive, amused not by her facts, which were perfectly correct, but by her enthusiasm. She had come down the garden bringing the carrot cake, wanting to talk. Such gifts embarrassed him, but he had made fresh coffee, brought some plates and forks out on the terrace, wiped off the table. Olive never bothered him when he was working, but seeing him on the terrace in the middle of the day was all the invitation she needed.

“I took only one splinter from each of the five planks,” she said. “I wanted to know if they were all the same age. They were.” She nodded when he lifted the coffeepot, accepting a refill. “All they do is burn the material. The gases from the burning are converted to carbon and put into aspecial Geiger counter—well, I’m sure you know more about it than I do. I know you do read something besides art magazines.”

She blew delicately on her coffee.“Of course the test will tell only the age of the timbers, not of the carvings themselves. But still, it isn’t so likely that new carvings would be made on very ancient timbers.

“I do wish, though, they wouldn’t take so long. I suppose they have a backlog, and of course legitimate research comes first.” She looked up the garden toward the oak door. Anne Hollingsworth’s orange cat was sitting in the ferns staring intently at the door, almost as if drawn to it. Olivesaid, “If the dooris very old, I feel as Alice did, that it should be in a museum. Yet I can’t bear to think of removing it. That door is why I bought the house, it was the door that first led me into the garden.” She cut her cake into small bites. “And after all, maybe it is a copy. Anne thinks it is.”

And of course Anne would, Braden thought. Their neighbor, Anne Hollingsworth, had a mathematical mind that would never believe something so improbable as a valuable antique standing forgotten in their garden. He looked up the garden, fixing on Anne’s staid Cape Cod house, traditional and unexciting. Anne wasn’t given to Olive’s fanciful flights and enthusiasms. Nor did she succumb, either, to Morian’s brand of keen relish for living.

It amused him that he had three female neighbors who were his good friends. He toyed with his cake, wondering why, in his thoughts, he wanted to defend the antiquity of the door against Anne’s unimaginative turn of mind.

Olive said,“If itshould prove very old…” She didn’t finish, but looked at Braden intently, her glasses catching the light. She was trying to say something she didn’t know how to say. Above them the orange cat had risen and was coming down the garden toward the veranda.

She said,“The door makes me feel sometimes that it has more to it than…I don’t know.” She looked embarrassed. “Even if it should prove valuable, I would not like to move it from the garden.” Some nebulous idea had taken hold of her. Olive got these hunches, went off on tangents. Braden really didn’t want to hear it.

She watched him quietly.“You don’t like the idea of it being an antique?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You know my research is solid.”

He nodded, trying to shake off the strangeness he felt. For all her quirks, Olive was a competent researcher; she didn’t go off on wild chases in that respect, didn’t use spurious sources. She was just so damned intense. Well, hell, maybe the doorwas ancient. He knew she had done weeks of careful work before she sent the splinters off to be analyzed. The orange cat came onto the veranda and lay down at Olive’s feet, looking up at her expectantly. She cut a bite of cake and gave it to him.

Braden watched Olive, both amused and annoyed because he really didn’t want to think about the damned door. But hell, she just wanted to talk. He said, “I know the test is supposed to be accurate, but did they say anything about possible misreading, a false result through some—oh, chemical change in the door itself, something unnatural?”

“Unnatural?” Olive said, her interest rising.

“Like garden chemicals,” he said quickly, “something sprayed or spilled on it.”

“Oh no, I didn’t ask about that. Perhaps I should. Yes,” she said, “I guess I’d better write and find out.”

After she left, he wondered why he’d said that. He wondered why he felt so strongly that the door ought to be left alone.

Chapter 13

Melissa slipped quickly into the king’s chamber. With any luck he would stay in the orchard for a while, waiting for her. The pastries would get cold, the ale would get warm, and he would be furious, but she would worry about that later. Maybe she would have found the mirror and escaped to the cellars before he left the orchard.

The king’s chamber was dark, the purple draperies were drawn closed. The shadows were dominated by a huge canopied bed, its thick black bedposts were carved with four Hell Beasts: basilisk, hydras, lamia, and manticore. She had a quick, unwanted vision of making love with the king, observed by those beasts.

She tried to open the wardrobe but could not. She tried one spell then another, and had begun to think she would fail when, on the eighth spell, the door snapped open wide. Velvet and cashmere coats burgeoned out. Kneeling, she reached behind the rich garments and behind the soft leather boots, feeling for a hidden door.

But the wardrobe wall was smooth. She felt its floor. He must have twenty pairs of boots. She moved each pair, felt under it then put it back. She whispered all the opening spells she knew, but no part of the wardrobe stirred. She was standing on tiptoe, feeling beneath the upper shelf, when behind her the chamber door creaked open.

The king did not seem surprised to see her there. He shut and bolted the door, and with a flick of his hand he made the mantel lamp burn.“My dear, this is a much better place for a tryst. How clever of you.” He took her hands and drew her close; she held herself very still.

He kissed her lightly.“I will do nothing you do not wish, my Melissa. But I can see in your eyes that you do wish it.” He stroked her cheek. “Have you ever made love, sweet Melissa?”

She felt as nervous and spell-cast as a trapped beast. Her mind spun and fought, and still she stood frozen. He watched her knowingly, but then he released her and moved away.

He poured wine from the decanter on the mantel and handed her a goblet.“You did not come to join me in bed, sweet Melissa. What were you looking for?” Looking into his eyes was like swimming in black seas. As his look changed from heat to suspicion, she wanted to bolt out the door.

He said,“It takes a lot of nerve to search the chambers of royalty.” He drew his hand down her cheek, letting it rest on her shoulder. “You are of value to the queen, Melissa. Surely you know that. Just as you are of value to me.” He stroked the back of her neck. His touch was uncomfortably soft; she flinched with an almost animal repugnance.

“Why…” She choked. “Why should I be of value to the queen?”

He drew her close again, stirring her desire despite her repugnance.“How old are you, Melissa?”

“Seventeen.”

“And where do you come from?”

“From Appian.”

He smiled.“You do not need to tell me the lies you tell the queen. And, of course, she does not believe you. Melissa—do you remember your mother?”

“Of course I remember her. Why would you ask about my mother?”

“Perhaps we can make a bargain.” He began to unbutton her dress.

She moved away.“You—could have any girl in the kingdom.”

“Why should I haveany girl, when I can have the loveliest? Melissa…” He drew her close and kissed her throat.

“If you breed me a healthy heir, Melissa, by the laws of the Netherworld you will be the new queen of Affandar.” Again he smiled, his look too intent. “If you were queen of Affandar, Melissa, what would you do?”

Excitement gripped her suddenly with the heady challenge. If she were queen of Affandar, she could free the peasants. She could free other nations, and dethrone Siddonie’s puppet kings. She stared at him, mute.

He said,“Do you know that Siddonie fears you?”

She laughed.

“Do you call me a liar?”

“No.”

He moved to the mantel to refill his glass, then turned, watching her.“Siddonie and I are locked in battle for Affandar. All the kingdom knows that. Siddonie would destroy me if she could. She wants no one to share her rule.

“You, Melissa—she sees in you the power to help her enslave Affandar and enslave the Netherworld.”

“I don’t understand. She mistakes me for something I am not.”

“No, she sees truly. She would use you to enslave Affandar. But, Melissa, together you and I could defeat her.”

She watched him intently, convinced that he wasn’t lying and that this man could tell her all the secrets that had been locked away from her.

“Tell me, Melissa…Tell me what you remember of your childhood.”

“The usual things. Working in the garden, caring for the sheep, collecting honey, learning to ride the pony—”

“Stop it. What do you really remember?” He held her shoulders hard, searching her face. “What do you remember? If you really remember nothing, why were you searching for the Harpy’s mirror?”

“What is the Harpy’s mirror?” she said dumbly.

He shook his head.“I can see it in your eyes. You do not lie very well. You have been to the Harpy in the cellars. She begged you to steal her mirror. What,” Efil said softly, “would you trade for the Harpy’s mirror, my Melissa?” He began again to caress her; he was so changeable, emotions danced and flickered across his face. She felt there was no real core to him, no one person. He stroked her throat, kissed her neck, until she pulled away. He turned from her, folding back the velvet bed cover, revealing dark satin sheets. He said, “Afterward, I will give you the Harpy’s mirror.”

“Give me the mirror first.”

He only looked at her.

She looked back steadily. He might be selfish and quickly enraged, but underneath she sensed that he was weak. She said,“The mirror first.”

“Your promise to come to my bed?”

“My promise.”

He opened the wardrobe and pulled aside jackets and breeches, whispering a sharp, short spell—one she had never heard before. A panel slid away revealing a small cupboard. He took from within a mirror no bigger than her hand. It was oval, its platinum frame jeweled with opals and topaz and moonstones flashing in the lamplight. He placed it in her hands; it was surprisingly heavy. But it gave back no reflection. She could not see her face, or Efil’s. Across its clear surface ran one fleeting shadow deep within, then its surface burned clear.

He said,“Did the Harpy promise to give you visions for this?”

“She—she did.”

“You have the mirror. Now come to bed.”

“Wait,” she whispered.

His rage flared; he took her shoulders.“You will not take the mirror from this chamber until you have paid for it.”

“That was my promise. But I cannot promise you a healthy child until the woman-spells are complete.” She held the mirror tightly. “If you force me to bed too soon, there will be little chance of a healthy child.”

Anger flashed in his eyes, and then uncertainty.“You can’t think…”

A noise from the solar stopped him. He froze, listening to movement in the next room. She panicked, not knowing where to run. He pushed her toward the draperies and behind them.“She’s in the solar. Stay hidden.” He straightened the heavy draperies, hiding her. She stood in darkness that smelled of dust from the thick velvet, her heart pounding, clutching the Harpy’s mirror. She heard the chamber door open and close, then silence, and knew he had gone out to distract Siddonie. For the first time she was thankful for Siddonie’s presence.

Chapter 14

From behind the draperies Melissa listened to the queen’s muffled voice in the next chamber, heard the king reply to some question, then the queen snapped irritably at him. Slipping the mirror inside her bodice Melissa moved out from the draperies. Pressing against the door, she listened.

“…be a fool,” Siddonie was saying, “of course she is. You had a colossal nerve to approachher. And in public. Everyone saw you. Briccha has orders to confine her to the scullery. I have instructed the guards not to let her out of the palace. If you—”

“And I suppose you will put her in the dungeons,” he interrupted.

“And what of it?”

“You’ll never train her if you lock her up. She will be no use to you.”

“And she will be no use to you,” Siddonie said coldly.

“Don’t you understand that she would bring them all here, that they would destroy Affandar!” Another pause, then the queen’s voice came closer. Melissa fled to the draperies. Behind them, she opened the glass door and slipped out onto the balcony. She had a leg over the rail, searching for a foothold in the vines, when she saw three guards below and drew back.

She stood against the wall listening to their idle conversation. She heard an inner door open, but when after a very long time she heard nothing more from the chamber, she slipped inside.

Efil’s room was empty. She crossed to the door and listened, then drew it open, faint with fear.

The solar was empty. She hurried across the pale carpet between the satin chairs and cracked open the outer door. When she saw no one in the hall, she fled to the back stairs and down. She was halfway down the first flight when she saw a guard below, walking the corridor. She drew back into the shadows. When he moved away, she slipped down past him, silent and quick.

She reached the storeroom at last, her heart thundering. She slipped behind a row of shelves as two girls went out carrying a big bag of flour between them. When they had passed she fled for the cellar door. She didn’t breathe until she was through and closing the door behind her.

She brought no light; she felt her way down through the blackness. She hadn’t reached the bottom when she heard a man shout above, and a door slam. She raced down into the stench of the Hell Beasts and fled past them. When she reached the Harpy’s cage she was shaking. Now she brought a light, so glad to see the white womanbird she almost hugged her. She slipped the mirror from her bodice and the Harpy cried out, flapping her wings and reaching for it. Melissa held it away from her. “First show me the spell to free the prisoners. Then show me the five visions you promised, then you will have your mirror.”

“Don’t be silly. I cannot make visions until I have my mirror.”

“You can make visions at great distances. You made visions in the queen’s chambers. I will hold the mirror.”

“One vision.”

“Five visions. First, the spell.”

The Harpy sat down against the wall and turned her face away. But in Melissa’s hands the mirror clouded, then reflected a stone wall.

The queen stood beside the wall in miniature that quickly enlarged until she seemed to stand beside Melissa. She was pressing her hands against the stone, speaking a spell of opening. Melissa had never heard these cadences. She memorized them at one hearing, but she made the Harpy show her again, to be sure. As the second vision faded she fled for the wall.

“Wait! My mirror! You can’t…”

Pressing her hands against the stone, she cried out the spell. The stone under her hands vanished, and a ragged opening yawned. The stink of the cells made her gag. She stepped through, increasing her spell-light.

Inside the cages were crowded with men, ten and twelve to a cage, all watching her. They were thin, nearly naked, their beards straggling over bony chests. What clothes remained were shreds held together by matted filth. She saw hope in some eyes, fear and distrust in others. She repeated the spell and swung open the barred doors.

The prisoners surged out. As some brought spell-lights, she could see in their faces their despair etched deep. Three were not as thin as the others, and their beards were only stubble. She took the hands of stoop-shouldered Halek, and of thin little Methmen.

Methmen hugged her. He smelled terrible; they all did. She led them through the hole in the wall, then closed the barred doors and sealed the wall.

Halek said,“Did Mag send you?”

“She doesn’t know I’m here. There is food above, on the next level.”

Halek sent six men up the dark stairs. They returned with hams, a barrel of crackers, a bag of apples, canned fruit, and ale. Halek said,“Drink the juice of the fruit. Wash yourselves with the ale. We’re too weak for spirits; we’d be drunk and couldn’t fight.” They wolfed the crackers and ham, slashing the meat into chunks with Melissa’s knife. She watched them straighten the metal barrel rings into blunt weapons, and she helped them rip the apple bag apart and bind the barrel staves together as cudgels. They ate the fruit and broke the jars into weapons, tying the broken glass onto the ends of the cudgels. Then Halek took her hand. “Come, there must be passages deep within the cellars.”

She drew back, pulling her hand away.“I can’t come. There’s something I must do. I will try to follow.”

The men stared at her, then turned away. Halek, distressed, reached to touch her face.“You are certain?”

“Yes, certain.” She watched them move away and begin to search along the walls for a hidden door, then she returned to the Harpy.

The womanbird said,“One vision, then I want my mirror.”

“You promised five visions.”

The Harpy combed her breast feathers with long fingers, looking sideways at Melissa, but at last she looked inward again, her gaze remote, and began to whisper in a soft, whistling bird language. The mirror’s bright surface turned dark, then showed vast space unlike the Netherworld that faded into a dark forest with huge trees, not Netherworld trees. Images followed, quick and startling: a garden with flowers too bright to be real. A man, lean, bronze skinned, unlike a Netherworld man. Then a more familiar scene of the dark green Netherworld night. Flames reflected against the granite sky from torches set into a castle wall: not this castle but a dark, hulking structure. The vision was so real she felt that she stood beside the wall looking into the dark forest where armed shadows gathered, slipping toward her.

Chapter 15

The torchlight guttered and hissed, sending shadows running down the castle walls as a band of armed rebels moved out of the woods carrying ladders. They tilted them against the thick stone walls, but as they climbed suddenly mounted soldiers swept out of the castle gates. They picked men off with quick arrows, toppled the ladders and skewered men with their blades.

The king’s soldiers were making quick work of the small band, when from the forest boiled a mass of dark, small beasts running. Cats! They were cats. Hundreds of cats stormed the attacking soldiers and leapt onto the backs of their horses, raking claws into soldiers’ faces then leaping up the wall, swarming over. Cats dropped into the palace courtyard and onto the backs of mounted soldiers. And suddenly the cats changed to human warriors whose eyes reflected light.

Melissa stared into the mirror as, within the courtyard, a king tried to rally his troops against the attacking cat-folk. He was a broad, dark-haired man, and there was something familiar about him. She watched him kneel beside two fallen soldiers, touching their bloody wounds. She saw him pull a third man from battle, a young man so like the king, he must surely be the king’s son. She watched the two of them snatch a child from the fighting, a little girl wielding a bloody lance though she could not have been more than nine. The king shoved her at the wounded prince, and pushed them toward a door. “Save yourself—save your sister.” Melissa saw a woman join them, heard her whisper,“Ithilel.” The prince grabbed her arm and dragged her with them as, behind them, the king turned to fight off their attackers. Then the king fell, with a sword in his chest. She saw the small daughter break free from her brother and run back to the king and try to lift him.She watched the threelift him and carry him through the battle, escaping down a dark passage.

In a cellar chamber son and daughter laid the dying king on the stone floor and knelt over him. The young woman moved apart from them, watching from the shadows. She had many-colored hair, all shades of gold. Beside the king, young Ithilel wept but the little girl’s eyes held no tears, her dark eyes blazed. The dying king half rose, touching her face; then he stared toward the woman in the shadows. “How did the Catswold know my plan?”

“She is my wife,” the prince said hotly.

The king coughed blood.“You are a fool, Ithilel.She has destroyed us, she has used you.”

“No! She…”

Melissa caught her breath, realizing suddenly that if this was young Prince Ithilel, if she was seeing the fall of Xendenton, then the little girl was Queen Siddonie. But who was the young woman?

The king fixed his eyes on Ithilel.“If you were a man you would kill the Catswold traitor. Your wife has betrayed us. Do you not realize she has destroyed us?” He coughed, spitting blood, then looked evenly at Ithilel.

“There is no choice, you must go from the Netherworld. Take your cursed wife—do not leave her here to do more damage.” He turned from Ithilel and reached to the child Siddonie, taking her hand.

“You are the strong one. You must keep yourself safe, my child, until you can win back Xendenton.”

Siddonie’s dark eyes were hard as glass. One thin hand remained clenched on her sword. “I will return.” She stared at her father, brazen with a queen’s challenge. “And when I return I will rule more than Xendenton.” There were tears on her face, but she smiled coldly. “One day I will rule theNetherworld. And,” she said, smiling, “I will build a formidable power in the upperworld as well—in memory of you, Father. And for my own amusement.

“And,” she said, “I will take revenge on the Catswold beasts. Revenge such as they have never dreamed.” She knelt before the king straight as a shaft, waiting without tears for his death. But the dying king clasped her to him, holding her rigid little body, his white face buried in her black hair.

The king of Xendenton breathed his last.

Melissa watched in the mirror as the prince crossed his father’s hands over his chest to protect him from the creatures of the Hell Pit that could come for the souls of the dead. He closed the king’s eyes with two goldgriffons and then, rising, he took up a heavy bag of jewels from an iron chest by the door, and jerked his young wife out of the shadows.

Prince Ithilel sealed the wall behind them, making of the secret chamber the king’s burial tomb. They hurried along dark passages, the prince holding the young wife’s wrist. At last he opened the passage wall with words like spitting snakes and pulled his wife through the gaping hole and stepped aside for the child.

They lit three of the oil lamps stored within the tunnel, and then began to climb up the black twisting way. Their journey became a montage of the miles of tunnel. Melissa saw deep cracks in the ancient earth, dark trickles of water, falling space; time tilted and changed, and the earth around them changed as they rose within it. Melissa thought many hours had passed when suddenly thunder echoed above them and they entered a tunnel with smooth pale walls and a floor of glazed tiles marked with occasional shallow puddles. Then, where a black rune marked the pale wall, the prince said an opening spell.

A portion of the wall swung back. They passed into another smooth tunnel lit from above by yellow lights which were not oil lamps. This passage led to an echoing basement. They climbed iron steps strewn with paper and bottles. At the top of the long flight they pushed out through a metal door into white fog. Lights sped past them incredibly fast, smeared within the fog. A hissing noise ran with the lights, like wet snakes. The young woman drew back, afraid. The prince took her hand, urging her on. But Siddonie walked alone, small and erect, staring around her at this world with a sharp, canny interest.

The three refugees crossed half the city, climbing hills crowded with tall, pale buildings. High up, they left the fog behind them. It lay below them like a white sea. Now above them a black sky reeled away empty, pierced with lights that Melissa knew were stars. The vast space in which those stars swam terrified her.

Then came a scene of daylight painfully bright. Melissa could see through a large window the city spread below, the tall smooth buildings thrusting up through that vast space that was bright now, pale blue and awash with the yellow sun. She thought of elven tales of the sun. The yellow ball blinded her. The young wife stood at the window, her hair more golden than the sun. Behind her Ithilel and young Siddonie worked at a desk littered with papers. Another montage of scenes showed Siddonie and Ithilel writing in ledgers, entering figures, then the two out on the street, going into buildings carrying a leather satchel. She saw them enter a paneled room and empty Netherworld trinkets from the satchel onto a desk: emeralds, opals, diamonds, sapphires. She watched them trade these for a slip of paper. This happened many times. Their clothing became rich. Their dwelling changed to a huge house looking down at a bay. She saw servants, rich food, and rich fabrics. She saw in a last sharp scene the face of the child Siddonie looking directly into the mirror. Her black eyes were appraising and cold. Then Melissa was jerked back to the dungeons.

She felt as weary and drained as if she herself had made that terrible journey. Before her, the Harpy ruffled and stroked her white feathers. Melissa saw that the rebels were still in sight, searching the cellar as if no time had passed. She faced the Harpy crossly.“That was a fine vision but it told me nothing about who I am.”

The Harpy snorted with disgust.“Yes, it told you. You will figure it out soon if you are using your mind.” The beast looked hard at her then brought another vision. “After this I will have my mirror or I will yell so loud every guard in the palace will hear me.”

Chapter 16

Now in the Harpy’s mirror mist clung against the buildings of the upperworld city and shrouded the upperworld alleys where cats roamed lithe and restless. The sight of cats stirred a strange feeling in Melissa. She watched a yellow tom circle a doorway, watched a gray female shoulder out through the flimsy screen door in the back of a wineshop. She saw a thin tiger cat in the alley behind a grocery picking through trash, stopping often to stare up at the sky where, through fog, glowed the diffused light of the upperworld moon. She saw within a satin apartment a tan and brown cat waking her mistress with harsh cries then streaking past the woman’s silk-gowned legs into the night. She watched a fat white female cat lead four starving cats through an open cellar door into a shabby room. There the female vanished; and a white-haired woman opened tins of cat food and fed the strays, then went out again,leaving the door ajar.

Inside apartments cats cried and paced, staring out through dirty back windows or through curtained front windows, or leaping over furniture and across desk-tops seeking a way out into the moonlit night. All over the city cats moved restlessly, caught by the moon’s pull. Melissa knew more from the vision than simply what she saw. She knew that this night, not only the moon called to them.

In an alley between the Tracy Theater and a tall Victorian house, a big, heavy-boned tiger cat leaped from the fence to a rooftop. Pausing on the flat tar roof, he looked around, puzzled, restless and irritable, and a strange eagerness gripped him. Tail lashing, he jumped from that roof to the next, a four-foot span, and trotted to the next chasm and leaped again.

Covering the length of the block across the roofs of the store buildings, he dropped into the branches of a stunted tree that shouldered across an alley. There he settled himself in a crotch of branches as if he had done this many times. He listened, looking up at the sky, looking around him.

He was broad shouldered, with big paws and a broad, square head; he had the body of a fighter beneath his wide curving stripes of gray and silver. He lay limp along the branch, though beneath his indolence his spirit seemed coiled like a spring. His thick, striped tail swung idly. But then its tip began to twitch as, looking up through the mist, he watched the exact place where the moon would lift.

Suddenly he tensed. His tail stilled. He listened intently, tracking the faint hush of fur against brick, then the crackle of paper as an approaching cat disturbed a fallen poster.

Then he scented her and relaxed, letting his tail swing again; he knew her.

The old buff female climbed rheumatically into the tom’s tree. He watched her, first lazily then intently, his yellow eyes suddenly widening. He saw that she was wild with news, her movements were jerky, he could smell her excitement.

He waited with growing impatience as she settled herself on a branch below him. When at last she spoke, her voice was harsh with agitation.“Three humans have come up.”

He stared at her.“From below? Through a door?”

“Yes.”

“Which door?”

“The warehouse on Telegraph. A man, a little girl, and a woman. The woman is like us.”

The tom’s body slid into a crouch. “Like us? Are you certain?”

“Quite certain. Her hair is piebald, her eyes are a cat’s eyes.”

“Who is she? Did you listen to them? Why have they come here?”

“I followed them last night. I have watched them all day.” She looked to him for praise. He broadened his whiskers at her and raised his tail.

“There was war in the world below,” she said. “These three have escaped a massacre. He is Prince Ithilel of Xendenton, the child is his sister. Xendenton has fallen, and these two seem all that is left of the royal family.”

“And the Catswold woman? Why is she with them?”

“I don’t know. But it was the Catswold who defeated Xendenton, fighting beside peasant rebels. The man and little girl discussed it last night after the Catswold woman slept; I listened from the roof next door through their open window. They think the woman is a traitor to them, that she is loyal only to the Catswold.”

“Then is she their captive?”

“No, she is the wife of the prince.”

The tom froze, his body going hard. He looked back at the female gently; she was old, and dear to him.“You did well, Loua.” He didn’t expect her to feel his distress. She had been born on the streets of the upperworld, her mother had no Catswold memories. Loua was as ignorant of her heritage as any common cat. “Why,” he said softly, more to himself than to Loua, “why would a Catswold woman be married to a prince of Xendenton?”

Loua mewled her confusion.“The small princess hates her. She says the Catswold woman betrayed them. How could the woman turn against her husband? Why would they marry if they are enemies?” Loua was always miserable when life did not add up. She hunched down, staring at McCabe.

McCabe said,“Tell me, this Catswold woman…What does she look like?”

“She is beautiful,” Loua said with envy. “Tall, sleek as silk. Her hair is gold striped with platinum and with red. Hair,” Loua said jealously, “bright as hearthfire, and her eyes are like emeralds. She must be gorgeous as a cat. Her name is Timorell.”

“Timorell…” McCabe tasted the name. “And where are they now?” His tail twitched with impatience.

“In an apartment on Russian Hill. From the roof next door you can see into the living room and into the couple’s bedroom. It is the street of the Great Dane, third house north of him on the same side.” She preened, expecting McCabe to praise her for bravery at circumventing the Dane. But McCabe was lost in speculation. Loua purred his name, moving closer; but then she turned away. She was too old to appeal to McCabe, too long past her prime. This Timorell would appeal. She hunched miserably, bereft of defense against beauty and youth.

As McCabe quit the tree he turned, his face filling the mirror. Melissa stared into his huge eyes, startled. He dug his claws into the branch, then leaped to the alley. In the shadows, before stepping into the street, he took another form.

McCabe stood tall under the fuzzy streetlight, adjusting his tie, then strode across Powell. His shoes made a soft echo in the fog. He was a tall man, powerfully made, broad shouldered, his dark gray hair streaked with pale gray. His hands were broad, capable, stained from work, the nails trimmed short and clean. His yellow eyes were light against his tanned skin. He was a man to whom most women were drawn, though some women avoided him with a strange fear.

He passed the house of the Great Dane without disturbing the beast. In the shadows he changed to cat again, his broad stripes sharply defined by the street light. He leaped, and flowed up the thick vine onto the apartment house roof.

He stared across six feet of space to the next apartment building, to the three dormers with their open windows. Inside, the rooms were dark. He leaped the six-foot span to the center dormer, and clung there on the ledge and pressed against a dusty-smelling screen, looking in.

The couple slept in an iron-footed, rumpled bed. The Catswold girl’s pale hair spilled across the prince’s shoulder. She was long, supple. The sheet clung to her, thrown back so McCabe could see that she slept raw. He admired the curves of her arm and shoulder and, beneath the sheet, the curve of her breast. He wanted to touch her, wanted to slash the screen and go in. She slept deeply, innocent of him. He wanted to wake her, touch her; he wanted to say the changing spell for her and slip away with her across the rooftops, to be with her in the secret night.

Melissa, watching McCabe in the mirror, knew his feelings as if they were her own. Gripped by the desire he felt, her own passions awoke in a way that shocked her.

McCabe watched Timorell a long time. He would have stayed near her all night, but suddenly in the silence he heard the brush of a hand across a window screen. He leaped from the dormer across the chasm onto the neighboring roof, then turned to look back.

The screen of the next window was pushed out. A child looked out. For one chilling moment McCabe saw her eyes. For one moment he stared into deep, complete evil.

The child drew back and closed the screen. McCabe sped across the roof and down the vine. He hit the sidewalk as the little girl came out the front door carrying a heavy lamp. Heart pounding, he pressed into the shadows. He changed to man as young Siddonie reached him, holding the lamp like a club.

He grabbed her arm, and threw the lamp to the street. It shattered. He held her wrists as she kicked and bit him, and he shook her until she became still.

“You were going to injure the cat—kill it.”

“Catswold,” she hissed. “Get away from me! Leave the girl alone!”

“What do you fear?” McCabe looked her over, laughing. “That I will despoil your brother’s wife?” He saw the child blanch. “Why have you come up from the Netherworld?”

“What business is it of yours?”

“Tell me.” He twisted her arm, enjoying her pain, caring nothing that she was a child; she was evil, coldly evil. “Tell me what happened in Xendenton. Tell me, or I will kill you.”

“You dare not kill me.”

“The laws say only that I would endanger my immortal soul; that is my choice. Gladly would I do so to see you die, Princess!”

“If you know so much, why do you ask questions?”

He twisted her arm harder.“Who is the Catswold woman?”

“A traitor,” she hissed. “A bitch—a traitor. And she will pay for her deeds—you all will.”

“You are curiously indignant, for one whose kin has murdered thousands of Catswold.” McCabe looked closely at her. “You are like a hard, sinewy little bat, Princess. Brittle and blood-hungry.”

The child stared at McCabe, expressionless as glass, then touched her tongue to her lips with a dark, twisted laugh.

“Go back in the house, little girl. But know this: if you harm the Catswold woman in any way, you will know pain by my claws as you have never imagined pain.” McCabe grasped her hair for a moment, hard. “Have you ever seen the guts torn out of a mouse so the creature, still alive, stares at its own offal, frozen with terror?”

She blanched, did not move. McCabe stared at her until she turned at last and went into the house, her back straight and ungiving.

The scene vanished, the mirror went smoky. Melissa stared, confused, into the blackness around her.

“You are in the cellars of Affandar Palace,” the Harpy said softly.

Melissa brought a spell-light and reached to touch the bars, but she was still adrift between the two worlds. She was surprised to see the rebel prisoners crowded around her, silent, watching her. She was clutching the mirror so hard that when she dropped it in her pocket its mark was struck deep into her palm. When the Harpy reached through the bars toward the pocket, she backed away. She had started to speak when footsteps scuffed on the stair and she doused her spell-light.

A spell-light blazed above them, moving down the stair. The rebels fled. Halek grabbed Melissa and pulled her to a stack of barrels and down behind them.

Chapter 17

The spell-light came quickly down the stair striking across barrels and pillars and lighting King Efil’s face. His voice struck sharp through the silence. “Melissa? Surely you are here. Melissa, guards are posted everywhere, but I can get you out. Come quickly.”

She moved, wondering if she dare trust Efil. If she found a way out she could come back for the prisoners. But Halek jerked her back.“No! We are not to trust him.” He clapped his hand over her mouth as Efil approached, passing within feet of them, heading straight for the Harpy’s cage. His light picked out a shock of white feathers. “Where is the girl? She brought your mirror to you. Where is she?”

“What girl? Do I have my mirror? Do you see my mirror? Do you think if I had it I’d be behind these bars? The queen has my mirror, and if you were any kind of a king you would return it to me.”

“I will search the cellars until I find her, so you might as well tell me, Harpy.”

Melissa touched Halek’s hand. “If he searches, he will find you. I can bargain with him. I—have something to bargain with.”

He held her arm hard.“If he finds us, we will kill him. That’s safer.”

“But Halek, I can make him take you out of here. I can make him free you.” She watched the king turn away from the Harpy. He approached and passed them again. Only this time he didn’t pass them, he turned back and came toward the barrels that hid them. His light shot straight into her face.

She rose, but Halek was faster. He leaped and hit the king and pinned him against a pillar, forcing a shard of glass against Efil’s throat.

Efil was very still, appraising Halek.“There’s little time; the guards will come. Free me and I’ll get you both out of here.”

“You will get all the prisoners out,” Melissa said. She nodded to Halek. “Call the men out.”

Halek stood motionless a long time, pressing the broken glass against the king’s throat. Melissa didn’t know what she saw in Halek’s face—fear, distrust—but at last he gave one soft whistle.

The men came out slowly, watching the king. When Efil saw the dozens of ragged, armed men, he blanched.“I can’t take so many.”

Halek pressed the glass harder.

“You dare not harm me,” Efil said. “You would never get away without me, there are guards everywhere.”

Melissa said,“Do you want my child?”

Halek stared at her. The men were watching her. She said,“If you get all the prisoners out, and the Harpy and Toad and the Griffon, if you see that all go free, I will bed with you.”

“I have no way to trust you,” Efil said.

“You have my promise,” she said quietly.

They were a silent procession moving through the dark cellars. The prisoners followed Efil, then came the Harpy and the Toad. Efil could not, or would not, free the Griffon. Melissa was heartbroken for the poor Griffon. He was the most free of beasts, winging the Netherworld skies over mountains and valleys unknown by any land-bound creature. It was monstrous to leave him captive.

When they had pushed far back in the black cellars, Efil paused before a pillar and cast a complicated spell that drew the side of the pillar open. His spell-light picked out a thin stair leading down. The rebels crowded in and descended single file into blackness, the Harpy and Toad behind them. Efil waited, coming last with Melissa, forcing her along before him, and closing the pillar behind them.

They went down steeply for a long way, then pushed along a tunnel so low they walked doubled over, so narrow their shoulders scraped the damp walls. Thus they traveled until Melissa thought they must have crossed under all the palace farms and orchards. When at last they came to a flight leading up, the rebels clambered up eagerly. After a long climb they reached a trap door. It opened at Efil’s voice, lifting up into a green-lit chamber. Halek’s voice came back to her filled with awe. “The Grotto of Circe,” he whispered. The others pressed behind him up into the jeweled chamber, into a mass of gem-wrought images so real they seemed alive.

The arched ceiling was mosaicked with jeweled branches tangling across it like the roof of a forest, and the branches were alive with birds made of emeralds and rubies and topaz, of lapis and garnet. The walls were filled with jeweled dragons and Hell Beasts and all Netherworld animals. A huge, carved bed stood against one jeweled wall. Melissa knew Efil must have kept this grotto hidden from Siddonie, for the dark queen would have destroyed it. She felt the power of the images, the power by which Circe, within a place of such magic, had first turned beasts into men, creating the shape shifters.

The ragged rebels trooped in followed by the Harpy and the Toad. Efil stroked a spell over the trap door so it swung closed and vanished into the mosaic floor. He stood looking the rebels over.

“The door I will open will take you into the woods south of the palace. You must go quickly; it is dusk but guards patrol the woods. You will be safe when you reach the eastern ridges.”

He said,“I do this for Melissa, not for you. I may have differences with Siddonie, but I do not love rebels.” He lifted his hand, made a sign, and opened a spell-door in the grotto wall. Dim green forest shone beyond. The Toad hopped through and away into the darkness between twisted trees. The rebels followed, glancing back at Melissa. She watched them go, torn between her promise to the king and fear of him that made her want to run after them.

The Harpy didn’t offer to leave, but began to paw at Melissa, searching for her mirror. Melissa said, “One more vision.”

“One vision,” the womanbird said. “The last vision.”

“I want to see my mother.”

“You have already seen your mother.”

“Queen Siddonie?” Ice touched her.

“No, not Siddonie.”

Melissa stared at the Harpy. Her voice would hardly work.“The Catswold girl?”

“Yes. Timorell was your mother.”

“But she was Catswold.”

“You are Catswold.”

“You are wrong, I am no shape shifter. Besides, the Lamia said my mother was wife of the Lamia’s sister’s brother, so I can’t be…”

“Your mother’s husband’s half sister is a daughter of Lillith. All daughters of Lillith are sister to the Lamia.”

“That is more confusing. Why can’t you say, my father’s half sister?”

“I am not speaking of your father. Your mother’s husband was not your father.” The Harpy glanced longingly toward the opening in the wall. From the forest, a cool breeze stirred her feathers.

“I want a vision to see my father.”

“You have seen your father.”

Melissa frowned.

The Harpy sighed.“I will show you your own conception. You will know your father, you will see yourself conceived. Then you will give me my mirror and free me.”

Melissa nodded.

“Not many,” said the Harpy, “are privileged to see their own beginnings.” She lifted a wing, casting shadows across the mirror. There, the upperworld city gleamed suddenly with sunlight so bright Melissa squinted.

A man sat at a table in a sidewalk cafe. It was McCabe. She swallowed, watching him.

The cafe was beside long wharfs where huge ships were docked. White birds swooped over the smokestacks. Stevedores were offloading wooden crates. At his table McCabe was drinking an amber brew, idly watching the street. When Timorell came swinging along he put down his ale, watching her intently, as if he had been waiting for her.

She was looking at everything, drinking in the colors and smells of the wharf. The wind blew her pale-streaked hair like a golden cloak around her shoulders. She was sleek as gold and ermine, her stride long and easy. She did not seem to be looking for anyone but simply walking. Her tongue tipped out, tasting the wind, and there was a little secret smile at the corners of her mouth. At the intersection where the street dead-ended before the cafe, she paused, looking around almost as if someone had spoken. Above her, McCabe had not moved. Timorell looked around her, puzzled, then suddenly she looked directly up at him.

She stood still as a hunting cat, her eyes widening. She was drawn to him, and McCabe rose, his gaze never leaving her.

She came up the four steps and stood looking at him. Then, drawn by his gaze, she slid into the chair he held for her. A power burned between them, filling Melissa with longing. This was their first meeting, this was Timorell’s first awareness of another like herself in this foreign world. Then came a montage, she saw them walking the city streets, their hands touching, their looks slowly revealing and discovering. She saw them in shops, in cafes; talking, always talking. She saw Timorell at night slipping away from her apartment.

She saw McCabe and Timorell in a white room with jutting windows looking down on the city. The walls were covered with pictures of cats like benevolent talismans. She watched McCabe make love to Timorell on a pale rug before the open fire. They loved as man and woman, then as cat and cat, Timorell all gold and white to McCabe’s dark gray beauty. Embarrassed at breaching their privacy, she was yet held by the prophecy their lovemaking wrought, sharp as Timorell’s mewling cry.

And in the instant before the vision faded she saw, against Timorell’s bare skin, an oval emerald pendant framed by two rearing cats.

When the vision fled, she felt she had fallen between the two worlds and was unable to cling to either. The strength of their love had taken her breath, and, too, the sight of the emerald left her stricken with a sense of power she could not unravel.

“What was that jewel…?” she said weakly.

The Harpy flicked at her white feathers.“That was the Amulet of Bast. Your mother,” the Harpy said softly, “was heir to the Catswold queens.”

The Harpy fixed her with a beady stare.“You have forgotten all you ever heard about the Catswold. Only slowly is memory returning. Under Mag’s spell you forgot there is a Catswold nation. Your mother, if she had lived, would be queen of that nation.”

She showed Melissa a vision of white stone towers and caves, of little niches and high alcoves where cats slept on velvet and silk.“This is Zzadarray.” Cats raced along the tops of the walls then leaped down to vanish, turning into silken-robed men and women. “They,” said the Harpy, “are the Catswold of Zzadarray.”

The vision hadn’t faded when Efil shouldered the Harpy aside, facing Melissa scowling. “You don’t need this. You don’t need to see this.” But then his looked softened and he began to stroke her and caress her. She shivered and tensed. He said, “Yes, my love, you are heir to the Catswold queens. You will be queen not only of Affandar but queen of the Catswold. Never has a Netherworld woman had such power.” He kissed her and teased her, moving her toward the bed. But the Harpy pushed between them. She shoved Efil away and fixed Melissa with a hard gaze.

“Do you not understand? You are heir to the Catswold queens. This was why Siddonie wanted you. You could lead the Catswold people anywhere; they would follow you unquestioningly. If Siddonie rulesyou with her spells, she would rule the Catswold. She would force them to fight the rebels. Now, KingEfil means to do that.”

“No,” Efil said. “I will not do such a thing. The womanbird lies.”

Melissa took the Harpy’s thin hand, hardly attending to Efil. Slowly she was beginning to remember past remarks and conversations. The Amulet was a great power—it held the ancient power of Bast. She said, “The Catswold would not follow me if I do not wear the Amulet.”

“Yes, they would follow you,” said the Harpy. “Though your power would be stronger with the Amulet.”

“The old tales say it is lost.”

“Lost,” said the Harpy, preening.

“Cannot the mirror show where it lies?”

The Harpy glanced longingly toward the spell-door then at her little mirror.“Spells were laid to protect the Amulet from visions.”

Melissa looked back at her with all the command she could muster.“You will try,” she said softly. “Afterward I will give you the mirror.”

The Harpy tried. For a long time, muttering soft bird talk, she sought to bring a vision of the Amulet but the mirror remained blank. Suddenly the Harpy lost patience. She lunged at Melissa and snatched the mirror from her. The flurry of her white wings filled the grotto, then she was gone flapping into the night, hugging her little mirror. Melissa watched her disappear through the woods in awkward swoops. The womanbird’s voice echoed, “You have the power…if you will use it…” then her voice was only a bird cry, eerie in the darkness, and Melissa saw a last smear of white lift on the wind and vanish.

She watched Efil spell-close the wall so that no mark remained in the jewel mosaics and she thought,I am Catswold. She felt weak with wonder. And she was filled now with knowledge of the Catswold that had, moments before, not existed for her.

I bear the blood of queens, I bear the blood of Bast. That is why Mag hid the papers. That is why she made the deaf-spells. The stories were there in my mind, but I was deaf to them. This knowledge is part of my memory.

But this returned memory of the Catswold was not all that was lost. There was more. Still she did not remember her childhood.

Efil took her hands, drawing her close, stroking her hair, her throat. She turned her face away; she wanted to run from him, to lose herself in the woods. She wanted time to think. She was only beginning to see who she was. She wanted to understand and know herself; she did not want to be possessed now by another.

“Your promise will be honored now,” he said softly.

He slid his hands down her back, his lips brushed her cheek and her throat.“You are frightened, queen of the Catswold. Do not be frightened, my love.” His tongue touched her throat; his breath was hot against her.

She flinched away, holding herself tight and still.“I want time, I…”

But the fever he stirred was too strong, his caresses and his spells dizzied her. She fought the heat as he cupped her breasts, whispering love-spells. Stroking her, he moved her to the satin bed. He unbuttoned her dress, licking her breasts, weaving a spell that brought fire through her body. She clung to him, stroking him, begging him to caress her; all shame, all distaste vanished. All premonition of disaster vanished.

Chapter 18

The Harpy flew across the night, ducking through caverns and sweeping over valleys, drunk with her regained freedom. Her little mirror swung on its chain against her feathered breast. When she perched to rest high on a cliff, she gazed into the glass and brought a vision of Melissa bedding with the king. She watched with interest for some time, then grew bored and dropped the mirror so it nestled again among her feathers. She flew on, making straight for the Hell Pit, thinking of its warm blaze. She thought of her friend the Toad, and she supposed he had returned to the Hell Pit. She was surprised that she missed him. The Hell Beasts never cared for one another. Her wings stirred a solitary wind across the dark green night and when, banking around a cliff, she saw ahead firelight reflected across the sky, she paused.

The smell of roasting meat made her drool. She glided stealthily on, and soon she came in sight of a campfire with men crowded around. She circled.

The rebels were gathered eating their supper. The Toad was with them, eating ravenously. The roast rabbit smelled mouth-wateringly good. The Harpy dropped among them so abruptly the fire surged and spat.

Halek did not seem surprised. He looked the Harpy over. She, in turn, eyed the crisping rabbits. The rebel leader speared a rabbit from the fire and handed it to her.“Did you leave the girl with the king?”

“Can’t say where she went.” Intently the Harpy ate, picking the meat off with her beak.

“Can’t say? Or won’t say?”

She looked at Halek in silence, stuffing herself, smacking her beak.“Do you mean to sleep here tonight?”

Halek shifted his shoulders.“We mean to move on, make what miles we can. I did not like leaving Melissa.”

“The girl is her own mentor. You cannot choose for her. The girl’s venture, this night—if she were to become queen of Affandar—could win this war.”

“I would not,” Halek said, “like to depend on a trysting by King Efil to win a war.”

“It could make more difference than you know.”

“Speak plainly, Harpy. What more difference would there be, than that she should usurp the throne of the queen?”

“There is more to it.”

Halek waited.

The Harpy studied Halek and studied his companions, then decided to keep her own counsel.

Annoyed with her, Halek rose. She turned away, sullen and mute. At once, the men stirred themselves, took up their crude weapons, and kicked out the fire.

The Harpy watched them depart. Soon she was alone, pecking at rabbit bones and dying coals. Sitting beside the dead fire, she looked forlornly into her mirror.

She watched Melissa and the king, observing their embraces with lusty interest. Then she brought a vision of a younger Melissa snug in Mag’s cottage, carding wool beside the old woman. That homey scene soothed her.

She watched Mag and the girl over the years, saw Melissa as a child, stubborn minded and clever. She watched her grow up. She saw Melissa find the papers hidden in Mag’s linen chest, and watched Melissa ride for the Hell Pit. She watched the Lamia rise from the flames at Melissa’s bidding.

She watched Melissa leave home, and she watched Mag set out the next day to look for her. She saw Mag’s useless searches, then watched Mag grieving by the cookstove. And suddenly, the Harpy did not want to go back to the Hell Pit.

She left the dead campfire and flew slowly over ridges and over a broad plain. She crossed above precipices and sheep pastures, her faint shadow cutting steadily along above her across the granite sky.

As dawn brightened she hovered above Mag’s cottage, watching the old woman slopping nine squealing pigs. She swooped suddenly down onto the sty’s rail.

Mag jumped, dropping her bucket.“Where did a harpy come from? What do you want? What’s a harpy doing away from the Hell Pit?”

“She’s in Circe’s Grotto.”