Unlucky Charms (The Cold Cereal Saga) (9 page)

“I didn’t know what to say. It was a bit modern for my tastes.

“‘So,’ said Fray, stepping forward. ‘Here for Morenwyn, I suppose?’

“‘That is her decision to make. I’m here for my brothers.’

“Fray lifted her brow and nodded, as if in approval. ‘At last, a worshipful son of Denzil. What a shame. Be a sport, will you? Make a pretty speech about freeing my poor daughter and leading the armies of pixiedom to my doorstep. It makes this next bit so much easier.’

“Fray whistled, and the floor grate lifted. Five giants, the same five I’d seen underground, climbed up into the chamber and formed a half circle around the monolith. The one called Rudesby was still being manhandled by the others. Fray gestured and muttered, and hurled a dart of light from her fingertips that struck the stone floor where I’d been standing only a moment before. I didn’t think my pixie shield would protect me from this witchcraft. But I maneuvered to keep the golden tower between us, thankful at last for its Fay magic. Fray cast another spell, but the monument blew it like a wind, swept it off course.

“‘Nim?’ said Fray.

“‘Rudesby!’ barked Nim. ‘You first! New ones always first!’

“He prodded Rudesby in the back, and the half-naked giant stumbled forward. ‘Aye’m saahry!’ he told me, advancing. ‘Pleez dohn’t hurt mee! Aye haffa wyfe in Sanfransisgoh!’

“He lurched at me, bent at the waist, fumbling with outstretched arm. I ran up the length of that arm, stabbed him in the ear, then leaped off his shoulders. Grabbing hold of his underpants, I arrested my fall, then dropped again to the floor behind his left heel and sliced his tendon. He dropped, clutching his head.

“‘Tapping owt!’ Rudesby said, slapping the floor. ‘Aye’m tapping owt!’

“‘Worthless,’ grumbled Nim. ‘Clara! Tom-Tom! Marty! Go!’

“Fray came around the golden tower, calling forth some new spell from the ether, but now her own giants blocked her sight. The three of them surrounded me, but like the pixie heroes of old, I confounded them. Three giants hunting the same pixie could only get in each other’s way. They struck heads, crossed arms. I sliced one in the toe, and he was compelled to tackle another, while the third searched for me among their flailing limbs. But then I made my great error and saw nothing protecting me from Fray’s mischief. She spoke, and I was blinded by light, and a moment later I could see but could not move.

“Again, some piercing voice called out from above.

“‘There,’ said Fray. ‘By the Spirit, you’re a clever mouse. I see why she likes you.’

“Fray stepped aboard Nim’s hand and disembarked again after he’d brought her only inches from my face. To say that I strained with every muscle against Fray’s enchantment would be a lie. I could not do even that. Only my mind raged against its cage.

“‘Wonderful thing, this magic,’ said Fray. ‘I wish you could see yourself. It’s like the thinnest coat of glass. You needn’t eat, or drink, or even breathe. You’ll never die. But you’ll never move again either, so here’s hoping you end up someplace with a view.’

“She circled around me and was joined again by her giants.

“‘This world is truly dying,’ she whispered in my ear. ‘I know I’ve said that before. And when I said it before, all the kingdom turned against me. Suddenly all my useful little spells, the magic arts that enchanted
your own sword and shield
, branded me a witch. Well, now—here’s good news: I’m going to send you to a place without magic. A tedious groan of a place. You were so good with my giants, so I will send you to a world of giants.’

“‘Mother,’ said Morenwyn behind her.

“‘Daughter.’ Fray turned and answered. ‘You’ve been attracting flies again. Look at this dirty little thing I’ve caught.’

“‘Mother, I think he’s different.’

“‘Oh, they’re
all
different. Our differences make us special, darling—I think I saw an embroidered pillow once to that effect.’

“‘I’ll deal with Fi,’ said Morenwyn. ‘Please. Leave me with him.’

“‘We can’t let him go, Morenwyn. If he told the elves—’

“‘Why would he tell the elves?’

“‘Morenwyn,’ the witch said flatly. ‘You know what’s at stake.’

“I thought they both might have looked across to the tapestry then. It was hard to say. Morenwyn sighed.

“‘I will do what needs to be done,’ she said. ‘But
I
will do it.’

“‘Fine. Good. I’ll leave Nim to help you.’

“And Fray and the other giants did leave us then. Morenwyn stood before me. I would have bowed if I could.

“‘You always stood out, Fi,’ she said. ‘Even at your father’s court, even when you were all stumbling over one another to impress me with your contests. I could tell you let Fee win sometimes.’

“I could neither confirm nor deny this at the time, though in the interest of accuracy I’ll admit it’s true.

“‘Of course you know that Fee was here just before you. He didn’t ask me if I wanted a champion. He had me three-quarters rescued before he even asked me how I was doing.’

“I smiled then, in my mind.

“‘I was never kidnapped. I liked neither the warp nor weft of the future they were weaving me at court, so I sent for my mother. I
tried
to tell Fee this. Then Mother caught Fee, and she brought him here.’ Morenwyn strode briskly toward one wall, and Nim lifted me up and followed. Where she stopped there was a low stone stall, a pixie-sized stall, jutting out from the wall, and an octagon traced in chalk. She seemed to be taking some care not to get too close. ‘All of your brothers were brought here. Did Mother tell you about the doors?’

“
No
, I whispered back in my thoughts.

“‘Mother learned from her travels that the world is shrinking, dying. She meditated on this for a long time. And then she had the vision of the tapestry! And she learned more. There are doors all across the world, and they can’t be seen. Most, most by far, only open and close for a moment, and rarely in the same place twice. They lead to another world. A world, as my mother told you, without magic. A world without pixies or elves or any magical creature, she thinks. She’s explored but a little of it.

“‘But some of these doors, certain special doors, are open for weeks at a time. Rarer still are the doors that are always open. The Fay are desperate to find such doors. And we have four of them.’

“She gestured at the chalk octagon.

“‘This one goes to a kind of twin England. We know it to be filled with humans. Now look up there.’

“She raised her arm straight in the air, pointed at something too high and too dark to see. But then she tightened her fingers, and the motes of light far above us burned brighter. A crooked tower tunneled up from the castle ceiling. Across the base of it was strung a strong net. Near the top of it perched a dozen eagles.

“‘There’s a door up there, too. It opens onto a cliff face high above a desert. From time to time a human on the other side falls through and trades places with one of our eagles. We catch him in our net, and he joins our … happy family. I’m told Nim’s grandfather came here this way.’

“‘Yes’m,’ said Nim.

“‘The one they’re calling Rudesby joined us only weeks ago.’

“She paused and looked at the tapestry.

“‘There’s a door there, too.’

“After a moment she motioned to Nim, and he carried us both past the golden monolith and to another corner. There was a larger stall here, a gaping octagon.

“She stepped down lightly onto the floor. ‘The Fay want to find doors so they can escape this world, invade another, but Mother says they’ve turned wicked. She’s foreseen that the fairies will tear both worlds apart with their folly, and she fears that you’ll reveal her secret, tell them about these doors. She’d have me send you through that first door, to the human town. Like she did your brothers. I think … I think Mother’s too careless in sending good pixies there. I won’t send you through the second door either, which I understand leads to certain death. And the third’s a frozen desert. But this one,’ she said, nodding at the octagon, ‘nothing ever goes in or out of here.’

“Nim set me down inside the stall, right in front of the octagon. He set me down facing the wall.

“‘Mother says we’ll have to go through to the other world one day, too. She says our world is drying up. I think she’s saving this door for us. I’ll send you through, and you’ll be awaiting us when we come! Surely by then mother could be convinced to undo her spell.’

“‘Good-bye, Fi,’ she added. ‘May the Spirit keep you.’

“I did not know what I was waiting for, then,” Fi told Polly. “I did not know how the rifts worked, that a body had to change places with something of similar size on the other side to make the Crossing. So I stood rigidly in silence for a while, listening to Morenwyn breathe behind me.”

Fi was quiet. The road rumbled along beneath them. “Then what happened?” asked Polly.

Then Fi had felt a sensation as if something was moving through him, and a second later he wasn’t in the witch’s castle anymore.

“Oh,” Morenwyn said to the wriggling fish that had taken his place. “Oh, dear.”

CHAPTER 7

Fi had barely registered that he was underwater before he was swallowed by a different fish. A fish that had been fixing to eat the one Fi had just traded places with. The inside of a fish is generally less diverting than the outside, so Fi was left alone with his thoughts. He thought of the great pixie hero Cornwallace, whom the legends said had also once been swallowed by a fish, and had cut his way to freedom with his enchanted dagger. But Fi could not lift his arms, so he contented himself by merely wishing the fish misfortune, and would have been pleased to learn that it was eaten by an albatross a few moments later.