A Place Beyond The Map (7 page)

“Well? What did you do?”

“I’m getting to it. Let’s just say that Vermillion didn’t like the looks of himself in a dress.”

Phinnegan smiled to himself in the darkness and a small giggle escaped his lips.

“You painted a dress on the statue?” Phinnegan tried to imagine the statue of a tyrant, painted over with a dress

“Oh, I did more than paint, mate. It was a real dress. Bit of an evening gown, really, some shimmer and some sheer. Quite lovely, actually, on the right person. Of course Vermillion didn’t quite see it that way, as you might expect.”

While Phinnegan found the story quite funny, he thought it was a stretch to call such an act of defiance, while humiliating for Vermillion, treason. He sensed there was more to the Faë’s “criminal” activities than Periwinkle let on.

“But are you sure that’s all you have done, then? Stealing a few treasures and dressing up a statute is enough to be labeled a traitor? I don’t know if I like the sound of your world. Sounds a bit…mean.”

Though Periwinkle did not speak, Phinnegan could feel him shuffling in the darkness. He assumed that the Faë did not want to speak about anything else that may have happened. When he did speak, his voice was hollow and empty.

“There is one other thing that Vermillion holds against me.” He sighed. “And I hold it against him as well, rotten oaf that he is. Emerald Wren.”

“Emerald Wren? What – er, who’s that? Is that another Faë? A girl?”

“A girl yes, but not just another Faë. The most beautiful Faë that I’ve ever seen. We loved each other.”

Loved?

“Is she all right?”

“All right?” Periwinkle repeated. “Yes, she’s all right. At least I think she is. She’s Vermillion’s daughter, and I don’t know what he has done with her. He doesn’t approve of us, never has. Not even when we were young and just innocent friends catching starflies together.” The Faë again became silent.  Before Phinnegan could prod further, Periwinkle continued.

“He forbade us to be together or even see one another. I ignored him, of course. And now she is gone and I am a traitor.”

Phinnegan, who understood little about love - other than what he read about in his books - could not comprehend the Faë’s situation, but he could hear the sadness in Periwinkle’s voice.

“I’m…uh… I’m sorry. Do you know where she is now? Surely Vermillion would not have harmed his own daughter, right?”

“Well there’s a bit of the difficulty, mate. I have no way to know what he has done with her. I haven’t a clue. After I took her away-“

“Wait,” Phinnegan interjected. “You took her away? You mean you kidnapped her?”

“You could say that. She was willing, of course. As I said, we loved each other.”

“Well, I guess that’s all right then,” Phinnegan mused. “If she went with you willingly I guess it wasn’t really kidnapping.” But one thing still puzzled him. “Why do you keep saying ‘loved’? Don’t you still love her?”

“Of course I do!” Periwinkle cried, his voice filling with emotion for a moment.  When he continued though, he again sounded flat and hollow.

“I just figure it’s easier to think of her as in the past. Makes the loss easier to swallow, you know?”

“You mean you are giving up on her? Just like that?”

“I’m not giving up on anything,” Periwinkle retorted.  “I’m just being realistic.”

“Maybe if you just talked to him –“

“Have you not been listening?” the Faë interrupted. “He bloody well owns this world and he has no fond feelings towards me.”

“Well, if a way existed that you could be with her, would you do it?”

“Of course!”

“Well then, we just have to find out what that way is,” Phinnegan replied with a tone of finality.

“We?”

Phinnegan nodded, although the Faë could not see him in the darkness, of course.

“Yes, we. I’ll do all I can to help.” Phinnegan turned around in the darkness. “If you can get us out of here, that is.”

“Well that’s very kind of you, mate, though there is nothing that you can do to change his mind, that I know.”  He sighed.  “As for getting out of here, there’s only one way that I know.”

“And what’s that? Do you know a secret way out?” Phinnegan’s hopes rose as he contemplated escaping this stifling darkness.

“Not really a secret. This isn’t some kind of jail where you can pop of the barred window and flee to freedom. It’s a cavern at the bottom of a mountain. The only way out is up.”

“Well how do we go ‘up,’ exactly?”

“We wait.”

Phinnegan was confused.

“Wait for what? It’s dark and I am hungry. It’s well past supper time.”

The Faë only chuckled.

“I’m hungry as well, mate. But there’s nothing for it. When they’re ready, they’ll bring us up.”

“But how?”

He heard Periwinkle shuffling in the darkness and wondered what he was doing.

“I guess we will just have to wait and see. I’ve heard my fair share of tales, but there is no telling which one is true.”

“Well what are we supposed to do now?” Phinnegan groaned in frustration.

“Sleep.”

“Sleep? Now? How?” Phinnegan prodded.  “Periwinkle?”

Periwinkle ignored him, and before long he heard Periwinkle’s slow breathing.

Phinnegan sat in the darkness, contemplating his situation. He missed his family, his home. He had no idea how long they had already been gone, but his stomach told him it was indeed well past supper time.

Having nothing to eat, he decided to follow the Faë’s advice. He sank to his side and put his arm under his head for a pillow, laying in darkness and waiting for sleep to come.

CHAPTER 6

Féradoon

Phinnegan had just fallen asleep when he awakened to the sensation of movement. He couldn’t see in the darkness but the faint grating of stone on stone proved that they were moving. Not left and right or back and forth, but
up
, just as the Faë had predicted.

“Periwinkle, do you feel that?” Phinnegan called out into the darkness.

“Aye, mate. We’re on the move.”

“Should we…
do
anything?” Phinnegan queried.

“Nothing to do,” Periwinkle said with a sigh. “Just wait, like.”

After what seemed like half an hour Phinnegan noticed above them a ragged outline of faint light. As the light grew brighter, Phinnegan wondered what would greet them at the top.

The movement shuddered to a stop and the chamber filled with light.  Phinnegan shielded his eyes as the floor beneath him lurched upwards again.

Again the movement halted. Phinnegan sat motionless, his eyes shut against the light and his ears straining for any sounds. He heard a faint trickle of water and the echo of footsteps on stone.

Phinnegan opened his eyes. The light was blinding after the complete darkness of their prison below the mountain. When his eyes adjusted, Phinnegan saw that he was in a large chamber, lit by glowing torches mounted on hundreds of smooth, stone columns.   Goosebumps spread over his arms, and he rubbed them unconsciously. Phinnegan even saw his warm breath as it met the cold air.  He tilted his head, taking in the stone walls that stretched upward into impenetrable heights. 

He pushed himself to his knees and peered around the expansive chamber.  It was enormous. Looking left and then right, Phinnegan could not even discern the walls.  The room seemed to extend forever on both sides.  He tried to count the columns that surrounded him, but there were just too many.

Phinnegan spun around to the sound of echoing footsteps. He saw no one but Periwinkle, who sat a few feet away, gaping at the expanse of the chamber.

“Not one for grand things is he?” the Faë quipped.

“This is amazing,” Phinnegan whispered. “How did they build all this?”

“Well he didn’t do it himself, I can tell you that. Likely some poor Turnstones.”

“What are Turnstones? Some type of creature?”

The Faë shook his head.

“No mate, another clan. Quite reclusive group they are too. They prefer to work with their hands.” He gestured to the massive columns. “Grand things like this are not their normal fare; they’re more humble, like. But I know of no one else that has the ability to build something like this.”

Phinnegan stood and took a few steps toward one of the columns. He reached his hand out to touch the surface. “Smooth as glass,” he muttered to himself. A wide spiral wound its way up the column, and Phinnegan marveled at the perfection of the curve.

“It’s so smooth. How did they do it?”

“Don’t know, mate. Like I said, they’re a reclusive bunch and they guard their secrets. But before you go on admiring that, remember they likely only did it because they were forced to. No Turnstone would make something so…haughty…of his own accord.”

Phinnegan understood Periwinkle’s point, that these Turnstone Faës were forced by Vermillion to craft these stone columns like slaves. Still, he could not help but admire their beauty.

“Where are we? Is this still Féradoon?” Phinnegan asked.

“Aye, but now we’re somewhere closer to the top, I reckon,” the Faë responded, rising to his feet.  Periwinkle turned in a circle with his head tilted back looking upwards into the depths. “It’s a huge mountain in the south of our lands.  The stories speak of multiple prisons deep within the heart of the mountain and expansive halls and courts in the higher elevations. Vermillion himself has a palace upon the mountain’s peak. Castle Black.  Fitting name for a Wren.”

“Wren? So that’s his…clan?” Phinnegan asked, finally feeling as though he was grasping something of Faë culture.

“Yes, and what a rotten clan it is. Only ones worse are the Crows.”

“You asked if I was a Crow,” Phinnegan remarked.

“That I did. Sorry, but you never can be too careful. The Crows are trickier than most and you could have been one in disguise.”

“PERIWINKLE LARK!”

Both prisoners jumped at this sudden declaration.  Phinnegan recognized the loud booming voice that now reverberated off the far flung walls of the cavern.  It was the same one that had emanated from the wishing stone just before it had banished them to this mountain prison. The voice echoed many times over and bombarded his ears from all sides. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Faë cringe.

“This, my young friend, is going to be an adventure,” Periwinkle muttered out of the corner of his mouth, as he stared straight ahead. When Phinnegan followed the path of the Fae’s eyes, he saw only the same darkness beyond the light of the torches that he saw in every direction.

“Why are you staring like that?” Phinnegan whispered out of the corner of his own mouth, following Periwinkle’s example for a lack of a better alternative. “I don’t see anything out there.”

“Are you sure? To the right of that furthest, visible column, hidden within its shadow. Do you see it?”

Phinnegan leaned forward and squinted his eyes, trying to focus on the area surrounding the indicated column. At first he saw nothing, but when he shifted a bit to the right, he saw a flicker of movement. It looked more like a disturbance, a haze, than an actual figure.