 
### The Mirror in the Attic

By Karen Frost

Copyright 2014 Karen Frost

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

Chapter One–A Rainy Afternoon

Chapter Two–The Mirror in the Attic

Chapter Three–Devorian

Chapter Four–The Fox's Tale

Chapter Five–Rescue

Chapter Six–Morlach

Chapter Seven–Race to Tarah

Chapter Eight–The Heart of a Dragon

Chapter Nine–Out of the Frying Pan

Chapter Ten–The Beasts' Council

Chapter Eleven–Pursuit

Chapter Twelve–Reunion

Chapter Thirteen–Homegoing

Chapter Fourteen–The Hall of Heroes

Chapter Fifteen–The Immortal

Chapter Sixteen–The Last Unicorn

About the Author
Chapter One

A Rainy Afternoon

The snows are melting. I can feel it in my bones and in the air like water before a storm. We have run out of time. Soon, too soon, she will awaken. And then what?

Stuff and nonsense. The spell that holds her will last for several eternities and more. Magic that powerful can't easily be broken, you know.

The eternal flame is dying, Shamaraan; the snows are melting. The darkness gathers under every rock and in every hidden corner. The spell was not strong enough. The spell will not hold.

Well. It is best not to talk of these things. Even the trees have ears these days, it seems.

We stand on the edge of a great chasm. I only hope that we find the strength not to look down.

The streets were wet and miserable with the afternoon's rain and so the children sat inside playing checkers. In the streets outside, cars endlessly sloshed past one after another, splashing the sidewalk with waves of water that made a steady slapping sound which, if the children shut their eyes, sounded almost like the rush of the ocean against the beach. The angry red taillights of the cars looked like the blurry eyes of demons, and the curtain of ever falling raindrops softened the hard lines and edges of the world. The tall, stately streetlamps lining the street battled valiantly to cut through the white mist that pressed itself against the ground and bring light to the darkness, but their shafts of weak yellow light were battered and then swallowed up entirely by the blackness of premature night. Inside the small row house at 321 Baker's Row, a small fire snapped and danced in the fireplace, creating a protective circle of light against the encroaching dark outside. The children drank hot chocolate--real chocolate that had been melted into whole milk and ate small cookies as they lay on their stomachs warming their faces by the fire.

Mary Jane had just been out in the rain and her hair was drenched through. Now it clung like strings of red seaweed to the sides of her freckled face and dripped tiny droplets of water onto her red sweater. When she had entered the house, she had hung her yellow rain jacket on a peg near the door, and now it slowly dripped a pool of water onto the wood floor below it. Having removed her yellow rain boots as well, she joined her brother and sister before the fire, rubbing her hands together and scowling at the red and black checker pieces on the board before her. Her brother Jack, who had been inside the whole afternoon, was not watching the board but was instead looking out the large bay window and watching the steady stream of people running past it with their black umbrellas held before them like shields, trying to fight back the rain. He had been waiting for her to make her move. Maude, the youngest, paid them no attention, as she was busy reading a thick book with many words and no pictures.

It was early in the spring—still late winter, really—and the rains were especially bad. This seemingly endless rain had followed a particularly cold winter, and practically everyone in the city was irritable and bored after having been stuck indoors for so long. Jack, who several hours before had complained that he had never been so cold and unhappy in all his life, wore his thickest sweater and bright blue wool socks that his mother had knit for his last birthday. It did not help matters that the house was particularly draughty as a result of having been built in the early 1800s, when houses were insulated by straw stuffed between the brick walls. The sum of these factors was that the house's small library, where the fireplace was located, had recently become the children's favorite room, and the place where they spent the majority of their time when not at school.

In fact, the house itself did not commend itself particularly well to children's games. Located in the city, where space was rare and thus all houses squeezed into the most preposterous shapes and sizes, it was narrow, with three stories piled haphazardly on top of each other with little evident thought to aesthetic or functionality. On the first floor were the parlor, the kitchen, the dining room, and the library. On the second floor were the children's parents' bedroom, the bedroom shared by Mary Jane and Maude, and Jack's bedroom. The topmost floor was the attic. The attic was hardly ever used and had only one room, where the children's mother kept boxes of old knickknacks and unused furniture that had been in the house since long before they had moved in--which meant, according to Mary Jane, that its age was somewhat older than the discovery of the wheel but still younger than dinosaurs.

The game of checkers had not been exciting enough to attract more than tepid interest from either of the two players. Jack had won the past several games and Mary Jane had all but decided to forgo any attempt to continue the game, hence why she had left to slosh through a few puddles. She had been gone just long enough to come back soaking, but not long enough that her brother would inform on her to their mother. This was a common pattern in their games. Jack, the more strategic thinker, would withstand Mary Jane's early tactical victories in order to devastate her kings later in the game.

The two siblings were twins, but not the identical kind. Jack had his father's thick black hair and dark, dreamy eyes. Twelve years old, he was just barely shorter than his sister, but lanky, with ungainly long arms and legs like a newborn foal. His hair, cut short to his head when he was younger, grew down now almost to his eyes. Mary Jane, in contrast, had her mother's red hair, a sort of gold red that made her pale skin look even whiter, and eyes like pools of silver. Apart from the striking effect of her hair and eyes, however, she had no other distinguishing characteristics to speak of, being neither thin nor thick, tall nor short. The youngest of the three children, Maude, was a smaller version of her brother. Her black hair hung to her chain, where it was cut in a straight line that matched the equally sharp line of her bangs on her forehead. She was small and delicate, but her dark eyes glinted with a sharp and unsettling intelligence. Her brother and sister both felt very protective of her since they were older. Jack won another game, then pushed the board away and rolled towar the fire to warm his hands.

"I'm tired of this game," he complained.

Maude looked up at him curiously from the old red leather chair in which she was sitting. Mary Jane began to pack up the checkers, folding the board carefully and putting the box away on a shelf where they had made a space among all the beautiful leather-bound books that Mr. Shenstone, their father, kept. Jack stood and walked to the window to peer out again. It didn't seem possible, but the rain was falling even harder now. Fewer cars braved the roads, and all the half-drowned pedestrians had retired to some place warm and dry. The old grandfather clock in the hallway struck four with its usual solemnity. Maude sighed softly and closed her book, hopping off her father's chair and returning it to its proper place on the shelf. It was one of her father's history books, and she had to stand on her tiptoes in order to reach high enough to tap it back into place. Mary Jane gently took the book from her and put it away for her, then joined her brother at the window.

"Any more rain and we'll have to build a boat. We'll never get to school with several inches of rain in the streets," Maude observed, worming her way between her siblings and putting her chin in her hands. Her short black hair was held back from her round face by two little barrettes in the shape of daisies. Together, the faces of the three children just fit in the window, and they looked like three moons peering out into the night sky. Jack patted Maude on the top of her head and moved back to his place in front of the fire.

"Well I hate the rain," Mary Jane announced. "It ruins everything. There is nothing to do when it's raining."

"When it stops, we can go play in the park," Jack suggested.

"Everything will be wet," Mary Jane replied, making a face.

"Would you rather keep sitting inside?" Jack asked.

"It's never going to stop raining," May Jane said glumly. She made a face at the rain now, sticking her tongue out at it like a small child.

"It has to," Maude said matter-of-factly. "It can't rain forever. Besides, I like rain. Without rain, the plants can't grow and they die."

"What time will Mother and Father return?" Mary Jane asked impatiently.

Their parents had ventured out in spite of the rain to a small party hosted by one of Mr. Shenstone's university colleagues. Mr. Shenstone, being an esteemed professor of some quaint, obscure classical subject, was occasionally invited to such kinds of parties and he, being fond of the champagne and small dainty appetizers made of smelly cheeses frequently found at these types of events, did not often refuse. Mrs. Shenstone, of course, accompanied him, and thus it was that the children were left to care for themselves for the afternoon.

In truth, the children did not mind being left alone. In fact, it was perhaps for the best that they had such liberty at home. Nature, after all, had not intended Mr. Shenstone to be the sort of father who dedicated his free hours to the careless play of children. It was more accurate to say that Mr. Shenstone, for all his wondrous knowledge and keenness of insight, did not understand the concept of children. They did not fit into his world of dusty tomes and crumbling ruins. Mr. Shenstone could no more understand the three young creatures who bore an intriguing physical resemblance to him than he could understand why skirts were to the knee one year and to the ankle the next. It was not that he didn't love his children, for he did. Instead, it was that he simply didn't know how to handle them. He spent his life absorbed in books, and to him the knowledge they contained was more real than the nose on his face.

As a result, the task of raising the children had fallen entirely to their mother, Mrs. Shenstone. She was one of those thoroughly modern women who volunteered to work at a soup kitchen, campaigned for political issues, and sternly but lovingly raised her children in between hair appointments and lunch dates. She had once read in a book that children should be treated as small adults, and this became the philosophy by which she raised her three children. Because she was away so often helping the destitute or chairing the neighborhood watch, the children had learned to keep themselves busy without her, as they did now.

"I'm sure Mother and Father will be home for dinner," Jack replied.

His stomach rumbled at the mention of food. He was a growing boy, and felt hungry most of the time no matter how much he ate. Now he was cold, too. The wood almost all gone, the fire was slowly seeping back down into the embers, something like a greedy dragon settling over its hoard of gold. Without the fire to chase it away, cold air snuck in through the door and swirled down the chimney. Mary Jane wrapped her arms around herself and sat on her legs to keep them warm.

"Jack, what do you think Egypt is like? Do you think we could ever go? I want to ride a camel and see the pyramids," Mary Jane said suddenly, changing the subject.

Jack frowned, a thoughtful line creasing his forehead between his eyebrows.

"It's probably all desert. And hot. We could only go out for a few hours each day in the sun, and Mother would spend all her time worrying that we would get bitten by a mosquito and catch malaria. I guess it would be no fun at all, really," he said seriously.

"But just think of what it would be like! Us, riding across the yellow sands of the desert into the Valley of the Kings. King Tut's tomb!" Mary Jane said, her imagination running wildly.

"You can ride a camel in China," Maude suggested. "Of course, it's not the same. It's a Bactrian camel and not a Dromedary. That means it has two humps, not one, and it's shaggy like a dog."

"I wouldn't like to ride between two humps," Jack said with a frown.

"I would much rather ride a pony," Maude agreed.

Because the family lived in the city and always had, Maude had only seen a few horses in her life, and these were the brown, ewe-necked hackneys hitched to the decorative carriages that took revelers and lovers through the park at night. Maude added, "A white pony, with a long mane and tail and a red bow on its head."

"One that could bow and do circus tricks," Mary Jane finished with a laugh. Maude smiled, the corners of her mouth curling up like Cupid's bow.

"Well, I have an idea," Mary Jane announced. "There are dozens of boxes in the attic just full of old clothing. Maude, why don't we open some and dress you up like a little princess?"

"I hate the attic," Jack groaned. "It's musty and full of cobwebs. I'll be sneezing all night from the dust if I go in it."

"Then Maude and I will go and you can stay down here. Come on Maude," Mary Jane said, reaching for Maude's hand.

Maude put her tiny hand in her sister's and followed her out as Jack watched. At last he sighed loudly and got up to follow them. On the balance, he found the idea of staying, alone in the library, more undesirable than the stuffy attic air and the whisper of invisible spider webs against his cheeks. He jogged to catch up to his sisters and together the three walked up the two flights of stairs to the attic. At the top of the narrow black stairs was the attic door. Mary Jane turned the knob, and as the door swung open a terrific flash of white lightening burst across the small round window to their right and all the lights in the house went out. Maude screamed shrilly and grabbed her brother's legs. Jack in turn tripped and fell, toppling the two of them to the floor.

Mary Jane shouted, "Don't move! I'll go and fetch something from downstairs so we can see again."

Mary Jane carefully felt her way back down the rickety old stairs and into the kitchen, where by running her fingers over the counter tops and in drawers she eventually found two wax candles. In another drawer was a book of matches, and she struck a match to light the candles. The light was faint, but it would have to do. Coming back up the stairs again, she handed the larger of the two candles to Jack as he sat beside Maude on the floor. Jack held it before his face and looked around. Although the light painted his face a flickering orange, it did not penetrate far into the black room. Mary Jane stepped past her siblings and moved boldly further into the attic.

"We should go back down," Jack said unhappily. "It's too dark to see anything now."

Standing, he waved his candle around in the air before him to show how futile it would be to continue poking around in the dark. Mary Jane, however, was not listening. The pale light of her candle, which appeared to be suspended by invisible hands in midair since she herself was shrouded in darkness, swept across the walls and over row upon row of boxes and newspapers. The room was full of old trunks piled against and on top of each other, tilting at funny angles. Mary Jane stubbed her toe against a trunk and hopped and cursed for a moment.

"Where are all of these trunks from?" She wondered aloud. "They can't all belong to Mother and Father."

"They must have belonged to whoever lived in the house before us," Jack said.

He remembered that their parents had mentioned something about buying the house from a strange little man with tufts of wiry white hair growing from his ears, but that was as much as they had ever said about the house's former owner. Jack walked over to a greenish trunk and pushed open its heavy lid. He immediately began to cough as years of dust exploded like a miniature bomb from inside it.

"Everything in them is probably moth-eaten anyway," Mary Jane mumbled, mostly to herself. "They must be decades old."

"Look!" Jack exclaimed, illuminating a picture with his candle. Mary Jane moved closer to look at it, peering over his shoulder and struggling to make out the forms in the picture.

"That's Mother and Father!" She gasped. "They look so young!"

The picture showed two smiling young adults standing together in front of a lake. The man's black hair fell carelessly into his eyes behind round glasses with thick black frames. He was dressed smartly, but his tan pants were rolled at the bottom and he was barefoot. The woman was thin, with her hair curled at the bottom and held in place on her head by a single white clip. She wore a plain, pale blue dress with thin straps. Jack wiped away a thick layer of dust off the glass in order to see the picture more clearly. Mary Jane sighed, "She looks so beautiful."

"She looks so happy," Jack added.

"And Father looks so..." Mary Jane started to say.

"Like Father," Jack finished with a laugh. Indeed, the young version of their father wore the same expression of confusion and distraction that he did in the present. Jack gently put the picture back down in the trunk and shut the lid. Neither Jack nor Mary Jane noticed that Maude had wandered off.

"I can't imagine why they've kept some of these things for so long," Mary Jane said. She had opened a box and was holding up an unidentifiable piece of brown clothing that would never be worn again. She wrinkled her nose and threw it back down, though it just missed the box and instead landed on the floor. She continued pawing through various boxes and crates for a few minutes, then sat down on one of the trunks and watched the light from Jack's candle create fantastic shadows out of the objects in the room. Finally Jack, too, gave up his investigation of their parents' old things and came to join her, coughing from the thick dust they had stirred up by moving around the room.

"Where is Maude?" Jack asked. Mary Jane tried to peer through the blackness to the far corners of the attic, but the light from their two candles illuminated only the space a few feet beyond them.

"Maude?" Mary Jane called out. There came no reply, and she realized she couldn't hear Maude's small feet on the wooden floor either. She stood and began to thread her way through the room, calling out to her younger sister and holding the candle in front of her.

"I'm here," Maude called back finally, as if from a great distance.

Mary Jane dismissed the idea as foolish, however, and decided that the effect was actually an echo, as the attic was not so very large. She hurried to her sister, Jack a few steps behind. Maude was standing in front of a large oval mirror, peering into it. Mary Jane was surprised that Maude had found the mirror at all in the darkness, but there was a hole in the ceiling above her and through it Mary Jane could see that the rain had stopped and been replaced by a slowly sinking sun, some of whose rays found their way through the hole in the form of a spear-like shaft of light. This sunbeam provided just enough light for Maude to see her own reflection in the mirror. Jack shivered with cold and looked up out of the hole.

"At least it's stopped raining," he said, "but we should tell Mother and Father that there's a hole in the roof. No wonder it's always so cold in the house."

"I think the hole is new," Mary Jane said, picking up the piece of the roof that had fallen in. It was approximately the size of her palm.

She continued, "You see? It still feels wet, but it must have fallen in the last few minutes or else there would have been a pool of water on the floor from the rain falling through the hole. It's a good thing the rain stopped, too, or else a good deal of water would have come through. I wonder what made the hole? Still, it's a good thing we found it or else who knows when we might have discovered it. Maude, is this how you found the mirror? From the light coming in through the roof?"

Before Maude could answer, Mary Jane continued, "I guess it's a nice enough mirror, but it looks old. I don't think I've ever seen a mirror like it. Unless it was in a museum, perhaps."

The mirror was had the dignified, shabby elegance of something that had once been quite regal but had long ago fallen into disrepair. It stood hidden away between a brown trunk and a sagging pile of yellowing newspapers. Two thick wooden legs supported its oval, mirrored surface, which was bordered by a twisted wooden frame that had been painted gold to look like a golden rope. The paint had dulled with time and in some areas had begun to flake or chip away, revealing the darker wood beneath. The light from the outside sky was not enough to fully illuminate the mirror, and Mary Jane and Jack could see nothing in its black face other than the flickering orange light of their candles despite their curious peering.

"Come on, Maude, let's go back downstairs," Jack coaxed. "I'm sure Mother and Father will worry about us if we're still in the attic when they come home. How did you find your way to this old thing? It will be hard enough to get back to the stairs without falling over all the boxes and trunks."

"I heard something," Maude replied in a voice so soft that Jack barely heard her. "Singing. I heard singing and followed it until I found the mirror."

Neither Jack nor Mary Jane truly listened to what their sister told them. They began to pull at the sleeves of Maude's white dress to lead her away, but she shook her head and continued staring at the mirror.

"Come on," Jack urged, "it's just a mirror. You have one in your room. It's not even all that pretty, really."

Maude shook her head slowly, and one of the barrettes fell unnoticed to the floor.

"No, Jack, I did hear it. I heard it singing. But it wasn't the mirror singing, exactly. Everyone knows mirrors don't sing. It was something _in_ the mirror."

"That sounds like something from a book, Maude," Mary Jane said sternly. "Have you been reading Alice in Wonderland again? You shouldn't confuse what you read with real life. Let's go downstairs and we can color in one of your coloring books if you'd like. Would you like that?"

Maude nodded, but unhappily, and followed behind her brother and sister as they led her back to the stairs, her mouth pressed into a firm line. When she looked back, she could still see the shaft of pale light from the outside shining on the mirror. And in the mirror, she thought she saw a flash of movement, but it was only a cloud passing over the roof.
Chapter Two

The Mirror in the Attic

The children were sitting in the library once more, drawing pictures with Maude when their parents returned home. Mrs. Shenstone stood for a moment in the hall hanging her coat on a hook. Her red hair--mostly natural--was as perfectly combed and styled as always. Mary Jane wished, as she always did, that her hair could be like her mother's, but it seemed to have a mind of its own and would not be tamed. Mrs. Shenstone removed her gloves, placing them neatly on the shelf beside the door, then ran her long fingers through her hair absentmindedly. It was at that moment that she saw the puddle of water that had been accruing under Mary Jane's dripping jacket since she had hung it up an hour before. A shrill screech emerged from her pink lips that echoed all the way up to the attic. Mary Jane winced and put down her colored pencil.

"Mary Jane!" Her mother roared. Mary Jane slinked into the hallway, her eyes on the floor and her body collapsing into itself. Her mother was standing with her hands on her hips, glaring angrily.

"Mary Jane, you know to shake your jacket out outside before hanging it up! Now there's water all over the floor. Just look at this mess. Go and grab a rag and wipe the water up," Mrs. Shenstone commanded.

Mary Jane obediently set off to the kitchen to find a rag with which to wipe the water while her mother changed out of her party dress and her father sat down wearily in his leather chair. Jack and Maude, now evicted from the library by their father's return, retreated to Jack's room with their papers and pencils. Mary Jane dried the puddle as best she could, sweeping the rag over the water in large arcs, then joined her siblings upstairs and she and Jack set about finishing their homework while Maude continued drawing pictures of white ponies.

At seven on the dot, their mother called them down for dinner. Dinner was a casserole, made of green vegetables, cheese and ground beef. Mr. Shenstone sat uncomfortably at one end of the table, staring at his food as though he was afraid it might sprout legs and walk away. Mrs. Shenstone sat at the other end, scrutinizing her children with her hawk-like eyes. She heaped a spoonful of casserole on Mary Jane's plate while asking, "Well Jack, how was school today?"

"Fine," Jack said, his mouth full of casserole. "We're going on a field trip next week to the museum. We're going to look at dinosaur bones and mummies and old rocks and whatnot."

"Well don't get lost, dear, it's a big museum. Stay with your class and don't wander off," his mother admonished, sipping her tea.

The steam rose from the hot water and curled around her nostrils. Jack bowed his head obediently and kept eating. No one at the table noticed that Maude was secretly slipping bits of broccoli from the casserole into her napkin. Maude hated broccoli, but her mother never noticed and so she hid it in her napkin and later threw it in the bushes when her mother wasn't watching. When no one else spoke, Maude said, "Where did the mirror in the attic come from?"

Her mother put her fork down and looked at her in surprise. Maude almost never spoke at dinner. Jack elbowed her under the table and then gave her a significant look, silently urging her not to ask.

"What do you mean, Maude? There is no mirror in the attic," she said.

"Yes there is," Mary Jane said, piping up. "We saw it today."

"Why did you go up there?" Mrs. Shenstone asked. She looked around at her three children, puzzled.

"We couldn't go out because of the rain, so we decided to explore the attic instead," Mary Jane answered. Mrs. Shenstone looked thoughtful for a moment.

"No, no, I'm quite sure there are no mirrors in the attic, children," she answered firmly.

Having given her opinion, she began eating again. Mary Jane frowned and looked across the table at Jack, who frowned back at her and then pushed a large piece of broccoli into his mouth.

"How can you be sure? There are so many things in the attic. You could have easily missed seeing it, especially if it doesn't belong to you and Father. It could have been here before you bought the house. It's so unusual; not like any mirror I've ever seen. It looks like the sort of mirror Snow White's evil stepmother might have used," Mary Jane insisted, inexplicably desperate to prove that the mirror existed.

Her mother sighed and put her fork down once more.

"Perhaps you're right, dear. The man who lived here before us, Mr. Lewis, left some things in the attic. He didn't want to take it all with him when he moved. He had quite a lot of trunks, as I recall. And an armoire, I think."

"So he could have left a mirror and you might not know," Mary Jane persisted.

"I don't see why it matters," Mrs. Shenstone said. "But no, in any case I'm quite certain he didn't leave a mirror; only boxes and trunks. Now really, children..."

"But we _saw_ the mirror, Mother. We _saw_ it; it's there," Mary Jane protested.

"Well then, there must be a mirror, mustn't there be, hmm? I suppose it must have slipped my mind. I haven't been in the attic in ages. Now, who wants desert? Mr. Shenstone?"

Mr. Shenstone blinked dreamily. He said as though continuing a conversation that had already begun, "Children, your mother and I will be going away for a few days. I will be presenting at an academic conference and I have asked your mother to accompany me. We will be leaving tomorrow at eight in the morning."

"Tomorrow?" Jack repeated. Both Maude and Mary Jane looked astonished.

Mrs. Shenstone added calmly, "I've asked our dear neighbor Mrs. Peters to take care of you while we're away."

The children looked at each other in horror. Their parents might have believed that Mrs. Peters was a warm, jovial woman, but they knew that once the Shenstones were gone Mrs. Peters ruled the house mercilessly, forcing the children to spend hours dusting the curtains, scrubbing the sinks, and polishing the silver. Mrs. Peters would sit on their father's favorite leather chair and dribble crumbs into the crease between the seat and the back. She would make Mary Jane cook her pies and make her finger sandwiches. She would order Jack to mop the floor. She would make Maude rub her fat white hands, moaning that they had been worked to the bone.

"But Mother, we can take care of ourselves," Jack said, thinking quickly.

"No you cannot," his mother replied. "I simply cannot understand why you children dislike Mrs. Peters so. She has been nothing but kind to you and you look like death every time I say her name. She will be watching you for the next three days and that's the end of it."

~*~

The next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Shenstone kissed their children goodbye before they left for school. When they returned, their parents would be gone and Mrs. Peters would be there in their place. Mrs. Shenstone fixed the big, pink bow on Maude's white hat and brushed her daughter's black hair back behind her ears, then fussed with the lapels of Jack's blue corduroy jacket. Mrs. Shenstone said to her children, "Don't fret now, it's only for three days. Do be good for Mrs. Peters."

Mary Jane frowned sourly, but her mother did not see, and just then the school bus arrived. The children shuffled dismally into it and arranged themselves on a single seat, Maude at the window. They watched their mother waving to them as the bus pulled away from the curb, and that was the last they saw of her. When they came home from school, Mrs. Peters was waiting for them at the door. She handed Mary Jane a bucket of soapy water and a rag, and Jack a straw broom. To Maude she handed a feather duster so old that it was missing more feathers than it still had.

Mrs. Peters bellowed in her thunderous voice, the skin under her chin shaking, "You will clean this house until it sparkles. I want to see my reflection in every window. Jack, you will sweep the floors and use the broom to knock down cobwebs from the corners of rooms. Maude, dear, you will dust each room. You know I'm allergic to dust. Dinner will be at six sharp and I want you all washed up and clean before then."

"Yes, Mrs. Peters," the children said obediently.

Mrs. Peters turned on her heel and marched away without further ado. She listed as she walked, like a Spanish galleon at sea during a storm, or a drunken elephant crashing through an Indian forest. Mary Jane looked at Jack, who looked at Maude, who looked back at Mary Jane. Their expressions were grave. Jack shrugged, and wordlessly put his broom to the floor and began sweeping. Mary Jane threw her stained yellow rag into the bucket and dropped the bucket to the floor rebelliously.

"I won't do it," she announced, stomping her foot against the ground dramatically. "It's our house, not hers."

"She won't let you have dinner if you don't do what she says," Maude warned.

"I don't care. I'll starve if I have to. Come on, Maude, let's go do something else. Anything else."

She grabbed Maude's hand and began dragging her younger sister toward the stairs. Jack grabbed Maude's other hand to stop Mary Jane from taking her and Maude was momentarily pulled in two directions at once like a rag doll.

Jack growled, "You can get yourself in trouble if you want, but I won't let you drag Maude into it."

"You can be Mrs. Peters' slave if you like, but I won't and I won't let Maude be either," Mary Jane snarled back.

With a hard yank, she pulled Maude out of Jack's grasp and dragged her up the stairs behind her. Jack watched them go for a moment and then looked around for Mrs. Peters. When he didn't see or hear her, he dropped his broom and followed them. He called after Mary Jane softly, "You had better not go to your room; she'll find you there. Maybe we can hide in the attic. I don't think she'll walk up both sets of stairs, even if it is to scold us."

Mary Jane paused, then nodded silently in agreement and kept walking up to the attic as quietly as she could. The light coming into the attic from the small round window on the north wall was weak, but it allowed the children to see more of the room than they had the day before. Mary Jane looked more closely at the battered old trunks scattered about the attic; some were covered by foreign stickers from exotic places in Africa and Asia.

"These must have belonged to Mr. Lewis," she said, her voice rising with excitement. "I'm sure Mother and Father have never traveled so far away."

She ran her fingers over the worn edges of the trunks lovingly and played with their ancient locks, then began to throw back the lids of some of the trunks that were not locked. Jack followed her and began opening trunks as well. They found shimmering silk kimonos in red and orange, ornate drinking horns carved from the horns of sheep and oxen, fierce wooden tribal masks, and colorful cotton saris in every color of the rainbow. The cloth was old, however, and in some places moths had eaten through the beautiful fabric. Mary Jane held a fine white kimono against her skin and sighed. It was several inches too long for her.

"Perhaps Mother could shorten it..." she murmured wistfully to herself.

Jack picked a pipe up from the same green trunk from which Mary Jane had withdrawn the kimono and turned it over.

"Mr. Lewis certainly was a traveler," he commented as several dried flakes of tobacco fell from the bowl of the pipe and onto the floor. He wrinkled his nose at it and kicked it with the toe of his shoe.

"Where's Maude?" Mary Jane asked suddenly. "Have we lost her again?"

"She's probably looking at the old mirror again," Jack said. "Maybe we could carry it down to your room for her. I think she would like that."

"And," he added with quiet distaste, "then we wouldn't have to come back to the attic anymore."

He replaced the pipe in the trunk gently and he and Mary Jane waded further into the attic. As expected, they found Maude sitting on the ground staring at the mirror.

Jack tapped her gently on the shoulder and said, "Maude?"

Neither he nor Mary Jane paid attention to the mirror before them. Maude said quietly, "I was watching."

Mary Jane frowned, her mouth quirked down. It was the same expression her mother often made.

"Watching what, Maude?" She asked.

Maude pointed her small index finger at the mirror.

"The bunny in the mirror," she replied.

Jack and Mary Jane's eyes automatically followed Maude's finger to the mirror. When they looked, however, rather than seeing three children peering back at them from a dimly lit room full of boxes and trunks, they saw trees, and under one of the trees a small brown bunny was nibbling a leaf. The detail was so accurate that they could see the individual brown hairs on the rabbit's body and every blade of grass. Having chewed for a moment at the leaf, the bunny began to hop away, its pink nose twitching. The grass was pushed down as the rabbit passed over it, and the branches of the trees above swayed gently and their leaves rustled as a gust of wind passed through them.

"But it's a mirror," Mary Jane said. " I don't understand."

"It must be some sort of trick," Jack replied, although his voice was uncertain. "The mirror must actually be something else."

"Well of course it's a trick," Mary Jane said, her voice equally uncertain.

Jack stepped forward and felt around the mirror with his hands. Surely there was some hidden mechanism within it that allowed it to project what they were seeing. And yet, what they saw in the mirror was impossibly lifelike. Looking into the mirror was like looking through a window, with the bunny just a few feet away on the other side. Jack felt nothing, only the flat wooden back of the mirror; behind that was the attic wall and nothing else. Nor did the thick wooden legs of the mirror hold secret wires or any way to bring electricity to the mirror. Jack tapped the legs to see if they were hollow, but heard only the dull thud of solid wood in response.

"It's not a trick," Maude told him calmly.

Jack and Mary Jane looked at their sister in surprise.

"What do you mean, Maude?" Mary Jane asked.

Mary Jane smoothed her shirt nervously. The mirror made her nervous, although she did not know why. She watched it out of the corner of her eye, unable to look at it directly. Maude picked up a piece of paper off the floor. It was a pocket map of France. Mary Jane thought she most likely had pulled it from a trunk and thrown it toward Maude when she was rummaging through the trunks a few minutes earlier. The map was only as thick as a piece of paper, but Maude held it in her fist so that it stood up straight. Then she moved her hand so that the map was directly in front of the mirror. As the children watched, the map fluttered. It fluttered in the unmistakable way that paper does when struck by wind.

"You see?" Maude whispered gently.

It was then that Jack noticed Maude's hair drifting. It was being carried subtly away from the direction of the mirror by the same invisible wind. Jack stood on shaky legs and stepped closer. The rabbit in the mirror hopped completely out of view and only the trees, waving in the breeze, remained.

He muttered desperately, "I'm certain there must be some explanation for it. It's simply not possible..."

"These things don't really happen," Mary Jane babbled. "Only in books..."

Mary Jane remembered her words to Maude the day before about Alice in Wonderland and she was prompted to glance down at her younger sister, who she had momentarily forgotten in her panic over the discovery of the strange properties of the mirror. Maude had been silent while her siblings tried to solve the mystery of the mirror because being only five years old, she still saw the world as being naturally full of wonderful and magical things, both of which the mirror was. Now she moved closer to it, her eyes fixed upon what she saw inside. She stretched her arm out towards the mirror, leaning forward on the balls of her feet with an expression of awe and excitement. Then something unexpected happened. Her hand went through.
Chapter Three

Devorian

Mary Jane screamed. The sound was shrill and cut through the thick air of the attic like a knife. Her feet were rooted to the ground, but Jack lunged to grab Maude. He caught hold of her by both shoulders and pulled backwards, trying to draw her back from the mirror. Maude's arm was pushed in up to her elbow now. As it started to pull back out of the mirror, the mirror's surface rippled like a lake where a pebble has been thrown in. Still, her arm slid easily back out. Jack had caught Maude by surprise, and now she ducked away from him. Inside the mirror, her hand jerked to the side.

Distracted by the sight of Maude's hand moving, all three stopped at once, to gape at the mirror. Inside it, they could see Maude's pale little fingers clearly; they had become part of the forest scene. Maude closed her fingers into a fist and opened them again. She wiggled them. The action reminded Jack of what he had been doing, and he pulled her away once more, this time causing her hand to be drawn out of the mirror completely. Jack stared at the mirror fearfully, but Maude was calm.

"It's warmer there," Maude declared thoughtfully, turning her hand back and forth in front of her face.

Jack stared at her hand, then at the mirror, too shocked to speak.

"She went right through it," Mary Jane murmured in amazement. "Her hand went through the mirror and into that place, wherever it is."

"It was probably a trick of the light," Jack said weakly, his face completely white. "Maude's hand couldn't have gone through that mirror; that's impossible. It's a _mirror_ , not a...a..."

He couldn't finish the sentence because he didn't know what else it could be. According to everything that he knew, it was impossible for Maude's hand to have passed through the mirror. And yet, he couldn't deny what his own eyes had seen.

"Jack, you saw it," Mary Jane replied. "If Maude's hand didn't go through, what did it do?"

"I don't know," Jack replied miserably.

Neither of them bothered to ask Maude what she thought of the mirror, although she had been the one with her arm stuck through it. Mary Jane was more headstrong than her brother, and so to prove to him that Maude's misadventure hadn't just been some sort of optical illusion, she marched right up to the mirror and stuck her arm in all the way to the shoulder. She immediately felt the difference between the slightly humid heat of the forest and the dry, cool attic air. The difference made the tiny hairs on her arms stand on end. She shivered nervously and pulled her arm out quickly.

"It's real," she gasped. Even though she had believed that her arm would be able to pass through the mirror, she was still surprised that it did.

She whispered fearfully, "What do we do, Jack?"

"Cover the mirror up and let's go back downstairs. We don't know where it came from or what lives in it. It could be dangerous," Jack said gruffly.

He refused to look at the mirror and fixed his eyes instead upon the floor.

"It's a _magic_ mirror," Maude breathed, her dark eyes shining brightly. "And it's wonderful."

"It's not wonderful. We should forget that it's here and never look at it again. And certainly never touch it!" Jack exclaimed.

He rubbed the heel of palms against his temples nervously.

"We don't know that it's dangerous," Mary Jane suggested.

"We could go through it!" Maude exclaimed.

Her voice vibrated with excitement. Her siblings looked at her aghast.

"Go through it?" Jack repeated dubiously. "As in, entirely?"

"Yes. I think we should see what's on the other side," Maude said.

"We don't know anything about that mirror," Jack all but wailed. "We didn't know it even existed until yesterday. There could be anything on the other side. We could become trapped in it. What if it only works one way and we're stuck forever on the other side? How would we ever get out? Mother and Father would never know what became of us."

Mary Jane looked at the mirror thoughtfully.

"What if we did go in? We could use a rope," Mary Jane suggested practically. "One of us could go through the mirror, and if something happened we could pull her back out."

"Absurd!" Jack scoffed. "Let's stop this nonsense and let it be."

"Well I don't think it's dangerous," Mary Jane announced, forgetting that moments before she had been much less certain.

She and Jack proceeded to quarrel hotly about the mirror and its alleged dangers. Mary Jane became increasingly bold in her assertions that exploring the other side of the mirror would be an excellent adventure, while Jack detailed at length all of the dangers and catastrophes that could befall them if they did so. As they bickered, Maude slipped past them unnoticed and walked bravely straight through the mirror. It was only several minutes later that Mary Jane glanced at the mirror and saw her sister inside, touching the leaves of the trees with gentle hands. Mary Jane started in surprise.

"Jack! Oh Jack, Maude's in the mirror! We have to get her out! Maude, can you hear me? Maude!"

Maude had her back to them and showed no sign of having heard her sister's cries. She lay down on the grass and ran the palm over her hand over the individual green blades, enjoying the feel of the wind across her face. She sighed and closed her eyes, letting the sun warm her.

"She can't hear us. We'll have to go rescue her. We need to find a rope," Jack said.

He began pawing through the trunks and boxes next to the mirror in the attic, sifting through years and years of accumulated junk and knickknacks. He threw empty cans, old glass bottles, tattered bed sheets and fragile ceramic figurines carelessly to the floor as he searched. When he could find no actual rope, he began to tie shirts and pants together into a makeshift rope.

"This will have to do," he said, chewing on his lower lip.

"I'm coming with you," Mary Jane announced.

Jack frowned, still hastily tying clothing together to make the rope as long as possible.

"You have to stay. Otherwise who will pull us out? It will do no good if we're all trapped inside the mirror."

"We'll pull ourselves out. Look, we'll tie one end of the rope to something in the attic and hold onto the other end once we go in."

Jack nodded, and looked for something heavy to tie the rope to. He decided upon a large, red, metal trunk. He and Mary Jane worked together to drag it closer to the mirror and Jack tied the rope to its steel handle cinching it in as tight a knot as he could make. He was skeptical that the trunk would be heavy enough to hold their weight. He suspected that if they did have to climb back out, they would find themselves instead dragging the trunk through the mirror with them, but they had no other choice. He threw the other end of the rope into the mirror. It passed through easily and landed next to Maude, who, hearing the sound it made as it struck the ground, looked at it with confusion.

Taking a deep breath, Jack jumped through the mirror. The feeling of passing through completely was exactly like that of jumping into water, only when he arrived on the other side he was not wet. He tumbled to the ground, and when he rolled to his knees he looked up to see where he had come from. He expected to see the mirror, with Mary Jane standing on the other side and the dimly lit attic behind her, but instead all he saw was a tree. It was a fat tree, full of knots and gnarled branches, and the rope of clothing that he had thrown through the mirror moments earlier seemed to grow right out of its center. Then he saw nothing because Mary Jane hurtled out of the tree and crashed right into him. Maude, who had been watching it all, looked at the two of them lying on the ground and giggled.

"See?" she said. "It's not dangerous."

Jack slowly got to his to his feet and walked over to where the rope emerged from the tree bark. Though the tree looked solid, his hand passed through it as effortlessly as though it was air.

He muttered anxiously, "We should leave now, while we know we still can."

"It would be a shame to leave without looking around a little first," Mary Jane said. "Must we go so soon? We could stay a little longer."

"It's like a fairytale land," Maude agreed. "Oh Jack, please can't we stay for a little while more?"

"It can be our secret place," Mary Jane added. "We can come here to escape from Mrs. Peters."

Jack frowned.

He said reluctantly, "Fine, but we must have a way to find this tree again. If we don't, we may never get back and we could be trapped here forever."

"We can leave a trail, like Hansel and Gretel," Maude suggested.

She looked around, then began to break off small twigs the length of her index finger from the trees around her and stick them in her pockets.

Holding one up, she said, "We can use these. If we drop them as we walk, we can follow them back to the tree."

"It won't work, Maude. We'll never be able to see them to follow them back," Jack said.

Mary Jane knew that it would be almost impossible to find the tiny sticks again, but she wanted to explore.

Taking Maude's hand, she said breezily, "I think it's a wonderful idea, Maude. Let's go. Who knows what we might find!"

They began to walk away, Maude carefully dropping the broken-off sticks as she walked. Jack hesitated for a moment, glancing back at the not-tree and the strange rope of mismatched clothing protruding from its trunk, then chased after them. The forest was bright and sunny and cheerful. The trees were spaced far enough apart that the children could see large patches of bright blue sky above them filled with fluffy white clouds. They walked on thick green grass that was occasionally dotted with small white and purple flowers and they could hear the sound of birds calling to each other in their musical songs far away. When they came across a small brook running through the forest, they knelt down to drink.

"I'm hungry," Maude said, her stomach rumbling.

She swept her fingers through the cool water, watching as it eddied and swirled in response. A swarm of tadpoles rushed past, the tiny tails waving behind them like flags. The water was cool, but not cold.

"Maybe there are some berries or mushrooms in the forest to eat," Mary Jane replied.

She had never before tried to eat things that she found outside, but she had read about it and knew it was possible.

"You had better not eat them if there are," Jack warned. "They could be poisonous. How would you know?"

Then Mary Jane had an idea.

She asked almost nervously, "Jack, you don't suppose people live here, do you?"

"In the forest?" Jack asked, perplexed.

"No, in...well, wherever we are," Mary Jane replied.

"I don't know," Jack said slowly.

He looked around with new eyes. It had not occurred to him that they might not be alone in the forest. The idea was not a pleasant one to him and he frowned.

"In any case we might as well keep walking," Mary Jane said lightly. "Maybe further on we'll find people, and they might have food."

And so they did, not knowing whether they were moving deeper into the heart of the forest or out towards its edge, if indeed it had one. They were grateful that the forest floor was so grassy and soft for, not having expected to leave the attic when they entered it that day, they were not wearing shoes. They were also glad that the weather was temperate, and that there was neither rain nor excessive sunlight, because they were prepared for neither. As they walked, they guessed at the time by watching the path of the sun as it moved in an arc across the sky above them.

The novelty of this new world quickly wore off, however, and the children found themselves wishing that the quiet and serene wood would reveal to them some strange and wonderful surprise. After all, they had seen nothing yet that they could not have seen if they but traveled several miles from their own home at Baker's Row. They had been walking for perhaps half an hour when they came upon a furry, medium-sized animal sitting on the ground eating something in its front paws.

"Oy there, you lot! Oy! Tripping over me while I eats me dinner," the creature protested, placing the piece of fruit that it had been eating in a wicker picnic basket sitting on the ground before standing to get a better look at them.

"Jack, what is it?" Mary Jane gasped.

"That's manners for you, calling me an 'it' like I can't hear ye," it grunted.

"It's a badger," Maude said matter-of-factly.

"It talks!" Jack exclaimed.

The badger, with its distinctive black and white striped face, walked over to Jack standing on its back legs and peered up at him. The badger barely reached past Jack's waist. Its black nose twitched as though it were smelling Jack.

"Of course I can talk. What do you takes me for, a fool? Oy, you're a funny lot now, aren't you? You lost?"

The badger's nose twitched again as he looked at the three children with his beady black eyes. Despite his gruff tone, he didn't seem dangerous.

Mary Jane answered bravely, "Yes, we are. Or rather, we've come from someplace else and we don't quite know where we are."

"Don't know where ye are, luv? We're in the Green Forest, o' course. You must be right turned around if ye didn't know that. Well, I don't blame ye what with things a-changing in the past few days, but ye've got to keep yer head set on straight; no use losing one's head I always say. Now where's me manners? The name's Hamish Bushy, and it's a pleasure to meet you even if ye are lost."

The children smiled at the badger's good manners and introduced themselves. Then the badger gathered up the black and red plaid blanket that he had been eating upon and folded it into a wicker picnic basket. The children saw no silverware, for apparently he had been eating with his paws. Only a small white napkin, which he now gently picked up with his sharp black claws and used to daintily wipe his mouth.

Jack said in his most respectful voice, "Mr. Bushy sir, we don't know where the Green Forest is. Certainly I've never seen it on a map before."

The badger looked at him, his head cocked to the side, then drawled, "Well bless me soul, ye really don't know where ye are? The Green Forest is in Devorian, but surely ye've got a notion of Devorian, haven't ye?"

The children shook their heads.

Mr. Bushy looked more closely at each of them and then muttered, mostly to himself, "But surely ye can't be hummans. It's been a hundred years since hummans were last seen in Devorian if it's a day."

The children began to smile and nod.

Maude said encouragingly, "Yes, Mr. Bushy, we are. Only it's not hummans--it's pronounced _humans_."

"Well bless me soul," the badger said in awe. "To think that I'd see the day when humans were in Devorian again. But you're such small humans—I thought you lot were bigger. Taller, that is."

"We're children," Maude said.

"You what? I thought you said you were humans."

"We're like cubs," Maude offered. "Baby humans. We're not all grown up yet."

The badger sat back on his haunches and considered them thoughtfully.

"Well so ye are," he said at last. "Humans."

Questions swirled in the children's minds, so many that they crowded together and bumped into each other and left the children speechless. Nor was the badger much less amazed, although for different reasons.

Mary Jane spluttered, "If not humans, who lives here?"

"What, in the forest? All sorts of creatures: deer, squirrels, rabbits, bears. There's plenty o' folk wandering around these parts," the badger replied.

"And they all _talk_?" Jack asked incredulously.

"Some o' them won't _stop_ talking," the badger said, clearly amused by his own joke.

Maude giggled.

"Is there anyone else?" Jack asked.

"What to you mean?" Mr. Bushy asked.

"Things other than animals," Jack tried to explain awkwardly. "Things like...other humans?"

"Oh no, no, not here."

"Mr. Bushy, you said there used to humans here. Where did they go?" Mary Jane asked.

The badger flopped down heavily on his rump on the grass and motioned with his big paws for the children to do so as well. Maude and Mary Jane sat down on either side of him, but Jack remained standing, shifting his weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably. Maude reached out to take the badger's paw, and he allowed her to do so. She kept it in her lap, stroking the top absentmindedly.

"Oh my. Let me see now: a very long time ago, in the time of me very great grandfather, there used to be many a human roundabout these parts. Aye, mayhaps as many as there are animals now. But then the wild magic came to Devorian and changed everything. Turned it upside down, ye might say. Wild magic, as ye know, is unpredictable. That means no one can control it, and no one can say what it will do. So the story goes, when it touched the humans, it turned them into brutes. Overnight they became wild. They left their cities and homes and scattered like seeds in the wind No human's been seen since. If any are still alive, they're not in Devorian, I kin tell ye.

'Bless me, these are all tales I heard as a wee youngling. I haven't thought of them in years. Me pa used to tell 'em to me when I was sitting on his knee. Well, begging yer pardons, but I've really got to be getting back to me work now. I've got holes to dig, ye know, and the Missus will be upset if I'm home late again. If yer be wanting to know more about the history of humans in Devorian, there's what ye might call a historian right near to here. So follow along if ye like, otherwise good day to ye."

He stood, quickly smoothed his fur with his paws, then picked up the picnic basket and began to trundle off through the woods in the curious rollicking gait of a badger. The children looked at each other wordlessly, then seemed to reach a silent conclusion to follow him. Intrigued by the short tale of the downfall of humans in Devorian as told by the talking badger, Maude forgot to keep dropping twigs.

~*~

The children had to hurry to keep up with the quick moving badger, which was surprising since his legs were so much shorter than their own. Maude would have had to run to keep up, so Jack lifted her and carried her piggyback with her thin legs wrapped around his stomach and her tiny feet locked together. The children and the badger walked for several minutes through parts of the forest that all looked the same until the badger at last stopped in front of a little green hill in a clearing in the forest. There was a small, rounded door set into the side of the hill, while a red brick chimney sat smack dab on the top and puffed plumes of white smoke. Inside the two perfectly round windows on the side of the hill, which was not so much a hill as much as a house made to look like one, the children could see blue curtains and a small sitting room with chairs. The door was painted a serene yellow and had a little metal bell set outside with a thin rope hanging down from it. The entire thing was quaint and homey.

Mr. Bushy said, "This here's the home o' Mr. Brumby. He's a good feller and knows his stuff about the history o' Devorian. If ye have any questions about humans, he's the one to ask. Well now, I'm off. It was a pleasure to meet you, humans."

Mr. Bushy made a grunting, snorting sound as he turned around back in the direction from which they had come, and then was gone, leaving the children standing alone in front of the hill that was not a hill. Mary Jane saw next to the door a small brass bell from which hung a long white rope. She walked it and pulled the rope, causing the bell to sound softly.

A moment later, a muffled voice called from inside, "Just a moment, please."

The children heard crashing and thumping coming from the house. When the door opened, it revealed a red fox standing on its back feet. The fox's hair stood up in random patches upon its head.

The fox exclaimed, "Oh my, you're not Mrs. Craken."

It fell back down to all four black paws, then said with the same amount of surprise, "Humans! I can hardly believe it. You are humans, yes? I've only seen pictures in books, but well, I must say the pictures were remarkably accurate. Quite extraordinary. It's like seeing a drawing come to life right before one's eyes. Oh, if I'd known I was going to have this sort of company I would have baked a cake. I do so love a good cake, don't you? As it is you'll have to settle for some cookies that Mrs. Cracken brought over this morning. Do come in."

He ushered them in and, in an effort to be a good host to his unexpected guests, bade them sit upon the tiny chairs in front of the little fireplace. The chairs were far too small for Jack or Mary Jane to sit in, and so they sat on the floor while Maude folded herself into the largest of the chairs. All of the chairs were wooden, and roughly hewn, probably by paws rather than hands. Mr. Brumby disappeared into the kitchen, which was right next to the sitting room.

"Won't you have some tea?" He called out.

"That would be lovely," Mary Jane replied.

The children waited for a few minutes, listening to the sound of the fox clattering around in the kitchen. Finally they heard the whistle of the teakettle, and the sound of the fox stacking saucers and cups together. A moment later, he emerged with pushing a small teacart. On it was stacked a pile of saucers, a teakettle, and a worn metal tray of dry white cookies. He pushed the cart between the children, pouring them steaming cups of tea and offering them cookies. Mary Jane took a cup and held it between her hands, feeling it warm them. When all of his guests had been taken care of, the fox wheeled the cart back into the kitchen before returning and sitting down.

Bowing his head to the children, he said in a grave and formal tone, "I am Phinneas Brumby."

"How do you do, Mr. Brumby? My name is Mary Jane, and this is Jack and this is Maude," Mary Jane said on behalf of her siblings, pointing to each one respectively as they were named.

Mr. Brumby was particularly fascinated by Maude. His eyes glowed an intense brown-red as he considered her.

"Such a small specimen!" He breathed, reaching out as if to touch her but not daring to. "Almost like a human in miniature. To think, she'll grow much larger. Extraordinary!"

"Mr. Brumby, I suppose we're here because we would like to know about Devorian. You see, we found a mirror in our attic and...well, somehow it led us to Devorian. But we don't know anything about Devorian; we've never heard of it before," Mary Jane explained.

Mr. Brumby sipped his tea thoughtfully, nodding as he listened. His black paws looked thin holding the small white teacup. He took a bite of a cookie, and when he looked up again the white crumbs stood out starkly against his black nose.

He said, "Oh my, you're not from Devorian? How marvelous! How strange! Well, I hardly know what to make of your tale, but as to trying to describe Devorian, I shall try my best. It is a long story, for it encompasses several ages. But is there something in particular that I can tell you about?"

"Tell us about the humans," Maude requested.

"Yes, very well. You see, things in Devorian were not always as they are now. In fact, they were once very different. Our history lessons teach us that for many centuries--perhaps thousands of years even--humans ruled Devorian. They built great cities. They built houses and roads and sailed huge ships on the seas and in the rivers. They mined metals from the ground and grew forests of trees. They prospered, and their numbers grew until they were common as leaves on a tree.

'The humans were ruled by kings. These kings lived in the great stone palace that they built at Tarah, by the sea. Several times there was war in Devorian over who should be king, but more often there was peace. This all might have continued forever, but then almost a hundred years ago a new magic appeared in Devorian. It was the wild magic, but no one knew it. Its coming went unnoticed at first. It was like the trickle of raindrops, felt here and there but easily ignored. But water pools and rises, and soon the trickle has caused a flood that cannot be stopped, even if one knew where or how to dam it.

'So it was that this wild magic began to touch every living thing in Devorian. Who knows what wild magic will do? In Devorian at that time, its effect was to give the animals the power of speech and reasoning while turning the humans into mindless beasts. A reversal of roles, if you will. Within a year, no more, the men had left their houses and castles and roamed the land without so much as a burrow to call their own or a blanket to cover them at night. Tarah was abandoned and left to rot. Grass grew over the dwellings of men or animals came to live in them and within five years there were few traces that humans had ever lived in Tarah. As to the humans themselves, they seemed to be pulled by some unknown force south and were never heard of again."

He paused thoughtfully, then corrected himself.

"No, that's not quite right. We do hear rumors now and then of a few straying into Devorian from the lands far to the south, but they're not what you would call human anymore. And...I suppose there is one human still living in Devorian. That is, if you can call it living. But she's locked in a place from which she'll never get free and you needn't worry yourselves about her."

The children were startled by the fox's strange admission.

Maude asked, "Why is she locked away? Is she dangerous?"

"Yes," Mr. Brumby said unwillingly, his voice clipped.

He added hastily, "But you needn't trouble yourselves about her. More cookies?"

The white brush of his tail twitched nervously beneath him.
Chapter Four

The Fox's Tale

"Mr. Brumby, I think it's best we go," Jack said abruptly, standing and casting a significant look at Mary Jane.

Outside, the sun was sinking lower in the sky and the shadows were lengthening on the forest floor. The rays of light that crept into the windows painted the wooden floor gold. Maude pouted at her brother, her pink lower lip pushing out stubbornly.

Her dark eyes were large as saucers as she pleaded, "Oh please, Jack, can't we stay just a little longer?"

"Maybe we can come back tomorrow, Maude," Mary Jane told her sister gently. "It will be Saturday, so we can stay the whole day if you want. But we had better get back before Mrs. Peters notices that we've been gone."

Turning to Jack, she said, "Jack, how will we find our way back to the right tree? When Mr. Bushy was leading us here I didn't pay attention to the way."

"Oh!" Mr. Brumby exclaimed. "That will not be a problem. I can find the trail. I am a fox, you know. If you would be so good as to but follow me, please."

He set down his teacup and walked the door. Opening it, he dropped to all four paws and stepped out, the children filing out after him silently. As they stood watching, the fox put his nose to the ground and began sniffing, circling in front of the door once, then twice before he found their trail. Then with the children following behind him, he trotted along quickly through the forest, his mouth open and his tongue lolling to the side like an absurd dog. Maude giggled at him. He no longer looked like the scholarly creature who lived in a quaint house and ate tea biscuits.

They reached the tree that would take them back home in what felt like much less time than it had taken them to go from the tree to the spot where they found Mr. Bushy and then to Mr. Brumby's house. They arrived just in time, for the sun was just starting to fall beneath the horizon and Jack thought he saw the first star twinkling through the dusk. Mr. Brumby stopped sniffling the trail and stood on his hind legs.

He shook the hand of each of the three children in turn, saying, "Take care, young humans. I hope we shall meet again soon."

"I'm sure we will," Mary Jane replied.

"Can we come back tomorrow?" Maude asked.

"If you like, little one," the fox replied.

When standing on his back feet, he was just slightly taller than Maude, although much skinnier, and he reached out a paw tentatively and patted her on the head.

"Ready?" Jack asked his sisters.

"Ready," Mary Jane agreed.

Jack took a breath and stepped through the tree. He was followed by Maude, then Mary Jane. They tumbled back through the mirror and landed on the other side with a loud thump in a pile of arms and legs on the floor of the attic.

Mary Jane whispered from somewhere within the pile, "You don't suppose we're too late? Will Mrs. Peters have called the police already to say we're missing?"

Jack pushed Mary Jane's arm off his leg, but before he could answer, they heard Mrs. Peters call from downstairs, "Children! Come down now and have your dinner. I've boiled some cabbage and potatoes for you."

"I hate cabbage," Maude said with a frown.

"It will be alright, Maude, she'll be gone soon," Jack reassured her, ruffling her hair with his hand affectionately.

Maude batted him away and crossed her arms miserably. Her hair looked rumpled and she had smudges of dirt along the hem of her dress from walking through the forest. Jack guessed that he looked little better and hoped that Mrs. Peters wouldn't notice.

"Come on, let's go," he urged his sisters.

The children tumbled down the stairs to the dining room and arranged themselves at the table just in time for Mrs. Peters to come sweeping into the room balancing a pot of potatoes in one hand and a bowl of cabbage in the other. She did not notice that their bare feet, tucked under their chairs, were covered in brown dirt. She set the food down on the table and began scooping globs of limp gray cabbage onto their plates. When she caught sight of dirt under Maude's nails, however, she paused. Jack froze.

"Have you washed?" Mrs. Peters demanded.

The children shook their heads and she ordered them off to the kitchen to wash their hands. She had already begun to eat when they returned, stuffing large forkfuls of potato into her mouth and chewing with her mouth open. The children poked at their food halfheartedly, pushing bits of cabbage and potato from one side of their plates to the other.

Mary Jane said at last, with a casualness that surprised even herself, "Mrs. Peters, tomorrow we want to go to the zoo. We won't be any bother; we'll just slip out in the morning and be back before dinner. We'll even pack ourselves a lunch to take with us."

"You're too young to go alone," Mrs. Peters said, her mouth full of limp cabbage bits. "And what's more, I've got chores for each of you that will more than likely take the whole day."

"Oh, we'll do them after dinner," Mary Jane promised, trying to sound sincere and eager. "And we're not too young. We've done it loads of times before, haven't we, Maude? Maude so likes to look at the animals, don't you, Maude?"

Maude nodded, her hair flopping into her eyes. She pushed it back behind her ears. Mrs. Peters eyed the children suspiciously, then sighed and wiped at the corner of her mouth with her napkin.

She said, "Very well then, but you be back before dinner or there will be consequences for you. Now, Maude, be a dear and rub my feet."

~*~

Mary Jane slept fitfully. In her dreams she heard a woman's voice calling her name from far, far away. She struggled to follow it back to its source, but lost in mazes of darkness she never came any closer. Then came the sound of a loud crash and she woke as though bursting from underneath water, her lungs gasping for air. She glanced at Maude, but her sister was sleeping soundly in her bed. Mary Jane hugged her knees to her chest and shivered. The night was cold, and damp. After a minute, she lay back down and pulled the covers tight around her. When she woke again at seven, Maude was already awake and eager to start the day.

"Come on, Mary Jane, let's eat breakfast quickly and leave as soon as we can. I want to see Mr. Brumby again," she urged.

She was shaking Mary Jane's arm. Mary Jane smiled at her younger sister.

"Alright, Maude, but you had better eat a big breakfast; I won't have you complaining all morning that you're hungry," she said warned gently.

Her own stomach grumbled as if in agreement. Maude bounced off of Mary Jane's bed and cheerfully put on a pale yellow jumper and white tights. For shoes, she selected small yellow sneakers with white laces.

She chattered as she dressed, "You'll see, Devorian will be our own magic world. It will be so much fun to play in. And we'll be able to go there any time we like!"

Mary Jane laughed.

"Calm down, Maude. We've only been there once."

Maude didn't bother answering and ran downstairs to the kitchen once she finished putting her shoes on. Mary Jane followed a few minutes later, after she had dressed and washed her face. She found Jack already in the kitchen making toast and eggs in two pans on the stove. Maude poured herself a big glass of milk and sat at the table, dangling her feet from her chair while Mary Jane set to buttering the slices of bread.

"Now we really must make rules," Mary Jane said in her best adult voice. "First of all, no one should go into the mirror alone. There will be no sneaking off to have adventures without telling someone first."

"You're just afraid someone else will have fun without you," Maude said petulantly, kicking her feet against her chair.

"I am not!" Mary Jane protested.

"I agree with Mary Jane," Jack said. "We still don't know if Devorian is safe. I think there's something Mr. Brumby isn't telling us. Furthermore, I think we should never stay the night in Devorian. It means that we won't be able to venture too far away from the mirror tree, but what would we tell the adults if we didn't come home?"

"Thirdly, no one should bring anything from Devorian back through the mirror. What if we brought something back that doesn't exist here, like rainbow-colored flowers? Or worse, what if Mother walked in on us having a conversation with Mr. Bushy in the kitchen?" Mary Jane said.

"But I wanted to show Mr. Brumby Father's books," Maude pouted. "I'm sure he would like them."

"You'll just have to describe them to him," Jack said, patting her on the head.

Maude frowned and stuck her tongue out at him. Then she put her egg on top of a piece of toast and bit into it. The yellow yolk ran everywhere, coating her fingers. She put the piece of toast down and licked her fingers until they were clean again. Jack sighed and handed her a white napkin, which she used to wipe her mouth.

After they finished their breakfast, the children washed their dishes and set them out to dry, then walked together up to the attic. The morning sun shone brightly through the attic's small window, illuminating everything in the room. The mirror looked shabbier than ever, with the fake gold paint of the frame chipped and cracked in places, but Devorian looked as beautiful and green as ever in it. The children stood in front of it and prepared themselves to cross through. Mary Jane bent down to tie the lace of Maude's shoe, which had come untied. Jack tucked a red handkerchief into his back pocket and smoothed his unruly black hair over his forehead with his palm.

"Are you ready?" He asked his sisters.

"Yes," they agreed in unison.

Then Maude, Mary Jane and Jack stepped through the mirror and into Devorian for the second time. It was already mid-day there. The sun was shining brightly and there were no clouds in the endlessly blue sky. Everything looked just as it had the day before. A playful breeze batted at Maude's hair and tugged at the hem of her yellow dress.

Jack turned back to the tree and wrapped the clothing rope around the nearest branch, explaining, "I suppose we might as well leave this here so that we'll always know which is the right tree. Still, it's best if we do a bit to hide it. We mustn't have curious animals following it and then winding up in the attic. Imagine what Mrs. Peters would say if she found Mr. Bushy having himself a cup of tea in the kitchen!"

The children laughed for a minute, imagining the fat Mrs. Peters chasing the furry badger around the kitchen with a rolling pin, then they began walking single file through the woods towards Mr. Brumby's house. Between the three of them, they remembered enough of the forest to recognize the way, and after a short walk they arrived in front of the small hill into which Mr. Brumby's house was set. Jack knocked on the yellow door and they waited patiently for it to open. When it did, it revealed Mr. Brumby wearing a small white apron tied around his waist and holding a tray of cookies fresh out of the oven in one paw.

"Why hello, children!" He exclaimed. "Come in, come in, oh, do come in."

He opened the door wider and the three children entered the house. They arranged themselves around the parlor just as they had done the day before. The house felt smaller than before, but they didn't mind. The house smelled marvelously of cinnamon and sugar.

Mr. Brumby followed them with the cookies, explaining, "I've just been baking. Would anyone like a cookie?"

"Thank you," Mary Jane said politely, taking one and setting it in the palm of her hand.

Jack and Maude each took one as well, murmuring their thanks, and Mr. Brumby set the tray down on the little table next to his chair. He then disappeared into the kitchen and they heard a loud banging of bowls and pans as he quickly cleaned up in the kitchen. He returned a moment later, no longer wearing his apron, and settled himself in his chair.

"I certainly am glad to see you humans again," he said, nibbling on a cookie. "I don't often have visitors, and humans!"

"We want to hear more about Devorian!" Maude exclaimed.

"But first, Mr. Brumby, you said yesterday that there was another human in Devorian, but that she was dangerous. Why is she dangerous? Who is she?" Jack asked.

Mr. Brumby began to caress the fur of his tail nervously with his paws. His brown eyes shifted from one child to the next but he would not meet their gazes.

He stammered, "Wouldn't you like to hear about something else instead? I know so many stories about Devorian. Won't you ask me for another one? The story of Aldous the brave Tortoise, or the epic of Rodney Fleetfoot perhaps?"

"Yes, we would, but first we would to hear about the human, Mr. Brumby," Jack insisted firmly. "If she's dangerous, we need to know more about her."

Maude said gently, walking over to pat Mr. Brumby on the paw, "Don't be scared, Mr. Brumby."

"You're very kind," Mr. Brumby said weakly.

He straightened in his chair and took a steadying breath.

"Well, if you must hear it—and I warn you it is a dark tale—then I will tell you all that I know. It is a tale that has been passed down through the generations of my family, and it has to do with magic. To understand this story, you must know that there are two kinds of magic in Devorian: wild magic and animus magic. Wild magic, as I told you yesterday, is not of Devorian. It is that strange and foreign magic that has slowly been entering into our world for the past hundred years. We do not know from whence it comes or why. The other magic is animus magic, which is Devorian's own natural magic. It has always been here. It is the magic in every blade of grass, every tree, every animal, and even in every human.

'Magic is...a force. It is power, it is life, it is creation. It is not easily harnessed. No animal now, and very few humans before, could control magic. To be used, magic must be drawn out of the very earth, and then the wielder must be strong enough to bend it to his or her will. Magic alone is neither good nor bad, but it is made so by whoever wields it. Unfortunately, those who seek to use magic most often do so for harm rather than good.

'Now, when our story begins some one hundred years ago the human king was a jealous, brutal man. It happens, you know. There are good kings, and there are bad kings, and this was a particularly bad one. One day, what I believe in those times was called a 'hedgewitch,' that is, a human with a tiny understanding of magic, in a village far from Tarah made a prophecy: she said that a girl child would be born who would be the greatest sorceress who ever lived.

'The king heard the prophecy and knew that he must find the child out and hide her away, for whoever controlled her could control all of Devorian and he did not want her falling into the hands of his ambitious and scheming lords. He sent search parties out immediately, quietly looking for a young girl who could wield magic. For years they searched, despairing of ever finding her, until at last his soldiers found her among the herding folk of the Western Plains. She was a quiet girl who tended the goats during the day and used her magic to make her dolls come alive and dance and keep her company. Having found her, they tore her from her family and brought her back to Tarah.

'She never saw her family again. When she arrived in Tarah, the king locked her in a dark tower with no one to keep her company, determined that she would never get out again. He ordered the court magician to bind her from being able to use magic so that she could not be kidnapped and used against him by his barons and lords if they ever found out about her. The magician was weak, compared to her, but by investing all of his power into the spell he was able to hold her.

'But one cannot hold the tail of a tiger forever. One day, the tiger will escape and turn against its keeper. Throughout the years of loneliness and confinement, her lost childhood and the future that the king stole from her, day by day, the girl's mind began to twist. She was no longer the herder girl who once played with dolls, but instead a cold, cruel girl determined to one day destroy the king who had taken her from her family and ordered her locked away. On the day she turned eighteen, the girl, named Mirrin, at last was able to overcome the court magician's spell and break free from the magical chains that had bound her for years. Still unsure of her powers, she fled to the Far Reaches, a land so far north no human had ever before gone there, to plan her revenge.

'The Far Reaches are a terribly cold, remote place. Very few animals can survive the snow and the wind on the high mountains, and yet it was there Mirrin used magic to build herself a castle. For one year, no news was heard of her among the humans. The king lived every day in mortal fear of what she would do if ever she returned to Tarah, for he knew that she would come for him. But his spies, sent one after another to the Far Reaches, were all lost in the snow and never returned, and so he waited.

'Using her magic, Mirrin was building herself an army of stone soldiers to conquer Tarah. She wanted to destroy the city brick by brick, starting with her prison. She was not content with revenge against the king; she wanted to see the entire city burned to the ground. She was almost ready to lead her army against Tarah when...Oh my, I must go back. You see, the king's daughter had some small degree of skill in magic as well. She was stronger than the court magician, although weaker than Mirrin. The princess knew that Mirrin planned to attack Tarah, and although she did not love her cruel father, she loved Tarah and its people and wanted to save them.

'She felt Mirrin gathering magic from all the corners of the kingdom, calling it to her, and knew that if she did not stop the sorceress, all of Devorian would suffer. Bravely, she left for the Far Reaches, traveling alone for months until she found the castle. The princess knew that she had no hope of stopping Mirrin with her own feeble magic, but she had been taught by the court magician a powerful and terrible spell: by sacrificing her life, she could use the animus magic within herself to create an unbreakable flame that would trap Mirrin within its boundaries for the rest of time. And so, when she at last arrived at Mirrin's castle, called Morlach, she whispered the words of power and transformed into a great green flame that encircled the castle and cast Mirrin into a deep trance from which she was never supposed to wake again.

'So long as she slept, Mirrin was not a threat to the people of Tarah. Her magic, which had given life to her stone soldiers, quickly dissipated and the army--which stood outside the flame--became little more than a collection of rocks on the mountainside, quickly covered by layers of falling snow. So they stand even today, the eternal guardians of Morlach. We animals stay away from the area. It is a dark place, full of evil intent. Even though she is human and we animal, parents often threaten their younglings, 'Be good or the witch Mirrin will get you.'"

He paused to think for a moment, then said, "I hadn't thought of it before, but it was at approximately that time that wild magic began to spread into Devorian. Yes, I'm sure it was, for the humans scattered and slowly disappeared almost immediately after Mirrin was entrapped."

"You think the princess' spell, the spell that created the flame, somehow allowed the wild magic to come in," Maude said.

"I suppose it's possible," Mr. Brumby agreed.

"Well I think it's a good thing Mirrin's trapped forever," Mary Jane said. "She sounds just awful."

The fox shook his head and squirmed uncomfortably in his seat.

"Unfortunately, that is not the case. You see, the spell is supposed to create an _eternal_ flame, but great spells require great sorcerers, and the princess was little more than a witch. Her flame is not as eternal; one day it will burn out, and on that day, Mirrin will be released from the spell."

"When will that be?" Mary Jane asked, alarmed.

Mr. Brumby walked to the window and pulled the red curtains shut, looking out the window furtively as he did so. The red hairs along his back stood on end.

He told the nervously, "You needn't worry about that. But then, perhaps it is best...that is, it may be better if you not come again to Devorian."

"Mr. Brumby!" Mary Jane exclaimed. "Do you mean to tell us that the spell is in imminent danger of failing?"

"For one hundred years the spell has held," Mr. Brumby said slowly, "but I think it will not hold much longer. There are rumors that the snow in the Far Reaches is melting. In a few days, perhaps more, the flame will die and Mirrin will be free again."

"What will you do then, Mr. Brumby?" Maude asked.

Mr. Brumby rubbed his paws together and began bustling around the room, gathering the plates and teacups. They clattered together noisily and he carried them to the kitchen, where he deposited them in the sink. When he returned to the parlor, he began to pace back and forth across the living room on his stick-thin black hind legs.

"The world has changed since Mirrin was entranced. Tarah lies in ruins. Her enemies are long dead. Perhaps she will live quietly and in peace..."

"What is it, Mr. Brumby?" Maude asked.

The fox had stopped pacing. He shivered and would not look at her.

"Oh, dear little Maude!" He exclaimed in distress. "I fear I've made a terrible mistake. I should have told you never to return to Devorian, but I was so happy to have human visitors that I did not warn you. I fear that when Mirrin is free...well, I thought yesterday after you had gone that she could try to use the portal to your world to leave Devorian. Oh, I cannot bear to think of such a thing! It would be all my fault, encouraging you to return here as I did."

"Impossible!" Jack sputtered. "We've only come through the mirror twice. How would she know about our world? And why would she want to go there?"

"I think there is very little that happens in Devorian that Mirrin does not know," Mr. Brumby explained apologetically. "She is a powerful sorceress, even trapped inside a binding spell. But of course I am probably mistaken. It was just a thought, probably fanciful. "

The fox smiled weakly. The children sat silently, each contemplating the fox's words. In an instant, their secret, fantasy world had turned from a bright and cheery place with talking animals to a dark and ominous trap.

After several minutes of silence, Mr. Brumby said, "Oh, I am sorry to have put you in danger. I should never have allowed you to return. You must leave here at once, and after you've gone through this mirror of yours, you must destroy it. Then I think the sorceress will not be able to pass through it."

"Yes," Jack agreed, standing.

Mary Jane stood and nodded gravely as well. Her mouth was drawn into a tight line, and her red eyebrows were pulled together anxiously. Mr. Brumby helped Maude out of her chair, holding her small hand between his two smaller black paws, then made a little bow to the three children. His eyes were sad.

He said wistfully, "I wish that the timing of your visit to Devorian had been otherwise. I should have liked to learn of your own world. Alas. Good luck to you."

The children left Mr. Brumby's house and quickly made their way through the forest. It seemed as though they could feel Mirrin's eyes upon them as they walked, and it made the hairs on their necks prickle. Maude clutched Jack's hand in her left hand and Mary Jane's in her right, and they held tightly to each other for dear life. They had never been so glad as when they finally reached the tree that would take them back to their world. Jack sent Maude and Mary Jane back first, then rolled up the rope and carried it with him back through the tree so that nothing would remain on the Devorian side to mark the tree as the gateway to another world. They did not see a green tendril of mist curl up from the ground and wrap itself around the trunk.

~*~

Back in the attic, the sun shone brightly through the attic window and small hole in the roof, illuminating the children as they sat in a triangle on the floor in front of the mirror. Maude's hands were in her lap, wringing the hem of her yellow jumper anxiously. Her large dark eyes were serious. Mary Jane stared nervously at the mirror as though she feared something would crawl through, her pale face whiter than usual. Jack rubbed his face with his hand. No one wanted to speak.

Jack finally said, "I suppose we'll have to smash the mirror now."

He stood up and began pawing through several of the closest trunks but found in them only soft clothing or trinkets too light to break the mirror. Neither Maude nor Mary Jane helped. They remained sitting on the floor, watching. After a short search in which he found nothing he could use to break the mirror, Jack found an old dark curtain that he threw over the mirror to cover it. The curtain had once been black, but the sun had bleached it to brown in spots. It began to slide off the mirror's oval frame and Jack pushed it up again, causing the thin layer of dust that covered it to rise up in a cloud. He coughed as he breathed it in.

Jack said, "This will have to do for now while we look for a rock outside to use to break the mirror."

Maude was about to say something, but just then they heard Mrs. Peters calling from downstairs. The children suddenly realized that they had no idea how much time had passed back home while they had been in Devorian, or whether Mrs. Peters had noticed their absence. They ran down the stairs, tripping as they went, reminding each other to say that they had been at the zoo all morning. They needn't have worried, however, for Mrs. Peters only set them to work doing chores and did not ask where they had been. The mirror stood forgotten in the attic for the rest of the day while the children performed first one onerous task and then another. By dinnertime, the children were so exhausted that they could think of nothing but sleep, or, in Maude's case, stealing one of Mr. Shenstone's books and crawling beneath the blankets to savor its soothing words. None of the children remembered their promise to Mr. Brumby.

~*~

The night was freezing; the children shivered in their beds and pulled the covers tight around them. As they slept, a white mist billowed into the house and settled against the floorboards, creeping along like a living wave, curling under doors and wrapping around corners like a sinuous snake. When the mist reached the door to Maude and Mary Jane's room, it paused, then slipped through the narrow space beneath the door and twined its way up the bedposts of each of their beds. The air went cold as ice, and the girls' breaths became visible puffs of white as they breathed.

A tendril reached out from the mist wrapped around Mary Jane's bedpost and brushed against her cheek. Mary Jane, deep in sleep, shivered as it touched her bare skin and turned away from it. The mist followed, spreading over her body like a second blanket. Across the room, the mist covered Maude as well, but it slid off immediately and rejoined the rest of the mist on the floor. The mist that covered Mary Jane lay over her for a minute, then retreated as well, and the pool of mist that covered the floor began to withdraw from the room as though pulled by a string. As it slipped back out under the door, Mary Jane's eyes opened.

Her eyes opened, but they did not see. They were hollow and dull, their light silver color turned almost translucent in the moonlight. Her movements were uneven and awkward as she put her bare feet to the floor and rose stiffly from her bed. She shuffled to the door and opened it, carelessly leaving it open behind her as, darkly dreaming, she followed the mist back through the hallway and up the stairs to the attic. There, in the attic, the mist had settled in a thick cloud around the mirror, which pulsed with a faint white light.

Had she been awake, Mary Jane would have seen in the mirror Devorian's night sky, with its hundreds of stars and bright round moon shining high over the sleeping forest. And she would have seen that the mist came from within Devorian itself, welling up through the barrier between the two worlds like water from a spring. But she was not awake. Mary Jane smiled dreamily and reached her hand out to the mirror. It passed through easily. Then she stepped through, and the mist retracted completely back through the mirror, leaving no trace of its presence in the house at 321 Baker's Row.
Chapter Five

Rescue

Maude woke with her father's book clutched tightly to her chest and the blankets wrapped up to her ears. She yawned and stretched her little arms and legs as far as she could, then rubbed her eyes. After lying still for a moment, she cast both the blanket and the book—she had finished it the night before in a matter of hours—aside and looked to Mary Jane's bed. She was surprised to see that her sister was not there. Mary Jane never woke early; Maude usually had to drag her from bed to get her to breakfast before their mother came to fetch them. Maude slid from her bed and wandered to the door of their room, noticing the door was open. The tingling feeling in her arms told her that something wasn't right. She walked to Jack's room and opened the door. Jack was sleeping on his stomach, snoring softly with his mouth open and his hair sticking out in every direction.

She pushed on his shoulder, calling softly, "Jack! Jack, wake up!"

Jack opened his eyes. They were unfocused. He rolled over onto his back and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

He said, yawning, "What is it, Maude?"

"Something is wrong. I think Mary Jane is gone," Maude said.

Jack tensed.

"What? Where?" He asked, swinging his legs off the bed.

He dashed past Maude and into his sisters' bedroom. It was empty.

"I don't know," Maude replied, following him, "but I had an awful dream last night about Devorian. Now that Mary Jane is gone, I don't think it was a dream anymore. Jack, I think Mary Jane is in Devorian."

Without thinking, Jack grabbed Maude's hand and the two rushed up the stairs to the attic. Jack noticed at once in the morning light that the curtain he had put over the mirror the day before was gone. It had fallen to the floor sometime during the night and lay in a crumpled pile at the base of the mirror. The mirror showed the same peaceful scene as always—the forest of trees, the sun, and a cloudless bright blue sky—but there was something unsettling about they way it looked now, for both children knew without a doubt that Mary Jane had passed through the mirror some time during the night, and they did not know why. Jack grabbed Maude's shoulder and knelt down to look her in the eye.

"Maude," he said, "you have to stay here. It isn't safe for you to go in there. Stay far away from this mirror."

Maude glared proudly at him, small though she was.

"I know what you're going to do, and I'm going, too."

"Please, Maude. You have to stay," Jack begged. "It's too dangerous."

"I'm coming," she declared, shaking her head defiantly. "Now hurry, we have to find her before it's too late."

Before Jack could protest or stop her, Maude walked bravely through the mirror. Jack followed immediately. They arrived in Devorian still wearing the clothing that they had slept in the night before. Jack wore blue striped pajamas that hung loosely at the arms and legs and were an inch too short. He was skinny for his age, had just hit a growth spurt, and hadn't gotten around to buying a new pair of pajamas yet. Maude wore a light, white nightgown that went just barely past her knobby knees. Both were barefoot, but neither noticed. Without hesitation, they began to run in the direction of Mr. Brumby's house.

The forest seemed to close around them like a narrowing, menacing tunnel as they ran. The forest was not the same as it had been the day before. It was darker, hostile. Several times Maude stumbled on roots that seemed to crawl out of the ground in front of them and Jack had to catch her and put her back on her feet. Both were breathless with burning legs and lungs by the time they reached Mr. Brumby's house. When they arrived, they knocked furiously on the door, Jack peering through the window to catch a glimpse of the red fox. A moment later Mr. Brumby opened the door, a small green book in his hand and reading glasses perched on his snout.

When he saw the children standing on the stoop he exclaimed, "Children! Whatever are you doing here? Has something happened?"

"Mr. Brumby, we think Mary Jane came through the mirror!" Maude cried. "Something is terribly wrong."

"Oh my, I see," Mr. Brumby said. "Please, come in."

The two children tumbled into the small house and looked anxiously at the fox, who put down his book and took off his glasses, setting them gently upon the table by his chair. Maude rocked on the balls of her feet, while Jack paced. He had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling of the house. Mr. Brumby rubbed his paws together anxiously.

"Now tell me what happened," Mr. Brumby said.

"We don't know," Jack said unhappily.

"You didn't destroy the mirror," Mr. Brumby guessed.

"We forgot," Maude explained mournfully.

"Well, never mind that now," Mr. Brumby said kindly. "What's done is done. Are you certain that Mary Jane came to Devorian?"

"Yes," Maude said. "She was gone this morning. I don't think...I don't think she came here on her own. She wouldn't have."

Mr. Brumby said earnestly, "I see. This is a serious matter indeed. Do have a seat. I think we will require more help than I can give. Stay here and I'll be back soon as I can. Please try to remain calm. I'm sure everything will be alright."

Having tried to reassure his guests, he pulled open the door and ran from the house on all four paws, disappearing among the trees with his tail flying behind him like a red-orange banner tipped with black. Jack watched him go, then shut the door quietly. Maude sat down on the floor, her bare white legs crossed like a pretzel.

She plucked at her nightgown and said in a small, scared voice, "Everything will be alright, Jack. You'll see. Mr. Brumby will know how to find her."

"She could be anywhere in Devorian," Jack said hopelessly.

"Mr. Brumby can track her! He was able to find our path in the woods," Maude protested.

Jack didn't say anything. He didn't want to think of how difficult it would be to find his sister. They had only seen a small part of Devorian on their previous two trips through the mirror and for all they knew Devorian could be thousands of miles from one end to the other. Mary Jane could be anywhere, and if Mirrin had somehow taken her, it would be even harder to find her. He and Maude sat without speaking for what felt like hours, waiting for Mr. Brumby to return. As the minutes stretched, gloom and despair weighed more and more heavily upon them.

At last they heard Mr. Brumby's muffled voice calling from outside. They rushed to the door and threw it open. They saw Mr. Brumby standing on his hind legs a few yards from the house beside a large brown stag. The stag's horns were sharp and many-pointed and so wide he would have been unable to pass through the little doorway into the house. The stag nodded to them courteously, his brown eyes starkly un-human.

"This is Everyn Whitetail," Mr. Brumby explained. "Whitetail knows a great deal about the Green Forest and all that happens within it, and he lives near to the gate to your world. By chance, he saw your sister pass into Devorian during the night."

"I'm afraid I bring bad news," said the stag in a deep, ringing voice. "Around midnight, the girl human passed through the part of the forest where I was dozing. She was traveling north at a rapid pace. She was surrounded by a green mist, a mist I have only recently seen for the first time in the Green Forest. I have no doubt that is the magic of the sorceress Mirrin."

'"Was she alright?" Jack asked.

"We have to go rescue her!" Maude exclaimed at the same time.

"Alas, I do not think it will be so easy," Mr. Brumby said. "If she's under Mirrin's enchantment, there may be little indeed we can do for now."

"Then what _can_ we do?" Jack asked.

"We will help you," said a voice that was deep and rough as two boulders crashing together.

The words echoed through the forest with the clarity of a trumpet. They all but hummed with power and authority. Fox, stag, and children looked around them to see who had spoken, for certainly it had been none of them. Through the trees to the left of the house, they spotted the briefest glimmer of gold, and then a moment later the biggest stag any had ever seen stepped out from between the trees. It was breathtakingly majestic. It was five feet high at the shoulder and its antlers stretched four feet high and three feet wide. Whitetail, just under four feet tall at the shoulder and a dull brown color, was dwarfed beside it.

Another voice, female and light as the chords of a harp but just as powerful as the first voice, said from their right, "We will take you to Tarah. Your sister is beyond our reach for now, but from Tarah perhaps something can be done to save her."

All spun around now to the other direction and saw that a giant leopard, pure white with black spots and clear pale blue eyes, stood watching them from a distance of only a few feet away. She was terrifyingly large, her triangular head level with Maude's and her tail, longer than her body and over six feet long, dragged along behind her. Her eyes were locked upon them with that intensity of focus found only in large hunting cats. Maude gasped, overcome by how beautiful the animal was.

"Fear not," the leopard said gently as it stepped closer. "We mean you no harm. I am Alcide and the golden stag is Aldair. We offer you our services, if you will have them."

The golden stag Aldair, almost unbearably shiny in the light now that he was completely out of the cover of the woods, added, "There is still time, if we hurry. Alcide and I have come from our homes in mountains and forests many days distant, traveling as fast as we could upon hearing that the eternal flame was at its end and the witch Mirrin would soon be released."

Jack looked to Mr. Brumby and Whitetail for guidance but the two animals seemed spellbound by the awesome leopard and stag.

Mr. Brumby whispered disbelievingly, "Can it be true that the magical beasts have returned to Devorian? They haven't been seen since the early days of humans. They are legends, fairy tells we tell our young."

"All legend has some basis in truth," Alcide said kindly.

"We must leave now," Aldair announced to the children. "Time is short."

Jack suddenly noticed that though the sun continued to shine brightly in the sky, the woods were darker than they had been only an hour before; long shadows seeped out from the edge of the trees, staining the grass. He looked questioningly once more at the brown stag and the fox, silently asking whether the white leopard and golden stag were to be trusted.

Catching Jack's look, Whitetail said, "If legend is to be trusted, so long as you are with them, the magical beasts will keep you safe. They are from a time long before Mirrin's own. She cannot corrupt or destroy their magic. Go safely and may you safely leave Devorian."

Mr. Bumby nodded in agreement. Alcide stepped close to Maude and crouched before her so low that her narrow back reached only to Maude's waist. Fearless, Maude grabbed hold of the silky white hair of the leopard's neck and pulled herself into a sitting position on her back. Alcide rose slowly so as not to unseat her rider, her strong muscles bunching and moving beneath the thick pelt of fur. Maude continued to grasp Alcide's fur tightly as she became used to the cat's smooth movement. Alcide looked back, her fierce blue eyes just barely able to see Maude atop her back.

"Will you be able to ride?" She asked.

Maude nodded.

Aldair presented himself to Jack to mount as well, but the ascent was more challenging. He would unseat Jack if he lay down and then stood again, so Jack would only be able to get on if the stag was already standing. Mr. Brumby saw the problem immediately and rushed into his house. He returned a moment later carrying a small ladder, which he placed beside the stag. The ladder was just tall enough that Jack could stand on the top rung and throw his leg over Aldair's back, which he did awkwardly. The stag was much taller than the leopard, and when both were mounted Jack sat above Maude by several feet.

"Good luck, children," Mr. Brumby said. "I hope you are able to recover Mary Jane. Perhaps we shall meet again one day under better circumstances."

"Goodbye, Mr. Brumby," Maude said, waving. "Goodbye, Mr. Whitetail."

"Are you ready, little one?" Alcide asked.

Maude nodded.

"Then hold on!"

The golden stag and the white leopard in unison turned to the east and began to run. The immediate acceleration caused Jack to slide a foot backward on Aldair's back before he was able to tighten his legs around the stag and pull himself back to Aldair's shoulders. Maude, who was saved by the fact that she had been holding Alcide's neck fur tightly, merely felt a jerk as the cat's powerful legs began to churn beneath her. Both found the ride to be uncomfortable. In particular, Aldair bounded with bone-jarring leaps that threw Jack forward and backward mercilessly, and the stag had a tendency to dart with lightening skill around trees. Alcide was little better.

"Please!" Jack gasped, his eyes watering. "Could you slow down a bit? This hurts."

"My apologies," Aldair exclaimed.

He slowed immediately and changed his gait so that rather than bounding into the air, his legs moved smoothly. Alcide did the same. Aldair said ruefully, "I've never been...ridden."

They continued weaving among the trees, moving as quickly as they could without the children losing their balance and falling. Maude's fingers quickly cramped from holding so tightly to Alcide's fur, but she didn't dare loosen her hold. The snow leopard's strong legs swept forward and backward, forward and backward in great sweeping strides and Maude pressed her knees into Alcide's sides to keep from sliding off backward as the cat ducked and dodged large tree branches. The stag and leopard ran for what felt to their human riders like hours. Neither Jack nor Maude knew for how long they had been traveling; all the forest looked the same as they passed through it, and they caught only brief glimpses of the sun above. Eventually, however, the beasts began to tire. Their charging sprint became a languid lope and finally a shambling walk.

Now that they had time to look around them, the children saw that in this part of the woods the trees grew closer together and the sun was completely lost above the dense canopy of leaves. Maude shivered as a whisper of cold air passed over her bare arms. This part of the forest felt unnaturally still and dark. Maude leaned closer to Alcide, afraid. A bird cried mournfully somewhere far away.

Aldair growled, "This is a dark and fearsome place. Many hundreds of years ago a terrible battle was fought here and the soil drank its fill of the blood of men. Be brave; the spirits of the dead that still walk this land cannot hurt you."

Maude did not feel comforted by Aldair's promise that they would be safe. The four continued to creep slowly through the dark forest. Here and there the sun broke through the dark ceiling of tree branches and sent shafts of light like spears into the forest floor, illuminating twisted roots and misshapen rocks that littered the path. Once Jack thought he saw in the distance a dimly glowing white light in the shape of a knight and heard the sound of a sword dragging against the ground, but he shut his eyes and would not look further, fearful of what he might see. Finally the trees began to grow further apart and the sun returned. Both children breathed a sigh of relief. Maude, pitying Alcide for having carried her for hours, slid from the leopard's back and walked beside her to let her rest.

"Alcide, will Mirrin hurt Mary Jane?" Maude asked, twisting her nightgown in her tiny hands.

"No, child, she will not," Alcide said.

"How do you know?"

"I believe the witch has other plans for Mary Jane. Some strategem that requires her," the leopard replied. "When we discover her plan, then we will know why she has taken your sister."

"And we can get her back?" Maude pressed.

"We shall do all that we can."

"Why is Mirrin so evil?" Maude asked. "Why would she _want_ to be evil? Can't she just be good?"

Alcide sighed. She said quietly, "You are too young to understand, youngling, but it is possible for a human to be broken. Not broken like the arm or leg like one of your play toys, but broken on the inside, where no one can see. Some people are born broken, and some people are broken by something that has been done to them by someone else. Mirrin was broken long ago, when she was taken as a child and imprisoned by the King of Tarah. It is a terrible, terrible thing, to break a person. Now Mirrin does not care about good or evil. She is like a wounded animal. She feels so much pain that she lashes out blindly against the world, even the things that have nothing to do with why she hurts."

Maude considered the response for a moment. She wanted to understand, but she could not. So she said to Aldair, "Aldair, you and Alcide aren't like the rest of the animals in Devorian, are you?"

"No, we are not," Aldair agreed. "We are magical beasts."

"What are magical beasts?"

"You ask many questions," Aldair said with a snort that Maude guessed was laughter.

"Mr. Brumby and Mr. Whitetail were surprised to see you. Why?" Maude persisted.

"The magical beasts have not lived in Devorian for over a thousand years. There is no animal alive, nor his grandfather's grandfather's grandfather who has seen a magical beast since that time. It is no wonder they looked at us as though we were imaginary beings," the stag replied.

"You lived in Devorian, but you left," Maude said. "Why did you leave?"

"The time for we magical beasts was coming to an end and the age of Men was beginning. We had no place in the new world being created by humans. Because of this, we left our homes and spread like seeds in the wind to all four corners of the earth. I journeyed west, farther west than any beast of Devorian had ever yet gone, and lived in the great woods there until such a time as Devorian would have need of me again."

Alcide added, "And I went to the furthest mountains north, beyond the Far Reaches, and made my home in the snows there."

"Are you really over a thousand years old?" Maude asked, her dark eyes round with awe.

Alcide chuckled.

"Certainly, little one," she said, "and many years older than that besides. Plants and trees wither and die, seasons come and go, but eternal are Aldair and I, for we never die. So it is with all the magical beasts of Devorian."

"There are other magical beasts? How many? Will they return to Devorian, too? If you left when humans came to Devorian, why didn't you come back when they disappeared?" Maude asked.

"Yes, there are others. As to whether they will come now, that I cannot say. We did not return when all that remained of men was the memory of their deeds because the time was not yet right. Nor is it now. It will be many hundreds of years more before the time comes for Devorian's magic beasts to walk the land freely again," Aldair said.

"Then why did you come back if the time wasn't right? Couldn't others come for the same reason?"

"We came because we were needed," Aldair said simply. "Devorian called to us, and we heeded. But a thousand years is a long time. In that time some beasts, having ranged far and wide in the lands beyond Devorian, may have lost their way back home. Others may have long since chosen to lay down their immortality and pass over to the Other Realms. Some few proud beasts, too, will ignore the call that calls Devorian's old defenders back to her."

He fell silent and Maude asked nothing further. She wondered what other sorts of fantastical creatures had once lived in Devorian and marveled at how the magical beasts had waited patiently for a thousand years in exile. Then she imagined Aldair with his liquid amber eyes traveling thousands of miles through forest and plain to return to a land from which he had been away from for so long, answering a silent call to come home. She said after thinking for many minutes, "Aldair, will humans ever return to Devorian?"

"I think not. Their time here has passed. Now is the time of the animals."

"Will there be a time after them?"

"That even we beasts do not know, but we know that we will be part of whatever comes, for we know all things that will come before it and some of what will come thereafter."

"How do you know?" Maude asked.

"It is within us to know," the stag replied.

Maude frowned, considering his words without understanding them.

"You're immortal?" She asked, changing the subject.

"If we choose to be."

"What if you don't want to be anymore? Then you die?"

"A magical beast can choose to become mortal. That beast would then eventually go to the Other Realms. You might call that death. Those who cross over are never again seen in this world. But we believe that they live on in the Other Realms," Aldair said.

"Do the humans and animals go there as well?"

"They may. Only when I stand upon the shores of the Other Realms myself will I know the answer to these questions," the stag said.

"So you'll go there, too?"

"When the time comes, I, too, will cross to the Other Realms," Aldair answered gravely.

Maude opened her mouth to ask more questions, but Jack stopped her, fearing that her questions for the stag would otherwise be endless. They had by this time broken free of the forest trees and were now walking in a small field among tall, green grass and heather. The soft sunlight shining down upon Jack made him drowsy, and he struggled to keep his eyes from closing. He asked, "Are we close to Tarah?"

"It has been many years since last we traveled in this land," Alcide said, "and we know the trail to Tarah but from long ago memory. I will go and seek to the north and south to be sure that we have not strayed from the path. Aldair will remain with you. Call out if you are in danger and wherever you are, I will come to your aid."

She turned away from them and began to bound northwards through grass. Aldair suggested, "It would be best if we moved under the trees for shade while she is away. Rest while I keep watch; you will need all your strength for the journey to come."

"Why, are we in danger?" Jack asked.

He looked around nervously.

"Since the moment you entered Devorian today you have been in danger," the stag rumbled. "Now that the witch grows stronger, there is no place that is safe here any longer."

The three moved to the edge of the field where it met the forest and Jack slid down from Aldair's back, landing painfully on his bare feet. He sat on the grass with his legs crossed, leaning against a tree trunk. He felt hungry and tired, and his legs and seat hurt from hours spent riding Aldair's narrow back. Maude flopped down onto the ground next to him and he picked a twig out of her hair.

"I'm tired," she complained. "And hungry."

Jack smoothed her hair back from her forehead. Her forehead was damp with sweat.

"We'll be there soon," he soothed, though he did not know how long it might be before they reached Tarah. "Rest now."

Maude curled into a ball, her head on his lap, and fell asleep immediately. Aldair took up a position several feet away from the tree, his large ears alert for any sounds of danger. Suddenly he stiffened and his nostrils flared. His ears flipped forward and back, listening.

"What is it?" Jack asked.

"The smell of magic is in the air. Something is not right."

The stag snorted, pawing the ground and shaking his head as though trying to escape an irritating fly. Jack yawned, suddenly so unbearably tired that he thought he could not remain awake for a moment longer. His eyelids drooped sleepily. He thought he should be concerned about Aldair, but he no longer had the will to care. And then something strange and unexpected happened: time stood still.

~*~

Jack was frozen mid-yawn, his hand suspended in the air halfway to his mouth. Aldair's eyes, flashing and lively only moments ago, now appeared glazed, and one ear remained cocked back while the other pointed forward. Jack found that though his mind was still active and free, he could not move his body or cry out. The sky around them seemed to grow dark and menacing, as though a cloud had passed completely over the sun, only more ominous. The darkness closed in until Jack could only see the things around him as shadows, and the air was thick around him. Then out of the blackness a young woman dressed all in white appeared. Her skin radiated white light that lit the space around her. She wore an expression of peace and gentleness. She smiled sweetly at Jack, winking at him, then giggled girlishly as she looked at the frozen Aldair and sleeping Maude. Jack's mind struggled to understand what was happening, but it felt as though he were trying to think through thick honey.

"Did...did you do this?" Jack asked.

His words came out slurred. His tongue felt thick and resistant in his mouth. The woman in white nodded wordlessly and floated closer, keeping her distance from the stiff, frozen stag. Jack noticed absently that her feet did not touch the ground. Instead, they hovered an inch above it.

"Who are you?" He asked.

Alarm bells were ringing in his head, but they seemed far away. He could easily ignore them. Something in him _wanted_ to ignore them. He watched as the woman knelt before him and gently ran her hand across the sleeping Maude's cheek. She looked wistful.

"I don't have much time," she said, looking up at him. "The brave Alcide will return soon."

Jack saw a flicker of contempt flash quickly across her face. He struggled against the weight leaning heavily on his mind. There was something important that he was supposed to remember. Some reason why she would dislike Alcide, and why she was ignoring Aldair. His stomach lurched as he suddenly realized who she was.

"You're Mirrin," he said.

The woman in white, Mirrin, nodded.

"Yes," she acknowledged. "I am she. But you must not fear me, Jack. I mean you no harm."

Jack's mind drifted for a moment as he wondered how she knew his name. But then, she seemed to know everything. He forced himself to pay attention to her now, kneeling in front of him with her hand on Maude's hair. She must have done something to cause this strange paralysis that stopped him from moving and kept his thoughts muddled. A spell. Mirrin's mouth twitched into a frown as she watched him struggle to think clearly. The fingers of her free hand curled into a fist and she twisted her fist gently. Immediately, Jack forgot what he had been thinking and smiled at the witch. Mirrin let go of Maude and floated into the air above him. She looked down at Jack lovingly, a serene smile upon her shining white face.

She murmured, "Good boy. Poor, poor child, cast all of the sudden into a strange world far from home. What will your parents think when they find you are not safe in your bed? Jack, these horrible, deceitful animals have tricked you with their lies and lured you deeper and deeper into danger. You must get away from them while you still can. Come to me. Come to me and I will help you to leave Devorian. You, Mary Jane, and dearest Maude will all leave together, but you must hurry."

Jack felt a tingling warmth spread through his body and he relaxed into it. It was so much easier to embrace the feeling than to resist it. They would all be safe. They could go home at last and all would be well. But though his heart wanted to believe Mirrin's words, some part of his mind cried out that he must not give in to her. He frowned, confused. However, the urge to escape from the woman in white was overpowering. With great effort, he shook from his mind the cloud that the sorceress had cast over it.

"Why are you here?" He demanded. "If the flame has died then Devorian is yours; Just what you always wanted. What do you want of us?"

Mirrin scowled, her mouth an angry red gash across her too pale face. When her face twisted in rage, she was no longer beautiful. Before she could speak, a gust of wind passed through the trees. Mirrin's body shimmered like the surface of a lake, but she didn't seem to notice. Puzzled, Jack reached out his hand...and reached straight through the sorceress's leg. Instantly, he realized that it was not Mirrin who stood before him but an apparition—Mirrin herself was still trapped at Morlach. Mirrin stepped back so that Jack's hand was no longer through her body.

"Soon enough the flame of that accursed princess will die out," she snarled as if reading his thoughts.

The sky darkened even more until all Jack could see was Mirrin. The trees around them, Aldair, and even Maude were lost in the blackness. Mirrin's apparition glowed a white so bright that it burned Jack's eyes to look at it. Her hair flew away from her head like angry snakes, caught in what felt like the static buildup before lightening strikes. Jack felt a dreadful cold seeping into his bones and a heavy despair falling upon him.

Mirrin hissed, "I am more powerful than you could possibly imagine. There is nowhere in Devorian for you to hide where I will not find you, no wall you can build that I cannot smash to pieces. These pitiful so-called magical beasts cannot keep you from me."

Suddenly an ear splitting yowl pierced the air and Alcide burst through the witch's chest, her fangs and razor sharp claws scattering the apparition into a cloud of fine white particles that turned green and sank to the ground before disappearing. The spell was broken and time began to move again. Maude awoke, rubbing her eyes and yawning. Aldair snorted angrily, his tail twitching unhappily.

"We must fly," Alcide roared, her ears flat to her skull and her long white teeth bared. "It is clear that the witch has awakened, even if she remains trapped for now at Morlach. With every passing hour she gains more strength. Little distance yet remains to reach Tarah, but surely Mirrin will put obstacles in our path. We must be ever vigilant."

Alcide crouched down and encouraged Maude to mount. Maude was confused and frightened, but Aldair said nothing. He only stood still while Jack used a large tree root to scrabble onto the giant stag's back.

Alcide continued, "We will cross through this part of the Green Forest in a few hours. Aldair and I will go with you as far as we can, but in time it may be that you will have to travel on without us. If we should become separated, you must go on alone. You must not stop, at any cost."

"How will we find Tarah?" Maude asked.

Alcide did not answer. The two beasts set off running as quickly as they could, covering ground in huge strides through the fields and forests. Jack wrapped his arms around Aldair's neck to keep from falling off and hoped, as he had every hour that they had been in Devorian, they would soon find a way to save Mary Jane. He did not want to think of what Mirrin would do once she had his sister in her clutches. Noon became afternoon and then dusk as the beasts ran surely on. Jack felt that if they continued much longer he might become delirious. His legs were rubbed raw and his hands chaffed, but he could not let go or ask the stag to slow his pace. He had been so hungry for so long that he had passed beyond hunger and no longer wanted to eat. He knew that Maude must also be suffering, though she said nothing.

At last the beasts began to walk. They, too, were tired. Alcide was limping gently on her left front paw from where she had run over a sharp rock. Aldair was breathing heavily, his head hanging almost to his knees as he walked. Jack looked up and saw that stars had begun to appear in the sky. He could not remember a time when he had ever seen so many stars. In the city, the lights from the buildings, cars, houses, and streetlights made it impossible to see all but the brightest stars. His mind drifted back to Baker's Row and to his parents, who might already have returned home and would be wondering where their children were. He tried to remember their faces and hear their voices, but lulled by the rocking movement of the stag beneath him, his eyes drifted shut and he fell into a light sleep.

When Jack awoke, the stag and leopard were still walking. His hands felt stiff from having clutched Aldair's neck for so long, and his body was sore all over from hours of riding. He asked Aldair to stop and slid off of the stag's back awkwardly, feeling stinging pain shoot up his feet and legs when they hit the ground. He walked to stretch his legs. The sun had not yet risen, but the sky was splashed with wonderful shades of orange and red that indicated that it soon would. Maude was wide awake, though her eyes were tired and rimmed with red, and she was talking animatedly with Alcide.

"We will follow the river for some time," Aldair told Jack, indicating with a nod of his head a narrow stream of water that flowed through the sparse trees several yards to their right. "We are getting closer."

Jack heard the chirp of a bird and looked up to see a small brown jay circling in the air above them. It weaved closer and closer until it finally dropped straight down to land upon a rock next to Aldair. It cocked its head and looked at the travelers curiously.

Dropping his head to the jay's level, Aldair asked, "What news do you bring, brother?"

The jay peered up into the stag's large amber eyes and flapped its wings once, chirping.

"The last of the ice is gone—the flame is in its final stages. A few hours left, at best, and it will be over."

"Have faith that all will end well," Aldair said gently.

The bird said nothing, but flew away, heading south. The beasts became silent and grave. Jack mounted Aldair once more and though the two beasts were weary, they picked up their pace again to a loping run. Jack could not guess how many hours they had traveled or how many more miles remained before they finally reached Tarah. He thought of Mary Jane, somewhere in Devorian bewitched by Mirrin's magic, and his parents, and wondered if he would ever see any of them again.
Chapter Six

Morlach

Mary Jane had been fast asleep when she stepped through the mirror, and for many hours after that the land she traveled was little more than a confused blur of pictures and sounds that imprinted on her mind only as a fog of half-remembered, impossible dreams. Her feet were bare, but she did not feel the prick of stones and twigs as she walked to bring her attention to her situation for she were carried an inch above the ground by a green mist. The mist carried her so fast that she covered long distances in only a few hours without feeling tired. Always through the haze of her dreams, a voice called to her, pulling her onwards inexorably. At times hunger and fatigue broke through her reverie, but the force compelling her north would not allow her to rest for even a moment. She forgot that 321 Baker's Row existed, or that she had ever lived outside of Devorian. Memories of her family, of Maude and Jack and Mrs. Peters became faint visions from a past life.

When the Green Forest gave way on its northern edge to small mountains, she climbed them with a strength that was not her own, still half waking and half sleeping. Beyond the smaller mountains, the towering mountain ranges of the Far Reaches loomed. If she could have seen them, she would have seen that the outline of their white peaks against the sky was like the teeth of a giant earth-bound monster opening its mouth to swallow the sun. Mary Jane, who hated the cold, would never have chosen to go there had she not been under a witch's spell.

She could have been walking for hours or days when she heard the muted sound of giant wings flapping in the air above her. The sound snapped her out of her waking sleep for the first time since she had come through the mirror. For a moment, she stood perfectly still, trying to remember where she was and how she had gotten there. She knew from her surroundings that she must be somewhere in Devorian, but she could not understand how she had come to be there or why. The sound of the wings came closer and she looked to see what was making the sound. She shaded her eyes from the sun with her hand just as a great shadow fell upon her. She gasped. As she watched dumbstruck, a giant skeleton landed before her.

She could see what it must have been once; that is, when it was still alive and its shining white bones were covered by living flesh and blood. Its tail, long and studded with sharp ridges, was at least twenty feet long, and it curled around the monster's feet, twitching at the tip. The creature sat on its back legs, giant wings folded tightly together onto its back. Its front legs, tucked now tightly against its rib cage, were short and ended in vicious, curved claws approximately six inches long. These were not as fearsome as the thing's skull, however, which was huge and filled with row upon row of sharp, dagger-like teeth. In the place of eyes, two brilliant rubies shone out from the sockets.

"A dragon," Mary Jane breathed in fear and awe.

But it was not a dragon precisely. Not anymore. Now it was only the skeleton of a dragon, a memory of what had once been a huge and terrible beast. The creature looked through her with its shining, malevolent, ruby eyes and she could feel its malice rush against her like the swell of a wave crashing into the shore.

"Come," the dragon commanded.

Its voice seemed to come from within a deep and bottomless cavern. It sounded old beyond measure, and rasped as though from lack of use.

"No," Mary Jane said.

She was terrified. She knew that she must escape, but her body refused to move, rooted as it was to the ground in terror.

"Come," the dragon ordered again, leaning towards her and hissing.

Its right arm reached out and a terrible claw curled in a "come hither" motion. Mary Jane thought it was a grotesque mockery of the motion that a human would make.

"Where are you taking me?" Mary Jane asked.

"To Morlach, to the witch Mirrin," said the creature, snapping its teeth ferociously. "Now come, human child. Climb onto my back."

"Why are you here?" Mary Jane asked. "You're...dead."

"I was the great dragon Hissarlik, scourge of the Western Plains," the creature rumbled. "When I walked, the earth trembled beneath my feet. When I flew, my wings blocked out the light of the sun. I was the terrible, the mighty."

The dragon moved toward her, its bones clicking with a dry snapping sound. Mary Jane fought against the waves of gloom and hate that seemed to emanate from the dragon when it spoke. The feelings were overpowering.

The dragon continued, "I have been awakened by Mirrin to fly once more and do her bidding. She holds my heartstone; so long as she keeps it, I am her servant."

It lowered its head until its ruby eye was mere feet away from her face. When it breathed, Mary Jane could feel its hot breath. Its eye glinted, and Mary Jane noticed that a fire seemed to burn deep within it. She swallowed fearfully and took a step back.

"You are too young to have ever seen a dragon. Not even your grandfather's grandfather would have seen me, but perhaps you have heard the tales. Tales of the destruction that my kind and I can bring. Now, get on."

Mary Jane found that she could not resist the dragon's command. On their own, her legs compelled her toward the creature. Because it was so tall and nothing more than bone, however, it would be a difficult ascent to its back. The dragon sank down on its haunches and lowered its neck so that Mary Jane could use it as a ladder by which to scramble to the place above his shoulders where she thought it might be safest to sit.

The creature's bones were smooth beneath her hands; time had rubbed the ridges and knots from them. She stepped carefully from one bone to the next, making sure not to slip and fall. Once Mary Jane reached the spot on his back between his two great shoulder blades, Hissarlik stretched his neck to the sky and gave a long scream. It was a cry that made her gasp and want to put her hands to her ears, but she did not dare let go of the neck bones she clutched tightly. The dragon immediately launched himself into the sky with a tremendous flap of its wings. Mary Jane marveled that even though the skin that had once covered the wings was gone, the magic that had brought the dragon back to life was so powerful that it enabled Hissarlik to still fly.

Hissarlik dipped his right wing and turned in a wide circle. Under other circumstances, Mary Jane might have enjoyed the beautiful view of Devorian that riding on Hissarlik afforded her. From hundreds of feet in the air she could see for miles on every side. To the east, she saw a seemingly interminable forest of short, green trees. To the west, she saw in the distance the light green of open plains followed by a thin line of dark that probably indicated denser forest. Far to the south, she could just barely distinguish the flat yellow and brown tones of desert land, and to the north, she saw enormous, jagged mountain peaks scratching sharp, crooked claws against the pale blue sky. Hissarlik leveled his wings and flew northwards, soaring higher and higher until the cold air felt like thousands of pins pricking Mary Jane's skin. She shivered and tucked her chin against her chest.

~*~

Hours later, or so Mary Jane guessed, the dragon began to fly lower, its ribs skimming over the treetops so close that Mary Jane felt that if they dropped any lower she would be able to touch the leaves with her feet. She picked her head up and squinted into the distance. Ahead, she could just barely make out four twisting gray spires rising unnaturally from among the sparse trees and blanket of snow. Blood red pennants rippled in the savage wind atop each spire. That same wind lashed into her as well, each gust like the stroke of a whip across her face. Mary Jane was shivering so hard that her teeth clattered together as loudly as the sound of horse hooves against the street outside her window at home when the horses pulled couples around at night. Her knuckles were white and bloodless from holding so tightly to Hissarlik's shoulder bones.

The dragon flew closer and she saw that the spires were actually massive towers that rose several hundred feet into the sky. They were not made of individual blocks of stone, but appeared to have been carved from one single piece of rock. Mary Jane had to admit that in their own way, they were beautiful. Still, her heart sank.

"Morlach," she breathed aloud, the wind tearing the words from her lips and throwing them to the sky.

Indeed, she could now see the eerie blue flicker of a smokeless fire encircling the castle. It danced soundlessly around Morlach, casting blue shadows on the gray walls. Outside the perimeter of the fire, the lances and shields of a stone army thousands strong poked out of the snow like twigs slowly revealed by melting snow. Even as Mary Jane watched, she thought she could see the snow melting, and more of the army exposed. Unexpectedly, the dragon banked steeply in a tight circle over the castle then dropped straight down into the deserted courtyard. Mary Jane was tossed against Hissarlik's neck and was just barely able to avoid falling.

"Dismount," the dragon commanded, settling itself close to the ground.

Mary Jane let go of the freezing white bones, her fingers numb and clumsy. She flexed them with difficulty, rubbed them together, and then breathed on them to warm them. When she felt more confident that they would be able to hold on, she climbed down the dragon as far as she could before jumping the final few feet to the ground. She looked up to see Hissarlik's ruby eyes watching her, burning fiercely. The reflection of the blue fire fought with the red fire within them like two enemies and Mary Jane looked away.

At that moment, the great black doors of Morlach castle were thrown open and a tall woman in a flowing white robe and thick red cloak marched through them. Her waist-length white hair flew free behind her, swirling in the mountain wind. Her eyes were so dark they looked black. Those bottomless eyes locked upon Mary Jane's and suddenly Mary Jane felt as though all the air in her lungs had been sucked out. She gasped and clawed at her throat; it felt as though an unseen hand had closed around her neck and was steadily tightening, choking her. She fell to her knees, gagging. The woman in white now stood before her, her eyes cold, watching. Mary Jane had just decided that she probably was going to pass out when the feeling disappeared. She coughed and gasped as her lungs greedily filled with as much air as they could hold.

Mary Jane whispered hoarsely, "Mirrin."

"Yes," Mirrin said emotionlessly.

"Why?" Mary Jane asked weakly.

Mirrin said nothing.

"What do you want with me?" Mary Jane asked, this time a little stronger.

Mirrin opened her mouth to respond, but just then a strong wind caused the blue flame around Morlach to flicker. Her eyes were deep pools of blackness set into a snow white face that reflected the blue flames of the fire. She watched the flames hungrily, but they held.

"Soon, soon," Mirrin murmured to herself, unconsciously rubbing her hands together.

"Come," she snapped, her attention returning to Mary Jane.

Mirrin turned on her booted heel and walked away without watching to see if Mary Jane would follow. Mary Jane guessed that the sorceress did not anticipate Mary Jane refusing, or else did not care if Mary Jane stayed outside to freeze in the cold. Mirrin disappeared back through the heavy wooden doors of Morlach and they closed behind her with a loud boom. The dragon hissed a plume of angry fire in Mirrin's direction and Mary Jane, recalling Hissarlik's words to her earlier, understood that it, too, was a prisoner of Mirrin.

She asked, "Hissarlik, if you had your heartstone again, what would you do?"

The dragon let forth a scream full of rage and replied, "If I had my heartstone, I would lay waste to Morlach and burn this forest to the ground with the heat of my fire. Then I would fly to my cave in the Western Plains and sleep on my treasure for a hundred years."

Having spoken, and without warning, he flapped his wings and at the same time launched himself into the air, quickly rising into the air in a wide circle before flying away from the castle. Mary Jane watched as he gradually became a smaller and smaller dark spot on the horizon, then slowly walked towards the giant door of the castle, dragging her feet behind her. The door was made of a naturally black wood, and affixed upon it was a brass plaque decorated with the ferocious face of a snarling gargoyle. It was so lifelike that Mary Jane imagined it snapping and biting at her with its sharp fangs, which were over an inch long each. She looked away from it as she pushed open the heavy door with her shoulder and entered.

~*~

Mary Jane was immediately struck by the sumptuous beauty of the castle's interior. It looked exactly as she imagined a castle should look. The door had opened into a wide reception hall and she stood there now, spellbound, as the heavy door closed behind her. The hall's high, solid gray walls were lit by a row of torches that illuminated large, ornate tapestries showing scenes of ancient battles and surreal creatures. As far as she could see, the hall continued deep into the castle. Yet as awe inspiring as the castle was, Mary Jane couldn't shake the feeling that it was also full of sadness. It was only after she thought for a minute that she realized it was completely empty. She and Mirrin were the only living things in it.

Mirrin had given her no instructions other than to enter Morlach, so Mary Jane wandered down the hall and through the castle, peering into different rooms as she passed. In one, the armory, perhaps, she saw fierce weapons of war: sharp daggers and shining broadswords, heavy double-bladed axes and long halberds, spiked maces and plumed helmets. They sat on tables and hung on pegs and hooks from the wall, deadly and beautiful. Mary Jane had the unsettling impression of activity and life in this as in the other rooms, as though the weapons had but a moment earlier been set down and would in a minute more be picked up again by soldiers leaving for battle. The bowls in the kitchen were arrayed in a row and all that was needed was for the cooks to return from the pantry and pick up where they had left off making dinner.

In the library, Mary Jane found books and scrolls innumerable that stretched from the floor to the ceiling in huge wooden bookcases. Though nothing in the room had been touched in years, there wasn't a speck of dust upon anywhere. The room was spotless. And then Mary Jane saw it. It was such a small thing, really, sitting on a mantle above the fireplace. She might not have seen it at all had it not caught the reflection of the torch lighting the room _just so_.

She walked over to the fireplace and picked up the small hourglass. Half of the white grains of sand had fallen through to the bottom of the hourglass while the other half remained in the top part. A single grain was caught midway between the two sides, suspended in mid-air. Mary Jane watched, expecting to see it finish falling through to the bottom, but it didn't move. She heard a bitter laugh and turned, the hourglass still in her hand, to see Mirrin watching her from across the room. Mirrin leaned against the door frame, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Time," the sorceress spat, "does not exist in Morlach."

"Doesn't exist?" Mary Jane asked, confused.

Then she added, unable to stop herself, "Because of the flame?"

Mirrin swept forward faster than Mary Jane anticipated and snatched the hourglass with long, claw-like fingers, flinging it to the ground where it shattered, the white sand spilling across the floor. Mary Jane flinched.

Mirrin glared at her and snarled, "The flame, yes. Whatever lies within an eternal flame when the spell is cast never ages, never feels hunger or fatigue, never dies. An eternal flame is strong enough to stop even time itself."

"A hundred years," Mary Jane said thoughtfully. "That's why you're still alive."

Mirrin's nostrils flared angrily and her jaw twitched, but the rest of her face betrayed no emotion. Mary Jane felt nervous and took an imperceptible step backward, the way prey would a predator. Mirrin did not notice. She grabbed Mary Jane's wrist and held so hard that Mary Jane felt tears of pain and terror spring to her eyes.

Mirrin hissed, "A hundred years of imprisonment. A hundred years all alone. But time has run out for this flame; it will not hold much longer. Then..."

She did not finish. Instead, she let go of Mary Jane and snapped her fingers. The pieces of the hourglass flew together again in her palm. Though Mary Jane could not see how it was done, all the pieces knit together, leaving the hourglass intact as though Mirrin had never broken it. Not even a single grain of sand was left on the floor, and the grain was once again trapped between the two halves. Mirrin handed it back to Mary Jane and Mary Jane felt her hands shake.

"Why me?" Mary Jane asked.

"You will help me," Mirrin said.

"No," Mary Jane said.

She said it so quietly that even her own ears couldn't hear the words. Her body shook like a leaf during a wind storm. She had never been so scared in her life.

"What did you say?" Mirrin asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Whatever you're trying to do, I won't help you," Mary Jane said bravely, her voice trembling.

As scared as she was, something inside her told her that whatever Mirrin's plans, they would not be good. Mirrin pressed her lips together firmly into a tight line. Mary Jane had expected her to explode angrily and yell, and probably even threaten, but instead the sorceress had the same blank expression as always.

Mirrin said, "We will see about that. Now, I have much work to do. Go and on the second floor of this castle you will find many bedrooms—choose whichever one you like and bathe. When I desire to see you again, I will call you. Otherwise, you are not to disturb me in any way."

She added with a sneer, looking disapprovingly at Mary Jane's stained and dirty nightgown, "I will send you something else to wear. See that you remove the twigs from your hair."

Mirrin left. Mary Jane stood unmoving as a rock, holding the whole hourglass, shell-shocked. A cold dread filled her up from the inside and threatened to brim over as hysterical tears. She set the hourglass down on the mantle where she had found it and picked her way back to the stairs that she had seen earlier in her wanderings and which would take her to the second floor. Her body felt unbearably weary. When she looked, she saw that her feet were grass-stained and covered in mud. She knew that by now Jack and Maude must have noticed her missing, and she hoped, though she knew the terrible consequence of her wish, that they had smashed the mirror to stop Mirrin from entering their world. Mirrin was far, far too dangerous to risk not immediately destroying the gateway into their world. Mary Jane opened the door to the first room that she found and fell onto the bed, immediately falling into a deep sleep.

~*~

Mary Jane did not know how long she had been asleep. It could have been minutes or hours when her eyes fluttered open to see a black and white rat standing on her chest. It stood on its hind legs using its tail for balance, sniffing the air with its small pink nose and twitching whiskers. When she saw the small creature, she squeaked in surprise and scooted her body away from it, smacking into the hard wooden headboard of the bed. Her movements startled the rat, which ran to the other end of the bed on all four paws and then stood up again to look at her.

"You're not dead then," it said.

Mary Jane thought the rat sounded glad. It leaned towards her, its nose wiggling with curiosity. Mary Jane was surprised to see a talking rat, then she remembered that she was in Devorian, not at home, and all the animals in Devorian could talk.

"No, I'm not. I was sleeping," Mary Jane replied, rubbing her eyes.

"Well, I'm glad you're not dead, milady. Godrick," he said, naming himself.

He added after a moment, "At your service."

"Hello Godrick, I'm Mary Jane," Mary Jane said.

"A pleasure to meet you," the rat said with a small bow.

"What are you doing here?" Mary Jane asked.

She added quickly, "I mean to say, I thought Mirrin was the only person...or animal, in the castle."

Godrick dropped to all four feet and scampered closer to her. He stopped a foot away and stood up again.

"That's a good question. The Far Reaches is normally no place for rats, but I've always been the enterprising sort. When I heard about this castle with its full larders and warm fires, I thought it was the perfect place to set up shop, if you know what I mean. Who else was going to come a thieving? This castle would have everything I would ever need. Of course, turns out my stomach was bigger than my head. Now I'm trapped in here until that big candle out there gets blown out. What comes in can't go out."

Mary Jane felt her stomach twist.

"You can't leave," she said numbly.

"Aye," Godrick agreed. "Not a whisker can slip past those blue flames. And don't think that Mirrin hasn't tried everything."

Mary Jane closed her eyes. The feeling of drowning, of all the air being sucked out of the room overtook her for a minute. However, a drowning man will fight to his last breath, and so would she. She tried to think through what she knew.

"Godrick, the dragon, Hissarlik, he left. He came and dropped me off and left again. Why wasn't he trapped?"

"Oh, him?" Godrick asked, "He's got his own magic, don't you know. That flame does him as much harm as a pair of shoes would do me good."

He wiggled his tiny hands--paws--with amusement.

Mary Jane thought. And thought. And thought until Godrick had all but fallen asleep on the foot of her bed. When she had an idea, she shouted with excitement. Godrick shot onto his feet, looking around for danger.

"What is it?" He asked.

"Godrick, do you know all of the rooms in the castle?" Mary Jane asked, her voice feverish.

"Like the back of me paw," the rat replied proudly.

Mary Jane leaned down so that her face was as close to Godrick's small head as possible.

She said, "I have an idea. Go now, but come back later. I think I know how to escape from here, but I'll need your help."
Chapter Seven

Race to Tarah

Jack, Maude, and the magical beasts had traveled without cease for hours. If not for the ever present fear that Mirrin might return at any time, their travel might have felt monotonous. Endless forests alternated with small meadows and clearings. Jack could no longer feel his seat or legs after having ridden nonstop for hours on end. He was so tired, in fact, that Mary Jane and Baker's Row no longer even seemed real to him. His life until that day seemed like a dream. Even the immortal beasts, who had carried the children mile after mile upon their backs barely had enough strength to keep moving forward. Luckily, they had found on their way a tree whose fruit Alcide said was safe for the children to eat and so the children no longer felt hunger gnawing at their bellies. They had gorged themselves upon it, letting the red juice run down their chins and drip onto their pajamas.

Jack looked at Maude and saw that her eyes were red from fatigue and her face was pale. He knew he probably looked no better, and his efforts to rub the dirt and sweat off of his face only ground it in more deeply. After asking the magical beasts everything she could think of in the first two hours, Maude had not asked anything since. Now her eyes were half closed, focused only on the ground passing beneath her. Jack wished he'd stopped Maude from coming with him. He wished, too, that she'd never found the mirror in the attic, or that they had destroyed it after they said they would. Suddenly Aldair stopped and tensed beneath him. Jack immediately tensed as well.

"What is it?" Jack whispered.

"Danger," Aldair rumbled back softly.

From the corner of his eye, Jack could see Alcide crouch lower to the ground, her tail twitching in nervous anticipation. Maude's eyes were fully open now. She looked around from left to right, trying to see whatever the beasts were reacting to. From the distance came a lone, terrible howl, answered by a chorus of similar cries.

"Wolves!" Jack yelled.

"Worse," Alcide said grimly. "Wargs."

"What are wargs?" Jack asked.

"You'll see soon enough. Run!" Alcide roared.

Both stag and leopard surged powerfully forward, running with what desperate strength they could muster. However, they were slowed, as before, by the fact that neither animal could move quickly if the children were expected to be able to remain astride.

"Can you outrun them?" Maude yelled.

"We must," Alcide replied, her voice a tight growl. "In a pack they will be able to overpower us."

As they reached the top of a hill, Jack looked back to see creatures that looked somewhat like shaggy, giant black dogs with burning red eyes chasing them. Each of the animals stood at least four feet tall at the shoulder, most of their height coming from their long legs. As they panted, Jack could see terrible, sharp fangs five inches long protruding from their mouths. Ten or so of the creatures flashed like black lightening through the forest only a few hundred yards behind them, but a few were much closer, their impossibly strong hind legs churning and propelling their heavy bodies forward with terrifying speed. Their lips curled up over their shining white teeth and they howled and bayed with anticipation, sensing that they were gaining on the magical beasts. Maude looked back and screamed in terror.

"The river!" Aldair cried. "When we reach the water, jump in and let the current carry you. We will lead the wargs away from you. They will be afraid to jump into the water, and the water will mask your scent so that they will not be able to track you from land. Stay in the water for as long as you can and when you can withstand the cold no longer, climb out and head east on foot. Go to Tarah and we will meet you there later. Have courage."

Using the last of their energy, the beasts outpaced the wargs. Jack could no longer see them, but he could still hear their shrill cries echoing through the woods all around them. The echoes made it sound as though they were surrounded by a pack of hundreds, rather than the dozen that chased them now. A moment later, Jack heard the rushing of water and the narrow river Aldair had indicated appeared before them. It was a small river, little more than a stream. It was only fifty feet wide at most, but its current was swift and the bottom deep. The beasts slid to a halt and Jack and Maude more or less toppled from their backs. They hesitated for a minute on the bank, petrified of losing their protectors, but the beasts were frantic, pushing them into the water with their noses.

"Go in safety! We will meet again at Tarah!" Alcide cried.

"But..." Maude said.

Before Maude could finish her sentence, Alcide and Aldair spun and ran west along the riverbank. They were faster, more agile without the children aboard. Within seconds, they were gone, and from the fading sound of the wargs, the wargs had followed. Jack looked at Maude, then gently took her hand. Maude's eyes were large and frightened. Together, they waded into the river until their feet could no longer touch the bottom. Then, allowing themselves to float, they surrendered to the insistent tug of the current and were swiftly carried away. Then there was only silence.

~*~

The strength of the river's current lessened as it traveled further and further northeast. The children had no way of knowing where it was taking them and could only hope that it was headed in the general direction of Tarah. Still, they trusted that Aldair was right and that it was leading them closer. They did not know what help might come to them at Tarah or how they could possibly find and rescue Mary Jane on their own, but they had to believe that all would be well if only they could reach Tarah or else they would have no hope at all.

Jack and Maude forced themselves to withstand the cold water for as long as they could. To distract themselves, they talked of the things they would do when they went home to their beds on Baker's Row. When Maude finally could bear the cold no longer, her short arms and legs weary from swimming, they pulled themselves to the shore and lay sprawled and wet upon the riverbank. Jack rubbed Maude's small hands between his own to warm them.

"Do you think they followed us?" Maude panted.

Her black hair was plastered against her white forehead and her lips were blue with cold. Her teeth chattered even as she spoke. She tried to wring the water out of her nightshirt, but it still clung to her stubbornly.

"I don't know," Jack said. "I don't think so."

"Jack, will Alcide and Aldair be alright?" Maude asked.

"What?" Jack asked, surprised.

"I said, will Alcide and Aldair be okay?"

Jack frowned briefly.

"I guess. They'll be fine, Maude," he said. "We have to keep moving. We have to reach Tarah by tonight; it's not safe for us to sleep alone in the woods at night without Alcide and Aldair."

Maude looked troubled, but nodded. Jack nodded as well, trying to look more confident than he felt. He did not know how he would be able protect her now that the beasts were gone, but he knew that he must try, whatever the cost. They had not heard the wargs since they had waded into the river, and so Jack judged it was likely that they had not been able to follow. The two children began walking, but without knowing where Tarah was they did not know if they were heading in the right direction. Still, it was better to move than to sit and do nothing. They walked wearily, too tired to speak. They had gone just under a mile when the sound of a tree branch snapping pierced the silence of the forest. The children immediately stood still and looked around fearfully for the source of the sound, but they could see no movement among the trees.

Jack put his finger to his lips and let go of Maude's hand, pointing behind them. He crept quietly in that direction, but he could see nothing past the trees closest to him. He thought bitterly of how Devorian seemed to be nothing but an unending forest of trees. He could not identify the cause of the sound, however, and he reluctantly turned back to Maude with a shrug. Although both were uneasy and anxious, they had no choice other than to continue on. A few minutes later, a bird burst out of the treetops and flew away screaming. Maude and Jack again froze, now certain that they were being followed. They listened and looked for any sign that might signal the location of their pursuer, but again found none.

Maude whispered anxiously, "What should we do, Jack?"

"I don't know," Jack whispered back, "but it can't be the wargs. If it were, they would have attacked by now. If it's another animal, we could ask it if we're on the right path toTarah. Let's wait and see what it does."

Maude nodded and the two stood still as statues for what felt like a lifetime. Only their eyes moved this way and that as they searched between the trees for their pursuer. Each felt a prickle on his or her skin indicating that somewhere nearby a pair of eyes was watching. Then they heard the rustle of leaves to their right and they watched the forest closely to see what would emerge. A long nose appeared, followed by a pair of pale blue eyes, a shaggy gray coat, and a long tail.

"A wolf," Maude gasped in dismay.

Jack grabbed his sister and pushed her behind him, putting himself between her and the wolf.

"I'll distract it," he said, picking up a small, thin stick and holding it in front of him like a sword. "You run away as fast as you can. Don't look back, just run."

"Excuse me," the wolf said in a high, polite voice, "I didn't mean to scare you. I saw you climb out of the river a little while ago and followed to see what you were doing. Oh dear, you're scared. Please, do not worry; I won't hurt you."

Jack and Maude looked at the wolf suspiciously. It wagged its tail like a dog, trying to look friendly and safe. It said, "My name is Archipel, and you are?"

"I'm Maude, and this is Jack," Maude said, stepping out from behind her brother. "Archipel, do you know how to get to Tarah?"

"It is to the east, some short distance from here. But the path is dangerous now that the witch's magic has returned. Please, allow me to accompany you. In times of trouble, it is best not to travel alone."

Jack was still suspicious of the wolf, but Maude stepped forward boldly and patted him on the head as she might a tame dog. She said to him, "I trust you, Archipel. Come on, Jack."

"I am glad of your trust. Now let us hurry from here. The darkness," Archipel said gravely, nodding to the ominously blackening sky, "is rising."

Jack nodded and dropped his stick, falling into line with Maude behind the gray wolf. Archipel set off at a trot, adopting a pattern of movement in which he wove in and out of trees to scout ahead before circling back to check on the children. Jack and Maude were drained by exhaustion, able only to put one foot in front of the other, but the wolf moved on sprightly, well-rested paws, his ears twitching forward and back as he listened for danger. Through the canopy of leaves above, Jack could just see patches of sky, and what he saw worried him. Enormous black clouds shot through by flashes of green lightening had rolled in swiftly, hiding the sun behind a wall of darkness. With so little light able to escape from the clouds, it seemed as though dusk had fallen, though Jack knew it was barely mid-day.

"Archipel, those aren't rain clouds, are they?" Jack said uneasily the next time the wolf was near.

Archipel sat and looked up.

"No," he said grimly, "I think not."

Suddenly the thick hairs on his back stood straight up and the children could feel a familiar crackling static sensation.

"Danger is near," Archipel growled in a low voice.

"What is it?" Maude whispered.

"Magic," Jack replied, squeezing her hand tightly.

"What do we do?" Maude asked urgently.

Her short black hair rose gently away from her face. Jack noted absently that it looked as though Maude were floating under water. Archipel whined softly, his tail tucked tightly between his shivering legs. As they looked before them, a green mist rose from the mossy forest floor and began to coalesce into a human-shaped cloud. As the mist became denser and the shape it was taking more distinct, the three could make out individual details: heavy battle armor, a winged helmet, and at last a man's blurry face.

"What is..." Jack started to ask.

"Flee!" Archipel yelled as the ghostly figure drew its sword soundlessly from the sheath hanging at its side.

Although the apparition was still transparent enough that the children could see the trees behind it, they nevertheless felt real danger. They turned and began to run away, tripping on roots and rocks and catching their clothing on outstretched tree branches as they ran. A sharp thorn caught Maude on the cheek, leaving a thin line of red blood. She pushed it away with her hands and kept running. Jack looked back over his shoulder as he ran and saw the apparition pursuing them pass effortlessly _through_ the trees and rocks in its path.

"Archipel, what is it?" Jack gasped.

"I don't know," the wolf replied, "but it was said that before she was trapped within the eternal flame, the witch Mirrin had begun to meddle in the dark arts of conjuring the dead. Our foe wears the eagle helmet of the royal Taran army although no Taran soldier has walked these lands in a century. Hurry; though it looks insubstantial, I shouldn't like to think what it might do if it catches us."

Archipel could have easily outrun both the phantom and the two human children, but he stayed with Jack and Maude, loping by their sides and occasionally looking back at their pursuer. The children ran as fast as their tired legs would carry them, keeping just ahead of the green apparition. The warrior remained hazily transparent, but not its sword, glinted with the unmistakable hardness of steel. Jack knew that they would not be able to run for long. His feet felt like two lead bricks and his chest burned. He had to all but drag Maude to keep her from falling behind. The ghost would catch up to them if they did not reach safety soon. Just when Jack thought Maude could run no further, the forest broke open into a long field and he saw the tall gray walls of a city. He redoubled his efforts.

"Let's go to the city!" He yelled, churning his legs faster.

"It's Tarah," Archipel panted with excitement.

Maude stumbled but did not fall and Archipel ran on before them, barking shrilly like a dog. The ground between the two children and the city shrank quickly. Jack started to believe that they would make it into Tarah, where they might find safety from the ghost. Then he saw the big wooden gate and his hope vanished. The gate was closed. They had come so far and faced such danger, but their quest to reach Tarah was doomed to end outside its massive walls. He turned to face the green warrior, which was now within several feet of him. It raised its long sword with both hands over its head, preparing to cleave its victims in two. And then Jack saw blackness.
Chapter Eight

The Heart of a Dragon

As Mirrin had promised, at the foot of Mary Jane's bed lay a red velvet dress and thin leather shoes. Mary Jane found the clothing waiting for her after she took a long bath. The bath water, channeled, Godrick had told her, to Morlach from a hot spring deep within the mountain upon which the castle was built, had melted away the fatigue from her long journey and left her rosy-cheeked and clean. She had even managed to find a comb and comb her unruly auburn hair into order. The fit of the dress was slightly too large for her, but she felt grateful to have it at all, and the shoes meant she no longer had to wander barefoot everywhere. Her white nightgown, which she had been wearing when she had been called through the mirror and had turned into a patchwork of green and brown stains, she folded and left on top of the chest at the foot of the bed. She had just sat down on the bed, wondering what to do next, when the door to her room creaked open to reveal a floating lamp lit by a bright green flame.

"Come," Mirrin's voice commanded.

The word seemed to come from all around Mary Jane, who jumped in surprise. The lamp bobbed and started to float away as though carried by invisible hands. Mary Jane, recognizing that she was meant to follow it, trailed behind as it led her down the staircase, through a winding corridor, and into a large dining room. The room was cavernous, lit by a roaring green fire in a fireplace set against the long wall on the left. The flames snapped and crackled menacingly, as though they meant to destroy and consume rather than warm and comfort, and Mary Jane kept as far from them as she could.

A long wooden table and several dozen chairs, all roughly hewn, filled the room. The table was large enough that dozens of people could have sat at it, but only one chair was occupied—the chair at the head of the table, and in it sat Mirrin. Mary Jane wondered briefly if the other seats had ever been filled, and if so, by whom. Whether they had or not, now Mirrin looked small and pathetic sitting all alone. A mockery of a queen presiding over an empty court. Mirrin looked up and saw Mary Jane. She pointed to the seat next to her and Mary Jane sat down obediently. The sorceress looked at her appraisingly, her eyes taking in the red dress, then ate a bite of food.

"Eat," she commanded Mary Jane when she finished chewing.

Mary Jane looked at her in bewilderment. The table was completely empty but for the plate of food from which Mirrin ate. Mirrin frowned, then snapped her fingers and a plate appeared before Mary Jane, overflowing with delicious food. Red grapes spilled over the plate's edge, pushed off by a brown pear, boiled potatoes, a thick slice of bread, and half of a chicken that had been roasted in thyme. Mary Jane suddenly discovered that she was ravenous and she began stuffing the bread and grapes into her mouth at once. Mirrin rapped her sharply on the knuckles with the flat side of her knife.

"You have no manners, child," she said disapprovingly.

Mary Jane began to eat more slowly while Mirrin watched.

"That's better. Now, you will tell me what I want to know. Where is it that you come from?" Mirrin asked with the tone of someone who does not expect to be refused.

"I won't tell you anything!" Mary Jane said defensively.

She did not notice that her fist tightened around the chicken leg that she was holding. Mirrin set her knife down gently but her black eyes flashed furiously. Her mouth pulled down at the corners.

"Insolent girl," she hissed, "Have you not seen what I am capable of? Have you not seen Hissarlik, resurrected from death by my magic? Did I not call you here from across the void that separates our worlds and bring you to Morlach castle? There is no wall that you can build that I cannot easily shatter, no secret you can keep that I cannot take from you if I want."

"What do you want from me?" Mary Jane asked, suddenly fearful.

"There is something in your world that I want. Something that I want very much. You will help me find it." Mirrin said, her eyes glowing hungrily.

"What is it?"

Mirrin paused, her lips pursed. She replied shortly, "I don't know."

"You don't know?" Mary Jane repeated.

A small line appeared between Mirrin's eyebrows. She did not answer. They sat in silence for a minute, Mirrin tapping her finger against the table angrily, or perhaps impatiently. Mary Jane noticed that Mirrin's fingers were very long and white, and that the nails were pointed like claws. They were cruel like Mirrin, and Mary Jane didn't like them.

Mirrin finally continued, "Something in your world has been leaking wild magic into Devorian for years, infecting the land with its strange magic. I can feel it in the air, like a very fine dust that has coated everything in Devorian. Even in my slumber I could sense it all around me. Its power is intoxicating. Whatever it is, whatever the source, I want it."

"But why?" Mary Jane cried. "There are only animals here now. All of your enemies, the king of Tarah, are all gone. With all the magic in the world you could never turn back time."

A terrible smile spread across Mirrin's face, and Mary Jane knew that Mirrin's dark eyes were seeing something not in the room.

"Can't I?" Mirrin asked.

Mary Jane's stomach lurched.

"This time, these...talking animals," she said the words with contempt. "I am not interested in living out the rest of my life surrounded by chattering squirrels and talking horses. No. I will use the wild magic, together with Devorian's animus magic, to reverse time and return to my rightful time. Then I will loose my revenge upon those who have wronged me. But I need the source of the wild magic, whatever it is. And you, child, you will bring me to it."

"What if the source is something that you can't take?" Mary Jane asked. "The whole Earth could be the source of the wild magic, the way animus magic is part of everything in Devorian. You can't just pick up a planet and bring it back through the mirror with you, no matter how powerful you think you are."

"No, no, it has to be an object," Mirrin said impatiently, waving her long hand dismissively. "Something that was brought into your world. I can feel that your world does not have its own magic; this magic is something alien."

"Then why would I know where the object is?" Mary Jane asked. "It could be anything or anywhere."

"Of course you won't know what it is. That is why you will lead me through the portal to your world. Once I am there I will be able to find it, no matter what its form. I will _feel_ it. You see, it is not so difficult a task that I ask of you: only lead me through to your world. Then I will release you. I promise no harm will come to your world. You would like to go back, would you not?" Mirrin purred.

Her voice had become sweet and sinuous, like the slow sway of a cobra hypnotizing its prey. It seemed to Mary Jane that Mirrin's eyes had become giant black pools into which she was sinking deeper and deeper, her will to resist fading quickly. Just as she felt herself about to slip away entirely, however, she remembered her family: Jack, Maude, and her parents back home at 321 Baker's Row. Blinking, she shook her head to break free of the spell.

"Why do you need me to cross through the portal? Why can't you pass through alone once the eternal flame dies?" Mary Jane asked, her mind racing.

"I cannot pass through without the help of someone from your world," Mirrin said matter-of-factly. "Only my mist can pass through it. Without you, the portal is nothing but an old tree to anyone in Devorian."

Mary Jane thought of the terrible things that Mirrin would do in Devorian if she were able to find the source of the wild magic on Earth. Mirrin might even decide that Devorian was not enough and bring her stone army through the mirror to Earth, despite her promise. Mary Jane knew she might be trapped in Devorian forever, but she simply could not help Mirrin. It was the only certain way to keep her family safe. Mary Jane whispered, "I won't help you. I can't."

A ripple of emotion crossed Mirrin's face. Her knuckles turned white as she squeezed her fork and knife tightly, and her teeth ground together. She roared, "You will do what I tell you or you will be responsible for what happens to dear little Jack and Maude. You may think that you are clever, child, but you are no match for me."

She waved her hands in a rapid, complicated weaving pattern above the table before her and a green mist began to appear in the air. At first Mary Jane could see only the mist, but quickly shapes appeared within it like the projection of a video onto a screen. Mary Jane didn't understand what she was seeing at first, but then she saw Jack and Maude. The two stood side by side, their faces full of horror as they stared past Mary Jane at something that she could not see. Maude was screaming soundlessly, and Mary Jane could see a cut running along her younger sister's cheek. The two children wore dirty pajamas, and their bare feet were covered with dirt. There was no doubt they were somewhere in Devorian.

Mary Jane screamed, "No!"

Her heart raced with fear. Mirrin clapped her hands together and the mist exploded into a thousand green particles that quickly disappeared. The sorceress stood. Her face was impassive once more. She said coldly, "By tomorrow and no later, the flame that binds me will have died. When that happens, I will at last be free, and then you and I will find the source of the wild magic."

She snapped her fingers and the gold plate from which she had been eating disappeared, along with what food had been left uneaten. She stalked out of the room, leaving Mary Jane alone with her thoughts. Mary Jane felt as though her chest would collapse upon itself. She felt desperate and helpless. She knew Jack and Maude were in danger, but was it too late? What had they been looking at? Or could it have been an illusion that Mirrin had created to scare her into helping, and they were still safe at home? She wished it was an illusion, but her instinct told her that they had followed her back through the mirror.

"She's a right nasty one, isn't she?" A voice squeaked below her.

Mary Jane jumped in surprise and looked down.

"Godrick!" She exclaimed.

The rat was sitting on the table, nibbling at a grape that he had stolen from her plate.

"Bah! Magicked food doesn't sit right with me," he said, spitting it out.

He proceeded to begin cleaning himself, licking his paws and then using them to smooth the hair between his ears and to straighten his whiskers. Mary Jane thought for a minute.

"Godrick, do you know where Mirrin keeps Hissarlik's heartstone?"

The rat cocked his head thoughtfully, his nose twitching. He drawled, "Hissarlik--might that be the old bag of bones what looks like it once was a dragon? I don't suppose I know what a heart stone looks like. Do you, Miss?"

Mary Jane frowned. She didn't know either. She said, "Is there a place where Mirrin keeps secret things? Things that she wouldn't want anyone to find?"

"Oh, I think I get yer meaning. Yes, I think so," Godrick replied. "I'll show you."

He scampered down the long table and Mary Jane walked after him. When he reached the end, he climbed down one of its legs headfirst and then jumped lightly to the ground. He ran to the same door by which May Jane had entered and waited for Mary Jane to catch up. When she did, he peeked his head out of the door and looked both ways down the hallway to check that Mirrin wasn't lurking nearby, then continued along the wall to the right. He ran ahead of Mary Jane, confidently navigating his way among the castle's many hallways. Mary Jane marveled at how large the castle was as she followed him. Morlach's gray passageways seemed to go on forever, twisting in all different directions. She knew it would be easy to get lost and never be able to find the way back.

They went down several flights of spiraled staircases. Mary Jane could feel that they were underground. The air was cold and felt almost wet. The hallways were bare and dungeon-like. Unexpectedly, Godrick disappeared under the heavy wooden door to a room, calling out, "It's this one!"

Mary Jane held her breath, fearful that Mirrin was in the room and would see the rat. When she heard no noises from inside that would indicate Mirrin was there, however, she slowly tried to turn the doorknob. It would not move. She whispered urgently, "Godrick! Godrick, the door is locked. How do I open it?"

First the rat's pink nose, then his face reappeared under the door. He looked up at the knob, his whiskers twitching, then his head popped back under the door again. An endless minute later, Mary Jane heard a soft clang and then the scraping sound of metal on stone. A small, thin knife pushed its way out from under the door, its hilt just barely narrow enough to pass through the tight space between the bottom of the door and the stone floor. Godrick followed behind, pushing with his nose until the knife was far enough into the hallway that Mary Jane could pick it up.

"You'll have to try to jiggle the lock, Miss, there's no key in there," Godrick said. "Give it a good poke and see if you can get it to open."

Mary Jane carefully set the point of the blade into the lock and pushed it in as far as it would go. She felt it slide into what could be an opening and twisted sharply. Unbelievably, she heard the lock click. She pushed the door open with her shoulder and stepped inside. The room was lit by a small lantern that struggled to cast its sickly yellow light in even a small circle around the desk on which it sat. Mary Jane was surprised to see that it was a real orange flame, not the green she had come to associate with Mirrin's magic. In the pale light, Mary Jane could barely see Godrick as he scurried over the desk, running carelessly over papers and knocking over a bottle of ink.

He warned, "We might not have much time. Better find that stone of yours quick as we can."

Mary Jane squinted and peered around the poorly lit chamber. There was little in the room besides the desk and she realized immediately that if the heartstone was indeed in the room, it had to be on the desktop or in one of the desk's drawers. If the heartstone was not in the room, however, it could take weeks to go through the castle's other rooms; time they did not have.

"Godrick, you're certain this is the right room?" She whispered.

"Aye, it's this one alright," he replied. "It's the only locked door in the entire castle, I'll wager. Whatever she's got in here, she doesn't fancy it getting out."

Mary Jane walked to the desk and sat down on the wooden stool before it. She picked up a brittle piece of yellow parchment paper that lay on the desk and tried to read it, but in the dim light she could not make out any of the words. She set it down and felt for the desk's drawers. Her hand found a knob and she pulled.

A pure, brilliant red light shot out of the drawer like a beacon. Mary Jane looked down and saw a giant ruby the size of her fist sitting on a small satin pillow in the drawer. Unbidden, her hand reached out to touch it, and her fingers wrapped themselves tightly around the gem. Immediately she felt a hot, fetid breath wash over her and heard the whispering of envious voices in her ear.

"What have you got there, Miss? Is it the heart stone?" Godrick asked, bounding closer and peering down at the open drawer.

Without thinking, Mary Jane snatched the ruby out of the drawer and away from his beady black eyes. The edges cut into her fingers until she thought they might draw blood. The stone felt uncomfortably hot to the touch.

"It's nothing," she said too sharply, holding the gem behind her back so that the rat couldn't see it.

"It doesn't smell right, whatever it is," Godrick said, his nose twitching and wrinkling. "It smells like greed and death is what it smells like. You should put it back."

"It's Hissarlik's heartstone," Mary Jane confessed, reluctantly bringing her hand back to the table and opening it to reveal what it held.

The rat looked at it closely, but did not touch it.

"Well that's it then," he said.

She nodded firmly. Godrick announced, "Come on then, let's be off. I don't fancy staying around here very much longer, do you?"

Mary Jane looked around the room and shivered; she could feel the heartstone's satisfaction at being in a place where dark and dangerous magic was performed. She could also feel the almost irresistible push the stone exerted to be reunited with Hissarlik. For a moment a selfish desire welled up within her to never to give the stone up to anyone else, but she focused on Jack and Maude and the feeling subsided. She grabbed a small pouch that hung on the wall, shaking out the dried herbs inside, and slung its strap over her shoulder. Then she carefully placed the heartstone inside, covering it completely so that its magical light would not shine out, and shutting the door behind her, followed Godrick back down the way they had come.

~*~

The rat was an excellent guide and they emerged from the endless maze of passageways and corridors only a hundred yards before the castle's heavy doors. Mary Jane stopped and pulled the glowing heartstone from the pouch. She had not known how she would be able to summon Hissarlik, but from the growing sense of delight that she felt radiating from the stone she suspected that the dragon somehow already knew to come and was drawing near. Godrick eyed the gem uneasily.

"What now, Miss?" He asked.

"Come with me," she said. "Don't be afraid."

She pushed the great doors open, struggling against the powerful wind that tried to slam them shut again. The sun was setting and the last of its dying rays smeared crimson and gold like an artist's oil paints across the sky. In the courtyard sat patiently waiting the great dragon Hissarlik. His eyes burned the same fiery red as his heartstone, and he beat his wings with excitement when he saw the stone in Mary Jane's hand. Mary Jane ran towards him, the wind whipping across her face and tangling in her hair. Godrick followed at her heels. Hissarlik stretched out a bony claw.

"Give it to me," he hissed, his breath hot.

The fire in his eyes leaped higher and danced. The stone in Mary Jane's hand felt as though it was pulling toward the dragon. She fought against it by clutching the stone harder.

"Not yet," She said, putting the stone carefully back in the pouch.

The dragon's eyes did not leave the stone.

"I will give it to you, but first you must promise me that you will take us away from here; some place where Mirrin can't find us."

Mary Jane clutched the pouch tightly to stop the stone from trying to reunite with the dragon. Hissarlik screamed in anger and impatience, but he could do nothing while she held the upper hand. He flapped his wings with agitation and snarled, "It will be done."

"Good," Mary Jane said, with more confidence than she felt.

It was at that moment that she saw, from the corner of her eye, the blue flames surrounding Morlach flicker and die soundlessly. The eternal flame was no more.
Chapter Nine

Out of the Frying Pan

The blackness that Jack had seen was nothing more than the contrast between the light of the sun and the darkness of shadow. Without his knowing, he had been pulled sharply back through a door hidden in the wall and saved from the deadly phantasm. Now he was released by whatever hands held him and he fell forward with a grunt. Not bothering to look up to see who had saved him, he sat tiredly with his hands on his knees and his head drooping, breathing deeply to regain his breath and his wits. Maude sat down beside him, and Archipel's soft whine of lingering fear let him know that the wolf was there as well.

"You're safe now, travelers," a soft female voice said.

Maude looked up and gasped, her small hand flying to her mouth. Standing beside them was an enormous brown bear with huge black claws and a thick, shaggy coat. It had been standing on its hind legs as it watched them, towering a good six feet at least, but now it fell heavily to all four paws. Jack guessed that it must weigh close to a thousand pounds. Its claws were three inches long and sharp as knives. Maude scrambled to her feet and with a small, awkward curtsy said, "You saved us! Thank you so very much, ah..."

"You may call me Hilduin," the bear replied in her unexpectedly clear, melodious voice.

She added kindly, "All travelers are welcome at Tarah, though few come to this dying, old city. Come, I will take you to the castle, where you can refresh yourselves, for I can see you've had a hard journey."

She turned to lead them away and under her breath the children heard her murmur to herself, "Humans, and in Tarah once more no less. Whatever can it mean?"

The children and Archipel followed Hilduin as she lumbered up a narrow alleyway just wide enough for a cart and horse to pass through. Jack suspected that the city had been built on a circular plan with the king's castle placed at the center, for he now remembered that Tarah's walls had looked curved rather than straight from the outside. It was a clever architectural trick: the effect of all the roads leading to the castle was to reinforce the idea that the castle was the heart of the city. In the time of humans, Tarah must have been a vibrant, bustling city full of merchants, shopkeepers, and regular citizens, but now it felt more like a graveyard. The only sound they heard was that of their feet slapping against the paving stones, while every house they passed stood empty and silent like eternally watching sentinels. Dust lay thickly over the tables and chairs left inside the decaying buildings. The dead city made Jack's hair stand on end.

"It's so quiet," Maude whispered.

Her voice was low and soft. She added, "Does anyone live here?"

"Oh, yes," Hilduin replied, more loudly. "Why, there's a fox pair, several doves and owls, a flock of starlings, more mice and voles than you can count, and about half a dozen squirrels. And some others now who've come to escape the...well, nevermind that."

She added after a moment, "Most animals stay away from the city, my dear. They prefer to keep to their burrows and nests in the woods and fields."

"I can see why," Archipel sniffed. "This city is a mortuary."

"It is shelter, nevertheless," Hilduin replied casually.

"What about Mirrin?" Jack asked urgently. "Are we safe here from her?"

The bear paused and Maude, who had been following closely behind, almost walked into her. Hilduin said hesitantly, " I don't know. But you're no less safe here than out there, that's for certain. For now, at least, I think you will find the shelter we can provide to be enough."

They continued down the alley and spoke no more. The sky remained dark, but it was lighter over the city than it had been over the forest, especially since the canopy of leaves had blocked out what little sunlight there was. Suddenly Maude breathed, "Look!"

Jack followed Maude's gaze and saw the four high turrets of a castle rising above the rooftops before them. The castle's mighty walls towered above the city with a breathtaking majesty and beauty. It had been built to show the power of the kings of Tarah, and it continued to do so long after their bones had turned to dust in the earth. When they reached its enormous iron door, Hilduin stood on her hind legs and knocked heavily with her great paw. The sound echoed like thunder around them. Presently they heard the squealing of metal long unoiled and the door swung open with a grating groan of protest.

Hilduin led them through the doorway and they found themselves standing in a large, dark entryway. The light from outside the castle followed them through the door, painting a distorted rectangular patch of light on the ground in front of them that provided the only real light in the room. Their shadows stretched like long parodies of themselves in the rectangle. Maude blinked as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she tried to see what lay around them. She could just see the outlines of Hilduin's massive form standing in front of her, but nothing else. A single white mouse materialized from the blackness and stepped into the light. It was so small that neither Maude nor Jack noticed it until it squeaked, "Who comes here?"

"Travelers," Hilduin replied.

Jack thought he heard her add under her voice to the mouse, "Humans."

"Humans in the castle again!" The mouse sighed in an almost reverential tone.

He immediately bowed to Jack and Maude, sweeping his tiny paw to his chest and dipping his head low to the floor. It was comical to watch, and Maude muffled a giggle. The mouse announced proudly, "I am Timab, guardian of Tarah castle. Please do come in; you are most welcome."

"I leave them in your able paws, Timab," Hilduin said. "From the looks of them, they have had a long journey. Please find them comfortable accommodations within the castle where they may freshen up. I wish you luck, travelers."

She nodded to them and padded back out of castle, her claws clicking against the stone floor. She was swallowed up by the light and they saw her no more.

"Come," Timab said, "I will show you to your chambers."

The white mouse turned and disappeared beyond the rectangle of light into the dark of the room. Maude felt Jack take her hand and they followed him. Their eyes adjusted enough to the dim light that they could just barely see the white gleam of his fur against the darker stone floor. The grand reception hall gave way to a long hall lit by glimmering orange torches. The corridor was like the trunk of a tree, from which branched many other rooms.

"We have tried to preserve Tarah as the humans left it," Timab explained as he ran before the children's feet. "It is to us a reminder of Devorian's past. The kitchen and baths, you will find, are all in perfectly working order just as they were during the time of the last king of Tarah. Though not many animals choose to live within the city walls, any animal who wishes may live here and find whatever protection we are able to offer."

They left the main hallway and entered a narrower corridor lined on both sides by wooden doors. Timab stopped before one of the doors and gestured to it with his small paws.

"This, young sir, shall be your room. If you please," he said, indicating Jack.

Jack turned the brass knob and pushed. The door resisted at first, but he leaned his shoulder against it and at last it gave way with a groan. Narrow windows, just wide enough to let in slats of light to illuminate the room, revealed a giant bed larger than any Jack had ever seen. The bed was made of heavy chestnut wood and hung with silks decorated with a large, branching tree on a field of deep azure.

Timab scaled up one of the legs of the bed frame and stood at the foot of the bed. He exclaimed wistfully, "This was the bed of the King of Tarah. Oh, how fine the silk! Made from thousands and thousands of silk worms. And this blue! We have no dyes this color anymore; they are lost to us now, like so many other things. The silver tree you see is the symbol of Tarah. You will see it carved and sewn throughout the castle."

"It's beautiful. Do you stay here normally, Timab?" Maude asked.

"Me?" Timab asked in surprise. "Certainly not. I prefer to remain in the gatehouse, with my family. No, this room is very special. It is only for guests."

The white mouse continued, eying Jack appraisingly, "As to attire, you are small, but there may yet be some articles of clothing in the old stocks that will fit. I shall have them sent to you immediately. Please, rest and refresh yourself in the meantime. The bath, you will find, is in the adjoining room."

Turning to Maude, he said, "Come, young lady. Your room is further on."

Timab scurried off the bed and out of the room. Jack looked at Maude and nodded for her to follow. He disliked the thought of being separated from her, but he trusted that at least for now they were safe. Timab led Maude, with Archipel padding faithfully beside her, down the hall to another room only a few doors away and entered it. The door was already open, so Maude followed him in. This room had obviously been that of a woman. In addition to the bed in the middle of the room, Maude saw against the far wall a desk topped with three mirrors.

"This room will be yours," Timab said to Maude. "It belonged to the Queen of Tarah."

"Thank you," Maude said politely.

She looked all around the room. It was draped with silk fabrics in every color of the rainbow. Gold and silver decorations also covered the wall, including a giant dragon six feet long that breathed a plume of pure gold. Maude ran her hand along its tail and felt the individual scales that the artist had carved. It must have been very expensive to make, and taken years to carve.

"When darkness falls, I will send fire to light the torch in your room. If you have need of anything, follow the hall back as we came and you shall surely find help there. Now as for you, sir..." Timab began, turning to Archipel.

"I will stay here," Archipel interrupted politely.

"As you wish," Timab said.

The mouse bowed to them slightly and hastened from the room. Archipel circled a spot near the door several times and then collapsed with a sigh, resting his head against his crossed paws as his unblinking pale blue eyes watched Maude. Maude walked to the dressing table and ran her finger down one of the mirrors, watching as a line of gray dust collected on her finger. She pulled open the table's drawer and found within it a light, silver brush with intricate designs etched into the head and white horsehair bristles. The hairs were soft and she enjoyed rubbing them with her hand for a moment before she carefully set the brush back down again. Archipel blew air out of his long nose and closed his eyes.

"Archipel?" Maude asked softly.

"Yes?"

He did not open his eyes.

"Will we ever go home?"

Archipel opened his eyes and looked at her. He said, rising to his feet and padding toward her, "You must have faith that you will see your home again."

"But what if we don't?" She persisted.

"You will," the wolf reassured gently.

Maude sat down on the bed and Archipel placed his head in her lap, allowing her to stroke his soft fur. Maude whispered, "I'm scared."

"It's alright," Archipel said, "I'm scared, too. It's alright to be scared."

As Maude ran her small hands through the fur between his ears, she looked through one of the window slits out onto the plain that lay before Tarah. A dark, menacing shadow seemed to be advancing from the woods and coming in the direction of the city. She thought it was a trick of the sun until she noticed unmistakable movement among the trees several hundred yards outside the city walls.

"Trolls," Archipel growled.

He raised his head from Maude's lap. His pale eyes were fixed upon the same spot in the woods.

"What?"

"Trolls. They're stupid, nasty brutes, but rare, luckily," the wolf explained. "They live in dank, dark parts of the forest far to the west. It's almost unheard of to encounter one this close to Tarah. Usually the smelly creatures can't even stand to be around one another; I'm surprised there are so many of them in one place. There must be several dozen of them at least."

"What are they doing? Why are they out there?" Maude asked.

"I haven't the slightest notion. They appear to be building something," Archipel replied, looking with his keen wolf eyes. "Something large and wooden."

"Catapults or a siege engine, I reckon," drawled a voice.

Maude and Archipel were surprised to hear someone else speak, and looked to the open door to see an enormously large vulture standing just outside it. Maude squealed and jumped behind Archipel nervously. The bird was a good three and a half feet tall, with a white head and brown feathers. It looked vicious and scary.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," the vulture apologized. "Anyway, those trolls have been out there for days now cutting and clearing the woods for something. I took a gander myself not yesterday and it seems to me like they've got it in mind to attack Tarah."

"Surely not," Archipel said doubtfully. "Siege engines? How could trolls possibly think up something like that? And an attack? Even if they tried, the trolls would probably fall to fighting each other long before they got around to attacking anything else."

"Maybe so, but that don't make it any less true what they're doing out there. And I'll tell you what: they're not the only things that go bump in the night out there. All the creepy crawlies your mama used to tell you about afore bedtime are out in those woods right about now. The trolls might not be smart enough to plan an attack, but someone is, and I'll give you one guess who that might be."

Maude shivered. Archipel growled deep in his throat, though his tail tucked fearfully between his legs. The vulture hopped from one foot to the other, bobbing its head. It said, "Piece of advice, friends: leave before those nightmares out _there_ get in _here_."

Then the bird was gone as though it had never been there. Maude fell to her knees and clutched Archipel to her, shuddering with fear. The wolf licked her face to comfort her. Suddenly his body stiffened and his head jerked towards the door, his tail erect and his ears pointed forward. He cried, "Who goes there?"

A familiar male voice said, "It's me, Jack."

Jack's head appeared in the doorway, followed by his body. He still wore his rumpled striped pajamas, and he looked tired. The pajamas were stained by dirt through and through; nor had the soaking they had received in the river made them any cleaner. The inside of the knees were nearly black from where they had rubbed against Aldair's sides for hours, while streaks of green acquired during their escape from the phantom warrior lent a splash of color to the arms and legs. Jack's hair stood up in clumps and a streak of dirt under his left eye gave him the appearance of having a black eye. He smiled sheepishly.

"I was bored," he said unconvincingly.

Then he added quietly, "And I didn't want to be alone."

Maude rushed wordlessly to him and dragged him to the window by his hand. She pointed to the trolls, who could now clearly be seen chopping down trees in the forest. She exclaimed, "Look!"

"What?" Jack said, peering out the window through squinted eyes.

"Trolls, Jack! There are trolls in the forest just outside the city and they're going to attack Tarah."

Jack frowned. He looked more closely and finally saw the trolls. Because they were so far away, he knew that they must be enormous for him to be able to see them at all. They worked diligently, hacking at the trees and then dragging them away once they fell. He felt a rock settle at the pit of his stomach. They had escaped the wargs and the phantom warrior, but perhaps they had only moved from the frying pan into the fire. He moaned miserably, rubbing his face with his hands. He wished, as he had often lately, that they had never found the mirror in the attic.

"What do we do, Jack?" Maude asked.

Her large, dark eyes pleaded with him. He was supposed to protect her. He was supposed to keep her safe. He had promised. But how could he?

"We'll tell someone," he said weakly. "They have to do something!"

He did not believe his own words, however. He knew a small white mouse and a hodgepodge of woodland creatures would be no match for the large creatures lurking in the woods beyond Tarah's walls. Still, it was something. He nodded grimly and then he, Maude, and Archipel left the room and began walking down the hall. The passageway was longer than Jack anticipated, and when they reached its end he could not remember if Timab had brought them from the right or the left. Guessing, he turned to the left. As they continued down this new corridor, they began to hear the low murmur of voices. Suddenly cautious, Jack held his finger to his lips and waved Maude and Archipel into a single line behind him. They crept close to an open door and crouched outside to listen to the voices coming from within.

"This is not our fight," a deep voice growled. "Give Mirrin the children and she will leave us in peace."
Chapter Ten

The Beasts' Council

"Godrick, jump in the bag! We must leave at once," Mary Jane cried.

The plump rat, sensing danger, ran up her leg and hopped into the pouch carrying the heartstone. His pink nose and round black eyes reemerged seconds later to peer out cautiously. Mary Jane repositioned the pouch so that it lay against her back rather than her side and began climbing up to Hissarlik's shoulder as quickly as she could, growling as the dress she wore gathered and bunched in all the wrong places to obstruct her legs. Hissarlik watched her silently from the corner of his burning red eyes. The hairs on Mary Jane's arms rose as magic began to fill the air around her. It reminded her exactly of the static that charged the air before a lightening storm. Risking a glance, she looked to the woods around Morlach and saw that the stone soldiers were beginning to move their limbs.

"Fly!" She commanded Hissarlik.

The dragon beat his great wings and sprang into the air. As they cleared the battlements and began to circle away, Mary Jane saw Mirrin sweep into the courtyard wearing her heavy red cape fringed by white fur. The sorceress looked up and her face twisted with fury as she saw her prisoner escaping on the dragon's back. Mary Jane saw her mouth move, though they were too far away for her to hear the words, and saw her throw her hands in the direction of the fugitives. Mary Jane guessed that Mirrin had tried a spell, but they were too far away now for it to work. As Hissarlik carried them higher and higher, Mirrin and Morlach became small dots in the background before finally they were swallowed up by the landscape. Mary Jane was free.

"Hoo!" Godrick cheered from his place in the pouch on Mary Jane's back. "We nicked away just in time. I wish I could have seen her face when she realized you had the heartstone."

"We're not safe yet," Mary Jane warned somberly. "She might still be able to catch us."

"Oh, not now she can't. We've got away good and proper. Let her try," the rat said boldly.

Mary Jane did not answer. They flew higher until even the mountain Morlach was built upon looked like only a small hill surrounded by counless others. Hissarlik flew steadily, his skeleton wings beating evenly yet powerfully. Tears streamed from Mary Jane's eyes, caused by the same bitter cold that whipped against her bare arms. The tears froze against her cheeks.

Mary Jane called, "Fly lower, Hissarlik! It's too cold this high in the air."

The dragon obediently dropped lower until they just barely skimmed above the treetops. They flew so quickly that Mary Jane could not see the individual features of the land, only a blur of color: the green of grass and leaves, the blue of lakes and streams, the gray of rock and boulder. Her red hair streamed behind her and the air beat against her eardrums and snatched at her clothes. She sat up on the dragon's back and tried to think about what to do. More than anything, she wanted to find the tree in the forest that would take her home and then, like a small child, hide in her bed at 321 Baker's Row until Mirrin and all that she had experienced in Devorian was nothing more than a half-remembered dream, but she knew that she had to find Jack and Maude. She felt in her heart that they were still alive, but she had no idea how to find them.

"I don't know what to do," she muttered aloud, feeling frustrated and helpless.

She felt sharp nails dig into her clothing and scratch against her skin as Godrick crawled out of the pouch and onto her shoulder. He had to hold on tight as the wind battered against him, his whiskers shivering. She felt his tail wrap around the back of her neck for balance.

"Well, Miss," he shouted to be heard, "might I suggest as a first step you tell this bag o' bones somewhere to go before he takes us somewhere we don't want to be?"

"But I don't know where to go!" Mary Jane exclaimed.

"I will fly south to the Saar desert," Hissarlik rumbled in his deep voice, "and sun myself among the dunes once more. I will take you wherever you desire, but may we never meet again, for once you no longer hold my heartstone you are my enemy."

Mary Jane shuddered at the darkness behind his words. Riding the dragon was like riding a runaway horse: she was only safe for as long as she could hold on. Though he helped her now, he was no friend, and she would be wise to remember it. She longed for the gentle kindness of Mr. Brumby, or even the stern but predictable Mrs. Peters. She wondered whether she would ever see Mrs. Peters again.

"Where can we go, Godrick?" Mary Jane asked. "I have to find Maude and Jack!"

"I don't rightly know," Godrick said slowly, "but I wager if there's a chance of finding your friends, Tarah's the place to start. For all the animals don't like it, it's still the place to go to get information."

"But Tarah is exactly where Mirrin is going!" Mary Jane protested.

"Aye, that's true," he conceded, "but it's still your best chance."

Mary Jane frowned, but nodded. She rapped on the bones of Hissarlik's neck to get his attention, then yelled, "Take us to Tarah."

The dragon loosed a piercing scream and banked hard to the left. The heartstone, which Mary Jane had unconsciously taken from the pouch and held clutched in her right hand, felt as though it were cutting through her skin and into the flesh as she tried to grab both Hissarlik's neck and the gem. She longed to drop the stone, but dared not. Hissarlik roared, "Tarah—the old place of my enemies. I will take you there, and then you will give me back my heartstone."

"Yes," Mary Jane agreed.

She would be relieved to get rid of the gem; the greed and envy that seeped out from it took her breath away and made her feel sick to her stomach. She asked, to distract herself, "Are we far from Tarah?"

"Yes, very far," Hissarlik replied. "We will fly well into the night, guided by the stars."

Mary Jane looked to the sky, where the first stars had only just started appearing as bright spots of light, and hoped that they would arrive in Tarah before Mirrin.

~*~

"Grimkell!" A second, familiar voice admonished.

It was female; gentle yet strong. It continued, "We have a duty to protect the younglings from the witch Mirrin. Indeed, we have a duty to all of Devorian's creatures. You have answered Devorian's call; now you must stand ready to defend her."

"I, too, have doubts," said a third voice, silky yet with a low growl. "I have come to hear what is to be said, but it is not for us to interfere in the matters of either humans or animals. Thus has it always been with us."

"It is cowardice to hide behind the habits of the past and use it to justify the inaction in the present," the second voice said again, angrily, and now Jack recognized the voice as belonging to the leopard Alcide. "What say you, Aiglon?"

"For centuries I have made my home in the highest peaks of the Far Reaches and let the ages sweep over me like the winter winds. I have flown from one end of Devorian to the other and watched first mankind, then animalkind grow from its infancy to adulthood. I am happy to remain an observer to the changes that come with the course of time, but this change now unsettles me. It disrupts the natural order of things. I sense a power and a force that I have not encountered in all of my years of solitude, and I mistrust the burning hatred and anger that drives it. Perhaps the danger is not to us, as Grimkell has said, but it seems wrong to allow the suffering of so many."

"Even the deathless have a responsibility to protect those whom death threatens," another voice that Jack recognized as Aldair's muttered in agreement.

"You have always been too tender-hearted towards the lesser creatures, Alcide, but you, Aiglon?" Grimkell snarled. "Let them have their petty wars and rivalries; they do not affect us."

A fourth voice said, "Can you be certain that the damage Mirrin will cause will be limited? Mirrin is powerful in ways that challenge even we who are gifted by magic."

Pandemonium erupted as voices began to chorus in response, and Jack could not hear anything for the next several minutes as the voices argued among themselves, devolving at times into growls of anger and passionate opinion expressed by non-human throats. Finally Alcide's voice rose above the others and she said, "Gildas makes a good point, which we all must recognize. Mirrin is the greatest sorceress Devorian has ever known--what more might she be able to do if she is able to bend wild magic to her will as well as animus magic? Even we magical beasts do not understand wild magic."

"Too few!" Aldair growled in frustration. "Too few have answered Devorian's call. Where are the heroes Drabant, Lansiar, Osgar, Sant?"

There was silence. Jack slowly stretched his neck out so that he could just barely see into the room, taking care not to be seen. Inside, he saw a small group of enormous animals sitting around a round wooden table. Alcide and Aldair, bright white and shimmering gold respectively, he saw immediately, and he felt a rush of relief that they had survived the wargs' ambush. To Alcide's right sat a large black mountain cat, its luminous yellow eyes glowing softly. Its tail, which stuck out of the gap between the back of the chair and its seat, twitched anxiously. Farther to the right sat the most extraordinary bird that Jack had ever seen. It was four feet tall, colored a blazing red that shimmered with hints of orange and yellow. The feathers on its wings ranged from pale orange to deep red, like the burning embers of a fire, and its tail was at least half again as long as its body, with red, orange, and blue feathers.

On the bird's other side was a massive black dog. It was heavier than the largest mastiff, taller than any Great Dane or Irish wolfhound. Its black eyes burned from deep within the folds of skin on its face. Just from looking at it, Jack had the unsettling impression that while the dog was not evil like Mirrin, nor was it was particularly good in the way that Alcide and Aldair were. He guessed that this must be the controversial Grimkell, a fitting name for the forbidding creature.

Next at the table was an oversized eagle. It perched upon the back of a chair, its razor sharp talons cutting deep and careless gouges into the hard brown wood. When it was agitated, the eagle stretched out its earth-toned brown wings and beat them against the air as though the bird meant to take flight. This must be Aiglon, Jack thought, for he could not imagine the bright red bird at home in the snowy mountains of the Far Reaches. The last creature at the table was not any animal found on Earth. It had the sandy yellow hindquarters and tail of a lion, but the long wings and front legs of an eagle. Its head was an unusual mixture of cat and bird, a narrow face with a bird of prey's keen eyes, a sharp, hooked yellow beak, and tufts of brown fur or feather for ears.

"The decision to help the animals of Devorian is yours to make individually," Alcide said upon breaking through the commotion at last. "I can only ask for your aid and hope that you will lend your great strength to turning back this powerful evil. But before you choose, there are other voices you must first hear."

The leopard slipped from her chair like water poured from a cup and opened a door that Jack had not noticed before, hidden as it was in the shadowed wall on the left side of the room. She stepped back and Jack watched as a dusty brown hare hopped through the doorway into the room. It was an old rabbit, with floppy ears and a nose that looked like it had been dipped in white paint. It whistled when it saw the animals at the table.

"So it is true that the magical beasts have returned to Devorian," the hare murmured in a low, awed voice.

"Some," the eagle-lion said evenly, its head cocked to the side as though it listened intently.

Griffin. The word fell into Jack's mind and he knew immediately that the creature speaking was a griffin, as described only in fairytales back at home.

"Why have you brought him here?" Grimkell demanded angrily. "What right has he to speak before us?"

"Let him speak," Alcide commanded. "May you be reminded that power is not without responsibility."

She nodded her great head towards the hare to encourage him, and it said with an increasingly bold voice, "So long ago my father used to tell stories of the lost beasts of Devorian; magical creatures that walked the earth long before animals could speak--Aiglon the fearsome; Alcide the brave; Aldair the noble; Shamaraan the elusive; and many more. Their tales were legend throughout Devorian, for though they were few in number, they were powerful without measure. Some even said they were the first living creatures in all of Devorian. Then one day, they suddenly disappeared from the land and were nevermore seen again.

'Stories of their adventures remained, but became little more than fairy tales passed down from generation to generation. Only the young believed them. After all, it had been a thousand years since the last magical beast had been seen in Devorian. Still, always the stories said that in times of great trouble, the magical beasts would come again to protect Devorian."

"Fantasies," Grimkell scoffed. "Are we to be held responsible for the fanciful imaginings of storytellers? Get on with it, for this tale bores me."

Alcide growled at him and he sniffed and looked away.

The hare continued less confidently, "One hundred years ago, the age of man came to an end and the age of the animals began. Yet just as we inherited the ruined castles and broken roads of men, so, too, did we inherit a most dangerous prisoner, one that we knew would one day be set loose in Devorian once more. She is not an animal, nor is she from our time. She is out of place here. She is the last human in all of Devorian. And though she has no reason to threaten us, we who have never done her harm, still we fear her, for she is not just any human. She is more powerful than any human ever born in Devorian.

'We know not her plans for Devorian, but this much is clear: darkness will follow wherever she goes. Her stone army is on the march, relentlessly descending from the Far Reaches like a cascading avalanche. Even now, terrible and frightening monsters gather outside the gates of Tarah with weapons of war. All the evil of the world she calls to her. To what end?"

"Passionate words," the mountain cat remarked in a silky voice that Jack recognized as having spoken before, "but tell me, what do you seek of us?"

The animal had the casual grace of a cat at rest, but tension that could snap it into immediate action kept its muscles taut under its shiny black coat. Its yellow eyes stared intensely at the stag even as its voice sounded aloof and careless. The hare looked anxiously to the other animals to see how they had reacted to his words, but their faces were unreadable to Jack.

"We are peaceful creatures," the hare replied. "We cannot fight, if it comes to that. Not tooth and claw against steel and spell. Without your help, we are at Mirrin's mercy. But what help you may give us in particular, I cannot know."

"I see," the mountain cat said coolly. "But the danger is not mine. It is not our place to intervene now."

"Shamaraan, you did not always feel that way," Alcide admonished.

"I was younger then," black Shamaraan replied. "The world was younger then."

"We who are deathless must embrace the deaths of others as a natural part of life," Grimkell said.

"I see I was mistaken to come here seeking help," the hare said stiffly. "My father's legends were indeed fairy tales and lies, for I find here cowards, not heroes."

"You know nothing of us," Grimkell growled angrily.

"I know enough," the old rabbit retorted hotly. "All the years you have lived have taught you pride but not compassion. What would it cost you, an immortal creature that cannot be killed by sword or flame, to defend those who cannot defend themselves? Yet you prefer to slink away and sleep away the centuries until there is neither human nor animal left in Devorian."

"Not all of us believe as Shamaraan and Grimkell believe," the griffin said in its strangely shrill voice, "and few though we may be, we stand ready to defend Devorian in whatever way we can. We, too, have a part to play in what is to unfold, for our history is intertwined with that of both men and animals."

There was silence among the beasts for a moment as they contemplated the griffin's words, then Alcide ordered, "Enough. Aiglon, fly north and track the progress of Mirrin's army. We must know where she is at all times and whither she intends to lead her forces. You others, stay in Tarah and help fight in the battle to come or be gone, for we will have only friends here. Gildas, will you go and see what these monsters are up to beyond the gates?"

"I will show him," the hare said.

The griffin Gildas jumped from his chair and joined the hare, his long tail twitching behind him and the large talons of his front feet clicking against the stone as he walked, terrible and sharp. The two left together by the door on the side of the chamber through which the hare had entered. Once they had gone, the other magical beasts began to disperse as well. The eagle Aiglon sprang from his perch on his chair, flapping his great wings and soaring from the room by way of the open door on the opposite end from where Jack watched. He was quickly followed by the bright red bird, whose wings trailed behind it like pennants when it flew. Shamaraan slipped from his chair and flowed like black water out of the room. Grimkell looked from Alcide to Aldair, then shook his great black head and followed, leaving the leopard and the golden stag alone at the table.

Alcide sighed, hanging her great, furred head for a moment, then said, "You may come in, children."

Maude, who had been peering into the room from beneath Jack's chin, squeaked and rushed to the two beasts, catching Alcide in a fierce hug and burying her fists in the leopard's thick white coat. Alcide closed her ice blue eyes and leaned into the embrace wearily. Jack followed awkwardly into the chamber, embarrassed at having been caught evesdropping. Archipel came last, his tail tucked nervously around the giant beasts.

"We thought we'd never see you again!" Maude exclaimed.

Aldair laughed, the sound unexpectedly bubbling from him like water in a brook.

"Fate has a way of bringing people together again quite unexpectedly," he rumbled warmly.

"There's going to be trouble, isn't there, Alcide?" Jack asked quietly, concern in his voice. "In the forest after we were separated we were chased by a ghost that Mirrin sent after us, and we've seen the trolls out there. Now not even the other magical beasts will help."

"Have faith," Alcide said reassuringly. "The human Prince Aitor was encircled during the battles for Arres with no hope of rescue, but that became the turning point for the entire war."

~*~

Mary Jane slept fitfully during the many hours that Hissarlik flew, occasionally waking to watch their progress over the forests and fields of Devorian. The beating of the dragon's skeleton wings was effortless and silent, and the night was warm and humid, lulling her to sleep. Godrick, too, slept soundly in the pouch at her back, snoring loudly. When at last the sun sank below the horizon, it brought with it all the light from the sky, and Mary Jane saw only inky blackness punctuated by the white pinpricks of unfamiliar stars and Devorian's large, orange moon. It was beautiful, in its own way, but alien, too.

"Jack, Maude, where are you?" Mary Jane whispered softly.

She felt a keen longing for her family and wished they were once more all together, sitting at home before the fire playing games, far from danger. She could hardly remember what sequence of events had led her to where she was now, riding upon the reanimated skeleton of a long-dead dragon in the dark of night in a world she had reached by passing through an old mirror. She did not even know how many days had passed since she had last been in her own world.

Hissarlik dropped sharply, jostling his rider. Mary Jane grabbed the dragon's neck bones tightly and hung on. Godrick, woken by the unexpected maneuver, called out, "What's happening?"

"We are near," the dragon rumbled.

Mary Jane thought she could just see the shape of city walls and a castle in the distance, rising up from the ground as black stone against black sky. With no lights visible in the city, it looked forbiddingly dark and lifeless. What fate was she going to?

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Of course I am certain," Hissarlik replied with a dismissive snort.

"Then whose would be those other lights?" Godrick asked.

Mary Jane looked again, more carefully now, and saw that although the city itself was without light, outside the city were many small, flickering orange lights. She guessed that they were the lights of fires. Campfires, and possibly hundreds of them.

"Creatures of the witch," Hissarlik growled. "Dark and twisted things that she has either summoned or allied with to fulfill her dark plans."

"What are they doing?" Mary Jane asked.

"Waiting," Hissarlik hissed. "When the witch has turned back the clock of time, the army that sits outside the walls today will lay siege to the Tarah of a hundred years ago. She will pull her minions through the hole in time to accompany her. That is her plan. I do not know if it is possible."

He added without concern or sympathy, "Hope that the creatures do not see us as we fly above them. Some are armed with bows and arrows and would happily put a shaft through your heart just for sport."

Mary Jane shivered and immediately leaned closer to the dragon, trying to appear invisible to anyone who might chance to look up at the sky at that moment. As they skimmed dozens of feet over the treetops, she began to see the creatures Hissarlik had mentioned, their bodies and faces occasionally illuminated by fires that burned late into the night. They were strange beings that looked like the nightmares of a madman come to life. She saw ugly giants eight feet tall wearing fur clothing and carrying roughly shaped, heavy clubs. She saw creatures with the muscled body of a man but the head of a deer, with razor-sharp sharp antlers and burning black eyes. She saw giant black dogs with red eyes running swiftly between the trees, baying and howling at each other, and faceless, black, shadows with curling tentacles.

Mary Jane was petrified that the terrible monsters would see Hissarlik as he flew over their camps, but the night hid them like a cloak, and Hissarlik flew silent as a moth. With a powerful surge, the dragon propelled them past the line of campfires and away from the ragtag army. Mary Jane let out her breath, not realizing that she had been holding it. Her fingers hurt from clutching the bones of Hissarlik's neck so tightly. She whispered, "Godrick, do those creatures really live in Devorian?"

She could not imagine the quaintly rustic Mr. Brumby sharing his afternoon meal with the fearsome half-human creatures she had seen tearing viciously into haunches of raw meat in the camp. The Devorian that she had encountered her first time through the mirror had been gentle; peaceful. These creatures did not at all belong. After they had passed the last of the creatures, Godrick had crawled up her shoulder and now sat perched there, his whiskers tickling against her cheek.

"Some indeed live in Devorian," he replied. "Others Mirrin has called to her from lands far beyond Devorian. Only she, with her all-seeing eyes, knows what evil lurks beyond our borders, and she alone has the ability to summon those vile things to her."

Mary Jane frowned. She opened her mouth to ask another question, but just then something flew past her face inches from her nose. She frowned more deeply, confused. A moment later, she heard the unmistakable clink of wood hitting bone. From the corner of her eye, she saw something fall and disappear into the darkness below them.

"What...?" She began to ask.

"We have been spotted!" Hissarlik roared.
Chapter Eleven

Pursuit

"Alcide, what was the battle for Arres?" Maude asked curiously.

After having listened to the beasts' council, she had forgotten that she and Jack had meant to tell Alcide and Aldair about the trolls. The white leopard led the children to the fire on the right side of the room. It burned with a comforting orange glow that reminded Maude of home. Maude crawled onto one of the two intricately carved wooden chairs that sat before it and swung her little feet absentmindedly, since they did not reach to the floor. Archipel lay down comfortably beside the chair just clear of her feet, while Jack sat in the other chair. Alcide sat directly before the fire, her fierce eyes watching them.

"And who is Prince Aitor?" Maude added.

"It is a long story, from the time of men, would you like to hear it?" Alcide asked.

Maude nodded, so Alcide continued, "Prince Aitor was the eldest son of the first king of Devorian. His father, King Qasren, had been fighting for twenty years to unite all of Devorian into one kingdom. Before him, Devorian had been ruled by many kings, each master over only a small part of the land. Qasren sought to conquer each of the small kingdoms and create a single large kingdom.

'He fought and defeated the kings one by one until at last only one king remained; he was the most powerful of Devorian's many kings, and he refused to surrender. After a year of fighting in which Qasren's army pushed him further and further south, he chose to make his final stand at Arres, a vast plain surrounded on three sides by deep forests. He determined that by this single battle the war would be won or lost, for he would fight no longer. King Olyph had three times as many troops as Qasren, but Qasren's army was led by the peerless Prince Aitor, a fierce and valiant warrior.

'The battle started poorly for Qasren, and it looked as though he would lose. Some of Qasren's men threw down their swords and ran, believing that all was lost, but most continued to fight, dealing desperate blow after desperate blow against the enemy. At midday, Qasren called to Aitor, who he had kept from battle for fear that he would lose his favorite son, and asked him to take the field. Aitor put on his great armor, which was too heavy for any other man to bear, and hefted his giant battleaxe over his shoulder. He rode to the front of the lines, shouting challenges at Olyph's men.

'When the horns of war sounded, Aitor and his guard of young noblemen charged fearlessly into battle. For hours they fought tirelessly, felling men as easily as a scythe cuts through sheaves of wheat. Aitor cut so deeply into Olyph's lines that Qasren's soldiers could no longer see him. They could only see the white plume on his crest as it bobbed above the enemy. Seeing this gave them heart to continue fighting. Olyph's army fell back and retreated further and further. Qasren's men began to believe that they would win soon, but then reinforcements arrived from the south and Olyph's soldiers rallied.

'Both sides fought fiercely, but the enemy's numbers were overwhelming. Like a great hand, Olyph's forces pushed Qasren's army back until they stood once more where they had started, all the ground that they had just won now lost. Qasren's men were exhausted, and now discouraged as well. They could no longer see the white plume that had led them on like a beacon. This was because as the army retreated, Prince Aitor, who in the press of battle had lost his direction and unknowingly had begun pushing to the west, became cut off with only a few brave men at his side. Aitor and his companions found now themselves among the trees of the forest with the enemy closing in around them.

'Numbering only twenty and surrounded by more than a hundred of Olyph's knights, they prepared for what they believed would be their last stand. As they said their farewells to each other, however, Prince Aitor remembered that he carried with him the Horn of Duhaim. The beautifully carved horn was said in popular legend to have belonged to a magical white bull. Qasren himself had taken it from the treasury of one of the kings he had conquered and given it to Aitor. It was so old that no one believed it carried true magic, but Aitor always kept it with him for luck."

"Aitor pulled the white horn from its case at his side, held it to his lips, and blew with all his strength. He blew long and hard until he could blow no more, hoping that some of Qasren's troops were nearby and, hearing it, would come to his aid. The sound that came from the horn was like no sound any of the soldiers had ever heard before. Rather than the throaty bellow of a hunting horn, this sound was like the tinkling of small bells, or the trill of harp strings plucked by skilled hands. The sound seemed to grow and fill the hollow where they stood, a hauntingly beautiful tune that spoke at once of sorrow, loss, hope, and triumph.

'Olyph's knights stopped for a minute, mesmerized by the sound, but then they drew their swords and encircled the prince and his soldiers. Suddenly, there was a great cracking and creaking. The leaves on the forest trees began to shiver and then to sway as their branches shifted and moved. The trees ripped their roots from the ground and, waving their branches like arms, attacked the enemy soldiers. The hundred knights were thrown high in the air or cast down upon the earth, or crushed beneath the great weight of the old trees as they walked on their roots like feet. All around Aitor the trees came to life and smashed the enemy like kindling, but they touched neither Aitor nor his men.

'Aitor watched in amazement, unable to speak or move. Each tree was more powerful than ten men, and they could not be stopped even though the enemy hacked at them with swords and spears. The fight was short, and when it was over only Aitor and his men remained. They dared not move for fear of the trees, but when at last they did, they saw that the trees moved no more; they stood just as they had at the final moment of battle, their branches extended like powerful arms and their gnarled roots grasping the ground like talons. A brave soldier dared to touch the bark of one, but all the life had gone out of the trees.

'So it was that the tide of battle was turned, for Olyph lost many of his best knights in the wood, and Aitor lived to lead his father's army to victory. Olyph's kingdom was absorbed by Qasren to complete the unification of Devorian, and the place where the trees came to life was renamed the Twisted Forest in honor of what had happened there. Indeed, those very same trees that came to Aitor's assistance hundreds of years ago can be found there even today."

"That is a very old tale indeed," Archipel said once Alcide had finished. "While I have seen the Twisted Forest with my own eyes, I did not know the story of how the trees had come to look as they do. Many of the tales from the age of men have been lost with time. How did you come to hear this one?"

Alcide replied, with amusement in her voice, "I know because I was present at the battle myself. During the infancy of man, when he was young and in need of tutelage, the magical beasts still walked the land. Sometimes openly, sometimes cloaked by magic. This is how it is that sometimes we appear as characters in the tales of men. Indeed, is it not through these tales, passed down to you as legend, that you animals know of us at all though no animal had ever seen a magical beast before these last few days?"

Maude, who had been considering the story, said slowly with a frown, "But if the power of the horn was that it could bring trees to life, what if Aitor hadn't been in a forest?"

"The horn of Duhaim does _not_ merely awaken trees," Alcide explained. "The horn gives whoever blows it whatever he or she most needs at that moment."

She added, "However, each person can only use the horn one time. Once a king of Devorian's ship began to sink far from shore. The sailors could not bail the sea out as quickly as it rushed back in. All one hundred men would be lost if the ship sank below the waters, for they were completely without hope of rescue. The king, who carried the horn with him, blew it and a giant whale emerged from the deepest waters to carry the ship back to shore. All were saved.

'Many years later, the same king became separated from his nobles during a hunt. He rode through the forest for hours until he found a stream and stopped to drink. Suddenly his horse bolted, leaving him helpless. The king heard crashing in the woods, and a troll appeared. The king blew the horn of Duhaim, but it would not sound, and he was killed."

"Where did the horn come from?" Maude asked.

"The horn belonged to Duhaim, one of the first magical beasts in Devorian. Duhaim was a teacher to the humans, and he loved them as though they were his children. When he chose to pass over, he gifted them a single horn, which was imbued with all his magic," Alcide said.

"Where is the horn now?"

"Lost," Alcide said sadly. "It has not been seen for centuries."

Aldair moved behind them, his hooves clicking against the stone floor. He said, "Now, children, I think it is time for you to go to bed. It is late, and you have had a taxing journey."

"But what about..." Jack began to protest, thinking of all he had seen and heard that day.

"Tomorrow," Alcide said gently.

Maude slipped off her chair and Aldair allowed her to lean against his shimmering gold body as he led her towards the door by which she, Jack, and Archipel had entered. She was so tired she could barely stand on her feet. Archipel supported her on her other side as she listed to the left like a sailboat in a strong wind. Just then, Timab scuttled into the room. He stood on his hind legs before Alcide, barely six inches tall, and she dropped her head to meet him.

Timab squeaked urgently, "Your graces, a word."

Aldair nudged Maude softly with his nose in the direction of the door, saying "Go now, child. All will be well."

~*~

"Fly, Hissarlik!" Mary Jane cried.

The arrows came now thick as raindrops in a storm. Though she could see few of them in the black night, she could hear them whistling through the sky around her. The dragon roared and beat his wings furiously, propelling them forward almost twice as fast as they had flown before. Mary Jane could hear hoots and calls coming from the woods below, chasing after them through the forest, but they fell further and further behind as the dragon outpaced them. She could no longer see the ground or sky as anything but a dark blur. Godrick's sharp nails dug into her shoulder as he struggled not to fall.

"I don't mean to distress you, Miss, but you might want to be having a look-see over your shoulder," Godrick said quietly near her ear.

Mary Jane looked back and gasped. Behind them and rapidly catching up flew a giant reptilian, bird-like creature that looked remarkably like the drawings of pterodactyls in the books about dinosaurs she had read as a child. Its wide mouth was open, showing row upon row of gleaming white, dagger-like teeth. It screamed and flapped its wings harder, straining to cut down the distance between them. Mary Jane slapped Hissarlik's neck bones and cried, "Faster, Hissarlik! You must fly faster."

The dragon looked behind him with his burning red eyes and saw the creature pursuing them. Hissarlik was many times larger than their pursuer, but neither as agile nor as fast. Mary Jane was exposed and defenseless upon Hissarlik's back. She could easily be plucked off by the creature's sharp talons, and with every stroke of its wings, the creature drew nearer. Under the full moon, Mary Jane could see the scales on its green skin and its bright yellow eyes. When it reached the tip of Hissarlik's tail, it banked sharply upward, leveling off twenty feet above them. It matched Hissarlik's speed for a moment, then with a scream it dove, using the dive to gain speed. Mary Jane screamed.

"Hold on!" Hissarlik bellowed.

Mary Jane watched in terror as the creature sped towards them, its sharp teeth bared and its leathery wings tucked against its body. She clutched Hissarlik's neck so tightly that she could no longer feel her hands at all. The creature was almost upon them when Hissarlik rolled his body in a tight circle. He did it so quickly that Mary Jane didn't have time to think. Only her grip on the dragon kept her from being thrown off. The creature did not anticipate the move and shot past, having just barely missed Mary Jane.

It screamed with fury when it realized it had missed, but it was diving so quickly that it had traveled several hundred yards before it was able to unfurl its wings and change direction. In that time, Hissarlik continued flying. Mary Jane could now see the thick walls of Tarah looming before them a mile away. She silently urged the dragon to fly faster, but she knew that Hissarlik was flying as quickly as he could.

The creature regained control of its flight and quickly came upon them once more. Mary Jane watched its yellow eyes and snapping jaws coming closer and closer to her. The creature had learned from its mistake and would not be tricked again, for now it came straight at them with its wings out, ready to brake or swerve if Hissarlik tried to maneuver away. Terror froze Mary Jane. She could not move, only watch as the terrible teeth came closer.

There was a flash of movement too quick for her eyes to follow and in an instant the creature was no longer where it had been a moment before. Mary Jane belatedly heard the crash of bodies colliding and a scream of surprise and fury. She looked down in the direction of the sounds and saw two shapes, green and brown, grappling together as they plummeted towards the ground. Hissarlik continued flying and the two creatures became small figures still falling in the distance. Just when they were almost too far to distinguish one from the other, Mary Jane thought that she saw the green creature drop like a stone from the sky, and an eagle larger than any she had ever seen spread its wings and spiraled away from the scene of the deadly fight.

Hissarlik hissed, then spat, "So Aiglon the so-called Lord of the Skies has returned."

"Who?" Mary Jane asked, but Hissarlik would say no more.

Now they flew over the great wall that circled Tarah. The city was so dark and lifeless that Mary wondered whether it had been a mistake to come here. Hissarlik slowed the beating of his wings and flew toward a tall castle that rose up from the center of the city. When he reached it, he slowed until he was almost motionless, then dropped straight down to the ground, his claws making a soft scraping noise as they hit the gray stones of a deserted courtyard.

The castle loomed over them black and menacing. Two unblinking sets of round eyes, one blue, one amber, appeared in the dark. Mary Jane held her breath, afraid. The eyes moved closer, two dark forms in the night. Hissarlik snorted and glowered at them, his red eyes blazing. Mary Jane could feel his hatred for whatever they were.

"The snow cat Alcide and the golden stag Aldair," Hissarlik sneered. "I should have known when I saw Aiglon that you, too, would be near."

"Hissarlik," the leopard said coldly, inclining her head towards the dragon in subtle gesture of recognition.

Her companion, the deer, said, "Mary Jane, you are welcome. We have been waiting for you."

"How do you know who I am?" Mary Jane asked.

"All will be explained tomorrow, after you have rested," the deer replied evenly. "You have had a long journey. Know that your brother and sister are here as well, safe, and have no fear for them."

"Jack and Maude, here?" Mary Jane asked.

Hope rose inside her.

"Yes. Now come, and let this wretched creature slink away to its dark cave," the leopard said.

Hissarlik hissed angrily in response. Mary Jane half slid, half jumped off of the dragon, wincing as her feet hit the ground. She had been riding for so long that now it hurt to stand, like burning pinpricks on the bottom of her feet.

"Why do you help these humans?" Hissarlik asked the leopard. "They are nothing to you, just as they are nothing to me."

"We all choose our path in life," the leopard replied stiffly. "You have chosen to do evil, and we have chosen to do good. Your time has passed, dragon Hissarlik; gone with the last of the humans. Do not return to the skies of Devorian, for you are no longer a part of this world."

Hissarlik breathed a long plume of fire. He turned his great white head to Mary Jane and his red eyes burned through her. She knew what he wanted. Fear turned her to stone, but her fingers closed protectively around the pouch that held the dragon's heartstone unbidden. She knew that she must relinquish the gem, but tendrils of greed like suffocating vines of ivy curled around her mind and heart and squeezed tightly. Like a dog with a butcher's bone, she refused to give it up. She could feel it pulsing, alive, just beneath her fingers.

The evil stone's enchantment was broken by a sharp squeak of protest. Mary Jane frowned, and suddenly remembered that Godrick, too, was in the bag. She hurriedly released her grip, then plunged her hand in and withdrew the stone. It glowed like a bright red beacon in the darkness, brighter even than Hissarlik's fiery eyes.

"Give it to me!" Hissarlik demanded in an excited, high-pitched voice.

His entire body strained towards the stone, quivering with anticipation and desire. Mary Jane held it out on her palm timidly, extending her arm towards him. Then, before he could snatch it from her with his razor sharp claws, she wound her arm in a fast circle and threw the stone as high in the air as she could. The stone flew straight up first ten, then twenty, then thirty feet and Mary Jane marveled that she could have thrown the stone so high. Hissarlik screamed and leaped, flapping his wings and racing after it. When he caught it, he continued flying, away from Tarah. He did not look back. Mary Jane felt her knees buckle and would have collapse to the ground, but at that moment she felt the deer's body behind her supporting her, and she leaned against it to remain standing. Godrick climbed out of the pouch and onto her shoulder.

"Good riddance to bad rubbish," he said seriously, watching the dragon become one with the night.

"Come, it is late and surely you require rest," the deer said.

"Food's more like it," Godrick said. "I haven't had a bite to eat in ages."

The leopard made a laughing sound and said, "Then you shall have it."

The two beasts led them to a secret door on the side of the castle hidden by shadows. Godrick rode on Mary Jane's shoulder, talking excitedly about finally getting to eat real food. Mary Jane wanted to ask about Jack and Maude, but she was too tired to think. As the door closed behind them, Godrick exclaimed, "Safe at last!".

The two stag and leopard looked at each other, and said nothing.
Chapter Twelve

Reunion

Mary Jane was awakened the next morning by the sun, which streamed though the high window several feet from her bed and spilled across her face. She groaned and tried to hide her head beneath a soft pillow of goose down, but immediately threw it away when its musty smell filled her nose and made her sneeze. She barely remembered falling into the bed the night before, but now in the morning light she could see that it was covered with the fine dust of a century's years. She wriggled off of the bed and patted the dust from her velvet dress, marveling at the room as she began to see it fully. Beautifully woven tapestries depicting elaborate scenes of hunts and courtly balls covered the walls.

Inside a heavy wooden trunk at the foot of the bed, she found a wooden hairbrush whose white horsehair bristles were falling out and used it to tame her wild red hair, which she tied in a bun at the base of her neck with a length of red ribbon. She wished that she could bathe, or at least wash her face, but the metal wash bin that once had been used for that purpose was empty. Having no other use for the room and wanting to find Jack and Maude as soon as possible, she put on her shoes and then pulled open the door. The hallway outside went on in both directions for several dozen feet before ending in intersections that led in yet more directions. Mary Jane wondered how she would ever find her way to anything in the castle without getting hopelessly lost.

A voice below her said, "Good morning, Miss."

"Godrick!" Mary Jane exclaimed gratefully.

"Aye, Miss," the rat said. "While you've been sleeping like the dead I've had a good run o' the place. What a big castle she is! A rat like me could spend weeks just finding all the nooks and crannies to poke me nose into. You'll be looking to find yer family, I reckon. Well, follow me, Miss."

Godrick spun on this back feet and began to run down the hall to the left. Mary Jane closed the door behind her and followed. Meanwhile, Jack was just waking in his own room. He felt well rested for the first time in many nights. At the foot of the bed, he saw a thick green cotton tunic, a wide leather belt with a heavy metal buckle, and a pair of light green breeches. He remembered that this must be the clothing Timab had promised to send. He yawned, stretched his arms lazily, and reached for the breeches. Slipping out of his filthy pajamas, he crumpled them into a ball and threw them into a corner of the room.

When he put the new clothing on, he found to his delight that Timab had judged his size well, for the things were only slightly too large for him. He had to roll up the legs of the breeches and sleeves of the tunic, but he felt fortunate to have a change of clothing at all after so many days spent in only his pajamas. On the floor was a pair of leather shoes. They tapered at the tips into points, but they were much better than going barefoot, and Jack put them on gratefully.

Aldair met him at the door. The stag's amber deer eyes glimmered in the faint light. He rumbled, "I trust you slept well."

"Yes," Jack murmured, surprised to see him.

"I bring good tidings," the stag said. "It seems that fortune has smiled upon us. Your sister is here at Tarah."

"Mary Jane!" Jack exclaimed. "Where is she?"

"Follow me and I will take you to her."

Aldair turned and moved down the hall, his hooves clicking softly against the gray stone. Jack followed, trying to push back his black hair from his forehead with his fingers into some semblance of order. He recognized their route as the same that he, Maude, and Archipel had taken the night before, and when Aldair led him into the room where the magical beasts had held their council the night before, he half expected to see Grimkell, Shamaraan, Gildas, and Aiglon there once more. Instead, he found Alcide, Timab, Archipel, Maude, Mary Jane, and a big, piebald rat sitting at the table talking and eating fruit and bread.

"Mary Jane!" Jack cried.

Mary Jane looked up and the two ran to each other, hugging and talking all at once. After a minute, they separated and Jack joined the group at the round table, taking a seat between Mary Jane and Alcide. Maude sat to Mary Jane's right, with Archipel sitting on the ground beside her and Timab standing on the table balancing using his hairless, pink tail. Godrick crouched on Mary Jane's shoulder, his nose twitching. In whirlwinds of words, interrupted by exclamations, emotions, clarifications, and laughter, the children told each other of what had happened during their separation. It seemed half a lifetime since they had last been at home, and their parents and Mrs. Peters were all but forgotten as they became caught up in the adventure of headlong flight and brushes with danger.

Mary Jane spoke of meeting Hissarlik, the flight to Morlach, Mirrin's fearful ways, and how she and Godrick escaped just as the eternal flame died. In turn, Jack and Maude told her of the race to Tarah on the backs of the magical beasts Alcide and Aldair and of how they had been chased by wargs and a ghost in the Green Forest. Despite the fear they had felt at the time, in telling the tale they felt suddenly braver, as though the danger hadn't been as great as it seemed.

They spoke until there were no more words left to say, and then Maude asked in a voice so small it almost could not be heard, "Can we go home now?"

Silence fell over the room and gloom like a splash of cold water. It was Alcide who spoke at last. She said, "Yes. It is time for you to go home. Aldair and I will take you to the door to your world."

The children were anxious, but hopeful. Mary Jane squeezed Jack's hand. Then Maude asked, her pink lips pursed into a frown on her pale face, "What about Mirrin?"

"We can outrun..." Alcide started to respond.

"No," Maude interrupted, "I mean what will you do once we're gone. How will you stop her?"

"Little one," Alcide said gently, "it is for us to worry about her. Your only concern must be to reach home safely. Your journey here will soon be at an end."

"But, well, can you stop her?" Jack asked awkwardly.

He felt embarrassed to ask. He had been so overjoyed at the idea of returning home that when he remembered that the animals would still have to face Mirrin he felt guilty. He twisted the hem of his green tunic in his hands under the table, watching so that he did not have to meet the leopard's blue eyes. Alcide was silent for several long seconds. At last she said, "Once the door to your world has been closed, she will be unable to carry out her plan to lead her army back to the Tarah of men. I do not know what she will do then. She is resourceful."

She added sadly under her breath, "If only more beasts had returned..."

"But you're magical!" Maude protested. "You could...you could...turn her to dust if you wanted!"

"Maude, there are many different kinds of magic," Alcide explained. "Magic that makes things appear real that are not, magic that hides things, magic that destroys, magic that creates, magic that gives strength, magic that causes weakness. Each magical beast has its own unique magical gift, but not all of these gifts are the kind of magic that could, as you say, turn Mirrin to dust."

"We will leave this morning," Aldair announced suddenly. "I regret that you children must travel once more with so little time to rest, but it is several days' march west through the Green Forest, and we must begin as soon as possible."

"You cannot travel through the Green Forest!" Timab exclaimed in alarm. "Hilduin reports that Mirrin's army of half-creatures and monsters is to be found lurking in it all around Tarah, and especially to the west. You will have to go north first, skirting the base of the Far Reaches. Only once you are past Mirrin's minions may you return to the Forest. It will be longer, and dangerous, but it is the only way."

"We will go north then," Aldair agreed.

"I know the way well," Archipel said.

There was little left to say. Maude nibbled on a loaf of sweet bread that she had found, still piping hot, when she had entered the room. Archipel's head rested in her lap and she stroked it with her left hand without noticing. Mary Jane bolted down blueberries and strawberries as quickly as she could, ravenous because she had not eaten since midday the day before. Jack found he had no appetite.

Suddenly Maude let go of Archipel's head and sat up sharply in her chair, her eyes wide. Jack knew that expression. It meant she had thought of something. Without saying a word, she slipped from her chair and ran from the room. She wore, Jack noticed for the first time, not the white nightgown she had been wearing when she passed through the mirror, but a light yellow dress made of what could have been silk. Archipel followed after her, his tail bobbing behind him as he trotted to catch up.

"Maude?" Mary Jane asked. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to the library," Maude's voice replied from the hallway.

"Now?"

"It is a most superlative collection," Timab observed.

"But we must leave now; at once!" Aldair exclaimed in disbelief and confusion.

"It will take some time to prepare for the journey anyway, Aldair. Let the child go," Alcide said gently.

"She may have one hour," Alcide said stiffly. "No more. Then we must go."

Archipel, who had paused at the threshold of the door, promised, "I will watch her. She will be safe with me."

"In the meantime, I will provision you with what foodstuffs I have in the larders," Timab told Jack, Mary Jane, and the two magical beasts, "though I fear it is not much. Still, I am sure I can find you some nuts and dried berries if nothing else."

The small white mouse scampered along the table and down its leg, leaving by the door opposite that by which Maude and Archipel had left. Jack drummer his fingers on the table and Mary Jane admired its surface, which had been decorated in an intricate mosaic. She said curiously, "Aldair, where do those terrible creatures I saw last night come from? They were absolutely awful."

The golden stag snorted and flicked his big ears with disdain. He explained, "We speak of the history of Devorian as three ages: the age of the magical beasts, the age of man, and the age of the animals. However, it is not only we three races who have peopled the land. There have been other creatures here as well, at various times. You ask about those monsters Mirrin has gathered to her, and I will tell you how they, too, belong to Devorian. Just as the age of man was beginning, terrible monsters began to appear in Devorian; horrible, ugly creatures with fangs and claws and misshapen bodies. They bred amongst themselves and spread throughout the land. Some even bred with humans to create half-human monsters.

'Because of these creatures, man's childhood was full of nightmares. Sailors were plucked from their boats by sea monsters or lured to their deaths by the beautiful songs of semi-human sirens. Soldiers were crushed to death by the clubs of trolls or mauled by wargs. Wisps, sinister spirits that can imitate whatever shape they please, would sneak into towns and kill husbands under the guise of being their wives. So great was the relentless evil of these creatures that they attacked even the magical beasts."

"Oh my! How terrible!" Mary Jane exclaimed.

"Yes," Aldair agreed gravely. "Eventually, however, men were able to overcome the monsters. It took many, many years, but they chased the monsters from the cities, then from the fields, and at last from even the darkest parts of the forests. They killed what ones they could, and the rest they chased so far south of Devorian that they hoped it was enough to keep the creatures from ever returning. For the most part, the creatures did not, though sometimes they did. Thus it is that King Ardant fought a minotaur in the Green Forest, and King Seabeard was killed by a troll."

"I don't understand, If they were chased from Devorian centuries ago, how are they here in Devorian now? Shouldn't they all be dead?" Jack asked.

"The are semi-immortal. If they are not killed, they do not naturally die. They are like a half step between the immortal beasts and the mortal humans."

"But why have they come back now?" Mary Jane interjected.

"Like calls to like," Aldair explained. "As the eternal flame died, Mirrin called out across Devorian and beyond to any creature that harbored evil in its heart. From whatever dark pits and caves they have lived in for the last hundreds upon hundreds of years, Mirrin has called them back to Devorian. Thus does Mirrin have two armies now: the army of living stone that she created many years ago and with which she once intended to challenge the King of Tarah, and this new barbaric horde of twisted creatures that have come sensing the prospect of chaos and destruction."

"And Hissarlik is one of the monsters?" Mary Jane asked.

"Hissarlik was...is...unique. He is neither a magical beast, nor a monster."

"He wasn't immortal," Mary Jane reasoned, "because he died. How did he die?"

"Hissarlik lived in the foothills of the mountains that border the Western Plains. He had a cave there in which he kept mountains of treasure uncountable. No creature but a human has use for gold as currency, but it is beautiful, and Hissarlik was greedy for all that was beautiful. He would steal from traders in the dark of night while they slept, or threaten to set fire to villages if they did not give him gold and other previous gems. Even the King of Tarah paid him an annual tithe so that he did not attack the castle and drop stones upon it large enough to damage its walls. When a village had no gold or other thing of value to give, sometimes it would offer the dragon instead a beautiful girl. This girl was made to live with Hissarlik for a year and oil his scales every night while he slept on his treasure, for though Hissarlik's skin was hard as armor, it needed to be oiled lest it crack.

'This was a difficult and exhausting chore, for the cave would become unbearably hot with the dragon's breath, and Hissarlik was so large that it took all night to oil every part of him. In addition, it was a very lonely place, with no other humans to see or talk to. Several centuries ago, the small village of Taiz, which sat upon Devorian's southern border, found it had nothing to give Hissarlik when he came demanding payment. Having no other choice, the miller gave his daughter, for she was the most beautiful girl in the village.

'Hissarlik took her upon his back to his cave and that might have been the end of the story had she not been secretly in love with the blacksmith's son and he with her. This boy, Kaian, vowed to rescue her, and so he traveled many long, hard days to reach the Western Plains. None of the villagers he asked knew exactly where the dragon lived, so he slept during the day and watched the sky at night, because it was at dusk that Hissarlik would return to his cave. On the twelfth day, he at last saw Hissarlik flying west in the distance, and he lashed his horse into a gallop to follow. The dragon did not see him and flew unsuspectingly into his cave, which was well hidden in the shadow of a small mountain.

'Kaian climbed the mountain on foot, tying his horse to a tree at the bottom, then waited until it was midnight before creeping into the cave. He planned to take the girl while the dragon slept and ride with her to some place far away where the dragon would not find them. When he arrived at the cave, he saw the girl working by the dim light of a lantern, rubbing oil into the sleeping dragon's skin. She did not see him because her back was to him, so he picked up a gold coin and tossed it lightly at her to catch her attention. He missed, however, and hit the dragon instead. Hissarlik awakened instantly and saw the boy. He lurched to his feet and tried to run at Kaian, but the cave was small and he could not gain his full height or breadth. He bumped his head against the cave ceiling when he raised it, and he could not open his wings.

"Kaian was fast, and clever. He knew that he must fight the dragon inside the cave, for outside he had no hope of defeating him. Hissarlik breathed a jet of fire at him, and he grabbed a silver shield from the ground and held it before him to stop the flames. Fire licked around the sides of the shield, which turned orange from the heat, but the boy wore the heavy leather gloves of a blacksmith and was not burned. The dragon then struck the shield with his head and Kaian fell backward.

'Hissarlik grabbed the shield between his sharp teeth and wrested it from the boy, flinging it against the wall. Now the boy lay before him on his back, defenseless. Hissarlik let out a scream of rage and plunged his head down to bite Kaian in half, but was stopped before he could close his teeth. You see, while his head was upraised, the boy's outstretched hand had found a long sword, which he drew to him. When the dragon dropped his head to kill the boy, Kaian held the sword straight up with the pommel resting on his chest so that its point went into the dragon's open mouth and into its brain. Hissarlik died before he could close his teeth. Thus was the dragon Hissarlik accidentally killed, for his hide could have withstood any blow from a sword, but the inside of his mouth was unprotected."

Aldair stopped.

"Go on," Mary Jane urged, "how does the story end? What happened to Kaian and his love?"

'Kaian and the girl were simple folk; they had no need of all Hissarlik's treasure. However, they could not give it all back to those from whom it had been taken, and if word spread that Hissarlik's treasure lay unguarded in the foothills of the Western Plain there would be much mischief in its seeking. They decided to wall up the entrance to the cave, and left the dead dragon entombed there for all eternity with his treasure. Kaian took the girl back to Taiz and they were married soon after. Many years later, when Kaian passed away, his children told the story of what their father had done, and his body was taken to be buried in the Hall of Heroes."

"Did no one ever look for the treasure?" Mary Jane asked in amazement.

"Indeed they did," Aldair replied. "When Kaian returned with the girl, everyone knew that he must have found the cave, but he claimed that he hadn't, for he knew it would be dangerous to admit that he knew where it was. And once he was dead and the tale of the slaying of Hissarlik told, adventurers young and old would go in search of the gold for centuries to come. No matter how hard they searched, however, it was never found, for we magical beasts laid a glamour upon it, which is a spell that made the cave appear to human eyes as nothing but grass and trees. Treasure breeds mischief in men, and it was too dangerous to allow Hissarlik's hoard to be found. How many men, their eyes full of dreams of riches beyond telling, sat within inches of the cave's entrance without ever knowing."

Aldair chuckled.

"What is the Hall of Heroes?" Jack asked.

"It is a castle in which Devorian's greatest human heroes were laid to rest," Aldair replied. "In it are entombed kings, queens, princes, princesses, knights and commoners who won renown during their lifetimes for their great deeds."

"Queens and princesses?" Mary Jane asked, surprised.

"Naturally. As many women are honored there as men: Lady Knight Denair, the commander of King Ivor the Fourth's army, who twice put down rebel armies raised by the king's rivals; the huntress Jenaya, who was so skilled with a bow that she could pierce the eye of a troll from a thousand feet; Captain Sirenbane, who single-handedly rid Devorian of its sirens after it was discovered that their song was effective only against men...These are just a few of the heroes who lie in the Hall of Heroes."

Just as Aldair finished speaking, there was a loud boom and the castle floor seemed to roll like an ocean wave beneath their feet. The golden stag's feet slipped from under him on the stone and his legs churned wildly, seeking to regain a hold. Mary Jane and Jack both grabbed the table and held on to it, feeling the vibration of the shock running through their chairs and into their bodies. The shaking stopped almost immediately

"What was that?" Mary Jane asked.

"I don't know," Aldair replied, puzzled.
Chapter Thirteen

Homegoing

The room shuddered again, this time more powerfully. A chair beside Jack was knocked to the ground, though it was made of heavy oak. Mary Jane grabbed Godrick and held him tightly against her chest lest he be thrown from the table entirely. Alcide cried, "It's an attack! For some reason Mirrin's army is attacking the city."

"How long can the walls hold?" Mary Jane asked. "It feels as though they'll topple any moment."

"No," Aldair said. "This castle has withstood many sieges during its history. The walls will hold for many hours more. However, they will not last forever, and without any other defense, I do not think the castle can withstand the battering of catapults for more than a day. We will leave at once, through an underground tunnel that will take us beyond the walls of the city. Come, we must go now."

"What about Maude?" Jack asked.

"Alcide will find and protect her."

The leopard streaked out of the room, a blur of dirty white. The barrage continued and the two children clung to the table and to each other for balance, and also out of fear. Aldair, however, acted as though he could not feel or hear the heavy stones striking the castle. He walked quickly from the room, and Jack and Mary Jane scrambled to follow. Mary Jane still held Godrick in one hand, and she could feel his tiny heart beating quickly beneath his ribs. The stag led them through various passageways in the castle, never slackening his pace. As they moved deeper into the castle, the rattling and shaking of the walls became less noticeable. At last they reached a stairwell that only went down. Mary Jane subconsciously thought it fortunate that Aldair's horns grew more vertically than horizontally or else he would not have been able to fit in the narrow space.

She paused when she reached the top of the stairs. The staircase spiraled down for many dozens of feet into complete darkness. Without lit torches or windows to light the way, Aldair and Jack had been immediately swallowed up by the inky blackness, leaving her feeling alone and scared. Godrick, forgotten in her hand, urged, "Go on then, Miss."

Mary Jane shook her head and bravely started down. She quickly found she had to put Godrick on her shoulder, as the only way she could go down was by feeling the way with her hands and feet and following the rhythmic clicking of Aldair's hooves against the stone in front of her. The stairwell seemed to continue forever. They went so deep under the castle that eventually they could hear nothing at all of the siege above them. The air became damp, and slightly cold. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Mary Jane gently set Godrick down.

"This way," Aldair's voice commanded from the darkness.

Jack reached out and felt for Mary Jane in the darkness. His hand bumped into her arm, and he took it. He then walked with her behind him, following in the direction of Aldair's voice. Although they could not see it, the stag led them along a tunnel carved out of the ground beneath the castle. They walked several dozen feet, then came to a turn. Jack almost walked into the wall; he did not expect to find a corner in the tunnel. After making the turn, however, Jack saw a faint glow of light coming from further ahead in the tunnel. They moved closer and he saw its source: it came from a small room that connected to the tunnel, and in that room they found Alcide, Maude, Archipel, and Timab waiting for them. Maude held a lit torch, whose flames fought valiantly against the swallowing blackness of the tunnel. The room appeared to be a store room, albeit a small one. Its walls were lined with shelves bursting with various knickknacks. On the ground next to Maude were three small satchels. Jack opened one and saw that it contained dried fruits and berries, and nuts.

"Maude!" Mary Jane exclaimed, giving her sister a hug.

"Timab brought us here," Maude said. "Alcide said the monsters are attacking the castle."

"It would seem so," Mary Jane replied, "although I can't imagine why."

"In any case, we must leave this place quickly. Mirrin must be near," Alcide said.

"It seems we've come to a parting," Timab said. "You'll see I have little to give you, but at least it is something. Safe journeys. May you find your way home. It was an honor to see humans once more in Tarah."

"Thank you," Mary Jane said graciously.

"May you also be safe," Alcide told the little white mouse kindly. "You should leave now. Leave Tarah and make your way to the woods."

"No," the mouse replied heroically. "I am the guardian of Tarah. It is my duty to remain here, so remain I will."

Alcide nodded her great head, and in that moment the brave mouse was as great as the magical beast herself. Then he turned and disappeared into the tunnel, returning to his post in the crumbling castle. When he was gone, Maude and Mary Jane each took a satchel, and Jack took the torch from Maude. Wordlessly, Alcide led them from the room, followed by Jack, Maude, Archipel, Mary Jane, and Aldair.

"Godrick, aren't you coming?" Mary Jane asked, stopping.

The round black and white rat stood still in the storeroom, watching them go.

"I think not, Miss," he said. "I'm all for adventure, but this one is yours, not mine. Besides, the forest's no place for a castle rat like me."

"Well in that case, thank you for all your help," Mary Jane said. "I won't forget you."

"It's been a pleasure," Godrick replied. "Good luck to you. I hope you get out of here and old bag o' bones has a right fit about it."

Aldair nudged Mary Jane with his nose and they continued down the passageway, leaving Godrick behind. Mary Jane felt wetness on her cheeks and realized that she was crying. Although she hadn't known the rat long, he had been a friend to her. Alcide explained as they walked, "These tunnels were built so that if Tarah came under siege, food and other supplies could still be brought into the city. So long as the supply tunnel wasn't discovered, the city could hold out for years. The tunnel is very long so that the enemy wouldn't find its entrance; it's far away from the city, where the enemy wouldn't think to look. Even though you cannot hear them, right now we're walking beneath the feet of Mirrin's monster army, a dozen feet below the surface. The tunnels go for hundreds of yards past the city walls, so we should be well clear of the monsters when we reach the surface."

They walked for another half a mile, not speaking and the children hardly daring to breathe lest they somehow be heard by the monsters above them. The tunnel was small and cramped, the ceiling a mere six feet from the floor and the walls six feet apart. The feeling of being slowly crushed was made worse by the fact that the torch in Jack's hand illuminated only a small area in front of and behind them, leaving everything else in blackness. Eventually, the tunnel began to slant up toward the surface, then abruptly it came to an end. At the end of the tunnel, which by that time was a mere five feet tall, was a short wooden ladder leading to a wooden door in the ceiling.

"It has been many years since this door was last opened," Alcide murmured. "I hope time and nature have not sealed it shut. Jack, see if you are able to push the door open."

Jack handed Mary Jane the torch and then moved the ladder away from the door. He was tall enough that he could easily touch the door without having to climb the ladder, although he could not have climbed out without the use of the ladder. He began to push on the door with both hands. The door stubbornly refused to budge. Even with all his strength, Jack could not move the door an inch. He grunted, "It's stuck."

He dropped his arms and wiped his hands on his tunic, leaving a smear of gray dust across it. He shrugged at Alcide, and the three children looked at her expectantly. It was such a narrow space that they could not all stand together, so they stood more or less in a line along the tunnel wall in the same order that they had been walking, with Archipel sitting at Maude's feet. Maude, who had been next in line after Jack, walked past him and peered up at the door, frowning. Although the light provided by the torch was dim, she realized that what from a distance had seemed to be a plank reinforcing the bottom of door was actually a bar that was slotted into shelves on each side of the door. She exclaimed, "The door doesn't open out, it opens in!"

Jack and Mary Jane crowded around her to look and confirmed that Maude was right. It was a clever design, for while an enemy could easily pull open a door that opened outward, he would struggle to break through the bar keeping the door shut from the inside. Jack moved his sisters out of the way, then pushed on the bar. It slipped reluctantly from its place, falling to the floor with a solid thump. The door above immediately swung open and bright daylight poured into the tunnel, along with clods of dirt, plants, rocks, and grass. Jack jumped to the side, coughing and spitting, his black hair covered with brown soil.

"Quickly now," Alcide urged. "Mirrin will have set spies throughout the woods, and the appearance of a new door will not go unnoticed for long."

"Can't we just close it again?" Mary Jane asked.

"No. Only someone standing on the inside can close it," Aldair reminded her in his deep, grave voice.

"But that means the tunnel will be wide open for Mirrin's army!" Mary Jane protested.

"If they choose to use it, yes" Aldair agreed.

"What about Timab and Godrick?" Mary Jane asked, aghast.

"There are many places in a castle for a small rodent to hide," Alcide said gently.

Mary Jane did not like that answer, but there was little else to be done. Jack repositioned the ladder so that it leaned against the mouth of the hole and was the first to climb through. He was followed immediately by Maude, then Archipel, who slinked up slowly, his gray body pressed flat against the rungs, carefully picking his way up the ladder meant for human, not animal, feet. Mary Jane went up next. As soon as she was clear of the ladder, rough hands yanked her to the side and a knife, sharp enough that she could feel its edge when she swallowed, was held against her throat.

"One word and I'll slice you ear to ear, I will," an unpleasant voice rasped in her ear.

Mary Jane could not see the speaker, but when she looked up she saw that around the hole, but well out of the sight of those still within the tunnel, Maude and Jack were also standing with weapons held to their throats. The dwarf that held Maude had his hand over her mouth as well. Judging by his angry expression, Mary Jane suspected that her sister had already tried to bite his fat little hand.

Jack was guarded by a fierce looking centaur. Set within its dirt-streaked face were bright yellow eyes with a black, oval pupil. It had long, greasy black hair that fell midway down its back, and its reddish horse coat was caked with dust and mud. The curved scimitar it held was scratched and dull, but long and wickedly sharp and held by powerfully muscular hands. Archipel had been bound with rope, his front and back legs tied together with a single knot and the tail end of the rope used to muzzle his mouth. His blue eyes rolling with fear, he lay at the centaur's hooves, his tail thrashing wildly as he struggled to free his feet.

"Come out, the last of you. We knows you're in there," the voice behind Mary Jane commanded into the hole.

"Who is that?" Alcide's voice demanded from inside the tunnel.

Her head emerged slowly from the hole as she climbed the ladder with the same care Archipel had taken. As soon as her pale blue eyes locked upon the scene in front of her, however, she gave a loud, fierce scream and lunged onto the grass, dropping into the coiled crouch of a cat preparing to strike. Her head swung quickly from left to right, keeping all of their assailants in view.

"Careful, kitten," Mary Jane's captor warned, at the same time dragging Mary Jane slightly backward so that the knife pressed into her throat without drawing blood.

Alcide growled so deeply that Mary Jane could feel it vibrate in her ribs, but the leopard did not attack.

"And the other one," the voice ordered.

Everyone looked to the hole once more. They heard the scrape of the ladder's wooden feet against the floor, then heard it clatter loudly to the floor. The sound of Aldair's hooves against stone as he walked could be heard clearly. Alcide moved away from the hole to give him space, keeping her eyes on the person or creature behind Mary Jane, her ears flat to her head and her teeth bared.

Below, Aldair backed away from the hole, then galloped toward it and sprang through, his golden body flashing in the sun like a fish leaping out of a stream. The stag reacted to the scene as Alcide had. His nostrils flared and he lowered his head to charge with his sharp horns. The knife in front of Mary Jane waved and her captor clicked its tongue disapprovingly.

"Not so fast," it growled in its sandpaper voice.

"Halfbreeds," Aldair spat.

"Now, now, be nice," the voice mocked lightly. Dropping lower, it added, "Or I'll cut one of her fingers off."

A gnarled, calloused hand grabbed Mary Jane's left hand, jerking it near to her face, and held the pinkie out with the blade to the first joint. Mary Jane whimpered. The hair on Alcide's twitching tail puffed in alarm and she growled more loudly. She snarled, "How did you know to find us here?"

"What says we did? We wasn't expecting any surprises like this. Our lucky day. You'll fetch a nice reward from Mirrin, you will. She might even make me a captain. She's been looking for you humans, and word is she'll pay a pretty penny for it, too. But you," the voice said, indicating Alcide, "I dunno what you are. Mirrin didn't say nothing about a cat and a deer."

Tension left Alcide's body. Mary Jane noticed that even Aldair seemed to relax. Alcide repeated carefully, "You don't know what I am?"

"You're a big white cat, innit?" the voice grunted without interest. "That's all. What do I care about some talking animal?"

The forest began to shimmer. Mary Jane thought it was a trick of her eyes, at first, but it shimmered even after she blinked. It seemed as though the very air itself was moving in waves, and she could feel the waves softly lapping against her eardrums. At the same time, she felt unbearably weary. She struggled to keep her eyes open. She heard, as though whispered from a great distance and at the same time into her ears alone, Alcide's voice command, "You will drop your weapons and let the children go."

The knife at Mary Jane's throat wavered, then dropped to the ground. The arm around her shoulder pinning her to the being behind her went slack, too. She pushed it away, and when she felt no resistance, and ran to Aldair. As she watched, the centaur, too, dropped his scimitar, and the dwarf let go of the small dagger he had held unseen to Maude's back. Maude, who was the same height as the dwarf, spun and gave him a kick in the shin before running away. Jack stopped only to untie Archipel, then all three joined Mary Jane beside Aldair. Neither the dwarf nor the centaur moved. Their eyes were dazed and unfocused.

Mary Jane risked a look back at her captor. It was no creature she had ever seen before. That it had some sort of blood relationship to humans was barely evident, in that it walked on two legs and had two arms and a head, but there the resemblance ended. Its skin was yellow, and what hair it had was long and stringy and black. It had a hideously ugly face, with bulging eyes and a heavy jaw so long that it went past the upper part of the creature's mouth, revealing four yellow, broken teeth. The creature's face was covered with warts, and patches of its skull were hairless. Its eyes were a crusty yellow shot through with blood. For clothing, it wore black pants that reached barely to the knee and were held up by a rope for a belt. Its once white shirt was far too small, revealing a potbelly. Mary Jane was glad to be far away from the creature.

"You did not see anyone today," Alcide told the creatures. "You did not find a tunnel, you did not see the human children. You fought amongst yourselves the whole day and then you slept."

Mary Jane's captor did not blink. Mary Jane wondered if he had heard Alcide's words. The leopard turned to the children and growled, "Let us leave now. If there is one patrol in the area, there may be others."

"But..." Mary Jane protested, confused.

She did not understand what was happening. Surely, the abominable creatures would try to follow them. They must tie them up to prevent it. She tried to tell the others, but Aldair shushed her.

"They will not remember we were ever here," he explained.

Mary Jane glanced once more at the monsters. They remained still as statues, their eyes vacant. Aldair now took the lead, guiding them north away from the tunnel entrance with Alcide in the rear. When they were several dozen yards away and out of sight of the three creatures, Mary Jane felt the forest shimmer again. A moment later, she heard the raspy voice quarreling with a deep, angry voice that she imagined belonged to the centaur. The two continued arguing until she could hear them no longer.

"What happened and what was that awful creature?" Mary Jane exclaimed once she was certain that they were not being followed.

"It was a spell," Maude said matter-of-factly.

She was now riding happily on Aldair's back, her short legs falling only halfway down his golden sides. Jack had put her there so that she could keep pace with the rest of the group, her legs being so much shorter. Aldair slowed to walk beside Mary Jane, and Maude was taller than her older sister while riding on the magical beast.

"Was it?" Mary Jane asked the stag.

"Yes. Those who do not stuff their ears with cotton around Alcide too often find themselves doing whatever she commands. What king would not have given his fortune to have had such a pet?" Aldair mused.

"She's like a siren!" Maude exclaimed.

"Sirens call men to their death and can do nothing else," Aldair said in gentle reproof. "They are creatures of evil."

"The creature you speak of," Alcide said, addressing Mary Jane, "was a hobgoblin. Normally they, like dwarves, live below the ground. They are smarter than they appear, and cruel. Luckily, they were very rare even when they were at their fullest strength in Devorian."

"And that was a centaur, right?" Jack asked.

"Yes, it was."

"Are there many of those?" Jack asked.

"The centaurs used to live in herds that would roam the Western Plains and attack villages. There were perhaps several hundred, no more. Those that have returned to Devorian since being chased out centuries ago have come alone. Perhaps herds still can be found far south of Devorian; I do not know. Centaurs are very strong, but only semi-intelligent," Alcide said.

"And the dwarf?" Mary Jane asked.

"Dwarves are neither good nor evil, for the most part. There once were many of them, and they lived in vast systems of tunnels under the mountains, mining for metals and precious gems. However, there are far more males than females, and because of this their population dwindled. Now there remain only a few hundred in all of Devorian. They are not often seen, for they live deep within the heart of the mountains and have no use for the world outside. If I had to guess, I would say that dwarf was one of the bad dwarves, acting as a mercenary with Mirrin's army."

"Well, I hope we don't cross paths with more monsters like those," Mary Jane said.

"Unfortunately, I am quite certain that we will," Aldair replied solemnly.

~*~

Mirrin leaned back from the green mist before her and relaxed into the heavy wooden chair in which she sat. In the mist, the three children, two magical beasts, and Archipel walked through the forest. Mirrin pressed her fingers together into an arch, then held them against her lips, her eyes closing lightly. Her white hair was braided in two braids from her forehead and fastened behind her head. The rest of her long hair fell freely past her shoulders. She sat in a large war tent made of red silk backed with heavy canvas.

"They are escaping," a rough voice remarked from behind her.

Mirrin opened her black eyes and looked straight ahead.

"No," she replied coolly, "not escaping. You see, we both want the same thing: for the children to return to the portal in the Green Forest. There is no need to go after them now. Once they are closer, I shall make my move. In the meantime, get word to the scouts to keep cotton with them. We shall have no more of that cat bewitching our soldiers."

She stood then and faced the creature that waited patiently at her shoulder. It had the lean, muscular body of a man, but its head was like that of a deer, with black, twisted horns. Black tattoos swirled across its shoulders and it wore a heavy bow slung across its back. Its only clothing was a long loincloth that hung to it its knees. Its black, almond eyes were unblinking in its long, narrow face as it watched her. Despite its human body, its face was so inhuman that it was unsettling to look at. Mirrin scowled at it.

"Now," she snapped, "tell me why the army has attacked Tarah. Don't the fools understand that they will have to do it over again when we open the time portal?"

"They are creatures of chaos and destruction," the creature replied. "It is all but impossible to control them, even with the help of your magic. Still, we have punished those who have allowed this to happen."

"Good," she replied curtly. "You are dismissed."

The creature bowed to her and left. Mirrin watched him go, then returned to monitoring the progress of the children in the wood. They were stopped now, resting and eating things from the pouches that they carried. Mirrin looked at each of them carefully. They would be easy enough to deal with when the time came, but the magical beasts would prove more difficult. Still, she was confident that she could overcome them. She knew their powers, and knew they posed no challenge to her.

Bored, Mirrin strode to a corner of the tent, where a giant cage five feet tall hung from a heavy brass stand. The cage was covered by a large brown cloth. Mirrin pulled on the cloth and it fell to the ground, revealing inside the cage a giant brown eagle, its beak bound with a leather strap. Its fierce black eyes glared at Mirrin.

"Magical beasts," she scoffed. "What a disappointment to learn that you are all little better than oversized talking animals. I grow weary of your lectures. I had thought that you might be a challenge to me. Instead I find that you are weak and powerless. As for you, Aiglon, I might make you my own personal hunting falcon. It was said no cage could hold you. Look at you now."

Mirrin picked up the cloth from the ground and threw it carelessly back over the cage, listening as the eagle inside ruffled his feathers unhappily in response. Then she walked to the tent's opening and stood outside in the bright sunlight. Her bright red tent had been pitched on a hill a mile south of Tarah. She had chosen the spot carefully with the idea that when she was able to create a time rift, her army could pass through it at this spot and surprise the defenders of Tarah of the past by suddenly appearing near the walls. Then, once the siege began, she could watch the destruction of the city from an elevated vantage point without being overwhelmed by the chaos of the assault. Even at this distance, she could hear the sound of rocks hurled by catapults crashing against the Tarah of today's walls like peals of distant thunder. A plume of smoke rose from the southern end of the city, where oil-soaked darts had been set alight and fired into buildings to set them on fire. She growled with frustration at the wasted effort.

She considered her "army"--a motley collection of nightmares and ghouls summoned from the darkest corners of the land--and she felt no love for them. They were stupid, ugly brutes easily distracted by the prospect of immediate violence and looting. It required all of her magic to keep them from fighting amongst themselves all the time, and it was exhausting. They could not, like her, plan and wait for years for the moment when they could once and for all topple Devorian's king. When Tarah was finally hers, she would be rid of them and rule using only her stone army, but for now she needed them. She felt the deer-man return to her side. He was so quiet she almost did not notice.

"Send an ambush party west," she ordered. "Let it lie in wait in the Green Forest for our prey to arrive. I myself will go when our quarry is closer, for they have several more days' travel."

"It will be done," the creature said.

The creature departed once more and she was alone. Yet not entirely alone, for she sensed a presence nearby. It was a presence that she recognized. Her mouth twisted into a grimace.

"Grimkell," she said.

The name came as though pulled unwillingly from her lips. A black shape detached itself from a pool of shadows and moved closer to her. As it stepped into the light, it resolved itself into a giant black dog. Its eyes were so dark they were impossible to see in its large face.

"I shall have to reinforce my guard if intruders can slip in without detection so easily," Mirrin said with some irritation.

"With your entire army around you, still could I reach you without a single eye having spotted me," Grimkell replied.

"Your coming is unexpected," Mirrin said, changing the subject. "After our last parting I did not think you would come again."

"I have come only to warn you," Grimkell said.

He sat beside her and surveyed the plain before them. Mirrin's army of monsters flooded the field, a disorganized mass of bodies surging like waves of water against Tarah's walls. A section of the city's massive walls had caved in, and trolls swarmed over the toppled stones, pulling them away and hurling them into the field behind them. The other monsters dodged to avoid the crashing stones, but a few were crushed. None stopped to help them.

"Warn me?" Mirrin repeated, her eyebrows contracting into a frown. "What now, beast?"

"You are not as powerful as you imagine. Let go of this foolish crusade and send these monsters back to whatever dark pits from which they have crawled. The past is the past," Grimkell said in his deep, solemn voice.

"Is this what you have come to tell me?" Mirrin demanded angrily. "How dare you speak these words to me! Why have you really come? To spy? You know nothing of me. Leave Devorian, and take those other so-called 'magical beasts' with you. You have no place in this world any longer. It is mine now."

Grimkell stood and looked at her wordlessly. He was so large that standing, his head was level with her chest. Mirrin glared at him, her face crimson with anger. Her eyes shone. The magical beast said coldly, "You foolish humans. Why must we always clean up your messes? It will take a year to cleanse the land of these vile creatures you have summoned to you. Remember, when this is over, that you could have chosen to act differently. There is always a choice."

Then he turned and began to walk away. Though her eyes tried to follow, Mirrin found that she could not focus them upon the large dog. When he was almost lost in the trees, he stopped and turned his large head back to her. He remarked, "You think that you have captured Aiglon. I tell you now, no magical beast can be captured who does not wish it."

He took two more steps and vanished completely. Mirrin immediately turned and raced back to her tent. She threw open the tent's flap and looked to the corner where Aiglon's cage sat. It was as she had left it, with the brown cloth covering the cage completely. The tent was silent and undisturbed. Her confidence returning, Mirrin strode to the cage and stripped off its covering. The cage was empty. The leather tie that had held the great bird's beak shut lay loose at the bottom of the cage beside a single brown feather. Aiglon was gone. Mirrin let loose a piercing scream of rage.

~*~

"One more day of travel north and then we may begin to move west," Aldair said, watching the sun.

His amber eyes blinked in the sunlight, which glistened so strongly off of his golden pelt that it was difficult for the children to look at him. The travelers had stopped to rest after hours of walking through the endless forest. Archipel lay collapsed and panting beside Maude, who sat with her feet out in front of her and her hands behind her back. Jack and Mary Jane sat cross-legged under a large tree while Aldair stood watch over them and Alcide patrolled the forest for danger. Mary Jane squealed, "Another day! We'll never get home."

Jack groaned. He complained, "All these trees look alike. We might as well be walking in circles. Is Devorian nothing but forests? If I never see another forest in my life, I'll still have seen too many."

"It is merely a few days in a lifetime measured in dozens of years," Aldair replied, "and I know our path. We have walked true north."

"There's more than just forests," Maude said. "There are the plains to the far west, and a big desert in the south."

She drew from the satchel that she carried with her a small, yellowing piece of paper. It had obviously been folded and unfolded many times. Maude unfolded it now, spreading it before her upon the grass. Though crisscrossed by many creases, the map was still readable. Maude ran her finger over it, tracing what she guessed was their path northward from Tarah. Though there had not been many landmarks with which to keep track of their progress, nevertheless she thought that she could roughly guess their position.

"Where did you get that, Maude?" Jack asked curiously, crawling on his knees to her in order to get a closer look at the map.

"From the library," Maude replied, without further explanation.

She continued, "Aldair, are we in the forest of Valdale?"

"Yes," the stag confirmed.

"Then we must keep going north!" Maude announced.

"Yes, Maude, Aldair just said we'll go north another day before turning west," Mary Jane said.

"No, no, not that," Maude said, shaking her head.

Mary Jane and Jack both frowned.

"What do you mean?" Mary Jane asked.

"North...east. We have to head northeast. Just a little."

Maude traced a different line on the map, her face screwed up in a frown. The path that she had marked for them would take them to a river some distance to the northeast. Her brother and sister looked at her flabbergasted.

"I don't understand. Why, Maude?" Mary Jane asked.

"We just have to!" Maude exclaimed, shaking her head.

"Maude," Archipel explained patiently, "there is no use traveling east. It would take us farther away from the Green Forest and your home. Our path lies to the west."

"You don't understand," Maude protested, frustration in her voice.

"Then help us to understand," Archipel said. "Tell us, Maude, why do you wish to go east?"

"We have to go to the Hall of Heroes!" Maude cried.

"The hall of heroes?" Jack repeated, confused.

"Yes!" Maude insisted.

"What possible reason..." Aldair began.

"You have to trust me! It's important."

"More important than your safety? It will take time, time we do not have. Even now, the witch's followers are nipping at our heels. We must make all haste to the Green Forest," Aldair said sternly.

"Maude, this is not the time to go sightseeing," Jack said reproachfully. "Aldair is right. Nothing is as important as getting back home."

"Besides," Aldair said, "even if we had all the time in the world, there is one problem."

"What?"

"Only the dead can go. In order for us to go there, one of us would have to die."

"No," Maude protested. "That can't be right. There must be a way!"

Aldair explained, "The Hall of Heroes sits upon an island in the middle of a swiftly moving river. When the human dead were sent to be entombed there, their bodies were placed upon boats ferried to the island by water horses. The horses will not pull living humans, and there is no way to cross without them. Thus the sanctity of the Hall is preserved against intruders."

Mary Jane, who had risen to stand beside Maude, placed her hand upon her sister's arm. She said gently, "We have to go home, Maude."

"As long as you remain in Devorian, you are in danger," Aldair reminded them again.

"I don't care," Maude said stubbornly, crossing her small arms. "I'll go alone if I have to."

"How will you cross the river? How will you enter the Hall of the dead as one who is still living? It is too difficult, and to what end?" the stag protested.

"Dear Maude, what is so important that you are determined to go there?" Mary Jane asked.

Maude bit her lip. Without looking at her sister, she mumbled, "I won't tell you."

Mary Jane and Jack looked at each other with concern.

"We can't, Maude," Jack said. "I'm sorry, but we simply can't. Please, let it go."

"I won't. Let's go, Archipel. If they won't come with me, you will."

Maude stood and brushed the dirt and grass from her yellow dress. She looked expectantly to the wolf, whose gray head swung anxiously between the girl and her siblings. He whined softly, his tail tucked between his legs. At last he said, "We had better not."

Maude glared at her brother and sister, then at the magical beast. Her hands balled into fists and dug into her hips. She was a tiny ball of red hot anger. She spat, "Fine," and that was the end of it. She spoke no more of the Hall of Heroes after that, and Jack was glad that they could continue home in peace. When Alcide returned, they began to walk again, and they walked until late in the evening. They saw no more of Mirrin's agents, and they eventually were able to relax and almost forget that they were hunted.

When the sun passed below the horizon, they bedded down for the night and Jack started a fire by rubbing two sticks together. The children and animals sat huddled around it for warmth and comfort. Aldair told tales from the age of men and before, and slowly the children fell asleep under the strange stars. Jack's last thought was of home, and of his bed at Baker's Row. He dreamed of water horses and centaurs, and when he woke, Maude was gone.
Chapter Fourteen

The Hall of Heroes

"Mary Jane! Mary Jane wake up!" Jack cried, shaking his sister.

Mary Jane swatted at him sleepily and rolled over. Jack pushed her again, insistently. He growled, "Get up!"

"It's too early. I want to sleep," Mary Jane mumbled.

"You're not at home in your bed. Get up! Maude is missing."

Mary Jane's eyes flew open. She sat up and grabbed Jack's arm. She repeated, "Missing? Maude? Oh no. Where are Aldair and Alcide? Where is Archipel?"

"We are here," Alcide said gravely.

"She's been taken. Oh, taken in the middle of the night!" Mary Jane wailed. "Now Mirrin has her for sure."

"No, not Mirrin," Aldair said. "Archipel is missing as well. They left together in the early morning."

"How do you know? Why didn't you stop them?" Mary Jane demanded angrily.

"There was no sign of a struggle," Alcide replied. "Even magical beasts sleep."

"How long ago did they go? Why haven't you gone after them?"

"They left hours ago. We have only just awoken, ourselves. Do not fear; we will find them. Alcide will be able to track them," Aldair said.

He added in a low, earnest voice, his amber eyes locked upon them, "You must know one thing. If Maude reaches the Hall of Heroes, we cannot protect you."

"What? What do you mean?" Mary Jane asked, startled.

"The Hall is a sacred place, protected by layers of its own magic. While we are there, Alcide and I will be no different from any other mortal creature. If we are somehow able to cross over the river onto the island, which I doubt, we will be temporarily rendered defenseless," he admitted.

"I don't like this," Jack complained, his mouth drawn into a tight frown. He ran his fingers restlessly through his thick black hair. Dirt lay beneath his short fingernails.

"We don't have a choice. We have to get Maude back. Let's go," Mary Jane urged.

Alcide sniffed the air, her nose and whiskers twitching. She walked in a slow circle, then strode purposefully east.

"This way," she commanded. "To reach the Hall, we will have to travel northeast through the thickest parts of the Valdale Forest, then make our way down steep cliffs into the Thornmir Valley. The river we seek runs through this valley. All the time we will have to be wary of Mirrin's spies and allies. It will take time to catch up with Maude and Archipel. I only hope that in the meantime Mirrin does not find them before we do."

Mary Jane felt sick to her stomach. It seemed that no matter how hard they tried, everything seemed to always go wrong. Why couldn't they just go home? Why had Maude run away? She was scared. Scared that Maude would be caught, or that they wouldn't be able to find her, or that they would be caught. She never wanted to see Mirrin again. She wished they had smashed the mirror in the attic as they'd promised to, because then none of this would have happened. She kept walking, for all she could do was put one foot before the other and hope for the best.

As the day wore on, the forest began to look more dark and foreboding. The sky turned a dark gray, the sun hidden behind a thick veil of menacing clouds. The trees grew closer together, and the color of their bark turned from brown to black. The children threaded their way between leafless branches that scratched at them like sharp fingernails from twisted trunks. In the silence, all they could hear was the sound of their own feet stepping on fallen twigs. Aldair left them to scout the forest around them for danger, leaving Alcide and the children to follow Maude's trail.

"We're catching up to them," Alcide encouraged. "Soon we'll overtake them."

"I hope so. I want to leave here. I don't like this place," Mary Jane said.

"Does any animal live in this part of Valdale Forest?" Jack asked, pushing aside a branch that seemed to be reaching for him.

"No," Alcide answered. "There's not enough water in the ground for trees to grow well, and without water, animals can't survive either. Wait!"

The leopard dropped into a crouching position low to the ground, her bright white body coiled like a spring. Her eyes were focused on a place somewhere deep in the forest on their right. The children froze, peering into the dark woods with concern. Although the trees were thin, they grew so densely that it was difficult to see through them. Jack was the first to spot the movement among the trees. He pointed at it with his finger wordlessly. As he and Mary Jane watched, several beings moved through the forest towards their small party.

Alcide began to growl loudly in warning, her long tail twitching behind her. The children could not see what the creatures were at first, but as they came closer their features came into focus. They had the heavy yellow bodies of lions, with huge paws and long tufted tails, but where a lion's head and neck would have been they had the torsos and faces of women. Although the three lion-women wore no clothing, their scraggly, unwashed brown hair was so long that it cascaded down their chests to their waists, covering their bare chests.

"Stay back," Alcide warned.

Mary Jane did not know whether the warning was for the creatures or for them. The three creatures stopped before them and the one closest to them smiled, revealing a row of small, pointed white teeth below its yellow cat's eyes.

"What'sss thisss?" It hissed. "What hasss come to thisss part of the foressst?"

Said another, devouring the two children hungrily with its eyes, "Humansss. Deliciousss."

"You will not touch them," Alcide growled. "Go in peace, carrion eaters, and you will come to no harm."

"Sssissstersss," said the first, "why doesss it threaten usss? We are three, and it isss but one."

"Jussst give usss one," the third begged. "You have a ssspare. We are ssso hungry."

"We would even take just the sssmaller one. She is just a bite," said the second. "Won't you give her to usss?"

"You have tressspasssed into our forest," said the first. "You mussst offer usss payment. Just one human. It hasss been ssso long sssince we have had a human to eat."

Mary Jane whimpered fearfully. The second creature's head swiveled to look at her and it licked its lips. Its tongue was pink and pointed. Mary Jane shivered, and noticed that its human body was too thin--the creatures were indeed starving. She whispered urgently, "Alcide, _tell_ them to go away. Tell them the way you told the others."

The first lion-woman's smile broadened and seemed to stretch across its entire face, two rows of tiny white daggers. It purred, "Itsss tricksss won't work on usss, little human child."

Alcide hissed, her sharp teeth bared and her small ears flat against her head. She growled, "I will not tell you again. Leave now."

It was then that Mary Jane noticed that the lion-women had positioned themselves so that two encircled Alcide while the third stood nearer to the children. If a fight broke out, Alcide would be hard pressed to handle the two creatures while the children would be defenseless against the third. Mary Jane looked around her for a large stick that she could use to keep the creature at a distance, but the tree branches were small, and none lay on the ground within reach anyway. Jack subtly moved to stand between Mary Jane and the third creature.

The monster nearest to Alcide took a challenging step toward her, but stopped as a flash of brown fell from the sky and struck it in the face. The lion-woman screamed and clawed at its eyes. Mary Jane could see long red scratches across its face that ran from its mouth to its forehead. They had not been there a moment earlier. Now smaller brown and black shapes swooped from the sky almost too quickly for Mary Jane to see, harrying all three creatures. The lion-women waved their arms, trying to fend off the attackers, but the birds flew mercilessly at them, aiming at their faces and driving them back from the children and leopard step by step.

"Nooo," wailed one of the creatures, its arms covered in scratches.

It jumped and pivoted, trying to avoid the birds. Groaned another, "It hurtsss."

It managed to hit one of the birds with its hand and the bird slammed into the ground with a squawk. The bird was not hurt and immediately took to the air again. The first bird, a giant brown eagle, swooped in again and hit one of the creatures with such force that it was almost knocked to the ground entirely. The bird's claws dug deeply into its sides and the lion-woman squealed. The children were forgotten as the creatures, half mad with pain, reared on their hind legs and tried to swat the birds away from them. The birds were nimble, however, and avoided their swinging arms and kicking front paws. A bird bit down hard on one of the creature's tails and it screamed.

The creatures endured the assault for several long seconds, then turned and fled as quickly as they could, crashing heedlessly through the trees as they tried to evade their attackers. The birds continued to follow them, flying above their heads and swooping down to nip the creatures' yellow haunches. In the dark forest, both pursuers and pursued quickly disappeared from view, and soon the forest became perfectly silent again. Alcide gradually relaxed from her crouched position and stood, although she remained alert for danger.

"Where did those birds come from?" Jack asked.

"The magical beast Aiglon," Mary Jane said, recognizing the giant brown eagle as the same that had come to her rescue outside of Tarah. "He must have brought them."

"I'm glad he was here. We were in trouble."

"Alcide, why couldn't you use your magic on those terrible creatures?" Mary Jane asked.

Alcide sighed. She explained, "Magic is not always predictable. This is why one must never rely upon it, for it may come to be that it fails just when it is most needed. Lamiae, those creatures we have just encountered, have a natural immunity to magic."

"Where is Aldair? We needed him," Jack said.

The three, having forgotten about the other magical beast when they were facing the lion-women, now looked around but could not see him. The forest was simply too dense to see more than a few dozen feet in any direction. Alcide said, "It is not a safe forest. Ambush is too easy. Help could be within reach without ever knowing to come. Let us move on. I am sure that we will find Aldair again soon enough, or he us."

"Alcide, you don't think Maude..." Jack broke off, unable to finish the sentence.

"No," Alcide said firmly. "The lamia said they hadn't seen any other humans. I'm sure Maude did not encounter them."

Before they could begin walking once more, they heard the beating of large wings and Aiglon dropped from the sky to perch on one of the short trees, his sharp talons wrapping themselves around its thin branches. Mary Jane noticed that he came alone. She guessed that his bird companions were still chasing the lamiae. Aiglon's fierce black eyes stared at the children and their protectors from behind a wickedly sharp, curved yellow beak.

"Your arrival was timely. You saved us from a very unpleasant situation," Alcide told him. "I thank you."

"It was by chance and nothing more," Aiglon replied. "We had been tracking the lamiae for several hours already when they came upon you. We encountered them just after they entered the Valdale forest, but I suspect that they crossed the Far Reaches into Devorian from the lands to the north and have been moving south ever since. Had they managed to eat you, you would most likely have been their first meal in days."

"What word from the north?" Alcide asked.

"Just what one would expect," the eagle replied. "All the monsters of centuries past are streaming over the border. Their numbers are not what they once were, however, and for that we must be grateful. These three are the only lamiae that we have seen."

"And what of Mirrin's army?"

"It has now moved completely to Tarah. Mirrin will have to move quickly to finish her plans or else, bored and restless, the half-breeds and monsters that make up her army will begin to fight each other and the army will dissolve," Aiglon reported.

"What is her next move?" Alcide asked.

"Ambush. She will wait until you have reached the portal in the Green Forest, and then she will force the children to lead her through. You will be watched until that time, but will be unmolested, at least by her. She is not the only danger, however. You may still encounter monsters on your path such as these lamiae that act of their own will and do not follow her orders."

"Aiglon, have you seen the littlest girl? She would have been walking through the Valdale Forest with a wolf companion."

"I have. She is near, only an hour ahead of you. By chance, she did not encounter the lamiae. If you hurry, you can easily overtake her," Aiglon replied.

He added, "Aldair has joined her. I think you will find them by the cliffs above the Thornmir Valley. As for myself, I shall return to monitoring those creatures that now roam indiscriminately throughout the land. When the witch is gone, it will fall to us to cleanse Devorian of this plague of monsters. Take care and good luck!"

His message delivered, the giant eagle pushed himself from the tree and took to the skies, his enormous wings beating powerfully against the air. He circled once, high above them, and was gone. The three were alone once more in the forest.

"Let us hurry," Alcide said. "I am eager to be out of this dark place. At least Aldair has found Maude. She will be safe with him."

As quickly as they had moved before, now they pushed themselves to walk even faster. They met no other monsters in the forest and as Aiglon had said, within an hour they came to the end of the forest. Beyond the treeline lay a narrow strip of grass that ended abruptly in a steep drop. Hundreds of feet below, past the cliff, lay the Thornmir Valley, and several miles into the valley a river. Maude sat beneath a tree just at the edge of the forest, petting Archipel, who lay near her feet, while Aldair stood watch over them. Mary Jane rushed to her and enveloped her in a hug.

"Maude, thank heavens you're safe!" She exclaimed. "How could you just run away like that? We were so worried. Something could have happened to you!"

"But it didn't," Maude pointed out.

"Archipel, how could you let her go?" Mary Jane scolded.

The wolf whined and tucked his tail between his legs. He apologized, "I'm sorry. Someone had to accompany her."

"You should have woken us," Mary Jane admonished.

To Maude she said, "We have to stick together. We'll be home soon. Wouldn't you like to be home safe in bed?"

"Yes, of course, but look!"

Maude pointed out over the valley. It was beautiful. A mist rose from the valley floor that trapped the sunlight close to the ground and made it shimmer. Far out, sitting directly in the river, Mary Jane saw what looked like a building. She squinted to see it better. It sparkled in the sun. She asked, "What is that?"

"The Hall of Heroes," Maude replied.

"Oh," Mary Jane said simply, her mouth hanging open in surprise.

"I'm going to go there. You can come with me or not," Maude said with determination.

"No," the others said in unison.

"I'll only slip away again if you try to stop me," Maude said obstinately.

"This is not a negotiation. You will come with us," Aldair rumbled angrily.

Maude's small mouth set in a straight little line. Jack knew that look. Mary Jane opened her mouth to protest, but Jack stopped her. He looked at Maude seriously.

"You promise that if we go there, you'll come with us back to the Green Forest?"

"Yes!" Maude agreed, nodding emphatically.

"What?" Mary Jane exclaimed. "Jack, no."

"I don't see much of a choice other than throwing her over our shoulders and carrying her kicking and screaming away," Jack explained with a shrug. "Aldair, how long will it take to get to the Hall of Heroes?"

"A few hours. If it is your wish that we go, I cannot stop you. However, I remind you that we will not be able to enter the Hall once we reach it," Aldair replied.

"That's alright. Now, how do we get there?"

Aldair walked to the edge of the cliff and peered down. He said, "We must descend the cliff."

Jack looked down the gray cliff face and gasped fearfully. He said quickly, "It's impossible. There's no way to climb down. We'll have to find another way."

"There is another way," Aldair said, "but it is even more dangerous. Were there a better way to reach the Hall of Heroes, we would not go by this path."

Jack looked uneasily at Mary Jane, struggling to breathe. He was deathly afraid of heights. She was still furious that he had taken Maude's side, but she accepted that he was right and so she took his hand and squeezed it, trying to give him courage. He whispered, "Okay."

The children lined up once more and Aldair led them along the cliff heading north. The stag explained, "The path we will take was carved into the cliffs by dwarves centuries ago. Although all dwarves eventually moved into the mountains, in the beginning some lived in the plains. This was how they traveled around the valley. Here."

He stopped.

Jack asked, "Where?"

"Look closely and you will see," Aldair replied.

Mary Jane walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down. Just as Aldair had said, barely visible in the rock was a slanting path that had been carved from the top of the cliff to the valley below. The path consisted of hundreds of steps barely three feet wide and half a foot tall. There was no rail to keep a climber upon it; one false step would mean a long and terrible fall to the death. Even she, who did not fear heights as Jack did, trembled at the idea of walking down it.

"If there is no other way," she murmured bravely, "then it must be done. Jack, you will have to close your eyes."

"What?" He exclaimed in disbelief.

He rushed forward to look, but Mary Jane held him back so that he could not see the path. She told him, "You will never go down if you look."

Jack went limp in her arms and did not fight. He stepped back and rubbed the bridge of his nose using his index finger and thumb. Maude patted him on the back comfortingly.

"Aldair, you go first, then Maude and Archipel," Mary Jane said. "Jack, I'll go next. You keep your hands on my shoulders. Alcide can follow, and keep her nose against your back to guide you. Whatever you do, don't open your eyes."

Mary Jane tried to sound more confident than she felt. In point of fact, she was not certain that the stag would be able to fit on the narrow path at all; his antlers seemed too wide. Furthermore, she didn't see how Jack would possibly be able to make it down all those stairs with his eyes closed. He could so easily trip and fall. Yet, they had no other choice. The travelers agreed, and Aldair bravely disappeared over the edge. Maude followed fearlessly, and Archipel more timidly behind her.

When it came her turn, Mary Jane braced herself with a deep breath and told Jack to grasp her shoulders tightly. He did, with such determination that his fingers bruised the skin near her neck. She bore it without complaining. She slowly began to walk step by painstaking step to the stairway, Jack stumbling along behind her as his body fought against its sensory blindness. When she reached the first step, she steeled herself and stepped down. Then she stepped on the second step. And the third. And so on.

To keep Jack from thinking about what he could not see and help him get the rhythm of going down the steps, she chanted, "Left, right, left, right, left, right," as she stepped. Jack, oblivious to the great danger around him, quickly learned the length of the stride he must take to keep up with his sister, and they moved more smoothly than Mary Jane had anticipated. Alcide assisted as well, her nose constantly at Jack's back to remind him that she would not let him fall.

"Only a little farther," Mary Jane lied when they had gone only a quarter of the way. "It's really not as bad as I thought. The path is quite wide, in fact."

The opposite was true. Once she had started down the stairs, Mary Jane was terrified to discover that the path was no wider than a goat trail. She felt as though at any moment she could misstep and tumble from the face of the cliff. Still, it would do no good to let on to her brother how scared she really was, and so she kept her left hand against the cliff face, although it made it harder for Jack to hold her shoulder on that side. She felt that so long as she remained close to the wall, she would be safe.

When they reached the path's halfway point, and the valley was still several hundred feet down, she said with forced cheerfulness, "Just a little longer. A few minutes, I think."

They had been descending for almost half an hour. Cold sweat brought on by fear and effort drenched Mary Jane's hair and her dress, the same red velvet dress that she had worn during her flight from Morlach. Jack growled, "You keep saying that."

"Well it's true," she lied.

Then, to distract him, she said, "The view is quite lovely from here. The Thornmir Valley is covered by tall grass that waves in the breeze. Far off I can just see the river. It sparkles like thousands of crystals all rushing together."

Jack's fingers tightened around her shoulder as he tripped down a step. Mary Jane winced and stopped a grunt from escaping her lips.

"I miss home," Jack said unexpectedly.

He said it so quietly that only Mary Jane heard. His voice was small, and scared.

"I do too," Mary Jane replied.

She had avoided thinking about anything but putting one foot before the other during their journey from Tarah, but now thoughts of home and her parents rushed into her mind and threatened to overwhelm her. A tear rolled down her cheek.

"Mother and Father don't know where we are. They must be so worried," Jack continued.

"We'll see them again. Everything will be alright," Mary Jane said with confidence that she did not feel.

She was not sure whether her words were meant for her brother or for herself. Probably both.

"Yes," Jack agreed, but his voice was hollow, and they continued the rest of the way without speaking.

Aldair was the first to reach the bottom of the path. He sprang off the last few steps and trotted away from the cliff face, shaking his golden head to relieve the pain of having held it sideways for so long in order to descend. He was followed closely by Maude and Archipel. As Mary Jane led her brother off the stairs and onto the valley floor at last, she told him to open his eyes. Jack immediately collapsed to the ground and refused to look back at the path they had taken. He hugged the ground with his whole body and breathed deeply the smells of the grass and dirt. His clothes were soaked through with sweat.

"We are safe for now," Alcide said, her nose flaring as she smelled for danger.

"You may ride upon my back if you are tired," Aldair told Jack generously.

"I'll walk," Jack answered.

He rose to his feet and rubbed his forehead with his right hand. Mary Jane noticed that he seemed to look much older than when they had first come through the mirror. Sweat matted his black hair to his face, and fatigue was causing his skin to sag and look pale. Deep purple rings lined his eyes. She knew that she looked no better, but at least they had done it. Against all odds, they had made it here, to the Thornmir Valley. She smoothed her red hair with the palms of her hands, then smiled at Maude, who smiled back. Although the sky had been dark over the Valdale Forest, in the Thornmir Valley the sun was shining without a cloud in the sky. She could not deny that the valley was the most beautiful place they had seen in Devorian.

Their small party kept on, pushing through the tall, pale green grass that covered the valley. The grass came to Jack and Mary Jane's waists and Maude's chest. It hid Archipel completely; only the tip of his tail was visible when he held it up behind him. Fortunately, as tall as the grass stalks were, they were thin and light, and the children walked through them easily. Their path was obvious. The Hall of Heroes was large enough to be visible from anywhere in the valley. It soared a hundred feet into the air, a white stone and silver crystal building topped by magnificent spires that stabbed into the sky. It was a beacon to the travelers, drawing them closer and closer.

When they at last reached the river's edge, they rejoiced. The current sounded like a powerful wind rushing headlong through a forest of trees, deafening them. The river ran far too quickly for anyone to swim across, and it churned and raged around the Hall. The Hall, built upon a small island barely larger than the building itself, loomed over everything like a white finger thrusting up into the sky. A dock made of silver and gold led from the door of the Hall into the water. A matching silver dock sat on their side of the river, and lashed to it was a great black barge.

"There lies the boat that carried fallen heroes to their final resting place," Aldair said, indicating the barge. "If we are to cross the river, that is the only way, although I do not see how."

They walked onto the dock, Aldair's hooves ringing like church bells against the metal. The river was so loud that it was all but impossible to hear any other sound above it. The water, spectacularly light blue and seemingly made of shining crystals, crashed against both the dock and the boat, but neither seemed unaffected by the water's fury. The barge bobbed gently in the water.

"As I have said," Aldair shouted to be heard, "the barge is pulled by two water horses. Only they have the strength to pull the boat through the water."

Mary Jane studied the intricate details carved into the silver. Tiny images of wars, kings, monsters, and animals filled each of the dock's planks and posts, covering every inch of the dock. It had doubtless taken artisans years of constant work to complete. In the center of the dock was an engraved image of two water horses pulling the barge amid surging swells. The water horses had the bodies of horses, but their front legs ended in webbed feet and they had long tails like mermaids where their back legs should have been.

"What happens now?" Jack shouted.

"I do not know," Aldair replied.

He looked to Maude, who had crouched down to look at one of the images on the dock, Archipel by her side.

"When someone was brought to be buried in the Hall, how did the water horses know to come?" Jack asked.

"I do not know," Aldair repeated, shaking his head. "This was one of the few secrets of the humans that we magical beasts do not know."

They heard two plopping sounds like something falling into the water and turned in the direction from which the sounds came. Maude looked up at them with a satisfied smile. She explained, "Two gold coins for passage across the river to the Hall. The water horses will come. They will take us."

"Gold coins?" Jack repeated. "Where did you get gold coins?"

"From Tarah, silly," Maude replied.

She did not explain further. She walked past her brother and crawled onto the barge on her hands and knees. When she reached the first bench, she sat upon it and looked expectantly back at her companions still standing on the dock. They gaped at her.

"I don't understand," Jack said.

"It's how we get to the Hall," Maude explained patiently. "Do you remember how people in Greece were buried with coins on their eyes to pay Charon to ferry their souls across the river Styx? Here in Devorian the glashtyn, that's the name for the water horses, were given two gold coins to take the dead across to the Hall of Heroes."

"How do you know that?" Mary Jane asked.

"I read it in the castle library," Maude replied. "Now get in!"

"Do you mean to tell me that all we have to do is drop two coins in the river to get across?" Jack asked incredulously. "What about the fact that we're not dead?"

"I guess we'll just have to see," Mary Jane murmured, climbing in next to Maude. "It makes as much sense as anything else in Devorian."

The others piled onto the barge just as the water began to roil around them. Two narrow heads exploded out of the water, propelled forward on long necks by powerful bodies. The children recognized what they were immediately based on their images on the dock. The water horses had the same general form as their land dwelling cousins, but their blue, rubbery skin was hairless and like that of a dolphin. Where a mane should have been, the water horses had instead a spiked, long green fin like a fish. The creatures eyed the children and their guardians, snorting and churning the water with their webbed feet.

"Noble glashtyn, we need your help," Maude called to them.

The water horses turned their pale silver eyes to her. She continued, "I know you have never taken living people to the Hall of Heroes, but just this once you have to take us. We are the last humans in Devorian--you'll never again have anyone else to take to the Hall. Please, please take us across."

The water horses treaded water silently before her, evaluating. Then they simultaneously disappeared beneath the waves, their large green-blue tails slapping the water as they swam below. Only a circle of small bubbles marked where they had been a moment before, and it was quickly carried away by the racing water. Neither magical beast nor child spoke. Finally, after a long minute had passed, Jack said, "They won't take us. What do we do now?"
Chapter Fifteen

The Immortal

"What are they after?" Mirrin demanded to no one in particular.

She paced up and down the floor of her tent, her arms crossed tightly across her chest and her white hair flowing behind her. He eyebrows were drawn tightly together over her black eyes. She growled, "What is in the Hall of Heroes but bones and centuries of dust?"

She stopped abruptly in front of the half deer, half man monster that was her lieutenant, her hands on her hips, her eyes blazing. She hissed, "Why are they there, Blackhorn? Why do they delay returning to the Green Forest?"

"Perhaps there is no reason," the creature remarked blandly. "The child has demanded it. Who knows what fantasies she has dreamed up? They will eventually return to their previous path."

The monster was sharpening a long, curved sword with a whetstone and did not look up. The sound of stone against steel rang out loudly in the silent tent.

"You think there is nothing there, then," Mirrin said.

"I think nothing. You would know better than I," the creature said evenly. "Why do you trouble yourself with these questions? They can do nothing to stop your plans."

"No," she agreed. "And yet, not knowing vexes me."

At that moment, the flap of her tent was thrown open and a satyr, a short, stocky creature with the hairy brown legs of a goat and the body of a man, stalked in. His horns were long and black and curled in two large circles around its pointed ears. His nose was large and bulbous, with a wart on one side, and his eyes were yellow with the black, oblong pupils of a goat. He made a short bow to Mirrin, balancing carefully on his legs.

"Lady, there is a disturbance in the camp," he announced in a voice that bleated like a goat.

"What is it now?" Mirrin snapped.

"The trolls have begun to fight," he replied.

"And?" Mirrin asked impatiently.

The satyr blinked, confused. He looked to Blackhorn for help. The monster set down his sword carefully.

"They must be stopped or else the fighting will spread," Blackhorn explained smoothly. "For now the army is content with burning buildings and tearing down Tarah's walls, but without a true enemy to fight, soon it will begin to fight itself. These creatures are not accustomed to being yoked together and kept in one place. They will tear each other to shreds without constant supervision."

"Foolish monsters!" Mirrin exclaimed in exasperation. "Can they not see that their patience will be rewarded by far greater things? Only a few days more and then they may drink their fill of enemies and destruction. I will give them the King of Tarah and all his men. There is no greater prize!"

"These monsters are impatient. They live to fight and destroy," Blackhorn said blandly. "Trolls cannot see an hour ahead of them, much less several days. It is the nature of trolls."

Mirrin's mouth quirked into a frown. She said, "I will see to the trolls. It is only a short while longer and I will have no more need of them anyway."

~*~

"I thought they would help," Maude said, sounding lost.

"It's alright, Maude, you tried your best," Mary Jane soothed, giving her sister a comforting pat on the back from where she sat on the barge behind her.

"I suppose we'll have to head back towards the Green Forest now," Jack said. "At least we've only lost a day."

He started to move toward the dock, but unexpectedly, the water began to churn in front of the barge as it had when the water horses first appeared. Jack dove back away from the boat's edge.

"The water horses!" He shouted, just as the creatures' heads again broke through the water.

This time, the water horses were so close to the boat that the children could almost reach out and touch them. They could see the creatures' powerful backs just beneath the water, their fish-like tails stretching out beneath the boat and their front legs churning just beneath the water.

"The harnesses!" Archipel shouted. "Throw them the harnesses!"

The wolf picked up in his mouth a heavy silver harness that had been lying unnoticed on the front of the barge and paced along the edge of the boat excitedly. Jack crawled towards Archipel on his hands to avoid tipping the boat over and knees and took the harness from him. Its design was ingeniously simple: a circle just large enough for the water horse to slip its head through, tethered to the boat by a long metal chain. Jack threw the harness towards one of the water horses like a lasso, aiming for its head, but missed. The harness landed in the water beside the creature instead. The water horse ducked under the water and came up beneath it nose first, letting the harness settle at the base of its neck just above its shoulders. Jack repeated the action with the second harness.

Once the water horses were harnessed, Maude and Mary Jane quickly untied the barge from the dock, throwing the ropes into the boat so that they would be able to tie the barge on the other side. The moment the boat was free, the two water horses began to swim forward against the current with all their might, pulling the boat slowly through the water. It was tough going. The barge was heavy, and made more so by its living passengers, and the current was against it. The water horses snorted and fought harder, forcing the boat foot by foot toward the island and the Hall.

The farther they traveled into the current, the more violently the barge was rocked by waves. Alcide and Archipel both lay flat against the bottom, clinging to the dark wood as the water slammed into the boat time and again, while Aldair stood with his feet splayed for balance. The children did little better sitting on the barge's benches. After several harrowing minutes, however, they left the worst of the current and reached the matching silver dock on the island of the Hall of Heroes. Jack knew that he would have to immediately tether the boat to the dock or it would be carried away by the current, so when the boat was close enough, he bravely jumped onto the dock and caught the ropes that his sisters threw him, looping them around the dock to lash the boat to it.

The rest of the boat's passengers disembarked as quickly as they could. Mary Jane handed Maude up to her brother, then scrambled up behind her. Alcide leapt from the boat and ran to the end of the dock, where her feet could stand upon solid ground, followed closely by Archipel. Aldair was the last to leave the barge. He stood for a moment upon the silver dock, his amber eyes fixed upon the Thornmir Valley, watching for danger. When he was assured that they were safe, he rejoined the children as they walked to the shore.

At the end of the dock was a great crystal gate twenty feet high and inlaid with a branching tree of silver with golden leaves. Two giant white statues of Taran knights in full armor flanked it on either side like larger than life guardians. They looked down menacingly upon the children with blank, stony faces from beneath plumed helmets, their sharp spears held by their sides at the ready. Mary Jane saw no means by which to open the gate, but when the group came within ten feet of the gate it opened on its own. Without hesitating, they stepped through.

Past the gate lay a long rectangular courtyard. A wide path ran down its center, lined on both sides by statues carved out of white marble: armored knights astride rearing stallions, a woman in a flowing gown sighting a bow and arrow, a half-naked man wrestling with a lion, a woman in breeches and a loose shirt holding a mariner's spyglass, and many more. The children walked slowly, peering at the statues, amazed at how lifelike they were. The artists who had carved them seemed to have captured their subjects at their moment of greatest strength, neither exaggerating nor hiding their flaws and strengths.

"The heroes of Tarah," Alcide commented.

"I wish we had time to learn about them," Maude sighed.

At the end of the courtyard was the Hall of Heroes itself. Its door was ten feet high and four and a half feet wide, cast from a solid slab of silver. Maude pushed against it with her shoulder and it swung open easily and soundlessly to her touch. She passed through without hesitation. Mary Jane, following her, was blinded for a moment as she stepped through. She stood still, allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the hall after the bright sunlight outside. Torches were attached to the walls of the cavernous room, although spaced too far apart to effectively light all of it, and they burned with the blue flame of magical fire, illuminating row upon row of marble coffins.

The sight of so many coffins was unsettling to Mary Jane. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise as the silence closed in around her. This was a place for the dead, indeed, and not the living. It felt as though death itself was struggling against their presence, trying to pull it to them or force them out. To distract herself, she looked more closely at the coffins nearest to her. Each coffin was ornamented differently, reflecting the period and deeds of the hero buried within. They were interesting, and she wished that there were more light to see by.

All of the sudden, every torch in the room went out, throwing the group into blackness more profound than any Mary Jane had ever experienced. The blackness was like a giant vacuum that sucked everything into it and sent it spinning away, anchorless and alone. Mary Jane stood completely still, knowing that if she did not move she could not become lost. She was exactly ten steps from the door, and if she retraced her steps, she would be able to find it even without light. Jack bumped into her from behind, and she felt her brother's hands feeling her back to identify her.

"Can you see?" Jack's voice asked.

"No, of course not!" she replied, a scowl in her voice.

"Even I see nothing," Alcide remarked. "It is a most unusual darkness."

"What happened?" Archipel asked.

Before anyone could answer, a white light appeared at the far end of the room. A perfect sphere, it floated towards them slowly, growing larger and brighter the closer it came. Aldair snorted uncomfortably and pawed the ground softly, his hoof scraping against the stone. A minute later, the light was close enough to illuminate the faint outlines of the children and their companions like ghosts. A few steps closer and they were completely exposed, bathed in white as though covered by layer of fine white powder. Mary Jane saw a human shape at the center of the circle of light and realized that they were seeing a man carrying a very powerful light.

The man walked until he was within five feet of them, then stopped. He wore a long dark robe that covered everything but his face. Even his face was hard to see, however, for the hood of the robe was up, hiding his face in shadow. The light that accompanied him came from a glowing ball that floated beside his head, casting light in all directions. When he stopped, it sank to the palm of his left hand and dimmed, shrinking so that it was no larger than a grapefruit.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" The man asked.

His voice was like nothing the children had ever heard before. It was like the wind racing across an arctic tundra, or the ocean lapping against the shore. It encompassed time beyond all reckoning. It was not, in a word, human.

"I'm Maude," Maude said, standing her ground bravely before him. "And this is Jack, and Mary Jane, and Archipel, and Aldair, and Alcide."

"But who _are_ you?" The man asked again.

The light pulsed brighter for a moment and Mary Jane was able to see the man's face. It was the wrinkled and lined face of a very old man. His eyes, however, were like black, burning coals. They burned into the children as though he could see their souls. Mary Jane shivered and crossed her arms as if to protect herself from him.

"We are humans, but not from Devorian," Maude said carefully. "It's true that we're alive, and we're not supposed to be, but we've come here to find something that was lost long ago. Something that will help us stop someone from doing something very bad, I think."

Mary Jane marveled at her sister's courage. She put her hand upon Maude's shoulder to give her strength, and felt Maude stand straighter beneath it. Maude asked the man in return, "Who are you?"

"It is the Immortal," Aldair murmured behind her, "protector of the Hall of Heroes. The Immortal guards Devorian's most honored dead from grave robbers and tends to the Hall."

"He must be hundreds of years old!" Maude exclaimed.

"Thousands," Alcide said gently. "The Immortal is not human. It is a spell that was given human form."

"By who?" Maude asked.

"It was a gift from Radamanth, the first and greatest of the magical beasts, to the first human king. It was Radamanth who set the protective spells around the Hall, and declared that not even magical beasts would be able to use their magic around it," Aldair explained.

"Aldair," Jack said nervously, "what does the Immortal do to people it thinks are grave robbers?"

Jack was watching the Immortal as Alcide and Maude talked. Although it had not moved, he suspected that it was far more dangerous than any of the monsters they had encountered in the woods around Tarah. Its glowing eyes fastened on him now.

"A riddle," the Immortal said. "If you can answer me true, I shall allow you to pass and help you in your search."

"No!" Jack hissed. "What if we guess wrong? It will kill us. Please, Maude, let's go. Turn around and go back now."

"It is too late to leave," the Immortal said. "Only by answering the riddle can you safely depart."

"What is the riddle?" Maude asked.

"Very well," the Immortal said with a slight bow. "I once began to write a great tale. I wrote night and day of battles, kings, and deeds. One day my friends came to me and begged me to change what I had written. Said one, 'It is too sad.' Said another, 'Let your heroes be more brave and your villains be more villainous.' I told them all, 'My friends, not for all your pleas and or love could I change a word of what I have written.' Why did I tell them this?"

Jack moaned and put his head in his hands. He wailed, "It could be anything!"

"Quiet," Mary Jane shushed him. "Be calm and think. Giving up so easily won't do us any good."

"How can you think at all knowing what happens if we're wrong?" Jack whispered.

"Have faith," Alcide murmured for his ears only. "All will turn out well in the end."

There was silence for a full minute as the three children--as well as Archipel and the two magical beasts--thought. Jack scratched his head and looked at the ceiling. Mary Jane chewed on her lip and stared at the floor. Maude looked deeply into the Immortal's eyes. At last Jack said with quiet panic, "I don't know the answer."

"Nor do I," Mary Jane said sadly.

Maude said, "Well I know it. It's not terribly difficult. You can't change what you wrote because you're history, and true history can't be changed because it's fact. If you changed something, it wouldn't be history; it would be fiction."

The Immortal's bushy white eyebrows arched, though whether in surprise or approval it was impossible to say. Jack's stomach twisted in knots. It was too terrible to think of what would happen if Maude had guessed wrong. To Jack's surprise, the Immortal bowed low before them, sweeping its hand to its waist and almost touching its nose to its knees.

"Correct," it said.

Jack felt his knees go weak with relief. Mary Jane hugged Maude in a great bear hug that lifted her off her feet. The Immortal straightened from its bow, its face less foreboding than a moment ago. It asked, "And now, what is it you seek?"

All eyes turned to Maude. Only Maude knew the reason behind their journey to the Hall of Heroes. She said, "The horn of Duhaim."

"The horn of Duhaim?" Jack repeated in surprise.

"But the horn has been lost for centuries!" Alcide exclaimed.

"According to the _History of the Kings of Tarah, Volume IX_ , King Kettrick the Third was buried with the horn in the Hall of Heroes because he had used it shortly before his death to bring rain to Devorian after six years of drought," Maude said matter-of-factly.

"Goodness, where did you read that?" Mary Jane asked in surprise.

"At Tarah."

"Is it true? Is the horn here?" Jack asked the Immortal.

The Immortal nodded. It said, "It is. The horn has lain here untouched in the Hall of Heroes since King Kettrick's arrival over five hundred years ago. Having once entered, nothing has ever left the Hall again."

"Will you let us take it? Will you show us to it?" Maude asked.

"I will. It seems the time for old traditions has passed."

The Immortal turned and began to lead them down a row of coffins. Each coffin was perfectly rectangular, carved from a single block of rose quartz that must have weighed several tons. The Hall was cold and still and dark, but immaculately free of dust. The Immortal stopped before one of the coffins and ran its long, bony hand along the lid of the coffin, lightly tracing the name and basilisk figure etched upon it.

"Kettrick the Third, son of Kettrick the Second, fifth and final king of the line of Magar," the Immortal intoned. "Revered for his wisdom, generosity, and piety. Saved his people from famine when all hope was lost."

Immediately after the Immortal finished speaking, the lid of the coffin started to rise and a blue light shot out from the newly created space between the lid and the coffin. The light carried the lid higher into the air, and the Immortal leaned under it to reach inside the coffin. When it withdrew its hand, it held a short, ordinary white horn less than a foot long. The horn was capped at both ends by gold bands, attached to which was a short gold chain that enabled the horn to be hung. The Immortal held the horn flat on its palm and solemnly presented it to Maude.

"To use it," the Immortal said, "place your lips against the small end and blow. Even if your breath is but a whisper, it will sound."

"Thank you," Maude whispered, taking the horn.

The Immortal looked down upon her. It was several feet taller than she, taller than an ordinary man. It said in a voice that contained centuries of moons and stars, "You will know when the time comes to use it. Do not use it before that time."

Maude nodded, her black hair flapping past her eyes. She clutched the horn tightly to her chest. She asked, "What will you do now? Will you stay here even though there are no more humans to bury or grave robbers to protect against?"

The Immortal blinked at her owlishly. It said, "I shall protect this Hall even after the last living creature in Devorian has returned to the earth. So long as this world exists, I shall remain here."

"Oh."

"Let us go now," Aldair murmured gently. "It is time."

They walked back to the door from which they had entered, the Immortal following soundlessly behind them. When they reached it, the Immortal left them there and retreated back into the darkness, a shrinking ball of light. Maude led them out. Having become accustomed to the complete and total darkness of the Hall, the world outside seemed impossibly bright in comparison. It was a hopeful light, however, in a blue sky free of clouds. It gave the children the feeling that everything might turn out for the best in the end. Jack reached for the horn and took it from his sister, turning it over in his hands.

"All that trouble for this?" He asked. "I hope it's worth it. Why not blow it now? It might take us to the tree and get us out of here."

Maude snatched it back from him and carefully put it in her leather pouch. She said, "No. Not yet. We can't blow it yet."

"We have a long journey ahead of us," Aldair said wearily.

The travelers hastened through the courtyard of statues, and when they reached the silver dock, they found the water horses where they had left them--waiting patiently in their harnesses, gently treading water. Maude and Mary Jane clambered onto the barge, with Archipel and the magical beasts following quickly after. Jack untied the ropes from the dock and cast them into the boat, jumping in as the water horses began to pull away.

The return trip seemed easier than the first, and the boat quickly crossed to the other side. Jack tied the barge once more and the passengers disembarked. Once the last of them was off, the water horses ducked their heads beneath the waves and emerged several feet away, free of the harnesses that now floated empty upon the water. Maude knelt down at the end of the dock and reached for the nearest water horse. It whinnied softly and obligingly kicked its tail to bring its head beneath her hand. She stroked its face for a moment, feeling skin more like a dolphin than a horse.

"Your work is done," she told them. "There are no more humans in Devorian to carry to the Hall. You are free."

The water horse whickered softly, then rejoined its mate. Together they disappeared beneath the water, and Maude watched them go with a smile. Jack, understanding what Maude meant, untied the barge from the dock and with his foot carefully pushed it into the current. The heavy boat moved reluctantly for a moment, but the current quickly took hold and carried it swiftly away. Now the six travelers stood where the ground met the dock and looked out at the Thornmir Valley. Jack's face fell.

"It will take us forever to reach the Green Forest," he groaned.

"Yes," Alcide agreed, "so we had better start walking. We will not want to be in the Valdale Forest when night falls."

Mary Jane shivered, remembering the terrible lamiae that lurked within it. Just then, a cloud passed over the sun, bathing them in shadow. Mary Jane shaded her eyes with her hand and looked up. She gasped. It was not a cloud, but rather four extraordinarily large birds flying far overhead whose wings had eclipsed the sunlight. She pointed to them.

"Look!" She exclaimed.

Jack looked as well.

"Oh no," he said. "Trouble."

"Perhaps not," Alcide said thoughtfully.

She did not elaborate. The birds banked to the left and began to circle counter clockwise, dropping lower on every turn until they were almost on top of the children and their companions. As they came closer, it became evident that what from a distance appeared to be four birds were actually three brown eagles and a fourth animal that had the wings of an eagle, the yellow body and hind legs of a large cat, and thin bird legs for its front legs. This last creature's tail flowed out behind it as it flew like the string of a kite. A memory fell into Jack's mind of the same creature sitting at the table of magical beasts in Tarah. That night felt years ago.

"It is Gildas, and he comes with rocs," Aldair observed.

The three eagles--which Aldair had called rocs--landed several yards in front of the children, their enormous wings stretching out to their fullest extent to break the speed of their descent. They settled themselves on the ground, switching their weight from one foot to the other while tucking their wings tightly to their bodies and watching the travelers with fierce black eyes. The magical beast Gildas landed last, his wings carefully lowering his heavy body to the ground.

In his shrill, eagle-like voice, the griffin said, "Aiglon sent word that you would need conveyance. I have brought you three rocs."

"I don't understand. What's happening?" Mary Jane asked.

"Fortune has smiled upon us. The rocs will take you to the Green Forest," Aldair explained. "It will be much faster than if we walk."

"But there are only three of them," Maude said.

"Yes, one for each of you."

"But how will you come with us?" Maude asked, distress pinching her voice.

"Brave child, you will have to go on without us," Alcide said gently, bumping Maude's hand with her nose encouragingly.

"No!" Maude protested. "I won't! Archipel, you can't let them!"

"You must go," said Aldair. "It is the best way. To travel on foot would take far too long. You know that. You race the witch now, and must beat her to the gate to your world. Gildas will keep you safe. You will not need us."

"But I do!" Maude cried.

"It's alright, Maude," Archipel said encouragingly.

Maude began to cry, fat tears cascading down her cheeks. She fell to her knees and hugged the wolf to her. Archipel leaned into the embrace, hanging his head over her shoulder with a deep sigh, his pale eyes closing. Maude's tears mingled with his thick gray fur. She murmured, "I'll miss you so much. Be careful."

"I will miss you, too. Travel safely, and may these unhappy times be forgotten," he replied.

After a minute, she released him and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, sniffling. Jack and Mary Jane also wept silently as they watched. Jack said in a choked voice to the two magical beasts, "We can't thank you enough for what you have done for us. Without you..."

"We have only done what was right," Alcide replied firmly.

Jack nodded stoically. After each child hugged each animal, they marched with sad resignation to the birds, their heads hanging and their feet dragging. The rocs crouched low to the ground and stretched their necks forward, patiently allowing the children to scrabble abroad them by clutching handfuls of their feathers and pulling themselves up. They continued to stand in this unusual pose even after the children were aboard, one child per bird, for if they straightened up the children would have slid right off their smooth backs. The children looked one last time at the companions they were leaving behind. There was so much to say, and yet no words to say it.

"Take care!" Mary Jane called, the words feeling hollow and inadequate.

"And you as well," Aldair replied.

"They will be safe," Gildas promised. "And now, away!"

The rocs flapped their giant wings and jumped into the air. The children clung desperately to their feathers to keep from falling off as the birds wheeled into warm currents of air and immediately shot up hundreds of feet into the sky. Rather than riding upright with their legs around the birds' necks as they had thought they might do, they had to lie on their stomachs on the rocs' backs and hold feathers on either side of the great birds' necks. It was an uncomfortable position, but it was secure.

"How long until we reach the Green Forest?" Jack shouted to Gildas.

"Not long," the griffin called back. "Rocs are fast and tireless. You will be home sooner than you think."

~*~

Mirrin looked up from the green mist that swirled around her fingers. Her face was tired but elated. The green of the magic reflected in her black eyes like green flames in a starless sky. She clapped her hands together and the mist between them exploded and then collapsed, the small, green particles sinking to the floor before disappearing. She snapped her fingers and the horned figure of Blackhorn detached itself from the shadows of the tent and stepped promptly to her side.

"It is time," she announced. "Soon they will be back in the Green Forest."

Blackhorn bowed, his black tattoos appearing to writhe across his back like living things. He asked, "You are not concerned that you do not know what was done at the Hall of Heroes?"

Mirrin dismissed the idea with a wave of her long white hand.

"It is true the magic around that place prevents me from seeing what was done, but I am the most powerful sorcereress Devorian has ever known. They are but children. Everything is coming together at last. I will go now and force them to lead me through the portal to their world. There I will retrieve the object of power, and then using it I will turn back time and bring the King of Tarah to his knees. It won't be long now."

"And the prisoners?"

"Release them," Mirrin commanded. "I have no use for a collection of talking squirrels and mice."

She took her red cloak from where it lay upon a gilded wooden chair and swept it over her shoulder, fastening the golden clasp at her throat. The contrast of the bright red against her white hair and black eyes was striking. She might once have been beautiful, under different circumstances.

"Summon the harpies. And make sure they are armed," she commanded.
Chapter Sixteen

The Last Unicorn

Gildas had been right. The flight was not only short, but moreover the views of Devorian from the air were breathtaking. To the north, the white mountains of the Far Reaches stretched into the pale blue sky as though they had been painted on an artist's canvas. As far as they could see to the west, thick green forests covered to the land like a plush carpet. In the east, the land ended and was replaced by a blue sea that stretched forever into the horizon. Finally, to the south, the forests gave way to plains and then, visible as little more than a yellow line, the Saar desert. The air they flew through was crisp, but the sunlight blanketed them and kept them warm.

The rocs flew fast and true, devouring the distance with every flap of their powerful wings. Gildas kept pace with them, having to beat his wings four times for every beat of theirs. Jack wished they could always have traveled this way, for it would have saved them much time, and also he would not have had to ride Aldair's sharp back. He wanted to speak with Gildas, to ask the magical beast about what would become of Aldair and Alcide, but the wind would have snatched his words away and so he remained quiet. Nor did his sisters try either.

They had been flying for almost two hours when the rocs began to slow the beating of their wings. Gildas left them to sweep low over the forest, flying so close to the treetops that he could have almost reached out one of his back feet and touched them. When he returned, he announced, "We are above the Green Forest. The place you seek is near. I can smell its magic; it is not magic that comes from Devorian."

Jack kept watching the sky before him and the endless sea of green treetops. Had he not been looking there, in fact, he would not have seen what followed, for it happened in an instant. From the forest below them, two figures shot into the air, moving so quickly they were little more than a blur. Jack could just make out their long, mottled gray wings before they streaked past him and collided with Gildas. Gildas screamed shrilly and began to grapple with them. Jack saw then that they were two birdlike people, with the wings, legs, and talons of birds and the unclothed upper bodies and heads of a man and a woman. The man sank his sharp, pointed teeth into the griffin's neck, his powerful gray arms wrapped around Gildas' body, while the woman raked her curved black talons against Gildas' back. Gildas rolled to avoid the woman, but could not shake the man off.

"Harpies! Go without me!" Gildas shouted, still rolling wildly and scratching with his own taloned feet, trying to dislodge the man while keeping the woman at bay.

The woman nimbly dodged Gildas' lion feet and grabbed onto his wing. The wing immobilized, Gildas immediately plummeted straight down toward the trees, breaking through the top layer and crashing through branch after branch on the way down. The children heard the thud of the landing, then thrashing and snarls as the fight continued, two against one. They did not see the outcome of the fight, however, for the rocs--which had slowed their flight when the harpies appeared--continued to fly on.

Barely a minute later, the rocs began circling to land. Jack looked down and saw the small clearing they were aiming for. It would be a tight fit between the three giant birds, but in the dense forest they were lucky to find a clearing at all. The roc he rode began to descend, but to land it had to raise its chest and flap out its wings. Unable to hold onto the smooth feathers of the bird as it did so, Jack tumbled from its back landed in a gymnastic roll that absorbed the impact of the fall. Mary Jane and Maude similarly tumbled from their rocs, though they met the ground with much less grace.

The children regained their feet and clustered together. The rocs left them then, rising majestically into the sky with the sound of feathers on air before disappearing from view. The children were alone in the forest.

"Oh my," Mary Jane said nervously. "How do we find the tree?"

"I don't know," Jack said, shaking his head.

"But I know," a familiar voice said beside them.

The children froze in fear. Out of the trees to their right stepped Mirrin. She was wrapped in her blood red cloak, her white hair flowing freely past her shoulders. Her pale face was flushed with triumph that burned like fire in her coal black eyes. She was flanked on either side by a harpy. The harpies were tall males, each over six feet tall and heavily muscled. Both were armed with double swords carried in sheaths strapped cross-wise over their backs, adding to the danger of their dagger-sharp talons and ripping teeth. They watched the children with inhuman yellow cat eyes.

"Oh no," Mary Jane whimpered.

"Such a journey you've had!" Mirrin exclaimed mockingly. "What fun! What adventure! But where are your protectors? Have they left you all alone?"

She walked closer to the children, the harpies trailing behind her obediently. Jack put his arm out protectively to shield his sisters. Mirrin paused and frowned at the gesture, then her eyes met his and she smirked unpleasantly.

"This is how it was always going to end," she told him. "All I had to do was wait for you to come to me."

Jack eyed the harpies nervously. One of them, seeing his glance, smiled viciously, baring its row of gleaming white teeth like shark's teeth. Mirrin continued to move closer until Mary Jane almost could have reached out and touched her.

"I win," Mirrin whispered to the children. "I will always win."

"We will never help you," Mary Jane said stubbornly, crossing her arms. "No matter what you do."

"You are in no position to refuse me," Mirrin reminded her lightly. "It seems that in the end, your defenders have deserted you. You are alone."

"Oy! You leave those children alone!" A gruff voice said unexpectedly.

Mirrin, the children, and the harpies all looked in the direction of the voice and saw a big badger lumber out of the woods.

"Mr. Bushy!" Maude cried with happy recognition.

Mirrin began to laugh.

"A badger? Shall I quake with fear before a little woodland creature? What will you do if I do not let the children go?" She asked him.

"You just let them go," the badger warned.

Mr. Bushy set himself between the children and the sorceress and, barely three feet tall standing on his back legs, snarled at her. Mirrin nodded to the harpy on her left and it stepped forward, pulling one of the swords from its back with the unmistakable sound of metal against metal. The harpy held the long sword out lazily before it, the sword's sharp tip pointing at the badger's throat. Mr. Bushy did not back down. He continued to growl loudly, all the hairs on his body standing on end.

"Silence the foolish creature," Mirrin commanded flatly.

The harpy drew back its blade to strike, but before it did Maude cried, "No! Let him go."

Mirrin reached out her hand and touched the harpy on the forearm to stop it from completing the thrust. The monster stopped, then brought the blade back to its previous position between it and the badger. Mirrin asked Maude, "If I let this animal go, will you come quietly and take me through the mirror?"

"If you let him go, we will," Maude agreed.

"A wise decision," Mirrin said.

"No, Maude!" Mary Jane cried. "We can't."

"It will be okay," Maude told her.

Then to the badger she said, "Mr. Bushy, go! Leave here!"

Mirrin nodded at the harpy and it smoothly returned the sword to its sheath. Mr. Bushy stood in place a moment more, uncertain. He stopped growling and fell to all four paws, his head swinging back and forth between the children and the sorceress. Maude knelt down beside the badger and hugged him. She whispered, "Go now. We'll be safe."

"I hope you're right," he said.

"I hope so too," Maude agreed.

Mr. Bushy nodded to the children and disappeared back into the forest. The children were left to face Mirrin alone.

"Come," Mirrin snapped, turning upon her heel and striding into the forest.

The harpies stood still as statues, their faces blank and their eerie yellow eyes staring at the children. The children understood clearly that they were to follow the sorceress, the harpies escorting them. Jack led the way with a heavy heart and weak legs. He felt overwhelmed by despair and a sick feeling that soon he would not only be helping Mirrin to enter his world, but it would be done through the attic of his very own house! The harpies fell into step behind them, their sharply taloned feet silent as they walked, cutting off all hope of escape.

~*~

Jack did not recognize where they were in what had always seemed to him like an endless, featureless forest, but Mirrin did.

"Here," she announced, stopping.

Her halt was so sudden that Jack, who had not been paying attention to how closely he had been following her, almost toppled into her. He looked up to see Mirrin standing in front of a wide tree, out of which came a familiar rope of multicolored pieces of clothing tied together and wrapped around a branch. In the dimming light of day, it could almost have gone unnoticed by anyone who didn't know to look for it. Mirrin's long white hand followed the rope to where it emerged from the tree and caressed the tree's rough bark. Unlike when the children touched it, the tree was solid; her hand did not pass through.

"Boy..." she started to command Jack, but the rest of her words were lost, caught up and carried away by hundreds, possibly thousands, of birds of all shapes and sizes that appeared in the sky in an instant and fell screaming upon Mirrin and the two harpies.

The unexpected appearance of the birds was accompanied by a similarly surprising torrent of dozens upon dozens of small woodland creatures ranging from squirrels to rabbits to chipmunks, who added to the confusion of the scene by creating a sea of living creatures that covered the green forest floor. In seconds, there were so many winged and furred animals all occupying the same small space that it was impossible for the children to see anything but blurs of color and movement. They couldn't see each other, much less Mirrin or the harpies. Jack regained his senses first. He grabbed his sisters' hands and pulled hard.

"Run for the tree!" He yelled.

He recognized that they could use the cover of the attack to escape. While Mirrin battled the small creatures, they could slip through the mirror and be out of her clutches forever. He and Mary Jane began to run, batting birds away from their faces and jumping over animals that scurried at their feet, but they had to stop when Maude did not follow. Her hand slipped from Jack's purposefully.

"Come on, Maude!" Jack cried.

Maude shook her head. Calmly, she removed from the leather pouch at her side the white horn that she carried. In all that had happened since the Hall of Heroes, Jack and Mary Jane had forgotten it entirely. Now, amid the vortex of swiftly diving birds swirling all around her, Maude held the horn of Duhaim to her lips and blew.

The horn sounded a long, pure note that cut through the sound and chaos around them. Its effect was like a wave breaking upon the shore, smothering the sand beneath it. The grappling animals, human, and harpies were all stilled for a minute, like figures forever caught in a moment of action by the paintbrush of an artist. Then the birds that had been harrying Mirrin and her companions scattered and were gone in an instant, leaving in their wake a perfectly blue, clear sky. The woodland animals, too, melted away into the trees, although their glowing eyes peered out like tiny stars just as dusk settles, watching. The harpies, able to move now, pulled free their swords, one in each hand, and held them out before their bodies defensively, their mangy black wings spread wide. The forest pulsed with an electric anticipation.

The wait was not long. An explosion of soundless light appeared between the children and their adversaries so bright that they had to close their eyes against it and still it burned against their eyelids. When they opened their eyes again, a brilliant white horse stood where the light had been. Its coat, lightly dappled on the haunches, glowed with a soft white light, setting off the perfect black of its eyes. Out of the center of its broad forehead grew a spiraling horn a foot and a half long that ended in a deadly point. The unicorn reared, stretching to its full height and lashing out in the direction of Mirrin and the harpies with its large yellow hooves.

"Oh!" Maude squeaked in surprise.

"Why have I been summoned back to Devorian?" The unicorn demanded.

Its voice was deep, melodious, raw. Surprise bound the tongues of the humans into silence. Maude, who had not known what to expect, certainly hadn't expected a unicorn to appear. The unicorn shook its head, its silken mane flying.

"Well?" It demanded again, falling to all four feet.

"I called you, I suppose," Maude said at last.

She added timidly, "Only, I don't know who you are. Are you a magical beast?"

"I am Ragnar," the unicorn said impatiently.

Then his nostrils flared and he said suspiciously, "Why is there so much magic in this place? What is going on here?"

When no one answered, his head snaked toward Mirrin, his ears pinned flat to his head. He said accusingly, "You. The magic is coming from you, human witch."

"Be gone, beast, this matter does not concern you," Mirrin snarled.

She tried to sound commanding, but her voice was smaller and less certain than it had been when she faced only the children. She could sense the unicorn was very powerful, although she could not remember which of the magical beasts he was. Unconsciously, her hands balled into fists at her sides and her long nails dug into her palms until they drew red blood against white flesh.

"I sense fear," Ragnar said. "The children. Why? What evil do you work here, witch?"

"It is none of your concern," Mirrin repeated.

Her black eyes blazed. The unicorn growled, "Where innocents are threatened, I am always concerned. Why do you seek to bring harm to these children?"

"You magical beasts!" Mirrin roared angrily. "I have had enough of your meddling in my affairs. If you will not leave, I will make you leave. None of the other beasts could stop me, and you are no better. I am going through that portal!"

"You may try, and you will fail. I was thousands of years old long before the first human was born. You are just another street magician to me," Ragnar replied, his tail swishing angrily behind him. "There is no creature in Devorian, living or dead, more powerful than I, for I am the Monsters' Bane, the strongest of Devorian's magical beasts."

Ragnar placed himself protectively between the children and the sorceress, arching his neck proudly. Scowling, Mirrin raised her hands before her, and around them a smokeless green fire flickered and grew. The flames licked at her long fingers and glowed almost white hot at the point where they seemed to spring from her palms. With a feral shout, Mirrin turned her hands toward the unicorn and the flames leapt toward him as a long column of fire. Ragnar was immediately engulfed by the magical fire, covered from the point of his horn to his hooves in green. Mary Jane screamed and clutched Jack's hand so tightly he winced. Although the fire produced no heat that the children could feel, the flames nevertheless set the grass around Ragnar's hooves on fire, creating a thin black smoke that swirled around the unicorn.

Ragnar stood calmly within the spellfire. He did not appear to feel the effects of the fire, for he neither showed distress nor tried to flee. Mirrin growled in frustration when she saw that her spell had no effect and threw all of her energy into the fire. Now true heat radiated out from the flames and filled the forest with so much hot air that the children felt as though they were standing inside of an oven. Sweat poured from Mirrin's brow, but still Ragnar unblinkingly withstood her assault upon him. A full minute passed.

Finally, Mirrin's strength was sapped. She had thrown all of her energy into the spell and had burned through it quickly. Too exhausted to conjure any more magic, her arms fell limply to her sides. She panted heavily, struggling to catch her breath. Her white hair was matted to her forehead or falling limply to her shoulders. Her face was pale, with light purple rings beneath her eyes. Silence expanded like a balloon to fill the spaces between the unicorn, the humans, and the harpies. The small animals that had been watching them through the trees had fled while Mirrin began casting the spellfire, leaving them totally alone.

Now Ragnar, unhurt, shook his head and the last green remnants of the spell fell from him like snowflakes. He stepped toward the sorceress. Mirrin was too tired to move, and too fearful, as well. Even the swords in the hands of the fearsome harpies at her sides trembled and were not raised in a challenge to the advancing unicorn. Ragnar's horn began to glow with a pulsing, soft white light that became brighter the closer he moved to Mirrin.

He stopped three feet away from her and, stretching out his neck, touched his horn to her forehead. Mirrin did not resist. She closed her eyes with a sigh of relief and her body relaxed completely, all the tension melting out of it. As unicorn and human stood intimately connected in this way, a faint white mist rose from Mirrin's body and was drawn into Ragnar's horn. When no more mist came, Ragnar stepped away. His horn immediately dimmed and Mirrin opened her eyes. They were dazed and unfocused.

"Power is a gift," Ragnar said in a voice that was almost soft. "It does not come without responsibility. If you cannot bear that responsibility, then you deserve no power. For the good of all Devorian, I strip you of your power."

Mirrin blinked as though waking from a long sleep. She raised her hands palms up to her face and stared at them without understanding. Her confusion quickly turned to rage. Her face twisted with horror and anger, she screamed, "What have you done?"

She threw her hands at the unicorn once more to renew her assault upon him, but nothing happened. Not a single green flame appeared. Fear and panic now made her desperate. She grabbed the sword from the harpy to her right and ran toward Ragnar, raising it over her head to cleave at him. The unicorn easily knocked it out of her hands with a sweep of his long horn. Then, to stop her from advancing further, he leveled his horn so that its deadly tip pointed straight at her heart, mere inches away.

"Enough," he commanded, his voice no longer soft. "Go now and live as others do; neither weaker nor stronger than any other animal. Whoever you are, or whoever you imagine you are, may you learn humility from the experience."

"This is not over," Mirrin snarled back, her face a faint purple. "Whatever you have done, I will reverse it. Then I will return with my armies and see you destroyed. You and all the arrogant beasts who challenge me."

"What is done cannot be undone," Ragnar replied. "Not by any living creature in Devorian. Moreover, I think you will find that armies are held together only with great difficulty. Without your magic to help you, how long do you think it will be before this army of yours falls to pieces?"

Mirrin glanced unconsciously behind her, eyeing the two harpies that now looked at her with cold, hungry eyes. The life seemed to rush from her. Her flashing black eyes became dull, and her shoulders slumped. She held her hands before her pitifully, still willing them to spark with magic, but they never would again. She sank to her knees, her red cloak spreading like pooled blood around her.

"It's...over," she whispered hoarsely.

"Yes."

Mary Jane saw the scared girl Mirrin once was. The girl she still was, for she was young even now. Mirrin no longer saw what was around her, lost in her own despair, but Ragnar had no sympathy for her. Turning to the children, he said, "You do not belong in this place. You are not of Devorian. Wherever you are from, you must return there."

"What about the monsters?" Maude asked.

Her question encompassed not only the fearsome harpies standing before them, still with their swords drawn, but all of the creatures in Mirrin's army that would be let loose upon Devorian once they realized that the sorceress no longer could control them.

"Centuries ago, the magical beasts chased the monsters from Devorian. We will do it again," the unicorn replied. "We will restore peace in this land."

Maude suddenly remembered the other name Ragnar had given himself: Monsters' Bane. Jack pulled on her hand. He urged softly, "Let's go."

He looked at Mirrin slumped upon the ground, broken, the two monsters shifting uneasily before Ragnar, and Ragnar himself, powerful and bold. The unicorn was right: the children did not belong to this world. It was time to go home. Jack led his sisters to the tree and tested the passage by putting his hand through it. When he encountered no resistance, he nodded to his youngest sister. Maude stepped through the tree without looking back. She was followed by Mary Jane. Jack was the last to go. He stepped through the tree and that was the last they saw of Devorian.

~*~

The three children tumbled out of the mirror back in the attic, blinking in the sudden darkness. Through the small hole in the roof, they could see that the sun had set, but only just. Enough light was still in the sky to paint it a muddy brown, speckled with the bright white spots of the first evening stars. The children felt disjointed by the transition from their last minutes in Devorian to the familiar scene of the attic. In comparison to the bright colors of Devorian and the chaos of the fight between Ragnar and Mirrin, the house on Baker's Row was mundane and colorless. The three children sat on the floor blinking for a moment.

Jack came to his senses first. Recognizing that he and his sisters had been gone for days, he wondered how they could possibly explain their absence to their parents. Certainly, Mother and Father would have been called home from their conference when Mrs. Peters discovered that the children were missing. They must have mad with worry. How could he and his sisters simply show up in the house without an explanation? They could never tell anyone about Devorian. Even if they had wanted to, one would ever believe them. His mind whirled.

"Well, it's over," Mary Jane said, breaking through his thoughts.

"Yes," Jack agreed. "It's over."

He looked at his sisters and saw the fatigue in their eyes and in their faces. There was a hollowness to their cheeks that had not been there before, and the purple beneath their eyes looked like spreading bruises. They were older than they had been just a few days ago, he thought. Maude wrapped her arms around her small body in a hug. Her stomach growled hungrily.

"What will we tell Mother and Father?" Mary Jane asked anxiously.

"I don't know. I can't think."

"But we must think of something! Quickly, before they discover we've returned," She said urgently.

"I know!" Jack growled.

The silence of the house was broken by the sound of a door opening and closing downstairs. A moment later, Mrs. Peters' voice called, "Children, time for dinner!"

Time stood still as the children looked at each other incredulously.

"No. It can't be," Jack said. "We were there for days."

"How?" Mary Jane asked at the same time.

"Could it be possible?" Jack asked hopefully.

"Let us go and see," Maude suggested reasonably.

"Maybe...maybe time passed at a different rate while we were in Devorian? What there was days was only a few hours here," Jack suggested.

"I hope so. But first, before we leave the attic, we must destroy the mirror," Mary Jane said. "Nothing from Devorian can ever come through into our world."

She pictured the terrible gray harpies with their glowing yellow cat eyes crawling through the mirror and shivered. Jack and Maude had similar thoughts. The children began rifling through the various boxes and trunks in the attic as quickly as possible, casting clothing and trinkets on the floor heedlessly as they went. Just when it seemed that there was nothing they could use to destroy the mirror, Jack opened one of the dust-covered trunks and found a small axe. Though its edge was covered in rust, he knew it could still do what was necessary. If only they had done this when they first promised to!

"Stand back," Jack ordered his sisters.

Mary Jane and Maude stepped away from the mirror and pressed themselves against the far wall. Jack flipped the mirror so that its wooden back faced him, then braced his legs and swung the axe above his head. He brought the blade of the axe down upon the mirror's frame with all the strength he could muster. The axe crashed into the wood and glass with a sound like thunder followed by rain, and the glass flew in tiny shards in all directions. Jack pumped the handle of the axe up and down to free the blade from where it had lodged in the wood, then swung again. He swung until the mirror lay entirely in pieces around him, then he wiped his forehead and put the axe down. It had taken barely a minute to destroy the door to another world.

Mrs. Peters called again from downstairs, asking what they were doing to cause such a terrible racket and reminding them to come down. Mary Jane called back that they would be there presently. The three children looked solemnly at the remains of the mirror. Maude asked quietly, "Do you think it will all be okay?"

Jack and Mary Jane understood what she meant. She wanted to know whether Mrs. Peters would know that they had been gone. Whether Mr. Bushy and Mr. Brumby, Godrick and Archipel would be safe now. Whether the magical beasts such as Alcide, Aldair, Gildas, and Ragnar would be able to chase away the monsters roaming free in Devorian. Jack put his arm around Maude's shoulders and hugged her.

"I think it will be," Jack replied, and he meant it.

"I wish we could go back," Maude sighed wistfully.

Jack and Mary Jane looked at her with horror and surprise.

Maude clarified, "Some day. When it's safe again."

"Well, Maude, it will just have to be our secret," Mary Jane said. "A story we can tell each other when we're old and gray."

"Because no one else would ever believe us," Maude said.

"No, but we'll know it was true. And we'll never forget, will we?"

They heard heavy steps upon the attic stairs and they looked to see Mrs. Peters' gray head pop into view. Mrs. Peters took in the sight of the smashed mirror, clearly destroyed by the axe that lay against the wall, and the tired children in their strange clothing and said with mild surprise, "Whatever are you wearing? Is that what you wore to the zoo? You look filthy. What have you done to that mirror?"

"Yes, we wore this to the zoo," Mary Jane said slowly. "It was...a costume party. I'm afraid we did get a bit dirty, didn't we? We'll wash up, I promise."

"Well, you had better," Mrs. Peters warned.

Jack asked cautiously, "Mrs. Peters, is it still Saturday?"

"Silly boy," Mrs. Peters replied, "of course it is. It's not Sunday. Now go downstairs and get your supper. It will be cold if you wait any longer."

She frowned and looked up. "Is that a hole in the roof?"

The children were so overcome by it all that they did not move for a minute. Mrs. Peters clucked and grabbed hold of Jack and Mary Jane in each hand, dragging them with her to the stairs. She tisked over the ruined mirror as she passed it, but asked no more about it. They disappeared down the stairs, leaving Maude alone in the attic. The pieces of the mirror lay lifeless and dull upon the floor around her, a thousand slivers of glass. She knelt and picked up one of the pieces. It was warm in her hand. She looked into it and saw only her reflection. Never more would it show the other world. She fingered the clasp of the pouch at her side, then slipped the piece inside. It clinked as it hit the white horn already in the pouch.

"Maude! Come on, girl!" Mrs. Peters called.

"Coming!" Maude replied.

She did not look back.

###
About the Author

_The Mirror in the Attic_ is Karen Frost's first fiction novel. Ms. Frost lives in Falls Church, VA and spends her time at work fantasizing about quitting to become a professional author. Favorite her Smashwords author page: <https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/karenfrost>
