Sagaria (11 page)

“Come closer,” she said.

I got up out of the plain wooden chair and took the two or three steps needed until I was standing in front of her. She was even more beautiful close up than from a distance, and there's hardly a woman here in the Earthworld you can say that about. I could smell her too, the lovely, clean smell of icy-cold, fresh water yet with the animal warmth of a kitten's tummy. I know, I know, Sagandran, it sounds as if I was falling in love with her – a crabby old forest ranger falling in love with the radiantly lovely queen of a magical land. I suppose I was, in a way, but it wasn't the way a man falls in love with a woman. She was the embodiment of the great love it's possible to feel for one's fellow creatures.

She held out the golden disk for me to look at. It was a larger version of the head of the gateway key. The rising sun and a rainbow were engraved on one side. On the other was a tangle of lines that represented a map of the invisible tunnels in the sky that used to lead from the Earthworld to the different places in Sagaria. The only difference was that now, I could look at this previously meaningless jumble of crisscrossing lines and know exactly what they were. I could see where Spectram was on the map, even though there was no mark to show it.

“This is the Royal Seal of Spectram,” said Mirabella, speaking barely above a whisper – we were that close to each other. “Wear it around your neck, Melwin, as an emblem of the great honor the gateway has bestowed upon you.”

She put her dainty fingers between the two halves of the loop of chain, pulling it out into a circle, then slipped it over my bowed head.

“To be the gatekeeper for Sagaria is to be part of a great secret,” the queen continued gravely. “Few Sagarians know about the connection between our worlds, and you are the only being from Earth to do so. I beg you never to reveal the secret of who you are to anyone unless you find someone you know is worthy of your trust, of my trust.”

I didn't say anything – I couldn't. I just nodded. It was as if a heavy load of responsibility had been placed on my shoulders, and yet paradoxically I felt as if the burdens of my life had been lightened. I know you've had this feeling yourself, Sagandran, when you've been given a job to do that you know is going to be difficult but, at the same time, you know you're exactly the right person for it. I can remember you chattering away last summer when you got the lead part in the school play. You were going to have to work very hard at it, and you were quite frightened at the thought of appearing in front of all those people and maybe muffing your lines, but you also felt relieved because, in a way, it was
less of a task to do it yourself than to watch someone else do it wrong. You were exactly the right person for the part. If they'd chosen one of the other kids for it, they'd have been upsetting some balance or another.

Anyway, there I was nodding my head, with the sight and the scent of Queen Mirabella filling me up, and …

… and the next instant I was back in the forest!

I was standing just beyond the spot where I'd fallen into the well. I looked behind me quite casually, but, of course, there wasn't a hole in the ground to be seen there any more. Sometimes there is and sometimes there isn't, I've since realized, but there wasn't one then.

The funny thing is that I wasn't startled by this sudden transition. Because of all the things that had happened to me, my way of seeing things had changed. I was in the forest, like I said, but I was also still in Mirabella's throne room. The two places were really just one, you understand? It was as Mirabella had told me when she was talking about the gateway always being in the same place, even though it moves around all the time. I was just in one place even though that place was in two different worlds.

I don't feel that I've ever left Mirabella's throne room, not since that moment. I'm still there, you see, all the time that I'm here. I'm still standing in front of her, accepting my responsibility as the gatekeeper.

And I always will be.

CHAPTER 4

S
HADOWS IN THE
N
IGHT

he flames crackled in the fireplace. Grandpa Melwin picked up his pipe, which had long grown cold, and struck a match. The windows had darkened while he’d been telling his story.

Sagandran shifted in his seat. He realized he’d hardly moved at all in the past hour, and that his bottom was sore.

“Wow, Grandpa,” he said. “It sounds just like a fairy tale. It’s the kind of fantasy story Mom tells me I shouldn’t waste time reading because” – his voice took on an accurate imitation of his mother’s – “there’s plenty going on in this world without me scrambling my brains inventing others. Yet there
are
others, and they’re every bit as important as the world we live in – the Earthworld, Mirabella called it.”

Grandpa Melwin looked at him steadfastly. The old man was smiling but his eyes were serious.

“I see you don’t doubt my story.”

“Why would you lie to me?” said Sagandran with a shrug. “Besides, I think I’ve seen Sagaria in my dreams sometimes. I’ve always known a few of my dreams weren’t just nonsense and that they took me somewhere real. Not all of them, not even most of them, but a few. It’s easy enough to tell the difference when I wake up afterwards. When it’s been a ‘real’ dream, I
know
.”

Grandpa’s smile broadened, but the somberness didn’t leave his eyes.

“It’s the same with me,” he said. “I think that’s why I felt so at home when I first went to Sagaria. I wasn’t … surprised by what I found there. It was as though I’d been a visitor to that otherworld before, but couldn’t remember anything about my visits.”

Sagandran was thoughtful. “It makes you wonder about some of the other ‘real’ otherworlds we go to in our dreams,” he mused.

Grandpa glanced at his watch. “I think one otherworld is enough for tonight,” he said. “It’s getting late. It will soon be time for bed, my lad. Before
then, though, there are a few more things I should tell you – show you, in one instance.”

He undid the top few buttons of his shirt. Sagandran instantly knew what Grandpa was going to show him. Not a stone like the one hanging on the chain against Sagandran’s own chest, but the Royal Seal of Spectram.

The old man pulled the chain he always wore up and over his head and, sure enough, dangling from its end was a golden disk about two inches across. He passed it to Sagandran. There was something respectful about the way he handled it, as if it were a sacred object, and Sagandran found himself echoing that reverence.

Just as Grandpa Melwin had described, it had a sun and a rainbow on one side and a map on the other.

A map!

“Grandpa,” said Sagandran almost nervously, “I see these lines as a map too.”

“I thought you might,” said Grandpa Melwin with a chuckle. “It was many long years ago that the gateway chose me, and now, it’s choosing you. You believed my story without a moment’s doubt. I can’t think of anyone else in the world who wouldn’t have thought it was the wild ravings of a crazy old bozo. You remind me of the way I was when that blue light set me down on the ground of Sagaria for the very first time. I was accepting, not incredulous, because it seemed so right that I was there. The gateway has read you well, Sagandran.”

Sagandran turned the medallion over and over in his hands as if each new time he looked at one of its faces he might see something new. He was excited to be sure, but it wasn’t the kind of excitement that drowns everything else out. He had an odd sense of … homecoming. That was it. Homecoming. It was the excitement he felt when he and Mom got home from holiday and however much he’d enjoyed the strange sights and sounds of wherever they’d been and rued leaving them behind, he was still thrilled at the prospect of seeing his room and touching his favorite books and possessions.

“You’re right, Grandpa,” he breathed. “I think it’s chosen me.”

Melwin let the boy play with the seal a little longer. He tapped the dottle out of his pipe against the edge of the chimney, so that the sticky ash fell in the fire. When the old man finally spoke, it was with a sad mildness. “Not all that I have to tell you is good, Sagandran.”

Sagandran glanced up. The firelight reflected from the seal and cast a golden glow over his neck and chin. “Yes?”

“Since then,” said Grandpa, “I’ve gone back to Sagaria a few times a year, just to catch up with the news there and to tell Mirabella that all is safe on this side
of the gateway. When I was there a few weeks ago, she gave me grim tidings. Sagaria is facing a grave threat from Arkanamon, who now calls himself the Shadow Master. Remember, Queen Mirabella told me about him. He discovered the crystal that belongs to the Shadow World, and now he’s set himself up there as the realm’s tyrant. His next plan is to conquer Sagaria and install himself as that world’s tyrant too. He has discovered the power of drawing the life force out of living things. Already, trees, plants and the land are suffering from this evil magic. The Shadow Master can turn it on people too, so that they become his … possessions. They do his bidding, even though he’s stolen their souls from them. Dead and alive at the same time.”  

Sagandran shuddered.  

Grandpa Melwin’s words faded away. The two of them, old man and young boy, stared at the hot coals in the fireplace, each thinking through the implications of what Melwin had just said.  

“What can we do about it?” said Sagandran in the end.  

“Us?” said Grandpa. “Very little, I think. I’m just a humble gatekeeper, after all.”  

“Mirabella said you were a nobleman,” Sagandran pointed out.  

Grandpa waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, yes. That. But it makes no difference. I wish I could think of some way I could help defend Sagaria against this menace, but I wouldn’t even know where to start.”  

Sagandran continued staring at the glow of the fire, not knowing either but wishing he did. In so many of the fantasy stories that he’d read, the land was in peril and a humble kitchen boy, ignored by all but sensing his own destiny, had the power to defeat evil. Through virtue, courage and integrity, the kitchen boy rose until he was able to lead a mighty army, win the heart of a beautiful princess, trounce the forces of wickedness and be recognized as the long-lost rightful heir to the kingdom. Sagandran knew it was a useful formula for fiction writers who couldn’t imagine much beyond the ends of their noses. But formulas in stories can sometimes be applied to real life as well. The only trouble was that he, Sagandran, lurking behind his thick spectacles, couldn’t even think of a way to cope with the malice of Webster O’Malley, so tackling a dark lord like the Shadow Master was definitely out of his league.  

Was it out of Grandpa’s as well? Sagandran looked at the old man. How often had Grandpa told him that he could do just about anything, if he had faith in himself? Well, Grandpa didn’t seem to have much faith in himself right now. He was ready to let Sagaria go to ruin because he didn’t think of himself as anything more than a gatekeeper. But if kitchen boys could do it, surely gatekeepers could as well.

“Grandpa,” said Sagandran, leaning forward and reaching out to put his hand over the old man’s, “there’s got to be
something
we can do.”

Melwin shrugged. “I wish I could say yes to that, but I can’t.” He sighed. “It’s very late, Sagandran, and we’re not going to solve any of Sagaria’s problems sitting here growing tireder and tireder. Let’s get ourselves to bed. Maybe we’ll be able to think of something in the morning.” He got to his feet wearily. “Come on, lad.”

Sagandran was troubled as he climbed the stairs to his little room. There had been an awful lot of doubt in his grandfather’s “maybe.”

Sagandran lay awake long into the night thinking about all that Grandpa Melwin had told him and worrying about the danger that was looming over the bright land of Sagaria. Already, Sagandran felt that somehow the otherworld was
his
place. He was becoming as possessive of it as if he’d been there as often as Grandpa had and made friends with the people there. That was something else to ponder about. He felt as if he knew what Sagaria was like. He wouldn’t have been able to draw a realistic picture of a particular scene, but it seemed to him that already he had the scent of the otherworld in his nostrils and knew how the sunlight played upon its land. It was, like Grandpa Melwin had said, as though he’d been there but had forgotten all the details of his stay.

He was finally drifting off to sleep when there was a sudden noise from outside the house – from the outskirts of the forest, as far as he could tell.

All traces of sleep fled. He sat bolt upright in his bed and peered into the darkness of his room. A crack of faint, pale light under the door told him that Grandpa was still awake and reading in his room.

Sagandran swung out of bed and pitter-pattered to the door. The floor was cold to his bare feet.

Grandpa was stirring too. Sagandran heard the protests of bedsprings from the other room.

He opened his door at the same time as Grandpa opened his.

The old man clicked on the landing light. “I thought you’d be long asleep by now, Sagandran.”

“Yeah, well …” Sagandran trailed off, shuffling his feet. “Did you hear that noise?”

“A sort of popping sound?”

“Yes.”

“I heard it.”

“What do you think it could be, Grandpa?”

The old man gazed at him through bleary eyes. Though Melwin was still determinedly reading his book, he had obviously been close to giving in to the inevitable and switching off his bedside lamp.

“Probably an animal,” he replied, stifling a yawn.

“Is that all?”

“Just because” – he smothered another yawn – “Just because I told you about Sagaria this evening doesn’t mean that every unexplained noise or happenstance has to start being magical.”

“I know, but—”

“But what?”

“Well …”

“Would you feel safer if I went out and took a look?”

“Er, yes, Grandpa.”

Melwin didn’t say anything more. He just turned and rootled around beside his bed to find his slippers, which he put on. He trudged off down the stairs, leaving behind a few histrionic sighs for Sagandran to listen to. A few moments later, Sagandran heard the back door open and close. A little while afterwards, it creaked open again, and there was the sound of Grandpa shooting the bolts home – something he never normally bothered to do. It was clear that he wasn’t quite as unconcerned as he’d been making out.

“Nothing to see,” called Grandpa from the foot of the stairs. He began to climb. “Just an animal breaking a branch, was all it was.” He didn’t sound terribly sure, more as if he were trying to convince himself.

“Time for our beauty sleep, lad,” said Melwin, his hand on the jamb of his bedroom door, turning his head to give Sagandran a long, earnest look. He clicked the landing light off, then his wrinkled face broke into a grin. “Heaven knows I need beauty sleep more than most, at my age.”

Sagandran realized that there was no point arguing. An animal it had been, unless and until they found out otherwise – which they were unlikely to do until the morning brought sunlight to the forest.