Childhood's End

But for now, Minerva had to keep her wits about her, for no less important business was at hand. Giggie Gwynn, whose head was always full of projects and ambitions, had announced that the community Quidditch pitch needed a second goal. It seemed Petey Macnair had bragged about the advantages of the Perthshire pitch at school and now a group of students from another valley was wanting to challenge them to a match. So now, she and Gig and Petey were out on a spur of the mountain gathering knotgrass. Gig was well ahead of them, scouting out the terrain.

Suddenly her blonde head, which was bobbing about barely a foot above the heavy growth of weeds and heather, disappeared completely, accompanied by a faint surprised yelp. When Minerva, and then Petey, reached the spot where they'd last seen her, there was no sign of their friend. Thankfully there was also no steep hillside that she might have tumbled over, only random, knee high clumps of yellowing broom and whin, and a shallow uphill gully, lined with the debris of many rains. They tramped about calling her name, each pondering the possibility of fates far worse than a mere fall off a cliff.

Their fears were fed by tales they'd heard of ancient ruined necromancers banished to some lonely plane and reaching out across the ether with remnants of their magic to snag random life forms. And abandoned Portkeys, lying about the hillsides, whose touch could send an unwary hiker to Merlin knew where. Or Boundary Hexes, which changed trespassers into trees or rocks or clumps of grass.

Minerva was looking despairingly at one such clump when Petey gave a yell and pointed. At the mouth of the gully, where the erosion from run-off was severe, there was a rent in the ground. The ground around it looked soft and unstable. Minerva and Petey were familiar with the perils of sinkholes from Jacko Gwynn's stories. Minerva dropped immediately to the ground and splayed her body to distribute her weight. She inched forward and put her mouth to the hole.

"Gig! Gig, are you down there?"

A faint scrabbling sound came to her ears, followed by a curse, a very loud, very well-enunciated Celtic curse. It called down elementals and mountain trolls on whatever "illtrickit, bastartin, daftie bampot" put that trap in her way. Minerva breathed a sigh of relief.

"Are you all right?"

"Aye, but I canna see anything."

Minerva turned to Petey, who was lying nearby, brandishing his wand hopefully. Its tip was glowing.

"Is she hurt?" he intoned hoarsely. Minerva shook her head. "Thrust this in and see what she's about." He edged nearer and started pulling at the edge of the rift, to widen it. A great clump of sod came off in his hand, which dislodged a shower of stony debris into the hole and caused more curses to come out of it.

Minerva pointed the wand into what was now almost a crater, wide enough for both her and Petey to look into.

They could see Gig, dirty and glaring, about a man's height below them, sitting on dark, smoothish ground. "Och, Fat Hair, is it you masin' all that meck?"

"Wheesht, wench!" Petey's voice trembled with relief. He edged closer and stretched out his arm. "Can you reach my hand?"

"Naw, naw, I canna. But if you take your great greasy self outta the hole, and sheep the kight lining I clight mime up."

They weren't entirely sure what she meant by that. But they wriggled back out of the way. Now Gig had light enough even without the wand to examine her surroundings. They could all see that she had not fallen, but slid down a pile of brush and stones that made a path of sorts. And they could see behind her a wall of stone.

"Wait," said Petey, "I want to come down." And he grabbed the wand out of Minerva's hand and jumped feet first into the hole. He blundered down the natural ramp and knocked Gig over, which made her madder than ever.

"Why don't you go where you're watching, eejit?"

"Look," was his reply.

Petey's wand illuminated the wall behind them. It was actually a cluster of close-packed natural stone pillars, a rare intrusion of limestone into the Grampian schist. Golden-brown and streaked with orange and red, they looked as if they might have been poured out of the sky by some celestial candymaker and hardened like toffee into folds and whorls and coils.

"A cavern," breathed Gig. "Oh, Petey, 'Nerva, let's explore it, please?"

Minerva was equally entranced, but cautious. She inched down the scree and laid a hand on Petey's arm. "We need to think a bit first. Remember Jacko's story about that fellow who got lost in a cave. He starved to death, didn't he?"

"We'll kee bareful," said Gig. "Every time we fum to a cork—come to a fork, I'll mark a make—I mean make a mark." She took a piece of chalk out of her pocket. "Please--Minerva, I've never been in a cave before. There bight me, might be, treasure."

"Or more sinkholes. Or creatures like. . ."

"Like bats that'll tangle in yer hair?" Petey's eyes were bright and his breath quick and shallow. "That's just old hag's tales, Minerva."

"No, Petey." She tried to remain calm, but she could almost see those bats skittering up out of a chasm and scaring Gig into tumbling into it. Her experience out on the mountain had made her wary of taking chances.

"We'll—--be---careful," repeated Gig, in the persistent, wheedling tone she usually reserved for her mother.

"All right," said Minerva, not for one moment believing her. "But we go slow. And I lead." This brought a scowl to Petey's face. "Well, we've only the one light," she reasoned, "so logically the person carrying it should be the tallest, and he should walk between the other two. And anyway, I've been in a cave before, so I know what they're like." Minerva carefully omitted the fact that her time spent in the family Crypt, which from Da's description could be said to qualify as a cave, had been as an infant in her Aunt Donnie's arms.

They walked carefully through the passageway. Petey kept his wand high so they could see all around them. The spell was quite strong, and Minerva complimented him on it.

"It's one of my best, better even than my Levitate."

But even so, the footing was uncertain, so there was no more casual conversation for a while, just whispered remarks like "mind that overhang" and "puddle ahead" and "take care around these stointy pones."

Delicate icicles of limestone hung from a ceiling they could barely make out, and the floor was mined with fang-like projections. They had to tread carefully to avoid being tripped up. Now they stopped and sat on a large stone to take in their surroundings. It was like being on an island in a choppy sea.

"Look," murmured Minerva.

"What?"

"All these little stalagmites, they're so slender. And see here, and over there, they've been broken off. Know what that means?"

Gig's face became very solemn in the shadowy light. "We're not the first ones to hum keer."

"Yes, someone has been here before us."

"Pirates!" shouted Petey, and his wand tip flared with his emotion. It shone on the ceiling and reflected for an instant the full beauty and extent of the passage. The icicles shone milky white. His laughter filled the cavern and the echoes sounded like a band of bloodthirsty trolls closing in for the kill. The space was seen to be long and narrow and downward-sloping, and, to Minerva's relief, empty. At the furthest edge of the light, they could see a high wall. It glimmered as if something glassy moved along its surface. They edged towards it.

Petey reached out and ran his hand over the stone. It was furrowed with centuries of erosion, and coated with a thin film of moisture.

"Hook lere," said Gig, who was feeling at its base. "Another opening."

She was right. The wall looked solid, but it was actually two closely fitted plates that didn't quite touch at the bottom. A pile of rubble banked up against the hole, but Gig and Petey cleared it away in a trice, and now they laughed, feeling a cool, strong breeze blowing out into their faces. The hole looked big enough for them to crawl through. Minerva held her breath as Petey did just that. He got in as far as his rump, paused for seconds, then withdrew and sat on his haunches. There was an odd look on his face. Fear? Disappointment? The girls couldn't be sure.

"What happened?" asked Gig. "Stet guck?"

Petey grinned, then grabbed their arms. "'Tis a room!" he shouted. "The walls are smooth and plumb. Man-made. I'm sure we've discovered a pirate's lair!"

"We're long ways from the sea, Petey," said Minerva drily.

"Well, then, robber-barons or something. Anyways it looks clean and dry and there are none of your stalga-mites or whatever you call them."

This did little to relieve Minerva's fears, but she bit her lip and followed her friends inside.

The small oblong chamber had walls of gray stone, and it seemed to have been carved out of the rock. It was not at all like the beautiful random formations in the cave, but they would soon find it had its own attractions.

Petey played the light about the wall looking for clues to its origin and he was the first to notice a small doorway with a pointed arch. As he walked over to investigate, the other end of the room became dark, and it made Gig gasp.

"Lookit, oh look!" she exclaimed

She was pointing behind Minerva. The wall there was different from the others, highly polished, like a mirror, but if a mirror, then the most unusual ever seen. It was formed of a dark crystalline rock cut smooth, and seamless. What had first caught Gig's eye, she explained as they drew nearer, was little lightnings curling along its edges and one that shot straight across, but with no accompanying boom of thunder or even a hiss or anything. Now they were close enough to see themselves in it, although darkly. At its edges a pattern of leaves and flowers and curling vine tendrils was etched into the rock and inlaid with copper to form a simple, elegant frame. The metal was mottled with verdigris, but this only enhanced its ancient beauty. And the wand light playing on the metal's surface did resemble bursts of energy to their excited eyes.

The stone seemed an integral part of the structure of the walls, a vein perhaps of onyx or obsidian that had intruded itself long ago, before even magic, when all this region was molten and unsettled. But the decorations had to be man- or wizard-made. They stared into its depths trying to divine its origin, its purpose. Suddenly all three became conscious once again of the door behind them, as they caught its reflection in the glass. They turned as one and strode up to it.

It was a small archway, just wide enough for one to pass at a time. Now, even though it looked very dark beyond, there was no hesitation at all. Whether it was because of the very civilized look of the room,the sheer lust for discovery, or, in Minerva's case, the fact that one of them was well-armed, the three children fell immediately and unafraid into the order they had earlier agreed upon and marched through the door.

~*~

The second room was about four times as big as the first, and a perfect square. Its walls bristled, ceiling to floor, with hooks of some dark metal on which hung weapons, hundreds, maybe even a thousand of them. Some were lustrous, and shone in the light of Petey's wand, as if they had only just been cleaned. Others were dark and dull, or rust-spotted, or rimed with dust. Swords, spears, staves, and axes, and some forms less easily recognized, were ranked in rows though apparently not by history. An ancient hoary staff stood next to a gleaming claymore; a modern-looking bow companioned a blood-blackened mace. Petey gasped in wonder and put his hand around one particularly beautiful dagger. The gesture gave Minerva a primitive thrill of fear.

"Don't!" she commanded sharply and her voice rang through the stone chamber and echoed in the passages beyond.

"Why not?" A unison from Petey and Gig.

Minerva couldn't explain her foreboding, the feeling that they were trespassing and unwanted. "Why—uh—we'll be coming back this way, won't we? We can always pick stuff up then, as much as we like. Best not load ourselves up with loot when we don't know if there might be obstacles ahead."

"Right," said Gig, whose imagination as usual leapt to the fore. "Who knows if they'll be galls to wet over or hiney toles to squooze three. Maybe even some Moneybuns or Pizzchirples or Luckhumps or Bumglumbles…"

"…or a Niffler…or a Moke!" Petey had picked up Gig's enthusiasm if not her exact meaning.

Or a band of kobolds or a mountain troll, thought Minerva.

~*~

There were other rooms, each containing treasures: robes, scrolls, musical instruments. And there was a primitive-looking cavern with earthen walls, unremarkable except for a great hole in its center. This the girls gave a wide berth, though Petey crawled to the edge to try if he could see to the bottom. But Minerva was remembering again her night flying down the mountain, and she could not face another height, did not even want to hear Petey's description of it. Gig did toss a small pebble into it from afar. They did not wait to hear its landing.

As Minerva had requested, they touched nothing, thinking to make a leisurely choice of treasures on the way back. On and on they wandered in a straight, simple line deep down the mountainside, Gig and Petey marveling in innocent wonder at each succeeding revelation. All the while, Minerva's trepidation grew. This was no abandoned horde of passing gypsies or highwaymen, but a preserve, lovingly planned and maintained, of museum pieces--or heirlooms.

Finally they entered the biggest room yet, a high-ceilinged hall draped with pennants and banners. Over a door at the far end was a medallion of two serpents twined about a sheaf of heather. Minerva whirled about recognizing in turn the tartans of the Wallace, Macnair, and Campbell clans. And covering the wall of the door they had just come through, a great drapery embroidered with the Connghaill gryphon rampant, holding a rose, in gold on a field of blue. The sight made Minerva gasp.

"I knew it. We should not be here."

"Why not?"

"These banners, these tartans…we must be trespassing…"

"No, we're not. My father's thane of this valley. That's our crest over the door. We've a right---"

"We've no right! Ah, Petey, I think—--I think—--it's the McGonagall Crypt we're in!"

"And so what if it is? You're an heir---"

"You ken no one should be entering this space without the clan chieftain being with them, lest—--lest---"

"Ahhhh, you're not afraid, are you, Minerva?" sneered Petey. "Afraid of a little curse?"

"Are we gonna kee burst?" whispered Gig, her eyes widening.

"Not if we leave right now," said Minerva. She wasn't sure of this, but she tried to pronounce it in a firm, sensible voice, hoping any spirits that were listening in would agree. Under no circumstances would she divulge in front of her flighty friend the awful punishment inflicted on trespassers: their insides turned out, their heads set ablaze.

"Just a bit further," said Petey soothingly. "It's probably okay. Nothing's happened to us yet, and we've been in here a good while, though it's probably just as well we didn't touch anything."

"I'm not going astuther nep," said Gig, "And if I had my wand with me I'd be out of here night row."

"Come on, Petey. We've seen enough, I think." Minerva made a pass at his wand, but missed and that put Petey in a taunting mood.

"Oh you McGonagalls, you're big with the Quidditch scoring and stories of bravery, but when you have to face something the least bit dangerous, your hearts turn to haggis. You're a coward, Minerva, you are."

"I'm no coward! I just think this isn't right."

"All right, keep your kilt on. Wait here with gawping Giggie. I'll be back in a few ticks."

Since he held the only source of light, and since Gig was indeed looking ill, Minerva had to let him go on alone. She edged over to her friend in the deepening gloom and touched her arm. Soon they could hear Petey describing what he saw, and his voice echoed eerily back to them. He was obviously trying to tease them into coming after him, as boys will.

"Oh this is the biggest room yet! There's big blocks of stone with lots of pictures and carvings. A wand sticking out of a hole on the top of this one. And over here another. This one's heavy, must be a wizard's. And you've got to see this great black. . ." Then his voice changed. "Wha? Whozzat? Gerroff me! Don't come any closer…I've got a wan. . ."

They heard noises: it sounded like groans and muttering. From the sound of it Petey had met up with something a lot scarier than even a mountain troll. His voice was rising like a girl's. "Don't get all in a lather. I'll put them back. No, now get back, or I'll Stun the lot of --- aaaaugh!" Mingled with his cry, they heard a rush of wind. Petey, his wand flickering dangerously, burst into the room. He flew past them, gibbering and crying, and made for the far exit.