Free Maze Running and other Magical Missions by Lari Don

fade from glowing velvet and embroidered silk to dull cotton and wool.
    “Are you alright? Lee?” He was curled up and groaning. Helen put her hand on his back. His clothes started to shimmer and glow again. Helen sighed with relief. She didn’t want any more friends unconscious and magically injured.
    Lee sat up and ran muddy fingers through his blond hair, which looked as shiny as ever once he’d taken his hands away. He coughed. “Don’t tell Yann about that.”
    Helen held out a hand to pull him up. “If we saveYann’s life, I don’t think admitting to a wee fall in the mud is going to worry you.”
    They trudged up the field towards the hills outlined against the smooth grey sky. Once Lee’s breathing and colour had returned to normal, Helen asked, “Can’t your people find a cure for that iron allergy?”
    “You’d better hope not, Helen, because this weakness is the only thing stopping my people from using our magic and glamour to overrun your world.”
    As they squelched through ankle-deep mud, which shone almost as red as the faery’s boots in Helen’s torchlight, Lee said, “How are we going to open this door?”
    “You’re the magical being, so that’s your job. I’ll do fences, you do doors.”
    “But this isn’t a faery door. It was closed by human magic, not faery glamour.”
    “Humans don’t use magic.”
    “Some of you do,” Lee insisted. “Merlin, Ceridwen, Taliesin, Morgana, Michael Scott, they all mastered magic. Arthur’s human wizards closed this door, so perhaps human magic can open it.”
    “But how?”
    “You should have brought your fiddle, my human bard. That’s your strongest magic.”
    Helen shook her head. “Canonbie Dick got in, and he didn’t play music.”
    They reached the top of the field. Helen opened a wooden gate in a stone wall, and strode onto the open hillside above.
    The glow of Lee’s cloak and her torchlight helped them find their footing on the slope, but Helen could only see the hill ahead because of the high yellow moon.
    She hadn’t needed the map, because the Lucken Howe was so obvious. On the smooth curved side of the Eildons, it was a jutting knoll with a rocky summit.
    “Never mind how we open the door,” muttered Helen. “How do we work out which bit it is? The Lucken Howe is bigger than I thought. We could search all night for a door. We could be searching for longer than Yann’s weak heart has left.”

Chapter 10
    Helen stared up at the dark hill. “So where’s the door?”
    “I’ve no idea,” said Lee. “But it has to be somewhere horses can get to and get through.”
    “Good thinking. Can I look without your glamour glow in my eyes?”
    Helen switched her torch off, stepped ahead of Lee and let her eyes adjust to the moonlight. “There.” She pointed to a slab of rock under the summit. “That outcrop is almost a small cliff. It’s high enough and wide enough. It even looks like a door.”
    “It would be impossible to get horses up there. It’s too steep.”
    “I think it’s the most likely place.” Helen started to scramble up the hill.
    “You’re having to use your hands to pull yourself up,” Lee shouted as he followed her. “Horses can’t do that. Canonbie Dick did not lead his horses up here.”
    “They could have come up in zigzags; that’s what Yann would do.” Helen put her hand on something rounded and slightly squishy. “Yuck! Watch out, Lee. Horses might not climb up here, but sheep use it as a toilet!” She wiped the heel of her hand on the heather and kept climbing.
    She stopped just before the summit. There was a high jagged rock to her left, a jumble of fallen rocks in the middle and a wide wall of rock to her right.
    Helen ran her hand over the wall. The rock seemed grey in the moonlight, but when she looked closely in torchlight it was deep red underneath papery grey lichen. There were no handles, no hinges, no buttons or levers. No way in.
    Helen muttered, “Open sesame!” Nothing