Free Maze Running and other Magical Missions by Lari Don Page A

happened. “Do you know any magic words, Lee?”
    “Lots. But none for opening human wizards’ doors.”
    “Do you think there’s a password?”
    “Do we know enough about Arthur to guess?”
    “I’ll have a go.” Helen spoke to the rock, in a slow serious voice: “Merlin. Excalibur. Pendragon. Guinevere. Lancelot? Possibly not … Camelot. Avalon.” But the rock stayed solid and rocky, and she’d run out of Arthur-lore already.
    Helen sat at the base of the door-shaped rock and started whistling a bored sort of waiting tune. After a few bars, she leant back and prodded the rock.
    Lee laughed. “What are you doing?”
    “This is what happens in films. You give up and lean against something, then it opens and you get a big surprise. Lean against that bit there, like you’ve given up.”
    Lee smiled and leant against the rock, looking far more convincingly relaxed than Helen did.
    The rocks didn’t move.
    “Maybe you’re right,” said Helen. “Maybe this isn’t the door. Let’s look at the rest of the hill.”
    She climbed round the jutting rock to the summit of the Lucken Howe, then stood on the highest boulder, just above the flat rock she’d failed to open. It wasn’t easy to see the lower slopes in the moonlight, so she jumped off the summit and walked a few steps down a ridge which led towards the larger Eildons. Lee followed her.
    “Maybe we should have brought that grumpy dappled friend of Yann’s to test the best routes for hooves,” Helen said. “But I think they could have led the horses round the foot of the hill, then up the gentler slope of this ridge, and round to the door-shaped rock face.”
    Lee nodded reluctantly. “But they could have got to anywhere on the hill from this ridge. Let’s see if there are any other options.”
    Helen turned to her left, but Lee called, “Don’t go widdershins; it can attract ill fortune. Walk sunwise.” So they circled clockwise, following a sheep path which cut round the hill halfway up.
    They didn’t find any other big rocks or vertical faces. Just the sloping hillside, covered with grass, heather and moss, sheep and rabbit droppings, and a few small boulders.
    “Nothing else looks like a door,” Helen said when they’d walked all the way round.
    “You’re right,” said Lee. “This is the best option.”
    So they stood either side of the wall of rock. Helen sighed. “Your faery magic is no use and I don’t have any magic at all.”
    “Not when you’re too much of a wimp to get your fiddle out in front of me.”
    “My music is not magic,” she said firmly. “If we can’t use magic, we’ll have to use…”
    “Force?” Lee rattled his weapons.
    “Bronze against stone? No, let’s use our brains. Let’s think about the story. Canonbie Dick got in.”
    “You think we should come back with two black horses and a bearded man?”
    “Take this seriously, Lee.”
    “I am taking it seriously. You’re the one who’s refusing to use your one true power…”
    Helen interrupted. “But it wasn’t Canonbie Dick who opened it. It was the man who brought him here: Thomas Rhymer. So it might be faery magic after all.”
    “Thomas wasn’t a faery. He was just the Faery Queen’s consort.”
    “Yes, and when she was finished with him, she gave him a really dodgy gift. He could only tell the truth. That was his true power. A faery power. I wonder if that will open this door. Some truth … from a faery.”
    “Truth?” said Lee. “Truth like … em … I was really scared when I jumped over that wire?”
    They looked at the rock wall. It didn’t do anything.
    Helen said, “Maybe that’s not hard enough truth.”
    “I don’t find it easy to admit being scared.”
    “But you’re not telling me anything I don’t know. I know you’re scared of iron. Let’s try more painful, dangerous truth.”
    Neither of them spoke for a long moment.
    Then Helen said, “Lee, tell me this truth. Do youplan to take me from my home and my