The Luck of Madonna 13

THE LUCK OF MADONNA 13 by E. T. Ellison | Chapter 1 (part 4)

NOTE: Click here to download Chapter 1 in Adobe Acrobat PDF format

"Glenny-honey...are you ready yet? Your friends are starting to arrive." Her mother’s voice was now soft, but laced with an odd quality of disappointment: gaining a Hero meant also losing both a popular daughter and at least one future grandchild to this Quest nonsense. A sad thing. In fact, she had even been considering a tripoli (Elective Early Elevation) because of the shame of it all. If this be luck, luck is a black thing, not green.

Glendyl half-expected the QPack to say something snide, but it remained silent. By the time she had skillfully disguised or eliminated all evidence of tears, finished primping and arrived in the living room, her seven best friends were already busy sharing their views.

"It's just a big pile of bullshit rock!" exclaimed Cynthia Paddington, who, like everyone else in St. Coriander, had no idea what Mt. Faunibeune actually looked like. Cynthia brimmed with the heat of impassioned ignorance: her specialty. "Who cares?"

"Yeah, really: who wants to fall off some bullshit rocks and get all messed up?" remarked Sable Hawthorne smoothly while spattering glitterines on top of thick blue eyeshadow with her new All Purpose BeautyWand.

"I'd be starving all the way," said the one called Glisten while stuffing three, fresh-from-the-MenuMaster chocolate bonbons into her mouth with a pudgy, ring-swaddled white hand.

"The Key is pure mythological nonsense," proclaimed the tall and erudite Nancie Phipps in her usual know-it-all tone. "Forrbank Pitley's ideas make much more sense. But personally, I think the Primal Dragon invented and propagated the whole Key myth as a way to satisfy its craving for toothsome sixteeners. You’re just going to be ravaged and eaten by a smelly dragon, Glendyl Fenderwell. Just like that sad story about little Doremi in the Exeter Incident. Mark my words!"

A low murmur of assent ping-ponged the room before Marybeth Drumhiller's shrill whine cut through. "How am I going to get through Eastac if you climb up there and get eaten by a dragon...or even just a bear?" With still a year of Eastac to go, Marybeth’s round eyes glittered with real tears. "You know I can’t make it without you, Glendilly," she pleaded. "Come back so you can help me next term. Promise?"

Only two of Glendyl’s seven closest friends made no attempt (however knowingly futile) to dissuade her. Margaret Atchison was so in awe of Glendyl that the concept of questioning her had never crossed her mind. She just gawked in cow-eyed amazement, thinking that this was probably the most memorable moment in her life and might just keep that hallowed status forever, for all she could imagine. Oh wow, she thought. Oh wow.

Lizbeth Marble was silent for another reason. Tall, gangly, homely, brainy and quirkily unpredictable, Lizbeth was almost always silent. Except for her periodic outbursts, that is. These occasions of volcanic expostulation had earned Lizbeth her reputation as a person who spoke her mind...or even all three of them. Lizbeth found herself in tight-lipped grief: Father Gullwimple would soon be here with the Liability Papers and that would be that. Glendyl, that sweet shining star of St. Coriander, would be lost to them all forever. Worse, Lizbeth would lose her only real friend, a personal catastrophe of incalculable proportions. Lizbeth wanted to say something, but all her words refused to budge from her larynx like a herd of balky mules.

In due course, a repast was set out and sporadically eaten: the eight girls then retired to Glendyl’s bedroom for "private time." Later, a gentle knock on the door brought the chatter to a sudden halt.

The door opened just wide enough for Mrs. Fenderwell's pink and yellow beehive hairdo to pop through. "Okay girls! Time to break up the party: Father Gullwimple is here." She smiled a weak-but-brave smile and quietly closed the door so they could complete their good-byes in private.
In the living room shortly thereafter, Father Gullwimple dusted off his standard Quester speech and delivered it with a surprising degree of animation. Then it was time for the legalities: the Liability Papers were brought forth, already marked with a red "X" where Glendyl was supposed to sign, a green "X" where her mother was to sign and a blue "X" where her father was to sign. He handed each signatory a writer of the proper color and witnessed the affixing of their signatures, with occasional surreptitious glances in Glendyl’s direction. Glendyl didn't notice.

Consolations and conversations dwindled, papers were signed, copies distributed to the signatories and an original tucked back inside his voluminous parson’s frock. His round-featured face now the very image of solemnity, Father Gullwimple removed a sealed envelope from somewhere else within the black garment and discreetly handed it to Glendyl's father. It was a Bereavement Voucher, redeemable for two thousand fabrax credits at the Holy Quincunx Business Office should Glendyl fail to return to St. Coriander with the Key after three months. Formalities were complete: Father G donned a ceremonial smile, said his final words of encouragement to Glendyl, muttered the customary prayer to Lucky Madonna and departed for the Gate on one of the Fatherhood’s small fleet of heavy-duty mopeds.

Remnants of the morning’s masses of thick gray cumulus had scuttled across to the western sky; overhead and east was clear, bright and auspicious. After a flurry of last-minute forgettings and rememberings, Glendyl, her parents and her seven best friends had boarded the complimentary community carriage always provided free of charge to the Quester and his or her farewell entourage. This conveyance made its way at a stately pace along St. Orwell Loop and Outbound Road to ultimately arrive at Dunnigans Gate on the northern perimeter of St. Coriander lands. When the carriage arrived at 11:54, Father Gullwimple was pacing impatiently before the gate, grousing under his breath about the tardiness that seemed an endemic and unchangeable bad habit of St. Coriander's laity.

The magnificent arched portal was the only known access point between St. Coriander and the outside world. Still, it was so rarely used that it seemed superfluous to most residents. In fact, Dunnigans Gate officially opened only once each year. The gate stood thirty feet wide and the same dimension at its apex. Its outward-swinging doors were artfully fashioned of heavy timbers which appeared sound and sturdy despite their great age. Bound in black metal, each half of the gate was faced with an airy, ornate half-circle pattern also wrought in black metal. Together, the halves formed the circular design that all residents of St. Coriander knew to be the venerable mark of the Clans Dunnigan: a starburst wrapped around an arrangement of geometric devices.(5) Framing the Gate were two massive square columns of stonemasonry, their mortared blocks darkened by weather and encrusted with multicolored lichens and mosses which softened their terse shapes. From them rose an archway of stonework that managed to look graceful despite its great mass. To either side of this imposing structure extended the Township Fence: the high, tangled hedge of menacing, impenetrable thornmesh which enclosed the entire township perimeter.

Dunnigans Gate was situated just beyond — and hidden by — the rarely-visited rock outcrop known as "The Wartles." Beyond Dunnigans Gate was Heroes Trail: this much was known. Where it led, exactly, was only conjecture, although when the gate was open, a rectangular waysign could be seen. It was by now quite familiar to Father Gullwimple, who had for many decades been charged with the duty of opening Dunnigans Gate once each year on May 31st. The waysign said simply: "Humbecker Ford 1.8 miles." Nothing more. Curiously, the sign was always freshly painted; white letters on a blue field. Along the bottom, in very small letters if anyone troubled to read them, were the words "Waysign provided courtesy of Exeter’s Mt. Faunibeune Services." Perhaps, thought Father Gullwimple, it was a gentle reminder that Exeter was still a force to be reckoned with and that he had not forgotten St. Coriander over the years. Of course few in St. Coriander ever saw the sign, since only Luckiests ever passed through the gate.

Amid much waving, tears and brave talk, Father Gullwimple keyed the gate with his lockpatch, temporarily disabling the gate’s lethal security devices and triggering hidden actuators. Mirror-twin doors swung smoothly and silently outward to reveal an unremarkable, well-tended path of packed red earth bordered on both sides by the tall mass of clotted trees that was the Deadly Forest. Her pack firmly in place, Glendyl squared her shoulders, inhaled what she knew was to be her last breath of St. Coriander air and passed through. Father Gullwimple made the customary gesture of good fortune; the assembled witnesses waved solemnly at Glendyl's receding back, a variety of thoughts coursing through their heads.

As her mother's final caution to watch out for sailbirds faded from her ears like a forgotten sunset, the twin doors of the gate swung shut, the lock reactivated and Glendyl was lost from view.

Father Gullwimple bade Glendyl’s small entourage farewell, mounted his moped and pedaled eastward along a little used trail that would take him to the Fatherhood’s private Revelation Retreat where he would prepare for the traditional Quest Benediction to be conducted at sunset. The carriage quietly whirred its silent passengers back down Outbound Road.

The time was just past noon. The morning storm had left the trail dotted with random pockets of ruddy water, but the sky remained clear and the late May sun gave the midday air a sweet, languid quality. Fair weather notwithstanding, a sense of dark dread had settled over Glendyl's normal effervescence like a shroud of impermeable black gauze: if she really was the Luckiest, now would be a good time for some of this luck to manifest itself.

Somewhere inside her body, a tiny green capsule had dissolved into a myriad of invisible genetocules, all busily attending to tasks which had been designed for them nearly three centuries earlier.

Some distance behind her, Dunnigans Gate swung silently open for the second time that day. A figure passed through. The gate closed.

----------

5 -- For readers curious as to why St. Coriander's single portal to the outside world would be called Dunnigans Gate and bear the Dunnigan clanmark, the short answer is simple. Since the late twenty-first century, St. Coriander has been surrounded by lands of Clans Dunnigan ownership known in their totality as the Dunnigan Reserve. Thus Dunnigans Gate is less a portal out of St. Coriander Township than it is a portal into Dunnigan territories. However, in the centuries since the Dunnigan Retreat, the lands have suffered virtually no Dunnigan stewardship and have reverted to unmanaged wilderness.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

BACK TO THE LUCK OF MADONNA 13 HOME PAGE

BACK TO THE LAST NEVERGATE HOME PAGE