by Frewin Jones
Tania stared down into the rippling face of her mother. “Wha-at?”
“In the center of the island there is a deep crater; the mine is inside the crater. The black amber will break the Isenmort bonds from Oberon’s prison, and once they are broken, I believe he will have power enough to destroy the Amber Prison from within and free himself.”
Tania’s head was spinning. “You’re kidding me? The mine is here?”
“Yes, it is,” Titania said. “I wanted to tell you days ago when you were all here talking about the black amber, but I did not dare.” Tania remembered the Queen’s reflective silence at the table back in Rafe Hawthorne’s cottage; so that’s what she had been thinking about. And Clorimel’s strange comment suddenly made sense now: The blood of the stones is food for the Sun. Oberon was the Sun, and the black amber was the blood of the stones. The rowboat must have been used to ferry black amber from the mine thousands upon thousands of years ago.
“There is a problem,” the Queen continued, breaking into Tania’s thoughts. “The mine has a guardian.”
“What kind of guardian?” Tania asked in a daze.
“I do not know,” Titania said. “The King put it there a very long time ago. You have to assume it will be dangerous.”
“It can’t be any more dangerous than some of the things we’ve already dealt with,” Tania said. “Listen, I’m going to go back now and tell Edric and Cordelia about this. And then we’ll find the mine and rescue the King.” She reached her hand toward the water. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you so much.”
Her Faerie mother’s hand reached up toward her. “I wish I could have told you sooner.”
“No, I understand.” Their fingertips met for a moment on the surface of the water and the reflection broke into expanding rings of ripples. The Queen was gone.
Tania sprang up and ran back to the cave, the red rainwater spraying high in her wake.
Edric and Tania lay on the rim of the cracked crater that formed the heart of the island. It had been a laborious climb up through the splinters of the black rocks, but at last they were looking down into the pit of Tasha Dhul.
They had left Cordelia with Oberon. It had been against her wishes to allow them to face danger without her, but they had convinced her that she should stay with the King. Edric’s words had the greatest effect.
“The King can see us,” he had told her. “I know—I’ve been in an Amber Prison. Stay here with him. He’ll be comforted by it.”
The sides of the crater tumbled down to an oval depression studded with holes and black-mouthed caves. There were the remains of an old trackway to the left of where they were lying. It wound down the steep slope and made its way across the floor of the gorge, ending at a great backward-leaning cavern mouth.
“I wonder what the guardian is,” Edric mused. “A person or some kind of animal?”
“I don’t think Titania knows. It was put here thousands of years ago. Perhaps it’s dead.”
“Do you think the King would have used a guardian that was going to die?”
“I guess not.” Tania frowned. “Can you see anything moving down there?”
“No, I can’t. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
They got to their feet and stepped over the crater’s rim to begin the descent into the gorge. Loose scree slipped away under their feet and they held hands to help each other as they slipped and slithered downward, but soon they were safely on level ground. They walked cautiously along a beaten path across the valley floor. Above them heavy clouds rolled in, blotting out the sun. An unnatural darkness came over them, like twilight at noon.
“I wish we had swords,” Tania whispered.
“I wish we had a rocket launcher,” Edric responded. She looked at him and they clasped hands even more tightly.
As they came in under the high mouth of the cavern, rain was beginning to fall. The mine-workings stretched back into a darkness that was like a gaping throat. Pools of dark water gathered in pits and ruts in the ground. Walking deeper into the cavern, Tania began to notice that the overarching walls were streaked with black threads that glinted in the weak light. Behind her she could hear rain falling steadily.
Edric let go of her hand and walked off to one side, picking his way over the spreading pools of water. She followed, finding him crouched in shadows, holding a few small shards of black amber in his open palm.
He looked up at her. “This is all we’ll need,” he said. “Doesn’t this seem a bit too easy to you?”
“I like easy.” She crouched at his side. “I’m thirsty—do you think the water in here is fit to drink?”
“I don’t see why not. It’s only rainwater.”
Tania cupped her hand and scooped up some of the icy cold water. It tasted slightly odd—as if there were minerals or something in it—but it was refreshing and not unpleasant. She drank a couple more handfuls and then filled her water bottle.
Edric had stood up. He was staring intently down the great black throat of the cavern.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I thought I heard something.”
She stood up, tying the water bottle to her belt. “We should get out of here.”
Now she, too, heard the sound of movement in the darkness. They shrank together, staring into impenetrable nothingness.
A shape began to form at the far end of the cavern. Malevolent red eyes glinted.
“Run!” Tania shouted. She had seen those eyes before—in a nightmare.
But before they could move, the thing pounced forward into the light. It stood on four clawed feet and must have been six feet high at the shoulder. The monster had the rough-haired body and mane of a lion, but its hindquarters were bare of fur and covered in black scales. Its tail reared up, thick and segmented, lifting above its back like the tail of a scorpion, the barbed tip dripping thick yellow poison.
But the most horrible part of the monster was its face: It was the distorted and twisted face of a human being, all the more appalling because it was almost human. The terrible bulging eyes burned red, the wide mouth was open, the lips drawn back to reveal jagged yellow fangs.
“A mantichore!” Edric whispered. “The guardian is a mantichore!”
Tania bent down and picked up a stone. With a fierce sweep of her arm she launched the missile at the creature. It was a good shot: The rock struck the monster on the forehead. But it didn’t even seem to be aware that it had been attacked. It let out another deafening roar and gathered itself to leap.
They ran.
“Don’t look back,” Edric said, gasping as they sprinted over the uneven ground.
“The black amber?” Tania said.
“I’ve got it in my tunic.”
They raced out of the cavern and into the hammering rain. The storm clouds seethed, as if the sky was convulsing above their heads. Tania heard the scrape and clatter of claws on stone behind them. She heard the monster’s heaving breath, the thud of its feet on the ground. It sounded as if it was getting steadily closer, but she didn’t dare look back for fear of tripping.
“This way!” Edric shouted, darting to one side. He was slightly ahead of her as they hit the sloping wall of the gorge. The stone was like broken black glass in the rain.
She scrambled up the rise, using hands and feet. Lightning forked across the sky. She heard the monster bellowing. They were almost at the top now; she had no thoughts beyond reaching that sharp ridge.
“Come on!” Edric urged.
Her foot slipped on stones as sharp as knives. She fell onto one knee, crying out with the pain.
“Get up!” Edric shouted down. “It’s closing in on us! I’ll have to let go of you! I need both hands to get up this next bit.” His wet hand slid out of hers and he scrambled to the ridge. She got to her feet, deadly cold and soaked to the skin.
A deep snort sounded behind her. The mantichore was almost upon them.
“Tania!”
She looked up
into the needling rain. Edric was crouched on the crater’s edge, reaching down toward her.
This was the moment in her nightmare when Edric turned into Gabriel Drake.
Tania hesitated, not daring to take his hand. Living the nightmare.
“Tania!” He stretched down farther, his fingers spread. And then, before Tania could pull herself together, he overbalanced and fell, tumbling past her down the side of the crater.
He managed to bring himself to a halt but the mantichore was only a couple of meters below him, ploughing its way through the rain, its eyes furnace red, its bellows louder than the thunder.
Tania didn’t stop to think. She had put Edric in danger; that was all that she knew. She stood up on the steep slope, turning, catching her balance for a moment, and then jumping down. She crashed feet-first into the mantichore’s head just as its jaws were about to lock on Edric’s arm. Her weight knocked the monster back, but one of its claws raked across the back of her hand, drawing blood. Its great talons scrabbled on the loose stones as it slid down the hillside, still roaring, its scorpion tail thrashing. Tania hit the ground with stunning force, only just managing to grab hold of a jutting edge of rock to stop herself from plunging down in the mantichore’s wake.
Edric was sprawled on the slope, his tunic torn open. He staggered to his feet, pulling her up. Together they scrambled up the last few feet to the top of the crater. Once they had reached the rim, Tania looked back into the teeming rain. The mantichore was bounding up after them again, roaring and gnashing its teeth, the fearsome tail poised to strike. Edric grabbed Tania’s hand and pulled her headlong down the outside of the crater.
Tania lost her footing on the scree and crashed to her knees with a gasp. Edric stopped to help her up. They were at the foot of the crater now, the cone rearing above them. While Tania struggled to get her feet under her Edric snatched up a rock and stood over her, ready to hurl it at the monster.
But the mantichore had not followed them. It stood on the lip of the crater, black against the seething sky, pacing back and forth with its tail quivering and its jaws gaping. As Tania stared up it bellowed and clawed at the ground. Stones rattled down. She got to her feet. “It isn’t following us,” she said, gasping. “Why?”
“It guards the mine,” Edric said. “We’re not in the mine anymore.”
Tania let out a breathless gust of laughter. “Then we did it! We’ve got the black amber.”
Edric’s voice was suddenly full of anguish. “No,” he said. “We haven’t.”
She looked at him in confusion. He made a helpless gesture with his hands, and she looked down. His tunic had been ripped open when he fell trying to reach down to her; the precious nuggets of black amber were gone, lost inside the crater.
“No!” She stared at him in horror. “We have to go back.”
“We can’t,” Edric said. “We only just survived the first time. The mantichore will be waiting for us now.”
“But we were so close,” Tania cried. “I don’t believe this is happening.”
Edric reached for her, taking hold of her wrist and looking at the scratches left by the mantichore’s talons. “You’ve been hurt.”
“It’s only a cut. It’s nothing.”
“It isn’t nothing. It might be poisoned. Let’s get away from here and wash it out.”
Tania was too miserable to protest. As they stumbled away through the falling rain she could hear the mantichore bellowing into the stormy sky.
“We have lost a battle, not the war,” Cordelia said. “The creature may be fearsome, but we will find a way to defeat it.”
Tania looked bleakly at her. “What makes you think that?”
Cordelia frowned. “Because we must prevail,” she said.
Tania wished that she had Cordelia’s confidence. How were they going to get anywhere near Tasha Dhul with that monster on the prowl? And how would they defeat it? By throwing rocks? She already knew how effective that would be.
“Keep still,” Edric said gently as she flinched away from where he was dabbing her wounded hand with a corner of his tunic.
“It stings,” she said. “Leave it alone, Edric. It’ll be fine.”
“No, it won’t,” he insisted. “At least let me wash it.”
She handed him her water pouch. She winced as he let the cold water run over her wound. The cut wasn’t particularly deep, but it ran the length of the back of her hand and it was quite sore.
“I have a plan,” Cordelia said. “All three of us will go to Tasha Dhul next time. I shall show myself, drawing the monster off, while you two enter the mine and steal away with the black amber.”
“And what if the thing kills you while we’re doing it?” Tania asked.
Cordelia’s eyes flashed. “Be assured that I will do all in my power to prevent that from happening.”
Tania shook her head. “It’s too risky. We need to think of a better way.”
Cordelia walked over to the cave mouth without saying anything and sat down with her arms wrapped around her legs and her chin on her knees, staring out into the distance with a grim look on her face.
“Shall I bandage it for you?” Edric offered, examining the cleaned cut.
“No, it’s fine.”
“Best to be on the safe side.”
“Stop fussing, Edric.” Tania pulled her hand away. She stood up, resting her fingers in his hair for a moment. “Honestly, I’m all right,” she said.
“Really?”
“It’s just…you know…” She turned and walked deeper into the cave. She stood in front of the Amber Prison, gazing into the King’s frozen face. Titania had said he should have the power to get free once those iron bands were gone. Tania wanted so much to release him from that terrible prison—she wanted it so much that it was like a pain in the middle of her chest.
Tears burned behind her eyes. No, she wouldn’t cry. She refused to waste her anger like that. She wanted to hold on to it, to use it to find the strength to do what they had come here to do. She reached out her hand toward the Isenmort bands. She didn’t care how much it hurt. She deserved to be hurt for not doing better. Gritting her teeth, she pressed her hand against the iron.
A whiplash of pain ran up her arm and into her shoulder, but it was nothing like as intense as it had been the last time she had dared to touch the Amber Sphere. She stared at her hand; wisps of gray smoke were rising from where her skin was pressing against the metal. The Isenmort was fizzing and melting where her hand touched it. Her wet hand! Her hand that was wet from the water she had brought from the mine.
Tania pulled her hand away, snatching the water pouch from her belt and emptying it over the Amber Sphere. The metal crackled and spat, melting away like ice on hot stone. “Edric! Cordie!” she called, stepping back as a cloud of gray smoke dimmed the amber globe.
“What did you do?” Edric asked.
“It was the water from the mine,” Tania told them. “Whatever makes black amber work against metal must be in the water, too.”
“Did I not tell you we would find a way?” Cordelia said, resting her hand on Tania’s shoulder.
“You did,” Tania admitted.
The cloud of gray steam faded and the light of the Amber Sphere filled the cave again.
“Father!” Cordelia called. “Awaken!”
But the King lay unmoving in the globe, his glazed eyes staring at nothing.
“He should wake up now,” Tania said. “Titania said he would wake up and break out.” She reached for the globe, spreading the fingers of both hands over the warm surface, bringing her head close to the shining amber shell. “Oberon, wake up!” she called. “Please, Father, wake up!”
For a long time nothing happened. Then very slowly Tania became aware that the surface of the globe was growing warmer under her hands, and the amber light was becoming brighter. So bright that she had to close her eyes against it.
She heard Cordelia’s voice. “He awakes!”
The surface
of the globe was now too hot for her to touch. She stepped back, her arm up to cover her eyes, her whole body beaten back by wave after wave of fierce heat.
An explosion of dazzling light knocked Tania off her feet. She sat up, blinking, seeing only a white blaze in front of her eyes, as though lightning was playing in her brain. Gradually her vision cleared. The globe was gone, shattered to a million pieces. Oberon lay limp on the ground.
Cordelia was already at the King’s side, brushing his hair off his forehead. “Father? Wake up now. You are free.”
Edric and Tania came closer. The King didn’t move. Tania saw that his eyes were closed and his face was deathly pale.
Cordelia looked up at them, tears running down her face. “He is dying!” she wept. “All is in vain! Our great father is dying!”
XXI
A somber group gathered at the shoreline of Fidach Ren. It had been a heartbreaking and arduous task to carry the unconscious King across the island to the waiting boat and to lay him gently in the bottom while Edric rowed them back to the mainland. There were only two consolations: He was breathing and his pale skin was warm to the touch. Tania gazed down at his face, at the golden curls of his hair and the close-cut golden beard. At the high slanted cheekbones and at the closed eyes that she knew were a vivid, piercing blue, as bright as a clear summer sky.
For the first time in many days, Tania’s thoughts drifted back to her other father and mother in the Mortal World. She had lost track of the days, but she knew that they would soon be returning from their holiday in Cornwall—returning home to find the house trashed in the battle with the Gray Knights, to find Tania gone again without explanation, and to discover that Edric was also missing. She imagined their horrified reaction, visits from the police, Edric getting the blame again…. Tania shook her head, trying to dislodge the disturbing images.
