Faerie Path #6: The Charmed Return

by Frewin Jones

  Chapter XXXI

  Edric jerked up, staring wildly around himself. “Lear!” he spat. “Where is Lear?”

  “You’re not strong enough to fight him on your own,” Tania said. “He almost killed you! He did kill you . . . if not for . . .”

  Edric scrambled to his feet. “He has to be stopped, Tania! I haven’t ridden the length of Faerie to see him victorious.” He caught hold of her, pulling her to her feet, his eyes blazing silver. “I need to know what has happened,” he said. “Forgive me. I need to know exactly what Lear has done.” He pressed the flat of his hand to her temple.

  Tania felt a dizzying sensation, as though their two minds were fusing. She saw a kaleidoscope of images in Edric’s mind.

  Arriving at the borders of Weir. Unable to enter. Using the Dark Arts to make a blue fire that slowly burned its way into the mystical barrier that Aldritch had set up. Knights of Weir confronting him, swords drawn.

  “I would speak with your lord! Take my sword. Lead me to him, I beg you!”

  And once within the barrier the shackles of Lear’s enchantment falling away from his mind. Realizing with dread and horror that Lear was not banished—that he was manipulating the minds of everyone in Faerie—everyone save for those within Aldritch’s mystic barrier. The urge to turn and speed back to the Royal Palace, to warn them—to save Tania. But no! That would never work. Lear’s sorcery was too powerful.

  The only option: go to Aldritch and seek his aid, ask to approach the place from which the age-old magicks of Weir had been drawn, use them to weave a spell to use against Lear.

  The gallop to Caer Liel on its mountain crag. In the Obsidian Chamber thrown upon his face in front of the Lord of Weir. Understanding now that there was no army being gathered in Weir—realizing that Aldritch wished only to protect his people.

  “Good, my lord, I come to beg your aid! Do you not know the power that threatens all of Faerie, lord?”

  Aldritch’s harsh voice: “I know nothing of events beyond my borders, nor do I care. Why come you here, Master Chanticleer, treacherous lover of this realm’s greatest enemy?”

  “Tania is not your enemy! A greater threat has arisen! Will you not listen to me, my lord, and then make your judgment? I fear you do not know the truth—and nor do you know of the peril that will engulf you and all the people of the Earldom of Weir.”

  “Speak—your life hangs in the balance!”

  Telling Aldritch of Lear and of his dreams of conquest. Aldritch realizing that Weir would not be immune—not once all of Faerie and the Mortal Realm were conquered. Realizing that even within their barrier they would not survive once the whole of Lear’s might and venom was focused on them.

  “For the good of Weir we must ally ourselves with the lesser enemy to defeat the greater! What would you have me do?”

  “I would draw on the old powers of this realm.”

  “So be it.”

  Aldritch taking him to the dungeon chamber where the ancient Spellstone of Weir lay hidden. Edric touching his sword to the stone and drawing from its potency.

  Gathering a hundred knights of Weir and leading them south. Galloping like the wind, his soul full to the brim with alchemy.

  The galloping hooves louder and louder in Tania’s head—the horses of Weir were coming to do battle with Prince Lear and his Red Knights.

  And now Tania understood why the hooves had been so incessant in her mind—why they had tormented her.

  Edric had poured the Dark Arts through her mind and body to bring her from the Mortal World—he had amplified the strength of the Seven Who Are One with the blue fire of his sinister Arts. Tania still had the shadow of those Dark Arts within her. They were a part of her now, and the crashing of the hooves in her brain was the price she had to pay for allowing herself to be tainted by those Arts.

  Even as all this was revealed in flashing images in Tania’s mind, so she knew that a similar transfer of memories was being disclosed to Edric.

  They stood facing each other, gasping for breath, eyes locked. As though on a single impulse they lurched together, kissing, but only for the briefest of moments.

  Edric’s eyes shimmered with silver light. “Together!” he breathed.

  “Together!” she replied.

  The exchange of memories had taken mere seconds. Smoke and fire still belched from the houses all along the canal, the red flames throwing sinister reflections down into the water, the foul-smelling smoke crawling across the concrete. The trees were also ablaze, crackling leaves cascading down as the branches blossomed fire. Cries and screams still echoed from the road-bridge. The Red Knights of Gralach Hern could be seen fighting grimly with Edric’s black-clad warriors. Riderless horses galloped, foam flying from their lips. Horses lost their footing along the canal and plunged into the water. A knight of Weir hurtled from the bridge with a red sword in his heart. A red rider roared his triumph from the parapet but was caught in the middle of his victory cry, arching back as a sword pierced him through. He slumped from the saddle, and Rathina leaped up to take his place, swinging her bloodied sword above her head and shouting, “Aurealis! Aurealis for Faerie!” The horse reared and went cantering across the bridge.

  Tania’s heart leaped at her sister’s courage.

  “My knights will deal with Lear’s horsemen,” said Edric, catching hold of Tania’s hand. “We have to find Lear!”

  Together they ran for the steps onto the bridge. A terrible sight met their eyes. Under the unnaturally dark noonday sky, the road was clogged with crashed and abandoned cars and vans. And riding this way and that through the vehicles were the embattled horsemen, hacking at one another with swords, their steeds rising with flailing hooves as they wheeled and cut and wheeled again.

  Terrified people were still to be seen, fleeing the battlefield or huddling together with shock and disbelief in their faces. Ordinary people: teenagers on Rollerblades, shopkeepers, tourists with cameras dangling around their necks. And the flames were spreading, taking hold and howling into the air, as wild as forest fires, bathing everything with a ghastly red luster.

  Through the rising smoke the white corona of the sun could be seen glowing behind the wheel of the black moon. But already the full eclipse was almost done, and as Tania stared upward, she saw a flash like a sparkling diamond as the sun began to emerge again.

  They leaped the black rail that lined the roadway. Edric sprang onto the roof of a car. “I see him!” he shouted, pointing along the road. “I see Lear!” A Red Knight urged his horse toward Edric, his sword a crimson whir. Edric ducked the sweeping blow and snatched at the man’s arm as he thundered past, wrenching him from the saddle.

  In a swift, liquid movement Edric took the man’s place in the saddle, quickly catching up the reins and bringing the horse to a curving halt. Tania ran forward, taking hold of Edric’s down-stretched arm, bounding up to sit behind him.

  Edric dug his heels into the horse’s flanks, and they lurched forward, weaving through the debris and the skewed cars—following Lear.

  Tania saw Cordelia on the other side of the road. She had found herself a crystal sword and was battling fiercely with an unhorsed Red Knight. Titus was up on the dented roof of a white van in the middle of the road, swinging a long spear, holding off several riders. He must have vaulted to the top of the van without making skin contact with the metal—but all the same, the proximity of so much Isenmort must be a torment to him. Jade was with him, and she was wielding one of the red iron swords with a deadly, terrified fury.

  Rathina was also close by, her horse rearing as she struck down hard on the neck of one of the Red Knights surrounding the van.

  “What are we going to do when we reach Lear?” Tania shouted into Edric’s ear. “How do we beat him?”

  “You will be the sword; I will be the shield,” Edric called back, his words almost ripped from his mouth by their speed.

  “I don’t know what that means!”

  Their horse leaped the body of a dead
knight of Weir. Edric made a grasping gesture with his hand. The dead knight’s crystal sword jerked up from the tarmac, twirling through the air.

  Tania didn’t need to be told—she snatched the sword out of the air, her fingers tight on the hilt.

  Edric’s voice came to her again on the wind. “I’m going to try and contain his witchcrafts,” he called. “You have to kill him, Tania! You have to kill him with the sword—you’ll only have a few seconds. You mustn’t hesitate.”

  From the depths of her soul a voice rang out. No! I can’t do that! I can’t kill him! How can you ask me to do such a thing?

  “Tania?” There was a desperate edge to Edric’s voice. “Do you get what you need to do?”

  “Yes! I understand!”

  “Don’t be heroic! Take him by surprise.”

  “Yes.”

  They were galloping now alongside the concrete and glass walls of a supermarket, the flames of burning buildings reflected darkly in the rows of windows. They were galloping past shops and offices and side streets that Tania had known all of her Mortal life. They were galloping along Kentish Town Road on a Faerie horse—and the fires and the deaths and the chaos that surrounded them were all her fault.

  A desperate determination clenched inside her like a stone fist closing about her heart.

  Lear must die.

  They were coming close now to the confluence of several streets—to Britannia Junction, where Chalk Farm Road and Kentish Town Road and Camden Road and Camden High Street and Parkway all met. Camden Town tube station was there. On an ordinary day a hundred buses crisscrossed the busy streets.

  They crossed Buck Street. There was no one on the pavements now. A few desperate people cowered in the shops, unable to grasp what was happening. Tania saw two bodies lying in blood. Innocent Mortals caught up and destroyed in Lear’s madness.

  Edric pulled the horse up about fifty yards before the junction. Three or four double-decker buses were stalled at the crossroads—one of them on fire. The battle between the knights of Weir and the deadly horsemen of Gralach Hern was still raging, and it was impossible to see who was getting the upper hand as the horses darted to and fro through the empty cars that littered the streets with doors hanging wide and drivers gone.

  Tania could make out the dark shape of Prince Lear rising in the stirrups at the crossroads, hurling bolts of fire from his fingertips as though he wanted to set all the world aflame.

  “He mustn’t see me,” said Edric, twisting in the saddle. “He thinks I’m dead—we have to keep it that way.” He slid from the horse’s back. “I’ll try and drain his power. If he doesn’t realize it’s me, he won’t know where to strike back.”

  Tania stared down at him. “What should I do?”

  “Give me a few moments to get into position, then get to him as quickly as you can. When you see his fire failing—strike quick and strike hard. You’ll only have a few seconds.”

  “Yes. Yes, I understand.”

  Edric reached his hand up, and Tania took it for a moment.

  “You and me for always!” he said.

  “Yes. You and me!”

  He broke the grip and went running across the road, keeping low, hugging the shop-fronts as he headed for the junction.

  For a split second Tania thought the hooves had come back into her head—but then she realized it was her own heartbeat that she was hearing.

  Fighting was going on all around her, flames were rising and smoke was blowing on the wind—but for a brief time Tania sat in the saddle and waited.

  Edric slipped out of sight. She paused, glancing over her shoulder. Titus and Jade had jumped down from the white van and were fighting their way toward Cordelia. There were only a handful of Red Knights near them now—and even as Tania watched, Rathina’s sword stabbed and another went cartwheeling from the saddle.

  Tania turned toward the junction again. It was time.

  She dug her heels into her horse’s flanks, leaning forward, snapping the reins as the voices of courage and fear contended inside her head.

  Are you afraid?

  Yes.

  How afraid?

  I think I’m going to die.

  And yet . . . ?

  I’ll die with Edric. We’ll die together if that’s our fate. Together!

  Or Lear might die.

  Yes, Lear might die.

  Do not hesitate. Strike swift and sure.

  Yes. Yes!

  Lear was facing away from her, but she could hear his laughter as he flung his fireballs into the shops and offices and pubs and banks that lined the confluence of the five streets. A fist of flame crashed into the entrance of the tube station, sending the windows bursting outward. Tania prayed that no one had taken shelter in there.

  All around him cars were burning. The smoke was thick and caustic in her nose and throat. It smarted in her eyes and stung in her chest.

  She was close now—close enough to see something so ordinary and so astonishing that she could hardly take it in. Something she had known of all her life but which had never held any significance for her before.

  Across the wide junction, beyond an open-backed blue van abandoned and in flames, beyond everyday traffic lights and black rails, beyond a pedestrian crossing, was a pub with a dark red fascia and open brown-wood doors. And above the doors, picked out in gold, were words she had seen a thousand times before.

  The pub was called The World’s End.

  Chapter XXXII

  Lear rose in the saddle of the dead Faerie horse and threw a ball of fire in through the open doors of the pub. A moment later the whole of the front erupted in a rolling pall of oily, fiery black smoke.

  The World’s End.

  Laughing still, Lear loosed another ball of flame, this time into the tall white stone face of the bank on the far side of the junction. But the fire sputtered and failed, breaking up in mid-flight and cascading down in a rain of dying sparks.

  Lear reeled in the saddle as though some invisible force had struck him.

  Edric!

  Again Tania urged her horse forward, eating up the yards between them, her sword ready in her fist.

  Lear crashed down in the saddle, all laughter quenched as he rolled groaning from side-to-side. The flames that surrounded them began to falter, as though their fires were fueled by Lear—as though they would fail if he failed.

  Don’t hesitate! Strike hard and swift! Edric’s voice in her head.

  Lear’s head was turning as though he was trying to seek out the source of his power loss. He gave a shout, his arm stretched out, his fingers pointing.

  Edric was there—crouching in a doorway, blue fire flickering at his fingertips.

  “Not dead, boy?” Lear cried. “Then die now, and be rid of you!”

  Lear roared with anger, red flames licking along his outstretched arm.

  Tania was almost upon him.

  At last, he became aware of her. He spun around, snarling, his eyes blazing with anger.

  She lifted her sword, but as she brought her arm down, the vicious features changed and she saw Oberon’s face under her blade.

  “Wouldst you strike me down, daughter?”

  With a choking cry Tania managed to deflect her blow.

  A fist of fire burst from Lear’s fingers, punching into her chest, driving her backward out of the saddle as her horse galloped on. She went crashing down onto the roadway with bone-breaking force, knowing she had failed—knowing Oberon’s face had been no more than a trick to make her hesitate. . . .

  The sword rang on the road, jarred from her fingers.

  She heard Edric’s voice calling. “Tania!”

  She saw crimson fire arc through the air. She saw Edric smashed to the ground, his blue fire smothered. The fires leaped up again all around them. She heard Lear roaring with laughter.

  He turned his horse and walked it slowly toward where she lay, her whole body hurting, her soul in torment. He dismounted and stood over her.

  I’
ve failed.

  “You would kill your uncle, child?” he asked. “’Tis most naughty of you! I must find a punishment to fit so heinous a crime!” He held out his hand, and Tania saw a small amber ball on his palm. “I shall not end you, Tania. No, indeed. You will be with me for all eternity.” He smiled. “You will outlive the stars, Tania—trapped forever in amber.”

  The amber ball lifted from his palm and floated down toward her.

  But before it reached her, she heard a strange, growing, rushing sound. A darkness like a huge black arrowhead moved into the corner of her eye. She heard a shrill chattering noise.

  A flock of starlings hurtled between her and Lear, smashing the amber ball aside, so that it cracked and burst on the tarmac. Lear bridled back from the rush of birds, his face livid. But more birds came: pigeons mobbing him, pecking him and beating at him with their wings.

  Tania scrambled away, struggling to master the agony in her body, fighting to get to her feet.

  Lear’s arms burst through the birds, sending many of them spinning through the air or crumpling to the ground.

  He turned his head, glaring past Tania to where Cordelia stood calling in a strange, high-pitched voice.

  “Birds of the air you’d set upon me, child?” Lear raged. “Fool! All shall burn!”

  Tania tottered to her feet, seeking her fallen sword. But the ground all around her was alive and moving. Rats were swarming from all corners, rats in the thousands, running forward like a flood of black oil, making for Lear.

  He shouted in anger as the multitude of rats swarmed over his feet and clawed their way up his legs.

  And even as he stumbled and fell back under the assault, Rathina and Titus and Jade came running forward with swords raised.

  “Be gone!” howled Lear, standing firm, his body wreathed in red fire. The rats were blasted away from him, many screaming and in flames. The birds sped up into the sky, crying out and screeching as they fled the rising fires.

  Rathina launched herself on him, sword whirling. A thrust of his hand sent a wall of fire at her, taking her off her feet and throwing her back.