by Frewin Jones
His arm slid away from her shoulders and he stepped back, leaving her gazing out over the hills and valleys of Erin with the sun beating fierce on her head.
“I can do that,” she murmured. “But . . . but what will I have to do once I’m inside? If she’s been waiting for a husband for a thousand years, she’s not going to just hand him over because I say so. What kind of ordeals will they be?” She paused, waiting for Michael to speak.
She turned. “I need to have a better idea of . . . what . . . I . . . might . . .”
She was alone on the hill.
The messengers were gone.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Tania was still unable to wake Rathina and Connor. Their sleep was as deep as ever and nothing she did came close to rousing them. But before she set off to follow Michael’s instructions, she was determined to make sure they were as comfortable as possible.
She knelt at Rathina’s head, smoothing her hair back off her face, gazing fondly at her.
“I’m going to try and rescue Edric,” she whispered. “If it all works out the way I hope, I promise we’ll be back as soon as possible.” She paused. “If not, I hope you wake up and find your way home without me. Connor will help, I’m sure. You can keep each other company, huh?” She leaned forward and kissed her sister’s forehead.
She knelt briefly at Connor’s side, straightening his clothes a little. “You make sure you look after Rathina, hear me?” she said, her voice cracking. “She could use some of that love you’ve got bubbling away inside you.”
She stood up. “A place where twilight rules,” she murmured to herself, settling her crystal sword at her hip. She took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said to no one at all. “Here goes nothing!”
As Tania walked, she began to notice that the countryside around her was no longer teeming with strangeness.
The air still had that distracting golden haze about it—but towers and palaces and gateways were no longer appearing and disappearing from the corner of her eyes, and no voices called enticingly from woods and caves. The sun was still nailed to the roof of the sky, and the circling mountains still rippled and changed when Tania wasn’t looking, but it was as if much of the magic of the place had gone to sleep. Or maybe it was that the enchantress had other things to occupy herself with now.
Edric, for instance.
Tania never saw the twilight coming. One moment she was walking along under the noonday sun, the next she was in the cool of a summer evening surrounded by drowsy shadows, the air filled with the sweet aromas of evening primrose and night scented herbs.
A high, steep sloping rampart rose almost at her feet, grass-covered and mantled with flowers of pink and white and yellow. She halted in her tracks, remembering what Michael had told her to do.
One hand gripping the hilt of her sword, she took a deep breath and called into the silent gloaming. “Ashling dar Dair, I am come for my true love! Hear me, Ashling dar Dair. I will not depart without him!”
She was aware of a faint shivering all around her, as if the land was trembling with suppressed laughter. She drew her sword, comforted by the way it sparkled in the dusky light.
The ground quivered under her feet, and a sound filled her ears like discordant music. The music reached a shrill pitch, and her sword shattered in her hand. She stumbled back, gasping for breath. The air sparked, stinging her skin. Then the rumbling beneath her grew to a roar, and the hill split open in front of her as though cloven by an invisible ax.
She stared into the dark gulf, expecting some horror to emerge. But there was nothing. The land had become still and quiet again and the music was gone.
A voice sounded from beyond the cleft. A woman’s voice, powerful and ringing with amusement. “Come, then, child. Take back your love . . . if you are able.”
No sword. No one to back her up. Nothing to cling to but courage and love.
It would have to be enough.
As Tania walked into the sinister gap, her legs trembled and her stomach was a ball of stone. Darkness wove sinister webs in her mind.
She stepped into an enclosed area as round and steep-walled as a bowl. There was grass under her feet, and ahead of her was a ring of rowan trees laden with red berries. In the center of the circle of trees the Green Lady sat on a throne made from intertwined branches and twigs.
The Green Lady leaned back, her hands resting idly on the arms of the throne, her head against the high, arched back. One leg was stretched out, a bare foot revealed beneath the hem of her long, green gown.
Edric was crouched in front of her, washing her foot with water from a wooden bowl.
The enchantress cast a languid, sleepy-eyed look at Tania and smiled—and Tania saw that she had pointed teeth, like the teeth of a lizard or a snake.
“Edric—we have a guest,” the Green Lady drawled, half lifting a limp hand.
Cradling the Green Lady’s foot in his lap, Edric turned to look at Tania. She fought to stop herself from crying out as she saw the silver sheen that coated his eyes.
“This girl has come for you,” said the Green Lady. “Would you like to go with her?”
Edric bared his teeth at Tania and snarled, then turned his face away again and continued to wash the Green Lady’s foot.
Subduing her fear, Tania walked through the trees, her head high, refusing to be daunted by the enchantress. She stood behind Edric, avoiding the Green Lady’s eyes, stooping to touch Edric’s rounded shoulder.
“Edric? Listen to me. She’s put a spell on you. I need you to stop doing that and pay attention to me.” She shook his shoulder, but he shrugged heavily, trying to dislodge her hand. Still he lifted a cloth from the bowl and continued to wash the Green Lady’s foot.
Tania knelt, bringing her hand down on his. “Look at me!”
He turned his head again, his face utterly blank, his eyes like silver moons.
“Come with me, Edric,” Tania said. All the while she was waiting for the Green Lady to do something, all the while she was bracing herself for some sorcerous attack.
“He will not go with you, child,” said the Green Lady. “He knows now the bite of a deeper, stronger love.”
Tania held Edric’s face between her two hands, looking into his eyes, trying to see the brown behind the silver. “I love you, Edric—and you love me. Can you keep that in your mind? We need to leave here now; we really do. Right now.”
She saw the lips of the enchantress moving silently, conjuring a spell that came from her mouth as a thin green vapor. Moments later Tania felt a pressure building around her—as though the air was congealing into fists of iron and closing on her head like the jaws of a vice.
She looked into Edric’s expressionless face, holding his eyes despite the feeling that her brain was about to explode. As she came to the last shred of endurance, a thread of music came gliding into her brain. Familiar music, a melody, slow and sad, but filled with a mournful hope. A music of fiddle and drum—music that she remembered from the Iron Stone Tavern. And as she thought of Michael and Rose, the pain lessened and she was almost herself again.
She heard an angry snarl. The enchantress was leaning forward on her throne, her eyes blazing, her sharp teeth bared.
“Do not seek to bring that maudlin ditty into my domain, child!” she hissed. “It will serve you nothing!”
Tania looked at her. “Is that right?” she countered. “Why does it bother you so much?”
The enchantress opened her mouth and Tania saw her tongue flickering like that of a serpent. And then a heavy green mist came spewing out of the Green Lady’s gaping mouth, and the world vanished in a flood of poisonous venom.
There was no Green Lady.
There was no land of Erin.
There was no quest and there never had been.
Tania and Edric were in Camden Market in London, standing facing each other while oblivious crowds went bustling by. All that Tania knew was that she was out enjoying some retail therapy with her best friend, Jad
e, and that she was finding her split life a real trial, and that her mum and dad were on her case about her badly explained three-day absence, and that Edric had just said something cruel and hurtful to her.
“I don’t like being told I’m stupid, Edric,” she snapped, glaring into his face. “I’m doing my best. You have no idea how hard this is for me.”
“And is it easy for me?” he asked. “Trapped in this benighted world, knowing that I can get back home only with your help?”
“Is that my fault?” she retorted. “If anyone deserves to be wound up here, it’s me! I never asked for you to come and totally mess up my life! I never asked for you to pretend you liked me just so you could drag me off to your own world to marry your boss!”
“I explained that to you,” snapped Edric, his eyes blazing. “I didn’t have any choice in the matter!” His face grew stiff. “Do you really think I’d have wasted all that time with you if I could have helped it?” He rolled his eyes to the sky. “Have you any idea what a self-centered, whiny little pain in the neck you can be, Tania?”
“Stop calling me that! My name’s Anita!”
“Yeah—whatever, Anita!”
“And if you detest me so much, why don’t you just get lost?” she spat. “My life was fine till you came along.”
“Oh, was it?” A sneering note came into his voice. “Kind of odd, then, that you’ve been all over me like a rash for the last couple of months, telling me how you couldn’t live without me.”
“My mistake!” hissed Tania. “I didn’t know you so well then! I thought you were different.” Her voice choked, stopping her.
“Oh, what’s this now?” Edric crowed. “Going to squirt a few tears, are you?”
Tania would not let him see her cry! She would not let him know how much pain she was in. Never!
She spun on her heel. Jade was still sitting at the wrought-iron table sucking Coke up through a straw, peering at Tania over the round blue lenses of her new sunglasses, her eyes cynical and caustic.
“Go away, Edric,” Tania said icily, not even looking back at him. “I never want to see you again.” She took a deep breath and walked to the table. She sat down and picked up her paper cup, hearing the ice rattle as she sucked at the straw.
“Problems?” asked Jade.
“Nope,” Tania said. “Not anymore.”
A wide grin spread across Jade’s face. “I see,” she drawled. “Trouble in paradise, eh? Well, if you don’t want him anymore . . . can I have him? He’s kind of cute in a dumb blond way.”
Tania shrugged. “You want him, you can have him,” she said. “I’m done with him.”
“Excellent!” said Jade, her teeth as white as pearls. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear!”
Chapter Twenty Eight
There was the scrape of iron on stone as Jade got up from the table. She was about to walk past Tania, making for where Edric was still standing, when a snatch of melody came into Tania’s mind, quite different from the calypso music that was being piped into the small eating area alongside the Stable Market.
A melancholy tune played on a fiddle and accompanied by a slow drumbeat. The music opened a door in her head and let a great burst of clear white light flow into her mind.
This wasn’t real! None of it was real!
“No!” She snatched at Jade’s wrist as she was passing. She looked up at her best friend’s face, the eyes triumphant behind the blue lenses. “Nice try!” she said. “But you don’t get to keep him that easily.”
The market and the sunshine and the calypso music all fell away like a discarded skin, and she was back in the rowan grove in the twilight citadel of Ashling dar Dair. The Green Lady was glaring at her, and Edric was kneeling at her feet.
“A strong mind you have, my child,” said the Green Lady, and although her voice was steady and smooth, Tania could sense the anger seething behind it—she could see it flickering like flame in the eyes of the enchantress. “But that will not be enough, I think. Not by a long way.”
The Green Lady stood up, stretching her arms out and throwing her head back.
“Come to me, my Deena Shee!” she shouted into the sky. “Come to me, three by three. Come from your mounds, I call to thee! Come and do your duty to your Queen!”
A memory. Sharp but distant. Three by three? Where had she heard that before?
The ground began to shake under Tania’s feet, and the air was filled with a groaning noise.
Edric threw himself forward, clutching at the Green Lady’s gown.
Tania stared around, trying to control her mounting fear as mouths opened in the grassy ramparts of Ashling dar Dair: three dark mouths that yawned and stretched till they were as wide as castle gates.
Tania heard the thud of hooves. Then she saw a flickering red light in the central chasm.
Three red horsemen rode from the hill. Weird and uncanny, they were like figures formed of firelight, wearing armor of red leather and carrying spears of red wood. Flames danced on the points of their spears, played among their long red hair and beards, and glowed in their red eyes. Their horses were also red, their manes and tails and eyes brimming with fire.
The leading horseman lifted his spear high. “We come,” he called, “the flame-lords of Culann, to do our duty to the Faerie Queen!” The flames shot from his spear and burned the sky.
Then Tania saw three more horsemen come riding from the second hole. But these were green, green to their skin and their hair and their spears, and they rode upon horses as green as poison.
“We come,” called the leader, lifting his spear, “lords of malachite, to do homage to our Queen!”
I know this! I’ve heard this before! But where? When . . . ?
And finally three horsemen all in yellow rode from the last of the mouths in the hillside, and everything about them was yellow, and their horses were yellow from withers to hooves, and a burnished yellow light leaped from their spearpoints.
“We come, lords of the amber sun, in fealty to the Queen of Erin!”
The nine riders entered the ring of rowan trees, their movements slow and stately as they circled Tania and Edric and the Green Lady and came to a halt. Their horses turned, facing inward, and nine spears were leveled, pointing toward Tania.
“This child would take my young knight from me,” called the Green Lady. “What would you do, flame-lords of Culann?”
“We would turn him to fire!” replied the red lord who had spoken first.
A shiver of fear ran through Tania. Turn him to fire?
The Green Lady looked at Tania, her eyes gleaming. “Hold him close, my child, and never let go—for if you do he is mine for all time!”
The Green Lady stepped back from where Edric knelt at her feet, and a second later flames leaped from the points of the red spears and poured down over Edric.
His mouth opened in a scream of utter agony as he writhed in the fire. Tania threw herself at him, on her knees, pressing him against her, enveloping him in her arms. She held on for what felt like an eternity.
Edric struggled against her, screaming. Tania’s eyes filled with acrid black smoke. It clogged her lungs, but still she clung onto him—refusing to surrender him to the Green Lady. The pain was appalling, but she would not give in.
I’ll never let you go! Never!
And then it was over and the flames were gone. She panted with shock, gradually realizing that there was no sign of injury to Edric’s face or body—that they were both whole and unhurt.
Before she could make a move, she heard the Green Lady’s voice, hissing like adders. “Burned to the bone and yet you cling on!” she spat. “There is great heart in you, child. But I am not done with you yet.” Her voice rose to a shout. “What would you do for your Queen, lords of malachite?”
“We would make him a serpent!”
There was a flare of green light, and suddenly Edric was a great writhing snake, his body as thick as Tania’s waist, his coils already tightening around h
er, squeezing the air from her lungs. And the worst of it was that, although the face of the serpent was distorted and hideous, it still bore traces of Edric.
The head reared; the eyes filled with malice. The snake opened its mouth wide and struck, its long fangs sinking into her neck.
Tania cried out as she felt the venom being pumped into her veins. Every instinct in her mind and body screamed for her to tear herself free of the squirming monster, but she would not.
It’s Edric! It’s my true love!
A coldness began to spread from her neck, a deadening coldness that crept across her shoulder and down her chest, burrowing deeper, moving toward her heart. Her heart stopped beating as the coldness surged around it. Her blood turned to ice, the air to stone in her lungs. Still she would not be overcome.
No! I’ll never let go. Never!
And then the snake was suddenly gone from in front of her eyes. She gasped, staring around, amazed to find herself alive and still holding Edric in her arms.
The Green Lady’s voice seethed with surprise and anger. “And still love endures!” she snarled. “But no more! Now I will have done with you, and death shall be your reward.” She lifted her voice in a commanding cry. “Lords of amber sun, do fealty to your Queen!”
“Become a savage beast!” shouted a voice. “Rend her to the bone!”
Fear struck Tania as Edric jerked and thrashed in her arms, his head twisting, his face stretching and distorting. His jaw stretched unnaturally toward her, the teeth snapping. Wiry hair began to bristle from his skin, and his eyes grew wild and yellow. With a sudden surge of power he threw her onto her back. He was on top of her; and he was a werewolf, huge and shaggy and stinking, but still with a face that was half wolf and half Edric. The monster fought her wildly as she tried to defend herself, its bared fangs striking against her cheek, its open maw spraying foul spittle over her face. She cried out, feeling the raw power of its limbs as it reared over her, the mouth a gaping red hole, the eyes slithers of vicious yellow light.
