Faerie Path #6: The Charmed Return (19 page)

Prince Lear—his face so like the King’s and yet so broken and warped by wickedness and hatred.

The crowds were hushed, even Oberon and Titania sat silent in their thrones as they watched Lear reach out his hand toward Tania.

“It is time,” he said, his words only just audible over the horses in her head. “Time for the twining of the worlds. Time for me to come into my own!”

Tania felt the power of the Quellstone Spire flowing into her body, saturating her.

She needed no subtle side step now to breach the worlds. She felt the power bursting out of her, blazing from her every pore, convulsing her as it roared through the cavern.

She saw a second image superimposed over the cavern.

A London sky darkened at noon. A curving concrete walkway and a tree hanging over a canal lock. A stretch of calm gray-blue water contained by concrete banks. Redbrick buildings with slate roofs and white windows. A long wall colored with abstract patterns of blue and yellow. A gray concrete rampart rising at the end of the canal. Wooden lock gates. Flags hanging, windless. The tricolored flag of Great Britain folded in on themselves like gaudy wings.

A small group of young people were sitting in a patch of grass by the canal.

As Tania saw them, they stared around themselves and scrambled to their feet, huddling together in sudden terror as the sights of the Cavern of Heartsdelving were revealed to them under their own Mortal sky.

She heard Lear laughing.

She was seeing Camden Lock—part of the Regent’s Canal that wound itself through North London. The flags flew over the market where she and Jade and their friends often went shopping. She lived only a few streets away from here.

If she were able to run, she could be with her Mortal parents in a matter of minutes. But she could not run.

She turned her head.

There was a long, low white building alongside the canal. A plain white bridge with black railings and traffic moving slowly along a tarmac road. Three young women staring at her with eyes full of fear. They were all wearing jeans. A backpack hung from the shoulder of one of them. Another had her blond hair tied back with a colored band. Three ordinary young Mortal women who were seeing impossible things under the longest solar eclipse of the twenty-first century.

“To me, knights of Gralach Hern!” shouted Lear, his face exultant as he turned with outstretched arms to embrace his new dominion.

The Red Knights rode slowly forward through the people of Faerie, and as they crossed the lake the hooves of their horses clanged as if they were hundreds of hammers beating on sheets of iron.

Their swords drew with a hiss as they circled the island, lifting their weapons high in honor to their tyrant King.

Tania saw the three young women turn and run in terror. She saw a sword rise and fall. The blond woman fell with a cry.

The first blow of the conquest of the two worlds.

The first Mortal blood on Tania’s hands.

“Father!” Tania did not know where she found the strength to cry out to the King. “Father—don’t let this happen!”

But King Oberon and Queen Titania and all the others of Faerie were gazing around themselves, their faces full of wonder and pleasure as the two worlds blended and melted together. All thoughts of the deadly effects of this dark entwining had been wiped from their minds. Lear controlled them utterly.

Rathina’s face swam in front of Tania’s eyes. “How marvelous it is!” she cried, her eyes glowing. “Did you ever think to live to see such a wondrous thing, Tania?”

Lear laughed, and for the first time the knights of Gralach Hern lifted their voices in a deadly chorus.

“Death!” they howled. Their horses rose up, hooves beating the air. “Death to the Mortal filth! Death to them all!”

Chapter XXX

Tania watched, crushed by her own impotence, as the Red Knights of Gralach Hern wheeled their steeds around and went galloping along the towpath of the canal, cutting down everyone who stood in their way.

Galloping hooves.

Horses on the streets of London racing under a choked and smothered sun.

Horses in Tania’s mind. The stallions of the darkling moon beating at her brain. Beating at her heart. Beating at her soul.

Beyond even the furthermost shred of hope, Tania hung between Rathina and Titus. She felt a fire kindle in her chest—a malignant fire she knew would grow swift and fierce to burn her body to ash.

She saw an image of Mary Palmer, her face sad, her voice regretful.
“If only you’d made up your mind to stay with us, Anita.”

“I’m so sorry. . . .”

Titania, now, her face next to Mary Palmer’s.
“If not for that first foolish side step on the eve of your birthday, Tania, all would have been well. . . . That is what began it all. . . .”

“Is this all my fault?”

The voices of her two mothers in unison
. “It is . . . all . . . your fault. . . .”

Tania lifted her head, anger smoldering in her as she stared into Lear’s exultant face. “They
don’t
think that,” she snarled. “You’re lying to me again!” The anger ignited and took hold. “Is that all you can do? Tell lies to make people do what you want?” She bridled her head back and spat full in Lear’s face. “You’re pathetic! Without your tricks you wouldn’t get a stray dog to follow you!”

“Way to go, Tania!” said Jade.

Lear stepped closer to her, so she could feel his breath on her face, so she could see the ugly fire in his eyes.

“I was going to let the flames of the Quellstone Spire consume you, child,” he snarled. “But I have changed my mind.” His hands closed around her throat. “Your work is done here, seventh daughter of a seventh daughter—the ways between the worlds are open and they shall remain open for all eternity. It is time for you to die.”

The cruel hands tightened around her throat. Titus and Rathina held her arms, Cordelia smiled on as if witnessing no more than a fond embrace.

Jade writhed impotently, tears flooding her cheeks. “Murderer! You filthy murderer!”

A voice spoke in the black bedlam of Tania’s mind, like a shaft of light through thunderclouds.

“Hold on! Keep it together for a few more seconds. I’m almost there!”

Edric?

No. That was impossible. It was a final cruelty inflicted on her by Lear. Edric’s voice at the moment of death—Edric’s voice to remind her of what she was going to lose . . .

Galloping hooves, as loud in her head as the colliding of planets.

And then, high in the wall, she thought she saw a bright point of light.

She thought she heard the rumbling of falling stone.

The cavern trembled. The point of light widened and sent out threads across the cavern’s wall. Great hulks of rock slid and fell. Blasts of stone sprayed out like shrapnel. Smoke belched. The world shook.

And away beyond Lear Tania saw the wall of the cavern come bursting in, showering rock, revealing a world of shining blue light. A man appeared riding a great black stallion. It was Edric, one hand raised, blue fire leaping from his fingers.

Lear turned, snarling. The blue fire came roaring through the air like a meteor. Lear fell back, lifting a hand and blocking the sapphire flames with his own red fire.

What was this? More illusions at life’s end? More of Lear’s tricks?

“Tania, fight back!”
Edric’s voice was in her head.
“Use your mind to close the ways between the worlds! Quickly now! Before it’s too late!”

Not an illusion. This was real. This was happening!

The hooves were gone from her brain, and she could think clearly again. There was a white light behind her eyes.

Edric came galloping across the black lake, spraying his blue fire at Lear, the Dark Arts of Faerie competing with the ancient sorceries of Gralach Hern, and for the moment, driving Lear back.

There was chaos and uproar in the cavern as the people of Faerie scattered from the spewing gush of rock and stone. Not even Lear’s deceptions could blind them to the devastating power of Edric’s arrival. Tania saw that he was not alone—at his back were a hundred knights, all dressed in the black livery of the Earldom of Weir. All armed with swords and spears and axes.

Tania wrenched herself free of Titus and Rathina. They didn’t try to restrain her—they were staring at the horsemen in alarm and disbelief.

She saw the tumbling rocks of the Cavern of Heartsdelving splashing into the Regent’s Canal, sending up flukes of water as the people fled, Mortals mingling with Faerie folk as they fought to save themselves. Several of the Red Knights were caught by the rocks, twisting and falling and disappearing under the avalanche. Horses screamed in terror, their hooves kicking at the air. Glass splintered in windows all along the canal. Cars came to a slewing halt on the road bridge, the passengers stunned with fear as rocks rained down on them, clanging on roofs and hoods, smashing through windshields. Pedestrians scrambled over one another in panic, cowering in doorways or stumbling in headlong flight along the pavements.

“Tania!” It was Jade’s voice. “Shut it down! For god’s sake, shut it down!”

Cordelia stood close by, staring around herself, her face blank with disbelief. Titus had drawn his crystal sword. A dreadful light of understanding was growing in Rathina’s eyes.

Tania glanced over to where she had last seen Oberon and Titania and Eden—but there was too much chaos for her to spot them now in the pandemonium of the rushing crowds and the rolling pall of smoke that rose above the bouncing and tumbling rocks.

Edric’s wild charge had been brought to a shuddering halt. Lear was fighting back, a fist of red fire beating now upon Edric’s blue light, making him rock in the saddle, making the hooves of his horse slip and slither on the black lake so that horse and rider were close to going down.

The other riders of Weir were scattering, pursuing the Red Knights, swords whirling, spears flashing in the dark air.

Tania turned, pressing her open hands to the Quellstone Spire. And now that her bare flesh was in contact with the power of the Spire and her mind was clear, the full force of the spirits of Faerie flowed into her and became part of her.

She forced her mind to find a calm place in all the riot. A small empty spot where her thoughts could form in peace.

She concentrated in the special, impossible way that her gift allowed.

Focus on London. Think of walking between the worlds. Think of stepping out of Faerie and into the Mortal World. Leave Faerie behind! Think! Think hard!

Reality distorted and twisted around her. The sounds and sights of Faerie sloughed away. The Quellstone Spire was still hard and smooth under her hands, but the ground beneath her feet hardened into concrete. The crashing of rocks was muted—the shouting and calling of Faerie voices drifted off.

The Quellstone Spire had traveled with her through the realms, but the Cavern of Heartsdelving was gone, and Tania stood panting and shaking under the London sky, darkened at noon by the Pure Eclipse.

But not all things of Faerie had been shed. She had closed the ways between the worlds, but not before mayhem had been let loose on the streets of Camden Town. The air was filled with shouting and screaming and the blare of car horns—by the sound of hooves on tarmac, the slash of swords, the cries of warfare.

Rocks and boulders scattered the ground. Smoke drifted. On the patch of grass where the picnickers had sat, Lear and Edric continued their deadly struggle, the red and the blue fires crackling and flaring—the two protagonists half hidden in contesting flames. Edric was being slowly beaten back as Lear’s leaping fires rained down on him.

But they were not the only fugitives from Faerie. Tania could see the knights of Gralach Hern galloping along the towpath and forcing their steeds up the stone stairway to the road-bridge—the horses stamping among the snarled traffic as terrified Mortals fled and were cut down. A man in a business suit stumbled and fell under the hooves. A girl in a summer dress screamed as a sword pierced her. Two teens in T-shirts tried to shelter an elderly man. A woman snatched her child from a stroller and cowered in a doorway as the horsemen cantered past.

But it was not only Lear’s horsemen that had come through with Tania—many knights of Weir were also on the bridge and towpath, riding the red devils down, crystal swords striking sparks from the swords of red iron.

Jade was there, too, gasping for breath. And Titus and Rathina and Cordelia, all of them dragged through in Tania’s wake.

Rathina was the first to act. “All lies! It was all deception and lies!” she cried. Snarling with rage, she leaped over the strewn boulders to where one of the Red Knights lay crushed by the rockfall. She ripped his iron sword from his hand, spinning, seeking an enemy.

Cordelia staggered, her face blanched. “Tania! I forgot . . . I was not strong enough to resist. . . .”

“That doesn’t matter now!” shouted Jade. “What matters is getting rid of these murderers!” She stared at Tania. “Can you
think
them out of here?”

“No. It doesn’t work like that,” Tania cried.

“Okay.” Jade’s voice was determined. “We’ve gotta find some weapons.” She pointed to the stone stairway that led up onto the bridge. “You guys coming?” she called, leaping up the steps.

Cordelia and Titus chased after her, Titus brandishing his sword.

Tania ran as well but in the opposite direction—toward her embattled Edric.

Lear was pouring his fire over Edric, and despite all that he could do to defend himself, Edric was being beaten back, his cries filled with pain and rage. His horse reared, neighing in terror, its hooves at the very edge of the canal. Blue light still struggled in the deluge of red flame, but Tania could see from Edric’s stricken face that his reserves of power were fading fast.

Even as she came close, Lear let loose a final, devastating explosion of fire. It detonated in the air, sending fireballs streaking across the sky, inundating Edric and his horse in a cataract of flame. If not for the protective powers of the Dark Arts, he would have been burned alive.

Tania reeled, blasted off her feet by the concussion. She heard Edric’s horse scream. Edric arched from the saddle. She heard Lear howling with laughter.

Tania skidded along the concrete, her body seared by flame and battered by hot air. She hit against a wall, gasping and choking, the breath beaten out of her.

Fireballs were raining down on either side of the canal, crashing through roofs, bursting through windows, filling the world with flame.

Lear stood over Edric with his arms raised, his fingers on fire.

“Little boy!” Tania heard his voice over the crackle of the fires. “Little boy with his little box of tricks!” He gestured toward the sprawled body of the dead horse. A kind of lifeless animation twitched through the fallen animal. On broken legs and with bones protruding bloody through its hide, the horse rose to its hooves, its eyes on fire, its mane a trail of red flame.

Lear swung himself up into the saddle. “Now we shall ride!” he shouted. “The child may have thwarted the greatest of my ambitions for the moment, but I shall be lord of this realm, come what may!”

Lear urged the dead horse onward, to gallop along the towpath toward the stairs onto the bridge, a flame jutting from his fist like a sword of red fire.

Tania shrank into herself as the hooves clattered past her, but Lear did not see her—or he chose to ignore her as he urged the undead horse on to join up with the rest of his knights.

She lifted herself up, half blinded by fire and smoke, half deafened by the noise of the leaping flames.

Edric lay at the edge of the canal. All around him the concrete was scorched black and riven with deep, smoking cracks.

“Oh god—no!” Tania scrambled through the burning debris, crawling on all fours. She leaned over Edric, looking down at his face, grimed and scarred by the conflict. His eyes were wide open, staring at nothing, the silver reflecting the flames.

She held his face between trembling hands. “No!” She bent over, kissing him, her tears falling on his skin. “No! My love! Not dead! I won’t let you be dead!”

But there was no breath in his body, no flicker in his unseeing eyes.

She cradled his head in her arms, her face to the dark sky.

“Help me! Please!” she shouted, not even knowing who or what she was calling to. “He can’t die!”

A faint white glow vied with the ruddy flames. So wispy and insubstantial that she could hardly see it. But she knew it was there; she could feel it as much as see it. A white mist curling protectively around her—and in the mist she saw many faces. Some she recognized; some she knew only in her heart. Ann was there, and so were Georgina and Flora and Gracie and Marjorie—and with them were a host of others—the solemn faces of everyone she had ever been, their sad eyes filled with light, their souls singing. And among them was the girl with her own face: the floating, brilliant spirit of Princess Tania.