Faerie Path #6: The Charmed Return (22 page)

A voice called from high on the mainmast. “Something comes! Look yonder!”

Tania strained up and saw an arm pointing landward. She ran to the rail along with many others. A sinuous white shape was undulating its way down the beach.

“’Tis a dragon, be most sure!” someone called. “To arms, lest it attack!”

“No!” Edric sprang onto the ship’s rail. “I know this beast. It will not do us any harm.”

“The Great Salamander,” Tania said breathlessly as the long, low creature came to the water’s edge and slithered into the foaming surf. The last time she had encountered this uncanny beast, it had used its claws to rip her back open and release her wings. Then it had shown her the way to Tirnanog. “It is a friend!” she called.

The white shape glided through the water and came climbing easily up the side of the hull. People backed away as it rose above the rail. Its tongue flickered and its bulging yellow eyes stared this way and that.

Lithely it came sliding onto the deck, its white scales gleaming, its long wedge-shaped head turning from side to side. From its blunt muzzle to the end of its wide, ridged tail it was at least three yards long; it was no surprise that almost all the Faerie folk drew away from it in alarm.

Cordelia did not shrink back. She stood gazing at the salamander in wonder and delight. “Hail and well met, sirrah,” she said, bowing to the creature. “My name is Cordelia Aurealis. I would know you better.”

“Who summoned me?” hissed the salamander, and many gasped and stared to hear the animal using human speech.

“I did,” said a voice from behind the crowd. The people parted, and Eden stepped forward. “And are you the door-warden of Tirnanog?”

The gimlet eyes of the beast turned to Tania. “Ask her,” it hissed. “She knows the pain and the peril of knocking upon that door!” The tongue flickered again, and Tania almost felt that the creature was smiling a sinister smile.

“Will you show us the way to the Divine Harper’s land?” Tania asked.

The salamander raised a foreleg, and the long curved claws glinted like scimitars. “Would you go there again, Alios Foltaigg?” it asked. “Would you revisit the agony and the ecstasy?”

“Nay, good beast,” said Oberon, moving through the throng. “My daughter’s trials are done for the moment. It is I who would speak with the Harper. I have old pledges to renew.”

The Salamander looked long and hard at him. “And do you know the price of your petition?”

“I do.”

“And you’ll pay it willingly?”

“I will.”

There was a pause. “So be it,” said the Salamander.

It glided across the deck, and everyone fell back to let it pass. At the far rail it lifted its long head and roared. A gush of golden fire issued from its mouth, streaming up into the sky.

The flames condensed and hardened and resolved into golden steps that led a long winding course into the clouds. And Tania saw that one of the clouds hung immobile in the upper airs and that it shone with a blinding light, as though a sun was trapped in its towering dome.

Titania came to the King’s side, and for a long moment they stood together, gazing into each other’s eyes without speaking. Then Oberon turned and gazed over all the people gathered there.

Tania felt a sudden unease. She grabbed her father’s hands. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

He smiled and rested his hand warmly against her cheek. “Nothing is wrong. All will be put into balance, child. Have no fear. The folk of Faerie will be Immortal once more. All will be made well.”

She swallowed hard. “And you’ll be okay?”

“I will.” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

“It is time!” hissed the Salamander. “The path is clear, but it will fade quickly. Go! Go, lord of Faerie!”

With a final lingering look at his daughters and at the Queen, Oberon turned and began to walk with slow grace up the burning golden stairway. And as he rose from step to step, so the stair burned away and vanished behind him.

Everyone watched in silence as Oberon climbed into the blue sky, until at last he was just a black shape against the burning whiteness of the cloud. Then he seemed to step over some shining threshold, and the blazing whiteness closed in on itself like an iris and the stairway was gone.

Tania turned to where the Salamander had been standing, but the beast was gone.

“What are your orders, your grace?” Admiral Belial asked the Queen.

She started as though his voice had shaken her out of deep thoughts. She turned, her eyes shining. “We shall wait,” she said. “Word will come betimes. Be most sure—when it is done, we shall know.”

Tania found Edric standing at the prow of the ship, gazing out over the ocean.

“I was wondering something,” he said as she snuggled against him.

“Like what?”

“I was wondering what price the Harper will make the King pay for renewing the covenant.”

“We’ll know soon enough—one way or the other,” she said.

They stood together looking at the sunlit ocean for a quiet moment as it rippled away and away into forever.

“Edric?”

“Yes?”

“Ask me.” She looked into his brown eyes, her voice husky with emotion. “Ask me again.”

He turned, taking her in his arms. “Ask you what?”

“You know.” She traced the contours of his cheeks and eyebrows with her fingertips. “You
know
.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice trembling.

“I am.”

He hesitated, as though summoning all his courage. “Tania Aurealis, Princess of Faerie—Anita Palmer, daughter of Mortal parents—will you marry me?”

A gladness like leaping flames filled her. “Yes,” she said, lifting her face to kiss him. “Yes, I will.”

About the Author

Frewin Jones
has always believed in the existence of “other worlds” that we could just step in and out of if we only knew the way. In the Mortal World, Frewin lives in southeast London with a mystical cat called Siouxsie Sioux. Visit Frewin online at www.allanfrewinjones.com.

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