Last Car to Annwn Station (13 page)

“That may be a problem,” Ellie said. “Though the
swynwraig
is the only one who can open the door, the Lord of Llysllyn controls the door to Annwn itself. To reach it, we’ll need to enter his hall.”

“So, what’s the good news?” Jill asked.

“The Lord will kill you quick and painless should he catch you,” Kravis said with a smile.

“Oh, goody.”

“I, on the other hand, will be tortured beyond endurance and tossed into the mortal world to die.”

Ellie sighed. “Could you be any more pessimistic?”

“Yes. I am not one of his kinsmen.” Kravis reached for the door and pulled it open. Sticking his head inside, he called out. “Lady Mirallyn! It is Kravis. I bear news and bring guests.”

Jill followed him through the door.

The room might have been any sitting room, except the furniture grew from the same tree that shaped the house. Jewel-toned cushions and pillows adorned the many sitting and lounging surfaces. Tapestries of woodlands and other landscapes hung on the walls. Jill looked closely at one of a deep green forest. The leaves on the trees seemed to actually move, rustling in the breeze. She gasped when she saw a pair of silver eyes on a bark-brown face peer back at her before it vanished into the forest. Jill blinked and stepped away.

Ellie nudged her shoulder. “You shouldn’t stare too long into the weave, lest you find yourself drawn in.”

Jill looked up as a new voice spoke.

“Tell me you bring glad tidings, Kravis ap Thimp.”

Jill felt herself go still inside. She had seen this woman before in a photograph. Less than five feet tall with silver hair to her knees, she was a vision of unearthly beauty in a long gown in the autumn colors of brown, orange and yellow.

Kravis removed his hat and gave her a small bow. “I fear, my lady, the news will but increase your sadness.”

Jill watched as the woman’s body stiffened, visibly preparing for the blow of Kravis’s words.

“Say on, then,” the woman whispered.

“The mortal magicians have broken the protection of Lowry’s trains. There is no trace of one daughter, and the white hounds have taken the other to Annwn.”

“Then we are doomed,” the woman said softly.

“I’m sorry, my lady. I failed to protect her.”

The woman shook her head. “I set you an impossible task. Our fate turns on Lord Murlannor, and he will neither deviate from his course nor listen to counsel.”

Ellie nod her head in agreement. Jill decided it was time to make her case.

“Excuse me,” Jill said, moving forward. “But some of us aren’t ready to give up yet.”

The small woman turned, locking her silver-green eyes on Jill. “Are you a Champion, to storm the Great Hall of Murlannor, Lord of the Llysllyn Court, and walk into the frozen wastes of fallen Annwn? Tell me, human, what part do you play in this tragedy?”

Jill stepped closer to the faerie wizard, moving into the smaller woman’s personal space and forcing her to take a step backward.

“I’m the woman who’s going to bring Mae home. I’m the woman who’s going to rescue your daughter. And you, lady, are going to help me.”

“And how do you propose we gain access to the gate to Annwn?” the woman asked, the disdain in her voice clear.

Kravis cleared his throat. “We could use the confusion of the accident to slip into the Hall and to the door to Annwn by stealth,” he said, echoing Ellie’s plan.

Ellie nodded. “The warriors and healers will be exhausted after dealing with the accident. We should wait for them to retire.”

Lady Mirallyn frowned. “The Lord and his Court will have long since abandoned the Great Hall for their beds and various clandestine gatherings. You would only need to avoid the night guard to gain access to the door. I can open it with a moment’s work. I need only place a bit of my blood on the seal to unlock it.”

Jill nodded. The plan to sneak into the Great Hall had a simple eloquence. She was sufficiently versed in television sitcoms and dramas to know that the more complicated a plan, the more likely it was to explode in everyone’s faces. That made for good comedy and pathos, which was the last thing Jill needed.

Ellie assured them she could manage the guards, and if all else failed, Kravis could provide a distraction. Jill and Lady Mirallyn needed to reach their goal; Ellie and Kravis could be left behind if necessary.

Mirallyn suggested they wait for at least another hour before they began their raid, which Kravis agreed to. He sat and allowed his lady and employer to heal what injuries she could with her magic. Jill watched, fascinated, a thousand questions on her tongue, as the faerie wizard chanted in her musical voice. Mirallyn’s hand glowed blue and silver, and where she passed them over one of Kravis’s injuries, that wound healed. A few of his other injuries, most notably where he had been bitten by the C
n Annwn, resisted her healing, and had to be treated with more mundane measures.

While Mirallyn worked, she explained to Jill how she, Mirallyn of the Lake, had encountered and fallen in love with the mortal man, Thomas Wilson Malveaux, had born him twin daughters, and how one daughter was born with the power and magic of the fae, while the other was human and mundane. She spoke of the need to hide the magical child, named Fay by her father for her heritage, from the human mages who hunted her kind. A child with the blood of both races could be turned into a powerful weapon if controlled by those same mages.

And that, Mirallyn told her, was the cause of the parting between her and her human lover and human child. She needed to bring Fay to a place where she could hide and protect her, and that place was here at the lake, where Mirallyn was strongest. She knew Lord Murlannor would barely tolerate a half-blood child, and would never have allowed Mae, who was born a mundane human, to dwell in his kingdom. She had taken Fay into hiding while leaving Mae with her father and had never seen either again, too afraid to leave her refuge and risk exposing Fay to the growing threat of the human mages.

“But they captured her anyway,” Jill said at the end of Mirallyn’s tale. She noted Kravis, wearing clean bandages and looking much healthier, slipped out the door.

“Yes.” Mirallyn sighed. “I told her of her heritage, explained to her about the world of her birth. Fay is, has always been, curious and prone to act impulsively. She became determined to see the human world. She slipped past her watchers and found a way to one of the doors. I suspect the magicians snatched her up almost immediately.”

“Is it that easy to cross over to the other side?” Jill asked.

“Her blood,” Ellie said. “It is the same blood that flows in Lady Mirallyn. The wards and locks responded to her magic because it was similar enough to her mother’s, despite the protection we put in place.”

“An occurrence I should have foreseen,” Mirallyn said, cleaning her hands on a bright orange towel and putting away her medicines and supplies.

Jill chewed her lower lip for several seconds before she responded. “Why don’t you—or someone else—go after her? For that matter, why are you all sitting around while the mages pick you off one by one? You’ve got magic and those guards I saw looked competent. Why don’t you fight back?”

“Fear,” Ellie said. “The mages have defeated out Champion. Without Gwynn ap Nudd to lead them, my people are too afraid to take to the field and confront the mages directly.”

Mirallyn nodded. “And I must stay and protect the doorways. If I fall to the human magicians—and I would, despite my skill with the art—then all of Llysllyn would be left open to their attacks. The Court would be overrun by the mages and our magic stripped away in a matter of days.”

“And my uncle will not risk any of his warriors or lesser wizards to rescue a half-blood child,” Ellie added. “Kravis tried to get in several times, but they were too strong in magic and too diligent in their defenses for him to overcome their guards and wards.”

“That is why we involved Maeve,” Mirallyn said softly.

“What!” Jill cried, standing and looming over Mirallyn. “You abandoned Mae, haven’t bothered to contact her to tell her you’re alive and she has a sister,
but you knew how to contact her?
”

Mirallyn nodded, her face impassive. “I could not reach out to Maeve. I could not contact her for fear that our enemies might see and realize her importance, but I did set my agents to watch and guard her should she somehow manifest magic later in life.”

“But when
you
needed help, you happily involved her in something dangerous that she didn’t even understand!” Jill glared at Mirallyn. “Did you send those streetcars to Mae?”

“No,” Ellie whispered. “Lowry’s cars appeared to Mae for reasons we do not know. We—” the little winged woman paused, her eyes wide as Jill rounded on her.

“You were in on this too?” Jill asked quietly.

“We all were,” Kravis said from the doorway. “I made sure Mae got those files for the magician’s daughter. We wanted Mae to bring your mortal authorities and laws to bear on the mages. If they searched the Arneson home and found Fay, they would have removed her and then I could have snatched her away and back to safety.”

“Well, all you managed to do was nearly get Mae killed a couple of times!”

Kravis grimaced. “I’ve been in your world too long. The hounds have my scent and I led them right to Mae. I’m terribly sorry, Jill Hall.”

Jill shook her head, some of her ire deflating. “No. I think Hodgins and the Arnesons were afraid Mae was going to do just what you wanted her to. I think they set the hounds to stop her.”

“Is the way to the door clear?” Mirallyn asked her bodyguard.

“Yes, at least as clear as we can expect. The Court has retired for the night,” Kravis said.

“Then we should act now.” Mirallyn looked at Jill. “We can continue our discussion later. Now we need to find Mae and bring her from ruined Annwn.”

Jill walked across the moonlit gardens with her escort, moving silently in the darkness until they reached the living oak palace of the Lord of Llysllyn. She leaned over Kravis’s shoulder, studying the soldiers on nightwatch.

“There’s only the three of them,” Kravis said. “Maybe we should wait for them to move farther away.”

“The longer we wait, the worse it could be for Mae.” Jill was fed up with waiting. She wanted to move.

Lady Mirallyn touched Jill on the arm, feather light and lightning quick. “Patience. If we are discovered, it will not go well for any of us.”

“Lady Rhyania of the Falls would give us shelter and sanctuary,” Ellie said.

“You and Mirallyn, perhaps,” Kravis said, watching the three guards as they went about their rounds. “For Jill and me, it would be a swift stroke of the sword and our heads in a basket.”

“I’d rather not dwell on my own death,” Jill replied.

Kravis smirked at her. “Me either, but there it is.” He turned back to the guards. “They’re moving. Be ready to run for the doors.”

Jill placed a hand on the short faerie’s back. She wanted to be moving as soon as he was. She trusted Ellie and Lady Mirallyn to keep up and find their way, but Jill was in a strange and potentially hostile environment. The last thing she wanted was to be separated from the other three.

The muscles under her hand bunched in anticipation, signaling Kravis’s intent to charge. Her own muscles tightened in response. Kravis suddenly surged forward, faster than Jill could have imagined his squat frame could move. She hesitated for only an instant and set off after him, trying to run and be silent at the same time.

Jill and her three companions rushed up the wooden steps and into what Jill could only describe as a palace grown from the trunks of a series of birch, elm, maple and oak trees. Jill wished she had time to focus on the beauty around her. She wished she could climb these steps slowly under a bright sun and drink in the splendor and magic of this world.

Instead she was skulking about like a thief. She reached the tall wooden doors three steps behind Kravis. Lady Mirallyn reached the doors next, Ellie bringing up the rear. Lady Mirallyn placed her hand on the door and began to chant in a quiet whisper.

Jill glanced nervously over her shoulder, looking for the guards to return. She reached into her coat and withdrew her baton. Jill was under no illusions about her ability to fight her way out of this place. The guards were well-armed and businesslike. They would cut her down if things became physical, but she would not let them stop her from reaching Mae without a fight, even if it was a doomed one.

There was a soft wooden groan and one of the large doors opened slightly, allowing them to slip inside. Mirallyn stepped through the door as if she had been announced by a herald, her head high and body language confident. Kravis shadowed the wizard. Jill followed, with Ellie behind.

They walked along the walls, moving through hallways of living wood: gold and brown decorated with green and yellow leaves and hung with tapestries. Small trees and live flowers dotted the pathways. There was subdued light, though Jill could not determine its source.

They reached a set of large oak doors bound in silver.

“I don’t like this,” Kravis said. “There should be guards posted at the Great Hall.”