Shade and Sorceress (39 page)

Nia tucked the covers round Eliza, for the sofa had become a bed, and went herself to a large bed across the room and lay down. The tiger stayed by the fire, watching them. Eliza’s sobs subsided. She lay in the bed shaking with the horror of what she had experienced. How close she had come to just
allowing
Nia inside her, where nobody belonged! She thought helplessly of the vial around Nia’s neck, but she knew better than to imagine she would be able to get it from her. She would have to find another way. She had found her way into the room that held her mother without Nia’s intending it. That meant that Nia’s Illusions were not impermeable, and least of all when she was tired or perhaps asleep. Eliza was exhausted, but she knew she couldn’t stay here, couldn’t wait until the Sorceress was rested and awake. She pinched herself to keep awake and thought of the awful prying she had felt. The mere thought made her nauseous and kept her from drifting off to sleep. When she thought she had waited long enough she sat up in bed. Nia lay still in the dark; her eyes were wide open but she didn’t seem to be looking at anything. Her breathing was slow and steady. The tiger was also asleep by the dying fire and the room was getting much colder. Perhaps, thought Eliza, if she found the coldest place, she would find the edge of the Illusion. And then it would be a matter of focus to be able to walk through it, eyes closed, following her instinct. She walked from wall to wall, touching them gently. All the walls were very cold now and she could almost see her breath in the room. But when she shut her eyes and tried to feel where to go she had no idea. She took different positions round the room, creeping to and fro, until Nia said sleepily, “Eliza,
will
you stop scuttling about like a rat? There’s no way out of here for either of us.”

~

The following days and nights were a blur of agony. She woke with knives inside her, each blade determined to pry her apart. She could not escape their vicious and determined precision, their patient seeking. Sometimes tiny hands groped against the insides of her ribs or crept with their sharp little nails inside her skull, scraping and searching. And sometimes one shadowy grip wound its way through her like cold smoke, leaving her aching and terrified and nameless. All the time the tight hidden part of her tried to withdraw, tried to hide, but there was no escape and it was becoming thinner, looser, more exposed. But she fought, with all she had and all she was. The things tugged and pulled and pried inside her and she held on, she held on, she held on, until they withdrew and she was given some small respite, gasping on the floor, unseeing, deaf and speechless, helpless, all of her awaiting the next onslaught. There could be no thought of the future, of how long she could hold out, of how once she had played games in Holburg with Nell and gone home to have supper with her father. None of that existed in this prism of pain and desperate resistance. The sweet face that bent over her, the soothing voice that said, “Eat, you need to eat,” while spooning something, it didn’t matter what, into her dry, bloody mouth, was just a ghost, nothing she recognized. Time was lost to her and she to it. Her aching, weary body and her secret self and the constant threat were all that she knew. But some part of her managed sometimes a clear thought like a bright little pearl. One of those days or nights she came to herself lying on the floor not far from the sleeping white tiger, and she knew with absolute clarity that her strength was nearly at an end, that very soon now that ghostly hand would tear away the last of the protective shell, and then it would just be a chipping away of herself, slow and inevitable. She lay there with that awful knowledge until the tiger woke and stretched and padded over to growl at her. The Sorceress was trying on dresses in front of a long gilded mirror and chattering away merrily.

“I’m lucky that I can wear any colour but I don’t generally branch out too much. Black, white and red can’t be beat, especially if we’re talking dresses. Of course, sometimes it’s fun to wear something different and wild, but the classics are classics for a reason. You know, you look a little better this morning. I’m so glad. Would you like something special for breakfast?”

Eliza shook her head. Nia watched her for a moment, concerned, then came over and crouched next to her.

“Poor thing,” she said, stroking her forehead. “I didn’t want to do it this way. We’ll take a day off, shall we, and let you rest a bit. Then we’ll get it over quickly, like ripping off a bandage. It’s so much worse if you struggle and fight and do it inch by inch, isn’t it? Why don’t we do something nice today and then see if you’re ready to stop all this silly stubbornness? What do you say?”

Eliza tried to make a word but none came, and her mouth was too dry anyway.

“Have some juice first and then we’ll try to get some food in you. You haven’t been keeping anything down, that’s your trouble. No wonder you’ve got no energy. Poor little Smidgen. I do sympathize, you know. It’s been a long time, but I remember being your age and how it seemed everything in the worlds was bigger and stronger than me, and there was so much to be afraid of.”

As she drank the juice her senses awoke. She could feel how every part of her hurt, and how hot she was, feverish, except for the place where the dragon claw hung over her stomach. The claw was cold like the awful little hands. Nia was holding the glass of juice to her lips and her pendant and the vial of blood were dangling within Eliza’s reach. Of course it would have been useless to try and grab them, but looking at the shining vial something struck Eliza all at once. She remembered the look of loathing the King of the Faeries had given her when he saw her, and
why.
Because she had stabbed him in the foot with her dragon claw, the one that felt so cold. Her heart began to race.

“There, that’s better,” said Nia.

Eliza said hoarsely, “Will you show me some more dresses?”

Nia smiled at her lovingly. The smile pained Eliza because it was so beautiful, but Nia was killing her and she had to get away, she would do
anything
to get away. So when Nia turned back towards the mirror she snatched up the cold dragon claw and looked carefully at it. Sure enough, all around its end little snow crystals shimmered and the icy air cut into her hand. Looking closely, she could clearly see the glittering stain she had not noticed until now: the King of the Faeries’ blood.

~

All day, Eliza rested. Nia gave her pudding and tea and soft fruit and put movies with her favorite actors on the television for her to watch. They sat together on the sofa eating popcorn and watching tv most companionably, while Eliza kept her secret knowledge buried deep inside her.

Before Nia went to bed, she kissed Eliza tenderly and tucked the blankets around her. “I am so fond of you, Smidgen, and I do hate hurting you,” she said. “So tomorrow, let’s be sensible and just get it all over with as quickly as possible.”

“All right,” said Eliza.

Nia gave her another kiss on the forehead. “Good girl. Sweet dreams.”

Eliza waited. Weary as she was, it was no effort to keep herself awake. She would escape or she would perish tonight. That was all.

When the white tiger had relaxed before the fire and was snoring softly Eliza sat up in the bed and scraped at the claw with her fingernails. A sort of gritty, shining dust came off into her hand, and the more she gathered together, the more potent it seemed to become. The icy Arctic air bit into her hand now and she could hear and feel the wind whistling up her sleeve. As she gathered all she could from the claw she knew also, with absolute certainty, that the closest she could get to the barrier and the end of the Sorceress’s power was where the tiger lay before the fire. He would be keeping guard. Nia slept with her eyes wide open as always. What Eliza needed was not stealth but speed. Her mind was racing and she feared her thoughts alone might wake the Sorceress before she had time to act. It would have to be like jumping off the cliff in the south of Holburg – she had to do before she knew she was going to do it. As soon as she had a dry little pile of Faery blood in her hand she leaped off the bed and ran straight for the tiger. He woke, rearing up, and she leaped over him and into the fire, casting the handful of blood ahead of her.

She landed not on fire but on snow. She could still see the fireplace and the flames and the wall, but shimmering beneath them like a hazy mirage was an expanse of white. She heard the tiger snarl and a sudden sharp cry from Nia. The Illusion changed quickly from thing to thing: stone walls and the ocean and boiling lava and a pit of snakes and a rocky cliff but it made no difference, she could sense and see the snowy path straight through where the Faery blood had fallen. It was a matter of seconds. She ran full-tilt through the snow and the Illusions and then her feet seemed to tangle together and she fell forwards. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the Sorceress bounding towards her on the back of the tiger. She came to a halt just a foot from Eliza and struck the air with her fist. Some tight invisible fabric in the air buckled and quivered beneath the blow and Eliza realized that she had fallen just outside the Mancers’ barriers.

“You’ll be dead in five minutes if you stay out there,” said Nia fiercely. Eliza knew it was true – she could barely move for the cold that struck her to the bone. But she also knew she’d rather freeze to death than ever feel those little hands prying about inside her again.

“Come back in where it’s warm,” began the Sorceress in a wheedling tone. Then she stopped herself short and laughed bitterly. “Of course you won’t. You’re better than that. You’ll freeze to death instead and when I break out of here I’ll have to step over your frozen corpse, poor Smidgen.”

Eliza struggled to her feet and turned her back on the beautiful woman astride the white tiger. It was the most tremendous act of will of her life, to walk while the cold drove into her, battered her, leaching the very life from her. But to lie down, to give up, was to die instantly, and so she kept walking, even when she began to feel warm and drowsy, she kept walking, and only when she saw a winged shape circling overhead in the bright Arctic sky did she allow herself to fall again and slip into unconsciousness.

~ Chapter 22 ~

Eliza woke up
in her own bed in Holburg. For a strange, vertiginous moment she couldn’t remember where she had been or what had happened. But as she crossed from sleeping to waking she felt a hundred aches and pains reminding her of her ordeal. Her hands and feet were bandaged and she was bruised and sore. She could recall only brief flashes of her journey from the Arctic: hanging from the gryphon’s talons over endless mountain ridges, Charlie feeding her something soft and tasteless by a roaring fire, a fever that had consumed her, confused visions that had plagued her. Her father was sitting by the bed. As soon as she stirred he was leaning over her with an anxious, searching look.

“Eliza? Can you hear me?”

“Of course I can,” she said, a bit grumpily because he was almost shouting. He laughed out loud and scooped her out of bed into a great big hug that made her gasp with pain, but he didn’t notice and she didn’t really care. She threw her arms around him.

~

Eliza’s father helped her into the living room. Nell and Charlie were talking in low voices on the narrow sofa and her mother sat in a wheelchair with Kyreth behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder. Rea’s hand was neatly bandaged now. Eliza felt suddenly shy and confused. Nell and Charlie leaped to their feet at the same time, jostling each other and taking turns to hug her and barrage her with questions: what happened, how did she get away, was it awful, was she all right.

“I think I’m okay,” Eliza stammered. “What happened to my hands and feet?”

“Frostbite,” said Rom. “You won’t lose any fingers or toes though. Charlie found you in time, thank the Ancients.”

“But
how
did you escape?” asked Charlie. “I was out there for days trying to find a way back in, aye, and then all of a sudden, there you were!”

Eliza held up the dragon claw, which still hung around her neck.

“Remember when I stabbed the King of the Faeries in the foot?” she said. “The dragon claw still had blood on it. Faery blood is sort of like the antidote to Illusion.” Her knees went suddenly weak and she leaned on her father. “I need to sit down.”

He helped her to the sofa. Nell and Charlie squeezed in on either side of her and set up their insistent questioning again. She told them as much as she could bear to. She was vague about what exactly the Sorceress had done to her, but her eyes met her mother’s briefly and she knew that Rea understood.

“Poor Eliza, you look like hell, aye,” said Nell.

Eliza managed to laugh and say, “Thanks a lot.”

It felt strange to laugh. She was glad to have her friends on either side of her, her father perching on the arm of the sofa, but eventually she had to face the other two in the room. She took a deep breath and turned towards her mother.

“Are you okay?” she asked awkwardly.

“I’m here,” said Rea. “That’s enough.”

She spoke as if just finding words was painful, and her brow creased with effort. Eliza wondered if she should hug her but it felt too strange.

As if she knew what Eliza was thinking, Rea said, “You’re my daughter, but we can’t remember each other. We’re like strangers.” She took in a deep, shuddering breath, as if rallying her strength. “We’ll just have to start over.”