The Immortal Realm (18 page)

She could feel his hand resting on her shoulder, and she could hear him breathing deep and slow. Asleep, she guessed.

She felt that she ought to move, to sit up, to check on Cordelia. But it was hard not to surrender to her drowsiness, to drift back into the warm embrace of sleep….

Rathina will wake me if anything happens with Cordelia…and she'll keep an eye on the time…and I will get up in a minute…in just a minute….

 

She was running. Running for her life along a deep, dark valley. All around her the hills rose like fangs against a bloodred sky. She couldn't remember how she had got here; all she knew was that she had to run. Was something chasing her? Did she have to be somewhere?

Don't know. Don't care. Keep running!

The whole world shuddered around her and the stars trembled in the bleeding sky. She stumbled, losing
balance, feeling the reverberations rising through her body. It was as though, deep under the ground, some huge being was beating a vast iron gong—soundless, but as big as the moon.

And there was iron in her mouth, and her blood was burning and lightning was firing in her head. And then an impossibly deep voice intoned, the deadly words booming through the shivering air.

“The ways are shut!”

 

Tania awoke with a gasp, her whole body shaking. She opened her eyes to a wash of gray-blue light. She was lying on the floor, stiff and woolly-headed and with a taste in her mouth like rusty nails. Something had been draped over her shoulders. Connor's jacket.

She pushed herself up into a sitting position.

Day had come. The candles had been snuffed.

She turned in alarm and saw that Connor was leaning over the bed.

“Connor!” she gasped. “You idiot! Why did you let me sleep? It's daytime! You won't be able to get back!”

“Peace, sister,” said Rathina. “It was Master Connor's choice to stay.”

“No!” Tania shouted, wild with guilt. “Don't you realize? They've already shut the portals!” She scrambled to her feet. “I can't let this happen.” She ran for the door. “Oberon will listen to me. He'll open the portals again.”

Rathina leaped into her path, her arms spread out. “The Mortal knew what he risked,” she said. “The
King cannot open the ways again, Tania. They are closed for all eternity.”

Connor caught hold of her arm. “I couldn't just run away,” he said. “I had to know if the antibiotics are working.”

“Don't you understand?” cried Tania. “Faerie is closed off now; there's no way for you to get home!”

“I figured that one out,” Connor said flatly. “I'll worry about it later, if that's okay with you.”

“I should
never
have brought you here!”

“You had to!” he said sharply. “Don't blame yourself. This is not your fault. It was my decision to stop Rathina from waking you.”

Trembling and torn by remorse, Tania moved to the bed and looked down at her sister. “Was it worth it?” she asked. “Is she any better?” Cordelia's face was as pale as before. In fact, to Tania's eyes, she looked exactly the same. Her birds had moved away, some now perching on the headboard, others on the top of the four-poster rail.

“An apt question, Master Healer,” said Rathina. “What progress?”

“None that I can see,” Connor replied, his voice shaking. “I don't get it. By now she should have…” His words faded away.

“Why hasn't it worked?” Tania asked.

Connor looked at her. “I don't know. The antibiotics should have had some effect.” He reached down and pressed his fingers to the side of Cordelia's throat. He shook his head. “It doesn't make any sense.”

“Then your vaunted medicaments are no better than the gewgaws of Master Hollin,” Rathina said angrily. She glared at Tania. “What say you now, sister?”

“I don't know.” Tania looked at Connor. “Did you bring the wrong stuff?”

“No. I brought exactly the right stuff. But…but maybe our medicine doesn't work on these people.” His forehead wrinkled. “Maybe they have different body chemistry than us. I don't know the first thing about this world. Just because they look like us on the outside doesn't mean everything's the same under their skin.”

“Maybe you didn't give her enough?” suggested Tania. “Could you dose her up some more?”

“I've got another ampoule with me,” Connor said. “I could try it.” He nodded. “Yes. Maybe you're right. Maybe she needs another shot to get her kick-started. I certainly don't have any other ideas right now.”

The two sisters watched anxiously while Connor loaded the air-inoculator with his final ampoule of antibiotics.

He leaned over Cordelia, the inoculator ready in his hand.

A clamor sounded from beyond the door. There were raised voices and the dull thump of something striking against the other side of the panels.

“Hollin!” Rathina spat.

“No!” said Tania. “Not
now!”

The door burst open. Hollin stood there, his eyes burning. Behind him Tania could see his acolytes milling in the outer chamber. Two of them were holding a struggling Bryn by the arms.

“The she-witch has returned!” Hollin howled, pointing at Tania. “It is as I foretold! She has traveled to the Mortal World and brought back death and destruction!” His voice rose to a manic shriek. “See! The succubus has enslaved a Mortal to be our ruin. Even now he works against the potency of our healing rituals. The precious stones have been removed! Our rites are disrupted! Take them and bind them before they can do any more harm.”

He stepped aside as a dozen or more of his followers came pouring into the room, the white-wood staves ready in their fists, their faces full of blind fear and anger as they surged toward the bed.

“No!” shouted Tania. “It's not like that! You don't understand.”

“By what authority do you dare lay hands on a princess of Faerie!” shouted Rathina. “If the King knew of this, he would banish you to Ynis Maw for all time!”

Tania heard shrill cries and the fluttering of wings behind her as Cordelia's birds took to the air in consternation. She sprang forward and caught hold of the staff of the leading man, twisting it, wrenching it out of his hands. She leaped back, brandishing the heavy, unwieldy weapon.

“Stay back!” she shouted, scything the end of the staff through the air. “Connor! Give her the shot. Now!”

“Stop him!” howled Hollin. “He will steal the princess's soul! She will rise as a banshee from her deathbed—a foul, undead thing to haunt the world!”

A moan of fear came from the men. One of them leaned back, holding his staff like a javelin. His arm snapped forward and the loosed staff came cutting through the air. It struck Connor in the stomach, sending him spinning away from the bed with a grunt of pain. The inoculator fell from his fingers and clattered to the floor. He stumbled back, hit the wall, and slumped, arms folded over his stomach.

Rathina snatched up the staff and stood over Connor, her eyes gleaming. “Where are now the Warring Princesses!” she shouted. “Come! Learn the answer, men of Alba! I will crack your heads like eggs!”

The men began to circle Tania, their staves ready. She jabbed at them, backing off slowly, trying not to let them completely surround her. One pounced, his staff whistling through the air, aimed at her head. She brought her staff up and blocked it, but the blow jarred her to the bone, sending pain shooting to her shoulders.

“Do not fear them!” howled Hollin. “Paradise awaits those who defend the world against evil!”

A second man moved in on Tania, keeping low, swinging his staff at waist height. There was a
resounding crack as another staff fended the blow, and suddenly Rathina was at Tania's side, thrusting and parrying as Hollin's followers swarmed forward.

“Take them!
Destroy them!
”

Tania was vaguely aware of Hollin's voice, cracked and lunatic above the grunts and shouts of the men and the clack of wood on wood as she and Rathina held them off.

But there were so many of them. Rathina was fighting like a fury, the staff spinning in her hands, thudding against arms and legs, clashing against wood. Tania defended herself fiercely, but she found it hard to use all her strength and skills against these men. They were not the hideous undead Gray Knights of Lyonesse. Dangerous as they might be, these were
men
, not demons, and something made her hold back from using her full strength.

Tania felt a heavy blow to her thigh and almost immediately another staff struck the side of her head. She staggered, her leg throbbing and her head bursting with agony. She heard Rathina roar with rage, but a fog was coming over Tania's eyes, thick and red as blood. She fell across the bed, seeing for a moment Cordelia's ashen face. She pushed herself up again, flailing the air with her staff. A sharp crack across her knuckles jarred it out of her hands and she fell to her knees.

She heard Rathina give a cry of pain. She was aware of her crashing to the floor at her side.

She tried to get onto her feet, but three or four
staves pressed on her shoulders, holding her immobile.

She heard Hollin's voice. “And now let us rid ourselves of this pestilence ere she cast her sorceries upon us again! Lift her! Bear her to the window and cast her into the sea!”

“No!”
Struggling weakly, the pain in her head blotting out all other sensations, Tania felt herself being carried across the room.

“What madness is this!” bellowed a deep voice. “Release the princess! Put her down, I say, or your heads will pay the price!”

Tania was aware of being lowered to the floor and of Hollin's acolytes moving away from her. A sturdy figure knelt at her side.

“My lady Tania, are you hurt?” It was Earl Marshal Cornelius's voice. Tania peered blearily into his broad, red-bearded face. There was concern and outrage in her uncle's blue eyes as he helped her to her feet.

“I'm okay,” she murmured, pressing her hand to the side of her head. Her ears were ringing, and a dull hot pain filled her jaw on the side where the staff had struck her. “Have they hurt Rathina? Is she all right?”

“Buffeted but in one piece, sister,” came Rathina's weary voice. “Had I but my sword in hand their heads would have leaped like wheat at the harvest.” She turned on Hollin, who was cowering against the wall,
his fingers twitching. “And as for you, Master Healer, were you not a guest in this house, I would treat you as you would have treated my sister. And the fishes would be welcome to what was left after hard rock and seawater had done with you.”

Hollin's lips parted. “The she-witch has ensorcelled her also,” he gibbered. “The half-thing must be destroyed ere it taint us all!”

“Silence!” boomed Cornelius. “You have no dominion here, man of Alba. Get you to your master and take your craven minions with you.”

Hollin gathered his robes, his eyes fixing on Tania for a moment before he turned away. The man clearly loathed her—but there was terror there, too. “Lord Aldritch shall learn of this!” Hollin said as he strode from the chamber, his acolytes following silent and obedient.

“Don't worry,” Tania shouted after him, “so will Oberon!”

She crossed the room and crouched where Connor was sitting, grimacing and clutching his stomach.

“Are you all right?”

He winced. “I've been better.” He gave a weak smile. “No—I'm fine. Winded, that's all. What's a stick in the guts between friends?”

“I'm sorry you got hurt.”

“Forget it. I've been beaten up worse in a rugby scrum. Who were those guys? Ninjas?”

“Come on, they're gone now.” She drew him to his
feet. He flinched and clutched his stomach, but she could see that he was more shocked than injured.

She looked down for the injector. It had broken open on the floor and a foot had come down on it in the scuffle. The vial was cracked and the pale liquid had run out onto the floorboards. Cordelia would be getting no more antibiotics. Tania looked at her ailing sister. Bryn had come into the room and was at her side, holding her hand, kissing her fingers. The birds were perched all around them, even on her pillow and on his arms and shoulders.

“She is no better,” Bryn said. “The Mortal medicines have failed.”

“We don't know that for sure yet,” said Tania.

He looked up at her and there were tears in his eyes. “Do we not?”

The earl marshal's voice drew her attention away from the sickbed. “Princess Tania, it would seem that the Lord of Weir was right when he told the Conclave of Earls that you had gone into the Mortal World. I see from the outlandish clothes that you and your sister are wearing that you have indeed acted against the King's command and crossed between the worlds.”

“For the good, Uncle!” exclaimed Rathina. “For the good of all Faerie!”

“Others shall determine that.” Cornelius looked grimly at Connor. “And you have brought another Mortal into Faerie with you! Who is this man?”

“He's a Healer,” Tania explained, but her Uncle's
severe expression filled her with remorse. “I thought he would be able to help.”

“A Mortal Healer for a Mortal disease,” added Rathina.

“And has he helped?” asked Cornelius. “Princess Cordelia does not wake nor grow less pale.” His eyes were piercing as he looked at Tania. “Did your peradventure in defiance of your father's edict prove worthwhile, my lady?”

Tania felt herself wilt under his gaze. He was right. She had defied Oberon to no good purpose. The only effects of her trip to London would be to turn more people against her and to rob her of her father's trust. And worst of all her actions had left poor Connor stranded here for the rest of his life.

“The antibiotics should have kicked in by now,” Connor said. “I don't understand it.”

Cornelius showed no sign that he'd even heard Connor. “You will come with me to the Chamber of the Conclave of Earls, my lady Princess,” he said. “To answer in full to the Conclave for your misdeeds.”

“No!” Tania said. “If I'm going to be condemned, I want to hear it from the King and Queen themselves. Take me to my mother and father!”

The earl marshal bowed his head. “As you wish,” he said. “The King is in the Throne Room and the Queen is with him. But do not expect clemency, my lady. Your deeds have rocked the very foundations of this Realm, and even for the daughter of the King such disobedience carries with it a high penalty.”

 

As Tania walked down the long white carpet toward the throne, it felt as though the essence of the plague had seeped into the very walls of the room; even the air that she breathed seemed sickly and stale.

The earl marshal strode at her side, and Rathina and Connor were only a pace behind.

“Wow,” Connor whispered as they approached the King.

Oberon sat deep in the throne, wrapped in white furs, his face drawn, his eyes glassy. Queen Titania was at his feet, one arm resting on his knees, her hand in his lap, her fingers twined with his. Her head was bowed as though she was lost in deep thought or weighed down under a heavy burden.

Tania found herself trembling as she came close to the throne. It was not that she feared for herself, or for the King's wrath, it was the worn-down cast of Oberon's face that chilled her to the bone.

She tried to remember how many days he must have been sleepless now. When had he first conjured the Gildensleep? On the deck of the
Cloud Scudder
—and that had been in the early morning three days ago. At the very least the King had not slept for over seventy hours.

Tania paused before the throne, unspeaking.

Titania sighed and looked up, her face gray with fatigue.

“You have been to the Mortal World, Tania,” she said, her voice so quiet that Tania could hardly hear
it. “I sensed it when you departed and again when you returned. Did you think a daughter could use her gift without her mother's knowledge?” She turned her eyes to Connor. “And you brought a Mortal man here,” she said. “That was reckless and foolhardy. You could have done great harm.”

“Yes. I'm sorry. But I had to try….”

“Princess Tania was discovered in Princess Cordelia's bedchamber,” said the earl marshal. “The Mortal was with her, as was Princess Rathina. Had I not intervened, Master Hollin would have ordered Princess Tania thrown down the cliff face. He fears her greatly, your grace.”

“Indeed?” An angry edge came into Titania's voice. “That man takes much upon himself in the shadow of Weir's patronage. Were I free to act, I would cast him out of the palace and the Realm of Faerie—but the Conclave of Earls has decreed he should be allowed to practice his skills, so I must forbear. For the moment.”

“Father…how are you?” Tania asked the King.

“Weary, as are we all,” murmured Oberon.

“I give to him such strength as I have,” said Titania. “But the strain is great upon him. Sixty-three lives now lie cradled in the Gildensleep.” She looked again at Connor. “And you, boy, what good have you done for us and ours?”

“I gave Cordelia some antibiotics,” Connor said, stammering a little. “The result was…disappointing.
I can't figure out why it hasn't worked yet.”

“Then I shall tell you, interloper,” called a harsh voice from the far end of the long room. Lord Aldritch stood there, a black cloak swathing his body. He strode down the carpet toward them. “It is because all things that come from the Mortal Realm are a poison and a bane to the people of Faerie!”

Titania rose to her feet, her face clouded with ire. “You forget yourself, my lord,” she said in a low, threatening voice. “I spent five hundred years in the Mortal Realm. Am I then a poison and a bane to my people?”

“Nay, your grace, I meant not so,” said Aldritch, circling Tania as though hating to be near her, and then bowing low before the Queen. “It is to the joy and beatitude of this Realm that you passed through your ordeal untainted. But your daughter has been corrupted; she is a danger to us all.” He stood erect. “The Conclave of Earls has decreed that she is to be sent forever from this Realm.”

Titania's eyes flashed with anger. “This decision was made without the King and I in attendance?”

“It was,” said Aldritch. “You know the ancient protocols, your grace: although the King and Queen sit at the head of the Conclave, they have no vote and once in session, the earls have the right to make judgments alone.” He turned and bowed to Cornelius. “And even without you, my lord, there was a quorum.”

“But how is she to be sent from Faerie?” asked the
earl marshal. “The ways between the worlds are shut. The princess cannot return to the Mortal World.”

“Indeed so,” cried Aldritch. “The King must banish her to Ynis Maw—there to dwell as an outcast for all time!”

“He won't do that!” Tania shouted. “He would never do that to me!”

Ynis Maw! She knew that terrible place only too well: a bleak, storm-wracked island off the northern coast of Faerie. Once Oberon had condemned you to that far-flung prison, there could be no hope of return.

“I demand that the sentence be carried out,” said Aldritch. “The half-thing that was once Princess Tania must be cast from the Immortal Realm forever.” He gave Connor a sneering glance. “And this Mortal must either go with her or be destroyed at once.”

Tania saw the blood drain from Connor's face. “Hey, wait a minute!” he exclaimed in alarm. “I came here to
help
!”

“Hush!” The voice was a deep rumble that seemed to rise from the floor beneath them, like the distant echo of tumbling mountains.

It was the King. All eyes turned to the throne. Oberon's head moved slowly, his glazed eyes shifting from one face to another.

“Sire!” Aldritch dropped to one knee.

“Why come you here to disturb our labors, my lord?” asked the King, his voice measured and low.
“Do you not know that many lives hang in the balance?”

“I do, sire,” said Aldritch. “Indeed the lives of all who dwell in your blessed Realm are at risk if the will of the Conclave of Earls is not fulfilled.”

“So my daughter is to be banished,” rumbled the King. “Is that the will of the earls?”

“It is, sire.”

Titania grasped Oberon's hand in both of hers. “My lord, do not do this terrible thing,” she said. “Not banishment. It is undeserved. Tania has done no wrong, and the Conclave of Earls acts out of fear, not justice.”

“Would you have me disregard the ancient laws?” asked the King.

“No, my lord, but I would have you temper the law with mercy. Do not banish Tania. Punish her, if need be, but do not send her away from us. I yearned to have her with me for five hundred years of exile. Do not take her from me now.”

“And what of the Mortal?” asked Oberon, his eyes flickering toward Connor. “Even were I to show clemency to our daughter, he could not be left to roam at will.”

“An amber prison would prevent him from doing harm,” said the earl marshal.

Connor stared at the King, his face confused and frightened. “A
what
?”

“No!” gasped Tania. “You can't do that! I talked him into coming here; he only wanted to help.”

If the earl marshal's suggestion was followed, then Connor would be trapped motionless but alive, sleepless and aware, for all eternity in a globe of amber light, hidden away in the dungeons of the Royal Palace.

No way would she let
that
happen to him!

Rathina knelt at her father's feet. “I have been in the Mortal World, Father,” she said. “It is a strange and uncanny place, but I do not think it is a threat to us.”

“This is madness!” said Aldritch, rising. “The princess is bewitched! Has the coming of the plague not taught us to shun the Mortal World?”

“Indeed it has,” said Cornelius. “But the plague is confined to the palace for now—and if fortune favors us, it will travel no further, even if all within are consumed by it.”

Titania's head suddenly snapped up, her eyes glittering. “Something comes!” she cried, turning to face a tall clear-glass window that filled the wall behind the ermine awnings of the throne.

Tania saw a small bright shape moving bullet-fast toward the window. There was a crash, and the window turned to splintered frost as the thing burst through the glass and came hurtling down toward them.

It all happened so quickly that Tania hardly had time to register what the object was before it hit the floor in an eruption of red fire and flying sparks—but she saw a flaming comet with a white-hot human figure at its core.

They all fell back from the leaping flames, Aldritch
throwing his cloak over his face, Rathina bowled helplessly across the floor. Tania flung herself sideways, grabbing Connor and hurling him onto his back. Cornelius and the Queen moved together to protect the King.

The flames roared, but they gave out no heat. Tania sat up, her hand shielding her eyes from the brightness. At the heart of the fire a female figure stood upright upon the white carpet. She stepped out of the flames, dressed in a gown of deepest purple. Her face was made ruddy by the light of the fire; flames still flickered in her snow-white hair.

“Eden!” cried Titania. “My daughter—whence come you?”