The Immortal Realm (12 page)

“We won't need them where we're going,” said Tania. “In any case, if we were caught with swords on us, we'd be marched straight to the nearest police station.”

“Police station?”

“I'll explain later.” She looked into Rathina's face. “Are you sure about this?”

Rathina smiled and nodded.

Tania held out her hand. “Stand beside me, then,” she said.

Rathina took her hand. “How does it feel to travel between the worlds?” she asked. There was a hint of anxiety in the excitement that filled her voice.

“Wait a couple of seconds, and you'll know.” Tania squeezed her sister's hand. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Go.”

She concentrated her mind as she stepped forward with Rathina. Then she made the side step.

They emerged into brilliant sunshine. Tania threw her hand over her eyes, dazzled by the sudden light.

She heard Rathina give a yelp and felt her hand slip away.

“Rathina?”

She squinted against the brightness—and realized that they had emerged in the Mortal World on the
brink of a cliff. A moment later and she felt the ground giving way beneath her. Her feet slipped on long grass and she fell hard onto her stomach.

Then there was nothing beneath her. She was clinging to the cliff edge, and her fingers were losing their grip.

“Quick! Grab them!”

“Have you got her?”

“Yes. You get the other one!”

Tania felt strong hands grip her wrists, and the next second she was being pulled away from the cliff edge. Her arms felt as if they were being wrenched out of their sockets as she was dragged through the long grass.

“Rathina?” she gasped.
“Rathina?”

“Your pal's fine,” said a voice. “Are you two out of your minds? If we hadn't looked around at the last second, you could both have gone over the edge!”

“Hey! Calm down, girl! I'm trying to help you.” This came from a second voice, a little way off. Tania squirmed onto her back and finally managed to wrest her arms loose from the hands that held her.

She scrambled to her feet. A few yards away, a young man was grappling with Rathina—and not getting the best of it. He was on his back and she was
sitting astride his chest, her hands going for his throat while he fought to fend her off.

“Rathina!” Tania called. “It's all right. They aren't attacking us! They're only trying to help.”

Rathina lifted her head, tossing her dark hair out of her eyes.

“None may lay hands on a princess!” she shouted. “I'll beat the silly knave to a paste!”

“Rathina!
No!”
Tania ran to her sister and pulled her off the young man.

He staggered up, staring at the two of them in disbelief. “What the hell was
that
for?” he yelled. “I just saved you from falling off the cliff, you head case!”

Tania looked at the two young men: They were teenagers, maybe two or three years older than she was, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, one with long, curly blond hair and the other with dark hair that hung in his eyes.

They were just a couple of ordinary, everyday lads that you might meet in the street or in a café or at a party anywhere in London…or anywhere in the
world
, for that matter. A pair of quite nice-looking, totally normal
mortal
boys.

“Sorry about that,” Tania said. “She's a bit sensitive about people grabbing hold of her.”

“Oh, right!” said the dark-haired boy. “No problem, then. I'll let her kill herself next time!”

“Sorry,” Tania said. “Really. Sorry. We didn't realize how close to the edge we were.”

“How could you
not
see?” asked the dark-haired
boy. “Are you totally blind or what? And what's with the fancy-dress costumes?”

Tania had known that their clothes would stand out in the Mortal World. She was still wearing the simple gray Faerie dress, and Rathina had on a scarlet gown embroidered with heavy gold thread at the bodice and on the sleeves and around the hem.

Rathina glared at the boy. “Do not speak to the Princess Tania in such a way, knave, or I'll box your ears till your head rings like the Bells of Tamarine!”

“Rathina, remember where you are!” said Tania.

Rathina stared at her for a moment, then her face brightened. “The Mortal Realm!” she exclaimed. “Of course. My apologies, Tania. I will seek to behave more appropriately from this time forth.”

The blond boy laughed. “From this time
forth
? Oh, I get it. You're part of the medieval pageant, down in Eastbourne, yeah?” His eyes were on Tania as he gestured toward Rathina. “Your friend's got the language down pat, but you need to work on ye old-ie fashioned-ie speech-ie a bit, my lady.”

“And you should lose the shoulder bag, too,” said the dark-haired boy, nodding toward the canvas bag that was slung over Tania's shoulder. “Not exactly a Middle Age accessory, is it?”

A pageant in Eastbourne? Excellent! And there's a train station in Eastbourne that will take us right into London.

“Good tip,” said Tania. “Look, thanks for saving us. We were stupid to get so near the edge. And yes, we are part of the pageant. We just came up here to have
a look around. Pretty dangerous, huh?”

“It can be if you don't watch where you're going,” said the blond boy. “My name's Oliver; this is Luke.”

“I'm Tania; this is my sister Rathina.”

“Sisters, eh?” said Oliver. “You don't look much alike.”

“We are sisters, indeed,” said Rathina. She looked the two boys up and down. “Your clothes are very strange,” she said. “But doubtless there is much I will find curious in your world.”

Oliver gave her a puzzled look.

“She takes her part very seriously,” Tania said quickly.

“Whatever,” Luke murmured under his breath.

Rathina gave him a hard look but said nothing more.

“If you girls don't have anything planned, how about we all go for a cup of coffee or something back in Eastbourne? My car is just over the rise back there.”

“A car?” said Tania. “That's great!”

 

Tania and Rathina stood on the pavement, waving as Oliver drove off.

“So, sister?” said Rathina. “Where are we going to meet the youths?”

Tania raised her eyebrows. “We're not meeting them,” she said. She rummaged in her bag and pulled out her debit card. “We're going to get ourselves some money, then we're catching a train to London.”

Rathina frowned. “Did you not give your word to
the boy Oliver that we would ‘catch up later'?”

“I lied,” said Tania.

“You
lied
?” exclaimed Rathina. “Tania, what of honor?”

“There's no such thing when you're dealing with boys,” Tania explained. “Survival of the fittest is what counts here. They'll be fine; they'll just have to find a couple of other girls to practice their chat-up lines on.” She pointed across the busy street. “Look, there's a charity shop. With any luck we'll be able to swap these clothes for things that'll blend in a bit better.”

They waited until the traffic light turned to red again and they were able to weave their way between the standing traffic. Tania was careful not to brush against the cars. It had been tricky avoiding all the metal in Oliver's car, and sitting inside a vehicle that was effectively a metal box had given her a bad headache.

“Remember, Tania,” Rathina said as they came to the far pavement. “Beware of all things made of Isenmort!”

Tania nodded. She hardly needed reminding.

But how strange. Last time she had been in this world, it had been her Faerie sisters who needed to be wary of metal—and now she was traveling with the one person in the whole of Faerie who was immune to the perils of Isenmort.

 

Tania stood with her sister on the platform at Eastbourne station. The amount of metal everywhere
was ridiculous! Just getting to this place had been a challenge. She had not even been able to open the door to the charity shop. It had a metal handle! The clothes racks were also metal, and the jeans she had originally chosen had metal studs and a metal zipper, so they were out of the question. In the end she had gone for a plain black T-shirt and loose black trousers with an elastic waist.

Rathina had chosen a red blouse over a pair of white combat trousers. The choice had surprised Tania—not the blouse but the trousers. Women in Faerie never wore such things, and of the three sisters who had previously been in the Mortal World, only tomboy Cordelia had been prepared to wear trousers. Sancha had dismissed them immediately, and Zara had been quite appalled by the idea.

Once they had negotiated away their Faerie dresses for more modern clothes, Tania had asked the way to the nearest ATM. The buttons were again made of metal. Rathina had pressed out her PIN for her and had collected the money from the perilous steel lips of the cash dispenser.

A passerby had explained to them how to get to the train station, and with Rathina's help Tania had managed to buy two tickets to London Victoria.

Now they stood on the busy platform and waited for their train to pull in.

Once in London Tania's plan was to call Connor Estabrook's parents and track him down. She knew he wasn't living at home now. The latest she'd heard
was that he was sharing an apartment with some other premed students, but she wasn't sure where.

“So who is this Mortal doctor whom we are to meet?” asked Rathina.

“Connor? Oh, I've known him most of my life, I guess,” explained Tania. “He's three years older than me, which was fine when we were little—he was okay playing with me then. But when he hit thirteen he started ignoring me. I was really crazy about him at the time so I was pretty hurt. But over the past couple of years we've got more friendly again. We chat on the phone occasionally and text each other now and then. The last time I met up with him and his folks was at Christmas time to swap presents, like we always do.”

“Christmastime?”

“Uh, Yuletide,” Tania said. “Once we've tracked him down, it'll just be a case of convincing him to help us in time to get back to Faerie.” She shrugged. “But don't bother asking how I'm going to make that work, because I don't know yet.”

“But you will seek to take him back to Faerie with us?” asked Rathina.

“I think I might have to,” said Tania. “Though I really wish there was some other way.”

“You fear he will be in danger from Hollin and Lord Aldritch?” asked Rathina.

“I
know
he will be,” said Tania. “We're going to have to be really careful, Rathina. I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to him.” She shook her head. “And that's assuming he agrees to come with us.” She
stared down the railway track. “And that our train ever turns up!”

Time was getting on and she was impatient with the delay. She glanced at the clock display on the arrivals screen.
Come on! Look at the time! It's ten to three already. If we don't get this all sorted by dawn tomorrow, Oberon is going to shut down all the ways in and out of Faerie—and we'll be stuck here forever.

Rathina stared about her with a frown on her brow.

Tania guessed what she was going through. Massive culture shock! “All this takes a bit of getting used to,” she said sympathetically.

“'Tis like the Feast of the White Hart and the Traveler's Moon Festival and the Midsummer Revels all combined,” said Rathina. “'Tis pure madness to live thus. How do these Mortals suffer it? And the smell, Tania! Spirits of air, does this whole world stink thus?”

“The towns do, pretty much,” Tania admitted. “You probably won't notice it after a while.” She hoped she was right. After three weeks of breathing the pure, sweet Faerie air, she was having trouble herself coping with the unpleasant odors that wafted all around them: the smell of sun-baked iron and gravel from the railway, hot diesel, hot engines, motor oil, exhaust fumes drifting in from the street, fried onions and stale coffee from the nearby café, overpowering perfume and deodorant—and worse, the smell of far too many hot humans in need of showers.

Rathina's expression changed suddenly, her lips tightening and her eyes becoming watchful. “Did you feel that, Tania?” she said.

“It's probably just the train coming—”

“Nay. I felt a shadow on my heart.” She stared at Tania. “Did you feel
nothing
?”

Tania looked anxiously at her. “No. Nothing. What kind of thing?”

Rathina stared up and down the length of the platform.

“What is it?” asked Tania. “What's wrong?”

“I can see nothing from here,” Rathina said. “These people mill around me like rats in a barrel!” She moved to the edge of the platform and made as if to jump onto the rails. Tania grabbed her just in time.

“No!” She dragged Rathina back through the staring people. “You can't do that,” she said in a hard whisper. “You'll get killed! Now tell me what's the matter.”

Rathina's eyes were dark with unease. “We are pursued,” she said. “Something has followed us through between the worlds. I feel a malign presence. It is close at hand.”

Before Tania could react to this, an electronic voice crackled over their heads. “The train now arriving at platform one is the fifteen fifty-eight service to London Victoria. Calling at Polegate, Lewes, Haywards Heath, Gatwick Airport, East Croydon, Clapham Junction, and London Victoria.”

A few moments later the rattle and growl of the coming train filled the air.

“Sweet blessed mercy!” said Rathina, shrinking away and throwing her hands over her ears as the green-and-white train came gliding in.

“I warned you it would be loud!” Tania shouted above the screaming brakes and clanking cars and hissing doors. “This is what we've been waiting for. It'll take us to London.”

But as the passengers disembarked, Tania wondered uneasily about the shadowy pursuit that Rathina had sensed. She gazed at the milling crowds.

Had something really followed them through from Faerie? Something bad? If so, why was it here—and who or
what
was it?