The Immortal Realm (22 page)

A memory of a similar starry night just a few short weeks ago. A night when she and Edric had lain together on a grassy hillside surrounded by the eerie blue glow of the tall standing stones of Crystalhenge. A night when he had first explained the constellations to her.

She could hear his voice in her head.
Do you see those three stars in a row with the two stars going off to the left? That's called the Starved Fool. And those five stars in the W shape is the Girl in Violet.
His arm had swung across the sky.
That's the Phoenix, and next to it is the Singing Dragon.

How is it a dragon?

You have to use your imagination.

But the memory was so painful that Tania could hardly bear it.

 

It was a fine day and the morning was spent cantering through a land that gradually became more hilly as the sun climbed in the sky. A fine fresh wind blew out of the west, cooling their skin and sending skeins of white cloud scudding.

Tania had worked hard to give Connor the
impression that nothing more than tiredness had brought their nocturnal conversation to such an abrupt halt. He seemed to go along with this, except that every now and then she'd see him giving her a curious look, as if he was trying to puzzle her out.

Don't bother, Connor. It's not worth it. Trust me.

They paused at midday to rest the horses, sitting by a lakeside, eating and drinking, watching the swifts darting back and forth, listening to the drone of bees and dragonflies. Connor found a flat stone and skimmed it out over the still water so that it bounced several times, scattering glittering droplets of water and sending the ripples racing. Rathina and Tania quickly joined in, seeking out flat stones and pebbles in the thick tangled grass and then skipping them out across the wide lake. It was a brief time of carefree fun.

They kept their horses to a gentle trot in the afternoon, the three of them riding in a row as the air grew hot and still. Now they were in a landscape of green hills and valleys where shallow rivers ran between banks of white stones.

The wind changed direction during the afternoon, and by the time they stopped for the night, it was blowing cool air from the north and bringing gray clouds along with it. Tania was beginning to wonder if they would ever reach journey's end. With every hour that passed, more people were falling sick and here they were, forced to wait out another night. It was maddening!

The northern horizon had altered now; it rose
darkly into far ridges and peaks. Tania stood on a hilltop, gazing into the north. The mountains of Weir were black against the night sky. Bad memories beat their dark wings about her, but she refused to give in to them. Their journey would not take them as far as the mountains, so Rathina had said. She believed that they should reach their goal before dusk tomorrow.

And then what? Caer Fior is drowned deep. Its secrets are long gone.

There will be something there. I know there will. I was brought here on purpose—to save Faerie.

In your dreams…

No, it's not just dreams; it's…
destiny
!

“Penny for your thoughts.”

Tania turned, startled by Connor's voice. She had not heard him approach. “You'd be short changed,” Tania said.

Connor pointed toward the mountains. “That's Weir, right?”

“Yes.”

“Where Lord Aldritch hangs out?”

“You got it.”

“Is it safe?” Connor asked. “I mean, the guy did kind of sound off at the King. Is he going to be happy to have a couple of Oberon's daughters wandering about in his Earldom? I don't want to end up in some dank dungeon chained to the wall and fed on bread and water for the rest of my life.”

“We're only going a few miles into Weir,” Tania said. “Caer Liel—the place where he lives—is way past
those mountains. Miles and miles away. We won't be going anywhere near it. Besides, he wouldn't even be back there yet.”

“Here's hoping.”

They stood quietly together for a few moments, looking into the north.

“It was Edric, wasn't it?” Connor said in a low voice, breaking the silence that had grown between them. “Last night. Something made you think of Edric. That's why you went all silent on me.”

“It was nothing,” Tania said. “I remembered something. It hurt. I'm over it now.”

Connor's voice was soft in the darkness. “Over
him
?”

She let out a bleak breath of laughter. “Do you ever get over it the first time your heart is broken?” She sighed. “Yes. I guess you do. Eventually.”

She felt his hand on her shoulder. “I could help,” he said.

“No,” she said, shrugging his hand off and stepping away from him. “Thanks, but no.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I'm going down now,” she said. “I'm tired. We should sleep.” She walked carefully down the steep grassy slope of the hill.

She glanced back once and saw that Connor was still standing on the hilltop, his silhouette stark and black against the starry night.

 

The second day was cooler than the first, the sky banked up with clumps of gray clouds. The mountains
of Weir were strangely threatening, even though it seemed to Tania that they drew no nearer as the three of them rode on through the day.

Sometime in midafternoon Rathina turned and looked at them. “We are in Weir,” she said. “We should come to the coast soon. We will reach our destination ere the sun is two hands' breadths above the sea.” She narrowed her eyes. “I have a chill in my bones. I like it not.”

Tania shivered. “We have to go on,” she said. “There's no other choice.”

Dark gray smoke was drifting over the hills ahead of them.

A village was burning.

They watched it from a hilltop, a quarter of a mile distant. Tania peered into the haze, searching for any sign of movement among the blazing buildings.

There was none.

“It's like the village Eden showed us; they're trying to burn the plague out. The poor people!” She turned to Rathina and Connor. “And this must be happening all over Faerie!” She dug her heels into her horse's sides and it sprang forward.

“We have to find a cure!” she shouted as they began to gallop along the hilltop. “I won't let this happen! I
won't
!”

 

The three horses cantered along the sand, their hooves leaving a trail of crescent shapes in the long sweep of the beach. Their shadows stretched away
into the east, undulating over a line of dunes spiked with tufted grass. The orange sun glowered in a web of clouds, wallowing low on the sea's far horizon, like a stab wound in the sky dripping blood into the ocean.

The tide moved in and out, leaving a scum of yellowish foam behind. Gulls and curlews scuttled as the shallow waves came and went. Occasionally one would rise in an explosion of wings and fly away, dark against the ruddy clouds.

Tania breathed in the sea air. The pungent scent made her feel restless and on edge as she stared out over the ocean. Somewhere, beyond sight, across that wide stretch of green-blue water, lay the island of Alba. The island where her Faerie mother had been born.

And somewhere, far nearer but no less remote, the ruins of Caer Fior rotted under the rolling waves.

They were riding the curve of a long sandy bay. Beyond the approaching headland, they would come to journey's end.

 

The sun was fading as Rathina led them through a narrow, rising defile in the grass-covered dunes.

“Behold the village of Faith-in-the-Surf,” she said. “I had half expected it to have sunk into the sea.”

The dunes dropped away abruptly, held back by long rows of decayed wooden stakes hammered into the ground to prevent the sandy hills from creeping inland and swamping the small cluster of houses that lay beyond.

“It's very quiet,” said Connor. “Are you sure anyone still lives here?”

“I can't tell,” said Tania, peering out over the thatched and shingled roofs. “It looks deserted. It might have been abandoned years ago when the Caer fell into the sea.”

“Or they may have left but a few days past,” said Rathina. “Fleeing the plague.” She nudged her heels into the stallion's flanks. “Come,” she said. “Let us see what welcome awaits!”

There was a sharp, whining sound in the air and the thud of something burying itself deep in the sandy pathway. The stallion reared in panic and Rathina went crashing to the ground.

Startled and confused, Tania saw that the thing was an arrow—its feathered end still protruding from the sand. She looked down at the village, trying to work out where the arrow had come from. A second and a third bolt came zipping through the air, one making Connor's horse stumble to the side, the other only just missing her left thigh. Her horse rose on its hind legs, whinnying in fear. She felt herself slipping, and as she fought vainly to stay mounted, she heard a harsh voice crying out.

“Get you gone! We have plague enough. You will find no welcome here. Get you gone or you shall surely die!”

Tania crashed heavily into the sand, her left shoulder and right knee taking the worst of the impact.

“Connor? Are you okay?” she called out as she lay recovering from the fall. There was no reply. She pressed herself deeper into the side of the dune, fearful that more arrows would come flying from the village.

She lifted her head. There was no sign of whoever had attacked them. All three horses had bolted.
“Connor?”

“I'm fine.”

Rathina's voice sounded out. “He is with me, Tania. We must get to cover. Are you hurt?”

“No.” Tania squirmed around in the sand and dragged herself up and over the rise. She slid over the top then rolled a little way down and turned onto her back, panting from the effort. A few moments later there was a flurry of movement and a spatter of sand as Rathina and Connor came over the crest of the dune and scrabbled to safety close to where she was lying.

“A fine welcome indeed,” remarked Rathina, sitting up and knocking sand off her clothes. “'Tis well said that a sharpened bolt in Weir is as a handshake in Udwold. So, sister, what now?”

“How should I know?” exclaimed Tania, the adrenaline surge of the unexpected attack making her temper flare.

Rathina raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

“Maybe we should wave a white flag at them,” Connor suggested. “Get a truce organized.”

Tania looked at him. “You
have
a white flag?”

“No. Not as such.”

“We should have come armed,” said Rathina. “Then we would surely have been able to answer their welcome more fittingly. But alas, we knew not where our travels would lead us. But need we disturb these people any further, Tania? They will have no knowledge of Caer Fior; that much is certain.”

“They might have some useful local info,” Tania said. She got onto her hands and knees and crawled up the ridge. She lifted her eyes over the crest. She saw the rooftops of the town. “We need to convince them we're not carrying the plague. Then they might be prepared to talk to us.”

“Or fill us as full of arrows as a porpentine is with quills!” Rathina remarked. “The folk of Weir are dangerous and morose at the best of times, Tania.”

“Bryn comes from Weir, don't forget,” said Tania. “You can't generalize like that about people. They're just scared that we're going to infect them.” She
chewed her lip, trying to decide what to do next. There were three options: go around the village, go back, or make contact.

“I'm going to try something,” she said. She took a few long, calming breaths and then stood, rising into the clear view of anyone in the village, her arms outspread, her hands open.

“Tania—you're crazy!” hissed Connor. “Get down.”

“Hey!” Tania called down to the village. “Listen to me. Please. We don't have the plague. There's nothing to be afraid of. We just want to talk.”

Her heart was beating like a hammer in her chest and she felt dizzy with fear—but she held her ground, waiting for a response.

“Why come you here?” called a wheezing voice. “None are upon the roads in these dark times lest they have been cast out of their homes.” The speech was interrupted by coughing. The man was clearly ill.

She heard two or three subdued voices speaking together, then a second voice called up from the village. “You are not of Weir, we deem,” it said. “Whence come you, that your speech is so outlandish?”

“I come from the south,” Tania called back, trying to make her voice sound less alien. “We are looking for the Lost Caer. We think it is near your village.”

“Then you are the more fooled, mistress,” called a third voice, rough-edged but less aggressive than the first two. “There is no Caer in Weir save Caer Liel, where our lord holds court.” And now, for the first
time, Tania saw a shadow move out of the cover of the walls and come into plain view. A man dressed in simple peasant garb but large-framed and bearded and with the bearing of someone in authority. His face was flushed and there was sickness and fear in his eyes.

Tania lowered her arms, taking a step down toward the village. The man's hand came up. “Come no closer, mistress,” he said, his voice ragged and husky. “Twenty arrows are aimed at your heart even as we speak.”

“Then fire and be done!” shouted Rathina. “If it be not to your shame to shoot down folk who bear no weapons and seek to do you no hurt but have come here only to seek a cure for the illness that plagues all of Faerie.”

Tania glanced around. Rathina was standing on the top of the dune just behind her, both feet planted firmly, a proud glint in her eyes. A moment later Connor's head bobbed up above the ridge, and he clambered cautiously into view and stood at her side.

“We do not kill without purpose,” said the man. “If it were so, none of you would yet be drawing breath, of that be most certain.” He peered up at them. “A cure, you say? Can this evil be purged from the land?”

“We hope so,” said Tania. “We have seen a map—a really old map—and it shows that there used to be a long headland here.” She pointed away over her shoulder toward the sea. “It must have sunk into the sea ages and ages ago, but the map shows there was a Caer at the end of it.”

“Nay, mistress, 'tis no Caer that lies under the
waves,” said the man. He paused, coughing. “'Tis but Muinin Tur.”

“Speak on, sirrah,” said Rathina. “What is Muinin Tur?”

“The Tower of Faith,” croaked the man. “It was lost to the sea in the deeps of time. On stormy nights it is said that the crystal bells can be heard ringing out from under the waves—although I have never heard them, and I have dwelt in Faith-in-the-Surf for nigh on eight hundred years.”

“Is there anyone alive now who saw the tower before it sank?” called Connor, his voice shaking a little.

“There is not,” replied the man. “It sank in the time before time was.”

Connor looked at Tania. “It's the same place,” he said to her. “Caer Fior and that
Muinin
thingy are the
same place
!”

Tania thought he was probably right—and at the very least, the people here told tales that proved
something
was down there.

“Why do you seek this place?” called the man.

Tania paused a moment before replying. “I think…I hope…it will lead us to a cure for the plague,” she called down. “You said people say bells can be heard under the water. But are there any other legends about Muinin Tur?”

“'Tis said that it can be reached by those who dare to walk the Road of Faith, and that any who come safe to the tower will find their heart's desire,” called the man. “But none have walked that road for many
thousands of years, and those who did found not their heart's desire but only a watery death and their bodies spat out to roll in the surf and to be mourned by their loved ones.”

“Where is this Road of Faith?” asked Rathina.

“It lies beyond the dunes to the north,” said the man. “It is marked by two lines of sea green stones set deep in the sand, leading into the sea. But do not go that way, strangers, lest you be witless and fey, for there is only one reward for those who are foolhardy enough to walk the Road of Faith.” His voice rang out loudly through the evening air. “And that reward is death!”

 

Princess Tania Aurealis of Faerie stood in one of the in-between places of the world. Her feet were planted where land and sea melted and merged into each other. The rising tide lapped over her shoes as she gazed into the west, the salt wind troubling her hair and smarting in her eyes.

Her sister Rathina stood on her right, Connor on her left.

A dream had brought them here.

But who had sent the dream?

They had come to this place on foot; Eden's enchantment had proven less strong than fear, and the wild horses had vanished into the south, heading for home and safety.

The setting sun was hidden now behind clouds as heavy and dark as mountains. A distant haze spoke of rain falling like spears into the sea.

It was dark. An unpleasant, yellowy dark. A dangerous dark.

They stood on a road to nowhere, marked out to their left and to their right by the low humps of ancient stones. Behind them the double row of stones marched up the beach, dwindling and becoming scattered until they petered out in high dunes. Ahead of them the stones led into the sea, their water-smoothed heads slimed with green algae and studded with barnacles and limpets.

“The Road of Faith,” murmured Rathina. “'Tis well named.” She began to whistle softly between her teeth.

“How is this supposed to work?” asked Connor. “Do we just swim out there and see what happens or what?”

“I don't know.” Tania felt curiously at peace. She turned to him. “Why would you think I know?” she asked mildly.

“Well, you did bring us here, Tania,” Connor said.

“A dream brought us here,” Tania said.

“Yes…well…”

She watched a rolling wave break into white foam and come surging toward them. It flooded around their ankles, cold but not chilling. It eddied and faltered and then drew away, enticing them to follow.

All across the sea the waves were rising and curling and tumbling. All along the beach the surf was hissing.

“Do we await some sign?” asked Rathina.

“No.” Tania filled her lungs with sea air. “No.” She stepped into the tide.

Rathina kept pace with her as she walked into the sea. Connor hesitated then splashed along after them.

The water rose to Tania's calves. She had expected it to be colder. The larger waves lifted the sea to her knees then let it fall again—but with every step she was offering more of herself to the foaming tide.

“You don't have to come with me,” she said. “Neither of you.”

“I come with you?” said Rathina. “Nay, sister, I thought you were coming with me.”

“Connor? Go back. This has nothing to do with you.”

“What? And miss all the fun. Not likely.”

Suddenly they were holding hands and the moving water was up to their waists.

Step by slow step.

The sand was firm under Tania's feet. The water swirled around her ribs. Beneath the surface her fingers gripped the hands of her companions.

It was not cold. Why was it not cold?

“Know what's strange?” said Connor. “The water should be lifting us off our feet by now—but it isn't. Don't you think that's strange?”

He was right. Tania hadn't even thought about it, but they were almost shoulder deep in the sea now, and still she was able to plant her feet as firmly as ever on the seabed and walk forward without any difficulty.

“Now it's getting scary,” muttered Connor. She felt
his grip tighten on her hand. The seawater was up to their necks. A big wave was coming.

The surface of the sea rose and there was saltiness in Tania's mouth and water in her eyes. But still the sea didn't lift them off their feet. It was as if there was no buoyancy to it. It was as if they were walking down a gently sloping hillside into a valley filled with cool, opaque fog.

Connor coughed out some seawater. “Tania? I've had a nasty thought. What if the
faith
part of the Road of Faith only works if you have faith in it working? See what I mean?”

“You think too much,” Tania said. “Does this feel like a normal sea to you?”

“Anything but.”

Rathina's whistling stopped abruptly. She was a fraction shorter than Tania. The water was up to her mouth.

Well, I don't know who you are, but you sent me the dream and you brought me here, so I hope you have a really good plan for what happens next.

“Have no fear, sweetheart. All is well.”

A gentle voice whispering in her ear. A female voice—but not Rathina. Not a voice she recognized at all. But a comforting one, all the same, a trustworthy one.

The seabed took a sudden dip; she just had time to fill her lungs before a big wave rolled the sea in over her head.

Patterns of green and gray and silver wove in front
of her eyes. The seabed fell away under her feet, sloping sharply downward—and yet still she was able to walk quite normally. She looked to her left and right. Connor and Rathina were still walking with her; their hands were still in hers, their grips tight.

For a few seconds the colors danced confusingly in her eyes, then it was as if a veil had been drawn away and she could see quite clearly. The seabed plunged into a deep trough, the standing stones that marked the sides of the road descending with it. And now Tania saw that the stones were no longer tide-smoothed nubs; they were tall and graceful stone pillars carved into the shapes of men and women, all of them facing inward, all of them with their hands pressed together at their chests as though in prayer—all of them winged.

Tania's chest began to ache. She squeezed tightly the hands of her companions, and they squeezed just as tightly back. How long could this go on? How long before their lungs would need oxygen?

“Where's the faith, Tania?”

Faith in
what?
Faith in
whom?

Her chest was hurting badly now. She needed to breathe. Soon.

Connor ripped his hand out of hers, lifting his arms and bringing them down, jumping a little, as though trying to swim for the surface. Tania saw panic in his eyes. His cheeks bulged out. A feathery spray of bubbles escaped his nostrils.

But the sea would not lift him. He fell onto his knees, his face contorted by terror and pain.

“Connor!” Her voice was clear and lucid in her ears. She sucked in a startled breath, and the pain faded beneath her rib cage. She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh!”

Connor was sprawled on the sloping ground, panting, his eyes round in his astonished face. He looked up at her. “How is this working?” he said, gasping.