The Enchanted Quest (18 page)

“Yes, but it didn’t work,” said Tania. “And Rathina and I don’t have any useful magic about us.”

“No,
you
don’t,” said Connor, turning now to look up at Edric, still in the saddle, his face impassive. “But
he
does.”

“No!” Tania said, animated for a moment. “That’s not an option.”

“Excuse me!” demanded Connor. “How come you get to make that choice? We’re all of us stuck in this place, running around like rats in a maze. We already
know
he’s going to use the Dark Arts—that ferrywoman told us so. So why not have him use them to get us out of here? What difference does it make if he’s going to fail anyway? Why not make use of him?”

Tania stood up, swaying a little. Light-headed from the effort of trying to contact her sister. “Because it could destroy him,” she said angrily.

Connor held his ground. “Then give us an alternative, Tania,” he said. “Tell us how else we get out of here—now that we don’t have a compass any longer?”

There was a dreadful silence.

Rathina got to her feet. “We were wrong to throw away the compass. Let us not make the wrong decision a second time. If our quest fails, Faerie falls.” She looked at Tania. “If Edric is our only hope, we cannot dismiss it so swiftly. Did I not say prudence should dictate our future decisions?”

“No!” Tania shouted. “I won’t ask him to do that. I don’t care. I won’t!”

“I don’t need your permission, Tania,” Edric said, looking tenderly into her face. “Like Connor said—you don’t get to make all the decisions.”

She ran toward him. “No! Edric, no! We’ll find another way.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Edric!”

He looked away from her, and already she could see the sheen of silver floating across his brown eyes. He lifted his arms and formed shapes in the air with his outstretched fingers. And where his fingers passed, the air grew dark and clouded, creating a web of deep blue light that shone and throbbed all around him.

Tania fell to her knees, her head filling with the chanting of a voice that both was and was not Edric’s voice. She could not understand the words, but she knew they held power and danger.

Edric and his horse were only shadows now in the expanding ball of blue light, and all around them the grass lay flat on the hill, as though beaten down by a great wind. Tania was thrown back. She heard the whinnying of frightened horses, Rathina shouting, Connor calling something that was swept away on the wind.

A voice came out of the darkness. “I see you!” It was Edric, sounding startled and amazed. “I
see
you!”

Tania opened her eyes a crack, fighting the blasting wind.

The ball of light was larger now, and it was no longer blue. It was green—and standing tall and slender in front of Edric’s horse was a woman dressed all in green, with flaming red hair and a white face and ruby red lips.

Tania knew her in an instant. The Green Lady! The enchantress of Erin.

“And I see
you
, my fine horseman,” said the Green Lady. Her voice was strong and full of laughter. “Such powers you have, my friend, that I have not tasted in many a long age. I knew my nets would catch one such as you on a fine noontide day.” She laughed merrily. “You will make a gallant knight at the court of Ashling dar Dair.” She reached out her arms to him, and tendrils of green light flowed from her fingertips. “Say farewell to your friends, knight of the Dark Arts!”

Edric struggled and turned his head toward Tania. There was irrevocable loss in his eyes. His mouth opened as if he was about to speak, but then the hilltop was riven by a blast of emerald light that knocked Tania onto her back and sent her rolling helplessly away down the long slope of the hill.

Tania came to her senses in long grass under the noonday sun.

“Edric!” She clambered to her feet, staggering. The sight that met her eyes almost brought her to her knees again. The whole of the top of the hill had been blasted apart, the grass torn away, the earth ruptured to reveal the deep, dark bones of the land.

She ran up the hill, scrabbling with hands as well as feet.

She saw Rathina first—lying on her face at the very rim of the crater. Dropping at her sister’s side, she turned her onto her back.

Rathina’s eyes were closed, but she seemed no more than deeply asleep.

“Rathina! Wake up!” Tania shook her, leaning close to her face, stroking her hair, tears falling onto her sister’s skin.

But Rathina did not wake up.

Tania got to her feet again. Connor? Edric?

Where were the horses?

Gone.

It was useless even to try and guess how long ago that happened. A few heartbeats, a day—whatever
that
meant in this mad Realm.

She stared down into the chasm, remembering the look on Edric’s face—remembering the explosion of green light that had engulfed him.

She saw another figure, lying on the far side of the dreadful hole. “Connor!”

But when she came to him, she found that he, too, was deeply asleep and she was unable to rouse him no matter what she did. But at least he and Rathina did not seem to have been harmed by the eruption of sorcery that had engulfed Edric.

The Green Lady had taken him.

Tania sat in the grass, her face in her hands.

It was the Dark Arts. The moment Edric had summoned the Dark Arts, the Green Lady had pounced. What was it she had said?

I knew my nets would catch one such as you on a fine noontide day. . . .

Tania turned her face to the scorching sky. “Edric!” she howled. And then she opened her mouth wide and let out a scream of misery and despair.

Spent of all breath, she dropped onto her face in the long grass and wept. All hope was gone. The quest was over.

* * *

“Come now, it can’t be as bad as all that,” said a voice. A hand touched her shoulder. “Why, you’ll break your heart with weeping.”

Tania turned onto her back and opened swollen eyes. Two smiling faces floated above her.

“Michael . . . ?” She sat up. “Rose?”

“I am Rose Maguire, indeed,” the woman said, but her face was puzzled. “Where is it you know us from?”

Tania pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “No. This is just a dream. That’s all it is.”

She opened her eyes again, and once the fog was gone from her vision, she found Michael and Rose gazing at her as before.

“You can’t
be
here,” Tania said.

“Is that a fact?” said Michael. “Well, now! And don’t I feel the fool.”

“Help the poor child up,” said Rose, offering a hand to Tania. “Look at her, all bedraggled and woebegone.”

Tania stood, taking a long, steadying breath. “Who are you?” she asked.

“It seems you know that already,” said Michael with a beaming smile. “Two wandering minstrels sent to give a helping hand to a lady in distress.” His black eyes twinkled. “Will you tell us your name?”

Tania blinked from one to the other. “Don’t you remember me?” she asked. “Back in . . . in . . . Ireland. At the Iron Stone Tavern. We met you there.” She gestured to where Rathina lay sleeping still. “You helped us.” She looked into Rose’s perplexed face. “Tania and Rathina. Don’t you remember? You gave me a leaf that opened doors. . . .”

“Not I, Rathina,” said Rose.

“No, I’m
Tania
.” She felt like screaming. “Oh, this is crazy!” She stared around herself. “What’s going on?”

“Calm yourself, Tania,” Rose said gently. “We’ve been sent to tell you two secrets.”

“Who sent you?” Tania demanded.

“That is not one of the secrets to be revealed,” said Michael, catching hold of Tania’s hand. Rose was still holding the other, and now she took Michael’s free hand, so the three of them were standing in a ring on the hilltop.

Tania looked from one to the other. Two friendly faces in all the perilous madness of Erin. Was that why she had met them before—so that she would trust them now?

“Tell me the secrets,” Tania asked.

Michael smiled. “They can be unlocked only by the right key.”

Tania frowned at him. “You mean . . . I have to ask the right questions?”

“Exactly so,” said Michael.

What two questions should she ask? Her duty was to find the Divine Harper—but her heart ached for Edric. She had to know what had happened to him— she had to know if he could be saved from the Green Lady.

Two questions.

The quest is all that matters—everything else is selfishness.

I don’t care. I have to know what happened to Edric.

“Okay,” Tania said at last. “Two questions. Question one is how do I get Edric back.” She licked her lips, her mouth dry. “Question two is how do we get to Tirnanog.”

Rose smiled. “Fine questions, Tania!” she said. “To seek for Tirnanog you must travel through Erin and over the pathless mountains of Hy Brassail to the shore of the Limitless Ocean. Tirnanog lies beyond that ocean, but there is no ship that can take you across that vast water, and even if a ship could be found, Tirnanog lies beyond the edge of the world.”

Rose paused for a moment at the look of dismay Tania gave her. “But that is not the first of your tribulations,” she continued. “For no common steed nor shoe can bear you safe through dragon-haunted Hy Brassail. Only the horses of the Deena Shee can safely make passage across that cracked and desolate land— and the Deena Shee do not part with their horses for love, nor magic, nor horded treasure.”

Tania gaped at her.

“And there’s the answer to one of your questions,” said Rose.

“So, you’re telling me . . . it’s hopeless?” Tania choked out at last. “Even if I managed to find a way out of Erin, I’d never get across Hy Brassail. And even if I managed
that
, there’s still no way to get to Tirnanog!”

“That, I cannot say.”

“I think you just did!” Tania exclaimed. “You’ve just told me what I want to do is impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible, daughter last of daughters seven,” said Rose. “Not with your true love by your side, with honest hand in true love given.”

“Well said, my darling girl.” Michael laughed. “And now for your other question, Tania. The Green Lady has a will that has never been thwarted. She has sought for a thousand years for a worthy consort to share her throne—”

“A consort?” declared Tania. “You mean . . . like . . . a husband? Oh no! No way is that happening!”

Michael laughed. “The fury of love burns bright in you, Tania, and that’s all to the good. But listen to me carefully now if you’d win him back.” He turned, an arm coming around her shoulders so that she was turned with him. He pointed into the distance. “You must walk in a straight line till you come to a place where twilight rules. There you will find a high ring of grassy earth taller than the tallest tree, turfed and grassed and overgrown with night phlox and moon-flower and evening primrose. Do not seek to pass over the ramparts of that place without first saying these words, and these words exactly: ‘Ashling dar Dair, I am come for my true love. Hear me, Ashling dar Dair. I will not depart without him.’ The words have great power in them. The enchantress will be forced to respond to your challenge. She will have to let you into her citadel—and what comes next, you must face alone.”

“What do you mean, ‘what comes next’?”

“The ancient laws allow the Green Lady to present you with two challenges,” said Michael. “Two ordeals. If you survive, Edric will be yours once more. If not she keeps him for all eternity.”

His arm slid away from her shoulders and he stepped back, leaving her gazing out over the hills and valleys of Erin with the sun beating fierce on her head.

“I can do that,” she murmured. “But . . . but what will I have to do once I’m inside? If she’s been waiting for a husband for a thousand years, she’s not going to just hand him over because I say so. What kind of ordeals will they be?” She paused, waiting for Michael to speak.

She turned. “I need to have a better idea of . . . what . . . I . . . might . . .”

She was alone on the hill.

The messengers were gone.

Tania was still unable to wake Rathina and Connor. Their sleep was as deep as ever and nothing she did came close to rousing them. But before she set off to follow Michael’s instructions, she was determined to make sure they were as comfortable as possible.

She knelt at Rathina’s head, smoothing her hair back off her face, gazing fondly at her.

“I’m going to try and rescue Edric,” she whispered. “If it all works out the way I hope, I promise we’ll be back as soon as possible.” She paused. “If not, I hope you wake up and find your way home without me. Connor will help, I’m sure. You can keep each other company, huh?” She leaned forward and kissed her sister’s forehead.

She knelt briefly at Connor’s side, straightening his clothes a little. “You make sure you look after Rathina, hear me?” she said, her voice cracking. “She could use some of that love you’ve got bubbling away inside you.”

She stood up. “A place where twilight rules,” she murmured to herself, settling her crystal sword at her hip. She took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said to no one at all. “Here goes nothing!”

As Tania walked, she began to notice that the countryside around her was no longer teeming with strangeness.

The air still had that distracting golden haze about it—but towers and palaces and gateways were no longer appearing and disappearing from the corner of her eyes, and no voices called enticingly from woods and caves. The sun was still nailed to the roof of the sky, and the circling mountains still rippled and changed when Tania wasn’t looking, but it was as if much of the magic of the place had gone to sleep. Or maybe it was that the enchantress had other things to occupy herself with now.

Edric, for instance.

Tania never saw the twilight coming. One moment she was walking along under the noonday sun, the next she was in the cool of a summer evening surrounded by drowsy shadows, the air filled with the sweet aromas of evening primrose and night scented herbs.

A high, steep sloping rampart rose almost at her feet, grass-covered and mantled with flowers of pink and white and yellow. She halted in her tracks, remembering what Michael had told her to do.

One hand gripping the hilt of her sword, she took a deep breath and called into the silent gloaming. “Ashling dar Dair, I am come for my true love! Hear me, Ashling dar Dair. I will not depart without him!”

She was aware of a faint shivering all around her, as if the land was trembling with suppressed laughter. She drew her sword, comforted by the way it sparkled in the dusky light.

The ground quivered under her feet, and a sound filled her ears like discordant music. The music reached a shrill pitch, and her sword shattered in her hand. She stumbled back, gasping for breath. The air sparked, stinging her skin. Then the rumbling beneath her grew to a roar, and the hill split open in front of her as though cloven by an invisible ax.

She stared into the dark gulf, expecting some horror to emerge. But there was nothing. The land had become still and quiet again and the music was gone.

A voice sounded from beyond the cleft. A woman’s voice, powerful and ringing with amusement. “Come, then, child. Take back your love . . . if you are able.”

No sword. No one to back her up. Nothing to cling to but courage and love.

It would have to be enough.

As Tania walked into the sinister gap, her legs trembled and her stomach was a ball of stone. Darkness wove sinister webs in her mind.

She stepped into an enclosed area as round and steep-walled as a bowl. There was grass under her feet, and ahead of her was a ring of rowan trees laden with red berries. In the center of the circle of trees the Green Lady sat on a throne made from intertwined branches and twigs.

The Green Lady leaned back, her hands resting idly on the arms of the throne, her head against the high, arched back. One leg was stretched out, a bare foot revealed beneath the hem of her long, green gown.

Edric was crouched in front of her, washing her foot with water from a wooden bowl.

The enchantress cast a languid, sleepy-eyed look at Tania and smiled—and Tania saw that she had pointed teeth, like the teeth of a lizard or a snake.

“Edric—we have a guest,” the Green Lady drawled, half lifting a limp hand.

Cradling the Green Lady’s foot in his lap, Edric turned to look at Tania. She fought to stop herself from crying out as she saw the silver sheen that coated his eyes.

“This girl has come for you,” said the Green Lady. “Would you like to go with her?”

Edric bared his teeth at Tania and snarled, then turned his face away again and continued to wash the Green Lady’s foot.

Subduing her fear, Tania walked through the trees, her head high, refusing to be daunted by the enchantress. She stood behind Edric, avoiding the Green Lady’s eyes, stooping to touch Edric’s rounded shoulder.

“Edric? Listen to me. She’s put a spell on you. I need you to stop doing that and pay attention to me.” She shook his shoulder, but he shrugged heavily, trying to dislodge her hand. Still he lifted a cloth from the bowl and continued to wash the Green Lady’s foot.

Tania knelt, bringing her hand down on his. “Look at me!”

He turned his head again, his face utterly blank, his eyes like silver moons.

“Come with me, Edric,” Tania said. All the while she was waiting for the Green Lady to do something, all the while she was bracing herself for some sorcerous attack.

“He will not go with you, child,” said the Green Lady. “He knows now the bite of a deeper, stronger love.”

Tania held Edric’s face between her two hands, looking into his eyes, trying to see the brown behind the silver. “I love you, Edric—and you love me. Can you keep that in your mind? We need to leave here now; we really do. Right now.”

She saw the lips of the enchantress moving silently, conjuring a spell that came from her mouth as a thin green vapor. Moments later Tania felt a pressure building around her—as though the air was congealing into fists of iron and closing on her head like the jaws of a vice.

She looked into Edric’s expressionless face, holding his eyes despite the feeling that her brain was about to explode. As she came to the last shred of endurance, a thread of music came gliding into her brain. Familiar music, a melody, slow and sad, but filled with a mournful hope. A music of fiddle and drum—music that she remembered from the Iron Stone Tavern. And as she thought of Michael and Rose, the pain lessened and she was almost herself again.

She heard an angry snarl. The enchantress was leaning forward on her throne, her eyes blazing, her sharp teeth bared.

“Do not seek to bring that maudlin ditty into my domain, child!” she hissed. “It will serve you nothing!”

Tania looked at her. “Is that right?” she countered. “Why does it bother you so much?”

The enchantress opened her mouth and Tania saw her tongue flickering like that of a serpent. And then a heavy green mist came spewing out of the Green Lady’s gaping mouth, and the world vanished in a flood of poisonous venom.

There was no Green Lady.

There was no land of Erin.

There was no quest and there never had been.

Tania and Edric were in Camden Market in London, standing facing each other while oblivious crowds went bustling by. All that Tania knew was that she was out enjoying some retail therapy with her best friend, Jade, and that she was finding her split life a real trial, and that her mum and dad were on her case about her badly explained three-day absence, and that Edric had just said something cruel and hurtful to her.

“I don’t like being told I’m stupid, Edric,” she snapped, glaring into his face. “I’m doing my best. You have no idea how hard this is for me.”

“And is it easy for me?” he asked. “Trapped in this benighted world, knowing that I can get back home only with your help?”

“Is that
my
fault?” she retorted. “If anyone deserves to be wound up here, it’s me! I never asked for you to come and totally mess up my life! I never asked for you to pretend you liked me just so you could drag me off to your own world to marry your boss!”

“I explained that to you,” snapped Edric, his eyes blazing. “I didn’t have any choice in the matter!” His face grew stiff. “Do you really think I’d have wasted all that time with you if I could have helped it?” He rolled his eyes to the sky. “Have you any idea what a self-centered, whiny little pain in the neck you can be, Tania?”

“Stop calling me that! My name’s Anita!”

“Yeah—whatever,
Anita
!”

“And if you detest me so much, why don’t you just get lost?” she spat. “My life was fine till you came along.”

“Oh, was it?” A sneering note came into his voice. “Kind of odd, then, that you’ve been all over me like a rash for the last couple of months, telling me how you couldn’t live without me.”

“My mistake!” hissed Tania. “I didn’t know you so well then! I thought you were different.” Her voice choked, stopping her.

“Oh, what’s this now?” Edric crowed. “Going to squirt a few tears, are you?”

Tania would not let him see her cry! She would not let him know how much pain she was in. Never!

She spun on her heel. Jade was still sitting at the wrought-iron table sucking Coke up through a straw, peering at Tania over the round blue lenses of her new sunglasses, her eyes cynical and caustic.

“Go away, Edric,” Tania said icily, not even looking back at him. “I never want to see you again.” She took a deep breath and walked to the table. She sat down and picked up her paper cup, hearing the ice rattle as she sucked at the straw.

“Problems?” asked Jade.

“Nope,” Tania said. “Not anymore.”

A wide grin spread across Jade’s face. “I see,” she drawled. “Trouble in paradise, eh? Well, if
you
don’t want him anymore . . . can I have him? He’s kind of cute in a dumb blond way.”

Tania shrugged. “You want him, you can have him,” she said. “I’m done with him.”

“Excellent!” said Jade, her teeth as white as pearls. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear!”