The Enchanted Quest (19 page)

There was the scrape of iron on stone as Jade got up from the table. She was about to walk past Tania, making for where Edric was still standing, when a snatch of melody came into Tania’s mind, quite different from the calypso music that was being piped into the small eating area alongside the Stable Market.

A melancholy tune played on a fiddle and accompanied by a slow drumbeat. The music opened a door in her head and let a great burst of clear white light flow into her mind.

This wasn’t real! None of it was real!

“No!” She snatched at Jade’s wrist as she was passing. She looked up at her best friend’s face, the eyes triumphant behind the blue lenses. “Nice try!” she said. “But you don’t get to keep him that easily.”

The market and the sunshine and the calypso music all fell away like a discarded skin, and she was back in the rowan grove in the twilight citadel of Ashling dar Dair. The Green Lady was glaring at her, and Edric was kneeling at her feet.

“A strong mind you have, my child,” said the Green Lady, and although her voice was steady and smooth, Tania could sense the anger seething behind it—she could see it flickering like flame in the eyes of the enchantress. “But that will not be enough, I think. Not by a long way.”

The Green Lady stood up, stretching her arms out and throwing her head back.

“Come to me, my Deena Shee!” she shouted into the sky. “Come to me, three by three. Come from your mounds, I call to thee! Come and do your duty to your Queen!”

A memory. Sharp but distant.
Three by three?
Where had she heard that before?

The ground began to shake under Tania’s feet, and the air was filled with a groaning noise.

Edric threw himself forward, clutching at the Green Lady’s gown.

Tania stared around, trying to control her mounting fear as mouths opened in the grassy ramparts of Ashling dar Dair: three dark mouths that yawned and stretched till they were as wide as castle gates.

Tania heard the thud of hooves. Then she saw a flickering red light in the central chasm.

Three red horsemen rode from the hill. Weird and uncanny, they were like figures formed of firelight, wearing armor of red leather and carrying spears of red wood. Flames danced on the points of their spears, played among their long red hair and beards, and glowed in their red eyes. Their horses were also red, their manes and tails and eyes brimming with fire.

The leading horseman lifted his spear high. “We come,” he called, “the flame-lords of Culann, to do our duty to the Faerie Queen!” The flames shot from his spear and burned the sky.

Then Tania saw three more horsemen come riding from the second hole. But these were green, green to their skin and their hair and their spears, and they rode upon horses as green as poison.

“We come,” called the leader, lifting his spear, “lords of malachite, to do homage to our Queen!”

I know this! I’ve heard this before! But where? When . . . ?

And finally three horsemen all in yellow rode from the last of the mouths in the hillside, and everything about them was yellow, and their horses were yellow from withers to hooves, and a burnished yellow light leaped from their spearpoints.

“We come, lords of the amber sun, in fealty to the Queen of Erin!”

The nine riders entered the ring of rowan trees, their movements slow and stately as they circled Tania and Edric and the Green Lady and came to a halt. Their horses turned, facing inward, and nine spears were leveled, pointing toward Tania.

“This child would take my young knight from me,” called the Green Lady. “What would you do, flame-lords of Culann?”

“We would turn him to fire!” replied the red lord who had spoken first.

A shiver of fear ran through Tania.
Turn him to fire?

The Green Lady looked at Tania, her eyes gleaming. “Hold him close, my child, and never let go—for if you do he is mine for all time!”

The Green Lady stepped back from where Edric knelt at her feet, and a second later flames leaped from the points of the red spears and poured down over Edric.

His mouth opened in a scream of utter agony as he writhed in the fire. Tania threw herself at him, on her knees, pressing him against her, enveloping him in her arms. She held on for what felt like an eternity.

Edric struggled against her, screaming. Tania’s eyes filled with acrid black smoke. It clogged her lungs, but still she clung onto him—refusing to surrender him to the Green Lady. The pain was appalling, but she would not give in.

I’ll never let you go! Never!

And then it was over and the flames were gone. She panted with shock, gradually realizing that there was no sign of injury to Edric’s face or body—that they were both whole and unhurt.

Before she could make a move, she heard the Green Lady’s voice, hissing like adders. “Burned to the bone and yet you cling on!” she spat. “There is great heart in you, child. But I am not done with you yet.” Her voice rose to a shout. “What would you do for your Queen, lords of malachite?”

“We would make him a serpent!”

There was a flare of green light, and suddenly Edric was a great writhing snake, his body as thick as Tania’s waist, his coils already tightening around her, squeezing the air from her lungs. And the worst of it was that, although the face of the serpent was distorted and hideous, it still bore traces of Edric.

The head reared; the eyes filled with malice. The snake opened its mouth wide and struck, its long fangs sinking into her neck.

Tania cried out as she felt the venom being pumped into her veins. Every instinct in her mind and body screamed for her to tear herself free of the squirming monster, but she would not.

It’s Edric! It’s my true love!

A coldness began to spread from her neck, a deadening coldness that crept across her shoulder and down her chest, burrowing deeper, moving toward her heart. Her heart stopped beating as the coldness surged around it. Her blood turned to ice, the air to stone in her lungs. Still she would not be overcome.

No! I’ll never let go. Never!

And then the snake was suddenly gone from in front of her eyes. She gasped, staring around, amazed to find herself alive and still holding Edric in her arms.

The Green Lady’s voice seethed with surprise and anger. “And still love endures!” she snarled. “But no more! Now I will have done with you, and death shall be your reward.” She lifted her voice in a commanding cry. “Lords of amber sun, do fealty to your Queen!”

“Become a savage beast!” shouted a voice. “Rend her to the bone!”

Fear struck Tania as Edric jerked and thrashed in her arms, his head twisting, his face stretching and distorting. His jaw stretched unnaturally toward her, the teeth snapping. Wiry hair began to bristle from his skin, and his eyes grew wild and yellow. With a sudden surge of power he threw her onto her back. He was on top of her; and he was a werewolf, huge and shaggy and stinking, but still with a face that was half wolf and half Edric. The monster fought her wildly as she tried to defend herself, its bared fangs striking against her cheek, its open maw spraying foul spittle over her face. She cried out, feeling the raw power of its limbs as it reared over her, the mouth a gaping red hole, the eyes slithers of vicious yellow light.

An arm rose and fell, claws raking across her face. Pain and terror. The feel of her flesh being torn. The roars and snarls of the beast above her, filling the night, the hot breath pouring down over her. Again it struck her, the claws slicing deep into her skin, tearing at her clothes, gouging her arms as she tried to defend herself.

Edric, no! Please, no!

She screamed, lost in agony and terror, forgetting everything.

Through a red haze she saw her shredded gown, blood blossoming across the fabric. And above the roaring of the werewolf she could hear the mocking laughter of the Green Lady.

She choked, her arms falling limp as the beast straddled her and roared its triumph, its weight crushing down on her, making it impossible to draw breath.

She struggled weakly, swamped by darkness. Losing consciousness.

She lay still. Dead, surely.

The werewolf clambered to its feet and turned, dropping to all fours and running to where the Green Lady stood. It rubbed up against her, fawning at her feet.

Tania could do nothing. She was dead. Dead,
surely
? She saw the Green Lady smile and pet the werewolf as the light faded from her eyes.

No . . . not . . . dead . . .

Struggling to hold on to consciousness, Tania did not know where she found the strength—she did not know how she endured the pain and the deathly cold to lift herself and hand over hand, her legs dragging, to crawl to where the werewolf was nuzzling its snout into the Green Lady’s hand.

With her final breath she caught hold of the were-wolf’s forepaw and closed her fingers about it. “I’ll never let go. Never.”

Then the dark took her.

Tania felt herself lifted to her feet, a hand at her throat. She opened her eyes and found herself staring into the Green Lady’s fearsome, enraged face. She hung in the grip of the enchantress of Erin.

“Had I known the power of the love in you, I would not have brought you into this place!” the Green Lady spat. Her voice was half choked with rage. “I would have slain the boy where he stood rather than have him taken from me!”

Tania stared at the enchantress, her head gradually clearing as she looked into those bitter, hate-filled eyes. She realized that her hand was tight in another hand. Her head was held fixed by the Green Lady, but she swiveled her eyes and saw Edric standing at her side. He looked exhausted, but there was a smile on his face as he gazed at her. And his eyes were brown.

“Take the boy and take with him the curse of my heart on you!” hissed the enchantress, her fingernails digging into Tania’s skin. “You will never know true happiness, child of the riven soul,” she spat. “Any happiness you do find will be nothing but an illusion!”

The fingers loosened on Tania’s throat and she staggered and would have fallen over if Edric hadn’t caught her.

“It’s all right,” he said, his arms around her. “You’ve beaten her. . . . You won!”

The Green Lady turned and swept away, her gown sliding across the grass in her wake as she walked away. Tania saw that the nine riders ringed them still, their spears pointing inward, their horses immobile, their faces unreadable.

The Green Lady lifted her arms and before her the hillside split open with a sound like thunder. With neither word nor gesture she walked into the hill, and the lips of grass closed at her back, solid once more.

Tania turned in Edric’s arms, clinging to him, pressing her face into his neck, feeling him holding her. “Is it over?” she said gasping.

“Yes.”

“Truly?”

He laughed, his arms tightening around her.

“Yes!”

She looked into his face. “Don’t ever leave me again!” she said.

“I won’t.”

“You’ll never be taken away from me. Not ever! I’ll come for you, no matter how far you go.”

“I know.”

She looked into his face, into his wide brown eyes, and for a few moments Edric was all that existed in the world.

“Be gone from this place!” howled an angry voice. “There is no welcome for you here! The Faerie Queen of Erin curses you.”

Tania pulled away from Edric to see the foremost of the red horsemen towering over them, his fire-barbed spear lowered, pointing at her face.

A line of a song came like an arrow into her mind.
Where the horsemen nine, beyond all time, pay homage to the Faerie Queen . . .

That was it! That was the music she had been hearing! It was the song that Michael had sung in the Iron Stone Tavern. The song about the Faerie Queen and the nine horsemen she held in thrall.

“We will go if you’ll give us leave,” said Edric to the horseman, his arm coming around Tania’s shoulders. “We have no wish to linger.”

“Then depart, and an ill grace go with you,” said the red horseman. He pulled on the reins and the red horse stepped aside, and there was a clear path to the cleft that divided the ramparts of Ashling dar Dair.

“No!” Tania slid away from Edric’s protective arm. She had only heard the words of the song that one time—she was desperately trying to remember how it went. “Wait!”

“What is it?” Edric’s voice was puzzled.

She screwed her eyes shut, cudgeling her brains. “Give me a moment,” she said. “I have to get this right.” She began falteringly to sing . . . “

An apple tree grows on the Faerie Queen’s hill that bears the fruit so round
. . .” She opened her eyes. “Red apples and green apples and yellow apples—all together on the one tree. Yes, that was it!” She stared up into the uncanny red eyes of the leading horseman. “Where is the tree?” she demanded. “Where is the magic apple tree?”

“You cannot approach it,” declared the rider. “None can, on pain of death!”

“Yes, I know that,” Tania said. “Just tell me where it is.”

The horseman lifted his spear and stretched out his arm. Tania turned, following the slender, pointing finger of the spear.

At first there was nothing—just the dusky sky over the green hill. But then, like a hidden picture that reveals itself only if it’s stared at for a while, Tania suddenly saw a tree growing directly above the place where the Green Lady had walked into the hill.

An apple tree. And even in the twilight she saw that it had red and green and yellow fruit!

“Edric—we have to get to the tree,” she said. “We have to pick one of each color apple.”

He nodded and caught her hand. Together they dived between two of the horsemen and began to run for the steep slope.

Tania felt such love for Edric that it almost burst her heart. He had not asked why; he had not hesitated for a single second. He had simply taken her hand and gone for it!

But even as they were running up the hillside, she heard the thud of hooves and the rattle of harnesses as the nine horsemen went galloping full tilt up the hill, speeding past them.

Before they came halfway up the ramparts, the nine horsemen had surrounded the tree, facing outward, faces grim, spears at the ready.

Tania and Edric slowed, walking now, still hand-in-hand, till they were only a few feet from the first horseman.

“I don’t think they’re going to let us past,” said Edric.

“Listen!” Tania called to the statue-still horsemen. “You’re under the Green Lady’s spell.” She paused. “Do you get what I’m telling you? You don’t have to do this. Let me through. If I pick the apples, you’ll all be free of her. Trust me!”

Trust me! I heard it in a song. . . .

“None may come nigh the tree,” boomed the red horseman. “None may pass, neither by magic, nor by stealth, but they shall come to their death.”

None may pass . . .

Save she whose step is an airy dance, and she who can thwart the Faerie Queen’s will, with her true love at her side . . .

An airy dance . . .

Tania smiled and tightened her grip on Edric’s hand.

“How many paces, would you say, to get to the tree?” she asked him.

“Ten . . . maybe twelve,” he said.

“Okay, then—let’s do it!”

She focused her mind and sidestepped.

They found themselves on a windy hill under the soft light of a new day. Trees shivered in the breeze and yellow bushes whispered.

The apple tree and the nine horsemen of the Deena Shee were gone.

Tania turned, the wind cool in her face, making her hair fly as she gazed over fresh, green countryside to a horizon where a white sun rose among bands of orange cloud.

A picturesque village huddled at the foot of the hill, stone houses with gray slate roofs. Streetlights and tarmac roads and the odd car on the move as the sun came up. Sleepy and timeless and . . .
normal
.

She turned to Edric, overcome by an urgent need. She took his other hand, drawing him close. They kissed, clinging to each other, freed for the moment from danger, able to hold each other briefly to forget everything but their rekindled love.

Breaking the kiss, Tania pressed her face into his neck, breathing him in, circled in his arms.

“Is there time to tell me why we need the apples?” Edric asked, his fingers still laced with hers. “I don’t mind if not.”

“It’s a song,” Tania said, pulling reluctantly away. “Pick the apples and break the spell.” She looked at him and smiled. “We need those men to loan us horses to get across Hy Brassail; there’s no other way. Ordinary horses won’t do it. And the only way to get them to help us is if we free them from the spell that the Green Lady has put them under. At least, that’s my theory.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Edric.

She frowned. “Edric—is my gift—you know, my ability to walk between the worlds—is it magic?”

“No, not magic,” said Edric. “It’s something else.”

“Good. That’s all I needed to know. Come on— what was it—twelve paces?”

“More or less.”

Side-by-side they carefully paced their way up the hill.

“Okay,” Tania said. “We’ll need to be quick once we go back—otherwise we’re going to get perforated before we can make a move.”

“I’ll go for green and yellow—you go for red.”

“Done!” She took a steadying breath. “Ready?”

She took a last longing look at the peaceful Irish countryside—wishing she could stay, wishing things could be different.

“Go!”

“Oh!” She pulled her head back, startled to find herself only inches from the trunk of the apple tree.

“See! They are returned!” roared a ferocious voice. “Pierce them through!” It was the red horseman, twisting in the saddle, his face fierce with anger.

Edric released Tania’s hand and jumped, snatching at the low branches. He came down with a yellow apple in one hand.

“No!” This was one of the yellow horsemen. “I am Finbarr, lord of Cragg Nagore. I am no witch’s slave.”

It was working! Tania leaped for a low-hanging red apple. A swift-thrown spear grazed her shoulder, sending her sprawling, but as she lay gasping in the grass, she saw that she had a red apple in her fist.

She heard cries from all the horsemen, and when she turned, Edric was standing close by with a green apple in his other hand.

She stood up, feeling the land shudder around her as the magic of the enchantress melted away.

The men were no longer all green and all red and all yellow. They were clad in dark leathers and sweeping cloaks. They had dark wavy hair and brown, waking eyes. Only their horses had not changed, and Tania realized that, although the nine men had been under an enchantment, their nine steeds were magic still.

The men jumped down from the saddle, shouting and greeting one another like friends long separated.

“Cailtie and Cumhal, hail! By the powers, it was a fearful dark spell we were under, my brothers.”

“Aye, like a living death it was, friend Midhir.”

“Like lying awake in your grave!”

“Is the foul woman gone? The stink of enchantment is in my nostrils yet.”

“Aye, a dark and dreadful dream has been upon us! How long have we been captive in this place?”

“It’s been a hundred years times five, friend Lugh!”

The nine men gathered, embracing one another, slapping hands on leather-clad backs, laughing loud enough to crack the sky open.

“Were we under the Green Lady’s spell for so long?”

“Aye, it was a monstrous long time, my lords, and I am glad indeed to be free of her dark deceits!”

“Well, that certainly worked,” said Edric, tossing a yellow apple as he came to Tania’s side. “Do you know who these men are?”

“I think they’re the lords who ruled Erin before the Green Lady appeared,” said Tania. “Part of the song says that if the nine horsemen could be freed from the spell, ‘great lords again would they be.’ I think that means they used to rule here. And I think we just liberated them.”

The man who had led the red riders came striding up to Tania, his hands outstretched. “Maiden, young sir, I am Finn of the Open Heart. You have done us a great courtesy by freeing us from the foul enchantments of that evil creature!”

“Our pleasure,” said Tania as his great, strong hand gripped hers. “Are you sure she’s really gone?”

“The enchantment is broken,” said Lord Finn. “The Green Lady must weave new webs in her dark den under the hill ere she shall snare us again—and the more wary will we be. Nay, I think she shall not do us more hurt. Neither to us nor to our fair land.”

“I think the magic is gone,” said Edric, lifting his head as though searching for an elusive scent.

“Aye, ’tis quite gone!” said Finn.

“But it’s still twilight,” said Tania.

“Aye, maiden—the twilight of a new day!”

Tania realized that the light was different. It was no longer the endless oppressive twilight that had hung over them ever since they had come to Ashling dar Dair; it was dawn! And away over the hills there was the silvery shine of the rising sun.

“How may we repay you for your service?” asked Lord Finn, his face glowing in the slowly building light. “Ask, and if it is in our power, you shall have whatsoever you wish.”

Tania grinned. “Actually,” she said, “there is something we need. Something really special.”