Elfland

by Freda Warrington

  Jon grimaced. “That’s the problem, isn’t it. It’s complicated.”

  “Do you love her?” Lucas asked, frowning.

  Jon’s voice came softly out of the twilight. “I sort of love her, and I sort of hate her. I always knew it was wrong, worse than wrong, disgusting actually, but your body’s got other ideas . . . so the disgust and the pleasure get mixed up until you can’t tell them apart. I hated her so much but I was entranced. I could never bring myself to touch her, really, but that’s what she liked; a boy to lie there like a sacrifice while she enjoyed herself. It was vile but it was exciting . . . afterwards you feel contaminated. The pleasure isn’t worth it and the revulsion is way off the scale. No, I can’t let it happen anymore.”

  He sat chewing his lower lip, eyes blank. Lucas said, “You need to find someone else.”

  “I’ve tried.” Jon gave a soft laugh. “I slept with Mel once and I didn’t know what to do, because I was so used to Sapphire . . . using me. Hopeless, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Well, now you know why I was always hiding in Nottingham and permanently stoned. D’you remember, when we had the band, we’d wake up with strange girls in the house and I couldn’t even remember if we’d done anything with them? I couldn’t wait to boot them out so I could just be with you.”

  “And get stoned again,” Luc said dryly.

  “With Mel, it wasn’t what I’d hoped for at all,” Jon said sadly. “I thought she could rescue me, but she couldn’t. It would never have worked in a thousand years. She wouldn’t wipe her shoes on me.”

  “Yeah, you are kind of chalk and cheese . . .”

  Jon grinned bitterly. “Drugs are better than sex, any day. The pleasure lasts longer, and they never complain that you haven’t phoned them.”

  “The sad thing is that you mean it,” said Lucas. “Plus it’s incredibly hard to find a girlfriend while you’re either hallucinating or unconscious. Thanks for that.”

  Jon reached out to touch his cheek. “You never did a single thing with me that you didn’t want to, Luc.” He let his hand fall. “What finished me is Sapphire’s quest for Aetherial enlightenment. It’s like she’s trying to soak it out of me. Everything precious I shared with you, she inflicted this hideous parody on me. But I humor her, because every time I say no, she threatens to tell Lawrence.”

  “But how could she tell him? She’d ruin herself as well as you.”

  He exhaled, shivering. “Because she’s fearless, and I’ve got more to lose. She can easily get another husband, she says. I can never get another father.”

  Jon rose to his feet and began to hunt plants again, a rangy silhouette in the blue dark. Lucas went after him. “Jon,” he said. “We’re still brothers, aren’t we? We can be strong together.”

  Jon halted and fixed him with intense, demanding eyes. “I need you more than ever, Luc. I wish you hadn’t left when we were so close to unlocking the Gates.”

  “We were never close!” Lucas exclaimed. “All we had were hallucinations. We never got one millimeter into the Gates.”

  “That’s not true,” Jon said. “Your visions were genuine. Is that why you stopped—because you were scared?”

  “I’m not scared! Only I think Matthew’s right, we should let it rest. It’s not meant to be.”

  Jon’s eyes glowed chestnut, almost red in the eerie light. “I can’t believe you feel that. This is what’s wrong with everyone! Tangling themselves up with the surface world, marriages, businesses, instead of concentrating on what truly matters. Your uncle Comyn is right. Unlocking the Otherworld is the only thing that can save us!”

  He spoke so passionately that Lucas lost his own conviction. What if Jon was right? He tried a different view of the world in which Matthew, Auberon, Rosie, even Lawrence were walking around in a dream because Elysion was lost, while only Jon and Comyn were keeping the flame alive. The idea was frightening enough to be real.

  Jon went on, “Imagine you’ve been looking through gates into the most beautiful garden, and all your life you’ve been promised that you’ll go inside one day . . . Then, when it’s time, they turn around and say oh, sorry, we forgot to mention there are wolves and lions loose so you can’t go in after all. Ever. We can’t let them do that to us.” He rested his hand on Luc’s shoulder. “We can’t let them kill the dream.”

  “But we tried and failed.”

  “No. We haven’t started yet. With the Gates open, everything can be healed. You said it—we’re brothers, strong together. Are you with me?”

  Lucas felt the world pulling out of shape. He loved Jon, needed to believe him, wanted with all his heart to rescue him. And Jon’s passion was as persuasive as ever, netting him with enchantment. “Yes, completely,” Luc said with a sigh. “You don’t have to ask.”

  “I’m useless without you. Now you’re here, we can achieve wonders.”

  The twilight thickened, and pairs of luminous eyes gleamed down from the branches. Eventually Lucas asked, “What are you looking for?”

  “A little sign saying ‘Eat Me,’ ” Jon answered. “Shush.” As the slope began to flatten near the top, there was a hollow where the grass grew thick with wild plants. “Ah,” said Jon. “Here it is.”

  He bent to a plant and lifted drooping berries. It resembled deadly nightshade, but this was larger than life, the stem glowing with its own pale green light and berries bulging like blood clots.

  “Every plant in the Dusklands will bring dreams of some kind. I found this a few months ago. It’s called night splinter, for the blaze of light when the darkness splits open. By the way, when you harvest something, always remember to thank it.” Plucking berries, he murmured, “Forgive me, mistress, for taking your fruit. In thanks I’ll scatter some for the seeds to grow.”

  “How the hell do you know all this?”

  Jon shrugged. “It’s basic Aetherial herbal knowledge. Of course, they don’t want us to know, any more than human parents show their children how to grow cannabis.”

  “Have you tried it?”

  The berries clustering tenderly in Jon’s palm were black, with a dusting of blue that fluoresced in the twilight. “I wouldn’t give you anything I hadn’t tried. This, combined with devil’s nightcap—it’s the key, I’m sure.” Jon’s conviction shone out of him, contagious. “Do you trust me? Will you try for me?”

  Once more, Lucas was snared by the terrifying, irresistible thrill of the unknown. He looked into Jon’s eyes and said, “When do you want to do it?”

  Jon gave him a look of gratitude and faith that made his heart swell. “Now, if you like.”

  The blue of the Dusklands faded to lemon-streaked grey and the sharp, surface world breeze blew over them as Jon led the way downhill. On the floor of the glade, Jon sat on a broad tree stump, took the basket from Luc and brought out the pestle and mortar. In went the berries and a scrap of bruise-colored fungus.

  “Grinding it first brings out the full potency.” Jon began to work the pestle, creating a blue-black foaming mush. Lucas sat cross-legged on the grass in front of him, entranced. “Break down the cell walls, crack the seeds, squeeze out the sap.” He grinned. “This is the one thing I’m good at. Okay, I can’t sing or write and I faked my way through art college.”

  Lucas watched the swing of Jon’s hair as he worked, the strange crimson flash of his eyes. Meanwhile, his own hands wove a pentagram of twigs, the points symbolizing earth, air, fire, water and ether in balance; a token of intention. Through it he wove a spiral of ivy. He felt cold to the core.

  “But this is instinct,” Jon went on. “I could be a purveyor of designer cocktails to the adventurous. I could be as rich as my father.” He tipped the mush into a tea strainer, then forced it through with the pestle until a few teaspoons of thick inky liquid had dripped back into the mortar.

  He held it out like an altar cup to Lucas. “If you take it now, it will be working by the time we reach Freya’s Crown.”

  �
��Aren’t you going to—?”

  Jon shook his head. He dipped a fingertip in the juice and sucked it clean, a token. “One of us has to keep watch.”

  Lucas took the mortar. A rim of lilac bubbles clung around the sludge. He remembered the first time Jon had fed him dream agaric, and his stomach twisted. Fear of being poisoned gripped him, but he pushed it away. He raised the cup to his lips and swallowed.

  It tasted of blueberries and bitter almonds.

  He stood up. Joining hands they walked together, Lucas looking up through the trees and waiting for the darkness to split open.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Jon whispered, leaning over to kiss him on the mouth. “Everything will be all right now.”

  _______

  Lucas found himself alone at Freya’s Crown. The bluish light of the Dusklands saturated the landscape. He knew Jon was there, but couldn’t see him. A panicky chill ran through him.

  The outcrop towered like a cliff face. It crawled with runes that whispered to him. The sound was silver and tasted sweet, like mint. The world dissolved; he was suddenly inside a fissure, looking out at a woodland glade. A doe looked back at him. Her coat was creamy-beige, her head delicate with huge dark eyes. As Lucas went unsteadily towards her, she turned and trotted away. He followed.

  She led him deep into the greenwood until they came to a pool. There she dipped her head to the water, drank, and changed shape. Now she was a girl sitting on the ground in a billow of cream fur. Her face was heart-shaped, young and sweet. Her eyes, like the doe’s, were completely black. “Let me show you our story,” she said.

  As she spoke, Lucas turned dizzy. Her words became a spell, a summons into a chaotic nightmare. The world swam horribly around him and he saw volcanoes erupting from the earth, the mountains rolling like the sea . . . He found himself on a desert plain beneath a mountain, the landscape burning with sunset colors. He saw the troops of Naamon pouring across the bright sand with hair of flame, armor of scarlet and gold. The sides of their chariots bore stylized designs, lynx, salamander, phoenix. And waiting to engage them were the rebels of Melusiel, the realm of water. Glittering silver and palest blue, greenish and slender, they were fluidly soft, too few to withstand the onslaught . . .

  The end of Queen Malikala’s empire, the doe girl’s voice told him without words. And he was caught in it. The ground boomed like a drum. Lucas’s face burned with raging heat. Sand flew into his eyes and he cried out, choking. Flaming arrows began to fly. The watery Aelyr were crying out, falling, defenseless.

  High on the mountainside stood the Melusian sorceress Jeleel, Queen of Water—a column of pale iridescence. Her hair rippled with ropes of pearl and seaweed. She struck the mountain with the heel of her silver staff, and from it flowed a spring . . .

  Lucas saw the staff strike, saw the glassy trickle burst from the rock. In seconds the spring became a torrent, a river in full flow. Paralyzed, he watched the foaming current thundering past him.

  The deluge crashed into the Queen of Fire’s army and swept them away. Their lethal lines broke up into a panicking mass of horses, broken chariots, drowning men. Suddenly Malikala herself was there in front of him, real as life and aiming a flame-tipped arrow at his heart.

  She looked far from human, her head and body that of a crested dragon, her armor glowing like lava. Her eyes were golden ice, but the scaled body beneath the armor was blue-black obsidian. Unleashing all the anguish of her defeat upon Lucas, she let the arrow fly. From short range, it thudded into his breastbone, flinging him backwards into the deluge. The wound burned, a ferocious circle of acid. Water roared in his ears and he flailed, forced deeper and deeper. He was carried off, drowning.

  When his head broke water, he glimpsed drenched and struggling fire warriors in the torrent around him. The excruciating pain in his chest made breathing impossible.

  A shape grazed the edge of his vision. He looked up.

  There were boats in the sky.

  A flotilla of long, flat-bottomed boats with curved prows drifted overhead. Soldiers of Naamon were being lifted out of the water on ropes, rising to safety like spiders on silk. The boats bore the hawk emblems of Sibeyla, realm of air; Malikala’s allies . . .

  There was a boat directly above Lucas. A rope unfurled towards him. Choking, fighting the swift tumble of the current, he reached up, gripped the rope and began to climb. It was a slow, hard ascent. The arrow had vanished from his chest, but the wound throbbed, making each movement agony. The rope shook and swayed. The boat began to fly and the wind buffeted him.

  All elements must act in balance, like the five points of a star, came the doe girl’s soft voice. When they quarrel, the storms rage on for centuries . . .

  As he drew nearer to the boat he saw his rescuers; four tall, slender, muscular men, naked to the waist. They had the heads of birds. Long curved beaks, blue feathers, proud eyes. Eyes like Lawrence, he thought. They were all avatars of Lawrence, unfeeling deities. He hung below the boat, unable to climb farther. They made no move to help him.

  He glanced below and saw the flooded desert dwindling into gloom. He was alone with the bird-headed gods.

  The boat began to fly at speed. He clung to the rope, feeling the prickle of ice on his skin, the ache of trembling muscles, the shaft of pain through his breast. Vast landscapes yawned and tilted below him. Sulfurous volcanoes, glaciers, mountains dropping into immeasurable valleys. A plain of lakes, rolling into violet and blue infinity.

  It was beautiful beyond words, terrifying beyond comprehension.

  They passed over a city carved entirely of black onyx. He saw graceful, not-quite-human beings, extravagantly dressed, gliding through the fantastical streets, untouched by the distant battle . . .

  The rope jerked. From the boat, a face thrust itself down at him, almost touching his: an elongated demon face, bony, white and hard as arctic ice. It had bright blue eyes and a bright blue gem in the center of its forehead. Lines of frost ran from the ends of the fingertips, crackling all through the Spiral to the Earth, freezing and fracturing everything.

  He realized that the rope to which he clung was the creature’s own snow-white hair, plaited.

  “Do you know what your father has unleashed?” said the frost demon.

  Lucas looked down and saw a vast fire creature, the size of a mountain, breathing flame and hot gas—trailing a shadow ten times its size, which swirled like a great tornado. The fire is Qesoth, the beginning, and the shadow is Brawth, the ending, murmured the doe girl. The Shadow was there at the start of time and will return to end time itself, tearing apart all Aetherial life with no more thought than a hurricane.

  “Is this what you want to happen?” said the frozen face above him. “Let Vaeth and Spiral remain separate. Let the Great Gates be sealed, a flood barrier. Otherwise . . .”

  Lucas writhed and protested, but no sound came out of him. There was nothing he could do to end the vision. He could not shut his eyes against it. He saw everyone he knew standing in its path—his beloved sister, his parents, everyone—oblivious. Only at the last moment did they see the shadow boiling towards them—falling in horror as it pierced each skull with a spear of burning-black ice.

  A structure loomed, so immense he did not recognize it as a tree until they were swooping between branches, each of which was the arm of a nebula. Lucas couldn’t breathe. Then they were beyond the Tree of Life, and now there was nothing left except the darkness that contained it . . .

  The Abyss.

  Lucas looked down and screamed.

  Two chasm walls filled the universe, one flowing with ice and the opposite with lava. Between them, blackness yawned and dropped forever.

  The blackness was oblivion, the end of all things. Yet it held more; a soup of stars and gas and dark matter. At the same time it was a sentient beast with a shape. He saw it rising, saw the bulk of its great shoulders and head blotting out the stars. Cosmic terror overwhelmed him. Brawth.

  Impassive, the frost demon in t
he boat leaned down and, with the slash of a fingernail, cut the rope of its own hair.

  Lucas began to fall.

  He flailed, spread-eagled on the darkness, mouth wide, screaming.

  The Abyss did not care. It swallowed him and he fell and fell forever.

  13

  Over the Threshold

  He was screaming and screaming, but his throat would make no sound.

  Someone was holding him. Patterns whirled around him, black and white.

  “Lucas! For fuck’s sake! Calm down. You’re okay. I’m here, I’ve got you.”

  He heard the words but couldn’t understand them. The hole in his chest became the burning chasm through which he was falling. The world had broken into shards of ice that tumbled through the Abyss with him, and it was all his doing. “I broke it,” he gasped. “The ice giant is coming.”

  “Luc, you’re all right. You’re having a bad trip.”

  He saw Jon in front of him, like a wraith, all bones and eyes. Lucas flinched backwards, warding off the apparition with outstretched hands. Jon’s voice was far away, murmuring without meaning, while worlds shattered around him.

  Time jumped. The voice became suddenly clear, sounding tired and desperate. “Come on, Luc, you’re safe. Can you hear me? Listen to me, Luc, please.”

  “Where are we?”

  Jon sighed in relief at his response. “Dumannios. Hold on, try to relax so I can take us back.”

  “I can’t. It’s all broken.” He clawed at the fire in his chest.

  “Take this.” Jon held a bottle to his lips. It was blue and ridged, like an apothecary’s poison bottle. A syrupy, bitter liquid went down his throat.

  “Why are you giving me cough mixture?” said Lucas.

  Jon laughed. “It’s tincture of blackdrop. Wonderful stuff, calm you right down. Are you with me now?”

  “They cut the rope,” Lucas said, feeling this would explain everything.