The Immortal Realm

by Frewin Jones

  Tania’s thoughts faded as movements on the surrounding hilltops caught her attention. All along the rolling hills that cupped the valley of Leiderdale, animals were gathering. There were sheep and goats and cattle and oxen; there were deer and wolves and bears and wild boar; and in among them were smaller beasts, foxes and badgers and dogs and wild cats. All of them stood silhouetted against the sky, looking into the valley, paying reverence to the princess who loved and honored them so much.

  The King’s deep voice welled out. “Sing!”

  And the Queen’s voice rang out also. “Sing!”

  And Cordelia and Bryn sang.

  With eyes raised to the stars

  There is no fear of loss

  The light that shines afar

  Reveals the bridge to cross

  Where lovers meet at last

  And never more do part

  And seen through a soul of glass

  Your warm and beating heart.

  And I will guide you there

  Beyond this shallow land

  What lady is more fair

  What lord to take your hand

  As ever on we dance

  Among high heaven’s host

  And I see at every glance

  The one I love the most

  As they sang, their voices echoed, growing in strength and cadence, rolling along the valley, splitting into descant and countermelody so that they sounded like a choir of heavenly voices.

  And when the song ended, the reverberations of the phantom choir continued to rebound across the valley, gradually fading back to silence under a dusky, star-speckled sky.

  Tania snatched a breath, realizing that she had hardly been breathing during the beautiful song.

  The silence was broken suddenly by the voices of the animals on the hilltops. They all began at once to bleat and howl and roar and bellow and bark and bay, filling the oncoming night with a riot of noise. Cordelia lifted her arms to them, turning slowly on the High Chantrelle, saluting the animals as they called down to her.

  Tania squeezed Edric’s hand. “Wow!” she said.

  The sound of the animals died away, and the beasts on the hilltops turned and departed into the night.

  There was applause as Cordelia and Bryn stepped hand-in-hand down from the High Chantrelle as husband and wife. Cheering crowds instantly surrounded them.

  “There’s more to come,” Edric told her. “Something amazing.”

  Tania looked at him. “More amazing than that?”

  He nodded. “I was present for the wedding of Princess Hopie and Lord Brython,” he said, his eyes shining. “Watch and wait!”

  Tania did not have to wait long. She was aware that the crowds were quieting again and moving back to allow someone to pass through. Oberon and Titania climbed up to the High Chantrelle. They stood on the glittering summit, hand-in-hand, turning to the west as Cordelia and Bryn had done.

  “Here it comes,” Edric whispered in her ear.

  The King and Queen began to sing, Oberon’s voice a deep bass, resonant and powerful, while Titania’s rose above it in a rich, full-throated contralto.

  Blessed be the night!

  Blessed be the puissance strong of the sinews of

  the land!

  Blessed moon and stars!

  We call upon the potent powers; we take them in

  our hands

  Sentinels of the night, singing as stars do sing

  The clash of cymbals, the beating of drums

  Moon-mad men and merry maids

  Leap like rivers into the skies!

  This is to those of wonder’s dove

  This is a merry once

  This comes on wings of raven sheen

  This is the evening dance

  Of those who wake in shadows

  As they sang, a white light began to grow about them, a swirling, circling light that had flecks of every color in it. It spun around them, growing brighter and moving faster, the colored flecks stretching until they were rainbow rings that almost hid the King and Queen, sheathing them in a whirl of flashing brilliance. And then the column of light exploded up into the night, bathing the sky in washes of color that spread like fluttering curtains.

  Tania tilted her head back, her eyes full of the streaming, swooping banners of rainbow light. She had never seen such colors before. The lights frolicked across the sky, weaving and pulsing, twining and threading together, from the deepest of throbbing violets through infinitely shaded blues and greens and yellows to vibrant reds.

  And as the flying lights filled the sky, the Faerie folk began to dance, moving through a world that was bathed in shimmering color. Tania became caught up in the dance, laughing with happiness, holding hands with Edric.

  She glimpsed one unmoving figure, standing apart on the hillside. Her Mortal father, his expression uneasy, his brows knitted as though the lights hurt his eyes. But she was swept away from him, her eyes full of rainbows, her hair streaming out.

  After a timeless whirl of ecstasy, the dance came to an end. The lights faded, and Tania found herself gazing dizzily at the starry sky of a deep Faerie night.

  Edric was right: There had been more to come. Something amazing!

  II

  Tania walked through the crowds, arm-in-arm with her Mortal mother. She had left Edric talking with Titus and Corin, the stepsons of the earl marshal—he had understood that she needed to be alone with her mother for a little while. The wedding celebrations were in full flow, the festivities taking place by the light of torches and blazing bonfires. The last glimmerings of Oberon and Titania’s enchanted lights flickered on the hilltops, glossing everything with delicate hues.

  The valley was a scene of boisterous and noisy merrymaking. Courtiers danced to the music of lute, rebec, and krumhorns while others applauded the antics of tumblers and jugglers. Still more were being entertained by troubadours, storytellers, and jesters, and some were gathered near the feast tents, enjoying meats roasted on the bone and new-baked bread, succulent sweetmeats and candied delicacies.

  Cordelia and Bryn were dancing in a great circle of smiling onlookers. They held each other tightly, spinning across the grass as the music grew, and Cordelia’s long gossamer train rose and swirled about them like a fluttering banner.

  “Come, all shall be merry!” cried Cordelia, and the audience sprang forward to join in the dance.

  Faerie children played everywhere, hovering and flying above the ground on their translucent wings. Tania envied them their freedom—she had memories of flying; they had come to her in dreams or visions, but they had still felt achingly real to her. She knew that when they reached the age of ten or twelve, these children’s wings would wither away and be lost and they would be earthbound like their parents. But for now, as Tania watched them, they darted in and out among the adults, shouting and laughing and turning cartwheels in the air.

  “So?” Tania asked her mother. “What do you think of all this so far? Any good?”

  Her mother smiled. “It’s overwhelming,” she said.

  “Isn’t it, though?” She squeezed her mother’s arm, trying to quell the anxiety that knotted in her stomach, knowing she needed to tell her mother something huge. “I’m so glad you and Dad were able to come here and experience it all.” She gave her mother a sideways glance. It was still a little odd to see her mother’s face above the frills and lacework of a Faerie gown, her slender features framed by short dark curls, her brown eyes intelligent and knowing. “Am I forgiven for keeping it secret at first?”

  “What could you have said that we would have believed?” her mother replied. “We would probably have thought you’d gone batty if you’d tried to tell us the truth.” She paused and looked around. “I’m standing right here and I can still hardly believe it.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Tania. She turned, taking her mother by both hands and looking into her face. “I’ve been putting this off ever since you came here,” she began, wishing there was some way of a
voiding this revelation. “But there’s something I have to tell you.”

  Her mother gave her a sympathetic smile. “I already know, sweetheart,” she said.

  Tania frowned. “You already know what?”

  “That you have to choose between our world and Faerie,” said her mother. “And that you’ve chosen Faerie.”

  Tania stared at her in dismay.

  Mrs. Palmer laughed softly. “What did you think Titania and I have been talking about these past weeks, the weather?” She gripped Tania’s hands. “It’s okay, sweetheart, really it is. Who wouldn’t choose all this? Listen, your dad and I were fully expecting you to go away to university soon, anyway—and then you’d have wanted to set yourself up in a place of your own.” She laughed. “You’re just leaving home a little sooner than we anticipated, and you’re going a bit farther away than we expected. I had been hoping for Oxford or Edinburgh. Oxford would have been nice; we could have driven up to see you quite easily.” Her eyes sparkled. “I don’t suppose driving to Faerie is an option.”

  Tania felt a huge burst of love for her mother. She hugged her tightly. “Mum—you’re totally amazing!”

  “Aren’t I, though?” Mrs. Palmer said. “And I’m looking on the positive side: At least you won’t be arriving on our doorstep once a month with a great big sack of laundry like most kids do when they first leave home. At least, I hope you won’t; I have no idea how to wash these Faerie clothes.”

  “I’ll come home as often as I can,” Tania said, ignoring the people who were coming and going all around them, not caring that her eyes were brimming with tears. “But what are we going to tell everyone? What am I going to tell Jade?” In the Mortal World, Jade Anderson was Tania’s best friend. Before all this craziness had happened, Tania and Jade had always confided everything to each other.

  “How do you stay best friends with someone when a whole huge part of your life has to be kept secret from them?” she wondered. “I can’t tell her. There’s no way she’d be able to keep something like this to herself. But if I don’t tell her…”

  Her mother patted her shoulder. “We’ll think of something.”

  “You don’t understand. Jade will know if I’m keeping stuff from her. She has a total radar for that kind of thing. She’ll hate me if she thinks I’m shutting her out. And it’s not just her, is it? What do we tell the people at school next term? They’ll want to know why I’ve suddenly stopped turning up.”

  “We can tell everyone you’re taking a year abroad,” said her mother. “We’ll say you’ve gone sheep farming in New Zealand or that you’re getting work experience on an oil rig or doing scientific research in the Arctic.” She looked into Tania’s eyes. “Listen, you’ve had to cope with a whole lot of impossible stuff over the last couple of months. Don’t try and figure everything out in one go—it’ll drive you crazy. Take things one at a time.” She smiled gently. “That’s what your father and I are doing.”

  Tania frowned at the mention of her Mortal father. “Where is Dad? How’s he doing?”

  There was a burst of laughter and applause. They were passing a crowd gathered around a troop of acrobats. The tumblers had formed two tall pyramids, the uppermost performer of each pyramid balancing upside down on the heads of two others while their feet juggled gold and silver balls with liquid precision.

  “I think he went to lie down in our tent,” her mother replied, clapping with the crowd. “He’s feeling a bit sorry for himself. You know what he’s like when he’s got one of his colds.”

  “But how is he doing in general?” Tania asked as they moved on through the festivities. “How’s he coping with all this?”

  Mrs. Palmer pursed her lips. “He’s struggling a bit, but what do you expect? You’ve always been his little girl—and now it turns out you have another father in another world, and to top it all, your new father is an Immortal King. You’ve got to admit, that’s a lot for any dad to assimilate. Most fathers freak out when their daughter brings her first boyfriend home—but in your case Edric wasn’t the half of it!”

  “I think maybe I should go and talk to him.”

  “He’d like that. Just don’t get impatient with him if he doesn’t seem to be warming to the whole princess thing.”

  Tania looked anxiously at her mother. “Why? Doesn’t he like it here? What’s he said?”

  “Not so very much,” her mother replied gently. “You know him: He likes things to be just so, and this is all a bit too unpredictable for him. But don’t worry. He loves you to bits. He’ll come to terms with it all in the end.”

  “Will you be okay on your own for a while?” Tania asked.

  “Yes, I’ll be fine. I wanted to go and visit the crèche tent, anyway.” Her face clouded. “There was a baby—he seemed a bit hot and feverish when your dad and I were in there earlier this afternoon.”

  Tania smiled. “You worry too much, Mum. You know people don’t get sick in Faerie. There’s a reason why it’s called the Immortal Realm.”

  “Yes, well, if you say so, sweetheart,” her mother replied. “But even in Faerie, you’ll find that babies need a good deal of care and attention.”

  They kissed a quick good-bye, and Tania watched as her mother weaved through the crowds toward the great white pavilion that was being used during the wedding as a nursery and play area for the smallest of the Faerie children.

  Tania made her way to where rows of small tents had been set up at the western end of the valley. According to what her mother had said, that’s where she’d find her dad. Edric would be fine with the earl marshal’s stepsons for the time being. Still, she did wonder what it was that Edric had been meaning to ask her earlier up on the hill.

  Maybe he wants to take me on a grand tour of Faerie, she thought. That would be really cool! She had traveled the length of the land a few weeks ago, but her journey had been an urgent one and danger had dogged her footsteps. It would be nice to wander without any pressure.

  And she also harbored the hope that memories of her Faerie childhood might return if she was shown places that she had visited in her life as a princess. She could remember nothing of the life she had led before that fateful night when she and her sister Rathina had made the mistake of experimenting with Tania’s “gift” and she had walked between the worlds and become lost for five hundred years in the Mortal World.

  Even among all the glories and delights of Faerie, she still felt achingly distanced from her royal mother and father and from her sisters—Some newfound Faerie memories would mean so much to her!

  Tania pushed her head through the closed flaps of the small lilac-colored tent, which was oblong and just large enough to accommodate two bunk beds and a deep oak chest for clothing and other possessions. A lantern hung from the roof pole, filling the tent with soft yellow light.

  “Room service, sir,” she said. “Here at the Leiderdale Hotel, if there’s anything you need, you only have to ask.” She stepped into the stuffy interior of the tent. “Just don’t expect a minibar; they don’t do alcohol in Faerie.”

  Tania’s father was lying on one of the beds, propped on pillows, reading a book. He had kicked off his shoes, but apart from that he was fully clothed in the Faerie garments that she and her mother had chosen for him.

  Although she would never have told him so, she thought his face looked a little comical poking out from the white linen Faerie shirt with its pleated neck ruffles and fine embroidered needlework. He was also wearing the traditional puffed and slashed breeches, olive green with a lining of lime silk, and an embroidered doublet, clasped down the front with buttons of green marbled stone.

  “Hello there,” he croaked, laying down his book and smiling. “Come to visit the sick and ailing?”

  “That’s just about it.”

  “There’s no need. It’s nothing, really.”

  “They’ll put that on your gravestone!” Tania scolded him gently. “Here lies Clive Palmer: died of nothing really.”

  Tania sat on
the edge of the bed and rested the back of her hand across his forehead.

  “You don’t look well, Dad,” she said. She frowned at him. “Typical you, getting ill at the worst possible time. Remember that holiday in Greece?”

  He nodded. “Sweltering outside and I was stuck in bed with a head cold,” he said, lifting her hand from his forehead and clasping it in both of his. “At least I got to see a Faerie wedding, eh?”

  “Spectacular, wasn’t it?”

  “Remarkable,” he said without enthusiasm.

  Tania picked up on her dad’s tone of voice. “I wish you seemed more comfortable with this,” she said. “It’s real, Dad; it’s not going to go away. This is who I am. And this is where I belong. Can’t you be happy for me?”

  He sat up, coughing a little. “I’m a science teacher, Tania,” he said. “My life and my work are based on certain solid principles, like the laws of physics, like the basic idea that if you add one and one together you end up with two every time. This world doesn’t conform to any of the rules I use for making sense of the universe. For all I know this whole experience could be the result of a chemical imbalance in my brain.” He coughed again. “I could be lying unconscious in a hospital bed. At least that would make more sense.”

  “You can’t seriously think this isn’t real.”

  “No, I can’t,” her father said heavily. “But I’d love it if I could.”

  Tania took his hands in both of hers. “Is it really that hard for you?”

  There was a pause as her father seemed to gather his thoughts. He stared out through a gap in the opening of the tent. Tania followed his eyes, seeing a sliver of the valley alive with lights and with the reveling folk of Faerie. “How do you see things progressing here, Tania?” he asked. “What exactly do you intend to do with your life?”

  Tania laughed. “Are you kidding me? There are a million things to do here. I have a whole new family to get to know, for a start. And I’d like to travel—to find out all there is to know about this place.”