The Immortal Realm

by Frewin Jones

  Tania leaned close, anxious to see what Connor was doing. Inside the box was an oblong green device that looked to Tania a little like an office stapler. Beside it were a small green vial and a silver-colored plastic tube with a kind of trigger device on one side.

  Connor felt in his jacket pocket and took out a small clear, plastic vial filled with a pale liquid. As she watched, he inserted this into the silver tube and snapped the trigger closed.

  “Have you ever used one of these things before?” Tania asked quietly.

  “No. But I’ve seen it done.” He looked at her and smiled. “I can do this, Anita—sorry—Tania. Don’t worry. I really can.”

  There was a tense silence in the room as Connor lifted the oblong device out of its box and opened it. He placed the silver tube inside and closed it again.

  “That’s it,” he said. “All ready.” He moved up the bed, pulling back Cordelia’s sleeve to reveal her bare arm.

  A crow croaked warningly from Cordelia’s pillow.

  Connor glanced at it. It bobbed its head and glared at him. He took a breath, paused for a moment with the device cocked in his hand, then pressed the end against her upper arm and brought his thumb down on a button at the top.

  There was a sharp rushing, hissing sound.

  “What is that thing?” Bryn demanded. “What has this Mortal done to Cordelia?”

  “He’s helping,” said Tania.

  Connor lifted the device away and looked up at Bryn. There was a small reddish stain on Cordelia’s skin.

  “Okay,” he said. “Antibiotics administered. Now all we have to do is wait.”

  “I must go,” said Edric. “I have been already too long from my lord’s side.” He didn’t seem to Tania to be speaking particularly to her; he didn’t even look at her.

  “Say nothing of this!” warned Rathina.

  Deep lines appeared between Edric’s eyebrows. “If the healing is successful, all shall soon know of it,” he said to her. “If not, send the boy back whence he came and hope the dawn brings a miracle. I shall say nothing, my oath on it.”

  He turned and swept from the room.

  On an impulse Tania followed him. “Edric?”

  He paused at the door that led to the corridor. There was a look of such pain in his face that Tania stepped toward him, her arms reaching out.

  “No!” He backed off, and Tania saw tears in his eyes. “You’re only making it harder!” he said. “We can’t do this.”

  “But you followed me…into the Mortal World—”

  “To protect you, not to…” His voice faded. “I can’t stand this anymore. I can’t bear being near you and knowing we can’t be together. It’s tearing me apart.”

  “Edric, I love you….”

  But he was gone and the door had slammed on his back.

  Tania stood alone in the room, her breath shuddering. She took a few moments to gather herself, then walked back into the sickroom.

  Connor stared at her. “Are you sure you trust him?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Tania said quietly.

  “Master Chanticleer has given his word,” said Rathina. “He will keep silent.”

  Bryn was sitting on the edge of the bed holding Cordelia’s hand. “I am loathe to leave her side, but it would be prudent for me to await in the outer chambers,” he said, gazing down at her ashen face. “That way I will be able to prevent Master Hollin’s acolytes from entering, should they seek to return.” He leaned over Cordelia’s face and kissed her gently on the mouth. “Wake soon, my love,” he whispered. “Eternity awaits you with impatience.”

  The door closed behind him with a sharp click.

  Tania hugged her arms, unable to tear her eyes from the pitiful sight of Cordelia’s white face. Rathina was standing at the head of the bed, her back ramrod straight, her hands clasped behind her. She was pale and her lips formed a tight line.

  Connor appeared at Tania’s side. “How are you doing?” he asked softly.

  She shook her head but didn’t reply.

  “When it starts working, do I get to take a look around this place?” he asked.

  She almost managed a smile. “If this works, I will personally take you on an all-expenses-paid guided tour of this entire country,” she said. “And that’s a promise.”

  The candles burned low. A few had guttered and died. Rathina had found new ones yellow as butter and had thrust them into the molten wax of the foundered ones, lighting them with a taper.

  The moon moved across the sky, as large as a plate and as white as snow. Every now and then Connor would lean over Cordelia, lifting her arm, his fingers at her wrist, or he would lay the back of his hand against her forehead as though testing for a change in temperature.

  At some point Tania knew she would have to take Connor back down to the Well Room and lead him to safety in the Mortal World. But not quite yet. For now the two of them were sitting side-by-side, backs against the wall, whispering softly together.

  “It’s so hard to tell what’s happening to her,” Connor said. “Back at King’s, we’d have her hooked up to all kinds of equipment. She’d be wired up to an ECG monitor to check her heart rate, and there’d be display screens showing her arterial blood pressure and rate of oxygenation, and there’d be two temperature graphs. She’d have wires all over. Plus we’d have her on a saline drip and there’d be a crash cart nearby in case something went wrong.”

  “They don’t have anything like that here,” Tania said.

  “Listen,” Connor said, “if things don’t improve in the next couple of hours, what say you do that magic trick of yours and we take her back home? She’d be far better off in a hospital.”

  “I can’t do that. I told you. The way I get between the worlds is going to be shut down at dawn. She’d never be able to get back here again.”

  “At least she’d be alive.”

  Tania shook her head. “She’d hate it. And what about all the other people who are ill here? No, we have to wait and pray that the stuff you gave her works. Then I can go to the King and convince him not to close off the Mortal World. And then we can go back and get enough stuff to cure everyone.”

  “The ‘Mortal World’?” Connor said thoughtfully. “You say that as if you’re talking about the planet Mars.”

  “Do I?” She sighed. “Yes, I suppose I do sometimes. It’s hard to explain.”

  “I bet it is.”

  There was silence between them for a little while. Connor looked at his watch. The hands showed one thirty.

  The night was not yet half over.

  Tania opened her eyes and for a few moments she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. Then she recognized the flicker of yellow candlelight on the walls, and she saw the open window of Cordelia’s bedroom with the moon cut in half by the frame. Lace curtains trembled in the breeze.

  She was curled on the floor with her head in someone’s lap. For a stupid, forgetful, blissful moment she thought it was…

  Idiot! It’s Connor.

  She could feel his hand resting on her shoulder, and she could hear him breathing deep and slow. Asleep, she guessed.

  She felt that she ought to move, to sit up, to check on Cordelia. But it was hard not to surrender to her drowsiness, to drift back into the warm embrace of sleep….

  Rathina will wake me if anything happens with Cordelia…and she’ll keep an eye on the time…and I will get up in a minute…in just a minute….

  She was running. Running for her life along a deep, dark valley. All around her the hills rose like fangs against a bloodred sky. She couldn’t remember how she had got here; all she knew was that she had to run. Was something chasing her? Did she have to be somewhere?

  Don’t know. Don’t care. Keep running!

  The whole world shuddered around her and the stars trembled in the bleeding sky. She stumbled, losing balance, feeling the reverberations rising through her body. It was as though, deep under the ground, some huge being was beating a vast iron gong
—soundless, but as big as the moon.

  And there was iron in her mouth, and her blood was burning and lightning was firing in her head. And then an impossibly deep voice intoned, the deadly words booming through the shivering air.

  “The ways are shut!”

  Tania awoke with a gasp, her whole body shaking. She opened her eyes to a wash of gray-blue light. She was lying on the floor, stiff and woolly-headed and with a taste in her mouth like rusty nails. Something had been draped over her shoulders. Connor’s jacket.

  She pushed herself up into a sitting position.

  Day had come. The candles had been snuffed.

  She turned in alarm and saw that Connor was leaning over the bed.

  “Connor!” she gasped. “You idiot! Why did you let me sleep? It’s daytime! You won’t be able to get back!”

  “Peace, sister,” said Rathina. “It was Master Connor’s choice to stay.”

  “No!” Tania shouted, wild with guilt. “Don’t you realize? They’ve already shut the portals!” She scrambled to her feet. “I can’t let this happen.” She ran for the door. “Oberon will listen to me. He’ll open the portals again.”

  Rathina leaped into her path, her arms spread out. “The Mortal knew what he risked,” she said. “The King cannot open the ways again, Tania. They are closed for all eternity.”

  Connor caught hold of her arm. “I couldn’t just run away,” he said. “I had to know if the antibiotics are working.”

  “Don’t you understand?” cried Tania. “Faerie is closed off now; there’s no way for you to get home!”

  “I figured that one out,” Connor said flatly. “I’ll worry about it later, if that’s okay with you.”

  “I should never have brought you here!”

  “You had to!” he said sharply. “Don’t blame yourself. This is not your fault. It was my decision to stop Rathina from waking you.”

  Trembling and torn by remorse, Tania moved to the bed and looked down at her sister. “Was it worth it?” she asked. “Is she any better?” Cordelia’s face was as pale as before. In fact, to Tania’s eyes, she looked exactly the same. Her birds had moved away, some now perching on the headboard, others on the top of the four-poster rail.

  “An apt question, Master Healer,” said Rathina. “What progress?”

  “None that I can see,” Connor replied, his voice shaking. “I don’t get it. By now she should have…” His words faded away.

  “Why hasn’t it worked?” Tania asked.

  Connor looked at her. “I don’t know. The antibiotics should have had some effect.” He reached down and pressed his fingers to the side of Cordelia’s throat. He shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Then your vaunted medicaments are no better than the gewgaws of Master Hollin,” Rathina said angrily. She glared at Tania. “What say you now, sister?”

  “I don’t know.” Tania looked at Connor. “Did you bring the wrong stuff?”

  “No. I brought exactly the right stuff. But…but maybe our medicine doesn’t work on these people.” His forehead wrinkled. “Maybe they have different body chemistry than us. I don’t know the first thing about this world. Just because they look like us on the outside doesn’t mean everything’s the same under their skin.”

  “Maybe you didn’t give her enough?” suggested Tania. “Could you dose her up some more?”

  “I’ve got another ampoule with me,” Connor said. “I could try it.” He nodded. “Yes. Maybe you’re right. Maybe she needs another shot to get her kick-started. I certainly don’t have any other ideas right now.”

  The two sisters watched anxiously while Connor loaded the air-inoculator with his final ampoule of antibiotics.

  He leaned over Cordelia, the inoculator ready in his hand.

  A clamor sounded from beyond the door. There were raised voices and the dull thump of something striking against the other side of the panels.

  “Hollin!” Rathina spat.

  “No!” said Tania. “Not now!”

  The door burst open. Hollin stood there, his eyes burning. Behind him Tania could see his acolytes milling in the outer chamber. Two of them were holding a struggling Bryn by the arms.

  “The she-witch has returned!” Hollin howled, pointing at Tania. “It is as I foretold! She has traveled to the Mortal World and brought back death and destruction!” His voice rose to a manic shriek. “See! The succubus has enslaved a Mortal to be our ruin. Even now he works against the potency of our healing rituals. The precious stones have been removed! Our rites are disrupted! Take them and bind them before they can do any more harm.”

  He stepped aside as a dozen or more of his followers came pouring into the room, the white-wood staves ready in their fists, their faces full of blind fear and anger as they surged toward the bed.

  “No!” shouted Tania. “It’s not like that! You don’t understand.”

  “By what authority do you dare lay hands on a princess of Faerie!” shouted Rathina. “If the King knew of this, he would banish you to Ynis Maw for all time!”

  Tania heard shrill cries and the fluttering of wings behind her as Cordelia’s birds took to the air in consternation. She sprang forward and caught hold of the staff of the leading man, twisting it, wrenching it out of his hands. She leaped back, brandishing the heavy, unwieldy weapon.

  “Stay back!” she shouted, scything the end of the staff through the air. “Connor! Give her the shot. Now!”

  “Stop him!” howled Hollin. “He will steal the princess’s soul! She will rise as a banshee from her deathbed—a foul, undead thing to haunt the world!”

  A moan of fear came from the men. One of them leaned back, holding his staff like a javelin. His arm snapped forward and the loosed staff came cutting through the air. It struck Connor in the stomach, sending him spinning away from the bed with a grunt of pain. The inoculator fell from his fingers and clattered to the floor. He stumbled back, hit the wall, and slumped, arms folded over his stomach.

  Rathina snatched up the staff and stood over Connor, her eyes gleaming. “Where are now the Warring Princesses!” she shouted. “Come! Learn the answer, men of Alba! I will crack your heads like eggs!”

  The men began to circle Tania, their staves ready. She jabbed at them, backing off slowly, trying not to let them completely surround her. One pounced, his staff whistling through the air, aimed at her head. She brought her staff up and blocked it, but the blow jarred her to the bone, sending pain shooting to her shoulders.

  “Do not fear them!” howled Hollin. “Paradise awaits those who defend the world against evil!”

  A second man moved in on Tania, keeping low, swinging his staff at waist height. There was a resounding crack as another staff fended the blow, and suddenly Rathina was at Tania’s side, thrusting and parrying as Hollin’s followers swarmed forward.

  “Take them! Destroy them!”

  Tania was vaguely aware of Hollin’s voice, cracked and lunatic above the grunts and shouts of the men and the clack of wood on wood as she and Rathina held them off.

  But there were so many of them. Rathina was fighting like a fury, the staff spinning in her hands, thudding against arms and legs, clashing against wood. Tania defended herself fiercely, but she found it hard to use all her strength and skills against these men. They were not the hideous undead Gray Knights of Lyonesse. Dangerous as they might be, these were men, not demons, and something made her hold back from using her full strength.

  Tania felt a heavy blow to her thigh and almost immediately another staff struck the side of her head. She staggered, her leg throbbing and her head bursting with agony. She heard Rathina roar with rage, but a fog was coming over Tania’s eyes, thick and red as blood. She fell across the bed, seeing for a moment Cordelia’s ashen face. She pushed herself up again, flailing the air with her staff. A sharp crack across her knuckles jarred it out of her hands and she fell to her knees.

  She heard Rathina give a cry of pain. She was aware of her crashing to the floor
at her side.

  She tried to get onto her feet, but three or four staves pressed on her shoulders, holding her immobile.

  She heard Hollin’s voice. “And now let us rid ourselves of this pestilence ere she cast her sorceries upon us again! Lift her! Bear her to the window and cast her into the sea!”

  “No!” Struggling weakly, the pain in her head blotting out all other sensations, Tania felt herself being carried across the room.

  XVII

  “What madness is this!” bellowed a deep voice. “Release the princess! Put her down, I say, or your heads will pay the price!”

  Tania was aware of being lowered to the floor and of Hollin’s acolytes moving away from her. A sturdy figure knelt at her side.

  “My lady Tania, are you hurt?” It was Earl Marshal Cornelius’s voice. Tania peered blearily into his broad, red-bearded face. There was concern and outrage in her uncle’s blue eyes as he helped her to her feet.

  “I’m okay,” she murmured, pressing her hand to the side of her head. Her ears were ringing, and a dull hot pain filled her jaw on the side where the staff had struck her. “Have they hurt Rathina? Is she all right?”

  “Buffeted but in one piece, sister,” came Rathina’s weary voice. “Had I but my sword in hand their heads would have leaped like wheat at the harvest.” She turned on Hollin, who was cowering against the wall, his fingers twitching. “And as for you, Master Healer, were you not a guest in this house, I would treat you as you would have treated my sister. And the fishes would be welcome to what was left after hard rock and seawater had done with you.”

  Hollin’s lips parted. “The she-witch has ensorcelled her also,” he gibbered. “The half-thing must be destroyed ere it taint us all!”

  “Silence!” boomed Cornelius. “You have no dominion here, man of Alba. Get you to your master and take your craven minions with you.”