“You are the Xia Sorceress,” said Gautelen in a whisper. “That was your storm I sent.”
“And it was magnificent. I thank you,” said Nia. “The storm spoke to me, Gautelen. It told me that you and I were meant to help each other. How do you like the Realm of the Faeries, your Majesty?”
Gautelen did not reply. Her heart was racing, her mouth suddenly dry. She had heard many terrible stories about this Sorceress, who had terrorized Tian Xia for three hundred years before being banished by the Triumvira. It was widely known that the Sorceress was barred forever from Tian Xia by the most terrible Magic and that the Mancers had imprisoned her in their world with the most powerful barriers. Yet here she was. It could not be Illusion or trickery. She was too real. Gautelen knew she should be afraid, but what she felt was elated. She had endured this imprisonment for a year, and every word the Sorceress spoke was a promise of freedom. Gautelen would gladly have followed her to the end of the worlds.
“I know how you feel, little one,” said Nia, taking Gautelen’s chin in her hands. Gautelen stared into the Sorceress’s eyes, brilliant green flickering with gold light. “I know exactly how you feel.”
And then Gautelen could hold her tongue no longer. “I hate him,” she declared vehemently, tears springing to her eyes. “I want him to die!”
“That’s right, him you hate,” Nia laughed. “I’m afraid he cannot die, dearest, but he will suffer, I promise you that.”
“You hate him too,” Gautelen whispered.
“Yes,” said Nia, as tenderly as if she was confessing love. “I am going to destroy him, and then you will be free. But I cannot fight all the Faeries if they choose to stand by their king. I must ensure that they do not. Will you help me?”
“I’ll do anything you ask,” said Gautelen fiercely. “Anything.”
“Good girl. We will help each other.” Nia held out a hand to her. Gautelen dropped to her knees before the Sorceress and kissed the hand rapturously.
“Now,” said Nia, stroking her cheek, “let’s fix your hair. You look a fright.”
~~~
Rumours abounded among trolls, centaurs and other mountain-dwellers about the mysterious new creature spotted in the skies of Tian Xia, a roaring, flying thing with giant eyes. Quite unaware of the confusion they were causing, Ander, Nell, Charlie and Jalo flew southeast in the helicopter, over the mountains and the slate-grey cliffs of Batt, which formed a towering, ragged cleft along the northernmost edge of the Dead Marsh. Jalo’s myrkestra was waiting for them by the ruins of Swarn’s house.
Nell and Ander had arrived the first time when the slaughter was still fresh. Now the stench of dead dragons was overpowering. Jalo had to work an Illusion so that they smelled only lilies in order for them to be able to get out of the helicopter. Even spared the smell, it was a terrible sight to see.
“She’s completely insane,” said Charlie hoarsely, looking around at the miles of broken dragon bodies. “Why would she do this?”
The young dragon lay motionless by the still-burning house and, when she saw it, Nell was afraid that they were too late. But as she approached its golden eyes flicked in her direction and a weak puff of smoke came from its nostrils.
“We need something that will catch fire easily,” said Nell. “Like dry bracken.”
“I have a fire stick,” said Jalo, taking out a slender black rod that he kept next to his sword.
“What is that?”
“It feeds the flame without burning down,” he said. “It’s a very useful item. It can be used for a fire that will never go out or a torch.”
“Good. We just need to get the dragon to breathe on it, aye. Can you talk to dragons?”
“Not these dragons,” said the Faery.
“Lah, give me the gourd,” said Nell, and he handed it to her. “Blood will be easy to get. He’s covered in wounds.”
The dragon did not even lift his head as Nell went to examine his torn wing. The blood there was congealed, no longer running freely. Deep black pits full of green fire had formed in his side and on his back.
“We have to cut him,” said Nell, a lump coming to her throat.
“You should not be so close,” said Jalo, drawing his sword and joining her. “Remember how easily you die. Let me do this.”
Charlie and Ander hung back together, watching.
“She’s quite a girl, aye,” said Ander, rubbing his stubbled chin ruefully. “She’s just a kid, but somehow...lah, there’s no telling her what to do, is there?”
“No, I spose not,” said Charlie gloomily. “Do you think he’s handsome?”
“What? Who?” asked Ander. “The Faery?”
“Yes,” said Charlie. “I mean, I spec he is, obviously. He’s a Faery.”
Ander gave Charlie an incredulous look. “Praps...I’m no judge, but I’d say so...” he faltered.
“Nary mind,” said Charlie crossly.
Jalo cut into the dragon’s wound with his sword. The dragon shuddered but did not otherwise protest. Nell quickly unstopped the gourd and caught the bright red running blood with it. Obtaining the flame was more difficult. The dragon was so weak that he could not be angered to fight, and none of them had the heart to torment him.
“We need to show him what we’re doing,” decided Nell. She approached the dragon’s head, which made Jalo nearly apoplectic with anxiety for her. She placed her hand on the rough, dry scales between its eyes and looked into them.
“We’re trying to help you, aye,” she said softly.
“He doesn’t understand you,” said the Faery. “Get back. He could still be dangerous.”
“He can understand this,” said Nell, stroking the dragon between his eyes and looking at him intently. “Become a dragon, Charlie, and breath fire on the stick.”
Charlie obeyed, becoming a dragon roughly the same size as the injured one. Jalo held up the fire stick and Charlie breathed a thread of flame onto it. Immediately it flared. The hurt dragon watched with its golden eyes, not moving any other part of itself. Nell pointed to the fire on the stick and then held up the gourd. She stroked the dragon between the eyes again. Jalo quenched the fire stick with a word and she held it towards the hurt dragon. The dragon stared at it balefully.
“Please,” Nell entreated the dragon. “Please try. I know you’re in pain, but please try.”
They repeated the same demonstration a number of times, to no avail.
“He’s too badly hurt,” Charlie concluded. “We’re going to have to frighten him, and even then I’m not sure he’s got the strength to fight back. What should I turn into? What are dragons afraid of? Bigger dragons?”
Nell’s eyes filled with tears. She stroked the dragon’s nose. “We cannay,” she said. “He’s been through too much already.”
“Lah, do you want to help him or not?” asked Charlie.
“If you want my opinion, this thing’s done for,” said Ander, who had kept back and watched in silence until now. “Kindest thing you can do now is cut its head off with that sword.”
“No!” shouted Nell. She turned towards the dragon desperately. “Nobody’s going to cut your head off! I promise!”
The dragon lifted its head an inch or two off the ground and opened its jaws. All that came out was smoke.
“Try again,” Nell said encouragingly.
The dragon looked at her forlornly, then belched forth a tiny ball of red fire that the Faery skillfully caught as the flame rolled out over its tongue. The fire stick flared and Nell unstopped the gourd again. Jalo plunged the fire stick into the mix and the potion burst out of the gourd in silver swirls. Hurriedly, Jalo spoke the words the witch had taught him and the bright swirls fluttered over the dragon, dousing the green fires and settling into his wounds. The dragon’s eyes closed.
The spell took much of the day. The dragon remained very still as the potion melted into light that moved like little eddying pools in his wounds. Jalo and Nell passed the time by comparing passages of Faery poetry and h
uman poetry.
“They make you memorize all that stuff at that fancy school?” Ander asked, impressed by the long recitations Nell was capable of.
“We dinnay have to memorize them,” said Nell, “but I have a good memory, and some of these I wrote papers on, so I’ve read them over and over. Lah, this one’s old but it’s a classic, aye. It’s by Lapto, about the creation of Di Shang.”
She recited it in full and the others listened.
Ander shook his head. “I never read much poetry. I spec I’ve been missing out.”
“But human poetry seems so often to amount to mere stories in verse,” said Jalo. “Surely the point of poetry is that it is...like music made of words. Listen, here is another poem by Shira.”
“All you’ve done is poems by Shira,” complained Charlie.
“Well, yes, she is our greatest poet. Listen carefully and you will hear how the rhythm builds a sensory impression of water.”
“What is the poem called?” Nell interrupted.
“We don’t title our poems,” said Jalo a little primly. “The subject ought to be self-evident. As in this case. You could not possibly think the poem to be anything but water in words. To name it would be superfluous.”
He recited, and the other three listened in awe. His words swept away the terrible surroundings. They could feel the cool ripple, the silken depths. It was like having one’s mind immersed in a shining pool. When he had finished, none of them spoke for a while, not wanting to shake the feeling the poem had left them with.
“It’s very different from human poetry, aye,” Nell conceded at last. “Will you teach it to me?”
Jalo looked pleased and was about to reply when the little dragon lifted its head and rose to its feet. Light poured off it in rivulets and streams. It stretched its wings out, raised its head, and wailed. It was a cry of such wrenching grief that they were all frozen where they stood for a moment. Then the dragon lowered its head and looked at Nell.
“It worked!” she cried.
Without thinking she ran to it and placed her hands on its bright, scaled face. The dragon kept its eyes steady on her and there was something like kindness in its gaze.
“Now let’s see if it will lead us to Swarn,” said Nell.
~~~
The fuel reserves were getting low, so they agreed to leave the helicopter in the Dead Marsh. The Faery rode his myrkestra, Charlie flew as a gryphon with an anxious Ander clinging to his back, and Nell, feeling triumphant, rode the dragon. She was sure Eliza would be very impressed when she heard how Nell had gotten Charlie to the healing cave, enlisted the Faery’s help and saved the dragon. She imagined over and over again how she would tell the tale. “At first, the Faery seemed more inclined to kill us then help us, but it wasnay too hard to win him over. I just explained how essentially we were all on the same side...”
The dragon led them west, towards the Sea of Tian Xia, following the descent of the sun. They stopped for a couple of hours in the foothills where trolls lived and the myrkestra and Charlie hunted rabbits, which they cooked over a fire and shared. Jalo kept watch while the others slept all too briefly. Before it was light he woke them again to continue the journey. The dragon seemed impatient to carry on, certain of its destination. Beyond the land of the Giants the earth was webbed with thousands upon thousands of glittering rivers. Long graceful boats plied the rivers but Nell could not make out what kind of beings guided the boats. They passed over the rivers, which eventually merged into several large rivers, over dramatic waterfalls and twisted rock formations, until they reached a thick forest of black trees. Over this was the Sea of Tian Xia, clear as glass.
They veered north and were flying along miles of rocky coastline when a thick purplish fog closed about them, eclipsing everything, sound as well as sight. Nell could not see her own hands clutching the spiked neck of the dragon, nor could she hear the wings of the dragon beating the air anymore. She called out to the others but her voice was swallowed by the fog. The dragon cried out then and though its plaintive cry was also muted it carried a little further. Nell assumed at first that the dragon’s cry was to help the others follow what they could not see. It continued to cry out for a long time, until there came a returning cry, a shrill and terrible sound from somewhere ahead of them. The fog parted like curtains, revealing the grey, ridged sea below and the wooded coast. A dragon twice the size of the one Nell rode was circling above a windy bluff, screaming. A white-haired figure stood on the bluff holding a glittering spear.
~~~
The dragons landed on the bluff, soon followed by the gryphon and the myrkestra. Swarn came striding to meet them. Although Nell did not know it, the witch was changed. Her strong, dark face was hollow and gaunt and her eyes burned even more fiercely than before. She looked mistrustfully at the little group, then said to Charlie, “Where is Eliza?”
“We thought she was with you,” said Charlie. Nell’s heart plummeted.
Swarn looked around. “We cannot talk here. Come, among the trees.” She stopped and pointed at the Faery. “You cannot enter the witches’ forest.”
“No,” said the Faery, looking in alarm at the trees.
“Why cannay you?” asked Nell.
“It was Faeries that Cursed the witches who make up the trees of this wood,” said Swarn, her voice steely. “But they retain a power of their own and no Faery may enter.”
“Lah, you just wait here,” said Charlie to Jalo cheerfully.
“Wait!” said Nell. “He’s helped a lot. He should be part of any discussion, aye. Why do we need to go in the forest?” She didn’t much like the look of the dark trees either.
“It is not safe out in the open,” said Swarn. She thought for only a bit, then gestured for them all to follow. “I invite you, Faery, and you are under my protection for the moment.”
Jalo didn’t seem to find this very comforting, but he followed Swarn and the others in among the trees. The mist fell behind them like a wall and the trees formed a tight circle around them. It was as if they stood at the center of a fortress made out of forest and fog.
“Tell me what has happened, Shade,” said Swarn.
“The Mancers have been turned to stone,” said Charlie. “Praps you already know that. Eliza and I found Nia in the Citadel, draining all the books. And she made this...monster. To keep Eliza busy, out of the way, she said. The monster was going to find Eliza’s mother. I was hurt and I couldnay help her. I thought she’d come find you, aye. I didnay think she’d be crazy enough to go after it by herself, but if you havenay seen her, I spec that’s what she’s done.”
“By herself?” echoed Nell faintly. “Why would she do that?”
Charlie shrugged unhappily. “You know how she is about her family.”
“You say Nia Made a monster?” Swarn asked.
Charlie looked puzzled. “Lah...it came out of her mouth. It was disgusting, actually. Will you come back to Di Shang with us? We’ve got to find Eliza, help her.”
“Eliza will be safe until Nia returns to Di Shang for her,” said Swarn. “Nia would not wish her dead, not yet. We can help her best by stopping Nia, though I confess I am at a loss. Tell me how you came to be in the company of a Faery and one of my dragons.”
The Faery stepped forward at this. “I am Jalo, second son of Nikias,” he introduced himself. He described his own meeting with Nell and the scene of slaughter they had encountered in the Marsh. Swarn listened with an impassive face but Nell saw her knuckles whiten around the spear. “The King of the Faeries awaits you in the Realm of the Faeries, that you may join forces against Nia,” he concluded.
“I sought the King,” said Swarn tersely. “He has hidden himself behind a great wall of Illusion. I thought he did not mean to fight.”
“He is protecting his people,” said Jalo. “But he has sent out a number of his best soldiers to find his allies and bring them to him. The Oracle is dead, the Mancers incapacitated, but I have found you. I can take you to him. We should not
scatter our force but rather work together in an organized fashion. The Curse on the Mancers must be broken and they and the Shang Sorceress must all be brought to the Realm of the Faeries. Our kingdom is impenetrable; we can fight the Sorceress from there.”
“Then I should go to Di Shang,” said Swarn. “Perhaps I can break the Curse on the Mancers.”
“You should not go alone,” said Jalo. “It will be safer if you are accompanied by some members of the Faery Guard. Curses are Faery Magic, after all. Come to the Faery Realm and consult with the King. We must agree on a battle plan. I cannot speak for my King until he knows all that I know.”
“I’ll go back to Di Shang to help Eliza, then,” said Charlie.
“How will you find her?” demanded Swarn. “The Faery is right. We need to co-ordinate our efforts. I have no doubt there will be a role for you, too. I think that Eliza is safe for the time being.”
“Then we’ll all go together,” said Nell hopefully.
“Yes,” said Jalo. “And quickly.”
Ander looked at Nell. She avoided his gaze and he said nothing. It was agreed. The trees parted, the fog dissolved and Jalo on his myrkestra led the group across the Sea of Tian Xia to the legendary, hidden Realm of the Faeries.
Chapter
~16~
The winter sojourn at the oasis was a busy time for the Sorma. They hunted and plucked birds and put every part of them to practical use – skins and feathers for clothing, bags and camel saddles; meat sliced and dried and salted and then tightly packed for the long months of travel ahead; bones and beaks turned into needles and fastenings. They dried dates and pickled olives and edible plants. They collected fresh water and repaired tattered tents and worn clothing. When they set off again, it would be with supplies enough to last them their journey to another oasis. The scarred, angry-looking camels roamed freely, eating plants and drinking from the streams, and their flabby humps grew full and firm again.
Eliza met with the Council of Elders at dawn. She had bathed in one of the springs and changed into clean clothes in the Sorma style, a colourful tunic over loose trousers. The Elders sat cross-legged in a semi-circle in the Council Tent, listening carefully while she explained everything. Spoken out loud, her plans sounded flimsy and reliant on too many uncertainties, even to her. But her grandmother said simply, “We will help you,” and the others said Arash, it is agreed.
The Unmaking: The Last Days of Tian Di, Book Two Page 20