Faerie Path #6: The Charmed Return

by Frewin Jones

  “Oh, I’m so pleased,” said Tania.

  “As am I,” Mallory murmured. She glanced sidelong at Tania. “You have great work ahead of you upon the morrow, my lady, when the Pure Eclipse comes.”

  Tania nodded.

  Mallory’s fingers touched cool for a moment against Tania’s hand. “The horses are galloping,” she said. “They will be here soon.”

  Before Tania could respond, the woman stepped away from her and joined her husband among the children.

  Tania watched her, the blood throbbing in her ears, then she turned away and went to look for Jade.

  During the day, a flotilla of barges and small boats had been assembled along the bank of the Tamesis. As the sun began to dip toward the horizon, musicians filled several of the boats and pushed off onto the moving belly of the wide river.

  In the growing twilight people gathered in the hundreds at the wharfs and jetties and quays of the palace, the excited throng gradually taking to the boats as the minstrels began to play.

  Lanterns were set adrift on the river, lit by some mystical inner glow, circling and gliding on the darkening water, shedding light on the surface—pink and indigo, turquoise and beryl green, viridian and carmine, cerise and saffron—and where they collided or swung together in eddies, creating new unnamed colors that constantly blended and changed.

  Tania and Jade climbed aboard a small narrow rowboat that was moored some distance from the main congregation of royal vessels. An oarsman in pale blue livery rowed them out into midstream. Tania could see the King’s great dark barge with its golden awnings and carved wooden cabin. The King and Queen were there, attended by servants as they sat at ease on deep wooden chairs. With them were the earl marshall Cornelius and his wife and two sons. Corin had recently arrived from Caer Ravensare with a contingent of knights to swell the armies on Salisoc Heath. Tania saw that Master Cariotis was also on the Royal Barge, along with Hopie and Lord Brython and Earl Valentyne.

  The other princesses were on boats that gathered around the Royal Barge. Only Eden was missing.

  Where is she?

  All along the battlements and towers of the Royal Palace, light burned brightly in the growing twilight. And more torches burned along the banks of the river.

  The sound of excited conversation and laughter mingled with the music as the water pageant made its gradual way upriver. Everyone was in their finest clothes, and each boat and barge contained a basket brim full of delicious foodstuffs and bottles of sweet Faerie cordial.

  Moving with a languid grace on the river, the boats and barges were steered toward the single bridge that spanned the Tamesis. It was an arc of elegant white stone with a tall tower at either end. Torches were positioned along its curved span so their flickering lights were mirrored in the dark water.

  The day had drained away in the far west, and now the night was full of stars. The moon hung in the north, pierced through by the black arrow of a steeple rising from the dark mass of the palace.

  Now Tania saw Eden. She was standing at the apex of the bridge, dressed all in white so that with her pale face and her ashen hair, she looked like a marble statue as the vessels began to slide away into the shadows of the arch. But even under the bridge there was light—the glow from the floating lanterns illuminated the white stone of the underside to create a rippling rainbow of lambent colors.

  Tania felt herself shrinking down in the belly of the boat as they approached the bridge. Jade’s hand closed reassuringly around her wrist. Neither spoke.

  There was cheering now and applause as Eden lifted her alabaster arms into the sky. Like a white flame, she looked to Tania as their boat came closer and closer to the bridge. Against the dark of the sky Eden seemed to have grown huge and powerful as she stood on the bridge with her fingers pointing to the stars.

  She’ll see us. She’ll know. She’ll put a spell on us, and that’ll be the end of everything.

  But Eden’s face was turned upward, and although her lips were moving with some mystic incantation, the threads of rainbow light that unraveled from her fingertips went spinning up into the sky.

  The music reached a crescendo, and the whole skyline of the Royal Palace was ablaze with fizzing and crackling fireworks. Curtains of red and gold and silver sparks rained down the walls; rosy mists rose with red fire at their hearts. Rockets shot skyward, roaring and whistling, curving so high that they mingled with the stars before exploding into crescents and arcs of blazing multicolored lights.

  The people on the river cheered even louder, all faces turned to the skies, the whole world bathed in coruscating light as the sky erupted into balls and spiraling columns of sparkling fire. Among the boats more fireworks were lit, sending gushing plumes of red and blue and yellow and gold sparks up into the night; sparks that fell back onto the river did not go out—staying bright and burning as they whorled away under the water. In the depths of the river the sparkling lights danced, forming patterns and marvelous designs, so that folk did not know whether to watch the skies or to lean over the bows of their boats and gaze down in wonder at the submerged display.

  Voices drifted over the water.

  “’Tis most wonderful!”

  “Princess Eden has outdone herself this night!”

  The fountains of light that were still pouring upward from Eden’s fingers began to form immense shapes in the sky. Tania stared, awestruck at the forces her mystic sister could command. The lights swarmed and separated and took on the shapes of people in a gigantic, luminous ring. While Tania watched, feeling impossibly tiny in that little boat on that little river, the immense sky-folk joined hands and began to dance, their colossal feet skipping across the rooftops and towers of the palace and over the uppermost branches of the trees of the southern forest.

  As the sky-dancers whirled, music rang out and the firiencraft burned and blazed. Then the great starlight shapes began to break up again, to dissolve into points of dazzling light. The sparks went shooting up into the profound dark of the upper skies, lustrous and color-shifting, trailing behind them a wake of burning light so that the sky was streaked with ragged bands of ruby and turquoise and aquamarine, emerald and amber.

  As the boats and barges floated under the bridge and away along the river, so the celestial lights followed them, and the music was all around them, and there was laughter and the speech of delighted and amazed voices.

  “Hail to the lady Eden! Blessings be upon her!”

  “All joy to the princess, and to all the Family Royal!”

  “All joy this wondrous night!”

  “All joy!”

  Even Tania lost herself in the wonder and the grandeur of the celebrations that marked the eve of the Pure Eclipse.

  “Do you have a backup plan for if we’re caught?” Jade’s voice was a sharp whisper in the darkness of the night.

  “No, not really,” Tania replied, slipping along a wall and peering through an arch to where moonlight fell soft on a long floor of cobblestones. “I’m hoping everyone else will be asleep.”

  The festivities had gone on into the small hours. Tania guessed that it was well past midnight when the boats finally came back downstream and moored to let their bedazzled passengers off. Tania and Jade managed to avoid contact with any of the Royal Family as they headed for Tania’s bedroom. But even so, they let a good while pass before they ventured out again. After such a night people would find it hard to sleep straightaway—not with their ears still ringing with the music and their eyes still filled with the light of the firiencraft.

  Tania didn’t dare risk lighting a candle, so they had to move slowly and cautiously as they approached the long courtyard with the tall square towers at its far end.

  Tania’s nerves jangled as she stepped out into the moonlight and saw the Dolorous Tower ahead of her, brooding in its graveclothes of ivy, the birds huddled on its roof and windowsills. She shuddered, her blood chilled at the sight. Part of her was absolutely convinced that Eden would appear out of nowhere
at the last moment.

  Her plans for leaving Jade behind had failed miserably. Waiting for Jade to fall asleep so she could slip away had been a total waste of time. Her friend had virtually laughed in her face when Tania had tried to suggest that she should go it alone.

  “This isn’t a game, Jade. It’s dangerous!”

  “I know that. But I didn’t just come to Faerie to stand around gawking and going ‘wow’! I wanted to make sure you would be all right. And that’s just what I intend to do, so shut up about it. I’m coming with you. Get used to it!”

  Despite Tania’s misgivings it was comforting to have her friend at her side—she just hoped and prayed she wasn’t leading Jade into a deadly trap.

  They moved along the courtyard and came to the three gray stone steps.

  Tania was one pace ahead of her friend as she climbed the steps to the dark door. There was no handle. She reached forward, pressing the palms of both hands against the black wood.

  Surely it would not be so easy . . . ?

  She pushed hard but the door did not move.

  “Whatcha doing?” whispered Jade.

  “Seeing if I can get the door open,” Tania hissed back.

  “Is it locked?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jade came onto the top step. “I’d get out of the way if I were you,” she said. “I’m going to try something.”

  “What?”

  “It’s called a yoko geri,” said Jade. “Watch and learn!”

  Tania moved aside as Jade stood on the wide top step, staring hard at the door, breathing long and slow.

  She brought her knee up sharply, twisting sideways from the door, rotating from the hips, her raised leg thrusting suddenly outward. The heel of her foot slammed in hard against the side of the door. With a tearing sound the door lurched inward. Jade brought her leg down, her arms lifted a little for balance. She turned and looked at Tania, a slow grin spreading across her face. “And that’s why tai chi is so great!” She gestured toward the gaping door. “After you.”

  Tania stared out across the courtyard, her heart pounding. Jade’s side kick had not been silent. Anyone close by would have heard it. But no shadows moved through the moonlight. No one was coming for them.

  “It’ll be dark inside,” Tania said. “Be careful.”

  To be honest, it wasn’t the darkness inside the tower that Tania feared—it was those menacing creatures in the walls of the room beyond the entrance lobby. She had encountered them once before, and although she had gotten through, it was not an ordeal she relished repeating.

  All the same, she steeled herself and stepped into the gloom. She remembered the layout of the tower. To the right an archway led to spiral stairs. To the left a simple door of gray wood was all that stood between them and the room with the monsters in the walls.

  She fumbled for the latch that held the inner door closed. She lifted it and pushed the door open.

  At the far end of the long, narrow room a circle of moonlight shed a little grimy light over the bare wood floor.

  “See anything?” Jade hissed over her shoulder.

  “No,” Tania whispered. She took a step into the room. There was no sense of menace in there—just the long, sad quiet of a room seldom visited.

  “Now what?” Jade whispered.

  “Upstairs. It’ll be dark.”

  “Okay. I’ll stick close.”

  “You’d be better off staying down here—just in case.”

  “Tania? Shut up!”

  Well, you can’t say I haven’t warned you.

  Her hands groping ahead, Tania went through the arch and began to climb the stairs. This was a part of Eden’s tower that she had never been in before. She had no idea what might be lurking in the upper parts—demons, deadly traps, mystical barriers—nightmares!

  She could hear the blood coursing through her temples as she moved upward into the blind dark. The thumping of her heart seemed to fill the air.

  She came to a landing. A faint seepage of light showed. Square. Like an occluded window. She ran her fingers over a wooden shutter. She found a catch and pulled the shutter in. Moonlight came in, seeming strangely bright to Tania’s eyes.

  It glimmered on the rising curve of the stairway. Darkness lurked around the bend of the spiraling staircase. Darkness and death and worse than death.

  She continued to climb, and Jade was never more than a single step behind her.

  “If Eden is here and she comes for us, get out of my way,” Jade whispered. “I know a few moves that should slow her down.”

  “If it is Eden, she won’t attack us like that,” murmured Tania. “And if she finds us—trust me, there’s nothing you could do that would stop her.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Tania turned and glared at her friend. “Jade!”

  “Chill out, Tania. I’m just trying to be positive.”

  “Be realistic. If Eden’s up here, run! Don’t look back—just run!”

  They came to a second landing. Jade pried the shutter open so that a little more of the unending stairway was revealed in the moonlight.

  Tania almost wished Eden would appear—just to get it over with. Much more of this and the fears that were teeming in her head would get too much to bear.

  A third landing and a third shuttered window.

  But this time when Tania pulled the shutter open, the moonlight allowed in fell on a small door. And there was something else: the sill outside the window was filled with birds, and they were all turned toward the glass, almost as if they had been perching there waiting for the shutter to be removed. Bright, beady eyes stared in at the two girls. The silence and the stillness of the birds were uncanny. Unnerving.

  Tania turned away. There was a crystal bolt on the door. As she drew the bolt back with a sharp, scraping sound, she thought she heard a furtive movement from beyond the door.

  Jade’s mouth came up close to her ear. “There’s someone in there!”

  Tania nodded.

  Pausing to gather her courage, she leaned into the door and pushed it open.

  It was a small room, a grimy, shadowy room that smelled musty and stale and unpleasant. There was a bed and a table and a chair. A single, thin yellow candle stood in a mound of wax at one end of the table. There was a plate and a cup. A hunk of bread.

  Tania heard a sound from the far side of the room. A shadow quivered.

  Something monstrous waiting to pounce? The guardian of the Great Spell?

  There were more sounds—small dry sounds. The rustle of clothing, the scrape of bare feet on floorboards, an indrawn breath. The shadows in the corner of the room shifted again.

  Tania stepped into the room. She paced slowly to the table. Her heart in her mouth, she wrenched the candle up. A splash of hot wax burned on her wrist.

  She turned and held the candle out toward the thing in the corner of the room.

  There was a soft laugh. There was a glimmer of ragged clothing—the dull sheen of bare skin.

  Dark eyes glowed with candlelight.

  A mouth stretched in a feral grin.

  “What’s this, now?” croaked a low, female voice. “More flibbertigibbets come to mock me in my despair?” There was another laugh—a gust of sound without a trace of humor in it. “Why do you bother me now?” the hoarse voice inquired. “You can’t harm me. I’m quite mad, you know. Entirely mad. Mad as moonlight.”

  Tania took another step forward, and the grimy, wild-eyed, hair-draggled face was finally revealed.

  “Cordelia!” she gasped, almost dropping the candle in her astonishment and disbelief. “Oh my god—Cordelia!”

  Part Four:

  The Darkling

  Tide

  Chapter XXVII

  “Good morrow, sweet sister,” Cordelia growled. “Have you come to play blindman’s bluff with me? Come, we are a merry gathering, Tania.” She swept her hand in a low gesture along the floor in front of her dirty bare feet. “See how my friends
are gathered? Mice aplenty to sing and dance. And shall I have the spiders weave you a ball gown of finest silk and set the flies to playing sweet melodies for you upon the horse-hair fiddle?” Cordelia’s wide eyes closed and opened slowly. “Or would you pluck me by the tail and tweak my furry ears and whiskers and mock me, sister?”

  “Cordelia . . . ?” Tania took another step forward, unable to take in what she was seeing and hearing.

  Jade’s voice whispered at her back. “I thought she was meant to be . . .”

  “. . . dead,” murmured Tania. “Yes. She is.” No wonder the birds had been flocking about this tower—they had sensed Cordelia’s presence. They had gathered here to be close to her.

  Tania crouched, bringing the candle closer to Cordelia’s face. Her sister shrank back, huddled in on herself in the corner like a wounded and terrified animal. Heartbreakingly, Tania saw that she was still dressed in the ragged remnants of her wedding gown, sky blue and gold showing among the rents and tears, some few jewels still glimmering on the bodice. But the long sleeves were gone and the hem was ripped, so that Cordelia’s bare, grimy arms and legs showed.

  Her face was framed with a matted tangle of tawny hair, her freckled cheeks smeared with dirt, her eyes burning like blue ice, her lips pulled back in some limbo between snarling and grinning.

  “Mad as the moon when mayhem calls.” Cordelia’s voice was a bleak singsong. “Empty castles and empty halls.” She pointed a trembling finger to the candle flame. “Is that your soul, sister mine? My, how it does shine. Come.” She stared distractedly at the floor. “My mice would sing for you—we have been practicing—’tis a song fit for a king. The song of a princess set adrift on the never-ending sea.”

  “She’s lost her mind,” said Jade breathlessly. “Tania? Is this how you treat people with mental illness in this world?”

  “No!” Tania gave Jade a quick look. “Not at all!”

  Why has Cordelia been locked away like this? What’s going on?

  Cordelia half rose, her head drawn down on her shoulders, her back squeezed into the corner of the room. She pointed at nothing. “Look!” she cried. “See how the ducks swim on Robin Goodfellow’s pond! But they must watch out for the crocodiles among the soapy suds.” She held her trembling hand out to Tania, palm upward. “Do you see this stag? Did you ever see such a small stag, Tania? Why, ’twould fit in a poke and leave room enough for all our hopes and desires besides.” She cocked her head. “Listen! Do you hear him? He sings songs of the deep forest.” She nodded vehemently. “He has been the greatest friend to me. A great comfort, although he has no head . . .”