The Enchanted Quest

by Frewin Jones

  “Rathina?”

  “Yes. Is Connor with you?”

  “No!” Tania cried, staring desperately around. The fog was gone and the stars were pinpoints in a black void far above the fretful waves. His hand had been ripped out of hers just as she was passing between the worlds. He must still be on the black ship. “I lost him.”

  “Tania!” Rathina’s voice was shocked.

  “I couldn’t help it.” Tania coughed, spitting out water. “We have to go back for him. I have to get back!”

  “No, that were madness!” Rathina gasped.

  Now that the water was out of her eyes, Tania could see her sister only a few feet away, her dress doming up on the surging sea.

  “We can’t just leave him there,” Tania said.

  “If you returned, how would you scale the sides of the ship?” called Rathina. “How would you save him? And what if you entered Faerie where the ship now lies? ’Twould be the death of you, for sure!” She fought down her dress and swam closer.

  Tania had not thought of that. What would happen to her if she materialized in Faerie in exactly the same space as some other object? The image of herself emerging halfway through the hull of the ship was a terrifying one.

  Tania kicked hard and turned, looking for land across the rise and fall of the bitter, oily waves. “We should get ashore,” she called. “Try to find him then . . .”

  “Indeed we should,” said Rathina, “and with utmost dispatch, Tania—ere our strength fades. Spirits of grace but I’d fare better without the encumbrance of this dress!”

  Tania knew exactly what she meant—and the sea was deathly cold. They would need all their strength and endurance to survive.

  A fluke of icy water splashed in her face; Rathina was swimming toward the low-lying dark spit of land, her arms cutting through the water, her feet kicking froth. Tania leaned forward, squashing down the plump of her dress, working to swim with her.

  Soon they were swimming side-by-side—and in the distance Tania could see a mass of lights. A town! A seaside town lit by electricity!

  She swam on with renewed energy.

  “I’d shed this dress,” she heard Rathina say, panting, “but I’d not make my entrance . . . in the Mortal World . . . dressed in nought . . . but my shift. . . . ”

  Tania’s dress was now dragging at her, too, slowing her down, trying to drown her.

  But the light-strewn shore was coming closer with every stroke. The long waves were higher now, crested with white foam, pressing inward, lifting them and throwing them forward. They would make it before their strength gave out.

  Tania felt something hard under her foot. A rock. She pressed down, hoping for a firm hold, but her foot slipped away and her head went under for a moment. She came up spluttering and spitting brine.

  Now the swell and roll of the sea began to work against them. There were white breakers all around, and Tania’s ears were filled with the smash of waves crashing onto a shoreline of great shining black rocks.

  We’ll never get ashore. We’re going to die here.

  She heard Rathina shouting in fury as she fought against a beating wave. Black water leaped sky-ward, resembling a snow-capped mountain. For a few moments her sister vanished into the turbulent night.

  “Rathina!”

  But as the wave broke and churned, Tania felt herself caught in its undertow. Her knee struck rock. She gasped with the pain, and her mouth filled with water. Her dress pulled at her, trying to keep her head under the surface. Trying to drown her.

  Feet slipping on rock.

  Fingers on a hard slimy surface.

  Torn away.

  Battling to keep afloat.

  The crash and batter of surf.

  And then a sloping surface that came punching up into her stomach from the depths. Foam all around her. Coughing and choking. She managed to keep a grip on the rock. Managed to find a toehold.

  The waves were smashing and sucking, her clothes clinging to her body. Panting for breath, blinded by foam, she crawled over the rock with the ocean hissing in her ears.

  She was ashore, on her hands and knees.

  Rathina!

  She heard breathless laughter from close by. The wild laughter of someone who has stood between the jaws of death and leaped clear.

  Tania got to her knees. Rathina was lying on her back not two yards away, with her arms spread out and her feet in the foam. Her face was veiled by black ribbons of hair, her chest rising and falling as she gasped.

  Tania crawled over to her and knelt, pulling the thick strands of Rathina’s hair off her face. Their eyes met, and Tania threw her arms around her sister and held her while the sea churned below them.

  Tania clambered over the huge rocks. A concrete wall cut across the night—high but not too high to scale. And beyond the wall? She had no idea. A town, she assumed—the town whose lights she had seen from the sea.

  Rathina was at her side, laboring over the knuckled boulders. Despite the burden of their saturated clothing they managed to climb the wall without too much trouble.

  Tania stood on top of the wall, her arms around her body, shivering in the chilly night, the wet folds of her dress glued to her back and legs. Directly ahead of them was a curving white path that circled an area of bare earth. Beyond that she could see a patch of mowed grass and a soccer field. Beyond those a large white building blazing with lights—and behind the building a town.

  A soccer field. How strange and how ordinary. How . . . Mortal.

  “Do you know this place, Tania?” asked Rathina, her shoulders hunched to her ears as she peered into the distance.

  “No—I’ve never been to Ireland.” She frowned. “I’m assuming this is Ireland, of course.” They were definitely back in the Mortal World but where in the Mortal World? She stepped down off the wall and held her arm out to her sister, her heart aching that she had to return to Faerie so quickly. “Take my hand; we have to get back and find out what happened to Connor.”

  Rathina stood at her side and they laced fingers.

  Tania concentrated and took the forward side step—into a lightless world. They found themselves standing on a sandy beach, under the Faerie stars.

  Tania could hear the waves roaring and crashing at her back. She could faintly see the swelling ocean, and she was aware of a rugged coastline stretching bleakly in either direction.

  There were no buildings. No glimmer of earthly light. No trace of living beings.

  There was a cold, biting wind.

  “So, sister?” Rathina muttered. “Whither now?”

  “Welsh mentioned a fortress. . . .” Tania racked her memory. “Dorcha Tur, he called it. They’ll take Connor there.”

  “And how do we find this place?” asked Rathina. Tania frowned at her: Rathina’s voice was uncharacteristically flat and lifeless. “We walk till we come to a village . . . or a farmhouse . . . or whatever,” she said. “Then we ask.”

  Rathina looked at her. “ ’Tis madness to wander the night thus. And what if the folk we encounter are as hospitable as Master Welsh? With a sword in my hand I’ll face up to any brigand or marauder, but we are weaponless on a strange shore and I would fain seek a place to spend a warm night before we essay an assault on a fortress.” She paused. “I feel sore in need of rest, Tania. I am weary to the bone—more weary than I can well explain.”

  Tania nodded. “I know; I can feel it, too. I think part of it is the Gildensleep: It’s draining us all the time. I could crash out right this moment if someone put a bed in front of me.”

  “Then why not . . . crash out?” Rathina suggested. “Take us back to the Mortal World, Tania. We have no foes there, nothing to fear. Let us seek a warm fire and a downy bed for the night. Do they not have inns? Do they not welcome wretched travelers?”

  “Wretched travelers with credit cards, maybe,” Tania said. She stared into the night till her eyes ached. “What about Connor?” she muttered.

  “He is a resourceful and keen-w
itted lad,” Rathina said reassuringly. “We’d be of little help to him tonight, weak as we are. We will fare better in the morning, and if he is not dead, I have faith that we will find him!”

  Tania gave Rathina a horrified look. “Dead?”

  “I do not say he is dead, and I do not think it,” Rathina said calmly. “On the morrow we shall return to Alba and seek Dorcha Tur by the light of the sun. And we shall effect such a daring rescue that the heads of his guards will spin like tops while we leap away from them o’er the hills to Tirnanog!”

  Tania smiled wearily. “Yes,” she said. “You’re right. Of course you are. We should go back. Money’s going to be a problem—but I’m sure someone will take pity on us.”

  Tania took Rathina’s cold hand once more and sidestepped them back into the Mortal World.

  Here the sea sounded less fierce and somehow the stars seemed to be farther away—smaller, dimmer, less radiant. Less bewitching.

  They headed out across the cropped grass toward the big white building. Tania hoped it might be a hotel. They would have a telephone. Surely she would be able to convince the people to let her phone home—reverse the charges, whatever. Then she could speak to her mother and find out how her dad was doing. And her mum could give the people her credit card number so the two of them could have a meal and a room for the night.

  Yes. That was a plan. That was a good plan.

  They had crossed the green and were skirting the soccer field prior to crossing the road to the hotel, when a man appeared in front of them, stepping out from the darkness.

  “Well, now,” he said with a broad white smile. “Is it two selkies I see, come dripping from the ocean?” The smile widened. “It’s lucky for you that I chose this place to kick my heels tonight, for you could’ve come ashore anywhere from Dun Laoghaire to Bray Head, and then I’d have had the devil of a job tracking you down!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Tania gazed at the man in astonishment. He was a little shorter than her, stocky, with long black hair hanging loose to his shoulders. He had compelling dark eyes under thick brows and a wide-flaring beaky nose. His smile stretched broadly, creasing his olive cheeks. He was dressed in a loose white shirt that shimmered like silk, and black trousers that ended with slightly grubby bare feet.

  He stood watching them with his bright, deep eyes, hands resting on his hips.

  “Do you know us?” Tania asked at last while Rathina looked on with suspicious eyes.

  “I do not,” said the man, speaking in a soft, lilting Irish accent. “But I was expecting you.”

  “What do you mean?” Tania asked.

  “My name is Michael,” the man replied. “I do not know you fine ladies, but I had a feeling, an inkling, that if I came to this place on this night, I would meet someone who would benefit from my help.” He bowed slightly. “And if you’ll follow me now, I’ll take you somewhere to dry yourselves off and maybe get a bite to eat.” He raised an eyebrow. “Now, does that sound promising, or shall I be on my way and leave you fine ladies to drip and to shiver?”

  Rathina frowned at him. “Do you not know us, sirrah?” she demanded. “Are you in the pay of Lord Balor? Have you followed us between the worlds? If you mean to lead us to our doom, beware, for you’ll not live to profit from it, I swear that to you on the sacred stars of Faerie!”

  Michael seemed startled by Rathina’s ferocity. “I don’t know any Lord Balors—there’s none living in Dalkey village that I’ve ever heard of, and if there were, they’d want nothing to do with a peripatetic poet like myself.”

  Rathina turned to Tania. “Is the fellow moonstruck or does he dissemble, do you think?”

  Tania shook her head. “I don’t know.” She turned to him. He had not shown any surprise at the mention of Faerie nor at Rathina’s mode of speech, which should have been puzzling in itself. But she sensed that he was not an enemy—that he meant them no harm. “Who are you?” she asked him again.

  “Michael Corr Mahone, or Mikey the Heron, as some would have it,” he replied. “And I’m telling you no lies; on my mother’s grave I’m not.”

  “You are then Mortal?” asked Rathina.

  “Very Mortal,” said Michael in obvious surprise. “All I’m offering is a warm place to rest and maybe a song or two.”

  “You’re a singer?” Tania asked. “A musician?”

  Michael rested the flat of his hand against his heart. “For my sins I am,” he said. “Currently resident at the Iron Stone Tavern, Coliemore Road, Dalkey.” He pointed away. “Will you be coming or not?”

  Tania looked at Rathina. “Do you sense the Dark Arts about him?”

  “Not a jot,” Rathina said.

  “Then I think we will go with you,” Tania said to him. The strange man had her perplexed, but every instinct in her said that she could trust him—that he was truly here to help them.

  “Would you tell me your names?” he asked, his eyes twinkling now. “And the story of how you came to be here, all alone and soaked through to the skin like mermaids caught up in a trawl net?”

  “My name is Tania—and this is my sister Rathina.” Tania chewed her lip. “Although as to how we got here . . . that’s a bit of a long story, and I don’t think you’d believe us anyway.”

  “Oh, don’t be so sure,” said Michael, walking away and gesturing for them to follow. “I’m as gullible as an oyster on the halfshell. But you’d best talk fast; it’s only a short walk to the Iron Stone and I’ve a friend waiting there I should have met up with half an hour ago.”

  Rathina looked hard at Tania. She shrugged and the pair of them fell into step behind Michael as he strode across the road and headed into the town.

  Michael led them at a fast pace past the white building and along a road lined with tall trees. There were houses among the trees—set back from the road, fronted by high brick walls with wrought-iron gates.

  Tania felt an unpleasant tingling in her body as they passed these gates—a reminder that she was now in a world where she was surrounded by the poison of metal: the deadly bane of Isenmort. She would need to be wary. The simple action of closing her hand around a metal doorknob would be enough to send a whiplash of pain up her arm.

  Of all the people of Faerie only Rathina was immune to the bite of Isenmort—that was her gift, her royal birthright, as unique to her as were Tania’s ability to walk between the worlds and Hopie’s healing powers and Cordelia’s rapport with animals.

  The road curved and split in two. Michael took the left-hand fork, guiding them along a road of Victorian redbrick shops with ornate stonework and brightly colored frontages lit by old-fashioned cast-iron streetlamps. The shops were closed, but curtained windows glowed in many upper floors. A few cars were parked at the roadside, and a couple strolled arm in arm down the sidewalk, probably coming from the nearby restaurant.

  Tania got the impression that this was one of those drowsy seaside towns that was rudely awoken in the summer months by day-trippers and tourists. But she also got the powerful feeling that under the surface an ancient, knowing heart beat strong and slow. Perhaps this was one of those rare places where the boundary between Faerie and the Mortal World was only tissue-paper thin. That might go some way to explaining why a Mortal man was given the insight to approach two Faerie princesses sodden from the sea.

  They crossed the road behind Michael, and Tania saw a large double-fronted pub painted white with black piping along the cornices and decorative stone-work panels. Golden light flooded from its wide windows.

  “The Iron Stone Tavern,” Michael announced, turning to look at Tania. “The locals say it fell from the moon, if you can believe that. But there’s nothing to fear here, ladies. And on a night like this there’ll not be a tourist in sight!”

  That’s weird, the tourist thing. Like he read my mind!

  He opened the door. Warmth and light spilled into the street, carrying with them the hubbub of cheerful voices and laughter and the savory smell of cooking.

&
nbsp; They came into a long dark room full of people sitting on upholstered benches around the walls or perched on wooden stools at stone-topped wrought-iron tables and at the long dark-wood bar. The walls were paneled in polished mahogany that glowed in the golden light. The shelves behind the long bar were filled with bottles and gleaming glasses. Voices rang out to greet their entrance:

  “Michael, my boy, where have you been?”

  “Sure, and hasn’t Rose been waiting for you near on an hour? You’ll get your eye in a sling and that’s a fact!”

  “Where’s your fiddle, Michael? We’re gagging for a tune!”

  No one seemed bothered by the fact that Michael was accompanied by two sopping-wet girls.

  An elderly man sat at the bar, with long swept-back white hair and a grizzled beard. He scrutinized Tania and Rathina with brilliant blue eyes.

  “And who are your companions, Michael?” he asked in a voice like ancient music. His crinkled eyes looked knowingly at Tania, as if he already understood who she was.

  “Two waifs and strays,” Michael replied. “In need of warmth and food.” He called across the bar. “Ivan, do you have two mutton pies and two hot drinks for the young ladies?”

  “That I do!” called the barkeeper. “Go and sit yourselves by the fire to dry. I’ll be along shortly.”

  “I need a phone,” Tania said. “I have to make a call.”

  “There’s a pay phone at the end of the bar,” Michael told her.

  “Oh. I’ve no money.”

  “No problem.” Michael smiled and pulled a handful of coins from his pocket. “I’ll spring for a call to your mother.”

  Rathina scooped the coins out of his hand. Tania was glad of her sister’s quick thinking—tipped into her own hand, the metal coins would have burned her like hot coals.

  As Michael led them off to the end of the bar, the old man spoke up. “We’ll meet again, perhaps. One fine day . . . Stay safe till then.”

  “Yes, okay,” Tania said. She turned to Michael. “How did you know I wanted to phone my mother?” she asked as she followed Rathina.