The Enchanted Quest

by Frewin Jones

  “And I was shown where Connor is being held,” said Tania. “I can see the way there clear as anything.”

  Rathina stooped and picked up the swords, handing the crystal blade to Tania and stepping back to practice thrusts and parries on shadows. “Then let’s to him, sweet sister,” said Rathina, her voice animated now for the first time since they’d come ashore. “And let’s teach manners to a lord whose minions waylay innocent folk upon the high seas.”

  It was the strangest sensation. Eden seemed to have planted in Tania’s brain a route through the maze of the castle’s corridors and winding stair towers so that she instinctively knew which turn to take, which stairs to descend—and also where to find a shadowy corner to hide when people were near.

  The mystic intuition led them to a curious room in the bowels of the castle. Its ceiling was low and domed, and a raised octagonal platform made of mortared stones occupied most of the space. Set at regular intervals into the chest-high platform were deep, slanting holes or slots. The room itself was unlit, but jutting spokes of torchlight fingered up from the holes, hazing the air and giving the room an eerie, otherworldly feel.

  “What manner of place is this?” murmured Rathina. “My skin crawls to be here. There is some great evil close by.”

  “Shh!” hissed Tania. She could hear a voice booming from beneath them. She leaned over one of the slots and found herself staring down into a great, wide, torchlit chamber. Rathina moved to the next spy-hole and leaned forward.

  The lower end of the peephole flared out so that most of the chamber was visible. The stone floor was maybe twenty feet below, and it took Tania only a moment to realize into what kind of room she was staring.

  It was a torture chamber.

  Hideous instruments and devices and machines filled the cavernous room—contraptions whose use Tania didn’t even dare think about. But some items she recognized: a rack, a table loaded with sharp implements, a stone griddle held by blackened ropes above a brazier of burning coals.

  And in the center of the room, bound onto a tilted table of scarred and punctured wood, was Connor, surrounded by smoking braziers, stripped to the waist, his face and body running with sweat. Tania’s heart pounded at the sight of him, the blood suddenly cold in her veins. She clutched at the stonework lip of the peephole.

  Tania lifted her head and saw Rathina staring wide-eyed at her.

  “Did I not say this place reeked of malevolence?” Rathina hissed.

  Tania nodded silently and looked down again. Connor seemed unhurt, so far as she could tell, save for a stain of dried blood at the corner of his mouth. But he looked exhausted and terrified. His eyes, Tania realized, were fixed on something just out of her range of vision.

  And the something had a voice: the same booming voice she’d heard earlier. “An immortal creature such as yourself can have no idea of the burden of death,” it said. “In youth the grave seems impossibly distant. But the years pass, ever more fleet, and always the specter of oblivion looms larger.”

  The speaker came into view, and Tania caught her breath. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man clad in dark leathers, his hair grizzled, curling on his shoulders, his face smooth-shaven but fissured like a crag. A long brown leather cloak dragged across the floor behind him, and his boots rang on the stone.

  It was not the man that held Tania’s gaze but the creature that walked with clicking claws at his side. It was a huge white lizard, its legs splayed, body low to the ground like a crocodile’s. But it did not have the gnarled hide of a crocodile; its shining skin was smooth, scaled and ribbed like a fish. Its long, broad tail whipped slowly back and forth as it paced, its head wedge-shaped with protruding yellow eyes and with a yellow forked tongue that flicked in and out between fanged jaws.

  A studded collar was bound around the creature’s thick neck, and from the collar extended a chain that was caught and held in the man’s right fist. And now came the final shock: The man seemed to be wearing a metal gauntlet. Tania felt certain that the glove, chain, and collar were all made of Isenmort!

  Metal? How? There is no metal in this world!

  Connor’s despairing voice interrupted Tania’s thoughts. “For the last time, I’m not Immortal,” he groaned. “Yes, I sailed with Tania and Rathina from Faerie—but I’m not one of them. I’m an ordinary human being from a completely different world.”

  “Enough of this,” said the man. “Do you think me a fool? Do you seek to gull me with talk of other worlds? There is no other world than this.”

  “You’re wrong,” Connor said. The man glared and the lizard growled with a noise like fingernails scraping down slate. “Lord Balor, I’m not disrespecting you,” Connor pleaded. “I understand it’s hard to believe—I wouldn’t have believed it myself a few days ago—but I’m telling you the truth. I’m not Immortal and I don’t know the secret of Immortality.” He looked fearfully around the room. “You’ve shown me what these things can do to me—I get it! But I can’t tell you stuff I don’t know.”

  “You would stand amazed at the things I can glean from an unwilling guest,” Lord Balor said, now slowly circling the wooden board, the creature pacing always at his side. He stopped in front of Connor, lifting the hand that held the chain—the hand in the iron gauntlet. “Do you know what this is, boy?” he croaked. “This is iron: the substance you Immortal folk know as Isenmort, I believe. I know of your fear of Isenmort. I know that the Immortal folk dread its touch as deeply as do the people of Alba.” He moved closer, the iron hand raised above Connor, the fingers spread. “Only I, of all men and women born in this world, can endure the touch of iron! Only I have that power!”

  No. You’re wrong, thought Tania, glancing at her sister. Rathina has the same gift. But how had Lord Balor obtained it?

  She saw that the iron chain was attached to the wrist of the gauntlet by a metal loop. The lizard lifted its head and growled.

  “Would you know how I came by this adornment, boy?” asked Lord Balor. “It was sixty years ago now that one of my captains found an open boat upon the sea—a boat that came from the dark islands of the south, from the sinister land of Lyonesse.” Tania felt herself start at the mention of the Sorcerer King’s homeland. “There was a magician aboard, a warlock sent to spy on Faerie and to learn the whereabouts of their captive King. But his ship was blown off course and he found himself instead a prisoner in this room, half starved and near to death. He was unwilling to reveal his secrets—at first.” He glanced around at the ugly devices that surrounded him.

  “In the end he was eager to tell all to me,” he continued. “So eager that he wished he had more secrets to reveal. He told me of Isenmort—of an alchemical substance not native to this Realm and how it was a great bane to all the living things of this world, even to the Immortals of the east. I wanted this bane for myself, and he helped me with conjurations and incantations. I paid a heavy price. I paid with my own flesh, my hand torn by dark magic from my arm, my blood boiling in my veins! The warlock of Lyonesse conjured Isenmort from the air and with fell flames seared this iron hand onto my bleeding wrist. It is with this hand and this chain and with the collar of Isenmort that I am able to bind the Great Salamander to my will.” He lifted the iron hand high. “I, Balor of Dorcha Tur, am the only man in all the world who is able to bear iron and to wield iron, because this iron is welded forever to the stump of my right hand.” His eyes blazed. “And now—you will tell me the truth or I shall set the iron to your flesh and you shall be burned to the bone!”

  Connor turned his head away and gasped, writhing as the iron hand came down spread-fingered onto his chest.

  The Great Salamander’s tongue flicked. Lord Balor pressed down on Connor’s breastbone. Tania held her breath.

  Then Lord Balor drew his hand back, his voice uncertain. “It does not burn you!” he said. “How can this be?”

  “I told you,” Connor said, panting. “I don’t come from this world. Now do you believe me?” His voice rose to a shout. �
��I come from London, England! The real world. I shouldn’t even be on this planet!”

  Balor stared at him for a long time. “Perhaps you are speaking the truth, boy,” he said at last. “But if I cannot glean from you the secret of Immortality, then you are useless to me.” The iron hand reached for Connor’s throat.

  Tania was about to shout—to make herself known in the hope of preventing Balor from hurting Connor. But even as she drew in her breath, Connor cried out.

  “The others are Immortal!” he shouted, straining his head away from Balor’s hand. “The two girls. They’re both Immortal. If you kill me, you’ll never find out anything else about them.” He was gasping now, his chest heaving. “Let me go and I’ll find them for you. I promise. I’ll bring them to you.” His eyes were circular with hope and fear. “Believe me, I want to know the secret of Immortality as much as you do.”

  “Treacherous dog!” Rathina hissed, her hand grasping Tania’s, her violent grip crushing her fingers.

  But Tania did not think so. “No! He’s playing for time,” she whispered, pulling her hand from Rathina’s. “He’s faking it; I’m sure he is.”

  Lord Balor was leaning over the tilted board, his face close to Connor’s, his iron hand gripping Connor’s hair.

  “Tell me this,” he growled. “How did the two women evade my men? Commodore Welsh said they became invisible. Is that another of the powers of the Immortal folk? To become invisible at will?”

  “No. No, not really,” Connor said. “It’s not quite like that. Tania has the power to . . . to move out of this world and . . . and back again. That’s how they did it. That’s how she brought me here in the first place.”

  “Why did you travel with them, boy?” Balor’s voice was a throaty growl. He stood erect and began to pace the floor, the Great Salamander moving sinuously at his side. “What was their purpose with you?”

  “I don’t know what they wanted me for,” said Connor, a new confidence creeping now into his voice. “They didn’t confide in me, but I think they trust me. Tania knows I can’t get home without her—she’d never expect me to turn on her. Let me go and I promise I’ll find a way to bring them to you. But I want something in exchange.” Connor swallowed hard. “When you find the secret of Immortality, let me share it with you. That’s all I ask. I can even help you worm it out of them. And then you can force Tania to take me home.” His eyes shone with a cold light. “That way we both get what we want.”

  “Ha!” Balor’s voice was a derisory explosion. The iron hand came slapping across Connor’s face, wrenching his head sideways. Tania winced as he cried out in pain.

  “I’ll need no help,” mocked Balor. “I know how to find their secret once I have them in my grasp.” He stared fiercely at Connor’s agonized face. “And I do not need to release you, boy. I need only wait for them to come slinking out of the night in search of you. Even with all their tricks of the senses, they’ll not escape Dorcha Tur once they pass within its walls. My guards are warned and wary.” He lifted his iron hand and balled it into a tight fist. “It is only a matter of time before I have them in my clutches.”

  Tania heard the sound of heavy footfalls. She sprang upright, turning to the closed door. Rathina was at her side in an instant, her Isenmort sword at the ready.

  As Tania watched, her heart hammering, she saw the door latch lifting.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tania caught Rathina’s wrist and dragged her into the deep shadows behind the raised stone octagon. They crouched there together, hardly daring to breathe, listening as the door was pushed open.

  “They are not here,” declared a guttural voice.

  “How can we know that for sure?” asked another. “Commodore Welsh says they have the power of invisibility.”

  “Aye,” mocked the first voice, “and I am King of all the Faeries! The women tricked him, that’s all!”

  The second voice became low. “Then you do not believe in the powers of the Immortal folk from across the sea?”

  “Speak such thoughts only in whispers,” murmured the first. “But I believe the testimony of my own eyes, Dalbach. I would speak this to no other, but Lord Balor is fuddled in his wits if he truly thinks there are Immortal beings beyond the eastern horizon.”

  The second voice sounded uneasy now. “You say our lord is mad, then?”

  “I say he fears death above all things,” said the first. “He has walked this world one hundred and fifteen years, and he knows the span of his life is drawing to its close. All things has he mastered, man and beast, land and sea—but this one thing eludes him: how to master death itself!”

  “But if there be no Faerie folk, whence came the iron? Answer me that, friend Laragh.”

  “I cannot,” said Laragh. “But we need look not to the distant east for unnatural happenstances—is there not enchantment enough beyond the River Blackwater? Go seek out the Witch Queen of Erin before you give mind to the Faerie stories of the east. Come, there are many more chambers and arteries to search this night ere we can take to our beds!”

  Tania heard the sound of boots clattering on the stones, then the thud and click of the door closing.

  “Well, now,” said Rathina, grinning in the light from the spy-hole. “So, we are but chimera? Flibbertigibbets of the mind, forsooth. It will work in our favor that they do not think us real.”

  “Yes, it will,” said Tania. “We need to find a way to get Connor away from that crazy lord down there.” Tania had been vaguely aware of the low rumble of Balor’s voice running under the conversation between the two soldiers, but now as she leaned in to look through one of the spy-holes again, the deadly lower chamber was silent. Connor seemed to be alone, his head tipped exhaustedly to one side, his features contorted in fear and discomfort.

  Tania longed to call down to him, to let him know they were close by. But she didn’t dare; Balor might still be within earshot.

  Tania closed her eyes. “Eden? I can see him—but I don’t know how to reach him. Help me, please?”

  There was no response. Either Eden’s power was spent or the eye of her mind was concentrated elsewhere. Either way Tania and Rathina were alone.

  “We search for stairways leading down,” Tania decided. “Okay?”

  “And we should avoid all contact with these people,” added Rathina. “We fight only if we must.”

  Tania nodded. It wasn’t only the overwhelming odds that worried her; it was the thought of having to bring her blade down on living people. She had fought without qualms the undead soldiers of Lyonesse and she had lifted her blade against their monstrous King—but she had never had to use a sword against ordinary men.

  They slipped silently out of the viewing gallery, swords in hand, ears straining for the slightest sound as they crept along the corridor. The castle was on alert. Tania was reconciled to fighting if they had to— but she clung to the hope that they might make their rescue and escape without bloodshed.

  A corkscrew stair took them deeper. The air was dank and stale in these lower regions, the torches fewer and farther apart. White mildew patched the stones, and there was a foul smell.

  Footsteps!

  Tania pressed Rathina into an alcove. A troop of armed men stamped past, their boots ringing and echoing.

  They moved out of cover, gliding silently along a leftward spur of the corridor. It ended in a single heavy door, bolted and barred and secured with a great stone lock.

  “I think this is it,” Tania whispered, glancing back along the dark slot of the corridor. “I think it must be.”

  “A fine place for a snare,” Rathina murmured, pointing her sword back along the way they had come. “A single way in—and we two caught like butterflies in the killing jar if our enemies come upon us.”

  “I can’t help that,” said Tania. She drew the almond-shaped leaf from a fold of her bodice and touched it to the door. The bars lifted. The bolts drew themselves back. There was the dry scrape of stone on stone—and the door swung p
onderously inward.

  Tania ran into the high, circular chamber. Connor was there—his round eyes amazed as he stared at her. There was a raw, red welt on his cheek where the iron hand had struck him.

  “Thank god!” he choked, relief flooding his face. “I thought . . . I . . .”

  “It’s okay,” Tania said, moving quickly between the ghastly instruments of torture. His fingers strained for her against the leather thong. She took his hand in hers. It was cold and clammy. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I lost hold of you. I couldn’t get back.”

  “There’s a guy here—a crazy guy,” said Connor, gasping. “He knows you’re coming for me.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Rathina was at Connor’s side now. She began to saw at his bonds with her sword. Tania sliced through the leather thongs at Connor’s wrist, supporting him as he slumped forward.

  “Have they used you ill, Master Connor?” Rathina asked, bringing her shoulder up under his arm. “Can you walk?”

  “They smacked me in the mouth on the ship to try to get me to tell them where you’d gone,” Connor said breathlessly. “But apart from threatening me with some of the nasty stuff in here, they haven’t hurt me too much.” He hunkered down, taking deep breaths and rubbing his legs. “So stiff!” he said. “Give me a moment to get the blood flowing again.”

  Rathina picked up his shirt and cloak from where they lay discarded on the floor. He nodded his thanks and began to dress himself, grimacing as he bent his numbed limbs. Rathina glanced apprehensively toward the open door. “I’d be out of this place as swift as may be,” she said. “ ’Tis a bag to catch a woodcock!”

  “Rathina’s right,” said Tania. “It’s too dangerous in here. Do you know where Balor went?”

  “No.” Connor stared at her, buttoning his shirt. “He’s got an iron hand, Tania, and he’s got this huge lizard-thing he keeps on a chain. A metal chain!”