The Enchanted Quest Page 19

  A land where magic has run wild. . . .

  They had to get across both Erin and Hy Brassail if they were to fulfill their quest, but Connor was right: They had no way of setting a course. Tania knew they needed to head into the west—and it would be easy enough to guess that the west lay in the opposite direction from the forest—but what were they to do once they lost sight of the forest? What then?

  “I see no sign of village nor farm,” said Rathina, standing high in the stirrups and scouring the landscape, her hand shielding her eyes. “Should we seek for the folk who dwell here and ask their aid, do you think?”

  “We don’t even know if anyone lives here,” said Connor. “Except for the enchantress, of course . . . assuming she really exists.”

  It was true: They had no idea what was waiting for them in this land and even less of what would be expected of them further down the line

  “The kind of witchery we’ve already seen needs to be maintained by a keen and a strong mind,” said Edric. “The Green Lady exists, I think we can be certain of that.”

  “But will she prove an ally or an enemy?” asked Rathina. “Should we seek her out in her palace of flowers—or should we avoid her?”

  “That’s a good question,” said Tania. She looked at her three companions. “Anyone got an answer?” No one spoke. “Okay,” she decided, “here’s the plan. We’ll ride on that way.” She pointed away from the forest. “We’ll keep going as far as we can. Then we’ll see what we’re up against.”

  “I suggest we trust nothing we see or hear,” Edric warned. “I can smell sorcery thick in the air. We must keep close together all the time. And if anyone tries to ride away for any reason, the rest of us must stop them.” He looked gravely at the others. “The chances are we’ll be shown enticing things and be offered wonderful gifts, but we should believe none of it! We need to keep our heads clear and not listen to any voices that call to us—no matter who they seem to be. Remember all the time: We are in a land of untruth and fantasy!”

  The sun never shifted from the top of the sky as they rode along. The light was golden and hazy. Not a cloud stirred to disturb the crystalline blue.

  At one point they saw shoals of slender silver fishes moving through a grove of trees as though through water. And at the end of a far valley they saw huge beasts, like shaggy buffalo, passing in a herd, each of the humpbacked animals the size of a moving hill.

  “Untruth and fantasy, indeed!” murmured Rathina, gazing wide-eyed at the massive creatures.

  “I’d kill for a digital camera,” Connor said under his breath.

  As they traveled, they heard hoofbeats where there were no horses and laughing voices among the rocks. Many-colored butterflies swarmed around them forming the shapes of men and women, dancing in the air. In the distance they thought they saw citadels and towers, but they dissolved into mist the moment anyone’s eyes tried to focus on them. They saw a waterfall that poured upward and a river that flowed through the air and beautiful figures who appeared in groves of trees, smiling and beckoning.

  What is there to trust here? Tania thought. She had no idea.

  Rocks rolled uphill, chiming like bells as they moved. Birds of glass flapped slowly by. Children made of flowers ran along the crest of a hill, towing a great kite in the shape of a lion.

  Worn out, they paused and slept by a singing river, trying to find some shade from the sun, waking at noon. Lying under fruit trees heavy with clusters of rubies and pearls and diamonds.

  They rode on again, coming suddenly upon a three-masted galleon plowing through a field under full sail. The mariners hung from the rigging waving and beckoning as the ship curved away and was gone, leaving a wake of new-turned earth.

  “Awesome,” muttered Connor.

  “Don’t look,” warned Edric. “Ignore them!”

  Tania stared at him. “How do we do that?”

  Three times they slept, and three times they got back into the saddle, and each time Tania found it harder to carry on. The end of all hope came suddenly during a long, exhausting ride over a wide landscape of rolling hills. Edric was the first to come to the crest of the highest hill.

  “No!”

  Tania nudged her heels into her horse’s flanks. The long, unwinding crest of the hill opened up to her— and revealed beyond, a great dark forest that stretched forever in both directions. It was the Gormenwood— Tania recognized the landscape immediately—they were back where they had started.

  She heard Connor’s voice. “All that time . . . all that way . . .”

  “Can we be sure this is the same forest?” Rathina asked, but there was little optimism in her voice.

  “Of course it is,” said Tania, slumping in her saddle. She slid forlornly from the horse, her body aching.

  “Riding on hope alone has failed us,” Rathina said, suddenly at her side. “But if one way is closed to us, then we must seek another.”

  Tania looked despondently at her. “Such as?”

  “Come,” Rathina said gently. “Sit. Let us see what great need can accomplish. Let us try reaching out to Eden, or Oberon himself.”

  Tania hesitated, remembering Sancha’s warning that she mustn’t call on them again. But she saw no other choice.

  They sat facing each other on the sun-drenched hilltop, in the middle of the land of magic and wonder, holding hands and closing their eyes.

  Tania struggled to get a picture of Eden in her head—but the light was too bright through her eyelids, and all she could see was a flame red glow that pulsated and writhed in her mind.

  “Eden . . . ?” She screwed her eyes tight, desperately trying to concentrate. “Eden . . . please? Oberon . . . ?”

  She felt nothing. Not a glimmer. Not a shred of communion with her faraway family.

  She opened her eyes, seeing the look of sorrow on Rathina’s face.

  “There’s nothing . . .” Tania said. “Not a thing. Either we’re too far away or they don’t have the strength left to make contact,” she said. “I think we’re on our own.”

  She saw Connor standing close by, frowning deeply as he stared at the forest.

  “Can I say something without being shouted down?” he asked.

  Tania sighed. “Go ahead.”

  “We’re stuck here because of some kind of magic spell, right?” He looked around at the three of them, but no one needed to speak. “So what we surely need is another magic spell to get us out.” He looked at Tania. “That’s what you were trying for just now, wasn’t it? A bit of magic from Faerie?”

  “Yes, but it didn’t work,” said Tania. “And Rathina and I don’t have any useful magic about us.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Connor, turning now to look up at Edric, still in the saddle, his face impassive. “But he does.”

  “No!” Tania said, animated for a moment. “That’s not an option.”

  “Excuse me!” demanded Connor. “How come you get to make that choice? We’re all of us stuck in this place, running around like rats in a maze. We already know he’s going to use the Dark Arts—that ferrywoman told us so. So why not have him use them to get us out of here? What difference does it make if he’s going to fail anyway? Why not make use of him?”

  Tania stood up, swaying a little. Light-headed from the effort of trying to contact her sister. “Because it could destroy him,” she said angrily.

  Connor held his ground. “Then give us an alternative, Tania,” he said. “Tell us how else we get out of here—now that we don’t have a compass any longer?”

  There was a dreadful silence.

  Rathina got to her feet. “We were wrong to throw away the compass. Let us not make the wrong decision a second time. If our quest fails, Faerie falls.” She looked at Tania. “If Edric is our only hope, we cannot dismiss it so swiftly. Did I not say prudence should dictate our future decisions?”

  “No!” Tania shouted. “I won’t ask him to do that. I don’t care. I won’t!”

  “I don’t need you
r permission, Tania,” Edric said, looking tenderly into her face. “Like Connor said—you don’t get to make all the decisions.”

  She ran toward him. “No! Edric, no! We’ll find another way.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Edric!”

  He looked away from her, and already she could see the sheen of silver floating across his brown eyes. He lifted his arms and formed shapes in the air with his outstretched fingers. And where his fingers passed, the air grew dark and clouded, creating a web of deep blue light that shone and throbbed all around him.

  Tania fell to her knees, her head filling with the chanting of a voice that both was and was not Edric’s voice. She could not understand the words, but she knew they held power and danger.

  Edric and his horse were only shadows now in the expanding ball of blue light, and all around them the grass lay flat on the hill, as though beaten down by a great wind. Tania was thrown back. She heard the whinnying of frightened horses, Rathina shouting, Connor calling something that was swept away on the wind.

  A voice came out of the darkness. “I see you!” It was Edric, sounding startled and amazed. “I see you!”

  Tania opened her eyes a crack, fighting the blasting wind.

  The ball of light was larger now, and it was no longer blue. It was green—and standing tall and slender in front of Edric’s horse was a woman dressed all in green, with flaming red hair and a white face and ruby red lips.

  Tania knew her in an instant. The Green Lady! The enchantress of Erin.

  “And I see you, my fine horseman,” said the Green Lady. Her voice was strong and full of laughter. “Such powers you have, my friend, that I have not tasted in many a long age. I knew my nets would catch one such as you on a fine noontide day.” She laughed merrily. “You will make a gallant knight at the court of Ashling dar Dair.” She reached out her arms to him, and tendrils of green light flowed from her fingertips. “Say farewell to your friends, knight of the Dark Arts!”

  Edric struggled and turned his head toward Tania. There was irrevocable loss in his eyes. His mouth opened as if he was about to speak, but then the hilltop was riven by a blast of emerald light that knocked Tania onto her back and sent her rolling helplessly away down the long slope of the hill.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Tania came to her senses in long grass under the noonday sun.

  “Edric!” She clambered to her feet, staggering. The sight that met her eyes almost brought her to her knees again. The whole of the top of the hill had been blasted apart, the grass torn away, the earth ruptured to reveal the deep, dark bones of the land.

  She ran up the hill, scrabbling with hands as well as feet.

  She saw Rathina first—lying on her face at the very rim of the crater. Dropping at her sister’s side, she turned her onto her back.

  Rathina’s eyes were closed, but she seemed no more than deeply asleep.

  “Rathina! Wake up!” Tania shook her, leaning close to her face, stroking her hair, tears falling onto her sister’s skin.

  But Rathina did not wake up.

  Tania got to her feet again. Connor? Edric?

  Where were the horses?

  Gone.

  It was useless even to try and guess how long ago that happened. A few heartbeats, a day—whatever that meant in this mad Realm.

  She stared down into the chasm, remembering the look on Edric’s face—remembering the explosion of green light that had engulfed him.

  She saw another figure, lying on the far side of the dreadful hole. “Connor!”

  But when she came to him, she found that he, too, was deeply asleep and she was unable to rouse him no matter what she did. But at least he and Rathina did not seem to have been harmed by the eruption of sorcery that had engulfed Edric.

  The Green Lady had taken him.

  Tania sat in the grass, her face in her hands.

  It was the Dark Arts. The moment Edric had summoned the Dark Arts, the Green Lady had pounced. What was it she had said?

  I knew my nets would catch one such as you on a fine noontide day. . . .

  Tania turned her face to the scorching sky. “Edric!” she howled. And then she opened her mouth wide and let out a scream of misery and despair.

  Spent of all breath, she dropped onto her face in the long grass and wept. All hope was gone. The quest was over.

  * * *

  “Come now, it can’t be as bad as all that,” said a voice. A hand touched her shoulder. “Why, you’ll break your heart with weeping.”

  Tania turned onto her back and opened swollen eyes. Two smiling faces floated above her.

  “Michael . . . ?” She sat up. “Rose?”

  “I am Rose Maguire, indeed,” the woman said, but her face was puzzled. “Where is it you know us from?”

  Tania pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “No. This is just a dream. That’s all it is.”

  She opened her eyes again, and once the fog was gone from her vision, she found Michael and Rose gazing at her as before.

  “You can’t be here,” Tania said.

  “Is that a fact?” said Michael. “Well, now! And don’t I feel the fool.”

  “Help the poor child up,” said Rose, offering a hand to Tania. “Look at her, all bedraggled and woebegone.”

  Tania stood, taking a long, steadying breath. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “It seems you know that already,” said Michael with a beaming smile. “Two wandering minstrels sent to give a helping hand to a lady in distress.” His black eyes twinkled. “Will you tell us your name?”

  Tania blinked from one to the other. “Don’t you remember me?” she asked. “Back in . . . in . . . Ireland. At the Iron Stone Tavern. We met you there.” She gestured to where Rathina lay sleeping still. “You helped us.” She looked into Rose’s perplexed face. “Tania and Rathina. Don’t you remember? You gave me a leaf that opened doors. . . .”

  “Not I, Rathina,” said Rose.

  “No, I’m Tania.” She felt like screaming. “Oh, this is crazy!” She stared around herself. “What’s going on?”

  “Calm yourself, Tania,” Rose said gently. “We’ve been sent to tell you two secrets.”

  “Who sent you?” Tania demanded.

  “That is not one of the secrets to be revealed,” said Michael, catching hold of Tania’s hand. Rose was still holding the other, and now she took Michael’s free hand, so the three of them were standing in a ring on the hilltop.

  Tania looked from one to the other. Two friendly faces in all the perilous madness of Erin. Was that why she had met them before—so that she would trust them now?

  “Tell me the secrets,” Tania asked.

  Michael smiled. “They can be unlocked only by the right key.”

  Tania frowned at him. “You mean . . . I have to ask the right questions?”

  “Exactly so,” said Michael.

  What two questions should she ask? Her duty was to find the Divine Harper—but her heart ached for Edric. She had to know what had happened to him— she had to know if he could be saved from the Green Lady.

  Two questions.

  The quest is all that matters—everything else is selfishness.

  I don’t care. I have to know what happened to Edric.

  “Okay,” Tania said at last. “Two questions. Question one is how do I get Edric back.” She licked her lips, her mouth dry. “Question two is how do we get to Tirnanog.”

  Rose smiled. “Fine questions, Tania!” she said. “To seek for Tirnanog you must travel through Erin and over the pathless mountains of Hy Brassail to the shore of the Limitless Ocean. Tirnanog lies beyond that ocean, but there is no ship that can take you across that vast water, and even if a ship could be found, Tirnanog lies beyond the edge of the world.”

  Rose paused for a moment at the look of dismay Tania gave her. “But that is not the first of your tribulations,” she continued. “For no common steed nor shoe can bear you safe through dragon-haunted Hy Brassa
il. Only the horses of the Deena Shee can safely make passage across that cracked and desolate land— and the Deena Shee do not part with their horses for love, nor magic, nor horded treasure.”

  Tania gaped at her.

  “And there’s the answer to one of your questions,” said Rose.

  “So, you’re telling me . . . it’s hopeless?” Tania choked out at last. “Even if I managed to find a way out of Erin, I’d never get across Hy Brassail. And even if I managed that, there’s still no way to get to Tirnanog!”

  “That, I cannot say.”

  “I think you just did!” Tania exclaimed. “You’ve just told me what I want to do is impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible, daughter last of daughters seven,” said Rose. “Not with your true love by your side, with honest hand in true love given.”

  “Well said, my darling girl.” Michael laughed. “And now for your other question, Tania. The Green Lady has a will that has never been thwarted. She has sought for a thousand years for a worthy consort to share her throne—”

  “A consort?” declared Tania. “You mean . . . like . . . a husband? Oh no! No way is that happening!”

  Michael laughed. “The fury of love burns bright in you, Tania, and that’s all to the good. But listen to me carefully now if you’d win him back.” He turned, an arm coming around her shoulders so that she was turned with him. He pointed into the distance. “You must walk in a straight line till you come to a place where twilight rules. There you will find a high ring of grassy earth taller than the tallest tree, turfed and grassed and overgrown with night phlox and moon-flower and evening primrose. Do not seek to pass over the ramparts of that place without first saying these words, and these words exactly: ‘Ashling dar Dair, I am come for my true love. Hear me, Ashling dar Dair. I will not depart without him.’ The words have great power in them. The enchantress will be forced to respond to your challenge. She will have to let you into her citadel—and what comes next, you must face alone.”

  “What do you mean, ‘what comes next’?”

  “The ancient laws allow the Green Lady to present you with two challenges,” said Michael. “Two ordeals. If you survive, Edric will be yours once more. If not she keeps him for all eternity.”