The Bitterbynde Trilogy (201 page)

They went alone.

Of the moment after they arrived in Faerie, when Angavar drew the disguises from himself and Ashalind, or the next moment when he restored her memory and they found one another again for the final time, never to be parted, nothing can be told, for there were none to bear witness. That interval was theirs alone, in any case, and not to be trespassed upon.

But some time later—and it might have been seconds, or hours or days; it is hard to tell when time passes so capriciously in Faêrie—it came to Ashalind that the white plumage she had worn while in bird shape had not returned to being the dress of silk and diamonds and pearls in which she was to have married Edward. Instead, her costume now matched Angavar's. Shades of chartreuse played through the weave of the lovers' garments—the sunlight-through-greenery hues of golden ash trees, and golden cypress—and the edges of their trailing sleeves were as dagged as dandelion leaves.

Angavar lifted her off her feet and swung her around in a circle, three times, both of them laughing. She had never seen him so happy; neither had she ever felt such utter joy. For the present she could think of nothing else. The ecstasy of being with her beloved, safe in his kingdom, was all that mattered.

Angavar exulted, fired with energy. Happiness enhanced his extraordinarily good looks a thousandfold. Each time Ashalind set eyes on him the shock was as great as ever. She recalled the first occasion: In that brief glimpse, it had come to her that to describe him as ‘handsome' would be doing him an injustice. It would be as inadequate as applying the word ‘pretty' to a sable sky jewelled with stars, and those stars lowering their reflections like glimmering nets into a wintry sea. Lean and angular was his face, the features chiselled, high-boned. Beneath straight eyebrows his dark eyes seemed to burn with a cold fire, piercing. His jaw was strong and clean-shaven, although brushed with rough shadow. Young he seemed, yet as old as Spring, and all in that flash she had noted he was tall and broad of shoulder, with the hard-thewed look of a warrior. There had been no defect. Quite the reverse.

‘I will show thee my realm,
eudail
,' he told her now, ‘the high and the deep, the greatest and the least, the tardy and the swift. Thou shalt see wonders beyond description. Would that please thee?'

With a rush of excitement she assured him that indeed, it would. In fact she cared not what happened next, as long as nothing parted them.

He took her by the hand.

Together they soared higher than the highest clouds, then plummeted groundwards to alight atop a living volcano. On the scorched rim of the crater they balanced, their garments whipping madly in the heat-blast. Far below bubbled a maelstrom of magma and smoke, steam and flaming gases. Angavar raised his arm and made as if hurling some missile into the fiery soup, whereupon the mountain roared, exploding with such force that the caldera collapsed. Unscathed and whooping like exuberant children the lovers plunged into the erupting pit, passing through the superheated flows of underground as if they were no more than cool rivers of oozing raspberry syrup, amongst pillars of cloud, and exotic gardens of glassy blossoms.

Angavar conveyed Ashalind down to the lightless abysms of an ocean, where impossible monsters lit themselves with rows of electrical lights, like weird submarine ships cruising through the gloom. From the ocean the lovers emerged, with not a drop of water wetting them. They shrank to the size of ants and entered right into the heart of a flower, walking among the stamens and anthers as if through some outlandish grove. Between the precise walls of a snowflake's hexagonal maze they danced for a while, tiny as motes, before returning to their proper size.

As their feet kissed the ground in a sunlit valley Ashalind, exhilarated by the sheer abandonment to pleasure and power, cried, ‘Now show me the tardy and the swift!'

Angavar smiled. He opened his hand, and a green butterfly was standing on his palm, its wings like two triangles cut out of emerald. ‘He has stolen the colour of your eyes,' murmured the Faêran King.

The insect took flight, but with exquisite slowness—or so it seemed to Ashalind. Every detail of its movements was clearly discernible. Its wings rotated with a ballerina's grace, rather than the rapid flitting usually associated with butterflies, clapping together at the apex of the backswing, but never meeting on the downstroke. The butterfly rowed hypnotically away into the rose-pink daylight of Faêrie. When Angavar unclosed his fingers a second time a furry bee flew out of his grasp, as leisurely as its predecessor, every beat of its vanes so measured as to be easily contemplated. When the bee had drifted out of sight, Angavar gave Ashalind a longbow, which she recognised as the bow he had carried when first she met him as Thorn in the wilderness, or an exact copy.

‘I cannot draw this hardy weapon,' she murmured, hardly heeding her own words, for he was standing behind her shoulder with his arms about her, guiding her hands on string and grip. The contact between them was intense. She could feel the warm vitality of him up and down the length of her body, and almost dropped the bow from her nerveless fingers.

‘Try.' He nocked an arrow.

She pulled back the bowstring easily, sending the arrow up and away in a transcendent arc, but its progress was deliberate; instead of whizzing in a blur, it seemed to glide unhurriedly along its trajectory. Ashalind laughed at the incongruity of the sight.

A moment later her hands were empty, and she stood arm in arm with her beloved on a hillside. He lifted his head and spoke to the sky, and all around, the landscape itself began changing in astounding ways at incredible speeds. The sun began to flash repeatedly across the sky, accelerating until it eventually vanished.

Twilight reigned. Lit by its wan glow, tall cliffs weathered away, dwindling in height until they existed no more. Rivers rapidly gouged out deep ravines Mountains stood up and thrust their heads skywards. The jagged mouths of earthquakes snapped open and shut in the ground, and a glacier raced down the valley. Forests spread out in great waves, seethed like stormy oceans of foliage, then appeared to dry up like puddles on a Summer afternoon.

‘Now I have seen everything,' Ashalind said contentedly. She leaned into the arousing embrace of her lover, feeling his heart beat strongly enough to fuse with her own.

‘On the contrary, this is but the beginning,' he said. Locks of his hair tumbled down across her face and arms, soft as the brush of feathers.

‘But what about everyone else?' Ashalind said, turning her face up to his, but only for an instant, in case looking too long made her swoon, or die, or fasten to him in a fierce embrace and never let go. ‘Will your people not be thrown into confusion by what is occurring?'

‘It happened for us alone. This is Faêrie,' Angavar whispered in her ear, ‘and all took place within a span so brief that for others it was like the passing of a thought.' As he spoke, the contortions of the landscape slowed, and all returned to its normal state, if spectacular panoramas of haunting strangeness and splendour could be considered normal.

‘Now,' he said, ‘it is time to make ready for a wedding, and for the revelries that will follow.'

‘A wedding!' Ashalind echoed softly, her heart so full she could not say more. Presently she added, ‘How long will the preparations take?'

‘Too long.'

‘I understand,' Ashalind said ruefully. ‘The nature of the Faêran inclines them to sport rather than industry. I daresay they are not used to busying themselves with wedding preliminaries.'

‘Nonetheless they will be making particular efforts for you and me. Indeed, the banquets over the next days and weeks and months are likely to be quite sumptuous.'

‘Oh?' Ashalind recalled the arrival of the Avlantians in Faêrie, when the newcomers perceived that a feast was laid out on the starlit lawns, beneath spreading boughs heavy with scalloped leaves. There had been pies and puddings, flans and flummeries, saffron seed-cakes, cloudy white bread and soft yellow butter, raspberries, pears, strawberries and honeyed figs, creamy curd, truffles and crystal goblets encircling dark wine. Entranced by the music of fiddle and harp, the yellow-haired people of Hythe Mellyn had danced and feasted in the warm evening. Their cares had been discarded with their belongings on the flower-starred lawns. Caught in the ecstasy of the moment, Ashalind had cast off her travelling cloak and prepared to join in. Yet at the last, she did not.

‘Never have I tasted food in the Fair Realm,' said she.

‘Then a treat is in store for you,' Angavar said gravely. ‘Porridge and gruel, perhaps, if we are fortunate; maybe even with a couple of sprigs of parsley on the side.'

‘Dare we expect one or two grapes?' Ashalind enquired, suppressing a smile.

‘One may hope.'

‘Oh but I have been forgetting,' the damsel exclaimed, ‘how could I? It is unforgivable of me. My family and friends! I have not yet seen them since my return!'

‘Hardly unforgivable,' he returned. ‘You arrived but a moment ago. Besides—' and he speared her with an intense look—‘had you not given that moment to me I would surely have fallen prey to madness.' More light-heartedly he added, ‘Let us go to them now!'

Ashalind, on the arm of Angavar, stepped blithesomely down through a sloping woodland of silver birch trees. Spinning swirls of thistledown showered them both, like handfuls of confetti cast in welcome. In their wake thronged the Faêran, singing and rejoicing, while hosts of eldritch wights came frolicking also. Ashalind was going to greet her loved ones for the first time since she had left them and slipped through the Gate of Oblivion's Kiss, so long ago in Erith-time.

Three of Ashalind's Erithan companions discovered her immediately—the hound Rufus came bounding up, wagging his tail and spinning around in delight; the horses Peri and Satin blew their warm breath against Ashalind's neck and nuzzled her in welcome. She lavished loving caresses upon them before they pranced away to revel again in the sweet freedom of the Land Beyond the Stars.

For the humanfolk she had left behind it seemed that only eight days had elapsed; eight days of quiet sadness, followed by sudden, fragile hope. Despite having reached the land of Faêrie, their heart's desire, Ashalind's family and friends were neither feasting nor dancing on verdant lawns in forest glades, as they might have been. Anxiety had postponed their joy. Ashalind, who had brought back the stolen children and been the instrument of Hythe Mellyn's rescue from the Langothe, was not among them to share the fruits of her labours. Her presence was acutely missed.

Angavar had been borne to Faêrie, still wrapped in the Pendur Sleep. After he woke, the wights and birds who had returned with him announced that Ashalind lived, whereupon he departed into Erith immediately. He left Faêrie without notice, but word spread—he had gone to fetch her back. Ashalind's family waited impatiently, dreading that some unforeseen circumstance might prevent her from returning to them. Maybe the wights and birds had been mistaken, or maybe after they had glimpsed her, some tragedy had befallen her. They waited, barely daring to hope, with no idea how long Angavar's quest would take, for the passing of time in the Fair Realm never matched its counterpart in Erith.

Barefoot and clad in soft draperies the Avlantians were reclining listlessly on wide stairs leading down to lakes of utmost tranquillity. Around them soared an arcade of majestic marble columns, entwined with foliage. Some folk were trailing their fingers in the water; others were staring at their reflections or gazing at the stately swans that drifted on the lake. A youth plucked plaintive airs on a lute. Low-angled sunlight, rich as honey, shattered through the thick drifts and festoons of pastel blossoms that dripped from trees overhead, the slanting rays patterning the columns and gigantic stone urns with delicate dapples like the thinnest shavings of gold-leaf. Desultory flowers fell from the bowers above, to alight on the flawless surface and float away without a single ripple. From the far shore of the motionless waters, cliffs tiered upwards into a soft haze that indicated the spray from hidden waterfalls. The craggy precipices, lavender-shadowed, glowed like peaches where the light illustrated them.

Ashalind's small brother, Rhys, had discovered a swing suspended from one of the blossomy boughs reaching over the lake. Seated thereon, he gripped the ropes above his head and leaned idly on the crook of his elbow, one shoeless foot pointing down towards his reflected image, the other resting on the swing-seat, which gently rocked.

An old man and a young sat hunched on the broad steps at the water's edge; Leodogran na Pendran, Ashalind's father, and Pryderi Penrhyn, who had loved Leodogran's daughter in Erith and loved her still.

Leodogran's housekeeper, Oswyn, loitered amongst that wistful company, and the learned wizard Razmath also, and Meganwy, the Carlin of the Herbs. Some of the other families who had left Hythe Mellyn tarried there as well, lost in poignant musings, supine upon the cool paving or seated with their backs against the columns.

But beyond their view Ashalind and Angavar with their astonishing retinue emerged from the thistledown birch groves and pushed through thickets of hydrangeas encrusted all over with powder-blue and rouge posies. They walked lightly between rose-arbours, and beneath the perfumed froth of plum trees in bloom, until they reached the lakeside. At their backs the marvellous Faêran hosts paused, half-concealed by the foliage, and waited courteously.

The mortals who loitered by the lake heard a voice, and turned to behold those two standing before them.

At first they did not know what they saw, for Ashalind was transformed. She knew such ecstasy that her beauty shone brighter than ever and as for Angavar, it hurt the eyes of the mortalfolk to look at him.

Such was the gladness of these two lovers.

The human company bowed their heads and bent their knees before the High King of the Fair Realm, but Ashalind left Angavar's side and walked towards her people, smiling and holding out her arms, and at last they comprehended that she was the very one they longed for and had missed so sorely, and they rose to their feet as if awakening from sleep.