The Lost Queen (11 page)

“You sent him to fetch me, didn't you?” Tania asked, following her sister up the steps. “How did you know I was here?”

“Eden sensed that you were in Faerie, and that you were in distress,” Cordelia said. She looked at Tania. “Your sisters await. Come, take heart's-ease and leave behind you all the troubles of the Mortal World.” She paused before going through the doors. “There is something in the air this night,” she said, and Tania saw that her eyes were uneasy.

“What kind of thing?”

Cordelia shook her head. “I know not. But it is portentous. All the animals sense it: An oppression in the air, as of a thunderstorm approaching, but there are no dark clouds and the wind is set fair in the southeast.” Her eyes narrowed. “And perhaps there lies the threat…perhaps.” She looked at Tania. “But enough of such talk. The night is fine. Come, you are expected.”

 

Cordelia threw open the door to the long gallery. “Behold, she is here!”

“Hi, everyone,” Tania said, stepping into the room with its thick patterned carpets and its colorful wall hangings and comfortable chairs and couches.

All her sisters were there—all save for Rathina, of course.

Hopie and Sancha were together on a long couch, reading from a large book that hung open as it floated in the air in front of them. At a gesture from Sancha the book closed itself and drifted off to rest on a nearby table. Eden was standing at a window, staring out into the night, her hands folded behind her back, her face grave. Zara was at her spinetta—the small pianolike instrument that stood on the dais at the far end of the room—and the tinkling sound of the plucked strings chimed brightly in the air.

Eden walked briskly to greet Tania. She rested her hands on Tania's shoulders. “I felt your distress, precious sister,” she said. “What is it that you fear?”

Tania looked at her in surprise as the other sisters gathered around her.

“I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean,” she began hesitantly. “I was upset because I had a row with my parents. That must be what you sensed.” She looked into Eden's eyes. “Unless you're talking about Gabriel….”

“What of the great traitor?” Eden asked. “Has he
sent more dreams to trouble you?”

“No, not exactly,” Tania said. “Remember you told me that there might be people in the Mortal World he could use to attack me? Well, the thing is, I met one of them. And you were right: He pulled me through onto Ynis Maw. At least I think he did, but it might have been only in my mind. Either way, it was really scary.” She shuddered at the memory. “I got free of him, but only just.”

“That was well done!” said Eden. “But he is a greater danger to you than I had feared. You must be ever vigilant, Tania. Do not let him come upon you unawares.” She frowned. “But Drake is not our only enemy. Do you feel the other portents?”

“What other portents?”

“Oh, 'tis nothing!” Zara said lightly, coming up behind Tania. “Eden has been envisioning monstrous events all day, but see?” She spread her arms and smiled. “We are still here and all is well.” She wagged a slim finger at Eden. “You dwell too much on dark thoughts, White Malkin! You will worry yourself to a whittled stick!”

“The animals sense something, too,” Cordelia said. “As though a thunderstorm were brewing.”

“Then 'tis best we wear wide-brimmed hats or the rain shall beat upon our bare heads and give us all the brain-ache!” Zara said.

Cordelia shook her head. “Neither hat nor gabardine coat shall protect us from this storm.”

“I feel nothing,” Hopie said, looking from
Cordelia to Eden. “Whence comes the peril, do you think?”

“Remember the words spoken to Cordelia by the sea turtle,” said Sancha. “There have been lights seen in the old Fortress of Bale Fole. Lyonesse is waking from its long dark sleep. I fear the Lady Lamia has returned. I fear our peril comes on the southeast wind.”

“'Tis not possible,” Hopie said. “The King of Lyonesse lies trapped in amber in the dungeons beneath our feet. Without his sorcery Queen Lamia can do us no harm.”

“That is so,” Eden agreed. “But it is not on the wind that I sense the peril. It lies closer to hand.” She frowned. “I reach for it and reach for it, but my fingers close on nothing.”

“Because there is nothing there to grasp,” Zara said. “Come, what manner of welcome is this for our dear sister? I shall play a merry air and we shall speak no more of impending doom!”

She began to sing:

Sancha slipped her hand under Tania's arm and drew her to sit on a couch. The other sisters gathered around, Hopie to one side, Cordelia to the other, and Sancha on a padded stool at her feet. Eden stood behind the couch, glancing every now and then out of the window as if she expected to see something sinister riding across the night sky.

“You spoke of a disagreement with your mortal parents,” Sancha said to Tania. “Speak to us of your troubles, and by sharing, so diminish them.”

“My mum and dad won't let me see Edric,” Tania admitted. “They blame him for my disappearing—when I was here before, I mean.” She looked into Sancha's intelligent eyes, comforted by the presence of her sisters. “I haven't told them the truth about what happened but I'm beginning to think I should.”

Hopie patted her knee. “I shall mix you a draught of myrtle and pennyroyal,” she said. “It will balance your humors and it will be an aid to clear thought.” She stood up and walked to a dark-wood cabinet lined with drawers.

Zara joined them, taking Hopie's place beside Tania.

“Should I tell them the truth?” Tania asked.

“Why would you do so?” said Sancha. “To ease your heart, or to give ease to theirs?”

Tania frowned. She hadn't thought about that. “To make things easier for me, I suppose,” she said at last. “At the moment they just think I'm some idiot girl with a crush on a boy at school. And so long as they think that, they're going to assume I'll get over it if they can keep me apart from Edric. But if I tell them the truth?” She shook her head. “That will change everything forever. There's no going back once they know that stuff—even if they believe me in the first place.”

Hopie stooped over her, holding out a brown pottery cup. “It will cause them pain, this knowledge?” she asked as Tania took the cup from her.

“What, that I'm actually a princess of Faerie with a whole other family? I should think so,” Tania said.

“Drink,” Hopie urged. “The potency of the infusion fades swiftly.”

Tania looked into the cup. The liquid was swirling as if stirred by an invisible spoon. It was a deep, deep blue and smelled like cold, clear mountain air. She brought the cup to her lips. It felt as though she was drinking the night sky. Starlight seemed to flow down her throat, neither warm nor cold, sweet nor bitter, but as the vapors filled her head, she felt a quiet calm sweep through her.

“Can you keep them ignorant of the truth forever?” Sancha asked.

“I can try,” Tania said, handing back the cup to Hopie. “I don't have the faintest idea how I'd even start to try and explain. ‘Hey, Mum, Dad, guess what? I have a second life in a parallel world—and that includes a totally different mum and dad and a big bunch of sisters. What do you think of that?'”

“So once your quest for our mother is done and you come to live with us here, will you just depart without a word of explanation?” Cordelia asked.

Tania was dumbfounded for a moment. It had never occurred to her that her sisters took it for granted that she'd want to live permanently in Faerie. “I haven't really thought about it properly,” she said. “I don't know what I'm going to do.”

“'Twould be unfair to leave them so,” Zara said. “'Twere best to tell them the truth before you depart, however hard that may be for you to tell and for them to hear.”

Sancha reached out and took Tania's hands. “I think you maybe do not see fully into our dear sister's heart, Zara,” she said gently. “It is not the telling of her mortal parents that confounds her, it is the choice she must make.”

Tania felt Eden's long slender hands rest on her shoulders. “Sancha sees more clearly than others in this,” Eden murmured, leaning over and touching her lips for a moment against the top of Tania's head. “Our sweet sister has not returned to us as that same
girl who disappeared all those centuries ago. Her spirit has dwelt in over sixty human forms since that day.”

Tania tilted her head to look into her sister's face. “That many?”

“Aye, the human called Anita Palmer is the sixty-third reincarnation of your Faerie Spirit,” Eden said. “Threads and remnants of those past lives lie still within you—I sense them—and each new human form has left its imprint on your soul.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

“It means, my love, that you are now half Faerie and half human,” Eden said. “And in that dilemma lies the agony of your choice.”

Zara grasped Tania's arm with both hands. “No! No!” she cried. “Tania is our sister; she belongs with us.” She stared up at Eden and there was a wild, frightened look in her eyes. “You cannot think she would wish to remain in the Mortal World?”

“That would be a grievous choice,” Sancha said. “There is an age-old rhyme, a foretelling by the blind poet Draco Sinister of Talebolion:

A heavy silence followed Sancha's words. Tania looked around at her sisters, seeing fear and anxiety and sympathy in their faces.

“So I have to choose?” she said. “I have to make up my mind whether I want to be here or in the Mortal World?”

“If I have interpreted the text correctly, then that is so,” Sancha said.

“But my gift is the ability to move from one world to the other,” Tania pointed out. “What kind of sense does that make if I have to choose between them?”

“You may travel from world to world,” Eden said. “But you can have only one home, and it must be the choice of your heart.”

“How quickly do I have to decide?”

“That I do not know,” Sancha admitted.

“But it could be soon, could it not?” Cordelia said. “The perils of the Mortal World are legion, and if Tania dies there, she will not be reborn this time. Is that the true meaning behind the old rhyme?”

Sancha nodded.

“Fear not, sweetheart,” Eden said, leaning close over Tania again. “Anita Palmer has a strong spirit in her body, else that mortal life would already be done. Confusion reigns in your soul for now but mayhap time will show you your true path.”

“Or maybe it won't,” Tania said bleakly.

“Would you really choose to live in the Mortal World?” Zara asked, her eyes wide.

Tania looked at her in silence for a few moments. “I love my mum and dad,” she said.

Zara cocked her head. “But they will die, Tania, they are but mortals. What then?”

“I hadn't really thought that far ahead.”

“But—”

“Peace, Zara,” said Hopie. “You would grind away the very mountains with your endless questions.”

“Yes,” Tania said, sitting up and forcing herself to smile at her sisters. “Let's not talk about me anymore. It's wearing me out.” She looked up at Eden. “Is there any news of Rathina?”

“Silence surrounds her as a cloak of mist,” Eden said. “I can neither see her nor feel her presence anywhere in the Realm.”

“Our father frets over her,” Cordelia said. “I have asked the animals for news, I have sent birds to scour the land, but they have seen nothing.”

“The last news we have of her was when she took Maddalena and headed north as though the unicorns of Caer Liel were at her heels,” Hopie added. “But I for one have no wish to see her again. The King pities her but I do not. The evils she performed, the great harm she would have done to Tania, they were not the result of a broken mind. They were the acts of a cruel and heartless child!”

“No, Hopie,” Eden said. “Do not meet dark deeds
with dark thoughts. I, too, pity the poor child. Mayhap had her gift revealed itself, then her feet may have been set on a true course.”

“That is true enough,” added Sancha. “She spoke little of it, but I know that she brooded betimes over the fact that her gift never manifested itself.”

“She was but seventeen when the Great Twilight fell,” Hopie said. “My gift of healing did not come to me in a moment upon the dawn of my sixteenth year. Instead it grew as grows a tree or a garden, by slow degrees and nurtured always by diligence and effort. Rathina expected her gift to fall out of the sky into her lap.”

“Like mine did, you mean?” Tania said.

“Your gift was prophesied,” Eden said. “You are the seventh daughter spoken of old. As Hopie says, it was different for us. Our gifts grew slowly. Rathina's gift would have shown itself, had she given it time and patience.”