The Lost Queen (16 page)

Tania shivered. “How do we stop them?”

“We must find the Queen,” Sancha said. “Only she can help to free our father, through the bond that is between them, the unyielding bond of Hand-Fasting.”

“Like the bond between me and Gabriel, you mean?” Tania said quietly.

“Like it, but far greater,” Sancha replied with sympathy in her eyes. “It is strengthened by many other rites of marriage that you and the traitor did not perform. If we can bring the Queen to our father, I believe that the power that flows between them will suffice to sunder the bonds of Isenmort and break the amber prison and set him free.”

“And then the Sorcerer King shall take to his heels,” Cordelia said fiercely. “With Oberon at our head, the armies of Faerie will sweep the filth of Lyonesse into the sea.”

“Meanwhile we must run from them and we must hide,” Sancha said. She looked at Tania. “Know you of a refuge where we can await the return of the Queen?”

Tania tried to think. Where could the five of them hide out for a day or a week or maybe even longer?

“Yes!” she said. “Yes, I do.” She looked at Edric. “We can go to Jade's place. It'll be empty for the next two weeks. We've got spare keys for their house.”

“Good idea,” Edric said. He looked at the three sisters sitting side by side on the couch. “I think you're going to need some different clothes, though. We shouldn't draw attention to ourselves if we can help it, not if the Gray Knights are looking for you.”

“I'll sort something out for them,” Tania said. “There's only one problem with this plan. The Andersons won't be leaving their house till early tomorrow, not until about four o'clock in the morning.”

“That means spending the night here,” Edric said. He was thoughtful for a moment. “I think we should risk it,” he decided. “Like Tania said, it'll take the Gray Knights a while to track us down and it would be crazy for us to wander the streets all night. But you should all sleep fully clothed in case we need to get out in a hurry.”

“We can sleep in my room,” Tania said. “We can drag my parents' mattress in there, too. There'll be plenty of room for all of us.”

“I'll sleep down here,” Edric said, nodding to the couch. “That way I'll be able to give the alarm if anything happens. And I'll keep the keys to Jade's house in my pocket in case we have to get out in a hurry.”

Talk of the coming night drew Tania's attention to the fact that the sunlight was waning and that the
growing dark of the evening was gradually filling the room with soft, deep shadows. She got up and flicked on the light.

She was startled by the cries and gasps of her sisters as the dim room was filled with electric light. It was such an ordinary thing to do that she hadn't even considered how the princesses would react.

Cordelia sprang to her feet. “'Tis the goblin light of Lyonesse!” she cried, snatching up a sword. “To arms! We are discovered!”

“No! No!” Tania shouted. “It's okay. It's nothing to be afraid of.” She switched the light off. “See? It's perfectly safe. I did it.” She flicked the switch a third time and the room was full of light again.

Sancha squinted up at the shining bulb, her fingers shielding her eyes. “Sunlight in a bottle!” she said, gasping. “I have seen Eden accomplish such a thing but not without great effort and preparation.”

Zara was bent over, her face in her hands. “It is not sunlight!” she muttered. “It is goblin light indeed, too hard and bright for nature. Put it out, Tania, I beg you. It hurts my eyes.”

Tania switched it off.

“Maybe candles would be better,” Edric suggested. He looked at Tania. “Have you got any?”

Tania went and fetched scented candles, lighting a dozen or more of them and setting them in saucers all around the room. The remainder of the evening was spent bathed in the warm, flickering glow of the aromatic candle flames. They talked some more, and
then, as the conversation faded in the deepening night, Zara sang songs to them: Songs of happier times, songs of beauty and of joy, songs to take their minds off what might lie ahead.

 

Tania was comforted by the sound of Zara's voice as she sat in the circle of yellow candlelight, curled up on the couch with her head resting drowsily on Edric's shoulder. But even at her calmest moments, a darkness lurked in the back of her mind, a constant reminder of the uncertain and dangerous future that was rushing headlong toward them.

Tania was in a world of dark swirling flames. They boiled all around her, spewing thick plumes of oily black smoke that coiled and rolled high into the sky. She ran distractedly this way and that, her hands up to protect her face, her skin sizzling, searching frantically for a way out.

“This way!” A voice called through the wall of leaping flames. “Come to me!”

“Edric?”

“Come to me!” The flames parted to reveal a narrow opening, a way to escape. There was the silhouette of a man at the far end of the corridor of fire, beckoning to her.

She ran toward the man, flinching as the tongues of red flame licked at her. The black shape of the man seemed to recede as she ran forward. “Wait for me!”

His voice drifted to her on the hot dry air. “Come, my lady!”

The flames flared for a moment and finally she saw his face—and it was the leering, silver-eyed face of Gabriel Drake.

“No!”

He lurched forward and his arms came around her, his impetus throwing her to the ground, his weight heavy and oppressive on top of her.

 

She woke up struggling with the duvet.

Zara was lying in the bed beside her. Tania became still, listening to the soft, steady nighttime breathing of her sister.

She lay like that for a few minutes, scared to close her eyes. Would she never be free of the fear of Gabriel Drake? And now there was also the possibility that the King of Lyonesse may have liberated the evil Faerie lord from his exile on Ynis Maw. How much easier would it be for Drake to ensnare her now that he was no longer a prisoner?

Anger swallowed her fear. It also completely woke her up. She turned her head and looked at the bedside clock: 1:13.

Three hours till the alarm went off and they could head over to Jade's house. Three hours! Too long to lie there wide-awake.

She slid out of bed and tiptoed to the door. Sancha and Cordelia were huddled under her parents' duvet on the mattress on the floor. They both seemed to be fast asleep; Cordelia was snoring lightly.

Even in the darkness Tania could see the opened drawers and spilled clothes that were the result of trying to find something that the three princesses were willing to wear. Picking clothes to fit them was no problem; even though they weren't all exactly the same size as Tania, the differences weren't especially troublesome. But finding clothes that Zara was prepared to try on had been a different matter altogether.

She refused to consider skirts or dresses that showed any part of her legs and she totally rejected any kind of trousers or jeans, despite the fact that Cordelia had quickly picked a pair of brown cords and a loose-fitting caramel-colored blouse. Sancha had chosen an ankle-length skirt of black satin patterned with huge red roses, and a white cotton blouse to go over it. They had also found an empty backpack, into which they had put the crown, hidden once more in its white silk wrappings.

Half an hour later Zara had finally settled on a full-length, dark blue, cheesecloth gypsy skirt and a loose-fitting top with a high neck and long sleeves.

Once Tania had helped the princesses into their clothes—they found the zippers particularly puzzling at first—she sent a quick text message to Jade:
TELL YOUR FOLKS I'VE ARRIVED SAFELY AND EVERYTHING'S OKAY
.
MUM AND DAD SEND THEIR LOVE
.
T
.

Then they had all gone to bed.

The last thing Tania remembered before she had drifted off was Zara's voice close in her ear. “Why do
you have those red numbers by your bed? What is their purpose?” She meant the clock display.

“To tell me the time,” Tania had replied sleepily.

“Ah, yes. Eden told us how mortals are held in thrall to time,” Zara had said. “It is foolishness, Tania. You are of Faerie. Smell the air to tell the time, watch the moon's passage across the night, take note of the sun's position in the day. That is all the time you need to know!”

“Okay,” Tania had said, yawning widely. “If you say so.”

And so to sleep. For a little while at least, until Gabriel had turned up to darken her dreams and shock her awake again.

She carefully opened her bedroom door and slipped into the corridor. Her eyes were used to the dark, and she had no trouble negotiating her way down the stairs. The living room door was open. She paused in the doorway, gazing at the huddled shape of Edric curled up under a blanket on the couch.

She had a strong urge to go in there, to sit on the carpet by his head and just enjoy the nearness of him, to watch him while he slept. But she didn't want to risk disturbing him.

She padded into the kitchen. Her clothes felt a bit odd from being slept in but it had been a wise decision not to get undressed, just in case.

She opened the fridge door and the blue light poured out across the floor. She lifted out a carton of milk and took a long swig. It was cool and refreshing.

She walked over to the door that led to the garden. The fridge door swung closed behind her and the light went out.

She felt the need for some fresh air after several hours in a room made stuffy by four sleepers. She turned the key in the lock and opened the door. Cool air wafted over her. She took another long swallow from the milk carton and stepped outside. The paving stones were chilly under her bare feet.

The night was starless and the clouds glowed darkly from the sleepless lights of the city. She paused at the brink of the patio, suddenly aware of an odd smell. She sniffed. It made her think of thunderstorms although she could not have said why. She shivered, intending to go back into the house.

Then a wind came out of nowhere, a cold, biting wind that whipped her hair about her face and clamped her clothes fiercely onto the contours of her body. She stepped back, the freezing air stinging her eyes. She tasted iron in her mouth and heard a noise over the serpentine hiss of the wind.

Neighing. A wild, fierce neighing that seemed to fill the air all around her.

A moment later she heard the clatter of hooves. The carton fell from her hands, bouncing on the stones, spraying milk.

In an explosion of noise and movement a horse and rider leaped the fence at the bottom of her garden and came thudding down into the flowerbed.

The horse was gray and shone like moonlight but
the animal's eyes were red and filled with madness. The hooves stamped down the flowers and plants, the head lifting, another terrifying neigh coming from the gaping mouth.

It kicked and snorted as the rider tugged on the reins. Then it moved forward up the garden, a sickly white glow all around it as its black hooves trod the lawn.

Tania's horror-struck eyes were drawn to the figure on the horse's back. He was wearing a heavy black cloak that cracked in the eddying wind.

As he approached, his silver eyes were fixed on Tania and his pale, handsome face was twisted by a smile of malevolent triumph. She stared up at him, unable to move, as if her body had been turned to stone. The air froze in her lungs and all hope died in her pounding heart.

The rider drew a white sword and pointed it toward her.

“Well met, my lady,” said Gabriel Drake as the huge horse bore down on Tania. “Well met indeed, my beauteous bride!”

Tania stared stupefied as the great horse drew steadily nearer to her, the silver-gray eyes of Gabriel Drake transfixing her like a butterfly on a pin. She couldn't move a finger, she couldn't blink, she couldn't even give voice to the scream of fear that swelled in her throat and threatened to choke her.

The night wheeled around her, and at the pivot of the racing madness were those two deadly, exultant eyes and that terrible smile.

Then, when the ghastly horse was only a couple of yards away from her and Tania felt sure she would be trampled under those massive hammering hooves, Gabriel pulled back on the reins and the horse came to a halt, gray mist billowing from its nostrils, red madness flickering in its eyes.

Gabriel threw back his head and let out a ringing shout of command in a harsh, brittle language.

She heard from a distance a howling chorus of response from voices that sounded only half human. Moments later the night was torn apart from end to end as a host of gray horsemen came plunging over the garden fence like a wave of poisoned water.

There were six of them in all. Six Gray Knights on six gray horses, and the red light in the eyes of the men echoed the wild ruby that burned in the eyes of the horses. The knights of Lyonesse were skeletal thin, their faces ash pale, their gaunt features frozen in lunatic smiles, long white hair like cobwebs over their shoulders. Each wore a thin headband and at the center of each forehead lay a jewel as black as a hole in the night. Their narrow bodies and limbs were wrapped in gray material that shimmered dully like fish scales, and across their shoulders stretched billowing cloaks of gray leather that gave off an unhealthy worm-skin shine.

“You will never be free of me, my lady,” Gabriel whispered, his eyes boring into her. “Did you not know? We are bonded for all time!”

Then he laughed and drew back and the horse reared on its hind legs, neighing wildly, huge and dreadful as a mountain, the hooves beating the air above her head.

Tania saw her death in those hooves but she could do nothing to prevent it.

But then something caught her around the waist and she was dragged backward across the patio and into the kitchen. A hand reached out past her head
and flung the door closed—and the moment that she lost sight of Gabriel, all her senses came back to her and her body came alive and her brain unfroze.

“Get out through the front.” Edric's voice was frantic in her ear. “I'll get the princesses.”

“No! I'll come with you; we have to stay together.”

They ran through the kitchen and into the hall. Behind them she could hear a pounding like hammers on the garden door. The smash of glass.

They raced up the stairs.

Cordelia stood at the head of the stairs, the bundle of swords in her arms, her eyes gleaming. “So they are come!” she called down. “Do we stand and fight?”

“No!” Edric shouted. “Where are the others?”

“They are here,” Cordelia said. A moment later Sancha and Zara appeared behind her, Sancha pulling on the backpack that contained the queen's crown.

Tania and Edric ran back down the stairs with the three princesses on their heels. As they scrambled into the hall there came the sound of splintering wood and shattering glass from the kitchen.

Tania glanced over her shoulder. Through the kitchen doorway she saw one of the Gray Knights forcing his way in through the shards of the back door. The macabre smile was still on his face and a crystal sword jutted from his bony fist. His burning red eyes locked onto hers and his narrow jaws opened in a shout that was like the clashing of knives.

Edric reached the front door and wrenched it open.

Cordelia was suddenly at Tania's side, shouting loudly, calling out strange high-pitched words that sounded as if they were in the language of something not human.

A second knight shouldered his way into the kitchen and the two of them began to stalk forward, their glistening cloaks skimming the ground, their faces grinning, their eyes aflame.

Tania became aware of a strident, trilling noise that grew rapidly behind her. She heard Edric give a surprised cry and a second later she was almost knocked off her feet as a whole flock of small dark birds came spiraling along the hallway, giving shrill voice as they funneled through the kitchen doorway like a dark rushing cloud. Now she understood the purpose of Cordelia's cries. She had been calling the birds to her.

The birds wheeled around the two knights, blotting them out with wing and feather, harrying them, pecking and clawing at them.

“The starlings will give them pause!” Cordelia shouted to Tania, grabbing her wrist. “We must go!”

Tania saw the crystal sword blades cutting through the birds like lightning in a black whirlwind. Torn and twisted bodies began to fall, littering the floor, but still the birds kept up their attack.

Cordelia pulled her along the hallway and out into the night. Sancha was running down the front steps to the pavement; Zara was already in the road. Edric was on the threshold waiting for Tania and Cordelia. They
sprang past him and he brought the door crashing closed at their backs.

“Where to?” he panted.

“Jade's house,” Tania said, gasping. “It's too early but we can hide till they go.”

“Yes.”

Tania plunged down the steps with Edric on her right and Cordelia on her left, and even in her fear and panic she knew that Cordelia was weeping as she ran, weeping for the birds that were giving their lives so that they could escape.

They came tumbling onto the pavement. The night was still and quiet, the streets empty.

“This way!” said Edric, pointing to the left.

“Where is Zara?” Sancha panted.

Tania saw a flash of movement under a streetlight, a glimpse of a blue skirt between parked cars on the far side of the road, heading to the right.

“Zara!” she shouted.

“She's going the wrong way,” Edric said. “Tania, lead the others to safety. I'll get her.”

“No!” Tania said. “I will!” She didn't give him the chance to argue as she sprinted across the road in pursuit of her fleeing sister.

“Meet us there!” Edric called after her.

Zara was twenty or thirty yards ahead of her, running like the wind, her golden hair streaming out behind her.

Tania was about to call out to her when she heard the clatter of hooves on tarmac behind her. She darted
a quick look over her shoulder. Two mounted knights were in the street in front of her house; she could see them staring around, the horses twisting and turning, shedding their misty gray light.

Tania ducked down, crouching low behind parked cars as she ran along. Zara had disappeared around the long curve of the street.

Tania kept low until she, too, was beyond the bend, then she straightened up and redoubled her efforts to catch up with her sister. She didn't dare call out to Zara in case the knights heard her. The pavement was hard and painful under her bare feet; there had been no time to put on shoes.

As Tania ran determinedly after her Zara came to a side road. She bounded across but her foot must have caught on the far curb, because suddenly she was sprawling on the pavement. It gave Tania the chance to catch up with her.

“Zara, stop!”

Zara's panic-stricken face turned to her, her blue eyes circled with white. “Tania!”

“We have to…get off the…street.” Tania panted. She pointed to a narrow sunken front yard behind black railings. Stone steps led to the door of a basement flat. “Down there!”

The two sisters dived in through the open gate and came to a halt at the foot of the steps, their backs to the high wall. It was a while before either of them had breath enough to speak.

“Sancha?” Zara gasped at last, her eyes filled
with fear. “Cordelia?”

“Safe, I think,” Tania said. “Edric's with them. You went the wrong way!”

Zara put her hands up to her face. “I saw them,” she said. “I looked out of the window and saw them in the garden and I was so frightened, Tania. I have only heard the Gray Knights of Lyonesse spoken of in tales of horror from times long ago. I had never seen them before. Their faces!” she said. “Did you see their faces?”

Tania nodded; she wouldn't quickly forget those haggard faces with their red eyes and their fixed grins. “Gabriel was there,” she said. “I think he was leading them.”

“Then the question of whether Rathina got her reward from the Sorcerer King is answered,” Zara said. “The great traitor has been brought back from exile and has been made captain of the Gray Knights. These are ill tidings!”

“Tell me about it.”

“Do we go back?” Zara's voice was calmer now.

“I don't think so,” Tania said, picturing the neighborhood in her mind. Trying to work out a safe route to the Andersons' house.

“Did Sancha take the crown with her?” Zara asked.

“Yes, and Cordelia has the swords. We're to meet them at my friend's house. I haven't got my watch on but it's probably close to two. Which means there are still a couple of hours before Jade and her parents leave and we can get into their house.”

“Do we remain here until then?”

“I'm not sure that's such a great idea,” Tania said. “The knights are going to be looking for us and we're not far enough away from my house yet. But I have an idea. There's safety in numbers, and there's an old saying: The best place to hide is in plain sight.”

Tania looked appraisingly at her sister, raising a hand to lift an errant lock of hair off her face, brushing some flecks of dirt from the front of her blouse. “You'll do just fine,” she said with a grim smile.

“Explain, please,” Zara said.

Tania crept back up the steps, reaching down to grasp Zara's hand. “Let's put it this way,” she said. “Have you ever been to a nightclub?”

 

“Your age, ladies?” The doorman stood across the entrance to the nightclub, his massive shoulders straining the seams of his suit, his shaved head gleaming from the blue neon sign that hung above the door.
STRANGEWAYS
:
BOOGIE TILL BREAKFAST
!

He was young and good-looking, and the biceps of the arms that were folded over his chest were as thick as Tania's thighs.

“Eighteen,” Tania said, looking calmly into his eyes. “Both of us.”

A wide smile split his face and he stepped aside. “If you say so, ladies,” he said. “In you go. There's always room for two more beautiful women. Have a good time, and watch out for the wolves.”

Tania mounted the stone steps, keeping a firm
hold of Zara's hand as she squeezed past the doorman and towed her over the threshold and down the dimlit red velvet stairs. In the darkness he hadn't even noticed that neither of them was wearing shoes.

“Wolves?” Zara said. “There are
wolves
here?”

“Yes and no,” Tania said. “Don't worry about it. I'll explain later. But we got in, that's the main thing. Now all we have to do is pay the entrance fee and disappear into the crowds. Let's see those gray gargoyles follow us in here!”

Tania was becoming increasingly anxious. She had seen nothing of the Gray Knights as she had led the way to the nightclub, but she had the uneasy feeling that they
were
being followed, as if one or more of the knights were tracking them at a distance, shadowing their progress through the Camden night.

“What manner of place is this?” Zara asked. “And what is that noise?”

“It's a place for people who like to party all night long. It's a bit like the Festival of the Traveler's Moon, but indoors and a lot sweatier and louder. The noise is music.”

Zara paused on the stairs, cocking her head to listen. She shook her head. “No,” she said. “That is not music. I hear rhythm, but no melody. Rhythm without melody is but the stamping of cattle in the byre.”

“There are tunes if you listen carefully, honest, but people like plenty of drum and bass these days. It's modern dance music. You'll get used to it.”

“I sincerely doubt that I shall,” Zara said.

The thudding of the music grew louder as they walked along a black-lined corridor.

Tania felt Zara's fingers digging into her hand as she pushed her way through a set of black swing doors. The music hit them like an avalanche.

The main club room was a huge dark area traversed by a framework of stairs and walkways and galleries of open-mesh steel. Multicolored lights spun on the high ceiling, sending rainbows of color skidding across the walls and down onto the seething mass of bodies that filled the dance floor. The room was circled by a raised mezzanine floor, filled with tables and chairs and lined with black velvet couches.

The place was packed, the high-octane music thundering out, vibrating the floor under their feet, so loud that conversation was virtually impossible.

Tania looked at Zara. The Faerie princess was staring around, her mouth twisted in a tight grimace and her eyes narrowed as though from pain. Maybe bringing her here had not been such a great idea after all. Tania had guessed it would be a culture shock for Zara but the princess didn't look so much shocked as terrified.

She put her arm around Zara's shoulders and brought her lips close to her sister's ear. “It's okay!” she shouted. “There's no need to be scared. We won't stay long. I just wanted to throw the knights off our trail. Can you put up with it for a few more minutes?”

Zara nodded and said something that she didn't catch. She held her ear to Zara's mouth, but still the
music was too loud for her to hear.

“Tell me later!” Tania shouted in Zara's ear. Holding her close, she made her way around the floor, looking for an unoccupied table or couch where they could sit for a while.

They were about a third of the way around the room when Tania spotted something that froze her in her tracks. A tall, thin gray shape had come sliding in through the doors.