The Lost Queen (18 page)

“No! Get away from me! I won't go with you! I won't!”

“Tania, it's me! It's okay. It's just a dream.”

Tania burst out of her nightmare as if from deep water, gasping and wild-eyed and drenched with sweat. She was in bed and Edric was sitting on the edge, leaning over her and holding her flailing arms by the wrists.

She glared into his anxious face, wanting to claw his face with her nails—to put out once and for all the evil light in his horrible silver eyes.

Silver eyes? No! No!

Brown eyes. Warm, chestnut brown eyes.

She gave a groan and lay there panting as the last remnants of the nightmare drained away from her.

“Are you going to stop trying to hit me?” he asked gently.

“Yes,” she gasped.

He let go of her wrists.

“I thought you were Gabriel,” she said.

“I guessed.” His fingers lifted a damp lock of hair off her cheek and smoothed it back behind her ear. “It's okay now. It's over.”

“Is it?” she said. “He's there, Edric, every time I go to sleep. He's there, waiting for me.” She heaved herself onto her elbows, staring in confusion around the unfamiliar bedroom until she suddenly remembered that she was in Jade's room in the Andersons' house. “What time is it?”

“Just gone midday,” Edric said. “You've been asleep for about six hours. I've been out for some breakfast things.”

Tania looked uneasily at him. “You weren't seen, were you?”

“I don't think so,” he said.

“You must tell the others to stay in the house and keep away from the windows. If any of the neighbors see people in here we'll have the police round checking it out.”

“I've already told them,” Edric said. He leaned close and kissed her forehead. “I'm going to make us all something to eat. Come down when you're ready.”

Twenty minutes later, Tania was showered and dressed and sitting with Edric and her sisters at the stripped pine table in the Andersons' kitchen. It was a big, airy room with windows that looked out over a garden screened by tall hedges of laurel.

At first the three sisters were suspicious of the
strange foods on display and reluctant to try anything that they didn't recognize. They drank milk and ate fruit and bread but avoided most of the other things on offer. To an extent Tania could understand their unwillingness to experiment; as well as fresh fruit and bread rolls and ham and cheese, Edric had provided things that she was certain had never appeared on a Faerie table: waffles and Pop-Tarts and Hot Pockets, breadsticks and various dips, pretzels and croissants and bagels. And to drink there was fruit juice and tea and coffee.

Tania unscrewed the lid from a jar and handed it to Zara.

Zara peered into the jar. “What is this?” she asked.

“Chocolate spread,” Tania told her. “Try it, it's nice.”

Zara dipped a spoon in and put it in her mouth. Her face lit up.

“It is delightful!” she said. “Cordelia, you must try some.” She dipped the spoon again and offered it to her sister.

Cordelia leaned across and opened her mouth for the spoon.

“It's meant to go on toast, really,” Edric said.

“It is too sweet for me,” Cordelia said. “I prefer this savory pale brown paste. What is it called?”

“Hummus,” Tania said.

From that moment on Cordelia and Zara seemed determined to try everything, randomly sampling food from the cartons and packets and pots and jars
and serving plates. Only Sancha seemed unwilling to join in the feast.

“Are you okay?” Tania asked her. “You're not eating much.”

“I have eaten sufficient for my needs,” Sancha said. “This beverage is very pleasant—what is it?”

“Coffee with cream,” Tania said. “You see? Not everything in this world is nasty. There's good stuff, too.” She smiled, feeling herself unwinding a little for the first time in days.

They had already exchanged stories about how the two parties had got to the house. Edric's journey had been less fraught than that of Tania and Zara. He had led the princesses down a side alley into the back garden of a house farther down Eddison Terrace, and they had gone over fences and walls from garden to garden until they had come to the end of the street. Luck had been with them; they had managed to jump on a night bus that had taken them to the end of the road where the Andersons lived. Then it had just been a case of keeping under cover until they had seen the Andersons' car drive away in the predawn darkness. Shortly afterward Edric had led them up the drive and they had slipped into the house undetected.

“Zara's scream was unbelievable,” Tania told Edric. “It knocked an entire roomful of people off their feet, not to mention zapping all the electrics. It's just a pity it didn't seem to have any effect on the Gray Knight.”

“They are wound about with protective incantations,” Sancha said. “Not so easily will they be defeated.” She looked thoughtfully at Zara. “We already know that Zara can sing enchantments. Her scream came from the same source, I do not doubt.”

“It came from being fearful for my life in that dreadful place!” Zara said, her words slightly muffled by a bagel.

“You took her to a
nightclub
?” Edric asked Tania in obvious surprise.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time. I had a feeling that we were being followed. And I was right; the knight came in after us.” Tania frowned. “It was the weirdest thing,” she said. “He just strolled through there and no one batted an eyelid. And you know how freaky they look. It's not like you wouldn't notice one of them in a crowd. Are they invisible to humans or what?”

“Not invisible,” Sancha said. “Say rather that mortal folk
choose
not to see them. I have read many books on the customs and manners of mortals. They seem to have a great capacity for ignoring those things that do not conform to their narrow system of beliefs.”

“They're really not that bad,” Tania said.

“Indeed, they
are
that bad!” Cordelia said. “They wield power without thought or responsibility, and that is ever the act of a wayward child.”

“What power do you mean?” Tania asked.

Cordelia gestured toward the light fitting in the ceiling.

“Electricity isn't dangerous,” Tania said. “Well, it
is
, but we've learned how to keep it under control. So long as people don't act stupidly with it, it's really useful. In fact in a society like this, I'm not sure we'd be able to survive without electricity.”

“And that does not concern you?” Cordelia exclaimed. “That you are beholden to a power that you do not understand and over which you have no control?”

“We can control it,” Tania said. “We can switch it on and off whenever we like. And as for not understanding it—well, okay, I don't know
exactly
how electricity is made, but it's like that for a lot of things. I don't know how to fly an airplane or how to do open-heart surgery or make a pair of shoes, but I don't need to. Other people do those things for me.”

“And that is the peril,” Cordelia said. “To rely on others for your survival is foolhardy. Were I cast from the palace in nothing but my shift, I would endure and thrive. I know how to make fire for warmth and light; I know how to defend myself against danger. I know how to seek for fresh water, and what is good to eat in the forest and what must be avoided. I can grow grain and roots, and I know the seasons to sow and to harvest. Can the same be said for the beings who inhabit this rat's-warren of a city?”

“Well, no, I don't suppose so,” Tania admitted. “If something goes wrong and you have an electrical blackout, then you're kind of…helpless.”

“Helpless, indeed,” Cordelia said. “But we are not
helpless, not even against the peril that has come upon us from Lyonesse. Not while we have our wits and our swords.”

“I keep telling you,” Tania said. “I don't know how to use a sword.”

“Then you must practice and remember,” said Cordelia. “Come, I shall give you a lesson. Do not fear, I shall not prick you more often than the need for sharp lessons dictates.”

“If it's all the same to you, I think I'd rather have Edric give me a lesson,” Tania said, unsure of submitting herself to Cordelia's idea of suitable teaching methods. At least she knew Edric would do his utmost to avoid hurting her. She looked down the table at him. “If that's okay?”

“I can do that,” he said. “Princess Cordelia, can you fetch the swords? Then we need to find some space to work in.”

“There's a big room at the back,” Tania said. “They use it as a dining room on special occasions. If we move the table and chairs, there'll be plenty of room.”

“So be it,” Cordelia said, getting up. “Let the lessons commence!”

 

“Watch your footwork!” Edric called. “You have to stay balanced and you have to be thinking two moves ahead. You're holding the sword too low. If I aimed a cut at your neck, you wouldn't be able to parry in time.” He made a startling sideways leap, ducking in
under the wild swing of Tania's sword and aiming a slicing sweep at shoulder height, then jumping backward again so that he was beyond her reach almost before she knew what was going on.

“There you are,” he said, hardly even out of breath. “I've just cut off your head. Now what are you going to do?”

“Cancel my next hairdressing appointment, I guess,” Tania responded gloomily.

They were in the sunlit back lounge of the Andersons' house. The long dark-wood table had been put against the wall. Cordelia and Zara were sitting on it, Cordelia cross-legged, bent forward, watching intently; Zara more carefree, leaning back, letting her legs swing. Sancha was watching quietly from a chair.

So far, Tania hadn't remembered a single thing about how to use the sword that she had been given. It felt clumsy and unwieldy and despite Edric and her sisters' best efforts to instruct her in the basics of a fighting technique, whenever Edric lunged at her everything went clean out of her head and all she could do was to stand there swiping randomly with the blade.

“Tania, you do but swat at flies!” Cordelia shouted. “Parry, thrust, riposte! It is all in the wrist and the feet!”

“Not helping!” Tania growled—but at least Cordelia wasn't laughing like Zara or looking increasingly worried like Sancha.

Cordelia jumped off the table and came over to where Tania was standing.

“The truest and surest blow is from above,” she said, taking Tania's sword arm and lifting it, angling her wrist so the point of the blade was aimed toward the center of Edric's chest. “But to make the approach you must first draw your left foot close to your right foot and lunge forward as forcibly as you may, ending in the low ward.”

“Ending in the
what
?”

“If your opponent moves to the right, follow through with a slash to the head,” Cordelia continued, ignoring her question. “To defend yourself against the same blow, stand in the low ward, take the coming blow by the edge, and push your enemy's sword to the right, stepping in all the time. Keep the point of your sword down toward the enemy, so that with luck he will impale himself on your blade as he follows through.”

“What's a low ward?”

“High ward is with the arm raised and the sword pointing down,” Zara called. “Low ward is with the arm lowered and the sword pointing upward.”

“We could take a break if you like?” Edric said.

“No way!” Tania said. “I'm going to get this right. Come at me again with that head-slicing thing.”

He lunged toward her, his sword arm up, the point down. She took a deliberate step back, her own blade in the low ward position.

She tried to do as Cordelia had suggested, stepping
suddenly toward him, coming in low, bringing her blade up against the side of his and pushing it away. But she had misjudged his speed and strength. Her sword slipped and they crashed together; she felt a sharp pain in her wrist as his sword-point nicked her skin.

Tania's reaction to the pain was immediate and instinctive. She spun her sword up across his, knocking his blade cleanly to the right; then she took a long step backward with her right foot, shifting her balance and coming in easily on his undefended left side, lunging and thrusting solidly at his stomach, knowing that the rising blade would push up under his ribs and pierce his heart.

She stopped the move with perfect precision, the point of her sword only an inch away from his body. And then, before he could react, she took a well-balanced bound backward and came to rest in a poised, defensive posture.

“A hit!” Cordelia cried, clapping loudly. “A thrust to the very heart!”

Edric stood grinning at her. “That was amazing,” he said. “I'm dead and I didn't even see it coming.”

“The old skills return anew,” Sancha said, smiling now. “It is good.”

Edric's face fell as he saw the spot of blood on her wrist. “I hurt you,” he said.

“It's nothing,” Tania said. “And it helped.” It was as if a long-closed door in her mind had been kicked open. She knew how to use the crystal sword. She knew how to attack and how to defend herself. And it
had all come back to her in that instant of pain. Only one question remained in her mind now—and it was not one she felt like sharing.

If it did come down to a life and death face-off between her and one of those Gray Knights, would she really be able to use the sword on him? Even if it was to save her own life, did she have it in her to kill?

 

It was a little while later and they were all gathered in Jade's bedroom. Tania was sitting in front of the computer. She had opened the Pleiades website to the page that showed the photo of Lilith Mariner.

“It is our mother indeed,” Zara said, her trembling fingers reaching out toward the computer screen. “Oh, how it fills my heart to see her beloved face again after so long a time.” She looked excitedly at Cordelia and Sancha. “Do you see?”