The Lost Queen (22 page)

 

In time Tania's tears had finally dried up. Sancha had suggested that she might sleep for a while. But sleep wasn't any kind of comfort to her, not with Gabriel Drake lurking in the darkness behind her eyelids.

She was in the basement again now, sitting with Edric on a pile of old carpets. She had made him a sandwich and they were talking as he ate.

“You look tired,” he said. “Why don't you get some sleep? I'll wake you when we're ready.”

She shook her head. “Everyone's telling me to sleep,” she said. “Bad dreams, remember? Anyway, I want to be with you. I want to help.”

He smiled. “I thought you'd want to be with the Queen. Can you get your head around that yet, having two mothers?”

“I've stopped trying,” she admitted. “It's too weird. I suppose it's a bit like finding out you've been adopted, that there's a whole other family out there that you don't know about. Except that it's worse, because they keep talking about things I was involved in, but I don't remember any of it.” She leaned forward and kissed Edric's dirt-smudged cheek. “At least I have you,” she said, wrapping his arm in both of hers and resting her head on his shoulder.

“You know what's weird?” she said quietly. “I was so intent on finding Titania that I never actually stopped to think about her…as a person, I mean.” She looked up at his face. “She's been alive in London for five hundred years. She was here when they cut off King Charles the First's head; she was here when half the city burned down in the Great Fire. She was here when Nelson defeated Napoleon at Trafalgar. When Queen Victoria came to the throne, and through two world wars, and the millennium, and…and everything else. And for all those years, all those hundreds of years, she was just waiting for the chance to be with me.” She pulled away and sat up. “And now we're together, and I don't know what to say to her. Do I say, ‘Hello, Mum,
thanks for not giving up on me'? Or do I say, ‘It's really nice to meet you, Your Queenship, but I already have a mum, thanks'?” She looked at him. “Have you any idea how freaky all this is for me?”

“No,” he said. “I don't. I'm not torn apart like you are. I know where I want to be.”

“In Faerie, you mean.”

“No—with
you
.”

“So, if we survive all this, if we defeat the Gray Knights and save Oberon, if, after all that, I decide I want to live here rather than in Faerie, do you mean you'd be prepared to stay here with me?”

Edric gave a weary smile. “Let's work on staying alive for now. If we can't find a way to beat Lyonesse, choosing a place to live isn't going to be an issue.” He stood up. “Okay,” he said, picking up the crystal sword. “Let's get this finished.”

“What do you want me to do?”

He pointed. “There are spare goggles and protective gloves over there,” he said. “Put them on and bring over the tongs you'll find with them. You'll need them to hold the sword steady.”

She pulled the goggles over her head and tightened the leather strap. The round lenses of the eyepieces were scratched and smeared, but she could see well enough through them. She drew on the heavy leather gauntlets and stooped to pick up the long metal tongs. She walked back to where Edric was crouching, goggles covering his eyes and the torch in his hands.

She knelt in front of him and watched as he fired
up the torch. The flame was like a slim white leaf in the heart of a hissing blaze of bright blue light.

Edric laid the sword on the concrete floor between them and carefully placed one of the black stones onto the blade.

“Okay,” he said. “I'll need you to use the tongs to keep the stone still. Can you do that?”

“Yes.” Tania opened the tongs and carefully brought the heavy metal jaws down on either side of the jewel. She closed the jaws so that the stone was held between them.

Slowly, Edric brought the roaring flame onto the black stone. When the hissing tongue of flame hit the stone, it jerked out of the tongs, bouncing off the sword blade and rolling across the floor.

“Sorry,
sorry
,” Tania muttered, annoyed with herself. “Give me a moment.”

“Don't worry about it,” Edric said gently.

“I wasn't holding it tightly enough.” She took the stone between the jaws of the tongs and replaced it on the sword. “It'll be okay now.”

Again, he brought the flame onto the stone. This time the metal jaws held it steady. She watched the fierce white flame as it played over the black amber jewel.

For a long, long time, it seemed as if nothing was happening.

“Is it working?” Tania asked.

“I don't know. I think it's going to take a while. Are you okay holding it like that?”

“I'm fine.” Tania's arm and wrist muscles were
beginning to ache from the strain of being in the same position for so long, and of maintaining the grip of the tongs on the stone.

Long minutes passed. Tania saw that the metal jaws were beginning to glow red—but still there was no sign of anything happening to the stone.

And then she noticed a thin stream of black smoke rising from the stone.

“Carefully now,” Edric warned above the roar of the flame. “I think it's going.”

It happened in an instant. Tania felt the stone dissolve away from between the tongs, the black jewel turning all at once into a thick, shining liquid that slid like oil over the crystal sword.

She lifted the tongs away and watched as Edric used the flame to guide the molten amber so that it spread smoothly over the blade.

Edric took the flame away. A section of the sword about the length of Tania's hand was coated with a shining layer of blackness. She leaned in closer. The surface of the melted amber was alive with tiny ripples and puckers, like the skin that forms on hot milk.

“Should we let it cool?” she asked. “See if it's going to work?”

“No, it'll take too long.” Edric took a second stone and placed it on the blade an inch or so from the glistening pool of black amber. He looked at her. “Ready?”

She nodded. Ignoring the aching of her arms and hands, she closed the tongs around the second stone.

 

“How's it going?” Titania's voice sounded from the head of the basement stairs.

Tania jumped up and walked to the foot of the stairs. “Good so far,” she called up. “We've done one side already and it seems to have worked really well. We're just waiting until the amber cools enough for us to turn the sword over and do the other side. Then we'll be ready.” She smiled up at her Faerie mother. “How are things up there?”

“Cordelia is getting a bit edgy. She's spending most of her time out in the garden, getting news from the birds.”

“She's being careful not to be seen, isn't she?”

“Yes.”

“So? What are the birds telling her?”

“That there's something nasty heading this way,” Titania said.

“The Knights?”

“It has to be.”

“Does Princess Cordelia know how long we've got, Your Grace?” Edric asked, joining Tania at the foot of the stairs.

“It's about an hour till dawn,” Titania said. “Cordelia says we should definitely
not
be here when the sun comes up.”

“One hour, Your Grace?” Edric said. “Yes, we should be finished well before then.”

“And then we just cut our way into Faerie,” Tania said.

“That's the plan,” Titania said. “But not here. I've been discussing it with Sancha and she doesn't think this is the best place to try and break through.”

“Why not?” Tania asked.

“The Sorcerer King's enchantments are very powerful. But in some places his power won't be quite so strong. Eden understood that—that's why she broke through into this world in Bonwn Tyr, in the brown tower that shares the same space in Faerie as your bedroom does in this world.”

“So you think we should go back to my house to break through? Is that safe?”

“No, it isn't
safe
at all,” Titania said. “But we may only have one chance of using the sword; when it clashes with the Sorcerer King's barrier, it may be destroyed. We have to be in a place that gives us the best chance of success. The Oriole Glass in Eden's sanctum would be our first choice but we can't risk it. Lyonesse will have put a heavy guard on it and we'd almost certainly be walking into a trap. There are other places—Crystalhenge in the West and Castle Ravensare to the North and Tasha Dhul itself—but those places are too far away from the Palace. We can't risk a long journey across country, we have to enter Faerie as close to the Palace as possible so that we can make our way to the dungeons and free Oberon before Lyonesse can act against us. Your bedroom is our best choice.”

“Okay,” Tania said uneasily. “Let's just hope that Gabriel hasn't figured that out, too.”

 

“Is it ready?” Tania asked. “It looks ready to me.”

The oxyacetylene torch was quiet now. The black blade lay smoking on the concrete floor. Edric was hunkered down in front of the sword, staring intently at it, watching for the moment when the liquid amber would have solidified enough for it to be picked up.

“I'm not sure,” he said. “Let's give it a few more minutes.”

“Do we have a few more minutes?”

Tania was standing behind him. Sancha was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs. Zara and Titania were about halfway down the staircase, Zara leaning against her mother's knees, Titania's hands resting protectively on her shoulders. The basement room was stiflingly hot from the blasting of the torch. Moisture was running down the walls and threads of steam were still curling in the corners.

But the job was done. It was just a case now of watching and waiting, and hoping they would have the time to get out of there before the Gray Knights arrived.

The news wasn't good. With every passing minute Cordelia's birds were becoming more agitated. The knights could not be far away. Tania was so apprehensive and on edge now that even with her eyes open, she could see their pale grinning faces looming toward her. And more frightening than that, she could see Gabriel's smirking face floating in the air in front of her, and the triumphant look in his
silvery eyes seemed to suck all the courage and strength out of her.

And his voice whispered constantly in her ears, like the raging of a distant sea.
You will never be free of me! Did you not know? We are bonded for all time!

For…all…time!

“The car's ready,” Titania said. “It's parked right outside the house. The moment you're ready we can be gone.”

“A minute or two more, Your Grace,” Edric said. “I can't risk moving the sword until the amber has set.”

A voice sounded from the head of the stairs. “I fear you will have to take that risk, Master Chanticleer,” Cordelia called down. “We have no more time. The Gray Knights are here.”

“Which direction are they coming from?” Titania asked.

“Over the gardens,” Cordelia said.

“Will you have the birds attack them?” Sancha said.

“No! I will not ask for such a sacrifice again. Come, we have swords. It is our battle. They are but five: We can defeat them.”

“Is Gabriel with them?” Tania asked, her voice cracking with fear.

“I know not. The birds told me that five monsters were approaching, that is all.” Cordelia vanished from the doorway.

Tania turned to look at Edric. He was crouching over the steaming sword, his hand extended toward the hilt.

“Is it ready?”

His mouth set in a determined line. “It'll have to be!” He gripped the hilt and lifted the black sword into the air. The amber shone like oil. It held on to the blade. He turned, brandishing the sword.

“Let's get out of here,” Titania said.

Cordelia was in the hall, staring through the open kitchen door, the remaining swords in her arms, the backpack with Titania's crown in it hanging from one shoulder.

The first faint hint of dawn light was gleaming beyond the kitchen windows. The wall clock showed ten to five.

Sancha and Zara took swords.

“Tania, you're the most important one of us,” Titania said. “You keep in the middle. Edric, we'll go through the front door first. The car is by the gate. Stick by me in case we're attacked. Zara, stay on Tania's right side and protect her at all costs. Sancha, guard her left side. Cordelia, watch our rear.”

“I can fight, too,” Tania said.

“I know. But not yet. If you're hurt, none of us will get away.”

“But—”

The crash of breaking glass cut short Tania's protest. One of the kitchen windows burst inward in flying fragments. A slender white shape rode on the air like a long sharp finger, pointing directly toward her.

Someone's hand dragged her to one side. The razor-sharp blade of a long white spear sliced through the air half an inch from her face. There was
a booming thud. The spear shivered, its point embedded deep in the front door.

The air was suddenly full of ululating cries and furious neighing. A madly grinning, ghost white face appeared at the broken window. Blows rained down on the garden door.

“Go!” Cordelia shouted.

Edric ran to the front door. Titania snatched the backpack from Cordelia's shoulder and followed him, pulling the pack onto her shoulders as she went.

A second spear cut through the air with a sound like a sigh, gouging into the floor between Cordelia's feet. Tania backed away down the hall, Sancha and Zara at her sides, their swords ready.

Cordelia snatched up the spear and threw it back with a shout. The face disappeared from the broken window and there was a high-pitched cry.

Edric threw the front door open, the black sword shining as he leaped over the threshold.

“It's safe!” he shouted. “Quickly!”

Tania turned, running with her sisters flanking her. She heard the splintering crash of the garden door being broken down. The neighing and the howling of the Gray Knights grew louder, the horrible noise clawing at the inside of her skull.

She heard a skirling shriek from her left and the sound of thudding hooves. One of the Gray Knights emerged from the side of the house, one hand gripping the reins, the other arm lifted, aiming a spear.

In a moment the spear arm jerked and the slim
shaft was thrumming through the air toward her. Sancha grasped her sword in both hands, spreading her feet for balance, her black hair flying. The blade rang as it hit the spear, sending it spinning up into the air. It made a long arc against the dawning sky and thudded into the ground a few yards away.

The horseman was almost upon them now. The wild-eyed Gray Knight had drawn his sword and was hanging half out of the saddle, sweeping the blade before him in a low arc as he urged his horse on toward the princesses.

Sancha stood firm, parrying his blow. But the impact jarred her off her feet and she sprawled on the path, the blade skidding from her hand. Tania threw herself to one side as the hideous steed bore down on her. She felt its foul breath on her face and her eyes were filled with the sight of flying hooves as it thundered past.

She was aware of a blur of movement behind her. The Gray Knight gave a single screech, cut off short as Tania whipped around to look. The creature's severed head leaped high as Zara's sword flashed and whirled.

But the head turned sharply in the air, slowing and turning back on itself to come hurtling down toward Zara, the eyes still blazing red and the open grin of the mouth once again emitting a deadly, piercing shriek.

Zara swiped wildly at the plummeting head, but she was too shocked to be able to aim her blows and
the head beat off her chest like a cannonball, driving her to the ground with a cry of pain.

The great gray horse reared, its lips foaming as it neighed. The headless Gray Knight was still in the saddle, still holding the reins, still wielding the sword. And even as Tania watched in growing horror and disbelief, the screaming head of the knight leaped high into the air again and came down upon the waiting shoulders with a triumphant screech of manic laughter.

She heard Edric's voice calling. “The heart! Strike to the heart!”

Cordelia's sword sang as it spun through the air from behind Tania. The blade entered the knight's thin body between the folds of his cloak. He clutched at it for a moment with bony fingers, then there was a gust of gray ash where his face had been, and a second later the empty clothes crumpled and fell loosely out of the saddle.

Tania didn't wait to see the horse fall. She scrambled to where Sancha lay sprawling and helped her to her feet.

Cordelia leaped forward as the emaciated horse plunged to the ground, hurdling the hollow rib cage, snatching up her sword as she ran.

Zara was on her feet, too, and they were all running now, running for their lives as a second and a third horseman came wheeling around from the side of the house, spurring their horses onward, swords shining and mouths grinning.

The car's doors were open. Titania was in the driver's seat, gunning the engine. Edric was standing by the open back door, urging the sisters in. Zara was first, Tania and Sancha tumbling in after her in a tangle of arms and legs and white blades.

Cordelia was only one step behind.

The first of the knights urged his horse up and over the front wall. As Tania stared out and up through the back window of the car, it seemed to her as if the huge gray horse filled the entire night.

Edric vaulted the hood of the car and threw himself into the front passenger seat. Cordelia slammed the back door behind her. The car lurched forward, the four princesses tangled up together along the backseat.

Tania saw another horseman looming ahead. With a shout of defiance Titania drove straight for him. Tania was thrown back in her seat as the car accelerated. All she could see through the windshield were insane, blazing red eyes hurtling toward them. A sword. Hooves. The swirl of a glistening gray cloak.

The horse reared and leaped. The car bucked like a boat on a stormy sea as the great hooves came crashing down on hood and roof with a noise like iron hammers beating on an anvil.

Then the horse was behind them, the knight fighting to turn the animal.

“Go! Go! Go!” Edric shouted.

The knight gave chase, howling as the car sped away from him. He galloped after them for the length
of the road, but gradually he fell behind, disappearing from the back window as they negotiated the long curve.

Tania gasped. “We got away from them!”

“There were but five,” Cordelia said grimly. “Ere we dance a jig, think on where the others may be.”

“Aye,” Zara said. “And their fell captain with them.”

“Waiting for us at journey's end, belike,” said Sancha. She looked at Tania, and there was fear in her dark eyes. “The rising sun may yet see bloodshed. Our troubles are not over.”

With a groan, Tania closed her eyes—and from far away in the darkness she was sure that she could hear the sound of Gabriel Drake laughing.

 

The journey from Jade's house to Eddison Terrace was not much more than a mile, and even in the tangle of the North London streets, it was only a few minutes later that the Queen, following Tania's instructions, brought the car to a halt at the far end of the street where the Palmer family lived.

The fringes of the sky were gunmetal gray, although the night still flowed through the streets and made caverns of deep darkness in porches and behind walls. A handful of houselights were on, making little yellow squares in the bleached grays of the house-fronts.

Cordelia opened the car door a fraction. She leaned her head toward the crack, listening carefully.
“Do you hear?” she asked, her face grave.

“There is no sound,” Zara said. “What can you hear, Cordelia?”

“I hear nothing,” Cordelia said. “'Tis dawn—why do the birds not greet the rising sun?”

“The knights are here,” Zara said breathlessly.

“So we have to assume the house will be held against us,” Titania said, turning to look over the back of her seat. “How many of them, do you think?”

“Thirteen stones in Oberon's crown,” said Sancha. “Two of the knights have been destroyed. We left four behind us so we must assume our foes number seven: Six knights and the traitor Drake at their head.”

Tania shuddered.

“We can't take it for granted that the ones from Jade's house won't get here in time to be a problem,” Edric said.

“So eleven, then,” Cordelia said. “Eleven monsters and four Faerie blades.”

“Tania should have the black sword,” Edric said. “She and Her Grace the Queen
must
get through into Faerie. The rest of us have to do everything we can to make sure that can happen.”

“Even if we must sacrifice ourselves in the attempt,” Zara said.

“No!” Tania broke in. “No sacrifices. We all get through, okay? All of us.”

“The knights will be lying in wait for us,” Sancha said. “They are not fools; they will have the house surrounded. How are we to break through?”

“They'll be expecting us,” Edric said. “So there's no point in trying to take them by surprise.”

“There might be a way of surprising them,” Tania said. “There's a walkway that runs along the bottom of all the gardens in our street. It's not meant for cars, but I'm sure it's wide enough to drive a car down if you had to.”

“They'll have the garden covered,” Edric said. “We'd have to climb the fence and then make it all the way to the house. We'd be cut to pieces.”

“Not if we stayed inside the car,” Tania said. She looked at Titania. “If you got up a good speed along the walkway, then veered off when I told you and crashed straight through the fence we could probably get right up to the house.”

“We'd be inside before they knew what hit them,” Edric said.

Cordelia grinned. “So we will drive our attack home in a chariot of Isenmort. 'Tis well! Let's to it!”

Tania sat between her sisters in the back of the car. She was holding the black sword in both hands, the blade vertical in front of her, point upward. Now that the amber had hardened it didn't reflect any light at all. In fact, as Tania gazed at the slender black blade, it was as if she was staring into a slim crack in the world, looking into absolute nothingness.

The jolt of the car lifting over a curb brought her out of her trance. Titania had come to the entrance of the back alley. Zara's face wore a fixed and resolute stare, the sky blue eyes as hard as stone. Sancha's eyes
were closed and her lips were moving. Cordelia was smiling, but there was dark hatred in her eyes and her thumb was running slowly back and forth along the edge of her sword blade. Tania had the feeling that Cordelia was remembering the starlings that had died in their escape from Tania's house and relishing the chance to even the score with the Gray Knights.

Tania's gaze switched to Edric in the front passenger seat, and as though he sensed her looking at him, he half turned toward her and smiled.

She couldn't think of a single thing to say to him; she wasn't even sure that she could have coughed up any words from her dry and constricted throat. She forced a smile in response to Edric's.

“Once we're in the garden, just concentrate on getting up to your room,” he said, and the fear that scratched in his voice made her glad she hadn't tried to speak. “You'll be fine.”

She nodded.

“Everyone ready?” Titania asked. “Let's go.”

She revved the engine until it roared, then she slammed it into gear. It leaped forward, pushing them all back into their seats.

It was a tight fit in the walkway, and in places where rogue bushes and saplings had taken root, branches clawed at the windows like skeletal fingers. Tania counted the houses just visible above the tall fences.

She couldn't afford to get this wrong.

The car was moving fast now.

Five houses to go.

Faster.

Three.

“Now!”

Titania spun the wheel.

They were all thrown to one side as the car veered toward the fence. There was a bone-jarring impact and a loud bang as the right-hand wing of the car struck the wood. The entire fence panel came loose, tipping forward, blinding them all for a few moments, then sliding sideways off the hood and crashing to one side.

Tania stared into her garden. The car was jolting over a flower bed, skimming between the hawthorn tree and her father's shed. The lawn lay straight ahead, leading to the patio and the back of the house. The back door that led into the kitchen was missing. It had been wrecked on the night of their escape. She could see her own bedroom window up there, the glass reflecting the grainy sky.

So close now…If only she had wings…

Four Gray Knights barred their way. They sat in a row astride their wasted horses, as still as gray statues, each holding a spear, each wearing a fixed, joyless grin. The four heads turned as the car bumped onto the lawn and it seemed to Tania at that moment that the whole world was drowned in shades of gray and that the only color that still existed was red, as if all the fire in the universe was concentrated in those four pairs of deadly staring eyes.