The Seventh Daughter (24 page)

She felt the Sorcerer King's fingers snatch back from her throat, but instead of falling, she found herself floating in the air, surrounded by a golden corona that threw out rays of bright amber. And where the beams of light struck the ground, green blades of grass leaped up, sprinkled with yellow flowers. She turned her head and saw an undulating river of thick gold light spinning out from Oberon and Titania, joining them to her and feeding their power to her. Tania opened her mouth, letting the force of Sun and Moon together explode out of her in a long shout. Tendrils of golden light flickered at her fingertips as she held up her hands, creating intricate webs that went shooting in all directions.

As the threads of gold spun from her fingers they seemed to seek through the air for the Gray Knights and the Morrigan hounds of Lyonesse. And where they struck home, the knights exploded in ash and the hounds shriveled to lumps of black rock, the battlefield ringing to the sound of empty falling armor and the crash of downfallen steeds.

A cradle of golden light gathered around the Sorcerer King, enmeshing him in a network of shining tendrils that thickened and spread until he was lost in a globe of burning gold. Tania could hear his howls of anger and see his shadow thrashing about
wildly. She felt a final rush of power, of golden potency that poured out of her eyes and crashed against the golden sphere, detonating it into a million sparkling fragments that mushroomed into the air and fell like glittering rain.

And where the Sorcerer King had been standing there remained only a smoky ball of shriveling darkness that waned and wasted and was gone.

Tania gazed around her in amazement. All the brown and withered land was coming alive, the tide of green life spreading in a great expanding circle around her, washing up to the forest and turning winter to summer in a shining moment, sweeping down to the palace and filling the ruined gardens once more with color and beauty. But the flood of new life did not end at the palace walls—it burst over them in a gushing, tumbling wave, and everywhere that it touched it washed away the stains of the burnings and scoured the red and black disfigurations from the walls and erased all traces of the Sorcerer King's brutal dominion. Shattered windows became whole again, broken roofs rose, and tumbled walls remade themselves.

But the healing went deeper than that, and it seemed to Tania that although the palace walls were solid, she could see right through them as if they were made of glass and she saw furniture being remade and slashed pictures mended and all the beautiful ornamentation of the palace recreated as new, even to the burned Library, where the ruination of the fire
ran backward in time and ash turned to paper and cinders to leather and embers to soaring shelves that teemed with a multitude of restored books—including all the Soul Books that had been destroyed.

And all the time this was happening, Tania could hear music ringing in her head. Music the like of which she had never heard before, music she had never even dreamed of. The loudest music of all came from the sun, its great, glad, glorious voice ringing out over the world, leading a multitude of other voices: the bass of distant mountains, the sweet descant of rivers, the harmonious cadences of tree and leaf and grass and blossom, the song of air and earth and sky and water, all burgeoning together in her ears into a thrilling symphony. The power and the song and the light grew inside her until she felt that she could not bear it anymore, until she felt as if her body and mind would explode from the intensity of it.

At the last possible moment the funnel of golden power that linked her to the King and Queen wavered and dimmed, and Tania floated down to earth, the impossible light growing pale, the music of the world drifting away beyond hearing, the mystical strength that had threatened to tear her apart at last fading away.

She saw Edric standing in front of her.

“Wow!” she said. “That was really—” But before she could finish the thought, she toppled forward into his arms and fell unconscious into a warm golden void.

“Grieve not overmuch, my children,” King Oberon said gently. “Death is a bitter wound to endure for those who must remain to mourn, but it is not the end of things, indeed it is not.”

Tania stood with Edric and the rest of the survivors of the battle on a long sloping lawn that ran down through blossoming cherry trees to the bank of the River Tamesis. The long and dreadful day had turned into a beautiful evening, the western sky banded with rosy clouds through which the rays of the setting sun extended like the spokes of a gigantic wheel. All along the riverbank the dead of Faerie lay at rest under sheets of white satin. Three hundred and seventeen knights had been slain on the battlefield, and many more were injured, gathered in a white pavilion that had been erected by the river, their wounds tended by healers working under Hopie's guidance.

The valiant fallen steeds of Faerie had not been forgotten. Cordelia had organized a group of knights
to bring the bodies of the dead animals to the river to lie in state under white satin, all save for Zephyr, who was shrouded in the Sun Banner of Faerie and whose head was pillowed by the black serpent banner of Lyonesse that he had helped to bring down.

All that remained of the Morrigan hounds were fists of hard black stone scattered on the heaths. Of the undead knights of Lyonesse, not one had survived; they and their fleshless steeds had blown away on the warm south wind. And good news had come to the survivors on that same south wind: The armada of Lyonesse had turned back, the hag Queen Lamia losing heart and hope when she learned that her evil husband was no more.

The body of Gabriel Drake had been brought down from the heath. He lay under a gray shroud far from the dead of Faerie, and no one went near him or spoke of him.

Of the highborn of Faerie, all had survived except for Lord Gaidheal, who had ridden his horse into the thickest of the enemy, reckless of his own life in his desire to avenge his murdered wife. The earl marshal had been wounded, as had his son Titus, but both were able to be with the King and Queen and their daughters and Lord Brython and Earl Valentyne and Corin and the marchioness as they stood around the bier of Princess Zara in the golden evening light. Silent tears flowed down Titus's cheeks, and Tania saw that he could not bring himself to look at Zara's face.

Tania was still feeling light-headed from the after-
effects of the Mystic Power that Oberon and Titania had gifted her with. After the death of the Sorcerer King and fainting into Edric's arms, she had only the memory of floating on cushions of white cloud till she had awoken several hours later on Salisoc Heath to find Edric sitting over her, holding her hand. She was holding his hand again now, gripping it tightly as she gazed down at Zara's pale, peaceful face.

Oberon and Titania stood at Zara's side, their heads bowed. The princesses and their husbands and the other members of the Royal Family gathered around the simple table of white wood. The King still leaned on Titania and Tania guessed that what power the Queen had been able to give him had been spent in the gush of golden light that had given her the strength to destroy the Sorcerer King. She just wished that the power had come to her a few minutes earlier and that she had been able to use it to save Zara.

She looked at Eden, who was standing at her side. “Can't we bring her back?” she whispered. “What about the Power of Seven? Sancha said it was the power of life over death.”

“Zara is lost to us, Tania,” Eden replied. “We are but six now; the Power of Seven cannot be called upon ever again.”

“But you could use your own powers, surely?”

Eden turned her sad eyes toward Tania. “To call back a Faerie spirit from the Blessed Land of Avalon were a wicked deed,” she murmured. “Would you have our sister walk among us as if she were a Gray
Knight of Lyonesse? For that is how she would return.”

Tania swallowed. “No, I wouldn't want that.” She looked down at Zara. “Is that place you mentioned like…well, like
heaven
, then?”

“Avalon?” said Eden. “Oh, yes, very heaven indeed.”

Tears welled in Tania's eyes. “Will she be happy there? Will she be able to sing?”

“Let us hope so,” Eden said. “Hush now, darling. It begins.”

A silence came over all the people gathered on the riverbank. The copper disk of the sun kissed the distant hills and the land was suddenly steeped in rich, deeply colored shadows. At that moment Tania became aware of a tingling in the air and of the soft hymning of voices that seemed to come drifting up out of the grass all along the river. The ethereal singing grew until the air shimmered with it. And then a single dulcet voice soared above the chant, rising and rising in a bittersweet carol of such loveliness that Tania found tears pouring down her cheeks.

It was Zara's voice, leading the song as it swelled to fill all of the land and all of the endless Faerie sky.

As the song reached its zenith fluttering streams of white mist were drawn up from the bodies of all the fallen, Faerie knight and animal alike, coiling and spiraling upward, twining together and filling the sky. And as the light ascended so the bodies of the dead faded away and the coverings of white satin settled
gently over the emptiness where they had once lain.

But the illumination that came from Zara as her body turned to pure light shone brighter than all the rest, and it was radiant with all the colors of the rainbow. Instead of flowing upward it coiled around King Oberon, enclosing him in a cloak of multicolored light that swirled faster and faster about him like a whirlwind until, in a rainbow blur, it entered his body and vanished.

The King gasped, his back arching, his hand coming away from Titania's shoulder as the rainbow light filled him. His head tilted back and he gave a shout of joy as arrows of red and blue and green and indigo and yellow and orange and violet light sped upward from his eyes, coloring the hanging curtains of white light like a scattering of jewels. And in the patterns of sapphire and emerald and ruby and topaz, Tania thought for a moment that she saw a Faerie host riding on jeweled steeds, and at their head, Zara seated astride a unicorn. She seemed to turn and look down at them and smile for a moment before the winds of heaven blew the vision away and the white river and the colored stars poured away into the west and were lost in the heart of the setting sun.

 

The evening had darkened to a warm and star-filled night filled with the honeyed fragrance of evening primrose and the spicy-sweet aroma of night scented stock. Torches had been set up all along the river and the Faerie folk sat in groups in the grass, eating
a simple supper and talking quietly together in the lee of the tall palace walls.

Tania sat in the grass with her Faerie family and with Edric at her side. Eden was with Earl Valentyne and Hopie with Lord Brython. Tania was intrigued by the difference between the two couples. While Hopie and Brython were loving and intimate, Eden and her ancient husband behaved like strangers, exchanging an occasional polite word, but clearly not at ease with each other. Tania guessed that theirs had probably never been a love-match, more likely a union founded on the earl's great wisdom and Eden's thirst for knowledge.

Bryn Lightfoot was also there; he had eagerly accepted Cordelia's invitation to eat with the Royal family, and the two of them were sitting close together.

Tania remembered the King's words.
Death is a bitter wound to endure…but it is not the end of things.
Tania felt the truth of that keenly. Zara would never sing with her again, they would never play duets together, but her sister was not entirely lost—she existed still, and not only in Tania's heart and memory; hopefully her voice and her music could still be heard in the Land of Avalon that lay beyond the setting sun. It was a comforting thought, and although it didn't stop Tania from mourning, it took the bitterness out of her grief.

It was wonderful to Tania to see the King looking so glad and healthy again as he sat with his Queen. They held hands and gazed often into each other's
eyes as though some private, silent conversation was taking place between them, a reuniting of their spirits after five hundred years of separation.

Rathina sat between Hopie and Sancha, her face unbearably sad. Tania knew that it would take a long, long time before the dark clouds cleared from Rathina's heart, but she intended to be here to help Rathina recover.

“What are you thinking?” Edric asked her. “You look miles away.”

Tania turned and smiled at him. “I was more than miles away,” she said. “I was back in the Mortal World.”

He looked thoughtfully at her. “Is that where you want to be?”

“Yes and no,” Tania said. “How long have we been here? How long since we left London?”

“I've lost count,” Edric said. “But it must be fourteen or fifteen days, at least.”

Tania nodded. “That's pretty much what I made it. My mum and dad will have got back from Cornwall by now. Can you imagine what it must have been like for them to find us gone again and the house half wrecked? It's got to have hit them so much harder than last time. They'll be going out of their minds.”

“You must go back there and let them know you're all right,” Titania said.

Tania gave a start, not realizing that anyone else had been listening to their conversation. “What on earth can I tell them this time? They'll have got home
to find your car crashed in the garden, the back door smashed in, dead birds all over the kitchen floor, and who knows what else chaos in the house. There's no way for me to explain all that away.”

“Then do not explain it away,” said Oberon. “Tell them the truth of who you are.”

“I'd love to,” Tania said. “But I don't think they'll believe me. They'll think I've gone crazy.”

“Then they should be given proof that you are not crazy,” Titania said. She smiled. “Do you think they'd believe
me
if I told them who you really are?”

Tania stared at them. “You'd come back with me and talk to them?”

“Nay!” Oberon exclaimed. “I will not allow the Queen to enter the Mortal World again. That is a peril she shall never endure, so long as the Sun and the Moon rule the heavens.”

“No, of course not,” Tania said, her spirits sinking a little. “I understand.”

“But there is another way,” Titania said, resting her hand on the King's arm. “A way that won't leave your mortal parents in any doubt about the truth.”

Tania looked at her in confusion.

“Can you not guess the answer to this riddle?” said Eden. “You must enter the Mortal World and bring your other mother and father into Faerie.”

Tania looked at the King. “Can I really bring them here?”

“Of course you must,” said Oberon. “Your mortal parents are as much a part of you as are the Queen
and I. And therein lies your strength, Tania, in the blending of Faerie and mortal blood that flows in your veins. That is what has shaped your destiny, my daughter.”

“The ancient texts spoke truly,” Sancha added. “Not by Faerie nor by mortal could the Sorcerer King be slain.”

Titania put her hand on Tania's. “It was your dual nature that gave us victory over Lyonesse. Nobody but you could have done it, Tania. Nobody.”

Tania smiled. “Can I go and get my parents right now, please?” she asked.

“Go upon this instant with my blessings upon you,” Oberon said.

Tania scrambled to her feet. She looked down at Edric. “Coming?”

He smiled up at her. “You bet I am.”