Faerie Lord

Sixty-Three

He was aware of a haze of dusty orange light. It wasn’t bright, but it was bright enough to see the others and, as his eyes adjusted, things became a little clearer. They were moving like a shoal of fish, swimming. But not through water: he was sure of that. He could breathe, for one thing, and breathe easily. Yet the swimming thing was exactly what he was doing. He could go up or down just by kicking with both feet. He could move forward by sweeping with his arms. Lorquin was close by. The boy had let go of Henry’s hand, but was signalling him to follow.

The tribe were stretched into an elongated V formation, like a massive flight of geese, with the tall man at their head. They plunged forward and downward, heads first, in an easy motion, for all the world like a school of dolphins. But where were they swimming? All Henry could think of was sinking into sand, but this clearly wasn’t sand: you couldn’t swim through sand. You couldn’t even swim in quicksand – all you did there was drown. Yet he’d sunk into sand and there was no water in the desert to make quicksand and they were definitely swimming (and breathing!) and…

And it was actually a nice sensation. Henry did something he very seldom did and lightened up. Still swimming, he rolled over on his back and tilted his head so he could still see Lorquin and the tribe. The orange light was brighter high above him and he thought he could just about make out the position of a diffuse sun. They were swimming underneath the sand. They had to be. Nothing else made sense, even though that didn’t make sense either. It was like being underwater, except they were under sand. He was swimming and breathing and floating and it was really, really lovely.

A curious chirping sound reached him – that was like a dolphin too – and as he twisted his head he realised it was coming from Lorquin, who was signalling him to catch up. Henry pushed powerfully with his legs and was rewarded by an exhilarating spurt of speed. This was utterly delicious! Once he’d managed to grow wings and fly when he translated to the Faerie Realm, but even that had been nothing like this. Sand swimming was warm and comforting and wonderful.

He kept wondering how it was happening. Lorquin and his people looked like faeries – primitive faeries admittedly, but not some sort of creepy different race. And even if they were some sort of creepy different race that had evolved the trick of swimming in sand, that hardly explained how Henry could now swim in sand as well. All that was needed was Lorquin to take his hand and drag him under and now he was doing it!

There was a city ahead.

Henry blinked. (How could you blink under sand?) He could see towers and spires and walls and turrets rising up out of the seabed – not the seabed: he wasn’t under water, but he couldn’t think what else to call it. He could see segments of paved roadway. It was a little gloomy up ahead, but he could definitely see it. Unless this was some sort of mirage, some gigantic illusion, there was a city out there… and they were heading directly for it.

He kicked strongly until he caught up with the others and swam beside Lorquin. ‘What’s that up ahead?’ he tried to ask, but for some reason the words came out as a series of dolphin chirps.

Lorquin turned his head to smile at him and emitted another series of chirps in response, but Henry could make nothing of them. He rolled, then swam upwards a little to get a better view. The city was resolving itself more clearly and now he could see it was largely ruins, like some vast underwater Atlantis swallowed by a prehistoric tidal wave. Henry wanted to shout with excitement, but kept his mouth tight shut and listened to the pounding of his heart instead.

Up ahead, the leaders of the tribe reached a flat stretch of crumbling pavement and abruptly dropped down. Now, suddenly, they moved towards the towering buildings at a walk, no longer swimming. Henry had a moment of panic as he caught up – what was happening here? – but then, without warning, popped through some sort of invisible membrane and floated, light as thistledown to reach the pavement himself.

He took a few hesitant steps after the others and experienced the curious sensation of increasing weight. But the weirdest thing was he’d felt this way before. As a kid in the bath, he sometimes let the water drain away without getting out. As he lay there and the water disappeared, his body – no longer buoyed up – grew heavier and heavier until it reached its normal weight. It was exactly like that now, except this time he was standing up.

Lorquin appeared beside him, cheerful as ever. ‘We’re home,’ he said without a single dolphin chirp. ‘We live here.’ He smiled hugely up at Henry. ‘You can live here too,’ he said. ‘Because you are my Companion.’