The Realms of Faerie. Linda Massola

Mab spoke, a tremendous surge of colored light filled the room, taking Tatiana by surprise. Janus shielded his eyes. Tatiana stopped chanting and looked in horror as Mab directed

      the light towards her. ‘No – no!’ she screamed.

      As the light hit her, Tatiana continued to scream. Her silver dress began to burn, then hung in rags on her body. She put her hands over her eyes to shield them from the glare of the light. When the light finally receded, Mab slumped to the ground. Tatiana took her hands away from her face and Janus gasped in horror.

      ‘My hands!’ Tatiana cried in shock. Her hands were like those of a very, very old woman – gnarled and twisted. Then she gazed at what remained of her beautiful luxurious hair which had fallen out and now lay scattered around her. Seeing Janus’ shocked face, she got to her feet and ran quickly out of the throne room to look in a mirror. The sight that greeted her was one of a toothless old hag with withered skin and matted greying hair. Her beautiful silver wings were now burnt out twigs. Tatiana’s screams of terror could be heard all over the castle.

      Later, Mab cried with Oberon. ‘You only sent her what she wished upon you!’ Oberon reminded her.

      Mab jolted herself out of her reverie. She shuddered at what might have happened that day, but it was no use dwelling on the past; there was work to be done.

      Chapter 2

      In the days after the confrontation with Mab, Tatiana had retreated once more to the caves in the mountains. Without the aid of her precious wings, she was unable to fly. Here in the caves, she set about enchanting a broom which would enable her to do so. She spoke out loudly to herself constantly. You haven’t seen the end of me yet, Mab, she said over and over. Night after night she sat in the caves going over spells, and then cancelling them. None of them seemed to be working the way she wanted them to. With the help of her crystal ball, she was able to look into the castle. Seeing Mab so beautiful, happy and carefree made her even angrier.

      ‘Tatiana!’

      ‘Go away Janus!’ she shouted, shielding her eyes from the bright sunshine. She had ceased to think about Janus. He was unimportant to her now.

      ‘Leave her alone. We can do nothing for her at present,’ Mab advised him.

      The months passed and Tatiana saw and spoke to nobody and continued to live a hermit-like existence formulating and discarding plans of revenge. She had no desire to travel in the light of day and only hunted at night, feasting on moths and small animals. She had totally lost her taste for fairy food. One moonless night an idea came to her. The Glooms! She would go to Gloomia and enlist the aid of Drabon, the ruler of the Glooms! Yes, why hadn’t she thought of it earlier? For the next few days, she looked into her crystal ball into the land of Gloomia, familiarizing herself with its inhabitants and their customs. Slowly her plans began to take shape.

      On the next full moon, she flung a dark cloak about her. With her crystal ball safely wedged in the large pocket, she mounted her broom.

      ‘To Gloomia!’ she cried.

      When the outline of the dark fortress of the Glooms came into view, she cried out in delight. Pointing her broom towards the fortress she suddenly heard the howling of many wolves. Unknown to Tatiana, thousands of Glooms were perched on the tree-tops below her. Suddenly, they took flight with loud shrieking noises, heading straight towards her.

      ‘What the …?’

      Many claws were grasping her broom and directing it down towards the ground. She fought in vain to ward them off, but the more she fought, the more they shrieked in delight. The jolt she experienced while hitting the ground caused Tatiana to pass out. When she regained consciousness, she found a pair of burnt-out coal black eyes were peering at her.

      ‘What is it?’ the owner of the dreadful eyes said.

      ‘A hag, Ratbonia, just an old hag!’ her companion said carelessly. ‘You can dispose of it if you like!’

      Oh, Oh, it’s Drabon! I’ve found Drabon! Tatiana tried to struggle to her feet. ‘No – wait! I… I have a proposition for you that you may be very interested in,’ she told him weakly. She felt in her pocket to see if her crystal ball was still in one piece. Thankfully, it had survived. Her back hurt terribly as she sat up. I must do a spell to remedy that she told herself.

      ‘A proposition? What on earth would an old hag like you have to say that would be remotely interesting to me?’ Drabon said scornfully.

      ‘I think you will be very interested when you hear that my name is Tatiana, the sister of Mab, Queen of the Kingdom of Fairy!’ she said smugly.

      ‘The Kingdom of Fairy?’

      Both Ratbonia and Drabon pricked up their ears.

      ‘But you don’t look like a fairy,’ Drabon said suspiciously.

      Then Tatiana began to tell her story of how Mab had turned her from a beautiful fairy into an old hag and that now she had a plan for revenge that would also benefit the Glooms.

      ‘Why would anyone want to look like a fairy?’ asked Ratbonia.

      ‘The plan – tell me the plan!’ Drabon demanded.

      ‘Well,’ began Tatiana. ‘Mab is about to give birth to a child. Not only that, but five other fairies in the kingdom are due to give birth around the same time.’

      ‘So there will be six new babies in the Kingdom of Fairy, what of it?’ asked Ratbonia.

      She was clearly bored now. Tatiana ignored her.

      ‘These six children will have exemplary gifts. They are the future of the Kingdom of

      Fairy!’ she announced. ‘They will all be born on a coloured ray; one for each color of the rainbow. Mab herself is the seventh! So,’ Tatiana continued, ‘when the children are born, the Kingdom of Fairy will be guarded by seven coloured feathers on the battlements of the castle; not just one!’ Drabon and Ratbonia pricked up their ears again.

      ‘We need to kill them all and then we will be in control of the kingdom – simple,’ said Ratbonia quickly.

      ‘Not so fast, my stupid one!’ replied Drabon.

      ‘No, indeed. Not so fast,’ agreed Tatiana.

      ‘What do you suggest then?’ asked Drabon peering closely in Tatiana’s eyes. Tatiana shuffled back a bit. His eyes were unsettling even for her.

      ‘My plan,’ she said, ‘is to kidnap the babies as soon as they are born and take them to the Land of Mortals. Once there, they can be exchanged for mortal babies. The mortal babies can then be brought here to Gloomia for you to care for and educate until they are old enough to challenge Mab in the Kingdom of Fairy. I suggest you enchant the children in order to raise them in the ways of the Glooms, and then reverse the spell when they come into their power as they grow up. Then Mab, Oberon and the other fairy parents will think that it is their own child that has come back to them, when in reality they are only mortals.’

      ‘It is brilliant!’ Drabon agreed.

      ‘Then,’ continued Tatiana, ‘because the mortal children have been raised in the way of the Glooms, they will begin to wreak havoc in the Kingdom of Fairy!’

      ‘Why not just steal six babies from the Land of Mortals and kill the fairy babies?’ suggested Ratbonia. ‘Because oh, stupid one,’ Drabon said in exasperation. ‘In order to take a child from the Land of Mortals, a fairy child has to be left in its place. Otherwise, it is impossible to cross them over!’

      ‘Oh. So the real fairy children will be in the Land of Mortals and will never know they are really fairy children!’ Ratbonia clapped her hands in delight. ‘Exactly!’ agreed Tatiana.

      ‘I like it more and more!’ Drabon was pleased now. ‘You may join us in Gloomia this very night!’ he said. ‘We need someone with a mind like yours!’

      Tatiana