Page 83 of The Neverfear

‘Astor Morax,’ said Christopher. ‘I know he wanted Teren – but not why.’

‘What happened to him?’ asked Jacques. ‘Did nobody see?’

Christopher shook his head. ‘I saw him go under the waves. But I don’t think he’s dead. All the Astorians are in jail in Lithia, and their snakes are still moving on their wrists, Gallia says. I think they’d have fallen away if he was dead.’

Irian nodded. ‘I’ve been reading about the ouroboros. I’ve never heard of it acting like that. Did you have any sense of how he does it?’

‘The link I have with the creatures,’ said Christopher. ‘He can do it too, or something like it, something bigger. He can control the Tiger. And that snake under his skin. It’s not just that he’s tamed them – it’s something else.’

‘Are you sure?’

He nodded. ‘I tried to reach his snake. He was livid – he could feel me doing it, because he could feel what the snake felt.’

‘So Teren isn’t safe!’ said Anya.

Irian smiled. She took the candied snail that Koo offered her. ‘Nothing is ever safely saved. We save it over and over, every day. We will have to protect the Immortal forever. Just as we will have to protect the world, each day, each in our own ways. That is the great glory and the great battle of being alive.’

The day of the wedding was bluer and greener and more golden, Christopher thought, than any of that year.

The gaganas flew around the heads of the guests as they gathered on the lawn, scattering them with rose petals from baskets clutched in their claws. Koo had no basket: instead, he flew around the guests, laying individual rose petals in people’s hands. His favourite word now was fetch.

Christopher had never been to a wedding, so he had nothing to compare it to. But he thought it was unlikely that weddings at home in England had five mermaids who sat in the fountain combing their hair and winking at the guests, nor a clan of nereids (distant relatives of Irian’s), nor the chimaera, on whose back Teren rode around the garden.

Also among the guests was – to Christopher’s astonishment – Skadi Finnesse. She spoke largely to Nighthand. Once, she looked at Christopher without smiling; then, as she turned away, she gave him a little nod and a half-smirk.

Meri the mouse was the usher. Christopher and Anya together had made him a jacket of bright yellow, the same colour as Anya’s favourite silk, so that he would not get stepped on while eagerly assisting. Naravirala had come to officiate. It is a great thing to be married by a sphinx; it is like being married by the splendour of the Archipelago incarnate.

Chairs were laid out either side of an aisle, so that the seafaring Berserker and the part-nereid scholar could be married at the very edge of the ocean. Erato the dryad queen had arrived a day early, and she and her clan had transformed the garden so every tree and every bush – even the cabbage patch – burst forth with white wild roses. The flowers climbed up the walls of the palace so that the whole building looked alive. The scent was enough to make Christopher, waiting out of sight, feel a little drunk.

At last a bell tolled, and a hush fell on the guests. Nighthand came to stand next to the water, with Ratwin, his best ratatoska, on his shoulder. Naravirala stalked to stand next to him, ready to perform the ceremony.

In Glimourian weddings it is tradition to have a rider begin the service, usually on a horse or a friendly pony, or perhaps a twrch tryth. The music started, and Christopher rode down the aisle on the back of the mother unicorn, her foal by her side. He dismounted, and pressed his hand to her neck, and joy surged between them.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

Jacques, perched on his head, gave a small burr of content. ‘I must say,’ he said, ‘my wings look sensational in this light.’

The ballroom door, which faced on to the great lawn, swung open. Anya came down the steps, and every head turned. Christopher wanted to laugh with the sheer shock of pleasure. She had taken the yellow silk of her ruined best gown, and with Gallia’s help she had cut out the bloodstains and mud stains. She had turned the cloth into a tunic, leggings, a belt that wrapped round and round her waist, and silk-wrapped leather arm-guards: the costume of a female Berserker. Koo had pierced her ears and she wore gold hoops. Her hair fell to the floor, and instead of flowers she held Koo and Gallia in her arms.

What do you get when someone is gentle of heart, and easily angered, and unfearless? You get a warrior. But Anya Argen was not angry now; she was triumphant, and as she walked down the aisle she seemed to glow with the joy of a battle won.

Behind her came Irian. She had chosen sea colours: a dress the colour of sea-foam, with a veil the blue of a moonlit ocean. As she walked up the aisle towards Nighthand she was laughing. Her eyes sought out Christopher’s, Anya’s, Ratwin’s, and then the Berserker’s. Seven foot tall, his earrings shining in the light, he tried to smile and began to weep.

Naravirala raised her tawny wings.

‘Fellow Glimourians! This is a day of triumph! Glimouria has passed through a dark moment. An attempt was made on the Immortal child; he was saved by the bravery of Christopher Forrester and Anya Argen, and by the creatures of this place.’ She turned and looked at Christopher and Anya, and he felt the burning heat of her approval. ‘There may yet be hard times to come. And so it is more necessary than ever that we rejoice. The only thing stronger than fear is love, unceasingly and exultantly given, and today we celebrate that love. We remember today that there is no such thing as too much joy.’

Christopher’s mind darted away as the sphinx began to speak the words of the marriage service. The image of Astor Morax and the snake beneath his skin rose up before his eyes, but he pushed it down deep and away. Not today. He thought, instead, of the Glimourie Light. The flash of green-gold was his first thought each morning and his last at night. He longed to grow it, test it, understand it. He knew – he could feel, with every inch of his skin – that it was important. It would be necessary in the days to come.

He looked at Teren, Senan, Jacques, Ratwin, Irian and Nighthand – most of all, at Anya. They were his anchor.

Nighthand gave a roar. ‘I am wed!’

Irian rose on to her toes, and kissed her husband. Fireworks coloured the sky. They coated the blue with gold.

The sphinx lifted her wings and her voice together, and a trumpet sounded. ‘Glimourians! Each in your own tongue: jubilate!’ The crowd rose to its feet and roared, a tumultuous cheer of whistling, singing, chirping, clapping, ululating and stamping. And Ratwin called out loudest of all from Nighthand’s shoulder, ‘Jubilations and magicalations! Onwards and onwards!’

Jacques flew over their heads. He had inhaled a quantity of dye and now he looped the loop, puffing pink smoke from his nostrils.