Isle of Winds (The Changeling Series Book 1)

by Fahy, James

  “You are a fae, aren’t you?” Robin asked, cutting off Karya. “A real one. You’re the first one I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen pictures and sculptures, but never a living, breathing fae.”

  The man eyed him carefully. “You don’t own a mirror then, little hornless one?” he said, not unkindly. He smiled again as Robin’s eyes widened with surprise. “Yes, I can put two and two together. You’re a fae who seems human, which probably fools most people, but you can’t fool your own kind, boy. You don’t know where you belong, which can only mean one thing. You’re a changeling.” He straightened up, adopting a more relaxed pose. “I haven’t heard of such a thing in an age. Since before the war even, and that was long ago.”

  “He is the last,” Karya said solemnly. “You seem so interested, and you have us alone out here in the wild, so I have decided to trust you, in so far as I trust anyone.” She folded her arms, regarding him appraisingly. “If you were up to mischief you could have dropped all three of us with your arrows before we even spotted you.” She sighed. “My name is Karya. My companions’ names, however, are not mine to give.”

  “They call me Woad, bighorns,” Woad said, suddenly at ease with the fae now that Karya had capitulated.

  “My name is Robin,” Robin said. “Robin Fellows.”

  The fae’s eyes widened in surprise. “Fellows? There are no Fellows any more. Eris ended that line most definitely. Strigoi saw to that personally.” His lip curled in distaste. “Certainly no children remain.”

  “There’s one,” Robin said thickly. “My parents hid me in the human world. Before Eris ended them…”

  A look of sympathy crossed the fae’s face. He looked very grim. Robin wondered how long this creature had been living in the wild. Whoever he had been before the war, clearly his time on the run had worn him down.

  “I am called Hawthorn,” he said, bowing his head in deference. “And if you speak truly, and are indeed the last of the line of Fellows, let us hope you are a good one, like your grandfather before you.”

  “He is the Scion,” Karya said with great gravitas.

  Hawthorn stared at the three. “Old stories and tales,” he said eventually, with an air of dismissal. “I stopped believing in prophecies long ago. Stories don’t keep you warm at night, or put food in your stomach.” He narrowed his eyes at Karya. “Not all that is broken can be fixed, little twig.”

  “Hope is never broken,” Karya replied, levelly meeting his stare.

  Hawthorn smiled again. Wearily, Robin thought. “Spoken like a child,” he said.

  He looked to Robin. “So, last changeling, great Scion, saviour of the Arcania … What are you doing blundering around in the Netherworlde?”

  The three companions exchanged glances.

  Hawthorn raised his arched eyebrows loftily. “Ah … a long story?” he surmised. “No doubt filled with high adventure, intrigue and drama.” He sighed. “Then you had better come with me. It’s best not to linger out in the open.” He turned away. “Come,” he commanded. “I know a more secluded spot nearby. We will talk there.”

  * * *

  Hawthorn’s secluded spot turned out to be a good half hour’s march away, off over the hills and down into a steep rocky valley. A crude cave was formed at the base of a natural quarry. He ushered them inside. The floor was strewn with rough animal hides and even a few books and candles were scattered around.

  “Don’t make such serious faces, little ones. You have nothing to fear from me,” he assured them, lighting a candle. “But perhaps you should be more cautious of strangers in the future. Not everyone you meet will be handsome and helpful fae-folk.” He shook out the match. “Some smiles are all teeth.”

  They sat down amidst the furs and hides.

  “You live here?” Robin asked.

  “Of course not. This is just a hiding hole. I’m a scout. Sometimes I’m out looking for supplies for days. I can’t exactly sleep out under the stars, can I? Not unless I want to wake up on the end of a Peacekeeper’s sword, that is. Now … I believe you had a long story to tell me.”

  It took quite some time for Robin, Karya and Woad to explain everything that had happened. The fae Hawthorn sat cross-legged and silent as their tale unfurled, nodding occasionally, his horns casting leaping shadows on the walls.

  Karya relayed the confusing advice they had received from the Oracle, and their subsequent search for the Isle of the Winds.

  “I can help you I think, in a small way,” Hawthorn announced when they were up to date with events. “Not to find the Isle of Aeolus, I don’t even know whether such a place exists. But your riddles … Look to the goddess? … Hmm, well, everyone knows that the goddess of dawn is called Aurora, but I don’t really see how that helps…” He stroked his chin. “But high roads to narrow places? Beyond the Singing Fens is a mountain range and I believe I know the pass to which this information refers.”

  “Really?” Robin asked hopefully.

  “You will need to get to the path of the Gorgons,” Hawthorn said. “It will take you a long time to make your way across the Singing Fens, though, a trackless mire with little cover for you. You will be sitting ducks for skrikers, not to mention bog hags and sloe.”

  “Well, we have to cross through the fens to get to the mountains beyond,” Karya said, “So there’s no point complaining about it.”

  “This is where I think I can help,” Hawthorn said, holding up a finger to silence her. “There is another way to the mountains.” He smirked. “Why cross over the fens when you can cross under them?”

  Robin was deeply confused. “Um … because we’d drown?” he suggested.

  “Not if you are deep enough under them, under the rock.” Hawthorn narrowed his eyes secretively.

  He stood and walked to the back of the dark cave. “How do you think I travel around and manage to avoid capture? Admittedly, unlike yourselves, I only have Peacekeepers on my trail, not the rather alarmingly dangerous Mr Strife, but still, I find it is always best to go by secret paths and to tread quietly.”

  He placed a hand against the rock wall at the back of the cave. The bow on his back flashed with red gems, causing a secret door to open in the stone. A long black tunnel stretched away, sloping steeply down into darkness.

  Karya stood up, clearly impressed. “Is that a redcap tunnel?” she asked, her voice full of curiosity.

  “A very old one,” Hawthorn replied, nodding his tousled head. “Disused for centuries. These tunnels lead to many places, but I believe you could use them to cross under these hills and all the way across the Singing Fens without once having to come up for air. That at least will keep you out of sight and off Strife’s radar.”

  Robin thanked the fae for his help. “I mean, you don’t even know us, why would you help us?”

  Hawthorn gave the three of them an odd, unreadable look. He must have been handsome once and noble to behold. Here in the cave, he looked hungry and bedraggled, but his eyes were still full of burning energy.

  “Because, while I might not believe in old prophecies,” he said, “… there are many who do. If you are indeed the Scion of the Arcania, last of the Fellows, then perhaps hope is not broken after all – merely battered.”

  Without further discussion he led them into the tunnel until they were far beneath the hillside. Eventually, the ground levelled out. A rusted mine-cart track ran off into the darkness. Sitting atop the tracks was a large flat stone.

  At Hawthorn’s insistence, the three companions clambered atop. There was just enough room for them all.

  “This,” he explained, “… is a cantrip of my own invention. The flat stone you rest upon is my magic carpet, of sorts. It sits atop a horde of many small stones. A little Earth mana and it rolls along at quite some speed.” He seemed quite proud. “I should warn you, keep your hands away from the walls or you may lose a finger. And try not to fall off, as it gathers quite some speed and the stone won’t stop until it reaches the Holly and Ivy doors on the far side of the Fens
.”

  “Before we go, is it true?” Robin asked. “Is there a real rebellion? Or are the remaining fae all just hiding and surviving? Doing their best not to be captured?”

  Hawthorn smiled. “There will always be a resistance against Eris, as long as one fae stands. But yes, Robin Fellows, our people have gathered. We meet and plan and plot. Our leader is brave and fierce. One day, we will have our world back. Perhaps you will live to see it. I will send news of your existence to the leader, our greatest fae, Peaseblossom. He will be most heartened to hear you are real.” He grinned. Robin could not tell whether with sarcasm or genuine amusement.

  Chapter Twenty –

  Holly and Oak

  They bid farewell to Hawthorn, thanking him for his help. The horned man nodded his farewells and promised their paths would no doubt cross again in the future. He wished them luck in finding help from the goddess Aurora, and with a complicated hand movement, made their stone carriage rumble into life.

  With an initial jerk, it began to roll down the large dark tunnel – slowly at first, but quickly gaining speed. Robin watched the silhouetted figure of the slender fae grow smaller and smaller in the distance until the tracks turned a corner and he was lost to sight.

  Robin felt an odd pang at leaving the fae. He was, after all, the only one of his kind he had ever seen, and he had seemed so sad and strange, and so very alone.

  Soon, the stone was racing along underground, the wind caused by their passage ruffling Robin’s hair wildly. The three gripped the edges of the stone when it banked alarmingly at the corners or swooped unexpectedly as the ground fell away from beneath them. It was a little like being on an underground rollercoaster, only with no safety harnesses. The only light they had to go by was a small, unshakable flame which Woad had conjured up and affixed to the front like a headlight.

  Karya and Robin found that travelling in this odd way took quite some getting used to, but Woad found the whole thing wildly fun and giggled merrily for a long time, grinning from ear to ear.

  They went on in this manner for a long time, their small flickering flame only illuminating a few feet of rocky tunnel ahead of them. Whenever Robin glanced behind them, there was nothing but blackness.

  At times, they passed other tunnels branching off from their own, leading off to who knew where. Many of these had similar rails affixed to the floor. Robin tried to glimpse down these, but the stone was moving so quickly that they went past in a blur. Other mine cart rails criss-crossed their own, but the travelling stone seemed to somehow know its own path and veered onward implacably.

  Sometimes the tunnels they passed through closed in around them, growing narrow, the walls close enough to scrape alarmingly along either side of the stone. At others, the tunnels spat the mine tracks out into underground caverns; huge, dark and echoing, sprawling chambers the size of cathedrals. The tracks often crossed deep chasms, supported only by rickety stilts and struts of banded wood and steel, jutting out haphazardly like a huge scaffold. Robin did his best not to glance down over the sides of the stone. Hurtling through these large high spaces on their slaloming ride was alarming enough without a dizzying drop around them.

  Odd clusters of luminescent crystal sprouted here and there in some of the chambers, glowing in the distant walls or hanging from the pitted cavern roofs in glimmering stalactites. Robin could appreciate that their unearthly radiance would have been beautiful in different circumstances, but he was secretly relieved each time the tunnels closed in again swapping deadly drops for suffocating darkness.

  Eventually, the novelty of careering through the darkness began to wear off, and the constant rocking of the travelling stone began to lull the three of them to sleep.

  Woad curled up in a semicircle like a blue cat, fast asleep despite the noise. Karya was trying to stifle a yawn herself, flicking idly through Robin’s copy of ‘Hammerhand’s Netherworlde Compendium’. Robin on the other hand was occupied with Phorbas’ dagger, oddly comforted by the weapon he held. The garnet stone flashed in the light from Woad’s fiery lamp. As they tore through the tunnels on the speeding rock he mulled over Hawthorn’s words. There was something which the fae had said on parting which had struck a chord with him, but he couldn’t think what. A distant memory, something he had heard before…

  “What’s troubling you, Scion?” Karya asked eventually, peering at him over the top of her book, her hair whipping about her head. “You should try and get some rest while we can. We might be clipping along at a fair speed but there’s still a long way to go until we cross under the Fens.”

  Robin slipped Phorbas’ dagger back into his belt. “It’s just something Hawthorn said. It rang a bell in my head and I can’t put my finger on it,” he explained, frustrated.

  Karya raised an eyebrow. “Why would you want to put your finger on a bell in your head?” she asked flatly.

  Robin glowered at her. “You don’t have to be so difficult, you know. It would be nice to be able to have a regular conversation sometimes.” He sighed. “And I wish you’d call me Robin, not ‘Scion’ all the time.”

  The small girl looked genuinely puzzled. “But you are the Scion.”

  Robin snorted down his nose derisively. “I don’t even know what that means,” he said. “I’m sick of hearing about it to be honest, and sick of everyone we meet giving me boggle-eyed stares because of it. I know next to nothing about this secret inheritance I supposedly have, and I know even less about you, while we’re at it,” he grunted. “Mr Strife has been chasing you longer than he’s been chasing me and I still don’t know why. I don’t know why you’re so full of secrets, but I can tell you this … it’s very annoying.” He looked directly at her. “I’m supposed to be trusting you and your good intentions, but it’s not easy when you’re all cloak and dagger about everything.”

  Karya pursed her lips.

  “Fine,” she sighed resignedly. “If you want to know why I’m on the run, why Strife is chasing me and why my life is pretty much hell these days, I’ll tell you. It’s because of you.”

  “Because of me?!” Robin replied, shocked. “I didn’t even know you existed before I came to Erlking!”

  Karya glared at him harshly with her golden eyes, snapping the book closed. “You may not have known I existed, but I knew you did,” she said gruffly, her cheeks red with temper. “That’s the trouble. That’s what got me into this mess in the first place.”

  She ran her fingers through her hair. “I was the only one who knew about you. It’s a long story and now is not the time. So please, don’t argue. Just know this, seeing as you’re so desperate for answers about everything: Eris discovered I knew things she didn’t. Which is why she suddenly became interested in me. And trust me…” she said with widened eyes, “… no one wants Eris interested in them.”

  “Tell me about it,” Robin muttered.

  “So that’s why I ran, and that’s why Strife is after me. And that’s why I have done my level best to keep you safe and out of the bloody Netherworlde since then.”

  “I can’t just leave Henry and Phorbas to rot,” Robin began hotly.

  “Of course you can’t,” Karya said, exasperated. “You’re one of those good types, aren’t you? And they know that – Strife and Moros and Eris. They’re counting on it. So now you’re here in the Netherworlde, which is the last place you should be, and we’re on the run, and we barely know where we’re going, and I’m doing my level best to keep you out of trouble. But what with redcaps and skrikers and grimgulls, not to mention you attracting ghosts and rubbing shoulders with renegade fae, it’s hardly the most relaxing job. And yes, if you must know, sometimes I wish I’d just kept my mouth shut and stayed at home with my sisters!”

  “Well, sometimes I do too,” Robin snapped back. “I didn’t ask to be thrown into all this, you know. You’re the one who sent Woad to look over me, and gave me that funny flute to call you. I never asked for your help. I never asked for Gran to die and start all this!”

 
“Some things,” Karya said, through gritted teeth, “… are bigger than what you want!” She made a visible effort to calm herself down. Her cheeks were flushed. “Or what I want. Some things are just bigger,” she finished quietly.

  She sighed and looked ahead. Faint phosphorescence glowed in the darkness indicated they were coming up to another open space. They rolled into the open, hundreds of tall purple-blue crystals dotted the ceiling, casting a wan light over their rumbling progress below. Robin didn’t know quite what to say. He had never heard her say so much all at once before.

  After a long, uncomfortable silence, Karya looked back at Robin.

  “Have you remembered yet?” she asked politely as though they had not been arguing a moment ago. Her face was carefully calm and composed.

  “Remembered what?” Robin asked.

  “The thing you almost remembered when the fae was talking to us? If it’s important you should be focusing on that, not on me.”

  Robin fumed quietly. She was the most difficult person he had ever met.

  “It was something he said about the mountain pass,” he said, figuring that if she had decided to call a truce, so would he. “Or perhaps something the goddess mentioned in the clue. What was her name again?”

  “Aurora,” Karya supplied, as the travelling rock left the vast glittering cave and darted once again into a tight tunnel of stone. “What about her?”

  “I’ve heard it somewhere,” Robin said, frustrated.

  “Well, it’s certainly not in this book,” the girl replied sniffily. “I’ve been over everything about the Isle of Winds and there’s no mention of the either the dawn or the goddess.” She glanced at Robin, who stared back, a grin forming. “What? What is it? You have epiphany-face.”

  Robin rummaged in his backpack, pretending not to have heard her. She eyed him with interest as he pulled out the other volume he had brought with him. It was the book on fae lineage.

  “Aunt Irene gave me this for Christmas,” he told her. “It a who’s who, from before the war obviously. It … it has my parents in it,” he finished awkwardly. He opened the book and began flipping through the entries, skipping past names and portraits.