Isle of Winds (The Changeling Series Book 1)

by Fahy, James

  “What was that?” Robin said, eyeing the contraptions warily. Woad still gripped a pale papery dustsheet.

  “It sounded like…” Karya began, but was cut off as the dust sheet grasped in Woad’s hand slipped and rustled loudly to the floor, the end still clutched in the faun’s hand.

  Woad glanced down, and with a startled shriek, dropped it.

  “A face!” he yelped. “It’s got a face!”

  They stared down at the crumpled, papery mass at his feet. It did indeed have a face, like a crumpled latex mask. The shape of shoulders, arms and a torso was visible before it dissolved further down into a long crinkling mass.

  “That’s not good,” Karya said in a very small voice.

  “What is that?” Robin asked in shock.

  The hissing rattle came from the dark house again, closer. Something was moving slowly towards the workshop, It sounded like something heavy being dragged along the floor.

  “It’s a skin,” the girl told him. “A shed skin.”

  Robin stared from the pale mass on the floor to Karya in confusion. “What? As in a snake-skin? It has a head!”

  “Not snake,” Karya replied, looking to the doorway. “Gorgon.”

  The hissing came again, and a dark shape, huge and swift, passed in front of the doorway, banging against the door lintel and dislodging a flurry of dust.

  “Whatever you do, if it opens its eyes, don’t look!” Karya told him urgently.

  “Oh there’s nothing for you to worry about, my little warmblood,” a voice came, deep and full of sibilant malice. “You have nothing to fear from me … not anymore.”

  A scaly clawed hand, appeared around the doorframe. It was large and long-fingered, much bigger than a normal human hand and much higher up the doorframe than anyone should have been able to reach. The skin was shiny black and banded with bright orange stripes along the fingers, ending in wicked-looking nails.

  “We’re here peacefully, gorgon,” Karya said sternly. “We mean no mischief. Let us be.”

  A dry raspy cackle escaped from the darkness.

  “Mischief-makers,” it said resentfully. “All who come here, all who enter into Stheno’s garden. Mischief and trickery.”

  The gorgon pulled itself into the workshop, her flanks brushing both sides of the doorframe.

  She was enormous. Twice as large as any full-grown person. Below the waist, her body resolved into a thick, muscular tail, covered in jet black scales, glossy and flexing. Bright orange bands of colour rolled down her torso.

  Her face was almost completely covered behind a long tangled mop of stringy black hair, so that only her mouth and chin was visible. Her lips curled into a cruel smile. The hair itself waved slightly to and fro, and it took Robin a moment to realise that it was composed of thousands of tiny snakes, hanging placidly. They stirred against one another slowly, making the great creature appear as though her head were underwater, swayed by unseen currents.

  “We don’t know who you mean,” Karya said, her eyes firmly on the floor. “We travel alone.”

  The gorgon glided forward slowly with hypnotic, sinuous grace. She loomed over them. The gorgon couldn’t possibly have seen Karya stepping backwards with her face hidden behind her long veil of hair, but she snapped her head around nevertheless, as fast as a striking cobra.

  “Liars,” she snapped. “Warmbloods are all the same. Stealing, tricking, maiming.” She hissed, a long forked tongue flicking out from her lips. “Should have turned them both to stone, made pretty statues for my garden.” Her mouth turned down in an ugly grimace. “But they were quick, Tricked old Stheno with illusions, lies of the…” She gave a grim, sad laugh, “… eyes.”

  “We really have no idea what you’re talking about,” Karya insisted. “Honestly. There’s just the three of us. We came here looking for something, that’s all. No tricks, certainly not to bother any gorgons.”

  “They stole from old Stheno, little trespassers.” The gorgon turned her head this way and that, her snake hair shivering. “No more stone-making. No. They took my power!”

  She reached up with scaly arms and parted her hair. Karya and Woad both squeezed their eyes shut. Robin didn’t react fast enough. He felt panic thud in his chest, expecting at any moment to meet the gorgon’s stare. But the upper half of the creature’s face was hidden by a stained blindfold.

  “They took my eyes!” the gorgon hissed.

  It laughed miserably at the three surprised children and let its hair fall back into place slowly. “Scary sight, isn’t it?” she growled poisonously, her lips curled with loathing. “Like a dog with no bark, a scorpion without a tail.”

  Karya opened her eyes, staring at the blinded creature in amazement. Woad on the other hand, not only still had his eyes closed, but his hands clamped over them as well, just in case.

  “They took your eyes?” Karya asked, her voice full of shock. Clearly not something easily done, Robin thought.

  “Mischief makers. Tall and pale. Full of tricks. Put old Stheno to sleep they did. When I awoke…” She pointed towards her head with her great arms, gesturing to her disfigurement. “And now you are here. What have you come to steal?”

  “Nothing, I promise!” Robin said, holding his hands up innocently. He considered this a moment. “Well … nothing of yours anyway. We … we’ve come looking for something that belonged to the Fae who lived here.”

  The gorgon’s fangs glistened with venom. “No one has lived here for a long, long time. No one but Stheno and her sisters. But they are both gone now.” A wistful look came over her face, contorting her dark features. “Youngest little snakeling, lost her head over a mortal boy. Long ago … far away … shame.”

  “And the other?” Karya prompted, clearly wondering if there was more than one gorgon hanging around the place.

  “Euryale?” the gorgon said with a sneer. “Eldest was a foolish girl. Found a pool of water. Decided to admire her own beauty.” She sighed in a rattling hiss. “Now she’s a lawn ornament, out by the cliff edge. Birds roost in her frozen stone coils.”

  She cackled darkly at this. Robin couldn’t help but think that losing her eyes had unbalanced her mind somewhat. But then he had never met a gorgon before. Perhaps they were all like this.

  “What are you looking for then? Did the fae have treasure here? I like treasure.” She leaned in closer. “You smell like fae as well. Not many of your kind left in the world,” she added with relish.

  “Eris has seen to that,” Robin replied darkly. “Are you loyal to her?”

  The gorgon spat on the floor, her venomous spit sizzling in a pool. “We gorgons owe our allegiance to no one. Least of all that dark apple. Never has Stheno known a blacker heart. If ever Eris met a gorgon’s stare, I would not be shocked to find her eyes hard as diamond.”

  “It’s not treasure,” he said. “It’s a machine, I think. I don’t suppose you know if there’s anything around here called the Auroracraft?”

  The gorgon looked disinterested. “Asking questions of old Stheno,” she muttered. “Was a time when men were frozen with terror … unable to draw a breath to speak when faced with the majesty of gorgons. Now see … a child asking questions.” She raised her claws as though to look at them in wonder.

  “Have you become so old?” she muttered moodily to herself. “A blind gorgon.” She grimaced dangerously at them all. “Who ever heard of such a thing?”

  “You’re still very … um … impressive,” Robin said. His words hung for several seconds in the dim light and dusty silence. “Scary, I mean.”

  Stheno turned her blindfolded face to him doubtfully. “Scary? A gorgon who can’t turn anyone to stone?” she snapped. “Can’t even give you stiff joints?”

  “Yes,” Robin insisted. “Absolutely terrifying. I mean, okay, fair enough, maybe you can’t turn us to stone anymore, but you could easily squeeze us to death, couldn’t you?” Robin continued encouragingly. “Or tear us to ribbons with those claws? They’re massive.”

/>   The gorgon seemed to muse on this. “Yes, I suppose … I hadn’t really thought…”

  “There are plenty of ways to strike fear into the hearts of your victims, aren’t there?” Robin assured her enthusiastically. “It’s better than just glaring at everyone all the time.”

  The gorgon sounded slightly less moody and depressed. “You get stuck in a rut don’t you … after so long.” She looked slightly uncertain of itself. Marginally less terrifying.

  “I’m sure whoever did this to you must have been very powerful, in order to overcome you,” Robin said.

  The gorgon scowled at him. “More powerful than Stheno?” Her lip curled.

  “Oh no! No of course not,” Robin back-pedalled. “I meant devious … not powerful. Devious and … cowardly.”

  This seemed to mollify her slightly.

  “There were two of them, you said?” Robin asked. “What did they want your eyes for?”

  It was Karya who answered. “Gorgons’ eyes are highly prized, Scion. Very powerful magic. The lore goes that the fresher they are, the more powerful the magic.”

  She looked to Stheno. “Somebody wanted to use your eyes against someone very, very powerful indeed if they needed gorgon eyes so fresh.”

  “Strife,” Robin said thickly.

  He pictured his aunt and Mr Drover, standing in the hallway of Erlking. Frozen statues. His aunt may appear to be a fragile old lady, but she was steward of Erlking, the last bastion of fae power. She must be very powerful.

  He looked back to the gorgon. “When did this happen? When did the pale men come?” he pressed.

  “At the time when the walls between the worlds are thin,” the gorgon replied hissing, lowering herself a little. She looked less inclined to strike out at them now.

  “Halloween,” Karya translated to Robin.

  “That was when Strife came to Erlking,” he fumed. “They’ve been planning this for ages then.”

  The creature rattled her tail. “This is your fault?” she growled. “This is what you say? This happened to old Stheno because of you children?” She was flexing her great hands, clearly now considering the rending and tearing.

  “No,” Robin told her firmly. “These men, the ones who tricked and stole from you. They’re our enemies as well.”

  “They stole from us too,” Woad chimed in, still with his hands clamped over his eyes. “Only they didn’t just take eyes, they took whole people. Two of them. Well, nearly two whole ones. They left a bit of broken horn behind.”

  The gorgon flicked her great tongue, her thick black hair writhing with agitation as her temper soared. “They should be punished! They took what was not theirs!”

  “We have a common enemy. You could help us.” Robin said.

  “Warmbloods?” Stheno wrinkled her scaly nose in distaste. “Why would a gorgon help your kind? What business of yours could Stheno care about? Stheno, who is immortal.”

  “Because it would ruin the plans of the mischief-makers,” Karya said.

  Robin nodded. “Wouldn’t that be more satisfying than eating us?”

  She considered this for a long time. It was clearly not a simple choice.

  “Hmm,” she grunted eventually, after a long tense silence. She beckoned with a claw. “Follow me, little morsels.”

  In one fluid movement she doubled back on herself into the ruined darkness of the house. When the end of her huge tail disappeared, Karya looked at Robin.

  “What in all the world are you trying to do, giving her ideas about crushing us or ripping us to bits?!”

  Robin shrugged. “She seemed depressed. I thought if I tried to cheer her up a bit, she might be in a better mood.”

  He followed the gorgon out of the workshop, leaving the others to follow him.

  Stheno led them back into the bright sunlight. The gorgon swished through the long grass like a sidewinder, throwing up clouds of pollen in her wake. She led them away from the house toward the cliff, and they had to jog to keep up.

  As they approached the makeshift ramp which projected out over the edge of the dizzying cliff, they noticed a large irregular shape positioned at its apex, covered with a hefty tarpaulin.

  “This is what you seek, little warmbloods,” the gorgon said. “Pale men didn’t go near. They flew on winged beasts. Dark magic from Eris.”

  “They flew here?” Robin asked, catching up.

  The gorgon raised a glossy claw and pointed out over the horizon. From the cliff’s edge there were no further mountains. It was an awfully long way down to the countryside below. There were clouds scudding below them.

  “To the Isle of Winds,” Karya said, scanning the horizon, although there was nothing in the sky but birds. She clambered onto the wooden ramp and ran across to the large shape at its end, grabbing the tarpaulin and pulling it free.

  Beneath was a large construction, which looked very much like an oversized rowing boat. It was large enough to hold at least ten people, and attached to its sides, unfurling slowly as it was freed from its covering, were long wings. They seemed to be constructed from paper, wax and cloth, haphazardly covered with feathers every colour of the rainbow. A riot of magnificent carnival colours, each hue fighting for dominance.

  The boat itself was painted sky blue, and along its prow, in curling white letters, lovingly painted, was the name ‘Aurora’.

  “Look to the goddess of dawn to find your path,” Woad grinned.

  “Well, Scion,” Karya said with great satisfaction. “Merry Christmas.”

  * * *

  They examined the Auroracraft inside and out. There were no oars and no visible controls which made any sense. At the prow was a complicated-looking console of brass and leather. Odd gauges, dials and clocks were dotted everywhere, but none of the companions had the faintest clue what any of these indicators might mean. The vast, multi-coloured wings, as far as they could see, were not connected to anything other than the hull of the boat. There were no levers or pulleys to operate them. They simply hung limply down either side of the steep ramp.

  “It’s all very pretty,” Karya said after inspecting it. “But how in the world do we operate it?” She flicked a finger on some thick copper piping which ran in wavy lines along the base of the boat.

  “If it even works after all this time,” Woad said, sniffing what appeared to be a large pair of oversized bellows where a rudder would usually be. “Plenty of time for springs to rust and cogs to snap, boss.”

  “No clue,” Robin said, tapping a couple of the dials on the large console experimentally. “But it’s our only hope of getting to the Isle of Winds isn’t it, so I suppose we’ll just take our time and have a few dry runs before…”

  “Before we hurl ourselves off a very high mountain cliff in a rusty old boat?” Karya supplied helpfully. “Yes, I think that would be wise.”

  Robin reached under a seat, glowering at her, “Maybe there’s a user’s manual somewhere?”

  “Old Stheno knows how it flies,” the gorgon said. The three children had been so engrossed that they had actually forgotten she was there.

  “Fae hid life inside the ship,” Stheno explained, which didn’t really help.

  “But we don’t know how to make the wings flap,” Robin replied, pulling a lever he had found at the front. It let out a loud rusted squeak, but nothing happened.

  The gorgon moved sinuously around the boat towards the rear, where the entire craft was tethered to the top of the ramp by a thick, sturdy rope – the only thing, presumably, that stopped it rolling down the wooden boards and off the cliff edge.

  “Idiot children,” Stheno grumbled, feeling around with her blind hands until her black claws gripped the rope itself. “How do baby birds learn to flap their wings?”

  “Hey! Wait!” Robin said, noticing her grip tighten. “What are you doing? Be careful back there, don’t…”

  “You throw them from the nest,” Stheno said decisively, her lips splitting into a wicked grin.

  Long claws shredde
d the rope in a swift movement.

  There was one horrible floating moment, when nothing seemed to move. Time itself seemed to stop, and the children all stared mutely at the severed rope. Then the boat lurched and began to roll down the long slope with a grumble of wheels. The papery wings dragged alongside it uselessly on either side, shedding feathers like a multi-coloured chicken as it went.

  Robin looked back in horror and saw the gorgon standing at the tip of the ramp, looking very pleased with herself, framed against the rocky mountains beyond the beauty of the hidden glen. Then his attention was dragged inexorably forward as the boat barrelled onwards. They were running out of ramp, and fast.

  “Grab on to something!” Karya yelled. She had thrown herself between the padded leather bench and the wooden walls as the wind tore through her wild hair. Woad was clinging to the large bellows at the back of the boat, like a drowning man grasping flotsam. His face was nothing but a pair of huge, startled eyes. “Scion,” Karya yelled again, dragging Robin’s startled attention back to her. “We’re going over the edge! Hold on or you’ll be making a trip on your own!”

  Robin’s eyes flew desperately around the boat. As he searched in a panic for a handhold, the boat lurched off the edge of the cliff, shooting giddily into thin air.

  There was a surreal moment of weightlessness. A sudden silence as the wheels left the wooden ramp. Robin felt his feet begin to lift from the boards as the craft fell.

  The odd squeaking lever he had tried earlier caught his eye, and he grasped for it desperately.

  The Auroracraft fell out of the sky.

  Karya, usually stoic and calm, let out a long piercing scream. It lasted for several seconds as they fell, spinning wildly like a falling leaf. The wind whipped past them, howling. Robin’s stomach seemed to be in his throat. Mountainside and cliff face flashed past them. It was all he could do to hold on for dear life.

  Woad had his eyes screwed shut, his knuckles a very pale blue as he gripped the bellows doggedly. They passed in and out of sudden patches of thick mist as the boat fell through the clouds. The long useless wings of the old boat were whipping around, the passing air slapping them rapidly in every direction.