by Fahy, James
“I claim this prize,” he whispered. “And with its power shall bring down the furies upon the heads of all enemies.”
It’s over, Robin thought. He couldn’t think of anything to do. He tasted blood on his lip absently. His whole body ached. He hadn’t realised how much it had hurt being thrown the full length of the chamber. Now he felt weary, and Strife and Moros had won.
Not what I expect from a grandson of mine, Gran’s voice spoke in his mind. You’re not dead yet, so don’t lie down.
Robin steeled himself. With shaking fingers, in the flickering shifting light, he reached for Phorbas’ dagger. He wasn’t going to make it easy for the brothers. He would defend his friends to his last breath.
Strife climbed the dais, his figure burned into nothing but a skeletal silhouette. The object flashed, slowing to a halt. For a moment, it hung glittering in mid-air, inches from Strife’s outstretched fingers. It had solidified into a slim, multi-faceted icicle.
With a whoosh, it suddenly flew through the air like a thrown spear, a visible Galestrike, away from Strife, swift as an arrow shot from an invisible bow.
The shard flew over Moros’ upturned face, piercing the shadows and dust, straight towards Robin.
He had no time to dodge. No time to react.
It hit him in the chest like a knife, throwing him off his feet again.
Robin hit the floor. It didn’t hurt this time. Nothing hurt anymore. All pain was gone.
“No!” Strife screamed, his high voice like rasping knives.
Robin sensed the shard of the Arcania inside him. He felt its raw, uncontrollable power flood through him, intoxicating, overpowering. Robin felt something deep within his mind awaken, a long-forgotten door thrown open. An unfamiliar smile passed over his face.
“What’s happening?” wailed Moros. “The shard? What has he done? The horrible boy!”
“Kill him!” Strife seethed through clenched teeth. “Now, before…”
“Enough,” Robin said.
The Tower of Air … The wind was his, the air. He knew how to control it. All of it.
The brothers stared in horror as he rose smoothly from the ground, the air supporting him effortlessly. It’s so simple, Robin thought distantly.
He lifted himself into a standing position, his feet hovering above the flagstones.
“What has happened to the boy?” Moros gibbered. “Why does he look like that?”
Robin’s pale blue eyes were now brightest green, sharp, clear and full of fury. His blonde hair had turned pure white, whipping upwards from his head in the self-contained gale he had created. Barely visible on either side of his head were ghostly horns, only their outlines shimmering, as though someone had sketched them in the air with glowing chalk.
When he spoke, his voice was not his own. His strange inner voice spoke for him. The part of him which knew what a halcyon bird looked like, which knew how to play a flute; the part which could read ancient languages. It was no longer a small voice in the back of his consciousness.
“I am the Scion.”
“I will kill you!” Strife cried, pulling out his knife, fuelled by rage at being cheated of his prize.
“No,” Robin raised an arm. “You will not.”
He threw a Galestrike across the room. It left his hand with a loud crack, the air moving fast enough to tear the sound around him.
The force hit Strife like a juggernaut, throwing him backwards. He toppled head over heels, over and over, the dark knife thrown far from his grasp. He came to a halt in a spinning crunch, smashing into the dais.
Robin lifted himself higher into the air, the wind roaring about him.
Mr Strife struggled to his feet, his face filled with shock and fury, his lip bloodied.
“Filthy fae scum!” he screamed. “Human world half-breed! How dare you raise your hand to me?!”
“Silence,” Robin said firmly.
He blinked at Mr Strife. With Featherbreath, he effortlessly lifted the ghoulish man into the air, none too gently. Strife howled and struggled, his long limbs thrashing out uselessly. He rose higher, where Robin, his mana stone blazing on his chest like flickering lightning, held him fast.
“I could end this now,” Robin said. “You have harmed my family and friends. You invaded my home. You have kidnapped, lied and deceived. You have hounded, pursued and poisoned. With no more than a single thought, I could pull the air from your lungs and watch you drown on nothing.”
Strife stared at Robin, his usually slicked and oiled appearance in disarray, his eyes bulging from his face in fear and loathing.
“But I will not,” Robin said. “Because I am not you, Mr Strife.”
Robin lowered his horned head, seeking out the other grim brother.
Moros, cowering in the rubble below like a frozen rat, stared up at him fearfully. There was no glee or enjoyment in his wicked face now.
“You,” Robin demanded. “Give me the gorgon’s eyes.”
Moros reached in to his jacket, staring in disbelief at Robin, the fury of the fae incarnate. He took out the vial containing the gorgon’s eyes and held up it in his shaking hand. His face darkened with resentment.
“Filthy fae-child,” he spat, his high voice quivering. “You presume to give orders to Moros? You think I am afraid of your horns? I carved my belt buckle from the horn of one of your people. You are nothing! I will never give you what you ask!”
He threw the vial to the floor, his face full of defiant spite. Robin merely reached out a hand and caught it with a Featherbreath. The vial flew upward through the air where it landed in his hand effortlessly.
“Go back to your mistress,” Robin said. “Tell her how you have failed here. That, I imagine, will be a fitting punishment.”
Robin breathed deeply, drawing on the power of the Arcania. He sent out his mana in a vast wave of air, lifting rocks and rubble from all over the temple. They hung in the air around him, deadly missiles, dozens of them suspended throughout the chamber, a silent hovering threat.
Mr Moros crawled over to Mr Strife. Both of them looked around the chamber, at the hail of suspended fury above. They stared up at the centre of the silent maelstrom, at the boy regarding them. The world’s last changeling looked down like the spirit of judgement. The Scion of the Arcania.
“When next we meet, Robin Fellows,” Strife said shakily, his brother trying desperately to pull him toward the doorway, “you will not find me so unprepared. I promise you that!”
Robin replied by letting one of the large masonry blocks fall from mid-air. It crashed into the floor at their feet, shattering into pieces and smashing the flagstones.
“You speak empty threats to the Arcania itself. I am the Puck. The next stone will not miss.”
Moros and Strife picked themselves up of the floor and fled the chamber without another word. Their footfalls echoed on the rocks as they made good their escape to the city outside.
When he was sure they were truly gone, Robin closed his eyes and slowly lowered himself and all of the rocks gently back to the floor.
“Robin?”
His eyes snapped open. Amidst the rubble, Henry was sitting up. The manacle around his ankle was still attached, but it had been freed from its moorings when Strife hit the dais.
“Bloody hell!” he said after a moment, his voice dry and papery. “What in the world happened to you?”
Robin stared. In the corner of his mind, his heart leapt. Henry was okay. He wasn’t in a coma or any of the other things he had feared when he had first seen him. The Puck, the part which held the reins at the moment, merely regarded the human boy distantly with detached interest.
“Are you injured?” he asked.
Henry shook his head, looking dazed. “Feel as though I’ve gone six rounds with a heavyweight, but I reckon I’ll live.
“Where are we, Rob? I feel like I’ve been asleep forever. There was a fight at the house, then Phorbas grabbed me. It was all so confused…” He glanced back up at his frie
nd. “Robin, hate to be rude pointing this out and all, but you’ve got bloody great big horns!”
“We are in the Netherworlde,” Robin told him. He half-walked, half-floated over to Woad, who was groaning on the floor as he slowly regained consciousness. Boulders moved obediently out of his way as he went, clearing his path. “I will explain everything later. There are things we need to do first.”
Woad sat up as Robin approached. “What happened, Pinky?” he asked in a groggy, wheezy voice. He looked up at Robin and blinked. “Wow, something big, I’d say! Are you possessed? Where’s the skrikers gone?”
Robin shook his head. “I am myself, Woad. Only … more so. The skrikers, and the servants of Eris, are gone. Are you injured?”
Woad looked embarrassed. “Nah. No one gets knocked out better than me. Where are the bad guys again?”
“They left,” Robin said simply as Woad got up. Robin turned away and walked to Karya.
Woad watched him go, then turned to Henry, who was stumbling through the chamber, dazed and limping.
“Henryboy!” the faun cried jubilantly. “You haven’t even been a little bit killed!”
“Woad. Sight for sore eyes you are, you insane blue nutter. Where’s Phorbas?” Henry asked. “And why is Robin like that? What the bloody hell is going on here anyway?”
“That’s a lot of questions,” Woad said, looking around at the devastation of the air shrine. “Long story, explain later. We have to help boss though.”
“Boss?” Henry asked clearly confused. They joined Robin, who had knelt on the floor beside Karya’s body. Henry looked down. “Who’s the girl?” he asked.
“What did I just say about questions?” Woad said impatiently. “Pinky, is she…”
“She is not dead, not yet,” Robin replied.
He placed the palm of his hand over Karya’s white lips. Her skin was waxy pale and clammy. Robin closed his eyes. The Whitewind cantrip rushed out of his palm. He felt for the poison with his mind, wrapped his mana around it, and pulled his hand away.
Henry and Woad watched as a plume of black and purple smoke erupted from Karya’s mouth, thick and viscous. It dissipated instantly and harmlessly in a small gust conjured up by Robin.
The three boys, human, fae and panthea, crowded round the girl, peering down. Her eyelids fluttered, and then with a great hacking cough she opened her eyes. Woad, with overwhelming relief, helped her into a sitting position.
“What…?” She looked around, blinking rapidly, squinting in the gloom. “Where is this? Ugh … I feel like a skriker chewed me up and spat me out.”
“Boss, you’re okay!” Woad grinned. “I knew you would be. I carried you, you know. You’re really heavy for a girl.”
“This is the human boy?” Karya asked Woad blearily, peering at Henry. “Oh good … and the satyr?”
Woad shook his head. “He was evil,” he explained.
“The satyr was not evil; he was not himself. It was Moros all along,” Robin said. “Phorbas, the real one, is trapped within his knife. All will be explained, but later.”
Karya looked at him impatiently. “I want a full report here. What do you mean? What’s been…” She trailed off, finally looking at Robin properly.
“Scion…” she whispered. “Just as in my vision…”
“We must hurry,” Robin said to the three of them. For the first time since being hit with the shard, he felt a flicker of uncertainty. “I don’t fully understand what has happened, but I don’t think this…” He held up his pale hands, staring at them as though he hadn’t seen them before. Eddies of wind flickered between his fingers. “… I don’t think this will last.”
“Our ship crashed, remember,” Woad said. “It won’t fly without wings, Pinky.”
Robin peered up from his hands, his emerald eyes glittering at Woad.
“Oh, it will fly for me.”
* * *
Henry remembered nothing of his journey to the Isle of Winds. So his first real experience of the Netherworlde, the place he and Robin had schemed all winter to get to, did not ultimately disappoint.
Emerging from the temple and making their way through the abandoned city to find themselves on a flying mountain wreathed in an eternal golden cloud was one thing. Watching his best friend stalk down the mountainside looking like a young pagan god, and seeing him reassembling the shattered pieces of the blasted Auroracraft in a controlled whirlwind of wood and feathers was quite another.
Neither Woad nor the strange girl seemed to have the slightest compunction about climbing aboard the broken boat. Robin stood silently at the prow, looking like the most disturbing figurehead Henry had ever seen. He climbed aboard also, albeit gingerly. Robin lifted the splintered wingless craft into the sky and they soared away from the mountain. Henry leaned over the broken side of the boat, peering at the impossible sight of the floating island.
“So, this mountain, it just kind of floats above the ocean, then? Just like that?” he asked weakly as they passed into the vast golden cloud, the magnificent vision of the Isle of Winds disappearing into the mist.
“Yup, that’s right,” said Woad. He was sitting at Karya’s feet in the bottom of the boat, happily grinning while she absently scratched behind his ears. Karya herself had barely spoken since they had left the air shrine. She was still weak and pale, and she watched Robin’s back thoughtfully as he steered their craft through the air.
“That must be a pretty difficult piece of magic to pull off,” Henry said, as they passed out of the far side of the cloud and into the clear ocean air beyond. “To float a whole mountain like that.”
“Not really,” Robin’s strange wind-borne voice came back. “No more difficult than floating a squirrel.”
His friend may have undergone a strange and powerful transformation, but Henry knew him well enough to know that Robin was smirking.
* * *
None of them spoke much as they made their way under the night sky. Robin barely acknowledged his friends around him. He needed all his concentration to keep them flying, and the Puck, this odd other self, wasn’t very interested in them. Robin still felt like a passenger in his own body. He was just along for the ride, not driving … but maybe helping with the directions and choosing the radio stations. He smiled to himself.
The others slept as the ocean flew swiftly by below.
* * *
As dawn broke, the cliffs came into sight. Robin was feeling weaker, burning through his resources and with every passing moment he felt closer to collapse.
“Take us in down there, Robin,” Karya said, appearing at his shoulder and pointing down to a sandy inlet of beach with a rough circle of stones standing half hidden in the mist. “It’s the Janus station we saw, remember? If you can get us there, I can get us all back to Erlking.”
Robin nodded, moulding the air around them and swooping the suspended Auroracraft gracefully out of the sky.
“Are you okay?” Karya asked. “You’re looking a little less … well … spooky than you did before.”
“I’ll be fine,” he replied. “Just let me get us there.”
The Auroracraft made a reasonably graceful landing in the soft white sand. It ground to a halt not far from the circle of weathered stones marking the Janus station.
Robin gratefully dispelled the Featherbreath once they had clambered out of the boat. The Auroracraft, released from the cantrip, collapsed into a pile of clattering and useless lumber. The greatest creation of the fae’s most celebrated inventor, destined to become nothing more than anonymous driftwood.
Robin’s eyes blurred, and a wave of dizziness stole over him. Karya grabbed his arm, steadying him as best she could.
“What’s wrong with Superboy?” Henry asked, his face worried. “Rob, your horns, they’re kind of fading away.”
“The power is leaving him,” Karya explained, as Henry shouldered Robin’s weight from the other side. Together they carried him with difficulty through the loose sand toward the stones in
the cliff’s shadow.
Woad had scampered on ahead and was running from rock to rock, slapping the stones and bringing the Janus station into operation.
“Not bad really,” Karya said, grunting under Robin’s weight. His head was lolling on her shoulder, utterly spent, almost unconscious. “For a hornless wonder, at least.”
Robin heard their voices, far off and muffled. The sunlight around him seemed too bright, bouncing up off the sand. I’m going to pass out, he thought to himself. So very, very tired. The godlike feeling was gone. His vision blurred and he just had time to think about how un-heroic it would be if he threw up all over himself.
“There’s a light coming out of his chest,” he heard Henry say, worry in his voice. “I’m pretty sure that’s not normal. What’s happening to him?”
If Karya replied, Robin didn’t hear her.
Chapter Twenty Five –
The Beginnings
The room was huge and pitch black. Robin couldn’t see a thing around him.
“You did well, Robin,” a voice came softly from somewhere in the darkness.
”Who are you?” he asked. “Where am I?”
“Hidden,” came the reply. “For now at least. You need to rest, Robin. You have taken on a great deal of late.”
“I feel fine,” Robin replied, blinking uselessly in the utter blackness. It was true.
“Of course you do,” said a second voice. “But then you are dreaming after all.”
“I like it here,” Robin decided. “It’s peaceful. Can I stay with you?”
“Of course not,” said the first voice, not unkindly. “You’re not really here anyway. You have places to go and much to do.”
“Sorry about that,” the second voice added, not sounding very sorry at all. “There is so much to do.”
“And less time than once we had,” the first voice agreed.
A third voice suddenly came out of the darkness.
“Snakes and ashes, Robin! Are you going to sleep the day away? You’ll be late for school, you know.”