The Drowned Tomb (The Changeling Series Book 2)

by James Fahy

  Henry’s father, who gleefully interpreted ‘summer holidays’ as ‘free labour workforce’, was constantly ready to find things for idle hands to do, and so the two boys were roped into countless chores. Weeding flowerbeds, cutting down straggling ivy, dislodging birds’ nests from the chimneys of all the empty spare bedrooms, even repainting the large black wrought iron gates at the bottom of the long sweeping avenue which marked the entrance to Erlking’s grounds. It was exhausting work, day by day, but also strangely satisfying.

  The afternoons which they had free were spent lazing in the long grass under Erlking’s trees, enjoying the play of the dappled summer sun on their faces and generally enjoying the weather. Woad taught both the boys how to cartwheel properly on the front lawns, and other such important life skills. The faun, who naturally spent most of his time out of doors anyway, had actually gained a summer tan in the passing weeks, and his skin was a deep cobalt blue. Inky the kraken, beloved unconditionally, accompanied him everywhere he went.

  On the few occasions when they could occasionally tempt Karya into breaking out of her solitude and joining them, the four companions inevitably ended up in the sunny library. Karya taught Robin how to play chess, although Erlking’s board seemed to contain centaurs instead of knights, and an unfamiliar neutral piece which either player could choose to control every third turn.

  Karya explained this chess-piece was called Fate, and could go wherever it wanted on the board. There was another piece usually, she explained, called Chance, but it appeared to have gone missing.

  She hadn’t made much headway on her translation. All she had discovered further was that the handwriting was female, and something about Pax, high tongue for peace.

  None of them, even Aunt Irene, seemed any closer to solving the odd riddle on the cylinder. She had advised them all to leave that matter to her, and the steward of Erlking was frequently away for days at a time. Whether she was abroad in the human world or the Netherworlde, Robin wasn’t sure. She consulted no one and came and went as she pleased without explanation, as was her way.

  Robin suspected that Karya’s lack of progress was something of a sore point for the girl. He tried not to bring it up. She was such a proud sort. She, likewise, didn’t pester him about his lessons or progress with the Tower of Water. Weeks had passed since their spat over Robin’s family history, and both of them were eager to keep the peace. He hadn’t brought up the matter of the Fae Guard again. There was too much else to do.

  One balmy evening, when the sky was the same deep shade as Woad, and stars were just beginning to peek out in the clearest of summer skies, they were all gathered together in Karya’s room. This sacred space, aside from Woad, was usually considered off limits for the large part. She had emerged earlier that day and found Robin, Henry, and Woad in the process of raiding Hestia’s larder while the housekeeper was engaged elsewhere. Looking rather frazzle-haired, tired and hopeful, she had asked if they wanted a night-time feast. Robin thought perhaps she was going a little stir crazy cooped up all the time, and he agreed. A little amiable company couldn’t hurt.

  They had smuggled as much food and drink as possible to Karya’s room and enjoyed an evening picnic on the floorboards. The food had been good, in that way only illicitly obtained snacks are. Plus, there had been the added excitement that Hestia might find out and possibly explode from the double scandal of having her storehouse pilfered and also the unthinkable presence of boys in a girl’s room.

  The food had long since been reduced to crumbs. Henry was lying on his back by the unlit fireplace, reading comics by candlelight, and Woad perched on the end of Karya’s bed, singing a lilting song to Inky in a soft high voice. It was actually quite soothing and melodic, as long as one was careful enough not to listen too closely to the words themselves, which seemed to be a lot about old battles, impaling and dismembered vanquished foes. Occasionally the kraken’s tiny beak would break the surface of the water in the jar and it would cluck happily like an excitable chicken, reaching out a tiny tentacle to wrap around Woad’s thumb.

  Robin, drowsy in the best possible way from too much food and drink, stood and stretched, and wandered out of the open French doors to Karya’s balcony where the girl was standing, leaning against the railings and looking out into the night.

  “Is this your idea of being sociable then?” he joked, joining her and peering down at the dark gardens below. Crickets were beginning to chirp in the twilight. “Not that it hasn’t been lovely. But how come you’re out here on the balcony?”

  He glanced sidelong at her. Her amber eyes were narrowed and thoughtful as she stared out across Erlking’s domain and to the dark tree line beyond. “Something’s happening out there,” she said quietly.

  He looked at her, curious.

  “It’s all quiet here, which don’t get me wrong, Scion, is still a refreshing change for me, but there are things going on.” She pursed her lips. “I can feel it in my bones.”

  “Things happening?” he followed her gaze. “What, in the forest?” he asked.

  She nudged him with her elbow. “Idiot. No. Out in the world. This one and the Netherworlde. While we are here in Erlking, the agents of Eris are on the move.”

  “The Grimms?” Robin felt goosebumps rise on his arms, despite the warm evening air.

  “Yes. It’s all tied up with Tritea and her Shard. This hidden tomb of hers, the lost valley of the Undine, I don’t know.” She shrugged in irritation. “We’re here grasping at straws, Irene is guessing at riddles we cannot solve, while you train as best you can, and all the while, the Grimms are searching too. They’re looking for a way to find the Undine Valley, to get to the Shard.”

  “What makes you so sure?” he asked, as she tucked a stray lock of wild hair behind her eyes.

  “I overheard your aunt and Mr Drover talking yesterday,” she confided. “I didn’t intentionally eavesdrop,” she added conscientiously. “I was passing by your aunt’s study and the door happened to be open a crack. I caught some of what they said.”

  Robin felt it prudent not to point out that Aunt Irene’s private study was the last door at the end of an otherwise doorless corridor in Erlking, and therefore not the kind of place one would happen to ‘pass by’.

  “And?” he prompted. He had lowered his voice. Talking about the Grimms had that effect on people.

  “Your aunt was mentioning that it had happened again,” Karya said. “She had seen it in the newspaper, and Mr Drover agreed. He had seen it too. Another unexplained death in a hotel room.”

  “A death?” Robin’s eyebrows raised. Karya flicked her eyes to him. “They were saying this is the fourth one in six weeks. All reported in different cities, all only covered by local newspapers, as there was nothing particularly suspicious in any of them. No signs of foul play or anything. Not the sort of thing one would link together, unless you were looking for a pattern. Your aunt is the kind of woman who notices these things however. Patterns and happenings.”

  “Four people have died?” Robin was still confused.

  The girl nodded. “So they were saying. I didn’t catch everything they were discussing. As I say, I wasn’t eavesdropping.”

  “No, well, of course,” Robin agreed supportively.

  “Always shabby hotels, always where there has been a single guest, someone staying alone. And never anything you could actually pin murder on. So far in Bradford, Leeds, Huddersfield and Manchester. Your aunt and Mr Drover are convinced it’s the Grimms. Moving from city to city in the human world.”

  “Doing what? Killing lonely people who happen to be staying in hotels?” Robin asked.

  Karya shrugged. “Only as a by-product, sadly.” she said. “Your aunt believes they are searching the cities. Looking high and low for something. The Grimms are not the kind of people who ‘blend in’, Scion. You’ve seen them. If they are roaming human cities, they will use a base of operations, and they can hardly check into the Savoy with a MasterCard. Much simpler for them to targ
et a long term hotel resident, someone with few ties, someone who won’t be missed immediately. Kill them, hole up in their hotel room while they do whatever they do, before moving on.”

  Robin was chilled. “That’s horrible,” he said. “Killing people just to use their rooms. Sounds a bit…”

  “Grim?” She smiled darkly. “They wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over it, Scion. Trust me. I know them all.”

  “So what does Aunt Irene think they are looking for in all these cities?”

  “The same thing we are,” she replied. “The hidden Janus station that will lead to Hiernarbos.”

  She drummed her fingers on the balcony railing. “The worrying thing is that they are being methodical. Why the cities? They clearly know something we don’t. They seem to have a starting point at least. Eris has a lot more sources that we do, although I think we still just have the upper hand, thanks to your grave-robbing find. I think it’s worrying your aunt. It’s why I’ve been keeping to myself, trying to figure out that bloody translation. There’s something bigger at stake here, Scion. I know it.”

  “But like you said, we have the cylinder, they don’t,” he said, trying to cheer her up.

  She looked at him wearily with a half-smile. “The cylinder we can’t open,” she said. “Not by any one of the roughly seven thousand magical and non-magical ways we’ve tried to far.”

  “Not yet,” he countered.

  Behind them in the cosy, dimly lit room, Woad’s high voice floated out as he started another loving ballad of warfare.

  “This isn’t Strife,” Karya confided. “It doesn’t sound like him. He’s opportunistic and cruel, he’s a knife in the ribs in a dark alley that one. But this? The casual killing, the moving from place to place. It’s too methodical for him. I think it’s Ker.”

  “Who’s Ker?” Robin frowned.

  “A member of the Grimms you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet, and don’t want to, believe me.” She shuddered. “If Strife is an assassin then Ker is a general. He is both relentless, humourless and merciless. Eris’ juggernaut. Not really a big thinker. He sits over the army of all Eris’ forces. He’s in charge of the Peacekeepers, all of them.”

  Robin had heard of the Peacekeepers, Eris’ army.

  “In fact, the only part of her military that Ker doesn’t control are the Ravens. Those are Eris’ absolute finest, like your world’s SAS I suppose, and they come under another’s command.” She turned and set her back to the railing of the balcony, resting on her elbows and looking back into her room. “If Ker has been set this task, then it means that Eris is planning something large. Something military. I believe they mean to lay full siege to Hiernarbos. To take the Shard from the Undine there by force, once they find it. It will be a massacre.”

  “This Ker chap sounds charming.” Robin made a face, trying not to look as concerned as he felt.

  “He isn’t,” Karya said in a steely voice. “Ker would skin you alive and tan your flesh into a cloak if he was cold. Without blinking. He had odd hobbies. He collects creatures, and quite literally takes them apart to see how they work. He would chop off your legs and drag you on a chain back to Dis to avoid having to worry about your running away. Ker wouldn’t bat an eye at tearing off—”

  “Okay! I get the picture.” Robin swallowed. “Enough imagery. I get it. Ker is bad.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “And he’s out there in the world trying to beat us to a Shard it seems.”

  She nodded.

  “So what can we do?” he asked.

  Karya shrugged, an odd movement in her large, shaggy coat. “We can keep doing what we are doing. Only quicker and better.” She pointed at him. “You need to get your head around the Tower of Water. Or your guts, or your bladder, or whatever.” She rolled her eyes. It was no secret that Karya was not hugely enamoured with Calypso’s somewhat hazy teaching style. “As for me, I have to get something from this translation. I think it’s the keystone to what your Aunt Irene is after.”

  “Well, we are trying,” Robin said. “We’re doing our best.”

  The girl pulled her coat around her a little tighter, her mouth set. “Yes, I know. That’s partly what concerns me.” She frowned at him. “Because the Grimms are doing their best too. And their best is better.” She glanced into her room, the peaceful sanctuary of Erlking. In the cosy and cracking candlelight they could see Woad, still crooning to his kraken, and Henry, who appeared to have fallen asleep on the floor with a comic over his face. Karya gazed into her small but precious room. There was sweet pea weaved carefully in twining vines along the headboard of the bed. She’d placed it there herself, though she hadn’t told anyone and the three boys had been wise enough not to comment on it.

  “We have so much to lose,” she said quietly.

  THE PORTRAITS

  A week later and Henry had gone, sent off for an annual two-week holiday with a distant aunt down in Dorset. He had tentatively asked if Robin might be allowed to come as well, but both his father and Robin’s aunt had insisted that Erlking was the only safe place for Robin at present.

  Robin had felt it slightly unfair that he was possibly the only person in the country who didn’t get a break from studies, but given that innocent strangers were occasionally being killed by a shadowy and sinister organisation who wanted nothing more than to get their hands on him, he could hardly argue with their logic. He stoically sent Henry off with best wishes, and strict instructions to bring back treats.

  Woad and Karya remained at Erlking, of course, but it wasn’t the same without Henry. Between his lessons, where he was making painfully slow progress, he found himself wandering around a lot on his own, taking the opportunity to explore Erlking.

  If there was one thing he had learned living here, it was that there was always something new to be discovered. Especially when fleeing the attentions of an enraged housekeeper. Woad had temporarily lost sight of Inky this afternoon, and it had taken the two boys a solid hour of following black spattered trails through the house before they finally located him nestled quivering inside a trophy in a silverware cabinet. Hestia had discovered the stains and mess and was on the warpath, so Woad had made himself scarce, disappearing into the woods, kraken in hand, to his secret pool or wherever he went all day. Leaving Robin to turn his attention to the upper reaches of the hall.

  Robin had never really been in the upper attics before, but he could barely hear Hestia’s hysterical shrieks from up here, so it was a good place to be at present.

  It was here that he stumbled upon a large dusty room with no furniture at all. It had a closed up, abandoned feeling and the door was slightly warped, so that he had to lean his shoulder against it and jolt it open. Every one of the windows of the room beyond was covered with a large dustsheet, making the air gloomy and muted. A stillness and hush lay over the place as he closed the door behind him, thankful of the quiet and rubbing kraken ink stains off his hands onto his jeans. The attic room was also filled to the brim with dozens of stored statues. Many of them were covered in white storage sheets, looking like very poor Halloween ghost costumes. There were human figures, carved from stone and marble, as well as satyrs, fauns, centaurs, lions and several extremely ugly gargoyles. Many of the statues seemed to be damaged in one way or another. There was a stone satyr broken in several places and cast forlornly in chunks under a dust sheet on the floor. Other sculptures were missing arms or heads. Wandering quietly amongst them was like being in a very crowded party filled with silent people, giving Robin the creeps. He couldn’t help but notice that many of the humanoid figures had horns nestled in their curly marble hair, like ram horns, and that their ears were sharply pointed and tapered. Robin wondered to himself if these were statues of the Fae. Statues of his people. Several of them seemed to have his nose, or his cheekbones or chin. He had only ever met one actual Fae before. A wild and hunted creature named Hawthorn, who had helped them in the Netherworlde. He had sported horns too. It was odd for Robin, to be standing here in t
his quiet room surrounded by his people. Once, long ago, Erlking, the Netherworlde side of it at least, would have been filled with them. Now he was the last Fae at Erlking. The last Fae he knew of. Alone in a room of silent effigies.

  After that, he fell into the habit, quite unconsciously, of checking his head every night after his bath, for signs of sprouting horns.

  It was late one night a few days later, after Robin had taken a bath in the large room with mosaics of a giant kraken feeding on shoals of wild mermaids, that he stumbled across the paintings.

  He had dried his hair, feeling exhausted but relaxed, having checked for horns as always (still none). It had been a busy day of practical casting all morning. He could now at least move water from one end of the row of cups to the other, and his Needlepoint ice spears were actually solid and clear most of the time. He was exhausted from the day’s exertions and ready for bed.

  Robin didn’t know if it was his tiredness that caused him to get lost or if Erlking had just rearranged itself again. Sometimes the place seemed to react to a person’s mood. Whichever it was, he somehow got lost on the short, straight route from the bathroom to his tower. He found himself standing in an unfamiliar corridor, wrapped snugly in an old robe which smelled faintly but not unpleasantly of mothballs. He stood, wide-eyed, all tiredness vanished, staring at the corridor. Every inch of is long walls was covered with portraits. Some large, some small, all arranged seemingly haphazardly on the tapestried wall so that there was barely an inch of dark velvety wallpaper to show between their heavy cluttered frames. There must have been hundreds of paintings.

  As he made his slow way along, scanning the pictures with interest, he noticed that all of them, every single portrait, were Fae. Most of the figures were finely dressed, like courtiers. Many of the women had elaborate makeup around their eyes, colours which swirled down around their cheekbones or up over their brows like ink or feathers, so at first he had thought they were wearing carnival masks, like you saw the tourists wearing in Venice. Yet for all their variance and riot of colour, they all shared similar features. The figures in each portrait had straight noses, high cheekbones and long oval eyes. Their ears were tall and pointed and stuck out from their heads rather decoratively, and they all had horns of some kind, curled and close to their heads. Some of them had two horns, some as many as six. Long and short, curled and curved, decoratively entwining one another. Like the statues he had discovered earlier, they looked oddly natural to Robin, and he realised, as he made his way quietly along the dimly lit gallery, that he was looking at actual Fae. Not artistic statues, but portraits of real Fae who had once lived.