by James Fahy
The nymph nodded. “I did,” she agreed, looking down at him. “But now I work for you. You can trust me, Scion of the Arcania.” She held out her hand. “Do you trust me?”
Robin found, against all odds, that he did. He opened his hand, and let her take the Shard, and a moment later she was gone, and he slipped into blackness.
* * *
Robin floated. It was peaceful and still. The sound of soft water lapped nearby, and he had the sensation that he was lying on a floating piece of ice in a dark, still and silent sea, black water under a black and starless sky. The sense of great space all around him made him breathe heavily, filling his lungs. He could stay here forever. It was so dark and quiet. But he didn’t feel entirely alone. Somewhere out there, countless miles away, another figure was floating silently on the dark ocean with him, and they were the only two beings in the entire world. He knew this in the implausible yet completely certain way one does in dreams. Despite the distance and the calm sense of isolation. They were connected, the two of them. Was that a bad thing? He lay there breathing peacefully, trying to make his mind up.
In the end he decided not to decide. It wasn’t important. Not yet. Maybe it would be one day, but there was an awful lot of dark water between here and there, and hardly any current. Time enough for that.
My mana stone was my mother’s. Not just similar. Her very own, he thought to himself, in a calm, wondering tone. It was an oddly comforting thought. Like having a piece of her with him. And it’s the only one. The only one in the world.
In the vast gaping blindness of the sky overhead, something monumental passed above him. Bigger than the sky itself, silent and slow. He couldn’t see it, it was darkness against darkness, but he could feel it up there. Vast and unknowable. And it was interested in him. Golden eyes and the smell of Italian leather.
“You best wake up, Robin my boy.”
It was Gran’s voice, soft and kind, and playful as it had always been. He didn’t really hear it, he knew that. It was only in his head. But it made him smile all the same. “If you don’t wake up,” she said, “it’s going to melt.”
He wondered if she meant the ice he floated on. It was blessedly cool against his skin. But he supposed she was right. It was time to go back. And anyway … the other one, out there somewhere in the quiet, unfathomable blackness, was thinking the same.
* * *
“Scion!”
“Rob mate, come on.”
“Pinky? Really, it’s going to melt if you don’t.”
Robin opened his eyes blearily and looked around. He was sitting, propped up against a tree. It was sunset, the sky above him was threaded with gold and red, a wash of burnished amber which poured over hills and down to the great lake. He had been moved. They were much nearer the populated area of the loch here. Close to a group of picnic tables. All the tourists seemed to have gone home for the evening as the light failed, and the landscape around was peaceful and beautiful. Standing or sitting around him were his tutor, Calypso, Henry, still looking as though he had been dragged through a hedge backwards and then half drowned, and impossibly, Karya and Woad. Alive and well and not remotely killed by an evil army.
Woad, who squatted on the balls of his feet on the grass between Robin’s splayed legs, was eagerly holding up an ice cream cone, right under his nose. It was covered in sprinkles. It had a chocolate flake in it.
“Told you that would wake him up,” the small blue boy grinned, looking around at the others. “Come on, it’s melting. Henry got it from the man in the musical van just before he drove off for the night. There’s only us here now.”
Robin took the ice-cream from the faun with unsteady hands. Karya, who was looking down at him with folded arms, actually smiled a little, grudgingly.
“You’re really here?” Robin asked, sitting up properly. His head hurt a lot, and he was still woozy. He looked around at the setting sun and the deserted lake. The only things now on the calm surface were birds. “How long have I been out? How are you here?”
He was so relieved to see them, he leaned forward groggily and grabbed Woad in a fierce hug that was half headlock. The faun struggled. “Oi, leave off!” he yelped. “That ice cream is freezing! Are you mad?” He scuttled away, hiding behind Karya’s legs cautiously. “Is he mad? Did snapping a Shard snap his mind, like you said it might?” He was looking up at Calypso.
The nymph shook her head softly. In the setting sun, her pale hair looked afire. “He appears to be fine. He is made of stern stuff indeed. It seems, Robin Fellows, that you found your guts after all.”
Robin demanded an explanation, and Henry demanded he eat something first. It was the best thing, he said, when you’d hit your head or had a funny spell, according to his dad. Robin hadn’t technically done either of these things but, he reasoned, being possessed by half a Shard of the Arcania and morphing into a young ice god for a while probably amounted to the same thing ultimately as ‘a funny spell’.
So, Robin sat on the grass, feeling surreal and eating his ice cream, while they explained what had happened.
Calypso told how she had been at Erlking, with his aunt and Mr Drover, who were both tremendously worried by the way, when she had felt Henry use his boon. A boon from a nymph is a service that cannot be refused, she had told them. Henry had called for a weapon, and so a weapon he had got. And when Robin had later called for help, he must have been thinking about Calypso, as she had found herself dragged to him, immediately and without argument.
She folded her arms here. “And a good job you did call me too,” she said. “When I found you, and your human friend told me what had happened with the Shard, how my old homeland was under siege, I knew I needed to go. I had promised myself I would never return, knowing I would be turned away.” She shrugged. “But with the Shard fragment, I knew I would have the power to help, whether they wanted my help or not.”
“She left me with you and disappeared off up into the mountains,” Henry said. “You were out for so long, Rob, I thought you’d slipped into a coma or something.”
Calypso explained how there was a Janus station, not fifteen miles from here, up in the Scottish mountains. Only a small back and forth, but once in the Netherworlde, with Henry’s directions, she could use Janus after Janus to get to the army camp of Ker, now deserted, and into the valley of the Undine.
“Of course, Ker hadn’t left the pass completely unguarded,” she said lightly. “There were a contingency of centaurs blocking the way. Presumably to stop anyone from escaping.”
“What did you do?” Robin asked the delicate sylph-like woman. She shrugged.
“I killed them, of course,” she said lightly. “And then I took back the valley.”
“We saw her from the tree,” Karya said. “The army of Ker had routed the valley. They couldn’t get into the tree itself, and any fires they set, and they tried plenty, the tree didn’t burn. It’s ice after all, and old … old ice. We were reasonably safe in the boughs, but it was just a matter of time before they breached the doors.”
“They had strong Mancers,” Woad nodded. “Dark magic, smells like fish guts. And that scary man, the one like a dark crow with a demon’s face. He was stronger than any other. He made my head hurt, even all the way up in the tree.”
Karya told Robin how Calypso, using the power of the Shard, had commanded the great lake. Flooding the entire valley, end to end, cliff-face to cliff-face, with powerful white water. She had washed the army off its feet and swept them out of the valley.
“The water came up so high,” Woad said, impressed. “Almost to the lower branches of the big tree, it was like the end of the world, Pinky. The sky full of the Peacekeepers’ fire, and the whole world below churning like a furious ocean!”
“They’re all gone then? Dead?” Robin wanted to know.
“The centaurs who didn’t escape, yes, and the horde of Peacekeepers, but they are just mana made solid. Ker will make more, though it will take a long time for him to gather hi
s strength again.” Karya frowned. “Ker and Strife escaped. And the Wolf. Flew off on skrikers. We didn’t know what happened to the other Grimm. We had no idea that she was with you in the human world.”
Calypso explained how once the valley was emptied, and the waters drained away, she had filled the entrance canyon, where the Undine’s barrier had stood, with solid ice. “Stronger than stone or steel, and half a mile thick. No one will get through there again in a hurry.”
“Not that there’s any reason to, now,” Karya observed. “The Shard was never at Hiernarbos anyway. It was here, in the human world all along. And now … well, now it’s gone. There’s no reason for Eris to bother with the Undine, not for a while at least. She will have more pressing matters to attend to. Peryl will present her with half a Shard.”
“But we have the other half,” Calypso said, holding it out to Robin. The pulsing energy and flickering light had gone. It looked like a large and innocent crystal now, the size of a dagger. Robin took it carefully from her.
Robin peered at his tutor. “I thought nymphs were only concerned with themselves,” he said thoughtfully. “Hardly in keeping, throwing yourself on a dangerous rescue mission against the forces of Eris to save my friends. I think you care more than you let on.” He smiled.
“I care about remaining at Erlking,” Calypso told him. “Ultimately the safest place for me. If you and your friends were dead, it’s likely your aunt may end my engagement. That’s all.”
Robin wasn’t entirely sure he believed her.
“And here we are,” Woad said grinning. “All of us.”
“Not all of us,” Robin said, looking out to the water.
Karya looked grim. Silence covered the company for a moment as they all stared out at the deceptively placid lake. In the sunset, it was a bowl of liquid bronze.
“Henry told us, about Jackalope, what happened. He made bad choices. Fear can do that. Is he still … is he still down there? Under the water?” She hugged her arms a little, looking pensive.
“I don’t know,” Robin admitted. “I saw Peryl leave. She was as full of the Water Shard’s mana as I was. She used Waterwings and hightailed it out of there as it collapsed, same as me. She was too far away. Last I saw of Jack’s body, it was in the tomb as it flooded.”
He looked down at his hands.
“There’s something else,” Robin remembered. The small locked box was at his side. He patted the lid. “I don’t know what this is,” he said. “But something tells me Aunt Irene is going to be very interested in the contents.”
* * *
Aunt Irene was indeed very interested.
With Karya’s help, and many a tear, and searching of Janus stations, Robin and the others eventually made their way home, back to Erlking Hall.
His aunt, along with Mr Drover and Hestia, were all waiting to meet them as they finally walked up the steps in the middle of night and into the candlelit entrance hall.
Robin had never been more grateful to be home as he stepped inside. He was exhilarated about the Shard, relieved about the saving of the Undine valley, and still numb from Jackalope’s death. But mainly, more than anything else, he was tired and wanted to be home.
Erlking seemed so warm and welcoming. His aunt’s expression, however, was frosty and stern. She stood in the entrance hall with her hands clasped before her, back ramrod straight, appraising them all as they entered in their rather sheepish manner. Mr Drover, by her side, had no such self-restraint. As soon as he saw Henry, the large man rushed forward, looking furious, and for one moment as he descended on the boy, Robin thought he was going to give his son a hefty clout around the ear, he looked so angry. Instead, he dropped to his knees and pulled a startled Henry into a tight hug, squeezing the life out of him. At the same time, he set of a gruff tirade of chastisement about how stupid he had been to go off alone into the Netherworlde and how worried they had been. Henry looked terribly embarrassed, his arms pinned to his sides as his father squeezed the life affectionately out of him. Karya and Woad both stood nearby, looking travel-weary and awkward, until Mr Drover looked up and suddenly lunged for them too, pulling them both down to their shock and surprise into a large group hug. Woad cackled helplessly. Karya looked mortified.
Robin didn’t think that Aunt Irene looked beside herself with joy. In fact, the only person beside her was Hestia, who was shooting murderous looks with her little black hedgehog eyes at Calypso. The nymph, as usual, paid her no attention. Robin was guessing that Hestia still hadn’t forgiven her for the freezing incident, however temporarily, in the corridor upstairs. He doubted it had done anything to thaw relations between the two.
“Welcome home, my ward,” Aunt Irene said formally. “I see that you are not dead.” She nodded, a little awkwardly.
Robin opened his mouth to begin to apologise to her, but she raised her hand to silence him. “Understand this, Robin,” she said, strictly. “For leaving Erlking without my permission, I am … furious.” She lowered her hand. “However, I am given to understand that you made this decision based on sound advice, and with the blessings at the time of your tutor.” Her steely eyes flicked for a second to the nymph and back to Robin.
“And given that before I departed, I gave you strict and explicit instructions to follow the advice and instruction of your tutor, I see that technically, you were only doing exactly what I told you to do.” Her eyes softened a little. “So, the person I am furious with is not you. It is myself.”
She bade Robin to follow her from the great entrance hall and into a side study, which he did, trailing apprehensively in the wake of her silk skirts. He closed the doors behind him, cutting them off from the others. “I am, however, appalled to hear that you have been in such danger. I am, at the same time, immensely proud that you overcame every challenge you met and most importantly, you managed not to be killed or to lose even a single limb.” She sat at her desk and indicated for Robin to sit opposite her. He did so without a word. His instinct told him that silence was the best course of action right now. “I am also worried, that Eris has half a Shard of the Arcania in her possession, and at the same time, I am greatly overjoyed that we have the other half.” She sighed, steepling her fingers under her chin and peering at Robin for several long seconds over the rim of her half-moon spectacles.
“In short, then, and to summarise: I am furious, understanding, worried, relieved, appalled, proud and overjoyed. All at once.” She sighed, rubbing at the bridge of her nose and replacing her half-moon spectacles. “If this is what parents feel like most of the time, then I am glad, my young ward, that I never had any children of my own.”
Robin couldn’t suppress a small smile.
She smiled a little too. The tiniest twitch in the corners of her mouth. Her eyes, as ever, were sharp as diamond, but there was something in them. Pride perhaps. “Welcome home, Robin Fellows. You immensely brave fool.”
Robin slept for almost a full day and night. So too, he learned later, did Henry and Karya. Woad was eager to check on Inky, who he discovered to his relief, had been fed and cared for by Mr Drover, who’d had the sense to keep the kraken’s existence secret from Hestia.
Before long they felt more themselves, and had been fed back to health, rather aggressively, by the muttering housekeeper, who kept complaining that they had all gotten shamefully thin on their travels, despite Robin pointing out several times that it had only been a couple of days. She seemed not to hear him, pushing more plates of sausage rolls at them during every meal, accompanied by murderous oaths that she was most certainly not going to have anyone accuse her of not feeding the people of Erlking properly. Nobody would bring such shame on Old Hestia, least of all thoughtless, reckless children.
When they’d had sufficient time to rest and recuperate, Aunt Irene gathered them all in the library. She stood at one of the great tables, having cleared the cluttered surface of books, as though giving a presentation. Robin, Henry, Karya and Woad were arrayed around her, a faint echo of the S
idhe-Nobilitas. The new generation of Erlking’s guardian knights.
Calypso sat in the corner, reading peacefully in a sunbeam, as though she didn’t seem particularly interested in the proceedings. On the table before them, resting tantalisingly under Irene’s hands, was the locked box.
“The Water Shard of the Arcania…” Irene said to them all, “was a wondrous find. A true triumph to add to our arsenal. The enemies of Eris are in a stronger position than ever before. I understand it came with a high price.” Robin stared at the tabletop, thinking of Jackalope, and how the ice had stained pink beneath him, down in the tomb.
“Power always does,” Irene said, not unkindly. She indicated Robin. “With the agreement of Robin here, I have placed our fragment in safe keeping, along with the Air Shard we already own. It may prove very useful in the future.” She shrugged. “It may not. The important thing is that Eris does not have it. Not all of it anyway.” She drummed her fingers on the lid of the box.
“That is not why I asked you all here. As you know, since the beginning of the summer, I have been engaged, with the help of Karya here, in the attempted translation of an ancient script. How this script first came into my possession in the first place is important in itself, but it is a tale for another, later time.” She eyed them all carefully. “The important thing is to know what it was, and why we needed it.”
“The scrap was part of a letter, so I believed, and my belief proved true, written by Queen Titania herself, once ruler of the Netherworlde, to one of her most trusted advisors, Robin’s father, Wolfsbane Truefellow. It was written in a very ancient script. One which only a select few, even back then, were privy to understand. And for good reason. My sources and investigations proved correct. If we are to ever to best Eris … If ever we are to end her reign and reunite the Arcania, freeing the Fae and the rest of the Netherworlde from her tyranny … It is essential that we discover two important things.”
“What things?” Karya asked.
“Firstly,” Irene said. “Why did Titania and Oberon, at the height of the war, when everything hung in the balance, disappear? And of equal importance, where did they go?”