Shae turned to Hope and said, “One of those shiny, fancy black monsters.”
Gen looked at her, confused.
Hope shrugged. “I was about to ask what a prap was.”
Gen nodded and turned to Thirin. “What makes an arrival become a pixie, rather than a fairy? Or come here rather than some other Realm, or whatever you call them in The Void?”
“Come on,” Thirin said. “Let’s head back to the settlement.” He turned and walked out of the cave. The fairies followed. He continued, “Again, it’s all shrouded in legend. How does your culture tell you fairies come to be?”
“When a human laughs for the first time,” Shae said, “that joyous energy bursts into the Realms and forms into a fairy.”
Thirin nodded. “Our tales are similar. But it’s not just any human. Humans whose senses are warped, humans whose minds are twisted, whose spirit doesn’t form its energy from a place of joy.”
Gen stopped short. “Oh my god.”
The others stopped and turned to her, asking if she was okay, what was wrong.
Gen looked at Hope. “My mom. Slynn.”
Thirin cocked an eyebrow curiously at Gen.
“My mother has manic depression. Bipolar disorder.”
He shook his head, not understanding.
“It’s a mental illness. Like, her brain doesn’t make the right chemicals or can’t process the right signals or something like that. She’s been in the hospital for it a few times.” Gen’s knees shook. She worried that her legs might give out in a moment. She sat down hard on a squat stone mushroom. “That’s how he knew her quote. It’s his quote, too. Fuck.”
-
“How was your new arrival?” Jeegan asked.
“Successful,” Slynn answered. “I brought her to the trainers. She’s strong. Willful. She’s a fighter.”
“Exactly the type we need.” Jeegan was pacing and his projection looked like it was marching and spinning in place over the reflecting pool. He stopped and turned back to Slynn. “There’s a change of plans.”
“Master?”
“Don’t hold them for five more days. Release them tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“And I’m going to need your new arrival and all of your pixies who are ready to fight immediately, sooner rather than later.”
“Need them for what?”
Jeegan leveled his gaze on Slynn and narrowed his eyes. “I require every able-bodied pixie who is ready to fight to come to The Black Plains immediately. We are progressing with our plan and sending our forces into the Realms.”
Slynn frowned. “We haven’t heard her answer yet.”
“I don’t care about her answer.”
“You had me give her a choice.”
Jeegan huffed. His patience was obviously thinning. “Her answer was irrelevant. She wouldn't leave the Realms. I needed some time to continue putting everything in order. Now we’re gathered in The Meadows and in The Reaping. We're ready to make our move.”
Slynn started to object, but Jeegan cut him off. “Don’t let your antiquated concept of honor get in your way, Slynn. Don’t be so sentimental. I know that you’re attached to her. Honor traps you and confines you. Your enemies will show you none. Don’t expect it from them. I’m counting on you for an important part of this plan. Am I mistaken to continue to rely upon you?”
Slynn shook his head. “No, Master.”
“But you disapprove.”
“I just don’t like the dishonesty,” Slynn said. “Maybe I do have an antiquated sense of honor, but it’s guided —”
“It’s done you no favors, believe me. Once you’ve arranged the fairies’ escape, you’ll take your second and meet them in the Chamber. Stop the immortal from creating a new Heart.”
“Stop her? How?”
“However you have to,” Jeegan sneered.
“I can’t kill her,” Slynn said.
“No. But you can kill her friends. Save her lover for last. Don’t disappoint me, Slynn.”
The projection vanished and the misty gray water instantly became clear again.
Slynn screamed and threw the bottle of brandy against the wall. He seethed. Jeegan was always planning several steps ahead. Slynn had never seen anyone get the better of the Void Master or take him by surprise. But Jeegan had never demanded that Slynn do anything to violate his honor or his integrity until now, and he’d never changed his orders so abruptly.
Since that fairy – Pepper, the Reaper – had made his bargain with the Void Master, Jeegan’s normally cool, logical demeanor had become increasingly aggressive and unstable. For the first time, Slynn got the impression that Jeegan had to scramble and improvise.
Slynn reflected on the seer’s words to him this morning. It already felt to him like that talk was days ago.
“Your honor will be called into question. Follow it, and your familiar path will lead you to a new place. Ignore it, and you may take refuge in the old place. But the decision itself is forced upon you and makes either choice dangerous and unwelcoming. Honor or dishonor; new or old. You lose much whichever you choose.”
“Just as cryptic as always,” Slynn muttered. “Why do I even talk to you in the first place?”
He always felt drained and emotional after an arrival, whichever way it went, but his argument with Jeegan had shaken him. What does my honor have to do with this? Slynn wondered. Killing her friends? I’ve killed fairies before. No, he realized, this is about offering her the lie. Giving her choices where she’ll lose either way, and then ignoring the decision she makes after all. Jeegan’s right. There is something about her. I have an attachment to Genevieve. She is special.
About an hour later, Thirin knocked on the door to Slynn’s office.
“Come.”
Thirin opened the door and saw the shattered crystal decanter. Slynn didn’t turn around. He sat in a chair, facing the reflecting pool.
“Bad news?” Thirin asked.
“We’re letting the fairies go tomorrow.”
Thirin didn’t question him. “Very well.”
“Bring them here for dinner tonight.”
“All of them?”
Slynn considered. “No. Only the immortal and the Realmwalker.”
Thirin nodded. “How long do you need?”
“I don’t need to prepare. When dinner is ready, bring them.”
“Of course.”
“And,” Slynn said, “have the trainers round up all of their pupils. They’re leaving for The Black Plains today.”
Thirin looked surprised for a moment, then regained his composure. He nodded. “Of course,” he said again. “Anything else, or shall I take care of this now?”
Slynn sighed. “Now.”
Thirin excused himself and headed for the combat training hall.
Slynn stood and walked to the reflecting pool. He sat on the lip and dipped his fingers into the water. “What are you up to? Taking my guard? Threatening these fairies? Going into the Realms but not invading? What the fuck are you doing?” He flipped his hand hard through the water and made a splash, soaking his sleeve up to the elbow. He was unconcerned. He sloshed the water around some more. When he took his arm out of the pool, it was completely dry.
-
Jeegan sat and watched Slynn through his own reflecting pool. Slynn pulled his arm out of the water, looked at it for a moment, then shook his head and left his office.
“It doesn't need to be active for me to see you, you cock,” Jeegan snarled. “So sorry you're having second thoughts.”
Sage looked up from his work when Jeegan spoke. He knew better than to interrupt, but he also needed to be at attention. After these tirades was usually the time when Jeegan would need something. Sage waited attentively for a moment and when no demands came, he resumed his writing.
“Sage?”
“Master?”
“Are the arrangements complete?”
“They are.”
“Delightful. I might not be able to kill her,”
Jeegan's smile was cruel and cold, “but I'll be able to get at her where it hurts.”
-
Gen and Herron joined Slynn at the same table they sat around the day before. An impressive amount of food was brought out to them. Neither fairy acknowledged any of it.
The three of them sat in silence, long after the silence had become uncomfortable, then transitioned into a matter of pride. Slynn was determined not to break it. He would wait.
Gen was the first to speak. “I'm not leaving the Realms.”
“Of course not,” Slynn said. “How could you? It's your home. Everything you love and cherish is there.”
“Don't mock me. Don't you dare.”
Slynn looked surprised. “Don't I dare? Really? Don't I dare? Don't I dare what? Point out that you have an attachment to a place you don't belong?”
Gen's eyes narrowed to slits and her cheeks flushed.
“He's baiting you,” Herron said to Gen.
“Well, of course I am. You're uninvited guests full of self-righteous bravado. You'll fail. Whatever plan you've dreamed up will fail.” Slynn speared a piece of meat with his two-tined fork and slid it onto his plate. He picked up a dinner knife and cut off a bite. He held it in front of his mouth, then gestured with the fork at the spread of food, “Please. Eat. You'll need your strength.”
Gen swallowed hard. Apparently, her imagination got the better of her.
“Why's that?” Herron asked.
“Because tomorrow, you are free to go.”
“What?” Gen asked.
“The four of you are free to leave in the morning. You've made your decision, have you not?”
Gen nodded. “We have.”
“Very well.” Slynn took another bite. “I take it that you're refusing to leave the Realms and you're going to proceed with your original errand of reclaiming The Caverns? Or are you relenting and leaving the fairies for good?”
“I already said—”
He cut Gen off. “Yes, you already said that you weren't going to leave your new home from home. Very well. Thank you for having the courtesy to inform us in a diplomatic manner.” He continued eating. “This is really quite good. You should have some.”
Gen and Herron continued to sit, silent, plates empty.
“If you'd rather eat with your companions, I'll have some brought to your quarters.” He looked at Gen. His expression was entirely sincere. “We really don't have to be enemies, Genevieve.”
“The fuck we don't.”
“Language, please.”
Gen looked at him, clearly surprised.
Slynn tsked. “If you have to resort to an uncivil tongue, chances are you've already—”
“Lost the argument,” Gen finished for him.
Slynn nodded. “Thirin will show you to your quarters. Good night, Genevieve. Herron.” He continued eating and took no further notice of the fairies.
Thirin opened the door to the outside. “If you'll come with me, please…”
Gen and Herron followed Thirin to the house. “Please,” he bowed deeply, “Enjoy our hospitality for your last night among us. If you'll excuse me.” He turned smartly and flew away.
When Thirin returned to the dining hall, Slynn was standing next to one of the fireplaces, staring at the fire.
“She says that your counterpart is her mother,” Thirin said.
“Do you think that's true?” Slynn asked.
“I don't know. Do you?”
“I don't know.”
“You do seem powerfully drawn to her,” Thirin said.
Slynn chuckled and teased, “Are you jealous?”
Thirin shook his head. “Not at all. That wasn't what I meant. You seem familiar with her. Her well being seems to genuinely concern you. I'm just surprised. I haven't seen you take a personal interest in anyone we've had business dealings with.”
“Jeegan sent her here, to us, to me, for a reason,” Slynn explained. “Have you ever known him to do something like this without there being more to it? There's a reason he sent her here. He had a reason for telling me all of those things to say to her. Those were calculated to have impact, and the maximum impact, I think, was my delivering the news.”
“How did he know to tell you to say that to her when he started to cry?”
Slynn turned and looked at Thirin. His expression was grave. The lines around his eyes and in his forehead looked much more pronounced in the firelight. “He didn't. He didn't tell me to say it at all.”
chapter 34
Gen sat on the ground against a tree, waiting in agonizing impatience for her wounds to heal. The biggest prap in the group had taken a nasty bite out of Gen’s midsection. She dug several of the prap’s razor-sharp fangs out of the large, open wound. Her hands were sticky and from sternum to pelvis, she was drenched in blood.
A couple of hours after they'd left the petrified mushroom forest, the fairies had entered an area of wide-open savanna. The ground was mostly hard, dry, grayish dirty, but there were spots of scraggly grass and short, dried-out husks of long dead trees. The first life they had seen in the area was a group of six huge white praps. The larger, shiny white creatures could leap high into the air and the big one caught Gen around the waist.
Hope sat by Gen's side, worried and not knowing what to do. “I can wrap that. You shouldn't have a big open wound like that.”
Gen gritted her teeth. “It's fine. It'll heal up in a few minutes. I'm fine. Go do what you need to do.”
Hope was hesitant to leave her, but Gen winced and shut her eyes tight. She waved dismissively toward the bodies then hissed sharply through her teeth. Hope touched her fingers gently against Gen's hair, which made Gen flinch and groan in pain. “Sorry.”
Gen shook her head but didn't open her eyes. Hope left her and carefully extracted several arrows from the corpses.
Shae was hopping with excitement and spinning around in circles. “Did you see me? I was amazing! I killed that one! I totally killed it all by myself!” She jumped over to one of the large, shiny white creatures and kicked it in the head. “Hah! Try to bite me!”
Herron shook his head at Shae, then glanced at Gen. She was still curled up against the tree and obviously still in pain. “I'm not sure we can eat these things. No point in skinning them, and they don't really have anything on them. Let's just rest here for a bit and we'll set off again.”
Herron took a piece of paper out of his vest pocket and unfolded it. Slynn had sketched out a rough map for them before they left. Herron still wasn't entirely sure he trusted it. He didn't understand Slynn's change in attitude, going from overtly threatening when they arrived to resupplying them and even providing them with rough directions to where The Caverns landed in The Void. Shae seemed to think it was accurate and that they would find their way there, but Herron was suspicious.
Hope looked over Herron's shoulder at the map. “You think he's trying to throw us off track?”
Herron shrugged. “I really don't know.”
“Why would he help us at all? I don't understand why they let us go, or why they told us where to go.”
Herron glanced at Gen. Hope sighed and nodded. “Yeah,” she said, “there was something weird there. I guess Slynn agrees with Gen's theory about who his human is.”
“He wanted to take care of her,” Shae said. “It's obvious.”
Hope and Herron looked at her.
“Well,” she said, a little defensively, “isn't it?”
“That's my theory,” Gen said. She had walked up behind Herron and looked over his arm at the map. “But I believe him. This will get us there.”
Hope looked Gen up and down and her eyes paused on Gen's bare midriff, coated with blood but there was no sign of a wound. “You okay?”
Gen nodded. “I'm fine. It just took a long time to heal. And it hurt like a mofo.”
Hope looked confused. “A what?”
Gen laughed. “Never mind. He said two days to reach The Caverns this way. Will we still make it i
n time for the new moon, so the Chamber will be open?”
Herron calculated in his head. “It'll be close. And since we can't accurately tell the time of day, we might be some hours off. But two days, I think, puts us there the morning of the new moon.”
“They can tell what time it is,” Hope said. “How's that?”
“The pixies can see the sun and the moon in The Void,” Shae said.
“How do you know that?”
“I asked.” Shae turned suddenly to the bodies and made a disgusted face. “Ew!”
The others looked at the bodies.
“What is it?” Gen asked.
“Ugh,” Shae made a low gagging noise. “Just wait for a minute. You'll see.”
About forty seconds later, a wave of Void roaches swarmed over the bodies and feasted on the dead flesh. There was a din of rough clicking, insectoid chittering and chirping, and the liquid sound of tissue being consumed.
Gen shuddered. “Yeah. Try having one of those in your mouth.”
“In your mouth?” Shae's eyes were wide. “That's disgusting!”
Gen nodded. “Yeah. I know.” The shapes of the bodies were still visible, but steadily losing their form. Gen glanced at the piles of bugs. “Come on. Let's get out of here.”
They flew over the bleached savanna, higher this time. Herron said they couldn't go too high because he was afraid he'd miss the landmarks on the map, but they could probably be out of high jump range. As they got deeper into the savanna, they saw other forms of wildlife. There were herds of creatures that looked to Gen like a cross between greyhounds and polar bears, but with three legs: two in the front and one in the rear, looking like its two rear legs had been bound together. Every time they saw a herd of them, several of the creatures would raise their heads in alarm, alert the others with a hooting, screeching cry, and they would speed off. They were incredibly fast.
The animals stampeded away from the fairies and suddenly, the ground they ran on gave way and a tremendous, sinewy eel-like creature leaped from the hole in a graceful arc. Dirt cascaded off its body as it opened its wide, toothy mouth and swallowed several of the creatures whole, then wriggled its way back down into the hole. All four of the fairies stopped and hovered to watch the sight below them. Once the land eel was out of sight, they hard squealing and the sounds of crunching bone. They flew on.
The Void Hunters (Realmwalker Book 2) Page 24