Chains of Gaia

by James Fahy

  He nodded to Robin. “And little one, well, you’re the Scion. You’re like the grand prize in the competition right? The shiny trophy Eris wants to put on her great big mantelpiece of evil. If I was a centaur, I’d be chasing you both too.”

  Robin thought this was a fairly reasonable explanation, but Hawthorn’s furrowed brow made it clear he didn’t agree.

  “But they wouldn’t know who we were,” he argued. “Not from the distance they started chasing us. Centaurs don’t have fantastic eyesight, they’re not the brightest bulbs in the great Dis fairground. When we were sighted, all they knew was that magic had been done, and that there were four vagabonds, easy prey.”

  “So what’s your explanation then, longbow?” Woad asked.

  “Centaurs may not be big thinkers, but they are creatures of magic,” the old man reasoned. “They were, as Jackalope said, bred in the pits of Dis amongst the Shidelings. Magic flows in them and more importantly, it calls to them. For them to pursue us so far and so determinedly, they must have sensed some strong magic … old magic even. It’s like blood in the water to sharks. They wouldn’t have been able to resist.”

  The faun shrugged. “Well, I am a particularly exceptional faun,” he said humbly. “But even I admit that my cantrips are not that amazing. Even Pinky here isn’t going to win any awards when he’s not flashy shiny psycho-puck.”

  “I agree,” Hawthorn looked to Robin pointedly. “Is there anything you can think of, Robin? Something you want to share?”

  Robin was bewildered for a moment, but then Hawthorn's words, ‘old magic’, made him remember something. He almost dropped his fish.

  “What is it?” the Fae pressed, his head cocked to one side with interest.

  “Well …” Robin hesitated, but then reached for his satchel and began to rummage through it. “I had forgotten all about it, to be honest. But I brought this along too. Do you think it might have been this they could smell?”

  He pulled from his satchel the wooden mask. The treasure which Ffoulkes had spent months searching for at Erlking and had tried to steal.

  “Woad found it,” Robin explained, holding it up in the firelight. “Calypso said it was old and very powerful. Some kind of–”

  “Legendary mask of the dryads,” Hawthorn finished, wide-eyed. He leaned forward to inspect it. Robin half-expected him to take it from him for a closer look, but the old Fae made no move to touch the artefact.

  “This is the Mask of Gaia, Robin Fellows,” Hawthorn said after a few moments. He looked up at Robin, his eyes full of wonder. “This is a tremendously valuable object.”

  “We know,” Woad said lightly. “Creepy guy tried to nick it off us, to sell at the black markets. Tried to nick me too. I’m also valuable. Tremendously.”

  Robin looked down at the pale wooden eye-mask. “I don’t really know much about it,” he admitted, still wondering if this mask had been drawing the centaurs with its waves of old magic. “I was just told that it’s been lost for a long time, and it’s very … well … magical.”

  Hawthorn sat back on his haunches. “It is unique,” he said. “And it most certainly explains our dogged pursuers. This mask was gifted to the very first king of the dryads by an elemental themselves. An Elemental, Robin Fellows!”

  Robin looked a little awkward. Sometimes, being raised in the human world made him feel like the eternal new kid at school.

  “What’s an elemental?” he asked, smiling sheepishly.

  Hawthorn blinked at him emptily for a moment. “Apologies,” he said. “I forget that you know so little of our world, of your own world.” He smiled a little. “The elementals, Robin, were perhaps the most powerful entities in all the Netherworlde once. It is said they were here not only before the Panthea, but before the Fae as well. Old things. Very old. They were eternal, they were endless, and it is said that it was they who first forged the very Arcania itself. They who gifted it in the early days of the world to the Fae, and set it to the service of Oberon and Titania.”

  “There were only ever seven elementals, Pinky,” Woad explained. “I remember my bedtime stories. One for each element. They put their very essence into the Arcania when they forged it. They were like gods … or ghosts.”

  “So, where are they now?” Robin asked, the mask in his hands, possibly made by some kind of ancient god, older even than the Fae, suddenly felt heavier.

  Hawthorn spread his hands to the sky. “Gone!” he said. “All of them. Long, long gone, shortly after the Fae took ownership of the Arcania. They were never seen in the Netherworlde again. They likely never will be. Legends of Fae tell us that once they bequeathed the Arcania to us, our tool to rule and shape the world, they had no further need to be here, no further purpose, so they left.”

  “Shame really,” added Woad, “What with the Arcania shattering thousands and thousands of years later and starting a big old messy war. Would have been handy to still have them around really, wouldn’t it? They could make a new one.” He looked thoughtful. “Or maybe stick the broken one back together with … mystic … god … glue?”

  “The salient point …” Hawthorn ignored Woad, “is that each elemental is rumoured to have gifted not only the Arcania itself to the Netherworlde, but also an artefact, a tool to rule, if you will. The legendary Sword of Vulcan…the Shield of Ether…these things are myths.” He nodded to the mask.

  “As is that. The Mask of Gaia.”

  “This thing was to help people rule the world?” Robin asked. Firelight danced over the wood.

  “Legends tell that it holds the truest of sight. That it can show you the truth of a thing, of a person, a place. What better or more valuable thing is there?” His eyes glittered. “Imagine what the resistance could do with this? Knowing without a doubt who was friend or foe? It could aid us greatly against Eris.”

  “No wonder Eris’ centaurs could smell it then,” Robin said. The hungry look had come into Hawthorn's eyes again, making Robin feel a little uneasy. It was a little too reminiscent of Ffoulkes. He must have drawn back a little, holding the mask to his chest without realising he was doing so, as the older Fae looked up and caught his expression.

  His own face was hard a moment, but then it softened, and a smirk crept into his lips.

  “You need not fear my motives, Robin Fellows,” he assured him. “I want only justice for our people. For the Fae to reclaim the Netherworlde and take back our homeland. I understand however.” He indicated his own ragged appearance. “After all, what do you really know about me? I am just a wild and untamed vagabond, who shows up bleeding on your doorstep with redcaps, and offers to take you deep into the dangerous wilderness, hunting a dangerous magical monster?” He laughed a little. “Your thoughts are written on your face. Now you are wondering if this was wise? If, now that I have you far from home and out in the Netherworlde, I might try to take from you what I want?” He nodded in understanding. “You are right to suspect,” he said. “It is a wise thing, caution. Do not trust all you meet. But I swear on my former honour as a Sidhe-Nobilitas, I mean no harm to you or yours, Robin of Erlking.”

  “Why did you come with us?” Woad asked. “We’re headed straight back to where you’ve been imprisoned. You didn’t even think twice about coming.”

  “Because I know the way and you did not,” Hawthorn said simply. “And because if this monster, this scourge of the woods that we seek, if it really is in possession of a Shard of the Arcania, then Eris must not have it. That’s more important than my safety.”

  Robin felt a little guilty for his suspicions. The man had saved them all from the centaurs after all.

  “A Fae,” Hawthorn said firmly. “A true Fae, that is, will never betray another Fae to Eris.” His face darkened, becoming set in hard lines. “Nothing could be worse. There are far fewer of us in the world, Robin Fellows, than once there were.” He waved a hand. “Perhaps living amongst the Panthea at Erlking has made you suspicious. You should live amongst your own kind, then you would see.”
/>
  Robin nodded. “The Panthea at Erlking are all good people,” he said insistently.

  “As am I,” Hawthorn nodded. “Rough and unpolished, yes, but basically good.” He nodded at the mask. “And I will prove it to you. Don the mask. Look at me, Robin, son of Wolfsbane. See me as I am and as I was, and you will see there is no malice in me. Not for you, or for your friends.”

  Robin peered back down at the wooden mask, so elegantly simple, laid in his hands. Its oval, carved eye-holes, the swirl of the wood-grain, and the delicate branches swooping up to cup the forehead of the wearer. Forged by strange creatures of the Netherworlde older than even the Fae. It seemed warm in his hands. Without thinking, he nodded, lifted his hands to his face, and placed the mask across his eyes.

  Hawthorn smiled grimly at him.

  “Respice, adspice, prospice,” he said softly.

  The wood seemed to shiver and writhe, moulding to the size and shape of Robin's face perfectly to frame his eyes. He felt the questing tendrils of the carved branches come alive, snaking across his forehead and burrowing into his thick blonde hair. Curiously, he looked across at Hawthorn, sitting like an old ragged peddlar under the bruised night sky. Ghost buildings at his back and a spluttering fire at his feet.

  And then there was a flash across the boy’s vision, green and gold, and he was blinded.

  MEMORY AND MURDER

  Robin blinked rapidly, disoriented. There was a great rushing noise in his ears. Hawthorn still sat across from him, but as Robin stared, a curious thing happened. The scene began to change. The gaunt and malnourished figure of Hawthorn filled out, his hollow cheekbones and thin arms swelling with health, and the dust and dirt of the road melting away from his dark skin until it shone, the shade of honey and oak. His tangled mat of hair resolved into a crown of lustrous brown curls around shining, polished horns, and his ragged, colourless clothes, half-destroyed and weathered by his time in the wilds, blurred and were replaced with elaborate armour. It was black and red, trimmed with silver in spiralling leafy patterns. The backdrop of the campfire, of Woad, and of the night-time empty shadows of the ruined town of Briar Hill all melted away like a watercolour wash, swirling and reforming to a different place altogether.

  Robin stared wide-eyed. The hill was gone. He was in a room, bright and lavishly appointed, in broad daylight. The floor beneath him was not packed earth, but marble, and the walls around him were circular, decorated with detailed frescoes showing ancient forest hunts. High above, a ceiling of white plaster arched, from which hung an ornate decorative cauldron of gold, filled with flickering candles which made the shadows in the plasterwork above them dance.

  I’m in a tower? Robin thought, blinking and shaking his head.

  A memory, the voice of the Puck whispered in the back of his mind.

  One tall window in the encircling wall, thin and empty of glass, showed a high blue sky beyond. The stone floor was littered with thick and expensive rugs, and the air smelled faintly of soft herbs. Frankincense and candlewax.

  Robin opened his mouth to speak, and found, to his alarm, that he could not. He was utterly voiceless. Nor could he move a muscle, other than turning his field of vision a fraction to the left or right of Hawthorn. He tried to look down at his feet, feeling oddly unbalanced as he realised that he could not tell if he was sitting or standing, only to find that he had no feet, or hands. In fact, his body was entirely absent.

  I’m just observing, he thought. Like a ghost. Where are we? The room, in all its grand palatial splendour, was furnished with old pieces, but without the ability to look far from Hawthorn, he could make them out only in the blurred edges of his peripheral vision. The grand Fae, looking so strange in his noble grandeur, was sitting on a chair in this room, beside what looked to be a large bassinet.

  Somehow, Robin could feel the man’s emotions. Hawthorn was troubled, deeply worried and anxious, though he sat stoically, waiting for something.

  We’re in Erlking, Robin realised suddenly, staring at the Fae, who looked right through him, his own face lost in thought. This is Erlking before its destruction. I can feel it in Hawthorn's mind.

  The noise of a door opening behind him startled Robin, and he heard heavy boots enter the room, though, frozen as he was, he was unable to turn to see who had entered. Hawthorn leapt to his feet, bowing ever so slightly. Robin felt a mixture of relief and concern flow from the Fae.

  “You’ve returned,” he said.

  A voice behind Robin replied. It was deep and assured, but there was an undercurrent of worry in it as well. “Yes. The child? He sleeps?”

  A shiver ran through Robin’s consciousness. Hawthorn had taken a step or two toward the large and ornate crib, allowing it to come further into Robin’s fixed view.

  “He is well, Lord Truefellow,” Hawthorn said, nodding. “I have not left his side, as you instructed. None have come. He sleeps like all babies, without a care or a worry.”

  Robin knew at that moment, the man standing behind him was his father. He strained with every fibre of will to turn his non-existent head, to see him. But this vision, or whatever it might be, kept him firmly fixed on Hawthorn.

  “Is it true then?” Hawthorn asked, reaching into the crib gently. He rose, and in his arms was a tightly swaddled infant in blankets as pale blue as a spring sky. The regal-looking Fae held the child gently. “They have gone? Really gone?”

  Robin’s father must have taken a step closer, as he suddenly appeared on the edge of Robin's vision, standing beside him, mere inches away. He was tall, with long blonde hair. He was wearing what looked like armour, similar to Hawthorn's, but covered at the shoulder with a purple cloak. Robin strained to look to his left, to see his father’s face, every part of his heart ached for it. But he could only make out the maddening line of his profile. He saw his father nod in response to Hawthorn’s question.

  “It is true, Lord Hawthorn,” he said grimly. “The King and Queen have … gone. As is the Cubiculum. The palace is in uproar.”

  “Eris?” Hawthorn asked.

  “No-one knows,” Truefellow replied with a shake of his head. “There are conflicting reports. Rumours only. It is as my wife said. Order had fallen. Chaos reigns.”

  “I felt the shockwave even here,” Hawthorn said, holding out the baby gently. Robin saw his father reach forward and carefully take the baby, holding it gently as though it were a precious treasure. He watched his infant self, carefully passed into his father’s arms.

  “There is something more,” Hawthorn guessed. “Something you are not telling me. Where are the servants?”

  “The servants have fled,” his father replied, folding the infant Robin onto his shoulder with practised ease. The child mewled a little, nestling into his neck. Robin saw his father’s hand, decked with jewelled rings, cradling his back, almost the size of the new-born baby.

  “All of the Panthea have fled. They have left our service. They are going to her, I suspect. And yes, there is more I have not told you.”

  “The magic is gone,” Hawthorn guessed, a wave of despair rolling out from him. He strode to the tall window, leaning on the sill and looking out at the Netherworlde beyond. Infuriatingly, this dragged Robin's vision along with him, tugging his father back out of sight. “I tried a simple cantrip, when I felt the shockwave, when Oberon and Titania … Nothing. I can do nothing. Not a single spell.”

  “It is the Arcania,” Robin’s father said. His own voice sounded hollow, a little shell-shocked. He jogged the baby gently, almost absently in his arms. “It is shattered, my friend.”

  Hawthorn spun at the window, staring right through the ghostly Robin. His face was pale. “Shattered?”

  “Gone,” his father confirmed. “And with it, our last defence against Eris. We are helpless. Exposed.”

  “How could they do this?” Hawthorn asked, reeling from this news. “The King? The Queen? How could they leave us?”

  “Hawthorn,” Robin’s father spoke firmly and calmly, forcing hi
s friend to focus on the matter in hand. “Eris will come. It is not safe for us here, for any of the Sidhe-Nobilitas. Not any longer. We must leave. If we are to survive, we must gather and go. Now.”

  Hawthorn looked aghast. “Flee Erlking?”

  The infant Robin began to cry softly, and Robin heard his father shushing him. Making soft, comforting noises.

  “Retreat and regroup,” his father assured him.

  Another, new, voice spoke at the unseen door. A second person had entered the tower room.

  “Truefellow, Hawthorn, we are gathered in the chamber of the Arcania. You must come now, both of you.” This new voice was deep and calm, and strangely hollow. All of them sounded in shock, clearly reeling from the events.

  “Have you heard?” Hawthorn asked this newcomer. “Have you heard this? The King and Queen? The Arcania?”

  “I have,” came the calm, sad reply. “There is no time. We must mourn later. Eris’ forces are already on their way. Lord Truefellow, your wife awaits you.”

  “Where is she?” Robin’s father asked.

  “The Lady Dannae is with the Oracle, and the keeper of Order. She consults with them, with the stone. What you say is true. We must all flee. Into the wild. There are places we can go. But the child…” The voice trailed off.

  Robin saw Hawthorn look up with interest. He felt, rather than saw, his father turn behind him to face this newcomer, presumably another member of the Sidhe-Nobilitas, Robin reasoned.

  “What of my son?” Wolfsbane asked.

  “He will not survive in the wilds, Truefellow. It is too dangerous. You know this. He must be made safe. He is too young … I have spoken to Dannae–”

  “You have decided this for me, have you?” Robin’s father answered, a little sharply. “You and my wife?”

  “Brother,” the calm voice at the door said slowly. There was so much sadness in it. Robin didn’t understand. “My lord, I have followed your shadow into every battle. You have always heeded my counsel. You know there is no other way.”