The Drowned Tomb (The Changeling Series Book 2)
Page 42
“You think this letter explains it?” Robin wanted to know.
Irene shook her head. “Nothing so simple I’m afraid. But what I hoped, is that it may offer a clue to set us on the right path. Was it the fates who also brought us into contact with the tomb on the folly at the same time my research was going on?” She shrugged. “We may never know. Perhaps Erlking herself is trying to help us. Nevertheless, this letter told of a delivery of some secret and sensitive information to another member of the Sidhe-Nobilitas. We needed to find out which member, in order to find out what this sensitive information may be. This was written just before their disappearance you see.” She looked at Robin. “Your mother was pregnant with you at the time, we believe.”
“Well, we know now who Robin’s father was delivering this so called sensitive information to now, don’t we?” Karya offered. “Thanks to the Undine at Hiernarbos, who finished the translation for me. He was taking it to Nightshade, for safe keeping.”
Irene nodded. “Indeed. And knowing what we now know, this makes sense. Nightshade and his lover, Tritea, had fled the war by this point, and they were living under assumed human names in a village in the human world. What safer, more secret place could there be to keep it, whatever it is?”
“Sooooo…” Henry said, his hands thrust in the pockets of his jeans. “What, actually, is it?”
Robin wondered too. They were all curious to know what could be so important to the King and Queen of the Fae, to demand such wartime secrecy. Was it a weapon? Some great treasure?
“We are about to find out,” Irene said. “I thought you should all be present, given what you went through to retrieve both the Shard, and it.”
They watched as Irene opened the lock and swung back the lid on its oiled hinge. Her face was blank for a few moments, as she scanned the contents. Silence rolled through the library.
Eventually, tentatively, she reached in and withdrew two things. One was a rolled scroll, and the other, a long piece of what looked like cardboard. She unfurled the scroll.
“It is … a list of names,” she said after a moment’s pause. “Four of them. All members of the Sidhe-Nobilitas at one point or another.” She frowned. “Your father, Robin, Wolfsbane the bold, Peaseblossom the architect, Matthias the Illusioner, and Hemlock the sly.” She scanned the scroll with interest. “There is nothing more, except here at the bottom.” She read aloud: “‘The construction of the cubiculu-argentum must be secret. Only those named here are privy to its purpose and place, and each must only know their part in it, for the sake of both the Fae and the Panthea. This list is kept as record, and the relic enclosed herein must be preserved at all costs. It is the key to all things'.”
She looked up. “It is signed by the Queen. And the King also.” She frowned. “Though his signature is shaky.”
“What’s a cubiculu-argentum?” Woad asked, looking confused.
None of them, Irene included, knew.
The other item, which she laid out before them reverently, was more confusing than ever. Irene laid it carefully on the table top.
Robin saw it was a library book frontispiece. Nothing more. Old and yellowed and a little frayed. Some of the stamped dates were still just visible, in blue and black ink, though they had been smeared and smudged over time through wear and tear, that they were illegible. There was no name for the book, nor confirmation which library it had come from. It was most certainly not Netherworlde in origin. It was very human. There was even a trace of cellotape along the top still clinging to the cardboard where it had been torn from whatever book it had once belonged in.
They all stared at it.
“This…” Irene mused after a few moments of confused study and silence, “is a new mystery altogether.”
Days later, life at Erlking returned to normal – or as normal as Erlking ever was. Calypso had revealed over breakfast one morning that she had been invited back to Hiernarbos; her assistance in protecting the valley from the forces of Eris had apparently wiped clean her blighted record of treachery for abandoning them for Eris so many years ago.
“Will you go?” Robin had asked.
She had sipped her soup thoughtfully and delicately for a moment, and then shrugged.
“I think not,” she said, without looking up. “You are still terrible, Scion, and need much training. And besides,” She dipped her spoon again. “I am already home.”
That evening, when Henry was away down in the village on errands with his father and Woad was off in the woods, Robin and Karya, making the most of the summer while it lasted, found themselves walking down by the edge of the lake. Close to Erlking’s border.
“Do you think Miss Peryl will be rewarded by Eris?” Karya asked. “For obtaining half a Shard?”
Robin shrugged. He had no idea.
“Karya,” he said haltingly. “I’ve been meaning to say, but I didn’t know really who to say it to.”
She looked at him with interest as they walked. “It’s about the Grimms,” Robin continued. “Something strange happened down in the tomb. I … saw some things … and I think…”
“Yes?” she prompted when he faltered.
“I’m not sure the Grimms were always … Grimms,” he said, trying to explain himself. “Not as they are now.”
Karya didn’t react for a moment. They walked in silence. “Does it matter what they were?” she said eventually. “What any of us were? You were a normal boy, now you’re the Scion. Your tutor worked for Eris, now she’s on our side. And me? Well, I’m not what I once was either. Maybe none of us are.” She stared for a moment, her golden eyes unfathomable as the lake water lapped the shore nearby.
“What’s important isn’t what you’ve been. It’s what you are now. And what you’re going to be. That goes for all of us. The Grimms are the Grimms. They are the servants of Eris, and they are dangerous as all hell.”
Robin looked thoughtful. She slapped him on the arm. “Hey, it just means we have to be more dangerous too.”
“The flute of yours,” Robin said. “I know you’re not fond of talking about the past, but tell me just one thing. Why does it work, how can it compel you to come when played? Like it did back at the barrier?”
Karya smiled half-secretive, half-sad. “Because it’s bloody powerful magic, that’s why, Scion. Because it was the leash around my neck.” She looked up into the hot summer sky. “The beacon, or the flute, as you call it, belongs to Eris herself, Scion. She fashioned it. It’s her mana which powers it. It’s how she kept me. It’s how she called me to her.”
Robin didn’t know what to say.
“And stealing it from her and running,” Karya said. “That’s how I got away.” She grinned at Robin. “And this is how I get away from unwanted questions…” and vanished, tearing away.
He grinned too, turning towards the lake.
There, on the folly of the small island, beyond the invisible boundary of Erlking’s influence, stood a figure, staring back at him.
It seemed to have been waiting to be noticed. It gave a cheery little wave, and was gone, a flash of purple in the summer haze.
Robin stared, wide-eyed.
Shrugging out of his jacket and kicking off his trainers, he waded out, and once the cool water was deep enough, he dove and swam. Since bonding with the Shard of Water, he was a strong swimmer, and he reached the small island in minutes, pulling himself up onto the shore, dripping wet, and staring around frantically.
It was no use. Peryl was gone.
A soft movement in the bushes drew his attention, and Robin ran barefoot up the small hillock to where the ruined walls of the folly lay. Beyond the bushes, he stopped dead, not quite believing his eyes.
There, on the stones within the ruined circular wall, lay a boy. Older than he was, sleeping deeply, his torso swathed in bandages, and rolled wolf furs carefully placed under his head. His hair was ash grey, and placed carefully on the floor by his side was a long white bow.
It was Jackalope.
Robin noticed a note, tucked carefully into the boy’s hand, deliberately stickling up, waiting to be found. He pulled it free, unfolding the paper. In spiky black writing it said:
Scion.
This is as good as I could fix him. You have better healers at Erlking so he’s your problem now. I can’t keep him. Brother Ker would tear him apart.
Half a Shard each, half a good deed.
Don’t get used to it. When next we meet, I get to shoot an arrow through your friend’s leg in recompense.
I’ll be back for the rest of my Shard. Let the games begin.
P
There was a doodled smiley face and several ‘x’ kisses, rather sarcastically drawn.
Robin folded the note, staring down at the sleeping boy, at Jackalope, alive and peaceful under the sun of Erlking. A single butterfly flitted away, high up there in the evening sky, heading back into the wilds.
Although, Robin reasoned, it could have been a moth.
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Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
GRIMM LODGINGS
DEAD TONGUES
A NEW ENGAGEMENT
THE MIDNIGHT POOL
ROBIN’S FOLLY
UNDINE UNDERFLOOR
LOST NAMES AND LOCKED BOXES
BURYING THE PAST
THE BLACK KNIGHT OF WALPURGIS
SIDHE-NOBILITAS
NYMPHS AND NEEDLEPOINT
GRIMM TIDINGS
THE PORTRAITS
PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS
THE SAD PASSING OF MRS CLEMENTINE
LUMINAQUA
BLOOD AND BONE
GOING UNDERCROFT
FAEFROST
JUST A NUMBER
MEMORIAM
KEEPING THE PEACE
WOLF AND WYRM
WATERWYRM
FIVE EATEN ALIVE
THE LAST UNDINE OF HIERNARBOS
THE DROWNED TOMB
BROKEN PIECES
BOONS AND BOXES