Chains of Gaia

by James Fahy

  “I’m going with Pinky!” Woad said swiftly, stepping to Robin's side. “He won’t last a minute in the Netherworlde without a decent faun.”

  Karya nodded in agreement. “You’ll have Hawthorn, and Jack, for a short time at least. We will find you in the Netherworlde, Scion. Don’t worry about that. We’ll catch straight up to you.”

  Robin knew there was no time to argue with this.

  “I don’t want you to wait for Henry,” he told her. “I want you to go and find him, can you do that?”

  She frowned at him in confusion.

  “I can’t explain it,” Robin shook his head. “He’s been acting odd, I know, but this, not turning up for the Halloween feast? Not answering hex-messages?” he shook his head. “It’s just not like him. I’m worried. I can’t help thinking something’s happened to him.”

  “Something like what? He probably just had a snooze when he got home and hasn’t woken up yet. You know how tired he’s seemed lately.”

  Robin couldn’t explain it. “It’s just a feeling. A bad feeling. Go to his house. Make sure he’s okay?”

  She nodded. “I will, and we will find you. Now can you stop worrying about everyone else in the world for once, and go and throw yourself into the jaws of certain danger please. It’s getting close to midnight.”

  Hawthorn and Woad had already stepped through the shimmering doorway, standing at the top of the long staircase in the Netherworlde, the night wind toying with their hair. Jackalope looked to Calypso and Hestia.

  “I have not deserved your hospitality,” he said a little stiffly, and bowed slightly to them.

  The nymph put her head slightly to one side. “We will meet again, I’m sure of that, mana-less Fae,” she said. “Though whether hospitality will play any part in it, who can say?”

  Hestia came forward, a little awkwardly, and pushed a package into Jackalope’s hands. It was brown greasepaper, tied up with string.

  “What is this?” he frowned at her.

  “It is just extra supplies,” the housekeeper waved the question away. “Do not be getting ideas of a high station. There is food enough in everyone’s packs, but you … you are not coming back. Meat. A jar of good salt. Every meal, even one in the wild, can be a feast with the flavour of good salt. A few odds and ends. Enough to keep you going until you find somewhere … to belong.” She sniffed and folded her arms crossly.

  Robin gawped at Hestia's random act of kindness. Jackalope however simply nodded.

  “You are a good person,” he said to her quietly. His voice sounding a little thick. “Your kindness is misplaced.” He stowed the package in his backpack. “But I will not forget it either.”

  He turned away quickly without a backward glance at Erlking.

  “Be careful, Scion,” Calypso said, as Robin crossed the threshold. “You aunt will not be pleased to hear that you have gone to another world to hunt a killer monster with a strange Fae. I would advise you to attempt to return before she does. Preferably with all, or at least most, of your limbs attached.”

  Robin nodded, unable to suppress a smile at the thought of Calypso trying to explain his absence to his aunt.

  “See you soon,” Karya said, as the door closed. “And for goodness sake, try not to get killed.”

  “Not even a little bit stabbed,” he promised with a smile.

  CENTAUR OF ATTENTION

  The great dark steps led Robin and the others down and eventually out into a crumbled, gravel-strewn courtyard. Hawthorn led the way across the moonlit space, explaining that he wanted to be out of sight of Erlking as soon as possible. It was the most dangerous place for any Fae to be. Eris’ eyes were always on it, day and night. They must move swiftly and quietly.

  Robin stared up at the high black stone walls as they passed between them, abandoned, crumbling and ghostly. Their shiny surfaces glinted in the moonlight like glass and he caught glimpses of his own reflection ghosting along beside him, the uneven walls refracting his image so that it seemed a crowd of Robins jogged along with him, flittering and broken.

  Once they were clear of the fortress proper, Hawthorn led the two Fae boys and the faun swiftly down the great grassy hill of Erlking through the shadows, to the river which circled its base. The hill, here on the Netherworlde side of things, was much larger and steeper than the hill on which the manor house stood back in the mortal world. The grass was wild and tall, higher than Robin’s waist, and it whispered about them as they passed, a pale sea, constantly in motion with the night-time breeze.

  Despite the circumstances, it felt incredibly good to Robin to be back in the Netherworlde at last. His heart was beating fast. It was hard to explain, but it felt more real than anywhere else. It was as though everything in this world was in slightly sharper focus to him. The dark grassy hills, the shadows of the Barrowood trees, stark and black in the night against an autumn sky. The heavens above them seemed strewn with jewels. The moon hung low above the travellers, a great yellow harvest crescent in a blanket of velvet. There wasn’t a single cloud, making it feel as though the sky above them stretched out in all directions forever, an endless vault above, glimmering down on the silent haunting wilderness below.

  Jackalope was sullen and silent as ever, stalking through the grass behind Hawthorn, his body language clear. He was on high alert, expecting an ambush or attack at any moment. Years of hiding had given the silver-haired Fae a distrust of open spaces with little cover. Too exposed. The blade of Phorbas the knife glinted in his hand. Robin was still unconvinced that it was a good idea for Jackalope to carry it, but he had decided to trust his tutor’s instincts.

  Woad, on the other hand was having a whale of a time. He ran back and forth through the long grasses like a happy puppy, criss-crossing the paths of the others and sending up great clouds of pollen and stray leaves into the clear night air. His running making the grass hiss dryly. Occasionally, he turned a somersault like a demented acrobat.

  “Can you control your faun?” Jackalope hissed to Robin in a whisper. “He is hardly subtle.”

  “I can’t help it!” Woad grinned with glee. “I’m back home. Smell that?” He breathed deeply and theatrically, puffing out his thin blue chest. “Honey and apples and spices and tin! The air of the Netherworlde! You never need to eat again. You could live off it alone and grow tall as an oak!”

  “Hush, Woad,” Robin insisted, unable to stop a grin. The Netherworlde did have a smell. To Robin it smelled like a home he’d never known. Like mystery and magic.

  “All I smell is soil and river water,” Jackalope grunted. “And jelly. But I think I got a little of that on my shirt. Are we headed for those trees?”

  Hawthorn, leading them down to the riverbank, nodded. They were headed away from the Barrowood, he told them. The opposite direction. There was a shallow ford here at the base of the Erl King’s Hill. They could cross the encircling river there, and beyond that, if they kept on until daybreak, was the grasslands.

  The river was indeed shallow, and clear as crystal. It was also, as Robin discovered, absolutely freezing, coming up to his knees at the deepest point and soaking into his jeans, making them flap about uncomfortably as they climbed a small slope on the far bank and passed between the shadows of thin and gnarled trees.

  “At least it’s a warmer night here than back in the mortal world,” he noted. The breeze was indeed gentle, despite the clear air. The trees through which they passed were abundantly crowned with thick, dry leaves, shining where they caught the light.

  “The Netherworlde seasons are always out of balance with the human's,” Woad nodded sagely. “Sometimes they’re ahead, sometimes behind. No icy nips here. No snow in our sky.”

  When they reached the crest of the wooded hills, Hawthorn stopped and looked back. From here, they could see the Erl King's Hill, some distance behind them now and crowned with the vast black ruin of the Fae fortress. It was nothing but a broken shadow against the starry sky. Still and haunted.

  “It’s stil
l beautiful,” Robin said, noting the thoughtful look in Hawthorn's eyes.

  “It was magnificent once,” the elder Fae replied. “A shining jewel.” He looked lost in memory for a moment. “I was nobility here. In another life.” He sighed. “In another Netherworlde. Before the uprising, before Eris’ war destroyed everything.”

  Robin considered the willowy man. Hawthorn looked like a creature haunted. Dressed as he was in scraps of leather and cloth. Tangled hair, weathered skin. Living like a wild thing. Always hungry and never resting. It was hard to imagine him as a bold knight of the Fae, dressed in the same kind of finery he had seen his own father wearing in his book of Fae Families.

  “The war took something from all of us,” Jackalope said, unsympathetically. “Some more than others. At least you still have your horns. And your mana-stone. We should keep moving. There could be spies. Grimgulls.”

  Hawthorn nodded, and they moved on. Soon, Erlking was out of sight and far behind them, hidden by tree-dotted hills, shadow and time.

  As they walked through the night, silent and stealthy as bats, Robin wondered if Karya had found Henry. Whether they were already in the Netherworlde, following them. He wondered if hex-messaging might work across different worlds, but they were moving at too brisk a pace to stop and write. He also wondered about this mysterious beast. This forest scourge. A creature somehow fuelled by a Shard of the Arcania. Destroying the forest and anyone near to it. He had no plan, no idea how to actually find it, and even less of an idea how to begin to stop it if they could.

  He watched Hawthorn's slim back as they marched onward through the night, the feline Fae slinking from shadow to shadow noiselessly before them all. He would lead them to it. He had almost died escaping this ‘Hive’, the prison of Eris, and yet he was willing to head straight back into danger, for the sake of what? Helping the people of the Netherworlde? The common good? Or was it simply that he didn’t want the Shard falling into the hands of the Grimms? Robin realised that, although this man had helped him once before in the past, in truth he knew very little about him at all.

  And yet here he was, following this near-stranger into the deep wilds of another world. He tried not to think about how unwise this might be. He was fairly certain Aunt Irene would not have been impressed with his decision.

  They eventually stopped, much to the relief of Robin’s aching legs, just as one end of the sky was beginning to blur with light grey, signalling the death of the night and the promise of dawn to come. The narrow hollow was dotted with crumbling rocks, some taller than Robin, sticking up out of the grass like sharp mossy teeth. Woad scrambled over and between these huge menhirs, perching atop the tallest one like a gargoyle and peering all around.

  As he had designated himself the sentry, the other three set to gathering sticks and moss, and Jackalope lit a small fire with envious and practised ease. Robin was relieved to sit down on the soft grass. It had been a long night.

  “It’s a fair distance yet, young one,” Hawthorn said, noting Robin’s tired face. “Many miles to go. But don’t look so downcast. We shan’t need to walk the full distance. The Tower of Earth is our ally.”

  “I don’t know any Earth magic,” Robin confessed a little awkwardly, rubbing his hands together at the fire. Hawthorn looked shocked.

  “But, you are the Scion, are you not?”

  “I haven’t got a tutor,” Robin explained. “Only Air and Water so far. No-one to train me in Earth. There’s only Karya who knows anything about it, and she says she can’t teach me. I asked her, not longer after Ffoulkes and the sisters arrived. She doesn’t know how she does it herself. She just can.”

  Hawthorn looked enquiringly to Jackalope, who was leaning back against a rock, just outside the circle of firelight.

  “Don’t look to me,” the grey-headed boy said. “I don’t even have a mana stone. I’m about as magical as a human. Though not as defenceless as one, obviously.”

  “Well,” Hawthorn considered for a moment, peering into the small crackling fire. “I’m no teacher, but my mana is Earth.” He looked up at Robin through the flames. “No formal lessons, of course, but there is nothing like learning on the job, Robin Fellows.”

  Robin blinked in surprise. “You can teach me Earth?”

  He felt stupid for not realising earlier. Of course, Hawthorn’s Tower of expertise was Earth. When last they had met, he had sent Robin and Karya on their way on an enchanted rolling stone deep beneath the caverns of the dark Netherworlde. Robin felt a glimmer of hope.

  “I can give you a few basic moves. Here's a cantrip for you,” Hawthorn said. He drew out from his back, beneath his ragged cloth shirt, a long bow, inlaid all along with red gems. Robin had seen him with this before too.

  “My mana stones,” the Fae explained. He quickly notched an arrow, and aimed it at the tall mossy menhir atop which Woad currently perched.

  “This cantrip is called Golem” he explained, and as the stones in the bow flashed, he let the arrow loose. It whipped through the air and exploded against the stone with a crack, disappearing utterly.

  Woad let out a short cry of shock as beneath him, the huge stone heaved itself out of the ground with a ponderous rumble and rocked alarmingly, a loud grating making the ground beneath all their feet shake.

  The rock rolled onto its side, the faun leaping off and to safety with some very inventive curse words which he had clearly learned from Henry. Robin watched as the menhir continued rolling ponderously, end over end, like a tall egg. It circled the three Fae at the campfire, making a full circuit up and down the grass, then it rolled away and up the hill with impressive speed, coming abruptly to rest on its narrowest tip at the very crest of the hill.

  The rumbling stopped.

  “A simple trick to animate and move stone,” Hawthorn explained. “This was of course a very basic demonstration, but still, it’s a handy cantrip to learn. It can help you build a wall very quickly, block a passageway, or like now…” His mana stones flashed again, and this time, three of the huge rocks moved at once, groaning and grinding as they lumbered, possessed, along the hollow floor. Two of them came to rest on either side of Hawthorn like great bookends, and the third, longer and thinner that its squatter companions, thudded against them, and then began to climb their sides, rolling up between them until it rested heavily on top, suspended by the two points.

  The dust and noise settled, and the Fae was sitting in a stone arch, like a mini portion of Stonehenge.

  “…a rudimentary shelter,” he finished, smiling. “Of course, in times gone by, when the Arcania was still whole and magic flowed through the land with ease, the Master Earth users could build whole monuments. Temple and towns, using mana alone. It was quite a sight to behold…provided of course you were at a safe distance so as not to be crushed.”

  He gestured at Robin, as Woad clambered with interest onto the newly formed rock shelter, sniffing at it suspiciously.

  “Now you try.”

  “But…I haven’t got a clue how,” Robin said. “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Pinky isn’t really a fast learner,” Woad said, quite unhelpfully. He had laid down on the roof of the shelter and was peering up into the ever-lightening pre-dawn skies above. “It took him forever to learn Air, and even longer to learn Water.”

  “Earth is simple,” Hawthorn assure Robin. “Though by that, I do not mean it is easy, merely uncomplicated.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Air, “ the Fae said. “As I’m sure you learned, is all about thought, yes? Very intellectual, Air magic. All calculations and control, subtlety and precision. A lot of reading, a lot of theories, more of an intangible art form than anything else.”

  Robin nodded in agreement.

  “And Water?” Hawthorn continued. “Nothing to do with conscious thought, all to do with instinct, emotion. The natural flow of things. More like…well, like meditation. Learning to release your feelings and emotions into the mana and trust it to shape your
element.”

  “Yes, that’s what Calypso has been teaching me,” the boy agreed.

  The old Fae made a face. “Wishy washy nonsense, both of them,” he whispered, laughing softly.

  Robin was shocked. Hawthorn held his hands up apologetically.

  “I jest…I jest! But there is some truth in what I say.”

  Jackalope frowned down at the knife in his hands, which he had been twirling idly, catching the firelight.

  “I do not think the Scion’s first tutor agrees with you, old timer,” he said. The knife was vibrating a little in the boy’s pale hands. “He seems a bit…put out.”

  “I mean no offence to Phorbas,” Hawthorn said politely. “My apologies, knife.” The blade stopped vibrating like a tuning fork. He looked back to Robin. “What I mean to say is that, compared to the complexities of Water and Air, Earth is less cajoling persuasion and more…well…more force, if I’m totally honest.”

  “Force?” Robin said worriedly.

  “Pure will,” Hawthorn nodded. “Authority! Intent! Your will must be as strong as a mountain, as deeply planted as the roots of the greatest tree. As solid as the earth itself. Earth magic responds only to strength. Strength of intent. Determination and command. When you perform Earth magic, you are not ‘asking’ your mana to do something for you, you are telling it. In no uncertain terms.”

  This explains why Karya is so good at it, Robin thought absently to himself.

  “The rocks don’t want to move, you see,” Hawthorn explained. “They are rocks. They generally don’t. They have a strongly held belief in ‘not moving about the place.’ But you have to make sure your will, your directed mana, your determination, your absolute and unshakable conviction that they should move, and that they are damn well going to, is stronger than their resistance not to.”