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Chains of Gaia

Page 32

by James Fahy


  Karya’s face had hardened a little. She stared back firmly at the dryad, her golden eyes flashing. “I’m telling you,” she said, her tones clipped. “I’m just a tracker, with some skill for prophecy. If you thought anything more than that, then I’m terribly sorry to disappoint you, but it’s your error.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, boss,” Woad piped up. “You’re the best tracker there is! And your Earth Magic is strong. You're the best person I know for cooking sausages! As for knowing the past and the future, it’s no wonder Eris wants you back-"

  “Back?” Splinterstem asked, looking from the faun to the girl. He looked genuinely confused.

  “Not that Robin isn’t amazing too.” Woad clapped Robin on the back. “He's the Scion after all. He’s done some amazing things, and he hardly ever gets almost dismembered anymore. You did well choosing us, it’s like buy one hero get one free, right?”

  Woad grinned, “Plus, you get me in the bargain too, and I’m the best faun there is.”

  Robin had no idea what was making Karya so uncomfortable. She was more defensive than usual. He had the distinct feeling that the dryads may not react well to the knowledge that she had at one time worked for Eris, and he felt that he should help out by shifting the conversation away from the fact, back to the matter in hand.

  “Sorry,” he said, getting Splinterstem's attention. “You were telling us about when the beast first appeared in the forest. You were with the king; you say? Can you tell us what happened exactly?”

  “It all happened so quickly,” the dryad said, settling back into his storytelling. From the corner of his eye, Robin saw Karya give him a grateful look. “We had heard rumours in the forest. These were more than the usual rumblings from the swarm, and we had put out extra patrols along the borders where we normally encountered them. But there were other strange things too. Oddities in the Elderhart. Rumours of a pale man, hooded and cloaked, walking alone through the trees. Many had seen him, lurking here and there, but none had been able to catch and confront him. He was like a ghost. Our people were uneasy. I suggested to the king that it would be prudent for us to check the entrance to the Labyrinth. Ensure the safety of the heart. None had been down there for many years. It was almost a forgotten place, overgrown and abandoned. The king agreed, but he suggested that we do so discreetly, just the two of us. No entourage, no pomp or ceremony. He did not wish to cause worry amongst his people. And so we left at dawn, just the two of us . Our intention was to check that the doors were sealed. That this pale man, or anyone else, had not tampered near the minotaur's lair.”

  He looked troubled again. “What a fool I was. We should have taken a full guard. We might have stood a chance. I thought too much of myself. That I could handle any trouble we might encounter.”

  “What happened at the entrance?” Karya asked.

  “The doors stood open,” he told them darkly. “Someone, or something, had already been inside. We didn’t enter. We didn’t dare, not knowing if the minotaur was within. I had seen first hand, long ago, what that monstrous guardian could do to a dryad."

  "It was there that the scourge attacked us. It came crashing out of the trees and fell upon the king. I was thrown aside.” He shook his head, looking a little awed. “It was huge. Green, scaled, covered in earth and soil. It seemed like the forest itself, come alive. It came out of the trees and set upon my king. I saw the heart, the Shard, as you outlanders call it, buried in its great forehead.” He tapped his own emphatically. “Like a decorative jewel … shining.” He lowered his hand slowly. “And though I rushed back to try and save him, I was knocked aside again with its great tail. This time, I hit my head. When I awoke, the day had grown bright, and both the monster, and the king, they were gone.”

  “Definitely eaten,” Woad said, rather unsympathetically. “You'll be wanting to avoid that, Pinky.” Not surprisingly, this viewpoint didn’t appear to make Robin or the dryad feel much better.

  With his tale told, Karya and Splinterstem soon fell to the business of tracking and hunting the monster, which they both agreed should be done at first light.

  *

  There wasn’t much Robin could contribute to this conversation. He could barely track his way from his bedroom to Erlking’s kitchen without getting lost, and Woad lost interest in the serious minutiae business of monster-slaying when music started up, and several dryads started dancing in a slow and graceful manner, filling the great hall with movement.

  The faun went off to join them enthusiastically, to ‘show them how to dance properly’ as he put it, and Robin, finding himself at something of a loose end, wandered out onto the balcony which fed off from the feasting hall.

  He hadn’t said anything to the others, but it was becoming more and more apparent that the thing they were facing was incredibly dangerous. No one seemed to have bothered to question his suitability at stopping it. He wasn’t a brave knight in armour, after all. He was a skinny teenager with increasingly temperamental mana. Everyone just assumed he’d be able to pull some Shard-related trick out of his sleeve, simple as pie.

  Robin was no coward. He knew he had to try, but he certainly didn’t relish the idea of facing off against something which had been described as a ‘giant snake with many teeth’.

  It’s not a snake, it’s a dragon, a small voice in his head piped up, as he took in the cool autumn night air out on the balcony. The vast canopy rustled and whispered above him, the many roads and leaping bridges of Rowandeepling stretching out below, shining in the darkness amid large clouds of glimmering fireflies.

  “I know,” he muttered aloud. “No-one's saying the word, but it’s clearly a bloody dragon.” He ran his hands through his hair, sighing. “Robin Fellows, hornless wonder, dragon-slayer?”

  He was trying to figure out if the voice in his head sounded more like the Puck or more like dream-Penny, when a voice beside him made him startle.

  “Who are you talking to, Fae?”

  Robin turned to see that the wide dark balcony was not, as he had first imagined, empty. He was not alone up here high in the trees. He’d forgotten that the Princess Ashe had come out here some time ago. She had been standing alone in the darkness, looking out over her curious kingdom. Her white leafy dress and pale wreath of flowers made her look oddly ghostly. Tiny fireflies danced in the shadows of the trees behind her, giving her a halo of flickering lights.

  “Oh, sorry … um, your majesty,” he grinned sheepishly. “I didn’t see you. Just talking to myself, I suppose.”

  He wandered over to where she stood. She still looked sad and distant, but she smiled down at him.

  “Your master is brave and noble, assisting my people this way,” she told him. “You must be proud to travel at her side. We are blessed to receive her.”

  Robin glanced back into the brightly lit glow of the hall, where Karya, still looking remarkably at home in regal settings and disturbingly unlike herself, was still in deep and serious discussion with the steward.

  “Hmm,” he said, looking back up at the tall, yet oddly frail, dryad. “She’s not scared of anything, that’s for sure,” he agreed. “I think she’s a bit confused as to why you are all treating her like … well … like she’s one of you.” A thought occurred to him. “Hey, she’s not is she? A dryad, I mean?”

  This actually elicited a laugh from Ashe, and for the first time since they had met, she looked unguarded. “You are full of jokes,” she smiled. “Are all Fae so? I barely remember Hammerhand, I was only a sapling back then.” She shook her soft curls. “No, she is no dryad. Would you not know, and still be her companion? What is she to you then?”

  “She’s a friend,” he said. “That’s all that matters to me.” He thought of what he knew of Karya, of her past, and the strangeness with the flute, of how she had eventually escaped Eris. “I don’t care about people’s pasts. They’re not as important as who they are now, right?”

  The dryad princess gazed at him a moment, and he could tell from her expre
ssion that she didn’t wholly agree. She looked away, out over the amber railing and into the deep twinkling light of Rowandeepling.

  “We are all the sum of our past,” she said. “It’s they clay that shapes us. Every oak owes its height to the acorn it once was, and the soil before that. You cannot ignore what people once were. It is part of the very fabric of who they are now.”

  This made Robin think of Jackalope. Did he even believe his own words? Could Robin really say he didn’t care about people's pasts? Even if those pasts included such unspeakable crimes as the murder of your own family?

  He sighed, leaning on the railing beside her. “People are very complicated things.”

  The moon had risen above the autumn forest, a yellow harvest crescent. They watched it sail through shredded cloud for a while in surprisingly comfortable silence, listening to the muffled music and hubbub of the feasting hall behind them.

  “I know my father is dead,” Ashe said eventually, without prompting. Robin looked sidelong at her. Her face was composed.

  “I have no illusions about that,” she told him. “But until he is found, until there is proof and this drake is stopped … until the scourge is lifted, my people cannot be safe. I wish that I could offer them guidance, leadership.”

  “Why can’t you?” Robin asked. “I mean, we all noticed … your steward, he’s in charge, right? Kind of like a temporary substitute? He seems to know what he’s doing, but we don’t understand why you’re not in charge yourself.”

  “It is the way of my people," Ashe explained. “Splinterstem is a strong leader. He has ever been ambitious and he was close to my father. I cannot fault him. He has been endlessly attentive to me. But even his stewardship is only temporary.”

  Robin smirked. “Yeah, we noticed his attentiveness too. I think he has you on a pedestal.” He hoped this wasn’t overstepping some mark, but if it was, she seemed not to take offence.

  “I will not deny it,” she said, smiling a little. “Many times, as I grew up and came of age, he has made his intentions toward me most clear. I am certain that nothing would make him happier than if I returned his affections. And then we could rule together.” She sighed, lacing her fingers on the railing. “A dryad may not rule alone,” she explained. “Male or female, there must always be balance. Were I to assume the throne, I must choose a mate. My father and mother ruled together for time immemorial before she died.”

  She leaned her hands on the railing, looking up pensively into the sky. “There are those amongst my people who believe that his refusal to take a second wife is the reason for the balance of the forest falling out of kilter now. That his ruling alone weakened the elder trees, allowing this whole calamity to happen.”

  Robin nodded in understanding.

  “They think I do not know these things, but I know the gossip.”

  “So you can’t be queen unless you choose a king,” he said. “That explains why there’s a steward, I guess.” He hesitated a little. “But I’m guessing that the simple solution of you and Splinterstem is out of the question? He’s not … that is to say… I mean you don’t …” He trailed off helplessly. Robin didn’t feel he was very good at talking to girls in general, and this was basically a fairy princess in a halo of fireflies. A very large one. He was a bit out of his depth.

  “I don’t return his affections, no,” she confirmed, kindly putting him out of his misery. “He is an attentive man. He has assumed so much responsibility since the scourge took father, but I cannot give him my heart, and therefore I cannot rule my people. I lost my heart many years ago.”

  Robin had an inkling of what she meant. “You were in love with someone else,” he said. He had an idea who that might have been. “Splinterstem told us something, about how someone was killed by the minotaur in the Labyrinth, back when it was first built. Was that …?”

  Ashe nodded. “You are far shrewder than you appear, kind Fae. Yes. That was my love. My intended. We would have ruled together one day. His name was Alder. He was not high-born, but he was a fine dryad at that. The whole of Rowandeepling was shaken by his death.” The sadness had crept into her green eyes again. “Alder was a favourite of my father. He grew up with Splinterstem himself. The two were good playmates, practically brothers, rising through the ranks together.” She glanced back at the feasting hall. “It was not only my heart which was broken the day Alder died. I lost my love. Splinterstem, a brother in arms, and my father lost the man he already thought of as son and, one day, heir.”

  “I’m sorry,” Robin said. There didn’t seem to be anything else he could say, so he didn’t.

  The princess looked back out over Rowandeepling. “My selfishness, my refusal to betray my heart, is leaving my people without a queen. I wonder sometimes…if I should reconsider my options.” She looked painfully conflicted as she looked back to him. “But could I betray my own heart that way? Betray my memories? When Alder died, I told myself I would never love again, and I never will. My heart is a cold ember. Perhaps that is cruel of me, selfish. Splinterstem tells me not to trouble myself with worries. He fears my constitution is weak.” She sighed. “Is love more important that duty? What would you say, child of the Fae. I would hear your counsel.”

  Robin honestly didn’t know what to say. The princess was looking at him in earnest. He got the distinct impression that, shepherded by Splinterstem, surrounded at all times by handmaidens, she very rarely had anyone to talk to, candidly at least. He considered her dilemma.

  “I think …” he said eventually. “I don’t know much about being in love. But I think your father would want you to be true to your heart … not to your throne.” He looked over at her. “He never remarried, did he? After your mother died.” He shrugged. “Maybe there is only one perfect person for all of us? It sounds like he thought so. If you’re lonely, maybe you should consider taking a new mate, I don’t know. But if you feel the same way your father did, I think you have to trust that you know, deep down, what’s more important.”

  She returned his look for an uncomfortably long time. “You are wise, I think,” she said eventually. “And you have a good and honest heart. I can see why she would keep you as her trusted counsellor.” She smiled a little more warmly. “And worry not for your part. I am fairly certain that with your heart and that Fae face, you will know plenty of love in your life, child of Erlking. Amor est vitae essentia,” she sighed. “Sine amor, nihil est vita.”

  Robin blushed and turned back to the hall. “Now you’re just teasing me,” he muttered. “I don’t speak a word of the Netherworlde high tongue.”

  Karya and Splinterstem were standing in the archway, evidently having come to fetch them. Robin thought Splinterstem looked a little suspicious, seeing him out here alone with the princess. He glanced over at the girl rather possessively.

  “We have a plan, Scion,” Karya said, her arms folded under her silky shawl against the cool night air. “Tomorrow, at dawn, the beast of the Elderhart will be tracked and found, and we’ll do what we came here to do.”

  Robin nodded. Splinterstem crossed to the princess, guiding her back inside with a respectful hand at her elbow. “And you should rest, Princess,” he told her softly. “This is wearying. Soon, there will be an end to this darkness over our forest, I promise you that.”

  Ashe nodded a polite farewell to Robin as the two of them disappeared inside, and Karya, once they were gone, looked at her friend, smirking. “I think he thinks you’re the competition,” she said, rather playfully. “What are you doing out here alone with pretty girls in the night anyway? Sweet-talking the princess, eh?”

  Robin felt his face grow hot again. “Oh shut up,” he said. “We were just talking. I know you’re only winding me up for fun.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, I know. I can’t imagine you being comfortable enough to talk with a pretty girl under the moon, surrounded by fireflies and magic treetops.”

  “I’m talking to you quite competently, aren’t I?” Robin countered, defensivel
y, slumping on the balcony.

  Karya stopped, looking a little surprised. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but seemed to change her mind, pulling her shawl closer around her shoulders instead and looking rather self-conscious. Fireflies danced silently between them in the shadows, a cool wind ruffling her curled hair.

  “You’d better get some sleep, Robin Fellows,” she said eventually, with a small frown. “We all had. After all, we’re hunting beasties at first light.”

  DARKNESS IN THE HOLLOW

  Robin thought he would not sleep well, despite the cosy comforts of the treetop palace and soft moss beds in their suite, which were a blessed heaven after sleeping on the rough and root-filled forest ground. He thought he would be too worried. It’s bad enough trying to get to sleep the night before an exam. Surely dropping off knowing that, in the morning, you were off to face a dragon was worse.

  There was so much else to worry about as well. His missing friends, Hawthorn, Henry and even Jackalope, the sad story of the princess and her lost love, the terrible shame carried by the steward at the death of the king. But astonishingly, even with all these things whirling around his mind, and the insistent chainsaw buzz of Woad’s snoring from the balcony, Robin fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  Perhaps it was the comforting honey elixir of the dryads he had been drinking all night, perhaps the lulling, constant susurrus of the autumn leaves below their lofty eyrie in their endless whispering sea, or maybe it was just sheer exhaustion. But he slept like a babe.

  *

  The following morning, as the sun’s first light was rising above the tree line, Robin, Woad and Karya left Rowandeepling and found themselves back on the forest floor at the base of the great elder trees. The journey down from the sky, carried once again by helpful and strong dryads on their purring iridescent wings, had been no less alarming than their ascent. Karya looked almost as green as their guides.

 

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