by James Fahy
The Hive was a nightmarish perversion. Enclosed, dark, and claustrophobic despite the dizzying open space. Wan insipid light bleached through the plain ugly spikes of the crazed scaffold. It looked chaotic and uneven, sickly, unfriendly and utilitarian. And with the humid, sticky heat and softly glowing walls all around, close and oppressive.
There were no carved and beautiful facades surrounding the intersections here, no grand woodland palaces with welcoming windows and brightly lit doors. Instead, the four vast sloping inner walls of the pyramid looming up on all sides of them, were covered and lined with row upon row of identical cells, each a hexagonal opening, covered with spiky looking bars. There were thousands, levels upon levels of them. Henry and Robin seemed to have emerged about halfway up, their corridor spitting them out directly onto one of the countless yellow spokes. The tiers of cells coating the walls rose high up above them to the distant apex, and down below, far beyond the full reach of the great yellow light. It descended into misty, rolling shadows, a great abyss below.
“I can see why they call it the Hive then,” Henry whispered, invisible at Robin's side. The cells made the place resemble a giant honeycomb. “It’s huge,” he said. “I mean, really really big. If you took out all these creepy funhouse bridges everywhere, I bet you could fly a helicopter around this place and never even notice you’re not outside.”
Robin looked up at the spokes criss-crossing the air around him. “I feel like I’m inside a giant game of Kerplunk,” he said. “How on earth are we going to find Karya and the others? We can’t search every one of these cells. And it’s hardly like we’re alone here anyway.”
He was right. The great Hive was filled with the swarm. They rushed along the bridges. They hovered in mid-air in the dark spaces between. They marched here and there along every perimeter balcony, adjoining the cells. There must have been more than two thousand creatures, buzzing and clicking and scurrying around. Each one identical to the one past which they had so carefully crept. Oversized insects, armed with long and barbed spears.
“That’s a lot of beeple.” Henry agreed. “I reckon though, all the important stuff is going to be up near that.”
Robin, unable to see Henry at all due to his current invisibility, could only assume his friend was pointing upwards, and followed his gaze. There in the centre of the pyramid, just beneath the ill-looking sun was a large circular platform, on which a building stood suspended, a domed and windowless bubble. It looked like a fat spider sitting in the centre of its web. From that platform, he realised, it would be possible to look out at all four inner walls, to see directly down into each and every one of the countless softly phosphorescent cells below.
“Command centre?” Robin guessed. “Think that’s the heart of the Hive up there?”
“Well, it doesn’t look like the work's canteen,” Henry replied. “Come on, before we become visible again. It’s going to be tricky enough clambering through that maze of nonsense as it is, without having to swat mecha-mosquitos on the way.”
The climb up through the scaffold of the Hive was dizzying and treacherous. Unlike the pleasant leaping and linking paths of Rowandeepling, these walkways were without any form of handrail, carved or otherwise. Mere slender spits of amber sliding out against one another into the void, barely wide enough for Robin and Henry to pick across.
Robin did his best not to look down as they zig-zagged across these promontories. The yawning chasm below, falling away into immense darkness, was vertigo-inducing. The countless spikes of the interlacing roads making up the space would serve, if one were to fall, as nothing more than a lot of interesting things to hit and bounce off on the way down to certain death.
Not being able to see one’s own feet didn’t make things any easier either. Robin knew where he was standing by touch of course, but without being able to see his own invisible appendages, it was like trying to walk around with his eyes closed. His judgment and balance were all off.
“I know …” Henry muttered sarcastically behind him as they made their way back and forth across the countless bridges, slowly and steadily picking paths that took them ever upwards. “Let’s build a great big pit of death, and let’s make the paths really slippy and gross too. That’ll be fun!” He sniffed. “There’s no bloody health and safety in the Netherworlde, that’s the problem right there.”
Despite his grumbling, Robin had to admit, Henry had a point. Here in this giant honeycomb prison, the walkways were slightly damp from the oppressive humidity and treacherous going. He had a queasy feeling that the swarm may well have built the place the same way other insects do, with their bodily secretions, but he was trying very hard not to think about that. Certainly, he might be currently invisible, but he was sure that barfing over the edge of the chasm might give away their location.
“I’m … never … touching … honey … again,” he replied. “Now shush.”
The swarm milled around them, alien and deadly, flitting here and there, but mercifully oblivious to the presence of the two interlopers. It was nerve-racking, being surrounded on all sides by enemies, stealing their way silently between them. More than once, the two were forced to hastily backtrack and choose another route, when one of the hideous, tall grotesques fluttered down onto a walkway in front of them and began scurrying forward, glass-eyes flashing, thinking the way clear.
Unlike the boys, the swarm-guards moved along fast and without fear on the slender scaffold. Robin reasoned that you had little to worry about falling when you had wings.
It seemed a tense and painful age before they began to reach the top of the pyramid's inner core, the large platform with its nest-like structure becoming larger and closer with every twist and turn. Whenever their careful and stealthy exploration reached the outer walls, Robin saw up close the cells lining the walls. Each one was squat and featureless, their walls yellow, and the horrible light left no shadows at all, bleaching the life and form from them. And almost every one of these cramped cells contained a despondent dryad, peering out through the bars with worried or fearful eyes of glittering faceted green.
Robin shivered, wondering what fate awaited these people if he didn’t free them. Would they be left here to rot? Or would they be shipped off to Dis, to Eris’ dark workrooms to be made into more of the ever-swelling ranks of the swarm? How could Splinterstem have ever thought he wanted this? Would he had felt the same, to still be willing to betray his people for a moment of glory and power, had he even once seen inside this hellish place? Seen what became of its occupants?
Robin pictured the Elderhart, that vast and majestic forest, finally conquered. Withered and dead, poisoned from end to end and filled, league upon endless league, with the countless stinging hordes of Eris. Perverted creations, victorious under the unstoppable power of the Earth Shard. He couldn’t let that happen. Robin had come here to save his friends, but he knew the Puck had come here to save everyone. He would find a way to keep his promise to Alder. He would free all of the dryads here. He would tear the Hive to the ground if he had to.
*
“This … is … the … last … level,” Henry gasped and panted. Robin glanced over at him, as they stepped off the final bridge and onto the long gallery which encircled the final high floor. His friend looked exhausted.
Robin’s heart froze. He realised with horror that he could see his friend looking exhausted.
“Henry!” he hissed, “You’re not invisible anymore. Well, not completely anyway. It must be wearing off.”
Henry stared back in alarm. “You too," he confirmed. “I can still see right through you, like a hologram, but I can make you out. Strife and his cut-price potions! Last time I take a drink off that guy.”
Robin made a face at Henry's sarcasm. “Well, I think that was a given,” he agreed, beckoning Henry to hurry off the bridge and join him by the cells. The light did not shine as strongly at the sides of the immense space. They were less likely to be spotted. “The point is, if we can see each other, they c
an see us too.”
Luckily, there didn’t appear to be any of the swarm up this high, they flittered and marched about below, crawling like ants over everything. Up here, apart from the control room, there was nothing but the last and highest row of cells.
A voice behind Robin made him jump so much that he almost fell off the narrow ledge and into the open air.
“I’ve seen everything now,” the voice said. “I must be finally losing my mind, ahahaha. Yes. That’s it. Ghost boys. Two ghosts come to keep me company, is that it? I wonder if they have anything to eat? Ahaha.”
Robin turned, staring into the cell at his back.
It contained, not a dryad, but a man. He had a bushy, dirty-looking beard, sticking out in all directions. His head was bald and shiny, and his clothes, once a fine suit covered in elaborate brocade, seemed filthy and torn, like an antique sofa left on a garbage heap in the rain.
The pitiful-looking man was huddled in the corner of his cell, hugging his knees. His bright orange eyes were staring a little wildly at Robin, looking tired and ringed with dark bags.
“You look a little like someone I know, little ghost,” the man said. “Has he died, then? The little boy in the big house? Terrible shame if so, really. Wouldn’t be surprised though, ahaha. Dangerous place for children, that old Fae place. Shouldn’t be allowed … bound to happen …” he trailed off, mumbling into his beard.
“Ffoulkes?” Robin said, incredulously. He stared in disbelief. The poor creature rocking slightly in the cell was almost unrecognisable. But the voice was the same. It was the last person Robin had been expecting to see.
He gripped the bars, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Mr Ffoulkes? It is you! It’s me, Robin Fellows! I’m not a ghost. I’m not dead. It’s … well it’s a long story. What on earth are you doing here? In the Hive?”
Ffloukes' eyes focused sharply and he stared at Robin clearly. “The Hive?” he repeated. “Aha. Is that where I am then? I see. They didn’t tell me, you understand. Quite rude really, utterly unacceptable. I could have been anywhere. Anywhere at all.”
“Ffloukes, why are you a prisoner here? What happened to you?” Robin tested the bars, but despite them looking like crystallised sugar, they felt as strong and sturdy as iron under his hands. The man looked haunted, as though his mind was more than a little baffled. Robin wondered how long he had been a prisoner here. He and Henry had been in the Hive less than an hour, and already he felt it was getting under his own skin.
“Is that the guy who was staying at Erlking?” Henry asked, peering through the bars at Robin’s side. “Bloody hell. He looks like he’s been through the wringer.”
Robin explained briefly. Henry hadn’t been there at Halloween. He hadn’t witnessed Ffoulkes shameful attempt at theft, or his inglorious exit from Erlking. Henry made an aghast face as he was filled in on the details.
“Knew there was something shifty about him! Sounds like an idiot to me. Serves him right, ending up here. We should just leave him.”
The man scuttled across the small space of the cell on his knees with surprising speed, reaching out and grasping Robin's still-translucent hands urgently when he heard this, his brocade and lace cuffs in tatters.
“Nonono,” he said quickly. “Don’t leave me here. Terribly sorry about all that bad business…really. No hard feelings, eh? Water under the bridge and all that? Just a…misunderstanding. Business is all it was. One does always have one eye on the value of things, doesn’t one? Aha.” His eyes were wide and desperate, his grip firm and shaking.
“You deserve to be locked up, you do,” Henry argued righteously.
“No he doesn’t!” Robin said, making his friend glare at him in surprise. “No one deserves to be here in this place, not even him. He got what he deserved when he got a kraken to the face and Hestia and Calypso shooting both barrels. He’s a light-fingered, conniving coward, yes, but it doesn’t mean we can leave him to waste away in Eris' dungeon because of it.”
“Yes! Quite!” Ffoulkes said eagerly, a little desperately. “Well said, young man. Well said. You are a good soul, Robin Fellows, a kind and warm-hearted one. I knew that the moment we met. It’s written all over your face … which … aha … I can see through at present. Did I mention that … that is odd, isn’t it?”
Robin suspected Ffoulkes had gone quite some time with no-one to talk to, or rather in his case ‘at’. He wrenched his hands free of the fire Panthea’s hands, asking again how he came to be here.
“Set upon by centaur,” Ffoulkes told him. “Not long after I … well … left your company, shall we say? I got to the Netherworlde, the sisters, my travelling companions, they had gone on without me. They are a strange flock. Always so secretive with their business.” His bright eyes crinkled. “Between you and me, my boy, I was rather glad to be rid of the burden of escorting them. Terribly unfashionable. I’ve never seen three drabber hags, have you? Rather brings one down. Aha.”
“The centaur?” Robin pressed.
“They’re all over the grasslands,” Ffoulkes replied, sounding indignant. “I’ve never known the like. So many patrols. Impossible not to be seen, you see. Thing is, I’m not very popular here. None of the Panthea who escaped the war, refusing to take sides and hiding in the mortal world are. They all think we’re the lowest of the low. Cowards, refusing to take a side, refusing to fight for or against.”
“You are a coward,” Henry nodded flatly. Ffoulkes glanced through Robin at the boy. “And look where it got you.”
“Perhaps I am,” Ffoulkes agreed shamelessly, not sounding remotely offended by the accusation. “But I think you will find, young man, that I have lived a great deal longer than many heroes have.”
He looked back to Robin. “The penalty for deserting the Netherworlde, under Eris’ law, is imprisonment eternal,” He said. “The centaurs had me as soon as I stepped onto the hills. They could smell Erlking all over me. Brought me here. Where I’ve been ever since.”
He looked thoughtful. “I suppose that deal I was supposed to close in the agora town has probably fallen through by now. That’s a terrible shame.”
“We’ll get you out,” Robin promised.
“Robin, he’s pondslime!” Henry argued.
“It might be a crime according to Eris to be a coward,” Robin told him. “But in my book, there’s no crime in being afraid. Granted, he might not be the bravest person, or indeed … even remotely trustworthy, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to rot in hell.” Robin’s semi-transparent stare was so stern that Henry closed his protesting mouth, and after a moment, nodded.
“There’s nowhere for me to go outside this place,” Ffoulkes said. “I never should have come back to the Netherworlde. If it wasn’t for me trying to steal that ridiculous mask. Nowhere left for me now.”
“There’s Erlking,” Robin said. He noticed that his hands, resting on the bars, were almost fully solid again now. “There’s always Erlking. We don’t turn anyone away. Even wastrels like you.”
Ffoulkes looked at Robin with something close to wonder. “You really are a remarkable young man,” he said, for once seemingly forgetting to add an affected laugh to his words. “After everything I did, you would still offer me sanctuary?”
“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, eh?” Robin said. “We have to find some other people too first. Then we have to figure out how to open these cages.”
“Other people?” Ffoulkes tilted his head to one side. “It’s mainly forest folk here. We had a heck of a lot of new arrivals yesterday. But there are some others too. An old man, a little girl and a very valuable-looking, mint-condition faun perhaps?”
Robin and Henry both stared at the bedraggled prisoner.
“You’ve seen them?” Henry cried, completely forgetting to keep his voice down.
“Well, yes,” Ffoulkes nodded. “There’s very little to do here other than watch. The swarm are terrible conversationalists. It’s all chitter-chitter buzz buzz. And the food here is ter
rible.” He lowered his voice to a gossipy whisper. “Personally, I suspect it’s already been eaten once by the time they bring it to-"
“Where are they?” Robin interrupted the man’s rambling.
“They’re in the next cell along,” Ffoulkes told them, blinking.
Robin leapt to his feet, but the man grabbed him urgently by the wrist, making him stop and look back.
“You will … you will come back for me?” he asked, his voice trembling, though he was clearly attempting to keep his tone as light and conversational as possible. “If you find a way to escape. You and your lovely friends? You won’t leave me here?”
Robin shook his head. “I promise,” he said.
Ffoulkes searched the boy's face. “I would leave you,” he admitted. “In your position. I would get myself away and not give the rest of you a second thought. I am, in many ways, a wretched person.”
“Yes, I know you are,” Robin shook his hand free. “But we’re not. We will get you out of here, I swear it.” He looked at Henry. “We’re getting everyone out of here.”
They left Ffoulkes gripping the bars, his bushy tangled beard poking between them like a madman, and hurried along to the next hexagonal opening, both scanning the Hive warily for signs of any high-flying swarm.
Robin’s heart leapt when he reached the bars and saw inside the tiny cell.
“Well, there you are,” said Karya, sounding completely unsurprised to see him. “I knew you weren’t dead.” She was sitting cross-legged in the centre of the cell, her bulky coat pulled around her. She didn’t look desperate or ragged as Ffoulkes had. She just looked inconvenienced.
“I told you he wouldn’t be dead,” she called out behind her. “Doesn’t matter if we saw him eaten by a dragon. As if something like that is going to keep our hornless wander down for long.”
