Chains of Gaia

by James Fahy

  “I know what there is to fight for,” he told the princess, squeezing her hand. “Hope. Even in this vile prison they can’t take that away from us.” Karya had looked up at him as he whispered, and he caught her golden eyes. “You’re right, Karya,” he nodded to her. “I would die for any of you. I probably will.” He nodded. “But not today. We’re not lost yet, any of us.”

  He turned to the princess. “You haven’t lost everything,” he told her. “You’re wrong. And you’re not weak and feeble. Splinterstem spent years convincing you that you’re some kind of delicate flower that needed his strength and his protection. But Princess, you’re a queen. Your people need you now. You can’t give up. There is something worth fighting for.” He squeezed her hand. “Your Alder is not dead.”

  She stared at him in confusion, dropping his hand.

  “He’s alive. We found him. He’s waiting for you at Rowandeepling,” Robin insisted. “Ashe, you’re stronger than you think. There’s a life and a world outside these dark walls still waiting for you. Your people need you to lead them. To rule.” He forced a smile. “Love and duty, you asked me how you could ever choose between them?” She stared at him. “They’re one and the same thing.”

  She looked as though she didn’t dare believe him. She couldn’t. Her eyes searched his for long moments. He could see her caution, and beneath it, a desperate, terrified longing to believe that what he was saying was true. He stared back at her steadily.

  “Free my people,” she whispered softly. "And we will destroy this swarm from within.”

  Robin nodded. Keeping one eye closely on Peryl, who had turned away to place the Shard back on the table, he reached into his back pocket and drew out the crumpled slip of magical parchment. He wasn’t sure if this would do any good. But he knew that, however much trouble they were in, they were not truly alone in the world, not ever.

  The Grimms just had a way of making you feel as though you were. Fear and despair was their power. But there were still others in the world who did not fear Eris.

  Robin had no pen. He searched the littered floor until he saw a sharp sliver of pottery, a fragment of a smashed vase, debris from his battle with Peryl. Picking it up slowly and carefully, one eye on Peryl as she contemplated the Shard, he jabbed the sharp, ragged end into the tip of his finger, wincing slightly at the pain.

  As a droplet of blood began to well, he lowered his bleeding finger to the parchment and with a shaking hand wrote a message.

  Trapped in the Hive. Strigoi here. Grimms. Need help.

  He watched anxiously as the blood settled into the parchment, the red and blotchy lettering smeared like a child’s finger painting and darkening like old rust. After a moment, the words disappeared, dissolving away and leaving the paper blank.

  It was a long shot, but he was out of options.

  Peryl had picked something else up from the table. It was the curious disc. The metallic gong he had noticed earlier, a large bronze shield or a mirror, burnished and golden. He had thought it only a decoration like the rest of the affected room, but now he suspected it was something else altogether. It was glowing, illuminated from within by soft pulses of light. They were bathing Peryl’s face in silent flashes of golden light. Whatever the curious object was, she looked extremely concerned as she held it in both hands, staring down at the polished surface.

  Robin crumpled the parchment and stuffed it back into his pocket.

  “What’s going on?” he asked her. “What is that thing?”

  Peryl looked at him over her shoulder as she cleared a space on the table, pushing aside tottering books and propping the large disc against the wall, so that it stood facing her. “Not that it’s any of your business at all,” she said tartly. “But it’s a scryglass. It’s how we keep in touch with the capital.” She sounded concerned. Very concerned. “It’s a direct line to the empress. All Grimms have one, wherever we’re stationed.”

  A magic mirror? He thought. The glowing intensified, the mirror pulsing warmly and silently. For some reason Robin couldn’t explain, it seemed quietly menacing, and its flashes of light were becoming more rapid and urgent.

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?” he said, as lightly as he could. “Seems pretty insistent to me.”

  Peryl glared at him. “Be quiet,” she said. She stared back at the mirror, her hand stroking her lapels in a nervous way. “There’s no reason for the Empress to be contacting me,” she muttered to herself. Robin could plainly hear the unease in her voice. “Why would the Empress be contacting me? She doesn’t know I have the Shard yet. I’ve sent no message. I–”

  “Maybe not the wisest idea to keep the boss hanging on the line,” Robin said, needling her on purpose. His eyes fell on the floor by the Grimm’s feet. There, to his surprise, amidst the fallen books and other rubbish, he suddenly saw Karya’s mana stone bracelet and Woad's opal nearby. Clearly they had been tossed around in the storm like everything else. He shot a glance at the insect guards. It was hard to tell, with their large round, mirrored eyes, but they seemed to be watching the prisoners at their feet, not him.

  With Peryl distracted by the strange golden mirror, this might be his best chance. As stealthily and carefully as he could, summoning every ounce of mana-management he had ever learned, he silently cast Featherbreath across the room, seeing the two mana-stones lift, an inch from the floor. They revolved in mid-air, glittering, behind the Grimm's heel, floating like tiny planets in zero gravity. Robin began, slowly and extremely carefully, to drift them silently across the room, praying that they didn’t drop and clatter.

  Karya and Woad had both seen this, and they stared at him with wide and hopeful eyes, Woad nodding encouragingly, Karya practically glaring caution at him, as Robin delicately guided the stones across the yellow tiled floor. Beads of sweat began to form on his forehead. The first time he had used Featherbreath, he had sent an sheet of paper hurtling through the air, sticking it to the ceiling in the atrium at Erlking where, to this day, it still remained. He focused, harder than he ever had before. Remembering every single tedious lecture and lesson, every hour of whale song and introspection he’d been forced to endure in the blue parlour.

  It was one thing to topple a bookcase onto someone with Featherbreath. That was a great angry push of mana. Anyone could throw a clumsy punch. But this, this was like delicate open-heart surgery.

  Peryl reached out tentatively toward the mirror, still wholly distracted by its insistent and foreboding pulsing. If this was the Empress’ way of contacting her servants in the field, then she most certainly was not giving up.

  “This is not good,” Peryl muttered. “I swear, blondie, whenever you’re involved, things never go to plan. You’re like a curse on me. I don’t know why I put up with you at all.”

  Robin ignored her. She had such an odd way of talking, as though they were good friends and all of this, life and death and war, it was all just a silly game to her. None of it real, no consequences. Karya’s bracelet and Woad’s opal were all the way across the room now. He floated them behind their respective owners, drawing on every ounce of skill he had, sending them off in different orbits around the bodies of his friends. Eventually, and with great relief, he dropped them silently into their open hands, still bound behind them. Robin saw Karya’s fingers close slowly and carefully around her bracelet, and she looked at him with her fierce eyes. Still bound and silent, she nodded ever so slightly. He could only see half of her face above the shadow, but she seemed full of pride.

  “Maybe you should have installed voicemail in your glowy dish,” Robin said to Peryl. “Then you could have screened your calls from the evil queen of the world. Sloppy planning that.”

  “I told you to be quiet!” Peryl said angrily, practically stamping her foot. “Am I going to have to gag you as well? Speak out of turn again and I will end one of your little buddies here.” She glanced around. “Maybe that bald guy shaking next to the old Fae. He looks like he’s going to cry anyway. It’s irritatin
g.”

  Ffoulkes, to whom she was referring, huddled down, trying to make himself less visible, hiding behind Henry and Hawthorn. He was shaking with fear.

  The Grimm seemed to reach a decision. She took a moment to straighten her black suit and smooth her hair, then, after taking and releasing a deep breath, she cracked her knuckles, and waved a hand across the surface of the mirror.

  It made a keening noise, like a musical saw, and the glowing became a steady light, growing in intensity until it was so bright, it shone out into the room like a golden spotlight. Too fierce for Robin or any other the others to look directly at.

  Peryl however, her face thrown into sharp contrast by the illumination blazing on her face, stared unblinking into the disc. The surface of the mirror looked formless now, liquid or smoke or somewhere between the two, rippling and shimmering.

  “My Lady,” she said, in a soft and respectful tone which Robin had never heard her use before. She bowed her head dutifully. “Praise to Dis, and praise to the Empire.”

  From the shimmering and blazing mirror, throwing ripples of light around the room, there came a low and hushed whispering. It was barely loud enough for Robin to make out. He could hear no words, but the sound of it seemed to crawl on his skin like ants.

  The Grimms were menacing and dangerous. Strigoi was worse, frightening and intimidating. But this noise, this…presence…flowing out of the disc, was something altogether different. A cold power so intense, it seemed to waken a primal instinct in Robin. The urge to flee, at any cost. Whatever animal instincts remained in his consciousness, after millennia of evolution, they were screaming danger at him, flooding his body with adrenalin. The faint whispering made his heart pound, his head ache with the sudden rush of blood brought on by panic, and every bone in his body screamed at him to get away. To get as far from this thing as possible, put as much distance as he could between himself and the owner of this near-silent whisper.

  He was aware that the others seemed to be experiencing the same overwhelming reaction. The princess at his side had drawn her knees up and had buried her head in her hands, refusing to look up into the room. Henry looked ashen and slack, as though he might pass out at any moment from the waves of power flowing from the disc. Even Karya and Woad had their heads bowed, as though to shield themselves from a great blast of cold. Hawthorn alone was glaring at the mirror over Peryl's shoulder, his old face set in a hard line. His eyes blazing defiantly. By his side, Ffoulkes lolled helplessly, having passed out immediately as soon as the horrible, insidious whispering had begun to fill the room like a poison gas.

  Peryl nodded at the lens, clearly able to hear what was being said.

  “Yes, my Lady,” she said haltingly. “It … it is true. I have obtained the Earth Shard of the Arcania. Even now, I prepare it for transport to you. Lord Strigoi himself is–” She faltered as the whispering resumed.

  “Yes … of course … I should have made you aware immediately … I only wanted …”

  Peryl halted again as the mirror blazed even brighter, molten gold before her. The whispering grew in volume, making Robin feel as though the ant were beneath his skin now, crawling inside his skull.

  “Of course, my Lady. A … a … thousand apologies … I can only…”

  More hushed conversation. The presence in the mirror continued to seep into the room, making it difficult to breathe. Even the two swarm guards had stepped backwards, outwards through the door. Still guarding their prisoners from the vantage of the slender bridge, but either unwilling or unable to remain in the overwhelming presence of the Lady of Dis.

  “The Scion?” Peryl said, and Robin heard her struggling to keep her voice light. “Well yes … as it happens, I have captured him too … How did my Lady …?”

  She bowed her head apologetically, cowed as the mirror shone even brighter, a solar flare of anger. Robin saw the Grimm’s knees actually buckle a little, as though she had been landed an invisible blow. She remained upright only with a great will of effort.

  “Yes … of course … at once.” Peryl turned to face Robin across the room. “Come here,” she commanded, a controlled tremble lurking under her words. “She wants to see you.”

  Robin was filled with bald horror at the thought. He would rather claw his way out of the wall behind him than take a single step toward the shimmering golden disc blazing malignantly on the table. It was pure danger. He shook his head, unable to form any words.

  Peryl’s eyes widened in a kind of blank desperation. “You don’t get to say no, idiot. None of us do," she hissed at him. “Here. Now. Or it will be far worse.”

  Her expression was wild and somehow seemed to be pleading. She looked as terrified as he was.

  Robin swallowed hard, forcing himself to stand up. He was the Scion of the Arcania, he told himself firmly, summoning all of his inner Puck. The world’s last changeling. He imagined if Aunt Irene saw him cowering on the floor like a scared child. He imagined if Gran could. Neither of them would have stood for it. He was the son of Lord Wolfsbane and Lady Dannae. They would not have died on their knees, whatever Peryl had said. He knew it. He knew it in his heart. And neither would the last Lord of Erlking.

  Robin walked slowly towards Peryl and the blazing golden mirror, every step a struggle. It felt like walking toward an explosion. Every instinct he had screaming at him to turn and run.

  I don’t run, he told himself firmly. Especially from things that scare me. He felt the Puck rise inside him, coming gratefully to his aid. He felt, rather than saw, his own hair whiten as he drew close to the mirror, knew that his blue eyes were bleeding into green as hard and bright as emeralds. It was as though the sheer power radiating from the lens was drawing his own power to the surface in self-defence.

  Peryl regarded him with something between fear and wonder as he stepped up to her side, unblinking. He glanced over at her, managing to drag his eyes away from the mirror for a second, and saw her pale face with its dark, made up eyes and tight mouth. She looked washed out in the brightness from the mirror, and Robin couldn’t help but feel a smattering of pity for her.

  If this was what she answered to. If this malevolent, powerful being was the price of her power. Robin turned to the golden disc, and stared defiantly into it, his heart hammering but his face set.

  The surface was polished metal. It showed him no clear reflection, only a smoky outline. But it was not his own. The blurred form shifted a little, smoky and indistinct. What Robin could make out, with perfect clarity, was a pair of eyes. They were gold, solid gold, as brilliant as twin suns, as beautiful as the dawn and as regal as a lions. They stared hungrily out of the glass, burning into him, peering past his flesh and blood and penetrating deep into his core, searching his very essence.

  They were the most beautiful, terrible eyes he had ever seen, and he could not look away. They held him fixed, and he would have stood there forever if they had commanded it. The eyes of Eris fell on him like sunlight and fire.

  “Robin Fellows. The favoured child,” a whisper from the mirror. He heard it quite distinctly. A female voice, soft, whispering, almost warm. “At last,” it breathed.

  Robin stared helplessly, his own eyes watering, wondering absently if he was going to pass out, or throw up.

  The eyes disappeared into the mist, the shadowy silhouette shifting slightly, and Robin, released from their grip, fell backwards, stumbling and blinking. He became aware that he hadn’t been breathing for several seconds, and gasped painfully. His green eyes felt scorched. He could feel his mana racing through his bloodstream, raw energy as he blinked furiously trying to shake the after images of the eyes of Eris from his vision.

  Robin heard the shape in the mirror whisper something else to Peryl, and then, without warning, the light dimmed, and in seconds, the glow had gone altogether.

  The light dimmed in the room, reverting back to the wan sickliness of the Hive, and the circle of burnished bronze was once more nothing more than a disc of metal, reflecting nothin
g.

  Peryl turned on Robin. “Great!” she yelled, sounding shaky and panicked. “Wonderful! Fantastic! How did he know? How did he know? That conniving, vicious old–”

  “How did who know what?” Robin shook his head, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. The oppressive and overpowering presence of Eris had gone from the room, but he could not shake the image of those eyes, peering right through him.

  “Strife!” Peryl slapped at the mirror furiously, knocking it flat onto the table in anger. It fell noisily with a metallic clatter. “Strife! That poisoned dart! That crooked blade of a man! He knows I’m here with the Shard! That spying wretch! And…” She pointed a finger at Robin, shaking slightly. “He knows you’re here too!” She glared at him. “He has told the empress that you have infiltrated the Hive, meaning to steal the Shard which I have obtained and which I had ‘not bothered’ to inform her of right away.” She was grinding her teeth in anger. “He has ‘concerns’ about my ability to keep the Shard safe, and about the dangers of a rogue Scion at loose in the Hive,” she spat furiously. “Eris is not pleased. Not one little bit! She is coming here. For the Shard, for you. She is coming herself, blondie!”

  Robin glanced at Henry. Strife. That double, double, double crossing snake. He had high-tailed it back to Dis, ratting out his sister and her procurement of the Shard. He had placed Robin in the Hive, a place from which there is no escape, and then revealed his exact whereabouts to the empress. Robin didn’t even know why he was surprised. Strife had trapped them all, put them under the glowing lens of the empress.

  “Did you even hear what I said?” Peryl cried, her voice shrill. “Eris. Lady Eris. She is coming here, to the Hive. Right now. For the Shard. For you.” The Grimm looked terrified herself. She clearly didn’t want her mistress here in her Hive-kingdom. Robin didn’t either. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the force that had shone through that golden mist.