The Drowned Tomb (The Changeling Series Book 2) (18 page)

Mr Drover looked abashed. “Oh, I do beg pardon, Miss Ester,” he said. “Forget I’m in the company of the fairer sex sometimes I do. Too rough around the edges for my own good. You’re quite right, quite right, terrible business.”

Irene patted Hestia’s hand absently. “Why don’t you go and put another kettle on, Hestia,” she suggested calmly. “I find there is rarely a ‘suitable’ time to speak of death. But there are indeed suitable times to eat and drink, so I see no harm in the two sharing space at my table.”

Robin would never understand why his aunt seemed to have a soft spot for the miserable old housekeeper. But the black-haired woman clomped out of the room obediently.

“How did she die?”

It was Karya, who was sitting opposite Robin, reading the newspaper at the table, who had spoken.

“I imagine her heart stopped,” Irene said. “That’s usually the case with humans. Am I right, Mr Drover?”

Henry’s father nodded. “Well, yes, obviously her heart stopped. They always do, eventually. They think it was natural causes.”

“Nothing suspicious at the scene?” Karya pressed, looking over at him. “Black marks? Soot? A smell of coal or sulphur?”

Everyone stared at her.

“No … not really,” Drover said, confused. “Not as I’ve heard anyway. Just a lot of old milk.”

“Hmm,” Karya replied, going back to her paper with a rustle. “Please do let me know, Mr Drover, if you hear of anything unusual with regards to the death of Mrs Satsuma, about which the lovely Hestia seems so terribly upset.”

Robin knew what Karya was thinking. She had been scanning all forms of media for signs of Grimm activity. Did she really think the Grimms were in Barrowood and had offed an old lady living alone? He wanted to get her alone so they could talk about it.

“And why should Hestia not be upset?” Irene asked Karya lightly, pouring herself a tea with the pot the housekeeper had left.

Karya blinked at the old woman, looking as though she had been caught off guard a little. “Well, it’s just … She’s always upset, isn’t she? Hestia, I mean. She seems to like a drama, that’s all I’ve observed. It’s hardly as though she knew the woman, is it?”

Irene did not reply immediately. She set down her teacup and using a pair of small silver tongs, dropped two sugar cubes into her tea.

“As a matter of fact,” she said softly, replacing the tongs with a clink. “Hestia knows everyone in this village. She takes an interest. You would do well not to assume too much about everyone here at Erlking.”

Karya looked embarrassed. Robin and the others were so used to making fun of Hestia and her hysterics between themselves, she had overstepped some invisible boundary.

“Do not forget that you, Karya, are a guest here yourself, at the invitation of my great-nephew, Robin,” Irene continued. “And we do not presume to know much of anything about you. A lady has died. It is perfectly appropriate to be sad.” She stirred her tea with a tinkling spoon.

Robin could tell that Karya wanted the ground to swallow her up. “I apologise,” she said, a little haughtily. “I can be a little … blunt sometimes, I’m aware. I meant no offence.”

Robin had known bricks less blunt that Karya, but his aunt seemed to accept this apology graciously.

The old lady turned to Robin. “My ward, Mr Drover is here today as I have asked him if he will be so kind as to serve as my driver. I have made very little progress with this.” She produced from the pocket of her dress the long carved tube they had located in the grave and she set the arcane artefact it on the table, beside the jam and marmalade. “And so I have made some enquiries, and I have found a specialist in London who, shall we say, deals in unusual artefacts. I am going to see him regarding this finding. He may be able to shed some light on its meaning.” She indicated for Robin to take the cylinder, and he reached over and picked it up.

“You’re not taking it with you?” he asked.

She shook her silver head. “It will be safest here in Erlking while I am gone. My contact in London is a Panthea who has lived in the human world for a long time now. He is quite an expert but of somewhat dubious character.” She allowed herself a small smile. “Let us say that I trust his judgement, but I do not trust him. I have assembled a selection of lithographs to take with me instead.”

“Lithographs?”

Mr Drover reached into his coat pocket and brought out his mobile phone. “Took some pictures of it on my phone,” he said happily, waggling the device.

“An ingenious contraption,” Irene allowed. “Robin, I am likely to be gone for three days. Should you need me for anything, I will be staying at a hotel in Mayfair. Hestia has the address. Your tutor of course will remain here with you, and I would suggest you look to her for any advice or guidance needed in my absence. Hestia will attend to your daily needs as usual.” She glanced at Mr Drover. “Henry, I am given to understand, is on instructions to come up to Erlking after his summer school class today. He will be staying here while his father and I are away.”

“I’ll look after this,” Robin said, rolling the tube under his hands on the tablecloth.

Irene looked pleased. “I cannot imagine safer hands,” she said approvingly.

Robin, Calypso and Karya stood at the foot of the steps at Erlking’s entrance, waving off Irene and Mr Drover as the handyman’s ancient car crunched out of the gravel circle and disappeared around the bend of trees off down the hill. Once the car was out of sight, his tutor announced that as there were no lessons scheduled for today, Robin was free to entertain himself. A tiny frown appeared on her forehead, as though she were struggling to get her head around an unfamiliar concept. “The Lady Irene has advised me that in her absence, you fall under my care, Scion of the Arcania,” she said. She regarded him coolly, as though this was something of a nuisance. “I’m not altogether very certain regarding the care of pale hornless young Fae, however. Are there specific needs you have which require urgent attention?”

Robin frowned up at the nymph. “Um, not really.”

Calypso looked visibly relieved to have the burden of responsibility lifted from her. “Excellent. In that case, I shall retire to my rooms for the day. Should you require food or drink, I daresay you will seek the help of the housekeeper. She is far more likely to greet any such request warmly coming from you than she would from me.”

Robin doubted that. Hestia had never, to his knowledge, greeted anything warmly.

“Why doesn’t Hestia seem to like you, Miss Calypso?” Karya asked. Everyone had noticed that she seemed even less friendly than usual around the nymph.

Calypso blinked her liquid eyes at the girl, unconcerned. “She is of the sort who feel my presence here is a poor influence, I believe,” she said. “She is of the opinion, I think, that nymphs are bad news. That we do not serve her sainted mistress with the same level of devotion as she.”

The woman shrugged her flawless shoulders elegantly. “She is not entirely wrong. I have no particular allegiance to your aunt or to Erlking, Robin, but then I had no particular allegiance to Eris either. Nymphs flow where they will. I am here as a favour returned and a debt owed, nothing more.”

“They do say water finds the easiest course,” Karya observed, a little waspishly Robin thought.

“Rain falls where it chooses to, friend of the Scion,” the nymph said to her. Something passed between the woman and the girl that Robin didn’t quite understand. “We have both of us spent time in Eris’ court, have we not? There is no black and white in the Netherworlde, nor in the hearts of the people who live in it. I go where there is safety, while safety remains. I have found it here, as have you, for a time.”

“No black and white, I agree, but plenty of red,” Karya replied.

“What a grim outlook you have for one so young,” the nymph responded lightly. She turned to Robin, and he could see that she was trying to think what a responsible adult would say to him.

“Entertain yourself, and try not to do anything which would blind or maim you. I suspect your aunt would be displeased should she return to a less functioning charge.”

Robin promised faithfully that he had no set plans today to sever a limb and Calypso, satisfied with this, disappeared inside.

As soon as she was gone and the front doors of Erlking closed behind her, Karya clapped her hands together. “Right, I’m off.”

“Off where?” Robin asked.

“To the village, of course,” the girl replied. “You heard what Henry’s father said this morning. A woman has died, she lived alone. I have to check if this is the Grimms.”

“It’s entirely possible that she was just an old lady whose time was up, you know,” Robin replied. He was a little concerned that Karya was starting to see Grimms in every leaping shadow. It was hard to imagine the grisly organisation on such a pretty summer’s day. The warm air out in the front of Erlking was filled with tiny puffs of blowing pollen.

“This is true,” Karya allowed. “But it’s equally possible that Grimms are repeating their earlier pattern and are somewhere nearby. If they needed a base of operations, what better than the house of an old lady who lives alone and doesn’t get many visitors.”

“Should I come with you?” he offered. She shook her head firmly. “No, with your aunt away and floaty Miss Daydream the only steward of the household, I think it’s safer for you to remain at Erlking.”

This annoyed Robin a little. “I’m not made of glass you know,” he said. “I’m thirteen, not seven. And I thought you said this Mr Ker guy would skin you alive if you ran into him?”

Karya was already walking off, boots crunching determinedly in the gravel. “No, I said he’d skin you alive, Scion. He’d have a hard time skinning me alive, I assure you. You keep the cylinder safe and sound. I’ll be careful, I promise, and I’ll be back in an hour or two. I just want to check it out.”

Robin stood on the steps, watching her wander off and gripping the carved cylinder tightly.

“Karya, wait,” he called after her. She stopped and turned to look at him, impatiently.

“What is it now?”

“Your coat,” he said. The girl was wearing, as always, her bulky, oversized coat of animal skins which practically drowned her. She looked at him, puzzled.

“You’ll draw less attention in the village if you look like a normal human,” he explained, jogging across the gravel to her. She nodded in understanding, shrugging off her outerwear. How she wasn’t constantly fainting in the summer heat was beyond Robin. Without the huge coat she looked odd, he thought. Hestia, on Irene’s instruction, had procured normal clothing for her when she had first come to Erlking, and she wore a blank green t-shirt and old jeans. She looked somehow smaller and a lot more vulnerable to Robin, almost like a normal girl. Until one noticed her usually steely golden gaze, that was.

“Look after that,” she told him firmly, as she piled the coat into his arms. “It’s the only thing I have that’s mine. Really mine, I mean. Woad made it for me.” And with that she turned and left.

Robin trudged back to the house, wondering what he was going to do with the rest of his day. Karya’s coat was heavy slung over one arm, and in his other hand he was twirling the cylinder over and over, lost in thought.

He almost didn’t notice the small blue smear of Woad waiting for him on the steps. The faun bounded up as he approached.

“No Henryboy, no Boss, no old lady,” the small boy grinned. “Let’s go do something fun, Pinky!”

LUMINAQUA

Robin, bewildered, had followed the scampering faun indoors and through Erlking’s many hallways until they reached the third floor, where, at the end of an otherwise rather unremarkable corridor, there was a blood-red door with a round silver door handle. He watched the faun struggle with it for several seconds, grunting and cursing as the door refused to budge, before speaking.

“Woad, what on earth are you playing at?” he asked. “You know this won’t open.”

The door was Erlking’s own Janus station. It was a pathway between the human world and the Netherworlde. The previous year, when he had first discovered his Fae heritage, Mr Moros, disguised as Phorbas the satyr, had led him through here, to explain his origins and help him choose his mana stone. It had been the first time Robin had ever set foot in the Netherworlde since leaving it as a baby. Now, when he thought of that day, it was always with a mixture of wonder and horror. Moros could have kidnapped him there and then if it hadn’t been so risky. He could still remember his ‘tutor’ expressing annoyance that Irene had insisted the door be left open while they were across the threshold.

“I thought with everyone gone, we could just have an hour in the Netherworlde,” the faun grunted, tugging persistently on the handle. He was gripping it with both hands and had his feet off the floor, braced against the crimson wood. “It’s been forever and ever and ever since I was there. We can stay close to Erlking, just on the hill. I miss the smells.”

“Woad, really,” Robin insisted, trying to dissuade the blue boy from tugging on the door. “For a start, there’s no use tugging, the door opens inwards anyway, and secondly, it won’t open if Aunt Irene isn’t here, no matter what you do.”

Robin was also pretty sure that a quick excursion into the Netherworlde, however well-intended, was something certain to send Aunt Irene ‘off her nut’, as Henry would put it. The Netherworlde was strictly off limits. It was a beautiful, but dangerous place. Especially for the world’s last changeling. He would be lying to himself, however, if he didn’t admit to longing to go back there just as much as Woad did.

The faun looked back at Robin over his shoulder, a look of frustration on his face. His tail whipped back and forth like an angry cat.

“Can’t you use your powers?” he asked. “I just wanted us to do something fun while we had spare time, that’s all. Inky is asleep. It’s hard looking after a pet all day, I’ve been playing him some flute music, but I’m not very good at it.”

“Where on earth did you find a flute?” Robin asked.

Woad looked a little guilty. “Just found one,” he muttered under his breath. “And anyway, it would be a good thing really, mean old Hestia won’t want us cluttering up the house all day. I overheard her say she has to wash all the wallpaper today. She always does on the last Monday of the month. Every room. Then tomorrow, it’s the annual check of all the lightbulbs.”

Robin patted Woad on the back affectionately, encouraging him to stop warring with the door.

“I know, she goes on a power-trip when Aunt Irene’s out of the house, but there’s no trick I know to open this door, honestly. I’ve only ever been through it once before, and she allowed it that time. We should think of something else to do, okay?”

The faun slid down the wall dejectedly. “Boghags and brontosaurs,” he grumbled. “Like what then?”

Robin had left Karya’s coat on the stand in the hallway downstairs, but was still holding the Undine’s unopened cylinder. “We could always have another crack at figuring this out?” He waved it at the faun in what he hoped was an enticing way. “Aunt Irene and Karya have been at it for months. Maybe it’s time the boys had a go, eh?”

Woad rolled his yellow eyes. “Homework? Haven’t you had enough of that yet? You’ve always either got your head buried in your books or you’re at the lessons with the wet lady.”

“I like my books,” Robin replied, a little defensively. It was true he had been practising hard and finally making significant progress in the Tower of Water lately. He had impressed his tutor during the last session in the atrium, when at his instruction, he had asked her to place the five silver cups at various points around the walls of the circular room and had then stood in the centre, proceeding to make water leap from cup to cup in soaring arcs across the room in great rainbow leaps, four and five streams at a time. They had criss-crossed above his head, shooting back and forth, a glimmering net, a moving, liquid spider’s-web lacing over their heads. As a finale, he had focused and slapped his hands together, freezing the entire structure immediately in a delicate lacework above them in the soaring heights of the atrium. It had held its form, pale and perfect above their upturned faces, a matrix of interlaced ice crystals, before crumbling into a fine snow which softly fell down around them and on to their upturned faces. Calypso had actually given him a genuine smile, and a rare nod of approval. He was beginning, she told him, to allow himself to use his emotions at last.

Woad now picked himself up off the floor and took the tube from Robin, rattling it alarmingly next to his ear. “What was the riddle again?” the faun asked.

“Tritea’s tomb, the frozen gates, opens after triple states,” Robin repeated from memory.

Woad scratched his chin as the boys made their way back along the corridor, flipping the tube end over end with his free hand.

“It’s bound to be something damp, right?” the faun said, as they reached the top of the stairs.

“Damp?”

“You know, watery, icy. Tower of Water stuff,” Woad elaborated. His face suddenly lit up. “I have the most best idea of all time!”

“You do?” Robin was dubious.

“I haven’t got a clue about this,” the faun declared, grabbing Robin by the wrist and pulling him down the staircase in a swift jog. “But I made some new friends who might! Come on!”

Woad dragged a confused Robin back through the house, out of the front doors, and away across Erlking’s wide lawns, pollen and leaves bursting up in in clouds from beneath their running feet as they headed away from the manor and toward the comparative cool of the shadowy trees.

Woad, excited and sniggering, would not be drawn on where they were going until they were fairly deep into the woods. Robin crashed through the undergrowth clumsily while the faun sped on ahead, dancing around bushes and under branches while Robin took the more direct route of straight into them.

“Where are you taking me, you maniac?” Robin called out, laughing, as Woad scurried on ahead. Erlking was well out of sight behind them now, and they scrambled up and down several leafy hills in the dappled light, the summer earth dry and crumbly under their feet. Robin hadn’t been this deep into the woods before. He wondered how far Erlking’s radius of influence reached. Were they beyond the perimeter here? He was guessing they were.

“It’s not far, this way,” the faun called back, excited.

Eventually, after a solid half hour of crashing through trees and beating their way through bushes, they arrived, panting and roasting. Robin stopped short before a deep open glade, where a hollow of sorts, a deep dip in the hilly woods, held a large, refreshing-looking pool. There was a steep jagged tumble of rocks beside, forming one side of the hollow, and down which flowed a decent woodland waterfall, splashing prettily into the inviting surface below. Stocks and tall bulrushes crowded the floor of the hollow, a colourful flowered carpet framing the water. The trees crowded overhead, almost covering the sky, making the glade seem secret and enclosed.

It felt a hidden place, and the light of the sun fell down in filtered green shafts through the leaves.

“Wow,” Robin said in admiration, as they stood on the lip, looking down into the small gully, listening to the splashing of the waterfall. White butterflies darted here and there amongst the tall, nodding stocks. “This place is pretty wonderful, Woad. But why are we here?”

Woad had been mentioning his discovery of a pool deep in the forest all summer long, trying to convince Robin and Henry to come and explore, but Robin had been too busy with his lessons at the lake and in the house. He had been imagining a little puddle in between the trees, not this verdant and lush grotto.

“We’re here, Pinky, because of the sirens,” Woad explained, grinning over at him, his face in dappled green sunlight. He scrambled down the grassy slope to the water’s edge below. “Come on. I bet they can help.”

“The sirens?” Robin asked, confused as he followed, slipping down and making his way through the bullrushes, “Woad, this isn’t the Netherworlde, this is Bronte country. You know that right?”

The faun gave him a pointed look. “And when did you become such an expert on the Netherworlde, pteranadon-brains? You think no one ever leaves the Netherworlde and comes to live here instead? There is a war on you know. Not everyone wants to play.”

“How could sirens be at Erlking?” Robin asked, joining Woad at the water’s edge. The noise from the waterfall was louder down here, and the agitated water threw choppy reflected sunlight back up onto the boys’ faces.

“This isn’t Erlking,” Woad confirmed. “We passed the border a while back. These are just woods. But we’re not really too far, so I don’t think you can get in trouble for it.” He considered this. “Well, you probably can, but only if the bossy ones find out. And to answer your question, the closer you are to Erlking, the more Netherworlde creatures there are, Pinky. It’s like a big magnet for us. Well, a big magnet with doors and windows and chimneys, I mean.” He was crouched at the water’s edge and reached out, dipping a hand briefly in the pool and swishing it about. “Sirens have been talking to me all summer. They’re a bit … weird, but it’s okay. They like me to come and talk to them. They helped me learn how to look after Inky. What songs he would like, what to feed him. They can help with this too. I bet they can. I’d bet my tail on it.” He stopped, pulling his blue fingers from the dark water. “Well, maybe half my tail. No! Wait, just an inch! I can spare that I suppose.”

“I thought sirens were supposed to be dangerous,” Robin said, a little concerned.

“Are we?” a voice had come, quite clearly, from behind the waterfall.

Robin whipped his head around in surprise. Standing just beyond the curtain of falling water, he could make out a shadowy outline.
There
must
be
a
cave
behind
there
, he thought.
It’s
been
watching
us
. The voice was low and deep and soft.

“Everything is dangerous to something,” it said. “What have you brought us today, my blue friend?” The shadow shifted, and the voice became a little plaintive. “Won’t you swim with us?”

Woad looked over at the waterfall with his usual open and friendly face. “I’ve told you a million times, fauns don’t like to swim. It’s not that we’re not good at it. We are. I’m probably the best swimmer there ever was.”

Robin could see other shapes, two or three of them, moving below the surface of the water. He hadn’t noticed them until now. Silent large shadows, like huge koi. “Swim with us, swim with us,” they echoed faintly, voices rising in strange whispers somehow through the surface of the water. Robin, watching them circle lazily, took a wary step back from the edge. Into the flowers.

“This one…” The shadow behind the waterfall said. “Is no faun.”

“This is the Scion!” Woad said proudly. “The actual real Scion and everything. You can’t have him though, he’s mine. He belongs at Erlking, not in the woodsy woods. He’s a Fae. The only one left in the human world.” He thought for a minute. “And there’s probably not that many left free back home either.” He shook the thought away. “We have something we want to ask you, water-sisters.”

The shapes in the water became agitated, swishing back and forth faster. They echoed Woad’s words urgently. “The Scion?” Their voices overlapped one another like waves.

“The Scion of the Arcania,” the shadow behind the falls said, sounding both impressed and rather intrigued. Robin saw it tilt what he assumed was its head – it was so hard to make out. “How delicious. How simply marvellous,” it said. “A Fae, here amongst us, in our hallowed waters. Do you hear, sisters? A Fae no less. And a young one too. Young and strong and full of life.”

“A Fae…” The sounds rose from the water, sounding impressed and filled with odd longing. “Delicious, delicious, such an honour.”

“Woad,” Robin whispered from the corner of his mouth, not taking his eyes off the waterfall. “I think … we should go.” The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end. Whatever these creatures were, Robin’s instincts told him they were predators. Woad seemed completely oblivious. He clearly didn’t have much judgement of character as far as Robin was concerned.

“What does he want?” the things beneath the water spoke. “What does he ask?”

“Speak, great Scion of the Arcania.” The shape behind the waterfall raised its hands, and reached out through the water, parting the torrent like curtains. Robin had been expecting hands, but what emerged from the darkness were mottled grey claws, large and hoary, like those of a crab. They were barbed with wicked looking black tines. They clicked, eagerly. “What would the Scion ask of the sirens?”

Robin was now quite certain this was a terrible mistake. He wanted away from the pool, and to drag Woad with him, dragging him off by the tail if needed, but he was busy trying to keep one eye on the siren reaching out from the waterfall towards them, and the other on its sisters, swirling underwater. The shapes seemed larger now, they were closer to the surface. Their movements reminded Robin of circling sharks.