The Drowned Tomb (The Changeling Series Book 2) (19 page)

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, in as friendly a voice as he could manage. “Really. Look, we’re sorry to have bothered you, we really ought to get going, so, it was lovely meeting you … ladies … but—”

Woad looked confused. “But what about the riddle?” he asked loudly.

“Riddle?” the thing in the waterfall asked, its low voice rasping. The outstretched claws clicked eagerly again in a twitching manner, sharp and fast. “What … riddle?”

“Woad, I don’t think it’s safe here,” Robin said out of the corners of his mouth. He was inwardly cursing the faun for ever bringing them there in the first place.

Woad stood up. “Oh, don’t worry,” he said, utterly unconcerned and without bothering to lower his voice. “Sirens can’t leave water. They always want you to get in and swim with them, but they never come out.” He shook his head. “Swim swim swim, honestly, every time I’m here. But they are good at talking too. I told you, they helped me with Inky. Sirens are old and clever. They know lots of things.”

“You said you would swim with us,” the voices in the pool whispered, a little petulantly. “You said you would. You promised, little blue one.”

Woad grinned, raising a finger. “Aha! Yes. But I didn’t say when though.” He shrugged. “I mean, I probably will, one day, but I’m a very busy faun.”

“What is the riddle, Scion,” the siren in the waterfall asked again. It moved forward, so that its face was just on the other side of the falling curtain of water. It was still lost in shadow, but Robin could make out pale features, long straight hair which looked matted and flat to its long, angular head. The eyes were large, much larger than a human’s, and milky white. The eyes of a dead fish. Its countenance rippled like a mirage behind the moving water. Robin couldn’t see clearly, but there was something terribly, terribly wrong about its mouth.

“Your friend is right. Sirens are clever,” it said slowly. “We can help. We can help the Scion of the Arcania. Why doesn’t he come into the water? Speak with us? Come and swim, little Fae. Share your secrets and we will share ours.”

“Tender Fae,” the dark sisters beneath the surface whispered. “Come and swim in the dark with us.”

“Um, actually, I’m fine for swimming, right now, thanks very much,” Robin said carefully. The three sirens were certainly unnerving, but he had his mana stone on, he thought he could probably defend himself, as long as he stayed out of the pool. He had combat spells ready. Galestrike or Needlepoint would do the trick if it came to that.

Woad may well be right, perhaps these creatures could help them. They were water Panthea after all.

“Why would you offer to help me?” he asked the one above the surface, holding the cylinder carefully before him. “Why are you here in the human world anyway? You don’t work for Lady Eris? You don’t hate the Fae?”

The siren snickered, he saw its shimmering face split into something like a grin, rippling behind the falling water. “Work for Eris,” it spat. “Work for Eris? Hate the Fae? Child, do you think all of those who work for Eris do so out of hatred? Or is it more likely out of fear? If you want to keep out of Eris’ way, and not have her attention fall unfavourably on you, join her side, yes? That is the thinking of many. The darkest spot is often at the foot of the lighthouse.”

Robin could understand that, he supposed.

“We are here because we choose to be,” the siren told him. “We have made these woods our home since long ago, when the war came. There are ways and means. Pathways between the worlds that even all-powerful Eris, with all her stolen power, does not know. We left the Netherworlde. Sirens are not ruled. We are nobody’s slaves.” The claws retreated behind the waterfall, and the being moved backwards slightly into the shadows.

“Why would you help me though?” Robin asked again, making his way cautiously around the edge of the pool closer towards the waterfall. The long grass and bulrushes rustled around his legs. They would want something in return, he was sure of it.

“Swim with us,” the siren called, its low voice a rasp under the noise of the falling water. “Our water is fine and cool, little Fae. It will quiet your blood. It will calm your mind.”

“I don’t want to swim,” Robin replied, refusing to be distracted. “I need help with a riddle. It’s to do with the Tower of Water. With the tomb of Tritea, the Undine.”

There was a soft hiss from the darkness behind the waterfall, and the shadow of the siren seemed to bloom here and there with light, soft pinks and blues rippled along the edges of its form, passing over its skin in strange electric waves. Robin had seen the same thing on deep-sea fish on TV documentaries. Gran had loved those shows. “Those things are beautiful and ugly at the same time, Robin,” she used to say. “All pretty lights to lure the little fish in, and bloody horrible big fangs to keep ‘em there. That’s nature for you,” she had said. “Beauty and bloodshed.”

The lights of the siren flickered and strobed, captivating bioluminescence in the dark cave. Was that why it had stepped back into the shadows, the better to show off its colours? Robin blinked, focussing with some difficulty. They play of light drew his eyes. It was oddly hypnotic.

“Undine,” the sirens hissed, three voices at once. “The high ones. The elder sisterhood. They are wise fools, and their queen is dead.”

“Yes, we know she’s dead,” Robin said. “We need to know where she is, and for that we need to get to Hiernarbos. No one knows the way.” He held up the cylinder. “The way is in here.”

“Ran away with a pretty Fae, she did,” the flickering darkness rasped, sounding softly scandalised. The lights in her skin ebbed and pulsed. “Left her throne, left her charge, went to hide, to live and die in peace. No one knows where. No one.”

“We already know she was with one of the Fae,” Robin said. “We don’t know where the two eloped to, but the Undine in the hidden valley, at Hiernarbos might. She may be buried there, in her homeland. We need to find her. Will you help me or not?”

The lights of the siren brightened, swirling backwards across its form. Robin could see from the flickering outline that it was basically human shaped, but tall, very, very tall, with stooped shoulders and its arms were large and long like clubs. Powerful. Its claws clacking at its side. “What is the riddle, Scion of the Arcania?” it said eventually.

Robin told it. He was aware that Woad was crouched by his side, firmly planted rather protectively between him and the water’s edge.

“Three states, unlock the gates,” the siren cackled, a bubbling, throaty noise. “How simple. How simple you must all be. What do they teach the Fae these days?”

A claw shot out from the waterfall, making Robin flinch a little and take a step back. He hadn’t realised it, but he’d been slowly walking toward the cave, his feet sleepwalking while he watched the lights flicker in the darkness. He’d been moving without thinking, without noticing, drawn closer to the creature by its light show. The claw pointed at the grass between the rocks, where the waterfall hit the pool. “Drop it here. We will open it now.”

Woad and Robin exchanged glances. The faun shrugged, which wasn’t very helpful, so Robin, careful to keep his eye on the things swirling in the water, slowly dropped to one knee and placed the long tube gently on the tussocky grass. He stood and took a step back. Quite a big step.

“If you are thinking of tricking me,” he said, trying his best to sound stern and impressive. “You should know that I am the Scion, and Erlking is mine. You don’t want to be my enemy.”

The sirens all bubbled with laughter, the exact opposite reaction he had hoped for. Woad glared at them, furious on Robin’s behalf. “He is!” the boy piped up. “Any tricky business and he’ll throw a slush-spear at you! Trust me, that will be…” he hesitated. “Cold and unpleasant.”

“Yes, thank you, Woad,” Robin hissed, mortified.

“Three states, open the gates,” the sirens swirling in the water sang. They were glowing too, down there beneath the dark surface. Flickering in prismatic light, making the blackness of the pool into a whirling soft rainbow. It was very, very hard not to look at, Robin found.

The siren in the cave flexed her claw, and a small jet of water shot out from the waterfall, redirected by mana. This jet encased the tube in a floating bubble, flowing over it in rippling, caressing waves.

“State one, water,” it said.

There was another pulse of mana, and with a loud series of crackles and snaps, the water flowing over the tube clouded, becoming pale and white. Frost tinged the grass in a circle around the cylinder as the watery skin hardened. In seconds, it was solid and shining.

“State two,” the siren explained, still shimmering brightly in the gloom. “Ice.”

A third flick of its long claw, and with a loud hiss, the ice encasing the Undine’s case evaporated immediately, billowing up and dissipating in mid-air in a whooshing cloud.

“State three … steam.”

Robin stared at the tube. It had changed. Where before it had been covered in intricate carvings, now it was smooth and pale, like whalebone. As he and Woad stared, there was a click, and one end of the cylinder opened smoothly, as though on an invisible hinge. Rolled neatly and tightly inside, they saw, was a yellowed scroll.

Robin’s heart leapt. They’d done it. The three states of the Tower of Water, that was all that had been required. Without thinking he looked up, meaning to thank the siren. He hadn’t noticed, but while he had been watching the magic at work, the creature had slid out of the waterfall and stood now directly before him, a dark and shimmering shape. Its bodily lights flickered and blazed, catching and trapping his eyes. He was rooted to the spot, unable to turn away. Unable to move or do anything other than stare, idiotically and helpless, into the pulsing nebulae of lights rolling over the creature. It was beautiful, a rolling kaleidoscope, making his eyes dilate.

“Now, you swim,” it growled. With alarming speed, it lunged forward, its reach from the waterfall’s edge much greater than the boy had anticipated. With a heavy swing of its thick claws, it batted Robin off his feet. Dazed and entranced by the lights, he faintly heard Woad calling his name in panic, and then he hit the water, crashing into the pool, and everything was icy blackness.

Robin thrashed in the darkness, the water was cold as ice, and pitch black. It rushed in against him, shaking off the dizzying stupor of the siren’s lights and bringing him immediately to his shocked senses. The cold seemed to pierce his skin, knocking the air from his lungs in a shocked gasp which sent countless noisy bubbles rolling over his face. His heart felt as though it was going to explode, and his limbs were heavy with the weight of his sodden clothes. Robin had imbibed black kraken bile, he knew he was a strong swimmer, and in the past few months he had become utterly at home in the cool clear expanse of Erlking’s lake. But this was different. The water here was so cold and dark, and his disoriented brain couldn’t quite make his body work as it should. He kicked out, blind and freezing, starved of air, but his clothes and trainers were so heavy. He was sinking, deeper and deeper into the midnight waters, colder than the grave. Shapes brushed against him, unseen. Buffeting him around, over and over, large and heavy things. He felt the scrape of claws against his frigid skin, as the sirens in the water sought to entangle him.

I’m
going
to
drown
, he thought quite clearly.
They’re going to drown me.
Claws sought for purchase. In the blind darkness there was a flash of sickly light from the bodies of the sirens. A claw gripped his thigh like a cruel vice. Another bit into his shoulder, pushing him downward as a thick, slippery arm curled around his throat from behind. He brought his arms up, in nightmarish slow motion through the water, to grapple at the arm, but it was hard shell and he may as well have been battering against stone. It was like trying to fight in freezing, suffocating treacle. Blind and helpless. The sirens dragged him downwards, their limbs flashing and rolling with waves of beautiful cold colour. It was mesmerising. Pushing all reason and resistance from his oxygen-starved mind. A beautiful light show to soothe his soul. He wanted to lose himself in it. This silent song in light. The song of the sirens. Despite his lungs distantly screaming for air and the rolling sound of his last few bubbles around his ears. Despite the cold and the blackness, the lights soothed him.

They grew dimmer, and a small part of Robin’s mind knew that this was because his vision was darkening. He had to breathe, he had to. But through his open, gasping mouth, nothing flooded his lungs but water, agonisingly cold and brackish. He coughed instinctively, making him gasp, taking in more water, filling his lungs. He felt his grip loosen, his scrabbling fingers stop their fight, as consciousness left him.

Far off he heard voices, distorted through the water. Woad … and someone else? Someone was shouting. In the glimmer of distant light that remained above him, a ghost memory of the surface, as far from him and as unreachable as a supernova, something was moving against the sky. Out there in the world above, the sky above the pool was a great fractured maelstrom of shadow.

A shimmering claw closed over his face, cold and smooth as it covered his mouth and nose, and Robin passed out.

“Robin!”

“Robin Fellows!”

A female voice. Not Karya.
How
odd
, Robin thought distantly. He was aware of something solid beneath him. Along his back. He was lying down. Prickly. Was it grass? And he was so cold.