The Drowned Tomb (The Changeling Series Book 2) (42 page)

BOONS AND BOXES

Henry later remembered only confusion and rushing motion. The roar of water all around, being lifted from his feet, and soaring through a chaotic, primordial space at great speed, upwards and upwards in an air bubble formed of pure will. He clung to Robin’s outstretched arm for dear life, eyes squeezed shut and the locked box held tightly to his chest with his free arm. The roar of the water was deafening. The darkness and cold absolute. And then, with a mighty explosion of foam, they were out, fresh air whipping past their faces, sunlight blazing on his closed eyelids as they shed water, still soaring upwards, into the sky.

Henry opened his eyes, and saw that they were above the lake, its surface receding beneath them as they flew, choppy and glinting in the sun. He stared at Robin, or Puck, or whoever the Scion currently was. The boy’s face was set and stern, alien and glowing with power. Green eyes, icy horns, and from his back there sprouted two enormous wings, shimmering, perfectly formed and clear as crystal. The Waterwings cantrip, expertly mastered. The ice from which they were formed ground together, a chorus of knives as they beat, and the two boys soared towards the distant shore.

Henry found himself actually giggling with pure nerves.

“What is it?” Robin asked, as they swooped low over the shore, wind whipping through their wet hair. His voice was the ocean crashing against cliffs.

“I always joked … you fairies should have wings,” Henry said, through cold chattering teeth.

Robin grinned.

They landed on the bank, and Robin stumbled a little as Henry let go. The power of the Shard was already leaving him. But it was more than that, there was something mixed up in it, like a cocktail. The snapped Shard. The power broken and shared. He was still feeling some of Peryl’s emotions, still remembering things he should have no memory of. It made him dizzy, and a little nauseous.

They had landed some way around the lake from the tourist centre, in a secluded and private spot, ringed by trees. There was, thankfully, no one around. The sun still beat down on them, and Robin wondered absently to himself if anyone had seen them erupt from the lake, fleeting spirits of ice. If so, they would probably be added to the local legends.

“Robin, look.” Henry pointed out. Back across the lake, something else had erupted from the surface, tiny at this distance. They watched as the shape soared up high into the sky, icy wings glittering in the light. It sped away, over the hills away from them and was lost from sight.

“Peryl,” Robin said. His Waterwings were melting. He could feel the strange horns of ice dissolving too, tiny crystals floating upwards from his head and dissipating in the warm air. “The Shard, our half of it. We need to get it to Hiernarbos,” he said unsteadily. “It can power the valley, it can repel the Grimms, and turn back the army, I know it can.”

“Rob? Are you going to faint? You don’t look too clever,” Henry gripped the Fae’s elbow for support.

“We need … we need help,” Robin said, feeling his legs collapse under him. Henry lowered him down onto the grass. “You look really weird. One of your eyes is blue and the other one’s green.” Henry pushed something into Robin’s hand.

Robin looked down. A small round stone. His boon. He’d never used it. Henry had saved it in the tomb. He must have found it when Robin had been sucked into the water-whirlwind.

“What would I do without you, eh?” he said dizzily to the older boy. He gripped the stone tightly. “We need … help,” he said clearly. Nausea overtook him, and he lay back on the grass, staring unseeing up into the trees.

The sky beyond was high and blue. He felt the stone disappear from beneath his fingers, melting away into nothingness as Henry’s had.

A moment later, a face appeared in his field of vision, staring down at him with the tiniest frown of curiosity. A woman with long pale hair, strikingly pretty and looking rather unfocussed. She was silhouetted against the sky.

“Calypso?” Robin said. He heard Henry talking too, but his voice was strangely distorted, as though coming from the bottom of a deep well, and the nymph disappeared from his field of vision. Robin was too weak to stand or care. A high ringing noise was building in his ears. He was either going to throw up or to pass out.

Calypso reappeared. “Scion,” she said, snapping her fingers to get his attention. “My student. The Shard. Your fragment. You must give it to me.”

Robin felt incredibly sleepy. He thought of Jackalope’s foolish betrayal, fuelled by fear. “You … used to work for her … for Eris…” he said, feeling half-drunk as the power of the Shard drained out of him.

The nymph nodded. “I did,” she agreed, looking down at him. “But now I work for you. You can trust me, Scion of the Arcania.” She held out her hand. “Do you trust me?”

Robin found, against all odds, that he did. He opened his hand, and let her take the Shard, and a moment later she was gone, and he slipped into blackness.

* * *

Robin floated. It was peaceful and still. The sound of soft water lapped nearby, and he had the sensation that he was lying on a floating piece of ice in a dark, still and silent sea, black water under a black and starless sky. The sense of great space all around him made him breathe heavily, filling his lungs. He could stay here forever. It was so dark and quiet. But he didn’t feel entirely alone. Somewhere out there, countless miles away, another figure was floating silently on the dark ocean with him, and they were the only two beings in the entire world. He knew this in the implausible yet completely certain way one does in dreams. Despite the distance and the calm sense of isolation. They were connected, the two of them. Was that a bad thing? He lay there breathing peacefully, trying to make his mind up.

In the end he decided not to decide. It wasn’t important. Not yet. Maybe it would be one day, but there was an awful lot of dark water between here and there, and hardly any current. Time enough for that.

My mana stone was my mother’s. Not just similar. Her very own, he thought to himself, in a calm, wondering tone. It was an oddly comforting thought. Like having a piece of her with him. And it’s the only one. The only one in the world.

In the vast gaping blindness of the sky overhead, something monumental passed above him. Bigger than the sky itself, silent and slow. He couldn’t see it, it was darkness against darkness, but he could feel it up there. Vast and unknowable. And it was interested in him. Golden eyes and the smell of Italian leather.

“You best wake up, Robin my boy.”

It was Gran’s voice, soft and kind, and playful as it had always been. He didn’t really hear it, he knew that. It was only in his head. But it made him smile all the same. “If you don’t wake up,” she said, “it’s going to melt.”

He wondered if she meant the ice he floated on. It was blessedly cool against his skin. But he supposed she was right. It was time to go back. And anyway … the other one, out there somewhere in the quiet, unfathomable blackness, was thinking the same.

* * *

“Scion!”

“Rob mate, come on.”

“Pinky? Really, it’s going to melt if you don’t.”

Robin opened his eyes blearily and looked around. He was sitting, propped up against a tree. It was sunset, the sky above him was threaded with gold and red, a wash of burnished amber which poured over hills and down to the great lake. He had been moved. They were much nearer the populated area of the loch here. Close to a group of picnic tables. All the tourists seemed to have gone home for the evening as the light failed, and the landscape around was peaceful and beautiful. Standing or sitting around him were his tutor, Calypso, Henry, still looking as though he had been dragged through a hedge backwards and then half drowned, and impossibly, Karya and Woad. Alive and well and not remotely killed by an evil army.

Woad, who squatted on the balls of his feet on the grass between Robin’s splayed legs, was eagerly holding up an ice cream cone, right under his nose. It was covered in sprinkles. It had a chocolate flake in it.

“Told you that would wake him up,” the small blue boy grinned, looking around at the others. “Come on, it’s melting. Henry got it from the man in the musical van just before he drove off for the night. There’s only us here now.”

Robin took the ice-cream from the faun with unsteady hands. Karya, who was looking down at him with folded arms, actually smiled a little, grudgingly.

“You’re really here?” Robin asked, sitting up properly. His head hurt a lot, and he was still woozy. He looked around at the setting sun and the deserted lake. The only things now on the calm surface were birds. “How long have I been out? How are you here?”

He was so relieved to see them, he leaned forward groggily and grabbed Woad in a fierce hug that was half headlock. The faun struggled. “Oi, leave off!” he yelped. “That ice cream is freezing! Are you mad?” He scuttled away, hiding behind Karya’s legs cautiously. “Is he mad? Did snapping a Shard snap his mind, like you said it might?” He was looking up at Calypso.

The nymph shook her head softly. In the setting sun, her pale hair looked afire. “He appears to be fine. He is made of stern stuff indeed. It seems, Robin Fellows, that you found your guts after all.”

Robin demanded an explanation, and Henry demanded he eat something first. It was the best thing, he said, when you’d hit your head or had a funny spell, according to his dad. Robin hadn’t technically done either of these things but, he reasoned, being possessed by half a Shard of the Arcania and morphing into a young ice god for a while probably amounted to the same thing ultimately as ‘a funny spell’.

So, Robin sat on the grass, feeling surreal and eating his ice cream, while they explained what had happened.

Calypso told how she had been at Erlking, with his aunt and Mr Drover, who were both tremendously worried by the way, when she had felt Henry use his boon. A boon from a nymph is a service that cannot be refused, she had told them. Henry had called for a weapon, and so a weapon he had got. And when Robin had later called for help, he must have been thinking about Calypso, as she had found herself dragged to him, immediately and without argument.

She folded her arms here. “And a good job you did call me too,” she said. “When I found you, and your human friend told me what had happened with the Shard, how my old homeland was under siege, I knew I needed to go. I had promised myself I would never return, knowing I would be turned away.” She shrugged. “But with the Shard fragment, I knew I would have the power to help, whether they wanted my help or not.”

“She left me with you and disappeared off up into the mountains,” Henry said. “You were out for so long, Rob, I thought you’d slipped into a coma or something.”

Calypso explained how there was a Janus station, not fifteen miles from here, up in the Scottish mountains. Only a small back and forth, but once in the Netherworlde, with Henry’s directions, she could use Janus after Janus to get to the army camp of Ker, now deserted, and into the valley of the Undine.

“Of course, Ker hadn’t left the pass completely unguarded,” she said lightly. “There were a contingency of centaurs blocking the way. Presumably to stop anyone from escaping.”

“What did you do?” Robin asked the delicate sylph-like woman. She shrugged.

“I killed them, of course,” she said lightly. “And then I took back the valley.”

“We saw her from the tree,” Karya said. “The army of Ker had routed the valley. They couldn’t get into the tree itself, and any fires they set, and they tried plenty, the tree didn’t burn. It’s ice after all, and old … old ice. We were reasonably safe in the boughs, but it was just a matter of time before they breached the doors.”

“They had strong Mancers,” Woad nodded. “Dark magic, smells like fish guts. And that scary man, the one like a dark crow with a demon’s face. He was stronger than any other. He made my head hurt, even all the way up in the tree.”

Karya told Robin how Calypso, using the power of the Shard, had commanded the great lake. Flooding the entire valley, end to end, cliff-face to cliff-face, with powerful white water. She had washed the army off its feet and swept them out of the valley.

“The water came up so high,” Woad said, impressed. “Almost to the lower branches of the big tree, it was like the end of the world, Pinky. The sky full of the Peacekeepers’ fire, and the whole world below churning like a furious ocean!”

“They’re all gone then? Dead?” Robin wanted to know.

“The centaurs who didn’t escape, yes, and the horde of Peacekeepers, but they are just mana made solid. Ker will make more, though it will take a long time for him to gather his strength again.” Karya frowned. “Ker and Strife escaped. And the Wolf. Flew off on skrikers. We didn’t know what happened to the other Grimm. We had no idea that she was with you in the human world.”

Calypso explained how once the valley was emptied, and the waters drained away, she had filled the entrance canyon, where the Undine’s barrier had stood, with solid ice. “Stronger than stone or steel, and half a mile thick. No one will get through there again in a hurry.”

“Not that there’s any reason to, now,” Karya observed. “The Shard was never at Hiernarbos anyway. It was here, in the human world all along. And now … well, now it’s gone. There’s no reason for Eris to bother with the Undine, not for a while at least. She will have more pressing matters to attend to. Peryl will present her with half a Shard.”