The Drowned Tomb (The Changeling Series Book 2) (11 page)

Robin ignored him. He stared into the pot, where the key flickered and glowed in a very impressive, very magical, and above all, and most importantly, very hot way. The heat haze from within rolled up against his face. He could feel the empty stare of the suit of armour, which he personally suspected was rather unbalanced from years of solitude guarding whatever it had been guarding. Henry was looking at him expectantly too.

Robin sighed, feeling a sudden pang of nostalgia for the bungalow he used to share with Gran, where the biggest challenge he had had to face was trying to set the timer on the ancient and wilful video recorder, so that Gran could watch the ‘Eastenders’ omnibus on Sundays without missing the gardening program on the other channel with ‘that lovely little Titchmarsh chap’ as she called him.

“What would the famous five do?” he muttered to himself musingly.

“Eh?” said Henry, who was evidently not a big reader.

Robin shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, wishing he had a pair of very thick oven gloves. The image was a practical one, if not particularly heroic.

He glanced at the suit of armour, which was watching him expectantly like an animal-headed version of the Terminator, only with crisper diction. A thought had just occurred to him.

“So, let me get this right,” he said. “We have to get this out and open the door … using only what’s here?”

“That is correct,” the suit of armour said primly. “Thus is the challenge of the great and undefeated Black Knight of Walpurgis. Only what tools you have here before you.”

Henry rolled his eyes. “Silly us,” he said. “Not stopping off for a fire extinguisher on the way to pick up books. What were we thinking?”

Robin silenced him with a raised hand. “No, no. That’s fair enough,” he said. “We accept your challenge, Black Knight of…”

“Walpurgis,” the suit of armour bowed with a clank. “But you may address me as Wally, as we are all gentlemen together.”

Robin smiled and held out his hand for a formal handshake. “Great Wally,” he said as the suit of armour grasped his hand.

“Do you mind if we borrow this for a minute?” he added. Before the suit of armour could reply, Robin turned the gloved metal hand of the black knight in a circle. There was a brief squeak, and the black knight’s arm detached neatly at the elbow with a pop.

“I say!” declared the suit of armour as Robin backed up, holding the metal arm triumphantly.

“Thanks,” Robin said cheerfully, turning his back on the door guardian. Henry stared at him with wide eyes.

“What?” Robin said innocently. “There was nothing in the rules about him not lending us a hand, as it were.” He smirked, and holding the heavy metal arm carefully by the jointed elbow, he dipped it into the deep clay pot. The fiery key spluttered briefly, glinting in the dark interior against the metal.

Robin looked over his shoulder at the now one-armed knight.

“Would you mind?” he prompted.

The suit of armour, stunned into silence by developments, shook his head briefly in acquiescence.

The empty metal glove in the pot closed obediently around the fiery key, clasping it tightly.

“Thanks very much,” Robin said, withdrawing the arm. The key flickered and showered small red sparks in the open air. Robin walked carefully to the library doors, holding the arm with its clasped key like a pair of enormous tongs before him. He hovered the key in front of the lock triumphantly.

The gloved metal hand obligingly inserted the key and it turned with a click. The doors opened with a whoosh. The key in the lock extinguished with a fiery pop, leaving the ghost of a key-shape in smoke, which quickly dispersed.

Robin turned back to the suit of armour, holding out the arm with a smile. The Black Knight took it from him, a little petulantly.

“Thanks for the help,” Robin said. “Are we okay to go in now?”

The Black Knight looked at Henry and Robin, busying itself with reattaching its arm, the fingertips of which were glowing a dull red. Robin got the feeling that despite its inanimate features, it was trying to frown.

“I suppose if you must,” it allowed sniffily. “None have bested the Black Knight in a challenge for many a moon. You have earned my loyalty, sir.”

Henry walked past, giving it a hearty clap on its metal shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Wally, good to meet you too.”

The suit of armour bowed as Robin and Henry made their way gratefully into the large room beyond, grinning happily.

When they had passed, the until-recently-undefeated Black Knight of Walpurgis resumed its inanimate position by the doors and tried to think of a new challenge, occasionally pausing to blow on its glowing fingers.

The library within was huge and chaotic. Robin had spent a good deal of time in here, studying Air books. It had been easier to find those. There was an enchanted lectern in the centre of the room, just before three great stained-glass windows, and all one needed to do was call out the name of the book you were searching for, and it would fly from wherever it hid on the shelves or tottering piles, and land before you with a thump. In this case, of course, they had no handy list of book names to go on.

“I’m going to have a word with my dad about that suit of armour,” Henry grumbled, following Robin into the stacks. “Bloody liability that is. Okay, so fair enough there are a couple of carved doorknobs on the first floor than can talk to you, but at least they’re polite. Well, one of them is. The other one knows some great dirty jokes. Dunno why your aunt is moving stuff around anyway.”

Robin ran a finger along the dusty book spines. “Maybe it’s to keep Hestia out. She’s probably been polishing the names off the books. Speaking of which, any ideas about what this book might be called?” Henry shook his head ruefully. “Ah well…” Robin said. He approached the lectern and thought for a moment.

“Erm … A history of the Fae Guard,” he tried, enunciating clearly.

Nothing happened.

“The Court of Oberon and Titania,” he attempted, a little uncertainly. Still not a page in the library fluttered. Dust danced like gold mist in the streaming sunlight.

“Scandalous romantic affairs of the noble Fae families,” Henry tried. Robin shot him a hard look, secretly glad that no book was summoned.

Robin tried for several more minutes, calling out every possible book name he could think of, from ‘fae heraldry’ to ‘courtly fae matters’ and even ‘Oberon’s inner circle’. This last attempt did bring a slim paperback volume thudding from the shelves onto the lectern, but on closer inspection it was only a book on how to make decorative doilies on a theme of embroidered kings and queens, a fiddly looking old book by the excitably named Prunella Fiddlebobbin. They put it to one side.

“We might have to do this the hard way,” he sighed to Henry. Henry gave him a worried, disheartened look.

“What, you mean like, internet message boards?”

“No, we want actual information,” Robin smirked. “If we wanted the ramblings of a madman we could just go back out in the corridor and talk to metal bambi there. What I meant is, I think we’re going to have to walk the stacks.”

There must have been thousands upon thousands of books in the library. Henry looked as mortified as Robin felt.

Both boys were distracted however from this daunting task by a tap at the window. Stepping over piles of books and old grimoires with a confused frown, Robin unlatched one of the tall, stained glass panes and swung it open with a creak.

Woad grinned in at them both with bright yellow eyes.

“Hey Pinky! I thought I smelled you in here.” He leapt up like an acrobat, swinging himself into the room and landing on the floorboards with his soft tail swishing. The jam-jar around his neck sloshed a little. Robin noticed the lid had little air holes drilled in.

“Don’t you ever use doors, Woad?” he asked, closing the window. “And anyway, I don’t smell.”

“Everybody smells,” Woad said in a matter of fact way, standing up. “Nose like a bloodhound, me. No one can sniff better than I can. I didn’t say it was a bad smell, did I?”

“I’ve often thought you smelled faintly of rather delightful lavender water, Rob,” Henry teased. He had picked a book up at random from a shelf and blew dust from it. “What do I smell like then, Woad old buddy?”

The faun wrinkled his nose in thought. “Sausage rolls,” he concluded. He unlooped the jam-jar from around his neck and set it with great care on the table.

“You two pink-skins are mad to be indoors today. You should have come to the pool I found in the woods. Much more fun than dusty old words. I’ve been making friends.”

“We’re looking for something important,” Robin explained. He couldn’t hold back the suspense any longer. “Woad, are you going to tell us what’s in the jar? You haven’t been without it for days. I swear, if it’s half a squirrel in formaldehyde or something gross…”

“It’s my pet,” Woad grinned with glee. He crouched by the table and tapped the glass with a sharp nail. “It’s his travelling jar, so he doesn’t have to be on his own when I’m not there. He gets very lonely. And you know I’m often not there. I’m usually busy being everywhere else instead. Can’t pin a good faun down.”

Robin crossed to the table and peered into the murky water. It was cloudy. A tiny sucker-covered tentacle suddenly slapped against the glass from within, making him jerk his head back, eyes wide.

“That’s … the kraken,” he said. “From the pool room. You kept it?”

“Him, not it,” Woad said petulantly. “Inky is mine. I tell him all my secrets. He’ll never blab, so don’t bother asking. He’s loyal to the end, is my Inky.” He looked at the two of them with a dramatically serious face. “I LOVE HIM.”

“Woad mate, you can’t keep a kraken as a pet. They’re killers,” Henry exclaimed, shaking his head in wonder. “If it gets bigger, it’ll go on a rampage.”

Woad glowered. He scooped up the jar jealously and hugged it. “Henryboy is wrong. Inky is just misunderstood. I take good care of him. He has a tank now. I put in some shells and things. And a ham sandwich, but I ate that later myself. He was just lonely in the dark, horrible pool room for all those years.”

Robin shook his head. He could see the determination burning in the faun’s face. “Well, just don’t let Hestia find out. You know she’d absolutely pitch a fit about having one roaming around.”

Woad grinned and sat cross-legged at the table, his tail swishing happily. “He likes me to sing to him at night. I sing all the old faun ballads,” he told them proudly. “He likes the ones about war and bloodshed most.” He tapped the milky jar affectionately. It shuddered in tiny rage. “Yes, you do,” he cooed to it. “Inky likes the bloodshed doesn’t he, my squishy baby? The Ballad of Dismembered Dorian? Is that our favourite? I think so.”

Robin and Henry raised eyebrows.

“So, if you two are stuffed up being stuffy in here with stuff,” he said. “And boss is locked away in her room scribbling away again on that love poem or whatever she’s writing, what am I supposed to do all afternoon? I’m bored with my secret place at the pool for today.”

“Well,” Robin suggested with a hopeful smile. “You could always help us look for the book we need.” He sounded a little desperate. “We’re going to have to turn the library upside down, it will probably take hours. We’ve no idea what it might be called.”

“What’s it about?” the faun said, wiping his nose.

“Anything to do with Oberon’s Knights of the Round Table,” Henry said, snapping his current book closed. “The Fae Guard they were called. Kind of like the celebrities, A-lister, ‘it crowd’ of the faerie world.”

Woad nodded, his eyes flashing. “Ohhhh, you mean the Sidhe-Nobilitas?”

There was a whirring flutter and a heavy thunk. A great black book had dropped out of the air and onto the lectern, narrowly avoiding crushing Robin’s thumb.

Robin stared at the book. The looping silver lettering swirling around an embossed gilt stag’s head, which occasionally shook its antlers a little.

“Sid-Nobilitas, the Consecration, Development and Hierarchical Organisation of the Court of the Fae. A study by Celia Harebell.” He raised his eyebrows at Woad. “How did you know what they were called?”

“I speak the High Tongue, obviously.” The faun rolled his eyes dramatically, padding over with Henry to look over Robin’s shoulders as he read from the book. “Unlike you. It’s pronounced ‘shee’, not ‘sid’.”

As it happened, Robin couldn’t read any further. It was written in an unknown language. The Scion waited a moment hopefully, to see if the words were going to magically become comprehensible to him, but they didn’t. They just sat on the page, being stubborn and illegible. The Puck was clearly fast asleep in his head.

“Hmm,” Woad said. “I speak the high tongue, but I can’t read it.” He scratched behind his ear absently. “I can’t read the low tongue either for that matter. But it’s overrated. I can roll my tongue, does that count?”

“Karya,” Robin said decisively, clapping the book shut. “She speaks something like eleven hundred languages, right? She can find out what we need from this.”

SIDHE-NOBILITAS

Karya had grudgingly agreed to look over the book after dinner. She had been holed up in her room with the translation scrap. The odd cylinder which Robin had discovered in the grave was resting innocently on her nightstand, he noticed, still resolutely unopened.

Aunt Irene herself was out of the house, as she often was, ‘looking into matters’, as she put it. She was not expected back until sundown, so after dinner, the children met together in the Red Study.

It was a cosy room to sit in during summer evenings. The blood red wallpaper changed with the sunset outside, mimicking the hues of nightfall from the first tinges of pink to flaring nuclear orange. The one naked window, currently flung wide and letting in a delicious breeze, was virtually indistinguishable amidst the panorama of colour. It was like sitting inside a slow motion supernova.

Henry had sprawled out on a battered and squishy sofa, Woad curled up on the floor in front of him, happily getting the occasional head scratch.

“You know,” he said absently, feeling a little queasy as he had eaten so much. “Hestia slapped the ladle of mash down so hard on my plate, I swear some of it flew up and got in my eye. I don’t know why your aunt keeps that old misery on here sometimes.”

Robin and Karya were each ensconced in a deep wingback armchair, digesting happily. Hestia had made a veritable banquet of Yorkshire pudding, mash and sausage, and, no matter how grudgingly she had served the fare to the children, Robin found he would put up with a lot of disgruntled mutterings just to eat her cooking. The lady herself came in and fussed around the room for a while, nearly giving Henry a heart attack at the thought of being overheard, but eventually, all the candles were lit and she couldn’t think of any further legitimate reasons to stay and spy on them in Irene’s absence. She stumped out moodily, muttering dire warnings about the dangers and recriminations of putting feet up on tables.

When the door had finally clicked shut, Robin drew out the book they had found in the library and passed it to Karya. She flicked through the pages, a thoughtful frown on her face.

“Well? Can you read it?” Robin asked eagerly.

“Of course I can read it, Scion,” she replied. “I’m not an idiot. It’s just that … I’m not really sure how useful this is going to be to you. It looks like a very dry account of how Oberon and Titania first set up the Fae Guard.” She flipped a few pages back and forth. “And details of their various responsibilities to the court, that kind of thing.”

“We need to know about this Tritea woman,” Robin said. “The greatest Undine of all time, or whatever Aunt Irene said she was. If she had a piece of the Arcania, a Shard, and she was involved with one of the Fae Guard, knowing who might give us a clue as to where to look for this doorway to the sanctuary Heri … Hari … Heni…”

“Hiernarbos,” Woad supplied helpfully from his spot on the floor. “The super-secret sanctuary of secrets,” he added dramatically.

Karya looked around at her three companions. “I don’t think we’re going to find any hidden Janus stations without opening that odd box you found. It’s hardly going to be in a book is it, not if the Undine went to so much trouble encoding it in that tube. Your aunt, Robin, is extremely interested in getting it open.” She looked troubled. “I get the feeling whatever she’s looking into, it has to do with more than a Shard of the Arcania. She’s given me that cylinder to work on, but to be honest, I’m still struggling with that scrap of nonsense too.”

Henry blew air down his nose. “You mean, that thing where so far you’ve only translated ‘dark-dark’ or whatever.”

Karya gave the brown-haired boy a hateful look. “If you think you can do any better, be my guest,” she hissed.

Robin leaned over and tapped the book in Karya’s lap insistently. “Okay, so there might not be anything here about Tritea and the Shard…”

“There won’t be,” she interjected firmly. “This book was written before the wars. Before the Arcania was shattered and before Oberon and Titania were killed, or disappeared or whatever happened to them.”

Robin felt a little uncomfortable.

“But … my parents. They were part of this, right?” he asked. “It’s just, I know so little about them. I have the one page in my book upstairs of the Fae families and that’s it.”

Gran had been the only family Robin had even known. And as it had turned out, he hadn’t really known her either. They hadn’t even been blood-related. He knew so little. He didn’t have Gran anymore. He was like something cast adrift. Searching for something, or someone, to anchor to.

Karya was looking at him thoughtfully, her amber eyes softened in the candlelight and deepening evening gloom. He knew what she was thinking. She probably thought he was a fool for wanting so much to know about his family. She had no love of them.

“Of course,” she said, a little mollified. She sank back deep into the armchair, the book in her lap and flicked through the pages. “Families are difficult things though, Scion. You don’t always like everything you find when you go poking around in the past. Trust me, I know.”

She cleared her throat a little as Robin sat back himself, eager to learn anything there was to know.

“It says here, and I’m loosely translating remember,” she began reluctantly. “ … That in times past, the great and beautiful Oberon, lord of all the Fae, and the fierce and bold Titania, lady of the land, possessed the Arcania. Mana flowed like sunlight throughout the Netherworlde, bathing all in its riches, and peace reigned, and so on and so on. The usual idyll.”

She flipped a page. “But there were adversaries,” she continued. “There always are, I suppose. It tells here how there was the battle of the Whitefolk, and then after that the Fae faced altercations with the giants of the north, and how many lives were lost and the king and queen wept.” She glanced up at her audience. “It probably doesn’t mean actually wept. Usually this means they got really, really angry.”

“They might have wept,” Woad offered, even handedly. “We don’t know.”

“They were neither of them the weeping type,” the girl muttered in response, mostly to herself. “Anyway, a decision was made, and the father of the Netherworlde…” She shrugged. “I guess that means Oberon, though I’ve never heard him called that before.”

“Big Daddy O, yeah, go on,” Henry prompted, jogging her along.

“The father of the Netherworlde decreed that the land shall be protected, and the Arcania vibrated with his words. Oberon and Titania gathered to them the wisest and most skilled of the Fae. Those trusted to guard the Arcania, the Netherworlde, and their peoples. Skilled warriors, wise counsellors, healers, mystics and men and women of science and art. Thus was born the noble order of the Sidhe-Nobilitas, keepers of the King and Queen, royal court of Erlking and defenders of the realm and its people.”

She read in silence for a while, her finger moving along the page. “It lists here the original members of Oberon’s set,” she said. “Coltsfoot, Nightshade, Wormwood, Truefellow, Peaseblossom, Hawthorn and Mudthistle. Seven great Fae chosen as knights and protectors. It doesn’t give first names, Scion, but I’m guessing Truefellow was your father, Lord Wolfsbane Truefellow. All it says about them really is that they were loyal and true. There were more than these though, I remember.”

“You remember what?” Henry piped up.

“I mean, I’m sure of it. There were thirteen members in the Sidhe-Nobilitas, not just seven, or at least there were at the time of the Great War.” She shook her head. “It’s annoying really, as there’s no note as to when this book was actually written. There’s certainly no mention anywhere in here of the Panthea at all, so I’m guessing this was all set down to paper before the Panthea came to the Netherworlde. The ranks of the Fae Guard must have swelled over time. You should feel especially honoured then, Robin Fellows, if your father was one of the original seven.”

“Is there no mention of my mother?” he asked, hopefully. “I thought maybe there would be. In my book of Fae families it said she was a healer and a master of the Tower of Water. But that’s literally all it says. Kind of ironic really as I’m pretty pants at it so far.”

The girl clucked her tongue, scanning the book again. “No, sorry. He must have met and married her later on down the line.” She shut the book and tapped the cover with her finger. “The more pertinent thing here is that if there are no Panthea mentioned in this book, then it does indeed predate their arrival amongst the Fae. Which means it won’t have any mention of Tritea, or which of the Fae Guard she was supposedly involved with. No clues then as to where she might be buried.” She huffed and laid the book in her lap.

Robin looked a little crestfallen. He slumped in his chair.

“Look, Robin,” she said. “I know you must want to know all about your mother and father, but to what end? You never knew them; you don’t remember them. You grew up with a stranger who filled your life with kindness. Your gran was more family to you than these names and pictures in books will ever be.”

Robin worked his jaw. “I have a right to know, I think,” he replied. “Even if you think it’s a waste of time. And it’s not that I didn’t love Gran. Or that anyone could replace her. But … well … she’s gone. I don’t have anyone left. I don’t know why it’s bothering you so much.”

“None of us have anyone left,” she replied, quietly but firmly. “That’s war for you. You think you’re the only one affected?”

“You have us left,” Woad muttered, glancing from Robin to Karya. “Remember? We’ve all got us left … Together?”

Robin and Karya were staring at one another over the book.

“Woad’s right,” Henry said, feeling the tension rising in the room and having no idea where it came from. “One for all and all for one, right? Wherever you all came from originally, you’re all Erlkingers now, right?”

Karya glanced over at him. “With all due respect, Henry, you’re the only one here who hasn’t lost their home, and still has a parent, so I hardly think you’re qualified to talk us all into a happy group hug.”

“Why are you laying into Henry all of a sudden?” Robin glared. “What’s got under your skin tonight anyway? If you didn’t want to help with the book, you should have just said so.”

“I just don’t see what good will come of it,” she countered defensively. “There’s nothing to be gained from memories that don’t matter. There’s nothing about Tritea in this book, and barely anything useful about your parents.”

“I think I’ll be the one to decide what’s important about my own parents, thanks.” Robin held out his hand for the book, feeling unreasonably annoyed with the girl. How on earth would she know what memories mattered and what didn’t?

She set her jaw, affronted by his tone, and slapped the book into his hand. “Have it your way. I’m not your keeper. If you want to keep looking elsewhere for a home, for somewhere to belong, that’s your business, wasteful enterprise as it may be.”

“Well, mine was taken from me,” Robin retorted. “I didn’t run away from mine.”

She stared at him wide-eyed for a second, and he instantly regretted it. He hadn’t meant to be so mean. It had been a stupid and thoughtless thing to say. He couldn’t think of anything to say to make it better.

Woad and Henry were uncharacteristically silent.

Karya stood up, calmly, shrugging her fur-skin coat onto her shoulders. “Not all of us have the benefit of shining noble families like yours, Scion. Some family trees are less trees and more tangled nests of vines. They grow in darkness and they’ll choke you if you don’t cut yourself free.” Her golden eyes were shining. “I’m sorry your parents are dead. I really am. I’m also sorry that Woad has no home and that Calypso can never be accepted back at her homeland. I’m sorry about your gran too. In fact, there’s an awful lot of things I could spend all day feeling sorry about, but frankly, doing so doesn’t make any of them any better. Not one jot.”

“Karya, look…” Robin began.

“What we should be doing is what we’ve been told to do,” she cut him off. “Erlking has taken us all in. The least we can do is pay our rent. Focus on learning the Towers of the Arcania, focus on working out this bloody puzzle box, and focus on working out what this letter says. Which is what I’m going to do with the rest of my evening. You three do whatever you want.” She walked to the door. “I’m going to try and help your aunt. Then maybe, when Eris comes knocking, and she will, one way or another, we might stand even the slightest chance.”

Woad jumped up and scampered after her as she left the room. “Boss, hold on, I’ll come with.”

“Wow,” Henry said when she had gone, blowing out his cheeks and sitting up. “What’s got her all twisted up like that? So there was nothing in the book about this Undine then. Big deal. There was no need to get all annoyed just ‘cause you wanted to know more about your mum and dad. Total overreaction, that, mate.”

Robin was still sitting with the book in his lap. His face felt hot. He knew Henry was trying to make him feel better. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he said. “About her running away from home. That was stupid.”

Henry made a non-committal sound through his nose and swung his legs off the sofa. It was well known to Robin that Henry had mixed feelings about Karya. She had helped to rescue him from Mr Strife and Mr Moros, but he didn’t like the air of mystery she carried around everywhere. Henry was a straightforward kind of person. He preferred a sausage wrapped in pastry to a mystery wrapped in an enigma any day.