Isle of Winds (The Changeling Series Book 1) (18 page)

All over the clearing, the countless leaves exploded upwards, rustling and roaring in the wind, a tremendous wave of solid red and gold spiralling between them and their attackers. Mr Strife disappeared from view, crying out in surprise as he was lost in the sudden maelstrom. The skrikers, invisible in the storm, howled in alarm, disoriented.

Robin stood shocked, his pale hair whipping about his face as leaves battered him like angry moths. His mana stone felt as hot as blood against his chest.

Karya grabbed his arm and dragged him back.

“Now! Don’t just stand like an idiot! Run!”

He clambered the barrow’s sloping wall and crossed the top of the grassy cairn, darting between the makeshift chimneys. He half-ran, half-slid down the steep slope of the far side. The others were almost at the trees on the far side of the clearing already. Robin pounded after them, his bag slamming painfully against his back, heart thudding in his ears.

He heard a shriek of inhuman fury behind him and risked a look over his shoulder. Mr Strife had clambered to the top of the barrow and stood, his face contorted in fury. Leaves were still falling from his shoulders and sticking haphazardly in his garish hair.

The skrikers were already bounding down the slope, headed straight for him at terrible speed.

Karya and Woad had stopped running. They had reached the edge of the trees and were standing, breathless and white-faced waiting for him. Karya had her hand splayed on the tree bark and Woad’s skinny blue arms laced around her waist. They were both shouting at him to hurry.

His legs burning as he ran, he suddenly saw that Karya’s hand wasn’t on the tree at all – it was somehow
in
it. She held out her other hand, reaching for him. He heard a growl close behind and was suddenly sure that he could feel the skrikers’ breath on the back of his neck.

Robin threw himself forwards, arm outstretched.

Behind him, a blood-freezing howl. Karya’s fingers closed around his, jaws snapped inches from his head, and before he could form another coherent thought, he was being pulled forwards into a sudden rushing darkness, leaving far behind the fading howls and dying red sun.

Chapter Seventeen –
The Ghost Stone

Robin floundered blindly in darkness, panic clutching at his throat. His jumper snagged, dragging him backwards. Flailing, he tore free with a loud rip, falling to the snow-covered ground. He blinked in the darkness, looking back over his shoulder. It hadn’t been skrikers tearing at him. He’d been half-buried in a thick and prickly hedgerow. Wherever they were now, it was not the Barrow Wood. Here it was full night, and bitterly cold.

“Woad? Karya?” he called, his voice still hitching in panic. He was answered not by his companions, but by a roaring, bright yellow light bearing down upon him. He froze, as helpless as a frightened rabbit as it barrelled towards him in the darkness. It was almost upon him when a firm blue hand grabbed the back of his collar and dragged him back off his feet.

“Is your brain jellified, Pinky?” Woad gasped irritably. Robin stared after the light, confused, as it disappeared into the darkness. A red winking light disappeared around a bend and was gone.

“A … a … motorbike?” he stuttered. “We’re back in the real world?” He struggled out of the ditch, wobbly on his feet. “The human world, I mean?”

“Will you two please get out of the mud?” Karya’s voice came from the darkness. “Strife won’t be far behind.” She glanced around, taking in their surroundings. “I think I put some distance between us but I don’t quite know where we are yet. Somewhere far from Barrowood village at least.”

Robin scanned the views. It was hard to believe that mere moments earlier they had been running for their lives in another world. His teeth chattered in the cold and he hugged himself against the wind, his heavy book bag shielding his back a little. All around them was dark, snow-covered moorland. They were high up somewhere, wherever they were.

In the distance, Robin saw the lights of a city, sprawling and twinkling, oblivious in the darkness. Closer by was the odd isolated speck of light from a farmhouse nestled in the hills, these pinpricks of light both lonely and cosy.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“I think I may have outdone myself,” Karya replied, hands on her hips. “I meant to put as much distance between us and Strife as I could, but I’ll be a chalpie’s aunt if I haven’t only gone and moved us fairly close to where we’re going anyway.” She sounded quite pleased with herself.

“Where we’re going? Robin asked. “You mean we’re heading towards somewhere? I thought the main plan was just to be heading … you know … away?”

“Don’t you ever pay attention, Pinky?” Woad asked. “We need to see Pythian Lady. That’s what the redcaps said.”

“Redcaps?” Robin spluttered incredulously. “We can’t trust anything they say!”

“Trust? No, of course not.” Karya shook her head. “But believe? Certainly.”

“But…”

“Look, Scion, redcaps can’t be trusted,” Karya said flatly, cutting him off. “That’s just their nature. Don’t take it personally. But they don’t lie outright. Deepdweller may have had an earlier arrangement with Strife, but he was also honour-bound to keep his deal with us. He told us to go and see the Pythian. She’s an Oracle of the Netherworlde, so that’s where we’ll go.” She peered up at the dark moors around them. “And as I said, we’re closer to our goal than I expected.”

She pointed down the snowy country road. A lonely pub sat some way off, a kindly grandmother smiling down from its swinging sign, cosy windows filled with welcoming light.

Robin fervently hoped this was where they were headed. He had to admit though, it might be difficult to explain what three unkempt children, one of them blue, were doing out in the middle of nowhere in late December.

Karya however, wasn’t pointing at the pub, but at the snowy hills beyond. The landscape rose up and up, rugged and huge. Robin’s legs ached just looking at it.

“That hill, you see,” Karya said. “It’s called Knowl Hill. If I remember rightly, there’s a Janus station right on top. Good job really, as I used all my mana on that last tear. I’ll be good for nothing for a while.”

“I don’t like the look of all the dead people between us and it though, boss,” Woad said darkly, squinting into the darkness at the looming hill.

Robin stared at the faun, confused. “Sorry? Dead people?”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Karya reassured him briskly, setting off towards the hills behind the pub without further ado. “Dead people can’t hurt you.”

“Zombies can,” Woad argued, scampering after her. “Ghouls can, revenants too…”

“Yes, yes, alright!” Karya replied irritably. “But not regular dead people. Ghosts are just ghosts.”

“Seriously … what are you both talking about?” Robin said. “I don’t see any ghosts anywhere.”

“You will. Up on the moors,” Karya said without looking back.

* * *

The snow deepened as they trudged onwards, the slopes becoming steeper. Soon, Robin and his companions were wading through thigh-deep drifts. Even Woad struggled.

“Ghosts, which are not really dead people at all, but more like memories of people…” Karya explained as they forged ahead, “… are attracted to specific places to haunt. Funny really that you’re learning the Tower of Air at the moment, cause they seem to have a thing about air and wind.”

“What do you mean?” Robin asked breathlessly.

“Well,” Karya went on. “It’s always draughty cliff tops and windswept castle battlements with ghosts, isn’t it? Occasionally the crow’s nests of shipwrecks, places like that. But these days there’s one kind of place in the human world where ghosts seem to show up more than ever.” She pointed ahead.

For a moment, his heart jumped. Robin could make out shapes ahead in the darkness, huge and slender, looming over the hills. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to what he was seeing.

“Windmills?” he said. “There’s a wind-farm here?”

“Oh, they’re everywhere these days in your human world,” Karya said. Robin watched the vast blade-like sails turn slowly, slicing the night sky in almost complete silence. He had never realised how immense the structures were.

“Ghosts seem to love them,” Karya said. “I think they get caught up in all the churning air energy here.” She shrugged inside her furs. “Or maybe they just like it, who knows. Look, there’s one now.”

Robin followed her pointing arm. High ahead, at the top of the nearest windmill was a greenish-grey translucent shape, tangled in the blades.

“That’s a ghost?”

“Yes. They’re everywhere if you look for them.”

Robin glanced around. Scattered liberally throughout the dark hillside, dotted over the moors and under the watchful care of the towering windmills, there were hundreds of misty ghosts.

Robin stopped walking, taken aback by the sight. Karya and Woad turned around.

“What’s wrong?” the girl asked.

“There are … so many of them,” Robin replied, stunned. He stared at a distant shimmering figure. It looked like a woman in a long old-fashioned dress. She passed between the shadow of a tower and, as he watched, her barely substantial form caught in the updraft. Her form stretched out upwards, growing thinner until she was pulled up into the blades above, losing form altogether. Robin couldn’t be certain, but he thought he heard a distant ‘whee!’, although it could have been a mournful wail. The spinning ghost was flung free and shot out across the sky. It hit a distant hillside and slowly reformed back into the shape of the woman in the old fashioned dress, who then continued her mournful walking as though nothing had happened.

“They’re much easier to see than they usually would be,” Karya told him, looking out over the snow at the gathered masses milling around. “It must be your mana stone,” she reasoned. “It calls out to them.”

Robin’s hand went to his mana stone. He automatically expected it to feel cold and lifeless after all the mana he had channelled back in the forest, but it was warm and light. “My mana stone?” he asked, confused. “What would that have to do with it?”

“Seraphinite is an excellent mana-stone for channelling the seventh and most difficult Tower of the Arcania.”

“The seventh tower?” Robin replied distractedly. His attention was focussed on the ghost of a young street urchin, who was running along in the snow with a spectral hoop and stick. As he watched the boy ran headlong into a tall snowdrift and disappeared, his form blown apart like smoke.

“What are the Towers of the Arcania?” Karya asked impatiently, “Honestly, hasn’t your tutor been through all this with you?” She counted them off on her fingers. “Earth, air, fire, water, light, darkness and…?”

“Spirit!” chirped Woad helpfully.

“But I don’t know how to do any spirit magic,” Robin argued.

“Of course you don’t, you dolt,” Karya scoffed. “The seventh Tower is the most difficult of all. What I’m saying is that certain mana stones are good for certain Towers. My mana stone is amber.” She rattled her bracelet. “Good for Earth. Woad’s stone is a fire-opal. Seraphinite,” she pointed at Robin’s chest, “… is good for spirit.”

“My mother had Seraphinite,” Robin said, remembering her portrait. And now she’s as good as a ghost herself, he thought. He didn’t say this out loud.

“It’s incredibly rare,” Karya nodded. “But it’s certainly why the spirits are so clear around us now. You’re boosting their signal.”

“Dead ones don’t normally notice the living. Don’t worry, Pinky. They’re not going to eat your brains; that’s just zombies,” Woad said, in an attempt to be reassuring.

“Really?” Robin said, with raised eyebrows.

Karya grunted in assent. “It’s true, the dead ignore the living. They’re normally too wrapped up in being dead, or living the same few moments over and over again. They have little time for breathing people.”

“Um … perhaps someone should tell
them
that,” Robin said hesitantly, pointing to the nearest windmill.

They followed his gaze. A group of ghosts had gathered at the base of the windmill, six or seven of them – it was hard to tell for sure as some of them kept breaking apart.

They were all staring at the three living children quietly.

“Those ones seem to have noticed us,” Robin pointed out worriedly.

As he spoke, one of the ghosts floated forwards. An old man, leaning on a walking stick. This ambassador from the other side made its way across the hill slowly, drifting toward them like a human-shaped fog.

“Hmm, that’s … interesting,” Karya said quietly, in a not very reassuring way. Her stance was suddenly tense. Robin tore his eyes from the advancing spectre and glanced her way. Her eyes were bright gold in the dark.

As it approached, they could make out more details. The old man was dressed in simple clothes. Though his feet didn’t quite touch the ground, indeed sometimes they passed through it, he leaned heavily on his knobbly stick for support. His face was lined and his head bald. He seemed to have no teeth.

“What should we do?” Robin asked urgently.

Before they could decide, the ghost jittering forward in a sudden flickering blur, until he was suddenly standing right in front of them.

Woad let out an involuntary yelp of surprise.

The old man seemed not to notice Robin’s companions at all. His moon-like eyes were fixed on Robin alone. The seraphinite stone under the boy’s jumper was beating like an excited heart.

The ghost opened its gummy mouth to speak. Robin felt his whole body tense.

“Well, I’ll be blown,” he said. “It’s only a bloody honest-to-goodness faerie, isn’t it?”

He turned back and waved its walking stick over its head, a signal to the other ghosts, who were waiting apprehensively in the slowly moving shadows of the windmill.

“I was right!” the old man called in his wavering voice. “It’s a bloody faerie, it is! I said it was! Right here on our hill!”

The other ghosts began drifting over slowly. The old man turned back to Robin.

“Well I never!” he said, as though surprised to see him all over again.

“Um … hello,” Robin said, not sure what else to do.

The ghost grinned a broad gummy smile. “Hullo indeed! You know, I lived eighty six years long, and I never thought I’d see another one of you again, not in all my life.” He seemed to consider this for a moment. “Well, I suppose I was right about that really, but you know what I mean. I saw one of your kind when I was a lad – long, long time ago. Used to live on a farm up over there.” He gestured with his ghostly walking stick vaguely at the hills behind him. “With me mam and dad. There were none of these big metal things around then though. It was all just earth and sky back in those days. Less machines.” He sighed wistfully “Saw a faerie I did. Dressed right fine he were, like a lord or something, very swish, all black cape and white furs, carryin’ his lockbox. Figured he were some rich bugger from the city, passin’ by on his horse. But when I saw the horns, then I said to myself, ‘Hob, that’s no man there, that’s somethin’ else’.”

The old man looked wistful. “Spoke to me, he did. Great amber eyes, bright as fire, and horns like a ram in the wildest mop of black hair you ever did see. Face for the ladies, if you get my meaning. Been in the wars though,” he said. “Had a scar on his temple, right across his eyebrow. Didn’t expect me. Gave me a gold coin for my silence, not to tell no one I’d seen him. I didn’t stop starin’ at those horns, I can tell you.” He flicked his cane up at Robin’s head, almost taking the boy’s eye out. Robin flinched back in surprise. “That’s how as I knew what you were.”