Crown of Steel (Chaos Awakens) (6 page)

"I did what any sane man would do at that point. I ran. I headed not for my cabin, but for the dock. I grabbed the boat I'd built for myself, put it in the water, and started to row my way for the mainland. I didn’t care what I left behind. I was never going back to Dreamer's Isle again. I'm not sure how far I made it, but it wasn't far. I blacked out, and when I woke up I was on the porch of my cabin. I was still terrified, so I did the exact same thing. I ran for the dock and found my boat in the exact same place it had been stowed before as though I'd never pulled it out. I quickly pulled it to the water, settled in, and began to row for the mainland. Again, I blacked out and woke on the porch of my cabin. Three more times I repeated the attempt to escape, and each time I woke back on the porch to my cabin. By that point it was too late in the day to risk another trip out to the boat. I wasn't going out into the woods after dark. I locked myself in my cabin and stayed there until the next day, upon which I tried to escape three more times. I couldn't leave. Over the next few years I tried to escape on a few occasions, but the result is always the same. As long as I stay here and continue my life as normal there is nothing wrong. The minute I try to leave, I am again returned to the cabin. I cannot escape this island. I don't think I truly survived my night out in the mists, but neither did I completely die. I think the mists are keeping me here, hoping someday to finish what they began."

"Under other circumstances I might find that difficult to believe." Kassa commented. Haley had been thinking something very similar herself. Before starting her adventure with Xandrith, everything that had happened to her recently would have felt like some kind of twisted fairy tale.

"Even retelling it from memory doesn't make it any more believable." Shawl said with a shrug. "I'm not sure how much of it really happened and how much was just some madness inflicted by the mists, but the memories are clear. Even after years of time I can still see the events as though they happened only last week. One thing I know is true, however. I cannot leave this island. I don't know how my boat gets back to shore, or how I end up back at the cabin, but it's always the same."

"Maybe it's a delusion?" Kassa spoke up suddenly. "Maybe you only believe you're trying to exit the island, but in reality you're just sitting down on the porch and blacking out? That would explain why your boat is always back on shore."

Johndin shook his head. "No, I considered that possibility as well. One of the times I tried to escape I took some floating fishing lures with me and dropped them in the water with lead sinkers attached to hold them in place. I managed to drop four of them before I blacked out, and when I came back to check after waking up on the porch, the lures were floating in a straight line out from shore. I had started across that stretch of water, but the island won't let me go."
Haley wasn't certain why Johndin was giving up on the idea of escape so easily. "We have to try anyway. It would be stupid not to try. With Kassa and I to watch you, we'll find a way to get you off the island."

Kassa was already nodding her agreement. "For all you know you could be blacking out and paddling yourself back here, Johndin. With us along, we won't let you do that. You would be a fool to not try and escape with us, and I don't believe for a moment that you're a fool."

Shawl blinked. "Paddling myself back?" He blinked again. "I've never considered that."

Kassa frowned. "You mean you've been trying to escape for years and haven't thought of the fact that maybe the island is using you against yourself?"

It was Shawl's turn to frown. "I'm a mage, Kassa. I live in a world of magical wonder. You can hardly hold it against me for suspecting some form of dark magic as the culprit."

"Having your mind controlled by the island isn't dark enough magic?" Kassa added with a grin.

Shawl smiled despite himself. "If it's really something so simple I might actually be able to get off this damned island. I mean, it's a nice place to live for a while, but I miss the rest of the world. Do you know that I've ..."

Haley lost track of the conversation as something beyond the window caught her eye as it moved quickly towards the cabin. The sun was halfway over the horizon, and the mists were starting to burn off, but they were still thick enough that the apprentice assassin couldn't make out the exact shape of what she'd seen. It had seemed small but humanoid, shorter than a grown person. Was it a child in the mists?

A moment later two much larger figures came hulking out of the woods, and these two were easy enough to make out. Each one stood nearly twice as tall as Haley did. They were massive and hulking forms that looked like humanoid giants incased in armor made form impossibly large bugs. The first was jet black with four sets of bulbous red eyes protruding from its oddly shaped head. It had wings that looked like dragon fly wings, but they were dark, barely translucent, and they looked both fragile and powerful at once. The second creature was a brownish green color with only two sets of eyes. It was larger than the first, but had smaller wings and a second set of arms protruding from midway down its torso. These other arms were smaller, but they had more articulate looking hands at their ends.

"Bug things!" Haley shouted to the others, which broke up their conversation quickly. "Bug things, I think they’re fae enforcers." She shouted again. Kassa and Shawl pushed at each other to get closer to the window. A loud, solid knock sounded at the front door of the cabin and their struggled for a viewing position faltered.

"Oh no." Shawl said quietly.

"Shit." Kassa's curse felt more appropriate to Haley. The knock sounded again.

Chapter 3

Hungry Like A Wolf

There was no third round of knocking. The front door collapsed inward, folding like paper as one of the massive enforcers beyond pushed its way through the opening and ripped the door frame out in the process. The creature walked into the relatively small space, destroying anything that might stand in its way. Behind it a smaller creature darted into the cabin, moving in fast spurts of energy. Its movement reminded Haley of a hummingbird, but the creature looked somewhat like a small human. Its skin was a pale blue and its hands only had three fingers, but it had two arms, two legs, and a relatively humanoid face. The creature was naked and clearly female. She had intensely purple hair, the color one might see on an exotic wild flower. The strands seemed to drift on an ethereal breeze, almost as though she was swimming through the air. Her eyes were the same intense shade of bright purple, but they had no pupil so it was impossible to judge exactly in which direction she was looking at any given moment. She had wings like the enforcers, but they were small and the same shade as her skin. Her eyes were large and round, but her nose was little more than a slight bump and her lips were thin almost to the point of nonexistence. When she opened her mouth a soft churring sound slipped free, rippling out from between her long and needle-like teeth. It wasn't a threatening sound, really, but the teeth immediately put Haley on edge. Those were clearly teeth meant for biting.

Kassa stepped in front of Haley, her hands reaching uselessly for the two knives that would have been on Xan's belt, but had never been on hers. Haley grabbed for the hilt of her axe, but Shawl was quietly clicking his tongue and gesturing with one hand for the others to not draw weapons.

"It's a queen. Don't draw weapons, and don't make any hostile movements or we'll be fighting those enforcers. Believe me, we won't survive that." Shawl whispered quickly and quietly. Kassa let her hands fall in response, but Haley couldn't make herself pull her hand from the neck of her axe. She hadn't released the clasp on its holster yet, but neither was she willing to let it go. Every nerve in her body told her to attack, to strike fast and hard, and to get away as quickly as possible.

The queen moved slowly through the room and stopped in front of Shawl for a moment. Her purple eyes reflected his face back at him as he looked down upon her. She lifted a cautious hand up towards the old man's neck, stretching her legs to do so. Haley tensed. If the queen attacked Shawl, she wasn't just going to stand by and let it happen. She was angry with Shawl for keeping secrets about Xan, but the old man had been nice to her, and he didn't mean any harm. Her hand tightened on the cool hilt of her black axe. A wave of confidence flooded through her, calming the nervous butterflies in her stomach and steeling her nerve for whatever might come next. The axe always did that. It seemed to know when she needed to be calm, and it gave her that steady edge. It was easy to take comfort in that sensation. Too easy. Haley still remembered Xandrith's warning about the dark nature of the bonesteel weapons. It was hard to believe that something that felt so right could be dangerous, but she always kept his warning close to heart.

One of the fae queen's long and strangely articulate fingers reached up and forward to touch Shawl's neck before she drew her hand away quickly as though burned. A low chirr slipped from between her lips and was immediately echoed by the two enforcers. The sound was strangely unsettling, but it ended not long after it began, and then the queen was moving through the room again. It wasn't a large space, so she reached Kassa in a few darting steps. She stopped before the woman as she had before Shawl.

"Don't move. Just let her do what she wants. She isn't hostile at the moment and it would be better for us to keep matters that way." The old mage said quietly and calmly. Haley could hear the tension behind his voice. He was worried. If Shawl was worried, there was good reason to be nervous. The old man was almost too laid back for his own good. While the queen stood in front of Kassa, Haley took a moment to look at the enforcer that had crammed its way into Shawl's home. She'd heard about the enforcers from Xan, but she'd never actually seen one in person. It was a terrifying monster, the kind of horror that a little kid might imagine was lurking in the shadows of their room at night. The part of Haley that was still a child wanted to scream and cry, and the part of her that Xan had trained to fight wanted to scream and hit it repeatedly with her axe. Doing neither of those things was an active exercise of will.

The queen’s inspection of Kassa seemed to take far longer than its inspection of Johndin. It didn't reach out to touch her as it had the mage, but it seemed to be considering her very carefully, as though by merely by looking at her it was seeing some aspect of the woman's character that the fae creature was judging. After a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, it moved away from Kassa and flitted across the room towards Haley. It moved through a combination of walking and a thrumming beat of its wings so that its cloven feet barely touched the ground. She suddenly found herself overcome with nervous energy. She was trying to hold still, but she could feel every twitch and tick in her body. It was as though her muscles were shaking beneath her skin. She struggled not to fidget as the strange purple gaze fell on her. Haley could make out a strong floral smell coming from the queen, like the crushed pedals of a rose. It was almost overpowering.

Through the haze of that sickly sweet smell Haley found her eyes drawn to the deep purple spheres of the queen's gaze. The color that she had taken to be solid was actually a slowly swirling whirlpool of different glistening shades of purple and pink. There was an intense light at the center of her eyes that seemed to slowly pulse. It was hypnotic and inviting. The queen reached forward with her three fingered hand and Haley flinched away. This caused the queen to freeze in place for a second and her enforcer to shift closer to her. It hulked over both the tiny queen and Haley. The girl took a deep breath and steadied herself before the queen’s hand moved forward again, reaching for the burnt side of Haley's face.

Haley didn't let anyone touch her burns. Her instinct to fight flared up inside of her, but the look of terror in the eyes of Johndin and Kassa held her in check. If she let her anger rule her, they would all die and it would be her fault. The queen's blue tinged fingers touched her cheek gently. They were surprisingly warm, almost hot. Her purple eyes seemed to churn even more quickly for a moment, and then she drew her hand away and stepped back towards her enforcer.

"Cruelty marks the face of humanity. Their sleeping brothers wake for war, and we must away, to the north." The queen spoke, her words clear and perfectly formed, though confusing and nonsensical. Her voice was musical and bright like a young woman singing a song, but there was an inhuman trill to the way she spoke that made it clear she was mimicking the sound, but using an entirely different method of vocalization to do so.

The three companions looked from one to the other, each trying to see if the other knew what was being conveyed by the queen. The returned looks of confusion made it clear that they were all equally unclear as to the nature of the message. The queen cocked her head to one side looking at the three humans as though she expected something. She opened her mouth and let lose a quiet churring sound, almost like a sigh.

"Dreaming has ended, the messenger must sleep in the land of his choosing. The sister and the shadow's shadow will go into the north to chase the darkness and bring it light. Without light there is only chaos and madness. We must away." The queen gestured towards the door. "We must away."

"I think she wants us to follow her." Shawl said, though Haley had hardly needed the old mage's translation to figure that out. The gesturing for the door seemed clear enough.

"Where is she going to take us?" Haley asked, not sure if she was ready to follow this strange creature anywhere. "I don't think I want to walk out there into that mist."

"I'm not sure we have much of a choice. With two enforcers, the queen can pretty much make sure we do anything she wants us to. We're lucky she didn't just rip us from this cabin and leave. For the fae this is a very civil turn of communication. They even sent someone who could speak our language. Very uncommon." Shawl seemed less on edge than Haley felt and Kassa looked.