Crown of Steel (Chaos Awakens) (7 page)

"Should we really be questioning her orders right in front of her?" Kassa asked, frowning.

"She can hear us, and she knows our words, but I'm sure she has a difficult time following the lines of our communication. Just like her words seemed nonsensical to us, the way we formulate our thoughts is also confusing to her. Humans and fae do not reason in the same fashion." Shawl said with a shrug.

The little queen stamped her little cloven foot. She gestured for the door again. "We must away. The glimmer sets with dawn and the doorways of the stars will sleep until the churning world weeps our lost cousins up from whence they've broiled with hate, with sword and steel, with war. We must away."

"I get that she wants us to go with her, into the mist, but what did the rest of that mean?" Haley asked, still not ready to follow the strange little creature.

"I'm not sure, but it doesn't bode well. Her words are wrapped in meaning, thick with threads of knowledge. My divining skill can see the connections, but I'd need time to understand it." Shawl shrugged helplessly.

The queen darted forward and took Haley's hand, the one that she'd had clutching her weapon. Haley was startled by just how fast the little woman could move when she wanted to. To the assassin's apprentice she had been nothing more than a blur. The queen pulled on her arm with a surprising amount of strength. "We must away." She said again.

Haley wasn't exactly sure why, but she let herself be drawn forward towards the door. There was a desperate and hidden urgency to the way the queen was acting. She didn't show it outwardly, but Haley was suddenly caught up in the idea that an event of great importance was unfolding. She'd taken the first three steps before she was even fully aware she was doing it.

"Haley!" Kassa called, coming forward to grab her other hand. "We shouldn't…"

"No," Shawl interrupted. "We should. We need to go."

Kassa looked back and forth between Haley and the old man as though trying to decide what had come over them. She gave a hesitant sigh and fell in at the younger woman's side. "I think this is a bad idea."

Haley gave a half smile to the older woman. "I know this is a bad idea. It feels like following Xan all over again." The three of them fell in behind the queen and began to follow her out the door, but she stopped just before they crossed the threshold. She let go of Haley's hand and darted in front of Johndin. She reached a hand up and pushed against his chest.

"The messenger must sleep in the land of his choosing." She said, and pushed him again, more softly this time.

Haley watched the exchange in confusion. "What does that mean?"

Kassa frowned, her dissatisfaction with the turns events were taking seeming to deepen.

Shawl sighed. "I think it's obvious. I'm not coming along."

The queen gave a single nod. "When the world weeps war upon its children, the messenger must speak to the wind before the night. He sleeps in the land of his choosing." She touched Shawl once more, as though this should all make sense to everyone. "He sleeps in the land of his choosing."

"I don't know what's going on, but we can't just leave you here. What about my training? I still have a lot to learn, and you know so much. We still need you." Haley was suddenly angry at the whole situation. "We won't go without you. We don't even know where they want to take us! I'm not leaving anyone behind."

The old mage just shook his head. "This is important. Whatever the fae queen wants from you, it's necessary. I don't know where her knowledge comes from, but her words are heavy with some kind of incite that I can't fathom. You need to go on, and I need to stay here. Apparently I still have work to do before ... Well, before whatever it is that is going to happen, happens." Before anyone could say anything else, Johndin held up a hand. "One moment."

He turned and trudged quickly back into his room. He came out only a moment later carrying something wrapped in blanket. "I procured these items in case we ever needed to travel north into the plague lands. They're masks that were made by the mages during the original plague. Unlike the traditional plague masks, these will be comfortable, will allow you to eat and drink while wearing them, and they won't interfere with your normal senses. These are very, very special. They cost a fortune to obtain, but I want you two to have them."

The queen churred loudly. "We must away." She said, and this time there was a very clear impatience in the tone of her voice.

Kassa took the parcel with the masks in it. "I don't know about any of this."

"That's why it's so much fun, dear." Shawl said with a half-smile. "When this is all over, be sure to come back and tell me your story."

The older woman hesitated for a moment before she spoke. "We will." Kassa nodded. "I promise."

Haley felt a sense of foreboding. She was overcome by a doubt that she would ever see the old mage again. Everything was happening so fast, and she felt like she didn't have control of the situation at all. The loss of control aggravated her. "I don't want to leave you here." She snapped ineffectively. She was aware of just how childish those words sounded as she said them, but in that moment she didn't care. Generally she would be angry with herself for acting like a little kid, but she was too concerned for Johndin to care. She'd been the one to try and force the others to do something and now that something was happening she was terrified.

"I'll be fine, Haley. Go with Kassa now, and I'll see you again when this is all over." Johndin said with a warm, reassuring smile.

Haley clenched her fists until her knuckles went white. "Alright. Fine, when this is over. Goodbye, Johndin." She forced herself to acquiesce to the situation. Events were out of her hands and the only thing she could do to try and remain in some semblance of control was to allow herself to willingly be swept up. She turned her back on the old mage and fell in behind the queen who was already heading out the door. She didn't allow herself even one look back for she feared she might cry and seem like even more of a child.

Haley followed the fae queen through the wrecked entry way and into the mists beyond. Every hair on the back of her neck stood up as she entered the glimmer mist. Johndin's story was still fresh in her mind. Kassa was close at her back, but that did little to shake the fear she felt as she followed the little and decidedly alien woman into the unknown. The two enforcers didn't follow. They stayed with Shawl as their queen and her newly acquired companions walked off into the fading mist.

"We must away." The fae woman said softly.

***

Johndin Shawl sat down at the table feeling as though he had leaden weights tied around his shoulders. He'd known he wouldn't be able to go with the women when it was time for them to leave, but he hadn't imagined he would have to watch them walk off into the mists. It had taken an immense exercise of will not to scream and yell for them not to walk into the glimmer.
With the queen they will be fine
, he forced himself to repeat in his mind. This was meant to happen. The two enforcers had stayed with him, standing watch over his hut, and he was only too aware of exactly why. Johndin hadn't been completely honest with Kassa and Haley. Certainly some of the queen's words had been confusing, but others had been only too clear to the divining abilities of the old mage. The connecting strands of knowledge were clear for him to see, even if the others had been confused. Johndin knew what was coming, and he knew what he had to do with his remaining time. He'd already prepared his supplies.

He set to work immediately on crafting the messages that he would send out via bird. He'd send a message to anyone that might listen. That was, after all, to be his task in this unraveling drama. He was the messenger that would deliver humanity's final warning. Would his words be heeded? It really didn't matter. He had nothing else left to do. He would send the message to all of his contacts, and to the Order of Mages as well. He'd send birds to the spy networks, and to those who bred birds for sending messages. From there birds could be dispatched all over the world. Hopefully someone would listen. Perhaps some defense could be managed. He finished the first message and scanned over it to make sure it was written exactly right. He would need to make many more, so he had to be certain that it was concise, poignant, and dire.

"
The trolls rise to war. Prepare or die.

Johndin Shawl
"

He didn't need to write a long message. He just needed to write a message that, when in the correct hands, would give people some small warning before the end. It was impossible to know exactly where the creatures would emerge, but when they did they would destroy everything in their path. Millions of people were on the cusp of death. Chaos was poised to consume the world. The end times had come. Those not destroyed by the plague would fall to the rigors of war. Even if the world survived, humanity might not.

Johndin looked at the red eyes of the enforcer that sat hunched in his front doorway. "I wish I could have told them what was coming, but they would have never left if I had. They're good girls, strong. I'm glad they're the ones carrying our hope forward." The enforcer didn't answer of course, but Shawl felt better when he had someone to talk to. He looked longingly at his pipe, and then at the pile of work he still had ahead of him. The pipe would have to wait. He started writing the next message.

***

Haley had convinced herself that she wasn't going to look back at the hut as she left, but only a dozen steps out into the mist she caught herself peering over her shoulder to grab one last glimpse at the place she'd been calling home for so many months. She nearly stumbled in shock when she looked backwards to find that the hut, the clearing, and everything recognizable had vanished from behind her. It wasn't that it had faded into the mist, she could still see far enough behind her that she should have been looking at the hut. Instead everything she’d known was simply missing from the landscape, as though it had been erased from reality and replaced with another section of the woods.

"The hut is gone!" Haley whispered urgently to Kassa. When she looked over at the woman she noticed that she too was looking over her shoulder in apparent bewilderment.

"I know." The older woman replied, a slight nervous edge to her voice. She sounded like she was trying to hide her fear, but Haley could sense it in her voice. She was no more comfortable with the situation than Haley was. Strangely the girl found some comfort in that. At least she wasn't the only one alarmed at the fact that they’d lost an entire house.

The queen chittered and Haley turned to look at her. She'd stopped and seemed to be waiting impatiently for the two women to follow her. "Close. Keep with." She snapped in something that might have been agitation. Kassa and Haley turned back to the strange blue skinned woman and made a point of staying close to her as she trod steadily through the mists as though she knew exactly where she was going. She didn't walk in a straight line. She'd walk a few feet and then turn abruptly in a different direction and walk a few feet more. Once she even turned entirely back on herself and started walking back the way they'd come as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Strangely enough, the scenery around them seemed different as they marched back the way they'd just come. Haley was at a loss, the glimmer mist seemed to have its own set of rules. She just hoped that the queen understood them as well as she seemed to. By Haley's reckoning, the group was already lost beyond redemption.

"I've got a fairly keen sense of direction," Kassa said. "But I'm not sure where we are anymore. I was keeping track of the direction of travel for a while. I think the sun is the bright spot in the sky, but it keeps changing locations. It's appearing in places that it just couldn't be, but it only seems to move when I'm not looking at it. If I take my eyes off of it for a second it's in a completely different place. This entire place is a nightmare."

Haley frowned. "We better not lose sight of Queeny then. I don't have any desire to get lost alone here, and I don't want to run into those things Johndin told us about." Whether the queen heard them talking or not, she didn't say anything, and she didn't turn around to address them. They continued to walk for what felt like hours. Haley was just growing footsore when the mist began to clear and a bitter-cold wind swept across her skin. It wasn't a subtle change of temperature, instead it was like stepping out of a fire-warmed room into a snow storm. A flake of snow drifted by her face, and then several more. In a few steps she was standing in blizzard, the gusts of snow blowing past her and nipping at her exposed skin. She wasn't appropriately dressed for such freezing weather, but with her axe at her side the cold was only an inconvenience. The cursed blade gave Haley a resistance to pain, discomfort, and injury on top of making her stronger. Kassa was shivering fiercely without the axe’s protections. The fae queen didn't seem to notice the cold even though she was still completely naked.

The forest terrain turned rocky, and the trees cleared as the three travelers emerged onto a wind-swept, open pass covered in foot-deep snow. Haley looked back over her shoulder to see that the forest had vanished to be replaced by a bleak, wintery landscape nothing like the one they'd left that morning. To her left, cold gray and black stone stretched into the sky, reaching up through the storm like the jagged tooth of some immeasurably large monster. Mountains. She'd heard of them, but she'd never been so close to them before.

"Where are we?" She asked loudly, speaking over the screaming wind. She wasn't sure whether she was asking Kassa or the queen, but she hoped someone knew the answer.

"The ragged claws of earth reached for the stars, forever seeking what they can never have." The queen's voice carried over the wind, though she didn't seem to be speaking loudly. "Here passed the shadow. Here passed death." She looked at both the women that had accompanied her as though they should know exactly what she was saying. When it was clear they weren't going to respond, the queen spoke again. "Here passed the shadow. Here passed death."