Child of Light, page 36
She went on to explain that we would escape at the far end of the wormhole once the enemy had followed us far enough inside, and the Fae army—which would appear to follow us in but actually wouldn’t—would have faded into the surrounding trees on either side of the entry and circled back around to block any escape from the entrance. No one would be allowed to leave the wormhole—and when it collapsed, the entire Human army would simply disappear along with it.
I was immediately tempted to tell her to forget this mad plan; it was way too unpredictable. It would be better if I just left and drew them off as I originally intended. But it wouldn’t be better; not really. “Better” would mean putting an end to this threat to my country and my people forever. As long as Ancrow’s plan stood a chance of working…
Harrow surprised me by asking Ancrow if she knew of an existing wormhole that would serve our purposes. She said she did. He then asked if it was stable enough that it wouldn’t collapse until she made it do so. She said it was. An existing wormhole already waited not far back from where the forest opened onto the flats—one that must have been used regularly in the early days of the Fae. Some of it had eroded away over the centuries, but what remained was huge and perfectly suited to what we needed. It was why she had chosen to lure the Human army to this particular point. She was confident she could do what she said and trap the Human army inside this wormhole. Was he convinced? A slight nod of his head and the look on his face told me he was. He believed her. He was usually so careful, and this seemed so risky, but he had made up his mind. And given his unfailing instincts, I had to consider that his willingness to allow both his mother and me to take this risk counted for something.
We explored all the details of Ancrow’s plan for several hours afterward, and all the while I was looking for an excuse to back out. I thought I’d find one, but I was wrong. By the time we talked it through for the third time and I exhausted both questions and concerns, I was persuaded. The plan did have a chance of succeeding. And if it did work, the Human army would be no more, and the Fae would be safe in spite of the tracking device in my bloodstream. There would be no invading army, and no way for those who remained behind in the Human world to know what had happened unless there were survivors—which Ancrow was determined there would not be. Allensby and his army would be annihilated so thoroughly they would seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth. And then I could have the world and the life and the home I wanted so badly instead of spending my future as Allensby’s lab rat or a dismembered corpse.
If I had to gamble, I couldn’t think of a better gamble than this one. Ancrow had her failings, but believing in this bold plan didn’t feel like one of them.
Even so, I felt an unmistakable reticence that I could not quite understand. Even though the plan seemed straightforward, there was still something about it that was deeply troubling. My inish warned me that something was wrong. But try as I might, I could not pinpoint what caused this feeling. All I could manage to deduce was that my inish was troubled not so much by the plan as by…something else. I was missing something important, but I couldn’t figure out what. So without dismissing my uneasiness entirely, I did what I thought was right and agreed to what Harrow had already approved. I told myself this did not mean I couldn’t change my mind if I discovered a sound reason to do so. It did not mean I couldn’t back away if I was once again deceived by my frequently duplicitous mother. It only meant that I was prepared to go ahead with it when the time arrived.
And that time, it seemed, was fast approaching.
* * *
—
I wash and dress after waking, and find Harrow sitting on my doorstep when I emerge. He went home last night after our talk with Ancrow to tell Ronden what was happening and to give me some time alone. I would have welcomed him had he chosen to stay, but sometimes Harrow knows what I need better than I do. Now he is back, and I invite him in for breakfast with a kiss on the lips and a tug on his arm. We talk once again about the plan—and even though the details of how Ancrow will achieve her part remain vague, we both feel it has a chance.
I am still not sure about the nature of the conjuring Ancrow’s plan requires or the way in which we intend to trap an entire armored, mechanized army consisting of everything from small weapons and robotic giants to rolling fortresses that carry cannons and rocket launchers. But Harrow insists such weapons will not prove so successful in the part of the country where we intend to lure them.
“Allensby will rely on the tracking device to lead the invasion force to us. And we will make sure to temporarily weaken that part of the magic so his readings will be accurate. But he will never get close to you; I will see to it that he doesn’t.”
I hope he’s right about this. Allensby is not someone I ever want near me again.
Then Harrow has an additional thought on our preparation.
“We need to go back to the Seers and tell them to keep a close watch on the invasion. We need to know when the Humans begin transporting their army and by what means they do so. I assume they will attempt to cross the Roughlin using watercraft, but we can’t be sure. If we are to prepare ourselves, we need time to make ready. Not beating them to the battlefield will sink the whole endeavor. We need to be in place so they can track us to where we want them to find us.”
Breakfast finished, we go off to visit the Seers at their cottage.
Dreena is out on the balcony watering the flower boxes and looks up as we approach. There is reflected on her face that by-now familiar look of mixed irritation and resignation. Always prepared for us, yet never quite satisfied that we should be there in the first place. The sisters are so different from one another, I think. Perhaps it is because of their differences that they are able to work their inish together so effectively. Perhaps their individual talents complement one another. I don’t begin to understand all the specifics of how inish works. Almost everything I know is about how mine works, and it is hard enough to get a firm grip on that.
As we come up to the doorway, Benith is there to greet us and invite us in. Maven offers tea and cookies. Dreena stays out on the balcony—although I have the feeling that she is somehow listening in.
We ask about monitoring the invasion, and Benith assures us this is possible. Maven goes off to take an immediate reading, eager to help us deal with the threat to Viridian. She returns with a shrug and a shake of her head. “It looks much as it did yesterday. Preparations continue, but everything is taking place inland, away from the coastline and hidden from our Watchers’ eyes. I suspect the army waits on its leader.”
Allensby, I think at once. They need him to read the tracking device. They need him to tell them where they should go before they launch their invasion.
Harrow and I depart with thanks and go back into the city. I tell him that I need to talk to Ancrow further—alone. I can’t explain what it is I intend, because I am not sure myself. But I think I am seeking some form of reassurance. Harrow nods and tells me to come look for him at my cottage when I am done. He gives me a kiss, and we part upon approaching our mother’s home.
Just the thought of speaking with Ancrow alone leaves me feeling uneasy. Nothing new there. I try unsuccessfully to gather my thoughts, but end up settling for determination. Some things you do because you lose something of yourself if you don’t.
As I go up to the door, it flies open to disgorge an impassioned Char who rushes out impetuously to intercept me. Hugs and kisses from the little girl, and then a warning that Ancrow is in a bad mood today. No other explanation is offered—though I am not at all sure Char would be able to provide one. Even to her children, Ancrow is a mystery. I ask Char to leave me alone with her mother and go outside until we are finished talking. She pouts, but nods her agreement. I ask if Ramey is about, but she is visiting her grandmother. Grandmother, I think. I didn’t even know she had one. Is this my grandmother, too?
Stepping into the house, I call out for Ancrow to announce my presence.
When she appears, she does indeed wear a dark visage and walks toward me with purpose. But as she comes up to me the darkness disappears, to be replaced by her smile.
“You’ve heard?”
I shake my head. “Heard what? I’ve been with Harrow and the Seers all morning.”
“I’ve been given command of the Fae army. The defense of the city and her people is in my hands.”
“As it should be, Mother.” I speak the words, but wonder if this is true. It has been a long time since she was a soldier, and she has suffered greatly since. Does she still have the strength and determination a leader needs? Is she still capable of leading?
She hugs me to her. “I’m happy you’ve come, Auris. I need to talk to you.”
She leads me into the living area and sits us side by side on the couch. “I need to talk to you, too,” I tell her. “This plan to trap the Human army seems such an impossibility. I worry for both of us.”
She nods. “I worry, too. But my plan is our best option, and I think it will work if we are strong-willed enough. I have to admit I don’t think I can employ the inish alone; I need your strength as well to make it work. I have been a poor mother to you, Auris—poor in every sense of the word. I regret so much of what I have done, and I know that you still wonder if I’m holding something back. But I’m not. Not anymore. I want a new beginning for us—for whatever time we have left together. I want you to know I admire and respect the young woman you have shown yourself to be. I want you to know, too, that I am pleased that Harrow loves you as much as he does—and that you love him. I want you to be happy together, and I will do whatever is needed to help this happen.”
Where is this coming from? Weeks of being an intruder, a pretender, a hated Human, and a presence she found anathema have left me doubtful about anything she says. Duplicitous in her behavior, constantly lying about my father and my life and our relationship, she has sought to deceive me at every turn. I want what she says to be the truth, but a part of me cannot accept what I am hearing. Rather than feeling reassured, I am immediately on my guard.
“I would like that,” I reply, which is true enough. “But I still wonder how two women can undo an entire invasion. I know how accomplished you are, but I am still just learning to use my inish. There are so many ways I could fail that I feel I am a poor choice for this role.”
“You won’t fail. We won’t fail. Mother and daughter—two very different but very committed women who have found each other in spite of everything. I have watched you, measured you, and found you supremely capable. You might not yet be as skilled or experienced as I am, but you are still the one I want by my side when this happens. One day soon, you will be better at using inish than I am. One day, you will astound yourself with what you can accomplish.”
She takes my hands. “I have been thinking about what the Seers told you: that you are a Changeling. I think they were right; I think that power is somewhere inside you. But like your inish, it just needs something to bring it out. I also think you came to Viridian Deep because you were meant to. I dismissed you at the beginning, but now I see how wrong that was. You found your way here because—as much as you might have needed us—we needed you more. You are the key to our survival, Auris. I know how this sounds. I know it seems a gross exaggeration. But this is what I believe.”
I am now speechless. I found my way here because I was trying to survive, and Harrow found me and rescued me. I never even knew Viridian existed before that. I had no idea I was born here and was a Sylvan and not the Human I appear. The thought that I was guided here to fulfill some important role in my Fae homeland just seems far-fetched and unreal. I am a nineteen-year-old girl whose past remains a mystery, whose present feels ephemeral, and whose future I measure in days. Ancrow invests me with an importance I neither believe in nor deserve.
Still. She is my mother.
“If you believe in our chances and if you want me with you, then you have my support. I will trust you, Mother. Again. Once more. I will put aside our unfortunate past and my lingering doubts, and I will trust you. But do not lie to me again. Do not betray me again. And do not disappoint me again.”
She takes my hands in hers and squeezes them reassuringly. “I won’t. Not ever again. I promise.”
I wonder if this is a promise she can keep. I wonder if she is even capable of keeping it. She has failed thus far, and the consequences have been extremely painful. All I can do now is hope.
I have forgotten what it was I came here to say—if in fact I ever knew what it was. Perhaps I have already said it. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. What she’s said, what she has made me believe might be possible, is sufficient. Without knowing anything more than I did before, I feel reassured. In a day, maybe three, we will stand together for the first time against a common enemy—an enemy that has plagued us for years—trying to wipe its presence from our lives. Do I speak of Allensby? Yes. Do I include the Humans who hunt and kill us? Yes, again.
But maybe I also mean to try to redress the wrongs we have both suffered and lived with for far too long.
Perhaps, I think, this is how we might finally heal.
Three days later—three intensely trying days attempting to master a form of inish I have never used before, and whose application leaves me exhausted and wrung out every evening—we receive word from the Seers that new activity has appeared on the wastelands; preparations are actively under way for the Human invasion. But the invasion is to be launched not by sailing across the waters of the Roughlin but by flying over them. Giant transports have landed at the assembly site, and supplies and vehicles are being loaded.
Ancrow acts quickly. She asks the Seer sisters to further weaken the wards that might affect the ability of the transports to reach our designated point for their landing by opening a channel that will guide them to us. Flight in any other direction will throw their instruments into chaos, so they will have little choice in the matter. Perhaps they will sense this is a trap, but there is no help for it if we want our plan to succeed.
She already commands the Sylvan army that will defend Viridian Deep, and after leaving the sisters she immediately calls her soldiers together. Fully assembled by midday—Harrow, Ronden, and I included—our army marches east for ten miles, to where a wormhole opens to allow passage directly to the coast. We exit within the trees a mile back from the shoreline, between the imposing bulk of Spawn Ridge to the north and the deep swamp of the Strewlin to the south. It is the most suitable delivery point for an army of this size for miles in either direction, by water or by air. The remainder of the coast consists of hills and rugged forests that will prevent hovercraft from finding another sufficiently large piece of flat ground on which to land. Here, there is sufficient space to maneuver. Here is where they will determine—by Allensby’s reading of the tracking device, now uncovered by the magic—that I and the Fae will be found.
Once in place, we assemble with our backs to the trees and the wormhole hidden behind us. As Ancrow has promised, at the start of this endeavor, the illusion is maintained not just by me, but by a handful of inish masters—those Sylvans whose command of magic is exceptional enough to separate them from their fellows. I have trained hard over the past few days, and learned fast, but the scope of this illusion is too much for a single inish user—especially one who has trained for only three days. Once the trap is sprung, I will have to maintain the illusion alone and from inside the wormhole, as only Ancrow, Harrow, and I will be going down its throat.
I can only hope I am equal to the challenge, though Ancrow has assured me that, in the chaos of battle, a perfect illusion is not needed. I hope she is right.
Then, with the illusion established, we wait.
Allensby is not a fool. He will suspect that we are trying to trick him by using the tracking device as a lure, and he will be prepared. But Ancrow feels certain all his preparations and foresight will still not be enough to save him. He will find the Fae army waiting and automatically assume they have come to fight. He will judge them to be of insufficient size and number to withstand the strength of the force he commands. He will rely on battle machines and mechanized warriors and advanced weaponry to overcome any magic we might wield. He will survey and test the ground that makes up the battlefield to be sure there are no traps waiting. He will scan the forests and find nothing—for the wormhole is hidden away. He will decide these savages—as he once referred to the Fae in my presence—are overestimating their ability to withstand what is coming, and he will attack.
If all goes as Ancrow believes and all the pieces of the deception fall into place, his army will be destroyed.
What are the odds?
I don’t dare think about it too closely. In a direct confrontation with the Human army, ours would be cut to pieces. Their weapons and armor are far superior. But if they are not given a chance to use their vaunted killing tools and machines, it might be a much different story.
We establish our defensive formations—archers on the wings, spearmen and slingers front and center, and swordsmen held in reserve until they are needed to lead the forces when the retreat begins. Scattered everywhere among them are the majority of the inish masters—those not working with me to maintain the illusion. Initially these men and women are given one duty and one duty only—to form the shields that will serve to protect the Fae forces.
Ancrow, Harrow, and I stand at the center of the formation. Ronden has left us to take command of the Watchers—a position Harrow would assume had he not been asked by Ancrow to remain with me. We appear for all intents and purposes a formidable fighting force—one that would intimidate any enemy that dared to challenge it.
