Gone With The Harp's Echo by Narya

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Chapter 8

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He did not find himself on the mist-filled plain.

The ground was stony, and the trees to each side of him were bare. Their knotted roots reached out from the shadows to trip him, and the deep red light filtering through their bare branches had a malevolent gleam. Robin clutched the chalice in his fist like a talisman.

“Welcome home, Robin-Wanderer.”

He knew her voice straight away. The star on his forehead warmed, and his soul leapt up as though called by a sorcerer's spell.

She stepped out of the trees, clad this time in moss-green, her dark hair loose to her waist.

“Am I home?” he asked her.

“Look around you. Judge for yourself.”

There was something stagnant in the air, he thought as he lifted his head. No breeze stirred the branches – birch branches, he realised, and knew where he was.

“Yes. You walk the King's Avenue, as you did once before, though you did not know its name then.”

“What happened to the place I saw through the archway? The great tree?”

“The road through the worlds is deceptive. It does not show things as they are; rather, it shows what those who would walk it wish to see. It is a rare soul who can look past that.”

Robin thought of Laurie's longing, grey gaze, and shivered. He took a step towards the fairy woman, though he did not recall telling his feet to move. “What happened here?”

“Choices were made. Time passed.” She glided towards him, took his hand, and kissed his lips again. They prickled, and his vision swam. “Walk on; you'll soon see.”

Once more he felt as though he'd drunk too much wine – but he took a breath of the dry, warm air, and kept going.

At the avenue's end, he was unsurprised to find Alf. He sat on the same boulder as before, his bad leg stretched out, though this time there was no supper of wine and cheese and bread, and the basket beside him was full of holes. The lake had darkened, and shrunk, and smelled faintly of decay. Even Alf himself looked older; his face was lined, and silver touched his hair.

Robin went to one knee. “Your Majesty.”

Alf raised his brows, and smiled. “You have guessed the truth, then.”

“Some of it. With help.”

Alf reached for his crutch, and pulled himself to his feet. “And you have come for the rest?”

“I think I had to come.” Robin watched as the fairy-witch glided out of the avenue, smiled at him, and went to dance on the edge of the lake. “She has made me fall in love with her, I believe.” He smiled faintly as the ringing rose in his ears, and his mind lightened again. “It is hard to resist the call.”

Alf gave Robin his hand and drew him up. “Are you sure that is what calls to you? She set desire in your heart, yes – though I did not ask her to do that. I simply asked her to lead you home.”

That word again. “Who is she?”

“Oh, she has many names. Nielikki. Korrigan. Lamia. Moura.”

Robin watched her dancing, and his heart filled with longing again.

“Perhaps I was wrong to ask her. She is not to be trifled with – but there are so few of us now, who can enter the world you were in.” Alf laid his hand on Robin's shoulder. “If I have caused you pain, then I beg your forgiveness.”

The gleam behind Alf's grey eyes made him think of the same light in Laurie's – Makalaurë's – and memory cut through the longing like a sunbeam shining through mist. “I forgive you.”

Alf smiled sadly. “I had intended to be truthful with you when you were last here. You are my son, Robin-Wanderer, though we have long been parted.”

Robin looked at their shadows, stretching ahead of them over the lake. “I think I knew that. Somehow.”

“Yes, I expect you did.”

“Why did you leave me in my – in the other world?” There was no accusation there, he realised, and no anger at all. It was curiosity only – a simple need to know.

“We did not mean to. You have seen for yourself, many times, how the worlds can bleed together – how they reflect one another, and refract. We were under attack by creatures from a shadowed realm.” His face darkened. “Your mother the Queen was fighting elsewhere; I was wounded, and I had to make a choice. I gave you this...” He touched the star on Robin's forehead. “And I sent you between worlds, knowing that the star would one day lead you back home.”

“But I never stayed here.”

Across the lake, Nielikki began to hum as she twirled.

“No. I should have foreseen it; it has happened to others, before you. The woman who adopted you – your mother – she loved you, and you loved her. Your heart had more than one place to call home, and so you continued to move between worlds. Many worlds.”

Dust rose under Nielikki's feet.

“It happened less as I grew up,” Robin said slowly.

“Yes.”

“Because I had roots in my – in the other world?”

“Call it your world, my son, if that is what you feel it to be. And yes. I had intended to tell you the truth and offer you the choice, when I brought you here on your twenty-first birthday.”

“So it was my birthday?”

“It was.” The Faery King touched his cheek. “I would make no mistake about that.”

“But you decided not to tell me.”

“You loved your mother. That much was plain. I could not bear to ask you to choose.” Again his fingers brushed the star. “When I said goodbye to you in the avenue, I tried to take some of the power from this star. Most of its power. I did not want you to keep falling into your birth world, forever torn between the two, but nor did I wish to bar you from Faery to the end of your days. I had to leave you the choice to come back.” Regret flared in his eyes. “Once, unwounded, I might have worked such a spell with success.”

Robin looked around at the dying land. From the side of the lake, Nielikki stopped her dancing, and smiled.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I put too much of myself into the spell. The power of my land bled away - and I still failed to protect you from your memories.” He gestured to the lake, and the stony scrub. “You see how things are now.”

The words rose to Robin's tongue as naturally as water rose from a spring. “How can I help you?”

Alf's eyes were shadowed. “I called you back to offer you the choice I should have given you five years ago. If you choose to stay, and step into your birthright, the land will be reborn.”

“And if I do not?”

“If you leave, and nothing else changes, then the waste land will remain.”

“Will you die?”

“I do not die so easily.”

Robin nodded. He thought of his mother, making him tea and stroking his hair. He thought of May, hugging him hard on the hillside. He thought of Laurie, drunk on the rooftops, singing songs about seagulls, and then retreating into memory as the wine and whisky wore off. “What do you know about Makalaurë?”

Alf smiled, and shook his head. “His secrets are not mine to tell you. I knew that you were together, and that he could help. I had an idea that he'd know what to do.”

Healing waters... Robin turned the chalice in his fingertips. “You gave me this when I last left this place.”

“I had no hidden motive, beyond wishing you to have something to remember your birth-world by, and a way back in if the star should fail.”

Again, Robin nodded. The red waters of Chalice Well still stained the base of the cup. A gift freely given. “I wonder...” He knelt by the lake, dipped the goblet into its waters, and held it out to the Faery King. “Will you drink, sire?”

Alf took the chalice from his hands, and rested his brow against the shining star. “Gladly, wandering child.”