The Fate of Valeane

     Isobel took a quick stock of her surroundings and made her way to the Hall of Heroes at the centre of the city. The afternoon sun was shining high above and its reflection in the many gilded parts of the city’s masonry made the entire place glisten and shimmer. Isobel often thought that Altador was second only to Faerieland in its elegance. One of the last vestiges of the long-dead age of heroes when Altador was founded.

     Relations between the two countries had always been cordial, and King Altador counted Fyora as one of his trusted friends. Given her role in originally banishing the Darkest Faerie a thousand years ago, some even went as far as to name Fyora an honorary thirteenth member of the Altador council. As such, Lady Isobel Falmouth was a known quantity in Altador. The guards at the gates to the Hall of Heroes recognised her on sight, and word was sent ahead to the council before her arrival.

     There, Sasha the Dancer was waiting for her in the Hall’s great arched door. The Cybunny’s many skirts fluttered in the gentle breeze, and she wore as ever the pleasant smile of mirth that she spread wherever she went.

     “Lady Falmouth,” she greeted her. “A pleasure to see you as always. We have been waiting for word from Faerieland all day.”

     “The dream?” Isobel asked.

     Sasha gave a sad nod.

     “Both Siyana and Psellia experienced it,” she said. “Siyana at once recognised it as a message. Light Faeries are more skilled in these opaque matters, I find. She’s waiting for you in her chambers, if you would care to join her?”

     “I would be delighted to,” Isobel said. “Though if you would be so kind as to convene the whole council, I fear it is a matter that all of you will wish to be involved in. We believe the Darkest Faerie may be involved.”

     “We know,” Sasha replied sadly. “Though many of the council have now had their fill of her. Come speak to Siyana. She will be able to tell you much and more, I promise. If you still wish to speak to us all afterwards, I promise I will see it done.”

     Isobel’s mind raced to new possibilities if the Darkest Faerie was truly involved. Certainly, she was ill-equipped to challenge her directly. If she was planning something, it would take Fyora, the council, and a fair few others to best her.

     Siyana’s chambers, like much of the council, were on the upper floors of the Hall of Heroes. They were lavishly appointed, with heavily gilded furniture that reflected the sun that shone through permanently opened windows that led out onto a wide balcony. It was there that Isobel found the Light Faerie.

     Siyana was looking out over the city, smiling as she let the rays of the sun soak into her skin. Her yellow wings fluttered slightly as she stretched out. Isobel announced herself with a low cough. Siyana turned, and her smile fell slightly.

     It was a bad business, Isobel could already tell.

     “Lady Falmouth,” she said. “I had expected your coming. Fyora sent you?”

     Isobel supplied a brisk nod.

     “Yes, Lady Siyana,” she said. “The Queen believes Valeane is in danger, wherever she is. She was last seen, in the flesh, heading to Altador to see the Darkest Faerie. She believes there may be a clue to her present whereabouts in that.”

     “Indeed there is,” Siyana agreed. “Though I wish I could give you the location myself. I remember that time. I am a younger Faerie, I arrived in Neopia after the Faerie Wars when the peace was already won. A child of the calm, you might say. I had never had the honour of meeting Valeane before she came to the city that day. It was the first and last time any of us saw her. She came to the city to speak with the Darkest Faerie. What they discussed, none of us knew at the time. Only that they left the city freely together, and that the Darkest Faerie returned alone many weeks later. We did not have much chance to ruminate what had happened, the Darkest Faerie launched her attempted coup soon after, and we were forced into our thousand-year slumber.”

     Isobel sighed. This looked to be a dead end. Siyana caught her mood and smiled brightly.

     “But knowledge comes to us all with time,” she said. “You have heard that the Darkest Faerie recently returned to us? She spent time as a prisoner in the city before she turned on us again. In that time, the two of us spoke of much. Once, we spoke of the time she left the city with Valeane.”

     “What did she say?”

     “Valeane had come because she sensed a great evil stirring somewhere in Neopia, apparently,” Siyana said. “She wanted the Darkest Faerie’s help to find and destroy it. They ventured forth and found what they were looking for. The Darkest Faerie, she would not go into details with me, but she described a fantastically powerful creature. Something that scared even her. She fled from it a changed woman. No longer content with her life in Altador. She described it as a revelation that ultimately led to her betrayal.”

     “And Valeane?” Isobel pressed.

     “She said the Battle Faerie stayed, and fought,” Siyana said. “From what I was told of Valeane, that seems exactly like her. The Darkest Faerie assumed that she died fighting whatever it was, perhaps killing it in the process.”

     “Though the dream suggests that isn’t the case,” Isobel said.

     Siyana nodded.

     “Did she tell you where they went?” the Xweetok asked.

     “No,” Siyana said. “Sadly she did not. But they did not travel alone. When Valeane came for the Darkest Faerie that day, she was accompanied by the Earth Faerie, Ilere.”

     Ilere. Of course, the third of Fyora’s generals from the wars.

     “Then she must be my next port of call,” Isobel said with a nod. “Thank you, Lady Siyana, you have been most helpful.”

     Isobel turned on her heel, but then hesitated.

     “The Darkest Faerie…” she said, struggling to find the words to soften the blow. “The believes the dark flower in the dream was her. In a metaphorical sense. She thinks that perhaps, she did not survive the battle with you and the rest of the Council. That the wilting of the flower indicates she is… dead.”

     “I understand,” Siyana replied sadly. “Though the death of a Faerie is a terrible thing. I should like to think she lives on somewhere. Many of us on the Council do. Hope springs eternal, as they say.”

     Isobel gave a reassuring nod, but she was not in the business of hope. Her profession was one of the facts. She also noted the curious turn of phrase about losing Faeries, the same one both Fyora and Aethia had used. Something cultural with Faeries, perhaps. Isobel couldn’t remember ever discussing the death of a Faerie before with the Queen, but this felt like the first time she had heard of it.

     Regardless, Ilere was the next clue to follow. The reclusive Earth Faerie made her home in the Deep Woods beyond Neovia. Isobel would have to root her out and make her speak.

     ***

     The Deep Woods lay off the beaten paths of the forests beyond Neovia. The Haunted Woods as a whole were never safe, but the Deep Woods were something else. They said there were creatures living there that had never glimpsed sunlight. People went into the dense thickets and never returned. Darkness, death, and a foreboding sense of evil pervaded the place.

     It was the perfect place to hide, and it was where the reclusive Earth Faerie, Ilere, had made her home. She shunned all contact, even with her fellow Faerie sisters. No one was ever quite sure why, as she had once served in Fyora’s army during the Wars, but now Isobel began to feel she might have some sense of explanation.

     Something happened on that fateful trip with Valeane. The Darkest Faerie was sent into a maddening spiral of self-destruction, and Ilere fled to the ends of Neopia. Whatever it was they found, Isobel did not like the taste of it one bit.

     The Faerieland Knight did not fear the darkness. She had seen enough battles to know the ring of steel was often enough to drive back the terrors that lurked in it. She hacked away at the thick undergrowth with her sword, carving her own path. She dared not cast a light to show her way, such things only served to attract more attention than was needed. The Altador councilman, Kelland, had cause to visit Ilere only months before, and had given Isobel a good idea of her location. Within the hollow of a long-dead tree, often frequented by ghost Meepits that danced outside.

     Isobel knew she was getting close when she began to glimpse the ethereal forms drifting between the tree trunks. There were odd, disconcerting giggles on the air. She sheathed her sword, aware that the noise would draw attention at this distance and followed as best she could. Deeper in, she found the creatures gathered around a Faerie Circle, floating in the air and gently bobbing. There they performed their eerie dance, twirling and laughing as they span around each other.

     When the dance concluded, the Meepits made a bow to each other, and then drifted off their separate ways. Then, Isobel knew she was clear to move. She emerged out into the clearing and found a large, hollowed tree behind where the Meepits had danced. Ilere’s home. The Xweetok was only a few paces from the run-down door when the voice echoed out to her.

     “Knight of Faerieland,” the Earth Faerie spoke. “I have been expecting you. Come.”

     Isobel instinctively disliked pageantry, but she swallowed her response. She needed Ilere’s information, so she would humour her. She pulled aside the curtain and entered the Earth Faerie’s lair.

     The place smelt of something awful cooking in a cauldron in the middle of the place, and the lack of proper ventilation gave the Faerie’s home an oppressively humid atmosphere. She had all manner of herbs and vaguely decomposing creatures hung by springs along the ceiling. Ilere herself was sat in a dark corner of her little hovel, practically melting into a chair carved into the tree’s long-dead trunk. She wore, as ever, thick green robes from which only her green-tinged face and slender fingers poked out. Her leaf-like wings were delicately tucked behind her.

     “I am Lady Isobel Falmouth,” the Xweetok introduced herself.

     “Do I look as if I care for your name?” Ilere asked, arching an eyebrow. “Fyora sends her hounds, they are all the same. I’ve lived far too many centuries to start memorising you mortals.”

     “Yet Fyora sent me,” Isobel replied firmly. “She speaks through me. You know why I am here, yes? The dream? I’m sure you care as much about Valeane’s wellbeing as she does.”

     Ilere gave a hard stare that eventually relented to one closely resembling sympathy, though at the same time slightly divorced from it.

     “Very well,” she said. “I take it you have been to Altador? Spoke to them of the Darkest Faerie?”

     “The three of you ventured forth to take on some great beast?”

     Ilere gave a sharp laugh.

     “Some beast?” she said mockingly. “You think we were hunting some common Bearogs? Valeane came to use because she felt something truly terrible stirring in Neopia. You know the dread beast Drevni? The one whose imprisonment ended the Faerie Wars?”

     “The one that laid waste to Neopia Central a few years ago?” Isobel asked.

     “The very same,” Ilere confirmed. “A mere child compared to the creature we faced. Dwarfed by vast aeons in both power and untold evil. We travelled to a remote island off the coast of Tyrannia, and there we found a tear in reality. Through it, we saw Bal’Gammaron.”

     The name seemed to unsettle the Faerie, as she subconsciously glanced in fear at the door as if the mere mention of it might cause the beast to burst in.

     “The name means nothing to me,” Isobel confessed.

     “Then count yourself lucky,” Ilere said. “Few know it. Fewer still understand what it is. Some of the darker cults of the Woods seek to worship the dark beasts of the worlds beyond. Their Others. But none dare worship Bal’Gammaron. None. Many who come to know of its existence are driven mad. They are considered the fortunate, for to live in fear of its coming, as I have, is no pleasant life.”

     “What happened on the island?” Isobel asked.

     “We looked into the maw of that thing as it stirred,” Ilere said. “We each reacted differently. I saw a creature so powerful that we were mere insects to it. That if it wished, would stride across Neopia and burn it in its wake. A creature beyond classification, beyond any real understanding we would be capable of. Unknowable in a very real sense. I was afraid. I ran. I’ve never stopped. The Darkest Faerie, she saw the inevitable destruction Bal’Gammaron would bring. She was afraid, too, I think. But instead, she chose to serve it. She became a herald of the coming darkness, and sowed the seeds of chaos. She would have burned the entire world had Fyora not stopped her at Altador.”

     “And Valeane?” Isobel asked.

     Ilere gave a sad smile. The first real emotion she had shown.

     “She did what she did best,” Ilere said. “She stood and she fought.”

     “And died?” Isobel asked.

     “I think the Darkest Faerie thought so,” Ilere said. “But Valeane… I think we would know. The death of a Faerie is a terrible thing.”

     Isobel frowned again at the strange statement.

     “Then you think she has been fighting it? For a thousand years?” Isobel asked. “Why not tell someone? The Faerieland Army could have come to her aide!”

     “Do you think she would want that?” Ilere asked. “She was broken after her defeat at the hands of Fiona. She felt she no longer deserved the title of Battle Faerie. This, I think, was her means of redeeming herself. Holding back the dark, forever.”

     “Only it doesn’t seem to be forever,” Isobel said. “If the dream is to be believed, she is losing her fight. Why now, after all this time?”

     “I have heard whispers of what recently happened in Altador,” Ilere said. “The Darkest Faerie is lost. She was the flower in the dream, you understand? And its wilting was the trigger for Valeane’s plea. They are related, I think. The Betrayer, she made herself into Bal’Gammaron’s herald. Perhaps there was a deeper connection there that I missed, some link between the two, with her acting as his will on Neopia. Now that she is gone, perhaps he has returned his full energy to Valeane, and she is unable to hold him back.”

     An unsettling thought. That ridding the world of the Darkest Faerie’s evil only served to unleash something far worse. Equally, that her actions had been those of one corrupted by some ancient evil. The members of the Altador Council that had believed she could be redeemed might have been correct. Isobel would keep such revelations to herself, it would act as a bomb detonated in the friendship of the eleven. A rift that could never be healed, if they learned that they could have saved her in the end, but instead chose her destruction.

     “Then if she lives, we must send help,” Isobel said. “The location of the island you travelled to, I shall need it.”

     Ilere nodded, sorting through her things for a map of Neopia that looked ancient and battered. The damp of the woods had not been kind to it, but the landmasses were still legible. Carefully, Ilere pointed to a small island not far from Tyrannia’s main plateau.

     Isobel carefully studied the map, tracing her finger from the Tyrannian island to a small islet off the coast of Altador, one that she knew had originally been the location of Fyora’s showdown with the creature Drevni, the thing Ilere claimed was related to this Bal’Gammaron.

     “This is a fault line,” she said. “It runs between the two locations, along an underwater trench. That tears, in reality, would appear both on the same line strikes me as too coincidental.”

     “Perhaps it is no coincidence,” Ilere said. “The islet appeared to have been sent in some primordial time. I can only think that what the ancient Kayannin did to destroy themselves in ancient times caused some instability there.”

     Isobel nodded. Though if Ilere was correct, that meant further rips could appear along that line at any point. And who knew what could come through those.

     To be continued…