‘I wish you could see this portrait,’ Eidred said to them. ‘It is displayed in my father’s gallery. I’m sure you’d both agree upon the likeness.’
Unsure as to whether resembling a body king, who by body-king standards possessed an agreed-upon level of handsomeness, was either a compliment or an insult, Pieter dismissed these thoughts as useless and approached the subject that was weighing on his mind. ‘Do you know, Eidred, where your family hails from?’ he asked. ‘Originally, I mean.’
‘They hail from the South East,’ said Eidred decidedly. ‘Remember how I told you they built their triangles then travelled to the North West?’
‘Save your geometry and mathematics and directions for someone who understands them,’ grumbled Fripso, unaware of his gracelessness towards someone who had delighted him with a generous amount of Wakkel-Weed.
‘I fear I cannot translate into fey or fauna language,’ apologised Eidred.
‘Yes, yes, I understand this.’ Enthusiastic now, Pieter nodded. ‘I remember it clearly from the last time you told me. But what about before that, Eidred? What of your true origins?’
‘Do you mean interplanetary?’
‘Interplanetary, yes!’
‘I...to be honest...I have been afraid to ask. My schooling is for telling, not asking. My minders educate me on the triangles of the east and the gems of the south, but they do not care to reveal anything further back than that.’
‘Pity,’ said Pieter.
‘Mm. Pity it is. But Pieter, if you wish, I could obtain the answer you desire. I could intrude into the library when all are asleep. I have grown quite fond of remaining awake in the silvering hours. It will be no trouble not sleeping one night in order to search for the script that speaks of the world we are from.’
‘Eidred, friend, we want not to put you in danger. ’Twas just a small wondering. Don’t trouble yourself any longer over it.’
‘But I want to know, Pieter!’ The girl threw her arms out to her sides with a kind of drama Fripso and Pieter weren’t used to. ‘Since I stumbled across you and Fripso, I have learnt much. This, I realise, is the faerie wish I was hoping to have granted, not the other things. I wanted wisdom, my friends, and wisdom is what you are giving me. I do not need magic. Like you told me, Pieter, expecting this is both disrespectful to your species and manipulative, and I don’t fancy myself to be either of these things. In truth I believe magic, if allowed to be used, would have prompted your successful escape, but you blatantly refused to wield it.’ She sighed. ‘I feel we have been thrown together.’
Pieter turned and addressed Fripso. ‘Well you and I have, certainly,’ he said to the rabbit. ‘Dwelling together in an alcove reserved for frocks, coronets and dance slippers has not been an ideal of liberty.’
‘Do you forget,’ said Fripso, growing again in impertinence, ‘that you have in fact thrown us into a prison, Eidred, and haven’t enabled our release?’
‘Oh no!’ The girl’s eyes widened. For a moment she looked genuinely stupefied. ‘No, you do not think this is what I do?’
‘Eidred,’ Pieter said, leaning against the bars, ‘we are tired of living in your wardrobe. We pose no threat. Why won’t you set us free?’
‘Oh my goodness,’ squealed Eidred. ‘We misunderstand each other! You think I am trapping you here against your will!’
‘Well aren’t you?’ said Fripso, now thoroughly confused.
‘Indeed not! You do not understand! I am responsible for your freedom! I am here to ensure your survival! Why else would I have pleaded with Pieter to use his magic? I wanted nothing more than for the two of you to return to Elysium Glades. Protected by magic, however, to enable a safe escape. Pieter would hear nothing of it though. And now, should the two of you attempt to leave the palace, you would end your existence immediately. Already, Pieter, the power of our surroundings is solidifying you more. It’s made you less magical.’
Pieter knew he had become heavier in heart and body since having been locked away in Eidred’s chamber. Healing was more difficult to access now. His daily dreams were fainter than ever. Although his prime concern was visiting Maleika and the other Brumlynds in his slumber, without the aid of their Remembrance Essence, he had no recollection of what would have occurred. Providing they had enough Remembrance Essence to go around, his clan would recall having spoken to him. They would know by now that he was inside the palace.
When Pieter had tested invisibility on himself, he was unable to make it work. His physical vehicle had matured. No longer was he younger than the Princess of Grudella by three season-cycles as he’d been when his earthly self held a finer vibration. To anyone who might have observed, he was now her peer.
‘Yet if you hadn’t stolen me in the first place,’ Fripso said to Eidred, ‘we wouldn’t be indulging in such a dismal discussion. I think you have put me into a terrible situation. I think—’
‘Wait, Fripso.’ Pieter held a finger to his lips. ‘Listen to what the maiden means to say.’
‘Fripso, my pet. Do you not remember a weasel in the glades? The weasel intended to pounce. I felt it would traumatise you to recall, but it appears you are unaware this ever happened. The day I concealed you in my basket and made a home for you here was the day you evaded death.’
‘All I knew,’ said Fripso with startled eyes, ‘was that someone had stolen me.’
‘Rescued you,’ said Eidred. ‘Sadly you saw this in reverse. And as for you, Pieter, had you not realised the danger of infiltrating a realm such as this? A species such as yourself? Did you not know that they can end your time here in the blink of an eye?’
‘But I could have fled earlier if not caged in your dressing-quarter and—’
‘No, Pieter, let me continue. You trespassed! You hid in my room. I concede you did this out of concern for Fripso, and fortunately for you, I gave up my dressing-quarter to provide a hiding place. This division of my chamber is one of the few areas of the palace unlit by fey-and-fauna-depicting luminaries. You are thankfully not visible to our guards.’
‘And I made myself completely invisible to all when I followed you in here.’
‘Which is just as well. Do you see those bright circles up there in the eaves? The guards survey just about every inch of this residence. There is a room beneath the palace containing a magical mirror broken into many squares. Each of the squares contains a view of the areas that the luminaries send to them.’
‘And so they spy on you through these fey-and-fauna-depicting luminaries?’
‘Not on me. Not on Gold’s Kin. They are watching out for intruders. ’Tis for our protection, you must understand. The guards cannot be everywhere at once. What would we do if an evil gnome trundled in and attempted to slay us all?’
‘Gnomes do not kill,’ said an indignant Pieter.
‘And they certainly aren’t evil,’ said Fripso. ‘None of the sprites are.’
‘A mango eater then. What if a mango eater tried to devour one of our courtiers?’
‘Eidred! Friend!’ To hide his amusement, Pieter turned away from the ill-advised maiden. ‘The only things mango eaters devour are mangoes!’
‘Still, there are many dangers that lurk in Elysium. You should be pleased that I am respectful of the fey. I am grateful I do not need such contraptions. My gift of faerie sight means you are not invisible to me as you are to everyone else of the court. But the matter-depicting luminaries display you in their fragmented mirrors. That is how they can perceive you!’
‘That and the donning of those sprite-seeing garments.’
‘Fey-detection cloaks which are worn in the forest. Oh dear!’ Eidred covered her eyes with her hand. ‘I worry, constantly, about the two of you plotting an escape in my absence.’ Eidred anxiously searched their faces. ‘Please do not try this, I beg of you! If either of you ventured outside my clothing quarter, our troopers would find you. Those spying luminaries are trained on each and every exit. You took a terrible risk, Pieter,’ Eidred scolded. ‘You
’ve locked yourself inside and...’
‘And?’
‘And I care enough to conceal you. From them, but if ever you tried to flee, you would be swiftly discovered. Neither you nor Fripso would return to the forest alive.’
<><> XXVIII <><>
At the murmur of voices outside Eidred’s chamber door, Pieter opened his eyes and rose to his feet. Two Grudellans were speaking in hushed tones.
‘And so,’ said one of these voices, ‘we await with interest this journey to the previous century. Are we to expect much in the way of disturbance?’
A cold laugh echoed throughout the hall. ‘None at all, save for a moment or two of thunderous rumbling. You must understand that our palace is to be preserved in its transportation to the Norwegia of old. Nothing we have or need will be changed. Apart from the forests and glades of Elysium with all its beastly fey, and the land that surrounds it, everything will remain true to the century in which we currently reside.’
‘And I hear that Rahwor is later to travel in time by himself!’
‘Rahwor,’ Pieter whispered. ‘I have heard this name before.’ The image of an eagle returned to him then, in flashes, a glowing-eyed creature making its plea above the merry orange sparks of the Brumlynd campfire.
The other voice in the hall was replying. ‘Yes, but Rahwor is to travel forward in time. Once prepared, he will travel aeons into the future.’
‘And Rahwor is to seek out the enemy who plans to disrupt gold-skin law?’
‘A traitor by the name of Det-ah-Wise-la.’
Det-ah-Wise-la! Was this not the name Pieter had pondered over when he’d remembered, prior to sleep, his last words with Maleika? He thought of the Sonic Unity Gathering announcement that Alcor had shown him; of a leader, whose name was Nikolaus, introducing Det-ah-Wise-la as someone respected, and wise too, perhaps, as her name suggested.
The voices—moments before quiet, although clear—were faint with distance. Pieter thought of Det-ah-Wise-la, who appeared to now be in danger, and looked back with regret on his and Maleika’s carelessness. Had they been more vigilant, Pieter and Maleika would have discovered the eavesdropper earlier. Had they spoken in careful whispers, the woman yet to incarnate in the faraway future would still be unknown to body kings. Inadvertently, they had beckoned adversity; had invited attention of the cruellest kind.
The sun was now risen. Its fiery beams splashed the chamber floor with bold sparkles. Pieter settled himself down to sleep. Rarely did he recall his visits to the Dream Sphere. With no Remembrance Essence to sip, he was at a loss. He could at least resolve what to do there. And so he vowed to ask Alcor how the currency of kindness might be preserved; would request the task of keeping safe this noble aspiration of future people.
Contemplating that place, thousands of seasons-cycles separate from him and yet still very much real in its future place on the earthly timeline, Pieter floated off to his slumber.
Not long after, a faint rumble outside shook Pieter awake.
Hearing a wail from Eidred in her bed, he sat up.
‘Ah no! Ah no!’
‘It is only a storm, friend,’ he called. ‘Or you are under the influence of a nightmare.’
‘No, Pieter,’ Eidred called. ‘This is no nightmare. Nor thunder of any kind. ’Tis what I feared! Ah no! Ah no!’
And then the floor of the dressing-quarter dipped suddenly sideways. It had shifted of its own accord!
‘Fripso,’ Pieter yelled. ‘Brother, are you all right?’
A small voice called back, ‘Goodness me, whatever happened?’
The rumbling increased to a deafening roar. The floor shook violently. Pieter was flung onto his back. The rabbit whimpered. The gold-skin girl sobbed.
Dazed by the unfamiliar light of the early sun, Pieter tried in vain to see Eidred. The palace’s jolts and starts, lesser now, yet disconcerting, were disrupting his view.
Another bout of quaking hurled Pieter to the wall. There was nothing he could hang onto; nowhere he could anchor. The quakes were mercilessly throwing him from corner to corner.
At last he saw her. She was leaning against the chamber window, clutching her head in her hands and shouting. ‘The Backwards-Winding! No, no! The Backwards-Winding has begun and it is all my fault.’
All before Pieter dissolved into a blur. The image before him, of Eidred and Fripso, and of the dressing-quarter’s barred doors, and of the very chamber that surrounded them, was now whirling into a peculiar combination of stripes, undulations of colour that rippled and radiated alarmingly. ‘Pieter, are you still there?’ called Fripso. ‘All that I see is fragments of nothing!’
‘I am here, Fripso,’ called Pieter. ‘Eidred, what is happening to your palace?’
‘The empire is winding backward,’ Eidred called. ‘The Backwards-Winding is taking place!’
Pieter slid across on his belly to take hold of the dressing-quarter bars, which shuddered beneath his grip. Fripso’s small body tumbled to his side. The soft pressure of Fripso’s front paws kneaded against Pieter’s elbow. Letting go of one of the bars, Pieter held the vulnerable animal to his chest.
Silence at last arrived. The quake subsided.
Fripso, evidently the first to recover and remarkably unaffected by all the surprising somersaults he had endured, said, ‘Eidred, what in heaven’s name was that?’
‘It is something too, too awful to explain,’ said Eidred. She hurried to the dressing-quarter and asked Pieter to pass her a gown of ivory silk. ‘It is over now, though, so you must go to your slumber. And I must prepare for my schooling.’
Pieter folded his arms. ‘You care not to tell us why this chaos has occurred?’ Like Fripso, he was mystified, although after having overheard the talk between two body kings earlier, he already suspected he knew. He could not understand, however, why Eidred had woefully uttered that it was all her fault.
Eidred was replying to him now. ‘I care not to even think of it,’ she said. ‘So I shan’t, and nor must you. Sleep well now, my dears. And rest assured that all will be calm again from this day on.’
Fripso fell swiftly to his slumber, but Pieter did not. His mind was taken up with the memory of the Grudellans’ icy voices and their references to the hooded eavesdropper, Rahwor.
Rahwor, the eagle had said. That is the name of my spell caster. He has trapped my earthly self inside a shell of stony ignorance.
‘And I failed to help,’ Pieter said, astounded at his own callousness. ‘He asked me to free him, and I inferred he might be a sorcerer himself.’
It was then that Pieter recalled a dream, otherwise known as the spontaneous retrieval of a Dream Sphere visit without the aid of Remembrance Essence. He could now remember the events that took place directly after his conversation with the mountain-circling eagle. Prior to exiting that rocky world, when he’d called to Alcor to open the Devic Great Hall door, he’d intuitively projected himself into a future life of the eagle’s.
A spinning wheel was all Pieter had seen, then a sad girl at it, shredding wool and shedding tears. But the eagle was not the living one. He was the spindle, solid as rock, with only etheric ears to listen as the girl spoke lamenting words to herself, of a love now lost. But Pieter’s eagle friend had grown. For in his unmoving consciousness he was absorbing and he wanted to know what it was to feel love and pain.
As he delved further into the eagle’s future lives, Pieter was projected into a little hut where a crone sat nursing a crying child while stirring an iron cauldron. The eagle was still in a natural element like the rock—a product plumbed from the earth—as he was when a sculptor’s craft, but warmer, heated by fire and basking in the tenderness the old woman provided for her grandchild, absorbing the care that was unconsciously spilled into the stew.
Yes, learning more about serving, about other worlds, yet still unmoving. If the eagle had taken a step towards learning of spheres other than his own, he would not have needed to revert to such non-progressive embodiments. Next, if warmth
were mastered, he would become a moth; if light learnt, a blossom on a tree; growth understood, a tree himself, and then...but Pieter told himself he mustn’t steal glimpses of another’s future. He changed his mind and glimpsed two more. Warm-blooded once again, and again a bird, a sparrow though, in search of humility. Humility gained, a kingfisher.
Sleep claimed him once the owl in Elysium embarked on a slow, sad lament. Wearied by a quake that Eidred had called ‘the Backwards-Winding’, and sobered by the memory of having turned away an eagle’s earnest request, the elf boy drifted up to the Dream Sphere, his heart leaden with sorrow.
<><> <><><> <><>
Izzie, confined to her bedroom while the sitting-room was taken up by Rosetta’s Friday Fortnight group, concentrated on pasting onto her four-seasons collage photos of the front garden’s red Japanese maple, courtesy of the camera Sara had lent her.
She’d been in the hallway when Royston and the quivery-nodder had arrived, and had soon after heard Craig’s amused reluctance to discuss his ‘secret project’. Someone else was buzzing the bell now. Had to be Eadie.
New Zealand Maori Eadie had left a cryptic voice message earlier in the evening, saying in her lovely NZ accent: ‘Have to give tonight’s Friday Fortnight a miss, unfortunately. I’ve been involved in a small disaster. Not serious though. No need to phone me back, I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.’ But now she was here.
‘Caught a cab,’ Eadie was telling Rosetta. ‘Had a last-minute change of heart.’
According to the hallway explanation that Izzie would rather have not been overhearing, Eadie, on her way home from late-night shopping the evening before, had crashed into her garage door. She’d forgone wearing her contact lenses and forgot she’d closed it on her way out.
‘Duh,’ was all Izzie could say to that.
Eadie’s hospitalised car was at present getting an eighteen-hundred dollar patch-up, and Eadie had reached a place in her life where she was hating short-sightedness, garage doors and smirking teenaged mechanics who she suspected regarded her as some kind of ‘airhead’ when hearing the gory details.
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