‘Adahmos and Eid, you mean. Yes! You and I, Izzie, have an important connection with them.’
‘You’re right. We’re probably something like Adam and Eve’s great-great-grandchildren thirty million times over. So we are related, or at least connected I guess, although I wouldn’t say strongly.’ Again she surveyed the makeshift bedsitter. ‘Why here, Glorion? You sure weren’t joking about living in a shed. Why are you here?’
Glorion rested his knife on the chopping board. He leaned forward with his palms on either side of the table. Gazing above Izzie’s head with the same distant light in his eyes she’d noticed earlier, he said, ‘I’m here because of them. That’s why I have to tell you their story.’
Chapter Fourteen
<><> XXXVIII <><>
She watched the Solen warily. ‘Father, as you know, I am a keen observer of The Book of Rightitude.’
‘Sacrilege it would be if you were not.’
‘And it so happens that I have a question that I believe only you, Father, can answer.’
‘You are arrogant to squander my time. Do you have no awareness, Eidred, of my importance? I have had you educated on the hierarchy of Grudella, you claim to be an adherent to the Book of Rightitude, and yet you assault my ears with the impudent demand for advice on one of your twisted presumptions!’
‘It is a delicate matter, Father, one that I believe must not be conveyed to our minders.’
‘Oh?’
‘You see, Father, I should like to know when I am to have my future told. As you are already aware, the Book of Rightitude states that a princess’s agreement to marrying, regardless of whether it is written or spoken, must be followed by an audience with one of the palace soothsayers.’
‘Why do you plague me with things I already know?’
‘Please listen to what I mean to say. This meeting with the soothsayer must take place exactly ten days before the union. As I understand it, Father, once I bewitch Prince Adahmos, and once he requests of you my hand in marriage, you will wish to establish a ceremony on the first day of the new moonth, since this is the sacred day for weddings.’ Eidred glanced at the Solen whose hand rested on his bearded chin while he scowled at the floor. ‘Because our next moonth arrives in eleven days, three days after I meet the prince, I expect you would command us to marry then. Or would it perhaps be the following moonth?’
‘And wait thirty-one more suns to witness an Ehyptian noble gain insight into your guilelessness and thereafter renege on the union? Do not patronise me. You know already that I would expect you to marry immediately. Hierarchical relations are critical to our expansion in power. Be mindful that if you fail me, daughter, I shall have no hesitation in inflicting upon you all punishments my counsel deals traitors.’
‘This is understood, Father.’
The ordering of afore-union rites would be arranged by the Solen only once an official marriage proposal was made. It was clear to Eidred that he had misjudged the honour of the document he’d commanded her to sign five suns earlier, a document that officially earned her the privileges of a bride. If he’d continued to ignore this, he would no doubt have received a harried visit from one of his advisors to cancel a decided-upon marriage date because of its contradiction with the soothsayer visit ten days prior.
‘I am most certain, Father, that you are knowledgeable of the fact that I have signed, under your guidance, my agreement to marrying Prince Adahmos and that, providing he proposes to me, the marriage will take place eleven days from now. Therefore, I wish to ask my question. At what sun’s-degree on the morrow am I to visit the soothsayer?’
Evidently resentful of being shown his neglect of Rightitude law, the Solen glared at Eidred, icy eyes dull with hatred.
Pleased with herself, Eidred bowed her head lower in the hope of concealing a smile. Not even a monarch could dispute the Book of Rightitude. To go against its content was a severe breach of palace code, expected to invite the gods to send a luck so black that starvation, ruin, disease and diminishment of gold would in hindsight be deemed the milder of misfortunes to be cast upon the Grudellan Palace.
‘I have,’ he said, turning away, ‘already planned to inform your minders at today’s twenty-second degree of the time you are to attend tomorrow’s future-telling. Impatience is an ugly trait of yours, Eidred. You have succeeded in making a most unnecessary interruption to the valuable work I do.’
‘I apologise, Father. I am wrong in questioning your excellent foresight.’ With that, Eidred bowed low and left the Solen’s gilt-smothered chamber. Once reaching the floor beneath, she pranced through the hallways as a deer would, consumed with fits of laughter. Contrary to his assurance of having done so, the Solen had not thought to arrange a soothsayer. If he had, Eidred’s minders would have consulted her by now.
Eidred’s assumed ceremony would now take place on the upcoming moonth. Any date further along would not have worked. Unthinkable to the Solen was the delaying of a lucrative union, and this was exactly to Eidred’s advantage. An earlier wedding was critical to her plan.
On returning to her chamber, she spoke nothing of this to the elf. Pieter must not yet know of all she’d agreed to do. She continued to stitch together the robe she was secretly constructing, plying the needle with tense precision while contemplating the urgency of her quest.
The following day, at the sun’s seventh degree, Eidred was summoned to the western division of the palace grounds. Before her loomed the dwellings of the Solen’s bewitchers, three-and-ten black pyramids glimmering grimly in the morning mist.
Filled with wonder at the events the soothsayer might forecast, Eidred made her way down the winding cobblestone lane. Beyond these stark three-dimensional triangles was a dome of crystal, a temple devoted to Flurena, Goddess of Fortunes. Within that indigo-hued receptacle was a hooded figure seated at a tree-stump table.
‘Greetings, Highness,’ said the soothsayer bowing. The bridal fortune teller’s utterance echoed gratingly and was not unlike pterodactyl screeches in the effect it had on Eidred.
With a twisted hand, the soothsayer gestured to a seat laden with glittering cushions.
<><> <><><> <><>
‘Sounds too much like a fairy story,’ Izzie said. She scooped her fork through the last slivers of capsicum in the stir-fry Glorion had prepared for her, a scrumptiously aromatic dish which, thankfully, had been free of asparagus.
‘I guess it is a fairy story,’ said Glorion. ‘But everything I told you is true.’
‘I don’t know, Glorion. It sounds great, it really does, and I wish I could believe it happened, but I just don’t. It’s another version of Sleeping Beauty.’
Glorion’s relating of the folktale had prompted a display of that debating team captain eloquence—marred only slightly by his Dutch accent—and had held Izzie spellbound right up until he’d uttered the words ‘The End’. At the unravelling of a tale that began with ‘The modern world in which you and I now live...’ Izzie was enthralled by the hero, an elf from ancient Norway who had pushed the boundaries of the times by befriending one of Gold's Kin.
Glorion was unafraid to believe in sprites and dragons and greed-twisted rulers of long ago. He’d been right there inside the story while he conveyed it, nostalgia spilling from his eyes. She felt as though they’d gone on a voyage together in a hot air balloon, one emblazoned with colours from beyond the spectrum. Izzie had since landed with a thump back into reality where logic had encroached on all she’d dared to believe.
‘You should write it down,’ she told him softly. ‘It’d make interesting reading.’
Glorion’s dimples appeared and he said, ‘Have you heard of an author by the name of Edward Lillibridge?’
Izzie tried to recall where she’d seen the name. The recollection of an unillustrated cover with a silver title floated into her consciousness, along with the inkling that it had been written well over a century ago by a minister perhaps, or a priest. Of course! It was the book belonging to Royston. �
�My mum and her friends formed a reading group they call Friday Fortnight,’ she told him. Excitedly she added, ‘That’s the exact book they’re studying! Royston described it as a lost history.’
‘Have you seen inside the book, Izzie?’
‘Not yet. So that's where you got this story! I’m amazed you can remember it all. Mum’s still got Royston’s book somewhere. She’s borrowing it until the antiquarian bookshop delivers her order for the group. I’ll check it out when I get home.’
‘Do that,’ said Glorion.
‘It’s really old, the story. Apparently that reverend guy was alive in the eighteenth century.’
‘He was. So when did Rosetta Melki start this group?’
‘She started it...Wait a minute!’ Izzie blinked, confused. ‘I never told you my mother’s name.’
‘You’re kidding! Are you telling me Rosetta Melki is your mother?’
‘But she is. How did you know of her?’
‘Back in my home country I googled Edward Lillibridge and accessed the Friday Fortnight website. But your name’s not Melki, it’s Redding!’
‘Mum went back to her maiden name.’
‘I see! Has she told you anything much about Our True Ancient History?’
‘As far as I know she tried reading it years ago when she was my age. Said she couldn’t make much sense of it back then. Probably more interested in romances written for teenagers and those glamour glossies they had in the ’80s.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Glorion’s eyes registered surprise.
‘Although she loves the story now that she’s studying it.’ Pondering its moral, Izzie said, ‘So it was written by one of these men of God, but it really didn’t have a churchy message, did it? Well, not the version you’ve just told me.’
‘Lillibridge was primarily a prophet,’ said a serious Glorion. ‘And it was a philosophy, not a religion that he wanted his readers to embrace.’
‘And what would you say that philosophy was?’
Glorion threw the question back to Izzie. ‘What would you say it was?’
The thought that rocketed its way across to her was that love was the answer to everything, but she wasn’t going to embarrass herself by saying something as schmaltzy as that. If she did, she’d probably only redden, an unbecoming give-away to Glorion concerning the effect he had on her.
The law of love, which sprites had always lived by, did not acknowledge selfishness. This didn’t exist within them, and the presence of kindness acted as a robust shield against fear.
As Glorion had explained in his story, love’s absence sparked two major afflictions within the body king race: conflict—known to dissolve into the cruelty of war—and currency territorialism, which resulted in nourishment-depletion for much of the devic and fauna population.
A mortal and a nature-spirit had united, and their unity represented the harmonious blending of black and white, moon and sun, silver and gold. Their love, sadly enough, was forbidden.
Eidred, or ‘Eid’ as Glorion referred to her, had not been any ordinary Gold’s Kin princess. She was quite happy to move away from her Scandinavian home of Norwegia, with her firstborn and the guy she married, to the Land of Mu, where eleven of her twelve children were born.
In the Land of Mu a new society emerged, which embraced harmony through beauty-creation, a form of natural magic sprites used, to pretty-up the world with greenery and gorgeously fragrant blossoms. This was overseen wisely by Princess Eid and her prince. They were protectors of the devic clans, faithful servants of sprites, discreetly shunning Gold’s Kin enforcements while resurrecting the Currency of Kindness.
Mu’s society was built upon a deep respect for the family, the community and the planet, and this nurturing energy beamed outwards to honour all living things so that a sense of belonging and connectedness prevailed.
Romantic love—sharing life with a soulmate—never had to be anxiously sought. Those seeking partners were granted their wish at certain times of the year when the power of lunar grace weaved a subtle form of synchronicity that drew seekers together.
Aeons after the prince and princess moved to the Land of Mu, a place known in other legends as Lemuria, Gold’s Kin of Ehypte—now present day Egypt—turned their ‘land of triangles’ into a political minefield. Ehypte and Atlantis, a neighbouring continent, began plotting against Lemuria.
Lemuria was a nation far more technologically advanced than the society of 2008 that Izzie knew. Lemurian crystals were responsible for creating flight, light, healing and temperature control. Ageing didn’t exist because the crystals prolonged life and preserved youth for thousands of years. Glorion told Izzie that these incredible technologies were too numerous to name. ‘I really couldn’t describe them fully, Izzie,’ he’d said. ‘The concepts are too complex. People from the twenty-first century cannot hope to understand how these remarkable innovations worked.’
Paradise was then blasted apart. An apocalyptic war destroyed the sublimely progressive lands of ancient times when Gold’s Kin of Atlantis attacked the devic nation of Lemuria with laser missiles. This obliterated all other nations and everything on Earth’s surface.
Millenniums later, when enough laser-radiation had risen from the earth into the stratosphere, vegetation returned. The increase in oxygen that resulted from these new patches of jungle allowed life to emerge once more. Evolution was now free to begin again. ‘Those ruined civilisations were pre-prehistoric,’ Glorion had said. ‘But the radiation devastated nearly all that was left of the old world. Archaeologists have never accessed proof of our true history. They believe that the second evolution of humanity was our first and only.’
‘But the thorn thicket, the kiss, the hundred-year sleep! That Lillibridge dude might have gone short on ideas and borrowed from fairy tales.’
‘How do you know this Sleeping Beauty story wasn’t a fragment of Our True Ancient History?’
‘So you still think it’s the original?’
‘I know it’s the original.’
‘Okay, I’ll mull over that. But at home, when I’m alone with my thoughts. You still haven’t told me why you live in a boatshed.’
‘And you haven’t told me why you didn’t invite me to your birthday.’
Izzie turned to avoid his gaze. She’d been too nervous at the bus stop to tell him he’d been welcome all along, doubly invited in fact. Changing the subject right now seemed the most sensible option. ‘That veggie-fryer of yours is crazy. I’ve never seen one like it. Where do you get these things?’ She waved her hand towards the hive-shaped appliance on his coffee table. ‘How does it work without electricity?’
‘Well unless you want me to be evasive, like you were being just then, the question still stands.’
Izzie coloured. Maybe she hadn’t got the locker number wrong. Glorion might have received the envelope after all. Instinctively she glanced up to where a fridge should have been, but wasn’t, to check for a magnet-affixed invitation.
Glorion drew closer to her on the sofa, leaned towards the coffee table, opened the fryer’s rounded door, drew the crystal from his pocket and directed it at a circuit within the interior. The small light at the side of the fryer blinked on.
Izzie gasped.
‘Crystal power does work,’ Glorion said. ‘You just have to know the secret to it.’ He tapped the left side of the crystal and directed it at a heater in the corner. ‘Sorry, Izzie. It’s a cold evening...for Australians that is. I should have done this earlier.’ The heater hummed obediently. A soothing warmth wafted around Izzie’s ankles.
Glorion tapped its right side and waved the crystal about like a wand. Boyd Levanzi’s ‘Been None Goin’ Over’ thundered from speakers assembled on the coffee table.
‘Wow,’ said Izzie. ‘You Europeans are so ahead of your time. There’s no way any of us could find a gadget-activator like that in Australia. Not even at Dick Smith.’
‘But it’s pure crystal. It’s not some technological device.’
‘Glorion, I’m kind of finding that hard to believe. My mum works at a crystal shop.’ Remembering Caz’s bad-news phone call, she added, ‘Worked, I should say. She lost her job there this morning. It kind of proves that crystals aren’t popular like they once were. Crystals aren’t really...well, this one you’ve got here is made to look decorative like a jewel. It’s a gimmick.’
‘It is not a gimmick.’
‘It is. Wanna settle this for good? Are you cruisin’ for a bruisin’ Glorion Osterhoudt?’ She waved her fist about like Popeye and stuck out her lower lip.
Glorion laughed, snorting a little as he leaned forward, consumed in a fit of chuckles. Izzie took the opportunity then to take in his profile, to admire the light-brown eyelashes brushing shut, the angular line of cheekbone, those Best in the Solar System lips locked in a smile.
It was then that Glorion reached out a hand to Izzie’s shoulder and gripped it with a gentleness far more intense than the affable contact of friendship. Electrified by his touch, Izzie took in a sharp breath. She edged closer on the sofa so that she was next to him, almost, but not quite, touching.
Then everything became a blur of bliss as she melted into his arms, aware that he had enclosed her in his embrace, that he was smoothing her hair back while continuing to hold her tightly. He was brushing his lips against the top of her head, murmuring her name in a husky sigh.
All Izzie could think was: It’s happening...it’s really happening.
Izzie nestled her forehead against Glorion’s chest. Driven by her need to nudge further against him, she found herself moving her head slowly across to his shoulder before raising herself up to slide the side of her face against the roughness of his jaw.
She leaned back to look at Glorion. The eyes before her were bright as fire, exploding with affection.
He was going to kiss her!
And then, his arms left her. His arms left her! And so did he.
Glorion had shot to the other end of the sofa. Any further along and he would have crashed into the arm-rest.
The Golding Page 36