The Golding

by Sonya Deanna Terry

Will far exceed

  The lifespan of a star’

  Glorion waved his arms above his head at the approach of another lit-up taxi. In one smooth move, it veered across and stopped beside them.

  ‘And now…’ Izzie continued, halting for a moment when Glorion opened the door for her while mumbling something about escaping SAPO, ‘...now that you’ve told me about the crystal tech of that civilisation, I’m wondering if you’ve travelled here from the past.’

  ‘The past?’

  Undeterred by his reaction, Izzie pushed on, the strength of her convictions fuelling her courage. ‘That ancient time you told me about. You know so much! I reckon you’re from the place Eid went to once she and her prince had finished with Norway. You’re not from the future. The future is what you’re in right now.’

  Inside the cab, within the cosy interior of a moving capsule that reeked of vinyl seat covers and tobacco, Glorion placed an arm around Izzie’s shoulders and gave her a little shake. ‘Izzie,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll talk about this when we get out of the taxi. Let’s talk about other stuff.’

  The combination of feelings that accompanied Glorion’s touch, and the realisation of his true origins, submerged Izzie in a sadness that overwhelmed her in its intensity.

  ‘Where to, friends?’ said the cab driver.

  Izzie took in a breath to answer.

  ‘Eighty-nine Ashbury Avenue, Burwood,’ Glorion said, as though it had been his own, as though he were used to telling cab drivers Izzie’s address.

  ‘I’ve never told you where I live, Glorion. And we’re not listed in the White Pages yet.’ Teasingly Izzie added, ‘Have you programmed your crystal to tell you? Does it also connect you to a telepathic address book?’

  Glorion looked down. Izzie felt his arm tighten around her. ‘It was an automatic reaction. I’m intuitive, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s exactly right! You’re intuitive and powerful, and you’re not from here.’ Izzie gazed upon his angular profile, then settled back against him, basking in the safeness of his arm encircling her. Less than an hour ago he had shunned contact. Here he was getting close again. He’d apolo­gised since then, and he'd told Izzie he liked her and no-one else. It was only now, after their crazy race from danger, that Izzie could pause long enough to savour the dizzying impact of those words.

  Royston’s prediction from Friday Fortnight returned to her. I don’t even feel he’s from...anywhere. It’s like there’s this emptiness, this void...

  Glorion’s home was much further away than The Netherlands or Sweden. Once Glorion went back, Izzie would never be able to visit him. He might as well have died. He would have, in fact.

  That was what it was in truth. Once he returned to his world, he'd be dead in hers.

  ‘You’re a Lemurian,’ she said. ‘And you’re much, much older than me.’ She stared out of the cab window and up at the gems of light in the heavens, flecks of distant shimmers against the sky’s velveteen mystique. ‘Ancient. You’re totally ancient. Just like all of those stars.’

  <><> XXXIX <><>

  ‘Greetings, Soothsayer Zemelda,’ said Eidred, awed at the sight before her. Upon the wooden seat, which was carved into curls of contrived oak leaves, were peculiar cushions. The patterns they displayed weren’t static; they moved of their own accord. Stars danced across each cushion, radiant bursts of celestial swirls. Fascinated by their magical qualities, Eidred allowed herself to be distracted awhile from her purpose. She sat herself down to in­spect each cushion, delighting in the wealth of imagery.

  Zemelda rapped on the table. Eidred set down the cushion whose changing images she was at that stage admiring and leaned forward to listen. The soothsayer peered into a sphere of solid quartz. Eidred eagerly awaited the wisdom of her words.

  ‘You are to travel the seas soon after marriage,’ she announced.

  ‘With whom?’ demanded the princess. It must not be with Adahmos! Eidred would evade marrying the Ehyptian prince, surely. How could she bring herself to wed any­one who wasn’t Pieter?

  Zemelda looked up from her quartz and glared at Eidred. ‘Do not ask questions until invited,’ she said. Her gaze drifted back to the globe. ‘You are to travel the seas soon after marriage. You are to travel to the Land of Triangles.’

  Ehypte! Zemelda could not be right. Or could she? Perhaps marry­ing the prince was imminent! Perhaps her carefully laid out plans would flounder.

  ‘You have an animal by your side.’

  ‘He will travel with me? On my husband’s ship to the Land of Triangles? Or do you see him in the present, somewhere within the palace?’

  ‘Hush!’ ordered the soothsayer.

  The princess bit her lip, although not at the chiding of in­solent Zemelda. Any reference to Fripso might spark suspicion amongst her minders.

  Thankfully, they seemed not to have heard her. They were lean­ing upon their spears with an uncharacteristic listlessness. Half-closed eyes, devoid of their usual watchfulness, gazed blankly ahead. Eidred had never before seen her minders in this state, sway­ing subtly to an imagined tune as though immersed in a drunken daze.

  Eidred looked about the sloping-walled chamber. Small paintings lined the left corner: one of the Solen, another of the Grudellans, a third of three eagle-winged troopers and a fourth of a galloping unicorn. ‘My art,’ said Zemelda.

  ‘You paint very well,’ Eidred said. ‘Soothsayers, I’d thought, were versed in spinning and weaving only. I did not know art was also encouraged.’

  ‘Generally it is not.’

  ‘That one over there is very much my father,’ Eidred said, mar­velling at Zemelda’s accuracy in perspective and colour. ‘And the eagle-men. All three are beautifully portrayed, Storlem especially.’

  ‘Who?

  ‘Storlem.’

  Zemelda tilted her head.

  ‘The tallest one. That is Storlem.’

  ‘Oh, is that who it is?’ Zemelda ran gnarled fingers across the quartz on the table. ‘Their names are of no importance to me. Let us proceed now, shall we?’ She closed her eyes. ‘There is an animal in your midst.’ Her gaze fell upon the drowsy minders. ‘Ha! The goblet of bitter fern I served these Grudellans hasn’t agreed with them. Ah well, I am sure they will wake in time.’ At that, one of them opened an eye. Hur­riedly Zemelda said, ‘There is no animal in the present. There is no animal in the palace.’

  Fortune teller indeed! The woman could not decide which story to tell. It was just as well, Eidred supposed, that Zemelda had failed to intuit Fripso. Mention of him in the presence of pterodactyls might undo her scheme. Disappointed she wouldn’t receive anything of value, Eidred leaned back in her chair and scowled at the table.

  ‘Your marriage partner’s name must begin with the letter “A”.’

  Oh but it won’t, thought Eidred, smug at having perceived the soothsayer’s limitations so quickly.

  She now disbelieved all this charlatan had to say. Zemelda’s magic would have disintegrated, perhaps many years earlier. The quartz sphere was proof of this. Eidred had only to glance at it to confirm that her falsehood-telling soothsayer was incapable of summoning up future scenarios. It sat in the centre of the temple’s table as clear and as empty as a raindrop on a rose petal. Far livelier was the moving mosaic of scenes on the cushions.

  ‘Must begin with A,’ repeated the soothsayer. ‘His skin is...his skin. His skin is to be of dragon.’

  Yes, thought Eidred, stifling a yawn. The Prince of Ehypte has golden skin like the rest of us, but that doesn’t mean I shall marry him.

  Unless a proposal was made, no-one of the Solen’s court was permitted to know the name of Eidred's intended husband. The Solen had been betrayed. The soothsayer's ramblings were a product of court gossip, pieced together neatly and con­veyed in dramatic fashion to appear convincing.

  ‘You and your prince are to be the co-creators of a new breed.’

  ‘A new breed?’ What a lot of nonsense the soothsayer was gar­bling! Still, Eidred
nodded to her to continue, idly interested in the story about to be spun.

  ‘A new species will come about. One that is both god-like and material.’

  ‘Gold’s Kin are already god-like and material, Zemelda,’ said an irritated Eidred. ‘I hardly think a new species has to be cre­ated to exhibit these qualities. You tell me nothing new.’

  ‘You?’ said Zemelda. ‘You? A body-king daugh­ter? Do you honestly believe your people are an example of unchal­lenged divinity?’

  Body king. The same unflattering term that Pieter had used to describe royalty. For a moment Eidred gave thought to the soothsay­ers and their somewhat stark history. She could hardly blame Zemelda for viperish comments considering the splendour of her former self. The woman who sat before Eidred was, as were all soothsayers, a bewitcher whose time was over, a once beau­tiful rose now wilted and old.

  How unjust it was, faeries from the glades imprisoned by the palace. Luring fey with illusory glamour should never have been allowed. It then occurred to Eidred that she, herself, had been guilty of the same misdemeanour. Hadn’t she bewitched a member of the fey? For Pieter, his separation from all that he knew would have been suffocating. His association with a princess had cost him his nightly life in the forest. She might free him a little by mak­ing him known to the Solen by means of marriage and a clever disguise, but for the duration of their union, Pieter would never be free to roam beneath the stars.

  Without thinking, Eidred said, ‘Oh, I have been so selfish.’ Being married to someone royal was wearyingly onerous, a duty requiring stoic adherence to the Book of Rightitude. The elf’s deep respect for lunar grace would be cast aside and re­placed with a reverence for harsh golden heat, a sorry disruption to his Dream Sphere journeys. ‘So selfish,’ Eidred repeated, her heart weighed down with disgrace.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Zemelda said in a hiss. ‘You have never been selfish!’

  The words were of little comfort. This faded faerie knew naught of Eidred’s dilemmas. With pity, Eidred looked upon the creature who, many season-cycles ago, would have been a beacon of silvery joy. Grudellan rituals had turned any magic she had, dark. Now that her radiance was denied her, along with fey powers and eternal youth, Zemelda was destined to crumble with the advance of each season-cycle, forced to humbly advise a princess from a bloodline she despised. The mortifying role of court sooth­sayer was all that endured, a task made up of grappling at truthful-sounding tomorrows, despite the frailness of her second-sight.

  ‘Princess!’ Zemelda’s voice had taken on an urgent tone. ‘You have done everything right. The presence of your prince is a bless­ing. He has gone to you, remember, of his own freewill. There is a blissful balance in this arrangement. The two of you are significant in the legacy you will gift this world.’

  Surprised at the passion in Zemelda’s voice, Eidred won­dered whether there might yet be a little magic left. It would still have been combined with the pre-meditated statements borne of fear, of course, for word of a soothsayer’s failure reaching the Solen almost certainly resulted in death. Despite all that, a gentleness in the soothsayer’s tone made Eidred dare to trust her. Feeling she could confide in the mystical woman, Eidred wailed, ‘But, Zemelda, how do I marry a man I cannot love, and find blissfulness? Princes are almost always cruel to their wives. I want someone nobler, someone—’

  ‘Of devic origin?’ Zemelda’s voice had become a whisper.

  Eidred turned to observe her pterodactyl minders. Astonish­ingly, the eyes of all four were tightly shut. The minders were dozing! Could this be invisible help from her faerie godmother? The godmother had been wonderfully generous of late, granting Eidred a myriad of longed-for eventualities.

  Eidred scolded herself for trusting the soothsayer. Zemelda had quite likely peered into her mind; might well have been collect­ing thoughts and memories to use against her. She must steer her thoughts away from Pieter.

  ‘The silver and the gold unite,’ Zemelda said.

  ‘Of course they do,’ said Eidred. ‘And it should never have taken place.’ Adopting the same superiority of other royal ladies, she added, ‘Look at what has happened to you, Zemelda! Your powers have been corrupted from dallying with the men of our court.’ Remembering how Storlem’s faerie woman had been callously forced away from the forest and realising then that she had no reason to disparage elderly bewitchers, she added, ‘I am sorry for you, Zemelda; sorry you have had to bear the in­decency of this empire.’

  ‘We talk not of the bewitchers and courtiers, my child.’ Zemelda’s hood fell to her shoulders, revealing trailing snow-white tresses and a heart-shaped face. Wise eyes, the colour of mud, were encased in folds that radiated out towards ruckled temples. ‘We talk of the one who has stolen your heart.’

  ‘But I do not yet know the Ehyptian solen's son, and he is of gold, not of silver, so there is no-one and...’

  Eidred closed her eyes to make a silent wish. Dear Godmother, she prayed. Please keep concealed anything Zemelda might discover about Pieter.

  ‘It is all kept secret, child.’

  The soothsayer was reassuring her! Eidred shot a furtive glance at the minders. They slept on, opaque grey lids aflutter with every breath. Zemelda’s face relaxed into a smile, and Eidred glimpsed a shadow of the fragile prettiness she would have once been re­nowned for, the very thing that had made her vulnerable to courti­ers well-versed in charm. Trust had been the fey women’s down­fall. From their pure-intentioned standpoints they’d found it diffi­cult to believe that those they had come to love were not as they appeared.

  An insatiable desire to possess all that appealed to their senses was the hallmark of royal kinsmen. Fey-detection cloaks, designed to echo goodness and saturated in auras of allurement, were one such example. The privilege of their occasional wear was bestowed on the Solen's most reliable men. These veils of vir­tue, crafted by dark magicians, were encrusted with gemstones containing moonlight. The jewelled cloth, once sewn, was infused with an alchemical elixir Gold’s Kin termed ‘Fey Toxin,’ a delicate form of magic stolen from the hearts of captured sprites, the true name of which, according to Pieter, was beauty-creation. The beauty-creation allowed cloak wearers the gift of faerie sight, along with a talent for communicating pleasingly with sprites of the feminine persuasion.

  The garments were only complete once marked with the sign of the pterodactyl, a code to indicate their idol Grudas endorsed the ensuing chaos, and were worn as infre­quently as possible to avoid their silvering effects. Last season a young guard had been duly slain after having become silvered. All in the court spoke in savage whispers of the guard’s deplorable ‘kindness affliction’, all save for Eidred. Only Pieter and Fripso voiced their disgust at the cruelty. Knowing the poor lad’s capture would also have repelled the silvered guard Storlem, Eidred ventured to acknowledge the faerie’s lover with the odd reassuring smile during her weekly wanders around the sunflower beds, and beseeched her godmother, wherever she might be, to send him protective angels.

  Hands clasped into fists, she thought back to that awful day, when Storlem’s beloved faerie was whisked away to the palace. From what Eidred could gather, the faerie had been immune to the cloaks’ mesmerisation. Her abductors had re­moved her from Elysium by force when she’d resisted their manufactured enticements. As Eidred mulled over the sly ways of Gold’s Kin, she studied one of the cushions in her lap, only to find it reflecting her thoughts. The cushion was synchro­nised with Eidred’s memories! At first it revealed the temple of sorcerers and then the spinners, weavers and cloak seam­stresses within. It then showed Storlem turning into an eagle…courtiers seizing his quivering-winged companion…undines wailing in the twilit shallows.

  A coincidence, Eidred told herself, although the notion was wreathed in doubt.

  ‘Nothing is a coincidence,’ Zemelda said. Voice hushed, she con­tinued. ‘The two friends of yours from the forest will be safe. Your beloved Brumlynd will become your betrothed, providing you are wise.’
<
br />   Eidred gave a cry of amazement.

  Alas, it was to her detriment. The eyelids of the beaked monsters flickered open. The pterodactyls snapped into a formal stance and allowed their steely stares to settle on both the princess and her fortune teller.

  <><> <><><> <><>

  Shakily, Rosetta put down the phone. ‘All of them,’ she said. ‘All of Izzie’s friends said the same as Charlotte. They’ve been home since six. Saw her off at the bus stop.’ Trying to steady her panicked voice, she said, ‘Royston, tell me honestly. Are you sure the lizard man was harmless?’

  ‘Positive.’

  They’d driven straight back to the beach after Royston’s eyeliner relevation; had searched the entire esplanade of Brighton-Le-Sands, but the object of Rosetta’s terror was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Not harmful in the slightest,’ Royston said, sinking into the sofa. ‘And I don’t believe he’s that Dominic guy you mentioned, in disguise. Not that it’s beyond the realms of possibility. There are definitely people out there with a hidden side, but…I feel positive someone from school is looking after Izzie.’ He stared down at the coffee table. Waved his hands about. ‘I feel there’s a familiarity.’

  With the boy you mentioned in the car?’

  ‘Yes. A boy she likes. Look, lovey, get out the cards and we’ll see what they tell us.’

  Rosetta turned, hesitated, then pivoted back to the phone. ‘I can’t do that right now.’ She would have to call the police. Why was Royston talking about tarot readings at a crucial time like this?

  Somewhere in the next street, a dog howled.

  Royston scooped her tarots from the coffee table. ‘A quick shuffle,’ he said, ‘and pick out three. That’s all I’m suggesting.’

  Numbed with indecision, Rosetta took up the tarots Royston offered, shuffled them clumsily and gave the top three cards back to him.

  The photo album in the bookcase. She’d have to take out this year’s school pictures of Izzie to show the police. Now.