The Key to Starveldt

by Foz Meadows

  ‘Return to the temple complex,’ it had said. ‘You will be collected.’

  And then, before either of them could think of a reply, it winked out of existence with a slight pop.

  Too alarmed to disobey, they had all but run to the rendezvous point, finding Laine already there, looking tense and worried. With her was Knox, the guard who’d helped them with Harper. Sylvia and Manx strode up less than a minute later, both looking harried, just in time to hear Laine’s explanation for where Evan and Solace had gone, and in whose company. Jess had hoped that, being a guard, Sylvia might know more about their summons, but found herself disappointed. Not until Paige and Harper had struggled up the stairs, their hair and grassstained clothes in disarray, did Knox lead them away, the twin swords strapped to his shoulders glittering like onyx.

  The room to which he led them was one that Jess hadn’t noticed before. They reached it after a few minutes of walking, where it was sandwiched between two large mosaics. Inside, the space was small – or perhaps it only seemed that way because of their number – and oddly shaped, like a trapezoid that some architect had tampered with.

  A thick, square rug decorated with black and white geometric designs covered hardwood flooring; the walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, all of them full. Arranged in a rough semi-circle was a suite of black lounges, on which, lacking any other directive, they had soon arranged themselves. Knox stood to one side, a menacing sentinel, while Sylvia took up a spot on the floor, her silver rifle laid out across her long legs. It did not escape Jess that the red-haired guard was brushing up against Manx’s knees, but with so much uncertainty as to what was happening, she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

  After five minutes, the door had opened: everyone sat up straight as Anise, with Duchess perched on her shoulder, joined their group. But despite their bombardment of questions, the blue-skinned woman only shook her antennae and told them to wait.

  ‘It’s not my place,’ she said, and that was an end to it.

  Since then, it felt like an eternity had passed, and there was still no word as to why they’d been brought together. Never patient at the best of times, Paige fidgeted, drumming her fingers on the leather in a discordant pattern that made Jess’s skin itch. She was on the brink of asking her to keep her hands still, when the door clicked open for the second time, revealing – Jess leapt up with relief – Evan, accompanied by Solace and Liluye. She hugged him around the shoulders and then darted back, acutely conscious of the silence into which she spoke.

  ‘Ev, what happened? Laine said you and Solace were with Anise, but when she came back without you, I thought –’

  ‘It’s fine,’ he said, a little too quickly. ‘We just … there was something Solace had to do.’

  All eyes slid to the vampire, who lifted her chin and met them in return. But for all her gaze didn’t waver, Jess could see the tension in her neck and jaw. Taking note of the bandage on her wrist and her changed shirt, pity welled up in Jess, though for what, she didn’t yet know.

  ‘Tell us,’ she said, softly. ‘Whatever it is, tell us.’

  Solace blinked, then looked away, as though she were trying to disassociate herself from what she said next. ‘At the group home, I lived with a girl. A little girl. Luci. Grief wants us out in the open, to open Starveldt for him. So he found Luci. And he drained her, and started to turn her, but he stopped, so she was almost dead. And then he sent her here, to me. As a messenger. But the only way to save her was to try and finish what he’d started, to turn her all the way – I tried, but it didn’t work, and she died in the lobby.’ She paused. ‘Sharpsoft is burying her now.’

  Jess felt her hands trembling. Why had she asked? All she could do was sit back down, hard, so that the lounge let out a leathery groan.

  ‘We have to leave here,’ said Solace, when nobody else spoke. ‘Now. We need to get inside Starveldt. We’ll be safe there.’

  ‘We’re safe here, too!’ Harper said. ‘What, you want him to think he can just bully us around?’

  ‘But he can just bully us,’ Manx pointed out, his sardonic tone not quite concealing the worry underneath. ‘We all have people back in the world we care about. He could hurt any of them next, if we don’t do what he says. Well, don’t we?’ he asked, when the others looked uncomfortable. A noise formed low in his throat. ‘Don’t lie, guys! This isn’t the time for it. Look, we’ve all got problems, things we’ve run away from – people we’ve run away from – but that doesn’t mean we want them dead or turned into vampires. No offence,’ he added, glancing at Solace, ‘but, really, we don’t.’

  ‘I don’t have anyone else,’ said Paige boldly, but it was little more than a brave lie, and they all knew it.

  Jess watched as, one by one, the faces of her friends changed. Family wasn’t something they talked about often, and with good reason: either it was too painful, or it was better left in the past. But for all the bad blood between Jess and her father, she didn’t want him to be in danger, and certainly not her mother. She looked up at Evan, and could tell that he was thinking along much the same lines. With a start, she realised that of the eight of them, only Solace, Laine and Harper were only children. Paige had been in foster care, but split up from her siblings; Manx, she was fairly sure, was one of five, while Lex had left a younger brother behind. Until now, it wasn’t something she’d fully appreciated.

  Evan was with her daily, and even had he been normal, lacking a Trick, he still would have followed her out of home, away from their parents and into their current adventure. A rush of sisterly pride ran through her, followed swiftly by fear that something might happen to Evan because of it, or to anyone else’s family.

  ‘Grief wants to get into Starveldt,’ Electra said suddenly. ‘Right? He wants us out of here because we can open it for him. Well, Solace can. But we’re not going to do that. I mean, we’re going to open Starveldt, but not for Grief. Which means he could still hurt our families or whoever to get us to come out.’

  ‘No,’ said Solace, slowly. ‘I don’t think he would. For one thing, he’d have to track them down, which takes time and effort – he already knew where Luci was.’ It hit her then that Mrs Plummer could be dead, too, or at the very least, distressed over Luci’s disappearance. She shoved the thought aside for later and continued speaking, fighting the lump in her throat. ‘For another, he can’t get into Starveldt without us. This was impatience. He wants us to hurry up. Me, I mean. He can’t get inside the Rookery, so he sent a message.’ Suddenly, she swung her head towards Liluye, black eyes blazing. ‘We could’ve been gone by now! If you’d just done what my mother said in the first place and actually helped us, Luci would still be alive, and we’d already be in Starveldt. So why, huh? All that bullshit about getting to know ourselves – why bother with any of it, when this is all that happened!’

  Liluye stood with her shoulders back, the hawk feathers in her dreadlocks fluttering softly on some unfelt breath of air. Her mouth was rigid, but then she sighed and closed her eyes, rubbing at the edge of her left temple with three strong, brown fingers.

  ‘Because,’ she said, in a voice that was half regret, half justification, ‘your mother asked it of me.’

  ‘My mo –’ Solace started, but broke off as the door opened a third time, admitting Sharpsoft.

  Jess blanched to see the blood on his otherwise bone-white coat.

  ‘It is done,’ he said, moving to stand quietly beside Anise.

  After a pause, Liluye walked to one of the bookshelves. The volume she pulled down was old, its gold lettering illegible against the blue leather. There was a soft cracking sound as she flipped it open to the middle, pulling out what looked like a bookmark, but proved, as she re-shelved the book, to be a folded, yellowing piece of paper. This she handed to Solace.

  ‘Read it,’ Liluye said.

  With fingers that shook slightly, Solace unfolded the paper. Although her lips trembled on the edge of sound, none was forthcoming. After a moment
, Solace blinked and thrust the paper blindly at Evan, who cleared his throat, glanced awkwardly at Liluye, and then began to speak:

  ‘My dearest Lilu,’ he read:

  ‘I apologise for leaving this last burden with you, when you have already risked so much to give Aaron and I safe harbour. But we will not know our daughter, and so we impose this trust upon you: to know her in our stead. Steps have been taken to ensure that when she is of age, she and the companions of her prophecy will come to the Rookery. Telling her how to access Starveldt will be easy enough, and if she has inherited Aaron’s haste, then you may be hard-pressed to detain her past the provision of that knowledge. And yet, I ask that you do so, for us. You are immortal: more than anyone you can appreciate the brevity of youth. I do not know what manner of upbringing she will have had, but given the necessary strength of Vivari’s wards, I fear it will be a stunted one, full of doors left unopened. So many hopes hang on her, but I cannot bear the guilt of giving life to a child, only for the weight of duty to prevent her from ever living. Lilu, there are no closed doors in your realm, and no walls. She will be safe with you. Just for a little while, let her live in knowledge of herself, without the need to hide.

  May the pale moon gleam on you always.

  Love, Morga.’

  There was a crinkling sound as Evan lowered the paper. ‘There isn’t any more,’ he added, needlessly.

  All throughout, Solace had stood with her head bowed, braced so rigidly that with each outward motion of her ribs and lungs, she seemed to grow taller, then shrink again. As she straightened, there were tears on her cheeks, but her expression held no shame at their presence.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. Though none of them had known Luci, news of the girl’s death had poisoned the room. Now, it felt as though the evil were being leeched away; as though Morgause Eleuthera had reached through time to show their flock of runaways that perhaps there was some tenderness between parent and child, after all.

  ‘So,’ said Paige, breaking the silence. ‘Starveldt. How do we get there? You said before that it was locked away, frozen or something, but still tied to Earth. What does that actually mean?’

  Liluye inhaled. ‘It means that Starveldt, like all of you, is born of Earth. I do not know where it was originally built, nor when, but part of what makes it so unique – the power at its heart, the world-gate – is its ability to slip in and out of phase with the physical plane. At present, it is out of phase: the castle exists, but cannot be accessed. Were you to free it, however, it would re-open at its last tethered location. After that, it could be directed elsewhere.’

  ‘Do you honestly mean to say,’ said Jess, unable to help herself, ‘that Starveldt can just pop into being anywhere it likes? Like a quetzal?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous! People must notice, surely!’

  ‘Not unless they are intended to notice. Just as it phases in and out of reality, so too does the castle cloak itself from all who are not Rare.’

  ‘In the vision we saw of the night it burned, it was on one side of a chasm,’ Solace said. ‘There was a stone bridge going across.’

  Liluye’s expression darkened. ‘What you saw was the gateway to Sanguisidera’s realm, joined to the castle door. It was a work of fearsome magic, one that claimed the lives of several dozen mages. I have explained the difficulties in wielding the power of gates – the Bloodkin, whose minds are fractured, cannot successfully do so. This is your proof. It cost the Bloody Star dear to draw her own realm alongside Starveldt for long enough to ensure the infant Grief ’s undisturbed passage into her care. Now, her only mage is Mikhail Savarin. But the castle,’ she added, anticipating Solace’s question, ‘was last bound to the world in Scotland, in a town called St Andrews. There are cliffs overlooking the sea, and the ruins of a human castle – not so large as Starveldt, but your father enjoyed the irony of anchoring one to the other.’

  ‘A town,’ said Manx, glancing from Liluye to Solace and back again. ‘You mean a populated area? With people? Normal people? Because, you know, if the Bloodkin are going to attack us at any point, that could be … not good.’

  Liluye twitched her fingers. ‘Ordinarily, Morgause and Aaron preferred to remain apart from society. Once the rebellion was underway they did not want to risk provoking human casualties by dwelling close to innocents. But for the birth of their first child, they needed to be near, so that he could be delivered into human care after their deaths. Of course, Sanguisidera put an end to that, and the castle remained in St Andrews. That is where you must go.’

  ‘Which begs the question,’ said Laine, so abruptly that Jess jumped, ‘how do we actually open Starveldt?’

  ‘Ah.’ Liluye glanced at Duchess. ‘Would you care to enlighten them?’

  It was Manx who translated. From where she sat on Anise’s shoulder, the little cat stretched her forepaws and leapt onto the back of the lounge, so that she was sitting level with Jess and Electra’s heads.

  she said, pausing for Manx’s benefit.

  ‘Your blood?’ said Paige, both appalled and fascinated. ‘Why?’

  Duchess heaved a cat-sigh.

  ‘Weird,’ said Paige, wrinkling her nose.

  Solace lifted her head sharply. ‘Authenticate? How? To whom?’

  Duchess favoured the vampire with a stare. For a moment, Jess thought the little cat was refusing to answer, but then a look of dawning comprehension crossed Solace’s face.

  ‘You mean that stupid Voice is part of the castle? That’s who I’ve been talking to?’

  Duchess said, still via Manx.

  Even Liluye looked surprised. ‘I had not known that,’ she murmured, glancing at Sharpsoft. ‘Did you?’

  Sharpsoft looked uncomfortable. ‘I suspected. Starveldt is a strange place – stranger even than your realm, in its way. Its rooms are malleable, able to change their size and furnishings in accordance with whatever an occupant requires, unless a limitation is imposed on them by the keybearer. It is uncanny to watch, both an exorbitant and a useful magic. A sentient, immortal essence bound into the foundations is not the only thing that could account for it, but in conjunction with everything else, it makes the most sense.’

  ‘What about Grief ?’ asked Solace, looking again at Duchess. ‘Technically, he’s an heir, too. Aren’t you saying he could open the castle, too, even without your blood?’

  said the little cat, after a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘So,’ said Evan, after Manx relayed these remarks, ‘we’re going to Scotland?’ He was looking at Liluye, but Jess did not miss how his gaze flickered to Solace. A pleasant surprise. Maybe all that teasing pushed them together, after all. ‘Because, just for the record, I am totally cool with that.’

  ‘It’s where we’re going,’ said Solace, confirming Liluye’s nod. ‘But I don’t care what the prophecy says, you guys don’t have to come with me. Grief only cares that I open Starveldt. The rest of you –’

  ‘– are not getting left behind,’ said Jess, firmly. ‘We’ve come this far. We’ll go the rest of the way. Or at least,’ she amended, ‘I will.’

  Saying this sent a rush of excitement through her, such that when Harper cleared his throat, she didn’t immediately consider he might disagree.

  ‘We don’t have
to, though,’ he said, curling his fingers protectively around Paige’s hip. ‘Why can’t we stay here? It’s safe. The Bloodkin can’t come in. I know they tried to take Solace, but it didn’t work, remember? Who says we have to go back to the real world? This place, I mean …’ He let the sentence trail off, waving his free hand. ‘We could have something here. A life. Why fight when you don’t have to?’

  Jess felt her mouth slip open in an O of surprise. All eyes were fixed on Harper, who straightened. In the event, it wasn’t Solace who answered him, but Paige.

  ‘Harp,’ she said, looking up at him, ‘we have to go. I can’t pretend we haven’t been part of this, and I don’t want to be exiled from my own planet just because it’s easier than standing up to someone who wants to turn me into a monster.’ She looked tense, frightened, as if she didn’t quite know what she was doing, and her eyes bore intently upwards, daring him to look away. He didn’t. ‘Whenever I was scared, you always helped me do what was right. Please. I’m tired of running away.’

  Harper brushed his lips against Paige’s forehead. Her eyes closed at the contact, then opened as he pulled away and nodded.

  ‘All right,’ he said, and the words were for his pixie girl. ‘We’ll come.’

  ‘The prophecy.’ Manx stared at Liluye, who lifted her chin quizzically. Jess doubted she was alone in feeling grateful for the distraction. ‘When we arrived, you said you’d explain it to us. You said you knew what it meant.’

  ‘I lied.’ The proprietor gave a strange, small smile. ‘I only think I know what it means. Not truth. Just interpretation. And as such –’ she went on, preventing any protest, ‘– it will remain my interpretation. Private.’

  ‘Since we’re agreed, then,’ said Laine, before Manx could speak, ‘we should go now. It’s not like there’s anything keeping us here.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Jess, quickly.

  ‘Wait.’ Solace held up a hand, her face unreadable as she stared at Sharpsoft. ‘Luci wasn’t alone in the group home. There was a woman there, too, my house-mother. Sarah Plummer. To get to Luci, Grief probably killed her. But maybe she’s still alive. If she can be saved, then take her somewhere safe.’ She gulped, looking downwards. ‘Tell her about the grove. And tell her I’m sorry. For everything.’