“Because I didn’t trust you,” she said bluntly.
Rufus felt strange. He’d intended to be blasé and detached. Instead the conversation was distressing him beyond words. “I deserved that. But … how did you not die?”
“Rufus, I’m Aetherial. I was lifeless for an immeasurably long time. I became an elemental, haunting the ruins, with no more awareness than the wind. However, eventually I woke again. I was alone, and quite deranged.”
“I wonder what became of … our parents?”
“I believe that their last sacrifice was the end for them,” Aurata said gravely. “I hope their soul-essences found peace.”
“I wish peace for Theliome, at least. How strange it is to think of them … and the three of us in our glory days. You and me and Mistangamesh.”
“Always at each other’s throats.” Aurata spoke idly, but her eyes gleamed.
“Foolish rivalry. Still, it was fun at the time.”
“Until it grew a little too serious.”
Rufus fell silent for a while. “I still can’t claim I’m sorry,” he said. “Father accused me of a crime I didn’t commit, and that was the least of it. He always despised me. There was no love lost—”
“Hush,” Aurata cut him off, her tone mild. “Haven’t you changed at all? You were always such a child.”
“A spoiled child,” he amended. “So? Change is what humans do. Isn’t the point of being immortal that we don’t have to bother changing?”
“I think you’re mixing us up with angels.”
“That makes me Lucifer, then.” He propped himself on one elbow and toyed with her hair.
“None of us is blameless,” she said. “Perhaps it was time for the Felynx empire to end. Now it’s vanished behind a veil of time, I’m simply ecstatic to have found you, Rufus. And no one’s beyond redemption.”
“What’s wrong with you? Have you caught a human religion? I find you with a doctorate and doing humanitarian work … who are you, and what have you done with Aurata Theliet Ephenaestus?”
She bit him gently on the shoulder. “Aren’t Aelyr allowed to evolve? I can be anything I want. So can you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll become a fucking saint, if it pleases you, my lady.”
“No need for that.” Her breath warmed his cheek. “Are you composed enough yet to tell me more about Mistangamesh?”
Rufus pressed into her flank. “I can’t talk about him. Not now. Let me make love to you again, while you whisper in my ear about rifts overflowing with molten lava.”
“Ah, you like that, do you?”
“I like the way your eyes get moist when you tell me about tectonic plates and magma chambers and spurting geysers…”
“Well, all right,” she murmured, her sleek body moving against his. “But there will be questions later.”
“Oh, you have questions? I like a mystery, sweet sister, but at some point you might like to tell me why we’re here.”
Aurata slid off the bed and crossed the room to an ornate cupboard. Rufus sat up, indignant. “Hey, where are you going?”
She returned with a large, heavy book that looked and smelled a thousand years old. It landed on his thighs like a stone block, narrowly missing injury to a sensitive place.
“Careful! I may be more than human but I still have nerve endings, Aurata. What the hell is this?”
“It’s the reason we’re here. You did ask.”
The volume was a bound medieval manuscript, filled with elaborate calligraphy in a language he knew: the ancient tongue of the Felynx. There were illustrations, some colored in lapis, red and gold, others unfinished. Rufus realized he was looking at a history of Azantios.
“Turn to the page with the bookmark. The diagram. What do you see?”
The sketch appeared to be a world globe. Instead of continents, strange animals sprawled over the curved surface. Complex struts supported the sphere, which appeared transparent, with a smaller sphere nested in the center and a separate lens poised above the north pole.
“The Felixatus!” he said, entirely forgetting sex, at least for the moment. “But who the hell created this book? It’s not from Azantios.”
Aurata gave a radiant smile. “Veropardus wrote it, in the twelfth century. He had his own renaissance. Now this is our best record of what the Felixatus looked like. We retrieved a few pieces from the original, which I have here, but parts are still missing.”
“And?”
“The Felixatus was special to the Felynx, our holy grail. We thought it was lost, but now I see it’s not consigned to the past after all. It’s our future! And we must put it back together again.” She bounced onto the edge of the bed, kneeling with parted thighs. “This house—haven’t you worked out what it is? It’s a museum, a safe place that I created to bring together all that remains of the Felynx. It’s taken hundreds of years, but at last things are happening. I wove Aetheric webs and sent out calls until Veropardus and a few others finally heard me. And now you’re here too, at long last.”
Rufus frowned, bemused by her excitement. “What has this to do with earthquakes and volcanoes? Forgive me for being dense. Did you create this whole street to hide in? Are these the ‘Beautiful Secrets’—an old book and some scraps of a crushed artifact?”
She glared at him in exasperation. “Rufus, please. Too many questions. It will all make sense eventually, I promise. But for now, am I not one of the beautiful secrets?”
Rufus leaned back on the pillows, grinning. “Oh, most certainly, the ultimate. I don’t pretend to know what you’re up to, Aurata, but you always were a treasure trove of mysteries. If you want to reconstruct the Felixatus, I have a surprise for you. Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”
“What?”
Putting the book aside, he leaned off the bed and rummaged in the pockets of his old jacket until he found an object. He loosened its silk wrapping and placed it into her cupped hands. “Now you may look.”
Aurata stared, breathing fast. “How did you get this?”
Her delight pleased Rufus. The lens was the size of her palm, convex, smooth and as heavy as a paperweight. Glassy and diamond-clear, it was fashioned from a rare Otherworld mineral that some called Elfstone.
“Mist found it, before we fled the ruins of Azantios,” said Rufus. “The lens ended up in my keeping, somehow.”
“And you took care of it, all this time?” She leaned forward to kiss him. “I never thought it was in your nature to treasure anything, Rufus.”
“You misjudge me. I don’t care for much, it’s true. But that which I value, I never let go. You’re pleased?”
She pressed a fingertip to the ink drawing of the Felixatus, her nail indicating the lens suspended over the globe’s north pole.
“So thrilled, I can’t speak.”
“Is that a tear I see in your scientific eye, Dr. Connelly?”
“This is destiny. All the scattered pieces are coming together.” Aurata rewrapped the lens in its black silk covering, and placed it on a table by the bed. She twined Rufus’s hair around her wrists, pulling him to her. “And on the subject of coming together…”
* * *
Deep in the night, Rufus woke to hear Aurata’s voice, and wondered if he’d fallen asleep in mid-conversation. “No, hide them all,” she was saying. “I need to know how this happened … Human eyes are profane. Of course it’s wrong. No, I can’t leave, the doors are all iced shut. There are glaciers blocking all the ways out … I’m so cold … Qesoth grant me the power of fire to melt Sibeyla’s ice…”
“What?” Rufus said softly. “Aurata, what did you say?”
When she didn’t answer, but went on murmuring to herself and shifting restlessly, he realized she was talking in her sleep. Or in a nightmare.
6
The Thief
Stevie was showing the two-o’clock tour group around the factory when Adam Leith reappeared.
It was three days since she’d met him. The museum was busy,
and she was shepherding a mix of retired couples and jewelry students from a nearby art college. Adam wasn’t there at the start; she would most definitely have noticed. First she showed the group a wall-mounted life-size photograph of the founders, Messrs. Soames and Salter with their loyal workers, then drew them onward through the offices as she told the firm’s history, pointing out typewriters and antiquated filing systems, old catalogues of bangles, brooches and buttons.
“You’ll see that modern technology barely touched the place,” she said. “Much of the equipment had been in use since the 1880s; why change, when it did a perfectly good job? Apart from the introduction of electricity in the 1920s, the place is effectively a time capsule of a working Victorian factory. Mind your footing.”
Stevie led them down a spiral staircase into the factory proper. The atmosphere of age, dust and engine oil rose to enfold her, and she sensed the shades of workers. The visitors gazed at the engraved windows, pitted workbenches, shelves stacked floor-to-ceiling with thousands of die stamps. “Each time we do an inventory, every one of those items has to be removed, cleaned, and put back in the exact same position. See the oily overalls hanging up? They’re just as the workers left them, the day the factory closed over thirty years ago.”
The tourists murmured their interest as they spread out to look around. Light fell through a grimy glass roof. The place was far from pretty. Stevie felt a glow of pride in the knowledge that people were so genuinely fascinated by its history.
She pointed out a thick pane of glass set in the floor that revealed a huge sink full of sawdust in the cellar below.
“The water from all the sinks drained into that receptacle,” she continued. “Not a speck of gold was allowed off the premises, not even gold dust on the workers’ hands. At the end of the year, they’d burn the sawdust and retrieve a lump of molten gold worth several hundred pounds. Just from hand-washing!”
The group expressed delight. Stevie powered up the fan belts that drove every machine in the factory. Sound filled the space, like a small aircraft taking off.
“Imagine this noise all day long.” She raised her voice to be heard. “Grinders and polishers whirring, die-cutters thumping. It would have been deafening.”
It was then, as she turned around, that she saw Adam.
He was standing at the back of the group, his complexion ivory against the sable of his hair and coat—unearthly because he’d appeared from nowhere. He was so still and watchful that he might have been one of her apparitions. As she caught his eye, he looked straight at her with an unapologetic, purposeful expression. His grey irises held flashes of green she hadn’t noticed before.
Stevie stumbled over her words for a few seconds. Recovering, she carried on as if she hadn’t seen him. The officious part of her mind wondered if he’d actually bought a ticket.
She operated stamping and punching machines, inviting everyone to try so they could see it was not as easy as it appeared. Sitting at an ancient workbench, she demonstrated how the jewelers had welded components, holding a pipe in their mouths to control the blowtorch flame with their breath. She described finishing processes involving chemicals that exposed the workers to poisonous fumes all day long.
“And this is where they made their pots of tea,” she said, indicating a tiny side room. “When the premises were first reentered, after standing deserted for years, containers of cyanide and sugar were found side by side. You didn’t want to upset the lady who made the tea.”
There was a ripple of shocked laughter.
While she answered questions, Stevie stamped tiny cats from a sheet of brass to hand out as souvenirs. Finally, she ushered the group through a door that led back into the gift shop, reminding them of the café … Mundane concerns circled her mind at double speed while she was sharply aware of Adam lingering, waiting for her.
He smiled as she turned to him. She went hot with nerves. First impressions could deceive, but he looked even better than she remembered. She’d found good looks usually accompanied by a large ego, an undeclared wife and family, another girlfriend or an appalling personality—if not the full set. Adam seemed different. His eyes shone with genuine warmth and interest. There was an earthy, reassuring quality to his beauty that made her want to forgo all the preliminaries and fling herself on him.
Some woman must be very lucky. Or some man.
None of this showed on her face—she hoped. She cleared her throat, folded her arms. “You found me, then. I’m a bit startled to see you.”
“I went to the counter and asked for you. The lady there said I could wait, or I could catch the guided tour if I ran. I think she was joking, but I bought a ticket anyway.”
“I hope you thought it was worth it.”
“It was fascinating,” he said sincerely. “I thought making jewelry would be a relaxing, creative occupation.”
“Not here, it wasn’t,” said Stevie.
“More like a sweatshop.”
“Well, it was a job. They were skilled workers, and very loyal. Many worked here for decades.”
“If the poison fumes or the cyanide in the tea didn’t get them,” he said dryly.
Stevie wasn’t sure what to say. Attraction aside, she was uneasy about the fact he’d turned up without warning. “If you’re here to ask about Daniel, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m still none the wiser. You?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. I hoped … I can’t explain. I felt there was some connection that would make sense if only I saw you again.”
He hadn’t mentioned the triptych, so she assumed he hadn’t seen it. “Did you look in the side room off the gift shop?”
“No, I came straight to find you. Why?”
“You’d have seen a piece of Daniel’s work in there. Aurata’s Promise. He sent it to me before he vanished, with no explanation.”
Adam’s eyes sparked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Any reason why I should?”
“I suppose not, but from my point of view—yes, every reason. Can I see it?”
“Can I stop you?” Finding no grounds to refuse, she gave a resigned smile. “Yes, of course.” Stevie held the door open. “Shall we?”
As she led him past the shop counter, she was aware of Fin turning her head to watch them. Stevie glanced back to see Fin wide-eyed, mouthing, Who is he? She gave an apologetic shrug in return.
Apart from Alec grumbling over the workbench, the exhibition room was empty. A couple of visitors browsed the gift shop, but the rest were in the café. She saw Ron hurrying back and forth in his green apron with trays full of tea and scones, and a line of customers waiting at the café counter. He shot her a glance, indicating he could do with some help.
“Alec, could you go and give Ron a hand, please?” she said.
Alec gave her a long-suffering look over his glasses. “I can only do one thing at once, you know.”
“Forget the lathe. Customers come first. I’ll be there as soon as I’m free.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He strode off, wiping oily hands on his trousers.
Stevie sighed. “He thinks I boss him about. I keep trying to get it through his head that we all do the same duties, male and female alike—anyway, never mind that. Daniel’s triptych.” She indicated the threefold panel standing on a side table. “There it is. Take as long as you like. Tell me what you think, after.”
Instantly transfixed, Adam moved close to the triptych as if he’d forgotten she was there. Fin called from the shop, “Stevie! Phone call for you!”
She rushed to join Fin, found her trying to serve customers and operate the till one-handed. Stevie took the handset from her and shut herself in the back office.
The caller was Jan Lindeman. Stevie hadn’t expected to hear from her again.
“Hi, I thought you’d like to hear a snippet of info. I was talking to Sarah, the potter who works in the studio next to mine, yeah? Apparently Dan told her something. He said that he’d found a buyer for all his paintings.”
“Yeah, sounds a bit wild, doesn’t it? Before you ask, he didn’t say who. But that makes it unlikely he couldn’t pay his rent, doesn’t it?”
“Unless the buyer let him down,” said Stevie, recalling that Frances had said the same thing and dismissed it as a delusion. Uncomfortably she thought, Surely he wouldn’t kill himself over that, would he?
“The other thing is that Dan had a regular visitor who he’d let in, even when his Closed sign was up. I don’t know if this guy was the mystery buyer.”
“What did he look like?”
“Not like he had any money. When Sarah described him, I realized I’d met him. Spiky platinum hair—a bit like mine, only much more of it, the bastard. Brown overcoat … handsome in a craggy sort of way. Maybe thirty? Hard to tell. Six foot or so, not overweight but muscular rather than skinny. His eyes were unusual: one blue, one green. Oh, and he had a pierced ear. I remember, because he bought a single steel earring off me. It was a panther in two halves, so when you put it in, the panther looks like it’s jumping right through your earlobe.”
“How long ago did you see this guy?”
“At least a month. Sorry, that’s all. If I’d known that Dan, the idiot, was going to vanish, I’d have paid more attention.”
“So would we all,” said Stevie, sighing. “I think the mystery man was called Oliver. Daniel’s landlord had seen him, and so had his mother. I’ve a horrible feeling…”
“What?”
“That this Oliver might have been a drug dealer. Don’t repeat that to anyone, because I could be wrong.”
“Understood, but it might explain Daniel’s erratic behavior.” Jan spoke thoughtfully. “The only other thing I know is that, the day he vanished, a courier took a load of crates from his studio. I phoned the courier firm, but they flat refused to tell me details: customer confidentiality.”
“That’s frustrating,” said Stevie. “But thank you so much for trying, Jan. I won’t let this go. I need to see his mother again, for a start.”
Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales) Page 11