Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales)

by Freda Warrington

  Stevie slept badly over the next few nights. In bed, she would wake repeatedly and reach out for Mist, but he wasn’t there. She held out no hope that he’d slip into her room, murmuring, “This is ridiculous, we can’t be apart.” He was too dignified. They’d made an agreement that couldn’t be broken.

  If they’d tried to continue, Aurata would eventually have used their love as a lever against them. The fact was, she demanded everyone’s complete devotion. As Stevie had said, she and Mist had to focus on the crisis, not on each other. That was simply practical. And in the end, it might soften the heartbreak of losing each other …

  Who am I kidding? Stevie asked herself.

  Even her fylgia had deserted her.

  One night she dreamed she was Helena. It was like a flash of memory; a dark-oak interior in the periphery of her vision as she held up the lens to a window, only to see all the wrong things: a different sky, unfamiliar stars. A window onto Hell, Jaap had said, proving that Mist and Rufus were not scholars, but demons.

  She saw the flash of the knife, blood soaking her clothes as she fell, eventually realizing in horror that the blood was not all hers but Mist’s too.

  “He was no demon. He was the kindest, gentlest of men.” They sat in front of a fire together, Helena bending across to touch Stevie’s hand, her hair like minted gold. “Whoever loves him, loves him for me. Oh, and don’t forget. The positioning of the lens is crucial.”

  Stevie started awake with tears in her eyes. Nice wishful thinking, that a dead lover would give her blessing to her replacement. A touch condescending, too. She thought, No, I don’t love him for you, Helena; I love him on my own behalf. Yet the dream soothed her in a strange way. She felt sad for Helena, rather than jealous. Of course Mist loved others in his time. Who hasn’t? It doesn’t matter now, even if we go on our separate paths, because nothing can change the fact that the dearest, most beautiful man I ever met has loved me.

  “Oh, and the lens!” she said out loud, springing out of bed. “Thank you, Helena.”

  In the workroom the following day, all the pieces came together under her careful touch.

  Struts and brass hoops supported the upper structure on the base. The smaller sphere, the heart, was suspended on a thin rod in the core. Stevie handled the object with awe. Ever-moving light played inside like moonlit water. Warm to her touch, the crystal vibrated, singing to her in gentle, insistent harmonies, like the star song of the Spiral.

  The soul-motes sang a message that did not accord with Aurata’s plan.

  “Who is in there?” she asked, not expecting a reply. It was eerie to think she was holding all the noble families of Azantios between her hands. Even the Sovereigns Elect? Perhaps not. In the violence of the city’s destruction, it appeared that while most of the newly dead had been drawn into the Felixatus, some stray essences had escaped. Not least Aurata and Veropardus.

  Aurata had meant the sphere to pour out its power, but she hadn’t known how to make this happen. Instead it had rolled away like a lost ball, and the souls had stayed trapped.

  As the sphere was now, no spirit could pass in or out.

  With reverence, Stevie cleaned fingerprints off the surface. Once she fitted the two halves of the outer shell around it, the sphere would be untouchable.

  The astrological figures on the carved crystal shell now made sense. They were the symbols of the five inner realms: a sphinx-like creature for Asru, heart of mystery. A hawk for the airy mountains of Sibeyla. For Elysion, a stag, the age-old symbol of the Otherworld. Water snakes represented Melusiel, standing for wisdom and for sinuous passage into the Spiral. And for Naamon, a draconic creature: a winged salamander, not unlike the form that Mist had taken in Virginia’s pool.

  This was forbidden knowledge in the days of the Felynx, who’d never been told that they were exiles.

  She was almost there. On the workbench now stood a globe inside a globe, bounded by hoops within which the structure could rotate to many different angles according to the gearing mechanism she’d constructed. The last item to be attached was the infamous lens through which Jaap de Witt thought he’d seen a demon realm.

  This smooth clear piece of Elfstone must be poised above the “north pole” of the sphere. A lens to focus starlight into the heart of the Felixatus … or to trap wandering soul-essences? Both, she suspected, although the reason wasn’t clear.

  Stevie had almost finished when the bitter tang of smoke distracted her. She went into the studio and looked out through the vast window. In the scrubby cactus garden below the house, smoke was curling into the sky, dirty grey against pure deep blue. Oliver was there, on a flat stretch of stone, tending a bonfire.

  He was feeding the flames with slats of wood, waiting for each one to catch light before pushing in the next one. Stevie looked around the studio to see that the walls were bare.

  Oliver was burning Daniel’s paintings.

  Her heart nearly stopped. All that work—how could he? Outraged, she banged on the glass, and yelled out loud, “Stop!”

  He didn’t hear. He worked mechanically. There was a glint of moisture on his cheeks—was that from genuine sorrow, or just the sting of heat? If there was any spark of feeling left for Daniel in his flinty heart, she would be astounded.

  Stevie watched in dismay as all Daniel’s wild, evocative images blackened to ash. Her chest hurt. He’d painted a lost world and a potential, apocalyptic future. Now those visions were lost forever.

  “You bastard, you fucking bastard, Oliver,” she murmured. “You can’t take those images out of my head. Kill Fela, kill me, I’ll still keep coming back to haunt you and I’ll never forget.”

  * * *

  Aurata took Mist on a walk to the edge of Jigsaw Canyon and along the precarious spine of the arch that jutted partway into the chasm. At the farthest point, a flat rock formed a high, narrow lookout. The swooping drop of the gorge beneath looked a mile deep. She took him to the very edge and they watched as sunset flushed the folded walls to incandescent scarlet.

  “I so wanted you to see this,” she said. “While you were searching for Rufus, I bet this was the last thing you expected to find: this place, and me.”

  “I had no expectations,” he replied. “I wanted to kill Rufus, but couldn’t. Now we’re back on the nightmare merry-go-round. We need to wake up. All of us.”

  She slid her hand through his arm. Mist suppressed a shudder. How long could he hide what he’d learned? Stevie had made him promise not to confront Aurata about Fela’s death. It half-killed him to pretend he didn’t know, but he knew if he said a word he might get both Stevie and himself imprisoned, or worse.

  The dry, cool wind stirred their hair; carrying a tang of smoke. “It’s bound to feel strange, dear, but wonderful, too. Everything is coming full circle.”

  “What’s the plan for the web-weaving and the Felixatus? A ritual of some kind?”

  Aurata smiled, patted his arm. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you. It was all in Daniel’s images. Oliver is burning the paintings as we speak.”

  Shocked, Mist looked hard at her. “Destroying the evidence?”

  “It’s a waste, I know, but we’ll soon have the real thing in place of pictures.”

  “There are still images on the web.”

  “All thoroughly deleted. Your Stevie’s a brave girl; I doubt Daniel would have lived much longer, and she knew it. But I was happy to take her in exchange, because it’s her I need now—not Daniel.”

  “She’s not Fela anymore. She doesn’t belong to you.”

  “Nor to you,” Aurata said wryly. “Oh, Mist, you’re in love with her. Who wouldn’t love her? She’s gorgeous. I must admit, though, I was surprised.”

  “Why? Do you still think of her as less than us? That’s a delusion. It seems to be a Felynx attribute to imagine we’re superior to all others.”

  Aurata gave a dry smile. “Well, it’s surely better than an inferiority complex, isn’t it? Of course we’re superior. Great Qes
oth herself was a creature of fire. Didn’t Queen Malikala channel her power for eons to rule the whole Spiral?” Aurata tipped back her head, her hair as scarlet as the canyon. “Qesoth is rising. It’s her time again.”

  Mist was silent for a while, watching his sister as she reached up to the sky, half-dancing in private ecstasy. “Aurata? How long have you known that Stevie was Fela?”

  “As soon as I saw her.” Aurata turned to face him, the rocks blazing red behind her. “Different form, same aura. You knew, didn’t you? I didn’t spill some shocking secret?”

  “I knew,” Mist said, “but her past was locked away. She thought herself to be human until very recently. However, she remembers … drowning.”

  Tension thickened between them. “A tragedy,” Aurata said softly. “But it’s over, she’s back with us. Actually I like her new incarnation: she’s smart, with hidden fire.”

  “More than you know. She’ll stop at nothing to help our friends escape from Albin.”

  “And rebuilding the Felixatus will help. It will be the focus of our newfound power. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, and all that.”

  “Sounds like a formula to turn Vaeth into a fireball. A nuclear reaction?”

  “You have to stop listening to Rufus.” She placed warm hands on his shoulders, kissed his mouth. “Mist, please believe in me. This is our chance to reforge the world. A new golden age, a new Felynx empire with unfettered access between realms. How can you oppose that? We’re fulfilling the legacy of Poectilictis and Theliome. It wasn’t Rufus or us who destroyed Azantios, but humans.”

  “I wonder? Were humans even here when we were?”

  “Well, the dates are disputed, but some brutish force invaded us—Homo sapiens, or another race altogether? We can’t know, since they are gone, ground to dust. It’s time for the Felynx to rise again.”

  He stepped away from her, studying the alien gleam of her eyes. “You’ve changed. I’m not sure it’s even Aurata in there. If you ever were who I thought.”

  “None of us have changed half as much as we need to,” she retorted. “Rufus was a maniac, but I understand now that we had to break the old Azantios in order to create a new one. New Azantios—how does that strike you as a fine name for the transformed fiery realm of Vaeth and Spiral, united?”

  “It strikes me as being a dream, Aurata. Only a dream.”

  “Do you know how much you wound me by not trusting me?”

  “I want to trust you,” said Mist. “But the sister I thought I knew was loving and sensible and fair. I don’t see that person in your eyes anymore.”

  She grinned. “Perhaps your memory of me is rose-tinted.”

  “I’m certain of it.” He kept his expression neutral, pushing away a vision of dark figures in a swamp, betraying the Tashralyr friend who’d trusted them.

  “Oh, I was as headstrong and self-centered as Rufus—just better at hiding it. We couldn’t please you, could we? When he and I argued, you disapproved. When we went too far the other way, you disapproved even more. Or were jealous. Or both. Yet you chose to blame Rufus and label me faultless. Is it me that’s changed, or your perception?”

  “That is a very good question,” he said, barely audibly.

  “You loved me, and yet I still wasn’t good enough to share power with you,” she added lightly. She moved to the very edge of the platform, rising on her toes as if to take flight.

  He said, “Are you surprised, after your secret plots with Veropardus?”

  She laughed. “You still don’t understand. We were trying to set the Felynx free! It was Poectilictis who wanted them held inside the Felixatus forever! Did you want to end up in that sphere, like a spore trapped in ice? I most certainly did not!”

  Her words startled him. He’d never considered before that she might have been afraid of anything. After a moment, he asked carefully, “Aurata, is there anything I can say that will make you pause and think? Put aside your project? Cancel the ritual?”

  “What would you have me do instead?”

  “Help us rescue our friends. Then return to your scientific work, which might actually do some good.”

  “But my scientific work was all for this end. Learning about Vaeth’s structure, how seismic waves move through the crust and mantle and core, and how to trigger the exact vibrations to make the planet ring and shatter like a wineglass. Did you know that the core is like another planet beneath our feet, a sea of white-hot liquid metal surrounding a solid ball the size of the moon? Scientists think that ball is made of giant metal-crystal forests that create the Earth’s magnetic field. Isn’t that astounding? The Spiral must whirl around the outside of Vaeth, although Naamon perhaps touches the hostile inner core here and there. The Felixatus is like the world in microcosm. Bursting with resonant energy.”

  “Have you forgotten that the Felixatus is a sacred object, not a weapon?”

  She became suddenly still, as if he’d struck her. She turned to face him. “Don’t lecture me about what’s sacred. Qesoth is a mighty force. She will channel herself through me. I cannot ‘cancel’ that as if it were a dinner party.”

  Mist remembered Aurata’s transformation into fire-angel form. He heard Virginia’s warning, Brawth rose, so Qesoth may rise in turn. “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely,” she said softly. “I will become Qesoth.”

  “A goddess?”

  “The primal fire. The heart of the sun.” She laughed. “Then the Earth’s core would be like an ice cube to pop in my drink.”

  He stared at her with a feeling of hopeless, unraveling horror. He knew that his sister believed what she said with complete, sane clarity—and had believed it, in secret, possibly for thousands of years. Veropardus had been her priest as well as her lover. Slahvin was—what? Her secret agent, her chief inquisitor-in-waiting? Mist hadn’t suspected a thing. He couldn’t forgive himself for his own blinkered ignorance.

  Still, he persisted. “Do you know you sound mad?”

  “Naturally. Do you think I care?”

  “Look—these fantasies of power—they’re seductive, but they aren’t real!”

  “Who are you to say what’s real? What do you believe?”

  “That Azantios is gone, the past is gone! I believe in moderation, justice, all those virtues that you and Rufus seem to find so dreary. So be it—but I’m telling you that we must find a way to live in the present. Which includes peaceful coexistence with humans—not deceiving and torturing them as Rufus has. And not this!”

  “Well. Some passion at last. Oh, Mist, you’re such a gracious, good-hearted soul; that hasn’t changed. But moderation doesn’t win any prizes. Extreme visions, huge risks and mad ideas—that’s our only way forward. Qesoth will rise and act through me. Yes, it sounds insane from a human perspective—but not from an Aetherial one. We can will our dreams into being. And I so want your belief and your help. I want you as part of the energy web to make this happen … but I feel you holding back.”

  Mist was quiet, thinking. As part of the web, I’d have a chance of sabotage.

  “I will help you, if you’ll give me the two things that matter. Stevie’s safety, and the rescue of our friends from Albin. Their names are Sam and Rosie and Lucas. They’re real people, suffering.”

  She turned an intransigent profile to him. “Dear heart, I’ve said I’ll try. I can’t promise.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “It’s all I can offer.” She exhaled sharply. “Mist, I have a confession to make. I know Albin Wilder of Sibeyla.”

  “Personally?” He noticed color in her cheeks, her mouth tightening. “This is interesting. He didn’t seem a man to have many friends or lovers.”

  “Albin was once my husband.”

  Her offhanded tone shocked him as much as her words. Mist turned to her so fast that his right foot slipped off the edge, sending chips of sandstone arcing into the void. He flailed for balance.

  “Careful,” she said, catching
his forearm. “I know, it’s a leap of the imagination, isn’t it?”

  “You could say that. How…?”

  She waved her hand, palm down in a gesture of dismissal. “It was a long time ago. I was in the Otherworld, exploring the realms, and we happened to meet at some Aelyr festival on the borders of Sibeyla and Naamon. He knew me as Maia; I never told him my true name and history, and he never asked. He was a very captivating, pale creature, like no one I’d ever met before, and from a chilly high Sibeylan clan. My heat drew him. The disastrous magnetism of opposites. I wouldn’t say we were ever truly happy or content. There was passion between us, and a powerful obsession; but he was a twisted soul, resentful because he didn’t inherit his mother Liliana’s high position as Gatekeeper. The gift leapfrogged from her to our son.”

  “You have a son?” Mist interrupted. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “There was no reason to mention it, until now.” Again the throwaway lightness that he couldn’t fathom. “Lawrence. A fine Sibeylan boy, but as cold as his father. Liliana wished to take him away into Vaeth to train him, which left Albin more bitter than he’d admit. By then, I knew it was time to leave. An Aetheric pull drew me away, a Spiral call far stronger than my ties to husband and son … so I went. I was semi-elemental for a time. I faded into deeper realms where Albin couldn’t find me.”

  “I can understand you leaving Albin, but your son?”

  “I couldn’t help it.” She gave a slight frown. “Lawrence had Liliana. I never felt any great maternal ties. Remember that Aetherials don’t cling like humans, but tend to drift apart, as self-sufficient as birds.”

  “That’s true of some,” he replied, “but it’s a massive generalization.”

  She shrugged. “You’re right. Think me heartless if you will. I can’t justify what I did. I’m simply telling you what happened.”