He forced himself to all fours and then to his feet, climbing around the tower’s base with one hand on the wall for support, until he found her again. Her eyes flashed, as if to ask, What happened?
Plainly she could no longer speak. He drew the three pebbles from his pocket and held them out in the palm of his hand. Their light was dim. Nothing changed. Stevie gazed at him, her eyes bright, intense, desperate, and they both knew that nothing would change unless Albin’s power broke.
Abruptly the storm settled.
A comet streaked towards the ground. The Spiral ceased trembling, utter silence fell. Only the fog remained.
* * *
Stevie saw Aurata land, perhaps thirty paces away down the tumbled rocks. Her aura was a golden oval, hot enough to make the fog hiss into steam. She staggered, then pulled herself upright, every curve of her leonine form expressing fury. Her brightness thinned the haze around her, revealing a wider radius of flat, pallid stone.
Stevie was facing away from the tower, which meant she could observe, over Sam’s shoulder, all that was happening below. Aurata’s glow revealed figures Stevie hadn’t noticed before: a troop of dark-clad Aetherials, draconic in appearance. She saw a taller man in bronze-green ceremonial robes, and a bedraggled, tawny creature whom she realized was Rufus.
“Vaidre Daima and some warriors from Tyrynaia,” Mist murmured. “Floundering.”
Aurata turned around slowly, taking in every detail. Her gaze drifted upward to the tip of Albin’s stronghold. Her face was a smear at this distance, but her reactions were clear enough: frustrated rage, and swift calculation.
“I should go down to them,” said Mist. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
I’m not going anywhere, she told him silently. Be careful.
Before he went, he placed the three pebbles on the lens of the silk-wrapped Felixatus. Stevie saw her own fylgia curl protectively around them, like a mother cat around kittens. She would have smiled, if she could. Then she watched Mist stumbling away and realized, her breath catching, that he was physically hurt and moving only by willpower.
A fresh arrival startled her. Albin dropped out of the sky near Aurata.
Stevie observed his wings morphing back into a feathered cloak. Undamaged, untouchable, he looked as swan-pale and arrogant as ever.
He and Aurata faced each other as if nothing else existed. Vaidre Daima’s party moved forward. Albin only stood taller, like a master sorcerer confronting a band of insolent small children. Mist, reaching the troop, put up his arm to signal, Wait!
“That is Aurata?” said Vaidre Daima. “She must also be captured.”
Stevie heard every word in the silence. At least her Aetherial hearing was still functioning. She guessed, then, that Sam, Luc and Rosie might be aware and listening.
“Right, and how will that help?” said Rufus. “She’s our only defense against Albin, as far as I can see. Got anything better?”
“We need to detain them both,” Vaidre added in a chilly tone. “This conflict must cease.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.”
Vaidre Daima called out, “In the name of the Spiral Court, I demand your immediate surrender.”
Albin responded with a sneer. Aurata, not even looking round, asked, “Who is that?”
“I’m Vaidre Daima, elected of the Spiral Court.” His deep voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “My lord Albin Wilder of the House of Sibeyla, I demand your surrender. Under the laws of the Spiral Court, you’ve violated every natural right of Aetherials to live freely in or out of the Spiral.”
“I do not recognize your laws.” Albin stood cold and defiant, his blue eyes and jewel forming a bright triangle in his skull-white face.
“My lady Aurata Theliet Ephenaestus of the Felynx, I demand your surrender also.”
Aurata laughed. “Oh, do try. This battle is between Qesoth and Brawth. You are a mouse trying to place itself between lions.”
“You are both now in the Spiral Court’s custody.” His voice was hoarse. “My authority—”
“Self-appointed, ebbing with every breath. What authority?” said Albin. “Every realm and all Aelyr shall be absorbed by my will. There’ll be no one left to ‘detain’ me.” He pointed at Mist and Rufus. “Did you bring these degenerate Vaethyr to help you? A brave try, but pointless.”
Stevie felt deceptive warmth creeping into her, a desire to sleep. Hopelessly she thought, If Mist and I hadn’t tried to break Aurata’s power, perhaps she would have defeated Albin—or it might have been like throwing a nuclear warhead into the Spiral. How the hell were we supposed to make the right choice?
“Why?” Vaidre Daima’s tone weakened. He sounded … heartbroken. Indicating Albin’s spectral slaves near the tower, he said, “Why would you do this to your own people, friends, family? Why?”
Albin was unmoved. “You’ve long known my desire for separation of the Spiral from Vaeth. It can’t be a surprise. I tried to persuade, but no one listened. I lost patience. The whole Spiral shall be drowned in elemental fog forever; only the high peaks of Sibeyla will stand clear, where the pure of heart can gather. There are not many of us, I can tell you. The Gates will be frozen, the Spiral sealed.”
“This is an affront to Aelyr and Vaethyr in all realms! You cannot do this!”
Albin’s pale lips flattened. “What is an affront is that some renegade”—he indicated Aurata—“has tried to burn the Spiral to ruins. That is your reward for refusing to acknowledge my warnings. Earth-loving traitors—not content with leaking human pollution into our pristine realms—are trying to split the Otherworld at the seams. If not for me, this avatar of Qesoth would have burned us all.”
Aurata listened to all this with mystifying patience.
“Release your white web, Albin,” said Vaidre Daima. “You can’t maintain it. You cannot keep the Gates shut.”
“Oh, can’t I? I have the Gatekeeper—the last of his kind, I trust.”
Vaidre Daima had no answer. Stevie’s breathing quickened: she was horrified to witness his helplessness. Albin went on, “With no one to attend the gates and portals to Vaeth, I can do as I wish. And my first act will be to dissolve the Spiral Court.” He pointed at Rufus. “Ah, look! Is anyone surprised to see Rufus Dionys Ephenaestus at the root of this invasion? You let him go free, Vaidre Daima. Now see the result. He brings creatures of fire to attack us.”
“Hey, I was trying to stop her,” Rufus retorted. “Wish I hadn’t bothered! Aurata, I’m sorry. What I wouldn’t give to see this idiot fried by Qesoth’s wrath!”
“Too late now,” Aurata said lightly over her shoulder. “This isn’t your fault, Rufus. I knew you’d betray me. You do the same to everyone.”
“Fair comment, but please. You’re never going to be the new Queen Malikala.”
“That wasn’t my aim.”
“But weren’t we having fun, sweet sister, before this obsession took over? What’s wrong with living for the moment? Why’s everyone got to stamp their jackboots into the world?”
“Oh, that’s fine coming from you, with your boasting about bringing down governments, winning wars single-handed. Fun, Rufus?”
“Well, I’m over it now,” he said in a low tone. “This is how centuries of arrogant self-delusion end. In a bruised heap in the fog. And yet I still love you.”
“And yet I still love you,” she echoed. “I was trying to create a new world. Albin is the one who’s intent on destroying it.”
Rufus moved to her side, openly sneering at Albin. “And you dared to put me on trial? How do you weigh a few mistakes against your own ruthless dogma? You do realize that once you’ve turned everyone into wraiths, you’ll have no one to preach at?”
“And what a relief that will be.” Albin stared, and Rufus retreated to Mist’s side, his face dark with helpless anger.
Aurata took a step closer to Albin, her presence strangely soft and calm despite her radiant heat. “You had your chance against my brother. Your onl
y concern now is me.”
The Aetherial warriors made no move to approach the pair. They were transfixed, as if Albin and Aurata were central characters in a play. Stevie even saw a few of them unfolding from warrior-shape into a gentler Aelyr form as if they’d entirely forgotten their purpose.
“My lady, do I know you?” Albin said softly. “I think that only someone highborn of Naamon would have the impertinence to challenge me as you have. Show yourself. Show your natural form.”
Aurata gave a small shrug and let her fire slide away like a falling cloak. She stood there in humanoid shape, smaller yet losing none of her presence.
Albin’s face moved. His jaw lengthened. Uncertainty flickered in his eyes.
“Maia?”
“Now you see,” she said.
22
The Eye of the Cauldron
“Maia?” Albin’s voice was hoarse with disbelief.
Something was happening to him. Mist saw his power begin palpably to slip. His face turned ashen with plain, numb shock.
“It took you long enough to recognize your onetime wife,” she said bitterly.
“How many centuries since I looked upon your face? Yet as soon as your glamour dropped, I knew you.”
Rufus whispered in Mist’s ear, “What the hell…?” Mist murmured a curt explanation, and Rufus gasped, “You knew?”
Albin said, “I’ve been reviled and condemned by all, even my own family, for my heart of stone. You were the only wisp of heat, my Maia—and when you vanished, the wisp died. I spent eons searching for you, willing you to return.”
“I’m not impressed, Albin,” she retorted. “Your chilly soul drove me away. I didn’t think you would notice I’d gone.”
“Hold on,” Rufus said loudly. “Aurata? You were wedded to this piece of work?”
“I told you I’d had companions. You didn’t ask for details.”
Albin ignored her aside to Rufus. “Oh, I noticed your absence, Maia. I minded. And I cursed you for deserting me.”
“What curse?”
“That for as long as you were away from me, you would never find peace.”
There was a brief, frigid silence. When Aurata spoke, her tone was vitriolic. “Hardly a loving way to tempt me back. A curse? Well, I hope you’re gratified, Albin, my sometime husband, because I haven’t rested. If you were hurt by my departure, you should look more closely at yourself. I’m fiery Naamon to the bone, and you knew it, yet you tried to change me. It was like being held in a prison of ice. I had to leave. It was nothing personal. Simply time for me to move on, that’s all.”
“You could treat our union so lightly? We had a son.”
“I was a poor mother, I admit. Did Lawrence find you any better a father?” No answer came from Albin, only the faintest twitch of discomfort in his face. “The call of other realms is stronger than any blood tie. Especially the call of Vaeth.”
“And that is why I’ve sought to seal the Gates!” Albin was suddenly vehement. “Vaeth corrupts us. Vaeth took Lawrence from me, took my own mother, took you. Earth takes every Aelyr who’s not strong enough to withstand temptation. No one would make a stand but me. I’m doing this to protect those who cannot protect themselves.”
Aurata gave a long-suffering smile. “Ah, Albin, you’ve changed. You’re worse than I remember! It wasn’t only your coldness that drove me away, but your arrogance. You treated me as a possession, but I never was. You didn’t know me.”
His pale lips thinned. “I am wondering who I was searching for. Was ‘Maia’ an illusion? You never told me your true name … and all the time I hunted Rufus, I never dreamed he was your brother. I feel … betrayed, a little.”
“Brother and lover,” Rufus put in, his tone brazen. “It was always me she wanted. Not you, but poor old degenerate me.”
Albin’s gaze touched Rufus, spilling contempt. “Nothing you say holds a grain of credibility.”
“Truth hurts,” Rufus persisted. “She was with me in the days of Azantios. Now she’s with me again. Some Aelyr are bonded forever; nothing can pull us apart, and you lost this one. Tough luck.”
Aurata spread her hand at Rufus in a brusque Shut up! gesture.
“Ignore him,” she said lightly. “If I wounded you, Albin, I’m truly sorry. But we would have destroyed each other. You cursed me never to rest? Well, your curse held indeed. It was partly because I couldn’t find peace that I worked so hard to raise Qesoth.”
“You should know that curses come back to bite,” said Rufus.
“Of course, this is not a matter for hearts,” Albin said, pointedly shifting to turn his back on Rufus. Mist edged around so that he could watch both their faces. “It’s about balance. Brawth the shadow rose, so Qesoth rose in her turn. I should have known. I didn’t expect her to appear in your guise, Maia, but I suppose there is a pleasing symmetry in this.”
“And what now?” Aurata said. “You expressed your love for me in a curse! We’ve fought a battle that neither can win, because Brawth is Qesoth’s shadow-self. Without her, he can’t exist. So tell me, what now?”
Albin’s shoulders rose in a brief, hollow laugh. “It ends here,” he said. “Often I told myself that nothing in all the realms could lift winter from me but a glimpse of my Maia’s face. A kiss. But Maia was an illusion, and all passion long frozen.”
“I was no illusion,” she said fiercely. “Everyone thinks that you and I are equally selfish and heartless. But I’ve always known that my own plan might destroy me, and that I should remember that I’m acting not for myself, but for those who come after.” She waved a hand in the direction of Sam and Lucas. “Not least, for our own descendants.”
Albin said nothing. Perhaps he’d lost the will to argue.
“Let it end, then,” she said softly. “For them.”
Aurata moved towards Albin, tilting her face towards his. Their lips met. In the collision of fire and ice, Mist saw all their ambitions evaporate. The power that trailed from their shoulders like cloaks, auroras that filled the universe—all vanished. He saw clearly that their powers had reached a boundary, a membrane like oil and water swirling against each other, unable to mix.
The kiss lasted half a minute, a span of time that seemed endless. At last Aurata stepped back. Her fire had gone. She was fully in her human shape, red hair falling neatly around a strikingly calm face. Albin’s expression was bitter, with a distinct trace of sadness.
Mist understood. This was inevitable, yet still a shock. With the kiss, they had each drained the other’s strength. Effectively, they had neutralized each other. In doing so, they’d become ordinary, or as ordinary as Aetherials ever could be: a condition that neither of them could tolerate.
Perhaps Albin hadn’t realized what he was giving up, but Aurata—always smarter than him—had known. And she’d made a decision to destroy Albin’s power by sacrificing her own.
A flash of sanity had prevailed, after all, and allowed her to spare her grandsons.
Mist saw all this in detail, but caught only a glimpse of Rufus snatching a crossbow from the nearest warrior and aiming it at the back of Albin’s neck. The bolt shot home. The Sibeylan fell.
Feral, Rufus sprang and landed on Albin’s back. He seized the long white hair in his left hand, jerked back the head, and with his right hand—his forefinger a long claw like a scimitar—he slashed deep through Albin’s throat.
The color of his blood was a shock. Mist had expected white ichor, not a purplish-red flow, its hue startling against the pale rock as it pooled and spread. Rufus severed the neck almost to the spine, and let the snowy figure collapse in a heap of feathers at Aurata’s feet.
* * *
The moment Albin fell, the fog dispersed.
The tower remained, its needle-spike pointing at the sky. All around was black-ink darkness—that was a shock, because Mist had seen blue sky above the ocean of vapor. The Otherworld, capricious, could change in seconds.
He made his way upwards to Stevie. Every bon
e ached as he climbed. Since the Spiral was never completely dark, his eyes adjusted instantly from the cotton-wool fog to clear night. There were strangely few stars, but enough for Aetherial eyes.
On the tower courtyard, the statues were beginning to move. Color was seeping into their empty shells, ice cracking and shattering on the ground. Albin’s victims were everywhere. A dusting of bluish light lit scores of figures milling on a plateau that resembled a moonscape, an expanse of jumbled flat plates glistening like feldspar.
On this eerie plateau, Albin’s tower and island lay marooned, like a spar on a ship that has run aground.
To one side loomed distant mountains; to the other, a shadowy hint of hills. This must be the border of Asru, Mist thought. From that direction, dozens more warriors were arriving to reinforce Vaidre Daima’s troops. The Spiral landscape had a tendency to distortion so he couldn’t be sure of anything he was seeing. Realms frayed into each other like multiple reflections, even appearing to be in several places at once as if seen through water.
At the foot of Albin’s island, Vaidre Daima had regained command and was snapping out orders. His voice carried clearly. “Mistangamesh and all of you near the tower, I ask that you come with me. Rufus and Aurata Ephenaestus, I place you in the custody of the Spiral Court. Surrender yourselves.”
Mist ignored him. He felt a duty towards his brother and sister, but his priority was Stevie.
Reaching her, he saw frost evaporating from her hair and skin; saw her eyes come to life. She bent to pick up the three pebbles. They dissolved in her palm and, although he saw nothing, he felt the fylgias break free like rushes of spring air. Around her, three glacial specters were returning to life. As each one moved, crusts of ice fell away. Snow sifted from their clothes like powdered sugar. Features emerged from the crystalline coating: Lucas’s dark hair and sharp, intelligent features; Sam’s bright blue-green eyes, wildly staring around, ready in a heartbeat to fight the nearest enemy; Rosie’s face, a creamy oval with wide grey eyes, deep pink lips parted in shock, her hair a red-brown tangle as if she’d fallen through a hedge.
Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales) Page 47