Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  The nun only glanced at it. “I doubt I have any connection to that.”

  “He also gave me this.” Lorenzo pulled the holy medallion from his shirt and held it dangling from its slender chain. The three interwoven links of the triquetra gleamed dimly in the starlight.

  Ariel swept closer, her smoky outlines wavering as she moved. “Look closely at it. Is there a discolored patch of gold on the lower edge?”

  Lorenzo didn’t have to look. He’d stared at the strange dark gold countless times, wondering if the medallion had once been mended with bronze. “Yes. Do you know it?”

  “It was mine,” she said. “The one I wore in life. I’d always thought it was buried with me, but it would seem some poor soul saw the need to pocket it before I was interred. And then it found its way into the Prince’s coffers. Maybe the abbess gave it to the tax collector the year I died. Did you know they taxed the abbeys in my day?”

  “No.” He stared at the little patch of dark gold, rubbing it gently. “Are you drawn to anything else you knew in life?”

  “No, not even the nunnery where I was buried. You would think I would have a stronger connection to my own bones than that medallion.” She smiled. “Well, mystery solved, I suppose, though it doesn’t explain why I can travel to those other places so easily. Rest now. You have a long day ahead of you.”

  The hidalgo laid his head back down on the cold pillow. “Good night, sister.”

  When Lorenzo awoke, he prayed that Qhora had slept as well as he, and got up. He found the common room bustling with the morning rush. Half a dozen middle-aged men sat at the trestle table, quietly eating their porridge and drinking their tea. The hidalgo collected his own bowl of steaming gray mush from his host and said, “I’m heading up into the mountains today. Do you suppose you could ride with me to help me find the trails? We’d be back by nightfall, and I can pay you for your time.”

  The old man grinned. “I’d love to, young sir, but I’m afraid my riding and hiking days are behind me.” He reached down and knocked on his wooden leg. “Where exactly are you looking to go?”

  Lorenzo produced his journal from his jacket pocket and flipped to the page with the silk bookmark. He scanned the page. “Here. I want to take a look at the north face of Pic Blanco.”

  The old man frowned. “Pic Blanco. You want to look at the old silver mine? No one goes out there anymore. Not since they shoved that Mazigh demon into the mine.”

  “Demon?”

  “Steam drill. It was supposed to make us all rich. All it did was collapse one of the best silver veins in the area, and the only thing of value on Pic Blanco. But that was thirty years ago.”

  Lorenzo nodded. “So no one knows the area now?”

  The man shrugged. “Well, you could always ask the goblin queen.”

  A smattering of chuckles rose from the men eating their breakfast. Lorenzo glanced at them and then asked his host, “What do you mean, goblin queen?”

  “He means my sister,” said a voice behind him.

  The man winced. “Sorry, Nina, I didn’t know you were there.”

  Lorenzo turned to see a woman in the doorway about his own age dressed in heavy, dirty leathers. Her black hair was tied up in a careless bun to reveal a face that was no doubt quite beautiful before the years working underground had etched the lines around her eyes and mouth so deeply. The hidalgo stood up as she entered the room and he saw she was as tall as him, and when she tossed her coat on the bench to get her breakfast, he saw the muscles of her arms straining against her threadbare shirt.

  “Your sister?”

  “My little sister Mirari. She lives in the old silver mine, or what’s left of it. The number six shaft where the steam drill burst apart and collapsed the tunnel.”

  He moved closer to her and lowered his voice. “I don’t mean to pry, but why do they call her the goblin queen?”

  “It was a hard birth. Mirari’s head was too large and she almost didn’t make it out alive. Her ears were mangled and they healed badly.”

  “That’s all? She has misshapen ears?”

  “Well, that, and she’s not quite right in the head. Talks to herself.”

  Lorenzo chewed his lip. “I see. Well, maybe you can help me. You seem to know the area.”

  “Not especially,” Nina said. “I’ve never been past the silver mine, certainly not to the north face. Are you looking for another ore vein?”

  “Something like that. Then do you think your sister can help me?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Sure, Mirari’s the one you want. Don’t worry, she’s not dangerous. Just a little odd, that’s all, which was more than most folks around here could stand.”

  Lorenzo went back to the room to wake the others. He’d only meant to collect Alonso and tell the others where he was going, but they all got up, dressed, and ate breakfast with every intention of joining him.

  “You’ve already ruined my holiday and nearly killed me a dozen times,” Dante muttered to no one in particular. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to miss out on this treasure hunt of yours. It’ll probably be the only profitable thing about this whole disaster.”

  The miner woman introduced herself as Nina Velasquez, a prospector with three stakes on the east face of Pic Verde, where she would be returning in a few weeks when the weather began to warm. Shahera instantly struck up a conversation with her about life in the mountains, mining disasters, and the harsh winters in the Pyrenees.

  When everyone was ready to go, they followed Nina on foot along a thin winding track up into the hills above Yesero, quickly climbing into the rocky ravines where sheer cliff faces peered down at them from their snowy crags.

  “How did they ever get a steam drill up here?” Taziri asked.

  “In pieces,” Nina answered.

  The ravine widened into a small box canyon. A huge black hole in the north wall gaped at them, its stone jaws propped open by ancient frozen timbers set there decades ago by the first miners to strike the silver vein. From the mouth of the tunnel a thin trickle of bright water traced a meandering path across the stone floor and vanished into a crack on the far side of the gully.

  “Mirari!” Nina peered into the mine. Over her shoulder she said, “I hope she’s home.”

  Lorenzo frowned at the tunnel. What sort of person would choose to live in a cave? “Look, maybe this wasn’t a good idea. I do have an old map and I doubt this mountain has moved around much recently, so I think we’ll just find our own way.”

  A faint whisper of a voice echoed up from the tunnel. “Nina?”

  “It’s me,” Nina said. “I have some visitors for you.”

  “Visitors?”

  In the darkness of the mine, Lorenzo saw a shadow move. The figure shambled and tottered as it came forward to the edge of the light. The cold air caught in his throat.

  She has horns.

  Huge ram’s horns curled on either side of her head.

  Horns. Nina said mangled ears. She said ears, not horns. What in God’s name is going on?

  The figure stepped out into the light and the horns snapped into focus, as did the filthy sheepskin draped over the girl’s head. Lorenzo exhaled and blinked, and grinned his embarrassment away. A quick look at Alonso told him that he wasn’t on the one who had thought of the old fairy tales of iron imps and spirits in the earth.

  The girl stumbled out of the mine with a yawn and a stretch. “It’s so early.”

  “Morning’s half over.” Nina embraced her sister. “Are you eating all right?”

  Mirari nodded. “I found a sheep. He slipped on the rocks and fell. His belly burst when he landed. I ate him.”

  Nina nodded thoughtfully as she lifted the ragged skin and horns from the girl’s head. “I see that.”

  Mirari leaned around her sister’s shoulder to look at her visitors, and quickly hid behind Nina again. “They’ll see me. See my ears. Will they hit me?”

  “No, no, sweetie, they won’t hit you. They came to ask for your he
lp. They want to see your mountain.”

  Mirari peeked out again. “There’s a boy, Nina.”

  Nina glanced back. “What’s your name?”

  Alonso blinked. “Who me? Alonso. My name’s Alonso Ramos de Zaragoza. It’s very nice to meet you.”

  “His name is Alonso, and he’s a very nice boy, and he needs your help,” Nina said. “Can you help them? Just show them the paths and trails for a few hours, that’s all. Can you do that? They’ll pay you and then you can buy some food and new clothes.”

  “Can’t buy food, can’t buy clothes,” the girl stammered. “They hit me.”

  “Shh, never mind that, I’ll buy them for you. Will you help Alonso and his friends?”

  “No, he’ll see me!”

  Lorenzo sighed. “Miss Velasquez, I appreciate your trying to help, but we do need to be moving on.” He strode across the gravel floor of the gully toward the two sisters. “I give you my word as a hidalgo and as a faithful servant of God that no harm will come to you as long as you are with us.” He froze. Now standing only a few feet away, he could see the girl’s face clearly. Before he had thought the strange hue of her skin had been a trick of the light, a glint from the stone walls and gleaming ice. But it wasn’t a trick at all.

  She was silvery blue.

  “Her face,” he whispered.

  Nina looked at him. “She’s been drinking the water in the mine. I told her not to, but she did. Has been for years. It’s the silver in the water that dyes the skin.”

  The hidalgo nodded. He could see the twisted and pointed tip of the girl’s right ear, too, but that seemed the least of her strangeness.

  Still, what others have broken with cruelty maybe I can heal with a little kindness.

  He swept his wide-brimmed hat from his head and bowed. “Señorita Mirari, would you be so kind as to be my guide today on your mountain?”

  The silver-skinned girl straightened up a bit, her expression suddenly softer and her eyes clearer. She curtsied clumsily. “It would be my honor, sir.” But then she looked at Alonso again and turned back into a nervous little creature, her eyes fixed on the ground. “I don’t want him to see me. The pretty boy. He can’t see me. Can’t see my face. Not him. No, no.”

  Lorenzo blew out a hard sigh and looked from Nina to his own companions for some help.

  “Oh!” Shahera started forward and slung her shoulder bag down so she could dig through it. “I have it, I have just the thing!” She continued rummaging, shoving clothes left and right and then digging at the lining before finally pulling out a bright white mask with painted red lips and black-rimmed eyes. She held it out to the girl. “You could wear this. It’s Italian. Brand new.”

  Mirari hesitated only a second before taking the mask and inspecting it as she turned it over in her hands. She nodded. “Brand new. A brand new face. A pretty face. I can wear a pretty face for the pretty boy. Then it will be all right.”

  Lorenzo exchanged a look with Nina as the woman helped tie the mask over her sister’s face. She stepped back and said, “Are you all right?”

  Mirari straightened up again and said, louder and clearer than ever before, “By all means, let’s be off. These good people have work to do and I have a day’s wage to earn. Thank you, Nina, I’ll see you later. Take care, dear sister.”

  The sisters embraced and then Nina left, giving Lorenzo one last warning look as she passed. “Stay close to her.”

  “She’ll be fine,” he said.

  “I’m not worried about her.” Nina winked and set off down the trail.

  The masked girl said, “Mirari Velasquez, at your service. And you, sir?”

  “Don Lorenzo Quesada, at yours.”

  “Don Lorenzo, please follow me.” Mirari turned and set out along the edge of the wall of the gully and pointed out a natural stair in the stone. “We’ll follow the old goat trail to the high paths. Where exactly did you wish to go today?”

  Lorenzo looked at her masked face, still a bit stunned by her sudden transformation. “The north face of Pic Blanco. I’m looking for a certain cave or pit. We should know it by the heat in the rocks, as though from a hot spring, but not from a hot spring.”

  “You wish to see the burning gold?”

  He swallowed. “You’ve seen it?”

  “Just once. Just for a moment.” Mirari turned and began to climb the stair. “But then the basajaun chased me away and I never went back.”

  “The what?” Lorenzo started up the stair after her, not sure he had heard her correctly. “What chased you?”

  Chapter 23

  The wind screamed against the western face of Pic Blanco. Taziri shuffled along the narrow trail behind Lorenzo with one hand on the rocks to her right and the other hand clutching the high collar of her coat around her face. At first the wind would slice through her clothes, penetrating her heavy leathers and wools in defiance of all reason and stinging her skin with the freezing air or worse, the freezing rain. And then the wind would batter her like a ram, shoving her off balance and slamming her into the rock wall.

  She wore her aviator goggles over her eyes, which protected them from the stinging ice but required constant wiping and cleaning or else they would quickly fog up with steam and then crust over with frost.

  Whenever she passed into the lee of some stone pillar or blasted tree, Taziri would glance back at Shahera and Dante, each time finding them as miserable but as dogged as herself.

  Her mind ran over and over the last week, trying to sort out where everything had gone wrong.

  What was the first wrong decision? What could I have done differently?

  And every time she asked, she offered up a hundred new answers. It was Kenan’s fault, or the weather, or the Espani.

  I could have flown farther, or landed closer. I could have tried to force the Halcyon into a near-stall banking maneuver to force it to turn south.

  I could have gone south when Syfax first suggested it, or again later when he went that way with Kenan.

  I could have gone to the authorities.

  I could have gone back to the coast.

  Could have.

  Should have.

  No.

  She swallowed the guilt and doubt back down into her empty, growling stomach.

  No, I need to focus on here and now. I’m not stupid or careless. Every decision I made was reasonable at the time. Every one of them.

  But when she looked up at the masked figure leading them through the storm high into the Espani mountains, it was hard to see how any of this made sense.

  How is this reasonable?

  So she focused on Yuba and Menna. She called up their faces, their voices, their laughter. She remembered the last night they had all been together.

  No, not that night.

  Maybe another night from last month, a night when there had been no arguments about all her time away from home, no sullen looks, no hurt feelings, no loneliness or confusion. A good night. A quiet night at home with her family, safe and happy and warm.

  Ahead of her, Lorenzo had stopped and was staring back through the howling sleet at the trail behind them. He leaned down close to her to speak into her ear. “We’re being followed.”

  How is that possible?

  She peered back but all she saw was a dark gray sky and a dark gray mountain and a veil of flying ice in between. “I don’t see anything.”

  “I’ve seen him twice now. You go on with the others. I’ll bring up the rear.”

  “All right.” She trudged on up the trail, following the dark flapping coats of their masked guide. Mirari seemed to be in her element here on the mountain, sure-footed and able-bodied. The strange girl climbed the treacherous, icy paths as easily as any goat and occasionally she turned to call out in a loud clear voice where there was a good handhold or a dangerous footing.

  Another half hour of hiking brought them around to the north face of Pic Blanco. The stinging sleet softened into a heavy snow that fell in endless waves of perfect
whiteness, obscuring the entire world. She felt as though they’d died and gone to some no-place between heaven and earth, a frozen wasteland that God forgot to fill with color and warmth. And still Mirari trekked on and Taziri followed her, angling down the rocky slope.

  Taziri dragged her boots through the thickening snow, trying to ignore the thought that every step forward was another step they would have to take back again. She was also trying to ignore the thought that all of this effort was being spent to help a near stranger to collect a rock for his holy relic collection when her next step fell on hard, bare gravel. Looking down, she saw that all the ground ahead was bare. The snow was falling as thick and silent as ever, but the boulders and pebbles and dirt stood dark and hard against the soft white world around her.

  She trudged through a few yards of soft mud and soon found the earth growing drier and firmer underfoot. Behind her, Shahera and Dante stumbled out of the snow drift and clawed their scarves away from their mouths.

  “Did I miss something?” Dante asked. “Is it spring or did we just wander into an undiscovered circle of hell?”

  “It’s a miracle.” Shahera pulled her hat and scarves off her head and shook her hair free. “It’s like another world, a secret garden where magical spirits dwell.”

  The snow continued to fall but it vanished before it could kiss the warm earth. A sultry haze hung above the dry ground. Mirari stopped and pointed down the slope. “There. If you keep going that way, you’ll find the fire gold.”

  Taziri glanced back for Lorenzo, but the hidalgo had not yet arrived. “How will I know it? What does it look like?”

  “It’s gold. About the size of your head, I would say.” The Italian mask muffled her voice slightly, but Mirari’s wide eyes flashed behind the porcelain face. “You don’t have an axe.”

  “You think we’ll need one to get the stone?”

  Mirari’s eyes narrowed but her painted smile did not change. “I think you’ll need one to survive.”

  “Why?” Taziri looked hastily around but there was no sign of anyone or anything dangerous. No trees or grass, no birds or mice. Just earth and stone. What was that word she used? “What is a basajaun?”