The Seventh World Trilogy omnibus

by Rachel Starr Thomson

  “Aye,” Lord Robert said, “but she’s the one they want.” His voice dropped too low for anyone to hear. “I’d give anything to know why.”

  Lord Robert’s eyes scanned the harbour, looking over the heads of the crowd to the boats moored on the docks. A little fishing boat humbly bobbed on the water, barely noticeable in the midst of larger ships. It was tiny and, from all appearances, ancient, but it looked seaworthy.

  “Come,” Lord Robert said, and led the way to the tiny boat. Pat and Mrs. Cook looked it over dubiously, but the nearness of the High Police choked their protests.

  Lord Robert climbed aboard and held out his hand for Virginia. She took it and made the guided leap from the dock to the boat, her heart only in her throat a little. Lord Robert helped her sit near the back of the tiny craft. Next, Mrs. Cook jumped for the boat, gasping through clenched teeth as it rocked underneath her. Pat knelt on the dock and untied the thick knot that held the boat to the shore. In a moment she stood and jumped in, the rope in her hands.

  Lord Robert grabbed the oars and began to steer the drifting boat away from the harbour. Waves lapped gently against its sides, and Mrs. Cook held on tightly. Pat dug around beneath the front seat and came up with a small spyglass, some maps, and a waterproof wooden box full of hard tack and tobacco. A fishing net, wet and tangled, lay at Virginia’s feet.

  Pat put the glass to her eye and stood up, surefooted even on the waves, looking back at the harbour.

  “Black-and-Greens everywhere,” she commented. “It doesn’t look like they’re onto us.”

  She turned, looked out to sea, and whistled. “Black clouds rolling in. Methinks we’re in for a rough ride.”

  “You don’t need the spyglass to see that,” Lord Robert said.

  Pat put the glass down and saw that clouds were quickly blocking out the sun that had felt so warm in the harbour. The wind was picking up, and the water was white with choppy waves. Mrs. Cook’s face was pale. Virginia sat beside her, facing the wind with implacable courage. For a moment Pat wondered if Virginia was unaware of what was happening, but the changing temperature and motion of the water had told the blind girl all she needed to know.

  No one suggested that they turn back.

  The storm held off for hours, until Daren was nothing but a fading vision of white cliffs behind them. Then lightning streaked a path down to the sea, and deafening thunder tumbled after it. Rain lashed the craft and its inhabitants furiously. The waves stirred as though a giant beneath them had awakened.

  The oars were useless against the crushing force of the water, and Lord Robert struggled to pull them into the boat. A cracking, splintering sound met his efforts, and the remains of the oars came suddenly up out of the water, jagged ends outlined in a flash of lightning.

  A huge wave rushed violently down over their heads, and filled the little boat with water. Pat grabbed the wooden box and dumped the contents overboard, struggling to keep her balance as the boat bucked and tossed beneath her. The water was up to their ankles and cold enough to steal their breath away, and Pat bailed furiously. Mrs. Cook joined in, bailing with her cupped hands.

  Again and again the wind and waves and rain battered the tiny boat, while its inhabitants bailed stubbornly and furiously. Only Virginia was calm. She sat in the back of the boat and looked up, unmoved, while her face met the onslaught of the rain without fear. She neither helped nor hindered the efforts of the others, and to them she seemed not to belong to them—to be a creature of the air.

  As the numbing cold and painful lashing of the water drained the strength from those who tried to fight it, a great stillness overtook Virginia. No hint of expression passed over her face, and even the sea around her calmed. Pat wiped her hair out of her eyes and stared at the strange young woman, whose very calmness seemed to take the fury out of the storm.

  “Look!” Virginia commanded suddenly, and the three ceased working against the water and raised their eyes to the sky.

  They were surrounded by an army of beautiful giants.

  In the blackness of the clouds warriors and horses waited, wearing golden armour and cloaks of deep scarlet and forest green. They stood facing the wind, and their horses stamped impatiently. The air was filled with the sounds of swords swinging, harnesses jangling, and hooves stamping. The wind made the white manes of the horses and the long hair of the warriors stream out behind them. For a moment only, even the earthy smells of the creatures reached the sailors in the tiny boat.

  And then it was gone.

  Lord Robert looked away from the sky and at Virginia with wild eyes. He had seen it. It was real. She had opened the Otherworld to him at last.

  The rain continued to fall, but it did not chill them as it had before. The wind died down and the waves that had beaten the boat now caressed it, and carried the little craft through the water to Galce.

  The sun was setting fiery orange over the water when the fishing boat scraped against the sands of the continent. Lord Robert and Pat jumped into the surf and pulled the boat to shore, where they helped Mrs. Cook and Virginia out. The setting sun brought the changing colours of the forest to blazing, brilliant life. Somewhere deep in the trees, a bird was singing.

  Virginia shivered with the cold, fully human again, as water dripped from her skirts onto the sand. Mrs. Cook moved close and put her arms around her. Virginia leaned her head on Mrs. Cook’s shoulder, and they stood in silence. Lord Robert let the fading warmth of the sun play on his neck and bare head, and he sighed low. He gazed a moment at Virginia, but she did not seem aware of his presence.

  “Where do we go from here?” Mrs. Cook asked finally

  The question brought Lord Robert back to himself. He looked around at the sandy shore. His eyes fell on a tall white stone that rose from the water out in the channel, the sun causing it to shine like a strange moon rising from the depths.

  “I know this place,” the laird announced. He pointed out at the stone. “That’s the Giant’s Tooth. I came here often as a child. We’re not ten miles from Calai.”

  “Which way?” Pat asked.

  Lord Robert started off briskly. “This way, I’m nearly certain of it! We haven’t got time to waste, now come on.”

  They started to walk, but Virginia suddenly stumbled and nearly fell to the sand. Mrs. Cook held her up, and cast a wrathful glance at the two who led the way.

  “She can’t walk all that way now, and though I don’t like to complain, neither can I,” she said. “You two can march on if you like, but we’re resting here.”

  Lord Robert bowed his head, and Pat threw herself down on the sand next to Mrs. Cook, stretching out with a long sigh.

  “I’m sorry,” Lord Robert said. “Of course a rest is needed.”

  Virginia lay down on the sand, and Lord Robert came and sat by her head. He reached out to touch her, but she flinched and moved away. He drew his hand back as though it had been bitten.

  No one else had seen, but Lord Robert felt the rejection keenly. Not for the first time, he wondered darkly what it was that had sent the High Police after Virginia Ramsey.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  A World in Turmoil

  Tonight the moon burns red. I have seen it thus before: in the days of the Great War, the anger of the heavens burned in her face. Such a world she looks down on must kindle great wrath! Evil walks among men, though the Blackness itself is kept away behind the Veil.

  It is a great mystery, the Veil. I will tell the tale of it, for it is a thing of mourning and of wonder.

  There once walked among us a race of beings called the Shearim, the Fairest of Creation. In them was great wisdom, great beauty, and great strength. They took what shapes they wished and moved about clothed with the forms of men and women and children. Men sometimes called them the Virtues, for they took names to themselves after those qualities which men most honoured and revered: Justice and Wisdom, Harmony, Innocence, Hope, and Beauty. The child-hearts among the Shearim were called Merr
iment, Laughter, and Melody.

  Some kept to themselves, but many were dear to men, for they would often come among them, easing burdens with their touch and filling hearts with their laughter and strength. It was sometimes said that those who had been with the Shearim would afterwards glow as if they had touched the sun.

  When the Blackness began to grow in the Seventh World, the Shearim first sought to hold it off by exerting their influence for the good, but it was to no avail. At last the Shearim, in their own way, became warriors, and they battled the creatures of shadow before even the Great War. Those were days of grief and hardship for the Fairest of Creation, for the Blackness was cruel and ruthless, and loved to torment its enemies.

  In the end, men became allied with the Blackness and went to war against the King and his army. In those days the Great War began, as men and shadow fought against the Earth Brethren and the few remaining faithful of men. But this was a clash in which the Shearim did not take part, for they were bound by their own law, and could not take up weapons against men. They watched, and moved among the wounded and dying, and ministered to them as best they could. It is said that the Eldest Seven stayed by the King and served him. But in the end even their ministrations were to no avail, for the King’s heart was broken and he went into exile.

  It was then that the love of the Shearim for all creation became fully manifested. With the King gone and the Blackness growing, the Fairest of Creation, weeping for all that had come to pass, saw that there was one last thing they could do to save the rebellious ones. They joined themselves together and called upon the power of their law to undo them. While the raging Blackness watched, the life-force of the Shearim was woven together into a new thing: an impenetrable Veil, a living division between the Blackness and men.

  And so the Blackness was for a time thwarted, and the children of men were left free to build their own world, and someday, perhaps, to reach out for the King again. For this slender chance of redemption the Shearim gave themselves.

  But now they are gone from creation forever and always, for the Veil must one day be destroyed, and the makers of it can never be re-made themselves. They sacrificed themselves to defeat the Blackness and to save men, and the world will ever weep for them.

  O Children of Men, will you only be dry-eyed in the face of this thing? You for whom it was done, you for whom all was sacrificed—will you not weep?

  * * *

  Virginia lay on the beach sands, listening to the gentle thunder of waves on the shore blend with the soft sound of snoring. Her clothes had dried to an uncomfortable damp. The wet sand felt warm under her body. The air around her was cold, and she knew that the sun had gone down. In the forest, insects were chirping.

  A breeze blew through her hair and died away. A sudden unease gripped her, and she raised herself up on her hands and sat with her head cocked, listening.

  Once again the air stirred around her, and this time she felt as though fingers were reaching for her through the wind. She flinched at the touch of the breeze, and suddenly a blinding flash of colour—purple and red and living, pulsing blackness—shot through her eyes. For an instant she could see two eyes in a shadowed face, staring at her. She looked back, unable to tear her eyes away, and then it was gone. There was nothing but the gentle rhythm of the sea against the sands.

  Something had found her. She could not hide much longer.

  * * *

  The walk into Calai should have been miserable, as the little company staggered along on storm-battered muscles. But something about the day lightened both their steps and their moods. Sun diamonds sparkled and flashed on the water, and the seabirds shouted glad tidings to the white clouds. Mrs. Cook and Pat fell to talking, catching up on each other’s lives since they had parted a few months before.

  Lord Robert walked with his hands in his pockets, his mind filled with the memory of the vision in the storm, and with wonderings and thoughts of the future that waited in Pravik. Only Virginia, walking by the laird’s side, seemed unaffected by the cheerfulness of the day. She was silent and shadowed, every step taken with grim determination.

  There was no sign of the High Police in Calai. Lord Robert hailed a cab, and before the heat of mid-afternoon had begun to beat down, the foursome were resting comfortably on an iron train bound for Pravik. They rode in a private compartment, with red velvet seats and windows, faintly etched with dragons and serpents, that looked out on the country as it passed.

  That night, Lord Robert sat with his chin in his hand, gazing at the curved moon that stood watch high above the black trees. Moonlight caused the swirling patterns etched in the glass windows to sparkle, snake scales shining in crystal. Pat slept beside him, her head resting against the wall. She had pulled her legs up on the seat, and lay curled up like a cat.

  In the seat across from them, Mrs. Cook was snoring softly. Virginia was wide awake.

  Lord Robert listened to the rhythmic clacking of the train wheels as the car rocked gently back and forth, rushing through the forest. He imagined himself in a study in Pravik, pouring over the contents of the mysterious scroll with Jarin Huss, just as in the days of the council. For so long he had sought the Otherworld, only to find every door closed to him. Now windows such as he would never have imagined were flinging themselves open at every turn, and the Otherworld was seeking him again. Seeking him through Virginia. Her nearness to him made his pulse quicken with the awareness of the other side of reality, and he felt a determination to make her open up to him. He knew that he did not have her confidence—her trust—but he meant to win it. She held the key to the worlds unseen, and she must open them to him someday.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Virginia’s voice. “Laird?” she asked.

  He turned away from the moon to face her. “What is it?” he asked.

  “You saw, didn’t you?” she asked. “All of you—you saw the riders.”

  “Yes,” the laird said, sitting forward. “We saw them. I have waited all my life to see such a sight.”

  “And I have seen such things for as long as I can remember,” Virginia said. “But I have never desired to. The visions come without my wish or command, and they fill me with joy or horror as they will.”

  “As a young man I would have given anything to see as you do,” Lord Robert said. “The powers of the Otherworld did not grant me such a gift. Only, here and there, they would seek me out. They would give me a hint in one place and a whisper in another, always tantalizing, always calling me to come farther. But I had no stepping stones to reach them.”

  “You speak as though the Otherworld had a human spirit,” Virginia said.

  “Perhaps it does, or more than one,” Lord Robert said, carefully. He was baiting her; waiting for her to tell him the things she had always kept hidden.

  “You should be careful,” was all Virginia said, “whose call you answer.”

  “Are you worried about me?” he asked, and said, without waiting for an answer, “You don’t need to be. I can take care of myself.”

  “So says every man, before he is lost,” said Virginia. “I do fear for you. I have seen you, sometimes, and there is a great black cloud around you that whispers and calls to you. And a woman.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lord Robert said, suddenly irritated. “I suppose everyone has a ‘cloud’ at times, of emotion of one sort or another. And what do you mean, a woman?”

  “A woman who occupies your thoughts and your longings,” Virginia said. “I have seen her in your memories.”

  Lord Robert laughed a short, humorless laugh and said, “It’s just this sort of thing that makes the villagers hate you.”

  “I know,” Virginia answered, and said nothing more. Lord Robert silently chided himself. He had let something slip through his fingers, he was sure of it. After a while he turned to apologize, feeling sincerely guilty for his words—but Virginia was asleep.

  The laird did not sleep well that night.


  * * *

  Dusk had fallen when Nicolas and Maggie rode into the city of Pravik and wound their way through the narrow streets. The black waters of the Vltava River cut through a ravine in the center of the city, dividing level streets from those that rose up the sides of a high plateau, crowned by the dark aspect of Pravik Castle. Fifteen bridges spanned the river, their lamps glinting off the water far below. The dark shapes of mountains and foothills stood sentinel beyond the city.

  The streets were still and empty, and the step of the horses beat hollowly on the cobblestones. The air was uneasy; it whispered in Nicolas’s ears and twitched in the horses’ tails. Maggie leaned over and stroked Nancy’s neck just before they stepped onto the Guardian Bridge, a silent archway lined with white marble statues.

  Nicolas pointed up the steep hill on the other side of the bridge, to the place high on the plateau where torchlight glistened and the milling silhouettes of a body of people could just be made out.

  “That’s Pravik Castle,” he said. “Looks like something’s happening up there.”

  Maggie squinted into the darkness at the shadowy bulk of the castle. Nancy stamped nervously, and Nicolas said, “Let’s go see. Come on!”

  Maggie followed Nicolas onto the bridge, where the strange white figures held out their hands in silent pleas. The lamplight on the bridge flickered off the statues’ empty eyes and lit the sides of the ravine, carved deep and narrow by centuries of water. Halfway across the bridge, the sounds of unrest from the crowd around the castle began to mingle with the rushing spray of the river. Nicolas spurred his horse on faster.

  They rode up the streets until they reached the edge of the crowd. There were hundreds of men gathered around the gates of the castle: merchants and university students, chimney sweeps and lamplighters. They carried weapons, such as they had. On the other side of the gates, half-hidden by the shadows, stood row after row of High Police, the ends of their spears shining in the torchlight. Their swords, long and sharp, rested in black scabbards. The soldiers were as silent and unmoving as the statues on the bridge, but their eyes glistened with threats.