Iástron
Page 46
As she wiped away a tear, a hand tenderly clutched her shoulder. She turned to look at the grave face of Callista. ‘Come with me,’ she whispered, and led Anna over to the small blue seat in the corner. Callista sat close and took her student’s hand. ‘I don’t know half of what you’ve been through,’ she said. ‘We have much to speak about. But that will all, for the moment, have to wait. Now I must at last tell you the truth, Anna.’
‘What is it?’
‘I finished translating the silver journal.’
‘Did you read it?’
‘Yes, but don’t make me tell you what it said . . . not yet.’
‘All right, Callista.’
‘We’re going home, child. But to what, I do not know. Something has happened. I need my people more than ever.’
Anna grasped the old woman’s hand. ‘What it is?’
‘I don’t know for sure. In our absence your uncle, it seems, has raced into what I believe to be a trap.’
‘A trap? Set by whom?’
‘Somebody I believed to be dead. A young boy, scared and angry, now an old man, bitter and powerful. Edgar Mokrikov’s diary explains it all. I thought I was the last one.’
‘But you’re not?’
Callista looked at her carefully. ‘No, Anna. Not anymore.’
‘Callista, I—’
‘Our lives are littered with golden moments,’ she whispered, looking into Anna’s eyes, her own filled with tears. ‘This will be one. Close your eyes.’
She did so, breathing out slowly.
‘Now imagine something for me,’ the old woman said. ‘Don’t think too much. Don’t allow your mind to wander. Simply close your eyes. Now conjure the image of a corridor in your mind’s eye . . . it is long, bare, straight, and narrow. There’s only silence and the lights flicker, offering split seconds of alternating vision and dreaded darkness. You see this image?’
She nodded.
‘Good. Ahead you suddenly see something move. It is a dark creature so utterly terrifying that your blood freezes and your . . . your heart turns to stone. It races towards you faster than you can run away, carrying a shrieking hiss which freezes you in your place.’
Anna shuddered at the thought, at the memory, but held her eyes closed, her mind focused.
‘You now have but three choices: to turn and run back down the passage you came from, or to take one of the unknown paths leading off to either side. Or else you can charge straight ahead at the creature, at the beast, and hope beyond all hope that it is that which flees first. The choice, Anna, is yours alone.’
Anna looked down at the ground, and the words she spoke next came to her from within; and she found that she did not even have to think about the answer. It was already there.
‘I run nowhere,’ she said. ‘I defeat that fear by standing firm, and realising that the beast in front of me . . . is the one in my mind. There was never any tunnel that could lead me to safety.’ She opened her eyes and looked at Callista, who also opened hers. She smiled, tears running down the curves of her ancient face. ‘I can’t run from my dreams. I just need to listen to the guidance they give me.’
And in the end Anna saw the truth of it: she had been so afraid of being trapped on Titan all her life that when she finally realised her true fear, to lose her little sister and never return home, her mistakes seemed so clear. And because of that, though she knew not what was to come, her heart told her she could face it.
‘Good,’ Callista said, smiling. ‘Now you’re ready.’
Anna gazed into the old woman’s glistening eyes. ‘Ready for what?’
‘My child,’ she said, ‘to become a Iástron.’
‘What? How?’
‘You too have an echo.’
‘What? I can’t. I didn’t touch Peter.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘but he touched you.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You, along with everyone else, assume that to be touched by Peter Marx means only to connect physically. But the truth is a secret of which very few are aware. For that was how I received my echo from that wonderful man.’
‘How?’
Callista smiled with a warmth deeper than anything Anna had ever seen in her. ‘You cried for Peter,’ she said. ‘You shed genuine tears, not through guilt or regret, but love. Something more powerful than any gift you could ever receive. And now, Anna, after all that has befallen us, after all that you have seen and done, I sense his echo . . . his gift . . . his light . . . in you.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Dunn is a freelance writer and author of the Gilaxiad Series. He lives in Manchester, UK, where he spends a good deal of his time reading, writing, daydreaming, and describing himself in the third person. Inspired by writers such as Conan Doyle, Tolkien, Asimov, and Crichton, he hopes to continue writing for as long as he can grasp a pen, and further still.
You can contact James at gilaxiad@gmail.com.
NOW AVAILABLE:
The Gilaxiad Series
Iástron (Volume I of the Gilaxiad)
Vontaura (Volume II of the Gilaxiad)
COMING 2014:
Masterium (Volume III of the Gilaxiad)