The ovum skim that drools down the stream vein
Where the lake’s green glistening sac had burst,
Like tears at birth it clings to everything at first.
How heat has flayed its delicate underbelly
And purged the yolk-spine legs to dangle free
Down they glide, spreading wide like limbs in the breeze.
A sudden blink and he can see the handwritten lines behind his closed lids. So long ago—and yet it has not yet been written. Or has it? He tries to trace the circle back to find the beginning. The lake’s birthplace—the seed of an idea for writing —his own beginning, or ending.
As Vincale turns his horse into another clearing, steering the company quickly across, Loche notes that William is correct: the land underfoot is solid. The marshy floods have not yet drowned the land here.
Loche has let Edwin hold the reins of their horse for most of the morning ride. Beside rides Julia. She has not spoken since they left the cave. Ahead, just behind Vincale, is Lornensha. William and Corey follow at the rear.
“Are you all right, Julia?” Loche asks.
After a moment, Julia purses her lips. She answers, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Loche says, “Wait.” He takes hold of the leather rein and pulls the horse to a stop. Surprise surges through him. He tries to maintain a composed expression, for what is about to happen next is something either out of character to his conservative nature, or simply beyond his ability to imagine himself doing—or both. He is self conscious but earnest and he feels his lips try to restrain a smile. He lowers himself from his horse, lifts Edwin and carries the boy back to William. William happily takes the boy, settles him in the saddle before him and hands the reins over. Only a shadow of the Rathinalya can be seen wrestling in the corners of William’s expression as he watches Loche curiously. Loche returns to his horse, ties it to a loop upon Julia’s saddle and then stands beside her and looks up. After a moment he asks in a whisper, “May I ride with you?”
Julia smiles.
He whispers again, “I think the chance of riding on horseback with you in the year 1010 on the medieval shores of Upper Priest Lake is an opportunity, exquisitely rare.”
Julia’s smile widens. He hears a good natured chuckle from Corey.
“I mean,” Loche says, “I know it may seem to be a little outside of my heroic reach, but I would…”
“Get up here,” Julia orders, sliding forward to make room. Loche pulls himself up and straddles the horse behind her. She leans back into him as he coils one arm around her waist and pulls her close. He can smell salt on her skin. With his other hand he threads back her long hair exposing her neck and he touches his cheek to hers. He gently nudges the horse forward and the company again falls in behind Vincale.
They do not speak. Loche closes his eyes and feels the heat of her skin. She wraps an arm over his and squeezes. A moment later, Loche turns and touches his lips to the slope of her cheek, to her ear, to the corner of her eye. He inhales her. Her fingernails gently dig into the back of his hand.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know,” she whispers.
“Nor do I,” Loche whispers back. He rests his forehead upon her shoulder. Exhaustion, fear and terrible confusion wrestle. “I am sorry, Julia. Sorry for everything.”
Their bodies sway as the horse climbs onto higher ground.
“Where is Basil?” she asks quietly. “And why did he want me to come here?” Loche does not answer. “If we find him, I’m going to punch him in the gut.” Loche wants to offer a pained laugh. But he cannot. Instead he focuses on the next set of coming heartbeats—the next breath. “I don’t know how much more I can handle…”
“I wish I knew how to answer you,” Loche whispers finally. “I can only assume that his message to you and our encounter within the portrait are linked.” He sighs deeply and gestures to the indigo green surrounding them, “There is something here that will stop what’s begun. He knows that we need his help. That much I shared with him.”
“Loche,” her hushed voice barely audible, “do you think he wanted us to come here to change the past? Change the past to make an alternate future?”
Of course the thought had occurred to Loche. How could it not? Even as Corey has so thoughtfully put forth—We cannot alter what is to come—Loche’s mind has rehearsed and chased down through a few of the potential rabbit holes to where such altering might lead. But he’s found little to ease him. Whether it is the violent and dark conditions of his current place in existence, the brief periods he has had to puzzle over it, or the simple fact that his human brain cannot fathom infinity, his meanderings through cause and effect and the thorny way of fate and self determination have all arrived at yet another opening in the earth where rabbits disappear. A feedback loop. A snake eating its tail. What if, begins each attempt. He then arrives again at what if. He feels certain, however, that he and his companions could change the future. But what is mind-boggling are the varied repercussions of which nothing could be authored or controlled.
Or could it?
Blood throbs achingly against his temples. Too much, he thinks, too much. Chicken or the egg? Did Basil want Loche to come here to seed a future that will prevent The Journal? To remove Loche, the seeming author of all, out of his own story? Or is there some other force at work?
He filters through the time travel stories he knows, books and movies: The Time Machine, Somewhere In Time, Back To The Future, Slaughterhouse-Five—this list goes on. None of them offer any comfort or help. Though their time travel storytelling conventions seem plausible, his gut tells him, as does the cold medieval air, the bloodlust of their enemies seeking to capture and torture, and the terror of not being able to protect his son against any of it, this story is not that simple. This is not a movie. This is not a book.
What if he dies here? Will he be born again nearly a millennia later, or disappear from existence? What if he somehow manages to save the city of Wyn Avuqua from its prophesied destruction? Will the immortals carry on and keep the balance of this Old Law, as it’s called? If he is to share what he knows with the Wyn Avuquains about what Albion Ravistelle will do in the future, will they pursue him, cleave his head from his body to stop the invasion of heaven? Will they succeed in the assassination attempt of Basil Fenn and Loche Newirth? Will they kill Loche’s father William Greenhame as a boy? Will they kill William’s mother Geraldine of Leaves or Lornensha to nip the bud even closer—quicker?
Or will nothing stop the masterwork of Thi’s story? Will what is to happen, happen? Will this little blue world whirl on its spindle in the dark just as it did the moment it was hurled into its gyre—the burning stars looking on? Nothing to stop it arcing along its circle? Nothing to alter its ending where it started? What if there is nothing to stop it from feeding upon its own tail?
What if. What if. What if…
Julia says, “You all right, Loche?”
He turns to catch a glimpse of Edwin. The little boy is leaning back into William. His face stares up into the stony sky.
“I don’t know,” Loche answers.
Fausto’s Web
November 12, this year
Venice, Italy
6:15 am CEST
Astrid’s author photograph is tacked up high on Fausto’s wall, just below a torn page from a newspaper—its headline reads, What Really Happened At Ravistelle’s Uffizi Art Showing. Magazine articles, Post-It notes, lines of yarn connecting photos, places, dates and lists of questions create a webbed wall matrix of conjecture. Many of the faces in the photos are not familiar. There are a few, however, that scrape chills along her shoulders and arms: Albion Ravistelle, Basil Fenn, Marcus Rearden, and Professor Molmer. And a drawn square without a picture has a handwritten caption, Loche Newirth or Aethur?
“What the fuck?” Marcel says.
“As I said, I never met him,” Fausto tells them. “But over the last few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and getting
to know an American with a rather close connection to Dr. Newirth —and to all of this.”
“Who might that be?” Astrid asks, her eyes still tracing the pattern of Fausto’s conspiratorial collage.
“Basil Fenn’s stepfather, Howard Fenn.” Fausto’s index finger points to a picture of a kind-faced man in his late sixties, early seventies. He is seated in a wheelchair. “After the horrible Uffizi event, Howard Fenn has remained here in Venice. He is now enfolded into Albion’s household. His knowledge has assisted in all of this,” he gestures to the web on his wall.
“Albion hasn’t shared—”
“No!” Fausto raises his hands. “No, Albion will not answer any of my questions. He tells me not to meddle in things beyond my mortal facility. He knows nothing of my private investigation.” He then begins to wring his hands, “I shiver to think of what he would do if he knew how much I’ve meddled.”
After a long pause, Fausto says, “I was there. Albion did not know I was there, but I was there. At the Uffizi. It was no terrorist attack! Nothing of the sort. What happened was beyond rational explanation. Young Mr. Fenn… Mr. Fenn shot himself in the head—just before he told everyone his paintings were not of this world. He said the paintings were dangerous. When he raised the gun, I could not bear to watch. I looked away. Then something… something happened. Nearly everyone in the gallery was struck by some kind of trance—a strange light—like smoke—like string—like a spider’s web reached to them from the stage. I was afraid to look.” Fausto points to three sketches he has drawn of his experience. “Then Basil’s paintings, all of them covered by black shrouds, were being stolen. Men and women with swords appeared—they fought over the paintings.” Fausto shudders. “I have never seen such things save in movies.” He points to a photograph of Albion Ravistelle, “Albion appeared with sword in hand… my friend, Albion. And he was face to face with a young man with an umbrella. It was Dr. Loche Newirth. The two dueled—Dr. Newirth killed two men himself, escaped to the stage and then disappeared as the melee ended.” The mask maker fixes Astrid with a pleading look, “After all you’ve studied, you must know, by now, Dr. Loche Newirth is the Poet. And his brother, Basil Fenn, is the Painter. The Prophesy—the Prophesy.”
Yafarra’s voice calling for Aethur enters Astrid’s ears. Then Dr. Rearden’s words through the headphones on the helicopter, “Dr. Newirth is an authority on Wyn Avuqua.” A battered spiral red notebook encased within an ancient tomb flashes in the torchlight beneath the stones of Tiris Avu. And now, of course, the connection to the artist Basil Fenn…
“Of course,” Marcel says. “Of course! Or, at least, the fucking craziness seems to align with more fucking craziness.”
Astrid asks, “Why were the paintings hidden? You said they were covered.”
Fausto shrugs. “All I know is that Mr. Fenn said they were dangerous.”
“Where are the paintings now?” Astrid asks.
The old man points to the North. “Albion Ravistelle has them.”
Astrid tries to remember when she first heard or read about the reports of a terrorist attack at the Uffizi in Florence. The stories were filled with the usual cast of characters, weapons and senseless violence. The gallery showing was attended by celebrities, politicians and world leaders. There was little, if anything, reported about the actual art. Though there was the peculiar rumor that young Basil Fenn’s art had never been seen before. There was no mention of his death except in articles similar to the ones tacked to Fausto’s wall—articles written by fringe journalists. What truly happened there appears to have been covered up. But why?
As if in answer to Astrid’s question, Fausto says, “Albion had plans to show the paintings to all of those important people. Instead, the audience watched a suicide… and something else… The attention and story in the media wasn’t something Albion wanted, that is why he and his people spun the news to say it was some terrorist thing. But this next event is private. At his own residence.”
“Private?” Marcel asks.
“Yes. To accomplish what he failed to accomplish at the Uffizi. This time with much more security and control. Even the attendees will leave their identities at home.”
“How do you know this?” Astrid asks.
“I am the Mask Maker. In the last few days I have been asked to make many masks for many important people. They are all attending this private ball. They are attending as masked revelers. In secret.” He shivers, “Something sinister disguised as something festive. A mask upon a mask…”
“What do you think Albion means to accomplish, Fausto?” Astrid asks.
The old face grays. He whispers, “I do not know. I do not know—but the paintings are dangerous. Very dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Marcel says.
“Howard Fenn has explained that Basil’s paintings—the Painter’s work will change everything—life, death, Heaven, Hell, the place beyond…” His whisper trails off into a series of fearful gasps for air.
“And Mr. Ravistelle plans to share these paintings at this masquerade ball he’s hosting?”
Fausto nods.
Astrid turns to a nearby easy chair and lowers herself onto it. A gloomy rain taps at the window. A wave of exhaustion covers over her like a heavy blanket. The weight of myth, belief, art, murder, prophecy. Somehow, Graham Cremo’s tall, lanky shape enters her thoughts. Is he recovering? Is he okay? What would he have to say about all of this? she thinks.
Fausto’s voice shakes her out of a stupor. “Professor Astrid Finnley—I have questions, too. Tell me, if you will—how did you get wrapped up in all of this? How did you find an omvide to bring you here? Why have you come? Do you realize the danger you are in?”
The old man’s concerned face is smiling. His eyes are curved like half moons. His hair shines white in the dim light from the window. She hears the questions but cannot find the right words.
“Wyn Avuqua has been discovered,” Marcel tells the old man—answering for Astrid’s blank expression. He then recounts their day, carefully braiding both of their timelines together. His Italian is strained but effective. Fausto’s expression twists from shock to anger, joy to disappointment, wonder to fear. Astrid’s attention strays from the conversation to the droplets of water streaming down the window. Thick clouds of confusion crowd her thoughts. Wyn Avuqua, she thinks, means, tear from Heaven. Aethur means, new earth. Thi thia means, I love you.
Graham. Graham Cremo.
“So it is as I expected,” Fausto says after Marcel’s story ends. “You are in danger and pursued. You are here seeking what I seek. The answers we all seek. Has the time come for the mask of myth to be removed and the truth to be revealed?”
Fausto kneels down beside Astrid.
“You must be grateful and excited to know that all of your work will soon be exalted, venerated and established as fact. After all the criticism, all the hardship you’ve endured to bring these things to light.”
The mythology professor from Whitworth College feels tears begin to burn. She only hears his Italian words—too weary to translate further.
Kindly, Fausto says, “O’ chiu’ bello d’ ‘a vita e’ ‘o durmi.” It means the best thing about life is sleeping.
She swoons. Shtan means godsight. Shivcy means, fear. Thi thia means, I love you.
“Enough for now,” the mask maker says, his hand gently squeezes her upper arm, “rest now. I will wake you well before Albion visits. Rest now. You are safe.”
Sicuro means, safe. Nesh means, safe.
Astrid’s body leans back into the chair. Before she falls asleep she feels a soft and heavy blanket cover over her, like a pall—like a shroud over a painting.
The Shape of Rain
1010 A.D.
The Realm of Wyn Avuqua
Loche remembers Julia’s words, awestruck and crushed into a monotone muttering, “Is this what your eyes saw?”
She said it just after the company had navigated through a seemingly impenetrable wall of trees a
nd they threaded out into the open air. She said it when massive blocks of ivory hued stone rose from out of the green turf before them—the battlements, the high, coiling green and gold pennants of Wyn Avuqua’s outer walls. She said it just the western gate opened and a small company on horseback, their helms and spear tips gleaming like grey sparks, exploded out to meet them. Now, longing horn notes wind in the gloaming.
Vincale turns his mount to Loche and the others and announces, “Behold, Wyn Avuqua, City of the Itonalya!” His gaze halts upon Edwin, “We are the Guardians of the Dream.”
In Loche’s periphery, Corey rides forward and stops. William, with Edwin before him, does the same. The two immortals do not speak. They are still. Sculptures, Loche thinks. Both appear to breathe the sight, or perhaps their gazes are questioning whether what they are seeing is truly there.
As if in answer to the ringing horn note on the wind, Corey’s voice sounds out a quiet, sorrowful melody:
A Wyn Avuqua
Endale che
Thi col orathom
Tiris liflarin thi avusht
Lithion nuk te lirych
The sound of the Elliqui words braid meaning in Loche’s head:
Oh, Wyn Avuqua
The pearl of Earth
Our only paradise
I see your towers in flame
The hand of God bears the torch
The Shape of Rain Page 27
