Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales)

by Freda Warrington

  The lathe was loud in the silence. She flicked it off and stood listening to the noises that the museum made at night. Pops and creaks and groans. Modernization was only a skin of plasterboard and paint; beneath, the old fabric of the building shifted, contracting as the night grew colder. Stevie wasn’t the only one to have seen the ghostly forms of Mr. Salter or Mr. Soames treading the corridors.

  “Anyone there?” she called out.

  She listened for a response. Once or twice, visitors had almost been locked in, either because they were in the restroom, or nosing where they shouldn’t be. No answer. Stevie had already checked. She refused to give in to her OCD tendencies and check again. She shook the bunch of keys in her hand, selecting the one she would need to lock the back door.

  Something seized her from behind.

  Powerful arms went round her, a hand groping to cover her mouth. It smelled bad, like iron or blood. By reflex she began to struggle with frenzied strength. She felt the flesh of her attacker’s hand against her lips and she bit down. He gave a growl of shocked pain.

  Stevie broke loose. Then a weight cracked onto her skull, and she hit the floor in a storm of black stars.

  7

  Avenue of Beautiful Secrets

  That evening, Rufus and Aurata took a slow walk along the Viale dei Belli Segreti. Arm in arm, he let her lead him wherever she wished. He looked up at pastel facades, saw shadowy figures gazing down at him from the high windows … felt a chill running up his back.

  “Cold?” said Aurata.

  “This is an elemental place, isn’t it? Somewhere for Aetherials to come and hide, when they’re tired of full-on life. These houses … they’re all full of specters. How can you live here? It’s giving me the creeps.”

  Aurata grinned broadly. She kept her voice low as if they were passing through a graveyard. “Well spotted, sweetie. Yes, not all of us want to return to the Spiral or haunt a tree for five hundred years. They’re mostly Venetian Vaethyr who prefer to haunt the place they love until they’re ready for rebirth. And no, I didn’t create this street myself. An old lover of mine brought me here, and when he faded into elemental form he gave me his house, Estel bless him. I like it here. Not that I’m a hermit; I’m usually working and traveling. But it’s been a perfect retreat.”

  “A safe place for ancient artifacts?”

  “Quite. The neighbors don’t bother me and there is no crime.”

  Rufus nodded, sharing her amusement. “If only I’d known you were here! We might have met years ago. Mist, too.”

  She sighed. “As I said, I called, but only a few heard me. Veropardus, Slahvin—his assistant, when he was guardian of the Felixatus—and a few others who are not old Felynx but a new generation of Naamon blood who clearly feel drawn to me. They’re my dear chosen ones. And now you’re here, too.”

  “This old lover,” said Rufus, “should I be jealous?”

  Her laugh echoed off the sepulchral walls. “What for? You and I both worked our way through many willing companions, Felynx and Tashralyr, human and who knows what else. This particular man…” Her face went still, her eyes distant. “When I first woke and recalled the end of Azantios, I was deranged. I couldn’t stop thinking about the power we conjured in the chamber, and the way the earth trembled and the fire blazed. When I heard of Mount Vesuvius erupting and burying Pompeii, I traveled there. That was where I met Diodorus, an Aetherial who took the guise of a mature and handsome Roman citizen with silver hair … He was the most wonderful, intelligent companion I’ve ever known. I became obsessed by volcanoes—and do you realize how many times Vesuvius has erupted? It’s utterly awe-inspiring.” Her eyes shone. “For several hundred years, Diodorus traveled with me all around the Campanian volcanic arc—that part of southern Italy, where the Eurasian and African plates meet, is the most thrillingly active area—and he had the patience to indulge my obsession until I regained something resembling sanity.”

  “So you think it’s sane, to clamber around boiling lava fields?” Rufus shook his head. “You really are odder than I ever dreamed.”

  She only laughed again. “It was breathtaking. But Diodorus became tired. I could see him fading into elemental form and there was nothing I could do. So he brought me to Venice. It was in the middle ages, while the city was still evolving, but the Viale dei Belli Segreti was already there. I stayed with him until he faded entirely. And when he’d vanished, I grieved. I was angry…” She was talking faster now, becoming just manic enough to worry Rufus. “I knew I had a mission to fulfill. Diodorus was gone, but I wouldn’t let sorrow destroy me. I used anger to inspire me instead. Oh, I went on many other travels, of course, not least to the Spiral that had once been forbidden to us. I sampled the chill of Sibeyla and the softness of Elysion, but only the fire of Naamon held my heart. Still, I kept returning here. I couldn’t forget the Felynx. My heart always told me that there was unfinished business, something more to achieve.”

  At the end of the street, they stepped from Duskland Venice to real Venice. The atmosphere shifted and they passed through a veil of blue smoke into a bustle of humans and the noise of boat engines. Posters and graffiti appeared on the crumbling walls. Crossing endless bridges, they worked their way out of the back streets to the ageless grandeur of San Marco. They were both dressed smartly but discreetly in tailored jeans, black shirts and dark coats. Aurata wore earrings of red fire opal, the color of her hair. A wintry fog gave the city a mystical atmosphere. Rufus looked around at stunning churches, at café lights and shop windows full of Murano glass twinkling through the murk.

  “It’s very Phantom of the Opera tonight,” he said. “I want a black cloak and a mask.”

  “You were going to tell me more about our brother?”

  “I want to hear about your strange plans, and why your followers aren’t here with you. What are they up to?”

  She ignored the question. “You said that Mist died in Amsterdam, at the hands of a jealous husband? Why couldn’t you save him?”

  At that, Rufus felt a flash of anger. “Do you think I didn’t try? His body bled out, and his soul-essence fled. Have you any idea how hard it is to carry a corpse, day and night, until you find a way into the Otherworld? I was distraught. I reached a portal which brought us somewhere into Elysion, and I found a healing place of blue stone, but he remained dead and began to decay … finally, a kind Aelyr maiden found us and said it was no good. His essence was gone, and his body would turn to dust. I had to let him go.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she breathed. Rufus moved to the canal edge and watched some gondolas tied up and bobbing gently on the water.

  “You know the rest: how hard I searched. Meanwhile, some fanatics from the Spiral Court decided to hunt me down, so I lived in hiding on the border between Spiral and Earth with some friends…”

  “Your entourage,” she put in.

  “We were fugitives, but we still had fun, emerging from our secret pocket of the Otherworld to scare the locals … to perpetuate legends of the fair folk, encourage a little superstitious terror. They called us the Dubh Sidhe, dark elves—I like that, don’t you? We’d kidnap someone, play with their minds, then return them to the surface world quite mad.”

  “Oh, Rufus. Unworthy.”

  “We were bored,” he said, mock-defensively. “Anyway, that’s how I found a divine young man, the absolute image of Mist. I snatched him from his human family and kept him for ninety-odd years.”

  “But you were mistaken?” said Aurata, her tone cool and shrewd.

  Rufus felt pain in his throat, like claws. “I tried so hard to shock him awake. Extremes of pleasure, vile torments … everything I could devise to break down the dumb chrysalis and reveal Mistangamesh, the butterfly, inside. Nothing worked! Meanwhile, my obsession caused all my companions to desert me, out of sheer exasperation. I don’t blame them.”

  “So you were left alone?”

  “Apart from one beautiful, scared and mad human boy. Who died trying to save my lif
e, which makes it all the more comically tragic. After all I’d done—still he tried to save me, without even thinking.”

  “He must have made a great impression on you,” Aurata said thoughtfully, “for a mortal.”

  “Even now, I don’t look back and see that I made a dreadful mistake. I just feel angry. Cheated.”

  Aurata was quiet, watching him. She looked so young; to outside eyes, they might have been a honeymoon couple in their early twenties. Still the spoiled yet innocent son and daughter of the Felynx Sovereign Elect, Poectilictis.

  “Angry with yourself?”

  “No, with him, for his muleheaded stubbornness. All the time, I suspected that he was playing me along, pretending!”

  Aurata laughed. “If he was, that would be delicious. That would serve you right.”

  “Hm. I find humor in most things, but not this. How could I be so wrong?”

  Delicately she cleared her throat. “If Mist wouldn’t come back, it was because he didn’t want to.”

  “Don’t say that. No, go on, say it! I tried too hard. Mist is an idiot, always was. And I don’t care anymore. I’m done with him.”

  Presently they climbed the long stairs of the Rialto Bridge and stood at the central balustrade, watching water traffic plowing below, the Grand Canal magnificent before them in its spooky cowl of fog. “You know, whether you made a mistake or not, we could probably still find him.”

  Rufus reacted with an angry hiss. “No, Aurata, forget it. I’m never putting myself through that again.”

  “What would you say, though, if you saw him?”

  “Stop. I’d tell him to fuck himself on the Devil’s pitchfork. I’d push him off the highest cliff I could find, since he seems to like that sort of thing. Aurata, I was as good as dead when you found me. I cannot go back to that state, ever again.”

  “And you needn’t. We have each other now. Wouldn’t you like to do something more constructive, more appropriately Aetherial, than selling guns?”

  “Sounds promising. We could start with a gondola ride, then get drunk at the most expensive restaurant in town…”

  “I meant a more ambitious, long-term project.”

  “Anything. As long as it doesn’t involve tectonic plates.”

  “Sorry. It does in a way. How can you not be interested in the Earth’s boundary places? Boundaries are where everything happens. Volcanoes, mountain ranges, mineral formations, rifts, earthquakes…” Her eyes shone pure gold. “Thresholds strain with pent-up energy. Also, they stand between Vaeth and the Otherworld … and what’s the Spiral but an even more complex structure of energy layers and dimensions that we haven’t even begun to understand? Forgive me, I’m ranting. But you’ll understand, Rufus. You will.”

  “I don’t want to understand. I want champagne. Shall we throw a party for our spectral neighbors in the Avenue of Beautiful Secrets?”

  Aurata rested her head on his shoulder, exhaling. “You’re a hopeless case,” she said affectionately.

  Rufus said in a low voice, “Do you know that you talk in your sleep?”

  She looked up with a guarded expression. “So I’ve been told, on occasion. What did I say?”

  “You were rambling about hiding something from profane human eyes, and being trapped by Sibeylan ice and glaciers. Was it a nightmare? What did you mean?”

  “I don’t remember,” she said tightly. Her fingers dug into his arms, then released their hold. “It’s nothing. Just my subconscious reminding me to be careful, because the fact is that when someone has a grand plan, there is always someone else trying to stop them. But I know how to protect my secrets, and, believe me, I am strong.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a moment. Qesoth herself is on your side. You said so.”

  Her expression became a fierce smile. “Oh, you’d better believe it. So, drink in the sights while you can, because I’m only here to collect my precious Felynx artifacts. I’ll be sad to leave, because this place was my sanctuary, but the next stage must happen elsewhere. And so…” With an angled hand, she mimicked a jet taking off.

  “What next?” Rufus grinned, loving her spirit. “How long have you been planning whatever it is?”

  “Oh. Only since the dawn of time, dear.”

  * * *

  Stevie sat on the edge of a bathtub, swishing the water with her hand. The turbulence was hypnotic. She blocked the overflow with a washcloth and let the cold tap run until water began to slop over the side, pattering onto the floor and soaking her skirt.

  She slid into the bath fully clothed, gasping at the cold. She let herself slip under to see how it felt, her hair drifting like weed. Like Ophelia in the painting …

  She was drowning, being pushed deeper. Silver bubbles rose from her mouth. Above the rippling surface, a shape held her down and heavy hands were throttling her.

  Darkness. She rose from the water as if she’d merely been sleeping. Her hands clawed at pillows of moss. She was in a swamp surrounded by tall thin trees. Silver birches trailed their slender branches on her head. She looked up through the trees and saw a glowing midnight sky with a steep jagged mountain rising black against it.

  She could recall no past, no memories at all. Now she was running, terrified.

  She climbed on all fours as the mountain became a city around her with streets like deep channels cut into the rock. Statues loomed, watching her from calm, blank orbs. Everything was black yet full of color, flashing with peacock blues and ruby reds that hurt her eyes.

  Fleeing for her life, she was tumbling downwards through tunnels. With no more substance than a cobweb she could get no purchase on the stone steps. No one saw her, no one helped.

  She emerged deep underground in a cavern. Green light rose from below to make rippling patterns on the ceiling. Water again. Terrified, she tried to crawl away.

  No. No, a voice echoed. You can’t be here now. Go back, go back!

  A silhouette came drifting towards her with one palm held up, showing blood-red slashes inside the dangling sleeve. She shrank away. The time is wrong, said the apparition. Go back!

  * * *

  Stevie woke, blinded in one eye by an incredibly close, bright light.

  The light dropped away to reveal a man in blue. Around him was a vague bustle of activity, laced with a musty smell of disinfectant. A hospital ward. Her head was exploding with every possible type of pain. A deep pounding headache, skull bones bruised and aching, soft tissues swollen.

  “Miss Silverwood? Stephanie? Are you with us?”

  The doctor in blue scrubs was young and dark-skinned with a dazzling smile. Her blurred eyes took a moment to unscramble the name on his ID tag. DOCTOR R. ARULANANTHAM, she made out, SENIOR REGISTRAR. She was in bed, propped up at an angle with a large pillow at her back.

  “Oh, god, my head…”

  “Try to stay quiet. You’ve been unconscious for a while.”

  “How did I get here?”

  “Don’t you remember?” The doctor sat on the edge of her bed, looking concerned yet cheerfully reassuring. “You arrived by taxi and told the receptionist that you’d tripped over your cat and banged your head.”

  “Did I?”

  “And then you passed out.”

  She tried to gather her thoughts between throbs of pain. She’d been about to lock up and then … Oh god, someone broke in. Dim recollections returned … Rising to her feet in darkness with her head reeling.

  Seeing that Daniel’s triptych was gone.

  Yet nothing else was missing. The display cases of jewelry were intact, the office door untouched. No broken glass, no mess. Her attacker must have come in through the back door, which she always unlocked in order to make a quick getaway once she’d set the alarm … only this time, she’d dawdled, checking the workbench and looking at Aurata’s Promise.

  As in a dream, she recalled making a logical decision not to call the police. The break-in was my fault, the triptych my responsibility. If she called the police, she knew the museum bo
sses would go into a mad flap and there would be days of questions, a huge fuss about security and insurance and all the rest. It would be in the local papers. She might even lose her job.

  However, if she said nothing, no one need know. It was her task alone to discover who’d taken Daniel’s artwork … and she had her suspicions.

  All these decisions had seemed perfectly rational while she was making them.

  So she’d left and locked up as normal—so she thought. Outside, though, she noticed that her ears were ringing and her skull threatening to implode. Hospital might be a good idea after all. Calmly she’d walked into the street and called a taxi. After that, events became blurred.

  “Anyone we can contact for you?” asked Dr. Arulanantham.

  “No. I live alone.”

  “Apart from the cat.”

  “Apart from the cat,” she agreed. “It wasn’t her fault, though. Also, I wasn’t drunk. Neither was the cat.”

  The doctor chuckled, then asked if she knew the day and date and the name of the prime minister. She answered correctly, starting to feel impatient. “I know where this is going. I’m fine. When can I leave?”

  He gave her a firm look. “Your CT scan was clear, but concussion can have nasty delayed symptoms, so we need to keep you in overnight.”

  “Oh, my god.” She dropped her head back, wincing as the sore part hit the pillow. “Is that really necessary?”

  “A nurse will wake you at regular intervals to make sure you don’t fall unconscious, or develop any new symptoms.” He grinned. “Relax, we aren’t that scary. We’ll take good care of you. You can go home in the morning, but you’ll have to rest for a week.”

  “A week! No, that’s impossible. I have a job, I can’t…”

  The doctor was kind but intransigent. “I’m sure your employers will understand.”