Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales)

by Freda Warrington

  On this block, Albin lay asleep.

  Mist felt no fear. Surely they were equals. How real was Albin’s power? Rosie might be right, that Albin was a lonely eccentric given to dramatic posturing. And perhaps it was their own fault they couldn’t match his apparent strength.

  He looked out of an embrasure at a starry sky that seemed to belong to Sibeyla, not Melusiel. The landscape was a blur, the horizon curving in odd directions.

  A cold voice said, “Did I not ask you to remain in the chamber below until light returns?”

  Albin was on his feet. Mist turned to face him, unperturbed. “When dawn comes, you must let us go. I’m trying to find Rufus—to finish what the Spiral Court could not. In that regard, you and I are on the same side.”

  Moving beside him, Albin looked out of the narrow window at the dark landscape beneath his tall narrow spire. “Rufus is a spent force,” he said.

  “How can you know that?”

  “My sight is clear, up here in the cold. I hold the power of one who’s given up, lost everything. Every bid I made to seal the Spiral from the Earth, to sever those destructive connections, has failed. All the supporters I had on the inner council of the Spiral Court fell away. I had nothing. So I created my tower.”

  “It’s impressive,” Mist agreed.

  Albin picked up a small orb of quartz. “Do you know what this is? In other versions of the Spiral, they call it an anametris sphere. It is used to open and close portals. The sphere won’t work in our realm, but it must be useful to have such devices, literal keys to lock the Gates. Were you even aware that there are other Spirals, attached to other Vaeths? Other tribes of Aelyr, interacting with different worlds?”

  “I never thought of it.”

  “No. Few do. But when I close my eyes I see them, like shifting, shimmering planes intersecting with each other. How can I hope to seal them all?”

  “Why would you want to?”

  Albin gave a thin smile. “Indeed, I can only concentrate my energies on my own realm. I come from a long line of pure Sibeylans, pale and ascetic, who consider ourselves the purest of all Aetherials, closest in spirit to the icy energies of the Spiral, of the stars themselves. My eretru, the senior House of Sibeyla, has long held and passed down the office of Gatekeeper, first appointed by Sepheron, whose mother, Jeleel, overthrew the tyrant Malikala, so-called Queen of Fire.

  “However, there’s a paradox. The office of Gatekeeper is an earthy one—in the elemental sense—to do with manipulating rock and matter. It has an intellectual dimension, too, of esoteric calculations, but that’s more a matter of instinct than science. It’s a role that involves dealing too intimately with Vaeth. And there’s the biggest concern of all: that while the role of Gatekeeper is important, it cannot be seized or held. The unseen energies of the Spiral bestow or withdraw the power. Those energies are as moody as the ocean.”

  “Sam and Lucas mentioned this,” Mist said evenly. “Your magnificent mother, Liliana, held the role, and was followed by your son, Lawrence. But you were overlooked.”

  “That’s unimportant.” Albin placed the anametris sphere back on its tripod.

  “Is it? Weren’t you jealous?”

  His smile became a thin flat line. “I had a higher purpose. All that distressed me was that Liliana took Lawrence to Vaeth to train him. To corrupt him.”

  Yes, jealousy, thought Mist, though he’d never admit it. There must have been closeness between Liliana and Lawrence from which Albin was excluded. Perhaps he, by his cold nature, had excluded himself. “I wondered which came first. Did your anti-Vaeth philosophy make you an unsuitable Gatekeeper? Or was it being passed over that turned you against the system?”

  “Don’t try to analyze me,” Albin said softly. “My reasons are far deeper. Indulging in such shallow speculation is entirely the wrong approach. All family ties are long severed and dead to me.”

  “Truly?” said Mist. “So Lucas and Sam could be just anyone?”

  “Yes.” A pause. “Although I admit that the connection amuses me. It would give me particular satisfaction to bend them to my ideals.”

  “Aetheric purity,” said Mist, thinking that Sam was right. Whatever sadness Albin had endured did not excuse him turning into some form of Sibeylan fascist. “It’s not true, then, that your father came from Elysion, nicely saturated in the energies of rocks and earth and trees? I picture him as an earth god: a big, laughing man all in gold and green, with a curling golden beard.”

  Albin’s eyes turned to glass. He breathed out in a soft hiss. “You should know better than me, ancient Felynx, that blood does not equal affinity. You could be born of parents from Elysion and Naamon—clod-like earth and aggressive fire—who lived the basest, nearly human life on Vaeth, and yet if the spirit of a different realm called, you would fly home. The true Aelyr spirit can escape its binding roots, soar back to the Spiral and be purged of all contamination. Being Sibeylan—a creature of pure intellect, of ice and stars and all things celestial—is a state of mind, not a factor of birth.”

  “So there’s hope for all the muddy, contaminated ones?” Mist glanced around the chamber, hoping for some sign of the trapped fylgias. He sensed nothing. “Even an anarchist like Rufus?”

  Albin didn’t react to his hint of sarcasm. “Yes, I’m certain that all Aetherials can achieve this state. I believe they must. And believing it, I’ve found a degree of equilibrium. Peace.” Albin smiled, a genuinely warm natural smile—all the more unnerving for the words he’d spoken. “I don’t know why it took me so long to see the light, but that’s wisdom for you. A quality that takes many years to mature. Go back now and sleep, Mistangamesh.”

  “You are a fascinating man,” Mist said softly, “and I must ask again one favor of you. Let us go on our way, so that I can destroy Rufus.”

  Albin only repeated, “Go back to sleep.”

  * * *

  Stevie woke abruptly, aching to the bone. For a moment she had no idea where she was, and only faintly recalled some odd dreams. Then she saw the others waking, stiffly sitting up. The first brush of dawn light entered the chamber from the stairwell. Fully clothed, she felt damp and stale.

  “C’mon, let’s get going,” said Sam. “I’m not listening to any more shit from Albin. If he’s obstructive, we’ll fight our way out. Change shape, use our fists—whatever works. Agreed?”

  “I spoke to him in the night,” said Mist. “I couldn’t sleep, so I went to the top chamber and he was there. He told me about his ideas, and about Aetherial powers.”

  The other four gaped at him, astonished.

  “But I was talking to him,” said Stevie. “For ages. You weren’t there. You were fast asleep.”

  “That’s weird,” said Lucas. “I went up and spoke to him, too.”

  Sam and Rosie were nodding, their faces a picture of shock and bewilderment.

  “Looks like he had us all,” said Sam.

  They went down the stairway and through the lowest chamber, meeting no challenge. Albin was waiting for them on the shore outside, surrounded by his aquatic guards and hundreds of elementals, swarming thickly in the fog.

  “Don’t go,” he said. “Think about all I’ve said, dear children. Leave behind all pollution and become pure Aelyr: part of the Spiral, as you were meant to be. It’s who you really are.”

  He spoke so passionately that Stevie, for a moment, was tempted. What else did she have? Daniel, she told herself. Frances, and my friends. For goodness’ sake, Albin, get out of my head!

  “Come on, it’s time to go,” said Sam. “Grandfather, I’m asking nicely. Stand aside.”

  “Please stay.”

  “I’m sorry, Lord Albin,” said Rosie. “You have your way of seeing things, but we can’t share it. Sorry.”

  “You misunderstand. I’d prefer you to stay of your own volition, but you are staying here, in any case.”

  “Albin, please.” Rosie’s tone verged on anger. “We’re your family. We’re not doing any harm. We
’ve got stuff to sort out. We’ll happily come back and see you again—but only if you let us come and go freely.”

  “As if I am some befuddled old grandfather to be humored?” Albin’s expression was intransigent.

  “It’s not happening,” said Sam. “We’re going.”

  “Nowhere,” said Albin.

  Lucas squared up to his grandfather with strength Stevie hadn’t seen in him before. “You summoned Brawth! All along, everyone blamed Lawrence, and he blamed himself—but you did it, to torment and undermine him. I’ve always known it. The whole Spiral will know, unless you let us go now.”

  “You don’t seem to understand,” Albin said softly. “None of you can leave. You think I would let the Gatekeeper go? Let any of you go?”

  He opened his hands, and the air began to ripple with lines of light, weaving a cat’s cradle all around them.

  Stevie found herself moving slowly, like a fly stuck in honey—and then unable to move at all. She was frozen to the spot. Cold air iced her skin. Albin’s cage of light wound tighter and tighter around her: a horrible feeling of numbness.

  She saw the same happening to Sam, Rosie and Lucas; saw them trying to move towards one another, ever more slowly as time seemed to slow down, their mouths opening to shout to one another but no sound emerging as they turned from flesh to quartz.

  Stevie was paralyzed, staring through a glass pane at three statues, half-seen through drifting ice vapor. Time stopped and she was caught there, forever staring and horrified and not knowing why.

  Movement. A dark blur … Mist was still moving. He struggled as if battling a hurricane. She felt herself pulled sideways, throbs of power shaking her. He was in his water-dragon form again, taller than Albin. She saw two figures wrestling briefly, one white, the other ink-blue and emanating orange crackles of fire …

  There was a roar of rage. Albin? She saw Mist fall back. As he fell she felt herself seized by hands, or tendrils, that were muscular, irresistible.

  She and Mist fell together and hit water.

  Down, down they sank. She could move again and found she’d transformed by instinct into the new water-breathing creature she’d been in Persephone’s cave and Virginia’s pool.

  Mist was beside her in seahorse form. Albin’s slaves were in the water all around them, trying to herd them back to shore. They fought. Stevie felt parts of herself ripped off; saw fragments of her own fins and Mist’s leafy tendrils floating around them. She saw blood in the water.

  Another pulse of power from Mist shook the lake like a depth charge. Albin’s creatures were thrown back. Then the two of them were surging through the water, free.

  Rosie Sam Lucas …

  She and Mist broke the surface and came up gasping into the soft air of Melusiel. Looking back, Stevie saw Albin’s tower far behind them, no more than a pale needle on the horizon. She felt a current pulling at her. Even as she looked back she felt the pull of the antilineos taking them farther away from their friends.

  “We can’t leave them!” She coughed and gasped, pushing wet hair out of her face. Her skin felt reptilian, her hands abrasive on her scaly forehead.

  “We have no choice,” Mist said. His aquatic face was slate-blue, his voice gruff. Red-gold Felynx eyes burned into her. She wondered if this was truly Mistangamesh at all.

  “Our friends—we can’t leave them there!”

  “We must.”

  He spun in the water and let the current take him. Stevie did the same. He was right. They had no chance against the pull of the water. They tried to join hands but turbulence pulled them apart and they surged helplessly on, the lake narrowing to a river, then to a channel and soon to frothing rapids that ended suddenly on the edge of nothing …

  They were falling, millions of tons of water plunging with them.

  Falling off the edge of the Spiral itself.

  17

  Desert Springs

  Stevie was in darkness, lying on a hard surface. There was a glow far above her and dust sticking to her wet skin. She was soaked through, hair dripping, clothes hanging heavy with the weight of water. Every cell of her body hurt. She began to shiver with the wet, piercing cold.

  As she lay there nearly insensible, fragments of memory assaulted her: being carried for what seemed hours along the raging antilineos: losing sight of Mist; plunging off the edge of the world in a deluge of foam … falling, falling …

  Visions of Rosie, Sam and Lucas assailed her: imprisoned by Albin, turned to ice and stone. But now they were unreachable, somewhere beyond a cosmic waterfall, in another realm.

  Our fault, she thought. They came with us out of the simple goodness of their hearts and now they’re lost and doomed and it’s our fault, mine and Mist’s …

  Her body shook but no sobs came out, only rasping coughs.

  “Stevie.” She felt warm breath on the icy whorl of her ear. “Stevie?”

  She raised her head and there was Mist’s beloved face above hers. His features were human again, shadowed with pain and shock as if he’d crawled from a shipwreck. She made out the dark bulk of a boulder behind him. The landscape felt stony and desolate. She was so cold that the water dripping from him felt warm on her skin.

  “Are we back on Vaeth?” She used the Aelyr name for Earth; funny how fast she’d learned the habit.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  He helped her sit up, wrapping one arm around her. They sat clinging together for a while, silent with exhaustion. They were on a flat empty plain with low hills in the distance, luminous with starlight. A pool of water gathered around them and soaked into the bone-dry soil beneath.

  “No tears,” he said, kissing her rat’s-tail hair. “Aren’t we wet enough already?”

  “The others…”

  “I know.”

  “We can’t leave them there. We can’t!”

  “There’s nothing we can do.” His voice shook. “I would if we could, but it’s too late.”

  “We’ve got to try. We can’t abandon them.”

  “I know, but we have to help ourselves first.”

  “Yes. Okay.” She forcibly gathered her thoughts. “First we need to find out where the hell we are.” She began to stand up. Again the horror of Albin’s attack swept through her and she stumbled onto her knees. “Oh my god, Mist.”

  “It’s all right.” He held her arm and they stood together, leaning unsteadily on each other. “There’s no sign of the portal we came through, only a boulder that looks like every other boulder. We can’t go back. We have to go on.”

  Looking up, she saw the Milky Way spanning the dome above them, ablaze with billions of glittering stars. The sight made her feel tiny, lost and desperate. “We’d better start walking,” she said.

  “Which way?”

  “I don’t think it matters.”

  There were stones beneath their boots, scrubby bushes catching at their clothes. She felt shocked relief that their garments had survived the ordeal, apparently having transformed to fur and fin and back again, as if altered reality acted on fabric as well as flesh. The subzero night did nothing to dry them out, but Stevie was past caring about her physical discomfort. She felt her jacket pockets; one small mercy, she’d remembered to close the zippers.

  “I still have my wallet,” she said, teeth chattering. “That’s something. You?”

  “Yes,” Mist answered. “But money won’t help us against Rufus, or find a way back into the Spiral.”

  “No, but it will buy practicalities like food and transport and accommodation, without which we’d be totally stuffed.”

  “I think we should avoid human habitation.”

  “Why? We’re not wild animals. Even finding a human in this wilderness is going to be a miracle.”

  “We’re Aetherial. We don’t need them.”

  She looked at his stony profile and a chill went through her. “Mist, will you stop it? Maybe Albin’s superhuman, but we’re not. Have you forgotten you tried to walk the length of Scotland
and woke up in a hospital bed? We need help.”

  He closed his eyes, gave a faint sigh. “You’re right.”

  After an hour or so, they reached a long straight highway that bisected the desert. A line of telephone wires dwindled into the distance in both directions. The road was empty, dark. Stevie’s heart was too heavy to give the smallest twitch of hope. She guessed the road might continue for a hundred miles before it hit a town.

  “Even if a vehicle comes past, we can’t take the risk of stopping anyone,” she said. “If the police pick us up, we’re screwed. We’ve got no passports. If they find out we’re here illegally, I don’t know what they’ll do to us, but it will totally wreck our plans.”

  “Now you see why I’m reluctant to ask for human help?” Mist looked up at the stars and said, “Let’s try north.”

  “Is your Aetherial radar working? Can you sense Rufus, or even a small town?”

  “No,” he said. “But it’s as good a direction as any.”

  * * *

  They walked through the scrub, keeping parallel with the endless road.

  The distant hills seemed barely to change position. Now and then a vehicle swept past, headlights dazzling—and then Stevie would think, too late, that they should take a chance and flag down the driver. Yet they didn’t. The risk was too great.

  They trudged on with the cosmos turning above them, dawn beginning to brush the horizon.

  Stevie was asleep on her feet, hallucinating, so hungry that her stomach had contracted to a ball of pain. Her legs were agony, feet burning, her skin like ice. The thought of death seemed welcome … but where would she find herself next time? In Persephone’s chamber again, or in another new, mad existence without memories? Would Mist be with her, or would she never see him again?

  A voice reached her. Realizing Mist had stopped, she came out of her stupor to see an array of lights. There was a gas station a few hundred yards ahead, with rows of parked trucks, a big wooden building with brightly lit windows, a sign announcing MOJAVE MOE’S 24-HOUR DINER. An oasis.

  “Oh, thank the gods,” she gasped, pushing her still-damp hair out of her face. The ends were stiff with ice. “Sanctuary.”