Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales)

by Freda Warrington

  Then Stevie reached deep into her Aetherial self and pulled out the shreds of her power, just enough to stretch the web. She saw her fylgia—real or a vision, it didn’t matter—leap out and down towards the spinning black spot—creating a silver wire down which she might slide.

  Clasping the Felixatus, she launched herself into nothingness. The bonds of the web fractured. The canyon swung beneath her. Choked by the horrible thrill of falling, she heard a voice yelling her name far above, fading as she arrowed towards a black dot in a lake of fire.

  * * *

  As they reached the place where the canyon edge extended an arm towards the lookout point, Mist saw a blur of orange-yellow fire at the far end. The tenfold web distorted reality, so he could see no individuals, only a mad dance of light. A group of eleven Aetherials, led by Veropardus, intercepted him and Rufus. Veropardus squared up to Mist with an expression of pure, gloating hatred.

  “Where do you think you are going?”

  “To the ritual,” Mist said very softly. He wasn’t sure how he looked now: part animal, part Aetherial, half in and half out of the Dusklands; a mess.

  “You are not invited.”

  “Nor are you, by the look of things. What went wrong?”

  Veropardus’s gaunt face turned sour. He went nearly purple with loathing. He raised a hand and commanded his cohorts, “Take them.”

  At that instant, shots rang out from the house balcony and two of Vero’s men fell.

  “Oh shit,” said Rufus, and laughed.

  “Stop firing!” Veropardus shrieked at Slahvin’s guards, but the rest of his companions were diving for cover, vanishing behind rocks below the rim of the ravine.

  The bullets ceased. Only three Felynx remained in the scarlet-washed landscape. Mist, and Rufus, and Veropardus.

  All Mist saw was the creature who had murdered Fela. That could never be forgotten.

  He shot a glance at Rufus, who looked back and nodded.

  Veropardus came raging at them in a huge tiger-like shape. Fluidly they slid away from his claws. Rufus slashed him across the abdomen. Mist impaled him with a wing barb as long as a spear and katana-sharp, piercing up into his heart. Flinging him down onto the rock, Mist slit his throat. “For Fela,” he murmured as he made the cut, severing the head for good measure. It was damage enough to force the soul-essence from him. Finally, Mist hefted the head and body over the canyon edge to bounce down the near-vertical walls …

  Towards a river of lava.

  “Steady on,” said Rufus. “Don’t you know that Oliver got burned at the stake in one of his previous lives? Hasn’t he suffered enough?”

  Mist stood panting for breath, sick at heart. “For today, perhaps.”

  “The brothers Ephenaestus are back,” said Rufus, pumping a fist in the air.

  Some of Aurata’s followers raised their heads from their hiding places, but none tried to stop Mist and Rufus as they set out along the rugged, narrow spine toward the lookout rock. Violent tremors threatened to throw them over the side. In front, a section of the arch collapsed, leaving a great gap between them and the platform where fiery figures were crying out in awe and fear. He saw the tall burning-angel shape of Aurata, Stevie tiny beside her.

  Dropping to all fours, Mist ran and leapt the gap. He nearly lost his footing, but clawed his way onto the last stretch of the path and the plate of rock. Rufus was just behind him. Landscape and sky were drenched in red. Below, Jigsaw Canyon seethed with lava.

  Too late. Mist felt the tenfold pressure and saw the whorl of distorted reality that his sister had created. He saw the ominous black hole spinning at the center.

  He saw Stevie grab the Felixatus and leap—

  “No!”

  He left Rufus standing, rushed past the raging column of fire that was Aurata and threw himself after Stevie. Heat blasted into his face. The rock platform broke under his feet as the canyon itself begin to crumble, shards falling with him into the void.

  21

  Aurata

  Stevie was looking up at green light dappling a ceiling of black rock …

  No. No. Not again!

  The silhouette of Persephone stood over her, unspeaking. With a huge effort Stevie pointed upward, struggling with her whole being to convey her urgent need to stay in the upper world. There is more at stake than losing my life. Take me afterwards, I don’t care—but not now. Still so much to do!

  Persephone raised a hand. She was an immense black archangel, her raised palm a command to go back. Stevie recalled her words, No one comes here except of their own free will.

  The next moment, Stevie hit a hard surface, rolling. Her body thrummed with the impact. Bruising pain in every bone drove out her breath. Sharp objects stabbed into her ribs. For long seconds, she couldn’t move. All around her was pale nothingness: a thick, swirling white fog.

  She was lying across the Felixatus, hugging it. The hard edges of the metal framework and the base dug into her, but the important thing was that she’d kept hold and protected it. And the inner sphere was still alive. The unreleased energy of a million Felynx vibrated, sending darts of static into her.

  The surface on which she’d landed was cold quartz: sloping, lumpy and rough-textured. She could barely see her own hands in the fog veil.

  Terror lay on her like a solid weight. Had she gone nearly blind, or landed in some Aetheric limbo? Trapped in a dimension with no escape? Fine, only if she knew that her sabotage had worked.

  The cloud around her was so dense that it hurt her lungs to breathe. Half-stunned, she pushed herself up onto one hand. There was nothing to see in any direction—until she looked upwards and saw a small darkish patch with ragged edges, like an eclipsed sun.

  The portal?

  A few bright streaks arced down like meteors, gone as soon as she blinked. Falling debris, optical illusion … or pursuit?

  Her plan—to punch the portal half a degree off so it wouldn’t connect with Naamon, then throwing herself through before the hole spread to engulf the world—had been her only chance to thwart Aurata. Whether her actions would help her imprisoned friends or Mist in the slightest, she’d no way of knowing. She might have made things a hundred times worse. I followed my fylgia, my intuition, she thought. They told me that the shadow-self always knows the right path. Oh, my dear friends, you’d better be right.

  With an effort she pulled the Felixatus from under herself and set it upright. Her palms were bruised from holding on so tight. The metalwork bore a few small dents, but no obvious damage to the structure or mechanism. Within the shell of engraved symbolic animals, the central globe shone like a small moon in the gloom.

  Whump. A weight hit her from behind, flattening her. Torrid heat overwhelmed her existing pain as multiple hot irons dug into her arms. Her ritual robe caught fire, and pieces floated away like burning paper. A voice grated in her ear, “Fela, what have you done?”

  Aurata-Qesoth.

  Stevie changed shape without thinking. Deep instinct kicked her into Fela’s racing shape, a creature of muscle and sinew, coated in striped silver fur. The fur was her only defense against Aurata’s searing heat.

  Twisting her neck, Stevie looked into a leonine face inside a caul of flame. Eyes like white-hot suns. A stench of singeing hair, sulfur and burning metal. Her radiance turned the fog to steam, creating turbulence full of ghostly shapes.

  The red-hot irons gripping her were Aurata’s fingertips. “Let go,” Stevie gasped. “Please. I can’t run anywhere.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Opened a way to the Spiral, as you wanted.”

  The voice inside the fire was fierce. “You betrayed me.”

  “How can that be a surprise?”

  “Oh, you still have the spirit for sarcasm, little slave?”

  Those two words broke any illusion that Aurata had a shred of compassion for her. In the days of Azantios, their relationship had been about possession. Never love.

  The burning grip loosened. Aura
ta jerked her forcibly into a sitting position, shook her like a doll. Even in Tashralyr shape, Stevie was weak. Every joint shrieked with pain and her muscles felt like wet string. Sizzling heat and raw cold played cruel sensory games.

  “Look up,” said Aurata, pointing at the greyed-out sun. The disk was drifting away, shrinking, pulling in its tattered edges like tentacles.

  “The portal,” Stevie whispered. “What’s happening up there? Where’s Mist?”

  “I don’t know.” Wrong answer, thought Stevie; how can she not know, unless he escaped? “The real question is, where have you brought us? What is this … nothingness?”

  Inside Aurata’s controlled rage, there was a hint of fear. Stevie replied, “I’ve no idea. And if you’re furious enough to kill me—again—just get on with it.”

  “Oh, I’m tempted. I can trust no one, no one. Those who are loyal are too weak to defend me, while others I thought worthy to be my equals turn against me.”

  “Because your plan couldn’t work!” Stevie ignored the pain, seizing a last chance to defy her. “You can’t meld Vaeth and Spiral together and rule both. It’s insane. You don’t care who gets hurt, even your own family. You were my only hope of helping our friends to escape from Albin, but I knew you wouldn’t, because you don’t care. Finding out they’re your family was an inconvenience, wasn’t it?”

  “Not true.”

  “All I hope is that I prevented devastation on Earth. This isn’t about a grand plan to rule the universe—which never works for anyone—it’s about stopping your megalomania!”

  “Have you finished?”

  “No. I could have loved you like a sister, Aurata. But you’re no better than any dictator on Earth. You don’t give a damn who gets hurt while you grab your power, because you’re convinced you have a divine right. God’s will, Qesoth’s will, what’s the difference? I’m shouting at a brick wall, aren’t I? You know you’re right.”

  “And if I were sitting in my dictator’s palace listening to this diatribe I would have you dragged out and shot.” Aurata’s voice was a blade. “One thing I learned from Earth is that if you don’t grab power, someone else will. This is not over, Stevie. You’ve slowed me down, that’s all. Your function was only to ignite the process, because true power isn’t in the Felixatus. Power is Qesoth herself.”

  “So where are your followers?”

  “Fled, or perished. They tried, but they weren’t true Felynx. Too young, too weak. I don’t need them.”

  Stevie drew back. Above, the remaining dot of the portal vanished. “You can’t channel Qesoth. The primal powers are long gone. Why should they listen to you anyway?”

  “You are so wrong.” Aurata stretched out her arms, two long jets of fire. “I told you, Aetherial dreams become reality, if the will is strong enough.” She rose to her feet, and kept rising until she was twelve feet tall, a blazing demon. “Qesoth is already here. She manifests through me. Every realm shall bow to her and despair!”

  A whip of lightning lashed Stevie’s chest and sent her tumbling backwards. Her protective Fela form evaporated. She lay gasping in agony on the rocks, one side of her body freezing, the other scorched.

  “Can I trust you with one task, at least?” came a voice out of the flames. “Take care of the Felixatus until I return. I never wished harm to anyone, but you must learn to obey me.”

  Stevie found the strength to sit up. Edging away, she gathered the Felixatus into her arms. “Where are you going?”

  “To find the source of this fog and clear it. Then we’ll see. We shall literally see.”

  Aurata-Qeosth arrowed upward like a missile; a roaring flame, leaving a jet trail. Steam swirled in the space where she’d been. Stevie was alone once more in limbo, wondering if Mist was even still alive.

  Sobbing with pain, she found her feet and began to walk in hope of finding a landmark, some clue as to where she might be. I’m Aetherial, she told herself. We heal quickly. We can change reality, if the will is strong enough … Oh, fuck, how did I get into this mess?

  She was climbing a shallow slope. With every step, the clammy haze thickened. Specters moved all around her, forming and dissipating. She caught a brief flicker of her fylgia ahead, like a candle flame, transmitting a warning. A ruthless presence was gathering and moving towards her.

  It was mere illusion, she told herself. Yet the wraiths continued to shepherd her every step.

  * * *

  Mistangamesh and Rufus each broke the other’s fall, tumbling over and over down a slope of loose rock. In Aetherial shape, they were a tangle of spines and feathers, scales and fur and muscular clawed limbs. Rufus rose to all fours, panting like a leopard between curses.

  “Where the fuck’s Aurata?” he snarled. “Can’t see a damned thing. Mist?”

  “I’m here.” Mist let his damaged Otherworld form shrink to human size, keeping only the blue-black nimbus of his Felynx self around him. “Were you calling to me, or describing this murk?”

  “This isn’t mist, it’s what they used to call a pea-souper. We must be on a mountaintop to be inside cloud like this.”

  Mist raised his head and shouted, “Stevie!”

  His call carried, but received no answer. The pale rock and billowing fog raised a primitive fear, verging on claustrophobia. For a split second he was human Adam again, terrified in the trenches, suffocating on the smoke of battle …

  “Great,” said Rufus. “Now we’re wonderfully screwed. Where the hell are we?”

  “Still alive, at least. In the Spiral, I think.”

  “Yeah, but which realm?”

  “Sibeyla? I can’t tell,” said Mist. “This fog … It has to be Albin’s work.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  Mist raised his head, scenting the air. “I’m getting the same bad feeling as when he held us in his tower. I can’t define it. Same cold smell.”

  “Is it me, or is it full of elementals?”

  “Rufus … I think that the fog is made of elementals.”

  “Oh, no. That’s too creepy even for me. I need to sit down. One of Slahvin’s bullets winged me.”

  Rufus was a dark shape hunched on the rocks, his long hair turning to rat’s tails in the damp. “You can’t sit down,” said Mist. “We have people to find.”

  “And how is wandering in random circles going to achieve that?” Rufus snapped. “Two minutes. Let’s get our bearings.”

  “All right, but it isn’t like you to admit weakness, or to start talking sense.”

  “Mm.” Rufus, now back in his familiar form, glared as Mist knelt beside him. “It’s not like you, either, to fight like a berserker and start killing people all over the place.”

  “Two creatures, who both deserved it,” Mist said softly. “They should have gone into the Abyss, from which there’s no return.”

  “I’m not arguing, but I’ve never in my life seen you kill anyone. I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t be. And shut up. I’m not proud of it.”

  “Don’t feel bad. Sometimes it has to be done.” Rufus gave a sigh that turned into a growl. “Look what Aurata’s brought us to. All I did was try to talk her out of this lunacy! I’m not her enemy. She knows she’s everything to me. I wanted the fun Aurata back, the one who took me to Venice and Las Vegas, made me feel life was worth living after all. That’s all I wanted. Not this raving nutcase she’s turned into.”

  Mist put his hand on Rufus’s shoulder. “You wanted an illusion. We’ve all been trying to save her from herself, while she looks down on our feeble attempts from a great height with the disdain we probably deserve.” He stood up. “There’s someone coming.”

  “What? Who?”

  Figures took shape through the clammy shroud … a small Aetherial army. Mist made out a group of at least fifty Aelyr in crouched reptilian forms, clad in dark armor and bristling with spines and claws. He recognized this form as similar to the hunting mode taken by Initiators: those Aelyr who chose to pursue and brand “vir
gin” Vaethyr entering the Spiral for the first time. These were different—more of an organized unit—but apparently carrying Initiator-style weapons: crossbows armed with glowing, drug-tipped bolts.

  A voice shouted, “By the command of Tyrynaia, don’t move!”

  “Oh, good.” Rufus rose and leaned on Mist. “Just when you think things can’t get worse, a bunch of prancing ninjas from the Spiral Court turns up.”

  “Who might help us?” said Mist.

  They waited, resigned to capture since fleeing blindly was a worse option.

  The unit spread to surround them, fading in and out of view in the greyness. Their commander was a high Aetherial clothed in peacock shades of bronze and green, feathers shivering in his hair.

  Mist recognized him. The peacock-man was the spokesman for the Spiral Court, their leader, in effect, at least until another rose to replace him. He’d conducted the failed trial against Rufus. “It’s Vaidre Daima.”

  “So I see.” Rufus groaned. “Wonderful! This is all we need. Let’s run for it.”

  Mist caught his arm. “No. He could help. He let you go free, didn’t he?”

  “Only because there was no evidence against me. The trial was all about Albin grandstanding, and not really about me at all. I’m sure he hates my guts. It’s a tradition.”

  Mist said firmly, “This isn’t about you, either. Come on, he’s no enemy.”

  “I wouldn’t take bets on that.”

  Reaching them, Vaidre Daima gave a formal nod, his head feathers rustling. “Rufus Ephenaestus? And … Mistangamesh? We had reports of an illicit portal torn from Vaeth. How did you come here?”

  “Through that very portal,” said Mist. The warriors pressed closer, their eyes gleaming red. He put up his palms to pacify them. “Wait—before you detain us—it wasn’t our doing. We were trying to prevent someone … we fell through … look, it’s desperately urgent we find certain Aetherials. We throw ourselves on your mercy.”

  “Mist speaks for himself,” said Rufus. “I’m not throwing myself anywhere.”

  “Explain. We have a dire situation here. Who or what made the portal?”