by Sharon Sant
‘Yeah, right. Next time you say that, I’m going to produce one of those baby photos that I snagged from the fridge tonight and show everyone what a little chub you were.’
‘Yeah, and I’ll just point out how the ugly duckling turned into the beautiful swan…’ He arced his arms above his head in a ridiculous ballet parody and threw her a sideways glance.
She giggled. But then the guilt seized her again and the laugh died in her throat as quickly as it had risen. She lapsed into silence, and the sounds of their feet hitting the pavement in perfect unison were the only sounds they could hear.
‘What happened earlier…’ she began suddenly. Luca waved away the explanation.
‘Forget it. I understand.’
‘But –’
‘Ellen.’ He stopped and pulled her round gently by the shoulders to look at her. ‘After all we’ve been through, no one knows better than me how hard you’re finding things. It’s ok…’ he said slowly, ‘whatever happens, whatever you do, I will always be here for you.’ He gazed at her, and then suddenly shook himself. ‘Unless, of course,’ he added, ‘I’m in South America… and then I won’t be.’
Ellen smiled. ‘I can’t ask for more than that.’ She linked her arm through his, suddenly feeling lighter. ‘We’d better get back before this rain completely ruins your hair.’
‘Impossible,’ he quipped as they began to walk again, ‘my hair is sculpted by the gods themselves, it’d take more than a bit of rain to ruin this.’
Ellen rolled her eyes. ‘You really are beyond hope, aren’t you?’
Luca’s smile was more forlorn than he had intended. It looked as though he was.
The house was in darkness and Ellen’s mum was out cold on the sofa, as she so often was these days. Ellen climbed the stairs to see where her brothers were. Their room was also dark. In her own room she found her youngest brother, Tommy, asleep in her bed, hugging the spare pillow with the sidelight on. She pulled the covers up around him. Alfie, she guessed, had stayed out with some friend or other. These days, she could barely keep track of her stroppy, monosyllabic sibling. She gazed down at Tommy and wondered how long it would be before he turned into that. She hoped it would be a long time.
It wasn’t their fault, she reflected, theirs had been a hard upbringing, much harder than her own early years had been. Before her dad had gone to prison, before her mother’s illness and subsequent drinking problem, they had been a normal, relatively happy family. But that had all changed after her dad had been convicted. Tommy was just a baby then, and as each tough year went by, it got harder and harder to cling to those memories. Everyone had their own ways of dealing with it - her mum had lost herself at the bottom of a bottle, Alfie had rebelled, and Tommy had looked to Ellen as a sort of surrogate mother. Ellen had absorbed herself in her art, and then, later, Jacob and Luca had appeared in her life and things had changed beyond recognition. She still couldn’t decide whether Jacob’s arrival had been her salvation or her ruin.
She got into her pyjamas quickly, washed and ran a comb through her damp hair before squeezing into bed beside Tommy. He was too old, she mused, to be sleeping with her like this now, but she hadn’t the heart to throw him out. So she made the best of getting comfortable, and finally drifted into a fitful slumber.
Ellen bolted up with a squeal. It was still dark. She clutched at her damp pyjama top and tried to steady her breaths. Finally reaching for the lamp, she flicked it on to find Tommy, staring up at her with wide, apprehensive eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ she panted, ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’
‘You screamed. You nearly punched me,’ Tommy replied accusingly.
‘I said I was sorry,’ she snapped. His eyes became wider still and she softened. ‘Go back to sleep, Tom. It’s alright now.’
She swung herself out of bed, took a clean pair of pyjamas from her drawers, and went to the bathroom to change. Washing her face, she glanced at her pale reflection in the mirror. She looked as disturbed as she felt. But, already, the details of the dream were fading and only the sense of what it had contained remained. All she knew was that it was vivid and alarming, in a way that she had dreamt before, though not for a long time now. It had stemmed from her connection with Jacob, of that she was sure. But how, when he was lying like an empty vessel on a bed across town? What had changed? If the dream had not been so utterly terrifying, the idea would have filled her with excitement for the possibility of his recovery. But this was bad; she knew it in her heart. This meant something else entirely.
Maggie sat up in the armchair, struggling to focus on her surroundings. Something had woken her… a noise from upstairs? Rubbing her eyes, she pushed herself up from the chair and cautiously made her way up to the top floor of the house. Phil was still sleeping in bed; she could just make out his form in the darkness. She nudged him awake. He turned a shadowed face to her.
‘I heard a noise, like a shout or something,’ she whispered.
He flicked on the bedside lamp, looking groggy. ‘It wasn’t me.’
‘What was it, then?’
He sat up. ‘Well… have you checked on Jacob?’
She shook her head.
‘You want me to go and check?’ Without waiting for her to reply, he climbed out of bed and crossed the landing to Jacob’s room, Maggie following. She stopped outside the door as he went in.
The lamp was switched on, as Phil had left it earlier. Jacob’s breathing was slow and regular, his face and position unaltered from the last time they had seen him. Phil glanced around the room. Nothing was out of place there either. He held the back of his hand to Jacob’s face. There was no change in the even temperature he had maintained for the last two months.
Maggie met him as he closed the door quietly. ‘Well?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘I don’t think that’s the source of your noise,’ he whispered, wondering why he was bothering in the circumstances. ‘Maybe it was someone outside.’
She looked unconvinced but reluctantly agreed. ‘Maybe.’
‘Are you coming to bed now?’ Phil gave a meaningful glance down at Maggie’s day clothes. ‘What was that you were saying about vigils earlier?’ He cocked an eyebrow and she sighed.
‘Yes, yes, I know.’
She went downstairs to switch the lights off before following him to the bedroom.
In the room across the hall, the lamp was switched on, as it was every night, casting a warm glow over Jacob’s motionless form. All was quiet and still, save for the rapid movement of his eyes beneath their lids and the barely perceptible twitching of his fingers.
Four: The Star
Trego hurried across the marble-floored atrium, his earth-brown tunic flapping behind him. He had been called to an emergency Council meeting, the fourth one that day. These days, to attend less than four a day was unusual. This one would be different; this time he had gathered the courage to finally air his doubts about the prophecy scrolls. The information that he knew had been given to Ioh… it hadn’t seemed complete somehow. It was a notion that had bothered Trego for some time. Then, he had unfastened the sealed box that Kaleb had entrusted to him before his death, and there it was… another piece. All that remained was to find out what it meant.
He knocked and the high doors swung open to admit him. Wiping a fine sheen of sweat from his round face, he took his usual place at the far end of a long table, where he spent most meetings largely ignored. Most of the other Council members were already seated, throwing him disdainful glances. Many of them made no secret of their resentment of Trego. For some reason, the Watcher had favoured him above all others, even more so after Kaleb’s untimely death, and had chosen to communicate almost exclusively with Trego while he had been on his quest on Earth. As Trego was a junior Council member, the Elders could not see the logic in this favour.
Trego’s eyes travelled the room as he waited for the meeting to commence. He had always approved of the décor, though many had not. Ioh had remodelled the ch
ambers shortly after he had taken his place as Watcher, using some old Earth museum that he was particularly fond of as template. While it was not perfectly faithful to the original, it included some interesting features such as Egyptian mummy cabinets complete with mummies, a Saxon warrior statue and a stuffed kangaroo. If nothing else, Trego reflected with a wry smile, Ioh had a sense of humour. Others viewed it as an overdeveloped and dangerous case of homesickness for a home that was not, in fact, even his at all.
The chamber doors closed with a booming echo, recalling Trego from his musings. He steeled himself - Council meetings were slow and cumbersome affairs, often taking a long time to make little real progress. No wonder Ioh did his best to be missing when they were called. The room was silenced as the Chief Elder stood.
‘Who requests this meeting?’ His demand rang out across the vast hall.
Another Elder directly seated to his right stood. ‘I do.’
The Chief Elder gestured for him to continue and took his seat. ‘Then speak.’
‘The people become increasingly restless. They sense the chaos that creeps over the land. They cannot feel the presence of their Watcher and these things make their fear grow. All they know is that we ask them to send positive energies to him but they don’t know why. To keep them blind to the true extent of our plight is to invite panic.’ He paused, scanning the faces in the room before continuing. ‘The time, I believe, has come to find a new Watcher.’
The room erupted in a chorus of dissention. Trego sat quietly waiting for the noise to abate, watching the speaker carefully. He recognised him as Karo, a dependably outspoken Elder who had never been a supporter of Ioh.
The Chief Elder spoke in shocked tones. ‘It is not our way, Karo. We have never… it cannot be conceived of. We have our Watcher and, until his time is done, he will continue to be our Watcher.’
Karo slammed a hand on the table, making Trego jump. ‘He has proved himself to be unreliable! Whatever Dae promised he would be; it has not come to pass.’
‘He has had little time to prove himself,’ another Council member offered. ‘He is still young and has spent only a short time here.’
‘Exactly,’ Karo pressed, ‘he does not understand our order. He spent too long on a world where chaos reigns. He will never abide by our rules. Look at what he has caused, with his ridiculous insistence on clinging to those marked out to end their time. His whims have cost us equilibrium and thrown the natural order into turmoil.’
‘But he is our Watcher, it is against our traditions…’ someone else called.
Karo rolled his eyes.
‘If we do not have him,’ the Chief Elder said in a low, thoughtful voice, ‘then who? We do not currently have a Successor, yet another worrying turn of events. By now, a child should have been born.’
Karo paused. ‘That is because we have Kya. We no longer have to wait for the demise of the current Watcher for the power to transfer and we do not need a new Successor. Chaos reigns and things that could not be done before are now allowed.’
The room erupted again, this time it took a good five minutes to silence. Trego was so caught up in the proceedings he was actually holding his breath. He decided that the time to speak had come. He cleared his throat quietly. When nobody noticed he stood nervously and waited for their attention. The Chief Elder finally gestured for him to speak.
‘Have we forgotten the prophecy?’ Trego began in a tremulous voice. ‘Two halves of a young moon, one will fall into darkness, the other will follow. That must be Kya and Ioh. I know that Ioh had found her on Earth, and Makash’s presence was detected soon after. We can only assume Makash now has her. They have both fallen into darkness now; that is why we cannot reach either of them.’
‘We know this,’ Karo replied.
Trego nodded. ‘But not one member is giving it serious consideration.’
‘Who’s to say that she is the darkness?’ Karo argued. ‘What if she is the light and Ioh is the darkness? She may be the one to save our world.’
‘No,’ Trego’s voice hardened. ‘You’re wrong. She will not be the one to save us, because there is another part to the prophecy, one that has been hidden.’
A shocked ripple spread through the room. Trego waited patiently for it to subside.
The Chief Elder spoke again. ‘Where did you make this discovery?’
‘That is not important,’ Trego said, now deadly calm.
The Chief Elder inclined his head in acceptance of this assertion. ‘Then please share what you have discovered.’
‘The second part of the prophecy depicts the two halves of the young moon in darkness. Each half will fight separately to come into the light and each will fail. A star, not of our sky, will finally unite the halves to make the moon whole, giving it the power to succeed and illuminating it, once and for always.’ He glanced around at the puzzled faces in the room and stood quietly, waiting for a response.
Karo spoke. ‘This is nonsense. Where is this star? What is it? We cannot build our future on such a tenuous tale.’
Trego looked steadily at Karo. ‘I believe it pertains to a being. One not of our world.’
Karo’s eyes widened. ‘And you expect us to take this as truth? You expect us to place our faith in a being not from Astrae? Council members - tradition or no, we must find Kya.’
‘But Kya is the darkness, if we do that we invite Makash right into our heart! He is the reason we cannot reach Ioh or Kya. We need to find out what the second part of the prophecy means. The first part has already come to pass, the second can save us if we let it!’ Trego’s voice rose with incredulity. Why was he the only one who could see the folly in Karo’s proposed course of action?
Karo sneered. ‘This prophecy is nonsense.’
‘You’re wrong!’ Trego shouted. The Chief Elder frowned and Trego bowed his head in apology.
‘I think this has more to do with your affection for Ioh than your interest in the future of Astrae,’ Karo said, looking not at Trego, but at the Council Elders for support.
Trego flushed. ‘I make no secret of it; I consider him a friend.’
The Chief Elder regarded him gravely. ‘That is your biggest mistake, Trego. This is no place for friendship.’
The room was silent as all faces scrutinised him. With a stiff bow, he gathered his papers and hurried from the chambers.
Five: Drawing Together
Trego sat at his desk, head in his hands, the light suspended above him dimmed and warm. He had, once again, attempted to connect with Ioh and he was exhausted. While he had some small abilities of his own, they amounted to a mere spark compared to the inferno of the Watcher’s powers. This coupled with the great distance between them and the continued void of Ioh’s consciousness, gave him little hope of success. But there was something in him that couldn’t let it go and he continued to try nightly. He had hoped that the Council meeting would have yielded some ally on that front. Karo, he reflected bitterly, was gaining more influence by the day. He would have Kya and Makash in power yet. Trego didn’t trust him but he didn’t know why - what did Karo have to gain?
His attention turned to the faithfully rendered copies he had made of the prophecy scrolls. Every time he looked at them he was thankful for the premonition that had made him draw the images for himself, particularly as the originals had mysteriously disappeared from his chambers shortly afterwards. The lines were simple and clean, almost childlike, but there was no mistaking their depictions. The only difficulties lay in the translation.
Not for the first time, Trego pored over the drawings and thought of all he already knew of Ioh, trying to fit the pieces together. Sadly, he had to conclude, not for the first time, that he knew surprisingly little of his friend, considering that Ioh had, perhaps, shared a closer bond with him than any other Council member. Not to mention that they were telepathically connected. It was as though there was a secret, hidden place where access was barred to all, a place that, perhaps, Ioh himself was not even aware of. H
e sighed. He could be mistaken, of course. The prophecy could be meaningless. But that didn’t make sense. Somebody had taken great care to separate the scroll and hide the two pieces in different places, so the part that foretold the star would not be found. When he had inspected the original, he was sure he could see that the halves had been torn asunder in just the right place deliberately. Why would someone do that, if not from fear that the prophecy had real meaning? He mused on the people he had told about this discovery. Could he now trust any of them?
Alex wiped the rain from her eyes. The wind raging across the cliff top bit into the exposed skin of her face and hands, driving the wet chill into her bones. She stood, dangerously close to the cliff edge where the sea dashed the rocks below, her proximity to it making her dizzy. Beneath the line of the horizon, grey waves whipped to jagged points. To her left, in the distance, stood the needle of a gleaming lighthouse. This was the ocean, but nothing like she had known in California; this was something altogether more unpredictable.
Makash stood beside her, inscrutable, brooding; seemingly unaffected by the storm. His long coat whipped around him like a cloak.
‘Finish it,’ he commanded.
Alex stared at him, torn by fear and pity, bitterness and anger and love, unaware of which emotions were uppermost in the tempest of her mind. She tried to speak, but no words would come.
Makash moved closer, ‘Finish it,’ he repeated. The calm in his voice was more terrifying than any display of temper he had ever shown.
She looked down at her freezing hands. They were shaking; she struggled to hold them still and concentrate.
‘Remember your birthright…’ Makash growled, now right next to her ear, his hot breath sending shudders through her. ‘Remember what we came here to do. None of us can deny our destiny… and yours was written for you long before your birth. You cannot be weak now.’
She took a deep breath and filled her head with bitter thoughts, tried to hold on to them, to focus on the injustices she had suffered and block out the part of her soul that screamed for peace. If she relented to the pity welling up in her, even for a second, she knew she wouldn’t be able to go through with it. Gripping the chain of the amulet, she closed her eyes, delved into the darkness of her mind and found the incantation that would finish it. She shut him out, the calls for her to stop that echoed around the blackness of her head, even though she knew that it was not himself he was trying to save, but her. Opening her eyes again she glanced one last time at Makash. He nodded her on, his face an unreadable mask but his dark eyes hungry.
