Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “I’m always right.” She smiled.

  “It’s just, what if there’s some garrison up there already, somewhere in the mountains at the edge of the glaciers or in one of the mining towns? What if Faleiro sends a pigeon to that garrison and his men start searching for the stone on their own?” He felt his gut tighten into a knot. “They could be looking for it right now.”

  “Enzo.” She grabbed his shirt and jerked him forward slightly to face her. “You’re doing it again. You’re inventing problems where there aren’t any. Not yet, anyway. Go on, go outside and talk to her. She’ll tell you the same thing. We have all the time in the world. We can go find your relic in the spring, when it’s safe, just like we talked about last month. Go talk to her.”

  Lorenzo nodded. “I’ll do that.” He kissed her for a moment, or two, and left. The soft warmth of her lips lingered on his own and for a moment he considered carrying her back up to their bedroom. Time enough for that later.

  The hidalgo put on his long black coat and wide-brimmed hat and stepped out into the young night air. It was a sharp night, clear and cold with a needling wind full of ice dust to sting his cheeks and eyes. With his coat buttoned and the stiff collar flipped up, he reduced his exposure to a narrow gap across his eyes. His hot breath swirled inside the sealed collar, warming his nose and cheeks.

  With his gloved hands in his pockets, he trudged out through snow that wasn’t quite as high as his knee-high boots. His students were supposed to be shoveling the snow every morning, and they usually did, but in this season a brief flurry could easily carpet any road or bury any object left in the yard in less than an hour. Outside the main gate, he veered off into the fields away from the road and the houses down the lane. Overhead, a hundred thousand stars shimmered like diamonds, drawing pictures of ancient beasts and heroes from myth and legend. The corner of his heart that was still eight years old began to name them and quietly reveled in their storied exploits slaying monsters and saving kingdoms. He grinned. It always sounded so easy in the stories.

  When his house appeared to be little more than a black smudge against the starry sky behind him, Lorenzo found a large rock by a stunted tree, both scoured clean of the recent snow by the shrieking wind. His hat shuddered on his head, but remained in place. He swept his coat down straight and sat on the rock. At first touch, the cold of the stone stung his legs and rear, but soon his flesh warmed the rough seat, or it numbed his flesh. Either way, he ceased to notice it.

  “Sister?” he called softly.

  There was no answer. No sound or movement in the shadows, except for the wind in the tall dead grass below and the stiff crooked branches above.

  “Ariel?” He peered into the darkness, searching. He was in no hurry. His childhood in Gadir had been filled with winters as bitter as those here in Madrid and he couldn’t remember the cold ever truly bothering him. And there wasn’t another soul for miles to disturb his wait.

  “Good evening, Lorenzo.”

  “Agh!” He fell off his rock into the snow, his heart pounding in his chest. The voice had been right in his ear, so close beside him where no one had been a moment earlier.

  The ghost stood to his right, knee-deep in the unbroken snow, her pale silvery figure rippling slightly in the breeze, a figure drawn of mist and aether limned in starlight. Dona Ariella Espinoza de Cordoba still wore the same habit and dour expression she had worn in life centuries ago, and around her neck hung her triquetra medallion with its three curling branches for the Father, the Mother, and the Son. She stared at him. “A nice night.”

  “Yes, it is. Although I was enjoying it more before the heart attack.” He stood up and opened his high collar a bit so he could speak to her more clearly. His heart was still pounding from her sudden appearance. “It’s good to see you again. You’ve been away for a few weeks, haven’t you? Traveling the countryside?”

  The ghost nodded and spoke in the clear voice of a living person, “Well, it being winter, I doubted you would be very busy or in need of my counsel. I thought I might walk the worldly paths for a while, so to speak. I wanted to see what was becoming of the rest of España in this new day and age.”

  “And have you learned anything?”

  “Yes, but no one else has, as far as I can tell.” The old woman offered him a brief and uncomfortable smile. “The same old world, the same people, the same problems. Not even the fall of the armada or the rise of Mazigh industry has changed things. It troubles me to see how many people still hold to the old superstitions, the same ones I struggled to put to rest during my service at the cloister. Everywhere I go, there are people warning their children of the aloja haunting some well or the mouros lurking in some cave. You would think that here, of all places, the people would set aside the old stories and accept that wandering souls are just that, and not monsters.”

  “Maybe the old stories are still around because they aren’t just stories,” Lorenzo said with a smile. “After all, in most of the world, ghosts exist only in stories as well.”

  “This is not most of the world, Lorenzo.” She fixed him with a stern gaze. “This is España, where the Lord tests the faithful and keeps his children pure and protected from the sins of the world. A hard country, a cold country. We are an enduring people. Our flesh endures the hardships of this land and our souls endure the hardships of eternal service. The divine fire burns brightest here, in the cold and the dark of España.”

  Lorenzo grinned but did not laugh. For every Sister Ariel who chose to guide the living, there were hundreds of miserable revenants who passed the ages by frightening children and elderly spinsters who wandered out too far into the night alone. Most were harmless pranksters who appeared for an instant to shriek or hiss in some poor person’s ear, or to flash a terrible face before their eyes. But some were not so harmless.

  “I’ve been watching your students,” the nun said. “Their progress appears slow.”

  “Probably because it is.” Lorenzo sighed. “They’re hardly gifted. They may never even be competent. But it’s a start.”

  Ariel frowned. “You’d be surprised what most people are capable of. Push them harder. Demand more of them. Some of them will rise to the challenge.”

  “And the others?”

  “Will not.” She shrugged. “And I see Qhora is still quite slender.”

  Lorenzo winced. “No blessings yet, I’m afraid.”

  “Patience. Although, you too might benefit from pushing yourself harder in that arena.”

  The hidalgo jerked upright, eyes blinking in the cold night air.

  “Don’t look so surprised. I may have died a virgin, but I probably know more about lovemaking than most prostitutes. After all, I spent decades caring for them. God knows I heard more than my fair share of their exploits.”

  “Anything you’d care to share with me?” he asked. “Something to make me blush?”

  “Mostly things to make you vomit.” She stepped closer to him, her feet passing effortlessly through the unbroken snow. “So which is bothering you so much tonight? The practice room or the bedroom?”

  “The library, actually.” He paused with a twinge of guilt, feeling that he was about to confess a terrible failing. “A man stole my journal containing all of my notes about the skyfire stone. This man knows what the stone is capable of, what it can be used to do. He’s a commander in the navy, and now I’m afraid he’s going to send his men up into the mountains to find the stone before I can go myself.”

  For a moment, Sister Ariel’s shade appeared to sag and fold in upon itself, her clothing of silver smoke shuddering as the wind rose and tore through the image of her body. As the air stilled, her face grew more distinct, more lined and pitted, older and sadder. “That’s a shame. I know how much you were looking forward to your expedition.”

  He shook his head. “That’s the last thing I’m worried about. If the skyfire stone is the same metal I saw in the New World, then whatever is left of our navy will suddenly be powerful enough
to challenge anyone, even Persia. Eran, I mean. Whatever they’re called, the war will devastate the kingdoms of the Middle Sea. Millions could die.”

  The nun nodded. “Possibly. We’ve spoken of this before. We’ve always known that this stone might be used for war. And if the military finds it first, then that will be its fate.”

  “But the stone can be used for so much more!” Lorenzo said. “You’ve traveled. You’ve seen the new steamships and the tractors in the south. Clocks and watches and mills and trains. A machine can make a single man stronger than twenty. These machines are changing everything in Marrakesh and one day they’ll be here as well. But in Marrakesh, the men are little more than machine parts themselves. Worked to exhaustion, maimed and killed, and all in the name of progress and profit. It will happen here too, eventually. The Mazigh lost their faith. So will we. It’s already begun.” He thought of the empty churches, the pews where the men should have been if they hadn’t died in the New World and the pews where the women should have been if they weren’t working to exhaustion to support the remains of their families.

  The nun gazed up at the sky. “And you think you can change all that with the skyfire stone? Will this stone make countless thousands of people turn away from the modern world? Will they choose God over their new machines, over the promise of easy wealth, just because you parade a hot rock in front of them and call it a holy relic? A relic so-named only because a nun was one of the hundreds of people who saw it fall from the sky hundreds of years ago?”

  He smiled sadly. “You have a horrible way of putting things in perspective.”

  “Regardless of how it’s used, it’s only a rock.”

  Lorenzo straightened up. “But what if it isn’t? What if it is some crumb of paradise, some splinter of heaven? What if it can cure the sick, make the wicked lay down their arms, or even restore the dead to life? On the night that it fell from the sky, you described strange auroras above the mountains, and the witnesses you talked to heard voices singing on the wind.”

  “Just random nonsense, Lorenzo. There’s a holy miracle or relic in every town in every province, and a dozen old men to tell you that they saw it themselves. Over the centuries, I’ve tried time and again to walk those mountain paths, to find another ghost who knows of the stone. I’ve never found a single one.” She folded her bare hands drawn in starlight and shadow. “Look, Lorenzo, I don’t know exactly why the good Lord keeps throwing me into your path, but I do know you’re a fine young man and I’m trying to help you live a good life. That means real work and real family. It means making the world a better place, too, but it doesn’t mean saving the world from all the evils in the human heart. There were wars before Lorenzo Quesada walked the earth, and there will be wars when you’re dead and forgotten. Your legacies, your real legacies, are your children and the things you leave behind. Your students. Your school. Your philosophy and teachings.”

  Off in the western hills, two wolves howled to each other in long mournful cries.

  Lorenzo sniffed the cold and lifeless air. There was nothing to smell, no scents of fruit or flowers, no animal odors, not even the char of burnt wood.

  She’s right, of course. Her precious stone is probably just a rock, perhaps a strangely hot rock, but a rock nonetheless. And it probably doesn’t matter who finds it first. Even if I had it in my hands right now, Magellan and Faleiro would hear about it sooner or later and take it. I couldn’t possibly stop them.

  Lorenzo stared at the ghost figure of smoke and chalk and moonlight quivering in the cold night air just beyond his reach. She had lived and died generations ago, and returned with stories of ancient España and the voices of angels and the gates of heaven. Lived and died. Died, and still here, still trying, still working. He felt a sudden lightness in his heart, and he grinned.

  “You’ve convinced me,” he said.

  “To focus on your real commitments? You’ll give up the stone?”

  “Not exactly.” He shrugged. “It’s more of the opposite, really. I’m going to go find the stone myself. And I think I’ll leave tomorrow.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because of you, sister. I can’t believe I only just realized it. Most people in the world don’t even believe in ghosts, let alone see them. But we take them for granted here, so much so that we’ve forgotten what they mean,” Lorenzo said. “You stand there, proving the immortality of the human soul, proving the existence of some greater power, some grand design for the universe, proving that there is more to this world than what most people see. Marrakesh and the rest of Ifrica is a land powered by machines and science. Qhora’s empire is a land powered by enormous beasts and nature. Maybe it’s time that España took its place in the world as a land powered by God and faith. But faith is a fragile thing. It needs to be shepherded and nurtured, trained and tempered in the right hands. Hands like yours. And maybe even hands like mine. So I’m going to find this stone, whatever it is, and I’m going to use it to save our country, and our faith, and our future. And then, if there’s time, I’ll make some babies and teach my students how to parry and lunge. I promise.”

  She shook her head slowly. “You’re taking a terrible gamble. Ambitious military men are dangerous, and the mountains in winter even more so. A terrible risk to cross either.”

  “It’s not so terrible. Just a little walk up to the glaciers to look for a rock. I’ll even take a few of my better students along and try to whip them into shape in the mountains. Meanwhile, the others can stay here to practice or go home to rethink their decision to be here in the first place.” He held up his empty gloved hands. “Everybody wins.”

  “And Qhora?”

  Lorenzo grimaced. “Well, I have all night to figure out how to tell her, don’t I?”

  Chapter 7

  It was close to noon when Qhora caught the boys saddling the horses. They were muttering in low voices and stumbling around in the dark. A single open window or door would have flooded the stable with sunlight and snow glare, but every window and door was closed. She only found them because she was going to check on Wayra, who had been trilling and squawking in her pen all morning.

  When she threw open the door and a bright rectangle of light fell on them, the two boys froze with expressions of extreme guilt.

  “I expect this sort of thing from you, Gaspar, but you, Alonso?” She crossed her arms. It wouldn’t be the first time she had caught some of the boys sneaking off into town for a drink or a girl, though never in the middle of the day. Keeping an eye on Enzo’s students could be exasperating, but she also enjoyed the role, particularly bossing them around and watching them struggle to make up plausible excuses for whatever they shouldn’t have been doing.

  Gaspar dropped his gaze to the saddlebag in his hands and was seized by a sudden coughing fit. Alonso glanced at his confederate and then looked back at Qhora. “We’re just getting ready to go out for a while, ma’am.”

  “I see that. Uptown or downtown?” It was a meaningless distinction. Madrid was barely large enough to warrant being called a city, even by Espani standards.

  More squirming and guilty looks. Alonso said, “Who, us? No, no, no. We’re just going out to see if there are any elderly farmers in need of a little wood chopping or snow shoveling. You know us young men, always looking for a chance to help old people do boring things.”

  Qhora smirked. Alonso was many things, but he was not a good liar, which was why he never bothered trying to deceive her. He always went for the laugh instead. Her smile faded. Two boys, even two boys up to no good, only need two horses. “I’m sure. Carry on then, gentlemen. I’m just going to have a little chat with the head wood chopper and snow shoveler.” She spun around and stalked back through the snowy yard to the house and marched back to her husband’s study where she found him at his desk speaking to Enrique and Hector, but she entered too quickly to catch any part of their conversation before they broke off to look at her.

  “Good morning, darling,” Lorenzo said. “You�
�re looking as lovely as ever.”

  “You’ll tell me how beautiful I am later. Right now, I want to know why Alonso and Gaspar are saddling five horses in the dark.” Qhora folded her arms and noticed the heavy canvas bags in the corner. “And why you have those in here.”

  Her husband nodded and asked the boys to leave. Enrique and Hector slipped out through the door past her without looking her in the eyes.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “I’m taking some of the boys on a little trip. Training.” He played with a pen on his desk. “It’s something Don Jeronimo did with us sometimes back in Gadir. I think if I just push these four harder, make them really work like they’ve never worked before, I can get through to them. Show them what they’re really capable of.”

  “Really?” She moved closer to the desk. “And where will you go?”

  “Zaragoza,” he said. Humming, he began very slowly shuffling his papers into a semblance of order and slipping them down into his desk drawers.

  “Really? That far north at this time of year?”

  He sniffed and glanced up at her. “Sure. Why not? They’re all city boys, southern boys. They need to suffer a little. When they’re older, they won’t remember the drills or half the things I’ll tell them. But they’ll remember the two weeks riding up and down the old roads in the dead of winter. Grumbling and shivering and cursing my name. It’ll bring them closer together, and make them feel special. When they come back, they’ll lord it over the others. They’ll feel elite, special, more confident. At least, that’s the plan.”

  “That’s the plan,” she echoed. “Not to go to the mountains? Not to look for the stone?”

  Lorenzo leaned back in his chair and stared into her eyes. “Yes, while we’re up there, I may look into it. Ask a few questions, discretely. I’ll see if there’s a garrison up there, and if there is, I’ll ask if they know Faleiro or Magellan.”