Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales) (32 page)

“Melusiel,” said Virginia, nodding.

“What do you mean?”

“You know the Spiral’s divided into five realms? Asru for the spirit, Naamon for fire, Elysion for earth, Sibeyla for air, Melusiel for water. Like the primal elements, although more complex in reality. All Aetherials have an affinity, which is usually but not always connected to the realm they were born in. Everything about you suggests your origins are Melusiel.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Neither. It’s a clue to your nature, that’s all.”

“Why does water frighten me, then?”

“That I can’t answer.”

“It’s like an urge to stand on a cliff edge even though you’re frightened of heights. Which I am, incidentally. Also I’m not keen on centipedes, and as for
millipedes
 … I think it’s that whole segmented invertebrate thing that gives me the creeps.”

Virginia interrupted, “Changing the subject is not going to help. Let’s think about water. Relax and see what comes into your mind.”

“Are you trying to hypnotize me?”

“I’m trying to help. Often a light trance will dissolve memory blocks.”

“But I’m afraid to remember.” She was trembling. Her heartbeat felt like an earthquake.

“I know.” Virginia placed a gentle hand on her spine.

“I’m afraid I might dive in and never come back up,” said Stevie.

“Is that what you want to do? Go into the pool?”

“Yes. I feel as if I’ll die if I don’t plunge in there. But that’s insane. I’m not going in; it’s dangerous and I’ll drown.”

“Can’t you swim?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it. I’ve never tried, because of this phobia.”

“Well, you can hang on to the rocks.”

Stevie gasped. “Aren’t you supposed to dissuade me?”

“No,” Virginia said coolly. “If it’s what you need to do, then you must.”

“I can’t,” Stevie whispered. “But…”

Fear rushed through her, louder than the waterfall, as she rose to her feet and threw off her jacket, her boots and clothes and underwear. She stood on the lip of the pool, not caring that she was naked because there was only Virginia to see her. The next she knew, she was leaping feet-first towards the center of the pool; and then she was underwater, pushed down and down by the water’s force, the torrent roaring in her ears.

She was sinking into green glass, air bubbles rising from her mouth and nose. Complete terror filled her. Panic. She was drowning. Down and down through an infinite lake. She clawed the water, desperately trying to scramble upwards. No revelations came, no
fylgia
to guide her, only the knowledge that she must resurface or die …

A shape came snaking towards her through the emerald gloom. It was blue-black yet iridescent, some kind of serpent—no, more of a seahorse, covered in scales that flashed purple and red and orange, adorned with fronds and tendrils like a leafy sea dragon.

Its sinuous form flowed over her, touching her, gripping her with its tail wrapped around her left thigh. She arched her back, helpless. She felt its muscular scaly length pressed along her stomach as the seahorse head swung close to her face. Entwined, the two drifted along the lake bed. She put her arms around the creature, in some vain hope that it would carry her to the surface. The spokes of its ribs pressed into her. She was aware now that she’d stopped breathing and was yet still alive, calm and numb and resigned. She looked into the leafy dragon’s black eyes, saw its mouth gaping to reveal fangs—and then it struck.

She felt two needles pierce her collarbone. A convulsion of pain and ecstasy made her arch like a bow. Loss of consciousness came as a blissful release.

*   *   *

Was it possible to live in two worlds at once, without attracting jealousy? Fela had little ego, but even the wildest of Tashralyr could not have resisted basking in triumph. She enjoyed her short time of glory, of walking proudly through the lanes of Azantios with Karn and their fellow athletes, wearing garlands of victory. They were paraded at palace gatherings, their silver-grey forms conspicuous among the gilded Felynx, their silken fur adorned with finery sewn from watery silks and silver mesh. Aurata was always there as her patron and protector. Rufus was never far away with an entourage of his own; yet he was always glancing at his sister with Fela; wanting what he could not have.

And Mistangamesh … he haunted the edge of the crowd, looking troubled. Sometimes he was with Poectilictis, sometimes alone or in a small group. When Fela saw his friends around him she felt strange, because they were close to him in a way she could never be. To Aurata and Rufus, she was a coveted plaything. To Mistangamesh, though, she was nothing, because he didn’t play such cruel games. He moved in a higher circle that barely overlapped with hers.

When the races and the parties were over, Fela would go home to the quiet, watery lands of her own
eretru
, and try to live among them as if nothing had changed. Karn had been like a brother to her. He was a good and kind Tashralyr, but even his heart was not great enough to resist envy when she began to outrace him every time. They drifted apart.

Her own people were different with her now. Not openly hostile, but less welcoming. Many resented the Felynx with their power and pretentions, so Tashralyr who associated with them were viewed with suspicion. Even life among her fellow athletes was no easier. They were too competitive; their admiration of her prowess soon soured to jealousy. She thought of running away, but to where? In any case, Aurata would not let her. And she’d grown attached to Aurata, in an uneasy way.

Fela thought that she’d rather become a gracious loser than an outcast. Pride, however, would not let her. While she was racing and winning—and basking in the adoration of the Felynx—only then was she truly alive, and in ecstasy.

One misty evening she was alone, slipping between ferny trees down a long gully that led to her favorite lake. She paused, watching vapors drift thickly over the swampy ground at the lake’s edge. Then she heard someone call her name. “
Fela?
”

At first she thought it was Karn. She heard the call again, emanating from the heart of the swamp. Was someone in distress? Curiosity led her on, one paw after another.

“Fela!” Still faint yet distinct, the voice lured her. She crossed the swamp, stepping on spongy green cushions of moss. The water was only a paw’s depth below her. Otter-like, she was a creature who lived beside water, not in it. She knew there were water-breathing undines who lived in the depths, but they were shy beings, rarely seen. To them, Fela was an intruder. In her four-legged form, she had waterproof fur, but no gills, nor any other means to breathe underwater.

“Fela, I must see you!”

Fainter now, and farther away, the voice was imploring. Male or female, she wasn’t sure … could it be Mistangamesh calling, wanting to see her in secret? The thought crossed her mind because he’d tried to speak to her in the palace, to warn her away from his sister and brother, but Aurata had scolded him and swept Fela out of his sight.

Now hope and curiosity drew her. She had no reason for suspicion. Although Aetherials had their differences and conflicts, there was rarely violence.

“Fela?”

Vapors thickened and the swamp spread all around her. She was no longer sure of her way back.

“Who’s there?” she called.

Something reared out of the water and seized her. She was pinioned, turned over, and forced down into the swamp. All turned to confusion. She felt herself being pushed underwater, the surface closing over her face. She held her breath and struggled, but a dark shape of terrible strength was holding her down without mercy. She saw the surface rippling above her head, distorting her killer’s shape, saw the last of her breath escape in a string of glassy bubbles.

Darkness carried her down.

13

Persephone’s Chamber

“
Is there anything else?
” The voice issued from a silhouette standing against a dim green light. She glimpsed a long black dress clinging to a curvy figure, a veil of raven hair … Virginia? “
There’s something you’ve left out.
”

Fela was tumbling downwards through channels of wet black rock. She wound between the feet of the living but no one saw her. Reduced to a pale soul-essence, she darted like a terrified cat down convoluted walkways and terraces, descending long flights of steps deep into the city’s secret heart, down into cellars that became caverns and tunnels, a ghostly streak against dark rock. She had no idea how she’d come here. There was nothing in her mind but fear, and the terrible cold reek of water drawing her like gravity into the deepest subterranean caves of the underworld.

*   *   *

Daniel sat in the workroom and began a new drawing. He felt compelled to work, even though his right eye was swollen shut and his left arm aching where Oliver had twisted it and thrown him down. His kidneys throbbed. His skin was a tender mass of bruises beneath his clothes. Still the visions kept coming.

The huge floor-to-ceiling window gave a breathtaking view of blue sky, red rock studded with cactuses, and a distant glint of barbed, electrified fences. The house ranged over four stories, poised on the hillside above Jigsaw Canyon. The workroom they’d given him was bigger than his London studio, yet took up only a corner of the second-lowest floor.

There were at least thirty Aetherials living here, sharing duties of security and housework in echoes of a religious commune. Like Oliver, they tended to stay in human shape, with a dress code of dark, smart suits for male and female alike. Oliver still hadn’t properly explained who they were, beyond describing them as “staff.”

Whose staff, though? Daniel wondered. Oliver was firmly in charge, but had an air of tense hyperactivity about him that suggested he was managing a business rather than simply living here. He seemed to have no family, and was not the relaxed, wealthy head of household that Daniel might have expected. Sometimes they would all vanish into a private room and he’d hear eerie chanting. If this was a cult, Oliver must be their leader … but he acted more like a commandant than a serene guru.

Daniel had learned the hard way not to ask questions. The response was either silence or rage. His duty was to work, and keep his mouth shut.

Swiftly he sketched a body floating face up, like Ophelia drowning. He added the hint of shady figures retreating in the distance, their crime complete. The colors in his mind were grey and aqua.

“What the hell is this?” Oliver said over his shoulder.

Daniel started violently. His nerves were on fire.

“I-I-I don’t know. Murder, perhaps … I keep telling you, I only see things. I don’t know what they mean, I never have.”

Oliver ripped the page out of the sketch book and shredded it.

Daniel recoiled in shock. “What are you doing? You said paint whatever I see!”

“Not that one.”

“So now you’re censoring me? Why have you changed your mind?” Daniel cowered after he spoke, waiting for a blow. He hated himself for the reflex, but he’d never been the fighting type. When his lover turned from mentor to monster, he had no defense. His awe of Oliver was collapsing into plain terror.

Oliver grabbed his hair and jerked his head back, sneering at Daniel’s gasp of pain. “No. I said I want to
know
every detail that you’re channeling. I decide whether it’s fit to be seen by my … colleagues, or better buried. If you think
I
am harsh, believe me, there are higher powers whom we truly do not want to displease.”

If Oliver answered to unseen superiors, it might explain his own manic tension and his impulse to take out his frustration on Daniel … or it might simply mean he was mad. Daniel understood now that Oliver was eventually going to kill him. He would squeeze out every last drop of inspiration, then throw away the husk. What was to stop him? This was a stronghold, with no escape, and nothing beyond the security fences but miles of desert.

Worse than this was his fear of dying without ever learning the truth. He’d painted otherworldly beings and then discovered they were real. That knowledge was enough to drive him insane. But never to learn what was going on, what Oliver
needed
from his work—the frustration was unbearable.

He’d no way of knowing if his panicky message would reach Stevie. It was unlikely. He’d had only five minutes on an unattended laptop to write the document and pray that no one saw it. Oliver had made him set up the secret file storage, apparently so that unnamed absent “colleagues” could view the images.

For Daniel to add a personal, subversive message was a mad risk. As smart as Stevie was, there was little chance she’d ever see it. Now, for her own safety, he hoped she hadn’t.

All this flew through his mind as Oliver gave him a painful upside-down kiss then let go, shoving Daniel away from him with such force that he slipped off his seat onto the floor. As he got shakily back to his feet, he saw that Oliver was holding a familiar stone disk between his palms. With a menacing smile he asked, “D’you recognize this?”

Daniel stared in horror at the familiar carved object that he’d last seen in his display case at home. He couldn’t breathe. “How the hell did you get that?”

“The question is, why didn’t you give it to me when you had the chance?”

“It’s my mother’s. If I’d known it mattered to you…”

“Well, my good assistant Mr. Slahvin is attuned to sniff out artifacts such as this, and the triptych, and bring them to me. There’s nothing you can hide from us.
Nothing
.”

“Did he harm my mother, or my friend Stevie? If I
ever
find out he hurt them—”

“You’ll do what?” Oliver laughed. “Don’t worry. People only get hurt if they defy me. Stop fighting me, Daniel, you dear fool.” Oliver regarded him with an expression of glowing, cruel-to-be-kind love that rendered him helpless.

“I’m not fighting.” Daniel’s voice came out as a husky whisper. “I want to make you happy. But this is not what I expected.”

“I don’t care what you expected. Most artists would kill to be given a studio like this and the promise of great rewards in exchange for indulging their talent all day. Yet you’re complaining?”