Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales) (13 page)

Had she lost her memory? Surely not; she was too sharp. So why didn’t she raise the subject? Was she leading him on while secretly planning to slit his throat in his sleep? What was she playing at?

Finally, on the second night, he broke the silence. “There’s a rock song that could have been written for me, Aurata. ‘Bad to the Bone’—that’s me. I caused the downfall of Azantios.”

“I know,” she said evenly. She lay close, her head propped on one hand, her auburn hair flowing over her burnished shoulders.

“So what are you doing with me? Stringing me along until you can deliver me to the ghastly punishment I deserve?”

“Is that what you think? No, Rufus.” She laughed, softly and without smiling. “That would be a waste. I have other plans.”

“What plans?”

“Wait and see.”

“But why aren’t you blazing with fury? Why didn’t you spit in my face, the moment you recognized me? You’re acting as if nothing ever happened, but you can’t have forgiven me. No one ever could.”

She lowered her feline gaze. “True. What happened was far beyond forgiveness. But we have to set it aside, because … the truth is that the destruction of Azantios was as much my doing as yours.”

Her words threw him. “I heard tales … afterwards. That the Felynx finished the job themselves rather than let my mob of proto-human savages defile the city. But that’s not in the same league as my treachery.”

“Isn’t it? Can we please let this rest, and talk of it another time?” She touched his cheekbone. “All I ask is that you trust me.”

“This will be a leap into the unknown.” He grinned. “I’ve
never
trusted you, my fiery sister. But you know I’m yours, body and soul.”

On the third day, Aurata announced that it was time for the two of them to leave. With her belongings in a small rucksack, she led Rufus to a waiting helicopter. Soon the devastated brown landscape was dwindling beneath them. They landed at a dusty airstrip and transferred to a small plane that took them to Lahore airport. Amid seething crowds and sweltering heat, Aurata used her credit card to buy both of them plane tickets and new clothes.

“I don’t understand,” said Rufus. “Can you just walk away like that?”

“I can do whatever I like.”

“But you were working before the earthquake struck. What about your human colleagues?”

“My work with them was only ever a means to an end. It was our destiny to meet again, Rufus. The fact that you’re finally here is my sacred sign to move onward.”

“Sacred?” He laughed. “What if I don’t stick around, Dr. Connelly?”

Aurata gave him a look. “Oh, you will.”

She was right. The moment he’d seen her, everything else ceased to matter. She’d become his sole reason to live again. “Where are we going?”

“I’d love to keep it secret until we arrive,” she replied. “However, unless you consent to wear a blindfold and earplugs for a day, you are going to know as soon as our flight is announced.”

Venice.

He’d visited before—there were few places on Earth he hadn’t seen—but a fresh enchantment lay over the city as they arrived. Pale mist hung over the lagoon, backlit by sunlight. Everywhere was white and gold, the Doges’ Palace standing proud like a gigantic Rococo wedding cake. Aurata led Rufus away from the main thoroughfares, over bridges, down ever-narrower streets, crossing canals where water lapped between buildings in dank, fetid chasms.

VIALE DEI BELLI SEGRETI.
He saw the sign bearing the name of the alley and translated it to himself. Avenue of Beautiful Secrets.

“What are the beautiful secrets?” asked Rufus.

“Now if I told you, they wouldn’t be secrets, would they?”

He felt a subtle shift of atmosphere, colors becoming more intense. “Ah. A Dusklands place. So only Aetherials know of its existence, only Aetherials live here?”

“Others, by invitation only,” she answered with a smile.

Her house had a facade of flaking grandeur. The creamy walls were decorated with gold and lapis lazuli, the tall windows framed by ornate carving. She opened the front door to reveal a grand, oval hall with a double staircase sweeping up the curved walls. Soft blue-green light filled the space. The floor was tiled with black and white marble in a familiar pattern; a single giant spiral, the most potent symbol of the Otherworld.

Rufus could imagine ghostly Aetherial guests at a masquerade, could almost hear the whisper of their skirt hems across the tiles. Or something more serious: a ritual for the warping of reality? He tasted subtle energies in the air, like ozone.

Aurata led him upstairs to a salon lined with gilt-framed mirrors. Crossing to the window, Rufus looked out at a row of houses facing him across the canal. Their pastel walls were stained with age, by algae and waterweed where the water sucked at their foundations. Water taxis plowed the turbid surface. The scene had a foggy look, as if a fine muslin scrim were stretched tight in front of it. Could the boat passengers see him at the window? Or was it some other house they saw as they glanced upwards, an Earth-bound construction occupying the same space as Aurata’s hidden Dusklands mansion?

“Do you live here alone?”

“For the time being. My people are elsewhere.”

“You have ‘people’?” He laughed.

“Friends.”

“No, you mean worshippers. Naturally. So did I.”

“Of course you did, Rufus.”

“We always were so alike.”

“Were we?” She blinked. “On the surface, perhaps.” Her words stung a little. For a few seconds, she seemed aloof: a scientist with mysterious plans, while he was just the same irresponsible reprobate he’d always been.

Aurata excused herself, and returned with a tray bearing food and a bottle of ice-cold white wine. If she had servants, he wasn’t interested; such mundane matters would have spoiled the dream feeling. They sat in the salon in gilded chairs and refreshed themselves with olives,
ciabatta
bread and soft cheese.

Haphazard fragments of their stories came out. They spoke of living disguised within human civilizations; some of Rufus’s tales were real and some fabricated. He avoided mentioning Mist, which left large gaps in his narrative. He told her he’d been a stage illusionist in the 1920s and 1930s: that was true. He claimed to have flown as a fighter pilot in the Second World War, a complete lie. And his latest, incredible claim, to have forced the British government to call a general election, also happened to be the truth. Aurata listened with a look of serene amusement.

“I’ve done everything and nothing,” said Rufus. “Mainly, I’ve amused myself with humans. Seduced them, poisoned them against each other. Withheld knowledge, or let slip a little too much. I like to think I’ve changed the course of history, in some small way.”

Aurata gave an ostentatious sigh. “And it never occurred to you to do something more constructive?”

He raised his eyebrows. “What for? I had Mist for that. He was the good guy, so I had to play the baddie. That was the role in which our father cast me. I had a reputation to live up to.”

“Wait,” she said sharply. “Mistangamesh was with you?”

He kicked himself for the slip; he’d meant to tell her in his own time. “Not all the time. Some of it, yes.”

“So he survived Azantios?” She rose and paced about restlessly. “I
knew
you were hiding something! I was wondering when you’d admit it.”

“And I can’t hide anything from you, can I?” He grimaced. “When I behaved particularly badly, Mist felt the need to rein me in.”

“But where is he now?” Her whisper echoed in the big, bare room. “What happened to him?”

Rufus swallowed hard. “He did what humans do,” he said brusquely. “He died.”

*   *   *

Later, they lay naked and entwined on a huge bed, curtains wafting gently at the windows, a breeze bringing in the sulfur smell of the canal and the noise of water traffic. Night drew in. Candles glowed, spinning a golden web around them. Aurata was no longer “Dr. Connelly,” but the gilded feline angel he remembered. Despite his wariness, rekindling their passion had proved as natural and divinely sweet as if they’d never been apart. He’d given a ragged outline of the Adam story, and even of the Mist and Helena disaster, and afterwards she had soothed him until the pain faded.

“We thought you were dead, too,” said Rufus.

“Did you grieve?”

“That’s a feeble word for what I felt. There isn’t much I care about, but I’ll admit to one weakness. You and Mistangamesh, and our beloved mother, are the only three people I’ve ever truly loved. My grievance was against Poectilictis, never against you.”

“And yet you were angry enough with Father to forget who else you were harming?” When he didn’t answer, she added, “Would you go back and change the past?”

“That’s a redundant question. Give me a time machine powered by hindsight, and I’ll give you an answer! We can’t change what happened. But this…” He cupped her face between his palms. “This matters, doesn’t it? Not the past. The present.”

“And the future, my sweet, unrepentant brother. Yes, we’ve lost Mist, but we’ve found each other.”

“We could have been great, you and I,” Rufus sighed. He kissed her neck. “Ah, the alchemy of siblings.”

“We still could.” Aurata was quiet for a time. Then she said softly, “So, you know what happened after your army invaded and began to cut down hundreds of defenseless Felynx in the streets?”

“Yes. Mist told me.” Darkness stirred inside Rufus: an uneasy remnant of conscience. From afar, he’d watched his primitive warrior horde flood the city—ants swarming a pale honeycomb—eager for the riches he’d promised them. When flames caught the delicate spires of Azantios, he’d only sneered. This was his perfect revenge against their ruler, his own father.

But then the land began to shake. The scarlet mountain reared and shook the golden-white palaces of Azantios off its spine. The city crumbled and burned, swallowing the proto-humans in its own death throes. Soon it was as if Azantios had never been.

“You remember Veropardus, the Custodian of the Felixatus?” said Aurata.

“That pompous misery,” said Rufus. “What did you ever see in him?”

“Useful secrets.” She half-smiled. “There was always a plan in place, in the unlikely event of an attack, but it went wrong.”

“Wrong, how? You did a perfectly good job of self-destruction, as far as I could see.” Rufus’s voice sounded hoarse. “Mist told me, days later when he crawled out of the ruins. He said you were dead, that everyone was dead. Suicide before surrender.”

“Yes, that was the
official
plan. However, Veropardus and I had other ideas: we hoped to use the power of the Felixatus to shift Azantios right through the barriers and into the Otherworld. But we failed, and the Felixatus was destroyed.”

Astonished, Rufus struggled for a response. Eventually he said, “I thought we were close, you and I, yet you never told me a word of these schemes!”

“Because I didn’t trust you,” she said bluntly.

Rufus felt strange. He’d intended to be blasé and detached. Instead the conversation was distressing him beyond words. “I deserved that. But … how did you not die?”

“Rufus, I’m Aetherial. I
was
lifeless for an immeasurably long time. I became an elemental, haunting the ruins, with no more awareness than the wind. However, eventually I woke again. I was alone, and quite deranged.”

“I wonder what became of … our parents?”

“I believe that their last sacrifice was the end for them,” Aurata said gravely. “I hope their soul-essences found peace.”

“I wish peace for Theliome, at least. How strange it is to think of them … and the three of us in our glory days. You and me and Mistangamesh.”

“Always at each other’s throats.” Aurata spoke idly, but her eyes gleamed.

“Foolish rivalry. Still, it was fun at the time.”

“Until it grew a little too serious.”

Rufus fell silent for a while. “I still can’t claim I’m sorry,” he said. “Father accused me of a crime I didn’t commit, and that was the least of it. He always despised me. There was no love lost—”

“Hush,” Aurata cut him off, her tone mild. “Haven’t you changed at all? You were always such a child.”

“A
spoiled
child,” he amended. “So? Change is what humans do. Isn’t the point of being immortal that we don’t have to bother changing?”

“I think you’re mixing us up with angels.”

“That makes me Lucifer, then.” He propped himself on one elbow and toyed with her hair.

“None of us is blameless,” she said. “Perhaps it was time for the Felynx empire to end. Now it’s vanished behind a veil of time, I’m simply ecstatic to have found you, Rufus. And no one’s beyond redemption.”

“What’s wrong with you? Have you caught a human religion? I find you with a doctorate and doing humanitarian work … who are you, and what have you done with Aurata Theliet Ephenaestus?”

She bit him gently on the shoulder. “Aren’t Aelyr allowed to evolve? I can be anything I want. So can you.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll become a fucking saint, if it pleases you, my lady.”

“No need for that.” Her breath warmed his cheek. “Are you composed enough yet to tell me more about Mistangamesh?”

Rufus pressed into her flank. “I can’t talk about him. Not now. Let me make love to you again, while you whisper in my ear about rifts overflowing with molten lava.”

“Ah, you like that, do you?”

“I like the way your eyes get moist when you tell me about tectonic plates and magma chambers and spurting geysers…”

“Well, all right,” she murmured, her sleek body moving against his. “But there will be questions later.”

“Oh,
you
have questions? I like a mystery, sweet sister, but at some point you might like to tell me why we’re here.”

Aurata slid off the bed and crossed the room to an ornate cupboard. Rufus sat up, indignant. “Hey, where are you going?”

She returned with a large, heavy book that looked and smelled a thousand years old. It landed on his thighs like a stone block, narrowly missing injury to a sensitive place.

“Careful! I may be more than human but I still have nerve endings, Aurata. What the hell is this?”