Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales) (62 page)

“It’s a start,” said Mist.

*   *   *

Between them, Lucas and Sam, Rosie and Stevie and Mist carried Albin into his spire and up the precarious stairs to the chilly bluish glow of the top chamber. There, as he requested, they laid him on his lapis-blue bier. Sam arranged the swan-feather cloak to cover him from feet to chin.

“You may yet heal, and live,” Sam repeated, very quietly. “In which case, someone will have to make sure that you
never
regain your power.”

“No,” Albin whispered. “Here I will stay. I’ve no wish for further life, nor power. My time is done.”

Sam kneeled down, so his head was on a level with Albin’s. Rosie stood with one hand on Sam’s shoulder, her head bowed. Lucas, standing on the other side, wept soundlessly. Mist and Stevie stayed at the foot of the bier, watching in silence.

Sam said, “And that’s it, is it? No apology? No words for anyone?”

“Maia…”

“She went into the Abyss. You probably realized that.”

The jewel on his forehead faded to grey. His lips, barely moving, were the same hue. “Tell Lawrence … tell my son that his mother and I were too alike. We almost destroyed the world between us. My only purpose in life was to find her, and now that is done … I see, in a clear light, that my other ambitions were pointless.”

“I wish you’d told Lawrence in person. He never had the chance to speak to Maia.”

“You’re pure Vaethyr, Samuel. Too human to live in this realm.”

“Oh,” Sam said softly. “You finally get that, do you? We aren’t all the same. Some of us love the human world. You cannot force all Aetherials to be the same.”

“Nor can you force me to be otherwise. Heartless and vindictive, you labeled me. Well, vindictive no longer. I am as cold as a dead star, but I am at peace. We are all alone, forever drifting apart like galaxies in the void of space. Our only hope is to accept it. For as long as you deny it, Samuel, and insist on clinging to your human self, your heart will be broken.”

“I’d rather that, a million times over, than wall myself up in a tower of ice for fear of getting hurt.”

“Fear? I am not afraid.” Albin’s lips were barely moving now. “I confess to a little sadness. But all is as it should be. Leave me now.”

Sam gripped one of Albin’s hands, which were stiff and bloodless like wax. “You’re not alone, Grandfather. If this is what you choose, we respect it. But you are not alone.”

“Lucas,” Albin whispered.

“Grandfather?” Lucas took a step nearer.

“Safeguard the Spiral.”

The minimal movement of the lips ceased. Albin became a marble effigy. Sam straightened up, and smoothed the feathered cloak. Albin’s gaunt white face pointed up at the chamber’s apex. The temperature dropped, making their breath form clouds that fell into fine ice needles.

Sam stood away from the bier and grasped Rosie’s hand. Mist looked somber, and Stevie felt tears in her own eyes. Lucas was only a shade less pale than Albin himself.
All this sorrow
, she thought,
even though Albin brought nothing but trouble. It’s because we aren’t heartless. We’re capable of grieving for the sheer waste.

The tower quaked slightly beneath them. Mist said gently, “It’s time to go.”

“One last thing,” said Sam. He took Rufus’s claw from a pocket and laid it on the shelf among Albin’s artifacts, where it looked ghoulishly appropriate. “Unless you want to give it a decent burial?”

Mist closed his eyes briefly. “No. Leave it there. It seems to belong.”

Sam nodded. They made their way in single file down the carved spiral of the stairs—a slow process, as the tower was trembling with alarming violence. Emerging at the base, Stevie snatched up the Felixatus. To her own dismay, she’d almost forgotten it, but here it still was in its silken wrapping. The plateau around them was deserted except for Vaidre Daima, who was beckoning frantically.

The island shuddered beneath them.

They ran. In a few long strides they were leaping off the periphery and onto the moonstone sheen of the underlying ground. Turning, they took a last look at the spire’s pointed summit, saw it fading into a shroud of ice vapor: Albin’s tomb.

They watched as the island bearing the tower began to slide away towards the edge of the chasm. Silently it went—ice on ice—teetering on the precipice until it tipped beyond the point of no return.

Falling in slow motion, backlit by evanescent glacial light, Albin’s tower vanished into the Abyss.

*   *   *

Tyrynaia.

It is a city that reveals itself only to the favored few
, Vaidre Daima had told them.
You cannot find Tyrynaia. It will find you.

He led the way inland from the Abyss, over a high delicate bridge across a ravine and into a landscape that made Stevie think of Chinese porcelain: paths winding around impossibly steep hills cloaked in gnarled foliage. The landscape felt like gossamer floating on nothingness, glowing in semidarkness. Trees stood like exotic bonsai silhouetted against a star-swirled indigo sky. This was Asru, the realm of secrets, a thin crust between the Spiral and the Cauldron.

All the stars missing from the sky above the Abyss seemed to be gathered here instead. The air was warm, almost tropical. The contrast, after she’d been cold for so long, was painful, tingling, delicious.

“Have any of you been to the city before?” Stevie asked.

“No,” said Lucas, “but I think it’s time.”

Stevie carried the Felixatus all the way, refusing Mist’s offer to take the burden. There was a task for her to perform. He understood that.

The path wound into a valley: a gentler landscape, full of birch trees and mossy banks dipping into streams. A maze of small bridges and stepping stones guided them across. Fireflies shone from within the trees themselves: not fireflies, Stevie realized, but the eyes of curious elementals, watching them pass by.

She breathed in Asru’s wonderful smell, an earthy, humid scent like a hothouse full of orchids. Vaidre Daima stopped at a spring, suggested they rest for a minute and drink from the crystal water. When they looked up again, Stevie saw a vast black silhouette that blotted out half the stars.

“That wasn’t there before,” she said. “Was it?”

Tyrynaia revealed itself as a dark mountain, a peak as majestic as Mount Everest. As they drew closer, the monumental cutout began to show detail. Colors gleamed like rainbows on oil. Tyrynaia floated in its own realm, veiled from base to summit with a confection of delicate structures—like Azantios in negative, ten times the size.

Mist didn’t speak, but his hand was firm around Stevie’s arm. She experienced a surge of amazement and recognition. “I have been here before,” she murmured. “Or rather, Fela has.”

Somewhere deep beneath the floating bulk of the mountain lay Persephone’s chamber and the mysterious lake Meluis.

A magnificent double gate stood open in front of them, black filigree patterned with sphinxes and angels. An arch over the top bore the words—in runes she read easily—“Tyrynaia, the Heart of us.” A procession of figures was coming down the avenue beyond to greet them.

They were shadows under dusky silk veils, shimmering with elusive light … a procession of Aelyr as humans might see them. Stevie felt caught in some wondrous and terrifying dream. Even though she’d plummeted into the Abyss and become Estalyr; even though she’d lived alongside the Felynx, passed through Persephone’s chamber and returned to a new life … none of it lessened her awe.

“Who comes to Tyrynaia?” a voice asked from behind a veil.

Vaidre Daima pressed his right hand to his chest and gave a formal bow; his left sketched a symbol on the air. “I bring Lucas Fox, Keeper of the Great Gates: Rose Fox and Samuel Wilder, his kin: Mistangamesh Poectis Ephenaestus of Azantios and Stephanie Silverwood of … also of Azantios and of Vaeth. Bid them welcome.”

The veils were swept back and faces revealed: a dozen different hues and textures of skin and flowing hair, bright intelligent eyes, some faces more animal and others more human—but all stunning and completely unearthly.

Vaidre Daima’s voice sounded dry and hoarse; not officious anymore, but the voice of a general who’d been charged with defeating an enemy, and failed. “We have them to thank for saving the Spiral. Those who threatened us are gone.”

*   *   *

Tyrynaia was a place to lose yourself. Citadels, spires and arches were interconnected by lanes and stairways snaking upward from one terraced level to the next. Vast statues of black angels stood shining on balconies. Tiny lights gleamed everywhere like rubies and emeralds, sapphires and amethysts thrown onto black velvet.

You could wander for days through the spiderweb labyrinth, Stevie thought. They passed endless dwellings—mansions, villas, palaces—but none seemed private. Pathways cut straight through open-sided halls, or led across balconies like errant rights-of-way. Perhaps the city was a single edifice with thousands of rooms and interlinked courtyards. Perhaps, to live here, all you had to do was find an empty chamber and make yourself at home.

Tyrynaia was built from some species of dark Elfstone, an inky yet translucent crystal that spilled flashes of fire. Fashioned, rather than built, Stevie corrected herself. That was how the Aelyr worked, Mist had told her: spinning reality from intention, rather than from solid stone. Azantios had been the same: Tyrynaia’s golden echo.

Vaidre Daima brought them to a high terrace that overlooked the spilling tiers of the city. A gentle breeze blew, carrying incense. From the land far below rose fluting birdcalls, achingly reminiscent of blackbird and thrush and nightingale song. Stevie stood enraptured by the exquisite chorus.

She asked, “Does it ever get light here?”

“The sun appears on rare occasions, according to the unpredictable movement of the Spiral,” Vaidre Daima answered. “Yet it’s never quite dark, here, either. We have the stars. Otherworld flora and fauna thrive in starlight, or indeed in any conditions, since they seem to have a magical will of their own. It is always summer in Tyrynaia, so our legends say.”

“Oh, always midsummer night?” said Rosie, leaning on a balustrade next to Stevie. “So you don’t get the blazing heat of noon in the Mediterranean, but always the delicious balmy softness of a summer night? How wonderful.”

“It is so,” said Vaidre. “Rest here while I send for food and drink.”

There were curved marble benches, but the newcomers stayed on their feet, lined up along the terrace wall. The cosmos was breathtaking. Stars whorled in their billions. Planets hung in the sky like fruit, close enough to touch. Stevie saw the mysterious globes of Mars, Venus, Saturn, Neptune, and a half-dozen others she didn’t even recognize. She felt drunk on Spiral strangeness, thrilled and overawed to the point of fear.

Mist stood close beside her, not touching. Stevie longed to warm his ashen face with her hands, to drag her fingers through his thick black hair, slide her arms around him and feel his neck and cheeks and lips beneath hers. She resisted. His aura of shock and grief sealed her out, impenetrable. He’d changed. How soul-destroying it would be to lavish comfort on an ex-lover who—through no fault of his own—was unreachable, as unresponsive as a statue.

“Oh, this is weird,” said Rosie. “I
have
been here before. Sort of. The first time I changed into Estalyr form—which was
very
trippy—I remember flying over the city, and there was Albin standing on a balcony like this one, pure white against the blackness. He freaked the life out of me but, because I was Estalyr, I wasn’t as scared as I maybe should have been. He was full of enigmatic warnings … and I wish I’d listened. I never dreamed he’d go to such extremes.”

“I still can’t believe he’s gone,” said Lucas.

“Well, I can’t believe we were related to him,” said Sam. “Yeah, it’s easy to get sentimental—ah, he was our grandfather: what might have been if he hadn’t acted like a complete Nazi?—but we can’t forget how he was. Manipulative. Cruel to Lawrence. Same with Rosie and me, not to mention his smirking indifference when he put Lucas in mortal peril. Cursing his own wife and son! His general hatred of humans and Vaethyr alike. His endless crusade to seal the Spiral off from Earth—and when that failed, he’d rather destroy his own family and the whole Otherworld than admit defeat! No, none of that can be forgotten.”

They now sat on the smooth benches as a handful of smiling, dark-skinned Aetherials brought refreshments. They were hosts, not servants: Stevie understood that. They could well be Spiral Court members who would be interrogating them later.

Sweet wine was served, morsels of unfamiliar fruit, olives, cheese, spicy cakes. Stevie had no idea what she was eating and was too hungry to care. The others apparently felt the same, except Mist, who barely touched anything. His face was a bleached shell against the darkness.

“I’ll keep reminding myself of that,” Mist said. “It’s a curse in itself, to love people and hate them at the same time. I’m convinced Aurata believed she was doing good with her mad schemes. I never thought she’d refuse to listen to reason—yet she was pragmatic enough, when she saw she couldn’t win, to sacrifice her power, because it was the only way to stop Albin. She didn’t hesitate.”

“You know why I think she did that?” said Stevie, touching his hand. “Unlike Albin, she wasn’t dead inside. Didn’t she admit that she might not be reforging the world for herself, but for future generations? There was still some pang of love deep inside her that made her decide to stop. It wasn’t only about defeating Albin. She found some compassion for her grandsons after all.”

Mist’s expression was pensive. “When I mentioned them, I saw her face change. Apart from that, she gave no other clue that she cared. If I was wrong … if she still had feelings after all…” He sighed. “What a waste that we lost her.”

“I think she’d gone too far to be saved,” Stevie said gently.

Mist went on, “I truly thought Rufus
had
changed … until he pulled that last trick of taking you into the Abyss, Stevie. I knew then that he hadn’t changed at all. Maybe he wanted to, but he was too weak. Rufe was the only one who
knew
he was wicked, and reveled in it.”