The Eyes of a King (40 page)

A
t the far edge of the grounds of Lakebank was a ruined chapel. They sat there now, around an old army storm lantern—Anna, the prince, and the great Aldebaran. The necklace was in Anna’s hand, but Aldebaran kept his eyes on it. “Let me try to explain,” he was saying. “You are my great-niece, and you are implicated, and I ought to explain about this prophecy I wrote. And about the worlds that exist, the way I see them.”

“I tried to tell Anna,” said Ryan. “The exile on me is not just distance; it keeps me locked in England. And it would take great power to get someone back home who was exiled the way I am.”

“When you are growing up, you hear stories,” said Aldebaran. “In our country, there are many stories about England—about this world that surrounds you. The carriages that drive by themselves, the lamps that do not waver, a place where the people no longer fear that magic is real. As you grow up, you learn to believe that England is a fairy tale. Those who have disappeared have died, not vanished; those who claim to have been here are liars. But the great ones—those who are trained as what you call magicians—have to learn to take up again those things that you set aside in childhood, because we work in this field. In the realm of myth and
legend, trying to make possible what others believe impossible, or at least highly doubtful.”

“Uncle, you are not making this clearer,” Ryan began, but Aldebaran raised his hand. The lamp flickered and sent shadows leaping across his face as he went on.

“These great ones, these men and women who study magic, find that England is not a legend. Far from a legend, it is there, in some dimension apart from us. There are many places that only the great ones can see, and that most people are unaware of. And yet to believe that we can do without these places is absurd. The worlds drive each other forward. They depend completely on each other. Look at that star there.” He pointed. She followed his gaze. “Leo, we call it—or part of your English constellation Leo. If someone was in Malonia, at a point that is somehow close to this place, that person might begin to think about the star Leo. For no other reason than the fact that I just mentioned it here. Your world and our world, even Malonia and England themselves, are linked very strongly. You speak Malonian here and call it English. You give the same names to your children, close enough. These things pass through.”

Anna and Ryan listened in silence. Aldebaran went on: “The stars in your country, and the constellations, they all have names that make sense. Not so in Malonia. We named them later, and every time an astronomer tried to think of a name, something suggested itself. We absorbed your English star names, imperfectly but clearly. We have a strange assortment of names now, not knowing the reasons. Jupiter and Venus are nothing in our country.”

Aldebaran frowned into the darkness. “Or my nephew. He was a very famous writer. I do not have printed copies of any of his books. But they all came to me, in visions and dreams. The books
drifted straight from his head into mine, and I wrote them down. If you have powers, you have a stronger connection with your relatives, because a part of you is the same. That is why it was foolish of me to throw away the silver eagle when I had relatives here who could easily be the ones to find it—” He broke off. “But even across that distance, I could see what Harold was thinking, what he was writing. Thoughts are passing between people—and between places—all the time. Everything is. Spirit and thought, all these invisible things. And sometimes people also can pass through.”

Anna turned the necklace around in her hand as Aldebaran talked. The light jumped over the skeletal chapel—over red stone arches and carved walls and, above them, the remains of a high vaulted ceiling with the stars shining through. The stone was twined with flowering creepers, and the white blossoms swung in the breeze, reflecting the light. Beyond the ruined window, Anna could see another light shining. It was growing brighter all the time. “Do you know what this place is?” Aldebaran said.

“This chapel?” said Anna. “Monica said it was a tourist site years ago, until the owner of Lakebank bought the land.”

“He bought the land because I told him to,” said Aldebaran. “I was that man’s butler. And I told him to buy it because this is one of your unexplained places, and I wanted to investigate it. There are strange ruins everywhere in England; it is remarkable. Some of them are just that—ruins. Some of them, like this chapel, are places that are closer to my homeland, to Malonia. Places where the barrier between the worlds wears thin.”

“The barrier between the worlds?” said Anna.

Aldebaran shrugged quickly. “It is a way of speaking. People say that there is a network of doorways into England from our country, but in reality it is less simple. The great ones—those
trained in magic—have always been fascinated by the idea of England, and many of them have passed into this country. I have found, living here for so long, that there are places where I can see more clearly back into Malonia. One is the stone circle up on the hill. One is this chapel. I cannot go back but I can see, faintly.”

“What about Ryan?” said Anna, watching the light grow still brighter. “He doesn’t have powers; how can he move between places like you said?”

“Ryan is exiled by one who has powers,” said Aldebaran. “My idea—and it may be wrong—is that this necklace of yours, which has the power of great men and women in it, would be enough to carry him back.”

“He has good reason to think it,” said Ryan, turning to Anna. “When you hold this jewel of mine, the one that comes from your necklace, you can almost see Malonia. I know you can.”

Aldebaran shook his head. “I do not think it will be as simple as that, Ryan.”

Ryan took off his own necklace and handed it to her. “Try,” he said. “Doesn’t the air change, and the darkness? If you watch carefully. Can’t you hear faint sounds?”

Anna took the necklace and they sat in silence. Her own was still in her other hand. She was watching the light beyond the window again. And then a shadow crossed it. She stood up. “What is it?” said Aldebaran, his voice suddenly faint. Anna went to the door of the chapel. She could see what the light was now. It was a gas lamp. And others were emerging, in the darkness of the forest. “What are those lights?” she said, and turned.

Ryan and Aldebaran were gone. The lantern was gone. She was in a stone church. And the flickering light that had been the lantern now came from a rack of candles standing where
Aldebaran had been. She dropped Ryan’s jewel and caught hold of the wall to steady herself. And it was a solid wall; it did not vanish.

She could hear voices close by, and she stumbled toward the door of the church, thinking they were Ryan and Aldebaran. But there was no one there. Beyond was a square, empty in the moonlight. In the darkness of the center was a fountain—a statue of a horse in a large round pool. But the pool was empty and crusted with green algae, and the horse’s mouth was choked up with algae so that no water sprayed from it.

Then she saw where the voices came from. Two men were standing in the shadow beside the church—strangers in blue uniform. One was a young man with a chubby, boyish look about him. The other had his back to Anna. “ We will close half the city,” he was saying, and his voice sounded older. “It is safer in the current climate. Are you with us in this? Will you come with us?”

The young man shook his head. “I am undecided. It is a great thing to ask of me, and—”

The older man raised his hand suddenly and the other stopped. Anna could see the side of his face now. He was a handsome man, with defined features. Then he turned, and she saw the other side. A scar ran from his forehead to the bottom of his cheek, and where there should have been an eye, there was only a ragged socket. The scar had healed so crookedly, and must have been so deep, that the two sides of his eyebrow were far out of line. And he was looking at her. “Do you see what I see?” muttered Ahira. He took a step toward Anna and reached out his hand. “Faintly, do you see it?”

The young man turned and frowned. Anna backed away, toward the church door. Behind her, someone put a hand on
her shoulder. She stumbled and dropped the necklace. “Anna!” said Ryan.

She was in the ruined chapel. The gas lamps around the square had vanished; the two men were gone. “What happened?” she said, reaching for her necklace. It was lying in the dust, and she did not know why.

“Do not touch that!” said Aldebaran suddenly.

“I could see two men,” she said. “I don’t know—was I dreaming?”

“You had that necklace in your hand, and suddenly you were drifting away from here.” Aldebaran picked the necklace up as if it burned him, and took the lamp with his other hand. “Come on.”

“It was strange,” Ryan muttered to Anna. “It frightened me; I can’t explain, but you were growing faint. You did not hear when I spoke to you. Where were you, Anna?”

“It was an old church, and there were lamps shining outside. And there were two soldiers—a young man and a man with a scar across his face and a missing eye.”

“Ahira,” Ryan said. “You saw Ahira.”

“Who is he?”

Ryan spoke without looking up. “He is the one who shot my mother and father. I gave him that scar and took out his eye. I threw a knife at him.”

“Hurry,” said Aldebaran before Anna could reply, and they went up to the door of the house. He closed it behind them and bolted it four times. Then, still holding Anna’s necklace, he disappeared upstairs. In the silence, they listened to his footsteps—up one flight, then the next, then—faintly—another.

“Is he taking it?” said Anna.

“That is what he prophesied,” said Ryan. “That it would come back to him.”

Anna started to say that she would miss the necklace, then stopped. She had a strange feeling that nothing was real anymore, and the lightness about her neck seemed just a part of that—no more. “He doesn’t really understand these things,” said Ryan. “Not even he understands them. No one does. He thought that he would study the necklace and find out what the great ones who made it had in their minds. But you cannot predict what these magic objects will do once those who made them are dead. They gain their own power.”

“My necklace?” said Anna. “I never thought …” And again they fell silent.

Aldebaran crossed the attics of Lakebank, stirring up dust that no one had crossed for ten years or more. He went to the farthest corner, where an old box lay under the shadow of a beam, and opened the lid. Inside were several British army medals from a war whose name Aldebaran had forgotten, and beneath them were letters—letters from Raymond’s greatest friend, who had died in action. Aldebaran had always regretted reading them. He put that out of his mind now. He laid the silver eagle among the medals and frowned at them for a moment, then closed the lid. Then he crossed the attics again and went slowly back down.

Ryan and Anna looked up when he appeared on the stairs. “It is late,” he told Anna. “You should return home. I will walk with you.”

“Then I’ll come too,” said Ryan.

“No,” said Aldebaran. “You will stay here in the house. The
situation is growing dangerous. I cannot believe that Talitha will not act, if we really are being watched here.”

“Uncle—” said Ryan as though he was afraid.

“I promise you, this will not be like last time,” said Aldebaran, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We are prepared. There is no question of torture or soldiers ransacking the house. But we must be careful.”

Aldebaran and Anna walked in silence into the dark. Ryan ran to the library window, and she turned back and saw him standing there, his eyes on her. He opened the window and called to her then: “Anna, come back.”

She went to him. He leaned on the windowsill, looking down at her, the light behind him so that she could hardly make out his face. “What is it?” she said. He shook his head.

She reached out and put her hand on his, and he took hold of it and kissed it, then leaned out the window and kissed her. “You are caught up in dangerous times,” said Ryan. “I wanted to tell you, Anna: be careful.”

She nodded and gripped his hand for a moment. Then Aldebaran called, “Ryan, be sure to lock that window fast.” Anna turned and followed him. Ryan closed the window and locked it, but he watched them until they were out of sight.

“I am sorry for what my brother did,” said Aldebaran abruptly as he shut the gate behind them. “I have been thinking about it all evening. I am sorry for all of this. I wanted to find Harold’s family and make things right with them. I had no intention of implicating you in these concerns of my country. I wrote the prophecy, and I threw away the necklace, and I failed to see …” Then he turned and looked at her, as though he was seeing her differently. “Although it is your country too. You are partly Malonian.” He
frowned at the road and spoke again, to himself rather than her. “I pray that all will turn out well.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence. “Ryan told me you wish to be a dancer,” said Aldebaran as they approached the hotel.

“Yes. I want to go to dance school. This year, if I get in.”

Aldebaran nodded. “There was a girl I taught once who could have been a musician, but she married young and put her love before those things. That girl was Ryan’s mother, and you know that she died.”

“Yes, Ryan told me.”

Aldebaran turned to Anna. “She was almost a daughter to me. I have no children, and I am separated from all my family here. But I am proud to have a niece like you.” He studied her face. “This may be dangerous,” he said. “I will not pretend. But I promise to take care of you.”

Monica had locked the doors of the hotel. Anna climbed up the tree and through her bedroom window instead. Aldebaran waited until she switched on her light; then he turned and walked back to Lakebank. She stood at the window and watched him disappear along the road.

Ryan was at the library table, drawing on a scrap of paper, when Aldebaran walked in. Aldebaran picked it up and examined it in silence. It was a careful sketch of Anna’s face. “Love brings down many captives,” said Aldebaran.

“ ‘And lifts up many princes also,’ ” said Ryan, snatching back the paper.