The Stars Below, page 21
part #4 of Vega Jane Series
I had listened to all this breathlessly. When Alice was done with her story, I said, “So, she is a goddess, then? Because there is no incantation that I know of that could control the very heavens.”
“If that defines a goddess, then Elythia was a goddess.”
“Where did she come from?”
“No one knew. She simply appeared one day in our midst.”
“And she chose Necro as her husband?” I said skeptically.
“He was different back then. He changed. Or else he hid his true nature very well.”
“And she vanished, after Jason died?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any idea where she might have gone? I mean, could she be dead?”
“I do not think that beings such as Elythia can die, Vega. But why do you want to know where she is?”
“Because Astrea, powerful as she is, cannot cure my father. She said that a greater power was needed. Elythia is the only one I know of who possesses power such as that. If she can’t help my father, I don’t know who can. And I’m running out of time. My father will soon die if something isn’t done.”
“I see.”
“And if she is so powerful, and she detests Necro so much, then she could simply use her great powers to destroy him and the other Maladons. Then the war would be over.”
Surprisingly, Alice did not seem excited by my revelation.
“Don’t you think?” I prodded.
“I think you need to find out for yourself.”
I was frustrated by that response, but in my excitement, I just wanted to push forward. “So, you have no inkling where she might have gone? Where she might be now?”
“No, Vega, I don’t. Soon after she disappeared, we were at war with the Maladons. Any thought I had of Elythia vanished as clearly as she did.”
I stood there immensely frustrated. I could have the solution for not only my father’s cure but the war against the Maladons right in my hands. I just needed to find Elythia. I was sure I could convince her to help us.
I finally turned to go as Alice remained silent.
“There is something,” she said.
“What?!” I exclaimed, a flicker of hope coming back to me as I turned to face her.
To my surprise, she held up her wand hand. There I could see that she was missing a finger.
She touched the empty spot with one of her other fingers.
“You told me you know the story of my wand?”
“Yes,” I said. “Your father would not grant you a wand. So you went in search of the tallest peak and the tallest tree on that peak. You climbed to the top of that tree and held up your hand in the middle of a raging storm. You pledged that if a wand was granted to you, you would always use it in the defense of good and against evil.” I glanced at her hand. “And your wish was granted. Your finger was gone, and in its place was this.” I held up the Elemental.
“That is all true.”
“Why was your finger required in exchange for the Elemental?”
“Sacrifice, Vega,” she replied. “I was given something incredibly valuable. Such things do not come for free. Without sacrifice. Part of my body was my sacrifice. It was my price to be paid.”
“But how does that help me with Elythia?”
“I did not select that peak and that tree by chance, Vega.”
“What do you mean?”
“That location was known as the most magical place of all in my time. It was well known that there was a power there that could be found nowhere else.”
“But again, what does that have to do with Elythia?”
“That place was Elythia’s favorite. It is said that she gave birth to Jason there. When one was looking for Elythia for some reason and could not find her elsewhere, she was always to be found in the small cottage next to the tree where my finger was sacrificed.”
“A small cottage? Can you tell me how to get there?”
“Shortly after Elythia disappeared, so too did that peak and everything on it, including the cottage.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, mightily confused. “An entire mountain just vanished? Was it destroyed?”
“No, it just no longer was there.”
“Do you think Elythia had something to do with its disappearance?”
“I am quite certain that she did.”
“But if it’s gone, how can I search for it?”
Alice’s reply was only one word long, but it was enough to set me in the right direction.
“Empchon.”
I THOUGHT I MIGHT see you again, Vega.”
I looked over at Eon with his hooded cloak, staff and light.
“Why?”
“Simply that I did not believe your work here was complete yet.”
I didn’t ask any more questions, because I knew that Eon would probably be equally cryptic. And, as a matter of fact, he was right. My work was incomplete.
As before, I elected to go into the past and I soon found myself walking through the gates and into the mist. I didn’t know what would happen for sure, but I hoped that this journey would not entail multiple trips to different points in time. I was desperate to find Elythia, because I knew my father was dying. And Elythia was also the key to winning the war against the Maladons.
And yet my wish was not to be granted.
The mists cleared and my heart sank, even as the breath left my lungs.
She lay dead, on a slab of stone with a collection of white lilies and green laurels around her neck.
It was Uma. She was dressed in a pale cream burial robe. Only two people were with her.
Her mother and her father. Bastion and Victoria Cadmus.
They were kneeling next to the body of their dead daughter. Victoria was sobbing, while her husband stared off, the anger on his face terrible to behold.
Bastion was tall and strongly built, with a short black beard and a pair of flashing green eyes. I had first seen his countenance in a portrait at Empyrean. I had been told that Bastion was the greatest warrior our side had, even more powerful than Alice Adronis. But he had been betrayed by the woman kneeling next to him, his wife, Victoria. While under the Subservio spell, she had delivered her husband to the Maladons. He had died fighting and took a dozen Maladons with him before succumbing to his wounds. Victoria, once out from under the spell, and like her daughter, had killed herself in her despair.
The bereaved pair were grieving their daughter, not knowing that they too were both doomed.
My heart went out to them, yet I didn’t know why I was here. What did this have to do with Elythia?
At the instant I thought that, the mists appeared once more, and I was at another place when they cleared.
It was similar to the one I had just left. With one stark difference.
There was but one grieving parent.
Jason was also lying on a slab dressed in his burial clothes. Next to him and sitting in a chair was someone I could only believe was the elusive Elythia.
She was tall and regal, and there was an aura about her that I had never seen with anyone else, not even Alice. It was as though she did not belong to our world.
And she was not sobbing like Uma’s mother. Nor did she look in any way overcome with grief. She stared stonily at the body of her son. But in her eyes, which were like starbursts of blue, I saw something that was powerful, unassailable.
And terrible.
As I was watching, she stood, a figure of barely contained power the likes of which I had never before witnessed. Her hands were fists, her spine straight and her features granite.
I imagined that this was probably the moment she was going to curse all Maladon women into a barren state. And that would seal their fates at the hands of Necro.
I wondered if Elythia was even bothered by this. Or had thought through the consequences of what she was about to do. The effects it would have over other, innocent people.
But then again, I could often say the same about myself, I thought sheepishly.
With one last glance at the dead body of her son, Elythia turned and left.
The mists gathered around me once more.
When they cleared, I saw a mountain.
I looked around, trying to gauge where I was. But it was difficult to do so.
I walked toward the mountain until I thought of a better idea. I spread my arms and took to the air, the silent links of Destin moving slightly underneath my skin.
I alighted on top of the highest peak on the mountain and looked around.
And there it was: the tallest, straightest tree I had ever seen. This must be where Alice had come to receive her wand, the sacrifice of her finger the price that was demanded in exchange.
My heart fluttered when I saw next to the tree a simple cottage with two windows, a curved wooden door and a thatched roof. My senses tingled when I noticed smoke rising from the stone chimney.
I walked toward it on unsteady feet. I had to admit I was feeling a bit light-headed.
My gaze once more went to the tree, and I marveled at how Alice had managed to climb to its very top in the middle of a terrible storm and have the courage to lift her hand to the sky, willing to sacrifice anything — she didn’t know it would only be a finger — in order to seize the life she demanded for herself. A life that her terrible father refused to give his only daughter, a person who would become her kind’s greatest hero, besting all her male counterparts.
Men could be so stupid, I thought.
I reached the cottage’s door and knocked. There was no answer. I put my ear to the wood but heard nothing from inside.
I steeled myself, put my hand on the doorknob and turned it. The door opened wide.
Necro sat in a chair by the blazing fire. His dead face and black eyes were staring right at me.
My wand came up, pointing at his heart, that is if he had one.
On my lips was the killing incantation.
“Rigamo —”
The air started hardening around me and I could not finish the curse. Just as it had when Necro was nearby. This really had been a trap.
And then, before my very eyes, Necro disappeared and another figure took his place.
Elythia quietly rose from her chair and looked me over.
She wore robes of pale blue. Her hair and features looked the same as when I’d seen her sitting with her dead son. I wasn’t sure how we could be in the past because the image I had just seen of Necro was the one he now possessed.
But then I remembered that Elythia was a goddess. I supposed that time meant nothing to her kind and that she probably didn’t age at all. Having eternal life seemed fitting for an all-powerful being.
“I apologize for what I just did,” she said; her voice was low but it brought a pleasant ringing into my ears. “I had to make sure you were not one of them. A Maladon would never attack his leader.”
I found my voice and said as firmly as I could, “I am not a Maladon. My name is Vega Jane.”
She appraised me again. “Jane? You are descended from Alice and Gunther?”
“I am.”
She nodded. “I see the resemblance.”
“And you are Elythia.” It was not a question.
She sat back down, steepled her hands and stared at me.
“You have come to see me. Why?”
“I have need of your help.”
“Go on.”
“My father, Hector Jane, is very ill. He was struck by a commingled spell. He lies at death’s door. We have tried everything to cure him, but we have failed. I have come to you as my last resort.”
“And who told you of me?”
“Two people did. Astrea Prine and Alice.”
Elythia nodded. “And are they well?”
“Astrea is. Alice died in battle long ago.”
She nodded again, seemingly unsurprised by this news. I had the feeling that she simply wanted to know if I knew the things she already did.
“Do you know what I am, Vega?”
I thought best how to answer this. “I know two things about you.”
This was the first time that she seemed uncertain. And also the first time that she had to pay real attention to me.
“And what are they?” she asked.
“You are a goddess.”
“What else?”
“You are a mother who believes she has lost her son.”
She rose from her chair and looked across the planks at me.
“Believes she has lost her son?”
I had come up with my strategy for dealing with Elythia before going on this journey. I had to play it exactly right to get all that I wanted: my father cured and the Maladons vanquished.
“Your son lives.”
“Jason lives?”
I cocked my head. Though she might be a goddess, she wasn’t exceptional at hiding her true knowledge.
“You knew that, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did not.”
I have read the features of many people who were lying to me.
And I was convinced that Elythia just had.
In her anxiety, Elythia had floated up into the air until her head was near the ceiling.
But I looked up at her not in defiance and certainly not in sympathy, because I instinctively understood that such an emotion would not be welcome by such a person. I simply looked at her with resolution, with the certainty that I spoke the truth.
She slowly floated back down to the floor but did not take up her seat. She stood across from me with an aura of pure power.
Then this too passed, and she looked at me with a calmer eye.
“You are perceptive beyond your years.”
“I’ve had to be. To survive.”
She nodded and in that simple gesture much was communicated between us. Perhaps everything.
“You wish me to heal your father?”
“Yes.”
“And that is all?”
I could tell that she knew this was not all.
“I want you to destroy the Maladons.”
“Necro as well, then?”
“Yes. I don’t have to tell you why. You know why they must be vanquished.”
“I can help your father. I cannot destroy the Maladons.”
“But you can, if you want to. You’re a goddess. Your power is infinite.”
“The thing is, Vega, you are wrong. I am not a goddess.”
My mouth collapsed open, all my calm assurance and momentum in this confrontation gone. “But you said you were a goddess.”
“No, you said I was.”
“But you didn’t deny it.”
“It is not my task to deny or confirm what I am. But I repeat, I am not a goddess.”
“Then what are you?”
“My mother was a goddess; my father was not. He was just like any other man.”
Now something started to make sense. “Your mother, a goddess, fell in love with a man who was not a god?”
“That is correct. Such happens in life, Vega. Nothing is guaranteed, even for gods.”
“And did you fall in love with Necro?”
“I thought that it was love. At least it was, on my part.”
“How came you to be with our lot at all?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
I gaped as what she was implying struck me. “You were … shunned by the other gods because you had fallen in love with someone who wasn’t a god?”
“Yes.”
“Then Jason is at least part god.”
“Blood runs in funny ways. He never exhibited any celestial tendencies.” She paused and said in a measured tone, “And I do not necessarily consider that a bad thing.”
“Why?”
“Gods cannot love, Vega. At least not like you can. Not even my own mother, who fell in love with my father, who was not a god. There was always an aloofness. The knowledge that a barrier would always separate their two hearts, no matter how much they may have desired otherwise.”
“But you’re not a goddess, at least not a full one,” I pointed out. “So that rule doesn’t apply to you. And you loved Jason. There was no barrier between the two of you.”
“For me, love was mightier than any power.”
I seemed to sense her now looking into the past, at a slab with a body on it.
“How did you know that I knew the truth about my son’s fate?”
“You didn’t cry at the sight of his body,” I said simply. “You knew it wasn’t him.”
She nodded.
“Which makes me wonder why you can’t destroy the Maladons. Even if you’re not a full goddess, you are far more powerful than they are. Even than Necro.”
She looked away from me. “I cannot answer that, Vega.”
“You can’t possibly love Necro. Not after all that he’s done. He’s enslaved Jason. He has him as a prisoner right now at Maladon Castle.”
I thought this would cause her to fly into a rage, with the result that she would soar off and kill the bloody fiend. But she didn’t.
“I’m sorry, Vega. I cannot.”
I shook my head, my disappointment on this matter complete. “What about my father?”
“Reach into your right pocket, Vega.”
I did so and pulled out a small bottle with clear liquid inside.
“Wash your father with this, and all will be well.”
I held her gaze. “Thank you.”
“I wish you luck in your battle with the Maladons.”
“He killed all the women,” I said quietly. “Because women struck barren were useless to him. Or so he believed.”
I knew I didn’t have to say Struck barren by you.
“This too I know,” she replied.
And then the mists gathered around me.
And she was gone.
BACK AT EMPYREAN, I held the bottle over my father as my mother stood poised with a cloth.
I had told the others of my encounter with Elythia and her refusal to slay Necro. They were as disappointed and incredulous as I was, but there was also nothing we could do about it. We couldn’t force a goddess, or near goddess, to do anything. But I would never understand her decision.
