Worlds Unseen - Rachel Starr Thomson (beach books .txt) 📗

Tonight the moon burns red. I have seen it thus before: in the days of the Great War, the anger of the heavens burned in her face. Such a world she looks down on must kindle great wrath! Evil walks among men, though the Blackness itself is kept away behind the Veil.

It is a great mystery, the Veil. I will tell the tale of it, for it is a thing of mourning and of wonder.

There once walked among us a race of beings called the Shearim, the Fairest of Creation. In them was great wisdom, great beauty, and great strength. They took what shapes they wished and moved about clothed with the forms of men and women and children. Men sometimes called them the Virtues, for they took names to themselves after those qualities which men most honoured and revered: Justice and Wisdom, Harmony, Innocence, Hope, and Beauty. The child-hearts among the Shearim were called Merriment, Laughter, and Melody.

Some kept to themselves, but many were dear to men, for they would often come among them, easing burdens with their touch and filling hearts with their laughter and strength. It was sometimes said that those who had been with the Shearim would afterwards glow as if they had touched the sun.

When the Blackness began to grow in the Seventh World, the Shearim first sought to hold it off by exerting their influence for the good, but it was to no avail. At last the Shearim, in their own way, became warriors, and they battled the creatures of shadow before even the Great War. Those were days of grief and hardship for the Fairest of Creation, for the Blackness was cruel and ruthless, and loved to torment its enemies.

In the end, men became allied with the Blackness and went to war against the King and his army. In those days the Great War began, as men and shadow fought against the Earth Brethren and the few remaining faithful of men. But this was a clash in which the Shearim did not take part, for they were bound by their own law, and could not take up weapons against men. They watched, and moved among the wounded and dying, and ministered to them as best they could. It is said that the Eldest Seven stayed by the King and served him. But in the end even their ministrations were to no avail, for the King’s heart was broken and he went into exile.

It was then that the love of the Shearim for all creation became fully manifested. With the King gone and the Blackness growing, the Fairest of Creation, weeping for all that had come to pass, saw that there was one last thing they could do to save the rebellious ones. They joined themselves together and called upon the power of their law to undo them. While the raging Blackness watched, the life-force of the Shearim was woven together into a new thing: an impenetrable Veil, a living division between the Blackness and men.

And so the Blackness was for a time thwarted, and the children of men were left free to build their own world, and someday, perhaps, to reach out for the King again. For this slender chance of redemption the Shearim gave themselves.

But now they are gone from creation forever and always, for the Veil must one day be destroyed, and the makers of it can never be re-made themselves. They sacrificed themselves to defeat the Blackness and to save men, and the world will ever weep for them.

O Children of Men, will you only be dry-eyed in the face of this thing? You for whom it was done, you for whom all was sacrificed-will you not weep?

*

Virginia lay on the beach sands, listening to the gentle thunder of waves on the shore blend with the soft sound of snoring. Her clothes had dried to an uncomfortable damp. The wet sand felt warm under her body. The air around her was cold, and she knew that the sun had gone down. In the forest, insects were chirping.

A breeze blew through her hair and died away. A sudden unease gripped her, and she raised herself up on her hands and sat with her head cocked, listening.

Once again the air stirred around her, and this time she felt as though fingers were reaching for her through the wind. She flinched at the touch of the breeze, and suddenly a blinding flash of colour-purple and red and living, pulsing blackness-shot through her eyes. For an instant she could see two eyes in a shadowed face, staring at her. She looked back, unable to tear her eyes away, and then it was gone. There was nothing but the gentle rhythm of the sea against the sands.

Something had found her. She could not hide much longer.

*

The walk into Calai should have been miserable, as the little company staggered along on storm-battered muscles. But something about the day lightened both their steps and their moods. Sun diamonds sparkled and flashed on the water, and the seabirds shouted glad tidings to the white clouds. Mrs. Cook and Pat fell to talking, catching up on each other’s lives since they had parted a few months before.

Lord Robert walked with his hands in his pockets, his mind filled with the memory of the vision in the storm, and with wonderings and thoughts of the future that waited in Pravik. Only Virginia, walking by the laird’s side, seemed unaffected by the cheerfulness of the day. She was silent and shadowed, every step taken with grim determination.

There was no sign of the High Police in Calai. Lord Robert hailed a cab, and before the heat of mid-afternoon had begun to beat down, the foursome were resting comfortably on an iron train bound for Pravik. They rode in a private compartment, with red velvet seats and windows, faintly etched with dragons and serpents, that looked out on the country as it passed.

That night, Lord Robert sat with his chin in his hand, gazing at the curved moon that stood watch high above the black trees. Moonlight caused the swirling patterns etched in the glass windows to sparkle, snake scales shining in crystal. Pat slept beside him, her head resting against the wall. She had pulled her legs up on the seat, and lay curled up like a cat.

In the seat across from them, Mrs. Cook was snoring softly. Virginia was wide awake.

Lord Robert listened to the rhythmic clacking of the train wheels as the car rocked gently back and forth, rushing through the forest. He imagined himself in a study in Pravik, pouring over the contents of the mysterious scroll with Jarin Huss, just as in the days of the council. For so long he had sought the Otherworld, only to find every door closed to him. Now windows such as he would never have imagined were flinging themselves open at every turn, and the Otherworld was seeking him again. Seeking him through Virginia. Her nearness to him made his pulse quicken with the awareness of the other side of reality, and he felt a determination to make her open up to him. He knew that he did not have her confidence-her trust-but he meant to win it. She held the key to the worlds unseen, and she must open them to him someday.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Virginia’s voice. “Laird?” she asked.

He turned away from the moon to face her. “What is it?” he asked.

“You saw, didn’t you?” she asked. “All of you-you saw the riders.”

“Yes,” the laird said, sitting forward. “We saw them. I have waited all my life to see such a sight.”

“And I have seen such things for as long as I can remember,” Virginia said. “But I have never desired to. The visions come without my wish or command, and they fill me with joy or horror as they will.”

“As a young man I would have given anything to see as you do,” Lord Robert said. “The powers of the Otherworld did not grant me such a gift. Only, here and there, they would seek me out. They would give me a hint in one place and a whisper in another, always tantalizing, always calling me to come farther. But I had no stepping stones to reach them.”

“You speak as though the Otherworld had a human spirit,” Virginia said.

“Perhaps it does, or more than one,” Lord Robert said, carefully. He was baiting her; waiting for her to tell him the things she had always kept hidden.

“You should be careful,” was all Virginia said, “whose call you answer.”

“Are you worried about me?” he asked,