Vega Jane and the End of Time, page 4
‘Just to say hello,’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘Because she was making the same argument about us being outnumbered that you did.’
‘Well, you don’t have to be a genius to realize that, do you?’ she said.
I drew a breath. Petra wore her feelings on her sleeve. Deception was not in her nature. Delph said, ‘She was trying to . . . to take over like, Vega Jane.’
‘I know that, Delph,’ I snapped.
‘But she made some good points,’ added Petra. I glared at her. ‘She must have experience – she’s fought them before.’
‘Considering that her experience is over eight hundred years old, I’m not at all sure how useful it will be today. Presumably the Maladons have changed their tactics by now.’
‘You put her in her place, Vega Jane,’ observed Delph.
But I knew better. Astrea Prine would not stop. I thought back to what Alice had told me. She trusted Astrea, but she also had intimated that there might be more I had to think about. Well, the last few minutes had showed me she was right about that.
I had been battling the Maladons for two long years.
And now it seemed that I would have to add the woman who’d taught me to be a sorceress to my already long list of adversaries.
Wonderful.
5
A GODDESS
Our meal that night was delicious.
Right up until the moment Astrea turned to me and said, ‘Now, it’s time we talked, Vega.’
It was not a request. It was a command.
It made my skin creep and my blood turn molten. Yet I smiled and escorted her to the library, giving a shake of my head to Delph when he glanced at me with a face that said Do you want me to come too?
I attempted to close the stout doors behind Astrea, but Archie burst in, almost causing the door to hit me in the face.
Scowling, I shut the door behind him, strode across the room and took my seat behind my desk.
As I settled in my seat, Astrea sat across from me, while Archie hovered at his mother’s shoulder.
‘Yes, Astrea? You wished to talk?’ I said expectantly, keeping my tone polite and my features pleasant. Yet I was gritting my teeth, for I well knew what she was going to say.
‘I didn’t want to say this in front of the others of course, Vega,’ she began. ‘You have not yet turned eighteen, is that correct?’
‘I have not. But when I do, I’m sure you and Archie will wish me a happy birthlight,’ I added cheekily.
She didn’t take the bait on that one. She said, ‘I was thirty when the war with the Maladons commenced. And Alice was a bit older.’
‘How interesting,’ I said. ‘Was there anything else?’
‘Yes, there is!’ cried Archie.
I looked at him, all knotted fists and furrowed brow. I smiled benignly at him.
‘Do you wish to tell me something, Archie?’ I almost tacked on dear to his name, but then thought better of it.
He pointed a finger at me.
‘The Quag – destroyed, because of you.’
The Quag had been created to protect those in my village of Wormwood from the Maladons. And also to keep us from leaving Wormwood. Astrea and my ancestor Jasper Jane had carried the labouring oar in so doing. The Quag was full of dangerous beasts. There were Five Circles in the Quag that served as obstacles to anyone trying to cross it. Each circle had unique elements designed to defeat anyone coming within that sphere. It had very nearly defeated me.
‘Wormwood. Totally destroyed. All dead.’
I felt my smile slowly fade.
I stood so that I was taller than Archie.
I rolled my shoulders and stretched my arms. Though it made no sound, Destin’s links moved just under my skin. Astrea had no idea that I embedded the chain within me and I didn’t want her to. But just feeling it there was quite comforting.
‘Thansius wasn’t dead when I got there. The Maladons made him dig all the graves and then left him to die without a proper burial. Did you know that?’ I asked. I glanced between him and Astrea.
‘We were not aware of that, Vega,’ said Astrea, after a pause. ‘All we saw were the graves.’
‘So you visited there?’
‘Of course. I was the Keeper of the Quag. It was my duty.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, well, you carried out your duties admirably, Astrea – right up until the end.’
She looked as though I had slapped her.
Jumping to his mother’s defence, Archie exclaimed, ‘Do you deny that what happened to Wormwood and all those in it was your fault?’
I didn’t look at him. I kept my gaze on Astrea. ‘Do you deny allowing me to cross the Quag,’ I said, ‘with the full knowledge that my plan was to escape it and come here?’
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Archie deflate like a split bag of flour. He glared at me for a moment and then looked helplessly at his mother.
She said, ‘I do not deny that, Vega.’ She clasped her hands together. ‘Wugs died. All of them. Horribly. I will never be able to banish those graves from my memory. Never.’
Now my lips started to tremble. Her sincere words had done something that Archie’s bluster could not. Make me feel guilt. And I was guilty. My breaking out of the Quag had allowed the Maladons a way in. They had, in turn, murdered my fellow Wugs. I hadn’t known . . .
Or had I? Had I known my freedom from the Quag could mean death for those left behind?
I put a hand on the desk to steady myself. My stomach churned. But I had to appear strong in front of Astrea. Fortunately, she chose to break the silence.
‘That is water under the bridge, Vega. It cannot be changed. It is something we will both have to live with.’
‘So where does that leave us?’ I asked.
‘Having to win this war,’ she said simply.
‘I am doing my best,’ I said, quite sincerely. ‘We have inflicted great damage on them.’
‘It is not enough,’ she replied. ‘There are far too many of them.’
‘I am aware of that,’ I said wearily. I had no desire to revisit this old argument.
‘It is not simply about their superior numbers, Vega.’
This caught my attention. I focused on her. ‘What else?’
‘Tell me what you have learned since you have been here. What you have seen. Where you have gone.’
I sat back in my chair, pointed my wand at the fireplace and ignited a fire there. I sensed this might take some time.
I drew a long breath and began. After I’d finished answering her queries, I found something in Astrea’s face I had not expected to see, at least this early in the conversation: respect, though it was overlaid with wariness.
I hunched forward. ‘Now, it’s true that we have lost nearly half our army, and the prospects of adding to our magical number are not promising. Our options are to hunker down here, not engage the Maladons and preserve our numbers; continue what we are doing; or become even more aggressive in our battle strategies.’
Astrea nodded appreciatively. ‘You have evidently given this a great deal of thought, Vega, and I commend you for the informed way you have gone about your duty.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, eyeing her suspiciously.
‘Now, I would like to tell you something that might be of use to you. Necro had a wife.’
‘And a son, Jason.’
‘Yes, Jason. Necro’s wife I knew well. Her name was Elythia. She loved Jason more than life itself.’
‘And did she love Necro?’
Astrea didn’t answer right away. ‘I think that Elythia understood what Necro was, or at least what he had become.’
‘You mean he wasn’t always . . . evil?’
‘I won’t go that far. But there are degrees of evil. And Necro exceeded all of them by the time war came. But there is something else.’
‘What?’
‘I can’t be sure of this, you understand. When it was evident that the war was to commence, I had very little contact with Elythia. But I did see her one final time; this was after Jason had been found dead. As I told you before, they blamed his death on us.’
‘But you think it was Necro who killed him. You told me that. To ensure that the war started.’
‘That’s right. And I wasn’t the only one who thought that. Elythia did too. She came to my home on the night that Jason’s body was found. She was inconsolable. She told me she believed Necro murdered his own son, though she had no proof. That was the last time I ever saw her.’
I digested that. ‘Who was Elythia?’ I asked curiously.
‘Elythia was chosen by Necro to be his wife primarily because of a belief about Elythia and her past. It was long rumoured that Elythia was actually not only a sorceress of exceptional power and skill, but also . . . a goddess.’
I looked at her blankly. ‘What is a goddess? How is that different to a sorceress?’
‘I guess I can explain the difference like this. We were born with magical ability, and we worked hard to harness that ability and increase our skills at it. A god or goddess is also born with supernatural ability, but they need not expend any energy in gaining skill or power. It is simply there, and at exponentially more powerful levels than any sorcerer or sorceress possesses.’
I thought about this. ‘My grandfather was an Excalibur. He was endowed at birth with certain powers and knowledge of his past. It’s sort of like that?’
‘Yes, though your grandfather was human, Vega. As are we.’
‘And goddesses are not?’
‘Let’s just say that they are something more than human. Their power is immense. Elythia could have used it to gain revenge on Necro. But . . . she did not.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
Astrea smiled at me. ‘That, Vega, is something it would be very interesting to find out.’
6
THE PAST OF MY FUTURE
It was very late.
I stared into the depths of the lingering fire in the library. All others had long since retired to their beds, except for Harry Two, who sat alertly next to my chair.
Yet I could not sleep. I had to think.
The revelation about Elythia being a goddess had supplanted my anger at Astrea for trying to usurp my authority and leadership – though I knew that issue hadn’t gone away.
As the flames flickered in front of my eyes, I knew who I had to speak to.
In my mind, I said her name. The next moment Uma Cadmus was hovering next to me, the daughter of Bastion and Victoria Cadmus. Her beauty was something beyond belief. Her face was flawless, every element in perfect proportion to its neighbour. Her blonde hair was thick and luxuriant and pooled down over her shoulders as though laid precisely in marble. Her eyes were like chips of ice that the sun had struck at just the right angle, producing a fiery blue that was impossible to look away from.
And she was also dead.
She had once told me that she was neither ghost nor spirit, but merely regret.
‘Yes, Vega?’ she said to me now.
I looked at her curiously. She was always a bit misty, and in spots one could see right through her. But now she seemed more transparent than ever.
‘Uma, are you all right?’
‘I am neither all right nor not all right,’ she replied dully.
I ignored that. ‘I just meant that, well, you look a little less visible tonight.’
She looked down at herself and then back up at me. ‘I am fading,’ she said simply. ‘’Tis no matter. What is it that you want, Vega?’
I told her what Astrea had said about Elythia.
She hovered there without speaking for a few moments, the beats of her heart pulsing in her chest. She was right – she was fading. Even her exquisite eyes, her most remarkable feature in my estimation, were not quite as striking as they had been. It was as though the light within was dying.
‘What do you want to know from me?’
‘I should like to know about Jason’s mother. About Elythia.’
The pulse in her chest beat ever brighter. It was as though the light was returning to her for a bit.
‘Jason was far more like his mother than his father. She was a good person. I admired her and I pitied her.’
‘Being married to Necro, you mean?’
She nodded.
‘Why would she choose such a mate?’ I asked.
‘Necro wasn’t always like he turned out to be. Or if he was, he hid it well. I was told that he was kind as a boy, gentle as a young man. But then something happened to him. By that time, he and Elythia had married. It was too late.’
‘What do you think happened to him, to make him so terrible?’
‘I think that magic brought out all the most awful impulses that he had. He thirsted for power. Before he came to lead what are now the Maladons, there were no divisions between our people. We were as one. But Necro slowly changed all that. He created the Maladons in his own fiendish image.’
‘And Elythia? What did she think of all that?’
‘She loathed the man her husband had become. But she was wedded to him for life. Whatever power she possessed, she chose not to leave him. And then there was Jason of course. That was what she focused her entire life on: making sure that Jason did not become like his father.’
‘And she succeeded.’
Uma said nothing. I repeated, ‘And she succeeded, right?’
‘Jason was the love of my life, Vega.’
‘I know. You’ve told me that.’
I fell silent waiting for her to speak. When she didn’t, I said, ‘Do you believe that Necro killed Jason?’
‘It is an accepted fact – that Necro did it. To blame our kind and spark a war.’
‘I know that Elythia thought he had done it,’ I said slowly. ‘Yet she never sought revenge.’
‘What does it matter exactly how Jason died?’
I studied her. I had never seen Uma this agitated before. ‘Have you ever seen him after his death?’ I asked.
She froze. ‘What?’
‘You came here after your death. Alice Adronis is here. Morrigone is here, at least in spirit. That means that the dead can come back. So, has Jason ever appeared to you?’
The next moment, Uma was gone.
Still, I had my answer.
She didn’t know that Necro had killed his son. And she didn’t know why Elythia never retaliated against Necro though she believed him the murderer of her only child.
I needed to know more. I needed to ask the question that I had failed to ask before.
I returned to the room in the bowels of Empyrean, where I had first met Alice Adronis.
It was dark in here, but it was a curious darkness, unlike any I had experienced before. It seemed to have great depth, with seams of lurking light within the blackness – magic, no doubt.
However, I had not come here to learn how light could be part of darkness.
‘Alice? Alice, I need to speak with you.’
When she didn’t appear, my anger got the better of me.
‘I need to speak to you, Alice Adronis. And I’ll wait here for the rest of my life if that’s what it takes!’
I felt the air around me turn hot.
I leaped back.
And there she was, advancing on me astride a great, flying steed – as though charging her opponents on that battlefield all those eons ago.
Her face was full of fury. If she had possessed the Elemental, I felt certain it would be pointed directly at me now, a hideously complicated curse on her lips.
‘I am not accustomed—’ she began.
Before she could finish, I held up the Elemental, not threateningly of course, but as symbol of the connection between us.
‘I want to win, Alice. I want to win this war, my war against the Maladons. But I need your help to do so.’
My frank words seemed to drain all the fury from her. She nodded at me to continue.
I composed myself and said, ‘You gave me this, the Elemental, on that battlefield that I travelled to when I ventured back in time. That battlefield where you died.
‘You called me Vega. I hadn’t even been born yet, not for over eight hundred years, when you called me by name and gave me the Elemental. You knew that I was the rightful possessor of it. So how did you know all that?’
She gave me an appraising look, as though weighing up what she should say.
‘’Tis a complicated question, Vega,’ she said in a low, uncertain voice that I had never heard before from her.
‘Then I’ll try my best to understand it,’ I said quickly.
‘Time is a tricky thing indeed. It separates generations, but it also connects those from different eras. We are family, Vega. My blood runs in your veins. You must have noted the resemblance between us.’
I nodded.
‘We do look alike.’
‘It is far more than how we look. Though we are separated by the eons, there is a strand of even more powerful connectivity between us that we refer to as Empchon.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know what that means. And it doesn’t explain why you knew my name.’
In answer, she put her hand to her chest, where her gaping, mortal wound was plain to see.
‘Do you think it was mere coincidence that you appeared on that battlefield on the very day that I perished?’
I had never thought about this before. I thought it had just been happenstance.
‘Due to the laws of Empchon, what you needed to see in the past is what you saw. And you needed to see . . . me. On the very day of my death. So I could give you that.’ She pointed at the Elemental. ‘It is not merely a wand, as I’m sure you have learned.’
‘It’s saved my life more times than I can remember,’ I said. ‘Both as a wand and as a spear.’
‘In fact, you would not have survived without it.’
‘No—’
I stopped and blanched as I realized what she was trying to tell me.
‘You gave me the Elemental . . .’
‘To allow you to survive, Vega. So you could one day be here. To fight the Maladons. It is Empchon – sometimes known as the Fates. It is preordained. No one can control it – one must simply obey it.’
