A Thousand Glass Flowers (The Chronicles of Eirie 3) (14 page)

‘It’s not so bad.
I have the afrit for company even if he
is like a mosquito sometimes.’
He grinned
as the afrit laughed out loud.
‘And I am able to he
lp innocents such as yourself.
That is the most important thing.’

‘But you don’t understand.’ She kept walking.
‘If you can’t lea
ve here, how shall I get away? For I need to.’
As she looked around the library, the walls seemed to lean down on her and her heart began to flutter.

‘Of course.
And,’ Rajeeb shifted the cat as he reached to pul
l her gently back to her seat.
‘I can send you on your way anywhere you wish.’

She closed her eyes briefly
.  ‘Then you must and soonest.
But before I leave, there is on
e other thing I need to know.’
She dug in her pocket a
nd pulled out the
washi
strip.
‘How did
this get into a paperweight?’
She had a thread of concern beginning to knot itself in her belly, intimately tied to her new niece.

‘Ah, the charm.’
He slid h
is fingers over the cat’s fur.
‘The contessa found them all, the deadly Cantrips of Unlife, knowing preci
sely of their volatile nature.
She was a creature of malicious cunning and hid the strips insid
e the flowers of paperweights.
What an i
ngenius device of concealment!
One must admire
her for that if nothing else.
The contessa tried to barter her life for the knowledge of where she had hidden the Cantrips but the Færan would have none of it, maintaining they would find them.’

‘Huh’, said the afrit, his words laced with ribbons of sarcasm, ‘they
still
search and here we are with one quite literally falling into our laps.’

Rajeeb frowned.
‘Your uncle bought yours in the Fahsi souks
you say?
They must have been pilfered from her famous collection and it would be natural to assume the ot
hers are in the souks as well.
Perhaps all this is not
as innocent as one may think. Perhaps Fate again.’
T
he cat butted his stilled hand.
‘By the Lady Aine,’ he spoke as if to himself, mo
uthing thoughts. ‘Fate again.’
He stood wit
h the cat looped over his arm. ‘But the hour is late. The stars and moon sit high.
I think you should try and sleep and at cockcrow I shall send you wherever you want.
Come, at the other end of the library is a room they c
all the Celestine Observatory.
It is a private and comfortable space w
here you may sleep on a divan.
The afrit and I will wake you when it is time.’

Lalita h
ad no hesitation in following.
Worn out and bemused, she was unable to think clearly, unable to frame any more questions and y
et she knew she had thousands.
Slipper clad feet slapped over the marble tiles of the library – plain, unembellished tiles that allowed the coloured and gold-leafed spines of the many books to repose in unchallenged beauty, tellurions and orreries glistening as they
glided on their silent orbits.
She followed behind Rajeeb into a space with a vaulted ceiling and a large
glass dome high in its center.
Waving his fingers, Rajeeb lit the room by a single lamp safely ensco
nced in a star-punched casing.
Lalita stood at the edge of the room, wondering if she stood o
n the threshold of a universe.
The midnight walls glistened with a sprinkling of stars, more shooting out in beams f
rom the apertures on the lamp.
In the center of the chamber, a low table was shrouded in chart after chart of the heavens and over the top weighing them down, a telescope lay.

A divan stood pressed against the inky walls, covered in cushions and with
a blanket folded over the end.
Rajeeb led her to this couch and bade her lie down and as she curled her legs off the floor to stretch them along the chaise, her back throbbed and she realized how infinitely tired she was
.

Infinitely,
infinity, illimitability.

Within seconds she could see herself back on the edge of the parapet, the wind screaming around her a
nd death pitching her forward.
She clutched at the edge of the divan, her eyes
widening and her palms clammy.
She wanted to run, to flee whatever
was wending her way.
Not any amount of joy at Isabella’s being could arrest the panic
.
If I have a charm that is wide
ly sought, am I not vulnerable?
If it can kill me, can it not also kill my only family?
She lurched from catastrophe to catastrophe but Rajeeb’s hand glided between she and the lamp and she began to drift amongst the starlit highways of the heavens.

Chapter Twelve

Finnian turned away from the mother and baby, pushing against the curious crowd of onlookers, again
st tides of sickening emotion.
He had never cared about anyone other than his brother and himself before, why should it be different now?
I
want freedom not sorrow.
  Freedom had been the focus of his existence for so long, guiding his escapes when young, whisperin
g in his ear as he grew older.
And now guilt and grief bound him so firmly he wondered why he had bothe
red to escape Castello at all.
Frustration at such a tie rubbed back and forth but something else stirred, some deeper, darker sensation that pulled with its own feather-like touch.

The alleys beckoned and he followed the path up and down dusty stairs, passing alcoves of
merchants and busy housewives.
Women carried pots on their heads, babes slung like
loose bosoms at their chests.
The men eyed him as he passed, assessing the value of his clothes and chasing after him
,’ Buy effendi, good rugs, Fahsi tables,
cashmir, only the best quality.
You buy, you buy!’
But he cast them out of his way and strode f
urther as if distance would eras
e the sight of the dead baby
and of Poli, even the old man.
He wanted his feet to take him far from a conscience that grew like a throttling vine.

The sound of the dusty bazaar had faded and he stood for a moment to get his bearings, realizing he was deep in
the convolutions of the souk.
He knew he should be searching for the charms immediately but he wanted to obliterate everything, an urgency that almost choked him. Thus he began a search of a different kind.

He smelt hashish on the air, a musky sweetness, and followed the aroma down a narrow alley upon which light fell from a thin skein of sky that showed thr
ough a rent in striped fabric.
Doors led to a
lcoves of men smoking hookahs.
They sucked on
ma’sal, tobacco
or
jurâk
flavoured with mint, sherbet or molasses and in between puffs talked softly with their neighbours or played
shatranj
.
The noise of conversation burbled, a gentle hubbub
like the water in the hookahs.
But Finnian bucked at such genial and inoffensive pleasure; he craved overpowering sensation, something to annul life and the taking.

He had heard of a drug that could transport one far away from
the dark abysses in the mind.
The seafarers in Castello
had talked about it with awe.
Those who indulged spoke of it with a fondness reserved for loved ones, an obsessive affection, their stories redolent of release and freedom far
beyond the realms of reality.
It would be here in the souks – it was cultivated in the hidden rock plains of the Raj after all, in stretches of pale pink blooms and bulbous green seedheads.

The thinnest thread of a fragrance caught in his nostrils, acrid and titilla
ting and he knew he was close.
It was just as the
‘fallen angels’ had described.
His head became fuzzy as he breathed and a thread of smell wrapped around his neck like a soft chain, pulling at him as he stopped
to check his surroundings.
He tried to define a doorway, a wall, anything to guide him to an exit should he need it but the constraint shifted to curl under his nose, pulling at the m
embranes, enticing, promising.
He moved into shadow, the imperative of Isolde and the paperweights slipping away utterly.

A hand pulled aside a canvas curtain and stuffy warmth slid around his ankle
s, undulating up to his knees.
He could see little but the hand guided him and a voice aske
d softly, ‘Effendi, you want?’
Finnian nodded, opening his hand where a pile of gelt lay and the vo
ice said, ‘Of course, effendi.
This way.’

He followed the voice into a dusky light, a room lit only by braziers, where men la
y on filthy divans in alcoves.
Some slept the sleep of the almost dead, others moaned or spo
ke to some imagined companion. Some stared vacantly.
As his heart jumped in anticipation, it crossed his mind that he might have entered Hell, that he could pay a price beyond his dreams for the act he was about to undertake.
But I have known Hell. I’ve seen Hell.
What do I care what happens now?

The voice pointed a hand at a cushioned divan, half curtained, its cleanlin
ess wanting.  ‘Yours, effendi.
And what would you desire?’

Finnian had heard only one name in Castello
taverns.
‘Black Madonna.’

‘Of course.’
A plate was held out, the fingernails curling
over, dirt-filled and broken.
Two black tablets lay on the earthenware, evil eyes staring into Finnian’s, daring him,
promising untold experiences.
He took them in h
is fingers.
The voice poured a pitcher of cloudy water and left it on a tarnished brass table, pointing at a bowl and then throwing a block of brown resin onto the glowing braz
ier in the center of the room.
Voices sighed as a fresh mist trailed into the rafters and Finnian watched with intense fascination as it crept craftily from one hidden alcove to another, pulling the sense and sensibility of the inmates behind it.

His chest expanded, relief gushing in and then out, as if all the awfulness of his life
was breathing away.
The foggy aroma clutched at his nostrils and momentarily he gritted his teeth, afraid for just an instant that he might have reached the end of his life.

At least I get to choose the ending, not Isolde.
Quickly he threw the Black Madonnas under his tongue and held them there, bi
tter bile filling his gullet.
He swallowed the dissolving paste and let his knees collapse as the drug unlocked the nerves, muscles and sinews, his
mind losing any sense of self.
He unfolded onto the divan, the room advancing and receding, the inarticulate sound of painful enjoyment around him rising to a hum as if the room we
re filled with a hive of bees.
Then an enveloping blackness smothered
him, a darkness like the tomb.
Frightened, he called out as he collapsed, a han
d dropping down off the divan.
In his mind a memory surfaced of a little boy angered at life, running into the sombre recesses of the library to hide.

‘Finnian.’
He stirred much la
ter as fingers touch his brow.
‘Finnian, do not feel ang
er.
Remember that it is you and only you who have been ch
osen to do this task, to seek.
Is that not an honour above all else?’

He gazed up from his divan; lids as heavy as if weighted with the coins of the dead, limbs heavier, deathly lassitude pressing him i
nto the cushions of the divan.
He stared into eyes the colour of the Bittersweet fl
ower and infinity stared back.
The light in the room glowed as if the sta
rs and the moon had descended.
A face of celestial beauty hovered over him, haloed by silver hair in which gems were laced.

‘To seek? Chosen to seek?’ He gave a weak laugh. ‘And honour?’
H
e tripped over a thick tongue.
‘Honour’s for mor
tal men in tales of chivalry.’
He shook his head slowly from side to side, closing his eyes as everything around him began to vacillate.

‘You will learn to place
value on many things, Finnian. It is your Fate.’
The woman sat on the side of the divan with a rustling of th
e midnight layers of her gown.
He opened his eyes to gaze at the folds and he felt he was spinning through the heavens, a path of stars glitteri
ng in the universe around him.
‘Hono
ur is but one of those things.
Above all, you will learn to value
yourself and those around you.
Many years ago as you lay on the floor in the library escaping through the pages of your books, you spoke to your brother.
She beats me
, you said. 
She ties my hands together and beats them
with a strap till they bleed.
She screams that I am of no value, less than a worm to be pecked
from the soil.
Every day I bleed
. Are you beaten too?
Do drops of your blood have as little worth?’

The woman’s soft fingers stroked his forehead, loosening the muscles that had tightened like
twisted rope as she conversed.
Her gentle tones raised an image of a mother in his mind.
Was this how my mother would have spoken to me?
He whimpered with loss and
she breathed close by his ear.

‘Hush, Finnian, all will be
well, all things will be well. Listen to me now.
Life is a lesso
n.  Long or short, one learns.
And you have such a lot to learn.’

He pulled himself up against the wall, dragging a leg and holding it by the knee, every movement
as fluid and loose as a baby.
The habitual sharpness of his state had dulled with the tenderness of the Black Madonnas and he felt cocooned and removed as he ga
zed at the woman of starlight.
He sucked a deep breath through his nose, savouring the dangerous tang of the burning resin as it tugged
him even further from reality.
‘You think I give a Traveller’s curse for learning, for value, for
honour
?
I tell you, I learned about
value
today.
I watched a djinn
play a game and kill a child.
Two days ago
I
played a game and a wight killed an innocent man.
’
He laughed and to his blunt senses it sounded as bitte
r as the resin on the brazier.
‘You see?
It doesn’t take
a lifetime to learn? A minute.
A kick with a came
l’s hoof and a babe is killed. It’s that quick. Pfft!’ He flicked his fingers.
‘That quick,’ he repeated.  He lay down again, flopping onto his side like a doll, his back facing the wo
man.
‘
Bain as
, Moonlady.
Piss off!’

It felt as if hours passed but it was seconds and the woman sp
oke sharply.
‘
Turn over and listen, Finnian.
Yo
u behave like a spoiled child.
The time has come for you to stop hiding behind your hurts because what you do now is the act of a coward.’

The word echoed,
coward, coward, coward,
through his mind and rage at such an inference wiped some of
the insidious lassitude away.
He sat up as quickly as his bo
dy would allow, words slurring.
‘A coward who took every bit of punishment but kept trying to get away and all the while that woman would use her powers to tra
ck me.
She does it even
now.  She knows I’m in Fahsi.’
He slumped back against the wall, nausea rising and suddenly he grabbed at the bowl on the table, puking until he hurt.

‘She knows nothing,’ the woman of moonlight rebuked when he lay down exhausted
on the divan. ‘She tricked you.
She had a castle full of spies and she had only to be in the
right place at the right time.
She made you
fearful, Finnian, that is all.
She worked away at your child’s emotions as water works at stone so that the man that you have become is engraved with anxiety and looks
constantly over his shoulder.
In truth you are now as free as you shall ever be.’

‘Free?’
He laughed weakly.

‘Aye, free,’ he felt the coolness of her hands as sh
e took his fingers in her own.
‘Free to
choose one of three ways.
You can le
ave Fahsi and go your own way.
Or perhaps you can consider the Fate of this entire world in
the hands of your grandmother.
Or maybe you can escape with the madonnas as you do now, losing all fear of your past and fut
ure. It is a conundrum, isn’t it?
Every choice shall give you freedom but I ask you, shall eve
ry choice give you self-worth?
Ah me, whatever way,
you
must decide.
No one shall force you.’