A Thousand Glass Flowers (The Chronicles of Eirie 3) (31 page)

‘I daresay
you’re worried about Isolde.’
The old man spoke back over his shoulder as they made steady progress d
own the slope of the hill.
‘She’s responsible
for all this dark, isn’t she?
Well you’ll find, Finnian, that my house is somewhat immune
to her charms for the moment.
Look.’

Finnian glanced up from studying Lalita’s face to see mist stretching from a house at the bottom of the hill and bathing the far
off
surrounds in fog-like daylight.

‘It’s the best I can do. A fog hides things. It will serve…
’

‘For how long?’
Speech finally returned to Finnian as short-term relief gave him hope.

‘For as long as it
takes, b
ut she’s powerful, perhaps the
most powerful we shall know.’
Jasper
turned toward Finnian briefly. ‘Traveling alright, is she? Good, good.
Huh, do you know in my long life this is the first time the world of Færan has ever not had a perfect da
y?
Enough to send shivers up my spine.’

Up
your
spine, old man?
‘
She mustn’t find us.’
The
sound of his own voice enunciating such a thought
shocked him; he hadn
’t realized he’d spoken aloud. ‘She wants…
’ he pulled up short.
Why should
he
know what I carry?

‘What
you carry?’ J
asper looked up as Finnian’s horse drew alongside and rubbed
its head against Jasper arms. ‘Steady man, steady.’
He to
ok the loose reins in his hands. ‘Ah, there are quite a few of us who know what you carry. What you think to do.
It won’t be easy you know.’

‘I never thought it would be.’
Finnian trod carefully around his words.

They walked along, gravel crunching under the horse’s hooves, a house emerging through the waftin
g mists as Jasper spoke again.
‘
Whoa, whoa. No, not easy at all.
After all, they are indestructible.’

And so is she, she thinks.
But
if I can just get the chance…

‘Pass the girl to me, Finnian. Leave the horse.
Folko’ll take care of it.’

Finnian bent with reluctance, placing his precious bundle in Jasper’s arms and the healer strode throu
gh the entry in a spry manner.
Finnian leaped off the gelding and followed, his footsteps echoing on polished boards that extended through a gracious entry hall and down a passage.

‘Go to the library.’ Ja
sper halted at a chamber door. ‘In there.
There is nothing you can do and you shall be in the way.’

Finnian shook his head and began to spe
ak but Jasper forestalled him. ‘Don’t argue.
She is as close to death as one can be without being dea
d.
I need space
and I don’t need you hovering. Please.
Go to the library. It won’t be for long.’

‘What shall you do?’
He hadn’t meant to beg but even he recognized the tone in his voice.
No pride left.
None.

‘A charm to mend the rib and puncture, mortal medics of herbs to give relief from p
ain and then much, much sleep.
We must hope, Finnian, for she has been unable t
o breathe easily for too long.
Even if her bones and organs mend, there is the risk of fluid and breat
hing problems in the longterm. You must prepare yourself.
She may not live.’

Jasper’s words carved a deep incision down Finnian’s hea
rt and almost split it in two.
Not that
it should matter like it did.
He had voided any right to her affections when he seduced her and then stole the
paperweights.
But he loved her and whether she return
ed the emotion was immaterial.
She must not, could not die – Isabella waited if nothing else.

He stepped into the library and was instantly struck by the familiar
odour of the papery confines.
The smell was comforting as he remembered the pa
in such another room had eased.
But by the same token, it reminded him of Isolde as it was her library that had been his
haven, his illusory escape.
And with that memory came thoughts of revenge and what he wou
ld need
to do to kill her.

He threw himself into a winged chair and gazed unseeing at the titles along the walls, his fingers reaching into his shirt for the fragment of parc
hment and for Ibn’s odd stone.
He smoothed the parchment on his knee, knowing exactly where each fold was, even with his eyes closed.

Ibn, I could lose her.
Let your talisman protect her from her demons of death.

Carefully and with deliberate intent
, he laid Ibn’s rock on the parchment so the scribe’s head was framed by the weathered hole.
Pray for her, my friend.
Pray for her life and I swea
r I shall do what must be done.

Chapter Twenty

‘Death is always violent, even in t
he most gentle circumstances.’
The ol
d man sat across from Finnian.
‘And what she went through, that certainly w
asn’t gentle.
Death’s so much what we fear, mortals and Other
s alike, and when there is fear
there can be overpowering emotion of all kinds.’

Finnian could bar
ely look at the seated healer.
So profound were the words that had issued from the man’s mouth t
hat his very marrow had frozen. ‘But she isn’t dead, is she?’
He wrenched his voice from where it lay at his feet, smothered by thoughts of a pa
ssing that was wrong, so wrong. ‘You’ve mended her.’ His heartbeat pounded.
Apart from that one earlier sentence, Jasper had said nothing of Lalita’a welfare since walking into the library, pouri
ng a wine and seating himself.
‘They say you’re
Jasper
,
one of the greatest elders…
’

‘I can fix a rib and a pierced lung lik
e pieces of broken porcelain.’
Ja
sper broke in.
‘She
could
be well I can assure you, a
s I have done all that I must.
A night, a day.’ He waggl
ed his hand this way and that.
‘It merely depends on wh
ether she wants to be well now.
If she does, if she thinks she has something to live for, she will mend.’

Finnian breathed out, his back turned away from Jasper.
Isabella, not m
e.
Th
at’s the something to live for.
‘She intended co
ming to you herself,’ he said.
He wanted to turn Jasper’s thoughts from the strained emotions he could barely harness so he drew out the paperweights f
rom his pocket,
slam
ming
them on the table follow
ed by the strip of
washi
paper.
‘If these hadn’t happe
ned, if we hadn’t searched…
’

‘Then what? There’s nothing you can do.
It’s done now and things should not be brooded over.’

‘You know all that has gone before?’
Damn you.

Jasper shr
ugged and raised his eyebrows.
‘I’m
Jasper.
Of the Færan.
Remember?
’

Finnian walked to the window
of the library and stared out.
The mists swaddled the house and he should have felt safe but he had the sensation of a wall and Is
olde merely on the other side.
Perversely he heard happy laughter from the housekeeper
and the ostler along the hall.
Such a comforting ambience
, one completely alien to him.
He stalked back to the table, enervation rushing through him as he pushed one of the paperweights around with h
is fingers. ‘She had two of the four.
You understand what they are?’

Jasper laughed, a tinge of bitter
ness and irony drifting around. ‘Understand? Of course.
For the last year, I’ve sweated a lot and slept little as I attempted to scry their whereabo
uts.
We were all held to ransom until they were found and destroyed.’

‘Then why
didn’t you find them yourself?
Of all concerned, were you not the most likely to succeed in the sear
ch and without such bloodshed?
With your scrying knowledge, your supposed
legendary skills?’

Jasper sighed.
‘My
supposed
legendary skills might just save that beautiful young woman in there so don’t berate m
e too much with your sarcasm.’
He set his goblet d
own with careful deliberation.
‘In respect of the Cantrips, it was
not my Fate to do so.
I tell you, I’ve often wondered why it is that Fate constructs life in these rid
iculously convoluted patterns.
What I do know is that if we defy Fate, we can cause more confusion than you or I could conceive.’

Finnian stood by the table, a da
ngerous mood filling his soul.
‘Well old man, th
ere are the things you wanted.
Are they worth th
e price of lives do you think?
And tell m
e, how shall you destroy them? Does Fate tell you that?’
He picked up one of the paperweights and on the glistening surface of the
millefiori
all he could see were the bodies of the innocent and Lalita pale and breathless as the Strigoi hauled her into the air.
And Isolde, always Isolde.
He flung the glass, hitting the stone fireplace and shattering the paperweigh
t into hundreds of tiny shards.
‘Perhaps that’s all it takes.

The old man stood, an infu
riating picture of equanimity. ‘Oh that it should be so easy. My word, such a fit. Sit, sit.’
He walked over to the fire and picked up a tiny shovel and hearth broom and swept the glass into a heap before stirring it with his fingers until he found the
piece he wanted.
The aged fingers worked a paper scrap free of the snapped glass rod and des
pite himself, Finnian watched.
Jasper rolled it out with his finger and lifted the strip to exa
mine it, his mouth tightening.

Placing it back on the table
, he let it roll up on itself.
‘Of
course
it’s
important they are destroyed. Isolde wants them. It is enough.
But even if she were gone, dead, vanished, another malintent will take he
r place with as much ferocity.
They
always do, it’s the way of it.
Te
rror is the way of the world.’
The healer poured another wine and handed one to Finnian before resuming his position in a large red chair.

But before the others
there is Isolde…

Ignoring the paperweights, Jasp
er took a deep sip of his wine.
‘Your brothers brought their damaged ladies to me also,’ he said.

The comment was so unexpected that Finnian almost gagged
as he drank.
‘
My
brothers
? My brothers?’
He laughed wi
thout mirth.
‘I had only one
, old
man.
Surely you know this if you know as much as you say.’

‘Ah, not at all, dear boy.
There was Li
am, the twin of whom you know.
But there is al
so Phelim, your older brother.
Stepfather to Lalita’s niece and husband to Ade
lina, whose child Isabella is. Did you not know?’
He
pounded the arm of his chair. ‘ Ha!
Now
that
is Fate.’

‘I don’t believe you.’
Finnian stared at him.

Jasper sat in the odd grey dusk
ing
and told Finnian about Phelim, the story of the lost babe reared by a carlin as a mortal child, only to
discover he was of the Færan.
It was a tale as much of Adelina th
e embroiderer whom Phelim loved
and of the pap
erweights as it was of Phelim.
It was a story stitched together with intermingled threads to form an epic whole and Finnian could barely countenance the id
ea that he should have family.
As Lalita had said – relativ
es worth living and dying for.
He remembered his own wish when
he had been a little boy…
the wish for love of a family.

Finnian tried to break the news into granular parts, sift it and then store it.
But where? In my heart? My soul?
My head?
It was too great to comprehend.
‘Where is he,’ he managed to ask.

‘Maria I
sland in the Pymm Archipelago.
He is a shepherd, repudiating Færan because of what he sees as the fickle gameplaying o
f Others and I can understand.
His own introduction to the Other world was bleak and cruel and he saw the love of his life treated with appalling lack.’

‘Does he know of me?’
I have a living brothe
r…

‘Yes.
I sent a message when I became aware of your entry into the search for the Cantrips.’

Jasper lapsed into a silence that fil
led Finnian’s heart with dread.
‘And?’

‘Nothing. He didn’t reply.
Mind you, it wasn’t that long ago, two months, maybe less.’

Finnian’s heart shriveled, the shadowy lack of confidence a
nd self-belief creeping forth.
‘He doesn’t want to know because I am one of those he detests.’

‘Perhaps, perhaps not.
There could be any number of r
easons that he hasn’t replied.
In any event, after we have dealt with the Cantrips and Isolde, you must go with Lalita to Maria Island.’

We?
We?
I
shall deal with the charms and wit
h Isolde and as for Lalita…

But he said nothing, not wanting to admit Lalita’s passionate dislike
of him.
That she would run a thousand leagues from having him as a companion on any journey, let alone one that took them close to her special, her vulne
rable, her most perfect niece.
He could almost hear Isolde’s delighted laugh at his pain.

‘Go and see
Lalita, Finnian.’ added Jasper.
‘She’ll be asleep but it would be c
omforting if you sat with her.
I have things to do and must have some peace as I de
liberate the future of those.’
He gestured over his shoulder with a thumb so that one would hardly have thought he cared over much what the charms represented.

Finnian went to
scoop them all into his hands.
‘Then I shall take them until you need them.’

‘Dear boy,’ Jasper sto
od and held out his own hands. ‘Give them to me.
I shall place them somewhere s
afe.’
The eyes pierced Finnian as if they read his mind, s
eeing his plans in plain view.
He stood perfectly stil
l, almost defying the old man.
But then he tipped the paperweights into Jasper’s hands a
nd they made a clucking sound.
Laying the strips on top, he left, pulling the door to, trailing a frayed cloak of sensibilities behind him.

Comforting for whom?
She won’t want me and I will like as not b
e discomforted in her presence.
But as he walked to Lalita’s room, he wondered at all the healer had told him, not least of which had been how h
e knew of all that was passing.

One day as Jasper had stared at his mirror, leaning back in another of his scarlet chairs and sipping red wine, he saw Fin
nian in the reflective depths.
There was no doubt in his m
ind that he was Liam’s twin.
He began to scry – to use the cards, the sticks, runes, anything and everything that could give him a history o
f this other part of the pair.
He discovered Isolde was Finnian’s grandmother, a personal history hitherto unknown, although her reputation
w
as
like a scar through Færan.
He scried her obsession and was forced to sit on the sidelines these last months and watch and hold his breath and h
ate the malevolence of Others.
He cursed Fate for laying down such cruel prophecies for three brothers, brothers he could not help and that Fate had decreed must dance to their own tune.

And yet, he said, if Fate and force had not intervened, maybe Finnian would have fallen by the wayside – swallowed by the arms of the Black Madonnas.

I would. Of that there’s no doubt.
But I met a woman of silver, ivory and midnight and I met a mortal called Ibn, but
mostly I met a scribe…

He
leaned against the doorframe.
Lalita looked like a piece of translucent porcelain – the cracked object so casually referred to by Jasper and which h
e maintained was easy to mend.
He watched her chest rise and fall as if he needed to see
for himself that she breathed.
Then he examined her f
ace from that uneasy distance.
When he spoke, he knew he had little hope of holding any feeling back.