Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Islands rose like grey walls from the ocean; beyond, there lay no land between him and the coast of North America, only thousands of miles of sea and sky.
    Next he was walking. Endlessly walking.
    Rows of town houses loomed on either side of a canal. Venice? Trees lined the banks and there were cobbles beneath his feet … No, not Venice. Amsterdam. He was going to meet someone and it was urgent. Helena. He would take flowers to her, tulips like soft bright cups of paint, red and peach and bright yellow.
    Mist saw multiple images. First he watched the human thread of Adam’s memories, like images flickering on a spool of film: two beloved sisters who were long gone; mud and blood and shell-fire all around him, a bullet entering his gut … then a long nightmare of abduction into the Otherworld by Rufus and his heartless, beautiful friends, held prisoner while Rufus tried every technique of pleasure or pain he could devise to make Adam admit he was really Mistangamesh Poectis Ephenaestus. After he escaped, he enjoyed a short time of safety until Rufus came after him once more … and then the bullet completed its journey. It tore through his body and sent him plummeting into the waves.
    The memory of Rufus’s face—passionate, obsessive, devoid of empathy—sent shivers through him. So close … yet they couldn’t reach each other.
    Time meant little in the Otherworld, but it meant everything on Earth. In seventeenth-century Amsterdam, Mistangamesh was hurrying along the canalside towards Helena’s house. He was panicking in pure terror as if the world was collapsing.
    His memories wound back in time. He recalled a nightmare, in which his sister was trapped in a strange house and calling his name, but he could never find her … What came before that? A gulf of darkness. He was staring down a tunnel of whispering phantoms. A point of golden light shone at the far end but he dared not look too hard. Seeing would be like diving into the sun.
    A voice murmured deep in his brain, It is always like this.
    “Is it?” Mist said softly to himself. “We carry this chaos inside us?”
    His subconscious self was wiser. It commanded him to be quiet and watchful, to pay careful attention and to learn fast.
    He became aware of someone beside him: a woman who was silver from head to foot, with a halo of pale hair, a glint of white gold and pearls, a long thick coat of figured velvet trimmed with white fur: Juliana Flagg, an angel in a dream.
    He opened his eyes and she was really there.
    Consciousness came as a violent shock. His last memory was of lying on concrete beneath a bridge, engine noise growling above, a fog of foul smells enveloping him. Now he was on a bed, walled in by blue curtains. Bright lights dazzled him and he heard a buzz of activity in the background. Juliana leaned towards him, her aged yet beautiful face alight with amazement. He caught the warm, powdery fragrance of her velvet coat.
    “Adam?” she said softly. “Oh my god, is it really you? I can’t believe this.”
    “Juliana.”
    His voice was a rasp. Her eyes widened as he spoke. “You recognize me?” Her fingertips pressed his cheekbone, as if touch was more certain than sight. “I’ve been sitting here for an hour, so I’ve had a very thorough look at your face, but I still can’t comprehend … Adam, what happened? We saw you die.”
    He glanced around. This was a much brighter, stranger place than the grim wards that human Adam remembered, nearly a century earlier. “Is this a hospital?”
    “Yes, you’re in the Acute Admissions Unit. Next step up from Accident and Emergency.” She looked at him with grave, concerned eyes. “Oh, my dear boy, what a state you’re in. Whatever happened?”
    Everything and nothing , he thought. This was all wrong. He should not be in hospital because he was Aelyr, indestructible. Juliana was in the past, so she shouldn’t be here, either. All wrong.
    “Well, let me tell you what I know,” she said