Worlds Unseen by Rachel Starr Thomson (best classic novels TXT) 📕

He laid his hand on the table and brought it back covered with the greyness of the years. Had it been so long? The rug on the floor had once been brilliantly red and yellow and green, with its swirling patterns and uniquely woven designs. Now its colours were muted by time and silence. It lay drab and not at all like its memory.

Lord Robert walked slowly to the head of the table, where a wooden chair sat waiting for him as it had so long ago. He drew it out and sat down, his eyes struggling to see through the haze of the years to the ghosts of the past.

He felt as though they were there still there, just beyond the dust. He could hear them talking and laughing, debating and discussing. To his right, his memory could see the small, friendly face of Daniel Seaton, crinkled up in a laugh. Next to Dan sat Eva Brown, plump and pretty, clutching a book of sketches to her bosom as though it was a baby or a precious toy. She was laughing, too, probably at something Daniel had said.

Next to Eva sat John Davies, his craggy, serious young face a great contrast to Daniel. John was quiet, not much of a man for speaking. When he did speak, he usually bore listening to. His grey eyes would pierce through all distractions and make a man sit up and listen. On these days, Lord Robert remembered, John’s eyes rarely strayed from the face of the young woman across from him.

Mary Grant was Crynthian, like John. She was beautiful, the laird remembered in a startled way. He had forgotten how beautiful. Dark brown hair fell on small shoulders; wide blue eyes danced with the song that she was always singing. When Mary sang, the very stars above stopped to listen. She sang songs of the ancient days, songs full of glory and valour and prophecy-songs she seemed to hear floating to her from another world.

Lucas Barrington always sat beside Mary. He was handsome and tall, a gentleman of sorts, a young continental with a great deal of wealth and rakish manners. Across the table from Lord Robert sat the other real scholar of the group, talking to Lucas in a strong Eastern accent. Jarin Huss was a thin young man with a neatly trimmed beard and a way of speaking with authority to anyone who would listen.

And then there was Evelyn.

Her seat, when she was allowed into the council meetings, was at Lord Robert’s left hand. She, too, was beautiful. Her hair was black like the night, her eyes almost as dark. She moved like a panther, smooth and strong. Mystery hung about her like a mist; a fog that called to the laird to come further into its dangerous embrace. Even now, the memory of her was enough to make his heart ache.

They were all young in those days. In his memory, the laird heard their voices and saw each expression.

In a split second, the memory changed. He saw Mary stand to her feet, saw the chair knocked back behind her as she rose with passion glaring in her eyes. He saw the finger pointed at the woman next to him and heard the hissing hatred in Evelyn’s reply. He saw the hardness in the eyes of those who had been his friends. He heard himself responding, shouting, accusing. He saw his arms around the dark, mysterious woman at his side. He saw Jarin shaking his head; he saw the anger in John’s grey eyes. He heard Daniel crying. He saw Eva stop crying and grow hard, so hard he thought a hammer would never break her open again.

That day was the end of it all. In less than three days, the council was no more. They had gone away, to Midland, to Cryneth, to Sloczka. Only Lord Robert was left, with Evelyn to stay by his side forever and help him find all the answers he had wanted.

Only, she had gone, too. Less than a year later. And she had not said good-bye.

On that day, Lord Robert had walked into the council room and closed the curtains. He had shut the door and never come back.

Until now.

On the table in front of him was a book bound with red leather. A journal. His fingers brushed away the dust, streaking the dull red cover with brightness. Slowly, he opened it.

It opened to a page that had been dusty even before the end of the council, all those years ago. It was yellow and cracked with age, and on it was written short lines in a sort of rhythm. Poetry.

The words were unreadable, written in a language other than that of the Empire. Lord Robert sighed as he remembered the first time he had opened the book and looked at the handwriting of some unknown ancient, an author who might have lived before the rule of the Morel dynasty choked out life and freedom in the world.

Jarin Huss had been able to read this language. Huss, Lord Robert reflected, had known many dangerous things. His knowledge of the ancient languages would have been enough to have him arrested. It was a risk that Jarin, as a scholar with an insatiable appetite to know, was more than willing to take. The laird remembered the Eastern student’s description of the underground university, the clandestine teachings of the professors at the University of Pravik. They had taught ancient languages and legends, and history that did not fit the frame the Empire wished to give it.

The lines of poetry taunted from their resting place on the page. The handwriting swirled and danced across the paper in age-old ink, calling to the laird to understand.

Words tugged at the edge of his memory, and he struggled to recall them as he looked over the poems again and again. The words had been spoken in the Eastern accent of Jarin Huss, as he read the poetry aloud for the first and only time.

“When they see beyond the sky,

When they know beyond the mind,

When they hear the song of the Burning Light;

Take these Gifts of My Outstretched Hand,

Weave them together,

I shall come.”

Lord Robert was surprised at the clarity with which the words came back to him. He picked up the red-bound book and turned it over in his hands. There were more poems, more words written inside. If only he could read them.

“When they see beyond the sky…”

He crossed the room to the window and stood between its cobwebbed curtains, hands tucked behind him. His eyes wandered over the hills, along a small path that rounded the side of the mountain and disappeared. The eyes of his memory continued to follow the path, up the steep hillside, to the rocky outcrop where Virginia would be seated even now. He was seized with a sudden desire to visit her, perhaps to recite to her the words of the poem. She had been born on the land of the Sinclair family, had spent most of her life on the side of the mountain, but it had only been three months since the laird had really become aware of her existence. In an accidental way he had heard rumours of the blind girl who could see another side of reality. If her visions were fact and not madness, then the things she saw proved the validity of Lord Robert’s lifelong belief in another world alongside his own. She had given him back his old beliefs and reawakened his old longings. He went to see her often, and drank in her words as though they were life-giving water, though she gave it to him only in painfully sparing drops. One day he hoped to break through into the world of Virginia’s visions, but for now her words were all he had.

The path called to him. He picked up the red journal and left the room, shutting the doors tightly behind him.

*

Virginia Ramsey’s hair was a very dark brown. Most of it was on the verge of turning black, but enough of it was near to turning red to make her overall appearance very striking. Her eyes, which could not see, were green.

She spent most of her time sitting cross-legged on top of an outcrop on the side of the mountain, where she could smell the passing of the seasons and hear the birds fly by. The birds thought her a friend, and they would light on her shoulder and whisper to her. Her right hand usually rested on the head of her shaggy old deerhound, who was as deaf as she was blind.

On the side of the mountain, Virginia Ramsey heard all that she ever wished to hear. She heard wind, grass, and the songs of creation. And sometimes, on the side of the mountain, Virginia could see.

The things she saw were true things, though no one else, it seemed, could see them. She saw beautiful golden creatures and horrible, black shadow-things. She saw people, but not as others saw them. She could see into their souls, into the truth of what they were. She could see the childlike heart of her grandfather, the conniving soul of the village innkeeper, and the burning potential of the innkeeper’s son, little Roland MacTavish, that made him look to her like a lion cub: a kitten now, but with all the strength and power of the beast king just waiting to push its way out.

She saw other things, too. Sometimes she saw people in faraway places, and sometimes she saw things that had happened hundreds of years before.

One frequent vision had grown stronger and more urgent with the years: that of a great hunting hound, its muzzle dripping with blood and its eyes with hatred. It was tracking her down. This vision she saw most often at night, and then she would wake up coldly terrified, sure that the universe itself was hunting her.

The people in the village were afraid of her.

They didn’t know exactly what it was that Virginia Ramsey could do, but they had the feeling that she knew far more about them than they would like anyone to know. Everyone in the town was polite to her, while most of them would have done anything to keep her sightless green eyes away from them.

The deerhound under her fingertips growled low, sending a rumbling shiver through his lean body.

“Hush,” Virginia said. “It’s only the laird, I think.”

She bowed her head as he approached, tired at the thought of talking to him. He asked such insistent questions, firing them like arrows one after another. What she saw lay deep inside of her soul; to reveal it to another was like tearing open a wound. She did not fault the laird, for he obviously did not understand. He thought that she could explain her sight as easily as he could describe a sunny day. She might have grown angry with him, except that in him was a strength and a spirit she did not possess. He was her protector. Her grandfather knew it, the town knew it, and she hoped that the hunting hound of her visions knew it. Someday she would need him. So she spoke with him when he came.

Besides, underneath all of his selfish questioning, she sensed a deep need in him. He had wounds of his own, and something in her wished to heal them. At the same time something in him drove her back. His wounds were festering, infected with a blackness that both frightened and drew her.

His voice broke through her thoughts. She heard and felt him sitting near to her, as the deerhound growled low and deep but did