All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [170]
Dallas waved her hands, dismissing those words. “In the old days, maybe. So far back, who can remember?”
“But he did lead the League,” Eliot pressed. “Before there was even a Council?”
The light outside further dimmed, and rain pelted the metal roof of their house.
“Yeah.” Dallas’s face hardened, and she sounded more like Audrey as her tone chilled. “He was a different man—organizing us against the Titans, saving us all . . . before the age of treaties and politics . . . before he grew fat and lazy and lecherous and forgot what he was.”
“Did he die?” Fiona asked.
Dallas was quiet a long moment, and then whispered, “I don’t think so. He was wounded at Thule . . . but he limped off the battlefield. After we started to talk peace with the other family, though, he said his time had come and gone . . . that things were changing, and he no longer wanted to change with them. He left us. Maybe to go die.”
The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed out a half hour.
Cecilia came out of the kitchen. “Your lunches! I forgot.”
“Oh, stop clucking,” Dallas said, and her smile returned. “They’re made.”
On the table by the stairs sat two paper bags. Scribbled with crayon upon them were masterwork impressionistic scenes: one of the dark forest, the other a seascape.
“A little something for my favorite niece and nephew,” Dallas explained with a wink.
“Then off to school with you both,” Cee exclaimed. “Miss Westin will skin you alive today if you’re late.”
Fiona jumped to her feet, not sure if Cee was being literal or not.
Eliot raced for the stairs.
Fiona hesitated, glancing back at her aunt.
“You’re just like him,” Dallas whispered, “. . . minus the lechery.”
Fiona detected a bit of regret in her aunt’s eyes, and something else burned inside that she had seen in the Dallas who on the battlefield was fighting for her life—a fire full of power and life and passion.
Then Fiona blinked . . . and noticed the table by the stairs was empty.
She raced after her brother. That rat! He’d grabbed both lunches!
44. Divum sub Terra (Latin for “Sky under Earth”) transcribed from scrolls (ca. 500 B.C.E.) and spirited away from the Library of Alexandra, lost, and then rediscovered in the walls of a Benedictine monastery and translated by Sir Eustace De Vires. The book details the sacrificial rites and prayers of the popular cult of Zeus prominent throughout classical society (Zeus Olympios) as well as the more secretive forms driven into hiding, but which survived well beyond the advent of the Christian era. One such cult was dedicated to the “underground” Zeus (Zeus Katachthonios) where the deity is often represented as snakes and a man intertwined. The book was ordered destroyed by Papal authority, but two copies survived the 1677 Great Burning in Wittenberg, and found their way to such collectors as Oliver Cromwell, Napoléon Bonaparte, and Charles de Galle, who have praised it for its insights into the philosophies of leadership. Golden’s Guide to Extraordinary Books, Victor Golden, 1958, Oxford.
49
ELECTIVES
Eliot and Fiona entered the Grand Spring Ballroom. It was the size of an aircraft hangar, filled with crystal chandeliers and miniature lights that mimicked the stars on a clear summer solstice night. Floor-to-ceiling tapestries of courtly dances, pastoral scenes, and major battles covered the walls and made the place seem even larger.
Freshmen usually weren’t allowed in here. Eliot shuddered. Good thing, too—because some freshman girls might get the idea they were supposed to have dances.
Miss Westin probably wanted her freshmen focused on studying (and surviving) their first year. For once, Eliot was grateful for homework.
In the center of the ballroom sat a dozen executive desks spaced ten paces apart. Around them students queued, waiting to sit and talk to the adults at the tables. It wasn’t just freshmen here, but Paxington upperclassmen, too.
He spotted Amanda, hair in her face, not exactly confident as