Grail of the Summer Stars (Aetherial Tales) by Freda Warrington Page B

surrounded by world leaders and celebrity fund-raisers for good causes of every kind. Champagne flowed, light glittered on diamonds, pledges to end world poverty were made.
    Soon he found himself on a darkened balcony at such an event, with a self-styled philanthropist—a short, unassuming man who resembled a schoolteacher—whispering into his ear. Offering an assignment.
    Rufus wasn’t naive, but this was confirmation that a few of these generous folk had perhaps not earned their millions through honest hard work. Illegal arms trading was shockingly lucrative. Also dangerous, grueling, raw and seedy, cynical, brutal, fatal. No one worked the raw edge of the actual handover unless they were crazy.
    Rufus loved it.
    He adored the hypocrisy, the corruption, the faux glamour of arms fairs, the shady deals laced with drugs and blood diamonds. He loved traveling to godforsaken regions of the world and selling weapons to desperate brutes, then venturing a little farther and selling more to their enemies.
    At first, he was part of a team, dealing within the relative safety of an armed escort. That didn’t last long. He was indiscreet and reckless, putting his colleagues’ lives at risk. It was a miracle no one murdered him, not for want of trying.
    Instead, he went freelance.
    That worked for him. With each new deal, his arrival was greeted with consternation, awe and superstitious fear. How could someone as outrageously handsome as Rufus—with long burnished-brown ripples of hair, looking no older than his late twenties, as willowy as an angel walking the earth—how could such a man avoid kidnap, murder or worse? In fact he was as wily and tough as the most hardened bandit, untouchable and fearless, if not actually insane.
    In the course of his travels, he worked his way through a series of lovers, male and female. Upsetting his customers by seducing their wives, daughters or sisters was not the safest way of life among the lawless yet brutally strict tribal zones he frequented, but Rufus was past caring. More than once, bullets ripped through his body and he simply stood there laughing. That tended to earn the healthy respect of warlords.
    If he were to die, he assumed that his soul-essence would find its way into the Otherworld and along the Causeway of Souls to the Mirror Pool at the heart of Asru. Or perhaps it would, like a dryad, attach itself to some thorny tree. Whatever the case, he knew that in time he would be reborn. Perhaps, in his next incarnation, he would remember none of this. Then he might find peace at last.
    But in thirty thousand years, no one had yet succeeded in killing him.
    *   *   *
    Dawn was breaking as he reached the edge of a town. Even Rufus felt a frisson of shock. The main road was torn in half by a long ragged chasm. Baked-mud houses had collapsed into the abyss, and the whole area resembled a scrapyard of torn concrete, corrugated metal and rubble. Wailing filled the air. The sun shone through a pall of dust, softening the scene with an ocher haze. Survivors wandered through the haze; he saw men in long pale garments, and women in saris that were incongruously bright against the ruins, lemon and blue and scarlet.
    With no particular plan, Rufus wandered along the edge of the town, detached from the suffering around him. What was he supposed to do? Although he could see that this raw human anguish was horrible, heartbreaking, he felt nothing but bemused shock.
    He spotted a vehicle with a red cross on the side. There were others, too, of military green. He saw dark-skinned soldiers, and Westerners in khaki fatigues. Rescue teams were here already, the ruined streets frantic with activity. A few individuals stood holding up cell phones to film the scene. There was even a television crew.
    Rufus halted. Sweat was dripping from him. He simply stood and watched the carnage, not knowing what to do or feel. Oh dear, not another earthquake. Mother Earth shudders and casts down another