by Katy Winter
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jepaul was a young man grown. He was almost seven feet tall, broad-shouldered, athletic and quite strikingly handsome, his long auburn hair still swept back by a band round his head and the longer curls tumbled across his shoulders and down his back. He was known to get scissors and chop at the longest bits every so often. His odd amber eyes, still fringed by heavy dark lashes, were profoundly thoughtful as they looked beyond the tower window to the courtyard below. His eyebrows were slightly hitched together in concentration, while the moulded lips moved rhythmically as he recited a mantra, over and over.
He finally sank to a lush mat at his feet and sat, cross-legged, hands folded restfully in his lap, and from there he let his senses guide him. In no time he found Quon, his mentor rested on a knoll somewhere on the Island Jepaul had never seen, but he knew Quon responded because the old man lifted his head, turned it as if seeking the younger one, and then smiled very widely in response. Jepaul left him and sought again. He now traced with enviable ease and speed.
His searches completed, Jepaul fingered his beard. It was long, thick and curly to match his thatch. It was an unusual colour for one born on Shalah because it was golden/russet with traces of black streaks. Long fingers twisted round in it. They tugged gently before coming back to rest in his lap again. Clad in a long robe with full, long sleeves and side splits, worn over leggings of the same material, he looked an imposing figure. The robe was frogged from throat to chest. The belt about Jepaul's waist was a gift from the Elementals a few syns before and was a curiously wrought, exquisite piece of workmanship with a fascinating buckle entwined with sigils. The robe’s gathered yoke and sleeves let the garment drape elegantly to just above the floor where it met sandalled feet, each foot with five toes. Not since the day Jepaul arrived at the Island had he hidden his feet. The jewellery from the Grohols was still there and had grown with him, firm but not tight. He rarely thought about it. Not once had the jewellery flared since Jepaul's acceptance by Salaphon.
Jepaul had been resident on the Island for just over seven syns. Nor had he shown any disposition to leave. From his first experience with Salaphon he learned to listen and absorb from all things about him, his questions few but carefully phrased to show he only asked after consideration and long reflection.
Salaphon was an unusual teacher and most of Jepaul's education in the early syns was undertaken by the Elementals who struggled to make up for Jepaul's lack of learning as a child. That took time and considerable patience. In time, Jepaul came into his own and made remarkably fast progress, much to Quon's delight and relief. Over that time it was at rare moments Jepaul was once more embraced and taught in a way no Maquat Dom could possibly tutor him. He came through a session with Salaphon quiet, seeking solace, but with a light to his eyes the Elementals understood. It was familiar.
He was teased by Elementals and Companions alike and continued his intimacy with Belika. He was posed difficult questions by Salaphon that he had to resolve before he'd feel the embrace dissolve and he was back in the tower in his rooms, staring at nothing. He absorbed knowledge so fast his mentors eyed him, his quest to know keeping them alert and active.
He learned about Shalah, his history lessons going back millennia and he studied the universe of which he discovered his world was only a part. He came to grips with cosmology. He was taught the raw sciences and the laws of the universe. He struggled with higher mathematics. He learned the philosophies taught the Doms over aeons as he was shown what governance was and he came to grips with concepts like justice, judgment and reason. He learned how far short Jamir fell from the ideal of what a ruler should be.
He studied the mind as well as the body, the analysis of intellect and emotion hard for him to grasp. It was this area of his education he came to this syn because his basic education in the physical aspect of reality was satisfactory but he grappled with a conceptual morass that he struggled with. Salaphon again, unexpectedly, took a hand. Apart from others he very slowly kept Jepaul with him as he moved the young mind into a world of abstracts and there he kept him, day after day, until he sensed understanding. Only then was Jepaul released back to be with others who enlarged on newly found comprehension.
By the time this occurred, Jepaul was twenty-four syns. His mind was honed, his emotions controlled and his intellectual development astonishing. He was now allowed to move into the arts of a profession he'd heard described at school as wizardry, but he knew that what he learned was very much more than that. From that, Salaphon appeared to believe Jepaul was ready to study and experience the source of universal energy, the creative form of existence. This bothered Quon who spoke to Sapphire about it, his voice worried. Sapphire picked it.
“What troubles you, Quon?”
“Jepaul takes another huge jump, Sapphire.”
“Agreed,” responded Sapphire peaceably. “It bothers you. Why?”
“We never went so fast.”
“No,” assented Sapphire after a long pause. “But neither are any of us of the Progenitor's line, a factor we all tend to overlook from time to time. It makes Jepaul that much more, doesn't it?”
“Is he, as we believed, Elemental?”
“There's no doubt of that,” came the instant reply. “But, as I say, he's more. We saw him during his trials, all of us, on the stairs to the final gate. It was a vision real enough, Earth.”
“He's not just the missing link, is he?”
“No, he's not. The small child you befriended, for whatever reason, has a role that goes beyond us, but it's one he can't fulfil without us or the Companions. Each of us is crucial for what he sets out to do. Salaphon moulds and shapes him as he did us, but not in quite the same way.”
“And what is it Jepaul sets out to do?” asked Quon with a worried frown.
“Only Salaphon may have the answer to that.”
“Or Jepaul himself, in the end,” murmured Quon, still traces of anxiety in his voice.
“Perhaps,” returned Sapphire thoughtfully. “But Salaphon, I think, knows that young man in ways we don't. You’ve always said Jepaul is more than Shalah.”
“If you're right, then that comforts me.” Quon felt an arm go about his shoulders.
“It is so, Quon.”
Jepaul began to travel. He followed astral links shown him by Quon and increasingly in concert with Salaphon. He also plunged deep into the heart of Shalah itself, again through oceans and through earth. He learned to truly know his world as one with it. He sensed her vibrations and movements. He became attuned to the essence of Shalah. At this stage he went above Shalah and looked back at the world but that was all he did. He sensed there was more but had the intelligence and foresight never to push boundaries or to ask for more than he was given. His maturity was rare in one so young.
And at last he was allowed to leave the Island but only encompassed by Salaphon. Sh’Bane and the Riders might sense something, but shrouded within the protection that was Salaphon, Jepaul was unaware of them as he prowled, over the next syns, from one end of Shalah to the other. It was during these forays that he saw the reality of life on Shalah that made him slowly burn with anger. When he went back, reluctantly, to where he'd nearly met his death, he had to swallow hard.
He saw where the caste system had made slavery so entrenched he saw trapped faces wherever he went. He saw appalling poverty and distressing misery. It was everywhere. Extremes of power and dispossessed, wealth and poverty, was all across Shalah, the few in positions of authority with their power entrenched by the use of new horrors, horrors thought long gone from Shalah. Jepaul saw writhlings implanted in innocent people to enforce their obedience as informers, those betrayed cleansed as Jepaul was but often more slowly and cruelly before savage execution. He saw dark things hover about rulers. And he saw the Red Council who once condemned a boy to death. What he saw, under the hoods, made Jepaul's heart jump. He knew, now, who they really were.
And he looked into alien eyes that once were the eyes o
f the Mythlin, a man who once, if Marilion didn't lie, bedded and impregnated her with a child who moved steadily north in company with his mother and an ex-slaver. That boy, now close to fourteen syns, was clearly part-Varen as Jepaul saw from the glimpse he had of the small group well northward and veering steadily eastward.
Jepaul was allowed to absorb all these images in his own way and in his own time. No one pushed him. If he asked a question he was immediately answered. Had he wished to stop learning he believed he'd not be forced - encouraged, yes, but never coerced. His respect for his mentors grew by the syn, as did his awe of Salaphon. He accepted he would always learn something and that a mind was never satisfied.
He had no real idea of who or what he might be, other than his origins in connection with an abstract figure in his mind called the Progenitor and he had no interest in finding out. He just accepted his telepathy and acknowledged he was an empath. He believed he was somehow bound in with the Elementals, and, maybe, differently with the Companions, and he understood he was, for some reason, chosen by Salaphon because he had innate ability. He accepted all he was shown, without question, but without understanding what it meant in relation to himself. No one pushed him to comprehend complex concepts either. Salaphon was untroubled. Jepaul had neither vanity nor self-consequence. He endeared himself to all about him. Without being aware of it, at twenty-seven syns he was a powerful force. And he was still only an apprentice.
It was only now, after so long with Salaphon, that to fully travel Jepaul had to make the jump through time and space, an ability to go easily from one time to another through spatial points that never remained constant. They had markers that were constant which Jepaul had to learn by heart so they became part of him. While he traversed astral lines above Shalah he was safe enough, because these, he was told, were fixed, but what Salaphon and Quon brought him to now was dangerous and required patience to learn and great skill to utilise. There was ever only one mistake.
Quon suffered during these episodes. They increased in frequency and distance as time passed and Jepaul’s familiarity and cautious confidence grew. He knew Jepaul wouldn't be permitted to advance if he wasn't ready, but, still, fears of Jepaul's possible failure, through youth, haunted him. His anguish of mind was only eased when he finally accompanied the young man. The distances became steadily farther and for longer because for a long time with Quon, Jepaul only jumped short distances, his mind fixed to a point in the past. Quon with him, they faded to re-emerge at a given point, time and place. Never, as long as Quon could remember, could anyone jump forward - back and sideways, yes, but only those. Jepaul was an original.
It was on one of these occasions when Quon and Jepaul jumped that they actually missed their exact time. They had place, but as they'd faded from the Island to now, they'd met a faint fluctuation in the density about them that distorted time to the extent they found themselves in an unexpected place in time. Quon guessed it was Shalah of some twenty syns previously, but he wasn't sure and they were certainly miles from where they thought they'd be. He looked about, trying to pin exactly where they were. He was momentarily concerned they may have unwittingly left a signature trail for Sh’Bane, but then he was reassured. He felt no sense of threat. Quite the reverse.
He turned to Jepaul, to see the young man pensively eyed a stranger seated on a rock, an instrument in his lap. Quon could tell, how he wasn't sure, that the stranger exerted a fascination for Jepaul and it made him both wary and protective.
“Jepaul,” he said quietly.
Jepaul turned his head and took steps to be next to the old man.
“I know, Quon,” he whispered. “But I don't think, whoever he is, that he intends either of us harm.”
“Possibly not,” was the murmured response. “But now is no time on Shalah to assume all's as it seems.” He got a deeply affectionate grin.
“I'm always guided by you,” Jepaul muttered with his irrepressible impish smile.
“Go on with you,” chuckled Quon, playfully pushing him. He glanced over at the stranger who now lifted and turned his head. Quon drew in his breath. “The demons! Again!”
Jepaul tilted his head enquiringly.
“Quon?”
Quon drew a deep breath as he recollected where he was and with whom.
“Nothing, lad,” he lied, shaking his head. “For an instant I thought I knew the face but I don't.”
He got a curious look from Jepaul and followed in the younger man's wake, his thoughts disordered. The stranger's face, so very much older than Jepaul's, was still so much a mirror image Quon again had an unsettling, odd fleeting sense of the man's uncanny resemblance that again troubled him. It wasn't foreboding. Quon couldn't place what he felt or why. It was a strange emotion, almost a premonition that gripped him then passed.
The stranger watched the two men approach. He was quite calm as if far north on Shalah in this deserted place he was quite safe. He waited until they reached him, then he put his instrument to one side and stood, waiting courteously. Quon spoke.
“Maquat Dom Earth, who answers to Quon, greets you. My companion's Jepaul.”
Deeply unreadable purple eyes, wells of wisdom, surveyed them. Quon noticed the eyes, so indescribably beautiful, lustrous and mesmerising, were fringed, like Jepaul's, by long dark lashes like curtains. The eye shape was the same, though Jepaul's irises were unique and quite unlike any seen on Shalah. The man spoke through lips moulded the same as Jepaul's.
“I answer to Bethloriel, friends, or to those familiar with me I respond to Loriel. I only visit Shalah.”
Quon stared at the lined face, older by innumerable syns than Jepaul's, but the same, and that despite the long silver beard and luxuriant crop of silver hair that fell about this man's shoulders. His curls, Quon again noticed, were like Jepaul's.
“You're a musician?” questioned Jepaul, pointing at the instrument lying on the ground.
“Oh, yes,” answered Loriel. He stared at Jepaul for a long moment. “Do you play?”
“Low caste emtori don't learn music. Nor may they sing or dance.”
“That's very sad,” commented Loriel, as he picked up the instrument. “Now why do I feel you'd have a deep response to and love of music? I sense it as part of you but as yet untouched.”
He plucked a few notes. Quon saw Jepaul shudder as though he was plucked and not the actual instrument.
“It hurts him,” he said sharply to Loriel. He stooped, his hands out to stay the quivering strings.
“I offer Jepaul a gift, Earth. Let him receive it. It will help him in the coming syns in a way you can't yet understand. The music will also break the last emtori bonds that still hang about him.” He saw Quon's face. “Maquat,” he went on softly, his hand touching Quon gentle and his expression truly kind, “I'd not hurt the boy. Salaphon knows I'm here.” Quon's head came up, startled. He saw Loriel's affirmative nod. “I'm a traveller. You know me. You know I heard the boy cry out when he was harshly beaten and stones were thrown at him. His cry brought me to this world. I was drawn by that cry heard so far, far away because it touched me. And not just me. You've come back to that moment, Maquat, or he's brought you back. I don't know which, but I knew, in time, when he was ready he'd come and most likely with you.”
“Who are you?' asked Quon, anxiety always near the surface.
“A traveller,” repeated Loriel.
“You're so like Jepaul.”
“Strange as it seems, yes, Earth, that's so. Inexplicable, perhaps, but undoubtedly true all the same.”
“Is that what you sensed in one cry of a child?” demanded Quon incredulously.
“Maybe,” came the non-committal response. Loriel glanced at Quon. “Let me play, Maquat.”
Reluctantly, Quon withdrew his hand, aware that not once had Jepaul's jewellery flared. Clearly, he was in no danger. So he sank down at Loriel's feet as the musician rested back on a rock, beckoning Jepaul to join him. Fingers began to move on the strings. Quon
saw Jepaul rocked, more than once, shudders rippling through the tall frame before the young man stayed motionless, his eyes quite unfocused as he was lost in the beauty of a sound unequalled in Quon's experience. He, too, lost all sense of time and space as music flowed in and out of him, enveloped him, then swept on.
When it ended he saw Loriel stand, very tall like Jepaul, robed, powerful, his instrument caught under one arm. In his other hand he held a pipe that he proffered to Jepaul.
“Look to your charge, Maquat,” came the deep voice, calm but authoritative. “I'm glad we meet again. It is time. We shall, again.”
And Loriel was gone.
Quon sensed he was flung effortlessly forward in time, to find both himself and Jepaul back at the Island, Jepaul weeping like a child and with a pipe clutched in his hands. It took a great deal of coaxing to make Jepaul rest, but at last his length was stretched out, he sighed and his eyes closed, the wet eyelashes and damp cheeks tenderly dried by an old man. Quon looked down at the sleeping figure, his forehead furrowed in thought. He needed to talk with the Elementals. He also noticed the pipe in Jepaul's hands stayed there, firmly gripped between long fingers.
Only natural aptitude could have led Jepaul to play the deceptively simple pipe. The notes were pure and carrying. Jepaul was driven to master the basics, hour after hour, the young man found all about the Island, from one day to the next, the pipe to his lips. The Elementals watched him. They found the second meeting of Quon's with Loriel baffling though they sensed no threat to Jepaul, nor harm to either he or Quon. On the contrary. They noticed Quon seemed to have a renewed hope and belief that Shalah may, just possibly, be a world free of the evils that currently beset it. Not just Jepaul was changed by the meeting with Loriel.
With and within the music that became an integral part of him, Jepaul left his past for good, that time shed like a skin. The emotional shackles were gone. In a sense, the young man was reborn. The Elementals sensed nothing from Salaphon either. There was no reaction. It was as if what occurred was expected and Salaphon became more distant from Jepaul, as if to give the young man space in which to find another part of himself. Maybe it was to let Jepaul finally come to an understanding, at last, of his identity that perhaps none on Shalah, not even Salaphon, could give him.
And Jepaul was lost to time. After another syn his absorption in music abated to the point where he again picked up with his mentors and Salaphon, but he was less the pupil now. The Maquat Doms realised that Jepaul moved rapidly in transition to junior Master status, the mind ever-enquiring, analytical and powerfully intelligent. By the time Jepaul was close to twenty-eight syns he astonishingly achieved Master Elemental level, his synthesis with Quon, Sapphire, Ebon and Wind Dancer a joy to the collective. They all sensed Salaphon's pleasure and ongoing satisfaction.
All now fully recognised Jepaul as the missing one. Islasahn, long gone from them, the Fifth Elemental, the one who was all but more, was reborn. Jepaul was fire with Ebon. Then he was Wind Dancer as he wisped across the aethyr with him, before he fell to earth with Quon, their union bringing tears of sheer joy to an old man's eyes because, at the same time, Jepaul's love and respect swamped him. Then Jepaul was foam, as one with Sapphire, before, for the first time, he rose free of them all: his spirit soared in a solitary blaze of blinding light before Jepaul again became a young man.
Now, at twenty-eight syns, he stood in the newly opened doorway of the Island. Salaphon's embrace slowly eased after the hold briefly absorbed him. It was done in such a way it made Jepaul's eyes glow. It also made the Elementals catch their breaths because Jepaul was, at that instant, at one in entirety with Salaphon, an integral part of that unknown entity. Jepaul was an Elemental. And he had achieved full master status at an extraordinarily young age. Salaphon was gone.
It was the first time the door had opened in all the syns Jepaul had been on the Island, but now Salaphon was ready and content to let him go. The Elementals, apprehensive yet rejoicing in his freedom and maturity, watched him step carefully across the threshold. Jepaul tossed back his head and laughed. With pipe to hand he strode purposefully forward. The Elementals, clustered together at the door, saw a sight that made them blink. They saw Jepaul had Islasahn's staff at his side, attached to a belt and the runes on it glowed in concert with Jepaul's jewellery that flared then faded with the runes. They knew only Jepaul could touch the staff, the power from each flowing into the other.
What else startled the Elementals was a truly astounding sight. When Jepaul put the pipe to his mouth and began to softly play, all the elemental spirits absent for so long from Shalah and kept safely asleep on the Island for aeons innumerable, now clustered about the young man. There were fiery, flickering imps with wickedly playful expressions: water craiths, fluid, gleaming blue and laughing with the musician: earth domans, small cheeky sprites with inquisitive faces and long writhing curls, now danced with the air Wraiths, the latter beautiful, tiny and sinuous, their forms shimmering, fading then reappearing as they fluttered about Jepaul. They'd all clearly travel with him.
And then there were, unbelievably, three furry creatures too who flicked in and out of sight, on and off. Only the Elementals, their eyes moist at such an unexpected and ancient sight, saw these things. The Companions, crowding behind, saw only Jepaul. Salaphon knew Jepaul was spirit in entirety and was ready for his immediate future on Shalah. But Jepaul also had another future that would be unbelievably rich and different.
Sh'Bane knew at the instant Jepaul and the Elementals crossed the threshold, not just Jepaul changed from boy to man, but the Elementals rejuvenated, united and once again a most powerful and formidable force. Salaphon had spent time with them too. Sh’Bane sensed the Island faded at the same moment. He roared with frustration and anger. He'd lost the Island yet again. The Elementals heard him. So did Jepaul. All the creatures around him abruptly winked out and Jepaul's jewellery flared brightly, flickered, then faded. The staff remained quiescent. Knellen stepped forward.
“Why did his jewellery flare?” he asked of Quon, who stood still, his head tilted.
“They're close,” the old man murmured. Knellen set his teeth and took a deep breath.
“Who?” he growled, his lips now drawn back to reveal the pointed teeth. His strange eyes had an angry glare to them.
“The master of the Anti-Spirits,” responded Ebon for Quon. “Earth, they've grown in strength since we came to the Island.”
“Is he through in entirety?” asked Wind Dancer thoughtfully. “It was a strong response to our reappearance.”
“Not entirely, I don't think,” answered Sapphire rather uncomfortably, “but as Quon says, he's very close.”
“Which gate is he at then?”
Quon scratched his head.
“I don't know. I just sense he's very close to the gates but not through any and certainly not the fifth. We have to hope not.”
“So what now?” demanded Knellen.
“We have to seek the gates.”
“How the hells do we do that?” muttered Saracen irritably. “Do you know where they are?”
“Not entirely,” admitted Quon honestly, then he shrugged, his glance at the other Maquats a speaking one.
“We'll know,” soothed Sapphire, watching Jepaul look interestedly round him.
Jepaul was a man of great height and breadth of shoulder, the body now filled out and his musculature that of a very strong man. He was powerfully built. He was also an accomplished fighter in the mould of the Varen. His long beard was thick and chestnut tinted, his strangely coloured amber eyes still large, often unblinking and far-seeing, and the eyelashes stayed thick and long. The upwardly curly mouth still smiled and the auburn mane, dense curls, were now always swept back and tied at the nape of the neck with a plaited band.
Javen, looking round at everyone just outside the threshold, noticed that all the Elementals stood quietly, all clad in Shalah attire, their robes and sandals gone. And all
the men were armed, a fact that made Javen blink. Then he noticed he too was fully armed. That made him think. He cast a surreptitious look at the others. He saw they were similarly armed to himself, all more heavily then the Doms, even Belika who looked surprisingly forbidding as she stood, four-square. She was no longer bare-breasted. He caught Knellen's eyes, a questioning look in them he could only respond to with an eloquent shrug of resignation. Knellen, always armed but now more so, looked menacing, and Saracen looked pugnacious.
Quon sighed. Ebon moved restlessly. Sapphire stood quietly apart as if he was thinking and was joined by Wind Dancer who spoke in a low voice. Knellen spoke again.
“Maquats, we know less than you.” He waved his hands at the Companions. “But where do we go now Jepaul's mature?”
Ebon turned his head.
“We seek those who choose to harm Shalah, Varen, and once we find them we must confront them.”
“Is this why the boy had to survive?”
Knellen didn't think he'd get an answer until the voice spoke quietly.
“Yes.” There was a long pause. “Though we'd no idea what he'd become or even if he'd survive to become anything. His trials were almost impossibly difficult for one of his age and the stage of development he was at. It was a cruel experience he underwent.”
Knellen swung to face Quon.
“You must have sensed something about him, old man.”
“Oh, yes,” murmured Quon, stifling a sudden yawn. “I did that after a while.”
“And now? What is Jepaul? Can you tell us?”
“The Fifth Elemental,” stated a voice behind them. Both Quon and Knellen turned to face Javen who eyed Quon speculatively and with a half-smile. “Am I right Master Maquat Dom?”
“Yes.”
Quon broke into a delighted laugh.
“Which is?” demanded Knellen, mildly goaded.
“He's Spirit, Varen, pure Spirit. He's what makes us Shalah. Tell me if I'm wrong Earth,” challenged Javen, grinning broadly.
“No, you're not.”
“He's needed for the balance with the other four Elementals, isn't he, including yourself, Earth?” Quon nodded. “And you need him in the synthesis that makes the Elemental collective whole?”
“Yes.” Quon studied Javen. “You certainly learned a lot, Javen.”
“Did Shalah lose the Fifth Element? Is that why we've not seen you or why the Island faded in memory and Shalah's enemies could return with you all weakened?”
“We thought not, Javen,” came the weary reply. “We thought Shalah was, at last, safe. But people betray others, some sell their souls, so -.” Quon paused. “And yes, Spirit was lost,” he agreed. “After that, in a sense, so were we, for so very long. We're ancient and Spirit was us.”
“So,” argued Knellen, “if Spirit was lost, how can Jepaul be that?”
“We don't know. Only Salaphon does. Jepaul may find what remains of Spirit, if anything.” Quon's voice quavered. “Indeed he may have to.”
“What was his name?”
“Who?”
“The Fifth Element.”
“She was Islasahn, Knellen.” Knellen and Javen exchanged looks at how the Maquat's voice again quivered. “Don't question me, Knellen.”
At that, Quon turned away.
Knellen and Javen again looked at each other and fell silent. It was Jepaul who broke the silence.
“Quon.”
Quon looked up and across at the younger man.
“Yes, young one?”
“What now?”
“We move, Jepaul, and we seek.”
“Sh'Bane?”
There was a collective indrawn breath from the Elementals before it was Sapphire who answered.
“Maybe, Jepaul, maybe.”
Jepaul crossed to Quon and put an arm about stooped shoulders.
“Quon,” he murmured. “Quon.”
“Young one,” responded Quon.