Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3

by Louise Cusack

  Glimmer sighed over his hand while he grappled with these emotions. At last her head rose and she said, ‘Shall we visit Darten today? I know you are curious to see if her firstborn yet walks.’

  ‘As you wish,’ he said, as though Darten was of no consequence to him. Glimmer wanted that, for her to be his sole preoccupation. Yet, perversely, she liked them to visit Darten in the surviving dome she had been transported to, but always at the worst possible moment: when Darten was filthy from a ‘research project’, angry with her mate or cumbersome with child. Then Glimmer would make a point of saying how matronly Darten looked, and how lucky it was that Virda had survived to become her mate. Kert suspected that Glimmer had found Virda in another dome and cast a love spell over him before presenting him to Darten. He was a most attractive specimen — young, athletic and intelligent — and entirely devoted to Darten. Kert should have been pleased for the Domedweller, but he couldn’t help resenting Glimmer’s obvious manipulations.

  ‘Domedwellers are the least evolved of the human races,’ Glimmer added, and Kert thought this was yet another jibe designed to convince him Darten was unworthy of his attention. ‘They worship technology and therefore have no connection to spirit.’

  ‘I notice their preoccupation with what they can observe,’ he said, knowing that on his world there were many things that could never be measured, but which warranted inclusion in their lives all the same. ‘In the cycle of death and rebirth, they would be unlikely to ascend straight to Atheyre.’

  ‘Exactly,’ she said smiling, no doubt pleased that his thoughts were aligned to her own. ‘Those of Haddash are on the bottom rung of the spiritual ladder, with Magorians not far ahead. Though that is only to speak of humans. The cetaceans of Magoria are so evolved they have already risen to Atheyre, along with the Cliffdwellers of Ennae.’

  Kert simply stared at her, buffeted by this startling news delivered so casually. ‘Cliffdwellers?’ he said at last. ‘In Atheyre?’ How could a simple-minded race suitable only for collecting food from the Everlasting Ocean surpass the nobility of Ennae in ascending to Atheyre? ‘How is this so?’

  ‘They share with the dolphins and whales of Magoria the ability to live in a single moment. To be one with their spirit and thereby overcome time and space,’ she said. ‘Thus they have proved themselves worthy of ascension before the other inhabitants of the Four Worlds.’ This was delivered in a lecturing tone, without deference to Kert’s ego, as though it was The Catalyst speaking rather than Glimmer. ‘Their slumbering bodies wait on Atheyre,’ she added.

  ‘And the rest of us?’ We who are not worthy of ascension, he wanted to add.

  ‘The Maelstrom’s terror will bring the remainder of humanity into the simplicity of the moment. Those who survive I will transport to the One World I create out of the destruction of the Four.’ It sounded pompous coming from an eighteen-year-old, but Kert had seen enough of her powers to trust she was capable of fulfilling her destiny.

  ‘Will I survive?’ he asked, wanting to prolong the conversation, to delay the time when Glimmer took him to see Darten and he must be circumspect with every word and glance.

  ‘I do not care to look at … that,’ she said.

  Kert frowned. ‘I am a warrior,’ he said. ‘I have faced death many times.’ And no doubt would again. Naturally Kert hoped to die in the service of royalty, but apart from that, he did not think of death either to fear it or to long for it. It was simply a part of his future which he would meet at the appropriate time, hopefully with dignity and honour.

  ‘On Magoria, where I was raised,’ Glimmer said, ‘many fear death and go to great lengths to avoid it.’

  Kert wondered if this was linked to their low level of evolution. ‘If a man’s allotted time is at an end, he must accept it.’

  ‘You tried to stop your son dying.’

  Kert glanced at her, seeing the challenge in her eyes, offset by the way her hands clutched at each other. She was a strange mix of bravado and vulnerability. ‘You would not let me die either,’ he replied.

  She stared at him unblinkingly. ‘Such is the way of love.’

  The air in the cave grew still. This was the moment Kert had been dreading. He tried to force himself to speak the truth, but her lips were trembling and he found he could not crush her tender sentiments with so brutal a rejection. ‘I loved Lenid,’ he said, which was neither admission nor denial.

  She nodded, her eyes beginning to mist over with tears, then she turned away and waved an arm. ‘Voila,’ she said overbrightly and Kert blinked, startled by their sudden change of locale. She had transported them to Darten’s dome and as the glittering firesparks settled around them he caught his breath on a damp scent. ‘Here we are,’ she said loudly, but the echo of her voice was deadened by water that lapped their ankles.

  Darten was crouched with her back to them, pushing down a metal pipe attached to a groaning tubular contraption which itself was attached to a metallic structure.

  ‘Is the pump stalled?’ Glimmer asked and Darten stiffened and dropped the pipe. It fell into the water with a splash then landed on the metal deck a second later with a dull thud. She turned, her gaze touching Kert’s then sliding away.

  ‘Flood imminent,’ she said, and pointed a gloved finger to the glass wall at her side. Kert suddenly understood why the light was subdued. The dome was submerged in water. He gasped and stumbled backwards into Glimmer. If the glass broke … The air left his lungs as if he was already drowning. On the Earthworld of Ennae rain was rare. He had never felt threatened by water, had never been under it, save in a bath.

  Glimmer held him in her arms. ‘It’s alright,’ she crooned and stroked his cheek. ‘You’re safe with me.’

  ‘We not,’ Darten said and went back to levering the pipe. ‘My baby drown.’

  Kert turned to look at Glimmer in shock.

  ‘Her baby isn’t dead,’ Glimmer said, seeing the anguish on his face. ‘She’s just worried that he’ll drown. Is he with Virda?’ she asked Darten.

  ‘Above waterline,’ Darten said, nodding upwards.

  ‘No need to panic,’ Glimmer said and she turned to the glass wall and raised her hand. Immediately the water subsided. ‘There, I’ve raised the dome again.’

  Darten stopped struggling with the pipe and stared at the dripping glass for long seconds before she slid to the floor and started to cry, loud wrenching sobs, whether from relief or horror Kert wasn’t sure. She covered her face with her filthy gloves and her body shook. Kert knew he couldn’t go to her, couldn’t touch her without enraging Glimmer who was biting her lip, unsure of what to do.

  ‘This was a bad day to visit,’ she said at last.

  ‘They might have drowned if we hadn’t,’ Kert replied, unable to hide the anger in his voice. Then, ‘Her child …’ to distract Glimmer, to make her think he was reliving Lenid’s death, when in truth he was simply overwhelmed by his own reaction to the water and his anger at Glimmer’s lack of empathy. This was The Catalyst in whose hands all their futures lay. Might Darten and her family be better off drowned? The vision of that water pressing in on the glass haunted him. If Magorian water continued to fall from the sky, Haddash would be submerged by it. Could Glimmer’s powers protect them then?

  ‘I can see you are distressed,’ Glimmer said to Kert, and frowned at Darten as though it was her fault. ‘Why didn’t you engage the secondary systems?’ she demanded.

  Darten’s shoulders continued to shake and Kert imagined her beyond fear of Glimmer’s powers.

  ‘Her training is in skin protection,’ Kert offered. ‘She may not know how.’

  Glimmer continued to frown, but not at Darten. ‘Their society is computerised but also largely mechanical. It needs people to maintain it,’ she conceded.

  ‘Are there more Domedwellers you can bring here?’ he asked. ‘To help her …. protect her children.’

  ‘More women?’ Glimmer asked, and the familiar narrowing of her eyes only stoked Kert’s anger.
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  ‘More people,’ he replied, his voice hard.

  Glimmer shook her head, then said, ‘It is time to go home.’ But he knew she meant a return to their caves. Not the home he longed for.

  Kert had a last impression of glass and metal, of Darten’s shaking shoulders, then the firesparks came and went and he was once again seated in their replica ahroce garden with its fragrant air and gently bubbling fountains. The sound of the running water made him shudder. If the water outside had been covering Darten’s dome, it must also be above the level of their cave, and Kert had no idea how Glimmer was keeping it at bay. Had she raised their cave system as she raised the glass dome? Were they now situated atop a mountain? Or was there simply an invisible wall outside that stopped the deluge entering.

  Never had his reliance on Glimmer’s goodwill been more evident. And never had he felt so resentful of her power over him. Too resentful to broach his fears or, indeed to speak to her on any matter.

  ‘I don’t want you to be sad,’ she said and ducked her head to catch his eyes, her hand creeping into his own. ‘I should never have taken you there.’

  Kert struggled to contain his emotions, but his anger was growing and he feared where it may lead. He pulled away from her and walked to the far edge of the cavern, hoping the distance would allow him to breathe, to think. But she followed him, putting her arms about his waist, her cheek resting on his back.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Let me make it up to you. What can I do?’

  Kert felt himself trembling on the precipice of a fury he wouldn’t be able to control. His hands clenched into fists before him, where Glimmer could not see them. Her hands stroking his chest only incited him to greater fury, but when one hand tentatively slid down to his waist, and then a handbreadth lower, his breath locked in his lungs.

  ‘Shall we kiss and make up?’ she breathed, but Kert heard nothing of the anxious excitement in her voice. All he heard was the pounding of blood in his temples. Her softly questing fingertips ventured lower still and Kert’s control splintered into a million irretrievable pieces.

  He turned and snatched her shoulders to drag her around and shove her against the rough stone wall, his fingers biting into her skin. ‘I am not a whim!’ he shouted in her face.

  ‘Beloved,’ she whispered, her hand rising as though to placate him.

  ‘Stop touching me with your weak fingers and whimpering at me with your weak mouth and use your powers to send me back where I belong!’

  Her mouth fell open and her wide eyes abruptly narrowed into a frown of insult. A second later Kert felt the sting of her hand on his face — a shock that should have given him pause — but instead only enraged him further. There was no reason in him after that. Only anger and the desire for retribution.

  ‘Shall we kiss and make up?’ he demanded, then forced her head back against the wall with a travesty of a kiss, bruising her lips with his own, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, unmoved by the sweetness he found there as he tore at the front of her dress. ‘Shall I touch you as well?’ he asked, groping her pale and perfect breasts. ‘Will that buy my passage home?’

  The part of his mind that stood outside himself knew such action was madness. But Kert was beyond control. And Glimmer appeared to be beyond rational thought herself or she would have used her powers to stop him. Instead, she cried, ‘I want you to love me!’ her eyes as wild as his own. ‘Hurt me if that’s the only way you can do it.’

  ‘You don’t care who you hurt,’ Kert said, tearing at his own clothes now, still holding her by one shoulder though she was offering no resistance. Then he pushed between her legs.

  ‘I want you to do it,’ she said, more softly this time, and something in her tone eased past Kert’s anger to touch at his mind. As quickly as the fury had come upon him, it faltered, leaving stunned confusion in its wake.

  His hand, intimately placed between her legs, fell away as he looked up into her eyes. Royal-hued eyes. He’d been about to steal the maidenhood of a princess royal. The Catalyst. His charge. Reason bled back into his mind, as though he had stopped being an observer and slid back into his own body, shocked to find it in the midst of such a heinous act.

  ‘I am your Champion,’ he whispered, and suddenly knew he did not deserve the title. Kert had waited all his life to be a royal champion, he knew the code as well as he knew his own breath: serve, honour, obey. Yet where was Kert’s honour now? Little wonder he had always hated Talis of the House of Guardians. Talis would never have done this, no matter the provocation.

  ‘I thought it was what I wanted,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps it’s all I deserve.’

  Kert felt a wave of unexpected tenderness sweep over him, startling in the wake of his consuming anger. He forgot that Glimmer was the most powerful being on the Four Worlds and that he’d resented her for keeping him prisoner. Instead, he saw a young and frightened virgin gazing up into his eyes with a mixture of fear and the beginnings of a forgiveness he knew he did not deserve.

  ‘How can I recompense this …?’ he trailed off, and Glimmer closed her eyes. Two small tears slid from beneath her lashes and ran down her cheeks. It seemed the most natural thing for Kert to lean forward and touch his lips to those tears, offering her gentleness to soothe away the pain he had inflicted; but when she hiccupped a breath and her lips parted he found the innocent sweetness of her mouth overtaking his mind.

  As irrational as his brutality had been, a sensual tenderness came to him of its own accord, and before he could think about the consequences, he tilted his head and his tongue forged a new kiss, slow and thorough, awakening her to the desire that throbbed through his own body where once only anger had lived. His hand, which had misused her breasts, now stroked one softly, his thumb gliding over her nipple as his tongue slid over her lips.

  Glimmer sighed against his mouth, ‘Yes, this is what I want,’ and Kert transferred the kiss to her throat, then her breasts while he touched her intimately, gently and persuasively, until she was trembling for him and he carried her to the couch and lay over her, his lips returning to her own as he entered her, slowly, carefully.

  Though Kert had made love to many women, he had never been so mindful of the pleasure of a partner, and whether that was in deference to Glimmer’s innocence or her sudden vulnerability he was unsure. Yet he knew there was a gentleness in his touch that he had never known before, even when he had been close to Lae. His actions were all of instinct and nothing of forethought, as though this single moment was the only one that existed, and no history or repercussions could intrude on it.

  Glimmer wound her legs around his hips and clung to him, her arms about his neck, her hands in his hair as she kissed him back, meeting his rhythm, moaning softly as the pleasure rose in her. Then her head fell back and she panted. Kert kissed her delicate throat but still drove them both on to the reward they sought, his mouth restless on her shoulders, then her breasts, awed by the softness of her skin and the way its taste fired his senses.

  Her expression grew wondering as she gazed at him with pleasure-dazed eyes. ‘This is love,’ she panted, as though it was a place they inhabited, rather than an emotion they could share. ‘Love,’ she gasped and closed her eyes. Her body began to tremble as Kert had hoped it would. His own explosion was close when she gasped, ‘Oh! Her eyes snapped open and a wave of brilliant white light emerged from her body, licking over his skin like a huge tingling tongue. Kert’s moment of glory was amplified beyond anything he had ever experienced, and the sudden roar of satisfaction that emerged from his throat was as unexpected as it was frightening. If he hadn’t been so in awe of what she had just given him, Kert would have been embarrassed.

  As it was, he simply collapsed over her, panting, not knowing himself. Not knowing her. Not being able to think past the pleasure they had achieved together. His body palpitated in a strange new rhythm that said Glimmer, Glimmer, Glimmer.

  She opened her eyes and looked straight into his. ‘I want that again,’ she sai
d, but that was the moment Kert realised the shuddering had not stopped. If anything, it was increasing. The table laden with fruit beside them had begun to rock and glasses and plates toppled to the floor.

  He tried to raise himself on trembling arms. ‘What’s happening?’

  Glimmer continued to gaze at him with voracious eyes. ‘The child of the Serpent God escaped while I was distracted,’ she said, as if this was a matter of no consequence at all.

  ‘Should we … Should you go after it?’ Kert asked, yet even as he did so, his hands closed possessively over her shoulder, as though to hold her there.

  ‘It is on Atheyre.’

  ‘The Cliffdwellers and … Are they safe?’

  ‘It is not my destiny to save individuals.’

  ‘They are a whole race.’ But even as Kert said the words he knew they lacked conviction. Touching Glimmer had changed him. He was … bewitched, and care for anything past the two of them was dropping away into the silent recesses of his mind. ‘What should we do?’

  ‘What we just did.’

  Kert returned her stare, then let his gaze travel down past her still-bruised lips, her pale throat, over her peaked nipples and delightfully trembling breasts to her small belly and then to the place where their bodies were joined, where his dark thick hair met her royal blonde curls.

  ‘I want more,’ she said, rolling him onto his back on the couch which had miraculously widened into a bed. Her lips explored his neck, the sensitive curves of his ears, then onto his chest. Her skin had begun to glow softly with the white light again, as though to announce her readiness for his love, and the tingling of it stirred him where it touched his body, giving him more pleasure in these beginning moments than his most skilled bed-partner had ever afforded him. ‘More of everything,’ she breathed.

  Kert nodded. ‘Much more,’ he agreed and closed his eyes, the fate of the Serpent God’s child the furthest thing from his mind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE