Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3

by Louise Cusack

  ‘I’m sick of you telling me what to do!’ she shouted, and wrenched hard enough to pull him to his feet.

  A pair of Guardsmen came back into the hall, frowning in concern at this royal squabble. Kraal waved them away. ‘The bastard can be made to miscarry,’ he told Khatrene. ‘I could order Talis to do that himself. With his Guardian power …’

  Her fingers stilled on his jacket and she looked up into his eyes, her own incredulous now as well as angry. ‘You want him to kill his own child? My baby?’

  ‘Talis’s baby,’ Kraal said, continuing to ignore the railing of Mihale within him. ‘That way the court would not discover your … indiscretion.’

  She let him go, her hands coming away as though they had been infected. Her pretty curls trailed over the bodice of her gown as she looked around herself, at the brightly decked banquet hall, its tables empty of subjects, the floor empty of players. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here.’ She looked back at her brother. ‘I’d be better off taking my chances with the Maelstrom.’

  He simply observed her, fascinated by the way her mind leapt from one revelation to another. Would she offer him violence? Had she slipped that far from sibling love? ‘You’d die outside these walls,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘Maybe. But I won’t watch Talis marry someone else.’ And without another word she turned and stepped down from the dais to stride across the hall, her rainbow aura springing forth as she passed a window and sunlight struck her. It faded again as she reached the gloom of the exit.

  No backward glance. No goodbye.

  Khatreeeeeeene, Mihale’s voice wailed.

  Kraal called in a Guardsman and ordered that she be followed but not stopped, no matter what occurred. His curiosity was piqued. Would she go out into the Maelstrom? He had no plans to stop her. Suicide was another human act he found fascinating: the willing destruction of self. So many voyeuristic pleasures to be enjoyed among this lesser race. So much … stimulation.

  *

  ‘Do you play Sagea?’ Marette asked, and Talis struggled to return his attention to the pretty girl the King had ordered him to attend. He needed to keep his thoughts from Khatrene and whether he would ever lay eyes on her again, let alone touch her. Marette’s small sitting room with its pallid Sh’hale tapestries and cold fireplace made him feel lonelier still.

  ‘I am not accomplished,’ he admitted, trying to rouse himself from melancholy, ‘yet I do know the rules.’

  She smiled, her dark hair falling forward to cover her eyes as she reached down to open the drawer in the table between them and take out the Sagea pieces. ‘Then let us play. It will pass the time.’

  ‘By all means.’ Talis took the offered pieces and began to set them on the circular board, remembering the games he had played with Lae when they had been betrothed, and how she had delighted in pronouncing she had let him win to cover her chagrin at her atrociously impulsive playing. He had laughed with her then, thinking his affection for her would grow into love when they had married.

  Then Khatrene had returned to Ennae.

  It was no use. He could not keep his thoughts from her for a minute, let alone an hour or a day. Remembering how he had performed the Rite of Revival on her that first day, giving her a portion of his own life to return her from death, reminded him of all the other intimacies they had shared while her friendship and trust in him had grown. Talis had been hopelessly in love from the first moment, but it had taken Khatrene much longer to see that the love she sought had been walking at her side each day.

  She had spoken truly when she said they were meant to be together, but Mihale had made it clear that Talis’s life would be forfeited if he sought her out.

  For himself, Talis would gladly risk death, and had done so many times, to be with Khatrene. But this was different. He knew his beloved’s recklessness. If they were caught and he was condemned, she would squander her own life trying to save him. That must not be.

  ‘The book sits beside the table, here,’ Marette said, and pointed to the board.

  Talis blinked and looked down to see the small wooden book, the size of his fingernail, still in his hand. He looked up at Marette, seeing the dark eyes of House Sh’hale, Kert’s eyes, gazing back at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘My mind wandered.’ He placed the book on its correct square and tried to focus on the task at hand. Sagea. But the more he pushed Khatrene from his thoughts, the more she filled them.

  Marette was still frowning at him so he smiled at her in reassurance and took the piece she held out for him.

  Just then the door slammed open and his beloved strode in. Talis was a moment recognising that this was reality and not simply another of his desperate dreams.

  Her rainbow aura filled the small sitting room and Marette rose hastily to curtsy, knocking a few pieces to the floor with the edge of her gown. Talis rose also, his hands trembling, his eyes unable to help glancing at the doorway behind Khatrene, looking for Guardsmen. Her breast was heaving, and though her face was composed, he could see agitation glittering in her eyes. What had she done?

  ‘Leave us. Now,’ she said to Marette whose head was still bowed. ‘And close the door behind you.’

  Talis had never heard his beloved so deliberately rude, except to Noorinya who had provoked her relentlessly. Marette’s cheeks were dark with embarrassment.

  The girl rose and mumbled, ‘My Lady,’ before slipping out and closing the door behind her.

  ‘Mihale told me you were going to marry that girl,’ Khatrene began breathlessly. ‘I didn’t believe him, but …’

  Talis simply stared. Stunned. Marry her?

  ‘… you were smiling at her.’

  Talis shook his head. ‘I … no. I received no such order. And neither would I obey it,’ he said clearly enough. ‘I was told simply to attend her. I had thought, for security …’ In truth, Talis had been so overwrought in his longing for Khatrene, he had barely given his duty any consideration, save to be polite to his new charge.

  Khatrene’s stiff expression softened. ‘Then … you do still love me?’

  Four long strides were all that kept them apart and Talis closed the distance in a heartbeat, uncaring of the threat of interruption as he kissed away her doubts. She moulded herself to his body and Talis felt the reassurance flow over him. She was still his.

  ‘I thought I was going mad,’ she whispered, holding him close, her forehead against his. ‘I thought I’d never see you again.’

  ‘How are you here?’ Talis asked, an urgency for her safety returning to his mind. ‘Did the King allow —’

  ‘Guards followed me but they didn’t try to stop me. I told Mihale I was leaving the Volcastle.’ She pulled back and looked into his eyes. ‘He thinks I’m going out into the Maelstrom.’

  Talis was aghast. ‘And he would allow that?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s worse than he was,’ she said, and Talis heard a whole conversation in those words. ‘He might be teasing me by letting me see you.’ She closed her eyes and Talis held her.

  ‘Pagan and Lae were lucky to reach Be’uccdha,’ he said. ‘The storms are worse now.’ His hand rested on her belly which he knew contained the daughter they had made. ‘We must not think to endanger so precious a burden.’

  ‘What can we do?’ she said, her words muffled against his shirt.

  ‘We could leave Ennae.’ Silence. ‘For Atheyre.’

  She pulled back to look up at him, blinked. ‘Even if you could get us there, we don’t have the talisman. How would we return?’

  ‘Do we need to?’ In Talis’s mind, the Maelstrom would soon end all their lives. At least on the Airworld they would be safe until that happened.

  She shook her head. ‘If we leave Ennae, we lose any chance of surviving when the Four Worlds are joined.’

  ‘When?’ Talis gazed at her steadily. ‘Do you truly believe your daughter still lives?’

  Khatrene stared back at him. ‘I do. I can’t help it. I’m sure she’s alive.’
>
  ‘Then perhaps we should search the void for her.’ It was something they’d discussed earlier, when they’d first returned to the Volcastle — using Guardian power to find her essence and track it down. At the time Talis had been unsure whether the Maelstrom would make the rite dangerous and so, in prudence, they had agreed to wait until word of Glimmer came to them. Now … ‘If we find her, we could attempt a passage.’

  Khatrene was clearly worried for him, but the alternative was armed and standing outside the door, perhaps even now preparing to enter. ‘Alright,’ she said, ‘but whatever happens, I’m staying with you.’

  Talis felt urgency in the grip of her hand. He squeezed her fingers gently in response. ‘We will not be parted now,’ he said softly, and meant that. Khatrene’s destiny lay in her own hands. Though he was her Champion, Talis knew he would not try to protect her from herself. If she wanted to die with the man she loved, that was her decision. He should feel honoured, and he would, if he could stop feeling terrified for her.

  Khatrene took a shaky breath. ‘Okay. What do we do?’

  He forced his mind to the practical. ‘Let us gather candles to form a circle,’ he said, thinking ahead to the rite he must perform.

  ‘We won’t need to be in the Royal Shrine for the ceremony to work?’

  ‘I cannot be sure,’ he admitted. ‘But if your daughter senses my sending, she may even assist our journey.’

  ‘Of course.’ Khatrene’s tension dissolved into a smile of such sweet expectation that he could not bring himself to complete his thought, that they could just as easily be lost in the void. Backed into a corner and with all their choices dangerous, they would need hope to keep them going.

  ‘Not much here,’ she said, looking around the small sitting room. ‘There’s a fireplace,’ she pointed. ‘That can be part of the circle.’

  Talis went to light it before drawing the heavy window drapes. Khatrene gathered what candles she could find and completed the circle, the glowing fire at the apex.

  ‘I have no earth to make an inner circle,’ Talis said, and wondered how he would collect it. Should he leave Khatrene here, or take her with him? He could not perform the ceremony without this element of his world.

  ‘What about that plant?’ Khatrene went to the side table and picked up the bowl that housed Marette’s prized flower, the one she had shown Talis that morning. His beloved pulled the delicate blossom out and tossed it onto the intricately woven Sh’hale carpet beneath their feet. ‘Plenty of dirt in here,’ she said and Talis took it from her hands, kissing her in gratitude for her practicality.

  He used the earth to inscribe a smaller circle within the ring of candles. Then he sat within it. ‘Sit at my back, beloved,’ he said, and Khatrene moved into position. Yet rather than placing her back to his as he had expected, she snuggled against him, her legs hooked over his hips, her arms twining around his chest, her breasts pressed firmly against his back. Talis took time to savour the sensations.

  ‘I’m ready,’ she said when he had made no move to continue.

  Talis kissed her arm at his chest and then stretched out both his arms at his sides, calling the power of his Guardian blood into his mind. ‘I am the light that warms the tunnel,’ he intoned. ‘I am the door that opens the way.’ With that power, Talis used his mind to stretch past his world into the void and instantly felt beset. His breath caught and Khatrene said something he couldn’t hear. His ears were buzzing. The Maelstrom had stirred the elements from each of the Four Worlds into the void and Talis knew he could be easily lost in it. He still felt Khatrene’s arms around him and he clung to that sensation as he searched, not sure how he would discern The Catalyst’s presence, just hoping it would make itself evident.

  Desperation came and went as he focused on his task. Finally he was rewarded by a jolt that struck his mind. Energy began to pass in both directions, but not the ethereal light that formed the way between the worlds. This light was a solid, structured energy he had never encountered, and Talis had a sudden horrified thought that he may have accidentally diverted power away from a castle anchor. Would one of the Four Worlds now be destroyed by the Maelstrom? Khatrene’s safety, though dear to his heart, was insignificant compared to the destruction such a mistake would cause.

  He struggled to disengage from the energy conduit and abandon his rite, but before he could he felt the call — a tingling across his shoulders. He and Khatrene were leaving Ennae. Power coalesced in his spine and at the point between his eyebrows, then Talis felt it wrench on his mind as the way between the worlds began to open. A ball of bright pure light formed around them and Khatrene gasped.

  Her cheek remained firmly pressed against his back but he heard her shocked whisper. ‘It’s Glimmer,’ she said. ‘I know that neon glow.’

  Talis recognised it also. It was the same light that had enveloped them, consecrating their joining, when they had first found love together in exile with the Plainsmen. Glimmer had been in her mother’s belly then. And it appeared that, despite Pagan’s report of her death, she was still alive.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Khatrene asked.

  Talis shook his head, speechless. The wonder of their passage — the swirling light of creation itself that made order of the void they travelled through — touched his soul more profoundly than he could ever have anticipated.

  Though he had regularly opened the way between the worlds for royalty to traverse, and for ceremonial purposes, Talis’s only journeys from his homeworld had been spent in slumber to and from Atheyre. He had never imagined the beauty and awe that would accompany such a voyage. By the time he again felt solid ground beneath himself and the bright glow had faded from his sight, he had tears in his eyes.

  Are we there yet?’ Khatrene asked, her arms still tensed about him.

  Talis blinked back the wetness in his eyes, rapidly adjusting to the fact that they had not arrived on the Airworld of Atheyre. Instead of a vista of endless white, they were in a shadowed cavern. But rather than looking around it, Talis’s attention was instantly caught by the face of the woman who stood before him. ‘Your daughter welcomes us,’ he said, relief flowing into his voice. The Catalyst was alive. The Four Worlds would be joined.

  Yet a welcome was not evident, either in Glimmer’s expression or in her voice. ‘Why were you leaving Ennae?’ she demanded of Talis. ‘I need you there when I return.’

  By now he had noticed the neatly trimmed grass and fragrant ahroce bushes, so like the royal gardens. Had they not left the Volcastle at all?

  Behind him Khatrene scrambled to her feet. ‘Glimmer …’ she said, and Talis ached for the vulnerability he could hear in his beloved’s voice. This was her daughter, the young woman she had not held since she was newborn. The seeing-storm on Atheyre had allowed them to watch her grow and they had seen her display no affection to either Pagan or Sarah who had parented her, yet Khatrene had told Talis she knew it would be different when they met. Looking at Glimmer’s closed face now, he wanted to cry for his love.

  ‘It’s so good to see you,’ Khatrene whispered.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Glimmer repeated, her eyes looking past and through them.

  Talis rose and stood at his beloved’s side — took her trembling hand in his own. ‘We have fled your uncle’s madness,’ he told The Catalyst. ‘It was not safe for us to remain in the Volcastle.’

  ‘It’s not safe here either,’ she said.

  So they were not in the Volcastle. Talis had known the cavern was too small to house the royal gardens, but the similarity had confused him momentarily. ‘Where are we?’ he asked.

  ‘Haddash.’ She said the word reluctantly, as though in great haste to be rid of them.

  Talis nodded, unsure how to proceed.

  Khatrene took a step forward and he was tempted to pull her back. But he knew she had to try. ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ she said to her daughter. ‘To see if you’re alright. If you need help. I’m your mother,’ she added, as though that
would sway Glimmer.

  ‘I need no one,’ The Catalyst replied.

  ‘Not even a Champion?’ Talis asked.

  ‘She has a Champion,’ a voice behind Talis said, and both he and Khatrene turned to find Kert Sh’hale standing beside a bench. ‘Do not think you will steal that from me.’

  ‘Sh’hale …’ Talis breathed, then realised the nobleman whom they had all thought dead was glaring at him with undisguised enmity. Clearly their mortal rivalry over who would champion the King, laid to rest when Mihale had died, was easily revived.

  ‘I will send them away,’ Glimmer said and came to Kert’s side, walking past Talis and Khatrene as though they no longer existed. But Kert stepped away from her, anger and confusion warring across his face. ‘What is it, my love?’ she asked.

  Kert shook his head. ‘I am not your love,’ he said, and flicked a glance at Talis. ‘I am your Champion.’

  ‘You live to protect me because you love me,’ Glimmer said and reached out to touch him, but again he backed away. She frowned. ‘You could not join with me as often as you have if you felt no love.’

  Kert’s cheeks were solid blocks of colour and he would meet no one’s eyes.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Khatrene said softly. ‘You do need a mother.’

  ‘I need my beloved and no more,’ Glimmer replied. ‘Your counsel is not worth —’

  ‘If you can’t tell the difference between lust and love, I’d say you need a mother,’ Khatrene shot back.

  Glimmer turned on her. ‘My Magorian mother told me many things,’ she said, and Talis could hear the unspoken words, they did not help me.

  ‘I know Kert,’ Khatrene replied with quiet authority. ‘She didn’t.’

  Kert himself made no comment on this and Talis merely continued to watch the battle of wills between mother and daughter.

  ‘What do you know of love?’ Glimmer said.