‘Are you frightened?’ Lae asked.
Khatrene smoothed the elaborately quilted bedspread beside her, then realised she was avoiding Lae’s eyes. ‘I’m frightened for Glimmer,’ she admitted. ‘Terrified actually. So I haven’t really thought past that to decide whether I’m frightened for myself.’
‘Your daughter is not dead yet,’ Lae said, and smiled weakly from the bed.
‘Not yet,’ Khatrene said softly and glanced at the bright fire burning in Lae’s hearth, illuminating the distant corners of her airy bedchamber. They couldn’t avoid the future, either thinking or talking about it. If Glimmer was right, the end would be upon them in hours. There was no place to run, not even in their minds.
‘I recall our first meeting vividly,’ Lae said. ‘You told me I looked like a sugar glider.’
‘Those big brown eyes in a pixie face.’ Khatrene shook her head, smiling at the memory. ‘Then you told me I’d grown to be “not quite the beauty we’d all expected”.’
‘I was less than gracious,’ Lae admitted.
‘You were mischief personified,’ Khatrene replied, and they smiled at each other, both remembering that day so long ago at the Sentinel Stones where Lae’s childish pranks had seen Pagan bitterly berated by his father and Khatrene almost attacked by a Raider.
‘I was a child,’ Lae said.
‘And now you bear one.’ Khatrene smiled into her friend’s eyes, able to look at her tattoo of Be’uccdha without shuddering, without remembering Lae’s father and the pain he had caused her. ‘Your own child,’ she added.
Lae nodded. ‘And you bear Talis’s.’
They gazed at each other a moment more before Khatrene asked, ‘What will happen to our children?’
Lae shrugged, a tired movement against her crisp white pillows. ‘What will happen to us? I know not.’
‘Glimmer will die,’ Khatrene said, and was surprised to find tears in her eyes. She’d meant to say that as a matter of fact, but premature grief had snuck past her control. ‘I don’t want her to die,’ she managed.
‘I am sure I did not want Lenid to die,’ Lae said, taking both Khatrene’s hands in her own. ‘Yet such was his destiny.’
Khatrene nodded, tried to get a grip on herself. ‘Not long now,’ she said, stating the obvious. ‘I hope they give us something to do.’
‘You are The Light. I am The Dark. How can they not?’
Khatrene’s frown faded. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ But why not? They had both helped in the Ceremony of Atheyre, and that ritual hadn’t worked until Khatrene had touched the Column of Light. ‘What about Kert?’ she asked, suddenly realising he’d be the only one not actively involved. Then her next thought — too late — was to wonder if mentioning Kert to Lae was a good idea.
‘Perhaps he can protect us from this Serpent God’s son,’ Lae said, no trace of anxiety in her voice.
Of course. With no Volcastle memories, Lae would have no recollection of her marriage to Kert. Though perhaps it would be wise to change the subject. ‘You know how we used to argue about eclipses?’ she said.
‘The scythe of death?’
‘Exactly. Well guess what? You were right.’ Khatrene hated to admit it, but, ‘Glimmer told me the blackness that covers Ennae is completely different to what we had on Magoria. There, an eclipse was an object in front of the sun or the moon, and it never got pitch-black. Here …’ She shook her head. ‘On Ennae it really is a spiritual event.’
‘I knew that,’ Lae said.
Khatrene was so happy to have her friend alive again, she was quite disposed to let her be smug. ‘Do you want to hear the details?’ she asked.
‘If you please,’ Lae replied.
‘Well, it’s like a cosmic eye-blink, and it happens whenever the life-force of this planet is upset by unrest or agitation.’
‘Or great evil,’ Lae said.
Khatrene wasn’t surprised at Lae’s ready acceptance of the ‘life-force’ of the planet. The Dark’s belief in the teachings she espoused was deeply felt. It had, however, taken Khatrene, with her Magorian slant on things, a long time to accept.
‘It’s not evil as such,’ Khatrene replied. ‘Glimmer said it was more like a reflection of the consciousness of the planet’s inhabitants. When the people are agitated, which happens when they see bad things, the power of their emotions builds until it reaches a critical mass and then the blackness comes.’
Lae was frowning now. ‘But how does the death of an evil one cast it from our skies?’
‘The people believe The Dark’s intervention will dispel the blackness,’ Khatrene said. ‘Their emotions become more tranquil and … it goes away.’
‘Why was it not so on Magoria and the other worlds?’
‘Because they’re not lucky enough to have The Dark?’
Lae slapped her hand on the quilt. ‘Do not tease me, I am too exhausted to plead.’
‘Alright.’ Khatrene patted her hand to placate her. ‘Apparently they didn’t have the same spiritual connection with their world. That’s how they came to destroy the environment without realising they were destroying themselves at the same time.’
Lae nodded and her eyelids drifted lower, a sure sign that she was close to sleep. But still she asked, ‘Have we retained this spiritual connection to our world? There has been no further blackness.’
‘Maybe everyone’s resigned to their fate,’ Khatrene said, tucking Lae’s quilts in. ‘You can’t fight the destiny of the Four Worlds.’
Lae struggled to stay awake. ‘But does the connection still exist?’
‘I’ll ask Glimmer,’ Khatrene said. ‘I don’t know.’
‘It may help The Catalyst.’
Khatrene waited for more, but Lae’s eyes remained closed. She was down for the count. Khatrene hoped her friend would get a decent sleep before the serpent arrived. There would be no time for resting then.
She stood and smoothed down the quilt, then went to sit by the fire Talis had laid while Pagan had put Lae into a healing slumber. The sound of the Everlasting Ocean, thrashing against itself in fury, was a constant background moan. Lae’s chamber was in the depths of the castle, so there was no mullioned glass to gaze from. All the outer rooms had been abandoned when their windows had smashed, killing many of the castle retainers.
The remaining hundred-odd guards and servants had been sent to the Altar Caves where the anchor protected them. Soon Khatrene and Lae would join The Catalyst and her Guardians there. Teleqkraal, who had presumably survived the tornadoes and volcanic eruptions outside, would come. Somehow they would steal the memory stone from him and Glimmer would join the Four Worlds as the Be’uccdha anchor failed and the Earthworld was torn apart.
In those critical moments The Catalyst would lose her life, but if she succeeded, the remaining humans on Ennae would survive.
Khatrene trusted in her daughter’s destiny, but it was a tough ask: to destroy the serpent of death with only three Guardians — one of whom could not be trusted — two pregnant women, a master swordsman and a hundred frightened castle staff …
They needed more than a plan.
They needed a miracle.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
‘Should we barge in as your cousin did?’ Kert asked.
Talis shook his head. Once again he was stuck with Sh’hale as a companion when he desired it not. ‘We must wait,’ he said.
At The Catalyst’s insistence, neither could intrude on the chamber where she, Pagan and Vandal now spoke in private. It was one of the many occasions in his life when Talis wished to disobey a royal command. Instead, he trusted The Catalyst’s greater vision and waited outside her door in the ill-lit corridor to see what would eventuate, his thoughts far from the calm a Guardian should cultivate.
By the look of him, Sh’hale’s mind was no more settled. The last time Kert had seen Glimmer was an hour earlier when he had placed Vandal, securely tied, at her feet. Locked outside her door, he must surely be fretting for his charge
’s safety as well. Talis could only hope that the boy was still immobilised. Glimmer grew weaker with each world that was destroyed, and Pagan, weakened himself by the Rite of Revival, would not last long in a duel if his son somehow broke loose.
They had heard no raised voices, but Pagan’s state of mind had been as volatile as the Maelstrom itself. Talis had counselled him to spend time alone with his feelings and align them with honour and duty rather than passion and pride. But instead Pagan had left Lae in a healing slumber and, literally trembling with anger and the desire to confront his son, had barged in on Glimmer’s private conversation with Vandal and been allowed to stay. Talis, trailing his cousin, had been stranded outside with Kert, waiting and wondering what might be happening behind the solid timber door.
‘I had to kill him,’ Kert said, and Talis was a moment reorganising his thoughts.
Mooraz.
‘Lae will grieve his death,’ Talis said, knowing they must tell her soon, ‘as do I,’ remembering the thoroughness and patience Mooraz had brought to his service of the House Be’uccdha, and his devotion to Lae which none had suspected disguised feelings of love. ‘Yet it had to be done. To protect Vandal.’ Talis understood that Vandal must live if the Four Worlds were to be joined. But that didn’t diminish his horror at what the boy had done.
‘I had to kill someone,’ Kert said, gazing away into the shadowed end of the corridor. ‘Glimmer would never have let me hurt Vandal.’
‘And your rage at Lae’s death required vengeance.’
Kert fingered the hilt of his sword. ‘Yes.’
It wasn’t honourable, but it was a sentiment Talis understood. He had seen similar rages many times on the battlefield and had felt them himself, yet the constraints and the training of Guardian blood had saved him from enacting them. Kert’s training was solely in the deadly arts of battle, and Talis wondered again, as he had many times, why Glimmer had chosen him as her love.
‘What can they be doing?’ Kert said in frustration.
Talis noticed the Sh’hale nobleman’s hands were shaking but he made no comment on that. ‘Pagan was Glimmer’s father in Magoria,’ Talis said. ‘Vandal, her brother. Perhaps she uses these memories to bind their anger and heal the distrust that lies between them.’
‘Family?’ Kert laughed. A hard, unpleasant sound. ‘You do not know The Catalyst at all if you imagine she harbours such sentiments.’
‘I did not say she felt them,’ Talis replied, ‘merely that she could use them to mend the rift between father and son.’
Kert looked away.
‘And I do believe she harbours feelings of family,’ Talis persisted. ‘With you. Yet clearly you feel no such bond with her’
‘There is a bond,’ Kert said, folding his arms and tucking his hands away where Talis could not see them. ‘There is … feeling.’ He would not meet Talis’s eye, and in the awkward silence that followed, his cheeks grew flushed.
‘The serpent will be upon us soon,’ Talis said, and Kert’s jaw tightened. ‘Perhaps you should tell her of this … feeling before she dies.’
Kert gazed at the wall across from him and shook his head. ‘I have lost two charges already,’ he said. ‘Two men who I loved more than life, one who was like a brother, and the other my son.’
‘I understand —’
‘You can’t understand,’ Kert spat, the animosity between them flaring again. ‘You have never lost a charge.’ He dropped his arms and turned on Talis. ‘How would you know what that does to your soul? To your heart?’ And here he slapped his chest. ‘It closes over. Layers of closure like the finest cloth sealing it in. Protecting it.’
‘Then what is this feeling you profess for The Catalyst?’ Talis demanded, struggling to keep his own voice down.
Kert glared at him, then tilted his chin and said, ‘Lust. Nothing more.’ He crossed his arms again and looked away. ‘The only feeling I have for her is desire to see her in my bed.’
Talis didn’t believe a word of it. ‘Then you care nothing for her safety?’
‘She is The Catalyst. She needs no protection,’ Kert said, but his belligerence was fading.
‘When she is attacked by the serpent, you will stand by and do nothing?’
Sh’hale didn’t favour this with a reply, he merely continued to stare at the stone wall before him, the line of his jaw as tight as a strung bow.
*
Glimmer was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to fall into her beloved’s arms in the comfortable bed that lay in the next room, yet here she was, wasting their precious remaining time arguing to ensure her brother’s safety.
‘… and now I trust you no more than I trust him,’ Pagan declared, turning to glare at his son who lay in the shadows away from the firelight that bathed Glimmer and her furious Guardian. She noted that father and son were not only alike in build and colouring, both with long black hair and dark eyes, but Vandal had even taken to dressing as his father did in the brown breeches and flowing shirt of a Guardian. Only age distanced them. It was little wonder Lae had become confused.
‘He will not harm your beloved again,’ Glimmer assured Pagan. ‘He was overcome with grief at the loss of his own betrothed, as I have shown you.’
Pagan turned his glare back onto Glimmer. Clearly the memories of Petra’s death she had given him were not adequate justification for his son’s actions.
Vandal, bound but ungagged on the floor, could have spoken to soften his father’s heart towards him, but he merely glared back, his eyes two slits of emptiness in the shadows.
Glimmer wanted to sigh, and wondered if that was yet another sign of her emotional deterioration. Her golden gown was soiled, matching the sitting room they occupied which was part of a long unused guest suite. Thick dust covered the black sateen couches and the air stank of dust burnt on the many thin candles the ceiling chandeliers housed. In the next room, however, beneath the quilts of the bed, the sheets were smooth and clean. She longed for their caress. And Kert’s.
If they hadn’t been about to battle Teleqkraal, she would simply leave time to heal these wounds. But she had to be sure Pagan would not attack his son while her attention was distracted. And she could not restrain any of her Guardians. All would be needed.
She went back to Pagan’s most recent accusation. ‘What has happened to make you mistrust me?’ she asked.
‘I see from the memories you gave me that you are his confederate,’ Pagan said, stabbing a finger towards his son. ‘You waylaid him between Magoria and Ennae, and on hearing his plan to murder Lae, you let him keep his memories of Magoria and aided him on his way.’
Glimmer glanced at Vandal, wondering how she would answer this. He simply returned her stare, offering nothing of himself. She wondered whether he still wanted revenge on his father, or whether guilt over his own actions had begun to dissolve his anger.
‘And Sh’hale!’ Pagan went on raging. ‘For all his professed love of Lae, did he do aught to stop my son?’
‘Kert could do nothing to thwart my will,’ Glimmer said. ‘He was my prisoner.’
‘He is my enemy,’ Pagan spat. ‘He killed Mooraz, when that was my right alone —’
‘And what of Lae?’ Glimmer demanded regally. ‘Should you have let her remain in death while you sought this revenge?’
Pagan’s breath was fast and his eyes still wild, yet he added no further impetuous words.
‘You must make peace with your son,’ Glimmer ordered. ‘The serpent comes.’
Pagan’s eyes narrowed. ‘How do I know he will not try again for the life of my love?’
‘Will you?’ Glimmer asked Vandal.
He stared back at her, ignoring his father now, and there was something of searching in his eyes. Glimmer felt a pang of sympathy then. But that was only another betrayal of her diminishing control.
‘Speak!’ Pagan ordered of his son. ‘Will you seek to harm my love?’
Vandal turned his head slowly to look upon his father. ‘I will
not,’ he said clearly.
Pagan’s chest still rose and fell in agitation, but some of the heat dissolved from his glare. His voice, however, remained untrusting. ‘How can I be sure of what you say? You have no honour on which to bind such a vow.’
‘I killed her and it didn’t make me feel any better,’ he said. ‘Why would I do it again?’
Pagan’s mouth fell open. ‘You killed my beloved, the mother of your own child, to feel better?’ The wild look came back into his eyes and Glimmer saw him flick a glance around the room. Searching for a weapon?
‘You can’t imagine the pain I felt when Petra died,’ Vandal said, his voice hard. ‘I killed Lae to stop it. To make it go away.’
‘But it did not?’ Glimmer asked, interested for her own sake — Kert’s imminent death was large in her mind.
Vandal looked at her as if he’d like to hurt her too. ‘No, it didn’t.’ He turned his face away from them both.
Glimmer returned her attention to Pagan. ‘He is reconciled to Lae’s survival. Can you be reconciled to his release? I need him to defeat the serpent.’
Pagan looked at her, then turned away and walked to the closed door, stopping before it, presumably gazing blindly at the polished timber panel before him. She watched his shoulders rise and fall. When several minutes had passed he turned back to her. ‘Do you ask me to forgive him?’
‘No.’
Pagan did not look at his son. ‘Then I give you my vow that I will not attack him. Yet I will not hesitate to defend myself or others from his ill intent.’
Vandal turned back to look at his father then. ‘My ill intent is over,’ he said softly.
Glimmer nodded at this. ‘And you?’ she asked Pagan. ‘Where do your loyalties lie?’
‘I am a Guardian,’ he replied stiffly. ‘My life is to serve the throne.’
‘Remember that,’ she told him, then nodded for him to leave. She’d had enough of argument for one day.
Pagan, however, had a parting remark. ‘You were wrong,’ he said to his son, ‘I can well imagine the pain you suffered the day your beloved was killed.’ He followed this with a glare, then swung the door wide to take his leave.
Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3 Page 40