She would disappoint him.
Siphoning power from those below took time, but the instant she calculated she had sufficient to change her fate, and everyone else’s too, she strained at the moorings set deep into rock and stone, and ripped the Vault of Life and its watchtowers by its very roots from the depths as she crushed her Aleru Orb to create tears in space and time, and deposited it on the hellish planet where she and Gabryl lost their freedom, taken without warning from their father.
Here Gabryl would find her.
Here Vian would meet his end.
Here her rage could take flight.
Dancing, twirling, swaying, Cathian smiled. How Eurue had trembled! Shudder and shake. Fire and water. So many died; just desserts, considering how many were summoned from the ether in ancient time and forced into abysmal slavery, her brother included. Her smile slid away, pulling her lips askew. And now it was so quiet. The silence was a buzz of nothing.
She screamed. “Gabryl!”
Only silence answered her.
“Where are you, brother?”
Surely he knew a monstrosity had settled on the Kiln? He knew this location, as she had never forgotten it. Where was he? Had Vian killed him as well? Or was Gabryl in cahoots with fucking Vian?
“I will gut you, brother! With me or against me, brother!” She thumped her protruding ribs. How dare he? She was the power now. “Queen of the Realms!” Wait. He still had something she needed, the traitor. With deceit glinting in her pale blue eyes, she added, “You can be my consort!”
Wiggling her fingers, she inhaled. Of course. It was perfect. The perfect solution. Gabryl would see it, too.
“A child, brother, yours and mine, a son the realms will quake before! Come to me!”
Yes. A pure child. Hers and Gabryl’s. She would teach their son everything and she would love him, adore him. One day their perfect boy would be a man and know his parents gave him everything.
A scowl clambered onto her gleeful face. Gabryl would never do it. His morality was strong … the witless, spineless traitor. She would force him or …
“Or I will gut you!”
Silence answered her.
AS SMOKE HE wafted through the narrow vents set high in the walls, and coalesced in his sister’s presence.
His very first emotion was horror.
Cathian was thin to the point of emaciation. Her hair, a washed-out red, was mostly gone and what was left hung in long strings. She literally weaved between life and death, far more so than his between state of the recent past.
His next emotion was anguish.
How could he end the life of a being this pitiful?
She had not yet seen or heard him, and for a moment he considered simply vanishing before she did mark his presence. To leave her trapped in her turret until eventually her essence too surrendered. Her bony wrists twirled as if she was dancing, but the rest of her was motionless. She was in a trance, or her mind had fled. He could not tell, could not read her accurately, for the darkness in her overwhelmed all else. This was his sister and she was but a shadow of her former self.
This was his sister.
Who was he to judge her?
Filth and clutter climbed the walls and choked the space but for a small clear circle in the centre where she seemed forever fastened to the floor, but Gabryl noticed the comfort also. The space was warm and filled with light. A massive bed rested on a thick pile carpet. Shelves contained books and scrolls. There was a desk, a seating area, a small kitchen, a fireplace, a set of exercise equipment, and much else, although everything was in various stages of disrepair as if someone had smashed and broken it in a fit of anger … multiple fits.
Vian had kept her in a gilded space and yet, truth was, large and well-appointed as it was, it remained a cell. Perhaps even a sane woman would have succumbed to madness. Vian, however, admitted her only after her mind had deteriorated to the degree he could no longer trust her to walk free.
Instead of healing her inner self, though, using the time for introspection, she had allowed time to bow her into filth inwardly and outwardly. They had waited so long; Gabryl assumed her patience had sundered, her resultant impatience adding a layer to the darkness now resident.
Her feet were bare, dirty, and painfully skeletal, scratched. A robe twisted around her form, torn, once expensive amber silk. Dishes coated with congealed and rotting food teetered on the kitchen counter; Cathian received wholesome meals and also supplies to create her own dishes, but she no longer ate to a regime which upheld health. She had, in fact, chosen self-destruction.
By all gods. His eternal soul was in peril if he laid a hand on this sorry mess of flesh.
Perhaps she heard him breathing, for she swung around.
“Gabryl!”
The darkness in her was indeed all-powerful.
He saw it instantly as a presence, solid, real, and it hurt to see. Sensing the power was overwhelming; seeing it, knowing it, felt like the worst betrayal ever.
“Cathian,” he murmured, thanking the All within that aided him. It gifted him apparent equanimity. He moved then, inhaling, mostly to distract her, but also to avoid her pale orbs. “It is good to see you.”
She quirked her head, wordless.
Maybe she suspected his motives. He forced a complicit smile. “Vian is sleeping and cannot wake.”
She grinned; a rictus of teeth she no longer cared for. “You came to free me. I knew I could count on you. Thank you, brother.”
“Yes, I am here to free you.”
“I knew you would never betray me!” Laughing and clapping her hands, she held her arms out to him.
By all gods, he did not wish to embrace her. Yes, he was fastidious, but it wasn’t her physical state that held him back. No, he was afraid her darkness would trap him. Nevertheless, she needed to trust him now.
He stepped forward …
… but she suddenly retreated, grimacing and looking down at herself. “I am too dirty. He did not allow me to bathe.”
Gabryl did not believe that for a moment, but he nodded sympathetically, halting his progress with secret relief.
She looked up, saying brightly, “When I am clean, we shall embrace.”
Something in her gaze revealed she meant ‘embrace’ in a manner most foul. “Of course,” he smiled, barely preventing himself from strangling her.
Nodding as if he had pleased her, she hastened to her desk. “Come see. I have plans for the Vault … we can conquer Eurue with it and the idiot sorcerers …” Shuffling papers, knocking over ink wells and broken quills, she was then intent on her task.
Inwardly flinching, Gabryl stared at her exposed spine. So thin. He swallowed convulsively. She sounded almost lucid, but her plan to conquer revealed she harboured only the worst in her heart.
“Aha! Here … look … come, brother, look.” She brandished a yellowed parchment and smoothed it into position on the cluttered expanse, bending over it.
Forcing air into his lungs, Gabryl approached. Halting close, he angled his body, and gripped the dagger. His hand trembled and he ruthlessly stilled the movements, the doubt, the horror.
Cathian jabbed at the parchment. “The palace will suit us …”
He glanced at the ancient vellum and needed to control his response. Nothing on it made the slightest sense. It was a toddler’s scribble, all in … gods. He choked. Blood. It was ‘written’ in blood. Hers? Vian’s?
He needed to act now, before she sensed his true purpose. He could not mask his intention much longer.
“I love you, Cathian.”
He did. He always would. Because it was the truth, his statement therefore did not alert her.
She jabbed a sharp elbow backward, catching him in his side. “I know. Love you too …”
Swiftly he inserted the blade into the base of her skull, tears rolling over his cheeks. A knife in the neck would wound a mortal, leading to death, but an immortal recovered. Stabbing was not fatal. This, however, was more th
an a mere length of sharp metal. It could fell a long-lived. As quickly, he removed it and caught her as she slumped without a sound. She was weightless; Cathian had died a long time ago and this was her residual energy contained in dry skin, papery, much like the parchment on her desk.
As he laid her on the floor, her eyes snapped open. “Neither living nor dead, remember? You cannot kill me, traitor.” Darkness roiled in her gaze, the kind able to unleash as a physical manipulation.
He needed to end it now.
Placing the bloodied blade over her heart, he said, “I can, sister. Only I can.”
She shuddered as if drawing energy to her, which was no doubt exactly what she attempted. She would be disappointed; there was no one to draw from.
“You will pay!” she hissed.
Expressionless, he gazed down. With the power of Elixir and the Song Tristan gifted him, he spoke her true name.
“Cathian Lowry.”
Her pale blue eyes rounded. In that moment she reassumed her true form or, more correctly, spirit, for she looked no different. She immediately understood also it meant he could end her life.
Oddly, she did not fight him. She gazed up, tracing his face with roaming eyes. Her darkness surged forward, and yet nothing breached the vessel she was for it. She held it in.
“Do it, Gabryl. You will be freeing me, brother.”
Gabryl pressed the blade home and held it there, watching her eyes, not for a moment looking away. A final homage.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered before her eyes filmed over.
“Forgive me,” he croaked.
As he withdrew the dagger, the turret exploded.
Chapter 52
New paths are bright
~ Arun, Druid ~
Eurue
The Vault
“GODS!” ALUSIN blurted.
Teighlar, openly on his feet, stared numbly to where masonry and stone plummeted in wide arcs to smash into the terrain, bouncing off the domed edifice.
Eyes as quicksilver, Tristan ignored their reactions and transported into the exploding space. As it had now been breached, there was nothing to prevent entry.
Everything rocked around him; floor, ceiling, walls. Great gaps grew ever wider and larger as the building blocks of the turret hurtled away.
Swiftly glancing around, he discovered Gabryl shuddering on his knees beside a woman clearly dead. The Diluvan made no effort to save himself.
Fetching up on his haunches there, Tristan gazed at the woman, seeing the deprivation, seeing also the likeness to her brother … and a sense of serenity.
“Gabryl.”
A tear streaked face shifted to him. Pale blue eyes tracked the disintegrating space. “I should be in pieces. How?”
“I have momentarily slowed time,” Tristan stated in a no-nonsense tone. The man needed prompting now, not sympathy. “Come, Gabryl; it is time to leave. Now.”
Dust-filled red hair swung as he jerked his head down. “I cannot leave her.”
“Then bring her, but do you truly wish for her father to see her like this?”
Eternal moments on the slowed clock ticked by.
“Gabryl, honour who she was by becoming who you were born to be,” Tristan said, his tone soft, empathy now weaving into it. “Tell her true story, of her life before all this, not her death.”
“I killed her. I do not deserve life.”
Glancing at the gradually widening chasm growing in the floor, encroaching on them, Tristan stated, his tone clear, “You freed her. Look at her. She is at peace finally.” He snagged the man’s forearm and took the blade from him. “Come, my friend.”
Standing then with difficulty amid pulsating debris, Tristan leaned in and gripped Gabryl under his armpits and hoisted him up. Thank the gods, the man did not fight him.
“Not like that,” Gabryl sobbed.
Swallowing, Tristan gazed at the woman, understanding her remains would soon be flung somewhere or crushed in the descent of the tower. Gabryl was right; not like that.
Murmuring, he thus set her body ablaze, a swift burn, an utter consumption
Then, ignoring the wail of grief piercing the grinding hum of an explosion in slowed motion, Tristan bodily and mentally took Gabryl from there.
Together, they landed in a heap of limbs at Teighlar’s feet, as Alusin finished saying “Gods!”
Dust floated around them.
TEIGHLAR FELL TO his knees, his gaze briefly moving between the exploding tower and the two men gasping as they inhaled fresher air.
“Thank you, Tris,” he murmured. “Quilla’s gift?”
Tristan merely nodded. Quilla of the Q’lin’la taught Torrullin how to slow time, a talent now his own via the Medaillon.
“Gabryl,” Teighlar murmured, placing a hand tenderly on his son’s head.
Wordless, Gabryl twisted into his father’s arms and held on.
Alusin helped Tristan to his feet, saying, “Let us deal with that.” He gestured at the dome.
Nodding, Tristan murmured, “Once this seal is undone, the skies should clear for transport and communication.” He said those words for Teighlar’s benefit, knowing the man needed something to build upon, and a future with his son was exactly that.
When they were out of hearing range, Alusin asked, “She’s dead?”
“Yes.”
Alusin sighed. “That will hurt him for a long time.”
“Indeed. He killed her with this.” Tristan extracted the dagger from an inner pocket and held it out upon his palm. “Do you know it?”
“I feel its power, but no.”
Secreting it again, Tristan muttered, “It belonged to Nemisin. This is a Valla trinket.” He huffed out a disbelieving laugh. “Torrullin told me how he caught a glimpse of it in Nemisin’s bier when Nemisin rose from the goddamn dead, but it vanished when the Sabian hauled our illustrious First Father into another realm. Torrullin believed it lost.”
Alusin gaped at him. “How?”
“I guess it has to do with caskets and an Aleru Orb.” Tristan tapped his pocket. “This blade was meant for Torrullin. It would not have killed him, of course, but it would have denied him eternal access to this realm.”
They ambled onward, and then Alusin smirked. “Really? I think Torrullin would have been back on Nemisin’s arse soon enough.”
Laughing, Tristan gripped his companion’s shoulder. “Me too!”
WHEN HE TOUCHED Gabryl to drag him from the turret, the Song within touched the dissipating Song he gifted the Diluvan. Thus Tristan knew how to undo the Vault’s seal.
When they stood before the smooth stone, he placed a hand upon the warm rock and murmured. A doorway to mimic the vaulted arches of the Dome in space appeared.
Entering together, the two men covered ears as alarms rang discordantly within, while simultaneously gaping at the splendour. Grimacing, they marked the slumped forms on the tiered benches and on the mosaic round that emulated the Gatherers’ Circle.
Alusin gestured, and moved off. Tristan strode to the nearest form. Alusin found a console and muted the ringing. As blessed silence returned, Tristan knelt at the unconscious body of a winged woman. She appeared almost ethereal and much like the Siric of yesteryear, but she was not a Siric. He knew not which race she belonged to.
“I’ve already had word from Belun; the heavens are open,” Alusin said as he approached.
“Tell him to wait before doing anything about the evacuees.” Tristan rose and moved to a furry creature, a bipedal with full sets of fingers and toes, two curly ears perched atop its crown. Whether it was male or female was hard to tell.
“I admit to ignorance,” he said to the Kemir. “I have never seen or heard of most of these. Immortal kind? How have we overlooked them?”
“Long time, a few before even my birth. I recognise some, but we believed them passed on.”
Staring up as birds began to sing overhead, Tristan said, “What do we do about this? There’s no precedent for this.”
“Yes, there is. The Kaval replaced the Guardians … I’m not suggesting replacing the Kaval, relax.” Alusin grinned. “But the precedent of immortals walking new paths exists.”
“True. Go on.”
Alusin gestured at the oblivious forms. “They are already part of a sacred site. This is known as the Vault of Life according to the console, and that fits. I say we return to them Guardian status. Guardians of the Vault. A terrestrial vault and a space dome? This is an alliance that will pay massive dividends in the future, for both teams.”
Tristan smiled. “I agree.”
Alusin shrugged. “First we need to convince Vian.” Arms akimbo, he glanced around. “And bloody Savier.”
“You suggest it should remain here.”
“It’s already here; we simply need to stabilise it. And, a huge reminder, don’t you think? Eurue once saw much war and destruction, and that will begin anew with inclusion into the wider spaces. But with this around? The Kemir may yet go on living in rural bliss.”
Smiling, Tristan nodded. “Right, I’m with you. Help me make them as comfortable as possible until they wake.”
They set to work.
Chapter 53
There are times when claims of completion are pure fabrication. There are also times when such claims speak only truth.
~ Judge Imil – his Autobiography ~
Eurue
The Fortress
FOR THE ALGHERI family, only the fortress still stood. The palace needed to be rebuilt, and already Savier muttered about rather living in a hovel that residing in the gothic monstrosity belonging to his brother.
For the foreseeable future, however, the Keeper was in residence.
Teighlar had taken a distraught Gabryl to Grinwallin by the time Vian began to stir into an awakened state from his induced sleep, and thus Savier, Alusin and Tristan kept the watch. Vian might be destructive in his grief, and rage could well cloud his judgement. Belun and the Kaval maintained vigil at the Vault, to be on hand when those within awoke as well.
Eurue- The Forgotten World Page 38