‘It comforts you, this love?’ she asked, eyeing the talisman that hung from his throat.
Breehan looked into her cool assessing eyes and wondered.
Glimmer, hearing his thoughts, raised her head and met his glance. ‘I must not touch the talisman,’ she said, stepping back a pace. ‘The fate of the Four Worlds depends on my strength.’
‘It would sap your strength?’
‘It would make me weak,’ she admitted. ‘That is all you need know. Take care that it does not accidentally touch me.’
‘I would see my people live,’ Breehan said. ‘I will do as you ask.’
‘Then come with me to this fortress and aid me in my task.’
The time for talking was clearly at an end. Breehan followed her up the long stone ramp that led to the drawbridge. She stopped him at the point where the ramp ended and the bridge should begin. Currently it was raised.
‘Sinking sand,’ she said, and pointed before her.
Breehan was chastened that he had not recognised the irregularly pocked surface himself. Although in his defence, it had been many years since he was last on Ennae. ‘How will we enter?’ he asked.
‘You will hold my hand and we will traverse the sand in safety,’ she said.
Breehan took her offered hand and followed her lead, placing a slipper onto the sand and feeling resistance where he knew there should be none. ‘You are indeed the purveyor of strong magic,’ he said as they covered the distance to the wooden door, five times Breehan’s height.
She put a hand on the wood and pressed. Her hand was swallowed up and entered the panel, leaving the wood behind her as unmarked as it had been a second earlier.
‘Come,’ she said, and she took a step forward.
Breehan followed only when she pulled on his hand. He knew himself to be a coward, but he closed his eyes and experienced the transition as a deep vibration passing through his body from front to back.
‘Halt,’ came a shout from before them and Breehan opened his eyes to find four copper-skinned Northman warriors staring at them in shock. Breehan felt shocked himself. ‘The White …’ one whispered while the others stared.
‘Fetch your leader,’ Glimmer said with authority.
They remained where they were until she raised a hand towards them. As one they turned and ran into a nearby corridor, leaving Breehan and Glimmer alone in the entry hall.
‘So this is Sh’hale,’ Breehan said, struggling to keep his voice calm, to convince himself that he could do whatever The Catalyst might demand of him. ‘I have often wondered while passing on the Plains whether its austere stonework hid luxury within.’
‘Now you know,’ she replied, releasing his hand to step forward and inspect the intricate tapestry that hung on the wall before them. ‘Luxurious to the point of decadence. Look at these ripped sections.’
Breehan approached and saw tears amid a battle scene. ‘The Northmen have torn off the pictures of themselves.’
‘A memento of their brief occupancy here.’
‘You say that as though you expect them soon to be gone.’
Glimmer turned to look at him. ‘The Maelstrom comes. We will all soon be gone.’
‘How soon?’
Before she could answer, a sound to the side alerted them to the Northmen’s return. ‘I am Kai, leader of the Northmen who rule this fortress,’ said a young man walking in front of his warriors, his glance sliding between Glimmer, Breehan and the fortress door behind them. Breehan noticed that these Northmen were all shaved down one side. Their copper skin gleamed as though oiled, particularly this leader whose other side was blurred by a hairy chest and long thick hair falling from a broad skull. ‘Who are you and by what power did you enter?’ he demanded, pointing at the door.
‘I am the assistant to this great shaman,’ Glimmer said, gesturing at Breehan who forced his stooped shoulders back and raised his chin. ‘We enter this fortress to perform a rite. You will not obstruct us.’
‘You are The White,’ Kai replied. ‘We have been searching for you.’
‘To kill me so that your God may return?’
‘That was his will,’ Kai said, although with less conviction than Breehan would have expected. He’d believed the Northman fanatical in their obedience to their God.
‘There is another White. You cannot complete that task,’ Glimmer said.
Kai nodded, as though he accepted her words and said, ‘Then we will not obstruct you.’ Breehan’s wariness increased. It sounded too easy, and the angry expressions on the faces of Kai’s warriors who stood behind him showed that they felt the same way. ‘You will be our guests this night and speak to us of your rite.’ He gestured his warriors back and for Glimmer to walk at his side. ‘Does it involve sacrifice?’
‘Indeed,’ Glimmer replied, matching his steps. Breehan walked close behind them with his back tensed, expecting a fatal blow at any moment from the silent Northman warriors of Kai’s guard who followed him. They traversed corridors of pale sandstone hung with armaments Breehan knew had been blunted on Plainsman skin. He should be outraged to be standing in this shrine to Sh’hale brutality, or deeply satisfied that the noble family who had treated his people so cruelly had been destroyed by the Northmen, but fear for his own life was largest in his mind. The cold sensation on his back reminded him of how cowardly he was.
They entered a great hall and a hush fell over the hundred Northmen who were gathered there eating and playing on the tiered stairs that led down to a smooth tiled square.
‘We have guests,’ Kai announced loudly and this time Breehan heard fear in his voice. In her dark glittering robe and with her shimmering hair falling around her shoulders, Glimmer stunned the Northmen into silence. ‘Bring food and entertainment,’ Kai called, and quickly those seated on the floor of the chamber moved up onto the stairs. Breehan noticed a pit in the centre which was stained with coal and ash. Some of the Northmen looked at the pit with fear in their eyes.
‘This is where our rite must be observed,’ Glimmer said, pointing to the centre of the room.
‘Just so are our rites conducted in this chamber,’ Kai said, unable to take his eyes off Glimmer’s face. Breehan could not tell if he was captivated or merely curious.
‘My Lady! The Light?’ a voice called from across the room and Breehan turned to see a man in brightly patterned clothing leaping towards them, jangling as he ran, as though small bells were attached to his feet. ‘My Lady Khatrene,’ he gasped, falling at her feet. ‘Let this not be a dream!’
‘I am not Khatrene,’ Glimmer said patiently, ‘I am her daughter, Glimmer.’
‘Child of The Light,’ the man breathed and slowly raised his head. ‘A most welcome sight. I am the jester who was trapped at this court. But, My Lady I am honest of deed and of thought.’ He shot a quick glance at Kai and went on. ‘I plead for your mercy. Lord Verdan has been captured. They torture him daily. He —’
‘It is not my destiny to save individuals,’ she said, gazing at the fool dispassionately.
‘I will happily release him,’ Kai said at her side and Breehan was surprised. Why was the Northman attempting to gain Glimmer’s favour? ‘Take the nobleman to the south gate and set him free,’ he told a warrior at his side.
‘And I as his guide to walk at his side?’ the fool asked.
‘No,’ Kai’s lieutenant argued, ‘I do not approve of this. What if the Verdan lord rallies his men to attack us?’
Kai turned to him impatiently. ‘They have attacked us for three years. What matter that they have a lord at their helm. They will do no better. Obey my commands! And release the fool with him. I grow tired of his whining.’ This said, Kai kicked the fool away from Glimmer’s feet and he rolled and tumbled down the stairs, sprawling into an untidy heap in the central square.
He lay there a moment, as though catching his breath, then he scrambled to his feet and ran across the chamber. ‘I will return him to his lands,’ he said. ‘I go now with Verdan.’
> Kai watched him leave and then turned back to Glimmer. ‘I sense that you are more powerful than my God.’
‘I banished him from his world,’ she acknowledged.
‘Then I will do what I can to please you.’
She shook her head. ‘I cannot be pleased,’ she replied.
‘Yet you will be displeased if we hinder your rite.’
‘You will be dead if you hinder my rite,’ she replied, then she stepped past him to take Breehan’s hand, her fingers warm and firm. Together they walked down the stairs to the centre of the square where the cold empty pit lay dirtied by ash. On a whim Breehan scuffed his perfect white slipper in some that had spilled over the edge and was pleased to see the sooty stain he’d made. Glimmer’s powers and her perfection daunted him. He had no powers and was far from perfect.
When Breehan looked up, Glimmer was standing across the pit with her arms raised. She nodded for him to do the same. ‘This will not take long,’ she told him, perhaps in deference to the physical limitations of his aged body.
The Northmen had moved back until they were all off the stairs and standing around the top of the square looking down. Breehan noticed Kai watching them curiously.
‘Will the Northmen die?’ Breehan asked Glimmer softly, so they would not hear.
She shook her head. ‘No one will die,’ she said, and his tensed back relax. ‘The talisman will channel the psychic energy,’ she said. ‘I will channel the physical. You need only remain in position as the forces flow through you. You will not be harmed.’
‘Then let us begin,’ Breehan replied, for though the rite was hugely important, he was unsure how long he could hold up his arms.
‘I call on the power of the Four Worlds.’ Her voice rang out like a loud, deep bell. Breehan was startled by the sound and he looked at her anew, seeking the seasoned command of her voice in her young and innocent countenance. ‘I join them here. Four Worlds linked by flesh and spirit.’
Breehan felt a vibration begin directly underneath the memory stone, deep within his chest, like the tribal drums he had heard as a child. Those drums were long gone, lost in a battle and not replaced as his people had fled the fury of The Dark’s pogrom against them. But he heard their odd rhythm now, awakening his mind to the memories of his people, the stories he had told around campfires to keep their lore alive. Yet these stories he felt within himself now did not come to him as physical acts. They were collections of emotion and some were recognisable: excitement at a battle win, grief for lost loved ones, the fierce possessiveness of the newly pair-bonded male. Then there were emotions he did not recognise, and he knew these must belong to races other than his own.
The feelings flowed through Breehan like a river swelling with the stuff of life itself, the heart and the spirit and the mind of man. The will. Through his chest they passed as he faced Glimmer, and though wonder sat large in his mind, he could see that she was likewise occupied by the force that flowed through her and rose from her hands in a stream of light unlike any Breehan had seen on Ennae or Haddash — a dark glistening liquid light that stretched upwards.
Breehan raised his head to follow its path and only then noticed that light was pouring from his own hands, pure sparkling light like the thinnest water. It met the dark light Glimmer projected and even as he watched, the conjoined light spread upwards through the roof of the great hall and back down to the floor between them. Above himself Breehan heard gasps of amazement and then he gasped himself as the sheet of light slid down and his own image was reflected back at him.
A mirror.
It was a crystal-sharp mirror that reflected only people. Breehan could see no stairs behind himself, no evidence that there was anything else beyond his form. Just a perfect image of himself that was so precise he could swear it was a twin. An old man who smiled at him even as tears of wonder ran down his seamed cheeks.
The flow increased and he struggled to maintain a hold on himself as the overwhelming emotions tumbled through him. Tears ran from his eyes like water from a spilt cup and still the fragments increased, compacted as though every person in every lifetime must pass through his talisman. He trembled with the burden, holding fast to the knowledge that he would not die. Glimmer had said no one would die in the process.
A sound came from the other side of the mirror then but Breehan couldn’t see. A groan that seemed to pull at his own insides as though in sympathy. The sound of extreme physical exertion. Then it abruptly ceased and Breehan fell back to the ground, trembling as his connection to the light was severed.
The mirror, as wide as their spread arms and high enough to reach the heavens, remained.
After moments of trying to catch his breath he heard Glimmer’s voice come from behind it. ‘The west point is anchored.’ She sounded as though she had barely breath to live, let alone to speak. ‘We go now to Verdan.’
‘I must rest,’ Breehan gasped.
She came around the side of the pit, her steps slower than usual, though no sign of exertion showed on her inscrutable face. ‘We must anchor the points.’ She looked down at him, assessing, then looked up at the awed faces surrounding them.
‘The shaman is weakened,’ she said to them. ‘Bring food and soft cushions. And stay away from this filament.’ She pointed to the mirror then looked back to Breehan. ‘We will stay until nightfall,’ she told him, ‘and then we must leave.’
‘Are you not tired?’ he asked, wishing it was not always his own weakness that was revealed.
‘That was unexpectedly difficult,’ she admitted and glanced back at what they had created. ‘I was prepared for the strain on my body. I have adequate strength for that task. But the non-physical portion that flowed through you —’
‘The emotions?’
She turned back to him. ‘They did not touch me but I saw them. They … endanger me.’ Her gaze was directed inwards, as though searching her own mind. ‘I must not to fall into them. It would break me from my path.’
Breehan frowned and fingered the memory stone at his throat. ‘Who would have thought that feelings hold the greater power?’
Glimmer looked down at him. ‘I should have known,’ she said. ‘In the history of man, the spirit always triumphs. I should have remembered that.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Barrion pulled on the threads the Northmen had stitched, tearing the skin from his arm piece by piece.
‘My Lord Verdan, listen to your man,’ the fool begged, trotting behind him with the supplies he had stolen hugged to his chest. ‘You will lose all your blood. It will soon be a flood. Let us wrap them in bandages, or at least in clean handkerchiefs.’
‘I will have these reminders gone,’ Barrion growled, determined to remove every trace of his captivity from his consciousness. The first step was to rid himself of the physical evidence. Later he would try to forget being tied by a hundred threads to a single overhead beam and left to endure the torment that followed each accidental movement. ‘Their petty tortures did not humble my determination,’ he said. ‘I knew I would escape in time.’
‘I had you released,’ the fool reminded him, adding, ‘and then missed the feast,’ in a sullen tone.
‘You will be handsomely rewarded when I reach my hold.’
‘Yet we travel in the opposite direction.’
Barrion ignored the barbed tone. The fool’s habit of mockery was so ingrained it seemed impossible for him to move past it into honest conversation. ‘I will not rest until The Dark is dead,’ Barrion said and gritted his teeth as he took hold of the threads hanging from his other arm. ‘He killed our king and my sister —’
‘You believe the Northman leader?’ the fool asked.
Barrion stopped and closed his eyes, reefed the thirty threads from his arm in one movement and tossed them aside. When he opened his eyes the fool was watching him with a sickened twist of his mouth. ‘What I believe,’ Barrion said, ‘is that we will all soon die. My sister died before me, our king before her. I will soon
die myself, but before I do I will hold the beating heart of my enemy in my hands and I will crush it in my fingers.’
The fool nodded, his face now pale. ‘I am glad to be your man, Lord. So it will not be my heart in your hand, Lord.’
It took them three days to reach Be’uccdha and by that time Barrion was sick with a fever.
‘My Lord should rest or prove himself right,’ the fool begged, ‘you’ll surely die of your wounds tonight,’ but Barrion kept trudging on, his blurred eye fixed on the castle that rose before them like a burnt and twisted hand perched on the edge of the cliffs. Beyond it lay the flat expanse of the Everlasting Ocean stretching out to the horizon.
‘I will kill him before I die,’ Barrion muttered. ‘I will have vengeance.’ But even as they approached the main gate he felt his strength fail. A fierce wind blew off the ocean and its sharp salt tang dizzied his mind. He stumbled and fell headlong on the stiff grass.
‘My Lord Verdan.’ The fool was at his side, whispering urgently in his ear but Barrion was drifting and he did not feel the hard ground beneath him anymore. ‘It is I, your man,’ the fool said.
Another voice came then. ‘What ails the Verdan lord? What has happened to his limbs?’
The fool answered, ‘We have recently escaped the Northman’s torture. My Lord Verdan needs clean hot water.’
‘You are the Sh’hale fool,’ the disembodied voice said, then more loudly, ‘You four, carry our Lord Verdan to my operating rooms and call for my assistants. Those wounds are festering. The limbs may need to come off. I will inform The Dark that we have a guest.’
Barrion felt himself slide into silence, as though slipping beneath the waters of his beloved loch. I come to you now, Ellega, he said, and the anger and vengeance that had kept him alive for so long were washed away.
Beside him the fool said, ‘This will not end well.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Daughter of the Dark: Shadow Through Time 2 Page 40