“Ah.” Quilla nodded. “Torrullin?”
“I heard them here, but thought it the wind sighing, internal prompting and such. Only later did I understand the rock spoke. Why, how or what for - I do not know.”
“Have either of you heard or heard tell of stones singing elsewhere?”
Teighlar shrugged. “Orb.”
Torrullin denied knowledge.
“Not Akhavar?” Quilla asked.
“I have not been there since renewal.”
“That is beside the point.”
Torrullin sighed. “Fine, I have heard … something. In dreams of previous times and I guess they were not dreams.”
Quilla smiled, and then, “Now hear this; the stones are the building blocks of Mother Universe. They are truly old and only those near the beginning of the concept time have heard. Know this also, all stones sing. Here, Orb, Akhavar, Valaris, Xen - all stones - and each has a tale to tell of the long history of our universe. Few hear the tales now, for the races are too young.”
He eyeballed Teighlar. “Your Senlu are old, but are considered young. The fact that you heard tells a tale all its own.”
Quilla transferred his gaze to Torrullin. “The Valleur are born and die; they may come from a beginning time, yet they are in the present too young to hear. You have heard; I do not have to point out what that implies.”
“You just did,” Torrullin muttered.
Teighlar managed a half-hearted laugh.
Quilla went on, “The Q’lin’la are able to hear and have heard. We heard here, we heard in our universe and I, last of my kind, still hear. Agnimus is sure to, but not Declan. Immortal the Siric may be, with more years than one can put a number to, but he is too young. However, he can be trained to hear, for he has arcane knowledge.” He paused and frowned. “That is not the point now. The point is, out of so many tales, with so many stones needing to tell theirs, with only one listening, it is not a simple matter to hear only one thread. I listened as bade and I am humbled now by the wealth of knowledge out there.”
Teighlar interrupted. “Torrullin says the stones are a conduit.”
Quilla was pleased. “Indeed they are. We hear them and …”
“Who, then, is on the other side?”
“No who, my friend - what.”
Torrullin sighed as he made the connection. “Time.”
Quilla clapped his hands. “Time!”
“I cannot say I get it,” Teighlar frowned.
“Simple terms, then. Let us take an old house, one a few centuries standing. When one walks through one is assailed by a sense of history and one says ‘if only these walls could talk’. An old tree, a thousand years old, ‘if only you could speak, grandfather’ … right? In the presence of something far older one knows there is a tale. But maybe we should say ‘if only I could hear’. And thus it is with stones. They have been around since the beginning, in different form and place, and we are all younger - if only the stones could talk.” Quilla spread his hands.
“If only we could hear,” Teighlar mused. “Funny thing, though, we do. But,” and he held a finger up, “how we hear is more about our perceptions than about magic in stones.”
Quilla clapped his hands again. “That is exactly it! We want to hear because our longevity begs the secrets of a time before us! We want to hear.”
“Therefore Declan can be trained,” Torrullin mused. “He would want to hear.”
“For the short-lived it is a feeling only, one that cannot be built on in time before death comes. They sense tales, but sense is as far as they can go.”
Torrullin threaded a hand through his hair. “Why did I not hear before now?”
“You begin to sense the burden of your years, Torrullin, and I do not mean six thousand, or eight as some would have it.” Quilla switched to Teighlar. “You have always felt the burden, therefore it was never strange to you.”
“And then I ceased hearing,” Teighlar muttered.
“No, you found yourself in the presence of an older sentience. You simply thought he would hear better.”
“Torrullin?” Teighlar whispered.
Quilla nodded.
Torrullin paled. “How much older?”
“Do you want an answer?”
A strained laugh. “No! … yes, damn it.”
“I figure at least back to the Dancing Suns, maybe further,” Quilla said. “That makes you older even than the Q’lin’la.”
Teighlar stared at his friend. “Torrullin?”
Torrullin shook his head. “Before Nemisin? Impossible.”
Quilla shrugged. “And maybe Nemisin was you.”
Torrullin was white-faced. “No.”
“If I am High King of Orb, then it is not impossible,” Teighlar murmured, and was as ashen.
Torrullin swallowed. “And Agnimus?”
“If you were Nemisin, you made him.”
There was only silence for a while and then Torrullin said, “What did the stones tell you, Q’li’qa’mz?”
Chapter 31
There are whispers in the dark. Are you listening?
~ Arc, poet
Akhavar
SASKA WAS ALONE TO THINK.
Prima said his piece, and what a piece it was, although she had the distinct feeling he did not know everything, or held back. She preferred to believe the former. That fit in with Torrullin’s character - the need to hold certain factors close.
Torrullin. What to make of his coming? How to prepare?
She wandered to the edge of the ledge and sat cross-legged on the warm stone, her gaze drawn to the dancing colour upon the distant mountains as the sun set on Akhavar.
Akhavar. Nemisin’s world had a name at last.
She cast her thoughts back. She met Torrullin two thousand and fifty odd years ago. He was Rayne at the time, a mortal human sorcerer who joined the cause against Infinity, the dara-witch, and later against the Darak Or Margus. She loved Rayne, though it was forbidden to love a mortal, and then Rayne became Torrullin, a Valleur immortal, a man angered by his fates, a man difficult to hold, and she loved him more.
Torrullin then became Vallorin and Enchanter and those pedestals made him ever more slippery. Along the way he fathered twin sons with another woman. He cheated on their commitment and she found a way to live with it. He married her after the twins’ birth and for three years they knew perfect bliss.
When she thought of the man she loved, those years held all that was good.
They set up home in Torrke and welcomed the boys into their lives. Then the boys turned three and Tymall recognised his underlying nature. Nobody could tell which boy nursed hatred and evil, least of all their father, and she bore the brunt. Not only did that boy attempt to kill her, but his father withdrew from her. Torrullin chose to love his son first, leaving her on the outside. She left him then. She went on to become the Lady of Life and in her absence there was Catalina Dalrish.
Saska sighed, watching the sky turn deep mauve before darkness came.
She could understand Torrullin’s need to be a father and she could understand his hope to turn Tymall from darak, but she could not fathom Cat. The woman was trouble on two legs, a mortal, and he fell for her. Of course, she admitted, it was her own guilt over Cat that made it hard to accept. Cat was pregnant when Torrullin left for another realm and she, Saska, ensured the child would not be born.
That was one of the continuing divides between them.
For two thousand years she bore the guilt, a child ignored and miscarried and Cat dying of a broken heart, and then Torrullin returned. Not only had that wedge driven them apart, but so did the promise she once made to him as Lady of Life.
Before he entered an alternate realm she told him he could murder innocents with impunity - she would raise the deserving from the dead - and he was horrified. It had, in a sense, driven him closer to Cat. His exit into another realm, she now knew, was partly to escape that terrible gift. Torrullin possessed a mighty sense of right and wro
ng and her ‘gift’ did not fit in with it.
Then there was Lowen. Lowen Dalrish, Cat’s niece, a child who understood the Enchanter better than most and saved the Valleur from the destruction of Torrke, the event that catapulted Torrullin and Margus into another realm. Lowen, remarkable seer, saw Torrullin would return after two thousand years and chose immortality to be there when the years had passed.
Lowen, whom Torrullin, Vallorin, Enchanter, Dragon and Elixir, could not resist.
Saska no longer saw the mountains, the sky , and was unaware of the time. She stared unseeing over vast distances.
Lowen saved Torrullin from himself, more than once. If anyone knew him, she would be at the head of a short list. That, Saska suspected, was part of the lure between them, and yet, according to Declan and Prima, they hardly spent time together. Perhaps the lure was also what kept them apart.
Did Torrullin love Lowen?
Twenty-five years passed since she laid eyes on her husband. In the final leaving - hers - he threatened to divorce her and then changed his mind. She hoped he would get Lowen out of his system, as he had Lycea and then Cat, and return to her.
She forgave both Lycea and Cat, she could forgive Lowen also. Torrullin loved her, of that she was certain, and she would love him until her final breath, therefore she could find the way to forgive, no matter how hard. But he had not come and it sounded as if Lowen remained part of his thoughts.
Was it Lowen keeping him away or was it over Cat and a miscarried child? Was it the awful gift as the Lady? She hoped the renewal of Akhavar would prove how she regretted her offer. Or was it being Elixir?
Saska sighed again, feeling the chill of the coming night on her skin.
Whatever it was, he would come soon. Nothing was settled by the intervening years; would it be by seeing each other again? She could not answer and doubted Torrullin was able to. He came because of Lowen and her presence here was a nuisance, but, damn it, she would not vanish to make it easier for him.
She had waited long enough. One way or the other, it was time to move forward.
That decided, she rose, stretched, and headed indoors.
SASKA GASPED AWAKE and discovered she sweated as if she had run a marathon.
She had been running … in her dreams.
Shaking her head to clear away the cobwebs of sleep, she shivered, and rose from her bed. Hastily removing damp nightclothes, she pulled on a warm tunic and soft pants and slid her feet into slippers. Her heart pounded as she left her bedroom.
She needed space.
Along silent corridors, she made her way to the Throne-room.
The images were too clear in her mind, as if telling her that her dreaming was not mere fanciful adventuring. She had to settle what she saw with physical action, her body calling her mind an idiot. Whatever the result, she hoped to end up laughing at herself.
Once in the Throne-room, she stood still in the quiet, listening to the echoes of her dreams.
She had been chased - no. Hunted.
Hunted became hunter.
Saska muttered an oath and strode to where the Valla Throne once stood. The ages-old markings were evident on the stone. She stared at the floor. Here the dais would have started and there the Throne itself. Dare she step into the sacred space?
She laughed at herself then. Yesterday she stood uncaring in the same place; it was vacated a long time ago. What was the matter with her now? Nothing had changed in the hours between, except news of Torrullin’s imminent arrival. While it caused anxiety, it should not affect her sense of place.
What was the matter with her?
Her dreams.
Clearly she would not laugh about this.
For a time it felt as if the Throne hunted her and she was hounded over the open plains of Akhavar, running for her life. Why, she did not understand. In exhaustion came frustration and she turned to face the feeling, gods, and saw the golden seat squatting malevolently in the waving grasses. That was wrong. Alien.
Fear brought bravado and bravado intensified into fury. She loosed a stream of curses upon it and watched it retreat. Well, that was better. It was about control, then. More cursing sent it back, and thus she became the hunter, pushing it backwards more and more until it fled across the plains and she said things she did not know she knew.
As she awakened, a final and fleeting image came, of a golden man laughing at her from the seat’s depths. An aura of light surrounded him.
Who?
Wait. Laughing at her. Which meant the Throne had not fled; it led her astray.
She was not, however, about to allow her mind to dictate fear, damn it. Saska stepped into the space … and sagged in relief.
Nothing. No echoes, no presence, merely her imagination. In her mind the Throne and Torrullin were linked; Torrullin, due soon. Uncertainty hounded her.
Right?
Wary of her perceptions, she stepped from the space.
An echo of laughter bounced around the huge cavern.
Breaking out in a cold sweat, she called out, “Who is there?”
She did not expect an answer; she understood over-wrought emotions tricked, anxiety created monsters in the mind.
“I am here.”
Saska gasped and retreated further. Again, she was the hunted one.
More laughter echoed.
Then she was angry, as she was in the dream. Furious, actually. It lent her courage. “You cannot intimidate me!”
“I do not seek to intimidate you, Saska.”
She was still dreaming, that was it. Bloody hell, wake up!
“You are awake.”
Her hands shook; she shook all over. “Who are you?”
“How they forget.” There was a sense of coalescing, as if frayed ends gathered together, but it was tattered bits of nothing or morsels of shadow forming dark. Now there was no aura of light.
Saska held onto her own frayed ends as she witnessed a gathering of presence. “This isn’t real.”
A quicksilver chuckle, and it sounded so much like Torrullin she almost called out his name, instinct preventing her in time.
Then there was the shape of a man standing in the once sacred space of the nomadic Throne. It was only a shape, akin to a silhouette without light behind it, and there were no features.
“Real it is,” the form murmured, “but only a sorceress such as yourself would feel and see.”
“What do you want?” she demanded, her heart beating an entirely alien rhythm.
“You would not understand my answer.”
The form sounded like Torrullin in his contrariness. Abruptly it irritated her. Why did everyone treat her as if she was stupid. She tapped a foot on the stone floor. “Try me.”
“I think not.”
“Who are you?”
“I am certain you have a few thoughts.”
She was beyond anger, beyond fear. Curiosity had finally arrived. This was a Valleur world, a Valla Throne-room. Somewhere near the mighty first father lay in death’s embrace. Perhaps reality was different here.
While she had not experienced it before, maybe dreams and visions here led to visitations from across time and space.
“Nemisin?” she asked.
A boom of laugher echoed. “Guess again.”
Gods, she had been sure. “Agnimus?”
“Not even close, dear Saska. If I were Agnimus, this would merely be the remains of an altered concept of sentience. Agnimus is no longer Agnimus, but you know that already.”
Goddess. She knew now who it was and knew beyond doubt. “Are you - no, it must be impossible.”
“Why?” the form whispered and seemed to lean forward. “Realms are real, the Great Curve is real, the Animated Spirit is real. Why not this? All those concepts should be particularly impossible, yet are not; therefore, nothing is impossible.”
She was wordless.
“Saska, beautiful Saska, once Lady of Life, once Valleur queen, immortal Sylmer, wife to the Animated Spirit, tell me w
ho I am, tell me now.”
She finally understood the meaning of paralysing fear.
“Afraid?” the form taunted.
She managed a nod.
“Do not be afraid; I mean you no harm. Tell me who I am.”
Her hands trembled and she stilled them against her stomach. “Do you mean him harm?”
“Elixir?”
“Yes.”
A soft laugh. “No, not him. Never him.”
“Who, then?”
“I have mentioned you would not understand. Now, Saska, will you say who I am or must I declare myself? I wish to know whether you guess accurately.”
Saska swallowed. “You are the Throne.”
There was deep silence and then a deeper sigh. It sounded elated, as if she was right, and disappointed, as if she was also wrong.
“Yes.” The form began to roughen around the edges; it was dissipating.
“Why here?” she asked. “Torrke is open again and Valleur are in the Keep. Why here, when they will know you there?”
“This is where it began. This is a mark in time and space. He will know.”
“He?” But she knew who he meant.
“Call him, Saska. Call him. The time is at hand to begin anew, to make choices once more. Call my Lord Torrullin before the sun shines again on Akhavar.”
Then it was gone.
She ran fleeing from there.
SHE SHOOK PRIMA HARD to wake him, shouting, “Prima! Wake up!”
Prima sat up and then prudishly crossed his arms over his chest. “My Lady?”
“Prima, listen, you must hear,” she gabbled, “and give me advice …” and she rushed through the event in the Throne’s cavern.
“Slow down, my Lady, you are not making sense.”
Saska swallowed her words and sat on Prima’s bed, which nearly gave the poor man a heart attack.
Slowly she went through the dream, her awakening, her visit to the sacred space upon the dream’s prompting and then explained what happened.
When she was done, Prima forgot about the ethics of being in a bedchamber with his master’s wife.
“My Lady, forgive me, but are you sure this happened?”
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 31