“No game, Elianas!” Torrullin called out.
A slight twitch in the dark man’s stride, but he did not otherwise react.
BACK WITH THE OTHERS he muttered, “He is bloody stubborn.”
Quilla chuckled. “Always was.”
Torrullin rejoined them, sitting beside Elianas. It was a deliberate ploy, and Elianas’ hands clenched before he put them out of sight.
Torrullin looked at Tristan. “Dancing Suns or not, I am no closer to clarity.” He inclined his head at the man beside him. “This one is stubborn.”
Tristan grinned.
“Ah, he said that about me. I guess it takes one to know one.”
“You are cruel,” Saska said. “Stop now.”
Elianas murmured, “Thank you, Saska, but I am able to protect myself.”
“That is what you think, until you realise you fooled yourself.”
Torrullin, about to remonstrate, flinched. “Lowen?” They spoke of her and thus her presence was tangible? Was that it? He hurtled to his feet. “Lowen?” He looked down at Elianas’ upturned face. “Do you hear her?” Torrullin strode into the wildflowers, without awaiting a response. “Lowen!”
Elianas swore under his breath.
“Help me, Torrullin!”
Mute, shocked faces glanced at each other. Everyone heard her desperate summons.
Elianas stood. “We must go south.”
Torrullin stared at him a beat and started walking south. Elianas set off after him without further words.
Teighlar threw gear helter-skelter into his pack. The others followed suit. In a staggered and disorganised fashion everyone headed south in minutes.
The interlude was over.
Chapter 48
And then there was the desert …
~ Awl
Time Realm
TORRULLIN WALKED WITHOUT pause, setting a blistering pace.
The sun climbed the heavens, shining down stark and white, and as they walked wildflowers surrendered to tough grass, to tufts of grey gorse and then to pebbled, cracked earth. Every step brought heat.
After an hour Rose lagged, and Teroux dropped back to keep her company. After another hour Saska and Caballa trailed also, with Tianoman beside them. After a further hour Teighlar discarded his pack, preferring to take his chances with sorcery. Not long after, Tristan swore and threw his aside. Declan and Quilla took to sitting down for periods and then caught up via short bursts of flight.
In the shimmering mirage of encroaching desert, Torrullin and Elianas were small dark points of movement, pushing ever onward.
Dechend sat on a rock first and simply refused to move.
Teighlar halted. As the others closed in, one by one they stopped there. ‘There’ was nowhere, under a merciless sky. Not even the trails of light were now present.
Torrullin and Elianas vanished heedless into the distance.
“They’ll come back,” Tianoman said.
“No, they will not,” Teighlar said. He looked to Declan and Quilla. “We are unable to employ transport.”
Declan gave a rueful shrug. “That is why they set that pace.”
Teighlar frowned. “We walk, but how do we catch up?”
“I threw my gear away,” Tristan muttered. “My water, too.”
Teighlar snapped his fingers. A cold water bottle nestled on his palm. “Thank the gods, this still works here.” He passed it to Tristan.
Rose and Teroux were last in, both flopping to the hard ground, spent. They slurped the water when Tristan handed it over.
“Now what?” Tianoman asked.
“Follow them at our pace,” Tristan said. He pointed at the dry earth. “They leave a trail.”
Saska blinked at the footprints. “Bloody Lowen,” she muttered. “I am not walking further. You go after him if you wish, but I have had my fill. I aim to rest and then I am heading west.”
The birdman put a finger into the air. “Saska has a point. West is where we should head. If we do so at our pace, it will be Torrullin and Elianas who will be forced to catch up. Whatever they are about must eventually turn them west.”
Teighlar eyeballed the birdman for long minutes. “Then we head west.” He bent to Rose. “Can you go on?”
“Slowly.”
“Then we go slowly,” Teighlar said. “Here.” He passed around fresh water and checked the sun’s position.
They gathered themselves and gradually headed west.
Saska inwardly cursed Torrullin, Elianas and bloody Lowen.
“WE HAVE LOST THEM,” Elianas said.
“They will head west, the correct direction,” Torrullin muttered. “Quilla will have seen the wisdom.”
“Thus we are going the wrong way,” Elianas said. “We may be tweaking this mission, Torrullin, by going the wrong way. You do understand that?”
“Nothing is that written here.”
Elianas muttered under his breath. “Is this pace needed?”
“Are you lagging?”
“No.”
“Then it is needed,” Torrullin said.
They walked on in the heat and parched earth gave way to sterile sand.
“We are to meet soon? You, me and Lowen in the same space?” Torrullin prompted.
“Are you asking whether I knew it would come to pass in this manner? The answer is no,” Elianas responded.
“Do you know who seized her?”
Elianas glanced at him askance. “I thought you had figured that already.”
A snort. “I had an idea it was Nemisin.”
“What do you think now?”
“Gods, do you know or are you baiting me?” Torrullin snapped out.
“I do not know and that is truth.”
“Fantastic,” Torrullin sneered.
“The winding road, Torrullin.”
“Fuck the winding road. I am sick of the winding road.”
Elianas nodded. “You are ready to have it laid out without the frills.”
“I always hated frills.”
Elianas laughed in genuine amusement. “You thrive on frills!”
A reluctant smile. “Sometimes.”
“Have a care, though. It will not be that simplified yet.”
Torrullin stopped. “Elianas, did I tell you to meld with the Throne?”
Elianas walked on a way before turning. “I offered.”
“Why? My god, why would you do that? And why would I accept such a terrible offer?”
Elianas shrugged. “Love.”
Torrullin burst out, “For so long? Just waiting? That kind of self-sacrifice is not love.”
“It is. You have not loved like that to know … or …” He made an irritated gesture.
“Come. Say it.”
“Nothing.” Elianas carried on walking.
“Or I do not remember now? Was it you?”
Elianas walked on.
“Elianas.” Torrullin’s voice held that quality that could not be denied. Elianas halted. Torrullin pointed at him. “Is this your true form?”
No words came.
Torrullin gripped the dark man’s face between hot hands. His eyes were silver and bespoke a resolve that cared not for consequence.
“Don’t,” Elianas whispered.
Torrullin gave a smile that was pure arrogance and leaned in to kiss him. When Elianas struggled, he held him fast, intensifying the kiss, searching for the man’s soul. Elianas went limp, and he released.
The dark man knelt in the sand, his head hanging. “I hate you.”
“Now we are getting somewhere.”
Elianas lifted his head to stare up.
“Is this your true form?” Torrullin demanded.
“This is my form.”
“Did I love you to the point of self-sacrifice?”
“Yes.”
Torrullin closed his eyes.
“We did not share a bed,” Elianas said. “We were brothers then, as we are now, and we knew each other, trusted each other.”
/> Torrullin opened his eyes and then reached down to lift Elianas to his feet. “Forgive me.”
“It was a fine line, Torrullin; it was always a fine line for us. In those times we had better control.”
Torrullin was mute.
Elianas sighed. “This moment has returned my control to me.” He jabbed Torrullin with a finger. “Do not do that to me again.” The finger became a fist that gripped Torrullin’s tunic to pull him closer. “Not unless you choose to step over the line. Do you hear?”
“I hear.”
Elianas let go and went on walking. “Come, brother. Lowen waits.”
Torrullin followed, his mind in turmoil.
Chapter 49
And then there was the water …
~ Awl
Time Realm
DARKNESS CAME, AND COLD.
They walked on in silence until a moon rose and set. Only then did they stop for a few hours, this time apart.
Morning brought with it a new vista. Green fields stretched before them as far as the eye could see.
They continued south, always south.
No longer did they give thought to what the change in direction would alter. Their journey had a purpose or it would not have pulled them off the mission path.
Midmorning they halted to eat, and drank from a nearby stream.
They went on.
By nightfall they were at the foot of a ridge, and stopped there to have a decent meal and real sleep. Words between them were minimal, but it was not tension; it was simple weariness.
The new day heralded a laborious climb to the top of the ridge. Like to the others, they had discovered transport was a dream only.
Breathing heavily, they stood at the ridge’s highest point. Behind them were green fields; before them was ocean. It was an unending vista of blue water.
Elianas swore. “Now what?”
“We find a way to cross the water.” Torrullin commenced the downhill climb.
Soon they were at the water’s edge. The sea was calm, almost unmoving. To the left, the coast vanished into infinity without sign of habitation, and to the right it was no different. No smudges lay on the horizon to beckon. It felt akin to an ending of everything. Here direction stymied the power of choice.
“How?” Elianas muttered.
“And where to?” Torrullin added.
Stumped, they sat on the cool sand to think.
After a time Elianas removed his boots, rolled his breeches to his knees and wandered in the surf, his face pensive. Torrullin watched him, unmoving. Every so often Elianas halted to stare over the ocean, before walking again.
Torrullin dragged his gaze away. He was in real trouble, he understood. There were twists and turns to his past locked behind that noble profile, and he could not get to it without admitting a dark truth to himself. What that dark truth was, however, escaped him.
An hour dragged by, and then Elianas kneeled beside him.
“Call her.”
Torrullin forced himself to meet that enigmatic gaze. “Why?”
“I have been through every option and this is one that cannot do harm. Call her; maybe she responds and maybe something changes here.”
“Does she know you?” Torrullin’s eyes narrowed.
Elianas frowned. “Of course not. I am like Neolone; I waited for you to know me. No one else has a clue.”
Torrullin nodded, inwardly relieved. “Fine, I will call her.”
Elianas licked his lips. “Why do you sound reluctant?”
“Gods, why do you think? I do not know what to say to her, how to react and, with you here, I do not know how to feel.”
Elianas laughed. “Tied in knots? Relax, Torrullin. To her I shall be a friend and to you a brother, and that leaves you free to be yourself. Call her and follow your instincts.”
Torrullin faced the water, preferring action to even thinking about instincts. Employing voice and thought, he called. “Lowen!”
Nothing happened.
“Lowen!”
Nothing happened.
“Gods, woman, some help, please!” Torrullin shouted. “Anything! Send a bloody huge wave … something …”
A huge wave rose up from nowhere and Elianas and Torrullin fell to the beach, fingers scrabbling in loose grit to hold on. The wave swept over them, crashed up on the ridge and then receded, pulling the two men off the sand into the ocean’s currents.
Surfacing with a splutter, Elianas shouted at the head bobbing next to him. “Bloody stupid man!”
Torrullin laughed. He smacked the sea with gleeful hands.
“I do not see what you are happy about.”
“Watch, then. Lowen! A boat would help!”
Lo! A boat appeared on the ocean.
They clambered in, both laughing. Elianas took one look and said, “You should have qualified we need oars.”
“I should have specified a sailing vessel.”
“Well, we are drifting - feels south.”
Torrullin was thoughtful after a moment. “How has she this kind of power?”
“Perhaps it is not Lowen.” Elianas drew in a breath and released. “It may not be Lowen’s call we now follow.”
Torrullin watched the receding shore. A shiver of foreboding overcame him.
“Someone took her, and that someone could be luring you nearer,” Elianas suggested, looking seaward.
“I am no longer certain she was taken,” Torrullin muttered. “She was the catalyst to your release as she was for me to recognise change. Maybe it was curiosity on her part and maybe she does not understand the reasons, but she is the factor that led us here deliberately. She was not taken, she was placed here.”
“Which still implies an outside influence.”
“Maybe,” Torrullin murmured.
A stiff breeze brought shivers, but they were soon dry and the moving air was welcome in the heat. The boat rocked gently and definitely drifted with purpose. They merely had to sit it out. How long was another matter.
Torrullin gestured at Elianas’ bare feet. “You left without your boots.”
The dark man grinned. “It was a hurried departure.”
“Why are we doing this?”
“The short answer?”
“Give me the complicated one,” Torrullin sighed.
“We are here for different reasons,” Elianas said in an even tone. “We say it is to right a wrong, for the echoes to spread out, for your heirs to find peace in a wholesome universe, but it is mere excuse. We would like to be charitable and altruistic, the benefactors of time, and it is indeed a noble goal and, of course, Grinwallin is a threat, one we hope to contain. Still, it is excuse.
“Grinwallin unleashed means change, catastrophic change, and yet change will always have merit. Grinwallin unleashed will bring on a new era, difference to the long future ahead, but would it be bad? Sentience is good at survival, evolution and adaptability; life would go on. Such change could herald a new order of togetherness, as righting an ancient wrong would.”
“Gods,” Torrullin muttered.
“Exactly. Let us step aside from the great goals here and speak of the truth of each individual. We are the reason we do this; us, our souls, hearts, minds and the rest of it. Sentience is selfish, and no one in this realm right now has ever risen above selfishness.”
“True.”
Elianas smiled. “I would possibly exclude Dechend. The Senlu Elder is a good man and has no dark secrets requiring unlocking or atonement.”
“Agreed. Then why has he come?”
“For love of his Emperor. His is the unselfish act and yet it may turn around on him here. The Teighlar he will discover may not be the man he presently reveres.”
“Poor Dechend.”
“He is strong; he will cope. Now Teighlar is awash with contrariness, much like you. A facet of enchanters, true, but he also carries guilt. I am aware, via the Throne, of his second chance, of Grinwallin’s renewal, and I agree Teighlar is a great ruler, and what he
did in the past was not done in the spirit of evil, but he has not forgiven himself.”
“Understandable.”
“Yes, but you move on, Torrullin. You grab at a future; Teighlar is in stasis.”
“It isn’t his doing. Grinwallin holds him prisoner.”
“Choice remains his,” Elianas murmured. “He could leave.”
“Grinwallin will rebel. How can he cause more death and live with more guilt? That is not choice.”
“And thus he is in stasis, and it sours him. The only reality he had to hold to was the might of Grinwallin, the genius of the Luvan royals, the sacrifice made to raise a wondrous city, the singing of the stones. It made him and his people unique; it made him benevolent to intruders to Luvanor - his was a position of superior knowledge. The might of Grinwallin remains, but it is not his might, and the city is not his, is it? In effect, he has come to realise he is the gaoler, the keeper, the janitor, and the slave and prisoner.”
“He comes to recapture his heritage.”
“It puts him in opposition to you. Grinwallin is yours, not his.”
Torrullin frowned. “Rixile …”
“You left Rixile there, Torrullin, do you not understand yet? You did it. To jog your memory and, failing that, to return your awareness of the city and what it hides. The dragon symbol was placed by your hand in that cavern, to point the way, and it was done when Grinwallin was in your imagination.”
Elianas drew in a hefty breath. “I tell no lie, I swear. The void was visited many times and we often discussed how to protect it. You and I, brother, on the brink.”
A flash seared into Torrullin’s mind. “We once came close to jumping in.”
“You remember.” Elianas’ voice shook.
“But I had a vision of a new time,” Torrullin whispered, “and chose to accept it. I had to forcibly restrain you. You believed you would lose me.”
“I did for a long time.”
Torrullin’s gaze was stark. “How could I reincarnate six times and not see this?”
Elianas’ gaze was sad. “You went in ignorant and emerged too fast. No time to gain insight.”
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 50