She did not look at Elianas.
“I knew you would regard it as either a chance at redemption, a lesser redress, or you would release evil anew. Once you knew of your past, even potentially, you needed to address it. Don’t we know the dangers in frayed ends too well, you and I? I entered the portal knowing you would come, because the call I sent out was the one you left as a marker. The same marker Elianas heard and used to call to you. He, after all, is intrinsic to all of it. His role was only made clear once I was already in.” She shrugged. “How does one explain him before the fact?”
How true. “It pains me that you know so much, but none of this explains why the void must be set free.”
“Nemisin may build the mountain city and he may even create the Throne. You could succeed in getting him mad enough to go for Orb. Using us outworlders could work; I will grant you all of that. He has probably already started a hunt, whatever the timing he put to you. It may be enough to restore most of the future as we know it, but it is also the biggest and most expensive risk you will ever take. There is no guarantee. No guarantee.
“And we will need to stay far too long to make it come to pass, and that could change everything again. You cannot pull Neolone out of a hat to ensure symbiosis and without symbiosis the Valla line fails. You could betray Kalgaia again to put the fear of every demon into Nemisin, but this time you will not arise whole from it. Elianas will desert you. It pains me to say this, but you need him.”
She paused there, and then added, “The accident of realm to reality, however, granted you one massive loophole.”
“The void,” Elianas said.
Torrullin looked at him.
“The void swallows the known,” Elianas murmured, “and spits out the unknown, and right now this changed, lacklustre future is what it knows.”
Lowen nodded. “If you set it free, it will take this and spit out the future we want.”
“That is a mighty risk also!” Teighlar cried out. “What if it spits out something alien? We cannot act on what is pure conjecture.”
“It will not return us something alien and it is not conjecture. You know of my expertise in realms,” Lowen said. “The two futures are linked. Separate them but an instant and one will fall and the other remain. No evil, Torrullin, just the known. You can live with that.”
“No redemption.”
“Elianas is your redemption.”
He stared at her.
“And the void will no longer be a threat,” she added. “Grinwallin will be at peace.”
“Until the next cycle.”
She smiled. “Only if you go forgetting again.”
Elianas stared at her. “You are good.”
“I am not an Ancient, but a true immortal can see the curve, not just sense it.”
“I know.”
“Yes, you do,” Lowen said.
“Damn good,” Elianas muttered.
“A nice little triangle for the future,” Lowen murmured.
Torrullin glared at both of them, and rose. “The void is temperamental. I do not like using it.” He paced away.
“First sensible thing I have heard since we entered this shithole,” Teighlar said.
“We have to,” Elianas said. “Lowen said it; it will take too long now to do it from this point in time and there is no guarantee a fire under Nemisin’s butt will even work.”
“We hate voids,” Torrullin said.
“So?”
“Gods, Elianas, the only way to activate a fucking void is for someone to go in. Create change with presence …” His voice lost strength on the last two words. “Ah, I see now.”
“At bloody last,” the dark man muttered under his breath, and only Lowen heard him.
“’The Curve creates Three anew’,” Quilla quoted, enlightened. “Not the three Vallas, is it?”
Declan cleared his throat. “’The Vacuum of Time overflowed’ is the void.”
Quilla took it up. “’Kingdom Thrice will arise.’ Kingdom refers to the future, not a man-made, greedy grabbing of territory. And you, Torrullin, are both the force of myth and reality and the creator, therefore the link. The Four who had to solve this simply refers to the connections we formed to get to this point.”
“Excuse me?” Tianoman asked.
“They read the prophecy wrong,” Tristan understood. “Torrullin, Elianas and Lowen must enter the void to release it.”
Sabian groaned.
Torrullin glanced at him. “Your immortality was returned to you when you crossed the void. Whatever happens from this point on, you are free of obligation to the Vallas and it is your choice whether you desire a place in Valleur hierarchy. You are free, Sabian. No more hounding.”
“But I did nothing.” He meant to deserve it and it showed in his tone and expression.
“You are still Agnimus in part and Agnimus knew to dump us into an alternate past. By some crazy means, you have set us all free.”
Elianas laughed. “So that’s how it happened.” He sounded relieved.
“Are we suddenly happy with this crap?” Teighlar shouted.
“Did you not say you prefer the future as you know it? Yes, you did, which released the need for redress, which loosed a non-past, which allows us use of the void, which, my friend, sets you free. Grinwallin will go on no matter how many journeys you make. A major choice with real result.” Torrullin pointed at Lowen then. “The marker and the one who saw the greater picture. And Sabian, all of you. Do you understand what has happened?”
“You only realise what you have when you lose it,” Rose said. “Only then do you appreciate the little joys, the nuances of life, and you begin to understand everything that went before, they are the shaping hands of who you are.” She smiled. “I feel good. I understand my past and I want the future I should expect.”
“I wish I had your insight when I was your age,” Torrullin sighed. “Good for you, Rose. You will be fine.”
“Don’t get all soppy,” Teroux muttered, but he smiled. He grinned at Rose and then looked away. Perhaps, in that moment, he understood deeper feelings developed for the pretty farspeaker.
Tristan went the other way, a greater realist than his cousin. “What happens in the void?”
Lowen shrugged.
Elianas shook his head.
Torrullin laughed. “An abyss is a void is a hole. Who the hell knows?”
“Why does it not worry you?” Tristan demanded.
“It does, but we are three true immortals. What is there to fear? A few bruises? A bit of soul-searching. We have already done much of the latter on this journey.”
“But you could land up in a place a million years from now. That is the issue,” Tianoman said.
“And it may also be as if we never left,” Lowen said. “That is the challenge. It sets us free.”
Declan was on his feet. “We leave Nemisin as is?”
“Yes,” she said.
“We return to the void. How?”
“We are in the portal,” Torrullin murmured. “We walk out and we transport to Grinwallin. Be warned, it will not be what we know, not until the void is activated.”
“I want to go into the void,” Tristan stated.
Teroux and Tianoman stared at him in horror.
“No,” Torrullin denied.
“Yes. I want to see what lies below.”
“By god, you do not.” Elianas was aghast. “Tristan, I like you, and I am telling you, you do not want to know.”
“But it’s all right for you?”
“I have been there; I know what to expect.”
“So help me.”
“There is no time and the void is something else every time. What lies below …” Elianas swore and forced himself to silence.
“… is never the same,” Torrullin finished. “You are not going.”
Tristan was adamant. “I will simply jump in.”
“And I’ll be jumping with him,” Caballa murmured. “If you want us to have a chance
, Tristan, I am going with. Do you deny that?”
He shook his head.
Torrullin shared his gaze between them and threw his hands in the air. “Anyone else?”
Quilla cleared his throat.
“Damn it, Quilla!” Torrullin shouted.
“I will hold Tristan and Caballa’s hands on my way down, so I do not float down slower,” Quilla murmured.
Elianas shook his head and then could not help himself - he laughed. The image was too funny to overlook.
Torrullin glared at him.
Elianas quirked a brow. “It’s funny, and I admit I would feel easier with three more. We double chance at success.”
“We stood at the brink before, alone; we do not need them.”
“We did not jump. We need them.”
“And what about not wanting to know about what lies below?” Torrullin growled.
Elianas shrugged. “I am mercurial.”
Teighlar snorted and then laughed. “Damn right you are!”
Declan was decisive. “Let us get out of here. I will feel a whole lot easier away from Nemisin’s influence - the man gives me shivers. He is far too blasé.” He began by switching lights off. “Reminds me of the Enchanter of old in a really bad mood.”
Quilla laughed. “Now we see where he gets it.”
Torrullin looked at Lowen, who smiled challenge.
Elianas grimaced, seeing clearly challenge had a lot more to do with personality than the situation, and waved over the fire. It blazed once, and then died. Right now the safest option was action and Torrullin needed to be prodded before he came up with a tweak they could not live with.
“You are in a hurry,” Torrullin said.
“Different choice; I am comfortable with that.” Elianas headed for the door.
As the others followed, Sabian asked, “What will Nemisin think?”
“He does not know this place; he will assume I absconded again.” Torrullin lifted a shoulder, clearly saying he did not much care either.
“By morning he will not remember outworlders ever stood on his deck,” Lowen said.
“Oh?” Teighlar said.
Lowen grinned. “I slipped something into his drink.”
Tianoman laughed.
Torrullin glared at her. “And what if we had decided to follow the path of coercion right here? You removed our choices.”
“It was never a choice, Torrullin. Elianas will agree.”
The dark man glanced over his shoulder. “Elianas is very relieved, yes.”
Torrullin swore under his breath.
They left, closing the door and switching the final lights off.
Darkness returned on a time no one would see again.
OUT ON THE GREAT plain Torrullin found the corresponding veil swiftly. They had no time to lose now, for Nemisin could come down on them in an instant. He pulled it wide, chivvied everyone through, and dropped it decisively.
They were still on Akhavar, of course, but it was a dry, sterile world, as it was before Saska and Lily began the cycle of renewal.
“Hell, it got bad here,” Teroux whispered.
They transported out.
Chapter 57
Profess a willingness to change … and discover it is not as easy as belief engenders.
~ Book of Sages
Grinwallin
THE CITY WAS A ruin. There were no Senlu. The plateau was a rock-strewn weed patch.
Teighlar blanched and the ice of fear flowed through his veins. “Just get to the void.” More than ever he desired the status quo.
The inner city was impassable. The arches had crumbled; the way in was blocked.
“Strike me with a feather,” Declan murmured. “Time does this?”
“When messed with,” Sabian said. He was as pale as Teighlar. “We are now genuinely on the brink of everything.” He stared at his hand. “If I start fading, know it is too late to change anything.”
“Shut up, will you? You are scaring Rose,” Teroux snarled.
“He is scaring me,” Elianas muttered.
“We still have a window. Stop it. Do you know the eastern exit?” Torrullin asked of the Senlu Emperor, who could only stare at him. “Teighlar! The ocean outlet.”
“You are scared, too,” Elianas sighed. “How enlightening.”
Torrullin glared at him and then prodded the Senlu again. “You need blaze the path, Emperor.”
A blink. “Yes, yes, of course. Follow my signature.” He was gone and they tracked him immediately.
Everyone felt the weight, the heavy burden that was Time.
The feeling of helplessness would never quite leave them.
NO ONE VISITED THE far eastern shore of Tunin.
It was a wild, windswept place where only the rare seabird found home. The great mountains of Grinwallin marched into a slate sea, and waves pounded the rock with thunderous accompaniment. It was the kind of place people died merely by being present.
On a tiny sliver of land a foot above the sucking and smacking ocean Teighlar waited. He pointed at a dark cleft visible amid an ancient rock fall. “The river exits north of here, but there is a land path to it. Fortunately, it is low tide.”
“Meaning?” Declan demanded. Gods, he hated this kind of depressing place. His wings hated it, too.
“Covers at high tide.”
“Fantastic,” Sabian muttered.
“How long?” Torrullin wanted to know.
“Less than two hours.”
“That is enough.” Torrullin transported, but stayed in place. He frowned. “Why not?” he asked of Lowen. “We got here via transport.”
“Maybe because the way is blocked. You’re the sorcerer.”
It did not make sense, and then, with absolute clarity, it did. The void required will, not the ease of magic. He swung to the others. “Not everyone needs go; you can wait in the city.”
“We are accompanying you,” Maple stated. “The city gives me the shudders.”
“Me, too - do not want to see it,” Teighlar muttered.
“We need get inside the rock,” Lowen said. “The void will pull if asked, and you two will have to ask. And once the proper future is restored, Teighlar and the others can transport away.”
“I am the sorcerer, remember?” Torrullin snapped.
“Well, debating who goes isn’t going to make our window slow down.”
Elianas was already climbing.
The others followed.
Within minutes they were beat. It was not that high off the beach, but piles of jagged rock blocked the upward path.
“We fly,” Declan said.
He took to the sky with Lowen, deposited her at the cleft and then headed back for Caballa. By the time he got there, Quilla was half-lifting, half-throwing Elianas up the slope, and Torrullin had achieved magical buoyancy. Teighlar was too tense to succeed at that, and thus Torrullin threw him upward in a similar fashion.
Eventually everyone was up.
Apprehension possessed tangible presence. They had wasted the suddenly precious commodity that was time.
The cleft was a narrow aperture in the fold of the mountain, the entrance uneven, but smoothed over by ages of water passing over it.
“Window?” Elianas asked of Torrullin.
“Only barely,” he said for Elianas’ ears alone.
They entered and it was dark. Torrullin passed a globe to Sabian, and listened in the flickering light. The mountain rumbled and groaned like a sleeping giant.
“Elianas?” Torrullin held his hand out. Elianas took it, their fingers entwining. “We are beyond choices now.”
To the others it seemed the two men were frozen, doing nothing, but they were hard at work communicating with the void, asking it to summon them to the edge, to make up the time they needed.
At first there were the sounds of the mountain, a groan that was eerie, and then there was a great emptiness, the position of the void. It had heard. Would it now acquiesce to a demand?
&nbs
p; Thereafter there was hissing only the two men heard, causing them to glance at each other with eyes wider than usual, and a low moan that sounded almost human was heard by all.
Skin shivered and erupted in bumps of unease.
Quilla whispered, “I suggest we hold onto each other.” He hooked himself in to Torrullin.
Just in time, for in the next moment movement was a blur of strata as the void pulled them closer in the most direct route. The sounds of fear and astonishment fell into the deeper silence of manipulation. They were pulled through rock, water and then more rock, to be released on the ledge where they first crossed.
All were wet and cold. Shuddering. Silent.
Nothing had ever hurt so much.
“Fuck me,” Teighlar muttered. “I do not want to do that again. I feel the need to check my pulse.”
Rose drew in great breaths.
“Sabian, check if the Dragon symbol is there,” Torrullin commanded. Sabian bobbed away with the light. “Lowen, have you seen anything of this moment?”
“I think even seers are blinded by a void.”
“Agreed,” Caballa said.
Sabian returned. “The symbol is there, but something has been at it with a chisel. It has been defaced.”
“As long as it is there,” Torrullin said. “Realm and reality are still connected, but we have not much time.”
“Why this window?” Teroux asked. “You’re saying time is somehow sentient.”
“I believe it is the last remaining time from crossing ages. The final connection, as Torrullin says,” Quilla murmured. “And Time is ruler; of course it is sentient.”
“It does not matter now.” Torrullin frowned. “After we go down, stay another hour. Despite what Lowen said about getting out, I believe it safer to remain, and the delay should allow sufficient time to oust the current situation.”
“You’re not sure?” Rose blurted.
“Nothing is certain,” and he suddenly grinned. Exactly the way he liked it.
Elianas gave a laugh, understanding that.
Then Torrullin was serious. “The journey was a mighty risk, and this is the last instalment. Now is the time to trust, however.” Most nodded, and he reached out and gripped Teighlar in an embrace. “See you soon, my friend.”
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 58