“And you realised you had feelings for him?”
“I realised how much I missed him. Apprentice, then master, the risks, the laughter, the brotherhood of magic. We were friends and brothers long before our kids eloped and caused scandal, although that event went a long way in explaining to others why we were close. That came later, however.”
“Nemisin sent him to you to spy a while after you parted at court.”
Torrullin was silent, remembering those intense moments in the storm. “Yes, and I tested him a last time.”
“You, um, slept with him to bind him to you?”
He stared unseeingly outward. “No, Lowen, but I gave enough so he would know I acknowledge his feelings.”
“How did you feel?”
A wry laugh. “I still do not know.”
“And a half-baked relationship goes on,” Lowen snapped. “How can you do this?”
“You do not understand. If we cross the line between us, brotherhood is ended. He knows this; I know this. Besides, I prefer the complications of a woman’s mind, yours among others. He knows this about me, too.” Shoulders lifted. “In his dreams he has had heart’s desire fulfilled; it is what keeps him sane.”
Lowen whispered, “Wish or will.”
“Indeed. In this new time, which one will be stronger?”
“For him?”
“No, for me.”
She stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“Elianas and I have not yet shared this time - will brotherhood survive new challenges or will it fail? Do I wish to keep this strangeness we have alive or do I will something else? The real question is, what is that something else?”
She pondered, but found the ways too complicated to grasp. “What about us?”
“Seeing as I am now without a wife?”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“I did.”
“Well?” she demanded.
“It depends on you.”
“How?”
He shrugged. “You will work it out.”
She glared. “Of course, this morning you’re so sated I can read no clues as to your feelings.”
Torrullin stared at her. “Saying farewell to someone you love sates nothing. It hurts.”
Lowen drew a shuddering breath. “I am sorry.”
He looked away. “I did not come here to explain relationships to you.”
“Why did you come? To tell me to vacate the villa?”
He laughed. “Maybe.”
“Gods, stubborn. What happens next?”
“We dance, Lowen, but not yet. You stew while I find out what the future entails, and then we meet again.”
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. Everywhere.”
“We all need time apart. Good, this is good …” and she locked onto silvery eyes. “But say what you will, you chose Elianas in the grotto; we all felt it. You had a chance to choose an ending somewhere along the way and you denied that for him.”
“You cannot blame me for your choice there.”
“I don’t, but I thought you would stand with me. I have seen how time played with you.”
He sighed. “There will be an end to all things, eventually. Then I may go, but not like this, never like this. Elianas will be there at the end, whether lovers, brothers or enemies. I chose him, as you say, because I already did so a long time ago.”
“You love him.”
“I do.”
She swore. “I cannot fathom you.”
“Good. I must go now.”
“To him?”
“For a time - to tell him I am abandoning him for a while.”
Lowen blinked. “What will he do? He has no place in this time.”
He touched her face. “It is not your concern.” He leaned forward and touched his lips to her forehead. “Till we meet.”
Torrullin was gone.
She stood on, until the cold forced her indoors.
Chapter 66
Brotherhood is not tangible, yet as real as a kiss or an embrace.
~ Unknown
Sanctuary
Mariner Island
HE CLIMBED DOWN TO the tiny beach at the foot of the cliffs.
It was a sliver; any boat or ship paddling on the lake could swamp it in the wash created. This small element of danger Elianas discovered to appease a restless spirit.
Snow had fallen again; he could hear the melt as it dripped down the cliffs, and it masked Torrullin’s approach. The first indication he had of company was a hand on his shoulder. He knew instantly whom it belonged to and thus did not move.
“The future is clouded.”
“A novel sensation.” Torrullin removed his hand.
“The past is adrift.”
“Finally.”
“We walk in tandem at last. How very new,” Elianas murmured.
“A different challenge, wouldn’t you say?”
“I find I do not so much care for this blindness.”
“We can grow accustomed to it, I am sure.”
“You gave everything away, didn’t you? Property, duties, wife.”
“Yes. Cutting loose.” Torrullin’s hand lifted to the dark hair. “Why are you so far away?”
“I am right here.” Elianas replied, turning. “You are moving away.”
“I aim to travel …”
“That is not what I meant, and bullshit. You hate travel without purpose.”
Torrullin smiled, his hand still on Elianas’ hair. “Then I am looking for something. I do not know what.”
Elianas gripped Torrullin’s wrist and brought it down. He tossed it back at the fair man. “Do not patronise me.”
Torrullin’s eyes narrowed. “Tristan, Teroux and Tian are settled in their futures or will be within days. Saska has released me, Teighlar is content, the Kaval will move on, Lowen will do as Lowen does, and I have made my peace - such as it is - with the past, all of them.”
“Then you came to say goodbye.” Elianas was angry.
“For a while.”
Anger gave way to speculation. “And?”
Fair hair swung over; Torrullin look into the cold, grey water. “I want you with me. I do not want to feel the sense of loss I did after that stupid situation with the baron.” His voice was hoarse as he continued, “I thought to take time to unravel this strange triangle, find out what really lies ahead, and suddenly I do not care to find out without you.”
Elianas took Torrullin’s hair from his face. “I can be quiet and invisible when you need me to be.”
“What am I doing to you? What have I done to you, that you can temper yourself according to my needs?” Grey eyes bored into dark.
“You do it for me - when self-control slips.”
Torrullin took a ragged breath and then pulled Elianas hard to him. “Then come, my brother, and let us face the future together.”
He felt Torrullin’s heart thump hard against his chest, breathed deep and pushed the man from him. “What do we need on this new journey?”
Torrullin stared at him. “Wish and will.”
Gods. His own heart bounced hard. “Wish and will it is, then. Let us be gone from here.”
“Where to first?”
“Somewhere where the sun shines. Neither of us can weather a storm right now.”
“Agreed,” Elianas murmured, and swiftly they were gone.
LATER THAT SAME AFTERNOON, having packed essentials, Lowen stopped at the cottage on her way to the Dome. She decided to reassume her position there, and wanted to check on Elianas first.
Torrullin was sure to be done already.
She found it abandoned, but in such a way she knew Elianas had not left with forethought. He simply left.
He went, she knew then, with Torrullin.
She sighed. Brothers, lovers or enemies?
How would they re-emerge?
EPILOGUE
EARLY, WHEN THE BIRDS had not yet started the dawn song, Nemisin was at the gates.
>
He stared up at the overhang and then lowered his gaze to the rough rock before him. It was the perfect entrance site to his city. Here would be the gates.
Did not Torrullin say, once conceived, they existed?
Before him, thus, were the gates to Akhavar, city in a mountain.
It would take time and effort and expend much of the wealth of the Valleur. He smiled. He could appropriate most of that wealth from Kalgaia. That city was already cursed; why not beggar it also? Would that not be a further statement of where the power of the Valleur truly lay? Not with the Lord Sorcerer, they would whisper after. No, not with the Lord Sorcerer.
Into the blueprint already lodged in his mind, he added something extra, something profound. He added a Chamber of Biers. It would not cause comment among the builders or subsequent inhabitants, for were not the Valleur respectful of the dead and their final resting places? They would assume he prepared for a lengthy future, and they would be right. They would only be partly right, of course, but that was his business, not theirs.
The Lord Sorcerer thought he escaped judgement and punishment. He thought he saved Elianas from the same, but he could not be more wrong. Time wound round and around - did the man think he was stupid? And in the fullness of time the Lord Sorcerer and his damned Eternal Companion would again walk this mountain enclave, thinking they were safe from the past.
That would set the stage.
He, Nemisin, would sleep restless until then.
It was not done.
He turned from the rock to view the great plains and the mountains in the distance. The plains teemed with life. Water was plentiful. That would change, too. Akhavar would become a sterile world, dead to time and memory.
He smiled. Torrullin did not suspect that someone dear to him, someone loved, perhaps a wife, would set it in motion. She would stand where he stood now, and she would see the results of her handiwork - she would see exactly what he saw now, the great plains teeming with life, and water plentiful. Then Torrullin would come, and bring with him Elianas.
Beware, Lord Sorcerer.
Time, the great leveller … and the greatest of all deceivers.
THE ECHOLONE MINE
Lore of Sanctum II
PROLOGUE
MAGUS VANDER SMACKED a new report before the Warlock, his little eyes shining with malevolence.
“Another,” he said.
Tymall ignored him and the written document, and eventually the spiteful creature took his leave. His ire over being ignored was evident in his mincing footsteps.
When all was silent once more, Tymall dragged the pages closer.
Minutes later his fist crashed onto his desk and rage blossomed upon his face.
Another indeed.
A new report about his father, the mighty Elixir, and the dark man from another realm known as Elianas.
Reading between the lines, it seemed the two of them were too close for his comfort. He, Tymall, would rather have his father lose himself with his hated stepmother, Saska, than this.
Leaning back in his seat, he grew ever more thoughtful. It would reverberate across realms, he understood, but perhaps it was time to break his word to his father and find a way to absent himself from Digilan.
A certain dark man, bearing the name Nemesis, required a lesson.
Elianas would discover the true meaning of an archenemy.
Part I
WISH AND WILL
Chapter 1
“Ten years of study (sorcery) has taught me this truth, Do not assume what you see is the only reality. Everything can be manipulated, even time … and particularly the perception of tangibles.”
~ From Le Matt Dalrish’s diary
Somewhere
THE AMBER-SKINNED man with his flowing dark hair and the golden-toned one with fair tresses attracted no attention on the beach.
They certainly were something to draw the eye in appreciation. Stripped down to a loincloth each, they wandered in the surf soaking up the sun. For them it had been cold too long, and sunshine was the gift of the present. They did not speak much, and often wandered far apart.
Fact was, there was no other on the beach to see or hear them, and that was how they preferred it.
There remained unoccupied worlds where paradise was a siren song, and this was one of those. Numbered perhaps XT 492 on parallel 365W 684S, it was a world removed from most, a number somewhere in a logbook - maybe.
The two men had been in paradise for ten days - the almighty ten of other surpassingly strange journeys - and ate off the land, slept under the stars and soaked up the heat during the day.
They said little, for words were not required; recharging minds suffered under the weight of words.
The time arrived, however, to move on. The time for words was again at hand. An interlude was just that - a period between other events - and time did not stand still, and people - others - did not wait forever.
ELIANAS HAD WANDERED far, lost to view and his thoughts, but when he returned with seaweed and coconuts in hand, he found Torrullin inserting long legs into black breeches.
He dropped his bounty, and Torrullin looked up.
“It is time to go,” Torrullin said.
“I see that. Did something set you off?”
An amused smile blossomed on the fair man’s tanned face. “No. I just think if we do not leave, sunshine will do for me what storms do for you.”
Elianas drew a breath. It was the first real admission in ages. Yet the hidden parts of him recognised it could be wishful thinking. Torrullin often spoke impulsively. He would not easily sunder brotherhood by taking a step closer to a truth unacknowledged.
He strolled to the fallen log where they discarded clothes ten days ago. That had been fraught with tension, until the rhythm of paradise soothed wounded feelings.
Now getting dressed was the stranger act. Elianas turned his back, removed his loincloth to shake the sand out, and reluctantly drew the confining breeches on. He did not bother arguing for staying; in his heart he knew also it was time to move on.
A moment later he virtually left his skin when Torrullin’s arm brushed against his back as he moved to retrieve his tunic. He glanced over his shoulder to see Torrullin, grinning, emerge from the garment. Irritated, he snatched up his own and dragged it over his head.
“Relax, Elianas. We cannot be self -conscious now.”
“Bugger off, will you?”
“It’s not as if I haven’t seen you naked …” Torrullin laughed when he landed on his back. “Oh, come on!”
“You are playing with me.”
“I am making light of an uncomfortable situation.” Torrullin found a perch on the log to put his boots on.
Elianas joined him to do the same, muttering, “Who the hell invented clothes? This is too constricting.” He pulled the neck of his tunic wide, craning his chin forward.
“It was made to cover men far too beautiful for their own good,” Torrullin murmured.
Elianas grinned, taking the compliment in his stride. “Not women?”
“We are by far the prettier species,” Torrullin laughed.
Elianas gave him a taunting once over. “I guess you could call yourself pretty, yes.”
He earned a cuff to the back of the head, and then Torrullin stood to buckle on his sword belt. As the scabbard bounced against his thigh, he said, “We must acquire you a blade.”
“My thoughts also. First a decent bath to wash the sand and sun from my hair.”
“And they say women are vain.”
“Yours needs the whole treatment,” Elianas grinned.
“Yltri’s hot springs? That way we remain removed from people.”
“Good. You lead, I follow.”
Broken coconut shells lay in a pile under the largest palm tree and Elianas’ bounty was discarded on the beach, but other than footprints, there was nothing to show they had been there.
With regret, they left.
Fortani
A
FTER A SWIM and hair scrubbing in the springs of Yltri, they headed to Fortani, where Torrullin knew a master blacksmith, a man with a flair for the perfect blade, who knew how to match sword and man together. They spent three hot hours in the forge as blade after blade was presented, examined, tested and discarded.
Finally successful, they headed towards the nearest lake, this time cold water, to dive the sweat away.
After, they sat on the bank redoing bootlaces for the third time that day.
“When have you last wielded a sword?” Torrullin asked.
“Literally ages,” Elianas replied.
He hefted the new blade and rose to take practice swings. Then he squared off towards Torrullin, jiggling his eyebrows.
Smirking, Torrullin withdrew Trezond and they commenced the ancient dance of swordsmen.
Metal clashed upon metal and grunts and gasps kept pace.
Torrullin eventually disarmed Elianas, standing heaving with his blade at the man’s neck.
“Not bad, my brother. A good workout.”
Elianas pushed the blade aside. “Now I need another swim.”
Boots and all they jumped in and employed magic after to dry themselves again.
STILL ON FORTANI, they discovered an out of the way inn and stopped there for a proper meal.
Four old men sat at a table in a far corner and thus they had space to talk. Over duck, vegetables and wine they discussed where to go next.
“I have been thinking,” Elianas began. “We have had time aplenty between us, and yet we always focused on the main events. We missed the by-play.”
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 63