“Who are these ‘they’ folk keep referring to?” Torrullin laughed, although unsteadily.
Petin was amused. “And who are the ‘folk’ others speak of?”
Elianas chuckled. “And who are the ‘others’?”
Everyone laughed.
Allith rose. “I think we need dessert now. I know my mouth craves something tastier at present.”
More general laughter.
“Come, up, up, stretch your legs, make space in your stomachs. We’ll talk further in a while.” Allith bent to help her father to stand, a sign nothing would be discussed until he returned.
“A bright lady,” Elianas murmured.
IN THE INTERLUDE Carlin commandeered the deck of a cottage, the space large enough to lay out the various tracings.
He and Muller worked together to overlap and synchronise until a replica of the door lay represented blue on white, flat on the deck. Both men did not bother with dessert, so involved did they become.
By the time the rest were finished, Carlin stood hand over mouth, staring at the glyphs.
Muller looked down also, but with less understanding than the Cèlaver.
Soon most of the crowd were in the vicinity. Cassy, Lowen and Caballa leaned elbows on the deck from their lower level, glancing over the tracings with curiosity.
Torrullin and Elianas, with Anethor and Allith, stood behind Carlin and Muller.
Carlin shifted to the archaeologist. “Can you read it?”
“I wish I could,” Muller said, with regret in his tone.
“But do you know who could have recorded this?”
Muller shook his head and joined Petin on a lower step.
“Carlin?” Torrullin prompted.
“I can read it, yes,” the Cèlaver murmured, bending over. “Need more light.”
Allith gestured and more light came.
“Looks like Avior,” Caballa said.
Carlin was surprised. “It is. Can you read it?”
“No, but that stylised arrow always set Avior apart from Aldari.”
Torrullin lifted a brow at her.
“Twenty-five years, Torrullin. Read a bit.”
“My Lord, did you recognise it?” Carlin asked.
Torrullin leaned closer. “Old Avior, before the numeric system. Those straight symbols are their tally markings. Can I read it? No.”
Carlin glanced at Elianas, who said, “Not me.”
“What is this Avior?” Anethor demanded. “A world?”
“A race and a world,” Torrullin said. “Both are now gone.”
“The world, too?” Allith frowned.
Elianas murmured, “A Siric mistake, a long time ago when Siric fought Siric.”
“Hell,” Allith muttered.
“How long ago?” the young shaman asked from ground level.
“Ages, friend, literally,” Elianas replied. “A number would not be relevant.”
“How is such an old thing on Echolone?” Allith frowned.
“Echolone, as world, is old enough,” Caballa said. “As to how and, more pertinently, why, I don’t know.”
Torrullin, meanwhile, watched Carlin. “Well?”
“Old Avior, not easy,” Carlin muttered. “I need more time.”
“Gods, give us one line. In the curve.”
The tracings showed a decided curve at the top of the door and a broad solid outline surrounded a line of glyphs before the body of the text adorned the greater part of the door. It was a single leaf, and a solid rectangle to the left gave evidence to a depression, such as a hand would employ to push a door wide or pull it shut.
Carlin looked over his shoulder. “Have you paper and ink?”
Muller man delved into his jacket and brought forth a pen and notebook. Carlin accepted them and stood with pen poised over book, mouth moving in silent mutters. He scribbled, looked up, scribbled, scratched out …
Anethor found a chair and sat, his daughter standing with him. Everyone else was patient, although Cassy noted Elianas moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Torrullin, not quite touching.
Both men were tense.
Carlin’s robe swirled with movement. “It is a warning. It says, He who enters cannot leave by the same token.” He shrugged, pen poised.
Torrullin closed his eyes briefly. “We need more.”
“I require a few days, my Lord, and some definitive texts.”
“Titania has texts,” Caballa murmured.
Everyone looked to Torrullin, who stared thoughtfully at the tracings
“Lowen, will you go to Titania?”
She inclined her head.
“Allith, Anethor, might I ask for space to be made in the gloom for Carlin to work during sunlight hours?” Torrullin asked next.
Anethor said, “My home is his.”
“Thank you. Carlin, get some sleep …”
“Sleep? I can sleep later,” the Cèlaver muttered.
He bent to gather the tracings, and Torrullin stopped him with a hand on his arm. He pointed at a tiny symbol of a dragon.
“What does that mean?”
“That one is new to me. The texts should have it.”
“I think I know, but prove it to me first,” Torrullin murmured.
Carlin stared at him and nodded, and started collecting paper. Muller came to help him.
Nothing more would happen that night and thus the crowd dispersed. Lowen, with a word to Caballa, vanished for Titania. Allith helped her father to his home set back from the main part of the village, and Carlin and Muller followed, arms filled. Caballa and Cassy went to help the village women with clean up, while Petin pondered on a log near the embers of the big fire.
Elianas inclined his head significantly, and he and Torrullin wandered off, until darkness swallowed them.
“A ONE-WAY ONLY,” Elianas murmured.
“A dragon and beside it a sword with an eye. You and me.”
“I saw.”
In the dark Torrullin stopped and Elianas faced him. Torrullin’s hand settled on his cheek. “Elianas, you have four days to settle your dilemma with your wife. I believe it safer for all if only you and I pass beyond that door.”
Elianas’ fingers brushed over the hand on his cheek before he moved away. “What of you and Lowen?”
A wry laugh. “The same, my brother. I must make choices also.”
In silence they headed back to Allith’s house.
Chapter 13
Choice. Really?
~ Unknown
Echolone
Still Pond Rock
CARLIN, MULLER AND Petin virtually disappeared.
The three men with tomes on reluctant loan from Titania bent over the tracings and the world in its universe held no meaning for them.
ELIANAS, NEVER ONE to back from a challenge, commenced his assault on Cassy over breakfast.
“Cassy,” he began, and his tone caused her to look up from her plate. “We have scores to settle.”
She chewed. “Here?”
“Here.”
She swallowed and pushed her plate aside. “This is Allith’s home. Do you want to bring confrontation into another’s retreat?”
“She is away to orchestrate the meeting, and confrontation already exists.” Elianas buttered a piece of toast and took a bite.
“You want to do this so soon? Why?”
“Because this may be the only time we have.”
She paled. “What do you mean?”
“The future is unclear; we dare not wait for a better time or place.”
“Gods, you sound like the old Elianas.”
He shrugged. “He exists.”
“I am not doing this with you before these people.”
Lowen made to rise …
“Sit!” Elianas snapped.
She sat.
Cassy leaned forward. “You need witnesses?”
“No, my wife. You need them.”
Torrullin studiously poured coffee, not looking at anyone.
/> “You put him up to this,” Cassy hissed in his direction.
“I do not need him to point the way for me!” Elianas shouted.
“But you need him.”
Elianas stared at her. “Yes, I need him.”
Caballa sighed inaudibly.
“More than you needed me,” Cassy accused. “It was always him!”
Elianas smiled. “We get to it, at last. Time for honesty, finally.”
“Answer me.”
“I never needed you, Cassy, surely you know that? We were betrothed as kids, a political union …”
“We were friends as kids, Elianas. Was it so unbelievable to expect love could grow from it?”
“I did not say I didn’t love you. I loved the ruffian you were when we were kids, the girl who would listen to my woes and the friend you became as we grew older. In truth, I thought real adult feelings would develop also.”
“For pity’s sake, do not patronise me. We were both virgins when we got married and you had to find that bloody man …”
“You have misread everything,” Elianas interrupted.
Cassy whispered, “Did I misread you were physically attracted to the Lord Sorcerer? Did I misread, when you made love to me, it was him you imagined?”
Lowen glanced at Torrullin and found he stared at the table. She doubted he saw anything.
“He does not need to be here!” Cassy yelled.
“If you are going to fucking accuse him, then he has to be here!” Elianas shouted back.
Torrullin’s hand smacked down on the table. “Talk like sane people.”
Caballa stood. “I am leaving.”
Cassy blinked. “Please stay. Elianas is right. I need witnesses.”
“Why?” Caballa frowned.
Cassy sighed. “Because I could not talk to him in private, and that may yet be so.”
“Would he hurt you?” Lowen demanded.
Torrullin snarled, “Give him some credit, for fuck’s sake!”
Cassy stared at him and then answered Lowen. “No, he would be silent as graves.”
Elianas raised his brows.
“Fine, I would stop talking,” Cassy muttered, “and he would answer only questions I asked, and I never asked the important ones.”
“Sit, Caballa,” Lowen murmured.
Caballa sat reluctantly.
Cassy drew breath. “I do not want to make the same mistakes.”
“Neither do I,” Elianas said.
“Yet, if I am to move forward, I need to hear the truth from you. It remains a festering thorn and I want rid of it.”
“Whatever the truth is?”
“Jeez,” Lowen muttered.
Caballa looked at her, and sighed.
Elianas pushed his chair back and stood behind it, staring at his wife.
“Whatever it is,” Cassy whispered. Her fingers were white and tense on the table, unmoving.
Elianas leaned on the back of the chair. “We were wed because it was deemed a political union, and yet we knew each other, were friends and always knew the day would come when we would be man and wife. It was not so bad, for we expected to reach that point and then move forward together. We could have learned to love each other and had all things been equal, we probably would have. A happy, settled life.
“However, events around us were not normal, were they? Nemisin learned I had a talent for magic, over and above the Valleur inherence, and sent me to study with the Lord Sorcerer; upon my instigation, true, but I sought to learn while Nemisin sought something else. What was political suddenly became a way for Nemisin to tie a potential future sorcerer to him. He made it clear, Cassy, very clear. That came later, of course, once I had proven my talent was still growing, and he also made it clear I was to watch Torrullin and report on him.”
Cassy gaped.
“Only Nemisin and I knew that, and Lord Sorcerer himself.” Elianas straightened and paced away. “I told him, because I loved him.”
Cassy closed her eyes.
“Yes, my wife. I loved him more than duty to my Vallorin, loyalty to my father-in-law or friendship with you, a friendship that could have blossomed into more. I did not tell Nemisin about Torrullin; instead I told Torrullin about Nemisin. It is akin to treason. There, that is the truth.”
“Not all of it,” Cassy whispered.
Elianas scrubbed at his face and swung back into his chair. He leaned forward to engage with her.
“Was I physically attracted to him? Yes. Did I imagine you were him? No, you were a woman and there is no mistaking the difference. Have I slept with Torrullin? No, not then, not now, not ever. Do I prefer men to women? No, I find a woman’s body more alluring. Did I hate sleeping with you? No, I enjoyed it, but I felt guilty, because I knew I deceived you.” He paused. “Is there anything else you want to know?”
“Do you still love him?”
“Yes.”
“Are you physically attracted to him?”
“Yes.”
“Why, damn it? You say you never … will never - WHY?”
Elianas shrugged. “There is no answer.”
“You won’t answer!”
“I would tell you if I knew how.”
She stared at him. “Does he feel the same?”
“He is right there. Ask him.”
Cassy glanced at Torrullin and then looked away. “I cannot.”
“I would not answer,” Torrullin murmured.
She glared at him. “Did you know how he felt about you?”
“Yes, but whether you choose to believe it or not, I never reacted to it.”
Cassy glanced back at her husband. “It must have driven you insane.”
“You have no idea,” Elianas murmured.
“There is no marriage left, if ever there was one.”
“Cassy, I am afraid to answer.”
She sighed. “I wouldn’t kill myself, Elianas. I am free of my father, my daughters are long beyond my reach and I think it will be a great relief to be free of you also. I merely needed to know the truth.”
Elianas swallowed. “There is no marriage.”
Cassy gave a rueful smile. “Be very afraid of what you wish for. Then it is done. The Elders who would have us speak separation are no longer, thus, if you agree, and I agree, we walk away.”
“Do you agree?”
“Answer me this. Why did you betray him?”
Elianas reared back.
“He does not have to answer,” Torrullin snapped.
Cassy glared at him again. “I understand why you betrayed him, but if he wants free of this marriage, then he will answer.”
Torrullin rose to lean on the table. “Cassy, it is none of your fucking business what happened there, or why. I suggest you walk away without this burden.”
“Gods, you have never forgiven him.”
Torrullin slapped the table again. “Leave it alone!”
Elianas was at his side. “Look at me, Torrullin.” Torrullin straightened. “I shall answer.”
The three women glanced at each other.
“So answer,” Torrullin said.
Elianas said, “I betrayed you because I needed to see you react. You certainly reacted, and I helped you so you would know I shall never apologise for it.”
“How do I then forgive you?”
Elianas did not look away. “Do you not understand yet? I do not want your forgiveness, not ever.” He walked around to Cassy. “But I would ask for yours.”
Torrullin was expressionless as Cassy asked, “Why ask it of me, but not of him, when you love him?”
Elianas replied, “Because I hate him too. He understands.”
Torrullin sat. He said nothing, showed nothing.
“Hate him?” Cassy whispered.
Elianas swallowed. “Leave it, please.”
“Fine, for I do not want to know. I do forgive you and, Elianas, here is a truth for you. Our daughter was happy with his son. They loved each other. You did well in standing up for them.
So did you, Torrullin.”
Elianas smiled.
After a moment Torrullin did as well. “Thank you.”
Cassy nodded and stood. “Before these witnesses I declare our marriage severed.”
Elianas’ voice shook as he said, “I declare the same.”
Cassy sighed. “You will never find peace, Elianas.”
“I hope you do.”
She leaned in and kissed his cheek. “I will be fine. I need to be alone.” She was swiftly gone.
Elianas looked over at Torrullin. “Heart’s Desire?”
Torrullin shook his head. “Not yet.”
He, too, left the cottage.
“THEY HAVE THIS silent language, Caballa,” Lowen complained as the two women cleared away the breakfast leavings. “How does one compete with that?”
“You don’t.”
“Caballa, I know you and Saska are friends …”
“That marriage is over also,” Caballa said. “You are next, Lowen.”
Lowen frowned.
“I say that not because Saska is my friend and you usurped her …”
“I never usurped her.”
Caballa paused. “Maybe not, at that. Still, it isn’t as Saska’s friend I say he will sever his connection with you. I don’t want to hurt you, really.”
“Fine. So you think he will - will he?”
Caballa turned from the basin. “I hadn’t realised how close he and Elianas were, but now I have seen it? He will, he must.”
Lowen took a plate and started drying. “I saw them on Ceta, Caballa. They came close to stepping over some invisible line.”
Caballa glanced at her.
“Elianas was furious and he challenged Torrullin to a duel. They fought hard, like they did hate each other, and then they kissed.”
Caballa twitched. “Kissed?”
“Gods, it was beautiful, and I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Who broke it?”
“Torrullin.”
“Figures. he would know, wouldn’t he?”
“Know what?”
“I said too much.”
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 74