“I’ll ask him.”
“He won’t tell you.”
“Then Elianas will.”
“He probably doesn’t know. If he did, he wouldn’t push so hard …” Caballa stiffened. “Or he would push harder. Aaru, I think they taunt each other deliberately, both fully aware. You are right, Lowen, it is a silent language.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There is a line, that is all I am saying.”
“You Valleur and your secrets,” Lowen muttered. She licked her lips and dried another plate and did a bad job. It nearly slipped from her grasp when she set it down.
“He wouldn’t tell you, Lowen, in case Elianas doesn’t know, and Elianas will keep quiet, in case Torrullin doesn’t.”
Lowen had to be content with that.
TORRULLIN SAT IN the shade of an old tree, straddling a felled trunk placed there for that purpose. At the foot of a gentle decline overgrown with moss, the tranquil pond reflected a cloudy sky. He sharpened his sword, more often than not halting to stare into the water.
Cassy found him there. She perched nearby, crossing one leg over the other, and did not speak.
Stone against blade, once, twice. “Are you all right?”
She replied in a roundabout manner.
“Strong women surround you, Torrullin, and I find it enlightening. Take Caballa, born in another universe, lost her family to the Darak Or Margus, a new life on Valaris, a famous seer. She left your orbit years ago because of some terrible thing you did - she will not say - and now she is back. She supports you. And then there is Lowen, born into a life of crime, a human child come to Valaris, meets you, and discovers she is a seer also and the two of you have a future. She goes through a cycle of rebirth to become a true immortal and then finds herself loving a married man. Still she supports you, though you treated her badly.
“And Saska, your wife. A Sylmer who undergoes the Immortality Ritual, loses her tail, becomes Guardian, falls in love with you, becomes Lady of Life. You cheat on her three times and yet Caballa says she loves you still. There have been other strong women, I hear, with equally astonishing tales. I count among those the noblewoman at my father’s court, the one who bore you a son and lived to regret it. Amazing.”
Stone against blade, harshly. “Your point?”
“Elianas commands the same kind of loyalty in me. Despite everything, I will be fine. I am in the company of strong women and their lives give me a strength I am willing to embrace.”
“I am happy to hear it.” He tested the blade with his thumb and then leaned back to replace it in its scabbard. The stone he tossed to the ground.
Cassy re-crossed her legs. “What I wonder, though, is why those women would go the distance for you? You are not the kind of man one could just be with. There is no security in a relationship with you.”
Torrullin stared into the water and wondered the same thing.
“Then again, your choice of partners is as difficult to fathom.”
“Have you come here to tell me something, Cassy, or ruminate over the complications of relationships?” He swung his leg back over the trunk, to face the water, not her.
She moved closer. “You obviously adore women, Torrullin, and Elianas admits he finds a woman’s body alluring. Why, then, this thing between you? You are not a man who would engage in a sexual escapade with another man, never mind a long-lived partnership, and Elianas never gave indication either when we grew up.” She leaned forward and touched his arm. “I am not here to insult you; I wish I could understand this.”
Silver-grey eyes bored into yellow-gold. “The attraction is a product of the power we possess, Cassy. That is the simple answer, and also closest to the truth.”
She did not break the contact. “Is he as powerful as you are?”
“Had Elianas been born first, our roles would today be reversed. He would be Elixir.”
Her eyes squeezed shut and when she opened them again she stared over the water. “I begin to understand. In fact, after Kalgaia I suspected this.” She was silent for a moment. “Did you know he nearly came undone before we were wed?”
“How?”
“He questioned his sexuality, obviously, and in the two weeks before the actual ceremony he slept with every woman who would open her legs. My father told me.”
“You said you were both virgins.”
“He doesn’t know that I know. I think he would not admit it even now. A small mistruth, an easing of conscience.”
“Noble of you.”
“I told you he commands the same loyalty in me.”
“What happened?”
“Well, my father told me to ignore it, that my husband-to-be merely ensured he could perform on his wedding night and, with hindsight, it was not far from the truth.”
Torrullin murmured, “Sounds pretty normal.”
“He propositioned a man in that time,” Cassy said.
Torrullin stilled.
“He definitely attempted to discover where his appetites lay. They got to the point where penetration was …”
“Enough!” Torrullin snapped.
“You do not understand. He did not do it, he could not, and he could not allow the man to touch him. He was disgusted with himself.” Cassy sighed. “Elianas killed him.”
Shock coursed through Torrullin.
“My father was summoned to the scene. A dead man, one beaten mercilessly, and Elianas cowering in the corner, the man’s blood on him, naked as the day he was born. My father swore everyone to secrecy, covered it up, and took his prospective son-in-law to task. He forced him to stand beside me at the ceremony. Elianas wanted to call it off.”
“Gods.” Torrullin lowered his head.
“Our wedding night was a disaster and Elianas broke and confessed all. He was an emotional wreck and he was also my childhood friend. We worked it out, slowly, and I thought I knew at last my husband could love only me. He admitted to having feelings for you and I thought, after what happened, he could put it behind him. When he asked to resume his training, I thought he would be fine; he would see it was the lure of magic that drew him. Well, I was right, wasn’t I, as you admitted, but I was also wrong. What he felt for you did not go away, it grew, and he started lying to me, while you pretended everything was normal.”
She paused and then added, “At table this morning he said I had no idea how crazy it drove him, but I did - was I not also hankering after someone unattainable? And, Torrullin, when you came to court and flaunted women around? Gods, even my father could see why.”
Torrullin stared unseeingly into the water. “A breeding ground for plots. Nemisin knew Elianas would choose my side, and fed him skewed information and thus I thought Elianas played me.”
“The Immortality Ritual changed it.”
“Not immediately,” Torrullin muttered. “I hurt him unnecessarily, forcing a betrayal.” He was silent for a time. “I am still not going to tell you. I appreciate your candour, and see how it leads to equal revelation from my side, but that is a matter between Elianas and me only. Always.”
“All right, Torrullin, but I hope you understand him more now.”
“It was a long time ago. Much else is added on, layers of experiences, and understanding will ever be elusive. All I understand is the man Elianas was then, not the one he is now.”
Cassy whispered, “Just do not abandon him.”
The look he bestowed on her was stark. “Abandon him? I murdered his people, Cassy, out of pure spite and anger. If I could do that over one incident, instead of walking away, how could I do so now, after ages and ages of layering? We are bound by history, love and hate, betrayal, evil, time, and the good we still hark towards.”
“Gods, Torrullin, is there no way to end this?”
“There is an end, but in it we would both be bereft. Heart’s desire would be a hollow nothing.”
She stared at him. “What end?”
He did not answer.
“What is ‘
heart’s desire’, Torrullin?”
Again he did not answer.
She knew it would go no further.
Cassy patted his hand, rose, and walked away.
Chapter 14
Eventually expectation becomes tangible, but only if you wait long enough and trust it to come to pass.
~ Awl
Still Pond Rock
“YOU DIDN’T UNSETTLE her, did you?”
Torrullin jerked around, caught unaware, and watched Elianas saunter closer. “She is strong.”
Then, a lightning flash, and Torrullin was drawn away, away, to another time.
Vannis was freed from entombment and he, Torrullin, was known as Rayne. He and Vannis went to Ardosia beyond the Rift to fight soltakin. Rayne searched the Palace, looking for a little girl who spoke to him in dreams, but she was gone, and Vannis commanded him to accept.
All gods, it felt like only yesterday.
A vision was given to Rayne. A dark man sitting on a tree trunk speaking from his heart.
Above all else, all else, he desired then to hear the words spoken to him in that vision. He chose to live for the day they would be said to him in the flesh.
Elianas sat, throwing a leg to either side of the trunk.
He peered quizzically at Torrullin. “Looks like Cassy unsettled you.”
Torrullin stared at him for a beat and managed a casual shrug. Yes, Cassy had unsettled him, but these moments and minutes, this very place and time, with this dark man - he had been waiting long.
Would Elianas now speak the words that altered his future back then as Rayne? The words that set his feet to a path he never stepped off?
“Why so sour, my brother?”
Elianas had not heard Cassy’s words. Elianas could never lie with a straight face. He had no idea of the wild thundering of his heart, his terrible expectation.
“Just thinking.”
“About?” Elianas prompted.
Torrullin sent him a look.
Elianas grinned. “Ah.”
“Bugger off. I am trying to think up a speech for the Two Fork Tree meeting.”
Elianas laughed. “Liar.” He moved closer until his knee was a breath away from Torrullin’s thigh. “I did not come here to tease you.”
Torrullin looked significantly down at that knee. “Really?”
Elianas grinned again. “Really.” He drew back, threw one leg forward and sat resting his forearms on his thighs. From that lowered position he stared at the water. “Purpose, my Lord Elixir.”
Torrullin frowned.
“Nemisin was purpose, Orb was purpose, the Void was purpose, and even the Chamber of Biers was purpose. Over the ages you had reincarnation, Taranis, Margus, your sons and the Taliesman as purpose, and I had Siric intervention, a lesser Darak Or by the name of Agustu, and protected the Sagorin from the Valleur. Big events, little ones, and each with a purpose. You and I, we do not do things for the hell of it. Going after the history and legends of others, not yet knowing about the network, had a sense of purpose. Saving Echolone from exploiters has purpose, but what, in all the gods’ names, is the purpose of that door? To read it? To go through? Yes … and then? What, I ask, is the purpose of going beyond it when we do not know what we will find?”
“Surely that is purpose? To find out?”
“Never have I known you to enter the unknown because the unknown is your purpose. The unknown is part of the journey, not the end itself.”
Torrullin took on an identical position, forearms on thighs. He calmed his inner self. Let it flow, allow him to speak naturally.
“After the Void I thought we were freed of the past, and it explained why the future was dark. All was new. Then Cassy’s sacred network denied it and we realised we cannot sever the past, not ever. It is, because we are.”
“Agreed.”
“Saska’s synopsis that the future is dark because it is new holds water, and that visions have ceased can be explained away by the fact that known futures no longer have bearing. We make it as we go.”
“Simplistic, but go on.”
“Elianas, I saw the future in the first cycle, when everything was still new, when I was making it as I went. If we follow the simplistic logic, my visions should only have commenced in the second cycle.”
Their heads were close together.
“I see that,” Elianas whispered.
“It is not the loss of visions that concerns me.”
“You want to know why they were taken from you specifically.”
“Yes.” Torrullin moved. “Look directly at me.”
They ended up straddling the trunk, legs crossing over each other’s. Again Torrullin’s heart thundered.
“You were in the Throne, but were you aware as Throne or man?”
“It was empathy, not awareness.”
Torrullin’s hands clamped on either side of Elianas’ head. “I want you to know what Elixir is, truly is. You know the man, not the ideal behind the Animated Spirit.”
Elianas managed to nod.
“Feel, Elianas, feel.”
A cicada moved in the intense heat … Elianas jerked, but Torrullin held him fast.
The heat was not Echolone’s, nor was the bug moving its whispering wings nearby. It was Pilan, far away world. A child romped upon a branch, fell screaming to earth, broke a leg, a mother called for help - Xen, far from Echolone. A father slapped his daughter, a wife sat darning a shroud, a boy drowned, a girl threw herself off the edge of a cliff, an old woman drank sleeping tablets, a worm struggled in a bird’s beak, on Ceta, Fortani, Lax, Beacon, anywhere but on Echolone.
The smell of pollution, the taste of grief, the feeling of sentient evil. The stench of death, the touch of suffering, so tangible nerves screamed protest. A woman raped, an old man knifed, a boy beaten …
… with a cry of dismay Elianas wrenched himself free and sat hunched over, his head resting on Torrullin’s chest.
“That is Elixir,” Torrullin said in a chanting tone. “Sees everything, hears everything, tastes, touches, smells and knows … knows. He gathered his Kaval to delegate these ills to, for he cannot cope with every evil. He would go insane and often came close.”
Elianas lifted his head.
“I cut it away, Elianas, little by little. Smell went first, because I was often sick, physically sick, just from smell. Taste and touch went next and I tried, really tried, to hold onto sight and sound. The Kaval had been so clever, however, in installing sensors and alarms and a network of spies, I could gradually remove myself from the need to find the ill requiring attention. I did not need to prioritise, for they could do it without me. I cannot save every child, every woman, every old one, and yet failing to do so is a personal affront. That failure to cope sent me into full retreat and I continue to lock it away.”
“By god,” Elianas whispered.
Torrullin pulled a face. “Yet it is with me, this manic power. Not only can I know everything at any time, but Elixir can mete out his justice also.”
“You have stayed your hand.”
“I have to or I would rid myself of the whole lot of them to stay this terrible talent.” He offered a tired smile. “Sometimes I sat in silence somewhere and chose my victims. The killer would inexplicably keel over, the wife-beater would lose the use of his limbs, the rapist would find himself castrated, and other, worse, punishments. Justice from afar. I did not return to Saska for fear of justice to her and I did not give Lowen due respect because she would have understood the dark places I fell into. Eventually I was so numb, nothing mattered. Elixir still is, all of it. So, why have my visions been removed? It should be impossible.”
“I cannot answer.”
“I cannot either. Perhaps an answer lays beyond that door - the opposite of Void - where nothing is. Perhaps the unknown is the journey this time. But this is my burden, Elianas, and I cannot force you to share it with me.”
Elianas’ eyes travelled over that fair face.
“Do you know
where the most sacred space of all is, Torrullin? It is not the place where the Throne was conceived or where it is now. It is not the spaces between worlds, it is not the realms of bliss or time, and it isn’t the romance of history, the legends of better times. It is not the house of a deity, the stones of a god or goddess, or the whispers of the stones of antiquity. It isn’t the Lifesource or any Valleur site, and it isn’t in the beauty of a new day. It is here.”
He placed his hand over his heart.
“And it is there.”
He placed his other hand over Torrullin’s wildly jerking heart.
“Deny this sanctum, my brother, and you deny life.” He leaned forward, his hands dropping slowly away. “I know what you want of me, and now you must know that what I want of you has just increased a thousand fold, and yet, despite that, I go where you go, because it is the only heart’s desire that really matters. Sacred space, my brother, or we are the walking dead.”
For once it was Torrullin who rested his head on Elianas’ shoulder and it was Elianas who imparted comfort, his gaze faraway.
And for Torrullin? Finally. Thank you, my brother, for finally saying the words I have longed to hear above all others.
Then, from that lowered position, because he had to ask this question, “Why would you want it?”
Elianas shivered. “Because I can take it.”
Torrullin straightened and shifted so he again sat facing forward.
Tick tock, second hand on the clock.
“Have I found your Achilles heel, Torrullin?”
The moment to reveal how deeply Elianas’ words had affected everything passed.
Torrullin chose the dance of the ages shared. A laugh, a glance. “I would fight you.”
Elianas smiled. “Do that.”
Torrullin gave him a hooded look. “You hide your power from me, the one you discovered during the ages apart.”
Elianas drew breath and released. “My weak point, perhaps. I would fight you.”
Torrullin gazed searchingly at him. “Do that.”
LOWEN SOUGHT TORRULLIN.
She wandered through the village and was impressed by the level of real community. They worked according to their talents, with the old sitting together darning, mending, and feeling useful, and the younger sharing everything else. Children had chores and schooling, and time to play. They were friendly and answered her questions freely, most with wide smiles.
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 75