Torrullin held a hand aloft. “Let me get my bearings, will you?”
He clambered to his feet and doubled over. Gods, it hurt. Without thinking, he touched the first wound he could find, and it healed. Only then did recollection flood in. He swore under his breath and swiftly healed the rest, tearing bandages off at the same time.
He stumbled to Elianas. The man was slowly sitting up, face drawn. He stared at Torrullin for a beat and then attended to his injuries.
Torrullin moved to Tristan, healing him, and then saw to Tymall. As he completed that task, the two stirred into awareness. He straightened to find Sabian nearby. The man was clearly bemused. His gaze lifted to their surroundings.
It was a large cavern. There were many levels, stairs hewn into the rock and a small pool was amber liquid. A fire burned merrily in a depression.
“Where is this?”
Sabian stepped closer. Upon examination he was exhausted, his face drawn. “This is nowhere, courtesy of Nemisin.”
Torrullin nodded. “He escaped.”
“He is slippery.”
“Indeed. How long?”
“A couple of weeks.”
Tymall was on his feet. “How did we get here?” He stared at Elianas as he said it.
Torrullin muttered. “We are here, that is what matters.”
“Where is here?” Tristan asked. He approached Sabian. “Are you all right?”
“All the better for seeing you lot. It is a slow walk along this path and I am starving. As to where we are? Nowhere, literally. One step at a time on a path that leads eventually to home. How did you get here?”
Tristan sighed. “We got entangled in the war between Ariann and Reaume, and Nemisin must have tweaked Cassy’s sacred network to dump us onto a plane.”
Sabian moved his attention to Torrullin. “Only at one point do all existences overlap.”
“And we used it.”
Sabian nodded. His gaze shifted to Elianas. “It took something this time.”
Elianas rose. “No, it returned something lost.”
“How sweet,” Tymall sneered. “You are lucky I was unconscious.”
Elianas ignored him. He snapped his fingers and conjured a flask of coffee and a tray of sandwiches, catching them as they materialised. He set it down. “Eat, Sabian.”
The man needed no second invitation, and Tristan joined him a moment later. Tymall, muttering, wandered to a set of stairs to look up.
Elianas moved into shadows and Torrullin followed.
“No platitudes, Torrullin.”
“No.”
“How long before we get out?”
“Depends on Sabian’s speed, I believe. He needs healing. It might go faster then.”
Elianas folded his arms.
“Something lost, Elianas?”
“You.”
“I am not sure how to take that.”
“Do not over-think it now. Let us get out of here.” A sigh erupted from the man in shadows. “Gods, Torrullin, give me some time, will you? It was … intense.”
“Yes, it was.” Torrullin moved to leave, and was held back. He took the hand on his arm and pressed it against Elianas’ chest, moving in. “I do not see how we are ever going to reach the kind of consensus we can live with. Always I am in two places with you.”
“Likewise.”
“Perhaps it is time to stop.”
“Stop what, exactly?”
“Attempting to cross.”
“That does not remove temptation.”
“Maybe it is the only future we can hope for.”
Elianas moved closer. “It isn’t real, Torrullin. It will not last. We need more.”
“I haven’t an answer,” Torrullin sighed.
“One day soon, perhaps.”
Somewhere Tymall growled and somewhere Sabian told him to shut up.
AROUND MORE COFFEE and many sandwiches, Sabian gave an account of Nemisin’s slipperiness.
“After the Chamber of Biers he was a wreck, gibbering in angry craziness. He nearly drove me crazy. We were on a plane far removed from home, an empty place. There were people, but not near enough to interfere with his learning curve. When he calmed sufficiently, I started teaching him a few salient truths. I told him the true tale of the Lord Sorcerer and his Eternal Companion …”
“What?” Tymall hissed. He was ignored.
“I laid it out for him. The history of the Valleur into assimilation, the history into stagnation, the one into war and confrontation, the lot, and how you and Elianas featured in each. It made him really mad, I can tell you. He hates that the Throne was conceived by you, that Kalgaia is your greatest triumph and your greatest tragedy, that you bested Neolone, you are regarded as the father of the Valleur in this era, that you had the audacity to ascend the Throne, and much more, before he started on you, Elianas. He hates that you were disloyal, his wife thought highly of you, Kalgaia was built for you and destroyed for you. He hates most that you loved Torrullin more than you loved him.”
“What?” Tymall said again. Again he was ignored.
“I told him almost everything, I believe, to rattle him more and more. I told him he made the darklings and thus made me, explaining naturally in vivid detail who and what I was - Agnimus, draithen, who hated his maker more than even the Warlock of Digilan.”
“You are nothing, Agnimus!”
“I was nothing, Tymall, but now I am made whole. I claim ancient status because of what Nemisin did and that places me closer to your father than to you, and I claim the heritage of love Margus, my brother, left for me before it all went wrong for him. Path of Shades? Decidedly, and more so than you. The love you have for your father and son redeems you slightly, but you have not been remade as I am. You do not sit in the same august company.”
“You are an amalgam.”
“So? There are no cracks in my facade.”
“And him, Agnimus, Sabian, whatever you call yourself, what about him?”
Sabian’s blue eyes sparked. “I assume you refer to Elianas.”
“What do you know about him?”
“More than you.”
“What sets him into your august company?”
Sabian glanced at Elianas, but the man was expressionless.
“You know, Tymall, if I was Elianas, I would be flattered by all the attention he gets wherever he goes. When he enters a space, worlds move. When he passes a stranger on a path, that stranger is refreshed simply by proximity. Women look at him and wonder, and men do exactly the same. He is Danae, oldest blood in the universe, and he is Nemisin’s son-in-law, and he is Alhazen and Eternal Companion. No one is unmoved by him, not even you.”
Elianas stared at Sabian, but remained expressionless.
Tymall spluttered. “Like my father.”
“Yes, Warlock, like your father. Are they not perfect for each other?”
“Enough, Sabian,” Torrullin said.
“Let him talk,” Elianas murmured. “I like the bit about moving worlds.”
Tristan laughed, and Tymall swung to him. “How do you stomach it?” Tristan shrugged at him, and said nothing.
Torrullin frowned. “Get back to Nemisin.”
“A few weeks into his instruction Nemisin became sly. Let us interact with people, he said, which I denied him, but not because he could do harm. I wanted him to suffer. I swore never to kill someone again, and thus that was the form justice would take. Let us hike that hill, let us build a boat and sail downriver, let us enter town for a meal; the kind of everyday things to lull the senses, and the adventurous suggestions to turn focus aside. It worked after a time, for I hankered after a bit of normality in what could never again be reality, and my guard slipped.
“Nemisin did not take advantage, not at first, and then I caught him weaving an enchantment on a hilltop. The plane we were in took his power, or so I thought. Then he started instructing me. His magic is arcane, it cannot be subservient, ever, and besides, his demented daughter Cassiopin
left a legacy he could tap into wherever he was. A network that transcended every barrier simply because it was founded upon sacred geo sites. Of course my goose was cooked then, and he slipped from my grasp.”
“A blow to the head?” Elianas murmured.
“And tied to a tree. It took days to get out of it, but he left me alive, so I am not complaining too much. After, I searched for the outward path and here I am.”
“How long to home?” Torrullin asked.
“I do not know. I know there is a path and it must be walked step by step, but how long? A guess, at best.”
“A bridge can be built,” Elianas murmured. “If you know where the exit is.”
Sabian blinked. “I do.”
Elianas inclined his head. “Then it could be hours.”
Torrullin looked at him. “A bridge transcending realms, planes and perhaps even time?”
“Energy is sacred too, Torrullin.”
“Why are you in such a hurry?”
“Why are you not?”
Torrullin sucked at his teeth and chose not to answer.
“Tymall cannot come with,” Sabian said.
The Warlock bristled.
“Is that a personal remark?” Torrullin demanded.
Sabian shrugged. “He is Warlock, Torrullin. You dare not allow him back in.”
Tymall looked at his father.
“And what would you have me do? Abandon him here? Send him into an alternate realm? Find Digilan along the way? I do not care what anyone here thinks; I am not leaving my son behind.”
Elianas muttered, “I am building nothing until you decide what to do.”
“Fine. Then we walk step by step.”
Sabian poured more coffee and sat there sipping in silence.
“Stubborn. That describes you,” Elianas muttered. “Misguided, yes. Blinkered, definitely. And fucking stupid. Gods, you know what he is.”
“He is my son.”
“Yes, so fuck off,” Tymall sneered.
Elianas shifted closer to Torrullin, tangled a hand into his hair and jerked him closer. Tymall was on his feet an instant later, across the fire and had hurled himself at the man. He smashed into both of them, and his fist connected with Elianas’ nose. Elianas rolled, kicking Torrullin out of the way before shifting his weight to unbalance Tymall. He pinned him to the rock.
“You want the absolute truth, Tymall? I have seen what you are and what you have done. I have floated in Digilan and I have seen what it took to become Warlock. I know what you did to Margus. Do not sit in judgement when you have fucked more men than anyone here can begin to count. Do you want my arse, is that it? And dare not encroach on territory you believe your father’s? Let me tell you right now - it will never happen. You threaten to kill me, but I am warning you now to get out of my face, for I will not threaten, I will just do it. Your head will roll, Warlock.”
He pushed Tymall down and used the leverage to stand.
Tymall snarled and rolled up into a crouch, and sprang. He tore into Elianas, jerking him by the hair, tearing his tattered tunic off, and pushed him towards the rock face.
Torrullin yanked him back.
Sabian and Tristan sat as if frozen.
“Is he right, Ty? Your intention right now seems pretty clear.”
“Do not interfere, Torrullin,” Elianas snapped.
“You goaded him.”
Tymall pulled from his father’s grasp and closed in on Elianas again.
The dark man crooked a finger. “Come on, Ty, let us see what you are made of.” He laughed when Tymall shoved him against the rock and started tearing at his breeches.
Tymall punched him in the gut, holding him up with one hand when he doubled over. The other scrabbled frantically to undo the clasp that would permit him access, and then Elianas shoved him back and lifted a knee to his groin. Tymall sank to his knees.
“You cannot get it up any more, remember? Your years of sexual torture are over,” Elianas said into his ear.
“I can take it from you,” Tymall garbled.
“As Margus did yours? Spare me.”
Torrullin stepped in and hauled Elianas off and into the darkness at the back of the cave. There he threw the half-naked man away from him. “You proved his mind, for fuck’s sake. Now let it go. He cannot hurt you.”
“Wrong.”
“Elianas, for pity’s sake, stop it. I will curb him, I will muzzle him, but please stop this. You put me right in the middle.”
Elianas reached out and drew Torrullin in, leaning against the wall. “I am sick of standing aside. I am weary of accusations. It occurs to me to do what I am accused of.” He jerked Torrullin against him, held him there. “Naked under your hands, brother, and I do not care who sees or hears.”
His skin was smooth. Yes. Torrullin drew a breath. “Why not?”
The sound Elianas made then overrode everything. He was like liquid fire, sinuous, a silken thread wrapping around every nerve and sense, and this time Tristan ended it.
“I am the voice of reason, remember?” he said as he inserted his hands between them and almost lovingly parted them. “If ever this is to happen between you, it cannot be like this. Avaelyn calls you home, and it is at home where this act will follow, if it is so written. Do you hear me?”
Torrullin walked away.
Elianas stared after him. “Gods, the music is loud now. He reaches a point where it must soar … or fail. I cannot take much more of this. I cannot push and still retain objectivity.”
“Leave Tymall to him.”
Elianas’ gaze was troubled. “I cannot do that either. He will risk Valaris again in the hope Tymall can be redeemed. For him this appearance in a realm where Tymall cannot do harm is a gift he cannot now relinquish. He trusts it will last.”
“Then you must force him to choose.”
“Exactly. And he will never forgive me.”
“I will do it.”
Elianas straightened. “No. I can cope with his fury. I doubt you will survive it.”
“What will you do?”
A small laugh. “Build a bridge Tymall dare not walk on.”
“Energy?”
“No, more mundane than that.
Elianas clasped Tristan’s shoulder and moved on past.
Chapter 72
The pilings are undermined. Whoever built this structure intended failure.
~ Links, engineer
Nowhere
THEY STARTED WALKING an hour later and Elianas put his plan into action.
It began innocuously enough. He asked whether strata were the same in planes that were of a place, and Sabian replied in affirmative. It was how he recognised the path, after all.
They fell into a discussion, and even Tymall took part.
It lulled the senses.
Soon after they discussed Lethe, although no one said much about what happened there. It was more about it being a barrier realm, and then it moved on to myth and legend.
The path sped by underfoot.
Elianas, apparently curious, wondered aloud whether Digilan was technically part of Reaume, considering the overlaps Tymall mentioned. Tymall fell into the trap.
Tymall enjoyed showmanship and he particularly enjoyed sharing knowledge he believed he alone possessed.
“The Mor Feru tell of a diagonal axis spearing through time and space, much like a spike through a random collection of paper notes on a desk. They claim Digilan is the spike and it grounds in the biggest cull zone, which, I believe, is Reaume, where Valaris is, and on the way it pierces others, this Ariann and Lethe you speak of being part of that. The grounding must surely determine location.”
“You claim therefore Digilan is of Reaume first before any other.”
“Yes, Danae. You have a problem with that?”
“Just talking, Warlock. How else can one learn?”
“Experience is one way. Time. Word of mouth. Books. Dreams. Insight.”
“What of torture?”
Tymall glared at him. “That, too.”
“It sounds as if Digilan is one place, the kind that supersedes planes.”
Tymall shrugged. “That would suggest the Digilan I left from is the same Digilan I rule. It did not feel the same.”
“And here I thought Digilan might be unique.”
Tymall came to a halt. “It is.”
Elianas walked on as if unaware. On either side the rock was claustrophobic. “Uniqueness lies in a singular state.”
Silence.
Torrullin came to a halt also, his gaze swinging back and forth.
Apparently Elianas, up ahead, sensed he was moving away, and turned. Surprised, he asked, “What did I say?”
Tristan shivered and came to a stop, gesturing that Sabian do the same.
“Digilan is unique, Danae. It is the birthplace of truer evil. Black souls arrive and discover they know nothing of the darak path, not until Digilan teaches them. Digilan is one place.”
“And yet you left from an alternate.”
“My mind was elsewhere. It felt like it.”
“Your mind was on your penis, yes. Maybe that is why you make moon eyes at me.”
Tymall hissed and then drew back. His father had read him the riot act about reacting to every dig from the dark man.
“So, your thoughts being on your nether region, you left Digilan into a plane where you expected to find someone waiting. Neat. Nemisin tricked you, did he?”
Elianas paced back, but stopped before he was too close.
“I say Nemisin whispered in your ear where your father would be, what your father was ostensibly doing and who he was doing it with, because Nemisin, after all, did not need to travel a path through planes and realms to get back home. He needed to use one that straddles all of them - the spike that is Digilan. And how usable the Warlock son of Lord Sorcerer was, a bonus to really mess with his mind. Sabian was most succinct in relating history, wasn’t he? Tell the son how the father is sleeping with men now, when the son cannot get it up for all the riches in the universe. Did that stir you, Ty? And there you stand and your poor father is caught in the middle of his son and his lover.”
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 123