“What if Elianas changes his mind?”
“Gods, Torrullin, will you let it alone?” Elianas snarled.
Torrullin shrugged. “We need to know the precise future, brother.”
“It does not include me as Vallorin, not ever.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Truth? The Throne is too limiting. I have greater ideals to hatch.”
Torrullin glanced at him. “’Limiting’?”
“Yes, indeed. It calls, didn’t you say? It knows. I do not need a fucking second eye watching me all the time.”
Torrullin ducked his head and then laughed. “It feels like a second eye, yes!”
“Will you leave it alone now?”
“Perhaps I will ask again after Tian steps down.”
“Then Lunik will be Vallorin. Enough.”
Torrullin’s eyes glittered. “We shall see.”
“He seeks to divert attention from the real issues,” Tristan murmured. “Do not rise to the bait, Elianas.”
Elianas sighed, sounding furious with himself.
Adagin shared his thoughtful gaze between the three and focused on Torrullin. “You have questions. Now is the time to ask them.”
“Ah, the issues,” Tristan said succinctly.
Torrullin stared at him, at Adagin and thereafter turned his head to Elianas. “To Tristan’s issues, then. It appears we are at a real crossroads, for this, now, is the moment we may change the concept time.”
Elianas blinked.
“To achieve change the song must be free.”
The dark man was expressionless, and Tristan held his breath. Adagin relaxed in his chair.
“You have the answer I seek, Elianas.”
“You are asking the wrong question,” Elianas murmured, his tone without inflection.
“Ask if he hears it,” Tristan said, and Elianas turned to look at him with narrowed eyes.
“Elianas, do you hear my song?” Torrullin said.
Dark hair swung back. “I do. You know I do. I told you so.”
“What do you hear?”
“Harmonies, notes - music, Torrullin.”
“How do you hear?”
Expressionless eyes. “When I touch.”
“Every time?”
Elianas inclined his head.
Torrullin leaned back lacing his hands behind his back. “You heard it before you came to Avaelyn; in fact, the music took you there. There was no touch then.” He closed his eyes to concentrate on Elianas’ breathing.
It was a brief instant only, but the dark man’s breath actually stopped. “Very clever.”
“How do I release the song?” Torrullin asked.
This time his breathing was even. “Wrong question.”
“What is the song?”
“Now that is the right question.”
The Dome
“WELL?” LOWEN DEMANDED.
“The palisade still stands,” Belun replied. “They got there in time.”
“Then what is taking so long? We could have a host at the Dragon ogive in the next minute, bloody hell.”
The Centuar’s fingers flew over keys in an attempt to aid Elianas’ repair to something more lasting. He did not want to remove the Dome at this point; it was needed in this space. “All is quiet … wait, movement on the common …” Belun stared at his monitor and leaned back. “Well, unexpected. The soldiers are leaving, retreating to the citadel.”
“That has no logic,” Lowen muttered.
“Nuances,” Sabian said. “Someone told that fool Bannerman one cannot hear nuances if soldiers crowd the place.”
“Tymall,” Teroux muttered.
“That would be my thought also.” Sabian ogled Teroux. “You are a fool also. What did that fuck promise you?”
Next to Teroux, Rose held her breath, but her husband did not answer. “Teroux, please, make me understand,” she prompted.
“My father.”
“I do not understand that,” she whispered.
Sabian did. “Tannil’s soul was shattered when the Throne repudiated him. The mighty Warlock of Digilan, who had to himself draw his pieces together after his suicide, promised to do so for Tannil. To reunite this father and this son.” He smacked at the marble slab. “How could you fall for that? Torrullin must have told you it cannot be done.”
“Tymall did it.”
“Yes, but Tymall did it for Tymall. If Tannil desires cohesion wherever and in whatever form he is now, Tannil must reach for it. No other can do so for another.” Sabian straightened. “Teroux, if another does so it results in abomination. Do you really want to do that to your father?”
“How can you be certain?” Teroux whispered. He gripped Rose’s hand when she laid hers on his.
“Because I was shattered by the mindlessness of others,” Sabian said. “I achieved oneness, yes, but I had to choose the path.”
Teroux groaned and lowered his head until his forehead rested on the clasp before him. Rose lifted her free hand and stroked his hair.
“You realise you are freed of your oath to Tymall,” Lowen said. Rose glared at her, but she ignored her. “Teroux, look at me.” When Teroux did, Lowen added, “Tymall has no hold on you.”
Teroux’s face stilled. “He has every hold on me.”
Lowen’s lips pulled thin and she strode closer to lean on her hands over the slab. “Next to you is your future, your love, your foundation. How dare you deny that?”
Rose stared at her and then looked at Teroux.
Her husband met her eyes. “Rose, can you ever forgive me?”
She smiled, before it slid away. Teroux was not asking forgiveness for his stupidity with the energy weapons; he asked for something that lay ahead.
“Teroux?”
He rose, squeezing her hands. “I do love you and I hope we can fix this divide, but I cannot stay.” He dragged his hands free of their clasp. “Tymall retains his hold … and I need him to.”
“He lies to you,” Sabian said.
“I do not think so, not about my father.” Teroux straightened, tearing his gaze from Rose’s. He prayed she would understand; he prayed she would forgive him one day. He prayed she would survive.
“What has he done?” Sabian asked, eyes narrowing.
“He has summoned the slivers of my father and already there is result.”
“Impossible.” Quilla flitted around the slab to stand before Teroux. “A soul is not tangible, Teroux. To become tangible, to fill a vessel, it must desire to form. No one can summon slivers.”
Caballa joined him. “I see souls, you know that. I saw Tannil’s leave. Too much was broken. What you expect will not be the result, Teroux. Tymall is using you.”
“You were not there, none of you were. I saw the crucible, I saw him do the magic and I saw a hand form in the mists. My father takes on form. Perhaps you are right, perhaps no one can summon slivers, perhaps a soul must choose to do so, but Tymall has gifted a space to gather in and perhaps that is what my father requires. I do not care what you say. I cannot stay. I must be there when it is done.”
Teroux sent Rose a look, one that begged for understanding, and strode towards the ogive.
“Do not let him leave,” Sabian said.
Tristan shook his. “Let him go. Perhaps he needs complete disillusionment before he will see the truth.”
The ogive chimed.
Palisade
ELIANAS’ HANDS DESCENDED to lie open-fingered on the table, and Torrullin opened his eyes.
“The real question is whether you will answer,” Torrullin stated.
“How can I refuse to answer?”
“I have asked before.”
“You have not. You have skirted, you have alluded, but never have you actually asked, for you were afraid of the answer.”
“I am still afraid.”
Elianas nodded. “I know.”
“Elianas, what is the song?”
The dark man drew breath and released. He ros
e to stand behind Torrullin. He placed his hands flat against Torrullin’s cheeks and pulled his head back to rest against his stomach. A pulse beat in those cheeks; pulse thundered inside Elianas.
“This,” Elianas murmured, closed his eyes and pressed down.
It sounded like a flute on the wind … at first. A harp joined the far-off melody. A violin. Clarinet. Harpsichord, trumpet, cello, cymbals. Wind, waves, sighs, bells, hoof beats, rustling leaves, murmuring voices. Of man and beast and nature and the spaces between worlds. It was harmony that could never be penned as notes upon a music sheet. Wings, drums, eruptions … and flute, harp, violin … loops of intertwined sound. Music.
The otherworldly harmony rose and fell in patterns and waves without order and yet that very randomness gifted it great beauty.
Elianas took his hands away. And stepped back a pace. He was pale, his hands shaking, his gaze in another place and time.
Torrullin was frozen. Throughout the awakening his eyes were open, and now the only movement came from lids closing over a silvery sheen.
Time stood still.
Tristan did not dare say a word to break the impasse, but his heart thundered as if he, too, had heard the music of time itself, although he had not. Torrullin and Elianas’ reaction were sufficient to build upon.
Adagin smiled sadly and did not speak. Pale eyes studied first one man and then the other. He waited.
Torrullin moved to rise, and started shaking as if in fever. A light sheen of sweat erupted upon his brow and he pressed his hands hard upon the table and forced himself upright. He stood with head bowed, breathing unsteadily.
His voice was hoarse when he spoke. “Music transcends all.”
Not a word in response. Elianas inhaled deeply.
“It binds all time and space. It is greater than all. It is the greatest gift. We, all of us, everywhere, dance to the unheard song.”
“You most of all,” Elianas whispered.
Torrullin straightened to turn. “I am merely the instrument. You are the composer.”
Elianas breathed deeply again and threaded his hands through his hair. As his arms dropped, he said, “I did not know until the moment before.”
Torrullin nodded. “I believe you.”
A twisted smile. “Music cannot lie.”
“What does it truly mean, Elianas?”
“I do not know anymore. It is how you are Lorinin, though.”
“The ferryman can explain, although only in a manner that remains unsatisfying. Words are limited in this,” Adagin said.
Torrullin continued looking at Elianas. “Do we want it explained?”
Elianas moved. A sigh, a nod, and he paced back to his seat and sat. He stared at Adagin.
Torrullin turned on his heels to face the table again and glanced at Tristan. “What did you hear?”
“Nothing.” Tristan frowned briefly, as if dissatisfied with his answer. “More precisely, I heard nothing with my ears, and yet felt there was more present.”
A nod, and Torrullin sat. A moment more, and Elianas shifted his chair. Warm shoulder pressed to warm shoulder and together they gazed on Adagin, the boatman between the realms of life and death.
A man of time.
Shadow Wing Fort
Crucible
A HEXAGONAL OVAL of light.
Yes, indeed, a hexagonal oval.
He pulled with hands made strong with breath and fought against the currents that sought to waylay him. Every increment gained reinforced his awareness of self.
Somewhere music played, the kind permitting this new dance.
When he attained the oval of light, he would be at the place that allowed him egress.
The portal between dreamscape and realm.
Closer now … ever closer.
Palisade
THE OLD MAN LAID claim to his staff, gripping it.
He squeezed hard, his knuckles white on the ancient wood, and then opened his fingers and leaned closer to blow on the staff. It transformed into a horn, a unicorn’s horn. This he handled with care, placing the cone in the centre of the table.
“Time,” he began, “is the horn of a legend. It is, because it is whispered about, and by that I mean the legend and time. I am able to assume the form of a creature of purity and maintain it through the ages because someone somewhere believes I exist and others hope I do. Thus thought keeps me alive. Time functions in much the same manner. Time is legend, and as long as someone whispers about it, it remains a constant and accompanies sentience along the path.”
He placed a finger on the tip of the cone. A sustained musical note sounded in the small space, of great purity, a note of nothing and everything.
“Music forms part of that, but music as a description is far too small a word and concept to explain the reality of sound and emotion in harmony. It must, however, suffice. Music is, because someone hears or needs to hear, always. In fact, it binds the legend of time because it is beyond all measurements. A single note is sufficient to bind.”
He whispered quietly and the horn was once more a staff of ancient and gnarled wood.
“It is also about perception. There was no horn on the table and yet you believed it was there and therefore saw it. Time cannot be seen and yet it is. Music cannot be seen and yet it is. And if music is unheard it is still playing loud and harmoniously.”
“You suggest we bind time,” Torrullin murmured.
The sweat of earlier had now evaporated and he was more in control. His fingers twitched on the table.
Adagin nodded. “Yes, but it is about perception, is it not? Others may never understand how two souls in tandem can bind a legend. What others see or do not see, feel or do not feel is of no consequence, however, and they do not need understanding. You do not require anything of them. What matters is that you understand.”
“How?”
Adagin leaned closer to place his elbows on the table. “How many times have you said you see yourself through Elianas’ eyes? And how many times have you felt you see through his, Elianas? It is not about measuring yourselves through each other and it is not about validation of self. Your souls move in tandem because you have managed by wish and will to overcome the boundaries of a legend. You overcame the barriers inherent in time … for, yes, there are always barriers. We shall speak of that later. Right now your understanding lies in truth and acknowledgement.”
“Which truth?” Elianas whispered.
“All truth, Alhazen. Every acknowledgement, Elixir.”
“How does it allow the music freedom?” Torrullin’s fingers curled into fists.
A sad smile from the ferryman. “You erect barriers, Torrullin. Please don’t.”
Elianas placed a hand on one of those fists. “Listen.”
Torrullin’s fingers relaxed. He understood something intrinsic. “Without Elianas there is no freedom.”
“That is the first acknowledgement, yes.”
“Who is the true Eternal Companion, Adagin?” Torrullin murmured.
The old man’s smile was open and unaffected. “The first truth. Both of you.”
Elianas sighed. “And what of attraction, Adagin Ferryman? It seems to me it curtails noble purpose.”
He did not look at Torrullin, but he increased the pressure against the man’s shoulder. He lifted his hand from Torrullin’s on the table.
“Touch is safe, Elianas. Until now touch was the means used to hear his song. While you did not comprehend the greater meaning, you sensed its importance and, naturally, the beauty of the harmonies entranced. How can it not? That music does not cease unless you choose thus. There is no law sacred or profane that denies attraction of any kind. The multiverse was built upon the laws of attraction and applies to an atom and every heart. The judgment of others is immaterial. And there is no line.”
Adagin lifted a hand when Elianas opened his mouth.
“There is no line. Not a Goddess of Souls, which, by the way, is an invention of sorcerers and not a reality you
needed hark to. It was a device engendered in the fear of someone possessing too much power. Further, no blood of kin now and then constitutes a line. If you choose to draw such between you, it is simply choice, not reality.”
He smiled. “A very long time ago, almost but not quite beyond memory now, I loved someone absolutely. Ixion and I were together in every way. He was my Eternal Companion as I was his. Has that prevented our noble purpose, my friends? Ixion was there when he was meant to be there for you, as I am now here at this moment. Our noble purpose was to share our knowledge with the tandem souls of this time.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes.
Tristan cleared his throat. “Eternal implies, well, forever. What happened?”
The old man wheezed a laugh. “The young can be so clever.” He opened his eyes to smile at Tristan. “The memory of attraction might be fading, young man, but Ixion is still with me.” He thumped his chest. “And when I move on at last I shall join him in eternity. An Eternal Companion is truly forever.” He flicked pale eyes back to Elianas. “How do you play an instrument without touch, Elianas Danae?”
Elianas’ fingers curled into fists, and this time Torrullin placed a hand on one, saying, “Listen.” There was amusement in his tone.
Those fingers tightened even more. “Torrullin, how?”
Adagin gave an answer. “You judge yourself, Elianas, more harshly than any other. Torrullin erected barriers of forgetfulness, but you created almost impregnable walls using the memory of prejudice and punishment. You have shied from touch believing you were shying from the Lorinin in him, that wonderful ability to discover what is hidden, but it is fear you deny. Fear does not make a man a coward, friend, but it can debilitate if you allow it to rule your actions.”
“Some truths should not be revealed,” Elianas muttered. He forced his hand to relax.
Torrullin stared down at them and then removed his, swearing under his breath.
“And what is hidden?” Adagin asked. “Wings of Mist? He knows about them already. That you loved him before you met? You told him thus and did not apologise for it and there was no need to. You hear his song?” He spread his hands eloquently. “You are the composer? That is now revealed. You fear judgement? It is the nature of man and few can hide from that fear. Alhazen matches Elixir? A truth discovered within the Path of Shades. You desire the same woman he does? Have you not discussed it already? That time is a circle that must be broken? The wheel is open. Tarlinn is Vallorin?” He lifted an amused eyebrow. “That you created the Dome? Self-evident, after all, for two men of power; he created the Throne and you matched his achievement …”
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 174