Elianas’ eyes glittered. He headed out, following in Tymall’s frantic footsteps.
Torrullin, after a moment, set off after him.
Tristan looked at the Teighlar, and Teighlar looked at him. “I guess we follow,” Teighlar muttered.
“Right.” Tristan approached and took the man’s weight to support him.
Doggedly, they trailed after.
Chapter 59
Darkness, friend, often hides places even dust mites shy from. Be wary of the dark places even in memory.
~ Awl ~
Shadow Wing Fort
Passage
TORRULLIN DISCOVERED ELIANAS braced before a line of blood seeping from rock. A white hand lay discarded nearby. It possessed no logic, but it was not that important either.
Clearly, what he thought of as unimportant was not the same for Elianas. For the dark man drew his sword. Yellow light skittered along rock walls. He touched the tip to the blood and watched it trickle down the grooves in the metal.
“A sacrifice,” he said, staring at that redness. “Rock is of time and to speak and be heard it requires sacrifice.”
“That is not Luvan blood, Elianas. The sacrifice will gift nothing.”
“It is not the blood that has importance; it is the act.”
“Maybe. Do you hear it speak?”
A sigh. “No.”
“Then move on. Deal with tangibles.”
Dark hair swung. Dark eyes speared him. “Tangible. You would say that to me. It is the intangible that counts.”
“Not here.”
Elianas licked his lips and reached out to rest his free hand on a tense shoulder. He ran that hand down Torrullin’s arm, covering his nakedness with a tunic similar to the one he destroyed earlier. “Here nothing is tangible. Except you.”
“What changed you up there?”
“The memory of a past you were not part of. The fear of those times. And knowing when parting comes again, you will not share that future. I refuse to again be debilitated by fear.”
“What are you afraid of, Elianas?”
“Once you asked me that and I answered I was afraid of not putting you together again. And other answers.” Another pause. “Tymall used that question against me in the dungeons below. I told him snakes and spiders …”
“Therefore the bites when we found you.”
“Yes. I also told him I was afraid of nothing. And he gave me nothing, Torrullin. Yawning emptiness, gaping void, the end of everything. I nearly succumbed then. Nothing is a terrible state. Fear is like that. I was ever afraid of touch. Someone would hurt me, someone would use me. And they have, but never did they get far, because I was stronger. Today I fear the fear. It is time to end it.”
Torrullin stared at the oozing blood as he nodded his understanding.
“What are you afraid of, Torrullin?”
A smile. “You.”
“Because of what happened upstairs?” Elianas touched his brow.
“I do not care how many accruements you possess or what use you put them to and I do not care how you got them. Your power and strength cannot undo me.”
“But?”
“You can undo me, Elianas. You. Your presence, your genius, your …”
“… beauty?”
Ah. The heart of the problem. “Am I unattractive?”
A frown. “Of course not.”
“But how I look is of little consequence in this relationship, right?”
Another frown. And silence.
“Be honest, Elianas.”
Dark eyes closed and Elianas leaned a hand against the rock. The Sword dipped down; blood dripped from it to the floor.
“Your eyes get me first. Grey like a lake of mirrors, silver moonlight when you are delving other worlds and realms. I read the depth of your emotions in how light or dark they become. The first time I saw you I was entranced by your eyes. And then the colour of your hair. Sunlight, a halo of purity.” A pause, a mutter. “What do you want from me? Of course how you look is part of it. The planes on your face, the shape of your shoulders, how you move, how others react to you. I am not blind.”
“And neither am I.”
Elianas stared at him.
“Do I tell you beauty is not attractive to me? It is. You are. I am entranced by your mind, by your secrets, by the state of your soul at any given time - never the same, if you must know - but I also fucking enjoy looking at you, all right?”
A smile bloomed. “All right.”
“I am afraid to lose you, Elianas, you. If you lost beauty it would not change anything that lies between us.”
“Easy to say.”
“Maybe. Would you walk away were I to suffer irreversible scarring in a fire?”
Elianas straightened and slapped the Sword against his thigh. “Now you are pissing me off.”
“Would you?”
“No, I fucking would not. You know that.”
“And I trust that.” Torrullin lifted a hand to a scar on the dark man’s cheek. “By all gods, when will you trust me?”
A snarl erupted, and then Elianas trapped his hand under his upon his cheek. He stared into mesmerising silver eyes, and said, “I trust you.” He stepped closer, still holding that hand trapped. “You need believe it.”
“I do now.”
A sigh, a smile and Elianas stepped away. “Good. Let us finish this.”
“Together?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Crucible Cavern
TYMALL SKIDDED TO A halt beside Teroux’s bowed form.
“It worked?” he blurted, staring at the complete form in the crucible.
Teroux raised his head. “It worked. Now get him out.”
Tymall was no fool. The game of coercion had led to him making a promise to the weakling Valla at his feet and that promise had led to Warlock words before this strange tube of ethereal otherworldliness. He had not, however, expected much by way of result. Pieces summoned, yes, enough of a rebuild to keep Teroux in line, but not a successful cohesion.
A soul chose form. As he did after his suicide. As Teighlar did while awaiting Grinwallin’s second chance. As Quilla had waiting for the One in the Lifesource. As Vannis did for the return to reality. As Margus had after death at the Pillars of Fire. As Sabian had, a darkling and human amalgam which became a whole person.
Summoning was not choice. He had not expected this.
It meant the summoning had opened a portal for a cognitive soul. Someone used this entrance by choice.
Damn. Who?
“Have you spoken to him?” he demanded of Teroux.
“Yes. I think he hears. I know he speaks also, I see his lips move, but I do not hear.”
“Teroux, be clear now. Is it your father? You were five or six when he died; how much of his features remain in memory?”
“It is him.” Teroux clambered unsteadily to his feet, but there was nothing unsteady in his gaze. “Maybe mine is wishful thinking, yes, but you also knew my father. How many times did you not watch him? He is your brother’s child, your nephew. You surely would know with greater certainty.” Teroux prodded his chest. “If you do not believe me, why not look?”
That made sense.
Tymall approached the glass and knocked. A face materialised there to stare at him. He drew breath. Tannil’s face.
Tymall stared into those eyes, but could read nothing. Either the mind was empty or this man knew how to mask emotions, including those of recognition.
“Get him out,” Teroux said.
How? And where was the advantage to him? Elianas had taken from him his Warlock accruements; he needed something to begin the rebuild to power.
Perhaps it lay in the form of this Valla in vapour.
SABIAN HISSED AS TYMALL hastened in.
He gestured, and the three watching the Warlock found deep shadows, but after watching the play of thoughts upon the man’s face, Sabian no longer cared for subterfuge. He stepped from his patch
of darkness and strode forward.
“Tymall, it would be your greatest foolishness to release what is inside there. Man, I have no love for you, but I suggest you walk away.”
Tymall grey eyes were alight. “Sabian, how nice to see you again. You hid when the Dome left? One must commend your sense of duty. Where is Lowen? And … wait … Caballa? Seems you lost one along the way. I should walk away? Truly? Now why would the form of Tannil be a cause for concern?”
Teroux snapped, “Stay out of it, Sabian. That is my father.”
“It is not your father, Teroux. It is another using the form and gathered presence of Tannil to manipulate those of us who knew the real Tannil. He is dangerous.”
“Truly?” Tymall drawled.
Sabian glared at him. “Warlock, where are your accruements? How do you hope to use this to your advantage if you have not the power to pry that tube open?”
“What?” Teroux said. “You cannot open it? Open it!”
Caballa and Lowen joined them. Caballa laid a hand on Teroux’s arm, but he shook her off.
“Teroux,” she said, “please. You need to think more about this. You heard what Sabian said in the Dome.”
He did not look at her. “That is my father and I cannot leave him there.”
“Sweetheart, you will lose Rose if you do not make the right choices now.”
He did look at her then, eyes stark in a white face. “I have already lost Rose.”
She sensed great turmoil in him and understood there were undercurrents she was not aware of, and something had broken inside the young man. He would not now be swayed; he regarded the presence of his father as his final salvation. She focused her attention on Tymall.
“Ty, come, you are not a fool. Surely you understand how dangerous it is to allow an unknown into our realm.”
He blinked and met her gaze. “Beautiful Caballa, the voice of reason. Yes, I do understand, but my father and his companion sundered my plans and I now need risk danger if I am to walk from this victorious.” A shrug. “Maybe not victorious, but life would suit me right now. I thought to build a new empire using Beacon’s desperation, one of this realm, and hastened those plans forward after Digilan was destroyed. Perhaps haste made for less than perfect paths of manipulation, but even those are now in tatters after what happened upstairs.” He leaned forward. “Caballa, Elianas possesses the Warlock accruements and chooses to wield that goddamn Sword of Light as if it is a pretty bauble.”
She swallowed and glanced at Lowen.
“You mark how dangerous that is,” Tymall murmured. “And I am marked.” He slapped his chest. “For death. And thus, whoever steps forth from this vapour can only gift the impetus of change, perhaps something I can use to save my skin. I shall use it, mark that.”
Lowen burst out, “That thing in there will destroy all that is wholesome if he is unchained!”
“And I should care about that?” Tymall loosed a mocking smile.
Teroux said, “I do not care either. Set him free.”
Tymall grinned at the younger Valla. “Finally, some balls. Are you with me, Teroux?”
“I am.”
“Well, let us view this dispassionately. Accruements merely add to power already in place.” Tymall grinned again. “And thus I tell you I have sufficient for this. Accruements absent do not remove the words of darak sorcery committed to memory in Digilan. I do know the words of unlocking.”
“Ha. This is not Digilan,” Sabian interrupted.
“But words of power cannot be undone, fool.”
“Mark that, Ty,” Elianas said as he sauntered in with Torrullin beside him. “Have I not lived ages as a word of power? Be wary of deploying words in my presence.”
Tymall shifted, and placed Teroux before him.
“Goddamn coward,” Elianas said. His gaze moved to Lowen.
She stared at him, and swallowed. “You are different.”
Elianas looked away and she switched her attention to Torrullin. He lifted a shoulder for her and offered a smile. Her gaze left him, and her heart thumped.
The two men closed in, ignoring all present for the form in vapour.
Both lost colour.
“It is Tannil,” Elianas murmured.
Torrullin stared into familiar tawny eyes.
Tannil, the grandson waiting for him after his return from the Plane. The Vallorin who kept the Valleur flourishing in exile in the Western Isles. The Valla betrayed by his sister. The man who lost his mother and stepfather, his wife Vania, to Tymall’s murder spree. And suffered the worst kind of death when the Valleur Elders placed him in the gauntlet, to sit on the Throne to be welcomed or repudiated. The Throne denied him and he died, his soul in pieces.
This man, if it was Tannil of the past, had no love for the Throne, the Valleur, Tymall or his grandfather. This man, if present with all memory, could seek revenge for the manner of his death and the pain of his life.
Lowen moved to stand beside Torrullin. “Visions were offered, Torrullin, of what would come to pass if this presence is permitted freedom.”
He closed his eyes to break the contact with the man inside the vessel. It was an empty gaze; hard to tell who was there and which emotion was supreme. He then opened them on her.
“Will you share?”
“Conversations with Tarlinn, Ixion, Adagin and Neolone, each in their manner telling me …”
“The Timekeepers,” Elianas interrupted. That tawny gaze wreathed in vapour had moved to him. He did not look away.
“Yes, and they are aware this presence is a Timekeeper also,” Lowen stated.
“They would feel it, yes,” Torrullin said. “What warning?”
“Annihilation, simply put.”
“Our choices?”
“Kill him now.”
“No!” Teroux screamed.
“Or make the irrevocable decision to kill him when the proper opportunity presents.”
Torrullin frowned. “Why the qualification?”
She gestured at the crucible. “It is Tannil’s face, Torrullin. Your grandson. You already carry guilt over the manner of his death and would thus wish upon him a second chance. You almost recalled him after his death, remember? I was there, if you recall. How hard will it thus be to lift your hand to someone loved and missed?”
“Hard,” he admitted. “But if this is another wearing Tannil’s face …”
“It is Tannil,” Elianas stated. “And it is the Timekeeper.”
Torrullin turned his head. “I hear certainty.”
Elianas did not shift his gaze from the man waiting apparently patient in the tube. “You spoke to Arli when we were separated, Tristan spoke to Neolone …”
Lowen made a sound.
“Yes, no doubt Neolone warned our Kaval leader also,” Elianas murmured.
“He did,” Tristan said, and he and Teighlar joined them.
Sweat beaded Teighlar’s brow; the Emperor was not doing well. Tristan handed him to Sabian and headed directly to Caballa to take her into his arms.
“Why are you still here?” he whispered.
“You know how it is,” she said against his chest. Arms tightened around each other.
“Who did you speak to, Elianas?” Torrullin demanded after flicking Teighlar an assessing glance.
“Skynis.”
“Who is that?” Teroux said.
Sabian’s eyes narrowed. As a realm traveller he knew the answer.
“Gods,” Torrullin muttered, “and this bloody enterprise becomes more complicated at every turn.”
A smile curved, but Elianas still did not break contact with Tannil. “Doesn’t it just? Skynis told me to listen to the kin list, by way of warning me.”
Torrullin waited.
“Skynis had a son who one day vanished into thin air.”
“Who the hell is Skynis?” Tymall demanded.
Elianas gave him the finger and continued, “No doubt this vanished son had sons and, lo, not so long ago Taranis drew breath
, born to be your father, Torrullin. The missing connection.”
Torrullin inclined his head.
“The kin list reveals the son who vanished was named Tannil.”
“Reborn as my grandson,” Torrullin whispered.
“Hmm, funny that. My grandson is also your grandson.” Elianas tore his gaze from the one in the tube to lock onto the one at his side. “Are you not glad we kept certain … nuances … under wraps?”
“Elianas …”
“No. There is the new Timekeeper, one who creates a bond that draws past and present together. Blood to blood. I dare you to deny it.”
Torrullin closed his eyes, and did not say a word.
Elianas returned his attention back to the tube. “Yes, he must die, but I cannot do it.”
Sabian muttered and threw his hands in the air.
Lowen gripped Torrullin’s tunic, pulling roughly at his arm. “They told me to find his true name. Say it and it severs the bonds. It sets him free, yes, but it will also set you free.”
Torrullin stared at the man in the tube, managing to ignore the uneven breathing Elianas had fallen into. “I cannot find his name when he is thus trapped.
Elianas bent over, hands on knees.
“Caballa, what have you seen?” Torrullin demanded.
She disengaged from Tristan. “About this? Nothing.”
“Kill him,” Teighlar said, and Sabian nodded emphatically.
Silence as Elianas straightened to look at Torrullin, who said, “I cannot. Not now.”
Elianas looked away.
“Then decide to do so later,” Lowen insisted. “It is the only way to mitigate some of the damage this creature will inflict.”
Torrullin looked at Elianas. “We would have to decide it together.”
“I know.”
“We will know only upon his release.”
“Well, then let us get to it,” Tymall said, and stepped boldly forward.
He knocked on the glass. Elianas hissed, and he turned to the dark man. “Oh, fuck off. I think we are agreed we have to break him out of this or nothing happens besides us talking this stupid situation to death. Kill me, go for it, but you will not get him out unless I say the words.”
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 182