“It cannot be tit for tat, idiot; Alik is not Lowen.”
“Why is that?”
A low laugh sounded. “I see. I have to hear myself say it to understand your point of view.”
“Now you are complicating things. Too much nuance. Why is Alik not Lowen?”
“Alik is young, largely innocent and, man, she is the daughter of an emperor. One does not mess with that.”
“But one can mess with a woman who has already known years long, someone dragged into the shadows because she isn’t of royal blood?”
“You dragged her into the shadows, Torrullin. I do not think you cared whether her blood was blue or fucking yellow.”
“And that makes it all right for you to push her further into the mire?”
Elianas elbowed the man at his side, frowning. “Is this about Lowen, or us?”
Torrullin shook his head and moved away. “I do not know. Leave me to think, damn it. Get what rest you can; in the morning we end this.”
“You are in a hurry.”
“It was always meant to be a small battle. We have already achieved the great result by removing the threat of Beacon from our universe. And Tymall is no more.” Torrullin stared into the greyness. “We are hungry, we have no magic to alter that any time soon, so, yes, in the morning we finish this.”
“We unleashed a greater threat on our universe.”
“Tannil will be dealt with.”
“I am not talking about Tannil.”
Torrullin turned his head.
“She is dangerous now, and now I do mean wings.” Elianas turned on his heels and ambled away.
THE WAN LIGHT OF day arrived along with thunderous assault. Rocks great and small peppered the walls, doorways, roof and every window. Glass shattered here and stone exploded there. Wood splintered and tiles cracked.
Horatio bellowed somewhere and soldiers groaned and shouted.
Arrows thudded.
“Do we wait him out?” Teighlar said. “I cannot see him keeping this up long.”
“Long enough to see us crawling with hunger,” Tristan muttered.
“Horatio’s larder is no doubt full,” Caballa said.
“Can we get to the citadel and destroy it?” Lowen said.
She told them of Cranckshaw and of the blueprints; those images could be retrieved from her mind with concerted effort.
“Forget the citadel.” Torrullin murmured. “All we need do is leave and this is over. They cannot escape this space.”
“You mean to abandon youngsters forced into this army to that kind of fate?” Caballa frowned.
Torrullin glanced at her. “What would you have me do? Look into every soul out there to establish whether it was coerced or not? We do not have that kind of time, Caballa.”
“You are Elixir. You can take the innocent back with us.”
“You ask that I atone for the Valleur who died inside Torrke because I did not separate the innocent from the guilty.”
“Yes! And the human innocent who died with them that day.”
Elianas stepped in. “Elixir requires some basis of reality to achieve what you ask, Caballa. This is a realm within a realm within a sphere and a whole load of other shit with it.” He leaned towards her. “Not even Alhazen can separate the flows here.”
She looked away and Elianas straightened. He ignored the look Tristan threw him.
“How do we leave?” Lowen said.
Torrullin glanced at Elianas, who said, “We create a small degree of reality and then shift away in much the same manner we shifted in.” He tapped Torrullin’s chest. “The Maghdim Medaillon will create direction.”
“No magic, and you suggest creating reality?” Teighlar scoffed.
“We will have help.”
“From who?” Tristan burst out.
“Ixion, Adagin and Neolone, and maybe Tarlinn also,” Lowen sighed, enlightened. “The Timekeepers need us free of this space; all we need do is ask.”
Elianas inclined his head.
“You need ask, Lowen,” Torrullin said.
“Yeah, I got that already. Caballa, I could use your help.”
The Valleur seer stared at the Xenian and then nodded. “Come to our cell; the floor’s softer.”
THE TWO WOMEN SAT facing each other.
“Which one did you sleep with last night?” Caballa said, moving her head side to side to release tension for the approaching state of meditation.
“Does it matter?”
“It might later. The other will be different.”
“Elianas, but …” and Lowen held her tongue.
A tawny, Valleur look. “Torrullin was there. All gods, how stupid can you three be? I get the lure, I even understand the somewhat twisted nature of your relationship with both men is, let’s face it, erotic as hell, but this will drive the three of you apart.”
Lowen reached out and took Caballa’s hand. “Exactly.”
Caballa’s hand twitched.
“It is only dimly perceived, Caballa, but I feel instinctively the road to goal lies in separation.”
“You may be right,” Caballa said eventually, and swallowed. “But you need be very clever and seriously subtle if you hope to achieve it.”
“Right.” Lowen gave a laugh. “Not sure if I will manage that; they undo most plans and notions.”
“Be true to yourself then.”
An underhanded stare answered that first. “I will try.” Lowen squared her shoulders and relaxed. “Let us do this.”
Path
LOWEN STUMBLED; THE PATH underfoot was of gravel and grit.
Ahead, in a field of grass, there was a lone tree. Under it four forms, one of which was unmistakably a Dragon.
A shadow joined hers on the gravel. Caballa. The Valleur had joined her in this vision. Both of them would expend great energy to maintain the link.
“All came,” Lowen murmured, “even Tarlinn.”
“I guess a new Timekeeper deserves due attention.”
They put booted feet to grass and walked closer.
“He has arisen,” Ixion said as they halted in the shade of the giant tree. “And Elixir and Alhazen chose deferred death. Not the perfect solution, but better than inaction.”
“It might hold the worst at bay for a time,” Adagin said.
“We need your help,” Caballa said.
“We are aware and we gift it.” Adagin glanced at Neolone. “The Kallanon will release to you one of his scales and it will be with you when you exit trance. Use it as the matter Torrullin needs to connect with the Medaillon. Elianas knows the rest.”
Neolone shuddered theatrically; a blue, glittering scale plopped into the grass. “The things I do for the One, dear me.” He turned his great head away and ignored everyone for the remainder of the meeting.
Lowen retrieved the blue square. It was cold to the touch. She held it in both hands, knowing she needed maintain the connection for it to remain with her when she awakened.
“Before you go,” Tarlinn said. “The master clock was last seen on a world abandoned by humankind. It was placed there to begin the expansion of humans into our universe, because they were needed as a means to populate the realm. Empty space, after all, is without challenge.”
“We have conferred long on this, but none here have seen or touched the master clock, although we do know it exists. It means,” Ixion murmured, “there was a Timekeeper before us, but we know no more than that.”
“We do know it was not Tannil who hid it. He will have to search much the same as you for the mechanism,” Adagin added.
“What is the purpose of this clock?” Caballa asked.
“We assume it is how time started. Someone somewhere understood the value of counting and fashioned the means.”
“It created us,” Ixion said. “We wonder if he cursed sentience or saved it.”
Tarlinn tapped the scale. “It is time to waken. Go well.”
Shadow Wing Fort
“COURTESY OF
NEOLONE,” Lowen said.
Torrullin stared at the scale she clutched. “Never thought to see one of those again.” He took it and held it up. “Neolone possessed great beauty, for a Dragon. Queen Abdiah was quite in awe of him.”
Teighlar stared at the blue square and then at the two women. “How in Hades did you manage that? A vision is meant to be neutral, not a conversation with gifts.”
“Particularly as both Adagin and Ixion have moved on, both claiming to turn their backs on this realm and this time,” Elianas murmured.
“And Neolone died,” Lowen said, “yes. It should be impossible, and yet it is not.”
“A new Timekeeper summons the old,” Torrullin said, rotating the object round and around. He looked up. “Briefly, I think. The connection will fade the longer Tannil strides unchallenged. However it is, we can use this. Gather close.”
As they did so, he extracted the Maghdim Medaillon from under his tunic, and glanced at Elianas.
The dark man closed in, and together they gripped both medallion and the piece of Dragon armour.
The place of confrontation vanished.
Chapter 63
Home is not always sweet. It’s tart and tough.
~ Anonymous ~
Akhavar
“WAKE UP!”
Lowen’s voice in his ear, a hand shaking his shoulder. Torrullin sat up in confusion. Where was this? Lowen looked down on him from a kneeling position, concern etched into her brow. Her lips tightened when he met her gaze - yes, there was much added to the layers between them now - and then she looked away.
He followed her direction to first see Teighlar sporting a massive frown and rubbing his bandaged chest. Further afield were the others, including Elianas. The dark man faced his way, but was too distant to discern expression.
“Where are we?” he asked of Lowen.
“Akhavar.”
“Time?”
“I believe we are in the present. Nothing suggests otherwise.”
“Thank the gods,” he muttered as he clambered to his feet. He held a hand out and helped her rise. “What happened to Neolone’s scale?”
“Dust.”
“How long was I out?”
“Seconds.”
Torrullin inhaled and exhaled the fresh, real air of reality. Thank all gods, they had landed outside of that manipulation generally in one piece.
He gazed around him. Well, most needed healing, but they were alive.
“What, man?” Teighlar demanded. “You are now worrying me. You look at us as if we are figments of your imagination.”
Torrullin stared at him with a lifted eyebrow. “Why are you so pissed off?”
Teighlar launched into an inaudible monologue for a few moments and then grinned. “I get worried when you are out like a light, that is all.”
“Liar. Never mind; come here, let us complete a healing before we head into what now awaits us.”
Teighlar approached to stand with arms folded before Torrullin. Blue eyes bored into grey, but the Senlu Emperor did not utter another word.
Torrullin placed hands on the man and closed his eyes. Under his breath he murmured: “I get worried when you get pissed off for seemingly no reason.”
“Ha.”
Torrullin grinned and stepped back.
Teighlar, after a beat, grinned also, and swung away flexing muscles and bones wholly healed and fresh with new strength. “My thanks,” he threw over his shoulder and ambled away to test himself in the renewal.
“We shall take the time to see family first,” Torrullin called after him. “We all need to recuperate.”
“Good!” Teighlar moved on.
“Torrullin.”
He turned to Lowen. “Do you require healing?”
“I need a goddamn drink, that is what I require. Why so formal?”
He stared at her as if disbelieving and said nothing.
She traded stares without blinking, and said nothing either.
“You aim to drive us apart,” he said eventually, forcing himself not to glance in Elianas’ direction.
She blinked once.
He looked away. “You might be right.” He swung back, seemingly casual to the watchers. “But do not tell him, hear me? Do not even hint at it. Give him a glimmer of a plan unsuitable to him and he will foil you in a manner that changes everything so much, we will be forced to do something extraordinary just to restore equilibrium.”
Lowen blinked again. “I hear you. I am concerned, though, that you would agree to this.”
He stared at her without blinking. “I do not agree, Lowen, but I seek to discover if a separation will part us forever or bring us together without the need to war.”
“Christ, I would like to hit you, know that,” she muttered. “You are using me. Again”
“I am not stopping you. Hit me. Let us see how he reacts.”
She smiled, a cold gesture. “Another time and place, I think, when and where you can react to me without witnesses.”
He looked away.
“I include Elianas in a potential list of witnesses.” She touched her brow and moved away.
Out of the corner of his eye he noted why she did so without further rejoinder.
Elianas approached.
THE DARK MAN BRACED with folded arms and was otherwise unmoving. “I feel as if you have suddenly stopped dancing, as if the music has ended.”
Blinking, Torrullin read the deeper nuance in that statement. “You do not hear it now. The music is gone.”
No reaction.
“What deafens you, Elianas? Wings taken and released? Or Warlock accruements?”
The man shrugged, offering no expression to read anything from.
“I have not stopped dancing; you have.”
Those arms unfolded. “Maybe, but not by choice. We should set aside the issue of Tannil for a time, go to Avaelyn to find the right path again.”
“We will do so. After.”
“After what?” Elianas frowned.
“Valaris. Grinwallin.”
“Always with the duty. Quilla can come to us with news. I say we go now.”
“Not yet.” Torrullin snorted. “Quilla. Really?”
“Preferable to others at this point.”
Torrullin swiped a hand over his face, and called out, “To Valaris!”
Valaris
AT THE KEEP THEY discovered Tianoman fuming, pacing the battlements at a rapid pace. He, after glaring at Tristan, still unforgiving over his cousin’s action in the fort, informed them all was well. On hearing that, Elianas bowed and excused himself, saying he was headed home to sleep.
He left without looking at Torrullin.
Tianoman, about to tell them other news, paused. “Is he all right?”
Torrullin shrugged. “We are all of us exhausted. Continue, Tian.”
After a nod, the Vallorin did so.
Apparently Mikhail had already stepped forward with the truth about his father Andor, and thus Beacon had commenced the election process. Lucia Bannerman, Mikhail’s mother, had been arrested and awaited trial. Mikhail, although understanding there were legal entanglements that would dog him for some while, chose to leave Beacon and accepted a post with alacrity from Rose for Mariner Island on Sanctuary. He still needed to take his finals. All of it happened for Mikhail in one universal day; he was more decisive than his father had known.
Menllik was a wasteland, Tianoman revealed.
Bannerman’s nukes had obliterated all trace of beauty and history. Xen’s nuclear scientists had amassed in a tent city in the region to begin the restoration, using the Dalrish’s extraordinary reversal chemicals to do so. Max Dalrish spent time commuting between his palace and the tent city.
Tianoman halted at that point in his narrative, seeing only fatigue arrayed before him.
“Go,” he said quietly. “We can catch up on the nuances later.”
Max Dalrish entered the Dragon doors then, and he and Torrullin fell into deep discuss
ion for a time.
MENLLIK, WHEN THEY VISITED it together, accused.
It was beyond sobering to see the mighty scar on the landscape where before a beautiful Valleur city graced the sands of Valaris.
From there other happenings came to pass.
With Aislinn markedly absent, Tianoman called the Elders together for enclave. They would choose new Elders to replace Vanar, Yiddin and Sirlasin, and there would be a memorial service for them as well as the many thousands vaporised in Menllik. Caballa stayed to give what help she could offer, her face often awash in tears.
Tristan headed to the Dome and sent word the Kaval had removed all residue of magic-eating plant matter and every abandoned brick and stone at the site of the citadel on Ymir.
Belun was well, due to Quilla and his green vapour, and the Dome had been repaired.
Grinwallin was at peace. All seditionists and traitors had been routed, and Dechend watched every corner and shadow to ensure it remained that way. Many mourned Kylis; Torrullin went to confer with Teighlar and stayed to attend the funeral.
Teighlar shooed him away after, saying he needed time to get to know Alik; he now had that time with Grinwallin secure and the threat of Beacon removed.
With Lowen, Torrullin thus went to Sanctuary.
Teroux was in the hospital and no longer knew family and friends. Rose hovered nearby, barely able to function. When she saw them she flew into a rage and Torrullin was forced to remove her to the villa.
There he and Lowen explained what had happened. After more explosions, she admitted it might be for the best. Teroux new could be Teroux whole also. She would be there for him.
Lowen, crying, chose to remain at the villa for a time to support Rose, as Rose intended to for her husband.
Torrullin said no more. Perhaps it was safer for Lowen to spend time now in compassion. Perhaps it would mitigate her wings. Elianas was right; she posed as great a danger as a Timekeeper wearing Tannil’s face.
Pacing the grass outside the villa, unencumbered by people and immediate responsibility, Torrullin stared over Averis Lake, a mirror in sunlight, and weaved hands through his hair. He ceased moving and inhaled deeply.
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 185