“The latter,” Torrullin murmured. “I am here. He does not want to scare me with his new reality.”
Tianoman latched onto that. “Is it frightening?”
“No,” Elianas stated.
“Yes,” Torrullin said.
“Why is there a difference in your answers?”
“Too wise, this one,” Torrullin muttered.
Elianas laughed. “I know!”
Tianoman huffed, and Torrullin said, “Every time something is peeled away from our core selves, we become new again, mostly to each other. We then need to dance a while until we understand how the changes affect us. This here is a mighty alteration, and thus I am wary of what it will bring.”
Elianas shifted his gaze from Tianoman to Torrullin. “Mighty alteration?”
Smiling inwardly, Tianoman relaxed, knowing now they would talk to each other rather than have him be their mouthpiece.
“For fuck’s sake,” Torrullin said under his breath.
“How do you think this will change me, exactly? Did not your true name set you free? It is no different for me.”
“Elianas, you already had your true name. Now you are able to sing it to the spaces. That is not the alteration I speak of.”
The dark man swivelled to sit cross-legged facing him. “Then explain yourself.”
“Even bloody Tymall told me to be wary of the Danae,” Torrullin snapped. “Rivalen warned us. Tarlinn has had you on a pedestal since the moment you stepped into this time, reminding continuously of the Danae. That is what scares me, and it is an epic alteration. Saying Elianas Danae is stating your true name, but saying the Danae is akin to saying the One. So, yes, I am wary, for I do not yet know what your the implies.”
“You stood here earlier and I read only fear in you,” Elianas rebutted calmly. “Fear for what?”
“Kalgaia.”
“Rise or fall?”
“Its fall, damn you.”
“Because it would hurt me?”
“Worse than hurt,” Torrullin said.
“Do we know if it still stands?” Elianas asked. “Have we been outside to know this for a fact?”
Torrullin stared at him.
Elianas slapped his knees. “You give me too little credit. Yes, to know my name caused Kalgaia to collapse will hurt, but I have long lived with this city as a presence only in memory. To know it as gone does not actually change the man I am. To know it as risen and unassailable does not change the man I am either.”
Torrullin whispered, “Tian, will you go outside and … check?”
Tianoman did so without saying anything, uncurling and rising to stride from the circular space.
In silence the two men awaited his return, trading stares.
He was back within a minute, breathing hard. Clearly he ran all the way to the exit and back again. “Kalgaia is fine.”
Torrullin lowered his head. “Thank the gods.”
Elianas dragged his head up, gripping a fistful of hair. “Now be honest with me.”
“What is the Danae?”
Elianas smiled and released his hold. “Now that is the right question.”
Tianoman stared at him as well. “Elianas?”
By way of answer, the dark man pointed at the thriving creeper nearby. It shrivelled into dryness in an instant.
Torrullin blinked. To kill a man was simpler to achieve than to murder something of the natural world and order. That usually took some time to achieve; Elianas did it in a momentary thought.
Elianas pointed again. The creeper sprang into life, growing at an even greater pace.
Torrullin pinched the bridge of his nose, lowering his gaze.
“Wow.” Tianoman said. “Extraordinary. What does it mean?”
Tianoman did not yet comprehend the degree of manipulation inherent in what had occurred. “Power of matter as well as energy,” Torrullin said, lifting his gaze to two dark eyes. “The power of life and death.”
Tianoman was silenced.
“Much like Elixir, Torrullin.”
“No.”
“Yes,” Elianas insisted. “Matter and energy, Torrullin, this is what you manipulate when you alter someone’s fate across the distances. Have you not felled someone from afar?”
“Never have I brought someone back to life.”
“Well, I have not either.”
Torrullin waved at the creeper. “But you are able to.”
“Theoretically only.”
“We both know it takes far more to alter the state of nature. A man is easier.”
“Really?” Tianoman whispered.
They ignored him. Elianas leaned forward. “Why should you be wary of this? Does not a Daywalker do this as a matter of course?”
“Goddamn it, Elianas, she cannot first kill someone!”
Elianas leaned back on his arms. “And here we have Torrullin, the man who, despite every appearance to the contrary, possesses the greatest moral core of all of us here present.”
“Really?” Tianoman whispered under his breath.
“This is why the Valleur revere you,” Elianas snapped. “Because they sense there are lines you simply will not cross.”
“What the fuck does that imply about you?” Torrullin shouted.
“I am able to cross those lines, Torrullin! Do you not yet know this about me?” Elianas, agitated, sprang to his feet.
“Tarlinn calls you pure! How in hell do you then claim this power?” Torrullin was on his feet also. They circled each other.
Tianoman scuttled out the way.
“Tarlinn calls me Perfection!” Elianas snarled. “I wondered what that meant, I even asked Lowen … never mind Lowen, for her answer, I now realise, was way off the mark. Perfection is the ability to know all sides of the power we carry with us. I can do it. You are afraid of it.”
“A god, Elianas? The ultimate judge?”
“Are you not that?”
“NO!” Torrullin roared.
“You are too emotional, true.”
“You imply you can be cold.”
Elianas; eyes glittered. “And there you have what the Danae is. Able to function without emotion clouding judgement and, yes, the power to judge. Not only over sentience, but all life.”
“By all gods.”
“Theoretically, Torrullin. Never have I employed this ability.”
Torrullin stared at him. “I believe you.”
“But?”
“You can be cold. Without emotion.”
Elianas nodded. “So that is the issue. Are you wondering if everything I have revealed has been a manipulation of your emotions, seeing as mine were non-existent?”
Frowning, Torrullin stared at the floor a while, and then shook his head. “No, no one is able to fake what has come to pass between us. I do not question anything to this point.”
Elianas heaved a sigh. “Thank the gods for that at least.”
“I do question what comes next, however.”
“Fuck!” Elianas shouted at the dome overhead. “Can anyone believe the stupidity of this one man? ‘Next’ has not even happened yet and already you question it? Gods, Torrullin.”
“This may be my new nightmare,” Torrullin murmured.
Elianas stepped into his personal space. “What does that mean?”
“I may never know you.”
Elianas stepped even closer. “Do you think I know you? Can I? Will I? Do I want to know all there is to know about you? No to all. Not only do we keep pieces of ourselves ever sacrosanct, but why seek to know everything? Torrullin, eternity is a fucking long time and I prefer discovering parts of you still after another age has passed, and an age after and after, than live with you as you are now forever.”
“I am boring now?”
Anger flitted across the dark man’s face. “Do not twist my words.”
“You are never boring.”
“What the fuck are you implying now?” Elianas demanded.
“I will question everything abou
t you after this point, but I suspect I will never be bored.”
Elianas frowned.
“I am worried you may find me too moral, though.”
Elianas hit him, caught him when he backpedalled, then head-butted him and threw him down. “Fucking idiot,” he snarled and strode away. He vanished beyond the pillars.
Tianoman stood arms akimbo. “I do believe you rattled him deliberately.”
Torrullin got to his feet holding his nose. Standing, he healed the painful appendage and glanced at Tianoman. “Is it not amazing to know he can be rattled? It was deliberate, yes.”
“Why?”
Torrullin rubbed one elbow. “I realised a long time ago that the Danae is much like the Throne. A prejudiced judge. The Throne judges for the Valleur, even when the Valleur may be in the wrong.”
Tianoman inclined his head. “Yes, I have come to a similar conclusion. It means the Vallorin must ever temper its sense of judgement … ah.”
Torrullin winked. “Consider me the tempering part.”
Tianoman grinned. “I like it.”
“He will hate it, but it makes for interesting …” Torrullin stopped there, clearing his throat.
Grinning, entirely fine with the implication, Tianoman said, “And who or what is he a prejudiced judge for?”
Torrullin stared into the darkness between the pillars where the man had vanished. “That would be the question, wouldn’t it?”
AS THEY HEADED OUT into the night air, Torrullin grew ever grimmer. If he reasoned it correctly, he had now shattered the correct stone. While the hand print device was not technically stone, what it did - locking a city - and how long it did so - cycles of time, rather than mere ages - made it an entity of antiquity. A stone.
The miracle the angel boy mentioned had come to pass. Had Kalgaia not risen in all her splendour? Despite time, a curse and the destruction of her heart?
Whatever Elianas said about its state not affecting him, he, Torrullin, was relieved Kalgaia had not fallen upon the uttering of a word of power.
Thus, if logic held fast, the horror of nightmare still awaited to complete the manipulation engendered this night. There was a result somewhere, beyond the obvious, and soon it would become known. It was not the nightmare of Kalgaia’s past, which would ever be resident in his memory; it was something more.
Had the Dome imploded?
All gods, he hoped not.
Or …
He stumbled to a halt. He lost every shred of colour.
Tianoman glanced over his shoulder and stopped. “Man, what now?”
“Nemisin’s curse, Tian. He screamed that the Danae name could only be said in Kalgaia and that it meant less than nothing, for Kalgaia was dead. In his time, in fact, most thought of the city as a myth. He threatened, if anyone used it outside of Kalgaia, it would destroy the Valleur way of life. He did this to wipe Elianas’ name from every record, from even race memory.”
“I am not liking where you go with this,” Tianoman said, shivering.
“We said the cursed name inside Kalgaia, but Nemisin gave its existence no credence in history, therefore saying it here means it was heard out there. Tian, the Valleur way of life was then encapsulated in one place.”
“The mountain city,” Tianoman whispered.
Elianas was suddenly there, staring at them, face ashen. “Is it possible?” he demanded of Torrullin.
“It is.”
Elianas drew himself erect. “Then this night I cross every line.” He dematerialised.
Within a heartbeat, they followed.
Chapter 40
Let us speak of elements. Water, for example. When you think of water as an element, do you see a pretty pond in a pretty garden? Perhaps a waterfall, thereby combining the substance with power? While these are not wrong, there is more. Water is also ice, snow, steam, the liquid in your body, the atoms trapped in rock, vapour trails in the air, the damp left behind after rain. It is everywhere in all forms.
~ The Truth About Elements ~
Akhavar
Mountain City
NOTHING SEEMED DIFFERENT.
Valleur milled in the Throne-room despite the late hour and the gigantic habitat was intact. Tianoman nearly collapsed in his relief.
“Use the Throne, Tian, to discover if something less obvious to us, to them, has changed,” Torrullin murmured.
Tianoman set off.
Elianas remained as if paralysed in the entrance from the plateau. Dark eyes tracked movements, noted how some looked at him anxiously, and he listened for those less immediate sounds of trouble.
All was silent. There was no frenetic activity.
“I do not understand. You had me convinced.”
Torrullin moved into position beside him, watching Tianoman as he reached the golden seat and prepared to sit. “I am still convinced.”
Elianas glanced at him. “I expected a cave in. Death.”
“I did as well and admit I am relieved it is not so, and yet something has changed. We merely remain unaware.”
Across the great space, Tianoman sat. He jerked up an instant later.
“Fuck, it’s bad,” Elianas muttered, also watching the younger man.
“Yes,” Torrullin breathed.
They watched Tianoman hurry across to them, his face colourless.
“The water,” he said when he stood heaving before them. “All Akhavar’s water is gone.”
They stared at him, nonplussed.
Tianoman swore. “Are you hearing me? Many centuries of supply was captured in the aquifers and now there is nothing. Nothing. Any minute now someone will ask where it has vanished to. Where has it vanished to? That much water cannot simply disappear.”
“Master of elements,” Torrullin said. “The fuck.”
“He employs Valleur history against us,” Elianas understood. “Rivalen is aware of every move we make.”
Tianoman gripped Elianas by his tunic and shook him. “Step up, Danae!”
His voice carried. All those in the Throne-room abruptly cowered to the floor. Swearing, Tianoman released Elianas and jerked to the cowering gathered.
“Danae!” he shouted. “His name is safe! It will not bring the rock down about your cowardly ears!”
“Relax, Tian,” Torrullin murmured.
Tianoman glared at him, and flounced into the Throne-room. “Get up! Summon the Elders!”
As chaos erupted, Elianas turned away and headed back into the night, drawing Torrullin with him. “He said it twice. Reason dictates …”
“… two additional elements are about to bite us in the arse, yes.”
Together they watched the darkened plain and thus saw it begin. Fire. Here. There. Then everywhere. A raging inferno enveloped the grasslands. Fanned by demonic winds.
“Fire and air,” Elianas said.
“Danae!” Torrullin shouted into the night.
“What are you doing?” Elianas said.
“Closing his circle. We may as well deal with the whole bloody lot at the same time and then be done with it.”
“Gods, man, earth. Think. There is only one event that engenders …”
The screaming began then.
Inside the mountain city.
THE KAVAL APPEARED BESIDE them within moments.
Tristan took stock and commanded, “Shields, everyone, wherever you can! Go!”
Kaval raced into the mountain.
Somewhere Tianoman issued similar commands to the Valleur. Rock falls and earthquakes were something the Golden were able to deal with. It did not mean all would survive it.
Tristan braced before the two men. “Doing nothing will change nothing. I suggest you put all your latent powers to use for once.”
Elianas’ face wiped clean of expression. He strode past Tristan, one arm extended, hand in a fist. Whatever had held him back until that point no longer featured. Into the chaos he waded and there, in the exact centre of the Throne-room, he halted.
Throwing his head b
ack, he shouted, “Rivalen, you forget this word of power is no longer pure curse. It is lumin also!”
He shoved his fist on high and his fingers opened. Light poured from them.
“Krenin viu tremmen Akhavar! Viu folian Danae! Illianar!”
All movement stilled in the mountain.
Elianas swung on his heels and strode back out. On the very edge of the plateau he presented his splayed hand to the inferno. White light again bled from those fingers.
“Krenin viu tremmen Akhavar! Viu folian Danae! Gratutin!”
The flames snuffed in an instant.
“Vosilia!”
The demon winds vanished.
Elianas pointed his arm downwards, directing a beam of light into the bowels of the earth.
“Krenin viu tremmen Akhavar,” he said quietly. “Viu folian Danae. Linsim.”
An almighty sound erupted, seeming to emerge from the core of the planet, the rush of agitated water, much water, and then it poured from the rock below, lifted from the scorched earth and raced across the land.
Moments later it settled. The water sank back into the ground, through the rock, until the aquifers were once more filled.
Elianas knelt and drew his shaking arm close to his chest, cradling it with the other. His breathing was ragged.
Illianar for Earth.
Gratutin for Fire.
Vosilia for Air.
And Linsim for Water.
Torrullin kneeled beside the dark man. Elianas had given too much. He studied taut cheeks and narrowed eyes. Yes, definitely too much.
He stood then and cried out, “This is what the Danae can do! Valleur, learn from this! Rivalen, dare manipulate us again and you will count your life in only moments!”
Tristan approached, his gaze thoughtful.
Torrullin held a hand aloft to halt him, seeking to protect Elianas from further interference. “Gather the dead, including any animals, and we will deal with it in the morning.”
“No, Torrullin,” Elianas whispered. “There is no need. They live again.”
Torrullin closed his eyes.
“Take me home, please.”
Without a word, Torrullin reached down, touched the dark man’s shoulder and took them away.
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 223