Fay released him and stepped away. He followed her progress and noticed Tianoman watching him, his gaze troubled, torn and without direction. He noticed how Fay moved in a wide circle to him, clearly not wanting to approach her son too directly.
“Wait, Llettynn,” he murmured, and forged through to his grandson.
Tianoman cleared his throat. “I am lost. This should be good, but …” He lapsed into silence.
“You are wary after what happened with your father. Son,” and Torrullin placed a hand at the younger man’s neck and drew him closer, “your mother is not cut from that cloth. She cannot and will not interfere with your life as it is now. I have no idea how this window happened, but I do think it took every scrap of courage she possesses to seize this opportunity to see you. The time is too short, I understand, but whatever else you believe, know Fay adored you from the moment of conception. She is here to see you, not manipulate you.”
“Do you think she is a good person?”
“More good, yes, and she deserves some relief from her guilt after the sacrifices she made for the Valleur.”
Tianoman inhaled and moved away. “Thank you.” He released and inhaled again. “Something Elianas said last night …”
“Last night is done with.”
“I know, but you are the moral one, he said, unable to cross certain lines.” Tianoman held a hand up when Torrullin made to speak. “No need. I trust that, however, and therefore I trust your judgement about my mother.” He laid a hand over his heart. “Thank you, grandfather.”
As Tianoman turned to find Fay, Torrullin rubbed at a cheek. Gods, too much heart stroking going on here. And when last had Tianoman called him ‘grandfather’? He swallowed, wondering if his heart was strong enough to deal with this.
Llettynn was at his elbow. “Come, Torrullin, before you pass out from too much emotion.”
“Gods, Siric, I wish you were still with us.”
“Sometimes I wish that as well,” Llettynn murmured. “I would smack you and Elianas about a fair bit. You two act like idiots sometimes.”
Laughing then, Torrullin allowed the Siric to steer him.
AFTER AN HOUR OF talking to various Valleur from the past, among those guards from Nemisin’s court days and Guild members from Kalgaia’s illustrious past, he bumped into Elianas with Valeri on his arm.
Llettynn’s someone ‘particular’ had not yet surfaced.
Smiling, Torrullin kissed her cheek. “Valeri, you are a sight for sore eyes.”
“Lord Sorcerer,” she laughed, kissing his cheek as well.
Torrullin lifted his gaze to Elianas. “Any surprises?”
“My original master of elements from my Guild days,” Elianas grinned. “He grilled me some about my powers.” Serious then, he asked, “You?”
Elianas’ answer put Torrullin in mind of Aven, his old mentor and heart’s father to Rayne. He hoped Aven was not the Siric’s surprise, for he would skin him alive for holding back. Then again, Aven would not have waited this long to spring a surprise.
“Fay surprised me,” he murmured.
Elianas nodded. “I saw her with Tian on the benches beyond. The two of them are seriously talking now.”
Torrullin smiled. “Excellent.”
Valeri prodded him in the chest. “Elianas is saying little, but I want to know something. I hope you do not skirt as well.”
Elianas made a face.
“Ask away, Valeri,” Torrullin murmured.
Beside him, Llettynn folded arms, preparing to be entertained.
“You and him, I want to know about you and him,” Valeri said, eyeing him and making escape impossible. “I know Elianas says little because his wife was also my daughter, but I was not blind, you know. Tell me the truth, Torrullin.”
He took her hand in his. “Be more specific.”
She grinned. “Really? Oh, good. Are you lovers?”
Without looking at Elianas, he said, “We are.”
“Were you lovers back in our time?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Torrullin looked down at her. “Valeri, for all the obvious reasons. It did not mean love was missing.”
“Torrullin, do you love him?”
“With all of me,” he said quietly.
“Does he love you?”
Torrullin looked up. Elianas rolled his eyes. Smiling, he said, “He does, yes.”
“I am happy to hear this. You have each other and that is very good.”
Elianas looked at her.
She snorted. “You are such a prude, my boy. Love matters and that is what counts.”
Elianas pulled her close and kissed the top of her head.
Llettynn nudged Torrullin. “Does he have your soul, Torrullin? You asked me once what it meant, another having your soul.”
Elianas’ head jerked to the Siric.
Torrullin loosed his expressionless smile. “Thin ice, Siric.”
“So what? I am already dead.”
Torrullin burst out laughing. “True!”
“Answer,” Llettynn said.
He swallowed his mirth. “All of me I said.”
“Excellent,” the Siric said. “You do understand you cannot be Timekeeper.”
“I know. I do not want to be Timekeeper.”
“He cannot accept the duty either.”
“He does not want to accept,” Elianas snapped.
Llettynn stated, “Then there is no conflict of interest. Remember that. Now, Torrullin, come.”
Elianas shook his head. “I see now why he always says you were bloody-minded.”
Llettynn grinned. “Takes one to know one.”
Elianas laughed, and Valeri drew him back into the crowd.
ANOTHER HOUR PASSED.
Elders came and went, as did brief words between Quilla and Llettynn, a connection with Caballa, who had so many questions Torrullin told her she could ask them another time.
Llettynn at one stage stood before Tristan, eyeing him up and down, a deep scrutiny.
“Astounding,” he eventually murmured. “How alike can two people be? Not only in appearance, but also in mind-set? Beware, Tristan Skyler Valla, of becoming too much like this Valla at my side. His journey has been extraordinary, yes, but much pain has accompanied it.”
“Shut up, Siric.” Torrullin growled.
“Let him talk,” Tristan murmured, folding his arms.
Llettynn inclined his head. “Indeed, yes, much like Torrullin. And I sense you do not mind it too much. Know this then; your journey will know similar pain.”
A muscle twitched in Tristan’s cheek. “I am aware.”
The Siric placed his hand on his heart. “You will be marked soon, I am afraid. I hope you are able to bear the agony.”
“Meaning?” Torrullin blurted.
Llettynn held his hand aloft. “I do not know the how, only that it must come to pass. He is too much like you, Torrullin. He requires his own identity, and identity will begin with his face. Someone will mark him, and thus no one in the future will ever again mistake him for you. It will hurt, but it will make him his own man.”
“Gods.” Torrullin pinched the bridge of his nose.
Tristan sighed. “And that gesture tells me you actually agree with what the Siric revealed.”
“Torrullin will have no part in it,” Llettynn said.
Tristan inclined his head. “Glad to hear it. You are both right, though. I do require my own identity.” Swearing under his breath, he moved away, muttering, “This gathering just gets stranger by the minute.”
“This gathering will end soon and there is someone I need you to see.” Llettynn drew Torrullin onward.
“Tell me,” Torrullin frowned, starting to feel peeved. “I can call to him or her. It is not Aven, is it?”
“Do you really think Aven would wait this long?”
Torrullin grinned. “No.” He looked around, trying to see a face in the crowd, someone he had not yet marked as kno
wn to him or known to Elianas. “Please tell me it isn’t Tingast Danae.”
Llettynn sighed. “Tingast would not wait this long to see Elianas either.”
“Well, if it isn’t Saska or Declan …” He paused. “It cannot be anyone that close to me. As you say, they would not wait this long. Spill, Siric.”
“Come with me.”
Llettynn set off into the shadows surrounding the tiered benches, opposite to where Tianoman and Fay were still in conversation.
The Siric climbed to sit midway up. He gestured at the space beside him.
Torrullin sat, his attention for a while with the connection happening across from them. He noticed how Tianoman had taken his mother’s hands into his, thumbs stroking her skin. It pleased him. Perhaps both would know a greater measure of peace after. The parting would hurt, though.
“What do you see, Enchanter? Look carefully.”
Enchanter. How strange it sounded now. Quilla still called him that, but he had long moved on from the title.
He gazed into the swirling mass of people below.
There were not so many left, he realised. The Elders had retreated and he no longer saw Sabian. Quilla perched on a tier beyond the podium, also watching proceedings. He lifted a hand when Torrullin marked him. Torrullin touched his forehead in return and focused on the gathering.
Valleur guards from times past had congregated, no doubt swapping stories. It seemed they were not all in the same place. Caballa was in conversation with the dark-haired Valleur, most of them from the guild. She sought to hear first-hand of a time now long past. Damn, she would truly bend his ear soon.
Valeri and Elianas stood apart now, also deeply involved in swapping words. Some of that had to do with what Nemisin recently attempted to achieve in trying to wrest the Throne from Tianoman. He wondered if Elianas revealed how Cassiopin could not in the end deny her father.
He did not see what the Siric desired him to discover from this vantage. About to say so, he paused.
There, in the moving swirls, stood a man.
Torrullin centred his attention.
The man appeared unfocused, as if he moved in and out of the present or in and out of this place. When he solidified, he seemed engaged in a conversation with a woman, but when Torrullin attempted to place the woman, no one was there. When the man lost focus, it seemed as if the flow of movement obscured him.
He frowned. Who was it?
“You have marked him,” Llettynn murmured.
“Is it Adagin? Ixion?”
“Neither. Those Timekeepers have moved on.”
“A shapeshifter? Someone using humanoid form in order to appear? Neolone, maybe?”
The Siric snorted. “That bloody Dragon would not appear in anything but his own form. It isn’t a shapeshifter.”
Torrullin employed all his powers of concentration and sent it directly at the shifting form. Something connected then, for the man turned in his direction.
Snap!
A thread of light erupted into the space between them until it joined them.
“Gods,” Torrullin murmured.
“Do you feel his presence? You had to feel him in order to meet with him.”
“Who is he?”
“Akhavar’s sentience, Torrullin.”
Oh. The mythical ‘being’ every world possessed, its protector, its saviour and its voice, although few heard the voice and fewer saw the form the world assumed on occasion in order to communicate. Usually, in his experience, the form was female, and therefore was this ‘man’ a surprise. It was also true, however, sometimes the form came in the guise of an animal, whether on land or at sea, thus a man could not be so strange.
“I see him, for I am already dead, and perhaps some of the others down there see him as well,” Llettynn said. “He is not present for any of them or for the living here.”
“He is here for me?”
The Siric sent him a sideways grin. “Of course.”
The connection could not be severed, even if he chose to ignore the form down there. It would not end either when this gathering dissipated. The connection to a world’s sentience was eternal.
He could summon the one he had with the Lady of Valaris even now, despite distance.
“Go talk to him,” Llettynn prompted.
“I would rather talk to you.”
The Siric laughed under his breath. “I am well aware, but I shall always be with you in some way. When our time now ends for talk, it cannot be an eternal ending. Go.”
Torrullin looked at him. “This meeting will take what is left of this window, I assume.”
“Yes.” The Siric stood and extended his arm. “It was a pleasure seeing you again and it was a pleasure to hear of the fates of old and dear friends. My heart sings to know Taranis is happy in Aaru. I worried about him too much in life and now do not have to in death.”
Torrullin, standing, gripped that arm. “You taught me much, Llettynn, and I thank you. I have wanted to say thank you for a long time.”
“You restored my faith in sentience, Torrullin, and for that I thank you.”
Torrullin offered a lopsided smile. “Me? With all my quirks?”
The Siric leaned in. “Do not listen to those who say your emotions cloud your judgement, hear me? Thank the multiverse for a powerful man able to feel. Unfeeling is uninvolved, Torrullin. I know this well. I hear you remind me of the devils you have inside also, but, Enchanter, I have personally seen you overcome one of the worst. Destroyer, not so? I have faith your noble purpose will be clear to you soon. Now go.”
Llettynn withdrew his arm and bounded down the tiers. As he hit the floor, his wings soared out, the homage of a Siric. Waving a hand over his shoulder without turning, he vanished into the crowd, wings furling.
Smiling, Torrullin went down.
HE UNDERSTOOD THE OTHERS could not see this man. It would appear as if he spoke to thin air. So be it.
As he approached, he noticed Elianas had shifted to watch him. The dark man’s eyes flicked to the one he now sought out and nodded briefly. Ah. Elianas too had marked his presence.
At least one here would know he was not mad, speaking to the ether. He winked and saw a smile flit across the dark man’s face. Then Elianas focused on Valeri again and he stood finally before the form of a world.
‘He’ had the appearance of both dark and golden Valleur. Fair hair and dark eyes. Golden skin, with the noble planes of the Danae. This man had chosen a form to celebrate both of Akhavar’s endemic races.
“Long have I waited to speak to you, Lord Sorcerer.”
His voice was even, his elocution perfect. He spoke in the older Valleur dialect, the one used before Valleur entered the wider universe, thereby accepting intonation and words from others into the language.
Torrullin answered in kind. “In days gone by, I was unaware of you.”
“Yet a part of me became part of Tarlinn. Have you not wondered how it is an inanimate chair is able to think?”
All gods, now he understood.
“It is of no matter. Our time is now. In this present you are aware of what lies inside worlds. I am not the first entity you have had words with.”
Torrullin nodded, feeling it was his time to listen rather than speak.
“Many ages passed after the Valleur abandoned Akhavar and yet it waited, did it not? The Lady of Life called to the wellspring in order to renew a sterile world, and the wellspring, as you now understand, is ever in place.”
“Once I found an old woman on a destroyed world and understood after she was the wellspring. Never have I known such anger in one being,” Torrullin said.
“Her name given to you was Della?”
Della of the Three Voices, yes. Torrullin simply nodded.
“Such destruction, when not of the natural order, causes rage. Her final task was accusation. The multiverse needed to understand how appalling it is to annihilate a world. And it is a truth, unfortunately, few heard her accusation, few understo
od. You did, and thus, instead of creating in your heart the darkness of denunciation, she set out to teach you what she had learned.”
“The Three Voices?” Torrullin blurted. “It is a terrible sorcery.”
“You have misunderstood. The Voices teach a penitent how to listen and hear. How you employ them is your choice.”
Gods. Della did teach him how to listen and hear, and when his instincts took over in the employment of the Voices her rage stepped forth. Using the Voices was to release the accusation of a world destroyed.
“I understand now,” he said.
“Excellent. Let us now speak of Akhavar, for time is short. While our connection cannot be severed, the ability to converse will ever be hard fought for. When much history infuses the building blocks of a world, a lone voice becomes ever fainter.”
Torrullin inclined his head to signify agreement.
“Akhavar remains on the brink, know this. The Lady of Life and your lady wife worked many miracles here. I realised their intention and aided them, but it is true this world requires continuous nurturing. Understand this. Akhavar, as itself, will survive, but the ability to sustain life upon its surface is the brink I speak of. The Danae last night added shields in calling to the elements and Elixir’s ability with balance and unbalance cradles it in this space, and thus is the brink this day a little further away.”
“Akhavar needs more,” Torrullin stated.
“Indeed. Five items require your immediate attention. One, the Elixir chant must become rote for the inhabitants of this world. The day may come when you cannot be in this universe and Akhavar will then fail. Two, the chant the Danae employed last night must accompany it, for he may have to move on also. Three, build more cities and towns. Spread the chants wide to form a net of protection. Akhavar is able to support many if she is properly nurtured. Four, hasten forward the completion and repair of the sacred sites and always keep them operational. And five, set every Valleur gardener to work. Plant trees, as many as you can ferry in. Trees will gift atmosphere, which will create rain and thus rivers and lakes, call to the birds and insects, which in turn creates pollination and so forth. Trees will eventually obviate the need for the chants, but it will be a long time from today.”
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 225