With that threat hanging over his head, the boy slowly stood up in the corner and took two hesitant steps toward the portal, and stopped. Malory shrugged. As long as he calls the dog, I don't care if he stays fifty feet away. It may be better to be that far away, anyway. He turned back to the scientists to check that his shield was holding. It was a bit flimsy, shields were not his forte, it seemed. He looked at the portal and grinned. Portals, now, he could do portals. Well, he could do one portal. An accidental portal. A portal, which, no one had figured out where it went. From the brief glances the portal allowed through, it was not this planet—the trees and grass were too different—but it was indeed a portal. Now that was an achievement—or it would be if they could use it.
Finally after tossing and retrieving the ball numerous times, the dog finally allowed himself to be towed back through the portal, ball in mouth. Great Shadows, Malory thought with dismay, still multi-colored. He looks a bit like a miniature portal, only without the pulsing.
As soon as the dog appeared, the boy called to him, and the dog happily trotted over to him as if he had not put over forty peoples’ heads in a noose. Worried the dog would go through the portal again, Malory consulted with the other sorcerers and agreed changing rooms for the moment might be best. Motioning for the boy and dog to follow, Malory and the others approached the double doors. Malory quietly opened one and eased his head out. Motioning to the others to hurry, they all ran across the hall, with the boy and the dog following. Just as the others reached the door of the the next room, Malory felt his shield give way under the combined pressure of the thirty or so idiots, who, having gained their freedom, were fast on the heels of the the sorcerers. Malory shrugged and urged the last one through the door into the next room. Turning back, he used his power to seal and lock the portal room door. Not nearly as large as the room they now called the portal room, but everyone still fit comfortably. Closing and locking the door so no one could enter, Malory turned to find the scientists again fighting for a position around the dog. The were doing it silently, though, and for a moment Malory was confused. Only for a moment, though, because he noticed Timeron's hands were glowing with a golden light. Soon, he saw the space around the dog and the boy was growing, which caused him to notice other golden glows.
Oh good, he thought, the others have come to the same conclusion. If we are gonna get killed for the dog, we can't die twice for using our powers against others.
Chapter Nineteen
Darian decided, after discussing it with the others, that the best thing to do would be to send someone to get the head scientists. Calling for some runners, he gave them a list of who he wanted to see, and sent them to the science wing. Sarian had suggested it may be better to talk with the scientists than for Darian to attempt to be in the same room with sorcerers and be civil.
Kane looked over at Sarian, "Didn't you say that Gragen was headed for Malory?"
"Yeah." Sarian answered, "Why?
"Well, Malory is a sorcerer and Gragen is a scientist, so they are in separate wings of Central. Which wing is this portal in, the sorcerers’ wing, or the scientists’ wing? Or is it somewhere outside?"
Sarian paused his pacing to look over at the others. "You know, I did not think of that. I caught him just down the hall from here, and I have no idea which way he would have gone."
After thinking on it a couple of minutes, Patro decided to inject his thoughts. "Well, if everyone is trying to protect Malory from Darian," at that, the other two men snickered at Darian, who just gave a look of disgust, "and Malory made the discovery," Darian's look of disgust deepened, "then it stands to reason the discovery would be in the sorcerers’ wing."
As Darian began to mutter about evil sorcerers, the men heard a phrase that sounded just like the phrase that had started this whole secrecy mess.
Kane, laughing, finally slapped Darian on the back and told him, "You gotta stop with the ‘off with his head’ comments." Kane sobered up and said, "Not every sorcerer is evil, and not every sorcerer is trying to kill people. Not every sorcerer is your father, Darian. It has been almost two thousand years. Let it go. The other sorcerers never knew what your father was really planning. They did not help him with the intention of helping him to kill. Darian, they can not see the soul strings like you can. No one can see them like you can, except the watchers and the other fire-walkers, and they do not bother with much of anything anymore. Even the watchers sometimes make mistakes. The other sorcerers trusted your father, just like you did. They may not have suffered as you did, but you are only helping to keep the cloud of suspicion over them—let it go. You yourself were the judge, jury, and executioner. You are the one who had to judge all of the sorcerers. You, in consultation with the watchers, found each and every one of the sorcerers innocent of your father's crimes. You cut his soul string from the tapestry of our people, then executed him. It is over, let it go. You have to."
When Kane was done, Darian saw the other two just nodding their heads before Sarian added, "They did not know, Darian. They trusted your father; he was one of them. He destroyed that trust. It has only been the last hundred years that the other sorcerers will even work together again. I think that is only because two new ones were born, and they could not risk them going rogue for lack of training. They could not risk another sorcerer being found guilty of any crimes. That, and the asteroid—the asteroid may have had something to do with it. There are so few of them, they can not afford to lose any. Our race would survive without them, but it would be a tragedy to lose them."
Patro interrupted, "I don't know if our race would survive without them, not if they are the ones who found an answer. Looks like we need to find out more about this portal Gragen mentioned."
Kane jumped up from the deep-cushioned chair he had been sitting in ever since the conversation turned so serious. Looking around at the others, he said, "Well, what are you waiting for? We are done with meetings for the day, and we have runners going to the science wing, so let's go spend the day exploring the sorcerers’ wing. Unless we split up, it will take us two days if we have to check every room, and I have no intention of splitting up and not being the first of us to see this so-called portal. You know, I was thinking, how long do you think they have been hiding this portal?"
"What? Oh, probably not long. How long can scientists keep a new discovery secret?" laughed Patro
"I don't know about scientists, but sorcerers can keep a secret a while," was Darian's bitter reply.
Kane narrowed his eyes "Let it go, Darian. No more thinking about it." He looked at the others, "How many months have the Sorcerers been plaguing us about portals, and coming to this planet, and Darian's so-called myths and legends? Five, six months of Darian shutting them down every time the word portal was mentioned, in conjunction with how this planet was settled so many eons ago. I would bet they have had that portal a while, but have not figured it out yet. I would also bet the scientists have known about it for less than a month, or they would have spilled the beans long ago. They probably finally brought the scientists in to help."
The others looked struck as Kane laid out his reasoning.
As the men reached the door, they realized Darian was not following. Turning back, Sarian cocked one brow at him and asked, "Well, are you coming?"
Darian stood up, "You do realize we do not have to go off searching for anyone, right? I can just find the soul string of whoever we need, and step us all to him."
Before he finished, the other three men were shaking their heads, "Not gonna happen." Patro told him. "The exercise will do us good, not to mention, we need to be seen around the sorcerers wing. No one has seen you there in almost two thousand years. You will not even recognize the changes they have made."
The men walked out of the room still talking to Darian about changes and being seen and seeing the portal. Darian had no real choice but to follow them out of the room.
As they headed through the government wing toward the Atrium, the men continued
to discuss the portal. Soon their discussion changed to the past, and the reason for their need to leave the planet.
Patro said, "From the size of the crater, I have to say that must have been a monster of an asteroid that hit the planet. Do you think it was the size of the asteroid that knocked the orbit off?"
"The scientists claim it was the comet’s glancing blow to the edge of our atmosphere that changed the orbit. The asteroid was just a by-product of the comet. Kane volunteered.”
Sarian thought about it for a bit and said, "I talked to some of the scientists, and they said that is why the seasons have been so erratic for all this time." He shuddered, "I don't see how any of us survived that first year. An entire year with no sun at all, crops would not grow, muddy rain, and cold. It was cold all year.”
Darian spoke up, "I was not cold."
The other three men looked at him in disbelief, "How would you know what cold even feels like," Sarian shot back, "you are a fire-walker. You are the very definition of a walking heater."
"You know," Patro interrupted the old argument to say, "I just recently went to the crater, but how long has it been since any of you went?"
Darian thought a minute and finally said, "At least a year, maybe two years, maybe longer. I never saw a point after the first couple of times."
Kane spoke up, "I went once. I could not bear to ever go again. Not after…" He fell silent.
Darian reached out and laid his hand on Kane's shoulder. It is never easy to lose a parent, he thought, but to lose your entire family. I can not imagine losing all of them to what amounts to a rock falling from the sky.
The men fell silent, each thinking about the asteroid that had devastated their planet three years ago. Darian had already lost both his parents, his father killing his mother in a sorcerer’s quest for more and more power, and then Darian himself had to pronounce judgment on his father and kill him. That was almost two thousand years ago—1,879 years if you wanted to be exact. A mere one-hundred twenty-one years after his Lyra had taken up the mantle of leadership. But Kane’s family—his parents, grandparents, everyone with the exception of his mate—was vacationing on an island on the other side of their world when the asteroid hit. The only reason Kane was not with them was because Darian had asked him to stay to go over some paperwork. Another day, and we would have lost Kane. Darian shuddered to even think of losing Kane. The three men had been together since the day of their birth, when their soul-threads had firmly linked together. Darian did not remember how these things happened, but he’d had the teachings, just as every Deyarian had.
Darian's thoughts drifted to what every Lyra born child was taught about the tapestry and the threads of the soul. About every three thousand years, a Lyra was born. A Lyra was the name for the trio of one fire-walker and two ice-walkers. These three were like a beacon to the watchers and the Lyra already living. They could, so the story went, literally follow the soul-threads to the three from conception. So close would the three become that by the time it was time for the mothers to give birth, they had to be in the same room. He remembered his mother’s laughter as she had told him the story of his birth. It seems that all of a Lyra were born at the exact same moment. Casual questioning of Sarian revealed that he was born around the same time of day on the same day as the others. If one mother had difficulty with the birth, the other two babies would not emerge, either. According to the teachings, and his own mother had verified, if they were not together, the further apart the three mothers were during the pregnancy, the more miserable they were. After the birth, in times of separation, the children would suffer; the further apart the children were, the greater the suffering. The ice-walkers would become colder and colder till they would scream in agony, while the fire-walker would become hotter and hotter till his or her screams of agony began to ring out. Legends said that if separated too long, the three would die. His mother told him it was as if they shared one body, and they needed the heat from him to survive and he needed their ice to stay cool.
Darian's thoughts then turned to Sarian, their shadow-walker. No one really understood how it worked, because shadow-walkers did not come from their race—they came from the Lyriant race. Darian remembered when, as children, he and the other two boys would sit and talk about their shadow-walker. They never could remember a time they could not feel him, and they longed, as children, to be old enough to go in search of him. They knew that they were bound by law to leave until they all turned twenty-five, and they often expressed their frustration with that law. They did not understand until they reached twenty-five why that law bound them. On their twenty-fifth birthday, when the scrolls on their shoulder blades appeared, marking them as mature, they were already on a ship bound for the land of the Lyriants. They were so arrogant in their belief that they knew just who they were looking for, that they did not even wait for the birth date before boarding a Ship of the Line.
The closer they sailed to the Lyriant-held land, the more confused they became. What had felt like one solid soul-thread leading them straight to their shadow-walker turned out to be a tangled web of threads leading anywhere and everywhere. Fortunately, before they were forced to return in shame with no shadow-walker, they were taken under the wing of one of the Elite who was serving as an ambassador to the Lyriant race. He gave them the information they had been too arrogant to stick around to receive, and with his help, they were able to find Sarian.
When they finally met Sarian, he was in the middle of a fight, and, filled with impatience, Kane and Patro had thrown balls of ice at the opponent’s head. This had not endeared them to Sarian at all. Sarian had refused to listen to the young men. Opening his second sight to "see" what Sarian looked like, fearing it would be yet another dead end, Darian had seen the most beautiful sight. It was only when he "saw" that he remembered the long-forgotten phrase: To find a Shadow, look for gold; encased in purple, it will hold The One to finish, The One to form; from This One are Shadows born.”
Darian had practiced on many of the people the threads had pulled them to over those few months Bryol had led them around the country. He had opened himself to look at their souls. Many had spots of black, or green, or other taint upon them, they had all just felt wrong somehow, but looking upon Sarian, he was different. Until he saw, he had not really understood what they were looking for or how they would find it. They had almost given up and decided to return to their home and admit, with much shame, that they had left too soon. They had not sought the counsel of older, wiser heads. The current leadership could have—and had been planning to— make sure the boys knew just what they were looking for before they boarded a ship. But in their arrogance, the boys just knew they could just follow the thread and find the one who made their Lyra complete. It turned out to be a very fortunate thing Bryol had been there for them. It had been unusual that he had all the information they needed. Patro had once jokingly suggested that maybe Bryol’s Lyra had trained him to train them. They did not actually believe that, though—Bryol was just freakishly scary.
Having found him, Sarian would not give them the time of day. Oh, those were interesting times, thought Darian, as he shook himself free of his wandering thoughts.
Coming back to the present, he realized they had made it to the atrium and stopped. He looked around at the other three and found they were just patiently waiting on him. Sarian stood with an eyebrow quirked up in his trademark look. As he felt his face flush red, he wondered how long he had daydreamed this time.
"Ah," Sarian said sardonically, "you finally returned to us. Welcome back. We sent for food. The three of us felt if we were going to be exploring all day we should eat first."
Darian nodded his head, "Yeah, sounds good."
The three men walked over to a table set near one of the most beautiful carvings in the whole of Central, in Darian's opinion, and he knew the others shared it. Sitting down in the quiet, out-of-the-way spot to wait for the runner to return with their food, the men turned to look at the breathtaki
ng carving of two dragons soaring high above the land.
Chapter Twenty
Though he was the youngest sorcerer in the room, Malory was in charge of the portal, to a degree. He had refused to tell the others just how he had created it, which left him the only one with the knowledge to create a portal. He may have neglected to tell the others he’d created it accidentally, but a creation is a creation, and this one was his. Most of the time, when things had gotten a bit out of hand these last few months, he may have indicated that he would close it and go somewhere else in the land to make a new one to study. And he may have indicated he would do it secretly. So far, that threat had worked pretty well. Until a scientist had heard him and Coliten talking a few days ago, the only ones who knew about the portal besides them were the other sorcerers. He had it all to himself for one glorious, scary month, until Coliten came looking for a place to do an experiment. The room he’d created the portal in had not been used in years—years!—until he started using it and created the portal.
Times like this, Malory wished he and Coliten had checked around nearby before they started talking. I mean, who expected a someone to be under a bush? Scientists and their experiments. Although, the experiment that had the scientist under a bush looking for a bug had been abruptly dropped, as had every single experiment the scientists had, from what Malory could figure out. Malory grimaced when he remembered the scientist bursting up out of the bush that day. He could not remember the man’s name, but he remembered clearly how he and Coliten had been quietly discussing what other things they could do to try to find out what kind of planet was on the other side of the portal.
They were sitting on a bench in the garden, keeping watch to make sure no one came too close and overheard them, when suddenly the bushes beside them started to shake. Malory remembered he had looked at the bushes, but assumed it was only a small animal of some sort. Suddenly a man came bursting up out of the bushes, desperation written on his face as he frantically tried to untangle himself from the bushes. Malory silently laughed to himself as he remembered the man falling over, then grabbing Coliten's pant leg. He could still hear the man’s pleas, begging for more information about this portal. The man had literally been on his knees in front of Coliten, begging to see the portal—swearing he could help because he was a scientist. He also, and Malory remembered this very clearly, swore not to tell anyone. Oh, Malory remembered that scientist very well. It had taken the sorcerers hours to pry the man back out of the room that night. And his so-called vow of secrecy had lasted only until morning. When the sorcerers had returned to the portal room the next morning, they could not even get to the doors. The hall was packed in front of the doors and to both sides as the scientists took turns trying to break them down, fighting about who would try next. Considering the hall in front of the door would hold twenty men abreast, Malory figured every scientist on the planet had to have been in front of the doors. There were a few bloody noses that day, and from what they could ascertain, the scientists had been at it since daylight. Malory was still surprised that no one else even suspected anything. Shadows willing, no one would until they could get more information about what was on the other side of the portal.
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