‘My mind is in service to you, My God,’ he replied, and felt a whisper of breeze against his shaved side.
‘Untrue.’
‘My … God?’ Kai could not help but cower within himself, wondering if this would be the time of his death. He longed for the torture to end; yet, perversely, whenever it seemed he would die, his mind fought to live.
‘No man’s mind is obedient, even to himself, let alone to his God.’
‘You find no fault with that?’
‘I take pleasure in the unexpected,’ Kraal said. ‘I take pleasure in you, Kai.’
Kai had guessed as much by the way his God toyed with him, reassuring one moment, accusing the next. Yet this declaration surprised him. ‘Does my God want me to act unexpectedly?’
Pause. ‘Yes, I think I do.’
‘In what way?’
Kraal said nothing and Kai quickly realised his mistake. If his God told him how, it would not be unexpected. ‘I will endeavour to surprise my God and master,’ he said.
‘I have learnt much from you, Kai, about the ways of men, but now there is another.’
Kai frowned. ‘My Lord and God, do you mean your harbinger?’ Kai’s memory of this one, a Plainsman who had taken Kraal’s child to the Fireworld, was overshadowed by the birth itself — terror and mortal agony Kai had witnessed as the mother of Kraal’s child, an innocent Verdan maiden, had been torn apart. ‘Or has your child left its hard casing at last?’
‘My progeny incubates in the molten core of Haddash. Soon enough he will hatch and I will discover what powers are made when a God mates with a mortal.’
Kai nodded, but the memory of that travesty and his part in it had been thankfully dimmed by time — his instructions to the Fire God on how humans procreated, then his secret presence in the pavilion where Kraal had assumed the form of the young King Mihale to seduce his betrothed, Ellega of Verdan. She had been sweetly won and all would have been well if the triumphant Serpent God had not reverted to his true shape while the Southwoman still lay beneath him. Alas, that revelation had turned her virginal joy to horror, and thereafter to madness. She was better off dead.
‘While I wait for my son to be born,’ Kraal said, ‘I amuse myself with another. One who will give me everything I desire.’
Kai could not help himself. ‘My Lord and God, what do you desire?’
‘Immortality.’
‘But I thought … My Lord and God, that the Maelstrom would destroy us all.’
‘The Catalyst has the power to save a select few. I will be among that number.’
‘My Lord, she is your enemy. Why would she …?’ Too late, Kai realised his God could take offence at these words.
Yet Kraal’s rumbling tone did not alter. ‘I will trick her,’ he said.
Kai had no immediate reply to this and the pause was telling.
‘Do you think me incapable of tricking The Catalyst?’ Kraal demanded.
‘You are my God,’ Kai replied quickly. ‘I think nothing of her. My life is to serve you.’
‘Yet you dream of The Catalyst lying in your arms.’
Kai’s breath stilled in his breast.
A quickening wind, much colder than the balmy night should produce, blew over his skin, wakening it to prickles. He closed his eyes and swallowed. ‘My God has stopped asking me to search for The White.’ There, that had been unexpected, the first thing that had come into his mind to clear thoughts of The Catalyst. Too late, he realised that he had just admitted his own disobedience.
The Catalyst had been a White, one of royal blood. He should have tried to capture or kill her for his God. Instead he had been mesmerised by her.
‘I no longer need The White gone before I can enter Ennae. Even The Catalyst cannot banish me now.’
Kai’s hands pressed against the stone battlement behind him. Was this Kraal’s way of announcing his return. Would the Serpent of Death appear now, his scaled body rippling with muscles, his long jaws opened to display the rows of sharp pointed teeth? Was the breeze Kai felt even now the result of his God’s long membrane wings stirring the air behind him? Or would his God come among them in human form, with those dark volcanic eyes, gazing into Kai’s soul, eating it piece by piece?
‘You will not recognise me,’ Kraal said. ‘No one will. I will be the enemy within …’
The breeze abruptly dropped but Kai held himself rigid, unable to still the shock those words had caused. The enemy within. Within what? Or whom?
In the dead still of evening, Kai heard the sound of soft tinkling and he watched with fearful eyes as his eldest wife re-emerged from the stairwell and walked towards him. Within. He held his breath as she stopped before him and bowed.
‘Does my husband wish the evening meal to wait for him?’ she asked.
Kai searched her placid face before slowly shaking his head. ‘No.’
He wondered if he would ever sleep again.
CHAPTER FIVE
Petra saw Vandal fall and immediately darted out of the trees and across the dried mud, splashing into the water, not caring that her new Nikes would be wrecked as she waded out to him. Seconds later she had his upper body out of the water. His eyes had rolled back and he didn’t look to be breathing.
A cold like she’d never felt before swept over her and she shivered. He might already be dead. He certainly felt like a dead weight. A sob of despair welled in her chest but before it could exit her mouth, common sense smacked in. Vandal wouldn’t die while she was here. Not if she was practical. Dry land and CPR. That’s what she had to concentrate on. She grasped him under the armpits and used the water to support his body weight as she dragged him into the shallows then up onto the cracked mud. No time to get to the trees. She hefted him as best she could but he was twice her weight.
At least she had him half out of the water. Quickly she rolled him to his side and poked her fingers into his mouth, clearing his airway. She fished around for obstructions but found none, then pulled back to check his carotid artery for a pulse. Discovered it quickly on his neck. Thank God for the first-aid training they’d had the previous term. Pulse, strong and steady, but no breathing.
Panic swelled but Petra stomped on it. Vandal was not going to die because of her. She rolled him onto his back again and tilted his head up, pinched his nose firmly and leant in to start artificial breathing. But a handbreadth away from his lips she faltered. God, his lips. She knew them by heart. So full, so soft. How many times had she dreamt of touching them with her own, knowing she never would. And now …
Stop it! She covered his mouth with her own, exhaled a good breath, then tilted her head to watch his chest and hear his exhale. Did it again. And again. Paused after five to check his pulse before restarting the breaths. Got into the rhythm they’d learnt. By the time she’d reached ten, however, Petra felt the nibble of panic returning. When was he going to start breathing on his own?
After the fourteenth breath Vandal made a choking sound.
She pulled back and shoved him onto his side where he vomited lake water for what seemed like forever. Her own eyes started watering. Vandal would have a sore chest when this was over.
Her gaze lowered. His chest. She’d memorised that as well, watching it fill out as he grew. Her own chest was … filling out, but Vandal wouldn’t have noticed that, wouldn’t have noticed her in class, a tiny dark mouse scurrying around behind him, watching, waiting. Well, today that patience had paid off. Big time.
Vandal’s retching eventually tailed off and he fell onto his back again, eyes closed. Petra wasn’t sure if he was even aware of her presence. But clearly he was going to be okay. It was time to leave before he recognised her and started wondering how she’d come to be there at just the right moment.
She should sneak off home and try to scrub her Nikes before her dad saw them. Only, she’d never been so close to Vandal before. Well, there had been that time in the tuckshop queue, but he hadn’t been half-naked then, and even if he had been she would have been too self-conscio
us to stare. But she could stare now, watching his beautiful chest rise and fall, admiring his long, dark eyelashes against those smooth olive cheeks, wishing she could see the dimples she knew were hidden beside his smile.
Sodden strands of fringe poked in his eyes and she wanted so badly to brush them back. Only now it was different. He didn’t need her, so she had no excuse. She should be standing up and slipping away to the cover of the trees to watch from there if she wanted to keep ogling. Wait, naturally, to be sure he was okay, but not right beside him where he could discover her the moment he opened his eyes. Vandal wasn’t stupid. Far from it. He’d take one look at her with her tongue hanging out and know she’d been following him. He watched people. Knew things about them.
She had to go.
She stayed.
Stupid. Incredibly stupid, but she’d had a crush on him since fifth grade. To sit with her hand right next to his biceps, to watch the water running off his skin. She might never have this opportunity again. Common sense was Petra’s forte, but today she’d happily admit to being as dumb as dog shit.
To have actually touched his lips with her own was so incredible she simply couldn’t make herself leave. Not yet. It was as though there was more to happen. As though the warm feeling swelling inside her was inside him as well. As though … this was her chance to tell him how she felt, while he was still physically vulnerable, and grateful for her rescue.
He stirred. She heard a soft groan and saw his eyelids struggle to part. For the second time that morning common sense slapped into her. She turned away, rolling onto one knee to sprint for cover, but before she could, his fingers encircled her arm.
‘Petra … Mabindi?’
Oh … my … God.
CHAPTER SIX
Breehan, the Storyteller of the Plainsmen, opened his eyes and tried to look around himself, but his aged body would not respond. His head would not turn. He could see that he was no longer in the great hall of the Volcastle where he had been with The Catalyst. A white light had descended on him and he remembered nothing more.
Now he was in a much smaller room, stone walls, yet again with an open ceiling like the great hall. This skylight was above a crypt platform, and through it Breehan could see dark clouds swirling overhead, deepening the shadows below. A russet glow from a fire nearby cast an eerie light. He strained his eyes to find The Catalyst with her glistening black gown and distinctive royal-white hair, yet could not.
Breehan was relying on her to live up to her part of their bargain and return him to his people. Though he was old, the Plainsmen would still have need of their Storyteller. The lore of the tribe lived in his mind. He must pass that on before he died. And though it would scald his soul, he must see Noola again.
The Catalyst had promised to take him.
He must find her.
‘There, old man. Do not move,’ a voice said from behind him. A voice out of his past.
‘Talis?’ he whispered, then was shocked at how decrepit he sounded even to his own ears. ‘It is I, Breehan.’
The Guardian came around in front of him and Breehan’s breath caught in his throat. Only three years on Ennae, he reminded himself. Talis was yet to see thirty summers and Breehan had been younger when they had last met. He held out a withered hand. ‘I see you are unchanged.’ The marvel of that discovery was reflected in his voice. His own hair was a straggly grey tail, while the Guardian bore the same long dark locks and warrior plaits that Breehan remembered. Talis’s eyes were the same kind brown in an unwrinkled face, though the dimples he remembered so well were not in evidence.
‘You are much changed,’ Talis said in consternation. ‘Your years have been stolen …’
‘I was trapped on the fast-moving world of Haddash by the Serpent God Kraal.’ Breehan paused to let the emotion of these words wash over him. ‘I live now only to return to my tribe.’
‘Then I will aid you to do so when I have returned my king to his Volcastle.’
‘I was there.’ Breehan looked around again, his old head wobbling. ‘But now … where are we?’
‘The Royal Shrine, three days march from the Volcastle. Soon we will leave.’
Breehan struggled to regain memories long lost in his mind. ‘I thought you had died,’ he said.
Talis shook his head. ‘I was on the Airworld with Khatrene and King Mihale. We have only recently returned.’
Breehan’s gaze wavered. It had been sixty years since he had concerned himself with the political affairs of Ennae. His sole focus had been to escape Haddash and rescue Noola’s son, Hanjeel. Now he struggled to remember others from his past, but the decades of mental torture at the hands of the Serpent of Death had blunted his memory. ‘Khatrene was The Light of Ennae … who bore an aura of otherworld hues?’
‘The same,’ Talis said. ‘Your tribe gave us sanctuary while her husband The Dark was pursuing her.’
Breehan nodded. It was coming back to him now. ‘The child that grew within her then was The Catalyst, Glimmer, who rescued me from Haddash that I might aid her to construct the sky mirrors which anchor Ennae to the Four Worlds.’ Breehan was still awed at what they had created with her inner strength and his people’s memory stone.
The memory stone!
Breehan raised a hand to his throat. ‘The talisman …’ He struggled to sit up and Talis assisted him. ‘Where is the memory stone of my people?’ The last he remembered he’d had it in his hand.
Talis looked uncomfortable but he held Breehan’s glance. ‘My Lord and King Mihale now wears the stone.’
Breehan shook his head. ‘A descendant of the Ancients? But why?’ He glanced around. ‘Where is your king?’
Talis looked away. ‘Speaking in private to his sister.’
‘And The Catalyst?’
‘Gone from this world.’
Breehan snatched at Talis’s shirt front, startling the Guardian. ‘That was not her plan. Something is amiss. We must return to the Volcastle at once.’
‘I hear you,’ Talis said, but Breehan doubted that he truly did. The Guardian’s mind was elsewhere, but Breehan’s had found a focus. If the Plainsmen were to survive the coming Maelstrom, The Catalyst must join the Four Worlds. Something or someone had pulled Glimmer from her path, and Breehan would gladly use what remained of his life to restore her to it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Glimmer lay quite still, staring into the crazed eyes of the man above her. Kert Sh’hale had a knife at her throat and she had just used the last of her power reserves to save him from following his son into death in the Volcastle’s fiery mouth. Having transported them both to the Fireworld of Haddash, she was trembling with exhaustion. An unnatural calm hung in the air. That and the smell of sulphur.
‘I give you one last chance,’ he said, pressing the knife against her windpipe.
Despite the necessities of the moment, the part of Glimmer’s mind that was not swirling with unwanted emotions observed a decrease in the possible futures — too many divergences to calculate whether it would still be possible to join the Four Worlds. But if she could stop Kert killing her now, the possibilities widened.
‘Bring Lenid back to life and you may yet live,’ he said.
She shook her head slowly, long blonde hair sliding through the dirt. Shadows around them concealed more than they revealed. A cave, that was all she could see, with glowing fungus on the walls providing illumination. She looked back to Kert. ‘I cannot do what you ask,’ she said.
‘Cannot? Or will not?’
Glimmer simply stared at him, unable to assimilate the deluge of feelings — attraction, compassion, protective urges, desire — she was experiencing for this man who was about to kill her, a man she had never met before this day. She took a shallow breath and tried to think. How could she could feel pleasure from a threatening touch? Was she in love?
She should never have come into contact with the emotion stream while she’d been constructing the anchor. It had wrenched her from cool self-mastery and
locked her biological radar onto Kert. Now everything about him made her ache — the way his coal-black hair fell in careless strands across his pale forehead, the slender fingers that had bruised her throat, his dark tortured eyes. At first all she had seen in them was hatred, but behind that emotion she now saw grief, and torment such as she had never imagined a man could bear.
The Fire God’s interference while she’d been creating the final anchor was the cause of both Kert’s grief and her own crippling emotional state. Kraal had not only sidelined her, he now had the talisman. She must get the stone back, she knew that, but such was her immersion in the ecstasy of love, she could not find the will to act on this knowledge. Instead she longed only to take Kert’s pain away. To take them both away, somewhere the Maelstrom couldn’t touch them; but even if she’d had any power left, there was nowhere to go. The only worlds that supported life were slowly being torn apart.
‘You are The Catalyst. You can do anything.’ Desperation sharpened his words. ‘You can give me back my king.’
‘No.’ Bad enough to have rescued Kert. Going back in time, even that short distance, to rescue the child was impossible. She had exhausted herself anchoring the Four Worlds. It would take time to recuperate enough to return to Ennae. If she wasn’t careful, she would not have the strength necessary to join the Four Worlds when the time came. Assuming she could get the stone back. What she needed was rest, to regain her vitality, but …
Love makes you weak.
Her Champion, Pagan, had told her that when she was a child, and at the time Glimmer had felt relief that she would never experience this debilitating vortex that sapped the will and the mind. Yet rather than causing a deficiency, in Kert’s presence her heart felt full of wonder and blissful delirium. Like a dreamer who suddenly awakes from monotone to colour, her reality now sparkled with promise and vibrated sensuously with each beat of her impetuous heart.
Kert, of course, was oblivious to her awakening. ‘You are the “shadow through time”,’ he said, and even the harshness of his voice stroked her senses. ‘You can go back and forth.’
Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3 Page 4
