Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3

by Louise Cusack

  Teleqkraal rose in the air. The floor began to shudder and Kai flailed at the arras opening, trying to struggle free until he saw Teleqkraal flying towards him with his claws extended. Kai shrank back against the stone wall, crying out as the large claws closed over his body, encasing him in the arras as it was ripped off the wall and Kai was lifted in jolts with the beating of the serpent’s wings. His face hung through the rent in the thick fabric and he saw deep into the Volcastle mouth as Teleqkraal flew over it. Where boiling lava had once glowed, there now swirled a white cloud speckled with dark flecks.

  Though it was a far less menacing sight, Kai felt cold tendrils of fear deep in his belly. The Maelstrom had destroyed a world.

  A single world.

  Immediately before they were ready to be joined, the four elemental worlds should have disintegrated together. Yet now these worlds, which had been linked throughout time by the essence of life that dwelt upon them, were separated. Kai wondered if this altered configuration would be beyond The Catalyst’s power to salvage. Then he wondered why he should care when his own life was so tenuously secured.

  Held tight in Teleqkraal’s claws, Kai rose through the remnants of a tornado, buffeted by fierce winds that twisted his body. He struggled to hold himself rigid, to escape being twisted and broken, but a sudden gust slapped his head against Teleqkraal’s leg and his consciousness was lost.

  *

  Kert awoke to a prickling of his skin, as though some threat had intruded on his slumber, awakening his mind before his body could respond. His eyes flicked open and the sound that had woken him registered as burbling water. He snatched up his breeches and pulled them on, scanning the perimeter of the cave. No water there. He turned back to the couch and to Glimmer who lay still as stone, looking up at him. Her lips moved to speak but no sound emerged and her skin was so pale it was translucent.

  ‘I can hear water,’ he told her, wondering why she felt so limp when all his muscles were tensed for flight. ‘Is the cave flooding?’

  Her eyelids closed and then opened again. Were her powers gone?

  ‘Tell me what I must do,’ he said.

  ‘Talis,’ she breathed.

  Just then the Guardian appeared in the doorway with Khatrene. ‘Is there a flood?’ Talis asked.

  Kert shook his head. ‘Glimmer is ill,’ he told them. ‘Come quickly,’ and he sat beside her, taking her hand.

  Talis sat at her other side and placed his palm on her forehead. Her beautiful eyes slid shut on a sigh and Kert held his breath. Beside himself, he felt Khatrene’s hand on his shoulder, but there was no room in his mind for anything other than Glimmer’s safety. Even his rivalry with Talis was gone. It didn’t matter who saved her, only that she be saved before the water he could hear entered their cavern and drowned her.

  ‘We’re going home,’ Talis said, not taking his attention off Glimmer. ‘The Airworld has been destroyed along with the Volcastle and The Catalyst uses my power to bolster her own. She is containing Atheyre’s elements within Ennae.’

  Khatrene’s fingers on Kert’s arm tightened. ‘That explains why her attention isn’t on keeping the water out of here,’ she whispered.

  ‘It will be but a moment,’ Talis said.

  Kert waited, then realised he was holding his breath and forced air into his chest. He felt no trickle of water at his feet, let alone the deluge he feared.

  ‘There will be no flood,’ Glimmer said, her voice firmed by her contact with Talis. ‘The water is actually subsiding. The destruction of the Airworld has unsettled the Maelstrom which is returning the water to Magoria.’

  Kert’s tensed shoulders relaxed. The sound he had heard was the water’s retreat. But Glimmer had told him that volcanic heat from Haddash had melted large tracts of ice on Magoria, refilling the oceans the Maelstrom had emptied. This new influx of water would surely overfill the planet, drowning any who remained alive.

  These thoughts were mere flickers in his mind as he concentrated on his charge. Glimmer did not open her eyes, and neither did she speak again as she and Talis worked together to find a way through the raging Maelstrom to return them to Ennae. Kert could not look away from her, and neither would he release her hand, though he could feel himself weakening. He suspected that Talis was drawing on his strength, and perhaps Khatrene’s as well, to restore Glimmer.

  ‘If we do not leave now …’ she said at last, her eyes still closed, ‘… we will never go.’

  ‘Then do what you must,’ Kert told Talis, and reached forward to grasp his sword from the low table beside the bed. In his weakened state it was unbearably heavy, but Kert managed to pull it onto his lap even as Khatrene’s hand tightened on his shoulder. A buzzing noise sounded in his ears, then a flash of fire enveloped them. Kert’s gasp caught tinder-dry air into his lungs as he squeezed his eyes shut. A movement came from Glimmer’s hand in his, then she was limp.

  Another flash of blinding light then total blackness. Kert fell back onto a hard stone floor and tried to clear the spots from his vision.

  ‘Intruder!’ a voice called and Kert’s hold on his sword tightened.

  ‘I have her,’ Khatrene whispered and Kert saw the paleness of The Light’s hair as she moved past him to her daughter. Yet still his eyes would not focus clearly. Their surroundings were familiar, but —

  ‘Sh’hale,’ Talis cried. ‘We have come to your fortress.’

  Kert saw it then. They were standing in the main hall with their backs to the sky-mirror Glimmer had constructed. He was home. But wasn’t his fortress overrun by Northmen?

  Movement ahead of him caught Kert’s attention and he swivelled in time to see three ragged Plainsmen descending the steps towards them. ‘Children,’ he said to Talis, feeling his confidence return. Yet when he tried to raise his sword it was like raising a lead weight. His arm trembled and his legs began to buckle.

  ‘Prepare to die,’ the tallest of the urchins said as Kert fell onto his knees before them.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Lae clutched the ladder with one hand and wiped her nose furiously with the other, then pinched it for good measure to ensure she wouldn’t sneeze again. ‘Why do you not speak? Is that you, Pagan?’ she demanded. No reply was forthcoming so she descended to the floor and turned to where she had heard the voice. ‘I know there is someone here,’ she said, then a fearful shiver ran over her hack. What if it was Vandal?

  ‘Are we both hiding from my son?’ he said at last.

  Lae leant back against the ladder and relaxed. Safe. She was safe. ‘I do not hide,’ she said, then wondered why she was lying. To protect Vandal? ‘I merely sought a place where I would not be interrupted.’

  ‘I admit to hiding,’ Pagan said.

  She tried to find his outline in the impenetrable darkness. Failed.

  ‘Do you remember when you first showed me this secret place of yours?’ he asked.

  Lae nodded, then realised he couldn’t see her. ‘When The Light ran away from my father. I needed you to help me rescue her.’

  He laughed. ‘Help you rescue her.’ Then more softly, ‘I suppose you would recall it that way. Still, I am gratified that you remember.’

  At the end of that adventure Pagan had kissed her. Her first kiss. She remembered that delightful shock in perfect detail, and the recollection stirred her trust in him. ‘There are … places within me where memories should lie, yet they do not,’ she admitted. ‘You spoke of a child?’

  Pagan was silent for a long time before hesitant words emerged. ‘There was a child. Yet his death grieved you so, you could not move beyond it.’

  Lae felt her heartbeat quicken. ‘My child?’ she asked.

  ‘His name was Lenid.’

  ‘The old king’s name.’

  ‘He was Mihale’s child with a servant, Ghett.’

  Lae tried to find an image in her mind to correspond with these words, but there was nothing. ‘How did he come to be in my care?’

  She listened with a growing despe
ration as Pagan recounted all that he knew.

  ‘How old am I?’ Lae asked when he had finished.

  ‘You were fourteen when I left Ennae. You are eighteen now.’

  His words echoed in the silence of their dusty sanctuary as Lae struggled to believe him. Her memory of her father was so clear, yet according to Pagan she had not seen him in four years.

  Her voice trembled with apprehension, ‘Where are my memories?’

  His answer was immediate. ‘I believe my son stole them from you to lighten your grieving heart, thus bending you to his will.’

  ‘Stole them?’ Lae shook her head, the heavy hair brushing her shoulders. ‘To what end?’

  ‘He seeks only to punish me,’ Pagan said. ‘Yet observing him lately I fear how far that punishment will go. There is a violence in his nature …’ He trailed off but Lae was already nodding.

  ‘Only an hour ago I saw it myself,’ she whispered, suddenly aware that they must not be overheard, must not be found. If Vandal knew she was with Pagan … ‘I am afraid of him,’ she said, her voice trembling again. ‘Afraid of my own husband.’

  ‘We are safe here,’ Pagan said, his voice closer than it had been. ‘Yet we would be safer if we ventured deeper into the tunnels.’

  Again Lae nodded, forgetting that Pagan couldn’t see her. ‘Is there a brand on the wall we can light?’ She stretched her arm forward into the darkness.

  ‘We can feel our way,’ Pagan said and her outstretched hand touched fabric then was taken by warm fingers.

  Propriety should have seen her disdain such contact, yet the longer Lae was away from Vandal, the more his attractions faded from her heart and the more she was reminded of her memories of Pagan and how she had vowed to wait for him, to be his wife. Whatever had occurred in the intervening time was no longer in her mind. But the feeling of trust had remained.

  ‘Do you remember the way?’ he asked, moving forward and gently tugging her hand.

  ‘As if it was yesterday,’ she replied, shocked to find a smile on her lips.

  ‘The stones are damp,’ he told her. ‘We will not venture far.’

  ‘To the place where I would meet Hush,’ she told him and felt a firm pressure from his fingers, as though he had squeezed her hand in reply. Warmth flooded Lae’s chest and she felt cast back in time. The darkness aided her foolish delusion. ‘Why are you down here?’ she asked him to distract herself. ‘You could not know that I would come.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ he said. ‘Yet I hoped.’

  The feeling of warmth grew but Lae held her silence. At last the corridor opened and her hand fell away from the wall at her side.

  ‘We are here,’ Pagan said.

  ‘Is it safe now to light a brand?’ she asked. He made no reply but released her and Lae felt some of her warmth fade. ‘Do you prefer the darkness?’ she asked.

  He was a long time answering. ‘You told me once that I was too old to be your husband.’

  ‘No. That’s too cruel.’ Lae tried to imagine herself being so heartless to Pagan who had shown her nothing but kindness in her memories of recent times. ‘Could you have misunderstood me?’

  ‘It was grief,’ he said, his voice further away from her, as though he’d gone to sit against the wall of the small cavern they’d entered. ‘Grief that is now gone. My son’s purpose may be selfish, yet his actions have eased your pain … where I could not,’ this last said softly, regretfully.

  Lae felt a wave of compassion for him and she struggled to understand the change that had been wrought in her since she had left Vandal in the corridor. How had she thought so little of Pagan before, and so highly of him now?

  ‘Your son has a hold over me,’ she said at last. ‘I could not feel it until I was separated from him.’

  ‘He controls your mind with his Guardian power,’ Pagan said. ‘You have doubts. I have seen them on your face. But he takes them from your mind with a touch of his palm to your forehead.’

  Again Lae nodded to herself. She had many memories of Vandal’s hand falling away from her forehead, but few of him placing it there. She wondered how else he had manipulated her. ‘I have no memory of my investiture, yet I know I am The Dark,’ she said, the responsibility for her castle and the spiritual welfare of a kingdom weighing heavily on her mind. ‘There are duties I must perform, yet I retain no memory of having done them.’

  ‘He kept you to himself,’ Pagan replied softly. ‘There have been no services in the Altar Caves since his arrival.’

  ‘I should be in robes,’ she said, suddenly repulsed by the soft fabric beneath her hands. ‘Not parading around in gowns.’

  There was a pause before Pagan said, ‘I like you in gowns.’

  She heard the smile in his voice and it lightened some of her distress. It was also a reminder that her attire was the least of their concerns. ‘Yet still you choose darkness,’ she retorted. Pagan made no reply. ‘Well, I will admit vanity enough to say I like wearing them also,’ she told him. ‘Yet this does nothing to solve my immediate problem, of what to do about … my situation.’

  ‘That very much depends on whether you love your husband.’ Pause. ‘Or not.’

  Lae thought about that. ‘I am confused,’ she admitted. ‘The longer I am away from him the less I feel … attachment. Yet he is the father of my child.’

  Pagan was silent, but Lae felt no apprehension. Indeed, the thought came to her that he was probably the only person she could be completely honest with. And there was no rush. They were safe here. She could think the situation through and ask Pagan for his advice. ‘The first step,’ she said, ‘must surely be to avoid further mind control, yet even to say as much makes me feel odd, as though I am conspiring against my own husband.’ Did she want reassurance from Pagan that they weren’t doing that?

  ‘That’s exactly what we must do,’ he said. ‘Vandal will destroy us both if we make no move to thwart him.’

  ‘Destroy us?’ Lae shook her head. How had Pagan made such a leap of conjecture? ‘He has distracted me from performing my duties but … that is only to be expected. We have only recently wed and he is the father of my child.’

  ‘So his theft of your memories is acceptable?’ Pagan asked, his voice losing its gentleness. ‘Life with your father has trained you to overlook that which you do not wish to see.’

  Lae’s instinct was to react angrily to this, yet the truth was an irritating grain of sand under her ribs, rubbing, reminding. When Pagan started to apologise, she interrupted him. ‘No, your assumption is correct. I ignored my father’s malevolence until I was fourteen. Then when I saw his aura I ran away from it.’

  ‘To the Shrines. I remember,’ Pagan said.

  ‘Yet it was not until he killed our king that I truly acknowledged his evil.’

  Pagan remained silent.

  ‘I should have reacted sooner,’ she said. ‘I should have warned the King that The Dark was not fit for his title.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Pagan said. ‘But if you had not been believed …’

  He need say no more. Lae could not begin to imagine the horrors that would have been visited upon her by her father for such a transgression. ‘The lesson is a valid one all the same,’ she said. ‘You are right to remind me that I must not ignore ill intent. Yet do you see evil in your own son?’

  ‘I see vengeance,’ Pagan said. ‘His mother is dead, Vandal believes, because of me.’

  ‘You think he will try to harm you?’ Lae felt shock at the thought, yet the memory of his recent violence with her was fresh in her mind. ‘He would not best you in a sword fight.’ Pagan did not answer immediately and her thoughts travelled further. ‘Yet if this was his purpose, why has he not challenged you before now?’

  ‘I fear he believes a quick death is too good for me,’ Pagan said sadly. ‘He wants me to suffer. To die a little more each day as he takes everything I have ever desired and values it not at all.’

  Despite the horror of what Pagan was saying, his mention that
she was all he had ever wanted brought a return of the warmth in Lae’s chest.

  ‘When my suffering is no longer enough for him,’ Pagan said, ‘I fear he will seek to destroy what I love.’

  Silence settled on the cavern, yet over its dark surface Lae heard these words repeated again and again: he will seek to destroy what I love. She reached behind her with a trembling hand to rest against the stone wall. ‘He would … kill me?’

  ‘I thought to provoke him with my absence at dinner. To turn his anger towards me.’

  ‘You were successful,’ Lae replied. ‘He left me to seek you out in your quarters.’

  ‘Which gave you time to escape.’

  ‘I had no thought to escape at the time,’ Lae said, breathless with horror at how close she had come to even greater violence than Vandal had already shown her. ‘I simply came here to think.’

  ‘He will kill you, Lae, unless he is stopped.’ Pagan’s voice was closer in the darkness. ‘I am your Champion, responsible for your safety. I beg you to defer to my judgement in this matter.’

  ‘Is there more to your actions than the responsibility of a Champion for his charge?’ Lae asked softly.

  She felt the air move directly in front of her face and breathed a scent that spiralled her backwards in time, tugging at her stomach — the faint sweet edge of sword oil mixed with the soft protective powder that covered the parchment books Pagan loved to read. His hands always smelt of it, like ahroce petals mixed with earth.

  ‘You know how I think of you, Lae,’ he said, and his voice was so tender and so sure that her fears melted into the rhythm of his words. ‘Since the moment your taunting lips first contacted mine I have been smitten.’

  ‘As I was also,’ she whispered, yet was she speaking of the past? Or had Pagan always been in her thoughts? The memories she still owned were full of longing for him.

  ‘Much has happened since that kiss,’ he said.

  She heard regret in his voice and could only imagine how hard it had been for him to champion her through two marriages, when all he longed for was to have her to himself. But hadn’t he also given her cause for jealousy? His son’s presence in their life was proof of Pagan’s unfaithfulness.