‘If she can’t kill Teleqkraal, there’s a chance he might be able to control her powers. Trust me, that won’t be a good outcome.’
‘So you are to kill her if that happens.’
‘I’m the only one she can trust to do it.’
Vandal watched him assimilate that, coming to terms with the fact that neither he nor the other Guardians could bring themselves to murder The Catalyst. And certainly not The Dark or Glimmer’s own mother. It had to be Vandal.
‘Did you tell her you would do it?’ Kert asked.
‘Of course I did. She’s The Catalyst. But it doesn’t have to be that way.’
‘It will not be that way,’ Kert replied, ‘because I will safeguard her.’
Vandal happened to know Kert’s record as a Champion was patchy, but bearing in mind the proximity of his sword and the history of his temper, it probably wasn’t a good time to bring that up. Instead, Vandal said, ‘She told me you would try to stop me,’ and waited.
Kert blinked. ‘I am to die first.’ His sword arm lowered to his side. ‘She …’
‘Wants to do it herself. If she can. But it’s a tight sequence of events,’ Vandal explained. ‘It has to be just after the serpent reaches Be’uccdha, so everyone is occupied with the barrier around the anchor, but before the beastie breaks into the cavern, because then she’ll be busy.’
Kert continued to gaze at Vandal for the longest time, then he went back to the couch he had been on and sat heavily, raising dust. ‘I am of no use to her,’ he said. ‘And worse, I must be destroyed for fear that I will disrupt her destiny’ He stared at Vandal, bewildered, and Vandal felt sorry for him.
‘Okay, it looks bad,’ Vandal said, leaning forward and opening his hands, ‘but I’ve got an alternative plan that’s better than hers. We just have to make sure she doesn’t find out about it.’
Kert, still stunned, shook his head.
‘Don’t worry, she won’t suspect anything, and I don’t think she can find out accidentally,’ Vandal told him. ‘She won’t look into your mind because it makes her too vulnerable, and I’m pretty sure I’ve worked out how to keep her out of mine.’
‘And the objective of this plan is?’
‘To stop Teleqkraal in his tracks and find a way for Glimmer to survive. The only problem is, she might not get to join the Four Worlds, and I know she has her heart set on that.’
‘It is her destiny.’
‘Things change.’
Kert simply stared at him, struggling to keep up. ‘How can she live if the Four Worlds are not joined? Their destruction is the ending of all life.’
‘Do you want to hear the plan or don’t you?’ The worst wasn’t over yet, even if he agreed to listen. The moment Vandal mentioned Lae, Kert was likely to strangle him, but he had to try.
Seconds ticked over, and finally Kert took a slow deliberate breath. ‘If your strategy is viable,’ he said, ‘I not only want to hear it, I want to enact it.’
For the first time in a long time, Vandal smiled. ‘That’s exactly what I hoped you would say.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Back in the Altar Caves for the second time that day, Glimmer tried to steady herself as a shuddering vibration began in the floor beneath her feet, growing wilder, breaking stalactites and sending splinters of sharp stone flying in all directions. Across the cavern a group of a hundred or so castle dwellers and guards cowered against each other. Only Kert, standing beside them with his eyes on Glimmer, did not flinch. She wondered whether he was concealing his fear or whether he felt none. Then she remembered that he appreciated facts.
‘Fortress Sh’hale is gone,’ she called when the vibration abruptly subsided. ‘And with it the Fireworld.’
‘Then the serpent is on his way,’ Lae said, facing outwards from the northernmost point of a diamond Glimmer had formed out of candles on the floor. Inside the diamond the dark mirror rose, throbbing with power, its faint light unearthly in the darkness of the cavern. Standing on the other three points, Pagan, Khatrene and Talis waited on Glimmer’s command to join their power and hold Ennae from destruction — at least until the serpent was destroyed.
Two women in white, two men in black. How Glimmer wished life could be as clearly polarised as the colour of clothing. The future that was rushing towards her was decidedly grey.
Her concentration should remain on the stream of matter that was now dispersing into the void, the stream she was required to direct towards Ennae, into the ground beneath the ruined Fortress Sh’hale. But Vandal, though he stood still at her side in the Magorian jeans and T-shirt he had asked her for, distracted her. She could not see into his mind, and though he had promised he would aid her when the time came, she felt unsettled by his apparent ability to block her. Was he planning a betrayal? With what motivation? It would make no sense. No, she believed he would assist her, and she should not tax herself further on the issue. Particularly when she had so much to accomplish with so little reserve of energy. Still, the why gnawed at her.
Soon the serpent would arrive at Be’uccdha. The castle above was already in ruins, but that scarcely mattered. Standing in this huge cavern were all the tools she needed. And one which must be disposed of.
‘Finished?’ Vandal asked.
Glimmer shook her head and concentrated, streaming the fiery remnants of Haddash into the core of Ennae and locking them in. The planet’s crust swelled and her head ached but at last it was done. She turned to look at her brother. ‘Finished. Are you ready for your part should the need arise?’
He leant forward and snatched her arms. Glimmer straightened and realised she had been swaying. When he was sure he’d steadied her, he let her go and said, ‘What’s to forget. Kill my sister and destroy the talisman. Easy.’
She ignored his sarcasm. ‘And remember, the damage you inflict must be considerable. I must not be easily revived, should the Guardians interfere.’
‘Lucky I’m not squeamish,’ he said with a straight face.
Glimmer felt a gnaw of doubt invading her mind. He was too calm. ‘Much depends on your obedience,’ she reminded him. ‘Should you fail, the consequences will far outweigh any discomfort you may find in the act.’
‘If you can kill Kert, I’m sure I can kill you,’ he said, raising an eyebrow.
‘I will do what I must,’ she said, but the swirl of anxiety his words had wrought seemed prophetic.
‘Then that makes two of us,’ he said and smiled, yet Glimmer felt no reassurance.
For the past hour she had sensed a shadowed place in her mind where the threads of the future should lie visible — threads that were instead hidden from her. She knew Vandal was unaware of how to amplify his power without her assistance, so that could not be the source of the shadow, yet she sensed a wild variant ahead of her, something she had not expected and was not prepared for.
The minion? She frowned. He was prominent in several possible futures. Why would he be hidden in others?
‘Is this boring you?’ Vandal said.
Glimmer blinked her eyes open and roused herself from where exhaustion had led her. She must remain alert. ‘I was thinking,’ she said.
‘Bit late to come up with a Plan B, isn’t it?’ he asked, but there was something odd in his voice. Eagerness?
She turned to look at him, at the steady brown eyes, the long dark hair and the dimples that were not quite hidden in his cheeks. ‘You are too calm,’ she said.
‘Maybe you’re starting to rub off on me.’
She shook her head, wondering if the dark places among the threads of the future were to do with Vandal. He had been unpredictable as a child. ‘You have promised to obey me,’ she said.
‘Are you trying to distract yourself from what you have to do?’ he asked.
Glimmer blinked. Could she be? ‘That would be unproductive,’ she replied.
He looked over his shoulder and then back to her. ‘Tell me about the way it should have been,’ he said. ‘Before you fell into the
emotion stream and screwed things up.’
Now who was distracting himself? Still, Glimmer was prepared to oblige him if it kept them both alert and calm. ‘The old Plainsman was to have retained the talisman for me,’ she said. ‘When the Maelstrom reached its peak, the four anchors were to give way simultaneously. As matters stand now, we must wait until this last anchor is gone, at which time Ennae will explode. Then, as I told you yesterday, I will stand in the centre of the explosion with the talisman in my possession and alchemise the swirling elements of the Four Worlds into a solid planet.’
‘Around yourself? You will be trapped inside, at its core.’
‘The one who focuses the energy into a binding force makes that sacrifice. I am The Catalyst. It is my destiny.’
He grabbed her shoulders when she would have looked away and Glimmer wondered if she had been swaying again. ‘And the rest of us,’ he said, holding her gaze, ‘who you protect during this process, we get to live on the One World?’
Glimmer was pleased that he had grasped the essentials. ‘We must ensure that the beast is not among that number,’ she warned him.
‘But what about time?’ he asked. ‘You said when the One World was created linear time would cease.’
Glimmer wasn’t sure they should be having this conversation. The beast could arrive at any minute. Still, she rationalised, if they did not have it now, they never would. ‘It may be hard for you to comprehend time that is not linear,’ she said, ‘but I will try to explain it.’
He nodded for her to go on, then she saw his glance dart behind her, before flicking back to meet her eyes. He was keeping watch. That was helpful.
‘In nonlinear time,’ she said, ‘when you think of an idea it is immediately completed from beginning to end.’
‘Can’t picture it,’ he said.
‘Then let me try explaining from your perspective in linear time,’ she said. ‘For you, time and space separate all matter.’
He nodded for her to go on.
‘Any number of people can stand on this spot where I am standing,’ she pointed at the toes of her golden slippers peeking out from the hem of her matching gown, ‘if they are separated by time. And those same people can stand together at one time if they are separated by space.’ She gestured at the distance between herself and Vandal. ‘In nonlinear time, there is no separation.’
‘So … people occupy the same space and time.’
‘Correct.’
‘I was top of my class in math and science, but I still can’t visualise that,’ he said.
Glimmer shook her head. ‘All that matters is that we stop the serpent reaching nonlinear time, for when he does, he will control it. There will be no time to thwart him. His dominion will be absolute.’
‘You’re a shadow through time. What about going back to stop the talisman falling into his hands?’
‘I have gone back as far as I can on several occasions to no avail — I cannot use the talisman,’ she said.
‘What would happen if the talisman worked for you?’
‘I have told you I’m unsure of my ability to use it.’
‘But emotional turmoil supercharges it, right?’
She frowned and lowered her voice. ‘We have discussed the fact that it only appears to work for those who experience emotion. I’m not sure your conclusion can be extrapolated from that.’
He shrugged. ‘It might. Have you seen that in any possible future?’
Glimmer shook her head, thinking of the dark places where future threads should be.
‘Okay. Don’t sweat it.’ Vandal flicked another glance behind her and then released her. But before he could speak, a sound came from above them, a crash that reverberated down the anchor and hurt her ears.
Glimmer turned to her Guardians and their partners inside the diamond of candles and said, ‘Now!’ then steeled herself for what she must accomplish in the next few moments. Concealed inside the bodice of her gown lay a poisoned dagger. She knew what she must do with it. ‘Remain here,’ she told Vandal, then stepped away as a humming sound rose behind her — the four using their respective powers to create a barrier around the anchor. She hoped they could sustain their efforts and hold off the collapse of the final world until after the beast was destroyed.
Worst-case scenario — if Glimmer was captured — Vandal would take her out of the equation.
She glanced at the ceiling of the cavern where the anchor met solid stone and pierced it effortlessly, as though it had been built as part of the castle. Around the dark mirror surface there now glowed a golden barrier sparkling with reflected candlelight. The beast would see that barrier rising above the castle into the sky and know it could only be destroyed at its source. Glimmer must battle the beast when he arrived, to protect the four who held the anchor, but first she must protect her beloved from a future she could not bear to meet.
She turned to the shadowed corner where Kert had been standing with the Be’uccdha staff and found it empty. For precious seconds she simply stared, unable to believe he would disobey her. ‘Kert!’ she shouted, wondering where he had gone, and the castle staff too.
The first stirring of panic welled within her mind. Darkness overtook more threads and the future was less clear with each second. Was Kert the variant? Had he guessed that she planned to kill him? Should she have told him why?
Or was it Vandal she should have told? She swung back to face her brother but he only shrugged and opened his hands. Unconvincingly. Her palms were sweaty on the skirt of her stiff gown and she wished now that she’d worn jeans and a T-shirt like her brother, but the regal attire and her stature as a descendant of the Ancients had been designed to instil fear into the serpent. Yet another doubtful ploy.
A further crash came from above, this one followed by a rock fall that rained dust and crumbling stone across the length of the cavern, breaking the last of the glittering stalactites from the ceiling and smashing her father’s sermon balcony and long-disused meditation room into rubble. Along with the rocks came another weight falling onto the shadowed floor of the Altar Caves.
The beast.
With her superior vision, Glimmer saw Teleqkraal drop his minion to the floor, shake out his membrane wings and fold them against his glistening body. To the others he would be only a rustling in the shadows, but Glimmer smelt his hot breath as it stole the moisture from the air of the cavern. His red eyes glowed in the darkness, searching her out.
She ran back to her brother and stood in front of him. It was there that the beast spotted her.
‘Kert’s alive,’ Vandal said quietly, his hand on her shoulder. ‘And you don’t need to die either. I’ve got a plan.’
‘There are worse things than dying,’ she hissed, wishing now that she’d taken the time to explain her reasoning to her brother, but she’d had no idea he would disobey her, let alone that Kert would be his cohort. If only she could go back in time now!
Teleqkraal came lumbering towards them through the dust, stone shards crunching beneath his claws. ‘I have the talisman,’ he said in the voice of a demon, then he stopped five paces away. His furnace breath swept over them even as his gaze moved beyond to assess the sparkling golden barrier, with its four architects inside, intended to keep him from destroying the anchor. ‘You will accede to my will.’
Glimmer’s attention was solely on the talisman. She had to devise a method of debilitating the serpent long enough to extract it.
Vandal’s reaction to the beast was somewhat less analytical. His voice shook almost as much as his fingers, which now bit hard into her shoulder. ‘H-Holy shit! he whispered.
She sent her voice into his mind, REMAIN CALM. Then demanded of the serpent, ‘Why do you bring a minion?’
Teleqkraal cast a glance backwards at the Northman trembling a distance away, then he looked back to Glimmer and her brother behind her. He pointed a long, razor-sharp claw. ‘You have an attendant.’
‘He is more than an attendant,’ Glimmer warned t
he serpent. ‘He is your undoing.’ Vandal made a small choking sound behind her but Glimmer kept her attention on her opponent.
‘Does he fight on your behalf?’ the serpent asked.
‘No,’ Glimmer said quickly before Vandal could grow even more terrified. ‘He would not bother with a trifle such as you,’ she said. ‘He is here merely to amuse himself with the spectacle of your defeat at my hands.’
‘Indeed.’ The volcanic red eyes narrowed but Glimmer was prepared. When a burst of flame shot from his opened jaws her hands were already up, countering him with the icy cold of a Northern summit. Her force was the stronger and the flow swept back towards him. The serpent snapped his jaws shut before the icicles could invade his body and they fell harmlessly to the floor and shattered.
‘Why do you bring a minion?’ Glimmer repeated.
‘Why do you bother to protect the anchor?’ Teleqkraal asked, nodding at the barrier that rose from floor to ceiling. The four who maintained it could be seen as dark shadows inside the field’s sparkling walls.
‘Give me the talisman,’ Glimmer demanded.
‘You must take it from me,’ Teleqkraal said and Glimmer heard the challenge in his tone. The beast wanted battle. He might compromise later, but first he would test her strength. Precious little though it was. Glimmer didn’t want to tap Vandal’s power until the end, but she kept him close just in case.
‘Very well,’ she said confidently. ‘We fight.’
Behind her, Vandal said, ‘This is a bad idea.’
The serpent smiled and Glimmer felt a small flicker of apprehension. She tried to quell it, infuriated that her emotional disorder was bleeding into all areas of her life, but it would not be gone. Fear for her own safety — something she had never previously felt — disturbed her equilibrium. Which was ludicrous. Her power should be adequate to keep her alive, but Glimmer must also protect Vandal from the serpent, and she was unsure how long she could manage that.
Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3 Page 42
