‘Warding,’ his father said at Vandal’s side, no trace of anger in his voice. Had desperation for the One World wiped it from his thoughts? ‘Place a barrier inside your mind, such as we created around the anchor. See it and it will be so.’
‘I’ll try,’ Vandal said, and he did try to concentrate past his fear and the sounds of destruction around him, but it wasn’t working. ‘I can’t … I don’t know what to do.’ He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder and a moment later the barrier was clear in his mind, a glowing white sphere around the talisman. ‘I’ve got it,’ he cried.
‘Hold that,’ Glimmer said.
Another huge crash rebounded around the walls and was followed by a crack. ‘The mirror,’ Lae whispered.
‘Quickly,’ Talis said. ‘You must destroy the beast. The anchor is failing.’
Vandal’s eyes were closed, his attention on the white sphere, but he heard a humming noise above the sound of the cracking mirror. The hum rose to a crescendo which undulated along with the beast’s banshee screams. Vandal couldn’t imagine what was happening to Teleqkraal but it sounded like it hurt. Then the noise reached its peak and abruptly stopped, coinciding with a wet explosion. Vandal felt something splat against his arm.
‘Done,’ Glimmer said. She sounded winded. ‘Did the beast project himself into anyone?’
‘I’m good,’ Vandal said and opened his eyes, but Glimmer touched each of their foreheads in turn, checking. ‘The One World?’ he asked.
‘Are you ready?’ she replied.
This was the part he’d been hoping to gloss over, the ‘get ready to die’ part. ‘Bring it on,’ he said, with what he hoped was bravado.
‘Like father like son,’ Khatrene said, and smiled at him sadly.
But Glimmer was all business. ‘I am beginning,’ she said. ‘Form a circle around us and hold fast to each other. Vandal with me.’
Vandal felt hands grasping him and moving him into position, then Glimmer’s arms locked about his shoulders. The others huddled in close and the warmth and scent of their bodies comforted him, spinning Vandal back in time to his childhood when his parents’ bed had been his refuge from frightening thunderstorms. They would sleepily welcome him, snuggling him between them, and always in the morning he’d wake in his own bed wondering if it had all been a dream.
This time he’d wake up with Petra, he hoped, and the past really would be a dream.
‘The pain will not last long,’ Glimmer whispered.
Vandal was just thinking, That would he nice, when his father said, ‘The Maelstrom …’ and he couldn’t help himself. Vandal opened his eyes and then wished he hadn’t. The castle above them was completely gone, the sky-mirror cracked and about to fall, and a dirty, multicoloured whirlpool was descending, eating everything in its path. The ground beneath them was giving way. They clutched each other and gasped.
‘Wait, it’s Kert!’ Talis shouted, pointing to the Sh’hale nobleman running towards them across the disintegrating floor.
But Vandal knew.
Glimmer too. Her fingers bit into his shoulders. ‘He’s not dead,’ she whispered and Vandal felt afraid then, because for the first time in his life he saw fear in his sister’s eyes.
‘It’s Teleqkraal!’ he told the others, then to Glimmer, ‘You have to kill him so he can’t come with us.’ He should have let her kill Kert in the first place. But how could he have guessed Teleqkraal would grab him?
‘I can’t!’ she wailed. ‘I’m not going to die now. You’re the one who’ll die. I can’t kill him and live. I love him.’
He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. ‘You have to.’
The floor collapsed then and they fell, clutching each other, but Kert leapt towards them and latched on. Talis tried to fend him off but he clung on like an octopus, teeth grimaced against the force of the swirling air around them.
‘If you don’t do something we’ll all die,’ Vandal shouted over the whistling of wind against his ears. They were caught in the whirlpool now, not falling but weightless, a mass of spinning bodies with Kert still hanging off the outside. Talis and Pagan shoved at him while Vandal and Glimmer yelled at each other in the centre.
‘I won’t let the serpent have the future,’ she said.
‘Then give him the past.’ It was time to revert to his alternative plan. ‘He’s had that already, so it can’t hurt to take him back.’
‘I’ve tried back jumps —’
‘How far back?’
‘As far back as I could reach. To my birth on Ennae —’
Suddenly the wind in his ears wasn’t distracting Vandal. ‘Why can’t you take him back further?’
Glimmer stared at her brother, some of her desperation fading. ‘I have the power,’ she said.
‘The life-force and the talisman —’
‘Will kill you.’
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ he replied.
‘Kert!’ Khatrene shrilled, then, ‘He was always ill mannered. Get him off!’ Slapping behind him. An elbow in Vandal’s ear.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Your mother?’
Glimmer smiled.
‘I asked you once when the serpent would be at his most vulnerable.’
She nodded. ‘In the beginning …’ Then pulled him close and pressed her cheek against his. ‘I’ll miss you,’ she said, her pale hair tickling his nose. But before Vandal could begin to feel maudlin he felt a wrenching behind his eyes. At first he feared the serpent was trying to control him, then it was clear who had invaded his mind.
STAY CALM AND OPEN, she said inside his head.
The sensation of wind and pulling disappeared and the white light his father had helped him create around the talisman exploded outwards in the most beautiful fireworks show he could have imagined. Streams of light seemed to rocket them away from the Maelstrom’s grip and into space — space with no stars. Vandal held his breath but there was no vacuum, just a blackness devoid of any landmarks, and with that, the sensation of passage.
It terrified even as it elated Vandal, then the stone began to grow warm, hot, scalding his belly. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe through it, to not think of dying, just of seeing Petra soon. But he was scared.
LOOK AT ME.
He opened his eyes and looked into Glimmer’s which were pools of the deepest green, calm and completely unafraid. After that he felt the pain to be a different thing — sensation, not bad just … there. Her skin glowed and her hair was like thin strands of light. It was beautiful. She was beautiful, and Vandal felt as though he was seeing her properly for the first time in his life.
‘Live,’ he croaked, then realised he wasn’t breathing, couldn’t find the mechanism inside himself to restart it. Sensation overwhelmed him and he thought, inanely, that humans were not the most practical vessels for discharging the talisman’s power.
NOT MUCH LONGER, she said. WE ARE NEARLY THERE.
The greater the … sensation inside him, the brighter she glowed, until finally all he could see was white light radiating from around her eyes, no other feature, no people beyond her, though Vandal knew they must be there. By that time he could barely keep his own eyes open and the burning had spread from his torso to his limbs.
THE TALISMAN WILL DESTROY YOU NOW. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME, she said.
Vandal would have nodded if he could. But it was ending. He was ending. It was mostly sweet, he thought, knowing Petra would like that.
Then there was a white-hot tearing and suddenly he was out, gone from the bright light Glimmer had exuded, and the slip from agony into death was like opening his eyes from a nightmare and seeing Petra smiling down at him.
Hey there, big boy. Been waiting for you …
EPILOGUE
Glimmer blinked as warm sunshine extinguished her light. Her arms, no longer clutching her brother, continued their momentum and ended up hugging her own shoulders. Vandal was gone, she hoped to a better place.
The others, who had been huddled a
round her, stepped back in confusion, but Glimmer was not confused. She took a deep breath and found the air fragrant with the scents of nature and alive with the sound of insects at work. A lamb bleated for its mother nearby and Glimmer smiled to herself. It was just as her memories had shown her it would be. Velvet green grass framed the delicate pastel hues of the flowers around her feet — bare feet, bare legs. Her gaze rose, and with it came the realisation that she was naked. In the tree before her curled a large snake with familiar red eyes.
Behind her, Khatrene asked, ‘Where are we?’
‘And what is going on?’ Pagan added.
Talis and Lae were silent, as though in shock.
‘Vandal gave up his life to buy us this reprieve,’ Glimmer said, and she calmly reached forward to grasp the snake behind its head, her fingers closing firmly around its sleek scales. She squeezed, watching dispassionately as its eyes bulged and its fanged mouth gaped. Leaves rustled and a choking sound came from above, then the snake stopped struggling and Kert fell through the branches of the tree to lie naked and gasping on the lush grass below.
When Glimmer was quite sure the serpent was dead, she threw it aside. ‘Don’t you love a happy beginning?’ she said. ‘Although now I do have an inordinately long wait to fulfil my destiny.’
‘Where are we?’ her mother repeated. ‘Is this the One World? Or are we somewhere else?’
‘Magoria,’ Glimmer replied. ‘But the question shouldn’t really be where, as much as when.’ She plucked an apple from the tree and took a bite of it. Sweet. Then she smiled reassurance at Kert before turning to face her fellow progenitors.
Pagan covered himself quickly with his hands.
‘Welcome to the Garden of Eden,’ she said. Then, ‘Fig leaf anyone?’
Destiny of the Light: Shadow Through Time 1
Ennae is a parallel world joined to our own world by the Sacred Pool, a portal that can only be opened by one with the Guardian blood running through their veins. It is through this watery gateway that Khatrene leaves her modern-day life behind forever, drawn into a quest that will take her into the depths of the unknown.
Khatrene must first fulfil her destiny as The Light, the woman whose child will unite the four elemental worlds. At each turn there are real and imagined enemies who will do everything in their power to prevent her from fulfilling the prophecy, including the ethereal and erotic shadow woman, the enigmatic tattooed man, even her beloved Mihale.
Talis, her appointed Guardian, must help her through the dangerous terrain of Ennae, sacrificing everything to ensure her safety in a land where magic prevails and nothing is as it seems.
This is the first book in the thrilling Shadow Through Time trilogy. Beautifully crafted and written, Destiny of the Light combines intrigue, magic and horror to create a reality that is out of this world.
Daughter of the Dark: Shadow Through Time 2
The child of the Light, Glimmer, is taken from her mother’s arms and forced into exile on Magoria, the Waterworld. Her only connection with her native land is Pagan, her Champion and Guardian, who must use his wits and powers to protect Glimmer from detection and hide the evidence of her true destiny.
Meanwhile on Atheyre (the Airworld), Princess Khatrene and her lover Talis watch on helplessly, unable to protect Glimmer from the dangerous and bloody power play that is taking place. Kraal, the evil God of Haddash, and Djahr, the Lord of The Dark, are plotting the violent death of baby Glimmer so that they can gain total control of the four elemental worlds.
But the universe is rebelling. Ever so slowly the Maelstrom is building momentum, threatening to obliterate the four worlds and all who inhabit them. Glimmer must return to the land of her birth and fight the fiercest battle of her young life to right the terrible wrongs of the past, defeat the enemies who threaten to destroy her and restore peace.
Once again, Louise Cusack weaves an intricate web of intrigue, magic, erotica and horror to create a tale of pure fantasy.
Acknowledgments
My first and most fervent thanks will always to go my family, my brothers Peter and Frank, my sister Christine, and particularly to my two children, Jake and Rachel whose love is like oxygen to me. I’d also like to thank my mother for letting me grow up a dreamer, and trusting that it would all work out okay.
My friend and fellow author Kim Wilkins has been right there with me throughout the writing of this trilogy, advising and offering unstinting support. My two writer’s support groups have also kept me sane: the physical one on the Gold Coast, and the other — Project Muse — located in the fantasy world of www (linked to my website).
I’d like to thank my brilliant editor for the series, Julia Stiles, proofreaders Ron Buck and Ian Tonkin, illustrators Vivien Kubbos and Neal Armstrong, and friend and fellow writer Deb Soukup who helped me with continuity and inspired me with her own persistence.
And last but by no means least, Selwa Anthony, a remarkable and inspiring woman whom I hope to be still bragging about as My Agent many years into the future.
About Louise Cusack
Refusing to accept her common Irish ancestry as a small child, Louise Cusack instead created an elaborate fantasy in which she imagined she was a kidnapped Russian princess, secretly adopted into a suburban Brisbane family — after all, Cusack does sound like Cossack if you say it quickly. Harmless at the time, these childish stories gradually alchemised into an adult tale of murder, magic, desperate passion and ultimate betrayal which became the Shadow Through Time trilogy. Louise currently resides in southeast Queensland, Australia.
You may email Louise at [email protected] or visit her website at www.louisecusack.com.
First published by Simon & Schuster in 2003
This edition published in 2012 by Momentum
Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
Copyright © Louise Cusack 2003
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
A CIP record for this book is available at the National Library of Australia
Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3
EPUB format: 9781743340158
MOBI format: 9781760082819
Cover design by XOU Creative
Proofread by Sarah Hazelton
Macmillan Digital Australia: www.macmillandigital.com.au
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