by C. E. Murphy
The other Timeless stopped some feet away from Lorhen, an unpleasant smile creeping across his face. Not quite as tall as Lorhen, he was slimmer and warmly colored, tones of dark mahogany in his skin and eyes, and in the highlights of his black hair. The side of his face was badly scarred, an ugly twist pulling at his eye and mouth. "Hello, brother.
"Am I your brother?" Lorhen asked with light-headed curiosity.
The slim man folded his arms across his chest and jerked his head out at the water. "Ships say a whole island sank out there. Did you have anything to do with that?"
Lorhen, slowly, said, "In a manner of speaking."
"And you're half dead now." An unpleasant smile fixed itself firmly on the scarred man's face. "Way I see it, you have two choices.
Lorhen lowered his head, staring through falling hair at the man. "Do I?"
“You could be my brother, or you could be dead.” The scarred Timeless let the words hang a moment, then added, “I could use a man who can sink an island."
Lorhen turned his head slowly to look out over the water, beyond the horizon where Atlantis had been. If he had killed Aroz, none of this would have happened. He would never have lost Ghean. If he had told her what she was, he wouldn't have lost her. If. If. If. He shied away from those thoughts, still unable to face them, and returned his bleary regard to the scarred man. "I've never had a brother."
The smile turned to a grin, no more pleasant as it split the scarred man's face. "You do now," he said. "My name is Yama, and we are going to rule the world, brother."
23
Silence lay heavy over the living room a few long moments, as Lorhen and Ghean's combined story came to an end. Emma looked away from the pair, scanning the room for something less unsettling to rest her eyes on. Instead, her gaze landed on a scarred white stone at the end of the bookcases, so out of place with the other elegant decorations. For an instant she stared at it, then turned horrified eyes back toward Ghean.
Ghean followed Emma's look, and turned a smile on her, full of bitter resignation and betrayal. Over her years as a Keeper, Emma had become accustomed to the world-weary expressions that would settle in the eyes of her Timeless charge. Mortals were all dying; from a Timeless perspective, they were all dying. Lorhen had said that to her once, an unusually cruel comment from a man who prided himself on not seeming to care. Devane cared enough to be gentle about his immortality compared to Emma’s mortal span, but Lorhen, she thought, cared even more deeply. Deeply enough to say that to her, to show that vulnerability, his impotent rage at the brief years mortals had to see and experience the world.
Emma glanced at Lorhen, sunk deep in his chair, elbows propped at awkward angles against its arms so he could steeple his fingers against his mouth. He regarded Ghean as if no one else was in the room, changeable eyes black with memory. He looked contained, apart, even sitting with three others who knew his most basic secrets, and Emma shivered. He remembered Ragar, after all these centuries, a single mortal scholar whom he’d known for little more than a heartbeat in his long life. He would remember her, too, when death took her, and like Ragar, she thought that might be enough. More than enough, which made it hard to stay angry. She would probably have to forgive him, and soon, for having lied to her about who and what he was.
Not, though, for hiding the First Keeper’s records. Anger sparked in her again after all, conflicting and wearying. Emma sighed and brought her attention back to Ghean, whose acrid smile had left her mouth, but remained deep-set in her eyes. Hers had been a hell worse than the other Timeless had suffered, even with the pain of lost friends. Eternal life and eternal death, in eternal captivity. The hairs on the back of her neck stood again, and Emma glanced at the stone on the bookshelf once more.
"Yes," Ghean said to the unspoken question. "It's the same stone. I kept it as if it were a precious talisman, a piece of jewelry so valuable it couldn't be parted with." Her faintly accented voice was self-mocking.
Emma shook her head. "It is. It bought you your freedom, didn't it?"
Ghean looked at her curiously. "I suppose it did. I hadn't thought of it that way."
Emma half smiled. "Mortals do have the occasional insight."
“Occasionally,” Ghean said with an equally brief smile, then turned her attention back to Lorhen, a serene calmness settling over her face. Emma imagined she could see Minyah looking out from her daughter's face, in that steady contemplation. "Tell me what happened to my mother," Ghean said imperiously.
"I thought she'd died," Lorhen answered, fingers still against his lips. "After I couldn't find her, I assumed the cloak had been torn off her in the water and that she'd drowned."
"And you did not look further." Ghean's voice was soft.
Lorhen ignored the question. "I didn't see her for a thousand years." His glance ran to Cathal and Emma, and slid off them again. "Not until after the Unending disbanded."
Heat rose in heavy waves from the desert floor, warping the air so greatly that Lorhen made a habit of looking twice before feeling any assurance that objects were real, and not figments of a heat-strained imagination. More than weeks had passed since he'd last seen a traveler through the wasteland; months, at least, had gone by, and perhaps more. After a thousand years of warfare, the silence was welcome, even in the inhospitable desert.
His oasis was a tiny one, a patch of green in the desert so small that passing nomad tribes stayed only long enough to water themselves and their animals before moving on, unwilling to encroach on the little home Lorhen had dug himself out of the sand. It couldn't possibly be him, he thought; surely his demeanor was pleasant and welcoming, despite what the reflection in the still water showed him.
Truthfully, if he could escape his own face, he would; he could hardly blame visitors for moving along as quickly as possible. The changeable eyes had gone to black, fathomless darkness whose first and most easily read expression was rage, seconded by hatred. The features, always sharp, were chiseled thin with an everlasting anger that fed in his belly, churning and boiling. Hair framed his face, unkempt, the top once chopped short and finally growing out. Left to its ragged path, it completed the aura of complete disdain for humanity that radiated from his slender form.
The approaching traveler was either real or a remarkably persistent hallucination. Lorhen turned from his perch at the edge of the oasis, flinging a loose length of fabric over his face and shoulder to cut down the sun's glare. The waterhole was easily enough found, and without an offer of hospitality, perhaps whomever it was would move on. A millennium of battle was hard to set aside, and the more Lorhen could avoid mortals who provoked his temper, the better. In a decade—or a century—or two he would rejoin the world. Until then, the solitude suited his need to reconstruct himself from what relentless death had left him.
Some of the passion for killing had left him already. Had he gods, Lorhen would have thanked them, as he settled to his knees in the sand under a slim tree, the scarf falling away from his face again. A thousand years had gone by since Yama had found him on the beach in Atlantis’s wake. He had killed where he wanted, fought whom he chose, and hunted with his brothers, sharing spoils and graciously offering Blendings back and forth, the unfortunate victims left to listen while four murderous Timeless debated whose turn it was to indulge in the heartstrike. The power had been heady, but in time it grew sour. Mortals were little sport, and only his brothers equaled his skill with a blade. Even the rush of the Blending seemed dulled, when he never doubted he would be the victor in Timeless combat.
Then came Cassandra. Laden with power even before Awakening, she'd been able to wield the Blending unlike anyone Lorhen had ever met: well enough to bring him back to himself, and to remember, at least faintly, the long-buried memories of Atlantis and its gods. Her beauty and fire had been his, for a little while, but in the end, Yama had wanted her. Yama, the ringleader, the most vicious and the best with the sword.
Lorhen had never been the strongest, only the smartest. He let Yama tak
e Cassandra, and then watched her run away into the night, and didn't stop her.
The thousand-year reign of the Unending began to falter, after that. It had not been easy, spreading the seeds of dissent so carefully and subtly that the blame rested on no one, least of all Lorhen. He'd clasped arms with Yama, the last of the four to part ways, and promised, "Someday. Someday, we'll ride together again, you and I. Until then, brother."
And then he ran like hell into the desert, to an insignificant oasis that had once been someone's holy ground, and there he stayed, in search of sanity. It was long in coming, but at least the killing rage was fading.
The traveler's camel was slurping noisily at the water. Lorhen closed his eyes, willing the newcomer away, only to open them again almost immediately. He was safe enough from Timeless, here on the ancient holy ground, but holy ground wouldn't prevent a bloodthirsty mortal from taking his head. Then his power would be dispersed to the ether, just as happened to any Timeless who died from a beheading without the heartstrike, and that, frankly, would be a waste of two millennia or more of life. The very idea that some random child, or children, could inherit scraps of his power, of his memories, rather than the whole of what he was being taken as one by some lucky Timeless, offended him on a personal level. Better vigilant in the face of mortals than cast to the winds by unfortunate happenstance.
The faint shift of sand underfoot made him turn his head, looking to the approaching stranger. Slight, and wrapped in the loose robes that kept the desert heat from killing, the interloper stopped a few yards from where Lorhen knelt. After half a minute's silence, Lorhen heard a language he had not heard in ten centuries, spoken by a voice he thought dead those many years.
"They told me that I would find a madman alone in the desert if I passed this way," Minyah said, and pulled her scarf from around her face. "Never did I imagine he might be a friend from a thousand years gone by."
For long seconds, Lorhen stared up at the Atlantean scholar, speechless, and when he found his voice, it was raw with disuse and disbelief. "A friend? Is that what I am?"
"You saved my life," Minyah answered evenly. "Had you not dragged me out of the temple, I would have died as certainly as Ghean did. I do not think any of the House artifacts are remarkable enough to compensate for fires as hot as the earth's core itself. I saw the sea boil in places where Atlantis' stone fell from the island as it melted. I would not have wished to die in those fires."
"I thought you drowned."
“I waited to.” Minyah knelt gracefully, still a few meters away. "I waited to. The water's pull dragged me under, but in time it released me again. When I finally reached the surface, you were gone."
“I looked for you," Lorhen said eventually. "Until the water came too close to pulling me back to Atlantis."
Minyah crooked a smile. "And so you left, and so you would again, if it were to happen again. For a long time I was angry at you. It took centuries before I was able to understand the need that compelled you to run from the temple, to abandon those who fought or died there. The desire for survival in itself, that is understandable. But for you, it is more, is it not? It was not something I understood well enough to see, in Atlantis. Only retrospect gave me that wisdom. It is not only survival, for you. It is survival at any cost."
"I betrayed that instinct once," Lorhen grated as Minyah's words ceased. "I let Ghean stop me from killing Aroz in Egypt, and in the end it cost us everything." The chill of death settled over his face, the cold lines comforting. "Love's lessons can be hard. It's not a mistake I'll make again."
Minyah came to her feet in a smooth motion, crossing the sands with a few steps, and resting her fingers atop Lorhen's head. "My dear Lorhen," she murmured after a moment, "what has happened to you this thousand years?"
Lorhen broke off his narrative to frown uncomfortably at Ghean. "She stayed a while," he said. "Years. Decades, maybe. My sense of time was…not good. I told her about the Unending, and she, in turn, told me about the Keepers. We parted as very close friends. Over the years we met up again, now and then, and exchanged tales. Her files on me were frighteningly complete."
"It's good you were friends," Ghean said softly. Lorhen closed his eyes, exhaling gently, and looking at the petite woman again when she spoke again. "But what happened to her, in the end? I want to know."
"She died," Lorhen said tiredly. "Isn't that enough, Ghean?"
Ghean, insistently, said, "No. She was my mother, Lorhen. I want to know."
Lorhen lowered his face against his steepled hands, sliding his fingers along the bridge of his nose to press at the inner corners of his eyes. He held the posture so long that Ghean glanced uncertainly at Cathal and Emma. Just as she pulled in a breath to speak, Lorhen's voice broke the silence. "All right."
"Yours?" The twins were just in their teens, both tall and slender, and madly running through the surf, soaked to the skin. Lorhen stared openly, first at the children, and then at the unaging mortal beside him.
"Not by birth," Minyah said, amused. "For all the artifacts' wonders, they do not turn back the years, only hold them at bay. My child-bearing days were over while Atlantis still stood." She stood, looking out over the blue water. "I miss it sometimes," she said. "I hardly recognize myself, from my oldest journals. I knew so little, then. Is that how it always must be?"
Lorhen shook his head. "You were always knowledgeable, Minyah. The world has changed, and you've watched it happen. It's that way for all of us."
She folded her arms under her breasts, pushing the cloak back over a shoulder. "I was proud of my knowledge, then. I knew there was always more to be learned, but I was proud of what I had." A hand drifted up to touch the cloak’s hem. "Were my gods wise or foolish, Lorhen, to give us these gifts? Mortal life is so short, but the world has so much potential. Part of me wants everyone to share in it. The greater part fears what might happen if all people were given this gift."
Lorhen rested his chin on his knees, watching the water and the children playing in it below. "Your gods were well-meaning," he said. "I don't know whether they were wise or foolish, but they meant well. And if more people knew about the artifacts, or if there were more of them, it would make war. There's always war. Artifacts would be hoarded, and only the rich would be able to afford them. For most people, it would be the same as it is now. For the dangerous ones, the ambitious ones, there'd be no way to stop them." He glanced up, eyes hazel in the sunlight. "My kind of immortality is less dangerous. I can die. I don't know if you can."
Minyah laughed, settling down beside him on the rock again. "Can you? Three thousand years, my old friend, and you still think you can die?"
"I wouldn't keep my head if I didn't know I could lose it," Lorhen said, and then nodded at the children. "Where did they come from?"
"Nephele, the first wife of Athamas the king. He lost interest in her, and left her. He remarried when the children were small, but his new wife does not like them very much. I have played nursemaid, and helped to raise them. I have missed children, over the years.
Lorhen nodded again. "What will you do?"
Minyah glanced away from the children to look at Lorhen. "What do you mean, what will I do?"
"Our kind were not meant to have children, Minyah." Lorhen smiled faintly down at the water. "I forget," he said after a moment, "that you and I are different. Despite there being no warning at your approach, I think of you as one like me. Even we old ones categorize things in the most familiar manner, whether or not we know better. But that aside, Minyah, they'll grow old and die, while you go on eternally. Watching it happen to friends is bad enough. Can you stand to watch it happen to your children?"
Minyah sat silent a long time. "The war-horses drowned with Atlantis," she said eventually. "They tell stories about them, did you know? They call them unicorns. Noah took Methuselah's crystal away with him on his ship. I have the cloak. Did you ever wonder what had happened to the rest of the artifacts, Lorhen?"
Lorhen glanced at her
. "I'd assume they'd all sank with the island."
Minyah shook her head. "I have searched out fabulous stories about magical items over the years. The cauldron, the sword and scabbard, the grail; I've found them. Even the ring, which is so small I would have thought it lost forever." She lifted her hand, showing a simple gold ring on her right middle finger. Lorhen took her hand, folding her fingers over his. Barely visible even in the bright sunlight remained the faint lines of an etching that had once scarred the ring more noticeably. "The Lion," he guessed from the lay of the still-lasting marks.
Minyah nodded. "I only found it a few months ago. I tracked it nearly two centuries. A rumor here and there about a magic ring, a half-remembered tale about an ancient man who wore it—eventually I found the man who wore it."
"And how did you get it from him?"
Minyah gave a sideways smile. "I stole it."
Lorhen's eyebrows shot up. "You?"
"It is not much like me, is it? He was a small man, black of heart. He'd woven a tale of woe, and gained it from the last owner, before killing him. He was a warlord, not well loved. I became his lover, and slipped it off his finger one night. I understand he died not long after." There was no sympathy in her voice, and Lorhen’s mouth curled.
"Judging who lives and who dies?"
Minyah lifted a shoulder, let it fall again. "We all die, in the end. You have just reminded me of that. I judged him unworthy of special protection. I cannot find distress in that."
"Do you think you need the protection of both the ring and cloak?"
"No." Minyah shook her head. "I will wear the ring, and put the cloak away. Although after so long I fear I will feel unclothed, without the cloak on my shoulders. I have slept in it, even, for all these years." "
