“This has presence,” he murmured.
“Part of our Lifesource,” Alusin said, touching his brow and his heart.
“No guards?” He had not yet seen a guard of any description.
“Eurue is isolated. We have no need of guards.”
Twisting his head to gaze at the palace, Tristan asked, “How old is this place?”
Many wings in pale stone linked with airy trellised walks filled the vista from one side of the enclosing wall to the other. Leaded windows blinked in the sunlight. Again, flowers were in profusion. Beyond the bridge a circular driveway contained an impressive fountain and pool, rearing horses spewing silvery water from open mouths. Landscaped gardens exuded verdant serenity.
“Dancing Suns,” Alusin replied. “This, and a few other buildings, made it through the wars.”
Old. Tristan’s eyes narrowed. Magic kept it alive, for in that amount of time even the best built would have crumbled.
“Does your brother know about us?”
Staring into the depths, Alusin nodded.
“Great,” Tristan muttered.
“You are thinking too loud again,” Alusin snapped. “Come on; he’s expecting us.”
Without further ado, he strode over the bridge and headed left of the fountain towards a conservatory in the park-like setting before the palace.
Tristan followed, his heart pounding out of rhythm.
A WHITE-HAIRED man in a shimmering green robe bent over a low bench. An earthen vessel filled with rich dark soil had his attention. A tray of seedlings waited alongside a row of gardening tools. His hands were covered in earth.
White hair swung as he turned on hearing footsteps behind him. A dark blue gaze swept over Alusin first and then shifted to Tristan. Wiping his palms to dislodge excess soil, he approached.
“Alusin.”
“Savier.”
The brothers embraced long, holding on without words.
When they drew apart, they grinned at each other.
“Still like to plant?” Alusin gestured at the seedlings and his brother’s dirty hands.
“Best way to stay in touch with our world is through its soil,” Savier murmured. “These are aubergines.” Laughing, he then extended a hand to Tristan. “Hope you don’t mind dirty hands, Tristan Valla. Welcome to Eurue.”
Smiling, Tristan took that hand, and then pulled the man into the ritual forearm to forearm Valleur greeting. “My thanks. I admit you come as a surprise.”
Savier inclined his head. “Eurue survived this long due to its isolation. Do not hold that against my brother.”
Releasing the clasp, Tristan murmured. “I did, but no more. I am Valleur and we know how to keep secrets too.”
Savier smiled. “Indeed. Tell me, will you inform your cousin the Vallorin about this?”
“Not unless he needs to know. Tianoman deserves his peace; he fought hard to achieve it.”
“Hmm, you do understand.” Savier stepped away, gesturing to a set of garden chairs and a round table beneath the foliage of a stand of palm trees. “Please. Sit. We must talk. Excuse me a moment; I need to wash my hands.” Sending Alusin a look, he slipped away between the greenery.
Instead of moving to the seating as bid, Tristan met Alusin’s gaze. “He does not like me.”
Alusin did not blink. “You do not like him.”
Sucking at his teeth, Tristan muttered, “He reminds me of Nemisin.”
Both men flinched, severing their eye lock, when Savier strode in, saying, “You speak of Nemisin as if you knew him. How is that possible?”
With a wry twist to his mouth, while moving to a chair, Tristan said, “I spent time with him, if only briefly.”
“You are not old enough.” Savier took a seat, folding his legs and hands as a diplomat would.
“Valleur have a tendency to return through the ages. Nemisin did just that and challenged Tianoman for the Valleur Throne.”
Savier shifted in his seat. “Extraordinary. Where is Nemisin now?”
Tristan snorted a laugh. “The Path of Shades. It is my hope he and Rivalen are driving each other mad in there.”
Alusin eventually moved from his frozen position to fling into the chair beside Tristan. He glared at his brother.
Savier flicked him a look and then focused on Tristan. “The Path of Shades is real?”
Tristan inclined his head, “If you are now considering it as a final destination for your entombed troublemaker, know it is impossible. Torrullin sealed the Path to ensure Rivalen cannot ever escape it.”
“Pity.” Savier shifted his attention to Alusin. “You have created chaos for Eurue, brother. How will you fix it?”
Rolling his eyes, Alusin muttered, “Don’t play the innocent, Sav. You are Keeper; you know the oath inside out. Why did you not forbid me the Dome?” He folded his arms. “An objective witness might say you wanted this to come to pass.”
Sighing, Savier relaxed his stiff body language, and passed a hand over his face. “Not deliberately. Truthfully, I had doubts regarding the veracity of the oath, and maybe hoped you would prove it one way or the other, but it wasn’t a conscious thought. When nothing happened after you swore to the Kaval, I thought it was no more than a myth, that we have been living in fear for no reason.” He inhaled. “We were both wrong.”
“Then both of us need to fix it. Don’t put it all on me.”
Savier rolled his eyes in turn. “Seems that way.”
Finally they grinned at each other.
Indeed brothers, Tristan mused in private. With the longest history. He needed to watch his mouth, for creating a rift between them would plunge himself and Alusin into a state of war.
Tristan cleared his throat. “How do I address you?”
“I have enough of ‘Keeper’ from others. Savier will do.”
Tristan nodded, a ghost of smile appearing. “I generally want to slap someone when they ‘my lord’ me.”
Savier laughed. “I nearly did just that an hour ago when my major domo was horrified over ‘his lordship’s’ wish to get his hands dirty.”
A genuine smiled climbed into Tristan’s eyes. “Maybe you’re not as arrogant as Nemisin.”
Spluttering laughter, Savier murmured, “And maybe you're not as foolish as Torrullin.”
“For fuck’s sake, Savier,” Alusin groaned. “Tinder and dry scrub much?”
All three men laughed.
In the aftermath of their mirth, Savier pulled his chair closer to the table. He glanced at Tristan. “Are you able to seal a space against listeners?”
Tristan waved a hand. “Done.”
Alusin frowned at his brother. “You are able to do so.”
“Yes, but then those listeners will know. Now they are simply deafened.” He shrugged. “While I am not afraid of dissenters, at this point I do not wish to spread panic.”
“Wise,” Tristan nodded.
“Tell me what you know.” He shared his gaze between the two Kaval men. “I must understand the dynamics.”
Together, then, they commenced a conclave.
Chapter 20
Family is both nurturing and destructive
~ Lanto – Bards and Tales Champion – Valaris ~
Kemirin
The Palace
LATER, OVER DINNER in a private dining chamber far from the formal state rooms, Savier said, “That monstrosity in the north is safest for you and Tristan. Have you never wondered why that place doesn’t fall apart? Our father’s mother enchanted it, not only to survive the march of time, but also to have no signature or presence.”
“Mother once said magic holds it together, which she heard from our grandmother, but I didn’t realise,” Alusin replied. He pushed his food around, frowning, unable to do justice to the excellent fare.
“Magic users cannot sense it?” Tristan asked, sipping wine from a goblet older than most of the inhabited worlds.
“Apparently not,” Savier murmured. “I do, for I know it exists, but I cannot tell when Alu
sin is resident. It ever feels deserted to me.”
“I wonder if that extends to Gabryl,” Alusin said, fingering his goblet.
Savier inhaled and exhaled, a deep preparatory breath. “His state is different from magic users as we recognise them, for he siphons energy from others in order to exist, from the essences daetal consume. They eat for him, his hunger is satisfied. That is directly from the legend. If that is true, he cannot sense your fortress; his state does not allow that kind of discernment.”
He collected his goblet, sipped and went on. “What I tell you next is my understanding of how he managed to take on form outside of his containment. Being himself a daetal, the first success, he employed the initial breach - which was your heart soaring to spaces unknown, Alusin - to shift to another place and subsequently consumed energy sources personally, I suspect on an individual basis. A serial killer, in other words, in his case leaving no bodies behind. These incidences of theft your team uncovered smacks of his hunting grounds at various times.”
“There was no mention of murder,” Tristan said.
“A clever man is able to hide his misdeeds.”
“True. You are saying he needs a host of daetal to become unassailable,” Tristan understood.
“Yes, and until recently he did not have sufficient energy reserves to call his children to him. That changed when Alusin actually broke his word to Eurue and thereafter he carefully prepared a hunt to summon his true source of power into his orbit. First he conned the Grunway folk to aid him, thereby lending him sufficient resources to open a doorway to the spaces between, duping the daetal beyond to do his bidding, and with the energy transferred to him after every consumption …”
“… he ensnared me and Tris,” Alusin muttered.
“Because you, brother, are his true source.”
Frowning, Tristan murmured, “That explains it. When we first met him, he shifted between states continuously, and then suddenly he no longer did. Alusin was finally within reach.”
“He wasn’t simply waiting to confirm Torrullin’s absence,” Alusin understood. “A century went by, because he was not yet in a position to summon the daetal.”
“He needed a space without overt technology, because technology interferes with frequency - therefore Petunya - and he needed a base from which to launch his campaign, one with magic users enough to aid him within reach and with an excuse to blend in - therefore a lonely woman in a chateau. She gifted him a place in a rural society. Gabryl Lowry became a member of Frond’s community. Diabolical.” Tristan shook his head in disgust.
Savier frowned into his vessel. “All of it is temporary. He has set the stage, but he is not whole. He seeks wholeness.”
Tristan nodded. “He said as much, yes.”
“Wholeness is about more than a tangible form.” Savier pushed his goblet aside and lifted his fork to tap the edge of his plate. “Soul. Balance.” Lifting his gaze to Tristan, he murmured, “He used both those words when threatening you, correct?”
Unspeaking, the Valleur gave a nod.
“Gabryl has no soul,” Savier continued thoughtfully. “He shifts between a body long entombed and a replica resurrected form, but not as soul, as something akin to simulated spirit. He is a vessel only, dead and alive simultaneously. He requires his soul to become whole, and that requires balance.”
Alusin reached over and jerked the fork from Savier’s grasp. “Stop it, you’re irritating me.” Abruptly he flung the fork across the table; it skipped across the surface to tumble to the flagstones on the other side. “Tristan is the balance. See, Sabian, as ex-Agnimus, had a bit of Valla added into his Kemir mix. He used the singing blood to become soul. Why not, as Sabian did, employ the same genetic marker?” He inhaled the enlightened kind of breath. “I am to unmake what was and you, Tristan, are to remake what will be. And, how fortunate, we are Eternal Companions. What a gift we are on a silver platter to a monster.”
“He wants my blood, for it will gift him soul. Absolute balance, by his reckoning, for I will be consumed. No conflict of interest there.” Ignoring Savier for Alusin, Tristan smirked. “It’s not about my loyalty, or yours. It is pure selfishness. Well, I aim to disappoint.”
Savier smiled. “No lack of courage here, I see.”
Tristan lifted his fork.
“Tap that thing and I’ll smack you,” Alusin growled.
Pointing the tines at the white-haired man, Tristan said, “The daetal at the chateau said Kemir require closed circles. What did it refer to?”
Alusin opened his mouth to deny that claim as he did on Frond, his expression darkening, but Savier spoke before he was able to.
“That is a clue. Clever daetal.”
Alusin’s mouth snapped closed, and then reopened. “What does that mean?”
Savier retrieved his goblet. “We forget something intrinsic here, and that is the condition of the daetal themselves. In ancient time the miasmas were misused and among others the daetal were formed. The daetal were formed here, on Eurue. We called them something else, but that is of no matter. A Kemir made them, here.”
“Which is why a Kemir can unmake them,” Tristan murmured, replacing his fork in his plate. Only half-eaten, he set his meal aside. “That is closing a circle.”
“Indeed, but there is more to it,” Savier said. “This Kemir realised his error and altered them, creating a force for justice instead. He could not change how they dispensed justice and thus banished them to a place where they could do no harm, as well as not frighten folk, to be summoned to duty when needed. Their purpose became, point of fact, a nobler duty than initial creation allowed for. Another closed circle, not so?”
As Savier gulped wine to ease a parched throat - his voice had hoarsened - Tristan and Alusin waited without speaking.
“Not all daetal were banished, however; Gabryl by another name and a multitude of poorly formed miasmas remained. The Kemir could not send the twisted ones away, for they had no functional ability to allow them to recognise a command. This is the point in our history where the quicksilver weapon enters the narrative, but that is another discussion entirely. The Original was eventually bound and, when that happened, the hungry creatures were absorbed into Eurue’s core.”
“Gabryl’s true children,” Tristan sighed.
Alusin sent his brother a look. “Who was the Kemir who did all this?”
Savier lifted his goblet to mimic a toast. “And there is the point to my ramble. He was our great-grandfather. You, Alusin Algheri, are the last in our line. A closed circle, not so?” He swigged the remains of his wine and banged the goblet down.
Nowhere
THE CIRCLE IS more closed than you realise, Savier.
She ate because he forced her, but wished to spit every mouthful out. She did that a few days ago and he tied her to the bed and force fed her.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because they are almost ready,” he snorted.
“They will kill you.”
“No, my love, they will kill you. You are no longer a benevolent being. And that will be the sweetest revenge ever.”
She watched him. He was lying. What was his true purpose in this?
Palace Bridge
Later
“MY BLOODLINE IS guilty of much,” Alusin muttered, leaning his forearms on the bridge parapet, staring into the swift current below.
Night was deep, for the moons had not yet risen.
Tristan snorted. “The Vallas are not innocent.”
Closing his eyes, the Kemir turned to rest against the stone wall, his back to the water. “I hear you, but I am not Elixir, or Alhazen. I have not the power to end this without people dying for it.”
Swinging a leg over the wall, Tristan straddled the cold stone. “What worries me is the time frame. How long before the twisted creatures long held in the core are loosed? And, and we need to unravel this one, what about Gabryl’s true name? Kemir do not say it, unconsciously understanding that a true name sets one free. T
hey are on the mark, but Gabryl is already free, if not in wholeness. Will speaking his name completely separate him from this tomb, as he wishes for? Is that the point in time you force an unmake upon him? Or, Alusin, will speaking his name in fact bind him anew?”
Alusin stared at him. “Damn, you have a point there.”
“Have you seen his sarcophagus?”
“Of course, but it has been hundreds of years.”
Tristan lifted an eyebrow. “You saw it and still thought it a legend?”
Alusin gave a wry laugh. “It’s akin to stumbling over ancient relics on other worlds. Folk tell us the tales surrounding them, but time has muted everything. It’s no longer real.”
“Yeah, true, “Tristan sighed. “But the runes? You read them? You knew exactly what to use to break us out of that chateau.”
“Do I detect suspicion?”
“I merely seek to understand.”
Shrugging, the Kemir said, “We write in runes. It’s second nature to me. Once I made the connection to he who lies in a black coffin, I knew which to employ.”
“Is his name in runes on that thing?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s why a Keeper is necessary, to prevent anyone from inadvertently reading it.”
“Savier may, for he is Keeper. He took Gal and Shedo in because he knew they would see unfamiliar runes only.”
Tristan frowned, thinking about that visit. “Gal said it was a nondescript place. Hiding in plain sight is one thing, but a wooden door and a single key? How has no one entered there in curiosity?”
Folding his arms, Alusin smirked. “It’s in the key Savier carries. That door won’t open unless the key is present, and only he can turn it in the lock.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“There’s something more. In the barn when I fetched Jala and the others, Jala spoke about a web, Gabryl being the spider. It got me to thinking. We agreed he would keep the chateau free of death because he needs the quiet of his web’s centre. With me?”
Tristan gave a nod.
Eurue- The Forgotten World Page 16
