“The chateau was his place of manifest, the opposite to his place of rest. Applying that same concept - a quiet centre -means his casket is of ultimate importance … to him. Perhaps even the reason he agreed to enter it.”
“From it he is able to feel the shivers on the outer rims of his web - to use the same analogy - and ‘reads’ both threat and advantage. Both alive and dead, therefore. That is another point to consider indeed. Man, he is patient, exceptionally so.”
“He has reached the end of what has been legendary patience.”
Tristan swung his leg back and vaulted onto the cobbles. “Well, our most important order of business now is this weapon. We need it or, as you say, people will die.”
Chapter 21
Truth is serenity.
Truth is insight.
Truth is chaos.
Truth is revelation.
~ Saska of the Sylmer ~
Eurue
The Fortress
IN THE MORNING, they returned to Alusin’s monstrosity in the north. Gale force winds battered the place, causing every window to rattle. The temperature had dropped even further.
A host of scrolls came with them, everything that contained even a hint of both legend and weapon.
Jonas groaned when he saw the scrolls. “Research,” he muttered under his breath.
Belun straightened as they entered the library. Someone, thank Aaru, had made a fire. The chamber welcomed them this time, and even smelled better.
“Jimini sent word,” the Centuar said without preamble. “The Grunway are in panic, but they are listening. Jala and her people have been given residence in the town, and Jimini and Kila are with them.”
“Good.” Tristan glanced around, noting his Kaval busy with various reading material. “Anything pertinent?”
Galarth looked up from a nook where he sat with his feet up and scrolls all around him. “We found two possible locations to match the place of creation of the daetal. Our thinking is, that’s where they will arise anew.”
“Good thinking. You realised they were made here?”
Shenendo waved a scroll. “We read the legend.”
Alusin frowned. “How? Most of the stuff here is written in runes.”
“Not true. This is common tongue.” Shenendo held the scroll out and, scowling, Alusin took it.
“Most of this is too.” Galarth waved at his parchment decorations.
“Impossible,” the Kemir muttered, unrolling the scroll. A moment later he met Tristan’s enquiring gaze. “I swear this was in runes before.”
The Valleur glanced at the hoard they brought with them, where they had deposited the lot on a settee near the entrance. “Earlier you bemoaned the fact that you would have to translate those for us. Check them.”
Paling alarmingly, given he was already pale, Alusin handed the scroll in his possession to Tristan and withdrew one at random from the pile.
The shuddering breath he released after unrolling it told the tale. “Impossible,” he repeated.
Placing his hand over the Medaillon under his tunic, Tristan said, “Might be that they remain in runes but we see the common tongue. Perhaps someone wants us to easily read certain markings on a certain black box, and has tweaked perception.”
“Then he has greater power than we have credited him with,” Chaim murmured.
“He wants his name seen, and understands at some point we will stand beside his sarcophagus,” Tristan said. “Well, that answers the question of whether or not we can use his name against him. Speaking it won’t bind him. Pity. I guess I hoped for an easier answer.” Sighing, he found a place to sit. “Time to familiarise myself with this legend.” Unfurling the scroll, he began to read.
In the time when heavenly bodies cavorted and streams of mesmerising light and hue created new spaces, sentience, in its infancy, played with the substance of life, inquisitive, seeking to discover where the limits of imagination lay.
Seven worlds hosted aware animated beings, and all employed the disarray in the ether within the fullness of their curiosity, and yet it is the second from elder where the true manipulation commenced.
The ambigram race, isolated, avid, talented and youthful, fashioned from the dust of stars the first intelligent sphere. One gifted juvenile endowed it with movement, an octagonal strategy, and imbued within it the privilege of curiosity. In his desire for novelty, he altered the fates of all.
The Original Sphere thus inhaled its creationary breath.
Tristan looked up. “Flowery language,” he muttered. “I’m already squint-eyed.”
Galarth snorted a laugh. “That’s what Jonas said.”
Smiling, Tristan added, “Ambigram race is obviously Eurue, so where does Kemir originate from?”
Standing behind Tristan’s chair to read over his shoulder, Alusin shrugged. “Why are Akhavar’s folk known as Valleur? But, there is a reason for the Kemir. Read on.”
“Octagonal refers to the eight sections. Seven worlds, though, is new to me,” Tristan murmured next. “Given what we know of this cycle’s history now, we can list Akhavar, Danaan and Eurue.”
Galarth again gave reply. “Which means four ancient worlds and their people are at this point unknown to us, and that means …”
“… something could bite us in the future,” Shenendo finished off.
Glancing at them thoughtfully, while not actually looking, Tristan muttered, “Even Torrullin was surprised by Danaan’s existence, therefore no one knows of these four mysterious worlds.” He focused, sending Belun a wink. “How intriguing.”
The Centuar grinned.
Alusin said, “Ixion and Adagin drew breath somewhere.”
“Ha, that’s actually not a comforting thought,” Tristan murmured, and returned to reading the scroll.
Filkemir, with extraordinary gifts, instructed his …
“Ah. Filkemir,” Tristan murmured. “Akin to Valleur evolving from Valla.”
“Exactly,” Alusin sighed.
Filkemir, with his extraordinary skills, celebrated his success by instructing his creation in the arts of speech and every connotation involved. He instilled sentience.
As his companions vied to emulate him, to bring forth additional triumphs, they extracted from the ether sphere after dancing sphere until the world appeared as the heavens above, in continuous movement. The ceaseless shifting gave rise to the term Oskil and thus were the spheres named.
The Original then Became. Able to employ the gifts of inner coercion, a day arrived when it as sphere stilled and from the motionlessness a form emerged with appendages such as its creator too wore. It emerged as a man wearing Filkemir’s features and demanded a name.
A name was given him, for it was no longer a creature of imagination; it was male and he possessed the ability to reason. This name cannot by shared. The events to transpire after receiving an appellation required remembering, but his name needed to be forgotten. He thus named decimated the ambigram people. He deserved utter immolation.
Filkemir, in thrall to his creation, witnessed the man wearing his aspect stride out and summon all lesser formed Oskil to him, and was helpless before his power. Pure foulness had been bred and that malevolence betrayed its maker.
“Standard behaviour,” Tristan muttered. He leaned back and glanced up at Alusin above him. “Does Kemir history recognise Filkemir as your great-grandfather?”
“No, his name was struck off as well, and now the only mention is in the original version of the Oskil tale, which is why I never made that connection, although I did understand his name is where ‘Kemir’ heralds from.” Alusin stepped back to stretch. “The Keeper line, according to record, began with my grandfather.”
No one said anything, but Tristan was aware his Kaval had marked that this legend spoke of Alusin’s forebears. Lowering his head, he read on.
The Oskil required energy to function in longevity and the ultimate source of vitality lay in the warm and beating blood of their creators. He thus na
med siphoned the larger percentage of that consumption from the spinning spheres in his bondage to maintain his maker’s aspect. His connection became psychic; theirs remained material. Survival was dependent on this symbiosis.
A world’s people were gradually consumed. Filkemir cried out to the spaces for aid, his heart beating atonement and regret. An answer was finally given him in the form of silver breath as ancient as the first sentient thought to develop in the universe. Sighing gasps formed a liquid metallic orb to fit in a man’s palm and thus was the gift of unmaking bestowed upon the ambigram.
The Aleru …
“What?” Tristan’s head jerked up.
The Kaval clearly awaited his reaction, knowing he would reach the point in the narrative where every cell in his body would abruptly ice over. They stared at him, expectant.
“Tris?” Alusin prompted.
“Aleru,” the Valleur gargled.
“The name given the quicksilver weapon …”
“Aleru is one of four ancient Valleur bloodlines,” Tristan whispered.
Utter silence descended into the library, and in that silence Alusin moved from behind the chair to hunker before Tristan.
Looking up into the man’s grey eyes, he said, “The weapon is Valleur?”
Ignoring that, Tristan gripped the scroll.
The Aleru Orb could not be denied. Silver, it was also gold dense. It smelled of burning atmosphere. It severed Filkemir from his thraldom and he thus escaped. With the aid of others, hidden amid the stones of antiquity, multiple orbs were fashioned, and thereafter deployed.
Once in motion, the orbs commenced a similar act of consumption, although theirs was of Oskil alone. The Aleru Orbs could not be denied.
He thus named faced extinction.
Tristan tossed the scroll aside. “I need a fucking drink.” Rising, he strode out, heading to the kitchen.
“What?” Alusin asked of Belun, confusion evident in his gaze.
This was about more than the description of the orb, which exactly matched the one Tristan saw in his vision on Petunya.
“Valla, Danae, Lorin and Aleru.” The Centuar murmured. “The making of the Valleur. Four bloodlines. Having read that, we now realise there was a Valleur-Kemir connection in times before.”
“Why should that be a problem?”
Belun’s great shoulders rose and fell. “Maybe ask him that.”
Immediately Alusin turned on his heels and went in search of the fair man.
Chapter 22
She walked in darkness, unseeing, but every day she felt the sun on her skin, and thus she knew the light also.
~ Arun, Druid ~
Eurue
Kemirin
SAVIER STOOD AT the floor to ceiling wall of leaded glass art, an eye to a clear curl in the mighty rendering of a falcon upon a phoenix diving into a lake of fire.
From this vantage he preferred to check on events in the town of Kemirin beyond the bridge. No one on the outside marked his presence or scrutiny.
Since Alusin left with Tristan that morning, a restlessness had settled upon him. He felt in his ancient bones that something was about to change spectacularly, and it was more than the threat of daetal. He smirked. Oskil. He preferred ‘daetal’, actually, for the term made it a more universal issue rather than merely the just desserts of Eurue alone. And wasn’t the Kaval, with its members from all corners of said universe, here to aid them? Eurue needed aid.
Alusin was not to blame for any of it. His actions might have created the dilemma of the present, but true blame lay with the idiots who attempted to play god in olden times.
Unfortunately there was a trade-off, when the makers of these creatures should have eternally annihilated them. He knew why that was.
… at the pivotal point, with a minority of the Oskil remaining, facing the darkness of an unmaking, he thus named proposed the following: to voluntarily enter stasis for eternity and bind all Oskil into perpetuity with him, if his creator swore allegiance. Filkemir was to bend the knee and become his Keeper. His descendants and all ambigram people in the generations to come needed to do so. In that manner was he prepared to be interred, for he would then still live, although not in a form understood.
Weary of death, Filkemir agreed, and thus it ended.
Scowling, Savier retreated from the leaded panes.
They should have ended it that day, but the Aleru Orbs had been filled to capacity and his great-grandfather knew that. They had but hours remaining before the orbs exploded to release anew every captured Oskil. Eurue would not have survived.
Filkemir took the deal with secret relief. Only he understood how close to the edge they all were. Gabryl regarded the agreement as weakness, but was as relieved to step from the conflict, believing he was on the edge of extinction. Thus they fooled each other.
All they did was buy time, Savier mused. His ancestor sought opportunity for a permanent solution to come forth, while he thus named sought a period of forgetfulness in order to gather strength. He, of course, trusted the weakness he saw in his maker to trickle down to his descendants. Someone would break oath in the fullness of years. That had now come to pass.
Heaving a sigh as he paced the long corridor to his formal study, Savier acknowledged he too was at fault. With so many millennia - eras - between the then and the now, it was a truth he had given the oath somewhat less credence that the legend stated, and had in fact wondered if it possessed power in the present. Perhaps if he had believed more he might have impressed upon Alusin the dangers.
In the central valley of stones, the Aleru Orbs were driven deep. As they attained the core, the Orbs exploded, thereby releasing the Oskil, but there was no escape for them.
He thus named appeased his malevolent followers, revealing to them he too was bound to an ebony casket.
Together in death as they were in life, the conflict ceased.
Swear allegiance to the Original, Kemir, or run the gauntlet of his resurrection.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Savier came to a halt.
The dry legend did not, could not, reveal the horror. The quicksilver orbs unmade the valley of stones. Today they called such an event an antimatter manipulation. Today that valley of stones was known as the Kiln. Flattened and smooth, nothing lived there.
Filkemir lived many centuries thereafter, ever searching for a final solution. He did not succeed, and passed on the tale of the Oskil and the Original, and the oath, to his son.
And here I am, an immortal. There is no one to pass the oath to. Savier gave a wry smile. Alusin was the very last of their bloodline. This will have come to pass one day anyway, upon our demise, spectacular as that needs to be.
At least the Kaval were alert, on Eurue and on their side.
Savier squared his shoulder and entered his study. He would no longer place blame. All were guilty and all were innocent too.
It was time to look to his people’s defence.
The power to unmake did not vanish with the quicksilver orbs. The power to unmake settled into bone and marrow that day to become an intrinsic condition. He simply needed to reawaken it carefully. During his grandfather’s time as Keeper it almost extinguished the Kemir as a race. It nearly did destroy their world.
Did he have time enough now to be careful?
Somewhere
“THEY STILL BELIEVE the legend,” he murmured, staring at her. “How much has been forgotten. I understand now why you prod them into finding the truth.”
She did not respond.
“Tell me, did you ever record our tale in your journal?”
Again she said not a word.
He laughed. “You did. I wonder if anyone will ever read it.”
The Fortress
“TALK TO ME. I do not understand your reaction.” Alusin found Tristan decanting fiery liquid into a goblet so large that, if filled and consumed, would knock a man unconscious.
The fair man blinked, and found two smaller vessels. Messing, he poured from
the large into the smaller, and passed one over.
Pressing his lips together, Alusin accepted it, but did not drink. Tristan guzzled his.
“What, for Aaru’s sake? Talk to me.”
“A few months before Torrullin and Elianas left they ran into an Aleru, a sword maker. He apparently gave Torrullin hell.”
Amusement had entered Tristan’s voice, and thus was Alusin more confused than ever. “I don’t get your point.”
“Point? No, there isn’t one.” Tristan swung around to lean his butt against the counter. Sipping the dregs of his brew, he said, “Suddenly it was yesterday and Torrullin was telling the tale of Anaho Aleru and how the man peeved him.”
Ah. The crux of the matter. Alusin said not a word. He tasted the fiery liquid and nearly spewed it out again.
“I miss him.” Fingers quested for the Medaillon.
He had been doing that more frequently recently, Alusin realised. “Until yesterday I believed I had lost my true essence. This morning I understood I had missed my brother. He is my family.” He paced nearer and took the emptied vessel from Tristan’s clasp. Setting both down, he stood before the man. “You too miss family.”
Closing his eyes, Tristan nodded.
“Go to Tianoman, Tris. Play with his grandchildren. Reconnect with your family.”
Opening his eyes, the Valleur murmured, “Now is not the time. We dare not absent ourselves from this arena.”
Eurue- The Forgotten World Page 17
