“No,” Savier whispered. “Don’t touch it.” Swiftly he reanimated and caught up with the Vallorin. “This took them away. Do not touch it.”
About to do so, Tianoman snatched his hand back.
A moment later the two men glanced at each other in challenge. Yes, if they wished to find their missing family, following in their footsteps might just lead them directly to wherever they were.
Simultaneously, they laid hands upon the sarcophagus.
Nothing happened.
Pressing down, Tianoman frowned. “Has it lost its portal power?”
Although he had earlier proposed it, Savier asked, “Do you think that’s what it is, a portal?” He removed his hands, rubbing them convulsively after in order to restore warmth. The ancient stone was icy.
The Valleur nodded. “But they did something more to activate it, I think.” Straightening, he glanced around.
Other than for the circular patterns of warm light on the floor, nothing gave evidence as to what that might be.
“A portal bridges realms, of course,” he went on, “and that explains how they vanished from Reaume. Where to? I cannot even hazard a guess.”
“I heard of Arianne?” Savier posed his suggestion as a question. These were not his fields of expertise; he would bow to the Vallorin’s knowledge in this.
Tianoman stared at him. “I hope not.”
“Why?” Savier rolled his shoulders to ease his tension.
“Firstly, Arianne is guarded by less than friendly sentinels, and secondly, Arianne is where Torrullin is.” Tianoman swore once under his breath. “If Tristan has landed up near that man and is in trouble, Arianne is about to be taken apart. No, let us hope they are elsewhere.”
“Well, gods, where else?”
“Lethe, but Lethe was set as barrier between Reaume and Arianne, and is therefore more dangerous than even entering the Path of Shades would be.”
Savier stared at him in turn. “The Path?”
Tianoman immediately denied that. “Completely out of bounds. They are not there.” He glanced at the sarcophagus again. “Perhaps these runes state destination. Can you read them?”
Inclining his head, Savier gazed down. A frown soon marred his pale forehead. “It’s precisely the same as Gabryl’s.” Eyelashes swept up as he lifted his attention to where he knew the name was engraved. “Cathian Lowry?” His hand shook as he pointed. “Cathian was my grandmother, but Lowry …”
“Isn’t that the name Gabryl goes by?”
Savier swallowed. “Yes.”
“Then this is definitely a portal and this is also how Gabryl was able to leave Eurue. Does it state destination?”
Touching a rune in the centre of the upper surface, Savier said, “This is destination and it translates as Eurue. The casket is meant to keep its occupant here.”
Arms akimbo, Tianoman stepped back to survey the whole. “I have a feeling this has been shut down to prevent anyone following.”
“What do you suggest?”
“We wait for Tristan to make contact. He will find a way. Meanwhile, this space should be guarded, in the event of another employing it to enter your fortress. Also, if Tristan and Alusin do return via this device, someone will be on hand to aid them should they need it.”
Savier pressed digits into his cheek, knowing that meant asking the Valleur to do so. “It seems Eurue requires protectors, given we are now rejoining the inhabited worlds. A task for the future, of course. Will you ask your commander to place watchers here?”
“Krestin will be placed under your command for the foreseeable future,” Tianoman acknowledged.
“Thank you.”
Sighing, the Valleur eyed the dark patch where the spiralling stairway awaited. “Shall we?”
The Fortress
THE KAVAL, WITH Belun agitated and at a loss, awaited them in the library.
“Tian?” the Centuar gasped. “You cannot be here! That dandy will …”
“Hush, Belun,” Tianoman grinned, gripping the Centuar’s arm in greeting. “Glad to see you lot are fine. What happened?”
“Nothing. Here one minute, there the next. Any news on Tristan? Ah, I see by your face that’s a no. This is getting too weird.”
Tianoman leaned in to murmur, “Something else is at work here. Something about this situation reminds me of the testing Torrullin endured when Elianas arrived in our realm.”
Belun grew thoughtful. “Tristan is being tested?”
“Or nudged into his destiny.”
“Damn, I don’t like the sound of that, but it is true Tristan has been sitting on the side-lines recently, unwilling to engage.”
“Exactly.”
Chaim approached, the old man scratching at his fluffy white hair. “Forgive me, but I overheard you and I agree. Tristan is a good man, his own self, and is a brilliant leader and strategist, except when it comes to his heart, but are we not all less than effective in that department, hmm? The Kaval operates efficiently under his leadership, and when I tell you he is much like Torrullin, you will understand that he stands aside for no one and sometimes even actively seeks out challenges.”
A small frown marring his unlined forehead, Tianoman shifted to include Chaim in his discussion with Belun. “I hear a ‘but’ in there.”
“Despite my description, Belun is correct. He sits on the side-lines.”
Tianoman huffed. “He seeks out challenges but sits on the side-lines? That is a contradiction and it does not describe Tristan …” He paused to sigh. “Contradictory. Pushing and pulling simultaneously. Ah. Exactly how one would describe a Valla. My grandfather’s forte.”
“Indeed,” Chaim murmured, “but Torrullin eventually pushed all the time. Tristan has not reached that point yet. He is young and is not yet as jaded.”
Licking his lips, Tianoman said, “Something else is at work here. Tristan needs to step up for … what, exactly?”
He was about to unravel it further, when Krestin approached and cleared his throat for attention.
“Speak, Commander,” Tianoman murmured.
“My Lord Vallorin, the Keeper needs to hear this also.”
Savier joined them immediately; clearly the Kemir had been listening in as well.
Giving a brief head bow, Krestin said, “I have just had confirmation from the trackers still at the Kiln. My lords, the daetal are no longer in any shape or state on Eurue.”
“How is that possible?” Savier breathed out.
“I am told they were released to the spaces moments before Tristan and Alusin left Eurue also. Eternal release, my lords. The daetal, as threat, is over.”
Tianoman and Savier stared at the Valleur and then shifted to stare at each other.
“Who released the daetal, Krestin?” Tianoman asked without breaking the eye lock with the Kemir.
“The fop, as Belun puts it,” Krestin said without a hint of emotion in his voice.
Belun snorted.
“This makes no sense,” Savier blurted. “He released his greatest leverage? How is that a logical move?”
“He extracted a promise,” Chaim put in. “Tristan promised to accompany him if he freed Eurue from this terrible threat. Something to that effect.”
Tianoman briefly closed his eyes. “Sounds like Tris, yes.” He reopened his eyes, again fixing on the Kemir.
Savier loosed a long breath. “Yes, Alusin would do so also.”
Chaim tapped thoughtfully at his lips. “There is something else at work here. This Gabryl may not be what we think he is.”
Savier swore and swung away. “The man is no knight …” He paused, a hand to his mouth.
“Interesting that you swiftly and without due thought use that word,” Tianoman murmured. “One might think it is not a new thought for you.”
Halting, the Kemir stared at the dusty rug under his feet. “My grandmother told me and Alusin a story, many times …” His words petered out, and he lifted his head. “I will find the book.” He squeezed his ey
es shut for a long eternal moment. “Her book. Her truth, she always claimed.”
He strode away.
Leaving Tianoman with shudders of premonition assailing him.
Chapter 37
We have created a Place of Peace. Do you wish to see it?
~ The Syllvan of Reaume to Torrullin Valla ~
Firefly Dark
“THIS IS AN illusion,” Gabryl reiterated. “We are here, but here is a matter of opinion.”
“I am assuming we are no longer part of Reaume,” Tristan murmured.
“We can be,” Gabryl shrugged, “if you wish it thus.”
“Meaning?”
“Find your purpose, Skyler.”
Alusin growled under his breath before saying, “Enough with the riddles. Where are we?”
Gabryl fixed a stern gaze on him. “Algheri, you are accustomed to having everything handed to you. A privileged upbringing …”
“I fought for all I am. Do not insult me.”
“You did not. Born to the Keeper palace into luxury. Instructed in the art of war by the best Eurue scholars. Carefully taught how to summon and employ the gift of farsight. Able to leave Eurue with every advantage. You have forgotten how to think for yourself.” Gabryl raised a hand when Alusin began to remonstrate. “Your long years have jaded you. Do you deny this?”
“My long years have proven to me …” Alusin paused. Briefly closing his eyes, he went on. “… how lonely it is to know eternity.”
Blinking, Tristan studied him. “Is longevity a curse?”
Alusin, unspeaking, merely inclined his head.
Gabryl chuckled. “The greatest curse indeed.”
“It amuses you?” Tristan frowned.
“Longevity is also the greatest gift, Kaval leader. All depends on what you use your time for. You are a man who prefers challenge because subliminally you are aware action and new thought aids the march of years. You rarely regard time, for you are engaged, curious, ever on the move.” Gabryl shifted his attention to Alusin. “You seek out lonely spaces, for you are weary. Nothing is new.”
Alusin snorted. “Everything is new in this present.”
Gabryl smiled and spread his hands. “Are you not challenged?”
Rolling his eyes, Alusin muttered, “To the nth degree.”
“Then think,” Gabryl snapped. “Where are we, Kemir?”
Glancing at Tristan, and then deliberately ignoring Gabryl, Alusin said, “If not Reaume, is this a facet of Arianne?”
“No,” Tristan murmured. “I’d sense Torrullin if we are in that particular cluster of lonely worlds.”
“Not Lethe, not the Path,” Alusin reasoned, staring into the darkness. “The spaces between? No, those spaces are busy …” His eyes narrowed. “Aaru, netherworld, destroyed worlds, parallel, plane, alternate universe, multiverse, time past, time future, nowhere spaces, gravity well, vacuum, imagined … imagined.” His lips pressed together, and he focused. “One of us has the upper hand. One of us imagines this place.” He glared at Gabryl then. “You brought us here. Is this your imagination?”
The Diluvan snorted. “I have had my fill of dark spaces.” He gestured significantly at the darkness surrounding them.
“Fireflies,” Tristan whispered. He looked up into the tree, at the dancing glows there. “Whenever I think of Torrullin, I think of the time he was with his father, sword play amid fireflies in a swamp. It struck those chords, for me, because it made him somehow more approachable.”
“A place of comfort,” Alusin murmured in understanding.
“Also a Timekeeper connection,” Gabryl stated.
Tristan closed his eyes, and listened to his inner music. In those moments of utter outer stillness, with harmonies soaring within, he understood everything.
ALL WAS ENERGY. Frequency. From the dimmest light in the densest dark to the speck of stardust floating in vacuum. Music, the pureness of the numbers inherent, bound the forever to a second in time, whether in the silence of absolute waiting or in the ringing bells of alarm. Time, place, space, matter, mere perception, for everything was energy. Light. Music. Eternal.
Every possibility lay upon that lattice.
Caballa blew him a kiss, and winked. He saw her, felt her, and sensed also how the burden of his guilt fell away.
The mosaic pool in the Keep’s courtyard on Valaris glittered in sunlight, and he smelled the freshness of the breeze. A man, peering into the colourful depths there, lifted his head and looked at him, his eyes rounding with surprise. A Valarian tourist at the Keep.
A sun-dappled nook in the mountains of Akhavar gifted him the sense of warm rock. He knew the place. How many times had he not spoken with Torrullin and Elianas there, with Sabian, Master Historian, present to offer insight? It was deserted now, but the memories washed over him.
He swayed on the lip of a mighty chasm and the darkness below was filled with every nuance. Worlds were created in that mighty space. Worlds succumbed there too. Grinwallin’s Abyss. It was quiescent in the present, and yet faint slivers of movement suggested it merely bided its time. It called to him.
In the distance, squatting beside a lone tree on a hill, a massive blue dragon stared at him, its scaled chest shuddering with laughter. The rumble was all about recognition. Neolone, the Dragon a host of Vallorins bore upon their chests until Torrullin became the catalyst to its freedom in death.
And then, by all gods everywhere, he alighted on a wooden bridge that spanned a pond filled with golden fish. A man leaned there, his elbows on the railing, long fingers relaxed, watching the play in the clear water, a smile of introspection present. Golden features. Fair hair. He twisted as if aware of a presence, and swung to look at him. Grey eyes. Silvering eyes.
By all gods, Torrullin.
This was Avaelyn, wherever Avaelyn swerved in the mists.
Tris?
He heard his voice, sensed the depth of Torrullin’s longing to see him again, as he longed for the same.
FALLING TO HIS knees to claw at damp grass spot lit with fire glows, Tristan opened his eyes. Tears streaked over his cheeks, and he was not ashamed of them.
“Tris?”
His head jerked up. Tris. The first time someone named him Tris in Torrullin’s presence - his own mother, Curin, did so - Torrullin nearly lost himself to grief, having recently watched his son Tristamil die in his arms. Tristamil - Tris. Tristan - Tris.
Swallowing, he brought his consciousness to the present place, and gazed into Alusin’s dark blue orbs.
“I saw him,” he whispered.
Hunkering next to him, his expression one of concern, Alusin said, “Who?”
Tristan smiled. He could not know how it lit his face, how enlightened he appeared to the two men with him. “Torrullin. I saw him on the little bridge in his garden.”
“A memory?”
“No, Alusin. I saw him in the now. He spoke my name. He saw me.” Sitting and rubbing his palms together to dislodge damp soil, Tristan laughed. “I bet you he is bending Elianas’ ear right now!”
Alusin did not respond, other than to sit as well.
Gabryl, for his part, hunkered before the two men. “Do you understand now?”
Meeting those pale eyes, Tristan murmured, “This is everywhere and nowhere. Souls are born everywhere and nowhere. Energy is.”
“Excellent,” Gabryl murmured, and rose. “Now, I may have been the force that took us away, but you control our fates. Will you please take us home?”
Tristan stared up at him, his eyes silvering in the same manner he had witnessed Torrullin’s achieve a few moments ago. “Where is home, Gabryl? Each of us has a different concept of ‘home’. Which do I choose?”
Gabryl inclined his head. “You have a point. Find the common factor.”
“Truly?” A dark golden eyebrow hiked upwards.
Smirking, Gabryl said, “We are not that different, Skyler. A home as in an actual place may be a stretch, for we have not inhabited either the same spaces or time u
ntil now, but there is one factor that binds us.”
Alusin too stared up. “Resonance?”
This time Gabryl’s features lit with the depth of his smile. “Yes! What is the one concept we find ever inspiring, a place where we are whole, where the resonance of recognition shudders through every atom of our beings? Find that common inspiration, our wholeness, and we will all go ‘home’.”
Shaking his head, Alusin muttered, “I don’t like that I’m starting to, well, like you.”
Chortling, Gabryl rose. “Likewise.”
“Home is where peace is,” Tristan murmured. “In the stillness we are inspired. For me that is a mountain path. Vistas. Fresh air. Mist.”
“Waving wildflowers between water and mighty peak,” Gabryl offered. “And, yes, mist.”
Alusin glanced from one to the other. “My best times were spent in the heat of great plains, and yet my true inspiration arrived when the early morning mist surrounded me before the sun burnt it away.”
Again Tristan’s eyebrow arched upward. “Mist is hard to define as home.”
Alusin lifted one finger, his expression thoughtful. “I believe it will be simple. Reach for a place in Reaume where you know mist is ever present. The resonance there will feel as home to us as well,” he indicated himself and Gabryl, “and we will thus follow.”
“Now you are thinking, Algheri,” Gabryl murmured.
Giving him the finger without looking at him, Alusin added, “We once lost Amunti …”
“… in the mist,” Tristan laughed. “I remember. A good place, yes.” He swung his head up to look at the fireflies. “Give me a minute, will you?”
Gabryl nodded and moved away a few paces, but Alusin studied the man at his side. “Why?” he asked.
Lowering his head, Tristan stared at the Kemir with glittering eyes. “I want to see Elianas.”
Licking his lips, Alusin repeated, “Why?”
“He is energy personified.”
“That’s not the real reason.”
“I simply want to see him, Alusin. It is part of my wholeness.”
A frown flitted across the Kemir’s forehead and then he reluctantly clambered to his feet and moved away, a direction opposite to the space Gabryl now occupied in stillness.
Eurue- The Forgotten World Page 27
