‘Are they dead?’ Khatrene asked, her voice low and fearful. ‘Is this the Maelstrom?’ Her hand, like Talis’s, lay firmly on their slumbering king’s arm, to ensure he would not sink with the others and be covered with a layer of cloud.
Talis shook his head, unable to comprehend.
‘I want to see my daughter,’ Khatrene said suddenly, and Talis turned back from his contemplation of the seemingly unchanged landscape.
‘You know you would die if you returned to Magoria.’
‘Then come with me. Revive me.’
‘I cannot. I have told you …’ Talis stopped himself when he saw the glisten of tears in her eyes. He lowered his voice. ‘Your presence on Magoria would only distract The Catalyst. If this,’ he opened his palm to indicate the spectacle they had just witnessed, ‘is of the Maelstrom …’ Talis had no idea. For a whole race to be elevated to Atheyre. And Cliffdwellers?
‘I don’t care.’ Desperation had entered Khatrene’s voice. ‘I’m her mother. I want to be with her.’
‘The lore says that those whom Atheyre has claimed may never return.’ Talis glanced at Mihale, still slumbering peacefully between them. ‘Even if we could go, would you leave your brother here unprotected?’
‘Yes,’ she said, meeting Talis’s gaze. ‘I don’t believe there’s anything here to hurt him. He’d be perfectly safe until we return.’ Talis nodded at this, yet there was something in her voice that disturbed him. ‘You sound … eager to leave,’ he said, ‘not only to see Glimmer —’
‘But to escape Mihale. You’re right.’ She lifted her chin but it was several moments before she admitted, ‘I’m scared of him.’
Talis nodded at this and looked at his king. ‘You told me once before that you were uneasy in his presence.’
‘I’ve tried to talk myself out of it,’ she said. ‘But I can’t. There’s something … spooky about him.’ She reached across and touched her brother’s hair, then drew back her hand. ‘I love him, but I’m scared of him. Scared to be alone with him.’
‘We should have spoken of this sooner.’ Talis looked away. ‘I too have sensed a reluctance in myself to be alone with him. When I use my Guardian powers to test his health …’ He shook his head.
‘What?’ Khatrene covered his hand with her own. ‘What happens?’
‘I sense … a discourse ending,’ he replied, ‘as though within his mind your brother replies to some unheard voice.’
‘A voice?’ She seemed to brighten. ‘I heard a voice after my mother died,’ she said. ‘It guided me and gave me advice.’
‘Sound advice?’ Talis asked.
She shrugged. ‘Sometimes,’ she said. ‘But sometimes it was confusing.’
‘Perhaps this voice tries to wake our king from his slumber?’
‘Maybe.’ Khatrene glanced away, as though the sadness of her separation from Glimmer had seeped back into her heart.
‘Would you look into the seeing-storm?’ he asked. ‘You could reassure yourself that your daughter is unharmed.’
‘I could.’ Khatrene looked around herself at where the Cliffdwellers had so recently appeared. ‘But what if she’s not? And we’re stuck here with no way to help.’
‘We could stand ready to help,’ Talis said, hating to hear despair in her voice. ‘The Cliffdwellers came to Atheyre. Perhaps Glimmer will also.’
She said nothing for a time, then nodded and patted his hand. ‘I needed that. Thanks.’
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
‘I am an old man and still you taunt me,’ Breehan said, shaking his head at the vision of Noola the Shadow Woman presented. ‘I have given up on love.’ He went back to his soup, pleased now that Kraal had talked him into using a chair. Food was far easier to eat in this fashion.
‘Liar,’ she said, and though Breehan had seen this vision many times in the sixty years he had been on Haddash, he had never become accustomed to hearing words uttered by Noola’s mouth. ‘I am still young and beautiful,’ she said.
‘I am not,’ Breehan said. ‘Leave me in peace as your lord has commanded.’ Sixty years. How Breehan wished his trained memory would fade, that he would not wake every morning and know exactly how many days he had spent in Haddash.
‘My Lord fears that you will sicken with no companionship.’
Breehan looked at her again, wondering if this was another attempt by Kraal to imitate the ‘friendship’ which continued to fascinate him, although he was clearly unable to feel any emotions in the exchange. ‘When his child is born I will companion it,’ Breehan said facetiously, for though he had feared Kraal’s wrath as each year had passed and the egg lay dormant, that fear had turned into resentment for all that he himself had lost — the children of his own that he had never seen born.
‘Kraal’s child will come in his own time,’ the Shadow Woman said, repeating her lord’s words.
‘Then companion me as Hanjeel,’ Breehan demanded. ‘For I cannot bear to see Noola and know all that I have lost.’
‘Very well,’ the Shadow Woman said, and she melted her features and reformed them in the required shape. ‘Are you well, Breehan?’ Hanjeel asked in the traditional Plainsman greeting as he sat on the chair opposite.
‘Old but well,’ Breehan assured him, putting down his spoon. He had never asked for a specific companion and the Shadow Woman had never provided Hanjeel before, so this was a new experience, and an unsettling one. The boy’s clothing was not the simple woven garb of a Plainsman, but a richly embossed robe such as nobility wore. Breehan wondered why. ‘How goes it with you?’ he asked. ‘Are you returned to your tribe and your mother?’ The Shadow Woman may well lie, but knowing that he could not change what had happened, Breehan sought only comfort.
‘I am not returned yet,’ Hanjeel said, and though the voice was a perfect match, this Hanjeel looked slightly older than Breehan remembered him, perhaps a year or two. If that was true, Haddash raced even faster than Magoria. Was it possible for sixty years to pass on one world while only a handful passed on another? Kraal was yet to answer this question satisfactorily.
‘You should be with your people now,’ Breehan said reprovingly, knowing Kraal listened to all that was said. ‘Where are you?’
‘At Be’uccdha,’ Hanjeel replied, taking a smooth oceanberry from the bowl between them. He popped it into his mouth and chewed, smiling at Breehan as he swallowed. ‘The Dark dies slowly,’ he said. ‘It is taking longer than expected.’
‘Be’uccdha?’ Breehan echoed, wondering what Hanjeel meant by ‘expected’. ‘Is this a planned murder?’ Could Kraal have given Hanjeel powers to destroy The Dark?
‘If you would call destiny a plan,’ Hanjeel said. ‘My mere presence in his castle destroys him, and I find his lingering death to be both poignant and deserved.’
Breehan tempered the excitement he felt at this news with the realisation that it may well be a lie. ‘You must return to your mother soon,’ he said. ‘The storms are worsening,’ or so the Shadow Woman in Noola’s guise had told him. Indeed, on Haddash domes were lifted from the ground daily by the ferocious winds. Kraal laughed to see the damage, speculating on the possible conclusions the Domedwellers would draw from this new data, what ‘models’ they would construct. Breehan cared more to know what storms would be raging on the Plains of his homeworld. ‘You must father children in the tribe so that our people will not die out,’ he told Hanjeel.
‘My mother has a captive male. They take new children from his loins.’
Though the words were uttered casually, Breehan felt as though they had stabbed his heart. ‘Noola lies with another? Not a Plainsman?’
‘She repopulates the tribe. It is her duty as our leader.’
‘Who is this one?’
‘An injured Be’uccdha warrior fell into her hands. He is strong and smart. The children from his seed will be good.’
Breehan pushed back his chair and rose stiffly from the table, his hands trembling with agitation as much as age. He had not imagined th
at Noola would take this step. She must have believed Hanjeel dead, and with Breehan gone she would have no choice but to mate outside their race. It had been done before. Indeed, his beloved Noorinya had wanted the Guardian Talis’s child. But to repopulate their race on the seed of Be’uccdha!
‘You must return to her quickly,’ he said, turning back to Hanjeel, noticing now a languid confidence to his pose that hadn’t been evident at first. ‘Before our people are forever tainted with Be’uccdha blood.’
‘When The Dark is dead,’ Hanjeel replied.
Breehan frowned, yet could say nothing more. And though he struggled to convince himself that this was all a lie, the feeling of desperation that welled within him would not be dismissed.
‘Is there a message you would give my mother?’ Hanjeel asked politely.
Breehan opened his mouth, closed it again. Tried to think. Yet before he could reply, the image of Hanjeel shimmered and contorted, exploding into shards of sparkling matter that shot across the room and through Breehan’s body with a force that took his breath.
Then came a sound he had heard only once before, a lifetime ago on Ennae. A deafening cry that was so enraged Breehan wanted to hide within himself to escape it. He clapped both hands over his ears and looked on in wide-eyed terror as the very walls around him buckled and splintered. The chair behind him shuddered, then along with the rest of the furniture it shattered into splinters of light that scattered into nothingness.
‘Kraal,’ he called, terrified, but his voice was lost in the furore around him.
Walls exploded and flattened outwards from a central point just in front of Breehan. Though the wailing was horrific, he let go of his ears and instead clutched the memory stone, glancing around himself in horror as the edifice Kraal had constructed was destroyed. Above him, where there had been a solid ceiling, Breehan now expected to see a sky, but instead flames licked down towards him as the devastation spread, walls collapsing on each other like a level avalanche.
The fire appeared to be descending towards him and Breehan lay flat on the floor to escape it. The air around him grew hot and fetid, and he was sure that he was about to take his last breath when the stone floor a pace away melted and a hand rose out of the molten mass — a pale hand with fingernails of different colours, the hues of Magoria he had seen on Khatrene’s clothes so many years ago.
Breehan scrambled backwards on the floor but stopped when he realised the wailing had ceased. The air around him grew still as he stared at the hand and the thick band on the wrist which housed a circular glass instrument.
He cried out as another hand emerged beside the first and then a head rose cleanly through the molten rock — a head with hair as pale as the teeth that were bared in a grimace. Immediately the fire which had been about to engulf him disappeared, and Breehan struggled to take a clear breath. Where once a mighty palace had stood there was now nothing but bare earth and domes in the distance.
The young woman, no older than Hanjeel, reached out towards him and instinctively Breehan took her hand. His strength had been failing in recent years but he had enough to pull her from the hole.
‘Interesting journey,’ she said, and shook her head vigorously, in the same way the underlings shook themselves when dinner crumbs fell on them. White hair flew in an arc around her, then she straightened and brushed earth from her clothes which were as brightly hued as her fingernails: tight pants the colour of the oceans of Magoria and a shirt that matched, of a paler hue. She looked around. ‘So this is Haddash?’ she said.
Beside her, Breehan struggled with the past. ‘Khatrene?’ he whispered, knowing his memory betrayed him. This woman was too young to be the royal White Twin his tribe had hidden from The Dark. Yet the hair, the eyes, they were all a match.
‘Her daughter. Glimmer. But you can call me The Catalyst if you prefer.’
Breehan was unsure if she was speaking in earnest or whether her words were some dry jest. ‘I knew you when you were in your mother’s belly,’ he said. ‘Do you come to Haddash to join the Four Worlds?’
‘Not today. I’m here for you, actually,’ she said. ‘Or rather, the stone you have hanging round your throat. I can’t touch it but I need it to control the Maelstrom. We’re taking it to Ennae.’
‘You’re taking … me to Ennae?’ he asked.
‘With the stone. Correct.’
Breehan had no desire to repeat his horrific journey through the earth, particularly now that he was an old man with brittle-bones. Years ago he had longed for the chance, knowing he could survive anything to be reunited with Noola. But time had stolen his courage along with his strength. ‘Where is the Fire God?’ he asked.
‘My presence here has banished him. He will not trouble you again.’ She eyed him assessingly, as though judging his character. Breehan felt himself to be lacking. At last she said, ‘Are you ready?’
Breehan looked into her royal-hued eyes, so like her mother’s, and knew he would not argue. ‘You will use the stone’s power for good?’ he asked.
‘It has no power,’ she replied. ‘It’s simply a focusing tool.’
She had not answered his question. ‘But you will use it only for good.’
Pause. ‘If you mean joining the Four Worlds, then yes, I will be using it only for that.’
Breehan noted her lack of facial expression and wondered at it. She gave the impression that nothing touched her heart. ‘Why do you avoid my question?’ he asked. ‘Why won’t you tell me that your intention is good?’
‘Because I don’t believe in the word,’ she replied. ‘There is no good or evil, only action and reaction. Currently. But soon even that will change.’
‘No evil?’ Breehan was outraged. ‘I have lived in the presence of —’
‘That’s just your perception. The Maelstrom will destroy millions of lives. Is that evil?’
Breehan was shocked into a different line of thought. ‘It is necessary,’ he said, knowing that the lore of their own tribe spoke of the end-times and the deaths that would be counted. Many other races believed the same on Ennae and, according to Khatrene, on Magoria also.
‘A necessary evil?’ she asked. ‘But is every death evil? Or do we call it mercy to kill those who are dying and in great pain? Who says which death is evil and which is good?’
Breehan simply stared at her. ‘You cannot distinguish between good and evil?’
‘I cannot distinguish between what does not exist,’ she replied, ‘but I see that you’re not ready to believe me.’
‘Does it matter what I believe?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘It only matters that you retain the stone until I need it.’
Breehan struggled within himself. Should he trust this Catalyst who appeared to have no more conscience than the Fire God whose place she had so recently usurped? ‘And if I choose to disobey you?’
Her expression did not alter. ‘Then the Maelstrom will destroy the Four Worlds and everyone on them. None will be saved.’
‘Is that why the Fire God wanted the stone? To prevent you using it?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. Time has moved on. You have the stone and I need it now.’
‘I don’t want this responsibility.’
‘Neither do I,’ she said. ‘But I am the shadow through time. You are the holder of the stone.’
They looked at each other and Breehan asked, ‘Will you die in the Maelstrom?’
‘Yes.’
He paused only a moment longer. ‘Then I will do as you ask.’ As his tribe’s storyteller, Breehan knew well that his people had only been custodians of the talisman. His own use of it had been haphazard and intuitive. If this Catalyst could unlock its full potential, he would be a fool to deny her its use. ‘I can only hope that you will show compassion.’
‘I was created to save the Four Worlds,’ she said. ‘It is not my destiny to save individuals. My family on Magoria took comfort from these words.’
‘I’m sure that they did,’ Breehan replied, then opened his hands in expectation. ‘How shall I travel to Ennae?’
‘I’ll make an opening.’ Breehan watched her put a hand out in front of her. ‘Any preferences?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Earth or fire portal? I can do either.’
‘Fire.’ Nothing could be worse than the sensation of being suffocated below ground.
‘Barbecue it is then,’ she said, and flicked her fingers. Instantly a wall of fire erupted before them with a splintering crash so loud Breehan was sure it would be heard at the domes. Then she dropped her arm and the fire surged forward like a hungry beast ready to devour them.
‘Interesting,’ she said as the heat overwhelmed Breehan’s senses and though he was sure his flesh should be burning, he did not collapse. Beside him Glimmer’s voice altered subtly and was deeper, more mature, ‘This is much more relaxing than the earth journey. But a pity about our clothes.’
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
SHE IS GONE.
Pagan lowered his sword and stood staring through Vandal, shocked to silence. The Great Guardian hadn’t spoken to him for years and it was a moment before he could think past that to what had been said.
The boy danced forward a few steps, his own sword raised, then he stopped and frowned. ‘What is it, Dad?’
‘She is gone,’ Pagan said, repeating the words, finding no sense in them.
‘Glimmer?’ Vandal asked, his frown deepening.
SHE HAS LEFT THIS WORLD.
Without her Champion? Pagan closed his eyes as the breath slid out of his chest and cold dread entered. He had been waiting for this moment for sixteen years. Now it was upon him and he was not only emotionally unprepared, his charge had left without him.
‘Dad?’
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