Lore of Sanctum Omnibus

by Elaina J Davidson

  Sabian bowed. “My farewell also, Lord Elixir.”

  And, poof, they were gone in an instant.

  Torrullin locked gazes with Elianas, who shrugged. “I was not about to tell them how to reverse it.”

  Torrullin looked away. “Neither was I.”

  “There was a way?” Saska gasped.

  Torrullin said, “Let us be gone. Others can give those bones decent burial.”

  He presented Saska with his arm, which she took, and waited until Elianas fell in beside him. They walked out together.

  Chapter 9

  Who lies on the other side of a damaged mind? Or what?

  ~ Psychology 969

  Akhavar

  LOWEN RECOVERED FROM trauma and found in the caring for Cassy the means to deal with her emotions.

  Cassy, when they saw her again, was clean, fed and properly dressed in one of Saska’s gowns. She was also sweetly vacant.

  By the next day they had decided to take her to the Lifesource Temple on Valaris.

  Saska said she would see to the clearing of the Chamber of Biers, the necessary burials, the consecration, and then she would leave Akhavar. She suggested, if a healing was not to be, Cassy be brought to her wherever she was, and she would take care of the woman.

  Elianas embraced her in appreciation.

  Thus it was that Torrullin, Elianas and Lowen ferried Cassiopin, Nemisin’s daughter, to Valaris.

  All gods take note.

  Valaris

  THE WALK ACROSS the narrow lightbridge suspended over churning ocean below was harrowing, for Cassy wanted to lean over into the void at every step.

  Finally Elianas carried her the distance.

  Lowen could not enter the Lifesource and retain what immortality she had left, and remained on the land bridge. When they vanished beneath the western arch, she transported to Farinwood and took a small, comfortable room in one of the inns, flinging onto a soft bed to fall into proper sleep for the first time in a long while.

  Her dreams, however, were a confusion of hands - hers, Torrullin’s and Elianas’.

  Lifesource Temple

  ONCE INSIDE THE Temple, Torrullin sent the call, Quilla, will you come?

  There was surprise on the other end. On my way.

  A moment later the birdman joined them. He took one look, squashed questions, and gently took Cassy’s arm to lead her away. “What is your name, dear?”

  “Cassy,” she murmured. “Are you a friend?”

  “I am a friend,” Quilla replied.

  Cassy pointed over her shoulder without looking back. “One of them is my husband and the other is my enemy.”

  Quilla looked over his shoulder, his eyes filled with those questions he ignored and more after that statement, and then gave his attention to the woman. Questions could wait.

  “We shall sort all that out. Let us take a walk, shall we? It is so beautiful here, so peaceful. Do you hear the music?”

  “Yes …” and the two disappeared into the chambers within chambers able to heal and soothe.

  QUILLA FOUND THEM outside the eastern arch, both men silent. The Eastern Ocean swirled below, crashing against the land bridge.

  “She is sleeping in vapour. It will be a few days before results manifest.”

  “Thank you,” Elianas murmured.

  Torrullin nodded.

  Quilla pursed his lips and asked, “How is it you have Nemisin’s daughter in this time?”

  “Long story,” Torrullin said.

  “I have no immediate duty here or in the Dome. I have time,” Quilla said. He went inside. “Come, my chambers are more comfortable.”

  “HELL OF A STORY,” Quilla muttered. “Amazing how the journey ties in with so much now, when we thought it ended the past. I would say it opened certain doors and only after we close them will the past remain put.”

  “We closed a fair few,” Torrullin murmured.

  Quilla studied the two of them. “It was the right decision to allow Nemisin to go. Do not take on guilt, and Sabian did not belong here, you know that.”

  “I know, yes,” Torrullin said.

  “Bringing Cassy out, however, could prove an expensive mistake.” Quilla lifted his hand when Elianas frowned. “I do understand, my friend, I do, but … well, let us be positive.”

  Elianas leaned back into Quilla’s stack of pillows and closed his eyes.

  “What is next, Torrullin?” the birdman asked.

  “Track the net. Close doors.”

  “Do you think there are more surprises out there?”

  “Not in a thousand eras did I expect what happened, Quilla. God only knows what lies around the next corner.”

  The birdman nodded. “Expect the unexpected. Why don’t you two go visit with Tianoman? I shall call if anything changes.”

  Elianas opened one eye. “I would rather stay here.”

  Quilla looked from him to Torrullin. “You know where the guest quarters are. Go. I need to think.”

  The two men stood and walked out. Quilla watched them go and read in them a sense of hopelessness.

  He had never felt it so strong in Torrullin before.

  ELIANAS WANDERED THE huge white chamber. Pillows dotted the perimeter.

  “You slept with Lowen, didn’t you? After I left.”

  Torrullin, prone on a set of pillows, said, “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I would have found you, had I not.”

  Elianas came to stand over him, one foot at each hip. “You do not have to fight so hard, Torrullin. We are not lovers of men; we simply love each other.” He lowered until he sat on Torrullin’s thighs. “We are strong enough to resist something wrong for us.” He placed a hand on Torrullin’s stomach, pressed there. “Of course, pushing the limit is exciting and addictive.” He took his hand away. “And stirring.”

  “I found you in Ymir with a man,” Torrullin murmured.

  “Because he was fair like you, but I have never fucked a man. I too prefer women. In fact, I would love to sleep with Lowen.” He laughed when Torrullin growled. “I am not about to take up what is yours. My point is, it is the bond we share that takes us close to crossing a line we never thought existed. Hearts, minds and souls are entwined, and our bodies seek to complete the connection.”

  “I am not thinking about closing connections when you sit there like that.”

  Elianas smiled. “I know.” He leaned forward until his mouth was an inch from Torrullin’s. “I know.” Then he vaulted to his feet and laughingly paced away.

  “You are suddenly chipper,” Torrullin said. He sat up.

  “State of mind.”

  “What brought it on?”

  “I have realised it cannot get worse. I have been in hell with Cassy before; this isn’t a new road, not a new torture.”

  “You contradict yourself.”

  Elianas stopped. “Do I? I did not hate sleeping with her and I never found her distasteful. The problem was I loved you, not her. Until I know where I stand with her, I cannot deal with you.”

  “Now that is more honest.”

  Elianas stalked over and fell to his knees beside Torrullin. “You want honesty?”

  Gods. “Yes.”

  “I meant what I said. I have not been with a man and do not intend to do so. Ymir was lashing out at you, not a desire for sex. I do love a woman’s body, with all the complications, but have not yet found one who drives me insane. I am not jealous when you sleep with a woman, whether your wife, Lowen or a prostitute somewhere, and I hope you will have the same control when and if I meet someone. However, speaking honestly, I want you in every way possible, but you are the exception.”

  “As you are mine.”

  “Then we understand one another.” Elianas leaned forward. “Your move.”

  Torrullin kissed him. It was a hard, uncompromising, take everything kiss, and it shattered Elianas’ calm completely. He dragged himself away.

  “For fuck’s sake!”

  Torrulli
n rose. “Do not play your games with me.” He walked out.

  CASSY AWAKENED THREE days later, and Quilla summoned Elianas and Torrullin.

  They were in his chambers when he brought her in. He shrugged at them, telling them without words he did not have a result. The result lay in how Cassy would act next.

  “Cassy?” Elianas murmured.

  Her golden eyes fixed on him. “Elianas. You chose to save me from the netherworld.”

  He swallowed. “You did not deserve it.”

  “I did not deserve much of what came to pass, but events happened nonetheless. I thank you for the second chance. I only hope our daughters are happy where they are.”

  “As do I.”

  “Where is my father?”

  “He was taken into Reaume.”

  She closed her eyes. “Thank the Goddess. I am free of him.”

  “Are you all right?”

  She opened her eyes. “Do I have my sanity? Oh, yes.” She smiled at Quilla. “You are a friend, and I thank you.”

  He inclined his head.

  She ignored him for Elianas again. “Whether we have a marriage remains unclear, but I am not about to make the same mistakes, and I doubt you want to.”

  “No,” he managed.

  “Then we allow the hours and days ahead to determine where we go. I aim to remain at your side, and his, until we know where we stand.”

  “Very well,” Elianas said.

  “Torrullin?”

  “Agreed.”

  “Do you agree for me or him?”

  “For Elianas.”

  “Decidedly more honest,” she said. Then she changed. “That is personal, but now I have something to discuss with both of you regarding the sacred network.”

  Torrullin moved, feeling free enough to do so. “What about it?”

  She smirked. “I may not like you, but I can trust you to help me. Torrullin, did you feel the network before?”

  “No.”

  She paced over to him. “You should have. Elianas should have. We waited far too long and we waited because you did not feel it.”

  He frowned. “Cassy, I was distracted with other problems.”

  “And I was bound in the Throne,” Elianas murmured.

  “So that is where you went.” She giggled. “My god, my father would have had a heart attack had he known!”

  Elianas managed a laugh in response. “He sometimes thought he heard the seat talk to him; he thought he was mad.”

  Torrullin snorted. “Gods, that I would have liked to see.”

  Quilla’s eyebrows were sky high.

  Cassy, smiling, held a hand up. “It is amusing, yes, but we need talk about the network.”

  They sobered. Torrullin said, “You are suggesting the network should have been obvious to us.”

  “Particularly you.” She moved around, her gaze picking out items at random. “I created it largely to minimise my father’s long-term damage. I thought to reach people at a subconscious level, instilling in them the ideal of brotherhood and peace. Perhaps it was too idealistic, but someone once told me a selfish act can also be an unselfish one if properly thought out.” She touched Torrullin’s arm as she passed him.

  “I remember.”

  “In the building of first points in a net, I began to understand you, Torrullin.”

  He grimaced. “Unfortunately I never gave anything proper thought.”

  She smiled. “I know. Too impulsive. However, selfish acts led to unselfish result. My father did not see what you inadvertently did for the Valleur, but I did, and wanted to do the same for all sentient races.”

  “You succeeded,” Elianas murmured.

  “I believe I did, yes.”

  “But?” Torrullin prompted.

  “You were meant to use it to greater impact, but you did not feel it.”

  “I had … amnesia.”

  She eyed him. “Really?” He nodded. “Long?” He nodded again. Cassy shrugged. “So that is how you functioned. Sensible. However, you should still have sensed the underlying network. Let me explain something here. My father bound the dead to that chamber on Akhavar to grab greater power at a future date and thought he used me to aid it. I permitted him to think so in order to stop him. His arrogance would have had him war on all races. He went into stasis with some awareness, enough to know the timing of certain events, like the meeting with the One, but Neolone bound him to the bier, because I asked him to.

  “Yes, I knew Neolone. Awareness therefore availed my father nothing. My own awareness, greater than my father’s, suffered under the long wait. Every time someone used the Heart of Darkness I thought the time had come to stand up to him, and then there was nothing. Time after time I had hope, then disappointment. I thank the Goddess you two had the wherewithal to deal with his rising, for I completely lost rational thought.”

  She sighed and moved on.

  “Something dampened the net and amnesia would not explain it, and neither does hiding in a transmuted Throne. Torrullin, the network was meant to bring you to us in the weeks leading up to the massacre of Orb, to stop it, to change the future before it actually happened. You would have the planners of that attack at your beck and call, then, at the time it was about to happen.”

  He stared at her. “Gods, Cassy, that would have …”

  “… prevented a terrible crime, yes.”

  Elianas whispered, “Instead many ages have passed.”

  Quilla sighed.

  Torrullin said, “I shall explain now what we did about Orb, but, Cassy, how could you know before the fact?”

  “Time loops, Lord Sorcerer.”

  “I know that; how do you?”

  “I looked, I saw.”

  “Gods, Cassy, how?”

  “Elianas told me. In his sleep. It took some doing to find the right chant, and what I saw was confusing, considering the concept of others was not yet an accepted factor in our time, but eventually I figured my father would do something terrible. I could see something of what was coming, but he could manipulate time, courtesy of Neolone. And Neolone, cornered one day when my father was in drug-induced euphoria, told me what would happen in greater detail. I swore never to reveal I had spoken to him and he swore to bind my father upon his death.”

  Torrullin shook his head in bemusement. “You had greater power than your father, do you know that? You understood.”

  Elianas glanced at him, his face unreadable.

  Cassy shifted her gaze there. “Knowledge isn’t everything, Elianas.”

  His lips thinned, but he did not speak.

  Torrullin did. “It is now too late for any of that. Elianas and I recently set out to redress that particular crime …” and he gave her a brief version of events in the Time realm, “… and thus ended up changing nothing.”

  “You were not meant to alter it after the fact,” Cassy murmured. “I applaud you sought to try, all of you. At least that much good has taken hold in men’s souls.”

  “Does it matter now, the long wait?” Elianas wanted to know.

  “It cannot be undone, so crying over impatience, disappointment, suffering and loss will avail me nothing. I am now like you, Elianas - a long wait, and freedom in a new time. Like to you, I hope to cope. But something dampened the network and if not us, then who or what … and why?”

  “Does it matter?” Elianas asked again.

  She frowned. “I do not know.”

  “It matters,” Torrullin said. “I thought Nemisin or Agnimus took Lowen out of time, but I did it. I thought others created Grinwallin, but it was me. The Void - I found it. Kalgaia, I betrayed her. The Throne, me. Forgetting, me. The only act I seem not to be responsible for, yet thought I was, is the stasis in the Chamber of Biers. I want to know if I messed with the network, and why.”

  “And maybe I did it,” Elianas snapped. “From the Throne. Damn it, Torrullin, I think this we would know.”

  “Elianas is right,” Cassy said. “Even if you did it unconsciously, you w
ould know now.”

  Quilla spoke. “Other factors can influence this ethereal concept. It was and is, after all, more about ideals than reality, and ideals can be altered. Yes, there are sacred sites grounding the network, yet it is truly a magical concept. It is wish and will …”

  Elianas paled, and moved to hide his face. Torrullin glanced at him and forced himself to listen to Quilla.

  “… and ideal, soul, mind, history, time, all of it intangible. Many factors can influence the intangible.”

  Cassy nodded. “Agreed.”

  “Such as?” Torrullin asked.

  “Ideals change, as I said. The Valleur who survived Nemisin did not regard the Orb incident as terrible; the ideal of redress was established much later and is likely why you felt its presence only recently. Had the ideal been in place soon after Nemisin’s death it would not have escaped notice.”

  “Except I put it in as inherent to the network,” Cassy murmured.

  “Time shifts can influence the intangible also, and we certainly did a few of those.”

  “The network bridges time,” Cassy stated.

  “Then it is more physical. Would the destruction of a site influence its efficacy?”

  Elianas looked at Torrullin, who said, “What about taking out fourteen in one gesture?”

  Cassy stared at him. “It would take a massive chunk from the net, and alter its quality.”

  Torrullin gave a grim smile. “There is your answer.”

  “Fourteen?”

  “Make or break worlds, as Elianas says of me. I took Akhavar’s fourteen sites out before your father died. I think he died of the shock.”

  Quilla gaped. “Why would you do that?”

  Torrullin shrugged. “You know how you know something, but not the shape or form of it? Well, Elianas and I were cursed and yet we attempted to put everything back onto a smoother path. Part was the long hiding we undertook and part was making Akhavar uninhabitable. By the time Nemisin died most of his world was hot desert and it had not rained for eight hundred years - my doing. Taking the sites away forced the Valleur to leave and forced the mountain enclave from sight. Looking back, it was to hide Nemisin’s remains, and, yes, it was punishment.”