“Why not?”
“I would be bereft. Eternity alone is loneliness.”
“Eternity is a long time, yes.”
“And now there is Lethe, and the line must be crossed to enter. Despite everything, we are at the point where we change our futures again.”
“Earlier we did not care.”
“Earlier there were lies.”
“Earlier there was attraction.”
“There still is.”
Torrullin closed in to stand opposite him, the counter between them. “Heal that hand; it’s irritating me.”
With a frown it was done.
“You are right. We made our choices back then. Love, hate, it doesn’t matter. I lied to you and about you; did I protect you or myself? Whatever it was then, I chose the path deliberately, as you did. The fact that you now know your guilt certainly doesn’t mitigate mine. We proved recently going back to change the past is a bad idea, but even if we could and it worked, it doesn’t change the echoes in sacred space. Yet here, right now, we have a rare opportunity to deliberately alter the path.” Torrullin leaned on the counter. “Elianas, you see my goal wrong, you see me as someone you cannot be. My god, do you think a version of myself is attractive to me?”
Elianas’ eyelids flickered. “Am I not a version of you?”
“No!” He slapped the counter. “You are unique. In many aspects we are alike, but it is the nature of sentience, the common bonds to hold different souls up for recognition, but I am amazed by the rest of you. It is in difference we celebrate our real bonds. How you view your world is not how I view mine, and yet, here, we may use that difference to choose, for once together, to go on in a way not foreseen the night we fell asleep on a ledge.”
Quilla, forgotten, held his breath, eyes shining. Yes. This was Torrullin, the One. This was nobility and it could rise above everything.
Elianas’ hand shook as he raised his mug to his lips. “You are nobler than I.”
Quilla’s heart sank.
Torrullin’s eyes narrowed. “There are still lies between us. I would we speak of them now.”
Elianas’ mug slammed down and he swiped it away. “Give me your hand.” He held his out.
Torrullin did so, watching him warily.
Elianas turned that hand palm up. He traced a finger over the palm lines.
“No kinfire. I wanted there to be kinfire, Torrullin. I wanted to be your brother of the blood and despised myself for wanting something unattainable. I thought if we were true brothers, I could cease thinking the thoughts I fought daily. They were disgusting and now are familiar old friends.”
He closed Torrullin’s fingers into a fist, wrapped both his hands around it and held the connection suspended in the air between them. He stared into Torrullin’s eyes.
“I see your goal. If we cross the line, our blood mingles. On the other side of it, if it works the way you intend, I shall be a brother of the blood, and when we do this again …” He shook the connection. “… there will be kinfire. You call me your brother, but only you have known how much you truly mean it.”
Quilla drew a shaking breath.
Elianas went on. “This is why you fought attraction, me, yourself, and every other. Your Heart’s Desire is Elianas Bloodbrother.” He lowered the connection and then let go. “Am I right?”
“Yes,” Torrullin said. He was elated Elianas understood.
“There is much in the way of that goal. To get to that point, Torrullin, we will have to be anything but brothers.”
“Our great dilemma.”
“No, your dilemma. I no longer hark to kinfire.”
Quilla pressed his hands to his cheeks again.
Torrullin stared at the dark man. “Will you trust me with your hand?”
Elianas drew a breath, but nodded.
Torrullin supported it with one hand. With the other he drew a line from wrist to fingers and then from thumb to pinkie. Elianas’ skin split open and blood welled up. He then placed that wounded hand on the counter, briefly checking Elianas would not withdraw, and did the same to his hand. When blood came, he pressed down. He led their hands like that, waiting until their combined blood began to seep onto the counter.
Elianas grit his teeth in denial. Torrullin looked at him, and pressed harder.
Kinfire flared bright and blue.
Torrullin’s blood had entered Elianas’ cells.
Elianas stared, fascinated.
“Tell me again you no longer want this,” Torrullin murmured.
Distress was stark in dark eyes, and then the shutters came down. He gave a lazy smile, reached over with his free hand to clasp Torrullin’s neck and leaned over to claim those lips briefly. “Tell me you do not want more of that.” He retreated. “Lift your hand.”
Torrullin, expressionless, did so. Kinfire extinguished. He healed his hand.
Only Quilla saw naked pain cross Elianas’ noble features, and then it was gone, and Elianas healed himself.
Silence descended on the kitchen.
Torrullin’s loud finger snap was like a thunderbolt.
Both Quilla and Elianas flinched.
The blue lockbox appeared on the table and Torrullin unlocked it, and then gazed into the corner where Quilla was.
“Read it, Quilla. Then you will understand why tonight brought revelation. Elianas, stay away from me, understood?” He did not look at him.
A sarcastic laugh. “Oh, understood.”
Torrullin left.
Quilla approached the box. “Elianas, is it so bad to accept a blood connection?”
The dark man rounded the counter, rubbing his hand. “What he wants is an ideal, Quilla, a perfect and acceptable ideal. It is also the main reason he regards his surrender on that ledge as betrayal - his. Unfortunately, Torrullin is not enough of an idealist to accept such a perfect solution.”
Quilla blinked, surprised.
“Am I not right?” Elianas asked, amused.
Quilla sighed. “You may well be, yes. But I also think you are lying about your desire for kinfire.”
Elianas stared at the box. “Of course I am.”
“Why?”
“Had I not, he would move Aaru and earth to make it happen, and he is not ready.”
Quilla stared up at the beautiful man. “You are a clever soul, Elianas.”
“And twisted, guilty, insane and weary of this war. So tired of always thinking and acting two, three, twenty moves ahead. I wish he told me about Kalgaia, damn it.”
“A lie takes on life. It is hard to break when time goes on flowing.”
“I know. Besides, I should thank him; he probably saved my sanity.” He tapped the box. “Read it. I am going out for air.”
QUILLA TOOK THE map into the library to spread it on Torrullin’s desk. He stood over it, referring to a thick atlas he had to hand.
Elianas found him there. “He is gone. We hurt each other tonight.”
Quilla nodded absently. “He will not go far.”
Elianas peered at the map, barely seeing it. “He said we have a rare opportunity to choose differently.”
Quilla smiled privately.
“I have examined the options. It seems to me the choice is unchanged.”
Quilla looked up. “Not the act of choice, perhaps.”
“Ideals have no place,” Elianas said.
“They do, or the universe would not function long, but that is not what I meant.”
“The thought, the feeling? Again, where is the difference?”
“Want something enough, and it will be,” Quilla murmured.
“What about wanting someone enough?”
Quilla pulled a face.
Elianas laughed. “Quilla, the prude.”
The birdman gave him a beady stare. “The Q’lin’la had certain rules of conduct. I am not a prude.”
“What rule governed same sex partnerships?”
“Like the Valleur, the Q’lin’la were all sorcerers. It was taboo. We ha
d the line as you have it. In other cultures where magic is absent, it isn’t frowned upon, except perhaps for religious reasons, but that, too, is a form of magic.”
“Is it the same for women?”
“Anatomically there is no invasion, therefore no line.”
Elianas sat behind the desk and rubbed at his face.
“I read the letter. That was the bed of expediency you referred to. There is a way to circumvent it and you two may have found it.”
A swift reaction. “What?”
“We do it bodiless.” Torrullin’s voice. He entered with measured tread. “We leave our physical forms in stasis and couple in the ether, sunder the two powers there, and go on to enter Lethe in spirit form.”
Quilla nodded first. “It is a solution.”
“How effective would spirits be in Lethe?” Elianas asked.
“Most cross over as spirits. They function.”
“The Syllvan and Dryads are not spirits.”
“Are we not merely to view the situation?” Torrullin raised an eyebrow. “This way all we can do is view.”
“When we return, hopefully wiser, will the line actually be crossed?”
“The answer will be known then. If we did cross, I would not have a blood brother and you would not have a lover.” Torrullin paused. “This unholy desire will no longer be.”
“Thus, the prospect of change will be after Lethe. Is it your choice, Torrullin?”
“I see no other way.”
“Then let us do it.”
Quilla wondered why he was filled with dread.
Chapter 50
Same sex partners are as ancient as time. Many frown upon this and others are not affected. The truth is no one has the right to judge and there is no wrong where love is supreme. And now the codicil, reader. High rank sorcery is dangerous to wielder and bystander, and should thus ever be contained. But who are we to judge? Step forward, however, when two powers seek to meld, whatever the ideal or purpose, for then the danger is manifold. Unfortunately, for manipulators of the realms of sorcery, this means keeping same sex partners apart.
~ Book of Sages
Grinwallin
QUILLA CALLED THE meeting and again it was himself, Teighlar, Caballa, Tristan and the two men.
This time, for this meeting, Teighlar was on his game. He insisted it be held in the Painted Chamber, as the cavern of paintings was now called. It was frequently visited by the Senlu, for that secret no longer needed kept. Teighlar made it known, however, for this meeting strict privacy was required.
Quilla preceded Torrullin and Elianas in, the map rolled scroll-style under his arm.
Teighlar installed islands of armchairs in the huge chamber for his Senlu and other visitors to study the paintings at leisure, and he was talking with Caballa and Tristan at one such island.
A low table sat between the armchairs, which suited Quilla. He greeted everyone and unrolled the map, weighing each corner down with little stones he always carried with him.
Elianas flung into a seat near Caballa, stretched his long legs out, leaned back and closed his eyes. His fingers knitted over his abdomen.
Torrullin’s lips thinned and then he was onto Teighlar. “This place?”
“It has relevance.” Teighlar was amused.
“There’s the painting of the vine and tree,” Caballa pointed, her finger indicating left.
Torrullin did not have to look. Every painting was known to him. “There is the river filled with stars.”
Elianas opened one eye, looked, then closed it again.
Teighlar studied it. “A mystery, that one.”
“Lethe, River of Oblivion,” Torrullin said, and sat. “And Lethe, the collection of realms bordering both Ariann and Reaume. Our destination.”
Elianas smiled without opening his eyes.
“I told you it has relevance.” Teighlar murmured.
“How do you know?” Tristan asked.
“Krikian entered Lethe accidentally while with Lowen on Cèlaver. That knowledge was what he left behind.”
It did not explain the manner of departure two days ago, but Tristan let it slide. “How does Lethe help you?”
“From it we can view Reaume and Ariann safely.”
“And you know where to enter?”
Quilla gestured at the map. “Krikian left us the location of two portals.”
“Convenient,” Teighlar murmured.
“Very,” Torrullin said.
Again Elianas smiled.
Caballa spoke. “There is something more, or you wouldn’t have requested this meeting, my Lord.”
He looked at her. “My Lord?”
She gazed steadily back. “Yes, for it is better to place distance between us when you are like you are now.”
Elianas opened one eye to send Caballa an appreciative look.
“How am I?”
“Cold.”
“A veneer.”
Elianas’ eye flicked to Torrullin, and then he closed it.
Caballa nodded. “I know that well, and I know you well enough to not be too concerned. However, this studied indifference beside me I do not trust.”
Torrullin grinned and dipped his face out of view before Elianas opened both eyes. Elianas gazed at Caballa. “You are good.”
“I am a seer.”
“Bully for you.”
Tristan, bristling, forced calm. “Elianas, may I ask what is your family name?”
Torrullin’s head lifted, and Teighlar, noticing, leaned forward.
“It is not relevant to this meeting,” Elianas said. And just the other day he saw his full name on the deed. The fact Torrullin had dared do so proved how much dual ownership meant to him.
“I am merely curious,” Tristan murmured.
“And you will remain curious.”
Tristan transferred his gaze to Torrullin. “How come Elianas isn’t mentioned in the Oracles, considering he was Nemisin’s son-in-law?”
“He is mentioned,” Torrullin said.
Tristan leaned back and his eyes took on a distant cast as he mentally reviewed the Oracles.
Teighlar chuckled.
Torrullin moved on, hoping to distract. “We concluded the safest way to enter Lethe is ethereally.”
“Why?” Caballa latched on.
“Elixir and Alhazen must remain behind. This way we are able to separate power.”
“You refer to long term stasis,” Teighlar murmured. “That is a great danger.”
Quilla sighed. “Someone sees my concern.”
Torrullin said, “The crucible chamber.”
“The crucible itself?” Teighlar frowned. “It leaves an open portal.”
“Not if you cage us and then seal the chamber.”
Teighlar blanched and Elianas sat up, saying, “Any demon of the underworld can play fast and loose with our bodies.”
Torrullin pressed his lips together and leaned back. He gestured. “Raise your objections now.”
Teighlar was first. “Elianas has a valid point. Even caged, you would be at the mercy of undesirables, particularly considering the state Reaume is potentially in.”
“Physical form,” Torrullin refuted, “is not sentience. We will not be home. An uninvited guest can do little.”
“Something will be home,” Elianas said. “Alhazen and Elixir.”
“Gods, you would leave your power vulnerable?” Teighlar burst out. He threw his arms wide. “Look at what happens when power is not protected!” He meant the chaos paintings.
“Let anyone dare steal Elixir and … what is Alhazen exactly?” Torrullin flicked a glance at the dark man.
Elianas wiggled his fingers as if to say someone else could do it.
“The High King of Orb desired to find Alhazen - fine, yes, I instituted a search for a legend.” Teighlar said.
“Why?”
“Because, according to legend, Alhazen controlled the power of energy, an elemental power that could stem an inundation.”
>
Elianas murmured, “Energy can be a barrier also. A force shield against rising water.”
Torrullin stared at him. “You can do that? How long can you maintain it?”
Elianas pulled a face. “Forever.”
“The legend of Alhazen was first told by Aldari,” Quilla said. “At least that is where the name started ; others have similar tales, including the Q’lin’la.”
“And the Diluvans,” Teighlar said. “We could not find you.”
Elianas shrugged. “I did not broadcast my power. I will not ever broadcast it.”
“Why not?” Torrullin demanded.
Elianas stared at him. “I do not need a pedestal.”
“Don’t bait,” Tristan snapped. “And let’s get back to the point. Your powers would be vulnerable in the crucible.”
“No one can touch that,” Torrullin stated.
“Your bodies can be harmed,” Caballa said.
Torrullin did not bother to respond.
Teighlar edged forward in his seat. “Ethereal form has little impact.”
“We do not intend joining the war.”
“Goddess,” Tristan abruptly blurted.
Elianas and Torrullin swung attention in his direction instantly.
“Do not say it, Tristan,” Torrullin said.
“My name is a word of power,” Elianas added with an edge to his voice.
Tristan was ashen. “Therefore the warning? Never say it aloud?”
“Do not even send it to another,” Torrullin warned. “Tristan, for god’s sake, put it out of your mind.”
“It’s written as a mythical parable,” Tristan whispered, and as he said that, Caballa gasped.
“Nothing mythical about it,” Torrullin said.
“I assume it is not Alhazen,” Teighlar said.
Tristan glared at Torrullin. “I’m not a fool; I can guard my thoughts and tongue. You belittle me by not trusting I can keep this to myself.”
“That’s why Kalgaia was sundered,” Caballa whispered.
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 106
