Torrullin’s tunic went flying and breeches were yanked down, buttons shooting like missiles to the far wall. He stepped from them, hoisting Elianas closer, devouring with hands and mouth until there was nothing left to hark to but sensation. When Elianas ripped his loincloth off, he growled low in his throat and tore the man’s free as well. Nothing existed now but skin upon skin. There was no Goddess of Souls to put a stop to anything, no recourse to sanity.
Lies did not matter, humiliation did not feature, and nobility had no place.
Touch was safe.
Touch was beyond every danger.
It fuelled the fire.
Torrullin hauled him back to the bedroom and threw him onto the bed, his bed, site of previous close encounters. Elianas tripped him to fall hard atop him, arching as he landed, fingers drawing blood from his back.
And then slammed him over and under and bit into his collarbone; Torrullin arched and clawed at Elianas, jerking his mouth back to his. One hand inserted between them and reached down, and Elianas did the same. Hands closed on each other simultaneously, and Elianas lifted slightly to stare at Torrullin.
Glazed eyes - an answer that did not require the question. Torrullin moved first and Elianas’ hand tightened. A moment later he shuddered release, his fingers a vice that set Elianas off as well. Great gasps filled the air as they climaxed.
Elianas fell down nerveless, drawing deep breaths to still his heart. Under him Torrullin’s thudded an erratic beat. They lay like that, unmoving for long minutes, attempting to restore equilibrium.
Elianas rolled off to lie on his back, arms covering his eyes.
Neither spoke.
Torrullin sat up shaking, his heart pounding. He removed those arms and held them away when Elianas resisted. “Lorinin knows by touch. Everything hidden. Every thought, every nuance in a soul old or young.”
Elianas’ arms dropped without resistance to the bed. “So you know.”
“Your holds are strong, not that I was too concerned about holds minutes ago.” A smile.
A sigh. “I shall keep them in place.”
“Elianas, this was not near enough to douse smouldering fires; in fact …”
“Now it is worse.”
“An accidental bump could set us off again. In private or in a crowd, and how do I then control …”
“Shut up,” Elianas growled, and dragged Torrullin down to him, kissing him hard. “Gods, I have deluded myself,” he muttered when he let go. “Every fucking intention is now void.”
“That means the road is new,” Torrullin murmured as he slid his hand over Elianas’ stomach.
Elianas gripped his wrist. “Did you at least receive an answer?”
“Yes.”
A slow nod, and then he reached for Torrullin and dragged him down.
“More,” he said hoarsely.
Chapter 43
Imagine your gods, penitent, and one day they are more real than the legends of others. You are never alone.
~ Answer to lament ~
Avaelyn
THEY SLEPT A WHILE, oblivion being a way to ease the transition, but not long.
When they awakened there were no words. That final and irrevocable step when men became lovers had not been taken, and now it lay between them. Would they or would they not? Was touch and intention sufficient to satisfy?
For the present it had to be.
As Torrullin moved to rise, a call was sent through the spaces, seeking him, finding him. He used it to put thoughts of how he and Elianas would proceed from this point from his mind. A sense of relief followed, for it was something he did not want to investigate any time soon. It was a temporary reprieve, though. He fooled only himself.
“Caballa is calling,” he murmured as he rose.
“I sense you are relieved. No questioning the next step now and no confronting the issue of kinship.”
Torrullin muttered under his breath.
Elianas laughed. “I am with you on that. What does Caballa want?”
“She will not say across the spaces, but it is urgent.”
A curse erupted from the dark man. “Menllik is gone; it is definitely urgent.”
Torrullin sent him a thoughtful look. “Are you coming?”
“Yes. Right now it is better to present a united front.”
“Are we at odds?”
“We have much to reach consensus on, but we are no longer at odds, not after what happened here. Whatever conflicting ideals we had until this point are now moot. I simply mean that avoiding each other too obviously could lead to speculation. I prefer to sidestep it.”
Torrullin stared down at him. “You are saying you do not want them to know about us.”
Elianas stared up. “That is what I am saying.”
“I think I dare not ask why,” Torrullin muttered and headed to the bathroom.
Elianas followed. “I am surprised it does not disturb you.”
The shower started spurting and Torrullin employed the sound to not answer. He merely shrugged and stepped in under the spray.
Talk, Torrullin.
Silvery eyes. Perhaps it is as simple as keeping you away from Lowen.
Elianas stared at him, and decided to use that statement to advantage. Liar. You want me to make love to her. When I do so it will be a betrayal you can live with.
Thus it is when, not if.
Elianas smiled and headed out.
That would keep Torrullin in a spin for a time, enough to halt uncomfortable questions.
Valaris
The Keep
CABALLA WAS ALONE IN the courtyard, pacing up and down, back and forth.
When they alighted she stopped and drew breath, seeing Elianas with Torrullin. Fortunately the sight of the dark man rescued blinded her to the new nuance between them. Caballa was usually alert to nuances.
“Tristan? Is he out as well?”
“He is safe and unharmed,” Torrullin said. “You can come with us when we return if …”
“I want to, yes,” she said, almost collapsing in her relief.
She studied Elianas, noting the scars. She touched her cheek questioningly.
He shrugged. “Reminders.”
She nodded and murmured, “Makes you even more interesting. You now wear a tale of tribulation upon your face.”
Elianas blinked.
Torrullin glanced at him with eyebrows raised.
“They stay,” Elianas snapped.
Torrullin’s eyes crinkled at the corners, before he faced Caballa with a straight face. “Aislinn and Lunik?”
“Safe upstairs. The Throne protects the Keep against nuclear devices.”
“Really? It said so?”
“It said so, yes.”
Elianas frowned.
Caballa laughed. “Oh, yes. Strange events come to pass.” She swallowed a sob a moment later. “Many have died.”
“Start at the beginning, Caballa,” Torrullin prompted.
She led the way into the Throne’s presence. “This is where it begins and ends,” she said, pointing at the golden seat. “Not Torrke - the dais. Sacred ground.” She glanced at Torrullin. “Talk to it.”
“Almighty gods,” Torrullin muttered.
“It told me it could heal Elianas’ deeper scars,” Caballa whispered, glancing at Elianas. His expression blanked out. “It also called you Lorinin.”
Torrullin swirled his tongue over his teeth.
“Walk away, Torrullin,” Elianas said.
Torrullin gripped Elianas’ arm and hauled him up onto the dais with him. Elianas pulled his arm free, but it was already too late.
Welcome to both.
Shadows moved in the doorway. Witnesses. Yiddin, Vanar and Sirlasin. Always witnesses, by Aaru. Thank the gods Aislinn was not one of them.
“Tarlinn.” Torrullin bowed over his hands.
Elianas grimaced, hearing that. “Likewise.” He did not bow.
Caballa retreated to stand with the others, and no one said a
word. She had informed them the Throne asked that Torrullin be summoned with Elianas. Uncomfortable questions were now being asked about who exactly Elianas was. She had shrugged those aside, telling the Elders the matter of Elianas belonged in Elixir’s arena, and it was his responsibility to explain.
Sit, Elianas.
The dark man shook his head. “I need my scars.”
A crutch, Alhazen. You hobble him with them.
When Yiddin drew breath in surprise, Torrullin and Elianas understood the communication was open. Resorting to mindspeak would keep nothing private.
“Why do they hear this?” Torrullin demanded, addressing that issue.
New tools must be forged. It cannot be achieved in secret. Time is at a crossroads.
“This is the second time I am told thus.”
Others of the multiverse feel it too.
Gods. Tarlinn claimed affinity with the multiverse also; it therefore transcended barriers.
Elianas, sit. To move forward you must do this.
“No.” Elianas turned to step off the dais. “I am sick of manipulation.” The Throne started glowing and he swung back. “You are the master manipulator. Have you not taken enough from me? You have a name, for Aaru’s sake, and in all the ages you said nothing to me, when I was with you. You gave nothing! How much must I give now? You already know me!”
Yiddin groaned and Vanar gripped his arm to silence him.
Torrullin made no move other than to watch Elianas.
The choice is yours, Elianas Danae.
Elianas froze. “You dare?”
Elianas Danae, oldest one blood of the Valleur. The last royal of the Danae.
“What?” Sirlasin hissed.
Elianas strode forward glaring at the seat. “You hobble me now.”
I set you free. The Danae need no longer hide in shame, for the shame was not of their making. A word of power is a tool, Elianas Danae, and you are that word of power.
Elianas laughed. “Elianas, the ultimate tool!”
Alhazen, you are both tool and word of power.
Elianas stilled. “And Torrullin?”
Choose to sit and he will be unmasked also.
“Really?” Elianas sent Torrullin an underhanded look.
“After this perhaps there will no longer be a need for witnesses,” Torrullin said.
“You are ready for this?”
“I am ready for you,” Torrullin returned. Only Elianas heard him.
Caballa dug her nails into Sirlasin’s shoulder, and the Elder listened so hard he did not feel it. The four of them, to varying degrees, understood major change approached.
Elianas sat.
The glow intensified.
And Elianas vanished.
“Give him back!” Torrullin roared, running at the seat.
“Gods, no,” Caballa moaned.
Torrullin hurtled into the seat … and disappeared.
Vanar and Yiddin were paralysed in shock, and Sirlasin folded to his knees on the floor, dragging Caballa with him.
All four stared at the Throne in horror.
Circle of Confrontation
A GIANT CIRCULAR AREA of beaten dust surrounded them.
Elianas was stumbling up when Torrullin landed with a thud beside him. They were made tiny by the sheer size of the circle of earth. Triangular white stones marked a circumference all the way around.
Elianas looked at him. “You came. Seems you are always rescuing me these days.”
“Tit for tat. Where is this?”
A pillar of glowing light appeared before them, and dissolved into the figure of a man. It spoke. “This is merely an assumed form for conversation’s sake. I am Tarlinn.”
Elianas blanched, and Torrullin became a stone of immovability.
It was a generic likeness to man, akin to the appearance Ixion the sliver of consciousness assumed for them in Lethe. In a crowd this face and form would not be noticed.
The man pointed at them. “Both of you delved alterative spaces and both are reborn in one manner and another. Both of you assumed wings and both have walked realms and time.” The finger dropped. “And both have been one with the Valleur seat of all power. Did you think I would remain ignorant when knowledge flowed both ways? Did you believe I would remain neutral? When I know your every thought, wish and desire?”
Elianas rubbed a hand over his face, saying nothing.
Torrullin managed to breathe again.
Tarlinn approached. “I shall not harm you, this I swear into every eternity. You made me, and I am thus your servant forever.”
Elianas snorted. “Feels to me like you are pulling the strings here.”
Tarlinn smiled and inclined his head. “This is merely proof. You are both too blinkered by what swirls in your souls in the current era. It is time to step from those chains.”
Torrullin lifted a hand and looked at it in surprise. He was certain astonishment had paralysed him eternally. He pinched the bridge of his nose to relieve tension. “What swirls in our souls?”
“An excellent question, indeed. Do you seek an answer?”
Both men remained silent.
Tarlinn laughed. “When men of your calibre and power are stubborn, it is hard to make you hear.” Then he was serious. “Neolone was the first Timekeeper of these ages and now another is born to assume his place, and his arising will come to pass when you are least able to deal with it. However, you must be ready to face what a Timekeeper heralds, and to be ready you must release masks, chains and selfishness.” He lifted a hand. “Do not speak yet.” That hand waved in a rough circle. “This is neutral ground. Come with me.”
Tarlinn started walking, and every step took him a fair distance.
Torrullin and Elianas glanced at each other, and followed to discover distance held no meaning for them either. They halted at the marked circumference and before them a path of stone led to another circle. Tarlinn swung an arm, and their circle moved to another path and another circle at its end.
“Spokes on a wheel. They are multiple. Watch.” He waved an arm once more and the circle moved again to halt at another stone path. At the end of that path the fort Tymall created from wings shimmered in unreality. “Shadow Wing Fort,” Tarlinn murmured. “Tymall’s current residence. It will appear solid once the remaining circles are filled; your choice of number.”
“Place of confrontation,” Torrullin murmured, harking to the unicorn’s words, to Sabian’s explanation. “This is Nowhere.”
“No here and no there,” Elianas whispered.
“The Warlock did the multiverse a favour in choosing the site of his final manipulation as this Nowhere. As he employed those wings, we shall now use them.”
Torrullin swallowed. “How?”
“Imagination. Draw shadows in the air and an image emerges, not so? I have eased the place of deposit, employing my imagination. You, however, now possess the answer to bring it together, Torrullin. To meld it, to ground it. This is a lattice created of multiple facets, part of the universal fourteen. Fourteen is implied here, even if only that fort is deposited. It means magic may be deployed with impunity. A warning, however; allow no one to add to your lattice. Doing so will reverberate in reality, and that must be avoided.”
Torrullin and Elianas glanced at each other. “We hear you,” Elianas murmured.
Tarlinn turned his back on the shimmering fort. “Do you hear yourself, Elianas? You said ‘we’. You are a team, you function together. Alone you are now less. It is time to acknowledge your chains, to divest yourselves of them.”
Elianas sighed. “Is there a tree to stand under, for heaven’s sake?”
Tarlinn was silent for a time. When he spoke he surprised them anew. “Assumption is a killer of imagination, is it not? I assumed emptiness and dust would lay the grounding for confrontation, but perhaps I was mistaken and therefore less than creative. You function in storms, Elianas Danae, and you prefer the cold, Torrullin Valla. This dryness and heat will soon defeat your
creativity.”
They stared at him.
Tarlinn shrugged. “I am aware of the concept nuance. Ask for the perfect battleground.”
Elianas frowned. “There is no such thing.”
“I am aware of that also; ask for the perfect battleground for you.”
Torrullin laughed. “Trees to hide sound and view, to confuse and irritate.”
Trees rose up along the circumference. “Neutral ground should remain unencumbered,” Tarlinn murmured.
“Agreed, but grass rather than dust.”
The circle transformed into lush lawn.
“Line every path with more trees and scrub.”
“You curtail your long view, Torrullin.”
“I also curtail theirs.”
“As you say.” Trees lined every spoke on the wheel.
Looking at the whole, it was evident there were too many paths. It would engender confusion in the long term and therefore remove logic and efficient strategy. The time to choose had arrived.
Tarlinn sensed it. “How many paths?”
Torrullin glanced at Elianas. “One each for Ymir’s citadel, obviously, the palisade and the Dome, whatever Tristan feels about its inclusion. Do we need to add the other three? I think you are right. Avaelyn is not required to enter this space.”
Elianas inclined his head. “Less is more, is it not?”
“Four it is, including the Warlock fort,” Tarlinn murmured, and waved a hand. The multiple spokes diminished to four tree-lined paths. The paths were broader in the reduction.
“Make it all smaller.” Elianas suggested. “Bring us closer. Allow us to hear.”
“Good one,” Torrullin approved. “Psychological battles.”
The central circle shrank until the paths could be seen in a full rotation of the body.
Elianas stared up at the blue glow surrounding them, a sphere of nothing. It required grounding, this space. Tarlinn was right. “Ring the whole with impassable mountains,” he murmured. “Allow no escape.”
A mighty circular range erupted into the heavens to glower over everything.
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 166
