Lore of Sanctum Omnibus

by Elaina J Davidson

  “Tianoman may need you to ground the Throne.”

  “We will be there in minutes. They are still engaged in the chant.”

  Tristan inclined his head, and he and Sabian vanished.

  Torrullin headed into the courtyard where Elianas had wrapped Teroux in tendrils of sparking energy. He halted to watch and saw how light twisted in loops around the dark man’s right arm, how his lips moved soundlessly.

  Ropes of electricity joined those loops to the cocoon Teroux stood within. Elianas snapped his left fingers. The light vanished.

  He leaned closer to Teroux. “We are now connected. Wherever you are, there I am. Do you understand? You can hide nowhere and I shall know it. You may run and your trail will blaze into the skies where I shall see it. Do you understand?”

  Teroux nodded without speaking, his gaze latched to his keeper.

  Torrullin’s gut twisted. Whatever Elianas’ reasoning for doing this, it suited Teroux absolutely. In his mind he had now received a large portion of what he wanted. He was connected to the man he desired.

  “Go to your villa and wait for me there,” Elianas murmured.

  Teroux bowed and left.

  Elianas inhaled and exhaled. “It is not the best idea, I am aware, but this way I know exactly where he is. I refuse to start looking over my shoulder again, as I needed to with Tymall.”

  “I will not interfere,” Torrullin said.

  Dark hair swung his way. “I promise not to kill him.”

  “I might,” Torrullin muttered, and paced forward until he stood before Elianas. “Answer this. Connected as he now is, how much of what you feel will he feel as well?”

  Dark eyes lifted to the heavens of Valaris. “Most.” He lowered to Torrullin. “I aim to use it to unsettle him. Did you not once want him along with us to experience everything? That will now be granted.”

  Torrullin made a face.

  Elianas said, “We are needed on Akhavar.”

  A sigh escaped Torrullin. Clearly the man was not prepared to discuss this. Not until he had grappled with the consequences.

  “To Akhavar then.”

  Akhavar

  ELDERS AND VALLEUR KNEELED before the Throne, chanting the words of recognition, of welcome and of place.

  Tianoman stood before the dais and, as they appeared, he stepped up and approached the Throne. Turning, he prepared to sit. When silence arrived, he did so. Leaning back, he smiled, and then he shouted, “Ma nume Akhavar!”

  The chant lifted immediately, loud and sustained.

  A tear ran over Tianoman’s cheek. “It is done!” he cried out.

  Akhavar, mountain city, erupted in applause, acclaim, whistles and stamping feet. Upon the dais, Romarin thumped with staff and delight. “Hear the thrice welcome for our Vallorin!”

  “We hear, oh, Elder!”

  He thumped again. “Hear the thrice welcome for the Valleur Throne!”

  “We hear, we hear! We hear!”

  More acclaim soared out.

  Torrullin rubbed at his arms. “It still gets to me.”

  Elianas gave a laugh.

  Tristan, at Torrullin’s shoulder, said, “He is doing so well, isn’t he? Tian didn’t need help.”

  Torrullin smiled. “He may be the best Vallorin ever.”

  “Unfortunately his trial by fire approaches now.”

  “And in the aftermath no one will ever doubt his right to rule,” Torrullin murmured.

  Tristan moved to see Torrullin’s face. “Do you do these things deliberately? Or do they happen by accident?”

  Elianas slapped his thighs in appreciation. “Both!” he laughed. Then he was serious. “Torrullin is, however, on the mark. Anyone who still doubts Tian now will support him ever after.”

  Tristan touched Torrullin’s shoulder. “Tell me the Valleur have a long future.”

  “Why do you doubt?”

  “Torrullin, so much has changed, especially you. It is not doubt on my part; it is concern.”

  Elianas watched the man who was so much like Torrullin and then he murmured, “You read yourself into the changes, Tristan. You begin to suspect your future will be much like the man before you already endures.”

  “’Endures’, Elianas?” Tristan’s eyes narrowed.

  “There is much enduring, yes.”

  Tristan looked away and noted the renewed oaths of loyalty had already started for Tianoman. “I suspect changes, I admit.”

  “Such as?” Torrullin prompted.

  Tristan whispered, “An Eternal Companion.”

  All three were silent then, and Torrullin pinched his nose. Those who knew him understood it signified tension or an unwillingness to speak.

  Tristan barked a laugh. “Therefore you too have given my longer future some thought.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Losing Caballa will hurt.”

  Neither man said anything.

  “And there it is. My confirmation. As you have lost, thus I shall lose.” Tristan was expressionless. “Do you know who my Eternal Companion will be?”

  Both men shook heads.

  “A man or a woman?”

  Again neither man spoke.

  Tristan rubbed his chin. “Given what we know of Timekeepers …” He paused and then went on a rush, “I do not know if I am able to love as you do.”

  Torrullin gripped his shoulder. “The Valleur have a long future, Tristan. You do not have to grapple with any of it yet.”

  “Promise.”

  A hand settled on the face so much like his. “I promise.”

  The younger man smiled and his smile widened when he noticed Caballa coming over. “Good.” When she arrived at his side, he drew her into a spontaneous embrace.

  Laughing, she returned it.

  Elianas gestured with his head, and he and Torrullin moved off.

  It was time to have words with Sabian.

  AKHAVAR’S MOUNTAIN CITY SPREAD for sals to either side of the gigantic Throne-room.

  It also went up and it went down, way down, until it reached the aquifers where the city’s water gathered. Translated, it meant the city was enormous, much had not yet been rediscovered and large portions required cleaning before it became habitable. Of red desert stone, the feeling, whether above or below, was ever of warmth.

  Sabian, when they reached out to him, returned coordinates, and they found him lying beside a flowing canal of fresh water in an empty chamber, his body aligned with a strip of sunlight. Light came in from a sky aperture and fronds of green and purple adorned the warm rock. It was pretty and peaceful. It was also removed from the inhabited part of the city.

  He did not rise when they appeared. “I like the sun,” he murmured. “This place is well designed. Never have I felt here as if the rock enclosed.”

  “You like it here?” Torrullin asked.

  “I am not unhappy, but long term I shall return to my cottage on Echolone.”

  “I do not like this place,” Elianas muttered.

  Sabian sat up. “It is pretty here.”

  “I mean not this particular chamber.”

  “Ah. Akhavar itself. Your past speaks for you, Elianas, for there is nothing amiss here.”

  The dark man shrugged.

  Torrullin lowered to sit back against a rock wall, careful not to squash the creeper. “I am not enamoured of it either.”

  “Never mind what you do and do not like. We need to discuss the master mechanism.” Sabian waited until Elianas had found a place against the opposite wall. “By my reckoning, we need to get the device into a repository and seal the whole. This is the real reason the Valleur Throne now squats overhead in its ancient place. It is protection. It also serves to draw people here, which will mask its hiding place even more. When we do this, we are able to move into the future without wondering about cycles, for the stretch will feel eternal. This frees a Timekeeper to keep track of history through the ages without wondering when it will loop and begin anew. Correct?”

  Torrullin nodded.

&
nbsp; “Do not reveal any of this at a conclave,” Sabian warned. “Keep its existence a secret. The Timekeeper must never know where it is.” He pointed at Torrullin and Elianas in turn. “You do understand this means neither of you will assume the responsibility. If you know, you are not an objective Timekeeper.”

  Elianas’ head moved to lean against the wall and he closed his eyes.

  “Tannil desires to own the mechanism because he seeks the loop. He is not time’s historian and has no aspiration to ever be one. He seeks to undermine history already in place. He is, point of fact, a Darak Or.”

  “Why does he seek to undermine?” Torrullin questioned.

  “I cannot say. The answer lies in his name,” Sabian murmured.

  “Can he undermine?”

  “With the master mechanism, yes.”

  “How?”

  “Torrullin, how can I answer that? I have my skills and my supreme powers of deduction, but that kind of sorcery is beyond my understanding.”

  A fingers snap sounded, and an urn of red wine appeared along with three goblets.

  “I need something tasty,” Elianas growled when Torrullin glanced in his direction. He poured and handed the wine around. Both men with him accepted, which entirely vindicated his need. He raised his goblet mockingly. “Two questions. One I ask of you, Sabian. Have you found anything resembling a receptacle?”

  “No.” Sabian sipped at his wine.

  “The second question both of you will ask of me. Can the mechanism be removed from the Dome?”

  Torrullin drank, waited, watching him.

  Elianas sat straighter, twirling his wine. “Yes and no. Yes, because it needs doing. No, because the Dome will not survive.”

  Torrullin set his goblet down. “Replace the keystone, Elianas. We prepare a new one and insert it.”

  “It does not work like that,” Sabian murmured. “Remove a keystone for even a moment and …”

  “… everything crumbles,” Elianas stated.

  “There must be something we can do,” Torrullin said.

  Elianas looked at him. “I will not survive removal of the keystone.”

  “What?”

  “You destroyed the Dome once, remember? Do you know why you waited bloody twenty-five years for me to step out after you created the Kaval? It took me that long to put myself together again after you recalled the Dome. And that was not destruction, although it appeared that way; you merely suspended it for a time.”

  “What do you mean by ‘not survive’?” Sabian asked.

  Elianas looked at him, for Torrullin’s frozen expression unsettled him. “In this form. And in this time.”

  A goblet crashed into the wall next to his head, spilling wine. Elianas flinched hard, drew breath, and forced his attention to the fair man opposite.

  “I go on, of course,” he added, his tone neutral. “But not here.”

  “You say this now?” Torrullin hissed.

  Elianas shrugged. “Now it is time to say it.”

  Torrullin vaulted to his feet and paced like a madman. “Thus, the Dome lives despite all, because you live. And you endure, because the fucking Dome does. A profound connection. Your symbiosis. And you tell me now?” He halted and glared at Sabian. “Get Tristan.”

  Sabian rose slowly …

  “NOW!”

  The man ran from there.

  Torrullin leaned in and hauled Elianas up, shook him, his cheeks taut and pale. “I will not lose you. You told Tristan there is a lot of enduring in this living long crap; well, I will not endure one second without you, do you hear me?” He shoved the man against the wall and released him to pace again. He halted and spit out, “I will fucking annihilate everything if I am alone again!”

  Elianas remained pressed against the wall, wordless.

  “But it is not loneliness I abhor and this is not about me.” Torrullin swung around. “How do I hold your heart when …”

  In a blur of movement the dark man was there, holding him, shoving him against the opposite wall, using his weight to still Torrullin’s frantic movement, his presence to calm those wild thoughts, and his hands to smooth a desperate heartbeat.

  “Hush,” he murmured. “Be still.” Hands caressed Torrullin’s chest, the careering heart below, and thighs pressed him back. “Just be still for a while and listen to me.”

  Torrullin inhaled a long staccato breath and nodded.

  Elianas moved back slightly, while still maintaining contact.

  “There is only one way out of this,” he murmured. “Forget the receptacle. Forget even the keystone. If we touch either, I am forced to move on. Be still. Listen. I do not want to move on; I will not endure a moment without you either. Thus we do the next best thing. Hmm?”

  Torrullin drew another of those strange breaths. He clasped the dark man to him. “Forgo all else and kill the Timekeeper.”

  “Yes,” Elianas said in his ear.

  “Then that is what we do.”

  Elianas disengaged and stepped back to look at him. “You need to trust me, Torrullin. I have waited and I have known I waited, and the years were long, so very long, far longer than they were for you. And now we walk time together. I am not leaving.” He touched the scars on his cheeks. “See these? They remain so you will know I too have known tribulation, as you have. Sometimes you think my pretty face has given me an easy path and thus you do not trust.”

  Torrullin shook his head.

  Elianas leaned in, hauled him near and shoved his tunic up, then roughly turned Torrullin to expose his back. “What do I see? Muscles, ribs, spine, smooth and unmarked skin, golden. Very attractive, timeless, warm and strong.” He shoved Torrullin chest first against the wall and placed his hands on that naked back, ran fingers over muscle and bone. “And yet I know what lies below, do I not? You have hidden your scars.” He pressed and welts appeared there, crisscrossing skin in every direction, every space. “I know how they beat you. I even know they broke your back.”

  Elianas gently turned him. “It is not your scars I trust, however. It is this.” He placed his hand over Torrullin’s heart. “Sacred space.”

  Torrullin closed his eyes. Sacred space.

  Elianas laughed lightly. “That day on a tree trunk near Still Pond Rock?”

  Torrullin’s eyes snapped open.

  “You waited for those words. And I waited long to say them.”

  Indrawn breath sounding in the small space had them transferring attention … to Tristan, who had his gaze fixated on Torrullin’s back.

  “Gods,” Elianas murmured.

  Torrullin pulled his tunic down. “Come in, Tristan.”

  “You are leaving them there?” Elianas said.

  As Tristan entered with eyes full of questions, and Sabian trailed him in, Torrullin said for Elianas’ hearing alone, “You can heal them away, one by slow one, later.”

  Elianas instantly closed his eyes to hide the fire in them. “I look forward to it.”

  Brushing past and feeling the sparks now alight between them, Torrullin went to Tristan. “The Dome requires added protection.”

  “It is already in place. Sabian told me what was said here, but Belun and I came to the same conclusion. The object in question will never be spoken of - and only Belun and I know of it - and added layering now shields its location. Other measures are instituted in order to safeguard against entry.”

  Torrullin glanced at Sabian, who said, “No one will ever pry anything from me, I swear.”

  “Stop searching for the receptacle,” Torrullin said, “for now we act in a different manner.”

  Sabian bowed his head, blue eyes alight. “The kind of act I agree with.”

  Torrullin laughed. “Good.” He shifted his shoulders as if something plagued him. “The Kaval hold is still secure?”

  Tristan nodded.

  “Well, I have no issue with breaking a sitting duck’s neck. Shall we?”

  Sabian grinned and so did Tristan.

  “Meet us on the l
edge in a few minutes,” Torrullin laughed. When the two had left, he swung to Elianas. “You in?”

  “Yes.” He approached and stood behind Torrullin, lifting his tunic again. “It is bothering you.”

  “Right now the promise of what comes later will keep me focused.”

  “I do not think so.” A finger touched a scar. It vanished. “Where does it hurt most? I will do that one real … fast.”

  Torrullin jerked around. He fell against the wall.

  Elianas climbed into him.

  Chapter 23

  A true name is not about an epitaph. It is not about recognition of birth or a place in a register. It does set one free, but that freedom is not about an ability to become self. A true name is about sound, the music when it is acknowledged, the dance of its energy as it takes its place in the great spaces.

  ~ Arun, Druid ~

  A moon

  ON ONE OF TWO moons orbiting the world where Tymall found the darkling force and held captive Saska and Margus, the Kaval braced around Tannil, maintaining a shield.

  Exhaustion had etched into every face.

  Tannil sat cross-legged in the dust, aware he simply needed to wait them out. His challenging grin vanished when Torrullin appeared, and he scrambled to his feet. Tawny eyes flicked to Elianas, to Tristan and Sabian. He was aware his firing squad had arrived.

  “Join the shield to relieve some of the pressure on the others,” Torrullin said to Tristan and Sabian.

  Both nodded and inserted themselves. The relief among the Kaval was palpable.

  Torrullin and Elianas stepped into the circle.

  Tannil waited arms akimbo. “Truly?” he snarled. “This is how you choose to end it? On a mundane note?”

  Elianas circled around to approach from the back. He drew his sword.

  “I am a timedancer!” the golden man shouted.

  Torrullin paused, about to draw his blade as well. A timedancer cannot die; he, she or it simply becomes something hard to hold and view … and hear.

  “You know, do you not? You cannot sever my head from the rest of me.”

  “What is your name, timedancer?” Torrullin said. When a Timekeeper freely divulges his true name to another, control remains his. “Come on. You retain control if you tell me.” Control may remain with the Timekeeper, but freedom is yours.