“You will have the customary seven days after joining. After that I’ll see what I can do.”
Dallan turned his gaze on him, a slight smile on his face. “Am I free now, John? Can I move about without being watched? Can I go to the city?”
“Yes, Dallan. You’re free.”
Lany suddenly walked over to Dallan and nudged him in the side conspiratorially. “And don’t get any bright ideas about taking Shona and disappearing into the Muiraran wilderness. You’re not familiar with it and it’s not the safest place right now.”
Dallan raised an innocent brow, totally missing the joke. “Now what makes ye think I’d do a thing like that?”
Lany smiled an accusing smile at him. “I remember my honeymoon. And I had two weeks. You’ve got one.”
“Two weeks?” Dallan asked surprised. He turned expectantly to John.
“I’ll see what I can do,” John offered with a smile. “Let’s get going.”
“Should we give the Maiden more time?” Lany asked, concerned.
John shook his head. “We’ll be back in a week. Dallan and Shona will have to bring us. We can wrap things up then. Right now we have to get the Maiden home and let Dallan have her to himself for awhile. They’ll both have trouble adjusting otherwise.”
Lany nodded, glanced at a now-conscious and very subdued Julia, and then joined the Whittards with Dallan and John.
Evan and Maggie still held Shona tightly, Kitty and Tomy just feet away crying quietly. Evan looked at Dallan, then Shona. “I think it’s time, honey. I wish it wasn’t.”
Dallan put a hand on Shona’s shoulder. “John says we’re to be back here in a week. Ye can see her again at that time.”
Shona spun to face him. “Really? We can come back that soon?”
“Aye, Flower. Angus needs his things and I ken ye’ll want some o’ yer own. Right now we need to get ye home where we can… feed awhile.”
She raised a single brow at him.
Evan took in the blush creeping into his daughter’s cheeks and chuckled. “See, I told you, ‘just wait till you’re married!’ And now it’s quite obvious that you are.” He whispered in her ear. “Go with him, sweetheart. He’ll take good care of you.”
She looked up into his eyes. “Dad, I never wanted to disappoint you. I am sorry I have to go but…”
“But you love him, don’t you? And your place is by his side.”
She nodded, new tears in her eyes.
Maggie took Shona into her arms again and hugged her. “I’ll miss you so much. I don’t know what I’ll do without you.” She began to stroke her daughter’s hair. “I’ll have all your music and things ready when you come back.”
Shona swallowed hard as she looked over her mother’s shoulder to Kitty and Tomy. She stepped away from Maggie and made her way to her two best friends. “Thank you for all your help, Tomy. I do not know how I can ever repay you for all you have done.”
Tomy’s lower lip trembled. “Ah, don’t go worrying about none of it, Shona, girl. Wasn’t nothin’. Only bad thing is now I’m stuck with this bubble headed…” She put her face in one hand to stifle a sob. “And you know how she drives me crazy!”
Shona nodded and hugged her. Tomy’s eyes grew wide at the contact, and her tears immediately stopped. “I will miss you, Tomy. Take care of Kitty for me.”
Tomy glanced at a teary-eyed Kitty. “Lordy, Shona, you don’t ask for much, do you?” She gave a light laugh. “I’ll do my best.”
Shona turned to Kitty who shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Shona, please don’t leave me.”
Shona drew Kitty into her arms and hugged her hard, tears streaming down both faces. “I do not want to leave you! I wish I could take you with me!” She glanced over her shoulder to Dallan who offered her a tender look before shaking his head. She turned back to Kitty. “But I cannot. I do not yet understand why.”
Kitty choked on a sob and held Shona even tighter. “Nothing will be the same without you! What are we going to tell everybody? What about Julia?” She looked to where Julia now sat stunned on the floor. “She’s…she’s not my real sister, is she? All these years she never was. What am I going to tell my parents? Gaaawsh, I never thought about that! Were they in on all of this, too? Can I even go home?”
Shona held her. “Shhhh…we will be back in a few days. Dallan and I will think of something for you to tell them. Do not worry. Everything will turn out fine.” She briefly looked at Julia, her own mind full of questions, and then turned back to Kitty. “And you will be fine, too. Seems both of us have lived a lie. But everything is all right now.”
Kitty trembled in her arms as new tears fell. “What am I going to do when I get a headache? Who’s going to talk it away? And what about Sinclair? He’s going to miss you, too.”
Shona’s eyes widened slightly at the mention of the cat. “He will be fine. I will see him when Dallan and I return. But now I have to go. I cannot explain what is inside of me. It feels like something is trying to get out, as if I am lost somehow.”
Kitty sniffed back her tears and shrugged. “You’re homesick, silly.”
Shona stared at her stunned.
“The only way to fix it, Shona, is to go home.”
“Kitty…”
They hugged each other again as Dallan approached. He gently pulled her away from her friend. “’Tis time, lass. Yer looking tired. I wilna see ye worn out. I’ll take no chances wi’ ye M’eudain.”
She turned to look up at him, eyes filled with the unaccustomed pain of parting with family and friends. “I do not know if I can do it again, Dallan.”
He hooked a finger under her chin, tilted her head back and brought his face down to hers. “Aye, ye can, Flower. I’ll help you. I ken how it works now. The heathen’s been telling me all these years and I didna even know it.”
She threw him a confused look.
He chuckled lightly. “Kwaku laughs a lot. I’ve ha’ to learn to listen to what he was saying wi’ my heart. ‘Tis the same when I opened the door earlier. I had to listen to my heart first and the voice inside it.”
She looked deeply into his eyes. “That is how it works?”
“Weel, sort of. I did ha’ to picture what I wanted in my head. Like looking at a book, ye ken.” He bent even closer. “And now I’ll take ye back to my wee cottage, lass. And prove to ye how well I’ve listened to yer own heart.” He kissed her then, long and tenderly, his heart searching hers, filling it.
Shona slumped in his arms and moaned softly when he at last broke the kiss. “I love you,” she whispered against his lips.
“Let me take ye home now, Shona.”
She let herself be captured by a fierce gaze and, unable to speak, nodded to him. Dallan smiled, swept her up into his arms and carried her to the center of the room.
Kitty let go a long sigh as Evan and Maggie joined the two girls.
“What’s the matter with you?” Tomy quipped on a half sob.
“How romantic. Geez, just look at them. I wish it were me.”
Maggie put her arm around her. “Don’t worry, Kitty. Someday your prince will come.”
Tomy rolled her eyes and Evan smiled. “I hope he has good credit.” They mumbled softly in unison.
Maggie sent them both a glare. “Ignore them, Kitty. They just don’t want to lose you, too.”
Evan’s and Tomy’s eyes both bulged at the statement before giving their full attention to what was about to take place in the center of the room.
John and Lany ushered Julia to Dallan while Angus wheeled his mother over as well.
Kwaku and Zara still stood to one side. The huge Azurti smiled at his wife with satisfaction. “Hungry, beloved?”
“Oh no!” Angus wailed. “Not in my shop! Ye can do that once ye get yerselves home, if ye dinna mind!”
The rest of the men laughed at the red-faced Angus. Shona, still in Dallan’s arms, looked first to Kwaku, then to Angus. “Dallan, what is so funny? I do not understand.�
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“Aye, ye will, Flower. Once I get you home.” He set her on her feet and took in the faces all around them. “’Tis time, lass.”
Shona turned to her parents and friends. “I will be back soon.”
Evan nodded. “We know.”
John looked over at Evan. “We return in seven days.”
Evan nodded again, his eyes welling with tears.
John turned to Dallan. “Ready?”
“Aye.” Dallan sought and found Kwaku. “Are ye no coming, ye blasted good-for-nothing? Or do I leave ye here to find yer own way home?”
Kwaku’s face locked itself in dead seriousness. “Do not dink I am droo wid you, Boyeee. You lack much training.”
“And what is that supposed to mean, ye bloody heathen? D’ye no think I can do it?”
Alasdair, quiet all this time, finally spoke up. “Do what, Dallan? What are ye going to do?”
Dallan bent to his knee. “I ha’ to take us all back now, lad.”
“Back? Back where?”
Dallan’s eyes softened. “Back to where we came from.”
“We’re going home? But how did I get here? The soldiers may still be about, Dallan. ‘Tis not safe there!”
Dallan ruffled the boy’s hair with his hand. “Nay, laddie. We’re no going to Glencoe. Nay, we’re no going anywhere in Scotland.”
“But then, where are we going?”
Dallan stood and looked at the rest of the men, his eyes finally locking with Kwaku’s. “Home, lad. I’m taking us all home.”
Kwaku burst into loud Azurti guffaws.
John and Lany smiled and closed their eyes in silent prayers of thanks.
“Shona,” Dallan called as he motioned her to kneel before him. She looked into his eyes, kissed him and then knelt where he bade her.
The Time Master planted his feet firmly, his eyes narrowed in concentration, and spoke to his wife gently in Gaelic. “Take us home, lass.”
Shona opened her mouth as soon as the words were spoken, and began to sing.
* * *
A tall lone figure strolled to a wall adorned with ancient books, a long, crooked finger curled to the massive volumes. The aged bindings were cracked, their titles faded, undisturbed for years. The finger moved along the books, leaving a trail through the thick dust in its search.
“Ahhh.” The word was partner to an evil hiss. “There you are. Come, my old friend. Come to me.” The finger tapped the title of one of the books, one not so old and worn. The rest of the hand joined the finger and took the book from the shelf. The tall, dark figure blew dust from the volume and, with a wicked laugh, opened the book to the ending pages. The figure studied them, licking dry, cracked lips as he read the last few paragraphs then turned to face the center of the room.
The figure didn’t walk to the huge ancient desk so much as glide to it like the wraith he was, stirring the dust of the floor with cold. Reaching the desk, the wraith set the open book on its surface and stared intently at the next-to-last page. It was blank.
Stepping away from the desk, yellow cat-like eyes bore into the empty page as the wraith began to sing in a rattling chain of a tenor.
The entire room shook. The wraith’s eyes intensified as the book lifted itself off the table. The song increased in volume.
A dark, blood-red light began to pour from the figure’s chest to the book suspended in the air then began to trace the outline of a man. A cold hiss accompanied the song as the picture began to take on substance. Life.
The person drawn now replaced the book.
With a cold hiss and the sweep of a hand, the picture peeled away.
The person fell upon the desk in a heap, his hair gray and matted, eyes dull, yellow and full of recognition. He got to his knees and reached for the wraith now approaching the desk. “Master,” he whined. “You have saved me! I knew you would never desert me! Oh thank you!”
The wraith stared down at the man, his eight foot frame towering over him, and gave a tiny smile. “Yes, it seems I have, does it not?”
The sad remains of Philip Brennan writhed upon the flat wooden surface, his skeleton-like hands again reaching for the wraith’s. Philip grabbed one and began to lick and kiss at it in hunger.
The wraith watched him a moment in satisfaction before slapping the wrinkled form of Brennan away. “You failed me. The boy still lives.”
“No! I had no choice! I had her! I can still get her for you! She will yet be yours!”
The robed figure seemed to float to the other side of the room. “She escaped you. The boy now has her in his possession. To me, that is failure.”
Philip crawled off the desk to kneel before the wraith. “No, no! I can still take her! I will bring her to you as planned! She can still be yours!”
“And you will kill the boy as well, I presume?”
“Yes! I promised I would! Did we not have a bargain?”
“Yes, we had a bargain.” The wraith reached down, caressed Philip’s head then stood again, eyes narrowed to two bright yellow slits. “And you failed your end of it.”
“No! I will fix it! I will get her for you! She will be yours, I swear!”
The robed figure’s eyes grew brighter, narrower. “You already swore to me.”
“I underestimated him! Kawahnee didn’t train him as I suspected he would! I will not fail you again!”
The figure reached down and patted his head. “You are right. You will not fail me again. Because you will serve me no more.” He suddenly grabbed Philip by the scruff of the neck, holding him at arms length several feet off the floor. Philip kicked and pleaded, but his voice came out only as a strangled gasp. “No one fails me, Brennan. No one.” The wraith turned to the desk, threw Philip onto it and began to sing again, the bloody light piercing Philip’s body.
The ex-Time Master let out a wail of pain and writhed upon the table’s surface. “Noooo!”
“You were even careless enough to let the boy find out how to kill you.” The wraith sang the words on a breathy rasp, his eyes now red and full of bloodlust.
Philip began to cry. “Mercy! Mercy!”
The wraith stopped singing and glared at Philip. “The boy showed you mercy. I will not.”
His song continued. The blood-red light deepened in color and began to retrace a picture drawn earlier: a small room of a cottage, a kilted Highland captain in its center, deadly dirk in hand. The wraith reached to the table and grabbed Philip again. “I do not accept failure!” Philip’s pitiful form was hurled into the room as the wraith smiled in satisfaction. He raised a hand and swept it across the picture, closing it like a door before Philip could right himself, cutting off his screams of protest and the terror stricken ones of Robert Campbell.
The book fell to the desk with a loud thud.
Bartrol, aged advisor of Muirara and one of the greatest Time Master’s servants ever, picked up the book and caressed the cover, laughing as he replaced it upon the shelf. He stepped back and stared at the title briefly before turning away. Philip Brennan graced the binding.
Bartrol went back to the desk and picked up another book, this one brand new, and opened it to the first page. It was blank. The wraith closed it and gently stroked the cover, as he cooed to the book and traced an outline on its spine with his finger. “Let us see how you will serve me. Perhaps you will do better than the last.”
The figure placed the book back upon the table and ran a hand across the newly etched title. Tressa Esperansa.
Bartrol’s tall, dark form glided to a huge balcony at the end of the room and out into the still, sultry night to overlook mile after endless mile of deep forest surrounding his mountain fortress. “Soon, Maiden” the wraith hissed. “Soon you will be mine.”
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the
Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
Plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will
Call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will
&nbs
p; Listen to you. You will seek me and find me when
You seek me with all your heart. I will be found by
You,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back… to
The place from which I carried you into exile.”
Jeremiah 29:11-14
EPILOGUE
John and Lany walked in silence, the mission at last drawn to a close. People stopped and bowed slightly as they passed, giving John the respect due his new office.
Lany beamed with satisfaction. “Looks like Sutter’s Province is happy you’re back, Eaton. Too bad they don’t get to keep you.”
John glanced to his assistant, then to the crowds still going about their business that evening. “I hope I’m as well liked in Mishna. Some of the Muirarans are against human involvement.”
Lany threw him a chastising look. “You mean they’re against your age.”
“They would like someone older, Lany.”
“No. They only think they do. Don’t worry, everything will be fine. Besides, you’ve got Kwaku on your side.”
John cringed, his face a grimace. “Don’t remind me. By the Creator, my back is already killing me. Anwen doesn’t expect me to last the first quarter without at least a dozen visits to the palace’s healer.”
Lany laughed and unconsciously rubbed his own always fragile vertebrae. “Yes, Kwaku does need to do something about that slapping habit of his.”
They reached their intended destination and stopped. The house was nicer than the rest, clean, orderly and well kept, with two acres of gardens and pasture surrounding it. The Eatons’ private residence.
Lany sighed. “It’s not going to be the same around here without you, boss.” He turned to stare at nothing in particular across the street. “Cari and I are going to miss having dinner with you, and Vyn won’t like not having the girls around anymore. I’m going to really hear about it for at least a month.”
John stood a moment and watched him. Lany hated getting emotional, hated goodbyes. The parting of the company in Genis Lee two days prior nearly tore him apart, especially when it came time to say goodbye to Dallan. One would never know it unless they knew Lany as well as John did. A short goodbye, a handshake, and Lany would be off. But John knew the quicker the parting, the more painful it was, and the more Lany wanted to get it over with.
Time Masters Book One; The Call (An Urban Fantasy, Time Travel Romance) Page 56
