The Dreamer Stones (44 page)

His arresting
face without emotion, a number of paces removed from the desperate
Valleur, Tymall stood easily, legs braced, cloak swirling
maniacally. His staff was levelled at the men, steady, deflecting
every pulse, sending forth retaliation, and when Kismet hurtled
forward in a last effort, sword raised, the staff moved minutely to
send the brave Valleur screaming backward.

“
Tymall
!”

All movement
ceased. Feathers dropped liked weighted stones to the floor.

A blue one
floated slowly, and Torrullin nearly gave in to despair.

Kismet fell to
his knees, sobbing.

Tymall’s eyes
found his father’s and he inclined his head. The staff lowered in
tiny increments.

“Father.”

“Vannis, get
them out.”

Tymall’s gaze
slid to the golden man and widened. “Vannis. Well. Unexpected.” His
voice was staccato as if he had expended vast amounts of
energy.

He had. The
Lifesource deteriorated swiftly and the sorcery required to cause
the major collapse was significant, and that upon the power
unleashed to massacre the powerful Q’lin’la.

Torrullin’s
eyes narrowed.

Vannis’s lips
thinned in silent rage, but he ignored Tymall deliberately and
called the four Valleur to him. Two of the others supported Kismet
as Vannis herded them out, not once turning his back on the
Warlock.

Father and son
were alone amid the fleshy wreckage of the fallen. An ancient
Immortal race, gone. The universe shuddered in horror as the echoes
invaded the spaces.

“I have
sufficient to best you,” Tymall croaked into the stillness.
Torrullin made no move, but his son read the invisible signs. “Save
your energy to reconstruct your precious Lifesource. You don’t have
much time to secure its essence.”

“This event
has no parallel to the past,” Torrullin said, his voice even and
flat.

“Ah.” Tymall
inclined his head. “You know the power inherent in reconvening
history. I hazard you were relying somewhat on it, probably hoping
I am ignorant.” He shrugged and gazed around. “Some things,
perforce, need to be added or subtracted to negate that power.
Neither of us can now wield it.”

“Why this? The
Q’lin’la would not stand between us.” Dear gods, they were gone.
M’flu’tu … Phet, dear Phet …

“They were
close to you,” Tymall said, and shrugged once more.

Torrullin
approached his son, pushing aside the staff as if it were of no
consequence. He invaded Tymall’s personal space to stand
nose-to-nose with his progeny. Tymall did not flinch or move away.
The man he had become was confident and unafraid.

“Why are you
doing this?” he asked, staring into the black-rimmed grey eyes.
“Was I such a terrible father?”

Blink. “You
were a good father.”

“Then why?”
Torrullin’s gaze did not falter, did not blink.

“You chose
Tris.” Blink.

“After you chose to repudiate me. Do you not recall what you
said and did on Lucan? It hurt so much I turned from you in anger,
but how long did that last? In the end, despite what you tried to
do to my wife, what you
did
do to Taranis, I came to you and held you in my
arms.”

“You left me there to rot, in those dungeons - you could have
set me free. You chose my twin in that moment.
That
was the deciding moment. It
shaped everything.” No more blinking.

“I chose both
my children that day, Ty. I knew you were going to kill yourself,
Caballa warned me, and I knew your death meant your brother’s, and
yet allowed it to happen. I believed it better for both to die, to
move on. In death, new life, and you’d be released each from the
other. Short of twisting the knife myself, it was the best I could
do, for both of you.”

“In all
honesty, is that what went through your mind then?” There was the
slightest quaver of uncertainty in Tymall’s voice.

Torrullin
sighed. “No, Ty, in all honesty my mind was in turmoil. All I knew
for certain was I could not set you free to become the new Darak Or
while I kicked around in another realm. Tristamil had to be
sacrificed to prevent that.”

Silence, and then Tymall looked away. Lowering his staff to
the floor, he said, “That’s a choice against both your sons. I
suppose … you
knew
? That I would commit suicide?”

“Callous?
Uncaring? Yes, I thought that of myself.”

“But the Valla
line was secure.”

Torrullin
moved away, treading carefully among the Q’lin’la remains. “That
was least of my concerns. I knew at your birth the time you had,
both of you, was borrowed, and in that I did the best I could. I
regard the first twenty-five years as a gift undeserved, therefore
the price I paid. I live with that every moment of every day.”

“You could
have told me.” A barely heard whisper, an old anguish. “I may have
taken a different path.”

Torrullin
turned to face his son. “A mistake I rue eternally. I wasn’t
perfect, nor will I ever be.”

Tymall stared
at his father and then laughed, a cynical sound. “And I was blinded
by jealousy.”

Torrullin
strode purposefully forward, his face filled with intent. “Stop it
now, son! Let us remake the past the way we would want it to
be!”

Tymall
retreated as his father came ever closer, shaking his head. “Too
much death and torture to put to rights.”

“I too have
done things I shall not atone for, but there is another path if
only you take one step!” Torrullin stopped, breathing hard.

Tymall stared
down at his staff. It quivered in his shaking hand. “I have set
things in motion that cannot now be reversed.”

Torrullin’s
breathing quietened. He wanted to blurt out he could reverse it,
that he was Elixir, but something, perhaps the tiny twist in
Tymall’s wrist, cautioned him into silence. His heart said one
thing, his mind another, and thus he hearkened to that other organ,
the ethereal idea of something - his soul.

His soul
whispered Tymall was in an interlude. Tymall was a son of his
father at this time, but the other, the Warlock was stronger.

“It is in your
hands,” he murmured.

The staff rose
until it rested foot end on the floor. Tymall’s hand gripped
firmly. “I am sorry. My path is set.” His eyes deadened. “Do you
want to enjoin battle? Or shall I leave you to save your Temple of
Dreams and perhaps your bosom companion, the esteemed Quilla?”

He ignored the
failing Lifesource, now a mere shell and almost without magic, to
lock gazes with Tymall. “I won’t attempt to find the boy again, Ty.
This is my final appeal.”

Blink. “I
accept that.” Blink. “I am Warlock.”

Torrullin’s
eyes were silver as he lowered them. “Go. My Temple of Dreams
requires my attention.”

He did not
again look at his son and stood in perfect stillness until a rustle
told him he was alone.

Chapter
Thirty-Five

“
A gift
given may never be withdrawn, cannot ever be negated or ignored,
and when the gift-giver returns to you, know the essence of that
gift is carried in his palms and is eternally felt in
yours.”

From Brother
Key-ler’s diary, Academia of Truth

Cludcast
Month

Many things
returned to normal after Torrullin’s ‘coronation’.

Marcus Campian
was reinstated as Electan and mayors were chosen for each region,
this time without threat of reprisal. The land recovered and food
supplies rose to previous levels. The summer rains came and went,
as did a number of summer storms. Rivers ran fresh and folk began
to look ahead to harvest.

Whatever
Tymall set in motion waited its proper time and in the interim
Valaris returned to a similar state as two millennia back. The
Valleur were in charge and the Vallorin was again the enigma that
was the Enchanter.

In that
interim, Vannis’s ten days.

They passed it
together at the Lifesource. Rebuilding, re-consecrating, and waited
for Quilla, sole Q’lin’la, to heal in mind, soul and spirit, hoping
he would instil the magic of his race to its hallowed chambers.
Healed in body Quilla wandered aimlessly, talking to no one, eating
nothing, his only duty on waking after Torrullin healed him to put
the parts of his fallen comrades together in a modicum of wholeness
before dispatching their mortal remains in unique Q’lin’la fashion.
No one was present when he did so. That hurt, and many others came
together at the Keep for a small formal ceremony to say farewell to
the Feathered Magicians. Quilla did not attend. Torrullin and
Vannis watched the birdman, but left him to his thoughts. Only time
would serve him and in the meantime they worked on the Temple and
spoke of many things, mindful of the short time available to
them.

“It’s a realm
of rain,” Vannis said one morning. “Not cold, but never really
warm. The sun hardly appears. Raken, surprisingly, loves it. I
thought her fiery nature would welcome bright sun and colours, but
no, she says it’s like being a pirate in the fog, go carefully,
plan, be master, and she does it well. Our home is built like a
sailing ship, perched in the folds of a valley, mist-enshrouded
…”

“And you,
Vannis? You like open spaces, the sun.”

“I love Raken,
and what satisfies her is good for me.”

“Not exactly
to your liking, then.”

Vannis
chuckled. “Actually, the moment I understood where I was it felt
like home. It felt right. Yes, sometimes the gloom gets a bit much.
I have power there, so I now have a chamber where the sun shines
and there is desert and heat. When I feel depressed - well, Raken
knows she must wait it out. Sometimes she joins me and …” Vannis
blushed so hard, Torrullin just laughed.

Another time
the subject turned to Torrullin’s recent wanderings with Lowen in
the realm of atonement. “It hasn’t left,” Torrullin said, “but they
are memories more than emotion now. Occasionally I feel as if I
simply forced the burden further down, as if they will soon spring
forth …”

“No, that’s
the Shades. You experience echoes because guilt is the most
debilitating emotion of all, hard to squash. Accept this new state
for what it is. If you keep looking over your shoulder you merely
engender guilt over the inability to find it as it was and …”

“… and start a
new cycle, yes. Knowing and doing, Vannis.”

“Achievable if
you don’t look under every pebble.”

“Pebble, huh?
How little you think of my soul-searching.”

“You
over-think, son, and some things need it not. What can you change
after the fact? You have this gift - gods, grab it and stop
thinking about it.”

“Like you
did?”

“Yes! Good
Goddess, I was responsible for changing the humans of Valaris into
blithering idiots, afraid of their shadows, suspicious of anything
beautiful because it could be construed as magic. Do you know what
a burden that was? Until you told me my actions saved a world from
the inevitable downward spiral …”

“That was
because you took away their technology.”

“Yes, okay.
Technology, sorcery, pish. Still I changed them and it saved this
world in the long run … right?”

Torrullin
smiled. “Definitely.”

“There you
are. I still feel the guilt, but I do not over-think. You and our
other comrades absolved me. You are liberated, a different level,
for other matters, but the parallel remains. It’s a gift and you’re
man enough to take it in the spirit intended.”

“I think
…”

“Gods, for a
man of action you sure are prone to thought! Let it go!”

Torrullin
raised his hands in surrender.

Later that
same day Vannis broached the subject of Lowen. “Lowen has become a
stunning woman.”

A long silence
greeted his tentative statement. Then, “Saska?”

Vannis sighed
and threw down a measuring stick. They were aligning the
lightbridge to the western arch. He sat on the land bridge between
the two ranges with a decided thump.

“She’s
worried.”

Gazing down
into the swirling waters of the invading Eastern Ocean Torrullin
replied, “I have sworn never to cheat on my wife again.”

This time
Vannis drew out a lengthy silence. Then, “That is noble
indeed.”

They stared at
each other until Torrullin muttered, “It’s complicated.”

“Isn’t it
always?”

“Vannis, it’s
not like that. I haven’t touched Lowen, and don’t intend to. You
can tell that to Saska with all truth.”

“But?”

Another
silence. “She frightens me. So honest, so unmindful of tact, and
she sees into me, reads my dark thoughts before I’m even aware of
them - like preventing me raising Tannil an instant before I knew
it was what I wanted to do. I want to run from her and yet desire
her as close as possible - can you understand that? She’s my
conscience, she sees me before I see myself. I don’t like it, but
need it …”

“Quilla has
that power.”

“Quilla is
kind in his judgement. Lowen isn’t.”

“You trust her
interpretations more because she is unkind?”

“No, Quilla is
incapable of lying. And I mean not that Lowen is unkind … gods, I
don’t know what I mean exactly.”

“Are you
attracted to her?”

A deep breath.
“Not in the way you mean.”

“It doesn’t
matter what I mean. I’m not here to tell you whether you’re right
or wrong. But, grandson, any attraction is dangerous for your
marriage.”

“I keep her at
arm’s length.”

“No, you
don’t. You search her out in a crowd.”

“I do
not.”

“With your
thought, Torrullin, and your eyes follow. When she’s there, you
relax, and when she isn’t, you refuse to smile.”