The Dreamer Stones (60 page)

“Heal me and
we can tackle this together.”

Torrullin, in
the act of rubbing his cheek, stilled.

Tymall held
his breath. So, too, Garin.

It made a
twisted kind of sense. He brought the Darak Or to fight another
evil - why not bring the Warlock to fight an evil as well? Gods.
How could he trust Tymall to do something like this? The man had no
honour. Any promise he made could be ignored on a whim or if the
situation changed to his advantage … no honour.

Torrullin
dropped his hand. “I can’t trust you.”

“I swear to
…”

“Your word is
meaningless, Ty. Do not insult my intelligence.”

Tymall glared
at his father and gradually his expression changed to emotionless
acceptance. “I deserve that,” he muttered and looked away.

Torrullin
breathed in, out, in. “Heal here and we shall meet after. If I can
ask one thing of you …” He paused and Tymall turned his grey eyes
back. “Wait until the draithen are gone, please.”

“Why, father?
I could use the weakness of Valaris to my advantage. Why even ask,
when you cannot trust my answer?”

“Prove
yourself a man this once and I shall go easy on you in Digilan.” A
gauntlet casually tossed down.

One taken up,
not so casually. “You mean to follow me into Digilan, if it comes
to that?”

Torrullin
merely smiled.

Tymall barked
a laugh, wincing when the movement travelled to less healed parts.
“I have, shall we say, safeguards?”

Torrullin rose
from the end of the bed and leaned over him. His voice was low. “Of
course you have safeguards - what good strategist has not? Beware
your reliance on what you believe hidden and secure, however, for I
am not a normal father or a normal man, nor ever will be.”

He
straightened and turned his back on that blanching face.

“Garin, I must
leave. I leave my son in your hands.” Without a backward glance,
Torrullin headed then for the door.

“Of course,”
Garin managed, staring at the retreating figure.

“You know
nothing! You’re playing with my mind!”

Torrullin
halted in the door and turned. “Continue to believe that, son, and
I have already won.”

“Enchanter is
not Warlock!” Tymall shouted.

Torrullin
glanced at the surgeon. “Thank you for everything you have done
here. My son will no doubt forget to voice his appreciation.” He
turned again.

“I am not your
son!”

Torrullin
vanished.

Garin gasped
in utter shock and then Tymall’s pained groans sent him to the
bedside. He pushed his patient down.

“You will do
as I say or I wash my hands of you!”

Chapter
Forty-Eight

Fairy lights
on a hilltop doesn’t necessarily mean fairies, friend. There are
things in the world that rely on subterfuge.

Tattle’s
scribe

The Keep was
ablaze with light and the valley twinkled with thousands of
lanterns as he slid through the seal.

Night had come
to Valaris.

Torrullin
alighted in the courtyard and spoke into the subdued silence,
“Every able-bodied Valleur to me now.”

Within
minutes, a crush of golden men and women jostled for space amid
women and children, standing among them, hanging from the balcony,
craning over the battlement wall overhead and crowding three deep
on every stair.

They seemed
many, but were pitifully few.

Torrullin
waited, his gaze marking Saska in the doorway to the dining
chamber, her welcoming smile, a shadow in her eyes, and then he
marked Caballa hovering nearby, and there was a message there, but
he had not the time.

Samuel was
behind him near the open Dragon doors, clasping a girl’s hand, her
tiny face screwed up in tears. Anguish, so much even the young
understood it. Lowen was up on the battlement to his left on the
outer rim, staring east. Another message there.

“Night is upon
us. I know of no countering …” A collective sigh from the Valarian
women. “… but we shall know more after I have personally
encountered the draithen. I recalled you here for safety tonight,
and it is entirely against your code, I am aware of this. You are
the last sorcerers on this world and we cannot and will not lose
even one until we are ready to fight back. I command you as
Vallorin to remain within the confines of Torrke. Disobey and you
will suffer exile.” Quiet greeted his word. “Tomorrow, Valleur, we
search for the leader of this terrible army …”

“
No
!”

His head
jerked up. Lowen leaned over the inner rim.

“Lowen! You
dare?”

“I dare!” she
shouted back and vanished to reappear before him in the tiny space
he commandeered amid the press of people. “Torrullin,” she began,
ignoring his dark visage, “listen! Gods, we should’ve realised
…”

Samuel’s
enlightened gasp behind him and her intent blue eyes stilled
recriminations. “What do you know?”

“Samuel, do
you recall …?”

“Yes,” the man
responded. He lifted the girl into the arms of a nearby woman and
pressed through to Lowen and Torrullin.

“Don’t speak
your plans aloud,” Lowen said.

“Someone
watches,” Samuel whispered. “We sensed …”

“And you said
nothing?”

“Margus
wandering the foothills and we thought he told you,” Lowen
said.

“As long ago
as that?” Torrullin roared. He lowered his voice. “You know what
they say about assumptions, do you not? How could you be so
stupid?” He inhaled and they said not word. “Is the sense with you
now? Concentrate!”

Samuel shook
his head. “Too many in the valley.”

Lowen took
longer. “He, it, they … may have been until …”

“… you gave it
away just now,” Torrullin said. He glared at the two of them. “In
my study. Think on what you sensed.” He ignored them then and
lifted his voice, “Valleur, we confer in the morning.”

He glanced at
Saska, Caballa, Krikian and Kismet, finding the two men near the
mosaic pool, and indicated they join him. He climbed the stairs to
the balcony walk, his Valleur making space. Samuel was behind him,
following in the opening path. Only Lowen was ahead and her swaying
walk did things to Torrullin’s gut he did not expect.

Breathing
irregularly, he forced his gaze aside.

The study was
cold and unused.

As he entered,
brushing past Lowen, he snapped a fire on in the ash covered grate
and clicked the lantern on his desk into steady flame. The chamber
was shadow-filled and smelled of dusty books. He looked about him
and felt displaced. Priorities had changed. The Keep was almost
unkempt.

He admitted it
no longer felt like home. Not this room, not his and Saska’s
private chambers, nowhere in the Keep. Only the valley held true
inside where it counted. Bricks and mortar were created, not real
in the grand scheme of time.

Only that
which outlasted all clocks had significance in the end.

He turned as
the others filed in, went first to Saska and drew her into a tight
embrace.

Are you fine,
my love?

Now I
am
, her thoughts sighed back at him,
with your arms around
me.

Forgive
me.

She cocked her
head to see his eyes. Yes, he required her forgiveness. What
exactly for she could not fathom. Absence? Lowen?
All is
forgiven, my Lord.
She hugged him, smiled.
Time to make your
speech.

Smiling into
her emerald gaze, he sent,
I hate speeches.

She grinned
and shook her head, and he let go and forced his attention to the
others.

“Find a seat,”
he murmured, waiting as dust rose from hastily wiped chairs.

Pondering a
moment and preferring not to take a risk, he sealed the chamber. If
anyone watched and listened, no word or thought would
penetrate.

“His name is
Agnimus, and he was left behind after the annihilation of the
symbiosis two millennia ago. He has studied, watched, experimented,
learned and become proficient in the time of peace and tolerance
that followed. He is a darkling with a soul, a draithen, and he is
not to be underestimated. He is clever, patient and an opportunist,
although a cautious one, I believe. He will not easily make a
mistake. Now, according to Samuel and Lowen, someone has been
watching Torrke for some time and while I do not generally indulge
in assumption, we must assume it was Agnimus. It means he knows
more about us than we even suspect about him - he has clear
advantage.

“Further, for
a time he was at Tymall’s side and that spells danger. He has
garnered much of the Warlock’s ways with magic. He knew more about
the power of the past than we thought possible ourselves and
employed the auras Tymall recreated to bring through his lost
comrades and their descendants. He controls a shift in realities,
which is no doubt how they vanish during daylight hours. I suspect
this shift is in, on or over the wide expanses of the ocean, a
further reason we cannot trace them. Perhaps they do not go
through, but the shift is ready.

“Agnimus aims
to protect his army. He aims to win. If we close in on their
position, his army vanishes until we believe we are safe. It is a
judgement we cannot afford to make.”

Torrullin
paused and then, “At first I thought if we manage to corner
Agnimus, stop him, his draithen will lose their impetus, their will
to go on and leave, but no. Leaderless the draithen are a greater
threat and leaderless a shift will be open and who knows what is
beyond and waiting for the opportunity to come through? As before,
they must be defeated as one or we cannot be assured of
safety.”

He stopped to
give them an opportunity to speak and ask questions.

Kismet was
first. “These draithen carry the soltakin hate the Darak Or
cultivated. They will not turn away, leader or not.”

Torrullin
nodded and glanced at Caballa as she spoke. “You spoke of the
Syllvan, my Lord. Can they not assist?”

“They are.
Declan is with them now, charged with researching doorways created
due to the past. There is a distinction between a time doorway and
others.”

“What of
signature?” Samuel asked.

“No
signature.”

Samuel
frowned. “Only you have no signature.”

“Others can be
hidden. Tymall did it well, if you recall.”

“
Did
it
well?”

“I know him
now. He cannot hide,” Torrullin said. He glanced at Krikian. “We
are off subject. Krikian, your input?”

“Do we know
what this Agnimus looks like?”

“No, but I’d
venture close proximity to the darkling transparent skin, which
doesn’t really set him apart.”

“Clever,”
Caballa muttered.

Torrullin
glanced at Lowen. “Anything unusual in the sensing you and Samuel
received?”

“Foreboding,
threat, an ominous feeling - any number of creatures gives that
off. Patient, sly, curious … nothing there.” She shrugged and then,
“Subservient, yet … I don’t know … Samuel, would you say
arrogant?”

Samuel shook
his head. “You got more.”

“Sure of
himself, yet not in charge?” Saska suggested. “Perhaps it wasn’t
Agnimus watching.”

“Or he answers
to another,” Torrullin said and shrugged a moment later. “We thus
hedge our bets; we assume he’s not alone in leadership, and that
complicates it.”

“What next, my
Lord?” Kismet queried.

“First off,
I’ll be out tonight. Everyone else will remain in the valley.
Whether I meet them or not, I’ll go out over the ocean as dawn
approaches and every moment I can spare in the days following.
Whether we fight back tomorrow night depends on what I learn and
whether they make an appearance tonight. The shift, found or not,
will await Declan.” He stood. “Whatever is said outside of a
privacy seal is to be guarded. Trust that someone watches, even if
no one is. Believe that someone listens at all times. Go now; you
are free to aid the fallen at dawn.”

They trooped
out as he waved a hand to lift the enchantment.

Saska
remained.

Torrullin
resealed the chamber and then sat on the desk, waiting.

A long silence
followed and then, “I have to trust survival was my only option,
don’t I?”

“What are you
hiding from me, Saska?”

Again a
silence. “Many things, Torrullin.”

He sighed and
moved on the desk. “Why can you not tell me?”

Unspoken was
the prompting he could get it from her in other ways and had chosen
not to. “Our relationship is too rocky …”

“Is it?”

“It’s not
love, Torrullin. I know you love me as I love you.”

“Then
what?”

“Other things,
unresolved things, untold things … some things cannot be spoken
of.”

He grabbed at
his heart and went cold. Lowen’s words, dear gods. Was it about
Lowen?

“Goddess, what
is it?” Saska murmured, at his side in an instant.

He could not
tell her, could never tell her. “Nothing.”

She retreated.
“What are
you
hiding from me?”

He closed his
eyes, opened them. “Many things, Saska.”

“Ah, my
husband, then do not throw stones.”

“Is it enough,
Saska? Love?” he asked, hands dropping to the edge of the table,
gripping hard, the shadows hiding white knuckles.

She stared
into his eyes in silence. “Then you agree. We’re on rocky ground.
Is love enough? I hope so. I wish I could tell you certain things
to clear away this barrier forever, explain myself, but I’m
selfish. I want to keep you, keep what we have, even if it’s less
than it could be. Less is better than nothing.”

“It cannot be
that bad.”

Saska laughed,
a forced sound. “If I cannot forgive myself, how will you? No,
silence is my friend … for now.”