Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3 (18 page)

‘… because we get on so well together,’ Glimmer finished.

Kert produced a smile and cut himself another piece of the delicate nesdai cake she kept conjuring for him, and which he kept pretending to like. It had been two years since his arrival in Haddash and some days Kert despaired of returning to Ennae and Mihale’s service. But Glimmer had told him she could best husband her strength on Haddash, and that it was not yet time to return to Ennae to join the Four Worlds. Kert knew her destiny had priority over his own selfish desire to return to his king’s side, yet at times he still felt frustration and anger that he was the one she had chosen to keep her company.

He had thought to sway her with charm but that had proved ineffective, and in bleaker moments he wondered if he should have heeded Darten’s advice and tried to dominate Glimmer’s judgement as her lover. Would he be back as Mihale’s Champion now? Or would they have remained on Haddash in any case? At least this way his honour had been retained — cold comfort in the dark of a lonely night, although he could appreciate that distance from the Volcastle and the scene of Lenid’s death had helped him overcome the worst of his grief.

‘Don’t you think so?’ Glimmer asked, smiling at him with that endearing mix of vulnerability and naive coquetry which reminded him of her youth and the fact that she was coping with a destiny that would terrify a seasoned warrior. He should not let himself grow frustrated with her.

‘I do,’ he said, then raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it, startled as always by how fine her skin was, how soft. ‘I can think of no duty more important than that of Champion to The Catalyst,’ which was truth, even if Kert himself eschewed the position.

She turned his hand and brought it to her lips to kiss the Sh’hale ring she had gifted him, along with an endless wardrobe of clothing. She did not know that she had copied the ring he’d given Lae on their wedding day, or that the sight of it continued to remind him of how much he missed his wife. ‘Not even serving Mihale?’ she asked.

Kert felt the familiar pang of loss, but his smile never wavered. It had only been weeks on Ennae since Mihale had returned, but his sovereign would have a new Champion by now. And Pagan would have claimed Lae as his own. Still, Kert said, ‘Your destiny far outweighs your uncle’s,’ and gazed into her adoring eyes for as long as he could bear.

One day she would speak openly of her feelings and Kert would be forced to tell her he did not return them. Yet though her love had entrapped him, Kert could not hate Glimmer, whose feelings for him were as pure as the air of the Echo Mountains. She wanted nothing from him but his love in return for her own.

At night when he could not sleep, Kert would think of Lae, remembering that love was all he had wanted of her, and that he had used her love of Lenid to keep her his prisoner. Had Lae resented him as much as Kert, at times, resented Glimmer? Although when Glimmer’s affection was particularly clumsy, he could not help but feel sympathy for her. She was young and inexperienced. It was only life’s cruel fate that had decreed she should love Kert rather than someone who would adore her in return.

He still did not know how this had come about when she had never met him before that day in the Volcastle great hall. They had never spoken, and yet from the moment she had saved him from death and transported him to Haddash she had been smitten. Kert had tried to be fond of her, but her quick anger if he spoke of either Lae or Darten more often kindled bitterness.

Glimmer sighed over his hand while he grappled with these emotions. At last her head rose and she said, ‘Shall we visit Darten today? I know you are curious to see if her firstborn yet walks.’

‘As you wish,’ he said, as though Darten was of no consequence to him. Glimmer wanted that, for her to be his sole preoccupation. Yet, perversely, she liked them to visit Darten in the surviving dome she had been transported to, but always at the worst possible moment: when Darten was filthy from a ‘research project’, angry with her mate or cumbersome with child. Then Glimmer would make a point of saying how
matronly
Darten looked, and how lucky it was that Virda had survived to become her mate. Kert suspected that Glimmer had found Virda in another dome and cast a love spell over him before presenting him to Darten. He was a most attractive specimen — young, athletic and intelligent — and entirely devoted to Darten. Kert should have been pleased for the Domedweller, but he couldn’t help resenting Glimmer’s obvious manipulations.

‘Domedwellers are the least evolved of the human races,’ Glimmer added, and Kert thought this was yet another jibe designed to convince him Darten was unworthy of his attention. ‘They worship technology and therefore have no connection to spirit.’

‘I notice their preoccupation with what they can observe,’ he said, knowing that on his world there were many things that could never be measured, but which warranted inclusion in their lives all the same. ‘In the cycle of death and rebirth, they would be unlikely to ascend straight to Atheyre.’

‘Exactly,’ she said smiling, no doubt pleased that his thoughts were aligned to her own. ‘Those of Haddash are on the bottom rung of the spiritual ladder, with Magorians not far ahead. Though that is only to speak of humans. The cetaceans of Magoria are so evolved they have already risen to Atheyre, along with the Cliffdwellers of Ennae.’

Kert simply stared at her, buffeted by this startling news delivered so casually. ‘Cliffdwellers?’ he said at last. ‘In Atheyre?’ How could a simple-minded race suitable only for collecting food from the Everlasting Ocean surpass the nobility of Ennae in ascending to Atheyre? ‘How is this so?’

‘They share with the dolphins and whales of Magoria the ability to live in a single moment. To be one with their spirit and thereby overcome time and space,’ she said. ‘Thus they have proved themselves worthy of ascension before the other inhabitants of the Four Worlds.’ This was delivered in a lecturing tone, without deference to Kert’s ego, as though it was The Catalyst speaking rather than Glimmer. ‘Their slumbering bodies wait on Atheyre,’ she added.

‘And the rest of us?’
We who are not worthy of ascension
, he wanted to add.

‘The Maelstrom’s terror will bring the remainder of humanity into the simplicity of the moment. Those who survive I will transport to the One World I create out of the destruction of the Four.’ It sounded pompous coming from an eighteen-year-old, but Kert had seen enough of her powers to trust she was capable of fulfilling her destiny.

‘Will I survive?’ he asked, wanting to prolong the conversation, to delay the time when Glimmer took him to see Darten and he must be circumspect with every word and glance.

‘I do not care to look at … that,’ she said.

Kert frowned. ‘I am a warrior,’ he said. ‘I have faced death many times.’ And no doubt would again. Naturally Kert hoped to die in the service of royalty, but apart from that, he did not think of death either to fear it or to long for it. It was simply a part of his future which he would meet at the appropriate time, hopefully with dignity and honour.

‘On Magoria, where I was raised,’ Glimmer said, ‘many fear death and go to great lengths to avoid it.’

Kert wondered if this was linked to their low level of evolution. ‘If a man’s allotted time is at an end, he must accept it.’

‘You tried to stop your son dying.’

Kert glanced at her, seeing the challenge in her eyes, offset by the way her hands clutched at each other. She was a strange mix of bravado and vulnerability. ‘You would not let me die either,’ he replied.

She stared at him unblinkingly. ‘Such is the way of love.’

The air in the cave grew still. This was the moment Kert had been dreading. He tried to force himself to speak the truth, but her lips were trembling and he found he could not crush her tender sentiments with so brutal a rejection. ‘I loved Lenid,’ he said, which was neither admission nor denial.

She nodded, her eyes beginning to mist over with tears, then she turned away and waved an arm. ‘
Voila
,’ she said overbrightly and Kert blinked, startled by their sudden change of locale. She had transported them to Darten’s dome and as the glittering firesparks settled around them he caught his breath on a damp scent. ‘Here we are,’ she said loudly, but the echo of her voice was deadened by water that lapped their ankles.

Darten was crouched with her back to them, pushing down a metal pipe attached to a groaning tubular contraption which itself was attached to a metallic structure.

‘Is the pump stalled?’ Glimmer asked and Darten stiffened and dropped the pipe. It fell into the water with a splash then landed on the metal deck a second later with a dull thud. She turned, her gaze touching Kert’s then sliding away.

‘Flood imminent,’ she said, and pointed a gloved finger to the glass wall at her side. Kert suddenly understood why the light was subdued. The dome was submerged in water. He gasped and stumbled backwards into Glimmer. If the glass broke … The air left his lungs as if he was already drowning. On the Earthworld of Ennae rain was rare. He had never felt threatened by water, had never been under it, save in a bath.

Glimmer held him in her arms. ‘It’s alright,’ she crooned and stroked his cheek. ‘You’re safe with me.’

‘We not,’ Darten said and went back to levering the pipe. ‘My baby drown.’

Kert turned to look at Glimmer in shock.

‘Her baby isn’t dead,’ Glimmer said, seeing the anguish on his face. ‘She’s just worried that he’ll drown. Is he with Virda?’ she asked Darten.

‘Above waterline,’ Darten said, nodding upwards.

‘No need to panic,’ Glimmer said and she turned to the glass wall and raised her hand. Immediately the water subsided. ‘There, I’ve raised the dome again.’

Darten stopped struggling with the pipe and stared at the dripping glass for long seconds before she slid to the floor and started to cry, loud wrenching sobs, whether from relief or horror Kert wasn’t sure. She covered her face with her filthy gloves and her body shook. Kert knew he couldn’t go to her, couldn’t touch her without enraging Glimmer who was biting her lip, unsure of what to do.

‘This was a bad day to visit,’ she said at last.

‘They might have drowned if we hadn’t,’ Kert replied, unable to hide the anger in his voice. Then, ‘Her child …’ to distract Glimmer, to make her think he was reliving Lenid’s death, when in truth he was simply overwhelmed by his own reaction to the water and his anger at Glimmer’s lack of empathy. This was The Catalyst in whose hands all their futures lay. Might Darten and her family be better off drowned? The vision of that water pressing in on the glass haunted him. If Magorian water continued to fall from the sky, Haddash would be submerged by it. Could Glimmer’s powers protect them then?

‘I can see you are distressed,’ Glimmer said to Kert, and frowned at Darten as though it was her fault. ‘Why didn’t you engage the secondary systems?’ she demanded.

Darten’s shoulders continued to shake and Kert imagined her beyond fear of Glimmer’s powers.

‘Her training is in skin protection,’ Kert offered. ‘She may not know how.’

Glimmer continued to frown, but not at Darten. ‘Their society is computerised but also largely mechanical. It needs people to maintain it,’ she conceded.

‘Are there more Domedwellers you can bring here?’ he asked. ‘To help her …. protect her children.’

‘More women?’ Glimmer asked, and the familiar narrowing of her eyes only stoked Kert’s anger.

‘More people,’ he replied, his voice hard.

Glimmer shook her head, then said, ‘It is time to go home.’ But he knew she meant a return to their caves. Not the
home
he longed for.

Kert had a last impression of glass and metal, of Darten’s shaking shoulders, then the firesparks came and went and he was once again seated in their replica ahroce garden with its fragrant air and gently bubbling fountains. The sound of the running water made him shudder. If the water outside had been covering Darten’s dome, it must also be above the level of their cave, and Kert had no idea how Glimmer was keeping it at bay. Had she raised their cave system as she raised the glass dome? Were they now situated atop a mountain? Or was there simply an invisible wall outside that stopped the deluge entering.

Never had his reliance on Glimmer’s goodwill been more evident. And never had he felt so resentful of her power over him. Too resentful to broach his fears or, indeed to speak to her on any matter.

‘I don’t want you to be sad,’ she said and ducked her head to catch his eyes, her hand creeping into his own. ‘I should never have taken you there.’

Kert struggled to contain his emotions, but his anger was growing and he feared where it may lead. He pulled away from her and walked to the far edge of the cavern, hoping the distance would allow him to breathe, to think. But she followed him, putting her arms about his waist, her cheek resting on his back.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Let me make it up to you. What can I do?’

Kert felt himself trembling on the precipice of a fury he wouldn’t be able to control. His hands clenched into fists before him, where Glimmer could not see them. Her hands stroking his chest only incited him to greater fury, but when one hand tentatively slid down to his waist, and then a handbreadth lower, his breath locked in his lungs.

‘Shall we kiss and make up?’ she breathed, but Kert heard nothing of the anxious excitement in her voice. All he heard was the pounding of blood in his temples. Her softly questing fingertips ventured lower still and Kert’s control splintered into a million irretrievable pieces.

He turned and snatched her shoulders to drag her around and shove her against the rough stone wall, his fingers biting into her skin. ‘I am not a whim!’ he shouted in her face.

‘Beloved,’ she whispered, her hand rising as though to placate him.

‘Stop touching me with your weak fingers and whimpering at me with your weak mouth and use your powers to send me back where I belong!’

Her mouth fell open and her wide eyes abruptly narrowed into a frown of insult. A second later Kert felt the sting of her hand on his face — a shock that should have given him pause — but instead only enraged him further. There was no reason in him after that. Only anger and the desire for retribution.