The Dreamer Stones (53 page)

Emperor
Teighlar

The Dalrish
visit was hard.

Lowen had not
returned and Torrullin murmured to no one in particular he would
fetch her.

She was in
Farinwood, old town of cobbled streets, tall stone buildings,
window boxes and fountain-filled squares.

Situated
between the fiery spectacle of the Pillars of Fire and the
brilliance of the rainbow from the Seven-sided Fountain, both
visible in the night sky, it was a much-visited place and bustled
during daylight hours.

All was quiet
now and Lowen sat on a bench in a night-enshrouded park drinking
herself into a stupor. A flagon of overly sweet, alcohol rich white
wine perched precariously on the bench beside her. One finger
curled into the small finger sized handle near the mouth of the
ceramic vessel. The manner in which it leaned gave evidence to the
amount already consumed.

Torrullin
lowered to the bench and when she snatched her hand defensively
from the flagon, he caught it as it toppled and then lifted it to
his mouth. Ignoring her belligerent stare, he drank deep.

“Hey, you’ll
finish it!” she snarled and made a grab for it.

He swatted her
hands aside and drank more. “We’ll get another,” he said before
finishing the cloying nectar. He had not eaten in two days and felt
instantly light-headed.

Lowen hissed
and grabbed at the vessel. She could not hold onto it when he let
go with a laugh, and it shattered to the packed earth below. She
burst into self-pitying tears.

“Now look what
you’ve done!” she accused with a hiccoughing sob.

She stared at
the broken pieces of ceramic as if they contained the secrets of
the universe.

Torrullin
rubbed his eyes, feeling dizzier than should be this quickly
apparent. “What’s the matter, Lowen?”

Her head
lifted, she hiccoughed and managed, “I feel no need to …” before
swaying somewhat upright to stumble away.

The sound of
forceful retching came from a nearby tree and Torrullin’s stomach
heaved in sympathy. He gagged as the sounds continued, but managed
to curb the impulse.

Agonising
minutes passed as Lowen emptied out the result of her binge until
only dry heaves remained. A period of heavy breathing followed as
she attempted to contain the continuing reflex, and then silence,
calm. Torrullin’s empty stomach subsided. He said nothing, waited
her out.

After a while,
she returned shakily to the bench, sitting as far from him as
possible.

“I’m sorry,”
she muttered with a raw throat. She drew her knees up to her chest
and held on.

“What’s going
on in that head, for Aaru’s sake, that you need to drown it in
drink?”

“Out of
character? Sweet, intelligent, well-behaved Lowen doesn’t do things
like this? Sod off, Torrullin; we all have our off days.”

“Lowen, Lowen,
you’re not a sweet little girl anymore.”

A quick breath
drawn in and she looked his way. The wine had gone to his head - he
kept shaking it. “Be careful of what you put out there while under
the influence.”

He laughed.
“As opposed to burying it deep? Which is worse, do you think? A
loose tongue or a silent one?”

She
considered, staring at him. “Silence, I suppose.”

“Then we
understand each other.” He leaned forward, hanging his head. Blood
rushed in causing his world to spin. “You first.”

“Me first
what? Ah, silent tongues made loose … Christ, why? Maybe I was
wrong … why put words … fine, then.” She glared at his lowered
head. “I knew the Dalrish would come for Lucan and it frightened
me. I realised I have no home; Xen is now surpassingly strange to
me. All those dear to me are no more than history to the present
day Dalrish and, worse, I have no niche, no feeling of belonging
anywhere. I can’t go back and wonder about the way forward. It’s
limbo, except for … for …” She frowned and shut up.

“… except for
this destiny linked to mine,” he murmured. Light-headed or not, his
powers of deduction were unaffected. “And considering what is at
this time a dark road ahead, you’re not comforted and thus the
sense of not belonging intensifies.”

“Yes.”

“Hiding from
it won’t solve it.”

“No, but
forgetting for an hour or more may make it bearable.”

“You’re dead
wrong. Forgetting is never the answer. Forgetting is hell.
Forgetting implies you will remember later and when you do, and you
do, believe me, it’s far worse. Better to cope with reality as it
happens - it dulls if you examine it enough. Everything dulls given
enough handling, even time.”

He rolled his
head to look at her. Their gazes locked.

Holding her
gaze, he said, “Truth, Lowen? Some things are not to be spoken of,
right? Your words, if I recall correctly. But …” He raised his
voice when she made a gesture of denial. “…
this
I shall say
only once. I cannot get you out of my head and it’s neither a good
nor a bad thing - it simply is. One day I am going to act on what
my minds says.”

“Wh-what does
your mind say?”

“Do you want
to speak of this, truly?”

“No.” She
shook her head, and then groaned when the hammers of hangover beat
at her skull.

Entirely
unsympathetic, Torrullin muttered, “Then don’t ask questions you
don’t want answers to.” He looked away, spinning at the
movement.

She looked at
the back of his head, a silvery halo in the dark. “Margus’s death
shook you more than you thought it would, didn’t it?”

“The reason I
say more than I would normally? Perhaps you’re right, and yes, his
death shook me badly. I needed him to pay with his life and soul
for Tristamil … and yet now I find I miss him. In some twisted way
I wish he were around somewhere in this universe.”

“It’s not so
strange; he knew you better than most. What’s more natural than
missing someone you could relate to?”

“He was the
Darak Or.”

“So? You’re
not exactly roses and sunshine.”

Torrullin
spluttered and turned to her. “Guess not. Like to like, then.”

“What does
that make me? Like to like?” His smile vanished and her heart
thumped.

That familiar
cold feeling that overcame him. Get away from her … gods,
what
now
?

Dizzily he
thumped the back of the bench, the wood damp as the night deepened,
and shook his head as if to clear it of unseen cobwebs. He had not
drunk enough to feel this way,
and
it was too soon. Sighing
in irritation, he leaned back more comfortably to rest his head on
the hard wood, welcoming its bite, and closed his eyes. Even behind
the darkness of his lids the spinning sensation continued.

“You could
heal it away.”

Her voice
sounded waspish … and distant, almost as if she spoke to him
through a glass barrier. Then - the sound of a nearby cricket, did
they never sleep, was loud, louder than her voice, coming from a
surreal plane. His heartbeat was louder than the cricket, the blood
a raging river of sound in his ears, his blood, the cricket’s
blood, Lowen’s blood - so hot, her blood - a bird settling its
fluffed feathered in a tree behind him, a male with a sleepy female
on a knot further along the branch, tiny pebbly brains …

Torrullin’s
eyes snapped open.

He was not
light-headed. It was not the wine.

“What is it?”
Lowen asked.

He heard her
and she sounded more normal, although still with that tinge of
unreal; perhaps it was fading, this spell of whatever.

His head
jerked around, wrenching the muscles in his neck - a baby crying,
but elsewhere, not here, hell, not here.
Am I finally losing my
sanity?
A woman, young, haranguing her husband and his cronies
- who teased him for being whipped by a mere woman - for not curing
the hide decently, how wasteful, and now she would have to sort out
his mess, and she spoke … Pilanese.

Far, far
away.

His eyes
rolled and Lowen was frightened.

Never had she
seen that crazed look in anyone’s eyes, or the drug-like lack of
focus, not even when she saw him as an animal caged in his quest
for absolution.

Forgetting her
sour breath she sidled closer - Lord, it was as if he had gone,
retreated from his mind. Now what? Something in the wine? Should
she get him to throw up?

She leaned,
laid her hands on him, made to shake …

… a boy
beating his sister under his father’s tutelage, their mother
senseless in a corner, the man a monster. he could see as well as
hear, good god, like he was in the dirty room with them. Beacon -
the girl whimpered out the name of a patron saint of Beacon, like a
prayer …

… Lowen shook
hard and rough and shouted …

… shouting,
war-cries, Dinor war party, the long truce sundered in the killing
of the Guardians on their turf, a curdle of terror, another
horrible triumph, another soul fled this reality to, to …
explosion, a chemical mess … bodies floating in a poisoned
watercourse …

“
Torrullin
!”

… the Dome
spinning soundlessly, its oiled whispers screeching like old,
forced rust in his head …

“Oh, God, oh,
hell, what,
what
?”

Lowen was in a
panic. Torrullin shook like a man in advanced delirium, eyes so
unfocused they were no longer orbs at all.

“Hush,
Lowen.”

“Quilla? Oh,
thank you, thank God.”

“Let him go.
I’ll take over.” The birdman’s voice soothed, was quiet and
sad.

She could
barely see him in the dark, and Torrullin was as visible as if the
moon shone on him alone.

Lowen released
her murderous grip, and clambered from the bench, shaking as if in
fever.

Torrullin
shook and moaned without awareness, close to convulsions, the kind
that came with extraordinary high fever, yet he felt cold,
lifeless, a paradox that scared her.

“Quilla, he’s
- what’s wrong? He had wine, but … a bug or something?”

“Shh, calm
yourself, it is time for transformation.”

Quilla leaned
over the quivering man and placed his tiny hands on Torrullin’s
shaking shoulders. The intense movement transferred to him, causing
him to shake also, and so did the internal moonshine.

“Transformation?” Lowen breathed, staying close.

“Elixir, dear
girl. Our Torrullin is Becoming.”

Quilla
concentrated and then, like magic, which it was, a slow, coiling,
vaporous glow appeared, rising out from under his palms to
gradually spread around Torrullin’s shoulders, his torso, his head.
Green and transparent initially, it thickened until it enveloped
both Torrullin and Quilla, spreading even to Lowen. It calmed her.
It calmed him.

For Lowen’s
benefit Quilla murmured, “This is to still his physical being. It
will place him in paralysis, like to a coma, but his mind will not
be affected. That part is his to control.”

Standing in
the strange soup with two shaking forms subsiding into quiet she
asked, “Do you know what’s happening to him?” She was stone cold
sober.

“Well, the
legends tell us nothing, for there is no precedent, on our timeline
that is. Teighlar says Torrullin will hear everything, feel all,
see into the dark beyond no light, touch the farthest reaches with
mere thought, taste all that is good, bad and in-between by
breathing it, everywhere, in reality, in beyond, parallel
universes, across time when it is needed, and so forth. I cannot
with certainty confirm the analysis, but I tend to err on
Teighlar’s side. The Senlu inherited much from the Luvans, who were
super-sentient and not much younger than the Valleur in Ancient
Ages.”

“Is that what
this is? Hearing, seeing and all that?”

“How can we
tell, Lowen? I suspect his mind is
knowing
for the first
time, yes. It will be traumatic.”

“Did he know
this would come?”

Quilla shook
his head. “Guesswork on our part, and what could we prepare him
for? How do you prepare someone for knowing everything?”

“Everything?”
Lowen breathed.

“Well, knowing
Torrullin he will deny most of it as he now denies most of his
power, but in the end only Torrullin will know where Torrullin’s
ultimate limits lie. He will never tell us, as he won’t admit how
bad it is or how much this event hurts. Someone may one day dare
ask, but I doubt that someone will hear the real truth.”

Lowen’s lips
worked as the green vapour withdrew to reveal Torrullin
loose-limbed and with a stillness that bordered on the quiet of
death.

After the
frenetic movement, it was upsetting and she wanted to check if he
breathed, and forced herself to not panic. Quilla lowered him, but
his head was at an odd angle, his legs sprawled over the edge. She
sprang forward to rearrange him, her hands shaking, her arms
quivering under the strain of his inert weight, and when she was
satisfied, he was as comfortable as he could be on a park bench,
and having surreptitiously checked his heartbeat, she smoothed his
damp, fair hair from his eyes, fingers lingering on his cheek.

Quilla,
missing nothing, said not a word, but that small, intimate gesture
spoke volumes. He wondered if the woman herself knew how she felt
for the man under her fingers. He did not wonder about Torrullin,
for the man was too contrary to read properly. It was not pertinent
to the situation.

“I shall
transport him to the Dome.”

Lowen
straightened. Yes, that felt right. The Dome. Elixir and the Dome.
“What of Saska … Aaru’s, what of Tymall? How long will this
take?”

“It is up to
him how long. When he is ready, he will awake. Don’t concern
yourself over Tymall - he is injured. We may safely discount him
for some time.”