The Dreamer Stones (57 page)

“I did
nothing,” she whispered again.

No words would
appease her guilt, not yet. He lifted her into his arms, light like
air and stilled energy, and she came uncomplaining, without
strength, no will, nothing, buried her face in his neck like a
baby. He felt the warm moisture of her tears slowly course in under
the neck of his tunic, collect in the hollow that was his
collarbone … gods.

Someone would
pay.

Holding her
and turning towards the distant light of the landward windows, he
said, “I’m taking you home, my love, all will be well, it’s safe
there, it’s all right, I’m here …” His voice was the pacifying tone
of an adult to a distressed child.

Her arms
tightened about his neck, her breath hot against his skin, his
cold, clammy skin.

Before fury
overcame him, he took her home, materialising in the privacy of
their bedchamber. Gently he laid her on the clean covers and
carefully removed her wet boots before covering her snugly under a
thick eiderdown. Drawing deep breaths, he stilled his emotions and
looked down at his wife. Waif-like, with sombre traumatised eyes,
she gazed back at him. He lowered to sit next to her and lifted his
fingertips to her forehead.

“I love you,
Saska,” he murmured. She blinked, unable to answer. “It’s all
right, go to sleep.” He pressed down. Her lids dropped and her
breathing deepened into healing oblivion.

He touched her
throat, her stomach, imparting the necessary nourishment to sustain
her until she awakened naturally to eat and drink properly, and
then he sat there holding her cold hand, watching her sleep, while
all manner of thoughts chased about his mind.

Eventually he
forced himself to leave her side.

Asking Caballa
to maintain a watchful eye, he again went out into the desperation
outside the valley. His heart twisted and tore with each witnessing
of hopelessness, hunger, terror, torture, each new game of death,
each new dance of fear. The smallest scratch on someone innocent
and undeserving left him breathless and guilty.

But among the
downtrodden and dying he also witnessed unselfishness, loyalty,
love, even a few smiles, and knew it to be for the golden men and
women who moved among them, were with them, who suffered and died
with them, bringing relief, carrying water, dispensing hope for a
better tomorrow like it was the elixir of life. His heart burst
then with pride and love for his beautiful people.

He wondered
after a time how much emotion a heart could endure without
surrendering; he would take all and more, though, for it was less
than one frightened individual out there suffered.

Elixir. What a
farce, he thought. Knowing a misdeed was enacted in another
universe was all very well, tasks for his Kaval, but it was useless
to him here. Oh, he heard the cries of the dying many sals distant,
and could not be there to save them all. How to choose? What guilt
to bear first? He sensed the seesawing extremes of emotion, he felt
the pain as if it were his own and dared not take any of it away.
Take something away from another and you possess it. How much could
he possess before he was as useless as a dead horse?

He saw a man
deliberately leap to his death from a breakwater wall off the
island of Tor, after losing his wife, daughter and two sons, and
could not interfere. That man did not want to live, and who could
blame him? Who was he to judge that man’s actions? He tasted putrid
air, the acrid, sour taste of disease and death, and had to accept
it as part of the whole, forcing all aside, all the senses to
remain functioning and sane. He smelled the faeces on a babe
abandoned in a cellar, the vomit on an old man left unattended in
an attic while his family lay murdered below, and knew there was no
one nearby who could go to their rescue.

Whom did he
choose to save? Who needed him more, the one who could travel
distances in an instant?

Elixir moved
beyond the known boundaries into the genuinely unknown, but Elixir
had no magic wand or potion to end this hell and make it right. He
could reverse nothing. He was as much a victim as those around him,
a victim of his limitations, and he knew not with certainty where
they began and ended, and dared not use his people, Valleur and
Valarian, as lab rats in an attempt to find out.

Thus, putting
aside the disturbing thoughts that would only anger and confuse, he
relied on the tried and tested, the intimately familiar within.

While waiting
for night and the reappearance of the draithen, he became, as in
the past, healer, conjuror, friend, inspiration and saviour. He was
Enchanter more than Elixir on Valaris and it was better.

After finding
the infant in the cellar, he brought it to the Keep and then
rescued the old man from certain death in his lonely attic.

Thereafter he
laboured unselfishly alongside his exhausted golden companions
until he too was weary beyond all weariness.

Early evening
found him with bloodshot eyes and shaking fingers - over-use of his
abilities - at the large wooden door of the Society of Sorcerers,
the training facility buried in the forest alongside Ren Lake.

He was at the
end of endurance, having given in one afternoon what others gave
over days and nights. Too much, but in the end he could deny no
one. It was a kindly woman, ravaged by circumstances past and
present, and still able to raise a smile for those worse off than
her, who scolded him, telling him to rest, telling him he was
needed another day, tomorrow, the day after.

Ruefully he
admitted she was right and withdrew to the Society to find out who
and how many survived the brutal slayings. Still working, he
thought wearily, raising hands to pound ineffectually on the door.
So much for rest.

Byron Morave,
bent and old with the burdens of too much death, opened the door to
him. “My Lord,” he said, hanging onto the old wood in exhaustion.
The Society was a hospital and a refugee camp.

“Byron,”
Torrullin managed, stumbling in.

Pushing the
old door shut with one foot, he gripped the old sorcerer, imparting
a final fortification before sliding to the cold, flagged floor. He
leaned awkwardly against the textured wall.

“It’s almost
night, Byron, and I have tired myself overly much, I suspect -
nothing left for the draithen.” He laughed wryly and rested his
head on the wall.

Feeling
renewed, Byron squatted, his bright blue gaze critically examining
the man. Done in he was, for sure. Rest was what he needed,
whatever the night held.

“You came, my
Lord. You got through the seal in the skies … thank all gods, you
came.”

Blue eyes
shone with tears, but none spilled. Other things needed done before
he could give in to his emotions. He inhaled deeply, filling his
lungs.

“I take it
draithen
are those freaks who plague us?”

“Right.”
Torrullin’s eyes were closing.

Byron snapped
his fingers, wincing inwardly, and Torrullin’s eyes opened,
although with difficulty.

“My Lord, I
feel somewhat refreshed and I thank you, but I’m still an old man
unable to lift you if you fall asleep here. Please, a little more
from you to help me get you to a bed.”

He stood and
held his huge hands out and Torrullin reached out, grasped them,
and allowed himself to be pulled upright. Murmuring his thanks, he
then permitted the old sorcerer to steer him, hands on shoulders,
to a silent corner elsewhere in the facility, seeing and hearing
nothing on the journey to a bed.

He flopped
down fully dressed and was instantly asleep.

Morning came,
a cold, bitter, grey morning, and he awakened refreshed … and with
the weight of enormous guilt.

He slept
through. He lurched into a half-upright position.

“They didn’t
come in the night,” Byron said, and Torrullin saw him hunched in a
threadbare armchair nearby the bed. “I tell you the truth.”

Torrullin
slumped back and breathed in, out, in, out, and then sat up. After
a moment he asked, “Is this your bed?”

“You had more
need than I.”

A further
moment elapsed and then, “The facility is full.”

“More than
full … wounded, hungry … or nowhere else to go.”

Someone had
removed his boots, he noted, but was unable to work the blanket out
from under his dead weight to cover him. Byron, no doubt. A good
man. A friend.

“Take me to
the wounded.”

“There are no
life-threatening injuries,” Byron returned, rubbing his eyes like a
child. “Save your energy for other things.”

Those with
fatal injuries died during the night, Torrullin deduced, and
accepted it with difficulty. However, no new injuries this morning
and that was good. Give and take, so it went. “Why would they
stop?”

“Whoever
controls them must know you’ve come,” Byron answered. “Sealed sky
and still here you are. A re-think is in order.”

“You think
there’s a leader.”

“Has to be, if
one follows logic. Someone on the inside knew you were gone,
someone who now wonders how to move from here. They’re not done,
not when there are so many. Cannon fodder and all that, huh? Lose a
few thousand and still their numbers overwhelm.”

Torrullin
leaned over to find his boots and began putting them on. “Where do
so many creatures hide in daylight?”

“Not on
Valaris, unless it’s in the sea.”

One booted
foot thudded to the ground. “Or at sea, Byron.
At
sea. It’s
a gigantic, unexplored ocean.”

Byron sniffed.
“Islands?”

Torrullin
dragged his other boot on. “There are thousands of little
landmasses out there. The Valleur only occupied a small fraction
closer to the continent … literally thousands … and, besides, if
they can pour through a shift in realities, they can certainly hide
out on water, even if meant a flotation device, or a gene they
engineered for this purpose.” He finished lacing his boot and
straightened. “A huge ocean, however.”

“Shift in
realities?” Byron repeated. “Is that how this came about?”

Torrullin
stood, stretched and then perched on the edge of the bed. “These
draithen are the offspring of those we sent on their way two
thousand years ago and some may even be those we sent away. A
doorway was opened from this side to bring them through.”

“Someone who
was left behind, someone who bore a grudge, someone other than
those darklings your son used a few months ago.”

Silence.

“Gods, you may
be right. A darkling-soltakin symbiosis, body and soul together,
capable of learning. One who escaped the annihilation we engendered
to isolate the Darak Or …” Torrullin stared at Byron.

The old man
nodded, understanding. “Someone who learnt from watching this
world, the evil that went underground during the peace, someone who
may be known to …”

“… my son,”
Torrullin finished. “Someone who used him to hide his own purposes.
A slick, clever creature, worse than a Warlock.”

“Oh,
crap.”

“Indeed.”

Byron said
nothing. He rubbed his ears, scratched behind them, not knowing
what to say or suggest.

“Relax, my
friend. I know what to do next.” He gestured at the bed. “Time for
you to rest now, I think.”

“What are you
going to do?” Byron muttered, not budging from the armchair.

“I am, Goddess
help us both, going to see my son.”

Chapter
Forty-Six

Suffer the
rewards, imbecile! Did you not ask for this? No? Then something you
did caused it!

Tattle to his
scribe

“My Lord, we
were worried,” Caballa said in an undertone when Torrullin appeared
at her side in the Keep’s now crowded courtyard.

“I was at the
Society. Saska?”

“Still
sleeping.”

He looked up
at their bedchamber. The door was closed. “She’ll be anxious when
she wakes to find me gone.”

“You’re
leaving again? Now, with so much going on?”

“I have to.
Please tell her …” He did not finish the sentence. Whatever message
he left would not be enough. “Just be there for her, Caballa.”

“Naturally.”
She wanted to ask where, why now, but settled for, “How long will
you be away?” Almost she muttered ‘this time’, but knew it was
unfair.

“I’ll be back
before nightfall.” He glanced about. Women and children everywhere,
but so subdued the Keep was silent. It was eerie. “Where’s
Lowen?”

Caballa bent
to lift a child tugging at her robe, using the distraction to hide
her face. “I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

Torrullin
frowned and then, as abruptly as he came, left.

A soft golden
glow erupted from the Throne’s chamber and Caballa watched it hang
a moment and then shoot up into the heavens to splash against the
leaden sky overhead. The seal was breeched. The glow
disappeared.

That was how
he was able to come and go when nothing and no one else could. The
Valla Throne and
the
Valla.

Caballa stared
up at the place the glow vanished into and thought about Tannil.
Tannil had not possessed the power.

Fate had ruled
in favour of Elixir.

Saska
awakened.

Cowering, she
scuttled to the head of the bed, trying to vanish into the wall
itself. Whimpering, she stared around her.

“Saska, sweet
… it’s Caballa, Saska,” a woman’s voice murmured, approaching the
rumpled bed from the window.

Window?
Drapes. Familiar - her space. Their space. Torrullin.

“Caballa?”

“Yes, my
dear,” Caballa murmured and sat on the bed, holding her hand out.
“You’re safe now.”

Saska moaned,
crawled forward and gripped Caballa’s hand. “The Keep?”