Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3 (37 page)

G
limmer was surrounded by blackness that felt like the cold wings of a predatory bird pressing against her arms and legs, stealing the breath from her chest. There were no beady eyes in her nightmare, but the scraping sensation of thick membrane wings against her flesh was deeply unsettling. A furnace rumbling echoed in her ears and she felt air rushing against her face.

Dawn broke across the curve of the planet and she realised she was flying over a vast ocean — water as far as the eye could see. This was no planet she knew, and she could only imagine it was Magoria, recently inundated by water the Maelstrom had returned from Haddash. There was no point of reference, only endless black fluid reflecting the angry sky above.

‘
In this place
,’ an unearthly voice said, ‘
your powers are no equal to mine.
’

Glimmer’s arms were tucked hard against her body, her legs stiffly straight, and still the sensation of the rough wings scraped her skin. She could see the edges of them as they came in and out of her vision.

‘Why do you disturb my dreams?’ she demanded, and heard a whispering sound, as though someone far away was speaking to her — someone outside her dream?

‘
To show you how weak you are
’ the serpent replied.

‘In the waking world you cannot best me,’ Glimmer assured him. ‘Yet still you try to thwart my purpose. Do you think the stone will save you when the Four Worlds collapse?’

‘
Let me show you a feature of interest
,’ he said, ignoring her question.

‘I care nothing for this world.’

‘
There is no one here that you would save?
’

He swooped her down lower, almost to the surface of the water, and between the troughs and valleys of the vast ocean she saw shadows yet to be illuminated by the weak sun of a new day.

‘What is it?’ she asked, then found she needed no answer. Closer to the structure she saw it was a vast bridge rising out of the waves, perhaps attached to two mountain peaks now underwater. Its girders were old and rusted, yet high in its spans sat a platform lined with large cardboard boxes — the kind refrigerators were delivered in.

Glimmer was flown along the edge of the platform so she could look in one box after another. The bundles of rags inside shifted with the wind of her passing, revealing wide terrified eyes and filthy emaciated faces. ‘What is the purpose of this visit?’ she asked.

‘
Pain
’ the serpent replied, and at the very next box he stopped, leaving Glimmer dangling before its opening. Within, she saw a face from her past. Sarah’s sister Melissa, horribly thin and barely recognisable as the overweight, giggling aunt who had given Glimmer a romance novel as a rite of passage the week she had started her periods. Glimmer had read the novel with her usual detached interest, never imagining she would one day fall in love herself, just as her aunt had predicted, to ‘some man with a wicked glint in his eye’.

‘Melissa,’ she said, and retrieved her hand from her side, stretching it out towards her aunt who came forward at the sound of her name, clutching her rags around her. Glimmer was suddenly hoisted up and her aunt ventured to the edge of her box, straining her neck to see who had called to her.

‘Here,’ Glimmer said and tried to reach down, but the darkness around them rose and a wave broke over the top of the bridge. Melissa was caught leaning out of her box and she was swept into the ocean without a sound. Glimmer, by contrast, began to shout, ‘What have you done? Bring her back!’ Deep in her chest a throbbing had begun, and her throat was tight. Emotion. The more she tried to block it, the more it crept into her heart.

Again the distant murmuring invaded her consciousness but Glimmer was lost in the vision of her aunt flailing weakly against the rough sea and then disappearing into its depths. The ache in her chest intensified.

‘
You will die as easily as she did
,’ the serpent said.

Glimmer swallowed back the lump in her throat and said, ‘I am stronger than they are. You will not defeat me.’ She twisted in the bony claws to look up into the face of her nemesis. His dark red eyes glowered down at her, but before he could open his jaws and breathe fire over her, she reached up to snatch at his chest where the memory stone was embedded. If she could hold it here, while she dreamt, she may have greater control over it when she touched it in the flesh.

No!
’ he roared and dropped her.

Glimmer scrabbled against his hard scales but she could not prise the stone loose. She felt herself falling but fury was strong within her. By force of will she dragged herself back through the screaming void of spirit to where her body lay in Fortress Sh’hale. Her eyes snapped open. Her mother and her beloved stood beside her bed looking down at her. Both were frowning.

‘Magoria is next,’ she told them. ‘The beast is attacking the Verdan Hold.’

‘We thought you were having a nightmare,’ Khatrene said. ‘We were worried.’

Kert’s frown had not abated.

Glimmer reached up and took his hand, felt the force of his presence replacing the strength she had lost. Her skin began to glow but Kert made no sound of pleasure. He merely closed his eyes. Since their privacy had been lost, his sense of propriety had wavered between desperation to touch her and paranoia that Talis was assessing his fitness as a Champion. Glimmer knew the Guardian had no such agenda, but Kert’s emotions were so endearing she was happy to pander to them.

Other matters, however, required forceful direction. ‘The threads of the future changed while I slept,’ she told them both. ‘We must leave for Be’uccdha immediately. There is a convergence. We could lose … something of importance.’

Kert shook his head. ‘You are too weak. We have only just arrived. You need rest.’

‘Now,’ Glimmer replied. Her determined gaze slid to her mother.

‘Come on, Kert,’ Khatrene said, touching his arm. ‘You organise the provisions. I’ll tell Talis.’

Khatrene left them alone and Kert hesitated only a moment longer. ‘Our time is running out,’ he said, and she heard longing — was it love? — in his voice and was torn by it.

‘It will not be so bad,’ she replied.

He looked unconvinced.

‘Just remember whose life you must safeguard.’

Kert, still frowning, nodded in agreement. She opened her hand but he continued to hold it, as though unwilling to lose the connection. Then he released her and as she watched him leave, the ache in her chest returned, only this time it was her beloved she grieved for, not her aunt. The more vivid her emotions became, the less she was able to differentiate between them. Being around Kert was like swimming in an unknown ocean. At times the water was warm and clear and her heart rose and fell with the rhythm of his; yet at other times she felt such confusion that the phrase ‘in over your head’ seemed entirely appropriate. If the threads of the future were accurate, Kert would soon die. She must be ready for that. Must not falter.

Her time of preoccupation with love was ending. Now matters of greater practicality should occupy her mind. Yet she could not help wondering whether there was some destiny in her ‘emotions’ that was linked with her ability to join the Four Worlds — perhaps the reason she had never yet succeeded, though she had lived many lives in the attempt.

She wondered, too, why the talisman had been inert in the serpent’s chest plate. There had been no warmth from it, no glow, as if the serpent had been unable to use it, just as she had been unable to use it until the day she had touched the emotion stream. Could that crisis have been designed to develop her emotions? Petra’s and Sarah’s deaths had led Vandal to be motivated entirely by emotion, and the threads of the future reflected his greater involvement in the ending of time as a result.

Then there was the mystery of why the Ancients had placed the talisman in the care of Plainsmen in the first place. Was it because they were a volatile, highly emotional race? These were all pieces in a puzzle Glimmer knew she must complete if she was to have any hope of fulfilling her destiny.

But first would come action. She sat up in bed, feeling the weakness in her limbs. The hand Kert had held still felt warm and she placed it over her forehead and used her powers to drain the last whispers of his strength from it.

His touch fortified her. That was a physical fact. There were other facts: in this time and space, with much-weakened powers at her disposal, she could not defeat the serpent. Not while she used so much of her strength to hold the elements from other worlds trapped within Ennae. As Teleqkraal destroyed the remaining anchors, that drain on her strength would only increase.

Worse, Teleqkraal’s possession of the talisman hid him from her sight, though she continued to keep track of his minion. Her only advantage over the beast was that she was the shadow through time; however, Glimmer doubted she would have either the strength or the inclination to use that power on this occasion.

It would be pointless to go forward in time if the serpent was winning. And even back in time, to the right place, might create more problems than it solved. To return to Teleqkraal’s conception appeared logical, yet the ramifications of that act would have to be considered. Destroy the son and who would kill the father? If Teleqkraal had never been born. Kraal would still be inhabiting Mihale’s body, the talisman still in his control. Glimmer had seen enough of that future to know it was not helpful to her cause.

Still, Vandal was an unknown asset who might help tip the balance in her favour. His wild Guardian power, born out of the union of Magoria and Ennae, had made him particularly receptive to the life-force the dwelt within Ennae. Perhaps that connection might be shaped to aid her, just as the memory stone could be used to focus the energy it encountered.

Emotional energy?

Glimmer was starting to favour that premise, and was wondering how her emotions could be better used to fulfil her destiny. She had once told Breehan,
In the history of man the spirit always triumphs.
Had the answer to this mystery lain inside her memories of mankind all along? Soon enough the serpent would come to them. Only then would she discover if her strength was equal to the task.

R
adio International, Blair Thompson reporting from the UN base in Turkey. Any survivors of the inundation receiving this message are warned that a further climatic situation has arisen. A huge crevasse has opened in the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean between what was Bermuda and the Florida coastline. Tide levels are dropping around the world as water is sucked below the crust of the planet. Should this cold water reach the molten core, an explosion is inevitable. Before losing radio contact, the last helicopter messages from above the growing whirlpool indicated that not only water but clouds were also being sucked in. Scientists here confirm that the atmosphere is diminishing. It appears that the earth is about to implode.

Those citizens of earth left alive are advised to pray to their respective deities and prepare for the end.

May God have mercy on our souls …

‘T
he hold. The mirror,’ Barrion’s lieutenant whispered. ‘Gone.’ He lifted a wavering arm to point at the uninterrupted surface of the loch which now swirled with dark otherworld hues.

Barrion was lowered to the ground yet he barely felt the sensation of it beneath his buttocks. His people had run for over an hour in strengthening winds, only to return too late. The sky-mirror was gone, which meant Magoria had been destroyed. There was no sign of the ventilation shafts that normally protruded from the loch surface. His submerged hold was either smashed or flooded. Sobbing around him was testament to the loss of those who had been left behind — infants and the aged, too feeble to help search for their lord. All dead.

‘My loch,’ he said, and nodded towards the dark waters.

The lieutenant turned, wiping his cheeks. ‘My Lord?’ he said dutifully.

‘I must speak to the Spirit of the Loch,’ Verdan said, his voice growing in strength. The loch had survived the destruction. It may yet be able to serve him. The winds were growing stronger and his people had no shelter now. ‘Immerse my lower body,’ he said, but when they lifted him, he added, ‘Keep hold of my shoulders.’ It would not serve his purpose to drown, and his men could not go in after him. Only those of the pure Verdan line could withstand the waters of the loch. For the rest its embrace offered pain and death.

‘Very good. My Lord,’ the lieutenant said, and instructed his men to lower Barrion into the edge of the strange swirling water.

It was Barrion’s genitals that struck the water first. He winced, expecting the immediate sensation of physical pleasure that usually accompanied contact with the loch, but although there was a gentle feeling of awakening, the strong touch of the loch was gone. He had feared his reaction to the Spirit’s caress, but now his concern was all for its safety. He urged his men to continue lowering him until the water swirled around his midriff. Pleasure grew slowly and Barrion struggled not to be distracted, but it had been so long since he had felt any pleasant sensations from what remained of his body. It would be easy to give himself up to the mindlessness of it if he did not have his people to consider.

He closed his eyes and sought communion with the loch.

You have returned
, it whispered inside his mind, and though its voice retained its sensuous timbre, it was weak.
I am changed.

As am I
, Barrion replied silently. The waters of the loch caressed the stubs where his legs had once been and Barrion felt his cheeks flame. Though the Spirit of the Loch was neither male nor female, in his mind he had linked it with the pleasures of the flesh, and to be less than a man in its presence seemed shameful.
Are you harmed?
he asked.

I am bathed in Magoria’s demise
, the loch replied.
My brother, the Forest of Desire, is dead also. I cannot long survive.

That explained why the loch’s caress lacked its usual intensity, although the slow build-up of pleasure he was experiencing was most exquisite. Barrion felt it rise in waves from his groin, and he struggled to concentrate on his task.
I need shelter for my people
, he told the loch.

I am ready to repay the debt I owe you
, the loch said, and into Barrion’s mind came an image of his men floating burning braziers on its surface when the Maelstrom had been new and ice had formed on the placid water.
You saved me from the creeping sleep of death when I longed to avoid it. Now I want nothing more, yet I would sacrifice my own deliverance from pain to offer an innocent death to your people.

Death!
Barrion felt the pleasure peaking and did not want it then but was unable to stop himself shuddering with the force of his release. He felt his men’s hands slip as he slid into the water.

I will support you
, the loch said.

Barrion opened his eyes. ‘I am safe,’ he called to his men before they could venture in after him and lose their lives. He bobbed for a moment, then the loch proved true, supporting him on its surface. Floating on his back with his ears below the water he heard a strange low moan. The usually placid surface swirled around him and swept him away from the shore, away from the worried faces of his people.
Why must they die?
he asked.

Because the Maelstrom demands it. We all must die. I offer them a quick painless death.

Barrion saw the clouds above them swirling and darkening even as he watched.

Your hold was safe while the anchor lasted
, the loch said.
There is no safety now. You must choose their deaths.

Barrion turned his head slowly to look upon the hundred or so who stood on the shore gazing at him expectantly, some with faces still wet from lamentation. Should he let them die, terrified, in the storm, clutching each other and fearful of their ending, or let them sleep in the bosom of the loch? Choosing his people’s death was a duty of care he’d never imagined he would have to fulfil.
You offer them a painless ending?
He had to be sure.

The slow death of sleep
.

And for me?
Barrion held his breath.

You must accompany me into the death of the elemental
, the loch said.
You will not find your sister on the other side of it.

I must give up my soul?
Barrion knew he would do anything to ease the burden of his people, but to give up his dream of seeing Ellega again? To die and never be reborn? Barrion had faced death many times at the hands of the Northmen and then again when the Be’uccdha physician had been forced to remove his limbs to save him from infection. But always he had done so in the sure knowledge that he would join Ellega on the other side.

‘My Lord, are you safe?’ his lieutenant called.

Barrion closed his eyes.
I will do as you ask
, he said.
What must I tell them?

The loch was silent and again Barrion heard moaning in his ears. It was oddly disorienting, like the vibration that had accompanied the striking of boulders on their underwater hold in the Northman attack so many years ago. It was a sound he associated with fear, and he tried not to let it influence his thoughts now.

‘Lieutenant!’ he shouted, lifting his head. The water had swirled him around and he could no longer see his people on the shore.

‘Here, My Lord!’ a voice called a distance behind him.

‘The loch has spoken to me,’ Barrion called. ‘It is safe to enter the water. We will be protected from the Maelstrom here.’

‘My Lord?’ the lieutenant called back. ‘You want us to enter the loch?’ There was fear in his voice and Barrion heard muttering from the shoreline.

‘The winds quicken,’ Barrion shouted. ‘You must move quickly. All step to the shoreline and enter together.’ Barrion had no idea how they would be accepted into the loch, but he feared that if one tested the water and fell into slumber, the others might not follow. ‘Hurry now,’ he called.

‘Yes, My Lord,’ the lieutenant replied.

Barrion’s head fell back into the water to rest his aching neck. He would not hear their footfalls above the growing screech of the wind in any case. Yet he knew they would be lining up, trusting their lord to safeguard them, and the wetness on his cheeks was not of the loch.

‘We are ready, My Lord,’ the lieutenant shouted.

‘Then join me … in safety,’ Barrion called, his voice breaking with emotion. He swallowed hard and said again, ‘Join me now.’

‘My Lord, we come.’

Barrion closed his eyes and heard nothing more. No splashing or sounds of distress. No cries of wonder or despair. Nothing but the low moaning in his ears until the loch said,
It is done.

Barrion was forced to accept this. His people were dead, his hold destroyed. The House of Verdan was no more.

1 grow weak
, the loch said, nearer to his ear than before.
I cannot live amid so much death.

I am here
, he said by way of comfort.
You are not alone.

The water caressed Barrion’s back with gentle eddies, reinforcing the idea in his mind that the spirit was feminine. Above him the wind roared, and though his eyes were closed against it he felt the water thrash around him, and he wondered whether it hurt the loch.

I am beyond pain. But not beyond suffering.

Barrion’s mind sank into a deeper level of awareness. He too felt that no amount of torture could offer him any more pain, yet he continued to suffer.

How can I help you die?
he asked.

Be with me
, the loch replied softly.

And Barrion said,
Yes.
He sank then, not fearfully with a gasping of breath, but as though he were sliding from fear into freedom. He opened his eyes and saw that beneath the water there were individual fingers floating past severed heads and bloated bodies. The loch was right, death permeated its very being.

Close your eyes
, the loch said, and Barrion obeyed. He felt her next to him then, her fluid arms around him, cradling him close, her cool lips against his cheek.
Lie with me in death
, she said and Barrion knew he would gladly.

This is my love
, he said.
This is why I never took a wife.

I know
, the loch replied, and then Barrion felt the breath from his chest ease out and drift away as his lover’s lips met his, filling him with her watery bliss.
I’m not afraid to die
, he said.

Neither am I
, she replied.