Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3 (43 page)

‘Very well,’ she said confidently. ‘We fight.’

Behind her, Vandal said, ‘This is a bad idea.’

The serpent smiled and Glimmer felt a small flicker of apprehension. She tried to quell it, infuriated that her emotional disorder was bleeding into all areas of her life, but it would not be gone. Fear for her own safety — something she had never previously felt — disturbed her equilibrium. Which was ludicrous. Her power should be adequate to keep her alive, but Glimmer must also protect Vandal from the serpent, and she was unsure how long she could manage that.

‘Do something,’ Vandal said as the serpent’s wings spread. In the sudden gust of wind the remaining candles snuffed out, and when the dust settled, Glimmer could see the sky through the broken ceiling of the cavern. Dark clouds laced with the blues and purples of Magoria swirled into each other like thick liqueurs blending. Lightning lanced through them, but far below in what remained of the Altar Caves, the only illumination was the glistening diamond column that protected the anchor.

Glimmer watched as Teleqkraal beat his wings, rising high into the air, then he turned his body to dive at them, adding velocity to the stream of fire he spewed at them. Glimmer quickly spread her hands and formed an umbrella of ice above them, hoping it would not shatter if the serpent struck it; but the flames were so hot the ice began to melt, and in desperation Glimmer diverted some of her strength from holding the elements in Ennae’s core towards reinforcing her shield.

A rumbling vibration issued from beneath their feet but the serpent stopped short of her barrier and did not attempt to breach it. He rose aloft again and Glimmer quickly regained her hold of the three worlds’ elements, deep beneath the surface of Ennae. The ice above her disappeared.

‘You’re starting to fade,’ Vandal said, his hand lifting off her shoulder as though in shock.

‘Hold the connection,’ she said. ‘I may need to access your power at any time.’ Soon, if her current rate of defence continued to degrade.

He put his hand back. ‘I thought you only needed me at the end.’

Glimmer gazed up at the serpent. His wings were beating, she could feel the disturbance in the air, but his red eyes were all she could see in the shadowed ceiling of the cavern. ‘I fear I am not strong enough to protect you.’ she said. ‘This may be the time to finish me.’

‘If you die, we all die,’ Vandal said. ‘Isn’t there somewhere we’d be safe from him until you can regroup?’ She felt his hand shift on her shoulder, as though he was turning around. ‘What about the barrier?’ he said. ‘Can we go in there?’

The beast was diving towards them again and Glimmer felt suddenly inadequate, as though her lives in preparation for this day had been a dream, a train chugging along the wrong track. ‘I … I don’t know,’ she whispered.

Vandal snatched her arm and they ran. Glimmer had the presence of mind to pierce the barrier as they ran through it, but without adequate time to prepare they were both badly shocked by the current of Guardian power and fell heavily onto the unyielding stone floor.

‘Keep the barrier up,’ Vandal gasped to the others, then he rolled Glimmer onto her back. ‘You’re not so faded now. Can you get strength from somewhere else?’

Glimmer glanced at the four who were now all that held the beast from them, and was immensely relieved to see them still facing outwards with their arms raised to the shimmering diamond column, apparently still intent on their task. The integrity of the barrier was holding. ‘I need to rest,’ she said.

Vandal opened his mouth to reply, but his words were lost in a loud splintering crash, like a high-pitched whistle. ‘Shit!’ he said when it stopped.

They both turned to the barrier, on which a dark-winged shadow now hung.

‘Creepy
and
impatient,’ Vandal said.

‘He will destroy the barrier in time,’ she replied.

Vandal met her solemn gaze. ‘Time. There’s the thing.’

‘I have told you I cannot go backwards —’

‘Without extra energy. I know.’

‘And even if I could,’ she said, ignoring his interruption, ‘I have no idea
when
to go back to.’

‘For a start I have a theory about the amount of energy four worlds collapsing produces,’ he said and Glimmer couldn’t believe her ears. He’d altered her plan on the basis of mere speculation? ‘And secondly, at what point in his history was the serpent most vulnerable?’

‘When he was born,’ she said dryly, ‘but I’ve tried that interception and it doesn’t work. Either I find love with Kert, and hopefully the talisman works for me, or I remain emotionless and kill the serpent, at which time the talisman is useless in my hands. And where is Kert?’ She may still have the opportunity to use her dagger, thus saving her beloved from the horrible future she had foreseen.

‘Did this serpent have an ancestor?’ Vandal asked hopefully. ‘Before Kraal. You know, the first serpent ever? Dawn of civilisation?’

Glimmer shook her head. ‘You have no idea how much energy it takes to traverse time. Where is Kert?’

‘Kert? Oh, he’s waiting to go with you when you’ve killed the beast.’

‘Go with me where?’ she demanded. ‘Into the centre of the One World? And what if the beast kills us?’

Vandal squeezed her arm. ‘I told you I had a plan,’ he said. ‘You just rest.’

The barrier hummed reassuringly around them, and Glimmer closed her eyes, struggling to calm her mind. One thing at a time. And for once Vandal was right. Her priority had to be rest.

After that, she could panic all she liked.

K
ai stood back against the far wall where the crumbling ceiling could not bury him. Fortunately, after crashing down through what remained of Castle Be’uccdha onto the floor of the cavern, Teleqkraal had abandoned him and he had been free to hide. Kai planned to remain alive for as long as he could in the hope of assisting The Catalyst in some small way before his life was forfeited.

Certainly he did not expect that his master would retain him after his usefulness was spent. Though the serpent had not yet told him his role, Kai knew he must be required soon. He had been kept alive to serve a purpose, at which time he might come into the presence of The Catalyst. Kai had seen her only briefly before she had fled the serpent to shelter inside the column of eerie shining light that rose around the anchor. He hoped she was unharmed.

‘
You will not hide from me!
’ Teleqkraal shouted and threw himself at The Catalyst’s barrier. An horrific noise assailed Kai’s ears but he merely winced and kept his attention on his God and master. A moment would come when he could intervene. Kai planned to be ready.

Again and again Teleqkraal smashed into the column and Kai began to see its glow thinning. A woman in a white robe, but with the dark skin of Be’uccdha, stood at one corner of the diamond. Before her the column was almost translucent and Kai could see her features clearly, her eyes closed in concentration, the swirling tattoo he had seen on The Dark covering the right side of her face.

He watched as her raised hands, which appeared to support the column, moved forwards, as though she had been pressing them against a solid object which was now gone. Suddenly her hands were outside the column and Teleqkraal shrieked in delight.

‘
You are breached!
’ he roared and flew towards the woman whose eyes were now open in horror. The Guardian nearest her dropped his arms and ran forward, pulling her to the ground as Teleqkraal flew over her, his long talons whistling through the air where her head had just been.

‘Give me the talisman if you want to live,’ The Catalyst called to Teleqkraal, and Kai held his breath.

She, whom he hoped to serve, had scrambled to her feet and now stood beside the sky-mirror which was fully revealed as the last of the barrier dissipated. A gown of royal gold adorned her slender form and her snow hair fell loose about her shoulders. Her beauty was unchanged, and if anything her pale perfection was even more striking than he remembered.

‘Give it to me or die,’ she said.

A young man Kai did not recognise, in clothes of Magorian hue, came to her side. Kai saw no weapons in his hands and he feared for The Catalyst then. Was this all her defence? Kai pushed himself away from the wall and began walking towards the centre of the chamber where she stood so bravely.

‘
I will give you the stone when I please
,’ Teleqkraal roared. ‘
And I shall kill whom I choose.
’

‘If you kill any of these remaining,’ she swept a hand to indicate her five companions, ‘I will be unable to join the Four Worlds. They have powers I need.’

‘
This one is weak
,’ Teleqkraal said, pointing at the Be’uccdha woman. ‘
She is of no use to you.
’

‘She is The Dark,’ The Catalyst replied. ‘Her powers are above your level of perception.’

Kai saw his master’s eyes narrow and he wondered at this path The Catalyst was taking. Did she think that insulting the Serpent God would make him easier to defeat?

‘
Servant!
’ Teleqkraal called. ‘
Come to me.
’

Kai’s feet hastened as he stepped over fallen rocks, and soon he was standing beside his master’s clawed foot, which was as big as his own body. The Catalyst had watched his approach, but without recognition. Did she not remember their meeting at Fortress Sh’hale? How could that be when she had created such a profound impression on him?

‘
Take the talisman from me
,’ Teleqkraal ordered Kai.

Behind The Catalyst, the others were still and watchful.

‘Yes, My Lord and Master,’ Kai said, pleased that the Serpent God had decided to bend to The Catalyst’s will. He stepped around the claw to stand directly beneath Teleqkraal’s mighty jaws. Kai’s eye was now level with the stone, which looked quite ordinary amid the glistening scales that surrounded it on his master’s chest.

‘
Pull it out
,’ Teleqkraal said impatiently, but Kai was unsure how to go about it. The stone appeared to be firmly embedded. He tried to flick it out, then poked his fingers into the cavity surrounding it, but the stone was lodged tightly. ‘
Here
,’ Teleqkraal said, and almost decapitated Kai with a claw that came up to flick the stone loose.

Kai snatched for it, but it fell to the ground and rolled forward. The Catalyst made to step forward and retrieve it but Teleqkraal was too quick.

‘
No!
’ he bellowed, and flicked a wing out to keep the others at bay while shoving Kai forward, sending him sprawling to the ground where he quickly scrabbled up the stone. ‘
Swallow it
,’ Teleqkraal ordered, and as Kai stared at his master in shock and surprise he saw the cunning in those volcanic red eyes.

Kai turned to glance at The Catalyst, intending to gauge her reaction to this unexpected command, but his vision was distorted and erratic, as though his eyes were moving of their own volition. His mind felt odd. Displaced.

‘What subterfuge is this?’ Kai heard The Catalyst demand.

‘
I could be easily destroyed once I enter this Northman
,’ Teleqkraal replied. ‘
But you will not destroy the talisman.
’

‘I cannot join the Four Worlds unless I have it in my possession!’

‘
More lies. A Plainsman bore it when you created the anchors. A Northman can bear it now.
’

‘You are wrong, and besides, the stone forms the core of the One World. He who bears it will die.’

‘
You expect me to believe that you intended to die?
’

Kai’s eyes were fixed ahead, on The Catalyst and her companion, but he felt movement beside him and smelt the serpent’s breath. ‘
Swallow it!
’ Teleqkraal roared in his ear, but the sound disoriented Kai, echoing in his mind as though it had been said there also. His hand which held the stone rose, though he did not will it to.

‘Don’t!’ the young Guardian at The Catalyst’s side shouted. ‘Throw it to me,’ and he stepped away from the others.

Kai remembered his will, his intent, and his body jerked in reaction, the small brown stone flying from his hand towards the youth, who snatched it and swallowed it before anyone could act. The disturbance in Kai’s thoughts, as though he was no longer alone inside his own mind, suddenly withdrew.

There was pain after that, then nothing.

V
andal’s hand still rested against his lips but the stone was now down into his belly. He’d wanted to alter the sequence of events and he’d certainly achieved that. But when the serpent’s sidekick was crushed into bug-splat on the cavern floor a second later, he had to wonder if he’d done the right thing. ‘Shit.’ He reached around and grabbed Glimmer’s hand.

Kert appeared at the tunnel entrance with the castle staff behind him. They ran at the serpent and began beating its hard scales with cudgels and swords. Vandal knew they wouldn’t last long.

‘Do it now!’ Kert shouted at Vandal as Teleqkraal roared in fury and turned on them.

‘Kert has to die,’ Glimmer said, and turned to Vandal. ‘If Teleqkraal gains possession of him —’

‘Kert is going to die,’ Vandal told her. He’d heard screams and smelt the stench of burning flesh. The idea had been to keep Kert alive so that he and Glimmer could live happily ever after, but her Champion had obviously decided otherwise and Vandal appreciated the sacrifice. It would buy them time. ‘Are you going to be okay with that?’ he asked Glimmer, taking her hand.

She shook her head. ‘I thought I would not have to grieve. I thought I would be the one with the stone, soon to die, too busy to think until it was too late.’

‘I’ll keep you busy,’ Vandal said. ‘I’ve got a plan of my own, remember,’ and turned to search out Lae. She was standing next to his father, both watching the serpent in horror. ‘You have to work with The Dark now,’ he told Glimmer, and pulled on her hand, taking her to stand in front of Lae, who immediately backed into Pagan. His arms came around her protectively. ‘I know you don’t want to have anything to do with me,’ Vandal told Lae, ‘but you have to help Glimmer. You told me once that the life-force of Ennae could be tapped.’

Lae nodded, unable to look at him. He hoped she wasn’t remembering the setting of that conversation, in her bed during a lull in their honeymoon. Vandal had been barely listening at the time, intent on misusing his Guardian power to arouse Lae and keep her enslaved with sex. But later, when he’d starting thinking about helping Glimmer, the memory had come back to him.

‘Can you help Glimmer find it?’ he asked. ‘She needs all the help she can get.’

‘Of course,’ Lae said softly.

‘Have you done this before?’ Vandal asked his sister.

Glimmer shook her head. ‘Lack of power was never a problem in my previous versions of this life.’ Vandal grinned. He was just congratulating himself on the brilliance of his plan when she added, ‘But even if it works, I won’t create the One World unless the serpent is dead.’

The serpent.

‘Okay.’ He opened his hands. ‘Maybe we can do both,’ he said. ‘Let’s get your batteries charged first and take it from there.’ The screams had died down and the beast appeared to be finishing off the last Guardsmen with his fiery breath, so Vandal added, ‘Quickly people.’

Pagan had to release Lae to draw his sword, and he did so reluctantly. Vandal could imagine the glare his father aimed at him but he deliberately didn’t look. Talis withdrew his own sword and Khatrene took the dagger Glimmer fished out of her bodice, although she didn’t seem to know how to hold it. The three turned to face Teleqkraal and, as the keeper of the talisman, Vandal stood between Glimmer and Lae. Both women put their hands on his shoulders — Glimmer at the front and Lae, hesitantly, at the back. If it hadn’t been for the necessities of the moment, Vandal would have felt as awkward with Lae as she was with him. But he was going to die soon — become the centre of a planet, whatever — so there didn’t seem much point.

The serpent turned on them just as Lae intoned, ‘The spirit of Ennae lies deep within our world … cramped now between the elements of air, water and fire.’ Vandal heard crunching. ‘But if we venture into the …
Oh
, there it is, and it’s
beautiful.
’

‘I see it!’ Glimmer said and, ‘I have it.’

In the next instant Vandal felt his breath forced from his lungs as a heat that did not burn poured through him. Externally there was nothing to see but his mind was flickering so he closed his eyes. Immediately images in all shades of brown filled his consciousness, each pattern as unique as an individual snowflake and yet as magnificent as a mountain landscape. There was no size or shape to discern, only splendour, and in that moment he forgot who he was and where he was. He simply
was
, one with the flow that coursed through him and into Glimmer. Radiant. Beautiful. Extraordinary.

‘Look out.’ Khatrene’s voice.

Vandal struggled past wonder to open his eyes and suck in a breath. Over Glimmer’s shoulder he saw Teleqkraal lumbering towards them, crunching corpses underfoot. ‘Hurry,’ he told his sister, but Glimmer made no move to disconnect herself from the life-force. Her eyelids remained closed, her expression tranquil.

The serpent spread his wings and rose into the air, heading straight for them, so Vandal ducked, taking Lae and Glimmer down with him. But Teleqkraal gained altitude, avoiding Talis’s and Pagan’s swords as he continued over their heads and into the anchor. The impact was horrendous, a terrible splintering crash, and Glimmer’s eyes flew open.

‘Have you got it?’ Vandal asked her. ‘Enough to kill the serpent and create the One World?’

‘More than that,’ she said and grinned. ‘Enough to travel to the dawn of time and back.’ Vandal grinned at that too, for quite a different reason. Then Glimmer stepped past Vandal to take Lae’s hand. ‘Thank you, sister.’

Vandal’s stomach lurched at that, then he reminded himself that he wasn’t related to Glimmer by blood, so Lae definitely wasn’t
his
sister. Bad enough that he’d … Oh, just drop it!

He turned to find Talis and his father watching the serpent smash into the anchor. The remnants of Castle Be’uccdha had begun to fall around them. ‘I’m going after Teleqkraal,’ Glimmer shouted over the noise of the anchor and the descending storm. ‘But beware of his powers.’ She grabbed Vandal’s arm. ‘He will attempt to enter your mind, as he did the Northman’s.’

‘The same way Kraal entered Mihale’s,’ Khatrene said, her worried frown turning back to Glimmer.

Lae, beside her, could not meet Vandal’s eyes.

‘What do I do?’ he asked.

‘You must safeguard your mind,’ Glimmer said. ‘Use your Guardian power to block the serpent while I destroy him.’

Vandal shook his head. ‘I’ve never done that.’ A huge rock fell to the ground beside him and he flinched. If they weren’t careful they’d be crushed by falling stonework, or sucked up into the molasses sky. Even now, tendrils of wind stirred dust eddies around them. ‘How can I —?’

‘Warding,’ his father said at Vandal’s side, no trace of anger in his voice. Had desperation for the One World wiped it from his thoughts? ‘Place a barrier inside your mind, such as we created around the anchor. See it and it will be so.’

‘I’ll try,’ Vandal said, and he did try to concentrate past his fear and the sounds of destruction around him, but it wasn’t working. ‘I can’t … I don’t know what to do.’ He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder and a moment later the barrier was clear in his mind, a glowing white sphere around the talisman. ‘I’ve got it,’ he cried.

‘Hold that,’ Glimmer said.

Another huge crash rebounded around the walls and was followed by a crack. ‘The mirror,’ Lae whispered.

‘Quickly,’ Talis said. ‘You must destroy the beast. The anchor is failing.’

Vandal’s eyes were closed, his attention on the white sphere, but he heard a humming noise above the sound of the cracking mirror. The hum rose to a crescendo which undulated along with the beast’s banshee screams. Vandal couldn’t imagine what was happening to Teleqkraal but it sounded like it hurt. Then the noise reached its peak and abruptly stopped, coinciding with a wet explosion. Vandal felt something splat against his arm.

‘Done,’ Glimmer said. She sounded winded. ‘Did the beast project himself into anyone?’

‘I’m good,’ Vandal said and opened his eyes, but Glimmer touched each of their foreheads in turn, checking. ‘The One World?’ he asked.

‘Are you ready?’ she replied.

This was the part he’d been hoping to gloss over, the ‘get ready to die’ part. ‘Bring it on,’ he said, with what he hoped was bravado.

‘Like father like son,’ Khatrene said, and smiled at him sadly.

But Glimmer was all business. ‘I am beginning,’ she said. ‘Form a circle around us and hold fast to each other. Vandal with me.’

Vandal felt hands grasping him and moving him into position, then Glimmer’s arms locked about his shoulders. The others huddled in close and the warmth and scent of their bodies comforted him, spinning Vandal back in time to his childhood when his parents’ bed had been his refuge from frightening thunderstorms. They would sleepily welcome him, snuggling him between them, and always in the morning he’d wake in his own bed wondering if it had all been a dream.

This time he’d wake up with Petra, he hoped, and the past really would be a dream.

‘The pain will not last long,’ Glimmer whispered.

Vandal was just thinking,
That would he nice
, when his father said, ‘The Maelstrom …’ and he couldn’t help himself. Vandal opened his eyes and then wished he hadn’t. The castle above them was completely gone, the sky-mirror cracked and about to fall, and a dirty, multicoloured whirlpool was descending, eating everything in its path. The ground beneath them was giving way. They clutched each other and gasped.

‘Wait, it’s Kert!’ Talis shouted, pointing to the Sh’hale nobleman running towards them across the disintegrating floor.

But Vandal knew.

Glimmer too. Her fingers bit into his shoulders. ‘He’s not dead,’ she whispered and Vandal felt afraid then, because for the first time in his life he saw fear in his sister’s eyes.

‘It’s Teleqkraal!’ he told the others, then to Glimmer, ‘You have to kill him so he can’t come with us.’ He should have let her kill Kert in the first place. But how could he have guessed Teleqkraal would grab him?

‘I can’t!’ she wailed. ‘I’m not going to die now. You’re the one who’ll die. I can’t kill him and live. I love him.’

He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. ‘You have to.’

The floor collapsed then and they fell, clutching each other, but Kert leapt towards them and latched on. Talis tried to fend him off but he clung on like an octopus, teeth grimaced against the force of the swirling air around them.

‘If you don’t do something we’ll all die,’ Vandal shouted over the whistling of wind against his ears. They were caught in the whirlpool now, not falling but weightless, a mass of spinning bodies with Kert still hanging off the outside. Talis and Pagan shoved at him while Vandal and Glimmer yelled at each other in the centre.

‘I won’t let the serpent have the future,’ she said.

‘Then give him the past.’ It was time to revert to his alternative plan. ‘He’s had that already, so it can’t hurt to take him back.’

‘I’ve tried back jumps —’

‘How far back?’

‘As far back as I could reach. To my birth on Ennae —’

Suddenly the wind in his ears wasn’t distracting Vandal. ‘Why can’t you take him back further?’

Glimmer stared at her brother, some of her desperation fading. ‘I have the power,’ she said.

‘The life-force and the talisman —’

‘Will kill you.’

‘Whenever you’re ready,’ he replied.

‘
Kert
!
’ Khatrene shrilled, then, ‘He was always ill mannered. Get him
off!
’ Slapping behind him. An elbow in Vandal’s ear.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Your mother?’

Glimmer smiled.

‘I asked you once when the serpent would be at his most vulnerable.’

She nodded. ‘In the beginning …’ Then pulled him close and pressed her cheek against his. ‘I’ll miss you,’ she said, her pale hair tickling his nose. But before Vandal could begin to feel maudlin he felt a wrenching behind his eyes. At first he feared the serpent was trying to control him, then it was clear who had invaded his mind.

S
TAY CALM AND OPEN
, she said inside his head.

The sensation of wind and pulling disappeared and the white light his father had helped him create around the talisman exploded outwards in the most beautiful fireworks show he could have imagined. Streams of light seemed to rocket them away from the Maelstrom’s grip and into space — space with no stars. Vandal held his breath but there was no vacuum, just a blackness devoid of any landmarks, and with that, the sensation of passage.

It terrified even as it elated Vandal, then the stone began to grow warm, hot, scalding his belly. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe through it, to not think of dying, just of seeing Petra soon. But he was scared.

L
OOK AT ME
.

He opened his eyes and looked into Glimmer’s which were pools of the deepest green, calm and completely unafraid. After that he felt the pain to be a different thing — sensation, not bad just … there. Her skin glowed and her hair was like thin strands of light. It was beautiful.
She
was beautiful, and Vandal felt as though he was seeing her properly for the first time in his life.

‘Live,’ he croaked, then realised he wasn’t breathing, couldn’t find the mechanism inside himself to restart it. Sensation overwhelmed him and he thought, inanely, that humans were not the most practical vessels for discharging the talisman’s power.

N
OT MUCH LONGER
, she said. W
E ARE NEARLY THERE
.

The greater the … sensation inside him, the brighter she glowed, until finally all he could see was white light radiating from around her eyes, no other feature, no people beyond her, though Vandal knew they must be there. By that time he could barely keep his own eyes open and the burning had spread from his torso to his limbs.

T
HE TALISMAN WILL DESTROY YOU NOW
.
I
T SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME
, she said.

Vandal would have nodded if he could. But it was ending. He was ending.
It was mostly sweet
, he thought, knowing Petra would like that.