The Dreamer Stones (22 page)

Samuel held it
gingerly. He had not raised a weapon before, not even in curiosity,
and it felt strange to him. A knife for self-protection would feel
alien in his jeweller’s hands.

He lifted
troubled eyes, perhaps beginning to understand he could not now
escape harming another. A priest of the Light was by nature a
warrior also.

Those gathered
beside the crucible looked back at him steadily. Teighlar, Saska,
Caballa, Kismet and Thundor.

In their eyes
he found the strength of purpose he needed.

Samuel nodded,
drawing the sword to his chest, and smiled. He would do what he had
to do.

He was
Valla.

Minutes after
that recognition the circle, also with new purpose, commenced
preparing for the other reason they were there.

“Who is it you
need to summon?” Samuel asked, feeling he should know, sensing he
would never guess.

Teighlar
glanced at the others and said, “We mean no disrespect, but it
can’t be revealed, not until we’re certain it worked.”

“It won’t do
to say his name and have him not appear,” Kismet added. “The hope
his name engenders is great, therefore the disappointment would be
greater.”

“To who?”
Samuel asked.

Kismet lowered
his gaze. “To us.”

“I assume
you’ll be calling out ‘Hey, It’?”

Kismet laughed
and slapped the man on his back. “Something along those lines!”

“Stupid
clown,” Thundor muttered under his breath.

Saska frowned.
“Please, not now. Concentrate.”

The five
formed a semi-circle around one curve of the crucible, with Thundor
perched on Saska’s shoulder at one end, part of the five, and
Samuel tagged on at the other end, not part of the five. They
seemed to know how to proceed for breaths were drawn in … and then
a voice sounded to confound their efforts, and breaths were
released without pattern, explosively.

“Teach him to
wield the Sword.”

Samuel said,
“Who was that?”

It was the
sixth member. And the others knew that voice - barring Thundor who
vanished from Saska to reappear clinging to Samuel’s ear, finding
comfort in confusion similar to his - for they began to smile.

Four people
about to greet an old friend.

“You’re
already here?” Saska queried, and looked around her. She was not
alone in that. “We were about to call again.”

“I heard
Teighlar the first time and waited until you were together. It gave
me time to ask for something.”

The voice
strengthened. It was everywhere, among them, around them. A
purposeful voice. Someone who knew himself and was not afraid.
Samuel felt goose bumps lift on his skin. A voice intimate with
power.

“Has something
happened to Mitrill?”

There was a
brief pause, as each hoped the other would reply.

Then, “Never
mind. I sense the void now. The Thinnings has taken her place?”

“Yes …”

“Do not say my
name, Saska. It is not yet time.”

Saska glanced
at Teighlar, who shrugged, similarly at a loss.

“What do you
mean?” she asked.

“First
instruct Samuel in the Sword’s intricacies. Yes, this you are able
to do. You, Teighlar, and you, Kismet. All four of you teach him to
become expert to the exclusion of all else, teach him how to ignore
distraction during training, and then call to me for the infusion
of the Light.”

“Very well,”
Teighlar murmured.

“Call to me
for the infusion after the Enchanter returns to your reality,” the
voice continued.

“You won’t
show yourself now?” This from Saska.

“Not yet. I
asked a boon earlier and it was granted. I am gifted time in your
realm, and will be permitted it this singular occasion.”

“And you
prefer to use it when Torrullin is back.”

“Selfish of
me, but the heart and soul will not be denied this one final
period.” The voice was filled with a passionate longing that lifted
goosebumps anew on Samuel’s skin.

“But …”

“Do not speak
my name, Saska, or you pull me through. You know I love you and
would willingly spend my time with you if Torrullin was beyond
reach. I must wait for him or forfeit joy I have in the
future.”

“I
understand.”

“Don’t tell
him, don’t prepare him. A further boon I ask. Again, selfish of me,
but I desire to see astonishment blossom on his face. Call when he
is returned.”

A rustle, a
cessation of sound. He was gone, never having bridged the divide. A
voice from elsewhere.

Samuel guessed
who it was.

He guessed
wrong.

Chapter
Nineteen

Great minds
think alike.

Earth
saying

Food-aid
stations were everywhere.

They were set
up after initial shortages, and then went into fitful operation
when darklings targeted all stations. After the Horde’s resounding
defeat, they sprang back into full and frantic activity.

Then the
delayed summer storm unleashed and all hard work was laid asunder.
No vessel dared brave the electrical interference and many stations
flooded, some losing roofs. The storm went on for days and the
situation was critical.

Looting
started and not even the storm’s fury had the power to stop it.

In Galilan,
Marcus Campian wished for Torrullin. Not merely to cure his
paralysis, but in the hope the Enchanter could put an end to
suffering and hardship.

At Torrke the
Elders wished for Tannil. Valaris was leaderless.

In the Society
of Sorcerers Byron prayed Caballa, Kismet and Samuel transported
safely through the interference, and prayed for Caballa’s swift
return. He drew strength from her calm.

At the Pillars
of Fire Tymall smiled.

When the
Valleur settled Valaris thirteen thousand nine hundred years ago,
they discovered the Pillars of Fire in a natural corridor formed by
two parallel mountain ranges.

A moving,
super-heated lake of thin, flammable lava fed manifold outlets,
causing combustion the instant the vapours collided with the oxygen
of the planet’s troposphere.

Nothing grew
in proximity, despite the insulators that were the mountains. The
Valleur worked an enchantment that sealed the outlets and then
cooled and protected those seals with a wide, cold river. The
Corridor, as the way between two ranges became known, was ever
inhospitable after. The surrounding regions flourished, becoming
Valaris’s food basket.

It remained
thus until Torrullin awakened the Pillars of fiery beauty again. It
was the place of confrontation with Margus, Darak Or, where his
body was released into the flames to be consumed. As his body
burned in the flames his soul flew to the only unknown territory
for Torrullin at the time, of the man’s own son.

The Pillars of
Fire remained after the confrontation, a living monument to the
destruction of Valaris, destruction that altered the landscape and
coastline and caused the deaths of the majority of Valarians. The
surrounding fertile farmland fell under the nearby sacred site’s
aegis, thereby losing nothing to the spreading heat in the
ground.

The Pillars of
Fire was where it began for Tymall.

He crouched on
the desert slopes of the western range, mesmerised by the
amber-gold towers of flame.

This high up,
and the heat could blister his skin. It was difficult to breathe.
He knew the tale of Margus and his father, but had no detail. He
had no idea how his father overcame Margus.

It was an
enigma he sought to solve.

His eyes
narrowed, a defence against the heat, and he stared at the Pillars.
Were the fires responsible for Margus’s defeat? He did not know,
for even in indwelling the Darak Or revealed noting. A block, a
fear, and thus he said nothing, not even to his avid pupil.

There was only
one thing to do. Make it happen again. The Enchanter and Darak Or,
in this place, confronting each other once more. Thank the gods,
then, Margus returned with his father - another reason the bastard
had to die again.

He would
extinguish the Pillars, prepare the ground for another round, and
somehow break the bond formed between his father and Margus. The
Darak Or would arise anew.

Tymall sat to
think.

On the eastern
slope, hidden behind a boulder, buffeted by wind and rain, Margus
stared at Tymall.

He sensed him
arrive the night before, being himself about memory’s paths in the
Corridor, and settled down to watch.

The boy was to
be admired for the man he became or, more precisely, the power.
Enviable, even. But the barbarism, the lack of honour, was to be
despised.

There was a
code to sorcery, even the blacker arts. Darklings possessed it,
nasty as they were, and even his hungry soltakin had it … and if he
turned the word ‘even’ over and over in his mind, it showed his
agitation.

Margus was in
quandary.

Before their
return from the Plane, he swore to Torrullin to kill upon his
command, and it included the monster opposite. The monster without
a shred of decency that sodomised him, and tortured him until
insanity was perceived. The creature deserved a slow death and he
desired to break his word.

His indecision
went deeper. He wondered if he had sufficient power to overcome the
Warlock.

For the first
time he realised Torrullin believed he would ultimately kill his
son. If not by his hand, it would yet be by his command. This was
the bait used on the Plane, but he had not understood Torrullin
would be the force aiding his strength.

Without the
Enchanter the Darak Or could not overcome the Warlock. Stunned, he
comprehended the Enchanter could not overcome without the Darak
Or.

The insight of
a different symbiosis nearly paralysed him. In a sense, he held
power over Torrullin. They were bound in truth … and death. It
would be a diffusion of responsibility and accountability.
Detraction from the Darak Or’s revenge, detraction from the
Enchanter’s guilt. Another symbiosis.

Margus rubbed
his face. His quandary was greater.

Torrullin was
the only man he respected and it had nothing to do with the man’s
power; it was the man himself. To sunder the symbiosis, whichever
one it was, even disregarding a promise spoken, was betrayal,
incalculable treachery. He found he was incapable of it. He was not
born to the Dark. He was forced into it to survive.

Margus moved
to rise, to leave before seen or sensed by the one on the other
side, to inform Torrke of this visit, and then froze in position,
gaze sharpening.

The boy …
only, he was no boy. Tymall was closer in age to his father than
his father had been to Vannis, for the boy made up time in the
invisible realm. Where the Enchanter vanished for ten days,
personal linear time, his son was away for four millennia at least,
realm time. No longer a boy - a man over four thousand years old,
and a powerful Warlock.

The Warlock
now descended to the plateau before the Pillars of Fire. He
proceeded to place his staff on the sterile earth and then moved a
few paces north to place his cloak of symbols likewise on the
ground. Moving west he removed the circlet from his brow, and
lowered it with care to a smoothed and blackened rock.

The staff was
south, Margus comprehended. What would he set down for east?

Tymall paced
east, checked his positioning and then removed his sword and set it
down.

He stepped
into the compass he created, becoming the fifth point.

Margus
acknowledged the power. Where others would literally require four
additional sorcerers, the Warlock needed none. He watched, curious
what would be brought forth, or taken away, or caused.

He did not
wait long.

A great
choking sounded, like a giant swallowing a burp. A great gurgle,
like a plug replaced in a tub of …

He is sealing
away the fire.

Margus was
ashen, dimly beginning to comprehend the master plan. He was
convinced the Warlock was returning Valaris to its original state,
or as near as, of the time of his conception, recognition and
birth, when coastlines changed and Valarians died. The coastlines
remained altered and people again died.

Consider,
then, the Pillars extinguished and Torrke leaderless. A grand
stage. There were additional players, but the stage was woven from
two historical upheavals - the first being the time Torrullin came
into his own and the second being the time of the twins. A few
players were currently astray, like the Dragons, but it was a
clever manipulation nonetheless.

Torrullin as
Vallorin, however, was a glaring and absent factor.

The upstart
twerp aims to replay history.

The Enchanter
would be wise to look to Luvanor also.

One flaming
column choked off and sent a black vaporous explosion into the
atmosphere. Then another, and another. Soon the Corridor was black
as night, dark smoke exhalations blotting out overcast heavens, and
the air was thick with insidious smog.

Midnight drops
plummeted down, rain gathering the fallout. They scalded and
reacted like acid to the skin.

Forced to
weave protection, Margus hoped the Warlock was too intent on his
task to feel the small shiver of magic.

When not a
glimmer of amber twisted in the wreathing smoke, he knew the task
was complete. The Pillars of Fire were again swallowed into the
bowels of the earth.

Then there was
the sound of rising water, to moisten the seals. The water was
unseen in the stygian atmosphere, but loud, a torrent. No doubt
diverted from the Galilan River.

Wiping his
sooty face, Margus prepared to leave. Someone had to be told.