The Dreamer Stones (49 page)

“A future can
be altered when there is foreknowledge, which is why the prophecies
weren’t revealed to Torrullin. He was meant to do as seen unaware
of the fates.”

Another
silence. Samuel digested her words and then, “So where’s the
problem? Arm me with foreknowledge so I may judge the best way
forward.”

“It alters everything! I can’t tell you - all I can do
is
ask
that you
change your path.”

“And thus you
potentially alter, Lowen.”

She muttered
an oath. “All right, at least I’ve put you on guard. I change
nothing that way.”

“Guard is
good, but it isn’t enough. If it’s as bad as you suggest, surely
telling me can only be a good thing?”

“Samuel, we’re
governed by curiosity. All sentient creatures and even animal
instinct can translate into curiosity, to our eternal detriment in
some cases. Were I to tell you exactly what I’ve seen, two dangers
arise; one is an altering that potentially affects all else, and
two, you do precisely as seen simply because you need to know
whether I saw true. Your curiosity puts you onto the ordained path.
You make it happen.”

“You
contradict yourself.”

“How?”

“Torrullin and
foreknowledge.”

“His was
different. Torrullin was tested. The One would do as foreseen
purely because he was the One, not a powerful man armed with a
bunch of prophecies.”

“Poor
Torrullin.”

“Funny thing
about him, had he known beforehand, the chances are he’d have
flouted every curiosity principle, changed everything just to be
contrary … and funnier yet, he would have fulfilled every prophecy.
That is his power and his gift.”

“And I,
naturally, would allow stupid curiosity to rule me.”

Lowen sighed.
“I don’t mean to offend. It’s in our natures and we can’t do
otherwise. Most of it is unconsciously achieved. No, I warn you
only and hope it sufficient to tweak the future, just a bit. You’ll
have a different caution now and perhaps you’ll see differently
also.” She drew breath and added, “I often wonder if the
destruction of Torrke would’ve come to pass had I held my peace as
a naïve child.”

“You can’t
blame yourself for what happened here,” Samuel said, aghast she
should carry that burden.

All thoughts
of destiny evaporated. He was a father and as such could well
imagine how a young Lowen felt when confronted by the destruction
she saw become reality.

“In fact, by
all accounts, your warning took the Valleur to safety in the
west.”

“They would
rather have died with their beloved Vallorin,” she said. “Granted,
he wouldn’t have allowed it. Still, sometimes I suspect the vision
he had at the same time …”

“He saw it
before it happened?”

“So did
Caballa. She saw the destruction, I saw the saving, and I suspect
Torrullin saw the dying. I think he used my vision to force the
Valleur west, for in his he saw them dying with him. I changed the
future.”

“Thank
god.”

“I suppose,
yet it doesn’t always feel comfortable.”

“Lowen, where
would we be had the Valleur died that day?”

“Maybe that
was what was meant, don’t you see? Our Torrullin is a remarkable
seer, better at it than I am, or Caballa, and I’d trust his vision
before mine. Maybe, in not harking to the Sight that day, he paved
the way to the present hell.”

“Yet you tell
me he would deliberately change a known future, and in that case it
wasn’t to be contrary. Thus, all things considered …”

A light went
off in her voice, the only tangible thing in the dark. “… he
fulfils a prophecy as it was meant. Oh, God, do you know what this
means?”

“No
guilt?”

She laughed. “No guilt! I’m
so
glad I came out to talk to
you!”

Samuel laughed
too. Lowen was an enigma, but he liked her and he especially liked
her spirit. “Come on, it’s dark. Time to head back.”

She hooked her
arm through his and they turned for the Keep. In the introspective
wander back, the Keep a beacon in the night, both forgot about the
watcher, that silent, forbidding presence. Other matters occupied
their thoughts and when in the coming days their minds did return
to it, they told themselves it was paranoia, for surely Torrullin
would warn had it indeed been so.

It is a great
pity that often instincts remain ignored. One of the two should
have remembered. Someone should have given in to paranoia,
questioned others for their impressions. Someone should have said
something.

Anyone.

Chapter
Thirty-Eight

Time to gather
in the sheaves!

Harvest
call

Month of
Haerfell

A month
passed.

Valleur came
and went; Valarians went on with their lives preparing for winter.
Offworlders braved the skies and even tourists reappeared.

Torrullin,
biding time, sharing it between Valaris and Luvanor, thought the
period of silence might have something to do with Fay’s pregnancy.
She was in her sixth or seventh month, the time to birth narrowing.
Tymall possibly waited for that time of choice and Digilan,
seemingly, was content to wait with him.

While he was
glad his people had this time of quiet to rebuild strength, gather
in necessities for winter, outfit Menllik as it should be again, he
knew, conversely, the time for real action fast approached.

Meanwhile,
impatient within, he presented a calm face to outsiders. He met
with offworlders, he dealt more and more with Marcus Campian,
finding he thoroughly enjoyed the Electan’s dry sense of humour,
and was often at swordplay with Samuel, Kismet and Krikian.

Saska and
Lowen were taught basic parries and assaults with shorter blades,
but forgot to strap them on when they went out. The two women
appeared in a state of truce.

The Keep was
made comfortable, the treasury was again filled with lucrative
trade deals, and autumn grew ever colder.

Then, on the
eve of the Harvest Festival, half the sacred sites went into
cloaked state without warning. It was not a major blow to the
inhabitants in the regions around the affected sites, as they had
learned to function without them, but it certainly was a blow to
the inhabitants of the Keep. It was also a slap in the face.

It entailed an
awesome degree of mastery to take seven sites down
simultaneously.

Grim-lipped,
Torrullin sought the Throne out. He commenced incomprehensible
muttering, words of power unknown to those gathering around him.
When he was done, his grey eyes again focused, he told them all the
sites, barring the Throne he occupied, were now cloaked. No
Valleur, no foreign sorcerer, certainly no Warlock, could undo the
deep cloaking.

Kismet’s
troubled gaze caused him to add that the Throne and its Vallorin
could reverse it. He thus removed the threat of a recurrence of
Torrke’s historic demise. Even the Lifesource Temple vanished into
the mists of its precarious land bridge between two majestic
mountain ranges.

Lucan, back
and forth in the preceding weeks, answered a summons with another
negative. No, there was no trace of Tymall. He was systematic in
his search to leave no house or barn overlooked, a grid pattern,
and it was just a matter of time, but Torrullin no longer held out
hope. Tymall could have moved on. He left the Xenian to it, knowing
he could not afford to leave a stone unturned. He also thought it
might keep Lucan Dalrish safe.

Others
searched as well, the length and breadth of Valaris. No stone,
therefore, remained unturned, but there was not a whisper of a
sighting. It was beyond frustrating and he thought to use Fay.
Saska put a stop to it when he suggested it.

Now
frustration was a luxury and impatience no longer valid.

Tymall had
made his play and the battle was on.

In a state of
continuing resolve, Torrullin went unaccompanied to the deadened
Pillars of Fire.

His son had
shown mastery and he countered with a greater degree. On this day
of Harvest, he would prove beyond all doubt who had the power.

He resurrected
the Pillars of Fire with mere thought.

Margus knew
better than anyone what was achieved. A delighted laugh entered
Torrullin’s mind.

Torrullin
smiled. Whether Tymall had seen this or not, one was there who
already knew and that was enough.

The Pillars
were natural magic, he thought, staring down from on high with a
satisfied air, which should not again be meddled with. He enchanted
them so thoroughly, using from afar the power of the Throne, no one
would be capable of extinguishing the fiery columns. A task very
well done.

Barring the
Valleur seat and the sentient valley it resided in, Valaris on the
morning of the Harvest Festival had returned to its natural state,
the kind it was for all the ages before even the Valleur came to
settle a bountiful land.

Only the
Valleur mourned.

Far away to
the northwest, Tymall wrenched at his unbound hair.

Many weeks of
building power to cloak seven sacred sites, only to have his father
throw an unbelievable countering in his face. And now this? His
father challenged his son to do his worst, or be seen failing.

The darkling,
having temporarily abandoned his perch, hid a smile in the folds of
his encompassing cloak.

One other
heard the shriek of anger that followed the Pillars bursting back
into eternal flame, and, stealthily, he approached the source of
the sound to investigate cause.

Lucan Dalrish
swiftly approached his final hour.

Saska and
Lowen suffered an uneasy truce, doing so because the confines of
the Keep could not long hide enmity.

They
maintained peace for Torrullin’s sake and, in thinking they
succeeded in fooling him, would be shocked to discover he missed
nothing. He held the peace, realising the two women were slow
fuses. An explosion would follow, as night follows day, yet he
hoped his apparent acceptance would delay it. He preferred thinking
of himself as a bystander and hoped to be one when they ignited. In
that he fooled only himself, for all were aware in some manner he
was the root of the enmity.

He thought on
it after returning from the Pillars, seeing them in the courtyard
below. Apparently working together and yet divides lay yawning
between them. He could ill afford the distraction and swore
soundlessly when he became aware of Lucan’s presence.

The Xenian had
been calling for some time. Lucan was no farspeaker - something was
a-foot.

He opened
communication.

Lucan, are you safe?
That was the
first priority.

Oh, thank God,
I thought I’d not reach you …

Calm, my
friend. Think without emotion. Now, first, are you safe?

Yes, for now.
I don’t think I’ve been seen.

Continue.

I found him,
Torrullin! He’s really furious about something, venting his anger
on things around him.

Where is
he?

Roughly sixty
sals due northeast of Winnish, a ramshackle place, looks long
abandoned, probably during Valaris’s drought ten years back.

Drought? He had not realised Valaris suffered a dry spell
extreme enough even Xen was aware of it.
How did you find him?

Lucan was anxious.
Are you sure he
can’t hear this?

I am sure.

Oh, good. It
was pure luck. I heard him shout and tracked the sound.

No such thing
as luck, Lucan. Stay where you are and we will be with you shortly.
I will keep this connection open, call if you have need.

Just do
something fast before he vanishes again.

Count on
it.

Torrullin
shifted the open connection to one side and pondered a few moments.
Lucan was right all along - excellent. He deserved this after the
sacrifice of the last month tracking the barrens of Nor.

Time was of
the essence.

Torrullin came
to a decision, one he toyed with before in preparation for the
current situation.

Seconds later
he was in the courtyard.

Saska, Caballa
and Lowen sat with Samuel and Krikian at the round table beside the
mosaic pool.

The pool was
grey and unfriendly, reflecting the slate skies overhead. Autumn’s
weather was typically temperamental. This day a number of Festival
kings and queens would be rained upon.

Two retainers
swept the courtyard while the five chatted and everyone projected
an atmosphere of killing time.

Kismet,
perched on a bench closer to the Dragon doors, watched Margus flex
his fingers into various sorcerical gestures.

Margus’s blue
eyes lifted first as Torrullin alighted on the cobbles and a
knowing smile flitted, and then vanished to leave Kismet
suspicious. The Valleur Elder was on full alert.

Torrullin
ignored Margus. There was no need to say anything. He headed
directly to the five at the table and conversation ceased
there.

“Saska, Lowen,
I need you two in Menllik. Make a noise. Surrender to whatever you
keep under wraps. Go now.”

He would not
then be there to hear what lay between them, and it suited him.

Saska frowned,
opening her mouth, as Lowen rose.

Torrullin
thumped the table. “This is not altruism - this is diversion! Go
now!” He glared from one to the other, the man hidden in the
Enchanter.

Saska and
Lowen looked towards each other and then vanished within
moments.

“Caballa, you,
Kismet and Krikian to Galilan, ostensibly to oversee the Festival
there. Now.”