The Dreamer Stones (72 page)

Marcus nodded,
but as he rose to follow the Valleur, he grabbed a hunk of bread,
muttering, “For Tinker, may still be hungry …”

Declan entered
the atmosphere with the aid of the duplicate Taliesman, coming
through where he reckoned his signature would be minimal - the
Valla Palace in the west, where magic abounded in the form of
protective enchantments.

It was the
middle of night on Valaris and the air was frigid. Patches of
starlight showed, but it was dark enough to stumble in, therefore
the Siric entered the unlit Palace carefully. No one would be
inside, all Valleur having answered the Vallorin’s summons to
Torrke.

His caution
probably saved his life.

He halted in
the Throne-room. He was definitely not alone, and it was not a
Valleur presence. A shadowy figure sat on the wooden throne
watching him. Had he come barging in, his head might now be rolling
upon the tiled floor.

“Who’s there?”
he called out, fingers curling.

A chuckle.
“Agnimus, Siric.”

Declan went
cold. How? “You’re intruding.”

“That is of no
consequence. I knew you would return using the Valla remnants here.
I knew when he fashioned the Dragon Taliesman.”

“Who?”

“Tymall,
idiot. He made it to enter Luvanor unseen, but it appears to work
as well on this sealing. Pretty little device, and useful, but
traceable.”

His shadowy
figure rose, rustling. With a cat’s silent tread, Agnimus
approached.

“They are gone
now, did you know? The Valleur of Valaris. Well, three left, and
one of those is dispatched to Luvanor. Surprise there, for he went
through the seal without Taliesman or Throne - I’d like to know how
- and, of course, if he can get out, he may return with an army of
Golden. There are more Valleur there than ever were here and that
is why I await you here, Siric. I can’t allow you to find our
doorway, not after what I witnessed Elixir do this day. A
formidable enemy he has become.”

“You’re
bringing more draithen.”

“I am forced
to, am I not? Ah, but you weren’t here. Shall I tell you then what
occurred in your absence?”

“Please do,”
Declan muttered, a feeling of dread settling into the pit of his
stomach that had nothing to do with the struggle between the two of
them here.

Agnimus lifted
something - the staff, Declan realised - and pointed it.

Light from
wall sconces illuminated the Throne-room, leaving the curving
staircases on either side in shadows. The long, starred cloak hung
casually from his shoulders and under it he was simply clad in dark
grey. Taranis always said grey was the best colour of concealment.
His face, however, was the focal point that drew the Siric’s
attention.

A darkling
face, with a few subtle differences, and some not so subtle. Like
the blood ever visible in a darkling face, due to nearly
transparent skin. His eyes were blue, but a pale colourless blue
flecked with red. He was not pure darkling. Perhaps the inner
soltakin brought mammalian blood, although it did not add up, for a
soul had nothing tangible to bring. His eyes made the most impact,
however.

Declan
returned to those eyes as the creature moved in the shadowy light
and more was revealed. The left was the blue colourless orb of a
darkling, this one flecked with red, while the right was revealed
as a vivid, beautiful blue. Like Margus’.

There was a
rumour about this creature being blood of the Darak Or - how?

Then there was
his hair. Darklings were hairless, soltakin formless, and Agnimus
had thick golden hair. This creature was not just part-darkling,
part-soltakin, he was also part-human and maybe something else.
Part-Valleur, Declan thought with a jolt. Good god.

“You’re the
first to see me in many a year, Siric. This final form came about
after the soltakin indwelling - kind of a mixed bag.” Agnimus
smiled, revealing white teeth. He was not transparent everywhere
then, for his teeth were invisible until he smiled.

“Tymall saw
you.”

“Tymall saw a
hooded cloak and looked no further. Never mind him; time speeds by
and I have a tale to tell.” He retreated to the Throne and sat.
“Allow me to begin with a statement. Today Torrullin became
Elixir.”

No one knew
what it meant to be Elixir, but the Kaval speculated it could make
Torrullin an exceedingly dangerous individual.

“Ah,” Agnimus
sounded, “I see it scares you. Someone should’ve bound him, but
whom? Who is more than he is now? Let us move on. This is truth,
Siric - Torrullin rent time this day and killed and vanished my one
million draithen.”

“I cannot find
sympathy,” Declan said, feeling relieved but for the knot in his
gut.

“Personally, I
think that kind of power should be enough to ring every warning
bell in the universe, but he went further. He also killed and
vanished a few thousand humans, all those within the confines of
the valley Torrke, as well as a few hundred Valleur.”

“Dear gods,
you said three left? That’s all?”

“Three Valleur
and Tymall, his genetic equal Samuel, and the seer woman.” Agnimus
shrugged. “Now you see why I need to keep you from the shift. I
shall be calling in others.”

Declan was
quiet and then, “I cannot let you do so.”

Agnimus
grinned ferally. “I know.”

The element of
surprise. Who would make the first move?

Declan did. As
his fingers released bolts of power, his wings spread out. The tips
angled forward to release poison darts and from his mouth came the
arcane words of power. Agnimus reeled back under the unexpected
onslaught, but only for a moment, before he lifted the staff to
deflect the darts, without having to try too hard.

He spoke and
the cloak swirled about him like a shield, and served to obscure
him from his attacker. The cloak, when used as a tool, was more
than mere material, of course, and began to hum, a tune Declan
recognised. An ancient rhythm drew on the fabric of evil to
destruct anything in its path. It could be tailored to a foot in
circumference, or many leagues wide. Which exactly the draithen
employed then did not matter. What did matter was that he needed to
deflect it, or die.

It was a Murs
Siric trick, that rhythm, and he had encountered it many times.

Without
thinking, Declan reached for the inner well of the Lumin Siric and
released the force field defence.

Agnimus cursed
when his doom proved ineffectual, although there was a smirk of
satisfaction also when the wooden throne behind him exploded into a
million pieces and the staircases on either side imploded with
barely a sound, sending mortar dust to billow out everywhere. A
further obscuring, but now it worked to Declan’s advantage as
well.

In the tiny
increments available to him before Agnimus latched onto a new
trick, the Siric summoned magical mist loaded with the dust of the
destroyed stairs. He lowered his voice three octaves until it was
so low, had he shouted the words erupting would still have been
incomprehensible, and issued forth an old ensorcelment, one he
learned from the Sagorin aeons back and never used.

Agnimus
coughed and then words came from him, but he was seconds too late.
The mortar-filled mist coalesced swiftly into a powdery column,
enveloping the draithen leader, who in the gloom did not yet see
anything untoward. While he spoke the words, his voice rising in
preparation for the release, the column commenced a vicious
spinning, ever faster, and a sound like howling wind drowned out
other sound. Whether Agnimus spoke or had ceased in recognising a
change in advantage, Declan could not tell, did not care, just
pitched his voice even lower …

A spinning
hurricane, narrow like the creature it enveloped, growing narrower
by the moment … .tick, tick, tick … poof.

The
ensorcelment dissipated, and with it, Agnimus.

Declan smiled
briefly and then got out of there. He doubted the draithen came to
harm, had merely been removed to another place. He would be back,
perhaps in a moment or two. He paused in the open space between
Palace and garden and tossed the Dragon Taliesman high, heard it
fall somewhere onto the first floor beyond the broken stairs to the
left -
follow that, idiot
- and then he vanished.

As he went, he
thought Agnimus would be hard to stop and harder to kill.

Chapter
Fifty-Eight

Oh dear, oh
dear, how do you fix this, my friend?

Tattle

Month of
Dormire

The one moment
he was asleep, the next fully aware and awake.

For the first
instant he was astonished he had slept, recalling clearly the
previous day’s hell, and then he wondered what awakened him.

A stirring,
echoes of a recent battle, one fought nearby.

Valla Palace,
Valla Island - Agnimus and Declan. It was over. He slept through
it.

His confusion
then was for the present, as he tried to remember where he was.
Frowning, he gazed through the wind-stirred cotton tassels covering
an unglazed opening. It was dark out and yet there was light also.
Dawn, or near dawn.

A soft sigh at
his side, and he knew where he was and who he was with.

Groaning
inaudibly, Torrullin sat up and put his head in his hands. He was
with Lowen. Gods, Lowen. His nemesis.

Was this how
she sundered him?

He brought
them to this place he knew was deserted of people and threat of
draithen.

Danak, Western
Isles, beautiful city by the sea, in the sea, poetic, romantic …
and none of that featured. What counted was absolute privacy. The
privacy was not to hide what would come to pass from others; he
needed it to deal with Lowen.

The building
was on a rise and overlooked the ocean. Palms threw shade in summer
and blew unearthly music in winter. Colourful geraniums flowered in
abandoned window boxes, despite desertion, despite the cold.

She looked up
and nodded. “No one here,” she said. “Perfect.”

He had her
clasped loosely in his arms and stepped away. A last opportunity to
prevent this, to change his mind and hers, to reach for that
elusive well of second chances that ever assailed him … and which
he invariably ignored.

“Lowen.”

She moved her
head and her eyes were feverishly bright when she looked at him.
“Torrullin, I’ve beat at the fates countless times. I can’t do
more.”

“Everything
changes, Lowen. Surely, this fate also?”

She inhaled
deeply and then, “I don’t want to change this.”

By all gods,
her words mirrored, exactly, what he thought. He did not want to
change it either. He reached out blindly then, entangled his
fingers in her dark hair and brought her mouth to his, kissing her
as if he were gasping air and life into suffocating lungs. When her
nails dug into his back, he lifted her closer to him and then
transported them into the upper bedchamber.

She gasped a
laugh and then she tore at his clothes, her eyes so intent it
raised shivers inside his skin as well as out.

A perfectly
made bed cushioned them as they careened onto it in blind seeking
of skin.

It was soon
tangled, proof of an epic battle of personality.

They had made
love more times in a few hours than should be possible - possible,
and still have the ability to enjoy each venture more than the
preceding one.

It was as if
they waited too long and dared not allow a second to escape.

He groaned
again, and climbed naked from the twisted sheets to walk to the
window. Gooseflesh assailed every part of him as the cold of winter
made itself known after the heat of the night.

Gods, he would
rather think of the weather, anything to avoid thinking of the
night passed. He would rather think of the void in time, and what
that caused, than this.

She had
returned to him the ability to feel.

Avoidance, he
knew, was just another way of feeling.

He turned
around.

She was not
Cat, not in how she felt in his hands, not in how she reacted to
him. Lowen was unique. All of her had been there for him in the
dark, not merely skin, lips, hands, but heart, soul and mind. Gods,
her mind. He was as entranced by the act of love as by the
sensations in her mind. It was akin to losing himself in another
dimension.

She was not
Cat in how she looked, lying there in the semi-dark. Dark hair,
yes, but that was the only similarity. Lowen, even in sleep, had
body language. Confident, scarily honest and unafraid.

She was not
Cat in what she caused him to feel.

Yet he did not
know exactly what he felt.

He looked
away.

She mumbled
then, opening her eyes slowly, stretching, and then snapping them
wide when she saw him standing there, naked and thinking.

“Oh,” she
said.

His head swung
back to her, fair hair lifting in the breeze. “Oh, indeed. Mortal
sin, Lowen.”

“What of
Immortal?”

Her mind was
speaking to him again, calling. A siren song.

He surrendered
to it.

Returning to
the bed, he watched her eyes watch him. Clambering onto it, hands
and knees over her, trapping her, he stared down. “I have acted on
what has been in my mind.”

“How long has
it been in your mind?”

His lips
lowered to hers. “You don’t want to know.”

“That long,”
she sighed, and claimed his mouth in a deep kiss.

Saska had ever
been fire and Cat mirrored that. Lycea had been desperation born of
Valleur blood, half and half to make a whole.

Lowen was
something else. She was a slow-burning fuse. The heat was deep,
insidious and unquenchable. She was deliberate and impulsive at the
same time, destructive and creative. She was as many-facetted as he
was, and he wondered if he could ever truly know who she was.