The Nemisin Star (49 page)

She opened
lucid normal eyes, so startlingly blue.

When she saw
who bent over her, recollection of what she regarded as a dream
flooded back, and she gripped Quilla’s thin arms. “Quilla, you must
do something, it’s up to you ,you must listen to me, you must!”

Cat and Skye
rushed to her side, pulled her clawed fingers from Quilla and
attempted to pacify her, but she fought them off and snarled at
them to leave her alone.

She shouted at
Quilla, “You must listen!”

The birdman
caught her flailing hands and held them, gazing into her eyes.
“Lowen, listen to my voice. I believe you have had a foretelling
dream and you will be telling me about it, I promise. But. First.
You. Must. Be. Very. Calm. Do you hear me?”

She sagged,
sobbing dry heaves, and nodded.

“Good girl,”
Quilla soothed and drew her into his arms. He lifted her face and
smiled at her. “It is never easy to see the future, love. An
advanced age such as these old bones can take it in stride, and
even then it is sometimes hard to accept.”

“It wasn’t
like a dream, it was real. I could smell and taste and touch, but I
could stop nothing.”

Quilla had the
distinct feeling he would not like what she saw. “Come to my
private chambers and we can talk about it.”

She gave a
relieved smile and wiped her tear-streaked face.

“We’ll come
with you.” Cat said.

Skye shook her
head. “It will be too stressful for her, we would kind of give the
impression of disbelief. Torrullin once told me only another seer
could properly hear a vision. That is why Caballa goes to him and
that is why Lowen can approach him easier than either of us is able
to.” Skye smiled to take the sting out of her words. “Lowen should
go with Quilla alone.” She added to the girl, “We’ll be here if you
need us.”

“Thanks, Skye.
I’ll be okay, Cat.”

Quilla focused
on something else. He beckoned Skye closer. “Torrullin is a seer?
He admitted this?”

“Yes.”

Quilla smacked
his forehead. “Now he begins to make sense.” He mumbled about being
ignorant when it was right before him, and led Lowen away.

When they had
gone Cat sat on the bed, her expression disconsolate. “You are
right; he does treat her as an equal.”

Skye sat
beside her and placed an arm around the woman’s slender shoulders.
“Don’t begrudge her it; it isn’t easy.”

“It’s not her,
Skye - it’s that he can’t treat me like that.”

Skye sighed.
“The fault is not yours.”

Nobody visited
Quilla’s private chambers.

Lowen’s eyes
rounded, first in amazement and then in delight.

The floor
rippled in silvery waves, initially disconcerting, and then restful
and natural, as if one’s attention became more focused. The walls
were pale green, blue and yellow, a pastel kaleidoscope that drew
the eye to far vistas in one’s soul. The first impression was
contradictory, before lost connections were brought together. What
the eye beheld, the soul transformed, and what the soul transformed
in turn altered the eye’s perceptions, alchemy entirely
comforting.

Lowen was
immediately refreshed and her fear dropped away.

“Awesome,” she
breathed, to which Quilla chuckled. No one used quite that term to
describe anything Q’lin’la. She followed him to a pile of cushions,
all white, scattered about a low round table. There was no other
furniture in the chamber; two arches left and right left to other
intriguing spaces.

“Are you
thirsty, hungry?” he asked, sitting and fluttering his wings into
position.

“Maybe a
little water.”

He waved his
hand over the low table and a pitcher of cold, sweet water
appeared, along with two tall glasses and napkins. Quilla poured
and handed one to her. She drank and helped herself to a second,
drinking that also.

“Thank you,”
she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Lowen, the
first thing you need remember is that I am not judging whether you
had a vision or merely a frightening dream. I know you had a
vision. And any Valleur will tell you a dream can be a vision
anyway. The next thing you need to know is I am not going to
ridicule anything you say, but you must trust me to ask questions.
This will allow me to decipher those images. And, last, do not hold
back. Remember that often the most horrific images are simply
symbolic.”

She shook her
head. “No symbolism. Reality.”

He drew a
faint breath, respecting her analysis. She endured a childhood that
was strange, to say the least, with no external interaction. The
result was she lived in her mind, with a father who sounded as
complicated as the Enchanter, a man who no doubt painted pictures
of a different world and life with eloquent and descriptive words.
Lowen possessed a vivid imagination, was highly intuitive, and
introspective without being withdrawn.

She analysed
others unconsciously, herself not least, and saw factors hidden to
most. Hers was a well-trained mind, mature, and her youth was an
advantage, for she was not familiar with the drawbacks of adult
prejudice.

“Start
whenever you are ready,” Quilla prompted.

Her hands
fiddled restlessly and, frowning, she hid them under the table,
where she gripped them together. Quilla’s eyes were comforting,
patient, and she relaxed. Her eyes rolled back in her head.

Lowen returned
to the vision and did not merely draw from memory - it was a rare
talent. This was clearly not the first time she experienced
something like this, for returning to the images did not frighten
her.

Maybe her
father helped her and that would explain some about that particular
man. Matt was not the only Dalrish with magical talent.

Quilla dared
not interrupt. Questions would hold for when she was done.

“I was in
Torrke the valley looking back at the Keep as I walked the stone
road. I felt I had to leave, although it was lovely, green with the
snow gone. It lay in the past, and as I looked, missing it
terribly, I saw a bright flash, like ten suns coming together to
shine in one small space, and I was blind but could see. I saw the
mountains around the valley melt and run like water into the grass
and everything turned black and ugly and became like glass, but
harder than rock. It was hot and getting hotter, and a force rushed
out like a wave of burning air, and I couldn’t breathe. I ran and
couldn’t move. I screamed, but nothing could stop it, and I tried
to wake up, but it was no dream. I would die if I stayed, but there
was nothing I could do.

“I could move
my head and as I looked down I saw hundreds of people, golden skins
and they were naked, accusing me with their eyes, crawling towards
me, begging me to save them, begging me to fetch the man who would
change the valley back into the past. I turned from them, disgusted
and frightened, and looked out of the valley, hoping there was a
way out, and I saw the real sun setting, but it was insignificant
compared to the brightness and I knew I was looking west.

“I couldn’t
move and wanted to die, before the wave reached me, and as I was
about to give up I saw green islands in the west, far across the
water, but close, beckoning to me, begging me to run, to lift
people from death and to run, run, run … and then you came flying
past from the terrible black glass Keep, and you held your hand
out, and I knew I could trust you to save us, and I took your
hand.

“We flew into
the west and on a big island I saw my father smiling, nodding as if
I’d done something good. I looked back and knew it was the past I
was trying to see, and there was no big land, only black islands of
glass, like a barrier keeping us away from everything.”

She was silent
then and her eyes returned to normal.

“If we don’t
go into the west we’re going to die in Torrke. It will be burned by
something so hot that all will be black glass.”

Quilla was
silent for quite a time, eyes downcast. Only his hands moved;
little gestures as if emphasising points.

Lowen did not
mind, sitting patiently in the silence. It gave her time to think,
and her father told her the greatest compliment another could pay
you was to take time to reflect on something you said.

“Do you know
what a bomb is, Lowen?” Quilla asked after a while. “Of course you
do; it is partly the reason Xenians inhabit domes. It sounds as if
you describe that, but I know of no such device on Valaris, and the
skies are now closed to offworlders. I do not see it.”

“Torrullin’s
power.”

“I thought
that, but not even the Enchanter can do so. He could shatter
mountains, but nothing he loosed would melt them, and I doubt the
Darak Or could either. I must be overlooking something; maybe
Torrullin will know.” Quilla sighed. “But, before I attempt to
unravel the how and why, I think we need deal with consequences.
The Valleur are obviously in great danger if they remain in Torrke
and that has to include the city due to proximity. We need to
convince them to leave, which will be no easy task. Pig-headed
bunch.”

“If we delay
it will be too late,” Lowen said.

“The Valleur
are steeped in history and Torrke is now part of that. They had to
leave much behind and now we must ask them to do so again. They
will balk, and this time the Throne is …” Quilla paused, his face
changing. “The Throne.” He was silent again and then, “Physical
receptacles are dangerous, have I not proven it over and over? And
this receptacle beats all.”

“Quilla?”

“Sorry, my
dear, I tend to think aloud sometimes. I suspect the Valleur Throne
could cause what you saw; Torrullin can answer to that. The next
question is whether there would be radiation afterward and how long
before it is safe to return to the area? And how far would the
damage reach out, do we need to evacuate more than the Valleur. Oh,
that is many questions …”

Lowen shook
her head. “We need to ask why my father was in my vision.”

Quilla had the
ability to recall another’s words verbatim. Raising his hand to ask
her forbearance, he sifted through what she recounted. “Begging you
to fetch the man who could change the valley back into the past,
that is what you said. Lowen, what does your father do?”

“He is the
Crime Lord of …”

“No, dear,
besides that. That is what he was forced to become, but has he ever
told you what he did before, when he was a member of Xen’s First
Family?”

“He was a spy
like Matt, but that is not it, is it?” She shook her head and
whispered, “I don’t know.”

“Yet some
force knows and works through you. Do not be worried; if I was to
guess I would say the Light is the culprit and that is never bad
for anyone, hmm?”

She
smiled.

The birdman
rose. “You and I are off to see Torrullin and then we shall do
whatever it takes to bring your father to Valaris.”

Her face lit
with stars.

The Keep

Torrke was
deserted barring the Keep’s four inhabitants when Quilla brought
Lowen to Torrullin in the dead of night.

The only light
on was in his study.

“Lord, Quilla,
this time of night?” Torrullin muttered when he saw the birdman had
Lowen in tow.

“It’s quiet
here, so dark,” Lowen whispered.

“It seems, my
dear, he has already evacuated,” Quilla murmured. Louder he said,
“Torrullin, we have something to tell you and it cannot wait.”

Saska, curled
up asleep in one of the armchairs beside the fire, awakened to the
sound of voices. Vannis and Tristamil stirred on a pair of pallets
they dragged in earlier, having unanimously decided to stay
together. Torrullin’s study had taken on a bedroom aspect, but its
owner did not sleep. He was reading Taranis’ diary and secreted it
when Quilla and Lowen arrived.

“Is it
Mitrill?” Tristamil frowned.

“Your wife is
fine,” Quilla murmured. “Asleep.”

“Lowen?”
Torrullin led her to the other armchair next to the fire.

“I’m okay …
had a vision, is all,” she grinned, although there was anxiety in
her gaze.

“Really?”
Torrullin murmured, bending over her as he pulled her chair closer
to the blaze.

“Is it
okay?”

“I think it is
never okay, sweetheart, although I am sure Quilla put you at your
ease.”

“He was great.
I like him.”

“So do I,”
Torrullin grinned. “And he knows it, too, tries to boss me
around.”

She laughed
and stretched her hands to the fire.

Torrullin
straightened with a questioning look at the birdman.

“Bona fide,
Enchanter, and you had better take heed. By the way, young Skye
revealed something interesting to me this night.”

Tristamil’s
lips tightened.

Torrullin
perched on his desk, keeping both Lowen and the others in his field
of vision.

She tells me
you are a seer, Enchanter.

Surely you
knew that, Q’li’qa’mz?

Quilla
snorted.
No, you idiot. You never spoke of it.

How many times
have I mentioned I have foreseen this, that or the other in my
future … to you specifically?

A silence.
I thought you were intuitive. You could have told me.

Torrullin
spoke aloud, “You have our attention, Quilla.”

Father, what
did Skye reveal?

That I am a
seer.

Tristamil
looked away.

Quilla
clucked, the sound that meant displeasure, and looked to Lowen. “I
think young Lowen should do the telling.”

She did, using
a different word here and there, this time without eye-rolling
recall. Her memory had absorbed the necessary.

Torrullin was
wordless after - they all were - and his gaze briefly flickered
over his son.