The Echolone Mine (25 page)

All four
periodically tested for return of power, to no avail.

“Endurance
test?” Declan muttered at one stage, but no one bothered to
answer.

More
uncountable hours went by. In another reality day followed night,
and night followed day, many cycles. In the nothingness time could
not be thus measured, but bodies, minds and lack of strength told
the tale. Not a word passed, no extra movement was made, except
once when Torrullin shared Saska’s fruit among them, and each step
was tiny … and giant torture.

Elianas,
surprisingly, surrendered first.

He halted.
Dark, vague eyes turned to the others. “I can do many things, but
this is pointless. I hate pointless.”

“Walk,”
Torrullin said.

“I refuse,”
Elianas said, and dropped wood and torch. Both sank away.

Torrullin
attempted to reach him. “Do not do this.” Elianas started sinking
also.

Elianas
managed a smile. “Come with me.” He sank further.

Torrullin
shoved the pack at Declan and lunged. He caught Elianas as the man
descended to chest level. “Don’t you dare abandon me!” he hissed,
clutching futilely at fabric.

Elianas’ head
disappeared, and then Torrullin, having displaced too much on the
surface, submerged as well. In the treacle their hands connected,
gripped, and they vanished together.

Saska screamed
and dived after them.

Declan swore
and stood over the place, forcing a deliberate sinking. Either he
would drown or survive. The fates would decide.

With no sign
of life, the strange ocean was no more.

Sight was not
lost in the liquid.

Neither
Torrullin nor Elianas could succumb to lack of air, another mercy.
They levered closer, pointed feet downward and sank like arrows
into the treacle. Fast.

Saska’s
momentum brought her into contact with them and Torrullin arrested
her fall, wrenching his shoulder from its socket in the process.
The pain was excruciating, but he held on. She pointed her feet
downward, and discovered she could at least breathe, although it
was a smothering kind of gill-breathe. She would not survive it
long.

Elianas
twisted his head up, seeking Declan. The Siric was bound to follow.
Live or die together, and he wondered whether mortality was a
reality in this strangeness. It was after all the opposite of
everything.

He noticed a
shadow and concentrated, seeing the Siric spiral to achieve faster
motion, and shoved his free hand through the treacle to snag him by
a wing nub as he almost spiralled past. A muscle tore in his arm,
but like to Torrullin, pain was ignored, and he drew the Siric
closer.

Declan,
clearly, was drowning. He pulled him near, and pointed at his
mouth. Declan’s frantic nod indicated he understood, and he opened
his. Elianas leaned in and breathed for him.

In that manner
- Elianas and Declan locked by mouth, Torrullin and Elianas by
hand, and Saska and Torrullin by her arms around his waist - they
sank together, ever swifter.

Green-blue
became green, then yellow, amber, then red, translucent colour that
did not obscure vision and yet intruded in a manner decidedly
uncomfortable.

Saska started
flailing and Torrullin did for her what Elianas did for Declan; he
breathed for her and felt her go limp against him. He could not
hold her with his useless arm and prayed it would end soon.

It did, in a
way.

Treacle gave
way to a less dense substance and they ceased downward motion.
Suddenly they were buoyant, although not much else changed.

They hung
suspended, and Saska understood first.

She took her
mouth from Torrullin’s, took an experimental breath, and found it
was oxygen rich water. She breathed in, out, in, out, clearing her
gills of treacle, and then pointed up. As she breathed her tail
completed, and she flicked it and rose upward.

Almost
immediately she broke surface.

Torrullin
jerked Elianas’ hand and pointed.

Elianas shoved
Declan up and they headed for the surface.

Water suffused
with the scarlet of an alien sky.

Current and
sound. The cry of a gull. And the greatest gift, an island. Saska
and Declan struck out towards the shore where waves broke in
familiar patterns upon a beach. Declan still had hold of the pack
Torrullin shoved at him, but the torches were lost. He did not
care; he was alive, and dry land was near.

Elianas swam
backwards, an arm around Torrullin’s neck, pulling him along. The
man helped as best he could with his good arm.

Declan was
there to aid them from the water. Saska’s tail receded; until her
legs returned she could not move. She sat with her spare breeches
to hand, waiting. Unfortunately her boots were permanently
lost.

On the beach,
heaving, Elianas sat Torrullin up and kneeled before him. With one
hand behind the shoulder as support, he pushed hard. The shoulder
snapped in with an audible sound and Torrullin cried out, and sat
with head hanging, swallowing the sharp agony.

A minute later
all four were asleep, wet and uncaring of danger; the oblivion of
true exhaustion.

How many hours
passed as they slept, nobody knew, but when they awakened nothing
was different.

An ocean of
freshwater lapped at the beach and a red sky glowed. It was not a
sunset sky, and there was no sun. Nothing heralded night or change,
but there were coconut trees and there was wood.

Elianas
started a fire and Declan collected coconuts and pried them open
with his dagger. They sat around a bizarrely purple fire and drank
coconut juice and chewed the pulp slowly.

Only then,
with strength restoring in increments, did they haltingly speak. No
one was in a rush to go exploring and they were certainly in no
hurry to move on.

As Saska put
her pot to boil for coffee, she said, “This doesn’t make sense,
none of it.”

“The only
thing that strikes a chord is that someone saw this place and left
wood and flint to start the journey,” Torrullin said. “We must
assume Avior, and must now respect their foresight.”

Declan sighed.
“Stupid Siric wars.”

“They probably
only saw dark emptiness,” Elianas murmured. He massaged his left
arm where the muscle tore. He lamented the loss of their healing
powers.

“
In the dark will be found
light
,” Torrullin muttered, “but I do not
think that meant wood, torches and flint.”

“
In the light is found
dark
,” Elianas said and squinted up.
“Where?”

“We have had
complete dark and now we suffer continuous light, and in between
was the long walk until we surrendered. It brought change. Where
are the shadows, though?” Saska asked. “Is that not the point? If
you two, or all of us, one of us, can bring shadows into this
mixture … I don’t know, just a thought.”

“A good one,”
Declan said. He cleaned three hollowed shells to add to Saska’s
cup, salivating at the thought of coffee.

“
Everywhere is
shadows
,” Torrullin mused.
“
Is
. Not will be,
not may be. The shadows are here, if Avior saw true.”

“I don’t see
that tree there throwing a shadow,” Saska muttered.

“It is not
physical.”

“Shadows are
never physical.”

Torrullin stared at her. “No, they are not. They cannot be,
not ever. Shadows are alchemical perfection, the two elements of
light and no light combined to form something entirely unique. They
cannot be created, they
are
. The perfect
accident.”

Elianas
glanced at him. “What are you thinking?”

“Remember when
we solidified a lake into pure reflection? It did not work, for we
overlooked the accident that was shadow? We made it to reflect
light, but it reflected nothing …”

“… because to
see yourself clearly you need to see the play of light and dark on
your face. You need shadows to define features. I remember.”

“Yet shadows
are not physical. Light can be felt in heat and dark in cold, but
no one feels a shadow.”

Frowning,
Saska began apportioning coffee and sugar into three coconut shells
and one cup. “I don’t get your point.”

Declan sighed.
“I think I do. We have lost our powers, but you two have lost your
shadow worlds also. In leaving, you are now missing the alchemical
perfection to alter this nothingness.”

“We are
looking at it wrong,” Elianas said. “The rules are opposite here.”
He paused, and his head swung to Torrullin, hair swirling. “In
balance the Path of Shades is within us; therefore, in unbalance we
are within the Path of Shades.”

Torrullin’s
voice was hoarse. “We cannot define anything, for everything here
defines us.”

“Here shadow
is tangible, for it is Shadow.” Elianas stressed the final
word.

Declan
groaned.

About to pour
the hot water, Saska stilled to stare at Torrullin and Elianas.

Elianas
laughed. “Well, well, well. Is this Heart’s Desire?”

Torrullin
paled. “It cannot be like this.”

“Fight in
balance, embrace in unbalance,” Elianas whispered.

Torrullin
closed his eyes.

“Are you
hearing me, Torrullin?” Elianas leaned forward. “Did I not tell you
we should have undertaken this alone?”

“It is too
obvious,” Torrullin said. “Nothing can be obvious here.”

Elianas’ eyes
narrowed and he grew thoughtful. “You could be right.”

Saska poured
the water and wondered if she read it correctly. Embrace the
attraction between them, but to what end? Declan was no help when
she glanced at him and that meant he probably understood exactly
what was under the surface. She set the pot aside and stirred.

The aroma of
coffee wafted up.

“Glare like
that and you will make it disappear,” Torrullin said. “I really
want that coffee.”

She ceased
stirring and handed him a coconut shell.

He took a sip
and sighed appreciatively. She handed the other two shells over,
and they drank, but Saska watched Torrullin until he gave a wry
grin.

Declan finished his coffee. “Thank you, Saska; that was the
best ever.” He set his shell down. “I did not enter the Void and a
three year absence separates my return from the Time realm and your
exit from that Void. I have not seen anything of you since,
Elianas, and you, Torrullin, only briefly when you informed us
Tristan was taking the helm in the Dome. I understand your time in
this era has been weeks rather than years, too short a time to have
resolved anything.” He drew breath before continuing. “I think the
attraction between you lies in power, unequivocal, unassailable
and
sole
power.
You want what he has, Torrullin, and you want what Torrullin has,
Elianas. You desire above all else to own each other.”

Saska frowned,
and then read the truth in them.

“Go on,”
Elianas said, eyes glittering.

Torrullin was
expressionless.

“It is an
unholy craving; therefore it translates as attraction that rules
the mind, heart and soul … and body. You both play the game, are
aware it will destroy you, and thus you fight and that, naturally,
intensifies the situation.” Declan paused.

Torrullin
remained wordless, but Elianas murmured, “Say the rest of it,
Siric.”

Declan
inclined his head. “Very well. You are equal in power, which makes
you brothers in a way few understand, and sets you in opposition in
a manner highly destructive. Balance and unbalance, and you are the
shadows that bind them.” He leaned forward. “Control negates the
attraction, therefore you seek to control the other’s power.”

“Torrullin?”
Saska whispered.

“Declan is
right,” he responded without inflection.

“You omit the
crucial factor,” Elianas prompted.

The Siric
sighed. “Perhaps it isn’t wise to put words to it.”

Torrullin’s
hand clamped onto Elianas’ shoulder. “It is not wise.”

Elianas turned
those same glittering eyes on him. “Wisdom is for old men on their
deathbeds. You and I cannot die, thus wisdom escapes us.”

“You cannot
own each other,” Declan said, “and thus it will be a matter of a
winner and a loser. Someone would control, the other submit. It
destroys brotherhood, friendship, shared experiences, your future
and hope of peace. And I doubt you would overcome attraction. You
have had too much time together; it will live on in your minds and
that will be what really destroys you.”

“Declan?”
Saska whispered. “How would they control each other’s power?”

Elianas said,
“Unwise.”

Saska sucked
at her teeth, and then, “If we are within the Path of Shades, then
unwise is to keep quiet.”

Declan’s eyes
flickered.

“We would have
to sleep together,” Elianas murmured.

“One would
have to dominate and the other submit,” Torrullin amended. “And
what we have is sundered.”

“Two men,”
Saska murmured. “The nature of the act is one of submission and
domination.” Even in the alien light her high colour was
evident.

Elianas
snorted a laugh. “Big dilemma.”

Saska leaned
nearer as if to share a secret. “Do you want to?”

Torrullin did
not look away. “Before Elianas appeared in the Throne-room of
Akhavar, I would not have thought so. When I still knew who I was a
long time ago, I would have said yes out of spite and a desire to
hurt him as badly as I could. Before my memory returned, I would
have laughed it off, and tried to spare his feelings. Now? I cannot
answer, for I do not know where truth and lie divides.”