The Echolone Mine (76 page)

“Avaelyn is
not Avaelyn as we know it and our house has not seen a sentient
sweep in centuries. The bugs and snakes claimed it as home.”

“Grinwallin is
deserted,” Tristan supplied. “There is no trace of recent
habitation.”

Elianas sucked
his cheeks inward and stared in silence over the city.

“Who has the
power to force us unknowingly into an alternate?” Torrullin
wondered.

Elianas heard
something in that tone. “I did not do this.”

“Am I blaming
you?”

“You think
it’s possible.”

Tristan
cleared his throat. “Let us not argue now, please.”

He was
ignored. “I did not do this, although I will grant anything is
possible.”

Torrullin
stared fixedly at the dark man. “Elianas, sometimes I do not know
you, thus I am not able to judge objectively.”

Elianas raised
a smile colder than the winter stone around them. “You do not trust
me, in other words. You need to know what the sacrifice is before
you reverse that judgment here.”

“Please, we
have other things to think on,” Tristan said.

Again he was
ignored. “Ixion took your wings, didn’t he? Wings you would
normally spread in the planes, wings you would use against me in
battle.”

“No, he did
not take my wings. And, my brother, our battles are about more than
wings.”

“You are
lying, Elianas.”

“I am not. He
did not take them. I gave them freely.”

Utter
silence.

“I gave them
to him to use as a barrier between Ariann and Reaume. It was time
for us to leave Lethe before we did damage in both realm and
reality … more damage.”

Tristan said,
“And to secure me my freedom.”

Torrullin made
a sound in his throat part pain and part disbelief. “And mine.”

“I
relinquished them freely,” Elianas insisted.

Torrullin
jerked his head dismissively. “If that is what you want to believe,
then good for you.” He stepped off the portico and made his way
into the silent city.

Elianas
watched that stiffly retreating form. “He is disappointed.”

“Well, you
thought he might be - that’s why you didn’t want to tell him,”
Tristan murmured. He set off after Torrullin.

The dark man
stared after the two bobbing fair heads and thought it was not
disappointment he feared, it was fury, and the offer of sharing
Torrullin’s wings. He found he was the one disappointed -
disappointed the offer was not forthcoming.

He inhaled
frigid air and lifted his gaze to the gloom laden heavens,
wondering how he could even entertain the notion, and snapped into
awareness when a warm hand settled amid his hair at the nape of his
neck.

Elsewhere
Tristan set up an aimless wander, having seen a different
expression in Torrullin’s eyes as he asked for a few minutes of
privacy with Elianas.

“Why, brother?
Why give them away?”

“I had no
choice.”

“Ah, it was
not freely given.”

Elianas’ dark
eyes were unreadable. “I know you may not hear me, but I made the
choice freely.”

“Why? To save
Tristan? To save me?”

“Tristan would
have been harmed had I hesitated longer, thus, yes, he was part of
the choice, but I knew you would break out eventually. I was not
too concerned about you. Two things I know you cannot forgive, my
brother, and that is standing idly by while your beloved grandson
is tortured and doing nothing to prevent disaster befalling your
beautiful homeworld. I made the choice freely, because I could not
stomach more accusation from you.”

“And what of
this accusation, Elianas? I accuse you of selfishness, of being
afraid of your wings, of not trusting your will and power in our
coming battles.”

“Think what
the fuck you want to. I cannot alter this.”

Torrullin’s
hand was withdrawn, leaving an icy place where warmth was. “Take
mine. I know you can.”

“Why would I
want to?”

“You need
wings, brother, as I do not. Knowing I am Lorinin has somewhat
altered my perceptions.”

Elianas
brought Torrullin’s face close to his, hands clawed on Torrullin’s
shoulders. “Who are you? What game do you play? I need wings? The
only reason I grew mine was because you were too swift for me. I
needed to keep up with you … I see. Today I set the pace.”

“Sometimes.”

“Fuck you,
Torrullin, and do not throw your Lorinin crap into my face. You
have no clue what it is you hold within.”

“You do?”

Elianas fell
into that trap. “Yes!” He blinked, realizing his error, and gave a
rueful laugh. A moment later he released his hold on Torrullin and
stepped away. “It isn’t the act of dumping my wings that cast us in
here, nor is it the Lorinin in you. I suggest we deal with the
matter at hand before we lose sight of everything important in a
quest to know every truth both of us continue to hide in the
recesses of soul, heart and minds.” He pushed Torrullin with one
finger. “What say you?”

Torrullin was
not about to relinquish the upper hand. He closed in on the dark
man and put his hands onto those tense shoulders. He drew him
closer. “Tell me of Lorinin.”

Elianas did
not move. “No.”

“What are you
afraid of?”

“Losing
control.”

“What kind of
control?”

Elianas raised
an eloquent eyebrow.

“Why does that
enter the fray along with the Lorinin enigma?”

“You would
understand when I tell you.”

Torrullin
bored his silver-grey eyes into the dark ones. “How is it you know
of Lorinin?”

Elianas stared
back without blinking. “I am Danae.”

Torrullin
jerked as a loud rumble sounded under Grinwallin, but then it
stilled. “A mighty risk, that.”

“A word of
power has not the same strength in an alternate, yet I admit I am
flattered my name caused a flutter even here. Am I not a creature
of power, my brother?”

Torrullin
closed his eyes briefly and was then fatalistic. “Neat, Elianas.
Fine, whatever.”

“Let us return
to Valaris, for there we may find the clearest clue as to how this
happened. Something used the Syllvan to manipulate the doorway and
knew of a thinness in the spaces there.”

Torrullin
nodded and called out to Tristan.

His voice
carried far in the still air of a forgotten city.

This is a
point and that is a line. This is an angle and that is a circle.
This is an
x
and that is a
y
. Does any of it make
sense?

Anonymous

Valaris

T
he Eastern Range was its usual purple, a colour that
had nothing to do with great distance, and they were familiar old
friends, until Torrullin frowned as he gazed on them.

“Those are the
original shapes, before the undermining caused by Margus. This
plane is less touched by war and catastrophe.”

“Also less
inhabited,” Tristan muttered. “I sense a universal type of
abandonment.”

“Great
civilizations flourished once, as they did in our reality, for
Grinwallin was raised and our home does wait on Avaelyn, and then
came this eerie silencing. This is unnatural,” Elianas murmured.
“Yet there is no sense of waiting and certainly no sense of
watchers. Why here, why now?”

“Yiddin always
says every experience has a lesson inherent in it,” Tristan
supplied. “Now, while I don’t quite see a lesson in lazing about on
a hot day, I do see his point about the paths of our lives, often
travelled without seeing them.” He shrugged and smiled. “A lesson?
Maybe we must be taught something new or something old and
forgotten?”

“More and more
Yiddin sounds like an idiot,” Torrullin muttered.

Elianas raised
a finger. “Perhaps there is a lesson and Yiddin, Torrullin, is not
an idiot. Perhaps it is as simple and as complicated in that we did
this to ourselves.”

Tristan
snorted a laugh. “No way would I do this to myself.”

Elianas
murmured, “We should check the likelihood of sacred sites here, to
establish Valleur presence.”

“I am more
intrigued to see if the Keep stands. It is a recent building and
could tell us something of the time we are in,” Torrullin said.

A low rumble
of sound shuddered the earth underfoot.

Torrullin
looked at Elianas first, who fixated in confusion on a spot near
his feet, and then transferred his gaze to Tristan.

Tristan, this
time, found the more correct answer faster than the other two could
think it through.

“Beware
Digilan,” he breathed.

A sliver of
light tore through the fabric before them, a vertical line that
widened immediately to form a doorway sized opening. Swirling mist
poured out, then giggling sounds, and with it came the movement
that spoke of form on the other side.

It was
Digilan, but this Digilan could be quite different on and in this
plane. Before they could react and prepare, the form beyond in the
swirling mist solidified and stepped through.

As Torrullin
drew an astonished breath, the rectangle that was also portal was
banished by a flick of the visitor’s wrist and the giggling
silenced.

Elianas paled
to a pasty tremble and took a step backward as if retreating from
terrible danger. That slow move set Tristan’s pulses racing; if
Elianas was afraid, then this was something to fear, this creature
that looked so much like his father. He drew a shaking breath to
speak and discovered he had lost the power of speech. Fear caused
retreat, in his case of voice.

Torrullin’s
eyes, contrarily, had lit. “Tymall.”

The man who
looked like Samuel said, “Father.”

Torrullin
stepped closer, eyes hooding as he studied the man before him. He
walked around him and then reached out to touch. As their hands
made contact the blue kinfire sparked and Tymall, Warlock of
Digilan, smiled. His grey eyes lightened in amusement. “How far
will you test before believing?”

Elianas
hissed.

Torrullin came
to rest and took Tymall’s arm in his hands, the left arm. As trebac
sparked he pushed the man’s robe upward to study the skin above the
elbow. A crescent-shaped scar lay depressed there, one both father
and son knew was caused by Margus Darak Or.

“Happy?”
Tymall murmured.

“Son, I am
agog to know how you managed this,” Torrullin laughed.

Father and son
stepped into a tight embrace and then stood grinning idiotically at
each other.

Elianas
cleared his throat. He and Tristan gravitated to together to give
support to rattled psyches. Tymall, here, wherever here was, did
not feel right. Torrullin, both understood, would not agree.

At the sound,
Tymall glanced over his father’s shoulder. His grey gaze flicked
over Elianas and then settled on Tristan. “Remarkable. You are
here. Likeness and likeness.”

Tristan
decided he did not like Tymall. He shrugged and kept quiet.

Tymall
transferred his attention to Elianas. His eyes narrowed when the
dark man stared back. Elianas lost all fear in the reality of
confrontation.

“He is
Elianas, Ty,” Torrullin murmured, his own skin tight with
tension.

“Of course he
is, and he is the Danae. He is partly the reason I have come.”

Tristan
silently lauded the dark man for his confrontational ways, for
Elianas smiled. “Tymall Valla, we meet at last. I have heard much
about you.”

Tymall gave an
underhanded grin. “You are unafraid; I find that enlightening.”

Elianas paced
forward. “I find it enlightening the Warlock of Digilan is here,
having superseded the planes
and
found the right one to exit
into.”

“How is that
enlightening?” Tymall questioned.

“I would wager
the Digilan of this alternate is none the wiser,” Elianas replied.
“That is why you closed the portal fast; they must not know of your
existence here.”

“Very good,
dark man,” Tymall murmured. “I heard how clever you are. Digilan
crosses time in many places. The Danae’s tale has been whispered in
the darker places where the real secrets remain ever hidden. I had
not expected you to be quite so … close … to my father, however.
That is an unknown factor.”

Torrullin’s
eyes shuttered. “Close?”

Tymall gave
the kind of smile that set Tristan’s teeth on edge. “Close, father,
yes. Would you like me to spell it out?”

Torrullin
glanced at Elianas, at Tristan, and then moved to Elianas’ side. It
was a telling gesture, one not lost on anyone there; Torrullin
silently shouted out where his loyalties lay, and would first and
always lie.

“Please
elaborate,” he murmured.

Tymall shook
his head. “I think I have no need to.”

“Then, Ty,
pray tell how you managed this and for which purpose,” Torrullin
said. He loved this son, yes, but was under no illusions either.
Tymall thought first of Tymall every time.

“I intend to,
but would feel more comfortable if we move away from the vicinity
of portal.”

“It cannot be
opened again,” Elianas frowned. “Not to your Digilan.”

“But this
Digilan could pull me in and I would avoid it at every cost. I am
not Warlock there and were I, well, how to best myself? These are
not comforting thoughts.”

“This plane
has been largely abandoned,” Tristan murmured. “I doubt we will
find our other selves here.”

Tymall
squinted at him. “You are not so stupid, Skyler.”

Tristan licked
his lips, but did not otherwise react. Elianas sent him an
understanding wink.

Torrullin
said, “We go to Torrke.”

Torrke

The valley was
wild and spectacular in its untouched beauty, and windswept in
flurries of autumn leaves.