Step over the threshold at your peril!
The real truth about the Valleur through the ages is uncovered when exploiters delve the green hills of Echolone for gold. After an ancient door is discovered in the bowels of the earth, it serves to unmask the hidden power Elianas carries within, a power that places him on the same pedestal Torrullin, as Elixir, already inhabits.
The two men swerve through different realms unravelling what now lies between them and every step reverberates in reality. As loved ones pay the ultimate price, old enemies again step forward to challenge their right to rule, particularly Nemisin, First Father of the Valleur.
Nemisin desires above all else to be the One and will do everything in his power to wrest the title from Torrullin, even using his daughter against Elianas, thereby unsettling a powerful partnership. In this he is not alone, for Tymall, Warlock, seeks to sunder that connection as well.
In a time when all seers’ visions and dreams cease, revelations are given to those who have never before experienced them at the site of a mysterious door in a mine. Here is a mystery and it requires solving, but the answers will change the future, in reality and realms.
Greed is able to create massive chaos. It will unbalance everything. Delving deep is able to construct fissures in time. It will release hidden truth.
It will also shatter sacred space.
Chapter
1
“Ten years of study (sorcery) has taught me this truth. Do not assume
what you see is the only reality. Everything can be manipulated, even time … and
particularly the perception of tangibles.”
~ From Le Matt Dalrish’s diary
Somewhere
THE AMBER-SKINNED man with his flowing dark hair and the golden-toned one with fair tresses attracted no attention on the beach. They certainly were something to draw the eye in appreciation. Stripped down to a loincloth each, they wandered in the surf soaking up the sun. For them it had been cold too long, and sunshine was the gift of the present. They did not speak much, and often wandered far apart.
Fact was,
there was no other on the beach to see or hear them, and that was how they
preferred it.
There
remained unoccupied worlds where paradise was a siren song, and this was one of
those. Numbered perhaps XT 492 on parallel 365W 684S, it was a world removed
from most, a number somewhere in a logbook - maybe.
The two
men had been in paradise for ten days - the almighty ten of other surpassingly
strange journeys - and ate off the land, slept under the stars and soaked up
the heat during the day. They said little, for words were not required;
recharging minds suffered under the weight of words.
The time arrived,
however, to move on. The time for words was again at hand. An interlude was
just that - a period between other events - and time did not stand still, and
people - others - did not wait forever.
ELIANAS HAD WANDERED
far, lost to view and his thoughts, but when he returned with seaweed and
coconuts in hand, he found Torrullin inserting long legs into black breeches. He
dropped his bounty, and Torrullin looked up.
“It is time to go,” Torrullin
said.
“I see that. Did something set
you off?”
An amused smile blossomed on the fair
man’s tanned face. “No. I just think if we do not leave, sunshine will do for
me what storms do for you.”
Elianas drew a breath. It was the
first real admission in ages. Yet the hidden parts of him recognised it could
be wishful thinking. Torrullin often spoke impulsively. He would not easily sunder
brotherhood by taking a step closer to a truth unacknowledged. He strolled to
the fallen log where they discarded clothes ten days ago. That had been fraught
with tension, until the rhythm of paradise soothed wounded feelings.
Now getting dressed was the
stranger act. Elianas turned his back, removed his loincloth to shake the sand
out, and reluctantly drew the confining breeches on. He did not bother arguing
for staying; in his heart he knew also it was time to move on.
A moment later he virtually left
his skin when Torrullin’s arm brushed against his back as he moved to retrieve
his tunic. He glanced over his shoulder to see Torrullin, grinning, emerge from
the garment. Irritated, he snatched up his own and dragged it over his head.
“Relax, Elianas. We cannot be
self -conscious now.”
“Bugger off, will you?”
“It’s not as if I haven’t seen
you naked …” Torrullin laughed when he landed on his back. “Oh, come on!”
“You are playing with me.”
“I am making light of an
uncomfortable situation.” Torrullin found a perch on the log to put his boots
on.
Elianas joined him to do the
same, muttering, “Who the hell invented clothes? This is too constricting.” He
pulled the neck of his tunic wide, craning his chin forward.
“It was made to cover men far too
beautiful for their own good,” Torrullin murmured.
Elianas grinned, taking the
compliment in his stride. “Not women?”
“We are by far the prettier
species,” Torrullin laughed.
Elianas gave him a taunting once
over. “I guess you could call yourself pretty, yes.”
He earned a cuff to the back of
the head, and then Torrullin stood to buckle on his sword belt. As the scabbard
bounced against his thigh, he said, “We must acquire you a blade.”
“My thoughts also. First a decent
bath to wash the sand and sun from my hair.”
“And they say women are vain.”
“Yours needs the whole treatment,”
Elianas grinned.
“Yltri’s hot springs? That way we
remain removed from people.”
“Good. You lead, I follow.”
Broken coconut shells lay in a
pile under the largest palm tree and Elianas’ bounty was discarded on the
beach, but other than footprints, there was nothing to show they had been
there. With regret, they left.
Fortani
AFTER A SWIM and hair scrubbing in the springs of Yltri, they headed to Fortani, where Torrullin knew a master blacksmith, a man with a flair for the perfect blade, who knew how to match sword and man together. They spent three hot hours in the forge as blade after blade was presented, examined, tested and discarded.
Finally successful, they headed
towards the nearest lake, this time cold water, to dive the sweat away. After,
they sat on the bank redoing bootlaces for the third time that day.
“When have you last wielded a
sword?” Torrullin asked.
“Literally ages,” Elianas
replied.
He hefted the new blade and rose
to take practice swings. Then he squared off towards Torrullin, jiggling his
eyebrows. Smirking, Torrullin withdrew Trezond, and they commenced the ancient
dance of swordsmen.
Metal clashed upon metal and
grunts and gasps kept pace. Torrullin eventually disarmed Elianas, standing
heaving with his blade at the man’s neck.
“Not bad, my brother. A good
workout.”
Elianas pushed the blade aside. “Now
I need another swim.”
Boots and all they jumped in and employed
magic after to dry themselves again.
STILL ON FORTANI,
they discovered an out of the way inn and stopped there for a proper meal. Four
old men sat at a table in a far corner and thus they had space to talk. Over
duck, vegetables and wine they discussed where to go next.
“I have been thinking,” Elianas
began. “We have had time aplenty between us, and yet we always focused on the
main events. We missed the by-play.”
Torrullin lifted an eyebrow,
prepared to be amused.
“I am not joking. Always it is
this evil or that task. It was family scandal, future concerns, past mistakes and
so forth. We never stood still long enough to see around us. Take Beacon, for
example. I know you have been there, and I know I have been there, although not
at the same time, and what were we doing? I was following a clue, swiftly in, swifter
out. You were probably about some diplomacy, and what did we see?”
“A giant city-world?”
“Right. First impression, only
impression.”
“Your point?”
“Once Beacon was empty, and then
settlers came. Who were they, how long ago did they arrive and what made them
so special they took to the skies? What did they revere? What magic of those
early years remains? Beacon may be a bad example, but there are other
civilisations on other worlds, each with something unique, some ancient spark, and
that is magic. We have walked by unseeing. We may have learned something new or
strange or entirely profound, funny, insane, and we did not. Books do not tell
us everything.” Elianas pointed a finger. “You wanted to go travelling when you
came to say goodbye on Mariner Island, Torrullin.”
“Instead, we landed up in
paradise together.”
Elianas’ eyelids flickered, but
he said nothing.
Torrullin was thoughtful. “World
to world, travelling archaeologists? I like it.”
Elianas leaned forward. “We have
a new future and our past is now adrift. We live at the same time in the same
space. This is our time and place now. We should know the past of the
present as others know it. We are no longer about redemption and bloodlines.”
“You suspect if we research the
past not influenced by the Valleur, we may find our personal future is not
clouded.”
“I hate not seeing what is
coming. Yes, I hope research is more than interest.”
“Why, Elianas? Gods, for once we do
not have to look over our shoulders every minute, or stress about what comes
next.”
Elianas placed a hand flat on the
table. “You think eating and buying a sword roots us? You think touching this
old piece of wood here makes us real? We are swerving spaces, Torrullin, and we
have no purpose. What will we do? Skirt around this hefty question and intent
between us until we drive each other mad?”
“Ten tension free days meant
nothing?”
“It meant everything, but
now we must move on or it will
mean nothing soon. And it wasn’t tension free.”
A smile acknowledged that. “I
guess not.”
“Why not start with Beacon?”
Torrullin pulled a face. “I hate
Beacon.”
“More reason. If we find
something there, where is the limit? We may even discover new respect for
Beaconites.”
“I doubt it, but I get your
point.”
“Fine. You lead, I follow.”
Torrullin wondered what the real purpose was, but he owed Elianas far more than the man owed him. He thumped the table. “Innkeeper, how many coins are due?”
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