The Sleeper is Awake
Two thousand
years have passed since the epic explosion in what is now called the Black
Valley. Torrullin is in the invisible realms and the Darak Or is with him, and
the universe enjoys a time of unprecedented peace.
A new threat
rises on the cursed horizon.
It is time
for the Sleeper Sword to awaken.
Ready to
return to Valaris, Torrullin cannot exit the otherworld without aid. Samuel is his
kinsman, his fate forged to the greatest sorcerer the cosmos has ever known. He
swears to hold his hand out to Torrullin, to aid him home.
The old
players gather for a renewal of the fateful games. This time the duel between a
father and son will wound many, including Valla kin. Torrullin needs to build a
relationship with his grandson Tannil, save Fay from hell, rescue Saska from
captivity, and find the means to end Tymall. Their contest will reverberate
through the spaces.
In an
endless adventure of urgency and drama, the on-going saga of Torrullin’s role
as saviour is as a sharp as the sword he reclaims and as blunt as his acerbic
tongue. Wherever he goes someone will be hurt. To love him is to be ruined, to
hate him is to be ruined.
Perhaps true
catharsis lies in the realm of dreams.
CHAPTER 10
How to begin anew when hope is sundered? How to
lift a head when life has no meaning? Why is it this hard to feel? Someone,
please, throw disaster and suffering at me … I need to feel!
~ A cry
of despair from the last Malnas
Luvanor
Atrin Continent
Near the Academia of Truth
CALTIAN KNELT BEFORE the grave. He was sad, for Key-ler was a true
friend. His fingers trailed over the recently lowered slab. Mischievous,
practical, impulsive and clever Key-ler.
The
rotund Brother who aided him two millennia ago when he, Caltian, confronted the
Dragon-man. Key-ler, first to realise who the Dragon-man was. Key-ler, who
organised the rebuilding of his beloved Academia after Murs destruction,
putting even Taranis, Lord of the Guardians, to work. The Dragon-man had
trusted him, Tannil trusted him and Teighlar trusted him. Caltian loved him.
The
graveyard was extensive, with single sites, family plots, small crypts and
massive mausoleums. At the far end was a Wall of Remembrance for the many
thousands who died during the Atrudis War. A sad place, but also peaceful.
There were well-tended lawns, colourful flowers, stately trees and many
benches. A number of Valleur moved among the old and new sites, some searching,
others paying their respects. Key-ler belonged here among the departed, for the
man adored history.
Caltian
rose and murmured a short homage and drifted towards an exit. His gaze lingered
on a name here and there and occasionally he nodded greeting at a familiar
face.
As he left,
he reflected on how it changed for him. Before Torrullin, he was shunned for
his dark hair and grey eyes among a golden people, but now it was a mark of
recognition. He was the man who slew the Dragon and he was the present
Vallorin’s stepfather. No one remarked on his colouring, and he no longer
needed to convince anyone he was as Golden on the inside as any of them.
He
snorted as he ambled the grassy lane of trees that led to the Academia. The
death of a friend and confidante had a way of causing one to re-evaluate … as
when Torrullin died.
Perched
on a large boulder off the trodden path, he grew introspective. Key-ler’s
passing would leave a gap in his life, but Torrullin left a void. He never made
peace with that particular passing and that was besides the telling that the
man would return. Maybe he would not see it happen. He needed to lift out of
depression and move on. It was useless hanging onto the coattails of the dead.
He had Key-ler to thank for this soul searching and no doubt the Brother
clapped in glee somewhere while encouraging him to do it, to trust in himself.
Caltian
gave a reluctant grin. The spectre of Key-ler. Ha! Key-ler was nobody’s
spectre. He had been whole in himself, sure of his place and happy with his
life. The grin vanished. It was time to do the same. Find wholeness, find his
place, reach for that same happy state, and, further, understand what he needed
to attain it. This was an excellent time to try, having stared death intimately
in the face the night before. Mortality forced issues.
His
childhood was difficult. Shunned because of human looks and ostracised because
of his family’s adherence to the old ways of magic and scrying - when sorcery
was long subjugated - and laughed at because of his name. Beast Breacher.
Well, he achieved the destiny his name implied, and no one laughed now. No one
had laughed for a long time. He expected them to and that was the trouble. He
carried scars. He had to find a way to let go or he would be a bitter fool
before long - he was close to that already.
It came
to him then, there on that boulder, he did not need to forgive anyone to go
forward. He needed to forgive himself. He should have revelled in his
difference, his future. He should have stood up for himself and his family. He
bore scars he himself inflicted.
Nemisin
had been different, he who accepted a symbiosis with a Dragon. Vannis had been
in warring on humans and entering nine-thousand-year hibernation to do so
again. Torrullin had been incredibly different from any norm, the Dragon-man
and Enchanter in one. Not one hid in shame. Caltian could not count himself as
august as those three Vallorins; how dared he hide for shame?
I am able
to hold my head high, for others do not make me - they never did. I made myself
and succeeded. He
laughed, feeling free in a manner not experienced before. Yes, I can let go.
It is liberating.
Caltian
bent to extract a blade of grass, nibbled at the sweet end, his gaze faraway.
Then there were the long years of Creed, awaiting the Dragon-man. They waited
on the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy, knowing it would come in his
lifetime, for his name said so. It was a time of fear and uncertainty, lack of
self-confidence, and a time to learn the higher realms of sorcery. He devised a
trap, a sorcerous prison employing the Dragon symbol to call and dupe his
quarry, and Key-ler, Keeper of the Keys, locked it.
The long
years of waiting, training, uncertainty, the suspicion and taunts from
non-Creed, had taken toll by that terrible night, but finding the Dragon-man
was not only the Vallorin, but the Enchanter, shocked him. His personal
foundations cracked wide to throw him into the abyss. For a time, he was lost.
He had not existed, except as a heart beating. The charm, the presence, the
emotion of Torrullin pulled him out, and the Enchanter’s attempt to take on an
entire nation’s suffering, to spare them and to share it, created new
foundations, rock steady and solid.
Caltian
smiled as he spit the grass out. In Torrullin he rediscovered who he was and
became more. Their time was short and intense, not enough to know the man, but
enough to know himself. And the months they spent marauding about the universe
after the Dragon’s death taught him much about others.
Lessons
were learned.
The
Enchanter sacrificed himself and with him, choosing of his own will to die,
went the charismatic Vannis, Torrullin’s beloved grandfather. He, Caltian, was
here on Luvanor at the time, attending to humans evacuated from Valaris. There
was no opportunity to thank his Vallorin for restoring his faith in life and in
his people. With hindsight he knew Torrullin deliberately sent him out of
harm’s way and, if he examined Torrullin’s last words, he knew the Enchanter
had spoken his farewell, understanding there would be sorrow after and had
touched his mind to impart peace.
Lessons
were unlearned.
He lost
surety of premise on hearing the terrible news. A wanderer since, looking for
something to give his life meaning. For a time, he grounded in falling in love
with Mitrill after she gave birth to Tannil. It was a short-lived grounding.
Mitrill did not love him; in him she found someone who knew Torrullin, a man
safe and acceptable to take as partner. At the time he had not realised, did
not yet understand Mitrill carried flame for Torrullin, but after the birth of
their daughter Fay, he came to see she did not need him as he needed her. He
rarely saw her now and when he did return to Valaris it was to spend time with
his daughter.
He was a
wanderer, travelling Luvanor, going offworld, and he no longer found joy in the
unexpected. He did not like the person he evolved into.
The first
step to change was made there on a boulder. He rose, and ambled down the lane. I
have Key-ler to thank for reaching out to me from beyond the grave. All I need
now is courage. Caltian halted in the centre of the lane. Courage to choose
a new road. To make the hard decisions. Forgive myself. Done. End my marriage. It would take more than
courage to face the self-possessed Mitrill, but this deadness was unhealthy. He
would spend more time with Fay on Valaris. Perhaps in helping her shape a
future, he would shape his own.
Minutes
later he strolled in under the arch of the Academia’s imposing entrance, and
stood a moment to watch. The Brothers scurried, some arguing about
interpretation of some literary work, others walking with eloquent fingers in
the air punctuating their thoughts. Key-ler had loved it.
He gazed
at the building. It was an exact replica of the original, but its soul was
profoundly changed. Today it was open-minded and there were no Web Overlords to
dampen the flames of truth. It became what its name implied, the Academia of
Truth, and today dealt in matters magical also. Here all the nuances of
Torrullin and Vannis’ remarkable lives were examined and chronicled. Here
Torrullin’s father, Taranis of the Guardians, was further immortalised in works
of universal note. Here the tangled tale of Millanu, Torrullin’s mother, wife
to Taranis, daughter of Vannis, was brought together and made whole for the
future Valleur. Her tale began beyond the Rift, another universe, another
world.
Caltian’s
heart beat unevenly. Torrullin’s tale ended with ‘Remember now, there is the
legend of the Sleeper who will one night awake to claim the sword of previous
awakenings. We await.’
Literary
licence? Maybe. Yet everyone awaited his return. There was indeed a sword. The
pieces were discovered in Menllik, and it was re-forged and waiting upon the
familiar hand of its wielder. Torrullin’s sword. Caltian admitted the real
truth.
I wander
because I await my Lord.
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