Chapter 10: The Dreamer Stones

 

The stones of a dreamer are a soul labyrinth.

 

As the Warlock Tymall steps up his murderous campaign against the Vallas, Torrullin vanishes into a realm created by dreams and need. Paramount is his search for the means to end his son’s reign of terror, and the answer no longer lies in reality. He will suffer the labyrinth of his soul and negotiate the marker stones of his past.

Torrullin must release his demons. To stand at the edge of the abyss, he must retrieve his innocence. He will not stand alone. Guiding him into and through another realm is Lowen Dalrish, the child-woman Torrullin saw as the nemesis of his future.

Another arises, the Warlock’s secret ally, a creature nursing vengeance since ancient days. After Margus breaks oath, this creature’s manipulation is set free, and a new army invades.

The animated spirit, according to legend, is the potion of forever, and his name is Elixir, embodied in one strong enough to see, hear, taste, smell and touch everything everywhere in order to mete out justice. If Torrullin survives the dream realm, does it mean he is strong enough to accept this duty? His world, his people and his loved ones require his strength, as he needs it to face the might of what lies beneath ancient Grinwallin.

After all that went before, Torrullin will face the power of stones raised when time began, before he may bow from the arena. Torrullin prepares, after all, to meet the dark man of his visions.

The time for meeting is now close.

 

CHAPTER 10

 

They will love you. I swear it.

~ The manipulators in politics

 

 

Tymall’s Fort

 

THE PLACE WAS almost deserted and, while she preferred it, she knew it would soon be time to leave also. There was no future here. Not for her. And not for the babe. Fay rubbed her stomach. It was flat, unchanged, but inside everything was different. Her child. Tymall’s child.

She wandered over the dry landscape aimlessly, listlessly picking out landmarks with tired eyes; purple mountains in the distance, the cairn of rocks, an ancient monument to something now forgotten. Lost, like this world. Like herself.

With Torrullin’s help, she deliberately put herself into Tymall’s clutches. Partly it was to find and rescue Saska, and also Margus, but mostly it was to prevent Tymall unleashing his fury on the Vallas. She forced Torrullin to help her, and when he came for Saska and Margus, she forced him to leave her where she was. With his son. What she had not bargained for was this attraction. It led to sleeping with him, with kinfire in bed along with them, and that led to this growing babe.

She stopped, her calves aching, the exertion of distance. She looked behind her. The fort, unholy place, was rendered minute by how far she came, hills rising over it in grey-blue splendour. Nearer was her darkling guard, only one now that Tymall decided to trust her. Her lips drew back in a grimace, and she gazed ahead. Where would she go anyway, carrying this child?

When she first came to this forgotten world there were tens of thousands of darklings, and now they were gone, unleashing terror. Why did Torrullin not return to wipe them out? She hated the thought of what they did on Valaris as she wandered her solitary road here. She understood Torrullin put her first in his thoughts in not returning for her, Fay, the traitor - and she did feel like a traitor, despite her claims - but was her safety worth the hell now visited upon their homeworld? Torrullin thought more of her than she did of herself.

Sighing, she shuffled to a nearby boulder and lowered to its heat, not caring that she smudged dirt into the costly gown. She hated everything Tymall gave her; here, take this, you will feel better, forget what I do to your family. He had not told her of deaths, and she wondered if he would. Perhaps someone had already passed on and she was none the wiser. It was another reason to leave soon; she needed to know. At least he could not use her Valla blood against those she loved. That was a comfort, and she tried many occasions to sway him from his set path. Gods, she hoped he heard her.

Then she shuddered. Tymall would come looking if she left. Worse, she would want him to find her. She was bound to him, and it was not a facet of magic, it was a thing of her heart, her soul, her body. She needed him. And he needed her. After that first time, frightening for both of them, they could not stay away from each other. They were addicted to the intensity kinfire brought to every touch.

Torrullin, you should have come and wiped the slate clean, including this miserable excuse of a life.

Now there were the fruits of their coming together. A child. It was a boy, and what lay ahead for him? How would it change her? Tymall? Their relationship? Dare she tell him? Dare she not?

Then Tymall was there, kneeling before her in the dust, taking her hands and moving his thumbs over her palms, igniting trebac. She raised troubled eyes, leaned forward and found his lips. Her hands came up, drawing him close, closer, until, with a chuckle, he drew back, the hunger in him matching hers.

“Fay, why are you out here? It is hot.” His voice was low to exclude the guard. “I return to find you in the desert? What is the matter?”

“I was bored and cold in the walls … Ty, gods, send him away …”

“Here?” he asked, but was unsmiling, reaching for her, drawing her atop him on the hard, hot earth. “Go!”

They found the quickest way to become one, the pleasure sharp, liquid, intense. And after, “You are pregnant.” His beautiful face stilled. His lids closed over clear grey eyes before he whispered, “A son.”

Fay choked on a sob. “Yes. Your son.”

His eyes opened. “I did not expect this. Ever. A son. Mine.”

 

TYMALL ROSE AND walked away, straightening his clothes. He understood what drove her out into the empty silences. A child changed everything.

He gave the command on Valaris to attack, watched it start, and saw his presence there was superfluous. His father’s reputation was in shreds and fear ruled Valarians. Now it was time for them - easily swayed, traitors to their own integrity - to start dying from more than lack of food. The Valleur were fighting back, as expected, but he had not expected the Enchanter to stay away. He returned here to achieve reasoning on that issue and to see Fay, touch Fay. This news he had not thought to find waiting.

 

FAY FOUND HER boulder perch again, sat watching him, sensing in him a struggle. As it was for her, and she had crumbled before him, holding nothing back. Would he crumble before his unborn son?

He returned and kneeled again in the dust. This time he did not touch her. “Tell me you will bring him to term. Tell me, swear to me, you will not harm our son no matter what happens between us.”

As if she could ever think that. She swallowed and stared into his eyes. “No matter what, this child will breathe air and feel the sun on his skin. I swear to you I shall never harm him … by god, Ty! I couldn’t harm him.”

Tymall smiled. “I know, Fay.” He touched her cheek with one forefinger. “I needed to hear you say it. I wanted to see the love for him in your eyes. He must be loved.” He dropped his hand, rose, and drew her up. His face worked with an inner struggle.

“What is it?” she asked, wanting to touch him, but he shied away.

His answer nearly broke her heart. “Will he be his father’s son? An outcast child? Full of hatred and revenge and evil? Does he inherit my sins? Will I love him if he is not? Will I even love him? Can I? Do I know how?”

“Your father loved you.”

“Being what I am, you mean?” His voice was self-mocking. “Yes, I was loved and look what I am. Love changed nothing …” He cut it off, sighed, and said, “My father loves me still, Fay.”

She denied that. “No, he seeks to …”

“… kill me? Do you not wonder why he hasn’t? I may be his equal in power, but he has other personalities to create advantage. He does not use them. Why is that?”

She paled. “That was what he meant when he said you have power over him.”

Tymall laughed, a twisted sound. “Yes. I know he loves me and cannot kill me. Fay, can I be that kind of father to my son? Unconditional in my love?”

“Do you love your father, Tymall?” she asked, her voice quiet and steady.

Torrullin was unique. She finally realised that. She was wrong about the Enchanter, and it took this evil, broken man before her to prove it.

He looked at her quizzically, sensing the change. “Does it matter?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either,” he said, coming to take her hand.

Together they began the long walk back to the castle.

“I loved him once, growing up. He was an extraordinary father; my brother and I were fortunate. No favouritism, healthy competition, and he allowed no one to denigrate us, always protected us, but without being over-protective, allowing us independence. Perhaps, had it not been for the Darak Or’s indwelling, I could have overcome the accident that left me unrecognised in the womb. Later, I hated him. He beat me as no man should beat his son. I murdered his father, I understand, yet cannot forgive. Then there was Tris, Tris this, Tris that, while I faded into the background. He let me die, even when it meant his beloved Tris’ death also. Gods, I hated him for that.” Tymall stopped. “The last time I saw him before I killed myself, he had the cheek to hold me, to tell me he loved me, and he knew, he knew, I was going beyond his reach. It had been foretold.”

“And that hate bore you through your own invisible realm. But now? Can you justify holding onto it?”

His eyes were expressionless. “I will not cease until I have either achieved what I set out to do or am defeated in the effort. I hate him for other things now. The invisible realm that made me this, knowing now he let my brother go because Tris would land up in the realm of eternal bliss and thus be safe. I hate him for being greater than what he was before, for turning the Darak Or to his side, for having an extended Valla family I will never be part of, for what he did to you …”

He did nothing to her, Fay realised. Anything negative she ascribed to the Enchanter was of her doing, and she went from the flames into a bonfire with his son.

“… so I hate him. And I love him.”

He strode away from her. Leaving her with the smallest glimmer into the twisted psyche of a man so far off the road he could not find his way back. Yet, and this really scared her, he was still at war with himself. Somewhere was a tiny part untouched by evil and it was the part that loved his father. Torrullin was Tymall’s sole gateway to salvation, which, in turn, could well be Torrullin’s own atoning. Goddess help them both, and her, and the child to come.

 

TYMALL WAS IN the immense dining chamber when she made it in tired and footsore. He stared into a tankard, not drinking, and raised his eyes to her as she entered. “You must not exert yourself so, not now.”

“I am pregnant, not handicapped,” she responded, sitting in a corner seat removed from him. She drew an empty mug closer and reached for the wine.

“No,” he said, snatching it away. “You need to watch what you imbibe.”

“’Imbibe’. You are not serious.”

“About my choice of word, or the wine?”

“Both,” she sighed. Touchy. “Ty, I am sorry. Perhaps I pushed too hard earlier.”

His lips twitched. “You bring out the best in me, did you know? Anyone else would hit the floor dead for daring to question me about my father, but you make me think about it and admit factors I was unaware of. Unfortunately, I do not enjoy where it takes me, for I cannot afford the luxury of indecision.”

“You doubt?”

“No.”

“Then you have lost nothing in admission. Ty, I’m really thirsty.”

He laughed. “Any cravings?”

She smiled. “Not yet. Are you happy about the baby?”

His hand stilled in the act of watering her wine and then he passed it to her, curling his fingers around hers as she took the mug from him.

“If I am honest, this alters my plans. How, I cannot fathom, but it has to. Any normal situation would change - this too. I need to think it through.”

“You are not answering me.”

“I don’t know how I feel. Happy? Should there be joy? These emotions have no place; how do I compute them, know them, when I am dead inside?”

She pulled her hand from his, gripped her mug and raised it to her lips. She drank, saying nothing.

“Honesty, remember?”

Fay slammed her drink down. “Right. Well, I do not care what you say, feel, or cannot feel; this baby will be welcomed into the universe and take his place. I will see to it with or without you. Do you hear me? And if you cannot love him, fine - I can. All I ask is the freedom to do so if … if it gets bad for him, here, anywhere where you are.”

“Good. Already you love him; he has a chance. You have my word I will release you if he is in danger from me.” He looked away. “Thank you for caring about our son.”

“Ty …”

“Do not ask me to stop now.” He rose. “I will be in the tower for a time, thinking.” He leaned over, kissed her cheek and left.

THE DREAMER STONES