Chapter 10: The Master Mechanism

 

A new Timekeeper steps forth.

 Wearing a familiar face, an aspirant Timekeeper seeks to destroy all who stand in his path, including Torrullin Valla and Elianas Danae. With the master clock under his aegis, he will control Time and all who move within its confines.

 The scramble commences to find the Master Mechanism first. From planets abandoned to worlds renewed, from ancient spaces to sterile realms, the chase is on.

What does the device look like? Who created it? Where is it hiding?

Weaving through all the chaos is the mighty Valla family, fractured and almost beyond repair. It is time to find unity once more. It is time to stand together or fall forever. It is time to be noble, even when such nobility requires sacrifice.

Time itself demands redress.

Join Torrullin and Elianas, support Tianoman and Tristan, and sympathise with Teroux, in this, the conclusion to the epic LORE series.

CHAPTER 10

 

Beware symbols, for what was once created in benevolence has a way of becoming something vile when in the possession of others not as discerning. Symbology is a means to read history, but it cannot always tell the truth.

~ Scroll of Wisdom ~

  

Balconaru

ALIK’S HORSE NEARLY TRAMPLED Teighlar. She shouted, he cursed, the horse shied, and Lowen leaned in and pulled at the reins. Order returned.

“Well,” Lowen said, “you are a surprise, my Lord Emperor.”

He scowled at her and focused on Alik. “Are you fine?”

“It was Tannil; he drew us into here. I am fine, thanks, if petrified.”

Teighlar glanced around and saw the city, the smoke rising lazily into the air. They were at the foot of an incline and the city lay directly ahead. “Where is this? It smells of death.”

“It was Balconaru, according to Tannil.”

Two indentations erupted onto Teighlar’s smooth brow. “Way on the edge of the Ganimidian Galaxy? Why? And is Tannil still here?”

“He’s gone,” Lowen said. “How did you find us?”

“The box. Focused on Alik. Why did he bring you here?”

“To show us what he can do, to taunt, and to tell us what he now possesses.” Lowen stared at him. “And there is massive nuance in that city, Teighlar.”

“Oh?” He wandered over to Alik and her mount, motioned for her to scoot forward and vaulted into the saddle behind her. Taking the reins from her numbed fingers, he nudged the animal over to draw abreast with the Xenian. “What do you know of this place?”

“An ancient settlement dating back to beginning times, apparently settled late in Dancing Suns. According to records - of which there isn’t a whole scroll, I put it together from pieces - a few folk crashed here. We must assume it was a ship, but then it was also further back than technology …”

“Lowen.”

“I am merely telling you I don’t know exactly how they got here; it’s mixed up.”

“Fine. Where is the nuance?”

“Who they were. I found only one mention and it has huge resonance.”

“Fine,” he said again. “Who?”

“Danaan.”

He sawed at the horse’s mouth. “What?”

Lowen stared at him and nodded with expression. “So, you do know. That is why Alik is here also - to inform you after.”

Alik grabbed the reins from her father and leaned in to pacify the skittish animal, whispering in her ear until she had quietened.

“The Valleur exterminated the Danaan,” Teighlar said.

“A handful clearly survived to escape that region of space, and came here. They did not call themselves Danaan, though; that heritage I got from a source other than histories of this world. They called themselves Gani, probably based on the galaxy name, or the galaxy was named after them, who knows? This is a small world and, although benign, few live here. There are only two cities: this one, and another on a more southern continent. That one is a human settlement.”

“Danaan were human,” Teighlar said.

“They were not.”

He stared at her.

Lowen grinned. “Me and my memory, sorry. I sometimes find I know things without recalling where I found … anyway. Sabian, as our Master Historian, told me of the Danaan. They look human, speak human, live and love human, but DNA has proven they are more than human. They have the ability to withstand space, the vacuum, and they have the insulation in their cells to withstand every extreme temperature. No human can do that. And, Teighlar, despite what you may or may not think of loops returning and all that, humankind came only later, long after the Valleur began expanding into greater space. The Danaan then and the Gani murdered here were not human.”

Teighlar was silent a long time, and then, in a quiet tone, he said, “It explains even more how time was my friend and how I managed to survive on virtually nothing.”

Lowen simply nodded, but Alik craned around to look at him. “Dad?”

He smiled down at her. “How I love it when you say that.”

She dug an elbow into his ribs. “Answer.”

Teighlar shrugged. “The genesis of our race. Me, Alexander Diluvan, abandoned on an empty world.” Her eyes were round. “I shall tell you all of it when we get back home, I promise.” Teighlar moved his attention to Lowen. “Something Tannil now possesses, you said?”

“The Maghdim Medaillon.”

He frowned immediately. “Tannil has it? That is unlikely.”

“We saw it.”

He shook his head. “It cannot be real. Torrullin would bloody turn the universe on its head if Tannil stole it from him, and there have been no such disturbances.”

Lowen sighed and in there was marked relief. “Then Tannil is using a replica in much the same way as Tymall once used a duplicate of the Dragon Taliesman.”

“I would say so, yes.”

“I am very relieved to hear it.”

“A replica can cause all kinds of shit,” Teighlar muttered.

“Less, however, than the real device in wrong hands.”

“True. Right, how do we get from this place?”

Alik gestured ahead. “We go through. The exit is on the other side.”

Teighlar glanced at Lowen for confirmation, who nodded back at him. Teighlar swore under his breath, staring into the smoke rising into the air. “It will not be pleasant.”

Neither woman replied.

 

Avaelyn

ELIANAS WENT TO AVAELYN. Kneeling in mud before the debris of his home, he understood a piece of his soul had been destroyed also. Unmoving, he simply looked. And remembered.

Walking across the bridge for the first time as a storm threatened, his father Tingast at his side. Torrullin, Lord Sorcerer, tempting the fates. Magic and companionship. Love and battles. His attempt to preserve Avaelyn through the millennia while he and Torrullin were apart, releasing a part of himself to keep the dwelling whole through time. His name, Elianas Danae, upon the deed. A place of healing, most recently for Torrullin as Rayne.

Scrolls gone. Books gone. Familiar objects and spaces, gone. Only memory remained. Memory was insufficient. His face set as if into stone. It was time to do something about it.

“I know you are there,” he said.

A squelching tread through mud sounded behind him, to come to a halt beside him. “Grandfather.”

“Tannil.” Elianas did not look up.

“Say my true name and free us both of that particular connection.”

“Not yet. What I intend next requires our connection.”

Tannil abruptly kneeled in the sludge, reached out, and gripped Elianas’ chin, forcing that expressionless face towards him. “What do you intend?”

Shadows of uncertainty moved in the tawny gaze he stared into. Elianas carefully did not react to it. “That is my home, Tannil. I want it back.”

A smile blossomed. All was well in Tannil’s world again. He released his hold and said, “You can try, of course.”

“I suggest you leave.”

Tannil swore, loud and long, before saying, “When you two, whether together or apart, become this certain and focused, I am truly anxious. What do you intend?” The uncertainty was back behind golden lashes.

“Death.”

Tannil stared at him. “Alhazen’s death?”

Elianas simply stared at him.

“You cannot! It screws with everything!”

The dark man offered a cold smile. “Perhaps. The timing, however, is fortuitous.”

“What does that mean?” Tannil screeched.

“Tannil, I wish I had known my son Skynis and I certainly wish with all my heart I had known my grandson Tannil at the time of your living. Nothing I do or say is able to return either of us to that kind of bliss, and nothing in this universe or another is able to repair the damage. I need to move onward from guilt.”

“Say my true name and guilt is done with.”

“No. It is time for you to leave.”

“I refuse.”

“Stay, then. Know your reign as Timekeeper will end in the next few moments.”

Tannil surged to his feet. “I am able to force compliance.”

His dark eyes unfathomable, Elianas gazed up. “You cannot. Alhazen cannot be manipulated by anyone.”

“Your death will fell him!”

“For a time, yes.”

“Why?” Tannil burst out.

“There are so many reasons I do not know where to commence an articulate explanation, and not one reason I utter aloud would make sense to you. You are, after all, an outsider, Tannil. Torrullin will understand eventually. I care about only that; I care not what you think or believe. You have ten seconds, grandson. Ten … nine … eight …”

Tannil vanished.

Elianas laughed aloud, satisfaction clear in his every expression. Then he sobered. Perhaps he should consider more. There would be ramifications. To Hades with that. It was time to act decisively.

 

Balconaru

THE GATES WERE OF iron and hung askew as if ripped by giants from their great hinges. The walls were of boulders, many feet thick, and were as dust in the wind. The cobbled ways were awash in blood and urine and faeces … and body parts. Of people, of animals. Trees burned as rush torches. Ash shot upward and drifted slowly down. It was a netherworld.

Teighlar clambered off Alik’s horse and approached a man laying half in and half out of a doorway.

“Don’t,” Alik said, choking it out.

“I have to.”

“He needs to see what they look like,” Lowen murmured. Her face was set and expressionless and she tried with everything she had not to look too hard or too long at anything. She was not always successful.

The man was whole, although blood covered most of him. He wore leather breeches and high boots, a linen shirt festooned with symbols, red on black. A timepiece adorned his wrist, an earring in one lobe. A small tattoo sat high upon his left cheek. He was pale of skin, as all Senlu in Grinwallin were. His hair was reddish, as most Senlu possessed. The timepiece was modern. The boots were factory made. Clearly technology existed here. The tattoo was a word, upon closer inspection. It read, Luvan. Teighlar hissed through his teeth and rapidly made his way to the next body, a woman crumpled at the edge of the building. He rolled her over. Pale. Auburn hair. Leather waistcoat, high boots, fringed and colourful skirt. A tattoo. Also upon her cheek. It read, Danaan.

Hissing again, Teighlar ran to another body, this one on the opposite side of the cobbled street. A man, dressed as the other. His tattoo read, Alexander. Teighlar straightened. By all gods. By Eurue.

A young child lay in the canals running parallel with every street. A Senlu, if not for where she was. She, too, wore a tattoo upon her cheek. It appeared as if the mark was made close to birth. Hers read, Diluvan. Teighlar stared down. He moved to a woman severed by the chains of a swing in a play park. Gritting his teeth to bear the weight of what she must have suffered as death sought her, he lifted red hair from her forehead to read her mark. Senlu.

He sank to his knees. They had not forgotten their genesis. Moreover, they had kept apace of what happened to their kind, even if that kind began with him, a half-Danaan and a half-Valleur. Perhaps in his longevity they saw a future in which to celebrate who they were. Perhaps one day soon, with Grinwallin finally at peace, they would have paid a visit and forged the connection that would see them rejoined with their blood. Perhaps then the universe would have known the Danaan history.

Clip-clop.

He swivelled. Alik and Lowen were nearby, waiting for him.

Teighlar nearly wept then. How did he place this in a box never to be examined? Or should he crow it out to the universe and reveal the real truth? What would it gain him, and what would it do to his Senlu of today? Tell the universe a Valleur had again murdered their kind? Every truce and friendship would sunder. Luvanor as a whole would war on tiny Grinwallin tucked in its easterly region. The Senlu would lose. Grinwallin, however, might act in defence and that could herald another kind of war.

He stared at Lowen. “They wear history upon their cheeks. Perhaps they are tribe names here or some such nuance, but it is nonetheless history.”

“I do not understand.”

He touched his left cheek. “A mark, here, upon each. So far, I have read Danaan, Luvan, Diluvan, Alexander and Senlu.”

“All gods,” she breathed.

“Exactly.”

“What do you do with that?”

He covered his face. “I do not know!”

“Let us get away first,” Alik whispered.

His hands swung down, and he nodded. “Yes. Let’s.”

 

Mariner Island

IT WAS ODD THAT Elianas stayed away. Torrullin went to the front door of the cottage and stared over the garden to the lake beyond. Birdsong, and not much else, other than the faint sound of waves breaking upon the cliff. No sign of the dark man.

Yet the universe had about it a sense of terrible expectation. Something somewhere was about to change, and the results would reverberate throughout the spaces and echo through all time.

It worried him.

THE MASTER MECHANISM