The Nemisin Star (29 page)

“As long as
there is emotion, there is magic, for neither emotion nor
imagination belong to the world of three dimensions. Magic will not
die while one sentient lives.”

Goosebumps
climbed her skin. “That isn’t the magic I referred to.”

He dragged his
chair around and sat on it back to front, arms dangling over the
backrest. “Where is the difference?”

“Oh, come!
What you have described is natural …”

“Then all
would experience it as part of genetic makeup. I have known men and
women who have never looked at a sunset and not because they were
unable to or there was no sun, but because they looked and did not
see. They were unaffected. A sunset is natural, but how one reacts
is the magic.”

“Granted, but
it is natural magic, if you will. There is nothing supernatural in
feeling uplifted after seeing something beautiful. How long have
you been burning to say all that?”

A grin quirked
and was gone. “Long enough.”

She smiled.
“Rebuttal?”

“You become
aware of your insignificance and you are aware what is happening
around you is bigger than you, more powerful, it is beyond your
ability to control, touch or change. It happens despite you. That
is why you are moved, and say what you will, that is more magical
than anything I can do.”

She did not
answer.

Relentless, he
continued. “Consider Breem, the linguist. He has never left the
caverns and had never seen the view from the windows. If you were
he, why do you have a likeness of a forest on your wall or a
picture of an ocean from whence dolphins leap out into the sun? How
do you know what it is and understand? Race memories? Perhaps, but
is that not supernatural? All of it is bigger than you and is part
of your soul and would be even in the darkest pit. It is
inexplicable, complicated and magical.”

“You
have
been thinking about this.” There was a suggestion of
tears in her eyes.

“Gods, Lian,
are you not hearing me?”

“I hear you
and your words begin to change me. I am intrigued by your need to
say it, however.”

He rested his
forehead briefly upon his arms and drew breath. “I see the magic
even in my sleep. It will not die and therefore some of us have
reached for rebirth. A magic that gifts us the magic longer.
Unfortunately the pain and loss eventually overcomes the
selfishness, but that too I consider part of the magic. In all
things there is two, equal and opposite. Thus, we reach for death,
the final magic where loss and love go hand in hand, and in that
understanding comes peace. I have died, and now I can no longer do
so. Magic and magic. And nobody knows how fantastical that is.”

“What
possessed you to be so terribly immortal?”

“Ignorance
mostly, and selfishness, arrogance, certain things not achieved,
certain people not found, and the realisation only came to me in
the seventh rebirth; the knowing. I was angry when I emerged. I was
furious I had finally denied myself death. I have told no one about
this.”

“Except your
son earlier.”

“Mere words to
him right now.”

“Staying in
the etheric is a kind of death. We once had a failed return and
when he did come back, many years later, he told us it was like
being dead. You could opt for that.”

“But it isn’t
dead. Choice remains and no man or woman can turn his or her back
on life for long. How long would I stand it there, half alive? That
is not death; it is a frustration of death.”

“Do you want
to die?”

“I simply
desire the choice.”

“You are
afraid of being alone?”

His fingers
twisted together on the backrest. “I am not afraid of that.”

“We all need
someone, Torrullin. If those you love fall away …”

“I will not be
alone.”

“You sound
certain.”

“I am.”

She stared at
him. “You are afraid of this person who
will
be there for
you.”

He stared
back. “I am, yes.” He shrugged and looked away. “That time is not
now. It does not matter yet.”

She moved on.
“Looking at that painting I can feel the cool, the slight breeze,
and I can hear the birds, the rustling in the undergrowth. God, I
miss it!” She faced him. “That is why I said you need someone to
guide you back. I want to go with you when you go home. I am aware
I could succumb to the conditions, but is that so bad?”

“Do you want
to die, Lian?”

“How clever
you are. I simply want the magic.”

“You have it
inside.”

“It is not
enough.”

Torrullin rose
and fetched his pack. Returning with it, he placed it on the table
and rummaged inside. Finally he withdrew a slim book. Handing it to
her, he said, “My son put this in. It is my favourite book; I want
you to have it.”

Surprised, she
opened the unassuming volume and read a while - it was in the
common tongue - and lifted a smiling face. “Poetry.”

“Descriptions
of the imagination, about my world, its people and places. If you
cannot come with me, then allow your imagination to take you there
- the magic is in words also.”

She closed her
eyes and clasped the book to her. “Thank you.”

He smiled.

“Your son
knows you better than you think, Torrullin. It will not be mere
words he heard earlier.”

Torrullin was
afraid of that.

She put the
book on the table, placing one hand flat on it. For a few moments
she could not speak.

“Ophuls did
not murder your father, Lian. If you can release that poison, you
would find someone who would be as a father to you and a cousin who
would be more like a sister.”

She looked
away, but instead of the usual anger and denial she realised there
was a void inside her, one that Torrullin’s words on magic laid
bare and then commenced to fill. Swallowing, she admitted to
herself she could be wrong about her uncle, and sensed the void
begin to close.

She laid her
head on the table and wept, and knew that everything was
different.

Cèlaver

Torrullin
remained with the First Priestess Lian for a further eighteen
hours, and when they were done she returned him to the royal
chambers.

She gazed
curiously out of the windows there, seeing it with new eyes, and
understood what he meant. She greeted her uncle and cousin calmly
and they harked to the shifting of ill will. It would take time to
build the bridges and make them strong, until they were no longer
bridges but firm ground, and yet all three there communicated a
silent willingness to try.

Mia had tears
in her eyes when Lian smiled at her without rancour for the first
time, and Ophuls thanked Torrullin with a grateful look.

Ophuls then
led Torrullin and Tristamil to an empty cavern roughly in the
centre of the underground system, where Torrullin worked his magic,
and thus kept his promise. The park he created was massive and
filled with varied wonders, and Ophuls cried like a child.

Mia and Lian
shouted out their joy in fields of flowers, and other Cèlaver were
soon drawn to the commotion. The news of a miracle sped through the
underground like wildfire. Magic had come and it was surpassingly
good.

Torrullin took
Tristamil’s arm and they unobtrusively backed away and left without
saying their farewells.

They went up
to Breem and his mother and thanked them, but before the two could
reply the strange visitors to Cèlaver had gone, vanishing between a
breath and a thought.

Beware of
plans made without every fact. And if fact is there, beware of
being too rigid. Remember that the best result frequently
transpires from an impulsive act. Factor it in.

~ Harriet of
Beacon, mayor of District 611

Valaris

Lifesource
Temple

W
hen
Torrullin and Tristamil arrived back on their homeworld, by
consensus heading first to the Lifesource Temple, it was with new
appreciation.

Time dealt
Valaris a number of blows, wars had come and gone, and yet it was
benign, a beautiful home, one that should and would be protected
against all incursions or it too would one day be barren and a
nation forced to delve deep for life to go on.

Father and son
stood on the lightbridge and both drew deep of the free air.

It was wealth
greater than any loaded treasury the universe over.

“Enchanter!
You have returned,” Quilla said with a smile as Torrullin preceded
his son in.

Cat, Skye and
Lowen looked up from a board game, while Mitrill, a stranger to
Tristamil, rose gracefully.

“Quilla,”
Torrullin said, but Tristamil had other ideas.

“We talk now.”
He did not look at Skye. He barely saw the other women.

He could not
delay it longer and thus, without further greeting anyone,
Torrullin turned on his heel and left the chamber. Tristamil
followed immediately, leaving the five perplexed.

Muttering to
himself about the bloody-mindedness of the Enchanter and his brood,
Quilla rose to follow, but Lowen told him it was none of his
business. He looked into those startling blue eyes and reluctantly
sat. In the last few days he developed a healthy respect for what
she had to say.

Cat and Skye
glanced at each other. The board game was forgotten.

Mitrill moved
away and nobody gave note to her expression. Had anyone analysed
the Valleur woman, it would have been to find her as if holding her
breath.

Her fate was
soon to change … and she was aware of it.

Tristamil
followed his father in a long walk through interminable chambers, a
walk that had effect, yet both were unaware as they marshalled
thoughts.

Finally
Torrullin stepped out from under the eastern arch onto the deck
that was the last refuge over the void the Temple suspended over.
Torrullin dropped his pack and hunkered to begin splitting seams to
free his sword. It was mid-morning and darkness reigned,
foretelling a vicious storm.

Tristamil
regarded the irritated handling as procrastination, and threw his
pack down. Torrullin ceased fumbling and sat with a thump, loosely
clasped his knees, drew breath, and looked up. Tristamil stared
into the distance; other than cloud cover there was not much to see
on this gloomy day. Torrullin waited him out and eventually
Tristamil spoke.

“I understand
you have to do what you intend to do, but I cannot understand how
you can accept it as fate. I think you welcome it. You are to die
and leave us -
me
- and this doesn’t cause you sorrow?”

“I shall not
die,” Torrullin murmured, also looking east and seeing nothing.
“And yet my sorrow is no less than was I to die true.”

Tristamil drew
breath. “It will feel so. Your body will be interred with due
ceremony, the Valleur will mourn, Saska will, Vannis will, me, all
who love you. And though we know you are to return … what, father?
Shall I study every fair-headed child I come across and wonder if
his body hosts your soul? And later, every fair youth? I don’t know
if I can do that and stay sane.”

“Tris, I can
stop Margus, and all will be well for a time, for you, the Valleur,
all those who want this body to go on, but what about me? I shall
wonder if every fair child
I
come across perhaps harbours
the soul of the Darak Or and I shall merely exist, unable ever to
relax my vigil. That alternative depresses me so much I do not
regard it as a choice. You will live in hope; I would exist in
fear. Is that what you would prefer for me?”

Tristamil
jerked his head down. “No!”

Torrullin
said, “Then do not play on my emotions. Help me to do this with a
clear conscience, not that I can clear that with a thousand years
of meditation. Goddess, just help me.”

Tristamil fell
to his knees. “I aim to help you, but I love you too much to not
grieve when you are gone.”

“I know it
will be hard.” Torrullin shifted his gaze from the burgeoning
sorrow in his son’s eyes. “I know, too, that you will bring me
back.”

“How?”
Tristamil cried.

“Knowing that
you wait and search will do so. I am immortal and as such was never
meant to have children and yet here you are. My beloved son, my
joy, my reason for taking the bad with the good. There are many
reasons I could list to explain why I would return, but the only
one that matters in the end is you. Nothing else could hold
me.”

Tristamil sat,
eyes fixed upon his father.

“It isn’t the
answer you desire, the factor you seek to hasten me back, I realise
that, but it is nonetheless true. Returning without aid takes time,
Lian tells me, and your thoughts can act as a thread into the
etheric.”