The Sleeper Sword (2 page)

Fay allowed
herself to be manipulated.

The two
vanished into the corridor.

“Mother.”
Tannil kissed his mother’s smooth, perfumed cheek.

“Tannil, a
pony?” Mitrill queried. “Where, son, shall we find the space?”

He grinned.
“Kismet will work something out, and Teroux should be astride a
horse already.” The latter was said with the constraints of an
island existence in mind.

“Take him to
Luvanor, as you were at that age.”

He grimaced.
“I’ll miss him.”

“You spend
much time there already. Teroux will probably see his father
more.”

He knew she
was right, but Valaris was their home. Then, spending time on
Luvanor would broaden Teroux’s horizons, as it did for him. No
islands there to confine him, continents of space, incredible
diversity and an ancient history. The Valleur had been in these
Western Isles too short a time for that kind of antiquity.

“I’ll think
more on it.”

“You should
consider moving everyone. As our space declines, families split
apart - half here, half on Luvanor.”

He was
surprised. She always advocated they remain on Valaris.

“I know what I
said in the past. We have grown; soon we cannot sustain ourselves
here. Ferrying supplies from Luvanor is impractical.” She
approached the table. With deliberation she closed the open volumes
of the Oracles. “I, and a few of the court, could remain here.”

Tannil had not
expected to broach this subject upon his return, but he was not one
to leave things unsaid either. “What does Caltian say?”

Mitrill looked
up. “I haven’t spoken to my husband.”

He stared out
of the window at the blue sky. Gulls flitted by with comforting
regularity. “How long have you pondered this?”

“A while.” She
sat, hands twisting in her lap. “Tannil, we must discuss this, and
do so formally with the Elders. I’m not advocating mass exile
…”

“… but I
should transfer my court to Luvanor.”

“It would be a
practical choice.”

“I am loath to
leave here. Three Valla men gave their lives for Valaris. My father
died for the Enchanter, and why? Because the Enchanter loved this
world.”

Mitrill shook
her head. “Your father loved his father, Tannil, and their deaths
were more than a sacrifice to a world. Both of them would prefer
the Valleur live without hardship and tension, and if that is on
Luvanor they’d be the first to make it happen.”

Tannil rose.
“Yet we exiled to these islands; you contradict yourself.” He ran a
hand over a hefty tome. “You’re right, space has become an issue.
We’ll have your formal discussion and I’ll advocate the majority of
our people move. Teighlar and I discussed this yesterday.” He
looked up. “My court remains here. I shall divide my time between
two worlds as I do now. I heard my grandfather speak to me, and I
shall hark to his words until I am no longer Vallorin.”

His mother
swallowed. “You’ve never spoken of this.”

“You are
Mitrill, one of the final few to speak with the Enchanter, and I
was there. He recognised me and spoke to me. He asked that you take
care of me and look out for his exiled people. He asked something
else of me. I aim to remain on Valaris.”

Mitrill paled.
“Will you tell me?”

Tannil
enfolded his mother in his arms. Trebac glowed, for she was a
trueblood Valla. “You loved him more than you let on, but I can’t
tell you this.”

Usually
self-possessed, mention of the Enchanter could send her into a
dither of uncertainty.

“I’ll respect
that,” she said and stepped back. “You’re a good son and you know
me better than I suspect. I loved him, but not quite the way you
think. I didn’t know him, for he kept me apart from himself and his
sons, for my protection. It is the idea of him, the memory, the
ideal he has become. Caltian knew him and spent time with him
through all manner of strife, yet even my husband will admit to
loving the ideal more today.”

“Why can you
not say his name?”

She was
silent, and then said, “He becomes too real. It is as if he is in
the room with you, inhabiting your space. If I say his name, it is
yesterday and he kneels before me, talking to my unborn son,
recognising you in the womb. If I say his name I feel again his
lips on mine. Tannil, I enjoyed your father, but that one farewell
kiss haunts me.”

She said more
than intended, but Tannil already knew.

Mitrill
left.

Tannil watched
her go. Many told him he took after his mother, had the same
cleverness, and thus he felt he understood her.

Although
unborn at the time she spoke of, he was there and possessed clear
memory of the event.

Mitrill
descended to the Throne-room below.

Unseeing, she
crossed the vast space, blind to the simple, clean beauty of the
white floor and walls. Then she halted and turned to the ornate
wooden chair opposite the massive doors.

Her face
twisted, seeing another seat, of memory, and a single tear
escaped.

“Torrullin,”
she whispered.

The Valleur
recalled life to Torrke, but were unable to summon the Valleur
Throne.

The golden
seat resisted all attempts. The resident magic of the valley had
not returned either.

After five
hundred years of trying, stealthily as human hatred of Valleur
intensified, they surrendered to the inevitable.

The Throne and
the valley’s ancient magic belonged to Torrullin.

Only the
Enchanter could recall them.

Thus they
waited and watched the skies.

Two thousand
years had passed.

Chapter 2

How we are born
is not as important as why. Where we are born is not as important
as when. Thus, when we ask who we are, we should hark to the reason
for our birth and the timing of it.

~ Astrology
Facts, a Beacon publication

Everything
would be different if Samuel credited the tall tale his father spun
him last night on his deathbed.

This morning
they buried the old man - old in his soul, not in years - and after
he came here. Was he humouring the old man even in death, or was he
curious? Was it simply escapism from mourning?

The ancient
road was overgrown, choked with weeds. Behind Samuel the Valleur
city glistened in the watery sun, beautiful even in abandonment.
Not a wall had crumbled and no cracks marred the unattended
buildings; a testament to a race of master builders.

Earlier he
wandered through the deserted streets to reach this point. There
were no waiting ghosts, no evil atmosphere as he was told as a
child, but never, he now realised, by his father.

Perhaps the
whispers would reach out to him at nightfall, or assail him during
the hours of darkness.

He was forty
years old and a married man, with a good income, a head on his
shoulders, and a ten year old son. He was not given to useless
fiction.

His wife Curin
had to be wondering where he was, but would assume he needed to
come to terms with his father’s death. That was true, but he felt
guilty that he had not repeated the tale his father whispered,
voice clear in the telling, when it was a quavering gargle for
months. His father exacted from him a promise to say nothing, and
he did so … but this?

His father’s
voice last night was decidedly strange. Not so much the brief
return to strength, but the manner of speaking, as if his father
was another reaching into his son’s depths, to reveal a truth he
was unaware of. It frightened him, and curiosity aside he needed to
disprove it and allay that sense of otherness.

He wandered
into the valley Torrke. It would be dark before long, but he had no
intention of … what? The valley was deserted, everyone knew that.
Everyone also knew of the horrific destruction that took place two
millennia ago. A residue, radiation, something like that, could
still cause harm. They said the Golden of the Western Isles renewed
life here after destruction, but it was magic, and he did not trust
magic. It existed, yes, but not in his world or that of his
family.

Samuel turned
to go back or be caught in the city when the sun set and, fantasy
or not, he did not want that.

He could not
believe he came.

Perhaps he was
more gullible than he believed.

His name was
Samuel Skyler and he carried a secret passed from father to son for
two thousand years. Whether he held it to be true or not, he would
tell his son on his own deathbed. He promised, swore an oath. All
gods had taken note.

He halted,
staring at his feet. There was a patch of dark on the old fawn
road. He kicked at it and then drew back. Glass. Firmly entrenched.
He rubbed at his eyes. There was nothing to be afraid of, for
Aaru’s sake. A piece of glass did not herald a bolt of doom from
above. All it meant was long ago there was destruction unparalleled
here, and this piece remained after restoration. There were bound
to be others.

Samuel
hastened through Menllik, the abandoned Valleur city. On the other
side his horse waited patiently and he clambered into the saddle.
Turning the beast he started down the road to Linmoor. After a
moment he reined him in.

He stared at
the gap formed by the Morinnes and Arrows Mountains, the entrance
to Torrke.

For a long
time he sat, uncomfortable, but unable to look away.

He would
return in the morning.

Chapter 3

Words are
sacred.

~ Truth

Tannil reached
for the newest Oracle.

The one the
Enchanter began after his return from Luvanor and the war there.
Torrullin had not entered much, for time then was of the essence,
but others - the Elders, those with direct knowledge - filled the
pages with accounts of the two battles with the Darak Or Margus,
the one culminating in his death at the Pillars of Fire and the
other heralding the destruction of Torrke, the Enchanter’s beloved
valley. The final battle claimed the Enchanter’s physical being and
took the legendary Vannis to his death also.

The battle
with the Dragon Neolone was chronicled in detail, this by Caltian,
Tannil’s stepfather, the Valleur who administered the killing
stroke to a Valleur legend.

Tannil knew
the tales by heart. He had not studied the Ancient Oracles well,
preferring to refer to them as occasion demanded, but he studied
this, the newest addition.

Vannis’s tale
was chronicled by the Enchanter himself, as was the story of the
feathered beings, the Q’lin’la, friends to the Valleur. The thirty
years that saw the Enchanter walk upon Valaris and Luvanor could be
studied by paging through this tome.

The Enchanter.
His grandfather. The complicated man who knelt before Mitrill to
recognise him.

Torrullin
whispered about the Golden, about his intentions regarding Margus,
about Tristamil, the father he, Tannil, would never know.

A brief time,
but a Valleur babe did not forget. Tannil remembered every word and
while he could not fathom the nuances, not having known the
Enchanter, those words drove him every day of his life.

Tannil.
Man
of Words,
or more simply,
Academic
. What a farce. He
employed scribes and the like to do his letters and administrative
duties. He enjoyed a good book, but it certainly did not fall into
the academic expectations his name created. He was an excellent
orator, but that was something he seldom needed to employ. Having
left the humans to themselves on the continent, the Valleur were in
a period of peace, and it called for few flowery speeches.

He opened the
book and turned to the last words Torrullin personally
inscribed.

Man of
Words
. Indeed, but the words were those the Enchanter whispered
to him and they were these words beautifully written in the newest
Oracle. His name referred to
them
and only he knew that. Fay
thought him depressed by his heritage, but she was mistaken.

Fingers ran
over Torrullin’s words.

The Enchanter
sat and wrote. A task conceived, a task completed. Striking
handwriting. Clean lines, no flourishes. Fluid, readable. A man who
knew what to say, a tidy mind.

He smiled. He
once remarked on that to Mitrill and she denied it.

A complicated
mind, she said, and a genius. Someone able to fathom the
inexplicable, reach for the logic within, and able to record it as
if it was simple all along. The magic of his magic.

Tannil leaned
back in his seat. The Elders would be entering below - the meeting
he yesterday promised his mother. It was time to put his oratory
skills to use. They would attempt to sway him, but he would
prevail.

The majority
of the Valleur needed to vacate to Luvanor or they would soon be
engaged in a logistical nightmare trying to feed so many. Most, he
suspected, would welcome the move, and attempt to convince him to
move his court also, but he was not about to hear many arguments
there.

“’We shall
battle for Valaris again’,” Tannil quoted.

The
Enchanter’s words.

The Valleur
tended to view it as symbolic or something to consider in the far
future. Peace bred complacency.

“’It appears I
shall never be done’,” Tannil whispered.

Torrullin’s
final words.

Was it
resignation that forced those words to paper?

“My Lord
Vallorin,” Kismet called from the doorway, “the Elders are
gathered.”

Tannil rose.
“Where is my son?”

“He and Lady
Fay are in the gallery.”

“Fetch them,
will you? Have them join us downstairs.”

“Yes, my
Lord.”