The Echolone Mine (12 page)

“Valleur?”
Cassy demanded.

Quilla shook
his head.

“Egyptian?”
Torrullin asked.

Again Quilla
shook his head. He pointed a finger at Torrullin. “It is unknown.
You are thinking, so what? There are civilisations built on
civilisations and cities have been rebuilt on ancient foundations -
happens all the time. A door in rock is a curiosity, a matter for
archaeologists, which, by the way, has added a new dimension to the
tension. Archaeologists dig in, preventing further blasting.
Torrullin, all those who see the door claim to have a vision after.
Erin had one, and so did Shedo.”

“Erin is a
priestess,” Torrullin murmured.

“Shedo has not
the gift. What they saw is nothing terrible - green plains, flowers
and so forth - yet it is a twist. I think you should
investigate.”

“And,
naturally, my presence will put every miner and exploiter on
tippy-toes.”

Quilla
smiled.

“Why do you
say this Echolone needs a sacred site?” Cassy asked.

“Erin said
there were tensions from ancient times. It may be your network is
able soothe it.”

Cassy nodded.
“We shall consider it carefully.”

Elianas
glanced at her. “We? We are going?”

“Of course we
are,” she declared.

Lowen said,
“In a time when visions have ceased, this is an oddity.”

“I agree,”
Torrullin murmured.

“Visions have
ceased?” Quilla gasped. “When?”

“Since Void
exit,” Lowen said.

“That is
terrible! You must investigate this.”

“Inform
Tristan we shall see it done,” Torrullin stated.

Elianas
grinned.

Menllik

Valaris

Caballa,
celebrated Valleur seer, had a small house on the outskirts of the
Valleur city of Menllik.

She spent her
time making it homely for Tristan, although she did not expect to
see him much, for the Kaval took all of him in the present. Yet he
would come and she would welcome him.

Sitting on her
stone porch taking a breather from renovation, she stared south
towards the Gosa Mountains, legs swinging free from a hanging
seat.

Her visions
had ceased. For so long she alternatively welcomed them and wished
them away, and now she was lost. What worried her specifically was
the vision she had of Tristan and the fair man at the Digilan
portal. The Syllvan suggested she examine anew, and warn Tristan,
and she could not see even the original vision.

Did it mean he
was safe?

In the past
doubt often took her to the Three Gates where dreams were
deciphered, but the Gates had ceased in their purpose and the
Valleur as a whole had stopped dreaming.

She chewed the
inside of her cheek and reached a decision.

Caballa called
to Torrullin.

Quilla had
taken his leave to return to the Dome and the party of four left
the restaurant when Torrullin received that call.

Caballa
stopped swinging when she saw them. She rose. “That was quick.” She
greeted everyone.

“We were in
Gasmoor.” Torrullin pecked her cheek and briefly introduced Cassy.
Saska, he knew, told her about Cassy.

Caballa smiled
at the woman. “Welcome.”

Cassy dimpled.
“Thank you.”

Torrullin
glanced around. “You are fixing this cottage?”

She smiled.
“What do you think?”

“Good job. For
you and Tristan?”

“When we touch
base, yes.”

“That will not
be often.”

“We are not
the kind who need constant reassurance.”

He smiled. “I
know.”

“The reason I
called …”

“… no more
visions,” Lowen murmured.

“You too?”

“All of us,”
Torrullin stated. “Since the Void.”

“The Valleur
have stopped dreaming,” Caballa added.

Elianas sank
into long-legged pose on the swinging seat. “We have always
dreamed, always seen ahead.”

“And now
Quilla tells us of a door where visions come,” Torrullin murmured.
“Coincidence? I think not.” He filled Caballa in.

When he was
finished, she said, “I am going with you.”

“We could use
your help.”

Lowen sat
beside Elianas and he rocked both of them. “Torrullin, we need a
linguist,” Lowen pointed out. “No one here knows how to read what
is on that door.”

“I know of no
one versed in glyphs.”

“I do,” Lowen
said. “Cèlaver.”

He stared at
her. “They do not leave.”

Lowen
shrugged. “King Priam still lives and owes both of us.” Between
them, they saved the king’s life from an ambitious minister.
Cèlaver was where he found her after returning from the Plane.
“I’ll go. Since you and Tristamil brought the common tongue there,
linguists have taken on importance. Few languages escape them
now.”

“Do it.”

She inclined
her head, knowing it would not be a simple task. Cèlaver was an
underground civilisation because the surface was uninhabitable.
Long evolution underground now meant sunlight was akin to poison,
and Cèlaver was insular and isolationist.

“Send
co-ordinates when you are underground,” Lowen said.

“Agreed,”
Torrullin murmured.

Lowen rose.
“Then I’m off.”

“Be
careful.”

“Always.” She
was gone.

Elianas
murmured, “You are cavalier.”

Torrullin
ignored him.

Caballa headed
inside. “Let me throw a few things into a bag. There’s coffee in
the kitchen …”

Elianas
glanced at his wife. “Are you strong enough for this?”

An eyebrow
arched. “Sweet caring - how novel. Yes, I can do this. Everything
is new - people, food, places, the mixture of races, climate,
language, the things you talk about. I am intrigued, challenged and
love that it is different, and want to go adventuring. Elianas, now
I am freed of my father’s yoke, I have freedom of choice also.
Strength will follow.”

“You are
different.”

“You are as
well, and so is he.” She gestured at Torrullin. “Different people
in different times and maybe different mistakes. Shall we aim for
that this time? Let us do this and see where we are when we come
away.”

Torrullin
said, “I admire your spirit, Cassy.”

Half an hour
later they headed for Echolone.

Purpose
awaited.

Clearly the
gods were fast asleep.

Wake up!

Universal
Demand

I
t is a known truth that people vary in appearance,
personality, goals, ambitions, character, desires, culture, creed,
religion, temperament, intelligence, acceptance of system,
government, others, in prejudice and fairness.

Passion sets
people apart. Every sentient has a passion, even the lazy man; his
passion is doing as little as possible. The mean-spirited, his
passion is hurting others; the charitable soul loves helping those
less fortunate. The academic, knowledge; a writer, words; a mother,
her children; the scientist, order; the priest, love of his deity;
a road builder, satisfaction of a job well done; a gardener,
nature; the poor man, security; the rich man, more wealth; a
beggar, change … and so forth.

Which passions
set the six about to delve into the complications of Echolone
apart?

The linguist
from Cèlaver, a man by the name of Carlin who came with unseemly
haste to Echolone, possessed two overriding passions. One was the
challenge of language and the other was a desire to leave his
underground habitat. Of course, he entered another delved place,
but change made the difference.

Lowen,
immortal Xenian seer, possessed an underlying passion, one she had
not acknowledged. Hers was the hope of freeing herself from a
destructive relationship. She sought the tools to stand alone,
without seeing herself as part of Torrullin. In the grotto before
the Syllvan, instinct bade her say yes to death; it was an instinct
to lead to the reality of freedom.

Cassiopin,
daughter of Nemisin, wife of Elianas, had a simple passion - she
desired to be a new person. Everything else was the mechanism of
achieving it. It was also the most complicated goal.

Caballa had
two passions. The one caused her to be happy and the other brought
confusion. Happiness lay with Tristan, and she would never regret
the commitment. Confusion lay in her visions. Always they had been
a part of her, they defined her, and occasionally cursing them did
not equate to denial. It would be denial of self. Her visions were
her passion, present or absent, for in them she found understanding
of much that was hidden. What was hidden always told the greater
tale.

Elianas, last
dark Valleur, possessed manifold passions. Desire for change,
future, redemption, new experiences, travel, knowledge, desire of
place in time, a true home - peace. All these desires would exist
were he alone in the universe, and yet none could be divorced from
the force that was the connection to Torrullin. The allure of the
forbidden. The thrill of power. Ultimate mastery. Elianas did not
understand, in desiring thus, peace would not find him.

Torrullin was,
is and ever will be a wanderer. Through worlds, spaces, realms and
time. Through the lives of others, into hearts and souls, without
remaining long. It was part of his charisma; others saw that about
him and he knew it about himself. A wanderer who could not rest,
and only Elianas knew of the one place he called home, a place to
return to when all was new, or all had ended.

In which
direction lay the passion that was Elianas? Freedom from that
obsession or embracing it completely? It was the complicated twists
of Torrullin’s soul, and he functioned between them, because of the
magnetism of the forbidden.

Echolone

Echolone was a
world once in the Forbidden Zone, now shot away from that hurtling
phenomenon.

For long ages
Echolone was ignored and was thus unspoilt. As recent as fifteen
hundred standard years ago, Echolone was uninhabited, and then
Beacon found it and its great forests.

Logging
expeditions were organised and Echolone would have been stripped
bare within a century had not the Immortal Guardians, forerunners
of the Kaval, prevented the raping of a world. Buthos, Siric, was
Guardian leader then, and his fury reverberated into the greedy
souls of Beaconite exploiters. Beacon bowed out and Echolone was
saved.

Around the
same time great climactic changes occurred on Mon Unon, a small
planet with a total population of fifty thousand humans. Drought
wrought havoc and the population was on the brink of starvation.
Aid came, but could not continue indefinitely. Mon Unon needed
rain, but the rains did not come, and finally even aid was
insufficient.

The Guardians
commenced a gigantic rescue effort, transporting fifty thousand
people and necessities to Echolone, using and begging any transport
available. Echolone, rich in forests, water and fertile plains,
welcomed a desperate people. Mon Unon was now a dust bowl.

The humans of
Mon Unon, now Echolone, were different from others. They believed
implicitly in the spirit world and a large percentage of the
population was shaman trained, priests and priestesses who could
enter the otherworld and communicate with the dead. They did little
without first consulting with their ancestors.

Echolone
flourished until gold was discovered, and coal and diamonds, and
people came to upset the natural balance and, in delving, a door
was uncovered.

A steep,
dangerous slope led into an amphitheatre carved in a hillside.

On the far
side, massive timber beams prevented a tunnel into the hill
collapsing. The entrance to the goldmine. The outer area appeared
more like a quarry than a mining operation, and was more dangerous.
One cloudburst, and the arena would fill, the slope would become a
mudslide, and all would hurtle into the hill to drown caught in the
labyrinth of tunnels.

Surly men
stood guard over green dynamite boxes. Rough, helmeted men milled,
looking furious. Men in red coats argued with a crowd of men and
women in green coveralls, the latter standing arms interlaced
before the crude entrance. Older men and women holding picks and
hessian bags argued with others in formal attire. Other men weaved
among the crowd wearing headdresses, chanting.

Explosives
experts, common miners, their bosses, environmentalists,
archaeologists, civic leaders and shamans. Present day Echolone in
microcosm and more volatile than Quilla suggested. Add to it a
glowering sky, and disaster was a heartbeat away. Falling over
haphazardly abandoned equipment in full flight alone would result
in fatalities.

Standing at
the head of the slope, with crude huts adorning the landscape
behind then, Torrullin said, “We came just in time.”

“Only if they
listen immediately,” Elianas remarked.

“What an
eyesore,” Cassy muttered. “Valleur quarries were never like
this.”

“Which is why
we have greeners down there,” Caballa murmured. “Personally, I’m on
their side.”

“We are not
taking sides,” Torrullin stated. “We get these people out and then
seal that entrance before it rains. The rest can come later.”

“Let us do
it,” and Elianas started down.

Halfway, when
they were close enough to be adequately seen and heard, with height
sufficient to lend authority, Torrullin called a halt. He sent a
piercing whistle into the amphitheatre.

Gradually the
noise receded and everyone faced their way.

“Hey, buddy,
butt out, will you?” someone shouted out. “We have enough to deal
with here!”

“Is that
right?” Torrullin returned, throwing his voice. “I am here to tell
you, you will be dealing with something far worse soon.”