The Mountains Rise (44 page)
Another day passed before they made ready to leave Thillmarius’ accommodations in
Ellentrea and return to Lyralliantha’s home in the Illeniel Grove.
“When we return there will be many questions,” she said, as if to prepare him. “What
you did in the arena was unprecedented. They will want to know how you did it.”
“Do you mean this?” he asked, indicating the tattoos along his arms.
“That is part of it, and if that had been all
,
it would still have created a stir, but the lightning will be of even greater interest
to them,” she replied.
“Ahh…”
“Your aythar didn’t move.
W
hen the lightning came
,
it remained completely still. It was as if the sky itself came alive and chose to
attack the Krytek. It destroyed the barrier and almost broke your opponent’s shield-weave.
How did you do that?” she asked.
He shrugged, “I’m not even sure if it was me. It felt strange, almost like falling
into a dream, or maybe like dying. I just couldn’t lose. More than anything I couldn’t
let go of that, and when I got caught in the
electrical
trap
,
it rendered me almost entirely helpless
. As I was
lying there, all I could think
was how badly I wanted to kill my enemy
,
and then it felt like I left my body.”
Tyrion frowned, “No, that’s not it either. It felt as though I expanded—sort of.
The sky was there, the clouds and wind, and they were part of me.”
“Could you do it again?” she asked staring directly into his eyes.
Even as she asked
,
he could feel the sky above them, a great vault of air moving in the sun
,
speckled with clouds. Beneath his feet the earth beat with a steady rhythm
,
and even the
walls
of the living wooden building they were within sang to him.
I could do something,
he thought,
though I’m not sure what or how.
“I don’t really know,” he told her, “but I doubt it.” Something told him that a lie
would be better than the truth.
“Thillmarius wanted to know about it too.”
Lyralliantha smiled, “Of course. Whatever it was, it was something the She’Har have
never seen before, something beyond our experience, and we have been manipulating
aythar for eons beyond counting.”
“No one expected that from a simple baratt, eh?”
She reached up, placing her hand on his cheek and holdin
g his face in line with her own.
T
he gesture was tender while at the same time emphasizing her seriousness. “Listen
to me, Tyrion. They will want that power, and they will get it. If you can explain
it to them
,
do so
, or they will never give you peace. If you cannot explain it
,
admit nothing, or they will expend every effort to understand the secret of it, up
to and including dissecting you.”
He tilted his head, looking down at her, “But I already admitted to you that I had
something to do with it, although I don’t understand exactly how I did it. Doesn’t
that mean that they already know?”
Her eyes studied him
,
and then she answered, “No, it doesn’t. I have spoken to no one about this yet.”
“But you will,” insisted Tyrion. “You are a child of the grove, right?”
“I almost threw my life away to preserve yours,” she answered. “Would I undo that
by telling them?”
“You would put my wellbeing above the interests of your people?”
“I would do as I please,” she said, “
and you please me, but there is one thing we must do before we leave here.”
Tyrion was still processing her words. “What is that?”
“Your collar,” she said, pointing at his throat. “Without it
,
they will kill you.”
“Is one free human that big a concern for the She’Har?”
“We have not survived so long by being foolish,” she countered. “And in the arena
the other day you gave them reason to fear you.”
He clenched his jaw, “I don’t want to be a slave again.”
“Did I treat you as one?”
“
Someone h
aving the power to kill
you
on even the slightest whim isn’t the sort of thing one can just forget about,” he
told her.
“But you have the same power, don’t you?” she a
sked challengingly. “As you demonstrated a few weeks ago, every time I came within
reach of you unshielded I was unwittingly giving you the opportunity to take my life.”
She moved closer, running one finger along the tattoos on his arm. “And now even
a shield-weave wouldn’t protect me, would it?” Her face was less than an inch from
his own.
Her nearness was having an effect on him. “Is there a way to remove the collar later?”
“It can be removed in the same way it is put on, and only with consent of both parties,”
she replied, deliberately brushing against him.
“And would you give such consent, if I asked you to?” he asked, her teasing was driving
him to distraction.
“When you decide that you no longer wish to live with me, regardless of the consequences,
I will remove it,”
she told him. “If not, you can take my life.”
He growled into her ear, “I’ll accept your bargain, but I’ll take something now to
seal it.” Grasping her shoulders with rough hands he turned her around.
“That I will gladly give,” she whispered.
Their leavetaking was delayed for a brief time, but fortunately
,
no one came to check on them.
***
The walk back to the tree where Lyralliantha made her home was nerve-wracking. Tyrion
could feel the She’Har watching them during the entire journey. Most stayed out of
direct sight, but he could feel their attention lingering on them as they traveled.
The necklace at his throat felt heavy. This time when she created it he had understood
the words, and with his consent
,
the spellweave had been completed, but he still didn’t like it. Despite her sweet
entreaties
,
he would never have accepted it if it hadn’t been for one simple fact.
There was nowhere else to go.
His recent trip had shown him quite clearly that home was no longer home. His parents
still loved him, but he no longer belonged. It was time for him to make his own home
in the world, and there was only one person in Colne that he wanted, or that wanted
him for that matter, but Kate had already made her home. She had begun her family,
and the last thing Tyrion wanted was to destroy her happiness, or to hurt Seth.
That left
the Illeniel Grove, and the She’Har could not accept a free human.
Lyralliantha’s yoke was light, however. She promised him as much freedom as she could
offer
;
and that, combined with her ample charms, was enough to convince him. Some might
even consider it paradise.
Tyrion was not so minded, though. He still held a deeper anger
,
and his pride would never accept even such gentle slavery as his due.
I will learn and expand on what I have discovered
,
and eventually, I will teach them the error of their ways.
It was statement of fact within his soul, but
under
it simmered a subtle threat.
That night he lay in a new bed, with Lyralliantha beside him, and after she had fallen
asleep
,
he let his mind drift free. This time he listened to the deep beating of the earth
and he felt his mind expand to encompass something much greater than the body he had
grown up with.
Hidden
beneath
the thin veneer of stable land and living trees was a burning world of liquid rock
and great pressures. It called to him
,
and as he listened
,
he understood. The beauty he found in it seemed to mirror his own quiet anger, hidden
and buried.
Just relax here a little and great things could happen.
He dreamed of fire and red rivers of molten rock.
When he awoke the next morning he felt strange, as though having arms and legs
were
unusual. Lyralliantha was gone, but his mind found her close by, returning with
a hasty impatience in her step.
Her eyes were full of urgent meaning when she came into view.
“What?” he asked, sensing a strange fear in her.
“There was an earthquake
last night. A great upheaval to the east of us. A new volcano has arisen
,
and the land is torn. Part of one of the great groves of Mordan has been destroyed
and fires threaten much more,” she told him.
“Are we in danger here?” he asked.
She shook her head, “No. It is hundreds of miles to the east. But thousands of my
people are dead.”
“Do you mean people like you, or…”
“The elders,” she corrected, “the great trees. We do not count the children, but
many of them are gone as well.”
That’s right,
he reminded himself.
Even among their own kind they only count the trees as being of true value. Their
children are almost as expendable as their human slaves.
“Oh,” he said noncommittally.
“They’re dead, Tyrion,” she said in a tone that rose slightly in harmony with the
inner distress she was feeling. “Do you understand?”
“You’ll have to forgive me, Lyra, but I don’t feel quite the same about your people
as you do,” he admitted. “I, and my people, have suffered much at their hands.”
Her eyes darkened for a moment and then grew slightly wider. “Lyra?”
“Your name is very long. If I’m going to be saying it twenty times a day
,
a shorter version will suffice. It’s called a ‘nick-name’.”
“Nick-name,” she said to herself.
“It’s something that close friends or family use to address one another,”
he explained.
Her face twitched momentarily into something reminiscent of a smile, but it vanished
quickly. “I will remember,” she answered. “For now, I must go
;
the lore-wardens are calling an assembly. Your meeting with the elders will be delayed,
possibly for several weeks.”
“That’s fine,” he replied. “I wasn’t particularly excited about it.”
She started to leave.
“Wait,” he said suddenly. When she looked at him inquiringly he added, “Lovers don’t
just pop in and then leave like that.”
“What do they do?” she asked.
“This,” he told her
,
and then demonstrated by giving her a brief but meaningful kiss. “Now you can go.”
Her lips quirked into a definite smile after that. “Do we have to do that every time
we meet and part again?”
“Not always, but often—yes,” he said.
“Your customs are strange, but I find them intriguing,” she said, before leaning in
for another kiss.
“You learn quickly,” he replied.
She nodded. “I must go,” and with that she did leave.
Once she was gone he sat and reflected on his dreams. He remembered trying to do
something similar to what had happened in the arena, only with the earth instead,
but he had fallen asleep, or at least he thought he had. His dreams had been full
of much that sounded like what had happened to the Mordan Grove.
“Surely the two things are unrelated,” he said quietly.
That was hundreds of miles from here.
After he ate breakfast
,
he ascended the tree, finding the highest vantage point. In fact the tree had grown
a small platform there, to accommodate others
who
had sought such a view. Looking to the east
,
he saw a dark smudge across the horizon, probably smoke from the fires raging there.
It was too far to see much else, but somehow he knew
, mountains were being born
.
“So he was an archmage?” said Matthew. “Like you?”
I nodded.
“I could have done
without
hearing about some of the kissing and stuff,” he added.
I grinned at him, “I tried to gloss over most of it for you.”
Moira disagreed, “Some of it wasn’t too bad. I think Lyra is in love with Daniel.”
Her reaction didn’t surprise me. My daughter appreciated the idea of romance a bit
more than my son did, though that realization unsettled me. I didn’t like the thought
of her growing up, though I had no way to stop it. “She was, but he wasn’t the same
man
who
first entered that forest,” I told her.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well his name change was symbolic, but it represented something deeper, and darker.
Daniel was kind, if misguided, but Tyrion was guided by a different light,” I said.
“What light?” said Matthew.
“Anger, and retribution,” I answered. “Tyrion’s heart was more distant
,
and love was no longer his primary motivation. From that point on, he did find peace
at times, but it was always temporary,
a fragile stability covering the anger and resentment he held within him.”
Moira kept to the point, “But he still loved her back, right?”
“His anger made it difficult for him to see her as she was, and he still had feelings
for Kate,” I began.
My daughter didn’t like that answer, she frowned at me. “I don’t understand that
either. If he was still in love with Kate, how did he fall in love with Amarah?”
“People can love more than one person,” I said simply.
“You can love lots of friends, and your family,” clarified Moira, “but you can only
love one person like ‘that’.”
I shook my head, “If only it
were
that easy. Unfortunately,
you are wrong, though if things did work that way it would prevent a lot of problems.
People can, and frequently do love more than one person in the romantic sense.”
“That’s just wrong,” she replied.
“I still don’t understand it at all,” stated Lynarralla.
Matthew stepped in then, “But if he was still in love with Kate, why did he—umm—you
know, with Lyra?”
“At this point in the story you should be well aware that sex and love are not the
same thing,” I told him.
Just wait until one of them brings this up with Penny and she asks me what I’ve been
telling them,
I thought inwardly.
That will be an interesting conversation.
Remembering Penny brought me to my senses. It was getting late
,
and we needed to dress for dinner. Not that we weren’t dressed already, but being
a nobleman had its disadvantages. While I could wear what I wanted while we were
in our mountain cottage, when I emerged for dinner I had to be suitably attired.
That meant a change of clothing. “We need to get ready for dinner,” I told them.
“Can’t we eat here?” said Matthew with a long sigh.
“No, neither I nor your mother is planning to cook today, and besides, we need to
make ourselves more visible in the castle.”
“I don’t like wearing a doublet,” he complained.
“You’ll like being hungry even less,” I countered. Parenthood comes with a number
of useful tools
,
and control of the food supply was frequently a handy one, especially as they entered
the teenage years.
“You’re a cruel man, Dad,” said Matthew.
He smirked at me
,
and I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Just be glad I’m your father and not Tyrion.
Starvation would be the least of your worries then.”
All three of them were confused. Matthew spoke first, “But he
didn’t
even know his children. Except for meeting those two girls, they were complete strangers
to him… right?”
“So far, yes, but when we get back this evening I’ll tell you about how he met them—all
of them,” I responded. Thinking about it made my stomach a bit queasy as the memories
came unbidden into my mind.
“Really?” said Moira with sudden interest. “Did he get to raise any of them, like
a father?”
“Sort of,” I answered, “though more like a commander than a father.” I closed the
door in my mind to block out the images, worried I might lose my appetite for dinner.
“Let’s talk about this later.”
They pestered me a bit more before getting dressed, but I refused to tell them anymore.
Eventually they gave up and got ready
,
and not long after that we made our way together to the castle.
The food was good, but then it always was. More importantly, Penny was there
,
and I found comfort in her nearness. Allowing myself to relive Tyrion’s story had
unsettled me.
But there was yet more to tell…
Coming in Late 2014:
Thornbear
The story of Gram Thornbear.
Coming in Early 2015:
The Silent Tempest
Book 2 of The Embers of Illeniel:
Tyrion’s story continues.
For more information about the Mageborn series check out the author’s Facebook page: