The Palace of Impossible Dreams (37 page)

And if you're wondering what happens when you swim too far, ask me sometime about Kentravyon . . .

But I was speaking of Cayal. I sensed the ripples of a powerful Tide
Lord in the Tide and hurried to the main hall of the temple, expecting Lukys. We were still in Magreth in those days, the Tide was up and I think, by then, Cayal was nearly three hundred years old. He didn't look it, of course. Then—as he does now—he looked no older than the twenty-six years he was when Diala made him immortal.

“Cayal!” I exclaimed in surprise.

He turned to look at me. He was dressed like a native—in a simple patterned wrap tied around his waist—so I assumed he'd been back in Magreth for a while. I had no notion of what brought him here, but he was staring at the Eternal Flame as if it offered the answer to the meaning of life. He was starting to show the weariness of age, by then. Not physically, of course, but a certain weariness of the soul that afflicts us all, sooner or later. None of us are immune.

You can tell yourself you're immortal until you're breathless, but until you've outlived everyone you know, it doesn't really hit you. I think that's why Cayal had come back to Magreth. Despite knowing he was immortal, it had only just occurred to him he was going to live forever.

“Hello, Arryl.”

I stared at him, looking for some change—the Tides know why—but he seemed exactly the same as the last time I'd seen him. “Why didn't you send word you were coming? Diala's not here but . . .”

“But they'd like to know up at the palace that the Immortal Prince has returned?”

“They'll learn you're here, Cayal. Either someone will tell them or they'll come close enough to the temple to feel you on the Tide.”

“Is Tryan here?”

“In Magreth? No, I haven't seen him in years. I believe he's in Fyrenne somewhere. With Elyssa.”

He was obviously relieved. “I'm glad to hear it. I'm not sure I've the patience to deal with Tryan at the moment. Or Elyssa.”

I smiled sympathetically. Elyssa's fascination with Cayal is well known to all of us. “She is quite taken with you, Cayal.”

“Are you sure Tryan's not here?” Clearly, he didn't want to discuss Elyssa.

“Positive.”

“So who is here in Magreth, keeping the empress company?”

“Engarhod's here, of course. Rance and Krydence come and go. So do Medwen and Lyna. Ambria's long gone, but then she'd left before you
came here the first time, I think. I haven't seen Lukys for several years. Brynden has settled in Torlenia, I hear, with Kinta. I'm not sure what Kentravyon, Taryx or Jaxyn are up to. But Pellys is here at the moment.”

Cayal smiled. He'd always had a soft spot for Pellys. “How's the fish population?”

“Suffering, I fear. He'll be pleased to learn you've returned, though. He's not been happy of late.”

“Immortality weighing him down?”

Cayal's question surprised me, both for its perceptiveness and its accuracy. “I think it might be. How did you know?”

He shrugged. “Call it an educated guess. How are you holding up?”

I smiled. “Holding up? Against what?”

“I don't know . . . life . . .”

“Is something wrong, Cayal?”

Cayal shook his head and forced a smile that didn't fool me for a moment. “Not a thing in the world, Arryl. We're young, we're beautiful and we're going to live forever. Where's the problem in that?”

There was an edge to his voice that should have warned me he wasn't happy. Or maybe I'd just like to imagine there was. “Are you planning to stay a while?”

“If you'll have me.”

“I'll always welcome you, Cayal, wherever I am. You know that.”

“Immortality's been much kinder to you than the rest of us, Arryl,” he said, taking my hand. “Or maybe you were just a better person than the rest of us to begin with.”

I wasn't really sure how to answer that, so I just smiled and kissed him to welcome him home. He kissed me back like a lover, which surprised me a little, although I can't say I minded. I've never been in love with Cayal, but he's hard to resist, particularly when he's being vulnerable; and with Diala away, I didn't have to worry about upsetting my sister.

“You came back for
me
?” I asked, finding myself a little breathless, I have to admit, by the unexpected intensity of his kiss.

“I came back to remind myself why I'm still alive,” he said.

I understood that in a way only another immortal can, so without another word I took his hand and then led him out of the temple and down to the terrace where Pellys was killing my goldfish.

_______

There's something about Pellys, an innocence that belies his appearance. To look at him you'd think him a man in his thirties. Talking to him, you find yourself quickly revising that opinion. It's like talking to a child. Even before the incident that destroyed Magreth, he wasn't much brighter. If you know how Cayal was made immortal, then you probably think my sister a monster, but I sometimes wonder if her method wasn't the less cruel way of being made immortal. Diala tempted and tormented the men she immortalised, but they all had a choice, even if they weren't entirely clear on what it was they were choosing. Pellys, on the other hand, was made by accident. At least we've always thought he was. He survived the fire that burned down the brothel where Syrolee worked.

The Tide is both apathetic and remorseless. None of us was singled out, I fear, for our nobility of spirit.

Pellys was beside himself when he saw Cayal. He'd hung around the temple for years, on and off, waiting for Syrolee to summon him. She never did, of course. She'd chosen Engarhod the Sea Captain over Pellys the Half-witted Brothel Bouncer more than a thousand years before and nothing had happened in the meantime to change her mind. I do believe she'd have put Engarhod aside in a heartbeat if she thought Lukys might have anything to do with her. He's a powerful Tide Lord, after all, and Syrolee loves power more than life. But Lukys, even before they became immortal, thought her a crass and irritating whore, and I'm fairly certain neither immortality nor the intervening thousands of years has done anything to change his opinion of her.

But I digress. I was talking of Pellys and how glad he was to see Cayal.

Cayal smiled when he saw the pile of fish on the ground beside the pond and how engrossed Pellys was in his game. “I hope you're planning to restock Arryl's fountain when you've killed all that lot.”

I'm not sure why, but Cayal seems to have endless patience when it comes to Pellys. Perhaps that's why, despite some of the things he's done, I still think essentially, he's a decent soul, albeit a somewhat confused and, at times, exceedingly dangerous and irritating one.

Pellys looked up from his game, dropped the fish he'd just caught—back into the pond, thankfully—and rushed to embrace Cayal.

And then he burst into tears.

Cayal embraced him uncertainly as Pellys wept, looking over his shoulder at me.

I shrugged. “He's been like this ever since he got back from Euland.”

You've probably not heard of Euland. It's long gone, now. It was a small island off the northern coast of Magreth, on the other side of the equator. We had trade dealings with them, but not much else. I certainly hadn't been there for centuries, and neither, I'm confident, had any other immortals.

Cayal disentangled himself from Pellys and studied him curiously. “What's the matter, big fella? Nobody in Euland have any goldfish for you to play with?”

Pellys has no concept of irony or sarcasm. He just shook his head, taking Cayal's question at face value. “They wouldn't let me keep my wife.”

Cayal's eyes widened. “You have a
wife
?”

“Not anymore. They wouldn't let me keep her.”

He looked to me for clarification, but I knew as much as Cayal did. When Pellys had returned to the temple several months ago, after an absence of more than a century, he'd told me the same thing, but never explained what he meant.

“I always thought you were hoping Syrolee would come back to you?”

Pellys shook his head. “She looked like Syrolee.”

“You found a wife who looked like Syrolee?” Cayal repeated uncertainly. “While you were in Euland?”

“That's right.”

“And they wouldn't let you keep her, you say? Who is
they
?”

“The people what got upset.”

“Upset? What people got upset?”

“The ones who found her. She was mine, Cayal,” he sobbed, “and they wouldn't let me keep her.”

He was having far more success than I'd had in getting the story out of Pellys. But I listened to Cayal interrogating him with a growing sense of dread. Nothing which upsets a Tide Lord—particularly one with Pellys's power and limited understanding—could possibly be a good thing, I thought. Especially not during a High Tide.

Cayal seemed to share my concern. “Pellys, why wouldn't they let you keep her? She wasn't someone else's wife, was she?”

Pellys shook his head, tears coursing freely down his face. “No. She was mine. She was so pretty. Just like Syrolee. And I fixed it so she'd stay that way. But they took her from me.”

Tides
, I thought,
he tried to make her immortal.

Cayal was obviously thinking the same thing. “You set her alight?”

Pellys shook his head, sniffing loudly. “Of course not. That would have
ruined her. The flames would have burned her hair and messed up her face . . . Tides, I wouldn't do something like that.”

“Then what did you do?” Cayal said, glancing at me with growing concern.

“I filled her with spirits to preserve her.”

At first I thought he meant
spirits
in the ephemeral, divine sense. Cayal, however, sees the world differently to me, or perhaps he knew Pellys better than I thought. He looked at him in utter disbelief. “You tried to preserve her, Pellys? With
alcohol
?”

The older man nodded and wiped his nose on his bare arm. Clearly, he saw nothing wrong with the notion. “It would have worked too, if they hadn't taken her from me.”

“Was she . . .” Cayal hesitated, a little afraid, I suspect, to put his suspicions into words. “Was she alive when you tried to replace her blood with alcohol, Pellys?”

He glared at Cayal as if he was a little bit stupid. “Well, of
course
she was
alive.
That's what I was trying to preserve.”

I felt physically ill at the notion. Tides, he'd bled some girl to death and tried to fill her veins with alcohol. Who was this poor girl he'd taken a fancy to? And who were the people who'd taken her from him?

More importantly, what had happened to
them
?

Cayal must have read my mind. Or at least the horrified look on my face. “What happened when they took her from you, Pellys?” he asked gently.

“I made them go away.”

“How?”

“I don't know . . . I just called on the Tide and made them go away.”

Tides, it sounds so trite and harmless now.
I made them go away
, he said.

We didn't know it then, but that was the first hint we had of the destruction of Euland and the fate of the several thousand people who called the island their home.

He hadn't just made them go away. Pellys had wiped Euland off the face of Amyrantha.

I had to leave. I couldn't bear to look at him, let alone contemplate what he'd done. I was still coming to grips with the death Tryan and Cayal had unleashed in Kordana, and that had been centuries in the past. I left Cayal
to coax the rest of the story out of Pellys and returned to the temple, sick to the very core of my being.

At that moment, I was tempted to put an end to the Eternal Flame myself.

Cayal found me later, kneeling in front of the Eternal Flame, praying for guidance. I don't know why I did that. It's not like the Tide ever answered back or offered any sort of enlightenment . . .

Anyway, it was dark by the time Cayal found me. I'm not sure what Pellys was doing by then, but Cayal was alone and looking worried when he knelt on the cool marble floor beside me.

“Does it help?”

“Does what help?”

“Praying?”

“Sometimes,” I said, sitting back on my heels. “How's Pellys?”

“He wants me to kill him.”

I turned to stare at Cayal, wondering if he was trying to be funny. “
What
?”

“He wants me to kill him.”

“But . . . he's
immortal
 . . .”

“He wants me to cut off his head,” Cayal explained. “Apparently, if I do that, it'll grow back without all the memories he's burdened with now. Clean slate, clean mind . . . even if he can't die, I suppose it's as good as being born again.” He seemed to be taking the suggestion quite seriously. And wasn't nearly as upset about the idea as I was.

“You're not seriously thinking of agreeing to this, are you?”

“Why not?” he asked with a shrug. “If Pellys loses his memories, he'll stop pining for Syrolee. That might also prevent him from murdering any more wives. Or villages full of innocent bystanders. Or whole islands full of innocent bystanders, come to think of it.”

“Do you really think he destroyed Euland?”

The temple was dark, Cayal's expression lit only by the flickering shadows of the Eternal Flame. “Why not? Tryan and I destroyed Kordana without even trying. It's not that hard to do if you can draw enough power.”

It chilled me to hear him so casually refer to the destruction of his homeland. But I knew better than to open that particular jar of woe. “We should send someone to investigate.”

“What would be the point? It's either gone or it's not. Nothing either
one of us can do at this point is going to change that.” His practicality was disturbing. I was ill just
thinking
about what Pellys might have done. Cayal appeared completely accepting of it.