OrbSoul (Book 6) (6 page)

   'I am not aware of anything,' said Leth curiously, after some consideration.

   Orbelon continued to scrutinize him. 'There is something. I am not mistaken. But I will leave it for now. You are weary; you have come a long way. Your wife and children await you. I will reunite you with them now, and you may spend a night together, undisturbed. But think about what I have said. Tomorrow we will speak further, with Triune also. I will say one more thing, though. You are not yet done with Urch-Malmain. He is the key to our future endeavours.'

ii

   Night came to Enchantment. Not the night of the formed and realized world, the night that settled upon Enchantment's Reach and the nations of the Mondane, but night of another, incomparable kind. A form of darkness could be said to have stolen across the land, but within it Enchantment came to an ever more eldritch life. The strange and ceaseless shiftings of the air outside the walls of Triune's tower, always visible, ever-changing, ever-becoming, grew brilliant and bedazzling in
the strange night. The weird-lights of Enchantment, the true world, the many-named domain, cast out their restless glow like an unfathomable cynosure upon the world, dazzling and mystifying, jealous of the secrets that brewed within them. From far away folk saw and wondered and feared, as they had done since humankind had first learned how to wonder.

   In the chamber where Leth and Issul lay the living darkness had been partially dimmed by drapes hung across the windows. Even so, the air still seethed with a subdued turbulence of colour, and the rustle and crackle of its restless mutating was audible at some level throughout the night. It was as though a multitude of industrious insects hauled parched leaves over earth and burrowed constantly into soft, slipping sand.

   Leth and Issul, together again at last, were constrained in their love-making. They loved with all the ardour and tenderness that had been held in abeyance during their time apart, and yet they loved with control, their ecstasies intense but barely breathed, their cries muted, gently muffled by each other's hands and lips, for on the other side of the room their two children slept.

   Their loving was no less passionate for that. They drew out their pleasures, each upon the other, for the longest time, both of them experts, knowing one another's preferences and desires through long practice. They delighted in each other, astonished by the heights they reached, laughing near-silently in the blissful delirium of their union and the renewed avowal of their love.

   When they were spent they lay together, holding each other, still exploring with fingertips, delighting in the touch, the tastes, the smells of their bodies. And then, for the first time since their reunion, they told each other in hushed voices everything that had happened during their enforced separation.

   As Issul told her tale Leth felt the distant undercurrents of anger that she had held so much from him. 'You should have confided in me from the beginning, Iss. About the Child. You should have told me when it was born, no matter what you felt at the time. And certainly, when the news came from Ohirbe, there is no question. I should have been informed.'

   She felt a sharp inward pang. 'I know it, and I knew it then, and yet at the time, I couldn't.
Just as you could not tell me of Orbelon. I understand now why you could not, but at the time it was as though you had constructed a chamber in your heart which I was not permitted to enter.'

   Leth nodded to
himself, considering, then said, 'Were you mistreated during your time as a prisoner of the Karai?'

  
'In their terms, no, though I would not choose to undergo the experience again.' She smiled wryly to herself. 'I learned much about washing dishes and mending clothes.'

   'You were very brave, Iss.'

   'I owe a great deal to others. Alone I stood no chance.' She told him of her journey back to Enchantment's Reach, and her subsequent departure yet again, with Orbelon, bound for Enchantment. She came to the grullag ambush and her capture by Commander Gordallith's men. And she felt her heart begin to stir when she spoke of Shenwolf. She recalled her fury when she believed he had betrayed her, though she made little reference to how confused and deeply, bitterly hurt she had felt at that apparent betrayal. She told of her relief when he had rescued her, her ongoing suspicion and the subsequent discovery of his lost past.

   'Then he is Urch-Malmain's man? He is of Orbelon's world?' enquired Leth.

   'We can scarcely doubt it.'

   'Yet you trust him?'

   'I go only by the evidence of his conduct. But I am aware, as is he, that within him there lies an unknown which could yet be detrimental to us.'

   Leth nodded to himself. 'He is devoted to you, I agree.'

   Issul felt her cheeks grow warm. 'And to you, Leth.'

   'Maybe so, but it is another kind of loyalty he gives to you. I see it in his eyes. He is in love with you, Iss. Don't you know it?'

   She caught her breath. 'Is it so obvious?'

  
'Written large.'

   'Yet he may be my killer.'

   'Do you love him?'

   She heard the tension in Leth's voice. 'He has proven himself to be a good friend, Leth.'

   'There is a bond between you.'

   'In the time we have been together we have become close. I feel for him, and fear for him too. And in my loneliest, most desperate moments, when I believed I might never see you or Galry or Jace again . . . ' She shook her head. 'Nothing happened, Leth.
Nor could it. Not ever. You know I love you, only you.' She hugged him fiercely, kissing him again and again 'Only you, my love. Forever, only you.'

   'It is strange,' said Leth presently. 'Something about him nags at me. I cannot identify the feeling, nor can I place him. But he is familiar, and with what you have told me of him now it makes me wonder the more.'

   He lay for some time thinking about it, lazily stroking her hair, until Issul said, 'Now it's your turn, Leth. I want to know everything that befell you in Orbelon's World.'

   Leth told her, just as he had told Orbelon. But he lingered when it came to his account of Lakewander. There was much here that he needed to clarify for himself. 'She believed me a god, Iss, as did her people.
A god whose coming was prophecied, who would save her people, and whose child she should bear.'

   He felt Issul stiffen at these last words.

   'Leth?'

   'Do not worry, my darling. It did not happen. But . . .'

   'But what?'

   He told of his first night in Orbelon's World, when Lakewander had come to him in his bed. 'It was not easy to reject her, Iss. Like you
, I was alone and afraid and in need of comfort. In truth I no longer even knew if I was alive. I wanted her, I won't deny that. But in my mind there was only you. In a sense, I see, our experiences were mirror images of each other. I was charged by my greater need to find you and our children. Hence I turned her away.' He grinned. 'But I think I was mad to do so. She was an absolute vision in her nakedness, enough to arouse any man's passions.'

  
'Pig!' She jabbed him in the ribs with her fingers. He writhed, and laughed; she covered his mouth with her hand, lest he wake the children. He pulled her to him and pressed his lips to hers in a lingering kiss.

   Then Issul said, 'Their prophecy was fulfilled in part, then. You saved them, in the manner of the god they believed you to be. But Lakewander does not carry the child that they desired from you.'

   Leth shifted uneasily. 'It may not be quite so, Iss.'

   'What do you mean?'

   With some hesitancy he gave his account of his journey with Lakewander, as far as their experience upon the Shore of Nothing. 'I don’t know what happened there, Iss, and that is the truth. It was ecstatic, agonizing, terrible, illusory, insane . . . I have no explanation for it, and my memory of what actually transpired is a blur. We did not make love, you have my absolute assurance of that. But something may have happened without my knowledge or consent.' He turned his head away. 'I do not know. I swear to you, Iss, that is how it was. The next thing I knew Lakewander was gone. I was with Urch-Malmain in the Tower of Glancing Memory. He told me Lakewander had gone back, but that she had taken my seed that she might bear my child; that the child of a god might live among her kind now that their own god had departed.'

   'Do you believe him?'

   'Everything there was strange; utterly, unutterably strange. Anything is possible. But it is important that you believe me, Iss. I will not deceive you. That is the way it was.'

   She gently squeezed his hand, and eased forward to put her lips to the flesh of his shoulder. 'I love you, and if I have learned one thing during all this turmoil, it is just how greatly I love you, and how I have missed you.'

   'Those are two things,' he said, kissing her.

   She tweaked his flank and smiled. 'I think
there may be many more.'

   They lay entwined in
quiet reflection for some time, soothed now by the hissing air. Then quite suddenly Leth stiffened. 'By the gods!'

   'Leth what is it?'

   He took her arm from around him and sat up, staring into the seething, glowing dark. 'By all that lives and breathes! Yes! It is so!'

   'Leth, what are you saying?'

   'It is why I know his face!'

   Leth pulled aside his bedcovers and rose quickly from the bed. He grabbed a robe and wrapped it around himself. 'I must speak to him.'

*

   Shenwolf was housed in the neighbouring chamber. He was quick to respond to the knocking on his door, and fully dressed, giving Leth, and Issul behind him, the impression that he had not been asleep.

   His pale face registered immediate surprise. 'King Leth!'

   He stepped back to allow them in.

   Leth wasted no time. 'You know nothing of your origins, is that so?'

   The young soldier nodded. 'That is so.'

   Leth was staring hard at his face. Over his shoulder he said to Issul. 'Aye, there can be no mistake. I see it so clearly now. This is he.'

   'What is this, Sire?' asked Shenwolf. 'Do you know something?'

   'I have some questions,' Leth said. 'Does the name Lakewander mean anything to you?'

   Shenwolf shook his head.

   'Master Protector?
Summoner? Orbia?'

   'Orbia is the name of your palace, Sire.'

   'Does it have any other connotation to you?'

   'No.'

   'What about Ascaria, the Great Sow, the Kancanitrix; the Dark Flame; the Orb of the Godworld, the World's Agony?'

   Shenwolf's face remained blank.

   'But you know of Urch-Malmain, the Noeticist?' said Leth.

   'Only what Iss
--  what the Queen has told me. And I am aware that there may be an inauspicious connection between myself and him.'

   Leth was still scrutinizing his features minutely.

   'Sire, can I ask what it is that you know?'

   'I know with certainty that you are of Orbelon's World.'

   'These names you have mentioned  -  the implication is that you have knowledge of my background.'

   Leth hesitated,
then said, 'You know I have just come from Orbelon's World. And I know now that I have met your family there.'

  Shenwolf’s eyes widened. 
'My family?'

   'I can tell you little. Following a period of catastrophe and personal tragedy you were lost to them. They understood that you had taken up with Urch-Malmain, but know nothing more.'

   Shenwolf's gaunt face was filled with sudden hope and expectation. 'Who- who are my family?'

   'Your father is a venerable mage, a leader of his people and a keeper of history. He was known to me as Master Protector. You have a sister, too. She is of similar age to you. Her name is Lakewander. It was she who told me about you.'

   'Lakewander . . . ' echoed Shenwolf distantly.

   'Do you remember, Shenwolf?' asked Issul in a quiet voice.

   Shenwolf shook his head. 'Nothing.'

   Leth said, 'I can tell you nothing more.
At least, not at the present time.'

   He turned and left the chamber. Issul remained for a moment with the troubled soldier. She reached out and took his hand. 'We know a little more, at least. Another clue has dropped into place.'

   Shenwolf gave a forlorn smile. 'For better or worse? The King has confirmed only that I am Urch-Malmain's creature. Who knows what is inside me?'

   'For better or for worse, we are at least one step closer to finding out.'

   'And what is this catastrophe and tragedy that King Leth speaks of?'

   'He has told me no more than you.'