Tallis Read online

  His hand cupped her cheek, pulling her face close to his. “Your ability to love despite everything that has been done to you shows how truly strong you are. The weak hate, but only the strong can love. Yes, you are the Loren, but always with me, you are a woman first.”

  She gasped when he pressed his lips to hers. At first, Tallis hesitated to move. It had been centuries since she had been in such proximity to a man, and it came oddly to her. Then, the layer of ice that had long kept her heart from others, melted blissfully. Tarameen held her face in his hands and stroked her cheek with his thumb, keeping her in reverie until they both laughed.

  “What can become of us?” His words weren’t directed at her, but came out as his own thoughts given to sound. “I never thought someone like you would find in me something of worth.”

  “You think too highly of me. Maybe I’ve been wrong to withhold, Tarameen.” Her solution seemed so simple. “Perhaps you are right. Would loving you keep me from my fate? No. Then why deny this? And I have been alive long enough to understand this: if you believe in something larger than yourself, the small obstacles of life can no longer bar you.”

  “As I believe in you, even death could not stop my love for you.”

  “Alas, Tarameen,” sighed Tallis, “there are some things that not even sorcery can change. Let us take comfort in this: I have six days before I must leave for Solas. For six days, my heart and my time will belong to you.”

  Six days fled like horses given chase. Tallis hesitated to join the students’ revelries, staying in her apartment during such celebrations instead. They worried little over her absence. She had always been, with the exception of spending time with Tarameen and occasional palavers with Lenu or other Masters, a solitary figure. What they did suspect, however, and what was closer to the truth, was the reason she kept her sequester. Long had she honed an air of indifference, but since her confession to Tarameen, she feared that her body’s reaction when locking with his gaze would betray their secret. It had been agreed before leaving the cave that no one could know of their involvement. Tallis didn’t know the sequence of events that would shortly ensue, but she suspected that treachery was on her dawning horizon. She didn’t want Tarameen’s safety jeopardized at the hand of enemies, as yet unknown or unrevealed, seeking leverage against any power with which she might be entrusted or need to usurp.

  As such, daylight became a painful experience for them. Always, eyes were watching; always, parched tongues longed to be whetted with the wine of intrigue and gossip. Evenings, however, were spent in anything but passivity. For five nights, she and Tarameen escaped the gawking chinwags all about the Cove and fled to the foothills. They dined on their confidences and drank scented tea sweetened with whispers of the heart. Tarameen spoke of trivial matters, like the beauty of Tallis’s lips or the taste of the dimple in her cheek, a temptation he had long admired from a respectable distance. Night was a harbor to them, sheltering their words as they sat, locked in conversation under the vastness of the heavens, until the dawning sun again tugged at their paradise. The stoic gave way to the poet, as the Loren told the Systerian of distant lands and ancient times.

  Such a change as he saw in her, like a bud born from the stem coming into bloom, that he did not realize how peculiar it all came to her. Tallis’s expressions, emotion, vocal or otherwise, did not come easily or naturally. In speech, she was always sincere. In composure, always graceful. But in matters of the heart, she had always been reserved. This was the way of the Loren servant class, taught from birth to be numb. What surprised Tarameen most of all was what Tallis revealed to him about the Lorens themselves.

  “Stoicism as their guiding virtue… It’s not always been so,” she confessed as her head tucked into the fold of his arm. The cool grass beneath their bodies caused a shiver, and had it not been for their nearness to one another, a chill would have driven them back to the Cove. “Long ago, longer than my feet have walked the land, they were poets and artists, philosophers and thinkers. They once revealed in all that was, not sliced off the best scraps of life only for a select few.”

  “What happened?” He kissed her forehead. “I can hardly picture a Loren given to rhyme or dancing about.”

  “Knowledge was ripped from the heavens, and given to man,” she uttered in a bewildered tone. “But the knowledge given to them was in a corrupted form, and they confused its corruption with purity. Everything changed. I don’t know now, if they could ever go back. You can still find, sometimes, in the older places where many ancient ashmums were built, evidence of those times. A scrap of parchment with verse, a lyric of an old song, which speaks of beauty. Oh, to be so encumbered by knowledge again. That would truly be a blessing to them.”

  Their last day brought the eve of the immortals’ departure for Solas. All apprentices of the Cove had been summoned to the Great Hall, Tarameen amongst them. As was custom when a week drew to a close, the Masters would entertain the students with the heroic, dramatic tales of a long, distant past. On this night, Lenu had taken the place of honor in the center of their audience, as he was known to do with little goading needed, and asked the students which of the great adventures of his time they wished to hear.

  From among the crown came a meager shout, “Tell us of your slaying of the dragon of Racule.”

  “Yes, tell it again!” came another shout, endorsing the sentiment.

  “How many times must I relate my own victories? Do you not tire of my glory?” He laughed and feigned humility, though all could see he was beside himself with pride. “However, if this is what you want, very well then. It was when I was a very new to my immortal time. My people were of the west, and since my boyhood, I had recalled hearing of the terrors of Racule. As an immortal, however, what had I to fear? The beast could do me no harm from which I would not recover. So one day, I decided that I would rid the world of this horrible beast, once and for all.”

  “Is that so, Lenu?”

  Tallis walked into the Great Hall from behind. Everyone swung around, as though on hinges to take in the shape of her form as she ambled up the path allotted her by the students. Lenu, too, spun around and found himself taken aback. Though it was well known that Lorens possessed wings like doves, though in proportion to their frames, rarely did this Loren bring into plain sight the beauty of her adornment. Often, she had a cowhide overcoat wrapped around her body. It, however, was nowhere in sight. Wings, white as snow and the height of a body with a crowning of more on top, framed her figure, giving her a majestic repose. Even Tarameen was taken aback at the vision of his beloved, though he was familiar now with those two celestial arcs. During the last few nights they had gotten in the way of his amorous pursuits more than once. Unlike her customary woven garb, Tallis was attired gracefully in gossamer pink robes, and wore about her, jewels which ranged from white and humble to one, large emerald, the size of a child’s fist, set in gold and hung from a chain around her neck. Royal jewels. She might have confessed to him in private of her displeasure with being made the sovereign, but by the manner in which she presented herself tonight, she had been born to the claim.

  As if they were a field of wheat, blown over by a demanding wind, all in the Great Hall lowered themselves before her. All but Tarameen, whose hungry eyes could not be convinced by his cautious mind to look away.

  Tallis stared down the headmaster with a piercing glare, from which Lenu couldn’t help but recoil. “If I recall correctly,” she said, “you were so frightened at the mere roar of Racule that, upon hearing him, you commanded the winds to take you so quickly in the opposite direction, some sailors mistook you for a waterspout.”

  The hall boiled into laughter. Lenu’s face grew so red as to light the room.

  Boldly, Tarameen arose from his seat on the floor. Coming before Tallis, he properly kneeled, but more than a few at the sight of this act smirked ruthlessly.

  “Milady, will you tell us a true legend?”

  “What of, Apprentice Tarameen?”


  “Tell us how the immortals came to be.”

  Those of that ascribed class suddenly jerked their heads up. With conspiratorial glances, they turned to each other, fretful. Then, in unison, their gazes carried to Tallis, eyes heavy as though asking if she dared to break the silence they had held in confidence throughout the centuries.

  “Why not ask one of the Masters? As immortals, they all can speak of their origin.”

  “I ask you because you were the first, my majesty,” Tarameen replied. “And I ask you because if you choose to tell us, you will not lie.”

  Silence, like a blanket, fell.

  “Are you certain you wish to know? In telling you this truth, I could reveal your Masters to be somewhat ignorant of their own making.”

  A slight bow of his head to the Masters, all of whom sat as embers on a pyre, and Tarameen grinned. “The first lesson I learned as their student was that ignorance ignored is foolishness earned.”

  Tallis appeared satisfied at this validation. “If you wish.”

  She sat herself down upon the seat that Lenu had occupied moments before. Apparently, she thought its height unsuitable, for it soon rose steadily up into the air, levitating her so those at the back of the hall could see her just as well as those at the front.

  “At the coronation of Andresa,” she began, easing herself into a comfortable repose, “she was told by the Gods of her destiny. As Empress, she would one day be visited by a Loren whom, by her own invocation, would be made immortal. This intrigued Andresa, as she had no idea how anything of the sort could come to pass. Although she was a powerful sorceress and a wise Empress, she feared that to hold hope in the prophecy was folly. The Lorens, while loyal subjects to the empire, were creatures of isolation. Very few ever ventured beyond the shores of Lorelei.

  “Though magic and the strength of the Gods slowed her aging, nothing could forever keep Death at bay. ‘Tell us the word,’ they had begged the Empress. ‘Tell us the words for life and death, so that we may save you,’ they beseeched. But what could Andresa do? She didn’t, in fact, know the words, and the knowledge of them was lost to times more ancient than even the Gods.

  “I first came to Andresa’s court as a young woman, sent by the Solasian king who had purchased me as a slave. By this time, Andresa was very old and ill, but she was still a proud and noble ruler. The Empress was the kindest of souls, and, despite my lowly birth, she took me in the last weeks of her life as one of her personal servants. In keeping with the modest standard of my station, my wings had been bound under my frock; thus, she did not recognize my nature in viewing my form.

  “It came to pass that on the day of her death, I was at her side. Though she could not rise, she could still speak. She told me of her frustration, that knowing her death was nigh, how disappointed she was that she had not fulfilled her destiny. When I asked what she meant, she shared with me the prophecy that had been set before her on her day of her ascent to the throne. It was then that I revealed myself to her as one of the race that she had anticipated. Andresa let slip a hint of a smile and said to me, ‘Tallis, you must be my immortal one. At last you have come!’ Then, Death took her from us.

  “This is how I came to be the first.”

  Tallis locked her eyes into Tarameen’s never-ceasing stare. She grinned, so subtly that if he had not become so accustomed to studying her features for any display, he might have missed the fleeting crack in that marble facade. It was a curious thing, as though she were trying to clue him into something. Her lips did not move, yet in his head, he heard her voice whisper, “Come.”

  When the master demanded, the servant obeyed. Or better, when the lover beckoned, the beloved leapt. He rose, putting his hands on the floor to prop himself up. As he did so, the image of a horizontal plane caught the corner of his eye. Directing his gaze to investigate, he found that every member in the hall, the immortal Masters included, was flat on the floor.

  “Do not worry,” Tallis interjected into his momentary terror. “They only sleep. There are things of which we must yet speak, and our time diminishes by the second.”

  “Tallis?”

  “Come, we have not time to spare. The sun has just set, and we have a short window of opportunity.”

  She took his hand and led him to a niche in the hall. The alcove held a chair, said to have previously been one of the Empress’s thrones. Behind this seat, hung a tapestry, its faded stiches portraying the scene of Andresa’s ancient coronation. Tarameen watched, perplexed, as the Loren leaned toward this hanging, and then whispered words of the old tongues. She spoke the language taught to students at the Cove as a means to unhinge impressively stubborn locks. Then, she added a few utterances he did not recognize. High magic, no doubt. To his amazement, an iron door, painted red and gold, appeared.

  “Perhaps you will not believe it, but magic can create portals that span great distances with only a few footsteps,” she explained softly to him. “I have not often undertaken this task—once the portal is stitched, there’s a chance it may be used by anyone with knowledge of it—but we have need of it now.”

  Though he was now the lover, he remained still her student. “Has it limitation?”

  She nodded. “It cannot cross water. Luckily for us, our destination lies not too far away.”

  With a push, the door yielded to her touch and opened, though what lay beyond was masked in darkness. She motioned to Tarameen to enter. He nodded, offering his hand to her. They stepped into the doorway and paused. He could see her mouthing something, but the darkened niche did not allow for him to understand her soundless utterance.

  Without warning, his vision was stolen by the onslaught of light. He felt the sense of traveling, but not of movement. Wind blew his hair straight back, but a sense of serenity enveloped him. He could not see, and yet images of things past and present flew before his eyes. He heard a low growl, as if a giant cat were about to strike. Then, silence.

  Tallis kissed his cheek reverently. Slowly, his eyes readjusted to the dimness surrounding them. Tallis’s hand was laced in his own, but it was unusually warm.

  When she spoke, he wasn’t sure the words were meant for him. “I hope this errand proves itself worthy.”

  “How so?”

  She turned to him, and again that smile, once so foreign as to be almost mythic, danced across her face. “I am not customarily given to use such strong magic for such selfish ends. I keep telling myself that sleep does them no harm, but still, to have stolen from them for so fleeting a task... To open this portal takes a tremendous amount of energy.”

  “For example, might it take the energy of a whole hall of apprentices?” Tarameen asked, quickly connecting the event with the undertaking.

  “Enough to make them weary, or in the case of moving two people, to put them to sleep. In truth, we could have escaped tonight into the meadows as we have been doing simply enough, but I committed to a course of action as I sat in my meditations today. I dedicated myself to undertake it before I had the opportunity to change my mind. I wanted us to have the benefit of every afforded moment, so I usurped Lenu’s dreary prattle in order to steal you away.”

  He chuckled. “You have this intriguing streak of manipulative diplomacy.”

  “You forget, I was to be, am to be, Empress.”

  A silence fell between them, and as it did, a soft glow illuminated their surroundings. The source was uncertain. Even with study, Tarameen would not have been able to say from whence it came. It was simply present, and it enveloped them. Surveying their surroundings, he discovered that the door through which they had walked was gone, and in its place was their familiar cave. How touching it was to him that their last night together before her departure would be spent in the place where first their intimacy had kindled.

  “Tarameen?”

  “Yes.”

  She swallowed her nerves and an ample amount of air. Nervousness was a second, and heretofore unseen emotion in as many days to occupy her features. “I wish to make
known to you the powers of life and death.”

  He stumbled. “Come again?”

  “If I should die in what is to come, I need to be certain another carries this knowledge on.”

  The declaration hung in the air between them, interlaced by the fact that even Tallis doubted she would survive.

  “I do not want this. No, I will not hear it.” He shook his head fiercely. “I do not like that you consider yourself lost. How can you leave me so soon? I won’t accept this mantle. I won’t lose you, Tallis. How can you leave when I haven’t yet told you I love you?”

  She didn’t have a chance to argue. He took her into his arms. Their kisses were defensive, like weapons against the storm forming on the horizon. Each trying to claim the other’s very existence, they were bound in deeds made of sighs and embraces. When later they lay calmly in each other’s embrace, however, Tallis was reminded of her task.

  “I need to tell you,” she insisted.

  Heavy-lidded eyes flickered open. “Why do you persist?” Tarameen yawned as his free hand ran through his tussled hair. “There is no need for you to debate. I will not lose you. It would end me.”

  She turned to gaze up at him, her cheek on his chest. “As in your dream, if ever you were lost or in peril, I would come save you. Would you not do the same for me?”

  There was no hesitation in his answering.

  “This is why,” she continued. “If I am lost, come for me. Transcend the boundaries of life and death, and come for me. Avenge my death, by remaking my life, as I would for you.”