For the moment at least, they were safe again.
Hannah was up early, before dawn, brewing tecan and warming two loaves of day-old bread in one of Alen’s fireplaces. She was kneeling on the hearth and didn’t hear him enter the room. When Alen spoke, she jumped, inadvertently spilling several burning logs onto the floor.
‘Jesus, you scared me,’ she exclaimed in surprised English, then smiled disarmingly and switched back to Pragan. ‘Good morning to you too; sorry, you startled me.’ Hannah used the poker to shovel the smouldering logs back onto the flames.
‘Sorry I frightened you.’ Alen moved to the big old chair beside her. ‘The nights are cold this late in the season. Thank you for building up the fire.’
‘I was up early.’ She moved a large stew cauldron from the hinged iron rod suspended above the coals then poured two mugs of tecan. Handing one over, she said. ‘Here you go. I’m afraid it isn’t too strong yet. I never know how long to leave it on.’
Alen watched her with a sense of detachment. ‘You know, you remind me of someone I knew a long time ago.’
‘I do?’
‘The resemblance is uncanny.’
‘Really? Who was she?’ Hannah burned her tongue and blew gently on it to calm the sensation. ‘I assume it was a she, or else our friendship is going to have a difficult morning.’ She laughed.
‘Her name was Pikan Tettarak,’ Alen said, warming his hands on the full mug. ‘She was a member of the Larion Senate.’
Hannah looked nervously about the room and fought off a sudden chill. Alen had spoken several times about the fabled band of sorcerers, but Hannah had summarily dismissed the notion as the ravings of a suicidal alcoholic. Yet, here he was, sober and clear-eyed, his first drink of the day still ten hours off. Hoyt and Churn were asleep in a chamber at the back of the house. If she cried out, they would be in the room in seconds – or whatever passed for seconds in this strange place.
Maybe now was the time to straighten out a few things. She looked Alen squarely in the face and said, ‘You must understand how difficult it is for me to believe you when you talk about this sort of thing. It’s completely outside the sphere of my experience: how on earth do you expect me to just accept that some people can do magic, or live for as long as you claim you have?’
‘For an intelligent woman you’re very shortsighted, Hannah. Until this past Twinmoon it was probably “outside the sphere of your experience” to fall through a Larion portal into another world.’
Hannah smiled in reluctant agreement.
‘So you ought to try to be a bit more openminded.’
‘Fair enough,’ she agreed. ‘So who was Pikan Tettarak?’
Alen’s gaze grew distant and he stared into the crackling flames. When he spoke, it was as much to the fire as to Hannah. ‘She was my wife.’
‘Hoyt never said you were married.’
‘He doesn’t know – no one knew. We were married in your England, in a small chapel near Durham Castle. It works slightly differently in Eldarn, but we loved the idea of making a lifelong commitment to one another, and your marriage vows captured the essence of our passion better than anything here. It was spring, and Pikan carried wildflowers, a handful of colour, like a rainbow. She loved the wildflowers there – we lived in Gorsk, and except for a few resilient shrubs, it had been a long time since either of us had seen anything like the flowers that grow all over England.’
Still fighting to maintain an open mind, Hannah asked, ‘What were you doing there?’
‘We were working. Actually, I should say I was working. I was conducting research into health, some projects I was planning to start up in different Eldarni cities. I was especially interested in how the English handled their sewage, rubbish and fresh water.’
‘And Pikan?’
‘She was a magician, very skilled, one of the strongest.’
‘Was she there to research magic? Magic in England?’ Hannah was horribly afraid he might say yes and cast another depth charge into everything she held as truth.
‘No. Her own magic was far greater than anything she might have found in England at the time. Pikan was along with me for other reasons.’
‘How did you meet?’
‘I was a director of the Larion Senate. Pikan joined us much later, after the Senate’s reputation as a congress of scholars had spread to the furthest corners of Eldarn. Nerak, Fantus and I had already been Larion Senators for a very long time when Pikan joined us.’ He noticed her confusion, and clarified, ‘Nerak and Fantus were the other division leaders, Nerak for magic and medicine and Fantus for research and scholarship. They were friends of mine as well as colleagues. Pikan was two hundred Twinmoons old when she arrived – old for a novice – but it was blindingly obvious from the day she took the vows that she possessed a strength of character and power unusual for an untrained sorcerer.’ He shifted in his chair, then continued, ‘I was in love with her from the beginning. I know people say that is impossible, but it is true. I have lived now for nearly two thousand Twinmoons and I have never felt about anyone, except my children and even that is a different love, as deeply as I felt for Pikan – and that after knowing her for three days. Can you believe that? Educated people, scholars, magicians: we are not prone to such silly, infantile attractions. We knew after three days we were meant to be together for all time.’
‘What happened to her?’
Alen ignored the question, but continued with his story. ‘Pikan went to work on research with Nerak.’
‘The director of magic and medicine?’
‘Right, and the most powerful of all Larion magicians since Lessek himself. Nerak was driven, a veritable machine; he worked constantly, pushing himself further and further, always working to unlock magic’s secrets. Under his guidance, the Larion Senate experienced an era of growth and maturity unlike any in our history. He established standards by which our research was judged, by which our interventions and contributions to Eldarni culture could be measured.’
‘He sounds impressive.’
‘He was. And Pikan was his assistant. She thirsted for the knowledge he had at his fingertips. Together, they made a powerful team.’
‘But something went wrong?’
‘Not at first, no. Their efforts were a model for all our teams for many Twinmoons…’ He drifted off and stared into the fire.
‘But then?’ Hannah prodded, expecting the worst.
‘Then? Then Nerak began to grow distant. He allowed Pikan to recruit young sorcerers. Together we travelled throughout Eldarn, looking for children and young adults who showed promise, like Pikan had when she joined the Senate already grown. We figured if we could detect that level of potential early in life, we could foster a generation of sorcerers nearly as powerful as Nerak himself. Pikan was entrusted with their initial training. Nerak only took over when an especially promising magician came to Sandcliff.’
‘What was he doing instead?’
‘He was studying, experimenting, pushing ever deeper into the hazy morass of power and knowledge buried in the Larion spell table – that was the vehicle through which Larion magicians were able to tap power and in turn introduce certain magics to our world.’ Alen thought this over for a moment, then added, ‘To your world, too, I suppose.’
‘Really?’ Hannah tried to control the scepticism in her voice. ‘Sorry. It’s a little hard to believe we have any magic in my world.’
‘You have plenty, trust me – you need to learn how and where to look. Anyway, Fantus, the third director, and I decided it was time to intervene. Nerak was becoming too removed from his responsibilities, from our values. The Larion Senate was there as a service to Eldarn.’
‘He was greedy?’
‘He was. He had the potential to bring great things to our land, but after a while, he decided to keep it all for himself.’