The Echolone Mine by Elaina J Davidson Read Free Book Online

does Heart of Darkness last?”
    Pouring
coffee, Saska replied, “It depends on whether you were given it,
learned to find it, or took it. Taking it brings an erratic gift
and you would soon lose it - a few days, no more. Having learned
it, you keep it until you abdicate the responsibility, as I did. If
you were given it, it is for a specific purpose. Once you have used
it, it leaves.”
    “The three of
us?” Lowen asked. “Taken or given?”
    “There’s a
connection to that angel; I believe it was bestowed.” Saska passed
mugs around and sat. “Here’s a bit of a dilemma. Is your specific
purpose the Chamber of Biers, and thus, even if you don’t use it
there, you lose the Heart when you leave, or will it be with you
for another occasion?”
    “What do you
think?” Elianas asked.
    “Only Lily can
answer. If you want to know, go to her from here.”
    “Then we go to
the Lady,” Lowen stated with finality. “I don’t like this.”
    Saska leaned
on her elbows ignoring her coffee. She gazed at Torrullin. “It
sounds to me as if this net of sites is a good state, a far ranging
plan that has borne fruit. It further occurs to me this is why the
Lady of Life is ever successful. She taps into the wellspring of a
world, one already conditioned. Why mess with it?”
    “We don’t want
to mess with it. It is good, as you say,” Torrullin murmured. “But,
Saska, a black heart in an angel? Gods, that is not right.”
    She leaned
back. “I don’t think you quite understand. It was not a black heart
- it was the Heart of Darkness. If Ceta were to revert to drought
and death, it is the place to tap to reverse it, and maybe it kept
all the ills of a world at bay until now.”
    He stared at
her.
    Saska smiled.
“Tell Lily; she can instil the other in its place, if
necessary.”
    Elianas
murmured, “We should not be so hasty in the future.”
    Saska still
fixated on Torrullin. “The future is dark for most of us, but it
does not mean there isn’t a future. If we are now shaken free of
the Void and onto a linear path, does it not follow we create a new
future by every action we take, every thought we have, and every
emotion? We are not in danger of falling off an edge into
nothingness; we are made new and create fresh as we go forward.
There is nothing to be afraid of.”
    “Always I
could see what lay ahead, and now naught. It does not add up,”
Torrullin responded.
    “My visions
have ceased also,” Lowen murmured.
    “So seers are
out of work,” Saska smiled. “Yet the future is with us, around
every corner of the heart, mind and soul. Torrullin, you worked
with known futures and know how to bring on certain circumstances
because you experienced them before, lived them, even manipulated
them. Now all is new; what would you see? Not an existing parallel,
but an unknown future. For you it appears dark or clouded. To us it
is expectation, surprise and colour. It’s quite normal.”
    Silence, and
then, from Lowen, “Actually, it makes perfect sense.”
    Saska inclined
her head.
    “We may be
pulling at ghosts in our uncertainty,” Elianas murmured, looking at
Saska with new respect.
    Torrullin was
thoughtful. “Why Heart of Darkness, then?”
    “Seek and ye
shall find,” Saska grinned. “Uncertainty requires certainty to
negate it, right? Maybe the Chamber of Biers is your specific
purpose. You need to know all is well.”
    Torrullin
lifted a brow. “We would have raised the dead, Saska, had you not
spoken warning. That is profound change.”
    “In the past
you would have found out what Heart of Darkness meant before being
impulsive.”
    “Granted, and
then we would still have raised the dead, knowing no other way.” He
leaned forward. “I hear what you say and usually would agree, but
if I look behind the surface I see something else. I think had we
gone to Excelsior rather than Ceta, the Heart of Darkness would
have waited there. We were meant to have it and to use it. Had you
not been here, with your