The Echolone Mine by Elaina J Davidson Read Free Book Online Page A

knowledge, we would have entered to listen
and, being ignorant, would have raised the dead.
    “Fine, we can
argue the leap to the Chamber of Biers could be faulty, and yet
that leap was made and not one of us argued against it. It fit,
strange as it is. Lowen had a vision of this place before the
future clouded over; why, unless she was to prompt this? We are
meant to raise the dead and do so here. What I cannot figure,
however, is whether we are right or wrong in choosing to listen
rather than do.”
    “Two sides to
every coin and you insist on looking into the metal between,” Saska
murmured.
    Torrullin
laughed.
    “Fine,
Torrullin, then let us examine those components.”
    He laughed
again. “Go ahead.”
    “One, if you
listen now when you are meant to raise, the Heart will remain with
you, and you will be back here. You lose little, except time.”
    “Fine, I see
that.”
    “Two, if you
do not know the right or wrong of it, someone does. This is
something you should bear in mind before doing as you think you are
meant to. ‘Meant’ smacks of another’s planning.”
    He leaned
forward. “Explain that.”
    Saska rubbed
at her cheek. “Well, maybe only those you and Elianas wronged will
be raised. Maybe you are to settle matters, so both of you can go
forward unencumbered.”
    Elianas closed
his eyes.
    Torrullin
said, “Maybe.”
    “However,”
Saska murmured, “and this is the fly in the wine.”
    Elianas
groaned.
    Torrullin
waited.
    “Speaking as
the once Lady, I know you either raise someone before the soul has
crossed over, or you yank a soul from a realm to return it to the
body.”
    “Gods,” Lowen
muttered.
    “The folk in
those biers have not crossed over. Body and soul remain together;
we would not hear them otherwise. They wait to be released.”
    Torrullin
leaned forward again and she held her hand up.
    “Let me
finish. It cannot be done unless another made it so. Put meant and
stasis together …”
    “… and we have
one huge, mother of a problem.”
    Elianas pushed
his chair back to pace.
    Saska
continued, “I know who lies interred and I would hate to see those
people walk again in this time.” Then she murmured, “Listen if you
must, and walk away after.”
    Elianas
dragged a chair clear of the table beside her and flung into it to
stare directly into her eyes. “You say they wait.”
    “Yes.”
    “And if we
walk away?”
    “They continue
to wait.”
    He was
unblinking. “I cannot allow that to continue.”
    Saska was as
unblinking. “Then you must know whether you want to banish her or
not, and stand by your choice, and you must know before you go
in.”
    “Where would
she go?”
    “It depends on
who she was when alive, her manner of death, and what the long wait
did to her.”
    Elianas
dragged his gaze over to Torrullin. “Then I cannot banish her.”
    Torrullin
nodded.
    Lowen
muttered, “Gods, Saska, why do you have to be so clever? This whole
thing is now a hundred times worse.”
    Saska glanced
at her and saw no censure there, only grudging admiration. “A facet
of the Lady. We do not forget.”
    “Caballa said
you hate the chamber.”
    “I do, because
I know.”
    Torrullin’s
palms were on the table. He pushed himself up. “How long were you
prepared to wait before you told me?”
    “Until you
asked. Eventually you had to ask. You had to face Nemisin’s bier
some time.” Saska lifted a shoulder and dropped it. “Lily and I put
banishment measures in place, in case.” She gazed at him steadily.
“Truth is, if you had not come now, asking without awareness,
another would in the fullness of time, the one who caused
this.”
    Lowen was on
her feet. “They will know who that person is. We listen first,
Torrullin, and then make choices after.”
    Elianas hung
his head. “Had I not known they hang neither dead nor alive, I
would say we walk from this. I would even suggest we do not listen.
I would not care who meant for what to happen or that the future is
dark.”