Rob Scott - The Larion Senators

‘Mrs Winter?’ Mark ladled out another scoop of peaches. ‘When Steven and I fell across the Fold, the far portal was left open in our house, with your keystone there on the desk. I fell through on a Thursday night; Steven joined me on what would have been early Friday morning-’

‘I didn’t fall through until Friday evening,’ Hannah added.

‘So why did you just leave it there, opened like that? Why didn’t you come up to the house and close the portal? Why didn’t you take the keystone?’ Mark stood. Steven looked up at him; Redrick Shen was noticeably taller than Mark had been.

‘I was monitoring the portal,’ she replied. ‘I knew where the keystone was, but I didn’t know if you had accidentally fallen into the portal, or if you had been invited into Eldarn by Fantus or Kantu, perhaps even by Nerak. I didn’t close the portal, because if I had and you returned suddenly, you might have found yourself swimming home from the Aleutians.’

‘Oh shit, that’s right,’ Steven said.

‘And I didn’t want to take the keystone, because if Fantus or Kantu had brought you across the Fold, I wanted the key available to them.’

‘And if Nerak happened to come through for it, unannounced?’

‘I would have known,’ she said, donning her glasses again, as if out of habit. ‘I actually went to the bank that morning, ostensibly to cash a cheque. Myrna and Howard were working the window and neither of them seemed to know that you had taken anything from the safe. So I didn’t imagine there was any cause for concern. I didn’t expect anyone would be going into your house; everyone assumed you were climbing Decatur Peak together. Howard breaking in that afternoon came as a complete surprise to me. I rushed over when I saw the flames, but I wasn’t permitted anywhere near the fire.’

‘Hold on,’ Mark interrupted, ‘Howard burned down our house?’

‘Didn’t you know?’

‘No,’ Steven said, ‘we had no idea. At first I thought it was Nerak, then I guessed maybe it was just a fluke, one of those things.’

‘It was Howard Griffin,’ she said. ‘He apparently left the stove on in your kitchen.’

‘I am going to beat the shit out of him,’ Mark muttered.

‘Friend of yours?’ Garec elbowed him in the ribs.

‘An abscess in my rectum,’ Mark said. ‘Howard is Steven’s boss.’

‘Disgusting, but I am proud to say that I know what all those words mean, in English. Fancy trick, this cross-Fold travel.’

‘Mrs-’ Steven started, then, ‘Sorry, Lessek, why didn’t you know if we had fallen through or if Gilmour had come over and invited us back?’

‘The portal wasn’t opened until late at night. I had been asleep, so I couldn’t determine if anyone had come through before Mark disappeared, and you were hanging around so long afterward, I thought perhaps you and he had coordinated something with Fantus or Kantu on the other side.’

‘I was a bit nervous before that first crossing,’ Steven admitted, blushing at the memory.

‘And when they came and hauled away the remains of your house, I tracked the portal and the key and I let them go.’

‘To the dump?’ Mark was incredulous. ‘Why?’

‘Why not? It was a damned-near perfect hiding spot: outside of town, buried in the mountains. Who would’ve thought to go looking for them up there?’

‘But the portal was closed!’ Steven shouted. ‘I nearly drowned coming back, landing in the ocean off South Carolina, and then I had to race across the country with Nerak crawling up my backside the entire trip. I found the house razed to the ground, and then I had to dig around up there, through that mountain of ice and frozen diapers and rotting food and shit until I found the stone and the portal. Why?’

‘I had to assume the worst,’ Mrs Winter explained calmly. ‘You hadn’t returned, so protecting the key meant allowing the portal to close. I am afraid, boys, that the keystone and the Eldarni family lines are more important even than the two of you.’

‘But aren’t we the Eldarni family lines?’ Mark said. ‘Isn’t he the incarnation of the Larion Senate? Am I not some errant Ronan prince?’

‘You are,’ she said, ‘but the line doesn’t end with you two. You were, sadly, more expendable than my keystone.’

‘Your sister.’ Steven pointed at Mark.

‘Your sister,’ Mark said.

‘Like I said, you’re catching on, boys. Losing you two was tragic; oh, I worried about you for weeks, but I couldn’t leave the portal open for ever. When the trucks came and hauled the debris up the canyon, I was actually glad: it meant I didn’t have to find another relatively permanent storage place for it. And knowing I couldn’t get it back into the safe, I let it go up the mountain.’

‘How did you get here?’ Jennifer had been trying to stay abreast of the conversation. ‘We didn’t know until yesterday that we had to be here at the beach. How is it that you’re here, all the way from Colorado, so quickly?’

‘I was following you,’ Mrs Winter replied. She considered another go at the peaches, then decided against it. ‘When Nerak arrived and nearly destroyed Idaho Springs, I delayed him long enough for Steven to sneak away towards Denver. It wasn’t much, a few fire trucks, a handful of police officers in the street, just enough to allow Steven to disappear.’

‘Why didn’t you kill him?’ Hannah asked.

‘I’m not strong enough for that, my dear,’ Mrs Winter said, ‘not here. It’s been a long time. I have been able to develop an interesting perspective on Eldarn and the goings-on there, but that’s taken me centuries to do. To kill Nerak, I would have had to open the Fold and I couldn’t do that without the spell table. When Steven fled with the keystone, I was more nervous than I’ve been in hundreds of years. I had to assume that with Nerak pursuing him, Steven was working with Fantus and Kantu. However, I couldn’t be absolutely certain, not until David Johnson died.’

‘Who’s David Johnson?’ Garec asked of anyone who might know.

‘A- Well, he would have been a friend of mine,’ Jennifer said, ‘from Silverthorn. Nerak killed him, and a woman who worked at his store, right in front of me. It was horrible, terrifying- but how did you know?’

‘I read about it in the paper,’ Mrs Winter said. ‘I knew Nerak was there and I knew that you had the portal. Steven had given it to you, and when you didn’t turn it over to Nerak, I knew you and Steven were working on the right side of the fence.’ To Steven, she said, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to you that morning in Idaho Springs, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know what had happened since you had left. You could have been rushing home to retrieve the key for Nerak.’

‘But you didn’t try to stop me when I went to the landfill.’ Steven was nonplussed.

‘Of course not.’ Mrs Winter sighed, a little frustrated at trying to explain herself. ‘By that time, Nerak was in the bank killing people and leaving dead bodies all over town, the odious motherfucker.’ She paused. ‘Poor Myrna; she was just a kid. I couldn’t get to the landfill before you, so I had to trust that you were working with Fantus or Kantu. That was one of the more nerve-wracking days of my long, long life.’

‘And you couldn’t save Myrna?’ Mark asked sadly.

Mrs Winter shook her head. Nerak would have torn me to pieces. I’m surprised he didn’t sense my presence in town when he arrived. He probably thought it was the keystone, or maybe the portal.’

‘But you’re Lessek,’ Garec said. ‘We were told stories about you from the time we were kids. It was the stuff of great legends. You were the Larion Senate founder, the most powerful sorcerer of all time. You didn’t have enough strength to save those people?’