The Kallanon Scales Read Online Free PDF Page A

reparation for what happened. That is not why I
called.”
    Both
slumped.
    “Something
else is wrong, other than in my own household. This morning I heard
tidings to alter our lives in a profound sense. Before I can begin,
I need tell you that I love you. I erred when you were in your
mother’s womb.”
    It was the
first time he broached the subject and looks of alarm flitted
across the two younger faces.
    “Father …”
    “Tristamil, allow me to finish. We have skirted the issue
since the day of your third birthday. I have avoided it since the
day you were born, and for either of you to come forth with the
truth meant a revealing neither of you were prepared to endure. I
do mean neither of you, for this day I understand it is exactly so. You are
twins. You exist together, you fall and win together. I acknowledge
that the mistake was mine. I should have recognised both of you. My
excuse has been that I fought for the survival of our world, it was
an accident, one babe was behind the other, and it was impossible
to know. Lies, for I am the Enchanter …”
    “Unfair,
Torrullin!” Lycea spoke. “Being Enchanter was new, and you weren’t
as entirely Valleur as you are now.”
    Tristamil
said, “You are more Valleur than Vannis most of the time.”
    “Conservative,” Tymall murmured. “Very Valleur.”
    “Do not
side-track me. I assume responsibility. Moreover, I let it be,
compounding, thereby, the original mistake. I should have sat you
down before to thrash this out.”
    “Is that what
we’re doing?” Tristamil queried.
    “Because of
Saska?” Tymall asked.
    “No Ty, not
over Saska, but know this, she told me nothing. Had she come to me
the day you two crawled home at death’s door, I would have finished
the job. One of you will prostrate himself at my feet. The other I
shall thank for saving the life of the woman I love.”
    Silence
reigned.
    “This
discussion is not to thrash out what should have been, although I
hope for a measure of the truth.” Torrullin paused to scrutinise
expressionless faces. “It is proper that the truth be known, given
what comes next.”
    “Baring the
soul is a double-edged sword,” Tymall murmured.
    “Yes,”
Tristamil agreed. “Your candour is noble, but you hope for more
than a measure of the truth this night.”
    “He needs to
know unequivocally who wields the power of darak,” Tymall
clarified.
    “Because
greater evils approach,” Tristamil added.
    Torrullin
rose, seeking distance. He lifted the decanter of brandy from the
counter, and paused. He swung, smashing it to the ground. “Saska
was right, one of you knows evil.”
    “Of course she
was right,” Tristamil said. “You should’ve listened to her.”
    “Are you
trying to goad me?”
    “I am trying
to understand what is happening here.” Tristamil rose, ignoring his
brother’s warning glance. “The question is, why now? You need us
revealed. You apologise for an error compounded twenty-five years.
Why?”
    “To bring one
of us into the fold?” Tymall said.
    Torrullin drew
breath and let it out inaudibly.
    “No, idiot!”
Tristamil said to his brother. “That would result in the denial of
the other. Even if we know nothing else, there is one thing we can
rely on, our Enchanter father loves us. Is not that the reason one
of us pretended? One of us needed that unconditional love. He does
not want to deny you or me, for he loves us both.”
    Tymall and
Tristamil locked gazes. Lycea retreated to a corner where she
listened in foreboding. Torrullin had frozen. Never had he heard
this honesty from them.
    “Tris, you are
wrong in assuming only one of us needed it. He gave us what a
father should and for one of us to turn traitor on a brother would
eventually have lessened one of us in his eyes.”
    Tristamil
whispered, “Is ours a symbiosis?”
    “Yes, and the
riddles will go on until we are revealed.”
    Tristamil
murmured, glancing at his father. “That is why we are here, for
this is easier.”