Keris stood her ground. “I will never submit to the Prophet. I would sooner die first.”
Mordal came to a halt a few feet from her. “But you are Keris–The Heroine of Gort. Would you die here? Unmourned? Forgotten? No-one to tell stories of your fame or sing songs of your great deeds?”
Keris’ head began to swim. She was getting tired of the sound of his voice. “Whatever you are going to do, just get it over with.”
A smile played over his lips. “Very well.” The elderly Keltar stood unmoving for a moment, then his outline began to change–become something less than Kelanni. Fingers lengthened into claws. Teeth spilled out into fangs. Arms thickened. Torso bulged and sprouted pitch-black scales. The creature that had been Mordal filled out, expanded, rose high above the uneven corrie floor. Dwarfing her. It raised a massive foot and brought it down against the stone, making the entire floor of the corrie quake. Keris staggered backwards. What are you?
Vinaceous eyes stared down at her from beneath heavy-set brows. Keris recovered her wits and held out her staff in front of her with both hands. What do you expect to do against that? She chided herself. The monster sounded forth a bass growl. “Last chance, Keris. Capitulate now. Swear allegiance to the Prophet and save yourself.”
Trapped. The high walls of the corrie blocked her retreat, and with the lodestone deposits mysteriously vanished, her cloak was useless. Keris raised her grimy, bloodstained face to the monstrosity. In shassatan, when you no longer have enough pieces to form a strategy, then it is Kadda-Lorran–victory and defeat. To the depths of Kharthrun with that. “No. I will never go back to the person I was. And I will never yield.”
She let forth a guttural cry and charged the giant, stabbing and slashing at the thick hide and unyielding scales covering its lower limbs. The corner of her eye caught a huge shape swinging toward her; the back of an immense clawed hand. She felt the crushing impact momentarily–then it was all gone. The gigantic beast that had been Mordal, the high walls of the corrie, the dark crimson sky. She was standing once more in a field of unending grey. The Chandara stood erect on its hind limbs as if it had been waiting expectantly for her return.
“Follow,” it said, turning away.
Keris swallowed and finally found her voice. “Wait.” The small creature turned back obediently and faced her, eyes like black flames. “Why? Why did you put me through all of that?”
Boxx’s round face was wide with innocence. “I Did Not. I Gave You My Essence. The Thing That You Showed Me–That Was Your Essence.”
Keris had no more fight and no more words left in her. She made a futile attempt to wipe away the mixture of dirt, blood and dried tears that stained her cheeks and trailed after the Chandara.
<><><><><>
Chapter 36
“In the name of the Three, what happened to you?”
Keris leaned on her staff and glared at Alondo as if daring him to restate his question. Lyall stepped in front of his friend, appraising her state. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing,” she rasped.
“Nonsense,” Lyall said. “Boxx, can you take a break from the trials so as to tend to Keris’ injuries?”
“That is not necessary,” Keris maintained.
Lyall stepped up to her, emphasising his superior height. “You are bleeding from various wounds. Without early treatment, there is the chance of infection. What was it you told me? We cannot combat the Prophet’s forces if we end up as invalids.” Keris bowed her head and bit her lip. Lyall felt a wave of sympathy. The woman looks near to breaking point.
“Boxx, can you take the time to treat Keris?” he repeated.
“I Can Treat Keris, But…”
“But what?” he pressed.
“It Will Take Time. There Will Be Delay. Trials Will Not Be Completed Before Night Falls.”
Lyall glanced upward. The clouds had all but blown away, revealing twin suns lying low in a sky that was fading to purple. The suns would be setting soon. “I understand. Boxx, please take the time to heal Keris. Let us know when you are finished.”
“Yes, Lyall.” The little creature beckoned to Keris and led her in the direction of their smattering of tents. It turned back long enough to announce, “Keris Has Passed The Trial.” The woman did not stop or turn around. She was limping painfully.
Shann watched Keris go, making sure she was out of earshot. “I never thought I would see the ‘Iron Woman’ crumble like that.”
“That’s not funny, Shann,” Lyall rebuked her.
“Sorry,” she said. Her repentance had a less than genuine ring to it.
Patris stood at the back of the group, observant as ever. Alondo grinned. “That makes three of us who have qualified. We only need one more to carry the fourth component, and you and Shann have yet to go.” His eyes widened. “Hey, if you both qualify, then one of you can take my place.”
Lyall’s voice was grave. “No. Considering what the others have gone through, I won’t make one person undergo trial who doesn’t have to. Once we have our four bearers, then we pack up and go.”
“That’s very generous of you.” They turned to see Patris walking away.
“What’s the matter with him?” Alondo asked.
Lyall shook his head. “Never mind. Don’t worry about it. I think we should all get some rest while Boxx treats Keris.” The others bowed their heads in acquiescence and began dispersing toward the tents.
Behind them, the flat grey miasma brooded while it waited for its next victim.
~
Shann turned slowly back and forth, trying to peer through the mist. There was something…unnatural about it. Even the thickest fog had patches, subtle variations in texture and density. This was uniform–homogenous. However far she walked within its bounds or reached out to touch it, it always seemed to be beyond her.
Shann set aside the strangeness of her environment and recalled the warmth of her recent parting. When Boxx had announced that she was to be next for the trial, she had felt a wave of trepidation. However, she had no thought of refusing.
Alondo hugged her until she was forced to fight for breath. Lyall offered a stream of advice and encouragement that she only half heard. Keris stood like a statue, trying to disguise the fact that she was leaning on her staff for support. Boxx had strongly urged the woman to lie down following her treatment, but she had ignored the creature. Patris was hanging around the periphery of the gathering as usual, watching the proceedings but offering no comment. But it was Rael’s absence that bothered her the most.
He had not emerged from his tent since she had conducted him there following his trial. Lyall had discerned her anxiety from the set of her face and the way she continually glanced in the direction of the place where he lay. “He’ll be fine. Give it time,” he reassured her repeatedly. She flashed him a smile in return, but her concern was undiminished. Now that she was preparing to enter the grey void herself, she felt sure that he would turn out to offer support, but the flap of his tent remained firmly closed. What happened to you in here?
The dull mist enveloping her offered no answers.
Boxx stopped and faced her. “Are You Prepared, Shann?”
“Prepared for what?” she asked.
The Chandara paused, then its wide mouth formed a single word. “Begin.”
The mist was gone and she found herself standing in an alleyway. It was dark. Pools of rainwater reflected the sky like dull embers from long-forgotten fires. She glanced up at the smouldering face of Ail-Mazzoth, the red sun. What the–
She spun around. “Boxx. Boxx, where are you?” There was no sign of the creature. Shouts from behind her. A crash, followed by the sounds of cursing. This is…Corte. My home. This is the night I aided Lyall. The night the soldiers chased me. But how –?
The sounds of pursuit grew closer. Shann took to her heels. Her feet pounded on the rain-soaked ground as she rounded the crates and other obstacles littering the alley. She needed to try and figure out what was going
on, but her first priority was to escape the soldiers. She recalled her escape route from last time–left at the next intersection.
Shann found the place and slipped into the narrow passageway that ran behind the houses facing Arian Street. They’ll try and cut you off, she reminded herself. The alley bore left. Shann skidded to a halt, paralysed by uncertainty. That’s not right. I must’ve taken a wrong turn somehow.
She retraced her steps, trying to gain her bearings from the backs of the buildings, but the fence was too high for her to get a decent view. Suddenly, nothing looked familiar.
Shann felt a rising sense of panic. It seemed impossible, but somehow she had managed to get lost in the back alleys of her own hometown. She could no longer hear the soldiers chasing her, but that was no cause for complacency. She might round a bend and run smack into them at any moment. There was another intersection up ahead. She slowed, put her back to the fence and peeked around the corner. It appeared to be a dead end, but it was not empty. A figure was seated calmly on a stool, holding an odd-looking musical instrument in both hands and sporting an absurd red cap. Alondo?
Shann felt as if she were losing her grip on reality. She turned the corner. “Alondo? What are you doing here?”
Alondo looked up and smiled warmly. “Hello, Shann. I’m glad you made it. We don’t have a lot of time, though.” He turned his attention to tuning his instrument, belying his previous statement.
“Look, I’m being chased. The Prophet’s soldiers are after me.”
He continued making adjustments. “I am aware.”
“Then why are you here? This night–the night I first met Lyall–happened before I even met you. How is it that you know me?”
He smiled to himself. “I am not really Alondo. Boxx created an interface in order to communicate with you. It encouraged your subconscious mind to interpret the interface in a form that it would readily trust.” He looked up and grinned. “That’s me, apparently.”
“An…interface? If Boxx wants to speak to me, why doesn’t it do so directly?”
“Boxx says that it’s not allowed to interfere,” Alondo said. “It cannot break the rules. It can, however…bend them, within certain limits.”
“Why would it want to bend the rules?” Shann asked.
“Boxx inquires whether you had wondered why it was that you and Lyall had been left till last to undergo the trials.”
“Not really,” she said. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Boxx says that the reason is that your inner pain is much deeper than any of the others. It hoped that the four carriers could be determined before you would have to be put through trial. It does not like the thought of causing hurt, if it can be avoided. So it is offering you a way out, if you cannot face the pain.”
Shann wondered what pain it could be talking about. “What do you mean, ‘a way out?’”
Alondo waved a hand toward the end of the alley. Shann followed with her eye. What she had taken to be a dead end was in fact a fence in which there were two doors, set side by side.
“The left door is your way out,” Alondo explained. “It will take you straight back to the Dais. You will not become a bearer, but neither will you have to face your pain.”
Shann steeled herself. “What lies behind the other door?”
“Boxx says it is not permitted to tell you, exactly. However, if you enter the right-hand door, then three things will happen. You will meet a person you do not wish to meet. You will remember that which you would rather forget. And you will uncover a truth you would prefer not to have known.”
“What does all of that mean?” Shann asked.
“Boxx says it cannot say any more. Even by revealing this much, it is…bending the rules to the breaking point.”
Shann rolled the three “clues” around in her head. They were cryptic, but to be honest, they didn’t really sound that bad. Not when you considered what the others must have gone through. Alondo and Patris suffering from borderline exhaustion–Rael with his ruined tunic and stunned expression–Keris with her multiple injuries; they each looked as if they had come through a battle of some sort. By contrast, the experiences Alondo was describing did not seem to go much beyond harsh words. If that was all it involved, then she had faced far worse.
Alondo had mentioned a “deep pain” that she and Lyall shared. She didn’t like the sound of that. However, the fact was that they only needed one more component carrier. If she could manage to pass her particular trial, then Lyall would not have to face his. I can’t let him down.
Alondo struck a series of chords on his sabada, yanking Shann out of her reverie. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Shann,” he said, “but the soldiers will be here any moment. The place where you are now is like an artificially created eddy–a backwater of this reality. You are about to be swept away again downstream. You must decide your path.”
Her mouth was a determined line. “I have decided. I must go through the right-hand door.”
Alondo nodded slowly. “Boxx says it is not surprised at your choice. It wishes you success. It says for you go through now. Quickly.” Alondo’s attention returned to his instrument. He picked out a tune, humming it to himself as he played.
Shann heard raised voices once more. She glanced over her shoulder. The voices were drawing closer. In front of her, the doors at the end of the alley were of plain overlaying slats of wood, quite unremarkable. She quickly stepped up to the door on her right, placed a hand on the latch and then hesitated. Her journey had begun in Corte. Yet this “eddy” was not Corte; at least, it was no part of her hometown that she remembered. When I step through this door, where will I be?
She turned back to him. “Goodbye, Alondo. And thank you.”
The musician did not raise his head or reply. Her heart felt a slight wrench as she lifted the latch and stepped through.
~
She was standing in a small upstairs room. The effect was most disconcerting. How can a door in a back alley lead directly to an upstairs room in a house? Still, Alondo had told her that the other door led directly back to the Dais, and that made about as much sense, so perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised. What was just as perplexing was a strong undercurrent of familiarity–a feeling that she knew this place from somewhere. The memory was an insect, fluttering at the edges of her consciousness, yet tantalisingly just out of reach.
The décor of the room was simple. Homely. Rough, unadorned plaster walls. A wooden floor. A single chest. A single small bed. A child’s bed. The door creaked, making Shann jump. She spun around to see a tall figure dressed in black. Keris.
‘You will meet a person you do not wish to meet’. Well, that part of the prediction has come true, at least, Shann thought wryly. “So,” she began, “what’s your part in all this?”
The woman’s eyes were bright points in a perfectly proportioned face. She ignored the question. “Do you know where you are?”
Shann took one further look around the tiny bedroom. “No,” she confessed.
“This is your parents’ house where you were born,” Keris informed her, “and this is your room.”
She’s right. This was my room. Her distrust of the former Keltar reasserted itself. “Why have you brought me here?”
She knew as soon as she said it that it was a ridiculous question. No-one had forced her to choose the door that led to this place.
Keris looked her up and down once, making Shann feel as if she had just been closely examined and found wanting. “Follow me.” The tall woman whirled around and exited the room without waiting for a response. There seemed nothing to be gained by obduracy. Shann let out her breath slowly, then joined Keris on the upper landing.
There was a loud commotion coming from downstairs. Shann wanted to ask about it, but she held her tongue. As they reached the foot of the stairs she saw that the central living area was filled with people. There were eight or nine of the Prophet’s soldiers in their distinctive iron-studded leather armour. Shann reached
for her staff instinctively and felt a restraining pressure.
Keris’ long, slender fingers clamped around her wrist. “Wait,” she commanded.
Shann’s flash of resentment was extinguished by a woman’s cry. Her eyes darted between the soldiers’ legs. A man and woman had been knocked to the ground and were being roughly manhandled. The woman was slender and spare-boned, her face screwed up and her arms held out in supplication. The man’s arm gripped her shoulder protectively. He had a lean, haunted look. Shann’s voice cracked. “Wh…what’s happening?”
“Do you not recognise your parents?” Keris said matter-of-factly. “This is the day they were taken–the day you were left alone.”
The soldier band milled around, ignoring the woman’s pleas. Shann felt her throat constrict. “I…I don’t understand. Why don’t they see us?”
“They will not react to you unless you react to them,” Keris explained. “That is how this place works.”
Shann heard a whimper off to the side. A scrawny girl. Short, dark hair. Puffy eyes. Tears streaking her face. Is that…me?
The soldiers dragged the two adults to their feet. “Please…my daughter,” the woman was saying. A burly soldier standing nearby seemed to notice the tiny figure in the corner for the first time. He raised an arm and cuffed her with the back of his glove. The little girl staggered back, clutched her cheek and howled, her whole body wracked with sobs. Shann raised a hand to her own cheek. You will remember that which you would rather forget.
The group of soldiers shoved the girl’s parents toward the front door. Moments later, the child was left all by herself. Her eyes were screwed shut and she wailed uncontrollably. Shann felt her heart melt. She desperately wanted to throw her arms around her younger self, to comfort her. She started toward the sobbing little girl, but Keris got ahead of her. “Come, there is something else you must see.”
Shann impaled her with a look of pure resentment. The tall woman’s face softened. “She will be cared for. There is nothing you can do for her. Come.”
The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) Page 67
