Before anyone could speak, there was a strange rushing sound that seemed to come from all around. Shann’s heart skipped a beat. Was another infernal hu-man machine preparing to wipe them out of existence? Then she saw it, rising majestically over a line of ancient hills: an immense pyramidal lattice of gleaming gold. At its centre, a shining azure sun pulsated with power. It was the hu-man vessel they had viewed earlier, occupying the floor of the steep-sided gorge. The Osiris. Its parts had been brought back together and given life once again. Another miracle.
The great ship hung bright against the backdrop of stars and then began to rise higher and higher into the night sky. They watched, transfixed by profound reverence and awe, until it was just another twinkling star lost among countless others.
Finally, Rael spoke, his voice no more than a whisper. “They made it. Lafontaine and the other hu-mans. Finally, they are gone from our world.”
“But what of the Prophet? Wang and the crew that follow him?” Shann pointed out.
Rael was still gazing at the sky. “Lafontaine said he would deliver his ultimatum to them from high above—leave in peace or be stranded here. They will have no choice but to follow. We’ve won.”
Shann thought back to her conversation with Wang at the hu-man facility. The red-faced Captain with wild eyes. Screaming orders. Demanding unquestioning obedience. “I’m not so sure.”
Lyall let out a heavy sigh. “Well, it’s late. We should camp here for the night.”
“What about the Captain and the others?” Shann asked.
“They’re probably far away by now,” Lyall assured her. “Nevertheless, we’ll take turns keeping watch, just to be sure. Come on, Shann. Let’s see if we can find something to build a fire with.”
Shann flashed him a smile and followed obediently.
“Don’t stray too far,” Alondo called after them.
~
Lyall and Shann walked side by side along an undulating ridge that wound its way through the spine of hills occupying the centre of the island of Helice. The others were out of sight some distance behind them now. The night air was bitterly brisk and the stars glistened with a cold intensity.
Vegetation was sparse; they had gathered little enough in the way of firewood. Indeed, it seemed to Shann from the outset that they were engaged in a pretty fruitless exercise, but she trusted the tall fair Kelanni with the light blue eyes. They had been through so much together since that rain-soaked night in Corte so long ago, when she had run forward on impulse, plucked the staff from the ground, and handed it to him. She had descended into the fire pits and faced the Kharthrun serpent in order to save him. If Alondo was the brother she never knew, then in a sense, Lyall was the father. Wherever he led, she would follow.
He knelt down and tried to wrestle a scraggy, dried-up stick from a crack in the rock to which it clung desperately. “So, how are you?”
Shann hesitated, unsure how she should answer the question. “All right, I suppose. Now that Alondo has... recovered. It was a shame about Susan Gilmer. I liked her. I think we could have been friends.” She smiled to herself. “Never thought I’d say that about a hu-man.”
Lyall finally gave up the struggle and stood up, ceding victory to the tenacious scrap of wood, and smiled. “I know what you mean. It’s easy to convince yourself that an enemy is wholly evil. However, the truth is seldom that simple, Shann. In spite of their grotesque appearance, I think the hu-mans are not much different from us. Some are good; others are bad. Some are strong; others are weak. Some would destroy anyone or anything to get what they want; others are prepared even to sacrifice themselves to save another.” He sighed and set off along the ridge once more.
Shann fell in step next to him. His mood was oddly reflective, as if there were something weighing heavily on him. Her first instinct was to try to pry it out of him, but she held back, allowing him the dignity of marshalling his thoughts in silence. When he finally spoke, his words cut the night air like a knife. “I’ll be leaving you soon.”
Her mind reeled. “Leaving... why?”
“There are a few things I have to take care of.”
It struck her like a bolt of lightning. This was the end. The breakup of their little family. They had grown together, laughed and cried together, fought with each other and side by side—all for the sake of a single purpose, a single goal. To save their world from destruction.
Now that that goal had been achieved, there was nothing more keeping them together. Her heart clenched within her. She faced him, eyes fired with determination. “I’ll come with you.”
He turned away, and his voice cracked. “I’m sorry, Shann. This is something I have to do on my own.”
It felt like a slap in the face. “I don’t understand.”
He turned back and placed an arm about her shoulders. His eyes were misty, but his voice was firmer. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. Alondo says you two are going to stick together.”
Shann nodded. “He invited me to go live with him and Hedda for a while. I may well take him up on that. But first I have to find out what happened to Gal—whether she’s still alive. The last time I saw her I made her a promise. I have to at least let her know I’m all right. Alondo said he would help me.”
“Good. That’s good. He’s going to need a lot of support and reassurance in the days to come.” What’s that supposed to mean? She was still trying to work it out when he added, “What about Rael?”
“What about him?”
Lyall had the look of a man who had walked into a room and promptly forgotten what he had intended to do. “Oh... nothing. I just... ”
Shann shrugged. “I imagine he’ll go back to the observatory and resume his position as Hannath’s apprentice, although... ”
“What?”
“Although he may have to walk everywhere from now on.” It was Lyall’s turn to look at her strangely. She chuckled. “It’s just a joke he told me once.”
Lyall smiled as if he were somehow sharing the memory. “He’s a kind lad. Smart too. He’ll go on to do great things, I’m sure of it. But he’s vulnerable. He lacks confidence. He relies on you for encouragement and protection. Be there for him, Shann.”
That’ll be difficult if I’m half a world away. However, she didn’t feel inclined to argue. Instead, she changed the subject. “I expect that Boxx will want to rejoin its people at the Great Tree in Illaryon. Patris will be keen to get back to Sakara and start an uprising to drive out the Keltar and what’s left of the Prophet’s forces—if they haven’t already fled by the time he gets there.”
Lyall stared into the middle distance. “You know, Keris called Patris a survivor. She said he’s the most cunning and resourceful of all of us. Those are tremendous assets—if you can just curb that independent spirit of his.” He laughed more to himself than to her. “I never seemed to be very good at that. However, I have a feeling that you’ll do better.”
He appeared to be rambling. She tried to jerk him back to reality. “What do you think will happen to Keris?”
His eyes refocused on her and his brows knotted together. “How do you mean?”
“She put her heart and soul into fulfilling her role as Keltar. Then she turned her back on that way of life in order to join us. Now she has nothing to go back to.”
He disengaged his arm and faced her squarely. “You care about her, don’t you?”
She forced her eyes to meet his. “She’s changed.”
Lyall smiled and shook his head. “Sometimes when we think that the people around us have changed, it turns out that it’s we who have changed. You’re not the same person you were when I met you at the farmhouse in Lind.”
She thought of the stubborn stalk back along the ridge, still clinging to its cleft in the granite in spite of all attempts to dislodge it. “If that’s true, then I have you to thank.”
“Nonsense. I told you once that you and Keris were on different journeys. You were taught that you were weak—powerless to
help yourself or anyone else. But when you ran forward and handed the staff to me in Corte, you made a choice—you chose to take control of your own destiny. Since then, you have discovered strengths that you never knew you had. Keris was trained to think of herself as invincible. Yet time and again she has been brought face to face with her vulnerabilities and has been forced to acknowledge her failings. Each of you has come a long way. However, your greatest challenge still lies ahead of you.”
“Challenge... what challenge?”
“The challenge of working together.”
What could he possibly mean? Unless he somehow expected her to help Keris find a new purpose. What are you? That was the question she had hurled at the raven-haired woman’s back as she strode away across the deck of Annata’s Reach. Keris’s answer had been as empty as the ocean itself. I am nothing. If the ex-Keltar was to rebuild her life, then Shann would have to help her find a different answer. She had no idea how to go about that, nor was she convinced that such help would be requested or required, but she would be willing to try if Lyall asked her to.
“When I was in the dome of grey mist, I saw her take my parents away to die. Yet later at the Tower of Akalon, when I was prepared to sacrifice myself, she refused to let it happen. She risked everything to save me. I owe her my life.”
Lyall’s faraway look returned. “Keris is like a spring thunderstorm. Nothing can stand before it. But it can be next to impossible to control, and sometimes it can cause as much harm as good. If you can learn to harness that power—use it—then you will prevail, no matter what you have to face.” His expression brightened, as if he had awoken from a trance with no remembrance of what he had just said. “I think we should start back. The others might start to worry.”
As Shann caught up to him, something occurred to her. A question had been playing on her mind for many days, but she hadn’t had the opportunity—or perhaps the courage—to pose it. Yet here, alone together under the gentle starlight, with the hu-man threat removed once and for all, the time at last seemed right.
“Can I ask you something?”
“What is it?”
“What happened to you in the dome of grey mist?”
The silence that fell between them was so long that Shann began to wonder whether he had heard her, or if he had taken offence. Your inner pain is much deeper than that of the others. Boxx had been speaking of her and Lyall when it spoke those words. Did their relationship give her the right to intrude upon the secret places of his soul? However, his voice, when it finally came, held no note of resentment. “I was offered something I thought I would never get.”
“What was that?” she heard herself say.
“A chance to redeem myself.”
~
That night, after standing second watch, Shann lay down on her blanket, wrapping it around her tightly to fend off the bitter cold, but sleep eluded her. She kept turning Lyall’s words over and over in her mind, as if they were part of some vast puzzle, yet try as she might, the pieces simply would not fit together. Finally, she fell into a fitful, dream-filled slumber.
A succession of familiar faces wafted through her inner consciousness. Susan Gilmer standing next to the three great globes, counting down—“ninety-eight... ninety-seven... ninety-six.” Suddenly it was no longer her; it was Wang, the hu-man who styled himself as Prophet, screaming the numbers at her—“ninety-five... ninety-four... ninety-three.” Then she was limping slowly across a vast, open space, desperately trying to get away, supported by Lyall. She looked again and it was no longer Lyall, but her father. Then her father and mother were lying motionless on a flat slab of grey rock. Boxx sat upright next to them, regarding her curiously. “Get up. Please get up,” she pleaded, but there was no response; their eyes remained closed. Then it was she who was lying on the rock, and Keris was shaking her. “Shann. Shann. Get up... ”
The bright light filtering through her eyelids told her that it was well past dawn. She had slept far later than usual, yet she still felt weary. Keris’s voice was hard. Insistent. “Shann. Get up.”
She forced her eyes open. “Wh... what’s the matter?”
“Boxx is not moving. We think it may have passed away in the night.”
She propped herself up, squeezed her eyes shut, and then opened them again. “How... ?”
“We don’t know. Perhaps the effort of reviving Alondo was just too much for it. But that’s not all.”
“What do you mean?”
Keris stood, drawing herself up to her full height. “Lyall has disappeared. And so have the four components of Annata’s instrument.”
<><><><><>
Chapter 21
Shann finally roused herself and trailed after Keris into the morning sunlight. The scene was one of controlled chaos. Packs, blankets, and other items were scattered haphazardly about the camp as if they had been the subject of a frenetic search. In their midst the Chandara lay on its stomach, unmoving, while Rael and Alondo stood over it. The musician’s flamboyant red hat had miraculously reappeared.
Keris looked from one to the other. “Anything?”
Rael’s head was bowed and his shoulders slumped. “No. I think it’s gone.”
“How can you say that?” Alondo protested. “Your discipline is mathematics, not biology.”
“I know a dead creature when I see one,” Rael intoned.
“Why?” Alondo wailed to no one in particular. “Why would it suddenly pass away like that?”
“You forget,” Rael said. “It was extremely old. Something like this was bound to happen. Yesterday it told us that reviving you would take everything it had. Maybe that action somehow drained its life processes to the point where it had nothing left.”
Nothing lives forever, Shann. Rael had reminded her of that when they had discussed the Chandara back in Kieroth. She found his way of confronting her with unassailable facts aggravating. In this case, his remark had turned out to be prophetic.
Alondo looked from one to the other. “Reviving... what’s he talking about?”
“You were dead,” Keris said flatly.
“You’re joking.” Alondo blinked. “You’re not joking. You’re saying it brought me back to life... and then died as a result.”
“That’s just speculation,” Shann said quickly. She glared at Rael, daring him to contradict her, but the boy merely looked bereft.
“And even if it were true,” she continued, “it isn’t your fault. It wasn’t your decision.”
No, it was Keris’s decision. And she would have to live with that, just as she would have to live with Nikome, Mordal, and all of the other deaths she blamed herself for. How much guilt can one person live with?
Alondo looked from one woman to the other. “Did you find Lyall yet?”
“No,” Keris said.
“Perhaps we should conduct a search,” the musician suggested.
“No,” Keris said again.
“Why not?” Alondo demanded.
“I think he’s right,” Shann put in. “Lyall can’t have gone far. He might be injured or unconscious. In any case, we can’t leave here without him.”
Keris’s slim fingers gripped her shoulder and the tall woman breathed in her ear. “May I have a word with you?”
She glanced over her shoulder. The angular face was impassive, giving nothing away. Shann turned back to the others. “Alondo, find a blanket and cover Boxx with it. Rael, see if you can re-ignite that fire. If Boxx shows any signs of life, let me know right away.”
“When you find him, tell him to get his tail back here,” Alondo quipped.
She braced herself for a dismissive or a sarcastic remark from Keris, but the other woman merely turned and marched off in the direction of the ridge where she and Lyall had walked together the previous evening. Shann hurried to catch up.
The suns were fully up, though their feeble warmth barely took the edge off the gelid morning air. The two women walked side by side, the silence broken only by occasional cri
es from the four-winged black-and-white-patterned birds that circled lazily overhead.
Shann’s relationship with the former Keltar had changed; there was no denying that. Once an object of resentment and suspicion, she now viewed the older woman with respect—even sympathy. Yet in a very real sense, they were as far apart as ever. Keris wore the discipline and the precepts of her training much as she wore the flying cloak. It enveloped her, protected her, governed her every thought and action. But it was also a barrier—a high wall that cut her off from contact with her own race. The only real connection she had made was to the Chandara, Boxx. Now it was gone. Shann had no idea how to help her.
Without warning, the older woman stepped in front of her, forcing her to stop. Her voice was a thrown-down challenge. “All right. Let’s settle this.”
Shann frowned. “Settle what?”
“The question of who is in charge now.”
Shann was momentarily confused. “Lyall is in charge.”
“Not any more. He’s gone, and I don’t think he’ll be coming back. We’re on our own.”
Shann shook her head vigorously. “No, you’re wrong. Lyall wouldn’t do that.”
“Don’t be na•ve, Shann. Why do you think he took the four components with him?”
“Well, Annata told us that they would have to be destroyed as soon as they had been used. Lyall must have taken them in order to do just that. He’ll be back when he’s through.”
“Are you saying he didn’t trust the rest of us to go through with it?”
Shann tore her eyes away from the other woman’s searching gaze. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“If that was his intention, then he would have left word of what he was doing. A note. Something. No, the fact that he’s gone and taken the components with him says everything.” Keris let out a long sigh. “I should have foreseen this. His guilt over what happened eleven turns ago. The unknown fate of his sister. That deep-seated martyr complex of his. It’s my fault this has happened.”
The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) Page 89
