This was all a bit too much for her to take in one chunk. “Lodo Tested me with the Scourge of Aneshti. He said I should be taught along the ways of air and water, but that I could learn his way because I had no talent of my own.” She thought of the word Skender had used — Taking — and flushed. “I use what other people offer. It’s what they have that counts, not what I would have had if I had any.”
“That’s true,” Behenna admitted, “but it always works better if inclinations match. Have you never tried to do it with someone trained our way?”
She shook her head. Apart from the village seer, Aunty Merinda, she had only ever borrowed the talent belonging to Lodo, Sal and those in the Keep who would let her. Aunty Merinda had had little enough of her own that there hadn’t been much for Shilly to use. Maybe there simply hadn’t been enough for her to notice the difference.
“You should try it,” the warden said. “Tait, let her use you.”
The journeyman nodded and offered her his hand. Confronted with it, she didn’t know what to do. The night of the light-sink was still fresh in her mind. It had been so easy to keep Taking Sal’s wild talent, even though she had known it was the wrong thing to do. She hadn’t tried it with anyone since the day after, when Skender had loaned her his talent to cover for the fact that she didn’t want to use Sal’s. Did she dare do it without him around?
But that was just stupid, she told herself. She couldn’t rely on Skender for the rest of her life. She had to learn to trust herself at some point — and it was only Sal she had promised not to use again.
She took Tait’s hand and held it gently in hers, wondering nervously what would happen next.
“Here.” The warden slipped the torc from around his neck and gave it to her. She took it with her other hand and held it even more gingerly than she did Tait.
“Don’t be afraid of it,” said the warden. “It won’t hurt you. The torcs contain a variety of charms woven into the glass, in the same way that Stone Mages capture charms in their tattoos. Every warden makes something like this to demonstrate their skill in particular areas.” She nodded. “See the bubbles? Pick one and stare at it. Concentrate as hard as you can. Now think of a bath full of water and lie in it. Let the water accept you and roll over you. Sink into it and float for a moment. Then open your eyes.”
Shilly did exactly as the warden said. She had never been in a bath containing enough water to float outstretched, so she imagined the sea instead. It was a still, cool day and the sun floated high and pale above her. The water was welcoming and familiar as it rose around her. She took a deep breath and went under. The sun receded and the air fell away above her. For a moment, she felt as though she was rising, not falling — floating face up into a dark, starless sky.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself in a place she had never visited before. She was high up — on a balcony, she presumed — and looking out over a city of glass towers that reminded her of the one she and Sal had found in the Broken Lands, only this one was inhabited. Walkways and staircases connected the towers like silver threads, glinting in the sun. People moved along them, and behind the many glass windows, everywhere she looked. Men and women, even children, all going about their errands with a sense of purpose that made her feel, although she had no real reason to, that they would ignore her if she tried to talk to them. They were aloof, these people: remote, isolated, apart. She knew somehow that she could never be one of them.
With an effort, she tore her eyes away from the people in the buildings and had barely noticed two things — that the sun to her right was setting into a bright blue sea, and that she appeared to be standing on thin air — when the image was suddenly gone. It faded into blue like a cloud burned away by the sun.
She blinked and was back on the buggy, clutching Tait in one hand and the Sky Warden’s torc in the other.
“Did you see it?” Behenna asked.
“I did. A city ...”
“The Haunted City through the eyes of a seagull. Impressive, isn’t it?”
She nodded, even though elements of the vision bothered her. The people she had seen: were they the inhabitants of the city — the wardens, the members of the Conclave and the families they came from — or were they the ghosts the city was named after? Where was the golden tower, the one Kemp had to be careful of, according to a warning the Change had granted her? And why did Manton Gourlay describe the city as “so beautiful, yet so ugly at the same time” when it was so unambiguously the most incredible place she had ever seen?
She didn’t know, and that ignorance bothered her. It was easy to create illusions of things that weren’t real.
“You’re saying I could go there?” she asked.
“Absolutely. You have the potential to learn even if you don’t have the Change itself. You’re clever and you’re not afraid to aspire to what you want. Are you, Shilly? I see the look in your eyes when we talk about the Change. I know what you want more than anything else — and you can have it. We will give it to you freely. All you have to do is come home with us, and it’s yours.”
Shilly was so hypnotised by the warden’s words that she didn’t notice that she was still holding Tait’s hand. Whether Behenna’s illusion of the Haunted City was true or false didn’t matter: the thought that she would see it with her own eyes was even more amazing. But it would mean leaving the Keep. It might mean leaving Sal, if the Synod decided in his favour.
The journeyman cleared his throat and she let him free with a jerk.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No worries, really.” Tait smiled and took the torc from her.
“Did you feel how easy that was, Shilly?” asked the warden. “That was because you and Tait match. You resonate nicely together. I think you’ll agree that it’s easier this way.”
It was true. She hadn’t even noticed that she was using Tait’s talent. It had all happened as naturally as though it was her own. Was this, she wondered, what Sal took for granted? What any of the naturally gifted lived with every day? If so, she envied them even more deeply. It was like dreaming she had wings and waking full of the joy of flight, only to be dashed to the ground when reality asserted itself again.
We will give it to you freely, Behenna had said. All you have to do is come home ...
She was too afraid to ask, Just me?
Tait launched into another tale of his exploits in the Haunted City. She couldn’t concentrate on it. Feigning tiredness from the exercise, she lay back on the buggy’s tray and tried to think. So lost in her thoughts was she that she barely noticed the lengthening shadows as the sun set upon the stony plains. Neither did she see the looming darkness on the horizon ahead, like a giant wave about to crash over the land. Wisps of cloud fled before it, whipped along by a rising wind.
They stopped at sunset to study the phenomenon. The camels were very nervous by then, their restless hoof-falls and groans loud over the wind. Zevan strolled along the road ahead of them, one hand cupping his eyes as though to shield them from the sun. But the sun was behind them, and cast a blood-red pall over the cloudbank to the east.
Shilly could understand why the camels were wary of walking in that direction. The clouds looked like a solid wall blocking their path. Lightning crackled in the darkness beneath them. The wind carried occasional rumbles of thunder, as though the earth was complaining. The air smelled of moisture, thick and portentous. The Van Haasterens had come out of their wagon to look, and Sal stood between them, his expression apprehensive.
Behenna guided the buggy close to where the wagon containing Radi Mierlo had stopped. He jumped out, and Shilly took the chance to stretch her good leg. Hopping off the tray, she gathered her crutches and followed to where the warden and his journeyman had entered the wagon.
Inside, she saw a very peculiar sight. Sal’s grandmother was seated on a low camp bed, dressed in a pale blue cotton robe with her grey
hair tied back in a practical bun. Her grandson, the enormous, white-haired Aron, sat opposite her, steadying on his lap what looked like the bust of a stern-looking man with a high forehead and long nose. The head was slightly larger than a normal person’s, and it was obviously heavy; Aron’s muscles bunched as he held the bust upright before his grandmother. Shilly couldn’t see why he would possibly be doing that, until the bust spoke.
“I know nothing of this storm you say is approaching.” Its mouth didn’t move and its voice was a buzz of insects from a great distance, yet its words were perfectly understandable. She eyed the man’kin with fascination. The Mage Van Haasteren had explained at the Keep only that the man’kin were relics from a bygone era, creatures of stone animated by the Change but not controllable by Change-workers. They existed more deeply in the background potential than humans, and that gave them subtle insights into the past, present and future. Some people kept them as advisors, and Shilly assumed that Radi Mierlo was one such person, even though “taming” the stone intelligences was apparently very difficult. Perhaps that explained the legendary tenacity of the Mierlo family.
“Nothing at all?” asked Sal’s grandmother.
“Water and air are not my field of expertise,” it said. “At a guess, I’d say you’re going to get wet.”
“Who sent it, then? Can you at least tell us that?”
“I do sense a charm at work.” The bust turned at the neck to look at Behenna. Like the giant statues guarding the way to the keep, it moved in tiny but discrete steps, lending the motion a slight jerkiness. “As you know,” it said, “the spoor of weather-working is difficult to follow. It is probably aimed at us, or something nearby.”
“Could it be someone trying to stop us getting to the Nine Stars?” Radi Mierlo asked.
“Of course it could.” The man’kin head didn’t look at her. Its stony gaze slid past the warden to where Shilly peered through the flap. “That face. I recognise it.”
She stood rooted to the spot as Radi Mierlo glanced at her in surprise. “Shilly? How?”
“Yadeh-tash knows her.”
The familiar name snapped Shilly out of her daze. “Lodo’s necklace?”
“It feels storms in the bones of the Earth. Were it here, it could help you determine the nature of the one approaching.”
“But it’s not, is it?” snapped Sal’s grandmother. “You’re worse than useless, Mawson. I don’t know why I bothered to bring you.”
“Neither do I,” shot back the man’kin with a flash of irritation.
“Put him away, Aron.”
Her enormous grandson went to take the bust off his lap, but it wasn’t quite done with Shilly. “I will tell yadeh-tash that you are safe,” Mawson told her. “It wonders.”
“What about Lodo?” she blurted. “Is tash with him?”
The man’kin hesitated. “Yes and no. The essence of your friend is in the Void.”
“But he’s still alive? His body is alive?”
“Yes. It still lives, and yadeh-tash is with it.”
A giddy sense of relief mixed with dread rushed through her. Lodo wasn’t dead! But she was sobered by the thought that he wasn’t really alive, either. It was just as the golem had hinted in the ruined city: Lodo had pushed himself too hard in summoning the earthquake that had helped Sal and Shilly escape and, in doing so, had emptied himself. He was either still empty or something else had moved in.
She owed it to her old teacher to try to save him. This was much more important than just trying to open his workshop. “Where is he? His body, I mean.”
“In the place you call the Haunted City. The Wardens have it in their care.”
“What?” Shilly turned, appalled, on Behenna. “Did you know about this?”
The warden looked cornered for a moment. He shot an angry glance at Radi Mierlo, then his attention was firmly on placating Shilly. “I did, yes, but didn’t know how to tell you. It’s not good news, on top of everything else.”
“But I still deserved to be told!”
“Would you have believed me? Or would you have thought I was using the promise of Lodo as a lure to get you to agree to come home?”
She acknowledged the point to herself but refused to admit it aloud. “If it was the truth —”
“There’s no way I could have proved it to you. In fact, I can only assume that what I’ve been told is true. What if I’d been wrong and given you false hope?” The Sky Warden’s eyes held nothing but a desire to convince her. “Lodo’s body was found after you and Sal escaped. He was still alive, but in a coma. The Syndic tried to reach him, but he was beyond even her, so they sent him to the Haunted City where he could be treated by experts. His condition is grave.” He touched her arm. “All isn’t lost, but it would be wrong of me to promise anything. I can only assure you that we’re doing all we can.”
She nodded, feeling tears on her cheeks and Tait’s gaze, in turn, on the tears, as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. But she didn’t care what people thought of her. Lodo was alive and needed her help. That was more important than anything else — more important than any new family she might find, more important than Sal, more important even than learning the Change. Lodo was her family. She couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t try to help him.
“If I went home with you,” she asked, “would he be there?”
“Should he survive that long, yes.” The warden’s face was grave in the greying light. “Feeding them is the problem, I understand.”
“This is all very well,” broke in Radi Mierlo. “But what do we tell Zevan? Keep moving or wait here for the storm to pass?”
Behenna looked up at the sky. Shilly hadn’t noticed the sunset, and was surprised to see several stars already gleaming above. To the east, however, was nothing but blackness and lightning. The thunder was louder, clearly audible over the whipping wind.
“If we stay still, we’ll only lose time,” Behenna eventually said. “At the very least, we must avoid that. We can’t afford to miss the full moon.”
“We might not see it,” said Tait, nodding eastward, “under all that.”
“Irrelevant,” said Sal’s grandmother. She waved at Aron, who lifted the granite bust and put it aside with effort. The man’kin’s attention stayed on Shilly as though fascinated by her. “Shom is right. We must keep moving. It’s only a thunderstorm.”
Behenna gestured with his left hand and Tait ran off to pass on the news. A gust of wind sent dust rising between them and the flaps at the rear of the wagon rattled. Shilly shivered, even though the air was still warm. There was a rising sense of electricity in the air.
She hugged herself, thinking of the Void Beneath. She had never experienced it, but she imagined awful things. What would it be like, she wondered, to be trapped alone in there as Lodo was?
“Be careful, child,” said the man’kin.
She turned to meet its stare. “Be careful of what?”
Everyone looked at her. “What did you say?” asked Radi Mierlo.
She stared back at them. Clearly they hadn’t heard the man’kin speak.
“Be careful of the Void.”
Shilly glanced at Behenna, confused. The man’kin was trying to tell her something privately, and she knew she should listen. Because of it, she had learned something very important: that her old teacher’s body was still alive and in the Haunted City. She didn’t know when Behenna would have told her that, without its prompting. What else did it know that was being kept from her? And what did it mean by warning her to be careful of the Void?
She wanted to ask it what it was talking about, but she couldn’t with everyone around.
“Can we take him with us, on the buggy?” she asked Radi Mierlo. Maybe she could whisper to it over the sound of the engine.
“Why?” Sal’s grandmother shot back, suspiciously. “And i
t’s an it, not a he.”
Shilly couldn’t very well say that she thought Behenna might be lying to her, so she lied herself. “I’m curious about it. I’ve never seen a man’kin this close before.”
“Well, it’s heavy and no good for conversation,” she was told. Behenna added: “All they do is lie, anyway. You can wait until the next rest stop.”
She let herself be led away from Radi Mierlo’s caravan by the firm pressure of the Sky Warden’s hand on her shoulder.
“Choose well,” the man’kin said as the canvas flaps were drawn closed over it. “We will talk another time.”
Shilly was still trying to work out what it had meant an hour later, when the storm hit.
Only a thunderstorm.
Radi Mierlo’s words came back to Shilly as she huddled in the lee of a wagon, deafened by rain, wind and thunder. The night was utterly black apart from the frequent flashing of lightning. Earlier, one of the Stone Mages in the caravan had tried to activate a handful of glow stones he carried in his pack, shouting over the wind that they would at least keep them warm. But there was too much background potential in the air to do it successfully. The first didn’t work at all. A bolt of electricity stabbed out of the sky and destroyed the second stone. He abandoned the attempt after that, and joined the others in finding what shelter they could.
The wagon creaked and swayed beside her like the sides of a leaky ship. Shilly had no idea what time it was or how long the storm had lasted. She was soaked right through, hungry and more than a little frightened. The ferocity of the storm belied Sal’s grandmother’s words with such violence that their inaccuracy was hard to forget. For a brief moment Shilly had been pleased to see the rain, since she had experienced none of any kind during her journeys in the Interior. It had been refreshing, although heavy, as the fringes had passed over them, washing away the dust and the dirt. It had become heavier as the cloud cover thickened over them, until no stars at all could be seen. And it had kept getting heavier; it seemed to Shilly as though they were receiving an entire year’s rainfall in one night.
The Sky Warden & the Sun (Books of the Change) Page 32
