Dark Realm: Book 5 Circles of Light series

by E. M. Sinclair

  ‘I’ve kept all the windows covered down here,’ she explained. ‘Shows I’m closed for business.’ She set about making tea.

  Daylith bent close to Tika. ‘We have no instructions to venture out of here. In fact, the opposite. How can you suggest we get Shea’s sister from the Citadel itself?’ There was no charm in his voice now, only a deep annoyance.

  Tika regarded him blandly. ‘Shea knows the way. We could just – pop in and pop out.’ She laughed in his outraged face.

  ‘Are you forgetting there is a mage here who is alert to any use of magic?’

  Tika frowned. ‘No. I hadn’t forgotten, but can you really not open gateways that quickly? If Shea is with us, her sister will not be afraid to come.’

  ‘You should have brought Gossamer,’ Snail commented. ‘Waxin Pule said the mage couldn’t trace someone – erm, like her.’

  ‘You mean someone dead?’ Tika looked thoughtfully at Daylith and noticed his eyes were no longer gold but a nondescript brown. She must remember to ask how he did that.

  Daylith gave her an icy stare. ‘Unfortunately, I am as alive as the rest of you.’

  ‘There’s Drengle List – he’s nearest.’ Snail blushed and looked rather pretty. ‘He was, erm, murdered and cursed a few years after Gossamer. He’s not too bright so she keeps an eye on him.’

  ‘They all said I wasn’t too bright,’ Shea pointed out.

  ‘Hmm, maybe so, but I think the description is quite accurate regarding Drengle,’ Snail retorted.

  ‘Can you get a message to him, asking him to come here?’ Tika asked, sipping the tea Snail had given her.

  ‘He wouldn’t come. He’s afraid of the dark.’

  Tika stared. ‘You said he’s dead.’

  Snail chuckled. ‘Still afraid of his own shadow, poor Drengle.’

  ‘It’ll be light soon surely.’ Tika looked at the shuttered window.

  Snail shook her head. ‘He was here day before yesterday. He misses Gossamer. But if you want to see him, you’ll have to go to him.’

  Tika sighed. ‘Tell us how we get there.’

  Tika and Shea both had rough shawls pulled well over their heads. Snail had told them lots of country women wore them, just so, when they came into the City markets. They walked steadily through the Artisan Quarter until Sket pointed out the house lurking in its overgrown garden. Halfway up the path, Sket stopped abruptly. Tika peered round him.

  ‘Oh.’

  Wispy shapes flittered towards them. Daylith groaned and stepped forward.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Tika grabbed his arm.

  ‘Sending them on their way.’

  ‘But they might help.’ She couldn’t interpret Daylith’s expression but suspected it implied a temper held in check. Just.

  She moved alongside Sket. ‘Can you see them too?’ she asked curiously.

  Sket nodded. ‘Never seen a ghost before, but that’s what they are, aren’t they?’

  ‘I’ve never seen one either but these are very clear. What about you Shea?’

  ‘I’ve always seen them.’

  Tika turned, meeting the girl’s hazel eyes. Before Tika could ask more, several ghosts rushed towards them. They moved rather like fog being blown by gusts of wind, but there was no wind so they must be moving themselves.

  ‘I know him,’ Shea said suddenly. ‘He was often in the library.’

  The ghost she indicated grew a little more solid, enough that a face glimmered briefly, eyes fixed on Shea. A clanking from the house startled Tika, and the ghosts wafted away and in through an open door. They followed, Sket loosening his sword in its scabbard. Now moans underscored the clanking sound and Shea giggled. Two or three ghosts looked back at her and smiles were momentarily visible on the wavering faces.

  Sket entered the house first, closely followed by the others. They found themselves at the foot of a flight of stairs: the sounds came from somewhere above.

  ‘Drengle? Drengle List? We are friends of Gossamer Tewk.’ Tika called.

  Silence.

  ‘Drengle?’ she called again.

  A man appeared on the landing. He was quite short, bare-chested and bald headed. Streaks of purple seemed painted down his face, and circles of lemon yellow decorated his body. He came slowly halfway down the stairs. Shea pushed past Sket and stared up at him.

  ‘Gossamer said your teeth are blue. Are they?’

  Drengle List smiled shyly, revealing his pale blue fangs.

  ‘That’s a very good colour,’ Shea said admiringly. ‘I met someone recently who has purple teeth.’

  Drengle came all the way downstairs. ‘Purple would look good,’ he agreed. ‘I like purple.’

  ‘I can tell,’ Shea nodded.

  ‘How’d you get here? Is Gossamer back?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Snail told us where you live.’

  ‘Oh. What you want then?’

  ‘Just to talk to the ghosts, unless you’d like to show us the way into the Citadel?’

  Drengle’s eyes widened in alarm and he put a foot back on the stairs. ‘You’re mad,’ he said with conviction. ‘Who’d want to go there, now? I’m too busy anyway.’ He retreated another step.

  ‘I understand. But do you mind if we chat to the ghosts?’

  ‘Chat all you like. They don’t never chat back.’ Drengle turned and climbed the rest of the stairs, clearly wanting nothing more to do with them.

  Drengle was proved right in that the ghosts didn’t seem able to communicate beyond nodding or shaking their heads. Sket, sitting on the kitchen table, finally suggested, almost casually, if Tika could reach the ghosts using mind speech. Tika used one of Sergeant Essa’s favourite words and Daylith looked shocked. A moment later Tika was grinning.

  ‘I can reach some of them,’ she announced. ‘Some are too – faded.’

  She kept the conversation, such as it was, between herself and the ghosts, and was glad she did when one gave her graphic details of Mellia’s suicide. The ghost had once been employed in the Citadel, waiting at tables, and later he was appointed to the staff serving the Imperatrix’s daughters. Three years ago, soon after Ternik’s appointment as tutor to the girls, he had incurred Ternik’s displeasure. His heart had simply stopped as he carried dishes from the dining room to the scullery.

  He often visited those apartments though, because he had a great compassion for the girls. This was the ghost who had watched Shea reading in the library at night. He told Tika there had been whispers that Ternik was a mage from the day she’d arrived. But no one had guessed what power she had. Despite Veranta’s purges of those with talent, a fair few still lived in the City and helped people where they could with minor magics.

  In the past half year, Ternik had changed. The ghosts saw a blackness both around her and within her, and had seen thin black tendrils creeping ever more extensively through the Citadel. The ghost told Tika of a strange outbreak of violence among the staff and officials of late. Maids beaten for the slightest mistakes, officials thrown in the cells, good friends suddenly becoming implacable foes.

  Tika was grateful to have made contact with one who had made serious observations of the situation, and she asked him to wait while she relayed the gist of his information to her friends. Daylith paced between the back door and the table.

  ‘It is far too high a risk,’ he said. ‘This mage grows in strength.’ He met Tika’s gaze. ‘That strength is coming from the Crazed One, you must realise that.’

  Tika’s chin came up and Sket smiled. ‘We get Kerris,’ she said, her tone flatly uncompromising.

  Daylith’s lips compressed to a thin line. He expelled a long breath from his nose and turned abruptly to Shea. ‘Your sister will be in the apartments now?’ he asked.

  Shea nodded. ‘If it is a usual day, she will be in the school room with Ternik. But as Mellia has died. .’

  One of the ghosts pressed close, between Sket and Tika. Tika felt an odd pressure and realised the ghost was trying to initiate mind speech. She
listened. Then the ghost was gone, several others rushing in its wake.

  ‘He said he will check. He also said that if there are a lot of them – the ghosts – together, they can make the air sort of thicker, enough to upset people trying to walk through them.’

  Daylith eyed her warily.

  ‘If he tells us exactly where Kerris is, you make a gateway, for that particular point. He says he will take as many ghosts as he can gather up. They will ring the room, which may slow down anyone trying to approach or enter. Whether they would have any effect at all against the mage they don’t know. I would guess very little.’

  Daylith nodded agreement. ‘Very well. I will do this. The gateway will open for thirty heartbeats – at the most – then I open another back to the Mountains.’

  Tika considered then agreed. The ghosts swirled into the kitchen and Tika opened her mind to the leading ghost.

  ‘He says Kerris is in her bedroom.’ Tika frowned. ‘He says she saw him. Did you know Kerris could see ghosts?’

  Shea turned away. ‘We didn’t talk. Not about anything.’

  Briefly, Tika tried to imagine what sort of life Shea and her sisters must have endured and decided that her own upbringing as a slave sounded far better. Tika took Shea’s hand.

  ‘Picture the rooms in which you lived, the view from Kerris’s bedroom window and I will show it to Daylith.’

  Daylith concentrated intently on the scenes Tika showed him from Shea’s mind. Finally he nodded. ‘I have it as clearly as possible. I hope.’

  Before more could be said, ghosts boiled around them. Tika focused on the vaporous mass. ‘We’ll have to wait,’ she told the others. ‘There are some ceremonies taking place this morning and Kerris is in attendance.’

  Sket sighed and went to poke through some cupboards on the wall. He was astonished to find them well stocked and neatly arranged. He soon found which storage jars contained tea and then realised there was no cook stove. He muttered under his breath and headed outside. ‘Be quicker to make a camp fire,’ he called back to Tika.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve never understood why he has to have tea – water’s fine with me.’

  Daylith managed his first smile since they’d left the Karmazen Palace. ‘There are a lot like him among my people,’ he admitted. ‘I can only drink it to be courteous.’

  ‘You’re lucky to be able to drink it at all,’ a voice said behind them.

  Tika looked at Drengle List standing in the doorway. She smiled at him. ‘You must have lots of visitors – all that food in your cupboards.’

  Morosely Drengle regarded the cupboards that Sket had investigated and then left open. ‘Don’t have no visitors. Gossamer cooks things every now and then. We like the smell.’

  Shea dived out of the back door in search of Sket.

  ‘I see.’ Tika wondered what more to say. Snail was absolutely right in her assessment of Drengle List’s mental prowess.

  ‘Where is she then?’

  The yellow circles on Drengle’s chest had become smeared, Tika noted absently. ‘She went with Seola,’ she began.

  ‘Huh. I told her not to. All that Dark Realm nonsense. That Seola woman’s trouble. I told her I did. But there’s none so deaf as those that can’t see.’

  ‘Erm, exactly.’

  Daylith abruptly left the kitchen, leaving Tika to cope with a suddenly talkative Drengle List.

  After some time, Sket came to fetch bowls for the tea and resolutely ignored Tika’s pleading look. On the contrary, he brought her tea and put it in front of her with a very broad smile. Then he went off again. By the time Tika had heard all about Drengle’s childhood, his various, and many, attempts at careers, and was about to hear of his murder, the sun had reached beyond midday. She was so grateful for the arrival of a flurry of ghosts, she could have kissed each one. Daylith appeared, Sket and Shea at his heels.

  ‘Kerris has said she’s tired and feels feverish. She’s in her room.’

  ‘Is she really ill?’ Shea asked anxiously.

  Tika listened to the ghost. ‘No, just needs to be on her own.’

  ‘Then we can go now?’

  Tika raised a brow at Daylith. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘If we end up in a nasty mess, please remember this was not my idea.’

  The four drew closer together, Daylith murmured a short sentence and they vanished. Drengle blinked.

  ‘Rude,’ he said, to the few ghost who still lingered in his kitchen. ‘Very rude. Like that woman. People don’t learn no manners these days. Very rude.’

  They reappeared in Shea’s bedroom which she’d shared with Kerris. Kerris was propped on her bed, holding a book. Shea dashed towards her, snatching the book away.

  ‘Kerris, will you come with us, this minute? I’m so sorry I left you behind.’

  Kerris’s grey eyes brimmed with tears and she hurled her arms round Shea’s neck. Sket reached for both girls, pulling them close. Then he glanced at Tika in alarm. Her skin was white as milk and her eyes rolling back in her head.

  ‘Now,’ he hissed at Daylith. ‘Get us out now.’

  Plunged into the dreadful darkness, Sket could only hold on to Tika’s body. As he began to feel queasy, he realised with relief that her body was relaxing, leaning more naturally against him. Then brightness blinded him and he screwed his eyes against it, still hanging on to Tika. He slid helplessly to the ground and heard Tika’s voice.

  ‘Let go Sket. Just sit quiet for a while. I’m fine.’

  He groaned and lay back. He kept his eyes closed, thinking of exactly what he’d like to do to whatever fool had invented these gateways. Tika looked at Shea. She held her sister in her arms. But the younger girl wasn’t crying. She was staring about her in wonder. She met Tika’s brilliant green and silvered eyes and her mouth formed a circle. Shea noticed, and released her sister.

  ‘This is my friend, Tika,’ she said with a hint of pride.

  Kerris bobbed a curtsey and Tika laughed. She started to speak and was flattened by an excited silver blue Dragon. Shea slid an arm across Kerris’s shoulders.

  ‘That is Farn. He and Tika are sort of brother and sister. He’s my friend too.’

  Kerris tilted her head back to look at Shea. ‘You look different,’ she said shyly. ‘You’re not pretending anymore.’

  Shea bumped her forehead against Kerris’s. ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t dare let even you know that I wasn’t as stupid as they all thought. I was too scared you might say something by accident.’

  Kerris nodded. ‘Do you know about Mellia?’

  Shea tightened her arm. ‘Yes. But you must tell me all of it later.’

  Farn had allowed Tika to get to her feet. He had checked Sket’s recumbent body and been swatted on the nose, and now he paced towards Shea. He lowered his head and gently touched his brow to hers.

  ‘I am glad you are safe.’

  Kerris gasped as she heard the voice inside her head and Farn’s prismed sapphire eyes studied her.

  ‘This is my sister, Kerris,’ Shea said aloud.

  ‘Another girl!’ Farn sounded delighted and he butted his head against Kerris’s chest.

  A smile appeared on Kerris’s face, and widened to a tremendous grin. Then, an enormous woman appeared behind Farn and looked carefully at the two girls. She hunkered down so that she was a little nearer their heights.

  ‘You all right then?’ she asked casually.

  ‘Essa!’ Shea reached to give the Sergeant a hug and missed the look of astonishment on the broad face. Then Essa frowned, her brows making one thick bar above her light blue eyes. But Kerris knew that Shea would never, ever, have shown such affection to someone she didn’t trust completely.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Daylith had returned them to a pasture just south of the main Bear village. Looking towards the buildings he saw a young boy racing within the boundary walls. He turned his face up to the late afternoon sun and saw Brin and Storm spiralling down towards them. He wondered where the golden Drago
n was but then saw Shield Master Garrol hurrying across the grass.

  ‘Shall we go up to the village?’ he suggested to Tika.

  She nodded and walked beside Kerris who kept tripping over the hem of her long ornate dress. Finally Kerris stopped and grabbed handfuls of her skirt, hauling it up to knee level. She glared enviously at Tika’s trousers.

  ‘Can I have trousers like you and Shea?’ she asked. ‘Soon?’

  Tika laughed and Farn, pacing beside them, peered over Tika’s head at the much smaller girl.

  ‘I don’t understand these covers you wear,’ he confessed in mind speech. ‘Why do you need them even when the weather is warm?’

  Kerris stared up at him, dropped her skirts and struggled to reach the top buttons at the back. Sergeant Essa halted behind her.

  ‘Let me.’

  Such huge fingers were surprisingly deft and the long row of buttons was quickly undone. Kerris tugged at the cuffs and peeled herself out of the despised garment. She beamed at Essa, standing in a short sleeved vest and drawers that reached halfway to her knees. Essa picked up the dress and held a hand out to Kerris, who took it and hopped along beside her. Shea glanced back from where she walked with Sket and looked slightly surprised to see her sister in her underwear.

  When they reached the village, children came running. Tika was fascinated to see that they were rushing to Farn, Storm and Brin.

  ‘I’ll wait for you here, with my friends,’ Farn announced, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

  Tika watched in disbelief as he twitched his tail and successfully tripped up three children, maintaining an air of innocent surprise when they shouted. Well, he’d certainly settled in quickly, she thought. A small woman stood under a deep verandah to greet them. A little further along, Kija reclined, studying a pile of bright cushions and rugs spread on the stone, presumably for cleaning. Tika greeted Kija with a hug and received an affectionate but slightly distracted response. There was no time for more as Daylith called her to join him within The Bear’s house.

  Emas showed them all inside, then hurried back to her verandah. Hands on hips, she pursed her lips.