Dark Realm: Book 5 Circles of Light series

by E. M. Sinclair

  Veranta nodded and gestured at the door. The guard who’d spoken opened it for her, his sword at the ready.

  ‘I presumed to send a warning to the guards at the servants’ entrance lady, that no one was to be allowed in or out.’

  Veranta gave a grunt of approval as she followed him inside. The door guards moved ahead, Veranta’s escort closing up behind her. The maids were huddled in the sitting room. Veranta gave them a cursory glance and moved along the hall. She tapped on Ternik’s door. Getting no reply, she rattled the handle.

  ‘Open it,’ she ordered.

  While one of the guards began to force the lock, the Imperatrix walked on to Kerris’s room. That door opened normally and Veranta stared around. The coverlet on the bed was crumpled, the pillows indented as they would be if Kerris had lain there reading. An open book, face down, was on the carpet. Nothing untoward. Noise from the direction of Ternik’s room brought Veranta back along the hall.

  The stench hit her first. She clapped a hand over her nose and mouth, seeing the guard who’d forced the door retching helplessly. The maids began to wail: the smell must have reached the sitting room. Veranta marched straight into the doorway and halted abruptly. She saw the body on the floor first but studied the room carefully before approaching that body.

  She frowned. The walls, as all in the Citadel, were of stone blocks, smooth and grey. Or should be. She moved closer to the nearest wall and stared, reaching out to touch it. It looked as though it had melted and begun to run downwards, then set again. The ripples and ridges were hard and cold, and covered all the walls she could see. Then she turned to the body.

  Ternik lay on her back, her legs twisted to one side. It seemed her entire chest and belly were ripped open, but where Veranta would have expected to see splintered bone, ruptured organs, there was an emptiness filled with a dark red jelly like substance.

  ‘Summon the anatomists and the healers,’ she demanded, bending closer to look at the stuff which filled Ternik’s body.

  Unlike blood, it stayed within the torn corpse and Ternik’s clothes seemed free of it. Surely there should be blood everywhere, splattered across the room as well as drenching clothes and carpet. Finally, Veranta looked at the face, partially hidden beneath a dark green shawl. Where another might recoil, Veranta peered closer, twitching the cloth aside with the tip of a long fingernail.

  The face may once have been Ternik’s, but was no longer. It appeared as if the bones had been crushed, then reset, The cheekbones higher, sharper, the brow heavier and lower. What could only be tusks jutted from the lower jaw: the lips would not have been able to close over them. The one ear Veranta could see was too large, more bestial than human. The eye sockets were empty cavities, not even filled with the jelly stuff that was in the eviscerated body. The skin was grey and leathery, tight against the realigned bones. Nothing like Ternik’s pale delicate skin.

  Veranta straightened. Ternik had said she came from the eastern plains where Kelshan farm lands bordered the lands of the fisher clan folk. She’d said she had to move north to learn her mage craft. But had she? Sounds behind her proved to be more guards, two anatomists and three healers. She watched their reactions and saw the anatomists looked aghast while the healers showed a fascinated interest.

  ‘I would suggest you take care with that – whatever it is inside her,’ Veranta told them. ‘Perhaps, as she is lying so conveniently on that carpet, you should use it to carry her to your investigation rooms. I want a preliminary report quickly, details can wait.’

  She watched two guards help the healers lift the carpet and the body. The Imperatrix waited until they’d left before she wandered round the room again, studying the walls. Then she examined the books piled in haphazard heaps on every available surface.

  ‘I want this room guarded. No one enters unless on my signed order.’

  She saw yet more guards filling the hallway and raised her voice slightly. ‘I repeat, no one enters this room.’ She walked between the guards to the main door.

  One of her escorts cleared his throat and she glanced at him.

  ‘My lady, there is no sign of the Lady Kerris within the apartment.’

  Veranta froze. The guard paled.

  ‘What did you say?’ Veranta’s voice was very soft.

  The guard repeated his words.

  ‘When was she last seen?’ Veranta demanded.

  The guard jerked his head in the direction of the sitting room. ‘One of the maid said that Lady Kerris was tired and upset after the ceremonies in honour of Lady Mellia. She refused to change her dress, said she wanted no lunch, and that she would stay in her room. The maid went with Lady Kerris and saw her lie on her bed with a book.’

  ‘Kitchen staff?’

  The guard shook his head. ‘No one saw her my lady. And there were four people there all the time – still are, as the guards have let no one in or out.’

  ‘This is ridiculous.’ Veranta gestured at the door and the guard leaped to open it for her. She strode ahead, her affected too-small steps nearly tripping her in her haste and the unaccustomed long dressing gown.

  Her two escorts hurried to catch up, exchanging quick nervous glances as they did so. Reaching her suite, Veranta paused.

  ‘Send for Chief Questioner Nimpod and General Beslow to attend me here. At once.’ She slammed the door in the guard’s face and his shoulders sagged in a sigh of relief.

  A crash came from the other side of the door and the guard turned to his partner to speak. But his partner was already off to alert one of the messengers who waited at each landing. The remaining guard cursed quietly and took up position before the Imperatrix’s door.

  General Beslow was the oldest officer in the Kelshan army. Shortly after Veranta’s accession, he had begged permission to go into partial retirement. He had been deeply loyal to Jarvos and the rise to power of this unstable and vicious woman appalled him. He had been summoned back to the Citadel when General Whilk left for the Barrier Mountains. In the intervening days since Whilk’s departure from Kelshan and Beslow’s return, Veranta hadn’t bothered to meet with the old General. Now she would have to brief him, carefully, on the “expeditionary force” she’d sent south.

  Veranta had dressed by the time General Beslow was announced at her door. She was surprised to see he had scarcely changed in the dozen or more years that had passed since he’d been at court. His white hair was still thick and springy, his back straight, his eyes clear. Veranta greeted him politely and indicated a chair.

  ‘My youngest daughter has vanished from the suite,’ she began. ‘It appears she has gone, just as inexplicably as Shea.’

  Beslow frowned. ‘A search is underway of course?’ he asked.

  Veranta shrugged. ‘I feel there is little point in wasting the efforts of guards – she will not be found.’

  Beslow bit the inside of his cheek to contain his retort.

  ‘The tutor to the girls has been murdered, sometime earlier this evening. There was no sign of a struggle, no intruders. There were many strange things about the state of the body, which is being investigated now.’ She smiled at the old General, a smile she thought utterly entrancing but which made most recipients cringe. ‘You know that General Whilk has gone south?’ she asked.

  General Beslow nodded. ‘I’ve been told he took two thousand men on tactical exercise to the southern plains.’

  Veranta’s smile widened. ‘Four thousand men. And they are invading the Dark Realm as I speak.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Tika sat on the wall that ringed the Bear village, watching cloud shadows racing over the ground in front of her. She was trying to remember when she last felt so comfortable, so at ease. Shea and Theap had gone off somewhere with Storm and Farn. Kija had flown out with a terrified but excited Emas, in search of roots The Bear’s wife needed to make a bright yellow dye, and Brin was sprawled in the meadow with children sitting on him and round him, listening to stories of his travels. Gossamer Tewk was stil
l puzzling over the great painting on the walls of The Bear’s den and she, Tika, was just sitting.

  Perhaps those first few days on the beach, when they’d met the Flight of Sea Dragons. But even then there had been the underlying worry of unknown pursuers. She tilted her face to the sky, eyes closed, just as a cloud moved clear of the sun and heat poured down over her.

  ‘May I join you?’

  Tika squinted up at Daylith and patted the wall beside her. ‘There’s plenty of room,’ she smiled. ‘I thought you were busy with Jemin and his General.’

  Daylith puffed out a breath. ‘They’re busy with their maps and their plans,’ he said.

  A companionable silence fell between them. ‘Is Kerris still glued to The Bear?’ Tika asked eventually.

  Daylith laughed. ‘She is. Essa and Menagol suggested she join them on a hunting trip today. The Bear mentioned that he was going to visit Gold Wing’s village, and that it would mean a stop overnight in one of the mountain shelters. Essa’s offer was spurned at once as you might guess.’

  ‘She’s really grown so attached to him so very quickly hasn’t she?’ Tika was thoughtful.

  ‘The Bear expects nothing from her. He talks to her, he listens to her, he laughs with her. Did you know he’s been teaching her to gamble?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘So don’t play anything with Kerris that involves a wager,’ Daylith warned her.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course.’ Daylith sounded a little cautious.

  ‘Can you change into a Dragon?’

  Daylith sighed and jumped down from the wall. ‘Let’s walk,’ he suggested.

  They strolled along beside the wall. ‘Yes I can change,’ he admitted. ‘Most if not all Dark blood children can do so. It happens first when we move from childhood to become adults.’

  Tika nodded.

  ‘For us, that is usually around twenty years old. We are taught how it happens, the signs that it may be approaching. Parents usually stay close at this time. The first time, it is a very strange feeling, not altogether pleasant. It is also exhausting. Sometimes, rarely, it proves fatal.’

  They followed the curving wall, coming into a shadowed stretch which was surprisingly chill given how warm the sun had felt.

  ‘And do you then have to change shape often, or what?’

  ‘After the first time, you wait until everyone – healers, family, yourself – considers you to be fully recovered. It causes a great strain physically the first time in particular. Then you make your first descent into the Dark.’

  Tika waited but Daylith remained silent until they emerged from the shadowed side of the village and felt the sun on them again. Daylith stopped, gazing down the small valley, hedged in by the mountains. He turned to look directly at Tika.

  ‘The descent is terrifying. Far more so than the first transformation.’

  Tika listened carefully to his tone, his words, and the spaces between the words, and understood that Daylith would never voluntarily enter the Dark again. He drew a long breath then exhaled slowly and began to walk on.

  ‘I’ve said that most of us have the ability to transform bodily but it is only the most powerful of the mage trained who do so with any regularity. As for descending into the Dark, again, only healers or mages undertake to do so.’ He hesitated. ‘That first descent can also be fatal for a few, or may leave them with no mind of their own – either empty vessels, or filled with something that overwhelmed them in the Dark.’

  ‘What happens to them?’ Tika asked as steadily as she could, appalled at the thought of young people losing their minds in such a way.

  Daylith gave her a smile of reassurance. ‘They are well cared for, either in one of our sanctums or in their own families. They are regarded with honour, as ones who Mother Dark has marked for reasons only She can know.’

  ‘And is that what’s happened to the First Daughter?’

  ‘The First Daughter is the most powerful of us all. The oldest of us all. Perhaps she is the bravest of us all. No one has ever reached so deep into the Dark.’

  ‘Corman told me that the last time she went so far was when your people fought the creature from the Splintered Kingdom?’

  ‘Thousands of years ago,’ Daylith nodded.

  ‘And it took a year or more for her to recover?’

  Daylith grinned suddenly. ‘You are thinking like a short lived human,’ he teased her. ‘One year, five. To us it is an eye blink.’

  Tika suspected it wasn’t quite as simple as that but let it go. ‘And this time, although this Crazed One is renewing his attack upon this world, the First Daughter did not descend to the Dark to fight him, if that is what she did before? She went for Farn.’

  ‘It is said that the First Daughter descended to seek out Mother Dark herself. We know only that whilst the First Daughter was gone, something, some force, repelled the Splintered Kingdom.’

  ‘Repelled it where?’

  ‘You call them Places Between. We call them different planes, different realms of existence.’

  ‘You knew of course of the Dragon Kindred who live in my lands across the sea?’

  Daylith nodded.

  ‘Are you anything like them, or perhaps related to them?’

  Daylith stared down at the little meadow, where Brin seemed a splash of crimson on the pale young grass.

  ‘As all things come from Mother Dark, so we are connected. But other than that, no, we are not like them.’ He glanced at Tika in amusement. ‘There is great excitement in the Karmazen Academy though. Your Dragons’ use of mind speech for instance, that’s driving some of the teachers and researchers demented.’

  ‘Really?’ Tika’s brows rose in disbelief.

  ‘Really. My parents can talk of nothing else. They are both researchers.’

  They reached the southern gate into the village – not a proper gate, just a space between the stone walls, much wider than the northern entrance. They turned in through it.

  ‘What you said, about our people keeping apart from the rest of the world. There has been much debate among those of my generation on that subject.’

  ‘I think mostly I was angry because you do send out spies, and then you do nothing. You knew the Crazed One was causing terrible trouble in the land of Malesh and yet your people made no contact, gave no warnings, no hints of what he was or how we might counter him.’

  ‘You’re right of course,’ Daylith agreed. ‘But I think you should understand how badly weakened we were long before the troubles began in Malesh. Yes,’ he raised his hand palm out to stop Tika’s words. ‘We knew of the great battle there a thousand years ago, when the gijan race came close to extinction and most of the mages of that land died. But we were, still, too weak then to offer any assistance. We too had suffered enormous losses. You’ve probably guessed that we have few children, no one seems to know why the number of live births has fallen so drastically among us.’

  ‘And were these lands occupied when you claimed refuge here?’

  ‘Yes. Even thousands of years ago, the people lived in tribes, as they do today. But they knew of the Dark and revered Mother Dark. There is a trace of Dark blood in nearly all of these people, although we don’t know how or when or why it got there. My people have done nothing to change their way of life, only building the town and Palace of Karmazen. We have garrisons throughout this Realm and we take volunteers from among the tribes to train in weapons skills and tactics. Until now, the mountains have proved our greatest protection.’

  ‘What will happen, do you think, when all these soldiers fail to return to Kelshan?’

  Daylith led the way to the small round house which was used to accommodate guests to the village.

  ‘We have a certain period of time,’ he said. ‘General Whilk told us that the Imperatrix expected reports sent back to her constantly. He pointed out that, given the unknown terrain, that could well prove very difficult. She gave him twenty days. There are eleven days left of tho
se twenty.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve remained here partly to open gateways should Jemin ask it of me, either into Kelshan City or to the wild clan lands. And you, what are your plans? What of your friend Gan?’

  Tika met his bright gold eyes, her expression stricken.

  ‘I thought I had Gan back, but he’s not back. At least he’s here only for a while. I think he hates being as he is, but I can’t tell him to go, it sounds so cruel. As for plans, I have none. It’s clear, even to me, this Crazed creature has ideas of using me for his designs in some manner. Therefore, I have to oppose him. But how – I can’t imagine.’

  General Whilk, his remaining officers and the still battered second captain Sekran, were in constant discussions with Jemin. While all of the Kelshan officers were firmly convinced that Jemin should become Imperator, ousting Veranta’s rule, no one was happy with the idea of a civil uprising within the City. They agreed that any strike must be made within the Citadel itself, at the heart of Veranta’s power.

  The General conceded that the support of the wild clans would be most helpful, but they were many days ride from the most outlying Kelshan towns. Jemin knew it would take maybe thirty days at best for a large force of clan warriors to reach the City and they would not be able to pass through the Confederacy unchallenged. Local militias and guard garrisons would certainly delay the warriors further, so Jemin could not count on immediate assistance from the north.

  General Whilk was adamant that he should go through a Dark gateway, alone, and assassinate Veranta. Jemin was equally determined that he would be the one to deal with the Imperatrix. To try to ease the tension that had arisen, Kestis asked after the fate of four Kelshan scouts.