by Clare Smith
That shouldn’t have been possible, unless the path had branched and she hadn’t noticed it. She cursed herself for being a fool and just following one side of the path without taking the time to check both sides. With a sigh of frustration she turned around, placed her pole on the right side of the path and set off again.
When the ground beneath her feet became rough and uneven and made her stumble, she realised that she’d reached a dead end and would once again have to retrace her footsteps. Now she was getting tired and thirsty and the cry of a wolf, somewhere behind her but closer than it had been before, made her hurry back along the path she had just trodden. Panic was starting to set in when she at last found the smooth track leading upwards and followed it as fast as she dared.
It felt steeper than she remembered but put that down to the fact that she’d travelled so many paths that she was muddling one with another. When the pathway suddenly dipped, so that she would have fallen if it hadn’t been for the grip on her pole, she knew she was hopelessly lost. Tears of frustration and confusion ran down her face and she brushed them angrily away, annoyed at her own weakness. She needed to be strong if she was going to survive and not start weeping at the first setback.
Determined to do better she took a firm step forward only to find that a sheer wall of stone was blocking her way. She doubted if a goat would have any problems navigating it but to her it was an impossible barrier barring her way. For a moment she thought of going back the way she had come, but that wasn’t going to get her anywhere, so instead she edged sideways along the wall, until she found a gap in the stone and the well worn track which led through it.
The gap was quite narrow so for a moment she hesitated, but the cry of the wolf getting ever closer drove her on. As she edged her way through, the stone pressed on either side of her, as if she was walking through a tunnel. It was cold and damp to the touch and reminded her of the tombs in the grounds of the great temple and that made her shudder. She thought of stopping and going back, but that was going to get her nowhere, so she hurried on and was relieved when she came out on the other side.
She had expected to still be able to smell the olive trees and scorched grass, but instead there was the smell of moss and damp earth. The place was as cold as the passage through the stones had been, and every step she took echoed back at her. To one side there was the sound of running water, so she guessed she had found some sort of natural defile with a stream running through it. She stepped off the path and followed the sound of running water, and then stopped to drink at the stream which was so cold it made her teeth ache.
When she felt better, she stepped back to where she thought the path had been, but it wasn’t there anymore. There was only dust and scattered rock which turned beneath her feet. The path might have been missing, but there was something else there; the sound of panting and harsh breathing and cautious, padded footfalls. She’d never smelled wolf before, but she instantly knew that the stench of greasy fur and rancid breath could only belong to one predator.
Stifling the scream which was building inside of her she forgot all about caution and ran. She ran in panic, stumbling over stones and crashing to the ground when one turned beneath her foot. Without bothering to brush the gravel from her grazed hands she was up and running again, her one and only thought to escape the teeth and claws of the marauder behind her.
If she’d stayed silent and unmoving, the wolf might have missed her in the confusion of scents in the strange ravine it had wandered into. However, the scattering of stones and frantic movement could only mean prey on the run and it was hungry. The wolf looked up from the stream, where it had stopped to drink, with its ears pricked forwards, and then with a yelp of excitement leaped forward into the chase.
Amalaya could almost feel the wolf’s hot breath on her back when she charged through some low, scrubby bushes, scattering them aside in her panic. Up ahead she could sense there was something solid and feared it would be the wall of stone at the end of the defile and she would be trapped against it. There was no going back though, so she rushed forwards, but instead of a solid wall, the weight of stone pressed down on her and the echo of her footsteps was loud in her ears.
She guessed it was a cave which would lead to a dead end, but at least it gave her something to put her back against, and she would have walls on either side whilst she faced her attacker. It wasn’t much of an advantage but she had her sturdy pole and there was always an outside chance of making a lucky strike. She found a curve in the wall and braced her back against it. Then she held her pole out in front of her and waited for the wolf to make its move.
For a moment she thought she heard the wolf approach, but instead of the attack she expected, there was a terrified squeal and then the panicked bleating of goats. Outside the cave she could hear the frantic scrabbling of small hooves as the goats scattered in every direction followed by the ominous crunching of bones. She gave an almost hysterical sob and then took control of herself.
The goats had saved her life, but if it had been a kid that the wolf had killed, the predator might still be hungry and come after her. Carefully, so as not to make a noise and attract the wolf’s attention, she moved deeper into the cave. It went back a long way and she guessed that it would be very dark there, although that didn’t bother her.
Her main concern was that there would be side passages which she could inadvertently wander down. If she did that, she would become lost in the network of tunnels the same as she had on the pathways which crossed the side of the mountain. The other worry was that this cave was the den of a wild creature even more savage than a wolf, and when she reached the end it would be waiting for her.
It was a frightening thought, but no more than there being a wolf waiting for her if she stayed too close to the mouth of the cave. Knowing she had no other choice she set off with one hand holding her pole and the other resting lightly against the cave wall. Slowly she inched her way forwards, testing each footfall before she committed her weight in case there was a hidden ledge or pit.
Out of habit she counted her steps as she moved deeper into the cave and after the hundredth step she stopped, as she realised that something had changed. Unlike the ravine outside or the cave mouth, it was warm here, and the dampness which had hung in the air had gone. What was more, the stone beneath her hand was no longer rough and catching at her fingers, but was as smooth as newly fired clay.
She’d been in caves before playing with her brothers on the home estate, but they had been nothing like this. They had been cold and damp and had stunk of bird droppings and stale air, but here the air was fresh and pleasant to breathe. Then she’d been scared of going inside and had only gone because her brothers had dared her to, but she wasn’t afraid of this cave. That could have been because she was older now but she didn’t think so, as the further she went the more confident she felt.
It was almost as if something was calling to her and if she listened very carefully she could hear someone whisper her name. She knew it was foolishness, a cave was made of rock and stone and could neither talk nor comfort her, but she felt at home here. Even her worries at what she would find at the end of the cave had disappeared, and her rapidly beating heart had slowed to a gentle rhythm.
As she trailed her fingers along the silky, smooth stone she realised that she had reached the end of the cave. Here the wall was curved and as she reached upwards she could just feel the roof above her curving over like a dome. Cautiously she reached out in front of her with her pole, and felt the ground dip into a shallow bowl. She didn’t need to see it to know that the end of the cave was shaped like a giant nest, although she had no idea of what sort of creature would be big enough or strong enough to carve a nest out of solid rock.
There was something else too. The whispering which had been calling her on was louder now, and so close that she could hear what it was saying. For a moment she was disappointed that the whispered name wasn’t her own although it was similar, but that passed in a mo
ment as her skin tingled with excitement. There was something there in front of her, of that she was certain and it was calling out to her.
Abandoning all caution, she stepped forwards until she was in the centre of the hollow, where she crouched down and took the object she found there into her hand. It nestled comfortably in her palm, and when she ran her fingers over it, she could feel the different facets which had been cut into the stone. She was certain it had to be a gemstone of some kind which had been cut into the shape of a teardrop, but instead of being cold like the gems her mother had worn, it was warm as if it had a fire inside.
Somehow just touching it filled the empty space inside of her, which had been there since the day she had vowed never to have another foretelling. She wrapped her hand around it, and without caring if someone or something would come back to claim it, she curled up where she was and let sleep take her. With sleep came the dream which wasn’t a foretelling, although it felt very much like one.
She travelled across strange lands as she searched for the part of her which was missing, the part that would make her whole again, but the lands didn’t hold what she sought, so she travelled across time instead. Here were other lands, the like of which she’d never seen before. There were forests so deep and dark that what lived within them was hidden from her, and mountains so high that clouds shrouded their peaks from her view. It didn’t matter though, what she sought wasn’t there.
With a thought she moved on across great burning deserts with strange temples to gods which were ancient even to her. There was something there which interested her, but it wasn’t what she sought, so she travelled to another time where people moved too fast and the land had been almost swallowed by metal and stone. She could sense something there, but the air was thick with poisons which threatened to choke her.
Another time passed and another, until there was a city teeming with people, and amongst them was one who would respond if she called to him, but it still wasn’t the one she sought. He was in another place and a different time, so she travelled there until she found him, only here there were two. One reached out for her and she tried to set him free, but the spirit was a prisoner held in chains and she wasn’t strong enough to free him on her own.
Further back in time she found the one she was looking for, but was surprised to find that he was a man just a few years older than her. For all that, there could be no doubt that he was the one she’d come for, as the spirit burned strongly within him and yearned to be free. Cautiously she watched as the man sat around a fire amongst his companions, and felt the waves of anger and frustration that were directed at him batter against her.
She could feel the man’s confusion and doubt as well as fear of those who demanded things from him which he couldn’t give. He had reason to fear as suddenly two of them were on their feet with weapons in their hands. The man said something she didn’t understand, and looked up as the two holding the weapons advanced. She could feel the spirit inside the man flutter wildly and in desperation she called it to her.
For a moment the dragon spirit broke free and reached out for her, whilst around her the man gave a cry of alarm and collapsed. She expected the spirit to join with her and fly to freedom, but instead it screamed in anger. It grabbed her with its talons and fought to take her with it, as the line which held the spirit pulled it back into the prone body on the floor.
Desperately she struggled and tried to pull away from the dragon spirit’s grasp, but she was no match for one so powerful, and knew that if she was subsumed within the spirit’s host, she would never be free. In desperation, she called upon the fire within the gemstone’s heart, and in a burst of white energy, was flung back through time to the safety of her lair.
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CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Plink to the Rescue
Phillos Passonia
Plink, which is what he called himself now, had forgotten what it was like to be hungry. He’d spent two years at sea, and whilst all he’d eaten as the ship’s boy were the leftover scraps, there had always been sufficient to keep his hunger at bay. In the short time he’d lived with the Pyromaster he’d eaten his fill, and had tasted food which he’d never known before and was beyond the imagination of a ship’s boy.
In those few weeks he’d eaten delicate cheeses and spicy sausages, as well as bread straight from the oven, meat that wasn’t rancid and vegetables without the mould. He’d even had fish that were as small as his finger and were light and crispy, and nothing like the coarse fish stew he’d had at sea. If he’d stayed where he was he was certain that he would have eventually put on weight and perhaps even grow as tall as other boys of his age.
Now that had all changed, and the memories of his childhood, when he often went for days without a good meal, came flooding back to him. His mother had done her best to feed him, and things were always better when the man, who he presumed was his father, came home from sea, but the feeling of hunger had always been a part of his life. Despite that, he’d never stolen food from a market stall as other children had done, although now he had no one to provide for him he wished he’d joined in and learnt the required skills.
His home city on the very southern tip of Passonia was the poorest, and the most overcrowded of all that country’s cities. As a ship’s boy he’d been to other ports along the Passonian coast and had seen the riches there, so he didn’t understand why his own city should have been so poor. He’d asked one of the sailors why the rich didn’t share their wealth, but the man had only laughed and told him the rich care nothing for the poor.
Perhaps it was true, but he didn’t think so. It was much more likely to be that the place where he was born was surrounded by sea on three sides, and cut off from the rest of Passonia by impassable mountains. They ran from west to east and extended into the sea as a range of jagged rocks called the Wreckers, and because of that no aid ever came from the King’s court. The only food which reached the city had to come in by sea, so there was never sufficient to feed the ever expanding population.
It was a sad fact, but for a man the only means of escaping the poverty and hunger was to go to sea, which is what the man who fathered him had done. For a woman it was even worse, as they could only wait until the men returned with a few coins in their pocket. His mother had waited, but the ship on which her man sailed never returned and she had to sell her body so they could live. When his mother had died of the red pox, he would have almost certainly starved to death if a neighbour hadn’t taken him in.
The couple had a son once, but he’d had his hand cut off for stealing and had died when the wound went bad. He had to work for the man from dawn to dusk grinding corn on the grindstone he kept in the cellar, but at least he didn’t starve. When he grew older, the man came to him in the night wanting him to do things that he wouldn’t do, so the man had found a captain who was looking for a ship’s boy and sold him for a few coppers.
He knew it hadn’t been an act of kindness, but that didn’t matter as it had changed his life for the better. Of course he still had to work hard doing all the menial and unpleasant tasks which none of the sailors wanted to do, and he had to be at everyone’s beck and call every hour of the day and night, but he didn’t mind. When he was hungry there were always scraps for him to eat, and there was always shelter to be had on stormy nights. There had even been the occasional mug of grog to keep out the cold when the snow had been thick on the deck and ice hung like daggers from the ratlines.
In their own way the sailors had taken care of him too, making sure he wore a safety line when the sea was raging, and that he had a hat to wear when the sun was hot enough to blister. It was the sailors and not the captain who, when they had reached a strange port, had kept him safely out of sight from those who would snatch a lad for their own purposes. They had even cared for him when he’d slipped and broken his arm, where many a captain would have just chucked him over the side.
They were rough men, but they had cared for him more than the P
yromaster had, and had taught him things which were far more useful than his letters and numbers and how to speak correctly. The sailors had taught him practical things like how to sew a sail or gut a fish, and helpful things like navigating by the stars and how to spot a storm front. If he’d survived long enough to reach his fourteenth birth date, the top man had promised to show him how to climb the ratlines and unfurl a sail, so that when he was older he could become one of them.
One of the other things they had taught him was that to be caught stealing in Assimus didn’t just result in losing your hand, but always resulted in an unpleasant death. He’d been told, that because the Passonians who lived there were such twisted bastards, they never locked anything away. They just hoped that an Assimusian would be tempted to take it so they could have the pleasure of watching the thief being put to death. It seemed an odd thing to do to him, but all the crew had sworn it was true so he had to believe them.
In any case, he didn’t want to steal, although his need to eat was becoming desperate. When he’d left the Dragon Tower, he thought he would go to the port and rejoin his old ship, or failing that find another one which was looking for a ship’s boy. Unfortunately he couldn’t remember where the harbour was, and when he’d stopped someone to ask the way there, the man had threatened to send for the city guard.
Having failed to find the docks, he’d decided to go to one of the big markets he’d seen when he’d been out walking with the Pyromaster. Perhaps there he could find work in exchange for food, but when he reached the first of them he’d been chased away by the guards who stood by each stall. He’d tried another market but the same thing had happened, so he’d hung around there hoping for a chance to make himself useful, but without any luck.
