Yet though these thoughts comforted Djahr, he could not still his suspicions as to the Plainswoman’s motives. ‘Why do you help your mortal enemy?’ he asked her at last.
She paused in grinding a herbal powder and let her gaze fall on the resting face of Mooraz. ‘Because soon I will die and I wish to meet my ancestors with honour in my heart.’
‘Indeed?’ Djahr found much amusement in this childish reply. ‘What honour can you gain by assisting an enemy?’
The Plainswoman looked up at him and he saw that her hands were shaking. ‘I will not speak to you of honour. You have none.’
‘Gods do not need honour,’ Djahr replied. ‘They need only power to succeed.’
She stared at him for several heartbeats, then said, ‘Think yourself a God?’ She stared a moment longer, as though to ensure that she had heard correctly, then turned away to her work, a small smile of derision on her lips.
‘Your life rests in my hands,’ Djahr said easily, taking a flask from his robe and uncapping it. ‘Does that not make me your God in this moment?’
She looked back, watching as he took a long draught, her throat moving convulsively. ‘I need water for the salve I would lay over the wound,’ she said.
Djahr nodded. ‘And when you are done, you will carry him. Here, drink.’ He recapped the flask and threw it across the floor at her. She snatched it up and drank noisily, though Djahr noted she left a portion to pour into the unguent she was preparing. ‘And eat,’ he said, throwing a wrapped portion of ort cake at her. ‘You live only as long as you are useful.’
‘And I live only to see you die,’ she said, but Djahr heard a lie in the words. She lived for more than revenge, more than honour. Though he cared not for her heart or her soul, he would know her motivation, the better to manipulate it to his own ends.
‘Do you have kin waiting for you?’ he asked. ‘A child?’
The Plainswoman said nothing, merely continued to gaze at him and Djahr felt the rigours of the last few days catch up with him. He lay back and closed his eyes, his ears tuned to any sound of the Plainswoman tampering with her bindings.
When he felt rested, Djahr asked, ‘Does he yet live?’, standing to stretch his cramped muscles. A stench of death permeated the crypt and Djahr was eager to leave it.
‘He lives,’ she replied, and Djahr thought she sounded stronger, more sure. Had the water and food done that? Or was she filled with some new resolve?
He went to secure her bindings, freeing her legs but tying her hands to Mooraz. ‘Lift him, then we will leave this place,’ Djahr commanded and was surprised when the Plainswoman obeyed immediately, hefting Mooraz onto her shoulder with a grunting effort. She staggered under his weight and Mooraz groaned, yet she managed to balance him and set off up the long stairwell, breathing heavily. Djahr was not sure how much ground they would make, but he was determined to push hard towards the Plains and on to Be’uccdha, his castle. He put a hand up on the stairwell wall to balance himself as he ascended behind the Plainswoman, and noted that his fingernails were dirtied. His robe was also grimed, and though this caused him displeasure, it would have to be endured.
On reaching the surface, they set off across the dewy grass but had not yet cleared the morning mist floating around the Shrines when the sound of approaching warriors readied their ears. Djahr stilled and the Plainswoman with him, both knowing there was no sanctuary within running distance. The nearest brick-shaped House shrine was two hundred footfalls away.
The sound of the approach was carelessly loud, unlike the stealthy Plainsmen or the nocturnal Raiders, both of whom would kill a warrior who made so much noise. It could only be forces loyal to the throne; Sh’hale, Verdan or the king’s Royal Guard.
Djahr’s shoulders rose within his robes and he revised in his mind the ready lies he had prepared as to who had killed the king. Verdan could be turned against Sh’hale, or Sh’hale against the Guardians he already despised. The Royal Guard could be convinced to support The Dark as he struggled to restabilise the kingdom. It would be a simple matter of manipulating fears.
The Plainswoman laid Mooraz at her feet and he did not rouse. Her hands were bound to him so she could not fight, but Djahr left her thus. He would either live or die on his own wits and would certainly not trust her to Champion him. For a moment he thought to gag her, but even as the idea came to him, the mist before them darkened and resolved itself into a force of ten copper-hued warriors adorned in the skin and hair cloaks of Northmen.
Djahr shuddered with apprehension, wondering why they were invading now, but a moment later he rallied. The Northmen had been his allies once. Their last invasion had been timed to coincide with Djahr’s murder of Mihale’s father. King Lenid. The lords of the great Houses were to have been the next ‘casualties’ of the war, but the Northmen had been defeated and Djahr’s secret coup had gone no further.
Although they had not consulted him this time, he was sure he could win them to his cause again. Yet before he could speak, the leader closed on them and put his spear point to Djahr’s throat. With so many warriors opposing him, Djahr did not attempt a defence. Instead, he opened his hands at his sides. ‘Allies,’ he said calmly. ‘Your presence in my kingdom is welcomed.’
The Northman leader’s body was completely bereft of hair, and above his bone breastplate, around his throat, hung a necklace of yellowed knuckle-bones and smooth dark river stones. Djahr did not recognise him, yet knew enough of their rites to name his clan. ‘Leader of the Stone Clan,’ he said, respectfully. ‘I would honour your God.’
‘Your death would serve,’ the Northman replied, ‘yet this is not Kraal’s will.’
Djahr felt his tensed muscles ease. He was not to die at this man’s hand, yet the mention of their God, Kraal, concerned him. Northmen prayed to the Serpent God of Haddash and if his informants were correct, built monoliths in his honour. Had one of their leaders begun to ‘speak’ to this God, interpreting his wishes? Djahr knew better than most how religion could be manipulated towards ambitious ends. He must discover who their shaman was and divine his purpose in relaying their God’s will.
The breeze around them quickened and Djahr’s disorderly hair flew into his face. He pushed it back off his shoulders and addressed the Northman. ‘Will you accompany me to my castle where I may offer you tribute?’ This would serve the dual purpose of placating his allies and providing him with an armed escort.
‘Kraal demands your presence,’ the leader replied and pointed north, the opposite direction to where Djahr was headed.
Rather than argue, however, Djahr said, ‘Who could oppose such a powerful God?’ For indeed, in his current circumstance he could not argue and live, yet he wondered what the Northman’s decree meant. If their shaman was speaking on Kraal’s behalf, why would he call Djahr to him? To sacrifice him before his warriors? Or to offer him a place of honour among them? A moment of anxiety came and went before he nodded graciously, ‘If you would assist me with my wounded captain and our captive.’
The Northman leader ordered his warriors to bind spears with rope and make a litter onto which Mooraz was hefted. He made no sound at being handled, and neither did he open his eyes. Djahr felt he must surely be near to death and for a moment he considered telling them to leave him, but the Northmen’s obedience to his commands demonstrated that he yet had some authority over them. To reinforce the notion he said, ‘My captive must not be harmed.’
Their leader nodded at this and checked the bindings on the Plainswoman’s hands himself. Then he turned to Djahr. ‘We go now to Kraal.’
He spoke as though they were leading Djahr to the Fireworld of Haddash where their God resided, and for a heartbeat Djahr hesitated, wondering if they had one among them who could open the way between the worlds. Were they really hearing the voice of the Serpent of Death. And if so, why had he called for Djahr?
The Northman leader said nothing but gazed at him with an implacable resolve and at last Djahr gathered his heavily broc
aded robe around himself and nodded for them to proceed through the thickening shrine mists. He would not diminish himself by showing fear, yet it lived within him and he was unaccustomed to its effects: a sickness in the lower belly, a dryness to the throat, a trembling of the hands.
The head of the House of Be’uccdha had not felt personal fear for many years, yet he would not let it overcome him. Though his main resources were gone — the Shadow Woman who had been his seer, Mooraz who had never questioned an order, the comfort of a shield of guardsmen around him — he would meet this new challenge with all the cunning and ruthlessness his Shadow Woman had so admired in him.
Securing possession of The Catalyst was paramount, and as Djahr marched with his silent and aloof Northman escort he felt some confidence return. When he met their shaman, Djahr would utilise all his powers of persuasion to enlist the Northmen’s aid in finding his son. Pretending to serve Kraal would be as simple as his pretence of obedience to the Great Guardian all these years, and he would let no fictitious discourses with their primitive God interfere with his well-laid plans.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘You don’t like the guest bed?’ Sarah asked, coming up behind Pagan, liking the look of him sprawled loose-limbed on the grass. Claude curled up asleep next to one arm, Glimmer cradled in the other. ‘Or do you just prefer to sleep outside?’
Pagan didn’t take his gaze off the evening sky. ‘This is wonder such as I could never have imagined,’ he said, his voice breathless and achingly young, reminding Sarah that he was seventeen. An unbelievable eleven years younger than her. Nearly eighteen admittedly, but so young. Too young. She’d practically choked on her spinach lasagne when he’d told her.
‘I’m glad you like it,’ she said, settling onto the ground beside him. Lying close, but not too close. Seventeen, she reminded herself. But he looked so much older. Sounded so … experienced. A warrior. Maybe killing people did that to you, made you feel old before your time. But the stars had made him young again. She wanted to know how. ‘You have a different view of the universe from your world?’ she asked.
‘Our cloak of night is not spangled with glittering jewels such as these,’ he said, awe softening his voice. ‘When this day’s bright colours faded and night began to fall, I thought your world no different from my own, and that the colours which had hurt me so were naught but vibrant illusions. Yet this …’ He shook his head, still unable to tear his gaze from the sight.
‘You like it?’ Sarah said with proprietary pride, as though they were her stars she was showing off. Then she thought about what he’d said. ‘You don’t have stars? Spangles?’
‘Our sky is but a simple cloak of night, unadorned save for the moons caught in its weave.’
Moons plural was only moderately weird. ‘No stars?’ Sarah was trying to imagine a furthest corner of the universe that would have no stars. Couldn’t. ‘So, this Sacred Pool that you … traversed to get here,’ she asked, ‘it’s like some sort of portal between the worlds?’
‘Between your world and mine,’ he replied. ‘The way between the other worlds is different. The Hallowed Flame leads between Ennae and Haddash, which is the Fireworld; and between Ennae and Atheyre, the Airworld, the way is travelled along a Column of Light, yet only the chosen are taken to Atheyre.’
‘Anyone you know there?’ she asked, making conversation, liking the easy way they had with each other. No pretensions or games, just talk. Sarah had been keeping her curiosity at bay, giving him time to settle in. Apart from a bit of excitement when he’d broken a wall switch, experimenting with the ‘inside sun’, he was getting the hang of things. He’d survived his first day and appeared to be relaxed. It was time to start finding out his story.
‘My cousin, Talis is in Atheyre,’ Pagan said. ‘He is my only living kin, and with him is The Light of Ennae, his beloved, who is Glimmer’s mother. They two and our dead king.’
Sarah turned and propped herself onto an elbow so she could watch him talk. ‘So your cousin is Glimmer’s dad?’ She’d been wondering who was.
‘No.’ Pagan frowned and she saw genuine pain there, was torn between telling him to forget it and wondering if talking would help him get over whatever had happened to him. ‘The Dark fathered Glimmer.’
‘The Dark and The Light. That sounds neat,’ Sarah said, but the tone of Pagan’s voice told her he thought it was far from neat. ‘I take it you don’t like The Dark?’
‘He is responsible for the deaths of many people.’ Pagan still gazed at the stars, but by his faraway tone, no longer saw them. ‘Our King Mihale and his father before him. My father.’ He stopped talking then and Sarah forced herself to look away.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly.
‘He died protecting his king. There can be no nobler end.’
‘It’s still very sad.’ So sad, in fact, that Sarah had to struggle to keep her voice even. Years of experience with death hadn’t dulled her sensitivity to it, and though she’d never cried in front of a client, she’d been known to bawl her eyes out the moment she got back to the office. Particularly if the deceased had been a child. Her dad used to call her the Kleenex Kid. ‘So The Dark killed your father?’ she said, knowing it would help Pagan to talk about it.
‘Mooraz, The Dark’s Guard Captain.’ He nodded for a moment, as though unable to speak, then added, ‘When I return I will find him and kill him.’
The retribution response to murder was a common one and there was no point trying to talk people out of it. Sarah could also make an educated guess that Pagan’s loss was fresh, and that he hadn’t yet come to terms with it. Talking was the best therapy.
‘You must miss him,’ she said, then realised how incredibly simplistic that statement was. Pagan had lost not only a father, by coming here he had lost everyone he knew. She couldn’t begin to comprehend that sort of loneliness.
Unfortunately, that thought just made Sarah ache for him all the more.
‘My life is changed,’ Pagan said simply. ‘I cannot go back.’ He turned to look at her.
‘The way is closed?’ she asked, not realising she was holding her breath. Gazing into Pagan’s eyes was like looking into a warm pool of chocolate. She just wanted to slide in there and wallow.
‘It can be reopened,’ he said. ‘If not by me, then by The Catalyst whose power assisted mine in our escape.’
‘This little baby?’ Sarah looked at Glimmer. She was still having trouble coming to terms with an omnipotent newborn.
He managed to smile at her incredulous expression. ‘Do not be fearful. Her body, which we must tend, is still that of a child. And when the time comes to return her to Ennae I am sure I will be able to open the Sacred Pool.’
‘But not before?’
He gazed at her steadily. ‘It is my duty to Champion the child of The Light, here.’
‘And that’s it? No second thoughts?’
He looked as though he was about to say something, then didn’t.
Sarah suddenly realised how that might have sounded. ‘I’m not trying to get rid of you,’ she assured him. ‘I’m happy that you’ve come. It will be great to have company …’ Fine and dandy trying to sleep with every girl’s fantasy lying in the next bedroom. ‘… It just seems harsh for someone so young to be sent away from all they know. For years.’ Why did she keep pressing this point? Was she trying to make sure he was staying before she fell hopelessly in love with him?
‘Glimmer is but a child,’ he replied. ‘She will not realise what she has lost.’
Sarah gazed at him blankly, then said, ‘No …’ tried to smile but his serious expression daunted her. ‘I meant you. Seventeen is young to be … stranded here. Away from your people.’
He continued to gaze at her. ‘I am a full warrior,’ he said, and Sarah wished she could decipher the tone of his voice. Had she offended him? Where had their easy conversation gone?
She looked at him for a moment then said, ‘I think I just said the wrong thing, and maybe you’
re upset with me. But that’s going to happen. We speak differently.’ The business of Glimmer being ‘dead to the world’ earlier had certainly proved that. ‘But I’d like you to trust that I won’t say anything bad about you, deliberately. Just … cut me some slack.’ The moment the words were out of her mouth she realised she’d done it again, but Pagan was already sitting up and handing her the baby.
‘I am willing to the task,’ he said, as though he had been waiting for her to ask something of him. Some way to prove himself. ‘If you would show me how and where, I will cut as much slack as you require. More if you would stockpile it.’
Sarah looked down at the sleeping child in her arms, couldn’t help but smile. ‘I’d love to stockpile it, Pagan,’ she said and raised her head. ‘In fact, nothing would make me happier than to swim in slackness, but,’ she shrugged, ‘I might go to bed instead. It’s been a long, tiring day.’
Pagan nodded at this wisdom and helped her to her feet, his hand on her arm eliciting a wince. ‘You are injured.’ His tone was accusing, as though she should be more careful, and maybe should have told him sooner.
‘A warrior threw me against a door,’ she said and Pagan made no reply. He followed her inside and waited while she settled Glimmer onto the small bunk bed she’d put in his room. ‘Are you sure you’ll be right with the night feeding?’ she asked.
‘I will do only what you have shown me to do,’ he replied and Sarah was okay with that. Despite the fact that he was from another world, boiling a jug of water in a microwave and putting a prepared bottle into it to warm up was fairly uncomplicated once you’d practised it a few times.
Sarah had deliberately kept his day simple out of deference to the sickness he’d suffered and the number of new things he was going to have to learn: like not to freak out when the phone rang, not to open conversations with every bug and bird that flew past — people might think that was weird — not to put Glimmer’s head underwater in the bath even if she was The Catalyst, and definitely not to sample the goldfish water no matter how much it smelt like ‘ort ale’.
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