Chapter Eleven
In the short time they’d been at Blue Mirror, life had begun to return, noticeable not just by the greening of the trees. The sky was filled with skein after skein of geese, noisily making their way north. Some stopped on the lake for a brief rest before sweeping on. Many different types of smaller birds had arrived and, as Tika’s company prepared to travel south to the Menedula, the air was full of various songs as the birds staked their claims to prime nesting sites.
Tika had learned that Beela lived with her family deeper in the woods, north west of Blue Mirror. No doubt another Old Blood would alert Beela to visitors approaching so she could come to ready the building for guests. Tika suspected that far more Old Bloods had been observing her company than Volk would ever admit, but she asked no questions.
When she went to bid farewell to Beela, the woman held out both hands to her, palms up.
‘Thank you for your generosity,’ Tika said, resting her hands on the woman’s palms. ‘I hope we may meet again in safer times. May the stars guide your path and guard your hearts.’
Beela smiled at the unfamiliar formal farewell but she gave Tika’s hands a gentle squeeze.
‘Come Home whenever you can.’
Tika elected to walk for the first part of that day, behind the horses. Rhaki, Sket, Essa and Dromi walked with her. Shea and Konya had gone with the Dragons, all of whom flew far above, keeping watch over a wide area. When they reached the southern end of the lake, Tika paused and looked back. The unusual blue of the water, seen best from the higher ground, lay calm and still. The long low building halfway along its western shore was already partially hidden by the greening vegetation.
‘Does the building have a name, Dromi?’ Tika asked, turning to continue after the horses.
‘We call it Home.’
Five days later they reached the cabin Dromi had told them of. It was set on the southern side of a small hill. The hilltop was bare of trees, covered with scrubby bushes and creepers. When the horses had been unloaded, Volk left three with the guards and retreated with the remaining nine. Tika guessed that he knew Old Bloods who lived quite near with whom he could safely leave the horses. Her guess was confirmed when he said he would be gone only a day and a half.
The cabin was basic: four walls and a pitched roof covered with a thick stemmed vine. But it was sound and the floor was dry. A spring fed a small pool to one side. Sket asked Dromi about the wisdom of lighting a fire here, but Dromi saw no difficulty. The Menedula was just visible from the top of the hill, but if they lit a fire inside only at dusk, he thought no smoke would be noticed.
The cabin was snug enough that evening and they were grateful for its shelter when the wind rose, driving an icy rain slanting across the hill.
‘I will far seek,’ Tika said quietly.
She looked round at concerned faces and huffed out an annoyed breath. ‘I have to do these things. You know it isn’t dangerous if I have other minds supporting me.’
The concern on their faces didn’t lessen so Tika abandoned the point. She settled back on her bed roll.
‘Brin is travelling with my mind tonight, and Shivan.’
She closed her eyes, partly to escaped the worried faces, and let her mind slip free.
The Menedula was shut tight. Tika’s mind searched thoroughly and found no unlocked door or open window anywhere at all. That presented no problem to her and she merely pushed her mind through a glass door behind a balcony as she’d done before. She knew Kija was relaying what she saw from Brin’s mind, to the company, and she wondered what they made of this eerily quiet black building.
She’d entered a room beneath the one where she’d seen Finn Rah and Mena. It seemed to be a library of sorts, not as big as others she’d seen, and with far fewer books on the shelves. There were a few small lamps in here and two men and three women sat at a long table, piles of books around their individual lamps. Tika hovered above one, then the next, but could make no sense of what they were studying, or searching for. She had glimpses of ancient parchment pages carelessly flicked over, diagrams of stars, maps of the land of Drogoya, rhymes and lines of historical treatise so abstruse as to be as meaningless as the nursery rhymes.
Tika studied the faces of the men and women; she thought she’d seen them all within the Oblaka complex but didn’t recall any names. She pushed her mind through the door and found she was in an unlit corridor close to a flight of stairs. She sent her mind upwards, knowing she would emerge on that landing. She hovered by the elaborately worked balustrade and forced herself to look down.
The hundreds of bodies appeared quite unchanged from her last sight of them. The shadows still raced back and forth across them, but Tika thought the shadows looked darker, more solid. Then a slanting angle of light shone from beneath the landing. Tika watched as two people picked their way between the bodies: Ren and Mena. Tika let her mind float lower, over the balustrade, to enable her to see the two more clearly.
Ren stepped over one body and stooped, the light from the open door illuminating both his face and the woman on the stone floor. Tika knew her own body, in an old cabin a league away, had stiffened as rigidly as the woman who lay below her. She watched Ren’s hand push away yellow blonde hair from where it had tumbled over the woman’s face. He knelt, and using his thumbs, he peeled the eyelids up. The brightness of the blue eyes was dulled, as was the silver around the blue, and Tika knew Elyssa was truly gone.
Ren’s laugh startled her and she turned her gaze to Babach’s student and friend. His face had changed. In horror she saw the hint of what the First Daughter had looked like when she rose from the Dark. His jaw had lengthened and his forehead sloped more sharply back. The shape of his eyes had changed, there was an uptilt at the outer corners, something like the gijan’s eyes. He turned towards Mena to say something and when his mouth opened Tika saw the beginnings of tusks in his lower jaw. She fled, back to her body.
She jerked upright, tears streaming down her face, and was pulled hard against Sket’s chest. The cabin door banged open and four Dragon faces peered anxiously in. Sket wrapped his arms tighter around Tika’s body, his face set in anger and sorrow.
‘The woman was Elyssa, a friend of ours,’ he managed to explain, before bowing his head over Tika.
The company moved away, quietly settling for the night and leaving Sket to comfort Tika as best he could. But Shivan and Rhaki huddled together, talking occasionally in hushed voices but mostly using mind speech between them. No one attempted to close the cabin door and Farn spent the rest of the night squeezed in as far as he could manage without destroying the old place. Konya brewed a tea to which she added some herbs and encouraged Tika to drink once the first storm of grief had eased. When Tika slipped into a light doze Sket glared at the healer.
‘What did you give her?’
‘Only something very mild, to relax her a little. Sleep is a healer Sket. While she will still grieve when she wakes, the cruellest edge will have blunted a little.’
The rain stopped just before dawn and the sun was struggling weakly through thinning clouds when the guards began to stir. Onion and Fedran went to fetch more water to heat before their fire inside was allowed to die, while Shea, Corim and Kazmat checked and fed the horses whose only shelter had been the cabin’s end wall.
Khosa was curled against Tika’s side and cried softly as Tika moved. Green silvered eyes opened and stared into wide turquoise eyes. The green eyes welled with tears. Khosa crept closer, her whiskers tickling Tika’s face.
‘Hush. Elyssa was a very special person I know, a dear friend of your heart. But she is gone. Let her go dear one.’
Tika pressed her face into Khosa’s soft fur. ‘I know. It was the shock of finding her there.’
‘This company is worthy of you Tika.’
Tika drew back to peer into Khosa’s face. But the turquoise eyes blinked enigmatically and Khosa would say nothing more.
Dog and Essa concocted some sort of porridge
which they ladled out to everyone for breakfast. Shivan politely declined, claiming he was still full from last evening’s meal. He sat on the floor, back to the wall, and watched people eat. Or attempt to. Onion opened his mouth, caught Dog’s eye, and bent over his bowl again. After her first mouthful, Tika merely glared at Shivan: even her cooking wasn’t quite this bad.
‘So what do we do?’ Essa asked, collecting up the bowls and dumping them on Kazbeck to be washed.
Tika sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I left too quickly last night.’ Her voice wavered and she took a steadying breath. ‘Did all of you see Ren’s face?’ she asked.
Heads nodded but it was Shea who spoke, the first time she’d addressed Tika since the morning by the lake.
‘He’s beginning to look like the First Daughter did, when she went into the Dark.’
Shivan nodded. ‘Exactly. So there must be a link between the Dark, the Splintered Kingdom, and Shadow.’
Rhaki clasped his hands round his knee. ‘Both Shivan and Sergeant Essa have given me a great deal of information about the Dark Realm,’ he began. ‘I truly believe Shivan is correct in this, and that the link is a close one.’
Tika frowned. ‘That’s as maybe, but how do we force that link apart? It will only give strength to the Splintered Kingdom if the shadows are allowed to grow.’
‘Your Splintered Kingdom and the shadows are one and the same.’
Heads turned to Dromi, who smiled faintly. ‘We know of Places Beyond. We know there has long been one such place whose aim is to either obliterate us and all our world, or rule over it. We have also long known of a Shadow Place, where many things from this world are echoed but in a deformed fashion. Things you have told me are already clarifying much we have suspected.’
Tika began to pace around the cabin. ‘Are you saying the shadows were part of the Splintered Kingdom and – broke away?’
Dromi nodded. ‘Our theories point to that,’ he agreed.
‘So in fact, we have two perilous opponents?’
Dromi’s fingers twined together and rested on his upper stomach. ‘We believe both to be of great power, and to offer great danger. Yes.’
‘But?’ Tika knew there just had to be a but.
‘Our greatest archivists and thinkers cannot decide whether the Shadows broke away from what you call the Splintered Kingdom, or the other way about.’
‘Does it matter?’ Dog frowned.
‘Oh yes,’ Dromi nodded vigorously. ‘Very definitely.’
Blank expressions greeted this statement but Dromi apparently felt he’d said all that was needed. Essa muttered something under her breath then stood up, her head just clear of the roof.
‘I think we should check that building. Just to see if there are any tricks or traps around it. Or if they think they’re so tight and cosy inside they don’t need guards outside.’
Tika opened her mouth to object, then closed it. Essa wanted something to do, Tika knew that. She was fairly sure the area around the Menedula was safe. She nodded.
‘Very well. But Essa, absolutely no attempt to get inside.’
Essa grinned, revealing her filed purple teeth. ‘Yes sir,’ she agreed then turned to choose who would accompany her.
Eventually, Shea was persuaded to remain with Dog and Sket as Tika’s guards and Essa headed off with the five other guards.
‘Gives them something to do besides pick their noses,’ Dog observed with satisfaction.
Tika snorted. ‘You do put things so delicately, Dog.’
‘That’s me,’ Dog grinned. ‘Just a natural born lady.’
They were still laughing when Kija and Farn came alert at the same moment a raucous shriek sounded overhead. Sket and Shivan were on their feet, hands on swords, while Tika backed against the cabin wall. Hag landed amidst them, beak agape. But she cocked her head, turning quickly to scan those around her.
‘What has happened?’ The words rasped from her as a glittering eye fixed on Tika.
Tika relaxed slightly. The huge amount of power she sensed was unmistakeably Hag’s. Hag listened while Tika explained about the impostor, the evil that had taken Hag’s form. When Tika’d finished, Hag came a little closer.
‘You know it wasn’t me?’ she asked. ‘I am your friend.’
Tika gave a gusty sigh. ‘I know you are. My dear.’
Hag sidled nearer. ‘I will seek out this thing and I will deal with it.’ Her voice was very cold, very angry.
‘Hag, wait. Do you know anything of shadows?’
The great Raven staggered back, her eyes blazing wildly.
‘Shadows? Shadows you say? You ask Hag of Shadows?’
She began to strut in a small circle, muttering unintelligibly to herself. They watched her in astonishment, but it was Shea who went to the great Raven and knelt just outside the circle she was pacing. As Hag drew level with Shea, the girl held out an arm in front of the bird. Hag stopped and looked down. Shea, kneeling upright was not as tall as the Raven.
‘Hag, we’re all your friends. Please, what’s upset you so?’
Hag stared into Shea’s hazel eyes, almost as though she didn’t recognise the girl. The heavy beak went closer and those watching tensed. But Hag suddenly seemed to deflate and for the briefest moment, she leaned against Shea.
‘Friends,’ she murmured. ‘It is so good to have friends, but so long since Hag had any.’
She straightened and shuffled her feathers. Her gaze flicked over the people and Dragons around her, then she pushed up into the air. She shot straight up, and vanished.
‘What was that about?’ Shivan asked, only now taking his hand from his sword.
Tika crossed to Shea. The girl looked stricken.
‘She hurts so much. Tika, did you feel it?’
Tika helped her to her feet. ‘Yes, I felt it.’
She saw Dromi standing between Kija and Farn, a thoughtful expression on his round face. Konya had joined her and Shea and Tika left them to speak to the Old Blood.
‘Do you know what upset Hag?’ she asked bluntly.
He blinked. ‘Perhaps Hag knows too much of Shadow. But you say she is of the Dark?’
Tika frowned. ‘She introduced herself as Anfled of the Dark the first time we met.’
‘I have an idea Lady, but I must consider it more before I can offer it to you. Hag is no threat to you,’ he added. ‘Rather, the contrary.’
And with that, Tika had to be content.
Brin and Storm had gone after Essa and her unit, reaching a height from which they were unidentifiable as Dragons: any human glancing up would misjudge the height and conclude they were two hunting birds. Occasionally Brin mind spoke Kija and Farn about Essa’s furtive progress around the Menedula and the outskirts of the town of Syet.
Essa and her guards had all noted that the atmosphere had changed since their first visit to this place. Then, it felt as though they were in a death house, with just dead souls lingering angrily near their empty bodies. That heavy watchfulness had gone, and now it was simply what it seemed – a collection of deserted buildings.
Essa split the guards into three pairs. She ordered them to return to the ruin of the tavern in which they now stood, by midday, and sent them to get as close to the Menedula as they could. That building loomed above the town, visible from every street and alley, a black glowering presence. Essa’s partner was Onion and they moved steadily forward, heading towards the wide plaza from which the black steps swept up to the Menedula’s huge double doors.
Essa halted in the remains of a burnt out shop near the edge of the black paved space, Onion at her side.
‘Clever,’ muttered Onion. ‘No cover anywhere round that square.’
Essa merely grunted. She tilted her head back to study the town at their backs. Several buildings rose three and four floors, but none came close to half the height of the Menedula. She could see no way of overlooking the place. She hunkered down behind what was left of the shop front and tried to remember the layout of the inside o
f the building.
They had entered from the back, Ren leading them along passages and up many flights of stairs. Before Tika’d seen the hidden door leading to the Weights of Balance, she, Essa, had looked out of one of the windows. Essa closed her eyes and conjured up the memory of what she’d seen then. Buildings to the right, fields leading quite quickly to woodland on the left. So she must have looked out from a window on the eastern end of the Menedula.
She opened her eyes and glanced at Onion. She scowled and slapped his hand away from his satchel of explosives.
‘Bloody engineers,’ she hissed. ‘Come on.’
They worked their way through the tumbled buildings, occasionally surprised to find one virtually untouched. They finally reached what looked to be a storage shed, as large as some of the houses, but half burnt and completely ransacked. It was the last building before open pasture. Essa tested the rungs of a ladder still propped up to a hatchway. Onion grunted and pushed her aside.
‘I’ll go first. You’ll probably break the bloody thing,’ he growled and began, cautiously, to climb.
Behind him Essa grinned, purple teeth gleaming unseen by the engineer. Part of the roof had collapsed but the chimney remained and they were able to crawl out to shelter behind the stack.
‘What we looking for exactly Sergeant?’ Onion squinted across the open space towards the Menedula.
‘Any signs of life, I suppose.’ She was lying flat beside Onion, her chin resting on her fists. ‘It’s a real shame there’s no ghosts around here.’
‘Yeah, but maybe they wouldn’t be as friendly as that Kelshan lot.’
Essa twisted her head to glare at Onion. ‘Simert said he still ruled this place didn’t he?’ Her eyes widened at Onion’s look of horror.
‘What is it now?’ a voice asked behind them, sounding definitely testy.
They rolled over and squirmed behind the chimney again before getting to their feet. A short, plump elderly man frowned at them, arms folded and the fingers of one hand drumming on the opposite arm. Essa towered over both men but looked as nervous as a child.
Perilous Shadows: Book 6 Circles of Light Page 14
