Perilous Shadows: Book 6 Circles of Light

by E. M. Sinclair

  ‘Would it take much to knock this down?’ she asked.

  The anger faded. ‘No, Lady Tika, not much at all.’

  ‘Do it.’

  She headed for the door then glanced back. ‘Wait until we’re all well out of the way, won’t you Onion? And do be careful.’

  She received a grin which made her shudder and hurried on after the others.

  ‘They seem all right most of the time,’ Sket muttered as they trotted down the stairs. ‘But then they go and look crazy.’

  ‘I’ve noticed,’ Tika replied.

  Essa glanced back. ‘These three can handle it,’ she assured them. ‘Some can’t. Rose, he was their leader for years, but they’d been covering for him for quite a while I’d guess. He blew himself up at Ghost Falls, where Dog got her leg smashed. She was trying to stop him.’

  They hurried through the bone filled hall and out into the sunshine. They found Farn had stopped Volk and Rhaki to peer closely at the two small bodies they carried. When the two men walked on down the steps, Farn followed, pacing close behind them. Volk took them around the black building and they saw that, particularly on its rear, north facing wall, the paint was flaked and peeling, revealing the same pale stone underneath as the other buildings of the town.

  There was little greenery to be seen anywhere. A few low spindly bushes and patches of grass struggled to find nourishment from the thin rocky soil. Volk paused and looked about him. He moved on, picking his way over the rough ground to where the ridge began to rise above them again. Tika also paused, scanning the higher ground. She saw Farn land again on the ridge top, watching them below. A few withered brown ferns and lines of shrivelled creepers spread like nets across the upper level but Tika saw where Volk was heading.

  A great bulge of rock pushed out over a small flat shelf and that was where Volk was aiming for. Volk, Rhaki and Essa had no difficulty climbing up to the overhang, but the others had to watch their footing. Especially so when several loud explosions nearly deafened them and the ground quivered slightly beneath their feet. A large cloud of dust and debris hung above Merriton and Sket laughed.

  ‘Shouldn’t think there’s much left now.’

  He held out a hand to help Tika the last paces up to the ledge. Looking down at the two small bodies now laid side by side, his laughter vanished.

  ‘They’d have enjoyed that, I’ll wager.’

  Tika squeezed his calloused fingers. Volk was gathering rocks from around the ledge, placing them along Mena’s right side and Tyen’s left. Everyone joined in the task, slowly covering the young boy and the changed girl. Before a stone hid Mena’s face, Tika studied her for several moments. There was a peacefulness about the face, in spite of the tusks and the tilted eyes. Gently, Tika placed the stone and went to fetch more.

  Volk wasn’t satisfied until the cairn was solid and nearly as high as Tika’s shoulder. Only then did he nod, brushing the dirt and dust from his hands. They retraced their steps down the slope until Tika felt a touch on her shoulder. She paused and stared up at Volk.

  ‘Do you think that gentleman has them now?’ he asked gruffly.

  She sighed. ‘I couldn’t say Volk. Perhaps we should have said some words over the two. I don’t know.’

  Volk grunted and turned back. ‘I’ll catch up to you in a while.’

  It was dusk when Shivan, in his Dragon form, glided down to land on the roof terrace of the Karmazen Palace. He shimmered into his human shape and went quietly to the archway. He peered in to the great chamber and saw no one there, although several lamps were lit. A half empty goblet of the blood drink stood beside an open book on a table next to one of the couches.

  Shivan extended his senses, as Tika and Rhaki had shown him, and probed through the adjacent rooms. The First Daughter still lay in her great canopied bed and a healer was present as always. He felt the slightly different mind signatures of two cats. Then he probed towards the outer rooms, as far as the upper landing, and found many Dark guards patrolling the whole area. He sensed an odd blurred smudge and realised it must be Corman even as the Palace Master came into the chamber. Shivan made a mental note to tell Tika what the mind signature of one who was in the half death felt like, when Corman spun towards the arch.

  Shivan stepped forward and Corman relaxed.

  ‘Welcome, Shivan.’ His expression changed to one of alarm. ‘All is well?’

  Shivan nodded but waved a hand at the room. ‘Will we be overheard, or interrupted?’

  Corman frowned. He picked up his goblet and moved to the archway.

  ‘It is a mild evening. Let us sit outside for a while.’

  By the time Shivan had given as full a report to Corman as possible, the dark sky was full of stars. Finally Shivan sat back with a sigh.

  ‘Is my father in the Palace?’ he asked.

  ‘No. He has exhausted himself, insisting on staying with the First Daughter almost constantly. I ordered him home to your mother this morning.’

  Corman rose to his feet. ‘Let’s get you some food lad. Then you must rest before you return to the north.’

  Shivan felt suddenly tired, and very hungry. He sank onto one of the many couches in the great chamber while Corman went to request that food be brought. Corman returned to the chamber and saw Shivan fast asleep. He refilled his goblet from a decanter and sat on the couch he’d been using. He crossed his long legs and swirled his drink gently, his golden gaze fixed on Shivan.

  He looked devastatingly young to Corman, but he’d had to concede First Daughter Lerran was correct. In Shivan lay the hope and the future of the Dark Ones. Corman raised his goblet in silent salute to the young Lord asleep across the room.

  The company walked back to their camp by the mine, stopping on the way to admire the effects of Darrick and Onion’s explosive devices. The two engineers were manically pleased with their handiwork but, as always, regretted the loss of some of their crackers.

  ‘Isn’t it odd,’ Sket remarked to Tika. ‘They’re desperate to use those bloody things, then when they do, they moan that they’ve only got twenty left.’

  Tika snorted. ‘I’m beginning to suspect that’s perfectly normal with engineers.’

  Dog met them at the top of the trail.

  ‘Have fun boys?’ she enquired pleasantly.

  ‘Oh you should have seen it Dog!’ Darrick began with enthusiasm. ‘Crackers at each corner and two inside. Single line fuse. Simple.’

  Dog smirked. ‘So I’m three up on each of you now, right?’

  She caught Tika’s eye and winked. Darrick’s face fell and Onion scowled, but Tika thought it prudent to keep walking and not get involved. Konya was stirring something in their biggest pot, which smelled rather wonderful. She looked up as the company arrived.

  ‘Dog told me that noise was Darrick and Onion.’

  Tika grinned. ‘Not them personally Konya, just a few of those little toys they’re so fond of.’

  Shea was busy pouring tea from the ever steaming kettle, but she gave Tika a hard stare and tapped her chest. Tika tugged her pendant free of her shirt and held it in her palm. It felt cool now, but she knew it had started to heat when she approached Mena. Why? Dromi didn’t seem to have moved since they’d left him in camp that morning. Tika glanced round for Dog and wandered over to where she was still bickering with the other two engineers. Dog raised a brow questioningly.

  ‘Has Dromi said or done anything?’ Tika asked softly.

  Dog shook her head. ‘He asked Konya about some of her herbs, is all.’

  Tika smiled her thanks and, still holding her pendant in her palm, strolled back to sit cross legged beside the Old Blood.

  ‘Ever seen one of these, Dromi?’

  She held the pendant out on its gold chain. Dromi blinked and focused his vari- coloured eyes on what Tika held. Without hesitation, he reached to hold it steady where Tika had let it dangle free. He turned it, studying the red gold backing, then the light yellowish amber filling the front, forming an odd egg shape
. He let it go and met Tika’s eyes.

  ‘I’ve never seen such a thing. Is it a talisman?’

  Tika stared into the pendant, seeing the minute shape within, twisting gently as though alive.

  ‘I suppose it has become a sort of talisman to me. Does it suggest anything to you?’

  Dromi peered closely at it again. ‘Apart from its shape, it could be a piece of ordinary jewellery such as many wealthy people might wear.’

  ‘Its shape?’

  Dromi shrugged. ‘It is egg shaped. Many believe that is the most enigmatic of symbols.’

  Tika waited for him to continue.

  ‘It is something that shelters new life; it has an unbroken surface over which a finger can move unobstructed. It looks solid yet hold an egg to a candle, and it is almost transparent. As I say, it is considered a mysterious and mystical form.’

  He reached for the pendant once more. ‘I cannot tell how it was made. Gold is easily worked, but I don’t recognise this other stuff, or how it might have been melded with the gold. There is no seam that I can see or feel. A master craftsman must surely have made it and clearly it is of great value, but I see no significance in it as such.’

  Tika dropped the pendant back under her shirt and changed the subject. ‘It may be impossible for us to travel to your Steadfast Rock I’m afraid. We are waiting on Shivan’s return. Anything he has learned will then decide our next move.’

  She watched Dromi from beneath her lashes and caught his look of sudden dismay, quickly hidden under his usual blandness.

  ‘That is a disappointment to me,’ he replied. ‘But I must hope you will be able to visit at the earliest convenient opportunity.’

  Tika accepted a bowl of tea from Shea and met Dromi’s eyes directly. ‘Why?’

  No flicker betrayed Dromi’s thoughts. ‘You and Lord Shivan are – most unusual. You are able to use power in ways I have never heard of.’

  ‘So you’d like to – examine us?’

  Dromi’s long fingers tightened around his own tea bowl. ‘We would certainly like to learn what we can from you.’

  Tika sighed. ‘Dromi, you have no idea of the power we could command should we need to.’

  She saw the scepticism in his eyes. She raised a clenched fist, thinking of Mim, deep in the tunnels of the Domain of Asat. Slowly, she let her hand unfold and a small green twig appeared on her palm. She watched Dromi while the twig quivered, stretched, tiny leaf buds unfurled, and at the twig’s tip a soft white flower bud began to swell. The company had drawn closer and watched with Dromi as the bud fattened and petals curled daintily open.

  Only Sket and Khosa recognised the flower as being the same as the one Mim had created. The only sound was the crackling of the fire when Tika held out the perfect creamy rose to Dromi. He took it, stunned speechless once more. Tika leaned a little closer.

  ‘I can create that Dromi, something intricate and beautiful. I can also destroy.’

  She gestured at a large stone partly propping up the kettle over the fire. The rock shivered to powdered dust and the kettle lurched. Konya leaped to catch the handle and gave vent to a stream of extraordinarily fluent and unladylike curses. Tika laughed.

  ‘I’m surprised at you Konya. You’ve been around these guards too long.’

  She got up and went to where Khosa still sat on Kija’s cushion. Khosa stretched, front end down, hind end up, and followed as Tika began to scramble up the side of the ridge.

  ‘I wonder how Mim’s getting on,’ Khosa spoke in Tika’s mind.

  ‘Better than we are, I hope,’ Tika answered, reaching the top and sitting near the edge.

  Khosa sat neatly beside her and they both looked out, over the desolate town to where dust still hung in the windless air.

  ‘Farn showed us the bones. Kija went to hunt, but we all saw.’

  Tika stroked a hand down Khosa’s spine.

  ‘And he showed us the children when you brought them out.’

  ‘What do these changed appearances mean Khosa? I didn’t sense as deeply as I could, but Mena was altered inside too. Lungs, heart, they weren’t truly human. She spoke.’

  Khosa’s head turned sharply to look up at Tika. ‘She did? What did she say?’

  ‘The other thing within her spoke,’ Tika corrected herself. ‘It said it couldn’t adjust. The body was too frail and the air too foul.’

  ‘What?’ Khosa stalked round Tika and back, then up and down over her knees.

  ‘Do you understand what it means Khosa? Khosa, calm down, tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know enough. I don’t remember enough.’She clawed her way up Tika’s shirt and wide turquoise eyes peered into Tika’s face, whiskers bristling with agitation.

  Tika held the little orange cat close. ‘Try to tell me Khosa?’

  ‘It sounds familiar – from when I was a tiny child.’

  Tika tucked Khosa’s head under her chin and stroked her steadily while a cold finger traced a line down her own spine. She knew only fragments of Khosa’s story. She knew that, unlikely as it seemed, Khosa was older than Kija or Fenj. That she had once had human form, and that she had travelled far, across the star fields, in a Ship like Star Singer, with her family. And also that her father was Namolos.

  Holding the trembling cat, Tika tried to connect the words she’d heard from Mena and what she’d learned of the several Ships that had reached this world. Was air different, she wondered? Her thought must have leaked because Khosa moved against her shoulder.

  ‘Yes, air is different. You remember the way the air turned bad at Blue Mirror? There are creatures, here I expect, and on other worlds, who can only live breathing such air.’

  Tika absorbed that remark. ‘That implies the changed forms are from a world greatly different from this one.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But if the air is wrong for them here, surely they will try to find another place?’

  Khosa heaved a sigh. ‘Perhaps they can’t.’

  Slowly Tika recalled what she’d learnt of the Ships which brought Khosa and her people, people like Kertiss, Orla and Sefri. Sefri had said that many other Ships still circled this world, lifeless now, unable to land on the surface and unable to fly further.

  ‘Khosa, is this a separate thing, or is it the Splintered Kingdom? If only someone could tell us what the Crazed One actually looks like. Why should the First Daughter’s face and body change as it did – she is human.’

  ‘I’ve listened to all you’ve been told, and much else besides. Even when the Dark Ones understood that we use mind speech, they often spoke in front of me and Akomi without thinking that we were listening. I have come to the conclusion that the Splintered Kingdom did indeed crash into the Places Between and it can touch this world more closely than it should. But I think it became melded more completely with the Shadow Realm. And the Dark Ones say they know next to nothing of Shadows. If they truly do not, we must find someone who does.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  The sounds of someone climbing the ridge warned Tika of a new arrival and she watched as Konya’s iron grey head appeared. Konya stood puffing slightly, a little hesitant to disturb Tika.

  ‘Come and sit with us,’ Tika invited. ‘And you really must stop learning those words from the men.’

  Konya sat beside her and grinned broadly. ‘You have no idea Tika, what forty years confined to the Citadel and the infirmary was like. Everyone so polite to your face and hissing like serpents behind your back. It is a wonderful relief to speak plainly.’

  ‘Hmm. Prince Jemin would have hysterics if he heard a senior Kelshan healer speaking quite so plainly.’

  Konya laughed in delight. ‘Good.’

  They sat quietly for a few moments, then Konya sighed. ‘I do listen you know. I’ve worried that you must wonder why I’m here with you all. I like cooking for the company and I can’t describe how grateful I am for the chance to travel with you. But I do listen.’

  ‘And what do you hear?’ Tika continu
ed to cradle Khosa, staring out over Merriton.

  ‘I’ve tried to put together what you say of this Splintered Kingdom with what I know – little enough though that is – of the Broken Realm. Two of my colleagues were fascinated with the idea of other realms, other existences. I wasn’t particularly interested but the two I’m speaking of were the closest friends I had. They listened to me boring on about different aspects of healing which incorporated magery, and I listened to them.’

  Khosa twisted in Tika’s arms so she could watch Konya’s face.

  ‘One of them, Anlif, he was the most passionate on the subject.’ She paused. ‘He – died, last winter. Well, he was summoned to the Imperatrix for some sort of discussion and he didn’t come back. We were told he’d had an unfortunate fall and died. A lot of people had fatal accidents around that bloody woman.’

  Konya sat silent for a while.

  ‘And what were Anlif’s views on the Broken Realm,’ Tika prompted gently.

  ‘He was convinced it was here. Not Between anymore, actually part of this world.’

  Tika closed her mouth. ‘Did he speak of a Shadow Realm?’

  Konya sighed. ‘Anlif spoke of it – he called it that, too. Anlif was a healer, but he was also a mathematician.’ Konya threw up her hands. ‘Numbers! He could reduce anything to numbers, from childhood coughs to broken bones. And he was the only one who ever understood what he was talking about. He spent all his spare time on trying to work out where it was. The Shadow Realm I mean. As best I remember it was an island, a large one. But that’s about all. He knew about the Night Lands – your Sapphrea. He worked out all the numbers so he said.’

  Konya gave Tika an apologetic look. ‘I have no idea how.’

  ‘You’re sure it was the Shadow Realm he thought he’d found?’

  ‘Oh yes. There were stories about the Dark Realm – told to frighten the children. Anlif said there had to be a Light Realm and therefore a Shadow one. He said it was obvious but – um – I never quite grasped his theories.’