Perilous Shadows: Book 6 Circles of Light

by E. M. Sinclair

  ‘Corax,’ she called clearly. ‘Corax.’

  ‘The Tika?’ The whisper was just audible.

  ‘May I speak to your family?’

  ‘Family. Corax saw mother.’ There was no mistaking the pleasure in Corax’s tone. ‘I call.’

  They could hear only the soft susurration of the waves retreating down the beach as they waited. Then, a different whisper drifted around them.

  ‘I am Marax. Father’s father many times to Corax. You are a Tika?’

  ‘I am a human. My name is Tika. What are your people called and where are you from?’

  ‘We are Chyliax. We come from shadows, far away.’

  ‘Shadows? You are of the Shadow people?’

  There was a considerable pause and then the whisper came again.

  ‘We followed the Second Son. He is Shadow. Do you know him, or where he might be?’

  There was such a longing in that faint voice.

  ‘We think we may soon find him, Marax. Are your people in great danger where you are now?’

  ‘The twisted creature likes to kill us if we are three or four together, so we hide apart. We are tired.’

  ‘You saved me and my friends, Marax. I will do my best for you.’

  There was a sense of emptiness again and they knew Marax had either withdrawn or had the link broken by the Crazed One.

  Fedran pushed more twigs and thicker pieces of wood onto the fire, the flames blazing up to illuminate the faces gathered round.

  ‘This thing, this Crazed One, he’s been here for generations?’ Kazmat asked.

  Tika was surprised. Kazmat had been the quietest of the three Kelshans who had chosen to serve her. Since the loss of his brother and his friend, he had become nearly silent. She wondered what had persuaded him to ask this question now.

  ‘Yes, Kazmat. Many, many generations.’

  Kazmat raised his eyes to meet hers. ‘Then he must have caused the deaths of countless thousands. We will stop his slaughter, Lady Tika.’

  There was a determination in his words that sent a chill down Tika’s back. She would warn Sket to watch this man. He would be reckless in his need to destroy the Crazed One and she did not want to lose any more of her friends, if she could possibly avoid it.

  ‘We will do our best, Kazmat,’ she told him quietly. ‘But I will not tolerate any one of you acting foolishly. There are few of us, and we face an enormous power. The Crazed One could kill you without even noticing he’d done so. But we will do our best, as I told Marax.’

  Farn murmured to her mind as the companions settled in their bed rolls and Tika rose. She found Volk near Kija, the boy Rivan asleep beside him. Khosa was curled on Rivan’s chest and merely blinked at Tika’s appearance. Tika hunkered down next to the Old Blood.

  ‘Lady, there is work for me to start on here. I would travel with you but my people need me for a while. Most have little memory of living in groups larger than their immediate families, yet now they are the only ones left in this land. I am one of the few who have mixed with the Drogoyans. I can help them begin to organise communities among themselves. I feel it is my duty to do this, my obligation.’

  There was a derisive snort from the darkness and Tika knew that bloody horse was offering an opinion.

  ‘I would beg you, Lady Tika, that I be permitted to join your company. I believe you will succeed, and whenever that time comes, and you find a land to settle in, let me come to be part of your community.’

  Tika was unable to reply for several moments. There was a conviction in Volk’s words, an unswerving belief that what he said would come to pass. If it was said to encourage her, to give her renewed hope, he had succeeded. She reached for his hand.

  ‘I would be proud to have you among my people, you and Rivan both.’

  There was a louder noise from the darkness. Without looking round, Tika smiled.

  ‘Your friend Daisy would also be welcome, of course.’

  Volk returned the pressure of her hand. ‘We will wait here, Lady, for your return, although my heart will be with you.’

  Impulsively, Tika leaned closer and buried a kiss in the depths of his beard. Saying nothing more, she left him and returned to her blankets.

  In the morning, they strapped up their packs, checked weapons and gathered close to Shivan. Tika pointed a finger first at Sket, then at Konya.

  ‘The Dragons will take you twp,’ she said firmly.

  Beyond the Dragons stood Volk, his hand on Rivan’s shoulder and Daisy looking bored over the top of his head. Tika noticed Khosa was in her carry sack hung around Dromi’s neck. She was surprised as Khosa hadn’t seemed to spend much time or attention on the Old Blood before. She checked that Sket and Konya were on Farn’s back and waited until all four Dragons had risen above the cliffs. Then she moved closer to Essa and Shea. Shivan murmured a single phrase and they spun into a Dark gateway.

  As always, it was impossible to judge how long the journey took, but there was a definite jarring shudder just before they emerged into late sunlight. And they emerged onto thick grass a few man lengths above a sea almost the same green as the grass. The Dragons were already lying nearby but Tika felt their agitation at once.

  ‘What happened then, Shivan?’ Tika asked when she’d regained her feet.

  She was relieved that the young Dark Lord didn’t seem perturbed. ‘We guessed there was shielding here,’ he replied. ‘We went through it.’

  Dog snarled. ‘Don’t you even think of explaining what could have happened if we hadn’t got through it.’

  Shivan bit his lip but wisely decided not to answer.

  Sket was watching the woodland which began less than half a mile inland from where they stood, the three guards alongside him, alert and ready.

  ‘I don’t see why you can’t share two or three poppers,’ Tika heard Onion whine.

  She heard a sharp slap on flesh and didn’t look round, hoping Dog had hit Onion’s hand rather than his still sore face.

  ‘Do you sense anything?’ she murmured to Rhaki.

  ‘At the moment, only birds and animals, nothing human or human like.’

  Tika watched Sket and the guards moving towards the trees and called the rest of her party to follow.

  Brin and Storm lifted into the sky. ‘We will search a little ahead,’ Brin told her. ‘We will be careful,’ he added, before she could issue her inevitable caution.

  Tika saw that Khosa was out of her sack but still in Dromi’s arms as they walked towards Sket. Geffal trotted back to her.

  ‘There is a path, Lady. A paved path, not an animal track.’

  There was a scream which made them all jump. A laughing chatter drew their eyes up to one of the first trees and a large bird dropped from one branch to a lower. Its side and wing feathers were red and black, with a long tail of bright blue, and its chest and throat was of an orange that made Khosa’s fur seem discreetly tasteful. It peered down at them, opened a pale yellow beak and let out another laugh, its throat swelling and throbbing with the effort.

  Tika found its mind was a simple blur: it had a faint awareness of itself but of intelligence she discerned very little. Several tiny nondescript brown birds dashed from one tree to another in silence, distracting the large vivid bird’s study of Tika and her company. The laughing shriek faded to a petulant chatter and the bird bounced back into denser foliage. They reached Sket and saw what he’d found: a neat stone paved path leading in among the trees.

  It was wide enough for three or four people to walk abreast, for the bushes and trees were carefully trimmed back to the path’s edges. Konya bent to examine one twig, rubbing a finger over the cleanly cut end.

  ‘This was cut three or four days ago, at most,’ she said as she straightened.

  The companions closed around Tika and Shea, and set off down the path. The air was noisy with shrieks and whistles from the occasionally glimpsed birds, a marked contrast to the silence of the lands they had crossed in Drogoya. Geffal and Dog were several pac
es ahead of the group, while Essa and Fedran walked at the rear.

  ‘Wait.’ Tika stopped, her eyes unfocused.

  Kija was sending pictures to Tika’s mind which she then shared with the company. Kija was flying, with Farn at her wing tip, very high. Far below, a large town was laid out in a very regular pattern. A river divided the town neatly in two. Kija was too high for details to be visible, but what was holding her attention were two buildings on one side of the river, set well apart from the town. Tika found it difficult to judge positions and angles from Kija’s view – the Dragon was gliding in a wide circle, so the picture constantly changed.

  ‘Which way is north, Navan?’ she asked in exasperation.

  ‘The way we’re going,’ he grinned at her. ‘Directly ahead, although this path bends a bit, it is definitely leading us north.’

  ‘You saw what Kija is seeing. That town, are the two big buildings this side of the river, or will we have to cross it? It looked wide, even from Kija’s height.’

  ‘Those two buildings are north of the river,’ Navan explained patiently. ‘But did you not see – there were five bridges across it.’

  ‘There were? I didn’t notice.’ Tika began to walk again. ‘I saw no smoke, no sign of people.’

  ‘How far ahead is that town?’ Rhaki asked.

  Tika sent a quick thought to Kija.

  ‘Kija thinks about four or five miles from where we arrived.’

  They walked on, shadows stippling across the stone flags of the path, until they emerged from the woodland and found themselves facing the first buildings of the town. These buildings were uniform, each built exactly to the same design, although differing in sizes. They immediately noted the oddness of the doors and windows: both had a wide base but a much narrower top. Their path joined a wider one, more a road than a path, which looped on around the first buildings. There was still the sound of birds from the trees behind them, but there was an unnatural quiet among the buildings.

  ‘Not the same as those villages in Drogoya,’ Sket commented at Tika’s shoulder.

  ‘No,’ Tika agreed. ‘I don’t think this place is as abandoned as it appears.’

  Sket gave her a sharp look but she shook her head.

  ‘I sense nothing living here, but I suspect the inhabitants are hiding from us.’

  ‘Hiding as in being shielded?’ asked Shivan.

  ‘If it is a shield I don’t recognise its form. Let’s just get on. I would like to be at the two bigger buildings before nightfall.’

  She looked up into the sky and saw three tiny specks. Where had Brin got to?

  ‘It’s all very tidy,’ Shea observed. ‘And there seem to be only houses, no shops or markets.’

  Tika had noticed that too, as their road led them in between more and more ranks of buildings. They came clear of the houses onto a wide strip of riverbank, dotted with flower beds, benches and small fruit trees. Their road cut through this park like section and began to rise into a smoothly arched bridge. Navan and Dromi peered over the low sides of the bridge as they crossed, nodding to themselves. Navan caught up with Tika as they began to descend the opposite curve.

  ‘Amazing workmanship,’ he said. ‘The blocks of stone are fitted without mortar, perfectly cut.’

  Tika glanced to her left and was dazzled as the low sun turned the river to a sheet of gold. She blinked and looked directly ahead. She could just see the curved roofs of two large buildings above the town. There was a burst of clapping and heads turned sharply towards a wheeling flock of birds. Essa pointed to one building on whose roof many birds sat, warming themselves on the grey roof tiles. The flock that had taken wing changed direction, and fluttered down to land on an adjacent roof. Geffal was hanging over the side of the bridge with Shea but they hurried to catch up with the others.

  ‘Huge fish in there. We could have fish for supper,’ Shea said hopefully.

  ‘Rather have rabbit,’ Onion replied.

  ‘We had rabbit yesterday, or was it today?’

  Onion grinned. ‘My stomach says it’s getting near a meal time, and never mind what day it might be.’

  Then he stopped in his tracks, his hand over his eye patch as he hissed with pain. Tika spun round, rushing back to him.

  ‘What is it Onion?’ She probed the wound with her healing sense but found no hint of infection or further injury. ‘What is it?’ she repeated.

  ‘It was like a flash of lightning Lady, then colours. Very bright, clear, colours, sparkling and glittering. It hurt when it started, then it stopped hurting, and now it itches like crazy.’

  ‘Hmm. Tell us if it happens again,’ Tika told him, turning away to continue along the road.

  ‘Again? It might happen again?’

  ‘Oh Onion!’ Shea hooked her hand round his arm. ‘It wasn’t too bad, was it?’

  Onion scowled down at her. ‘Well it wasn’t pleasant.’

  ‘That isn’t the same as bad though.’

  Tika heard their bickering but was concentrating ahead. She counted the rows of houses they passed as she had on the other side of the river: twenty-one rows, both sides. She could sense no human mind signature, yet she was convinced there were people close by. Past the last row of buildings was another stretch of short grass, like the riverbank garden. And across the grass rose two large buildings, facing each other and linked by a roofed colonnade.

  These buildings were of the same pale grey as all the rest of the town, but here the stone shivered, as though the light on it was like water, rippling gently over the walls. There were no windows in the lower half of either building, but above that height a plain metal-guarded balcony extended outwards maybe two paces, and behind that were large windows of the same odd shape as all the others they’d seen.

  Sergeant Essa moved ahead between Geffal and Dog, and studied the two buildings. The evening shadows were lengthening, and Essa also noticed that. She turned back to Tika.

  ‘I would suggest we wait until full daylight tomorrow before we go in there,’ she said quietly. ‘We can camp along there.’ She gestured to her left. ‘Shadows from those buildings won’t reach us at that point.’

  Tika nodded her agreement. ‘Only a small fire Sket. Rhaki, can you please conjure light globes to last the night?’

  She glanced round her company and only then saw that Dromi and Khosa were missing. She was checking again when there was a flurry of wings and Farn and Kija landed on the grass close to Essa.

  ‘Brin and Storm are where we arrived,’ Kija’s mind voice announced to them all.

  ‘So someone will get fish for supper at least,’ Shea muttered.

  Konya slapped her while Onion laughed. The company settled where Essa had suggested and sat quietly around Sket’s tiny fire. Rhaki cast four light globes above their heads which they found comforting although, as both Sket and Essa pointed out, it completely ruined their night vision. When full dark was upon them, with Kija one side of them and Farn the other, Tika told everyone to get what rest they could. Rhaki made his light globes fade to a mere glimmer.

  ‘I’ve set them to blaze up if anything moves closer than twenty paces to us, all the way round,’ he explained.

  Tika lay back against Farn, looking across their small camp to Kija.

  ‘Where have they gone Kija?’

  Kija’s eyes whirred a buttery gold in the faint light. ‘Inside there of course.’

  ‘Can you sense them?’

  ‘No. Not from the instant they went under that roof thing.’

  ‘I can’t feel them either.’

  Tika felt another mind pushing against hers and knew Shivan was trying to bespeak her. She opened her thoughts a fraction.

  ‘Have Dromi and Khosa tried to get in there?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A little cat and an even tinier spider.’

  ‘Shivan.’ Tika’s mind tone was sharp. ‘Dromi risked his life in the Menedula, and Khosa has done the same thing for me in both Sapphrea and in Malesh.’
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  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound superior. I just wish there was something I could do that would help.’

  ‘There will unfortunately be plenty of opportunities for you Shivan, I’m sure of that. Now try to rest.’

  She closed her mind to him and pulled a blanket tighter round her knees. Again she sent a questing probe towards those building, and again, she could sense nothing at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The night passed uneventfully, but no one had slept well, anticipating trouble that had never materialised. The sun was just above the roofs of the town below them when Sket replaced the turf where his fire had been. He brushed his hands free of dirt and fastened his pack securely on his shoulders. Tika had briefly considered suggesting she went in alone, but, seeing the set faces around her, abandoned the idea. She settled her own pack firmly and checked that her sword was loose in its scabbard.

  ‘I will lead,’ she told them. ‘I would like Rhaki and Shivan spaced among you. If I yell, do whatever I yell. That is most likely to be something like “run”.’

  She was glad to see smiles glimmer briefly.

  ‘Wait for me, my dear ones.’ She sent the thought to Kija and Farn, and was nearly swamped by the wave of love and encouragement that poured from them both.

  Sket’s arm brushed hers as he walked close by her side towards the colonnade. She paused a few paces from the open sided corridor. They could now see, above a flight of five steps, ornate oddly shaped doors in both buildings which faced each other along the colonnade.

  ‘Left or right?’ asked Dog.

  Tika felt a slight tingle in her left thumb, under Garrol’s ring. ‘Left.’

  She moved as she spoke, not under the roofed colonnade but alongside it until they had reached the outer edge of the steps. Tika didn’t hesitate. Sket’s boot hit the step at exactly the same instant as hers did, and they were on the fifth step as Geffal and Kazmat took the first. Tika stood before the double doors. They were wooden, carved with all manner of plants: creepers, leaves, tiny fungi, trumpet shaped blooms. She lifted both hands and held them, palms towards the doors.

  She used power not her hands, to push gently and the doors swung inwards. The sun, low over her left shoulder, penetrated only a short distance into the doorway, offering little illumination. Tika reached for her power but kept it well concealed: she did not want to appear to be offering a threat to whoever hid within. She took a firm step forward, across the threshold. Immediately, she felt the juddering shudder she’d felt when Shivan opened the gateway here. Then it was gone as quickly as she’d felt it, and so had the gloom beyond the doors.