‘Yes but my people don’t use mind speech,’ Shivan objected.
‘I’m sure you must have done, once. Some of you at least. That’s the only way Dabray could have known what was happening to me. And he took action, which implies he can reach a long way and still have sufficient power to use to considerable effect.’
Shivan frowned, not convinced. ‘Why did they try so hard to make me sound crazy when I was experimenting with mind speech?’
‘Did the First Daughter mock you, or your father?’ Essa asked.
‘Well, no. None of the senior Ones in the Palace, but all the teachers and the other students.’
‘If they’d taken a bashing, through those gateway things, perhaps they’d discourage the mind stuff. Perhaps they’d be scared it could give ’em away to the Crazed One,’ suggested Onion.
‘But gateways are made using mind power,’ Tika argued.
‘No they’re not. It is the saying of the ritual phrase. I do not do anything with my mind.’
Tika scowled in annoyance. ‘I’m going to see Khosa,’ she said abruptly.
She saw Onion’s hand pressed over his patch as she got up from his chair. ‘Are you all right Onion?’
‘Yeah. Those flashes of light and colours are coming more often – all day today. And the itching is enough to -’
Sket cleared his throat noisily, giving the engineer a glare of warning. ‘Language please, Onion.’
Essa rolled her eyes and Tika departed. As she climbed the stairs to the room where Khosa lay, her thumb tingled. Again. She tiptoed into the bedroom where only a single lamp gave any light. Dog watched her come in, raising a finger to her lips then pointing to a chair. Shea was curled in the chair, wrapped in a blanket, fast asleep. Tika nodded and crept closer to Dog.
‘She’s been moving a bit, her paws twitched and so did her ears,’ Dog breathed into Tika’s ear.
Tika probed towards Khosa’s body first: much stronger, she found with satisfaction. But she would have to eat soon and regain the flesh that had melted from her bones. Centring her thoughts, Tika touched Khosa’s mind.
‘Oh do let me sleep.’
Tika blinked and bent close over the small orange body. Surprisingly long eyelashes flickered and Tika glimpsed a line of turquoise between the lids. She heard Dog’s indrawn breath.
‘You’ve slept nearly enough, dear one. You must wake soon and take food.’
Khosa’s whiskers pushed forward and her mouth opened in a prodigious yawn. Tika ran a finger lightly along the line of Khosa’s spine, the vertebrae far too prominent now.
‘Khosa, you are one of my family. I will not let you go. Do you understand me, dearest?’
She thought Khosa would not reply as the moments passed.
‘I had to try.’
Tika closed her eyes, then, with great care, she scooped the cat up against her shoulder, crooning to her as Khosa had so often crooned to her.
‘Dog is here, and she will fetch food. What is your choice, my little lady? Oh yes,’ Tika gave Dog a watery smile. ‘Khosa is a Queen, the Queen of the Kephis on Lady Emla’s estates. Now what is your pleasure your majesty – fish, or fowl, or goat?’
Khosa’s mind voice was very fragile and she still hadn’t found the strength to open her eyes properly.
‘Too many bones in fish. Rabbit would be nice.’
Dog was gone before Tika could move, her feet pounding down the stairs.
‘Let’s hope Darallax’s cooks just happen to have a rabbit handy. I’ll wager Dog would go hunting one for you if they haven’t.’
‘Kinder than I deserve.’
‘Hush.’
Tika heard boots slapping on stone, several pairs by the sound of it, so she wasn’t surprised when Dog returned bearing a large dish, followed by Sket, Navan and Rhaki.
‘I brought both raw and cooked,’ Dog panted.
‘Cooked,’ Khosa murmured.
Sket used his eating knife to slice a tiny morsel from a chunk of meat and held it close to Khosa’s mouth. She took the sliver and chewed it slowly, eyes still shut. It took a long time to get a very little food into her and then she was suddenly fast asleep again. Tika placed her back on the bed and, for the first time, Khosa gave a tiny wail and scrunched herself into a ball rather than staying limp on her side. Dog glanced round and grinned.
‘We look like a bunch of aunties admiring our first niece.’
Sket grinned back at her. ‘And judging by the way you sprinted up those stairs, your leg is completely mended. So you’re fit for drill.’
‘Only a temporary improvement Captain I’m afraid. Knowing the urgency of my errand, I nobly ignored the agony.’
Navan and Rhaki kept their eyes fixed firmly on Khosa and Tika struggled not to let a laugh escape. She slipped her hand round Sket’s arm, drawing him to the door.
‘Let’s leave Khosa to sleep. Dog’s staying on watch, aren’t you Dog?’
‘That’s right, my lady.’
Outside, Tika laid her hand over Sket’s mouth. ‘Don’t try to make Dog change, Sket. I love her the way she is.’
Sket muttered something extremely rude which Tika pretended not to hear, and followed her down the stairs.
Tika found an opportunity to persuade Dromi out with her to visit the river, to see if more Chyliax had returned the next day. The river surface was smooth when they leaned over the bridge’s low parapet. Shadow people crossed back and forth, nodding to the two strangers, but oddly quiet.
‘Dromi can you summon shadows?’
Dromi shook his head. ‘I’m not really sure what you mean by that, lady. Do you mean these people?’
Tika was using a small touch of power and she knew that Dromi was not prevaricating.
‘Like this,’ she said, and hoped it would actually work.
She laid her hand flat, palm up, on the parapet in the full glare of the mid morning sun. ‘Shadows come to me,’ she whispered in her mind.
Her palm was filled with black shadows which nestled around the base of her fingers. She watched, as fascinated as Dromi as a line of shadow crept towards her thumb, then wrapped itself around her ring. Dromi’s eyes, their colour a pale grey mixed with blues and greens at this moment, met Tika’s.
‘We have records of this,’ he murmured. ‘And still we were too blind to see that tales of such ability must surely indicate a link with the Shadow Realm itself. It has not been recorded for many, many generations that anyone has achieved control over shadows.’
Tika released the shadows and her hand was empty. ‘I think there is rather a big difference between command and control Dromi.’
He nodded slowly. ‘So you are of Shadow.’
Tika’s hand clenched into a fist and she thumped the parapet. ‘Rhaki’s people say I am theirs, the Dark Realm claims me. And now Shadow. I don’t think I am any of these.’
Dromi gave her a look of compassion. ‘I can understand that. You feel that you are neither one nor another, yet I think you would like to – belong. If you are not any of these, then you are a mage of great and unusual talent. Independent of the Realms, yet talented in all their forms of power.’
Tika remained silent, staring down at the fast flowing river as it surged out between the arches.
‘Lady Tika, I think you are probably that – a mage of great and unaligned powers. And the company that gathers around you is your tribe, your family. They are where you belong.’
Tika turned towards him but someone called from below.
‘The Tika! The Tika!’
A smile tugged at her mouth and she leaned over. ‘Corax! Are you well?’
‘Ooh yes. Water is wonderful. We swam far, far up this water. We are to swim down it now. Mother says there’s different water to be in.’
A very large golden brown spiral shell half surfaced beside Corax and his tentacles waved wildly, getting tangled in his excitement. Tentacles emerged from the large Chyliax, stroking over Corax, clearly trying to restrain his enthusiasm. A voice
drifted up to Tika and Dromi.
‘Lellex, I am. Mother to this one. I thank the Tika for her patience with his impudence.’
‘I am glad to meet you Lellex. Corax is not impudent. I’m sure I would be as excited as he is to be free of that rock.’
Water sprayed from several of Corax’s tentacles, reaching rather close to where Tika and Dromi stood. One of Lellex’s tentacles slapped down hard, pushing the young Chyliax under the surface briefly.
‘If you should need caves in your home, the Chyliax will be honoured to eat some for the Tika.’
‘Oh. That’s most – um – generous of you. Swim deep and sing well.’
She withdrew from the parapet and made for the bank side, thinking more of Dromi’s words than of Lellex’s.
‘Dromi, what was Volk’s horse Daisy?’
Dromi walked several paces before he replied. ‘Daisy is like Khosa, but by her own choice. She never felt comfortable in human form, so she chose to remain in her horse shape. She and Volk have been together for years.’
‘And she does use mind speech, doesn’t she?’
‘She has developed more skill in it than any other I know, but she refuses to discuss it or to go to Steadfast Rock and let the Brothers test her.’
Tika snorted. ‘I don’t have great faith in testing, myself. But does that mean many choose their animal forms over human?’
‘Very few do so.’
They climbed up towards the large double houses above the town, both lost in their own thoughts. Tika paused.
‘I am going to try to enter the Splintered Kingdom later today Dromi. Only you, of this company, know I can call shadows. I would prefer the others not to know yet.’
‘Will you take Sket?’ Dromi asked.
Tika shook her head. ‘I will take no one.’
Now the Old Blood looked deeply worried.
‘No Dromi, no one,’ she repeated. ‘But come with me now. I’d like to see if we could look at that painting again.’
Later, Shea greeted them with the news that Khosa had woken, eaten and, nearly, managed to wash one paw, before sleeping again.
‘She’ll need time, Shea. Physically she could be her old self in a few more days but mentally she is very – sore– and sad. So not too much teasing.’
Shea glared at her. ‘I know that.’
Dog came limping in from the courtyard garden and Tika raised an eyebrow.
‘Knew I’d pay for scampering up and down those bloody stairs,’ she told Tika cheerfully.
Tika heard Shea giggle but chose not to risk getting involved, especially when Sket arrived to scowl at Dog. She left them arguing and wondered if Jemin, the Imperator of Kelshan and Shea’s uncle, would entirely approve of the additions to his niece’s vocabulary. On consideration, she decided he would probably howl with laughter. Tika was relieved to see both Kija and Farn were settled on the central mosaic, apparently dozing. She had decided she would do this her own way, and with the two nearest to her as her support. She woke them gently, using mind touch, and quickly laid out her intentions.
She felt concern from both but not fear and not opposition. Farn got up, paced close to his mother and reclined again, enclosing Tika in a wall of Dragon flesh. She sat on the small amount of stone they’d left between them, her back against Farn’s side, her feet against Kija.
‘I’m sorry but I have no idea how this will work,’ she told them. ‘I will twist my life thread with both of yours this time.’
Tika made herself relax and felt a surge of love from her foster mother and her soul bond. She twisted a skein of thought out to tangle round the Dragons’ minds, and hesitated. Then she called to the shadows. Farn was momentarily startled but quickly steadied. Tika had warned them what might happen. Where she sat there was a pool of black shadow, swirling against the Dragons’ scales. Then it was gone and Farn’s eyes flashed as he realised he could no longer feel Tika’s body against his. Kija’s head swung round, over the space where Tika had been, and Farn’s head moved to touch his mother’s. Kija crooned gently, soothingly, and the two Dragons prepared to wait.
The moment she’d called for shadows, Tika knew these were very different from the small shadows of the garden. She felt an awareness, an intelligence, completely envelope her. The Dragons were aware of her disappearance before she was. When shadows hid her before, she’d been able to see out, through them, had seen her own hand in front of her. Now, everything went dark. For a heartbeat she panicked: was this yet another form of gateway?
‘Not fear.’
It wasn’t a voice, or a thought, but the words were inside her head and she calmed immediately.
‘Where?’
‘Can you take me to the Splintered Kingdom?’
‘Not know.’
Tika thought furiously. ‘The place where the Chyliax were kept prisoner.’
‘Bad place.’
‘I agree completely but I must go there and try to destroy the thing within.’
She felt a strange chittering tingling sensation in her mind and then found her feet on solid stone. She could still see nothing.
‘Let me see.’
An odd slit in the blackness opened in front of her eyes and she saw she was in a familiar looking tunnel.
‘Can the thing sense shadows?’
‘No. Can sense you if we reveal.’
‘Take me as close to the creature as you can, please.’
Again, there was the chittering sound.
‘Do you do what I ask or do you have to discuss everything first?’ Tika was curious even at this moment, rather than annoyed.
‘Protect. Mistress commands herself into peril.’
Tika tried to decipher that. ‘I ask you rather than command you, to take me into danger. I don’t want to go, but I choose to go.’
She waited, hoping these shadows made more sense of her than she was managing to of them. The gap in front of her eyes closed, and she felt herself borne along again, her feet definitely not touching any surface.
‘Look see what.’
The gap opened again and Tika found herself by one of the window things she’d seen before, when Seela was killed. She frowned, peering through the restricted space. Then she gasped, recognising the Sea Dragon, Mist, Elder of Storm’s Flight. The maimed Dragon reclined, watching men moving stones. They were making a cairn, Tika saw, as she had done for Ren. Then a face she knew too well: Lord Hargon of Return, father of Mena, and Tika’s owner, when she had been his slave. There was no doubt the cairn was for him. Without warning the gap in her surrounding shadows closed and Tika was moved on. Then, once more:
‘Look see what.’
This window made no sense to Tika. She looked out onto a churning mass of cloud or water; it was impossible to know which. Thus she was transported through the Splintered Kingdom, shown window after window. Most of the scenes were incomprehensible to her but one more made her gasp. The enormous purple Dragon Seela, powering over a burnt out, ash choked landscape, towards one particular building.
‘No!’ Tika cried aloud, and the shadows covered her eyes again.
Tika struggled to shut out the memory of Seela’s destruction above that building, and formed a thought for her shadows.
‘Show me no more please, until you locate the creature.’
‘Dragon friend dead? Dragon friend shadow?’
‘Yes, she is dead and she has gone Beyond.’ Then Tika wondered at the shadow’s words. Were these shadows simply ghosts?
‘No.’
Oh well. If she got out of this, she had enough things to occupy her mind for the next thousand years.
‘More.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
The sensation of moving ceased again, but the chittering filled her head. Tika waited as patiently as she could, while the shadows argued, or discussed, or whatever. Although she knew, if worse came to worst, she could cause untold damage by unleashing all her power, she preferred not to even consider that option. For now, she must dep
end entirely on the guidance and concealment of the shadows.
It felt as if she’d been waiting a long time when suddenly she knew she was being moved again. There was a very nasty, tight, crushing feeling, which left her breathless.
‘Near to the Bad.’
‘How near, and what does it look like?’
‘Near. Nasty.’
Tika felt the urge to slap the owner of the voice, but she accepted that she would look very foolish slapping a shadow.
‘Very.’
‘Explain nasty to me.’
‘Black, oozy mud stuff.’
Tika was surprised to feel the shadow’s repugnance. She hadn’t really considered what shadows might like or dislike, but this shadow very obviously did not like the look of the Crazed One.
‘Dragon comes.’
‘What?’ Tika drew power around her within the shadows. Somehow these shadows had brought her physical body here and that was an added complication.
‘What Dragon?’ she repeated.
‘Big.’
‘Like Farn?’
‘Farn?’
‘The Dragon I was leaning against when you came.’
‘Not like.’
Tika knew with a cold certainty the Dragon the shadows could see was Cyrek, in his Dragon shape.
‘Man now.’
‘Can you let me see, just a bit?’
The blackness before her eyes thinned, but didn’t entirely clear. It was enough though, for Tika to see Lord Cyrek’s back, barely ten paces in front of her. He leaned against a wall, arms folded.
‘Let me hear.’
‘- nothing you can do about it.’
Tika flinched when she saw the amorphous heap of a jelly like substance, somehow upright, taller than Cyrek and wider by far. It reminded her of caterpillars the children used to hunt among the fruit trees in Return: the front two thirds of their bodies would rear up, while their many feet waved wildly around them. This thing had no apparent protrusions, but it pulsed with menace towards Cyrek.
‘You out reach yourself little worm.’ The voice emanated from the jelly caterpillar.
Cyrek pushed away from the wall and strolled casually closer to the thing. With no warning whatsoever, something, like a thick arm, shot out from the upper part of the creature and Cyrek was on the floor, blood gushing from his nose and mouth. He got slowly to his feet and Tika saw his yellow eyes blazing with barely held hatred.
Perilous Shadows: Book 6 Circles of Light Page 42
