‘Which is fine,’ said Erienne. ‘But I don’t get the connection with Balaia and I don’t see that we can do anything to help. And I don’t understand why Auum and the TaiGethen are here.’
‘Contact with our dead is a gift granted to us by Shorth,’ said Rebraal. ‘The Al-Arynaar and TaiGethen come to Aryndeneth to speak, to gain strength and to seek advice. It is written that they will defend us in death as we defend ourselves in life. We will not suffer the cursyrd to break that cycle.’
Erienne smiled, disbelieving. ‘How will you stop them? This is a place you can’t go to until you die. And then you will be in the same position as your dead. Helpless.’
‘They are not helpless,’ said Rebraal. ‘They fight. Every moment. To keep the enemy away from their borders.’
‘But you can’t help them,’ said Erienne, frustration edging her voice.
‘They aren’t talking about joining the battle in the spirit dimension. We have to remove the threat further back along the chain,’ said Darrick.
‘Great.’ The Unknown stood up and paced around the table. ‘This makes about as much sense as one of Hirad’s battle plans. Look, I know you’ve all been on ship talking about this for days but it’s coming across as gibberish, it really is. Ilkar’s in trouble but he’s dead. In fact everyone dead is in trouble and it’s got something to do with a demon invasion of Balaia but the elves think they can sort it out by stopping some so far unnamed target in an unnamed place.’ The Unknown felt his patience thinning to breaking point.
‘My wife is scared that I’m going to leave her and go off again with The Raven. I’ve told her it must be something critical or you wouldn’t be here. What the hell am I going to tell her? “My dead friend is sending dreams to my living friend and I need to sort it out?” ’ He thumped the table. ‘Someone start making sense or the lot of you can sod off back to whatever it was you were drinking on Calaius.’
Rebraal gestured for him to sit down and waited until he had done so.
‘Unknown, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But the fate of three dimensions hangs in the balance. One of them is ours, another is that of the dead and the other is the home of dragons. You can’t stay here and hope it goes away because if you do, the cursyrd will eventually come here and you won’t be able to stop them.’
‘So what can we do?’
‘It’s simple,’ said Hirad. ‘We have to kill the demons controlling it all.’
‘That’s simple, is it?’ said Denser.
‘The way Sha-Kaan described it, yes. In theory.’ Hirad stopped and a slow smile spread across his face. ‘Do you want to come and talk to Sha-Kaan?’
Chapter 12
They all went in the end. Something about Hirad’s manner meant that though the case had been introduced poorly, the notion that events worlds away would impact on them was never in doubt.
Darrick supported Cleress on her right side with the former Protector, Ark, on her left. She said little but there was a knowing look in her eyes. Like she had expected it all along.
Darrick left her to her thoughts. Walking apart from the rest of The Raven, he had the opportunity to assess them as he would have done his cavalry before a battle; searching for a weak spot. He knew he wouldn’t find one but The Raven’s demeanour was a constant source of fascination. They drew strength from each other. There was a power about them. You felt it on the inside and could see it from the outside. Like an aura. They moved so naturally around one another. The Unknown at their centre, Hirad next to him like always and the others grouped in close attendance. Darrick felt a surge of pride at being one of them.
The image was punctured by Jonas, who trotted along next to The Unknown, his tiny hand engulfed by his father’s huge fist. And by Diera, who had forgiven Hirad to the extent that the pair strolled arm in arm. It was at Hirad’s behest that so many would meet the dragon. And including Diera and Jonas in the group was a master-stroke. The pair had spent much time in the company of Sha-Kaan when he was marooned in Balaia and rested on Herendeneth. Diera would listen to him.
They were heading for the stone needle that dominated the island from its highest point. It was for no other reason than that Sha-Kaan had expressed a desire to see the island from the top.
They gathered in quiet anticipation, Hirad to the fore. He had told them what to expect but they all still took an unconscious pace back. A tall rectangle traced in the air in front of them. It drew itself slowly on three sides with the ground making up the fourth, and brightened from black to a blazing white. The doorway, half the size of a barn’s, filled with swirling colours that moved sluggishly, like oil poured onto still water.
‘Behind here would normally be a robing room and an antechamber before the main hall but I think the design has been changed,’ said Hirad.
The doorway dissolved, the intense edge light reducing to a warm orange glow and the slow-moving colours dimming to reveal a dimly lit interior. The scents of wood and oil carried on the breeze, sharp and pungent, but there was little sound from inside barring the crackle of fires. Heat flooded out, its humidity swamping the dry warmth of Herendeneth.
‘Just like old times, eh, Unknown?’ said Hirad.
‘One old time only, Hirad,’ said The Unknown. ‘And the familiarity ends with my sense of impending doom.’
‘Better not keep him waiting.’
‘Hell, no,’ muttered Denser.
They moved inside, the relative gloom resolving itself into a short arched hallway, painted in dark green silhouettes of landscapes and dragons. Beautiful in their simplicity, sombre in their depiction.
At the end of the hallway, huge double doors stood ajar letting onto a vast space. Hirad led them in. The chamber was vaulted and stone-clad, its sides scored and fluted horizontally. It reminded Darrick of a healer’s sketch of a muscle. The walls were otherwise unadorned but fires burned in grates at ten-yard intervals in the one-hundred-yard-square space, filling it with an oppressive, moist heat. Sha-Kaan sat in the middle of the chamber, his head and neck resting on the ground, his body a mound behind him and his tail flipping idly about his hind legs.
Little Jonas broke free of The Unknown’s grip and ran forwards. He displayed no fear, toddling towards a creature that could swallow him whole. He stopped in front of the great dragon’s jaws and half-turned towards his mother as he pointed.
‘Kaan!’ he said.
‘Yes, darling,’ said Diera, walking forwards to join him.
The Raven hung back, watching the reunion from a respectful distance. Sha-Kaan moved his head slowly off the ground, speaking softly just above the boy’s head.
‘Hello, little man,’ he said, voice so tender in a beast so large. ‘You have grown. I had not expected to see you again. And I am sad that I must at this time.’
Jonas didn’t respond verbally, instead reaching up to rub the horned scales at the front of Sha-Kaan’s muzzle. The dragon turned his attention to Diera.
‘Your son is beautiful,’ he said, voice a bass rumble, his eyes a brilliant blue, shining with affection.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It is good to see you.’
‘But the reason why breaks your heart.’
She nodded. Darrick saw her hands clench together.
‘I don’t understand why anything that happens on Balaia should affect my husband. He has earned the right to peace.’
Sha-Kaan sighed. ‘I cannot argue against what you say. You married an exceptional man who is part of an exceptional group. And when the world is in trouble, it calls on such people and expects them to respond. It is the mark of their greatness that they choose to do so, though it is also your misfortune, is it not?’
‘There must be someone else now.’
‘You must listen to what I have to say. I think you will agree that there is not.’
Darrick saw her shoulders sag as she nodded her head and pulled Jonas to her. Sha-Kaan raised his head a little.
‘Approach, all of you,’ he said. ‘I have no desire
to shout.’
Hirad chuckled and led them forwards. ‘Your whisper would carry clear across the Southern Ocean, Great Kaan.’
‘It gladdens my heart to see you, Hirad Coldheart.’
‘And you, Sha. You’re looking well.’
‘The air of Beshara and the streams of inter-dimensional space are kind to me.’ Sha-Kaan shifted. ‘How do you like my Klene?’
Hirad gave the chamber, where dragons came to rest and heal in inter-dimensional space, an appraising glance.
‘It’s a little plainer than your old one. Decorating not finished yet, or something?’
Darrick had to smile. Never in his most vivid dreams had he ever thought to witness a man debating wall coverings with a 120-foot-long dragon. Next to him, The Unknown had also seen the humour in the moment.
‘Effectiveness over aesthetics. The shape of the chamber and those grooves in the walls are efficient channels for the healing streams.’
‘Oh, right.’
Sha-Kaan rattled phlegm in his throat, the sound echoing in the chamber and startling Jonas who clutched his mother tight.
‘But in the fullness of time, we will hang the walls with tapestries, if it bothers you that much.’
‘Not for me to say, Sha-Kaan,’ said Hirad. ‘I just have to be at one end so you can use this thing, I don’t necessarily have to look at it.’
‘I fear we are straying from the point,’ said Sha-Kaan, a hint of irritation in his voice. He looked beyond Hirad to those grouped in front of him. ‘I remember the days when I considered all humans except the Dragonene mages to be unworthy of the attention of dragons. Hirad Coldheart changed that assumption and you before me are examples of my folly.
‘It makes it all the harder then to ask one more task of you. I am not surprised to see the elves represented by their best. You understand in a way humans do not the link between the living and the dead. Cleress, your presence honours me. Those who were Protectors, I am the happier to be able to gaze upon your faces. And The Raven. My friends. The fears that Hirad expressed to me are well founded. Our position is already desperate. Many will be involved in defence and attack; you will be the spearhead. And for that necessity, my heart is heavy with fear for you.’
‘You’re selling it well so far,’ said Denser.
Sha-Kaan’s head snapped round to regard the mage with slitted pupil narrowed.
‘Would you rather I lied about the challenge ahead, frail human?’ he asked. ‘Would you rather begin your journey one-eyed?’
‘Not at all,’ said Denser. ‘But you have to understand that for most of us we had no inkling of any problem until Hirad put to shore. I’m still getting round the shock of it.’
‘Then let me explain what has happened.’ Sha-Kaan breathed heavily, the air rushing over their heads, sour and sharp. ‘Kaan birthings began a little more than two cycles ago, a little less than two years for you. It is a time when our efforts are focused solely on our brood and when the paths of inter-dimensional space are closed to us because the resonance set up by the brood at birth upsets our directional sense. It is the time when the Vestare repair and improve the Klenes.
‘But you will understand that it is a time when we are most at risk from attack. The brood has fought in the skies every day of the birthings and the damage we sustain can only be salved by the ministrations of the Vestare. The fight has left us weak but the enemy broods of the Naik and the Skoor have not been able to break us and for that we give thanks. Now we are building our strength again. Our young are strong and, like Jonas, they grow fast and are confident, unafraid.’
He paused, reflective. Darrick searched his face for expression but the mass of scales obscured anything but a tightening of the muscles around his eyes.
‘Our joy has been tempered, though, by what we found when the Klenes were opened again and we tried to communicate with our Dragonene partners here on Balaia. Many were simply not there. And those that were, were in a state of such panic their minds were barely coherent. Worse, the Kaan have been attacked in their Klenes by the Arakhe, who are marauding in inter-dimensional space. They are strong and getting stronger and that only happens when they find a new home. That home is here.’
Sha-Kaan’s last words hung in the air, resonant and laden with ruin. Darrick felt a chill in his body despite the heat of the chamber. He’d heard all this once already but first-hand from Sha-Kaan made it so appallingly close.
‘So the demons have invaded Balaia?’ said Denser.
‘Yes,’ replied Sha-Kaan. ‘And they will enslave every man, woman and child in this dimension. Then they will bleed them dry of their souls and when the land is spent, they will move on. They must be stopped.’
‘I still don’t understand why this affects the dead,’ said The Unknown.
‘Balaia is a key dimension for the demons and you must understand their nature. They are nomadic. They exist outside the boundaries we understand, taking dimensions where they can to increase their strength and, like I said, moving on when they are spent.
‘But Balaia is different. They need it for the long term and that is why they have chosen enslavement rather than massacre. It marks a departure in their nature. A mode of organisation that is worrying to us all. Another reason they need Balaia is the links that both elves and Wesmen have with the spirit dimension. If they can break the will of either race, they believe they will have free access to the dead and all their myriad souls. I believe them to be right. As, I am sure, does Cleress. And the dead are under greater pressure than at any time in their fight against the Arakhe. From what the elves tell us, that much is clear. What do you say, Cleress?’
‘It is a future I have seen, though it is uncertain,’ said Cleress. ‘There is still hope, therefore.’
‘So why didn’t they attack Calaius or the Wesmen directly?’ asked Erienne.
‘For two reasons,’ said Sha-Kaan. ‘They have been waiting for a way in for millennia. Xetesk finally gave them that way in by meddling with powers they did not understand and causing a breach in the fabric of the Balaian dimensional shell. The souls of mages are prized and will give them great strength for battles to come. Second, they are attacking the colleges and the wider east of your country first because if they can remove magic, then none in this dimension have a weapon against them.
‘The Brood Kaan, and through us every brood on Beshara, is at risk. The Arakhe are our enemy of eons. We cannot afford to grant them access to our home or they would overwhelm us as they will Balaia.’
‘They are that strong?’ questioned The Unknown.
Sha-Kaan said nothing. Darrick watched him see everyone digesting the situation as best they could. Darrick couldn’t see all their faces but those he could told him they believed. Gods, they had to.
‘Xetesk has a great deal to answer for.’
It was a heartbeat before Darrick realised who had said that.
‘But no one blames you, Denser,’ said Hirad.
‘Every Xeteskian mage is to blame, and I am one,’ he said. ‘We all swore the oath that brought us to Xeteskian magic, we all wanted to see the development of dimensional spells and we all gladly accepted the deal with the demons that brought us the increased mana flow.’
‘There will be a reckoning if there still is a Xetesk when the Arakhe are beaten,’ rumbled Sha-Kaan. ‘Your guilt is natural but Hirad is right. You cannot be to blame for that over which you have no control.’
‘It doesn’t make me feel any better.’
‘Then use your anger,’ said Sha-Kaan. ‘Fight.’
‘But how?’ Denser threw up his arms. ‘It sounds as if we are already too late.’
‘Not yet.’ Sha-Kaan shifted again, his claws grinding against the stone floor. Diera shushed Jonas who had become restless.
‘Perhaps you should take him back outside,’ said The Unknown.
‘I need to hear this,’ said Diera. ‘For me and for him. I have to be able to tell him what happened if you don’t ever come back.’
The Unknown looked pained. He drew a hand down her cheek. ‘I always come back. I promise you this will be no exception.’
‘You promised you would never leave again unless I was with you,’ said Diera though there was no accusation in her tone. ‘Why did I marry a Raven warrior, eh?’
‘We cannot choose who we love,’ said Sha-Kaan. ‘In that if nothing else, we and you are the same.’
Diera knelt by her boy. ‘Will you be good for me and your father? We need you to be quiet just a little longer while Sha-Kaan speaks.’
‘Then will he fly away again?’ asked Jonas, his bright eyes on his mother. She shrugged.
‘I expect so, darling. He can’t stay in here all the time.’
‘How will he get out?’
‘Well,’ said Diera. ‘He’ll probably use the doors like we will.’
Jonas’s face held such an expression of doubt that Darrick had to fight back a laugh. In a voice that was meant to be a whisper, the boy said, ‘I don’t think they’re big enough, Mummy.’
It broke the tension at least. All of them laughed hard, Hirad almost doubled over, leaning on The Unknown for support the big man was in no position to give. Sha-Kaan rumbled loud, the sound booming in the chamber, and Cleress had to wipe the tears from her eyes.
‘Perceptive for such a nipper, isn’t he?’ said Hirad.
‘You’d better believe it,’ said The Unknown. ‘Like father like son.’
‘He’ll get stuck!’ shouted Jonas, revelling in his new-found confidence and all the attention. ‘But we could pull him out.’
‘Calm down now, sweetheart,’ said Diera. ‘There’s a good boy.’
‘But he will!’ insisted Jonas. ‘He will.’
He found himself confronted by Sha-Kaan’s muzzle, canted to one side so he could be seen by one enormous eye.
‘I do not have to use doors,’ the dragon said. ‘I will use the pathways of . . .’ He paused. ‘I will use magic. One day I will show you. But not today.’
Jonas sat down hard on his behind under the force of Sha-Kaan’s breath. He was still smiling.
The Raven Collection Page 274
