I could not control the lies and secrecy of others, I could however, control my response to this and arm myself against those who would seek to do me harm.
I concentrated first on my powers of protection. This was difficult with nothing to come at me. I solved this by focusing on light and making myself glow. Prenaslavka had taught me this a couple of weeks before. At the time I had felt it to be a waste of time that could have been spent learning more protective magic.
It served me well however because doing this attracted the fire spirits and other flying creatures attracted to light and caused them to try and land on me. This gave me something to practice on. I could use my magic to create a barrier against the fire spirits that would not hurt them.
Creating the bubble was hard but I had been told that it was something the Falaira had found effective against the Eurikaya in the days of old. I was frightened by how quickly fear had rendered me useless against the Eurikaya that had killed the Gleema on our last night there. I would not fail this time.
The fire spirits came at me and I put all of my energy into maintaining the bubble and putting more power into it.
Again, I was filled with that fiery, invincible feeling I had felt when my training had first began. How had my life changed so much since my days in Zafiya? It made me giddy to think about how I had existed before. Here I was, outside, fed and looked after, talking to people - a man even; however, I was in more danger than I had ever been in.
Bubble training over, I started moving things with my mind. Since my experiments with the orange fruit, I had practiced this every day at night and had succeeded in moving bigger and bigger objects. I removed my cloak and shoes and concentrated, first on the cloak and then on the shoes. I made then do lots of graceful (and not quite so graceful) arcs around me before I was satisfied with my efforts.
Trick number three was to make myself invisible.
I had often wondered how a society such as this one could survive when members of it could read the thoughts of others and make themselves invisible at will. How would one govern such a populace?
I was reminded of a conversation I had had with Prenaslavka during my training at Glen Fair. She had been showing me how to move larger objects and we were focusing on some large ornamental rocks.
She had replied that not all Falaira were equally powerful and that the Free Falaira had very strict rules and regulations safeguarding them against those who would abuse their magic. She had then given me one of her strange looks as if she challenged me to ask more about this. It seemed like I was a test subject of hers that was under constant observation. I was growing tired of not feeling trusted.
Prenaslavka and I had a polite, cordial and sometimes mildly friendly relationship but nothing more. This saddened me sometimes because she was the mother of the man I liked more than any anyone.
Making myself invisible was incredibly difficult. Whereas moving objects required a lot of mental pushing, this was a completely different animal and was something that I had only partially achieved with great effort.
I needed to focus on blending myself into my surroundings first, then on making myself blend with the surroundings I moved into. It had sounded exactly the same to me when Khalashaya had first tried to teach me.
I stood ready to try when I sensed someone there.
I turned and saw Woodarch, he nodded at me.
“They’re looking for you”, he said slowly.
“Have they not done enough killing?” I spat, angry once more.
I then regretted my momentary loss of politeness.
“I am sorry”. I said.
Woodarch opened his mouth and began speaking but suddenly I could not hear the words, it was like something was impressing itself upon my mind.
I found myself in a room with a low ceiling, bright sunlight poured through the large window and there was a low, wide bed by the wall with a small wooden table.
Sitting on the bed was a handsome black haired man dressed in black trousers and a tunic top, he stood up, smoothed his long hair away from his face and left the room.
I was extremely confused. The man hadn’t seemed to see me when he left. Had I somehow succeeded in making myself invisible? If so, how had I moved into this house? I needed to remove myself from this place and go and find Woodarch, who I had just been talking to.
I walked out of the room and found myself in a wide hall with the same low ceiling. I found myself standing in front of the man. I was still on Deloran because he was clearly a Falaira, but his style of clothing was very different to that of the Gleema and the Free Falaira.
His eyes were a fiery golden colour and his hair was a deep raven black. He had a face that I liked very much. He turned and, before I had chance to realise what was happening, walked straight through me.
Something was wrong, very wrong.
I had felt absolutely nothing when he walked through me.
He was walking towards some wooden doors, opening them revealed a very pretty red haired girl. She grinned at the man and stepped into the house.
“Hello Ericl” she said.
I was then back in front of Woodarch who was kneeling beside me looking concerned.
I got up and ran for my room, my chest bursting with the exertion by the time I got there. I had not been followed to my knowledge. I did not have time to think about what had just transpired; I was a creature running on pure unfettered instinct making for a shelter where I could collapse in privacy.
I collapsed onto my bed and slept instantly.
As soon as my eyelids met, I was back in front of the red haired girl and Ericl. They were sitting in a dark room with around ten other male and female Falaira. A black haired Seneveri woman in the front was standing with her arms in the air looking at the ceiling. Her hands were together.
She quickly brought her arms and gaze down and I saw that an arc of fire where her arms had traced through the air.
She smiled and the crowd raised their palms in the air and nodded.
She sat down next to a blonde woman. who smiled excitedly at her.
“That was great Aran!” said the blonde, then a look of slight concern was on her face.
“Your mother let you out in the end?”
Aran, her face still flushed with pleasure because of her magical achievement, shook her head quickly.
“She thinks I am studying with the Gleema tonight. She hates the Eurikaya.”
“Why? We’re still studying, just studying something more important”.
Aran looked pensive for a second and then brightened up.
“Being a Eurikaya is more fun than being a trainee Gleema at any rate!” she said.
“At least you can use your magic how you want and not restrict it.”.
Aran looked sad again.
“No choice I’m afraid, it’s what my mother wants me to do”.
Suddenly I was awake and in my bedroom in the city of the Free Falaira. I was freezing cold despite the tropical night. Moonlight shone in through the cracks between the wooden shutters and I was there looking out into the dark forest before I had woken properly.
Who were the men and women I had just seen? They did not look like they could belong to the Free Falaira, they were dressed differently for a start. Whereas the Free Falaira were practical in their dress, wearing tunics, boots and comfortable trousers, these people were dressed more ornately with more demarcation between male and female styles.
Why were these young men and women calling themselves the Eurikaya? Why would they want to emulate creatures that had almost wiped them out.
I crawled back into bed, worried about falling back to sleep. My head touched the pillow and I was gone.
A full member of the tribe
When I opened my eyes next, sunlight pierced through my befuddled mind, with a jolt I recognised Khalashaya sitting at the end of my bed. I tried to move but felt strangely drained.
He caught my eye, realised I was awake and looked away. He was we
aring a dark red cloak this morning and it suited him. His face however, was guarded and wary. I did not like that look when it was directed at me.
“You judge us too harshly.” His voice sounded hoarse, as if he had not spoken for a while.
“How long have you been sitting there?” I drew the bedclothes around myself. Luckily, I had not undressed before falling asleep the night before.
“Most of the day”.
The day? How long had I been asleep? I went to brush my hair out of my face and saw something that looked like a bruise. I looked at it and then at Khalashaya.
“What?” I began.
“Look at it again” he said. I did, it had faded considerably.
“You were asleep for two days Auriana, and you were covered in those black marks. We’ve been really worried about you”.
He looked at me with concern on his face.
“I have been worried about you”.
Worried about me, why would he worry about me? The Free Falaira tortured and killed anyone not fitting their standards, did they not? However, the words went through my head without the feeling to go with them. He had not meant to kill Gleema Leeh, this did not stop the fact that he had. The horror of her end gripped me and made me shiver in the sunlight.
“The Queen wants you to be a full time member of the tribe”.
My ears pricked up, before I could reply he carried on talking.
“You and I are to explore the city today and spend time with lots of different people to give you a feel for what we do here and where you might fit”.
“And what do you think?” I said, if the Free Falaira had seen me with black marks on me and unconscious for two days, why were they trying to include me? Surely I was a source of suspicion.
He moved and sat closer to me, looking down at me with his green eyes that were always filled with the emotion he always lacked in his facial expressions. His hand was then stroking my hair out of my face.
“I think you have gone too long without a tribe”.
He stood up and walked to the door. He turned back.
“Gleema Leeh…” he said slowly. “I’ll show you where she...is”.
I felt tears prickle behind my eyes and I looked away from the man who had killed her.
“I regret it” came his voice through the fog that had descended over me. “I did not mean for her to die”.
I believed him. Just like that. His words, like when he had rescued me from the Eurikaya in Zafiya, had that unmistakable ring of truth. The sorrow in his eyes would have been enough though.
Ten minutes later I had washed, dressed and was walking with Khalashaya towards the hall where I had been asked to account for my life on the blue planet on my first day in the city.
Khalashaya took me past the building and straight on down some steps, across another bridge and in front of what looked like a collection of houses cut into the trees. This was the closest version of a street I had seen since exploring the Gleema city. The shutters on the end of the house opened and Prenaslavka popped her head out, waving at her son. She saw me and surprise flickered across her face before she gave me a polite smile, I smiled back.
We went in, through a wide hallway and into a large room where, to my surprise, I saw several children sitting in a circle. Prenaslavka went to take her place in the centre of the circle. The children bowed their heads to her and then looked at her intently. I could see that she had their full attention. I was once again struck by how little I knew about her, except that she was Khalashaya’s mother.
She nodded at a red headed boy, he nodded back and came to join her in the middle of the circle. They bowed to each other and were suddenly fighting.
I was shocked for a second before I realised what was happening. This was a class, Prenaslavka was a teacher and she was teaching these small children how to defend themselves.
“Do they also teach magic?” I whispered.
“Yes, until the children reach maturity, then we teach them to control their magic. They are only allowed restricted use of it until they have learned this control”.
“Is it like The Dream”.
“No” he shortly. “It is not”.
“Have you and your mother always lived here?”
“No.”
I looked at the lesson, the red headed boy did not have a chance of subduing his teacher but it was fascinating to see the determination on his face.
Apart from my magical teaching on Deloran, I had never been permitted to sit and learn anything that wasn’t a prized skill such as cooking sewing, clothes making and other tasks to benefit the household.
I looked at Khalashaya, “How did you get here then? Did you run away from the Gleema?”
He nodded.
“And also my father and brother, who both went through the Dream”.
How awful that must have been. It explained the grief that I had sensed when we first met, he must have been worried he would never even see his mother again.
I took his hand and smiled at him. He could tell me what had happened if he wanted to, I would be there to listen.
He smiled back, his face suddenly brightening and the corners of his eyes crinkling.
“What age are you?” I asked him.
“I’ve seen five more cycles than you I think”.
I doubted that, I was older than I looked.
“I have seen 20 New Earth cycles”.
He looked at me and I could see that he was calculating my age in cycles and converting it to the shorter sun cycles on Deloran.
“So many?” He smiled. “It seems we are closer in age than I first thought”.
I sometimes lost count of how many twelvemonths I had seen, I only knew that it had been three of those since I had last seen my mother.
“Sometimes you’re so strong” he whispered. “That I forget you have suffered terrible losses like we have”.
We waited in silence for the next fifteen minutes or thereabouts, watching the lesson. I could not help but think of Leeh and how she had suffered during her last minutes. Khalashaya seemed to feel my sadness because he stayed close and did not intrude upon my thoughts.
The lesson finished and the children stood up and bowed to Prenaslavka. She came out, smiling and red faced.
“Come, let’s eat. I am very hungry” she said.
She led us out of the building and into the house next door, I found myself in a bright room decorated with tapestries and fresh flowers. A shelf covered in ornamental flowers and a table and chairs was all that covered the wooden floor.
The chairs were of a wicker style and looked comfortable. Prenaslavka disappeared into another room.
Khalashaya gestured to me to sit down and I did. The chairs were as comfortable as they looked. He sat down next to me, leaving a place opposite for his mother.
“Prenaslavka, she is a teacher of both males and females?” I asked. Khalashaya smiled and nodded.
“She has always been an instructor of some sort, which is fantastic when you are learning magic and need a teacher but not quite so good when you and your friends decide to miss levitation training to catch birds by the lake”.
He smiled, lost in the memory. I thought of a teenaged Khalashaya and what he would have been like. We would have been friends in different circumstances, if I had not been born on New Earth and had been part of the tribe here since birth.
“What age were you when you came to this city?” I asked him.
He stood up and removed the red cloak, draping it on the back of his chair.
“Since I had seen around ten cycles I believe, my memory of that is a little hazy”.
Khalashaya then talked about his mother and what she taught the young males and females. She had been a teacher for ten of their cycles and was considered one of the best (I detected the pride in his voice as he said this part).
Khalashaya was relaying a story about a magical prank when Prenaslavka came back into the room carrying some steaming plates. She flicked a
finger and they floated in the air while she arranged the table underneath them.
Khalashaya laughed at the wonder I felt, despite my magical training, as a dish slowly lowered itself before me. It was something that looked like a small cooked bird. Next to it were what looked like root vegetables.
Thanking Prenaslavka for the food, I realised how hungry and weak I was and we ate happily. Afterwards, Khalashaya and I cleared the plates and he cleaned them with a flick of his finger.
Prenaslavka sat down with us at the table while we waited for our food to settle.
I felt full and relaxed and found that, despite my grief for Gleema Leeh and my fear of what the strange visions were, I liked it and was happy in the moment.
Prenaslavka’s voice cut into my thoughts.
“You were surprised to see your meal,” she said, in a much kinder voice than I was used to. “Did you not eat that sort of dish on the Blue Planet?” Her green eyes seemed to bore into me as she waited for my answer; I sensed she was not being unkind however. I decided to answer her questions and have faith in the fact that we may one day be friends.
“I did not. I ate Brenahl, which is a rough bread, minced beef and cheese”.
“There are birds on your world though”, said Khalashaya. “In my time there, I ate many a chicken”. He smiled at the memory.
Chicken was extremely expensive, they usually died very young. Eggs were also a premium food. A neighbour had kept chickens and I had often heard them singing to each other when I was a child.
“Chicken?” said Prenaslavka, looking at me quizzically. I nodded.
“A bird, not unlike the one you served us just now”, I said.
“What is it like on your planet?” she asked. I noticed the way Khalashaya frowned at this question.
The Long Lost Page 24
