‘You dreamed it?’ the young woman repeated. She groaned and slapped her hands against her thighs. ‘We’ve travelled how many days and how far, left our families behind, risked being shot by the Kerwyn all because you dreamed about a library?’
‘I have a lot of dreams,’ Meg told her calmly.
‘So do I!’ Swift snapped. ‘So does everyone else. What makes yours any different?’
‘I told you that I used to be Lady Amber.’
‘I know, I know,’ Swift said, pacing angrily over the stones. ‘You were the real one in the ballads and stories. You lost your children to the Seers and the Kerwyn. That’s why you do your clever little tricks with magic and you have a weird rat for a companion. So what, though? Huh?’ She kicked a rock, sending it clattering across the rubble. ‘So what?’ Chase and Wahim stopped to watch the unexpected outburst, caught between amusement and astonishment.
‘Chase found something that the Seers don’t want anyone to have, something that can stop their quest to destroy everything,’ said Meg, ‘but no one knows what it is.’
‘If no one knows what it is, it doesn’t matter,’ Swift argued. ‘Let it be. I was taught a simple lesson by Killer Dagger: if the bees are minding their own business, let them. That’s good advice. You should consider it. We wouldn’t be out here if you’d considered it.’
‘I found the bag a long time ago,’ Meg said.
‘What?’ Swift asked, confused by the older woman’s admission. ‘You found it? Then how come the Seers had it? How come Chase found it?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘Ha!’ Swift snorted. ‘Everything is a long story with you. Why don’t you just tell us the truth for once?’
‘Because I don’t know,’ Meg replied. ‘I have the dreams but I don’t understand them until they actually become real, and then they don’t always turn out how they seem.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ Swift erupted, and kicked another marble chunk. ‘I’m wet, I’m cold, I’m a long way from home and I’m stuck on a pile of rubble with a lunatic old woman!’
‘Meg?’ Wahim interrupted. ‘Look at Whisper.’
Meg turned from Swift and followed Wahim’s pointing finger to a pile of rocks towards the back of the ruin where Whisper was busily digging into the rubble beside a square block. As if sensing she was being watched, the rat sat up on her haunches and Meg heard the thought inside her head. Here, Whisper called. Dig. Then the rat resumed digging.
‘What is she doing?’ Chase asked.
Meg didn’t answer. Instead, she clambered across the rubble, skirting the numerous rabbit burrows, her feet slipping on the wet marble shards, until she stood with her little companion—and saw the ancient letters. And her heart skipped a beat because a dream broke open like a wave on rocks. She touched her hand against the amber shard inside her tunic and read the Ashuak inscription on the block beside where Whisper was busy—‘The truth is buried here where the past and future will meet.’ Beneath it, in much smaller script, she read, ‘The amber key for access is to believe and it will be.’
‘What’s there?’ Chase asked, climbing over the rubble towards her.
‘I think this is what I came here for,’ she answered.
‘What does it say?’ She read the inscription aloud. ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Chase remarked. ‘Do you have an amber key?’
‘Where is Whisper?’ Wahim’s question interrupted Meg and Chase who looked at the section of rubble where the bush rat had been digging. Meg searched wider, but she couldn’t see Whisper.
‘That’s odd,’ said Chase.
‘You didn’t see her go?’ Meg asked.
Wahim shook his head. ‘She was right there. It was as if I blinked and she vanished.’
Whisper? Meg probed.
Here, came a reply.
Meg searched the rubble again. Where? she asked.
Here, the rat repeated, and an image formed of darkness and a sensation of comfortable familiarity.
‘She’s in a burrow,’ Meg told Chase and Wahim. As the men began to rummage through the rubble near the block where Whisper had been digging to find the burrow down which she must have gone, Meg’s eyes settled on Swift. The young woman had retreated to the edge of the ruin where she was sitting on a marble slab, facing the bushes, face buried in her hands. Meg negotiated the slippery rubble until she reached the assassin and sat beside her. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. Swift lowered her hands and Meg saw that the young woman had been crying when she turned her reddened eyes towards Meg. In the many days of the eastward journey, Swift seemed the strongest of the three companions, the hardest. ‘I’m sorry that none of this makes sense,’ Meg offered quietly.
Swift snorted and shook her head. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I’m sorry for what I said before. I—’ She hesitated. ‘I just wish I could see my kids, you know, do something for them.’ She sighed and covered her face again with her hands. ‘I’ve been a lousy mother. I’m never there when they need me.’
Meg put an arm gently around Swift’s waist. She felt that she had to offer words of reassurance and comfort, but she didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t end up being trite. Instead, she sat quietly with her arm around Swift in the soft rain, listening to the raindrops dripping from the tree leaves, until Chase called out, ‘There’s no burrow anywhere near the granite block!’
Down, Whisper projected to Meg. Come down.
They established camp under the shelter of a large tree beside the ruin, while Meg meticulously pored over the rubble, searching for anything that might be an entrance underground. The inscription’s reference to the amber key made her believe that she would find a keyhole or an impression in a slab that her amber crystal would fit, but her search was fruitless. What frustrated her further were regular communications from Whisper, each one insisting that Meg join her below ground in darkness. Where? Meg demanded.
Here, the rat replied, and it always came with the feeling of security.
By mid-afternoon, the rain became a heavy downpour and Meg and her companions were forced to abandon their search through the rubble and take shelter. ‘We should have caught some rabbits while we had a chance,’ Swift noted as she chewed a mouthful of grain.
‘They’ll come out when the rain stops,’ Meg told her. ‘We’ll catch some then.’
‘We should be able to have a fire at least,’ said Chase. ‘No one will see us inside this forest.’
‘They’ll see the glow,’ Meg warned.
‘What will that matter?’ Swift argued. ‘They’d still have to crawl in here like we did. We need a fire.’
Meg conceded, so Chase, Swift and Wahim quickly gathered a pile of wood, but when they tried to light it the sparks from the flint wouldn’t take. ‘Too much moisture,’ Wahim grumbled. Meg watched them persevere, until they created a smoky flame that threatened to drive them from under the tree. Swift stamped it out and swore. ‘All I wanted was a bloody fire!’ she complained, and angrily kicked apart the wood pile.
‘Take it easy,’ Chase urged. ‘What’s got into you?’
Swift glared at him, but Meg intervened, saying, ‘We’re all tired and frustrated, Chase, even you. It’s been a long journey and it seems we’ve arrived at a dead end. There might have been a library in this place a long time ago, but it’s gone. Swift has every right to be angry.’ She stooped to reassemble the wood pile.
‘What are you doing?’ Chase asked.
‘Lighting the fire,’ Meg replied.
‘How?’
‘Patience,’ she said, and her response stirred a memory of an old woman in a cottage a long time ago telling her to be patient. Life goes in circles, she reflected, as she touched the amber and held her hand above the wood pile. Steam rose as she concentrated on drying the damp wood. Then, satisfied that the wood was ready, she conjured a flame and fire leaped to life. She lowered her hand.
‘How did you do that?’ Chase asked, coming forward to warm his hands.
‘If you
can do that, why didn’t you light fires for us on the way here?’ Swift inquired, anger bubbling in her tone.
‘You could already light them yourselves,’ Meg replied.
‘Not that easily,’ Chase noted. ‘Is there anything you can’t do?’
I can’t save anyone from death, she suddenly thought, and the thought was like a barb in her heart. ‘Lots of things,’ she murmured, turning away from the fire to warm her back.
The rain stayed into the night and the tiny party huddled by the fire, replenishing the wood regularly, Wahim placing the sticks and branches at Meg’s feet first so that she could use her skill to dry them before they went to the fire. Talk circled around families and friends, and the politics of the princes and Seers and the threat of the Demon Horsemen. Chase and Wahim drew Meg into relating more about Lady Amber’s adventures—what was true and what was fabricated—while Meg continued to show interest in their respective backgrounds, including Swift’s, although the young woman was reticent about much of her assassin work. Meg knew most of their stories, having talked often on the eastward journey, but was keen to learn more about Chase and Swift’s mutual father. ‘You share the same name,’ she noted.
‘Goodenough,’ Chase said.
‘And you were eight when your father died.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you know?’ she asked Swift.
‘About him dying?’ Swift asked. ‘No. I didn’t find out until later. Passion told me.’
‘Did you miss him?’
Swift shook her head. ‘I was five when he ran out on my mother. I didn’t know him. I never spoke to him. I can’t even remember what he looked like.’
‘He was a normal man,’ said Chase. ‘He worked hard. He drank a lot. He wasn’t unkind to our mother, at least not that I knew of.’
‘And what was his first name?’ Meg asked.
‘His friends called him Trez,’ said Chase. ‘Everyone called him Trez.’
‘A foreign name?’
Chase laughed. ‘No. It was short for Treasure. He always told Passion and me that he was named after old royalty.’
Meg drew in a sharp breath and a cold shiver raced along her spine. ‘Treasure,’ she repeated.
‘He preferred Trez. Even our mother called him that.’
Meg stood and walked into the rain to the astonishment of her three companions. ‘What is it?’ Swift asked, standing to follow her. ‘What’s wrong?’
Meg’s mind raced. It can’t be, she argued. It’s too coincidental. Treasure was a popular name in the old kingdom.
‘Meg?’ Swift asked, touching the old woman’s shoulder, but the wild look in Meg’s eyes when she turned startled the young woman. ‘What is it?’ she asked.
Meg didn’t know how to answer. She stared at the young woman’s red hair and sharp features, as if she was seeing them for the first time. Then she fixed her gaze on Chase and saw fragments of Button in his features, tiny traces that were unmistakable—the jawline, the slightly crooked mouth.
‘Meg?’ Swift repeated, taking hold of the old woman’s arm. ‘What’s wrong?’
I was looking in the wrong place all the time, Meg reasoned. Treasure never went to Andrak. They separated him from Emma in Westport. That’s why there was never any record of him in Andrak. He was left here. She felt someone shaking her arm and she focussed on the red-haired young woman who stood before her.
‘Speak to me,’ Swift ordered. ‘Meg?’
But what if I’m wrong? What if it really is a cruel coincidence?
‘Are you all right?’ Chase asked, joining Swift beside Meg.
Meg blinked and nodded. ‘I’m all right,’ she murmured.
‘But what happened?’ Swift asked.
‘An old memory, that’s all,’ Meg replied. ‘It happens as you get older. Memories come back and sometimes you can’t tell what’s memory and what’s real.’
‘That’s scary,’ said Chase. ‘That’s really weird.’
‘But you’re all right now?’ Swift inquired, steering Meg back to the fire under the tree’s shelter.
‘I’m all right,’ Meg reassured her, but she avoided her companions’ faces, afraid that she might see more in them than she could manage after the revelation. It couldn’t be possible, she told herself. You still haven’t let go. And you have to let go of the past.
‘Who’s taking first watch tonight?’ Swift asked.
‘Do we need a watch in here?’ Chase posed. ‘I feel safe enough.’
‘We always need a watch, no matter how safe we feel in a strange place,’ Meg reminded him. ‘I’ll stay up first.’
‘Is that wise after what just happened?’ Swift asked.
‘It’s passed. I’ll take the first watch,’ Meg said firmly. ‘You get some sleep. I’ll keep the fire going.’
She moved away from the firelight as the others settled to sleep, her mind troubled by the terrifying possibilities in what she had learned. Treasure Goodenough. Had she found her lost son in his children? Had she, after so many fruitless and wasteful years, found her grandchildren? Was fate so cruel and so kind that it had brought them all together in the hunt for the truth? And what is the truth? she wondered, staring back at the reclined figures by the fire. If she told them that she thought she was their grandmother, what then? How would they react? Swift would deny it, she decided ruefully. She’d think it was the ravings of a desperate and demented old woman. Swift had spirit, more spirit than she had at the same age. I was happy, she reminisced. I was married, I had children, I was in Summerbrook. Tears filled the corners of her eyes. I thought I was past this, she thought bitterly, and she stifled a sob. Am I really becoming just an old fool?
She sat on a chunk of marble at the edge of the shelter and sniffed back a tear. ‘It’s possible they are my grandchildren,’ she whispered, consoling herself, ‘but how can I be sure? How can I be sure?’ She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth gently, silently arguing the logic of chance operating so randomly that it had brought them together, listening to the soft rain whispering through the trees.
The dream had never been so clear. The man seated in the chair in the oval room she recognised immediately as the shadow man in the library, but she could see his boyish features in his dark complexion, his sparkling dark eyes and a shock of jet-black hair. ‘I don’t get visitors,’ he said in greeting. And it was then she realised that Whisper was curled in his lap. ‘She’s been waiting for you,’ the young man told her. ‘You have to believe in the key.’
‘What does that mean?’ she asked.
‘If you believe, you will know what it means,’ he said, and the light surrounding him faded until she was embraced in darkness.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
She woke to a black world filled with the noise of cicadas. The rain had stopped. The fire was dead. She’d slept on her watch. She conjured a light sphere and stood, willing the sphere to rise and illuminate the tiny camp site. All three companions were asleep, lying against each other for warmth. Wahim was snoring. So was Swift, softly. Chase was curled in a ball, like a baby, his blanket beside him, and she felt a strong maternal urge to cover him. She crept to his side and carefully drew the blanket over his torso and smiled, admiring his stubbled face. If Emma had lived, her boy—if the child was a boy—would be a similar age. The sad thought kept her standing over Chase for a moment and a tear welled in her eye. The possibility that Chase really was her grandson made her retreat several paces to fight back her emotions.
When she was composed, she crept from the camp into the ruin where Whisper had been digging that morning, the floating sphere lighting her way. The air was chilly, and a glance skyward showed her that the sky was filled with invisible clouds that blocked the starlight. The marble rubble threatened to clatter and wake the others, but she moved with great care until she reached the block bearing the inscription, which she read again. ‘Believe,’ she murmured. That had always been her greatest challenge—to believe in the amber. The mag
ic had brought too much pain, too much loss for her to believe in it. Memories of Se’Treya filled her mind, the encounters with A Ahmud Ki.
‘Where did you go?’ she whispered. She let go of the thought and focussed on where she was. I have to believe, she reminded herself. Closing her eyes, she clutched the amber against her chest with both hands and concentrated her thought on the place where she’d met the man in her dream. I believe, she thought. I do believe.
Suffering the same destabilising effect as she remembered from her travels to Se’Treya, she suppressed nausea as she opened her eyes and found that she was standing in an oval room, lit by a floating light sphere similar to the kind she created. Facing her was a young man seated in a plush dark-red armchair, wearing a black robe, with a shock of jet-black hair surrounding a dark face. She instinctively looked in the folds of the robe and saw Whisper, almost invisible, curled asleep in his lap. ‘You came,’ the young man said. ‘I was expecting you.’
Meg felt the giddiness subside. ‘I wasn’t sure if this would work.’
‘It almost didn’t,’ the young man said. He gently lifted the sleeping bush rat from his lap and lowered her into his chair as he stood. ‘She’s getting older,’ he noted as he straightened. ‘I’m Erin.’
‘Meg,’ Meg responded.
‘Like my sister,’ Erin said. ‘Her name was Megen. She had blond hair. I had two sisters.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘Megen didn’t want to stay. She fell in love.’
‘And your other sister?’
Erin shook his head. ‘She died. And then she left too.’
‘Where am I?’ she asked, wondering if she’d correctly heard Erin’s last response about his second sister.
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