Survivors: Book 4 Circles of Light series, page 10
‘Can you get one of the Dragons to take Leaf away from here for the day? I think she will be very afraid if she sees what you must do.’
Tika nodded, still surprised by this sensitive Navan. She thought Arms Chief Navan had almost completely vanished and this new Navan was a vast improvement.
‘I will need one of them, Seela or Brin, to support me, but not both I don’t think. And Farn won’t leave me while I work.’
Ren had approached and overheard the conversation. He glanced towards the Dragons. Farn was still near Seela and Brin but Storm was diving in the lake, rising in a splatter of rainbow droplets. Leaf hovered just out of range of his antics, clapping her hands excitedly. Ren hurried to Brin’s side. It was Seela who lifted into the air, flying slowly towards the lake. She circled once, obviously mind speaking Storm and the gijan. All three flew south over the water, Leaf like a black butterfly beside Seela’s huge body.
Almost at once Tika knew the second gijan’s wings were going to be far more difficult to release than Leaf’s had been. As soon as the skin began to split, lavender blood pumped strongly over her hands and legs. There were mutters of alarm around her but her mind plunged into the gijan’s body. There! A major blood vessel had grown across the outer side of the embedded wing, stretched with the swelling and burst as soon as she’d pressed against it.
The gijan body structure was different enough from human to worry her but she pushed the worry aside. Mentally she forced the two ends of the artery, one of which still pumped an alarming amount of blood over her, downwards, beneath the wing. Then she sought the tiniest filaments of each end and wove them together. She was not aware of Gan wiping her face with a cool cloth until she blinked and realised she could see clearly again. Perspiration still soaked her hair but no longer dripped into her eyes. Tika felt Brin’s strength in her, like an immense rock, and paused to snatch a mouthful of water. With her mind she checked and double checked the repair she had made and began to extricate the wing.
When she moved to the gijan’s other side Brin told her Seela was keeping Storm and Leaf a few leagues away until sunrise at least. Tika looked up briefly, registering the dark star scattered sky and returned her attention to her task. This time she looked beneath the gijan’s skin before she touched it, but there was no faulty placement of an artery in this one’s back. Eventually it was done and Tika again placed her pendant against the gijan’s neck and shoulder. Then she slumped across his legs, utterly spent.
When she woke, Tika ached with exhaustion. She found Farn curled around her and Ren sitting to one side. He smiled.
‘You did amazingly Tika. I couldn’t follow all you did, but it made me realise what a huge strength you have. Now I believe the story of your healing Farn’s awful injury!’
Tika yawned so hugely that her jaw cracked and her eyes watered. ‘Is the gijan well? Is it male or female? How is Leaf?’
Ren grinned. ‘Female. Leaf was very agitated when she came back. Seela and Storm could not keep her away any longer. She helped us clean the second wing – you were asleep by then of course.’
Farn huffed at the Offering. ‘My Tika used a great amount of her strength: she had to rest.’
Ren raise his hands to placate Tika’s soul bond. ‘I was but teasing you Farn.’ He smiled at Tika again. ‘The gijan will soon wake. Her wings are black like Leaf’s but the underside is pale green. As you saved her life in releasing her wings, so I think you must be the first, with Leaf, to greet her.’
Tika started to get up and groaned. ‘I keep waking up and finding I have no clothes on.’
Ren handed her a shirt and trousers, his smile widening. ‘Sket and Farn will let no one else near you. They dunk you in the lake, scrub you clean and wrap you like a baby.’
Farn extended his neck over the Offering. ‘Well of course no one else will touch my Tika. Sket is our friend – nearly a Dragon.’
Tika gurgled with laughter wondering what Sket would make of that compliment. She pulled the shirt over her head. Ren tugged her to her feet and held her when she swayed.
‘Thank the stars there are only three gijan,’ she said ruefully. ‘I don’t know that I could cope with more.’
Before they reached the group clustered round the gijan, Leaf rushed to Tika’s side, catching her hand.
‘My sister wakes – hurry!’
‘Do you know her name?’ Tika asked curiously.
Leaf’s head tilted from side to side. ‘Naturally I know her name. But she must speak it first.’
Tika wondered if or when they would have the time to investigate these gijan people properly. She retrieved her pendant, finding it cool to the touch now. She watched Leaf’s sister struggle, wings thrashing for a moment before the gijan was suddenly on her feet. The face was identical to Leaf’s as far as Tika could see, but at least the pale green of her under feathers would help tell them apart she thought gratefully. The gijan stretched its hands towards her, seeming to ignore Leaf at Tika’s shoulder.
‘My life is yours. I am Piper.’
‘May the stars guide your path Piper. I am Tika and I welcome you among us.’
Piper’s face lit with a smile and she hurled herself at Leaf. The company watched the gijan sisters greet each other, their feathers mingling, tiny hands patting and stroking.
‘Breakfast,’ Pallin interrupted gruffly and stumped back to the fire where their few pots simmered.
Leaf, clutching Piper’s hand, led her to each of the group, introducing her formally. Olam chuckled when Leaf clambered onto Seela’s back, hauling Piper up next to her.
‘It’s as well they’re so tiny – Seela’s the preferred roost it appears.’
Seela’s long neck was curved over her back, her eyes pale violet, as she mind spoke her two visitors.
Brin reclined near the fire. ‘Seela has said they are her daughters.’ His mind tone was full of affection. ‘She says it is many cycles since she hatched children of her own, and even her grandchildren’s grandchildren are grown and scattered. She only sees them at Gatherings. She thinks it will be good to have little ones to care for again.’
Tika had only that day to rest before she was woken, to her surprise, by Grek.
‘The third gijan’s time has come,’ he told her. ‘The others sleep but I will wake them. This one will not be as difficult as Piper.’
Tika desperately wished she could tell where to look when conversing with this unbodied entity but even as she formed the thought her blanket twitched over her feet.
‘Have you checked the gijan then?’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t you say you could do that – you could have helped me?’
‘I can see these things child but I can only influence or affect a mind. I could not heal physically.’
‘Then why didn’t you tell me there was such a problem with Piper?’ Tika got to her feet and headed to where the last gijan lay.
‘I wasn’t here.’ Grek sounded truly apologetic. ‘I have been searching the area to the south, trying to find the best route for you all to the coast.’
Tika stopped in her tracks. ‘Grek, if you are unable to do it, wake Ren please and ask him and Seela to keep Leaf and Piper asleep while I work on this gijan. And then wake Maressa, Sket and Pallin at least.’
To the watchers the day seemed endless; to Tika time was irrelevant, focused as she was on the work she was doing. But this gijan’s wings emerged easily and took the least time so far, although Tika was drained by the time it was done. Farn was greatly distressed that she was so weakened and Ren agreed to ensure Tika slept now, until her depleted strength was restored. It was the eleventh day since their escape from the desert when Tika once more approached the third gijan. Leaf and Piper stood hand in hand, trilling softly to each other as they waited to embrace their brother.
His blue black wings trembled then fanned half open, brilliant yellow under feathers gleaming in the sunlight. He stood before Tika and stretched his hands out to her.
‘My life is yours. I am Willow.’
Willow was slightly taller and slightly sturdier than his sisters and, the company discovered, he was the one who had been the most forthcoming in the City of the Domes. In the evenings following his waking, he spoke, from Storm’s back, of the time he and his sisters had lived there. The Qwah held the gijan worthless, fit for only the most basic menial work within the Ring Complex. No gijan lived anywhere else in the City or the Valley.
‘Have the Qwah outside the City any knowledge at all of your people?’ Gan asked.
‘I don’t think so.’ Willow’s finely arched dark brows drew down into a frown. ‘Some gijan are born in the Ring Complex. Others are captured. Certain of the Qwah – like Kirat - find pleasure in their yearly hunts in our swamp lands.’
‘And you?’ Olam queried. ‘Were you captured?’
‘Our mothers are in the City.’ Willow shrugged, his feathers rustling against Storm’s scales. ‘If they still live, which is unlikely.’
Maressa took a deep breath and plunged. ‘Your minds are shielded; even while you were so ill before Tika freed your feathers we could not reach you. That implies considerable power Willow. The Qwah use mind speech but otherwise seem to have little ability in any other use of the power. Why have you allowed them to kidnap you, use you so harshly? I suspect you could have escaped if you chose.’
Willow laughed. ‘I do not know if we could have escaped successfully, but it was foretold – this time of Suffering for the gijan. The mothers tell all children as soon as they begin to understand – and that is much sooner than Qwah children do.’
Farn huffed. ‘Dragon children are also early to understanding, unlike human children.’
Leaf and Piper laughed from Seela’s back, Leaf climbing down to join her brother on Storm. She leaned against him.
‘Our birth mother gives us our names as we are born, but we tell no one that name until we have changed – become male or female.’ Leaf explained. ‘Our other mothers tell us the stories.’
‘Other mothers?’
Leaf shook her head. ‘We don’t understand your ways: the Qwah have only one child at a time and only one mother for each child. How can one mother be sure that ALL the stories have been told to each child? And the stories must be told in a special order so the mothers share the tellings.’
Olam scratched at his healing side and Pallin slapped his hand away from the wound. ‘Are these other mothers perhaps aunts or something?’ he asked generally.
‘No of course not. We have aunts as well as mothers. Mothers feed milk to us.’
Olam looked even more perplexed. ‘Does your birth mother not provide your milk?’
Willow nodded. ‘We are born in litters.’ He gestured to Leaf and Piper. ‘We are only three to come from our mother this time. Many of her friends attended her who had no litters, no children to care for at that time. They offered themselves as milk mothers and our birth mother chose two of them.’
‘You were servants in the Ring Complex?’ Navan felt a change of subject would be a good idea – birth mothers, milk mothers, children born in litters, were all beyond him. ‘Did you go into Singer’s Dome?’
Leaf and Willow exchanged a quick glance.
‘I did sometimes.’ Willow’s voice was soft. ‘I had to sweep the floor and tell a Keeper if the robes on the statues were still clean and tidy.’
‘What are those statues?’ Navan asked bluntly.
‘They were our Elders. In the time before Suffering, we were a taller people and our skins were scaled.’ Willow extended his arm and the dappled markings were clearly visible. ‘When the tribes of Qwah gathered in the desert, there had been a time of great sickness within the Valley. The Elders’ numbers had fallen through many deaths and too few children. The Qwah overran the Valley and the Sacred City and the few Elders strong enough to flee, hid in the swamp lands to the east.’
‘East? I thought that Keeper said the gijan came from the southern swamps?’ Tika was thoughtful. ‘Did you have any contact with other people there? Trading perhaps?’
‘Yes,’ Piper called. ‘Our people knew the Nagum tribes. Our lands bordered each other.’
Her brother and sister nodded.
‘In the twenty seventh story,’ said Leaf. She continued as though quoting: ‘The Nagum folk are deserving of Elder friendship and respect. They revere the land and care for plants as tenderly as they do their own young.’
Later, Tika wandered back to her sleeping place deep in thought. She didn’t recall Mim ever telling any stories of his childhood, or of his people. But then, he rarely spoke of his life before he’d bonded with Ashta, preferring to keep his memories of his slaughtered family well hidden in his heart. Tika spread out her blanket and waited for Farn to join her so that she could comfortably nestle against his side. The temperature was still warmer than what she was used to but it was pleasant compared to the desert. Khosa suddenly stalked around a bush and came to crouch by Tika’s feet.
‘I wondered where you were. I’ve scarcely seen you since we’ve been here.’
‘Lots of squeakers. And I found many cosy places to rest near their nesting holes, so I did not need to come back. You were busy anyway.’
Tika rested her hand on the orange Kephi’s back. ‘Is something wrong Khosa?’
‘We must move soon. Kertiss has allowed us more than two ten-days. I do not trust him to let us reach Namolos as easily as this.’
Tika felt a slight alarm. ‘Could he reach us, out of his desert?’
Khosa’s tail flicked. ‘I do not know. Grek may be able to go back and find out but we really need him to be our contact with Namolos should trouble arise.’
Tika felt rather more alarm. ‘Khosa, if you know something more, for stars’ sake tell me.’
‘There is nothing more for now, but Hadjay will make a very bad enemy to have behind us. Don’t forget, it was your men who killed his brothers. What I fear is that Hadjay will gather a group of others like himself – those familiar with the desert lands. If he persuades Kertiss that he has a good chance of catching up with us, I fear what weapons Kertiss may provide him with.’
At that moment Farn ambled up, eyeing Khosa with caution. ‘I thought you’d wandered off and left us,’ he said.
‘So sorry to disappoint you.’ She did her front end down, tail end up stretch, her claws extended into the ground.
Farn’s eyes whirred in consternation. ‘I’m not disappointed. I mean, I never believed you’d really leave. I mean - .’
‘Hush dear one.’ Tika hugged him. ‘You’re making it worse.’
‘Well, as long as she doesn’t think those two nice girls and the boy are birds.’
Farn’s mind tone was intended as a whisper but Khosa turned to glare at him. She spat, lashed her tail furiously and marched off in Ren’s direction.
‘Oh Farn, why do you always upset Khosa?’
Farn rattled his wings. ‘I don’t mean to my Tika. The wrong words come out – not exactly the ones I mean.’
‘Then perhaps it might be best if you say nothing until you’re sure you’ve got the words right.’
In the morning, Gan announced that he thought they should be moving on. Tika wasn’t surprised: she suspected Khosa had probably approached several of the company with this idea during the night. Grek explained that he had checked their possible route southwards and they would not encounter any human settlements or farms for three or four days yet. Tika noted the gijan stared at the same spot on which Khosa’s gaze was fixed as Grek mind spoke them. Khosa could apparently “see” Grek: it looked as if the gijan could too.
Tika elected to walk with all the others, at least to begin with. Pallin suggested Olam ride on Brin, but Olam indignantly declared himself quite fit enough to walk.
‘The exercise will loosen me up a bit. I’m stiff as a board from all the lying around you’ve forced on me.’ He glared at Pallin, daring the old man to persist in his fussing.
They packed their scant belongings and by midday were making their way along the western edge of the lake. The young Dragons chased each other through the sky, then joined forces in racing after the shrieking gijan. Seela drifted higher but stayed overhead while Brin went higher still, ranging further south to confirm Grek’s account of the land they would travel.
They took an easy pace and for the first time Tika and Olam had a chance to observe their surroundings. The cliffs far behind them stretched endlessly, as if the land was formed in a series of giant steps, Tika thought, remembering the towering barrier of the mountains which hid the Valley of the Spiral Star. Her view was increasingly restricted where taller bushes and slender trees began to line the lake shore.
She saw a few of the long legged white birds, some standing motionless in the water, others flapping broad wings to get away from the advancing humans. They saw an occasional goat but few other large animals appeared to live here. Maressa pointed out that the ground was only slowly improving from a dusty sand to a darker soil.
‘Grek?’ she asked hopefully.
‘I am here Maressa.’
‘Are there any people with silvered eyes in these lands? What may we expect nearer the coast?’
‘I think none have silvered eyes, so it may be best if Ren and Tika stay with the Dragons once you reach populated areas.’
‘Are there many people in this land?’ Gan carried Khosa at the moment: she had draped herself regally across his shoulders.
‘You will first come to quite isolated farms, then a few villages before a much larger place. I do not know if it is all one town – buildings proliferate all along the coastal region, going inland perhaps two leagues. It is a busy place: many ships are anchored in its harbour.’
‘Ships?’ asked Olam.
Grek imaged a picture of ships.
‘But I thought Singer was a ship.’ Olam sounded aggrieved.
