Drogoya: Book 3 Circles of Light series, page 31
Orsim too prepared to leave. ‘It must be considered,’ he insisted to Thryssa. ‘Otherwise our people are condemned to this containment indefinitely. And I do not think that I could live with that.’
‘Oh Pajar.’ Thryssa closed her eyes for a moment. ‘How do you counsel me then, my brand new, first councillor?’
‘There is a case for both sides, obviously. The decision can only be yours High Speaker.’ He fell silent and Thryssa recalled how instantly he had suggested the destruction of the three young Firans.
‘I could not ask, or allow, the Dragon to die for me Lady Thryssa,’ he finished softly.
‘Then I fear that you must go, with all haste, and with Pachela, to Talvo. Regardless of what Lashek may dig out of that old gardener, we must refuse an offer entailing such risk for Fenj.’ She smiled as Pajar’s expression of relief was quickly replaced with doubt.
‘I have never met any of the Dragons. Is it my place to go? As first councillor, I should surely be with you?’
‘It is precisely because you are first councillor that you must go. You are second only to me, and thus Fenj must accept the importance and finality of our decision.’
The High Speaker tilted her head to one side and regarded the young man quizzically.
‘Well? Have you more questions Pajar, or did you not understand your orders? I believe I said go to Talvo, and go with all haste.’
The door closed behind Pajar and Thryssa leaned her head wearily against her chair back.
‘And may the stars ensure that you reach Talvo in time to stop him,’ she murmured aloud.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tika had conceded to Farn’s insistence that she stay out of that hole in the sand. He had become more than usually agitated and she suggested that they spend the day wandering along the shore, just the two of them. Farn had cheered up at once – he thought it a perfect idea. Storm came calling hopefully for Farn to join him.
‘I am busy,’ Farn told him. ‘I will spend this day with my Tika.’
Storm clearly did not understand what Farn could mean, but flew off to the south anyway.
‘That was not too polite,’ Tika scolded, scrambling down over the great boulders strewn along the edge of the sea Dragons’ cove.
Farn skimmed over her head, nudging a wing against her back and making her stumble. She stopped, hands on hips, and glared at him.
‘If you are not going to behave, I am going back to help Ren.’
Farn settled on the wet sand, an incoming wave purling over his tail. His prismed eyes shone with innocence.
‘But I always behave,’ he said, and beat his wings furiously in the next wave.
Then he was in the air, flying ahead along the waterline, his laughter pealing in Tika’s head. She looked down at herself: trousers and shirt were soaked through and her hair dripped into her eyes. She laughed, watching Farn swoop and turn. She wished Kija could see him – a young Dragon playing in the hot sun, carefree and inquisitive.
Tika caught up with him eventually to find him trying to dig something from the sand. Waves creamed against his back as he scrabbled and snuffled in the small hole he had dug.
‘Should you leave your tail floating out like that?’ she asked.
His head swung up level with hers, eyes bright with sudden concern and a neat heap of sand upon his nose. He whisked his tail in around him, shovelling water all over them both. Tika gasped and spluttered and bent quickly to scoop handfuls of water over Farn’s head. Instantly, his tail flung yet more over her and she retreated up the beach coughing and giggling. Gleeful delight radiated from the silver blue Dragon and Tika suddenly realised how close her giggles were to tears: this was how Farn was meant to be. She sank onto the drier sand and pushed wet hair off her face.
‘What were you looking for?’ she asked, when he flopped beside her.
‘It was a very odd thing. Many legs and horns. It just disappeared into the sand.’
‘If you stop splashing me, I will help you look for it. You remember when Kemti made me try to feel through the ground when we left Hargon’s lodge?’ She ignored the surge of mixed feelings from her soul bond at mention of the Lord of Return and began poking with her bare toes in the place Farn had been searching. Tika was half aware, throughout that totally lazy, contented day, of Sket’s watchful presence, but she was unaware of Mist and Salt’s constant surveillance. Nor did she know that Khosa watched, from high on the cliffs above them.
Ren had taken several empty packs down into the passage which Riff had so inadvertently found. He hoped that he might find something tangible of the people who had lived here so long ago. They had tried to scratch or mark the exposed blocks on the surface to no avail. So Ren took down extra lengths of rope, which he tied to the one they used to get up and down. He also placed glow stones, about twelve paces apart, along the beginning of the passageway.
‘It seems strange,’ Olam remarked as they entered the passage after breakfast. ‘If this is inside a building, as you seem to think, then surely there would be doors opening off such a long corridor?’
Ren came to an abrupt halt, turning to stare at Lord Seboth’s brother. He shook his head.
‘My brain is failing,’ he said ruefully. ‘We should check both sides from the entrance with our fingertips. If you would take this side Olam, and Navan that, we may find you a door.’
Riff had moved ahead to where the passage split into three and Gan was last, nearest the open door to the shaft. They worked unspeaking, the only sounds that of their breathing and the shuffle of feet on the smooth stone floor. It was Navan who called.
‘Is this something, Offering Ren?’
Ren went to Navan’s side, lifting the glow stone he carried high, to peer at the apparently flawless wall. He slid his hand beneath Navan’s and felt the three tiny indentations. He turned his head, hearing steel leaving scabbards and saw all except Navan had drawn either daggers or swords. Muttering under his breath, he pressed firmly into the three dimples. The door swung silently away from him and he raised the glow stone he still held.
Olam and Gan stood close to Ren’s shoulder while Navan and Riff held back a little, wary and watchful. Ren stepped into the room, asking for someone to fetch more glow stones. There was a strange feeling to the room, so long abandoned. At first glance, it appeared to be almost square, each wall about fifteen paces long. Shards of glass still lay below what had been floor to ceiling windows, but which now looked only onto rock. A boxlike desk stood between the windows and a half rounded chair tilted against it. As the five men advanced into the room, no one spoke. They all felt the weight of time pressing upon them in here.
‘Look,’ Olam whispered.
The wall in which the door was set had three large pictures to one side of the door, rows of bookshelves to the other. Ren and Olam held the stones aloft to see what the pictures revealed. They stared for a long time at the central one. It was a view from a high place, obviously in the heart of the city as buildings clustered close all around. Some were buildings of the type they all recognised, but others had domed roofs, or needle thin spires with what looked like bubbles spaced up the spires’ height. Bridges linked some of the spires, delicate filigree work which looked too frail to be functional, but tiny figures could clearly be seen upon the bridges. As they stared, they all realised that the spires and their interlinking bridges formed a web like pattern across the sprawl of lower buildings.
In the left of this picture a market scene was depicted: stalls and barrows, heaped with fruit, vegetables, flowers, bolts of cloth. The people were shown quite clearly and when Ren held his stone closer, everyone concentrated on those people. Many were fair haired, like the present day Sapphreans, but there were many others mingled with them – people with black or dark brown hair and dark honey skins.
‘Look,’ Olam breathed the word again, pointing to one figure at the edge of the market crowd.
It was a man, grey haired, his beard, in many braids, spread across his chest. And his eyes were unmistakably as silvered as were Ren’s and Tika’s. The picture was framed in a dark, carved wood, and Ren placed his forefinger against it. He jerked his hand back when the wood crumbled into powdery dust at his touch. He lifted the stone to examine the two pictures on either side of the city scene, but they were of lesser interest, showing as they did events of a rural life. The Offering stepped across to the shelves beyond the doorway. Books were tightly packed in each shelf, and some were wedged in any space available above others. His fingers itched to pluck one from its place but after seeing how fragile the picture frame was, Ren feared to be too hasty. He turned back to the desk and stared down at its cluttered surface. He bent closer. Scrolls lay loosely coiled but one was flat, held thus by means of two small stone jars on each end.
‘I will need to copy this at once,’ Ren muttered, and drew paper and writing stick from his ever present satchel. He put the paper carefully on a patch of empty desk and asked Gan to hold another glow stone above him. Gan stooped low over the desk, frowning at the lines of script.
‘Can you read it Ren?’ he asked. ‘It is quite unfamiliar to me.’
Ren was concentrating, copying the tall spidery forms with complete accuracy onto his own paper.
‘No,’ he murmured. ‘A few shapes seem to remind me of something, but no, I cannot read it at the moment.’
The room was surprisingly bare apart from the large desk: three other chairs stood along the right wall, one on its side, and an oval table against the opposite wall held three large bottles and a tray set with six goblets, only two of which remained upright. Riff and Olam left Ren copying and ventured further along the passage, their hands spread lightly across the stone.
‘Here,’ said Riff, just as Olam called that he had found more of the three little marks.
Riff turned in time to see another door swing open. Olam held a glow stone aloft and took a step or two inside. Riff hurried to join him when he heard a sharp intake of breath. A wooden settle with curved ends and a high back stood at an angle to the door and Riff saw nothing until he had moved around beside Olam. The armsman stared, as Olam was doing, at the tangled skeletons that lay upon the settle. Olam moved a little closer.
‘All this dust.’ He squatted down by the settle and pointed out what he meant. ‘I would think that is from cushions and pillows.’ He peered at the bones. ‘It is the same beneath them. Look Riff, pieces of clothing I would guess and.’ He stopped and swallowed as he straightened.
Riff looked to find what might have shaken Olam, and saw the husks of three shoes among the dust, one no bigger than the breadth of his own hand, the other two clearly adult sized.
‘Four, no five, skulls Olam.’ He glanced at the Armschief. ‘Looks like one adult and four children.’
Olam nodded and lifted the glow stone to better see the rest of the room. It was roughly the same size as the first, but was all too evidently a family room. Metal dishes and jugs lay scattered on an oblong table and some had fallen to the floor. Again, glass lay sprinkled below windows now filled with rock. Various chests and dressers stood along the walls and child sized chairs lay overturned. A slab of stone was set by one of the windows, patterned in a circular design and a few black stones still rested on it.
‘Oh my stars,’ Olam whispered. ‘Whatever could have befallen them so suddenly?’
While Hargon forced the pace of his men towards Tagria, Seboth was gathering his wounded from the way station. He had sent word to his people that any with a gift for healing should come forward to assist the injured armsmen brought back to the barracks. He stated openly that he saw no dangers in the old blood and he swore he would defend any of his people, unusually talented or not. The people had heard of Hargon’s decree of course, that any suspected of such old talents be executed. For a day after Seboth’s call for healers, none came forward.
Lady Lallia broke all traditions by appearing publicly to announce that both she herself and her Lord, bore the old blood and its concomitant powers. She announced her pride in both facts, and the people began to respond. Lallia was astonished by the number of those who presented themselves at the House, revealing their talents in many areas other than healing.
Seboth came back with the first line of wagons carrying wounded armsmen. He was taken aback by the results of Lallia’s action when he saw one of the long barrack dormitories prepared as an infirmary and the crowd of waiting healers. He supervised the unloading of the injured and made the round of the dormitory, asking the names of all the townsfolk who had risked all in admitting to their ability with the power. When he eventually joined his wife in the sun tower apartments, he looked at her with renewed admiration.
‘You are not angry Seboth?’ she asked anxiously. ‘I thought that if I admitted that we were both what Hargon would call tainted and accursed, our people would be more willing to risk themselves.’
Seboth hugged her. ‘It was a brilliant thought.’ He held her a little away from him, his head tilted to one side. ‘Did Maressa suggest it to you?’
‘Oh you.’ She punched his ribs and moved to the fireside although she smiled. ‘I thought of it, all by myself, you fool. Tell me of the men – are our losses bad?’
Seboth stretched himself on the pillows opposite her.
‘We have more dead than I would ever wish, but Hargon’s losses.’ He shook his head. ‘I have never seen so many armsmen slaughtered. A few survivors were found and those who could speak, told a chilling tale.’ He glanced at Lallia. ‘Maressa said that Hargon did not have this illness she told us of?’
‘She said that it was far worse than the affliction and that we must not go near him.’ Lallia shrugged. ‘She said no more than that.’
Seboth pulled his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Krov should be nearly to Maressa and Brin by now I hope. Would it be all right to try to mind speak them do you think?’
Lallia smiled. Seboth still found it very odd to mention such a thing as mind speaking as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
‘Hargon is approaching Tagria is he not? I think it would be safe.’
‘I sent three messenger birds ahead to warn Tagria, as well as two scouts. It would have been wonderful to use Merigs, but far too dangerous for them.’
Lallia let her hands lie loosely in her lap and breathed deeply to calm her thoughts, then sent her mind winging towards Maressa.
‘What is it Lallia – please tell me no more trouble?’ Lallia felt Maressa’s smile.
‘No. We think Krov should soon be with you with the supplies you needed. Hargon is on his way to Tagria. There has been much fighting Maressa, many dead and injured.’
Maressa’s sympathy flowed through the link.
Lallia explained that she had called on the people of Far to help if they knew the old magic ways, and had been overwhelmed by the response. Maressa’s reply was reserved.
‘You must protect those who have now exposed themselves Lallia. Should Hargon attack again, or put any future captives to the question, they would be at enormous risk.’
‘I told our people that Seboth and I are as “guilty” as any of them.’
Maressa was silent, shaken by the courage of this long secluded Sapphrean woman.
‘Brin says that he can sense riders approaching. I will speak with you ere we depart.’
Maressa broke the link with Lallia and cast her mental vision in the direction Brin indicated. She found three men, dressed in the green uniforms of Far, riding koninas and leading three more. She drew her mind back to herself.
‘It is Seboth’s men,’ she told Brin. ‘They will be in sight soon if we go to the top of the ravine.’
Brin’s eyes flashed. ‘And then we can go back to the coast,’ he said with satisfaction.
Maressa laughed. ‘But you cannot hunt the fish in the great waters Brin, you have to fly quite a way to find food. Why do you like the coast so much?’
She climbed onto his back as she spoke and his huge crimson wings lifted them effortlessly up the sheer wall of the ravine to settle on its topmost edge.
‘I like the thought of flying out over the water,’ he finally answered. ‘Perhaps I will find land further off. I have seen such places - mostly rock, and only just large enough for me to rest upon. But I would like to fly on and on and on.’
His mind tone was dreamy such as Maressa had never heard it, but she decided not to question further now when she saw movement about two leagues to the east. Brin had also seen the distant koninas and was checking the area all around for any unexpected or unwelcome additions to Seboth’s men. It took some time for the veteran Krov to reach the massive Dragon and Maressa. Maressa recalled that Krov was Seboth’s greatly valued Master of Arms, responsible for turning new recruits into armsmen proficient with many weapons and skilled with at least one.
She also remembered that Krov was as aged as Pallin and guessed that was a contributory factor for Seboth to send such a man away from Far at such a time. She approved of Seboth’s discreet and tactful care for two old men and greeted Krov with a smile.
‘I trust you met no trouble?’ she asked when he had dismounted. ‘There was a group of Hargon’s men who came upon us. When we lost them, they travelled north.’
Krov ordered the two armsmen with him to begin unloading the koninas. He eyed the great Dragon reclining upon the rough grass assessingly.
‘You tell my men how they should load that mighty one and they will do as you wish.’
He blinked as Brin began chatting in all their minds. Krov watched for a moment then turned back to Maressa.
‘This group you saw Lady – how many d’you reckon?’
‘About thirty I think.’ She hesitated. ‘At least one of them was using power, whether knowing what he did or not. I suspect that he did know.’
