Survivors: Book 4 Circles of Light series, page 35
‘Dead?’ Seela’s laugh chimed in Tika’s mind. ‘My body is dead of course, small one. I am permitted to stay here only a short while.’ Seela sounded vague. ‘Time is of no consequence in the places Between.’
‘Did we destroy Valesh?’
‘Mostly. A few fragments survived but even should they reunite, they will offer no threat.’
‘What is this place Between? How do I get back to my body Seela – I can feel no life thread?’
For a panicky moment Tika thought Seela had gone, then she heard her voice again but more distantly.
‘You must follow Sket’s mind. He is nearest. I can help you no more dear one. Places Between are many. All strange. All different. This is one of the lesser ones, the place Between life and death.’
‘Seela!’ Tika’s mind shrieked the Dragon’s name into the empty silence. There was no reply.
Tika turned slowly: the cavern had many tunnel openings in its walls, but which one had she come from – they all looked identical. Her essence, or spirit, or mind, moved to the nearest. (Was she a ghost, or unbodied forever, like Grek she wondered wildly?) She went quickly into a tunnel, following the main path and ignoring the many side openings. She saw light ahead and hurried faster.
Tika stared. There was something transparent, like glass but not, sealing her away from the scene on the other side. Lord Hargon sat propped against a boulder, talking to someone. Dear stars above, he was talking to Mist! Tika pressed against the “glass”. Hargon was ill, his face a skull covered with tightly stretched skin. As she watched, he lifted a thin hand to Mist’s face and Tika could see how much effort the movement cost him. The strange window through which she stared became dark, dark as the walls around her.
She turned and with rising fear began to search other tunnels. Tika had no sense of time passing – Seela had said time was of no consequence here and so Tika couldn’t guess if she’d been wandering one day or a full ten day. But she did have a sense of weariness. She stopped, trying to calm herself as Iska had taught her. Was her increasing tiredness a warning that somewhere her body weakened? This place was like a puzzle and she must simply try to solve it.
Panic became more difficult to suppress as tunnel after tunnel led her to dead ends or to other windows through which she saw scenes she couldn’t begin to understand. Tika slammed to a halt and sniffed. How could she smell with only her mind? But she could see, hear and speak – could she touch? She tried to lean against the wall but had no feeling of the rock against her arm. Concentrate, concentrate, she ordered herself. These were irrelevancies. She sniffed again. She could smell mint, very faintly but very definitely.
Tika tried to follow the tenuous trail of fragrance, several times losing it as she turned too soon into the wrong opening. It grew stronger; she was sure it wasn’t false imagining.
‘Hurry!’
Who was that – Seela again? Tika dared not stop to question, hurrying on after the strengthening scent. Although bodiless, she felt as if she was stumbling now, exhaustion sapping her determination. She turned yet again and saw a faint grey light at the further end of the tunnel. It took an eternity to reach it and she was terrified it would be sealed against her like all the others. Just before she reached the end, she paused, peering into the dimness. The passage had led her to a tiny space enclosed in grey black rock. Light seeped weakly down from a gap well above Tika’s head.
Dust motes sifted in the line of light and covered the two bodies sprawled on the floor. Sket lay on his side, his left arm flung across Tika. His hand looked wrong: coated in dust as it was, she could still see it was bloodied. She saw her own body lying at an awkward angle, her head twisted to one side and her right arm outstretched, still gripping her sword. No dust settled on the blade which nonetheless looked blackened as though by intense heat.
Something blocked the light briefly as it moved across the gap high overhead. Tika looked back at her body and forced herself forward, fearing that her passage would yet again be barred. But it wasn’t. Without pausing for thought, she slid her mind back into her body which shuddered violently. She was aware again of her heartbeat: slow, perhaps too slow, but she was alive. And she hurt.
From the agonising pain between her breasts, she guessed her pendant had burnt her again. Her left hand throbbed somewhere between Sket’s chest and sharp stones. Everything ached and her eyes were so encrusted with dust that she couldn’t force them open. She held herself still, praying she might hear Sket’s breathing but instead she heard rock sliding and grating as it fell somewhere nearby. Dear stars, after all this were they to be buried completely?
Tika struggled to unglue her eyes and stiffened in shock as a hand touched her face. She felt a cheek laid against hers and then a strong arm slid under her shoulders, another under her knees. She was lifted against a naked chest and the dust caking her face split as she smiled. A high ululating cry reverberated through her cheek and she managed to croak out the name.
‘Leaf.’
‘My life is yours,’ the gijan whispered and launched herself up from the depths of the crater.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It took two full days for the gijan to locate Sket and Tika. When Leaf and Willow landed among the companions carrying their precious burdens there was a flurry of activity. Neither Brin nor Storm had been able to fly far down into the crater where once Vorna’s library had stood. Brin tried to explain about the strangely swirling air currents and the equally worrying changes of temperature. Gan tried to comfort the huge crimson Dragon – he had never heard Brin admit so openly that any flying conditions frightened him. Jakri and Ren had discussed Farn’s state as soon as Jakri made him sleep soon after their arrival. They agreed that keeping him unaware was best for now: his life signs were not good, which they all feared was mirroring Tika’s condition. All three mages checked him regularly as they waited for the gijan to return.
None of the gijan were communicative: they made their displeasure with Brin extremely clear. They repeatedly circled within the crater, working from the top downwards, checking and double checking. Leaf thawed enough on the second day to confess that the air and the rock inside the crater was still in a state of such flux that she and her siblings were confused time and again by conflicting reactions to their mind probing.
Khosa curled with Akomi against Farn’s chest, both cats disturbed and distressed. Driven nearly mad by inactivity and a feeling of useless frustration, Gan and Navan searched the outer area for anything to make a fire. As Maressa pointed out to Ren, they had enough fuel gathered now for a beacon, let alone a small cook fire. Navan discovered a water supply which he then found was contaminated. Storm and Brin quartered the area until they uncovered a clean spring about half a league away. Gan found some wooden pails, battered but usable after a few repairs, and they all felt happier knowing plenty of water would thus be available when Tika and Sket were found.
The sun was setting for the third time amid lurid red clouds when the gijan cries rang out. Everyone was on their feet, staring at three feathered creatures flying slowly towards them. Leaf landed first, her high arched feet stepping daintily across the dry grass, Tika held easily in her arms. She laid Tika gently in front of Farn, leaned over to kiss her lips, then stepped away. Willow repeated his sister’s movements, placing Sket carefully beside Tika. Jakri gave both a cursory inspection and then snapped orders. Neither Ren nor Maressa were strongly gifted in healing and both were mightily relieved to find that Jakri apparently was.
Maressa and Navan fetched warm water to wash the filth and dust from Sket and Tika’s faces. Sket remained unconscious but Tika’s eyes opened as soon as her eyelashes were unclogged. She looked up into the anxious faces above her and opened her mouth. Jakri placed his middle finger between her brows and her eyes closed instantly. Gan frowned. Jakri glanced up at him.
‘She has severe burns Master Gan; the pain will be bad at first while I clean them’
Gan bit his lip. Jakri had cut away Tika’s torn shirt to better get at the burn on her chest and breaths caught as they all saw just how bad the injury was. Jakri bent close, shaking his head.
‘I will clean this then I will have to try to use power to at least begin the mending.’ He looked up at the others apologetically. ‘I am trained in the use of healing herbs and in practical treatments but I am not an expert in using power to heal.’
Ren grunted. ‘Maressa and I are next to useless.’
Navan had pulled Tika’s sleeve free and turned her left hand palm up. Jakri’s golden face paled. The hand was burned to the bone. He swallowed hard and stood up.
‘Clean her of this dust and I’ll check Sket properly.’
Ren and Navan bent to their task, Brin and Storm peering worriedly over their shoulders. Willow was helping Maressa get Sket’s clothes off and begin to clean him. Jakri found a large bump on the side of Sket’s head which he frowned over, then Maressa gasped. She’d lifted Sket’s left arm to pull off his shirt and the water she’d then sluiced over his arm revealed his damaged hand. The two fingers furthest from his thumb were completely mangled, the smallest finger nearly detached in fact.
‘They must be cut off,’ Willow said calmly.
Jakri stared up into the gijan’s dark eyes.
‘If you can heal then help me now,’ he said softly.
Willow stared impassively back. He tilted his head one side then the other.
‘We will,’ he agreed. ‘They must both be cleaned before we start, but these,’ he pointed to Sket’s hand, ‘must be cut off.’
Jakri nodded. Tiny pieces of bone stuck out from Sket’s fingers and he could see no way of repairing such damage.
‘I can do that.’ He sounded more confident. ‘That is the type of treatment I am practised in.’
Willow moved to stare down at Tika and up at Farn. ‘Wake the young Dragon,’ he said to Jakri. ‘His strength will help her.’ The gijan met Khosa’s slitted turquoise eyes and he smiled. ‘Don’t worry, he will be calm.’
Jakri rose to touch Farn’s brow. He waited a moment then turned away to scrub his hands in the water Gan had ready for him. He instructed Ren to fetch his pack and search out a packet of instruments which Ren then set out on a clean cloth near Sket. Ren repressed a shiver seeing the slender blades of obsidian set in smooth jade shafts. Jakri checked the level of Sket’s unconsciousness and set to work, Gan and Ren passing him whatever he requested. Queasy though Ren felt, he found himself admiring Jakri’s skill. The Wendlan removed the fingers, scoured the injuries for bone chips and neatly stitched a flap of skin over each knuckle. He sat back with a groan, surprised to find how dark the sky had grown.
‘I can bind it if you wish,’ Ren offered, and set to work.
Maressa and Navan stood one each side of Farn. Maressa sensed the young Dragon’s distressed feelings had been muffled somehow: there had been no near hysterical outburst when he’d woken to find Tika returned to him which is what they had all feared might happen. He had simply lowered his face to hers and studied her burns intently, his eyes whirring sapphire and pearl. But there had been no panic.
The three gijan stood around Tika, Leaf and Piper facing each other across her prone figure, Willow at her feet. They extended their huge wings, raising a black feathered wall around them, Farn at Tika’s head. They joined hands, Leaf and Piper placing their free hands on Farn’s shoulders, and bowed their heads. Maressa, Navan and the two cats crouching forgotten by Farn’s chest, watched.
A faint glow surrounded the burn between Tika’s small breasts. Flesh began to move, to ripple, and slowly the hole was covered with fragile new skin. Leaf had left Tika’s chain around her neck but had moved the pendant so that it rested on the ground beside her head. Maressa and Navan both felt the gijan relax momentarily and then Piper stooped, moving Tika’s upturned hand off her stomach to lie on the grass. Again the tension hummed between the gijan and the exposed bones of Tika’s hand were concealed beneath a flimsy layer of new flesh.
The gijan sighed, furling their wings. Leaf looked over her shoulder to where Jakri was attending to Sket’s skull.
‘Master Mage,’ she called. ‘We can do no more for her hand. You will know better how to finish this mending now.’
Jakri got creakily to his feet and hobbled on numbed legs to Tika’s side. He bent to lift Tika’s hand, peering closely in the failing light.
‘It will need dressings daily, many salves for encouraging suppleness, and a system of exercises. But she must not attempt to use this hand for anything other than the exercises I will show her for some time to come.’
The gijan all nodded agreement, casually turning away to hop onto Brin’s back. His eyes flashed in alarm: he had felt the sting of disapproval from the gijan but now they acted as if nothing had annoyed them. Storm crept closer to Farn, his grey scaled face touching Farn’s neck. Farn turned to him then back to watch Tika. Jakri was ordering that his two patients be wrapped warmly and for either tea or a thin broth to be readied: he would rouse both invalids sufficiently to allow them to swallow a good amount of fluid before letting them settle for the night.
Maressa sat between Sket and Tika. She would watch through this night while the others rested. Jakri soon rolled in his blankets and slept. Ren and Gan sat quietly by the fire, the sound of Navan’s cloth working Tika’s sword blade the only sound.
‘I have given no thought these last days for what the people of Harbour City may be suffering,’ Gan murmured.
Ren refilled his tea bowl from the pot perched above the embers. ‘Maressa has far spoken Sheoma,’ he said, speaking as softly as Gan. ‘The temples of the Elder Races throughout the city withstood the earth movements.’
Navan paused in his rhythmic working on the blade. Ren shrugged,
‘Sheoma says none of them understand why that should be. And the Xantip palace is unharmed. She says Zerran estimates half the population is dead or missing and nearly every building is unsafe if not in ruins. Many people are living in the public gardens, afraid to stay near the remaining buildings. The priests of the temples of the Elder Races are providing food as they can for all who are in need. Sheoma said the people are shocked at present, too dazed to help themselves. She also says that the Wendlan mages on the Emperor’s ships report the earth shook in the north, although nowhere near as badly as here. It did not stop yet more warriors pouring from the desert. There is terrible fighting throughout the northern farmlands.’
Ren fell silent and Gan wondered just what they were supposed to do now. Khosa butted her head against his bent knee and he obligingly stretched out his long legs to offer her his lap.
‘Tika and Sket will not be able to travel for many days,’ she said in their minds. ‘Grek will surely return and advise us what our plans must be.’
Akomi crept onto Gan’s lap beside Khosa and Gan absently scratched the old cat’s ears.
‘I’ve noticed the gijan have grown taller,’ Navan remarked. ‘But even so, I am surprised at the strength they must have. Leaf carried Tika as easily as you or I would carry Khosa or Akomi.’
Gan sighed. ‘The longer we go on, the more confused I seem to become,’ he confessed. ‘It sounds as though Harbour City itself is in chaos: where might we find supplies I wonder?’
‘Brin says the region here appears virtually lifeless.’ Navan set Tika’s sword aside and began to work on Sket’s. ‘He has seen very few humans and he said their minds feel empty.’
Ren got to his feet, filling a tea bowl to take over to Maressa. ‘I am concerned by Grek’s absence,’ he said.
He returned from checking the two injured ones and sat back down.
‘Grek was afraid,’ Khosa mind spoke them. ‘He feared he would be unmade if he ventured too near the power vortex Valesh was creating.’
‘And would he?’ asked Ren.
‘Of course. While being unbodied has many advantages, it is also an extremely vulnerable condition in a situation dealing with a large body of wild energy – which is what Valesh had become.’
‘Can we be sure that Tika’s mind has suffered no – contamination?’ Gan asked.
Khosa yawned and gave the sleeping Akomi’s head a brisk wash before she answered. ‘I cannot be sure, but I suspect those gijan can. They would not have healed her had they any doubts.’
‘But they adore her,’ Navan interposed. ‘They all told her that their lives were hers when they woke after their wings came.’
Khosa yawned again. ‘If they suspected Tika had been manipulated by Valesh’s warped intelligence, they would all have died, Tika with them.’
She buried her nose under Akomi’s chin and left the three men to silently ponder her words.
Jakri was tending his patients and Maressa was fast asleep when Gan woke in the early morning. He stirred the embers of the fire and set a pot of water to boil. Then he crossed to where Jakri knelt beside Sket. Seeing Tika’s eyes were open he squatted next to her. ‘How do you feel?’
‘As if Farn has sat on me all night.’
Farn rumbled above her and Tika struggled to free her right hand from the cocoon of blankets. ‘I’m teasing dear one,’ she assured him, letting his face rest against her palm. She tried to push herself up and Gan helped prop her shoulders on Farn’s chest.
‘Sket’s been sick and Jakri says he’s feverish. I can’t help him – there is nothing left in me at the moment. Jakri won’t even let me try.’
Jakri glared over Sket’s chest. ‘Just regain some strength and you can help, but if you try now you’ll fail and hurt yourself badly into the bargain. Fever I can deal with and it isn’t unusual for a patient to be sick after a bump on the head such as Sket has suffered.’
He glanced up at the sky and Gan followed his gaze. The wind had been light, blowing off the western sea two or three leagues away, but it had swung round during the dawn. The sky looked dirty, a brownish red. Gan rose to his full height, his head very nearly level with Brin who reclined close by.
