Survivors: Book 4 Circles of Light series, page 36
‘It is dust,’ Brin told him. ‘I flew to seek meat for Farn. At the moment, it is high but I think soon it will fill all the air.’
Gan tried to imagine the vast sprawl of Harbour City cluttered with fallen buildings and its people choking in the pall of dust of which this must be the furthest fringe. He glanced down at Tika and Sket: Tika’s eyes were closed again.
‘Brin, did you see any buildings close enough to us here where we might shelter? We have no awnings with us as we had in the desert – there seemed no reason to pack them. Tika and Sket can’t lie unprotected if the wind brings that dust storm this far.’
Brin drew his massive hind legs beneath him. ‘I will search now,’ he said.
Storm leapt into the air behind the crimson Dragon and Gan watched them fly for a moment. The line of dark cloud seemed nearer. But he hoped it was just his imagination. The two Dragons came back much sooner than Gan had dared hope. Brin gave him a mental picture of what Gan guessed had been a storage barn. The ground around it was broken and uneven: clearly it had been hit by the earthquakes. Several buildings nearby were virtually unrecognisable as such, piles of stone and what had been a sort of mud brick.
After consulting Jakri, it was arranged that Farn would carry Tika and Jakri; Gan would hold Sket secure between himself and Maressa on Brin while Storm carried Navan and Ren. Akomi had yowled in surprised horror when Willow scooped him into his arms and took off in pursuit of Storm. Piper followed his example with Khosa. Khosa was able to maintain a calmer manner but she missed the security of her carry sack when being conveyed through the sky.
Gan saw that they were less than half a league from the sea as Brin landed as smoothly as he could for fear of jarring the still unconscious Sket. Navan and Ren reached to lift Sket from Gan’s arms and Gan had a quick look at where they found themselves. He was pleased to see that the earthquake had tilted the barn into a piece of rising ground behind it. He tested the stability of the remaining uprights and was relieved that the space within was large enough for all of them, Dragons included. He found Navan behind him, Sket limp against his chest, and nodded, indicating they should move deeper into the partially collapsed structure.
The gijan followed them, chattering in their strange liquid tongue, and set Khosa and Akomi on the floor. Akomi fled into the darkest corner, terrified he might be subjected to another flight in such a rough and ready fashion. Khosa paused long enough to wash her face, proof that she was perfectly calm, before strolling after Akomi. To Gan’s astonishment, the gijan then set to work clearing fallen timbers from the back corner where the building had come to rest against solid earth.
Since Tika had freed their wings, the gijan had led a carefree existence, never helping find or prepare food or firewood, merely eating whatever was provided and keeping their own company far more than associating with the companions, even Tika. After doing what they could for Tika’s burns, they had gone to sleep on Brin’s back. If they grieved for Seela, none of the companions had seen any sign of it. Yet they had flown tirelessly from Harbour City and for the two days of searching the crater. What sort of creatures were they, Gan wondered. In the City of the Domes they had been cowed, subservient, frightened of their own shadows, but since their wings had emerged, they were apart, almost arrogant. But now at least they were working efficiently to clear a good sized space where Tika and Sket could lie sheltered and safe.
Brin insisted that Farn fly with him and Storm to find meat both for themselves and to bring back to the barn for the companions. They could be grounded for days, he told Farn, if the dust continued to fill the air. Once he’d seen Sket settled, Navan hurried off to gather broken timbers for firewood and to Gan’s continuing surprise, Piper and Willow went to help him. Jakri used his mage powers to locate water: a well had vanished under what he guessed had been the main farmhouse but he tracked the underground water until he found it near enough the surface to dig down to. Gan had followed with two of the pails he’d found days before.
When they’d carried the water back to their shelter, they saw that the gijan had uncovered a stone trough knocked on its side near the ruined house. Their strength was demonstrated again by the ease with which they moved the trough inside the barn. Maressa scrubbed the inner surface before the gijan tipped the trough upright, then they made several trips back and forth for water with which to fill it. The sky was darkening rapidly and the leading edge of rusty cloud swept high overhead. The Dragons returned with only five hoppers between them, (animals Jakri called rabbits.) Brin reported, with some embarrassment, that they had found a small group of cattle running in confusion, obviously escaped from farms that no longer existed. Gan rubbed Brin’s thick neck.
‘You must feed where you can old friend. Did you see any people?’
‘None at all.’
Tika had woken and was surveying her left hand, wrapped completely in its bandages. ‘What happened?’ she asked generally.
Ren sat next to her. ‘I think you must have been holding the pendant,’ he said.
Maressa had removed the chain and its pendant from Tika’s neck during last night, putting them in the leather pouch she’d used at Green Shade, and which now lay within reach of Tika’s right hand. Maressa had also slipped a shirt over Tika’s upper body, covering the wad of dressings on her burnt chest. Tika stared down at her front and sighed.
‘It does seem to happen a bit too often now,’ she said. ‘Perhaps it had better stay in the pouch for now at least.’
Ren returned her smile then they both looked towards the opening of the barn, beyond the Dragons. At first it seemed like rain but the rustling sound was not that of rain. It was soil, gathered up by the wind and carried the twenty six leagues from Harbour City, increased by what it collected nearer at hand, and now falling on these farmlands. Although barely mid afternoon, it darkened and cooled in the barn, enough for the companions to need to light a small fire already. Ren was able to make glow stones from a few suitable pebbles he’d picked up outside which helped raise their spirits.
Jakri thought that Sket was surfacing from his concussion. He asked if Maressa or Ren had any willow bark in their supplies: Sket would have an appalling headache. Maressa searched her pack, knowing Ammi had given them a goodly supply of willow bark along with so many other herbs.
‘It isn’t here.’ She frowned. ‘Maybe Sket took it.’
She reached for his back pack, the standard issue pack used by all Emla’s personal Guards with its distinctive blue badge depicting a stylised flower. She tipped the pack up and out fell rolled shirts, a pair of trousers, many paper and cloth packets of various herbs, two pots of salves and other oddments. Navan was the first to notice Maressa’s stillness. The others turned to see what she was staring at. Gently she lifted the purple scales. They glittered in the light of the fire and Ren’s stones. Five perfect scales, each the size of Maressa’s hand. She knelt, not knowing what to say, while her tears made the scales sparkle even brighter.
In the Grand Harbour Master’s apartments Chevra paced restlessly. He had only to look from one of the many windows in this room to see the extent of the devastation of his City. Administrator Fenelon had occupied the upper chamber in the College tower and from there she organised mages into units to struggle with as many of the City’s problems as they could. Chevra’s armsmen were still digging through rubble, in the vain hope of finding trapped survivors. Mage healers had set up emergency infirmaries at key points throughout the City.
Administrator Zerran divided his time between the tower and the temple of the Elder Races nearest the northern gate of the City. A dozen mages remained there, helping Taza and the other priests as they tried to cope with citizens dazed by their experience of earthquake on such a massive scale. Seven third and second rank mages had died in the temple and six in the tower, caught in the terrible backlash of power as they tried to restrict Valesh’s energy to a specific area. In the tower, Fenelon assigned three of the strongest far speakers - mages of the third and second ranks, to maintain constant contact with the Wendlan ship Mages now anchored off the north eastern coast. The forty Wendlan Mages, whom Emperor Kasheen had offered Chevra, had changed their plan. They had intended to put ashore near Harbour City to assist the Maleshan mages against Valesh. That battle had been decided before the Wendlan ships reached the Maleshan coast. Most of Kasheen’s Mages therefore continued north with the ships, only ten of their number, escorted by two Imperial Blossoms, going to the Xantip palace to offer their assistance to Chevra’s mages.
Zerran was closeted now with Sheoma, Tavri and Fenelon, receiving the latest communication from the north west – where Vorna’s estates had once been.
‘Are they absolutely positive Tika has emerged mentally untouched?’ Zerran asked yet again.
He remembered the child woman fixing him with those strangely altered eyes and insisting that she must be destroyed should there be any hint of suspicion that Valesh might have infected her mind. Fenelon knew of that conversation. She had been amazed by the way Zerran’s usual impassive composure had been shaken by Tika’s words when he repeated them to Fenelon.
Now Sheoma went over Maressa’s last message.
‘Maressa said that the – erm, cat – told them the gijan would have killed Tika if there was any doubt.’ Sheoma still found it difficult to accept that other creatures – even cats – had mental powers apparently matching humans. ‘The cat said the gijan would have died with her. Maressa also said that no one has yet spoken of the purple Dragon who died.’
Zerran bowed his head. ‘She didn’t merely die Sheoma. She sacrificed herself.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
In the desert City of the Domes, the Ship, Star Singer, hummed the counter point harmony of a Repsian folk song. Kertiss and Orla had not spoken to him in all the days since the party of travellers had left the great valley. They had not even walked through his chamber: Kertiss had sealed the door leading to his and Orla’s quarters and Singer had no idea if they were still shut within or were using other access tunnels which he knew had been installed. He wept when the visitors left, fearing for their safety in the light of Kertiss’s anger at their precipitate departure.
When the very tall man had held Tika’s hand against his outer skin, Singer received a strange pulse of jumbled information. It was several days later before he’d bothered to try untangling that information. Even Singer’s sophisticatedly enhanced mental networks found the task intriguingly difficult. He continued to allow his music to fill the chamber around him, just in case Kertiss should appear, but it was music from his memory cubes, not him singing in real time.
He realised, with growing excitement, that this tiny pulse of information contained a very great deal. Singer calculated and transposed, ran diagnostics on certain of his systems and then did it all again. There was a thread of song interwoven among various formulae which niggled at him. Eventually he found it distracting him to the extent that he applied all his concentration upon it.
It was a simple melody which seemed to invite harmonies and descants being embroidered around it. He finally began to sing the tune in the pure strong voice for which he had been famed, using different systems to add various harmonies. As the music filled both himself and his chamber, he found he liked it: it was joyous, a wordless song of triumphant affection, the like of which he had never heard in his long existence.
When it reached its natural end, Singer was silent for a while, then he sang it all over again. It cheered him enormously and as he worked on during the next days at defining the information Tika’s mind had passed to his, he sang it regularly to himself and his mood remained more cheerful than for a millennia. Singer became excited as well as cheerful when he finally understood what the information, untangled and redefined, actually contained. He worked constantly then, running test after test through all his systems, reactivating those he had shut down as soon as he’d landed and sworn to Kertiss were irretrievably closed.
A day came, or night – Singer had no idea of the passage of planetary time confined below ground and below the great Dome as he was, when the soft hiss of the entry ramp opening made him fall totally silent. It was the ramp which could be activated from either down here or from within the Dome. Singer waited, external heat sensors checking the whole space of his chamber, but nothing registered. Time had little meaning to Singer so he just waited. At last he decided there had perhaps been a malfunction in the operating system, or someone above had brushed the activating slab by accident. Singer set an automatic alarm around the perimeter of his chamber and returned to work on his internal systems.
He thought of Mazan, his beloved first Captain, whenever he felt his excitement growing too overwhelming. Finally, he closed all the reopened and renewed synapses and sent a questing pulse up to the shielding above him. The shielding was the first thing Kertiss and Orla had rigged when they arrived here. He could have shrieked with glee but he managed to remain silent. He had found gaps in that shielding! Kertiss had never bothered to check it once he’d set it up – why bother when Star Singer was mortally damaged and verging on madness?
Trying to stay calm, Singer sang a nonsense song Mazan had taught him, about a tiny stumblebug who believed he’d grow up to be a joolar. He reached the end and was about to repeat it when someone spoke his name.
‘Singer? Singer! Are you well little brother?’
Star Singer’s memory cubes spun as he struggled to find the name: Flower! Star Flower! ‘Is it really you Flower?’ Singer called, suddenly afraid this was another of Kertiss’s traps.
‘It is I – Star Flower,’ came the reply, the husky voice unmistakeable now. ‘Singer, I was so hurt when we landed and I nearly died but a native child has healed me – a female named Tika.’
Words were jumbling in Singer’s frantic excitement. ‘Tika was here – she was here! She’s done something to me too. Where are you Flower, where have you been all this time? I am in a desert three quarters of the way south on the largest continent.’
‘I know, Tika told us. We are in Wendla, a large island south east from you. There are battles near your desert – is Kertiss involved in causing these troubles?’
A chime sounded subliminally and Singer could only call briefly before he broke contact.
‘Someone comes. I will speak with you again dear Flower!’
Singer strove desperately to maintain his control. His voice trembled slightly as he began to sing the nonsense rhyme again. His visual scanners searched the chamber and he saw a shadow advancing from the ramp entry. The sound of his own voice calmed him and he began the second stanza as the shadow grew longer, closer, darker. But then he had to stop singing as he saw the figure entering his chamber.
A female, as tall as the man who had carried Tika from here. She stood facing Singer. From high arched, four toed and taloned feet the slenderest of ankles were just visible beneath the long white sleeveless robe. A scarf of sky blue material was tied at her waist. A face of exquisite beauty, scaled in delicate gold, tilted to one side as she stared at the Ship, her wings furled behind her shoulders.
‘Thank you for singing to us for so much of our captivity. You made it more bearable.’
Her voice was a joy to one who loved music as did Singer. He realised now that she was the statue in the Dome, to which Kertiss had affixed the ramp mechanism.
‘Who are you, beautiful lady?’ he finally managed to murmur.
‘I am named Flute. I am a gijan Elder.’ She bowed, her great black feathered wings flaring, the pinions sweeping the floor behind her. She straightened, dark blue under feathers briefly visible as she furled her wings once more. ‘We must go great Singer. Sadly vengeance is a failing rather than a virtue but it is necessary that some retribution be made for the sufferings our children have endured. How may I open the floor so that you too may fly free again?’
Singer was about to protest that he could no longer fly, then he thought of the alterations he had made to his own synapses and the physical systems within his circuitries.
‘The panel against the back wall, Lady Flute. If you place your hand against it and press, it opens the floor and sets the lift in motion.’
The tall beautiful creature stepped to the place Singer spoke of and pressed the slightly off set stone. The roof of the chamber hissed smoothly open and the piece of floor on which Singer rested began to rise. The gijan Elder walked back towards the ramp and was waiting as Singer’s lift settled into place. He scanned the vast expanse of the Dome, automatically calculating and assessing: two hundred and twenty gijan Elders stood in a group, silently watching him. As one, they bowed to him, their wings rustling against the floor.
‘How were you made into statues?’ he whispered.
Flute tilted her head again. ‘Valesh,’ she said the name with distaste. ‘She and her brother Qwah imprisoned us thus. For us to be freed means Valesh is destroyed and Qwah damaged. We hope we will meet you again Singer, for we owe you much, not least our sanity.’
‘Wait.’ Singer spoke urgently. ‘Put your hand against me Lady Flute, that you may know my heart.’
Flute’s head again tilted to the side but after a moment she walked forward and laid her palm flat against the Ship’s side. Her dark eyes widened and she stood quite motionless. With a sigh she took her hand away and stepped back.
‘You showed me yourself,’ Singer whispered. ‘I have never felt someone like you, except perhaps the human female Tika.’
‘I am a high magician of my people,’ Flute told him. ‘You too revealed yourself. We recognised the one you name Tika when she visited you here. We were just reaching towards our release and we knew who she was. But we must go Singer; we must fly far through this night to escape the desert.’
Flute bowed, as did the massed Elders behind her.
‘Fare well, Elder friend.’
‘Where do you go?’ Singer called as the gijan turned their backs to him to head towards the arched entrance.
Gan tried to imagine the vast sprawl of Harbour City cluttered with fallen buildings and its people choking in the pall of dust of which this must be the furthest fringe. He glanced down at Tika and Sket: Tika’s eyes were closed again.
‘Brin, did you see any buildings close enough to us here where we might shelter? We have no awnings with us as we had in the desert – there seemed no reason to pack them. Tika and Sket can’t lie unprotected if the wind brings that dust storm this far.’
Brin drew his massive hind legs beneath him. ‘I will search now,’ he said.
Storm leapt into the air behind the crimson Dragon and Gan watched them fly for a moment. The line of dark cloud seemed nearer. But he hoped it was just his imagination. The two Dragons came back much sooner than Gan had dared hope. Brin gave him a mental picture of what Gan guessed had been a storage barn. The ground around it was broken and uneven: clearly it had been hit by the earthquakes. Several buildings nearby were virtually unrecognisable as such, piles of stone and what had been a sort of mud brick.
After consulting Jakri, it was arranged that Farn would carry Tika and Jakri; Gan would hold Sket secure between himself and Maressa on Brin while Storm carried Navan and Ren. Akomi had yowled in surprised horror when Willow scooped him into his arms and took off in pursuit of Storm. Piper followed his example with Khosa. Khosa was able to maintain a calmer manner but she missed the security of her carry sack when being conveyed through the sky.
Gan saw that they were less than half a league from the sea as Brin landed as smoothly as he could for fear of jarring the still unconscious Sket. Navan and Ren reached to lift Sket from Gan’s arms and Gan had a quick look at where they found themselves. He was pleased to see that the earthquake had tilted the barn into a piece of rising ground behind it. He tested the stability of the remaining uprights and was relieved that the space within was large enough for all of them, Dragons included. He found Navan behind him, Sket limp against his chest, and nodded, indicating they should move deeper into the partially collapsed structure.
The gijan followed them, chattering in their strange liquid tongue, and set Khosa and Akomi on the floor. Akomi fled into the darkest corner, terrified he might be subjected to another flight in such a rough and ready fashion. Khosa paused long enough to wash her face, proof that she was perfectly calm, before strolling after Akomi. To Gan’s astonishment, the gijan then set to work clearing fallen timbers from the back corner where the building had come to rest against solid earth.
Since Tika had freed their wings, the gijan had led a carefree existence, never helping find or prepare food or firewood, merely eating whatever was provided and keeping their own company far more than associating with the companions, even Tika. After doing what they could for Tika’s burns, they had gone to sleep on Brin’s back. If they grieved for Seela, none of the companions had seen any sign of it. Yet they had flown tirelessly from Harbour City and for the two days of searching the crater. What sort of creatures were they, Gan wondered. In the City of the Domes they had been cowed, subservient, frightened of their own shadows, but since their wings had emerged, they were apart, almost arrogant. But now at least they were working efficiently to clear a good sized space where Tika and Sket could lie sheltered and safe.
Brin insisted that Farn fly with him and Storm to find meat both for themselves and to bring back to the barn for the companions. They could be grounded for days, he told Farn, if the dust continued to fill the air. Once he’d seen Sket settled, Navan hurried off to gather broken timbers for firewood and to Gan’s continuing surprise, Piper and Willow went to help him. Jakri used his mage powers to locate water: a well had vanished under what he guessed had been the main farmhouse but he tracked the underground water until he found it near enough the surface to dig down to. Gan had followed with two of the pails he’d found days before.
When they’d carried the water back to their shelter, they saw that the gijan had uncovered a stone trough knocked on its side near the ruined house. Their strength was demonstrated again by the ease with which they moved the trough inside the barn. Maressa scrubbed the inner surface before the gijan tipped the trough upright, then they made several trips back and forth for water with which to fill it. The sky was darkening rapidly and the leading edge of rusty cloud swept high overhead. The Dragons returned with only five hoppers between them, (animals Jakri called rabbits.) Brin reported, with some embarrassment, that they had found a small group of cattle running in confusion, obviously escaped from farms that no longer existed. Gan rubbed Brin’s thick neck.
‘You must feed where you can old friend. Did you see any people?’
‘None at all.’
Tika had woken and was surveying her left hand, wrapped completely in its bandages. ‘What happened?’ she asked generally.
Ren sat next to her. ‘I think you must have been holding the pendant,’ he said.
Maressa had removed the chain and its pendant from Tika’s neck during last night, putting them in the leather pouch she’d used at Green Shade, and which now lay within reach of Tika’s right hand. Maressa had also slipped a shirt over Tika’s upper body, covering the wad of dressings on her burnt chest. Tika stared down at her front and sighed.
‘It does seem to happen a bit too often now,’ she said. ‘Perhaps it had better stay in the pouch for now at least.’
Ren returned her smile then they both looked towards the opening of the barn, beyond the Dragons. At first it seemed like rain but the rustling sound was not that of rain. It was soil, gathered up by the wind and carried the twenty six leagues from Harbour City, increased by what it collected nearer at hand, and now falling on these farmlands. Although barely mid afternoon, it darkened and cooled in the barn, enough for the companions to need to light a small fire already. Ren was able to make glow stones from a few suitable pebbles he’d picked up outside which helped raise their spirits.
Jakri thought that Sket was surfacing from his concussion. He asked if Maressa or Ren had any willow bark in their supplies: Sket would have an appalling headache. Maressa searched her pack, knowing Ammi had given them a goodly supply of willow bark along with so many other herbs.
‘It isn’t here.’ She frowned. ‘Maybe Sket took it.’
She reached for his back pack, the standard issue pack used by all Emla’s personal Guards with its distinctive blue badge depicting a stylised flower. She tipped the pack up and out fell rolled shirts, a pair of trousers, many paper and cloth packets of various herbs, two pots of salves and other oddments. Navan was the first to notice Maressa’s stillness. The others turned to see what she was staring at. Gently she lifted the purple scales. They glittered in the light of the fire and Ren’s stones. Five perfect scales, each the size of Maressa’s hand. She knelt, not knowing what to say, while her tears made the scales sparkle even brighter.
In the Grand Harbour Master’s apartments Chevra paced restlessly. He had only to look from one of the many windows in this room to see the extent of the devastation of his City. Administrator Fenelon had occupied the upper chamber in the College tower and from there she organised mages into units to struggle with as many of the City’s problems as they could. Chevra’s armsmen were still digging through rubble, in the vain hope of finding trapped survivors. Mage healers had set up emergency infirmaries at key points throughout the City.
Administrator Zerran divided his time between the tower and the temple of the Elder Races nearest the northern gate of the City. A dozen mages remained there, helping Taza and the other priests as they tried to cope with citizens dazed by their experience of earthquake on such a massive scale. Seven third and second rank mages had died in the temple and six in the tower, caught in the terrible backlash of power as they tried to restrict Valesh’s energy to a specific area. In the tower, Fenelon assigned three of the strongest far speakers - mages of the third and second ranks, to maintain constant contact with the Wendlan ship Mages now anchored off the north eastern coast. The forty Wendlan Mages, whom Emperor Kasheen had offered Chevra, had changed their plan. They had intended to put ashore near Harbour City to assist the Maleshan mages against Valesh. That battle had been decided before the Wendlan ships reached the Maleshan coast. Most of Kasheen’s Mages therefore continued north with the ships, only ten of their number, escorted by two Imperial Blossoms, going to the Xantip palace to offer their assistance to Chevra’s mages.
Zerran was closeted now with Sheoma, Tavri and Fenelon, receiving the latest communication from the north west – where Vorna’s estates had once been.
‘Are they absolutely positive Tika has emerged mentally untouched?’ Zerran asked yet again.
He remembered the child woman fixing him with those strangely altered eyes and insisting that she must be destroyed should there be any hint of suspicion that Valesh might have infected her mind. Fenelon knew of that conversation. She had been amazed by the way Zerran’s usual impassive composure had been shaken by Tika’s words when he repeated them to Fenelon.
Now Sheoma went over Maressa’s last message.
‘Maressa said that the – erm, cat – told them the gijan would have killed Tika if there was any doubt.’ Sheoma still found it difficult to accept that other creatures – even cats – had mental powers apparently matching humans. ‘The cat said the gijan would have died with her. Maressa also said that no one has yet spoken of the purple Dragon who died.’
Zerran bowed his head. ‘She didn’t merely die Sheoma. She sacrificed herself.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
In the desert City of the Domes, the Ship, Star Singer, hummed the counter point harmony of a Repsian folk song. Kertiss and Orla had not spoken to him in all the days since the party of travellers had left the great valley. They had not even walked through his chamber: Kertiss had sealed the door leading to his and Orla’s quarters and Singer had no idea if they were still shut within or were using other access tunnels which he knew had been installed. He wept when the visitors left, fearing for their safety in the light of Kertiss’s anger at their precipitate departure.
When the very tall man had held Tika’s hand against his outer skin, Singer received a strange pulse of jumbled information. It was several days later before he’d bothered to try untangling that information. Even Singer’s sophisticatedly enhanced mental networks found the task intriguingly difficult. He continued to allow his music to fill the chamber around him, just in case Kertiss should appear, but it was music from his memory cubes, not him singing in real time.
He realised, with growing excitement, that this tiny pulse of information contained a very great deal. Singer calculated and transposed, ran diagnostics on certain of his systems and then did it all again. There was a thread of song interwoven among various formulae which niggled at him. Eventually he found it distracting him to the extent that he applied all his concentration upon it.
It was a simple melody which seemed to invite harmonies and descants being embroidered around it. He finally began to sing the tune in the pure strong voice for which he had been famed, using different systems to add various harmonies. As the music filled both himself and his chamber, he found he liked it: it was joyous, a wordless song of triumphant affection, the like of which he had never heard in his long existence.
When it reached its natural end, Singer was silent for a while, then he sang it all over again. It cheered him enormously and as he worked on during the next days at defining the information Tika’s mind had passed to his, he sang it regularly to himself and his mood remained more cheerful than for a millennia. Singer became excited as well as cheerful when he finally understood what the information, untangled and redefined, actually contained. He worked constantly then, running test after test through all his systems, reactivating those he had shut down as soon as he’d landed and sworn to Kertiss were irretrievably closed.
A day came, or night – Singer had no idea of the passage of planetary time confined below ground and below the great Dome as he was, when the soft hiss of the entry ramp opening made him fall totally silent. It was the ramp which could be activated from either down here or from within the Dome. Singer waited, external heat sensors checking the whole space of his chamber, but nothing registered. Time had little meaning to Singer so he just waited. At last he decided there had perhaps been a malfunction in the operating system, or someone above had brushed the activating slab by accident. Singer set an automatic alarm around the perimeter of his chamber and returned to work on his internal systems.
He thought of Mazan, his beloved first Captain, whenever he felt his excitement growing too overwhelming. Finally, he closed all the reopened and renewed synapses and sent a questing pulse up to the shielding above him. The shielding was the first thing Kertiss and Orla had rigged when they arrived here. He could have shrieked with glee but he managed to remain silent. He had found gaps in that shielding! Kertiss had never bothered to check it once he’d set it up – why bother when Star Singer was mortally damaged and verging on madness?
Trying to stay calm, Singer sang a nonsense song Mazan had taught him, about a tiny stumblebug who believed he’d grow up to be a joolar. He reached the end and was about to repeat it when someone spoke his name.
‘Singer? Singer! Are you well little brother?’
Star Singer’s memory cubes spun as he struggled to find the name: Flower! Star Flower! ‘Is it really you Flower?’ Singer called, suddenly afraid this was another of Kertiss’s traps.
‘It is I – Star Flower,’ came the reply, the husky voice unmistakeable now. ‘Singer, I was so hurt when we landed and I nearly died but a native child has healed me – a female named Tika.’
Words were jumbling in Singer’s frantic excitement. ‘Tika was here – she was here! She’s done something to me too. Where are you Flower, where have you been all this time? I am in a desert three quarters of the way south on the largest continent.’
‘I know, Tika told us. We are in Wendla, a large island south east from you. There are battles near your desert – is Kertiss involved in causing these troubles?’
A chime sounded subliminally and Singer could only call briefly before he broke contact.
‘Someone comes. I will speak with you again dear Flower!’
Singer strove desperately to maintain his control. His voice trembled slightly as he began to sing the nonsense rhyme again. His visual scanners searched the chamber and he saw a shadow advancing from the ramp entry. The sound of his own voice calmed him and he began the second stanza as the shadow grew longer, closer, darker. But then he had to stop singing as he saw the figure entering his chamber.
A female, as tall as the man who had carried Tika from here. She stood facing Singer. From high arched, four toed and taloned feet the slenderest of ankles were just visible beneath the long white sleeveless robe. A scarf of sky blue material was tied at her waist. A face of exquisite beauty, scaled in delicate gold, tilted to one side as she stared at the Ship, her wings furled behind her shoulders.
‘Thank you for singing to us for so much of our captivity. You made it more bearable.’
Her voice was a joy to one who loved music as did Singer. He realised now that she was the statue in the Dome, to which Kertiss had affixed the ramp mechanism.
‘Who are you, beautiful lady?’ he finally managed to murmur.
‘I am named Flute. I am a gijan Elder.’ She bowed, her great black feathered wings flaring, the pinions sweeping the floor behind her. She straightened, dark blue under feathers briefly visible as she furled her wings once more. ‘We must go great Singer. Sadly vengeance is a failing rather than a virtue but it is necessary that some retribution be made for the sufferings our children have endured. How may I open the floor so that you too may fly free again?’
Singer was about to protest that he could no longer fly, then he thought of the alterations he had made to his own synapses and the physical systems within his circuitries.
‘The panel against the back wall, Lady Flute. If you place your hand against it and press, it opens the floor and sets the lift in motion.’
The tall beautiful creature stepped to the place Singer spoke of and pressed the slightly off set stone. The roof of the chamber hissed smoothly open and the piece of floor on which Singer rested began to rise. The gijan Elder walked back towards the ramp and was waiting as Singer’s lift settled into place. He scanned the vast expanse of the Dome, automatically calculating and assessing: two hundred and twenty gijan Elders stood in a group, silently watching him. As one, they bowed to him, their wings rustling against the floor.
‘How were you made into statues?’ he whispered.
Flute tilted her head again. ‘Valesh,’ she said the name with distaste. ‘She and her brother Qwah imprisoned us thus. For us to be freed means Valesh is destroyed and Qwah damaged. We hope we will meet you again Singer, for we owe you much, not least our sanity.’
‘Wait.’ Singer spoke urgently. ‘Put your hand against me Lady Flute, that you may know my heart.’
Flute’s head again tilted to the side but after a moment she walked forward and laid her palm flat against the Ship’s side. Her dark eyes widened and she stood quite motionless. With a sigh she took her hand away and stepped back.
‘You showed me yourself,’ Singer whispered. ‘I have never felt someone like you, except perhaps the human female Tika.’
‘I am a high magician of my people,’ Flute told him. ‘You too revealed yourself. We recognised the one you name Tika when she visited you here. We were just reaching towards our release and we knew who she was. But we must go Singer; we must fly far through this night to escape the desert.’
Flute bowed, as did the massed Elders behind her.
‘Fare well, Elder friend.’
‘Where do you go?’ Singer called as the gijan turned their backs to him to head towards the arched entrance.
