Survivors: Book 4 Circles of Light series, page 44
Abesh too believed her husband’s mind was trapped but she had no idea where or by whom. He had spoken less and less of the things he’d discovered over the last years, except to say the “disease” was progressing far more rapidly than he’d hoped. After five days, his students had become greatly alarmed by Namolos’s continued mind travelling. Abesh had tried, again and again, to link with the residual thread of his consciousness in the hope she may be able to strengthen him at least. She would have preferred to be able to forcibly pull him back, or follow his mind herself to wherever it was held.
She found, to her horror, that he must have foreseen this eventuality, and had barred all outside access to his mind. Even to her. Abesh continued to try. She sat with him during the nights while Elka was with Dancer. She spoke aloud to him. Occasionally she railed at his absenting himself from her so totally. Then she would dry her tears and talk sensibly again.
‘It is nineteen days.’ Dancer’s voice brought Abesh out of her thoughts.
‘He is receiving nutrients by line,’ Abesh told the Ship wearily. ‘He is massaged and exercised – you know all this Dancer. Why must you make me repeat it each day?’
Then she sighed, putting her hand against the Ship’s inner wall. ‘Forgive me Dancer. But we are doing all we can for him. We just have to wait for him to come back.’
‘He will,’ said Dancer quietly. Then more firmly: ‘He will.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
Tika had studied the small book which Hezwa had given her, when she was on Farn’s back. Hezwa had apologised that it was all she could find but if Tika wished, she would search further. Tika had tucked the book in the waist of her trousers, behind her sword belt, and half forgotten it was there. At first she thought it was in another language but eventually realised it was written by hand; a hand that enjoyed flourishes and curlicues in a very tiny form.
They flew over unending and changeless plains for three days, slightly east of north, but had yet to catch up with Orla’s party. They had found no sign of Orla’s passage either – no more corpses and no signs of camp fires. Navan and Sket had walked some distance around the dead horse and discovered no tracks in any direction. Brin was disturbed by the bodies of the horse and human.
‘In these sorts of lands, any animal that dies attracts birds – bigger than Merigs but like them to look at. They feed on dead things and they travel leagues when they scent one.’ He rattled his wings, his eyes whirring in agitation. ‘This animal has been dead more than a day – why are the dead feeder birds not here?’
When the company remounted and the three Dragons lifted skyward, Brin wheeled back. He spat fire down onto the horse and continued to do so until it was a shrivelled smouldering heap. They camped for the fourth night under a clear star filled sky, and were woken by a deluge of rain descending on them. They hadn’t bothered erecting the tents the Wendlan forces had given them because Maressa checking the sky as she always did just before they made camp, had said the weather would remain clear. The men struggled with the tents against a rising wind and constant hammering rain. Brin tried to shield them from the worst of the wind with his enormous body. Storm held Maressa and Khosa under his wing while Farn sheltered Tika and Akomi.
Jakri suddenly dashed across to Farn, his eyes wide with surprise. ‘Edo far spoke me! I have rarely been able to far speak more than a couple of leagues.’
‘Well what did she say?’ Tika was rapidly finding she agreed with the cats’ opinion of wet weather.
‘Earth tremors. Not bad but noticeable enough to be disturbing.’
‘In the City?’
‘Yes, but more importantly perhaps, she reports rain.’
‘Rain in the Valley is not uncommon I think.’
‘But this rain was in the desert – north of the Valley.’
‘In our direction you mean.’ Tika shivered, peering out into what should be the light of dawn and was most definitely not.
She mind spoke Maressa, cowering against Storm several paces away. The sound of the wind and the rain battering against Farn’s scales and leather wings made it hard to hear Jakri, standing as close to her as he was. Maressa listened and at once attempted to send her mind up through the downpour. Jakri dashed back to help with the tents and Tika watched Maressa, knowing the air mage was struggling to get her mind aloft.
As suddenly as it had begun, the rain stopped and the wind dropped to a gentle breeze. The company stared at each other, the tents just in place. They looked up: not a cloud to be seen in any direction, just the pearly rose of dawn. Tika looked down: she was ankle deep in glutinous mud and her clothes were beginning to steam. She looked at Brin, and had to smile. He looked magnificent in the light of dawn – each wet scale sparkling deep crimson, his wings darker yet. He caught her thought and proudly reared erect, water droplets spraying around him like diamonds.
Gan squelched away from the tents and glared. ‘If that was another example of Qwah’s humour, I did not find it amusing.’
Although Tika knew it was Qwah’s doing, she found herself giggling helplessly.
‘Brin,’ she finally managed to gasp. ‘See if you can find meat. We can’t travel on until we’ve dried out a bit at least.’
They were having increasing difficulties finding anything to burn on the fires they liked to kindle night and morning but when Brin returned later with the large carcass of a wide-horned heavily built grazing animal, he had better news.
‘About five leagues west,’ he told them. ‘There is a small hill and it has bushes on its far side.’
Navan swiftly cut the haunches from Brin’s kill and gave them to Farn and Storm, cutting other portions for the company’s supper. Gan took a length of rope and went with Brin to gather fuel for the fire on which they could cook their meat. They decided to stay where they were for the whole day when Maressa, somewhat puzzled, reported that the strangely distorted air which seemed to indicate Orla’s position, was at the same distance from them as before.
‘So she’s made camp somewhere cosy too,’ Sket grunted, chipping mud off his boot soles.
Ren laughed briefly. ‘It appears Survivor Orla has kept deliberately so near and so far from us since we left the desert. And the sudden attack of bad weather today – a very minor inconvenience when you think about it. Why not lightning and thunderbolts?’
Jakri nodded. ‘Anyone who can work that much weather would find lightning no problem.’
Tika rubbed her chin on the top of Akomi’s head. ‘You think Qwah is observing us – all the time?’
Jakri pursed his lips. ‘I think in some way he is fully aware of where we are. I’m not sure that he knows it was us – you – who destroyed his sister.’
Gan frowned. ‘You could be right,’ he agreed. ‘If he knew who we were, or Tika at least, we might have got the thunderbolts.’
Sket scowled at Gan: he’d thought exactly the same but he’d had the sense not to mention it aloud.
‘Do you think Qwah might be smart enough to guess we’d travel by night?’ Navan sounded thoughtful. ‘The land is getting hillier – not much, but definitely not as flat as before. Could we get closer during the night and keep one of the hills between them and us? He might not suspect we’d move closer.’
There was a long silence following Navan’s comments until, as always, Tika found everyone staring at her. She shrugged.
‘We could try. Anything you can think of will help. All I know is that I have to be close, unfortunately very close, to be able to unmake these creatures.’
They waited until full dark before the Dragons carried them high into the sky. Maressa was checking ahead with the very weakest tendril of her power and guiding them slightly obliquely towards Orla’s position. All of them were growing nervous as the sky lightened fractionally on the eastern horizon. It was with considerable relief that Brin took them down in a faster descent than usual to land in the lee of an extremely small hill: Brin was about the same size.
Nevertheless, they flattened themselves against the rough grass and Jakri, Ren and Maressa held their minds in readiness for any change or assault upon them. Tika leaned back against Farn’s crouched body, her fingers rubbing Akomi’s slightly furrowed brow and let her mind drift. They had estimated they were within a league of Orla and her escort of tribesmen: still not near enough Tika thought. But she let her mind float, formless as the breath of wind that scarcely moved the grasses around her.
Jakri, lying just beyond Sket, suddenly went rigid and Tika, her mind loose and unfocused, watched him distantly. She allowed a tiny part of her thought to touch his mind and flinched involuntarily. There seemed to be a maelstrom of activity going on through the net of power which, in her near trance like state, was quite clear to her. She withdrew slightly and saw the chaos flashing in his mind was not actually touching the part that was Jakri’s core. He was acting almost as a mirror, reflecting what was happening around and through him.
Tika withdrew further, floating over the hill low to the ground towards Orla’s camp. She felt tension tightening all around her, forcing her drifting mind to slow its progress. It was like wading through deep mud and she slowed more with each breath. Tika’s mind slid sideways and she felt her way round a roughly circular barrier. By the time she was back at her starting point, she was worried. The barrier was impenetrable to her probing mind but she was unable also to judge its real size.
She let her mind drift back to her body. She was amazed to realise the sun was halfway down the western sky. Tika raised her head cautiously and saw that Jakri, Ren and Maressa all appeared to be asleep. Gan, Navan and Sket were watching her, differing degrees of concern on each face. She managed a smile, her face feeling tight. She guessed her skin was sore from the sun beating down on her for most of this day.
Ren opened his eyes a short while later and winced, putting a hand to his reddened face. Maressa woke as the earliest stars appeared but Jakri lay unmoving until night was well advanced. The Dragons were flexing cramped muscles when Tika at last sat up.
‘Can we fly on, Brin?’ she asked. ‘If we could get even slightly ahead, it might be an advantage.’
Gan nodded. ‘They may only be watching for people to follow and it does seem clear they don’t expect us to move at night.’
Jakri groaned. ‘There was a tremendous anger – did you feel it? But he didn’t locate us.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ Gan asked sharply.
Jakri rubbed his forehead while Maressa mixed willow bark powder in a bowl of cold water.
‘I tried to cast an illusory spell. Such spells are commonly used in Wendla, usually for entertainments at grand House celebrations. For fun you understand. I tried to sandwich us between an illusion of this turf and the real ground we lie on.’ He gulped the drink Maressa pushed into his hand, grimacing at the bitter taste.
‘Somewhat to my surprise, it seemed to work.’
‘What about you Ren, what did you sense?’
Ren stroked Khosa’s back as she perched on his knees facing him. ‘I didn’t realise what Jakri was doing of course. I had a feeling of suffocation – which Jakri’s illusion would account for I guess. But there was an appalling malevolence.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t describe it other than that it was questing, casting, as though for a scent, a trace of us. He went a long way down our back trail – I hope he has done no further damage in the City.’
Tika filed away Ren’s remarks and turned to Maressa.
‘I felt similarly enclosed at first but Jakri’s action explains that now. I tried to go high above them and to begin with I could see nothing. But as Ren said, the creature searched south. I don’t know if he was just careless or he is far less controlled, or is just plain weaker than we thought.’
The air mage clasped her drawn up legs, her chin on her knees. ‘He seemed to pour himself south and he left Orla’s camp quite exposed. There are about thirty tribesmen with her. She seemed the same as when we met her, but there is something very wrong about the tribesmen.’
‘Wrong?’ Tika pressed.
Maressa shrugged. ‘They were sitting all exactly the same, and the horses also. Like statues.’
Everyone stared at her, their minds filled with the statues in the Great Dome. Living beings made into statues by Valesh and her brother.
‘I think they were held temporarily like that, so he didn’t have to bother what they might be up to.’
‘But Orla wasn’t so held?’
Maressa thought for a moment. ‘No. She was walking around, looking at the men, looking mostly to the north.’
Tika stood up, Akomi in her arms.
‘Let’s move on then. Even though he was searching southwards, something was blocking me from getting close enough to the core of his being. I can do nothing from a distance.’
She climbed onto Farn’s back, Sket behind her. ‘We will land further from them next time Brin,’ she mind spoke the crimson Dragon. ‘I think we will have to approach on foot.’
Brin didn’t reply as he rose in front of Farn, but Tika was aware of his unease.
Orla felt more at peace, more relaxed than ever in her long life. The man who had invaded her dreams was with her all the time now. She wandered idly around the group of tribesmen, giving them as little attention as she would give to furniture. She thought of him as the Man. She could not think of a name fit for him and he had so far not told her what name he gave himself. Orla knew he was annoyed over something but as long as he was not displeased with her, she paid little attention to his mood.
One of the tribesmen got to his feet and stood rigidly to attention. Orla smiled. The man turned to face her, smiling back. The smallest fraction of the Survivor’s mind told her he was a tribesman, but her body told her he was the Man. The Man’s eyes were warm with affection as he reached to hold her against him. Orla’s gaze settled on a rampart of higher hills some leagues to the north, and the tribesman released her, sitting cross legged and blank eyed on the ground again.
‘My son will be born in those hills,’ the Man whispered, and Orla blushed, her hand resting on her already thickened waist.
It seemed an inevitability that she should bear him a child. Thoughts of her own sterility, her vast age, were insignificant: the Man told her she would bear his son and so she was pregnant. The fact that her body was changing so rapidly did not alarm her. She was cushioned against everything by the warmth and love with which the Man surrounded her.
He roused her from sleep that night and she went meekly to one of the horses a tribesman held for her. They rode fast under a star crowded sky, and on until the sun was halfway to noon. Two horses collapsed. Orla glanced over her shoulder and saw men sitting beside the downed beasts but then they were quickly out of sight. They halted for the rest of the day beside a tiny streamlet that appeared briefly then soaked away into the ground after only a few paces on the surface. Orla sensed the Man was concerned and ventured a cautious query.
‘Wicked ones follow us my dearest beloved,’ he replied. ‘There is nothing for you to worry about. Concentrate your mind only on my son.’
‘He will be beautiful,’ Orla sighed. ‘As wonderful as his father.’
‘He grows well,’ the Man agreed lovingly.
‘He grows faster than I would have thought possible.’
There was the faintest touch of doubt in Orla’s words. The Man enfolded her with affection.
‘But he must, mother of my triumph. This world has need of him for its very survival!’
Orla was suffused with pride. A child of hers to be of such importance! And she knew the Man was right. By the time they’d left the desert she was aware of the child, conscious within her. She had been shocked and afraid and also very sick at the waves of fury and hatred that had poured into her body and mind from the small cluster of cells multiplying so fast in her body. She had fallen deeply asleep, her body still shuddering with dry heaves. She woke immediately tense at the prospect of another day as awful as yesterday, but she felt well, comfortable and at peace. Orla asked the Man why she had been so ill and he held her and soothed her.
‘The boy did not understand that you are his mother. He fretted to be released from his confinement. I have explained to him and calmed him. He knows now that he must wait a while longer to be born and held in his dear mother’s arms.’
In the days since, Orla had felt well, calm and content. She wore one of the tribesmen’s cloaks now, her belly was swollen to what she would have thought was full term. But she wasn’t worried. She had given herself to the Man: he would look after her. He seemed much pleased with her and often now he would stroke her distended stomach and smooth his strong hands down her back. They rode on into the hills which proved steeper and higher than when observed from far across the plains.
The horses were sure footed even though their hooves occasionally dislodged stones which flew over the edge of the trail. Orla vaguely wondered how the desert men knew their way but decided the Man had probably given them precise directions. Camping one night, deep in the crowded hills, Orla asked the Man about those who pursued them. He laughed, a warm rich sound that thrilled Orla to her bones.
‘They met a line of fire my dearest. They were surely burnt to cinders. I have felt no trace of them since, so they need not be of concern to you now.’
‘Oh they didn’t concern me,’ Orla answered. ‘I know nothing could harm me when you are here.’
They rode for two more days, deeper and deeper into the hills, until Orla admitted she didn’t believe she could ride much further. Her body was so grossly swollen, riding a horse was becoming impossible. The Man was a trifle displeased and Orla hastily said she would try again tomorrow.
‘It is only one more day,’ the Man told her. ‘A place where you and my son can rest and wait for his birth.’
