Survivors: Book 4 Circles of Light series, page 5
They followed Kertiss from the room and along the passage into the next. More desks lined two walls but two large stone boxes took up most of the space. Black ropes hung suspended from the ceiling, connecting some of the desks with the boxes. Ren and Tika both put careful fingers to touch the shiny grey boxes and met each other’s eyes. The box felt too slick, too warm, to be stone. Ren pressed his fingers harder but whatever material it was, it was unyielding. Kertiss leaned against the end of one of the oblong boxes and folded his arms.
‘These are generation tanks,’ he told them. ‘No. Not generation as you’re thinking – not fathers and grandfathers and so on. Generation as in production, growth.’ He sighed. ‘If you have good rich land, you will be able to generate, or grow, good crops will you not?’
His frown lessened at their nods of understanding.
‘So these tanks can generate life. Or at least, repairs. For example,’
Seela huffed rather noisily but Kertiss didn’t notice.
‘For example, if you were to be injured, have an accident – lost your hand let’s say. We can immerse you in the gen tank and you will grow a new one.’
None of the companions could hide their astonishment. Tika and Sket’s thoughts flew to Jal in the Stronghold.
‘Could you grow someone a new arm?’ Tika asked in disbelief.
‘Of course we can. The time needed for someone to spend in the tank depends on how complex their injury. My sister and I spend a day in a gen tank occasionally to ensure that our bodies continue to function at full efficiency.’
‘The Qwah are fortunate people indeed to have such marvellous healing available,’ said Maressa.
Kertiss looked shocked. ‘We do not use it other than for ourselves, or in experimental circumstances with particular specimens.’
‘What sort of specimens do you use?’ Ren’s mouth smiled but his eyes were like stones.
Kertiss started to reply then stopped, studying Ren more carefully.
‘Nothing of great importance. Come, I think we’ll find Orla in the next room.’
Farn nudged his face close to Tika’s. ‘I like not this place my Tika. Can we go back and talk to Singer?’
She rubbed her cheek against his. ‘Soon.’
They followed Seela and the others to yet another room. This was slightly more familiar in its degree of untidiness. A long workbench with cupboards beneath stood against one wall. Shelves covering another wall were piled with papers, bottles of different coloured liquids and various sized wooden boxes. The third wall was hidden by rows of stacked cages. Seela backed out of the room, her eyes blazing, unceremoniously pushing Farn out before he could actually get in.
‘We will wait for you,’ she told Tika.
Maressa had moved to stare into the cages. They contained various small birds and animals, none of which were quite familiar to her. They were all alive she thought but utterly still and silent, huddled in the furthest corners of their cages.
Orla was seated at the further end of the workbench along the wall opposite the cages.
‘I give you greeting,’ she said now, her voice surprisingly deep but pleasantly toned.
Two small white bowls stood in front of her and she held a short transparent pipe with a finger held over one end. The pipe was half full of a thick red fluid. She bent her head as she sealed the top of the pipe with something and stood it in a rack of similar pipes. She turned back to the visitors.
‘This is where I spend most of my time,’ she told them. ‘One of my interests is xenobiology – understanding the life forms of different worlds than my own. Despite being here on Kel-Harat so long, there seems an infinity to discover.’
At the back of the group, Tika had only half listened to Orla: her attention had been caught by a small bird. It looked very like the larger night loving great-eyes she knew in Sapphrea, and she sent a guarded thought towards it. Now, as Orla continued speaking about something she called blood groups, Tika stumbled back against Sket, her face white and beaded with sweat. Sket’s arm went round her even as Farn began to fuss in the passage outside.
‘Captain, my lady is ill!’
Gan spun to look at Tika and lifted her into his arms without a question.
‘Forgive us Kertiss, Orla, but we must get Lady Tika to our rooms at once.’
Orla and Kertiss looked discomposed but then Kertiss stepped forward.
‘Very well. We would have liked you to stay longer but you will return tomorrow evening. Evening is our preferred time,’ he said, leading them back along the passages.
Tika’s face was pressed into Gan’s shoulder and Farn’s head banged against Gan’s, so close did he keep to his soul bond. They reached the doorway through which they’d first entered and Kertiss paused. He studied the small panel set into the door, Gan seeing a red light flashing before Kertiss’s body blocked his view. Kertiss looked over his shoulder, as if checking the group of companions and the two Dragons. He placed his hand on the panel and the door swung open. Gan strode straight through.
Olam sprang to his feet, closely followed by Pallin and Riff. Brin rumbled and surged up from his reclining position.
‘Oh dear friends! Why is the small one ill?’ Singer cried.
Without knowing why he did so, Gan halted his rapid march towards the ramp and swerved towards the Ship. Shielding Tika with his own body from Kertiss’s sight, he pressed the back of her hand briefly against the Ship’s side. There was the faintest gasp then Singer’s voice poured music into the chamber. Gan turned at once and made for the ramp.
‘We will not see you tomorrow Kertiss if Lady Tika is not fully recovered,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Unless of course you care to visit us in our rooms.’
The party crossed the floor of the Dome which was still lit with the strange amber glow and took the waiting Keeper by surprise, so quickly did they emerge from the archway. He scrambled to his feet and hurried after them across the starlit space towards the Ring Complex. He skidded to a halt when Storm whirled with amazing speed, barring his way. The Keeper stared at the young Dragon’s glittering eyes and snarling mouth and chose to stop following the group.
Gan laid Tika gently on cushions Maressa spread on the floor and Farn pushed ungently through to crouch at her side. A gijan silently appeared, a bowl in his hands. He knelt right under Farn’s nose and lifted Tika’s head to tip some liquid against her mouth. Her eyelids fluttered and she swallowed a little more of the drink.
‘My Tika, please, are you feeling better?’ Farn’s distress was all too plain.
Tika struggled against the gijan’s arm and he simply slid closer, pushing her into a more upright position. She blinked, looking at the worried faces surrounding her. She reached for Farn and he ducked his long face against her shoulder.
‘I feel very odd,’ she said.
Gan reached for the bowl in the gijan’s hand and sniffed its contents. He took a cautious sip and rolled his eyes. He gave Tika a wry smile.
‘It would seem that Lorak is not the only one to concoct lethal “restoratives”.’
‘What happened in there Tika?’ Ren asked.
She shook her head. ‘I just felt faint I think.’ Green silvered eyes stared at him guilelessly. ‘I’m rather hungry now though.’
Her friends regarded her, not one of them believing her first statement. Tika twisted round to the gijan against whom she leaned. ‘Thank you.’
Farn’s head lowered so that his cheek rested briefly on the gijan’s head. The gijan didn’t cower as everyone half expected him to. Instead, he gazed into Farn’s prismed eye steadily before easing away from Tika and disappearing to the kitchen.
Maressa sat back on her heels. ‘Khosa’s not here,’ she said, watching Tika’s face.
‘Is she not? I can’t imagine her finding many squeakers around here. Perhaps she’s just gone for a stroll – you know how nosy she is.’
Farn’s laugh held a great deal of relief as well as amusement. ‘Khosa would not like to hear you call her nosy my Tika!’
‘No,’ Tika conceded. ‘Perhaps we should say she is inquisitive.’
Pallin picked up the drink the gijan had brought Tika and now took a sip. His eyes widened and he passed the bowl to Riff. Riff tasted the contents and got to his feet.
‘I’ll see if they’ve got any more – this is really very good.’
Gan groaned. He glared at Pallin. ‘For stars’ sake, don’t drink too much of that stuff. We must keep our wits about us – all of us.’
Seela announced that she and Storm were going to fly in the starlight. She gave no reason for this decision and no one asked. Brin merely settled in the colonnade while Farn still occupied a large amount of the sitting room as Tika ate in the kitchen with her companions. It was nearing dawn when Seela and Storm returned and as they reclined outside, Khosa slid between the heap of Dragons, marched across Gan’s chest and perched on a table.
Only Sket, Tika and Gan remained downstairs, the others having decided that proper beds were to be preferred whenever the opportunity arose.
‘Well?’ Tika’s thought was but a whisper in their minds.
Gan saw Seela’s head swing towards Khosa and he also noted a gijan slip into the room from the kitchen. He couldn’t tell if it was the same gijan who’d provided the restorative earlier or another.
Khosa bristled: whiskers and fur were in spikes and her tail twitched constantly.
‘Grek is with Singer,’ she told them.
Seela’s eyes flashed in alarm.
‘He is trustworthy Seela,’ Khosa said firmly. ‘If you trust me, so you can trust him now. We were both afraid that Kertiss’s alarms would be triggered even by an entity such as Grek. I waited, but no alarms sounded as far as I could tell at least. But then, I couldn’t reach Singer’s mind through that floor. Kertiss has the whole Dome sealed somehow, even against a mind contact.’
Ren came down the stairs and sat on the last one listening to Khosa. The Kephi glanced at him. ‘You knew that didn’t you?’
Ren nodded. ‘When I asked him if he felt pain.’ The Offering’s eyes filled with tears which he made no attempt to hide. ‘He cannot even send his mind beyond the Dome to see any of the life around him. And he once flew between the stars and saw wonders upon wonders. He fears for his sanity. It is the cruellest imprisonment I can imagine for such as him. He said other Ships very occasionally make direct contact with him, but the last time was half a year ago.’
Khosa slitted her eyes at him. ‘And?’
‘And he wants to see Namolos. Or if that is as impossible as Singer seems to think, he begs us to reach Namolos and ask him to release Singer from Kertiss’s grip.’
‘Hmm.’ Khosa’s fur became smoother and her tail slowed its thrashing. ‘We will wait for Grek but you must not go into those rooms beneath the Dome again – any of you. You will be safe enough in the Dome itself but not below its floor.’
Sket fidgeted. ‘Khosa, what are those statues in the Dome?’
Khosa turned her turquoise gaze onto Tika’s self appointed personal Guard. ‘I don’t know. Namolos might. But they reek of grief.’
They looked in some surprise as the gijan dropped to his knees, his hands clasped against the veil half hiding his face, eyes fixed on Khosa.
‘Namolos,’ he said.
The day passed quietly, the companions grateful for a restful break in their travelling but also somewhat on edge. They all wondered if they would be able to leave as easily as they’d arrived.
When they sat in the kitchen towards the end of the afternoon, Olam told them that Khosa was still curled in a tight ball, sound asleep, inside a shirt upstairs. Even as he spoke, Khosa jumped onto Navan’s lap, her orange face poking over the table’s edge.
‘Grek is here.’
Grek’s mind voice, coming from nowhere, unsettled them all as usual, but they quickly forgot their discomfiture listening to his report. There was no mistaking the pain and sorrow underlying his words.
‘Singer was desperate to talk,’ Grek began. ‘Kertiss should not have been Singer’s captain. The one who should have been was killed in some fighting. Kertiss and Orla climbed inside Singer and ordered him to fly. Singer obeyed: he was nearly mindless with grief.’ Grek fell silent.
‘I think a Ship bonds with a captain, as you are bonded to Farn Lady Tika. That is the impression I had at least: Singer became distraught trying to tell me of those times.’
Tika’s eyes were enormous in her white face. She could guess all too vividly how Singer might have felt if he had truly been one half of a soul bonding and lost his bonded one.
‘There was a great deal that Singer tried to tell me,’ Grek continued. ‘It was jumbled and although no doubt of great interest later perhaps, it was irrelevant to us now. There was fighting in the star fields, battles, which was all very confused in his mind but then he, with other Ships like himself, reached this world. He thinks that six or maybe even ten, landed on the ground. All were damaged. He doesn’t know if any of them can ever fly to the stars again, but he says he needs Namolos.’ Grek paused once more.
‘He called Namolos the Father of the Ships and he also said that he has heard most often from Namolos’s own Ship. That Ship is called Star Dancer, a female, and she was the last to speak to him.’
‘Did Singer know anything of those winged people in the Dome?’ Ren asked.
‘He said he likes to sing to them. He said they appreciate it and that they were trapped, perhaps even worse than he is.’ Grek sounded puzzled. ‘He also said that you must take a gijan with you to Namolos and you must go by tomorrow at the latest, or Kertiss will hold you.’
Sket growled, his hand reaching for his never absent sword.
‘What about the map thing Kertiss had in that room? He could use that to see where we go if we have to make a dash for it. And we don’t even know where they put our koninas.’
‘We’ll see about that now.’ Pallin got to his feet. ‘Come on Riff, let’s take a walk around this dratted Ring Complex and wander through the arch where we came in. We’ll find our mounts all right.’
Riff grinned but looked to Gan for his agreement. Gan nodded.
‘A good idea. See if you can learn anything about a road out of this Valley too. We need to go south.’
‘I think I’ll go too,’ Olam decided. ‘I am an Arms Chief after all – I’m entitled to make a fuss if necessary!’
He winked and followed Pallin and Riff from the kitchen. The others wandered out into the colonnade to watch the three men march off, somewhat surprised to see Storm pacing close behind them. Brin’s eyes sparkled.
‘Did you see young Storm turn on that Keeper last night?’ he asked generally. ‘Most effective.’
Seela huffed and ignored the crimson Dragon. ‘I heard Grek’s words,’ she said. ‘We have been flying high when we go for our “exercise”.’ She sounded pleased with herself. ‘The Valley stretches on towards the rising sun as far as we could see, but there is a trail leading in the direction we need not too far away.’
Maressa smiled, moving to lean against a massive purple shoulder.
‘ “Not too far” for a Dragon is “quite a long way” for humans. We’ve learnt that already. Let me look.’
The air mage closed her eyes, sending her mind high and fast to the east. ‘Three or four leagues,’ she said, opening her eyes again. ‘That’s far enough, if Olam can’t get the koninas.’
‘If he can’t, we can carry all of you to that place,’ Brin told them.
Ren nodded. ‘I’m sure you could, but then what? You cannot carry all of us for long and we have no idea how much desert land we have to travel – in any direction. Without a guide, I can’t see how we’ll make it.’
‘I could – persuade – Kirat to guide you,’ Grek offered carefully.
The company avoided each other’s eyes, none liking to contemplate quite how Grek might achieve such a thing.
‘Thank you Grek. We will consider your idea.’ Tika stroked her hand along the great scar winding down Farn’s neck. ‘Perhaps you should locate Kirat – he may have left the City by now?’
‘I will seek him at once,’ Grek agreed.
In the silence following Grek’s presumed departure, the company gazed across the open space to where the Domes rose. They sat comfortably abutting each other and looked as though they had done so for ever. Tika leaned against Navan, her head tilted back to squint up at the very top of the Domes, dazzling still against the brightness of mid afternoon.
‘I had no bad feelings in any of those Domes,’ she murmured aloud. ‘I felt a great sadness and an endless waiting – no, patience – in Singer’s Dome.’ She shivered and walked back into the sitting room. ‘I’ve been trying to work out how Singer could have got inside one. The Domes have been here since long before he came, of that I am sure.’
‘Perhaps they put wheels beneath him and pulled him in do you think?’ Navan wandered round the room as he thought. ‘Olam said that while we were in Kertiss’s rooms last night, Singer showed them his wings. They slid out from his sides Olam said, quite large and curved. Then they disappeared again and none of them could find a crack or mark to show where they had been. Maybe he has wheels himself which he can hide, like his wings?’
‘Olam returns,’ Seela mind spoke them.
The three men wore broad grins when they arrived. ‘Lots of koninas,’ Pallin announced. ‘Only a few paces from the entrance. Stables full of gear and feed grain. No one watching the gates.’
‘Easy to tell which ones are ours: the others are all so pale coloured,’ Riff added.
‘And do you remember the route in, through all those different circles, each with their own gateways?’ Gan asked pointedly. ‘It isn’t going to be easy, getting out of here if Kertiss orders the Qwah to make sure we stay put.’
Olam’s grin faded rather. He sighed. ‘I feel a bit better knowing where the koninas are anyway,’ he said. He brightened. ‘Surely the Qwah wouldn’t argue with us if the Dragons flew close above us?’
