Drogoya: Book 3 Circles of Light series, page 8
Shema smiled at them and suggested they made themselves comfortable. Pajar followed the earth mage’s lead, offering tea or berry juice, which offer they accepted.
‘We hear worrying news of Fira,’ Shema began smoothly. ‘Speaker Orsim and Pajar believe the Speaker and Assembly plan to raise the waters of the Circles against us. Would you think this is either likely or even possible?’
The shorter of the girls, Graza, glanced at her two friends, then nodded.
‘They spoke of nothing else when they had shut us in that barn.’
The other girl, Mokray, interrupted. ‘We were so afraid, suddenly dragged from the infirmary and thrown into that place. Kralo suggested that we concentrate on trying to hear them to stop us from being so scared.’
Shema’s gaze moved along to the boy. ‘Were you not afraid too Kralo?’
He looked startled. ‘Of course I was Councillor Shema, but it seemed to be the most sensible thing to do. If we were very careful, we could find out what they planned for us without them being aware. We could not get out: the door was barred and guards stood all around the building.’ He shivered slightly. ‘Before this happened to our eyes, we had all asked the Assembly for permission to come to Parima for assessment, but we were all refused.’
‘And we were not the only ones,’ Graza added. ‘Quite a number have asked to leave, during the last two or three cycles.’ She dropped her gaze to her hands, twisted tightly in her lap.
Mokray stared straight at Shema. ‘They just disappeared. We thought they must have gained permission and come here, but Chornay has checked for us. There is no record of them ever being here, yet they are no longer in Fira.’
Chapter Seven
The few members of the Order of Sedka who escaped the killing frenzy, made their way to various Chapter Houses in the hope of finding sanctuary. The crazed bloodlust seeped outwards from the Menedula and paused for a few days to ensure the total annihilation of the town of Syet. That pause gave some of the fleeing Observers, Aspirants and Kooshak hope that they might escape completely. A handful of such refugees made their way on foot and horseback to the north-west, towards the House of Oblaka.
Two Kooshak who were travelling healers, met on the shoulder of the Gara Mountain and together made their way down to the town of Valoon. They found an inn where they could obtain a much needed meal, and for a price, horses to carry them on to Oblaka. There were few customers in the common room when they arrived in mid afternoon, but the innkeeper, a barrel of a man, agreed that he could supply both meal and horses.
He brought the food himself, introduced himself as Volk and looked pointedly at the obsidian beads the Kooshak wore at their throats. The woman gave him a wan smile.
‘I am Kooshak Sarryen, and my travelling companion is Kooshak Arryol.’
Volk nodded. ‘In a bit of a hurry are you?’
There was the slightest pause before either Kooshak replied, which could be accounted for by the fact that they were eating.
‘Yes Goodmaster Volk. We need to reach Oblaka at all speed.’
Volk nodded again. ‘Trouble all ways,’ he pronounced.
Forks halted midway to mouths. ‘All ways?’ Arryol queried.
‘Aye. Word came yesterday that Oblaka House and town both be afire. People gone crazy.’ He studied each Kooshak shrewdly. ‘Trouble where you came from then?’
Sarryen laid her fork on her plate and reached for her bowl of tea.
‘Goodmaster Volk, there is very bad trouble on the other side of the Gara. If it reaches here, you will not be safe, even in this well built stone inn of yours.’ Her silver eyes held Volk transfixed. ‘We believe that the only hope for any of us is to reach the Oblaka.’
When Volk would have protested and repeated his tale of madness and fire in the Oblaka area, Sarryen raised her hand. She glanced quickly at Arryol, then back to Volk. ‘We who follow Myata closer than we do Sedka, have been taught, and so we believe, that there is always a place of safety at the Oblaka. So there we must go. And I strongly urge that you hide your valuables, pack up your family and join us at once.’
Volk rocked gently back and forth on the balls of his feet for a moment.
‘Know an Observer called Ren Salar do you?’
Arryol frowned. ‘Yes. I do. Except he is an Offering, not an Observer. Why?’
‘Offering is he?’ Volk pursed his mouth in a soundless whistle. ‘I thought it strange that an Observer be travelling without no badge of office and now you say he be an Offering. In a great hurry to get to Oblaka too, him and his friend.’
‘Please, think about coming with us Master Volk. We leave as soon as you can ready the horses for us.’ Sarryen spoke earnestly.
The innkeeper made no reply, only turned away and vanished to the kitchens behind the bar.
‘So Ren Salar is in Oblaka. I had heard that he had suddenly left the Menedula. The message I received said that, if any of us came across him, we were to tell him that his presence was urgently needed back there.’
Sarryen drank the last of the tea.
‘I do not know him myself. I wonder who travelled with him. It seems most odd that he was wearing no insignia.’
Arryol counted some coins out onto the table to pay for their food. ‘Maybe he heard something of what was to happen. I know he was a protégé of Babach’s.’ His eyes met Sarryen’s. ‘And Babach was from Oblaka originally I was told.’
‘So an Offering of the Order of Sedka could well be a follower of Myata.’ Sarryen suggested.
‘Finn Rah never hid the fact that she believed Sedka’s teachings had been corrupted. I attended her theory classes years past, and she strongly advocated that we study Myata’s teachings much more deeply than we were expected to.’ Arryol got to his feet. ‘It was she who proposed me for acceptance within the Order of Myata.’
‘Me too,’ Sarryen said with a smile.
When Arryol rapped his knuckles on the bar counter, Volk appeared at once. He lifted a bulging pack onto the counter and propped a staff against it.
‘Think you be right,’ he said curtly, as a tall beanpole of a man came from the kitchens. The newcomer began folding shutters across the front windows, securing them with horizontal iron bars. Volk went out to the entrance and shut the heavy doors, locking them and also barring them.
‘This way out.’
The two Kooshak silently followed Volk through the kitchens and emerged into the stableyard. A scrawny boy was leading a horse from a large barn.
The boy tied the horse he’d been leading to the rail and ran back to the barn.
A much younger version of Volk, and female into the bargain, came round the side of the inn laden with various bags and bundles. Two children carried more parcels at her side. Volk muttered to himself then spoke aloud to the Kooshak.
‘Daughter and her husband Povar,’ he nodded at the beanpole, who was trying to relieve the woman of some of her burdens. ‘Their two children. And I won’t leave Rivan. Don’t know where he’s from but he turned up here three years past and works hard.’
The ragged boy glanced at Volk at the sound of his name.
‘Fetch another two, one for all those bundles and one for you Rivan.’
The boy raced again to the barn.
Sarryen and Arryol were surprised at how speedily they were mounted and their little cavalcade moving out of a small gate behind the barn. Volk led them up an alley and onto a wooded track behind the inn. Arryol looked over his shoulder and saw no one at all in the main street.
‘Where is everyone?’ he asked Volk quietly.
The innkeeper shot him a quick look. ‘Most already gone up to the mountains to their summer cabins. People round here smell trouble quick though. Any still here, hiding themselves away.’
‘How far to the Oblaka – I have never been there?’ Sarryen nudged her horse closer to Volk’s flank.
‘Three days,’ was the short answer. ‘And if you Kooshak be able to shield, that may be a good idea.’
Sarryen let Arryol move alongside. ‘I will shield today – I should have thought of it before.’
Arryol nodded. ‘Tell me if you tire and I will take over.’ He looked unhappy. ‘It is not something I have practised much, not having felt the need to do so before.’
Sarryen smiled wryly. ‘Nor me, but I think we must now.’
They followed the same route taken earlier by Ren Salar and Voron, and encountered no people and no difficulties during the next two days. The Kooshak had found shielding tired them quickly at first but took turns every few hours. By the second day, they were much easier with the procedures involved and were more confident of their ability to shield the party. Dawn of the third day gave them their first glimpse of what was left of the town of Oblaka.
Volk had led them along a narrow trail a league or so higher than the more well used track taken by Ren and Voron. As they came clear of the woodland, three creatures rose from the undergrowth bordering the path, and attacked. Arryol was shielding them but only from prying minds, and Sarryen snapped at him to maintain the shielding even as she swung her horse round to protect his side.
Volk and his son in law Povar, freed their staves and proved to have a great facility with the weapons, the wood humming through the air before crashing into an attacker’s skull. Rivan pushed himself and the pack horse towards Volk’s daughter and grandchildren and drew a wicked looking knife from beneath his layers of rags. Sarryen noted that their assailants were human, although their faces were contorted into bestial grimaces. And their eyes burned like coals.
Quite calmly, she pushed her magic into the one nearest to her. He stiffened and started to turn towards her. Sarryen flicked her hand and he fell, his heart ruptured. Povar and Volk were finding that no matter how many blows they landed – which should have proved fatal to any ordinary being – did not even slow these creatures. Sarryen sat relaxed on her horse and burst the heart of first one, then the last. Volk and Povar looked at her. She realised she was shaking badly enough that she had trouble staying in her saddle. Arryol caught her arm, riding close to support her. Without a word, Volk moved into the lead again, Povar at the rear, and they rode on.
The town still smouldered but they saw no living creatures, human, animal, or whatever they were that had attacked them.
‘I have not seen a case of the affliction before,’ Arryol said softly. ‘But that was what had happened to those poor souls was it not?’
Sarryen managed to turn a little to stare at him.
‘Those “poor souls” would have killed all of us without compunction Arryol. And probably eaten us.’ She faced forward again in silence, wracked with physical and mental trembling. Never would she have imagined herself capable of using her healer’s knowledge to take a life. Never. Yet she had just done exactly that.
Volk skirted the town, all of them alert and wary of every breeze that ruffled a bush, or pushed a half charred door into motion. The two Kooshak looked up towards the Oblaka complex on the cliff top. They saw that it too was a burnt out ruin.
‘You know where to go Goodmaster Volk?’ Sarryen asked, her teeth chattering with her shaking.
‘Aye.’ After a few more paces, Volk glanced back at Sarryen. ‘Delivered things now and then, to an Observer. Lives away from the main House. Showed me a couple of ways up and down.’ He turned away again.
They gave the horses their heads to pick their own way up the steep uneven hillside, on a faint path more suited to goats than to men or horses. They wound round a great solitary boulder and then on again, across a treacherous scree slope. A shout came from above them and someone waved. Then another head appeared and a grey haired woman stepped clear of what seemed to be solid rock.
‘Finn Rah,’ Sarryen managed.
‘Yes. Come. As promised, there is safety in the Oblaka. Arryol release your shielding, others are covering you for the moment, and help Sarryen inside.’ The Offering studied Volk and his daughter, the jade green in her silver eyes glittering with amusement. ‘It may be a tight squeeze, but we will get you inside too Goodmaster Volk.’
Sarryen woke to find herself in a tiny stone room, just big enough to hold the narrow pallet on which she lay, a small table and a stool. A lamp glowed on the table and looking round as she pushed herself upright, she realised there was no window. She rubbed her hands over her face and through her hair, finding that someone had undone her braid. Her disorientation vanished as memory flooded back. Finn Rah was here. Sarryen remembered seeing her outside, then she had been led stumbling, and at one point, crawling, through cracks in the rock. Then nothing, until now. But she was safe. She was in, or rather, under, the Oblaka. The door opened and Finn Rah squeezed into the tiny room.
‘I thought you had awoken.’ She smiled, handing Sarryen a bowl of tea. She sat on the stool and watched the Kooshak sip. ‘You have slept two days. We thought it best, after what you had to do.’
Sarryen shivered, remembering.
‘Stay in bed if you wish,’ Finn began, but Sarryen shook her head.
‘No thank you. I would like to know more of this place.’
Finn Rah smiled again. ‘I suspected that you might. One of the students will come and show you where to wash and get more tea. When you have had a good look around, she will bring you to me.’
‘Volk and his family?’ Sarryen asked suddenly. ‘They can stay here too can they not?’
‘Well of course they can. Volk began doing various errands for Observer Chakar when he was a small boy – difficult as that may be to imagine now.’ She grinned wickedly. ‘We feared that he and his daughter were stuck fast a couple of times on the way in. But the joy of having an expert cook.’ Finn rolled her eyes in bliss.
‘Volk’s daughter?’
‘No, no. The beanpole. I swear he could make a feast from oatmeal and turnips.’ Finn Rah rose. ‘Melena will be along shortly, and I will see you later.’
The student Melena arrived with a pile of clothing, brushes and combs, small rounds of different coloured and scented soaps, and a shy smile.
‘Kooshak Arryol is in the infirmary. We have five badly burned patients still whom our healers are struggling to help. Already Kooshak Arryol has done a great deal for them.’
‘While I have been lying about in bed.’ Sarryen said in a tone of self disgust. She pushed away the quilt and put her feet on the floor.
‘Oh no. Oh Kooshak Sarryen, I was not criticising.’ Melena looked aghast.
Sarryen studied the girl. She was very young indeed, yet her eyes were already silvered around grey pupils. Sarryen patted the bed beside her, and Melena sat nervously.
‘You do not need to be formal child. I am a Kooshak, yes, but my name is just Sarryen, which is what I prefer to be called.’
‘But you are Kooshak,’ Melena argued. ‘You could be an Offering.’
Sarryen sighed. ‘Some have those kinds of ambitions child. I knew from the time I entered the Menedula as a student that I wished to be a Kooshak – to travel the land, meeting the people. I could never have endured being confined to the Menedula for years at a time – it was hard enough being a student enclosed there. So. I am Sarryen, and you are Melena. Tell me what is your field of study, then tell me what befell the Oblaka while I dress.’
‘Shall I brush your hair Koo – Sarryen?’ Melena asked, watching Sarryen sort through the heap of clothes.
Without looking at the girl, Sarryen touched her mind gently and found a genuine need to be of service within the child. She handed her a brush.
‘No one has brushed my hair for me since I left home for the Menedula,’ she smiled. ‘It would be wonderful if you would do it for me now.’
Sarryen was amazed by the extent of the caverns which Melena showed her. She encountered Volk in the common room. staring morosely into a bowl of tea.
‘Had to leave my horses loose on the hill,’ he grumbled. ‘Probably get theirselves eaten.’
A student bringing Sarryen some hot food, grinned. ‘Master Volk is going to show us the arts of brewing later today,’ he told Sarryen.
Volk brightened fractionally. ‘Which of these caves will I be able to use then?’ he asked. He heaved his bulk out from behind the table and rolled after the student.
When Sarryen had eaten enough, Melena led her along the passages to Chakar’s sitting room, and left her at the door. Entering at Finn Rah’s call, Sarryen joined the Offering beside the hearth. She smiled at Finn.
‘I am truly astonished. I guess the whole cliff is composed of the amalgam which deflects magic?’
Finn Rah nodded. ‘To any inquisitive minds, there is only a small area of the rock – where it is exposed to the surface directly above this room. The rest is hidden beneath a considerable depth of soil – thus undetectable.’
A silence fell between them Finally Sarryen stirred. ‘Cho Petak is the instigator of this turmoil, is he not?’ she asked quietly.
Finn removed her gaze from the fire’s twisting flames. ‘He is, and there is a very great deal I have to tell you, my dear.’
Finn Rah finally stopped speaking and Sarryen sat, maps and parchments on her lap and around her feet, trying to grasp the immensity of all she had been told.
‘You do not know if Babach survived?’ was all she felt able to ask.
Finn stretched her arms above her head. ‘No word from the Night Lands for sixteen days.’ She grimaced. ‘The Plavat, Baryet, said his mate was nesting, so it would be difficult even for Chakar to persuade him to fly here again.’
‘And there really is no other way we could contact them?’
‘No one can travel so far with their minds – at least, no one here. I have to assume that Cho Petak can either use mind travel so powerfully, or he has a way quite unthought of by us.’
