A Skillful Warrior (SoulNecklace Stories Book 2) (24 page)

‘He doesn’t look like a dragon,’ I said.

TeSin seemed to understand me. ‘You see the Lord?’

I crossed the cave, stared into his black eyes. ‘Through you, I see.’

‘You and I. We joined.’ TeSin lifted a hand towards my head, as if to touch me, then let it fall. ‘I ... sorry.’

I felt calm. Calmer than I should be, probably. Maybe the shock would come later. ‘Will is right then? I am to be a sacrifice?’

TeSin spoke softly. ‘He right.’

‘But he, the Emperor, just looks old. And tired.’

TeSin shook his head. ‘He more than old man. Much more. See.’ He put my hand on his chest. I could feel his heart beating, his chest rising, falling. He closed his eyes. I closed mine, also.

I saw a golden tent pitched on an empty plain. The old man, the Emperor, stood on a dais in front of a group of warriors. Men raised their swords in salute and shouted until the very air seemed to tremble. He smiled briefly, raised a hand then turned away. As he turned, his cloak seemed to lift, and for a moment his shadow passed across the tent wall. Wings, I thought dizzily. He has wings.

But what was this? What were those others, creeping in the dark behind him?

‘You see?’ asked TeSin softly.

‘I see ... wings,’ I said uncertainly. ‘But I see something else, too.’

‘Kamaye,’ he sounded sad. ‘You see Kamaye.’ He pulled my hand from his chest. ‘I sorry.’

‘Kamaye?’

He shook his head and would not answer.

‘Kamaye,’ whispered Will. ‘But they are just a myth.’ He walked to the cave mouth and stared out at the stars. ‘It’s nearly dawn. We should all get some rest. We can work out what to do in the morning.’

Because he was looking out at the night, Will did not see N’tombe’s face, outlined by the flame. But I was watching her and I saw. My tutor had always appeared calm, as though no danger was too great for her, and she had always seemed able to manage any threat. But now N’tombe looked suddenly terrified.

‘Will is right. We must rest.’ She smiled, but it seemed as though her smile was forced, for it did not meet her eyes. ‘Things are better in the morning.’

It was hard to settle to sleep. I nestled against Will, feeling his warm body against mine, his arms cradling me. Remembered the pond, him standing there as I stumbled from the water. If only things had gone the way of country matters — cows and bulls, sheep and rams — then I would no longer be a virgin, no longer a child. I would be safe. Probably, Will was thinking the same thing, for his arm tightened. I fought to stay awake, to stay with him. We still had time.

But I was tired.

‘Sleep,’ murmured the beads. Dimly, I heard a lute and a voice singing a lullaby. I fell into the dream.

***

L
eaning over a bench, a young man carved patterns onto silver. Beautiful curves, swirled across the soft metal like waves across sand.

He stopped, brushed away the shavings and considered his work carefully. He was working on a sculpture shaped like a tree; he had been carving a knot hole in a branch. The thing was beautiful, graceful and somehow, amazingly foreign.

‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked. ‘What is it for?’

Wynne’s voice: ‘He cannot hear you.’

On the inside of the man’s left wrist was a tattoo, like the profile of a face or a letter in a strange script. About his right wrist he wore a band of plaited leather, with jade beads caught in the fine weave. I had seen this bracelet once before. I stood behind him watching the chisel working, while I shuffled through my dreams, trying to recall.

When last I’d seen him his wrist had been smaller, so the bracelet had hung loosely from his arm. He had been a boy, shambling up a gangplank into a barge. This young man had once been Master Yang’s apprentice.

Light swept across the silver, blinding me. I blinked, and the dream shifted.

‘Watch,’ whispered Wynne.

In an empty courtyard, slaves fitted metal pipes to a watercourse. Watched by guards with whips, the men crept to their task like beetles, hunching their shoulders against blows. Other slaves laid stones in a pit, fitting the edges together carefully. They were building a pond. No, not a pond — a fountain.

The apprentice, still wearing the jade beads about his wrist, directed them here and here. He beckoned to a burly slave. ‘This will be where the water comes out. See that big stone with the hole in it? It’s the plinth. You need to place the hole so it fits over the tube. Put it here. The fountain will sit on top.’

The man grunted, tried to lift the heavy stone.

‘You,’ called the apprentice to the guardsmen. ‘Come and help.’

A guardsman waved a lazy hand. ‘I’m not helping no slave.’

‘You want to me to tell the Master that?’

The guards looked at each other, and one set down his whip and came over. Slave and guard worked together to lift the heavy stone, while the apprentice directed them impatiently. ‘Not there! See that crack, between the stones, beside the pipe? It will be filled with mortar. Set the plinth stone over it. Yes, just there.’

They dropped the stone and both men stood, slave and guard, arching their backs with relief.

The sun passed behind a cloud. The world turned suddenly dark and I blinked.

‘When you wake,’ whispered Wynne, ‘remember: the apprentice, the stone and the fountain.’

***

I
woke with the dawn. Pink light tipped the edge of the cliffs and turned the rocks rose-red. The breeze smelt of aniseed and sand.

My hips ached from the hard floor. In the night Will had rolled away from me. He lay on his back and his breath sighed in and out like a soft wind. I watched his face for a time. He looked so peaceful.

I stood at the cave mouth and stared out across the valley. The shadows seemed too black and the wind sounded like the moan of a dying man. I had always longed to travel, but now, I just wanted to go home. Back to the Castle, where the sergeant barked commands to the guards and the weather-teller’s bells tinkled in the wind.

Puppets and sacrifice. Why did TeSin’s revelation feel so familiar, like something seen before, in a dream, or a play? With a jolt, I remembered: shadows on a screen. Not like marionettes, not at all. These puppets had had long disjointed arms and legs. They appeared more like insects than people.

But this dream was from months ago. It had been a true dream, though, but at the time I did not understand its significance. What had the puppets done? I shivered in the morning cold. I was losing track of who I was. Sometimes, I felt I was living two lives; the life of a blind stone carver and Dana, a Princess on the run.

How could I be a sacrifice? That’s ridiculous! No one sacrifices
people
. I wrapped my arms about myself, holding my fear inside.

Not fear. Anger.

I was no-one’s sacrifice.

‘Wake up,’ I said, breaking the silence and waking the sleepers, ‘it’s time to ride.’

We started along the track, aiming for a spring to water the horses. After the spring we were to follow the trail north, towards the seacoast. TeSin went at the front as guide, while N’tombe rode at the rear, watching for pursuit. Will and I rode side by side. I felt restless, uneasy.

The trail entered another snaking canyon. Its wall enclosed us, folding about us like a shroud. Ahead, TeSin’s horse turned the corner of the narrow stone corridor. Behind, N’tombe was hidden by another wall of stone. For a moment Will and I were alone.

‘There is a weapon,’ I spoke softly, so TeSin could not hear. ‘A dagger, carved of jade. It is hidden somewhere.’

‘Why are you whispering?’

‘I don’t want
him
to know.’

‘TeSin? Why not?’

‘Will. Listen! This is important.’

He looked at me. ‘All right. There is a stone dagger’

‘It’s hidden somewhere and I have to find it.’

He blinked. ‘Do you know where it is?’

I hesitated. ‘No. Not really. I wondered if you might know.’

I could see him thinking this through, trying to work out all the places in the world he might know of where a stone dagger might be hidden.

‘There’s a fountain,’ I added. ‘The dagger and the fountain, they’re related.’

‘Um, anything else you can tell me?’

I knew the jade was special, it was green, it was from far away. I knew the carver was blind, that his apprentice had been taken into slavery. The carvings on the dagger were beautiful and fine and the stone felt cool and slippery to the touch. I knew so much. But was it needful for Will to be told all this? Think. The fountain. Could he tell me where the fountain was?

‘Um, I think the fountain is made of silver?’

‘Oh. Yes! Yes! I know it.’ He stared at me. ‘At least, I know of
a
silver fountain. Dana, did you see this in your dreams? Or did I tell you?’

I shook my head. ‘I saw it in a dream.’

He made a face. I knew my nightmares disturbed him. They disturbed me, also. My sleep was becoming crowded.

‘Will, where is this fountain?’

He sighed. ‘It’s in the Stronghold.’

The Stronghold, the Black Citadel, the city of the Emperor. Acting as a spy for N’tombe, Will had spent time there. He’d been a member of their elite guards, until his friend, Kasar, had realized the truth about him. Killing that friend had been the hardest thing Will had ever had to do.

‘What does it look like?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Nothing remarkable. Like a tree, with lots of narrow bits sticking out. It’s very old.’ He smiled. ‘Most of the time you wouldn’t even know it’s silver.’

‘Why not?’

‘Silver tarnishes, see? It only gets polished up at the moon festivals.’

‘Are there carvings on it?’

He thought for a moment. ‘I think so. Why?’

I told him of my dream; of the apprentice carving the silver, of a fountain being built in a courtyard. ‘Will, I have to find the dagger.’

Will growled, deep in his throat. ‘You know how dangerous that is? You heard TeSin. They’ll all be after you.’

Of course I knew.

‘Let me go,’ he said. ‘Much safer. I know the city.’

Tempting. So tempting. But the beads about my wrist warmed as a silent warning. ‘It has to be me. Besides, you’re a wanted man there.’

We argued the point for some time, while the sun rose in the sky, and the shadows retreated. For a moment we forgot pursuit, the need to travel quickly, even that we had traveling companions. We were just Dana and Will with time together; and we wasted it in argument.

Later that afternoon we reached the spring, a trickle of water that slithered down a tumble of rocks and ended in the roots of a gnarled thorn bush. Holding the water flasks, TeSin slid from his saddle. Suddenly, he froze. N’tombe rounded the corner and stopped, looked back along the canyon way. Then we all heard it. A faint, dry scraping, like metal rasping against stone.

‘What was that?’

TeSin shook his head. ‘I know not.’

Will put his hand on his weapon, turned his horse to face the direction of the sound.

‘Follow me,’ N’tombe said to me, silently. Her voice in my head, in my mind.

As I watched, she seemed to melt into the air; her body on the horse, but her mind leaping free. How did she do that?

‘Open your eyes, Dana,’ she whispered. ‘See the world as it really is.’

I opened my vision. The world trembled and grew and the walls of stone seemed to waver. I reached out to the light, lifting on the warm air, climbing out of the valley. N’tombe followed, joining me in the air. We hung together, suspended in waves of gold.

Everything seemed distant; unreal. Below lay flat-topped mountains, creased by narrow ravines. From the sky it was obvious that the land was a maze of hidden valleys. But the mountaintops were so level that, were I a giant, I could walk across their tops like a roadway.

Suddenly, the beads about my wrist seemed to flame into life.

‘
Ware
,’ called Adianna.

‘Behind you,’ said Rob.

‘Hide,’ said Suzanna. ‘Quickly.’

We turned. And we saw.

A line of smoke smothered the distant horizon. Behind its black wall, lightning cracked, arcing into threatening clouds. But worse than the smoke and storm was the fire, traveling fast across the barren mountains. The flames sparked along the canyon ways, turning them into rivers of fire. The enemy had found our trail.

Squawking, birds flung themselves into the air. As the blaze overtook them they flared, small sparks against the black storm.

Behind the tumult was the mind of the enemy. There were many minds; briefly, I touched them. Recoiled. It was like holding a scorpion, or viewing an oozing abscess, full of filth and pus.

These minds felt different to the other magicians’; vastly more powerful, ancient and fully evil. Suffering no rivals, they had grown fat on the leavings of the lesser. They would burn the world, if in so burning they gained their desire.

‘The Kamaye,’ breathed N’tombe.

I didn’t have time to ask her what the Kamaye were. But I knew what they wanted. They wanted me.

‘Go!’ I said to N’tombe. ‘Quickly.’

‘Lady! No!’

‘Don’t you see? It’s me they’re after.’ I had to stop it. This tide of darkness would sweep across the land and nothing, no one, could turn it back. I pushed her. ‘Go to the others. Keep them safe. Now!’

The animals were circling about, raising dust with their hooves. They could smell the smoke. TeSin ran to his horse and threw himself onto its back. The mare bucked but TeSin wrapped his legs around her and held on tight.

Neighing wildly, the horses tried to flee. I threw thoughts of green grass at them until they calmed. Will wrestled with his, fought to keep it still. Caught between the minds of the horses and the tumult in the air, I struggled to find myself.

‘N’tombe,’ I hissed. ‘You have to. Please. Look after Will. I can’t protect him and fight. I can’t.’ Will was my center. If he was safe, all would be well. My wrist throbbed.

The firewall was building. Orange flames traced along the canyon ways, marking a thin track of fire against the mountains like the spark of a fuse. Smoke billowed into the sky, turning the world dark. It stung my eyes and smelt of death.