Lodestone Book One: The Sea of Storms (3 page)

She ducked left
and sprinted on past the backs of the squat houses with their stone
roofs. The Inn where she worked was three streets over.
Can’t lead them there.

Suddenly, she
heard the sound of tramping boots from a connecting passageway up
ahead. She froze in panic.
You
fool
, she thought to herself angrily. Some
of the soldiers had obviously made for Arian Street, and then cut
back through the next alleyway to head her off. They had her
trapped.

Shann cast about wildly. To her
left was a sheer stone wall; to her right, a fence leading to a
back yard–her only option. She jumped, grabbing the rough wooden
panel with both hands, hauling herself up, scrambling over and
dropping to the other side without pause. She landed awkwardly,
pain lancing through her right ankle. She grimaced, cursing her own
stupidity again, and hobbled towards the building, her teeth
clenched.

She could already hear a
commotion in the alley. The rain had all but stopped, and the sky
was starting to clear. By Ail-Mazzoth`s dim red light, she saw
double doors low to the ground. She pulled at a handle and a door
creaked open to reveal the top of a ladder descending into
darkness. Shann lowered herself into the gap and quickly pulled the
door shut over her. Using two hands and her one good leg, she
descended until her foot felt level ground.

The air smelt musty. Her Kelanni
eyes adjusted quickly to the lower light and she spied what looked
like a pile of wood in one corner. Shann hopped over to it and
dropped down, behind the pile. Her pounding heart began to slow a
little. Her ankle yelled for attention, but she ignored it. She
pulled some pieces of wood over her and lay still.

Voices.
“…climb …are you sure? Captain, over here!” A
scuffing of boots against earth. The door to the basement creaked
open. “Berin, bring a tinderbox, quickly.” The sound of a match
flaring. Shann tried to make herself smaller, pressing herself into
the earth.

Then another voice. “What are you
doing there?”

It must be the
owner, Shann thought, none too happy at the invasion of his
property. The cellar door banged shut. Muffled voices continued
outside.
I have to get out of here,
now.
Next to the wood pile, steps led up,
no doubt to the main part of the property. There was a risk that
she might run into someone who would raise the alarm, but she had
no other choice. She shucked off her wood covering, and struggled
up the steps. Lifting the latch, she opened the door as slowly as
she dared and then slipped through into a dim unlit room. The door
at the other end led to a narrow hallway. She limped down the
hallway, opened the door at the end and she was in Arian
Street.

She looked
rapidly this way and that, but the street was deserted.
Must get to the Inn
, she
thought determinedly. Hobbling as fast as she could and breathing
hard against the pain, Shann headed for the only place she knew as
home.

~

Shann slipped
into the Inn’s back entrance, closed the door behind her and leaned
against it for a moment. Her kitchen garb was wet through and heavy
and stuck to her skin. Her short black hair was soaked and matted.
Exhausted, she closed her eyes.
Have to
keep
moving
. She
bent down and massaged her ankle. It felt swollen, but the pain
didn’t seem as bad. She moved through the kitchen and climbed the
stairwell at the side. Her small sleeping room was at the end of
the hallway. Inside, she lit the tiny lamp and grabbed a cloth bag,
throwing it on her cot. Then she moved about quickly, locating a
change of clothes and her few meagre possessions.

The door to her room opened.
Gallar was standing at the entrance. She was short and slight like
Shann, her face lined with age but kindly. Her white hair was tied
straight back. She wore a tan nightgown and bore a handheld lamp.
As the flickering light fell on Shann, Gallar`s face fell in
concern. “What happened? You look terrible.”

Shann felt a lump rise in her
throat, but she didn’t look up. Instead, she continued shoving
things into the bag. “I have to go away for a while,
Gall.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have to go away. I will be
back as soon as I can.”

“Where are you going?”

“Lind.”

“Lind, why Lind?”

“It’s just…something happened
tonight and I have to leave.”

“Why? What happened?” Gallar
stepped into the room. Shann turned to face her, putting pressure
on her bad ankle and wincing as she did so.

“You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing.” Shann turned away
again, but Gallar grabbed her by both shoulders, forcing Shann to
face her. Her visage was etched in concern.

“What happened
to you?”
she insisted.

Shann swallowed. “I tried to help
a man, and now there are soldiers chasing me.”

“Man–what man?”

“I don’t know. Look Gall, I don’t
have much time.”

Gallar looked at the girl
intently, seeming to come to an inward decision. She released the
girl’s shoulders. “Wait here,” she said, and ducked out through the
door.

Released, Shann`s muscles seemed
to give way. She sat down hard on her cot, her head bowed. She shut
her eyes, and her mind replayed the events in the courtyard, but
they were like shards; the shattered pieces of a dream that made no
sense. Who was the stranger? Why would Keltar, the eyes and ears of
the Prophet himself, fight one another? But in truth, it was her
own actions that confused her the most. She had moved without
hesitation to come to the aid of a man whose life and motives she
did not know. Only that he seemed to be willing to fight for people
who were powerless to help themselves. People like Shann
herself.

With a start,
she suddenly recalled the object he had pressed into her hand. She
opened her eyes.
I must have dropped it in
the confusion,
she thought. Her hand went
to the pocket at the front of her dress and she felt a hard shape.
She had not even remembered putting it there. She reached in and
pulled it out. It seemed to pull away slightly as if it had some
built-in resistance. A disk, less than half the size of her palm,
it was stained with a hardened, milky white substance. Blood. She
recalled that stranger had been injured before his
escape.

A basin lay near her cot, with a
little water in it. She rinsed the blood off, clouding the water,
and dried the disk on her dress. The disk was ebony black;
featureless, with no markings of any kind. It seemed too smooth to
the touch–her finger appeared almost to slide off it. And there was
something else. As she viewed it from different angles, it seemed
to have a depth that her eye could not quite grasp. Dark curves and
whorls appeared to move over its surface…

There was a sound at the door,
and Shann hastily thrust the strange object back into her pocket.
It was Gallar, bearing a basin filled with fresh water and what
looked like towels. Without saying a word, she began to help Shann
clean off the excesses of dirt and grime. Shann changed her
clothing, and then Gallar turned her attention to the girl’s
bruised ankle. She produced some white bandage material.

As she wrapped the bandage
carefully around the affected limb, Shann suddenly felt like a
little girl again. It was not much more than a turn of the season
after Gallar and Poltann had taken her in that she had fallen
headlong while playing. She grazed both knees, and arrived at the
kitchen door howling. The woman named Gallar had bathed her cuts
and then, without a word, had rocked the little girl in her lap
until she fell silent.

She sat silent once more as the
older woman worked. “This may hurt a bit.” She tightened it and
tied it off. Shann did not wince.

Gallar stood up, brushing down
the front of her dress. “The soldiers are searching house by house
from Arian Street. Take this.” Shann glanced inside the small sack,
and saw bread and fruit. Gallar continued hurriedly, “Go down to
the stables. Take the graylesh that is already harnessed. Go south
to Fiveway Point, then head for the western gate.” Shann looked
down and nodded. Her eyes started to well up with tears. This
woman, though not her mother, had been a mother to her in every way
that mattered. Gallar took the girl into her arms, and the two held
each other fast and wept silently for a long moment.

They parted, and Shann wiped away
the tears with the back of one hand.

“Promise me you will come back.”
Gallar’s voice was pleading.

Shann had no idea when or how she
might be able to fulfil it, but she gave her answer without
hesitation. “I promise.”

Chapter
2

Keris sat straight in the saddle
and checked her bearings. Ail-Gan, the yellow sun, was already
climbing high in the sky. The huge ball that was Ail-Mazzoth loomed
motionless as ever, a dull crimson, transected by dark bands.
Ail-Kar, the white sun, lay beneath the western horizon, but would
be rising ere long.

She gazed off
to the left, searching for Dagmar Tower. She spotted it, jutting up
through the morning haze, and noted its position relative to the
road on which she was travelling. She pursed her lips.
This won’t do at all.

Kicking the graylesh`s striped
sides, she urged the animal into a loping stride, and caught up
with the van of a small convoy, consisting of two loaded wooden
carts pulled by graylesh and four dejected looking “tribute”
captives, two male and two female. The captives were flanked by two
soldiers in leather armour, augmented by iron studs. Four more
soldiers were posted to the front and rear.

Keris rode to
the front of the line, and shouted,
“Rodann!”

One of the soldiers turned to
face her, his armour dusty from the road. He had shoulder length
dark hair, a hawkish face, and eyes that squinted against the suns
as he looked up at Keris. “My Lady?”

“Rodann, pick up the pace. At
this rate, we won’t gain Chalimar Keep until dusk.”

“Yes, my Lady.” He turned to the
others and began barking orders. Animals and people were urged
forward roughly. Keris cast her eyes over those who had been
designated “tribute,” honoured with the privilege of entering into
the service of the Prophet. They did not look very privileged. They
shuffled along with heads and eyes downcast, half-blinded by the
dust from their passage. They appeared dirty, dishevelled and
uncaring. Keris wondered what their lives had been before. Farm
workers, artisans, herdsfolk–it hardly mattered. All of that was
gone now. Some might be engaged as servants at the keep. More
likely they would end up at the ore camps in the Southern Desert or
one of the processing facilities. She noted in passing that each of
them wore a harness, tied at the back, with a breastplate at the
front. She had not seen tributes arrayed that way before, but
keeping them in order was the province of the soldier Captain, and
she did not feel inclined to inquire into such minutiae.

Keris turned away from the
convoy, and urged her mount forward, riding ahead a short distance.
Pulling up, she scanned the road ahead. A cloud of dust was
approaching from the other direction. Gradually, it resolved into a
slow moving cart.

She heard Rodann`s voice behind
her. “A wagon, my Lady.”

“I can see that, thank
you.”

Rodann caught up to her position
and stood by her mount’s flank. “The silver, my Lady. We have
standing orders to search all transports leaving
Chalimar.”

Keris did not respond. Her face
was expressionless as she watched the cart’s languid approach. It
was pulled by a scrawny looking graylesh and seemed to have three…
no, four occupants.

Rodann pressed on. “Should I
apprehend them and have my men conduct the search?”

If these are
silver thieves, then they have surely fallen on hard
times
, thought Keris wryly. About a week
ago, an official convoy bearing silver astrias to Chalimar had
turned up one strongbox short. In Keris` opinion, it was far more
likely to have been a bookkeeping error than an organised theft,
but the order had gone out to conduct random stop and search
nonetheless.

Keris turned to face Rodann. “No,
we have lost too much time already. You will take charge of the
escort and make best speed towards the Keep. I will conduct the
search and catch up with you in due course.”

Rodann nodded and made to rejoin
the caravan. The track ahead carried on straight for a distance,
and then bore to the left and came back on itself as it started to
rise through a canyon to the higher ground on which Chalimar stood.
If she forsook the road, she could cut across country, and meet up
with the convoy farther ahead, but there were gullies and ravines
in that direction–too difficult a terrain to ride a graylesh
over.

She dismounted and started to
rummage through one of the saddle packs, retrieving her flying
cloak. It was neatly folded, of a close woven material and black as
pitch. To the Kelanni it was a symbol of the Prophet’s
authority–something to be feared. She was sure it was for that
reason that many Keltar seemed to wear their cloaks constantly,
even when eating or performing routine duties at the keep. To Keris
it was a tool, nothing more. Besides, she found the harness and
shoulder mechanism heavy and restricting.