Perilous Shadows: Book 6 Circles of Light (30 page)

Shivan stepped forward
and Corman relaxed.

‘Welcome, Shivan.’ His
expression changed to one of alarm. ‘All is well?’

Shivan nodded but waved
a hand at the room. ‘Will we be overheard, or
interrupted?’

Corman frowned. He
picked up his goblet and moved to the archway.

‘It is a mild evening.
Let us sit outside for a while.’

By the time Shivan had
given as full a report to Corman as possible, the dark sky was full
of stars. Finally Shivan sat back with a sigh.

‘Is my father in the
Palace?’ he asked.

‘No. He has exhausted
himself, insisting on staying with the First Daughter almost
constantly. I ordered him home to your mother this
morning.’

Corman rose to his
feet. ‘Let’s get you some food lad. Then you must rest before you
return to the north.’

Shivan felt suddenly
tired, and very hungry. He sank onto one of the many couches in the
great chamber while Corman went to request that food be brought.
Corman returned to the chamber and saw Shivan fast asleep. He
refilled his goblet from a decanter and sat on the couch he’d been
using. He crossed his long legs and swirled his drink gently, his
golden gaze fixed on Shivan.

He looked devastatingly
young to Corman, but he’d had to concede First Daughter Lerran was
correct. In Shivan lay the hope and the future of the Dark Ones.
Corman raised his goblet in silent salute to the young Lord asleep
across the room.

The company walked back
to their camp by the mine, stopping on the way to admire the
effects of Darrick and Onion’s explosive devices. The two engineers
were manically pleased with their handiwork but, as always,
regretted the loss of some of their crackers.

‘Isn’t it odd,’ Sket
remarked to Tika. ‘They’re desperate to use those bloody things,
then when they do, they moan that they’ve only got twenty
left.’

Tika snorted. ‘I’m
beginning to suspect that’s perfectly normal with
engineers.’

Dog met them at the top
of the trail.

‘Have fun boys?’ she
enquired pleasantly.

‘Oh you should have
seen it Dog!’ Darrick began with enthusiasm. ‘Crackers at each
corner and two inside. Single line fuse. Simple.’

Dog smirked. ‘So I’m
three up on each of you now, right?’

She caught Tika’s eye
and winked. Darrick’s face fell and Onion scowled, but Tika thought
it prudent to keep walking and not get involved. Konya was stirring
something in their biggest pot, which smelled rather wonderful. She
looked up as the company arrived.

‘Dog told me that noise
was Darrick and Onion.’

Tika grinned. ‘Not them
personally Konya, just a few of those little toys they’re so fond
of.’

Shea was busy pouring
tea from the ever steaming kettle, but she gave Tika a hard stare
and tapped her chest. Tika tugged her pendant free of her shirt and
held it in her palm. It felt cool now, but she knew it had started
to heat when she approached Mena. Why? Dromi didn’t seem to have
moved since they’d left him in camp that morning. Tika glanced
round for Dog and wandered over to where she was still bickering
with the other two engineers. Dog raised a brow
questioningly.

‘Has Dromi said or done
anything?’ Tika asked softly.

Dog shook her head. ‘He
asked Konya about some of her herbs, is all.’

Tika smiled her thanks
and, still holding her pendant in her palm, strolled back to sit
cross legged beside the Old Blood.

‘Ever seen one of
these, Dromi?’

She held the pendant
out on its gold chain. Dromi blinked and focused his vari- coloured
eyes on what Tika held. Without hesitation, he reached to hold it
steady where Tika had let it dangle free. He turned it, studying
the red gold backing, then the light yellowish amber filling the
front, forming an odd egg shape. He let it go and met Tika’s
eyes.

‘I’ve never seen such a
thing. Is it a talisman?’

Tika stared into the
pendant, seeing the minute shape within, twisting gently as though
alive.

‘I suppose it has
become a sort of talisman to me. Does it suggest anything to
you?’

Dromi peered closely at
it again. ‘Apart from its shape, it could be a piece of ordinary
jewellery such as many wealthy people might wear.’

‘Its shape?’

Dromi shrugged. ‘It is
egg shaped. Many believe that is the most enigmatic of
symbols.’

Tika waited for him to
continue.

‘It is something that
shelters new life; it has an unbroken surface over which a finger
can move unobstructed. It looks solid yet hold an egg to a candle,
and it is almost transparent. As I say, it is considered a
mysterious and mystical form.’

He reached for the
pendant once more. ‘I cannot tell how it was made. Gold is easily
worked, but I don’t recognise this other stuff, or how it might
have been melded with the gold. There is no seam that I can see or
feel. A master craftsman must surely have made it and clearly it is
of great value, but I see no significance in it as
such.’

Tika dropped the
pendant back under her shirt and changed the subject. ‘It may be
impossible for us to travel to your Steadfast Rock I’m afraid. We
are waiting on Shivan’s return. Anything he has learned will then
decide our next move.’

She watched Dromi from
beneath her lashes and caught his look of sudden dismay, quickly
hidden under his usual blandness.

‘That is a
disappointment to me,’ he replied. ‘But I must hope you will be
able to visit at the earliest convenient opportunity.’

Tika accepted a bowl of
tea from Shea and met Dromi’s eyes directly. ‘Why?’

No flicker betrayed
Dromi’s thoughts. ‘You and Lord Shivan are – most unusual. You are
able to use power in ways I have never heard of.’

‘So you’d like to –
examine us?’

Dromi’s long fingers
tightened around his own tea bowl. ‘We would certainly like to
learn what we can from you.’

Tika sighed. ‘Dromi,
you have no idea of the power we could command should we need
to.’

She saw the scepticism
in his eyes. She raised a clenched fist, thinking of Mim, deep in
the tunnels of the Domain of Asat. Slowly, she let her hand unfold
and a small green twig appeared on her palm. She watched Dromi
while the twig quivered, stretched, tiny leaf buds unfurled, and at
the twig’s tip a soft white flower bud began to swell. The company
had drawn closer and watched with Dromi as the bud fattened and
petals curled daintily open.

Only Sket and Khosa
recognised the flower as being the same as the one Mim had created.
The only sound was the crackling of the fire when Tika held out the
perfect creamy rose to Dromi. He took it, stunned speechless once
more. Tika leaned a little closer.

‘I can create that
Dromi, something intricate and beautiful. I can also
destroy.’

She gestured at a large
stone partly propping up the kettle over the fire. The rock
shivered to powdered dust and the kettle lurched. Konya leaped to
catch the handle and gave vent to a stream of extraordinarily
fluent and unladylike curses. Tika laughed.

‘I’m surprised at you
Konya. You’ve been around these guards too long.’

She got up and went to
where Khosa still sat on Kija’s cushion. Khosa stretched, front end
down, hind end up, and followed as Tika began to scramble up the
side of the ridge.

‘I wonder how Mim’s
getting on,’ Khosa spoke in Tika’s mind.

‘Better than we are, I
hope,’ Tika answered, reaching the top and sitting near the
edge.

Khosa sat neatly beside
her and they both looked out, over the desolate town to where dust
still hung in the windless air.

‘Farn showed us the
bones. Kija went to hunt, but we all saw.’

Tika stroked a hand
down Khosa’s spine.

‘And he showed us the
children when you brought them out.’

‘What do these changed
appearances mean Khosa? I didn’t sense as deeply as I could, but
Mena was altered inside too. Lungs, heart, they weren’t truly
human. She spoke.’

Khosa’s head turned
sharply to look up at Tika. ‘She did? What did she say?’

‘The other thing within
her spoke,’ Tika corrected herself. ‘It said it couldn’t adjust.
The body was too frail and the air too foul.’

‘What?’ Khosa stalked
round Tika and back, then up and down over her knees.

‘Do you understand what
it means Khosa? Khosa, calm down, tell me.’

‘I don’t know enough. I
don’t remember enough.’She clawed her way up Tika’s shirt and wide
turquoise eyes peered into Tika’s face, whiskers bristling with
agitation.

Tika held the little
orange cat close. ‘Try to tell me Khosa?’

‘It sounds familiar –
from when I was a tiny child.’

Tika tucked Khosa’s
head under her chin and stroked her steadily while a cold finger
traced a line down her own spine. She knew only fragments of
Khosa’s story. She knew that, unlikely as it seemed, Khosa was
older than Kija or Fenj. That she had once had human form, and that
she had travelled far, across the star fields, in a Ship like Star
Singer, with her family. And also that her father was
Namolos.

Holding the trembling
cat, Tika tried to connect the words she’d heard from Mena and what
she’d learned of the several Ships that had reached this world. Was
air different, she wondered? Her thought must have leaked because
Khosa moved against her shoulder.

‘Yes, air is different.
You remember the way the air turned bad at Blue Mirror? There are
creatures, here I expect, and on other worlds, who can only live
breathing such air.’

Tika absorbed that
remark. ‘That implies the changed forms are from a world greatly
different from this one.’

‘Yes.’

‘But if the air is
wrong for them here, surely they will try to find another
place?’

Khosa heaved a sigh.
‘Perhaps they can’t.’

Slowly Tika recalled
what she’d learnt of the Ships which brought Khosa and her people,
people like Kertiss, Orla and Sefri. Sefri had said that many other
Ships still circled this world, lifeless now, unable to land on the
surface and unable to fly further.

‘Khosa, is this a
separate thing, or is it the Splintered Kingdom? If only someone
could tell us what the Crazed One actually looks like. Why should
the First Daughter’s face and body change as it did – she is
human.’

‘I’ve listened to all
you’ve been told, and much else besides. Even when the Dark Ones
understood that we use mind speech, they often spoke in front of me
and Akomi without thinking that we were listening. I have come to
the conclusion that the Splintered Kingdom did indeed crash into
the Places Between and it can touch this world more closely than it
should. But I think it became melded more completely with the
Shadow Realm. And the Dark Ones say they know next to nothing of
Shadows. If they truly do not, we must find someone who
does.’

Chapter
Seventeen

The sounds of someone
climbing the ridge warned Tika of a new arrival and she watched as
Konya’s iron grey head appeared. Konya stood puffing slightly, a
little hesitant to disturb Tika.

‘Come and sit with us,’
Tika invited. ‘And you really must stop learning those words from
the men.’

Konya sat beside her
and grinned broadly. ‘You have no idea Tika, what forty years
confined to the Citadel and the infirmary was like. Everyone so
polite to your face and hissing like serpents behind your back. It
is a wonderful relief to speak plainly.’

‘Hmm. Prince Jemin
would have hysterics if he heard a senior Kelshan healer speaking
quite so plainly.’

Konya laughed in
delight. ‘Good.’

They sat quietly for a
few moments, then Konya sighed. ‘I do listen you know. I’ve worried
that you must wonder why I’m here with you all. I like cooking for
the company and I can’t describe how grateful I am for the chance
to travel with you. But I do listen.’

‘And what do you hear?’
Tika continued to cradle Khosa, staring out over
Merriton.

‘I’ve tried to put
together what you say of this Splintered Kingdom with what I know –
little enough though that is – of the Broken Realm. Two of my
colleagues were fascinated with the idea of other realms, other
existences. I wasn’t particularly interested but the two I’m
speaking of were the closest friends I had. They listened to me
boring on about different aspects of healing which incorporated
magery, and I listened to them.’

Khosa twisted in Tika’s
arms so she could watch Konya’s face.

‘One of them, Anlif, he
was the most passionate on the subject.’ She paused. ‘He – died,
last winter. Well, he was summoned to the Imperatrix for some sort
of discussion and he didn’t come back. We were told he’d had an
unfortunate fall and died. A lot of people had fatal accidents
around that bloody woman.’