Perilous Shadows: Book 6 Circles of Light (37 page)

‘So that’s where you
hid yourself.’

He winked at her. ‘Too
many people getting in each other’s way in here.’

‘Where is that island
anyway?’ Rhaki asked.

They waited for Navan
to explain and a chorus of protest rose when he produced three of
the maps again. He laid out the papers, the one with the island, in
the middle, and stood back. Volk wandered over and stared
down.

‘Is this Drogoya?’ He
waved at the right hand map.

Navan nodded. ‘The
north western coast.’

‘So the Oblaka is
somewhere there?’ Volk walked to the furthest map. ‘Then this is
the north eastern part of this land and that island is bang in
between.’

Tika stared at the Old
Blood. How could anyone grasp the complications of these stupid
maps as simply as Volk apparently had? She looked at
Shivan.

‘Could you open a
gateway to a small place in the middle of a bloody great
ocean?’

‘No
problem.’

Tika stood over the
centre map, staring at the island. Yes, she knew she had to go
there, but when? She felt a tugging when she looked at it, but not
an insistent pull. Did that mean she had something else to do
before trying to get there?

‘If only we could see
it closer, like with that dreadful pipe thing Kertiss showed us,’
she heard Sket say behind her.

She also heard Farn
call from outside and quietly she slipped away from the people
still gathered around the maps. Farn landed, his eyes
sparkling.

‘I knew you’d like to
fly with me,’ he told her.

She laughed and
scrambled onto his back. As they rose above Emla’s House, she saw
the three other Dragons circling, waiting.

‘It’s been such a long
time, my Tika, since we could just fly and be happy.’

Watching the early
sunlight flashing on scales of gold, scarlet, grey and blue, Tika
had to agree. Life seemed so much simpler up here.

While Tika was gone,
Kemti sent a message to the pavilion to say that the books had
arrived from the Asataria. Essa grinned at the faces of the guards,
downcast at the thought of spending a day reading books.

‘I’ll show you where
we’re putting Lady Emla’s Captain,’ she told them. ‘We’ll need
rocks brought to make the cairn. Where’s Kazmat?’

‘He needs a bit of time
Sergeant,’ Dog replied.

Essa met Dog’s eyes and
nodded. ‘Fair enough. Is he all right?’

Dog shrugged. ‘He’s
still shocked by losing his brother, and his friend. Gets very
quiet unless he’s kept busy.’

‘Are you coming with us
or staying to read those books?’

Dog looked sorrowful.
‘Leg’s playing up a bit today sir. Think I’d better stay
here.’

Onion growled his
disgust and marched out of the pavilion. When the others had
followed, Essa leaned close to Dog.

‘How did you persuade
Lord Kemti to lie about his leg, Dog?’

Dog’s grin was pure
evil. ‘Why, I just told him I’d break the other one – and I told
him exactly how. Saw my point quite quickly. Bright fellow, he
is.’

Essa laughed, slapped
Dog on the shoulder and went after the four guards who she found
just outside, talking to Volk and Daisy.

‘We can help move
stones,’ Volk offered. ‘They don’t seem to have horses in these
lands. That gardener told me they had creatures like horses but
they had split hooves, and fangs, and only understood brute force.
The people here got rid of ’em all last year. Fengars they were
called. You ever heard of them?’

Dog watched them wander
off and found Sket beside her.

‘I’m going to run
through a few drills with young Shea.’

Dog nodded. ‘I’ll watch
if you like. This leg, you understand.’

Sket grunted. ‘Won’t
work forever you know.’

‘Worth a try for a bit
longer,’ Dog admitted cheerfully.

Navan fell into step,
Shea trotting beside him, and they made their way round to the
barracks and exercise yards. Rhaki and Shivan were waiting for
Dromi, who was still crouched over the three maps on the floor.
When he joined them at last, he tried to explain his
fascination.

‘They are so very
clear,’ he said. ‘Yet Navan said they were not drawn, as we make
maps.’

Shivan groaned. ‘I
don’t begin to know how they were made. Every time Navan tries to
tell me, my mind goes blank.’

Rhaki laughed. ‘Me too.
It’s a pity there are no names on them though.’

They made their way up
to Emla’s library and found Kemti unpacking two large bags. Looking
at the stack of books, they knew they were in for another long
session of eye strain.

The shadows stretched
long in the late afternoon when Lady Emla led the procession from
her House. Soran’s body lay on a stretcher carried by four of the
Gaharnian guards. They walked for perhaps a league to where the
gardens began to rise towards the foothills of a higher range of
hills. They saw the Dragons reclining beside the place Volk and
Essa had chosen for Soran’s final resting place.

As Tika climbed the
slope beside Sket, she paused to look back. Many of Emla’s guards
had chosen to pay their last respects to a man they had much
admired until only recently. Soran’s body lay, dressed in a fresh
uniform, the golden insignia at his shoulder with the extra blazon
of his Captain’s rank twinkling when the sun caught it. His altered
face had somehow become familiar, and not something to fear. Volk
had already put a line of rocks along the stony ground, and the
guards gently lowered the stretcher, sliding the carrying poles
free as they rose.

Volk put more rocks
around Soran’s body and stepped back. Emla glanced at Tika, not
sure what was expected of her. But it was Tika’s guard Kazmat who
moved first. He walked to the heap of loose rock and stone that had
been heaped a little further on, lifted one stone and placed it
gently by Soran’s feet. The rest of Tika’s company followed, each
laying one more rock around the dead man. Emla’s men came next,
some of the Discipline Seniors, several members of her household
staff. When Tika approached she was startled to find there was a
space still left above Soran’s face, and once again she found
herself covering someone’s face with a piece of hard unyielding
rock.

When she’d placed her
stone, she followed the others back down the gentle slope and began
the walk back to the House. There was muted chatter and a laugh cut
short. She looked back and saw only Volk and Essa still beside the
cairn, and that weird horse waiting patiently at the foot of the
trail.

The company gathered in
the pavilion, Emla and Kemti with them, to hear what the readers
had discovered. There was deep disappointment when they learned
nothing of any obvious help had been found.

‘There are stories of
little people, and of giants, and instructions on leaving gifts out
at night to gain your heart’s desire,’ Kemti told them. ‘But
nothing of mighty gods or anything approaching that.’

‘There was one
description which was familiar to me,’ Dromi put in. ‘A tale of
light. Special candles had to be lit and kept burning, replaced at
need, throughout the year. Then the candle was deliberately
extinguished, for a full day, until it could be rekindled with what
they called “raw fire”. I don’t know what raw fire might
be.’

Shivan tried to stifle
a yawn. ‘I found no references to light, dark or shadow in any of
the books I looked through. There was one story of a great hunter,
who often lost his temper, which was the cause of thunder and
lightning.’

‘There is something to
find, but I just can’t think where to look.’ Tika sat leaning
against Farn’s chest, but there was no mistaking the exasperation
in her voice.

Emla sighed. ‘Can any
of you do that dream walking that was one of Babach’s
accomplishments, so I believe?’

Heads were shaken and
silence fell. Tika mulled over Emla’s suggestion. Was dream walking
so very different from what she did when she sent her mind far
seeking? But she came back to the same point: where should she
seek? When Emla and Kemti returned to the House, Tika’s companions
prepared for sleep. Most of them had chosen to sleep on bed rolls
rather than argue over the four beds in the pavilion. Sket left a
couple of lamps burning low, and then lay between Tika and the
entrance.

Khosa padded
soundlessly round Sket’s faintly snoring body and pressed against
Tika’s arm. She spoke to Tika’s mind only, or so she thought. In
fact, both Rhaki and Shivan heard her words.

‘The Merigs say there
is a disturbance to the south, beyond the estate
boundary.’

‘What kind of
disturbance?’

‘They say the air is
shivery – their word. When one of them flew into it, he fell to the
earth, dead.’

‘Should I go now
Khosa?’

Khosa didn’t reply for
some while. ‘I think perhaps you should, but not
physically.’

Tika mind spoke the
other Dragons; she knew Farn had heard Khosa through her own mind.
Kija and Brin, dozing in Emla’s hall, responded at once, and Tika
settled more comfortably against Farn. Her mind spun up and out,
hovering for a moment over Emla’s House where very few lights
showed.

She orientated herself
to the south and began to seek. She moved steadily: not too fast,
not too slow. A half moon shone fitfully as patchy clouds drifted
from the east. Tika felt other minds as she passed over the land:
small minds of small night creatures, but no human mind. She
slowed, seeking on a much wider front, and felt an itch, an
irritation, brush her mind for less than an instant. She probed
that area gently and felt the same brief sting. There was a
familiarity which worried her rather than comforted, and she
hesitated, considering.

In the pavilion, both
Rhaki and Shivan had sat up, concentrating on what they could see
and feel through Farn’s mind link with his soul bond. Tika drew on
her power, a great deal of power, and coiled it within her mind.
Then she moved forward, in the direction of that itch. She moved
slowly, using what little natural light there was and augmenting
her sight with a touch of power. She scanned the area, and
estimated that she was leagues beyond Emla’s boundaries, moving
into the plains where nomadic herdsmen and hunters
lived.

Then she saw him. He
seemed to be resting beside the dying embers of a small fire. Her
mind floated above him, watching carefully. He reached to his side
and she saw a carcase, what was left of a human. He ripped an arm
away from the body, as easily as she might have plucked a fruit
from a tree, and tore into it. With his tusked jaws. His name burst
back into her mind. Karlesh, the monstrous result of Orla’s
pregnancy by Qwah.

Tika had seen his
birth, seen him obliterate his father and begin to feed on his
human mother’s torn body. Then she and Sket had been hurled into
the Splintered Kingdom, because Karlesh had looked up from his
feast and had seen her. A tickle at the edge of her mind was Kija,
calling urgently for Tika to return. Tika closed off the link and
moved round the creature beneath her. She had no idea of its speed
of travel, or even its method of doing so. If it was tracking her,
she would rather mislead it than let it continue towards
Gaharn.

She visualised a tiny
snippet of her mind splitting away, no bigger than the smallest
insect. Tika moved higher again, watching the totally separated
part of her mind as it floated erratically towards the creature on
the ground. She heard the sharp crack of bone as Karlesh bit
through the human limb he was eating, then he froze. He crouched,
his head turning, muzzle raised. She heard his snuffling as he
scented the air in every direction before homing in on her little
mind insect.

That was now perhaps
four or five man lengths above the creature, pulsing with a trace
of her own identity. Karlesh tensed, powerful haunches tightening
and feet shifting slightly to get a firm stance. Tika saw claws on
the feet, matching the claws on the hands: claws rather than
talons. The mind insect dropped lower, and Karlesh sprang. Tika
merely observed, her heart racing inside her body which lay against
Farn’s chest so many leagues away.

Karlesh moved so fast.
That one leap propelled him to the height of her tiny mind
particle, and he leaped silently. A clawed hand snatched, grabbed,
and as he sank back to the ground, a bellow of rage shattered the
night. Again there came the snuffling noise. Tika watched Karlesh
sniffing at the hand that had grasped the mind fragment Tika had
released. He licked his palm, then sat, his mouth slightly open,
and Tika recognised the action from watching Khosa hunt.

Small eyes searched the
sky, skimming past Tika’s shielded presence. Sounds came from
Karlesh but not speech Tika could understand: growls and snarls,
which somehow sounded muffled, as if heard from a distance. The
creature lurched to his feet, grabbed the tattered remains of the
body he had been feeding on and lumbered southwards into the
plains, pausing now and then to sniff and taste the air.

Tika watched for a few
moments, wondering why Karlesh’s leap into the air had been so
effortless, almost graceful, yet now he walked as though
unaccustomed to the action. His naked body was a mottled greenish
grey from what she could make out. His thighs and calves were
heavily muscled. He seemed to have no waist, his torso being short
and broad, topped with shoulders as thick with muscle as his legs.
A moment longer she watched Karlesh travelling away, trying to
think what memory his strange movements stirred.