Perilous Shadows: Book 6 Circles of Light (39 page)

Three nurses were
trying to remove Onion’s blackened shirt while Kollas and Konya
were both bent over the engineer’s head. Sket tried to swallow but
his mouth was too dry. Onion’s right eye was gone, and the cheek
bone below was exposed. Konya was extracting splinters of stone,
bone, and flesh from the eye socket while Kollas swabbed clean the
area above the brow. Konya didn’t look up when Sket entered but
Kollas gave him a quick glance.

‘Flash burns mostly,’
he told Sket. ‘He must have been turning away as it happened.
Fortunately.’

‘His other eye?’ Sket
managed to ask.

‘It seems undamaged on
first inspection. The right one – well, you can see for yourself.
But we don’t think the back of the socket has been
penetrated.’

Konya moved a little to
allow Kollas to work within the wound. Her face was grave as she
looked across at Sket.

‘Senior Kollas has sent
him into a deep sleep. For now, it is best. His body was very cold
when you brought him in – shock. But for now, sleep is
best.’

Sket nodded, fully
agreeing with that. He wondered how long they’d keep Onion
unconscious, and what it would feel like to wake up and find an eye
missing. He realised he was rubbing his right hand over his own
mutilated left hand with a sense of sympathy with the man on the
bed in front of him.

‘We have to make sure
it is clean and stays clean.’ Konya was wiping her hands on a small
square of cloth.

Sket could smell the
pungent tang of herbs rising from the cloth, which Konya tossed
into a box half full of similar soiled cloths.

‘How long will you keep
him sleeping?’ he asked.

Kollas shrugged then
peered closer at the red hole he was probing. ‘Until it’s started
to heal healthily – three days perhaps.’

‘I’ll be here,’ Konya
told Sket. ‘Unless you need me for anyone else,’ she added
grimly.

Sket went to the door.
There was nothing he could do except get in the way.

Konya called him as he
was closing the door. ‘Sket, is Darrick all right?’

Sket closed his eyes
then turned back to the healer. ‘Darrick’s dead.’ He knew it was
blunt, but what else could he say? Different words wouldn’t change
the fact. He made his way out to the exercise yards where many
guards were being given instructions to take positions around the
perimeter of the House. As he’d expected, he found his men hunkered
down together, just to the side of the door, waiting for him. Three
faces looked up as he stood in front of them.

‘Let’s get back to the
pavilion,’ he said gruffly. ‘They’re doing what they can for Onion,
but Konya thinks he should recover.’

In silence Geffal and
Kazmat followed Sket and Volk, back through the House and down the
steps. Tika had only just woken and learnt that Sket had gone off
with Kran. She smiled her relief when she saw him walk into the
pavilion, then saw Dog stiffen.

‘What’s
happened?’

Sket accepted a bowl of
tea, pushed into his hand by Shea, and he sighed.

‘The creature is past
the Lady’s boundary,’ he said. ‘Darrick is dead, and Onion is
injured.’

He looked at Dog. ‘He’s
in the House.’

Dog glanced at Tika
and, at her nod, she left.

‘How injured?’ Tika
asked softly.

Sket sank onto a chair.
‘He’s lost an eye and he’s burned, but not badly I don’t think.
Kollas said it was flash burn.’ He looked at Farn. ‘Are Brin and
Storm safe?’

Farn’s eyes whirred
silver and dark blue. ‘My mother was very angry with them. She went
after them and is bringing them back by a longer route.’

Tika stared at Farn.
‘Why? What did they do?’

Farn’s eyes flashed
faster. ‘Brin and Storm went to find the creature before Sket and
those other men could get there.’

For a moment, Tika
looked furious, then she shook her head. ‘Kija will get them back
here soon? I can feel the shields are close to being
raised.’

Farn lowered his head
to hers. ‘Soon, my Tika, but she will take them into the mountains
if there is danger here or if the shields are already in
place.’

Tika chewed her lip. ‘I
will go and see what I can do for Onion.’

‘No.’ Essa and Shea
spoke together but it was Essa who continued. ‘You cannot replace
an eye Tika, or spend your strength trying. Look how far seeking
exhausted you last night. Don’t risk wasting power now.’

‘Wasting?’ Tika asked
with angry disbelief.

‘Yes, wasting. A flash
burn is a bad scald. You cannot restore his eye. Leave him to the
healers and concentrate on that.’ Essa waved in the direction of
the southern gardens.

Grudgingly, Tika knew
Essa was absolutely correct, but her instinct was to help any one
of hers who had suffered hurt on her behalf.

‘You’re right,’ she
admitted at last. ‘But Sket, are you sure Karlesh is
approaching?’

‘The air went wavy,
like before. Lady Emla thinks he sent a compulsion which caused us
to panic in terror and flee back here.’

Volk grunted. ‘Which
has shown him exactly where we are.’

Sket nodded. ‘But
Darrick and Onion didn’t run with us. They went towards him, at
least at first. After the second lot of explosions, I saw Onion
trying to come after us and Volk carried him back.’

‘For which I thank you
Volk, and you Sket. Was there anything other than the distorted air
that warned of his coming?’

Sket started to shake
his head then frowned. ‘Lightning. Going from the ground to the
sky. I feared he had somehow seen Brin or Storm.’

‘Lightning?’ They
looked at Dromi. ‘We have records of mages, long, long ago, who
used lightning as weapons. It has not been seen or attempted in
thousands of years. Some believe such records to have been
exaggerated, or used as a means to conceal some other information
which we have yet to decipher.’

Tika began to pace. ‘It
was spears of ice before. Do you remember any lightning
Sket?’

She waited for his head
shake.

‘So he uses weather.
Shea, run to Emla or Kemti, and ask if they have a weather mage
among their Seniors.’

He stood by one of his
windows, watching Karlesh. Qwah had been his creature, his rather
pathetic and inadequate tool. He had been angry and dismayed on
discovering what Qwah had done with that hapless human female. He
had seen Karlesh chew his way out of his mother’s belly and had
roared with laughter. His laughter had ceased abruptly when the
newborn Karlesh obliterated even a trace of Qwah.

Occasionally he had
overlooked the dreadful child from one of his windows but found it
boring. Karlesh seemed to be satisfied with aimlessly wandering the
far reaching grasslands where he hunted small groups of herdsmen
and their animals. He pushed the hair away from his face and looked
closer through the window. There was a more purposeful air about
Karlesh’s stumping march now. Despite the fact that he mostly found
Karlesh’s activities tedious, he could not forget that it was he,
Karlesh, who had caught that female. He had only realised she was
here when those foul Dark things came in to get her out
again.

He snarled softly.
Karlesh was eating again, sitting on some smashed hillside, gnawing
on something once human. What was urging this – aberration – to
march in this direction with such determination? He knew Karlesh
was hunting, but whose trail was he following? The Crazed One
leaned his forehead against the window. Could Karlesh have scented
that female again?

‘Mind you don’t cut
your head. You surely will if your window breaks,’ said a cool
voice beside him.

Too close beside him.
Without turning, his right arm moved in a blur of speed, connecting
with the man foolish enough to approach this near without
permission. Only when he heard the thud of a body slumping to the
floor, did he look round. He smiled. Lord Cyrek got to his feet,
his face a bloody mask from which gold eyes blazed in barely held
anger.

‘You dare to raise a
hand to me?’ he hissed.

‘You are nothing for me
to fear Corman.’

The Crazed One was
suddenly weary of this human reptile. He raised his hand again and
watched the man flinch. But he merely flicked his fingers, and cast
him from his Kingdom. But inconveniencing the human didn’t rouse
the Crazed One from his exhaustion. He limped across his room and
sat in his twisted chair. Did that foul Karlesh have a means to
find the one he himself so desperately needed to locate?

His head sank until his
chin lay on the tender bones of his chest. Long hair, grey streaked
with white, fell in curtains, hiding his face. A soft humming began
to creep through the room, increasing in volume as a melody grew.
With a great effort, he lifted his head and let it lean against the
high back of the chair. Light flickered from the lamps while the
Crazed One sang a lullaby.

Dusk was nearly hiding
the grounds when Dog returned to the pavilion. Tika simply looked
at her, unsure what she should say. The engineers were habitually
insulting to each other, but even a fool could see beneath that to
the tight bond they had between them. And Tika also knew that Dog
was still raw from the loss of Rose, the leader of her unit when
they’d been in the Dark Realm. Now she’d lost another of her team,
and yet another was half blind.

Dog glanced around,
about to snarl when it dawned on her that these people staring at
her with concern, were her friends, her family. That they cared.
She squared her shoulders and headed for the tea pot.

‘Konya says he’s to
stay asleep a few days. He’s spoilt his looks quite a bit I
thought.’

She turned and only
Tika knew the strength it took for Dog to produce her wicked smirk.
‘I’ll spoil ’em even more when he wakes up again, the stupid
bugger.’

Shea arrived back at a
run, skidding to a stop next to Essa. ‘Lady Emla says there are no
weather mages here and only two within the City. She says neither
of them are close to Lady Maressa’s talent.’

Shea clearly wanted to
know who Lady Maressa might be but Sket shot a glare at the girl
which kept the question behind her lips. For now.

Tika resumed her
pacing. ‘I think there would be mages in Kedara Circle, in
Vagrantia, but there’s no time to reach them.’

‘I could open a gateway
Tika, or you could use your circle – there is one here isn’t
there?’

Tika shook her head. ‘I
don’t think we should risk travelling by circles or gateways with
that creature so close.’ She studied Dromi. ‘You really have no
knowledge of working the weather?’

‘No Lady Tika, none at
all.’ Dromi sounded regretful. ‘I told you, many of us were not
convinced that the records were true.’

‘If you explained, I
might be able to try,’ Shivan suggested. ‘I don’t mean to sound
boastful, but I might.’ He looked worried, fearing he’d sounded
presumptuous.

Tika gave him a faint
smile. ‘It is similar to far seeing Shivan, but you have to know
what the different cloud formations mean, read the winds, and feel
the mood of the very air.’

Shivan was abashed. ‘I
know nothing of weather,’ he admitted. ‘But could we not use
lightning somehow?’

‘How?’ Tika glared at
him.

Shivan subsided, but
Kazmat now spoke up.

‘Lightning is very hot
air, isn’t it?’ He seemed slightly surprised by his own temerity at
joining the discussion. ‘Does that mean fire might turn this
creature? In Kelshan, we use liquid fire – it was used against
those monsters, Lady Tika.’

‘That’s right, it was.’
Tika’s face went blank. ‘Does anyone know what liquid fire is made
of? Could we make some quickly?’

Dog snorted. ‘It takes
weeks to concoct and it is very unstable. That means it is very
dangerous to handle it and it has to be kept under very controlled
conditions.’ She smiled. ‘If I tell you that I personally would not
be happy close to one single barrel of the stuff, I think you get
the idea.’

Knowing Dog’s
predilection for explosive devices, the company did see her
point.

‘I can send fire
considerable distances, my Tika.’

‘Absolutely not.’ Tika
didn’t pause to think. Before Farn could argue, as he was clearly
ready to, she went on. ‘I might consider that if the others were
here, but you will not over fly that creature on your
own.’

‘I presume there is
little chance of real combat?’ Essa asked, stretching her long legs
out in front of her. ‘If Lady Emla’s shield falters, what defence
can we offer?’

Tika felt a spurt of
anger. Why did she have to be the one to come up with the answers?
Her pacing had brought her to the pavilion’s open door and she
stepped outside, looking to the south. The sky was dark, no stars
or moon, and as Tika tilted her head back to stare upwards, rain
began to hit her face. She went inside.

‘It’s starting to rain,
quite hard.’ She sounded much more cheerful. ‘At least it will make
the grass and trees less easy to burn if that’s what he plans, but
- ’