Perilous Shadows: Book 6 Circles of Light (64 page)

‘You think we didn’t
try?’

‘Yes, I’m sure you did,
but did you try together?’

Serida stared down his
long hooked nose and lost his smile.

‘And did you really try
to destroy him, or just push him out?’

‘I’ll talk to the
others again.’ Now Serida sounded sulky.

‘That’s a very good
idea.’

The arbour was empty
apart from Essa and Tika. Essa blew out a breath and sheathed her
knife.

‘A lot of those brawny
ones seem to miss out on the brain.’

Tika gave Essa a quick
glance of apology. ‘Simert,’ she called.

Essa groaned and then
moved smartly back from the coil of smoke rising right beside her.
The short plump gentleman was scowling, so Tika spoke before he
could.

‘I do know you are a
very busy man lately, Simert, but I wondered if you could put a
proposal to your ghosts?’

Simert’s scowl was
replaced by mild interest. He perched on the nearest bench and
nodded for her to explain.

When Simert had gone,
Essa studied Tika. ‘You’re far more devious than I’d
thought.’

‘Like
Simert.’

‘So do I.’

‘What are
ghosts?’

‘Ghosts are the souls
of the dead, who want to stay around a bit longer.’

Tika waited but clearly
the shadow wanted time to think. The two settled comfortably
again.

‘The pendant hasn’t got
warm for a while,’ Essa remarked.

‘No,’ Tika agreed. ‘But
this tingles a lot.’ She waved her thumb at Essa.

‘Cyrek, do you
think?’

‘It might well be.
Darallax has released the shield hiding this island so it is
visible again. Cyrek could easily find us now. It’s plain to me
that he destroyed that poor messenger in the gateway. I’ve been
trying to decide which is the most urgent one to deal
with.’

Essa watched Tika,
thinking back to when she had first met her in the Karmazen Palace
and had held her while she cried and cried. That young woman was
still there, but to any who hadn’t seen that, and her determined
recovery, her insistence on repaying a debt to the First Daughter,
Tika would seem an unlikely warrior. A mistake Serida would not
make again.

‘I’m worried that we
haven’t seen Hag.’ Tika broke into Essa’s reverie. ‘I thought she
would come here as soon as Darallax lifted the shield.’

Booted feet approached
and Rhaki came round the column which was covered in trumpet vines.
He lifted one browned and withered bloom and stared at it,
frowning. He caught Essa’s tiny head shake and let the flower
drop.

‘I sensed something,’
he began. ‘It was you, talking to Ferag, wasn’t it?’

Tika grinned. ‘No. I
called Serida and then I called Simert.’

Rhaki sat beside her.
‘They don’t use gateways, do they?’

‘No.’

‘I think Shivan has the
right idea. He’s spoken to me of some of his experiments with time,
as well as with using mind power very differently from his people.
Did you know he was expelled from that Academy of
theirs?’

‘No!’ Tika was shocked.
Shivan had a very intelligent mind, from her own observations, but
he had told her that his teachers and his fellow students mocked
him for his ideas.

‘His tutors are the
fools in my view,’ Rhaki continued. ‘But the boy suggests those
like Ferag slip from one plane to another through time. It’s far
more complicated than that and I’m only just beginning to grasp his
meanings. Planes of Existence would be a far more accurate name for
them too.’

‘Wait.’ Tika sat up
straight. ‘Star Singer told us some of his past. He, and the other
Ships here, were fleeing enemy Ships. He said,’ she scowled in
concentration. ‘He said that they tore the fabric of time, and
slipped through. Then the fabric closed behind them so their
enemies couldn’t work out where they’d gone.’

She got up and paced in
excitement. ‘They did it by knowing where certain stars were and
then -’ Tika threw up her hands in exasperation. ‘I didn’t
understand then and now I can’t remember.’

Rhaki had caught her
enthusiasm. ‘But that’s it. Somehow, time can be – sliced, cut,
interfered with, and someone, something, can step
through.’

‘Did you send the
scrolls?’

Rhaki grinned, seeming
years younger. ‘Well, I put them on the centre stone, said the
words, and the scroll vanished. Whether it gets to where I hope it
will – ah – who knows? I came to find Essa to get a view of her
father’s house to send a scroll there.’

They had been brought
food at midday, although the three guards and Dromi hadn’t put in
an appearance. Dog had helped herself to some of the parchment and
was scribbling away accompanied by a lot of muttering. Looking
round, Tika saw Onion lying back in an armchair, his hand clamped
over his eye patch. His face was nearly as grey as one of the
Shadow people. Tika went to lean over his chair. She put a hand on
his arm and his remaining eye opened, saw her and closed
again.

She let her mind slide
into his and drew a sharp breath. The sort of web which she had
found covered most people’s minds, was sparking and flashing. Tika
felt his thunderous headache and sent a healing thread to reduce
then dismiss it. But even then, his mind still flickered and
whirled. She moved round and knelt in front of him.

‘Onion what
happens?’

His eye opened again
and the greyness faded from his cheeks. ‘There’s like a bang inside
my eye, or where my eye was, then colours, such bright colours,
lady. Then the itching. Then another bang. It’s been all right this
morning, but it hasn’t stopped since we had our food.’

Dog and Sket had joined
them and Tika glanced up at Sket.

‘Find Konya for me,
would you?’

Sket’s eyebrows rose
until they nearly reached his hairline. Lady Tika, wanting an
ordinary healer’s help? He hurried away, suddenly more worried
about the engineer than he wanted to be.

‘Tika! Tika!’ Shea came
skidding into the room, waving a scroll case.

‘That was quick.’ Rhaki
took the case and studied the seal. ‘From Emla.’

‘Read it to us,’ Tika
requested, keeping most of her attention on Onion.

Breaking the seal,
Rhaki withdrew the scroll and scanned it rapidly.

‘Emla is well, there
are no problems in Gaharn. But Lallia – who is Lallia? – No tell me
later – Lallia reports strange fires and the ground
shaking.’

‘She is from Far, south
of Lord Hargon’s lands,’ Tika told him. ‘You remember being there,
before you joined Cho Petak in Drogoya?’

‘I remember,’ Rhaki
said heavily.

Navan had arrived and
heard most of what Emla’s scroll contained. He took it from Rhaki
and read it again.

‘The lands south of Far
are prone to earthquakes every few years, but never around Far
itself.’

‘Oh where is Konya?’
Tika demanded.

They turned and saw
Tika working on Onion. ‘He’s sliding into unconsciousness and I
can’t see why.’

She flinched back,
feeling the flash of colours as Onion experienced another attack.
The tingling in her left thumb grew intense. ‘Can you help him,
shadow?’ she thought.

Onion’s body relaxed
and his eye opened once more.

‘Sorry my lady, what
did you say?’

Before she could reply,
the stone floor beneath her feet pushed up and twisted. A low
rumbling growl filled the air and they heard cries and screams
coming from elsewhere in the house. Essa pushed Tika aside and
lifted Onion as if he was a baby.

‘Out,’ she ordered.
‘Onto the grass beyond the house.’

Even as Tika grabbed
Shea and they began to run through the corridors, she sent a
thought to the Dragons. All four were flying, much to her relief,
and she raced on, surrounded by her company, to hurtle out the
front doors. Essa brought them to a halt midway across the grass
which separated the two big houses from the town, and lowered a
protesting Onion to the ground. She kept him there with one huge
hand spread over his chest.

Tika saw that Dog, Sket
and Rhaki had the wit to grab up their packs. Shivan and Navan
carried others.

‘Shivan,’ she called.
‘Is this a natural quake?’

‘No,’ he began, but
Darallax ran to join them from the throng of people still pouring
from the houses.

‘There have never been
quakes here,’ he told Tika. ‘I must see to the safety of my
people.’

He hurried on to help a
young man support a woman from the colonnade. Tika saw Konya and
Subaken on either side of Rueshen, helping her through the doors,
blood streaming down the consort’s face. Dromi came from the
direction of the river, the three guards at his heels, as the
ground heaved once again. None of them could keep on their feet.
Then a grating noise rose over the groans of the earth and they saw
grey tiles cascading from the roofs as the houses swayed ever more
strongly from side to side.

The company huddled
close around Onion and watched the long colonnade linking the two
big houses buckle and crunch into fragments. They saw people
crushed as large blocks began to fall from the houses themselves.
Tika’s mind was swamped by the cries of anguish, made worse by the
fact that the majority were mental cries. The Shadow people used
mind speech as naturally as Sapphreans chattered aloud, but that
meant the Shadow screams were magnified a thousand times to Tika.
She scrunched her eyes shut, forcing a shield around her own mind
to keep the calls of distress at a distance.

‘Kingdom.’

The word was clear
inside her head. She was kneeling by Onion’s hip and now she felt
his calloused hand tighten on her wrist.

‘The lights, lady. The
lights say go with the shadow.’

She opened her eyes to
stare at Onion. He managed a nod and she looked at Essa across
Onion’s body.

‘I must go, Essa. Can
you hold my mind thread?’

The light blue eyes
widened but Essa shrugged. ‘I don’t know how, but tie it to me
somehow. I won’t let you go.’

‘Shadow take me, let me
see and hear.’

Through the gauzy veil
which was all the vision the shadow would allow, she saw she was in
a castle room. For an instant it made no sense, then she saw the
furniture. Much of it was smashed but a few pieces remained intact.
But they were wrong, twisted, unbalanced. Tika knew at once that
the creature Yartay had created this, room and furniture both, in
an attempt to mimic something he had seen on this world. But the
room was empty. No. Shadows rippled from the corners, racing
towards her. She felt nothing when they reached her, but the shadow
spoke in her head.

‘Left
behind.’

‘Where is
Yartay?’

‘We find.’

She decided it was
preferable not to see when travelling with shadows and closed her
eyes before her stomach rebelled.

‘There.’

Cautiously, she looked
through the shadow, and felt a jolt of recognition. This room bore
a great similarity to one of the rooms she had seen in a Dome in
the desert. A room where Kertiss had shown them many marvels he had
called technology. There was also a resemblance to the inside of
Star Flower. Small lights blinked and flashed all over the walls
and the great shapeless mass that was Yartay lay around those
walls. Things like rudimentary arms and fingers protruded all along
the huge form, poking and prodding at buttons and lights. Then one
end of the thing lifted, forming a round ball. Features appeared: a
mouth, an eye, and it stared directly at Tika. She felt the shadows
tighten around her.

‘You could have helped
me. Should have.’ The voice was a mixture of an insane anger and a
petulant whine. ‘Now this world will die. Nasty place, nasty
animals with no minds.’

An arm extruded from
the jelly stuff directly beneath the head, but, quick as it was to
lift towards her, Tika and the dark shadows were faster. While
Yartay had been speaking, Tika had drawn power to fill her, power
she could barely contain. As the creature’s arm rose, so Tika
released all that power from within her, in the form of fire.
Somehow, she was aware of the shadows focusing the flame that
spewed from her outstretched hands, and at the same time shielding
her from the vast heat of the conflagration in front of
her.

She felt the skin on
her hands scorching, but was also fleetingly conscious that her
pendant hung cold against her chest. Tika saw the edge of the
creature begin to char, while a thunderous power pressed against
her shielding. But still her fire streamed over the creature’s
length towards its head. Behind it, the lights were all bright red,
and flashing in a rhythmical sequence. Tika felt an almost total
exhaustion begin to envelope her, and she knew she had no reserves
to get herself out of here.

Fire suddenly leapt
along the central mass of the creature and there was a blinding
glare of white light. Tika’s mind formed one word: Farn.