Soul Bonds: Book 1 Circles of Light series

by E.M. Sinclair

Gan forced the pace over the next two days. The weather was rapidly worsening with sleet blown sideways by a vicious wind. During the second night, the wind died away and snow began to fall. Brin had carried Jeela while Tika had used the Power to help all the Dragons withstand the biting cold. She had taken strength from both Mim and Gan, but still found that the continuous concentration was deeply tiring. Ashta and Farn were beginning to weaken in the unrelenting coldness, although the adult Dragons were still strong.

  Gan had discussed with his officers, the strange fact that the Guards had become greatly concerned for the Dragons’ well being. Although Nomis had worked with fengars most of his life, as they had never evinced responsive characteristics, he was not emotionally involved in their care. But he admitted that he too was worried for the Dragons – especially the smallest.

  Drak reported that several men had asked if there was anything they could do, or give to, the little Dragon, to make her better. Trem nodded – he too had been asked the same questions. Soran commented: ‘I tried to choose men who had trained together, and who had been on patrols to the west and fought together, to remain in this company. But still there are several separate groups within these fifty men. Yet they are united by their worry for these Dragons.’

  ‘They do not see them as mascots, or lucky charms, Sir,’ said Drak. ‘I heard some talk of the way they used fire against the Shardi, but also of the golden Dragon’s obvious concern for her two young ones. The men seem to regard them as members of the Guards – if you see what I mean Sir,’ he ended in confusion.

  Gan nodded. ‘I do indeed Drak. And I have to admit to being worried at the outset by the presence of Dragons, and of a Kephi, and of old Lorak. The Dragons, as you say Drak, seem to unify the men. That Kephi,’ he looked around warily, ‘seems to cheer them with her antics, and Lorak with his jokes. I hope it is only jokes,’ he added. ‘Has anyone noticed any signs of his – concoctions – around the camp?’ His officers grinned, but all denied any such knowledge.

  Brin began mind calling that night. He called at regular intervals, then listened, as did the other Dragons. Mim and Tika slept soundly, Khosa making herself comfortable inside Mim’s shirt.

  ‘We heard no response to Brin’s calls,’ Fenj told Gan the next morning. ‘He will call aloud as we fly, perhaps you should warn your two legs. Jeela will continue the mind call as we travel.’

  ‘Will the snow hinder you Fenj?’

  ‘We cannot fly too long or too fast when the snow is so heavy,’ Fenj admitted. ‘We will not travel far ahead of you this day I think.’

  Tika and Mim looked fit after their night’s rest, although Mim was shivering already. Gan knew better than to suggest the two rode on fengar back – he had done so previously and they had adamantly refused.

  ‘This one thinks fengars are very unsafe creatures,’ Mim had said, leaving Gan rather nonplussed. They thought nothing of perching on Dragons and flying high in the air, yet the idea of riding fengar back obviously terrified them.

  Gan had given a message for Emla to a merig. Kija had bespoken to a pair as she had said she would. Gan was rather amused – he suspected Emla had not bothered to test these rather tattered looking birds. He regretted he could not see her reaction when they arrived at her House and proceeded to give a fairly full report of the company’s progress.

  Now, there was only a slight lightening of the sky to indicate the sun had risen far above the great billows of snow clouds. The Guards struck camp and began the day’s march. They were climbing higher into the mountains now rather than skirting the foothills, but Soran reported no grumbles – as yet.

  Tika was still using the Power to give some shielding to the Dragons, but suddenly she struggled through the knee-deep snow to pull Gan’s cloak. ‘They have been answered!’ Her green eyes sparkled at him. ‘Jeela says three answered – two of the Kin and one not.’ As she spoke, Mim caught up with them, Sket at his side.

  ‘Look!’ he said.

  Fenj’s great black shape was descending through the thickly falling snow. As he landed, all the company gathered near him. His eyes whirred kaleidoscopic colours with excitement as he bespoke Gan. ‘Brin spoke truly! There are Kin here, even now!’ Mim spoke Fenj’s words aloud so all the Guards could follow the Dragon’s news. ‘We must go higher still Gan. Will your two-legs be able to manage? And these fengars?’ He sounded doubtful.

  Nomis told him aloud: ‘We will bring the fengars as far as we can get them. They are unlikely to survive now if we release them here.’

  Soran agreed. ‘How far are we from these Kin of yours?’

  ‘It will take the rest of this day for you to climb to the place they described. They will meet us there at nightfall.’

  ‘Right.’ Gan looked at his men. ‘A hard climb, Fenj says, and no sign of the snow letting up. Unload most of the supplies from the fengars and distribute them through the company. A man to walk each side of a fengar. The rest of you, in twos ahead of them.’ Tika murmured to Gan, and he added: ‘Lorak, you and Mim continue with Fenj.’ The old man protested that he was quite able to march on, but the greyness of his face belied his words. Mim also protested that he would remain with Tika.

  ‘Ashta and Jeela have need of your support,’ Gan lied blandly. Lorak and Mim both stared hard at him, but eventually they moved towards the Dragon. Khosa’s head popped above Tika’s cloak.

  ‘Is it likely you may slip over high rocks or cliffs?’ she enquired.

  Tika chuckled, removing the sack in which she carried Khosa, from around her neck. ‘Go with Mim and Lorak, brave Kephi!’

  Rhaki had been receiving conflicting reports, which displeased him immensely. One told of Emla’s Guards returning to Gaharn, greatly reduced in numbers. Another said the band was still heading north, but through the high mountains. That was arrant nonsense of course: even Guards could not be so foolhardy as to try to go higher in the worsening weather. Another report told of the total defeat of the Cansharsi he had moved to the far west. Led by the Lords of Return and Far, the humans had chased them down and slaughtered them to the last one. That at least, was what he had anticipated there. Verim was reported killed in the fighting, but Rhaki felt sure he had merely transferred his allegiance to the Lords of the west.

  In the south, the Cansharsi were still harassing farms and villages, but there was something amiss: Rhaki’s informers spoke of groups of Linvaks suddenly appearing, attacking the Cansharsi, and retreating again. Each time leaving a few less Cansharsi.

  These informers all spoke of one or two Nagums being seen with the Linvaks. Rubbish, thought Rhaki. Utterly impossible. Nagums were timid fools who never left their precious woodlands. Why would they be in the company of Linvaks?

  He had ordered Jal to go through the deep passageways, alone, to try to ascertain if the Guards really were advancing north. Jal had gone yesterday, with instructions to be as swift as he could. Rhaki had allowed him to ride on one of his new fengars. He had been experimenting with them for some time, breeding for a more docile strain. He had long thought they might be useful for general travellers, not just as fighting men’s mounts.

  Rhaki was most enraged with the Shardi. He had expended a great deal of Power in taking control of one of their leaders, but he had been unable to over ride the panic that took over once Dragonfire was used. It had taken him hours to recover his strength and he promised himself he would make the Shardi suffer exquisitely for failing him.

  He had at least had the opportunity to glimpse the Dragons. Jal had borne the brunt of Rhaki’s fury: ‘Three huge adult Dragons, you imbecile!’ Rhaki had screamed. ‘You reported two young ones, and what do I find? Three monstrous creatures spitting fire everywhere!’

  ‘Master,’ Jal was on his knees. ‘My spies did see only two young ones, a pale green, and a silver blue.’

  ‘I saw no Dragons that colour through Shardi eyes, fool. The three I saw were black, crimson and gold. And very large.’

  ‘They must have followed the
others, Master.’

  ‘Of course they must! Stars, am I served by incompetents? Leave me now, but I will summon you again this day. Wait nearby.’

  Jal bowed himself backwards from Rhaki’s study, closing the door gently before straightening with a sigh of relief.

  ‘The Master is far from happy.’

  Jal nearly leapt to the roof as the whisper came from beside him. Bark’s tall, skeletal figure stood there, smiling. It was not an attractive smile, Jal thought. ‘No,’ he replied as calmly as he could while his heart was still trying to return to its rightful place and speed. ‘He becomes – unhappy – far more swiftly of late, I find,’ he ventured.

  Bark’s smile became even less attractive. ‘He does, does he not?’

  Rhaki had ordered Jal through the passageways. He told him how to undo the rock door near the entrance, which made it seem merely a cell like chamber, rather than the start of a passage through the mountain. Jal had been riding for several hours, his way faintly lit by widely spaced glow lamps. He wondered who came to tend the glowers down here, they had to be fed after all, then he shivered as he tried not to imagine any of Rhaki’s creations creeping about down here. And who had made these great tunnels? Shivering again, he decided it would be best not to think of such things.

  Several other passages led off from the one he travelled, but they were all in deepest darkness. He rode from pale light to pale light at a steady lope. Fengars could go for great distances at this pace – the sort of speed a man could run only for short bursts. Twice before had Jal taken this route for Rhaki, and yet he realised he only now remembered the fact of those previous trips. The Guardian must make him forget when he returned, he decided.

  Jal reckoned maybe four hours had passed as he rode between the unchanging walls of the passageway. He reined in the fengar and dismounting, poured water from a leather bottle into a dish for it to drink. It would not be fed now; a short halt for water and for his weight to be off its back, and it would be fit for another four hours steady run.

  Jal squatted on his heels, the rein wrapped around his hand, and chewed a piece of bread and meat. Then he froze. The fengar’s ears twitched back and forth, then ears and head pointed towards the blank side wall. Jal rose silently, moving to press himself against the rough rock.

  There was something moving on the other side of the rock. He strained to decipher the faint noise. After a while, he relaxed again. The fengar had lost interest; whatever it was, it was gone. He swung into the saddle and rode on, wondering if it could have been Shardi, and should he mention it to the Guardian? Or perhaps – Bark?

  Bark was sitting outside the Guardian’s study. He sat upright, his hands loosely clasped on his lap, his face hidden beneath the cowl of his robe. Many Cycles before, he had been a student in Gaharn. He had been slow to join conversations since childhood, preferring to listen and think on what he heard. No one showed him any scorn or mistreatment, that was not the People’s way, but because of his unwillingness to speak, he became a solitary child and young man.

  When he entered the Asataria with others of his generation, he was surprised and flattered by Rhaki’s increasing attention. The mercurial Rhaki, considered by many, especially himself, to be a brilliant mind, adored having Bark’s silent company. In his self confidence, Rhaki never suspected that beneath Bark’s silence ran rivers of thought, deeper by far than his own, and pondered over for Cycles rather than the brief hour Rhaki might spare on a problem.

  Rhaki allowed Bark alone to hear his jealous tirades against his sister Emla, of his contempt for the Seniors who instructed them, and for the People in general. Never once, in all those Cycles, had Rhaki asked for Bark’s opinion, assuming Bark saw him as he saw himself – beyond compare to all others.

  Then no one, including Bark, knew of Rhaki’s fascination with genetics, or of the small experiments he had already attempted. By the time Rhaki was raised to the Guardianship, many had become wary of him. They could not say specifically what made them cautious, but something was separating Rhaki from most of the People of Gaharn.

  When Rhaki, Bark, and a retinue of specially selected human servants arrived at the Guardian’s stronghold, Rhaki’s first act was to dismiss all the previous Guardian’s household. His next was the setting up of the first of a series of ambitious breeding programmes. He lectured Bark fully on his plans in that field and also his plans for gaining control of this world, especially the Realm of Gaharn.

  Bark, as always, his self hidden deep in his own mind, was at last appalled at Rhaki’s ideas. He had not yet decided whether the damage Rhaki had inflicted on his mind was a deliberate act to keep him subservient, or truly accidental. Rhaki had had Bark well tended, nursed back to physical health. He assumed that the blank emptiness he saw within Bark’s mind, as season followed season and Cycle followed Cycle, was to be Bark’s permanent state now.

  But from that cataclysmic moment when Bark felt his mind disintegrate, a tiny part had remained aware. Through these long ages that part had slowly – oh so slowly –grown. And he had spoken to Jerak. Unknown to Rhaki, Jerak had sought out Bark and talked with him on four occasions before Rhaki’s final outburst of arrogance.

  The resulting contest of Power had stunned all in the stronghold. Indeed several deaths had resulted from the reverberations of Power shattering the very particles of air. Most had regained their senses to an eerie quietness. Bark had recovered quicker than most and gone to Rhaki’s study. He opened the rock door that Rhaki foolishly believed was known only to himself. He had hurried down the passages until he found the Guardian slumped unconscious at the open door of the Chamber of the Sacred Balance.

  Bark had stood looking at Rhaki for several moments, then he stepped over his body and entered the Chamber. So easy to leave him to die! So easy to help him beyond! But that was not the way of the People and the People were more than this one poor example. Bark had carried Rhaki back to his rooms and tended him for days.

  Bark pondered these things as he sat, still as stone, beside Rhaki’s door. The time was very near now, when Rhaki would control the Balance. Jerak had said: ‘Two young ones come, Bark. They are Chosen. But if they fail, the task is yours.’ Jerak had told Bark nothing of the young ones he mentioned. Bark had heard Rhaki screaming at Jal of a human and a Nagum, and of Dragons. Unmoving, Bark sat, his thoughts gathering speed and moving in the only direction he could see as rational.

  All these ages mending, and the wish growing in him to be back in Gaharn, listening to the words and the thoughts of the People. All this time, spent hear, listening only to Rhaki, whose finely balanced intelligence had long since toppled into insanity. But he had loved the young Rhaki. Oh indeed, yes.

  Bark lifted his head. He rose, his attenuated figure casting a spidery shadow on Rhaki’s door as he moved to answer the summons from within. He knew he was weakening physically; he was but in his middle years as the People reckoned age, but the damage Rhaki had done him long ago had speeded him on his life’s journey. He opened the study door and entered noiselessly, already bowing submissively to the Guardian. May the stars give him strength once more, enough for him to be finally true to his People.

  Chapter Twenty-One