The Rawn Chronicles Book Three: The Ancarryn and the Quest (The Rawn Chronicles Series 3)

by P D Ceanneir

  ‘That ought to have stemmed the flow,’ he said and then stomped along the beach following the river. The two girls looked inquisitively at one another as the light from the Orrinn left them in darkness then they quickly followed in the Blacksword’s wake.

  They followed the river as it wound through the caves and found an area where it branched off into two. However, they were already on the right bank so they continued onwards and found a huge opening where a soft glow of firelight shone over the calm surface of the water.

  Cautiously they crept towards the opening to find that the fire-lit niches littered the far wall, which was mainly comprised of thick veins of gold. This, in turn, enhanced the light that emitted from the cave mouth.

  Inside the cave were twelve low carved stone crypts with tiny mummified bundles wrapped up in yellow rags. Fresh blood covered one of the bundles.

  ‘This is a shrine,’ remarked Tia, ‘they must bring the unborn dead children here.’ A memory of a stillborn child lying on the dais inside the Ring of Dulan came to her with sudden clarity. The memory of those events haunted her dreams for years. She knelt by the newest child on its stone slab. It was so small; its shape was malformed, and because of the shroud that covered its distorted body, its mutation not discernable. Overwhelmed by a mixture of emotions, she cried. Debbdil, assumed she was crying over the small bundles, so put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  The Blacksword was experiencing something different. He could see that the shrine was right above a network of Dragon Lane crossing points. The yellow-golden hues of Earth energy oozed and writhed out from the centre of the shrine entrance and he grinned as they swarmed and coiled around him. Feeling reinvigorated as their energy soaked into his pores and boosted his own flagging resources of strength.

  He wondered if the Brethac knew of the Dragon Lanes as a Fifth Element, the element of life. Is that why this shrine was here? Were they waking the dead?

  The last thought was very apt as he felt his mind suddenly invaded by a familiar presence.

  He yelled and clutched his head. ‘Damn it!’ he screeched, ‘just when I was enjoying myself.’

  Tia and Debbdil looked around them with concern etched on their faces. The Blacksword’s cloak quickly dismantled into tiny grains of sand and his armour turned green, showing the painted picture of the dragon Dex on the left shoulder guard. He collapsed to his knees and yelled again. The pale bald pate gave way to slicked back hair, vibrant and bouncy. The face took on a healthier, pinker completion along with a two-day growth of black beard.

  The eyes stayed black throughout this transformation as the Blacksword fought the change but, after a struggle, they eventually faded away to reveal the bright green of the Prince’s. Havoc breathed heavily as he recovered from the metamorphosis. He could hear the Blacksword’s voice rage in defiance in his mind, but Havoc also felt an emotional relief from his alter ego at his safe return.

  ‘How in the name of the Earth Mother did you get here?’ cried Debbdil in alarm. She was looking about her. ‘Where did the Blacksword go?’ Havoc could see the glazed look in her eyes as the power of the Muse Orrinns Identity Block took effect. In time, her mind would soon resign itself to the fact that Havoc was supposed to be here which suited him fine. He had no wish to explain himself and see the looks of confusion deepen in her face. Confusion was not evident on Tia’s face, however, she wore a mixture of awe and bemusement that congealed into resigned amusement, even if her face was still wet with tears. Havoc had to be wary of her for the moment. Trained Rawns could see things differently by altering their perception if they wished, a trick taught to them at the Academy.

  Then his thoughts turned to a fleeting image of the Havant holding her Lobe Stone as the previous night’s storm shot bolts of lightning around the Cybeleion. Anger flared in him.

  ‘You! You brought the storm to us!’ he growled. ‘You endangered the lives of everyone on the ship.’ He could see the shock on her face as he quickly put the blade of SinDex to her throat.

  ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t slit your throat and kill you now?’

  ‘I cannot give you one, my Lord,’ she said hurriedly as more tears weld up and trickled down her face. ‘I deserve to die, but not because I held the Lure for the storm, for that I am truly sorry. I was as much a patsy in my mistress’s game as you and the crew were. No, the part that fills me with grief and haunts my nights is the role I played in the making of the Drakken all those years ago.’

  Havoc’s jaw dropped in shock. ‘What?’

  ‘I was there on the dark night when Cinnibar brought the stillborn child to the Ring of Dulan and used its flesh to perform the forbidden summoning of the Dragonstalker,’ she sobbed. ‘Forgive me, my Lord, for I knew the child’s mother.’

  Havoc did not want to know the answer; he stepped back from Tia releasing the pressure of his sword on her neck. He was shaking his head as if that would ward off Tia’s voice from his ears.

  ‘The child was the stillborn son of Queen Molna; he was your half-brother. I am so very sorry, my Lord, I have barely had the strength to live with the torment of my actions. It has been eating me up for some time now.’

  Havoc fell to his knees as he remembered his mother telling him about her third son being stillborn. If she knew what had happened to the body she would surely die of grief herself.

  ‘This can’t be true! Drakkens are made from human corpses, adults,’ he said, but knew it was a feeble argument.

  ‘Not so, my Lord. The younger the human, the better. My mistress has a powerful control over the water element. The Drakken would never be as strong as it was without her use of the Arts.’

  Her mistress, thought Havoc, the power of a Waternymph.

  ‘Your mistress! The bitch that sent a storm to kill us… and you!’ he spat at her. ‘I thought at first that you had come to spy on us. Now it seems you were just a stooge to her manipulations. How does that feel, Havant?’

  ‘Your words hurt me, as they should. I have known for some time that I do not belong with the order any more.’ She undid her belt and the buckle with the depiction of the Cloud Orrinn on it and threw it into the water. A look of relief swamped her face.

  ‘There, I am no longer a Havant.’ Havoc could see that what she had done was an act of betrayal to her order and one of personal gratification in itself for her.

  ‘I do not ask for forgiveness, my Lord,’ she said with her head bowed, ‘for I do not forgive myself.’

  She looked so lost and alone that Havoc stood and felt awkward. Debbdil was staring at him wide eyed and then she shrugged. ‘Well I forgive her,’ she said, ‘she did save my life, your Majesty.’

  Havoc walked up to Tia with hesitant steps. He lifted her head by putting his finger under her chin. She looked like a scolded child with her lip trembling and her dirty face streaked with clean lines in the wake of her tears.

  ‘I want to trust you Tia, I really do, but I only have people around me that are loyal.’

  ‘I was loyal to the Havant Order, my Lord, but it has changed, for the worst,’ she looked into the Prince’s eyes with those large brown ones of hers and the image of her in the Orrinn came back to him. ‘Don’t ever change the person you are, Prince Havoc.’ She said in a croaky whisper. The prince frowned at the comment. Tia looked away as hurtful memories rose in her mind of Serena and Cinnibar together. She did not cry, there were no more tears left, so she shuddered with the emotion instead.

  Havoc mistook the shudder for a shiver, without a word he gathered her into his arms, and rubbed her bare shoulders to give her some warmth. Tia was so surprised she gave a startled cry, but did not pull away. She felt relief, also a strong sense of affection for the kindness the Prince was showing her, and she realised that those feelings had always been there since she first saw him. Although confused, she smiled at his clumsy hug. Embracing a man in full armour was not what she regarded as romantic.

  Havoc looked at Debbdil as she stood off to one side
with her arms around herself trying to control her shivering. He held out his hand and smiled at her.

  ‘Come on, you too. You are both freezing,’ he said. Debbdil did not know where to look but she saw Tia smile and nod, so she stepped forward and pressed her body against the Prince’s and Tia’s and felt warmth spread through her tired limbs and she sighed and giggled.

  ‘If Maleene could see me now she would have a fit,’ she said, ‘she has forbidden us to get within a foot of a man.’ Havoc and Tia both laughed.

  ‘She is a wise woman,’ said the prince, ‘do you both feel better?’

  He felt them both nod against his chest armour. ‘You are very warm, my Lord,’ Debbdil sounded surprised.

  ‘Rawns have a natural area of warm air around them,’ informed Tia, ‘but I don’t understand how alive I feel next to you, my Lord?’ Apparently the question of her loyalty was over, but not forgotten, she may have to broach that subject again.

  ‘That’s because we are standing on a conduit crossing. Dragon Lane energy is everywhere,’ said Havoc. ‘I think that is why the Brethac have chosen this place for their shrine.’

  ‘You can see the Dragon Lanes?’ Tia looked up at him with surprise.

  ‘Yes, see them and channel them. I have been able to do this for some time now. At this moment they are swarming all around you, recharging both of you through me.’

  ‘You are truly a powerful Rawn. I have never heard of anyone with this ability before.’

  ‘How do you think I was able to destroy the storm?’

  Both girls stood back from him in amazement. However, before they could ask more questions, each of them heard sobbing coming from a long way off. They looked around for the source and Debbdil found an opening cut out of the rock at the rear of the shrine and framed in limestone. It was about the size of a small doorway and they had to duck to enter. They found steps leading up and the crying became louder as the narrow staircase enhanced the sounds. Havoc pulled out his Spit Gun from it’s holster strapped to his right leg. He whispered to the girls to keep behind him as he climbed the stairs.

  Another opening of about the same size as the first brought them into a low-ceilinged room with wooden racks on every wall. Each rack held jars of various sizes and the gory contents held organs and embryos all shrivelled up in a cloudy liquid. The chemical smell that reached them from the doorway was cloying.

  In the centre of the room sat a stone table with holes at each corner and guttering carved into the edges; embalming tools and gauze wrapping lay scattered on its surface.

  ‘This must be where they take the organs out of the corpses before the mummification process,’ whispered Debbdil. ‘The Falesti do the same when they embalm their dead queens.’

  The sobbing started again and it sounded like a lost child sniffing through her tears and her runny nose, it came from behind the stone table. Tia and Debbdil rushed around it on both sides and found a girl curled up on the floor, but to Havoc she was the strangest girl he had ever seen.

  She was clearly an albino; pale white skin, grey lips and eyelashes. Her white hair was long and straggly and badly in need of combing. It cascaded down her back. She had pointed lobe-less ears, giving her an elfin quality which was further enhanced by her oval face and almond shaped eyes. The eyes were the most beautiful thing about her face. Havoc could see very was little pigment in her irises, most of what could see of her eyes in the dim candlelight of the room was a light pinkish sheen and her pupils were small and grey. It was with a shock that they all noticed she was naked and dirty. Her pubic hairs were as white as her head hair and some of her head hair barely covered the small nubs of her breasts.

  She noticed Tia and Debbdil first and stood slowly, eyeing them with trepidation, unsure of their intentions until Tia spoke in a reassuring tone and the strange girl gave back a smile. Havoc could see she was short, about five feet tall, and not as young as he thought. Even though she looked no older than twelve or thirteen with a body of a young woman, she also had a certain maturity in her smile and her eyes gave away many years of life. Many, many years.

  Tia spoke to her slowly, but the girl did not understand a word. She wiped mucus from her small nose so it became a long smear of snot on her wrist. She suddenly caught sight of Havoc as he appeared out of the gloom. She said something that made no sense to them, then moved towards him and placed a hand on his chest. The loving look that she offered him made him uneasy. He was very aware of her nakedness and the shape of her small body was quite attractive, in fact, very attractive. He felt as if he was falling into those exquisite eyes of hers. He had to shake his head to clear it from the weird fuzziness he suddenly felt.

  ‘I think she likes you, my Lord,’ said Debbdil with a mischievous grin.

  ‘My name is Havoc,’ he said banging his chest, ‘Havoc.’ There was a little understanding in the girl’s eyes as she listened to his voice.

  ‘Vul’yoi,’ she said, tapping her own chest. Apparently, all thoughts of her previous sorrow disappeared as she continuing to look at Havoc as if he was some sort of deity. Debbdil tapped her on the shoulder and Vul’yoi looked at her with wide eyes.

  ‘Vul’yoi, bad creatures after us,’ she said miming the Brethac, using her hands with fingertips pressed together to represent the sharp teeth of the monsters as she made barking noises. The girl watched her in wonder as Debbdil pantomimed, then her smile dropped, as she understood.

  ‘Ah, Korzac!’ she said and growled with her hands in front of her like claws.

  ‘Yes that’s them, they are coming,’ said Tia pointing to the opening that led down to the shrine.

  Vul’yoi shook her head and wagged her finger. ‘Moydel palash tepin,’ she said and laid her head on her hands to depict sleeping.

  Havoc, Tia and Debbdil looked at each other. ‘How does she know they are sleeping?’ said Havoc, ‘how has she survived so long on her own?’

  ‘Maybe she understands the Korzac sleeping patterns,’ shrugged Debbdil.

  Tia got down on her knees and looked at the girl, she pointed to the roof.

  ‘Surface, can you bring us to the surface?’ she said, but the girl just looked confused. Havoc realised that her intelligence was lower than average, she was not listening to Tia and instead brushed her thin fingers through Tia’s brown hair. Havoc noticed then that her small delicate hands were webbed half way up the fingers and her small toes were just the same.

  He felt agitated, mainly because the Blacksword felt the same; he fidgeted in the back of his mind.

  Be careful Havoc. There is something not right about that girl, but I can’t put my finger on it, he said.

  ‘Daylight?’ said Tia, ‘surface and daylight?’ The girl jumped at the word and nodded.

  ‘Daylight, vartamoosh, birsanti.’ She pointed upward and then waved her hand for them to follow as she took them to the back of the Mummification Room and out another door with more stairs leading upward.

  Chapter 21

  The Temple of the Brethac

  After half an hour, the current brought them to a dead end and large area of water that looked broken by small whirlpools. The river ran on through tiny openings in the rock face that loomed at the other end of the whirlpools. They heard what sounded like rushing rapids as the water emptied into smaller chambers.

  The raft was becoming more flimsy as it absorbed water and the ropes started to loose and unravel. This was the end of their river journey.

  Lord Ness and Powyss gallantly helped the women ashore as they grounded the raft onto a pebble beach. The four Wyvern Filial were in good shape, but the two natives were weak and in need of food. Powyss started a fire and pulled out a pouch of oats and dry fruits that he kept in his ration pack. He took off his metal shoulder plate and heated the food inside it along with some water. The girls ate hungrily when he offered them the food. The Wyverns had some of their own food, which was a dried tuber that dissolved slowly in the mouth, giving them much needed minerals and nutrients. Lord Ness
and Powyss went without.

  A breath of air, fresh and invigorating, ruffled the Ri’s white hair. He followed it to a small opening that, with the help of the commander, he made bigger for them all to get through.

  Once inside, they found a wooden construction, an open box taller than the average height of a man and wide enough for six people inside. There were rusty chains leading up into a high shaft. The box was rotten in several places, though held together by metal struts.

  ‘Looks like some sort of lift, similar to what they use in Ten Mountain. It may have been used to bring supplies down to the subterranean river,’ remarked the Ri.

  ‘Well, I hope it still works then,’ said Powyss.

  The build up of lactic acid in their already weary thighs made the climb up the stairs all the more intolerable. Luckily, there were openings with long balconies that looked out onto the dark river below. At one of these openings, they rested after climbing for a solid half an hour.

  The albino girl sat on a high boulder humming to herself her bare feet moved back and forth above the ground like a child would do, she never took her eyes off Havoc.

  ‘I think she has a fancy for you, my Lord,’ taunted Debbdil with a smile as she sat beside Tia and gave her and the Prince a piece of tuber to place on their tongues. It was bitter, but after a while the flavour changed to a sweet ginger.

  Havoc looked at Vul’yoi and smiled at her. She stopped humming as she looked at him and tilted her head, much like a wolfhound pup would do when it found something interesting.

  ‘Not my type, she looks very young and old at the same time. I find her strange.’