‘No,’ said Tika slowly. ‘I think she must have found or been found by the Grey Guardian. Does he speak to you as the Lady Emla does Fenj?’
Fenj was startled. ‘He has never bespoken me, but now you suggest it, it would seem plain that he COULD do so. You think he spoke to the Forsaken and encouraged her feelings of ill will?’
Tika shrugged trying to explain her idea. ‘It just came to me when you spoke of the Guardian. The Lady speaks to you and you listen and tell the Treasury of her words and – the Forsaken is so very different to all the other Dragons I’ve encountered, I just thought. . . If she hears the Guardian tell her opposite things to the Lady, as you say everything has an opposite, which could account for her cruelty?’
Farn yawned then looked guiltily apologetic. Fenj chuckled. ‘Indeed Farn, you have worked hard these few days. Take Tika and rest. The time approaches all too soon when you must leave here.’
Chapter Five
Next morning, despite Fenj’s warning last night, Tika and Farn were dismayed to find Kija and Seti waiting to bid them farewell. Kija’s eyes were a buttery gold blaze as she told Farn not to be boastful or rash but to consider his actions always as reflections of his Treasury birth. She asked Tika to take care of Farn, to beware of letting him overtax his immature strength. Finally, as both Farn and Tika felt engulfed by her affection and concern, she was lifting, rising to the peaks with her other four children close beside her.
Jeela flew last, turning again and again to see them, her mind calling farewell.
Shar too called ‘Safe travelling!’
Farn’s father Jorab had gone in the night, to rejoin a group of males heading north towards the desert lands edging the Ancient Mountains. Seti merely told them to remember their lessons and they would do well, then she too was gone. And so, suddenly, the central Gathering Place was empty, seeming bigger than ever with just the four of them, Fenj, Kadi, Farn and Tika.
‘These are the last things,’ said Fenj. ‘The Lady has told me you must take two things particularly from our collection.’
He looked at Kadi then both huge Dragons turned towards the gleaming black circle set high in the rock face. Tika was aware of Fenj and Kadi’s minds working together. She concentrated hard to see exactly what they were doing. It felt as though they were unravelling a piece of woven cloth, threads being slid free of other threads. As Tika strove to follow the pattern of what they did, the black circle split down the centre and folded silently back, revealing a cave behind. ‘Come.’ Fenj rose and flew smoothly to the cave with Kadi a second behind him.
‘Come on,’ said Farn excitedly, urging Tika to climb on his back and lifting rapidly to follow his elders.
This cave, like Kija’s nesting cave, had a kind of entrance place then a short tunnel twisted away concealing another cave from first glance.
Tika heard Farn’s squeak of gleeful astonishment as she entered the second cave behind the others. She stared, amazed, at the great jumbled heap in front of them. Farn immediately started nosing amongst the glittering pile while Kadi watched. Fenj told Tika: ‘Dragons love sparkling things – drops of water, snowflakes, stars in the sky, shining stones. And a thousand Seasons past, we would collect any such things we found. The best we brought here for all to enjoy at the Gathering times. Most of us have small collections of our own hidden away.’
‘A real Dragon’s hoard of treasure,’ Tika whispered, watching jewelled coronets and scabbards, necklaces and brooches slipping down the pile as Farn poked through it all.
‘What?’ Fenj asked in some surprise.
‘There are stories about Dragons having these great hoards of treasure,’ Tika explained.
‘Stories? Two-legs tell stories of us?’ Fenj sounded dubious as well as faintly shocked. ‘What are these stories?’
‘Usually of Dragons capturing beautiful princesses and bearing them off to hidden places where they live on top of heaps of jewels.’ Tika paused, belatedly remembering how most of such stories ended.
Fenj asked, ‘Whatever does the Dragon do with a two-legs princess?’
Tika gulped. ‘Well, sometimes he eats her, but more often a handsome prince turns up, battles and kills the Dragon and takes the princess home to marry.’
Grey eyes and blue whirred rapidly and Tika suddenly had that turned inside out sensation again.
‘I do wish you wouldn’t do that,’ she complained. ‘It makes me feel really sick.’ She felt Kadi and Fenj withdraw from her mind extremely rapidly. ‘That’s better,’ she said graciously.
Kadi apologised first. ‘Please forgive us Tika. We are unused to communicating with your kind. The few two legs we have attempted contact with, do not seem to be at all aware of our attempts.’
Fenj rumbled in agreement.
‘Look!’ cried Farn. He had a golden coronet afire with sapphires and bloodstones. He twirled it on one extended talon. ‘Sparkles!’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Fenj, ‘but there are two things the Lady said you must take with you Tika. Look in my mind and you will be able to recognise them.’
Tika slid into Fenj’s thoughts and saw a piece of amber embedded in gold, hanging from a thin golden chain. Beside this was a dull leather scabbard with the silver hilt of a sword protruding from its top. She looked at the great heap Farn was happily prodding through and groaned. ‘The scabbard should be easy enough, it looked like old, worn leather and there isn’t much leather in this lot, but the necklet – .’
Farn was persuaded to see the items in Tika’s mind and the four began searching through the hoard. It took a long time, mainly because all of them were often distracted by the beautifully crafted objects they sorted through. The three Dragons admired the brilliant flashing of the stones, Tika was dumbfounded by the wealth the stones represented.
It was Kadi who found the leather scabbard and pulled it free of a rope of great milky egg-stones of the sea. Much later, Farn began scrabbling excitedly: ‘It’s here! I saw its edge! Tika come and help!’
Sure enough, the rim of a gold encased piece of amber showed beneath a heavily encrusted shield. Tika’s fingers worked the amber free with its knotted golden chain.
‘I have it,’ she announced but only Kadi glanced up momentarily. Tika looked at the Dragons more closely. They were dreamily bemused by the glittering collection. Fenj started a miniature landslide with an extended talon. Farn was half covered with goblets and necklets, crooning happily.
‘Come,’ Tika ordered as commandingly as she could. ‘To Fenj’s cave.’ Slowly, reluctantly, Kadi was first to back away then leave the cave. Fenj and Farn seemed not to have heard a word. Tika went to Farn, pushed the heap of sparkles off his legs and belly and hauled at his arm. ‘Out. Now Farn. Do as I tell you.’ Farn at last turned to look at her and his eyes regained their focus as Tika clasped his face in her hands. ‘Now Farn. Go to Fenj’s cave.’
That left Fenj. Tika eyed the enormous black Dragon and seriously wondered if she would be able to tear him from his dreamy contemplation of this treasure hoard. She cautiously probed into his mind and then suddenly felt Kadi’s mind there too.
‘Fenj, come away. You are behaving like a hatchling.’ Fenj reared onto his haunches and rumbled. He looked at Tika and gradually his eyes recognised her and lost the vagueness of the hoard’s enchantment.
She stood aside, indicating he should leave the cave before her and he obediently moved past, his tail catching an edge of the sparkling pile. Tika moved right behind him as he hesitated, forcing him on through the passage to the outer cave. She glanced back at the treasure, shook her head in disbelief and hurried after Fenj. She was carried to his cave in silence. It was only as she climbed off his back that he spoke: ‘I am sorry Tika. It has been long since we opened the circle to look at our collection. We found, many, many Gathers past, that we forget Time when we gaze on so many shining things. The Gather decided we should seal it away after we were nearly trapped here by snow and ice storms – so many days had passed and we were too
dazzled to realise it.’
Kadi and Farn were rubbing the worn scabbard with their own body oil Tika saw, and already it was beginning to soften and shine again, as leather should. Farn had moved up to begin working on the loops to which the scabbard was fastened.
Tika sat at the cave entrance trying to pick free the tight knots in the gold chain. The pendant it supported was the size and shape of a sky singer’s egg, with the back half shelled in gold and filled with smooth amber to the front. Within the amber was a tiny black speck. Fenj lay watching her mutter over the knots. ‘Why not use your mind, small one?’ he suggested. Tika stared at him, then at the chain. She saw where the links needed loosening and threading through twisted loops like so – and the chain lay untangled on her knee. She dropped the chain over her head, the amber and gold egg hanging low on her chest. She lifted it and peered at the black speck within the amber.
‘What is this mark?’ she asked curiously.
‘Again, use your mind.’
Annoyed with herself at having to be reminded of her new abilities a second time, and so soon, Tika was too tense at first. She looked out over the Gathering Place, breathed deeply and looked again at the pendant. It was a tiny curled frond she thought, and then she looked even closer. It was no plant, it was a Dragon. But so small! Scarce as big as her smallest fingernail, yet utterly perfect. She closed her hand around it, looking at Fenj as her mind threatened to explode with more questions.
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I have never seen a living Dragon so small. Once I saw newlaid eggs broken by a rock fall and inside were Dragons tiny beyond belief, but even they were not so small as what you hold there. The Lady told me nothing of these things she said you must have. Maybe it is to be revealed to you alone as you travel.’
Next morning Tika awoke first to see bright light within the cave. She stood up from beside Farn’s still sleeping body, her blanket cape crumpling to her feet. A layer of snow, two fingerwidths deep, lay on the outside world. Picking up the cape and wrapping it around herself she went to look out over the Gathering Place. The sky was a brittle blue, the rising sun a feverish red.
‘You must leave today,’ Fenj told her. ‘It is early for the snow to come, but you cannot delay here any longer.’
‘But you haven’t told us where we must go. You say we must find one of the Lady’s Balance Weights, yet you haven’t said even what it looks like. Surely you, or Kadi, or – anyone – would be a better choice than Farn and I?’ There was an edge of panic in Tika’s voice.
‘The Weight is a small disc of gold with a hole in its centre. That is all I know. Whether there are patterns upon it I cannot tell you. You travel to mountains first, north of here. They are not part of this Treasury’s lands, but are the lands of the Sun Treasury. Kadi has bespoken the Eldest of that Treasury – Seela – and she replied that the Lady has spoken with her also. She will tell you more than I have been able to do perhaps. She awaits your arrival and she has been told of the Forsaken One. Her Dragons too will shun the Nameless and word will be passed thus to all the Dragon Kin.’
‘And how far is it to reach Seela?’
‘Eight or nine days travel. Half of that time you will be over this Treasury’s lands and will perhaps see some of those whom you met here. Then there is a distance over barren land where food is scarce, and you should then see the Sun Mountains ahead of you. It is not a difficult journey thus far.’
‘Do you know where Kija went? It seems strange to me that she should leave Farn, her first born after all, to have to do this by himself.’
‘She has four other hatchlings to raise. Three is the most we usually have in a brood. She will be kept very busy training them to become independent of her. And I know she will work them hard, as she is anxious for Farn and you. If your journey takes much time, I think Kija will try to find you, to be of assistance in your task.’
Farn and Tika ate the food Kadi brought them and then they knew it was time to leave, both the safety of the Gathering Place and the reassuring company of the two elder Dragons. Tika awkwardly strapped on the scabbard belt and sword, and she was surprised at how familiar it immediately felt at her hip. She had occasionally seen the Fighters teaching the Lord’s boys the art of swordsmanship. But she had considerable doubts as to whether she’d draw this sword without seriously damaging herself let alone any opponent. She had decided she would practice privately – when Farn left her to hunt for their supper perhaps.
With her cape wrapped around her and the other blanket, trousers and frilly underbeneaths held between her body and Farn’s, she looked at the two Great Dragons. Her mind, and Farn’s, was engulfed in affection and goodwill; she caught the faintest underlay of sadness and apprehension but she knew Farn did not feel it in his excitement.
Kadi and Fenj reared upright, towering over Tika and Farn. Their wings were outstretched, holding them tall and steady. Grey eyes and blue blazed in kaleidoscopic colours:
‘Go safely hatchlings. You have the protection of the Golden Emla and our thoughts will be with you as long as possible. Call to us if you have need.’
It was Kadi’s voice in their minds as Farn began to rise out of the Gathering Place, but it was Fenj’s voice at the last, repeating: ‘Go safely hatchlings!’
Chapter Six
For three days Farn and Tika journeyed north from Broken Mountain. The weather stayed clear but frost spiked each blade of grass when they woke just before dawn now. There had been no snow yet in the valleys, but white shawls covered the higher slopes. They had met no other Dragons, only skysingers and hoppers, feeding on the cloud bushes and starberries. Once Tika saw a solitary high drifter, floating effortlessly, his eyes on hoppers far below him. There were a few bell trees now, among the taller and more slender tapisi.
Farn’s strength had greatly increased since the flight to the Gathering Place with Kadi. They landed at midday but not because Farn needed to rest. Tika found she had to walk for a while, stretch her legs and arms after sitting still for too long on Farn’s back.
It was the fourth evening and they had stopped earlier than previously. Tika was cramped, and trying to think of a way of exercising her limbs whilst on Farn’s back, which would not interfere with his flying or unseat herself. Farn was tired of a diet of hoppers and said he would try to find a volu, for supper.
Tika jumped, and stretched, and ran up and down between a tapis and a rocky outcrop. As she turned from the rock for the third sprint, she felt hands, human hands, grab her. One hand was over her mouth and the other viciously tight on her upper arm, holding her hard against a leather overtunic.
Her heart seemed to stop, then leaped into high-speed pulse as she twisted and struggled. Whoever held her, spoke roughly to her but she could not understand his words. Why oh why had she put her sword with her cape and bundle by the tapis while she did her stupid exercises?
She reached up and back with her free hand and caught an ear. She held on as tightly as she could, digging in to the flesh with her nails and tugging downwards. Her mind was quite clear after its first instant of panic, and she called quickly to Farn, telling him what was happening to her. She was also thinking furiously – who had hold of her, was he one man or one of a group of hunters? Or one of a band of Fighters?
The question was answered for her as she was spun around and pushed violently towards a group of men. They were dressed as Fighters, but none she recognised. They all had stripes of colour across one cheek, indicating they were of a Lord’s band. Hoarse voices called out as they encircled Tika. She half understood a word here and there, but could not make any real sense of their speech.
‘Use your mind,’ Fenj’s words whispered in her memory, and she probed carefully into the mind of a Fighter who kept aloof from the taunting roughness of the rest of the men. She was immediately submerged in a confused jumble of feelings and thoughts: jealousy, irritation, boredom, petulance. She realised she could understand his mind where she could not understand the vocal speech of these men.
This one was the supposed leader of the Fighters. They fought for a Lord Jal-Sidar, who ruled a town, many leagues west. They had been raiding into another Lord’s territory but had little to show for many days hard riding on the speedy fengars most Fighters preferred. Now the leader watched as these boorish fools played with a peasant brat. They were not reliably obedient to all his orders so he unwillingly left them to have their fun now.
As he glanced at the men, pushing Tika to and fro in their midst, Tika felt his sudden, stupendous shock even as she saw his widening eyes and gaping mouth. She laughed aloud, disconcerting her tormentors. Those facing the same way as their leader showed similar dismay, one even dropping flat to the earth and covering his head with his arms. She laughed again as she turned, knowing what she’d see. Farn was marching steadily from the tapisi towards them, his wings raised, his prismed eyes flashing sapphires. He came to a halt a short distance from the Fighters.
Tika walked past men now rigid with terrified disbelief, and stood against Farn’s belly as he reared upright. Then he belched. Fire flared from his nostrils, singeing the turf at the Fighters’ feet. They were rooted to where they stood it seemed. Farn belched once more and as one, the gang turned and fled, wailing, beyond the outcrop of rock.
‘They did not harm you Tika?’ Farn asked with concern.
‘No, just scared me at first. Can you hear their mind speech?’
‘No,’ said Farn after a while. ‘I hear a babble but I can make nothing of it that could be called speech.’
‘They have just reached the place they left their fengars. I think they were looking for hoppers for their supper and found me instead. Their minds are a shrieking muddle.’ Tika laughed, rubbing Farn’s long neck affectionately. ‘Thank you. You were extremely good at sending them on their way!’
Soul Bonds Book 1 Circles of Light series Page 5