Destiny of the Light: Shadow Through Time 1

by Louise Cusack

  ‘The Dark …’ Talis trailed off.

  Khatrene opened her eyes and they gazed at each other. ‘Djahr told everyone that Roeg did it?’ Khatrene felt sick. ‘What if he was lying?’ she said. He could be the one …’ Horror welled up inside her then and she couldn’t face it, tried to shut it off, to not consider the possibility that she could have married a man responsible for the death of both her parents.

  WORSE IS TO COME, the voice said and Khatrene simply shook her head. Unable to comprehend anything worse than what she already suspected.

  She looked up into Talis’s eyes. ‘It Djahr would kill a king to get to my mother, what will he do to get me back? To steal my child?’

  ‘I do not know,’ Talis said softly, and took her into his arms.

  Khatrene clung to him, willing the sound of his steady heartbeat to calm her fears. ‘This would be a good time for a reassuring kiss,’ she said.

  Talis pulled her away and managed a weak smile. ‘When you love me as a husband and not as a friend,’ he replied. The same thing he’d said each time she’d pointed out an opportunity for kissing.

  All Khatrene had to say was I love you, and she’d have what she wanted. But instead, what came out of her mouth was, ‘Don’t you want me?’ Which was so trite she winced at her own words.

  Predicably, Talis was incredulous. ‘I have wanted you since the moment you first laid bewildered eyes on me at the Sacred Pool,’ he said. ‘To stand beside you was to ache for what could not be. A hundred days have passed between that time and this, and a hundred more may pass before you say you love me. Yet, I will wait.’

  Khatrene shook her head. She didn’t deserve this. ‘And if I don’t ever say it?’ she asked, probing mercilessly.

  ‘Then I shall die waiting,’ Talis replied without hesitation.

  ‘I see.’

  Sensing her withdrawal, Talis released her from his arms and stood. ‘I leave you with your memories,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I wish there were more.’

  ‘You did your best,’ she replied, knowing he would have.

  He left her then and Khatrene lay back on her lumpy mattress and closed her eyes, watching movies inside her mind that were apparently part of her life. Snippets of Mihale, her mother, her father, and even a younger Talis came and went, but for some reason she kept going back to the memory of Roeg smiling at her. Such warmth in those eyes. More warmth than she’d ever seen in Djahr’s eyes.

  I can’t believe he killed my father. Djahr must have framed him.

  AND WILL AGAIN, the voice replied.

  Roeg is alive? Khatrene waited for a reply and received none, yet couldn’t help believing it was true. In fact, so sure was she about this, she would have called Talis back to tell him but the voice continued to insist she tell no-one of his presence in her mind. Not even Talis. Khatrene knew it was an arbitrary test of her obedience but the penalty for failure was the immediate withdrawal of his assistance.

  She still had no idea whether he was the Great Guardian or something completely different. But whatever he was, he was helpful when he chose to be, and in the future that was rushing towards her she’d need all the help she could get.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Khatrene awoke to the high-pitched sound of Plainsman mourning. The last time she’d heard that sound, Noorinya had killed her lieutenant. Apprehension gnawed at her as she snatched up her heavy day-cloak and slipped out of her tent. It was barely dawn, but Talis was not outside. Khatrene felt her anxiety rise. She saw Plainsmen hurrying in the direction of the cliff where the sound was coming from and she followed them. Close to the edge, a large group had formed. Pagan stood to one side like an outrider, his head lowered as though in sadness. Talis was nowhere to be seen.

  The wailing was unbearably loud now, echoing back from the hills. Khatrene recognised Noorinya’s voice, backed by rhythmic moaning from the surrounding tribe. Her hands trembled as she pushed her way through to the front and found Talis sitting on the ground with Noorinya at his side, the Plainswoman’s keening cry in sharp contrast to her Champion’s solemn silence.

  Khatrene’s hand rose to her mouth and she pressed it there.

  Cradled in Talis’s arms lay a small boy, his neck and limbs turned at impossible angles. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth onto a ribboned-robe that denoted him to be from Noorinya’s own clan. Talis was bruised and cut, his clothing torn, but worse than the physical injuries was the expression on his face. He simply stared at the child in his lap, as though he could not believe it was dead.

  Khatrene, in turn, stared at Talis and felt compassion well up within her. But it was more than that. Much more. And just when she was thinking she would drown in the emotion, she felt a tug on her arm. ‘Come,’ Pagan whispered close to her ear, but she resisted, unable to tear her gaze away from Talis. The horrible wailing noise mesmerised her. Then Talis moved the child in his arms and Khatrene’s fingers tightened on her mouth.

  Weedah.

  Khatrene shook her head. Couldn’t … wouldn’t believe it. The night before, Talis had snatched him from outside her tent, growling that he must not disturb The Light. It had been too late, of course. His giggling had woken her and she’d gone to the door flap in time to see the small warrior waving at her triumphantly as Talis bore him away.

  Such a cheeky smile.

  Pagan tugged on her arm again and this time she offered no resistance, stumbling behind him to the edges of the crowd and further.

  They looked at each other and she noticed for the first time that Pagan had been crying. His eyelashes were wet.

  ‘The child fell into the ravine.’ he said baldly. ‘Talis could not reach him before he died.’

  Noorinya’s wailing was like a loud Eeeeeeee and Khatrene realised then that she was crying the child’s name, Weeeeeeeedah, with the final syllable caught on a gasp. The sound of it was like a knife in her chest.

  ‘Can’t …’ Khatrene’s voice was dry, hollow. She swallowed, several times, tried again. ‘Can’t Talis bring him back to life?’ she asked. ‘When I came through from Magoria —’

  Pagan shook his head sharply. ‘It was too late for the child. Talis risked much to recover him, but the time had passed when he could use his Guardian power.’ Pagan blinked, then turned back towards the cliff. ‘Talis’s own mother died this way. He found her fallen, yet could not bring his father fast enough to revive her. I was just five, yet I remember his sadness well.’

  Khatrene’s tears were unstoppable now.

  ‘He needs love,’ Pagan said, then looked back at her, something hard in his eyes, almost angry. ‘Yet you toy with him.’

  Khatrene shook her head, wanting to deny what Pagan had said but knowing how it must look.

  ‘How can you not love him?’ Pagan demanded and Khatrene stared at him, her mind shocked to stillness.

  How could she not love Talis?

  She closed her eyes and felt again the emotion that had welled within her when she’d seen him holding Weedah, with tenderness and love. The same way he touched her. The same way Talis touched every life he came into contact with. How could she not love him?

  She opened her eyes and looked at Pagan.

  ‘Tell him,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘I will.’

  It took two hours for the funeral pyre to be erected and another two to prepare for the ceremony. Khatrene simply stood at Talis’s side, holding his hand, listening as he told her the Plainsman legend of how the first tribe had been born out of a firestorm on the Plains. When Plainsmen died, he explained, they must be returned to the fire from which the
ir people had been born, to remain there until they were born again into the tribe.

  Khatrene listened to Talis’s quiet explanations of what was happening around them and suspected he was talking his way through grief but she was glad for the distraction herself.

  When the pyre was completed, Weedah’s small body was brought out on a board, cleansed and dressed in the overlarge death-robe his mother had made at his birth. Deep shadows from the mountain peaks around them had slid back to warm the earth of their plateau cremation site. The sound of water in the ravine far below was both eerie and comforting. A rising murmur heralded the opening of the ceremony, easing to a rhythmic undertone as Noorinya stepped forward to put a small dagger in Weedah’s palm, enabling him to protect himself on the other side, Talis explained softly. Then Breehan came with a rolled parchment which he tucked into Weedah’s robe. It was a copy of the names of the members of his tribe, so Weedah would remember who he should speak to on the other side. Custom forbade speaking with members of other tribes while away from your own. Due to Djahr’s decree there was only one tribe left; however, the tradition of the list had apparently persisted.

  Next came the wise women in sombre robes, circling the body like crows around a scrap of food, their wispy hair floating about their heads in the gentle morning breeze. They said nothing. Did nothing that Khatrene could see. Simply gazed on the dead child then turned, and with a hand on the shoulder of the one in front, circled away from the body like a witches’ conga line.

  Other members of the tribe came forward singly with wrapped morsels of food, flasks of water, a change of clothes. Everything a little warrior might need to survive in the Otherworld. These people, who had so few possessions of their own, gave their finest to honour the soul of their kinsman. To Khatrene, watching as an outsider, it was both proud and pitiful.

  When the gift-giving was over, the ceremony to send Weedah’s soul soaring to the High Plains began, and as the pyre was lit, Noorinya spoke of the world her nephew would soon enter, the land of their Ancestors. It was obviously a reference to the Fireworld of Haddash, which Plainsmen simply called the Otherworld, and again Khatrene found her credulity strained. Despite race or religion, everyone on Ennae appeared to believe that the Fireworld was as real as Magoria. Even their traditional enemies, the Northmen, prayed to Kraal the Serpent of Death who ruled the Fireworld. At the Ceremony of Haddash, Lae had been terrified that the Serpent would appear and eat her father.

  The bald fact was, however, that the Serpent hadn’t appeared in Ennae for centuries, assuming it wasn’t simply some Loch Ness style myth, and neither had anyone travelled to Haddash. Well, not alive, anyway, she thought, remembering the corpses which had been fed into the Volcastle flames. Nor had anyone travelled to Atheyre to see its ghostly inhabitants who apparently ‘lived in the clouds and ate the incorporeal air’. All very poetic, but where was the proof?

  Yet despite her disbelief, Khatrene found the ceremony comforting and wasn’t the only one to be moved to tears by Noola’s silent eulogy for her son. Hanjeel, with his delicate features and long dark hair scraped back in a Plainsman tail, stood like a willow at her side holding her baby, swaying with the tribe. Khatrene thought she had never seen such sad eyes in her life.

  When the ceremony was completed and the Plainsmen had drifted off to their shelters to ‘lie in grief’ thinking about Weedah’s soul, she asked Talis to lead her down the ravine path which they descended in silence, much more carefully than he had that morning in his desperation to save the child. By midday they were at the base of the cliffs, and though Khatrene was tired after the long climb down, she felt a peace inside herself she’d never experienced before, as though she’d given up all her fears and watched them drift away on the breeze.

  A thin mist, like golden fairy floss, hung over the river before them. The water was still, and looked deep. Both Talis and Breehan had spoken to her of the visions that could be found in the Echo Mountains. Visions which would drive a man to madness. Talis had assured her that his Guardian power warded any such magic away from her, but sometimes Khatrene longed for magic, to see the Verdan Loch with its sentient water. To swim in it and feel the caress of its currents. Would she ever see that now? Would she even see her own child born?

  The threat Djahr posed was a continual reminder to her that she must live each day as though it was her last. Constant travelling had seen them evade the Be’uccdha forces thus far, but one mistake and it would all be over. Khatrene didn’t want it to be over. She wanted to live. With Talis.

  ‘Can I swim here?’ she asked, and bent to unlace her boots and step out of them. Water on Ennae was thick but, as she had come to discover, it was surprisingly buoyant.

  ‘Your aura should not rise above the cliff tops. You are safe to doff your heavy cloak.’

  Khatrene looked along the narrow, stony river edge, wishing they’d had the room to camp down here. Then she looked back at Talis who was scanning the area and felt a sudden and sharp jolt of desire. He was so beautiful. So perfect. Everything about him from his wide-shouldered body to his beautifully expressive eyes. She swallowed tightly, wanting to be in his arms but knowing she had to earn that right. ‘Can I swim?’ she asked.

  He gazed at her a moment longer. ‘There is no danger,’ he said. ‘And I will watch over you.’

  ‘I thought you might join me,’ she said as casually as she could, dropping the cloak and starting to untie the front of her gown.

  Talis watched her a moment, then glanced at the river. ‘This is not a good day to test my strength of purpose,’ he said, his voice soft and noticeably shakily. ‘I cannot fight —’

  ‘Then don’t.’ Khatrene took a slow breath and shrugged out of the gown. It pooled on the rocks at her feet and suddenly everything was very still. Khatrene, Talis, the canyon air.

  ‘I am in love with you,’ she said, looking straight into his eyes, wishing she was braver than she was, wishing she wasn’t excruciatingly embarrassed right at that moment, wishing … he’d say something.

  But Talis didn’t say a thing. He wasn’t shocked. He looked … frightened, if anything, yet as his gaze moved down to slide over her rapidly goose-fleshing skin, his expression changed and Khatrene felt her embarrassment slide away.

  Talis was in awe of her. Maybe it was her aura sparkling on the water, turning the mist into a watercolour rainbow that splashed thickly over the rocks. Or maybe he’d just been waiting so long that he’d begun to believe it was never going to happen. He definitely had an unprepared look about him.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ she asked, thinking perhaps that she shouldn’t have distracted him from the words he’d waited so long to hear. ‘I’m in love with you.’

  Incredibly, he shook his head. He didn’t believe her? ‘How do you know?’ he asked.

  ‘Well … I don’t have a certificate.’ She tried to smile, took a step towards him. ‘I just know.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  It wasn’t going to be enough to say the words. Khatrene suddenly realised she would have to convince him. ‘I can feel it,’ she said. ‘Here. Inside.’ Her fingers splayed over her left breast, one fingertip covering a nipple hardened by the cool canyon air. ‘When I saw you this morning … with Weedah …’ she had to stop and catch her breath to get past the lump that had formed in her throat. ‘I saw you holding him and I knew I was in love with you.’ Khatrene took another step. Stood right in front of him now. A breeze caught her hair and brushed it against his chest.

  ‘How did it feel?’ he asked.

  Khatrene swallowed. She desperately wanted Talis to take her into his arms. She didn’t want to stan
d in front of him like this, naked inside and out. But she understood. She loved him. How could she not?

  ‘It felt …’ She gazed into his eyes and saw in her mind what she wanted to say. ‘As though I’d just seen the most beautiful flower unfolding in front of me.’ She took his hand and pressed it against her chest. ‘This is where I saw it,’ she said. ‘Inside here. And suddenly I wasn’t afraid of the flower dying, or of me bruising its petals. None of that mattered. It only mattered that I had it. That I cherished it and …’ She couldn’t go any further. Couldn’t explain it, but Talis wasn’t frowning. He was looking at her as if she’d just made perfect sense.

  ‘Will you lie with me and be the wife of my heart?’ he asked her.

  She couldn’t trust her voice. Nodded.

  Talis took her into his arms and rested his cheek on her hair. She felt a tremor run through him and then he held her more tightly.

  ‘Know this,’ he said, his voice husky. ‘Where you go, I shall be. I will not leave your side unless you send me away. And I will love the child who grows within you as I love his mother.’

  Khatrene blinked back tears and hugged him to herself. Home. She felt as though she’d been struggling for years and now she was finally home.

  They stood that way for a long time, until Khatrene noticed something she probably should have noticed to start with. A firm pressure against her belly. She was pretty certain it wasn’t his dagger.

  She smiled. ‘I love you,’ she said, leaning up to brush a soft kiss against his lips.

  Talis smiled back. ‘You have told me this,’ he replied softly, and kissed her in return, taking his time.

  When he raised his head, Khatrene was breathless. ‘But do you believe me?’ she asked, and kissed him again, more thoroughly this time. There was no mistaking the pressure between them after that.

  ‘You have convinced me with the words from your lips,’ he said, his breathing growing uneven.