‘Anyone could have done that,’ said Swift.
Meg nodded. ‘But Treasure wasn’t a common name. It wasn’t popular.’
‘Why not?’ asked Chase.
Again the past crowded into her mind, the guilty pleasures, the secrets she’d kept under control for a lifetime. She met Chase’s questioning eyes and it was as if Button was asking her to share her past. ‘Treasure Overbrook was the illegitimate child of Queen Sunset. He tried to help the Seers take the throne but they were defeated.’
‘And what happened to him?’
The truth was more terrible than a lie, she decided. ‘He was killed in battle.’ She expected them to accept her lie because the past was long before their world came into being, but the expression on Swift’s face was utterly unexpected. ‘What?’ Meg asked.
‘You killed him.’
Swift’s accusation cut through her like a sword. The images of the suppressed past swamped her and she gasped as if the air had suddenly been sucked from the chamber.
‘You want us to believe that you are Lady Amber and our grandmother,’ Swift continued, her aggravation rampant in her voice. ‘You’re telling us that we are the grandchildren of legends and ballads.’
Swift’s mocking tone angered Meg. ‘I’m telling you that you are my grandchildren,’ she replied. ‘I lost my son, Treasure, to the Kerwyn when they invaded our country. They murdered my husband and my other boys, but they stole away my daughter, Emma, and Treasure, and sold them into slavery.’ The outburst of the past, conveyed in her sudden anger, overwhelmed her and she wobbled on her feet, reaching for the wall to steady herself. Chase took her arm, his gesture immediately soothing her.
‘Where did they send your children?’ Swift asked.
Meg looked at the young woman and realised that what Swift wanted was answers to make the whole moment comprehensible. ‘They were meant to go to Andrak, across the oceans. They sent Emma. But they didn’t send Treasure. He was bought by someone in Westport and taken to Port of Joy.’
‘How do you know that?’
Meg stared at Swift, seeing her own defiant green eyes in her granddaughter’s gaze. ‘I followed. I found Emma in Andrak, but not Treasure.’
‘And where’s Emma?’
Meg shook her head. It was too much. She hadn’t anticipated everything that was going to be asked, hadn’t prepared for the past being so insistent on the present. ‘Emma…’ she started, stopped, and finished with, ‘Emma is dead.’ A tear escaped and slid down her cheek.
Chase squeezed her arm and crooned, ‘Sorry.’ Meg put her free hand on his and forced a smile.
‘But how do you know Treasure was left behind? How do you know he was our father?’ Swift asked.
‘Leave her alone,’ Chase said. Meg’s heart warmed at his defence of her.
Swift glared at him. ‘She wants us to know. And I want to know.’ She looked at Meg.
‘I don’t know for certain, except for what I see.’ She wiped her cheek and stared at Chase. ‘You are just like my husband, Button. The eyes. The face.’ She turned to Swift. ‘And you. And Passion. It’s grey and white now, but I had red hair. Beautiful red hair. And my eyes are green like yours. And it’s too coincidental that your father was named Treasure and you don’t know much about him. You’ve never met your grandparents because they were never around. There are too many coincidences not to make sense.’
‘So why tell us now? Why didn’t you say something earlier?’
‘I did,’ Meg protested. ‘You just didn’t want to listen.’
‘Because it was crazy,’ said Swift.
‘But it makes sense now,’ said Chase.
‘I nearly lost you,’ Meg went on. ‘I don’t want to lose you.’ She maintained her gaze on the young woman. ‘What happens after this will be more dangerous than what we’ve been through so far. I don’t expect you to stay involved, but I don’t want to go from here without knowing the truth and without you knowing the truth. Look around you. This is a place made entirely of magic. You’ve seen what I can do. You’ve seen who I am. I carry the amber in me, a legacy I have tried to escape all my life until now. I’ve lost people I love, family, because of it and because of who I am. Now you’re caught up in it as well and I know you are my grandchildren. Whatever fate or destiny has drawn us together, we are together and I’m grateful that I have found you. I couldn’t leave here without you knowing that.’
Swift kept staring. Then she said, ‘I found you,’ and smiled.
The unexpected comment touched Meg’s heart. She smiled. The moment of meeting on the rooftop and in the window of her bookshop was a strange moment, one she hadn’t encountered in her dreams. Who really had found who in that moment? ‘Yes, you did,’ she replied and chuckled contentedly. The warmth in Chase’s hand on her arm contrasted sharply with the distance between herself and Swift, but the link was there. She felt in the moment that it was strong, and it was all she could ask.
The portal glowed in the doorway, its blue light throwing shadows across the chamber’s endless bookshelves. Meg faced the tiny assembly, her frizzy grey-white hair refusing to be constrained by the rough ponytail she had improvised. Swift, a little more feminine with her longer red hair, looked back at the old woman, her green eyes sharp and observant, the harsh angles of her face reflecting the bitterness of her life. Her lithe body, the province of her deadly assassin skills, was covered with a black shirt Erin had given her and a pair of tan pants that barely reached her ankles. Her own tunic and trousers had been destroyed during her brush with death. She adjusted her knife in her belt, preparing herself to step back into the world above. Chase stood beside her, rake thin, his cream tunic dirty, his black trousers ripped, his hair tousled, looking more like a street urchin than ever. The possibility that Swift and Chase were her grandchildren excited Meg; it gave her hope that her long-standing family tragedy could be corrected.
Towering over Swift and Chase was the Shesskar and former brothel guard Wahim, muscled, dark-skinned, his toothy smile an ever-present reminder of the gift of happiness that came to everyone. That all three had chosen to undertake the journey with her to Chuekwer still surprised her as much as it made her glad, and she wondered if they regretted their decision in the light of all that had unfolded. The journey to find the canvas bag that Seer Sunlight had stolen from his peers and entrusted to Chase to pass to the Kerwyn princes was only the beginning. Preventing the Seers from releasing the Demon Horsemen was a much greater challenge with even greater risk; she could not ask them to go further with her on that quest.
‘The portal is connected to the village where we left Passion and Jon,’ she explained. ‘I thought it best that we go there first.’ She met Chase’s gaze. ‘If we need to go somewhere from there, we will.’
She turned to Erin who was seated at a table at the rear of the chamber, a pile of books before him. Whisper was perched on his lap. ‘Sooner or later the Seers will learn that I’m alive. I am both valuable and dangerous to them,’ she said, ‘and they will hunt for me. For that reason, we will use portals as often as we can to move from place to place—to confuse and elude them. We’ll achieve much more that way.’
She returned her gaze to her three companions. ‘When we reach the village, you can choose whether or not you want any further part of what I intend to do. I can’t be responsible for leading you into any more danger, and what I have to do hereafter will be much more dangerous than anything so far.’
‘I just need to find my children,’ said Swift. ‘When I know they are safe, I want to help you.’
‘And I need to know that Passion and Jon are safe,’ said Chase. ‘I’m also in this, wherever it takes us.’
‘Me?’ said Wahim when Meg looked to him. ‘I’ll help in whatever way I can. You’ve told us what the Seers plan. If they succeed, all of us will be dead. If I am to die, I would rather do it fighting to stay alive.’
Meg felt tears rising at their answers. She forced them down, saying, ‘I don’t kno
w where this will go next. Erin has shown me a great deal, taught me more about what I can do—and we know that a weapon exists that could be used against the Demon Horsemen, if it comes to that.’
‘Without Elvenaar blood the blade cannot be reforged,’ Erin reminded her. ‘You must find another way.’
She smiled grimly. ‘Then I will find that other way before the Seers succeed in releasing the Demon Horsemen.’
‘Why don’t you come too?’ Chase asked, turning to Erin.
Erin shook his head. ‘The outside world and I parted company a long time ago. When I used the amber to seal myself in here, I gave up the right to walk above ground. I can’t help you, even if I wanted to.’
‘But you went outside two days ago to scare off the Kerwyn,’ said Wahim.
‘At a cost,’ Erin replied.
‘What cost?’ asked Swift.
Erin stood and approached the group. ‘How old would you say that I am?’ he asked Chase.
‘Thirty,’ Chase said. ‘No older.’
‘I am very much older than that,’ he said. He pointed to his dark hair. ‘Before I went above ground two days ago there was not a single grey hair on my head. Now look closely.’
Chase, Swift and Wahim leaned forward and saw the streaks of grey scattered through the darker strands. ‘They came when I was outside,’ Erin went on.
‘How?’ Chase asked.
Erin looked at Meg before he explained. ‘You know that time moves slowly in here, very slowly, due to a powerful spell. Meg thought I had created a place like the Dragonlords’ Se’Treya, but I had not read about that place before I entombed myself. Now that I have, I realise that creating Se’Treya involved a much more potent and imaginative spell. The spell I used protects the library and me from outside time, but it doesn’t negate the effects of outside ageing. If I spent a day in your world, all the years of ageing that I have cheated down here would catch up with me, and I would die and become dust. If you took with you any of the books preserved down here, they too would quickly age. They would not turn to dust, of course. Books have a much greater longevity than human life. But that is how it works, so I cannot leave here.’ He saw Chase’s astonishment and added, ‘We all make choices. Sometimes we guess at the outcome and call it a planned choice; sometimes it turns out to be nothing like we expected. The point is that we have the ability to make choices, and once we’ve made them we should be resolute and accept the outcomes.’
‘Erin will be here if we need him,’ Meg said. ‘And now we should go.’
‘How much time have we lost?’ Wahim asked.
Meg shook her head. ‘By my reckoning we’ve been underground perhaps fourteen or fifteen days. Up there, I don’t know.’
They turned to Erin, who shrugged. ‘I’ve never thought about it in mathematical terms. It could be quite a few months—you call them cycles, don’t you?—or it could be longer.’
‘We will find that out soon enough,’ said Meg. ‘I’ll go first.’ She cast a wistful glance towards the bush rat in Erin’s arms.
‘You want her to go with you?’ Erin asked.
Meg hesitated, then said, ‘She makes her own choices. She always has.’
Erin smiled and stroked the rat’s black fur. ‘Caetlyn, my sister, always made her own choices too.’
Meg smiled, then turned and strode into the blue light.
‘I’m next,’ said Swift, and she followed Meg.
Wahim put his big hand on Chase’s shoulder. ‘Together?’ he said.
‘Together,’ Chase replied, and they walked through the portal.
Erin watched them disappear, saddened to lose the first people he had spoken to in hundreds of years. He had forgotten how much he missed human company. And then Whisper stirred, jumped down and scampered across the tiles into the light just before it winked out.
‘Goodbye, sister,’ he whispered.
The warmth where she had sat in his arms faded.
CHAPTER FIVE
Meg waited while her three companions knelt on the ground to recover from the disorientation and mild nausea caused by the portal travel. She remembered her own first portal experience, when she had travelled to Se’Treya to answer A Ahmud Ki’s call. In fact, it was through A Ahmud Ki’s writing, Destinies Determined, a copy of which she had found in the Andrakis chamber of the Khvech Daas library, that she had learnt about the nature and potential of portalling over significant distances. She sighed. The first time she had ever set eyes on his name was in the royal library of Queen Sunset under Seer Vale’s tutelage. That was a lifetime ago. She was sixteen, naive and utterly unaware of the true nature of the amber. The Seers had called the amber the Conduit and set about stealing it from her, while Queen Sunset wanted her to use it to protect her kingdom from the Seers. It had been a confusing and horrible time.
And then there had been the real A Ahmud Ki, the being cruelly imprisoned in Se’Treya—enigmatic and handsome.
‘Are you all right?’
Swift’s voice startled her out of her brief reverie and she focussed on the young woman’s lean, pale face. ‘I’m fine.’ She shifted her attention to find the other two were standing. ‘No more dizziness?’
‘All good,’ said Wahim.
The unexpected appearance of a bush rat in their midst brought smiles to their faces. Meg scooped the rat into her arms.
‘I thought she was staying with Erin?’ said Chase.
‘Apparently not,’ Swift noted and reached over to scratch the rat’s ears. Whisper wriggled impatiently and Meg let her drop to the ground. She scampered into the undergrowth.
‘Some habits never change,’ said Wahim, grinning.
‘I know this place,’ Chase said, surveying the surrounding mallee bushes and trees. ‘We made our decision to go with you right here.’ He pointed past Meg’s shoulder. ‘The village is over there.’
‘I brought us just outside the village so that we didn’t surprise anyone by suddenly appearing among them,’ Meg explained.
‘Good plan,’ Swift said.
‘I just hope Passion and Jon are here,’ said Chase as he headed towards the village.
‘Wait,’ Meg ordered.
‘Why?’
‘We don’t know how long we’ve been away. There might have been changes.’
‘I’ll check first,’ Swift offered.
‘Be careful,’ Meg advised. ‘Patching you up isn’t a lot of fun.’
Swift grinned. ‘That won’t happen again,’ she said, and moved silently into the bush.
‘It feels like it’s Fuar season,’ Chase said. ‘Maybe we didn’t lose as much time as we thought.’
Meg studied the colour of the plants, the dying blossoms and drying seed pods, and gazed skywards. There was latent heat in the air and a bright blue cloudless sky, common signs that the cycle of Ejasot was mid-term. They’d left the village at exactly the same time, and travelled another full cycle east, so it couldn’t be Ejasot still, unless…
‘We haven’t been a gone a year, have we?’ asked Chase, understanding sinking in.
‘I hadn’t expected it to be quite that long,’ said Meg.
‘Passion,’ Chase muttered.
‘She’ll still be here,’ said Wahim, putting an arm over his friend’s shoulder.
The grass rustled and Whisper emerged from between two mallee trees. She sat on her haunches and stared at Meg.
‘What’s she doing?’ Chase asked.
‘Shh,’ said Meg. ‘She’s telling me there’s someone in the village wearing a yellow robe—a Jarudhan acolyte.’
‘A priest out here?’ Wahim said. ‘Why?’
‘Because they already have Passion,’ Chase blurted and he started for the village again.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Meg snapped.
‘My sister! Those bastards have taken her, haven’t they?’
‘And what are you going to do about it if they have?’ Meg asked. ‘One person with no weapons in the middle of nowhere?’
‘Wait until Swift gets back,’ Meg ordered. ‘We’ll know more then and we can decide what to do.’
Chase looked at Wahim who nodded agreement with Meg. Infuriated, Chase clenched and unclenched his fists, but stayed put. Whisper disappeared back into the bush.
Moments later, Swift appeared. ‘There’s a priest in the village.’
‘We know,’ said Chase angrily, and when Swift turned to him for an explanation he added, ‘Whisper told us.’
Swift looked to Meg who nodded. ‘What else do you know?’ the young woman asked.
‘That’s all.’
‘All right,’ Swift continued. ‘There are changes. The women are sitting at the doors to their huts or just inside, working on whatever it is they’re doing, but none of them are down at the river. I didn’t see any children older than five or six. Everyone is wearing yellow robes, like the priest. The men are gathered outside a small building—a new one.’
‘A temple,’ said Meg.
‘Could be,’ Swift conceded. ‘And there are four soldiers. They have a small hut on the other side of the village. They were playing cards.’
‘Passion?’ Chase asked.
Swift shook her head. ‘I didn’t see her, but then she could be inside one of the huts.’
‘I told you they’d taken her,’ Chase snarled.
‘I saw a boy who looks like Jon,’ said Swift. ‘He’s down at the river with a handful of other children. That’s where the priest is. It’s like he’s teaching them.’
‘They’re not good signs,’ Meg said quietly. ‘The priest and the soldiers are bad enough, but the other things you described suggest something worse is going on. We need to talk to someone.’
‘We need to get Jon out of there,’ Chase interrupted. ‘And find Passion.’
‘We will,’ Meg agreed, ‘but I think we start with the acolyte. Whatever he knows will tell us how bad the situation really is.’
The Demon Horsemen Page 4