‘We don’t need to feed Mihale or look after him. He’s quite safe here until we return.’
‘We cannot be sure of that,’ Talis argued, ever the Champion, ‘and even if we were, where would we go?’ His open palm gestured at the white landscape around them. ‘The whole world could be —’
‘But we won’t know that unless we look.’
‘I know there is nothing in the near distance …’ He trailed off when she raised an eyebrow. ‘Because I have searched there while you slept,’ he admitted.
Khatrene looked at him for a moment longer, then said, ‘If there was no danger in the near distance, what makes you think there’s any danger at all?’
He shook his head. ‘We are not alone here. I feel that.’
Khatrene took his hand. ‘I know you find it hard to stop being my Champion,’ she said, ‘but my destiny is discharged. Glimmer is born and she’s well cared for. If I did accidentally die —’
‘No!’ The expression on Talis’s face halted her casual statement. He pulled her into his arms and she felt the tension in them, was sorry she’d disturbed him so greatly. ‘You must live,’ he said softly into her hair. ‘Not because you are The Light, but because you are my love.’
She let him hold her a moment longer and then pulled back far enough to kiss him lightly. ‘I know you love me,’ she said, ‘but you’ve never tried to contain me before. I’m not reckless. Why are you so worried?’
‘Atheyre is not …’ He shook his head. ‘The Book of the Four Worlds calls it the resting place of completed souls.’
‘You didn’t expect to be able to see souls, did you?’
Talis pondered her interruption. ‘I expected some proof.’
‘You just said you felt as though we weren’t alone.’
He frowned and said nothing.
‘Let’s try the seeing-storm,’ she said and turned in Talis’s arms to look up at the white mist above her. ‘I wish to see the inhabitants of Atheyre.’
Quiet fell around them as they waited — not the sharp clear silence of an open sky, but the buffered silence of this many-layered world. A moment later the mist directly above them cleared — the storm seemed able to manifest anywhere — and Khatrene began to giggle. She raised a hand and waved. The figure in the mist above her waved back. ‘Wow, look at her hair. I wonder what shampoo she’s using?’ Khatrene laughed at the sight of her hair floating in tendrils around her face.
Talis’s arm around her relaxed. ‘I look like Barrion of Verdan,’ he said, nodding at his own floating hair.
‘But without the beard.’ Khatrene turned to kiss his cheek which, like Pagan’s, was always smooth. Something Guardians could apparently control. ‘I wonder how Barrion is going,’ she said absently and gazed back at the seeing-storm, liking the way her blonde hair contrasted with Talis’s dark brown, her pale fingers lost in his olive-skinned hand. It seemed incredible to Khatrene that they were always clean, never needed to eat or … go looking tor a bathroom. She hadn’t brushed her teeth in weeks and yet her breath was as fresh as a packet of Tic Tacs.
‘Barrion is resourceful,’ Talis said, and frowned. ‘We cannot help those on Ennae, any more than we can help Glimmer on Magoria.’
‘But you let me look at Glimmer,’ Khatrene said.
His frown deepened. ‘Verdan will be fighting the Northmen. If he still lives.’
This last was said with more emotion than Khatrene would have expected and she finally realised that her frustration had blinded her to Talis’s feelings. He was trying to shield her from pain but he would be worried about their friends, desperate to know how they were coping. Protecting her had deprived him of information.
‘I’ve got a good idea,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you look,’ and she released his hand to raise herself into a crawl, ‘while I check on Mihale.’ She dropped her head to give him a quick kiss but he reached up and held her there, eloquently expressing his passion and his gratitude for her love. Nothing was taken for granted between them and Khatrene knew it would always be that way. She hadn’t understood the nature of love until she’d fallen for Talis.
When the kiss was over she was curled into his arms, her flesh tingling. She was tempted to kiss him again, to let their desire for each other run its course, but she knew that would be wrong. Since the voice had left her mind, Khatrene had been listening to the instinctive part of her that offered advice. Her ‘inner wisdom’ as Talis called it. That inner wisdom told her Talis needed to be alone.
‘Take your time,’ she said, and nodded at the seeing-storm, then pushed out of his arms to crawl away before she changed her mind. The misty surface looked thin but was surprisingly resilient — or at least it continued to surprise Khatrene. Talis took it all in his stride, although perhaps crawl would be a better word. They couldn’t see the bottom so neither of them trusted it enough to walk upright in case they slipped through. Khatrene had no idea what was below them — maybe more mist — but she felt no urgency to find out the hard way.
After negotiating a few turns she was back from their private place and at Mihale’s side. As she had expected, he lay quietly slumbering, his soft blond hair tucked behind his ears, freckles dusting his pale cheeks. But there was something else. Something Khatrene hadn’t detected before. A smell of … sulphur? She knew she must be imagining it, there had been no smells on Atheyre at all, but it reminded her of the Volcastle mouth and the day Mihale had uncovered her aura for the first time. She’d only just been reunited with him and he’d been acting weird, talking about her destiny as though it was more important than their bond. She’d been scared of him then. Scared of her own brother. For some reason the smell brought that feeling back, and try though she might to dispel the notion, she suddenly didn’t want to be alone with him.
To counter her silliness she took his hand, telling herself she should sing to him, something loud and ribald to chase away this sense of foreboding. But his palm against hers was hot and the sulphur smell would not go away.
‘It’s just my imagination,’ she said out loud, but although she continued to hold Mihale’s hand, her eyes strayed in the direction of where she’d left Talis, and the only song that came into her head was the Plainsman’s funeral dirge.
*
Talis lay still gazing into the seeing-storm, the muscles of his jaw clenched so tightly his teeth hurt.
‘Mihale’s death was an appalling loss,’ The Dark was saying, ‘and I blame myself for not suspecting Sh’hale.’
Barrion stood beside him, a hulking mass, staring longingly at his sister who simply gazed into space, her face as vacant as a newborn babe’s. A four-stringed mitabre lay idle in her hands, its placement odd, as though her fingers had been closed over it by someone else.
Barrion turned away, appeared to gather his thoughts and then looked at Djahr. ‘The Elder Sh’hale once told me that Mihale was too young, too inexperienced to protect us from the Northmen. And though he did not say, I knew he thought Kert would be the better king.’ Barrion glanced back at Ellega. ‘I should have suspected.’
‘If you had, you would have thought the sedition died with the Elder,’ Djahr said consolingly, but Talis saw the slyness in his eyes, felt sickened by it. ‘Yet it appears that it was Kert’s ambition, not the Elder’s, which stole Mihale’s life.’
‘And your daughter’s,’ Barrion said.
Talis saw the sadness in Barrion’s broad face and felt as though the air had been squeezed from his lungs. Lae dead? He shook his head as though to negate the thought. Though he had broken his betrothal vow with The Dark’s daughter out of love for Khatrene, Lae was as dear to him as a sister. If Sh’hale had harmed her Talis would move Atheyre and Haddash to return to Ennae and destroy him.
‘I will kill him,’ Barrion said, ‘for what he has done to my sister.’
Talis waved a hand before the seeing-storm. ‘Show me Lae of Be’uccdha,’ he demanded, and was immediately rewarded with an image of Lae, alive and apparently unharmed. He
r hair was shockingly short but it had been decorated with a gold-mesh cap whose tassels added length at the back, and her gown was as rich as any Talis had seen her in. Clearly her situation was not harmed by her father’s actions. Talis was just looking around her to ascertain her whereabouts when a maidservant came into the picture and Lae’s hand rose to pull a covering more closely over the bundle in her arms. A bundle which Talis, in his surprise at Lae’s appearance, had not realised was a babe.
He blinked in shock, registering the flat tan of the maidservant’s dress, which clearly marked her as belonging to the Volcastle, then he strained his ears.
‘My Lady, your son’s bed is ready.’
‘Thank you, Firde,’ Lae said graciously. ‘And tell the kitchens I require a hearty meal sent quickly or my rumbling stomach will awaken my slumbering child.’
The maid nodded. ‘Will My Lord Sh’hale be visiting his son this evening?’ she asked and Talis felt as though he had been stabbed in the chest. The imaginary blade twisted when Lae smiled up at the maid.
‘Have you ever seen a more doting father?’ she asked.
The maid smiled back. ‘That I have not,’ she admitted. ‘Not a day goes by that he does not visit, although I wonder if it is his son or My Lady who charms him the more.’
Lae’s smile did not falter but Talis saw that it now had a fixed quality about it.
‘’Tis a pity the others of the court are not able to share his joy,’ the maid said.
Lae turned away from her and Talis saw her smile slip. ‘The siege makes my husband anxious. The court will see his son soon enough.’
‘My Lady.’ The maid knew when she was being dismissed. She curtsied quickly and left.
Talis simply stared at Lae, trying to fathom how she had come to marry Kert and bear his son. The tyrannical demands and pettishness of the Lae he had known had been replaced by quiet authority. Somehow Sh’hale had transformed her into a lady. A lady who must have been carrying Sh’hale’s child when Talis had last seen her, when Sh’hale’s fury towards Be’uccdha because of The Dark’s actions had made Talis fear for her life. Yet here, Sh’hale had taken her to wife and was apparently a happy father.
Something was amiss, and Talis wished then that he still had Khatrene at his side with her perceptive eyes. Lae rose, tenderly cradling the child to her chest, then she stepped away from the couch and Talis winced. ‘Your foot,’ he whispered, watching her limp to an elaborately carved cradle. ‘What has happened?’ Talis could not see her ankle for her heavy gown, but the sureness of her rolling gait told him the injury was not new. A badly healed break?
Talis frowned, watching the care Lae took placing her bundle in the cradle, smiling gently at the child she would raise. He was glad then that Khatrene hadn’t witnessed the happy scene, knowing it would only rouse memories of her own baby so cruelly taken from her.
Abruptly, he raised a hand and said, ‘Show me no more.’ The seeing-storm disappeared and in its place there was only mist.
It was enough to know that Lae was safe and happy. This and no more he would tell Khatrene, lest he stir her sadness again, and to no purpose. Neither would he tell her of The Dark’s deception, which knew no bounds. Talis had felt sickened to hear him blame the king’s murder on Sh’hale and pretend Lae was dead to win Verdan to his side. Yet the greater concern was how far these ambitions would reach. Did The Dark only hope to control The Catalyst on her return, or was he mad enough to want her dead?
Pagan was her Champion, the one who must keep her alive. Tails could do nothing but pray to the Great Guardian that his cousin was up to the task.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Mooraz awoke to a sound that was familiar and yet unexpected. He struggled to place it — the faint clopping of a Cliffdweller’s hard hooves. He opened his eyes a slit but the light coming from the corridor was faint and his cell deeply shadowed. He could discern no moving shapes.
Closer. His left hand moved fractionally towards his pillow where a dagger lay concealed, and immediately the approaching sound stilled.
What was a Cliffdweller doing in the Be’uccdha dungeons where Mooraz had made his home? The Dark never tortured Cliffdwellers. There was no pleasure to be taken from their easy acceptance of any fate. Plainsmen were far more entertaining and Mooraz had seen many brutalised by The Dark over the years he had been Guard Captain. Though he was no more.
There should have been anguish in that thought, but for Mooraz there was only relief. Let Tulak bear the burden of his master’s guilt. Yet it was no easier for Mooraz to bear the knowledge that he had failed his Lady Lae.
Again the clopping noise sounded, faintly. Very close. Mooraz remained still this time, wondering why he had reached for a dagger in the first place. Habit? Cliffdwellers were peaceful, friendly, as curious as children. Perhaps one had strayed into the dungeons and was simply exploring it. Or had the tides risen again and forced them from their caves?
The clopping stopped and Mooraz held his breath, his eyes still slitted. Across the faint line of his vision came a darker shape — the fuzzy hair of a Cliffdweller. It was leaning over him, trying to look at his stub, at the place where his right arm should be.
The curiosity was suddenly unwelcomed, and in anger Mooraz lashed out with his left, gripping the Cliffdweller by the arm and in a fluid motion pulling himself from the bed. He dragged it into the narrow corridor outside his door where thick candles spluttered and spat on the carved stone walls. The Cliffdweller trembled under his hard grip, its trotters clattering on the stones.
‘You?’ he said, looking down into the frightened face of his Lady Lae’s young playmate Hush. ‘What are you doing here?’ A sudden sharp hope came to Mooraz that Lae might be alive, that the Cliffdweller girl might be an emissary, but as the wide golden eyes continued to gaze fearfully into his, that hope faded. ‘Are you looking for the Lady Lae?’ he asked.
She nodded, her wiry hair bobbing up and down like a sea-sponge caught in the tide. Mooraz released her and turned away. ‘Your friend is dead,’ he said, repeating the lie he had told The Dark, the lie he had come to believe as truth. House Sh’hale was not renowned for its lenience with prisoners, and Kert had good reason to hate Be’uccdha, thanks to The Dark. It was more than likely Kert had taken his vengeance out on Lae, and though the thought cut Mooraz like a fine dirk, he hoped her ending had been swift. To remain alive in the company of an angry Sh’hale would be a less desirable fate.
Despite his dismissal, Mooraz heard the Cliffdweller girl follow him back into his room, her trotters clopping on the flagstones behind him. When he turned to look at her she was shaking her head, the mass of fuzzy curls bouncing against her cheeks.
‘Go away,’ he said, waving a tired arm at her. She skittered back a few steps, her arms close to her chest, but continued to gaze at him intently, shaking her head. Mooraz dropped the arm to his side and sat on his bed, feeling the ache in his muscles and the phantom ache on the other side. When he was tired and not thinking clearly he sometimes leant that way, as though to rest on an elbow that no longer existed. He fell then, awkwardly, painfully.
Odd days he wondered why he forced himself to live when it would be far easier to die. The Dark cared nothing for his repatriation, only that he furnish Tulak with the information needed to captain the Be’uccdha guard. Indeed, now that Mooraz had made the dungeons his home, The Dark had probably forgotten he existed. Tulak’s visits were becoming less frequent and soon Mooraz would be superfluous. On that day he would either be free, or be dead.
Knowing Tulak’s ambition, as he did now, Mooraz guessed at the latter. However, the new Guard Captain had a secret that may be his undoing, an old family vice Mooraz had stumbled on years earlier. Tulak now bore the look of it and with luck it would bring him an early ending.
The Cliffdweller girl tapped on his shoulder, above the stub, and Mooraz snarled at her, his new small braids bouncing on his skull as he turned. Again she skittered back, but she continued to shake her head. W
hen she had his attention her hands moved, and in the half-light he could not make out the gestures.
Though she irritated him, Mooraz could not deny the insistent feeling that she was a messenger of some sort. He reached to his bedside table and uncovered his firestone, scratched a finger across it and quickly tossed that flame onto the wick of his candle. The light flickered at first and then firmed, a steady glow that lit the room.
Hush stepped boldly closer and signalled with her hands again. Mooraz watched carefully as she gestured at herself, touched a palm to her chest, tapped two fingers on her arm, pointed to his lost arm, then to the corridor, before looking at him expectantly.
Mooraz shook his head. ‘I don’t understand you,’ he said.
She ran over the sequence again but it was no use. Mooraz was not as clever as his lady had been. He could not interpret the Cliffdweller girl’s actions or intent.
‘Do you think the Lady Lae is alive?’ he asked.
Hush nodded, her hair bouncing again, eyes wide with some internal excitement.
‘Do you know where she is?’
The girl frowned, as though she did not understand the question, and Mooraz felt his expectation slide into despair. She knew no more than he did.
‘She is not at Be’uccdha,’ he said and turned away, adjusting his pillow. ‘She was Sh’hale’s prisoner and is now likely dead.’ This should have been said kindly, knowing the friendship the Cliffdweller girl held for Lae, but frustration at his own failings made Mooraz’s voice harsh. ‘Leave me now,’ he said, and would have lain back down except that Hush was clearly not finished. She trotted around in front of him, fluttering her hands to gain his attention, which was most unusual. Persistence was not a Cliffdweller trait. Had exposure to Lae’s mischief altered this one’s personality?
Mooraz knew that Lae’s teasing had certainly brought light into the darkness of his life. But to think of that was to feel the loneliness of her loss, and unlike the pain of losing his arm, that ache was yet to diminish.
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