by Linda McNabb
To his left stood two boys. One of them was the blond-haired Dom, and he looked a little surprised to see that Guyan had come to see his father. The other boy was much taller and older, and had spiky black hair and a sour expression.
The oldest boy noticed their arrival and scowled when he saw Guyan. “Father, look who is here.”
“Sy, I’ve told you to address me as ‘Your Highness’ or ‘King Eldric’,” the new king snapped. Then he took in his son’s words and looked up at the intruders. He glared at Guyan, a furious expression darkening his face.
“You were banished! How dare you return and threaten the very existence of our entire world,” he snarled with more than a hint of hatred in his voice.
Guyan ignored his harsh words. “The king is feeling much better. He will soon be well enough to return to the throne. He is grateful that you have cared for Zhan in his absence.”
Her statement had an immediate effect on Eldric. He stood up and glared at Guyan, as if to make her take the words back. He seemed to be struggling to fight back an outburst of temper.
“I’m relieved to hear that,” he said stiffly as he sat down again on the throne. “We had feared he would not survive this illness.”
A weaver pushed past them as he came through the doorway, and Eldric waved him forward. The man hurried up to the new king and leaned close to whisper a message. Zaine, edging around the small cavern, heard it clearly.
“The circle is almost complete, Your Highness. We are ready,” the man said, looking eager to please his new king.
“And they knew nothing?” King Eldric asked.
“We finished a few minutes ago, Your Highness,” the man assured King Eldric, nodding his head furiously. “The dragons are still away on the top of the mountain peaks for the burial, and have not yet returned to the basin.”
Zaine pretended that he hadn’t heard the exchange and examined a tapestry hanging on the wall. It showed a scene similar to the one on the doors of Guyan’s castle here in Zhan. The forest had been woven with such detail it looked almost real.
“First, we need to make sure Guyan returns to the world to which she was banished,” Eldric said, looking hard at Guyan. He waved forward the weaver who waited a few paces away. “Take them to her starlink and open it.”
“The timeweavers and starweavers are all exhausted.” The man looked concerned. “It took every one we have, and a few who are still learning.”
“Sy can open it then.” The king stood up and strode quickly across the grass. He seemed nervous as he looked at the number of runes on Guyan’s skin. Obviously there were far more than there had been when he had last seen her.
Before she could back away, he grabbed Guyan’s hand and turned her palm up. He smiled with relief when he saw that the black cross was still there. He looked a little more closely at her companions before continuing. “And these children have no runes marked on their skin at all! They cannot cause any trouble here – even Sy can handle this lot.”
Sy looked annoyed at his father’s comments, but did not argue. Zaine decided it was probably time they all disappeared. He quickly muttered the runes for invisibility under his breath and moved close enough to Maata to grab hold of one of her hands. Before he could get her to take Guyan’s and Tercel’s hands, he paused. He did not feel the familiar tingle of his runes working, and it was clear that King Eldric could still see him.
“My runes don’t work here,” Tercel whispered, obviously having just tried something similar.
“Neither do mine,” Zaine said, looking worried. How would they defend themselves now?
“Sy! Dom!” the new king called out, without taking his eyes off the four youths. “Take Guyan and her friends back where they belong.”
His two sons stepped forward. Sy was grinning, but Dom looked unsure about what he was being told to do. “But, Father, surely there is no need to do that? She is no longer in line for the throne.”
“Dom, call me by my title!” the new king hissed. “And do what you are told.”
“What should we do with them if that world has broken free?” Sy asked.
“Throw them into the nearest starlink,” Eldric said with a shrug. He turned and walked off, confident that his orders would now be carried out without question.
Sy looked at Guyan with an evil grin. “Don’t forget, Cousin, I still have the use of my runes. I’ve learnt a lot more in the year since you left, so don’t give us any trouble.”
Guyan leaned close to Zaine and whispered. “Pretend to go along with it for now. Most of his runes are probably drawn on as well.”
Zaine guessed she must have a plan, so he didn’t argue. When Sy came up and gave him a push, he meekly turned and allowed the older boy to usher them all out of the throne room.
Sy led the way down into the tunnels with Dom bringing up the rear. Guyan dropped back to talk to her younger cousin.
“I see that Sy is just as bossy as ever,” she said to Dom. “Do you know any runes that will help us?”
“A few,” Dom replied with a grin. “They might have stopped me learning more, but they haven’t stopped me using the ones I have.”
“I’ll distract him and you give us a bit of time to get away,” Guyan said, receiving a nod of agreement from Dom. Then she said loudly so that Sy would hear. “I don’t really want to go back to that world.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Sy replied bluntly.
“We could just tell Father that we did it,” Dom suggested.
“Keep quiet, Dom!” Sy snapped at his younger brother. “I’m in charge here.”
“I’d rather go to a different world,” Guyan said, pointing down a tunnel. “Maybe that one.”
Sy sighed, and then shrugged. “What do I care which world it is?” he muttered as he turned down the tunnel that Guyan had pointed to.
The stone cottage that they came up in looked almost identical to the one by Zaine’s world, but the bed was in a different place. Sy pushed them roughly towards the door of the cottage.
Dom went over to the heavy wooden door and opened it a little.
Instantly, red sand rushed into the cottage and the young weaver slammed the door shut.
“This link has gone,” Dom said, and Zaine caught the brief, pained expression that said this news bothered him. “So has the runecircle around the cottage.”
“We’ll go to the next one,” Sy ordered.
Again they were pushed down into the tunnels, and a few minutes later they came up in another stone cottage.
“How many of these are there?” Zaine asked Guyan when he saw it wasn’t the right cottage again.
“About fifty,” Guyan replied, but her attention was on the wooden door. Sand was drifting in through the small gap at the bottom. “But only twenty have worlds attached. Maybe fewer now.”
Sy and Dom had also seen the sand, and this time they didn’t try to hide their uneasiness. Sy pulled open the door. The sand didn’t rush in, as it was angled slightly away, but it did swirl into the cottage quite quickly. He looked out on the landscape for a minute before turning back to them, looking irritated.
“There’s only one more left,” Sy said. “It’s just over that way a bit by land, but we’ll have to go down through the tunnels to reach it. Let’s hope it’s still there by the time we get there.”
Zaine looked over at the circle the weaver was talking about. A red-robed figure was standing by the stone cottage, and another, with a blue robe, was slumped on the ground. Even through the driving sands he knew exactly who it was.
“Davyn,” he muttered; his attention on the figure on the ground.
“And Calard,” Tercel added, dislike for his master colouring his voice.
“The starlink to your world has stayed open,” Guyan said quietly. “We should have closed it when we got here. Then they wouldn’t have been able to come through.”
Sy and Dom had moved over to the corner of the cottage, and Dom was talking to his older brother.
&
nbsp; “I say we just go back to Father and tell him there is nowhere to send Guyan,” Dom insisted, earning himself a glare of impatience from his brother.
“Maybe I’ll send you away with them,” Sy replied threateningly. “Then there’s no way you could ever cause me trouble.”
“Hey, Sy!” Guyan called out. When her cousin turned towards her, she picked up the chair that stood by the table and threw it towards him. “Catch!”
Dom looked over at Guyan, seeing she was distracting his brother. He turned and quickly spoke a string of runes directed at his brother. Sy stared at Dom in surprise while trying to catch the chair as well – then froze. The chair hit him and bounced onto the floor.
“Dom, you have been studying,” a surprised Guyan said.
“It’s not a very strong spell. It’s not like a timeloop. He just can’t move for a few minutes,” Dom replied, looking pleased but trying not to boast. “If you’re going to get away, I suggest you go before it wears off.”
CHAPTER NINE - UNWANTED HELP
“I want to go and see if Davyn is okay,” Zaine said.
“I agree,” Maata said, eyeing the door.
“We wouldn’t last two minutes out there,” Zaine said.
“But we have my father’s cloak,” Guyan told them with a grin. She pointed to the golden cloak tucked into her belt. “It won’t cover us completely, but enough to get over there. Come on, Dom, you’re coming too. I don’t think Sy will be very happy with you when that spell wears off.”
Without checking to see if the others agreed with her plan, Guyan threw open the door to the cottage and unfurled the large golden cape. Zaine and Maata ran to her right, while Tercel and Dom hurried to her left. They had to move carefully out the door, with the golden cloak pulled over their heads. It didn’t quite reach the ground, and the sand instantly bit at Zaine’s legs and feet.
“Run!” Guyan yelled, but she needn’t have bothered. All of them ran as fast as they could, trying to outrun the stinging red sand.
It seemed to take a long time to reach the circle that had brought them to Zhan. As Zaine squinted ahead, he sucked in air and got a mouthful of sand with it. As he tried to cough and run at the same time, he almost choked.
He felt Maata grab his arm and haul him along, and together they all staggered forward. When they finally reached the circle that surrounded the cottage, they burst through it and fell to the ground in a heap of golden fabric and tangled bodies.
“What’s going on?” Calard asked. The wobble in the weaver’s voice was clear.
Zaine fought his way out of the cloak, and, ignoring Calard, stumbled over to his father. Davyn was slumped in an awkward position, not far from the cottage, and was unconscious. Zaine felt a wave of relief when he saw that his father was still breathing.
“He hit his head,” Calard said, coming over to join them.
Zaine gently moved his father around the side of the cottage, laid him on his side, and brushed the blond hair off his face. He felt a vibration under his feet and looked up. The stone pillars around the circle were shaking.
“The circle is about to break loose,” Guyan said with a desperate look at Zaine. “If you don’t go back soon, you’ll be stuck here forever.”
“And if I go back now, time will stop there anyway,” Zaine replied.
“Where are we?” Calard asked, looking around at the red sand hammering the sides of the protective circle.
“In my world of Zhan,” Guyan replied as she and Zaine bent to examine Davyn more closely. Having checked his breathing and pulse, they were satisfied that the weaver would be okay.
The stone pillars continued to shake, more visibly now, and a few grains of sand slipped through the invisible shield, whipping across the grass.
“Time is about to fail in your world,” Guyan said. “If your runes worked here, you could save it …”
“And I don’t know enough runes,” Dom added, looking sadly at the few runes adorning his skin.
Zaine looked helplessly at the circle that led to his world. He had no way of saving it.
“What about Trianna?” Calard said, stepping to the edge of the circle of grass and staring into it.
“She’ll just freeze in mid-motion when time stops, just like everyone in your world,” Guyan said with a heavy sigh. “We can’t help them.”
“She’s not back at the castle. We went looking for Maata as she had not publicly accepted Prince Theodane as the new king,” Calard said, sounding like he didn’t really believe what was happening.
“And I won’t be doing so,” Maata replied tartly.
“Trianna wanted you to contest his claim. She has been carrying around that crown she’s made and is determined to crown you. Davyn was trying to keep us apart as we argued. The door to the courtyard was jammed shut. When we broke it down, we fell into the courtyard – and ended up here,” Calard spoke slowly, and then sighed as he looked back at the Circle of Dreams. “She went into the circle with us, but she didn’t come out this end.”
Guyan looked upset.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, pulling her aside.
“If she’s in the dreamlink when time stops, she’ll never find her way out. She’ll just wander in the link forever,” Guyan told him quietly.
Zaine went cold all over. He knew his mother had never wanted him, nor even liked him, but did she deserve to wander a barren dreamlink forever? He turned away from Guyan and stepped quickly to the circle’s edge.
“The link will break in less than a few dozen heartbeats!” Guyan shouted after him, but she did not try to restrain him.
“Then I had better be quick,” Zaine muttered, more to himself than anyone else, as he threw himself over the runes and into the darkness of the dreamlink.
He had hoped never to be in this place again, and as he looked around at the shadowy landscape he wondered at his rash decision to come back here. The ground around him was flat, and he could see to the horizon in all directions. What if he couldn’t find Trianna? How long should he look for? If he looked for too long, then he too would end up trapped in this timeless, sunless place forever.
He started running – not caring what direction it was, for he could neither see nor hear his mother. He looked down gullies, into deep rivers as he jumped over them, through forests that sprung up ahead of him. He was getting tired when he remembered Guyan’s advice; use the dreamlink to its full advantage – picture exactly what you want and you’ll get it.
Bringing up a picture of his mother was easy to do. Her tall, thin frame, with her billowing red velvet cloak. Flame-red hair that framed an angry face, with hard green eyes that bore into him accusingly. It was almost as if she was standing right in front of him.
“What is this place!” a voice snapped, and Zaine realised that he was indeed looking directly at his mother.
“It’s part of a starlink. A Circle of Dreams,” Zaine told her absently. He was looking around, wondering how they would get back to Zhan now. “It leads to Guyan’s world.”
For a heart-stopping second, he wondered if he would end up going back to his own world. Surely if he went in one end he had to come out the other? How could he be sure that he would find Zhan? Then he thought of how he had done it last time; flowers and a field of grass.
He turned to tell his mother that he would take her to Zhan, but she was gone. He spun around to see her stalking off towards a wide, rushing river. He hurried after her and grabbed her by the sleeve of her red cloak.
“You have to come with me,” he said urgently as she pulled free. “I can help.”
“I don’t want your help,” she said bluntly. “All of this is your fault anyway.”
Zaine supressed a sigh. Why did she insist on blaming him for everything? Much as he would like to have argued the point, now really wasn’t the time. He noticed that she kept looking up at the sky nervously. He was about to tell her that she didn’t have to fear her imagination, when he was forced to leap out of the way of a sudden strik
e of a lightning bolt.
“But the storm dragons aren’t in here,” Zaine murmured to himself as he stood up and brushed dirt off his arms.
Then he realised it was Trianna’s fear that was creating the lightning. Trianna started to run, looking up at the sky as she did so, not looking where she was going. She stumbled on loose rocks and had to roll sideways to escape from another lightning strike. Then she stood up and hurried on again – straight towards the raging river.
“Stop!” Zaine yelled but she didn’t even glance back. Her fear had taken over, and she no longer looked like the angry runeweaver who had never wanted to know her only son. Zaine knew they had been too long in the dreamlink. Would they even still be able to get back to Zhan?
He ran after his mother, trying desperately to bring up a picture of a field of green grass and a stone cottage. As he reached her, he grabbed hold of her and almost threw her to the ground.
“Stop thinking of lightning!” he yelled, dragging her away from yet another strike. Seconds later, a thundering noise made him look to his right. A river, that hadn’t been there before, was roaring across the rocks towards them. Clearly Trianna was afraid of water as well as lightning.
There was no time to get out of the way of the rushing water and, in desperation, Zaine tried to work out how he could divert it. He stamped at the ground with his feet as he tried to drag Trianna out of the water’s path. A crack opened up by his foot, growing wider and spreading in a line across the rock in front of them. As he dragged his unwilling mother backwards, the crack became a chasm and Zaine watched in surprise and relief as the river gushed down into it, leaving them safe and dry three paces away.
There was no way he would be able to be calm enough to think of gentle winds on a green field. He searched his mind desperately for anything vivid enough that would help them get back to Zhan.
The only thing he could think of was the back door of Willow Castle. He had re-carved the runes on it himself when they were rebuilding the castle. It was a solid wooden door with six runes carved into it. There was no time to try to find anything more useful, and he clung onto his mother as he pictured the door. Suddenly it was there, hanging way above the raging river.