by Linda McNabb
Calard pressed his lips together, looking as if he would like to argue, but knowing he had no choice but to go along with Trianna’s story.
“I think we should talk more,” King Eldric said, waving his hand towards the spare throne.
“With pleasure,” Trianna replied. She sat next to King Eldric, looking around the room with a gloating air, and then placed Maata’s crown on her own head.
King Eldric leaned closer and seemed surprised at the designs carved into the crown. Zaine felt a hand on his shoulder, and he was pushed towards the alcove. There was no point in resisting. His runes were of no use here.
Guyan hurried forward, ignoring Sy who went to stop her. She took the pitcher of water from next to her uncle and tipped some into the goblet. She handed the goblet to her father and he drank it without question.
“Why haven’t the weavers been tending the circles?” King Reko asked. “What have they been doing?”
“The weavers have all been busy with a special job for me … helping find a way to make this world habitable on the surface,” Eldric said defensively, eyeing the goblet suspiciously. “Their quest is for the good of all of us. If a few worlds have to make it on their own, that’s the price they have to pay!”
“What about our finding, Father?” Dom asked. “We cannot grow enough food here to feed everyone.”
King Eldric looked annoyed that his youngest son had not used his new title, and then answered shortly. “We can bring back a few worlds after the dragons agree to tend them. We will not back down.”
Guyan had remained next to her family, only a few paces from the throne, and Eldric looked at her uneasily.
“Get back with the others. I don’t like you being this close to the throne. You could destroy royalty and time if you touch it,” he said, making a shooing motion at Guyan, who ignored him completely.
“How would she do that?” Trianna asked, looking at Guyan as if she doubted what Eldric said.
“My niece had a star-chart done as a child,” King Eldric replied and signalled to Sy, who opened a drawer in a table by the wall then hurried over to his father with a tightly rolled scroll. “I have a copy of it here.”
Trianna took the scroll, unrolled it, and read it aloud.
Let Guyan ascend the throne and time will cease.
Stars will fall and Guyan will hold their fate in her hands.
With her the royal line will end,
Guyan and a Starweaver will breach the boundaries of time,
Destroying them forever and sealing the fate of all weavers.
Trianna looked up and her eyes settled on Zaine for a brief moment, but she seemed confused rather than angry or afraid.
“I have read something similar before,” she said quietly as she lowered the scroll. “This might not mean what it seems to say. I have seen time almost stop and I don’t think she caused it.”
“She is a danger to this world and she must not stay here,” King Eldric stated firmly, and he snatched the scroll off Trianna. Clearly he did not want to hear anything more about it.
A hissing wind swept past Zaine. The familiar sound filled him with dread for an instant. Were the storm dragons chasing him again, intent on destroying him and everything in their path?
The misty shapes of two dragons swirled into the room and settled just in front of King Reko and Queen Mya.
Your presence is requested in the basin, one of the dragons said simply.
“I am in charge here!” King Eldric shouted, stepping forward and pushing Mya aside.
The storm dragons turned their attention to the new king, and their calm manner suddenly became angry.
Very well. Come, the second dragon hissed, letting out a stream of moisture that soaked King Eldric in seconds. He stood there, trying to pretend it didn’t bother him, and glared at the dragons. As the dragons turned to go, they caught sight of Guyan and her friends. They paused; Friends, welcome.
The dragons flew around Guyan, almost humming with the pleasure of seeing her, and then flowed out of the room, leaving a wind sucking the air after them and a room full of stunned people.
“What are we invited to?” Maata asked Guyan quietly as she came over to stand next to Zaine and Davyn. King Eldric was trying to dry his robes by squeezing the water out of them.
“The dragons’ meeting,” Guyan replied with a puzzled expression. “I’ve never heard of them inviting humans to their meetings before.”
“Should we put this lot in the alcove and seal them in?” Sy asked, stepping forward to grab hold of Zaine.
The king stopped and seemed about to nod, when he put his hand to his chin instead and looked thoughtful. The edges of his mouth curled upwards in a smile that made Zaine shiver. “No, I have a better idea. Bring them with us. Come, Trianna. You can watch.”
King Reko followed them out, still supported by his wife but looking a lot stronger. A short keening cry echoed down the tunnel, and Guyan hurried ahead of Zaine. They followed a path up around the top of the cavern and then turned into another, darker tunnel.
“They don’t like to be kept waiting,” she told them as she vanished, sure-footed, into the darkness of the tunnel behind her uncle. Trianna swept ahead of them all, as if she had been a royal all her life. Calard, looking slightly resentful, followed a step behind.
Even though the tunnel was only short, it seemed to take a long time to reach the other end. Zaine could hear a noise that sounded like a rushing of wind or a flock of birds in flight. As he emerged into the light at the end of the tunnel, he stopped and stared. It wasn’t birds or the wind. They had emerged into what seemed to be the hollow basin of the top of a mountain. Sands raced past high above them, sometimes swirling down on the few people who stood at the bottom of the basin.
A dozen weavers had come up from the trees and followed their new king into the basin. They stood nervously near the entrance to the tunnel.
Perched around the rim of the basin, in full blast of the red sand, sat several dozen golden dragons. They looked agitated and their attention was directed at the humans.
Suddenly, the dragons keened loudly, splitting the air with a cry that hurt Zaine’s ears.
One of the dragons flew down over the heads of the people and then hovered directly in front of King Eldric.
You did not tend the starlinks, the dragon hissed at King Eldric. It blew a blast of air that almost knocked the king over.
“We have tended them for many hundreds of years,” King Eldric replied firmly. “We now need to spend our time finding a way to live on the surface.”
This seemed to anger the dragons and several more flew down to join the first one. They swirled around King Eldric furiously. For a brief second, Zaine felt sorry for him – he knew what it was like to have the anger of the dragons aimed at him.
Each one that broke free before it was ready has damaged Zhan. Time here has become unstable, just as it has in other worlds. We have been trying to fix it, but time is failing here.
Zaine felt a sudden jolt of fear. Time was not right here? Now several things seemed to make more sense. The long time it had taken to go up the steps to the castle and the journey from the throne room to the basin. Even now he noticed how much heavier his arms felt, how much more energy it seemed to take just to breathe.
“Rubbish!” Eldric retorted. “You’re making it up to force us to do all the work you can’t be bothered to do yourself.”
Every dragon perched on the rim of the basin took to the air and dived down towards the group of people in the centre. Eldric stepped back as the dragons landed. Mya, King Reko and Jelena remained in the centre, facing the angry dragons.
“We will tend the circles,” Queen Mya promised, and cast a glance back at Eldric. “We just have to return Reko to full health first.”
Eldric and the weavers had almost reached the edge of the basin, where Guyan, Zaine, Maata, Davyn and Tercel were watching from. Trianna was staying near Eldric, and Calard was next to her.
&
nbsp; “Now!” Eldric yelled suddenly as he jumped backwards into the tunnel.
The weavers all stepped forward, brushing sand away with their feet to reveal a marked circle of runes with one small gap in it. One weaver bent closer and quickly drew in a final rune to join the circle, then stepped back. Zaine was busy trying to piece together the runes to see what they were for, but many of them were still dusted with red sand and were hard to read.
He felt himself pulled backwards out of the circle and fell heavily against the side of the basin. As he sat up he saw Davyn about to reach in to grab Jelena. A heartbeat later the circle began to glow and Eldric grinned broadly as he watched.
“What have you done?” Mya yelled as a golden glow flooded the circle. It was so bright Zaine had to look away for a second, and when he looked back his mouth fell open in shock.
“Ice,” Guyan muttered as she, too, stared at the scene before them.
All of the storm dragons, and Jelena, Mya and Reko were frozen in mid-motion. The dragons looked like golden statues.
CHAPTER TWELVE - DRAGON ICE
“Are they in a timeloop?” Maata asked. “I don’t see them moving.”
“They look like they’re made of ice,” Zaine added.
“Eldric has frozen them. They are fully aware of everything going on around them, but are unable to move. It’s a much stronger version of what Dom did to Sy,” Guyan replied, turning to glare angrily at her uncle.
Eldric stepped back into the basin, carefully avoiding stepping anywhere near the runes. He looked annoyed that Guyan and her friends weren’t in the circle.
Guyan was staring at her family, her toes almost touching the runes that encircled them. She was scratching angrily at the cross on her palm, and Zaine drew her back a little way from the runes.
“We will find a way to set them free,” Zaine assured her quietly. He felt a tickle on his nose and he reached up to scratch at it. He felt a grain of sand under his finger and he brushed it off.
Guyan managed a grateful smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Clearly she didn’t think there was much hope of saving her family. Eldric was looking around the basin, unsatisfied with what he saw. Then he pointed back up to the tunnel and he spoke impatiently to the nearest weaver, who hurried off, taking three others with him.
“What are we waiting for?” Maata asked quietly.
Zaine shrugged and then stared at the tunnel entrance as two of the weavers reappeared, struggling under the weight of the heavy throne. Right behind him were the other two weavers, carrying the second throne. Both thrones were placed a dozen paces from the edge of the runes, facing into the circle.
Eldric strode over and sat down with a flourish and big grin. “Come, take a seat, Trianna. I thought we might as well watch in comfort.”
Trianna joined him, but looked a little hesitant as she did so. She sat stiffly in the slightly smaller version of Eldric’s throne and glanced nervously around the basin. Zaine wondered if she was worried about proving her skills as a runeweaver.
Zaine felt an itch on his nose again, and this time brushed half a dozen grains of sand from his face. As he did so, he felt sand landing on his hand. He shook it loose and looked up around the rim of the basin. The first thing that struck him was that the red glow that permanently hung over Zhan was gone. The sky above them was a pale blue that reminded him of home.
“The sand,” Maata said. The sand was falling, a bit like snow, gusting around in little drifts and swirls. Nothing like the fierce winds that had blown when they had first arrived in Zhan.
“Time is slowing down,” Guyan said flatly. She looked as if she didn’t even care anymore. “Soon even Zhan will stop.”
“I think they’ve noticed, too,” Tercel said, pointing to the several dozen weavers who stood a few paces behind the throne.
A low chant started up, and Zaine could just hear the runes that he had used back home to speed up time. The thought of home, and what had become of everyone left behind, distracted him, and so it was a few seconds before he realised that something hadn’t gone as it should.
The red sands had begun to blow again, but they were far too strong. The wind howled above them, and sand raced past the top of the basin at a rate that made it just a red haze. He looked around the basin and felt dizzy as he spun far too fast for his head to cope with.
Everyone seemed to be moving at twice the normal pace. If he wasn’t feeling so ill from turning, it would have looked funny. Weavers were running about talking to each other, and King Eldric was yelling at them, raising his arms up and down so fast he looked as if he were trying to fly.
The weavers began to chant again and their voices sounded like chirping birds. Zaine’s heart seemed to beat a hundred times before time slowly began to settle. The winds stopped howling and sand passed over the top of the basin in a steady flow that returned the red tinge to the air around them.
Everyone remained silent for so long that Zaine wondered if time was slowing down again.
“The dragons warned you that letting the worlds break loose too soon would destroy Zhan!” Guyan shouted, suddenly snapping out of her coma-like indifference.
“Nonsense,” Eldric snorted, dismissing her words with a nonchalant wave of his hand. “It is nothing we can’t handle.”
Zaine looked at the faces of the weavers and they didn’t look so certain. His mind told him there was something different about the weavers, but he couldn’t quite place it.
“We should reopen the links and see if that fixes time,” Guyan insisted, stepping closer to her uncle. “We must try to save Zhan. We have to release the dragons and my family.”
Eldric rose from his throne and took a step towards Guyan. He was much taller than the young weaver, and he scowled down at her. “I think you are missing your family too much. Perhaps you should join them?”
Guyan didn’t see the intention in Eldric’s words and she opened her mouth to continue her argument. One stride brought Eldric up to Guyan, and a single shove sent her stumbling back towards the rune circle where her family were trapped.
Zaine dived towards his rune-covered friend as she tripped and fell backwards. He grabbed at her and, feeling her tunic in his hand, he twisted to change direction. He fell heavily to the stony ground and hit his head.
For a few seconds all he could hear was a ringing sound, and he couldn’t tell if he was holding onto Guyan or not. Gradually, his head began to clear and he could feel his body again. He was definitely holding something, and he lifted his head, grinning when he saw that he had saved her.
His arm was stinging and, looking down, he saw that he had scraped it on the stones. Guyan’s arm, which he was holding, was also bleeding, but apart from that she looked unhurt. Tercel and Maata hurried over to help them up, and Eldric retreated to his throne, scowling.
“I think we should move all this along,” he said grumpily, waving the weavers forward.
It was then that Zaine realised what was different about the weavers. The runes that marked their skin were so faded that they were barely visible.
“Why have their runes faded?” Zaine asked Guyan.
“They have been doing something big. It has drained their energy and that makes their runes fade. They must have done something else as well as this runecircle,” Guyan replied. She looked suspiciously around the basin and then saw a part of the floor that had been cleared of pebbles by her fall. It revealed another runecircle running around the one that had frozen her parents in mid-motion.
“I recognise those runes,” Tercel said, leaning closer but not getting too close as the weavers stepped forward and began to sweep the basin clear of the pebbles.
“It’s a starlink,” Guyan said with a tone of disbelief. She looked over at her uncle and he grinned smugly “Why do you need one here? I thought you didn’t want to tend them anymore.”
“You don’t think I want to risk someone freeing the dragons, do you?” Eldric said with a lift of one eyebrow. “I’m going to send
them somewhere where they will never cause us any trouble again.”
Zaine felt glued to the spot as he watched the runes being uncovered and every weaver stepped forward, chanting a string of runes. A single bolt of lightning streaked down from the sky and carved a line in the stone before one of the weavers. It joined the circle, and instantly a dark, shadowy land appeared in the circle.
Zaine was half horrified at what he saw, and half intrigued at how the weaver had created the lightning. He quickly memorised the runes he had heard.
“Another Circle of Dreams,” Maata said with a hint of distaste.
One of the weavers spoke the rune to unseal the starlink. The runes glowed briefly and everyone in the circle vanished. The scene flickered to show a green, lush forest – with several dozen frozen dragons and three people standing next to the trees. Then it flickered back to the shadowy land. It didn’t look as if time was running quite to its normal speed.
“I thought you needed the tall stones to create a starlink,” Zaine said, running through the runes on the ground and seeing that none were missing even without the stone pillars.
“It will not be a strong link without the dragon stones and it probably won’t last long,” Guyan replied stiffly.
“Zaine, what’s wrong with your skin?” Maata asked, puzzled.
“I cut it on the stones,” Zaine replied, lifting his arm to show her.
“No, I mean the rest of your skin,” Maata said, shaking her head slowly.
Zaine looked at his arms, trying to work out what Maata was on about. They looked the same … except he could see patches of dark growing before his eyes. Bruises, he assumed, wondering how he had managed to bruise so much of his arms in one fall.
“Runes,” Tercel said with a soft whistle. “You’re getting runes on your skin.”
Zaine watched in amazement as runes formed one after the other, totally covering his arms and legs, and by the way his friends’ eyes continued up to his neck he assumed they were up around his face as well. They were quite faint, but definitely runes.