Perilous Shadows: Book 6 Circles of Light

by E. M. Sinclair

  ‘Green Shade was in the north. There?’

  Navan grinned and moved her finger some distance. ‘There.’

  ‘Emperor Kasheen’s city was inland wasn’t it?’

  Navan waited for Tika to notice the waterways. It took some time, but finally she did.

  ‘Oh. Rivers don’t run in straight lines so those must be those canals?’

  Navan regarded her like a proud father seeing his child toddle for the first time.

  ‘Is this what we’re looking for?’ Shea asked.

  She was on the floor some distance away, poring over yet another map with Dog and Dromi. Navan got to his feet and as Tika followed suit, she wondered if her bones were actually older than the rest of her body. She limped round the edge of the maps. So many heads were bent over Shea’s section that Tika could see nothing of it. With a sigh, she lowered herself to her knees once more and wormed her way between Dog and Dromi. She saw an island maybe slightly more than half the size of Wendla, surrounded by ocean in every direction, right to the edges of the page.

  There was only the sound of breathing as they stared at the island. It was a jagged oval in shape, lying on its side, longer west to east than it was north to south. With some effort, Tika stretched to touch the island. She frowned and sat back.

  ‘Is that the only picture you’ve got of that part Navan? It looks smudged.’

  ‘I have two copies of every one of these, but both of that section look like that.’

  Shea pushed herself back to sit on her heels. ‘Shadowy in fact.’

  When faces turned to stare at her, she gave them a bright smile. ‘Obvious, I would have thought.’

  Dog snarled and also straightened herself. People began to stand and Tika laughed as feet were stamped to restore circulation amid groans and grimaces. Essa helped Navan gather the many large sheets and reroll most of them for safety. Sket emerged from the pavilion’s tiny kitchen with tea.

  ‘So that’s where you hid yourself.’

  He winked at her. ‘Too many people getting in each other’s way in here.’

  ‘Where is that island anyway?’ Rhaki asked.

  They waited for Navan to explain and a chorus of protest rose when he produced three of the maps again. He laid out the papers, the one with the island, in the middle, and stood back. Volk wandered over and stared down.

  ‘Is this Drogoya?’ He waved at the right hand map.

  Navan nodded. ‘The north western coast.’

  ‘So the Oblaka is somewhere there?’ Volk walked to the furthest map. ‘Then this is the north eastern part of this land and that island is bang in between.’

  Tika stared at the Old Blood. How could anyone grasp the complications of these stupid maps as simply as Volk apparently had? She looked at Shivan.

  ‘Could you open a gateway to a small place in the middle of a bloody great ocean?’

  ‘No problem.’

  Tika stood over the centre map, staring at the island. Yes, she knew she had to go there, but when? She felt a tugging when she looked at it, but not an insistent pull. Did that mean she had something else to do before trying to get there?

  ‘If only we could see it closer, like with that dreadful pipe thing Kertiss showed us,’ she heard Sket say behind her.

  She also heard Farn call from outside and quietly she slipped away from the people still gathered around the maps. Farn landed, his eyes sparkling.

  ‘I knew you’d like to fly with me,’ he told her.

  She laughed and scrambled onto his back. As they rose above Emla’s House, she saw the three other Dragons circling, waiting.

  ‘It’s been such a long time, my Tika, since we could just fly and be happy.’

  Watching the early sunlight flashing on scales of gold, scarlet, grey and blue, Tika had to agree. Life seemed so much simpler up here.

  While Tika was gone, Kemti sent a message to the pavilion to say that the books had arrived from the Asataria. Essa grinned at the faces of the guards, downcast at the thought of spending a day reading books.

  ‘I’ll show you where we’re putting Lady Emla’s Captain,’ she told them. ‘We’ll need rocks brought to make the cairn. Where’s Kazmat?’

  ‘He needs a bit of time Sergeant,’ Dog replied.

  Essa met Dog’s eyes and nodded. ‘Fair enough. Is he all right?’

  Dog shrugged. ‘He’s still shocked by losing his brother, and his friend. Gets very quiet unless he’s kept busy.’

  ‘Are you coming with us or staying to read those books?’

  Dog looked sorrowful. ‘Leg’s playing up a bit today sir. Think I’d better stay here.’

  Onion growled his disgust and marched out of the pavilion. When the others had followed, Essa leaned close to Dog.

  ‘How did you persuade Lord Kemti to lie about his leg, Dog?’

  Dog’s grin was pure evil. ‘Why, I just told him I’d break the other one – and I told him exactly how. Saw my point quite quickly. Bright fellow, he is.’

  Essa laughed, slapped Dog on the shoulder and went after the four guards who she found just outside, talking to Volk and Daisy.

  ‘We can help move stones,’ Volk offered. ‘They don’t seem to have horses in these lands. That gardener told me they had creatures like horses but they had split hooves, and fangs, and only understood brute force. The people here got rid of ’em all last year. Fengars they were called. You ever heard of them?’

  Dog watched them wander off and found Sket beside her.

  ‘I’m going to run through a few drills with young Shea.’

  Dog nodded. ‘I’ll watch if you like. This leg, you understand.’

  Sket grunted. ‘Won’t work forever you know.’

  ‘Worth a try for a bit longer,’ Dog admitted cheerfully.

  Navan fell into step, Shea trotting beside him, and they made their way round to the barracks and exercise yards. Rhaki and Shivan were waiting for Dromi, who was still crouched over the three maps on the floor. When he joined them at last, he tried to explain his fascination.

  ‘They are so very clear,’ he said. ‘Yet Navan said they were not drawn, as we make maps.’

  Shivan groaned. ‘I don’t begin to know how they were made. Every time Navan tries to tell me, my mind goes blank.’

  Rhaki laughed. ‘Me too. It’s a pity there are no names on them though.’

  They made their way up to Emla’s library and found Kemti unpacking two large bags. Looking at the stack of books, they knew they were in for another long session of eye strain.

  The shadows stretched long in the late afternoon when Lady Emla led the procession from her House. Soran’s body lay on a stretcher carried by four of the Gaharnian guards. They walked for perhaps a league to where the gardens began to rise towards the foothills of a higher range of hills. They saw the Dragons reclining beside the place Volk and Essa had chosen for Soran’s final resting place.

  As Tika climbed the slope beside Sket, she paused to look back. Many of Emla’s guards had chosen to pay their last respects to a man they had much admired until only recently. Soran’s body lay, dressed in a fresh uniform, the golden insignia at his shoulder with the extra blazon of his Captain’s rank twinkling when the sun caught it. His altered face had somehow become familiar, and not something to fear. Volk had already put a line of rocks along the stony ground, and the guards gently lowered the stretcher, sliding the carrying poles free as they rose.

  Volk put more rocks around Soran’s body and stepped back. Emla glanced at Tika, not sure what was expected of her. But it was Tika’s guard Kazmat who moved first. He walked to the heap of loose rock and stone that had been heaped a little further on, lifted one stone and placed it gently by Soran’s feet. The rest of Tika’s company followed, each laying one more rock around the dead man. Emla’s men came next, some of the Discipline Seniors, several members of her household staff. When Tika approached she was startled to find there was a space still left above Soran’s face, and once again she found herself covering s
omeone’s face with a piece of hard unyielding rock.

  When she’d placed her stone, she followed the others back down the gentle slope and began the walk back to the House. There was muted chatter and a laugh cut short. She looked back and saw only Volk and Essa still beside the cairn, and that weird horse waiting patiently at the foot of the trail.

  The company gathered in the pavilion, Emla and Kemti with them, to hear what the readers had discovered. There was deep disappointment when they learned nothing of any obvious help had been found.

  ‘There are stories of little people, and of giants, and instructions on leaving gifts out at night to gain your heart’s desire,’ Kemti told them. ‘But nothing of mighty gods or anything approaching that.’

  ‘There was one description which was familiar to me,’ Dromi put in. ‘A tale of light. Special candles had to be lit and kept burning, replaced at need, throughout the year. Then the candle was deliberately extinguished, for a full day, until it could be rekindled with what they called “raw fire”. I don’t know what raw fire might be.’

  Shivan tried to stifle a yawn. ‘I found no references to light, dark or shadow in any of the books I looked through. There was one story of a great hunter, who often lost his temper, which was the cause of thunder and lightning.’

  ‘There is something to find, but I just can’t think where to look.’ Tika sat leaning against Farn’s chest, but there was no mistaking the exasperation in her voice.

  Emla sighed. ‘Can any of you do that dream walking that was one of Babach’s accomplishments, so I believe?’

  Heads were shaken and silence fell. Tika mulled over Emla’s suggestion. Was dream walking so very different from what she did when she sent her mind far seeking? But she came back to the same point: where should she seek? When Emla and Kemti returned to the House, Tika’s companions prepared for sleep. Most of them had chosen to sleep on bed rolls rather than argue over the four beds in the pavilion. Sket left a couple of lamps burning low, and then lay between Tika and the entrance.

  Khosa padded soundlessly round Sket’s faintly snoring body and pressed against Tika’s arm. She spoke to Tika’s mind only, or so she thought. In fact, both Rhaki and Shivan heard her words.

  ‘The Merigs say there is a disturbance to the south, beyond the estate boundary.’

  ‘What kind of disturbance?’

  ‘They say the air is shivery – their word. When one of them flew into it, he fell to the earth, dead.’

  ‘Should I go now Khosa?’

  Khosa didn’t reply for some while. ‘I think perhaps you should, but not physically.’

  Tika mind spoke the other Dragons; she knew Farn had heard Khosa through her own mind. Kija and Brin, dozing in Emla’s hall, responded at once, and Tika settled more comfortably against Farn. Her mind spun up and out, hovering for a moment over Emla’s House where very few lights showed.

  She orientated herself to the south and began to seek. She moved steadily: not too fast, not too slow. A half moon shone fitfully as patchy clouds drifted from the east. Tika felt other minds as she passed over the land: small minds of small night creatures, but no human mind. She slowed, seeking on a much wider front, and felt an itch, an irritation, brush her mind for less than an instant. She probed that area gently and felt the same brief sting. There was a familiarity which worried her rather than comforted, and she hesitated, considering.

  In the pavilion, both Rhaki and Shivan had sat up, concentrating on what they could see and feel through Farn’s mind link with his soul bond. Tika drew on her power, a great deal of power, and coiled it within her mind. Then she moved forward, in the direction of that itch. She moved slowly, using what little natural light there was and augmenting her sight with a touch of power. She scanned the area, and estimated that she was leagues beyond Emla’s boundaries, moving into the plains where nomadic herdsmen and hunters lived.

  Then she saw him. He seemed to be resting beside the dying embers of a small fire. Her mind floated above him, watching carefully. He reached to his side and she saw a carcase, what was left of a human. He ripped an arm away from the body, as easily as she might have plucked a fruit from a tree, and tore into it. With his tusked jaws. His name burst back into her mind. Karlesh, the monstrous result of Orla’s pregnancy by Qwah.

  Tika had seen his birth, seen him obliterate his father and begin to feed on his human mother’s torn body. Then she and Sket had been hurled into the Splintered Kingdom, because Karlesh had looked up from his feast and had seen her. A tickle at the edge of her mind was Kija, calling urgently for Tika to return. Tika closed off the link and moved round the creature beneath her. She had no idea of its speed of travel, or even its method of doing so. If it was tracking her, she would rather mislead it than let it continue towards Gaharn.

  She visualised a tiny snippet of her mind splitting away, no bigger than the smallest insect. Tika moved higher again, watching the totally separated part of her mind as it floated erratically towards the creature on the ground. She heard the sharp crack of bone as Karlesh bit through the human limb he was eating, then he froze. He crouched, his head turning, muzzle raised. She heard his snuffling as he scented the air in every direction before homing in on her little mind insect.

  That was now perhaps four or five man lengths above the creature, pulsing with a trace of her own identity. Karlesh tensed, powerful haunches tightening and feet shifting slightly to get a firm stance. Tika saw claws on the feet, matching the claws on the hands: claws rather than talons. The mind insect dropped lower, and Karlesh sprang. Tika merely observed, her heart racing inside her body which lay against Farn’s chest so many leagues away.

  Karlesh moved so fast. That one leap propelled him to the height of her tiny mind particle, and he leaped silently. A clawed hand snatched, grabbed, and as he sank back to the ground, a bellow of rage shattered the night. Again there came the snuffling noise. Tika watched Karlesh sniffing at the hand that had grasped the mind fragment Tika had released. He licked his palm, then sat, his mouth slightly open, and Tika recognised the action from watching Khosa hunt.

  Small eyes searched the sky, skimming past Tika’s shielded presence. Sounds came from Karlesh but not speech Tika could understand: growls and snarls, which somehow sounded muffled, as if heard from a distance. The creature lurched to his feet, grabbed the tattered remains of the body he had been feeding on and lumbered southwards into the plains, pausing now and then to sniff and taste the air.

  Tika watched for a few moments, wondering why Karlesh’s leap into the air had been so effortless, almost graceful, yet now he walked as though unaccustomed to the action. His naked body was a mottled greenish grey from what she could make out. His thighs and calves were heavily muscled. He seemed to have no waist, his torso being short and broad, topped with shoulders as thick with muscle as his legs. A moment longer she watched Karlesh travelling away, trying to think what memory his strange movements stirred.

  She saw beyond his left shoulder that the sky was lightening and knew she had been gone from her body a dangerously long time. But she didn’t rush back, just followed the thread of her mind where it linked to Kija’s and so, steadily, made her way home.

  Her body shuddered as her mind repossessed it. Tika opened her eyes and blinked. Her company sat around her, relief chasing away worry when they saw she was back. She struggled to sit up and Sket, as always, was the first to help her. He cursed when he touched her skin and reached for any blankets he could get hold of, wrapping them around her icy form. Tika leaned her head against Farn and closed her eyes briefly.

  The pendant lay against her skin, the only warm spot on her whole body. But warm, she noted, not hot, not burning. And something felt weighty against the side of her chest, then she remembered: the two Dragon scales. Looking at the faces round her, she saw they’d all witnessed her seeking vision, probably through Farn’s mind.

  ‘It was Karlesh,’ she said.

  Konya pushed a bowl of soup into her cold hands and she held
it gratefully.

  ‘Kija has alerted Lady Emla. Shivan, I am tired, very tired, but you must tell Emla to summon her strongest Seniors to shield this House and have others protect her City.’

  A yawn interrupted her and she struggled to stay awake a little longer. ‘I don’t know how long he will be fooled into continuing southwards; not long, I fear.’

  The bowl in her hands tilted and Shea took it from her. She gave another jaw cracking yawn.

  ‘Tika,’ Rhaki asked urgently. ‘Is that thing of the Splintered Kingdom?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ was all she managed before sleep claimed her.

  Shea and Dog remained at Tika’s side while her company moved away to discuss what they’d seen. Emla, Kemti and Nesh arrived almost at once, all dressed, obviously having followed events through either Kija or Brin. Emla looked worried.

  ‘I know, Shivan,’ she said immediately. ‘Tika wants Seniors to shield, but many are still far from recovered.’

  When Shivan showed his confusion, Farn spoke, his mind voice sad.

  ‘When I was lost Shivan, my screams would have harmed too many people. Lady Emla’s Seniors shielded me to keep my cries confined. I am very sorry.’

  Lady Emla strode to Farn’s side and folded her arms around his neck and shoulders. When he lowered his head to her, she caught his long beautiful face between her hands.

  ‘Do not blame yourself, my dear, never do that. We would do exactly the same again Farn, for you or any of our loved ones.’

  Farn pressed his brow to Lady Emla’s, gratitude surging through his mind to hers. Drawing away, Emla peered down at Tika, curled on her side under a pile of blankets against Farn’s chest.

  ‘She sleeps,’ he told her. ‘She is safe.’

  The Lady rejoined the companions to find Sket asking for some of her best scouts.

  ‘From what I could tell of that creature,’ he was saying. ‘I’d guess it doesn’t move fast. But it will have enormous stamina though – I doubt it needs much rest. I would like men sent out to watch for any sign of its approach.’