She walked in the brilliant late morning sunlight to a slab of granite where she often sat, staring out to sea. She stripped off her tunic and trousers, unhitched the amber crystal necklet and detached the crystal from the thin chain, before she lay on the warm rock on her back. She pressed the crystal against her chest beneath her hands and closed her eyes, feeling the sun’s warmth against her eyelids, and she began a low, steady rhythmic hum, mimicking what she’d read in the Alfyn text. In breathy intervals, uttering the Alfyn words in the same resonant tone as her hum, she incanted the ancient embedding spell. ‘Ashan—sha-ashan—aron-ta—sha-ashan—vor-ta—sha-ashan…’ Sweat beaded on her skin, and her mouth began to go dry from her chanting. The sun’s heat stung her flesh. And she felt a sharp stab of pain through her chest, deep, through her heart and lungs, through her back—pain so bitter that she broke her incantation with a gasp and yelped. Her eyes snapped open and she stared at the bright blue sky. And she couldn’t move.
The stars winked at her. She shivered. It took her a long time to remember where she was. Her last conscious memory was of pain and sunlight. She sat up. The half-moon painted her skin white. When she touched her chest with her fingers, expecting to find the amber crystal in her cleavage, her skin was smooth. She checked in her lap, and on the rock, but the sliver was gone. Her fingers returned to her chest, and when she studied her skin in the pale moonlight she noticed a thin discolouration between her breasts. She shuddered with exhilaration. The embedding spell worked! She cupped her hands and her spine tingled as a sphere of white light formed effortlessly in her palms. She willed the sphere to hover above her head, as she climbed down from the rock and slipped into her clothes. She paused to touch the thin mark on her chest before lacing up her tunic. No one could take the crystal from her ever again. It was part of her.
She read the Ranu Ka Shehaala Doorways text over and over, and searched the other books for spells and stories associated with portals. She remembered the Targan book by Lady Tarnyss, found it, and studied the section on portals. Another book, Lore of the Alfyn, detailed how to target a portal so that it sent the traveller to a precise point. She also learned how to make a portal close as she passed through, preventing pursuit. What she read seemed utterly impossible to her logical mind, but so had so much else before now. And each spell she practised, when it worked, surprised her less and less as she accepted the reality of magic.
Days became cycles. The dry heat of Fuszash waned into humidity. Brief dark storms limped across the ocean from the southwest, and bruised clouds dissolved into cool rain. Her red hair thickened and lengthened, and she lost weight on her vegetarian and fish diet while Whisper grew fatter. The discoloured patch between her breasts became a thin amber-coloured scar, conspicuous against her dark suntanned skin. She cried for Jon some rainy nights in the cold comfort of her shelter, but the pain of her loss was becoming more a dull ache with the passing of time.
Meg filled her days with practising spells, finding casting easier now that the crystal was locked within her. Her portal experimentations were meticulous. She rehearsed the words, and although she was guessing at how the Ranu pronunciation would sound, she was buoyed by her success with the embedding spell. The problem with the portal spell was that there was no margin for error. Every book warned of the dire consequences arising from ill-prepared and badly operated portals. At best, the traveller might end up in the wrong place. Death was a more likely outcome. And she was careful to master the ability to close a portal after she had used it. It would be foolish to leave a door through the fabric of time and place open for anyone to use, she decided, after reading the warnings in the Alfyn text of how users of magic had inadvertently left portals open and had been subsequently consumed by the pursuing dragons they’d tried to escape.
When she felt confident that she knew the spell, she chose a space between two tall thin pines, and methodically broke the lower branches from the two trees to create a gap like the frame to a door. Her first eight attempts at forming a portal failed, and each failure drove her back to the texts to revise and remodel her approach. On the ninth attempt, as she completed the brief Targan incantation in place of the Ranu version, lightning crackled between the tree trunks, and settled into a shimmering blue haze. She stared in amazement at what she had conjured.
She had no idea where the portal led. She hadn’t targeted it, just concentrated on creating an entry point. According to the Ranu text, there had to be two similar poles at the target point for the spell to connect accurately. The Targan text contradicted the Ranu text, suggesting that as long as the caster had a very clear image of the destination in mind, the portal would link to that place. The Alfyn book said that portals found their own points of contact, partly guided by the caster’s intent and partly randomised because of the complex nature of the spell. Curious about her handiwork, she approached the glow, peered in, and was surprised to see the dim image of a desert-like, alien landscape. The portal’s blue light didn’t enhance the scene. She spent most of the afternoon admiring and studying her creation, wondering how long it would remain before its energy imploded, but only when she decided that she was hungry and needed to go back to her shelter did she discover that the portal was stable and permanent. In the evening, with Whisper on her lap, she sat and stared at the blue glow, knowing that she had created a means of escape from her prison. The question was, to where would she escape? And how could she guarantee that she would reach her destination?
The sight of sails in the tiny cove as she reached the peak of the hill horrified her. For all the time that she had waited, fearing Seer Truth would come after the crystal, she had expected to see the ship, but with the passing of Fuar she accepted that she was forgotten. It may not be him, she reasoned, as three longboats pulled away from the anchored vessel and headed for the beach. It might be a rescue party sent by the Queen. She watched the longboats ride the waves to shore, where the sailors climbed out to haul them onto the sand. Soldiers disembarked—and two men in blue robes. Her heart sank. She wasn’t sure that either Seer was Truth, but who else would come to this desolate place? And who had accompanied him?
She picked up Whisper, wondering what to do. She could hide. But what was the point? If Seer Truth wanted to find her, it wouldn’t be hard on this island. They’d find her home. Then it would only be a matter of time before they tracked her down. She had hunted enough animals to know that hunting done well always turned up the quarry. What she needed to know were their intentions. So she had to stay where she was, and observe them. She might even get an opportunity to go closer and listen.
Two figures were thrust apart from the main assembly on the beach, and viciously beaten to their hands and knees by the soldiers. Shocked by the cruel scene, she crept down the hillside, keeping to the cover of the mallee and the granite rocks, until she was within thirty paces of the main group. The waves muffled the soldiers’ voices, but she could see that the two victims were naked and bruised and bleeding. One had long white hair. The other was a younger man. The soldiers surrounding them wore the Royal crest on their chest plates.
She spotted Truth, standing apart from the group. The other Seer was Light. They were discussing something calmly, and after every few words Truth gazed up towards the hills, as though he was intending to look beyond the beach. To her horror, she saw an animal on a heavy chain held by two soldiers: a goldencoated animal—a dingo. Her stomach churned. What was Seer Truth intending? But she knew the answer. Sunfire was brought to track her. He’d be so excited when he smelled her scent that he’d come looking for her and Whisper and betray them with his love. Her shock at seeing the dingo twisted into fury. What kind of bastard was Truth to do that? Why Sunfire?
She started to rise, but a feeling formed in her mind. No. Bad. She smoothed Whisper’s coat as she formed the reply, Staying here. Her curiosity returned to the men who were being pushed and kicked and hit. The old man collapsed, face into the sand, and a soldier’s heavy boot crunched down on the
nape of his neck. At that moment, the younger man launched at the soldier and wrestled with him. The soldier’s companions rushed in, but in the struggle the victim wrenched a sword from his attacker’s scabbard and wielded it menacingly. The circle expanded out of his sweeping reach, but they continued to taunt him, their weapons also drawn. Seeing the situation develop, Truth and Light approached the circle. Truth spoke to the captive. He turned his back and walked away with Light. The circle of soldiers closed in on their quarry. There was a brief and savage exchange, which sent two soldiers staggering back, clutching wounds, before the weight of numbers cut the victim to his knees. Satisfied they’d finished their sport, the circle disengaged, walking away to join their companions who were holding the dingo, leaving the fatally wounded man to die in the sand.
Meg wanted to know who had been killed—who Truth had brought on his hunting party for sport—but she also knew she was now the focus of the hunting party and she would have to escape. The men with Sunfire exchanged the restraining chain for a flexible lead, and gave the dingo his head. Sunfire sniffed along the shore for several paces. Then he began weaving back and forth, as if he was collecting important information, finding his bearings, before he headed across the sand towards the bush. He was leading the soldiers and the Seers diagonally away from where Meg and Whisper hid, but he was taking them unerringly towards her old shelter. From there, she knew he’d connect with the path to her actual sleeping place, and within a short while he’d be tracing fresh scents to where she was.
As the party melted into the khaki bush, she estimated how long it would take Sunfire to track her and figured that, if she was quick, she could get a look at the bodies to find out who had been killed. But when she stepped onto the sand, she spotted three heads peering over the gunwales of the beached longboats and knew she’d been seen. She should have known they wouldn’t leave the boats untended. The men clambered out, yelling to their colleagues as they ran towards her. She had no choice. She clutched Whisper to her chest and bolted into the bushes.
She reached the summit of the hill in time to see her pursuers at the bottom waving frantically. The main party had returned and was skirting the edge of the bush to join the others. From where she stood, she could cut obliquely across the slope of the hill and reach her sleeping shelter before the Seers and their soldiers. And then what? She could retreat to the next hill overlooking the western side of the island. And then? The Seers trapping her was merely a matter of time.
There was one other choice. She slipped Whisper inside her tunic, and ran across the slope and descended into the valley, heading towards her sleeping quarters. As she neared them, she veered across the empty creek bed and clambered up through a jumble of rocks into a pine grove. She knew the pursuing men were making considerable ground because she could already hear their voices, but she sucked in her breath and weaved through the trees until she reached the glowing portal.
For a moment, she reconsidered her desperate plan. She had no idea where the portal would take her. If she had more time, she could conjure a new one and focus it on a specific destination. She thought about making a heroic and defiant stand, the kind heroes made in ballads—after all, her life had become ballad-like through a strange series of events that seemed less and less believable, except that they were actually happening to her. She imagined her pursuers arriving, and Seer Truth speaking menacingly, and she would make a famous reply before she defied him by stepping into the portal and escaping. Of course, Sunfire would leap through after her, just as the portal sealed and vanished, leaving Truth open-mouthed and defeated. Romantic fantasy, she thought and smiled grimly. The best option is simply to vanish and close the portal in my wake.
Heavy boots crushed dry leaves, scattering pebbles and cracking twigs. Men were coming through the pine grove. Sunfire, she silently pleaded. I can’t save you. A tear gleamed at the edge of her eye. She had no other choice. Uttering three short words in the ancient Ranu tongue, she gritted her teeth and plunged into the shimmering blue. The portal vanished.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
She was on her knees, vomiting from the rush of vertigo. When she tried to lift her head, it spun, so she stared at the soft grey dust enveloping her arms to her elbows. She waited for the world to stop moving. Eventually she sank back into the dust onto her rump. For an eternity, in every direction, the sea of grey dust spread under a cloudless sharp blue sky—a flat, bleak landscape, broken only by isolated and twisted shapes of dead white trees. She sifted the grey dust through her trembling hands. Where am I? she wondered. What have I done? Whisper emerged from her tunic, her tiny black snout sniffing and twitching nervously. Where? Meg felt the rat thinking. Where indeed? she pondered.
As she gingerly rose, her mouth dry, the strange dust fell away. She looked for residual grains, but her skin and clothes were clean. In every direction, there was nothing but grey dust and dead white trees. She’d travelled through the portal to a desert without end, and condemned herself to death—unless I create another portal. Where? There were no perpendicular poles and the trees were too far apart. I could break branches from the trees to create poles. That could be the answer, she decided.
She let Whisper climb onto her shoulder before she trudged through the deep dust towards the nearest tree. Closer to the tree, she almost fell into a rectangular hole—with steps leading down. Dust covered the first three steps. The lower steps were clean grey stone disappearing into darkness. Who lives here? she wondered. Or are these old ruins of some kind? Apart from the trees, nothing filled the landscape. She assessed her options. ‘Come on,’ she said to the rat. ‘What have we got to lose?’ and she headed down.
The steps were steep, but the stonework was very fine quality, and the walls were carved with intricate dragon motifs. As she descended into the darkness, her spine tingled and she stopped. Why was she feeling the presence of magic when she hadn’t cast a spell? As she waited, listening, Whisper slid from her shoulder and dropped to the floor. Looking, the rat told her, and vanished down the steps. Come back, Meg ordered, but Whisper didn’t respond. To go any deeper she needed to be able to see. She concentrated on forming a sphere of light, but, to her astonishment, the spell failed. She repeated the conjuration and failed again. Her instinct was to call Whisper, and run. But run where? There might be a way out of this place if she searched deeper. Whisper? she projected. Come back. She waited, but when the rat still didn’t reappear, she descended, apprehensively wondering why her light spell hadn’t worked.
The steps dropped deep into the earth, enveloping her in darkness, so she went carefully and slowly, with one hand on the smooth stone wall to guide and steady her. She also kept her mind attuned to voices, hoping to hear Whisper. Where the steps ended, she discovered a narrow tunnel lit by a very faint green glow. Whisper? she projected, but there was no answer. She focussed on creating light again, and this time a small sphere materialised in her palm, leaving her to wonder why she’d failed at the spell higher up the stairway. She refined the light’s intensity, and made the sphere float ahead until she was at the edge of its radiance. Summoning her courage, she entered the tunnel, following her light.
The tunnel ended at a large circular chamber, lit by a green glowing shaft that emanated from the ceiling and flowed over a twisted mass at the chamber’s centre. Meg surveyed the space warily, and noted three dark tunnel exits, set equidistant so that, with the one in which she stood, they quartered the chamber. Apart from the central mass, the chamber was vacant. Whisper? she asked again.
Within a few paces of the green light shaft, she realised that the twisted mass in the centre was a naked man on a black rock sculpted in the shape of a sleeping dragon. The man’s legs were twisted agonisingly back under his body and bound by a thin strand of gold wire. His arms were spread wide across the black sculpture’s broad back, sickeningly held in place because he was pinned through his shoulders to the sculpture by two axes—one gold, one black. His body was covered with vicious, open wounds a
nd bruises, a wretched vision that made her feel sick, but her pity was greater. As she studied the prisoner splayed across the sculpture, fascinated by his silver hair, she was overwhelmed by the intense magic emanating from the green light. It flooded her senses, making her dizzy. She reached forward inquisitively, but stopped a finger’s breadth from making contact, her instinct warning her that the light’s magical energy was probably dangerous. Instead, she searched for something to test penetrating the shaft. When she realised that there was nothing useful in the chamber, she tore a small strip from her tunic, rolled it up, and tossed it into the green light. There was a flash of flame, a hiss, and the material vanished in smoke. She stepped back, grateful that she hadn’t touched the shaft.
Whisper ran towards her across the stone floor from a tunnel. Run, the rat projected, and leaped. Meg caught her and the rat repeated her urgent plea. She tucked Whisper inside her tunic and ran for the steps. No, Whisper projected, like a scream. Other way. Confused, Meg halted. Metal clanged against stone. A ghostly blue light shone in the entry tunnel. Instantly, Meg dissolved her light sphere, and bolted for the opposite exit. Several paces in, she crouched in the dark, and waited.
Enveloped in a blue aura, two armoured men marched into the chamber. Tall, solidly built, their helmets hiding their features, they walked with arrogance, spurs jangling on their boots. Both carried longswords. Morning stars dangled from their belts. The air in the tunnel grew colder, and her spine prickled with an intensity that almost made her swoon. The men paused before the green shaft, exhaling white vapour. They spoke to the prisoner, although she couldn’t hear what they said, before they separated, each heading for a tunnel in the opposite walls, each enveloped in pale blue light that faded as they disappeared.
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