Survivors: Book 4 Circles of Light series (39 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Two

Maressa had not
revealed the gijan to the mage Jakri, thinking that they would be
remaining at Green Shade. She tried arguing with them when it
became clear they had no intention of letting Tika travel anywhere
without them. Ammi had been aghast to find Tika had only two pairs
of much worn and much mended trousers and three similarly shabby
shirts apart from Salma’s gift of clothes. Daughters in law were
summoned and commanded to rectify the matter. Tika never saw her
old clothes again.

Olam and Riff had
departed with one of Ammi’s sons to rejoin Kasmi and the ships. In
spite of Pallin’s mutters and scowls, no one doubted how pleased he
secretly was to be confronted with over a dozen small boys and
nearly as many small girls all hoping to learn arms skills. Maressa
was content to stay with Taseen. Although botanical sciences had
not figured greatly with her before, Sefri’s enthusiasm together
with Ammi’s immense knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants
had awakened her interest.

The Ship fascinated
Taseen and a boy was assigned to help the old man inside the Ship
where he sat in the Captain’s chair and listened to Star Flower
recount her travels. Tika viewed the imminent parting calmly. She
had confidence in Maressa’s ability to keep track of them although
she rather wondered where Grek had got to.

‘Have you no idea where
he is?’ she asked Khosa while she packed her bag.

Khosa was sprawled on
the window sill watching the gijan chasing butterflies. She
yawned.

‘I’d prefer him to be
with us but I don’t know where he is. I’m surprised he’s been gone
so long.’

‘Could someone have
taken him apart, like Seela described?’ Tika repressed a shiver at
the thought.

‘I think we’d know –
somehow Namolos would learn of it and manage to let us know in
turn.’

Farewells were brief
and by midmorning the Dragons and their riders were well away from
Green Shade. They flew high and fast, the forest an endless green
below them. From this height they caught only occasional glimpses
of water where the numerous rivers widened into lakes before
narrowing under the trees again. A few less wooded hilltops poked
above the forest and they decided to settle on one for the night.
Ammi had told them a few ritual words to use should any tribesmen
accost them in the forest but none appeared.

The hill they chose for
their first night’s rest was close to the southern edge of the
forest: as they flew, they could see patches of fields in the
fading daylight ahead. The gijan had no trouble keeping pace with
the Dragons but were tiring by the time they decided to make camp,
and were quickly asleep on Seela’s back. Farn and Storm were still
energetic enough to go with Brin in the hope of finding food
although they were far from hungry having fed well at Green
Shade.

‘Do we really trust
Master Jakri?’ asked Gan when they sat round their small
fire.

‘He offered his life as
forfeit.’ Tika poked a twig in the embers. ‘I think probably we
can. His Emperor I’m not so sure about.’

Khosa sat up suddenly
on Ren’s knees, staring intently just beyond Seela.

‘Grek?’ Tika
asked.

‘Greetings.’ The
unbodied entity sounded tired, if such a sensation was possible for
him to experience. ‘I have been to Namolos. Then I tried to visit
Star Singer but even I could not penetrate the shielding Kertiss
now has in place around the Domes. I spent three days attempting to
do so before I succeeded. What I learned sent me to Harbour City. I
spoke with Taseen’s friends Sheoma and Tavri, and with the Grand
Harbour Master himself. He was a touch surprised.’

All the travellers were
listening closely to Grek’s mind voice and Tika noticed the gijan
too were awake on Seela’s back.

‘I couldn’t determine
whether it is by Orla’s command or if the men who follow Hadjay
have taken the decision themselves, but several thousand of the
outer desert tribesmen ride south towards Malesh.’

‘All those little
villages!’ Tika murmured in horror.

‘I did what I could
Tika. I warned Zeminth as I went to Harbour City.’

‘Have you managed to
discover anything of the city of Bracca?’ Ren asked.

There was a silence as
though Grek was offended but he answered before Ren could say
anything else.

‘They have powerful
mages there. They have been restricted for too long in how they use
or try to extend their powers and such stagnation is never good, as
we’ve all seen in Sapphrea.’

‘What of this Family
Garden where we are to meet the Emperor?’ asked Gan.

‘All Houses have a
Family Garden where the ashes of their ancestors are interred and
all important rituals take place. For instance, if a daughter of
one House marries a son of another House, the marriage rites take
place outside the man’s Family Garden. Members of both Houses are
present at the ritual but then the man takes his new wife inside
the Garden to present her to his forebears. House members may take
offerings of great value to lay before a particular ancestor so
there could be enormous wealth just lying around within such a
Garden. It is a place closely guarded by House troops
obviously.’

‘So why are we to meet
in the so secret Garden of the Emperor?’ Tika leaned back against
Farn and tried not to yawn.

‘I haven’t been able to
discover that. But I have been within the Crystal Family Garden.’
Grek sounded quite smug.

‘Without detection?’
Navan was full of admiration.

‘Indeed. I was
surprised to be honest. The Emperor is very powerful, more so than
even his own House mages give credit for. He is very clever too –
somewhat like Chevra in maintaining a merely average outward
persona. And when one considers how long he has kept up this
pretence of being far less clever than he is, one has to admire
such constancy.’

‘But you got in without
even him knowing?’ Tika brought the unbodied entity back to Navan’s
point.

‘The wards and shields
are set only against Wendlan mage craft. I will go ahead of you
again to ensure the Emperor has not thought to change the wardings
but I don’t think it will occur to him.’

‘I expect us to reach
this palace by the middle of the day after next,’ Brin remarked.
‘Is there somewhere you could suggest we would rest tomorrow
night?’

Grek was silent for a
while. ‘There are several large public gardens close to the city.
But I think you may find yourself still among farms and large
villages by nightfall tomorrow.’

‘I can shield us,’ Brin
offered. ‘As I did for Maressa and me in the lands near Seboth’s
town.’

‘No. You need all your
strength for the journey itself and for whatever you might be
called on to do at the meeting with the Emperor. I will stay with
you then and shield you at all times until you are within the
palace grounds at least. Then I will simply observe, unless my
intervention is required.’

The friends rolled
silently into their blankets, trying not to think of what situation
might need Grek’s intervention and what form such action might
take.

Tika woke early as she
usually did, Farn snoring softly at her back. She sent out the
lightest thought:

‘Grek?’

‘Yes Tika?’

‘Do you rest or
sleep?’

She thought he wouldn’t
answer.

‘In my present state I
have no need of sleep – as I have no need of food or drink. At
times I suspend my thought processes and I suppose you could call
that a period of rest.’

‘Do you find it irksome
– the state you are now in?’

‘I can travel where I
wish, faster than any solid body could. I can infiltrate through
air, rock, walls. But yes, I suppose I enjoyed the physicality of
living within a finite space and again yes, I miss it more than I
had thought possible.’

‘Is Mena
safe?’

Again, Grek was silent.
Then his voice was the faintest breath in Tika’s mind. ‘She was
well and safe when I parted from her.’ Another pause stretched
between them. ‘I bitterly regret what I forced her to do at the
end. Tika, try to understand: Cho Petak was a wonderful man in the
eyes of the boy that I was when I met him. All the years which have
passed since our punishment, I held him in my mind as the
marvellous teacher I had first known. When at last he called me to
Drogoya, I had no idea of how he had changed, the destruction he
had unleashed on that poor land and its people. I was desperate to
reach my beloved master again, but I was part of the young girl
Mena. It didn’t occur to me to unbody, to leave her. Instead I
forced her to overwhelm the Dragon’s mind and thus get us to
Drogoya.’

‘The Dragon? You mean
Kadi?’ Tika lay still, frozen with horror at the idea of the great
midnight blue Dragon Kadi being coerced into making such an arduous
flight. But she had somehow got back hadn’t she? Kija had flown to
the Stronghold when word reached the golden Dragon of her clan
sister’s injuries.

Grek had followed
Tika’s thought. ‘Kadi was healed. By Gremara and the Observer
Chakar.’ He did not tell her that both Kadi and Kija had now flown
again to Drogoya, into enormous peril.

‘Why are the desert
tribes marching on Malesh now?’

‘I’m not sure if it is
Kertiss and Orla’s madness – they are both quite insane as I’m sure
you guessed. Or it may be the being imprisoned beneath that desert
has loosened its bonds sufficiently to influence not only Kertiss
and Orla but tribesmen such as Hadjay.’

Tika heard Sket cough
as he started to build up the fire to make the tea without which
his day couldn’t begin.

‘Thank you for speaking
to me Grek. I will try to understand why you caused Kadi to
suffer.’ She got up, folding her blanket to replace in her
pack.

‘I doubt you can ever
understand,’ Grek replied. ‘But I appreciate your offer to try.
Perhaps you may even reach a point where you might forgive
me.’

Gan called her to come
and eat something and Tika knew Grek would not speak to her so
intimately again for a while. The gijan suddenly trilled and
giggled. Khosa marched past them, bristling with indignation. She
sat firmly on Ren’s knee.

‘What’s the matter?’ he
asked with genuine sympathy.

‘They think it fun to
follow me when I hunt. They don’t try their nonsense on Brin of
course, but four squeakers have just been allowed to avoid being my
breakfast thanks to their efforts.’

Ren immediately offered
her some cold meat from his own breakfast. She sniffed it carefully
and then accepted it. Ren looked up to find Tika grinning at him.
Keeping a straight face, he winked back at her.

The rim of the sun was
barely touching the horizon when the Dragons and gijan took wing
once more. It had been agreed that Ren would inform Maressa of
their approach to the city and she in turn would contact Jakri or
Hiramo. Shielded as the travellers were, no Wendlan mage should be
able to know their precise location until absolutely
necessary.

During the second day
they flew over farm lands of all types: flooded meadows with green
shoots sticking up above the water, open fields where large animals
grazed, more fields with many kinds of crops. They saw the lines of
canals which Sefri had described. There was much traffic on these
waterways – ships called barges heavily laden with goods, travelled
to and from the great agricultural estates of the Houses and the
city of Bracca.

The riders saw all this
through the slightly distorting shimmer of the shield Grek held
around them. By midday, when Seela called a halt, there were many
more buildings and thus more people. They settled in an open field
in which were a considerable number of the grazing animals. These
promptly fled to the furthest part of the field. Although they
could see nothing, clearly they sensed unwelcome and perhaps
predatory intruders.

Seela insisted the
gijan stay even closer as they flew on. When the sun sank towards
evening, Leaf rode behind Tika, and Willow and Piper behind Ren on
Seela’s broad back. The field to which Brin led them for the night
was a rough empty pasture. Grek refused to drop the shielding for
Ren to mind speak Maressa, saying instead that he would contact
her. She was to warn Jakri or Hiramo that the Dragons would be at
the Emperor’s Family Garden on the morrow, exactly at noon. She was
not to say anything more. Grek had decided that they should overfly
Bracca and approach the palace from the south rather than the
north. Just in case, he explained rather ominously.

At dawn Gan checked
their appearance. He had spread his blue cloak on a compliant Brin
overnight to get the worst creases out of it. Tika refused to wear
Salma’s gift: she stayed with the pale blue shirt and darker blue
trousers provided by Ammi. Sket had checked her sword and his own
as always and her egg pendant hung beneath her shirt once more. The
burn on her chest had scabbed and was still uncomfortable but she
preferred to have it against her skin than in the pouch at her
waist. Sket and Navan also wore blue shirts and black trousers
provided by Ammi. The sun had risen by the time Gan pronounced
himself satisfied with their appearance and they began the last
leagues of their journey.