Broken World Book Three - A Land Without Law (32 page)

"Just calm
him," Brin said, "the older horses know to trust their riders."

"He does trust
me," Shan protested, "he's not going to go berserk, he just doesn't
like it."

"Must I have
Task speak to him?" Brin asked.

"No, he's
-"

They all
jumped as the earth beneath them shivered. Talsy sensed the
deepening cold of Dolana and stood up. "He's doing something."

"Who,
Chanter?" Brin glanced around.

"Yes." She
groped to the back of the cave and laid her palms against the soil.
Intense cold radiated from it, and she snatched her hands away with
a shiver. "Bring a light."

Brin picked up
a few burning twigs and went over to her, holding up the flame. The
earth at the back of the cave shimmered, sparkling as if frosted
with fire. The rocks and soil oozed away, pulling back to deepen
the cave.

"He's making
it bigger."

"Shan will be
pleased," Brin commented.

Talsy shook
her head. "He must have a reason."

"Hey! Bring a
light!" Taff called urgently, and Brin swung away, taking the
guttering flame to the front of the cave. The flickering fire
lighted a bizarre scene. Shimmering, moving soil had swallowed the
grey rock that had covered the entrance. Already it pressed against
the haunches of the nervous horses, which snorted and stamped.

"It's getting
smaller!" Shan cried, clinging to the black colt's mane, and
Thorn's eyes were white-ringed with fear.

"No!" Talsy
went over to them, pushing horses aside. "He's moving us. Come
further in, the cave's deepening at the back."

Brin snatched
up the rest of the burning twigs and moved to the back of the cave
to illuminate the oozing earth as it parted before them. Slowly the
soil that pushed from behind forced them to walk forward. The
horses advanced on stiff legs, flinching from the cold earth that
crowded behind them.

"Why is he
doing this?" Brin demanded.

"There must be
danger outside. He's taking us through the hill to the other side."
Talsy guessed, shivering in the cold that enveloped them.

"By the gods,"
Taff swore, "I hope nothing happens to him when we're in the middle
of the damned hill."

Mita prodded
him in the ribs and hissed, "Shut up!"

Taff shot a
guilty glance at the wild-eyed Shan in the gloom. The boy clung to
his equally wild-eyed colt. "Nothing can happen to him. I was only
joking. He's Mujar."

"Damn right,"
Mita said. "Why is it so cold?"

"It's the
Earthpower," Talsy explained. "It's always cold."

Chanter gazed
down at the Black Riders that hacked at his tree's sturdy trunk.
Their swords chopped out chips, making no speedy impression, which
was good. Still, he had a long way to go before the chosen reached
the other side of the hill. He concentrated on the Dolana, moving
the air pocket a little faster. He hoped that Talsy had figured out
what was happening and why, for he could not provide them with any
light. Crayash's manifestation would give away his identity to his
enemies and spur them to greater efforts. Instead, he clung to the
quivering branch with razor claws and wielded the Power he already
controlled.

The Torrak
Jahar's steeds stood immobile, nothing more than statues without
their riders. The sun beat down on the Riders' gleaming backs as
they swung their long swords, weapons immune to blunting or
destruction. Only the Starsword could break one of their weapons,
which were inherited from the Hashon Jahar and created by Marrana,
Goddess of Death. Chanter squinted at the distant city, which
seethed with soldiers. Evidently Kieran had gained the stone, or at
least had stirred a mighty ants' nest.

The air pocket
that held the chosen was now more than halfway through the hill,
and he kept its progress slow and even so as not to alarm those
within it. The Riders had chopped through the tree's bark and deep
into its flesh. The haunting melody of its rising sap had ceased,
telling the Mujar that the great tree was dying, cut off from its
roots.

The cold
silver Power he wielded turned black. To his senses it simply
vanished, and a wave of sickly warmth washed through him. His form
wavered, losing the cat shape, and he almost fell as his claws
disappeared. Clinging to the branch with appendages that wavered
between paws and hands, Chanter strived to hold the corrupted power
that now defied his grip. To drop it would kill the chosen in the
cave, yet to hold it filled him with its terrible sickness.

Chanter
plucked at the corrupted web, using his inner sight to find silver
strands amongst the black waves that coursed through it. Even as he
switched from one strand to another, the blackness followed,
sickening each thread he reached for. The air pocket within the
hill had stopped, but he prevented it from collapsing as his
fingers of his will played the web of power with consummate skill.
He dropped threads as they blackened, finding pure ones to use for
an instant before they too sickened. He was losing the battle,
however. The entire web that covered this area was sickening. A
wellspring of corruption had opened beneath it, and this place was
becoming another withered brown patch like the many others that now
riddled the land.

Chanter
struggled to hold the dregs of purity long enough to move the
chosen through the hill, but he was so busy trying to find pure
threads that he had no time to move them. Frustration grew in him.
Never had Mujar been forced to deal with tainted power before, and
the illness sparked a dormant rage that burnt deep within him, a
legacy of generations of suffering. The warmth and blackness
repelled him, and he longed to free himself of its pollution, but
could not without killing. Trapped by duty, he continued to draw
silver threads to him, only to have them blackened by the creeping
sickness from beneath.

Talsy gasped
for air, wiping sweat from her face as she tried to hold onto her
sanity. The cave had stopped moving, and the soil's shimmering had
ceased. Putrid warmth filled the confined space. The horses
squealed and shivered, and the Aggapae hugged their steeds,
comforting them. Something had happened to Chanter. The thought
sent a shaft of pain through her, and she denied it. Surely not. If
he had lost control of the Dolana, they would already have been
crushed by tons of earth. Something else had gone wrong, and the
fetid warmth was a clue. Corruption. Fists of rock and soil thrust
into the cave and withdrew, sometimes blossoming into ugly flowers
of bulging earth. The Earthpower's iciness had vanished, replaced
by this sickly warmth.

"It's the
Dolana," she gasped, "the Earthpower. It's gone bad. He's okay, and
he's trying to fight it. He'll succeed."

Brin's pale
visage gleamed sweatily in the light of his burning twigs, almost
consumed now. "How long will it take him?"

"I don't know.
He won't let us die. He can't."

"Maybe he has
no choice," Taff panted. "If he fails -"

"He won't,"
she interrupted. "He's Mujar. In case you've forgotten, he has the
power to rip this hill open, corrupted or not."

"I hope you're
right," Brin muttered, "because this cave is shrinking."

Talsy sensed
the space around them lessening, and the warm foul earth pressing
inwards. A prickle of fear marched up her spine. The horses huddled
together in a shivering, sweating group, the riderless piebald
stiff with terror. The tiny flames burnt Brin's fingers, and he
dropped the twigs with an oath, plunging them into utter darkness.
Talsy fought the scream that clogged her throat, pressing her hands
against the closing walls as if to hold them back.

The thrum of
danger came through the corrupted Dolana like a muted cacophony,
hurting Chanter's senses. He paused in his plucking of the
endlessly dying web to listen. Now he had no choice, his hand was
forced, and rage simmered in him. Releasing the tiny wedge of will
that held his cat shape, he resumed man form and stood up on the
quivering branch, clasping the trunk beside him.

Reaching for
the uncorrupted Powers, he summoned them in quick succession.
Crayash's raging inferno screamed in a momentary hellish
manifestation, followed by Shissar's misty wetness and its booming
sea, then the wind's rush, beaten by its denizen's pinions. The
strong manifestations brought hisses from the Torrak Jahar that
attacked the tree. They looked up with yellow eyes and swung their
swords with sudden fury.

Chanter held
the four Powers with his will, and, stretching it forth, commanded
them. Air, light and ice he sent into the hill, sustaining those
within it. Lifting each Power's reins with a will fuelled by rage,
he wielded them. He took control of all around him, joining with
the environment in a moment of utter command. His mind became the
land and he a small part of it. The spreading pool of corruption
crept across the silver web of Dolana, and with a flick of his
mind, he cut it.

The wound
pierced him as it did the land, like severing a part of himself.
The blackened web sank into the morass of seeping pollution below,
swallowed by it, and the elements of its construction began to
unravel. Chanter held water, air and fire, using the three to
sustain the integrity of the ground he had destroyed. The tree
wavered, its Dolana stolen by his action, the three elements that
remained tenuous.

Chanter's
willpower took hold of Dolana's silver threads beyond the cut he
had made. His action had stopped the sickness' spread, but at the
same time had destroyed the ground's solidity. Closing his eyes, he
ordered the chaos, drawing the silver web over the wounded land and
closing the gap he had opened, locking the sickness below. Dolana's
lines thinned with the stretching, but held, thickening again as
power pulsed along them to strengthen them with the earth's immense
might. The land around him regained its solidity as the Dolana
seeped back into it, and as it did, he opened his eyes.

The Torrak
Jahar had stopped hacking at the tree because they were waist deep
in the soil, struggling to free themselves from it. The tree had
sunk twice as far into the ground, and the damage they had done to
it was below the earth now. All the trees in the area had sunk, and
the stone he had placed over the cave's mouth was gone, leaving
bare earth. Several other changes leapt at him.

The hill was
flattened, and the ground appeared rippled, as if stirred by a
giant hand. The tree he clung to no longer looked like a tree, but
was now a melted form of smeared brown and green, its delicate
branches blunt stubs, its bark smudged with pale wood. Everything
around him was twisted and blunted, as if for a moment it had
turned liquid and started to melt, which was exactly what had
happened. Vast amounts of matter had simply atomised, released into
air by the cessation of the Earthpower that held everything
together.

The silver web
around him now shone with purity, however, and he lifted its reins
to move the air pocket and its precious passengers through the
hill. He started it slowly and gradually speeded it up. The Torrak
Jahar freed themselves from the soil and attacked the tree with
renewed fury, carving great chunks from it with the strength of
their strokes.

When light
flooded the tiny cave, Talsy and the Aggapae had cried out in
gladness and relief. With it came fresh air and a sudden chill.
Talsy put her hand on the wall and found a solid layer of ice
holding the corrupted ground at bay. In the rosy glow of the
illumination, pale faces smiled uncertainly. For several moments
they waited, then the ice vanished as quickly as it had appeared,
and the shimmering earth moved around them once more, pushing them
through the hill. With the light to comfort them, the journey
became less frightening, and the fact that the Mujar was back in
control brought greater comfort still. Their progress through the
soil speeded up gradually, and the chosen welcomed this, for their
greatest wish now was to quit this earthen womb.

When the soil
broke open to let in a bright shaft of light, Talsy rushed to try
to dig her way out. By the time the gap had widened to the size of
a window, she was already halfway through it. Brin caught her arm
and dragged her back.

"Much as we
all long to get out, we must make sure there's no danger outside
first."

Chastised, she
peered out with him, scanning a deserted landscape that stretched
away all around. "Looks safe," she muttered.

"But should we
leave or wait here for Chanter?"

"Whatever the
danger is, it's on the other side of the hill. I think we should
get as far from it as we can."

Brin nodded
and turned to commune with his horse while the gap widened to the
size of a doorway, then faced to her. "The piebald will carry you
until the Mujar returns."

Glancing back
at the shivering horse, she was glad that Brin had a cool head, for
she had not thought about the fact that without Chanter she had no
transport.

The chosen
emerged into the sunlight and mounted, Talsy scrambling onto the
big piebald with difficulty. As soon as all were aboard, Brin urged
the party away from the hill, and the horses broke into an eager
canter.

Chapter Thirteen

Dropping the
reins of Earthpower, Chanter assumed the shape of a daltar eagle
and launched himself into the air, his great wings beating it with
a whisper of long pinions. The Torrak Jahar hissed with rage and
rushed to mount their stone steeds, struggling to free them from
the earth. The Mujar waited, drifting on the wind, then glided
towards the city, losing height to tempt them after him. They
followed, their yellow eyes burning as they stared up at him,
unable to forego the lure of Mujar Life. He spotted the fleeing
forms of the chosen vanishing into the forest on the far side of
the hill as he turned to lead the Riders towards the city. More
Torrak Jahar emerged from the forest to join the four who chased
him, drawn by the possibility of capturing him, no matter how
slight. He swooped low, teasing them with his nearness while
drawing them away from his charges.