Daywards (17 page)

While Dara was lying there, staring upwards and feeling disconnected from herself in a way that was a little like reaching, but somehow different, she realised that the night was singing.

Not singing. Humming. A deep, resonant humming. Not a tune she recognised.

Not a tune at all.

A note.

One single, continuous note.

A note she knew.

Beneath her the muddy earth was humming along now, vibrating in resonant sympathy with the air.

Lightning flashed and reflected briefly off a creature suspended in the sky above her, a shining, impossibly enormous beetle, its black carapace glittering against the storm-rent night. It turned its silvery gaze on Dara, the bright discs of its eyes staring down at her as she lay on the creek bank, torn from her watery cocoon.

Then the instant was over and, as the booming thunder rolled between the trees, the humming creature was gone, a waking dream moment, and Dara fell into unconsciousness.

‘Dara? Can you hear me?'

‘She coming round?'

‘I think so. I saw her eyelids move.'

Voices.

‘There! She did it again.'

‘Move over and let me have a look, eh?'

Something – a hand. Hot, amazingly hot, burning with life, pressed against her forehead.

‘She's still cold.'

‘Yeah, but not as bad now.'

The hand vanished and something pressed gently against her lips. She sipped, curiously aware of the trickle of water down the back of her throat.

‘Can you hear me, girl?'

The voice. She knew the voice.

‘Dara?'

She needed to open her eyes, but they felt so heavy.

‘Here …' The hand again. Warm. Pulsing. In its feather touch against her skin, Dara could hear a heartbeat, strong and distant. The beat of the earth.

Come on, girl. Time to get up, eh?

The words formed in her head. The voice part of her.

Dara opened her eyes.

Firelight danced overhead, flickering shadows of red light in slippery motion across a high stone roof. Faces leaned over her.

‘Dara? You hear me, girl?'

A wave of warmth washed over her, as though she'd been eased into a pool of hot water. Bile rose, bitter and insistent, coating the back of her throat and tongue with its acid, and Dara rolled sideways, coughing a spurt of bright yellow onto the ground beside her.

‘Dara?' Someone was rubbing her back, slowly, in circles. ‘Here, have another sip.'

Again the cup was pressed to her lips and again she drank. The wetness washed away some of the bitterness.

‘Eyna? Ma Saria?' Her voice was a croak, barely audible even to her own ears.

‘Hey there, girl. You gave us a scare, eh?'

‘Where am I?'

‘You're safe. Don't worry about that. We got you okay.'

Dara tried to sit up, but the effort induced another coughing fit and Ma Saria pushed her back down gently.

‘Best if you just lie there for a while, I reckon. Looks like you've had an interesting couple of weeks, so a bit of rest isn't gonna hurt.'

‘Ma, there's Nightpeople.'

‘Hush, girl.' The old woman's voice stayed steady, unconcerned. ‘I know all about it. Don't worry about that lot. They won't get at you here.'

‘But they said …'

‘Shh …' Ma Saria stroked Dara's forehead, and again Dara felt the warm flow of energy as it coursed along aching limbs and muscles. ‘There'll be plenty of time for talk later. For now, you get some sleep.'

‘But she just woke up!' Eyna protested, but quietly.

‘That wasn't sleep. Not properly. She needs a good rest. First, though, she needs this …'

Something soft and salty was pressed into her mouth, a sort of paste. For the briefest instant, Dara thought it might have been prosup, but then the flavour caught up with the texture and she knew there was no way this had come from a packet. A hot shiver ran through her body, shuddering up from her toes to her hair. As it passed, she felt calmer, less drained.

‘Good girl. Now you go to sleep for a bit an' don't worry about anything. Your cousin and I will be right here.'

The old woman's words ringing in her ears, Dara slipped gratefully into the deepest slumber she'd ever experienced.

When she woke it was still dark. Nearby, someone was snoring loudly, the noise echoing off the stone roof and walls, and the fire had been banked so that its reflections no longer danced on the roof but rather drifted listlessly across the grey stone.

Dara sat up, every muscle in her body screaming at her.

‘Hey! You're awake!'

Eyna sat beside the firepit, idly poking at the embers with a long, charred twig.

‘Hey, cuz.' Dara tried a grin, but the effort of sitting up had left her feeling light-headed.

‘Steady!' In an instant, Eyna was crouched on the sand behind her, stopping her from fainting.

‘Sorry … just … weak.'

‘I bet. Hang on.' Eyna retrieved a bark-wrapped bundle from a flat rock beside the fire, where it had been keeping warm. ‘Ma said you were to eat this as soon as you woke up.' As she unwrapped the package, a small cloud of steam escaped and the smell set Dara's mouth salivating.

Her cousin placed the food on the ground before her and Dara tucked in. It was more of the paste she'd been given earlier and she shovelled it in using her fingers, relishing each salty mouthful.

‘What is it?'

‘Something Ma made up after we got you down here. She said it'll help you get your strength back.'

‘Thanks.'

Dara ate in silence, licking the last skerrick of the food off its wrapping. Already she could feel it doing her good. Her head was clearing and her memories were starting to congeal into something like coherent thought. She fell back onto the sand, propping herself up with her elbows and luxuriating in the warm energy radiating out from her core.

‘So,' said Eyna, who'd observed the meal in silence. ‘Are you going to tell me where you've been for the last two weeks?'

‘It's been that long?'

‘A little longer, actually.'

Dara thought for a few seconds.

‘There's a lot to tell.'

Eyna shrugged. ‘We've got time.'

‘I'm not sure where to start.'

‘You could tell me why you took off without telling me you were going.'

Dara noticed the hurt in the younger girl's eyes.

‘I didn't mean to. I mean, I didn't know I'd be gone so long. Or that when I got back …'

‘Just start from the night you vanished.'

Slowly, hesitantly at first, but then with more confidence, Dara related the story, leaving nothing out. She began with the night she'd followed Jaran from the sleeping cave, and ended with her climb down the escarpment during the storm. She half-expected the other girl not to believe any of it, but when she finished Eyna nodded grimly.

‘That sounds about right. Bloody Uncle Xani, the stupid shi!'

Eyna spat the words with a vehemence Dara had never heard in her cousin's voice before.

‘What did he do?'

‘What do you think? He's the one who ruined everything. This is all his fault. If he'd listened to Ma, none of this would have happened. Not the Nightpeople, not what they did to you, none of it! Shi!'

A long silence followed, broken only by the faint crackle of the flames and the muted roar of the storm outside. The sound reminded Dara of another question.

‘Where are we?'

‘You think you can walk?'

‘Probably.'

‘Come and look, then.' Eyna held out a hand, assisting Dara to her feet. Though her legs felt shaky, Dara took a few steps without any problem. Her cousin slipped a thin arm around her waist and led her away from the firepit, into the shadows.

As they moved out of the immediate circle of light, it became obvious that they were in a cave, but one unlike any she was familiar with. The sandy floor was perfectly flat, like a giant clearing underground. The hanging wall of the cavern roof was festooned with long stalactites, several of which hung almost to the floor itself. The size of the cavern rivalled that of the dome common, back in the skycity.

‘This place is incredible.'

‘Just you wait.'

About thirty metres away, the sandy floor vanished below a giant rock pile, the bulk of which consisted of one enormous boulder, which had clearly dropped from the roof at some point in the distant past. Eyna led her carefully around this, showing her where to put her hands and feet so she could clamber safely over the wedged plates of stone that surrounded the boulder. As they moved further around, the direct light of the fire became hidden behind the bulk of the stone pile and the darkness ahead, which Dara had expected to be absolute, took on a strange quality. Then they stepped under a low overhanging section of ceiling and Dara gasped.

The chamber sloped upwards sharply, opening out into an enormous maw of a cavemouth, festooned along its upper edge with tooth-like formations. Grey daylight streamed through it, washing the slope of the cave floor in pale silver. Rain, still pouring from the slate sky beyond, cascaded across the opening, forming small watercourses that flowed down the rocks into the cave before vanishing into the darkness off to their left. Framed by the cave mouth was a section of forest, dense trees and scrub, restless with the storm.

‘What is this place?'

Eyna shrugged. ‘It's in the forest, nightwards of the waterfall and hidden at the bottom of a valley. Ma Saria found it ages ago, she said, and didn't tell anyone ‘bout it.'

‘Why not?'

‘Over here.'

Eyna made her way over to the nearest wall of the entrance chamber, where a low overhang formed a natural, shallow antechamber to the side. There she crouched and pointed at the stone wall.

‘Look.'

It took a moment before Dara could discern what her cousin was showing her.

‘Is that …'

‘Yep.' Eyna reached out and held her own hand over one of the hundreds of faint handprints on the wall. Even her tiny fingers were longer than the ones that had, sometime in the distant past, been imprinted in ochre on the grey stone. ‘This one must have been a kid, I reckon. Ma Saria thinks this cave was a meeting place, kind of like our own clan cave, a long time ago. She says it's special here.'

Dara nodded, understanding why Ma wouldn't have wanted to share this with just anyone. The cave was ancient. Clearly it had been here a long time before any of them, probably before even the skycity, and that made it important. Sacred.

Eyna and Dara stood there for a long time, unspeaking, with only the thrumming of the rain and the soft gurgle of water down the rockslope entrance to keep them company.

Then Dara stole a glance at her cousin. ‘Hey. Sorry for not telling you I was taking off.'

Eyna shrugged. ‘It's okay.'

‘Nah, it's not.' Dara took the younger girl by her shoulders. ‘You've always been there for me whenever I've needed you, and then I just took off without even stopping to think about you. I got all tangled up in catching out Jaran, and then in seeing the city. I'm sorry about that.'

Her cousin smiled.

‘It's all right, eh. I'd have done the same.'

‘Nah, you wouldn't. You've got more consideration than me.'

Eyna sighed, a long, deep exhalation. ‘Not that it'll do us any good.'

‘How come?'

‘Sit down.' Eyna gestured at a wide stone that rested against the giant rockfall. ‘Let me tell you what happened after you left.'