The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (11 page)

“When will you show me how to use the staff?” Shann’s face was eager.

Lyall chuckled again. “Patience, Shann. You have to learn how to run from a fight before you learn how to get into one.” He looked up, shading his eyes from the suns. Ail-Gan was rising through a cloudless sky. Ail-Kar was a dazzling point of light near the western horizon. It was becoming distinctly warm. “Let’s take a short break.”

He headed for a low shelf of rock and sat down with a sigh, his long legs splayed out before him. Shann followed and sat down next to him, cloak still draped about her. He took out a skin bottle of water and offered it to her. She took a swig and handed it back. He quaffed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and replaced the stopper. They both sat in silence, looking out over the flat grassland. Here and there, tufted plants that she could not name broke through the sandy soil or stubbornly clung to rocks. A few even boasted tiny yellow and purple flowers.

She went over Lyall’s training, trying to commit the points to memory, but there was something else–something nagging at the back of her mind. Fragments slowly converged, like a conjunction of the three suns, coalescing into a single inescapable thought.

She spoke the thought.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

“One of them?”

“You’re one of them.
You’re a Keltar
.”

Lyall’s voice was quiet. “What would make you say that?”

“Well,” Shann began, “you have the same devices that they do: the cloak and the staff. But more than that, you
understand
them. You know how they work. Only the Keltar have knowledge of such things. And then there is the money…”

“The money?”

“You don’t seem to have any work. Alondo is a musician, but doesn’t seem to have a trade as far as I can tell. Yet you have more money than I have ever seen. The only other person I know who has that kind of wealth is the Prophet himself….”

She glanced at him with guilty expression.
I shouldn’t have said that.
Lyall didn’t react, however. He continued to gaze out across the rough heath. There was a long pause before he spoke.

“You are a very clever girl, Shann. But you are wrong…although it is true that there was a time when I wanted to be a Keltar more than anything else. And I did train as one. But I decided in the end that it wasn’t the path for me.”

“The cloaks and staffs–believe it or not, I obtained them legitimately, although many in the keep at Chalimar would no doubt be shocked to find out how. The ‘offerings’ he demands have made people short of coin and desperate. The parts can be purchased, if you know the right people; then they can be assembled if you have the right skills.”

“You
made
them?”

Lyall laughed. “Alas no; that’s Alondo’s department.”

He made that instrument he carries with him
, she reminded herself.

“As for the money…let’s just say I thought the Prophet’s servants had a little too much to carry, so I relieved them of some of it.”

“You
stole
it?”

“Well he extorted it from poor townspeople and farmers, so I suppose it depends on your point of view. We have to use whatever resources we can if we’re going to defeat him, Shann. Besides, I think there’s a certain poetic justice to our using his ill-gotten gains against him, don’t you?” He gave a satisfied smile.

Shann was dubious. “I suppose.”

“Come on.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Shall we see if we can try a few more practice jumps? We will have to catch up to Alondo soon …unless you’re ashamed to be seen with a self-confessed thief?”

She smiled in spite of herself and joined him for another gruelling round of training.

Later that afternoon Alondo the musician watched as two cloaked figures alighted on the roadway just behind their tiny caravan. He gave them a cheery wave. “Impressive. I see the lessons are going well.”

“Indeed, Shann is ten times the student you ever were,” replied Lyall. Shann looked down, embarrassed.

“That’s only because I had enough sense to keep both feet firmly on the ground. Hey Shann, did he do that thing to you where he gets you to stand directly over a lodestone and jump as high as you can?” She looked up, recalling her ungainly landing. There was a moment’s pause. Then all three of them burst out laughing.

Alondo turned to lead the morgren forward and Shann noticed his instrument was slung over his shoulder. She turned to Lyall, speaking in low tones.

“If we meet up with any dangerous beasts what does Alondo intend to do–
serenade them to death?”

Lyall cocked his head to one side. “Well, I really don’t know. Let’s ask him, shall we? Hey Alondo?”

“Yes, Lyall?”

“Shann wants to know if we meet any dangerous creatures, whether you were going to serenade them to death.” Shann shot a look of injured betrayal at Lyall, but Alondo merely appeared pensive for a moment before speaking in a cheerful tone.

“Well I’ll certainly do my best!”

~

Keris the Keltar swooped low over the rock shelf, her flying cloak casting a shadow like an immense bird of prey. She landed and assumed a crouched position in one fluid movement. Only a few steps to the edge. She pressed herself to the ground and crawled across the smooth surface to the lip of the outcrop, quickly peeking over the edge as it jutted out over the pass. She had a view of the road a hundred feet below her, as it meandered through a cut in a range of low hills. The sides were steep and there was evidence of rock falls both young and ancient. They would be coming through here in a short while.

She was little more than a day out from Lind before she spotted the little party in the distance, moving slowly across the desiccated landscape, shimmering in an early morning heat haze. She allowed herself to get close enough only to make a positive identification: two morgren, three people, one tall, two shorter. The shorter one in front had strapped to his back what looked like a musical instrument, of all things. A musician, then, just as the stableman in Lind had described. There could be no doubt; it was them. The other short figure had to be the girl, reported to be the impostor’s accomplice. That meant the tall one was the impostor himself.

Keris took a fix on their position, and then fell back, plotting a wide arc across country to re-join the road ahead of them. The route led through a constricted pass with steep sides.
One entrance. One exit. Perfect.
Their journey ends here.

Lying near the periphery of the shelf overlooking the ravine, she took out three lodestone discs one by one from the pouch at her belt, placing them in a small triangle at the edge of the overhang, on the side facing where the highway approached from the north. Then she reached in once more and took out a transparent globe, placing it carefully over the centre of the three discs. The Vision Sphere floated in mid air, suspended by the pushing force of the discs.

Keris got to her feet and moved back a few steps out of sight, extracting an identical sphere and setting it carefully in a crevice. She turned it until she could see a fish-eye view of the road as it wound through the hills. The two spheres were Linked, but unlike the Rings, the Link was one way. She sat with her legs crossed and her cloak tucked under her, watching the sphere set in the rock surface, planning her next actions.

Three hostiles. Objective; neutralize two, retain one for questioning. Tactical assessment mandates isolation and containment protocol.
However, common sense suggested such precautions were hardly necessary
. A musician, a slip of a girl and a man who had delusions of being a Keltar.
The impostor would have to come with her, of course, and he would have to explain how he obtained the cloak and the staff. But she was inclined to simply let the others go. They appeared to be no threat. At most, they were guilty of allying themselves with a madman. And she had seen more than enough unnecessary death and suffering of late.

A movement on the road below.
The sphere showed a distorted image of three figures and two morgren rounding a bend in the gully. She obviously could not leap off a hundred foot drop on the off chance that there would be a deposit of lodestone to break her fall. Her plan was rather to allow them to continue through and to be waiting for them at the other end, where they would have nowhere to run.
Time to finish this.

Keris picked up the sphere and returned it to her pouch, then went over to retrieve the other sphere and the discs.

A shadow.
She made to turn, but was caught by a vicious blow to the side of the head. She fell heavily on her side. Her ears felt encased in fog, muffling all sound. She tried to open her eyes and had an impression of a huge shape, wings outstretched as if to claim her.
Then a crushing pain in her side and in her right leg.

The searing crimson of agony faded to the absolute blackness of oblivion.

<><><><><>

Chapter 7

Keris clawed her way to consciousness, and then wished almost immediately that she hadn’t. Her head felt as if there were someone inside it pounding at her skull, trying to get out. She put her fingers to her temple; it felt tacky and her fingers came away stained in white blood. She tried to focus, but everything was a blur. Screwing her eyes shut, she forced them open again, blinking away a combination of tears and dried blood.

She was lying on a rough weave of branches and brushwood. Close by were four smooth convex shapes half as big as she was.
Eggs?
Panic rose within her like a gathering storm. She lifted her head a little. She was high on a ledge, the ground far below.
A perridon’s nest.

Keris glanced up, scanning the sky. A pair of mylars was circling nearby, but there was no sign of the great bird. There was little doubt that it would be returning soon, however.
How did I get myself into this mess?
No time to debate that. She had to get away,
now.

Her staff was gone, but her cloak was still wrapped around her. She tried activating it, to feel the reassuring push of any nearby lodestones, but there was nothing. Whether that was because the cloak was damaged, or because there were none, she had no way to know. That left just one option. She would have to climb down.

She tried to heave herself upright, and then clenched her teeth in agony, nearly passing out again. There was a searing pain in her right leg. With a sickening jolt, she realised it was broken. She eased herself back, eyes filling with tears of frustration.
I’m finished.

She lay back and closed her eyes.
Not long, now.

She felt a downdraught of wind, heard a powerful flapping. She slowly opened her eyes. The perridon spread its immense wings, filling her field of vision. She could see its long tooth-filled beak and its yellow eyes like two burning candles.

A commotion from below.
Now I’m hearing things.
A stick or spear smacked the winged beast in the side. It squawked and turned to face its assailant, as a group of strange creatures appeared over the side of the nest.

They were about half her size, with six legs, or perhaps two legs and four arms; it was hard to tell. Their round heads were set into their bodies, with a layered underbelly and a segmented carapace covering their backs.
Chandara.
Keris had heard of them, but had never actually seen one. They lived as primitives in remote areas, never approaching Kelanni settlements. It was said that they had the power of speech, but that their speech made no sense.
It seems as if someone is determined that I should be their meal today.

The Chandara were leaping and dancing in front of the perridon to attract its attention. Every now and then, one of them would dash forward and thrust a stick at the avian monster before retreating hurriedly. This was a poor tactic, Keris observed detachedly. They stood little chance of defeating the creature that way. Then she realised–
they are not trying to defeat it; they are trying to distract it.