The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (152 page)

He began with a straight thrust at her midriff. She hopped backwards, deflecting the blow with her own weapon and following through with a side swipe, narrowly missing his face. She saw the first flicker of concern pass over his features. Clearly, he was not going to make the mistake of underestimating her again. She would have to be careful from now on.

He feinted left, then swept his staff in a low scything arc intended to take her feet from under her. She leapt back, avoiding the path of the blade, but was forced to relinquish her commanding position. He rapidly closed the final few steps, gaining the top of the stairs. Suddenly, they were on equal terms.

Immediately, he followed up with a downward thrust. The sound of clashing darkwood reverberated against the walls. He was strong— stronger than she would have believed for a man of his age. She was forced to give more ground. The Chandara had the good sense to retreat behind her, keeping well away from the storm of whirling blades.

Peripherally, she spied another narrow stairway. It corkscrewed up and away, dark and inviting. A gamble. For all she knew, it terminated in a dead end, disused and boarded up long ago. She would be trapped. However, she would restore her height advantage and both of their movements would be restricted. That might buy her a little more time. She made her decision.

“That way,” she called over her shoulder. Boxx squeezed herself into the constricted access and was gone. Keris loosed a flurry of attacks, forcing Glaisne on the defensive, then turned and sprinted for the exit as fast as her injured leg would carry her. Glaisne was hard on her heels as she dashed up the winding stairs. She rounded the final bend. Early evening light filtered through an open doorway.

Keris burst onto an exposed rooftop. Boxes and barrels of various sizes were carelessly strewn across the flat area. She cast about wildly, but the Chandara was nowhere in sight. Cursing inwardly, she whirled around to see Glaisne behind her. The unpleasant smile had returned.

She backed off, scanning for lodestone. There was a slight pressure from somewhere in front and one off to her right, but too weak to be of any practical use. He began running towards her, a mane of white fire flowing behind him. Their staffs clashed like a clap of thunder. Her injured leg protested once more as her muscles tensed under the strain.

A sudden downdraft of air. A low flapping sound. Both combatants glanced up. Ail-Mazzoth hung, dull-red and dark-banded, like poison swirling in a glass of wine. A great white shape swept across its face, then swept down and alighted on the roof, great wings outstretched like welcoming arms.

Keris needed no urging. She shoved him back with her staff and set off on an uneven run towards the Chandara. Glaisne recovered his balance and chased after her. At the last, she spun around, interposing herself between him and the winged creature.

He skidded to a halt in front of her. His features twisted into a

snarl. “What’s the matter? Too frightened to face me?” “No,” she replied. “It’s just that I have more important things to do.” Throwing an arm around Boxx’s neck, she swung herself onto the creature’s back and gasped, as with a single thrust, Boxx took to the air, bearing her far away into the silent refuge of the vast open sky.

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Chapter 38

That night, they camped at the edge of Illaryon.

The forest was an inferno of purple and orange—burning, yet never consumed. From its depths, screeches, squeaks, squawks, and high-pitched ululations. A myriad of creatures locked tooth and claw in a never-ending battle for survival.

They huddled in silence near the campfire, the red-cloaked former Keltar and the fabulous winged creature. She massaged her rejuvenated ankle, made whole once more through Boxx’s healing talents. They were still some distance from the Great Tree—close enough, however, to see that the massive crown of foliage that had dominated the skyline was no more. In its place, a bare, soot-black trunk pointed at the sky like an accusing finger.

“I’m so sorry,” Keris said, at length.

The Chandara ruffled her wings and shook her head slightly, but made no reply. Her many-jewelled eyes reflected the flickering light from the depths of the fire.

At first light, they took wing, soaring high above the treetops and on towards the heart of the forest. Clinging to the soft down of the creature’s neck, Keris felt the warm air rushing past and the steady beat of her wings and felt an empathy—a oneness. As they were bound together in flight, so were they bound together in heart. In purpose.

They came down within a circle of scorched forest. At its centre, the blasted trunk of the Great Tree. Gone, the bright-painted orange and yellow and purple moss. Gone the festive vermillion vines that clung to its branches like ticker tape. A celebration of joy, turned to ashes.

There was no smoke; the perpetrators of this terrible crime appeared to be long gone.

Mercifully, the damage appeared to be limited to a small area of the forest. The great tree and the trunks immediately surrounding it had been subjected to intense heat, but scarcely more than a few steps away, the foliage was untouched. Perhaps the trees possessed some fire-resistant quality...

Boxx gazed up at the blackened bole. “The Great Tree. My Home.”

Keris swallowed and blinked the tears away. She had no time for displays of grief. She needed answers.

She walked around the base of the tree until she found the high opening and stepped through, with Boxx at her heels. The acrid smell of burnt wood made her gag. Gradually, her eyes grew accustomed to the dimness.

Bile rose in her throat as she spotted maybe a dozen small shapes littered across the floor. No signs of life. But then, she had not expected to find any.

She re-emerged into the sunlight and faced the Chandara. “Do you know whether any of your people survived?”

Boxx’s voice had an almost musical quality. “I Do Not Know.”

She tried a different tack. “If some of them managed to escape, where would they go?”

There was a pause before Boxx replied. “Above. Among The Topmost Branches. Or Below. Beneath The Roots—Deep In The Heart-Soil.”

The Warren.
The underground complex that was home to the Chandara during the first part of their life cycle. They might well return to the ‘womb’ in a time of crisis.

“Which part?”

Boxx regarded her uncomprehendingly.

“Which part of the forest would they flee to?”

“I Do Not Know.”

Keris bit her lip. How do you go about finding a group of Chandara who don’t want to be found? She might wander through the forest on the off-chance of finding them, but with a forest this size, she could spend days covering no more than a fraction of it.

She could climb astride Boxx’s back once more and conduct aerial reconnaissance, but she might easily miss them from above the tree canopy. And if they had decided to take refuge by burrowing beneath the forest floor, as Boxx had suggested, then she would never find them.

Assuming, of course, that any had survived at all.

“Boxx, I have to find your people now, or it will be too late.”

“To Fulfil The Promise.”

“Yes. To fulfil the promise.”

“I Could Sing.”

“Sing... ?”

The flying creature’s head moved from side to side in a way that reminded her of its younger form. “If I Sing To Them, They Will Come.”

The song of the Chandara
. She had heard it once before on the plateau, just before she and Boxx left for Akalon. Five Chandara had lifted their heads to a leaden sky and joined together in an ancient chorale—more ancient than the Kelanni people themselves.

“Sing to them,” Keris urged. “Tell them, ‘come quickly’.”

It began gradually. A paean, drifting outward from the dead heart of the forest. It wandered a singular scale, rising like hope, like the first shaft of sunlight or the tinkle of melting ice. Along the forest’s secret paths it wafted, through leafy bough and dense thicket, silencing the mylars in the topmost branches and stilling the skittering creatures of the forest floor.

As the Chandara’s song filled the still air, Keris sat cross-legged, peering between the crowded trunks, but nothing came forth. Time slowed to a crawl. It was possible, of course, that none of Boxx’s clan had survived. If that were the case, she resolved to make those responsible pay dearly...

However, another possibility occurred to her. The larval Chandara might be disinclined to gather at a site where the wholesale destruction of their own kind, and of their beloved Great Tree, had taken place. She was about to interrupt Boxx and suggest that they try a different location when she heard another sound.

At first she thought the cadence of the song had changed. Then her heart quickened as she realised that it was a different harmony—a different voice. Soon the new strain was joined by a second. And then a third. The chorus seemed to come from all around, coalescing, parting, then merging once again. Individual melodies, yet united in consonance.

Slowly they began to emerge from the forest: dozens of the shelled creatures, scurrying on all sixes, jostling one another. They stopped in front of Keris and Boxx, rising erect on their hind limbs, round heads bobbing expectantly, eyes like shining black points.

Soon the devastated circle of forest was filled with them. Boxx lowered her head and the interwoven refrains fell away to silence. With a start, Keris realised that they were all looking at her.

She swallowed. She had never been one for speeches. As Keltar, she preferred to let her actions and her staff speak for her. Now the fate of an entire race might very well hang on her next words.

She uncrossed her legs and got to her feet. “Chandara of Illaryon. Your Great Tree is no more.” She cringed. The words sounded trite. Idiotic.
Come on. Get a grip on yourself.

She glanced sideways. Boxx was watching her intently with eyes like huge, lustrous gems. She turned back to the assembled throng, imbued with fresh determination. “This is Boxx. Annata designated her as the ‘key’. She has completed her great task on behalf of the Kelanni. Now the Kelanni have made a promise. We have promised to do what the Tree cannot—to store essence until the transformation of the Chandara is complete.

“Boxx has undergone the change. I kept her essence and fed her when she emerged. She is proof. Proof that this thing can be done. That it will be done. For all Chandara.”

She scanned the gathering. Their mouths rippled in the peculiar way of the juvenile Chandara, but other than that, there was no reaction. Her heart sank like a stone.
Do they even understand me?

All of a sudden, the creatures at the front parted, and a single individual stepped forward. Its round face was older—wizened—and it supported itself on a branch of gnarled wood that was as tall as itself. She recognized it as the chief. The one who had addressed her in the audience chamber at the time of Annata’s first appearance. It raised its head and spoke in a high, quivering voice. “You Are One.”

Keris frowned. “I’m sorry... I don’t quite—”

“You Are One. We Are Many. You Cannot Do This Thing Alone. Have Others Of Kelanni Made This Promise?”

She could not lie to them. “A few have, yes. My immediate companions.”

“What Of Others?”

What of others, indeed. Miron’s ‘Fourth Circle’ had pledged their allegiance to her, but she could not be certain how far that allegiance might go. Their manifest aim was the overthrow of the Prophet’s regime. It was difficult to see what that had to do with this.

She had already instructed them to stand down and await her orders. Now she was going to suggest that they play nursemaid to the despised Chandara. Some might well conclude that she was wasting their time. Others of a more suspicious nature might even think that she was a quisling, put in place by the Keltar to misdirect their efforts.

“I cannot offer a guarantee for every one of my people,” she admitted. “But I will do everything in my power to persuade them to help.”

As if to reinforce her promise, Boxx stepped forward and presented the tip of her wing. The old chief stretched forth its three digits, and a steady luminescence formed between them. It was just as when the larval Boxx had shared the memories stored in its Great Tree with the chief of the Warren, on the far side of the world.

The light died and the shelled creature shrunk back. “A Destroyer Walks Among You. You Will Stay.”