The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (167 page)

“You will not leave this place alive,” he bellowed.

He began hobbling rapidly towards the stairs leading to the roof. She watched his retreating back. It was over. She had neither the will nor the strength to pursue him.

She turned and headed out through the ruined doors. Behind her, the unchecked flames burned higher, purging the last vestiges of tyranny.

~

The bare walls echoed to the sound of her boots as Keris dashed down deserted stairways and along empty passages. The keep shivered at its impending destruction, but she forged on, finally bursting out into the open air. The former mustering yard was deserted and the iron gates creaked open on their hinges. Beyond them lay nothing but yawning empty sky, streaked cinder-red and smoke-black.

Behind her, she heard a terrible rending of the ancient stone. The ground canted beneath her, forcing her to her knees. She got up and staggered to the precipice.

A sudden wind ruffled the fringes of her flying cloak, whipping loose strands of hair across her face. She combed them back with slender fingers and thought of her companions. Of Shann, the girl who hated her at first but had come to trust her like her own right arm. Of Alondo, who loved to torment her with his humour. Of Rael, the boy-genius from beyond the Great Barrier. Of Patris, the sailor-thief who infuriated and impressed her by turns. Of Lyall, who had kept them all together and then given his life to save Kelanni. Of McCann, the human engineer who had discovered a conscience. Of Susan Gilmer, who had sacrificed her life for a people not her own.

And she thought of her family. Of her mother and father, who had tried to give her the life that they could not. Of her brothers and sister, and other siblings that she would never see. She hoped that they would understand what she had tried to do.

The ground tipped forward and the sky shifted. The stone walls began to crack. The keep was falling.

A shrill cry from above.
She glanced up and saw a familiar shape framed against the sky.
Boxx.
Her heartbeat quickened as the Chandara descended, swooping past her with great white wings.

Calmly, she took a step back, ran forward, and vaulted off the edge and into nothingness.

A gale buffeted her, billowing her crimson cloak and blowing her long dark tresses behind her like a banner. She plummeted, arm in arm with fear and exhilaration. Suddenly, Boxx rose up to meet her. She landed on the Chandara’s back and was plucked out of the sky.

Keris clung to the downy white neck as the great wings powered away, lifting them both high above the destruction. She gazed at the massive keep as its crown of towers was ripped away, its robes of dark grey stone were torn asunder, and it toppled from its throne in the clouds and fell towards the heart of Chalimar, disappearing finally in a storm of sepulchral dust.

They flew out over the city. Soon word would spread. From city to town. From village to croft. From the labourer toiling in the fields of Dagmar to the smith hammering at his forge in Lind. From the moba vendor on the streets of Sakima to the merchantman dropping anchor in Kalath-Kar. Across the Great Barrier of Storms, to Kieroth and Vandral and Lechem, and the lodestone hunters, scouring the far-off peaks of the Vannath Mountains.

The word that Kelanni was free at last.

Far out on the fringes of the western sky, Ail-Gan, the yellow sun, erupted in the blinding light of a brand new dawn.

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Epilogue

Keris brushed her fingertips against the tiny streak of grey at her temple.

What are you?

Shann had hurled the question at her retreating back on the deck of Annata’s Reach as they sailed for the Great Barrier of Storms and the unknown dangers that lay beyond. The face that stared back at her from the polished silver mirror still had no answer.

It was barely five turns since the keep at Chalimar had come crashing down and the power of the Unan-Chinneroth had been broken; yet already, history was aging into legend. People spoke of the ‘Six Heroes’—Keris, Shann, Alondo, Rael, Patris, and Lyall. The role of the hu-mans Alexander McCann and Susan Gilmer, as well as that of the Chandara, Boxx, had been quietly expunged. It seemed that Kelanni could not come to terms with the fact that they might owe their deliverance to those of another race.

She recalled the look of irritation on Shann’s face. The girl had vowed that one day she would sit down and write a chronicle of their adventures. Set the record straight. Keris had not attempted to dissuade her, but she could not help but wonder whether anyone would want to read it. Most people preferred the comfort of a lie to the cold hardness of truth.

The first few days following the Liberation were marked by idealism and hope. The hu-mans were gone—the last of them having seemingly perished when the keep fell. There were persistent stories that a group of Keltar had survived the destruction and were laying low with the intention of seizing power once again, but as time passed and nothing transpired, the rumours gradually died.

In an official ceremony of the new joint Ruling Council of Kelanni-Drann and Kelanni-Skell, the Chandara had been granted unfettered possession, in perpetuity, of Illaryon and Atarah and the land known as the Warren, to be conferred on their descendants... and so on and so forth. And the Chandara, who knew nothing of rights or land or possessions, had sat patiently, like sages listening to the ramblings of young children, before finally returning to their forests to plant and tend their trees and sit amid the branches, singing madrigals and remembering the lives of long ago.

So it was that the two races who had come together for the salvation of their world now drifted apart once more. Every now and then Keris thought of journeying to Illaryon, to pay her respects and inquire after Boxx. To sit with her in the glade of white flowers and discuss the meaning of all that they had seen and experienced together. Yet each time the thought had faded and the seasons continued to turn.
This summer it will be different,
she told herself
. This summer, I will make the time
.

Keris had been greeted initially with awe and adulation and quickly found that she hated both. She was offered appointments on various committees set up to explore the finer points of rebuilding, water reclamation, sewage systems, and the like. Rejecting them all out of hand, she awoke early one morning, mounted a graylesh, and headed off into the open countryside.

Fresh air filled her nostrils and banished the fog from her thoughts. Soon, the land started to rise and she saw that she was entering the foothills of the Tragar Mountains. As evening fell, she encountered a mining camp and decided to spend the night. There she learned of a cabin, far back in the hills, that had been left empty for the season. Coins were exchanged, and the following afternoon, she arrived and set up home.

The terrain was rugged and game was scarce. Her days were reduced to the essentials of survival—gathering scraps of wood, fetching water from a tiny brook that gurgled from bare rock, stalking prey for food. It was paradise.

Paradise lasted exactly six days.

Early on the morning of the seventh day, she awoke to a cavalcade on her doorstep. How they had found her, she never discovered. Banners fluttered in the wind, proudly bearing Lyall’s symbol of the two linked hemispheres, symbolizing the uniting of their world. Forty soldiers and dignitaries riding on graylesh, sent to track down a lone hermit hiding out in the hills. She blinked at them in bleary-eyed disbelief.

They begged, pleaded, and cajoled her to return. She steadfastly refused. At one point, she was tempted to fetch her cloak and staff and expel them by force, but common sense told her that one against forty did not make for promising odds, even for her. Besides, it soon became clear that they were not going to take ‘no’ for an answer. And even if by some miracle she succeeded in driving them off, what was she going to do when the next forty turned up, as they surely would?

With a heavy heart, she finally acquiesced. Everything would be fine, a portly, bald, permanently out-of-breath man in fine robes assured her. They had a position for her—one ideally suited to her unique talents. So it was that Keris became head of a new body responsible for the maintenance of world order.

It turned out that it was little more than a symbolic position. The nine deputies who served under her were supremely efficient, leaving her with little to do other than stand around and look important. At one point she had feared that they might raise a statue to her. Now she realised with a sickening dread that she had become that statue.

She turned away from the anguished face in the mirror. Today was an important day. And she had duties to perform...

A short while later her graylesh pulled up at a neat and well-appointed homestead to the northeast of Corte. She patted the animal on its striped flank and dismounted. Two boys were playing in the yard.

“I want to be the Heroine this time.”

“Only if I can have the staff.”

“That’s not fair... ”

Embroiled in their argument, they ignored her as she climbed the porch and entered the house.

Without warning, a tiny figure rushed her, clamping onto her legs. The Heroine of Gort stood immobilized, powerless in the grip of a little girl.

Oliah appeared, bent down, and swept the girl up into her arms. “Shann, you mustn’t do that.” She looked up at Keris. “I’m terribly sorry. She does it to everyone. It seems to be a phase she’s going through. Shann, this is your aunt Keris. She is a heroine to our people. You must show her respect.” The infant buried her face in her mother’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Oliah repeated. “Alondo will be down soon. Can I offer you some refreshment? I have some freshly squeezed moba juice.”

“Thank you, no,” she responded, regaining her composure.

Moments later Alondo descended the stairs, sporting his signature red cap. Lyall’s death had hit him hard in the days following the keep’s fall. Rumour had it that he did not pick up his instrument for a whole turn. He and Shann had held each other and cried together for long periods. Eventually, time, love, and a new family did much to heal the wound.

“Keris. It’s good to see you. Patris sends his regards. I Ringed him just this morning. He sends his apologies for not being here, but he simply could not get away. I guess the office of Guildmaster is a pretty demanding one. Sakara seems to be thriving—in fact, his people have offered to help out in the rebuilding work in some of the other cities. He said if there is anything Chalimar needs, he can steal it for you, for a fair price. He also said to remind you that you still owe him a great deal of money, but he was only joking about that... ” His smile evaporated. “At least, I think he was joking.” He beamed once more. “You’re going to the launching, right?”

Keris gave her well-rehearsed reply. “As head of the Security Division, it is my duty to attend in order to monitor proceedings and oversee crowd control.”

Alondo’s eyes twinkled. “Of course. Well, we will be leaving in just a moment. You are welcome to ride along with us.”

“I would be happy to provide you with an escort,” she replied.

She watched as Alondo and Oliah gathered up the children and set them in the wagon. Oliah took the reins while Alondo sat against the backboard, and strummed an intro. The family set off, singing a jaunty travelling song as the wagon swayed in rhythm.

They arrived at the launch site close to midday. The snub-nosed Diametric Drive, now freed of its cocoon of girders, squatted on an undulating plain just south of Persillan. The encircling crowd parted and Rael met them, all smiles. The boy had filled out in a pleasing way.

She had not seen him in a while. As Hannath’s successor and head of the combined-world project, he moved in very different circles to her.

He led them to a low, single-storey building inside the perimeter. In a white, featureless room, the small figure of Shann sat, covered in reflective silver and surrounded by an army of fussy attendants in light blue overalls.

As they entered, Shann’s eyes misted and she threw her arms around each of them in turn, lifting and kissing the children, while Rael stood patiently by the door.

Alondo voiced the question on everyone’s mind. “So, when are you and Rael going to get together, then?”

It was Rael who answered. “I made her a promise that I would help her reach the stars first.”

“He’s got a long way to go,” Shann teased. “This trip is no more than three orbits of our world.” There was a ripple of sympathetic laughter.