The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (31 page)

“It’s good to see you, Keris.” The dark presence raised its left hand and pulled back the hood. Small intense eyes burned in a round face; a mouth with sides turned upwards in a half smile.
Mordal
.

Keris felt a pang of guilt at the sight of her former mentor but thrust it away. She recalled their fateful discussion on a spring afternoon in the keep garden a lifetime ago, or so it seemed. That discussion had taken her on a journey neither of them could have imagined. She had travelled farther and farther from Mordal and all that he represented. Yet now here he was, standing before her.
Full circle
. “I have come as you asked,” she began.

Mordal’s eyes twinkled. “Thank you. I am pleased to see you looking well, Keris.”

She looked downcast. “I’m sorry about the boy, Nikome. I tried to talk to him, convince him to stand down. He wouldn’t listen. There was an explosion and he…fell from the tower.” She swallowed.

Mordal raised a hand in a conciliatory gesture. “Do not concern yourself with that. It was unfortunate, but he disobeyed a direct order. I am gratified that you were not hurt.”

Keris felt off balance. Of all the reactions she could have expected from him, kindness was the last. She allowed some small part of her to hope that her plan might actually work out. She gathered her courage about her. “Have you considered my proposal?”

“Yes indeed,” Mordal responded. He added lightly, “I would like to hear more about those devices you found.”

“There’s not much more I can tell you about them. The mechanism at the tower was destroyed, as you know. The communication device is in our possession, but it does not operate on demand. The woman from the past appears only at certain intervals. She mentioned a power generation problem. That’s all I know.”

Keris had been very careful about how much she revealed to him through the Speaker Ring. She had told him about the holographic machine and the messages sent by the woman from the past, but she had deliberately not mentioned the Chandaras’ involvement. She had informed him that they were travelling to the tower to investigate another device but had not admitted to knowing its purpose. It was all very much a calculated risk on her part. She knew she would need to limit the damage in the event that it all blew up in her face.

To begin with, her idea had been simply to convince Mordal of the threat to the Kelanni. She would use the tower to transfer to the other side of the world with Lyall and the others, while he would remain here as a powerful friend and ally, working to undermine the Prophet’s schemes. With the destruction of the tower, things had changed. It seemed to Keris that the best way to proceed now would be for them to join forces and find a way to cross the Great Barrier together. However, achieving that objective would be a much harder task. It would involve a great deal of trust on both sides. Right now, they had many more reasons to distrust one another. If this plan was going to stand any chance of working, it would have to be handled very carefully indeed. She and Mordal were the key. She had to convince him of the danger that the Prophet posed to them all.

She studied the ageing Keltar. He appeared thoughtful. Keris decided to press home her advantage. “You should come with me to our camp. Alone. I will go in first and explain what is going on. The leader, Lyall, is a reasonable man and he will listen. The girl will be a problem, but I can handle her. Once I have their agreement, you can meet with them and we will arrange a truce. I will also show you the mechanism we are carrying so that you can see it for yourself.”

“I don’t think that will be possible.” Mordal’s quiet voice seemed to fill up the night.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m afraid I have a confession to make,” Mordal continued. “I did not come here to discuss your proposal.”

“Then what–?”

His smile vanished. “I want you to return with me to the keep, to claim your rightful place as my successor.”

Keris looked confused. “
Have you not heard what I have been saying? All Kelanni is under threat. Besides, you must know that after what happened at Gort, there is no way I could return even if I wanted to
.”

“Do not worry. I have taken care of everything.”

“Taken care…how?”

“No-one will know about the incident at the compound.” Mordal’s tone assumed an edge of pride. “Remember Ferenek? You spoke to him of your suspicions before you knocked him unconscious in his office. When he came to, he started asking awkward questions. A short while later he…met with an unfortunate accident.”

“But why?”

“He knew of your involvement,” Mordal stated simply. “Then there were the nomads you travelled with over the plains. I could not be sure exactly what you had told them, so I felt it safest to make sure they could not talk.”

Keris felt as if she had been punched in the stomach.
All those people – dead.
The shock of it was too much to bear. He was killing indiscriminately–
for her
.

“Nikome is gone,” Mordal continued. “The soldiers know nothing. The only other person who is aware of your involvement is Saccath. Once he is silenced, we can return to Chalimar together and you can assume your rightful place. As far as anyone is concerned, you have been engaged on an extended mission under my orders. No-one will be any the wiser. Do you see? I have
covered
for you. All you need to do is decide to come with me now, and all will be well.”

Keris was still reeling from the enormity of the revelations.
No…it can’t be…it has to stop. I…I cannot allow this to continue.

“I only did all of this for you, Keris.
For you
. You have to come with me now.” Mordal advanced toward her and grabbed her by the arm. She pulled away in horror. His voice assumed a hard edge. “
You will come with me now, or you will not leave this place
.” In one swift movement, his staff was balanced in his thick fingers, brooking no argument. She backed away. He began to circle her, a smile playing on his lips once more. “Unfortunately, I cannot allow my actions to become known. What will it be, Keris? Shall we leave and embrace our future together. Or shall we ‘dance’ one last time?”

Madness? Obsession?
Keris knew little of such things. It was impossible to believe that this was the same man who had taken her in and nurtured her, who had impressed on her the conviction that the Kelanni needed to be protected and cared for. Yet somehow he had turned into a monster.

His hands slipped to one end of his staff and he swung it towards her in a wide arc. She jumped back instinctively, the diamond blade passing inches from her midriff. “I’m gratified to see that your reflexes are as keen as ever, Keris.” He spun around and then leapt into the air a short distance, aiming the staff at her head. She side-stepped neatly, and the blade flashed past her harmlessly. “Good, very good,” he approved. “Now, are you going to obey my wishes or are you going to defend yourself?”

He was advancing on her again. Keris felt as if she were in a waking dream. One hand moved involuntarily to her own staff, gripping the smooth darkwood. It felt solid, reassuring. Her other hand moved to her neck control and she adjusted the bronze layer of her cloak, seeking the pressure of natural lodestone. As she registered the strengths and directions of the familiar push of the ore, it was bizarrely the words of Mordal himself that came back to her, spoken in a different place and at a different time.

“Battling another Keltar is unlike any other battle you will ever fight. When encountering anyone else, the lodestone will furnish you with a decisive advantage in height and momentum. However, when you are facing another Keltar, those advantages are cancelled out. Instead, the field of battle and the configuration of lodestone deposits become all-important. A clash between Keltar is primarily a battle of tactics. Even superior strength and agility can be overcome by superior positioning and spatial orientation. You must immediately determine the location and strength of any deposits and then ‘own’ them, denying your opponent any advantage.”

Keris tested the push on her lodestone layer from different directions, mapping out the floor of the corrie in her head.
One directly behind her–weak. Two behind Mordal, one to the left–medium strength, and one he was almost standing on–the strongest of the three. His was the clear advantage. No doubt he had planned for this eventuality when arranging to meet her. The spot he had selected, even the place he had chosen to stand, were far from random. Keris cursed her own lack of foresight. She would have to go on the defensive and stall for time, hoping to reposition herself so as to challenge his dominant stance.

Start with what you have
. She backed off rapidly and activated her cloak, leaping and pushing off against the deposit behind her. It was more to see what Mordal would do than anything else. The next move was clearly his. The aged Keltar flared his own cloak and pushed off the big deposit, soaring over her. She descended, holding out her staff with both hands defensively. He dived, his staff meeting hers with a loud crack, then let loose with a flurry of blows as they both descended. He drove her down, finishing off with a powerful slicing move as her boots hit stone, forcing her to her knees. He locked staffs with her, eyes wild with elation.

Keris gritted her teeth and strained for a moment before shoving him back. Mordal swung his blade and slashed her arm as she rolled away. Keris felt the flash of pain. She embraced it, allowing it to keen her senses. Getting her feet under her, she rose to face Mordal once again. He was still positioned between her and the main deposits of lodestone in the ground. In spite of his age, his reactions seemed unimpaired.
If I don’t come up with something soon, I’m finished.

Grenades
. She was loath to use her limited supply, but they would be of little use to her if she were dead. She reached into her pouch, fingers closing on a round metallic shape. Pulling it out, she quickly twisted one hemisphere. A low whine emanated from the lodestone grenade, rising rapidly in volume and pitch. She tossed it in Mordal’s direction. It bounced once on the stone and exploded in a burst of light and flame. Mordal, however, had already leapt beyond the blast. As he settled back to the ground, cloak fully extended behind him, he was laughing and shaking his head. “Keris, Keris. Why not just accept the inevitable? Leave those other fools and come back with me, now.”

Keris was not listening. She had used the interlude to scan the field once more for lodestone and she detected something she had missed before, something that gave her a faint glimmer of hope. If Mordal had missed it too… She raced to her left, using the small and medium deposits to give her a combined lift, so that she rose up the steep wall of the semicircular basin.

Mordal had an amused expression as he extended his cloak once more and thrust upwards, using the momentum of the strong deposit. She saw him hurtling towards her, staff at the ready, in anticipation of the imminent clash. Hers was a risky manoeuvre. It required precise timing and there were too many ways it could go wrong, but she was desperate. As she flew up the side of the cwm, she felt the pressure from her objective, a lodestone deposit embedded halfway up the rock wall. As she drew level, she slammed open her bronze layer, arresting her upward rise, then pivoted feet-first toward the rock wall, withdrawing the bronze and exposing the lodestone layer. She shot forward on a horizontal trajectory away from the wall. Mordal could not react in time, and she careened into him, impacting his lower abdomen. Pain lanced through her shoulder as they were both sent into an uncontrolled spin. The ground whirled crazily as Keris fought to right herself by using her cloak to brake her descent. She was only partially successful, landing in a heap on the stone floor.

The various cuts and bruises on her body screamed for attention but she dismissed them, casting her eyes about for Mordal. There was no sign. Then she saw it–a dark shape near the rear of the dimly lit basin. It was not moving. Keris got to her feet with a grimace, holding the cut on her right arm with her left hand in order to staunch the flow of blood. She made her way over to the latent form and dropped to one knee, extending her bloodstained fingers to touch his shoulder. Mordal’s eyes were open, expressionless–his neck broken. She got to her feet, tears forming rivulets in the grime clinging to her olive cheeks.
Why…why did you make me do it?
She ripped the Speaker Ring from her finger and hurled it at the body, excising her final connection to her mentor. The Ring bounced off and plinked on the rough stone before coming to a dead stop.