The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (4 page)

They parted, and Shann wiped away the tears with the back of one hand.

“Promise me you will come back.” Gallar’s voice was pleading.

Shann had no idea when or how she might be able to fulfil it, but she gave her answer without hesitation. “I promise.”

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Chapter 2

Keris sat straight in the saddle and checked her bearings. Ail-Gan, the yellow sun, was already climbing high in the sky. The huge ball that was Ail-Mazzoth loomed motionless as ever, a dull crimson, transected by dark bands. Ail-Kar, the white sun, lay beneath the western horizon, but would be rising ere long.

She gazed off to the left, searching for Dagmar Tower. She spotted it, jutting up through the morning haze, and noted its position relative to the road on which she was travelling. She pursed her lips.
This won’t do at all.

Kicking the graylesh`s striped sides, she urged the animal into a loping stride, and caught up with the van of a small convoy, consisting of two loaded wooden carts pulled by graylesh and four dejected looking “tribute” captives, two male and two female. The captives were flanked by two soldiers in leather armour, augmented by iron studs. Four more soldiers were posted to the front and rear.

Keris rode to the front of the line, and shouted,
“Rodann!”

One of the soldiers turned to face her, his armour dusty from the road. He had shoulder length dark hair, a hawkish face, and eyes that squinted against the suns as he looked up at Keris. “My Lady?”

“Rodann, pick up the pace. At this rate, we won’t gain Chalimar Keep until dusk.”

“Yes, my Lady.” He turned to the others and began barking orders. Animals and people were urged forward roughly. Keris cast her eyes over those who had been designated “tribute,” honoured with the privilege of entering into the service of the Prophet. They did not look very privileged. They shuffled along with heads and eyes downcast, half-blinded by the dust from their passage. They appeared dirty, dishevelled and uncaring. Keris wondered what their lives had been before. Farm workers, artisans, herdsfolk–it hardly mattered. All of that was gone now. Some might be engaged as servants at the keep. More likely they would end up at the ore camps in the Southern Desert or one of the processing facilities. She noted in passing that each of them wore a harness, tied at the back, with a breastplate at the front. She had not seen tributes arrayed that way before, but keeping them in order was the province of the soldier Captain, and she did not feel inclined to inquire into such minutiae.

Keris turned away from the convoy, and urged her mount forward, riding ahead a short distance. Pulling up, she scanned the road ahead. A cloud of dust was approaching from the other direction. Gradually, it resolved into a slow moving cart.

She heard Rodann`s voice behind her. “A wagon, my Lady.”

“I can see that, thank you.”

Rodann caught up to her position and stood by her mount’s flank. “The silver, my Lady. We have standing orders to search all transports leaving Chalimar.”

Keris did not respond. Her face was expressionless as she watched the cart’s languid approach. It was pulled by a scrawny looking graylesh and seemed to have three… no, four occupants.

Rodann pressed on. “Should I apprehend them and have my men conduct the search?”

If these are silver thieves, then they have surely fallen on hard times
, thought Keris wryly. About a week ago, an official convoy bearing silver astrias to Chalimar had turned up one strongbox short. In Keris` opinion, it was far more likely to have been a bookkeeping error than an organised theft, but the order had gone out to conduct random stop and search nonetheless.

Keris turned to face Rodann. “No, we have lost too much time already. You will take charge of the escort and make best speed towards the Keep. I will conduct the search and catch up with you in due course.”

Rodann nodded and made to rejoin the caravan. The track ahead carried on straight for a distance, and then bore to the left and came back on itself as it started to rise through a canyon to the higher ground on which Chalimar stood. If she forsook the road, she could cut across country, and meet up with the convoy farther ahead, but there were gullies and ravines in that direction–too difficult a terrain to ride a graylesh over.

She dismounted and started to rummage through one of the saddle packs, retrieving her flying cloak. It was neatly folded, of a close woven material and black as pitch. To the Kelanni it was a symbol of the Prophet’s authority–something to be feared. She was sure it was for that reason that many Keltar seemed to wear their cloaks constantly, even when eating or performing routine duties at the keep. To Keris it was a tool, nothing more. Besides, she found the harness and shoulder mechanism heavy and restricting.

She swept the cloak free, and draped it over her shoulders, making the necessary shoulder and harness attachments. The soldiers marching by regarded her as if she were a curiosity–a stranger in their midst.
Which is exactly what I am
. She salvaged another small canvas bag and briefly checked the contents before tying it about her waist. Preparations complete, she handed the reins of the graylesh to one of the soldiers.

Waving the convoy on, she stepped in front of the oncoming cart, with one hand raised.

“Hold!”

The cart pulled to a halt. Keris moved to the side. The cart was drawn by a graylesh, but the animal looked half starved. Its normally graceful snout seemed unnaturally thin and sunken, and Keris could see its ribs poking through. The Kelanni seated in the cart did not seem to have fared much better. The driver had a young face, made to seem prematurely aged by lines born of work and worry. He wore a rough shirt and shabby trousers. Behind him were a woman–his wife, it seemed, and two girls. It was the girls who caught Keris` eye. They were both barefoot and had long, untidy fair hair. One, the younger, was clutching her mother as if it meant her very life. The older sat by herself and eyed Keris with what looked like pure defiance.
That could so easily have been me
, Keris couldn’t help thinking.

“Name and destination.”

“Amion.” The man`s voice was a thin rasp. “We are headed for Saria. We were hoping to find field work on one of the estates.” Amion`s wife shifted uncomfortably, but the older daughter was unmoving, not taking her eyes off the Keltar.

“You are from Chalimar?”

“Yes, Keltar.”

“There has been a theft at Chalimar. I will be conducting a search of your goods.”

“But Keltar,”
his pitch rose to a thin pleading.
“We have nothing of value!”

“Get down, please.”

The man climbed down resignedly and helped his family to disembark. The younger daughter still clung to her mother and looked as if she were about to burst into tears.
Why
am I doing this
, thought Keris? Words about duty and appearances being deceptive came to mind, but sounded hollow and unconvincing in her head. Nevertheless, she was thorough and methodical. The family stood by, not daring to make a sound. Their possessions were meagre indeed; mainly worn-out bedding and worn-out clothes. She found no money and certainly no silver. She stepped back and motioned for the family to climb back into their cart. “On your way!”

Keris made to turn away but caught the eye of the eldest daughter once more. It felt as if she were looking at her younger self through a long, dark tunnel. She would have been not much older than this girl when her parents, with too many mouths to feed, had placed her in service to a local landowner. There, with sharp wits and determination her only assets, she had earned a grudging respect and ultimately come to the attention of Mordal, the man who had changed her life and ultimately become her mentor.
What will be the future for this
one,
she reflected,
this “other me
”?

She reached into the canvas sack at her waist and tossed the mother a flatbread and a skin of water, registering the surprised look on the woman’s face. Without waiting for response, Keris turned away from the image of her past and began running to meet the escort where the path to her future lay. Behind her she heard a woman’s voice.

“Blessings of the Three to you, Lady! May Ail-Gan guide your steps…”

Keris resisted the temptation to laugh.

~

Running into open country, Keris leaped upward and flared her cloak, feeling for the pressure from any latent lodestone in the rocky landscape. A deposit to her left. She pivoted in the air, fully retracting the bronze shield in her cloak and exposing the upper layer of tempered lodestone. The repulsive force pushed Keris higher and to the right. As she flew, she sought to feel pressure from any other naturally occurring source. Finding none, she allowed her flight to bring her down to earth in a low trajectory arc. She hit the ground and continued at a loping pace.

Sensing a deposit ahead of her, she angled towards it until she felt it passing under her, and then leaped and flared once more.

The landscape was rough and uneven, as if a giant hand had grasped it at one end and shaken it like a sheet. Boulders were strewn about beneath her like the giant’s discarded playthings. Here and there, a stunted tree or a tangled bush clung stubbornly to a patch of miserly soil. The sky was bright, with all three suns shining forth, broken only by a few wisps of cloud. Keris began to feel hot from her exertions. She landed gracefully on a shelf of red-brown sandstone and reached for a sip of water.

The ground was starting to rise upward to meet the plateau on which Chalimar stood. Far behind her now, the road she had left disappeared into the narrow rift which would convey the tributes and their escort to higher ground. She only needed to bear a little to the right, and negotiate the escarpment to reach the place where the road widened out onto flat terrain. She moved off again, blipping her neck control and scanning for the nearest deposit that would allow her to take to the air once more.

A short while later she stood atop the escarpment. A sudden breeze had sprung up, causing her flying cloak to flutter restlessly, and stirring her long raven hair. She brushed her hair back from her eyes. There seemed to be no sign of the escort. A pair of mylar birds wheeled lazily overhead, searching out rising thermals. Ail-Gan was near to Ail-Mazzoth, washing out its colour to a pale red. Ail-Kar was well above the western horizon.

Running forward once again, she leaped, adjusting her shoulder control until she felt the familiar repulsive push of a lodestone deposit, and then opened up her cloak, as she sailed through the light gravity on a wide arc. She angled toward a low rise in the barren terrain, letting herself descend to the ground gracefully, and walked the few steps to the crest.

Keris could see the road now, only a few hundred feet away, but there was still no sign of the escort. Finally, after looking around, she glimpsed them some distance ahead. But there was something very wrong. The escort was not moving, the soldiers standing in a knot before it. Then all of a sudden, Keris saw a movement out of the corner of her eye to her right–a darker shape moving erratically away across the landscape. One of the tributes had made a break for it.
Why were the soldiers not in
pursuit
? Then, another movement from near where the carts stood. A small shape arced up and through the air towards the running figure. She watched, transfixed, as the projectile followed its trajectory and then impacted noiselessly. The figure dropped and lay motionless.

Keris was running now, down the other slope and towards where the fallen figure lay. She flared her cloak impatiently, leaped, ran on and leapt again, finally detecting a deposit and pushing against it to gain impetus.

Three of the soldiers were trotting over to where the prone figure lay. As she arrived, one of them, Rodann, was retrieving his weapon, whilst the others were chatting animatedly and clapping him on the back. Keris landed in front of them, and the conversation tailed off. She regarded the victim. It was one of the men; the younger of the two, she remembered. He was laying face down, the wound made by the shuriken clearly visible in his back. His sandy hair moved lightly in the breeze. Keris suddenly felt weak, bile rising up into her throat. Her stomach was knotting.
Why did this happen?
Closing her eyes with her jaw clenched, she fought to regain control. Finally, she opened her eyes again and turned to face Rodann. His face was unreadable.