The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (55 page)

“Will you…come with me?” Byrdach asked.

Shann’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you want me to come with you?”

“I want to take you to a place of…safety. And there is another you should meet.” Byrdach made the same placating gesture. “…Please.”

Shann felt an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach–apprehension locked in mortal combat with hunger. It was hunger that finally won out. “Boxx, come on.” She crossed the space to where Byrdach stood a head taller than she was. His eyes were dark–secretive, yet not unkindly. He smiled for the first time, and the cracks in his face grew more pronounced. She was far from convinced that she could trust this individual. Still, Saccath’s staff was a reassuring pressure against her back muscles, like the gnarled hand of an old friend.
Just don’t try anything
.

Byrdach led the way up the cobbled street, the people of the town giving them a wide berth. The blue coated figures followed at a discreet distance.

As the need for flight or fight receded, Shann’s inquisitive nature reasserted itself. “How is it you can speak to me, when these others cannot?”

Byrdach looked down at her. “I recognised your speech. It is like…Old Kelanni.”

“Old Kelanni.”

“Yes,” Byrdach said. “It is what people spoke before the Goratha–the dark time.”

“The dark time?”

Byrdach nodded. “There was a…sickness. Many died.”

A plague is sweeping through our race
. That was what the woman from the past had told Keris. Were these also descendants of Annata’s people? But they were so…different. It didn’t seem possible. Shann looked from one side of the street to the other. Someone had gone along and extinguished all of the globes, but their glass was milky white, opaque, giving no clue as to their inner workings. The white powder was melting gradually to water, patches becoming puddles. Drifts that had taken refuge in corners and doorways were shrinking, congealing, turning grey at the edges–sacrificing their purity to the warmth of the suns. Along the side of the street there were walkways thronged with people, striding purposefully, dawdling or gazing into glass-covered bay windows displaying unknown merchandise. She caught the scent of fresh baked bread. Her stomach growled and her mouth salivated, forcing her to swallow. Somewhere nearby, a gundir barked.

Shann was struck by a peculiar paradox. The more she observed these people, the more different they were; yet in another sense, the more they were the same. They were Kelanni: one head, two arms, two legs, one tail. Just as she was. Strip away the strange globes and the glass-fronted windows, the heavy clothing and the floating carriages, and she could be in Corte or Lind or Kinnat or any of half a dozen towns of her home.

Thoughts of home brought a more pressing concern back to her mind. She forced herself to broach the question. “Have you seen any others–any like me?”

Byrdach paused and looked at her strangely. “No, why do you ask?”

“There were others with me. We were…separated.”

“You said you crossed the Ayronath?”

“The Aronak Sea,” she corrected.

“There are…winds.”

“The Barrier. I know.”

“Then how–?”

“Because I was with a man who doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘impossible’.” She smiled wryly at Byrdach’s confused expression. “We modified a ship and pulled it in. Boxx and me were swept overboard and washed up on the beach not far from here.”

“You modified a ‘what’?”

“A ship.”

“I…am not familiar with that word.”

They reached an intersection just as one of the floating carriages passed in front of them. It was silver, with a festive yellow stripe along its length and lamps attached to the front end, although they were not illuminated. It made only the faintest whooshing sound as it moved. She craned her neck to watch as the carriage flew down the street, then slowed to disappear around a corner. A realisation struck her–
the lodestone in the street; that was how the carriages moved.
But that would take a great amount of refined lodestone. She thought back to the extravagance of the globes.
The people here must have wealth beyond imagining.

Byrdach led the way across the intersection and into the street opposite. The buildings were taller here; up to four stories high, but constructed of the same uniform stones in varying shades of grey. Opulence with a cloak of austerity. Flying carriages plied their way up and down the highway. Shann wondered idly how they always managed to avoid colliding with one another.

“You spoke of a…‘ship’,” he reminded her.

“A vessel that carries people over the sea. Surely you know what a ship is.”

“I have never heard of such a wonder,” Byrdach said. Shann listened carefully but could detect no hint that the man was joking. How could a people who lived in a lighted city and rode in flying carriages not know what a ship was? “Where is your ‘ship’ now?”

Is he testing me?
“I…don’t know. We were attacked. The hull was breached. I…” Shann castigated herself.
Maybe I should not have mentioned that we were attacked
. She shot him a sideways glance, but he merely looked thoughtful. They walked on in silence for some moments. He made a right turn down a narrow street. It looked like an artisan’s district–some shops she seemed to recognise, like smiths and glassmakers; others she could only guess at. One had an adjacent yard stocked with some types of machinery, larger and more intricate than any she had ever seen.
Alondo would go crazy here.

Shann looked over her shoulder and saw that the blue coats were still following. Despite Byrdach’s ready smile and disarming manner, it still felt as if she were under guard. Their route was leading them toward the western edge of town, in the direction of the sea.
He said he was taking me to a place of safety–safe for whom?

It was Byrdach who broke the silence. “That is a…Candachra you have with you, is it not?”

“We call them ‘Chandara’–yes.” She felt a rush of excitement. Boxx had said there were Chandara in this world. “You know of the Chandara?” she asked conversationally.

“I have never actually seen one. They disappeared after the war. You say yours came with you, through the…Barrier?”

“Yes.”

“How come it is travelling with you?”

“Why don’t you ask it?” she said innocently.

“Your Candachra can speak?”

“Oh, yes.”

The shelled creature was ambling along behind them, sniffing at the air and taking in the sights. Byrdach turned to address it. “Candachra–”

“Its name is Boxx,” Shann interposed.

Byrdach looked at her oddly, then raised his eyebrows and began again. “Boxx, where do you come from?”

“The Great Tree,” Boxx responded in its thin, high tone.

“Where is that?”

“It Is In The Midst Of Our Forest. Kelanni Had A Name For It In The Before. Illaryon. Kelanni Name All Things, As Is Their Way.”

“And where is Illaryon?” Byrdach asked.

Boxx appeared wistful. “Far Away. Over Storm And Sea. Deep Pits And High Hills. Crowded Prairie And Empty Desert. To The Heartwood. My Home.”

They had left the last vestiges of the town behind and were wending their way up a hillside covered with an unbroken blanket of the white powder, its crystalline surface glinting in the light of the suns. A flock of birds took to the air as they passed, before gradually settling back to the ground. Large cylindrical structures were set back from the path at odd intervals.

“Why are you here?” Byrdach continued his interrogation of the Chandara.

“For All Kelanni. I Am The Key.”

“The key? The key to what?”

“You Are Not The Key. I Cannot Speak It. Only To Keris.”

He looked back at Shann, who only smiled sweetly.

The hill they were ascending was dominated by a large building, quite different from any she had seen in the town. The main part formed a huge silver dome which rose majestically over the white landscape. To one side, there were other constructions of the more familiar grey stones.
A palace, perhaps?
It would make sense that they would be taken to a higher authority–someone with the power to decide their fate. She briefly considered the possibility of flight once again, but she could not guarantee Boxx’s safety, and she needed more information. Not to mention food.

They walked up the final section and through an ample gateway to a large wooden door, set with a bronze coloured ring. Byrdach grasped the ring and banged it loudly twice.

“We are here,” he announced.

<><><><><>

Chapter 3

“Go Away.”

The words, though heavy with dialect, were unmistakeable. A door opened and a portly woman came bustling through it before closing it behind her with utter finality.

Shann and Boxx stood next to Byrdach in a spacious hallway lined with wood panelling and set with lamps that looked like miniature versions of the ones lining the streets of the town. The decor seemed appropriate to the dwelling of a rich person, but it was hardly the palace Shann had envisaged earlier. Byrdach stepped forward, and there was a frank exchange of words. Finally, the woman acquiesced, after a great deal of tutt-tutting and shaking of her head. He made for the door she had come through, then stopped with his hand on the door lever as if remembering something. He turned back and whispered to the woman, his head inclining slightly in Shann’s direction. Then he opened the door and disappeared through it, closing it behind him as if he did not want what was inside to get out.

The plump woman hustled over to Shann, then her face fell, as if she had just noticed Shann’s condition. Her hands went to her round cheeks, then smoothed down the apron fronting her workmanlike dress, as if she were preparing for battle. “You…come.” She grabbed hold of Shann’s arm to emphasise her point, aggravating the girl’s shoulder injury.

Shann winced. “Oww.”

The woman instantly let go, unsure what to do next. Then she went to a side door, opened it and waved Shann through. “You come…”

Shann was too weak and tired to argue. With Boxx in tow, she allowed herself to be led through a generous sitting room whose walls were lined with strange clicking devices and more books than Shann had ever seen in her life, to another wood panelled hallway, and finally to a smaller room with white walls and a white tub against one wall that she recognised as a bath. Boxx was standing on its hind limbs, its head cocked to one side. “Go, wait outside,” she ordered it. Boxx looked at her uncomprehendingly.
“Shoo, shoo.”
She waved her hands dismissively. Reluctantly, Boxx dropped to all sixes and scuttled out of the room.

Shann stripped at the woman’s insistence, and there followed a brief but comical tug of war over the clothes. Shann retained her flying cloak and staff, but grudgingly allowed everything else to be whisked away.

Moments later, she was sitting in the tub behind a screen, waiting for the water to arrive. Nothing happened. Bored, she began fiddling with the bronze fittings, and to her amazement warm water came gushing forth. Soon she was luxuriating in the light steam and testing her injured shoulder–a job for Boxx later. She got out and peeked behind the screen. A towel had been draped over one chair and fresh clothes over another. Her flying cloak still lay crumpled on the floor where she had dropped it, but her diamond-bladed staff which she had propped up against the wall was gone. She cursed her carelessness and dressed hurriedly, bundling the cloak under her arm.

She opened the door, expecting to find Boxx, and recoiled as she was confronted by the two blue coated figures from before. Standing guard. She looked around, but the Chandara was nowhere to be seen.
First my staff is gone, now this.
The place was starting to feel ominously like a prison–a comfortable prison to be sure, but a prison nonetheless. “Where is Boxx?” The watchmen looked at her uncomprehendingly “
The Chandara; where is it?
” she demanded.