The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (58 page)

“I Was In A Cage,” it answered. “It Was Cold. I Was…Afraid.”

Shann’s eyes flashed at Hannath. She could not decide whether to thank him or yell at him. In the end, she chose to get straight to the point. “We have to leave here. I have to find my friends and the device needed to disable the Prophet’s weapon.”

The machines lining the wood panelled walls continued their private ticking and whirring, oblivious of her presence. Hannath, too, appeared not to hear her. “Rael tells me you claim there is a third sun on your side of the world.”

“Claim?
No, I don’t claim Ail-Mazzoth is there. It just is. Look, none of that is important right now. What’s important is getting the device and stopping the Prophet. I have to do that. I can’t stay here.”

“Wh-where would you go?” It was the voice of Rael from behind her.

Shann was pulled up short. She had to admit that she had not thought that far ahead. “I would go talk to people. Question them; see if anyone had seen my friends…”
If they survived the barrier.
She still could not bring herself to vocalise that thought. Not yet.

“M-most people here don’t speak Old Kelanni, Shann,” Rael reasoned. “A few know it, but most do not. You might get a similar reaction to when you first arrived in Kieroth.”

Shann felt a growing sense of frustration. “I can’t just sit here. I have to do something.”

“You will stay here,” Hannath ruled. “Rael will make enquiries about your friends. Now, tell me, how large is your red sun?

Shann stood up and faced Hannath, her nose in the air. “Are you saying you believe me now?”

She heard Rael’s voice behind her once again. “P-please, Shann. Hannath is trying to help you.”

Shann looked down at Boxx. The creature, with its segmented shell and round head, looked up at her expectantly. She found Hannath irritating beyond belief, but in the matter of setting the Chandara free, he had been as good as his word. There seemed little to be gained by letting her annoyance show. She sighed. “I don’t know…Ail-Mazzoth is big, several times bigger than either Ail-Gan or Ail-Kar.”

“And you say it does not move in your sky?” Hannath asked.

Shann recalled Lyall’s explanation when they were travelling across the Eastern Plains. “If you move a considerable distance, then the red sun appears to have moved in the opposite direction.”

“Tidal lock,” said Rael.

Hannath nodded. “Yes, yes, that much is obvious.”

“It would seem to confirm your theory, Master,” the boy continued.

“What’s a ‘tidal lock’?” Shann asked.

Rael came and stood beside her, as if offering her support. “If a planet or another body is close enough to a sun, then the sun ‘grabs’ onto it, so that it will revolve around the sun, but the planet will always keep the same face towards it. Our planet–our world revolves around your red sun, with your side always facing it. That’s why the red sun appears motionless in your sky.”

Hannath appeared preoccupied with his own thoughts. “What is the mean surface air temperature on your side?” Shann looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“She had never seen snow before,” Rael reminded him. Hannath seemed lost in thought. “The temperature differential would be what creates the storm barrier,” Rael prompted.

Hannath roused himself. “Speculation, Rael. A scientist records data and then verifies or falsifies a theory by experimentation.”

Rael cast his eyes downward once more. “Yes, Master.”

Hannath turned to Shann “Your Chandara speaks of a key. It says it will only speak the key to one called Keris.”

Shann nodded. “Keris is one of our group.”

“Why will it only speak the key to him?” Hannath demanded.

“Her,” Shann corrected. “I think it’s because the Chandara first connected with her when they brought her to their Great Tree.”

“Has it spoken the key before?” Hannath asked.

“Once,” Shann said.

“What did it say?” he pressed.

“I don’t know. It was gibberish.” Shann struggled to recall the events following their flight from Gort in the Great Southern Desert. “…numbers. It spoke a string of numbers.”

“Numbers?”
Hannath sounded shocked. “What were they?”

“I…I don’t remember,” Shann was growing irritated at Hannath again. “One, two, three–just numbers.”

The old man looked at Rael. “Numbers are your speciality, boy.”

“Y-yes Master, but without knowing the progression…”

Hannath addressed Boxx. “Chandara, you will tell me what this key is, now.”

Boxx raised its head. Its tiny eyes were an unfathomable black. “No.”

Shann stepped in front of the creature protectively.
“Stop bullying it.”

Hannath was unapologetic. “You said it yourself; we have to know what this key of yours is. Your friend Keris is lost–you don’t even know if she and the others made it to this side.”

Shann’s arms were rigid at her sides and her hands were little fists. “I don’t care about that. You people already stuck it in a cage once. I won’t see you continue to mistreat it.”

“It Is The Key.”
All eyes turned to Boxx. The creature was moving its head from side to side excitedly.

“What does it mean by that?” Hannath demanded.

“How should I know?” Shann said.

Hannath seemed to come to a decision. “Rael, I am putting you in charge of this matter. You are to find this Keris, if possible, and get the Chandara to talk. Report your findings to me. Make sure it and the girl stay out of trouble.” He turned away and began scanning a bookshelf, lost once again in his own private world.

“Yes Master.” Rael turned and signalled with his eyes for Shann and Boxx to follow. As they reached the door, they heard Hannath’s voice behind them once more.

“And keep the girl away from the launch site.”

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Chapter 5

For the first time since that rain-soaked night when she had made her escape from Corte, Shann’s life settled into a routine. Reluctantly, she had been forced to admit that Rael was right–charging about the countryside looking for someone, when you couldn’t even speak the language properly, didn’t make a lot of sense. Boxx was safe, and although she still did not have Saccath’s staff back, it was clear that Rael knew where it was. She was sure she could get it from him when the time came. So in the meantime, Shann applied herself diligently to learning the language of the people of Kelanni-Skell.

She found that when she could persuade folk to slow down and then listen to their phrasing, it was not all that different from her own tongue. To help her progress, she asked Rael to refrain from using “Old Kelanni” when talking to her. She also practised on Meira whenever she could persuade the fussy housekeeper to stand still for a moment.

Each morning she would rise and gaze out of the window of her room on the first floor of the sumptuous house adjoining the observatory. Beyond the large black metal front gate, the covering of snow stretched away over the fields, dazzling in the bright sunlight. “Is there always snow here?” she had asked Rael.

“We’re coming into winter now, Shann,” Rael said. “When spring comes, the snow will disappear in the lowlands where we are, and the hills will be covered with flowers. In the mountains though, the snow always remains.”

Would she still be here come spring?
I mustn’t get too comfortable here
, she reminded herself. Still, she had to admit that she was enjoying the peaceful, undemanding lifestyle.

Tallia, the local physician, had stopped by to examine her as Hannath had promised. A kindly middle-aged woman with a small mouth and a ready smile, she poked and prodded the girl in a gentle form of torture, chatting to her in Old Kelanni all the while. Finally, she pronounced that aside from being somewhat malnourished, Shann was in good health. The physician swept up her jumble of oddly shaped instruments into a capacious canvass bag and strode off, presumably to report her findings to Hannath.

Since the meeting when she had been reunited with Boxx, Shann had seen hardly anything of the old man, which suited her just fine. Rael, on the other hand, was a daily visitor. Sometimes he would invite her to accompany him on his various duties. He tried to explain what he was doing and why, but she had to admit that most of it was completely over her head. Nevertheless, she made a point of listening and showing interest. In a sense, Rael was her only real ally in this world, so it was vital that she maintain the relationship.

After the first couple of days, Shann had complained to Rael that although the drach were gone, she still felt something of a prisoner. So Rael had asked if she would like to take a walk in the grounds. After that it became a tradition that every other afternoon, when Rael had finished his work for the day, he would accompany her on a stroll outside. They would don fur boots, fur coats and the odd fur hats that seemed to be the fashion here in Kelanni-Skell, and venture forth out into the snow.

She could not get used to the fact that despite the bright sunshine, it was so cold here. Still, she felt comfortably warm and snug inside her fur coverings, and she enjoyed the feel of the cold, crisp air in her lungs and watching her breath condense in clouds in front of her face. Rael grew more relaxed in her presence as the days slipped by, so that his stammer was almost gone.

It was on the second of their strolls that Shann was suddenly confronted by another marvel of this strange world. They had just passed through the imposing gate, the sound of snow crunching under their boots. Shann glanced behind at the footprints now sullying the otherwise unbroken blanket of snow and felt an odd pang of guilt. Then she caught up to Rael. He was standing, looking down at the town of Kieroth spread out beneath them.

“Those globes, lining the streets–why are they kept on at night?” she asked.

Rael looked at her oddly. “Well, it’s unsafe to stumble around in the dark. And it also keeps the predators in the hills at bay.”

“But surely it must use a tremendous amount of oil.”

Rael laughed. He had a quiet, almost private way of laughing. “They don’t use oil, they use electricity.”

“Electricity?”

“It’s a form of power.” He paused. “You don’t use electricity in Kelanni-Drann?”

“No, I never heard of it,” she said. “Is that how those other machines work?”

“What machines?”

“You know–the ones in Hannath’s study.”

Rael raised his eyebrows, “Oh you mean the timepieces. No, they are just mechanical.”

“Time…pieces,” Shann repeated.

“Yes, they measure time.”

Shann looked puzzled. “How do you mean”

Rael smiled and reached into his inside jacket pocket. He opened his palm, and one of the small round instruments was laying in it. “Each day is divided into ten ornahs, and each ornah into a hundred dahns.” He pointed, using the index finger on his other hand. “This lever counts ornahs, and this one, dahns. Right now it’s…thirty-seven past six, see?”

She gazed at the delicate silver and bronze coloured workings. “It’s beautiful.”

There was a sudden droning noise from somewhere high above. Shann glanced upward, shading her eyes against the bright sunshine and her jaw fell open. A bird. No, not a bird–
a machine. A silver flying machine
. It was slim, light glinting from it as it hovered a short way off, supported by what looked like two huge fans on either of its sides. As she watched, the pitch of its engines rose and it suddenly moved off, sweeping down the snowclad hillside leading from the observatory toward the town of Kieroth below.

She glanced at Rael, who was watching her with an amused expression. “It’s called an ‘avionic’,” he said, responding to her astonished expression. “It’s the main method of travel here in Kelanni-Skell.”

“I…I thought you people travelled in those…those carriage things.”

“You mean phaetons,” Rael said. “I heard you were found hiding in one.”

“I was not hiding, I was…sleeping.”