The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (8 page)

She could readily understand why she was drawn to Hedda. The loss of her own mother at so early an age caused her to be naturally drawn to anyone who seemed to fill that void. But she also felt an affinity toward Alondo that was harder to explain.

She had never had a brother. What was more, Alondo was unlike any brother she could have imagined ever having. His absurd hat was still perched precariously. Shann found herself wondering how it managed to stay on his head, what with the cart’s jerky motion.

But there was something that piqued her curiosity even more. He had slung over his shoulder what looked like a musical instrument, although it looked like nothing she had ever seen before.

It was pear-shaped, like a large mandolin, with a fretless fingerboard. The neck and bridge were arrayed with what looked like a mind-numbingly complex arrangement of keys and levers. She could not imagine why he had brought the thing along, unless it was to allay suspicion from them as a group. In her opinion, it was more likely to draw undue attention.

“Are you a musician?” she asked him.

“You noticed,” he replied cheerfully.

“What type of instrument is that?”

“It’s an excuse to avoid work; that’s what it is,” Hedda interjected.

Alondo smiled tolerantly. “It’s based on a sabada, but it’s actually my own design. It has one or two unusual…features. Maybe you would like to hear it?”

Shann`s face brightened. She had always loved music. “Oh, yes, please!”

Alondo handed the reins to his mother as if to prove her point, and then jumped into the back of the cart. Seated comfortably against the backboard, he cradled the instrument gently like a dearly loved pet, and made a few practiced adjustments.

“Do you know this one?” he shouted to those behind him. Without waiting for a reply, he sounded an opening chord and launched into a light baritone.

“Let me tell you now of a girl I knew,

“With lovely eyes of the fairest blue,

“Green skin as fresh as the morning dew,

“With a hi hey diddle diddle hey.

“I met her down on the market square,

“The sunlight danced in her auburn hair,

“Oh ne’r had I seen a maid so fair,

“With a hi hey diddle diddle hey……”

The girls joined in the chorus, as the cart creaked from side to side and rumbled on into the distance.

Insects buzzed and danced together like motes in the warm spring air.

~

“My name is Lyall. I’m very happy to meet you at last.”

Shann was sitting in the kitchen of a generously proportioned farmhouse. Copper pots of all sizes hung from the walls. She sat before a large wooden table with her hands folded in her lap, looking up into the eyes of the stranger she had met in Corte. They were as blue as she remembered, and there was the unruly sandy hair, but he seemed taller somehow. He winced a little as he sat down opposite her. She recalled the wound left by the Keltar`s stabbing thrust.

“Are you all right?”

“Actually, Moina tells me it’s only superficial. I only wish it felt superficial.” He adjusted his seating position again, gritting his teeth as he did so. “It will be a day or so before I’ll be leaping across rooftops again.”

“Longer if you don’t learn to sit still.” An older woman stood at the kitchen door. She had dark hair with silver streaks and wore a workmanlike green dress and white apron. “Hedda and Alondo are going to help me with the animals. Can you keep our guest company for a while?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

Moina turned in Shann’s direction, adding with strained patience, “And try to keep him from tearing his wound open again.” She turned on her heel and left.

Lyall shrugged. “My mother’s sister,” he declared, as if that were the only explanation that were necessary.

His bright blue eyes seemed to pierce through to the centre of her being. She felt as if she were glass. “I am told you are called Shann.”

Shann sat looking at her hands still folded in her lap. She nodded.

“Well I’m very grateful to you, Shann. I might not have made it out of there alive if you hadn’t helped me. You did so at the risk of your own life. May I ask why?”

Shann moved her hand to the side of her face, recalling the day the soldiers had taken her parents away.
I wanted them to leave my parents alone.
She raised her eyes to meet Lyall. “I wanted it to stop–the tributes, all of it. I wanted to fight them.”

Lyall’s voice was quiet. “I can help you do that, if you wish.”

Shann felt confused. She had no idea how she should respond. Eventually, she found her voice again. “Why did you do it? Why did you take on a Keltar and a troop of soldiers?”

Lyall smiled at her. “It was a bit mad, wasn’t it? I surely didn’t plan it that way. It was just that one of the young women in the ‘tribute’ group–she…reminded me of someone.”

He seemed anxious to change the subject. “Did you know any of them?”

“No, not really. I knew who one of the girls was, but I had never spoken to her.”

“I believe I can make it stop, Shann.”

“You cannot fight the Keltar. They are the eyes and ears of the Prophet. There is no way to resist them. What happened to you
proves
that.”

“I acted without thinking. Besides, I had no way of knowing he would have grenades with him. Otherwise the outcome might have been rather different.” He paused. “The key to defeating a tyrant–any tyrant–is to understand the source of their power. Once you do that, you can manipulate it; even use their own power against them.”

He leaned forward. “Shann, do you know what lodestones are?”

“No.”

“Actually, you do. I gave you one in Corte, so that you could be recognised.”
The disc
. Alondo had returned it to her that morning, and she pulled it from her pocket. She noted again a slight resistance as she did so. She placed it on the table in front of her. “To be totally accurate, what you have there is what we call
refined
lodestone. Just as iron is smelted from ore, so this is what you get from lodestone ore.”

“Lodestone ore?”

“Yes, it falls from the sky. You have seen the meteor storms?” She nodded. Scores of fireballs streaking across the heavens and winking out. They were visible most nights.

“Refined lodestone has powerful properties. What you have there is one kind–a kind that is used to power their flying cloaks and some of their other devices. But there is nothing mysterious about it. The Keltar have been taught by the Prophet how to use it, nothing more.”

Shann frowned. “So what you are saying is that anyone can use their power, even me?”

“That’s right.”

“How does it work?” Her voice was eager.

Lyall took another disc out of his pocket. It looked exactly like hers; black but with an oddly undefined surface that seemed to shift as she viewed it from different angles.

“Originally, lodestones were the name given to a type of rock that would naturally attract iron. They can be used to impart a force to the iron that makes it point in only one direction.” Shann had heard of such devices used by travellers to help find their way. “The same word came to be used to describe the stones that fell from the sky, but they are in fact quite different. You have two discs there; try to push them together.”

Shann picked them up and did so. There was a strong repulsive force between them, getting stronger the closer she brought them together. She frowned again. “I can’t do it.”

“That’s right. Now try this.” He reached in his pocket again and brought out another disc, but this one was white. “This is an ordinary metal. It’s coloured white just to distinguish it from the lodestone. Try bringing it and the lodestone together.”

This time, the lodestone felt pulled towards the white disc, but the white disc seemed to be pushed away.

“Lodestones repel everything, including ordinary stones or metal. So they can be used to push things; objects, people, anything really.”

“They sound like the Kal stones.”

“You mean the account of the flying stone, the one in the sacred texts?”

“Yes. How is that possible?”

Lyall reached into his pocket once more. He brought out two more lodestones, one a disc, the other a small sphere like a marble. She watched intently as he carefully arranged the three discs on the table in the shape of a triangle. Then he carefully placed the marble in mid-air over the three stones. It floated, seemingly without support, subtle shades of darkness playing furtively over its smooth surface.

Shann`s eyes were wide. “So it really did happen.”

“Possibly. I’ve never seen a Kal stone myself and I don’t know anyone who has. No doubt that’s because the system is inherently–” He knocked the marble with his finger, and it fell to the table and rolled onto the floor. “–unstable.”

She bent down to retrieve the marble from the floor and handed it back to Lyall. “Thanks.” He placed it back in his pocket and gathered up two of the discs, leaving one on the table. “Let’s try something else, shall we? Have you noticed that lodestone feels a bit funny when you handle it?”

“It seems to pull against you a little,” she noted.

“Right. Try to give it a little push with your finger. Shann did so, but to her utter surprise, instead of moving away, it moved towards her. Lyall registered her puzzled look. “Now pull it towards you slightly.”

She reached out and pulled it back sharply with two of her fingers. It shot forward across the table, hitting Lyall in the midriff and landing in his lap. She put her hand to her mouth.

“I said ‘slightly,’” he chided.

He put the disc back on the table. “They move in the opposite direction to whatever force is applied to them. When you understand how they operate, you can use lodestones in various different ways. The Keltar`s flying cloak is just one example.”

“The flying cloak–tell me how it works.” Her voice was insistent.

“Is he trying to get you up in one of those things?” It was Alondo, cap and all, smiling as ever. He was standing at the kitchen door.

“I gave you the chance.”

“The chance to break my neck. Thanks for that.” He turned towards Shann and covered his mouth conspiratorially, “If I were you, I wouldn’t go near one of those things.”

“Don’t you have anything pressing to do?”

Alondo looked at the backs of his hands, pulled up a spare stool and sat down next to Shann, grinning from ear to ear. “Not right now.”

Lyall raised his eyes heavenward. Then he addressed Shann, doing his best to ignore his friend. “The power of the Keltar, the power of the Prophet himself–it derives from the lodestones. I intend to take that power away.”

Her expression was rapt. “How?”

“Do you know the fortress of Gort?”

Gort. Death and despair. The very name was enough to send a shiver down her spine, even though she had never set eyes on it. Raising itself up like a ravenous beast from the desolate sands of the Southern Desert, it devoured those who passed through its cavernous maw. Travellers spoke of it as being built from the bleached bones of those who had expired from heat and exhaustion.

“I know that most of the ‘tributes’ are sent there.”

“Do you know why?”

Shann shook her head.

“Lodestones.” Registering her look of incomprehension, he continued. “The stones fall all over the world, but how do you find them? If a stone were to fall in the mountains, or even here in the valley, how would you distinguish it from other stones? However, suppose you had a smooth, featureless landscape. Any stone that fell from above would easily show up as a dark shape on the surface.”

“Like in the desert.”

“Exactly. However, the Prophet needs people to scour the desert and collect the stones. That’s what the ‘tributes’ are there for. The fortress has a compound attached to it, where they are kept and sent out, sometimes to die. But the Prophet maintains his supply of the stones. I intend to go there and free the ‘tributes.’ We will need others who are prepared to join us. We will also be cutting off the Prophet’s source of supply, so it will be a double victory.”