Vagrants: Book 2 Circles of Light series (3 page)

‘I appreciate your news
nonetheless Kasito and trust you may prosper in my town should you
decide to stay.’ Hargon slid three gold pieces across the table
towards the peddler.

Kasito gaped in
amazement at the gold then raised his eyes to Hargon. ‘I thank you
Sir Lord, thank you. And should I hear any other news, I will bring
it to you at once if you so wish?’

‘I do indeed so wish
Kasito. Here.’ He gave the man a round wooden token. ‘If

you show this to the
gatemen, or any of my armsmen, you will be brought to me at once or
offered protection in my name. You will find me always appreciative
of true news.’

Kasito was still bowing
as the door closed after him.

‘So he has been
displaced as Guardian.’ Navan spoke quietly.

Hargon sighed. ‘He
intends to make a stronghold here, Navan. And I was fool enough to
believe that I could make use of him. Clearly, he plans to make use
of us.’ He laughed harshly. ‘I will at least alert the other Lords
of Sapphrea. Ready messengers Navan, and have Frinkel come to write
the letters that must be sent.’

Rhaki was sitting on a
stone block waiting for the wagons to haul his previous day’s work
from the quarry. He estimated another ten days worth of cutting.
With his necessary days of rest between the cutting, that meant
twenty days until he had the blocks assembled for the lower two
storeys of his tower. He watched as a group of labourers hammered
broken rocks into the circular footings in readiness for the great
blocks.

Rhaki studied the
stones already hauled from the quarry. He was most impressed with
the exactitude with which he had cut them and he had worked out the
simplest method of cutting a narrow stairway in certain blocks. He
had also sent his power down beneath the foundations and knew where
the necessary weak place was. He foresaw little difficulty in
cutting the short distance downwards, then horizontally, allowing
him to access the cave with the spring and thence the mosaic circle
beyond.

The tower was his
priority but he planned an adjoining structure, where servants
would live and visitors be received. There was water beneath the
tower, from that hidden spring, and it would be simple to reach it.
He intended his tower to be impregnable and he was satisfied that
it would be so.

The rumbling of iron
bound wheels warned of the arrival of a wagon and Rhaki rose to
make sure the stones were unloaded where he needed them. He hoped
he would be able to raise the stones to their positions during but
one night. A surprise for Hargon to wonder at. As Rhaki had
thought, Hargon was proving an easygoing simpleton, awe-struck no
doubt at the evidence of Rhaki’s powers.

The dust drifted around
him as the huge blocks were eased to the ground, guided by sweating
workmen. Rhaki smiled. Here he would most assuredly come into his
own and none could gainsay him. He brushed the dust off his sleeves
and sat down again to await the next wagon. He frowned as a tatty
feathered black Merig landed on one of the blocks and croaked
hoarsely. Rhaki picked up a chunk of rock and threw it at the ugly
thing. The Merig screeched as the rock passed its head, liberally
bedaubed the block with a large grey dropping and flapped heavily
away.

The snow and wind both
having ceased for once, Kija led Farn outside with Brin. The golden
Dragon lifted from the snow packed ledge before the gate and
drifted out over the chasm. Farn did his regular exercises then
took a deep breath.

‘Watch, my Tika,’ he
called.

Tika stood by the
ruined gate, unaware she was clutching Lorak’s hand. Then the
silvery blue Dragon was lifting slowly towards his mother, crimson
Brin rising immediately beneath him. After a preliminary wobble,
Farn’s flight steadied and he spiralled higher. Tika was reminded
of his first attempts to fly under Krea’s instruction, and she held
her breath as he circled again.

It felt like hours but
was only a few minutes before Brin was settling again, his eyes
following Farn’s landing. Farn stumbled as he touched the ledge but
he caught himself and his sapphire eyes whirred wildly at
Tika.

‘See how much fitter I
am!’ he crowed. ‘Of course, I knew it wouldn’t take long for me to
recover!’

He blinked as Kija
landed and glared at him.

‘Recovered!’ she
snorted. ‘It will take much more practise before you are
recovered.’ The glare softened. ‘You did well my son, but do not
pretend it was more than your first attempt.’

Tika hugged Farn’s
shoulders as Brin and Kija rose into the cold air again to
hunt.

‘Not bad Farn,’ old
Lorak remarked. ‘But you still need my potions.’

Farn groaned. ‘I liked
the first potions you gave us all, but what you have been making me
drink lately is truly awful.’

Lorak’s sharp eyes
noted that Farn was trembling after his flight.

‘Well,’ he said.
‘Perhaps a drop of my beverage to celebrate this time, but you
won’t escape the potions yet!’

‘You did wonderfully,’
Tika whispered as they went slowly into the hall.

Mim touched her arm as
they passed, sympathetic understanding pulsing from him.

‘Well done, young one.’
Fenj rumbled as Farn slumped rather than reclined beside him. ‘I
think Lorak’s salve should be used on your neck you know. There are
no scales to protect your hide there now, and it must be kept
supple.’

Lorak emerged from his
workroom, a leather bottle in one hand and a small stoppered pot in
the other.

‘Splendid creature,’
Fenj murmured.

Sket and Gan joined
them, Sket grinning and Gan’s expression neutral. Farn’s eyelids
were drooping and Tika slid away from him, leaving him to sleep
against Fenj. Lorak nodded and Tika smiled, knowing Farn was well
watched over.

‘We watched from back
there,’ Sket said as the three walked deeper into the
hall.

Tika dropped onto a
bench at the long table with a sigh. ‘I feel as tired as if I were
the one trying to fly,’ she said.

Gan sat opposite her as
Sket went to collect a forgotten dish of dried fruits from the far
end of the table.

‘How long before Farn
is able to travel, do you think?’ Gan asked.

Tika took a piece of
the fruit. ‘I would prefer us to stay here a Season, but Nolli says
we should stay twenty five more days at the very most.’ She chewed
thoughtfully on the fruit. ‘I hope he will strengthen as we go,
rather than weaken. Kija says we will do the journey to Gaharn in
short hops. I think he will find flying easier than walking through
the Domain of Asat again, but I hope the weather is not as bad as
Mim described it before.’

‘There are many
entrances the Snow Dragons use, aren’t there?’ Sket
asked.

Tika nodded. ‘At least
we will be sheltered whenever we stop, but you see how exhausted he
is after this first attempt.’

Gan and Sket followed
her gaze to the silver blue Dragon lying against Fenj’s
side.

‘But that was the first
attempt Tika.’ Gan said gently. ‘Kija said she will make him try
again before dark today, and she will not allow him to come to
harm.’

Gan was correct. Kija
and Brin again accompanied Farn outside and guarded his flight for
a few brief minutes. As before, he was trembling with fatigue when
he re- entered the hall and he settled to sleep almost at
once.

Nolli’s chair had been
drawn out to the huge hearth in the hall. It had been unused in
Rhaki’s time as Guardian – what need to make the hall welcoming
when he discouraged any guests to welcome? Fenj had moved nearer
and lay with Lorak propped at his side. Ashta and Mim, Jeela and
Dessi, all reclined close to Kija, who kept an eye on her sleeping
son.

Nolli had been telling
old tales of the times when Delvers lived Outside. Then Mim had
told of life in a Nagum village. A life spent tending growing
things, deep in hidden woodlands beyond the Sun Mountains across
the Middle Plain.

Tika sat cross-legged
on a pillow near the fire with Gan and Motass each side of her. She
asked idly, half entranced by the flames of the blazing fire: ‘Are
there any more Dragons, Fenj? I saw the Water Dragons, and we met
the Snow Dragons.’ She smiled at Meppi couched by Nolli’s chair.
‘Are there more of the Dragon Kin for us to meet?’

Fenj rumbled and his
eyes whirred the shadows-on-snow colour. Tika looked at him in some
surprise. It had truly been only an idle question and yet Fenj
seemed unsettled by it. Finally the massive black Dragon
answered.

‘There is one other
kind of Dragon, but I doubt you, or any of us, will meet such a
one.’

Brin’s eyes began to
glitter with excitement. ‘You can’t be sure Father. We
might.’

Fenj rumbled again and
shivered his wings.

‘Tell us then, Fenj,’
Nolli said softly. ‘For I know of no others.’

‘Once or twice in many
thousands of Dragon broods, is born a hatchling who is – different.
They are neither male nor female, and yet both. Always they are
brilliantly silver scaled, beautiful beyond words.

‘For the first full
Cycle after their hatching, they learn, as do all Dragon children.
Gradually then, they remove themselves more and more from their
family, until the time of the second Gather after their hatching.
At the closing of that Gather, the silver one will overfly all the
Gathered Treasury, flying higher, ever higher, until they turn to
the rising sun and will be seen no more.’

All those listening to
Fenj’s deep smooth voice in their minds sat still as
stones.

All could see Fenj’s
picture of an unbelievably sinuous and graceful silver Dragon
effortlessly climbing into a clear blue sky. Dessi sighed, leaning
forward and hugging her knees.

‘And how long since you
saw that silver one?’ she asked.

‘One such was hatched
when Brin was only very young,’ Fenj replied. ‘Although both male
and female, this one seemed more female in her ways. She was the
only one I have seen.’

Brin and Kija murmured
their agreement, their listeners aware of their sense of wonder,
even after so many Cycles, at such a strange and beautiful
creature.

‘She named herself
Gremara,’ Fenj whispered. ‘They all have names used by no other of
the Kin. Her name was Gremara,’ he repeated.

‘What happens to them?’
Mim asked aloud in his fluting voice. Fenj stared at him for long
enough that the others also looked at Mim. Tears sparkled in his
turquoise eyes and shone on his scaled cheeks. ‘What happens to
them?’ he asked again.

‘We do not know. They
fly out towards the Wilderness, but as Nolli says, her people have
no knowledge, or even stories, of these Dragons, I can only think
they fly on yet further. If they survive.’ His wings quivered
again. ‘The Kin remember the Wilderness as a pleasant land until a
day of fire and thunder. Many died and the rest of the Kin who
lived there fled, never to return because the land was bare.
Nothing lived or grew there. We do not know how far the Wilderness
extends but that is the direction in which the silver ones always
fly.’

Mim rose to his feet
and left the group, wandering to the gateway where he stood, head
tilted, looking up at the brilliant icy stars in the dark sky. No
one spoke. All were thinking of this strange Dragon Fenj had told
them of, and why such a creature would be brought into
being.

Lanni crept away from
her place at Nolli’s feet and went to the kitchens. The silence in
the hall continued, broken only by the rustle of the fire. Mim came
back to the group round the hearth, his new scales reflecting the
firelight on his face and arms.

‘If I am the Dragon
Lord, then I must seek out the silver one.’ He raised his voice
over Fenj’s hiss of dismay. ‘Yes. I will find Gremara.’

Much later, Tika lay
curled by the fire, wide awake, and thinking of Fenj’s story of the
silver Dragon, and of Mim declaring that he would find her. She sat
up, pushing a pillow between her back and the wall. So many things
to think of. How had all this happened? She heard Baras say
something in the darker end of the hall, and then Gan’s murmured
reply. Soft footsteps came towards the hearth and Gan eased himself
onto a pile of pillows with a stifled groan.

‘You could always use
the chambers above,’ Tika remarked. ‘And sleep in a bed. Mim and I
stay here because of the Dragons and Nolli.’

‘I know, but there is
still an air of unpleasantness up there. We all seem to prefer
being nearer the Dragons too.’ He smiled at her in the flickering
firelight.

‘Gan, should you come
south with us? You are the Captain of the Lady’s
Guards.’

‘Soran is well able to
do that job, and I think it is time we let humans attempt things
that we have always imagined we alone can do. Yes,’ he grinned at
Tika’s doubting glance. ‘I’ve thought a lot, both of things Nolli’s
said and of what I have seen happening on this journey
already.’

‘How old are you
Gan?’

Gan looked a little
disconcerted at the question. ‘In your way of reckoning age, I
would be thought very old, but among the People I am not yet deemed
middle aged.’ He thought for a while. ‘If I were human born, I
would be between thirty and forty Cycles I suppose. Why do you
ask?’