Vagrants: Book 2 Circles of Light series (36 page)

‘No Navan.’ Kadi spoke
quietly in their minds. ‘She was strong, as is Mena. And this Mayla
has shielded her mind, as I suspect she shielded Tika’s. I removed
that shielding,’ she finished defiantly.

Chapter
Twenty-Four

Ren Salar and Babach
had Travelled on the air currents to view the string of islands off
the coast of Drogoya. For over six hours, their bodies lay in
Babach’s chambers while their minds sped westwards. Ren was far
more exhausted by the event than was Babach, and it was the old
Observer who had roused first and brewed a herbal tea to assist
Ren’s recovery. They had not discussed what they had found, Babach
ordering Ren to his own rooms to sleep again.

The following day Ren
visited Finn Rah with his sheaf of reports and notes, and the
Offering sat silently working her way through them.

‘You are correct.’ Finn
pushed the papers away from her and leaned back in her chair.
Sunshine through the window behind her made an aureole of the wisps
of iron grey hair escaping from her coronet of braids. She gave a
gusty sigh. ‘Make some tea, there’s a good boy, while I
think.’

By the time Ren placed
a bowl of tea before her, Finn’s face wore a deep scowl.

‘Ren, these figures you
have extracted are correct as far as they go, but they give no true
starting point and, in themselves, no hint of why these
calculations were made.’ She sipped at her tea. ‘I agree that the
directional estimates indicate quite clearly that their destination
was indeed the Night Lands.’

‘But we Drogoyans have
never attempted contact with that land – have we?’

Finn went to the hearth
and poured more tea into her bowl. When she had reseated herself
she studied Ren’s worried expression.

‘It is plain that there
have always been certain of us who believe we should contact the
Night Lands; whether openly or secretly is another matter.’ She
nodded. ‘Yes, I am one who believes we should know what is
happening to the lands on the other side of this world. Those who
think as I do, have a great fear that the land there may be
neglected and with no Order such as ours to watch over it, its
magic could distort, turn against itself, become powerfully
destructive.’

‘Are there many who
hold this view?’ Ren asked, never having heard a whisper of such
things himself.

‘We are few in number,
and never has one with such opinions reached the position of
Sacrifice. So - ’ she shrugged. ‘The Order still refuses to allow
the building of such ships as could hazard long voyages. We can
only Travel perhaps half the distance with our minds alone. These
figures,’ she tapped the pile of papers, ‘plot a course to the
Night Lands – but for what means of travel?’

‘Is this of
significance in the matter of the madness that has infested so many
beyond Krasato, do you think?’

‘I’m afraid I do Ren,
but how to understand it, interpret it, let alone make use of it,
is still hidden from us.’ Finn Rah fell silent, lost in thought, so
Ren gathered his papers and quietly left her room.

He found himself unable
to settle to any work, slamming a book shut when he realised that
he had read the same page four times and still did not know what he
had read. He felt the need to be outside, to actually stand on the
earth that he had sworn to give his life for.

Stairways wound in
complicated patterns throughout the twenty levels of the Menedula.
Each floor was marked with a different sigil of power to identify
which level you were on. It had taken Ren far longer than most
other students to master each sigil and which level it designated.
He winced, remembering the countless times he arrived late for
classes and meetings. Reprimands merely made things worse, but one
day, it all suddenly fell into place. Now, Ren thought he probably
knew more details of the whole structure of the Menedula than
anybody else.

He finally emerged at
one of the lesser entrances and the late afternoon sunshine still
held warmth as he lifted his face to the sky. He breathed deeply,
seeing the crowds of visitors thronging the huge series of black
steps leading from the ornately carved main doorway down towards
the town below.

Syat had begun as a
cluster of huts for the workmen who first began digging into the
great terraces of the Menedula. It grew to become a village and was
now a large town. Smoke from hundreds of chimneys was beginning to
rise almost vertically in the windless air. People were preparing
evening meals and they also still needed warmth through the nights
of early spring.

Ren stepped from the
black pebbled path onto the new grass and felt the earth pulsing
under his feet. His affinity with the earth meant that with the
barest concentration, he was aware of the life stirring beneath
him: the rootlets striving downwards, the worms twisting and
tunnelling, the larvae of insects beginning to rouse.

He glanced to his
right, towards one of his favourite places: a garden where the
ordinary people were very rarely admitted. Indeed no one below the
rank of senior Aspirant could enter freely. Some of the rarest
plants and herbs in all of Drogoya were grown in that garden and
Ren loved to just sit among them, absorbing their
beauty.

‘Ren.’ The man who
spoke suddenly at his shoulder was breathless from
hurrying.

Ren smiled. Aspirant
Voron stood there, clearly just returned from a journey of
inspection. He leaned on a blackwood staff as he caught his breath
and he still wore a loaded pack on his back.

‘You always charge up
all those steps,’ Ren laughed at him.

Voron mopped his
forehead with his sleeve. ‘Listen Ren, before I have to go and
report to the Master. This madness is increasing and it is only
leagues south of Krasato now.’

Ren drew Voron further
along the path to a bench. ‘Is it spreading like other diseases
then? Will quarantine not block its path?’

Voron collapsed beside
Ren. ‘No. It seems only one person in a family might be affected.
It always comes during the night. The victim awakens with their
eyes changed, and they are completely mad.’

‘And none has yet
recovered?’

Voron snorted. ‘Most
die within days. Some run away and their bodies are found later.
Some are not found, but we don’t know if they survive or die in
hidden places.’

Ren tugged his thin
brown beard as he thought. ‘Have you seen one of these poor
creatures, close enough to study?’

Voron stuck his legs
out in front of him and glared at his worn boots. ‘A girl of a
family with whom I lodged – much further south west, woke in the
morning with her eyes quite scarlet. She was passive, but it was
almost as if she was an empty husk – she was unaware of her name,
her family. She could not eat. She appeared to have forgotten how
to chew or swallow. She had convulsions late on the second day and
died.’

‘It is so hard to
understand without seeing such a case,’ Ren sighed. ‘Do you mean
that their eyes become reddened because something causes the blood
vessels to rupture?’

‘No.’ Voron punched his
own thigh in emphasis. ‘Their eyes change – like ours do. Usually,
when first they wake, there are threads, traceries of red, like my
eyes are beginning to change now.’

He looked directly at
Ren who noted the silver webbing slowly encompassing Voron’s eyes,
leaving only the bright hazel pupils clear.

‘Rarely, as with the
girl I saw, they wake with their eyes completely red, no
discernible pupils, just the awful redness.’

Voron used his staff to
haul himself upright. ‘I’ll see you in a day or two Ren. You
remember what a stickler the Master is for “accurate and detailed”
reports!’

At suppertime, Ren
asked for only bread and fruit, not hungry but aware that he should
eat. As he had expected, Observer Babach came to his rooms soon
after the moon had swum into the darkening sky.

‘I have been busy.’
Babach announced without preamble. ‘I have made arrangements to
visit the Order’s house in Oblaka. I think I have discovered a
means to travel even further than those islands.’

Ren looked alarmed.
‘Will the Observers be able – or more to the point – willing to
help you Babach? You will have to tell them what you plan if you
intend to leave your body for too many hours.’

‘Nonsense. The oldest
Observer still working there is years younger than me. And she’s
been working in some very dubious areas for some time now – which
is the point of my going there.’

Babach rubbed his hands
together and Ren thought he had never seen the old man quite so
excited.

‘I will leave tomorrow
– a horse will take a week, given good weather, to get me
there.’

‘Surely you will take a
student at least to accompany you?’ Ren protested.

Babach looked hurt. ‘I
am still more than able to look after myself Ren Salar. And I will
Travel to you with any news as I get it. I would rather you did not
try to reach me – it is too far for one less strong than I in air
magic.’

Ren sat down feeling
helpless in the face of Babach’s unaccustomed firmness.

‘What about the Sacred
One? Shall I tell him of your plans?’

‘No you will not. I
have already informed him that I have need to visit Oblaka for my
researches, and that is all he needs to know.’

Ren was shocked.
‘Surely it is wrong to keep the truth from the Sacrifice
himself?’

Babach shook his head
sadly. ‘You still trust too willingly young Ren.’ He began poking
around in the muddle of objects beside Ren’s fireplace,
triumphantly waving two bowls in Ren’s direction.

‘The Sacred One is the
highest in our Order Babach. What are you saying?’

Babach sighed as he
went about making tea. ‘Cho Petak is indeed mightily gifted in all
four elements. And that, Ren Salar, is a temptation in
itself.’

Ren continued to stare
in confusion at the old man.

‘Cho Petak held the
opinion – years ago, when he had just been made Offering – that we
should do everything possible to reach the Night Lands.’ He sighed
again. ‘Then, almost between one day and the next, he held the
completely opposite view. As he does today. I suspected there was
more, much more, to this change of heart at the time. Now I fear my
suspicions are based in truth.’

‘Suspicions? What
suspicions could you possibly have of the Sacred One?’ Ren was
pale, disturbed to the core of his being by the Observer’s
words.

‘I suspect Ren, that
somehow, long ago now, Cho Petak found a way into at least one mind
in the Night Lands. Cho is a very patient man. He will wait years
to achieve his ends. It is what those ends are that we must
discover. For I have the strongest foreboding it will not prove to
be good for the land, either here or there.’

In Thryssa’s workroom
in the Cordiva, a group of people stood like statues. The Lady Emla
and her Guard Shan, were still disoriented from their transference
from Gaharn to Vagrantia. Lashek, Speaker of the Segran Circle was
fascinated by everything that was happening, Thryssa and Kwanzi
were just worried by it all.

Maressa the air mage
sat rigidly in a chair facing them, her face continuing to reflect
the shock she’d received two days earlier when the ancient black
Dragon Fenj had intruded on her mind. And now she was fully aware
that two minds were present in her head – Fenj, and another of the
Gaharnian People, a woman named Kera. She was also mindlinked with
Thryssa and Lashek and, it would seem, with this tall thin woman
who had appeared in the Chamber of Harmony.

Emla moved shakily to
kneel by Maressa’s chair.

‘Is that truly you
Kera, and you Fenj? How have you managed to reach so
far?’

There was a brief
glimpse of the great hall at the Stronghold with five Snow Dragons
clustered about Fenj’s enormous bulk. The picture blurred,
indication of the increasing difficulty of maintaining a mental
contact over such a distance.

Thryssa spoke suddenly.
‘You have a Circle there. I will send a scroll to you through the
Circles. Let go of this link before you exhaust
yourselves.’

And the other presences
blinked out of Maressa’s mind. She slumped back, her head against
the cushions, her face pinched with strain. Emla caught her hands,
rubbing them gently while Kwanzi stooped over them both and held a
tiny bottle beneath Maressa’s nose. Emla smelt the acrid tang of a
revivifying herbal essence as Maressa turned her head
away.

The air mage stared
into Emla’s green eyes. ‘You really have lived with these Dragons
like Gremara?’ she asked, still finding that fact almost impossible
to take in.

Emla smiled in
understanding of Maressa’s feelings: she had felt just so when
confronted with Merigs and Delvers.

‘Did you not know that
all living creatures on this world are able to communicate in
differing degrees?’

Maressa twisted her
long brown braid through her fingers. A little colour returned to
her face as she shook her head.