Drogoya: Book 3 Circles of Light series (11 page)

‘I have asked for Shema
to join us,’ he told Orsim. ‘And for Chornay to bring the three
Firans.’

The Segran councillor
arrived first and listened in silence while Orsim outlined their
concern. He had just finished when Chornay came in with the three
silver eyed youngsters from Fira. Pajar was immediately aware of
both Shema and Orsim projecting calmness throughout the room,
although he suspected the three Firans were still too upset to
notice.

The two girls and the
boy had not the typical appearance of most water adepts. All three
were shorter and stockier than the average Firan and even more
unusually, one of the girls had dark brown pupils in her silver
eyes rather than the normal pale blue or grey. The other girl and
boy both had blue pupils, made even more brilliant set as they were
against the surrounding silver.

Shema smiled at them
and suggested they made themselves comfortable. Pajar followed the
earth mage’s lead, offering tea or berry juice, which offer they
accepted.

‘We hear worrying news
of Fira,’ Shema began smoothly. ‘Speaker Orsim and Pajar believe
the Speaker and Assembly plan to raise the waters of the Circles
against us. Would you think this is either likely or even
possible?’

The shorter of the
girls, Graza, glanced at her two friends, then nodded.

‘They spoke of nothing
else when they had shut us in that barn.’

The other girl, Mokray,
interrupted. ‘We were so afraid, suddenly dragged from the
infirmary and thrown into that place. Kralo suggested that we
concentrate on trying to hear them to stop us from being so
scared.’

Shema’s gaze moved
along to the boy. ‘Were you not afraid too Kralo?’

He looked startled. ‘Of
course I was Councillor Shema, but it seemed to be the most
sensible thing to do. If we were very careful, we could find out
what they planned for us without them being aware. We could not get
out: the door was barred and guards stood all around the building.’
He shivered slightly. ‘Before this happened to our eyes, we had all
asked the Assembly for permission to come to Parima for assessment,
but we were all refused.’

‘And we were not the
only ones,’ Graza added. ‘Quite a number have asked to leave,
during the last two or three cycles.’ She dropped her gaze to her
hands, twisted tightly in her lap.

Mokray stared straight
at Shema. ‘They just disappeared. We thought they must have gained
permission and come here, but Chornay has checked for us. There is
no record of them ever being here, yet they are no longer in
Fira.’

Chapter
Seven

The few members of the
Order of Sedka who escaped the killing frenzy, made their way to
various Chapter Houses in the hope of finding sanctuary. The crazed
bloodlust seeped outwards from the Menedula and paused for a few
days to ensure the total annihilation of the town of Syet. That
pause gave some of the fleeing Observers, Aspirants and Kooshak
hope that they might escape completely. A handful of such refugees
made their way on foot and horseback to the north-west, towards the
House of Oblaka.

Two Kooshak who were
travelling healers, met on the shoulder of the Gara Mountain and
together made their way down to the town of Valoon. They found an
inn where they could obtain a much needed meal, and for a price,
horses to carry them on to Oblaka. There were few customers in the
common room when they arrived in mid afternoon, but the innkeeper,
a barrel of a man, agreed that he could supply both meal and
horses.

He brought the food
himself, introduced himself as Volk and looked pointedly at the
obsidian beads the Kooshak wore at their throats. The woman gave
him a wan smile.

‘I am Kooshak Sarryen,
and my travelling companion is Kooshak Arryol.’

Volk nodded. ‘In a bit
of a hurry are you?’

There was the slightest
pause before either Kooshak replied, which could be accounted for
by the fact that they were eating.

‘Yes Goodmaster Volk.
We need to reach Oblaka at all speed.’

Volk nodded again.
‘Trouble all ways,’ he pronounced.

Forks halted midway to
mouths. ‘All ways?’ Arryol queried.

‘Aye. Word came
yesterday that Oblaka House and town both be afire. People gone
crazy.’ He studied each Kooshak shrewdly. ‘Trouble where you came
from then?’

Sarryen laid her fork
on her plate and reached for her bowl of tea.

‘Goodmaster Volk, there
is very bad trouble on the other side of the Gara. If it reaches
here, you will not be safe, even in this well built stone inn of
yours.’ Her silver eyes held Volk transfixed. ‘We believe that the
only hope for any of us is to reach the Oblaka.’

When Volk would have
protested and repeated his tale of madness and fire in the Oblaka
area, Sarryen raised her hand. She glanced quickly at Arryol, then
back to Volk. ‘We who follow Myata closer than we do Sedka, have
been taught, and so we believe, that there is always a place of
safety at the Oblaka. So there we must go. And I strongly urge that
you hide your valuables, pack up your family and join us at
once.’

Volk rocked gently back
and forth on the balls of his feet for a moment.

‘Know an Observer
called Ren Salar do you?’

Arryol frowned. ‘Yes. I
do. Except he is an Offering, not an Observer. Why?’

‘Offering is he?’ Volk
pursed his mouth in a soundless whistle. ‘I thought it strange that
an Observer be travelling without no badge of office and now you
say he be an Offering. In a great hurry to get to Oblaka too, him
and his friend.’

‘Please, think about
coming with us Master Volk. We leave as soon as you can ready the
horses for us.’ Sarryen spoke earnestly.

The innkeeper made no
reply, only turned away and vanished to the kitchens behind the
bar.

‘So Ren Salar is in
Oblaka. I had heard that he had suddenly left the Menedula. The
message I received said that, if any of us came across him, we were
to tell him that his presence was urgently needed back
there.’

Sarryen drank the last
of the tea.

‘I do not know him
myself. I wonder who travelled with him. It seems most odd that he
was wearing no insignia.’

Arryol counted some
coins out onto the table to pay for their food. ‘Maybe he heard
something of what was to happen. I know he was a protégé of
Babach’s.’ His eyes met Sarryen’s. ‘And Babach was from Oblaka
originally I was told.’

‘So an Offering of the
Order of Sedka could well be a follower of Myata.’ Sarryen
suggested.

‘Finn Rah never hid the
fact that she believed Sedka’s teachings had been corrupted. I
attended her theory classes years past, and she strongly advocated
that we study Myata’s teachings much more deeply than we were
expected to.’ Arryol got to his feet. ‘It was she who proposed me
for acceptance within the Order of Myata.’

‘Me too,’ Sarryen said
with a smile.

When Arryol rapped his
knuckles on the bar counter, Volk appeared at once. He lifted a
bulging pack onto the counter and propped a staff against
it.

‘Think you be right,’
he said curtly, as a tall beanpole of a man came from the kitchens.
The newcomer began folding shutters across the front windows,
securing them with horizontal iron bars. Volk went out to the
entrance and shut the heavy doors, locking them and also barring
them.

‘This way
out.’

The two Kooshak
silently followed Volk through the kitchens and emerged into the
stableyard. A scrawny boy was leading a horse from a large
barn.

The boy tied the horse
he’d been leading to the rail and ran back to the barn.

A much younger version
of Volk, and female into the bargain, came round the side of the
inn laden with various bags and bundles. Two children carried more
parcels at her side. Volk muttered to himself then spoke aloud to
the Kooshak.

‘Daughter and her
husband Povar,’ he nodded at the beanpole, who was trying to
relieve the woman of some of her burdens. ‘Their two children. And
I won’t leave Rivan. Don’t know where he’s from but he turned up
here three years past and works hard.’

The ragged boy glanced
at Volk at the sound of his name.

‘Fetch another two, one
for all those bundles and one for you Rivan.’

The boy raced again to
the barn.

Sarryen and Arryol were
surprised at how speedily they were mounted and their little
cavalcade moving out of a small gate behind the barn. Volk led them
up an alley and onto a wooded track behind the inn. Arryol looked
over his shoulder and saw no one at all in the main
street.

‘Where is everyone?’ he
asked Volk quietly.

The innkeeper shot him
a quick look. ‘Most already gone up to the mountains to their
summer cabins. People round here smell trouble quick though. Any
still here, hiding themselves away.’

‘How far to the Oblaka
– I have never been there?’ Sarryen nudged her horse closer to
Volk’s flank.

‘Three days,’ was the
short answer. ‘And if you Kooshak be able to shield, that may be a
good idea.’

Sarryen let Arryol move
alongside. ‘I will shield today – I should have thought of it
before.’

Arryol nodded. ‘Tell me
if you tire and I will take over.’ He looked unhappy. ‘It is not
something I have practised much, not having felt the need to do so
before.’

Sarryen smiled wryly.
‘Nor me, but I think we must now.’

They followed the same
route taken earlier by Ren Salar and Voron, and encountered no
people and no difficulties during the next two days. The Kooshak
had found shielding tired them quickly at first but took turns
every few hours. By the second day, they were much easier with the
procedures involved and were more confident of their ability to
shield the party. Dawn of the third day gave them their first
glimpse of what was left of the town of Oblaka.

Volk had led them along
a narrow trail a league or so higher than the more well used track
taken by Ren and Voron. As they came clear of the woodland, three
creatures rose from the undergrowth bordering the path, and
attacked. Arryol was shielding them but only from prying minds, and
Sarryen snapped at him to maintain the shielding even as she swung
her horse round to protect his side.

Volk and his son in law
Povar, freed their staves and proved to have a great facility with
the weapons, the wood humming through the air before crashing into
an attacker’s skull. Rivan pushed himself and the pack horse
towards Volk’s daughter and grandchildren and drew a wicked looking
knife from beneath his layers of rags. Sarryen noted that their
assailants were human, although their faces were contorted into
bestial grimaces. And their eyes burned like coals.

Quite calmly, she
pushed her magic into the one nearest to her. He stiffened and
started to turn towards her. Sarryen flicked her hand and he fell,
his heart ruptured. Povar and Volk were finding that no matter how
many blows they landed – which should have proved fatal to any
ordinary being – did not even slow these creatures. Sarryen sat
relaxed on her horse and burst the heart of first one, then the
last. Volk and Povar looked at her. She realised she was shaking
badly enough that she had trouble staying in her saddle. Arryol
caught her arm, riding close to support her. Without a word, Volk
moved into the lead again, Povar at the rear, and they rode
on.

The town still
smouldered but they saw no living creatures, human, animal, or
whatever they were that had attacked them.

‘I have not seen a case
of the affliction before,’ Arryol said softly. ‘But that was what
had happened to those poor souls was it not?’

Sarryen managed to turn
a little to stare at him.

‘Those “poor souls”
would have killed all of us without compunction Arryol. And
probably eaten us.’ She faced forward again in silence, wracked
with physical and mental trembling. Never would she have imagined
herself capable of using her healer’s knowledge to take a life.
Never. Yet she had just done exactly that.

Volk skirted the town,
all of them alert and wary of every breeze that ruffled a bush, or
pushed a half charred door into motion. The two Kooshak looked up
towards the Oblaka complex on the cliff top. They saw that it too
was a burnt out ruin.

‘You know where to go
Goodmaster Volk?’ Sarryen asked, her teeth chattering with her
shaking.

‘Aye.’ After a few more
paces, Volk glanced back at Sarryen. ‘Delivered things now and
then, to an Observer. Lives away from the main House. Showed me a
couple of ways up and down.’ He turned away again.

They gave the horses
their heads to pick their own way up the steep uneven hillside, on
a faint path more suited to goats than to men or horses. They wound
round a great solitary boulder and then on again, across a
treacherous scree slope. A shout came from above them and someone
waved. Then another head appeared and a grey haired woman stepped
clear of what seemed to be solid rock.