Drogoya: Book 3 Circles of Light series (32 page)

‘I have always detested
being ill.’ Finn spoke softly, careful not to set the cough
wracking her again.

‘I do not believe any
of us much enjoys ill health,’ Sarryen said. She smiled over her
shoulder. ‘Some of us are just a little more stoical
perhaps?’

Finn’s scowl returned
but her eyes danced with amusement. ‘What news since I got this
cursed cold? Is anyone still standing?’

‘Arryol is the only one
immune it seems, but as everyone else has had it or is suffering
with it now, it should be finished with in a couple more
days.’

‘Perhaps we should keep
any new arrivals segregated to begin with – light alone knows what
disease could appear next.’

Sarryen nodded. ‘Arryol
has already suggested the same, and has organised two chambers near
the entrance from the hillside for that purpose.’ She handed Finn a
bowl of tea and caught the Offering’s glance at the bottle on the
table. ‘Tea will be more beneficial for you at present,’ she said
reprovingly.

‘Nonsense.’

But Sarryen noticed
that Finn made no effort to get up again to fetch the bottle.
Indeed, she looked very tired and pale the Kooshak
thought.

‘Arryol has made a fine
tonic remedy. It seems to work well on everyone. Why don’t I get
you some?’

‘Oh very well. And ask
Soosha to join us, would you – if he is fit?’

‘His cough is lingering
a little longer than Arryol likes, but he is teaching
again.’

When Sarryen returned
with a large brown bottle, an equally large spoon, and Observer
Soosha, Finn’s head was back against the chair and her eyes were
closed. More concerned than she appeared, Sarryen poured a spoonful
of Arryol’s tonic and made Finn swallow it.

‘Really,’ Sarryen
scolded. ‘You make more fuss than the children.’

Soosha sat in the
armchair opposite and chuckled. ‘You will recover almost at once
Finn, if only to avoid taking too much of that stuff.’

‘What have I missed
while I have been lingering at death’s doorway?’

Soosha looked into the
fire. ‘Someone walks in my dreams.’

Finn and Sarryen stared
at him, not sure they had heard him correctly. Sarryen knelt on the
floor between the two armchairs and waited for Finn to question
him.

‘Dream walkers are the
stuff of legend Soosha,’ the Offering said quietly. ‘That is, if
you discount deliberate mind speaking when the recipient is asleep.
I believe Babach spoke thus to Ren. Is that what you
mean?’

Soosha sighed. ‘No
Finn. It is the stuff of legends variety. I hardly dare guess who
she is, but she walks my dreams each night of late.’

‘She?’

‘Oh yes.’ Soosha
grimaced. ‘There is only one name that seems to fit
her.’

‘Does she speak to
you?’

Soosha frowned. ‘I do
not think so Sarryen, not clearly, in words, at any rate. She seems
to be warning me of something. No.’ He raised his hand as both
Sarryen and Finn were about to speak.

‘Perhaps preparing
would be a better word than warning. It is not of a danger coming
to this community.’ He shook his head. ‘This woman is a blurred
shape in my dreams. She walks a garden, or fields, and two children
run beside her. She is calm but the children are greatly
afraid.’

‘How do you interpret
these dream messages Soosha?’ asked Finn.

He shrugged. ‘Two
children are trying to reach us. They are under the woman’s
protection but there is still great danger for them.’

‘Can you see the
children clearly in your dream?’ Sarryen was studying the Observer
closely.

‘Yes, I see them. I
would know them should they find their way here. It is the woman I
cannot see properly.’

Soosha looked down at
his hands, clasped around the bowl of tea. ‘When I wake, as I
always do the instant this dream ends, my room is full of the scent
of mint.’

Finn drew in a breath
so sharply her cough began again. Sarryen took the bowl of tea from
the Offering’s shaking hands while Soosha moved behind Finn and
rubbed her back. When Finn’s cough slackened to a chesty wheeze,
she forced out a question.

‘Do you know where
these children are now, or where they come from?’

Soosha went back to his
armchair. ‘From the east. The sun is rising behind them every time.
How far they must come, I cannot tell.’

‘Are those children who
walk your dreams clear in your mind still? Lyeto at least, should
be able to recognise them should they reach us.’

Finn nodded her
agreement with Sarryen’s suggestion.

‘I can show you the
children but the woman disappears. In my dream she is a vague shape
but I cannot even see that blurred figure once I wake.’

‘Show us,’ Finn
whispered.

From Soosha’s mind
Sarryen and Finn Rah saw the clear image of two small children.
Light, thought Finn, how truly small they are! A thin boy with a
wild mane of black hair, dressed in rags. But it was the girl who
drew their attention. Nearly as frail as the boy, her hair gleamed
white as snow. She was better clothed than the boy but not by much.
In Soosha’s mind, the girl turned her head, seeming to look
straight out of his dream into their eyes.

An unusually shaped
face for a Drogoyan, which appeared to be mostly eyes: dark
lavender eyes surrounded by silver. Even as this strange girl child
turned her head away again as if to speak to the boy, the fragrance
of crushed mint filled Chakar’s sitting room. The vision faded
leaving the two women in stunned disbelief.

‘Who is that girl?’
Finn’s voice was a croak, a discordant sound.

Soosha shook his head
sadly. ‘She most positively is not of the Lost Realms. I have spent
much time pondering this – as you would guess. I have no idea how
she could have reached Drogoya, but my feeling is that she is from
the Night Lands.’

A brisk knock on the
door made Sarryen jump even as Finn called: ‘Come.’

Arryol entered, Lyeto
at his back, both wearing frowns.

Soosha smiled suddenly.
‘What brought you two here in such haste?’

Arryol glanced at his
companion and then turned to Finn Rah.

‘The singing began.
Lyeto was in the common room and I was reading – not
healing.’

‘Join minds with the
three of us,’ Soosha ordered.

Lyeto gasped and Arryol
caught hold of the edge of the table as the picture of two young
children filled their minds. At the same moment, the two women and
Observer Soosha were swamped by a crescendo of harmonised music.
The image disappeared, the singing ceased. But the scent of mint
remained.

‘What, in the name of
the light, is happening?’ Arryol gasped.

Soosha explained his
dreams and the conclusions he had so far drawn. Lyeto was on the
floor beside Sarryen, amazement still plain on his face. Arryol
listened but had moved to Finn’s side and was feeling her forehead
and her throat.

‘I am quite recovered
thank you. Listen to Soosha. Concentrate on that, not on
me.’

‘I was listening,’
Arryol retorted mildly. ‘And you are most definitely not
recovered.’ He turned to Soosha. ‘According to the documents which
Babach received from the Night Lands, they have no record of the
eye changes which we have long been accustomed to here. If this
child is from those lands, why are her eyes silvered? And have any
of you heard tell of the silvering even starting so very early in
life?’

Sarryen tilted her head
to look up at her fellow Kooshak.

‘I have not. But it
seems to me we are barely keeping abreast of events. Things are
happening, changing, without any warnings or apparent reasons. It
is clear I think that this girl child is of great importance. Why
else would she appear to be travelling under the protection of
Myata herself?’

‘And why else the
sudden burst of sensation we have all just experienced?’ Soosha
studied the four faces before him. ‘Oh yes. This is indeed a
special child and we must wrack our brains to find some way to help
her reach the sanctuary which is the Oblaka.’

Chapter
Twenty

‘Do you know more than
you have told me?’ Mim asked Dessi casually. ‘I mean, do the
Delvers in general or the Wise One in particular, know more of the
eggs than they have admitted?’

Elyssa had been working
with Dessi, explaining some of the Vagrantian ways of working with
the different elements for the last days, but she was spending
today with the two Observers. Mim had taken the opportunity to
climb up to Dessi’s chambers, high in the Stronghold. Dessi turned
on her stool to look at him. He was changing even more, she
realised. His shoulders were much wider, but still tapered down to
a narrow waist. He no longer hid the fact that he ate with the
Dragons when they hunted and he made no more pretence of eating the
food cooked in the Stronghold kitchens. Except for the pastries,
Dessi remembered: he still had a great fondness for
those.

‘No.’ Her dark copper
curls shone as a finger of sunlight poked through the narrow window
beside her table. ‘I have tried to guess but I would not tell
anyone, even you Mim, what my guesses are. I am just as likely to
be utterly wrong as anywhere near the truth.’

Mim noticed that her
left hand rested upon her pendant. He had also noticed that she
alone wore her pendant openly now, not beneath her shirt as did all
the others. Himself included of course.

‘Sit down. I will make
some tea – or would you prefer water?’

Mim waited until Ashta
had squeezed herself fully into the room, closed the door and
settled beside the pale green Dragon.

‘Tea is
fine.’

He watched the Delver
girl busy with tea pot and mugs.

‘Does Elyssa say why
she has chosen to stay here?’

Dessi grinned at him.
‘She does not know herself. Only that she felt impelled to remain
here.’

There was a burst of
deafening screeches and Mim winced while Ashta’s eyes whirred
rapidly in distress. The tea was made and poured before the noise
abated.

‘How can you endure
that din Dessi dear?’ Ashta murmured, her tone deeply
concerned.

Dessi laughed. ‘It is
only that bad a few times each day. When Syecha returns from
finding food and orders Baryet off of her eggs. I gather there are
eight now,’ she added.

Mim groaned. ‘It would
be most unwise to mention that fact beyond this room – Chakar would
be thrown out of the Stronghold!’

‘Is this all connected
with Myata of whom Babach and Chakar speak, Mim?’

The Dragon Lord
shrugged. ‘Part of it. But the part that most closely involves me,
is linked to Gremara. Of that I am sure.’

‘I do miss Jeela.’
Dessi said softly. ‘I know there must be some special destiny for
her, but I miss her a great deal.’

Ashta’s eyes flashed
the palest green with honey speckles. ‘I miss her too.’

Mim reached his arm
around Ashta’s neck and hugged her, his face against
hers.

‘Have you any regrets
Mim? So far from your Nagum forests, here in this cold stone
place?’

Mim studied his scaled
hands and flexed the taloned fingers.

‘At first I longed only
to be back there, but then I accepted that I could never return. My
village was destroyed completely, my family, everyone, slaughtered
by Rhaki’s Linvaks.’

He met Dessi’s
sympathetic eyes.

‘I have Ashta, and the
Dragon Kin. I am called Dragon Lord. I like to spend time with
Lorak, and working among the plants in the new growing areas here.
This life is far better than lying dead in my village.’

‘Will you tell me if
Gremara explains about the eggs that have been so long safeguarded
by my people?’ Dessi asked.

Mim got to his feet. ‘I
promise I will Dessi. Although I am sure you will know before I
do.’

When he and Ashta had
left her, Dessi moved from her stool to crouch by the fire. She
lifted the pendant on its gold chain for the hundredth time, and
turned it, studying first the turquoise backing and then the honey
coloured front. Light throbbed faintly but rhythmically from the
tiny speck within, but Dessi could make no contact with any mind.
She longed to discover the secrets she knew were sealed within each
of these beautiful objects. She also understood that they would
reveal themselves in their own good time.

Kera returned through
the circle to report that all was peaceful once more in Gaharn.
Discipline Seniors had been positioned in houses around the City
and they watched for any sign of the creature High Speaker Thryssa
had identified as a being from the Void. Chakar had told Kera of
Babach’s theories and she was aware of the Discipline Senior’s
scepticism. Chakar warned Babach that Kera had little belief in his
ideas of Myata’s intervention in the affairs of this world, but the
old man merely smiled.