Drogoya: Book 3 Circles of Light series (36 page)

‘I cannot feel her mind
Seboth! Not there or anywhere near.’

Chapter
Twenty-Two

Each time that Mena
went to the small overgrown herb garden, her heart thumped against
her ribs lest the boy Tyen not be there. Each time, she fervently
thanked the stars that he was. In the five days since she had found
him, Mena’s food had improved: there was more of it and dried
fruits and nuts had been added. There was apparently an
inexhaustible supply of the hard biscuits and some of those, with
nuts and fruit, she hid in her bed chamber.

She had also asked for
a flask in which to take water outside, claiming that the water
from an old pump she had found there, tasted unpleasant. Cho Petak
suggested she might like meat but Mena assured him that she had
never eaten meat, that it made her ill. In fact, she had always
eaten meat before, but she wondered exactly what animal the meat
might come from here, and was not prepared to take the
risk.

She always took a few
fruits and one of the biscuits to the garden for the boy. He stayed
within the wooden building when Mena worked at the endless weeding,
but they talked, and gradually Mena built up a vague picture of the
Menedula and what it had, until lately, represented. Tyen told her
what he understood of the hierarchy of the Order of Sedka: the
Sacrifice, the Offerings, the Observers, the Kooshak and the
Aspirants. Much of what he said Mena had already read of in her
chamber, but Tyen had learnt it by rote in his school and it was
thus merely a string of words to him, meaningless as a
rhyme.

Cautiously, Mena asked
of the other Order, stumbling over the pronunciation of Myata’s
name. Silence followed her question.

‘My father and mother
said that Myata had the right of things,’ Tyen finally replied.
‘But you wasn’t supposed to speak of her, except among others who
you knew for sure believed the same.’

Mena weeded on, knowing
that Tyen was still thinking.

‘Some of the Observers
and Kooshak were known to favour Myata and there was always a party
at our house if a Kooshak visited who would tell more stories of
her.’

Mena heard the hitch in
his voice and began humming softly as she went to empty her weed
box. She had nearly refilled it before Tyen spoke again.

‘They say, the stories,
that Myata gives a safe home to any who ask at her House in
Oblaka.’

Mena paused in the act
of winkling out a particularly stubborn and long rooted weed. That
sounded like the name she had seen on a map upstairs, the place her
eyes were drawn to each time she looked at it.

‘I think that is in the
direction that I need to go,’ said Mena. ‘Could you get us
there?’

‘Take us many days and
it is dangerous out there now,’ Tyen sounded dubious. ‘As good a
place as any I guess. Can’t stay here much longer
anyway.’

That evening, when Cho
visited Mena, he found her drawing a map. She looked up in time to
catch his frown.

‘What is this place
please Sir?’ she asked, pointing to a marked spot in the centre of
the page.

‘It is the town of
Krasato, where the Emperor lives. Lived,’ he corrected
himself.

He looked at the way in
which Mena had copied the map and his frown disappeared. Mountains
took up an inordinate amount of space, and the tiny representations
of woodlands, Mena had enlarged so that their branches trailed
right across the page.

‘An interesting
interpretation child, but I think I like your other drawings
better.’

‘Yes Sir. I just
thought this might be fun. Are all these squiggles towns as well
then Sir?’

He stared down into
guileless eyes. ‘Yes. At least they were towns, but now they are
returning to the dust from which they grew.’

Mena nodded solemnly
and drew a clean sheet of paper towards her.

‘I think you are right
Sir. I do prefer to draw the flowers.’

Cho Petak watched for a
while longer then silently left her. Mena slid out another paper on
which the map was copied and checked yet again that she had
everything in its exact position.

Cho had returned to his
own rooms and was staring at the charts spread out before him.
Perhaps the child would develop an interest in such things, as he
had so long ago. He glanced at the darkening window and sighed.
These creatures had such extended infancies. It would be years
before he could hold an intelligent conversation with that girl. He
sighed again when the air shuddered, announcing the presence of
Grek.

‘Byess is destroyed,’
Grek began at once.

Cho frowned.

‘Yes,’ Grek continued.
‘Destroyed. In the east of the Night Lands. Taken apart
completely.’

‘What of the other
three? Have you located Rashpil yet?’

‘No. There is no trace
of him at all, but I have found M’Raz and Zloy. Zloy is embodied in
the eastern Night Lands, very near to where Byess was lost. M’Raz,’
Grek laughed. ‘M’Raz has taken the body of that child’s
father.’

Fleetingly, Cho enjoyed
the sound of Grek’s laughter. He so rarely heard it now, and when
he did, it held a note of bitterness rather than the unalloyed joy
Cho so well remembered.

‘They can stay there
for now,’ he told Grek. ‘But I begin to grow concerned by Rashpil’s
absence.’

The air flurried around
the end of the table then stilled again.

‘There was some
disturbance in a city called Gaharn. I have a sense that Rashpil
was there, but nearly met with the same fate as Byess has done.
Perhaps he was damaged, or frightened. I think that he is
deliberately concealing himself from us at present.’

‘And you wonder, as I
do, why he should feel the need to do so?’

‘Cho, are you sure of
all the ones now freed?’ Grek asked earnestly. ‘Have you seen what
they are doing to this land of yours? I had not seen Drogoya until
I came in the body of the girl, but it is a pleasant land Cho.
Greener, more lush than the land of Sapphrea where I have spent all
these long years. Do you really mean them to ruin it so
totally?’

Cho shrugged. ‘It is of
no importance.’ He tapped the chart in front of him. ‘There is a
world which will be within range and would suit us far better than
this one. It is far richer in the elements we most benefit from. I
have planned that we will move there within this year and remain
there as long as it takes to increase our strength beyond
belief.’

His eyes had begun to
burn as he spoke and the unbodied Grek watched him closely.
Conviction underscored Cho’s words: he believed in the rightness of
his plans.

‘I will seek Rashpil
once more,’ Grek announced abruptly and left Cho’s
apartments.

But he went only to the
roof of the Menedula, an unbodied spirit drifting with the slight
breeze. Cho’s words convinced him less each day and he feared that
Cho was a far lesser being than he had seemed when Grek fell under
his spell. In the brief time that Grek had been back once more in
Cho’s company, he had discovered far too many discrepancies in
Cho’s conversation.

Grek slid through the
air particles, towards the east. He felt no strong urgency to find
Rashpil, but he did feel a need to distance himself from Cho Petak
while he struggled to decide his own course of action. Grek had
once had true human form, unlike Cho Petak. He had been beguiled by
Cho’s talk, Cho’s promises to all those who followed his path. Even
now, Grek was not sure what Cho’s true form might look like. Nor
did he know from whence Cho had originated, whether he was the
solitary representative of some distant race or the one survivor
from an equally distant catastrophe.

Grek had been unaware
that Cho was not what he appeared until shortly before Cheok’s
punitive attack on Cho and all who followed him. The unbodied
spirit of the young man that Grek had been on that day drifted with
the increasing wind, high above the eastern coast of Drogoya. He
alone had lived in many bodies since his arrival here, all of them
in Sapphrea in the western Night Lands. D’Lah and Cho Petak had
each only used one body through all these years and Cho had killed
the mind of his host within days of taking over that
body.

D’Lah had forced his
way into the body of an Asatarian woman at the moment she gave
birth to a boy child. He had swiftly transferred to the new-born,
and was now so closely entwined with that one’s mind that Grek did
not believe they could ever be separated again. He alone had
experienced many bodies, many minds, and in so doing had learnt
much more of the inhabitants of this world. Grek realised that both
Cho and D’Lah could accuse him of over sympathising with the
resident people, and Grek knew they would be right.

The laughing boy, so
fondly and frequently recalled by Cho, had done little harm in the
centuries of his sojourn here. He admitted to himself that many
times he had immersed himself into the life of his current host,
enjoying the simple experiences through them as once he had enjoyed
them for himself. He had been in Mena’s blood line since he reached
this world, when her ancestors lived in the coastal city of Parima.
Three generations he enjoyed in that stupendous place, before the
Valsheban cities were blasted into ruins.

He had escaped because
his host was on a visit to the inland city of Kedara, north of
present day Tagria. That was the first time that Grek interfered in
his host’s life, by blanketing the web of power which would have
betrayed him to the vengeful farmers. All those lives he had
shared, Grek thought, as he idled along on the air currents over
the endless sea.

Then, at last, the
summons from Cho Petak, the excitement of reunion with his old
teacher and master, the fury at being in a female child’s body at
such a crucial moment. Savagely, Grek had captured the unsuspecting
Dragon’s mind, his rage burning through Mena’s eyes, and forced
them to Drogoya. Yet he had felt the pain from them both, seeping
through into his mind. He had been aware of the child’s anguish
when he made her urge the failing Dragon to fresh
efforts.

The lands of Drogoya
were in the process of being devastated by Cho’s minions. Grek had
doubted Cho’s insistence that some of those spirits within the Void
should be released to serve him. Having seen the horror these same
spirits had wreaked upon Drogoya and its people already, Grek’s
doubts were leading him to the only choice he could make. He would
have to betray Cho Petak again. As he had before, to the Grand
Master Cheok.

Volk was ecstatic. Four
of his horses had reappeared, grazing placidly among the goats on
the hillside below the caves.

‘But what use are they
Volk?’ Finn asked him that night in the common room. ‘They could
die of old age before it might be safe to venture out from
here.’

Volk scowled. ‘Always
useful to have a horse around,’ he insisted.

Finn abandoned the
point as Melena joined them. ‘The boy?’ she asked
quietly.

Melena nodded. ‘He died
a few moments ago. Kooshak Arryol worked so hard on the poor child,
but he believes the poison was already too deep when the boy
arrived here.’

Volk’s scowl became
even more ferocious. ‘Poor lad. Didn’t even know his name. Cursed
be that Sacrifice.’ He got to his feet and rolled away to seek
solace in his new brews.

Sarryen had come to sit
with them. ‘He is a good man, that Volk,’ she said.

Finn snorted. ‘For
light’s sake, never let him hear you say that – he would be
mortally offended.’ She shook her head at Melena and Sarryen’s
puzzled faces. ‘Of course he is a good man, one of the very best.
But he works so hard giving everyone the impression that he is a
bad tempered, hard headed man of business without a heart, you
would destroy all that effort if you let him know you can see
through it.’

Finn stopped as she
began to cough. Sarryen stared at Melena, silently warning her not
to fuss, and after a quick glance of concern the girl got to her
feet.

‘I have lessons to
write up for Observer Soosha, if you will excuse me.’

Before Sarryen could
question Finn Rah as to whether she was taking Arryol’s medicines
rather than Volk’s, Lyeto came into the common room with two other
students. All were covered with dust. Finn’s coughing fit subsided
and she beckoned Lyeto over.

‘What have you been
doing?’ she asked him.

‘Observer Soosha asked
some of us to widen the viewing ledge Offering Finn.’

‘Widen the - . But
why?’

Lyeto grinned. ‘He
believes that the Plavat will come back, and rather than have it
perhaps seen wandering around in the ruins above, he wants it to be
able to come in here.’

Finn gaped at him in
horror. ‘A Plavat? In here? The man’s wits have gone. Where is
he?’

‘He said he was going
to talk to you, but he was not aware that you would be in here I am
sure.’

Finn was already
striding out of the door, Sarryen behind her.

‘Finn, slow down. You
will only cough again. There. I told you so.’