Drogoya: Book 3 Circles of Light series (39 page)

‘Surely you realise
that Chakar could no more command the Plavat now than she could fly
herself?’ Kija’s laugh rang again. ‘I heard a whisper that Syecha
has now ten eggs to hatch, and the first child will come from its
shell before the next full moon.’

Mim groaned. ‘They will
move back to the coast won’t they? Baryet said that they prefer to
eat fish than meat.’

Kija chuckled. ‘It
takes half a cycle for their children to grow feathers and to learn
to fly – unlike Dragon children of course.’

Mim caught a hint of
smugness, which reminded him achingly of Farn’s confidently
sweeping statements. He knew he had not the faintest hope of
learning more than the Dragons chose to tell and he gave up trying
to tease more information from them.

‘Fenj leaves tomorrow,
so he says.’

Kija rumbled, her
faceted eyes palest honey. Again Mim sensed a confusion of emotions
from both adult Dragons: Ashta was snoring gently against his
back.

‘Ashta and I will
remain here.’ Mim shrugged. ‘I still do not understand what my own
role is to be. I am called Dragon Lord, but no one seems to have
heard of such a one before, or to have a clue as to what a Dragon
Lord’s duties may be.’

There was no reply from
either Kadi or Kija. Mim looked at each Dragon in turn.

‘If you have need of
me, I would come to you. You do know that do you not?’

Warmth swept into his
mind, warmth and affection.

‘We know Dragon Lord,’
Kadi told him. ‘We will not forget your words and if our need is
great, then we will summon you to aid us.’

The dark blue of her
eyes faded to muted sapphire.

‘We will rest now Mim,
to be ready to sing strength to Fenj in the morning.’

The two Dragons rose,
Mim marvelling as ever at the graceful lightness and silence of
their great bulks even on the ground, and crossed the hall to where
Fenj lay sleeping. Gold Dragon and midnight blue curved themselves
around the huge black shape and Mim heard Kija’s croon. He frowned.
He had heard it before. Then he nodded to himself as he curled
against Ashta’s chest. It was the song that Hani had sung over her
three eggs on the day Mim was brought to her nesting
cave.

Fenj slept on, both
Kija and Kadi seeing in the misty blur of his dream, his beloved
Skay, long since gone Beyond. They were aware that Fenj’s thoughts
dwelt more and more often on both his mate and on the Asatarian
Bark, long imprisoned here by Lady Emla’s brother Rhaki. They
understood his longing for Skay, but Fenj’s preoccupation with Bark
was a mystery to them both.

High above the great
hall of the Stronghold, in the rooms Dessi had offered to share
with Elyssa, the Delver girl clung to the Vagrantian and sobbed out
her terror of what was to come. Elyssa sat on the cushions by the
small fire, Dessi’s head buried in her shoulder. Blue and silver
eyes stared at the narrow window where the glimmer of stars
insistently drew her attention. Between their bodies Elyssa was
conscious of the oval pendant Dessi wore. It was warm, not hot, and
it pulsed in time with Elyssa’s own heartbeat. Dessi raised her
head, copper curls tangled on her forehead.

‘Must you really do
this thing?’ she whispered, her throat thick with tears.

Elyssa’s smile was as
serene as Babach’s as she kissed Dessi gently.

‘But of course I must.
It is the only reason for my being.’

Chapter
Twenty-Four

Tika learnt nothing
more from Mist than had Mim from Kadi and Kija. She returned to the
ground level caves to find Gan and Sket awaiting her. Gan climbed
to his feet, towering over both Tika and Sket. Pallin’s snores came
rattling from the shadows of the cave.

Tika grinned. ‘At least
his cooking is good, so I suppose he can be excused moving sand
with the rest of us.’

Sket walked beside her
as they followed Gan, winding between the fallen
masonry.

‘Easy to get lost in
this lot,’ he remarked cheerfully.

‘Not if you are tall,’
Gan said over his shoulder.

Sket pulled a face but
made no reply. They walked for nearly a league Tika estimated,
until they found the rest of their party working on a horizontal
block under Ren’s instructions. He glanced up when Tika reached his
side.

‘This one had some sort
of carvings on it,’ he said, running his palm along the lowest part
of the newly exposed side.

Tika drew her hand
after his and felt indentations and extrusions in too regular a
pattern for them to have been made naturally. She squatted beside
him, squinting at the black stone.

‘Was it a picture
carved there, or words?’

‘Words I think,’ Ren
began when there was a shout of alarm from behind the
block.

Sket and Navan drew
their swords even before Tika had straightened up, but Olam’s voice
called reassuringly.

‘It is all right. Riff
has fallen down a hole. He is about five man lengths down, but not
hurt.’

By the time they had
gathered about the opening in the sand, they could all hear Riff’s
steady heartfelt curses.

‘The Lady Tika is
here,’ Sket called sharply and Riff fell silent.

‘I will go back for a
rope,’ Navan offered and jogged off towards the cliffs.

‘Is there anything of
interest down there Riff, or do you think it is just an old well
shaft?’ asked Ren.

The silence continued
then finally Riff shouted back. ‘Not a well shaft. There are steps.
I landed on them,’ he added feelingly.

‘Just what I had hoped
for,’ Ren was practically rubbing his hands together in
glee.

He dug in one of his
many pouches and brought out a plain grey pebble the size of a
plum. He murmured briefly and light flared from the stone just as
Navan returned, sweating, with a coil of rope on his shoulder. Olam
took one end of the rope and threw it over the end of a tilted
block, tying it securely and testing his weight against
it.

‘It should be long
enough,’ he said, tossing the main length down the hole.

Curses, quickly bitten
off, flew back up to those above.

‘Sorry.’ Olam shrugged
guiltily. ‘Should have warned him I suppose.’

Ren was already
vanishing down the hole while the rest craned to see what they
could.

‘I’m going down too.’
Tika caught the rope up and swung over the edge.

Olam looked at Navan
and grinned. ‘If they have found something more interesting than
endless sand, then I want to see it too.’ Turning to the hole, he
saw the top of Sket’s head disappearing.

‘Will there be room for
everyone down there,’ Gan asked doubtfully. ‘And I hope the walls
of this shaft are stone, not just packed sand.’

Navan peered into the
darkness. ‘Stone,’ he said, twisting round and taking hold of the
rope.

As he too disappeared,
Gan scowled, looked around at the thousands of tumbled blocks,
shrugged and followed everyone else into the hole. To Gan’s
surprise, he did not land on top of anyone. In fact, there was no
one at the bottom of the shaft. When his eyes had adjusted to the
gloom he turned slowly round. He saw with some relief a faint light
from Ren’s glow stone some paces away along a horizontal passage.
The floor was smooth, and stretching his hand to the sides, he
found the walls too were without blemish or crack. The walls were
high: looking up, Gan could see no ceiling, nor could he touch
anything at full stretch. He looked back the way he’d come and saw
only blackness.

‘Ren,’ he called ahead.
‘I think we should be a little cautious before going too
far.’

The blur of bodies in
front of him separated into individuals as Ren came back towards
him, glow stone on his palm.

‘And I thought Riff
landed on some stairs?’ Gan finished.

Ren nodded. ‘There are
four steps, but they disappear under fallen stone both
ways.’

‘Was this passage open
then? I would have expected it to be filled with sand.’

Ren tugged at his
sparse beard. ‘I was just lucky. I put my hands against the walls
and must have triggered an opening mechanism which revealed this
passage.’

Gan stared down at the
Offering in alarmed exasperation.

‘And might this
mechanism possibly decide to close itself after a certain
interval?’

Ren’s silvered eyes
shone in the glow stone’s steady light.

‘I should have thought
of that,’ he sounded apologetic. ‘I was so excited to perhaps have
found a way into a preserved section that I did not think as
logically as I should.’

Gan turned back towards
the shaft, Ren’s glow stone revealing the complete lack of sand in
the passageway. Gan was greatly relieved to regain the shaft,
staring upwards at the circle of sky overhead. Ren passed him the
glow stone and told him to hold it so that every piece of the door
slab could be thoroughly scrutinised.

‘Aah,’ said Ren with
satisfaction. ‘This is how it opened.’

Tika and the other four
men breathed heavily over Ren’s shoulder while he showed them three
dimples in the upper right corner. They were only visible when the
glow stone was held just so, causing tiny shadows to expose the
minute irregularities in the otherwise flawless block. Ren plucked
the glow stone from Gan’s hand and gave it to Olam.

‘I will have to close
the door to examine the other side. If I do not discover the
mechanism by the time you have counted to – oh, say one hundred –
then you must open it from your side Gan.’

Gan opened his mouth to
object and Ren swung the slab closed. He found himself muttering
some of Pallin’s favourite oaths and controlling an urgent desire
to kick something. Then he began to count. He had reached seventy
three when the door swung wide once more to cheers from Tika and
Olam. Ren beckoned Gan back into the passage and reluctantly Gan
stepped across the threshold. Ren pulled the door shut again and
showed Gan where three similar indentations were to be found two
paces along the wall from the door’s hinge side.

Gan put his fingertips
against the small marks and the door opened, to his considerable
relief.

‘It is getting late in
the day for too much exploring down here now,’ Gan started to say,
and glared when both Tika and Ren laughed at him. But Ren
nodded.

‘I agree. I can arrange
some better light for tomorrow and I will also devise some way to
mark the passages – it divides three ways a little bit further
along.’

Tika paused on the way
back to the cliffs to rub her hand across the block which Ren had
been studying before Riff’s accidental discovery of the shaft. Sket
stayed with her while the others headed on. Farn descended, raising
swirls of sand, to see what interested his soul bond. Storm
spiralled above them before flying seawards again. Tika explained
their discovery to Farn, who greatly disapproved. He went to look
down the hole and returned even more concerned.

‘I like not the thought
of you down there, my Tika,’ he announced firmly. ‘I may not even
be able to contact your mind through such sand or rock. How could I
rescue you, should you find danger? Also, I think we should look
for Brin and Maressa. They should have bespoken us by now – I
think.’

Sapphire eyes whirred
briefly. Farn’s facility with numbers was not his strongest point
and Tika was careful not to smile.

‘Tomorrow Farn.
Tomorrow will be the sixth day since they left and the day they
might – might – be near enough to bespeak us.’

‘Is that right?’ Farn
checked Sket’s opinion.

Tika’s self appointed
Guard nodded. ‘Six days tomorrow Farn.’

‘Oh. Well. I still
think it foolish to go down that hole,’ Farn insisted.

‘We will be very
careful. There will be no danger.’

Smoke wisped from
silvery blue nostrils and Tika sighed. She stood up and hugged the
young Dragon.

‘There is a door at the
bottom of the hole,’ she told him again. ‘And we will leave it open
whilst we explore a little way. I promise I will be most careful
Farn. You will surely be busy with your friend Storm will you
not?’

Farn lifted into the
air, drifting above Tika and Sket as they walked towards Pallin’s
cave and their supper. They found Ren busy with what he told them
were “scientific aids”, and left him to himself. When he eventually
joined them by the small fire, Tika asked for a scrap of paper. He
obliged and watched as she drew misshapen letters upon it. She
passed it back to him.

‘That was the only
whole group on the block you looked at this morning. But it doesn’t
make letters that I can understand, although I believe they are
meant to be letters.’

Ren pored over the
shapes Tika had drawn then he began to draw them himself, making a
line taller here, longer there, holding the paper at a distance and
once, upside down. They all watched him until he looked round the
circle of faces with a triumphant smile.