Drogoya: Book 3 Circles of Light series (46 page)

Tyen straightened,
looking about him. Twilight by the river had become virtually full
dark beneath the thick needles of the fir trees and no sky was
visible above them. Looking back, Mena could just glimpse the blur
of grey which was the road they had crossed, and knew they must
keep it to their left whilst angling further away to the right.
Glancing at Tyen, she pointed in the direction she felt they must
go. He shrugged and nodded.

When it was too dark to
walk without bumping into a tree trunk, Mena sank onto the thick
needles at the bole of a tree. Tyen slid down beside her and she
handed him two biscuits from her pack and a handful of fruits. They
both froze as a wailing cacophony began to sob in the distance.
Mena felt Tyen tense against her side and put her hand on his arm.
The sound continued but grew no louder or closer, and slowly Tyen
relaxed again. Mena was more worried right now about Cho Petak
trying to find her mind.

Hazy memories of old
Mayla instructing her on how to hide her thoughts drifted elusively
in her head, mixed with things picked up from Kadi and the other
Dragons. She yawned hugely and tried to concentrate her thoughts
again. But her eyelids were too heavy and after another jaw
cracking yawn, she slept. Tyen was already asleep, slumped against
Mena’s shoulder, so neither child noticed the fragrance of mint
which enveloped them like a blanket.

They spent two days
getting deeper and deeper among the firs. At the end of the second
day, they rested in a small clearing caused by the fall of a great
tree which had brought down several others when it had crashed to
the ground. A small clear stream ran noisily under the fallen trunk
from which Mena refilled her flask. She and Tyen had spoken even
less since leaving the Menedula than they had within the garden,
and Mena noticed Tyen seemed far less sure of himself
now.

‘Have you been in these
woods before?’ Her voice felt rusty from so little use when she
spoke that night.

Tyen hugged his knees
to his chest. ‘Only been from Syet to Paril – the next town down
river, past the bridge I spoke of.’

She waited, but Tyen
said nothing more and soon they were both asleep.

By midday of the third
day, the trees were clearly thinning and when they stopped for a
few of the remaining nuts and biscuits in Mena’s pack, Mena
unfolded her map and spread it on the ground. Tyen squatted next to
her.

‘Do you understand
maps?’ Mena asked.

‘I only seen maps of
Syet,’ he said. ‘Easy to work them out.’ He jabbed a finger onto
the paper. ‘Reckon we must be somewhere here. And you want us to
get there?’ Another jab and a raised brow.

Mena nodded. ‘Three
days and we’ve done this much.’

She measured the space
with her fingers between the Menedula and where they guessed they
now were. Then she measured the same distance again, and again
until she reached the Oblaka.

‘About nine more
days.’

She looked into Tyen’s
face. ‘We will soon need to find food.’

He nodded. ‘No berries
about, too early.’ He shrugged and stood up.

‘Why did you need maps
in the town Tyen?’ Mena asked as they began walking
again.

He walked in silence
for some further paces then shot her a crooked smile.

‘I had to learn
everywhere in the town: roads, alleys, every footpath, the drains
and the sewers. Then the ways over the rooftops.’

Mena frowned, trying to
work out why Tyen would need to learn all that. He
laughed.

‘Don’t matter now.
Town’s so burnt down, drains were the only safe places left.’ He
faced her defiantly. ‘We was the best thieves in Syet, in all
Drogoya I shouldn’t wonder. Anything anyone wanted off someone
else, we could do it.’

Mena grinned at him. ‘I
have never met a thief before. Not that I know of, anyway. I
wondered why you should know your way through those drains so
well.’

‘One of the Kooshak
told my father he should send me to the Menedula for a student,
years ago. But my father got very angry, said he’d never allow such
a thing.’

Mena glanced at him
curiously. ‘Would you not have liked to study?’

‘Oh yes. Good in
ordinary school I am. Was. Liked reading, specially tales of long
ago days.’

As Mena drew breath to
speak again, Tyen put his arm out barring her way.

‘Hush now. See, the
trees end soon. Light knows what may lie beyond.’

Mena dropped a little
behind him when Tyen began to move from tree to tree until they had
reached the edge of the woodland. They crouched together, staring
over rough pasture land towards a sturdy stone building. No animals
grazed there but Tyen pointed silently to where a few hens
scratched alongside a broken fence. No smoke rose from either of
two chimneys and nothing moved but the hens.

‘Follow me exactly,’
Tyen whispered. ‘Maybe we’ll find a couple of eggs at
least.’

He led them through the
tree line to the fence and they crept along the side furthest from
the building. Mena’s heart thudded so hard that she thought it
would be heard paces away, but she stuck close to Tyen’s heels. He
gestured her to wait in the angle between a water barrel and the
house wall, and he slipped around the corner out of sight. Mena
crouched, ready to run, and kept watch in every direction. She
jumped when a hen poked its head round the barrel and advanced to
scratch the ground at Mena’s feet. She heard the sound of someone
being sick and was round the corner of the house in a flash. Tyen
was doubled over, his face ashen. Mena glanced at the open door but
Tyen grabbed her arm.

‘Don’t! They’re all
dead in there.’

Mena wiped his wet
forehead with her hand. ‘But there might be some food we could
take,’ she said gently, and turned to the door. ‘Wait here – see if
you can find some eggs.’

She did not hesitate,
walking straight through the door into a stench worse than any she
had smelt before. She kept her gaze up, only seeing jumbled shapes
on the floor with her peripheral vision. The room was plainly the
main living area of the house and Mena carefully crossed to a row
of cupboards attached to the wall at the furthest end. Still not
looking down, she dragged a chair with her towards the cupboards,
biting her lip when something impeded the chair’s
movement.

Climbing up to the
cupboards, she was surprised and thankful to discover food was
still stored within them. She shrugged her satchel from her back
and began to put in whatever she found. She breathed through her
mouth in an attempt to mitigate the smell, but she knew she could
not be too long in here for fear of copying Tyen’s
reaction.

She left the grains and
dried vegetables: she doubted the wisdom of lighting any fires to
do proper cooking, and her notions of cooking were fairly limited
anyway. Behind the door of one cupboard hung a small canvas sack
and she filled that as well as her satchel. She stepped off the
chair and made for the door but she stopped when she reached
it.

Tyen stood waiting for
her a few paces away, his ragged shirt held bunched to hold the
eggs he had found. Mena straightened her shoulders and lifted her
chin. Slowly and deliberately, she turned around and took one step
back inside the door. She looked down at the floor and saw the
bodies which were sprawled there. Two men, a woman, three children
all smaller than her. None of them had eyes, though whether that
was due to whatever had killed them or to the hens, she couldn’t
guess. Their bodies were bloated and contorted. An arm lay several
paces from a body. The two biggest children had their stomachs
ripped and coils of intestines spooled around them.

Mena stared at the
carnage, willing herself to remember this scene in every horrific
detail. Cho Petak had allowed this, and Cho Petak would pay.
Although quite how she could make him do so was yet unclear to
her.

Sarryen realised that
Arryol’s diagnosis was correct. Finn Rah made no more fuss about
keeping to her bed and taking whatever pills and potions Arryol
presented to her. Occasionally Finn showed her impatience with her
illness by a sudden irritation and a short tempered retort but
mostly she was resigned. Soosha spent the evenings with the
Offering giving Sarryen a chance to escape the sickroom.

Lyeto had led small
groups of students onto the much widened viewing ledge where they
attempted to approach the Menedula’s immediate vicinity with their
minds. They were all shown Mena’s mind signature and told that was
what they must trace. So far they had no success to
report.

Melena frequently sat
with the Kooshak in the common room and Sarryen had begun to see
that the girl would become her pupil. Melena had a similarly broad
spectrum of talents to Sarryen’s own, and had been worried that she
seemed to have no specific calling.

‘Accept the many
talents you have,’ Sarryen told the girl one evening. ‘Work on them
all until one may begin to predominate. But accept your gifts first
of all,’ she repeated. ‘Many students whom I have encountered are
excellent in their one particular area, but they are often
blinkered by that exclusivity. One such as you or I can see many
parts that go to make up a whole, which those others cannot
see.’

Melena nodded slowly.
‘I had not considered that before,’ she said and gave Sarryen a shy
smile. ‘I could not understand why my eyes silvered and yet I am
unable to excel at any one thing.’

Sarryen studied the
girl for a moment. ‘If things were as before, I would ask you to
travel with me, as my pupil Melena. But things are not so, no
matter how we might wish them to be. You know that Finn Rah is very
sick?’

Melena
nodded.

‘My time must be given
to her for now but I will set aside some time each day – when it is
convenient for your other studies, and I will begin to instruct you
in Kooshak generalities – if that is your wish.’

Sarryen grimaced as a
group of students burst into noisy laughter across the common room.
‘Amidst this noise, is not a good idea.’

‘I am free of duties
around mid morning most days. Would that suit you
Kooshak?’

‘That would be fine.’
Sarryen frowned. ‘It will be busy again in here at that time, so
come to my room. I will make a note of some of the texts you will
need to work on, which you can start should Finn Rah delay me.’ She
looked into the girl’s grey silvered eyes. ‘Yes,’ she thought. ‘I
will enjoy teaching you.’

Making her way back to
Chakar’s sitting room, she tried to work out how long it was since
she had chosen a pupil, one who was called to be Kooshak rather
than continue the climb up the ranks within the Menedula. It must
be nearly thirty years she realised with some surprise. That last
one had been a boy, but wrack her brain though she might, she could
not think of his name. Surely the longevity inducements could not
be failing yet – she had not reached her first hundred years!
Sarryen resolved that she would remember that boy’s name before she
allowed herself to sleep again and marched into Finn Rah with a
scowl on her face.

‘You look in just the
mood to cheer an invalid,’ Finn remarked brightly.

Sarryen’s scowl gave
way to a smile. ‘I’m becoming forgetful Finn Rah. I have forgotten
the name of someone thirty years in my past.’

‘Happens to us all. I
can’t remember the names of half the people here – doesn’t mean
that I am falling apart.’ Finn scoffed.

Soosha chuckled from
his armchair. ‘Finn called me “erm” for years.’

‘I did not.’ Finn was
indignant, then held her breath for a moment as the hated cough
threatened to erupt.

‘Sit,’ Finn ordered the
Kooshak in a quieter voice. ‘Soosha and I were wondering about the
chance of finding the children by dream walking. It is far less
strenuous than far seeking. That is probably why old Babach used
that method so often.’

Sarryen took the other
armchair. ‘I have used dream walking occasionally, when I have
needed advice from other Kooshak on cases I was dealing with.’ She
nodded. ‘I had no difficulty with such a means of communication.
But if we found the children through dream walking, would they
comprehend its reality? They might simply think that they had
experienced a rather odd but vivid dream?’

‘No, I think not.’ Finn
replied after a pause. ‘The girl would understand and act upon
whatever advice we could offer.’

Sarryen said nothing
although her face reflected her doubt. Finn glanced at Soosha as
though asking him to defend her argument. He caught Sarryen’s gaze
and held it.

‘Sarryen, this child is
very special. Although totally untrained as far as I can guess, yet
she could see Finn Rah fully when Finn sought her. You know that
when minds meet when far seeking, they only appear as faint lights.
If you choose to reveal yourself in an illusion to the recipient,
you can do so – in whatever guise you wish. But the girl SAW Finn
Rah. It was almost as if she traced the mind link back here and saw
Finn for herself.’ The old Observer shrugged. ‘How could that be
done so fast, even as the child was speaking with Finn? No Sarryen.
We have to accept that this child has strengths beyond anything we
have known, aware of them or not. She would understand and act upon
the advice of a dream walker.’