Perilous Shadows: Book 6 Circles of Light (10 page)

‘I am Sergeant Essa,’
she said cheerfully. ‘You’ll soon get to know us all.’

And slapped his back in
welcome.

Sket helped Rhaki back
to his feet and the child popped up beside them.

‘I’m Shea, and I have
tried telling Essa not to do that but I think she enjoys
it.’

Shea took his arm and
led him towards the building. Rhaki saw the uniformed people now
surrounded Tika and were listening to her account of where she’d
been. Apparently her unannounced disappearance had annoyed them
considerably.

A man blocked the door
as Shea and Rhaki approached, a burly, bearded man with small dark
eyes. Rhaki felt a faint tug in his memory, then it was
gone.

‘This is Volk. He
brought us here.’ Shea introduced the man.

Rhaki gave a cautious
smile.

‘You are not who you
seem.’ Volk’s voice was a deep rumble.

Rhaki stiffened. ‘You
know me?’

Volk regarded him for a
long moment then shook his head. ‘I knew who you were. But that man
told me he planned to do this. So no, I do not know you
now.’

Volk started to walk
past them and Rhaki put out a hand to delay him.

‘I’m sure you’ll think
this very odd, but please, please, don’t tell me about him. It is
difficult enough.’

Again the dark beady
eyes peered intently into Rhaki’s face. Then Volk nodded
once.

‘I can imagine that.
What is your name now?’

‘Rhaki,’ Shea told
him.

Volk turned away. ‘As
you say. Rhaki.’

‘I thought you might
like some peace.’ Shea tugged Rhaki’s arm. ‘You looked a bit lost
out there.’

Rhaki was unable to
reply, overcome by this child’s easy kindness. She took him along a
corridor and stopped at one of several doors. Carefully, she turned
the handle and poked her head inside. Rhaki heard someone
chuckle.

‘You surely don’t plan
to take more of my fortune from me at this early hour?’

Shea pushed the door
wide and pulled Rhaki inside with her. Rhaki saw a frail old man
propped in a bed. His grey beard was braided and decorated with
beads and shells. His faded blue eyes were surrounded with silver,
like Tika’s. But what drew Rhaki’s gaze was the pendant which
rested on the thin chest. The old man saw where Rhaki’s gaze was
fixed and a shaky hand lifted to cover the pendant
protectively.

‘This is Babach,’ Shea
announced, plopping onto the side of the bed. She waved a hand at
Rhaki. ‘And this is Rhaki.’

‘Why do you stare so?’
Babach asked, a trace of fear in his voice. ‘Do you know what it
is?’

Chapter
Six

Tika took some pains
explaining just who Rhaki was. She wanted to make the situation
absolutely clear to all her company and, after a brief pause, she
quietly insisted that she trusted this man and expected them to.
While Tika spoke to her friends the Dragons also discussed Rhaki
among themselves. Once Storm was reassured that neither Farn nor
Kija considered Rhaki a threat in any way, he returned to his game
above the lake. Farn chased after him leaving Brin and Kija on the
grassy slope by the shore.

‘You are sure of
Rhaki?’ Brin asked her directly.

Golden prismed eyes
remained calm. ‘I am,’ Kija agreed. ‘He seems quite a pleasant
man.’

‘Yet he has been
influenced for a thousand winters by the Crazed One.’

Kija extended a wing,
the better to soak up the sunshine. ‘Something caused his release.
The man whose body Rhaki now wears, found him isolated deep in
rocks not far from the Stronghold. There is little enough of that
memory left, but I felt Rhaki had been discarded at that point. We
may never know whether the real Rhaki escaped, or if the Crazed One
rejected him.’

Brin pondered Kija’s
words, half listening to Tika at the same time.

‘You are suggesting the
Crazed One is able to plan far ahead, and to maintain his influence
over great stretches of time, Kija.’

Kija yawned, the sun
winking on the four great fangs which were normally concealed. ‘He
was perhaps more in control of himself then. As you say, a long
time has passed. It seems that control is slipping of late.’ She
twisted her head back over her shoulder and closed her
eyes.

Sket took his half
squad of guards off once Tika had finished talking to them for some
weapons drill. With the usual exception of Dog, who merely grinned
at Sket and ostentatiously rubbed her leg. Tika saw the exchange
and smiled innocently at the engineer.

‘If you’re still having
trouble with that leg, I can fix it for you.’

Dog’s grin didn’t
falter. ‘I wouldn’t dream of bothering you.’

‘Oh no bother at all,’
Tika assured her, but felt her own smile degenerating into a
giggle. ‘It is a very crafty excuse Dog,’ she said quietly. ‘You do
realise that you’re driving poor Sket crazy?’

‘Of course. That’s the
fun of it.’

They were still
chuckling when Shivan joined them but before he could speak, Konya
arrived at some speed.

‘Tika, Shea took Rhaki
to visit Babach.’

Tika frowned. ‘There is
no harm in that surely.’

Konya lowered her voice
although no one else was near the four of them.

‘He seems to know
something about the pendant Babach wears – like yours.’

Tika was running to the
house before Konya’d finished speaking. She burst into Babach’s
room and found Babach laughing, Shea cross legged on his bed, and
Rhaki relaxed in a chair close by. They turned towards her abrupt
arrival in some surprise.

‘I just wondered if you
– erm – were feeling better Babach,’ was all Tika could come up
with.

‘Oh much better, my
dear. I’ll be up this afternoon.’

‘For a short while
perhaps,’ Konya interrupted.

Babach glared at the
healer and repeated his statement firmly. ‘I will be up this
afternoon.’ He held a hand out to Tika. ‘I must confess I was
somewhat alarmed when Shea told me this was Rhaki.’

Tika perched on the
side of his bed and took his hand in hers.

‘I’m sorry Babach. I
should have spoken to you but it all happened in rather a hurry and
I went off to meet him before Kija brought him here.’

Dog grunted, conveying
lingering disapproval of that action.

Shea
grinned.

‘Anyway,’ Babach
ignored both interruptions. ‘Rhaki knew what this is.’ He tapped
the pendant on his chest.

Still holding Babach’s
hand, Tika looked at Rhaki. ‘What do you see when you look at the
pendant?’ she asked casually.

‘There is a shape
inside, like a Dragon,’ Rhaki replied at once. ‘It is a symbol of a
soul. A still living soul.’

‘How do you know that?
Have you seen such a thing before?’

Rhaki frowned then
shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think I have. Is this the only
one?’

Tika cleared her
throat. ‘No, there are several.’ A vision of that cave, hidden deep
in the Domain of Assat, filled floor to roof with countless
pendants, all glowing and pulsing, flashed through her mind. ‘There
is this one.’

She tugged her pendant
free of her shirt collar and held it out. Rhaki leaned forward with
interest.

‘Aah,’ he said. ‘This
is awake.’

Tika stared at him then
turned to Babach. ‘Has that pendant ever grown hot, or burned your
skin?’

Babach shook his head
and Tika turned back to Rhaki.

‘How do you think they
are awoken?’

‘I don’t know.’ He
thought. ‘Possibly when they are in contact with the right
person?’

Tika looked at the
pendant now cupped in her palm. ‘Many people have touched this
since I received it,’ she said.

‘But it would have
woken when YOU touched it, and it would then remain
awake.’

Tika tried to remember
Mena’s pendant, now tucked under Sergeant Essa’s shirt. It had
pulsed when Essa showed it to her. If Rhaki’s theory was correct,
it had woken at Essa’s touch.

‘You have held this one
Tika,’ Babach remarked. ‘But it has never changed or glowed, as I
have seen yours do.’

Rhaki nodded
thoughtfully. ‘There would be only one person to fully awaken one
of these souls. Maybe they sense an affinity with the one holding
the stone. How many others did you say you know of?’

‘Perhaps ten.’ Tika
shrugged, unwilling to speak of the cave the Delvers had protected
for millennia.

Babach had removed his
pendant, weighing it in his hand. ‘This is but a pretty bauble in
my possession.’

He tossed it suddenly
and reflexively Rhaki caught it. He gave a yelp. Light flared from
the pendant’s yellow front, coruscating around the obsidian
backing. Rhaki let it drop onto his trouser leg and shook his hand
in the air. Tika caught his hand, turning it palm upwards. The burn
was minor, a perfect oval of red skin which looked scalded rather
than burnt. Rhaki looked almost embarrassed.

‘Does that mean this
recognises this body, or my soul?’

Tika groaned, seeing
his point but unable to see how to resolve that
question.

‘It accepts your soul.’
Babach sounded definite. ‘I am convinced of that.’

Rhaki lifted the now
quiescent pendant gingerly, holding it by its chain.

Babach sighed. ‘It was
a gift from Mim, but clearly it chooses you.’

Slightly alarmed, Rhaki
gave Tika a questioning look. She shrugged. Behind her Shivan
spoke.

‘Put it on. We’ll pull
it off if it sets you on fire.’

Shea giggled and Rhaki
looked up into yet another strange pair of eyes. These were gold,
as bright as Kija’s and they were set in a young thin face. Warily,
Rhaki slipped the chain over his head and let the pendant lie
against his shirt. There was only the faintest hint of light within
it, to his relief. He watched Tika drop her pendant back beneath
her shirt and cautiously followed suit. Tika couldn’t help but
smile at his expression when he realised the pendant was cool, not
about to blister his skin.

‘Does yours get hot
like this one did?’ he asked.

‘It seems worst if I am
in danger now. It used to happen when I was trying to work a
healing, but now it is whenever it seems to feel there is specific
danger. Like danger from the Splintered Kingdom.’ She pursed her
lips in thought. ‘I don’t think it would alert me to something
falling on my head or anything.’

Dog pushed herself away
from the wall she’d been leaning against. ‘I’m sure I can smell
food,’ she said, and opened the door.

Shea bounced off the
bed and grabbed Rhaki’s hand. ‘Beela is probably the best cook in
the entire world,’ she was saying as she towed him through the
door. ‘Well, Jenniah was very good of course.’

Everyone followed, but
Tika stayed on Babach’s bed.

‘Have you come across
anything – I don’t know – bad, unusual, when you’ve walked through
dreams recently?’ she asked.

Babach sighed. ‘Yes.
But I cannot say where exactly, or even who. I will try again for
you, tonight.’

Tika got to her feet.
‘Be very careful Babach.’

He smiled sadly. ‘I
suspect it may now be concentrated at the Menedula.’

Tika didn’t know what
she could say. Ren had been Babach’s student for many years and she
knew the old man was deeply hurt and shocked by what he saw as
Ren’s betrayal. She had no words of comfort to offer because she
was unsure herself just how long Ren had been following a different
path, and whether it was by his own genuine choice or by the
influence of the Crazed One.

That evening Babach
walked, slowly, to join the crowd in the large main room. In the
few days Tika’s company had been here, the Old Bloods, as they
referred to themselves, had mingled with the guards and had begun
to relax among them. Helped, Tika knew, by Shivan’s dramatically
public transformation to his Dragon form when they’d first arrived
here.

Volk’s hulking figure
rose at one end of the room and the buzz of conversation died away.
A careful check round the faces showed Tika that Hesla was not
present. She wondered why. Volk gazed out over the crowd, directly
at Tika.

‘Lady Tika, we suspect
there is little, if anything, that we can do against the greater
evil you have told us of. Word has gone out to all of our people
who survived the madness which ravaged these lands last summer. But
we here, who still live in these forests, believe we should
concentrate on Finn Rah.’

A growl rose from the
people listening and Tika experienced a wave of hatred washing
through the room. She understood that Finn Rah, as an Old Blood
herself, had committed the greatest treachery in the eyes of these
people. Not only had she pretended that her abilities were achieved
through mage talent, but she had instigated the renewal of Sedka’s
purges of all those of Old Blood.