Perilous Shadows: Book 6 Circles of Light (60 page)

‘Kinder than I
deserve.’

‘Hush.’

Tika heard boots
slapping on stone, several pairs by the sound of it, so she wasn’t
surprised when Dog returned bearing a large dish, followed by Sket,
Navan and Rhaki.

‘I brought both raw and
cooked,’ Dog panted.

‘Cooked,’ Khosa
murmured.

Sket used his eating
knife to slice a tiny morsel from a chunk of meat and held it close
to Khosa’s mouth. She took the sliver and chewed it slowly, eyes
still shut. It took a long time to get a very little food into her
and then she was suddenly fast asleep again. Tika placed her back
on the bed and, for the first time, Khosa gave a tiny wail and
scrunched herself into a ball rather than staying limp on her side.
Dog glanced round and grinned.

‘We look like a bunch
of aunties admiring our first niece.’

Sket grinned back at
her. ‘And judging by the way you sprinted up those stairs, your leg
is completely mended. So you’re fit for drill.’

‘Only a temporary
improvement Captain I’m afraid. Knowing the urgency of my errand, I
nobly ignored the agony.’

Navan and Rhaki kept
their eyes fixed firmly on Khosa and Tika struggled not to let a
laugh escape. She slipped her hand round Sket’s arm, drawing him to
the door.

‘Let’s leave Khosa to
sleep. Dog’s staying on watch, aren’t you Dog?’

‘That’s right, my
lady.’

Outside, Tika laid her
hand over Sket’s mouth. ‘Don’t try to make Dog change, Sket. I love
her the way she is.’

Sket muttered something
extremely rude which Tika pretended not to hear, and followed her
down the stairs.

Tika found an
opportunity to persuade Dromi out with her to visit the river, to
see if more Chyliax had returned the next day. The river surface
was smooth when they leaned over the bridge’s low parapet. Shadow
people crossed back and forth, nodding to the two strangers, but
oddly quiet.

‘Dromi can you summon
shadows?’

Dromi shook his head.
‘I’m not really sure what you mean by that, lady. Do you mean these
people?’

Tika was using a small
touch of power and she knew that Dromi was not
prevaricating.

‘Like this,’ she said,
and hoped it would actually work.

She laid her hand flat,
palm up, on the parapet in the full glare of the mid morning sun.
‘Shadows come to me,’ she whispered in her mind.

Her palm was filled
with black shadows which nestled around the base of her fingers.
She watched, as fascinated as Dromi as a line of shadow crept
towards her thumb, then wrapped itself around her ring. Dromi’s
eyes, their colour a pale grey mixed with blues and greens at this
moment, met Tika’s.

‘We have records of
this,’ he murmured. ‘And still we were too blind to see that tales
of such ability must surely indicate a link with the Shadow Realm
itself. It has not been recorded for many, many generations that
anyone has achieved control over shadows.’

Tika released the
shadows and her hand was empty. ‘I think there is rather a big
difference between command and control Dromi.’

He nodded slowly. ‘So
you are of Shadow.’

Tika’s hand clenched
into a fist and she thumped the parapet. ‘Rhaki’s people say I am
theirs, the Dark Realm claims me. And now Shadow. I don’t think I
am any of these.’

Dromi gave her a look
of compassion. ‘I can understand that. You feel that you are
neither one nor another, yet I think you would like to – belong. If
you are not any of these, then you are a mage of great and unusual
talent. Independent of the Realms, yet talented in all their forms
of power.’

Tika remained silent,
staring down at the fast flowing river as it surged out between the
arches.

‘Lady Tika, I think you
are probably that – a mage of great and unaligned powers. And the
company that gathers around you is your tribe, your family. They
are where you belong.’

Tika turned towards him
but someone called from below.

‘The Tika! The
Tika!’

A smile tugged at her
mouth and she leaned over. ‘Corax! Are you well?’

‘Ooh yes. Water is
wonderful. We swam far, far up this water. We are to swim down it
now. Mother says there’s different water to be in.’

A very large golden
brown spiral shell half surfaced beside Corax and his tentacles
waved wildly, getting tangled in his excitement. Tentacles emerged
from the large Chyliax, stroking over Corax, clearly trying to
restrain his enthusiasm. A voice drifted up to Tika and
Dromi.

‘Lellex, I am. Mother
to this one. I thank the Tika for her patience with his
impudence.’

‘I am glad to meet you
Lellex. Corax is not impudent. I’m sure I would be as excited as he
is to be free of that rock.’

Water sprayed from
several of Corax’s tentacles, reaching rather close to where Tika
and Dromi stood. One of Lellex’s tentacles slapped down hard,
pushing the young Chyliax under the surface briefly.

‘If you should need
caves in your home, the Chyliax will be honoured to eat some for
the Tika.’

‘Oh. That’s most – um –
generous of you. Swim deep and sing well.’

She withdrew from the
parapet and made for the bank side, thinking more of Dromi’s words
than of Lellex’s.

‘Dromi, what was Volk’s
horse Daisy?’

Dromi walked several
paces before he replied. ‘Daisy is like Khosa, but by her own
choice. She never felt comfortable in human form, so she chose to
remain in her horse shape. She and Volk have been together for
years.’

‘And she does use mind
speech, doesn’t she?’

‘She has developed more
skill in it than any other I know, but she refuses to discuss it or
to go to Steadfast Rock and let the Brothers test her.’

Tika snorted. ‘I don’t
have great faith in testing, myself. But does that mean many choose
their animal forms over human?’

‘Very few do
so.’

They climbed up towards
the large double houses above the town, both lost in their own
thoughts. Tika paused.

‘I am going to try to
enter the Splintered Kingdom later today Dromi. Only you, of this
company, know I can call shadows. I would prefer the others not to
know yet.’

‘Will you take Sket?’
Dromi asked.

Tika shook her head. ‘I
will take no one.’

Now the Old Blood
looked deeply worried.

‘No Dromi, no one,’ she
repeated. ‘But come with me now. I’d like to see if we could look
at that painting again.’

Later, Shea greeted
them with the news that Khosa had woken, eaten and, nearly, managed
to wash one paw, before sleeping again.

‘She’ll need time,
Shea. Physically she could be her old self in a few more days but
mentally she is very – sore– and sad. So not too much
teasing.’

Shea glared at her. ‘I
know that.’

Dog came limping in
from the courtyard garden and Tika raised an eyebrow.

‘Knew I’d pay for
scampering up and down those bloody stairs,’ she told Tika
cheerfully.

Tika heard Shea giggle
but chose not to risk getting involved, especially when Sket
arrived to scowl at Dog. She left them arguing and wondered if
Jemin, the Imperator of Kelshan and Shea’s uncle, would entirely
approve of the additions to his niece’s vocabulary. On
consideration, she decided he would probably howl with laughter.
Tika was relieved to see both Kija and Farn were settled on the
central mosaic, apparently dozing. She had decided she would do
this her own way, and with the two nearest to her as her support.
She woke them gently, using mind touch, and quickly laid out her
intentions.

She felt concern from
both but not fear and not opposition. Farn got up, paced close to
his mother and reclined again, enclosing Tika in a wall of Dragon
flesh. She sat on the small amount of stone they’d left between
them, her back against Farn’s side, her feet against
Kija.

‘I’m sorry but I have
no idea how this will work,’ she told them. ‘I will twist my life
thread with both of yours this time.’

Tika made herself relax
and felt a surge of love from her foster mother and her soul bond.
She twisted a skein of thought out to tangle round the Dragons’
minds, and hesitated. Then she called to the shadows. Farn was
momentarily startled but quickly steadied. Tika had warned them
what might happen. Where she sat there was a pool of black shadow,
swirling against the Dragons’ scales. Then it was gone and Farn’s
eyes flashed as he realised he could no longer feel Tika’s body
against his. Kija’s head swung round, over the space where Tika had
been, and Farn’s head moved to touch his mother’s. Kija crooned
gently, soothingly, and the two Dragons prepared to
wait.

The moment she’d called
for shadows, Tika knew these were very different from the small
shadows of the garden. She felt an awareness, an intelligence,
completely envelope her. The Dragons were aware of her
disappearance before she was. When shadows hid her before, she’d
been able to see out, through them, had seen her own hand in front
of her. Now, everything went dark. For a heartbeat she panicked:
was this yet another form of gateway?

‘Not fear.’

It wasn’t a voice, or a
thought, but the words were inside her head and she calmed
immediately.

‘Where?’

‘Can you take me to the
Splintered Kingdom?’

‘Not know.’

Tika thought furiously.
‘The place where the Chyliax were kept prisoner.’

‘Bad place.’

‘I agree completely but
I must go there and try to destroy the thing within.’

She felt a strange
chittering tingling sensation in her mind and then found her feet
on solid stone. She could still see nothing.

‘Let me
see.’

An odd slit in the
blackness opened in front of her eyes and she saw she was in a
familiar looking tunnel.

‘Can the thing sense
shadows?’

‘No. Can sense you if
we reveal.’

‘Take me as close to
the creature as you can, please.’

Again, there was the
chittering sound.

‘Do you do what I ask
or do you have to discuss everything first?’ Tika was curious even
at this moment, rather than annoyed.

‘Protect. Mistress
commands herself into peril.’

Tika tried to decipher
that. ‘I ask you rather than command you, to take me into danger. I
don’t want to go, but I choose to go.’

She waited, hoping
these shadows made more sense of her than she was managing to of
them. The gap in front of her eyes closed, and she felt herself
borne along again, her feet definitely not touching any
surface.

‘Look see
what.’

The gap opened again
and Tika found herself by one of the window things she’d seen
before, when Seela was killed. She frowned, peering through the
restricted space. Then she gasped, recognising the Sea Dragon,
Mist, Elder of Storm’s Flight. The maimed Dragon reclined, watching
men moving stones. They were making a cairn, Tika saw, as she had
done for Ren. Then a face she knew too well: Lord Hargon of Return,
father of Mena, and Tika’s owner, when she had been his slave.
There was no doubt the cairn was for him. Without warning the gap
in her surrounding shadows closed and Tika was moved on. Then, once
more:

‘Look see
what.’

This window made no
sense to Tika. She looked out onto a churning mass of cloud or
water; it was impossible to know which. Thus she was transported
through the Splintered Kingdom, shown window after window. Most of
the scenes were incomprehensible to her but one more made her gasp.
The enormous purple Dragon Seela, powering over a burnt out, ash
choked landscape, towards one particular building.

‘No!’ Tika cried aloud,
and the shadows covered her eyes again.

Tika struggled to shut
out the memory of Seela’s destruction above that building, and
formed a thought for her shadows.

‘Show me no more
please, until you locate the creature.’

‘Dragon friend dead?
Dragon friend shadow?’

‘Yes, she is dead and
she has gone Beyond.’ Then Tika wondered at the shadow’s words.
Were these shadows simply ghosts?

‘No.’

Oh well. If she got out
of this, she had enough things to occupy her mind for the next
thousand years.

‘More.’

Chapter
Thirty-Three

The sensation of moving
ceased again, but the chittering filled her head. Tika waited as
patiently as she could, while the shadows argued, or discussed, or
whatever. Although she knew, if worse came to worst, she could
cause untold damage by unleashing all her power, she preferred not
to even consider that option. For now, she must depend entirely on
the guidance and concealment of the shadows.