A Guardian of Shadows (Revenant Wyrd Book 4) (14 page)

The little girl was dressed in a simple burlap robe. She carried in her hands a hijab, which Cianna knew instinctively was the garb women were forced to enshroud their heads with here in the Realm of Fire.

The little girl turned her caramel-colored face to Cianna, and she could see the tear tracks down her cheeks. The girl could not be any older than eleven, though she was rather short and chubby for her age. Cianna looked at her coffee-colored hair with its honeyed highlights and thought that they could almost be related, their features were so similar.

The little girl held out her pudgy, dirt-smeared hand to Cianna, and for the first time in what Cianna could tell was a long time she smiled, and Cianna’s wyrd reflected in the child. Impossibly, this little girl was a necromancer.

“How?” Cianna asked, but the little girl only smiled. It was a sad curving of the lips that seemed to be the first joy she had had in weeks. Cianna found herself wondering how long this little girl had been here among all the dead. She also wondered what had happened to kill everyone here so assuredly.

The thought chased her out of sleep and into wakefulness.

She sat up straight in her bedroll, looking around at the rest of her group, sleeping in the wee hours before morning. That little girl was out there somewhere, that necromancer that shouldn’t be because
Cianna
was the necromancer, and there was only one alive at a time.

A lich?
Cianna wondered. She had read of the necromancers that had kept themselves alive past their normal life by trapping bits of their souls in trinkets they carried with them. But that didn’t feel right for this little girl. Certainly she was too young to manage such wyrdings.

She could feel the energy of the girl out there like a beacon drawing her on, even as the Necromancers’ Mosque was calling to her. Cianna needed to find her, and now she had a name to accompany the dream: Ava.

There was no possible way she was going to get back to sleep now; her mind was racing with too many questions, too many things she had to do. Cianna wished there was a way she could just hurry to the mosque and then back to the Realm Guardians, but the group were her friends now, and she couldn’t just leave them behind. The trouble was, with Clara being in her trials, travel was much slower.

Maybe if we can find a horse for her.
Cianna wondered if a horse would be able to come in contact with the sorceress without harming them. Devenstar had carried her, but that was dangerous, because they never knew when she would slip into one of the wyrded trances that had protected them from the kelpies. What happened if she sensed that Deven was a threat, and then killed him as effectively as she had the kelpies?

No, in this Cianna trusted Flora. They would continue to drag her on the makeshift litter they’d created.

Cianna busied herself with stoking the fire and preparing breakfast for the group so that when they woke they wouldn’t have to waste time with that.

They had been in the Realm of Fire for nearly a week at that point, and Cianna didn't think there could exist a more unforgiving land in all the world. The Realm of Fire was a vast desert with very little real settlements that Cianna knew of. She had always loved the idea of the Realm of Fire when she read about it in books, with the fanciful towers and castles open to the elements, with very few real windows and doors, but instead cloth draped over openings. The way the people were darker than normal, with hair like shadowy silken sheets. Even the way they dressed and painted their faces. Eyes dark with dramatic makeup, clothing long, free flowing, and of vibrant colors.

But now that she was here, she wasn't sure how anyone could actually live here. Traveling caravans created temporary towns and villages wherever they set down for a week, a month, a year. As far as Cianna could tell there was no real way of determining the amount of time they stayed in one place. She thought maybe it had to do with water and other resources, but that wasn't anything she could truly test.

They had come across two caravans in the first week. Flora said it was rare to come across one, and was truly surprised to come across two. The first she wouldn't let them go anywhere near because the tents were of dark colors.

“The colors of the tents tell you what kind of caravan they are. Dark colors will tell us they are not friendly, and don't like strangers. Light, faded colors mean they are friendly, and encourage visitors. Vibrant colors mean they are traders; you can stay with them for a time, as long as you buy something.”

“What would happen to us if we went into the dark caravan?” Cianna wondered.

“Killing is strictly prohibited in the Realm of Fire, but the desert is vast and people go missing all the time.”

They steered clear of the dark caravan.

As Cianna was finishing up breakfast Devenstar began to stir from sleep. He woke without a word, barely a smile, and started helping her with the finishing touches. Once he had his cup of coffee in hand he seemed more human and willing to talk.

Before long the rest of them rose.

They were on the road nearly an hour earlier than normal, and all the while they traveled Cianna felt the energy of the little girl drawing her on. She knew if they kept their current pace they would come across the burned-out caravan before nightfall, though they would probably want to make camp somewhere different, instead of among the smoldering dead.

“I think we are going the wrong way,” Flora told her. She looked back at the old teacher, the heat of the day raising off the sandy dunes in waves, making Flora appear more like a vision rather than substantial.

They had taken all of their extra clothing out to cover their flesh and protect it from the sun. It had taken a lot of searching for Cianna to find something that wasn’t black, but at last she had.

“There’s something I want to check out first,” Cianna said.

“That dream?” Flora asked. Cianna had told her about it before, on Kelpie Way. She was surprised the old lady remembered.

Cianna nodded.

“Alright, and then we must see my aunt, so you can be free of us,” Flora joked. Cianna smiled back at her, and they started out again, the going slow with the sand shifting beneath their feet the way it did. Cianna would never get used to the way the ground moved. In the Realm of Earth there weren’t any sandy dunes.

It was approaching dusk when she saw the first telltale signs of smoke drifting up into the air. As if seeing it awoke her other senses, Cianna could suddenly smell burning wood and flesh.

“Dear Goddess, you’re right. There it is,” Flora whispered.

“Stay behind and make camp,” Cianna suggested. “I feel this is something I need to do alone.”

No one argued. Cianna had pushed them hard that day and they were more than happy for the reprieve.

As she neared the burned tents, the tall white lady stepped out from behind an overturned wagon affixed with sled blades instead of wheels.

She was tall, and beautiful. What Cianna thought before were her bones showing through flesh were really tattoos covering every inch of her exposed skin, giving the appearance of a skeleton. Her fingers were tipped in golden nails, and her white dress wasn’t made of sequins after all, but some opalescent material Cianna never knew existed. It shimmered and winked at her like light reflecting off water.

On her head sat a golden top hat, pulled low over the front of her skeleton-tattooed face. All Cianna could see of the woman’s face was her long nose and her lush full lips curved in a half smile.

The entity motioned for Cianna to follow, and Cianna was powerless to refuse her.

The sand gave way to hardened ground. Cianna could tell this caravan had been a more permanent one, equipped with roads hardened from many people walking over it. The tents that weren't completely burned-out sported light colors — this had been a friendly, welcoming caravan. Cianna wasn't sure why it had come to such ruin.

“What happened here?” Cianna asked the white lady. The lady stopped, turned to Cianna, and held one finger to her lips. A sense of peace came over Cianna. She suddenly felt sorry that she had spoken and interrupted the restful dead.

A few more feet and Cianna could hear the weeping. The girl from her dreams was here, still intact and alive. Cianna sighed a breath of relief that she hadn't been aware she was holding. The girl was still alive.

There were many alleys and walkways, leading down through different tents. All around the border of the makeshift village sat the same odd wagons with sled blades, like the walls of a city, keeping those within protected in some way.

Though there were many alleys and lanes to get lost in, the white lady led Cianna true, taking her down certain lanes and avenues until Cianna was nearly lost. Before long, however, Cianna stood beside a charred tent, the fabric nearly completely burned, but no longer smoking as some of the establishments had been. It was a pink tent, with charred wood holding it up.

The crying was louder here, and though Cianna wasn't sure if the structure would hold if she walked in, she still found herself picking her way through the rubble of possessions to the inside of the dark tent.

Outside, the lady held up her hand and a ghostly white light appeared, floating above Cianna's head. She had seen lights like this before, when Sara had conjured one, but this wasn't the same; this light wasn't made out of wyrd, but with the aid of the dead. It was a ghost light.

Now she could see the inside of the tent, and if it hadn't been mostly caved in, it would have been an absolutely huge structure containing four beds, a large clothes press, a sitting table and other amenities that Cianna didn't recognize because of fire damage.

She followed the sound of the crying to a bed, and when she looked under it she saw the little girl from her dreams, her brown burlap covering smeared with smoke, her dark skin smudged with ash, and her hair dirty and matted from days, maybe weeks of not being washed.

Cianna reached for the girl, but she shied away. Then, with a sob, the girl vanished. But not into thin air, as Cianna would have thought. Instead the girl vanished as smoke, which slithered across the ground, making its way to Cianna, and then merged with her energy.

Cianna tried backing away from the smoke, but it was too late. She fell backwards, her back pressed tight against one of the ruined beams of the tent.

Cianna had felt the energy of the dead course through her before, but this was different. With the girl's energy came power. This girl had been a necromancer, though not old enough to have been called yet.

She stood on wobbly legs and tried to make her way out of the tent, but as she looked around her the tents and smoking rubble changed; the scene aged before her. What she previously thought had been a recent attack must have been done years ago. Most of the tents had been worn down by age and the elements. The fabric held very little color now, and most of the structures had actually become one with the desert again.

It would make sense,
Cianna thought.
It must have happened before I was born.
That would have been about thirty years ago. Maybe twenty. The thing that was strange about necromancers was they didn't normally waken to life until their mother had died. That was where Cianna was a little hazy. Did that mean the previous necromancer, in this case Ava, died as Cianna wakened? Or did she die when Cianna was birthed?

She looked back at where the tent had stood moments before, a part of a burning village, now crumbled to ash and sand. If Ava's mother had died in that fire, did that mean Ava had lived for years before waking to life? Maybe her mother had died before.

Cianna looked around for the white lady, but she was nowhere around. Vanished like the rest of the village, no doubt.

But what happened?
Cianna wondered.

No sooner had the thought formed than Cianna was greeted by a vision out of other eyes. Ava’s eyes.

She watched the children playing in the street, laughing and kicking around a leather ball. She wanted to join them, but she was sick, and her father told her she wasn't allowed to play, that she had to rest.

She lay on her bed, watching out the doorway as people passed by about their daily business, greeting one another with kind words or lengthy conversations, and she dozed.

It was later in the afternoon when the first of the screams woke her. There was the heavy smell of smoke in the air, and crying from scared lips.

Her father ran in, a thin, sickly looking man, and pushed her under the bed.

“Hide there, Ava,” he told her in a heavy accent. “They've found us.”

A shadow fell across the door, and Ava's father's screams chased Cianna from the vision.

Cianna knew from the memories of the child that it had been another caravan, a rival caravan. She didn't know there were such a things, caravans that warred among each other.

She shook her head and stood. She wasn't sure how long she had been in the ruins, but she had to get out. It was dark, and when the white lady left, she had taken with her the ghost light.

Here,
a small voice said into her head.

Cianna was shown the mechanics: how to call the spirits, bend them to her desire, and create wyrdings. She followed Ava's instructions. She felt the call of her necromancy go out, and the answer of a spirit nearby, willing to work her will. Cianna felt the ghost come to her. It gathered to her right. She sent out the willing of necromancy, urging the spirit to do as she desired.