Dark Realm: Book 5 Circles of Light series (15 page)

Lerran swallowed the
last of the blood drink and rested her hands on her distended
belly. She had often wondered just how her body knew it had to
gorge before a major dealing with the Dark. She accepted that a
short or long Dark working resulted in a frightening loss of body
mass. A shiver trickled up her spine when she remembered the time,
a full millennia past, when it had taken over half a year for her
to regain her strength. That cold finger on her back confirmed her
feeling that this descent would be as bad.

Grent had moved to
share the quarters allocated to Waxin Pule now his master had been
discharged from the infirmary. Gossamer was sitting in her room,
beside the window, watching the stars glitter above the ocean. She
had been deeply shocked to meet Dabray deep below the Karmazen
Palace. Corman had said not a word when he led her down, lower and
lower. Neither had he spoken when she emerged from that strangely
vast chamber.

He had given her a
glass of the warmed blood drink and let her sit for a while when
they’d returned to his offices. For which she was grateful. He’d
busied himself with stacks of papers until she’d finished the
drink. He got up and opened the door, waiting patiently until it
dawned on Gossamer that he intended to take her somewhere else. She
found herself brought to a deeply shadowed colonnade beyond which
the sun beat down on a spacious yard where soldiers exercised.
Energetically.

Gossamer stared back at
Corman in horror but he merely grinned, rather unpleasantly she’d
thought. Corman nodded as Shield Master Garrol approached. Garrol
had a companion, dressed in uniform and who Gossamer could only
have described as a strapping female. She felt panic rising when
she realised Corman had done his vanishing into the shadows trick
and left her alone. Garrol smiled, his eyes seeming very blue in
his dark face.

‘You are to have
weapons drill,’ he began.

‘I am? Who says?’
Gossamer demanded.

Garrol blinked. ‘The
First Daughter’s orders,’ he replied. ‘And this is Sergeant Essa.
She specialises in knife work, as you do I believe.’

Sergeant Essa smiled
down at Gossamer, who had never before thought of herself as a
small woman but now felt sorely undersized. Gossamer rolled her
eyes when she saw that Sergeant Essa’s teeth were a pale purple and
filed into points, reminding her of Drengle List.

‘There’s a smaller
practice area round the corner. Quieter. I thought you might prefer
that.’ Garrol nodded briskly. ‘I’ll see you later.’

Essa strode towards a
square building, part of the barracks Gossamer surmised, and
Gossamer strolled reluctantly after her. There followed an
extraordinarily unpleasant and, to Gossamer, unnecessarily
prolonged, period of time. She spent much of it sailing over or
under Sergeant Essa. Eventually Garrol reappeared. After watching
for a while, he expressed himself satisfied. For now.

Garrol took her back to
the colonnade, handed her over to the waiting Corman and left.
‘We’ll just run through some of those drills later,’ he said
cheerfully. ‘Come back about the fourth hour. Sergeant Essa will be
here.’

Gossamer Tewk limped
along behind Corman. When they reached the spiral staircase
Gossamer recognised as leading to the rooms she shared with Shea,
Corman left her.

‘It really isn’t that
difficult to find your way in the Palace. Especially now that your
brain is functioning at a better rate.’ Corman left Gossamer Tewk
glaring at his back. She hauled herself upstairs and spent some
time soaking her bruises.

The afternoon exercise
was as bad as the morning, but Gossamer had some satisfaction in
knocking Sergeant Essa flat on her back, twice. Thinking back on
it, Gossamer recalled the Sergeant’s wider smile both times she’d
been felled. She also remembered the subsequent pounding she’d got
in reply. Shea was summoned to the First Daughter after dinner and
Gossamer had come to sit by her bedroom window. Shea had stuck her
head round the door a short time ago on her return but the child
seemed subdued. After only a brief conversation, Shea had gone off
to her own bed.

Gossamer studied the
backs of her hands in the faint light from the night sky. After the
exertions today the skin should have begun to deteriorate again.
But it hadn’t. In fact, the knuckles were scraped quite heavily on
her left hand and had bled. Now scabs crusted them, looking several
days older than they should have. Although both Corman and Dabray
had explained much to her, Gossamer found it nearly impossible to
comprehend. She knew she had been murdered: a needle dipped in a
particularly fast acting poison had pricked her arm as she worked
through a gathering of merchants.

Then she had woken up
in the Embalmer Snail’s work room, frightening herself a great deal
more than Snail. It had taken Snail all that was left of that night
and all the next day to convince Gossamer she was really dead, and
was, in fact, already partly embalmed. But Corman and Dabray said
her situation could be repaired. She wondered if they meant to cast
some sort of magic to recreate her vital organs, but felt too
squeamish to ask. When she left Dabray, there had been a juddering
thump in her chest. She’d stopped, reaching to the wall for
support, but it hadn’t happened again and Corman hadn’t waited for
her. So she had hurried after him.

The First Daughter had
not mentioned Gossamer’s physical state. Instead, she had explained
what she was asking Gossamer Tewk to participate in. She had spoken
of the Splintered Kingdom but thinking back on exactly what she’d
said, Gossamer was not much enlightened. Somehow there was a link
between the Dark Realm and the Splintered Kingdom, and many other
places Lerran had simply referred to as Places Between. Gossamer
understood only that Favrian would open one of those damn gateways
into the place and then they were to find the young woman and the
guard they’d all seen in dreams or sendings, and get them
out.

It all sounded far too
simple and straightforward to Gossamer Tewk. She’d learned, very
early in life, that there were few things that were simple. She
stared out at the stars, wondering why the First Daughter had made
no mention of any inhabitants in this Splintered Kingdom. And
surely there must be inhabitants, else how could those two people
have been captured and imprisoned there? Gossamer was given to
understand that the woman they were to rescue was connected with a
Dragon far across the sea. Halfway round the world in fact, where
Seola and Nenat had already gone.

Gossamer had always had
a scepticism regarding Dragons, which she now had to revise after
her encounter with Dabray. There was no mistaking what the enormous
carving in that deep chamber represented. She shivered, thinking of
the half exposed head, the eye of so many changing colours. But was
it a carving with some kind of spell making that partial face seem
alive? Or had it really once been a living Dragon? And Dabray had
referred to the First Daughter as his wife. How could a woman marry
a Dragon?

Gossamer rubbed her
eyes which felt oddly gritty, and lay down on the bed. She was
concerned about the child coming on this venture and had asked the
First Daughter if she truly thought it wise to put Shea in danger.
Lerran had simply smiled and said that Shea would be a valuable
member of their team.

Gossamer knew she
didn’t sleep: being dead cancelled out sleep. But there was no way
she could doubt that she had slept because she was jolted awake by
a crushing pain in her chest. She lay perfectly still and the pain
did not recur. Indeed, it vanished quite as abruptly as it had
arrived. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat for a
while, just to convince herself that she felt nothing more. The
room was bright, the sun risen a finger’s width above the sea. Deep
in worried thought, Gossamer went through to the sitting room from
whence she could hear Shea chattering to one of the
maids.

‘Good day Gossamer,’
said Shea through a mouthful of bread and jam.

The maid smiled a
greeting. Shea swallowed and peered harder at Gossamer.

‘Are you all right? You
don’t look so pale as usual.’

‘I’m fine.’ Gossamer
managed a smile and changed the subject. ‘Did the Shield Master
drag you out for weapons drill yesterday too?’

‘Mmm.’ She choked down
another too large mouthful. ‘It was fun. We have to report to him
this morning.’

‘We do?’ Gossamer
regarded her scabbed knuckles and answered her own question. ‘Yes,
I’m sure we do.’

The day was a repeat of
yesterday, although Gossamer found Sergeant Essa rather friendlier.
Instead of forcing Gossamer to defend herself all the time, Essa
stopped in mid attack. She demonstrated how balance and footwork
saved energy and could turn the momentum of a knife attack. The
Sergeant took Gossamer into the barracks when the sun and the hard
work began to make her careless. She didn’t appear to notice that
Gossamer left her mug of cool water untouched.

Essa spoke of her own
impending departure from the Karmazen Palace. She was to lead a
group of scouts into the Barrier Mountains to keep watch for
Veranta’s forces. When Gossamer asked, with some hesitation,
Sergeant Essa told of her upbringing in a small hamlet high in the
mountains. Although the Dark Realm had known only peace for
countless generations, the blood lords insisted everyone took
weapon training. A few children in the many scattered hamlets
proved to have an aptitude for certain skills and were sent to the
Palace.

Essa grinned, revealing
her filed purple teeth. ‘I don’t like swords much and explosives
scare the wits out of me. But I’m good with knives and I can thump
most people pretty hard.’

Gossamer winced, only
too aware of how effective the Sergeant’s thumps could
be.

‘But all this
training,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It isn’t real combat is it? None
of the guards you train and practise with is really trying to kill
you. When you actually come face to face with an armed force which
is trying to slaughter you, how do you know you will be able to
follow your training rather than run as fast as possible in the
other direction?’

Gossamer half expected
Essa to dismiss her words with a scornful laugh but the huge woman
leaned her elbows on the table and replied seriously.

‘The lords test us
all,’ she told Gossamer. ‘You can’t feel them do it or anything,
but somehow they know how our minds work. In every batch of new
trainees, a few are sent home. Oh never in disgrace – usually to
stand as the militia officer for their area. But from something the
Shield Master let slip once, those that are sent away are those who
would waver in a real fight.’ The awful grin reappeared. ‘Learnt
quite a few things from the Shield Master, in bed after a few
beers.’ She winked.

Gossamer had a brief
vision of the stocky Shield Master crushed to the bosom of this
large woman, and pushed the scene hurriedly from her
mind.

At the end of the
afternoon session, Sergeant Essa slapped Gossamer on the shoulder
and wished her luck before striding off to the barracks. Shield
Master Garrol, Corman and Shea stood in the colonnade so Gossamer
bravely forbore from whimpering at Essa’s farewell blow. Garrol
took them into a small room, clearly his office, which overlooked
the exercise yard and told them to be seated. He unlocked a small
cupboard set in the wall behind his desk and removed a small
bundle. He put it on the desk and gently unwrapped the cloth cover
to expose five daggers.

‘These are Dark
weapons,’ he said. ‘They are of blood metal and invested with both
my strength and the power of Mother Dark.’ He slid one blade loose
to reveal the black metal. ‘As long as the blade is allowed to
drink whenever it is fully drawn, it will need no
honing.’

Garrol drew a blade,
longer than his hand, from its sheath at his belt. He held Shea’s
gaze steadily then looked at Gossamer. He touched the blade to his
fingertip and when blood welled, he rubbed it gently along the flat
where it was immediately absorbed. Shea watched closely.

‘They must drink each
time they’re drawn?’ she asked.

Garrol nodded,
resheathing his own dagger. He lifted two from the desk, the two
most slender and held them hilt first towards Shea.

‘Care for them well and
they will always guard you.’

Shea took the knives,
holding them as though they were red hot. She watched Garrol give
the remaining three to Gossamer Tewk repeating the words he’d
spoken to Shea. Gossamer looked down at the daggers. She had a
feeling she was going to need them.

Chapter
Nine

The Lady Emla
eventually tracked down her guests, the Lady Seola and the Lord
Cyrek, sitting in the shade by one of the fish ponds. Seola blinked
rather owlishly as the Lady of Gaharn spoke to her and Cyrek gave a
lopsided grin. Emla frowned.

‘Have you been
exploring my gardens all morning?’ she enquired.

‘Fenj showed us some of
it,’ Seola yawned. ‘Introduced us to your gardener. Said he was a
dear friend of his.’

Emla leaned closer and
sniffed but Seola didn’t notice. ‘Dear stars, they both
need