Dark Realm: Book 5 Circles of Light series (41 page)

She frowned. The walls,
as all in the Citadel, were of stone blocks, smooth and grey. Or
should be. She moved closer to the nearest wall and stared,
reaching out to touch it. It looked as though it had melted and
begun to run downwards, then set again. The ripples and ridges were
hard and cold, and covered all the walls she could see. Then she
turned to the body.

Ternik lay on her back,
her legs twisted to one side. It seemed her entire chest and belly
were ripped open, but where Veranta would have expected to see
splintered bone, ruptured organs, there was an emptiness filled
with a dark red jelly like substance.

‘Summon the anatomists
and the healers,’ she demanded, bending closer to look at the stuff
which filled Ternik’s body.

Unlike blood, it stayed
within the torn corpse and Ternik’s clothes seemed free of it.
Surely there should be blood everywhere, splattered across the room
as well as drenching clothes and carpet. Finally, Veranta looked at
the face, partially hidden beneath a dark green shawl. Where
another might recoil, Veranta peered closer, twitching the cloth
aside with the tip of a long fingernail.

The face may once have
been Ternik’s, but was no longer. It appeared as if the bones had
been crushed, then reset, The cheekbones higher, sharper, the brow
heavier and lower. What could only be tusks jutted from the lower
jaw: the lips would not have been able to close over them. The one
ear Veranta could see was too large, more bestial than human. The
eye sockets were empty cavities, not even filled with the jelly
stuff that was in the eviscerated body. The skin was grey and
leathery, tight against the realigned bones. Nothing like Ternik’s
pale delicate skin.

Veranta straightened.
Ternik had said she came from the eastern plains where Kelshan farm
lands bordered the lands of the fisher clan folk. She’d said she
had to move north to learn her mage craft. But had she? Sounds
behind her proved to be more guards, two anatomists and three
healers. She watched their reactions and saw the anatomists looked
aghast while the healers showed a fascinated interest.

‘I would suggest you
take care with that – whatever it is inside her,’ Veranta told
them. ‘Perhaps, as she is lying so conveniently on that carpet, you
should use it to carry her to your investigation rooms. I want a
preliminary report quickly, details can wait.’

She watched two guards
help the healers lift the carpet and the body. The Imperatrix
waited until they’d left before she wandered round the room again,
studying the walls. Then she examined the books piled in haphazard
heaps on every available surface.

‘I want this room
guarded. No one enters unless on my signed order.’

She saw yet more guards
filling the hallway and raised her voice slightly. ‘I repeat, no
one enters this room.’ She walked between the guards to the main
door.

One of her escorts
cleared his throat and she glanced at him.

‘My lady, there is no
sign of the Lady Kerris within the apartment.’

Veranta froze. The
guard paled.

‘What did you say?’
Veranta’s voice was very soft.

The guard repeated his
words.

‘When was she last
seen?’ Veranta demanded.

The guard jerked his
head in the direction of the sitting room. ‘One of the maid said
that Lady Kerris was tired and upset after the ceremonies in honour
of Lady Mellia. She refused to change her dress, said she wanted no
lunch, and that she would stay in her room. The maid went with Lady
Kerris and saw her lie on her bed with a book.’

‘Kitchen
staff?’

The guard shook his
head. ‘No one saw her my lady. And there were four people there all
the time – still are, as the guards have let no one in or
out.’

‘This is ridiculous.’
Veranta gestured at the door and the guard leaped to open it for
her. She strode ahead, her affected too-small steps nearly tripping
her in her haste and the unaccustomed long dressing
gown.

Her two escorts hurried
to catch up, exchanging quick nervous glances as they did so.
Reaching her suite, Veranta paused.

‘Send for Chief
Questioner Nimpod and General Beslow to attend me here. At once.’
She slammed the door in the guard’s face and his shoulders sagged
in a sigh of relief.

A crash came from the
other side of the door and the guard turned to his partner to
speak. But his partner was already off to alert one of the
messengers who waited at each landing. The remaining guard cursed
quietly and took up position before the Imperatrix’s
door.

General Beslow was the
oldest officer in the Kelshan army. Shortly after Veranta’s
accession, he had begged permission to go into partial retirement.
He had been deeply loyal to Jarvos and the rise to power of this
unstable and vicious woman appalled him. He had been summoned back
to the Citadel when General Whilk left for the Barrier Mountains.
In the intervening days since Whilk’s departure from Kelshan and
Beslow’s return, Veranta hadn’t bothered to meet with the old
General. Now she would have to brief him, carefully, on the
“expeditionary force” she’d sent south.

Veranta had dressed by
the time General Beslow was announced at her door. She was
surprised to see he had scarcely changed in the dozen or more years
that had passed since he’d been at court. His white hair was still
thick and springy, his back straight, his eyes clear. Veranta
greeted him politely and indicated a chair.

‘My youngest daughter
has vanished from the suite,’ she began. ‘It appears she has gone,
just as inexplicably as Shea.’

Beslow frowned. ‘A
search is underway of course?’ he asked.

Veranta shrugged. ‘I
feel there is little point in wasting the efforts of guards – she
will not be found.’

Beslow bit the inside
of his cheek to contain his retort.

‘The tutor to the girls
has been murdered, sometime earlier this evening. There was no sign
of a struggle, no intruders. There were many strange things about
the state of the body, which is being investigated now.’ She smiled
at the old General, a smile she thought utterly entrancing but
which made most recipients cringe. ‘You know that General Whilk has
gone south?’ she asked.

General Beslow nodded.
‘I’ve been told he took two thousand men on tactical exercise to
the southern plains.’

Veranta’s smile
widened. ‘Four thousand men. And they are invading the Dark Realm
as I speak.’

Chapter
Twenty-Three

Tika sat on the wall
that ringed the Bear village, watching cloud shadows racing over
the ground in front of her. She was trying to remember when she
last felt so comfortable, so at ease. Shea and Theap had gone off
somewhere with Storm and Farn. Kija had flown out with a terrified
but excited Emas, in search of roots The Bear’s wife needed to make
a bright yellow dye, and Brin was sprawled in the meadow with
children sitting on him and round him, listening to stories of his
travels. Gossamer Tewk was still puzzling over the great painting
on the walls of The Bear’s den and she, Tika, was just
sitting.

Perhaps those first few
days on the beach, when they’d met the Flight of Sea Dragons. But
even then there had been the underlying worry of unknown pursuers.
She tilted her face to the sky, eyes closed, just as a cloud moved
clear of the sun and heat poured down over her.

‘May I join
you?’

Tika squinted up at
Daylith and patted the wall beside her. ‘There’s plenty of room,’
she smiled. ‘I thought you were busy with Jemin and his
General.’

Daylith puffed out a
breath. ‘They’re busy with their maps and their plans,’ he
said.

A companionable silence
fell between them. ‘Is Kerris still glued to The Bear?’ Tika asked
eventually.

Daylith laughed. ‘She
is. Essa and Menagol suggested she join them on a hunting trip
today. The Bear mentioned that he was going to visit Gold Wing’s
village, and that it would mean a stop overnight in one of the
mountain shelters. Essa’s offer was spurned at once as you might
guess.’

‘She’s really grown so
attached to him so very quickly hasn’t she?’ Tika was
thoughtful.

‘The Bear expects
nothing from her. He talks to her, he listens to her, he laughs
with her. Did you know he’s been teaching her to
gamble?’

‘Really?’

‘So don’t play anything
with Kerris that involves a wager,’ Daylith warned her.

‘Can I ask you
something?’

‘Of course.’ Daylith
sounded a little cautious.

‘Can you change into a
Dragon?’

Daylith sighed and
jumped down from the wall. ‘Let’s walk,’ he suggested.

They strolled along
beside the wall. ‘Yes I can change,’ he admitted. ‘Most if not all
Dark blood children can do so. It happens first when we move from
childhood to become adults.’

Tika nodded.

‘For us, that is
usually around twenty years old. We are taught how it happens, the
signs that it may be approaching. Parents usually stay close at
this time. The first time, it is a very strange feeling, not
altogether pleasant. It is also exhausting. Sometimes, rarely, it
proves fatal.’

They followed the
curving wall, coming into a shadowed stretch which was surprisingly
chill given how warm the sun had felt.

‘And do you then have
to change shape often, or what?’

‘After the first time,
you wait until everyone – healers, family, yourself – considers you
to be fully recovered. It causes a great strain physically the
first time in particular. Then you make your first descent into the
Dark.’

Tika waited but Daylith
remained silent until they emerged from the shadowed side of the
village and felt the sun on them again. Daylith stopped, gazing
down the small valley, hedged in by the mountains. He turned to
look directly at Tika.

‘The descent is
terrifying. Far more so than the first transformation.’

Tika listened carefully
to his tone, his words, and the spaces between the words, and
understood that Daylith would never voluntarily enter the Dark
again. He drew a long breath then exhaled slowly and began to walk
on.

‘I’ve said that most of
us have the ability to transform bodily but it is only the most
powerful of the mage trained who do so with any regularity. As for
descending into the Dark, again, only healers or mages undertake to
do so.’ He hesitated. ‘That first descent can also be fatal for a
few, or may leave them with no mind of their own – either empty
vessels, or filled with something that overwhelmed them in the
Dark.’

‘What happens to them?’
Tika asked as steadily as she could, appalled at the thought of
young people losing their minds in such a way.

Daylith gave her a
smile of reassurance. ‘They are well cared for, either in one of
our sanctums or in their own families. They are regarded with
honour, as ones who Mother Dark has marked for reasons only She can
know.’

‘And is that what’s
happened to the First Daughter?’

‘The First Daughter is
the most powerful of us all. The oldest of us all. Perhaps she is
the bravest of us all. No one has ever reached so deep into the
Dark.’

‘Corman told me that
the last time she went so far was when your people fought the
creature from the Splintered Kingdom?’

‘Thousands of years
ago,’ Daylith nodded.

‘And it took a year or
more for her to recover?’

Daylith grinned
suddenly. ‘You are thinking like a short lived human,’ he teased
her. ‘One year, five. To us it is an eye blink.’

Tika suspected it
wasn’t quite as simple as that but let it go. ‘And this time,
although this Crazed One is renewing his attack upon this world,
the First Daughter did not descend to the Dark to fight him, if
that is what she did before? She went for Farn.’

‘It is said that the
First Daughter descended to seek out Mother Dark herself. We know
only that whilst the First Daughter was gone, something, some
force, repelled the Splintered Kingdom.’

‘Repelled it
where?’

‘You call them Places
Between. We call them different planes, different realms of
existence.’

‘You knew of course of
the Dragon Kindred who live in my lands across the sea?’

Daylith
nodded.

‘Are you anything like
them, or perhaps related to them?’

Daylith stared down at
the little meadow, where Brin seemed a splash of crimson on the
pale young grass.

‘As all things come
from Mother Dark, so we are connected. But other than that, no, we
are not like them.’ He glanced at Tika in amusement. ‘There is
great excitement in the Karmazen Academy though. Your Dragons’ use
of mind speech for instance, that’s driving some of the teachers
and researchers demented.’

‘Really?’ Tika’s brows
rose in disbelief.

‘Really. My parents can
talk of nothing else. They are both researchers.’