Lodestone Book One: The Sea of Storms (23 page)

The last rays of Ail-Gan were
clinging desperately to the eastern horizon; soon the bright white
point that was Ail-Kar would share its fate, leaving Ail-Mazzoth’s
dull red orb in sole possession of the sky.

The hooded Keltar turned from the
caravan and walked away. Saccath called after the retreating form.
“What shall we do with these?”

The dark outline stopped and half
turned towards the other two, so that a face could be seen, a
profile deep in shadow.

“Burn
them!”

~

Lyall stood with Shann at his
side, their eyes transfixed on the distant horizon.

“Keris,
” Lyall called over his
shoulder. Shann felt a surge of irritation at the woman’s
inclusion, but said nothing. Keris came and stood on Lyall’s other
side.

Lyall pointed out across the
golden veldt. “What do you make of that? A prairie
fire?”

Keris shielded her eyes and
looked intently at where Lyall was indicating. “I don’t think so;
the smoke rises thin and straight.”

“A camp fire then?”

“I think so…it seems that we are
being followed.” Keris lowered her hand, turning to Lyall. “I will
scout back and find out who it is.”

“What if it is the Prophet’s
soldiers?”

“Then I will fight a rearguard
action if necessary.”

Lyall was shaking his head. “Too
risky. If it is the Prophet’s men, then we have no idea how many
there are. Even you have your limits, Keris.”

“I can take care of myself,”
Keris assured him.

Lyall gave her a wry smile. “I
have no doubt of that, but I was thinking we might set up a monitor
instead.”

Keris looked thoughtful. “You
mean a Vision Sphere?”

“What’s that?” Shann broke
in.

“They are devices used by Keltar
to spy on people.” Lyall replied. Keris shot him a look. “…Among
other things,” he added.

Keris continued to stare at him.
Then she seemed to relax. “Well, I only have one Linked pair with
me. If we set up the transmit sphere along the trail then it seems
unlikely we will be able to go back, so we will lose it. The other
sphere will then be useless.”

Lyall considered this. “We have
to know who it is that is trailing us. I think it’s worth it, don’t
you?”

Keris drew herself erect. “Very
well, I shall make preparations.” She turned and walked over to
retrieve the necessary items from her pack.

Shann turned to Lyall, her face
etched with concern. “What if it is the Prophet’s men?”

Lyall’s eyes were fixed once more
on the distant plume of smoke. “Then we run.”

~

Keris pulled the flap aside and
shouted to Lyall and Shann, who were riding behind the wagon. “I
have a contact.”

Lyall ordered
the wagon to halt. He and Shann tied up their mounts hurriedly and
climbed into the back of the wagon, followed by Alondo. They joined
Keris and Boxx, crowding around them in the cramped space. Keris
sat cross-legged with the sphere suspended in the air before her.
It shone with an inner glow, which illuminated the faces of those
watching. Shann shifted closer. She could see an image, distorted
by the convex surface of the sphere. A rough trail parted the
waving yellow fronds on either side. Objects were moving in,
growing larger. As the party watched, they resolved into the shapes
of men on graylesh, soldiers in leather armour riding high in the
saddle. At their head sat three figures in black.
Keltar

Shann glanced at the others.
Keris sat impassive, concentrating on the image. Lyall’s face was
grim. Alondo looked shocked. Boxx’ mouth was quirked, although she
had no idea what that signified or even if the creature knew what
it was looking at.

The image shimmered slightly and
showed the mounted soldiers approaching. Shann attempted to count
them: four, eight, ten…about two dozen. One of the Keltar stopped
and dismounted as the soldiers filed past. Slowly and deliberately,
he pulled the staff from behind his back and walked up to the
sphere. Shann could see the sharp eyes set in an angular face with
a straight mouth and pointed chin. Sunlight glinted briefly on the
diamond blade as it fell. The light died and the sphere went
dark.

Shann felt numb as she watched
Keris reach out and retrieve the sphere and then gather up the trio
of lodestones that had supported it. It was Lyall who finally broke
the silence. “Keris, do you know who that was?”

“Yes. His name is
Saccath.”

“What do you know about
him?”

All eyes were on Keris, who was
looking down at the now empty floor. “Only that if he catches up to
us, he will show no mercy.”

~

For the next few days, their
routine was unchanging: run…snatch food… run…snatch sleep…run. They
seemed to be maintaining their distance from their pursuers,
although Shann was not sure how, since the riders following them
should have been able to overtake their wagon eventually. She could
not shake the feeling that Keris was involved somehow, and that
they were being toyed with. However she did not feel that she could
talk to Lyall about it, since all she had were her vague
suspicions.

There had been a lengthy argument
between Keris and Lyall over tactics, which Keris had ultimately
won, as her logic was unassailable.

“We can’t keep going and going,”
she insisted. “We have to rest ourselves and our animals some time.
The same applies to them. That means we can only camp when we know
they have camped. If I act as a rearguard scout, I can ride forward
and tell you when it’s safe to stop for the night. Then we post a
watch to guard against a surprise attack.”

Lyall had reluctantly agreed to
her plan, but with strict conditions. “First of all, you are not
doing this alone. You and I will take turns. Second, under no
circumstances are you to engage them. Is that
understood?”

Keris had maintained that she was
the better scout, which was probably true. She also argued that if
she could eliminate the odd soldier or even one of the Keltar by
isolating them from the main group, she would improve their
chances, which was also probably true. Lyall, however, made it
clear that he was not going to be swayed on either of these points
and so Keris had finally acquiesced.

Each evening Keris or Lyall would
catch up to the party and declare that it was safe to stop for the
night. Then, early in the morning before Ail-Gan rose, they would
be on the move again. The journey across the Eastern Plains, which
had begun as an exhilarating ride, affording new experiences every
day, had now become a desperate race for life.

Thus it was that the most
astonishing new discovery remained unnoticed by Shann until their
goal was nearly in sight.

~

“The sun–it’s
moved
.”

Shann was gazing up at the
heavens with a puzzled look on her face.

Keris had just returned from her
scouting exercise and pronounced it safe to camp. She ignored
Shann’s comment and carried on checking her equipment.

Lyall walked over and stood
beside her. It was true. Ail-Mazzoth now took up a position in the
sky part way off towards the western horizon. He pointed up at the
dark crimson circle, smiling. “The sun hasn’t moved, Shann; you
have.” Shann looked questioningly at him. “We are a long way from
Corte,” he continued. “Ail-Mazzoth doesn’t change position,” he
made a fist to represent the sun, “but as we move around our
world,” his other hand moved beneath it as if to illustrate their
progress, “then it appears to move in the sky.”

Shann nodded. “I see.” She was
pensive for a moment. “What if I were to continue walking around
the world in one direction? Would that mean that Ail-Mazzoth would
disappear completely below the horizon?”

“Perhaps,” Lyall replied, “but in
order to do that, you would have to pass through the Great Barrier
of Storms. No-one has ever managed that. So none can say for
certain what might lie on the other side.”

There was a pause as Shann
absorbed the enormity of what Lyall was saying. Then another
thought occurred to her. “If the woman Annata is right, then the
tower will take us beyond the Great Barrier. We will be the first
Kelanni to see what is there.”

“Yes Shann, we will.”

“Do you think that we will be
able to live there, if Ail-Mazzoth is gone?”

Lyall placed a reassuring hand on
her shoulder. “I do not think that the woman from the past would go
to all this trouble only to send us to our deaths. I’m sure it will
be fine. Although,” he looked as if he were considering something
for the first time, “it might well be a very strange
place.”

A place where
the mother sun did not exist;
what could
it possibly be like?

~

Shann hastily
stuffed her blanket into the saddle pack and grasped the reins of
her graylesh, waiting for the signal from Lyall for them to be off.
The coolness of night would soon give way to the shimmering heat of
a summer’s day. She was starting to feel weary from exertion and
lack of sleep. Nevertheless she was determined to keep
going.
I can’t let Lyall and Alondo
down.

Keris had her map spread out on
the ground. She had a two-pronged instrument and appeared to be
making computations that only she understood. Finally she folded
the map neatly and stood up. “Less than two days to the tower,” she
announced.

Alondo was already seated on the
buckboard. “And what do we do when we get there?”

“I’m not sure,” Lyall
confessed.

“Well we’d better decide quickly
when we get there, before the Prophet’s men fall on us.” Alondo
sounded grim.

Boxx was observing the exchange.
He drew himself up on his hind legs in a vain attempt to gain the
height of the Kelanni. He spoke in his sing-song voice. “The Woman
From Before–She Will Guide You. Do Not Be In Fear.”

Alondo twisted around so that he
was facing the Chandara. “And do you have any idea when that will
be?”

“Yes,” the creature
replied.

“Well…
when
?
Alondo prompted.

“At The Time Of Her
Speaking.”

Alondo put his head in his
hands.

Lyall put up both his hands in a
placating gesture. “It does not matter. If Annata’s warning is
genuine and,” he cast his eye around the four of them, “I believe
that it is, then all Kelanni is under threat. The men following us
are nothing more than a distraction. We have to follow this thing
through to the end.”

All three Kelanni nodded their
assent. Boxx dropped to all sixes and waddled over to the wagon. In
moments, the wagon and its escort were underway once
more.

Late that evening, just as
Ail-Gan was beginning to dip below the horizon, they had their
first sight of the tower.

Chapter
15

Shann woke to the smell of fresh
earth and the susurration of the nocturnal life of the plains. She
opened her eyes as slits, registering three sleeping forms; two lay
beneath blankets, the third was a rolled up ball of segmented
chitin. A fourth figure sat with her back to Shann, staff held
ready, long dark hair about her shoulders. Keris.

Shann had the last watch after
Keris. Tomorrow they would reach the tower and whatever destiny
awaited them there. She felt like going back to sleep, but
something, a nagging suspicion, kept her awake.

As she
continued to watch, she saw Keris check the sleeping forms behind
her and then rise to her feet. The tall woman walked silently to
the edge of the camp and off through the grassland.
What is she up to?

Shann shrugged
off her blanket and set off in a low run in the direction she had
seen Keris disappear. She slowed down when she reached the grass
perimeter, casting her eye over the tops of the waving
stalks.
A dark shape receding off to her
left
. Shann followed at a discreet
distance. After a while, the grass thinned. A mostly bare patch of
ground rose to form a small knoll. Shann watched as Keris sat down
on the knoll and then raised her hand to her mouth and spoke. A
moment later, a dull green light luminesced.
Her Speaker Ring.

Shann hunkered
down in the tall grass and strained her ears to hear, but could not
make out distinct words. She dared not approach any closer, for
fear of being discovered. Her mind worked furiously. The woman had
told them that Rings had to be Linked and that a Ring could only
resonate with the Ring that it had been Linked to. The Ring she
carried as Keltar had been for one purpose only–to communicate with
her master at the keep in Chalimar. There was only one
explanation.
You are a spy. And I have
caught you red-handed.

As Shann continued to observe
Keris, she debated what to do now. She should tell Lyall. However,
it would still be this woman’s word against hers. There was also a
danger that if she found out she had been discovered, she might
bring the three Keltar and the soldiers down on them. Or the woman
might try and kill her, Lyall and Alondo. Shann would have to be
very careful how she played this.