The Dragon Queens (The Mystique Trilogy) (17 page)

I wrapped my arms around the young woman and allowed her to sob out her hurt, fear and guilt.

‘I would have done the same thing in your place,’ I assured her when her outburst had subsided. Then I stepped back to look her in the eye. ‘But once I was free, I would not hide myself away for anyone else’s benefit. You have earned the right to be seen.’

‘But now I am an offence on the eye,’ she said.

‘You, my friend, are a warrior, and any scars you may have are testimony to victory.’

With a sniffle, Raineath nodded at my alternative view. ‘Battle scars…I think I can live with that.’

She lifted the veil from her head.

To my great shock, Raineath looked exactly as she had when I first met her.

‘Is it very bad?’ she asked, fearful from my reaction.

‘No…not at all.’

I recalled seeing a mirror by my bed and I ran to fetch it.

Meanwhile, Raineath found the courage to touch her face; feeling her smooth, unscathed skin she hesitated to smile. ‘Am I dreaming?’ She urged me to hurry with the mirror, which I held up before her. Upon sighting herself reborn, Raineath’s tears welled anew, this time with joy. ‘How could this be possible?’

‘Denera.’ I could only think of one explanation. ‘She bathed you with some healing salve last night. Though I cannot imagine what was in it for it to have worked so swiftly!’

Not entirely true, as there was one substance I had encountered that would heal like this, but it seemed unlikely that Denera, or anyone in this day and age, would have access to Star-Fire—bar the Melchi who guarded the last known vial of it.

Raineath was a little disconcerted. ‘You promised you would not lift my veil,’ she said.

‘I did not lift it…nor did I look when Denera did,’ I assured her with a smile, and Raineath smiled also as she looked back to her reflection and admired it.

‘Now he will see me,’ she fancied.

Yes, Cingar would see her, I thought, but whether he was ready for love again was quite another matter. Although, as Raineath had pointed out several times, Cingar had yet to lay eyes on her and I had to confess that the young woman was not unlike his beloved Jessenia in many regards.

A knock on the door heralded Denera’s entrance.

‘Greetings again, ladies. Zalman has asked me to advise that he and Mr Choron await you in the foyer. As soon as you join them, your journey will resume.’

‘We will be travelling by night?’ I queried.

‘It is near dawn.’ Denera placed a bundle of clothes on each of our beds. ‘Is there anything else you require?’

I looked to Raineath, who moved swiftly towards our hostess. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and took hold of our hostess’s hands and kissed them.

Derena lifted the young woman’s face to look her in the eye, and stroked her smooth dark hair. ‘No need to thank me, little one…healing is my vocation.’ Denera leaned forward and kissed Raineath on the forehead.

I had been too weary to observe the light-body of our hostess when first I met her, but now I saw that here was another soul with a perfectly clear subtle body. As she held Raineath in her arms, I perceived Denera’s light-body expanding to envelop the other woman. Her energy reinforced her patient’s lightbody with great surges of cosmic light, which rushed through Raineath’s seven light centres, dispersing the cloudy blockages that had built up in the course of her traumatic past.

‘You are very accomplished in your chosen field, my lady,’ Raineath granted as she was released from the long embrace. ‘I have never felt so well or elated.’

‘And you have every reason to feel so,’ Denera told her with a sincere smile. ‘You have a very promising future ahead.’

The lady of the house made for the door. ‘Now I must leave you to prepare.’

We thanked our hostess and, as I partook of some breakfast, Raineath moved to dress herself. She sorted through the fresh attire Denera had left and exposed a beautiful polished wooden box hidden beneath the clothes. When Raineath opened the case to find a violin inside, I was moved to tears.

Raineath gasped as she took the instrument in hand. The young woman was so overwhelmed with happiness all she could do was weep. ‘I must be dead, for I have passed into the Land of Bliss,’ she said.

I shook my head to reassure her. ‘We are not dead. And even if we were, I would still beg the honour of hearing you play.’

Raineath collected herself and, tossing her long, dark, straight hair behind her slender shoulders, she raised the instrument to her chin. ‘The honour will be all mine, my Lady du Lac.’

She played the composition Cingar had taught her, and performed it skilfully, with all the seduction, passion and precision of the legendary master himself.

When the last note sounded, I applauded her most sincerely. ‘Denera is absolutely right—you have a very bright future ahead.’

The beaming smile on Raineath’s face conveyed that she was daring to believe that prediction.

I felt considerably more prepared for a desert trek wearing the long white cotton robes and sensible walking boots that Denera had supplied, and I believed Raineath was happy to have shed her harem attire too.

It was a lovely moment when Cingar and Raineath finally met face to face in the foyer. ‘Could this be my young student?’ the gypsy asked, surprised that she appeared unscathed from her ordeal.

I took it upon myself to do the formal honours and ease the awkwardness of the moment. ‘Cingar Choron, allow me to present to you Miss Raineath Saray.’

Raineath curtsied as Cingar took her hand, and was hard pressed to smother her delight when her idol kissed it.

‘It is my greatest pleasure to make your acquaintance at last,’ he said. ‘You are a woman equalled in bravery and heart only by my own lady patron.’

‘That is a compliment indeed,’ Raineath said, smiling shyly.

I believed it was so long since she’d flirted with a man that she had forgotten how. Or perhaps Raineath was wiser in the game of love than I gave her credit for, and had decided to conceal her feelings for the man until she had figured out how best to win his heart.

Underlying Cingar’s friendly address, I sensed much guilt that he desperately needed to purge himself of. He began to speak, but was interrupted by Zalman.

‘I am sorry, but we must get moving before sunrise. There will be ample time to talk on the way.’

Aware of Cingar’s need to speak with Raineath alone, I decided to keep pace with Zalman, who had walked on ahead. It was wonderful striding across the open desert towards the sunrise, with just a breath of warm wind caressing my face. Respectful of Zalman’s love of silence, I refrained from asking any of the many questions I had about our journey. For in truth I already knew that there was only one answer to all of my queries: wait and see.

I had many questions about our brief stopover too, and now that the sun had cast its light over the landscape, I turned back to view the oasis—to find nothing behind us but the same bare, flat horizon that lay in front. I stopped in my tracks, dumbfounded.

‘I did not think we had walked so far,’ I said.

Cingar and Raineath also looked back. ‘We have not,’ Cingar agreed, looking to Zalman, who had stopped and turned back to face us. ‘What is going on, Zalman? Where are you taking us?’

‘You will know by sunset,’ Zalman replied.

‘Sunset!’ Cingar looked concerned.

Zalman walked on. ‘I know where we can find water and shade. Trust me one more day.’

‘I do not like this,’ Cingar said, but we had no choice but to follow our mysterious guide.

I noted the wind getting stronger as we walked, but Zalman did not break his stride, even though he was leading us towards a great wall of dust that stretched across the horizon, seemingly without end.

‘Are you mad?’ Cingar yelled to him.

‘We cannot go around it,’ our guide pointed out, without looking back.

I turned a full circle and, seeing no shelter anywhere, had to agree that there was no choice but to push on.

‘We could try and make it back to Denera’s house,’ Cingar suggested.

‘If we knew where it was, you mean? No, we should stick together.’ I waved the gypsies forth, and together we headed off in pursuit of Zalman.

It wasn’t long before the windstorm was upon us. The dirt in my eyes made vision impossible, but with little fear of encountering any obstacles I just kept my head down and kept putting one foot in front of the other. I felt that I was weathering the situation rather well, when someone unexpectedly collided with me and I was sent off-balance and onto all fours.

‘I am so very sorry.’ The English gentleman aided me back to my feet.

His face was wrapped against the weather as mine was and yet I knew him at once.

‘My Lord Suffolk, fancy meeting you here.’

As his beautiful blue eyes opened wide with surprise and delight, the storm seemed to ebb a little and I heard him utter my name. He embraced me and I him, the relief washing the dirt from our sights.

‘Thank God. When I heard we’d lost the Shah’s favour, I feared the worst,’ he said.

‘Never.’ I held my wrist high to expose the ringstone and my husband rolled his eyes.

‘I should have known.’ He held me tight under one of his arms as we pushed on forward. ‘You two make quite a team.’

‘Not as good a team as we do.’ I hugged him tighter. ‘You would not have landed us in so much trouble with the Shah in the first place, I fear.’

Lord Devere nodded, amused. ‘The Shah is probably the least of our problems just now,’ he went on. ‘A representative of the Holy See just ordered Taylor, Miss Koriche and myself buried alive in our dig site.’

‘What!’ I recalled the party I had seen exiting the Shah’s court before my own audience. ‘So that is what they were discussing with the Shah.’

‘My murder?’ jested my husband.

‘Burying the find,’ I clarified, knowing he understood my meaning well enough.

‘When did you encounter the cardinal’s party?’

‘I saw them yesterday. And you?’

My husband was perplexed. ‘It was only a few days ago that I had the displeasure of meeting them at the site, so they cannot have been in Baghdad yesterday.’

I agreed that it seemed very unlikely there would be two such parties in Persia at once.

My husband’s confusion doubled. ‘And I would have expected you to have seen the Shah over a week ago. Were you delayed somewhere?’

‘No,’ I answered, until I considered last night’s blissful slumber—it had felt like I had slept for a week. ‘No, that is impossible,’ I mused. ‘I would be dead.’

‘What is not possible?’ My lord had lost my train of thought.

‘What is the date today?’

Lord Devere’s reply shocked me; by his reckoning I had indeed lost a week somewhere. ‘You are sure?’

‘Positive,’ my husband confirmed, ‘for I have been counting the days until your return.’

All these years of marriage and he could still make my heart flutter. His kiss made me forget my curiosity, and when we came back to reality the storm had completely died away.

‘If you are quite finished, Devere,’ Taylor yelled back at us, ‘we are losing our guide.’ He pointed towards Zalman, who was leagues ahead.

Had I heard Taylor wrong? ‘Zalman is your guide?’

‘Yes, he showed up yesterday claiming that he had been sent to lead me to safety,’ my husband explained, and then wondered at my mystified expression. ‘What did I say?’

‘Pardon me, folks.’ Cingar directed us to Zalman once more. ‘Is it just my eyes or is our friend disappearing?’

We all looked ahead to see Zalman sinking into the horizon.

‘There must be an incline ahead,’ I deduced.

‘We should catch up.’ Lord Devere clutched my hand tight as we ran to see if I was right.

‘Oh my Goddess!’ Cingar yelled, supporting his head with both hands as he beheld what lay over the rise, for he and Raineath had won the dash. Lord Devere and I passed the limping Mr Taylor and our pregnant daughter-in-law to come to a halt on the rim of a huge maze of deep chasms recessed into the ground before us.

‘Where on Earth are we?’ Lord Devere said.

‘There is no such place in Persia, I assure you.’ Taylor was an authority on the geography of the country where he had been posted for some years now.

‘
Nowhere you will find on any map
,’ I said, repeating Albray’s prediction.

‘I told you not to trust Zalman,’ Cingar said. ‘How are we to find our way through this precarious labyrinth without a guide?’

‘I can see plainly that Zalman is an enlightened being,’ I explained but Cingar was still not convinced.

‘It does not seem very enlightened to leave us stranded in the middle of a desert,’ he grumbled.

‘I would say he has taken his leave to avoid any more questions before sundown,’ I offered, spotting the steep path of descent into the canyon close by.

‘Like where we are?’ Taylor was bemused; he’d never been lost in the East before.

‘I think I know where we are.’

We all looked to Miss Koriche.

‘Set Amentet,’ she announced, admiring the vast canyon.

‘I was under the impression that Set Amentet was a cemetery in the mountains on the west bank of the Nile,’ Taylor said.

‘Set Amentet actually refers to the mountain of the underworld,’ Miss Koriche enlightened him, ‘which was located where the sun set.’

I looked up at the sun’s path, to discover that it would set directly over the canyon ahead.

‘Mountain of the otherworld?’ Taylor queried, looking into the huge crevice.

‘The mountain of the
underworld
,’ Miss Koriche emphasised, pointing downward. ‘The abodes of the gods are always subterranean.’

‘And do you know why?’ Cingar added. ‘Because it is so bloody hot up here on the surface!’ He wiped away the sweat that had soaked through the
bandana under his hat and was now rolling down his forehead.

‘Let us head down into the canyon,’ Lord Devere suggested, ‘there is at least shade to be found down there.’

It took several hours to reach the canyon floor and the shade only seemed to intensify the hot stillness of the day.

‘I need to sit,’ Miss Koriche appealed, sweating enough for the entire party. None of us objected to the pause in the proceedings, and only Cingar still had the energy to get annoyed at our plight.