The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (62 page)

She waited patiently in the hall. Finally, the inner door opened once more and Rael poked his head around it, reminding Shann of the day she had first met him. He came out to her, but his expression was not one of upset or shame. It was one of excitement.

“Your ship, Shann. It’s been found.”

~

“What do you mean I can’t see it?”
Shann stood looking defiantly up at the boy who was twice her size, fists balled on her hips.

They were still standing in the hallway of Hannath’s house. Rael held up his hands in a placating gesture. “It’s been sealed off by the Scientific Directorate. They are studying it. It’s definitely a seagoing vessel, although it seems to have suffered a fair amount of damage. We’ve never seen anything like it. The name on the hull was ‘Annata’s Reach’, just as you described. There’s no mistake–it’s your ship.”

“Did they find anybody with it?”

“No, Shann, I’m afraid not.”

“Where is it?” she demanded.

“It’s beached…a little way up the coast.”

“Take me there.”

“I can’t. No-one is being allowed anywhere near it right now.”

“But it’s our ship, not yours,” Shann protested. “You have no right to keep me away.”

Rael touched his chin. “Well, you have a point, I suppose. Look, why don’t you rest and change? I’ll see what I can do.”

He hadn’t mentioned her actions earlier or the accident. It felt like she was pushing her luck, but she didn’t care. She had to know what had happened to Lyall and the others.

She was sitting in the room with the whirring timepieces later that evening, with Boxx lying at her feet, enjoying the feeling of clean skin and a full stomach, when Rael entered. “Be ready to leave first thing tomorrow,” he announced. “We’re going to visit your ship.”

~

The pair of avionics were perched on the crest of a sand dune–brooding silver birds, resting on their haunches, overlooking the wide inlet. Two blue-coated drach stood guard over the flying machines.

Rael and Shann half walked and half jogged down the dune’s seaward side. Early morning sunlight glinted on the wave crests as wide breakers fell against the beach. Ail-Gan burned steadily in a clear blue sky. Ail-Kar was still below the horizon. They reached the foot of the dune and made their way across the hard-packed sand. The shoreline, undisturbed for countless turns, was now crisscrossed by numerous tracks. Ahead of them a beached ship reared up, canted slightly to starboard, its prow half buried in sand. The single foremast angled skyward, its crosstrees decorated with the ragged remnants of what was once a sail. Proudly emblazoned on the hull behind the bowsprit was the ship’s name, Annata’s Reach. Their ship.
Her ship.

She walked slowly around the vessel. The tide had receded to the point where the Reach was wholly above the water line. There was a ragged hole on the larboard side where the Prophet’s ship had blown a hole in their hull with its lodestone cannon. Shann started to climb up, using the shattered strakes as handholds.

“Be careful–it looks dangerous,” Rael called out. She ignored him, scrambling inside the opening. Inside the ship’s hold it was dark and dank, with a layer of bilge water which reached to her ankles. Shann allowed a moment for her eyes to grow accustomed to the reduced light and noted the position of the ballast before sloshing her way to the ladder and climbing up. Pushing the hatch open, she stood once more on the Reach’s sloping deck.

It was an eerie feeling–like returning to the house you grew up in, long after it had been abandoned. This was where she and the others had battled Saccath. The deck was a jumble of smashed wood and tangled cordage. She picked her way to forecastle. The door was open–it creaked gently on its hinges. Inside was the table where they had shared meals and spread charts. The charts were gone, perhaps removed by Rael’s people. A couple of stools were overturned, and there were some shards of pottery on the floor.

Shann went back out into the light and made her way to the launch. It still sat in its berth on the ship’s larboard side. There had been no attempt to float the craft, and she immediately saw why. A huge gash was visible in its side–a result of the bombardment by the pursuing vessel. Patris’ unconscious form had been placed in here. She searched inside, but there was no sign of the thief.

She continued aft, toward the stern castle. Her hand went to the latch and the door opened outward. Inside were cots with blankets thrown carelessly aside, as if only lately vacated. Here was where Boxx had tended to Keris’ injuries and where Alondo had lain, pale and stricken with seasickness. A broken oil lamp lay on its side. There was nothing of value left here, other than her memories.

Shann cast about looking for something–anything that might indicate the fate of Lyall and the others. She went to one of the cots and felt the sides. To her surprise, her hand came away with a small pouch of black cloth. She opened it at the neck and immediately knew what it was. Inside were the white discs of natural metal and the dark, swirling discs of lodestone that Lyall had used to teach her about lodestone at the farmhouse near Lind. Among them was the very disc that Lyall had pressed into her palm on that wet night in Corte, so long ago. She pulled at one of the atramentous discs and felt the unnatural smoothness–the familiar resistance. She tucked the pouch into her tunic and made her way back down the hatch and out through the ship’s damaged side.

Rael’s face reflected the concern on hers. “Are you all right?”

She nodded without looking at him. “The ship has been deliberately run aground.”

“How could you know that?”

Shann pointed forward. “See the prow–the front part of the hull–how it’s driven into the sand? I checked the hold. The ballast has been moved forward to weigh down the bow.”

“But…why would anyone run your ship aground?”

She gazed out to sea. “A heavy swell and the ship holed just above the water line. The anchor cast off back at Sakara and a launch that’s no longer seaworthy. Running her aground would probably have seemed like the best option.” She turned and began walking back up the beach.

“Where are you going?” Rael called after her.

“Home,” she replied without looking back. “There’s nothing left to see here.”

~

Shann sat under the stars on the roof balcony, hunched beneath a heavy cloak, wracked with sobs. A half-imagined glimpse of Alondo back in Kieroth and her self-control had deserted her. Since then she had promised herself that she would not allow emotion to get the better of her again. Yet seeing the empty ship, broken on the shore and bereft of the lives that had given it purpose, had tested that promise to the limit.

They had flown back to Kieroth in silence. Rael was full of questions, but whenever he tried to engage her, she closed him down. Finally he gave up, and Shann was left with nothing more than the modulating drone of the engines and her own thoughts.

Back at the house she had gone straight to her room. There was a knock at the door and Meira’s voice. Shann didn’t answer. A while later she went to the door and found a plate of food under a cloth–cooked yellow roots, some spiced bread and a jug of some kind of fruit cordial. She brought them in and picked at the meal before setting it aside. It had grown dark. Shann tried to lie down, but sleep fled from her. Finally, she rose and went to the closet, pulling a heavy purple cloak around her bare shoulders. She’d left her room and headed for the stairs that led to the roof.

During her earlier wanderings she had discovered an outside balcony area. It always seemed to be deserted. Indeed, there was no evidence that anyone ever used it, so she had adopted it as her “private space”–a place she could come to think. The air was cold and still; the stars hard and unforgiving. She went to a low wall, sat down and closed her eyes. Faces passed before her. Faces she knew: Alondo with his wide grin and crazy hat, Lyall, fair hair and piercing blue eyes; Keris, flowing raven hair framing her sharp features; Patris the thief, with straight dark hair and intelligent eyes; Hedda, Gallar...all lost to her now. She was finally, completely alone.

Something inside Shann snapped. Her eyes filled with tears and her chest started to heave involuntarily. She covered her face and wept.

Gradually, her breathing slowed, and she became aware of a presence nearby. She raised her head and rubbed away the tears. To her surprise, Boxx was standing on its hind limbs watching her, its black eyes like two shining beads. She had no idea how it had found her here. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen the Chandara since she had returned from her trip to the beach. She had been too preoccupied with her own thoughts.

“Boxx,” she sniffed, “I’m sorry, I–”

“Explain The Meaning.”

“I…don’t understand.”

“Kelanni Exude Water, Respire Deeply,” it said in its high-pitched voice. “It Is A Sign They Are Unhappy.”

“It’s just–well I miss Lyall, Alondo and the others, that’s all.”

“You Visited The Ship.”

It must have talked to Rael. “Yes…it’s pretty much of a wreck, I’m afraid. And there was no sign of anyone.”

The creature cocked its round head to one side. “Explain The Meaning,” it repeated.

“Well. I can’t be absolutely certain, but I think it was beached deliberately. Someone had moved all of the heavy items to the front end to weigh it down. The Reach was holed badly. Without an anchor and with the launch damaged–”

“No.” The Chandara’s mouth rippled. “You Are Unhappy. Explain The Meaning.”

Shann frowned. “I told you. I miss the others.”

“The Others Are Here.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Others Are Here. On This Side. Before The Ship They Were Gone. Now They Are Here. It Is A Matter Of…Statistical Probability…”

Shann didn’t understand the last part, but she realised that it was right. If the ship had made it to land, then there was a very good chance that a least some of her crew had made it as well. Yet in fifteen days there had been no sign–no hint of their presence on this side of the world. It was as if they had disappeared utterly.

“The Others Are Here,” Boxx insisted.

Shann felt the tears welling up once more.
“Then where are they?”

<><><><><>

Chapter 8

(Sixteen days earlier)

“They’re gone.”

Lyall stood on the foredeck of Annata’s Reach, his hands cupped around Alondo’s cheeks. Rain and spray were rolling down the musician’s screwed-up face. He might have been crying; it was impossible to tell. Lyall shouted over the roaring tempest in an attempt to galvanise his friend into action. “We’re nearly through the Barrier. I need you to man the rudder. Can you do that?”

Alondo nodded and stumbled away, buffeted by the fierce winds.
I hope he’ll be all right.
They had just seen Shann and Boxx swept over the side by an immense wave. There was a chance they would survive if they could stay afloat and near to the ship until it was safe, Lyall told himself. If so, then they would be found and picked up when the Reach broke through into clearer water. If not…well, there would be time enough for hariath-sharana if the rest of them made it out of this alive.

Lyall ran forward, extending the lodestone layer of his cloak, and pushed off the lodestone in the foredeck. The tether connecting him to the iron ring in the deck snaked and then snapped taut as he rose over and above the bowsprit, where Keris was already straining in midair to pull the ship forward, buffeted by the turbulent winds. Immediately, he retracted lodestone and extended bronze, adding his effort to hers.

Keris’ dark hair was plastered to her face by the rain. She looked sideways at him and called out the question he was dreading. “Boxx…the girl?”

Lyall shook his head. The pain on Keris’ face seemed genuine. The two women were travelling very different paths, but at the end, they had stood together side by side and faced down Saccath. And Boxx–the Chandara had a special connection to Keris which no-one understood, least of all Keris herself. Yet the creature had touched her heart in a way that no-one from her own race ever had. She had become its companion and its protector. It would be a loss keenly felt by her. By all of them.

Ahead, Lyall could see gaps of blue in the roiling storm clouds. A shaft of sunlight sliced through the dark like a sword point. The mountainous seas were starting to moderate. The wind was beginning to lose some of its fury. Lyall permitted himself a small rush of elation. They were actually going to make it.