The king smiled broadly and slapped his thighs. “Excellent!” He then turned to Jayan. “What are your plans now, Magician Jayan?”
“I will return to Imardin,” Jayan replied. “And, if you approve, begin work on forming a guild of magicians.”
The king smiled. “Ah. The magicians’ guild. Lord Hakkin is exploring this guild idea as well.” He nodded. “You may join him in the endeavour. Now.” He looked around the circle. “Who is going to stay and help Lord Narvelan and Lord Dakon rule Sachaka?”
A shock of cold rushed through Jayan. Lord Narvelan? Rule Sachaka? Is King Errik mad? He turned his attention to Narvelan. The young magician wore a smile, but it looked fixed and strange. It didn’t match the intensity of his gaze. As something distracted him – a slave tugging at his arm – a savage anger crossed his face, to be quickly smothered behind the smile again.
Jayan heard Tessia catch her breath.
“Hanara,” she breathed. “It’s Takado’s slave!”
Looking closer, Jayan realised that the slave now prostrating himself before Narvelan was the man Takado had left in Mandryn. Whom Lord Dakon had freed. Who had betrayed the village to Takado.
“I told you, no throwing yourself on the floor,” Narvelan said to Hanara, as the conversation of the magicians continued. “No wonder you get so dirty so quickly.”
“Yes, master,” Hanara replied.
“Hanara is Narvelan’s slave?” Tessia choked out.
“Yes,” Lord Tarrakin said. “Though apparently he’s told the man he is free now, but he won’t pay attention.”
Tessia shook her head. She glanced at Jayan, then as Hanara hurried away to do Narvelan’s bidding she strode forward to intercept him. Jayan followed. She caught up with the slave near the side wall of the room. When Hanara saw her, his eyes widened and he froze.
“Tessia,” he whispered. Jayan could not decide if his expression was one of horror or amazement.
“Hanara,” she said. Then she said nothing, her mouth slightly open and her eyes suddenly tortured.
Hanara dropped his gaze.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t do anything. I thought if I went to him he might leave. But I also knew he’d learn from me that Lord Dakon wasn’t there. But...he would have worked that out anyway. I...I am...I am glad you were gone.”
The slave’s babble was about Mandryn, Jayan suspected. I ought to want to throttle him, but for some reason I don’t. The magician who had dominated his life had returned. I don’t think anyone could have acted out of anything but fear at that moment. And now he’s serving Narvelan. I’m not sure whether to think of it as a punishment he deserves, or to pity him. Or to worry at the combination of an invader’s former slave and a ruthless, mad magician.
“I forgive you,” Tessia said. Jayan looked at her in surprise. She looked relieved and thoughtful. “You’re free now, Hanara. You don’t have to serve anyone you don’t want to. Don’t . . . don’t punish yourself for your master’s crimes.”
The slave shook his head, then looked around furtively, bent close and whispered: “I serve him to stay alive. If I didn’t, I would not live long.” He straightened. “You go home. Get married. Have children. Live a long life.”
Then he hurried past them and disappeared through a doorway. Tessia turned to look at Jayan, then let out a short laugh.
“I suspect I’ve just been given orders by a slave.”
“Advice,” Jayan corrected. He moved through the same doorway, glanced up and down the empty corridor, then shrugged. “Good advice. Add teaching magicians to heal to it. And helping me set up the guild.” He shook his head. “I’m going to have to work with Lord Hakkin. I’m going to need all the help I can get.”
“Yes,” she agreed as they started walking along the corridor. “I noticed you didn’t mention to the king that I’d worked out how to heal with magic.”
“No. It didn’t seem the right time. And now that I think of it... I’d rather the teaching of healing didn’t begin in Sachaka. It should start in Kyralia, and be part of our new guild.”
“Incentive for magicians to join?”
“Exactly.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You know, for a moment there I was worried you were going to offer to take on my apprenticeship.”
He blinked in surprised. “Worried? Why? Don’t you think I’d be a good teacher?”
“A reasonable teacher,” she replied. “But I suspect Kyralian society would frown upon a master and his apprentice being . . . well... romantically entangled.”
He smiled. “Depends how entangled you want to be.”
Her eyelids lowered and she regarded him in a way that made his pulse speed up. “Very entangled.”
“I see.” He looked up and down the corridor. It was still empty. Reaching out, he drew her close and kissed her. She tensed, then relaxed and he felt her body press against his.
Footsteps suddenly echoed in the corridor and he felt someone brush past him. Belatedly, he and Tessia sprang apart.
“I’m going to have to keep an eye on the two of you, aren’t I?” Lady Avaria said, not looking back as she strode away.
Tessia smothered a giggle, and then her expression grew serious. “Where are you going to live?”
“I don’t know.” Jayan groaned. “Not with my father!”
“Well, we have plenty of time to work these things out,” she said.
“Yes. And plenty to sort out here, first. Like eating. I’m starving. Though I suppose we should find Mikken first.”
She nodded. “That’s what we’ll do next. We’ll do what’s needed, one thing at a time, until there’s nothing left to do and we’re old and grey and we can leave it to someone else to fix.”
He reached out and took her arm. “Come on. The sooner we start, the sooner we get to the good parts.”
CHAPTER 50
Stopping to catch her breath, Stara looked up at the steep slope of rock before her. Like the one she and the women who followed her had just climbed, there were angled creases in the surface that a climber could shuffle along to get to the top. This slope was larger than the previous one, though. It ended at a jagged crest some way above her. Beyond that she could see the top of another sheer wall of stone, and another behind it. Past them, the peaks of the mountains loomed over all with cruel indifference.
Chavori was a tougher man than he looked, she thought for the hundredth time. He must have climbed all over these slopes to take his measurements. And he must have had assistance. Definitely slaves. Possibly also other magicians or free men. We’ll have to keep watch, in case any ever return.
As the other four women caught up, panting and gasping, Stara decided they could all do with a rest. She shrugged her pack off her shoulders. Strapped to it was a tube made of a hollow reed – much lighter than Chavori’s metal tubes. She unstoppered it and drew out the map.
Spreading it out over the flat rock face before her, Stara held the corners down with magic. The women crowded close to examine it. She could smell their sweat. Only the fittest of them had joined her for this exploration, after it became clear what the path to the valley demanded. She’d left the others in Vora’s capable hands at a camp further down the mountain.
One of the women, Shadiya, pointed to the zigzag path they were following.
“I think we’re nearly there.”
Stara nodded in agreement, then rolled up the map and stowed it away. “Let’s have a drink and a bite to eat first.”
The women were quiet as they rested. With backs to the rock wall, they gazed out at the Sachakan plains, stretching into the haze of the distance. Stara stared at the horizon. Somewhere beyond it was Arvice. After two months, how had the city fared under the rule of the Kyralians? Was Kachiro still alive? She felt a weak pang of sadness and regret, then a vague guilt for not feeling more. I would if I wasn’t so tired, she told herself, though she knew it wasn’t true. It wasn’t as if we married for love. But I did like him and hope he survives. S
he wondered if he’d received news of her mother. I’ll have to send my own messenger, once we’re settled. Perhaps she can come and live with us.
All the women ate sparingly, not having to be reminded how low their supplies were. Stara had been able to supplement their meals by catching birds with magic, but the vegetation that grew in this harsh place was sparse and inedible. She was beginning to worry that Chavori had exaggerated when he’d described the valley they were heading for.
Rising, she hauled her pack onto her back. The others followed suit. Without speaking a word, they sought the start of one of the long creases in the slope, then began to shuffle along it, Stara in the lead.
After a seemingly endless stretch of time, she finally reached the top of the ridge. Dragging herself over the edge, she crawled forward, relieved to have the weight of the pack off her shoulders. She paused to catch her breath, then realised the air she was sucking in wasn’t the dry air that had parched their throats these last weeks. It tasted of damp and mould. Her heart skipped a beat and she pushed herself up and onto her knees.
The next wall was a few strides away. At the base of one of the creases in it was a dark triangle. A gap. She moved closer. From inside came the sound of water, and a gust of damp air.
The entrance was low – she would have to crawl to enter it. Hearing a sound behind her, she restrained her curiosity and moved back to the edge to watch over the next two women as they climbed up to join her. As they reached the top, their eyes went immediately to the opening.
“Sounds like a river inside.”
“Shall we go in?”
“No. Wait until we’ve all made it up,” Stara said.
Finally the last of the women had been helped up over the edge. They stood back and waited to see what Stara would do. She smiled and dropped to the ground like a slave, then crawled through the opening, sending a globe of light ahead of her.
The roof was low for several strides, then it and the floor curved away. She slid forward, then pushed herself up into a crouch. Her light failed to penetrate far in two directions, and from the way the sound of her movements echoed she guessed she was in a tunnel. It was like being inside a long, squashed tube, wider than it was high and on an angle that matched the creases in the rock walls. Along the bottom water rushed.
“Chavori said he thought this was recent, caused by the river changing course upstream,” Stara told them. “So let’s go upstream.”
A few hundred strides later they saw light ahead, then after a few hundred more they stood at the opening of the tunnel. The stream sparkled blue and white. Along its sides grasses stood almost as high as a man, but further from the water were low and dry. A few squat, ancient trees enjoyed a more sheltered position near the steep walls of the valley.
“What do you think?” Stara asked.
“Not quite what I expected,” Shadiya replied. “But we were hardly going to find cultivated fields, were we?”
“It needs the worst weeds removed. Then a few reber to get the grass down. Then water channels. Then we have to sweeten the soil before we can plant crops.” Stara turned to look at the speaker, Ichiva, impressed at her knowledge of farming. The woman shrugged. “When you’re not allowed to talk around men, you do a lot of listening.”
The others nodded in agreement.
“Yes, it needs a lot of work,” Stara said. “And it will be interesting getting reber up here. And then there’s the building of houses to do. We have much to learn. Shall we explore further?”
They smiled at her and nodded. Splitting up, they roamed in different directions. Stara headed out into the valley, examining the soil and wishing she knew enough to tell if it was fertile. The trees proved to be a lot larger than they appeared from a distance. Looking up into the branches, she found herself imagining children climbing along them.
Children. If we want them we can’t ban men from our lives completely. Perhaps we can avoid bringing them here, though. Those who want to can visit a town down on the plains and spend the night with someone they fancy.
But what of male children? There was no way any woman was going to agree to send her child away. She shook her head. Perhaps it didn’t matter so much that the Sanctuary was free of men, only that women controlled it.
“Stara!”
She turned to see Ichiva waving to her. The woman turned to point at the wall of the valley. Stara searched the rock surface, frowning as she tried to find what Ichiva was drawing her attention to.
Then suddenly she saw it. And it sent chills down her spine.
The wall of the valley was not natural. Not only could she see where the original slope abruptly changed to a man-made wall, but she could see the lines and curves of deliberate human carving all over the face.
With heart pounding, she hurried forward. The carvings had deteriorated badly, and in places sections had fallen away completely. Whoever had made this had done it many, many years ago. Hundreds. Perhaps thousands.
She felt a rush of excitement. Clearly, if someone had lived here once, others could do so again. The arches and lines looked like highly decorated frames of doorways and windows. Perhaps the ancient occupants had lived within the wall, in caves. As she reached Ichiva she saw that she was right. There was a rectangular hole in the wall. She shared an excited grin with the other woman.
“I don’t think we’re the first to take up residence,” she said. “Get the others. I’m going inside.”
Creating another globe light, Stara stepped through the doorway. Inside was a long corridor, and she could see light coming through the vegetation that covered other doors and windows. Roots splayed and wove together in tangles for the first few strides, but after that all was bare stone. Wide openings on the far wall beckoned her further inside.
She chose the closest. It was a wide corridor with rooms on either side. The walls between were almost as thick as the spaces. In places they were wet from seepage, but most were dry. Hearing footsteps, she waited for the women to catch up with her, then they all went on. After passing six rooms the corridor ended.
Returning to the main corridor, they continued exploring. One of them noticed shallow carvings of people and animals on some walls. Most rooms had one or two, but then they discovered a wide corridor covered in them. It led to an enormous cave. A crack in the roof high above them let in a weak stream of light and straggling roots. It had also obviously let in the rain, as there was a pool in the centre of the cave. Behind this was a raised section of floor, and on it a crumbling slab of stone.
They skirted the pool and climbed up on the dais to examine the slab. On the surface was the faint outline of a human shape, surrounded by lines radiating out from the chest area.
Shadiya peered closer. “What do you reckon that’s about? Is it a coffin cover? Or an altar for human sacrifice?”
Stara shuddered. “Who knows?”
“There’s another doorway behind here,” Ichiva said, pointing to the wall behind the dais. Then she looked to one side. “Do you think that was the door?”
They all stopped to look at a great disc of stone, split in two, that lay in front of the opening. There was a deep groove in the floor before the doorway. It was as wide as the disc, Stara noted.
“Perhaps it was rolled into place, and out again,” she said.
The women hummed in speculation, then turned to examine the opening. Stara directed her globe light inside. A narrow corridor continued into darkness. She stepped inside.
Before too long the corridor split into two, then again. Stara slowed. “This is becoming a bit of a maze. We should mark our way.”
They traced their steps back, then scraped an arrow symbol on a wall at each intersection pointing back the way they’d come.
“We’d best stay together, too,” Stara said. “Don’t stray. Don’t let anybody fall behind.”
“Not likely,” one of them replied nervously, and the others laughed in agreement.
Going on, slowed by the need to mark the way, th
ey explored the maze of passages. Some led to small rooms, some to dead ends. Then abruptly the corridor changed from smooth, carved stone to rough natural rock. It continued for several strides, then opened up into another cave.
The surface of this cave glittered, drawing gasps of amazement and appreciation from the women. Stara moved closer to the wall. There were crystalline shapes all over the surface. In some areas they were the size of her fist, in others as small as her fingernail.
“These look a bit like the gemstones the Duna sell us,” Ichiva observed. “Do you think they’re magical?”
“Magical or not, they are worth a fortune,” Stara replied. She straightened and looked at them all. “So long as we are careful, we can trade them for anything we can’t make or grow ourselves.”
They were all smiling and hopeful now. For a while they lingered, touching the gemstones and competing to find the largest. But hours had passed since their previous snack and hunger drew them out again. Following the markings, Stara was relieved when she had them safely returned to the first cave. They sat on the edge of the dais and unpacked some food. Stara chewed on one of the dry buns, laced with seeds and nuts, that Vora had cooked for them.
“I think there’s another doorway next to that,” Shadiya said, pointing to the left of the opening to the maze. “See the lines in the wall?”
Putting aside her bun, Stara rose and moved closer. Shadiya was right. There was a door-shaped groove in the wall.
“I wonder how you open it,” Shadiya said, coming closer. “There’s no handle or keyhole.”
“That suggests magic, doesn’t it?” Stara said. She stood before the door and drew power, then sent it out and into the cracks. It wrapped around the back with no resistance, so she knew there was a hollow beyond. Probing further, she sensed that there was a hollow above the door. It curved up and to one side, so the door would rest on its side within the cavity.
Exerting her will, she lifted the door. It scraped loudly as it rose and slid sideways at her direction, then settled into place.