A Solitary Journey (49 page)

At first he was intensely angry at the change in his circumstances. He only wanted to return to Se’Treya, having learned that what he sought no longer existed in the world of Andrakis—hadn’t existed for almost as long as he had ceased to exist in the mortal world. Meg was his key and she had vanished, leaving a trail of death in her wake for the Andrak authorities to clean up. How long before they caught her—
if
they caught her—was unknown.

He loved her—he accepted that. From the outset her beauty enticed him—her red hair like sunset and sunrise, her intense green eyes like emeralds—but there was much more that he saw in her. She was intelligent, although her naivety frustrated him, and he was charmed by her passion. He sensed she was drawn to him, so he admired her determination not to be easily won over
because he despised easy conquests. The women in his past life were objects, momentary distractions and relief, necessary only as toys—except for Seralinna. She was different. His memories of her had not dimmed. Meg reminded him of Seralinna with her air of confidence and her magical power, except that Meg had power beyond Seralinna’s wildest ambitions and that excited him every time he touched her and felt the surge of energy rush through the fibre of his being. In Meg was the female counterpart of everything he had been—everything he would be again after he searched Se’Treya and found what Mareg had taken from him. He loved her for many reasons. But now he hated her too because she’d left him behind to suffer for her indiscretions. He needed her more than she needed him and there was nothing he could do to alter what was, and he hated not being in control of his destiny.

He replaced his anger with a stronger emotion after two days. What did it really mean to be locked up for a short time in a human prison? Hadn’t he survived a thousand years in far worse circumstances? If they caught Meg they would soon release him and there was every chance he would see her again. A gaol couldn’t hold a Dragonlord—and she was everything a Dragonlord could be with her sliver of amber if she only realised it. If they didn’t catch her they would eventually release him. They had nothing to hold him on—no evidence, not even complicity. He only needed to be patient. The Ithosen and Aelendyell skills of patience were still fresh and alive in him and they would serve him again as they had served him in the past. If nothing else had been achieved in a thousand years, he had endured—outliving even Mareg.

S
he had travelled most of the previous night to get as far from Lightsword as possible, veering from the road whenever she heard riders or people, and there were four such instances: three separate riders coming from Lightsword late in the evening who galloped past in an enormous hurry, and the fourth was a farm wagon heading towards the city before dawn. She napped twice in an effort to restore her energy, but by the time she reached the town she was exhausted. She was leaving the shop when she spotted the horses with the familiar dark green and light green colours on their saddlecloths at the drinking-house, and she barely made it to the side of a house to hide before the Peacekeepers emerged and mounted. As they rode out of the town, a little voice behind her said, ‘What’s your name?’ Startled, she whirled to face a little boy with a shock of black hair and big dark eyes above dirt-smeared cheeks. ‘Oh,’ she gasped. ‘Sorry. I didn’t expect anyone here.’

‘This is my house,’ the little boy told her. ‘My name is Tim. What’s your name? Are you the lady my daddy is looking for?’

The boy’s question stunned her. ‘Who is your daddy looking for?’ Meg asked.

‘A lady,’ the boy answered. ‘She has red hair. So do you. You’re very tall too. Are you her?’

‘And what does your daddy do?’ she asked, looking for the quickest way to leave the town without being seen by anyone else.

‘My daddy is the town Peacekeeper,’ the boy announced with pride. ‘He keeps everyone safe. Are you dangerous?’

She smiled. ‘No, I’m not dangerous,’ she said quietly, ‘but I have to go because I’m in a big hurry.’

‘Don’t you want to wait for daddy?’ the boy asked.

‘I’d better go,’ she told him. She squatted before Tim and said, ‘Can you keep a secret?’ He nodded vigorously. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Can you not tell your daddy that you saw me?’

He screwed up his nose. ‘I’m not allowed to tell lies.’

She nodded. ‘I understand. My children aren’t allowed to tell lies either. Can you just wait for a while before you tell your daddy that you saw me? That’s not telling a lie, is it?’

Tim thought about the proposition. Finally he said, ‘I guess not.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, straightening up.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

‘I’m going to find my little boy. He’s just like you.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Treasure,’ she said and patted Tim’s head. ‘I really have to go now.’

‘Bye,’ Tim said, waving.

After that encounter she travelled through the countryside, shadowing the road by climbing through fences and cutting across fields. She was fascinated that the entire land was cropped and divided into squares and rectangles. Fences between areas of grazing and crops in Western Shess were rare. In Central Andrak it seemed every farm was surrounded and divided by
stone or briar fences. She skirted villages and towns and farmhouses all afternoon until she found a tiny copse where she slumped to rest and fell immediately into a fitful sleep.

In the dream she stood on the battlements of a city beside men and women who were princes and princesses and she felt the presence, as she always did in the dream, of people who were her family. They were gazing towards a storm bank rolling towards the city, watching lightning play through the brutally huge clouds as if they were swallowing the world as they rolled across it. At the head of the approaching storm were two riders, shining with blue light, and she knew they were the Demon Horsemen. ‘You need me,’ said a ghostly voice, but when she turned to the speaker he wasn’t there. ‘Release me and I will save your children,’ he promised. ‘You need me. Without me your children will perish.’

She woke in darkness, and cold. Light rain spattered against the leaves of the trees and drifted onto her skin so she sat up and put on her coat. Whisper nuzzled her hand. ‘We’d better get going,’ she said aloud, picking up Whisper.

She walked until exhaustion stopped her again and slept in a haystack in the middle of a field. When she woke from the same dream she focussed on the looming mountains with their glistening white caps and trudged west, keeping a careful but tired watch for trouble.

The Andraks had a curious habit of putting signs outside their town and villages so that travellers knew where they were, a concept Meg appreciated when she reached Ridge close to dusk on the second afternoon. It was small, like Tim’s little town, a main street
surrounded by houses that gradually disintegrated into farmland. She checked Rees’s note and was dismayed to realise that she would have to ask for directions to find the farm because the only clue was that it was on the southern side of the town. She had learned that the Andrak Peacekeepers were an efficient organisation and they would be looking out for her, even if they didn’t know where she was headed.
And it’s possible they already know this is where I’m headed,
she decided. ‘We can’t ask for directions,’ she said to Whisper. ‘We have to find the farm ourselves.’ And then she shivered.
What if they already have my children? What if the Peacekeepers are just waiting for me to step into a trap?
She was confident that Rees wouldn’t have told them her plans, but Rees’s companion in the care-house probably told them as much as she knew—about the children and her search.
They know,
she decided.
I have to do this differently. I’ve come a long way. I can be patient.
She sat beside the rat and stroked Whisper’s fur, saying, ‘I need your help.’ She gave Whisper mental images of Emma and Treasure and Whisper returned her rat version of the images with the equivalent of the words,
Known. Family.
Meg should have expected as much. Emma, in particular, spent hours playing with Whisper in Summerbrook and little Treasure was always fascinated by the rat’s behaviours, trying to touch the elusive animal. She smiled and hugged Whisper. Together they would find the children.

They carefully observed the farms on the southern side of the town and Whisper lured guard and farm dogs on merry chases whenever Meg wanted to get close to buildings to peer into windows. Peacekeepers patrolled the area around Ridge, confirming for Meg that they were expecting her and making it impossible for her to ask directions from locals who would also know that
she was wanted, but on the second morning the patrols led her to the right farm.

She counted seven Peacekeepers at points around the green-and-white farmhouse and tin sheds and assumed there were more in the house. There was no easy approach for her to confirm her suspicions and no guarantee that the children were even there, but she had to know, so she sent Whisper to the house to find out what she could and settled to wait warily under the shade of trees beside a creek. Whisper was absent a long time, well into the afternoon, before she scampered along the creek bank towards Meg.
Children?
Meg asked eagerly.

Big dogs,
Whisper replied.
Three cats.

Children?
Meg repeated.

Yes,
Whisper replied.
Two children. Girl child,
and she created an image of Emma,
and boy child,
but the boy’s image was unclear, generic.

Treasure?
Meg asked using his image.

Whisper repeated the non-specific boy image, adding,
Hungry,
and she disappeared down the creek bank.

Meg stared at the farmhouse. It wasn’t large—two or three rooms—with a thatched roof. Emma was in there. And a boy. He could only be Treasure, although Whisper’s image was puzzling because Whisper showed earlier that she could create Treasure’s image. As she watched the house, the front door opened and a tiny figure emerged, followed by a woman, and they headed for a small shed that Meg knew from her reconnoitring was a chicken roost. The distance was too great for details, but she was convinced the smaller figure carrying a bucket was a girl. It was Emma. Her heart leapt. It really was Emma! She stood to see more clearly. She had come so far, for so long, and now Emma was barely a hundred paces from her, so close she imagined that she could just reach out and touch her. ‘Emma,’ she whispered.

‘Stay where you are!’

The stern command made ice of her blood and her knees weak. She turned to face twelve men in green coats and cream trousers with weapons like thundermakers pointed at her. Behind them, their captain spoke again. ‘Don’t be stupid. They have orders to fire if you resist arrest.’

She glanced back at the farmhouse. The woman and the girl were walking back to the house with the bucket. More Peacekeepers were walking towards the creek. What spell would get her out of this? Emma was there. Treasure would be inside the house. With her power she could easily kill these men and take her children. She’d wiped out an army—no, three armies—with the power of the amber and calling down the Demon Horsemen. These men were nothing. She heard footsteps and turned, glaring. The approaching pair of Peacekeepers halted, seeing something terrifying in her expression, but the captain behind the line of armed men spoke again. ‘I don’t delight in the idea of shooting a woman in cold blood, but I will if you leave me no choice. I have orders to detain you at all costs and I will detain you. And I’ve been asked to tell you that if you ever want to see your children you will do what you’re told.’

But my children are here,
she reasoned.
If I want to see them you can’t stop me.
She looked over her shoulder again at the farmhouse, but the woman and the girl were nowhere to be seen.

‘There’s nothing to see there,’ said the captain. ‘They are not the children you’re seeking.’

Meg’s head snapped around. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The girl and boy who live there were taken away yesterday for safekeeping when we learned they were your target. We used two other children as decoys.’

Meg stared in disbelief and her anger surged. ‘Where are my children?’ she screamed.

The captain who stepped from behind his men was handsome, except for the hard lines around his mouth and eyes that showed he was not a man to consider compromise easily. ‘You will have a chance to see them before we take you to the judges in Lightsword—if you make the right choice now.’

She imagined the captain exploding in a ball of fire, the entire line of Peacekeepers dancing in flames, but she fought her desire and met the captain’s gaze with a ferocious glare. Slowly, as if she was lifting the weight of her entire life, she raised her wrists. The Peacekeepers produced metal restrainers.

‘Wise choice, lady,’ said the captain of the Peacekeepers. ‘A very wise choice.’

Emma hugged her mother, sobbing, and begged to stay with her, and confused tears of joy and despair flowed down Meg’s cheeks into her daughter’s hair as they remained in each other’s embrace. The Peacekeepers tactfully stood at the edge of the stay-house room in Ridge, some quietly weeping at the reunion, though careful not to reveal their emotion to their colleagues. Eventually Meg pushed her daughter back and wiped Emma’s tears with her manacled hands, smiling and weeping, asking if she’d been hurt and if she knew where her brother was, and what she remembered of home, and what she thought of her keepers. They spoke in Shessian so that the Peacekeepers couldn’t understand. ‘Oh, Mum,’ Emma cried, ‘I lost Treasure. They took him away one morning after we were put on the ship. I don’t know where they took him. I couldn’t stop them.’

‘It’s not your fault, little one,’ Meg consoled her. ‘I couldn’t stop them taking either of you. But I’ve come for you now and we’ll find Treasure together, all right? I’ll come back soon and we can go together. I promise.’

‘But how?’ Emma asked, pulling vainly at Meg’s restrainer. ‘They’re going to take you away and I’ll never see you again.’

‘They can’t keep me,’ Meg told her. ‘Trust me, little one. They tried to keep me before but I walked away from them. I will do it again. And now that I know where you are I’ll come for you and take you away from here. We
will
be together. I promise you. All right?’ Emma stared in disbelief with reddened eyes. ‘All right?’ Meg repeated. She held her daughter again and they stayed together, whispering, until the Peacekeeper captain entered and apologetically ushered a distraught Emma from the room. When he returned he sat beside Meg and said, ‘I know what I say won’t make anything easier for you, and I understand that you have no reason to believe me or trust what I say, but your daughter is in good hands. These people love her as if she was their own child. They said to say that they’re sorry for you and wished that they could help.’ When Meg looked at the captain he saw searing hatred in her green eyes which made him uncomfortable, so he stood, gave an order to his men to be vigilant, and left the room.

Captain Ennaeus strode in and addressed A Ahmud Ki in an official tone that reminded him of the pompous officials in Thana’s royal court a thousand years before. ‘Mister Kushel, it’s my pleasure to report that your felonious cousin has been caught and is in custody on her way back to the city.’

‘Does that mean I can go?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.

Ennaeus smiled grimly. ‘It means your prison now only extends to the city limits. You are not to leave the city until after the murder and treason trials are completed. You will have Peacekeeper guards with you at all times to ensure that you don’t abscond.’ He
dropped his pompous style, having delivered the official message, and added, ‘I don’t know how your cousin escaped from us last time, but it won’t happen again. I’ll personally inspect her cell when she arrives late tomorrow afternoon and I’ll make sure she stays put. The same goes for you while you are allowed to walk around the city. Understood?’

A Ahmud Ki smiled. ‘Perfectly.’