Last night he had lain in the bed for hours, waiting for unconsciousness to seize him. It turned out natural sleep was a mystery to him and he’d no idea how it was meant to work. Obviously he must have achieved it, for he’d just become rudely aware of himself again as if born from a void. He tried to recall the point when sleep had taken him, and could not. It was very curious. Flipping back the bedcover and rising, he promised himself he would take more notice of how Skygrip affected him. Now that he was aware of it, he could control it more easily when he got back.
He dressed in black trousers and a dark blue vest, took a long drink from the water pitcher by the bed, picked up his satchel and left the room. Outside the priests waited, sitting cross-legged under brown cloaks, looking like ant hills.
‘Ah,’ said Grepra, rising smoothly. ‘Come. Others are waiting with your boat.’
The priests led on, bobbing almost comically on their concealed bandy legs. They went through grey corridors and out of the temple, making their way down the hill. The hillside was soft and damp, peppered with spiky sea grasses and salt-encrusted bushes. The path levelled out into the village where it joined a muddy street. As they moved through clusters of buildings, villagers stopped to stare – mostly Arabodedas, Losara noted. One called out, ‘Safe journey, lord,’ as they passed.
It didn’t take long to reach a pebbly beach where a simple rowboat was moored to the shore. It had a single wooden bar for a seat, two oars fixed in position, and was big enough for just one person. Grepra produced a cloth package tied with string. ‘Provisions,’ he said. ‘It is some days to the Isle if you head straight and true. If you don’t, who knows? Maybe it will take many days, or all the days left in your life.’
The priest held a suckered hand towards the boat. Losara waded into the chill shallows and stepped unsteadily into the rocking vessel. On the shore, Grepra untied the rope and threw it after him.
‘The priests of Assedrynn commend you,’ called Grepra. ‘May he find and guide you, there and back.’
‘There and back,’ echoed Losara, turning to stare at the horizon. Black cloud and black sea.
‘We will watch for you, Apprentice,’ called Grepra. ‘Now row!’
As the walls of his home disappeared behind him, the wind at his back seemed to urge him on. East they rode on powerful horses, across the grasslands of Borgordus.
‘Come on, Blade Bel!’ Keit called beside him. ‘Last one to Drel eats goblin loincloths!’
Bel laughed, joy shining in his amber eyes as a wider world rose up to meet him.
Soon the coastline was a streak in the distance, only the cliffs visible above water. Losara rowed with the current, which gripped the craft so strongly that he couldn’t have turned back if he’d wanted to. Finally the risks seemed real, yet he rowed resolutely towards the oncoming dark.
Nineteen
Good Spirit
‘The town of Treewith,’ called Gredda. The troop approached cross-country from the west and entered the town in fading light. It was a clean and orderly place, built in a valley between low hills, its houses painted green like the surrounding land. The Treewith Inn, where they were to stay, was three storeys high, with a warmly inviting glow in the lower windows.
‘Stable’s round the back,’ Bel heard the innkeeper telling Munpo. ‘It’s not often we have so many horses at once, but I’m sure we’ll manage.’
Bel slid from his saddle and led his horse to the stables, contemplating his own desire for sleep. Previously he’d only ridden short distances – how could he have done otherwise while confined to the Halls? – and the long day over hills and fields had given him all kinds of aches. Once his raging appetite was satiated, nothing would hold him from his bed.
From the eaves of a nearby shop, a pair of blood-drop eyes followed his progress.
Soon enough, Bel slept. In his dreams he was battling huggers, untouchable as they broke like waves upon him. For some reason Jaya was there, watching admiringly from a tree. Bel saved his troop mates time and again, including Munpo, who was suddenly not so deft with his sword.
In the rafters above, Iassia ruffled his feathers with pleasure. All these years Corlas had hidden behind the wards, making it impossible for Iassia to invoke his ‘favour’ and have the father kill the son. The weaver had been limited to hovering about the perimeter, questing into passing minds for any titbit of information – yet it seemed that finally Corlas had taken a risk. Did he think that Iassia had lost patience with his task? Twenty years was nothing to a weaver, and in fact Iassia had enjoyed his time in the region. The small settlements and villages around Kadass had proved entertaining, containing an abundance of weak minds to toy with. His favourite had been the old woman who’d fallen into a gully at the back of a farm and broken her leg. Iassia had hidden in the branches above her, deflecting the attention of her family as they searched, so that they could hear her yet not find her. Her misery had been sublime. It was good to have a holiday.
Today the waiting had paid off. A troop of soldiers thinking loudly about a controversial new recruit had led Iassia straight to Bel. Below him now, the boy lay unguarded and asleep, and Iassia worked through ideas as he watched him. He was loath to involve any of Battu’s other servants, even if they were more capable of inflicting physical harm. This was his prize, long waited for! He staved off making a decision with a compromise: he would do a little reconnaissance, and if he didn’t find a way of dispatching Bel easily, he would then contact the distant dark lord.
With Bel asleep, Iassia could attempt a total invasion of his mind, putting himself wholly inside it. He opened the gates that held his consciousness in and floated invisibly down towards the bed. Behind him a thread of awareness connected him to his own body, unfurling as he went. As he entered Bel’s mind he became aware of the surface thoughts first. They had a certain texture to them – the man was confident, arrogant, vain. Iassia delved deeper …and suddenly knew he’d made a mistake. It was like stepping out expecting footing yet finding none. A void opened up beneath him and he fell, spinning wildly. He had to hold himself tightly to stop himself unravelling. What was this? Never before had he come across such a gap inside someone, a place where there should have been thought, personality, soul and yet there was nothing. He searched for a way out, but in the confusion his string of awareness had snapped. It was all he could do to move, struggling through the void as if trapped in tar. After what seemed like eternity he finally rediscovered the formed part of Bel. With his strength almost at an end and desperate to reconnect with his own body, he tapped into Bel’s senses, and despaired.
Bel was riding through grassy fields surrounded by the rest of the troop. Iassia’s struggle had lasted through the night and into the next morning, and now his body was leagues behind them, silent in the rafters of the tavern room – too far away for him to reach. Unwillingly he settled back into Bel’s mind, waiting for strength to return.
Bel found the second day of riding harder than the first. He was on edge, and dogged by the oddest sensation – as if there was something almost audible just below other sounds, more sensed than heard. Several times he turned in his saddle thinking he’d heard a voice beside him, and found nobody.
Night had fallen by the time they reached Drel. The town lay on the edge of Drel Forest, surrounded by high walls of wood planking, with soldiers patrolling them on an inside platform. One wall bordered the forest, and there was evidence there that trees had been cut back recently, presumably to stop the huggers from swinging into town. Double doors as high as the walls swung slowly inwards as the troop approached, and a soldier came striding out to meet them.