'Get the others here!' shouted Myriell.
She moved into the room, sat on the edge of the bed and clutched the little girl to her, attuning her mind and eyes to the mana spectrum and seeing the horror laid out for her there.
Surrounding Aviana was a mass of dark grey, pulsing over her mind, attacking relentlessly, pushed there by what force Myriell couldn't begin to guess. Something malevolent lurked deep in Lyanna and it had to be found and destroyed. The girl's mind was encased in orange, flecked with dark brown. She appeared to be channelling perfectly, dragging in the random fuel of magic, creating vortex shapes and casting them out in a stream of destruction.
Myriell formed a light mind net and moved it gingerly towards Lyanna, hoping to separate her from the force attacking the helpless Aviana. She dimly heard movement behind her, knew her sister was helping, and pushed on. She got nowhere near. The moment Lyanna sensed her, coils of orange mana lashed out from the whole, slapping away the mind net and dragging in its mana energy. Myriell dispersed it moments before the unravelling reached her own damaged mind and snapped out of the spectrum, her head thumping, her vision ragged at the edges.
Lyanna pushed against her and Myriell released her. The child was looking at her intently, recognition in her eyes. Myriell almost shouted and then Lyanna spoke.
'Hello Myra. Why are you keeping me in the dark place?' It was the child's voice but it was laced with foreboding and echoed through the room on the back of the gale.
'Oh, Lyanna, we aren't keeping you there, your mind has taken you there and we are guarding it to stop you being hurt.'
'But I don't want to be in the dark any more,' said Lyanna, clutching her doll close and stroking its head.
Myriell frowned. Her Night wasn't over. There was no calmness in the mana. Her control only went as far as stopping hurt to her own mind. What she released she had no way of understanding or controlling. She should still be under, learning, modulating and accepting.
'But you know you can't stop the wind in your mind, don't you? I know being in the dark place is lonely but it will help you to be happy.'
But Lyanna shook her head. 'No. Ana wanted me to stay and I didn't and something from me hurt her.' Tears rolled down her cheeks. 'I don't want to hurt anyone. So I don't want you to be with me in my mind any more.'
Myriell looked round. Ephemere was deep in concentration around Aviana's too-still form but Cleress was watching her and could only shrug in mute incomprehension.
'And anyway,' continued Lyanna, 'Mummy's coming soon and I have to brush my hair.'
She swung her legs out of the bed, then dropped to the floor and walked out into the dining room, the doll in one hand. Myriell watched her go.
'Clerry?' she pleaded.
'I don't know, Myra. I think we've lost her.'
Deep in the Southern Ocean, two hundred miles off Balaia's southern coast the seabed cracked and moved, sending pressures to the surface the like of which hadn't been felt for a thousand years. They surged upwards, creating a single, mountain-high wave backed by many lesser waves, minions in the wake of majesty.
The wave rushed northwards, an unstoppable force a dozen miles wide. It moved effortlessly across the ocean, its noise thunderous, its energy undiminishing. Beneath it, water shifted on the sea bed, creatures large and small fled behind it and swam from its influence as it stormed on, looking for a place to break. That place was Gyernath. The water towered over the land as it came, like a predatory animal preparing to strike down at its prey.
The port had sea defences, the finest of any port in Balaia. They were built to deflect the ferocity of the waves the winter gales threw up and to channel the floods from the town's streets and outlying fields. They were the pride of the port's council leaders. But no defences could hope to counter a wave a hundred and fifty feet high and a half mile deep.
By the time they had begun to run, it was already too late for the townspeople. And by the time the last ship had been dashed against the ground at the top of Drovers Way, almost a mile inland, there was nobody left at all.
The Calaian Sun drove on through the steadily calming waters of the Southern Ocean, two days out from the first islands of the Ornouth Archipelago. The mood on board had lightened considerably. Blue sky had been seen through breaks in the clouds, the winds had become steady and dependable from the west and the hail was a distant, painful memory. They were keeping pace with the Ocean Elm, Jevin convinced that the skipper was dragging his heels, and the break in the elemental battering gave rise to real hope that the Al-Drechar had exerted real control over Lyanna.
Hirad lay alone in the cabin he and Ilkar shared, the elf up top and actually enjoying a sea voyage for the first time. Hirad was happy for him. He was happy for them all. Erienne's BodyCast had done as well as it could, she had said, and The Unknown could now be allowed to waken naturally. How he reacted would tell them what work still needed to be done and what he would just have to live with. Hirad prayed for a miracle.
As for Thraun, well, he remained under magically-induced sleep. Ilkar said he had lost some of the hair and that his clawed feet were resembling toes again but within, the picture was not so hopeful. He was another reason why the Al-Drechar must survive. They were all hoping, though none of them would say it, that the ancient elven mages could help because there was precious little else The Raven could do for their friend.
And that left Denser and Erienne. They'd barely been out of their cabin since Erienne had finished her casting. Hirad knew she'd have had to rest well but even so, there was just so much you could catch up on without becoming exhausted.
He caught himself smiling and quashed it. Of course, for Denser, there was no time, not really. In the moments they'd been on deck together, wrapped in embrace, he'd seen joy in the Xeteskian's eyes but a distance that meant he hadn't told her. Hirad could understand that. It would shatter her happiness and she'd been through so much already. But he had to break the news, and do so before they landed.
He put his hands behind his head and felt the tug on his mind immediately. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, speaking with his mind as he had been taught.
'Great Kaan, I thought you had forgotten me,' he said.
'And you me,' said Sha-Kaan. 'I sensed you were at rest. Is that so?'
'It is, and I feel better for the warmth of your thoughts within me,' said Hirad.
'And the distance you are from the chill of the mountain,' said Sha-Kaan. A feeling of fleeting mirth ran through him. The Great Kaan had made a joke. Something had to be wrong.
'You're learning some humour, I see,' said Hirad.
'It is the only thing left to us while we wait for death or redemption, ' rumbled the dragon.
'Tell me,' said Hirad.
'Our condition worsens. Hyn-Kaan has difficulty flying, I tire too quickly and we have all lost our fire. Even that which we held in reserve is gone, leached from us by this cursed land of yours. It kills us more quickly every day. The Kaan asked me to contact you for news. It needs to be good.'
'And it is, mostly,' said Hirad, taken aback by the rapid deterioration Sha-Kaan described. 'We have Erienne and we are two days from the Al-Drechar. We fear more trouble from the Dordovan College but we will make them safe. And the child too. The elements have stopped attacking us, at least for now, but that could change. I only hope they can help you.'
'It is our last chance, Hirad Coldheart,' said Sha-Kaan. 'We are too long away from our Brood, the living air of Beshara and the healing streams of the Klenes in interdimensional space.'
'And the hunters?' Hirad hardly dared ask.
He felt Sha-Kaan sigh, a weary sound booming about his mind. 'They are everywhere, it seems. News of your departure has reached the wrong ears and they come in greater numbers. We have killed when we must but they are not deterred. Help us, Hirad Coldheart.'
Hirad punched the wall by his head. All the hurricanes, tempests and floods. And only the innocent seemed to have died.
'I will, Great Kaan,' he said. 'I will call you when we reach them.'
'Make it soon,' said the old dragon. 'Or one of these hunters will claim their prize before long.'
And he was gone.
Needing air, Hirad jumped off the bunk and walked out on to the deck, coming to stand by the starboard rail and look out over the benign seas, so beautiful when they were blue. He scratched his head and puffed out his cheeks, willing the ship to go faster. He heard someone walking up to him.
'Something wrong?' asked Ilkar.
'The usual,' said Hirad.
'The Kaan,' said Ilkar.
Hirad nodded. 'I don't know what to-'
But Ilkar wasn't listening to him. The elf stared out and ahead of them, then ran towards the bow of the ship, leaning out, peering into the distance and the empty horizon beyond the Ocean Elm. Hirad caught him up.
'What is it, Ilkar,' he asked.
Ilkar shook his head. 'Gods drowning, Hirad. There's so many of them.'
'So many of what?'
A shout echoed down from the crow's nest.
'Them,' said Ilkar, pointing way out to sea.
Hirad strained his eyes, seeing tiny shapes in the haze at the edge of his vision. They were sails. He counted seven. There could have been more but the distance confused his eyes.
'Who?' he asked through he knew the answer.
'Dordovans,' said Ilkar. 'It's the whole damned Dordovan fleet.'
Hirad didn't wait, he couldn't afford to. He returned to his cabin. They needed help and, with or without fire, there was only one source.
The Kaan.
Denser kissed Erienne's breasts gently, his tongue flickering at her nipples while his hand caressed her side and right thigh. She giggled and lifted his head, looking deep into his eyes.
'I've been fantasising about this,' he said.
'But not practising, I trust,' she replied, drawing him forward to kiss his lips. 'I wonder what you'd be like with a smooth chin?'
Denser scratched at his beard. 'Younger,' he said. 'Definitely younger.' But Erienne could see him struggling to smile.
'What is it, love?' she asked. 'Don't look so sombre. We're nearly there.'
'Yes, I know.' He looked away and watched his hand run down her stomach to rest on her pubis. Erienne felt a warmth rushing through her but took his hand away in any case.
'So what is it?' she asked. 'No answer, no fun.'
He stared at her face and she could see his eyes roving, taking in everything from her crown to the point of her chin. He nodded.
'All right. It had better be now.'
He rolled out of bed and she watched him pull on his shirt and loin cloth, her heart suddenly beating anxiously, her mind rushed with a thousand uneasy thoughts.
'Denser?'
'Put your shirt on and look at this.'
She cast around for and found her shirt, rearranging it to slip it over her head while she watched him open a cabinet and pull out some parchment. He handed her a page.
'Seen this before?' he asked, coming to sit beside her and stroke her hair.
She pulled her shirt over her waist and sat on the tails, covering herself. She unfolded the page and gasped.
'Where did you get this?'
'Your library,' he said. 'There are others but this is the one you have to see now.'
She looked hard into his eyes and saw terrible sorrow there. Her heart lurched and thudded painfully. She realised she was scared.
'But it's Lore. Lower Lore, I grant you, but Dordovan all the same.'
'It's part of the Tinjata Prophecy,' he said.
Erienne shook her head. 'I don't recognise it.'
'I know you don't. They hide it from people they don't want to see it and refuse to offer the translation to others.'
'People like you,' she said.
'Yes, so I stole it. I had to know.' He grimaced and swallowed and she put a hand to his face, trying to comfort him for a pain she didn't understand. 'And now I do.'
He handed her a second sheet. She took it and read it. It was a translation. Short, filled with gaps, but for all that, very explicit. She began to tremble, the parchment shaking in her hand. She had a lump in her throat and her stomach twisted. She looked at the prophecy, then back at the translation, searching word by word for an error.
'No, no, no,' she whispered, her eyes scanning feverishly, finger following lines of text.
And there was one. Basic but commonplace in untrained translation.
'Oh Denser,' she said. 'It's wrong. Whoever did it translated it wrong.'
'Where . . . how?'
He grabbed the parchments from her, she didn't know why. So she pointed at a single word in the Lore.
'They got the gender wrong,' she said, dragging in her last breath before the tears came. 'That doesn't mean Father. It means Mother.'
Chapter 32.
For one brief day, as they closed on the Dordovan fleet heading in from the west, Denser and Erienne hoped it might not come to the death of either of them. The clouds carried on thinning, the sun warmed them from a patched blue sky and the winds were exactly as strong as Jevin expected for this part of the Southern Ocean.
They had cried long together, bolting the door of their cabin and refusing any refreshment but their own company. Once they'd regained control and could bear not to clutch each other, Erienne had scoured the pages of the prophecy Denser had brought for some clue that their reading of it was wrong. But there was nothing, and Tinjata knew his signs only too well.
In the early evening of the sixth day, Denser lay with an arm around Erienne's shoulders, stroking her right arm with the tips of his fingers. The love they had made was tearful and tender, sensuous and quiet, each delighting in the other's body, knowing the other's pleasure by the sound of a sigh or a groan. No words were necessary then and they weren't now as they basked in the afterglow, the sun still streaming through the window from low on the horizon.
Soon, it would be time for dinner with The Raven, and to watch the sunset, glorious and red, firing its energies across the darkening sky under the remaining cloud. But for now they lay silent, staring at the ceiling above them, their bodies warm and the silence beautiful. Denser breathed in deep, Erienne's scent filling his nostrils. Maybe. Maybe her sacrifice wouldn't be necessary.
He knew he should worry about the Dordovans, who could reach the Ornouth Archipelago in front of them, but somehow he was certain they would fail. All that consumed him was the burgeoning hope that Lyanna's Night was over. If the weather held, if calm returned to Balaia and the Southern Ocean, it could really only mean one thing. That Lyanna had learned the control that was vital to her and Balaian survival. And if that was so, Erienne wouldn't have to die.
A shadow passed in front of the sun. Denser craned his head to the window to watch it pass. The shadow deepened and he frowned.
'Sundown's early tonight,' he said, propping himself on one elbow and looking down at Erienne.