Keris shot her a look of irritation. She turned back to Alondo, her voice formal. “Lorran.”
“Kada.” He announced with a mock version of her formality. He stood up from his stool and bowed. “Thanks for the game. I could give you a handicap next time, if you like?”
Shann finally lost control. She released Lyall, doubling up in fits of raucous laughter, drawing attention from nearby tables.
Keris ignored her with some effort. “You deceived me,” she accused Alondo.
Alondo’s eyes widened. His hands moved to his chest in a gesture of injured innocence. “Me?”
“You led me to believe you were less experienced than you are.”
Lyall moved to intervene. “Well, I’m surprised a trained investigator couldn’t spot the clues.” He ticked off his fingers one by one. “First, he’s a genius. Second, he’s a musician by trade. Where do you think musicians spend most of their time?”
“Playing in inns and public houses,” Keris acknowledged.
“Exactly.”
“So the two of you set me up?”
“Only in fun…and as a way of helping you to relax. After all, he did give you a challenging game.”
Keris appeared mollified by Lyall’s explanation. She rose from her stool and formally returned Alondo’s bow. “Thank you. I look forward to our next encounter.”
Shann had her arm around Alondo’s shoulder. Good friends. Good food. Good company. She could not remember a time in her life when she had felt so contented. “How about another drink?” she suggested amiably.
Far off in another corner of the Calandra, a figure in a black and red tunic and black trousers sat alone at a table half in shadow, watching the party surreptitiously. As he raised his mug to his lips, a ring was visible on his index finger, bronze and set with a single stone of the deepest ebony.
Chapter 26
Shann awoke the next morning feeling muzzy-headed. They had secured two rooms at the Calandra, one for Lyall and Alondo and one for her and Keris. Boxx had naturally accompanied Keris and no-one had argued the point.
As she came to and struggled to focus, she quickly realised that Keris and Boxx were gone. She was alone. Like everything else at the Calandra, the bed was soft and sumptuous–not at all what she was used to, but highly pleasant for all that. She was sorely tempted to turn over and go back to sleep, but the light level told her that it was well past the time for her to rise. Besides, she was curious as to what the others were up to.
Reluctantly, she pushed back the covers and padded across the wooden floor to a side table where a basin of fresh water stood. The rush of cold water on her face brought her to full wakefulness. She found some clean clothes in a dresser and slipped out into the corridor. Going to the door of the adjacent room, she knocked lightly. The door opened and she was gratified to see Alondo’s round face.
He beamed at her. “We thought you were going to sleep all day.” He opened the door fully and beckoned her inside. Lyall and Keris stood to one side, watching Boxx. The Chandara had the machine from the past set up in the middle of the floor. Light reflected off the gold and silver coloured workings, but the device was otherwise inactive. Shann and Alondo took up a place on the other side of Boxx.
Lyall looked up. He seemed pleased to see her. “How are you this morning?”
Shann was still feeling a little fragile. She realised she probably needed some food inside her, but that would have to wait. “I’m fine. What is Boxx up to? ”
“You got here just in time,” Lyall informed her. He was wearing a rustic brown tunic and trousers, in sharp contrast with his ostentatious outfit of the previous evening. “Boxx says that Annata is due to contact us shortly.”
“She will expect us to be on the other side of the world by now,” Keris reminded them. “We are going to have to break the news that the tower was destroyed.”
“Do you think there is another way to get there?” Shann asked.
Keris was looking tired and anxious. Her hair was uncombed. “Let’s hope she knows of one. And that we are not already too late.” Was she being genuine? Or was she merely saying what she thought they wanted to hear? She remembered what Lyall had said about the difficult journey that both she and Keris were on. Lyall had been prepared to give her a second chance, but in doing so, he had chosen a dangerous path for everyone. It was a second chance for her to betray them all. She claimed that she had turned against her overseer and left him dead in the Gilah, but there was no way of verifying that–they only had her word. One persistent thought kept nagging at the back of her mind–Keltar do not turn against the Prophet.
Then there was Boxx. In some ways, its role in all of this was just as much of a mystery. Chandara do not lie; Lyall had said as much. Deep down, Shann believed that to be true. But could it be deceived? Was it possible that the Keltar had somehow run across Boxx and the machine from the past and had seen an opportunity to use the situation for her own ends?
Shann could not help but think back to last evening’s game of shassatan. During their epic journey together, moves had been made; gambits employed; strategies followed. Now was the decisive point. Kada-Lorran. Victory or Defeat. It all comes down to this.
“It Is Time.” Boxx’s announcement brought a deathly silence to the room. Shann hardly dared to breathe. The Chandara stretched forth its left middle forelimb and touched the panel set into the mechanism’s circular base. It did so again. And a third time. Nothing. No gentle hum emanated from the delicate components. The row of lights remained stubbornly dull. It was for all intents and purposes dead.
Broken. She broke it after all. Shann was filled with despair and disgust. She fired a look at Keris, but the older woman was looking intensely at the scene in the middle of the room and did not notice, or pretended not to.
Alondo had moved to Boxx’s side and was on his haunches, inspecting the device. His hand touched a part of the inner apparatus, then went to his chin.
“Well?” Lyall finally broke the silence.
Alondo was continuing to stare into the unfathomable mix of brightly coloured parts. “All I can say for sure is that there is still no power getting to the unit. Whether that is due to the earlier damage, or the fact that no power is being transferred to it, I just don’t know. I’m sorry.”
A pall had settled over the gathering. Finally Lyall drew himself erect and spoke to no-one in particular. “Well, it seems we have some thinking to do–and I for one don’t think well on an empty stomach. I am going to order up breakfast. I want everyone downstairs as soon as it’s ready.” His tone brooked no argument.
The group slowly dispersed, each one to their own private room of dejection.
~
The table at the back of the Inn was laden with a sumptuous repast of flatbreads, sweetmeats and an amazing variety of fruits, both dried and fresh. At any other time, Shann would have happily piled her platter high and ate her fill. Yet now she was doing little more than picking at the seeds on a pastry or rolling a janaberry around on her plate. The others were showing scarcely more of an appetite than her. Only Boxx seemed unaffected as it munched a yellow fruit contentedly with its eyes closed. She envied the little creature. The little girl in her resented the thought of all that food going to waste. Maybe later.
Lyall was seated at the head of the table; his eyes rested on each of them in turn. When he reached Shann, she met his look and smiled encouragingly. She did not want to let him down, although she was not sure what any of them was supposed to do now.
Finally he began, “I can appreciate that you are all disappointed. We made the journey here in the hope that Annata would contact us and tell us how we might cross the Great Barrier. However, for whatever reason, it seems she has been unable to do so. She told us before that she had devoted her life to the salvation of the Kelanni of our time. I believe that she is even now doing everything she can to get through to us. In the meantime, we must continue to do our part.” He paused as if waiting
for a response, but no-one spoke. He tied the threads of his purpose into a single knot. “We must cross the Great Barrier ourselves.”
Keris who was seated to his left, lifted her head from her empty plate. “And how do you propose that we do that?”
Lyall smiled enigmatically. “I was hoping that you were going to tell me.”
Alondo smiled back from the seat on his right. “I thought jokes were my speciality.”
“I mean it.” Lyall leaned back on his stool and spread both hands wide. “Look, The Great Barrier of Storms lies over there,” he pointed vaguely towards the front of the inn, “just across the Aronak Sea. All we need to do is cross it.”
“None of us knows how to sail a vessel,” Alondo pointed out.
“It doesn’t matter.” Keris was staring down at her plate once more. “The storms are impenetrable. Any ship that approaches would have its sails torn to shreds. If it strikes sail, it would have no way to push against the massive winds. At best it would be blown back to this side; at worst it would be swamped and capsize. There is no way through.”
Keris’ summary was like a funeral oration. Silence descended once again. Then, as if out of nowhere, the merest suggestion appeared at the back of Shann’s mind. Something Keris had just said. She scrabbled around in the junk room of her memories, as if desperately searching for a lost volume. Her hand closed around a book and she picked it up. There was a single word on the cover. Push.
“Maybe we could use lodestone?” she heard herself say. She looked around and saw that her companions were all staring at her.
“How do you mean, Shann?” Lyall asked in a kindly voice.
Shann swallowed. She was now the centre of attention. The idea was still taking shape in her mind, and she was concerned that she might sound foolish. She gathered her wits and addressed Lyall directly, as if the others were not there. “The…the training stones you showed me at the farmhouse–do you still have them?”
Lyall reached down to his belt and produced a small pouch, handing it across the table to Shann. “There you go.”
Shann hastily rearranged and stacked plates and mugs until she had a clear section of table in front of her. Then she untied the string at the neck of the pouch and peeked inside, selecting two stones; one white, one black. The black stone resisted her pull slightly. She set the white disc on the table and the black one next to it. Immediately, the two discs began to move in the direction of the white disc until both dropped off the end of the tabletop. She bent down to pick them up, and held up the white disc between her thumb and forefinger. “Say the white stone is our ship.” She held the black disc in her other hand. “We could use lodestone to push it from behind using …a barge or something.”
Keris had an expression of rapt attention. “Intriguing.” Then she added, “A pity we couldn’t actually do it.”
Shann felt instantly deflated. “Why not?”
Lyall cut in. “I’m afraid I’d have to agree with Keris. Your idea is fine in theory, Shann. Unfortunately though, a ship, even a relatively small ship, weighs a lot. It would take a lot of lodestone to push it–far more than we could possibly lay our hands on. If we had unlimited time and resources then maybe it would be possible, but we don’t. Still,” he beamed at her warmly, “it was a great suggestion.”
Basking in his smile of approval, she felt herself blossom once more. However, the fact remained that they were no further forward.
Boxx was still enjoying the fruit and seemed not to be paying any attention. Suddenly it raised its head. Juice was running from the corners of its mouth, lending it a comical appearance. “It Is A Boundary.”
Lyall had a bemused expression. “In a way, yes.”
“A Boundary Between Here And There.”
“Boxx is right,” Lyall declared. “Any boundary can be crossed. We just need to figure out a way.” He pursed his lips for a moment. “All right, let’s approach this from a different angle. Is there any instance of anyone ever successfully traversing the Barrier? ”
“I know of one.” It was Alondo.
“You do?” Keris asked incredulously.
Alondo nodded, “Uh-huh. Captain Arval is said to have crossed it once.”
“Captain Arval?” Keris turned away dismissively. “You mean one of those ridiculous stories.”
“Stories are a part of Kelanni culture,” Alondo maintained. “They also happen to be a valuable source of inspiration for songs, so I always pay attention to them. I have found that in among the exaggerated claims, there is more often than not, a grain of truth.”
Lyall leaned forward on his stool. “Go ahead, Alondo. Tell us the story.”
Alondo glanced in Keris’ direction. “The legend says that Arval was offered a great sum of money by the Lord of Kalath-Kar to determine what lay beyond the Barrier. He travelled to the Isle of Panna. There he captured and tamed three giant perridons. He tethered them to the bow of his ship and used them to pull it through the tempests.”
Shann was intrigued. “What happened?”
“Well this is where the account starts to get a little strange. It says they were ‘brought forth into a land of darkest dark, where the sky is bright but there are no suns.’”
“What does that mean?” Shann asked.
Alondo shook his head. “I have no idea. However, it goes on to tell of how the crew of the Calandra were terrified and on the brink of mutiny. Arval was forced to take them back across the divide. Afterwards, some of them were said to have gone mad. Others never took to sea again.” He paused for a reaction but everyone seemed lost in their own thoughts. Surely it could not be true. Annata would not send them to such a terrible place.
“What I found interesting,” Alondo continued, “is that this one is quite unlike the other stories surrounding the good Captain, where he is portrayed as the all-conquering hero. He came close to losing his ship and crew.”
“It’s nothing more than a legend,” Keris reminded them.
Lyall had a faraway look. “Perhaps. But it’s given me an idea. I think there might be a way to combine Shann’s rather inventive notion of using lodestone with Arval’s fanciful tale. It’s risky, but I think we may just have found a way to cross the Great Barrier.
“How?” Alondo asked eagerly.
Lyall’s eyes sparkled. “First things first. We are going to need a ship. ”
~
Shann stood with her back to the wall of the shipwright’s office, watching the world go by. Opposite her, a hodgepodge of buildings large and small, boarding houses, moneylenders, traders of every description. Carts drawn by striped graylesh trundled past along the cobbled street, conveying goods from the docks and back again. As she watched, an argument broke out between a round faced, hook nosed merchant and what she took to be a customer. The round faced man seemed to be demanding money. Over on the street corner, the tall figure of an Asoli, in distinctive green jacket and feathered headgear watched over the altercation, ready to intervene. The sky was overcast and a warm drizzle had begun, spattering on the round cobblestones and trickling down the back of her neck.
Shann felt like a fifth wheel. Alondo and Boxx were back at the Calandra. Alondo had expressed the idea that if he could discover what type of energy the machine used, they might be able to power it from this end, so Lyall suggested that he stay behind with the Chandara and work on it. He would take her and Keris into town. Then they would all meet up at the Calandra later that evening. Lyall had been rather cagey about his plan for them to cross the Barrier. All he had really said was that it would be necessary to arrange to modify a ship.
“Why am I coming along?” Shann had asked as they headed uphill towards the commercial district.
“Well, I thought it would be more interesting for you than just sitting around at the inn,” Lyall had explained. Now he and Keris were ensconced in the shipwrights, discussing the finer points of maritime vessel construction, and she was left outside in the street. Just waiting. In the rain. <
br />
She wrapped the simple russet coloured robe tighter around her neck and felt a jingle in one of the folds. Lyall had given her half an astria. To the orphan kitchen hand in Corte, it would have been a fabulous sum of money and she would have been consumed by thoughts of how she could possibly spend it. Now though, standing here on a street in a city filled with more wonders and temptations than she had ever seen, she found that there was nothing she wanted. At least, nothing that money could buy. You are not the same person who left Corte–that was what Lyall had said. More and more, she was coming to realise that was true.
She was debating whether or not to enter the shipwright’s to ask how much longer they were going to be, when the door opened and Keris stepped out into the street, closely followed by Lyall.
Lyall was contrite. “Sorry it took so long, Shann.” He looked up at the sky and the gathering rain. “We’ve agreed on the modifications that will be needed. The chief artisan was curious, but fortunately, this is a town where people don’t ask too many questions, so long as you have the money to pay. Our next task is to secure a suitable ship so that he can start work. We will also need someone to sail it, plus a certain quantity of lodestone. That last one may prove a bit difficult.” He began leading the way back down to the docks. “The other thing is that the alterations will take a while–ten to twelve days, he reckons. That can’t be avoided.”
They reached the corner where the Asoli was standing watch. A blur of movement. A dark figure shot past them. Shann swivelled on her heel to see the back of a dark blue coat disappearing into the rain. Behind her she heard Lyall’s shout, tinged with frustration and anger. “The money pouch–it’s gone.”
Chapter 27
Keris was already pulling her flying cloak out of her pack. “You haven’t brought yours, have you?” It was a rebuke, rather than a question. She fastened the neck clasps. “You are the Door; I am the Dagger,” she addressed Lyall. “River and Dam. Try not to lose sight of him.” She turned and sprinted up the street.
“Remember Keris, no violence,” she heard Lyall call after her. Does stomping on his head count? She shoved one lumbering pedestrian to one side, clipping a basket with her elbow. There was an angry shout as red and yellow fruits rolled across the cobbles. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the green uniformed Asoli on the corner was headed in her direction. She was attracting too much attention. And the thief was getting away. She cursed to herself and pounded away through the rain.