‘What do you mean?’ This time a note of defence did show in her voice. Her own issues with Bel – the resentment that came with his pig-headed belief that she needed protecting, and that she had to follow his lead when she was not used to following anyone – did not mean she would stand idly by while others criticised him.
‘Well,’ said Gellan, ‘simply that he seems to have been …steered, is all. Fahren brought him up to believe the shadow is the enemy, then orders from Arkus reaffirmed it and set him on this journey. It would be nice to know he did these things because he believed them, not just because that’s the way he’s been taught, if you follow?’
Jaya was not sure what the mage was getting at, but his points were making her uncomfortable.
‘And what are any of us,’ she said, ‘if not the products of our upbringing, and the people around us?’
Gellan sighed. ‘I only meant that seeing something beautiful, which you are charged to protect, should be affecting. I meant no offence – Bel is doing an excellent job.’ He paused. ‘And what about you?’
‘What about me?’ she said, still unsettled.
‘Do you help Bel because you believe in his ultimate purpose, or because you love him?’
‘I don’t see that there needs to be an “or”,’ said Jaya.
‘Quite so,’ agreed Gellan. ‘But, if you don’t mind me saying …I expect that sometimes Sprite blood, such as you and Bel have, can blur things.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well,’ said Gellan, ‘you were born in Kainordas, raised a Kainordan, taught to worship Arkus …and yet the Sprites were people of both light and shadow. I imagine your blood remembers, somewhere, that you are not truly aligned in this war.’
Jaya frowned. It was true that she’d always been restless, as if there was no real place for her in the world – until she’d met Bel and he had become her place. That did not mean she was totally devoid of all allegiance.
‘It is not as if you exactly fit in,’ added the mage. ‘A thief without regard for the laws of the land – is that loyalty? Or is that a Sprite finding her own way through a world that is not exactly hers?’
‘I am only part Sprite,’ she said. ‘You discount the larger part of me too easily.’
‘Ask yourself,’ said Gellan, ‘would you have come on this journey if not for Bel?’
‘Of course not, but what does that matter? Neither would Hiza, who comes because Bel is his friend, or M’Meska, who respects him as a warrior. Do you not think that the blue-haired man should be able to inspire people to follow him?’
Gellan seemed taken aback by the answer. ‘So,’ he muttered, almost to himself, ‘it is the man you follow, not the cause?’
Annoyance at these strange questions finally overcame her. She did not like the way they made her go deep inside herself, nor the insinuation that being a thief made her an enemy of her own people. She felt judged, and while she did not really give two beans about what others thought of her, it was getting about time to put Gellan in his place.
‘I’m not sure exactly what you are suggesting,’ she said. ‘That because I’m a Sprite I can’t be trusted? That I cannot decide for myself where my sympathies lie? Or that I should ally myself with a people long dead, spend my life fighting for a lost cause?’
‘No, no …please, I meant no offence. It is my nature to question things, I was merely doing it aloud.’
‘Well, maybe you should be more careful about whose values you oh-so-casually deconstruct. Anyone would think you were an Overseer trying to gain admissions from a Fenvarrow spy. Yes, I am a citizen of Kainordas, and just because I have lived an unconventional life doesn’t mean I want to see it fall.’
Gellan nodded.
‘No,’ he said. ‘What sane person would?’
By mid-afternoon they had left Crystalweb behind, for which Bel was glad. Flat plains lay ahead, and off to the north the mountains still loomed, their bases hugged by natural wood. He shot Jaya a smile, which he felt he owed her, though she seemed lost in thought. Things may not be easy between them, but at least he would always find her beautiful, even if he did not, could not, see the same in strange crystal trees.
He fell into step with Fazel who was, as ever, bringing up the rear.
‘How much further?’ he said.
‘We’re close,’ said the mage. ‘Sometime tomorrow we should reach Valdurn, and from there it is only a day or so.’
‘Wait,’ said Bel, ‘did you say Valdurn?’
‘Yes.’
‘That was the other destination written on the road sign, back before Crystalweb.’
‘It was,’ said Fazel. ‘Master,’ he added.
‘So why did we not simply follow that road?’
Anger flared as Bel wondered if they had gone through Crystalweb unnecessarily. Given the choice, he would have avoided a place that caused such disruption within the group.
‘Both ways lead to Valdurn,’ said Fazel. ‘The one through Crystalweb is shorter.’
‘Shorter than the actual road to Valdurn?’
‘It is an old road,’ sighed Fazel. ‘It wends and winds past places that used to be settlements and are no longer.’
Bel stared hard at Fazel but, as usual, the blackened skull gave little away. He knew the mage could not lie to him, so he nodded curtly. ‘I see. However, the next time we are presented with a choice like that, I invite you to be more open about it.’
‘As you wish,’ said Fazel.
Away in the night, the lights of Valdurn twinkled. It looked a prosperous little village, simple and neatly constructed. It lay nestled against a great wood, which expanded behind it in all directions, and somewhere through that lay the dragon’s lair.
‘We go in?’ gurgled Thrasker, his beady pearl eyes fixed on the village.
Ectid clinked her claws together. ‘Yes, yes,’ she whispered eagerly. Tarka and Eddow also took up the clinking, filling the air with a deadly staccato.
‘Silence,’ said Eldew, and they froze. ‘Have you forgotten that I am the biggest? I shall decide the way.’
The Mireforms gurgled and lowered their claws.
‘The village is easily avoided,’ put in Gremin, the most level-headed of the group.
‘But it would not delay us long,’ said Ectid immediately.
‘Eldew,’ said Tarka. ‘I have rested so long in the swamp, half-asleep in the mud …but now I am out in the world, awake! Are you not awake also?’
Eldew considered Tarka’s words. He supposed there was no harm in allowing a brief stop. And, in truth, a part of him wanted what the others wanted. It was base perhaps, but there was no denying one’s own nature. Enemies were enemies.
‘To Valdurn,’ he said.
Losara lay on his bedroll, gazing up at the stars. The difficulty with which he found sleep away from the castle was made no easier by thinking constantly, thinking in circles, about his choices.
Was there any point to him possessing the Stone? Maybe it could reunite him with Bel, but it was also capable of much, much more. Being able to combine light and shadow to a single purpose …that was the kind of power that could win wars. Paradoxical perhaps, to wish for a way to unite such powers as a means to snuff out one of them forever. And how could he use it? He had no mage of the light loyal to his cause, nor the remotest prospect of finding one.
On the other hand, how did Bel hope to use it? His other seemed to realise that Fazel could not be directed against him, unless Losara allowed it – and why would Bel ever think that Losara would allow it?
Who, then? How did the light hope to find a shadow mage willing to turn against his own people?
Fields of Grass
Battu almost reeled from the onslaught of déjà vu. He’d thought maybe he could avoid this moment, yet here it was, smiling at him and saying hello. Here, in the final steps.