Survivors: Book 4 Circles of Light series (14 page)

The gijan body
structure was different enough from human to worry her but she
pushed the worry aside. Mentally she forced the two ends of the
artery, one of which still pumped an alarming amount of blood over
her, downwards, beneath the wing. Then she sought the tiniest
filaments of each end and wove them together. She was not aware of
Gan wiping her face with a cool cloth until she blinked and
realised she could see clearly again. Perspiration still soaked her
hair but no longer dripped into her eyes. Tika felt Brin’s strength
in her, like an immense rock, and paused to snatch a mouthful of
water. With her mind she checked and double checked the repair she
had made and began to extricate the wing.

When she moved to the
gijan’s other side Brin told her Seela was keeping Storm and Leaf a
few leagues away until sunrise at least. Tika looked up briefly,
registering the dark star scattered sky and returned her attention
to her task. This time she looked beneath the gijan’s skin before
she touched it, but there was no faulty placement of an artery in
this one’s back. Eventually it was done and Tika again placed her
pendant against the gijan’s neck and shoulder. Then she slumped
across his legs, utterly spent.

When she woke, Tika
ached with exhaustion. She found Farn curled around her and Ren
sitting to one side. He smiled.

‘You did amazingly
Tika. I couldn’t follow all you did, but it made me realise what a
huge strength you have. Now I believe the story of your healing
Farn’s awful injury!’

Tika yawned so hugely
that her jaw cracked and her eyes watered. ‘Is the gijan well? Is
it male or female? How is Leaf?’

Ren grinned. ‘Female.
Leaf was very agitated when she came back. Seela and Storm could
not keep her away any longer. She helped us clean the second wing –
you were asleep by then of course.’

Farn huffed at the
Offering. ‘My Tika used a great amount of her strength: she had to
rest.’

Ren raise his hands to
placate Tika’s soul bond. ‘I was but teasing you Farn.’ He smiled
at Tika again. ‘The gijan will soon wake. Her wings are black like
Leaf’s but the underside is pale green. As you saved her life in
releasing her wings, so I think you must be the first, with Leaf,
to greet her.’

Tika started to get up
and groaned. ‘I keep waking up and finding I have no clothes
on.’

Ren handed her a shirt
and trousers, his smile widening. ‘Sket and Farn will let no one
else near you. They dunk you in the lake, scrub you clean and wrap
you like a baby.’

Farn extended his neck
over the Offering. ‘Well of course no one else will touch my Tika.
Sket is our friend – nearly a Dragon.’

Tika gurgled with
laughter wondering what Sket would make of that compliment. She
pulled the shirt over her head. Ren tugged her to her feet and held
her when she swayed.

‘Thank the stars there
are only three gijan,’ she said ruefully. ‘I don’t know that I
could cope with more.’

Before they reached the
group clustered round the gijan, Leaf rushed to Tika’s side,
catching her hand.

‘My sister wakes –
hurry!’

‘Do you know her name?’
Tika asked curiously.

Leaf’s head tilted from
side to side. ‘Naturally I know her name. But she must speak it
first.’

Tika wondered if or
when they would have the time to investigate these gijan people
properly. She retrieved her pendant, finding it cool to the touch
now. She watched Leaf’s sister struggle, wings thrashing for a
moment before the gijan was suddenly on her feet. The face was
identical to Leaf’s as far as Tika could see, but at least the pale
green of her under feathers would help tell them apart she thought
gratefully. The gijan stretched its hands towards her, seeming to
ignore Leaf at Tika’s shoulder.

‘My life is yours. I am
Piper.’

‘May the stars guide
your path Piper. I am Tika and I welcome you among us.’

Piper’s face lit with a
smile and she hurled herself at Leaf. The company watched the gijan
sisters greet each other, their feathers mingling, tiny hands
patting and stroking.

‘Breakfast,’ Pallin
interrupted gruffly and stumped back to the fire where their few
pots simmered.

Leaf, clutching Piper’s
hand, led her to each of the group, introducing her formally. Olam
chuckled when Leaf clambered onto Seela’s back, hauling Piper up
next to her.

‘It’s as well they’re
so tiny – Seela’s the preferred roost it appears.’

Seela’s long neck was
curved over her back, her eyes pale violet, as she mind spoke her
two visitors.

Brin reclined near the
fire. ‘Seela has said they are her daughters.’ His mind tone was
full of affection. ‘She says it is many cycles since she hatched
children of her own, and even her grandchildren’s grandchildren are
grown and scattered. She only sees them at Gatherings. She thinks
it will be good to have little ones to care for again.’

Tika had only that day
to rest before she was woken, to her surprise, by Grek.

‘The third gijan’s time
has come,’ he told her. ‘The others sleep but I will wake them.
This one will not be as difficult as Piper.’

Tika desperately wished
she could tell where to look when conversing with this unbodied
entity but even as she formed the thought her blanket twitched over
her feet.

‘Have you checked the
gijan then?’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t you say you could do that – you
could have helped me?’

‘I can see these things
child but I can only influence or affect a mind. I could not heal
physically.’

‘Then why didn’t you
tell me there was such a problem with Piper?’ Tika got to her feet
and headed to where the last gijan lay.

‘I wasn’t here.’ Grek
sounded truly apologetic. ‘I have been searching the area to the
south, trying to find the best route for you all to the
coast.’

Tika stopped in her
tracks. ‘Grek, if you are unable to do it, wake Ren please and ask
him and Seela to keep Leaf and Piper asleep while I work on this
gijan. And then wake Maressa, Sket and Pallin at least.’

To the watchers the day
seemed endless; to Tika time was irrelevant, focused as she was on
the work she was doing. But this gijan’s wings emerged easily and
took the least time so far, although Tika was drained by the time
it was done. Farn was greatly distressed that she was so weakened
and Ren agreed to ensure Tika slept now, until her depleted
strength was restored. It was the eleventh day since their escape
from the desert when Tika once more approached the third gijan.
Leaf and Piper stood hand in hand, trilling softly to each other as
they waited to embrace their brother.

His blue black wings
trembled then fanned half open, brilliant yellow under feathers
gleaming in the sunlight. He stood before Tika and stretched his
hands out to her.

‘My life is yours. I am
Willow.’

Willow was slightly
taller and slightly sturdier than his sisters and, the company
discovered, he was the one who had been the most forthcoming in the
City of the Domes. In the evenings following his waking, he spoke,
from Storm’s back, of the time he and his sisters had lived there.
The Qwah held the gijan worthless, fit for only the most basic
menial work within the Ring Complex. No gijan lived anywhere else
in the City or the Valley.

‘Have the Qwah outside
the City any knowledge at all of your people?’ Gan
asked.

‘I don’t think so.’
Willow’s finely arched dark brows drew down into a frown. ‘Some
gijan are born in the Ring Complex. Others are captured. Certain of
the Qwah – like Kirat - find pleasure in their yearly hunts in our
swamp lands.’

‘And you?’ Olam
queried. ‘Were you captured?’

‘Our mothers are in the
City.’ Willow shrugged, his feathers rustling against Storm’s
scales. ‘If they still live, which is unlikely.’

Maressa took a deep
breath and plunged. ‘Your minds are shielded; even while you were
so ill before Tika freed your feathers we could not reach you. That
implies considerable power Willow. The Qwah use mind speech but
otherwise seem to have little ability in any other use of the
power. Why have you allowed them to kidnap you, use you so harshly?
I suspect you could have escaped if you chose.’

Willow laughed. ‘I do
not know if we could have escaped successfully, but it was foretold
– this time of Suffering for the gijan. The mothers tell all
children as soon as they begin to understand – and that is much
sooner than Qwah children do.’

Farn huffed. ‘Dragon
children are also early to understanding, unlike human
children.’

Leaf and Piper laughed
from Seela’s back, Leaf climbing down to join her brother on Storm.
She leaned against him.

‘Our birth mother gives
us our names as we are born, but we tell no one that name until we
have changed – become male or female.’ Leaf explained. ‘Our other
mothers tell us the stories.’

‘Other
mothers?’

Leaf shook her head.
‘We don’t understand your ways: the Qwah have only one child at a
time and only one mother for each child. How can one mother be sure
that ALL the stories have been told to each child? And the stories
must be told in a special order so the mothers share the
tellings.’

Olam scratched at his
healing side and Pallin slapped his hand away from the wound. ‘Are
these other mothers perhaps aunts or something?’ he asked
generally.

‘No of course not. We
have aunts as well as mothers. Mothers feed milk to us.’

Olam looked even more
perplexed. ‘Does your birth mother not provide your
milk?’

Willow nodded. ‘We are
born in litters.’ He gestured to Leaf and Piper. ‘We are only three
to come from our mother this time. Many of her friends attended her
who had no litters, no children to care for at that time. They
offered themselves as milk mothers and our birth mother chose two
of them.’

‘You were servants in
the Ring Complex?’ Navan felt a change of subject would be a good
idea – birth mothers, milk mothers, children born in litters, were
all beyond him. ‘Did you go into Singer’s Dome?’

Leaf and Willow
exchanged a quick glance.

‘I did sometimes.’
Willow’s voice was soft. ‘I had to sweep the floor and tell a
Keeper if the robes on the statues were still clean and
tidy.’

‘What are those
statues?’ Navan asked bluntly.

‘They were our Elders.
In the time before Suffering, we were a taller people and our skins
were scaled.’ Willow extended his arm and the dappled markings were
clearly visible. ‘When the tribes of Qwah gathered in the desert,
there had been a time of great sickness within the Valley. The
Elders’ numbers had fallen through many deaths and too few
children. The Qwah overran the Valley and the Sacred City and the
few Elders strong enough to flee, hid in the swamp lands to the
east.’

‘East? I thought that
Keeper said the gijan came from the southern swamps?’ Tika was
thoughtful. ‘Did you have any contact with other people there?
Trading perhaps?’

‘Yes,’ Piper called.
‘Our people knew the Nagum tribes. Our lands bordered each
other.’

Her brother and sister
nodded.

‘In the twenty seventh
story,’ said Leaf. She continued as though quoting: ‘The Nagum folk
are deserving of Elder friendship and respect. They revere the land
and care for plants as tenderly as they do their own
young.’

Later, Tika wandered
back to her sleeping place deep in thought. She didn’t recall Mim
ever telling any stories of his childhood, or of his people. But
then, he rarely spoke of his life before he’d bonded with Ashta,
preferring to keep his memories of his slaughtered family well
hidden in his heart. Tika spread out her blanket and waited for
Farn to join her so that she could comfortably nestle against his
side. The temperature was still warmer than what she was used to
but it was pleasant compared to the desert. Khosa suddenly stalked
around a bush and came to crouch by Tika’s feet.

‘I wondered where you
were. I’ve scarcely seen you since we’ve been here.’

‘Lots of squeakers. And
I found many cosy places to rest near their nesting holes, so I did
not need to come back. You were busy anyway.’

Tika rested her hand on
the orange Kephi’s back. ‘Is something wrong Khosa?’

‘We must move soon.
Kertiss has allowed us more than two ten-days. I do not trust him
to let us reach Namolos as easily as this.’

Tika felt a slight
alarm. ‘Could he reach us, out of his desert?’

Khosa’s tail flicked.
‘I do not know. Grek may be able to go back and find out but we
really need him to be our contact with Namolos should trouble
arise.’

Tika felt rather more
alarm. ‘Khosa, if you know something more, for stars’ sake tell
me.’

‘There is nothing more
for now, but Hadjay will make a very bad enemy to have behind us.
Don’t forget, it was your men who killed his brothers. What I fear
is that Hadjay will gather a group of others like himself – those
familiar with the desert lands. If he persuades Kertiss that he has
a good chance of catching up with us, I fear what weapons Kertiss
may provide him with.’