Awakening Read online

  Shaan stood up abruptly and swaying slightly picked up her empty glass. ‘I’m going for more wine.’ She slid out from behind the table.

  Nilah looked up, her face flushed. ‘What?’

  The girl was definitely drunk. Shaan didn’t give her time to speak further. She staggered as her foot caught on the bench, righted herself, and then made for the bar.

  The air was warm and people were moving and talking all around her. They seemed to keep getting in her way and it was hard to see in the dim light. Weaving around them, she made it to the bar, calling for wine. She looked around. There was the farmer boy. He had only moved a little further around toward the wall. He saw her looking at him. Shaan tilted her head and gave him a smile. The boy almost spilled his ale as he grinned back. One of his friends saw and began punching him in the arm. Anticipation stirred in her stomach and she rested languidly against the bar, her eyes drifting.

  The corners of the inn were shadowy and the wine was making her feel lightheaded. She smiled to herself. A face moved, a blond head turned and Balkis’s cerulean blue eyes met hers. Her shoulders tensed, disturbing the pleasant numbness she had been enjoying. He was leaning on the bar a little way down from her. His hair was curling in the heat and a thin film of sweat covered the tanned skin on his face and bare muscled arms. He too had large, strong hands and Shaan suddenly wondered what they would feel like on her skin. But then her eyes travelled up and she noticed he was looking at her as though she were nothing. Less than nothing. Was that disgust in his gaze?

  A small spark of anger penetrated her wine-soaked mind. What right did he have to judge her? What was it to him if one of the yard workers had some fun? A small voice told her that what he thought did matter, but she pushed the voice away. Not tonight. Tonight she had helped a fellow thief escape. He would have stopped him if he’d been able, thrown him into the jails. And Tamlin had been such a sweet little boy. Just a child when she’d known him.

  She lifted her chin and stared back at him. Let him think what he liked. The Sept Leader’s expression remained unchanged, then he turned his head and was lost in the shadows again. She picked up her glass, tipped it to her lips, and then put it down again. She had forgotten it was empty. Where was that serving woman?

  ‘I’ll buy you a drink,’ a deep voice spoke behind her.

  Shaan turned and looked up into the face of the young farmer boy. He was very tall, and maybe not as young as she’d first thought. She had to tilt her head back to see his face, which at the moment had a hopeful expression all over it. She smiled and glanced over to where his companions were sniggering and pushing each other.

  She looked back at him then grabbed hold of his arm and swayed a little closer to him. ‘I’ve got a better idea.’ She pulled on his arm and tilted her head toward the door. His smile widened into a grin.

  ‘Come on.’ Shaan let go of his arm and putting a swing into her hips, made for the door, not bothering to check if he was following.

  Outside the air was fresher, but warm and moist. She took a deep breath of it but her head still felt lighter than it should. There was no one about. Shouts and laughter carried from other parts of the city and the sea slapped softly against the docks only two streets away. One lamp lit the street at the front of the inn, but other than that the only light came from the half moon that was now high in the night sky. She looked back at the grey shadow of the young man and beckoned for him to follow. She could hear his breath quickening as he came after her, down the alley beside the inn.

  It was dark, but thankfully there was no refuse. She turned and leaned back against the uneven damp wall. The man was a huge dark shape before her.

  ‘Come on,’ she whispered, feeling reckless.

  He came for her faster than she had anticipated and the breath was almost knocked from her as he pushed up against her. He was huge and strong. One large hand closed over her breast as he nuzzled at her neck while the other grasped her hip. Dizzy, Shaan pushed him back.

  ‘Easy boy.’ She caught her breath, panting a little herself. ‘Let’s slow down a bit.’

  ‘Why?’ His voice was harsh with desire. He came toward her again and gripping her hips he half lifted her against the wall.

  Bricks dug into her back as he pressed his hips into hers and she could feel him already hard. His breath stank of ale and she turned her head as he tried to kiss her, but he felt good up against her. She lifted one leg and hooked it around him, pulling him in. Her head was buzzing and all she could smell was male sweat and ale. Balkis’s face unexpectedly swam into her mind, and she closed her eyes as the farmer’s hand squeezed the soft flesh of her upper thigh. He pressed her against the wall as his other hand fumbled with the laces at the front of her shirt. His fingers kept slipping on the thin cord. He pushed her harder against the wall, grunting.

  Shaan laughed. ‘Here let me.’

  ‘No!’ He pushed her hand away and slammed her back against the wall.

  Pain stabbed into her back. ‘Stop!’ She tried to push his hands away but he ignored her and began ripping at her clothes.

  Fear rose and the fog of desire lifted. ‘Get off!’ She unhooked her leg and tried to reach down for her knife, but he caught her arm and slammed her against the wall again. Her head snapped back on the brick, the pain making her dizzy. Terror flooded her. He was all over her, ripping her shirt, a hard hand squeezing her breast.

  With an angry screech, she dug her thumbs into either side of his windpipe. He wheezed and jerked back and she brought her knee up into his groin. He dropped to the ground with an agonised groan. Furious, she kicked him. His head snapped back as her sandal connected with his chin and pain exploded in her heel.

  Gasping, she turned to run, but wasn’t fast enough. His hand closed around her ankle and she went down on the hard paving, all the air rushing from her lungs. Panicking, she tried to crawl away, but he had her and was dragging her back. Her fingernails broke as she clung to the stones. She tried desperately to suck in enough air to scream, but only small, whimpering sounds came out.

  He flipped her over and fell on top of her, grunting and cursing. She tried to reach again for her knife but he slapped her hard across the face. Her ears rang and she tasted blood. She couldn’t breathe he was so heavy. He was tugging at her trousers.

  Then suddenly everything stopped. Panting, Shaan saw Balkis straddling them both. He held the man’s head back by the hair and had a knife to his throat. For a moment nobody moved.

  ‘Now,’ Balkis spoke quietly. ‘You will get up slowly and give me no reason to slit you open.’ He pulled the man’s hair harder. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Y . . . yes,’ the farmer whimpered, frozen above her.

  ‘Well then,’ Balkis stepped off him and backed away, the long knife still held out before him almost casually. ‘Move.’ He gestured with the blade.

  Slowly the boy got off her. Shaan almost passed out as the weight lifted and she rolled onto one side away from the men, covering her breasts with shaking hands, and lay still just breathing.

  ‘What is your name?’ She heard Balkis ask.

  ‘N-n-n-Norad,’ the young man stuttered.

  ‘Well, Norad. You’ll leave now and I don’t expect to see you again.’

  ‘Y . . . yes.’

  ‘Now!’ Balkis raised his voice and Shaan heard heavy footsteps moving away.

  She didn’t move. She could feel Balkis still standing there, watching her, but she couldn’t seem to get up just yet.

  ‘Get up.’ His voice was hard, just the same as when he’d talked to the farmboy.

  She ignored him. Please, go away, she thought.

  ‘Get up.’ He repeated and she heard footsteps.

  She moved before he could touch her. Rolling away from his hand, she got slowly to her feet wincing at the pain in her back and ribs, staggering as a sudden wave of dizziness swept her. He made no attempt to help her. She tried to cover herself with the remains of her torn shirt, keeping one eye on him standing motionless
watching her. His tall form was dimly silhouetted in the light from the street; fine curls of his hair a halo around his head. She couldn’t see his face.

  ‘You should be more careful,’ he said. And sheathing his knife, he turned and walked away, disappearing from her view.

  13

  He crept silently into the Dome and listened, his eyes closed, one hand pressed flat against the warm stone. The night was dark and the moon high, a faint sliver in the star-speckled black. He had been careful coming here. There were still things to be done, things to be found before he could feel whole. He could not risk the black-shirted ones noticing him yet. He closed his eyes and listened, concentrating on the life that breathed above him.

  He could feel them, all of them. Their blood called to him, but it was faint: a whisper across a vast ocean. They were so young and their blood was cold. A single tear slipped from his eye. Soon he would help them remember. He would help them remember the joy, the truth. They slumbered now, but still in sleep they could be reached; he was good at that, he’d had two millennia to practise that.

  His fingers curled and scratched against the wall as he thought of it. So much time taken from him, stolen! His face became tight with fury and he felt again the coldness of the place, the nothingness, and heard again the voices, so close yet impossible to reach. Or so they had thought. He had reached one. He had felt her through the walls of his prison. His own, his blood. She had released him, although she did not know it. He could feel her now; he whispered to her in the dark. He did not know where she was yet, but she would come to him. When her dreams became her waking terror, she would seek the one who could help her – and then she would be his. Then she would help him regain what the others had taken from him.

  Anger filled his breast. He still remembered the slave who had stolen the ring. A prophet they called him now. A thief was what he really was! And he had not been able to stop him then, distracted as he was with his siblings seeking to banish him! He had not even noticed it was gone until it was too late. But he would find it. It was here in this city, he felt it, marked as it was with blood. The thieves who had kept it all these years knew it was important to him, but did not know why. A bitter smile stretched the skin on his face, baring his teeth. Once she came to him they would find it together and he would be able to test if his plan would come to fruition. He was sure it would. The ring and the Stone were linked, they would draw each to the other and she would be the catalyst.

  He flattened his hand against the wall, feeling the breaths of the serpents reverberating through the stone. His siblings had underestimated him. They had thought by banishing him they would erase him forever. But whose name still lived the strongest now, two thousand years after their deed? They were nothing but wraiths, Lost Gods the people named them. He smiled. They had been forgotten, but still the slaves knew his name. They whispered it, afraid.

  He wondered whether his creatures here were afraid of it, or whether they yearned to remember, but did not know how. He had felt the others, the older ones, consumed by madness as they flew from the dark places, killing as they went. They were searching for him, killing in his name; but they could wait for now. They could continue their game a while longer. He knew they played in the villages beyond the mountains, and in the dead lands. He could not follow them there. The sands denied him access as always, as it had ever been. The ancient ones who ruled there had ever kept their lands closed to him. But it mattered not. What interest did he have in lands where nothing grew but goats and savage men? They were no threat to him; they fought too much among themselves. Now he needed to find those here who would join with him. One who could light the fire in the Hive, one who could wake them.

  He turned his mind upwards, searching, drifting, careful lest he madden him with fear. And they would be frightened, they carried the memory of his power in their blood. They would know they had betrayed him by making a pact with the slaves, by their ancestors turning against him. But he could be forgiving if they came back to him humbled. He would make them all powerful again.

  His mind drifted up through the stone, past the sleeping ones, their dreams redolent with forgotten glory, to the single aged one who would welcome him back. One who yearned for the true paths again. There he was. The shadow smiled. This one was older, much older; he could feel the memories in his blood flowing thick and close. Carefully, very carefully, he whispered to Nuathin.

  The dream came again that night. As soon as Shaan closed her eyes, images rushed in. She was pulled into darkness, falling in terror through endless black as the smell of wet earth rose to meet her. Red flickering fire flared, illuminating a burning city, and she was crouching by its walls on the bank of a rushing river.

  The water was clogged with debris and bodies were carried swiftly past her into the jungle. Screams rent the air amid the crash and rumble of falling buildings, and she huddled against the stone as people poured from broken gates, running away into the night.

  An inhuman cry sounded and a dark shadow sailed over. The long barbed tail snaked behind and Shaan sobbed as the earth trembled beneath a heavy tread. She was too afraid to look up. Then she heard the voice.

  Cara merak Arak-si, he whispered to her.

  She could not understand. She could not raise her head. She strained, pushing against her invisible bonds, and woke suddenly with a start, her head throbbing. She lay, unable to move for a time, overtaken over by dread. He’d never been that close before.

  Cara merak arak-si. The words frightened her. She hugged her knees tight. She wanted to stay in bed all day, huddled on the thin mattress her back to the wall; but she had to work at the yards. What if she was sent to Nuathin’s crell? What if Balkis was there? The thought of seeing him again after last night hollowed her. What would he think of her now? Could she face him?

  She looked down at her chipped and ragged nails. She could still feel the farmboy’s hands on her skin. Shame filled her, bitter and sickening as seawater. How had she come to this? Since the dreams had started she’d felt as though she was losing control, as though her place in the world was sliding out from beneath her. No longer was she certain of who she was, or what she was doing.

  Shaking herself she sighed; it would do no good to hide in her room. Taking deep breaths she stretched out and got up, dousing her face with cold water, wincing as it hit the cut on her cheek. She put on her work trousers and shirt and went downstairs.

  The sun had just topped the horizon and on her way to the yards she passed a group of foreign-looking people huddled together in a doorway. They wore odd three-sided hats and their skin was pale, their cheekbones flat and wide. They stared at her with pale elongated eyes. More refugees, but she was too tired to wonder who they were or where they came from. She walked past them wearily and trudged on to the yard workers’ entrance. Old man Gringely was guarding the gate, but he barely looked at her pass and kept glancing tensely up at the Dome.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Shaan said as he handed her pass back.

  ‘Nothing.’ Gringely scratched his chin and again his eyes slid up to the huge building on the hill above the barracks. Shaan followed his gaze.

  There were two serpents on the roof and two more gliding high in the air above it, dipping and twisting in the thermals, the morning sun glinting off their hides. That was odd. The serpents didn’t usually hang around the Dome at this time of day. They should be out in the lowlands beyond the city, hunting or exercising their wings. She stared up at them uneasily.

  Gringely noticed her still standing there. ‘Oi! Get on with you, worker,’ he grunted, but his command was half hearted and Shaan cocked her head at the Dome.

  ‘How long have they been there?’

  He sighed and shrugged. ‘A while. Been hearin’ weird noises too, strange . . .’ He trailed off staring at the Dome again. ‘Something’s wrong.’

  As if to prove his point a long keening cry echoed across the roofs of the buildings and barracks. It was low and inhuman and it lifted t
he hairs on the back of her neck. It reminded her of her dream. Gringely looked at her without speaking, but Shaan could see the fear behind his yellowed eyes.

  ‘I have to go,’ she said and hurried off. Her neck itched and a hollow, creeping fear was in her belly. She jogged up the hill and made it to the workers’ warehouse just before the supervisor arrived.

  She was stiff with tension, expecting to be directed back to Nuathin’s crell, but instead she was assigned with another woman to cleaning duties in the barracks. The supervisor gave no explanation about why none were sent into the Dome.

  She went quietly with the others back down the hill. Her insides jumped nervously as they neared the sept leaders’ quarters, but all the dwellings were empty and she saw no sign of Balkis, nor could she identify which of the buildings was even his.

  The morning passed uneventfully and she trudged back to the Red Pepino in the afternoon, her back aching with each step, a lingering vulnerability stalking her every move. She opened the kitchen door and collapsed against it with a sigh. She had eaten nothing at her own meal break and was feeling lightheaded. She looked around for a jug of water and a bite of anything edible. She lifted the lids off glazed pots, peering into them.

  ‘Hungry?’

  Startled, she turned to see Torg closing the door that led to the bar and common room.

  She frowned. ‘Why can’t you make noise like everyone else?’

  ‘’Cause I’m graceful as a dancing fish.’ He grinned at her sour expression. ‘Not enough food makes women grumpy. Here,’ he went over to the oven and pulled a plate out. ‘Sherrilee didn’t finish her mid-meal, you eat it.’

  He put the plate on the table and the aroma of fish stew wafted up to Shaan’s nostrils.

  ‘Thanks,’ she muttered and sat down taking the spoon he handed her. The stew was warm, spicy and rich and a small sigh escaped her as she ate.

  Torg smiled and sat down opposite her with a bowl of wattle peas and started shelling them.