CHAPTER TEN
Samuel continued bounding across the rippled sands in the eerie silver twilight. He landed softly, cradling the woman in his arms as well as he could, before springing away again towards his goal. She kept a steady stream of energy flowing into him, keeping him going when he would otherwise have failed from weariness. It was not hard for him to pinpoint the Valley of the Ancients, for the gathering of magicians there sang to his senses. Cang’s aura alone formed a blue glow upon the horizon and Samuel kept on towards it throughout the night. What had taken them days to traverse on camelback, now took only hours as he flew above the difficult terrain on wings of magic. All the while, the Star of Osirah hung above him, with its tail spread across the heavens.
‘How much further?’ she asked, flushed in the face.
‘Not far,’ he told her. ‘Can you hold on?’
‘I think so. The pains have stopped. I think our baby does not want to be born in the desert.’
‘I will hurry.’ And with that he pushed himself on with renewed vigour, with the cold desert wind blowing in his face and setting their clothes flapping wildly around them.
‘What will we do with this child?’ she asked him.
‘Why do you ask? We will raise him together, of course.’
‘I would not ask you to stay with me if you do not love me,’ she said.
‘Of course I love you. My thoughts for you are all that have kept me from going mad. Every day of my confinement, my body was kept under the mountain, but my spirit was always with you.’
‘Was it really you I could feel?’ she asked. ‘I thought perhaps I was going mad. I heard what they did to you, and I almost died from despair.’
‘I don’t know how it happened, but somehow I fled from the pain of my body, and you kept my mind from losing its grip. I was with you, more often than you could know, and my only hope was that we could one day be together. I could not see past our differences at first, but I have come to realise it is only when I am with you that I am complete. After all our time together, it is my greatest regret that I did not realise it sooner.’
She smiled at his answer and closed her eyes. ‘I felt you with me, but I could not see you. In my dreams, I thought I could hear you screaming and,at times, I could sense your pain.’ She opened her eyes again and looked at him with worry. ‘I wanted to kill them all and cometosave you, but the witch was full of lies. She said if I harmed anyone,they would kill you. I was not powerful enough to defy her. I couldn’t bring myself to even try. If not for the kindness of Sir Ferse, I don’t know how I would have survived. What became of him? Did he perish in the city?’
‘He escaped and is making his way back to his family.’
‘That is good. He missed his family as much as I missed you and every day was equal torture for him. I hope I also made his time a little more bearable-and he did teach me so much. He knows a lot about people and the ways of the world. He was very patient and understanding with me. I could feel he was troubled, but he is a good man.’
‘He is, but I am not sure how long that will last. All of us have changed in many ways. Tell me,’ he then asked her, ‘do you think we will be happy together?’
She smiled at him warmly. ‘I cannot think of anything else.’
‘Then I will help you return to your land.’
‘I do not care about going back any more,’ she told him. ‘I have learnt much of who I am and I know I am not a god-and I do not want to be one. Perhaps one day we can find a way to save my people from the Eudans, but for now, my only need is to be a mother.’
They spied the top of the Temple of Shadows, jutting above the sands, just as the sun was dawning behind him, and Samuel took one final leap into the canyon, landing lightly at the foot of the stairs that led up to the entrance.
Master Celios was waiting there at the mouth of the temple, donned in his best Order blacks with silver-hewn hems, and he beckoned to them with urgency. ‘Come! Come! We have been waiting for you all night. Come quickly! The Demon King’s return is upon us. The time is nigh.’
The Koian woman wriggled out of Samuel’s grip and she began up the stairs, holding her belly. Samuel climbed after her, but she stopped him before he could speak. ‘I want to walk a little. It will help the baby to come out. And I’m tired of being carried.’
So Samuel followed her hobbling ascent, with his hand at her back to catch her should she fall, as she took the stairs,one at a time.
‘Master Celios, how did you know we were coming?’ Samuel asked the old seer. He knew he should be angry with the man, but he couldscarcely blame him for his madness. Others had compelled the unfortunate old magician to peer into the future more often than was safe, cracking his sanity in the process.
‘Cang could feel you coming,’ old Celios revealed, craning his head to look at the star above. ‘He has learned how to find you. He tried to explain it to me, but I have no mind for such talk. My mind is ever filled with the visions he asks of me.’
Theyadvancedinto the dim, adorned passageways of the temple.
‘What has happened in our absence?’ Samuel asked the old magician. ‘Something has happened to allow the demons to return. It seems the rings were not the relics we were seeking. Something else must have been responsible.’
‘Yes, yes,we know. Cang will tell you everything,’ was all Celios would say, and they followed the plodding Koian woman to the end of the hall, where she stopped in place.
She began panting quickly and bent her legs, as if looking to sit down. Samuel rushed to her side.
‘Enough walking!’ she said urgently. ‘Carry me!’
He scooped her up and started away, but Celios called them back to the opposite passage. ‘This way. We have readied a room for her this way. The others are waiting. Come.’
Samuel turned about, careful not to hit her head against the walls, for the passageways were quite tight in places. They turned a corner andwentdown some dusty stairs,and Samuel was surprised to find a large chamber, almost as wide as the temple itself, built beneath the temple. The great space was entirely vacant, save for a circular pattern of stones laid into the floor at its very centre. A gathering of people waswaiting upon it.
Cang was foremost there, with his simple smock hanging on his skeletal frame and tied tightly around at the waist. Lomar and Eric also waited beside Balten,and they all turned to see the visitors arrive. Cang called out on sight of the new-comers’ approach and three Paatin women came scurrying from a side chamber and began beckoning Samuel over. He took the Koian woman past them to find a bedded room, stocked with linen and a washbasin, obviously prepared for their arrival.
‘Come, lady,’ one of the women spoke in a Paatin dialect and helped the pregnant woman from Samuel’s arms and into the bed.
No sooner had she lain back than she screamed, with her pained face turning beetroot red, and the women rushed to her side, pushing Samuel out of the way.
‘Come, Samuel,’ Balten said, waiting at the door. ‘They will care for her. We need to speak.’
Samuel reluctantly followed the man across the echoing chamber, where the others waited at its middle.
‘What happened to all the relics here? The books and shelves? The temple was full the last time I was here,’ he noted.
‘Plans have changed, Samuel,’ Balten said. ‘Everything has been carefully packed and removed, sent to other Circle hiding places around the world. The temples have always served as insurance, to pass future generations the knowledge to combat the Demon King. Now, we will not be needing it. Tonight we will achieve victory. Let Cang explain the rest.’
They reached the centre of the room and Samuel stepped up onto the raised stone circle with the others.
‘Samuel!’ Lomar said. ‘You are alive! It is good to see you.’ And he gave him a great engulfing hug. ‘I’m sorry
