Part 52 (1/2)

235.

Beacon Light forward past the waiting city folk.

'Lord, you have saved us!' the people cried out as the King walked to the head of the column.

Angis fell into step with him, casting her warm shawl across his shoulders. 'You have saved us all, my Lord, even the weak and the humble, and they thank you. Listen to the praise in their voices.'

Holbian laughed, rubbing his hand through Beacon Light's wet mane. 'That is the real task set before Kings, to care for all their people. Power and pomp are nothing but empty moments; rising towers and palaces are empty sh.e.l.ls; the greatness of Elundium walks with me here in the dark.'

Angis nodded and made to drop back into her place.

'Walk with me,' Holbian called, 'and listen to the music in the coat, for it tells of where the darkness ends and the new daylight begins.'

'Lord, wherever you walk there will be sunlight, for you are a King who loves his people,' she answered.

'If only I had discovered all this an age ago there would be no Nightbeasts,' King Holbian sighed.

236.

The First Shout of Silence

Thane murmured in his sleep and curled himself into a tight ball against the cold, snuggling into Ousious' side under the torn cloak. Ogion sat sentry-still nearby, staring out across the blizzard-covered beach, past the sleeping forms of the flock of swans, at the dark lake beyond. The ice had begun to groan and crack yet there was no change in the weather.

Rising up, he waddled up the beach and fuelled the dying fire, tossing broken beach wreckage on to the glowing embers.

Thane opened his eyes, sat up and smiled at the Lord of Swans. He stretched out his arms and stared at the bright cotton thread sewn neatly across his wrist. Blinking he frowned and remembered slas.h.i.+ng his wrist to try to save Ousious' life, but how did the coloured thread become sewn across his wrist? Turning he felt under the half cloak at the stiff blood-encrusted wound on Ousious' chest. She was warm to his touch and her breast rose and fell with each sleeping breath she took. Thane touched the rough st.i.tches he had sewn with strands from Stumble's mane and looked up to the top of the beach where the horse grazed, hunched against the weather.

'The Queen of Swans lives!' he shouted, before falling back exhausted. Thane s.h.i.+vered beneath the cloak and closed his eyes, too tired to worry about the rainbow thread, but the creaking voice of the ice that lay thick across Swanwater made him sit up again, 'Why does the ice move?' he asked, staring

237.

238.

out across the lake. 'Perhaps something unnatural is draining the water,' he thought. He watched the buckling ice water shatter under its own weight and collapse into the freezing mud out in the centre of the lake.

'A great power is emptying the lake,' he said, turning his wrist over and gazing at the coloured thread. 'Something as great as the hand chat sewed up my wrist! Perhaps Nevian, the Master of Magic!' Thane whispered, touching the thread and feeling the warmth of a summer day flow through his numb fingers. 'Perhaps he came and found me stranded on this beach, weak from the loss of blood.'

Thane rose slowly to his feet, using a twisted waterbleached branch to keep him steady. Dizzily he took one step towards the shattered ice and sank to his knees.

Ogion hissed and flapped his wings, pus.h.i.+ng him back towards Ousious. 'Rest and become strong, you cannot follow Krulshards until Ousious is strong enough to fly, for only she knows the way.'

Thane turned back the corner of the cloak and gendy stroked the soft downy feathers on Ousious' neck. 'Please tell me, Queen of Swans, which way the Nightmare took Elionbel.'

Ousious stirred, moved her wings and straightened her neck. Opening and- closing her bright orange beak she

brushed it against Thane's cheek.

'Where did the Nightmare run?' Thane asked, pressing his .

ear against her breast. Far away beyond the edge of the wind I he could hear the whisper of her heart and faint murmurs of