Sorceress of the Silk Road by Luke Donegan

Author:Luke Donegan [Donegan, Luke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780648500520
Published: 2019-11-29T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15 – SOMETHING LOST TO THE WORLD

Grasp at trailing kite ropes,

Call through darkness for the lost wolf,

Race after his receding shadow,

Cling to the child no longer a child,

Hold on to fading memories …

Grief is one’s heart,

Unwilling to say goodbye.

Book of Forgotten Poems

House of Wisdom, Eighth Level – Philosophia

1

She stood on the desert sands. The line of resting camels grizzled a short distance away while the cameleers smoked and drank tea. She watched Serenus practise the sword with the young cameleer high on a tall sand dune. Above her Pericleia swooped through the sky, endlessly roaming above the dunes but never out of sight.

Sofya knew she should rest during the camp breaks. She didn’t have Serenus’ boundless energy, and, since she had discovered the language of fire, she felt tired as a consequence of its use. Even when not using her power, part of her felt permanently depleted as if consumed by fire.

She could not relax when Serenus left the camp. She needed to protect him and wanted him close. She could not bring herself to trust the cameleer he sparred with.

Sofya scanned the sky. On this day it was the colour of blue steel, almost silver, and hard and bright. Cloudless and unbroken. Apart from the flash of Pericleia nothing moved within its infinite field.

Where are the birds?

Since crossing the Shoulder of Kubaysah she had not seen a single bird.

Are we too deep in the desert for birds to survive? I should ask Hilel.

The absence of birds made her anxious. Had something changed? Did they no longer need to show her the way?

Sofya sat and pushed her hands into the warm sand. She closed her eyes and opened her mind to the energy of the earth. She could feel the sand beneath her, humming quietly, soft and deep and muffled like underwater sounds. Sand dunes rolled like waves across the surface of an ocean, ripples of energy rising and falling. Her mind burrowed deeper and she could feel vast currents of sand wandering leisurely through the earth like great rivers, leagues wide and hundreds of leagues long, and so deep that they had never seen the light of day.

It was like searching through a mist. The resonant murmur of shifting sand obscured everything and she could not see through it. She slumped and opened her eyes. A thin trickle of blood ran past her lips and dripped onto the sand.

She wiped away the blood and looked up. Serenus and the cameleer Dabir had finished sparring and stood together on the crest of the high dune. Pericleia swooped over her head and flew east, skimming up the side of a sand dune. She watched the bird as she crested the summit, caught the sunlight and burst into a sudden flash of light. Then the bird swung in a wide circle, flew to the north and then west until she returned to Sofya.

Pericleia hovered for a moment in front of Sofya. She blinked her blue eyes then pitched away and flew east again up over the dune.

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