[Prologue]    [Chapter 1]   [Chapter 2]    [Chapter 3]    [Chapter 4]    [Chapter 5]    [Chapter 6]    [Chapter 7]    [Chapter 8]    [Chapter 9]    [Chapter 10]    [Chapter 11]    [Chapter 12]    [Chapter 13]    [Chapter 14]    [Chapter 15]    [Chapter 16]    [Chapter 17]    [Chapter 18]    [Chapter 19]    [Chapter 20]    [Chapter 21]    [Chapter 22]    [Chapter 23]    [Chapter 25]    [Chapter 26]    [Chapter 27]    [Chapter 28]    [Chapter 29]    [Chapter 30]    [Epilogue]
   

Chapter 24

Corina and Yanthro were drinking water and eating their cactus pines. In the distance, there was a Catlan Scout ship on a sand dune. It then flew up and flew carefully towards them.
    “The ship is flying a little low,” said Corina. “Isn’t that kind of worrying?”
    “Raise your scarf,” Yanthro told her. “They should not take notice of us and fly up soon.” Corina raised her scarf but not over her mouth; she was still eating. The ship kept its level and speed.
    “Yanthro...”
    “Quickly, pack the pines and go...slowly,” told Yanthro.
    They got up and tried to move as if there was nothing wrong. But the ship carried on following them. After a few minutes a hatch opened and a few soldiers jumped out.
    One of them called to the teens: “HEY! MIND IF WE SEARCH YOU?!”
    Corina and Yanthro knew that meant time’s up.
    “If they look at our faces they’ll know we’re not Catlan,” thought Corina in a panic. They both ran.
    The soldiers ran behind them and the ship kept speed. It fired next to the runaways to try and make them stop and it made Corina more scared. The ship then fired right in front of the 2 non-Catlans. Yanthro ran round but Corina stopped, letting one of the soldiers shoot her leg. She fell down. Yanthro heard her fall and tried to go back for her but the ship fired right in front of him, making him fall down. The soldiers caught up and made them stand. They pulled down the hoods as the Scout Ship landed.
    “Well, well,” one of them said. “We’ve got ourselves an escaped Doglan.” He grinned.
    “And this one’s definitely not one of our own,” said a soldier standing next to Corina.
    “GET THEM INSIDE!” shouted a soldier from the open hatch. The 2 were pushed forward.

They were walking in the caves. The caves were glowing and they could switch their torches off. Everyone wondered why the caves were glowing. Rida looked at Jaron.
    “Why and how are the caves glowing?” Rida asked quietly.
    “They glow with star substance,” Zana told them all.
    “Star substance?” asked Rida. “Star substance which is told in the legend of Dina when she, a Sage like you, found the marking of the forever dagger on a rock and the sky rained gleaming diamonds, that wrapped around the marked rock and created the blessed shelter, a shelter which can never be broken into by anyone who’s not a Sage as long as these walls glow?”
    Zana grinned. “You know your legends. And there it is.” He walked up to the dagger mark on the wall and put his forever dagger next to it. They were the same shape.
    “Okay,” said Loria, being a little shaky. “If we’re heading towards ‘White Head Sanctuary’, how many other white-heads are there in here?”
    “5 others.” Zana carried on walking. The rest followed.
    “How’d you know that?” asked Jaron. “It is true isn’t it? Lark talks to you and tells you all you need to know?”
    Zana didn’t talk for a moment. He grinned. “Of course.”
    “Who are the other voices?” Jaron asked.
    “What other voices?” asked Zana.
    Jaron explained. “A few days ago, other voices talked through you.”
    Zana then told him: “They’re good people who’ve died in the past. They serve Lark and tell his messages to me and the others.”
    “I’ve just remembered something about this cave,” said Loria. “Isn’t it true you can talk to the dead here?”
    “Not here here but yeah.” Everyone heard that in their minds. They stopped. Zana turned around.
    “Zana, how’d you do that?” asked Rida.
    “Do what?” Zana looked shocked as he realised what he’d done. “I dunno but I can do it as if I’ve done it my whole life.”
    Balka-Rae made a small noise as he leaned against the rock and closed his eyes. Kuni went up to him and saw that he was slightly sweating.
    “Father, you’re ill.”
    “I’m fine,” said Balka, but he wasn’t. Zana walked over to him.
    “You don’t deny a Sage, you told me that,” Kuni told her Dad.
    “Zana told you?” asked Balka.
    “Yeah-Dad, I know you have a fever,” Zana just said. He found it quite hard to talk.
    “Fever?” Rida looked at his brother and sister-in-law.
    “It explains a lot,” said Jaron.
    Balka tried to stop Zana from holding his wrist by pulling but he was too weak. His son got the forever dagger out.
    “Don’t move or this’ll cut you,” Zana said carefully. He cut Balka’s sleeve open (Balka’s gloves weren’t separate so they were part of his body suit). There was a small lump on his wrist.
    “A snake bite,” said Kuni. “And it’s infected.”
    “He had it treated,” said Zana.
    “Did he put disinfectant on it?” asked his half sister. He shook his head.
    “Someone’ll need to carry Balka’s pack,” said Loria.
    “Will you do it?” asked Kuni.
    Loria shrugged. “Sure.”
    “I can lift it,” said Balka.
    “No Dad, you’re sick,” Zana told him.
    “I’m still strong,” said his Dad.
    “Take it off before I pull off your pack and carry you,” said Zana as if he was telling off a kid.
    Balka sulked while pulling off the pack. He dropped it and then walked off.

Balka was ahead of them but they weren’t far behind. The other Taklans were asking Zana a load of questions.
    “So,” said Jaron. “White-heads can talk telepathically to each other and can do it to other people when they’re in this sanctuary. And white-heads can only talk to each other telepathically when they see each other.”
    “…Sort of,” said Zana.
    “And Lark tells you everything about the other white-heads?” asked Jaron.
    “Yes Jaron, I know the lives, the history and what the others look and sound like. I even know their personalities and they know mine.” Zana sounded fed up.
    “Isn’t that kind of creepy?” asked Loria.
    Zana shrugged. “I’m sorta used to it.”
    “Why is it that when you meet an ordinary person for the first time, you know nothing about them?” asked Kuni. “Can’t you just be told everything about them by Fera?”
    “If that happened we’d be no better than a nosy Tellen,” told Zana. “No offence Loria.”
    Loria shrugged. “None taken.”
    “So right at this moment, the voices in your head are telling you the messages, from Lark, which say...what?” asked Rida. “How many of them are there?”
    Zana thought about it (counted the messages) for a moment. Then said: “About 3 or 4. The most important ones are that 4 white-heads are in prayer at the dome-a dome shaped cave that is-and the youngest one, Texa, is going to meet us at the end of this tunnel.”
    “Sounds like a Bannon name,” said Jaron.
    “She is Bannon and has the most beautiful eyes,” told the white-head. They walked on in silence.
    “Zana?” Loria asked.
    “Yeah?”
    “Why didn’t you tell us all this before?” she asked.
    Zana smiled. “ ‘Cos you never asked.”
    “And didn’t you know about Balka-Rae’s life before he told his story?” asked Jaron.
    Zana smiled. “I told you, we don’t know people before we’ve met them. There’s Texa.”
    There was a young girl waiting for them. She was quite pale and had white hair that went down to her back and waved around. She had the black-green eyes that most Bannons had. She was wearing a red body suit with red boots. Over it she had a black, baggy robe that went down to her waist and the sleeves went halfway along the arms. As they walked nearer to her, they could see that she was only 13.
    “Hello,” she said with a sweet smile.
    “You weren’t born here, were you?” asked Jaron, looking around the cave.
    “No,” she answered, “but stories can come later, we must tend to the sick one.” She looked at Balka-Rae. He fainted as if he’d given up proving his strength.
    Kuni picked up and carried her Dad. Texa led them down a tunnel. They heard a large group of women chanting a song.
    “It’s beautiful,” said Loria quietly.
    “Where’s it coming from?” asked Jaron.
    “You are hearing the voices of the Priestesses from the Ancient Days,” Texa told them all. “They are singing the song of High Noon, which they sing everyday at midday, when the Sun is at its highest. The Priests have a song too, but that’s the song of High Night, which they sing at midnight. They are both long, forgotten traditions.”
    Zana hummed the tune.
    “You hear that song everyday, don’t you Zana?” thought Rida.

Balka-Rae was asleep on his bed. He wore nothing and was covered by a woollen blanket. There was a long leaf wrapped around his wrist. Kuni watched Texa make a liquid, then she used a spoon to feed it to the sick  Catlan.
    “You’re pretty good at that,” said Kuni.
    “I try hard to study medicine,” said Texa. “I hope to go out into the world as a nurse. Balka-Rae’s strong, this medicine should help break the fever during the night.”

Rida, Jaron, Loria and Zana sat on their folded up black cloaks. They were waiting for dinner to cook. The other 4 white-heads sat in front of them. All who lived in the sanctuary wore a red suit with some sized black overall. Pendi (the Tellen white-head, aged 34) was telling them how she found Texa.
    “I was in the Bannory Jungle at the time,” Pendi told them. “You know what that place is like, completely wild. There are roaming gangs, outlaws, huge and powerful gangs that control territories. Anyway, Texa was born at the swamp area which is the only neutral place in the country. That’s not where I was but I was told to go there. On the way Gaderan told me 3 gangs were fighting over her Mum. Her choices were to stay with friends, carry on her duties at a temple or be given huge riches and leadership and she could only choose one. An outlaw was Texa’s Dad, he and her Mum had a small romance and she kept her baby a secret from…everyone.
    “When I got to the hospital I had to tell her I knew her story, so she trusted me to take care of Texa, which is why I took her back here.”
    “Texa wishes to return to the swamp to become a nurse,” Kwar-Di told them. (He’s a Wayan white head, 45 years old.)
    “She’ll need training but she doesn’t have the money to pay for it,” said Jaron.
    Krayek (the Catlan man who must be over 85) smiled. “The gang feud had been settled years ago. She can return to her mother for support, for she is now a rich woman.”
    “Dinnertime!” Texa called out. She and Kuni came in carrying trays which had plates, cups, a jug, 2 large pots and bread on them. They put the trays on a table and everyone went to get some food.
    The jug had a juice in it. One pot had mashed vegetables in it and the other pot had roasted onion and mushrooms covered in a sauce. Using spoons, these things were put on the bread.
    Everyone was enjoyably eating.
    “How’s Dad?” Kuni heard Zana ask in her mind.
    “He’ll be better,” said Kuni quietly.
    “I have a small request,” said Jaron.
    Kwar-Di looked at him and said: “Proceed.”
    Jaron explained. “With your permission, I was thinking that the troops assembled to carry out the attack on Catlan Imperial could move through here. After all, this is a short cut.”
    Runa (the other elderly Catlan, she is the only one who wears a red dress rather than the body suit) thought about it. “We do not want a fight in these caves.”
    “The outcome will be good for Takla,” said Kwar-Di.
    “If moved quickly, no harm can be done here,” said Pendi. But the white-heads had their force of habits and talked telepathically. Only Zana heard them.
    “There are a few thousand soldiers, how is it that we would be able to move them quickly?”
    “They use sentries to mark their journey.”
    “The first sentry has left his post, all the soldiers are in the tunnels.”
    “If denied this passage, they will be forced to take the longer and more dangerous route.”
    “There is quite a mess in the other tunnel.”
    “A Tyron squad is nearing this place.”
    “The Tellen squad is quite far behind.”
    “They plan to not attack until the armies are assembled at the large front caves.”
    “We should let them through, they are respectful people.”
    “So that’s a yes then?” said Zana aloud. Everyone else was surprised. “It’s rude to have a private conversation in front of people,” he told the other white-heads telepathically.
    Texa nodded. “Tell your troops yes.”

Jaron sat there. “I’m alone,” he thought, “but ghosts are crawling everywhere. It’s creepy. No! There’s no one here! Is it just me or is it cold in here? Will my parents come?”
    “Shivering?” asked Rida. Jaron quickly looked at him. “Don’t be scared,” said Rida, sitting down and putting his arm round his little brother.
    Jaron said: “Well, you know I’ve never met them and...”
    Salra appeared next to Jaron and said: “Hello.”
    Jaron got scared and fell back into Rida. His Mum and brother were both laughing. Vanus appeared standing with his arms crossed.
    “You should be nicer,” Vanus told Salra. “Lots of people get scared by ghosts and we haven’t seen our younger son since he was a baby.”
    “You’re...like how Zana told me,” said Jaron.
    “Of course they are silly,” said Rida, smiling.
    “I can see you have a zillion questions to ask,” said Salra, smiling. She tried to put her hand on Jaron’s shoulder but it just went through it. “Hm.” She put her hand back.
    “Well...what d’you think of Zana?” asked Jaron.
    Vanus thought about it. “Well, he’s stubborn in a way. He likes things the way they are, in a way, but in a way, he’s always found room for improvement. When I made him Charotta, he didn’t want to go to Tyrony with me, he wanted to stay in Waya. He loves the country.”
    Salra grinned. “You’re hearing this, aren’t you Zana?”
    Zana grinned. “It’s kinda hard not overhearing in this cave,” the Tyrons heard him say.
    “What’s with the grin Zana?” asked Loria. They were in a different chamber to the other Tyrons.
    He quickly looked at her. “Oh...stuff.”
    “He’s waking up,” said Kuni.
    Balka-Rae opened his eyes. He still looked ill and felt tired. He looked around him. “Where am I?”
    “We’re in the Sanctuary of the Sages,” Kuni told her Dad.
    “D’you feel better?” asked Loria.
    Balka thought about it. “Yeah.” ... “What time is it?”
    “It’s late night Dad,” Zana told him.
    Balka closed his eyes. Then he looked at Loria. “Where’s Corina? I should apologise!” Zana had a look of shock on his face.
    “She ran off, remember?” said Loria.
    “...yeah,” remembered Balka. “I’m sorry for hitting her Loria, really, I don’t like to hurt kids-”
    “What’s wrong Zana?” asked Kuni.
    Zana told them. “Corina and Yanthro have been captured by Catlans.”

©Ruth Amy Louise Hüneke 2008