Shade & Sorceress (The Last Days of Tian Di, #1)(4)
She could not keep herself from falling in love with Holburg, though. They could pick mangos and bananas straight from the trees. The water was warm year-round, full of leaping dolphins and bright, darting schools of fish, and in the winter they could see the spouts of whales passing through the archipelago. And there was Nell, her first real friend. Together they invented secret languages, played pranks on the Mentors at school, built hide-outs in the caves, and had “sleepovers” during which they did not sleep at all but stayed up whispering ‘til sunrise. Three years on, Eliza looked people in the eyes, chatted breezily in island slang, smiled easily and often. Her father saw this, and so, although he worried, they didn’t leave Holburg. Sometimes Eliza would ask him anxiously if they were really going to stay, and he would say “for now.” He couldn’t make any promises.
~
Ka and Aysu waited in the mayor’s office. The secretary had been told to bring them tea but had run home in terror instead. Rom Tok was with them, looking at the carpet, and so was the mayor, who hadn’t the faintest idea how to accommodate these most eminent guests. The four of them waited in silence until Obrad, Anargul and Trahaearn returned from their sweep of the island.
“No sign of the girl,” said Obrad, with a bitter glance at Rom, who did not look up. “The police have gone through the school and the homes in the town. It appears she is not on the island. A friend of hers is also missing.”
“Is the friend relevant?” asked Aysu wearily.
“No,” said Obrad.
“There is absolutely no way she could have left the island,” the mayor insisted.
They all looked at Rom. He remained resolutely silent. Ka made a brief attempt at Deep Listening to hear his thoughts, but Rom was expecting it and his mind was firmly shut. Ka could try to force it but didn’t like to do so yet.
“The caves!” cried the mayor suddenly. “They must be hiding in the caves!”
Ka didn’t need to Listen to Rom’s thoughts to know that he had been keeping that piece of information buried deep.
“Bring her here,” he said.
~
Eliza and Nell crawled out of the cave onto Sunset Hill, blinking at the brightness. Lying down flat on a ridge overlooking the town, they saw the five giant, winged creatures in the square. Nell could not tear her eyes from them, but Eliza noticed two police officers climbing up the hill towards the cave opening and tugged urgently on her friend’s sleeve. After a quick, whispered consultation, they ran to where the trees were thickest and made their way down towards the town.
They came out of the trees by Ty March’s house and followed a route through back gardens and alleyways. They reached the bakery through one of the alleys and entered the store through the back. There was nobody in the back room baking, so Eliza and Nell filled their pockets with misshapen or overdone cookies from the discard tray, which they usually came to claim after school, before peering out into the front of the shop. The baker and his teenage daughter were both standing outside the shop, which faced onto the square. They looked as if they were ready to dash back inside at any moment. Eliza and Nell hid behind the bread racks and peered out the window. The winged creatures in the square could only be dragons.
“Let’s go closer,” said Nell in a low voice that trembled slightly. She looked as though she might faint from bliss. “They dinnay look angry, do they?”
Eliza’s heart was pounding but she too wanted a better look at the shining creatures lying about the square. They crept to the door, and Nell said, “Hi,” causing the baker and his daughter to startle and scream. At the noise, one of the dragons lifted his head, swiveled it about and considered the onlookers with brilliant, awful eyes. Then he put his head down again, as if he was bored. The great leathery wings folded on his back twitched slightly. Nell and Eliza edged along the square, eyes fixed on the dragons. Rapt, hypnotized, they did not notice that the townsfolk were looking at something else now; they did not hear the hum of rising whispers. A light touch on the tops of their heads made them spin around. They looked up at the bright-eyed, golden being towering over them, and screamed in unison.
The being smiled wryly. “Eliza Tok?” he said.
~
Eliza knew no more about Mancers than anybody else – in other words, mainly what she had learned in history class. The Mancers had been the scholars of Tian Di, the One World, inventing writing in the Early Days when humans were still slaves to Faeries. They wrote the histories and studied the nature of the world and of Magic, creating an unrivaled Library of lore and spells. There were many legends as to how the separation of the worlds came about. One story said that during the Third Rebellion a human went to the Mancers and asked for help, requesting a place where they would be safe. Another story told that the Oracle of the Ancients foresaw the future greatness of the human race and commanded the Mancers to bring it about. In any case, it was the Mancers who separated the One World, Tian Di, into two worlds: Di Shang, where humans and dumb beasts thrived, and Tian Xia, where the beings of power remained. The Magic required to separate the worlds was very great and also very slow. The Mancers had been working this Magic for eons and continued to do so. It was still possible to cross over from one world to the other, but when the Magic was complete the Mancers would go to Tian Xia and the two worlds would be severed forever. For now they remained in Di Shang, the mystical protectors of humanity. It was the Mancers who had finally defeated the Xia Sorceress and imprisoned her in the Arctic within their powerful barriers, thus ending the war. They were like storybook figures to Eliza, only half-real. And now she sat in the mayor’s office next to her father, who was holding onto her hand and staring fixedly at the floor, across from five of them.