Chapter 5

There was almost sudden cold once they entered the shadows. They couldn’t see the world in colour; it was but grey, black and misty midnight blue. There was nothing that seamed to be alive but the strange plants that gathered at the bottom of the smooth slope, in the centre of the canyon. They were somewhat thin in density around the base of the tower, as if it had landed there from a great height and blown everything else away.
The lands looked burnt and hard. It was a wasteland as far as the cliff. People lived there? It was hard to imagine anyone building the tall tower that stood there. It was nearing the hours of light and a sun was starting to show it’s self at the top of the cliff, behind which it had been hiding. A while behind them, there was a little light and now they began to pick up pace. They wanted to be travelling much quicker while there was light, so the promise of it gave them hope and haste.
The ground was very uneven and they knew it was wet but this would be the first time, in the seaming thirteen hours they hadn’t stopped travelling, when they’d be able to see the ground. At the speed they were starting to move, which was not considerably faster but noticeably, it was as if they were running away from the light not waiting for it.
The pack on Kathio’s back was heavy. She was carrying the armour, breast plate but wearing the shin plates. She didn’t fancy tripping on something she couldn’t see and hurting her legs, she would rather hurt her torso than not be able walk properly.
Her green leggings and shirt didn’t keep out the cold, even if the smoky grey cloak sheltered her a little. She could see Thargon ahead, dimly. A few more soldiers were further on, but she could only see their silhouettes. Behind, she heard Atheilel walking a little more steadily than her but Pen sounded as if she was struggling. She wanted to help her, but she didn’t know how and the comfort of Atheilel seamed to keep her going enough.
They owed everything to Pen. She was the one who knew which direction was home, of course that was a help, but, more importantly, she knew how they should cross their first trial. No doubt would she be treated like the hero she was when she got home. Kathio had never seen so much strength in Pen before. She knew exactly what to do, it had seamed, and even Kathio hadn’t worked out what she’d done.
It was not long before sunlight reached her and then she was warm. A mist seamed to gather in strange swurls of puffs before it spread into wild thickness and they could barely see each other. It was remarkable. In the whole time they’d been walking, they’d been looking forward to the visibility of the day but all the sun brought was so much fog that the darkness was less mysterious and frightening.
Kathio almost thought to stop walking. Then she thought, if Thargon stopped, she would meet him somewhere so carrying on walking seamed safer.
Her legs had grown tired without her noticing at first but it took the first time she stumbled, only, to make her stop. Her legs gave way and her knees buckled. As she fell onto all fours, with her hands and knees soaked, her bag fell over the side of her back and onto some reeds. She looked at the ground below her. The water was murky and dark, but she could see the shape of her face and very few features.
When she lifted her head, all she could see were tiny white flowers.
She was weary and exhausted. Even her arms were beginning to lose the ability to carry her and she hadn’t been walking on her hands, of course. She tipped herself over and onto a clump of moss and reads, where the ground was harder and she could lie without getting wet or sinking. It was then that she let herself drift to sleep. It was then that her surroundings turned dark prematurely without her stopping it from happening.
Two arms came around her and she couldn’t feel the ground any more, only a pressure where her neck and knees were being supported. She didn’t open her eyes again; all she could see were the tiny white flowers and how they seamed so important.

There was a long dark, as she slept, and when she finally awoke she could see clearly in the dark. There was no mist. She couldn’t see her helper; his features were barely highlighted by the dim moonlight from so far above. He did not make a sound. She could feel the strap of her sack against her arm, where it came over his left shoulder.
Peak was sitting on his shoulder, close to his neck. He was sheltered in tresses of blond hair. She felt more assured in seeing Peak safe.
She stayed still, wondering with her arms crossed over her chest and her cloak wrapped over her abdomen to stop it from draping down. A strange notion ran through her head. It felt like when she was a child and her father and brother used to carry her. She fit in his arms better than she’d ever fit in theirs. The strange feeling made her feel less comfortable in her mind and she pushed it out quickly.
It was not long before her eyes closed again and she completely forgot what she’d been thinking until…

She was again on the ground. Her face was turned to the side and when she awoke she was gazing at the shape of her own hand in the dark. A small white creature was curled in front of her neck, under her chin. Peak was awake as soon as she was. He hurried onto her shoulder and entangled himself with her hair.
She was sure it hadn’t been a dream because the clump of harder soil was now thicker and there were fewer reeds around her- she must have been moved. She wasn’t cold now. She wasn’t wet. This was strange. Her sack was the other side of her, and in the position she was lying it was almost behind her.
“Kathio!” She heard a call… or so many that she couldn’t distinguish between them. “Kathio!” They were growing distant and near. They were spreading out. In grey and green, she couldn’t imagine herself distinguishable against the marsh ground so she tried to get up.
“Ka-…” One voice was quite near. She pushed herself into a sit and stared down in front of her- unable to lift her own head much. She rubbed her eyes and looked. “There she is! We’ve found her!”
Her back didn’t hurt as much and nor did her legs, she had a strange feeling that she owed someone something great but she had no idea who.
Suddenly, Ateilel was standing close to her and hoisting her up under the arms from behind. When she was standing, all she could do was turn and hold Atheilel as close as she could as if clinging to life. Peak ran from one shoulder to the other excitedly.

“Come on, Silver-Cat, you’re the only person who’d panic that much. I mean, you didn’t even wake up until we found you.” Atheilel had mischief in her blue-green eyes.
It was the first time Kathio had heard her name said like that in a long time. She was quite surprised that anybody remembered it. “Act-…” She barely knew how to correct Atheilel there. ‘I did actually wake up twice’ was fine but there was the complication of ‘but someone else was there’. She closed her mouth and drew up her dropped jaw.
They’d found a large area of harder ground and decided to rest. There was a fire, the light made the black reeds and moss glow golden, and everyone was gathered in a crescent moon around the flames. They didn’t see anything particularly strange about her fainting on the long journey, even if Atheilel thought it was amusing.
Kathio felt a little annoyed at this, but more confused with herself. If she was angry with Atheilel she could have said a spiteful and unfair comment but she wasn’t. In this journey, they were all even.
“Are we stopped because I fainted?” She asked, feeling as if she was an inconvenience where she’d felt strong before.
“No; we’re all weary, Kathio. It’s not just you.” Thargon put in. “Don’t feel so embarrassed, it’s not just you. Pen is also…” No one needed to mention how Pen was. She was injured before… She was very brave to have come this far, but something drove her like nothing else to move on. It was as if, if she didn’t keep going, she would miss some kind of deadline.
Pen lay on the ground, the other side of the fire. She hadn’t realised, before, how much she admired Pen. Pen’s dark hair was a veil over her face, hiding away her wild green eyes. Pen was always the imaginative one; she was full of her own arts while Kathio was full of wit. Pen wore a grey dress that spread out wider than her own span and rough boots.
What had led them here? Kathio imagined what Morgan would say. It would go something like:
“The bravest of them all, Pen, also had weaknesses. There is not a person in the world who can do everything but Pen was one who did great things with what she could do. Her battle had ended and now it was the journey home that was going to prove perilous. On the way, they met people of unimaginable kinds. The first were the desert women, who gave great gifts and told them of their own powers and fortunes.” Kathio didn’t think of mentioning Peak specifically, as he didn’t play a vital role in this story. Then Kathio stopped thinking about that story and thought of her own, if Morgan told that it would be very different.
“Kathio was given the gifts of beauty and virtue but would never be granted the chance to use them. She would never be able to have the man she truly loved because she was the one who was supposed to bring wealth and power to the family…” That’s how he’d begin and then into the story she would realise that it didn’t matter and that she was insignificant as they travelled so far and yet they didn’t even reach the edges of the world. “So far from home, she could think of her family and wish that all her wishes could never have been wished.” But then she remembered the other part of the story that she couldn’t afford to leave out. This part would charm the children in some strange way that she used to be charmed. They’d fancy that she’d find a wealthy man who could make her father happy and she’d fall in love with him and “live with wild adventure until her very last days”.
This interesting part was what she learnt on the journey to where they’d come from. “It was a seer that told her about her curse. Her father had paid the seer to make a special flower. Kathio was, when she was not even yet born, foreseen to be a powerful and influential girl, if she lived, but would loose her life at a very young age and her father wanted all of his children to live.
“This flower would save her life; this flower would protect and preserve her until she was ready to die of old age. There was a condition. This flower would start to loose its’ petals when the mistresses of fate saw it necessary and once all five of the petals had fallen she would die.
“The seer told Kathio that she had little time until the first petal would fall. It was only on the journey back on her adventure that the first would fall. She told her that the flower would perish and the spell would be broken if her ‘virtue’, or ‘honour’, was lost, because that is what kept the Mistresses of Fate on her trail. The act that would free her from the spell could only be performed with the man she truly loved or another petal would fall and she would be much closer to the curse having its’ complete control.”
Kathio was quite impressed at this telling of the tale, even though she was sure that Morgan would find some way of making it much more elegant and he might use the words “the curse could only be broken by ‘marriage’ to her true love.”
This line of thought continued through what was supposed to be a night but it seamed like two nights and Peak was asleep and still so the thought could be thought without disruption.