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“Are they in a timeloop?” Maata asked. “I don’t see them moving.”
“They look like they’re made of ice,” Zaine added.
“Eldric has frozen them. They are fully aware of everything going on around them, but are unable to move. It’s a much stronger version of what Dom did to Sy,” Guyan replied, turning to glare angrily at her uncle.
Eldric stepped back into the basin, carefully avoiding stepping anywhere near the runes. He looked annoyed that Guyan and her friends weren’t in the circle.
Guyan was staring at her family, her toes almost touching the runes that encircled them. She was scratching angrily at the cross on her palm, and Zaine drew her back a little way from the runes.
“We will find a way to set them free,” Zaine assured her quietly. He felt a tickle on his nose and he reached up to scratch at it. He felt a grain of sand under his finger and he brushed it off.
Guyan managed a grateful smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Clearly she didn’t think there was much hope of saving her family. Eldric was looking around the basin, unsatisfied with what he saw. Then he pointed back up to the tunnel and he spoke impatiently to the nearest weaver, who hurried off, taking three others with him.
“What are we waiting for?” Maata asked quietly.
Zaine shrugged and then stared at the tunnel entrance as two of the weavers reappeared, struggling under the weight of the heavy throne. Right behind him were the other two weavers, carrying the second throne. Both thrones were placed a dozen paces from the edge of the runes, facing into the circle.
Eldric strode over and sat down with a flourish and big grin. “Come, take a seat, Trianna. I thought we might as well watch in comfort.”
Trianna joined him, but looked a little hesitant as she did so. She sat stiffly in the slightly smaller version of Eldric’s throne and glanced nervously around the basin. Zaine wondered if she was worried about proving her skills as a runeweaver.
Zaine felt an itch on his nose again, and this time brushed half a dozen grains of sand from his face. As he did so, he felt sand landing on his hand. He shook it loose and looked up around the rim of the basin. The first thing that struck him was that the red glow that permanently hung over Zhan was gone. The sky above them was a pale blue that reminded him of home.
“The sand,” Maata said. The sand was falling, a bit like snow, gusting around in little drifts and swirls. Nothing like the fierce winds that had blown when they had first arrived in Zhan.
“Time is slowing down,” Guyan said flatly. She looked as if she didn’t even care any more. “Soon even Zhan will stop.”
“I think they’ve noticed, too,” Tercel said, pointing to the several dozen weavers who stood a few paces behind the throne.
A low chant started up, and Zaine could just hear the runes that he had used back home to speed up time. The thought of home, and what had become of everyone left behind, distracted him, and so it was a few seconds before he realised that something hadn’t gone as it should.
The red sands had begun to blow again, but they were far too strong. The wind howled above them, and sand raced past the top of the basin at a rate that made it just a red haze. He looked around the basin and felt dizzy as he spun far too fast for his head to cope with.
Everyone seemed to be moving at twice the normal pace. If he wasn’t feeling so ill from turning, it would have looked funny. Weavers were running about talking to each other, and King Eldric was yelling at them, raising his arms up and down so fast he looked as if he were trying to fly.
The weavers began to chant again and their voices sounded like chirping birds. Zaine’s heart seemed to beat a hundred times before time slowly began to settle. The winds stopped howling and sand passed over the top of the basin in a steady flow that returned the red tinge to the air around them.
Everyone remained silent for so long that Zaine wondered if time was slowing down again.
“The dragons warned you that letting the worlds break loose too soon would destroy Zhan!” Guyan shouted, suddenly snapping out of her coma-like indifference.
“Nonsense,” Eldric snorted, dismissing her words with a nonchalant wave of his hand. “It is nothing we can’t handle.”
Zaine looked at the faces of the weavers and they didn’t look so certain. His mind told him there was something different about the weavers, but he couldn’t quite place it.
“We should reopen the links and see if that fixes time,” Guyan insisted, stepping closer to her uncle. “We must try to save Zhan. We have to release the dragons and my family.”
Eldric rose from his throne and took a step towards Guyan. He was much taller than the young weaver, and he scowled down at her. “I think you are missing your family too much. Perhaps you should join them?”
Guyan didn’t see the intention in Eldric’s words and she opened her mouth to continue her argument. One stride brought Eldric up to Guyan, and a single shove sent her stumbling back towards the rune circle where her family were trapped.
Zaine dived towards his rune-covered friend as she tripped and fell backwards. He grabbed at her and, feeling her tunic in his hand, he twisted to change direction. He fell heavily to the stony ground and hit his head.
For a few seconds all he could hear was a ringing sound, and he couldn’t tell if he was holding onto Guyan or not. Gradually, his head began to clear and he could feel his body again. He was definitely holding something, and he lifted his head, grinning when he saw that he had saved her.
His arm was stinging and, looking down, he saw that he had scraped it on the stones. Guyan’s arm, which he was holding, was also bleeding, but apart from that she looked unhurt. Tercel and Maata hurried over to help them up, and Eldric retreated to his throne, scowling.
“I think we should move all this along,” he said grumpily, waving the weavers forward.
It was then that Zaine realised what was different about the weavers. The runes that marked their skin were so faded that they were barely visible.
“Why have their runes faded?” Zaine asked Guyan.
“They have been doing something big. It has drained their energy and that makes their runes fade. They must have done something else as well as this runecircle,” Guyan replied. She looked suspiciously around the basin and then saw a part of the floor that had been cleared of pebbles by her fall. It revealed another runecircle running around the one that had frozen her parents in mid-motion.
“I recognise those runes,” Tercel said, leaning closer but not getting too close as the weavers stepped forward and began to sweep the basin clear of the pebbles.
“It’s a starlink,” Guyan said with a tone of disbelief. She looked over at her uncle and he grinned smugly “Why do you need one here? I thought you didn’t want to tend them any more.”
“You don’t think I want to risk someone freeing the dragons, do you?” Eldric said with a lift of one eyebrow. “I’m going to send them somewhere where they will never cause us any trouble again.”
Zaine felt glued to the spot as he watched the runes being uncovered and every weaver stepped forward, chanting a string of runes. A single bolt of lightning streaked down from the sky and carved a line in the stone before one of the weavers. It joined the circle, and instantly a dark, shadowy land appeared in the circle.
Zaine was half horrified at what he saw, and half intrigued at how the weaver had created the lightning. He quickly memorised the runes he had heard.
“Another Circle of Dreams,” Maata said with a hint of distaste.
One of the weavers spoke the rune to unseal the starlink. The runes glowed briefly and everyone in the circle vanished. The scene flickered to show a green, lush forest – with several dozen frozen dragons and three people standing next to the trees. Then it flickered back to the shadowy land. It didn’t look as if time was running quite to its normal speed.
“I thought you needed the tall stones to create a starlink,” Zaine said, running through the runes on the ground and seeing that none were missing even without the stone pillars.
“It will not be a strong link without the dragon stones and it probably won’t last long,” Guyan replied stiffly.
“Zaine, what’s wrong with your skin?” Maata asked, puzzled.
“I cut it on the stones,” Zaine replied, lifting his arm to show her.
“No, I mean the rest of your skin,” Maata said, shaking her head slowly.
Zaine looked at his arms, trying to work out what Maata was on about. They looked the same ... except he could see patches of dark growing before his eyes. Bruises, he assumed, wondering how he had managed to bruise so much of his arms in one fall.
“Runes,” Tercel said with a soft whistle. “You’re getting runes on your skin.”
Zaine watched in amazement as runes formed one after the other, totally covering his arms and legs, and by the way his friends’ eyes continued up to his neck he assumed they were up around his face as well. They were quite faint, but definitely runes.
“But how?” Zaine asked. He looked up and saw Guyan deep in thought. She looked at his runes and then at her own and frowned. Then she looked at the cut on her arm and back at Zaine.
“You have some Zhanian blood now,” she said simply. “Royal blood at that.”
“Not much. Is that why they are so faded?” Zaine asked, rubbing tentatively at the runes on his forearm. He knew they represented all the runes he had learnt. His skin went a little pink, but the rune remained.
“I don’t know,” Guyan answered. “It has never happened before.”
“Does this mean your runes will work here now?” Maata asked, glancing over to where Eldric and Trianna were deep in conversation.
“Can you bring the dragons back?” Tercel added.
“I don’t know,” Zaine said with a small shrug. He compared his new runes to those of the other weavers who were resting at the side of the basin – if anything; his runes were more faded than theirs. “I don’t think so.”
A sudden shout drew his attention from his newly rune-marked skin over to his mother.
“He did what?” the king’s exclamation echoed around the basin. He was standing up, fists clenched and looking angry. His gaze swept around the basin and rested on Zaine. “The blond one? Is he the one who almost destroyed your world?”
Zaine sighed deeply. His mother must have told Eldric about his past mistakes. The king turned back to the two thrones, but, instead of asking Trianna, his questions were directed at Calard.
“He will do it to this world if you let him stay here,” Calard replied, nodding and flicking a smug glance at Zaine.
“I think it would be a mistake to let any of you stay here.” This time the king nodded even in Trianna’s direction.
Zaine felt a twinge of worry; if the new king didn’t want them around, where were they going to go? They couldn’t go back to Zaine’s own world. He looked at Eldric and saw King Eldric’s eyes turn towards the starlink.
“He means to send us in there,” Tercel said nervously as the green trees of that world flickered in and out of view. The shadowy dreamlink seemed to appear more frequently now.
“Weavers, throw them in the link!” King Eldric ordered.
“You cannot send me in there!” Trianna snapped as she stood up and glared fiercely at Eldric. “I am a royal, too.”
The king looked taken back, and then his expression changed to one of annoyance and anger.
“You have no say here,” he said through gritted teeth. He pointed up to the golden crown that she still wore. “Your crown may look like mine, but it does not make you a royal in Zhan.”
“Perhaps we can talk about this,” Trianna suggested in a less aggressive manner.
“Guyan’s star-chart says that she is a great danger to this world, so she must go. You and the rest of your people are not welcome here either.” King Eldric was leaning forward, almost yelling at Trianna.