The Dreaming Void

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Edeard forced himself to his feet and started running towards the market again. Once, a bandit hurried past him along the street, not five yards away. The man never knew how close they were. Edeard could so easily have killed him, extracted some vengeance. But that would have shown the watchtower bandit where he was, and even through his anger and desperation Edeard knew he had neither the skill nor strength to win that confrontation.

  He sped past three more bandits before charging into the marketplace. The square was surrounded by a wall of flame, but it was cooler amid the stalls. Two bandits were holding down a woman, laughing while the third of their band raped her. Their fastfoxes prowled round the little group, keeping guard.

  Edeard just couldn’t ignore it. He even recognized the woman though he didn’t know her name; she worked at the tannery, helping prepare the hides.

  The first the bandits knew of anything amiss was when their fastfoxes suddenly stopped circling. All six beasts swung their heads round, huge jaws opening to ready fangs the size of human fingers.

  ‘What—’ one of the bandits managed to say. He brought his gun up, but it was too late. The fastfoxes leapt. More screams echoed out around the stalls.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ a longtalk voice gloated. ‘I was worried you’d run away from me.’

  Edeard snarled into the smoke-wreathed sky. Try as he might, he couldn’t track where the longtalk was originating.

  ‘Now what are you doing there, apart from slaughtering my comrades? Oh yes, I see.’

  Edeard was aware of Salrana hunched up behind the counter in the corn measure stall, glancing upwards with a puzzled expression. He started to sprint towards her.

  ‘He’s in the marketplace,’ the bandit announced across the whole village. ‘Close in.’

  Edeard sensed bandits turning to head towards him.

  ‘Oh she is lovely. The very young one from the church, isn’t it? Yes, I recognize her. Well congratulations, my tough little friend. Good choice. She’s certainly worth risking everything for.’

  Edeard reached the corn measure stall, and dropped his concealment. Salrana gasped in astonishment as he appeared in front of her.

  ‘Got you.’

  Edeard was only too well aware of the urgent satisfaction in the bandit’s longtalk. There was the tiniest flashover of pounding feet, leg muscles straining with effort to get there, to capture the feared boy.

  ‘Right at the end I’m going to cut your eyelids off so you have no choice but to watch while I fuck her,’ the bandit said, twining his longtalk with a burst of dark pleasure. ‘It’ll be the last thing you see before you die. But you’ll go straight to Honious knowing this; I’ll keep her for my own. She’s coming with me, tough boy. And I’ll put her to work every single night. Your girl is going to spend the next decade bearing my children.’

  ‘Get up,’ Edeard yelled, and tugged at Salrana’s arm. She was crying, her limbs limp and unresponsive. ‘Don’t let him get me,’ she wept. ‘Please, Edeard. Kill me. I couldn’t stand that. I couldn’t, I’d rather spend eternity in Honious.’

  ‘Never,’ he said; his arms went round her and he enfolded her within his concealment.

  ‘Get the fastfoxes in the market,’ the bandit ordered. ‘Track him. Find his scent.’

  ‘Come on,’ Edeard whispered. He started for the main entrance, then stopped. Over ten bandits with their fast-foxes were heading up the street towards him. They ignored the frantic chickens and gibbering ge-chimps that were running away from the swirl of lethal flames consuming the buildings. ‘Lady!’ He searched round, not daring to use his farsight in case the diabolical bandit could detect that.

  ‘I don’t care if the fire’s making it hard to track. Find him!’

  The bandit’s tone was angry, which was the first piece of good news Edeard had encountered all night. Now he glanced round, he saw just how awesome the fire had become. Every building was alight. A foul smoke tower billowed hundreds of feet over the village, blocking the constellations and nebulas. Below its dismal occlusion, walls were collapsing, sending avalanches of burning furniture and broken joists across the lanes. Even the bandits were becoming wary as the smaller alleys were blocked. Of course, the blazing destruction was also closing off Edeard’s escape routes. What he needed was a distraction, and fast. His third hand shoved a pile of beer barrels, sending them toppling over. Several burst open. A wave of beer lapped across the cobbles, spreading wide. As the same time he grabbed the minds of as many genistars he could reach, and pulled them into the market, offering them sanctuary. The animals bounded over the stalls, stampeding down the narrow aisles. Flustered fastfoxes charged after them, shaking off their mental restraints to obey more basic hunter instincts.

  ‘Almost clever,’ the bandit announced. ‘You think that’ll cover your smell? Well why don’t you avoid this, tough guy?’

  The bandits in the market square formed a loose line, and began firing, sweeping their blazing gun muzzles in wide arcs. Genistars howled and whimpered as the bullets chewed through their flesh. They jumped and sprinted for cover as lines of bullets swept after them. Fastfoxes snarled in hatred and distress as they too were hit. Dozens of animals tumbled lifeless on to the cobbles. Blood mingled with beer, washing down the slope.

  Edeard and Salrana hunched down as bullets thudded into the stalls around them. Wood splinters whirled through the air. They started to crawl. It wasn’t long before the guns stopped. Edeard waited for the next longtalk taunt, but it didn’t come. ‘Hurry,’ he urged her. Holding hands, they ran for the alley which led round the back of the Carpentry Guild compound. Bandits and their fastfoxes were on patrol around the walls. The inside of the compound burned like a brazier as fire consumed the woodworking halls and timber stores, sending vast plumes of flame into the smoke-clotted sky. The slate roof of the main building had already collapsed. Edeard wondered if anyone was still alive inside, maybe sheltering in the cellars. Surely Obron would have found a way. He couldn’t imagine a world without Obron.

  They came to a crossroads, and Salrana made to turn right.

  ‘Not that way,’ he hissed.

  ‘But that’s down to the wall,’ she whispered back.

  ‘They’ll be expecting that. The fastfoxes will scent us if we try to climb over the ramparts.’

  ‘Where are we going then?’

  ‘Up towards the cliff.’

  ‘But … won’t they search the caves?’

  ‘We’re not sheltering in the caves,’ he assured her. He found a dozen genistars still alive nearby, mainly dogs, with a couple of chimps and even a foal; and ordered them to walk across and around the track they were leaving to lay false scents. Though he suspected not even fastfoxes would be able to track them with so much smoke and ash in the air.

  It took a couple of minutes to reach the site where the new well was being dug. So far Wedard and his team had only excavated five yards down, with barely the top third lined in stone. ‘In you go,’ Edeard told her. There was a small ladder leading down to the wooden framework at the bottom of the hole where ge-monkeys spent their days digging into the stone and clay.

  ‘They’ll look in here,’ Salrana said desperately.

  ‘Only if it’s open,’ Edeard said grimly, and gestured at the big stone cap which would seal the shaft once it was complete.

  ‘You can move that?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘We’ll find out in a minute. But I’m pretty sure no one can farsight through it.’

  Salrana started down the crude ladder, her mind seething with fright. Edeard followed her, stopping when his head was level with the rim. This was the biggest gamble, the one on which both their lives now depended, but he couldn’t think of any way out of the village, not past the fastfoxes and alert bandits. He fired a longtalk query directly at the Eggshaper Guild compound. ‘Akeem?’ he asked quietly. There was no reply. He still didn’t dare use his farsight. With a last furious look at the raging firestorm which was his home, he reached out with hi
s third hand and lifted the huge slab of stone. It skimmed silently through the air, keeping a couple of inches off the ground before settling on the top of the well shaft with a slow grinding sound. The orange glow of the flames, the sound of collapsing masonry and human anguish cut off abruptly.

  Edeard waited for hours. He and Salrana clung to each other on the planking at the bottom of the pit, drawing what comfort they could from each other. Eventually, she fell into a troubled sleep, twitching and moaning. He wouldn’t allow himself the luxury.

  Is this all my fault? Were they seeking revenge for the ambush in the forest? But they started it. His worst guilt came from a single thought which nagged and nagged at his soul. Could I have done more? Now he was sober and the worst of the hangover had abated, he kept thinking about the sensation which had woken him so abruptly. It was the same as the alarm he’d felt in the forest, a foresight that something was wrong. Normally the senior priestesses of the Empyrean Lady claimed to have a modest timesense; granted of course by the Lady Herself. So such a thing was possible. If I hadn’t been so stupid. If I hadn’t wasted the warning …

  He didn’t want to open the stone cap. The scene which he knew would greet them was almost too much to contemplate. My fault. All my fault.

  A few hours after they took refuge, some slices of pale light seeped in round the edge of the cap where the stone rim wasn’t quite level. Still Edeard waited. The rise of the sun wasn’t going to automatically make the bandits go away. There was nothing left for them to fear for tens of miles. It would be the villages now who would wait for the fall of each night with dread.

  ‘We never suspected they were so well organized,’ Edeard said bitterly. ‘Me of all people, I should have realized.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. In the dark she reached out for him again, her slim arm going round his waist. ‘How could you have known? This is something beyond even the Mother to see.’

  ‘Did Mother Lorellan have a timesense?’

  ‘Not much of one, no. Yesterday evening she was concerned about something, but she couldn’t define it.’

  ‘She couldn’t see her own murder? What kind of time-sense is that?’

  Salrana started sobbing again.

  ‘Oh, Lady, I’m so sorry,’ he said, and hugged her tight. ‘I didn’t think. I’m so stupid.’

  ‘No Edeard. You came to help me. Me, out of everybody in Ashwell; all your friends, your Master. Why? Why me?’

  ‘I … All those years, it was like just me and you against the world. You were the only friend I had. I don’t think I would have made it without you. The number of times I thought about running off into the wild.’

  She shook her head in dismay. ‘Then you’d have been a bandit, you would have been one of the invaders last night.’

  ‘Don’t say that. Not ever. I hate them. First my parents, now …’ He couldn’t help it, he hung his head and started weeping. ‘Everything. Everything’s gone. I couldn’t help them. Everybody was scared of how strong I am, and when they really needed me I was useless.’

  ‘Not useless,’ she said. ‘You helped me.’

  They spent a long time just pressed together. Edeard’s tears dried up after a while. He wiped at his face, feeling stupid and miserable. Salrana’s hands came up to cup his face. ‘Would you like me?’ she whispered.

  ‘Er … I. No.’ It was a very difficult thing to say.

  ‘No?’ Her thoughts, already fragile, fountained a wave of bewildered hurt. ‘I thought—’

  ‘Not now,’ he said, and gripped her hands. He knew what it was, the shattering grief, the loneliness and fright; all so evident in her thoughts. She needed comfort, and physical intimacy was the strongest comfort of all. Given his own shaky emotional state it would have been heartening for him, too. But he cared too much, and it would have felt too much like taking advantage. ‘I really would, but you’re young. Too young.’

  ‘Linem had a child last year, she wasn’t quite as old as I am today.’

  He couldn’t help but grin. ‘What kind of example is that for a novice to set to her flock?’

  ‘Flock of one.’

  Edeard’s humour faded. ‘Yes: one.’

  Salrana looked up at the stone cap. ‘Do you think any of them are left?’

  ‘Some, yes. Of course. Ashwell village is stubborn and resilient, that’s what Akeem always said. That’s how it’s resisted change so effectively for the last few centuries.’

  ‘You really wanted to?’

  ‘I—’ He found it disconcerting the way she could jump between topics so lightly, especially when that was one of the subjects in question. ‘Yes,’ he admitted cautiously. ‘You must know how beautiful you’re becoming.’

  ‘Liar! I have to visit Doc Seneo three times a week to get ointment for my face.’

  ‘You are growing up lovely,’ he insisted quietly.

  ‘Thank you, Edeard. You’re really sweet, you know. I’ve never thought of any other boy. It’s always been you.’

  ‘Um. Right.’

  ‘It would be terrible to die a virgin, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Lady! You are the worst novice in the whole Void.’

  ‘Don’t be so silly. The Lady must have enjoyed a good love life. She was Rah’s wife. Half of Makkathran claim to be descended from them. That’s a lot of children.’

  ‘This has to be blasphemy.’

  ‘No. It’s being human. That’s why the Lady was anointed by the Firstlifes, to remind us how to discover our true nature again.’

  ‘Well right now we need to think survival.’

  ‘I know. So how old do I have to be? Your age?’

  ‘Um, probably, yes. Yes, that’s about right.’

  ‘Can’t wait. Did you go with Zehar last night?’

  ‘Not— Hey, that is not your concern.’ For some stupid reason, he suddenly wished he had given in to Zehar’s advances. She’ll be dead now; quickly if she was lucky.

  ‘You’re going to be my husband. I’m entitled to know all about your old lovers.’

  ‘I’m not your husband.’

  ‘Not yet,’ she taunted. ‘My timesense says you will be.’

  He threw up his hands in defeat.

  ‘How long are we going to stay in here?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. Even if there’s nothing left to scare them off, they won’t want to stay too long. The other villages will know what’s happened by now. The smoke must have reached halfway to Odin’s Sea, and the farms would have fled, longshouting all the way. I expect the province will raise the militia and give chase.’

  ‘A militia? Can they do that?’

  ‘Each province has the right to form a militia in times of crisis,’ he said, trying to remember the details Akeem had imparted about Querencia’s constitutional law. ‘And this definitely qualifies. As to the practical details, I expect the bandits will be long gone before any decent force can get here, never mind chase them into the wilderness. And those guns they had.’ He held up his trophy, frowning at the outlandish design. No doubting its power, though. ‘I’ve never heard of anything like these before. It’s like something humans owned from before the flight into the Void.’

  ‘So that’s it? There’s no justice.’

  ‘There will be, as long as I remain alive they will curse their boldness of this day. It is their own death they have brought to our village.’

  She clutched at him. ‘Don’t go after them. Please, Edeard. They live out there, it’s their wilderness, they know this kind of life, the killing and brutality, they know nothing else. I couldn’t stand it if they caught you.’

  ‘I had no notion to do it right away.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Okay, I think it’s the afternoon now. Let’s take a look.’

  ‘All right. But if they’re still there and they see us … I can’t be his whore, Edeard.’

  ‘Neither of us will be caught,’ he promised, and meant it. For emphasis he patted his gun. ‘Now let’s see what�
��s out there.’ He started to apply his third hand to the cool stone. Lips touched his. His mouth opened in response and the kiss went on for a long time.

  ‘Just in case,’ Salrana murmured, pressed up against him. ‘I wanted us both to know what it was like.’

  ‘I … I’m glad,’ he said sheepishly.

  This time it was a lot harder to move the huge stone slab. It was only after he started he realized how exhausted he was, and hungry, and scared. But he shifted the stone a couple of inches until a slim crescent of mundane grey sky was visible. There were no excited shouts or farsight probes down into the pit. He couldn’t send his own farsight across much distance given the tiny gap and the fact he was still below ground. Instead, his mind called out to the Guild’s sole ge-eagle. His relief when the majestic bird replied was profound. It was perched up on the cliffs, distressed and bewildered. What it showed him when it took flight swiftly brought his mood back down again.

  There was nothing left. Nothing. Every cottage was a pile of smouldering rubble; the Guild compounds with their sturdy stone walls had collapsed. He could barely make out the street pattern. A thin layer of grubby smog drifted slowly over the ruins.

  When the eagle swooped in lower, he could see the bodies. Charred clothes flapped limply on blackened flesh. Worse still were the parts that stuck out of the debris. Motion caught the eagle’s attention, and it pivoted neatly on a wingtip.

  Old Fromal was sitting beside the ruins of his house, head in his hands, rocking back and forth, his filthy old face streaked by tears. There was a small boy, naked, running round and round the wrecked market stalls. He was bruised and bleeding, his face drawn into a fierce rictus of determination, not looking at anything in the physical world.

  ‘They’re gone,’ Edeard said. ‘Let’s go out.’ He dropped the hated gun and shoved the slab aside.

  The stench was the worst of it; cloying smell of the smoking wood remnants saturated with burnt meat. Edeard almost vomited at the impact. It wasn’t all genistars and domestic animals that were roasting. He tore a strip of cloth from his ragged trousers, damped it in a puddle, and tied it over his face.