Dawn n-2

by Tim Lebbon

  “That’s a Shantasi saying.”

  Kosar smiled.

  O’Gan nodded. “So, you came to ask us to march to Kang Kang with what’s left of the army of New Shanti-leaving Hess open to the Krotes-and stop them from reaching this girl?”

  Kosar nodded. “I’ve no way to persuade you,” he said. “But I saw A’Meer, and you…?”

  “She was my student.”

  “You taught A’Meer!”

  O’Gan nodded. “She was one of my first. I haven’t seen her in over fifty years, and a day ago she appeared to me on the Mystic Temple. A vision. A ghost.”

  “Mimics,” Kosar said.

  “The Elders always told me that mimics are a myth.”

  “Myth or not, I’ve seen them, and so have you. And where are the Elders now, O’Gan?”

  O’Gan’s pale face actually seemed to take on a darker hue, and his eyes grew narrow. “You’re in no position to demean the Elder Mystics.” His voice was low and threatening, and Kosar knew that he was right. But times were changing.

  “They’ve done that themselves,” he said.

  O’Gan stood quickly and walked away, heading toward the open desert and the shadow of the spice farm.

  Kosar watched him go, wondering what all this meant. The mimics had shown him the way to New Shanti, and now this Mystic claimed to have seen the vision of A’Meer. She spoke the language of the land, he had said.

  Kosar groaned, coughed into his hand, saw the splash of darkness in his palm that could only mean blood.

  Leaning back, closing his eyes, he tried to shut everything from his mind for a while.

  “WE’VE BEEN WAITING here for a day,” O’Gan said. Kosar opened his eyes to see that the tall Shantasi Mystic had sat down beside him. “Waiting for the Mages and their Krote army to attack. I’m confused. I wish there were Elders I could commune with, but…” He shook his head, looked back out into the desert. “The spice farms are dying,” he said. “That’s sad. They’ve been there for a long time-over a thousand years-and they’ve never failed to provide us with a crop. They’ve weathered so much in that time, from drought to floods, and everything in between. Each year, thousands of Shantasi flood into the desert to harvest the spice, take it back and distribute it around New Shanti. It tastes nice, and smells good. It’s used for treating some cancers, and it can guide the mad back to normality. It’s the smell of New Shanti. Soon, the farms will be dead and we’ll never smell it again.” He looked at Kosar. “Your Monk told us that he killed A’Meer.”

  “I know,” Kosar said.

  O’Gan nodded. “And yet you still travel with him.”

  “Only for now.”Do I mean that, Kosar thought. Is there enough hate in me to kill the Monk, when all of Noreela is dying?

  “Revenge is a powerful driver,” O’Gan said. “But it bears no reflection of what’s needed and what is not. Revenge has no logic.”

  “The Mages are here for revenge,” Kosar said.

  “And they’re having it. It could be that they’ve killed Noreela already.”

  “I still have some fight in me.”

  “Perhaps,” O’Gan said, “although it looks as though you’ve been through enough fights. Can you fight without eating? The sun has been gone for a long time, and it may be absent for a long time more. It’s growing colder. Plants are dying. When the plants die, the animals die. When the plants and animals die…there’s nothing left to eat.”

  “I’ve seen the Mages,” Kosar said. He was aware of O’Gan’s surprised intake of breath, but he ignored it and finished what he had to say. “They want more from revenge than dead grass. They want blood.”

  “They’ll be having it as we speak,” O’Gan said. “And they’ll come for New Shanti last because they know we’re the strongest in Noreela. At least, we were.” He bowed his head.

  “So is this all talking around what you’ve already decided?” Kosar asked. “Are you staying here to fight the Krotes, or will you come to Kang Kang? If the Mages get to know of Alishia-and they have their ways and means-they’ll go for her with all their army and might.”

  “You could be mad,” O’Gan said.

  “I feel that way.”

  “Youcould be insane. I saw a man once-a trader-who believed he was a Sleeping God.”

  Kosar smiled. “I’ve seen the like as well. Usually with their face in a bottle of rotwine.”

  O’Gan fell silent for so long that Kosar thought he had fallen asleep. When he looked up at last he found O’Gan staring right at him, as though trying to penetrate his skull and see whether the thief told lies.

  The Mystic nodded. “We’ll come with you,” he said.

  Kosar’s eyes widened. “Just like that?”

  O’Gan shook his head. “No. Not just like that. I’ve been waiting for something to happen, and I think your arrival is what I’ve been awaiting.”

  “Fate,” Kosar said.

  Again, O’Gan shook his head. “History. The Mages expect Noreela to roll over and die before their greater power. I believe we should take the fight to them.”

  Kosar closed his eyes and smiled. Alishia, he thought, I really hope you can do what you claim. I hope this is all for real. Because all I want to do is curl up here and sleep, though I know I can’t. “How big is your army?” he asked.

  “I have almost two thousand Shantasi warriors, and an equal number untrained.”

  “Four thousand. Do they all have the Pace?”

  O’Gan raised his eyebrows. “A’Meer?”

  Kosar nodded. “But she said she couldn’t talk about it. Hinted there was more.”

  O’Gan stood, smiling. “Good for A’Meer,” he said. “The warriors have the Pace, and yes, there’s more. If you live through this, thief, you’ll be able to tell your children you saw the Shantasi at war. It’s not something you or they will forget.”

  “HOPE, I NEED to learn more,” Alishia said. “I’ve been told so much, but I still don’t understand.” She looked down at the burn on her palm as though truths were written there.

  The witch glared at her. It had started to snow, and flakes hung in her wild hair like bizarre decorations. Alishia was cold. Her skinny body shook and shivered. She tried to hug her clothes tighter around her but they were too large, letting cool air in and allowing her meager body heat to escape. She was certain that if she reached inside and touched her chest she would find only ice.

  “If you go back to sleep, you could guide it in! Whatever had you, whatever saw you, it could find you again and bringthem to us!”

  “I won’t let it,” Alishia said. “I’ll hide. But I have to go, Hope, don’t you see? Do you really know where the Womb of the Land is? Do you know where we’re going, and what to do when we get there?”

  Hope looked up at the mountains looming ahead of them, snowcapped and forbidding, and when she turned back to Alishia her anger was rich and strong. “I’mtaking you to that place, no one else!”

  “But you don’t know where it is.” She wanted to question what she had inside her but she could not reach it, not like this, not feeling the cold and misery closing in. I need to go back in.

  …and I can.

  “Hope, look after me,” Alishia said.

  “I am looking after you,” the witch said, voice softening. She almost smiled.

  As Alishia closed her eyes, she saw the witch’s smile fade.

  She sought the door back into the vastness of that library. Something jarred her, tried to pull her back, but sleep came quickly. Perhaps because the library craved her return, but more likely because she was too weak to remain awake.

  Look after me, Hope, she thought, and the library was burning again.

  IN THE LIBRARY, she did not feel so tired. Her body was still reduced, but being the size of a twelve-year-old felt more natural in here. She ran, and her girl’s legs were long and slender and strong. Her dress fluttered about her, flattening against her stomach, and her hair bounced behind her as though freshly washed. She felt im
mensely liberated dashing between these cliffs of books, even though some of them were burning. Books had always been her life, and now here she was existing within the heart of Noreela.

  But it’sburning.

  She skidded to a stop amongst a pile of ashes and looked down at the marks her feet had made. Shifting the ashes to one side with her foot, she could see the charred timber floor, and the jagged gap in between boards where several half-burnt pages had become jammed. Down there, below the boards and beyond those cracks, was something else.

  Something trying to get in, she thought. Something showering in the ashes of Noreela. She shivered and ran on, not feeling quite so free.

  She had knowledge inside her, but she was looking for understanding. She knew that it had to be in here somewhere. She had read the stone and heard what it had to tell her, but she needed something more.

  Somewhere in here, she thought. It has to be somewhere in here. She ran.

  IT FELT LIKE a long time, but it could have been mere heartbeats, before the flames around her suddenly went out.

  Alishia gasped. All around her, the burning had ceased, and it felt like a held breath awaiting something momentous. She held her own breath, afraid that something would hear her.

  A violent breeze brushed past her, carrying smoke in a swirling storm. Something’s been opened, she thought, and then the wind stopped as quickly as it had begun. Smoke twisted in mad eddies as the air settled once again.

  The fires reignited with an explosion that blew Alishia to her knees. To her left and right, and up and down, fire roared across her vision, and she thought, This is it, this is the end, I’ll be burned to ashes and mixed with Noreela’s dying history. But although the firestorm blew around and through her and took her breath away, still the flames did her no harm.

  She stood, brushed herself down and realized that the fires were more widespread and more destructive than they had been before.

  “Something came in,” she said.

  She was no longer alone. She felt a presence searching for her, seeking her through the endless stacks of history and the shelves of moments in time, and this was far darker than the mere shade that had spotted her before. This was something that had lived, not something yet to live. It was a thing with experience and knowledge and hate in its heart. It exuded such menace, and its purpose permeated the air as effectively as the eddying smoke.

  “One ofthem. ”

  Tim Lebbon

  Dawn

  Chapter 15

  JOSSUA ELMANTOZ’S consciousness was like a weak ripple on a stormy sea. His wraith had retreated into the tumbler with the dozens it already possessed, but it was still linked to his body, trapped by that ruin of blood and bone. A Red Monk’s hold on life is tenacious, and much as Jossua craved to sever that connection, he could not. Perhaps it was his own resilient mind fighting, or maybe the fledge the Nax had bathed him in. But he hung on to the dregs of existence.

  He felt the pain of his body being ripped to shreds, even though he had few nerves left. He did not hear or see, but he sensed every impact on the ground, pressed into the hide of the tumbler as it rolled quickly along hillsides and through valleys. He could feel the wet bones of his skull and ribs crunching against other bones deeper within the tumbler, and a voice came from nowhere to say, That’s me.

  Flage, Jossua thought.

  That’s my body. Not much left; just a few broken bones. I’ve not had cause to pay it any attention for a long time. It’s safe and warmin here, and the tumbler welcomes us, and my bones mean nothing to me now. But…it’s almost nice. Nostalgic. Like redreaming an old, happy dream that you thought had been lost forever.

  You were going to tell me, Jossua thought. You were going to talk to me. And then you went quiet and I’ve been stuck here -

  I don’t like you. Flage’s wraith drew back, almost an eternity away from Jossua. You’re a Monk. You’re a bad man, and your wraith knows that well.

  I’m not a bad man, Jossua said, but a slew of memories flashed before him and none of them were good.

  I don’t want you here. None of us do. But you’re here, and the mind chose me to communicate with you, so I shall. Flage fell silent. Jossua had no way to judge the passage of time, but he felt his bones broken some more and the final shreds of flesh stripped away. The tumbler rolled on, passing through places that made little sense to Jossua’s disembodied mind. He could sense a multitude of wraiths behind Flage, pressing back as though Jossua were a hole and they were afraid of falling in.

  I can chant you down, Jossua said.

  I don’tneedchanting down! The tumbler is my Black. Flage was angry and frightened. Jossua tried to find the wraith, but there was nothing for him to find. He was stuck in a limbo of pain and wondering, and he so wanted to beg Flage to tell him what he must.

  But Jossua was the first Red Monk, and he would beg no one.

  LATER, FARTHER INTO the place that made no sense, as the tumbler was climbing higher and higher, Flage came back.

  I can tell you now, the wraith said, and then I will speak to you no more. I was comfortable in here. And then you came and-

  I know! Jossua called. And you don’t like me, and don’t want to have to do this.

  Flage was silent for a while, and then he whispered through what must have been a smile. You’re afraid.

  Yes.

  You should be. You’re not alive, Monk, nor dead. You’re in between, and that’s no place for any wraith to be. You’re in a moment that shouldn’t be, and it’s so wrong that none of us can understand. You carry the finality of death with the reality of life, and you are to remain there for a while. Because there’s a purpose for you yet.

  You sound pleased, Jossua said.

  I know what’s to become of you. Flage said no more. Jossua called after him, cried, and in the end-heartbeats or eons into his incarceration in the tumbler-he began to beg. But Flage had returned to where he claimed to be happy, and all Jossua could do was wait.

  HOPE CARRIED ALISHIA over one shoulder. The girl was lighter than ever, and the witch could almost forget that she was carrying anything other than a full shoulder bag. Alishia twitched in her sleep now and then, cried out and then fell silent. Hope paused regularly to check her breathing.

  “You’ll not take from me what’s mine,” she said, again and again. Alishia’s breath was warm and musty and smelled of ash. “You’ll not take what’s mine!”

  The witch found a narrow stone bridge crossing the ravine that she was beginning to fear ran the length of Kang Kang. She did not know whether the bridge was natural or made by someone or something, but she crossed anyway, glancing down into the depths only once. There’s no bottom to that, she thought, no ending. Only darkness growing darker. Her skin crawled, her hair stood on end, her tattoos squirmed at the corners of her mouth, providing runways for tears.

  If she stumbled, she knew that she would fall forever.

  She reached the other side and started climbing into the mountains without pause. Alishia had been right, she did not know where she was going. But this was Kang Kang, and the Womb of the Land was here, and the only way to find it was to search.

  The slopes grew steeper and turned from grass and bracken to loose shale. The snow continued. Sometimes it burned when it touched her exposed skin, and she wondered where the waters that formed this snow had risen from. Within every shadow she sensed eyes watching, yet when she looked the eyes closed. At any moment she expected the ground to give a heave, shrugging her from the slopes of Kang Kang. Sometimes her feet seemed to barely touch the ground, and she wondered whether she was repulsing the land or vice versa. She was an alien in this alien world, utterly unwelcome. The whole place watched her, silent and surly. Planning her demise.

  Not long now, she thought, a mantra that drove her on. All that Hope had been was slowly filtering away. She had memories, but they grew vague-and the farther she went, the more her early life seemed to consist only of the old, useless spells her mother had t
aught her, the routes and byways of genuine enchantments. The fake charms and false potions became the affectations of another woman, a sad old soul whom Hope had once known. Her life before finding the dead Sleeping God had been a held breath, and now she was close to gasping herself awake.

  It’s all me…not long now…it’s all me.

  “Guide us in,” Alishia muttered.

  Hope nudged the girl with her shoulder, but she said no more.

  The death moon lit an ancient path up the side of a mountain. Light snow defined its edges, melting on the path as though the ancient footsteps that formed it were still warm. Should be writing my own Book of Ways, Hope thought.

  This place threw all of its hatred and distrust her way, making her flesh creep and her eyes water with every step she took. But over her shoulder lay the future. Hope had been inside a dead God, and she was mad enough to survive Kang Kang’s worst.

  TREY WAS AWASH with fledge, but he could not travel. His mind jumped and jerked, bored within its own confines and eager to reach out and seek more, but each time he tried to leave, the Nax held him down. The first time it happened he had been so terrified that he lost all pretense at consciousness for some time. When he next came around and tried to travel once more, the Nax came in again. He slipped back into his mind and let them hold him there, but he did not pass out.

  They dragged him through fledge seams deeper than any he had ever believed existed. He felt the weight of the world above him, mile upon mile of rock and cavern and water, fledge and earth and the bones of long-buried things. But the Nax had him, and though they exuded scorn, they seemed to have purpose. He could not guess what it was, and hoped he would never find out. Perhaps he would be dead by the time they reached their destination.

  He tried talking to his mother. If he heard her reply, then he would know that life had truly left him.

  But the Nax kept him awake, and he felt every pull and tug as they steered him through seams of the drug. His fledge rage was long since satiated, but still he opened his mouth now and then to exhale old drug and breathe in new. It still surprised him that he was breathing fledge instead of air, but he did not dwell upon it.