by Tim Lebbon
Alishia, thought Trey. I was looking after her. But she felt a whole world away. Perhaps while he had been held down here by the fledge demons, time had moved on many years aboveground. Maybe Alishia and Hope had reached the Womb of the Land and done what they needed to do, protected by Kosar and the Shantasi army riding behind him. Perhaps the Mages had been driven away and light been brought back to the land. Kosar would be wandering again, a thief, a hero, looking for the fledge miner he had left behind in Hope’s unstable care.
Or maybe Alishia had died before ever reaching the heart of Kang Kang, and the land was left to the Mages, and Trey was the last human.
He should cast out, travel through the rock and see what was happening. But the crawling discomfort of the Nax was ever-present at the edge of his mind.
They exploded from the fledge into open air, and Trey gasped aloud. The Nax had him by the arms and legs and he kicked and twisted, trying to get free. It was pitch black, yet he could sense the massive space around him, a hollow in the foundation of Noreela that dwarfed the home-cavern where he had spent his childhood. He coughed and heard no echoes. He shouted, vomiting a dry stream of fledge into open air. He did not hear it hit the ground. The Nax flew on, ignoring his struggles and shouts, and Trey calmed his mind and closed his eyes to the blackness.
Will you let me go down, if not up? he thought, and he cast his mind from his floating body.
This time the Nax did not interrupt.
Soon, he would find out why.
TREY FELL THROUGH the darkness, always aware of the position of his body way above. The Nax flew him across this great cavern, moving slowly, almost as if they wanted him to travel down and see where they were. They’re waiting for me, he thought. He guessed that they could hear him, see him, know him, but he had consumed so much fledge-the youngest, freshest drug he had ever experienced-that he barely cared. Let them, he thought. Let the monsters read me.
We are the Nax, their voice roared, and Trey went spinning through the cavern.
Even traveling on a fledge trip, it took him several minutes to reach the ground. He probed outward with his senses and saw, smelled and tasted more fledge, built up from the floor of the cavern into towering structures. This drug was different from any he had ever known. It was molded and worked, broken down and then re-formed with some other substance that gave it a thicker, rougher texture. And it was old, giving off a sickening stale miasma that almost drove Trey away.
But there was something else that urged him closer. Beyond the fact that it had been mined and then remade, past the obvious age of these structures, his own probing mind found others.
They did not notice him. They were mumbling, adrift and mad. None of them traveled farther than a few steps from this timeless fledge city, and as Trey dipped down between stale minarets, columns and towers, he knew why.
There were people trapped down here. They were buried in the fledge buildings, a leg protruding here, a face there. They were a race he did not know. High foreheads; dark skin; long, protruding jaws; wide eyes that had once surely been intelligent, though now they wore the dull taint of time in their blindness. The horrible fact of their longevity impressed itself upon Trey.
Is it this for me as well? he thought, rising quickly from the city and shutting his senses to it. Am I going to be imprisoned like these unknown people, trapped down here for centuries, so old that they must be from an age long forgotten?
The Nax holding his body drew him in, pulling him across space so quickly that he was left reeling within the confines of his own mind. They offered no explanation or comment, but moved on faster than ever.
Soon they were buried in another fledge seam, traveling quickly away from that huge cavern, and Trey was glad.
South, he thought. We’re going south. I wonder if my whole future now is belowground.
No future, the Nax rumbled a while later. But Trey did not know to whom or what they referred.
THE KROTE ARMY rode south. Noreela City was a hundred miles behind them, still gushing smoke at the sky, still echoing to the sounds of the dead searching for those left alive. Lenora had started following her own shadow, cast forward by the blazing city. Now her shadow was a vague thing once again, thrown left and right by the moons. Most of the time she was not aware of it at all. And that haunting shade was still with her.
She stared forward, still shocked at the arrival of the Mages, their appearance and the news they had brought.
THEIR MACHINE HAD landed heavily, spilling Angel to the ground. She rolled and ran, coming at Lenora as though meaning to run straight through her. S’Hivez remained on the machine’s back. He was slumped down as though asleep.
What have I done? Lenora thought, panicked. She could feel the heat of Noreela City’s demise on her back, yet Angel looked grim and fierce and…frightened?
“Mistress,” Lenora said, kneeling and bowing her head.
“Get up!” Angel spat.
Lenora obeyed. Still she kept her head down, because she did not wish to see such rage in the Mage’s eyes.
“Look at me,” Angel said, her voice gentler. Lenora looked. Angel glanced over the Krote’s shoulder at Noreela City, its stone walls glowing with fearsome heat. “You’ve done well,” the Mage said, but Lenora could see in her eyes that there were matters more pressing than praise.
“Thank you, Mistress. What of the south?”
“The south?” Angel said, raising her eyebrows. “You think we’ve been to the south?”
“You flew in from that way,” Lenora said. She could not meet Angel’s eyes for more than a heartbeat without looking away.
“We went to the Monastery,” Angel said. “There was something we had to do there.”
“The Nax?” Lenora said.
“The Nax. But they’re long gone. The basements and deeper caves are empty. But we met something else there. A shade spy came to us, and it gave news we thought never to hear.”
“And this news…” Lenora started, pausing when Angel glared at her. “The Shantasi?”
“Pah! Weakling slaves who think themselves warriors. Why would I fear those whiter freaks? No, Lenora.” She moved close and spoke into Lenora’s ear. “Magic. There’s still magic free, and it conspires against us.”
“You have the magic,” Lenora said, confused. “I saw you take it from the boy with my own eyes.”
Angel glanced at Lenora’s machine, parts of its flesh and bone risen from the corpse of the farm boy. “So you did,” she said. “But a shade has found another. A girl, going into Kang Kang with a mad witch as her companion.”
“No one else?”
“Just two of them.”
“Then what threat-?”
Angel reached out and grabbed Lenora’s shoulder. Old wounds and new came alight, pain burning into Lenora’s body and skull, and Angel pressed her to her knees. Lenora tried not to scream. She closed her eyes and welcomed the pain as a friend rather than an enemy. It would be over soon and she would not remember exactly how it felt. Pain was a thing of the moment.
Angel brought her face close to Lenora’s and waited until the Krote opened her eyes before she spoke. “What threat? Consider what threat we are to Noreela.”
“We’redestroying Noreela!”
“Yes, and I can taste its blood on your breath. But if a magic beyond our control returns to the land, the blade will be turned. The threat will be on us. It’ll be the War again. And as you well know, Lenora, we didn’t fare well the first time.”
“But wewould win now, Mistress.” Lenora stared into Angel’s eyes, past the agony of her shoulder and her fear of the Mage. Behind false beauty wrought by magic she saw the embittered old Mage this woman really was, mad with the need for revenge, insane with its hunger. And in those eyes, she saw the reflection of herself.
Angel eased her grip until her hand was merely resting on Lenora’s shoulder. “You’re a good soldier,” she said. “And a friend, Lenora. Does that shock you?”
Lenor
a shook her head. “No, Mistress.”
“Good. Then do this friend a favor. Drive south to Kang Kang. Take the whole army with you. Ignore everything between here and there. Don’t be tempted by the towns, the trains of fleeing people, the farming villages. Take only what you need to eat, drink and rearm, and go for the eastern reach of Kang Kang. A mad witch and a girl, that’s all you seek of Noreela right now.”
“Shall I bring them to you?”
“Kill them. And with the girl, make sure her head is crushed into the ground. Feed her brains to your machine. Leavenothing. ”
“Mistress,” Lenora said, bowing her head slightly.
Angel touched Lenora’s chin and raised her face. “I suppose you want to know where S’Hivez and I will be while all this is going on?”
“No, Mistress, I’d never question-”
“I can’t tell you,” Angel said. “But we’ll meet again soon.”
“Kang Kang is a long way, perhaps five hundred miles. How long do we have?”
“Perhaps days, perhaps…heartbeats.” Angel looked up at the darkened sky, as though expecting the sun to shine through at any moment.
“I will not fail you, Mistress.”
“Thank you, Lenora. I’m leaving you something. It will build you more machines, to carry a different army.” Angel left and Lenora watched her go, thrilled and relieved.
The Mage leapt onto her machine with unnatural grace. She leaned forward and whispered something to S’Hivez, but the male Mage barely moved. He’s somewhere else, Lenora thought. As the machine lifted off, something slipped from a rent in its gut and moved toward the city walls. Another shade crushed a hole in reality. Lenora tried not to see.
Angel spared not a glance for the burning city.
“As though she’s seen it all before,” Lenora said. And she had. The Mages had been dreaming of this every night for three hundred years.
IN THE DISTANCE Lenora saw the lights from a caravan of wagons. They snaked across the foothills of the Widow’s Peaks, heading south from Noreela City. As they closed in, the lights blinked out, and Lenora could see hundreds of tiny shadows fleeing the wagons and dispersing across the hillside. More helpless victims to slaughter, but she could not let anything distract her. Angel had been very specific in her orders. And in a way, Lenora was glad. She had seen a killing frenzy in some of her Krotes that she could no longer find in herself, and it had disturbed her. Perhaps because of that voice that spoke to her, that child, and the innocence she had begun to hear behind its words.
The massed army of Krotes thundered on. Their machines ran or crawled or flew, and in their midst, giant new constructs-formed by the shade the Mages had left behind-rolled on wheels of stone cast from the ruins of Noreela City. They carried great cages and bowls, hollow globes and flattened shelves of rock, and packed into these machines were thousands of Noreelan dead. Limbs waved feebly, mouths opened and closed and drooled black blood. Heads turned to see where they were going and to search for their uncertain futures.
What of their wraiths? Lenora thought yet again, but she did not dwell on that. Wherever they were, they would be in pain.
The machines tore down dying trees and crushed them to splinters. They churned the soil, ploughing under failing crops and exposing the guts of the land to the dusk. A heavy frost glittered, reflecting moonlight and marking their way. They moved quickly, and when they saw a large town burning in the distance they diverted slightly and told the Krotes there of their new aim. These several warriors boarded their flying machines and took off, heading south toward Kang Kang.
The land shook beneath them, and Noreelans shivered in their hiding places. But for now the aim of the army had changed. The invasion was over, and the battle for magic had begun.
Tim Lebbon
Dawn
Chapter 16
THE SHANTASI WERE harvesting, though not spice. The spice farms were dying, but the warriors were out on the desert sands anyway, digging instead of climbing, ignoring the intricate webbings and shriveling plants in favor of excavating things from below.
“More Pace beetles?” Kosar asked.
“I expect so.” Lucien was nursing his wounds, chewing the remaining plants from his robe pockets and packing the resultant paste in the holes in his arm, shoulders and body. He felt weak and wretched. He should be dead. Yet here he was, surrounded by Shantasi, and he had no idea what would come next. Perhaps he would go with them to fight the Mages and their Krote army. The idea of that thrilled him, driving his blood faster and inspiring a heat in his skin which Kosar must surely feel where he sat a few steps away.
On the other hand, the Shantasi could simply kill him. He had fight left in him, but he was not sure that he would resist. The more Shantasi he took with him, the fewer there would be to fight the Krotes, and the more chance there was of Alishia being caught and killed. He hoped the Shantasi reasoned as he did and allowed him to fight.
They had let Kosar come and sit next to him after the thief had finished talking with the Mystic. With the Shantasi going about their preparations, it felt as though he and Kosar were set apart. Lucien sighed and pressed more paste into an arrow wound above his left elbow. He flexed his arm and felt the damage to the joint, but his blood had hardened there, fixed the fracture and turned fluid again to lubricate the movement.
A Shantasi returned from the sands and dropped a leather bag against a rock thirty steps away. He muttered something to O’Gan Pentle, who was sitting on the rock, glanced at Lucien and Kosar then went back out onto the sands. O’Gan continued watching the harvest.
They had sent a dozen Shantasi east immediately after O’Gan had made his decision. Their army was spread across the desert between here and Hess, and they were to initiate a chain reaction of orders all the way back to the Mystic City. O’Gan expected the bulk of the army to be with them within half a day, and then he said they would head southwest toward Kang Kang.
“I see no horses,” Lucien said. “No transport. That desert creature we rode on was fast, but will there be enough to carry four thousand Shantasi?”
“O’Gan said they would move quickly enough,” Kosar said. He had drawn his sword and touched the blade to his fingertips, smearing blood across the metal and leaving it to dry to a crust.
“I could heal those,” Lucien said.
Kosar looked at him. “You told me that before.”
“I meant it.”
Kosar touched the sword again and watched a bubble of blood run down to the handle. “I like myself as I am,” the thief said.
“The offer remains open.”
“The offer isclosed!” Kosar stood and walked away, sheathing his sword and approaching the Mystic.
I killed his love, Lucien thought, trying to remember that fight in the woods around the machines’ graveyard. The rage had been fully upon him then, and he could not recall much of the Shantasi other than her ferocity. He’d had an idea that she had fought Red Monks before, and the fact that she was still alive to take him on had inspired an element of respect for her. But respect was weakness, and Lucien had triumphed. And from that moment on, his and Kosar’s paths had been destined to cross.
He finished dressing his wounds, rested his arms on crossed legs and stared out across the desert.
THE BIG THIEF approached, walking awkwardly and holding his arm across his ribs. Behind him the Red Monk sat staring into the desert, hood hiding his grotesquely scarred face.
O’Gan feared the journey and fight to come. They had their means to reach Kang Kang, and they had their weapons and training, but everything else O’Gan was hoping for to help them in the battle…well, they might no longer be available. These were desert things that craved the sun.
“What are you gathering?” Kosar the thief asked.
“What do you think?” O’Gan recognized a naive intelligence in the man’s eyes; they held experience, but his manner also displayed an ignorance of many things. Someone out for his own gain, not interested in inform
ation and learning. Before all this, at least. Now, seeing the wounds he bore and the hatred he still harbored for the Monk with whom he had ridden across the desert, O’Gan knew that Kosar was much changed. He wondered whether the thief even realized that he was a new man.
“Pace beetles,” Kosar said. “Just another drug.” He sounded disappointed.
“A’Meer didn’t tell you everything,” O’Gan said. “It’s no drug. The beetles live a different time from our own. It’s…complicated.”
Kosar raised his eyebrows. “I may not understand, but I’m ready to believe.”
O’Gan nodded and smiled. “They age a hundred years in their lifetime, yet they exist in our world for only a few months. Things arefaster for them. By eating them, we borrow their time.”
Kosar nodded, frowning. “And age faster in the process. We killed the thing we rode in on.”
O’Gan nodded. “We can’t use it too much. It hurts.”
“Have you just told me a Shantasi secret?” the thief asked.
O’Gan stood, jumped from the rock and landed softly beside Kosar. He rested his hand on the man’s shoulder and squeezed slightly, and he was pleased when Kosar smiled. He’s glad I believe him, the Mystic thought. Glad I’m ready to help. He sacrificed so much to get here.
“I think,” O’Gan said, nodding toward the Red Monk, “that our secret is already out.”
“He said he read lots of books in the Monastery,” Kosar said. “I think he was fooling with me.”
“The whole history of the land is written in books, somewhere,” O’Gan said. “Most of them will never be found, most have never been read. But they’ve all been written.”
“Who’s writing this one?”
“You, thief. Me. All of us.”
Kosar nodded. “And to talk of the end?”
“The land is full of seers and prophets, visionaries and those who purport to know the future. But every next breath is the future. Every blink of your eyes marks your progress from one moment to the next, and you never know what you’re going to see when they next open.”
