The Black Dream

by Col Buchanan

  From the deck of the Falcon, it had looked as though no human had ever set foot within this vast wilderness, until his eyes had squinted ahead to their destination, the smoky smudge of Lucksore nestled at the foot of the mountains, surrounded by swathes of recently cleared forest like a rash on the rump of the land.

  The frontier town lay on the southernmost point of the plateau at the foot of the Aradèrēs mountains, which rose above the settlement and the line of frosted trees as muscular slopes so tall their snowy upper limits were lost in an obscurity of clouds, up there where a crease between peaks marked the high pass that had spawned this settlement centuries earlier.

  ‘When were you last here in Lucksore?’ he asked now of Meer the hedgemonk.

  ‘Fourteen years ago. One of my earliest travels. I joined some pilgrims to see the Falls, but I fell so in love with these ranges that I strayed up onto the plateau, and then into the mountains themselves. There are many people living in the Aradèrēs you know, deep inside them, surviving in sheltered valleys. Escaped slaves and tribes of natives driven centuries ago from their homelands. A remarkable mishmash of people with a thousand languages between them. Hostile to strangers, mostly. Fiercely proud of their independence. Very creative!’

  They all peered up at the mountains as though they would see who he spoke of.

  ‘Looks quiet,’ he remarked, scanning about him.

  ‘Yes,’ said Meer. ‘Not much business in winter, I imagine.’

  The sleepy skyport seemed well equipped for a town the size of Lucksore, with hangars and towers and areas of warehouses, though most of it appeared closed for the winter, and snow had drifted up around the sides of the buildings and the wooden fence surrounding the field. A few hulks lay in a large open hangar, repair crews working over them slowly. They kept glancing across at the newly arrived Falcon and making remarks to each other, perhaps gauging how fast and high she could fly. Beyond the hangar, a row of merchant sky-ships sat on their flat-bottom hulls with their envelopes and rigging removed for the season.

  The shore party’s boots made crunching noises as they approached a customs shack next to the gate, where smoke rose from a stone chimney.

  Meer entered with their wallet of papers and a purse of gold in his hand, and while the rest of them waited outside they exchanged glances with the imperial soldier standing guard at the gate, a tall man wrapped in one of the local tartan blankets as red as his cheeks and nose. When Meer returned the guard allowed them to pass through the gate, and then they were outside the skyport, marching down the cobbled road that led into town.

  For all its renown, Lucksore was smaller than Ash had been expecting. Below them, the settlement curled around the southern slopes of a large bowl-like depression half filled with the mirror waters of a lake, so that the space resembled an amphitheatre floored with vividly blue sky. Three white torrents tumbled into the lake in clouds of spray, one roaring down through the town itself loud enough to be heard from far above. The fingers of jetties poked out into the water where small rowboats were moored. Vineyards grew on the opposite slopes of the depression, flecked white by the winterberries that would be used for the famed spiced wine of Lucksore. Streamers of red and purple flowed from every rooftop.

  To the east of Lucksore, a massif of cliffs stood like the walls of some demigod’s fortress, stark white in the daylight. Their surface seemed smooth as slate, yet when Ash squinted hard he could see that trees had managed to grow stunted and warped from the odd crevice and ledge, and he was able to follow them upwards as solitary blurs of green that became smaller and smaller the higher he looked, until they became mere specks against all the seams in the rock, and then he could see them no further, for none could live any higher. Yet still – craning his neck back as far as he could – still the rock face soared upwards beyond that zone of life to the bright blue of the sky.

  Impossible, was the response of his mind taking in the sight, even though he had seen this mountain range up close before.

  Once, in neighbouring Tilana, the Aradèrēs had soared over him for a week during a difficult vendetta, their peaks throwing ice crystals and sundogs into the sky. In Nathal he had even taken refuge on their slopes, pursued by a dozen bounty hunters and their trained birds of prey; until a storm had saved him in one of the high passes, a white-out in a blizzard giving him the chance to get in amongst the hunters with his blade, his white cloak and hood rendering him near invisible.

  Yet still, as familiar as they were to him, their scale still remained impossible to his eyes – for the cliffs of Lucksore were only a minor flank of the great barrier known as the Aradèrēs, the Broken Spine of the World, that range of peaks standing between the world of man and the Great Hush beyond.

  These cliffs were merely a hint of what was still to come.

  On the road ahead a pair of tall and pale-skinned women approached, wearing heavy dresses of cream wool that reached down to their ankles, burdened with heavy baskets perched on their heads, climbing the road in long-legged strides while they held their necks and heads perfectly steady. As they went past, the women stared at the two farlanders and whispered to each other, and Ash heard them giggle.

  ‘The people here are known as Longshanks,’ Meer explained as the group ambled downwards, singling out Aléas as though his youth demanded special attention. ‘A mixed blood of highland natives and fairer Rorshach from the Lost Coast, descendants of King Haarlan’s people, that old lunatic who tried to sack Bairat in his time.’

  With a sly eye he noted the absence of interest from Aléas, who preferred to keep his attention on where he was placing his feet next.

  ‘Tell me, Aléas, do they teach you any history, these Rōshun? Or only how to swing your sword about in an efficient way?’

  He glanced to Ash to show that he was joking.

  ‘We had a library in Sato for learning. I seldom used it though.’

  ‘And before that, when you were a boy in Q’os?’

  ‘I was schooled for a while, if that’s what you mean. Mostly they taught us to follow orders and to fear their authority. I still recall some of the history they taught us. It was a list of dead rulers we were supposed to admire, and famous conquerors hailed as heroes, and a lot of wars.’

  Ahead, Meer was chuckling to himself as he listened. ‘No wonder you have little interest in the subject then. You speak of indoctrination, Aléas, not education. Real education guides us towards truth, towards the reality of our lives. It is radical, meaning the root of things, the source of them. In Khos, where I’m from, the community schools teach children the arts of critical thinking and self-awareness from an early age. Even classes in consciousness studies for those who show an interest. Real education teaches us that history has been written for the sake of the powerful and perpetuated by the powerful. That the majority of our species have lived ordinary, peaceful lives without even a whiff of war. And more than that. It teaches us where we have been and where we may yet be going.’

  ‘Yet I know where I am from,’ drawled Aléas. ‘And for all I care, the future can take care of itself.’

  Laughter burbled from Kosh and he slapped Aléas on the back in agreement, like the old fool that he was.

  Ash inhaled the pungency of pine resin in the air, strong enough to taste on his tongue, and felt something of the old country in these highlands of the Pathian plateau, reminding him of his birthplace in the mountainous region of northern Honshu.

  He had always marvelled at the similarities between the uplands of the world, no matter how far apart they might be; how it seemed that no matter where you travelled, if you went high enough you could see the same types of hardy shrubs and dwarf trees hugging the ground, the same tiny-petalled flowers that were always a surprise to the eyes; altitude forming its own common regions as much as latitude and longitude.

  He pinched his nose to relieve the tension behind his strained eyes; another headache this morning, made worse by the thinness of the chill air.

  Never
mind. His spirits soared to be here at last, one step closer to his goal.

  ‘Up there!’ Meer suddenly declared, jabbing a finger into the air. ‘The Pass of the Snow Monkeys. Our route into the range.’

  They all looked up to follow his finger pointing at a break in the clouds. Saw the cleft in the wall of mountains hanging over the town, the high icy pass filled with rivers of mists.

  Ash thought of the Falcon flying through that high pass, and saw that Kosh’s face had grown stiff at the sight of it.

  Downwards, the air growing rich with birdsong here, the sudden cry of a buzzard echoing from the slopes. At the bottom of the hill they stopped at a crossroads where a signpost pointed off in four directions: Lucksore Town, the Skyport, the Farrier Road, and the High Trail leading off towards the mountains.

  ‘You are confident you can find a longhunter here to act as our guide?’ Ash asked after Meer as the hedgemonk chose the High Trail, leading the way.

  ‘Of course,’ Meer cast over his shoulder in a ribbon of breath. ‘If we can’t find a longhunter here, we can’t find one anywhere.’

  ‘Good enough,’ answered Ash, and they followed behind.

  *

  The road to the High Trail ran through a busy district on the outskirts of town, where wooden signs hung everywhere and craftsmen could be seen busy at work: blacksmiths and leather-crafters, fur traders and goldsmiths, timber yards, stables, general stores. The footing on the road here was less slippery, the snow flat and churned to slush as it was, and Ash marched onwards with his feet nimble in their hobnailed boots, a man born of highlands just like Kosh, comfortable in the snow and ice of hard winters.

  The people here wore all sorts of hats, from tall bearskins to wide-brimmed rancheros. Men favoured beards and heavy coats and the women thick, figure-hugging gowns reaching down to the ground in trailing fringes of fur. A hairy breed of hill zel was common, their stripes brown rather than black upon their white coats. Lean hunting dogs lay out of the way watching the world go by. Spotted maws too were everywhere, the clever white snow monkeys of the region, sitting on verandas or sloping rooftops, speaking to each other in a whistling chatter with their long tails curving around them for warmth while they squatted in the sunlight.

  Ash spotted one of the creatures jumping out of an open window with a round of bread in its clawed hand. It leapt up onto the roof and sat there eating it amongst its whistling companions, fending them off with bared teeth, until it relented and shared out a few handfuls too.

  ‘There’s so many of them,’ Aléas exclaimed. ‘Don’t they get under people’s feet?’

  ‘They do,’ Meer answered. ‘But the locals believe that some of them are the spirits of their dead ancestors, and so they treat them with reverence. They seem to live quite happily together most of the time.’

  As if to prove his point, their attention was drawn to the laughter and flute music of an open courtyard, where people feasted and danced beneath a canopy of red strings that crisscrossed above their heads. A wedding celebration it seemed, for all the singing and dancing involved, and the young couple at the centre of it all.

  Spotted maws sat congregated on an outer table enjoying their own feast. One of them watched Ash as he passed by, and he saw how its eyes were strangely human.

  ‘How far are we going?’ Kosh asked breathlessly with a strain in his voice. Perhaps his gout was playing up again this morning, though he would never admit as much.

  ‘Not far. There’s a taverna on the High Trail called the Last Chance. Popular with longhunters and hangers on.’

  ‘And you say this town is the capital of Royal Milk?’ Aléas wanted to know.

  ‘Yes, outside of Zanzahar anyway. The Alhazii have their own operations along the Sea of Doubts, but much of their Milk is used to trade with the Isle of Sky in return for exotics. The people of the Isles fear the Great Hush you see, and refuse to enter it themselves, believing it to contain all manner of diseases that could wipe them out. Much as they fear the wider world. So they buy their Milk from the Alhazii.

  ‘Here, though,’ he said with a wave of his hand, ‘is where most of the Milk that makes it into the Midèrēs comes from. It’s a boom town, right on the frontier, though you might not think it. Every year the longhunting expeditions return from the Hush and the Edge through the high passes, bringing with them their loads. Their stories are just about all we know of what lies on the other side of the mountains.’

  They knew enough to fall silent as they clumped past the scrutiny of a pair of imperial guards, stationed beside an archway that led beyond the district onto the High Trail. Past it, the road narrowed into a cobbled path and began to climb upwards into the hills that led to the high pass of the Snow Monkeys.

  Directly ahead, the path bent around a building perched on a prominence of rock, its shingled roof covered in yellow hanging mosses above walls of old, sun-bleached redwood. As they rounded on it, they could see how the structure leaned to the side a little, in the same direction as the few scraggly windblown trees around it, which people had tied old rags to in their hundreds; wishful prayers, perhaps, of those leaving on an expedition, or those watching them go.

  ‘The Last Chance,’ Meer panted beneath the sign above its front door, which was entirely bare. Whatever had once been painted on it was now washed clean by wind and sunshine.

  ‘First round is on me,’ Kosh declared, rubbing his gloved hands in anticipation of a drink. ‘I have a mind to try this chappa that Meer has been going on about.’

  ‘Let me do the talking,’ Meer told them all. ‘It’s a hanging offence to obtain Royal Milk without a licence, and the trading families here have many spies in the town. We must be subtle, and cautious, if we are to find a guide without raising suspicions.’

  It was warm inside. A small fire crackled in a hearth at the back of the long taproom. The air was humid from a kettle steaming above the flames. Before it sat an elderly woman in a shawl, rocking in a chair as she finger-knitted with a bundle of purple wool. She glanced up briefly at the new arrivals before looking away again, one eye milky white with cataract. Chairs creaked, three men just as old looking over their shoulders from whatever they were playing, the table covered by small blocks of white wood. In a corner, a solitary man sat staring at them from within the shadows of a cowl.

  ‘I thought you said this place was popular with longhunters?’ Ash muttered in Meer’s ear.

  Meer winced.

  ‘Give it time,’ he replied without much confidence.

  Behind the bar, a thin tall youth with a shock of yellow hair stood reading a news-sheet from the Pathian capital of far Bairat.

  ‘Quiet day,’ Meer remarked to him, but the young man only grunted, then looked up from the paper and blinked at the group standing before him, drawn to the black skin of the farlanders.

  Before he could start asking questions, they ordered the local drink of custom, chappa, a blend of hot goat’s milk and stiff spirits, and took a table by the window furthest from the bar, their skin tingling in the heat. Ash glanced across at the man seated alone in the corner, and knew that he was watching them from within his hood. Around their own far table, the players carried on with their game in the easy silence of old companions.

  Sipping on his own hot drink of chee, Ash blinked through the watery glass of the window at the wintry world outside.

  ‘Will you look at that,’ breathed Aléas by his side, taking in the sight of what was mounted in the high space above the bar. Ash followed his gaze, and allowed his mouth to drop open.

  ‘Ah, I’d all but forgotten about that,’ remarked Meer.

  Kosh shifted uneasily in his chair, the wood creaking under his weight. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

  ‘A real kree,’ breathed Aléas, rising to his feet with a scrape of his chair to study the thing more closely: a fully grown kree, big as a zel.

  Ash leaned back with his lips pursing. What a monster, he thought, taking in the black sheen of its carapace where s
harp spines ran across its peak. The floorboards creaked as Aléas stepped forwards to stand beneath the creature, where he stood with his head craned back and eyes gazing up in wonder. Above him, the massive bulk of the kree hung in the shadows beneath the rafters, its carapace shaped like the stubby kite-shields of Markesh, the six legs hanging limp just beneath its edges; all of it black in this light, though the creatures were said to be a shade of velvety blue. From this angle, the whole thing resembled a monstrous crab.

  ‘That’s only a little one,’ remarked one of the old game players at the next table, a match poking from between his rotting teeth. ‘It’s a scout, not a full-grown warrior. Old Tennesey and his men found it dead on the other side of the Spine just below the snowline. Dragged it all the way here.’ The match between his lips bobbed once in a nonchalant shrug. ‘So they say.’

  Ash set down his chee.

  ‘How do you kill them?’ he asked across the room.

  ‘Kill them?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘People usually just run. Not many have stood their ground and lived to tell of it.’

  ‘Have you seen it done?’

  ‘Hold, and release two,’ the man said, and there was a clink of wooden blocks on the table. ‘I’ve seen scouts killed after they were caught in nets. Only ever saw one warrior killed in the open though, and that was from the safety of a warwagon. Took a lucky shot under its maw. That’s where they’re vulnerable. Damned hard to hit when they’re coming at you, though.’

  ‘What about eyes?’ Aléas asked him, still studying the creature from his chair. ‘Can they see?’