by Dennis Foon
AS THE LIZARD JERKS VIOLENTLY, RAT ASKS, “STOWE, WILL YOU HAVE THIS THING UNDONE?”
“YES.” STOWE’S VOICE RISES BRAVELY OVER FERRELL’S PROTESTATIONS.
A BLUE RABBIT BOUNDS IN FROM THE SHADOWS TO JOIN THEM. MABATAN. AS SHE LETS OUT A LONG, PIERCING NOTE, A THUNDEROUS CACOPHONY ECHOES ALL AROUND THEM. DOZENS OF WHITE CRICKETS, EACH ONE AS LARGE AS A MAN, APPEAR IN THE SHELTER AND A CASCADE OF SOUND ENCLOSES THE GATHERING.
HUNDREDS OF REFLECTIONS STARE BACK AT STOWE FROM THE CRICKETS’ MULTIFACETED EYES. THEY ARE ALL OF A PERSON SHE DOES NOT RECOGNIZE—LONG BLACK HAIR OVER A PALE, NARROW FACE—UNTIL THE EYES, GREEN AND COLD, MEET HERS: FERRELL. AS SOON AS SHE KNOWS IT IS HIM, THE IMAGES SHIFT TO A LIZARD, THEN A CLAY GIRL. AND AFTER THAT, HERSELF, IN HUMAN FORM. THE CRICKETS’ EYES SPIN FASTER AND FASTER, BREAKING THEIR LIKENESSES APART AND MIXING THEM UP: LIZARDS WITH CHILDLIKE HANDS, GIRLS WITH LIZARDS’ HEADS. THOUSANDS OF DIFFERENT COMBINATIONS FLASH RELENTLESSLY BEFORE HER UNTIL THE PRESSURE IS UNBEARABLE. AS IT CRUSHES HER AGAINST THE HARD GROUND, SHE IS RIPPED IN TWO. SHE TRIES TO SCREAM, BUT SHE HAS NO VOICE. HER HAND REACHES BUT THERE IS NOTHING, NOTHING ON HER RIGHT SIDE. NOTHING. JUST A HOLE WHERE SHE ONCE HAD HALF HER BODY. HER EYES SEE ONLY RED, AS IF THE WORLD WERE SWIMMING IN BLOOD. BLOOD AND SILENCE. SHE CANNOT EVEN HEAR HER HEARTBEAT.
WILLUM STARES INTO STOWE’S VACANT, OPEN EYES. “I CANNOT REACH HER.”
RAT SNIFFS AT THE TWO BODIES BETWEEN THEM, THEN LOOKS UP FROM THE LIZARD AND THE CLAY GIRL. “NO,” HE AGREES. “BUT THERE IS STILL HOPE. TAKE HER NOW, WILLUM. HURRY. MABATAN WILL GUIDE YOU. I WILL RETURN FERRELL TO HIS PEOPLE.”
THE RABBIT HOPS CLOSER AND AS THE HAWK SHIFTS TO ACCOMMODATE HER, HIS WING BRUSHES AGAINST RAT. WILLUM’S HURLED VIOLENTLY INTO A VISION OF FIRE AND TERROR: THE SHRILL CRIES OF CHILDREN DESPERATE TO ESCAPE THEIR BURNING VILLAGES; THE TERRIFIED BLOODIED FACES OF A MOB STAMPEDING AWAY FROM THE CITY’S SILVER TOWERS AS WHOLE SECTIONS OF THEM EXPLODE; DEEP IN THE UTTER DARKNESS OF THE PYRAMID’S DUNGEONS, MABATAN AND KIRA TRAPPED, BROKEN AND DYING. SPINNING UP THE SHAFT AT THE PYRAMID’S CENTER, WILLUM IS TOSSED OUT ONTO THE COLD GLASS TILES AT ITS APEX. DARIUS IS RAISING A KNIFE TO STAB STOWE. PICKING HIMSELF UP, WILLUM LUNGES. STOWE SCREAMS. THERE IS BLOOD. BLOOD EVERYWHERE. AND SCREAMS. HORRIFIED SCREAMS. AND AS WILLUM IS SUCKED BACK INTO DARKNESS, HE REALIZES THE SCREAMS ARE HIS OWN.
SHAKING HIS HAWK’S HEAD TO CLEAR HIS MIND OF THIS NUMBING VIEW OF THE FUTURE, HE NOTICES THE DEEP SADNESS IN RAT’S WATERY EYES AS HE SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER. “MABATAN, I KNOW DEATH HOVERS OVER YOU. BUT IN THIS TIME, DEATH HOVERS OVER US ALL. ONLY REMEMBER, THE PATH SHIFTS DAILY AND WE HAVE UNTIL THE BULL RISES IN THE EAST TO DO WHAT WE CAN TO EFFECT OUR FATE.”
THE HAWK AND THE RABBIT SIGH AND SPEAK TOGETHER, “AFTER THAT COMES THE END OF ALL POSSIBILITY.”
PLACING A PAW ON STOWE, THE RABBIT INCLINES HER HEAD TOWARD THE HAWK. WILLUM CLENCHES THE CLAY GIRL IN ONE OF HIS CLAWS AND RESTS HIS OTHER ON THE RABBIT. THE RABBIT BLINKS AND SUDDENLY ALL THREE ARE NOTHING BUT GLITTERING MOTES OF DUST TRAVELING THE WIND IN AN AZURE SKY.
WHEN THEY REACH THE SHORELINE OF THE ENDLESS SEA, THE HAWK GROWS STEADILY LARGER AND RELEASES THE RABBIT. WITH A BEAT OF HIS WINGS, HE GRASPS STOWE IN BOTH CLAWS AND SOARS. THE RABBIT, TAKING HUGE LEAPS, LEADS BELOW.
SHE WILL NOT DIE; SHE CANNOT DIE, WILLUM PRAYS, AS HE FOLLOWS MABATAN FROM ONE ICE FLOE TO THE NEXT. FINALLY SHE STOPS ON A ROCK CLEFT THAT JUTS UP FROM A WHIRLPOOL OF STEAMING, CHURNING WATER.
SHE WAITS AS WILLUM DIVES THROUGH THE VAPOROUS AIR, PLUMMETING INTO THE SWIRLING VORTEX. HE FEELS HER REACH OUT TO HIM IN ENCOURAGEMENT, UNTIL, WINDING DOWNWARD, HE’S OVERWHELMED BY THE ROAR OF RUSHING WATER. BUT SOON HE HEARS A SWEETER SOUND. HUMAN VOICES. THEIR SINGING DRAWS HIM THROUGH THE RAGING WATERS TO A TERRACE WHERE THE SHADES OF LONGLIGHT AWAIT.
SCORES OF OVERLAPPING WHISPERS RISE AND FALL TO GREET HIM. “WELCOME, WILLUM OF THE APSARA.”
WILLUM GENTLY LAYS STOWE DOWN ON A BED OF THICK MOSS AND BOWS TO THEM. “FORGIVE ME.”
“YOU HAVE SAVED HER MORE THAN ONCE, COUSIN,” SAYS STOWE’S MOTHER. “AND NOW YOU BRING HER HOME TO ME. WHAT IS THERE TO FORGIVE?”
“SHE WILL NOT BE WHOLE AGAIN.”
STOWE’S MOTHER LEANS OVER THE MOTIONLESS CLAY BODY, PASSING HER HANDS OVER THE BARELY BEATING HEART. “FEW OF US HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF LIVING WHOLE. WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS THAT SHE WILL LIVE. WE CANNOT ASK FOR MORE.”
WILLUM’S HAWK EYES CANNOT CRY, BUT HIS ANGUISH MAKES THEM SMART ALL THE SAME.
“DO NOT ABANDON HOPE,” THE WOMAN SAYS, LIFTING ONE HAND TO GENTLY CARESS HIS CHEEK. “YOU CANNOT STAY, COUSIN. THIS PLACE IS NOT FOR YOU.”
INCLINING HIS HEAD TO TAKE ONE LAST LOOK AT STOWE, WILLUM STEPS AWAY. SPREADING HIS WINGS, HE SOARS THROUGH THE TWISTING SEA. WHAT WILL HE DO IF STOWE DOES NOT HEAL IN TIME TO HELP THEM?
THE FORESIGHT ACADEMY
ROAN OF THE PARTING FORESAW THAT WITH DARIUS’S RISE, KNOWLEDGE WOULD BURN. AND SO WHEN HIS FOLLOWERS FLED THE CITY HE ORDERED THEM TO TAKE ALL THE BOOKS THEY COULD CARRY. THIS IS HOW FORESIGHT CAME INTO BEING.
—THE WAR CHRONICLES
THOUGH ROAN IS EXHAUSTED, sleep is an unwilling companion. Whenever he closes his eyes he’s catapulted into a world of blinding pain. Everything is bathed in blood and there’s an intolerable pressure at the center of his being, as if someone were splitting him in two.
Wrapping his bedroll tightly round his shoulders, Roan slips past the snoring doctors. Finding a mossy hollow not too far from the fire, he leans back against a frosty boulder and gazes at a fragment of starry sky. Why is he having these visions? Have Willum and Stowe made their way safely to Ende? Could something terrible be happening to Mabatan in Kira’s village? Is he seeing what might one day happen to him?
“Worrying about what we’re heading into?”
Roan turns to see Lumpy smugly tapping a roll of parchment against his chest.
“You snuck up on me!” Roan exclaims, surprised.
“I’ve been practicing some new tricks I picked up from the Apsara, but I probably couldn’t have done it if you weren’t so tired,” Lumpy insists in mock apology.
Roan brings his fist smartly down on Lumpy’s foot.
“Hey! What was that for?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
Laughing, Lumpy takes a seat beside him.
“So, what do you think of Othard and Imin?” Roan asks, casting a mischievous glance in Lumpy’s direction.
Lumpy groans. “Having a Mor-Tick survivor at their mercy, you’d think they’d died and gone to heaven. I’m considering gags.” Cheering up at the thought, Lumpy unrolls the parchment and inclines it to catch the light of the full moon. “I’m afraid our physician friends could cause us a lot of problems in a couple of days. We’re going to have to travel across some open ground. With two chatterboxes like them, we might as well be shouting, ‘Moving targets—come and take a shot!’”
“I’ll talk to them.”
“Thanks. It’s a good map, Roan. Fills in a few blanks. People have tended to stay away from the area around the Academy. Apparently, it’s believed there are ghosts there. The shades of Dirt Eaters killed when the Clerics blew the place up.” Lumpy scrunches up his face comically. “Specters! Phantoms,” he says, imitating the physicians.
Scratching his back with a stick, Roan yawns. “I thought all the Dirt Eaters got away.”
“People don’t know that. And to them the ghosts of dead Dirt Eaters are just as dangerous as the real thing. The fact that anyone who dares to venture into the area never returns doesn’t help. You asleep yet?”
Roan opens his eyes a crack and sighs wearily “Almost.” He watches Lumpy studying the map, his face haloed in the moonlight. Their crickets are perched silently on one corner of the parchment, but Roan doesn’t need their song. His lids unbearably heavy, he drifts off into a dreamless slumber.
Someone grasps his arm firmly and places a finger across his lips urging silence. Lumpy. Roan opens his eyes but he can already hear them. Still
a fair distance away. He signals Lumpy to return to the doctors but his friend shakes his head. He stretches both hands in front of Roan, pumping them twice. Twenty warriors. Too many for Roan to take alone. Pulling his friend toward him, Roan whispers, “I can do it, if I’m not worrying about those doctors. They need you more than I do. Go!”
Pressing Roan’s hook-sword into his hand, Lumpy scrambles toward the fire. Roan sprints in the direction of the oncoming warriors. As he closes in, he recognizes their smell—Fandor. A knife glints to his right and Roan backhands it away. He kicks the Fandor wielding it hard in the stomach, toppling him backward. Lunging forward, his blade swings in a wide arc that takes down two more of the enemy. The Fandor pause—obviously he was not as easy a victim as they’d hoped.
Taking advantage of their momentary confusion, Roan advances stealthily. Positioning himself halfway between two of the marauders, he smashes his elbow into one Fandor’s chin while he kicks the other backward. Then, twisting in slow circles and fanning his blade, he drives the attackers back. He hears the unmistakable snap of arrows being released and dives, pulling the nearest Fandor into their path. Swiping at another’s feet, he avoids the slashing of a third. Roan’s feinting and jabbing, every swing hitting true, but there are too many swords thrusting at his face, his chest, his legs. As he somersaults through the crowd of assailants, he hears an ear-piercing whistle. Are they calling for reinforcements?
Trusting Lumpy got the doctors to safety, Roan marshals his fears and studies his opponents. He targets the weak links. Spinning and twisting, he cuts a swath through his assailants.
When he turns to deliver a whip kick to a screaming Fandor, he’s startled to see snarling, yellow-toothed dogs everywhere, leaping on the necks of the marauders, digging teeth into their legs. The Fandor next to him is fighting a large gray shape at his shoulder, jabbing his sword wildly, but the dog’s massive jaws manage to snap on his arm. In an instant, two more mangy mastiffs are tearing at him and he’s down. Eyes shining yellow in the predawn shadows, saliva dripping from their maws, the hounds resemble avenging demons. Terrified, the remaining Fandor flee, snarling predators snapping at their heels. Only one dog stays behind, its huge head swaying, glowing eyes fixed on Roan. But Lumpy’s at his side whistling, and tail tucked between its legs, the beast skulks off, whining piteously.
The doctors scurry over to Roan. “Any wounds?” asks Othard.
“There’s a scrape,” Imin says, opening his bag.
“Thanks, Lumpy,” Roan mutters, smiling at his friend.
“Oh yes, thank you,” Othard adds.
“Yes. How did you know how to do that?” Imin asks, awestruck.
Othard, also impressed, says admiringly, “Uncanny...”
Imin nods. “…and precipitous.”
“Before I met Roan, I wandered the Farlands alone for years. I had a choice—learn to understand the wild dogs or get eaten.”
“That’s how we met,” explains Roan, “Lumpy saved me that time too.” At a groan from one of the fallen Fandor, Roan turns back to his friend, “We better get out of here fast. They’ll be coming back for their wounded. You take the doctors ahead; I’ll cover our tracks.”
For the next four days, their progress is slow. The overgrown trail they’ve been following is treacherous for the horses and so they’ve had to walk most of the way. Still, the path can be easily marked for Kamyar and it’s kept them safely hidden from roving marauders on six occasions.
Despite the danger, the doctors are finding it more and more difficult to suppress their excitement as they draw closer to their destination: though they always begin with sign language, signs rapidly evolve into wild gesticulations that inevitably become agitated whispering and Roan is forced to silence them again. He’s almost grateful this part of the Farlands is overrun with Clerics and Fandor—the terror of an imminent attack seems the only thing that keeps the chatty physicians in check for more than an hour at a time.
By the middle of the fifth day the lost library is within reach. Riding up as close as he can to Roan, Imin whispers, pointing across a vast wasteland, “There it is...”
“…Where the entrance used to be,” Othard says, trying to nudge his way between them. “Between the second and third of those grassy hills.”
“Looks like the explosion collapsed the entire structure,” Lumpy mutters, drawing Roan’s attention to a mass of huge broken stones.
“We won’t know till we’re closer,” says Othard, initiating an avalanche of banter to urge Roan forward.
Roan can understand their exhilaration, they are at the brink of realizing a dream, and he feels almost sorry to be putting a damper on it—almost—but the terrain is too open to allow chatter. Letting his gaze fall witheringly on the two physicians, he whispers with as much menace as he can muster, “You two! Not a sound or…” and slowly draws a finger across his throat. Othard and Imin blanch but Lumpy’s smiling behind them and Roan has to turn his mount away before his performance falters.
As he leads the way across the dry, cracked land and they are encircled by its eerie silence, Roan understands how the legends of Dirt Eater ghosts came to be. The tread of their horses seems so invasive in this place one could easily imagine the ground swallowing them up in annoyance, leaving no trace whatsoever of their passage.
Unfortunately, proximity to the rubble left by the explosion doesn’t provide them with any answers. If there’s a way in, no one can see it. Spotting a trickle of a stream, Roan turns to Lumpy. “We’ve been riding all day without a break. The horses need water. Let’s take a rest.”
After leading his own horse to drink, Roan relaxes against a great boulder and closes his eyes. With a few quick breaths, he’s left his body and is soaring, searching for an opening. Between the two hills, he glides through dense underbrush and finds a fissure in the stone. Speeding through it, he discovers a narrow grotto that reaches as far back as his eye can see.
He notices a slab of rock that’s fallen from the cave wall. Reaching out from it is a skeletal human hand. Someone was once crushed underneath it. A booby trap. Are there more? Advancing carefully, he finds two more fallen slabs. Around both lie skeletal remains. Roan scrutinizes the walls for an unsprung trap but can find none. I’m looking in the wrong place, he thinks. Casting his eyes down to the floor, he finds it—a loose stone. As you walk along here, you have to watch your feet, a difficult task in darkness and shadow. Proceeding along the narrow grotto, he finds seven more unsprung traps and commits them to memory.
Just when he thinks he’s detected them all, he spots a different snare. As the cave opens up, a high ceiling is revealed. A dried-up corpse hangs from it, snagged in a net. Clutched in its mummified hands is a huge gold-embossed book, Dante’s Divine Comedy. He wouldn’t be the first person in the world to die for a book, but it must have been a long, hard death, starving up there in the gloom.
Beyond the cavern-like area, the path splits into two. Venturing left, Roan discovers a steep drop-off cleverly hidden by a wafer-thin floor. Corpses are piled in the pit, scraps of blue cloth clumped among their bones. Clerics. Here on Darius’s orders? Or in pursuit of someone? Questions without answer.
Backtracking to the fork, Roan explores the other passageway. It also comes to a dead end but, remembering the extraordinary stonework of Oasis, Roan searches for and locates a locking mechanism. He examines it for booby traps but finds none. Whoever set the snares must have believed this door undetectable. Passing through the stone, Roan stares up in wonder. As in the caverns of Oasis, dozens of polished mirrors are strategically placed over the entire expanse of the ceiling to capture and amplify any natural light from the surface. Enough to brighten this large room filled with tables and chairs, most burned and broken, relics of Darius’s attack on the Academy some fifty years before.
Roan glides through classrooms and sleeping quarters, dining room and kitchen. Though all are littered with the shattered remains of the assault, the Clerics never bothered to tear down
the walls or drag up the floors in search of documents or books. Why? Thinking back, Roan doubts that Clerics would have found, never mind known, how to open the cleverly crafted entrance. The Dirt Eaters must have left it ajar, giving the impression that the place had been abandoned. The Clerics must have assumed everything of value had been taken away. If there’s a library here, Roan can’t see any trace of it.
Having learned all that he can, Roan returns to his body with the speed of a thought, and opens his eyes.
The doctors and Lumpy are standing close, engaged in a tense, muted conversation.
“I know Dreamwalking when I see it,” Imin snaps irritably.
“He doesn’t take Dirt. He’s meditating,” Lumpy says, sounding his most reasonable.
“He is not. We meditate. You can see he is not present. Look,” Othard commands.
Lumpy barely suppresses a laugh as they both turn to see Roan smiling, open-eyed and Buddha-like. “This way,” he announces as he pops up. Striding to the underbrush that camouflages the entrance, he draws out his hook-sword. With a few strokes, he makes short work of the vines and branches tangled there, exposing the fissure.
“How did you know this was here?” Imin asks suspiciously.
“I meditated on the problem,” Roan says with a grin.
“We’ll need torches,” Othard grumbles, distrustful but obviously not enough to lose sight of their goal.
While Lumpy takes the task of concealing their mounts, the others gather dry brush into bundles to make serviceable torches. After Roan has finished his, he carves a warning in an open area on the way to the path, where Kamyar’s sure to see it. When he looks up from his labor, he realizes with dismay that someone’s missing. Anxiously finding Lumpy, he whispers, “Othard’s gone.”
Lighting a torch, Roan looks down the entrance of the narrow passageway. When he glances back at his friend, his expression is grim. “Don’t go past the third corpse. Walk carefully. Don’t touch anything and stay behind me.”
