Thus Falls the Shadow

by Martin Swinford

  “KEEP IT STEADY.”

  “Frth vrp rtdrt frp!”

  “Ok, ok! I was just saying.”

  We were flying low through the atmosphere with Drd at the helm and me hanging over his shoulder. The screens showed mist and cloud but little else. We could hear the roar of the wind above the whine of the engines and rain lashed frantically at the hull. The boom of thunder off the port bow was followed almost instantaneously by the flash of lightening before the screens whited out. I grabbed the back of the flight chairs as the Fading Sun shook in the erratic air.

  “You tracking that landing field, Ariadne?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she replied, her voice unnaturally calm.

  We had scanned the planet from space as best we could before coming in. It hadn’t been easy. We could pick up very little in the way of communications, no comm units, no warning systems, not even much in the way of heat traces. It was like the planet was uninhabited. Finally, we’d picked up a trace, the heat signature of a generating plant, and then a landing beacon. With visibility low and nothing in the way of guidance we could have been heading for disaster, but we had no choice but to go for it and trust Drd’s skill to pilot us out if we got into trouble. I was nervous, very nervous and it was difficult not to show it.

  “Ready for final descent.” Ariadne’s words were almost drowned out by my heartbeat. I reached up and flicked on the intercom.

  “Ok, we’re on for final descent. Strap yourselves in, could be a rough ride!”

  “Is the freak driving?”

  “Shush, he can hear you!” I heard Rilk reply.

  “Fuck!”

  I flicked the intercom off. I was going to have to have a serious talk with Bex. At least, I reflected soberly, that’s if we survived. There seemed little point in trying to tackle her now.

  I slipped into the crew chair behind Drd and strapped in. Already the engine noise was rising as we headed down into the darkness. On the view screens ahead, I could see that the cloud was thinning to ending wisps that rolled up and over the Fading Sun. Suddenly we were through and a flash of lightning lit up the landscape below to show an seemingly unending sea of trees. Ariadne made some comment to Drd and he banked the ship slightly and turned to starboard. Another flash and I glimpsed a line of darkness cutting straight through the forest. Drd grunted and realigned the Fading Sun so that we were heading straight down the line and sinking slowly into the darkness.

  “Two Thousand,” said Ariadne quietly. Then, “nineteen hundred,” as she started to count down the distance.

  “Eighteen hundred.” We were just above the tree tops.

  “Fifteen hundred.” We sank into the black chasm. At a chirp from Drd, Ariadne leaned forward and punched a control and floodlights lit up the trees either side of us, but the effect was to black out everything beyond their reach. Instantly our world was reduced to a fast-moving bubble of light, trees rushing by on either side with the blanket of darkness above and below.

  “Twelve hundred.” A branch leaped out of the night to crash against hull.

  “One thousand.” The Fading Sun shuddered in a gust of wind as Drd wrestled the ship away from the wall of trees.

  “Eight hundred.” The trees reached up and closed above, leaving us hurtling down a tunnel at breakneck speed.

  “Five hundred.” Suddenly Drd wrenched at the controls, throwing us sideways as a drunken tree lurched out of the dark.

  “Four hundred...” The ship yawed dangerously as Drd fought for control.

  “Three...” Branches drummed against the ship.

  “Two...” The ground appeared out of the darkness.

  “One...” The trees disappeared as we broke into a clearing. On the screens a runway appeared and Drd didn’t hesitate, slamming the ship down and switching the engines to reverse thrust. The engines howled as we braked. The ship bumped, jumped and then settled again. We were down, but it wasn’t over yet. A crash on the starboard side, the ship listing dangerously, spinning out of control, but slowing down as well. Another bang and we spun back and Drd had us back under control, slowing down, straightening up. A final roar of the engines as he brought us to a halt and then a breathless silence. We were down.

  THE TRAIL INTO THE jungle was lit with torches that hissed and spat in the fitful rain.

  “It’s like they’re expecting us,” mused Rilk.

  “Great,” I replied. “Want to go first?” Rilk shook his head in reply.

  “Bex?”

  “Fuck no!”

  “I lead.” I turned in astonishment. At the foot of the ramp stood Drd, his eyes a pale glow in the gloom.

  “But you never leave the ship.”

  “To walk on the dirt of my mother planet I make an exception!” Drd shrugged, a peculiar three-armed gesture, and blinked owlishly.

  “Wait,” Bex interrupted. “Since when did you speak fucking human?”

  The little Kwa stared at her for a second. “Because I choose not to,” he said finally, “does not mean I cannot.” He stared for a moment longer and then set off into the jungle. Rilk shrugged and followed with Bex trailing after. I hefted my shotgun, watched the rain ping off the barrel and then rested it on my shoulder. For a moment I looked back at the Fading Sun before turning and heading into the darkness.

  The trees quickly closed in, their great branches hanging heavy with moss. Twisted roots spread across the path, slippery underfoot and a snare for the unwary. The rain hissed down, drawing a veil across the already murky landscape.

  “Can’t see a fucking thing!” Bex complained. I could see her point, the planet was shrouded in an almost perpetual twilight, lit only by the energies of the dust cloud absorbed from the three suns of the Kwa system. Ariadne had thought that it was possible for the planet to gain a brief summer when the gap in the dust aligned with one of the three suns of the Kwa system. Who knew when that might happen? I tried to imagine it, years of twilight and then a sudden brilliant burst of sun, the dank forest illuminated and all its secrets thrown into view.

  Suddenly Bex tripped and fell, sprawling in the mud.

  “Fucking place!” She spat as she pushed herself up. “No wonder the fucking Kwa upped and left!”

  “I’m not sure they did,” Rilk said quietly. I followed his gaze as he looked into the treetops. At first, I saw nothing except the breeze in the branches. Beside me Bex started grumbling again and I pushed out my hand to stop her, a finger to my lips. And then I saw it, a movement in the shadow, a lithe form that slid across a branch and ducked from view.

  Twenty-Two

  SOON THEY WERE ALL around us. Unconsciously we picked up the pace, as the jungle began to echo with the hoots and whistles of our unseen pursuers. Shadows swung through the trees above us, shapeless forms crashed through the bushes at our side. Faster we moved, as the rain poured and we slipped and slid on the mud. I shivered as the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I was gripped by that most primitive of fears: the monster in the darkness.

  “Wait!” shouted Rilk. “They’re not chasing, they’re herding us!”

  It was too late, reason vanished as we ran, replaced by terror as we charged through the twilight, no thought for where we were going, only fear of that which pursued.

  Suddenly Bex skidded to a stop and I desperately tried not to crash into her. Rilk grabbed my jacket as he slid and nearly fell.

  “Wha.....” His question tailed off as he stood and stared. Acting on cue the rain suddenly cleared as the clouds melted away to leave a sky that glowed like multicoloured embers. In our panic we had burst out of the forest into a wide clearing, on the other side of which rose a once majestic palace of stone, now a crumbling ruin. It seemed we had finally reached our destination but there was one final obstacle: around us stood a sea of Kwa. At least, they looked like Kwa, although not like any I had seen before. They were taller than the Kwa-nrt yet less bulky than the Kwa-doon, but the resemblance was unmistakable.

  They stood in unnerving silence, too man
y to count, bathed in the twilight glow of the dust that surrounded their planet, a light mirrored and returned by the pale blue of their eyes. They wore nothing in the way of clothing and their lean fur-covered bodies glistened with the sheen of the recently departed rain. I was acutely aware of their sharp teeth, and the fact that each one carried some sort of rudimentary weapon. Closest to us stood one of the Kwa that was head and shoulders above the others. He held a spear in one hand, a rough wooden shield in another and with the third he pointed straight at us. Stepping forward he let out a series of unintelligible hoots and whistles, interspersed with jabbing motions of the spear. After a final whistle that rose almost to a howl he fell silent as if waiting for us to answer.

  “Did you get any of that?” whispered Rilk.

  “Not a bit.” I shook my head.

  “Prrt rrrt thrrt bdp, fdrp art-tut.” Drd pushed past me and stepped out towards the Kwa leader.

  “He says he thinks he can speak to them.”

  “His actual words?”

  “Get out of the way bozo is a more literal translation.”

  Rilk nodded, and then we both turned to Bex, fingers to our lips. She glared back from under her rain-soaked mop of hair, lips twitching with the words she struggled to hold in. In the space between us and the surrounding Kwa, Drd began to speak. At first it seemed that he was not understood, but soon the Kwa leader joined in. Drd turned for a moment and whistled in my direction before going back to his discussions.

  “They are the wild Kwa,” I translated. “The ones who chose to stay.”

  The conversation continued in a series of trills and whistles, hoots and barks, until Drd stepped forward again, pointed at the ruin and raised his voice in a final command. To my amazement the wild Kwa leader stepped back with a curious half bow, and with a long fluting whistle gestured to the crowd. At once they took up the call, hooting sonorously in the twilight and then in a curiously fluid way they moved back, parting to leave a corridor that led to the entrance to the ruin.

  The sound died away as we walked between the Kwa, and in silence they fell in behind us, escorting us into the gaping mouth of the ruin. We climbed up six steep steps, cracked with age and roped with vines then paused at the top. Above us the remains of a statue clung to the vast lintel, no doubt once a noble figure but now eroded by time into a blurred face of horror. Drd glanced up and I saw his eyes fade to match the blue of the wild Kwa. He looked back down and stepped inside.

  It took me a moment to realise the wild Kwa hadn’t follow us and I wasn’t sure whether this was a good or bad thing. Drd padded in front like he knew where we were going, while I tried to match his confidence as shadows jumped in the torchlight and black openings spoke of unknown depths to either side. Behind me I could hear Bex and Rilk muttering to each other, acting confident and fooling no one. Occasionally some comment would break my concentration: “What the fuck did he say to them?”; “Take me to your leader?”, but mostly it was a drone in the background. My mind was somewhere else. I’d been on this journey for a long time and could feel this was going to be some kind of end. I felt like I wanted to hurry everything up, I wanted to scream at Drd to move faster, and at the same time I dreaded the thought of the end of this tunnel. To end meant I’d have to stop and face it, whatever it was. Maybe I was scared of what I would find, maybe I was scared of finding myself. I didn’t know whether I was running towards something or running away, but I was beginning to suspect I’d been running my whole life.

  Suddenly I realised I was walking to a rhythm, a subliminal beat of which I’d been unaware. Now could hear it, a hypnotic drumming that echoed down the tunnel from our destination. A few seconds later the beat was overlaid by the susurration of distant voices, a few seconds after that we could hear the roar of the crowd. As the drums dragged us onward I looked up to see Drd silhouetted against a hazy light and realised we were nearing the end.

  “Drd,” I asked in the Kwa language, “how did you get them to let us past?”

  “I told them we were envoys,” he replied.

  “Envoys?”

  “From the Kwa and humans of Kwa Nine, bringing pledges of cooperation and a promise that we will support him in the great quest.”

  “The what?”

  Drd glanced back at me and his eyes flickered green with humour.

  “I figured it was a safe bet. These messianic lunatics are usually banging on about some great quest or other.” He looked back towards the end of the tunnel. “I think we’re about to find out what this one has in mind.”

  Twenty-Three

  WE STEPPED OUT OF THE tunnel into an arena of fervour. Little remained of the original building, just piles of rubble, columns supporting empty air and arches that led nowhere. Whatever it had been, it was now a vast amphitheatre filled with a multitude of Kwa, Rakeesh and Humans, shouting, cheering and swaying to the beat of the drums. Suddenly the rhythm stopped as a figure stepped onto the stage that rose high above the arena floor. Silence swept back like a wave as every one of the thousands that filled the space stopped and turned to face the platform. There was an eerie moment of quiet broken by a click and hum as the sound system came online. At the back of the stage the huge video screen came to life, and there, in overpowering and monumental scale was that face, the one that I had only seen in a blurred image on my comm unit and yet had haunted my dreams.

  “Oh my children,” he declaimed. “Oh my children! The time is NOW!”

  The crowd erupted as he shouted the last word. The sound system was rigged to simultaneously broadcast in Kwa and Human, and there were subtitles on the screen, but I got the feeling they would have cheered whether they understood him or not.

  “Too long!” he shouted. “Too long have you suffered.”

  They cheered again as chanting broke out in a section of the crowd and flags began to wave.

  “You have suffered,” he continued, holding out his arms to quell the noise, “while the bosses and the bureaucrats, the generals and the gangs have had it their own way. They have made themselves rich by keeping you poor. They have taken all the power and given you none. They have raped your system and left you with NOTHING!”

  The crowd were howling now, baying their anger to the sky as he continued to speak. His message was more of the same, simple ideas presented in a simple way, a litany of grievance directed at “the bosses.” He was lighting a fire and he stoked their anger relentlessly. I could see exactly what he was doing yet his words had power and I struggled not to respond. I’d seen what he could do, just a vid clip had provoked a massacre on Zestrade, and now I watched and knew that his ambition was as big as the system itself.

  “Centuries ago the Kwa were forced to leave this planet, fleeing the approaching dark, to make their way as best they could in a hostile system. A system they tamed and won, only for it to be stolen by corporate greed. Now you have returned to claim that birth-right, and whether Kwa, Rakeesh or Human, you are the inheritors and yours is the system. You are the light that will overpower the darkness. You are the messengers who will carry the word to your brothers and sisters throughout the worlds of the Kwa system. You are the warriors who will destroy the armies of the powerful and throw down the citadels of greed. And NOW IS THE TIME!” He shouted the last phrase, punching his fists to the sky.

  “NOW IS THE TIME!” they shouted back. “NOW IS THE TIME! NOW IS THE TIME!”

  He held his hands out in a gesture of calm.

  “The time is indeed now,” he continued, “and to prove it I shall give you a sign, a sign that will set fire to your hearts and fill you with righteousness, a sign such has not been seen here for centuries. For BEHOLD” he cried, reaching out a solitary finger to the sky. “The shadow flees, and the dawn comes and light returns TO EDEN!”

  Even as he reached out, the sky seemed to lighten, a golden glow that suffused the clouds of dust. Suddenly a solitary shaft of light stabbed downwards and the whole arena was flooded with light. For a single, glorious, moment the cro
wd stood in awed silence, and then a voice shouted.

  “The Light returns!”

  The cry was taken up by others and soon all were shouting, tens of thousands chanting together: “THE LIGHT RETURNS! THE LIGHT RETURNS!” and in that blinding moment I looked out over the ruins and saw that this was Eden indeed. The light rolled out across the land and I realised that we perched high on a ridge, and below us stretched a verdant forest cut with winding rivers that now sparkled blue in the spreading rays of this unlikely dawn. The light swept on to reveal a strip of golden sand in the distance, and beyond it an emerald sea.

  Once more his outstretched arms called for quiet. Once more the crowd stilled. Into the silence he dropped his words.

  “So now I say to you: it is time. The plans are laid, your captains are briefed, your ships are ready. Go my children, and take the light to the system. Reclaim your birth-right and destroy the unrighteous, for the Kwa system is waiting and...” He paused and then thrust his fist to the sky. “NOW IS THE TIME!”

  “NOW IS THE TIME!” they shouted back as a sea of fists punched the air in unison. “NOW IS THE TIME!” and still shouting the crowd began to stream out of the arena, heading down the tunnels at either side of the stage. So large was the crowd that even before half had left, the first ships took off, appearing from the cliff below us and rising steadily into the sky. As we watched ship after ship took flight, agile fighter-bombers, bulky troop ships, and sleek gunships, winging their way up into the sky until the horizon was dark with hulls of the vast armada.

  ‘What the fuck just happened?” asked Bex.

  “Someone just started a war is what happened,” replied Rilk.

  “Yeah, and you could be the first casualties.”

  The voice was hard and cold, just like the gun barrel that pressed against the back of my neck.

  Twenty-Four

  “GET YOUR HANDS UP AND make it slow!” I wanted to turn but the gun was a powerful persuasion not to move my head. Instead I slowly raised my hands. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the others doing the same. A hand reached out and snatched my gun, I could hear the sound of Rilk being frisked at my side.