Kosar moved closer to the fire, taking fresh comfort in his childish memories. But every speck of the fire seemed to move independently, each flame flickered a different way, and he wondered how close the mimics were, all the time. “I suppose our decisions are made for us.”
“They always were,” Hope said.
“She’ll never be able to walk that far,” Trey said.
“Then we carry her. Or drag her. Either way, we all have some walking to do.”
“I could steal you a horse,” Kosar said, but he knew immediately that would not be so easy.
“Not anymore, thief. And not out here. We’re within pissing distance of Kang Kang, and not many people choose to live here. Those that do must have very good reasons. And with the dusk, everyone will be on their guard more than ever.”
“You’re right.” Kosar nodded. “But I’ve been here before, and farther. These aren’t good places you’ll be going through, Hope. Why not come to New Shanti with me? The Shantasi will take us in, and then we can go to Kang Kang with protection.”
Hope shook her head. “The way’s clear, Kosar.”
“You always hated the Shantasi. You always shunned A’Meer.”
Hope looked away, and for the first time Kosar thought she looked ashamed. “I never really hated her,” the witch said. “The Shantasi wish for everything I wish for.” She stood and walked away, and Kosar let her go.
“You support this?” Trey asked.
Kosar nodded. “It seems the only way. The Shantasi are powerful, and I’m sure they’ll help. And Hope’s right; if we all go to New Shanti, we risk Alishia’s safety even more. If there really is hope, we need to keep it alight.”
“I feel so ill,” Trey said. “So tired and weak.”
“Perhaps in Kang Kang there’ll be fledge.”
“Perhaps,” Trey said.
And what will fledge from that place be like? Kosar wondered. Right now, that was something he did not wish to consider.
“Keep your disc-sword handy,” Kosar said. “There are tumblers in the foothills.”
“And what else?”
“I never went deeper.”
Hope returned, and an uncomfortable silence hung over the camp as the three tried to bed down. They were all exhausted, and they needed their strength for the journeys to come.
But none of them could sleep. Kosar looked to the sky and wondered whether it was day. Hope lay on her side and stared at Alishia, breathing in the sleeping girl’s stale breath. And Trey closed his eyes and shook, clearly trying to journey, seeking here and there for even a hint of the fledge that would keep him alive.
Time passed, but everything remained the same.
Tim Lebbon
Dawn
Chapter 4
O’GAN PENTLE STARED at the moons and craved a sign of hope. He searched between the shades of dusk for the shapes of stars he knew, and perhaps those he did not. But there were no stars to be seen. And though the sound of panic had been prevalent in Hess since the sun had failed to rise, he refused to submit to its lure. It would be too easy to curl up and cry, find a dark corner in which to await the inevitable doom. That act took no courage, only resignation. It would gain him nothing. The Mystics had been following events and divining news from the sun and stars, and the fall of dusk had been the clearest sign of all. The Mages were coming, and when they attacked New Shanti with their inevitable army of Krotes, death would make equals of them all.
O’Gan had been atop the Temple for the last two days. Other Mystics had come to begin with, sitting with him and trading ideas, fears, hopes. They walked the Temple’s roof and inhaled the Janne plants, breathing in their mystic pollen and closing their eyes to read the visions it inspired. Most of them ended up frowning and sniffing again. Their collective mind remained blank, as though darkened by whatever had stolen light from the day. O’Gan had conversed with many other Mystics, and though his conviction that the end was not yet here remained as strong as ever, eventually the others had slipped away. He was sad to see them go. Many of them were friends, and he felt a certain betrayal at their desertion, but there was also unease at being the only one to remain up here for so long, waiting for a sign. Was he wrong? Was hope truly lost?
Two hours ago, one of the Elder Mystics had come to talk to him. She had been told of O’Gan’s solitary watch on the Temple platform, and came to see for herself. It was the first time she had climbed those steps for years, and he heard her coming from a long way off. Her breath was harsh, her groans of pain loud as bones ground together in her knees, and O’Gan moved to the head of the steps to welcome her up. He believed that this was a turning point for the Mystics. He looked out over Hess-still burning lights proudly into the dusk-and a sense of immense pride flooded him. It warmed him against the dark, emboldened him against the terrible times to come, yet as he held out his hands to help the Elder Mystic onto the Temple’s highest point, her voice slashed him like a knife.
“You’re a fool, Pentle, to even think of hope.”
He was so taken aback that he could not respond.
“The Mystics are fleeing Hess, those who have not already taken their own lives. The Guiders have already gone. Politicians!” She shook her head. “The future is a place darker than the Black, and to stay here will be to call doom onto your shade.”
“My shade is strong,” O’Gan said. “We’ve lived with fear forever, and only now will we let it defeat us?”
“There’s a difference between bravery and stupidity. We’ve lived bravely, O’Gan, but Hess is no place to make a stand. It’s a Mystic city, not built for war. And the Mages…the Krotes…” She trailed off, dropping to her knees near the edge of the Temple and trying to catch her tears as they fell.
“We can’t just give them the city without a fight!”
“They’lltake it without a fight,” the Elder said. “It’ll be a slaughter! They’ll ride across the desert, fly in across Sordon Sound, and anyone left will be butchered. Back in the heart of New Shanti, in the hills of Mallor where O’Neakin stood, that’s where we’ll make our stand. Not here on the edge.”
“But you can’t just give up. Hess is our home!”
“We have no true home on Noreela. We’re merely borrowing this place.”
“A thousand years of history and you still feel misplaced.” O’Gan sighed. “That’s why I never wish to become an Elder. Bitterness like that must eat at you. Do your insides melt under such sourness?”
“It’s history, and history is a fact, O’Gan.”
“History can wallow in my waste.”
The Elder looked up, and the darkness seemed to hold its breath. “Ahh,” she said, “the true wise words of a Mystic.” She stood and started back down the steps. They curved around the outside of the tall Temple, like a giant snake wrapped around a column.
O’Gan walked to the edge of the roof and watched her go. He should call down to her, he knew, and talk of hope and defiance in the face of the Mages’ return. They should discuss how their army should be placed, where the fight would be best entered into, how many Shantasi warriors would come back to their homeland from across Noreela now that dusk had fallen and war was close. But the Elder shuffled onward, and in her determined gait O’Gan saw no room for thinking of this sort. She believed that every step brought death closer. He was not the one to shake those beliefs.
Since then he had been walking the circuit of the flat Temple roof. This was the most holy site in New Shanti, the place where the hundreds of Mystics spent much of their time watching for signs in the heavens and discussing Shantasi business, both political and spiritual. The stone was worn smooth by centuries of footfalls, and here and there had taken on a deep, oily sheen.
O’Gan wished that more Mystics would come to see him. He possessed a faith that he had so far failed to share, try though he had. He believed that hope would never be fully extinguished, and that the Mages would always have a vulnerable point. He had been shocked over the past day to discover just how little the other Mystics were willing to share in his conviction. I cannot be alone in this, he thought, but with each passing hour it seemed more and more that this was so.