Dawn

But it’sburning.

She skidded to a stop amongst a pile of ashes and looked down at the marks her feet had made. Shifting the ashes to one side with her foot, she could see the charred timber floor, and the jagged gap in between boards where several half-burnt pages had become jammed. Down there, below the boards and beyond those cracks, was something else.

Something trying to get in, she thought. Something showering in the ashes of Noreela. She shivered and ran on, not feeling quite so free.

She had knowledge inside her, but she was looking for understanding. She knew that it had to be in here somewhere. She had read the stone and heard what it had to tell her, but she needed something more.

Somewhere in here, she thought. It has to be somewhere in here. She ran.

IT FELT LIKE a long time, but it could have been mere heartbeats, before the flames around her suddenly went out.

Alishia gasped. All around her, the burning had ceased, and it felt like a held breath awaiting something momentous. She held her own breath, afraid that something would hear her.

A violent breeze brushed past her, carrying smoke in a swirling storm. Something’s been opened, she thought, and then the wind stopped as quickly as it had begun. Smoke twisted in mad eddies as the air settled once again.

The fires reignited with an explosion that blew Alishia to her knees. To her left and right, and up and down, fire roared across her vision, and she thought, This is it, this is the end, I’ll be burned to ashes and mixed with Noreela’s dying history. But although the firestorm blew around and through her and took her breath away, still the flames did her no harm.

She stood, brushed herself down and realized that the fires were more widespread and more destructive than they had been before.

“Something came in,” she said.

She was no longer alone. She felt a presence searching for her, seeking her through the endless stacks of history and the shelves of moments in time, and this was far darker than the mere shade that had spotted her before. This was something that had lived, not something yet to live. It was a thing with experience and knowledge and hate in its heart. It exuded such menace, and its purpose permeated the air as effectively as the eddying smoke.

“One ofthem. ”

Tim Lebbon

Dawn

Chapter 15

JOSSUA ELMANTOZ’S consciousness was like a weak ripple on a stormy sea. His wraith had retreated into the tumbler with the dozens it already possessed, but it was still linked to his body, trapped by that ruin of blood and bone. A Red Monk’s hold on life is tenacious, and much as Jossua craved to sever that connection, he could not. Perhaps it was his own resilient mind fighting, or maybe the fledge the Nax had bathed him in. But he hung on to the dregs of existence.

He felt the pain of his body being ripped to shreds, even though he had few nerves left. He did not hear or see, but he sensed every impact on the ground, pressed into the hide of the tumbler as it rolled quickly along hillsides and through valleys. He could feel the wet bones of his skull and ribs crunching against other bones deeper within the tumbler, and a voice came from nowhere to say, That’s me.

Flage, Jossua thought.

That’s my body. Not much left; just a few broken bones. I’ve not had cause to pay it any attention for a long time. It’s safe and warmin here, and the tumbler welcomes us, and my bones mean nothing to me now. But…it’s almost nice. Nostalgic. Like redreaming an old, happy dream that you thought had been lost forever.

You were going to tell me, Jossua thought. You were going to talk to me. And then you went quiet and I’ve been stuck here -

I don’t like you. Flage’s wraith drew back, almost an eternity away from Jossua. You’re a Monk. You’re a bad man, and your wraith knows that well.

I’m not a bad man, Jossua said, but a slew of memories flashed before him and none of them were good.

I don’t want you here. None of us do. But you’re here, and the mind chose me to communicate with you, so I shall. Flage fell silent. Jossua had no way to judge the passage of time, but he felt his bones broken some more and the final shreds of flesh stripped away. The tumbler rolled on, passing through places that made little sense to Jossua’s disembodied mind. He could sense a multitude of wraiths behind Flage, pressing back as though Jossua were a hole and they were afraid of falling in.

I can chant you down, Jossua said.

I don’tneedchanting down! The tumbler is my Black. Flage was angry and frightened. Jossua tried to find the wraith, but there was nothing for him to find. He was stuck in a limbo of pain and wondering, and he so wanted to beg Flage to tell him what he must.

But Jossua was the first Red Monk, and he would beg no one.

LATER, FARTHER INTO the place that made no sense, as the tumbler was climbing higher and higher, Flage came back.

I can tell you now, the wraith said, and then I will speak to you no more. I was comfortable in here. And then you came and-

I know! Jossua called. And you don’t like me, and don’t want to have to do this.

Flage was silent for a while, and then he whispered through what must have been a smile. You’re afraid.

Yes.

You should be. You’re not alive, Monk, nor dead. You’re in between, and that’s no place for any wraith to be. You’re in a moment that shouldn’t be, and it’s so wrong that none of us can understand. You carry the finality of death with the reality of life, and you are to remain there for a while. Because there’s a purpose for you yet.

You sound pleased, Jossua said.

I know what’s to become of you. Flage said no more. Jossua called after him, cried, and in the end-heartbeats or eons into his incarceration in the tumbler-he began to beg. But Flage had returned to where he claimed to be happy, and all Jossua could do was wait.

HOPE CARRIED ALISHIA over one shoulder. The girl was lighter than ever, and the witch could almost forget that she was carrying anything other than a full shoulder bag. Alishia twitched in her sleep now and then, cried out and then fell silent. Hope paused regularly to check her breathing.

“You’ll not take from me what’s mine,” she said, again and again. Alishia’s breath was warm and musty and smelled of ash. “You’ll not take what’s mine!”

The witch found a narrow stone bridge crossing the ravine that she was beginning to fear ran the length of Kang Kang. She did not know whether the bridge was natural or made by someone or something, but she crossed anyway, glancing down into the depths only once. There’s no bottom to that, she thought, no ending. Only darkness growing darker. Her skin crawled, her hair stood on end, her tattoos squirmed at the corners of her mouth, providing runways for tears.

If she stumbled, she knew that she would fall forever.

She reached the other side and started climbing into the mountains without pause. Alishia had been right, she did not know where she was going. But this was Kang Kang, and the Womb of the Land was here, and the only way to find it was to search.

The slopes grew steeper and turned from grass and bracken to loose shale. The snow continued. Sometimes it burned when it touched her exposed skin, and she wondered where the waters that formed this snow had risen from. Within every shadow she sensed eyes watching, yet when she looked the eyes closed. At any moment she expected the ground to give a heave, shrugging her from the slopes of Kang Kang. Sometimes her feet seemed to barely touch the ground, and she wondered whether she was repulsing the land or vice versa. She was an alien in this alien world, utterly unwelcome. The whole place watched her, silent and surly. Planning her demise.