Not long now, she thought, a mantra that drove her on. All that Hope had been was slowly filtering away. She had memories, but they grew vague-and the farther she went, the more her early life seemed to consist only of the old, useless spells her mother had taught her, the routes and byways of genuine enchantments. The fake charms and false potions became the affectations of another woman, a sad old soul whom Hope had once known. Her life before finding the dead Sleeping God had been a held breath, and now she was close to gasping herself awake.
It’s all me…not long now…it’s all me.
“Guide us in,” Alishia muttered.
Hope nudged the girl with her shoulder, but she said no more.
The death moon lit an ancient path up the side of a mountain. Light snow defined its edges, melting on the path as though the ancient footsteps that formed it were still warm. Should be writing my own Book of Ways, Hope thought.
This place threw all of its hatred and distrust her way, making her flesh creep and her eyes water with every step she took. But over her shoulder lay the future. Hope had been inside a dead God, and she was mad enough to survive Kang Kang’s worst.
TREY WAS AWASH with fledge, but he could not travel. His mind jumped and jerked, bored within its own confines and eager to reach out and seek more, but each time he tried to leave, the Nax held him down. The first time it happened he had been so terrified that he lost all pretense at consciousness for some time. When he next came around and tried to travel once more, the Nax came in again. He slipped back into his mind and let them hold him there, but he did not pass out.
They dragged him through fledge seams deeper than any he had ever believed existed. He felt the weight of the world above him, mile upon mile of rock and cavern and water, fledge and earth and the bones of long-buried things. But the Nax had him, and though they exuded scorn, they seemed to have purpose. He could not guess what it was, and hoped he would never find out. Perhaps he would be dead by the time they reached their destination.
He tried talking to his mother. If he heard her reply, then he would know that life had truly left him.
But the Nax kept him awake, and he felt every pull and tug as they steered him through seams of the drug. His fledge rage was long since satiated, but still he opened his mouth now and then to exhale old drug and breathe in new. It still surprised him that he was breathing fledge instead of air, but he did not dwell upon it.
Alishia, thought Trey. I was looking after her. But she felt a whole world away. Perhaps while he had been held down here by the fledge demons, time had moved on many years aboveground. Maybe Alishia and Hope had reached the Womb of the Land and done what they needed to do, protected by Kosar and the Shantasi army riding behind him. Perhaps the Mages had been driven away and light been brought back to the land. Kosar would be wandering again, a thief, a hero, looking for the fledge miner he had left behind in Hope’s unstable care.
Or maybe Alishia had died before ever reaching the heart of Kang Kang, and the land was left to the Mages, and Trey was the last human.
He should cast out, travel through the rock and see what was happening. But the crawling discomfort of the Nax was ever-present at the edge of his mind.
They exploded from the fledge into open air, and Trey gasped aloud. The Nax had him by the arms and legs and he kicked and twisted, trying to get free. It was pitch black, yet he could sense the massive space around him, a hollow in the foundation of Noreela that dwarfed the home-cavern where he had spent his childhood. He coughed and heard no echoes. He shouted, vomiting a dry stream of fledge into open air. He did not hear it hit the ground. The Nax flew on, ignoring his struggles and shouts, and Trey calmed his mind and closed his eyes to the blackness.
Will you let me go down, if not up? he thought, and he cast his mind from his floating body.
This time the Nax did not interrupt.
Soon, he would find out why.
TREY FELL THROUGH the darkness, always aware of the position of his body way above. The Nax flew him across this great cavern, moving slowly, almost as if they wanted him to travel down and see where they were. They’re waiting for me, he thought. He guessed that they could hear him, see him, know him, but he had consumed so much fledge-the youngest, freshest drug he had ever experienced-that he barely cared. Let them, he thought. Let the monsters read me.
We are the Nax, their voice roared, and Trey went spinning through the cavern.
Even traveling on a fledge trip, it took him several minutes to reach the ground. He probed outward with his senses and saw, smelled and tasted more fledge, built up from the floor of the cavern into towering structures. This drug was different from any he had ever known. It was molded and worked, broken down and then re-formed with some other substance that gave it a thicker, rougher texture. And it was old, giving off a sickening stale miasma that almost drove Trey away.
But there was something else that urged him closer. Beyond the fact that it had been mined and then remade, past the obvious age of these structures, his own probing mind found others.
They did not notice him. They were mumbling, adrift and mad. None of them traveled farther than a few steps from this timeless fledge city, and as Trey dipped down between stale minarets, columns and towers, he knew why.
There were people trapped down here. They were buried in the fledge buildings, a leg protruding here, a face there. They were a race he did not know. High foreheads; dark skin; long, protruding jaws; wide eyes that had once surely been intelligent, though now they wore the dull taint of time in their blindness. The horrible fact of their longevity impressed itself upon Trey.
Is it this for me as well? he thought, rising quickly from the city and shutting his senses to it. Am I going to be imprisoned like these unknown people, trapped down here for centuries, so old that they must be from an age long forgotten?
The Nax holding his body drew him in, pulling him across space so quickly that he was left reeling within the confines of his own mind. They offered no explanation or comment, but moved on faster than ever.
Soon they were buried in another fledge seam, traveling quickly away from that huge cavern, and Trey was glad.
South, he thought. We’re going south. I wonder if my whole future now is belowground.
No future, the Nax rumbled a while later. But Trey did not know to whom or what they referred.
THE KROTE ARMY rode south. Noreela City was a hundred miles behind them, still gushing smoke at the sky, still echoing to the sounds of the dead searching for those left alive. Lenora had started following her own shadow, cast forward by the blazing city. Now her shadow was a vague thing once again, thrown left and right by the moons. Most of the time she was not aware of it at all. And that haunting shade was still with her.
She stared forward, still shocked at the arrival of the Mages, their appearance and the news they had brought.
THEIR MACHINE HAD landed heavily, spilling Angel to the ground. She rolled and ran, coming at Lenora as though meaning to run straight through her. S’Hivez remained on the machine’s back. He was slumped down as though asleep.
What have I done? Lenora thought, panicked. She could feel the heat of Noreela City’s demise on her back, yet Angel looked grim and fierce and…frightened?
“Mistress,” Lenora said, kneeling and bowing her head.
“Get up!” Angel spat.
Lenora obeyed. Still she kept her head down, because she did not wish to see such rage in the Mage’s eyes.
“Look at me,” Angel said, her voice gentler. Lenora looked. Angel glanced over the Krote’s shoulder at Noreela City, its stone walls glowing with fearsome heat. “You’ve done well,” the Mage said, but Lenora could see in her eyes that there were matters more pressing than praise.
“Thank you, Mistress. What of the south?”