Little sections underfoot spitefully gave way here and there. Amongst the smooth white stones sharp rocks dug at their feet. They sweated, but not too much, for the ivory-white sky did not bear down with a sun’s heat. The distant bridge and road slowly got closer. ‘Can’t get my head around the temperature here,’ Case grumbled. ‘How do they work it out, with no sun? Some days are warm, some days cold. Like someone flips a coin.’
‘I asked the others about it. They don’t have seasons here. What’s weirdest is, they still mark the days with the same units of time we do. Days, weeks, months, years, centuries. Hours and seconds, for that matter.’
Case grunted. ‘How’d they come up with all that, then, without a sun to work it out?’
‘Not sure. We’re not the first ever to come here from Earth. And I get the sense … no, it’s weird, but it almost seems we’re not that far from Earth, almost like this is just some hidden part of it. Maybe the last people who came through brought our system with them and they copied it. Who knows? It’s almost like someone changed the settings by pressing a button, making days and nights fit our pattern.’
‘How do they work out north from south, then? If they don’t have a north pole …’
‘That’s easy.’ Eric pointed at the sky. ‘Look at the clouds.’
‘What about em?’
‘They go only one way. South.’
Case stared up at the few slowly crawling threads of cotton. ‘Why’s that?’
‘No idea. But have you noticed the wind too? It mostly goes the same way. Swirls around a bit sometimes, but mostly goes south. I asked Loup why and he said I wasn’t ready to know. So there must be a reason.’
Case whistled. ‘What’ve they got up there instead of sun and stars, then? What makes day and night?’
‘Not sure. There just is day and night, they seem to think. They don’t ask where it comes from. But do you notice the way our shadows are sometimes normal, but sometimes fall several ways at once? Like there’s more than one light source up there.’
They paused for a breather when some suitably seat-like hunks of smooth stone appeared. The extent of their vulnerability in the eerily quiet rubble plain began to sink in. It felt as though they were little ants crawling across a giant’s plate. Even a twisted ankle out here would be grim news — Eric couldn’t picture either of them carrying the other very far.
‘See that light pour off her?’ said Case with a sigh. ‘Wasn’t that something?’ He’d been looking over his shoulder as time went by, concern beginning to creep into his features. It’s dawning on him, Eric thought. There is an ‘oh shit’ moment coming which he’s trying to hold off. Before, he thought she stayed away because of the others. The others aren’t here, now. So where is she?
He wasn’t going to press the point. ‘That was something, all right. Magic, they call it. We’d better move.’
Walking took concentration. Pebbles scattered from their feet with noise that seemed huge, accentuating their solitude. Eric’s shoes hadn’t been made for this kind of travel — he wondered how long they’d last, and just what the hell he’d do about it when they fell apart. His wallet still bumped against his thigh with each step. Why it seemed so important to keep it, he wasn’t sure — a souvenir of the old world, the real world? Somehow, being able to pat that familiar bulge was a good feeling.
‘Groundman hole ahead,’ said Eric.
‘You sure that’s what it is?’
The gap — like a large open manhole tilted at an angle — was identical to the one Sharfy had pulled him into, near the door. ‘Pretty sure. You haven’t been down one of those, have you?’
‘Nope. Don’t like the sound of em, either.’
‘Agreed. Rather be lost up here than underground.’ They went closer to it, nonetheless, until Case grabbed his arm and yanked him away. ‘What is it?’ said Eric.
‘Look. There. Those tracks.’
Just a few of the spiked holes, similar to the ones near the doomed hunters’ hall, littered the ground outside the tunnel. They did not spread far, as though the thing making them had come out only for a brief look around. A wind skipped across the plain, scattering dust down the groundman hole. It was too easy to imagine something down there, just out of sight, watching. ‘Come on. Let’s move.’
They were both hungry by the time they got to the bridge. Eric knew the extent of Case’s folly — and his own, for that matter — would truly hit home around dinnertime if they couldn’t find a meal somewhere soon. He looked at the expanse of plains behind them, and ahead, and saw no evidence of small game, even if they wanted to waste bullets trying to shoot something. Nor did anything even remotely edible grow around them, just the stiff grass clinging desperately to a few softer patches of dirt amid the rubble.
The road to either side of the bridge, at least, gave them hope. It cut across the plain, wide and paved from slabs of stone coloured deep blue, which in many places cracked and lifted from the surface. Nothing and no one passed along it in either direction as far as they could see.
‘Horrible place,’ said Case, taking in the view of the plains from up on the bridge. It had been built as though water normally flowed through the arches down below it. Perhaps some time back, this whole region had been an inland sea. ‘Looks like it’s all been bombed.’
‘Maybe it was,’ said Eric thoughtfully. ‘Maybe dragons or gods or something had a big battle, right here. Imagine it. Things as tall as the sky, breathing flames, blasting away green hillsides, leaving this.’
That wind kicked up again as though voicing an opinion. Case shivered. ‘Don’t talk like that, Eric. Not when we’re out here all alone.’ He sighed. ‘Wish she’d show up already.’
Stranger didn’t show. Still, they were glad to have paved road underfoot, neglected and pot-holed though it was. They picked up their pace and came to a road sign with strange lettering. ‘Can’t read it,’ said Case. ‘You?’
‘That symbol there could be a bed, that other one a plate. An inn ahead, maybe.’
‘How’re we gonna pay for a room, if there’s an inn?’
‘Three scales, that’s how. They’re worth something. And you’ll be sleeping for free, with the charm on. You’re also my secret bodyguard, OK? Anyone attacks us, wear the charm and blow their brains out.’
No travellers came in either direction as they put more road behind them. The land’s desolation gave way to grassy hillsides. There were several abandoned villages and farmhouses, long run down. The emptiness of the whole place was striking. Eric remembered Siel’s words: More people died in that war than live today …
They stopped for rest every hour or so, both locked in private battle with the road and trying not to think of their growing hunger. It was early evening when at long last, like a desperate ocean crew spotting land, they saw lit windows in the distance.
‘Maybe I should take those scales too,’ said Case. ‘We don’t know what people here are like. You might get robbed and there’ll be too many to shoot. If you need a scale, I can put it into your hand.’
Eric handed him the scales, and Case had just put on the charm and vanished when something above them gave a deathly shriek. Case grabbed onto Eric’s sleeve and spun around. ‘War mage! I know that sound. Quick, hide.’
‘Hide where, Case?’
The sound came again, close this time. Then above them the war mage came, flying head-first, ten metres high at most, staff clutched tight to its chest in crossed arms. The wind blew its beard and hair, but it seemed otherwise frozen still as it passed directly overhead no faster than a bird. Thin smoke trailed from the tips of its curled horns. Eric could have sworn its yellow eyes locked directly on his. But it kept moving till it had passed from sight. Another shriek pierced the fading day.