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  “They showed us the Monks,” Kosar said.

  “They wanted Rafe to survive.”

  “They wanted his magic?”

  Hope shrugged.

  “How can you read their message?” Trey said.

  “It seems so obvious to me.”

  “But you’re saying that they know about Alishia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, ifthey know about her, what about the Mages?”

  Hope stared at Trey, then at Kosar, and in the shifting firelight her tattoos seemed to be twisting across her face like a hundred baby snakes. “Maybe they know also,” she said.

  For a second the fire seemed to burn brighter, but Kosar put it down to a gust of wind from the north. Buried embers glowed hotter, flames wavered higher and a chill fingered his spine. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Hope said.

  “Whatever may be happening to Alishia started before the Mages took Rafe. If they’d known then, they would have made sure she died too.”

  “They didn’t have magic then,” Hope said. “They were still looking for it.”

  “Well, they have it now,” Trey said. “Kosar’s right. If they knew about it, we wouldn’t be sitting here in the cold talking about this.”

  Hope looked up as though expecting to be plucked from the ground that very moment. Kosar saw her tattoos picking up reflections from the life and death moons, and neither seemed to suit. She’s a strange woman, he thought, and as if in response she stroked Alishia’s wound again.

  “Do you think her blood has power?” Trey said.

  “What?”

  “Alishia. Her cut head. You keep touching it, and I’m wondering if it’s because you think her blood has power.”

  “Of course not, miner.”

  “Then leave her alone!” Trey moved to the prone girl’s side and stroked an errant strand of hair from her face.

  “Neither of you owns that girl,” Kosar said. Hope glared at him, and Trey glanced up with his doleful yellow eyes. Kosar smiled at Hope. “So, what’s in Kang Kang?”

  The old witch sighed and prodded at the fire with a stick. Kosar saw his caves collapse and new ones form, and the future was a whole different story.

  “There’s a place there,” she said, pausing as if unwilling to divulge any more. But the two men were silent, giving her time, and eventually Hope carried on. “It’s called the Womb of the Land. I heard about it from my mother and grandmother, but no one I’ve met since has mentioned it. Long ago, I began to think that maybe I dreamed them telling me of it, but the telling was so significant to what has just happened that it must be true.”

  “Significant how?”

  “It was a prophecy,” she said. “An old one, rarely spoken, and written in languages not used for generations. It said that the future of magic would emerge in a child unborn, one that came from the Womb of the Land in Kang Kang.”

  “Birthed from the land?” Kosar asked.

  “I assume that’s what it meant. I don’t know what this place looks like: a cave, a field, a lake. Rafe was never born, Kosar. He had no navel, and his parents were not his own.”

  “And you think he was from Kang Kang?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now Alishia wants to return there,” Trey said. “To the land’s womb.”

  Hope nodded. “And she’s getting younger.”

  “Or so she claims,” Kosar said. “She’s been through a lot. The shade in her mind, ripping her up like that. How can we say what that did to her? How can we even begin to understand?”

  “We have to take her,” Trey said.

  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.

  He knelt at the edge of the roof and looked down into the streets. The Temple was ten stories high, and from here the people looked like beetles scurrying through cracks in the ground. Shantasi hurried to and fro, some of them pushing or pulling small carts, others walking their families east toward the edge of the city and the long open spaces that lay beyond. They were ill equipped for such a journey: not enough food, not enough water, too heavily laden with weapons or possessions. Panic had scarred their minds. It was the calling of the Mystics to ease such panic and guard against rash actions, but O’Gan could see the several robed shapes of Mystics in the streets as well, making their own shameful escapes.

  He stood and walked to the center of the Temple roof, sat down, then stared up at the sky.

  He remembered his first time climbing the steps to this lofty place of rumination and spiritual enlightenment, almost fifty years ago. He had been a humble young man then, keen to begin training the Shantasi warriors who were sent out into Noreela to await magic’s return. He had done his best to hide his excitement, standing patiently at the foot of the tower, careful not to look up and betray his awe. Everyone knew what he was feeling-Mystics smiled as they made their own way up the tower, and even people in the streets seemed to sense his restrained enthusiasm-but temperance was part of the ceremony, and he had no wish to fail. He had stood there for several hours awaiting his turn, and when that time came he had started to climb.

  Most other buildings in Hess were one or two stories high, their walls built from thick layers of intricately carved stone, roofs usually lined with timber and waterproofed with dried mud and reeds from the banks of Sordon Sound. Many walls were plastered and decorated with vibrant colors depicting family histories. Windows were formed of thick glass shaded against the heat, and here and there were communal gardens, fed by underground springs that kept them luscious and green all year round.

  The Temple was a different building entirely. More ceremonial than functional, its base housed a huge hall where the Mystics would gather when the weather prevented them climbing to the roof. The base itself was over a hundred steps across, buried deep in the bedrock of the land and giving support to the thousands of carved rocks that went to make up the walls. Above this a circular building rose, narrowing slightly until, at ten stories high, the flat stone roof provided the main area for the Mystics’ work. Around the building curved the staircase, stone slabs fixed at regular intervals in the walls to provide a narrow, steep climb to the roof. People had fallen from here, and some had died. The Shantasi had a strong belief in the whims of time, and if that was the way for them to find the Black, so be it.

  O’Gan had begun the climb with his whole body shaking, as though cold. Each step had seemed a hundred steps above the previous; his feet were heavy, his thighs burned and the climb had taken forever. He glanced to his left often, viewing Hess from an angle and height he had never seen before; spotting familiar landmarks had enabled him to feel grounded, real, still there. Climbing the Temple was such an unreal experience that he valued that feeling. He was born in Hess, he was a part of Hess, and climbing up and out of that place in no way lessened his commitment to the city.

  And then the wide roof had opened up before him, startling him with its expanse. There were no railings around its edges, only the thin stems and scant blossoms of the legendary Janne plant, whose unique seedlings had been brought from Shanti so long ago.

  O’Gan felt as if he could see forever. He stood on the final step for some time, trying to come to terms with the view and the fact that he was here at last, until an Elder Mystic took his hand and guided him onto the roof.

  He had remained there for three days, smelling the plants and welcoming visions. Descending had been like entering a strange new life. The buildings of Hess had taken on a darker hue, the people’s faces held more mystery than enlightenment and the air always seemed to carry a hint of the Janne pollen. Ever since then, the Temple was where he had felt most at home.

  Now home was a strange concept. Dusk hung low over the city when it should have been day. Birds were silent, and many had been seen tumbling from their perches, as if shocked to death by the confusions o
f light and dark. Livestock in the meat markets were unsettled and flighty, and one herd of sheebok had kicked their pen to splinters and escaped into the wilds. A lantern hung above every door, all windows were lit and the smell of burning oil drifted across the Mystic city, corrupting the usual aromas of street cooking and spice. The people of Hess were doing their best to hold back the night, but the real battle had not yet begun.

  Fear, O’Gan knew, would be the Mages’ greatest ally. If they waited before venturing to New Shanti, her people would crumble and fall without lifting a weapon.

  Perhaps it was like this all across Noreela. He hoped not.

  He looked north, out over the misty Sordon Sound, and a great blackness seemed to hang there like a weight ready to fall. There was no telling what was happening right now in the north of Noreela. Most in Hess believed they were already at war, but they could not know for certain, and it was the not knowing that chilled O’Gan most of all. The Mystics had tried for much of the previous day, sniffing the Janne until the purple blossoms started to shrivel and fade, sitting spaced across the roof or huddled in warm groups, opening themselves to visions. But the world of their collective mind was blank. And perhaps it was this more than anything that had eventually driven them to flee.

  Magic was a fickle thing, so one Elder had said. There was no knowing what it would do, or could do, nor how the Mages would handle it. The future was a mystery darker than the blackest night, and O’Gan wished for a sign that would give illumination to the dark.

  He sat in the center of the Temple roof, searching the darkened heavens for hope. He closed his eyes and wished for a happy dream, but the cool breeze singing in across Sordon Sound offered only tales of woe.

  “We can’t just give in,” he said. “We have tofight!”

  And then the sign he had been hoping for finally arrived.

  AT FIRST, O’GAN thought it was the breeze, blowing sand from the Mol’Steria Desert and dusting it against the side of the Temple. He closed his eyes tighter and hugged his legs to try to present less of a target for the incoming storm.