Chris Wooding - The Fade

The fissure takes us up almost a hundred spans before it widens again suddenly. I clamber out to find Feyn heading away along a sloping tunnel. It's the back end of a cave, wide enough for six men abreast. Cracked bones and a rotted nest of scrub attest to an animal that once lived here, but it's abandoned and empty now.

'We are close,' Feyn declares, his voice numb with weariness.

We follow the thin stream to a spring bubbling in a hollow in the stone. I catch up with Feyn as he drinks.

'Can you smell the air?' he asks me, and I can. It's warm, arid, unfamiliar.

We travel on. The cave splits into other caves, and we're forced to choose carefully. We can hear creatures calling to each other in the depths. Deep booming sounds, like Craggens but without the suggestion of language and structure.

Some time after, still following the breeze, we find a short vertical ascent. Feyn struggles up it first, and when I get to the top I find him sitting on the floor next to me, his thin ribs heaving beneath his ragged shirt.

But there's something else. I sense it even before I see it. About thirty spans ahead of us is a corner, and the stone at the end burns with white light.

Daylight.

I shield my eyes, which are blurring with tears. Dazzling after-images make it difficult to see. A primal, irrational fear uncoils within me. To be so close to raw daylight terrifies me. I'm afraid it will somehow flood in and consume us. I start to regret letting Feyn talk me into this course of action.

'Now what?' I ask him.

'Now we wait.'

'You brought us all the way up to the surface and now we wait? That's your plan?' I demand of him.

'Yes. We wait until the sky becomes dark.'

'There are Gurta right behind us, Feyn! They'll be here in minutes! ' I turn away from the light, searching for a way out of our predicament. I can't believe he's done this to us. I can't believe I trusted him. 'Let's go back. Into the caves. They can't track us without the raka.'

'They are too close behind us.'

He's right. There haven't been any branches off this tunnel for quite a way. We'll only end up running into the Gurta and hastening the inevitable. But still-

'You don't want to try?'

He shakes his head.

I want to be furious, but I can't manage it. I want to keep struggling, but his calm is infectious. I can't stand that we're so fucking close and we've been thwarted. I want to keep running, out into the sun or onto the swords of the Gurta, and yet his acceptance of the end cools me. Shrill hysteria and urgent demands seem out of place now. I'm too tired.

I sit down next to Feyn. For a long time, neither of us says anything. I'm the one to break the silence.

'We could hold them off here. At the top of this cliff.'

Feyn gives me another one of those parent-child looks, as if to say: now is that really true? And it's not. I could have held them off back at the fissure, but they'll be through that by now. There'll be archers to cover the Gurta climbing up the cliff, and they'll kill me the instant I show my face.

'You never finished your story,' I say.

He makes a quizzical noise.

'The s'Tani. The Old Men, when we were all one race.'

'You remembered,' he says, and gives me that heartbreaking smile of his. Voids, it's beautiful when the boy smiles.

He settles himself and begins. When he speaks, it's like a teacher to a pupil. I recall his ambition to be the first of the Far People to attend Bry Athka University, and I see for the first time that he might make a good Masterscholar.

'A long time ago, there were the s'Tani and the a'Jaka'ai – the underdwellers, whom now you know as the Umbra, the Craggens and the Ya'yeen. They grew in the dark, but the s'Tani grew beneath the suns. They walked naked under the skies, and the touch of the light was warm.

'Then the suns grew cruel. The sickness began, and in anger the s'Tani blamed each other. Instead of one people, they became many people. They went underground then. The Gurta, the Banchu, the Khaadu, and the forty tribes of Eskara whose names you still carry long after the blood has been mixed.'

'It's not mixed so much,' I tell him. 'You can still see the bloodlines. Rynn was Venya, they're always built like crayls, with broad faces. Fentha still have red hair and eyes. Nathka have beautifully proportioned features.'

'And yours? You are of the tribe of Massima.'

'Small, hair very black, brown eyes, dusky skin – I'm a typical Massima. Besides, we cheat. A child can take the tribal name of either the mother or the father. We pick the one most suitable.'

'Your son?'

'Massima,' I say. 'He was never a Venya. Go on with the story.'

'The people went underground, but some would not give up the sky. They called themselves a'Sura'Sao, which you call the SunChildren. They hoped to endure the sickness, to become…' He waves his hand, searching for the word.

'Immune?'

'Yes. Like other sicknesses, we thought some would resist it. Many would die, but the survivors would be strong forever against it. And they said ''We will show our brothers and sisters that we should not hide from the light. It is better to die here than live down there. They will remember us, and they will come back, and we will bring them here to live beneath the sky.'' '

'Didn't work out that way,' I say, looking out over the edge of the wall. I can hear Gurta voices in the distance, jabbering at each other. Gurta never could shut up. Suicidally tenacious yet hopelessly disorganised.

'Many died before we realised that the sickness was not like other sickness,' he continues. 'And it was getting worse. But we learned how to live, for we would not go below. And we waited for our brothers and sisters to come back, so we could show them.'

'But they never came.'

'They came back, but by then they had forgotten us. We greeted them and they slaughtered us. They saw savages and they were afraid.'

'Was that us? The Eskarans?'

'We do not recall. Back then, we did not know the differences between you. So then it was decided. We would let you make your own learning. You did not deserve help from us.' He makes a gesture that approximates a shrug. 'We visit only the most remote places of your people, to trade for what we need. But we do not stay long.'

'Ignorance equals division,' I say. 'Welcome to the world.'

'You know this, and you hate the Gurta anyway.'

'I have a right. They killed my husband. They enslaved me as a child.'

'There is more,' he says. 'They have done other things.'

I don't know how he surmised that; his talent for perception is frightening. I nod, but that's all.

'And yet you admire them.'

'Yes!' I snap at him. 'Yes. Who wouldn't? I've lived among them. They have culture and poetry and wonderful things, devices and songs and stories that can pull your heart from your chest. And yet they're stuck in this ancient prison of laws and rules that means we'll never see eye to eye, we'll never stop fighting. We'll only ever understand them when our scholars are picking over the bones of their once-mighty cities, and then we'll lament the loss of a great culture, feel terrible about its destruction and then pick another fucking fight and go do it again!'

I realise I've raised my voice and the Gurta can probably hear me. Feyn has a way of prodding sore spots. I'm almost certain he does it on purpose.

'I detest having to acknowledge the good points,' I say, quieter. 'Hate should be clean, in and out like a blade. You can't let yourself admire your enemy or you lose the will to kill them.'

Feyn looks down at the ground between his knees, his manner thoughtful. 'We have a saying. The translation is: Hate is like fire. If you embrace it, it consumes you.'

I almost make a scornful comeback and then stop myself. Pithy sayings are all very well, but good advice that you can't take is just irritating. Stop hating, he says. So simple. And while I'm doing that, I'll change the day to night.