Tim Lebbon - Dawn

“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

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.”