Tim Lebbon: Dawn

Lenora was speechless. The energy came off Angel in waves, and the whole of Noreela pivoted on the Mage’s every utterance.

“Our army is yours,” Angel said. “When it lands at Conbarma, you will be there to welcome it in and arm it with the greatest weapons we can make. And then you will take Noreela.”

“You’re leaving?” Lenora asked, aghast.

Angel turned to crawl back along the hawk.

“But where are you going?”

“You question me?”

“Of course not.”

Angel laughed, as if dismissing Lenora’s query and her own stern answer. But she said no more, leaving Lenora wondering what the next few days would bring.

War, for certain. More bloodshed and death than she had ever imagined. But with the Mages leaving the Krote army to its own devices, Lenora found doubt stoking her fear.

SHE SOON LOST track of time. The constant twilight was unsettling, as if some angry god had swiped the sun from existence. To begin with, Lenora had been able to keep step with time as it drifted by. But as that day passed and they flew on into the steady night, she became confused. She found herself glancing to the west, hoping to see the smudge of a bloodred sunrise, but there was only twilight. As the Mages had taken daylight from the world, so had they removed night, leaving the land perpetually in between: no sun, no stars. Only the moons remained.

The life moon was a silvery disc, low down to the horizon in the east, nervously peering above the edge of the world. The death moon, bright and dusty yellow, rode high in the north. They flew toward it, and it seemed to leak some of its sickly hue across the landscape. There were those who believed that the moons were the remains of ancient gods, banished to the skies by a mutual hatred and destined to gather as many souls as they could in an eternal competition. The life moon was losing, and the death moon was yellow with the swell of wraiths. Soon, moon-followers believed, it would burst.

Lenora had no time for such phony religions. She knew her gods, and they rode this dead beast with her. And now that the Mages were here, Noreela had no room for alternative beliefs. She was lucky; few people ever spent time with their deities of choice.

They flew on, heading northward for Conbarma and the landing site for the Krote army. The Mages let nothing distract them. Noreela was a banquet spread below them, waiting to be plundered and pillaged just as they had dreamed about for three hundred years. Lenora could see larger towns now as they went farther north, splashes of illumination across the shadowed land, and twisting ribbons of light where caravans traveled the surrounding countryside. She would have so loved to land, take on one of these groups and show them the true meaning of fear. Since the battle for Conbarma, the whole land had changed, and she craved the feel of an enemy’s blood on her skin once more. But the hawk carried them on, its dead tentacles trailing behind them, gas sacs still gushing to keep them afloat, and Lenora knew that the Mages had a more encompassing revenge in mind.

There would be slaughter, and blood would be spilled. But first they had an army to welcome.

IT HAD BEEN dusk when they left the machines’ graveyard, and when they sighted the Bay of Cantrassa below them, Lenora guessed that it should be dusk again. They had been gone for almost two full days, and she hoped that her warriors had prepared Conbarma for the arrival of the Krote ships. They would be only days away, perhaps even now passing the northernmost reaches of The Spine. Time was moving on, and war was close.

As S’Hivez guided the hawk down to follow the coastline to Conbarma, Lenora found herself eager to dismount. She craved some time away from her masters. She was tired, her skin was burned by the cold wind and she felt dizzied by the power she had been close to for so long. The Mages exuded a force that sent Lenora’s tired mind into a spin. They were like holes punched in reality, so alien that even she, their servant and lieutenant, could barely endure their presence.

For a while, the voice of her daughter’s shade whispered in her mind. Lenora shook her head and Angel glanced back, the Mage’s eyes a piercing blue against the twilit sky.

“Conbarma,” S’Hivez said, the word like broken glass against skin. He spoke so rarely that Lenora had forgotten his voice.

She leaned sideways and looked down at the sea to their right. The surging waves swallowed the death moon’s yellow light and spread it like a slick of rot. To their left she saw the port of Conbarma nestled in its own natural bay. She was glad that the fires of the battle had been extinguished.

S’Hivez delved deeper into the dead hawk’s neck and brought it down, curving into a glide that would take them to Conbarma from the sea. They passed just above the waves. The hawk’s trailing tentacles skimmed the water, throwing up lines of spray, and by the time they reached the harbor there were several hawks aloft, their Krote riders armed and ready to repel an attack.

Lenora managed a smile. How their moods would change when they saw what this thing brought in!

S’Hivez landed the hawk on the harbor’s edge. He extracted his hands from its dead flesh and flicked fat and clotted blood at the ground. Lenora wondered whether he saw the symbolism in this, but she guessed not. Angel had always been the one for that.

The hawk deflated beneath them, spreading across the ground like a hunk of melting fat, and immediately its stink grew worse. Lenora glanced at the dead boy lying between the Mages. She wondered why Angel had brought him this far.

Lenora slid from the hawk, but had trouble finding her feet. Nobody came to help. She looked up, hands on her knees, cringing as her legs tingled back to life, and then she realized why. None of the Krotes were looking at her.

The Mages were kneeling side by side on the ground. Their hands were pressed to the dusty surface before them. S’Hivez seemed to be chanting, though it could have been the sound of the sea breaking against the mole. Light began to dance between their fingers. Dust rose. Stones scurried away from their hands like startled insects.

Dozens of Krotes-those with whom she had flown from Dana’Man, and fought for Conbarma two days before-gathered around, faces growing pale in the moonlight as they saw who had arrived. One or two glanced at Lenora and then away again, back to the Mages, fascination overpowering the fear.

It’s good to be scared, Lenora thought. That was what Angel had told her. The Mages had always been a formidable presence, but now they were so much more. There was something so dreadfully wrong about the exiled Shantasi and his ex-lover that Lenora found it difficult to look at them. It was as though light were repelled from their skin. She thought of the shapes she had seen in her vision: two wraiths aboard the bone boat on a sea of Noreelan blood.

The ground started to glow beneath the Mages’ hands. The last of the smaller rocks flitted away. They stung Lenora’s lower legs, but she dared not move. This was something she had to see, because she knew now what the Mages were doing: displaying their power to the Krotes. They could have landed and talked to the warriors, but discussion of the magic they now possessed was nothing compared to a demonstration.

Lenora stepped back several paces. Her heart fluttered a few beats, and the many wounds on her exposed skin tingled with something approaching excitement. This is when we see, she thought. This is when they really show us what they can do.

The Mages began to stand, hands maintaining contact with the ground as though stuck there, then slowly they straightened their backs, raising their arms and bringing part of the ground with them. Each hand was lifting a column of fluid stone. The ground vibrated. Rock growled and crumbled, and strange rainbows shimmered in the dust. Angel laughed, and S’Hivez’s muttering became louder, the words revealing themselves as something less complex than a spell. It’s all coming back, he said, again and again.