Tim Lebbon - Dawn

O’GAN PENTLE HAD been a Mystic for more than fifty years, but he had no idea how to command an army. That was the job of the Elders, passing orders down from the Temple to the upper echelons of the Shantasi forces, commanding them here, there, back toward the sea and out into the edges of the Mol’Steria Desert. True, he had trained warriors in his time and sent them into the world, condemning them to lonely vigils for absent magic. He often wondered where his charges were and what they were doing. Mystic he may be, but he had never traveled beyond the boundaries of New Shanti. He had read much about Noreela City, the Cantrass Plains and Long Marrakash, but he had seen none of it. The warriors he trained were destined to see the world, while he, a Mystic committed to the good of New Shanti, was tied to his land.

He had trained warriors, but that did not mean he could command an army.

They can’t all be giving in, he thought. They can’t all be killingthemselves!

He hurried through the streets of Hess, hating every sign of the panic that had spread through the Mystic city. The streets here were mostly deserted now, many inhabitants having fled eastward toward where the sun should rise. Clothes lay trampled into the dust. A chair lay on its side beside an ornate iron door, and beyond the open door O’Gan could see the insides of a wealthy home, tables heavy with precious statuettes and floors carpeted with rugs woven by Cantrass Angels. Whoever had fled this place never expected to return.

He could barely believe what was happening. The city was retreating without any thought of protecting itself, listening without question to the mad mutterings of the Elder Mystics and panicking at the sight of their public suicides. And why not? They were held in such high esteem, and if they viewed death as the only escape, what hope could anyone else raise against this catastrophe?

O’Gan craved news from the north. Poor A’Meer, perhaps she had been making her way back to Hess with news of magic reborn and recaptured by the Mages. And if that was the case, then other Shantasi warriors could be making that same journey even now, crossing the dangerous Mol’Steria Desert or sailing across Sordon Sound, to find Hess abandoned, its populace running like sand rats from the jaws of a desert foxlion.

“We’re not cowards!” O’Gan said. A man and woman huddled beneath a small lean-to darted away, startled from their hiding place. The man looked back at O’Gan, recognizing the garb but fearful of the barely contained rage in this Mystic’s voice. “We need to stand and fight!” The man put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and hurried her on. “You!” O’Gan shouted.

The woman stopped and shrugged the man’s arm from her shoulder. She turned, and O’Gan saw the cool determination in her eyes. “The Elders are killing themselves,” the woman said. “Mystic, I have respect for you, but I also respect their message. There is no hope for the Shantasi against the Mages, they say. How can we believe any different? It’s a new New Shanti today.” The woman lowered her head in brief deference to Mystic O’Gan and then hurried away with her husband.

“It is,” he said. “A new New Shanti.” He sat on a bench beside a tall hedge and rested his head in his hands. He needed food and water, but there were enough homes left open for that, and he would feel no guilt at the theft. He would need weapons too. His own roll of weapons was back at the Temple, but he would be able to find what he needed here at the edge of Hess.

He wished he could ask the advice of an Elder, but he already had their story. They were dying into history, hurried there by their own fearful hands. O’Gan, the dusk, the fight to come-that was the present.

Every moment wasted was one step closer to defeat.

O’Gan stood to prepare himself for the journey westward. There, he hoped, he would find enough of a Shantasi army to command.

Tim Lebbon

Dawn

ALISHIA WOKE, BUT she found the waking world uncomfortable. Her vision was bouncing left and right, her stomach ached, her bones felt as though they were being forced together at the sockets, ground into place as though to merge with one another.

A pair of shoes moved in and out of her field of vision, heavy leather soles bound with donkey hide and tied with twisted reed. A fledge miner’s shoes, she thought. They’re passed down from father to son. Rebound, rewound, the soles smoothed and shined by decades of use. They’re part of a proud miner’s possessions. That and the disc-sword…

I’ve seen that disc-sword red with blood.

She was being carried. And there was something wrong with the ground. No plants, no moss, no soil or dirt, just bare rock, cracks and fissures free of soil or dust, surface smoothed by time. It looked silver in places, yellow in others, as though the moons were fighting for control of this strange land.

Alishia was not sure where they were. They had been heading for Kang Kang, but now Trey was rushing somewhere with her slung over his shoulder, and in his shadow there was no sign of the disc-sword.

I need to know where we are, she thought. I need… She closed her eyes and, like a babe in arms, the movement of Trey’s journey across this weird landscape lulled her back to sleep.

FROM THE DARKNESS came the smell of burning paper and charred wood. There was heat as well, though it may have been her own breath. She breathed in, out, and realized that the burning also came from within.

Alishia opened her eyes. The library was still ablaze.

She chose a route between two tall book stacks. Flames erupted at various heights, eating a thousand lives and leaving many more in place. Perhaps those surviving would burn later, perhaps not.

She ran. She was not certain what she sought, but this library was no place to be sure of anything. She waved her way through a sheet of flames. They did not affect her, yet she smelled the charred stench of another moment fading away.

I wonder if that was someone I knew, she thought. She paused and turned around, reaching for a burning book, pulling it from the shelf, letting it fall open in her hands and seeing only three words before the fire ate them away: never knew her. She dropped the charred mess and it broke into dust.

She ran on, ducking through the flames and never fearing them. This washer place; they could not harm her here. The passage remained straight for some time, and though she passed a thousand books every few seconds, she knew that they were not for her. Something was drawing her toward a truth that she must discover.

There was the place below the library, the cave, but she had been there already and it provided only a warning. Hope, she thought. I didn’t see her when I was awake. And Trey was running!

Something fell in the distance. A book stack or a wall, a floor giving way or a tower of loose books tumbling as fire ate away at their foundation. Alishia paused and turned, trying to decide which direction the crash had come from. Millions of books dampened the sound. She turned left and right but the noise faded away, and there was nothing to do but carry on running.

It’s coming apart so quickly, she thought. The fire spreads faster than I could have believed. She jumped through another wall of flame and crashed into a pile of books, falling to the floor, barely feeling the impact.

One of the books landed beside her, flipping open at a page begging to be read. She closed her eyes. Closed the book without looking. Opened her eyes again and glanced at the spine: A Heartbeat in the Heart of the Sleeping God. She pushed the book away and it opened again, and she read of Hope in the belly of the beast.

Only bad could come of this. Trey was running toward something awful, and she had to wake to tell him, warn him, because onlybad could come of this.