Tim Lebbon - Dawn

She started whispering into the soil of Kang Kang, an old spell that her grandmother had once told her. It had been passed down through the ages from ancestors who had used magic for real, and though now its words were empty it had always held power for Hope. It was from this spell that she had taken her name, because uttering it was another expression of hope for magic’s return.

Nothing changed. The words fell from her mouth and sank into the ground. And when she opened her eyes she was back on that bare hillside in Kang Kang, and the shade had gone.

ALISHIA TRIED TO hide. When the shape had risen out of the ravine something shifted deep in her subconscious, causing her to retreat from the waking world and find her dreams again. She heard Hope’s voice coming from far away, questioning what she was doing and asking what sought them. As if she didn’t know. She knows far more than she lets on, Alishia thought. She doesn’t need me to tell her.

In the burning library, she was no longer alone. There were no signs of an intruder, no smells, no echoes of something else walking these endless book corridors, and yet she knew that her mind was no longer all hers. Another presence was smelling this smoke from afar. Another consciousness perused these books’ titles, and Alishia had felt something like it before.

Shade? she thought. And then she ran.

She had to hide. If the shade found her it would know her, and it would tell the Mages, and the time between now and the end would be short. With all the Mages’ might and armies focused on destroying what little Noreela still stood for, one single person stood a chance. But if the shade saw the taint of magic Alishia carried, the whole emphasis of this war would change.

The burning library felt heavier and darker to her right, so she turned left, ducking beneath a tall book cabinet that had tilted to lean against another. She paused in there for a moment, wondering whether it would provide a safe enough place to hide. She ran her fingers along the book spines. Sixteen Heartbeats in the Fledge Seam, one was called. AndA Question for the Monk. AndOne Way to Appease the… The final two words of this spine had been scraped away, and the wound on the book looked new, the exposed card fluffy and white.

Appease the what? Alishia thought, and the book burst into flames.

From back the way she had come, she heard the sucking sound of flames being smothered. She ran. What smothers flames? Nothing. A vacuum. Emptiness.

Turning left, right, trying to lose herself in the hope that she would lose the shade, Alishia thought of Trey and wondered where he was right now. She paused for a heartbeat to look at book titles, but they gave her no clues.

Something’s playing with me, she thought. The idea that terrified her. This place was entirely random, a depository for every moment that ever was. And yet she had discovered that room beneath the library, books that related to her and those around her. And the woodland clearing; that wasn’t random. That was planned. Something’s steering me. Something’s alwaysbeen steering me, us, all of us. And it’s teaching me, and telling me, and making me know its language.

Alishia reached a junction and turned left, changed her mind, headed right. And then she paused and attacked the book stack before her. Their pages fluttered as a warm breeze roared along the corridor. The sound of flames being drowned followed.

It’s close, Alishia thought, and she scooped books from the shelves faster. Every binding she touched lured her in, but she resisted the temptation to pause and read. Though they might tell her much, their tales would hold her back, and then the shade would find her sitting among a stack of books, perusing the past of Noreela while it stole the future from her mind and took it away.

Some of the books she touched were warm, others cold. There seemed to be no rule dictating which burned and which did not.

The pile grew around her feet. After a couple of minutes she had cleared enough of a space to crawl into. She pulled herself through by grabbing hold of shelf supports and uprights, then pushed with her feet when she was far enough in for them to touch the shelves. She shoveled more books behind her, then found it easier to push at them instead. She was seeing rough paper edges now instead of imprinted spines; the books were facing the other way. Another corridor, she thought. Maybe one I was never meant to see.

One last shove and she fell out after a tumble of books. Another cough of flames extinguished, but this was from much farther away.

Alishia stood and looked around. She was in a space between stacks that looked like any other. To her right was flame; to her left, darkness. She chose that way.

Don’t think of why, just lose the shade.

The darkness was not complete. High above her, flames reflected from the haze of smoke, casting secondhand firelight down at her. It flickered in sympathy with its source, and book titles on the shelves beside her seemed to change second by second.

As she turned the next corner, Alishia saw a ghost.

The Red Monk sat amongst a drift of broken books. Some of the page edges around him were yellowed and smoking, but he seemed not to notice. His hand worked at each tome, prising the pages apart and scattering them like dead butterflies. He did not appear to be reading anything: spines, covers or the text inside. He simply tore and scattered. His hood was thrown back to reveal skin so old and thin it was almost transparent, but though Alishia could see through him she found only darkness.

“You burned down my library,” she said.

The Monk looked up and grinned. His teeth were black. His eyes were black. And there was no Monk there at all, only a void where something should have been-a shapeless hole that flexed and twisted in a confusion of movement.

Found! Alishia tried to turn but her body would not obey. Leave me alone, she thought, adding as much weight and menace as she could, hoping that the seed of magic she carried would aid her in avoiding this thing. But she felt weak and feeble, and she could do nothing as the first tendrils of something wholly alien kissed her mind.

She dropped to her knees and the shade vanished. It had barely touched her, its impact on her senses so slight that she wondered whether she had truly seen it at all. But looking around, realizing how this place now felt, she knew that whatever had been in here with her was now gone.

It saw something, she thought. It felt something. It knows.

She so wanted to go on searching, because there was more yet to be found. She reached out and grabbed a burning book, watching the flames caress the skin of her hand without harming her, and when she opened the tome it gave her a line that she had to obey.

Everything has changed. The witch needs to know.

ALISHIA WAS STILL unconscious behind Hope, eyes shifting as she dreamed. The witch looked around, hardly breathing, watching for shadows that should not move. The ravine was a line of darkness before her, but now nothing rose above it. Whatever had been there-a shade, a thing of Kang Kang, a trick of the eye-had gone.

“We have to move on,” Hope muttered. She leaned over Alishia, whispering into the unconscious girl’s ear, “We have to move on!” Alishia twitched but did not open her eyes. Hope nudged her, slapped her, started shaking the girl, seeing her face scraped against the ground but not caring.

Alishia woke then, eyes opening wide and head rising to look around. “Is it gone?” she asked.

“I think so.”

The girl sat up slowly, touching her face where a stone had scratched it. She looked at the blood on her fingertips. “We’ve been seen,” she said.

Hope gasped. “How can you be sure?”

“I can’t,” Alishia said, “notsure. Notpositive. ” She gazed past Hope as though searching the darkness for some errant memory.