When the storm fell, their only clue was the growing silence. Only later did the stars flicker back to life, and only then did Tharson finally bring the group to a halt, giving the four galhak water from his pack and letting them lay heavily onto the ground.
As they settled down to rest, Isavel stroked the soil; though the sand seemed to have covered the smallest plants entirely, many were wiry and rigid and jutted up above the layer of rust. Stalks and leaves withheld their colours under starlight, but under the white light of her palm they confessed deep purples and dark reds still vibrant against the sand. She wondered how common such storms were, and how the smallest plants and animals of the world survived.
“Don’t eat any.” Tharson laughed as he saw her touching the plants. “Nothing worse than biting into sand grit. Are you hungry?”
She was, a little, but certainly not as much as the galhak must be. She reached into the pack the martians had lent her and withdrew some dried fruit. “I’ll be fine.”
They settled in for half a night’s rest , as much as they could dare. Isavel lay back-to-back with Hail, trying to sleep. If Tharson was right about their speed, they would reach Red Rise the day after tomorrow. She would want to be as awake and alert as possible.
As she fell asleep, trying to let her mind drift, the world swam around her. She was soon on the red plains of Mars again, though the sky was blue - like it should be. People drifted around, but they had no faces; or her eyes didn’t land on the faces, leaving them anonymous in her peripheral vision.
Where was she?
She looked around the ground, moving towards the people she saw, but even as she walked towards them she knew they couldn’t help her, so she turned away. There was smoke and dust curling up from the ground, beyond the people around her, and she walked towards it. There was no fire, here, only smoke.
Where was she?
She kept walking; gravity was normal here, like on Earth. Earth or Mars, it was all basically the same. She was wearing white, of course, because that was how it worked. You had to wear the right colours for it to work. She looked around, but still couldn’t see any signs or hints or clues.
She reached up to her sternum, laid a hand on her chest. Bare, warm, smooth skin. Where was she? Isavel dug at her skin, dug at her neck. Not too close, or she would split it open, and die all over again. Like this. Bleeding out into the red soils of Mars, her blood barely visible on the already-red blades of grass, dizzy, alone. She kept reaching around her neck, fingers searching.
She looked up and saw herself kneeling, looking down, watching herself bleed out. Puzzled-looking and afraid. One moment she looked more like her father; the other, more like her mother. Or were there two of her watching?
Isavel woke up feeling like she was falling, and the weak gravity didn’t help. Dawn was quietly approaching as well, the stars shying away from the sun again. Hail was still pressed against her back, but she wanted to move, so she carefully crawled from the tangle of ponchos and stood, stretching, pressing her hand against her heart and feeling it continue to thump. She hated dreams - never good, never useful.
Everyone was quiet, galhak and people alike, but she saw light sparking and rippling across an amorphous patch of dark not far off, prowling around the edges of their camp. Like a coyote, and not for the first time.
One person was already up, though - Tharson, of course, loading their galhak even as the animal was just starting to wake. “Isavel.”
She responded in kind, keeping her voice down. “Tharson. Are we leaving?”
“I couldn’t sleep properly.” Answering the wrong question, and he seemed to realize it as he shook his head. “Soon.”
She helped him fasten the packs onto the other animals, not jostling too much to at least let them wake gently. He seemed nervous and shaky. She hoped he wasn’t exhausted. “I slept poorly as well. Can you ride?”
“I’ll be fine.”
She nodded. “I know. But do you want to ride behind someone else?”
He chuckled. “No. Sam can ride, but I don’t believe the rest of you can. Or am I wrong?”
She scrunched up her face. “I rode as a child once.” She didn’t know his word for goat, if indeed he had such a thing. “A - a small thing with horns, and short wool like from a poncho.”
He stared at her with a wry grin, pinching his poncho and giving her the word she was looking for. “I think you mean a goat. But this wool comes from greater beasts, long necks that hold their heads as high as yours. Mean creatures. They like to spit. In any case, goat rider, I don’t think you should have the reins of a galhak.”
He was describing something much smaller than a mammoth, but she didn’t know of any other large wooly creatures. She wondered if she might see one here, eventually. “You’re worried about your brother.”
He grunted. “Of course. But I cannot help him. I only make things worse.”
She watched him as he quietly rearranged sacks of food and other supplies in one of the galhak’s packs. He did not make eye contact, and he said it in a matter-of-fact way that felt painfully familiar. She reached out and laid a hand on the padding over his pale shoulder. “So do I.”
He grunted, and looked at her with a wry smile across his pale face. “There is a place for people who only make things worse.”
She frowned, glancing at him and hoping he wasn’t going to make some dark joke. “Where?”
“When I left my brother, and joined the Firstblood, I did help people.” He shook his head, and handed her a sack of dried fruit to hold. “Nothing grand. Protecting villagers from beasts or bandits. Solving disputes. Tracking down a goat thief, once. Something you may know a little about.”
“That’s…” She weighed the food in her hands, unsure if his Firstblood sounded quaint or noble. It sounded more helpful than the fire and chaos she spread in her wake, at least. “Are you saying I should join the Firstblood? What is that even?”
He shrugged. “A name from old stories. People who fight to make the world better.”
“Has it gotten better?”
He reached back and laid a hand on the sack of food, pausing for a moment. “It hasn’t gotten worse. Even though there are always things trying to make it worse. Things and people.” He took the food and stashed it away, evidently satisfied with this galhak’s load. “Maybe that’s enough.”
“Maybe.” She looked at her hands, though, unsure. If not-worse was the best they could strive for, that wasn’t encouraging.
He nodded at her, then turned to glancing at the sleeping figures. “We should wake them. The sooner we reach Red Rise, the sooner…” His mouth twisted. “I don’t know. The sooner we find out.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant, and it seemed he wasn’t either, which made her feel a little reassured. Perhaps this was all just madness, incomprehensible to them all.
They split to wake the others; Isavel found Sam and Tanos intertwined under their own ponchos and fast asleep. She crouched down and gently nudged them with her hand. They stirred, blinking bleary-eyed, and Tanos stared up at her. “What?”
“We’ll make Red Rise tomorrow night. Or in the morning. We need to go.”
“Already up?”
“Just helping Tharson with the supplies.”
Sam rolled over and glanced at her, then nudged Tanos. “Go make sure he didn’t move the little green berries. I like those.”
Tanos nodded, and Isavel noted with bemusement that he had to pull on some clothes before darting off into the dark. Her bemusement faded, though, when Sam propped herself up and gripped Isavel’s wrist.
“Isavel. Red Rise is going to be dangerous.”
She nodded, glancing at the old ghost’s palor in the young moring. “I know.”
“Tanos and I - we aren’t dangerous.”
She took a deep breath through her nose, and nodded. “You have no obligation. Whenever you want to leave -”
“He wants to help you.” She looked at Tanos, briefly. “So do I,
but he thinks we have an obligation. Because of Ada, but also… the world bends around you, sometimes.”
“You don’t have to. You’re…”
Sam looked at her sadly, and her grip on Isavel’s wrist relaxed a little. “I know. But I need you to do something. One day when we’re there for you - to help you, to be at your back, to just make sure you’re not alone - I need you to tell us no.” Her hand twitched. “We’re stuck here, Isavel, but you do protect us, and you might be able to get us home. And I want that. But this is still a real world, and in the end I’d rather we live here than die trying to get back. He’s young, he doesn’t deserve this. And I…”
The words weighed suddenly and heavily on her, but she could see in Sam’s eyes this was not the first time they had crossed the ghost’s mind. She, Isavel, was the one who would know when they were stretched too far. She would know when she was pushing too hard against the fates. She nodded quietly, and set her other hand on Sam’s. “You don’t either. If wherever we’re going doesn’t offer us a way home…” She stopped herself short of saying it, but the shape of it was already in her head. This may have to become home .
Sam let go of her hand, still looking at her in the dawn. “Just don’t get him killed.”
Isavel didn’t know that she could promise that, no matter how much she wanted to say the words. But Sam seemed to know that as well, and her face told Isavel she could go, and so she did. Hail was awake now and stretching, and had apparently noticed the pack on the galhak she shared with Kelena. “Thanks for putting everything together.”
Isavel tried to smile, tried not to imagine what Hail might say if they found they could never leave. Or if Isavel simply didn’t. “Woke too early. Better to be useful.”
Hail nodded, her gaze drifting for a moment. “You talk in your sleep, sometimes.”
Isavel froze, unsure of what exactly that meant and why Hail might bring it up. “What kind of things do I say?”
“Nothing clear.” Hail glanced at her. “You were saying please . You didn’t sound happy.”
She bit her lip, helping the hunter up. “I dreamt I was injured.”
“Do you dream that a lot?”
Isavel felt lucky she usually forgot her dreams; after all she had been through, she doubted they were the kind she’d like to remember. “I don’t know. I think so.”
Hail rubbed the back of her shoulder. “I know it must be difficult. You’ve survived so much.”
If her mind ventured there, she could still remember cold metal biting her throat. She didn’t like letting her mind venture there, either, but the thought stopped her words.
Zoa and Yarger were soon atop their mount, and that spurred everyone else. A cold glance from the coder told Isavel there was no need for them to talk, and she had no intention of pushing against that boundary without good cause. Everyone was ready. They were off into the dawn, wraith in the lead, gliding and sliding across the plains on dark wings and occasionally flickering lights back at them to remind them it was there.
Blue dawn soon chased away the stars, but did nothing for the sense of hollow dread now looming on her horizon. She looked to the others in turn - to Zoa, now clinging comfortably to Yarger’s back. To Sam and Tanos, still alive and still together. To Hail… still with her, at least, and still a step removed from banditry. They all stood to lose so much if she pushed too hard - and she had pushed too hard. It was why they were on Mars in the first place.
What would Hail lose, exactly, if Isavel disappeared from her?
Hail used to hurt people - Isavel knew that fully well. She had wanted to protect people, or so she said, but with Isavel things had been more… complicated. They started fights. They ran. It was not unlike the life she had left behind - but with Isavel, and her halo, it suddenly had purpose. It wasn’t the first time Isavel wondered if Hail wanted the life she already knew, only painted a brighter shade by someone else’s hand.
So she asked Tharson, when they slowed over rockier terrain, also giving the animals a bit of a reprieve. “The Firstblood. You fight to help people?”
Tharson was quiet for a moment as the morning air rushed past them. “Usually.”
“What do you mean?”
“We are human. The Firstblood have been known to start fights for lesser reasons.” He turned to grin at her. “An old woman once slandered my brother while I was drunk.”
“The same brother you threatened to kill?”
He huffed, and turned around. Perhaps that had been too sharp a jibe - but after a moment, he did chuckle, once. “You are a lone child. You do not understand.” He turned to look again. “If you like fighting, the Firstblood temple still stands.” Then he glanced at Hail, over behind Kelena. “If your woman likes fighting -”
“She’s not my -” She scowled, not knowing any better words. “I just… I wanted to help people. I wanted to make the world better. But instead I just feel like I’m just… part of the fire.”
“The fire?”
She shook her head. “The fire burning everything, all the time.”
He huffed again, and she felt it in her grip as they ride. “You wanted to be great. A hero.”
It sounded ridiculous - and yet, others had said it. Hail herself had, as they last entered Glass Peaks. “I did everything I could. But I made mistakes. I don’t feel like a hero.”
He reached a hand back, a little awkwardly as the galhak bounded beneath them, and gently slapped her knee. “Only villains truly feel like heroes, Isavel.”
It was such a strange thing to say she couldn’t help but chuckle. She hoped it was as wise as it sounded at first blush.
Daylight revealed a world of dust and sand built up at odd angles. But everywhere life was poking out, wiry plants that defied the deluge and small animals scampering across tiny red dunes, hunting for prey that had become trapped or disoriented. It was not as lush as the old forest or as the valleys and coastlines of Earth, but Mars was undeniably alive. It was a strange world, but it welcomed life nonetheless.
A thin, dark line slowly rose from the northern horizon as they traveled. She thought it might be another storm, but it only grew sharper as they advanced, and she realized it was some kind feature of the landscape. When they stopped at a narrow river to let the galhak drink, she pointed out towards it and asked the martians. “What is that?”
It was Kelena who answered her first. “Olympus. The greatest mountain in the world. The first foothills rise sharply from the plains.”
It didn’t look like a mountain to Isavel so much as a ridge, but she wasn’t about to regale them with tales of her snow-capped mountain homeland. Things might be bigger on Earth - barring sandstorms, perhaps, and trees - but there was no reason to lord it over them. Especially not if this might be her new home. Might . “Are we going there?”
“Red Rise is carved into the face of the mountain.” Tharson said this with some measure of pride. “It is a glorious sight.”
She frowned, looking at the ridge again. “It’ll take us a day to get all the way there?”
“It’s further than it looks. Larger, too.” He frowned into the distance. “Tomorrow morning, if all goes well. If we don’t run into the fleet.”
She remembered the map the wraith had conjured, and it seemed that if they were coming from the south, the blue fleet was approaching from the northeast - but how accurate had that been, and had anything changed in the meantime? The martians certainly couldn’t know - but there was one who could.
During a brief stop at a stream, she walked out to find the wraith a little ways downstream from them. As she approached, she found it was - there was no other word for it. It was playing. Pushing rocks around in the water, lining them up into little dams, gurgling quietly when the water’s course shifted in response. Seeing it play was disconcerting, but she tried to ignore the feeling.
“Wraith?” It didn’t react aside from a single coo, but it didn’t exactly have a face to face her with. “Can you find Azure’s barges
again? We need to know if we’re in danger.” She shifted, unsure of how to speak to the thing. “Please?”
It kept playing in the water for a few moments, and she thought it was ignoring her until she realized it was now collecting the rocks it had been moving around and settling them back into the bank, presumably where it had found them. Then, all in one silent motion, it flattened against the ground and sprung up into the air like a dark comet, sharpening and zipping away like a thread strung out across the sky. It was gone almost instantly, and the speed with which it had done so was so deeply surprising it almost horrified her. What in the name of all the gods and worlds was that thing capable of? And what would happen when it was no longer content to merely scuttle around the edges of her campfires?
“Isavel?” Hail was calling out to her. “What the hell just happened?”
She turned around, wide-eyed. “I asked the wraith to go see if Azure’s fleet was nearby.”
Hail’s eyes searched the sky, but even hunter eyes couldn’t spot it anymore. “And it just cracked off like lightning?”
“Apparently.”
“Can we just…” Isavel eyed her. “Could you ask it to kill Azure’s whole fleet? I know you’ve burned the things to death before, so they can die, but if it died trying, well…”
Isavel understood the sentiment, but she felt a strange pang of defensiveness at the suggestion of throwing it into the maw like that. Maybe because she had seen it playing; maybe for other reasons. But after what it had done to the blue martians and their barge, she couldn’t doubt its ability to account for itself in a fight. “I don’t know. I can ask, but I don’t know if it’s interested in hurting for us.”
Hail nodded, and Tharson called on them to get back to their mounts. The animals carried them further north across the plains, and Isavel kept glancing to the sky, expecting to see that black shape return. She was beginning to suspect it would never be truly predictable, though, and was proven right when it snapped into the air in front of them just as she had begun to worry it wouldn’t return at all.
Fourth Under Sol (Digitesque Book 5) Page 18