by Tim Lebbon
Kosar blinked. “You,” he said. “The desert. The dying spice farms. I knew they’d be there.”
“Youtrusted them to be there. But you never know for sure.” O’Gan picked up a handful of sand and let it slip between his fingers, holding out his other hand beneath to catch it. Some grains he caught, others fell back to the ground. “You trust this sand to fall, but one day it may rise.”
“I saw a river flowing uphill,” Kosar said. “It turned and wiped out a whole village.”
O’Gan nodded, dropped the remaining sand. “Between one blink and the next, the world will change.”
Kosar sighed and sat down. He held his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees, and groaned as his soft rocking motion aggravated his broken ribs. “I’m just a Mage-shitting thief! I don’t need to be here. I don’t deserve it.”
“Does he?” O’Gan said, nodding at Lucien.
Kosar did not even look. “He calls himself a human.”
O’Gan blinked several times in surprise, and each time he looked again, the Monk was still there. “Has he seen what we saw?”
“The mimics? I’m not sure. I don’t care.”
“Without him, would you be sitting here now?”
Kosar continued rocking, looking down at the ground between his knees and groaning each time his wounded ribs shifted. It was almost as if he was welcoming the pain. O’Gan felt sorry for him. “No,” Kosar said. “Without him I’d have been dead twice over. He rescued me from a band of Breakers. Then he took on a sand demon, and-”
“The Monk fought a serpenthal?”
“If that’s a sand demon, yes. Weird. Lots of parts. He said it spans, whatever that means.”
O’Gan’s stomach felt heavy, and his throat suddenly tasted of bile. He stared at the Monk and the Monk looked away, drawing shapes in the dust with one long finger.
“They’re deadly,” O’Gan said. “They live deep in the desert. Prey on desert animals, or lone travelers and small bands of traders.”
“Don’t they prey on you?” Kosar asked, looking up.
O’Gan shook his head. “Most Shantasi know better than to go into the deep desert alone.”
“Well, we met this one almost before the desert began, back to the west. Lucien killed it. Took some time, and he got hurt, but he cut it to pieces.”
“Theyare pieces.”
“Smaller pieces, then. So yes, he’s saved my life, but I don’t like that any more than you.”
“If you hadn’t reached us, I would still be sitting in the desert with the remains of an army,” O’Gan said. “Waiting for a sign. Waiting for hope to present itself.”
“So you believe me?” Kosar said. “Even though I have these brands, and I travel with a Monk, you truly believe me?”
“You’re a thief, but that doesn’t make you a liar. And we both saw A’Meer.”
“We saw mimics imitating her death,” Kosar said. “They could have their own end in mind.”
“I’m sure they do. They’re as unlike us as a shade to a sand rat.”
Kosar went to stand, cried out in pain and accepted O’Gan’s helping hand.
“I can give you something for the pain,” O’Gan said.
“More drugs?”
“Medicine. It’ll not heal you, that’s for your body to do. But it will dull the aches.”
“I’ve got too many pains to dull,” Kosar said.
O’Gan smiled sadly and squeezed the big man’s arm. “The physical pain,” he said. “Any other is, I’m afraid, beyond my control.”
Kosar nodded. “So,” he said, “when your army arrives, how does it travel?”
“We have our ways and means,” O’Gan said. Kosar frowned and looked at the ground. He’s heard that phrase before, the Mystic thought. Ways and means.
Kosar grunted. “I only hope we’re not too late.”
ALISHIA RAN THROUGH the halls and corridors and cliffs of books, and for the first time ever they did not make her feel safe. She had grown up around books; her parents’ house had been full of them, and when they died it had been a natural progression for her to become a librarian. She found them warm and welcoming, even those she had not read, and touching the spine of a favorite tome inspired memories more intense than smell or sound ever could. With every favorite book, she could remember where she had been and what she had been thinking when she read it. They were old friends, constant companions, and their worlds often became real in her mind.
Now the books were here to trap her. Some of them burned, some did not, but all of them were leading her toward the presence that had invaded this place. However fast she ran, in whichever direction, she seemed to be drawing closer to the terrible thing in here with her, one oftheir things, the Mages. Apart of them.
The land whispered to her in its own tongue. That gave her comfort and instilled hope, even though the dark thing seemed to be closing in with every heartbeat.
I’m still incomplete, Alishia thought. There’s something else for me to find before I fully understand. And now more than ever, I’m running out of time. Her legs were beginning to ache from the constant running. She was strong in here, almost tireless, but the younger she grew the slower she ran. And when she regressed even further? What then? Would the future of Noreela be balanced upon the back of a crawling, mewling infant?
She changed direction again, and the darkness still hung before her. She could hear it moving and expanding, and it bore the weight of a dreadful consciousness.
She rounded a corner, tripped over a fallen book and went sprawling. The thing was behind her now, crashing through a stack of books close enough to shake the floor beneath her, and ahead of her the floor had been smashed open. The hole was far too wide to leap. She shoved a book across the timber boards and watched it fall in, swallowed by the utter darkness almost before it tilted from this place into another. She heard its covers flapping like some fledgling bird still unable to fly, but she could see nothing.
Whispers in her mind, confused words in her own voice. I can’t hear! she thought, and the words came louder. She frowned and closed her eyes, but however much she concentrated, the language made no sense.
Something thumped the ground, hard enough to wind her. She gasped at the smoky air, inhaling deeply when her breath returned, and rolled onto her back. She could see nothing, but shefelt it, coalescing like a storm cloud threatening to never pass by. It’s almost got me, she thought, and then the shelving to her left started emptying its books. They fell in regimented lines, some striking the floor around the ragged hole, most of them disappearing into it. They were swallowed and more followed them in, one or two catching fire just as they disappeared. Alishia crawled to the hole and stared in, watching stars of fire plummeting quickly into the abyss.
A book struck her shoulder, another hit the back of her neck, and she retreated from the hole.
And then a line of books struck and held. They hung impossibly over the darkness, stretching from one side of the hole to the other, curved like a stone bridge over a river yet nowhere near strong enough to maintain their shape. More fell and added to the bridge, thickening its ends and supporting its center. It was one book wide, and many volumes were already beginning to smolder.
That won’t hold me.
The presence behind her was strong and heavy, its gravity a dreadful pull on her thoughts.
I’ll break the bridge and fall into that darkness, and there arethingsdown there…
The thing came closer, scouring books from shelves and turning them instantly to soot. Alishia could sense moments in time being wiped out as she waited: no smoldering, no burning, no warning…they were simply gone.
She placed a foot on the first book. It gave slightly, as though she were stepping on a thick bed of moss, but when she lifted her other foot, the book bridge held. She walked on, staring down at her bare feet and trying her best to ignore the impenetrable darkness beneath her. One step at a time, she thought, moving on, and on. The bridge flexed a
nd swayed. Alishia held her arms out to either side to maintain balance. The pit’s like the ravine. Bottomless. Filled with things we can never know. It’s so black… It pulled at her, and for one terrible instant she started to lean sideways, her knee buckling and lowering her toward a fall that would never end. But she bit her tongue, hard, and the explosive pain and taste of blood drew her back.
So close! she thought. The presence chasing her came suddenly closer still, keen to benefit from her confusion.
But then she was across. The timber floor felt so good beneath her feet that she dropped down and kissed it, turning just in time to see the bridge of books tumble away into darkness. A whole library of sacrifices. But most of the books had not been burning as they fell. They were gone from this world, but they would still exist somewhere.
She ran, and for the first time she felt the distance between her and the invasive presence growing with every step she took.
Alishia laughed out loud.
HOPE HEARD ROCKS grinding together in the darkness. She followed the rough path into the mountains, and the mountains voiced their displeasure. Already she had dodged one fall of rocks, ducking under an overhanging ridge as they fell in a shower of shards and snow. They bounced around her feet like angry rats, rolling away as gravity took hold.
She swapped Alishia from her left shoulder to her right. Light though she was, the girl’s deadweight was starting to cripple the old witch. Alishia’s clothes were loose on her now, and her shoes had fallen off somewhere back down the mountain. Snow landed on her bare feet and did not melt away. Hope brushed it off, feeling the chill of the girl’s flesh. “Don’t you die on me now!” Hope cried, daring the grinding rocks to answer back. “Not now! Not when we’re so close!”
The crunching of rocks had begun a mile back, just as the path began to twist its way up a steep slope. The snow was settling now, and before long the path itself would be obscured from view. The snow scorched the bare skin of Hope’s shins. The route veered left and right, carved into the side of the mountain, and she wondered who had come this way before. She shifted snow to reveal the stone beneath, but there was nothing remarkable there, nothing to be read.
It sounded as though the rocks were talking. When she first heard the noise, basic and threatening, Hope had turned and started back down. The sound ground at her nerves as though she were trapped between the rocks, and the idea that they were communicating was almost too much to bear.
But then Alishia had cried out in her sleep. Just a small cry, but it was enough to see Hope on her way. “I’m here for her, not for you!” she shouted, and the snow fell heavier, and rocks grumbled their mirth as the witch climbed again.
High up on the mountainside, heading for the ridge stretching toward the next peak, the path suddenly ended. Before her, another deep slash in the land stretched as far as she could see from left to right. The opposite side was painfully close. She thought about it for a while, blinking snowflakes from her eyelashes, tensing her muscles to keep them warm, feeling Alishia twitch on her shoulder as something chased her through sleep. But it was just too far to jump. She could try, and perhaps if she had been three decades younger she could have made it. But she knew that she would fall. She and the girl would die far below, their death cries lost amidst the groaning of stones.
The ravine echoed with the noise. Things were moving down there. Hope closed her eyes and willed the sound away, but it only came closer.
Alishia gasped. Hope stepped back. Several large rocks rose into view out of the ravine, leaving stark scratches on its mossy sheer walls. When they reached ground level they halted, and rearranged themselves into a seemingly solid bridge.
“Is this your magic, girl?”
She turned and looked down the way they had come. Even though it was not snowing heavily, her footprints were already eradicated. Kang Kang is wiping me out, she thought. And perhaps luring me in. She looked back at the bridge and the dark ravine below. “You won’t get me like that,” she said, and gauged the leap again.
A sound roared in from behind. It was not thunder, or a landslide, nor was it some giant thing screaming in the dusk. Perhaps it was all three. Hope spun around and looked down the mountainside. The landscape was confused by the moonlight and snow, and it could have been her own panicked pulse that caused every shadow to throb with movement.
Alishia gasped again, and then uttered something that could have been a laugh.
The stepping-stone bridge hung over space. Hope tested the first stone with one foot, careful to keep her weight on solid ground. It felt firm. More grumbles behind her, whispers from below, and she pressed harder, expecting the rock to fall away at any second.
“Alishia?” Hope said. “Is this you? Is this what’s in you?” She breathed in the girl’s stale breath, tried to feel her heat, hoping that something of it would pass to her.
The witch stepped fully onto the first rock and held her breath. Nothing happened, so she moved on, eyeing the far edge of the ravine with every step, ready to leap should she detect any movement in the bridge. When she reached the other side she gasped with relief, and Alishia laughed in her sleep, and the rocks tumbled away. Their impacts reverberated from the ravine’s sides for a long time.
The mountains started grumbling again.
“Not happy, eh?” Hope shouted. There was no echo. Perhaps the snow dampened it. Or maybe once the mountains held her voice, they would never let go.
The path started again, and Hope followed.
MORE FIRE THAT did not touch her, more burning books and memories erased, more of Noreela scorched away and crushed beneath the feet of the thing chasing her. It’s one of them, she thought, one of the Mages, a part of them in here after me. It knows I’m here because the shade saw me. And if it finds me and crushes me, kills me…is that it for Noreela? I’m just a little girl…am I really all there is?
Around another corner, across an open space where old leather chairs and a scarred reading desk simmered with the promise of fires to come, and then Alishia was in between book stacks again, running her hands along spines and experiencing a flash of vision from each one because there was more she had to know. The land had told her so much, but not enough. There was more she had to know!
The thing behind her roared. It was so near that she could sense the coldness of it bearing down upon her, closing in from all around like a giant hand slowly closing around a small insect. As fast as she could run, this Mage-thing could move faster.
The floor before had given way again, leaving a wide chasm sharp with the teeth of splintered boards. More books already lay across this opening, another bridge to save her, and as she mounted it the bridge gave way and sent her down into the darkness.
Alishia screamed, flailing her arms and legs, and then struck stone. She was lying on the floor of a cave. It was illuminated by the flames of burning books-there were a few here and there, stuffed into hollows in the walls, though this was no library. This was a place below the library, and away from it.
She held her breath.
She could see the opening in the ceiling above her, the hole in the floor that the book bridge had failed to cross. Books and loose sheafs of paper were blown past the opening, driven by a sudden storm, so fast that they almost blurred into one continuous stream.
Something pressed in. She felt the air pressure change, rising as the thing came closer. Blood trickled from her ears and her eyes felt crushed. She started to shake.
It’s here, she thought, above me, right above me, right now.
The storm continued. And then began to abate.
Nothing entered the cave.
And when total darkness came and faded again, Alishia dared believe that she had been missed.
HOPE FELL, AND knew that something was coming. It was a heaviness in the air, the sound of something smacking at the atmosphere and moving on by means of violence. She knew that she should try to hide them away-they were bare and exposed, an obvious blot on the plain wh
ite landscape of the path-but she could not move. Terror held her.
She shivered and grabbed the girl to her. Alishia was still asleep.
“No,” Hope whined, hugging the girl tighter, appreciating the intimacy of human contact more than she ever had before, in all her years as a child with her loving mother, and the decades she had spent whoring in Pavisse.
The thing grew closer, and then passed overhead.
Hope had to look.
It was huge. A shadow blotting out the sky as it passed them by, passing north to south, climbing into Kang Kang a hundred steps above the ground. She saw the two shapes upon its back, one upright, the other slumped down. She knew them, because she had seen them before.
Hope’s heart stopped. Her life froze, and her mind thundered on.
Do I die now? she thought. Now that they’ve found us, will my body give in and leave the girl to their mercy?
The Mages’ machine flew on, higher, dipping neither wing to bank back at her.
Hope’s heart kicked in her chest and resumed its frantic beat.
Missed us! She could barely believe it. She cried into Alishia’s neck, shuddering, welcoming the gush of warm breath on her cheek as the girl sighed in her sleep.
HOPE PUSHED FURTHER into the mountains of Kang Kang. She knew that her madness insulated her, but there was something else as well. A distance had grown about her and Alishia. It was nothing visible, nothing she could sense, but it was as if they traveled in a bubble of normality that did its best to hold back Kang Kang’s influence. Perhaps it had even shielded them from the Mages…though Hope had already begun to wonder whether that had been a dream. She heard strange noises, smelled peculiar aromas and here and there she saw things that she could not explain, even in the confines of her madness. But their effects were kept at bay. She moved onward, Kang Kang existed around her but her ever-changing mind was still wholly her own.
“Mad and bad,” she muttered, smiling. Someone had called her that years ago, a customer who had tried to leave without paying. Hope had thrown a powder across his back which raised red welts and left him itching for days. Mad and bad, he had called her, and she liked it now as much as she had then. Mad and bad, that’s me, and you stay away, Kang Kang, or you’ll get a dose of the same.