Daywards

by Anthony Eaton

  Finally, when the sun was drooping low towards the nightwards horizon, she managed to bring down a decent-sized hopper as it grazed on undergrowth at the edge of the forest.

  ‘That’ll do.’ It was much later than she’d intended to stay out and she knew she’d be in trouble, but right at that moment she didn’t care. It took a few minutes to gut and clean out her kill, and then she hoisted the carcass onto her bony shoulders and set off, walking purposefully now, back towards the escarpment path via the quickest route possible.

  As she hiked, the forest grew dark around her and the evening chorus gradually burst into song. A million tiny voices – chirps and grunts and squeaks and rustles – greeting the end of the day and the onset of cool night. As her hunting ended, so much more began.

  Without being aware of doing so, as much by habit as anything else, Dara let herself slip out into the Earthmother as she walked, enjoying the sensation of the cooling land through a thousand tiny, transient contacts and sparks of animal consciousness. Behind her neck, the hopper she’d killed was still warm, and a little blood dripped from it, soaking into the rich earth and leaving a speckled trail behind. She gave the hopper silent thanks for its sacrifice, and was almost at the base of the home trail, about to slip out from the lulling earthwarmth and concentrate on the climb, when something awful ripped through the land and into her.

  A wave of cold and despair and emptiness and loss like she’d never experienced tore through the fabric of the earth. Every tree, every animal contact, every tiny insect spark of life flared with pain, and then fell still, shocked insensible by the force of the feeling.

  As the immediate wash of pain faded, Dara stood motionless in a shock of recognition. It was a mind. A mind so familiar she knew it almost as well as her own. A mind whose taste and contact had been a part of her own thoughts since as early as she could remember. A mind suddenly torn apart by anguish.

  ‘Ma!’ Her legs buckled under her and her hunting gear clattered to the ground. Dara gasped aloud as the wave of outpoured grief swept past her and onwards, into the land. So fierce was the feeling that she found herself driven ahead of it, outwards and upwards and then finally back into the entirety of her own mind. Around her, the night chorus had come to an abrupt and unexpected halt, the only sound now the unsettled rustle of branches and restless leaves in the deepening twilight.

  Something had happened. Dara knew it in every fibre of her being. Something was deeply, badly wrong. She tried for several seconds to reach but with her mind still reeling from the aftershock of that terrible, all encompassing grief, all she could sense was some sort of … absence. Something – and Dara couldn’t pin down exactly what – was missing. An indefinable hole in the usual way of things.

  Dropping the body of the hopper beside the trail, Dara sprinted upwards, just as fast as her legs would carry her.

  At the top of the path, Dara paused to catch her breath. Everything seemed normal. The meeting cave loomed ahead of her, lit within by the welcoming flicker of the clan fire. The mouth-watering smell of roasting roots and meat scented the air. But it was too quiet. She’d have expected the squeal of little kids’ voices and the low murmur of the adults as they crouched and sprawled on the sand around the firepit. Instead, the evening seemed to have fallen under a heavy, silent blanket.

  Hesitantly, Dara made her way over. There was not a soul to be seen anywhere. By the firepit, the evening meal had been hurriedly pulled from the coals and abandoned, the battered pots and pans piled together on the sand, steaming gently.

  ‘Hello?’ Her voice echoed back at her. She closed her eyes and tried to reach, to locate everyone, but she was too perturbed to concentrate and all she could find was a vague, disturbed feeling, the aftershock of that previous wave, perhaps, resonating through the Earthmother like ripples on the surface of a pool of water.

  ‘You’re in trouble!’

  Jaran was standing behind her, framed in the cavemouth against the night sky beyond.

  ‘Where is everyone?’

  He ignored her question. ‘Xani sent me to find you. Come on.’ Without waiting, he turned and marched back outside and, cursing silently under her breath, Dara followed.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked, but again her brother pretended not to hear.

  ‘Didn’t you catch anything?’ he asked instead, as she fell into step beside him. ‘Xani’ll be pissed.’

  ‘I got a hopper.’

  ‘Shi. Where is it, then?’

  ‘Down the bottom of the home trail.’

  ‘Not much use to anyone down there.’

  ‘I’ll go back and get it later. What’s happened?’

  Jaran shot her a sideways glance. ‘What makes you think something’s happened?’

  ‘Come on! Everybody’s missing, dinner’s been pulled off the fire, and besides … I felt something.’

  Her brother stared at her, his brow furrowing with disbelief.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘When I was down the bottom of the home trail. Something flowed through the Earthmother. Something awful. So I rushed back up.’

  ‘Shi,’ he muttered. Even in the deepening twilight, Dara caught the roll of his eyes.

  ‘I did, too. Just because you can’t …’

  ‘Perhaps I just don’t want to.’ Jaran didn’t bother to hide his contempt. ‘Perhaps the whole idea of …’ he paused, rolling his eyes to emphasise his feelings on the matter, ‘… reaching is something Ma made up to keep silly girls occupied and out of everyone’s way.’

  ‘Is that what Uncle Xani thinks?’ Dara shot back. ‘Because he’s such a good hunter, isn’t he? Even though he hasn’t picked up a spear in his life. Ever wonder why that is, Jaran?’

  ‘Whatever.’ Jaran marched off again, quickly ascending the narrow path past the sleeping caves to the top of the escarpment, increasing his pace so that Dara had to scurry. Despite their physical similarities, which were many, her brother was already considerably taller than her, and now he used his longer legs to maximum advantage.

  ‘Slow down!’ Dara finally snapped.

  Jaran didn’t even glance at her as he replied, ‘No time.’

  ‘Why not? What’s happening?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  They wound their way around a couple of switchbacks until the path began to level out and they passed between the ‘sentries’ – two enormous granite boulders that marked the top of the escarpment. Usually Dara would have stopped there for minutes, pausing to look nightwards, out across the green carpet of the forest canopy below, or up into the endless nightvault. Jaran, though, ploughed relentlessly on, striding between the sentries and taking a path well known to everyone in the clan, even if they very rarely travelled it.

  ‘Are we going to the Eye?’

  Her brother simply grunted in reply and Dara fell silent. Even for the adults, the Eye was the most taboo place in their small world. Nobody ever visited there without Da, and he usually went alone, once every month or so but more frequently before a salvaging. Dara, like all the kids in the clan, had never set foot along the narrow path inland.

  Hurrying along in her brother’s footsteps, she tried to come up with a reason for Jaran to be taking her there.

  ‘Did Da tell you you could. …’

  ‘Dara, could you just shut up!’ Jaran hissed and, with a start, she noticed something odd behind his voice.

  He’s scared, she realised. The thought frightened her. As much as she and her brother fought, and as much as she disliked him, the one thing she’d always grudgingly respected was his ability to remain calm, even in the most alarming situations.

  When little Faani had wandered off from the crèche group and fallen down the escarpment onto a ledge below, it had been Jaran who’d climbed down, calm as you like, and coaxed the boy onto his back for the dizzying climb up. And when their father had his accident, it was Jaran who’d kept a cool head and knocked together a shelter, while Dara had just frozen up in blind panic.

 
Seeing her brother – her twin – off balance was perhaps the most frightening moment of the evening so far, and Dara forced herself to take several deep breaths, calming herself as much as possible while they ploughed along the path.

  Dara had never liked the plateau forest, which was much more dense than that down on the saltwater plains. Now it closed around them, the trees drawing tight to the trail. The spaces between their trunks became choked with tangled, thorny underbrush, which snagged at Dara’s tunic if she strayed too close to the edge of the path and which forced her to keep to single file, dogging along in her brother’s footsteps, something she hated.

  The quiet was unsettling, too. The night forest should have been alive with the myriad scuffles and scrapes of the nocturnal world, but on this occasion a deep, almost suffocating silence pervaded.

  ‘Is it a long way?’ she asked, but Jaran simply shushed her.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours, a dull light illuminated the trees ahead and a few moments later they stepped out into a dimly lit clearing.

  Dara glanced quickly around. Above, mounted high on poles at the corners of the clearing, four dull solar lights cast their weak glow across the cleared space. The orange light threw everyone’s features into strange, monochrome relief. In the very centre of the clearing a low, square, blocky building crouched, its roof festooned with oddshaped domes and dishes, all pointing towards the northern sky. In the nearest wall, a narrow doorway stood ajar, with hard, white light pouring from it and throwing a bright rectangle onto the dusty ground.

  Everyone was here, standing silently in a tight knot around a small fire in the middle of the clearing. All the aunties and uncles, all the kids and even the littlies. Every face was serious and the apprehension that had been building in her gut for the entire walk increased.

  Noticing Jaran and Dara’s arrival, Xani strode over to them. ‘You found her. Good lad.’

  Dara met her uncle’s eye levelly.

  ‘What happened to you?’ he asked.

  ‘Hunting was bad, so I kept going. Eyna should have told you.’

  ‘She said you went swimming.’

  ‘Only for a couple of minutes this morning. Then I hunted. What’s going on?’

  ‘Da Janil is dead.’

  The words, so blunt and unexpected, had no meaning. If anything, Dara’s immediate response was to think that Uncle Xani was trying to play some sort of stupid prank. But his solemn expression and the stifling silence from the rest of the clan quickly pushed aside any such notion.

  Da Janil is dead.

  Xani’s words echoed in her memory, and Dara felt a hollow chasm open up inside her.

  ‘Dead?’

  Uncle Xani nodded, his face grim-set.

  ‘How?’

  ‘We’ll discuss it later. Right now you need to go to Ma. She’s asking for you.’ Xani nodded towards the far edge of the clearing, where a small, hunched figure stood alone.

  ‘Me? Why me?’

  Xani shrugged. ‘Who knows what’s going on in that old head? She’s been asking for you since we got here and she won’t let anyone else near her.’

  His attitude made it clear that Xani wasn’t particularly happy with this state of affairs, but there was little he could do about it and he returned to the fire. Dara stood there, uncertain, then, not seeing any alternative, she walked across to the old woman, who glanced at her for a moment that seemed to last an eternity.

  In the dim glow of the solar lights, Ma seemed even smaller than normal. Her face was lined and creased, a thousand tiny wrinkles etched into her flesh, the evidence of a life lived hard and exposed.

  ‘Hey, girl.’ Despite her age, and the scene unfolding behind them, Ma’s voice was still strong.

  ‘Ma Saria. Xani said you wanted me.’

  The old woman nodded. ‘Come here an’ let me lean on you.’

  Obligingly, Dara sidled up to the old woman and Ma encircled her with one thin arm.

  ‘He tell you’bout Da?’

  ‘Told me he’s dead. Didn’t say how or why.’

  ‘Entropy.’ It might have been her imagination, but Dara thought she caught the barest hint of a smile crinkling at the corners of the old woman’s eyes. ‘He always said it’d get him eventually.’

  ‘Entropy?’ Dara tried the word. She’d never heard it before and it felt strange on her tongue.

  ‘Don’ worry, child. Just his idea of a joke. Never understood it properly myself.’

  Then Ma Saria fell silent and Dara stood there, one arm supporting the old woman’s weight, not sure what to say. In front of them, the depths of the forest loomed away, fathomless in the night. Then, unexpectedly, Ma Saria pointed a gnarled hand at a tiny group of stars low to the daywards horizon.

  ‘You see them, Dara? Those three little’uns over there?’

  Dara nodded.

  ‘Them’s The Child. That’s my cluster. Came into the sky the night I was born and been there ever since. Old Dreamer Wanji named them for me and for all these years I been watching them out there. Daywards. Homewards.’

  Dara peered at the three tiny pinpricks of light flickering just above the treeline, and her brow crinkled in confusion. She knew all the old stories, of course, about the Dreamers and the Darklands and, like all the children in the clan, Da Janil had taught her the names of the constellations from the moment she could speak. He’d never mentioned one called ‘The Child’ though. Before she could ask about this, Ma Saria leaned on her once more and nodded at the Eye.

  ‘Come on, then. Let’s go an’ have a look at Da, so we can all get back down the hill sometime tonight.’

  For such an old woman, Ma moved with surprising litheness. Dara could feel the eyes of the clan on them as they crossed the clearing and approached the narrow doorway, especially Jaran’s. He’d be eating himself up with jealousy right now, she knew. She hurriedly pushed that thought away, feeling guilty for being so petty in the face of Da’s death.

  The door stood at the top of a low step. When they reached it, Ma stopped.

  ‘You’re reachin’ pretty good nowadays, child. I could feel you all the way out past the rockfall this afternoon, eh?’

  Dara glanced sideways, startled. Of course Ma’s reaching ability was stronger than most, everyone knew that. But still, when she said things like that Dara always found something vaguely unsettling about it.

  ‘Yes, Ma,’ she replied and Saria nodded with satisfaction.

  ‘Good. But you make sure you let all that go in here.’ A sharp nod in the direction of the Eye. ‘In here’s nothing to do with reaching. This here’s Nightpeople territory, okay? It’s all burning and skyfire, an’ if you try reaching you’ll just get hurt.’

  Dara had no idea what Ma was talking about, but it seemed simplest to just agree. Ma Saria took her arm once more and she helped the old woman up the step and in through the doorway of the Eye.

  After the dim orange light outside, the brightness inside the blockhouse was almost painful – hard white light coming from long strips mounted in the ceiling, which cast no shadows and which revealed every nook and cranny. Dara couldn’t remember experiencing such intense illumination before, even back when they used to have working powerlamps. She glanced at the old woman beside her, but Ma Saria seemed completely unperturbed.

  ‘Don’ worry about the light, girl. That’s just Nightpeople for you.’

  The walls were taken up with racks of odd equipment, much the same as the sort of stuff that came back from salvages. Some of it Dara recognised: a couple of data interfaces, and a protein synthesiser and recyce unit – they’d had one of those installed in the main cave for years when she was a child, until it broke down and they got rid of it. Most of the equipment, though, was completely incomprehensible. There were arrays of blinking lights and softly chattering relays. At the far end of the room a large cabinet filled the entire wall, its black surface unmarked apart from a single red light glowering, unblinking, in the middle of its face-panel.

 
All this took only a second to take in before her eyes were drawn, inevitably, to the silver-clad figure lying on the floor in the centre of the room.

  ‘Da.’ The word escaped her in a whisper.

  ‘It’s okay, girl. Come on.’ Ma pulled gently on her arm and they crossed to the fallen figure, where the old woman lowered herself to crouch beside the body of her partner, releasing Dara’s arm in the process.

  Someone – either Da himself or whoever had eventually found him – had removed the helmet, which had rolled across the floor and was lying up against one of the terminal cabinets a few metres away. Poking out of the neck collar of the battered old exposure suit, Da’s creased face looked tiny and oddly peaceful, as relaxed as Dara had ever seen him. His dark eyes were open, fixed at some point on the ceiling, and in the bright light his skin seemed paler than ever. Strangest of all, he was smiling, just slightly.

  Ma Saria reached out and, with trembling fingers, eased his eyes closed, before planting a soft, dry kiss on the cold forehead.

  ‘Good dreams, old fella,’ she said, and then looked back up at Dara. ‘All right, child. Help me up, eh?’

  Dara did as she was told, and a moment later the two of them emerged into the clearing.

  Xani and the other uncles came across.

  ‘You all right, Ma?’ It was the gentlest Dara had ever heard Xani sound.

  Ma simply nodded.

  ‘What happened to him, do you think?’

  ‘Age,’ she replied. ‘I reckon he got old, like the rest of us.’

  ‘But what if it was the daysuit?’ Uncle Dariand interjected. ‘If it’s lost all effectiveness, then we need to know …’

  Ma cut him off.

  ‘There’s no point fussing about it now, Dariand. Even if it was the suit, knowin’ won’t bring him back, eh? I guess Xani and you can have a look at it in the next couple of days, but in the meantime, let’s jus’ remember our Da and be glad we had him as long as we did, eh? Now, how about a couple of you go and get that suit off him, and then we’ll shut this place up and take him home.’