Daywards

by Anthony Eaton

  Even in the dark she could tell that Jaran was grinning.

  ‘How long have you known?’

  Dara paused between mouthfuls and shot a disgruntled look at her brother. In the firelight Jaran’s face cracked into another grin.

  ‘That you were following me? The whole time. I saw you hiding beside the Eye just after Xani left.’

  ‘But how’d you know I followed you? I might have gone back to the camp. You couldn’t have known I’d come after you.’

  Jaran’s smile was deliberately enigmatic. ‘I’ve got my ways.’ ‘Hmph.’ Dara ignored the wave of indignation that bubbled through her and instead concentrated on her food. As soon as they’d reached Jaran’s camp, which, as it turned out, was hidden below the overhang Dara had intended to investigate, he’d pulled from his pack some provisions and the same strange equipment she’d seen him using before, and made her something to eat.

  ‘What is this stuff?’ Dara nodded in the direction of the wire frame and cylinder.

  ‘Skypeople gear. There’s a whole lot of it in the Eye. They use it on salvages to save time.’

  Dara shovelled in another mouthful and chewed. The food tasted odd; it had no real texture and, while definitely flavourful, there was also something strangely artificial about it, an odd taste which lingered on the tongue for a long time after swallowing.

  ‘It’s strange.’

  ‘It’s called prosup. Uncle Xani reckons people in the skycity used to eat it all the time.’

  Dara chewed in silence. Jaran didn’t seem at all mad at her for following him, which was unusual. If anything, he was more cheerful than he’d been in years. Surreptitiously, she studied him. He was absent-mindedly poking the fire with a stick, and his features, by the flickering firelight, once again reminded her of their father. He looked up and caught her scrutiny.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Quickly she looked away again. ‘Thanks for the food. I was starved.’

  ‘No worries.’

  Swallowing the final mouthful, Dara put the bowl aside and allowed herself to stretch out on the fire-warmed sand and enjoy the sensation of hot food in her belly. A wave of fatigue swept over her and she stifled a yawn.

  ‘Go to sleep if you want,’ Jaran said.

  ‘I’m not tired.’

  He laughed. ‘Yeah, right. I’m buggered, and I haven’t had to walk all day on an empty stomach. You sleep and I’ll keep the fire going.’

  ‘No.’ Dara made herself sit up again, despite the protest this drew from the muscles in her legs and back. ‘First you have to tell me where we’re going.’

  Jaran shook his head, looking faintly amused.

  ‘You mean you don’t know? I thought you’d have worked it out by now. It’s pretty obvious.’

  ‘The city?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why?’

  Jaran shrugged. ‘There’s some stuff Xani needs, but he doesn’t want to leave the camp in case Ma Saria or one of the others starts playing up. So he sent me.’

  ‘Why you? Why not one of the uncles?’

  ‘I’m viable, so I can travel during the days. He thought that’d make it quicker. Harder for me to be followed, too.’

  ‘I followed you, easy.’

  Jaran didn’t reply, except to grin again, that same irritating, know-all expression.

  ‘What?’

  Dara didn’t think he was going to answer, but he couldn’t stop himself.

  ‘You really think Uncle Xani doesn’t know you’re here?’

  ‘’Course he doesn’t …’

  Her brother snorted.

  ‘Come on, Dara. I made sure you heard me leaving the cave. I went crashing around in the forest so you’d be able to pick up my trail, and when I saw you hiding back beside the Eye, I didn’t do a thing about it. You know I’m almost as good a hunter as you are. You reckon I’d have made it so easy if I wasn’t supposed to?’

  Dara’s eyes narrowed.

  Jaran continued. ‘We’ve all noticed you and Ma Saria with your heads together these last few days.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So Xani doesn’t want you underfoot while he deals with her.’

  Dara leapt to her feet. ‘What’s that mean? If he …’

  ‘Relax, sis.’ Jaran rolled his eyes. ‘Nobody’s gonna hurt the old girl, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘Then what?’ Dara glared at her brother. ‘If Xani or any of his mates even thinks about laying a finger on Ma Saria …’

  ‘Sit down, girl.’ Jaran’s smirk had faded.

  ‘Don’t call me “girl”!’

  ‘Whatever.’ Now her brother was on his feet too and they faced one another across the fire. ‘What’s happening now isn’t any of your business, Dara. That’s why Xani wanted you kept out of the way while he explains things to the others. He knew you’d be too … emotional. And there’s nothing you can do about it, anyway, except sit down and behave.’

  ‘I’m going back.’ Dara made to walk towards the homewards trail, but, lightning fast, Jaran grabbed her arm.

  ‘You’re being childish.’

  ‘Let go!’ Dara brushed his hand off and faced up to him. ‘Don’t you touch me.’

  ‘Listen, if you want to go back to the caves, then go. But there’s no point.’

  ‘Why not? Someone needs to look out for Ma.’

  ‘Ma’s been around long enough to look after herself. You think she’d have lasted this long if she couldn’t?’

  Despite herself, Dara had to admit he had a point.

  ‘But Xani …’

  ‘I told you. He just wants to talk to them.’

  ‘About what?’

  Jaran looked momentarily hesitant, then nodded at the fire.

  ‘Sit down again and I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Tell me now.’

  ‘Just sit.’

  Jaran resumed his position by the flames, and reluctantly Dara lowered herself back to the ground. He regarded her with his usual serious expression, the cheerful, smirking Jaran now vanished.

  ‘I don’t know everything, so there’s no point asking a whole lot of questions, but, from what Uncle Xani’s told me, our best bet now that Da Janil’s gone isn’t to go chasing off into the middle of nowhere just because Ma Saria says we should.’

  He paused, as though expecting some response, but Dara simply stared until he kept talking.

  ‘When he … died, Da Janil was working on something. I dunno the details, but it involved us kids, and it involved making everyone viable again.’

  Dara snorted. ‘You can’t make people viable. Either you are or you aren’t. Everyone knows that.’

  ‘Not true.’ Jaran shook his head. ‘According to Uncle Xani, there was a time when everyone was viable, automatically – it was just the way people were.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Not recently. Thousands of years ago. We lost it when we moved into the skycities, and Da Janil reckoned he could get it back. That was his life’s work, even before the fall.’

  ‘Shi.’ Dara shook her head in disbelief. There was no way Jaran could have known that. People didn’t talk about their lives before the fall.

  ‘It’s true. Da Janil told Uncle Xani all this ages ago, just in case something happened to him. Now it has, and it’s up to us to carry on where Da left off.’

  ‘How?’ Dara’s expression showed her skepticism. ‘Even if Da was working on something, there’s nobody left in the clan who knows enough about the Eye to carry it on. Da was special.’

  ‘Uncle Xani knows a lot. Da was teaching him …’

  ‘Then why’s he suddenly so worried about Ma Saria? Da Janil never seemed that concerned.’

  Jaran looked as if he was struggling to find an answer to this.

  ‘I don’t know. But I’ve seen Uncle Xani do some pretty strange things with the equipment in the Eye, so I’m certain he knows more than he lets on. He showed me how to use all this stuff, too …’ He gestured at the
cooking equipment. ‘And a lot of other things. If he thinks we can make everyone viable, then we have to try. Think about it, Dara.’

  Dara tried to imagine a life in which everyone in the clan could come out into full daylight. Where everyone could hunt freely. Where the responsibility for keeping the clan fed didn’t rest on the shoulders of her and Eyna and the other viable kids. She tried to imagine what life would be like if their father hadn’t been caught out, if they hadn’t had to worry about the possibility of those kind of accidents … But then she pushed such silly musings aside. They were a waste of time.

  ‘I can’t believe you’d swallow such a load of shi, especially from Uncle Xani. You know he’s always wanted to be in charge. This is just a trick …’

  ‘No.’ Jaran was as emphatic as she’d ever seen him. ‘It’s not, Dara.’

  The argument stopped. The only sound was the gentle crackle of the flames. Then Dara asked, ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘You’ve got a choice.’ Jaran nodded south, back along the path they’d been walking all day. ‘Either you go back to camp on your own, where you’ll find that nothing’s wrong, just like I told you, or you can come on with me, see the city and help with the salvage.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then we go home again and you’ll realise that I’m right.’

  Dara considered these options and then another presented itself. Perhaps she could do both. With her belly now full, and feeling a lot warmer from the fire, she felt less drained, and so she tried to reach into the Earthmother, recalling the powerful surge that Ma Saria had thrown out there on the night of Da Janil’s death. Surely if something was wrong she’d be able to feel it, or at least the aftermath.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Jaran’s voice pulled her back into herself before she had a chance to extend her awareness out.

  ‘Shush!’ she snapped. ‘I’m reaching.’

  Her brother made his usual sound of disbelief, but all the same he fell silent while she tried again.

  It was no good. That wide, deep reach she’d been able to manage so easily earlier in the day eluded her now, and the best she could do was sense a few hundred metres out, where a handful of night creatures were drinking from the creek. With a sigh, she gave up.

  ‘Feel anything?’ Jaran’s smirk was back.

  ‘I’m going to sleep.’

  ‘But what’s your decision? You coming, or going?’

  She regarded her brother evenly.

  ‘I’ll tell you in the morning.’

  For three days they followed the trail north, as it meandered between seemingly endless lines of granite ridges. For the most part the path followed the watercourses, which streamed down from the higher slopes and then wound along the valley floors. Occasionally, though, it would divert, and slope sharply upwards through a higher pass, but then drop down again into the valley on the other side.

  They didn’t talk much. They’d rise with the sun and then walk, both of them swaying easily and steadily along through the day and well into the evening, until either darkness or fatigue stopped them.

  ‘How do you know the way?’ Dara asked at one point.

  ‘This.’ Jaran removed a small device from a pocket – a piece of tech Dara had seen him fiddling with on several occasions. ‘It’s a plotter, with the route to the city preprogrammed. If we get off-course by more than a couple of metres, it lets me know.’

  ‘Give me a look.’

  ‘No.’ Jaran returned the device to his pocket. ‘Uncle Xani said you weren’t to touch any of the tech.’

  ‘Shi.’

  A couple of times each day, Dara would try reaching, but, even though she was stronger again now, she couldn’t achieve that same, effortless distance she’d managed on that first afternoon. All she could feel was the local stuff, just the same as ever. Now, though, it felt tight and confining, as though her mind was being trapped or constrained somehow, and she found herself grinding her teeth in frustration, which of course only clouded things still further.

  On the afternoon of the third day, they laboured up a long slope until they reached a barren ridge an hour or so before sunset. As they attained the pass, the horizons opened up – an immense vista, larger even than that from the top of the escarpment back at camp. Below them, the trail fell steeply down the side of the hills, descending in a series of sharp switchbacks until it vanished into a dull green forest, which filled the plain as far as they could see. In the extreme distance, visible only because of the bright sunset, Dara caught the faint glimmer of water.

  They stopped and drank from a couple of flasks which Jaran carried in his pack and sat, side by side, taking in the view.

  ‘Pretty impressive, eh?’ Jaran finally offered. ‘Xani said the coastal plains were big, but I didn’t expect anything like this.’

  ‘Where’s the city?’ Dara asked.

  ‘That way.’ Jaran pointed nightwards and north, into the sunset. ‘Still at least a few days away.’

  The whole world was so much bigger than Dara had imagined. In the old stories there were mentions of distance, of course, but somehow they’d failed to convey the full size, the grandness of it.

  ‘Shouldn’t we get moving?’

  Jaran didn’t answer immediately. He rubbed a hand against the back of his neck and looked as if he was deep in thought. Then he pulled out the plotter and punched a few buttons, studying the readout screen intently. Dara craned her head, trying to see what exactly he was doing, but he turned his back, shielding the device from her curiosity.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he finally replied. ‘It’s a long way down to the flats and I don’t like the idea of trying this path in the dark. It’ll make no difference if we wait until morning.’

  Dara would have been happy to start the trek down, but Jaran was the one with the tech and the food, so all she could do was acquiesce.

  ‘Whatever you reckon.’

  They withdrew to a small hollow about a hundred metres below the pass, and there passed an uncomfortable night, sleeping on the bare rock and unable to make a fire because of the lack of fuel. Dawn found them irritable and sore and they rose at first light, packed their gear, and climbed back to the top of the ridge.

  The trail was little more than a narrow path of broken rock and loose pebbles, veering sharply left along the cliff face for the first leg of its descent. This early in the morning, the ridge on which they stood cast a long shadow nightwards so that most of the path, and the forest below, remained mired in the darkness.

  ‘You ready?’

  Dara nodded.

  ‘Follow me. Stay behind.’

  She rolled her eyes – like she needed to be told. It always bugged her when Jaran acted like this, behaving as though he was an adult and she a little kid. But she also knew him well enough to realise that there was little she could do about it.

  The descent took most of the morning, and by the time they rounded the last corner, picked their way down the final leg and stepped into the shade of the forest, the sun was high in the sky and they were both exhausted. They collapsed in the first clearing they came to.

  ‘Sky! I’m glad we didn’t try that last night,’ Jaran commented.

  ‘Going back up won’t be much fun, either,’ Dara replied, and, for the first time in a long time, Jaran smiled at her – a proper smile, not his usual superior smirk.

  ‘Why do you think I went first, sis? It’ll be your turn on the way back up.’

  She returned his smile, then looked around. ‘It’s strange here, isn’t it?’

  The forest into which they’d descended was markedly different from that back at the caves. The trees grew lower, their branches further apart and with a sparse and open canopy, allowing more light down to the ground. Their trunks were far narrower and their foliage a dusty, greyish green – very different from the deep green of the trees back home. The ground was different, too; it was drier, hard-packed and dusty, even here in the shade.

  Jaran stretched and yaw
ned. ‘Less rain this side of the hills, I expect. Tell you what – let’s stop here for the day.’

  ‘But it’s early. We could make it a lot further before night.’

  ‘I know, but we’ve got a few days’ walk ahead, so we could use the rest. Might be able to catch some proper food, too.’

  That convinced her. The novelty of prosup had quickly worn off after the second or third meal, and at the thought of roasted meat Dara’s mouth watered.

  ‘Okay. I’ll hunt and you build a fire.’

  ‘How come you get to hunt?’

  ‘’Cause I’m better at it than you.’ She grinned. ‘And besides, I’m not allowed to use the firekit, remember?’ The firekit was another bit of tech that Uncle Xani had declared off-limits to her – an edict that had been the cause of several arguments.

  ‘Fine, then. Don’t get lost.’

  ‘Huh!’

  She quickly found a fallen branch to use as a spear. It wasn’t perfect, but it was straight and sharp enough to suffice. She wandered roughly south of their camp, winding her way between the trees and letting the topography of the forest floor decide her route.

  As she walked, Dara thought back over the last few days, replaying the journey in her mind. Despite her words beside the fire that first night, she hadn’t needed to announce her decision. Jaran had known she was coming and they’d risen early the following morning and set out without another word.

  In fact, neither of them had raised the subject again, though it was obvious to both that it was still hanging there between them. Aside from that, Dara reflected, it had been fun. It had been so many years since she’d spent any real time alone with her brother. Not since she’d learnt to reach, really. She’d forgotten how much he felt like part of her sometimes. She was still worried about Ma Saria and what might be happening back at the camp, but having made the decision to continue on with Jaran these concerns became easier to put aside.

  When she was far enough away from where Jaran was building the fire, she closed her eyes, reached, and found a small family of hoppers dozing the day away in the shade of some nearby boulders. She missed on her first attempt, but luckily the creatures were still sleep-addled and, with the aid of a stone and a lucky throw, she managed to bring down a mid-size joe, which would be just about right to feed the two of them.