Daywards

by Anthony Eaton

  Dara waited for her to mention the alternatives, but Ma didn’t elaborate.

  In the firepit, the crackling flames continued to grow, pushing back the darkness, and in their midst the water can continued to bubble away, giving off an increasingly appealing smell, until Dara’s mouth was watering.

  None of them spoke again for a long time, though Dara and Eyna exchanged a couple of concerned glances. Ma Saria seemed to have withdrawn into herself. Her eyes were fixed on the flames, and her stillness reminded Dara of a lizard or a coldblood, right at the end of the day, basking in the last rays of sunlight.

  So when she did speak again, it was almost a shock.

  ‘You better get that out.’ Ma indicated the food on the fire, and then watched while Eyna used a stout stick to hook the can out of the flames and set it on the sand beside the firepit to cool.

  Ma Saria then looked at them both. ‘Okay, here’s what I reckon. Somehow, for whatever reason, this “New London ” mob want something from us. Probably you kids. That’s the only reason I can think of for them to be here, unless either of you knows anything to the contrary?’

  ‘Why do you think it’s us?’ Eyna asked, and Ma Saria’s face creased into a grim smile.

  ‘That’s how Nightpeople operate.’ The girls exchanged a worried glance, and then Dara remembered something Drake had told her.

  ‘Ma! Are you feeling okay?’

  Ma Saria stared at her. ‘No worse than usual.’

  ‘The Nightpeople told me you were ill, that they needed to find you so that they could save you.’

  ‘Ha!’ The old woman’s response was half-laugh, half a snort of utter derision. ‘Was that the best they could come up with? Don’t you worry about it, this old girl’s as fit as she ever was.’

  But Dara remembered all the inexplicable bits of tech that Drake and Blin had at their disposal, and, despite Ma Saria’s reassurances, she was still concerned.

  ‘But how can you be certain? Perhaps they know something we don’t?’

  ‘Listen, child.’ Ma’s expression softened. ‘When you’ve been around as long as I have, when you’ve spent your whole life flowing in an’ out of your body and mind through the Earthmother, you get a pretty sharp sense of when things are right and when they’re not. I’m fine, okay? But it’s interestin’ to know that they’re looking for me as much as they are you two.’

  They all digested this new information. Then Ma Saria continued. ‘So it stands to reason that the safest place for all three of us is somewhere else.’

  ‘What’s wrong with here?’ Dara gestured around the cavern. ‘We’ve got food and water, and we’re deep underground so their tech can’t find us …’

  ‘Only a matter of time before they do,’ Ma replied. ‘Or before one of us gets caught out in the forest or something. No, the safest thing we can do at the moment, I reckon, is get moving and head away from this area. Make it so that you two, at least, have got some chance of living out the rest of your lives without worrying all the time about being grabbed and poked and taken from out of your own bodies again.’

  ‘But what about all the others?’ Eyna objected. ‘We can’t just leave them.’

  ‘We won’t. We’ll get them, or as many as want to come, on the way out. Kids only, though. Those who can walk in the sun with us we’ll take along; everyone else’ll have to take their chances with the Nightpeople.’

  ‘Couldn’t we just …’ Eyna began to argue, but Dara put a hand out and rested it on her cousin’s arm, stopping her before Ma had to justify her decision. She knew why. She could see the reasons for it, even if they were awful.

  ‘No, cuz, Ma’s right. The nights belong to the Nightpeople. You saw those hummers. Night’s when they’re at their strongest, and it’s been that way for a long, long time. Our only chance of getting safely out of this area is to move when they can’t. In daylight. Anyone who’s not fully viable will only make it more dangerous for everyone else. Even Uncle Xani knew that.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘That’s why he sent Jaran to take me to the city. We’re both viable. He wanted us moving in daylight, when we’d be safer from the Nightpeople, just in case. That’s why he didn’t do it himself, or send one of the other uncles. It makes sense, when you think about it.’

  Eyna didn’t reply, which Dara took as agreement.

  Then Ma Saria spoke again. ‘Don’t worry, child. I’ve known our clan a long time, and they’re a tough bunch. They’ll be right.’

  ‘But the Nightpeople might …’

  ‘Anything they wanted to do to us, they’ve done already, except of course find you two. And if they only wanted us out of the way, they’d have seen to that before we even knew they were around. No, most of our family’ll be all right if left to their own resources.’

  ‘How will we get the littlies out, though?’ Dara asked.

  Ma looked unworried as she retrieved a spoon from her bag and set about serving up the thick broth.

  ‘We’ll just go and take them.’

  ‘They’re all being guarded.’

  ‘I got ways of dealing with guards, if I have to.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘That’s not for you to know, child. Not yet.’

  Dara accepted her food and tucked in to it enthusiastically. She hadn’t realised how hungry she was until the cooking smell had filled the cave, but now she shovelled the hot, rich food into her mouth with gusto.

  ‘Careful, girl!’ Ma Saria exclaimed. ‘You’ll choke yourself.’

  ‘Sorry, Ma.’ Dara grinned through a mouthful of thick meat. ‘I haven’t eaten anything this good in a while. Nightpeople food’s not too nice.’

  ‘I know.’ Smiling, Ma grimaced at some long-forgotten recollection. ‘I’ve only eaten it a few times myself, an’ I reckon that’s a few times too many.’

  The solid feeling of the food in her belly and the sudden change in Ma’s demeanour brought a warm feeling flooding in and Dara felt herself relax. Eyna, though, was sitting in withdrawn silence, her food untouched.

  ‘You better watch out, cuz. If you don’t eat that soon, I’m gonna steal it from you.’

  Dara’s attempt to joke her cousin out of her melancholic mood failed. Eyna turned to Ma.

  ‘When will we go?’ she asked, and just like that the tense atmostphere returned, along with the knot in Dara’s belly.

  ‘As soon as the rain stops. Once we get a bit of proper sunshine. Possibly tomorrow, possibly a week from now.’

  The answer, which as far as Dara was concerned wasn’t an answer at all, seemed to satisfy Eyna, who picked up her food and began eating.

  After they’d finished and cleaned up, the three made their way back out to the entry cavern and sat basking in the grey remains of the afternoon, while the sheeting rain dripped in long threads across the cavemouth above. Dara pointed at the ledge that shielded the ancient hand marks from casual observation.

  ‘Do you reckon whoever made those imagined they’d still be here all this time later?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Ma Saria replied. ‘Most people who know anything about the world out here understand that nothing lasts forever.’

  ‘The Nightpeople don’t seem to think that. That lot seem to think they have all the answers to everything.’

  Ma laughed at that, a solid, deep chuckle.

  ‘They’ll work it out. Might take them a bit longer than the rest of us, though.’

  Then Ma asked Dara to relate her trip to the city again, this time slowly and in greater detail, and Dara obliged, talking through the long afternoon, stopping here and there to respond to occasional interjections and questions from the other two. Then, as the sun set and the forest beyond the cavemouth retreated into the twilight, so too did the three of them, returning back inside and re-stoking the fire before settling beside it again.

  ‘Ma Saria,’ Dara asked, ‘can I ask a question?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Once we get the others, where are we gonna go?’
/>   Ma Saria fixed Dara with her black, twinkling stare.

  ‘Where do you reckon?’

  ‘The Darklands?’

  Ma smiled. ‘That’s what I had in mind.’

  Dara didn’t know why, but that felt right, somehow, that decision. Eyna had gone all silent again, and Dara thought her cousin was going to withdraw back into herself at the thought of leaving, but then Ma Saria leaned over and took the girl’s chin between her thumb and forefinger, raising Eyna’s face to her own and peering deep and hard into her eyes.

  ‘Anyone ever tell you ‘bout the woman you were named for?’

  Eyna, mute, shook her head.

  ‘You got the same name as Da Janil’s own mother. Eyna Mann. And she probably came as close as any Nightperson ever did to understanding what it was to be a Darklander. She was one of the only Nightpeople to ever actually walk on the earth and sink her toes into the Earthmother. And she was a scientist, too. She was the one who set Da Janil and Da Lari on their paths. She was a brave woman, that one. And when she disappeared into the Darklands, everyone in the skycity – even your Da – they all reckoned she’d been swallowed up by the land, but I’ve always thought different. I reckon she went home to it. Just like we’re gonna do. All of us …’

  Ma froze, and stiffened suddenly, gasping a sharp, short breath which brought the two young girls to their feet.

  ‘Ma? What’s wrong?’

  For a moment it seemed as if the old woman was about to pass out. Her eyes glazed over and she swayed forward and backwards, teetering precariously towards the hot coals in the firepit, until Dara grabbed and steadied her.

  ‘Ma? Are you all right?’

  Her face stricken in the firelight, Ma turned her eyes to meet Dara’s, and, for the first time in Dara’s experience, there were tears there.

  ‘Ma Saria, talk to me! What’s happened?’

  ‘They’re …’ Ma hesitated, and her voice sounded old. ‘They’re … gone.’

  ‘Ma, calm down!’

  Dara’s plea fell on deaf ears. Ma continued flinging various items into her woven bag as quickly as she could.

  A couple of metres away, the firelight exposing the fear in her eyes, Eyna stood silent as a stone, observing as Ma Saria, the most unflappable woman they knew, seemed oblivious to anything other than her own haste. Dara stepped forward and took the old woman firmly by her shoulders, pulling up just the tiniest touch of earthwarmth and trying to reach towards Ma Saria’s mind, just a fluttering, calming touch to try and restore some balance in the woman’s demeanour. It was something she’d never tried before, physically touching another mind, but she’d seen Ma Saria do it and was certain it wouldn’t be too difficult. So she was totally unprepared for what happened next.

  The whole episode took less than half a second. As she first stretched her mind towards Ma Saria’s, there was nothing there, only a maelstrom of confusion, into which Dara probed gently.

  Then a swamping, angry wave of fear pushed back into her, a hot wedge of consciousness, fuelled by terror, which swept her own feathery reaching aside with the contempt that one might use to slap the life out of a mosquito, and drove down into her, coursing through and filling her with a terrible, overwhelming sense of nothingness; of long-held ties completely and unexpectedly severed, leaving only perfect void behind in their place.

  Dara gasped and staggered backwards. Only some deep-buried instinct for self-preservation enabled her to tear her mind away, dragging it from the fast-moving current of Ma Saria’s fear before stumbling over her own feet and tumbling hard onto the floor.

  ‘Shi, Dara! You okay?’ In a flash, Eyna was kneeling beside her. The girl’s hands felt cold against Dara’s fear-crawling flesh.

  ‘I … yeah.’ Dara tried to clear away some of the fogginess in her head.

  ‘Girl!’ Now Ma Saria was kneeling there, too, her face etched with concern. ‘Night spirits, Dara! You all there?’

  ‘Yeah. I think so …’ Dara pinched the bridge of her nose with a thumb and forefinger. Behind her eyes, she could feel blood pounding, causing a ringing pain behind her temples. A new wave of grief crumpled across Ma’s face.

  ‘Earthmother, child! Don’t you ever do that again, eh?’

  ‘I … I just wanted to help you.’

  ‘I know that, child. An’ in a way you did. But touching another mind like that – it’s not something you want to do without a lotta practice, and without knowing exactly what you’re getting into. Otherwise …’ Ma Saria stopped abruptly.

  ‘Otherwise what?’ Eyna prompted, and when she replied, Ma’s voice was reluctant.

  ‘Otherwise you can end up getting pulled or pushed into places you never want to go. Into doing things that’ll change who you are.’

  Gradually the savage pounding in her head shrank to a constant dull thump and Dara allowed the other two to assist her back to her feet, recalling as she did so that sudden moment of clarity, that brief bolt before the pain had taken over, when everything was suddenly, yawningly empty.

  ‘What was that, Ma?’

  The old woman dropped her eyes, staring down at her gnarled, bare feet, black against the pale sandy floor.

  ‘That was where the clan used to be.’

  ‘Our clan?’

  Ma Saria nodded.

  ‘All these years I’ve been – not tracking them, exactly – but always aware of ‘em, always in touch. Just like you are when you’re reaching. I even managed to get through the Nightpeople’s skyfire and find them these last couple of weeks. Just so I knew they’re all okay. But then, just before, while we were talkin’, they just went. One second they were all there as usual, up near the Eye, then … gone.’

  Dara and Eyna exchanged a worried glance.

  ‘Gone where?’

  Ma Saria made a small, hopeless gesture with her hands. ‘You felt it, child. Just gone. Off the Earthmother. Disconnected.’

  ‘You mean … dead?’ Eyna struggled to keep her voice from catching, and a cold lump of fear rose in Dara’s throat.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  The answer, unsatisfactory as it was, seemed to be all Ma Saria was capable of giving them. Dara turned back to the fire. Her legs were still shaking and she felt dangerously light-headed, but she forced herself to crouch and resume the packing that Ma had started.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Eyna demanded

  Dara looked up. ‘Ma’s right. We gotta go. Now.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Back to the caves. We have to find out what happened.’

  ‘But what if they’re all dead?’

  Eyna’s words echoed around the dark chamber, ringing into slow silence. Dara didn’t reply, but kept packing up the cooking and hunting gear. Ma joined her and soon after that so did Eyna.

  A few minutes later the three stepped around the rockfall, into the entrance cavern. The rain seemed to have eased slightly. It was hard to tell, though, because the night was now fully established and the cavemouth was nothing more than a pale, jagged circle against the black of the stone roof and walls.

  Wordlessly, the two girls and the old woman paused for a moment before starting their climb up and out into the open. Ma Saria stood between them and took one of their hands in each of hers. The contact sent a brief shiver through Dara and she almost pulled her hand back, instinctively reacting to the savage battering her mind had taken from Ma Saria’s earlier. But the moment passed and then all she was aware of was the dry tingle of Ma Saria’s old skin touching her own.

  Carefully, they clambered up the rocky slope and stepped out into the rain-whipped night.

  In moments all three were soaked and Dara sighed as the rain caused her clothing to cling to her arms and legs and her hair to fall lank across her face and shoulders once more.

  ‘It would have been nice to stay dry a little longer. I feel like I’ve been wet forever.’ She attempted to sound light-hearted, but didn’t altogether succeed. Eyna shot her a sympathetic glance and Ma Saria, who’d take
n the lead, didn’t even break her stride, let alone comment.

  Under the canopy and the clouds, the night was dark, but Ma led them unerringly between the trees, effortlessly navigating a tangle of intersecting game trails and half-formed tracks. Walking kept them from getting too cold, and after a couple of hours the forest began to feel vaguely familiar to Dara.

  ‘We’re getting closer,’ she muttered to Eyna, who nodded.

  ‘I know. The pool’s just up ahead a little to our left.’

  Dara glanced at her cousin in surprise, and Eyna allowed herself a slight smile which Dara could feel rather than see in the dark.

  ‘Ma Saria’s been teaching me a few things about reaching while we were waiting for you,’ she explained.

  ‘Good you!’ Dara grinned. Now that she was aware of it, she realised that there was indeed something different about Eyna’s spark. It was still as familiar to her as ever, but now even more connected.

  Ahead, the trail opened up and they stepped into the clearing beside the pool. With all the rain, their bathing spot had swelled to five or six times its normal size, fuelled by a raging torrent of water pouring down the escarpment. The flat rock where they usually sunbathed was completely submerged and they had to wade in up to their knees a couple of times as they skirted the edge of the pool to reach the trail.

  ‘Brrr. You feel like a swim?’ Eyna asked.

  ‘After you.’

  Then they were back in the forest again, moving more quickly now on the familiar ground, along the meandering path beside the cliffs. Overhead, the escarpment loomed, dark and monolithic, its top cloaked in weeping cloud. As they came closer to the home trail, Dara kept an ear cocked upwards, listening to the sky for the telltale vibration of a hummer over the noises of the storm-thrashed forest.

  Nothing came. The unnerving silence above continued until they reached the bottom of the trail, stopping where the path angled upwards into the cloud and the night.

  ‘How’re you two feeling?’ Ma Saria asked.

  ‘Okay,’ both girls replied.

  ‘Good, then. We stick together up here, all three of us. Okay? No matter what we find, or what we see.’