Brone was silent, for she was conflicted. Though she knew that indeed, there was no hope of escape, that speaking would only bring panic, yet her heart could not begrudge the warning, a few more days, a few hours with loved ones as the dark closed in. Ganit began to worry when the village began closing in around them, men and women turning aside from their paths dropping their burdens to run after Brone and Ganit as they passed by. Brone's chest ached with electric fire, burning fear as the steel dragon stopped and the people twisted around it, as swift growing thorny vine, a fence to keep them in. They clamored and shouted, and to the travelers who had been months with only themselves as company, it was as the shattering of water as it fell over stone, loud and loud, a full flood of panic outside the steel dragon's belly. Ganit fought his hands to keep them from clapping over his ears, his eyes, from shutting out what was left of men. But it was Brone who panicked first.
"I was wrong. This is a bad idea. Let's just keep going, we'll come to another town."
"I don't think so, not before we have to go by foot. And the next town could be worse."
"Then let's go until we must get out and walk. I don't think we will find welcome here. They will tear us apart."
"It's freezing, we have no food, no shelter. If we walk, we'll die."
"We did it before, ten days and more Ganit, and we survived." Her heart's burning fire infected her lungs and Brone could not breathe for fear as the mass of people drew close to them, hands outstretched to pull them from the steel dragon's belly, a resurrection into the cold, strange air. Ganit squeezed her hand and turned to her with a sad, shaky smile.
"Something saved us then, some grace that we didn't expect. But I think we have used it up. We have to go, there's no more choice now." He shut his eyes as the jaws of the steel dragon screeched open and a cool hand pulled him out by the shoulder. Brone's hand slipped out of his as another man pulled her out by the waist. They were led through the crowd, drifting apart as on an ocean tide, away from the steel dragon, away from each other. All around her shoulders, her hair and waist people tugged at Brone's clothing. "What city have you come from?" someone asked. "Have you seen my brother?" asked another, "His name is-" but Brone was torn away before she could hear the name. It didn't matter, Brone knew she hadn't seen him, hadn't seen a living soul. Ever the people clung to her, as a marvel, a relic that somehow survived the storm, that washed into their town on the silver snow.
Ganit was lost in a stray current of men and women. Over and over he heard them call out the names of places and of people all trying to find what he knew of them, flapping paper likenesses, bits of stray clothing, favorite flowers at him, as if Ganit were himself a house of the dead. In vain he tried to peer past them, seeking Brone, all the time dragged by the arm through the press of desperate mothers and husbands and siblings. At last they reached the steps of a large building and Ganit was deposited, as a pebble thrown out by the surf. Brone was already there, overwhelmed but silent. She reached to catch him as he stumbled on the steps and the two of them stood alone before the people. A tall man came to them and shook Ganit's hands. "You are the only people to come from the east in many days. We have heard no words from the city, and though we have sent many people to find out what has happened none have returned." The old magic that let men speak over great waters and long roads was no more. No messages passed to distant villages, no voices in the air from far away lands for many days, indeed almost since Brone and Ganit had begun their long journey. The world of man was as a scattering of tide pools among the rocks, isolated patches of men in the salted wasteland. They yearned to know what had happened to far off loved ones, what would happen when the terrible blank silence reached them. For it was in all the dreams of man that death was fast approaching, a gathering, choking blindness leaping over the horizon.
"You must tell us what has happened, for it may be that none shall pass here again. We mean you no harm, but you must tell us what has come to the country in this late hour."
Ganit looked at Brone and saw her fixated on the mass, as if she had never yet seen man or woman. The sounds of the crowd swept over them, a tidal wave of fear and grief and waiting. Brone's eyes spilled over with tears, though she made no sound and did not turn away but looked steadily out into the grim faces of people who already knew what Brone and Ganit had seen. For there is no news that man's heart has not already heard.
"Come on, man, tell us what you know. We have waited too long, a people forgotten." the tall man gripped Ganit's arm, as if it were a floating spar upon the deep forsaken sea.
But Ganit feared the crowd would panic. "First, we need fuel and food for a long journey."
"Very well, we can trade these things. Tell us what you know and then we will see you safely on your way with all that you need."
"No," replied Ganit, his face stony, as if the bright dawn were hid behind a bank of cloud,"We get what we need first and then I will be happy to tell you everything."
Brone turned to look at him, his resolve shocking her. He stood solitary and motionless waiting for the village to answer. Ganit's face was not unkind, it recalled the Broken Messenger to her heart, but he betrayed no regret for bargaining. Still, she knew it cut him, to trade the fleeting minutes of these people for a few buckets of fuel and traveling bread. Not for the first time, but most ardently now, Brone wished she had met him when the world was younger, before their breaths were finite, numbered and dwindling. She moved closer to him, one step above him and near enough to touch, but she waited, fearing he would be cold as dead stone.
The tall man smiled uneasily. "Very well, whatever you like." he made his voice big so that all could hear and told those on the edges of the crowd to gather needed supplies for the travelers. Ganit turned to face Brone, "Listen, what ever happens, stay close to me." he grabbed her hand and pulled her next to him, "There's going to be a panic. Don't let go of me or we're lost." The tall man heard and became moon-pale. He stared at Ganit.
"Is it as bad as that then?"
Ganit sighed but said nothing, waiting instead for the stragglers to return. The tall man began to shudder and sweat, but he moved not. Brone grabbed the man's arm and whispered, "Don't run. If you run we are all doomed. Within seconds we will be overrun and trampled."
The tall man dripped with sweat though it was freezing on the steps. He did not move however, but waited until the steel dragon was provisioned and all were gathered beneath the stone steps again. Then the tall man made his voice big again. "Tell us what has happened. What have you seen?"
Ganit gripped Brone's hand tightly and called loudly enough to make his voice reach all the people of the village. "The cities are empty."
The mass of people cried out as a long roll of thunder. The tall man spoke for them. "Did you see no one? what happened, was it a great fire or flood or was it war?"
"You're loved ones are all gone. They walked into the dark and never turned back again. It was neither flood nor fire, and if it were war, then it was not between the men of this world. We have seen the cities, but they are no more. They are erased from the earth, as if they never stood. No stone stands one upon the other, no foundation's hollow gapes. All is dust and silver snow."
The people cried out again and some began to push their way out of the center, mad cattle among the herd. "It's starting," whispered Ganit close to Brone's ear, "Don't let go, we must wait until it's at its worst or they will slay us."
She shut her eyes against the madness of the crowd.
Once more the tall man cried out, the mouth of men, "What has done this thing? What walks the eastern roads?"
Ganit pleaded, just once with them. "Go home, all of you. Go home and love your families. This thing that comes, this walking death, you cannot outrun it. Face it in the peace of your homes, gather all that is beloved to you and spend these last days in happiness, not in fear. Make these hours ones of deep love and as much joy as you can muster."
But the crowd cried aloud and wailed at this as more and
more split off, fleeing west, their shadows burning with the dying sun. Heavy indeed was Ganit's heart. "Know you this then," he called once more, "The Death horse, Arvakir, walks this way, shrieking as it comes. It is swift, this mottled, bony creature, and only to hear it is to know nothing more. It will cover the earth before it is done. There is nowhere to escape to. The face of the world is cursed."
The mass of men collapsed, springing, shattered as leaves fleeing before the winter wind. The tall man waited no more but ran down the steps and away as if Ganit rode the Death horse himself.
"Now," whispered Ganit, "we must go now before they recall that we have provisions and strip us of them."
Deep into the remaining crowd they plunged, the grief and terror palpable around them, as if they again were lost in the brilliant cold mist of the ice sea. All around them people called for their friends, wept for their family as they fled. Here and there men and women lay dying, where the heels of their own villagers, their neighbors and lovers, parents and children had struck them down. Brone clutched Ganit tight as they ran, wishing only to shut her eyes against it. At last they reached the steel dragon. Already there was a ring of men closing around it, their eyes and mouths desperate and cruel. Ganit pushed Brone into its belly and turned to face them. He knew they had only a few seconds until the roads became utterly choked with fleeing refugees, until they were caught and again must go by foot, slower this time weaving between hundreds of angry, frightened people. But Ganit did not flee the Death horse, his need for swiftness arose not from what was behind them, but from that despair that seemed to grow in Brone by the hour. If they slowed, he knew she might stop, overcome at last and simply wait for the end. "Go home!" he yelled, waving his arms in great arcs, staving off these wolf men, "Go home and see whom you have forgotten there. I carry my wife and child with me. I will fight for them while you fight only for your own breath. I am more desperate, more dire than you." Ganit's eyes began to flame, his fingertips to flicker with that cold purple fire, that dawn unburning. The men drew off and Brone, for the first time was afraid of him. Ganit crawled into the steel dragon and they began to move, the belly of the beast filled with wavering ice-blue light.
It was only after they left the village, after the cold fires of dawn had died from his fingertips, that Ganit found himself trembling. At last Brone said, "I thought you said that wasn't going to happen again?"
"I'm sorry. It appears to be happening more and more often. I don't know what is happening to me."
"Does it hurt? Are you all right?"
Ganit smiled and reached out for her hand. She tried not to flinch as his hand closed around her. "No, no it just tingles, as if I have fallen into deep, moveless sleep."
They were silent a while as the dark rolled past them, the small villages lighting in the dark. "I think we had better not stop again," said Brone, "The flood of these people will catch us and we will be overrun."
"Then we must walk at last again, when the steel dragon starves."
"Yes, we must. It matters not, for we are turning south. We shall find warmer days ahead I think. It will not be so very hard to walk then."
Ganit grinned and reached into his pocket. "A hundred miles for chocolate?" and he dropped the shining bars into her hand. Brone laughed and felt the bitterness evaporate between them. In their path, though they saw it not, no not for many days, the great fire blazed, warming miles of the world.
Chapter 13
Many wars had written themselves on Ethon's hide and many ages passed since she had last experienced fear, and never had she succumbed to pain, though she was often been pierced with stone and metal and bone. But now, in the crumbling East, she was failing. Longing to reach Enik, that purging flame of her heart, Ethon ran many days, her nostrils filled with foam, her hide and belly weeping blood as old wounds opened and broke over her flanks. Still, she gathered in herself that jealous love of motherhood, that ancient power that sculpts the world. It pulled her on through the icy Eastern forest and into the burning cities. Yet she was slow, much slower than her sons, slower even than Brone who did not know her own way. She dragged herself on, that long cold month before the sky went dark at last. She did not escape the panic of men as easily as Ganit, for Ethon was terrible in her suffering, a mangled beast of blood and copper, all the colors of fear. The men of the Eastern cities, where the soil itself was charred, had seen her son breathe flame across all that land, infecting the sky with heat and choking ash. To them, Ethon was but another of the same withering messengers.
As Ethon came to the edge of the reek, the day darkening as smoke clotted in the sky, her legs at last failed her. And sleeping there in that twilight between clear day and thick eternal dusk, Ethon saw the sun for the very last time. It was two days before she woke, and the rumor of fire, heavy and acrid in the air, had long overtaken her. Ethon had taken enough rest to pursue Enik again, and many of her old wounds were healed, fresh with blackened blood. But the smoke and ash lay heavy on her chest, resting as a burning stone upon each creature's breast. Men who still breathed walked with shrouded faces, so only their eyes lived. The reek made Ethon's terrible rolling eyes blood red, as if the flames lived in them and saw her more frightful than she had yet been. But the mist of the burning was deep and thick, enclosing one as if the sun had already died, though it was midday without. One could pass by his beloved a hand's breadth apart and not know her. Thus Ethon's encounters were thankfully few, but those few were terrible. Most happened within a patch of flame, where the garish light made an island in the fog, still burning the rags and bones, the rafters of men's homes. Here men would gather, drawn not by the sickly light, but by their memory of the place before the burning. Returning to home and family, seeking some dregs of what they had been, here, where they were most savage, Ethon would emerge from the smoke, a ruddy ghost, sharp hooves clashing with the bare stone the flame had left, sparking as if with fresh flame.
In the beginning, the men that encountered her threw brick and wood, brandished lit timbers within those mazes of flame. As if they had gathered their courage since Enik had come. The men would shout at Ethon, hitting her flank with flaming brands, bruising her with hard stone, even piercing her with metal. Many times Ethon fled. The mighty horse could not match the packs of men, like ravening wolves seeking her blood. But some she came on in the depth of their rest, a small village of men all sleeping in the dust of the world, their faces flashing as the burning played a flickering madness on their silent faces, and Ethon would trample them under her heavy hooves, crush them in their sleep, their last fear bearing down upon them in mighty vengeance. Ethon met fewer and fewer living men as she traveled west, as the glow of the burning grew and the smoke grew heavier upon her. It stung her now, in all the old wounds, a tracing of fire on her skin, and she thirsted as never before, though she had traveled the length of all the deserts many times. She knew not where she was bound, her eyes long dimmed by the pall of smoke, and her nose grew ever more blocked with ash. Many days she traveled through the burning land, striving to reach Enik, her beloved. And now all was silent, except the small shifting sound of falling ash around her. The land had been green and well watered once, and Ethon survived on the sooty puddles of old lakes that escaped the flames, but she hungered and all around was barren, as if nothing had ever grown at all. Many times she had thought of the sweet long grass that had grown around her at Brone's touch. And Ethon was furious at her own weakness. But as she grew nearer the growing heat of the flames, there were no puddles, no small streams welling up from the stone. Nothing escaped, and Ethon thirsted almost to madness.
At last Ethon heard a sound in the dark. A deep thumping, and she thought she heard an echo of her footprints only, as if she had stepped inside a cavern. But it was too quick, hers had become laborious and slow as she dragged the weight of ash upon her chest. And Ethon stopped a moment, listening in the deep night. She thought she heard the quick steps of Enik, and her sluggish blood warmed and quickened. The mighty mare
lifted her heavy legs and turned, running toward the sound, gathering her strength for this last flight, this brief reunion. A few moments Ethon ran, her chest racking where it clotted with ash, her mouth foam for still she thirsted greatly. But then Ethon heard her son shriek. And she stumbled to a stop, her legs shaking, her ears, two copper flames licking her skull. For it was not Enik that shrieked. It came ever onward, this dead thing she had borne, its feet light and swift, without the weight of ash in its chest. And Ethon knew she could not outrun this fate, and no maternal love could spare her. She stood still, losing herself in the dark. She shook with want, and in her heart she begged the Ghost Horse to pass her by, though she knew begging did no good. The night dragged on and Ethon was yet still, an ashen statue dripping with acid sweat that burned her skin, made her scars twinge and bite. She could hear Arvakir near, his shrieks shaking the earth, razing all that the fire had left behind. Gradually Ethon felt her chest unclot and her breathing swifter, easier. The ash was blowing away, an unwound shroud disappearing into the darkness. Arvakir was erasing the world, erasing even its destruction, leaving only bare, trackless earth behind him. At last, in that deepest night, when even the sun had died, the Ghost Horse stood in front of Ethon. His mottled flesh gave its own pale glow in the dark, a sickly moonlight, a blue snow-light that warmed nothing. His fish blue eye was turned on Ethon, he knew where she was, though covered still in gray ash, a burnt offering to the old world, unfinished.Ethon shook no more and her breath was clear and clean. Her head only, was heavy with thoughts of Enik, and bowed almost to the dust. But Ethon was still, speaking not, nor fleeing. She closed her eyes against that cold light she had carried for centuries under her own chest.
Arvakir took one deep breath, and turning his face to her blew away the ash, and walked on shrieking as he went. Ethon was a beast of bright copper again, her head lifting, she waited a moment. Feeling the deep clean breath fill her again, as it had ever done, since this dying world was young, she turned and began her journey toward Enik anew. But her bones knew the time was now marked, she belonged to this world and would end with it. So she hurried as well as she could to the flaming west, stopping only at the pools that welled from bare rock now, no fodder but the clean springs that wound through the blank waiting world.
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