by Dennis Foon
SLURPING THE FILMY REMAINS, THE CHILD SAYS INGENUOUSLY, “TO KILL IT YOU HAVE TO CONSUME ITS EYES. YOU SHOULD EAT THE OTHER ONE.”
ROAN STARES AT THE CHILD, PUZZLED. ITS FACE AND BODY ARE YOUNG, BUT IT LOOKS AT HIM WITH EYES THAT ARE OLD, VERY OLD. AS OLD AS AN ANCIENT GOD’S.
“FOREVER CHANGING, RESPONDING TO THE NEEDS OF A NEW WORLD,” THE CHILD SAYS WITH A MOURNFUL SMILE, CONFIRMING ROAN’S SUSPICIONS. “THE OVERSHADOWER’S MEMORY IS IN ITS EYES AND IT REMEMBERS EVERY SHADE IT HAS EVER SWALLOWED,” THE FRIEND TELLS HIM. “YOU NEED TO KNOW WHO IT IS THAT YOU HAVE FOUGHT FOR.”
LOOKING AT THE REMAINING EYE, ROAN HESITATES.
“DO YOU LEARN NOTHING FROM YOUR FRIENDS? IT IS NOT THE APPEARANCE OF A THING THAT MATTERS, BUT WHAT IT CONTAINS, WHAT LIES WITHIN.”
ROAN THINKS OF LUMPY. HOW PEOPLE RUN FROM HIM WHEN THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR. OF THE FIRST TERMITE JERKY HE MADE AND ATE AT HIS SIDE, HOW REPULSED HE’D BEEN, BUT HOW IT HAD NOURISHED HIM. HE REACHES DOWN DEEP INTO THE SOCKET AND PLUCKS THE EYE OUT.
THE MOMENT HE TOUCHES IT TO HIS LIPS, DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES FLOOD HIS CONSCIOUSNESS. EACH EXPERIENCE DEMANDING HIS ATTENTION, CALLING OUT TO BE HEARD. LIVES AT THE MOMENT THEY WERE LOST. ALONE, DESPERATE. AN INFANT TORN FROM ITS MOTHER’S ARMS. A FARMER CUT DOWN BY MARAUDERS. CHILDREN SCREAMING THEIR LAST BENEATH THE BLADES OF THE MASTER’S PHYSICIANS. ALL AT THE BRINK OF MADNESS FROM PAIN AND GRIEF AND TERROR. ROAN IS OVERCOME BY HELPLESSNESS, FUTILITY, BLINDING RAGE, AND SORROW. ENDLESS, ALL-CONSUMING SORROW. AND IT’S TOO LATE TO HELP ANY OF THEM. TOO LATE. FOR THESE ARE MEMORIES. THE MEMORIES OF A DYING DEMON.
THE PIT QUAKES VIOLENTLY. SHAKEN FROM ITS WALLS, THE VAPOROUS FORMS RISE AS THE SPIRACAL WHIPS APART AND THE GREAT PIT ONCE AGAIN LIES UNCOVERED.
THE MAD MASTERS SOAR, CIRCLING THE FALLEN CONSTRUCTION ONLY FOR A MOMENT BEFORE VANISHING INTO THE DISSOLVING FUMES. ANOTHER TREMOR REVERBERATES ALONG THE CHANNEL THAT FEEDS THE THRONE AND DARIUS’S FINAL CONSTRUCTION EXPLODES IN A FLASH OF POISONOUS GREEN LIGHT.
DARIUS IS DEAD, HIS THRONE DESTROYED, AND ROAN’S GREAT-GRANDFATHER’S DREAM REALIZED. BUT ROAN IS REELING FROM EXHAUSTION AND ANGUISH. SO MANY. THERE WERE SO MANY. THOUGH HE KNOWS THERE WAS NOTHING HE COULD HAVE DONE EARLIER TO CHANGE THINGS, EVERY MOMENT HE RELAXED, EVERY SMILE AND CARELESS LAUGH LURCHES INTO HIS MIND.
JUST AS HE FEELS HIMSELF COLLAPSING, A BROWN SPECKLED RAT WHISPERS AT HIS SIDE, “TAKE ME IN YOUR HAND.”
PERCHING ON THE HOOK-SWORD EMBEDDED IN ROAN’S PALM, RAT BLINKS. AND FOR A MOMENT, ROAN CLOSES HIS EYES AND SLEEPS.
WHEN HE WAKES, HE’S AT THE RIFT. THE CHILDREN ARE SPREAD PAINFULLY ACROSS IT, A MASSIVE NINE-HEADED HYDRA HOVERING OVER THEM. ALANDRA—THOUGH HE WOULD NEVER HAVE KNOWN IT IF MABATAN HADN’T TOLD HIM. HE CAN SENSE NOTHING OF HIS FRIEND IN THE BEAST, ONLY A FIERCE DEVOTION, A WILLINGNESS TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN AT ALL COSTS.
THE PEOPLE OF LONGLIGHT ARE CIRCLED ABOVE THE RIFT, HUMMING IN UNISON, AN ETHEREAL, PULSATING TONE. MOVING INTO THE SPACE BETWEEN HIS MOTHER AND FATHER, HE LOOKS DOWN IN HORROR AT THE BLOODIED BLADE EXTENDING OUT OF HIS PALM. BUT HIS MOTHER REACHES OUT, AND TOGETHER WITH HIS FATHER, SHE PLACES HER HANDS OVER THE BLADE. ONE BY ONE THE PEOPLE OF LONGLIGHT JOIN THEM. THEY SING OVER THE WEAPON THAT IS HIS HAND.
THE DRIED BLOOD ON ITS SURFACE BECOMES LIQUID ONCE MORE AND IT FALLS INTO THE ABYSS LIKE TEARS. THE RUST BREAKS OFF THE BODIES OF THE NOVAKIN AND THE RIFT BEGINS TO MOVE, ONE SIDE JOINING THE OTHER UNTIL IT CLOSES COMPLETELY.
RELEASED, THE CHILDREN HUG THE HYDRA’S MANY NECKS. “WE PROMISE WE WILL FIND A WAY TO BRING YOU BACK.” THEY SMILE, POINTING TO ROAN. “WITH HIS HELP.”
HE FEELS THEIR THANKS, LIKE A CARESS, TOUCH HIM BRIEFLY AND THEN THEY ARE GONE.
THE SHADES OF LONGLIGHT TAKE TO THE AIR AND ROAN FOLLOWS THROUGH THE ORANGE SKY. BELOW, THE GREAT DESERT THAT WAS ONCE RULED BY THE WHORL IS ALREADY CHANGING COLOR, BURSTING WITH LIFE. FREED FROM ITS SHADOW, THE WELL OF OBLIVION’S WATERS SWIRL HYPNOTICALLY.
AS THE SHADES OF LONGLIGHT DESCEND ONE BY ONE INTO ITS DEPTHS, HE CLUTCHES HIS MOTHER’S SMALL HAND.
HER DARK BROWN EYES SMILE KNOWINGLY INTO HIS. “WE’VE LONG AWAITED THIS MOMENT, ROAN. HOPED BEYOND HOPE THAT IT MIGHT COME TO PASS. NOW WE MUST DRINK OF THESE WATERS AND FORGET, SO THAT WE MAY LIVE AGAIN.”
“I WOULD LIKE TO FORGET, MOTHER.”
“I KNOW. BUT IT IS NOT YOUR TIME. NOT YET. IT IS FOR YOU TO REMEMBER AND TO PASS YOUR MEMORIES ON. THAT IS THE WAY OF THE LIVING.”
“BUT WHAT DO I TELL STOWE? I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND. IS THAT WHAT YOU DIED FOR? JUST TO SING OVER MY BLADE? WHAT…WHAT IF…I HADN’T?”
“WE DIED FOR A HOPE, ROAN. TELL HER WE DIED TO BRING HOPE TO YOUR FUTURE.”
HIS FATHER’S EMBRACE IS NOT LONG ENOUGH. COULD NEVER BE ENOUGH. “I AM SO PROUD OF YOU,” HE WHISPERS. HE TAKES ROAN FIRMLY BY THE SHOULDERS BEFORE HE BACKS AWAY. “YOUR LIFE IS YOUR OWN, SON. NOW YOU MUST LIVE IT.”
AS THEY TURN HAND IN HAND TOWARD THE WATERS OF THE WELL, ROAN FEELS HIS PARENTS’ LOVE ENVELOP HIM FOR A MOMENT. AND THEN HE IS LEFT ALONE AS THEY SINK INTO OBLIVION’S GENTLE WAVES.
The last crescent of moon slices the sun, as across the City its shadow races from rooftop to rooftop, heralding the return of day.
Lumpy stands over Roan, his hand outstretched. “I knew I could depend on you,” he says. But as he helps Roan up, he’s not smiling. “Wolf and Stinger have secured the City. But we’ve lost twelve Apsara…Ende…”
Lumpy’s eyes drift off to the east and Roan, following his gaze, sees the ghetto of the Absent. The total stillness. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people lying dead in the streets.
“Ende tried but they were hopelessly outnumbered…and then it was too late. It was...”
Roan wheels at the sound of an agonized moan. Stowe’s kneeling over Willum, stroking his hair. She’s covered in his blood. Moaning. Moaning.
Mabatan is standing over her, silent tears streaming down her face. “How is it, Roan of Longlight, that we have won our struggle only to end so lost?”
Just then, the apex of the Pyramid is flooded in the light of the newborn sun and they are all bathed in burnished gold.
KHUTUMI
DO NOT GRIEVE. ROAN OF LONGLIGHT HAS BEEN LIVING HIS GREAT-GRANDFATHER’S STORY AND NOW HE MUST SEARCH FOR A STORY OF HIS OWN. AND WHAT A TALE THAT WILL BE.
—LORE OF THE STORYTELLERS
ON A SEA-SWEPT ISLAND RICH WITH TOWERING FIR TREES AND STONY CLIFFS, Roan stands before a mound of rocks, a small, wiry man with pixyish eyes beside him.
Two weeks ago in the City, Roan had said his goodbyes. The Council had been reconvened with the addition of Master Querin, and a prophecy had been read: “Those who were estranged shall be brought together. And though one of the Shunned, the Lieutenant will stand in the Prophet’s stead and unite them.”
Lumpy resisted, but everyone had been in agreement. Roan’s Lieutenant would become the new Keeper of the City.
The moment he was alone with Roan, though, the arguments began. “But the City needs you, Roan. Everyone wants—”
“Lumpy. Don’t you believe in the prophecy?”
“Oh, no. You’re not going to use that against me again.”
“As a friend, then. Please.”
Lumpy had followed his gaze into the deep double-crescent welt that scarred most of Roan’s hand and in the end, he’d agreed…as long as a Council could be appointed to govern with him. So Kamyar, Wolf, Xxisos, Stinger, Querin, Gunther Number Six, Stowe, and Mabatan are, at least for the moment, united in their efforts to mend City and Farlands alike.
Kira, though, had been too devastated by her losses. Lumpy could think of no better way to help her than putting the Novakin in her care. Accompanied by a group of Apsara, she has left for Newlight, taking the sleeping Alandra to the children who will one day hopefully free them both. Isodel, the Governor’s wife, had agreed to stand in Council until Kira is ready to return.
Roan shudders as he remembers the horror of trying to pry Stowe from Willum. The more he’d attempted to
comfort her, though, the more distant she’d become. He’d wanted so much to be close, to mourn as a family the final passing of their parents and their newfound cousin, Willum. Roan knew how much Willum had meant to her. He wished she could have shared more of her pain…but perhaps that was untrue. Perhaps he’d welcomed her distance because he’d needed it as well. Perhaps that was the only way they would be able to heal.
After the final battle, he’d gone down into the City to walk through its streets. Over and around the numberless bodies. The smell of death in the square where the giant Apogee had been mounted was appalling. Rats darted amidst the corpses and flies…swarms of flies…
He wondered if the Dreamfield had been sealed soon enough for some of these people to find their place within it. It seemed a shallow hope. The loss was overwhelming, the senselessness of it…the stories of their lives crowded one after the other behind his eyes in an eternally changing kaleidoscope of despair until he could no longer remember who he was, what he had come for, why it had seemed so important.
“The Council is waiting. Decisions have to be made,” Lumpy had said, putting his arm around Roan’s shoulder. But Roan had refused to move. He was afraid to take a step. The future yawned before him empty, devoid of purpose. “Please, Roan.”
Lumpy’s face had been so full of sorrow, his eyes swollen, his voice swallowing back the pain.
Roan is aware of how selfish he seemed when he asked his friends and sister to let him go. It was the hardest thing he’s ever done, deserting Lumpy and Mabatan and Stowe. But he needed to know the meaning of what had happened with the Friend and the Overshadower—what he had done, what he had felt, what he had become.
The journey over water to this island had been difficult, but paled beside what he’d been through. What he was going through now. Amongst the giant trees, lovingly preserved by the Wazya, he stood day after day, paralyzed at the grave of his great-grandfather, Roan of the Parting.
“Before he died, Roan told Aithuna his greatest hope was that one day you would stand in this spot, and offer him the prayer of Longlight. It was what he lived out his life for.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I can.”
“We have time,” the Carrier of the Wazya had said lightly, much the way his daughter would, with no trace of disappointment. And so Roan stood, one day folding into the next, wondering if he could find it in himself to forgive his great-grandfather’s discovery of the Dirt and his trust of Darius and the destruction it had wrought. Each day, just as Roan found the thread, the possibility of forgiveness, it was snapped from him by a memory—his sister howling over Willum, or Mabatan’s empty eyes, or the buzzing flies over the endless corpses, whose lives he knew better than his own.
Until one day, after he lost count of the days, the thread of forgiveness merged with the memories and he knew somehow that they were the same.
And lowering his head, Roan began the prayer of passing, striving to keep all of it alive in his heart.
That the love you bestowed might bear fruit
I stay behind.
That the spirit you shared be borne witness
I stay behind.
That your light burn bright in my heart
I stay behind.
I stay behind and imagine your flight.
Roan picks up a pebble and places it on one of the larger stones that mark his ancestor’s grave. Then he breathes as if for the first time and inhales the fragrance of the giant firs.
Surrounded by a chorus of white crickets, he listens intently to their song. A song that, with Khutumi’s help, Roan of Longlight hopes one day to understand.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANKS TO Pamela Robertson, Barbara Pulling, Guillermo Verdecchia, Susan Madsen, Elina Levina, and Teri Snelgrove, for their wise words and support. Elizabeth Dancoes has been instrumental in the creation of this book, as she has with the entire Longlight Legacy. I am forever, and gratefully, in her debt.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DENNIS FOON has written four other acclaimed novels for young adults: Double or Nothing, the award-winning Skud, and the first two books in The Longlight Legacy—The Dirt Eaters and Freewalker.
He has written over 20 stage plays that continue to be produced internationally in numerous languages and for which he has received the British Theatre Award, two Chalmers awards, and the International Arts for Young Audiences Award. He has received the Gemini Award, two WGC Top Ten Awards, and the Robert Wagner Award for his screenplays, which include Little Criminals, White Lies, Torso, and Terry.
Dennis lives with his family in Vancouver, BC.
Text © 2006 Dennis Foon
Edited by Pam Robertson
Copy edited by Elizabeth McLean
Cover and interior design by Irvin Cheung/iCheung Design
Cover illustration by Susan Madsen
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Cataloging in Publication
Foon, Dennis, 1951 –
The keeper’s shadow / by Dennis Foon.
(The Longlight legacy)
ISBN-13: 978-1-55451-028-3 (bound)
ISBN-10: 1-55451-028-7 (bound)
ISBN-13: 978-1-55451-027-6 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-55451-027-9 (pbk.)
I. Title. II. Series: Foon, Dennis, 1951 – Longlight legacy; 3
PS8561.O62K43 2006 jC813’.54 C2006-901780-8
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