The city is all but deserted. Unless you have access to the Citadel with its walls and armed guards – and its stockpile of supplies – a post-Apocalypse inland city in winter is hardly the habitat of choice.
As he rounds the rubble heap, the sled snags again, but this time, he makes no attempt to free it.
Close enough.
He digs with his gloved hands under the thin cover of snow, until he can feel the handle. The cold has jammed the trapdoor and, straining to break the ice-seal, he feels his shoulder.
Finally, with a small crack, the ice gives and the Plasmetal door shifts slightly. He braces his knees and pulls again, revealing the narrow flight of service stairs sloping down into the shadowed depths, lit only by the dull bluish tinge of a few jury-rigged glo-lamps.
Turning, he lifts the silver tarp covering the sled’s precious cargo and takes the weight of the first box.
Later that night, she turns to him and touches his hair. The flame of the candle is reflected in her eyes. Travers is asleep with his head on her lap, his tiny legs resting against the cushioned arm of the sofa.
‘They did a sweep of the Centre this morning.’ The matter-of-fact quality in her words is a pretence – perfected over years to filter out the fear. He shifts in his seat and faces her as she continues. ‘Two patrols. One from each end of the Mall. I managed to slip into an alcove, but in the end, they didn’t get too close.’
He suppresses a shiver. ‘Hunting expedition?’
‘Maybe. Maybe just a routine beat. They had a couple of Ferals in tow.’ A pause. He waits – she will come to it in her own good time. ‘And Sam.’
‘They got Samantha?’
A small nod. ‘I don’t think she tried too hard to escape. She looked tired. She’s looked tired for weeks, like she—’
Reaching out, Aidan places a palm against her cheek. She leans into it, breathing in deeply – a reverse sigh. Slowly, she releases the breath and tilts her head backwards, moving it from side to side to ease the tension. He moves around in front of her and takes her face in both hands, drawing her to him, until their foreheads touch.
Her eyes are fixed, unblinking, and he feels the warm movement of her breath on his lips. But he doesn’t kiss her.
Then the tears start and he wraps his arms around her shoulders, burying her face in his shirt. The sobs are deep and painful and there is nothing he can do but hold her in silence, until they finally subside and she steps away, wiping her eyes – strong again.
At least on the surface.
‘We can’t give up, Den. You know that. Do you want Travers growing up under their control?’
‘Of course not. I just – I think it’s time we moved on. The Archive will be fine. If they had any idea where it was, they’d have dug it out ages ago. And it’s not like there’s much information of any value left around here. Maybe back in Melbourne or in Adelaide.’
It is an old discussion, but this time his objections lack conviction and remain unvoiced. Their supplies are dwindling and Den is right. Their job here is almost complete.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘As soon as the weather clears. We can’t travel while there’s any threat of snow. Not with Trav. And I think we should head north. Sydney, maybe. You remember why we left Melbourne.’
A slow nod. For a moment, the wall that she has managed to construct around the memories reveals a crack.
‘What makes you think Sydney will be any better? You know what Sam said.’
‘It can’t be any worse than Melbourne. Besides, we wouldn’t have to go into the Centre at all. There’s – there was – a huge hard-data storage facility, somewhere out west. If they haven’t got around to resuming it yet, maybe we can save something useful. Right now—’
He leans down to kiss her, but she has not finished.
‘Do you really think they’d ignore information that valuable, Aidan? It’s been two years.’
‘Two years of civil war and starvation. Not to mention refugees, disease and the odd nuclear meltdown or three. If they’ve thought of it at all, they probably figure it’ll still be there when they get around to looking for it. Look, can we forget about it tonight? I’m exhausted, my shoulder’s killing me and all I want to think about is—’
This time the kiss is returned enthusiastically. She slides the sleeping child onto the cushion, stands to face him and touches his lips with the tip of her finger.
Outside, it is dark and the streets are silent.
5
Freak
The Settlement
Bourne Region
December 5, 3382ad
925 years post-Meltdown
LEANA
Tomas is about to call for her. Again.
She knows it.
Although he is in the Leader’s hut on the far side of the settlement, at the very limit of her sensing range, the years – and necessity – have made her acutely sensitive to the violent sea changes that can well up without warning beneath the surface of his tortured mind.
For the last few minutes, she has felt the first stirrings of his familiar black anger. Growing, grumbling. Rising. An itch beyond scratching, a subliminal buzzing, like an insect, trapped somewhere in the back of her skull.
With Tomas, it is always the same: the anger or the fear, his twin driving emotions, two faces of the one coin. But inevitably the anger hits first.
The anger, people see – and they respect it.
Or they die.
The fear, he hides well – but not from her.
And he knows it.
What’s it this time?
In a couple of minutes, Nem will arrive with the summons, but that will be it. No explanation. No reason.
Just, ‘Tomas wants you, Freak.’
Nem the Tolerant. Often, she imagines that if she could learn to hate anyone, Nem would be the first. Even before Tomas.
She sends out a probing thought. Very carefully. The last thing she wants to do is alert him. Tomas is obsessed with control and this makes her a threat.
To remain in power, he relies on her Gift, but at the same time he fears it and hates her for it intensely.
And she knows it.
He seems to know when she is reading him. Sometimes it is almost possible to believe that Tomas has some Esper blood in him.
Impossible, of course. There is no such thing as some Esper blood. Either you are or you’re not. With the Gift, there is no halfway.
That much she learnt from poor Mad Madoc, before the old man died.
Tomas is no Esper; just people-smart. You don’t rise to the leadership of the Tribe without intelligence. Which is the reason Nem will never be anything more than an enforcer – for Tomas or whoever finally kills him and takes his place.
The Tribe needs strong leadership to survive and since Tomas rose to power, the Tribe has survived. And grown stronger.
She slips between his thoughts. Inside, to where the fears and the anger live.
Later, as she lies back in her cot, staring at the three-quarter moon through a ragged gap in the thatch of the damp hut, she conjures up a happier time. A time before she was captured, before the slavery of Seeing for the Tribe.
Over the years, this has become one of her rituals: a desperate nightly striving to gather the precious fragments of a childhood long lost and only half-recalled.
Her mother’s face, smiling, framed by a pattern of light and leaves, sunlight through the forest canopy. Her mother’s mind, gentle, loving and comforting.
Soul-deep, her memory sings again. Songs without words. Songs of image, colour and scent. The soundless Thought-songs that echo still inside her head, across ten years of bitter mind-silence.
Ten lonely, brutal years of servitude and survival, of clinging to the memories and longing for the freedom of the forest and the fields, somewhere far away, b
eyond the no-go zone of the old city.
She watches the leading edge of a cloud as it drifts across the face of the moon. It radiates magically for a moment, leaking silver, until the grey bulk of the thunderhead smothers the final faint glow and the hut slips into darkness.
Thunder rumbles close by, a white-blue sheet of lightning flares and the downpour begins.
She feels the tears start, as her lids slide closed and she drifts away – beyond the hut, beyond the present, back to the soaking rain of another storm.
The Forest of D’nong
Bourne Region
October 7, 3372ad
The horse is huge and shining black. It snorts, shakes its head, pulls against the bit and the bridle, then tenses suddenly as a sheet of lightning splits the sky and thunder explodes directly overhead. The rain streams from its broad back and wisps of steam rise from its flanks, dissolving in the light of the handheld glo-lamps.
Its hooves strike stone and slide a little, as it steps backwards towards where they lie hiding under a bush barely three metres away.
The rider drags on the reins with powerful arms and wheels the horse around, until it finds more secure footing. He pulls the black hood back from his head, swears and shouts orders through the rain to the other riders. ‘Flush them out! They’ve gone to ground around here somewhere.’
The bluish tinge of the glo-lamp gives his face an unearthly pallor. His beard is black and short and his lips curl into a cruel almost-smile. Even without reading him, she knows that there is no humour in this man.
She tries to slip inside, focusing on that face, seeking the mind-tone, but there is nothing. No thoughts, not even a sense of the man. He is closed. Unreadable.
She shifts focus to another rider. And another.
Nothing.
For the first time in her short life, she is shut out and even through her fear, the experience confuses her. In the forest, the few villagers who lack the Gift reveal themselves to the slightest probing – even when they have no idea that they are being read. It is unacceptable, of course, but not impossible, to enter another mind without permission.
But these riders, their minds remain as impenetrable as their black riding cloaks.
These are the Black Ones that the soldiers joked about, in the days after their capture – before Gared had sneaked between the sentries to rescue them and spirit them into the night.
‘You’ll never read their minds, Freak,’ one of them had taunted her. The one that Gared had struck with a rock, during their rescue. She could not read his mind after that blow.
The pain has returned to her wrist, where they burnt the letter in. ‘E’ – for Esper – a circle of pain to brand her for life.
‘People need to know,’ the soldier had said, his foul breath in her face as he applied the glowing brand.
Her mother had not made a sound, but Leana cried like a baby.
The bearded man scans the clearing and his eyes pass directly over their hiding place. She feels her mother’s breathing stop before the man’s gaze moves on.
Then she notices another pain: her mother’s hand, gripping her shoulder so tightly that it hurts.
– Mama.
– I’m sorry, child. Stay quiet. Don’t move. If they catch us—
The mind-tone paints fear and further words are unnecessary.
There is a mind-burst of terror and a sudden movement on the other side of the clearing. One of the riders has found Gared’s hiding place.
‘Captain Dey! Over here.’
The horse in front of them jolts forward as the rider spurs its sides.
Moments later, Gared is dragged out, surrounded by a dozen of the black-cloaked horsemen.
– Gared!
Her mother’s silent shout registers, but Gared shows no response. The man on the horse is watching him for the smallest clue and Gared knows it. He is fourteen, but big for his age. He faces the rider, showing none of the fear that Leana feels radiating from him, even across the clearing.
The thought he sends chills her more deeply than the freezing rain.
– Go, Alyssa. Now! There’s nothing you can do for me. I’ll delay them if I can, but take your chance. Get Leana away while you’re able.
– I can’t.
Her mother lapses into mind-silence again, paralysed with indecision.
But Gared is stronger.
– You can. You must for Leana’s sake. It’s over. There are too many of them. Go!
Her mother nods silently, closes her eyes for a moment, then begins moving carefully backwards, away from the scene, as it unfolds beyond her control in the clearing. She has her Shield in place, but the depth of her loss and her feeling of helplessness still seep out.
– Leana, come. It’s what he wants.
As they slide silently backwards through the mud and the clinging twigs of the bush, Leana holds the contact with her adored cousin, feeling the dead calm of hopelessness, as it descends like a fog upon him.
‘Where are the others?’ The man on the horse speaks with the accent of a Northerner. ‘Make it easy on yourself, boy. I know you can track them. And you will help us, one way or another. I’m not a patient man.’
He nods to one of his men, who dismounts, approaches the boy and delivers a punch to the stomach that doubles him over and drives the breath from his lungs. She feels the wave of pain and nausea pass through him and in that moment she knows what he is about to do.
She almost cries out, but controls the urge. Still, the thought she sends has the power of a scream.
– Gared! No!
But it is too late. Gared has looked into the captain’s cruel eyes and, though he cannot penetrate the mind behind them, he knows his fate – and just how long he will last before betraying them to his captors. He does not have the strength to withstand the pain that they will inflict, but he has just enough courage to –
– Gared, please. Gared?
But the passion drains out of her plea, even as she sends it. His mind is set and she is helpless to change it. Leana stares in horror, as his words form inside her mind.
– It’s better this way, cous. I love you. Make me proud.
His attacker moves in again, fist clenched, but Gared cries out in wordspeech. ‘Stop! Please. No more. I’ll tell you. Just don’t hit me again.’
He has closed the distance between them and places a pleading hand on the man’s arm. Though his thoughts are masked, the wave of disgust that the man feels for his weakness washes over him. Then, choosing his moment, Gared grabs the man’s shoulders and drives a knee hard into his groin. This time, it is the man who doubles over, but not before Gared has slid the dagger from his thigh-sheath and held it to the man’s throat.
Leaning close to the soldier’s ear, he whispers, ‘Scared to die, hero? Feel like throwing up?’ He presses the point of the dagger deeper into the flesh of the man’s neck and draws blood. The man squirms, but doesn’t dare pull away. ‘Fear’s a disgusting thing, isn’t it?’
He looks to the leader, holding his gaze calmly. ‘Well, Captain, I guess you’re going to have to learn some patience, after all.’
Stepping back, he moves the dagger away from the man’s throat and shoves him sprawling in the mud, but before anyone can recover, he drives the long blade hard up under his own ribs, and twists viciously.
For a moment, as the pain explodes inside him, he stands rigid and stares at the man on the huge black horse. Then his knees give way and he slumps to the ground, his fingers still closed tightly around the hilt of the dagger.
As his eyes roll back and the shock sets in to rob the pain of its edge, his last thought is a farewell.
– Don’t forget me, Leana. I won’t forget you.
The Settlement
Bourne Region
December 5, 3382ad
For
a moment, as she opens her eyes, she is six years old again, back in the forest, watching the black horsemen wheel around and ride from the clearing, headed north. Gared’s body lies motionless in the mud, where he collapsed. His blood mingles with the rainwater, ebbing away, vanishing like the life it so recently nourished.
She can see it with all the clarity of a nightmare.
But then it fades, as reality reasserts itself. Rain pours from the gap in the thatch, pools in the centre of the floor and runs in a muddy stream out under the wall.
She looks at the mark of the Esper branded on the inside of her wrist, a circle of hatred, marking her Gift and her Curse. Then she pulls the dog skin around her and curls up on the cot, shivering with cold and the bitter memory of the horror.
6
The Wood
The Forest of D’nong
Eastern Perimeter
Bourne Region
December 6, 3382ad
BRAN
A fox lives by its wits. Resourceful, patient, it measures the moment, then it strikes, in and out, a flash of red-brown and a white-tipped brush, disappearing into the undergrowth in a flurry of leaves and scattered feathers.
– Think of yourself as the fox, boy.
Carlin’s advice, from all those years ago, fondly remembered. Many in the forest and its environs still fear the power of the Families and the Old Magic they command, but Carlin, when he lived, was never a believer in magic and his protégé smiles to himself, recalling the old man’s pride in the knowledge that he retained from his years with the Sect. Knowledge gleaned from the old times, scavenged and saved, stored and revered. Knowledge that stripped away the cloak of superstition shrouding the Families and their magic.
– Patience, Bran. Patience and resourcefulness. The world is a dangerous place, but foxes have thrived, where many species failed. Be the fox.
A fox may live by its wits, but it kills without thought or mercy.
Dreams of the Chosen Page 4