Dawn

Chapter 11

A’MEER WAS SMILING down at Kosar, kneeling so that the sun was behind her and throwing her into silhouette. She was beautiful; her hair was braided as usual, and hanging to either side of her head; her pale skin shone even in shadow. And she was laughing. Many times since leaving Pavisse and settling in Trengborne, Kosar had yearned to hear that laughter again, and now it was a balm for his wounds, a tonic for his soul. He reached out, but she shook her head and drew back, still laughing. He wanted to speak to her but he could not find the words. He felt protective and jealous, wanting no one else to see what he was seeing now, hear what he was hearing.

A’Meer, he tried to say, but there was no strength to his voice.

Her laughter faded, her smiled faltered. For a few seconds she moved sideways so that he could see the concern on her face as she stared down at him. And he realized then that his emotions toward A’Meer were so charged because he knew that she was dead.

She mouthed something, reminding him of the image the mimics had shown him. That had been a representation of her at the moment of death; this was beyond. And this time he knew what she was saying.

Trust the Monk.

THE RED MONK -Lucien Malini it had called itself, though Kosar had trouble attaching a name to such a thing-was sitting close to one of the dwindling Breaker fires. It had its back to him. He lay a few steps from the Monk, arms and legs free of the old machine now, his throat so painful and swollen that he could barely turn his head.

I’m going to kill you, Kosar thought, staring at the red cloak in the poor moonlight. That cloak was stained with splashes of A’Meer’s blood, and whatever he dreamed her saying, she was still dead. Soon, I’m going to kill you.

The Monk raised its head, lowered its hood and turned around. It was monstrous, just like all the other Monks Kosar had seen over the past ten days. Its head was almost bald and its face was a mass of scars, old and new. Its eyes were black in the moonlight, its face shifting in shadows thrown by the fading fire.

“I don’t expect you to trust me,” it said.

“Good.”

“I can help you. Circumstance has made us allies.”

Kosar tried to laugh but it hurt too much. He raised himself up instead, turning and spitting into the dust. There was still blood in his mouth.

“This Alishia you spoke of…”

“I’ll kill you before you can touch her.”

“I don’t seek to hurt her.” Its voice was quite unlike any he had ever heard before. Gruff and hesitant, as though the demon was not used to speaking.

“I don’t believe you.”

“A Monk never lies.”

“I don’t believe that, either.”

“Ahh. There’s a dilemma.”

Was that humor? Kosar thought. Is it trying to seduce my trust? He felt only disgust and rage at the Monk. It had killed A’Meer. Then it had tortured truths from him and expected him to ally with it when it chose to act on those truths.

“I’m going to kill you,” he said again.

The Monk frowned and stood. “Then that’s difficult,” it said. “Because Ican continue on my own to Hess, to tell the Shantasi of the hope there is in Alishia. The final hope to stand against the Mages. The Shantasi will kill me, but there’s a chance that their Mystics will smell the truth in my blood. Less chance than if you presented the story to them…but a chance, at least.”

“You’re trying toappeal to me?” Kosar said.

The Monk shook its head. “I’m stating a fact. If you refuse to come, I kill you now in case you fall into the hands of the Mages’ agents. You go for New Shanti, and perhaps with me to protect you, you’ll get there.”

Kosar coughed, swallowed, felt the tang of blood still in his throat. Even the thought of walking was daunting, let alone negotiating whatever dangers there may be between here and New Shanti.

“You sound hoarse,” he said to the Monk. “Bet you’ve never said that much in one go before.”

“Sometimes I talk to myself,” it said. “I’m mad, after all.”

Kosar was glad the demon did not attempt a smile.

He lay back down, wincing as the strain hurt his throat. Smoke from the fire gave the sky some texture, but the moons soon bled that away.

“So you’re giving me two choices,” he said. “Go with you and live, or stay here and die.”

“Yes,” the Monk said.

He closed his eyes and thought of A’Meer mouthing those words, Trust the Monk. Perhaps the demon had implanted that image when he gave Kosar the sleeping drug. Or another insect, cut into his brain while he slept to insinuate the Monk’s desires into his mind.

“Of course,” Kosar said, “there’s choice number three.”

The Monk remained silent.

The thief stood, flexed his hands and felt the familiar sting of the brands. “I could cut you to fucking ribbons now, shit in your foul heart and go on my way.”

The Monk did not move. It still had a crossbow bolt in its shoulder. Its hands were dark with Breaker blood. The fire gave its skin a red tinge, and Kosar remembered the Monk in Pavisse that had fought on with slayer spider venom melting its veins.

“Of course, that would be unfair,” Kosar said. “You’re weak from the recent massacre. I have honor.”

“So will you wait until I’ve recovered my strength?”

Kosar nodded. “It’s only right.”

The Monk looked down at Kosar’s hands. “I can cure your brands.”

Kosar splayed his fingers and looked down. “You can fuck off,” he said. The brands were like speckles of burning coal on his fingertips. The blood glistened fresh, and when he touched two fingertips together the pain was exquisite. It was different from the pain in his throat, his back, his ribs; this, he was used to. It was familiar, and with familiarity came some sort of acceptance. The brands were a part of him, and after so long they had started to define him. They were as much a part of him as his eyes, his mouth, any other characteristic by which people formed their first opinions.

Kosar wondered what the Monk thought of them, but he would never ask.

“I really can,” the Monk said. “If you ever want me to.”

“A show of trust?” Kosar asked.

The Monk tilted its head slightly in what passed for a shrug.

I could pick up my sword, Kosar thought. It’s lying over there where that thing threw it. Its handle has known A’Meer’s hand, and together we’ll slay this monster and move on to Hess. A’Meer’s message is fresh in me. They’ll believe me when I get there. The Mystics will believe me. He glanced across at the sword lying away from the fire, visible only because its blade reflected the dying flames.

“If we fight, you will die,” the Monk said. “I am Lucien Malini.”

“You told me that once before,” Kosar said.

“I’m telling you again in the hope that you may listen.”

“You want me to know your name? You want me to believe that you’re human?”

The Monk frowned. “What else am I?”

“Demon,” Kosar said, looking away.

The Monk was silent for some time. Kosar sat again and listened to the crackle of the dying fire; logs settling, sap popping, flames licking the sky lower and lower as though defeated by the dark.

“Our cause is a good one,” the Monk said at last.

Kosar did not wish to enter into conversation with a demon. It would confuse him, catch him off his guard, make him believe that it was right to let it live and accompany him to Hess. It would be sly and devious, though right now it seemed only sad.

“No cause justifies what you do,” Kosar said. “And you’ve already failed. Three hundred years of murdering innocent people and the Mages snatch magic from beneath your nose.”

The Monk did not reply. It raised its hood and stared into the fire, face hidden from Kosar.

Now, Kosar thought. I could snatch up the sword and take off its head. Kick it into the fire. Watch it scream without voice as the flames eat its eyes, its brain, boiling away the only true memories of A’Meer’s death.

But he still felt weak, and he had lost a lot of blood. And perhaps he would fumble the sword and the Monk would be upon him, accepting the implied decision and killing him before moving on to Hess.

“Do you really believe that Alishia is a chance?” he said. “Or do you want to kill her, as you tried to do with Rafe?”

“We tried to kill the boy to keep magic from the Mages. They have it now. You’re right; the Red Monks have failed. But our cause is still my only reason for being. We could not prevent the bastard Mages from taking the magic, but perhaps I can help win it back.”

Kosar turned his back on the Monk and lay down. He looked up at the dark sky, ribbons of smoke from the fires dispersing when they rose above the Breakers’ ravine. It’s a long way to Hess, he thought. I’m weak. And the world is a dangerous place, more so now than ever. The Breakers proved that.

He closed his eyes, decision made but not yet spoken.

Besides, he thought, revenge can never grow stale.

THEY LEFT THE ravine together, climbing the same cliff path they had descended several hours earlier. The Monk had disappeared for a few minutes before they departed, and when he returned he carried a spray of plants; heathers, leaves, a drooping flower and a soil-encrusted root. He made a paste and told Kosar it would help.

Kosar placed a pinch of the paste beneath his tongue, and by the time they made the climb from the ravine, his pain had faded to a dull throb. He should be stitched, he knew; the wounds on his back were pouting, inviting infection and chafing against his rough shirt. But there was no time. And while he was willing to accept the Monk’s herbal pain relief, Kosar did not like the thought of the demon crouching behind him and stitching him together with sand rat teeth.

He ran his fingertips across the wound in his throat. The tiny curved teeth were still there, holding the edges of the wound together so the flesh could heal. I may be dead before this is mended, he thought. And then I’ll rot away with a throat full of sand rat teeth. He giggled, the sound strange in the silent night, and he was glad that the Monk did not turn to share in the joke.

Lucien Malini had insisted on leading the way out of the ravine. Kosar had seen no reason to argue, and he’d rather have the Monk in front of him than behind. Behind them, all the dangers were dead.

Kosar paused on the cliff path and looked back down to the ravine floor. The giant machine was little more than a shadow, the fires dwindled almost to nothing and the Breakers were dark shapes spread-eagled against the light soil. The Monk had killed their children. No mercy. No qualms. It had been killing for so long that it knew no other way.

“I’m nothing to the Monk,” he whispered. I’m just part of its route to Hess, to the Mystics, to Alishia and whatever magic she may have in her. He turned and watched the figure in red climbing out of the ravine, sword held ready in one hand. It reached the head of the path and turned, waiting for Kosar.

The thief moved on, splaying his fingers so the cool air could kiss his wounds.

KOSAR WAS CONTENT to let the Monk walk ahead. The Monk seemed to accept this. It led the way and Kosar followed, always keeping his sense of Kang Kang’s presence to his right. If the demon tried to edge him northward away from New Shanti, he would know.

He chewed on the paste, welcoming the numbing relief. He did his best to ignore the suspicions that arose in his mind. Taking a drug from a Red Monk? Following it? Not questioning its route, its cause?

Trust the Monk, A’Meer had said in his dream. And while he was certain it was nothingmore than a dream, he did not believe that A’Meer would betray him, even in memory.

Two hours after leaving the ravine, the land began to change. Heathers gave way to hardier plants, the ground cover of grasses and moss became patchy and the smell of the desert drifted in from the north. Heat rode on the breeze, even after several days without the sun. The smell of spice rode with it. We’re approaching New Shanti, he thought. In all his years of wandering, Kosar had never been there.

The Monk stopped ahead of him, drew its sword, and its robe blurred as it became a confusion of swinging limbs.

Kosar dropped to one knee and drew his own blade, grateful for the weight of steel in his hand.

The Monk grunted and slipped onto its back, and shadows swirled above it.

Kosar stood, moved a few paces forward and then paused again.

The Monk lashed out. Something screamed long and loud, and another hack from the Monk’s sword ended the cry.

Kosar could smell blood now, mixed in with the warm hint of spice, and he moved forward again.

“Stay back,” the Monk hissed.

Kosar obeyed, happy to leave the demon to its fight.

What are they? he thought. Skull ravens? There were several shapes dancing around the Monk, darting in and away again, squealing as its blade found them, hissing as they attacked again. The Monk seemed to have limitless energy; the fight went on for some time, and Kosar could not help recalling A’Meer’s tale of her clash with a Monk on the steam plains of Ventgoria. That had lasted a whole night.

The Monk screamed and turned, fell and jumped, ducked and sidestepped, and more shadows fell. It stomped them into the ground whilst continuing its attack.

Kosar sat, wincing when he reached out one hand to the ground and found sand pricking his fingertips.

The fight ended as quickly as it had begun. The Monk dropped one final shadow and stepped back, tripping over its own feet and landing hard on the ground. Kosar went to it, his sword drawn in case the things rose again. As he closed on the fallen Monk, he was not sure which to keep his eyes on the most: the Monk, its bloodied sword still pointing skyward; or the dead things on the ground, their shapes indefinable, their smell mysterious and potent.

The Monk saw him coming and stood.

“Sand demon,” the Monk said.

“Just one?”

“They have many parts.”

Kosar looked down at what the Monk had done. He could not identify any of the parts on the ground. There were long, thin shadows that may have been tentacles, one small round chunk that could have been a head. Flames seeped from some of the wounds, weak and blue, guttering and going out as Kosar watched. The Monk trod down on one of the larger flames and crushed it into the sandy soil.

“It was a strong one,” the Monk said. “They usually don’t come this far south. They stay in the heart of the desert, preying on those foolish enough to cross.”

“How do you know all this? Surely you don’t spend much time this close to New Shanti? The Shantasi hate the Monks.”

“Everyone hates us,” Lucien Malini said. “And I know because I spent a lot of my youth reading.”

“At the Monastery?”

“Yes, there was a library there. Huge.”

“Alishia is a librarian.”

The Monk raised an eyebrow in surprise but said no more.

They walked on, moving together this time, but it took Kosar some time to say what was on his mind. “That thing would have killed me.”

“It may not have revealed itself to you. Sand demons are not all of this world. They…span.”

“But if it had so chosen, it would have killed me.”

The Monk grunted. “They’re very strong, yes.” He nursed his left arm, chewing herbs and pressing them into wounds hidden beneath his robe.

I’m thinking of the demon as a “he” now, Kosar thought. I can’t let myself trust it.

“It revealed itself to you,” the thief said.

“As I said, everyone hates Red Monks.”

They walked on, crossing land that was quickly turning to desert. A hundred miles to Hess, Kosar thought. Maybe a little more. He wondered what would happen when the Shantasi discovered him in the company of a Red Monk.

The Red Monk who had killed A’Meer.

Kosar stared at Lucien Malini’s sword.

TREY WAS IN the home-cavern back in the fledge mines, alone this time, and there were a hundred fledge demons in there with him. It was dark and he made his way by touch, but whenever he neared the entrance to a current mine working, the pain came, so loud and brash that he scampered back into the cavern, hiding in caves, circling the great pillars and lying low in the Church.

The Nax made the darkness their own, creeping around him with every heartbeat. He could smell them, taste them on the air, and they were as alien to him as the topside he had never seen.

He moved across the cavern floor, dodging heavy points of darkness that signified a Nax. He approached another mine working and felt a different pain possessing the rest of his body: the agony of wanting. The scorch of the fledge rage lit up his flesh and bone.

Perhaps one of the Nax would save him? They were fledge demons after all, coated in the stuff, some even said they were made from fledge in its purest, most intense form. Perhaps one of the Nax…?

He moved forward and the pain exploded in his mind.

For an instant, the home-cave was illuminated. The Nax were not ignoring him at all. They were gathered around him, some less than an arm’s length away. They hung from the ceiling high above on threads of fledge, crawled on the walls of the cavern before him, slid up and down the wide column fifty steps to his left, allstaring at him, surrounding him as completely as the darkness that quickly returned.

He opened his mouth to scream, but the Nax were the air.

He ran toward the tunnel once again, certain that its dark mouth was the only place where the Nax had not gathered. Heading for topside brought the pain again, lighting his way and displaying in a flash the hundreds of Nax lining his route. They reached for him as the light blinked out-limbs, wings, flaming tongues-but none of them could touch him in the dark.

He reached the mouth of the working and entered, running through the agony of his upper body.

It’s the fledge rage, he thought, torturing me more than the wounds Hope gave me, tearing me up from the inside, giving me nightmares when I’m already in one.

He ran through the mines, cringing away from the walls of Nax that each flash of pain revealed. It was as though they saw him only when the pain came, but by the time they reached for him he had willed it down again.

The light became more rhythmic, the pain more regular, the claws of the Nax closer and closer to ripping into his dreaming flesh.

He saw himself through their eyes, with their minds. He was nothing amazing at all.

TREY OPENED HIS eyes. However terrible reality might be, he welcomed it.

He was cold. The sky was stained the color of stale fledge by the death moon. The life moon seemed to be fighting a losing battle, and Trey stared at it in the hope that it would grow.

His head thumped with fledge rage. A lump of it-a grain, fresh or stale, beneficial or fatal-would take the pain away. Fledge would carry him home, back to the place he should have never left. Sonda and his mother were dead down there in the ground, two miles below and hundreds of miles away from him, but at least he would have been dead with them had he found the courage to stay.

His arm and chest were boiling hot, freezing cold. Blood still flowed freely across his body, passed between his arm and his side, tickled his armpit, seeped to the ground and dripped down onto the thing Hope had recently emerged from. Trey could feel himself open to the night. He raised his good arm and laid it across his chest, and he touched the meat of himself there, parts he should have never felt. He stank of his own blood.

Hope killed me, he thought, and his mind recoiled. No!

He remembered the look on her face as she lashed out with his disc-sword. He had killed stingers with that weapon in the caves, and it had tasted Red Monk blood at the battle in the machines’ graveyard. Now its steel was smeared with him, its handle spattered with his blood, and perhaps soon that would be the last of him.

No! he thought again. Alishia…

A terrible fear took him, a dreadful certainty. He moaned and rolled onto his right side. His left arm struck the ground, the slashed muscles denying him control. The flame of agony illuminated his night for a few seconds, but this time there were no Nax waiting for him. I dreamed them, he thought. They’re still my nightmare, even lying here like this. He lifted his head and looked around.

He was lying where he had fallen, next to the hole in the ground from which Hope had emerged ranting and mad. Alishia had been lying close to him when Hope came up, asleep or unconscious, and he searched for her now. Perhaps Hope had gone mad and killed them both. Perhaps she had found her thing in the ground wanting, and now she was raving across Noreela seeking her own demise.

But Alishia was not lying where he had left her.

Trey rolled onto his back again and looked left, biting his lip against the pain. No Alishia.

Had the witch killed the girl and tumbled her into the hole?

He rolled again, shifting himself around to try to see into the ground, but there was still no sign of Alishia.

I need to sit up.

It took Trey a long time to raise himself into a sitting position. Each breath hurt, every movement was agony, and he was starting to feel faint as blood loss darkened the dusk. But once up he could look around, and he was now certain that Hope had taken Alishia with her.

There’s no way I can give chase, he thought. He was sure that he was dying. The pain scoured his soul, seeking to pluck it from his body, and if that happened he would be just another lost wraith waiting for someone to chant him into the Black. There’s no way I can go after her. He looked south toward Kang Kang, those distant teeth set in the edge of Noreela. It had taken him an hour to sit up, and it would take him an age to go that far.

He tried. He managed to stand, swayed, biting his lip until he tasted blood, trying to chase away the faintness and find the stance that suited him best. He reached across his body with his right hand and grabbed his left sleeve. He lifted, head back so that he could look at the sky, and brought his slashed arm up until it was pressed across his body just below his chest.

He was crying. The tears carried a subtle taint of fledge and he licked them from his upper lip, knowing they would have no effect but welcoming their taste.

If I don’t die from blood loss, the fledge rage will be waiting.

He braced his left arm against his body, popped two buttons on his shirt and pushed his hand inside.

Trey gasped and almost fell. He thought perhaps he could move like this. His legs shook and his thigh muscles felt as though they were ready to cramp, but he set one foot in front of the other, one at a time, avoiding shadowed areas that might hide a pit or a hole, and he took ten steps south.

That’s how I can do it, he thought. One step at a time. Concentrate…There, one step closer to Alishia. And another…and another.

But however much he tried, however hard, Trey could not fool himself. He would be dead long before he reached Kang Kang.

TREY WALKED ACROSS the bare ground, craving grass and soil, bracken and heather beneath his feet. He was used to rock, but since coming topside he had realized that rock was merely the bone of the land. The living part of Noreela was what grew and lived upon it.

Where he was now, Noreela felt dead. The stone was cool and uncompromising beneath his feet. His blood splashed darkly across its surface, looking like holes in the moonlight. At least there’s life there, he thought. But it would not last for long.

He had no idea how far he had come. He was concentrating too much on placing one foot in front of the other to judge distance, and his only gauge of the passage of time was the need to urinate. He stood still to piss, and ignored the exhaustion that threatened to topple him. If he lay down to rest he was doubtful that he would ever rise again; the bare, dead skeleton of Noreela would suck the life from him and he would lie there forever.

He felt the weight of that unnatural cloud above him, swirling so slowly that its movement was barely noticeable. He glanced up only once, but the sight made him woozy, its weight tugging at him until he was ready to fall. It may come down, he thought. It may all come down again. But even that fear could not increase his speed.

Then something howled in the darkness. It seemed to come from a long way off at first, but after a pause another cry sounded from much closer. Trey fell to the ground and crawled into a depression in the rock, fearing that the creatures would smell his blood and tear him apart. He had no idea what animals would be wandering here. If Kosar were with him…

But Kosar had left Alishia in Trey’s care, trusting him with the girl because he knew that Trey thought highly of her.

Trey closed his eyes and thought of Alishia’s beautiful face and the dark, closed mind he had seen on one of his fledge trips. She had been so much like Rafe; so much power hidden away. It was confusing that someone so powerful needed protecting, but it had been the same with Rafe, and he had seen the way that ended.

This won’t be the same!

A creature howled so close that Trey could almost feel the warmth of its breath. Another answered from the distance, and another, and he realized why he had not been able to place where the call came from: there were many of them, not just one. The howls started deep, rising in tone until they almost disappeared from his range of hearing. He could not tell whether they were in pain or on the hunt, harmful or harmless. Whatever they were, they sounded big.

Trey tried to hold his breath. The pain of his wounds was fresh and bright, still lighting corners of his mind but revealing nothing like the dream.

I’ve never heard the Nax, he thought, and the idea that it was them out there made him gasp.

He caught his breath and held it again, terrified at the silence.

Something walked by. It was moving slowly, yet the footfalls were rapid, as though it had more than four feet. He opened his eyes and looked without moving his head, ready at any moment for a shadow to fall across him and cut the moonlight from view. I can’t fight. I have no weapon. I’m wounded and bleeding and weak. It’s hopeless.

The creature paused and Trey heard the distinctive sound of something sniffing the air.

No hope since the Nax attacked.

A low growl, rumbling behind a closed mouth.

Something else controlled us with Rafe. So does something steer me even now?

The animal held its breath.

Whatever I do, it’s destined to be.

Trey gasped in another breath, sat up and shouted as loud as he could. Something whined briefly to his left and then dashed away, a huge shadow bounding from rock to rock, multiple limbs slapping down to accompany its squeals of terror. He shouted again, and in the distance he heard similar sounds of fear from the other fleeing creatures.

He screamed again, for himself this time, and with nothing to dampen the scream it echoed across the landscape, perhaps still traveling even when it had passed beyond his own hearing. He sat there panting, sucking in breath after breath to make up for his fear, and he liked to think that his scream would reach Hope, struggling with Alishia flung over her shoulder or leading the girl on foot. Perhaps his cry would make her wish she had remained behind to finish the job, instead of leaving him half dead. Or perhaps not. He thought of her eyes, her rambling, and decided that she was probably too mad to be afraid.

He stood again, easing himself to his feet and fighting the sudden nausea. He could not afford to lose any fluid or the meager contents of his stomach; Hope had left him with nothing, and if this stripped landscape extended much farther he would die from thirst.

Steady, his vision level, Trey started on his way once more.

HE WALKED FOR a long time, still only counting one footstep after another. He reached a couple of hundred and started again, trying to forget how many times he had done so. He had come a long way. The mountains of Kang Kang loomed closer, approaching almost too fast, as though he were running rather than hobbling. They were taller than he had imagined, harsher, and their peaks glowed white in the moonlight.

Snow, he thought. He had never seen it. But somehow he knew that snow from Kang Kang was snow never meant to be seen.

His wounds hurt abominably, and the fledge rage blurred the edges of his senses, lodged behind his vision and hiding just below his perception of hearing. It would be so easy to curl up and let the rage smother the physical pain of his wounds. After that would be madness, and after that death, either from blood loss or from his failing heart. Fledgers in the final throes of withdrawal could make an easy choice: accept death, or fight. Most fought.

But his mother had not sacrificed herself so that he could lie down here and die. Maybe she had seen a purpose in his eyes. Perhaps it had always been there, or maybe their flight up from the home-cavern had made her see him in a whole new way. She had slipped away and thrown herself into a deep crevasse, ensuring that she remained underground forever. She had not been sad when she died; he had traveled to her, and she had told him that this was what she wanted. She was slowing him down. Without her, he would stand a chance of reaching the rising and going topside.

She had been right. And now there was something else slowing him down; his wounds, and the rage. If only they would leave him so willingly.

PERHAPS A DAY passed. Trey fought the urge to sit and rest, fearing that he would not be able to stand again. Many times he believed that he saw Hope and Alishia in the distance, but when he concentrated on the spot where he thought he’d seen movement, the shadows grew still once again.

They can’t be that far ahead, he thought. If Hope is carrying the girl, then she’ll be moving as slowly as me, and if Alishia is walking, she’ll be taking a child’s steps.

He saw a haze of shadows moving back and forth over the ground. At first he thought it was his failing vision, but when he stood still he could hear the soft whisper of their movement. They did not change direction to come toward him. They did not pause to stare. They drifted back and forth just above the ground, passing around and through one another without interruption, and Trey diverted around the place the shadows circled. He tried to see-leaned closer than he should, almost feeling a shadow touch his skin-but there was only a hole in the ground. Darkness made it impenetrable. By the time he had left the shadows behind, Trey was glad.

His wounds demanded attention. His bicep was split and still bleeding-movement ensured the wound remained open-and his chest was slashed to the bone. Sometimes he thought he could smell the beginnings of rot, but he put it down to his unwashed body and clothes, that slightly musty smell of age and decay. He hated to attribute it to the injuries. If the smell came from them, then his blood was turning poisonous, and he would be dead in hours.

My disc-sword has tasted Monk blood, he thought, but he tried to shut that from his mind.

He had no water or food. When he pissed, he caught as much as he could in his good hand and drank it, cringing against the taste but aware that he could not lose the fluid. He had learned harsh lessons from miners who had been trapped for weeks after rockfalls. Drink your own piss, they said, otherwise it’s a waste. And eat your own dead, because if it takes weeks to be dug out that’s all the food you’ll have. At least then they won’t have died in vain.

Kang Kang loomed closer and larger than ever. Sometimes Trey thought he could reach out and touch its mountains, and when he tried, his fingers grew cold, as though buried in the snow capping their upper reaches. Even having spent his life deep beneath the ground, still he knew of Kang Kang. Awrong place, someone had called it. Kosar? Hope? He could not recall, but he trusted their words. It felt wrong even now, miles distant and all but hidden by this unnatural dusk. There was something both alluring and repulsive about the mountains, a sense carried in the air and through the ground. He could not make out exactly where that feeling came from, but it confused his already weakened mind and toyed with his fledge-teased senses.

He bent over and almost vomited, shaking his head to rid it of the smells, the tastes, the sounds.

And then he smelled fledge.

He knelt on the rocky ground, and something compacted beneath his left knee. He looked down, trying not to lose his balance-he felt disoriented, unsure of up and down-and lifted his knee. Mud, wet and slick.

He looked up and sniffed again, smelling fledge and feeling his whole body crave its touch on his tongue, its taste in his mind. His joints ached with the rage.

Mud?

And there before him, several hundred steps away, the ground began to show the darker patches of covering once more. He was almost at the edge of the desert of rock.

“Thank the Black,” Trey whispered, and something close by responded with a hiss, and a touch of some vision on his mind.

He saw himself standing there alone and covered with blood, scared, abandoned, a fledger aboveground and as removed from his environment as he could ever be. And as he wondered how he could be seeing himself like this, the smell of fledge grew overpowering and he tipped forward. Before he struck the ground, something came between him and the rock.

Something hot.

HE WAS BATHING in fledge. He was underground-in a dream or reality, he neither knew nor cared-and around him the drug was crumbling, giving itself to his touch, finding his wounds and soothing them, pricking his tongue with its tangy freshness, setting his blood and his brain afire and readying his mind for any journey he wished to take. It was the freshest fledge he had ever encountered, as though he had found it not only before it was touched or mined, but at the actual moment of its creation. There had been much speculation as to what fledge was and how it came into being: it was grown by the Nax, itwas the Nax, it was the fallout from Nax dreams. But the simple truth of the drug had often done away with such musings. It was like questioning the existence of air or the origins of water, questions both pointless and faithless. What mattered was that they were there.

Trey welcomed in another mouthful, chewing the perfect grittiness into a paste, swilling it between his teeth and below his tongue and letting it slip down his throat. It set his flesh alight and took away much of the pain. Something else touched his mouth, briefly but definitely. He opened his eyes but there was nothing to see, so he closed his eyes again and welcomed some more of the crumbling fledge inside.

He was moving, slipping through a seam of the drug as though he were a fledge demon, steered between rough stone walls and protruding rocks. The drug parted around him easier than it ever should have, coming apart before him and joining again behind. And it whispered all the time, giving him ideas and images that he would never have imagined himself.

The fledge rage retreated, defeated and petulant. He was happy to feel it go.

I can travel, he thought, and he set his mind free of his body, moving away and only glancing back once.

He obscured what he saw from his mind. The drug made it easy to do so.

Trey traveled, up out of the ground and into the cool dusky night. He spun and rose in the air, trying to decide which way to go. North would only take him back over the ground he had just traversed, and he had no wish to see that ruined landscape again. South…that would take him closer to Kang Kang, and while that was not a place he wanted to go, he had need to travel there. He must find Hope and Alishia, and make sure that the girl was still alive.

He moved through the air, a mind separate from body yet still inextricably linked. The ground below soon returned to normal, and he passed through the huge banking of uprooted trees, soil, rocks and dead creatures that marked the limit of this strange effect. He sensed little still alive in that pile of detritus: a sheebok here, a snake there, shaken and confused by what had happened and still trapped. They would be dead soon. He emerged from the other side of the mound into open air once more, expecting to find a normal landscape below him: trees and scrub, rocks and gulleys. Streams, perhaps, originating in the foothills of Kang Kang and venting out onto the plains. Even dwellings.

But what he found was anything but normal.

This was the edge of Kang Kang; its first small hills, its border region, pushing against the rest of Noreela like opposing poles on two swing-sticks. Trey paused high in the air, disoriented and confused for the few seconds it took him to level out and calm down.

The ground below looked like the diseased skin of a buried giant. Here and there soil had filled a hollow and given rise to small shrubs, grasses and trees, but most of what he could see was a pale, pitted surface, marred by conical vents gushing steam. The steam flowed southward toward Kang Kang, dispersing into a mist. The light from both moons reflected through the mist, casting shifting shadows on the ground below.

Trey dipped lower, moving into the steam to hover close to one of the vents.

He recoiled as a slew of images struck him, each with a distinct emotional impact. He wanted to cry and laugh, cower with fear and march on unafraid, but the visions were confused, their implications sensed rather than seen or felt. The instant he thought he had an understanding of one image, it flitted away to be replaced by another.

The ground was venting memories that Trey could not understand. He was glad. They tasted of painful histories, and right now it was the future that concerned him most.

The vent resembled a pustule on bad skin, except a thousand times larger, standing as tall as a man and its surface so stretched and tight that it was almost translucent. He wondered whether he would find any memories of the future inside, so he moved back down. But the vent would allow him no access. He moved around it and tried again, probing with his disembodied consciousness, feeling strong from the fledge but still unable to see inside this thing pouring memories from the land.

The flow from the vent’s mouth was fast, tempting and hypnotic, and Trey had to force himself away. If he submitted to its allure, perhaps he would be lost in Kang Kang’s memories until he became one of them.

And then, struggling away from the flue, he saw movement farther up the hillside.

Hope was dragging Alishia after her across the strange ground. The girl was struggling behind the witch, trying hard to keep up. Hope had a tight hold on Alishia’s hand.

Trey closed in quickly, pausing above the witch and listening to her insane babble.

“All gone, all lost, come with me, come on, girl, keep up! We’re nearly there, we’ll find the place and the place will find us, and I’ll be there when you’re there. Forget the past, forget what happened here, don’tbreathe if that’s what it takes, it’s misdirection. Kang Kang fooling us into thinking it’s stillalive… Keep up, girl!” She tugged at Alishia’s hand and the librarian began to cry.

Alishia was smaller than ever, her clothes hanging on her as though she were barely there at all. Her eyes were watery, dark rings beneath them, and the skin of her face looked sallow and sweaty.

What’s happening to her? Trey thought. But he knew without asking, and without going closer, and without dipping into her mind to try to tell her everything was going to be all right.

She’s dying.

Trey moved closer to Alishia and passed inside her, looking for that vibrant young woman he had known for such a short, precious time. But he found something else instead, a place that drove him away like steam from one of the land’s vents: a burning library, books falling, blackened paper floating on the air, words and history of Noreela becoming ash and dust beneath his gaze.

“What’s that?” the witch squealed, thrashing around her head with Trey’s disc-sword.

Trey tumbled from Alishia and rose high into the air, looking only upward because he did not wish to know what down revealed. The dusk persisted, always dusk, and he stopped only when he became afraid that he would never find the ground again.

Trey returned eventually to his own body, finding it deep beneath the ground. And slipping back inside, he realized where he was, and began to wonder why.

THE NAX MADE hollows in the wide fledge seam and moved Trey ever southward.

The miner was more petrified than he had ever been before. His heart fluttered like a bird trapped within the cage of his chest. The fledge flooded his system and tried to calm him, but he could sense what was moving him. He could feel their shapes and forms, and they were wrong. He could hear their voices, words he could never know, and they were wrong. He could sense their minds around him, inviting him to enter, urging him to view things through their own world, and every touch of their thoughts was very, very wrong. Trey opened his mouth to scream but there was no air to draw into his lungs, only fledge. He inhaled anyway.

Soon, he was drowning.

Tim Lebbon

Dawn