He had probably been no more than ten years old. He’d come so far, only to fail at the very threshold of salvation. What do we living know about true irony? His face was leather skin pulled taut over bones. The huge eyes belonged to someone else. He’d lost his eyelashes, his eyebrows.
Had he been remembering those times before this march? That other world? She doubted it. She was older and she remembered very little. Patchy images, wrought dreams crowded with impossible things. Thick green leaves-a garden? Amphorae with glistening flanks, something wonderful in her mouth. A tongue free of sores, lips devoid of splits, a flashing smile-were any of these things real? Or did they belong to her fantastic dreams that haunted her now day and night?
I grow wings. I fly across the world, across many worlds. I fly into paradise and leave desolation in my wake, because I feed on all that I see. I devour it whole. I am discoverer and destroyer both. Somewhere awaits the great tomb, the final home of my soul. I will find it yet. Tomb, palace, when you’re dead what’s the difference? There I will reside for ever, embraced by my insatiable hunger.
She’d dreamed of children. Looking down from a great height. Watching them march in their tens of thousands. They had cattle, mules and oxen. Many rode horses. They glittered blindingly in the hard sunlight, as if they bore the treasures of the world on their backs. Children, but not her children.
And then the day ended and darkness bled to the earth, and she dreamed that it was at last time to descend, spiralling, moaning through the air. She would strike swiftly, and if possible unseen by any. There were magics below, in that vast multi-limbed camp. She had to avoid brushing those. If need be, she would kill to silence, but this was not her true task.
She dreamed her eyes-and she had more of those than she should, no matter-fixed upon the two burning spots she sought. Bright golden hearth-flames-she had been tracking them for a long time now, in service to the commands she had been given.
She was descending upon the children.
To steal fire.
Strange dreams, yes, but it seemed they existed for a reason. The deeds done within them had purpose, and this was more than anything real could manage.
The Quitters had been driven away. By song, by poems, by words. Brayderal, the betrayer among them, had vanished into the city. Rutt oversaw the ribby survivors, and everyone slept in cool rooms in buildings facing on to a broad fountain in the centre of which stood a crystal statue weeping the sweetest water. It was never quite enough-not for them all-and the basin of the surrounding pool was fissured with cracks that drank with endless thirst. But they were all managing to drink just enough to stay alive.
Behind a glittering building they’d found an orchard, the trees of a type none had seen before. Fruits massed on the branches, each one long and sheathed in a thick skin the colour of dirt. The pulp within was soft and impossibly succulent. It filled the stomach with no pangs. They’d quickly eaten them all, but the next day Saddic had found another orchard, bigger than the first one, and then yet another. Starvation had been eluded. For now.
Of course, they continued to eat those children who for whatever reason still died-no one could think of wasting anything. Never again.
Badalle walked the empty streets closer to the city’s heart. A palace occupied the centre, the only structure in the city that had been systematically destroyed, smashed down as if with giant mallets and hammers. From the mounds of shattered crystals Badalle had selected a shard as long as her forearm. Having wrapped rags around one end she now held a makeshift weapon.
Brayderal was still alive. Brayderal still wanted to see them all dead. Badalle meant to find her first, find her and kill her.
As she walked, she whispered her special poem. Brayderal’s poem. Her poem of killing.
‘Where is my child of justice?
I have a knife that will speak true
To the very heart
Where is my child of justice?
Spat out so righteously
On a world meant to kneel
In slavery
Where is my child of justice?
I want to read your proof
Of what you say you deserve
I will see your knife
Where is my child of justice?
Let us lock blades
You claim whatever you please
I claim no right but you’
She had sailed down in her dreams. She had stolen fire. No blood had been shed, no magics were awakened. The children slept on, seeing nothing, peaceful in ignorance. When they awoke, they would face the rising sun, and begin the day’s march.
By this detail alone she knew that these children were indeed strangers.
She’d looked upon the boy until life left him. Then, with Rutt and Saddic and two dozen others, she had eaten him. Chewing on the stringy, bloody meat, she thought back to that look in his eyes. Knowing, calm, revealing nothing.