How many? says Tommo.
A hunnerd twenny three, says Ash. That’s accordin to Auriel. An she should know.
I feel instantly sick. Seein ’em all here like this, all together, it hits me. They’re my responsibility now.
Over the Yann Gap, says Tommo. But we wrecked that bridge.
There’s a new one, says Ash. The Pathfinder’s bin busy. An not jest the bridge. They also cleared the Wraithway of yer pals, them skull collectors. How’s about this, Saba? Struck dumb, huh?
Dumb. Shocked. But I take in what she says. DeMalo’s built his bridgehead to the west. Of course he has. The maps in the seedstore roll out in my mind. The land an the waters, to the west, east, north, south. All of it DeMalo’s to control.
Take me to Auriel, I says.
By this time the kids is on top of us. Grubby urchins, gabblin an leapin with excitement as they help with the horses an cart. Then they’re all upon us. We’re swept along in a tide of warm bodies towards the camp. These people who’ve trekked from the Snake River. What a difference from the first time we met them there. With fear-filled faces an weapons in their hands, they would of done us mortal harm had Auriel not stopped ’em. They’d fled fer their lives from DeMalo an the Tonton. An they knew about me, the Angel of Death who’d razed Hopetown to the ground. Him an me was one an the same in their eyes, bringers of misery an death.
Now they’re wantin to shake our hands. There’s nods an smiles an the chatter of hopefulness surrounds me. I reckanise quite a few. They’re dry folk, these people, parched in body an spirit. Stand ’em next to the fresh green Stewards, they’d look poor specimens indeed.
Who are the best stewards of the earth? The old and weak? The sick? Or the young and the strong? There isn’t enough clean water or good land to go around. You know that.
DeMalo’s words hiss in me. Slither in dark corners. Be silent, be gone, yer his thoughts, not mine.
Make way! Make way! Slim sails a path through the crowd, belly-first. Molly follows in his wake. His gappy grin stretches ear to ear. Whaddya say, Angel? Does all this put yer mind at rest?
I cain’t believe it, I says.
We’d barely got here ourselfs when they pitched up, says Molly. They caught us on the hop. But they jest set to without no fuss, diggin latrines an all else.
A wiry little man pardons his way through. He’s got a woman with worn red hair by the hand. They’ve both bin edged sharply by a lifetime of want. They got springtime years but wintertime faces. I don’t s’pose you remember us, he says.
You s’pose wrong, I says. How are you, Ruth? An—
Webb, he says. Webb Reno, ma’am. Ruth’s hangin on, ain’tcha girl? Not givin up, jest like you told her to. You did us a great service that time. We come to help you fight. I mean me.
I’m glad to see you both, I says. What about food? I says to Slim. An water?
Only waterhole’s half a league off, says Slim. Moses don’t mind playin water carrier.
We didn’t have time to collect much in the way of provisions, says Molly. With what they brought, there’s enough fer a few days. I tell you somethin. She leans in close an lowers her voice. Some of these folk ain’t in the best shape, but every last one of ’em’s hell bent on doin their bit.
Beg pardon, ma’am, says Webb Reno. But d’you think there’s any chance we can find our girl they took? Our Nell? It’s all Ruth lives fer, me too, to have her back with us.
That trigger inside my head. It clicks agin. Nell. The same age as Emmi. If she’s still alive, she’ll be at Edenhome. We need a way in there. Maybe this man is it. I says, I cain’t promise nuthin. But let’s talk about it later.
When yer starved of hope, even lean words can make a meal. A spark leaps in their flat, faded eyes.
Oh, thank you! Thank you! Ruth seizes my hand an kisses it before I can stop her.
I ease from her grasp, gentle as I can. I says, If the day comes that I earn yer thanks, Ruth, offer me yer hand. I’ll be honoured to take it. Hand to hand, eye to eye. That’s what’s fittin between people.
I surely will, she says.
The crowd surges us towards Auriel Tai. I can see her waitin in front of her tent that’s bin pitched atop a small rise in the land. The same high-peaked tent made of tatters an patches that I remember so well from the Snake. The wind twitches at her long black shift.
I ain’t met everybody on this earth there is to meet. Still, I know there cain’t be none other like Auriel. This star reader servant of the light. Sixteen an fine boned as a sparrow, with skin the clear white of a watery moon. Her milkfire hair hangs loose to her waist, threaded with feathers an beads. A dark eyeshield covers her eyes. Any glint of light—the sun on water, say—can set her off in a vision so fierce she’ll be laid out cold on the ground.
Auriel knows my black water. She knows it like nobody else. In night skies an lightnin, she’s read me. Past an future. Mind an soul. She’s roamed the grey plains of my dreams.
I knew what she looked like. I knew her to be sixteen. But her power is such that since I left her at the Snake, my memory’s changed her to someone more like Mercy. A older woman with long knowledge of the world. A little spray of shock hits me at the sight of this small girl.
As I stop jest below her on the slope, Nero lands on my shoulder. I can feel the press of bodies behind me. All of my people. All of her people.
She stands there quietly. The chatter stops dead. She raises her voice so none miss her words. They fall clear as spring rain upon a lake. The hotwind dies down, as if soothed by the sound.
The starworld is unsettled, she says. Change in the skies foretells change here on earth. The stars told us to leave our Snake River camp. They sent us here to this place. They sent us to be of service to Saba. My Snake River friends know this land well. It was their land before the Pathfinder came. Before he stole it from them an named it New Eden. He stole their children, their hope fer the future. He killed an enslaved their loved ones. Their friends an their neighbours. They fled in fear of their lives. Yet here they are, returned. Prepared to risk all in the hope of real freedom. The stars say that hope lies with Saba. We wait upon her command.
She motions fer me to come to her. As I go up the slope, settin Nero loose to fly, my Free Hawks crowd behind me. Slim an Molly, Ash an Creed, Tommo an Lugh.
I glance back at them. I’ll see her on my own, I says.
Lugh says, But surely I can—
On my own, Lugh, I says.
He stops with a frown. He has a iron dislike fer Auriel, forged in his soul by our star-scarred life. He despised her the moment he set eyes on her at the Snake. Thanks to our misbegotten father, he’s always spat at the very mention of star readin. Auriel ain’t no never-was, not like Pa. But despite that she proved to a certainty she ain’t no fake—maybe becuz she did—Lugh will not give her credence. He’d claim disbelief even if she raised our mother from the dead right in front of him.
She’s holdin the tent flap open. As I’m about to duck inside, she lays a cool hand on my arm. Where’s Emmi? she says.
Not here, I says. She’s back at base.
Auriel goes completely still. Jest fer a moment. Like that warn’t the answer she espected. Then, Come in, Saba, she says.
The tent of a shaman ain’t jest her home. It’s the place where seekers come. To hear her speak startold secrets of their lives. To journey drugged dreams born of strange powders on the fire. It’s odd to see Auriel’s tent here in New Eden, jest as it was at the Snake. The cot, the stool, the chest, the little table. All of it plain, rough stuff. By the firepit, her rocker chair an tin box of dream powders. Their smell hangs thick in the air. Sweet an sharp an strange.