Every evening, when my work is done and Victoria is safely in bed, I go to the window and stare down the valley. I watch and wait. Extepan hasn’t finished with us yet, I’m certain of that, otherwise he wouldn’t have provided for us. He wouldn’t have put us here, in this place, he wouldn’t have left the necklace as a remembrance, he wouldn’t have arranged for this other Bevan to be on hand. He hasn’t finished with us because he’s scarcely started with this world. The Aztecs now rule mine, but they live by conquest. I know it’s only a matter of time before they build tunnels big enough to send whole armies through, tunnels which will enable them to extend their empire by conquering another world. Here, things are different, and they will find armies aplenty to test their mettle. But none, ultimately, to resist them. In the end, their onslaught will be irresistible.
I don’t know when it will come, but I’m certain it shall. So I sit at the window each evening, turning the necklace in my hands, looking down the valley while Victoria sleeps and the house lies silent around me. I search the skies for points of light which will tell me that at last it has begun, at last it has begun again.
They will come in their shining ships to conquer and destroy, barbarians of gold and feathers and serpents of fire. There are days when I firmly believe this, days when I consider it an absurd delusion. Every evening I watch and wait with fear and longing.
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Also by Christopher Evans
Aztec Century
Capella’s Golden Eyes
Chimeras
Icetower
In Limbo
Mortal Remains
Omega
The Insider
The Twilight Realm (writing as Christopher Carpenter)
About the Author
Christopher Evans (1951–)
Born in Wales in 1951, Christopher Evans won the BSFA award in 1993 for his novel Aztec Century. In the 1980s, he co-edited three Other Edens anthologies with Robert Holdstock, and as well as the science fiction published under his own name, he is the author of a number of well received books for younger readers under the pseudonym Nathan Elliott, and a handful of film novelisations. His recent work, Omega, was his first for adults in almost a decade.
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Christopher Evans 1993
All rights reserved.
The right of Christopher Evans to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2013 by Gollancz The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 10255 2
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.