And there is their ammunition.
They will call it down as they did before and it will break the world.
Like a cracked pot.
He must let her know that she was right. He shuffled on.
At some point the rain had stopped and the sun had risen and now he found he walked a wide grassy field flanked by woods. But this jungle was not the untamed wilderness of Himatan. It was a cultured forest of alternating trees planted or selected to grow in ordered ranks. Beneath and between grew bushes, brush and rows of mixed plants.
Somehow he knew that each of these plants, trees included, provided food or other resources, and all with enough regularity and bounty to sustain a sizeable population. All without agriculture as he understood it. Children ran by squealing and chasing one another. They wore only simple loin wraps, their heads were shaved, and they waved to him as they ran. He tried to speak but found he could only mumble. Some of the children carried baskets and long poles with hooks at their ends. As he passed they offered mangoes, star fruit, citrus, and many other fruits he could not name.
Breaking up the leagues of orchards were long reservoirs that served fields bearing the stubble of rice harvesting. This strange dreamland appeared to be a prosperous, peaceful region. And here and there, dotting the side of the track he walked, stood the cyclopean heads all bearing the carved imprint of the same face, ever watchful, ever present. The face of Kallor, the High King.
So this was a dream of the Kallorian Empire — one of humanity’s first. Brought low by hubris and insane lust for power. Or so the legends would have it. It was perhaps a drifting memory of the place. A memory snagged by the crack in his head.
The day waned, darkening quickly into a swift nightfall. He passed huts now. Simple affairs of bamboo and leaves standing on poles. Yet all was quiet. The children had disappeared. He crossed close to the open front of one such hut and there within he glimpsed the family asleep. The children and parents lay all sprawled together across the floor. Something dark dripped from the threshold in a steady stream.
Pon-lor tottered away; his head hurt. Further men, women and children lay about the village. In their discoloured faces and strained gasping expressions he recognized the symptoms of a common ingested poison, one easy to prepare.
A lone figure, an old man, emerged from one hut. He started towards him. He carried a gourd before him in both hands. In his tear-stained cheeks and wide staring eyes Pon-lor read desolation.
‘They must not take him,’ the old man told him, pleading. ‘Why must they do this thing?’
He tried to speak but his tongue would not move.
The old man dropped the gourd, clasped a hand at his throat. ‘I volunteered to be the one,’ he explained, weeping. ‘I would not lay this terrible burden upon anyone else.’ He fell to his knees, peered up at Pon-lor through tears. ‘We would not live … He is ours …’ He swayed, convulsing, gasping for breath.
Pon-lor watched, knowing the poison’s mounting grasp of the man’s body. He saw the panic as the diaphragm muscles seized. The man, or ghost, or delusion, toppled then to lie immobile. Pon-lor shuffled on. All this was long gone. Ashes. Ages gone. High above, the Visitor arced like a flaming brand tossed by the gods.
One soon to fall.
Ahead, the gouged track shot arrow-straight like a line worked into the ground in an immense league-spanning earthwork. The way seemed to point to some sort of convergence of paths far beyond what he could immediately see. Yet converge they did.
He would trace it just as he would the crack in his head.
* * *
Two days after falling into the river Ina felt very weak. So weak in fact that she had a difficult time keeping up with T’riss — who set a very slow pace indeed. Her wounded hand blazed with pain. Her nerves there felt as if they were on fire. Yet the grass cuts did not appear infected.
She walked with T’riss, saying nothing, though drops of sweat ran from behind her mask and her breaths came tight and short with suppressed pain. So gripped was she on the need to contain the agony that it was some time before she noticed that T’riss was speaking to her.
‘I’m sorry?’ she gasped, flinching her surprise.
The Enchantress regarded her steadily as they walked. She brushed aside the broad heavy fronds of a giant fern. ‘Are you unwell?’ she finally enquired, as if suggesting something utterly alien.
Ina considered denying it, or dismissing the situation as minor, but her duties as bodyguard demanded that she acknowledge her weakened state — and potential failure to serve adequately. She drew her fingers across her sweaty slick brow above her mask. ‘Yes, m’lady. I feel … quite unwell.’
‘Indeed …’ It appeared to Ina that the Enchantress was struggling with the concept of unwellness. ‘You are sick?’ she finally asked.
‘I do not know what it is, m’lady.’ She held out her painful hand. ‘Something in the river perhaps.’
T’riss halted. She cursed beneath her breath and Ina overheard terms that would make a labourer blush. ‘The river. Of course. My apologies, Ina. It is difficult for us … for me … to keep such things in mind.’
‘Such things?’ Ina echoed dully. She felt almost faint from the lancing agony now creeping up her arm.
The Enchantress took her good arm at the elbow. She scanned the dense undergrowth. ‘Now …’ she murmured as if preoccupied. ‘Who is closest?’ She pointed. ‘Ah! There. They will do nicely.’
It was becoming impossible for Ina to maintain her concentration. ‘I’m sorry, m’lady … but what are you pointing at?’
‘This is earlier than I had wanted, but it will have to do. Things never go quite the way one would prefer …’
‘I’m sorry, m’lady …?’
‘Shush.’
Ina flinched, clutching for her sword as the surroundings blurred. Was she passing out? Or had she? What had happened? One moment they were sunk within a dense fern meadow and now they stood in grounds dominated by giant trees, the under-canopy relatively clear. And the air felt closer, much more humid and hot. Or perhaps that was just her.
The Enchantress guided her by the arm and they came to the edge of a relatively fast-flowing stream. ‘We’ll wait here,’ she said.
‘Wait?’ Ina asked, dreamily. She fought now to remain conscious. Something was dulling her mind and it seemed to be deepening as the pain increased. ‘May I sit?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ T’riss answered, sounding distant amid a roaring in Ina’s ears. ‘Not long now.’
*
Murk knew more trouble was headed their way when he spotted two scouts, Sweetly and Squint, slogging back up the stream. They conferred with Burastan who signed for a halt to the march. Then came what he knew would be coming: she waved him and Sour forward from where they walked alongside the litter.
‘What is it?’ he asked as they joined the scouts.
‘Two civilians ahead,’ Squint drawled, talking for Sweetly, as usual. ‘Non-locals.’
‘So?’
Squint shrugged. ‘They’re waitin’ there like we was a scheduled carriage ride or somethin’. One’s got the look of a mage.’ He paused, glancing to Sweetly who gave the ghost of a nod for him to continue. ‘Other’s masked — like a Seguleh.’
Murk felt his brows rising very high. ‘Really? That’s … really unusual.’
‘Not for this madhouse,’ Burastan muttered, half aside. She looked to Murk. ‘What do you sense?’
‘Nothing.’ He turned to Sour. ‘You?’ His partner was hunched, head down, shifting from foot to foot as if uneasy. ‘Well? Sour?’
He glanced up, startled. ‘Ah! I sense ’em. She’s not, ah, hostile.’
‘Didn’t say they was women,’ Squint said and he gave Sour a strong taste of his namesake.
Sour shrank beneath the glare. ‘Like I said. I sense ’em.’