Bored militia watched her ride out through the main gates. They were more interested in who came in, not who left. And therein lay one of the Duke’s greatest failings, Alishia often thought. He should be gathering good people to him, not letting them leave. Giving them a chance. Allowing hope and enthusiasm to root. Instead, in people like Alishia, it was being diluted across the land.
She had never been this far out, and it felt wonderful. Ahead of her, twenty miles distant, were the lower slopes of the Widow’s Peaks, their heads obscured by distance and wispy clouds, the veiled faces of true mourners. There were at least three distinct fledge mines in there, as well as scattered villages nestled between mountains like children in loving mothers’ arms. The sky above the mountains seemed larger and wilder than here above the city, its clouds richer, the colors deeper and more luxuriant. There were huge hawks above those mountains, so high up that they could never be seen, living out their lives on the wing and floating on air currents even when they were dead, drying out, going to dust and painting summer sunsets red. She had read about the hawks, though few people in the city believed in them anymore. She had read about so much: the Breakers who roamed the land dismantling ancient machines, still hoping to find dregs of old magic hidden in sumps or forgotten veins; the Violet Dogs, a race of walking dead that had supposedly invaded Noreela before any true records began, leaving their mark in forgotten caves and lost temples to the night; the Sleeping Gods, powerful beings that had taken to hibernation millennia ago and whom magic, should it ever return, was supposedly destined to wake. She had read about all of these wonders and myths and terrors, and now she had a chance to find out some of them for herself.
She had no idea where she was going, or what she would do when she arrived. But for the first time in as long as she could remember, Alishia felt alive.
THAT FIRST NIGHTshe camped out on the plains.
The Widow’s Peaks were farther away than she had thought, and the route from the gates of Noreela City more circuitous and problematic than she had imagined. She had passed through several small hamlets populated by a mixture of farm folk and those that had obviously fled the city for shady reasons. The first settlement she passed through was quiet, a few faces peering from behind half-closed doors. At the second she was stopped and forced down from her horse, questioned by a pair of bogus militia, hassled until she gave them a tellan each to let her go. She had feared that this would become a road tax, a way of stealing without any true threat, and that she, a woman traveler on her own, would fall victim every time. But at the next collection of dilapidated homes peopled by a few disheveled occupants, she surprised herself.
The first man pulled her down from the horse. The second started to rifle through the bags hanging from her mount’s saddle hooks, but by that time Alishia already had her knife drawn and pressed into the helper’s throat.
What in Kang Kang am I doing?
“Hey now, lady, no harm done!” the second man said, backing away from the horse, hands outstretched. Alishia was disgusted but thrilled at the power she felt. He was genuinely scared. The other man slipped away from her and ran around the back of an old log-and-mud dwelling, closely followed by his mate. Alishia leapt onto her horse and galloped inexpertly away, afraid that she would tumble from the saddle, equally terrified that a crossbow bolt would find the back of her neck at any second.
A few minutes later she slowed the horse to a trot, invigorated with success. Later still, she decided that the men had not really been afraid of her. They were afraid of the type of people who usually traveled these roads, those that were used to actually using knives once they were drawn.
Alishia was far more cautious after that, leaving the rough road to skirt around the hamlets, even though it slowed her progress. She comforted herself with the thought that a journey with no end cannot be delayed. This was all a part of what she had set out to do. She had read about the dangers of travel in this degenerating world, and now she was living with them.
She set up camp way off the road, sheltered from the cool northerly breeze by a shelf of rock that marked where a river had flowed before real time began. There were several small firepots in her saddlebags and she set these around the camp, lighting them to ward off any predators that might be roaming the dusky landscape. There were bandits in the mountains, and sometimes they came down this far to slip into Noreela City via sewers and tunnels. If they passed her way, there was nothing to stop them from having their fun with her as a prelude to their incursion. And there were skull ravens that buzzed the plains at night, looking for weak cattle or lonely travelers. She could fight them off well enough if she was awake when they arrived, but not if she slept. Not if they could nudge her sleep into unconsciousness before pecking their way through her temple and into her skull.
And tumblers. Even they came down onto the plains on occasion. The fact that there had been no sightings for a long time was of little comfort.
So Alishia sat behind the rocks and cooked a jug of sheebok and herb stew she had brought with her. Her dinner spat and sizzled, covering any noises from farther away. Her horse stood quietly nearby, tied loosely to a lightning tree growing from the sparse earth between the rocks. She thought of her little room above the stables; of Erv panting in dark shadows as he watched her shadow dance on the ceiling as she undressed; of the old man in red who had burned down the library and changed her life, intentionally or not. And although she was afraid, she was also glad. The knife strapped against her thigh had helped her once already today. There were dangers out here, yes, but probably no more than she would find spending her life day to day in Noreela City, risking the wrath of the increasingly lawless population and belligerent militia. Even though she had never been out here, she knew of the dangers. She had read about them.
Eventually, Alishia slept.
SHE FOUND THEstranger just before noon of the next day. She had left the plains behind, heading up into the foothills of the Widow’s Peaks and wondering just where to go next. Fifty miles west was Pavisse, the old mining town that was known to be a haunt for criminals and undesirables. East lay the steam plains of Ventgoria. These were usually passable with care if the traveler kept to the marked routes, but Alishia had heard of markers being moved-although it was never clear who was to gain from leading travelers into steam pits-and the steam vents themselves were becoming more and more unpredictable. She had read a book not a dozen moons ago, a travelogue published on cheap paper with a print run of less than a hundred, which told of ventings the size of the largest buildings in Noreela City, great explosions of toxic steam from deep within the land as if it were sighing at the way things were going.
So Alishia had chosen the Widow’s Peaks themselves, and upon making that decision she had almost been overcome with a sudden, delicious realization: she was an explorer! She had always wanted to see a fledge mine. Perhaps if she was daring enough, she would even try some of the freshly harvested drug.
Still, finding a fledge miner dying out in the open air was not the introduction to mining she had expected.
She saw him from a distance, a pale yellow form slumped on a hillside. She paused, looking around for danger, aware that trickery like this was a bandit’s favored lure. The landscape was quiet but for the lonesome cry of a bird of prey, circling high overhead as it called to some distant mate. Birds hopped from rock to rock on her left, seemingly undisturbed. A group of sheebok grazed farther up the hillside, too far away to see her but near enough to the body to be startled away should it stir. She kept her eyes on the sheebok and birds, and edged the horse slowly forward.