Lost and found again, Alishia whispered. Never really lived, but now I’m filled with everything.
Something came at him then, something huge and dark and not of Alishia at all. It expanded out of the tiny flickering light of her limitless mind, and he retreated before it. There was no real sense of malice in its presence, but there was an intense pressure. He gave in to it. Withdrew. Fell back into his own mind and opened his eyes, and he looked straight at Rafe where he sat astride his horse thirty paces ahead.
He looked, and he wondered just what was going on inside the boy’s head.
THEY WALKED THROUGHthe night, glancing nervously to the west every now and then, expecting to see the shapes of real Monks manifesting from the shadows and rushing them with swords drawn and murder in their eyes. They needed to stop and eat, rest, sleep, but the warning had to be taken seriously. The faster they moved now, the better their chance of escape.
“What do we do if we do come up against Monks?” Kosar whispered to A’Meer.
She did not reply for a long time. He was about to move on when she sighed. “There’s not much we can do,” she said. “I can fight them as I’ve been trained, you can join in with whatever passion you feel for our cause, perhaps Hope can poison them again or use chemicala. Trey… he’s a miner, not a fighter. Perhaps we’ll make a dent, and maybe we’ll put back the inevitable for a while. But we’ll die, Kosar. They’re difficult enough to defeat on their own. If we meet them in any great numbers, we’ll all die.”
“And Rafe?” Kosar asked. “What if Rafe joins in the fight?”
This time A’Meer’s silence stretched on, and Kosar did not ask her again.
“KANG KANG,” RAFEsaid. “That’s the only safe place for me to go, and the only way any of us will survive. Without me, Kosar and A’Meer can make it to Hess much faster.”
“I’m not leaving you,” A’Meer said.
“I’ll look after him,” Hope said. I will, she thought, better than you with your swords and arrows. I have much more than that. I have passion. I have a reason.
A’Meer shook her head. “I’m not leaving him. Not with you, not with anyone.” She raised an eyebrow, inviting any challenge to her statement.
At sunup they had climbed a small hill, and now they rested on its summit. From there they could see in every direction. North, back the way they had come, a great mist rose from the land and touched the clouds, linking sky to ground. To the east were rising hills that grew gradually higher until, beyond the horizon, they fell down into the Mol’Steria Desert. South lay scrubland and copses of trees, weak-looking and in need of more than water. In the distance, hazed by heat, the first signs of the town of Mareton was miraged above the ground. And west, where they watched for the approach of the dreaded Monks, grasslands stretched as far as they could see, rolling toward the horizon and offering myriad hiding places.
Hope scanned westward with her spyglass, a present from one of the many men she had entertained. Her indulgence for this particular gift had gone much further than she would ever have liked, but it was worth the cost. For a few transitory moments of degradation she had this tool, something that brought the distance near and could give almost as much advance warning as the fledge miner’s drugged visions. Hope no longer trusted Trey’s addled mind. Only minutes ago he had returned from another trip, unable to tell them anything they did not know. He had seen the red smear of blood across the land-Monks, he told them, hundreds of Monks swarming over hills and through valleys-but he did not know distance, direction or location. He could not even be sure that it was now he was seeing, and not the past or some clouded future. She had developed a grudging belief in his intentions, but his supposed talents were on the wane. She had seen his eyes when he came back, but he would not meet her gaze.
The others did not see things her way. She left them to their thoughts. She was only a witch and a whore, after all; why would they listen to her?
So she watched, and felt Rafe’s gaze on her back. He needed her help to reach Kang Kang, and she would give it, with or without the others. Without, she thought. Really, I’d prefer it without.
She had heard more stories than she cared to admit about that mysterious mountainous region to the south, and the Blurring that may or may not exist beyond. Kosar had been right in his assessment of Kang Kang’s wrongness, but only in part. While his judgment was based on a very subjective fear of Kang Kang and what may dwell there, Hope’s knowledge was more deeply rooted in the place itself, a more objective view. She was not only afraid of the place, but also aware that Kang Kang was afraid of itself. In those mountains of madness, fear was a tactile presence, as prevalent as air or grass or rock. It could be lapped up or cast aside, but everyone that made the journey discovered it at some point. That was why few who found Kang Kang ever came back. It was a wild animal, driven mad by its own ferocity and consuming everything.
“If we’re here to look after Rafe, surely we should listen to his reasoning,” Hope said at last. Her words broke an unsteady silence, one waiting to be ruptured by argument. “He’s the carrier of the new magic, he’s the one we’re prepared to lay down our lives to protect. If he wants to go to Kang Kang, I see no way we can refuse him.”
A’Meer, leaning back against a tree with her eyes half closed, waved a hand as if at a worrisome fly. It was a dismissive gesture, and the Shantasi did not even honor Hope with words to accompany it.
“What?” Hope said. “What, Shantasi?”
“Hope.” Kosar was standing by the two horses, checking them over, examining their hooves. “Rafe is the carrier, but does that necessarily mean…?” He trailed off, looked down at the ground, back to the horses.
“Mean what?” Hope said.
Rafe raised his head and opened his eyes, staring in interest at the thief.
“Kosar?” A’Meer said.
The thief turned back to them, and Hope was surprised at the determination in his eyes. Whatever he had to say, he believed it totally. “Well… does being the carrier mean that he is any more special in himself?”
He glanced at Rafe, then away. The boy returned his glance with resolute interest.
“You told us yourself that it’s a thing inside you, Rafe, that you have no control. It’s another life living alongside yours, independent, a child sharing your life force and growing separate from you. But like a mother is not the child, so you aren’t the magic. Can you really claim to know exactly what it wants?”
All eyes turned to Rafe. This is where it has a chance to show itself and cast out doubt, Hope thought. She felt a tingling in her limbs at the idea, a tightening of her scalp, as if a lightning storm was gathering above the hills. This is where things change.
“I’m as important as anyone who has knowledge,” Rafe said. “Your mind is separate from the rest of you, Kosar. Your shade is still within you, somewhere, a remnant of your potential hiding behind your bones and within your blood. Yet without one, the other will change. Without me the magic will be free, but as vulnerable as a newborn baby. There are things out there that would eat it.”
“I didn’t mean…” Kosar said, looking down at his hands, picking horsehair from the wounds on his fingertips. Then he looked up again. “You never used to talk like this. You’re a farm boy, Rafe.”
“My eyes are being opened,” the boy said. He looked at each of them for a couple of seconds, even the unconscious Alishia propped against Trey’s side. “I know you all have doubts,” he said. “And so do I. The thing inside me has done a few tricks to try to help us on our way, but it’s been a long time. We’re blinded to miracles. Sheltered from the truth. But believe me when I say I know what is right.” He looked at A’Meer. “Believe me.”
“I don’t know-” the Shantasi began.
“We’re blinded,” Hope said. “Blinded by what we can’t believe, just like Rafe said. We’ve all heard of the old magic and what it could do, but do we really believe? You, A’Meer. Can you really believe?”