In the Ruins

“There’s no sun,” said Eldest Uncle. “I remember sun from my youth, but we’ve seen the sun no more than two or three times while you slept and then only for a brief span.”

“How long did I sleep?” They walked into the shade of the pine forest. Fallen needles squished under her feet. Before, everything had been so brittle. Now it seemed spongy.

“Ten nights. Eleven, perhaps. I lost count. The days are hazy, and the council argues.”

“Look.” She pointed to the watchtower. Falcon Mask perched on the uppermost wall, peering west.

Buzzard Mask saw them and came running. “Who are they?”

“Who are who?” Eldest Uncle replied.

Buzzard Mask had a youth’s voice, not quite sure that it had broken. “There’s an army coming along the White Road! They’re not dressed like us, but many wear warrior masks.”

Liath ran to the watchtower and clambered up beside Falcon Mask. The young woman looked at her, surprised, then grinned and sidled to one side to make room. Young and bold, she did not fear heights, but for Liath it was dizzy-making to crouch up here with sheer wall and steep hillside plunging away below. Yet that giddy feeling was no worse than the sight of the desolation she had wrought, off to the north, the wasteland that was the aftermath of the eruption that had killed Anne and her people, most of them guilty of no greater crime than loyalty. What manner of man would refuse the summons of the skopos, after all? Yet Anne had not cared for their virtues, or their sins; they were pawns, nothing more, and pawns are sacrificed.

On the road, the lead group came into view beyond a straggle of trees, then was lost again behind foliage. Eldest Uncle spoke a word and crumpled to his knees. He would have fallen if Buzzard Mask hadn’t leaped to his side to support him.

“What is it, Uncle? What ails you?”

“I am struck,” he said to the youth. “I am hit.”

“Get their attention,” said Liath to Falcon Mask.

“There are so many! And more behind them! I’ve never seen so many people!” The young woman wavered. She was unsure, reluctant. “Is it safe?”

“They are your own people.” She scrambled back down and knelt beside Eldest Uncle, who seemed too weak to rise. “Is it your heart?” she demanded, terrified that he would die right then.

“It is my heart.” He wept silent tears as the procession reappeared on the White Road below them. It was strange to watch with the steep hillside and ragged forest on one side of the chalky ribbon of road and on the other the scarred, barren earth stretching north as far as she could see. These refugees were caught between two worlds, it seemed, as they had been for centuries.

She walked down the slope to meet them. Her hair was all tangles, and sweat and grit slimed her body.

I should have stopped to bathe.

Stepping onto the White Road, she faced their approach. The line of marchers wound away beyond a curve in the path, hidden behind trees and a distant ridgeline. They were the same people she had seen in her dream. The man leading them wore a crested helmet unlike the animal masks worn by the other warriors. He had a proud, handsome face, terribly familiar in a way she did not understand. As they neared and saw she did not mean to move, he raised a hand and halted and the others slowed to a halt behind him. He looked Liath up and down while a fox-masked woman beside him glared, but it was Sanglant’s mother, in the front, who spoke first.

“Liathano! Where is my father?”

Liath gestured.

“This one?” asked the handsome man. “This is your son’s mate whom you spoke of?”

His gaze followed her gesture, and he looked toward the old man being helped down the steep slope by young Buzzard Mask. A cool wind out of the north rustled leaves. Out in the wasteland, dust funneled heavenward until, all at once, the wind’s hand dropped it and a thousand million particles pattered to bare rock.

“Lost to me,” he breathed. His spear clattered to the ground unheeded beside him, and he leaped forward like a hart and dashed up the hill, not many steps, after all. They were so close; they saw each other clearly. Liath ran after him, but when he stopped two paces from Eldest Uncle she stopped, too.

She stared, seeing it for the first time and understanding why the young man looked familiar. The daimones of the upper air can see forward and backward in time because time has no hold on them; they live above the middle world where time’s yoke subjugates all living creatures. She had a moment’s dislocation. For a moment, she saw as did her kinfolk: youth and age, what had been and what would become.