Yesternight the sun was low
And as the clouds piled in the bay
It seemed that in the growing glow
I passed a mountain on my way
A glimpse, no more, was what I saw
For time was short, I could not halt
A gold-limned height much like a claw
Was all I glimpsed above the salt
A glimmer of a different world
Is something that I sometimes see
Within the clouds and stones that hurled
Form our present true reality
I know the castles are not real
And our green hills do seldom walk
But in my dreams I hear the peal
Of bells, and hear the rivers talk
Yesternight the sun was low
And as the clouds piled in the bay
It seemed that in the growing glow
I passed a mountain on my way…
When I was a little girl,
My Poppa sliced apples for me
Before I could have ice cream
(He made it himself - peppermint and vanilla)
Today, I slice apples in a grandmother's house
And I hold the knife as he did
And when I step outside -
The air smells like it did then
And the roses bloom.
(The way they used to.)
Everything has changed
Everyone is different
But no, not everything.
I hear a dove croon in the mornings
A train horn call on a long afternoon
And I am a child again.
Or the child I was stirs in her slumber.
The two are the same
Then time slips apart again,
And I am here and now
But I remember
I remember.
And that must be enough.
Dance with the galaxies
Waltz with the moon
The world all set right
The song a new tune
Spin through the stars
Run through the foam
That laces the particles
Of the world that we'll roam
Whirl through the void
And chase the aurora
Map all the paths
Of the fauna and flora
Trace constellations
Walk with the sun
And join the new song
That will have begun.
If I lay here in your roots,
Said the woman to the tree
Will you protect my body
Will you shelter me?
You've stood here for a long time
I think a long time more
Will you let me rest here?
Or I'll trouble you no more.
I wasn't meant for this time
Say the others, say they all
So I'll wait here for a while,
'Till this forest all grows tall
'Till the earth has changed around us
'Till the seas have got new shores
Then I'll wake to find a kinder time
And roam the gentle moors.
Oh sister I do feel your pain
To the woman said the tree
But the rest you seek you cannot find
Not here beneath my leaves
Your lot it has been given
It's to you to make it work
This time you must make gentle
Not tarry in the murk
So make a life worth living
And do it not alone
As a forest is not one tree
You need not do this on your own.
This is the end of the world
How often has it ended?
The earth shakes and the ocean roars
The sun disappears.
Fire. Water.
What is left?
Ripples spread out and out...
And then the rebuilding follows.
Out of the fire, strength
Out of the water, rebirth
Nothing is ever truly ended
Not in this earth
When the world ended, the stars remained
And remain
And will remain
What else stays?
Who else?
Translator's note: In the western dialects, all forms of light, both natural and artificial, are referred to by this word. In Derala and other heavily Eraasan-influenced territories, the loan word asker is frequently used for artificial light.
---
The midday heat is familiar. It's the only thing that is.
The airfield is empty today, and as Rayna waits, she watches the hills. It's been a long time since she's had the chance to do so. They look as they always have, dull brown under the sun, a narrow trail cutting a pale scar up in switchbacks. The sky is cloudless, a rich blue unmarred by dust or smoke.
Behind her, the car and tarmac are silent. No driver, no ground crew — she drove, and the ground crew are all inside the hanger. Protocol dictates that contact with the Sekkad representative should be limited.
The Sekkad. Rayna's never thought much about them. Oh, they might be the paper cause of the war, but everyone has always known that Eraasa wanted Daakar, and so did Bendega. Space, and the people living there, the ones who left them some thousand years ago, have never been much concern for those of them who fought.
A distant pop and Rayna straightens slightly, adjusting her grip on her cane. She hadn't wanted it today, but the doctors have been firm. If she ever wants to go without it again, she needs to use it for now.
The rumble of engines grows louder, and she shades her eyes as she looks up, squinting into the blue. The shuttle is a speck of atmosphere-stained silver at first, growing larger and louder between heartbeats. The rumble becomes a roar, wind kicking up dust and causing Rayna's coat to whip about her legs. Her cap, secure as it is, gives a warning tug, and she settles it more firmly. Wisps of black hair beat against her face where they've escaped her bun.
The shuttle looks like an Eraasan craft, she notes as it pulls up, taking the last thirty meters vertically. Boxy body, stabilizing fins… The only difference she knows is the color. Aircraft aren't her specialty, beyond the drop ships.
She straightens her shoulders, lifts her chin. Remembers what she's supposed to say.
She wishes Mejenn were here.
She doesn't smile as the representative appears, a pale man in a dark gray suit. She is a soldier, after all. He does, a nervous, twisting thing that shows more of his teeth than necessary. "Corbin Ross," he greets her in Daakaran, offering one hand. "Kandare, Captain…?"
She eyes it. He lets it fall back to his side.
"Commander," she says briskly. "Commander Rayna Korjo, United Eraasan Expeditionary Forces. You've done some homework, Representative."
"I studied Daakaran in the training program," he says, keeping pace at her side as she turns, and speaking over the noise of the shuttle's engines. "We've been interested in getting someone on the ground who speaks it for some time now."
His accent is decent, Rayna notes, given that he can't have spoken with any fluent speakers before. "We were informed you spoke Eraasan," she says.
The smile changes, pulling to one side. "I do," he says, somewhat slower. "But if I'm to be living here, it would be better if I understood, no?"
Interesting.
"Welcome to Derala, Representative Ross," she says, falling back to the prepared script. "An easy trip, I hope?"
"An interesting one," he says. He's looking around with unmasked curiosity, at the buildings and landscape alike. Has he been on a planet before? He must have been. He's taking the gravity adjustment remarkably well. Rayna's heard it can be difficult. "Quarantine was somewhat tedious. I'm happy to finally be seeing the planet from the ground."
She opens the car door for him, walks around to the driver's side. "I'm afraid that's not entirely over with," she says, indicating proceeding into the tap code receiver as she does so. "You'll have another two days of that to face, I'm afraid. To ensure that the adjustment goes well."
"Of course."
"We should be able to take you to see parts of the city after that. It will be different from what your colleagues have seen on the Eraasan continent." Not terribly different, she thinks bitterly. Command won't let Ross out of the controlled parts of the city. He won't see how people like Rayna, like Mejenn, lived. Still live, for the most part.
"I'm looking forward to it. I understand that it's been significantly more difficult here, with the unrest?"
Rayna considers that as she pulls away from the airfield and onto the road. She knows the official answer. But there's something about how Ross said it, and in the sharpness of his eyes in the corner of her line of sight, that make her think he knows the official answer already. Another interesting thing.
"There's been unrest," she says, the words sour on her lips. "Quite a bit of it." There's been a war, she wants to say. You have been lied to. You aren't being shown what's really happening here.
She can't say any of that, of course. So she drives.
---
Mejenn meets them at the UEM compound on the edge of the city. It's been two years, and it still looks wrong, to see him in the black dress uniform, hair pulled back beneath his peaked cap. The scars on his face stand out, livid, beneath the sharp black line of the patch over his left eye. The visible right eye is stony. Rayna can read the lines of tension in the set of his shoulders, in the way he stands with his hands tucked behind him, the thin line of his lips.
He speaks, Rayna signs with her left, hidden from Ross on her right. The sign is made clumsy by her grip on her cane, but it's a necessary one. Knowing who they can speak around is important.
Mejenn tilts his head almost imperceptibly in answer. It's all the acknowledgement he can give her.
"Representative Ross, this is Commander Mejenn Ahnghari, Deralan Battalion. He'll be your point of contact during the final quarantine."
"If you'll follow me," Mejenn says, following Rayna's lead and speaking Daakaran. He keeps his voice level, his eye directly on Ross. It's the look more than a few COs have described as 'damn unsettling'.
It's having that effect on Ross now. He hides it well. Not so well that Rayna can't see it.
---
"He's an interesting one," Rayna says quietly, hours later, walking the rooftop under the moons. All full, and close enough to each other that if she put her hand up, her palm would blot the three out. Next month, they'll align, and the Trai'Kella festival will happen, and she won't be here to see it.
"They're looking," Mejenn answers just as quietly. His hands are tucked behind his back again. Like this, the moonlight casting shadows on his face, scars softened, he looks almost the perfect image of what Eraasa wants her soldiers to be. Almost. "There's a crack somewhere."
"It has to be in Eraasa."
"I think so."
The Sekkad representatives are always watched carefully, during their time on Verdala. And of the five who have come, four have landed and spent their time in Eraasa, far away from the war raging across the continent to the west.
Ross is the first one to come here, to Derala. There's been pressure for it to happen for some time, but it's only now, the fighting over, Mathu Korang dead, that the brass are willing to let it happen.
The Sekkad government has to be suspicious.
"But what," Mejenn mutters, coming to a halt at the corner of the roof. He's looking out, across the scattered green curfew lights of the city center to the clusters of fire-warm lights in the outer districts and slums. "What could have happened?"
"I don't know," Rayna says. She's careful to keep a few inches between them, even though she longs to lean into his side and let him take part of the weight off her aching knee. They're visible up here, even if no one is watching. And someone always is. They had more freedom during the war, but that time is over. It's enough to be next to him.
She hadn't known, when they were active in the field, that that was lucky. That she would be more with him in war than in peace.
"Keep an ear to the ground," Mejenn says. He rests his hands on the safety railing, drumming a pattern with one finger. "Maybe you can find something."
"I'll look." Automatically she translates the pattern of his tapping — lano'aké, lano'aké, lano'aké… her heart twists. I love thee, he's saying, in the only avenue left to them. "I'll find a way to tell you, if I find anything."
And she answers with her own signal, a blunt fingernail tapping against the head of her cane. Zel'reiya, zel'reiya, zel'reiya…
We'll live.
They have so far, through everything Bendega and Eraasa alike have done to them. They're almost the last ones. They have to live, for everyone who didn't.
The time is coming, has been the hum in Rayna's blood every morning that she wakes up in her cold, empty bunk in Eraasa.
The hum is back now.
Something is about to happen, after two long, uneasy years of quiet.
Tobias Makarin understands that history is a story, and every story needs a villain.
1.1k words.
Verdala: The War Years - 3
Atolli [aˈto͡ul.iː] n : Treacherous terrain
Translator's note: At one time, Eraasan maps showed the entirety of the Daakaran continent marked as Atolli, due to a translator taking the word to be a name. This mistranslation remains in the Skaavi dialect, where the western reaches of the desert are referred to as the Atolli desert.
---
"I'm impressed." He handles the rifle easily, sighting down it into the depths of the warehouse. Lays it back in the crate, picks up the small case containing the circular disk of the net. "These aren't easy to lay hands on." He gestures with the case in one hand. "Tell me, how did you manage it?"
Eris doesn't like the smile on Makarin's face. It doesn't reach his eyes, and it's incongruous with the practiced confidence he handles the weapons with. He stands like a killer, and like he doesn't care who knows it. She resists the urge to look up into the shadows of the catwalks. "You didn't pay me to answer questions about my methods, just to get the materials."
"And you've certainly done that," he says. He sets the net case back down, lifts out the heavy black dress uniform coat, turning it over. "These are good."
He would know. Makarin's hair is shaved close in the style of the army, and he still has an ID number on his neck. Eris doesn't know what drives a man like him to an outfit like Eris's, and she doesn't want to. His money's good, and there's no indication in the shipment that her people were involved. "Anything else you need?"
This time, Makarin's smile does reach his eyes. That's worse. It's a predator's smile. "Just one answer. Not about your methods. Not about this." He gestures with one hand at the crate of equipment. His other remains in the pocket of his coat. It doesn't have the shape of a weapon, but it makes Eris uneasy anyway.
"Name it." He paid enough. In fact, he's paid nearly double what these items are worth, in untraceables at that. And obscuration nets don't come cheap.
His voice dips lower. "I had one condition when we made this contract, didn't I?"
Danger supply Eris's instincts. She keeps her hands in her pockets, does not shift her weight, ready to run. Stillness is her friend here. "You did."
"And that condition?"
"Come alone."
Makarin nods. He's gone still. "Call him down."
"Sorry?"
"Call him down. Your man on the catwalk."
Lucky guess, Eris thinks half-frantically. "I don't know —" she cuts off when Makarin moves, and she's staring down the barrel of a pistol. Where had that come from? It wasn't near either hand.
"I've extended my patience," Makarin says, softer still. "And I didn't have much to begin with. So call him down, and let's talk about this, shall we?" His teeth flash in the semi-darkness, some with the shimmer of opalescence that belie military bioceramic replacements. "Shooting you would be inconvenient."
It sends a chill up her spine. Inconvenient. Not wrong. Inconvenient.
Makarin arches one brown brow.
"Leret," Eris calls up, throat dry.
The catwalk creaks, Leret's shadow separating from a support pillar. He moves carefully, eyes staying on Makarin.
"Don't do anything stupid," Eris continues. He probably won't, but on the off chance he does, Makarin will know she didn't sanction it. If he follows those rules.
Makarin doesn't speak until Leret is standing next to Eris. "Now," he says comfortably. The gun doesn't waver. "You. Ken'saani." He tips his head just slightly towards Leret. "You the lieutenant?"
"I am," Leret says cautiously, casting a nervous glance towards Eris.
"Eyes here. When people cross your boss, what does she do?" Makarin sounds calm. Even friendly. But his eyes are flat. Leret hesitates, and Makarin sighs. "Let me guess. Roughs them up? Probably sent you to do it, a time or two. Nothing too bad, of course. You smuggle items, not drugs or people. You don't need to bring down any attention."
"That's about the shape of it," Leret says. "You going to put that gun down?"
Makarin is still smiling. "Why should I?" He taps the edge of the open crate with his free hand. "See, you and I, we're operating on different scales. Different consequences. Cops come for you, you get some jail time. Me, they aren't taking alive. I can't afford contract breaking the same way you can."
She miscalculated, taking this job. It had sounded easy - acquire a specific list of DTC equipment — easy enough to come by, as troops filter back from the desert — but Makarin is turning out to be a maniac. What is he talking about, they won't take him alive? That doesn't happen.
"Shooting us is only going to draw more attention to you," Leret says. Eris wants to kick him. The last thing they should be doing is making Makarin think about shooting them. Because he will. And right now, Eris doesn't know how to make him not do it.
The smile dwindles to a slight twitching of the lips. "Oh, you have no idea," Makarin says softly. "Trust me, nothing that happens here is as important as you think." He shakes his head, chuckles. "Nothing here will be remembered."
"It's a small city," Leret says.
"No, it's not," Makarin says. The last of the amusement on his face drains away. "I don't have time for this."
The report of the pistol is deafening as it bounces off the walls and ceiling of the warehouse.
Eris stumbles back, heart pounding.
Leret drops.
Eris's scream is frozen in her throat. She's frozen, staring at Leret's sightless eyes and the hole between them.
She hadn't seen Makarin change his aim.
"This will get investigated," she says, her voice only barely audible to herself through the ringing in her ears. "You can't —"
"Trust me," Makarin says. She's reading his lips more than hearing him. "I'm going to do much worse."
---
It's far easier than it has been the past. Aim, fire; the smuggler drops. No calculating wind speed or bullet mass. Instinct.
The second gunshot fades away, and something eases in Tobias's chest as it does, somewhere under the snarl of scar tissue on his sternum.
He holsters the pistol beneath his jacket, ignoring both the heat of the muzzle and the bodies on the concrete. Those aren't his concern now. The only concern he has is moving this crate. The instruments of his plan.
He repacks the crate. The o-net he puts in his pocket. That he'd like to keep on hand. His plan. His statement. The o-net is the one failure point. Everything else he can find again. But none of that will matter if he's recognized. He knows who will be present. He knows how Mejenn will react, and how Rayna will. And he's counting on that knowledge, but first, he must go unseen. There's no thrill to the chase if they don't know who they're chasing after all.
There are many undercurrents in the actions of command.
1k words.
Verdala: The War Years - 2
This story contains mild depiction of serious injury.
Tahel [ˈtæ.hɛl] n : scorpion
Translator's note: Tahel is the name given to one of the constellations as seen on the Daakaran continent. This constellation is not the same as Scorpio as viewed from Earth.
---
Tasker doesn't believe the ghost stories some of the soldiers tell.
But he can agree with them that there is something particularly eerie about the drop troopers, because there is. Take the one standing a few feet away from his guard post at the entrance to the overlook camp. The dull gray armor isn't all that different from the standard, if a little more all-encompassing and sleeker. The rifle is the same rig issued to every soldier in the battalion.
But that's where the similarities end. The drop trooper has a long knife strapped to each thigh, a string of numbers tattooed on her neck, and there's a silver film to her eyes. That's the creepy part. Tasker knows they're just targetting lenses, talking to the armor and weapon, but there's something off about not being able to tell what the drop troopers are looking at, when it's combined with the easy, fluid grace the armor lends them.
The Deralans have a string of ghost stories about creatures that live in the desert sandstorms that have silver eyes; sasneru'le he's heard them called. It's a tenuous connection. The arrival of the new unit hadn't dampened the telling of those stories. If anything, it had encouraged them, because the new DTC unit, fresh from the home continent's intensive Corps training, is all Deralan. That's a rarity — very few of the drop troopers are. Eraasa tends to pull from the home continent for the special ops troops. No one wants Deralan special ops to begin agitating the populace. Not again.
But their arrival has stirred up the stories. Some of Tasker's squadmates claim to have heard some of the drop troopers telling the stories themselves, even.
The trooper on the outlook is looking out over the city with a handheld scope. There isn't much to see. The bombings and skirmishes have destroyed the storm walls, and brought down at least a quarter of the buildings. Light glints off of twisted metal and shattered glass. The metal-plated domes have been destroyed, or otherwise dulled by ash and dust.
It's barely a city, really. Lan Durbei, back in Eraasa, is triple the size of Idri, and it's the smaller of the cities. But it's a shame, still. The war had passed Idri by until now, and now it's worse off than Derala'd ever been. Or so say some of the older soldiers, the ones who served in the second Deralan campaign — or the third, or the fourth. Derala hadn't gone down quietly. Some of the new soldiers were probably children during those campaigns, and the counteroffensives of the Bendegans who'd originally invaded the city.
Tasker wonders what it would have been like, to grow up with that sort of chaos, to not know which flag would be flying over your city from month to month. And neither of them the flag the city had started with.
The trooper's face remains stony as a second one of the unit comes lightly up the hill, the tall one with the nasty scar. They've been here three days, and Tasker's already heard that he either got it fighting with the Deralan resistance or from a knife fight in basic or from taking down a wildcat in the Corps training with his bare hands.
"La?" the new one asks. They all speak Daakaran, except for when they don't. They don't sound Deralan, when they speak Eraasan. They all sound like they're from Lan Durdel.
Tasker knows enough to know they're talking about the city, and the mission they've been assigned. It's cursed foolish, and everyone knows it. But the general refuses to give up the city, and so the DTC is being sent in. Three full units of them, a high drop to ensure Bendegan scans won't pick them up until the last moment.
"Lanopa, dak'sek nahaila," she says. She doesn't sound happy. Her face is still emotionless, save for a furrow between her dark brows.
The man puts his hand on Korjo's armored shoulder, and for a moment, they both look far, far too young to be in that armor, to be preparing for what they're going to do.
The two drop troopers just stand there, not speaking, for nearly fifteen minutes. The wind blows smoke in from the sea. And Idri burns.
---
"You! Soldier! With me!" The medic who shouts it doesn't stop running, and Tasker follows immediately. He'd spent a dizzying five minutes on the tarmac, unsure of where to go, where his unit was. Overhead, the moons gleam nearly full, too bright, he feels, for what happened today. A star blazes closer to the horizon, and that one is too bright, but he doesn't have time to think about it.
Idri is gone. Lost. Six days of drawn out fighting, for nothing. Half the damn city was ladder mined, and the Bendegans didn't care how many of their own they lost.
Neither had Eraasan command.
"Help me with this stretcher," the medic orders, only looking at Tasker long enough to make sure he's tracking. Then he's crouched next to the gurney, checking the scanner strapped across the soldier's chest.
Tasker moves to the head of the stretcher, ready to lift. He's tired, but there's adrenaline and stims in his blood still, and he'd managed to rest on the evac flight. He can move stretchers. He needs to do something, so he doesn't think about the nightmarish retreat, the nightmarish hollow of static taking over comm line after comm line.
He looks down at the soldier on the gurney. And blinks.
It's Korjo. Armor stripped down to the environment suit beneath, covered in ash and blood. Someone had cleaned her forehead, only to mark a kah and em there in red grease pen. Her eyes are shut, her lips bloodless. Her left leg ends at the knee, a haphazard tourniquet around her thigh.
Tasker glances behind him, looking for the rest of her unit. There's another stretcher being tended to, but the others being herded off the shuttle are all infantry, all filthy, most walking wounded. The other stretcher, he sees in a brief moment where the crowd parts, is the scarred trooper.
"Hey!" The medic's glaring at him. "You in there?"
The war is coming. Someone has to send the warning.
1.7k words.
Verdala: The War Years - 1
Meti [mɛˈti] n : waystop
Translator's note: Meti is believed to descend from the Arabic medina. The modern Daakaran use is dated to the Second Inclusion Period.
---
He comes in on the wings of the storm, a dust-stained man on a sweating horse. He rides like he was born to the saddle, one of the outlanders' guns slung on his back.
Tem's the one to sight him and give the long whistle that warns the meti. He doesn't budge from his seat at the gate. He has good eyes, Tem does, and he sees the flash of green amid the dust cloud that means friend. They aren't all friends anymore, the ones who ride with the outlander army. But they're ready for when one of those come. A small waystop Gahi Meti may be, but they are Daakaran, and none of them mean to bow to outlanders.
The rider slows outside of the gate, leaned low over his mount's neck. He's riding light, the saddlebags behind him perhaps half-full.
He sits up, pale eyes turning sharp as he looks at Tem. Tem regards the two of them, man and horse both sweating, weariness in every line of their bodies. But there's steel in the rider's eyes, beyond just the color of them. "Kandare, nei'ru," he says, presses one hand to his chest. He has an eastern accent, all his vowels softened and the consonants tripping over each other.
"Kandare," Tem returns, getting to his feet with a sigh, leaning on his staff. "You've come a long way." Behind him, he hears footsteps, those of them who have taken guarding the meti upon themselves.
"I have," the man agrees. He reaches up, removing the tail of the green chora, the dust-veil that had been wrapped around his face. An old scar cuts through his lips, stretches up his cheek, barely turning aside beneath his left eye. The rest of his face seems too young to bear such a scar, but these are the times they live in. "I have a message for your Circle. May I enter?"
"I will tell the Circle," Tem says. "Rest in the gatehouse, and take our water freely. We will see to your horse."
The man dismounts, sand and dust puffing from his loose desert clothes and tack alike. "Freely given, greatly treasured," he says in the Tenak way. He bows in the Tenak way as well, pressing his hand to his chest once more.
"What name should I give the Circle?"
"Deimos. Ahnghari. One of them." Deimos is an outlander name, but many of their own have such names now. Something about it seems to suit this man, with his sharp features and the flaming red hair visible in a gezanka's braid beneath his veil.
"Rest easy, Ahnghari," Tem says. "You are among friends."
---
The Circle will see him, as a matter of course. Outriders are rare, and getting more so. The last one, almost a year ago, hadn't been one for true at all, but instead a deserter, heading south. The outlanders are closing their fist, doing away with their first reliance on those who know the desert.
There is no hurry, not with the storm bearing down on them. Ahnghari will have to wait here in the meti with them, even if they were to see him immediately. To send him away now would be unthinkable. Oh, he could survive out there, but to make him do so would be cruel.
"Lora?" Tarn asks as Tem enters, taking his seat not in the semi-circle of chairs they use in their official capacity, but around the low table with it's inbuilt fire set to one side of the room. The meti hall is a low building, built back into the cave the meti is named for.
Tem shakes his head in answer. "It's Larissi's time."
One of the young people is sent to bring Ahnghari from the gatehouse to the meti hall. Ahnghari enters the hall by himself when he arrives, the messenger already off to tell friends and family about the stranger, no doubt. He lays the rifle to one side of the door, stepping away from it. He's had time to wash the dust from his face and hands, and his chora is now loosely draped double around his shoulders.
"Come, eat with us," Tarn says. He is speaking for the Circle today, with Lora attending a birth and Sarkan's leg still broken. Eskur is the only other one present.
Ahnghari half smiles, an odd expression that pulls at his scar, flashing teeth. "You honor me." His voice is raspy, even gravelly. Not naturally so, Tem suspects. There has been news of gas weapons used up north.
"News is rare," Tarn says as Ahnghari sits in the empty space made for him, cross-legged like the rest of them. "We do like to make sure it comes."
Ahnghari chuckles, accepts the coffee he's passed. "And no need to hurry with the walker almost upon us, no?" His sleeve falls back as he sips, revealing lines of ink there. Tenak tattoos. And the Tenak way of referring to the sandstorm. He hums in appreciation. "It's been too long," he says, lifting the cup.
"How long was he at your back?" Tarn asks, meaning the storm.
"Long enough," Ahnghari says. Another of those half smiles flickers across his face. "They almost didn't want to send me."
Unease stirs in Tem's gut. That doesn't bode well. That means that if the gezanka'le hadn't sent him, they would have risked the radio — risked the outlanders hearing it. The others recognize that too, and silence presses heavy as they eat.
Tem considers Ahnghari as the meal passes. He's as desert-born as any of them, that much is plain from the way he rode, and now from the way he eats, as at ease with the shared plates and flatbread as any of them. And Tenak at that — a latecomer, unless Tem misses his guess. Oh, he has no doubt that the man is Tenak, with those tattoos, but he wasn't born into that people. The gestures and phrases still sit a little clumsily in his mouth and arms. But then, as Ahnghari gestures in answer to a question, Tem can see the two circles inked on his wrist — filled in, not hollow. An orphan, come back to his people, then. He's young enough for it.
They do not hurry through the meal, but neither do they linger. As the wind begins to howl around the windows and the light turns dim orange, the stew and bread are laid aside, to be removed later. Tarn leans forward, the fire throwing odd shadows over his features. "So then."
Ahnghari stills, meeting Tarn's eyes. "So then."
"I would have your name for true now," Tarn says. "If you can give it."
"Ahnghari is my name," the rider answers. "The Eraasans call me Deimos."
"Dak'gezanka?"
The question doesn't catch him off guard. "I'm not," he answers. "Not all the time. You've heard?"
"We know most of the gezanka have been transferred," Tem says. "The front is moving."
"The gezanka are being phased out," Ahnghari says. "The Eraasans will never have the desert knowledge we do, but they know enough now." He presses his lips together. "They're getting ready to sweep the desert. Try again to push through to Bendega." His accent changes on the militaristic words, takes on more of the sharpness of the west. Bendegan.
"And you were sent just to tell us this?" Tarn shakes his head. "The front has moved before. We can survive this."
"Not like this," Ahnghari says. "I've seen the maps. They're going to take the meti. Use it as a command post."
Shock sweeps through the circle. Eraasa has never done that before. Always, they've fought from their mobile posts, or from the shore and air. They avoid the people. Avoid unnecessary complications, or so Tem has heard.
"They're coming to stay," Eskur, the blacksmith, surmises.
Ahnghari nods grimly. "You need to get the people out. Before they do."
"Has it started? In the east?"
"I think so," Ahnghari says. "I don't get much of the civilian communication, but the meti'le near Derala have all been emptied. No warning."
Tem shakes his head. "It won't last."
"No," Ahnghari agrees. "But people are dying."
"You're at war," Eskur points out.
"This is more than that," Ahnghari says quietly. "You remember Derala?"
"Who doesn't?" No one could forget that city, the slow grinding years of fighting between Bendega and Eraasa, and Derala caught between the two of them. Ahnghari might be from there.
"They're moving people to Eraasa now. Not into one of our cities."
Tem finds himself nodding. "Of course they are."
"I'm sorry," Ahnghari says. "We tried to stop them."
He tried to… who is this man? To have a level of influence that he could try at all? Tem thinks of the rumors he's heard of a man called Deimos, at the siege of Idri, and wonders.
"We'll prepare," Tarn says. "How long do you think it will take?"
Ahnghari shakes his head. "I don't know. Not long."
---
The sandstorm ends about an hour before dawn. Tem finds Ahnghari already awake outside the stable, preparing his horse. He looks up as Tem approaches. He looks tired, the scar harsh on his cheek.
"We'll keep the message going," Tem says. "We'll get as many people as we can out."
"It won't be easy."
"Nothing about this life is." Tem allows the horse to investigate his kamis tunic. "The meti'le are a blessing, but they aren't a necessity. And Eraasa hasn't found all of them."
"No," Ahnghari murmurs. "Not yet." He looks at Tem sharply, those gray eyes seeming to go straight through him. "I don't think there will be more of us. More of the gezanka, that is."
"I know. You're the first of new breed, aren't you?"
Ahnghari nods. "We use the air now. No more ground travel. They drop us in."
"Like the old stories."
"Just like the stories," Ahnghari agrees. For a moment, his face softens, as if he's remembering something. "At least the sky is free. We'll send word, somehow." He swings up onto the horse's back. "Aravika, nei'ru."
"Safe travels," Tem says, kissing his fingertips and holding them to the sky. "You are always welcome on ours."
Somewhere, life fractures
And home is gone.
The wind whirls the shards away.
Here is one, years later, a memory awakens.
A scent, a sound.
Then gone.
Forever we are finding
The facets of childhood
In the mundanity of the sidewalk.
The future is aluminum and ceramic.
The aerodynamic lines of flight.
We strain
At bonds that no one has yet undone.
Up up up
Is the urge
To go out, to scatter
To ride the torch into the night.
To escape the greatest prison.
But there is only dust to meet us
And we are not God
Cannot create of it.
Escape is an impossibility.
Explore we will,
We should.
But the tether will remain.
This metal shell is but that —
Is not liberation.
We won't find freedom with our own hands.
Seek out —
Seek in.
It is there, He is,
In all the universe.
The future is aluminum and ceramic.
The aerodynamic lines of flight.
We strain
At bonds that no one has yet undone.
Up up up
Is the urge
To go out, to scatter
To ride the torch into the night.
To escape the greatest prison.
But there is only dust to meet us
And we are not God
Cannot create of it.
Escape is an impossibility.
Explore we will,
We should.
But the tether will remain.
This metal shell is but that —
Is not liberation.
We won't find freedom with our own hands.
Seek out —
Seek in.
It is there, He is,
In all the universe.
This, the world:
Progress marches on
This is the golden age
The best it's ever been.
Here, we dream
The future comes,
Rushes on
Meets us faster and faster
Whirls by
Into our past.
This is the golden age
Ephemeral and glittering
And this is our city
Where the sun is red.
Can you smell it?
Stand on the street.
Breathe.
The sheen doesn't last
When you look.
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