Dawn by Tim Lebbon Page B

help. In her right hand was the knife that had opened her wrists; in her left, a clutch of Janne blossom, stolen from the roof, rotten and rank and bleeding black sap between stiff fingers.
    “Oh no,” O’Gan said. He closed his eyes, but that did little to hide the image. He thought of the other corpse he had just seen—the image of A’Meer—and the word she had given him in her silent plea: Hope. However that vision had been brought to him, whatever that shadow had been, he had to believe it was true. If not, then Mystic Garia’s fate was perhaps the wisest choice she had ever made.
    O’Gan fled the Temple. The crying woman had crumpled to the ground, and he knew that he should help her, offer guidance through her confusion. But if he helped her, there would be another, and another, and eventually he would be drawn into hopelessness. He could help one, or he could help one million.
    He closed his eyes and moved on. He often walked this way through the streets, continuing his inner dialogue as he moved, but now his dialogue was confused and the streets were unforgiving. He bumped into a man after a dozen steps. “You’re going north, Mystic,” the man said.
    “And which way should I be going?”
    “South, away from those damn Mages and whatever they’ve brought to Noreela!”
    “I don’t think they brought anything,” O’Gan said. “I think they came and found it here.”
    “Either way, magic’s theirs now,” the man said.
    “Who told you that?”
    “It’s the word everywhere!” The man lowered his eyes, uncomfortable at talking this way to a Mystic.
    “There’s hope,” O’Gan said. “That’s another word—my word—and I want you to spread it. Will you do that for me?”
    The man glanced up, frowning, looking over O’Gan’s shoulder at the tall, empty Temple. “Hope when all the Mystics flee with us?”
    “Not all,” O’Gan said. He thought of Elder Garia dead by her own hand.
    “Some are dead,” the man whispered, awed. “My brother saw them down by the coast, kneeling in the sand and drawing their swords and—”
    “Mystics?”
    “A dozen of them!”
    “Your brother lied to you.”
    The man’s eyes narrowed, but even in such a time he could not express anger at a Mystic.
    I hope, O’Gan thought. I hope he lied. I’d have known if so many had died; I’d have felt it. Our collective mind would have screamed and railed against it…
    And his mind when he breathed in the Janne pollen was a blank, devoid of life.
    “He lied,” O’Gan said again, more to himself than the man.
    “Forgive me,” the man said. He moved past O’Gan and hurried away.
    There must be some of us left, O’Gan thought. An Elder Mystic, someone I can tell about the appearance of A’Meer. Someone who’ll know what that means, and what to do. Where to go.
    A group of Shantasi warriors trotted past him heading north, going against the flow. Their long dark hair was tied, pale skin made paler by the poor light, and their extensive weaponry was worn so precisely that it made no sound.
    “Good,” O’Gan said, and the last warrior in line turned to look at him. O’Gan saw terror in the woman’s eyes.
    He walked on through the streets, looking for someone who could tell him what he had seen.

 
    Chapter 5
    FLAGE WAS BORN over fifty years earlier, when he was twenty years old. When he died.
    Only a privileged few can remember the moment of their birth. But perhaps such crushing exposure and agonizing animation is best left forgotten.
    He retained a vivid memory of that birth and the moments that led to it. He was a rover, prowling the northern extremes of Kang Kang with his small rover band, always traveling east to west to make sure they kept Kang Kang to their left. Left was the evil side, right the good. If they turned around and headed east, Kang Kang would be to their right, and its neutral influence on their roving group would change without warning. Right would become wrong, and Flage had seen