A Dead God Dancing by Ann Maxwell

Author:Ann Maxwell [Lowell, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

VII

after a long ride through darkness and crumbling rocks, Lhar sensed again the presence of the river. He stood high in the stirrups, looking left. The first moon rose, spilling thin gold light over the land. Yellow light lay sullenly on the distant, heaving water. Though the river was narrower here, narrower with each successive plateau, the water was still an immense expanse of turgid power. He looked away, relieved that no khaner would have to face the crossing on an unstable collection of inflated skins and slender reeds; ritual suicide had no appeal for him.

The stone smell faded as though overpowered by the second rising moon. In the unstable shadows he thought he saw vague patterns, suggestions of roads and streets and compounds; but the shadows slid and regrouped like black flames, defying knowledge. He closed his eyes and turned inward, balancing flawed certainties with perfect unknowns. Nothing disturbed him until the third moon rose, bright and slow, deep gold.

“The river is behind us,” said Nevin’s voice, soft and dry and perhaps frightened. “I can’t see the city ahead.”

“We’re cantering over the bones of a city right now.”

Nevin’s teeth shone in a vague blur of white, then vanished. “No bones, just rocks in empty dyn fields.”

“More than fodder grew here once,” said Lhar indifferently, still half-withdrawn into himself.

Nevin stared intently but the triple shadows defeated him. “Our eyes see differently. Is it my imagination or are those black humps the outline of granaries?”

“Granaries. And this is as close as we’ll come to them on this trail. It seems we’re to be the g’mirans’ secret for a bit longer.”

Neither Lhar nor Nevin said anything more. The first moon, its brief hours of glory past, sank into blackness, taking a pale gold veil of light with it. Lamayryll, the natives called it, the one that runs; it would rise again before dawn, sending vague light over the forgotten ruins of a city.

The ruins weighed oppressively on Lhar’s mind. Not their age, not the inexorable pressure of time, but the opposite. Tal-Senet was not ancient; nor were these crumbled, unremembered ruins. The city was young, no more than a few thousand cycles, but it was fading nearly as fast as Lamayryll’s thin light.

*Syza ...*

He felt her sudden presence, but had nothing to exchange with her, nothing but the sight of rocks and dust and the dreams of men long dead. When he realized that what he felt was like a distant tremor of her own nightmare, he started to close the link between them. But the link remained open, blossomed into humming strength. He drank thirstily, letting her pour into his emptiness an emerald rain so perfect that he forgot the dry land, the sullen river, the dead ruins and the dying city. And when he could drink no more, the song remained. His thanks were soundless, as her song had been.

*Small return for all the nightmares you eased.*

Syza’s thought was warm with pleasure at having helped him. He felt vaguely ashamed of his undisciplined shadow fears.

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