Karma of the Sun by Brandon Ying Kit Boey

Author:Brandon Ying Kit Boey [Ying Kit Boey, Brandon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CamCat Publishing

Karma sleeps restlessly, dreaming of weapons like the ones the Minister described. Objects shooting up in clouds of smoke, crisscrossing the skies, spewing streams of fire and destruction. He counts them as they thunder through the air, watching them from the distance in vision after vision.

One . . . two . . . three . . .

He sees them, flying in the face of one another but never touching, never stopping, intent on only one thing.

Four . . . five . . . six . . .

Fire, cloud, smoke.

Seven . . .

It waits, somewhere in the dark.

Karma wakes with tears in his eyes. A few persistent stars peek down through the open night air, unfiltered, twinkling. A bright moon, slung low, casts an aura over the land. The camp is an unmoving collection of shapes and silhouettes.

The ghost-winds abrade the tents. They seem to echo Surkhang’s words.

Soon.

The moment of truth.

With each hour, it creeps closer. What if Surkhang is right? Karma has gotten this far. Perhaps he should do as Surkhang told him and leave before sunrise. He could take a horse and be back in his village by day’s end. But stealing a horse is an unforgivable offense. A part of him wonders if this is what Surkhang intended. Is it worth the risk?

His mind is running, he realizes. He sits up in his bedroll, shivering. They are sleeping in the open, all except the Reverend Mother. The cold air chills his skin. He stands up, somewhat unsteady in the dark, pulling the layers of his robe tighter around him. He thinks he hears something moving about, but when he strains his ear, the only movement he detects is the whisper of the wind over the rocks and the ground.

Slowly, he wanders toward the edge of the cliff. Once more, he feels as if someone is watching him. Yet when he scans his surroundings, there is only the slumbering camp. He turns toward the east, out to the basin. There at the edge of the precipice, under the glow of the moon, the basin is a silvery well, like moonlight on water.

He stays there, for how long, he doesn’t know, contemplating his options. By now the sky is changing, softly tinted gray, seeping through the horizon.

He sees something—moving below. On the surface, a single figure.

It moves slowly, so slow it could be mistaken for a shadow. But it is a shadow set apart from the others, a single mote from where he stands, venturing silently onto the plain. Karma squints. He tiptoes to the edge, navigating the rocks.

“Where are you going?”

Karma wheels around.

Nima faces him, one hand on the handle of her sword. She has been there, watching him.

“There’s . . . someone down there,” Karma tells her, lest she thinks that he has been trying to sneak away.

Nima steps forward, her hand still on her sword. She peers down. He sees her head straighten immediately.

“Stay right there,” she barks. He sees her stride back to the camp. Noises and commotion.

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