The Warrior Who Carried Life by Geoff Ryman

Author:Geoff Ryman [Ryman, Geoff]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781927469408
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2013-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

FLOWER POWER

Disruption, Epesu had said. Disruption had rejoiced the Serpent.

A great wind followed Cara back into the world. It slammed into the tents and the fires of the pilgrims at the base of the cliff, flattened the fires down to the ground and extinguished them, ripped the hides from the tent poles, lashing them into the faces of the men who tried to hold them down. The people rose to their feet and howled.

For the wind was piercingly cold. It stilled the heart and sucked the breath from the lungs, for it was a wind that blew through the soul as well, the wind of loneliness and loss and regret. There was a flickering of blue-white light in it, like lightning, and all the moisture in the air began to fall as snow.

From somewhere in the darkness, through the rent between the worlds that Cara had made, silently, like smoke, shadows for eyes, came the Dead. Their mouths opened and closed like fishes. The Living cried aloud in fear, and covered their faces, and the Dead stumbled through them and the remains of the camp. The snow fell, tiny particles of white that were driven almost horizontally through the air.

An army of the Dead, held by the Flower of Life, were hauled into the Land of the Living. They filled the valley, like a forest of swaying trees seen in a fog. They crowded about the base of the cliff, crowded their way up the rock, covering it like spiders, slithers of snow winding their way up the cliff between them, crowded their way through the rock, into the fortress of the Wensenara.

Despite the iciness that cut into their souls, and the storm, and the marching Dead, one by one, the people of the camp fell still. They stood, uncaring, backs to the wind, as their tents were torn from the ground, as their barley and oats were blown away like dust, as their bedding took to the air like winged beasts that wrapped themselves around other people. They stood, gaping and as silent as the Dead.

Above them, the Flower of Life shone steadily. Clear through the walls of Epesu’s chamber, clear across all that distance of snow-filled air, its shape sharply defined, its light strong and pure without aura or halo or refraction, even through the water that filled the pilgrims’ eyes from the cold. The people, as soon as they saw it, felt what it was and fell into reverence and awe.

The wind boomed through the halls of the Wensenari. Its prizing fingers tore the gold from the walls and sent it spinning in sheets like paper in wind, or sliding along the stone floor like scythes, cutting the ankles of the sisters of the Secret Rose. Their heavy black robes rose up over their heads, whipping their shoulders; they fought to close the heavy doors of their rooms; they saw the Dead and thought the world had ended.

The Dead thronged, hissing, into Epesu’s chamber. Perched on its stilts, out from the wall, the room pitched and groaned like a ship at sea.

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