War of the Maps by Paul McAuley

Author:Paul McAuley [McAuley, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781473217362
Publisher: ORION

29

Foraging Party

Veca said that they had spotted alters moving across the top of a hill about two leagues away. ‘Five or six workers, most likely a foraging party. They won’t be a problem as long as they keep heading south, so I reckon we will be safe enough hunkering down here for the night.’

‘If it is a foraging party, it’s a long way from any nest,’ Orjen said.

‘They have to range far and wide these days,’ Veca said. ‘If we move on now we could run into more alters. And there are other things just as bad out there, too, and some of them like to hunt at night. Gus, you take first watch. Keep an eye on that little party, let me know at once if it changes direction.’

‘I’d rather not have to set up a ways from the old guy,’ Angustyn said. ‘Maybe he should set up his own bivouac a ways from us.’

‘If you’re scared of the dark, I can keep track of that party for you,’ Cyf said.

‘You and your friend can best make yourselves useful by scouting up kindling,’ Veca said. ‘We’ll cook some food, boil up a pail of chai. Everything will seem better once we get things civilised around here.’

They hobbled their horses inside the stone circle while Angustyn walked out into the dusk and took up position behind the shelter of a stone fallen some way from the circle. Tiu stood bright and blood-red above the largest of the stones and Surmal said that it was a good omen: the wanderer was the sign and symbol for war and warriors.

‘I would be happier to see the star for a safe journey,’ Cyf said. ‘If there is one such.’

‘Some say that Tiu is the remnant of the world of the Ur Men,’ Orjen said. ‘Whether or not that is true, we do know that it appears to be a body of stone and is much smaller than our world – if you could peel it like a pippin and lay its skin on the World Ocean it would be larger than Gea but smaller than most of the other maps. Small though it is, it has an envelope of air, and seas and polar ice caps, and perhaps even some kind of life. And it shines so brightly because it is lit by mirrors. Recently, the skywatcher Albus Starstrider was able to split their light into its component colours, confirming the claims of certain old texts it is identical to the light of our own mirrors, and therefore must have the same source, namely the Heartsun.’

‘People once rode through the air and went to war against Tiu,’ Veca said. ‘So I read in one of those old texts, anyway. But who’s to say what they tell true and what is fantasy got up to scare children?’

They were all sitting around a fire pit, eating fish and rice cakes Lyra had cooked on a griddlestone.

‘We can test ideas with the tools and methods of practical philosophy,’ Orjen said.

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