Alexandria

Chapter Fifteen





Arana speaks to his father. It matters not whether they are connected through portals in time and space, where living mouths commune with dead ears and a resonance is carried across the threshold, or more detached and mundane channels through which thought and message evanesce and never return. He whispers breathlessly with newfound ease, and he forgives his father for the forgery of his youth and the unkept promises of transcendent greatness. He feels his father’s presence, the duality of him, tangible and elusive as he was in life—the legendary man who carved the Temple’s first stone with strong, gentle hands.

Behind him, the amphitheatre is half-full of women and children, stark and clear in the bright morning light. They sit with strangely placid faces and watch the man they know as their King commune without hurry in the blinding sun.

Arana imagines that his father would not know him if he were truly here now, so different is the boy from the man. He thinks of what he was meant to be—a protector of his father’s vision, a kind authority. Long hours he has spent searching for some connection between himself and that boy, and the trail has run cold. Through peacefully closed eyes he asks his father for his own forgiveness in return.

Silence greets him, and he expected nothing more.

He turns slowly and faces the sparse crowd, stripped of false vestiges. They do not thunder with applause, nor do they shun him. They only sit in the liquid sun and wait.

Down the quarry road, a battalion marches. Arana looks on sternly as they assemble before him. Rows of horsemen lead the parade, war-painted and severe, followed by men of every age, suited and armed and freshly shorn, marching with stoic calm toward the amphitheatre. The great and courageous Sons of the Temple, clad for an undertaking more dangerous than any they’ve met before. The ranks fill in slowly. Morning shadows glide across their faces as the men form one line after another and settle into rigid formation.

When the last warrior takes his place, Arana paces forward to the lower gallery and speaks to his followers.

“Some of you are old enough to remember a man named Thomas,” he says plainly. He meets recognition in some of their eyes. “Some of you remember his betrayal of my father. This man arrived unbidden, he spoke dangerous lies about his true home, and he fled in our time of need. He left us to suffer. Some of you remember this.” His voice is crisp and low and it cuts through the air like a whip-crack. He speaks simply. Gone are his well-practiced theatrics. “But all of you, even the youngest… all of you remember the two men caught spying on our land barely a month ago yet. You remember barring your doors and hiding in the darkness.

“We know now that these men share the same origins as Thomas. We know they are from a place that preserves dead ways, a place that seeks to use these ways to destroy us. They hate what we have built. They hate the vision that we share. And the day has come when we must make a stand, or allow ourselves to be swept away by their wickedness.”

Younger siblings and worried mothers nod somberly in the amphitheatre. In the wings, Keslin cracks a thin smile.

“In recent days,” Arana continues, “you have noticed that certain people were taken from their duties. These people were corrupted—and they are now safely removed, and will remain so until the matter is resolved.”

Stifled chatter crisscrosses the amphitheatre.

“This morning, our army will march south to the hidden city. We do not know what they will encounter when they get there, but I will say this—our numbers have never been stronger. There are no other fighters spoke of in the land with the power to overtake us. Join me in asking that the light of the Beyond shine down upon them on this important venture.”

Arana closes his eyes and raises his face toward the bright, clean sky—his only deceit—and as the warriors steel themselves for another ruthless campaign, the gathered forms in the audience raise their faces as well, true believers all, and the Temple grounds hum with the sussurus of their whispered incantation.





The reed skiff glides through the murky water, leaving behind swirling fractals of slimy film that spin around in their wake like elongated curlicues. Slithering forms cut gracefully through the surface then resubmerge in silence. Jack dips the ore and rows them slowly forward, perched up on his knees like a little gondolier, looking side to side as they go. There is a ubiquitous buzz that permeates the swamp and he listens in, trying to separate the sound out into its constituent parts—there are insects of many varied forms, the rasping of sedge grass rippling in the wind, smoothly flowing water, and a deeper, more subliminal noise that sounds like the steady breath of the swamp itself. Lia sits curled in the stern and watches the dark landscape drift by like a gloomy cyclorama.

“I don’t like this.”

“It’s just a little ways farther. Thomas said we’re close.”

“I heard him.”

They crouch low and float under a fallen pile of warped I-beams, crosshatched over the water like a jumbled overpass. A gallery of long-legged birds sits perched atop, and they turn their heads dismissively as the tiny boat moves past. Jack rows them around a bend in the waterway and pilots the craft toward the rising sun. The iron skeletons of a once great city rise above them, fragmented and decayed, more imposing than they had seemed from the hillside.

“By the billions…” says Lia, looking up at the structures.

“How much is that?”

“Too much.” She scoots around and kneels behind Jack, resting her chin on his shoulder. “Want me to row for a while?”

“I’m okay.”

“Do you think the world will ever look like this again? All full of buildings and people?”

“Not for a long, long time.”

“I don’t know if I’d want it to,” she says wistfully. “It’s not very pretty.”

“I’m sure it looked better when it was new.”

“Not as pretty as the mountains.”

“No. I guess not.”

“And how did they build all this anyway? Did they steal people and force them to work?”

“They would’ve had to steal a lot of people,” laughs Jack. “I think they used machines.”

“Somebody had to build the machines. Seems impossible. Didn’t they do anything but build things and fly around all the time?”

“That sounds all right to me.” Jack peers at her over his shoulder. “You’re sour.”

“I’m just nervous.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Miles,” she says. “Thomas. He said it’s dangerous what they have there. I just—I’m not sure I really want to know about the old days, about these people that used to live here. I thought I did, but it’s just all so sad.”

“We don’t have to stay. We can go there, warn them, and leave. I’m not sure they’ll tell us anything anyway.”

“And then where will we go? Thomas won’t use his name anymore because he’s so scared the Nezra’ll find him. Will we have to do that, do you think? Change our names and hide forever?”

Jack scrunches his face and thinks it over—it doesn’t sound like such a bad proposition. “We might,” he says grimly. “And I’ll grow a beard and make friends with a lion and a goat.”

“I’d like to see you with a beard like that.”

“You’d have to grow one, too.”

“What?” She punches him.

“So we could hide, you’d have to.”

“What about the lion and the goat?”

“Well,” says Jack, pondering it, “the goat might have to shave his.”

“Oh… of course. I’m feeling much better about this.”

“At least we have a plan.”

“Yeah,” she says darkly, tasting his irony. “A plan.”

Sprays of light fan down on them from the canopy as they emerge from the towering gridwork and float down the middle of a wide open wetland area, through a corridor walled in by tufts of tall flowing grass stemming up from the muck.

Ahead of them, concrete roundabouts arc over the surface of the water like a giant cloverleaf, partially blocking their path. Jack navigates slowly between the network of thick, stone columns and sunken pieces of road, and at several points he draws his blade and cuts through the undergrowth because the slender passage is nearly sealed off by encroaching vines and sedge. Lia poises behind him with the spear and pushes the skiff away from the rocks that brush against the underside of its thin leather hull. Sharp angles of light show them the mouth of the dark tunnel and Jack paddles toward it. As they near the exit, a shiny snake, as thick as Jack’s leg, uncoils before them and hangs aloft from an overhead lattice of ivy—a long, lithe squiggle against the backlit opening. Jack rows against the current and slows them to a stop. The snake swivels its head elegantly toward them, then slips into the water with barely a splash. Jack and Lia sit petrified in the bobbing skiff. Something fat and heavy scrapes against the bottom, bulging the reeds underneath them, and they lock onto each other with bulbous eyes.

“Go,” Lia whispers.

Jack dunks the ore and rushes it through the water and the little craft wobbles forward. Lia clenches the spear and stares at the opaque surface of the marsh water. It is tranquil and smooth, save for their slender wake. Jack steers around more obstacles, working his arms desperately. Lia hears a splash just to her left, and as she is turning toward it the snake launches from a plank across the water to her right, a blur of green and black, with clean, soft pink inside its wide-hinged jaw. It lashes at Jack and catches him by the pant leg, its shiny fangs piercing through the rough fabric. Lia jabs it with the spear. The long, furled body thrashes in the water as the snake tears at Jack’s pants and pulls free a scrap, then eclipses back into the slurry. A thin cut opens on his thigh and he paddles feverishly through the underpass.

Lia screams as the snake jolts at them again, shooting from the debris like a forced projectile, straight toward her throat. She swipes the spear shaft at the yawning mouth that hurtles toward her and swats it sharply. The blow sends it off course and it splashes into the muddy water headfirst, with the tail sliding up and over the skiff. Lia pierces it on the soft underbelly as it submerges and a trail of snake blood dribbles across her lap.

They reach the mouth and surge forth into the open, and Jack rows like he has a race to win. Lia kneels with her back pressed to his and looks bleakly over the crimson spear tip toward the darkened cloverleaf. A flash of green catches her eye and she lets out a crisp shriek just as a fat toad lurches into the water. She exhales slowly.

“How’s your leg?”

“It could be worse. You okay?”

“Yes,” she says with awe, adrenaline still coursing through her. “I am.”

They trade places so Jack can tend to himself, and Lia takes up the ore and guides them down the lazy waterway, through the heart of the swampland metropolis. The old, corroded ruins lean over in the same general direction as if they were blown outward. Lia curves between skewed posts and beams and they enter a vast circular cesspool, sparsely vegetated and devoid of fallen buildings altogether. They have reached the epicenter. The steady hum of the swamp echoes distantly and a strange quiet befalls them. She arcs around the outer perimeter and rows to the far side, where the rubble now lay in the opposite direction like windblown weeds. They pass several crooked side-passages and finally reach an inlet to the cavernous main channel, and they follow its slowly curving path throughout the afternoon.

Quick shapes rustle in the thickets and abscond away before Jack or Lia can glimpse them. They glance around uneasily and plow forward. Already the wetlands are marinating in dusk and Jack begins to worry they will not make it across before sundown.

“I’m starving,” he says, “do we have anything left?”

“We ate the last of it.”

He settles back in the stern and keeps watch, his belly grumbling. They have nothing to drink except rancid bog water, and they are both covered from head to toe with rosy insect bites that itch and tingle. The mudbars are overgrown and rife with snakes and crawlers, and offer no dry land on which to camp. If nightfall comes, they will have no choice but to sleep in the skiff.

“Jack, we’re blocked off.”

Lia raises the dripping ore and they coast along with the current. The watery thoroughfare is closed off with a scaffolding of fallen debris, heaped before them like a mountainous junkyard.

“We’re gonna have to go around,” says Jack, hating the words as he speaks them. He recalls Thomas’s warning—keep on the main course. “There,” he says, pointing at a narrow inlet that branches off the wide channel.

She makes for it cautiously. The little passage envelops them, walled in by trees and rickety constructions laced over with weeds, and the drone of cicadas grows so loud it drowns out all other noise.

“Look for a way back around,” he says, scouting over her shoulder.

Lia peers into the shady alcoves, searching for a line that cuts straight through. Pale, white shapes are caught up in the tangles of foliage and she squints to make out their details. A deer’s skull, wrapped in twisted branches, twin horns projecting outward. The whip-like skeleton of a snake, braided together with slinky strands of ivy. Fragments of ribs and bent leg joints, all fastened high up on the surrounding structures with much deliberation.

“Skulls, Jack…”

“Keep going. We gotta find a way out of here.”

As they venture forward, the skeletal fragments become commonplace fixtures, hanging from every surface like holiday ornaments. A sagging branch juts out over the water with three white orbs suspended by brittle fibers. They sway and spin lazily on their tethers, slowly rounding their hollow eyes toward the skiff. Human skulls. The mandibles have fallen away, and Jack and Lia peer up inside the dark braincasings as they float underneath.

Lia’s hands shake the ore and Jack reaches around to steady her grip, and together they row toward a bleak offshoot on the right-hand side of the prow. They maneuver the claustrophobic crooks and curves, pushing away from the high piles of greenery and concrete. Bones run the length of it.

“Did Thomas tell you about this?”

“Nothing,” says Jack. “That junk must’ve fallen recent.”

“No more luck.”

“Don’t say that.”

A soft patter draws their eyes toward the muddy bank. A branch snaps across the other bank and they swivel their heads furiously and see nothing. Jack’s skin glosses with sweat as he realizes that some entity in the swamp now stalks them.

A towering slab leans out over their path, looking as if it might topple at any moment, and a complete skeleton dangles from its top edge, stitched together at the joints like a gruesome marionette. Jack and Lia duck into the hull and still the bony feet scrape across their backs as they pass. The slender concourse weaves them toward an open patch where the vegetation has been all but stripped away. An altar of bones lay situated at the center, comprised of remains from every kingdom—pieces of human and animal rearranged to form some new creature, wholly unknown in the natural order, with multiple arms and appendages reaching out, mantis-like, as if to clutch the two and feed them into its ribcage mouth.

Furtive scrabblings issue from the surrounding marsh and become profuse. They row with throbbing arms, daylight fading fast. A fallen tree drives them into a narrow culvert and the ore scrapes along the sides as they paddle through it.

A spray of water erupts and a patchwork net of old vines closes around their craft and capsizes them. In an instant, they are underwater and fighting against the braided cords tangled around their arms and legs. Jack fetches a quick gasp of air before being dragged back under. He wheels around and catches Lia by the arm and pulls her to him, and they plant their feet in the mud and push their faces back above the surface.

Naked figures, sallow and filthy, lurch toward them from the bank. Deep-sunk black eyes leer out from their lumpen heads as they gather the netting and cinch it around the two struggling bodies they’ve caught.

The spear bobs on the surface next to Lia and she grasps it and holds it protectively to her body. Jack plunges underwater and claws at the mud, searching for his machete. In the opaque froth, he slices his hand on the blade then feels around for the hilt. The vulgar, emaciated figures tread skittishly around the bank, holding rocks and stones in their bony fingers. Lia jabs at them with the spear tip, and they commence to stoning them from all sides. Jack cuts an opening in the net and pushes through as heavy rocks thump off his arms and back.

Once free, they slog downstream a few paces, their feet suctioning in the mire. A stone clips off Lia’s knee and she hobbles into the filthy water. Jack swings the blade at one of the wiry freaks and it jerks backwards and falls. He lunges and runs him through, and a wretched wail belches out of the thing’s mutant mouth. He hauls Lia to her feet, amidst a bevy of flying rocks, and they break for the bank. Clammy hands grasp at them, tearing their clothes from their bodies. The battery of miscreations encircles them, shying only when the spear or blade is thrust out. They look like inhuman things, birthed from the very filth of the swamp.

“Stay behind me,” says Jack.

He pushes back the horde, flashing the blade before him like a propeller, severing their fingers and carving gouges in their flesh, and still they persist. They close in on Lia and she fights a frenetic tug-of-war to hold onto her spear. They knock her to the ground and Jack wheels around and chocks the blade into to the long, bluish neck of the one that felled her. Blood spouts onto its kin and they pounce, licking at it and chewing the rubbery flesh.

While Jack is turned, helping Lia, two cold hands slip a length of vine around his neck and twist. He gasps and drops the machete, then drives an elbow into the torso of the thing, sending it backwards, and kicks it into the culvert. He grabs Lia and his blade and they crawl higher up the rise, into a thickening confusion of vegetation. Lia’s struck knee is engorging with fluid and she leans her weight on the spear shaft and climbs while Jack fights off their pursuers.

Smaller figures, child forms, follow in the wake of the mayhem and snatch up the cleaved fingers and chunks of flesh and gnaw on them ravenously.

From the higher ground, Jack gains the advantage and levels his gore-coated blade at their throats. They hiss and shriek and slap at it like cornered animals. Lia pushes her way through the brush and Jack backsteps after her, parrying against the onslaught. Only the most voracious give chase, snapping at them with putrid mouths full of rotten teeth.

They forge deeper into the thick. Three pale wraiths tear after them, while the rest of their sickly brood seem content to stay behind and eat their own dead. The swamp floor is a tangle of pitfalls and Lia struggles to stay upright on her burning knee. A false step sinks her foot into a reed-covered pool of water and she topples backwards. Jack stands off against two of their attackers, and the third lunges into the thicket of reeds after Lia. She sloshes frantically onto her back and raises the spear like a mast, bracing it against her side, and the hungry form impales itself with a terrifying shudder. The blue-white body slides down the length of the shaft, pinning her in the briny muck. It exhales its final breath on the hollow of her neck, hot and rancid.

Jack watches in horror as bloodied hands grasp the blade of his machete and attempt to wrench it away from him. He twists the blade and slices the hands away, then runs the sharpened tip into the thing’s stomach and a burst of red and jaundiced vitals issues from the jagged opening. He spins crazily, searching for the others, and panics when he sees no one, not even Lia.

“Where are you?”

“Here,” comes her muffled cry.

He walks toward her soft voice and a wretched heap of flesh and limbs and clicking teeth crashes into him. Cold, ravenous fingers dig into his face and eyes. Jack recoils and flails his arms out, his skin rippling from the ghastly sensation of being touched by those hands. He belts the thing across the jaw and it flinches momentarily, then dives for him again. Jack brings his knee to his chest and digs his heel into its midsection, then rolls back and throws it over him. It lands with a wet slap and Jack crawls atop it and throttles it with his bare hands. Whoops and shrieks abound from the bone altar on the other side of the mudbar and he looks up from his strangulation to spy out any more oncomers. In the darkening swamp, he can’t tell one shadow from the next. When the thing is dead, he rises and searches for Lia.

He finds her submerged in a crater of sludge. The impaled corpse is fish-belly white and covered with ribbons of blood, and Lia struggles to work herself out from under it. Jack hefts it like a bag of chattel and pitches it into the bog water where it sinks with a feeble stream of bubbles. He reaches a hand down and she takes it. Thin shreds of nightgown cling to her muddy body.

“What are those things?”

“People,” says Jack.

He hands her the machete and dives into the water. She limps in after, and he takes her under his arm and strokes downstream through the fetid green lather and swarms of mosquitoes. Luminous mist hovers over the surface. He swims until his arm will turn no more, then they pull themselves onto a shallow bank by the exposed roots of an old tree. They wretch out lungfuls of filthy bile and fall back against the knotted trunk, coated from head to toe in rotten dreck, looking very much like a couple of aberrant swamp dwellers themselves.

“Can you walk?”

Lia flexes out her knee and winces. “Think so.”

She throws an arm around his neck and leans her weight against him. They travel all night long, picking their way through the muddy, infested swamp by moonlight. Day is breaking by the time they reach the edge of it. They climb an escarpment of dry land, famished and thirsting, dried sheets of mud flaking off their bare skin. Lia’s eyes flutter as she hangs onto Jack, and he lays her down in a bed of grass and passes out next to her.

Bright light awakens them. Piercing headaches pound through their skulls. Lia braces herself and tries to stand and quickly topples over, clutching her knee.

“Tighten up?”

“Yes,” she says, teeth gritted.

Jack chops down a small sapling to replace the spear they forsook in the swamp. He strips the branches and places it in her hand, then pulls her to her feet. They sway unsteadily against one another and begin to climb. The hill is low and flat, but it feels like the steepest they’ve ever mounted.

In the afternoon, they hike through scattered coastal woodlands. At the first stream, they lie on their bellies and drink like serpents. They are worn quiet from exhaustion and manage few words, but in their modest glances much is spoken. They are so unbearably close, and both of their countenances contain an equality of dread and hope, each emotion so intense and simultaneous they cannot tell one from the other. It makes them twitchy and alive.

A trail of windblown scrag leads them to the rock-strewn shoreline. They plod heavily across the sand, tracing the water’s edge so their footprints dissolve behind them. Every large outcropping they skirt leads them to another, as if the beach is elongating to make their destination impossibly far no matter how close, and Jack thinks back to the nightmares that used to wake him in a cold sweat.

Their breathing is rhythmic and synchronized. They wind around another bend and what they see on the other side drops them to their knees. The outpost is nestled in the gentle hammock of the valley. Horses graze in a fenced pasture. Several stone buildings spout cookfire smoke. Jack scoops Lia into his arms and they hold onto each other, soft and unhurried. Numbness tingles their bodies as they gaze off at the idyllic little settlement, golden sun twinkling off the waterfront like an array of polished coins. It doesn’t even seem real. Lia presses her lips to Jack’s ear.

“There are good places,” she whispers. “Beautiful places, Jack.”





The Nezra settle for the night not far from the old mansion, deserted now atop the knoll. They circle a ring of men around a small bivouac and take turns sleeping in shifts. In the center of the ring, several warriors dust out the campfire and stow away their gear before lying down with their heads resting on their packs. The horses stand in groupings around the perimeter of trees to which they are bound, trance-like on stiffened legs. A bent, limping form passes through the rows of sleeping men, lurching several times in the dark. Keslin. He steps past the line of watchmen and walks out to a raised anvil of rock. Taket kneels there on a bent leg and looks over the map by the light of a small lantern.

“Four more days,” he says. “If we keep this pace.”

Keslin appraises the map and runs his finger down the length of their route, resting it on the coastal star. “There’s nothing there.”

“Why are we going?” asks Taket, looking up at Keslin’s tired old face.

“We’re not.”

“We have orders.”

“I’m changing them.”

Taket narrows his reptilian eyes.

“One of the two is lying,” says Keslin. “Ethan with his map, or Renning with his confession—and I know which. The map is worthless. It’s a trick.”

Taket scowls down at the map. “How do you know?”

“Because I saw Renning’s eyes when the girl bled. He told the truth. Tomorrow morning, we change course. We’re going to move across the southern tip of the valley, between these ridges here, and we’re heading to the second location first. If I’m wrong, then we double back and come up on this other spot from the east. It’s what we should have planned from the outset.”

Taket holds the lantern up to the map, scanning the light across the faded desert to a second marking drawn out in some oasis.

“We’ll ride in ourselves, if we can, and we’ll burn it to the ground.”

“Search it and burn it,” says Taket. “Arana wants everything brought back.”

“No. It’s worthless, I promise you—whatever they have is rot. All Thomas ever did was poison the well. We burn it.”





“Damn it,” says Nyla.

Her wrench clatters to the floor and she nurses her pinched thumb, glaring at the stubborn driveshaft. She snatches it back and works the handle against the coupling, levering it into place, and with her free hand reaches down and fetches a long bolt resting on an oily cloth. She slips it through the aligned holes and lets everything settle into place, then spins the nut and wrenches it tight.

She steps out into the courtyard and looks around for the old weaver, wiping her hands on a frayed rag. Into the keg again, she thinks rightly. A tireless crew of children flashes past, racing down the stone walkway toward the gazebo to listen the concert.

“Aaron,” she calls after her own, a scappy kid about ten.

He turns impatiently, backpacing away. “What, Mom?”

“Save me a seat,” she says, and her boy turns and bolts off.

Discordant pluckings wobble through the air as the musicians finesse their tuning keys, strumming absently as if their minds are elsewhere, then adjusting and strumming again. She spots Rick in the grass, his dumpling stomach spilling over the top of his belt buckle. She catches his eye and he nods very seriously, then bumbles down the walk to meet her.

“Finished already?” he calls, halfway across the yard.

She smiles and spins back into the mill, her pony-tail whipping around behind her. Rick dawdles into the doorway and leans his shoulder against it.

“What’d I break?”

“The shuttle arm,” she says, smacking the loom with her wrench.

“It’s fixed?”

“Let’s see,” she says, stepping around a barrel-sized iron tank, braced with thick straps and riveted, wisps of steam hissing out from the overflow valve. She reaches across and turns the lathed handle, gives the flywheel a nudge, then stands back as the mechanism begins to spin. The massive loom animates—skeletal metal arms shuttle back and forth, internal gears click round, and the beam glides up and down on its pivot, trying to snatch at threads that aren’t there.

“Don’t run it so fast next time,” she says, grinning.

“Thought I’d busted the whole thing,” he bellows, his voice rising above the din of the machine.

Nyla powers it down and releases the pent-up steam from the boiler, then collects her tools in a little wooden box and shoves it back under the workbench.

“Coming to the show?” asks Rick.

“I’ll be out—just gonna get cleaned up.” She plucks the fabric of her stained smock.

He salutes her, then empties his mug and meanders back down the walkway. Nyla scrubs the grease from her hands, swishing them around in a bucket by the door and flicking off the excess water. She steps out into the cool evening, closes the mill door, and sets off toward her cabin along the ridge, longing for a wash rag and a clean blouse. She takes three steps and freezes—a panicked voice calls her name. She sweeps her eye over the gathering audience, looking for the source. The little concert begins—acoustic thrumming spills from the gazebo, and the various gossip circles quiet themselves and settle in on blankets laid out across the yard.

“Nyla!” calls Tyler, cutting through the placid melody. He runs across the walk, waving his arm frantically.

Nyla sighs, wondering what else is broken that needs fixing, and starts to shuffle toward him.

“We got a problem,” he yells, and the mandolin players cease mid-chord.

The faces in the courtyard follow her movements as she jogs down to meet Tyler.

“What is it?”

“We have visitors. You need to hear this.”

“Visitors? Who?”

“Don’t know. They said Renning is dead.”

“What?”

Tyler leads her away from the perplexed crowd, between a row of cabins, and out toward the fenced pasture where the horses roam. She sees her husband, Denit, leading a pack of men with their bows leveled at something approaching from down the hill. She breaks into a sprint, coursing along the graying wood fence, and spots the boy and girl at the bottom of the slope, climbing over the rocks toward their settlement. They look wretched. The boy stops and picks the girl up off the ground and they press forward. A red-crusted machete dangles from the boy’s hip. Denit trains his arrow and advances a few steps.

“Hold right there,” he yells.

The boy stops and raises up his palms.

Nyla bristles past and moves down by Denit.

“What’s going on?”

“Saw them when I was closing up the gate,” says Denit. “Said something about Renning and Ethan.”

Nyla looks at them and tightens her face. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Jack.”

“You look hurt.”

“A little…”

“You needing help? Why did you come here?”

“We have… a message,” he says, catching his breath. “We’re told to tell you… Ethan and Renning are dead.”

Nyla pushes brazenly away from the armed men and runs down to meet them. “How do you know this?” she asks, her voice hushed.

“They took them.”

“Who? Who took them?”

“They live up north on the coast… in a huge Temple. They have a king, Arana Nezra the Second. He took us, too. We got away. Ethan said they know… they know about Alexandria.”

Nyla’s hand flies to her mouth.

“We came here to warn you,” says the girl, steadying herself with a tall walking stick.

Nyla steps closer and looks them over. They are ripped to shreds, cut in a dozen places each, and bruised all over. She takes two more tentative steps, listening to her instincts, then rushes over and helps brace up the girl.

“I’m Nyla,” she says.

“Lia.”

“Come on, let’s get you inside. Denit, give me a hand.”

The group drops their weapons and hurries down. They take the two in their arms and help them up the slope, toward a wide stone shelter at the edge of the settlement.

“Boil some water,” says Nyla to the scattering of onlookers. “Get me some milk and bread for poultice, and heat up something to eat. Are you thirsty?”

Jack and Lia nod yes. A canteen is produced from the crowd and they take long slogs as they are led into the shelter.

“What happened to your leg?”

“Got hit with a rock,” says Lia.

“We’ll wrap it up soon as we get you clean. I’ve got some clothes that might fit you. Tyler, you have a son about Jack’s age…”

“I’ll see what I can find,” Tyler says, and starts off.

They go through the murky shelter and out the back door. The expansive courtyard is carpeted with blankets, parents reclining with their children, and every face turns toward Jack and Lia. They dart their eyes shyly across the crowd as Nyla escorts them along the walk to an open-air wood beam structure tucked back in a grove of shade trees. They climb the steps, nervously aware that everyone is still watching them, and Nyla walks to the back of the structure and pulls shut a cloth curtain, behind which lay a row of tubs. In a short while, people start carrying buckets of hot water behind the partition and splashing it into the tubs, filling them to the brim with steaming water.

“Soap,” says Nyla, handing them a white bar. “Take as long as you need. Clean those cuts—what is this, did you get bit?”

“A lion,” says Lia.

Nyla nods, bewildered.

Jack and Lia step to either side of the cloth curtain and peel off the tatters of cloth stuck to their filthy bodies, then sink into the tubs. Their baths darken instantly with blood and dirt. Jack dips his whole head under water and works the slippery soap around in his hands. It smells of honeysuckle. Across the partition, Lia lets out a little groan as she massages her swollen knee.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m great,” she says. “Are you?”

“I’m better now.”

They soak until their fingers prune, hot water stinging their wounds, then rise and dry themselves. Disembodied hands reach through the curtain and hand over rough undergarments, pants, and shirts. When Jack is dressed, he slinks around the curtain and waits for Lia. A moment later she steps out, wearing a loose-fitting blouse and pants that bunch up around her ankles.

“That woman knows,” she whispers. “She’s heard of Alexandria, I could see it in her face when you told her.”

Jack smiles. “We found it. This is the little star.”

“Jack? Lia? I’m Ellen,” says a kindly old woman.

“Hello…”

“News travels quick, here. You’ve got everyone talking.”

“What are they saying?”

“They want to know who you are…”

Jack isn’t entirely sure what to tell her. “We’re wanderers.”

The old woman gives them a sly nod. “Come on inside. Nyla wants to tend to you.”

The small concert has turned into background music and the audience is alive with chatter. Ellen walks them through the middle of the courtyard, back to the stone shelter they passed through earlier. Nyla sits by the fireplace with an array of bandages and liniments laid out, with two empty chairs facing her. Ellen puts a warm hand on each of their backs and guides them over.

“Which of you is banged up worse?” asks Nyla.

They point at each other.

“Okay, I’ll start with you,” she tells Lia, and swabs alcohol over her bite wounds.

Lia puckers her lips, waiting for the burning sensation to still itself.

“Not bad… you’ve got some infection. How about your knee? Can you bend it?”

“Yeah, but it hurts.”

Ellen kneels down beside her and starts working a strip of fabric round and round her knee, cinching it snug.

“How far away is it? This… temple,” asks Nyla as she works.

“It’s pretty far north.” Jack hisses as she pours alcohol over the three scab-encrusted stripes across his chest. “Took us… eleven days, I think. We had a horse for two.”

“You said… they have a king?”

Lia nods gravely.

“And an army,” says Jack. “They stole Ethan’s map. They know how to find you.”

“Find us? Why do they want to find us?”

“You have something they want.” Jack meets her eye and a look of recognition passes between them. “That place…”

“How many people live there?” she asks, cutting him off.

“Maybe a thousand. They have hundreds of soldiers.”

“These people took you?”

“They burned our home in the forest,” says Lia. “Killed everyone but the children.”

Ellen’s breath hitches. “They killed everyone?”

“They took us all to the Temple, all my friends, and they made us be like them. You know the place they’re looking for? Alexandria? Someone said you could take us there.”

“Who said that?” asks Nyla, wrapping a milk poultice around Lia’s shoulder.

Ellen looks curiously at Nyla, burning for fresh gossip.

“Thomas,” says Lia. “Only he’s not called Thomas anymore. Do you know him?”

“Thomas? I don’t…”

“He has a brother. They grew up there together and Thomas ran away.”

Nyla freezes in the midst of her work. “He’s my uncle,” she says numbly. “You met Thomas?”

Lia nods. “You do know him.”

“I’ve heard stories about him. He left before I was born. That was… so long ago… Where is he?”

“He lives everywhere.”

“How did you find him?”

“He found us. He saved us from wolves.”

“Is he… okay?”

“Sort of. He’s friends with a bear.”

“What?” Nyla rinses her hands in a bowl of water then leans back, rubbing her temples.

“He told us you could take us there,” Jack presses. “To Alexandria.”

“You can ride a horse?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” she says. She rises and gathers up her supplies. “In the morning, we’ll ride out to my father’s house. We have to tell him what’s happened.”





“I hate you.”

“Jeneth, I’m sorry.” Eriem kneels in the darkly lit corridor, next to one of the heavy wooden doors that secure the cells in the keep.

“Please tell me she’s okay…” Jeneth says through the barrier.

“She’s fine. She’s in the nursery. I won’t let anything happen to her. I promise.”

“What good are your promises?”

“I’m sorry…”

“How could you let them do this to us?”

“I had no choice. None of us did.”

“You had a choice. Don’t lie. You could have broke their orders.”

“Jeneth,” he says, exasperated. “Don’t say that. Please, just stay calm and keep quiet. They’ll let you out soon, I know.”

“Go away.”

“Jeneth…” He pounds on the door. “Jeneth, you hear me?”

Nothing. He can hear whispering inside the cell. He reaches his hand underneath the door and someone grinds a heel into it.

“Get off!” He quick snatches back his hand. “I asked to stay on Temple duty so I could be close to you,” he says roughly.

“Go away,” she cries. “Please, just go away—I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Ever again.”

He leers at the door and presses his face close to the crack between the jamb. “You know, I was about to stand with Ezbeth… but you’re on your own. Stay down here if you want.”

Jeneth falls back against the wall and buries her face in her hands. Misery is general around her. Shapeless forms cowering in the dark, clinging to each other, uplit from the torchglow snaking under the door like a fog. Phoebe curls against her and latches onto her elbow. A jagged red line runs across the side of Phoebe’s throat, with crude black X’s of stitchwork holding her skin together.

“It’s gonna be okay, Jeneth,” she says.





“Here’s an old fool,” says Collins to his wife.

“Friend of yours?” asks the watchman who spotted him.

“Something like that.”

The timeworn traveler ticks sprightly up the roadway toward the Olde Village, and the bear and wolf chase through the brambles ahead of him.

“Hello, Collins.”

“H’lo, Henry. Been what, ‘bout a year or more?”

“About that,” says the man with many names. “How are you, Mary?”

“We’re fine. Still got your family, I see.”

“Sorry. Ruck, get down.”

“What brings you?” asks Collins. “Passin’ through?”

“Not exactly. Something’s coming this way, something you ought to know about. Wanted to… have a talk with you.”

“All right, well…” Collins puts his arm around his wife, perplexed. “I suppose you should come on in. You hungry?”

“Always.”

They wander through the winding roads, catching up on their adventures. Candlelight flickers through the vaulted stone windows and shadows pass of families settling down for the evening. Crickets thrum in the bushes, and the scent of roasted meat drifts through the streets. They come around to a sizable bonfire pit, burning low on its last few logs. Collins tosses on a couple more and takes a seat on a wooden bench angled toward the flames.

“Rest your feet, there, Henry. Can I get anything for your… for them?”

“They’re fine.” He smiles, stained teeth showing through a mess of beard. “Collins, I should start by confessing that I’m not called Henry. Never was.”

“Oh?”

“My name’s Thomas. I didn’t tell you because I was scared.”

“Scared of us?” Collins asks, a touch intrigued.

“No,” chuffs Thomas, “not in the least. There’s a bad lot living to the north of here. The sort that kill and steal. I’ve come to advise you and your friends to leave this land and hide out somewhere, at least for the time being.”

“Hide out,” says Mary. “We’ve lived here years, we can’t just up and leave.”

“We’re not leaving,” says Collins. “This is our home. And anyone comes to take it from us, they’ll have to reckon with me.” He touches his hand to the bow strapped over his shoulder.

“Collins, listen to me—they’ll kill every last one of you. You can’t fight them. It’s possible you can come back here someday, but right now you’ve got to leave. There’s no choice, I’m sorry.”

Collins leans back and grimaces, rubbing his broad stomach. Several children chase through the plaza, laughing and squealing.

“How’d you come to know all this?”

“It’s a long story, but I know it to be true.”

“And they’re coming… these killers?”

“Yes. I believe they are.”

“You’ve come around here before with some awful wild notions. How do I know this isn’t one of ‘em?”

“I run from them myself, long years ago. Because I’m a coward. It’s how I ended up out here. Collins, you have to believe me—they’ll burn this place to the ground, with you in it. Listen to me—you have to run.”

Collins works him over with hard eyes. “All right,” he says, taking his wife’s hand. “We’ll leave. First thing in the morning.”

Thomas sighs out a breath of relief.

“I’ll round up everybody tonight, tell them to get their things in order.”

“Good. It’s best, you’ll just have to trust me.”

“All right, then. You want to join along? Strength in numbers.”

“Naw, Collins. Afraid I can’t.” Thomas pats his hand on his thigh and Ruck rises tiredly and weaves toward him. He scratches at his ears and looks back to Collins.

“You look like you got something else on your mind…”

“There was… one other thing,” says Thomas. “Something I wanted to ask of you.”

“Oh?”

“If memory serves, you used to have several old ponies tied up around here.”

“Still do.”

“I’d like to propose a trade,” says Thomas, positioning himself grandly. “A bear and a wolf for a pony.”

Collins cackles until he coughs up balls of phlegm. “What in hell would I want a bear for?”

“She’s good protection.”

“What protects us from her?”

“Little bit of love,” says Thomas, grinning slyly.

Collins laughs until his chest rattles. “You’re crazy.”

“I know it,” says Thomas, low and straight-faced.

“Hold on… you’re serious?”

“Mmm.”

“Oh my. Thomas… I’ll have to think about that one.”

“Sleep on it.”

“That I will.”