Peregrin

By A. Sparrow

(Sequel to Xenolith). Frank Bowen braves three portals and a parallel world at war to find the wife he lost years ago in Belize, but the reunion inexplicably bombs. The Liz he finds is much evolved from the woman he married. Can Frank rekindle what they once shared, survive the coming purge and convince her to return with him to the land of their birth?

• Language: English
• Publisher: A. Sparrow
• Release date: Aug 7, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452384474

A. Sparrow

I'm terribly unprofessional and self-loathing. I can't imagine why anyone here would want to know anything about me. I write mainly for my own entertainment. It's fun to chase stories. Anyone else who finds enjoyment from it is a plus.

Book preview

Chapter 1: Siklaa Gorge

peregrin (n) – a foreign sojourner in a state.

A month before the rains …

Snug in a cleft of sun-warmed stone, Bimji scoured the road for signs of the overdue caravan. Sheer below his feet, a chute channeled runoff and loose rock to the bottom of the gorge where the Siklaa River, withered by drought, gurgled unseen in a bed clogged with boulders.

An elegant viaduct carried the road, curving and reversing, along the river course, hoisting it high over columns and arches. The valley folk called it ‘the caterpillar.’ The wonder of the frontier, slaves had labored ten years to build it. People came from afar to gaze upon its glory, surpassing any castle or temple in Gi. Bimji had even brought his own family to see it. He almost regretted the havoc that he and his fellow conspirators planned to unleash.

Innocents would perish under Tarikel’s dark magic. The caravan, if it ever came, would include not only soldiers but settlers and their children, slaves and prisoners of war. Bimji tried not to think too hard about it.

Vultures accumulated overhead, gliding in concentric circles around towers of convection rising from the plateau. Bimji licked at a seep oozing down a crease, finding barely enough water to moisten his lips and tongue. Gritty and metallic, it failed to quench his thirst. He envied Tarikel’s cousins hiding in the boulder caves beneath the viaduct, able to drink their fill at their whim.

Something shifted on the fringes of his perception, slipping around a bluff before he could get a clear look. Needles pricked his skin.

He honed his gaze on an open patch of road at the end of the viaduct. A man appeared, leading a donkey loaded with curled sheets of cork. They traveled alone.

After days of trading watches deep in the gorge, Bimji had begun to doubt whether a caravan would ever pass this way again. Perhaps the Venep'o had tired of the petty sabotage that had plagued them in the gorge and had gone back to using the longer but safer route over the mountain passes.

Not that he would complain if it turned out to be true. It would mean that Tarikel would call off the attack. He could return home with Lizbet none the wiser, having shown his loyalty to the rebel cause without risking his skin.

As man and donkey moved on towards Raacevo, tension drained from Bimji like wine from a split skin. He slumped against the stone, watching the shadows fill the gorge like a rising flood. Time's machinery seized. The hours eroded Bimji’s vigilance. He found himself watching marmots setting scraps of weed to dry in the sun, lizards scurrying onto ledges to bask. The cleft concealing him radiated the warmth it had stolen from the sun, beckoning like a vertical bed. He wedged himself deeper, conforming his flesh to the smooth stone.

His eyelids sagged. He chomped on his hand to keep them open. He only had to hang on a bit longer. The sun was falling. Soon, Paoala would come relieve his watch.

Hoof beats. Horses.

Senses fogged by fatigue, Bimji was not sure he believed his ears. He focused on the point where the road passed between an isolated stone pillar and the sheer wall of the gorge, the farthest stretch of roadway observable from the ledges.

Six horsemen appeared riding sleek mounts. Lightly armored, bearing crossbows and sabers. Crasac scouts. Bimji poised to run, but waited to ensure this was not merely some patrol returning to their garrison in Raacevo.

Donkeys laden with dry goods trotted onto the viaduct followed by a contingent of Crasac foot soldiers, their uniforms crisp and vibrant, fresh from the training grounds. Then came mule teams, hauling wagons by the dozen, bearing furnishings, foodstuffs, war machines.

Bimji’s pulse pounded so hard, he could hear it. He scrambled up the chute.

They’re here! he called, climbing onto the rock shelf where Tarikel and Paoala lounged on slabs strewn like furniture, their encampment out of sight of both gorge and plateau.

You’re sure … this time? said Tarikel.

Can’t you hear them? said Bimji.

Tarikel’s gaze turned inward. The creak of a hundred wagons and the shouts of their drivers expunged all doubt. He hustled to his feet, scowling at Paoala who stood frozen in place on a slab like a statue atop a pedestal. Quit gaping and go!

Paoala dashed over to a scalloped wall and yanked away a blanket covering the niche bearing Tarikel’s dark materials. Her hands darted, collecting unlit tapers, spark stones, handfuls of tinder, and bundles of tovex.

She tossed one of the bundles at Bimji. Taken by surprise, he fumbled it off his fingertips. Paoala gasped, but he trapped it with his foot before it could tumble over the edge.

Easy now, you two, said Tarikel, as he packed their bedrolls. Your haste is wasted if you take a tumble.

Paoala scurried to the chute, Bimji at her heels. They climbed to the cap of hard stone that topped the plateau and parted ways, heading in opposite directions to bracket the span of the viaduct.

Good luck, Paoala, said Bimji, cobwebs burned from his skull by the fire of panic.

Paoala nodded back, eyes peeled as wide as eyes could open.

Chapter 2: Reunion

The end of the first rain …

Chaos ruled the clouds. Beneath rumpled and silvered sheets, darker shreds flew like ravens to a feast. In the high peaks, a thunderhead burgeoned and grumbled, probing black fingers down ravines. Sunlight sifted through fleeting breaks to glaze the waterlogged landscape.

Frank braced his hand on Tezhay’s shoulder. He gasped for air, heart balking like an engine with a clogged filter. Zigzag patterns swam before Frank’s eyes. The mud at his feet beckoned him to join it. As he fought to stay vertical, he stared transfixed at the female figure limping towards him past gauntlets of shacks and barns, villagers taking refuge from the plunder, terraced fields buttressed with stone walls that swarmed with sweet peas.

They stood at the base of a narrow vale that hung over the main valley, whose river coursed unseen beyond the treetops, its presence only suggested by a crease in the distance. A splintered crag, like a shattered castle tower, loomed to their left. The opposite wall was less imposing, but steep enough to challenge the goats that speckled its face. Gullies fed cascades into the roaring brook that sluiced through a notch, racing like a comet to hurtle over the cliffs. Beyond the gullies, tiers of meadow stepped ever higher into mist and mountain.

Frank’s heart announced its return from stasis with an emphatic compression that rebounded off his ribcage and wobbled his innards. The fog nibbling at the edges of his vision burned away, letting him bask in the full glory of this vision of Liz coming down the muddy walk.

Frank kept his eyes transfixed on her as she descended through a hamlet’s worth of hovels and barns clad in shakes and thatch, towards terraces planted in grain and potato and vine that somehow caught enough sun to thrive. This woman—his woman—flowed downhill like the rain-fed rills. She was an apparition turned corporeal, the one who for twenty years had visited him only in dreams.

She was a transformed Liz—weathered, evolved—with a muscular bulk to her bare arms far beyond the wiry, tennis-enhanced tone he had known. And she no longer sported the waspish midriff of a nullipara. She walked stiffly, dragging one leg as if it were made of wood.

She wore her hair much the same—long and loose, with honeyed swirls and curlicues, its color retained. She carried her chin at that same, distinctive jut, taking in the world like a benign goddess for which all of creation was created. And as she closed on them, he detected her default smile, the one that cushioned anger, hid sorrow and betrayed her amusement with all that was ludicrous about the world. There was no mistaking, this could only be Liz.

A pair of lanky yellow dogs caught sight of their master and bounded across the fields to join her. Frank felt paralyzed by the moths riddling his innards. He stared down at the runnels gurgling through ditches on both sides of the muddy path, racing to their destiny at the cliffs below.

Go to her. Tezhay nudged him hard. Is this not your woman?

I gotta take this slow, said Frank, his eyes leaking. His legs trembled, rooted to the earth.

Two young women separated from the ragged line of men and woman defending the cliff top and came up the lane. One, obviously another exile, had mousey brown hair tied back in a bandana. Startled, blue eyes bulged above a veil covering her nose and mouth.

The other, younger woman—a girl—wore no veil. She carried a longbow, and studied him with eyes just like the Liz he remembered, the eyes he could never conjure in dreams. Her hair, clotted into thick skeins by the rain, flowed down her back in thick, dense waves, just like Liz’s.

Oh my God, you’re another exile, said the Liz-like girl with the longbow, her English clear but oddly accented. Where are you from?

My friend, said Tezhay. He know this lady. He indicated Liz, hobbling down to them.

"Ellie, who are these people? said Liz. I thought I told Miles to turn everyone away. We have too many refugees as it is. How are we supposed to feed them all?"

They’re not refugees, mom, said the girl. They say they know you.

"Know me? How? I’ve never … I’ve … I …." She stopped a few steps away in the muddy track. Puzzlement creased her face.

We never meet, said Tezhay. But I know one of your men—Bimji.

Knew, said Liz. Doesn’t surprise me. Her gaze kept flitting over to Frank like a nervous fly. Everybody and their cousin knew Bimji.

Frank smoothed his beard, which had grown in thick since he left Belize. He tried to say something, but found his tongue all knotted up. His circuits were overloading. He couldn’t conjure or coordinate any speech or action.

Liz’s eyes locked onto Frank’s. Ho. Lee. Shit! she said, chest heaving.

Hi Liz, Frank croaked, his voice cracking from the strain..

A shudder rippled through Liz’s face and her muscles went all soft. Frank’s heart beat like a sparrow’s. He watched her eyes gloss over. Was that moisture beading in their corners? He stepped forward, arms outstretched to take her into his arms.

But Liz retreated. Her moment of weakness came undone with the speed of a spring-loaded steel grating, ossifying her features back into an impenetrable bulwark. She wheeled around and lurched away, swinging her bad leg wide.

But Liz, it’s me! Frank.

Mom, what’s wrong? said Ellie, hustling after her. Do you know this man?

Liz clapped her boots down hard against the mud and fled up the path, dogs twining in her wake. Frank tried to follow but the dogs turned on him, snapping and snarling with tails tucked, fangs displayed. One circled back to feint and nip at his flanks while the other held Frank at bay. Frank backed up slowly until he bumped against a stone wall. Tezhay flicked a rock at one’s rump hard enough to draw a yelp. The dogs abandoned their defense and caught up with Liz as she slipped into the nearest outbuilding and slammed the door.

What happen? said Tezhay, eyebrows quizzical. Why she do this?

Don’t know, said Frank, softly. He stared up at the shed. He has never felt so heavy, as if he might sink and be swallowed by the earth, and welcome it.

How come you no stop her? said Tezhay. You should have hold her. Why you do nothing?"

"I don’t know!" said Frank.

You people, said Tezhay, shaking his head.

Thunder shook the mountainside. The sky split open and drenched them.

Chapter 3: The Approach

Through a glittering veil of sun-dappled raindrops, the red car rattled up the road. The vanguard of Captain Feril’s militia walked ahead, but the main body followed behind the car.

Canu sat alone behind the wheel, Pari and Vul having long bailed out, weary of bouncing against the roof like seeds in a pod. When drizzle misted the front glass enough to obscure his view, Canu opened the window and reached out with his hand to wipe it. He found Ara staring at him as if he had grown eyes on stalks.

Is that how you’ve been clearing the windshield? she said.

Why? said Canu. You have a better way?

I do, she said. She stomped over and reached into the open door.

Here. She flicked a lever beside the steering wheel and two arms swept up and scraped the glass clear. She pressed something else and a strange smelling bluish liquid, faintly suggestive of spirits, squirted the glass.

How was I supposed to know this? said Canu, climbing back in.

Sorry, said Ara. I should have told you.

She walked off and rejoined Captain Feril on the flank of the lead column. Canu had argued that the red car, being armored should lead the way, but he had been overruled by Feril, who failed to appreciate the military utility of this potent machine. Of course, it would have helped Canu’s argument if the contraption wasn’t painted bright red.

At the last stream crossing, Feril had come over and with meek deference, tried to encourage Canu to abandon the car. Please Comrade, Sir, Feril had said, addressing Canu as if he were a cadre officer like Ara, and not a simple militia drone like the rest of Feril’s fighters. Don’t you think our stealth would benefit by us all advancing on foot? Canu had simply sunk lower in his seat and glowered until Feril slinked away.

Stealth? Coasting downhill, and even on the flats the red car was deathly silent, and even when climbing it barely put out more noise than the shuffling steps of Feril’s hundred-odd fighters. Canu wasn’t about to abandon this treasure. What else did they have that gave them such an advantage over any Cuasar horsemen they chanced to meet? How could Feril not see how much the car’s presence boosted the morale of the militia marching alongside him, patting its metal skin for good luck?

Ara had taken Feril’s side when he had suggested abandoning the car. Canu saw her glare every time his wheels spun in the mud or squeaked against a boulder.

Yes, the road was getting rough, but the car was strong and Canu knew how to make it go. Now that most of the lowest-hanging parts had torn off, the vehicle no longer caught on every protruding stone and log. The hollow wheels still retained their pressure. If one became punctured there was a replacement stored in back.

Canu had sensed something shift in Ara’s interactions with him ever since she assumed command of Feril’s outfit. In Ur, they had bonded. They had become a team, at least, if not a couple. But now he felt as if a layer of ice had formed between them. Anything Canu said or did grated Ara.

Canu couldn’t comprehend what he might have done to change her feelings. Was she simply maintaining a professional distance? Or had her feelings towards him truly changed since they left Ur?

Of course, neither of them had ever expressed outright to the other the precise nature of their feelings. Their relationship was implicit, conveyed only in glances and touches, in cloaked words. The link was subtle enough to be overlooked by a bystander, and fragile enough to be shattered by a whim. Canu hoped he wasn’t deluding himself, that there really was something happening between them, and that he could reverse whatever force had disturbed their equilibrium.

Canu worried that Ara might have become smitten with Feril. She had spent every minute of their march walking beside the militia captain, ostensibly discussing tactics and intelligence, but Canu suspected there might be something more going on between them.

Who was this Feril but a privileged miller’s boy, given a fancy title, and command over a hundred-odd spawn of farmers? It was not as if he was some brilliant and fearless tactician. Canu and his ilk knew gads more about fighting than these greenies.

Where were Pari and Vul? Lost somewhere in the ranks. Completely ignored.

And then Ara stepped out into the middle of the road with one hand on her hip and her other palm held out, signaling for Canu to halt. At least she had noticed him.

***

Successive ridges, rumpled like wrinkles in the skin of the land, shoved against the unyielding spine of the Maora Mountains. Ara had instructed Feril’s scouts to halt below the next crest. It was the last rise screening them from the Mercomar station, whose gleaming heliograph relayed messages from the farthest reaches of the colonies.

Ara rubbed her palms and found them clammy. She had shown no lack of bravado in proposing the assault on the Mercomar, or in commandeering Feril’s troops under false pretenses. But now that they stood on the brink of battle, she felt the bite of reality.

Her temperament had always been much better suited for solitary service. That was why she always volunteered for long-range scout duties in the militia, and how she thrived before the war as an apprentice Traveler, alone in St. Johnsbury, learning the ways of the Urep’o. Risks to her person she embraced. But when she imposed it on the hundred-odd men and women under Feril’s command, she quailed.

To what fate had she committed these unsuspecting greenhorns and why? Did she really intend to break the truce and initiate the long suspended counteroffensive? Or was she merely demonstrating her loyalty to her new friends and disavowing her link to Baren and the machinations of the Inner Quorum?

On the surface, the short-term risks seemed modest. Ara had visited this Mercomar on many occasions, scouting alone and with militia in training. Baren and his predecessor had placed it off-limits for raids and few Nalkies ever troubled it. Like sheep on an island free of predators, the Mercomar’s operators and defenders had grown complacent. With each successive patrol, Ara found evidence of its slackening defenses: inattentive guards, a garrison relocated off the summit into a col with a spring.

Taking the Mercomar did not worry her as much as the ramifications of commandeering the heliograph and transmitting those eight flashes of eight. Every infiltrator in Gi knew that code as the call to battle. But the counteroffensive had been deferred so long, what if the First Cadre and their Nalki allies no longer monitored the Mercomars? Would the militias mobilize without the coordination and support that they expected from the other forces and be slaughtered piecemeal by the occupying armies? Would taking the Mercomar ultimately do more harm than good?

With a whine and rattle the red car rounded the bend leading the main body of militia. Ara stepped out into the road and halted it. Canu sat alone inside, ever stubborn in his insistence on bringing the car along, though it was clearly never intended for such a rough track, traversed mainly by goats and herdsmen to reach the upland pastures.

Canu made a show of avoiding Ara’s eyes. Why was he acting so odd?

Pari and Vul often ridiculed Canu’s mental balance. Yes, he could be rash and moody, but all in all, Ara had found this reputation undeserved. Now she was beginning to see what they meant. Ever since Captain Feril had joined them, Canu had been acting like an overgrown boy.

Could he possibly be jealous of her spending so much time with Feril? If Feril was going to fight with them he deserved to be consulted. Did Canu have any inkling what she was going through in leading this operation? Ara was in no mood to humor his juvenile whims.

She strode up to his open window. Find a place to ditch that thing, she said. He glared back, but she didn’t blink. She kept her chin set, and her tone firm.

What for? It’s rolling fine now, said Canu. He made the engine groan. The wheels gripped and surged. See? No backsliding. The footing’s not as loose here as on that other hill.

"I don’t care how it rolls," said Ara.

We’ve brought it this far … might as well—

Canu! Listen. This thing can’t come with us. The last thing we need is for the Mercomar sentries to see it or hear it. We can’t give them time to call up their garrison or we’re sunk. Understand? Once we get onto the back slope of this rise, we will be visible to them.

Just … leave it? said Canu, giving Ara a look like a small boy forced to surrender a toy.

You can’t bring it much farther anyway, said Ara. The road gets much rougher up ahead.

But we’re coming back this way, right? said Canu.

I don’t know, said Ara. That depends … on how things go.

A pall slammed over Canu’s face as his gaze flew past Ara’s shoulder. Ara turned to see Feril walking back from the ridge top where his scouts had gone ahead to sniff out potential ambushes.

Glaring, Canu popped the lever that caused the car to reverse and careen backwards down the track, scattering the clot of Feril’s soldiers gathered to watch.

Why is he angry? said Feril.

Just a small disagreement on … tactics. Don’t worry, it’s all resolved.

I don’t think he likes me, said Feril.

Nonsense, said Ara.

Feril leaned against one of those trees with smooth, pale bark that seemed to grow on every sunny slope in Gi. The way ahead seems open, he said. But the scouts see smoke rising from the main ridge.

Smoke? A brush fire?

Campfires, said Feril.

Too bad we won’t make it in time to share their dinner, said Ara. I think we should hold up here. At least until nightfall.

We’ll join them for breakfast, perhaps, said Feril.

If all goes well, said Ara, quaking at the thought. At the base of the next hollow we should find a ravine that shoots straight up to the Mercomar.

You know this land well, said Feril.

I’ve been here many times … too many times, said Ara. I’ve had my eye on this Mercomar ever since I came to Gi.

Me, as well, said Feril. I saw it flash my first morning in the marshes. Shocked me. Burned like an insult. All those ‘all is clear’ messages, every morning and every night. I’d love to put a stop to them.

Boulders and cedars cast long shadows up the slope. Dusk had already settled into the valleys below as a bloody sun sank beneath the treetops.

Ara watched Canu back under a drapery of low-hanging branches. Several of Feril’s soldiers gathered to gawk at this marvel from Ur, rolling up hills with not a single beast to haul it.

Don’t just dawdle, help him disguise it, said Feril. I don’t care if any herders see it, but do enough to keep it hidden from afar.

As Vul and Pari walked together up the track, Canu ignored them. He slammed the door and stomped away. He found a tree by the roadside and swung beneath it to sulk.

Such a child, whispered Ara.

"What’s wrong with him?" said Vul.

Ara shared a knowing glance with Pari.

Ah, Comrade Sirs, said Feril. We should share our plan with you. He turned to Ara. Can we?

Go ahead, said Ara.

But … Comrade Canu?

I’ll fill him in later, said Ara. Go on.

Our force will be split into three parts, said Feril. Each of you will command detachments.

Are you two up for this? said Ara.

Pari nodded.

Of course, said Vul, fingering the red-painted axe he had liberated from the old man’s shed in Ur.

I will lead the main force, said Feril. "Under Comrade Ara’s purview, of course. Comrade Vul will conduct a blocking maneuver to keep the Mercomar guard from being reinforced. And Comrade Pari will support the main assault with a reserve detachment.

I expect there should be a dozen Crasac guards at most posted on the summit, said Ara.

Only a dozen? said Vul. Then one detachment should be able to rout them.

Yes, but it won’t be you. Feril and I will attack the Mercomar with a small group of his best. I want you to take a larger force and cut off any support coming up the ridge from the garrison. You should understand, Vul, that your group is key to the success of this plan. Last I scouted, the Venep’o kept a large garrison on the other side of Maora Ridge. They can be up on the ridge within an hour once called. You should be able to cut them off, or at least delay them. It’s excellent defensive terrain. Much more rugged than this western slope.

Canu rose to supervise the camouflage of his toy. Ara caught him giving a furtive glance back to his comrades.

Pari, you will watch our backs with a small reserve. I don’t expect any Crasacs to use this track as they’re supplied via the main road from Maora, but we have to make sure that our retreat is clear.

What about Canu? said Vul. Who gets stuck with him?

If Canu wanted to participate, he would be here plotting with us, said Ara.

I’ll take him, said Pari. I can keep him out of trouble.

Trouble? said Feril.

Canu has a way of mucking things up, said Vul. He’s better off in the reserve.

Feril whistled for his militia to rise from the meadows on either side of the track. They numbered well over a hundred, divided into four platoons. Ara figured that Vul should have two platoons for his blocking action, with one platoon each for the attack and reserve groups. It should be plenty of force to overpower the guard, send a signal and retreat before the garrison could react.

Canu intercepted Vul and Pari as they sauntered back down the track. Feril was gathering his troops together to address them. Ara strolled up the ridge to chat with the scouts. She hadn’t gone more than a few steps before she heard gravel crunching behind her.

Canu. His face inflamed, even in the dimness. What’s the idea? Sticking me in Pari’s reserve.

Why, I thought you would be pleased, said Ara. You can keep a closer eye on your red baby.

Canu spat an old Suulep’o curse at her, spoken in a dialect her grandmother used to speak. It was something about a turtle.

So sensitive! said Ara. I was only joking! said Ara. Just because you’re in reserve doesn’t mean you won’t be fighting. I expect you to jump into the fray when we need you. You’re just as important as the other groups.

I am a good fighter, said Canu. The best among us. You, of all people, should be aware of that.

Boldest, maybe, said Ara. Luckiest, for sure. But the plan is set. There’s nothing more to discuss.

How long have you known this … Feril person?

What does that have to do with any of this? said Ara, exasperated.

You spend all day by his side. Barely a peek in my direction.

That’s ridiculous, Canu. We were talking strategy. This is war, man. Not school days.

I have a stake in this fight, said Canu. I deserve to be included.

But you are, said Ara. You have an important role.

They came up to the crest of the track, where stone-studded heather replaced meadow and wind-stunted conifers stood arrayed like crippled sentries. Two of Feril’s scouts turned to face her, their eyes wide. Were they so green that the mere sight of the enemy fazed them?

The Mercomar’s heliograph caught the last light of the sinking sun and flashed its last message of the day:

All is clear. All is clear.

Ara pulled Canu behind a tree, mindful of the silhouette he cast against the setting sun. Canu misread her act, took her hand and squeezed it, and drew her in for an embrace.

Canu! No, she said.

Canu froze and stared up at the Mercomar. It had gone dull, but a score of small fires now flickered around the base of the tower. More flared into life as they watched, dozens more than Ara expected. She stared in disbelief.

So many fires, said Ara. This is not how it was, last time I scouted. What’s going on up there?

Dinner, said Canu.

Feril came striding up out of the twilight. Ara slipped her hand from Canu’s grasp.

Oh my, said Feril, upon seeing all the fires on the mountain.

We have to abort the raid, said Ara. There’s no way we can go up against so many.

But we must— said Feril.

We can’t, said Ara. It’s suicide. They defend from heights. They probably have fortifications now.

We must … at least try, said Feril, his face rigid. I mean, mustn’t we? You said Commander Baren himself ordered this attack. Did he not?

Ara looked to Canu for support, touching his arm.

Canu pulled away. "What do you want from me?"

Chapter 4: Tovex

Months earlier …

Bimji squeezed up a chute, emerging above a wall of pale stone, its uppermost cant easing like the bevel atop an axe blade. It was an easy scramble across to a deeply undercut ledge that brooded over the gorge like a brow, but he chose his steps carefully. Below him stretched nothing but vertical walls and air. One un-arrested slip meant death.

Toe-holds grew scarcer, the facet smoother, the farther Bimji clambered. His plain leather slippers had no edges to bite with, but the suede clung well to the rough stone.

Upon reaching the overhang he jammed his body into the narrow shelf beneath and paused to catch his breath. He mused at how nice a rain shelter the deep undercut would make if not perched above such a deadly precipice.

The bulge of the gorge wall blinded him to the road immediately below. He had no way of seeing how far the caravan advanced, but so close to Raacevo, he knew they would not dally. They would push to reach the city by nightfall.

Downriver, though, Bimji had a clear view of the viaduct. The nature of the traffic crossing it horrified him. Clearly, this caravan carried more than colonists and commerce. Siege machines and war wagons crossed the spans between ranks of Crasacs.

Tarikel’s cousins hid beneath, in the jumbled bed of the Siklaa River. The plan called for them to darken the boulders with river water when midpoint of the convoy had reached the viaduct. The boulders thus far remained dry and pale. The river lurked somewhere beneath, hinting of its presence only in occasional trickles and pools.

A thousand slaves had built the spans: mostly prisoners of war, convicts marched in from Venen or procured in Gi. Hundreds had given their lives completing it over the years it had taken to finish

Bimji couldn’t help but admire the work they aimed to destroy. Expert masons from the Venenendera’s private guild had supervised the construction, carving precise blocks from the gorge walls, fitting them without mortar. They had turned their quarries into stairways that zigzagged up the gorge wall like lightning bolts, cutting through the maze of spires that loomed over the gorge.

Out of boredom or inspiration the masons embellished the landings with shrines to the three brother gods: Fanhalahun, Pasemani and Cra. They directed springs to cascade beside the flights to create waterfalls, carved benches atop landings where the views were particularly spectacular.

To destroy it all seemed such a waste, but what else could they do? The easier passage had accelerated the pace of Gi’s occupation, attracting many more colonists than had braved the longer and more treacherous mountain routes.

Bimji unpacked a red coil of fuse, blasting caps, tovex, tinder and tapers from the bundle slung from his shoulder. In a groove of stone, he made a little pile of resinous fluff taken from the seed pods of a torch flower and weighed it down with a lozenge of flint and a bar of steel from his pocket.

He crossed to the center of the overhang and packed tovex into the crevices he had already chiseled into a crevice, inserted blasting caps and a long loop of red fuse, carefully inspecting it for gaps in the powder and dampness.

Bimji checked the boulders beneath the spans. They remained pale. Traffic on the spans had halted. The Crasacs had dispersed. There were wide gaps between wagons. Had their plot been sussed out?

Bimji listened carefully to the wind. He could faintly perceive shouts and voices but detected no unusual commotion.

Bimji’s charge was to be the first blow, then Paoala’s. The idea was to block the roads fore and aft, to concentrate the caravan on the spans. Then Tarikel’s cousins would take them down, wagons and Cuasars and all while they fled through the boulder caves.

That’s how the plan was supposed to work, anyway. None of them, not even Tarikel, had blown up anything larger than a tree before. He had placed only a small charge. The idea was to loosen just enough stone to let the rock do most of the work.

Bimji did not even expect to witness the results of his efforts. Once he lit the fuse he would have less than a minute to make his way over to the chute and up to the top of the plateau. The old road to Venen ran there, below the pass where the glittering heliographs of the Mercomar station relayed messages from the Venenendera to his governor, the Alar, in Raacevo.

Tarikel had never discussed what to do if his cousins were captured or otherwise unable to set their charges and send a signal. Bimji supposed he would do nothing in such case—just leave the charge and go, back to Raacevo, and then back home to Lizbet. He could reach the homestead by sunrise if he traveled all night.

Bimji propped his heels against the groove holding the tinder and stared down at the stalled caravan. A wave of vertigo fluttered through his skull as he contemplated the scale of the abyss that opened up just a short slide down the ledge. Guilt nagged at him because the possibility of aborting this mission intrigued him a little too much.

***

The tovex came into Bimji’s hands via a mysterious Sesep’o who showed up on the high meadows one day. Bimji was helping to drive several flocks of goats and sheep down from pastures that had gone dry and dormant from lack of rain, and into one of the still-verdant dales. He had stopped by the goat house—a communal stone cabin in the high meadows that sheltered shepherds—to retrieve his bedroll and a gourd half-filled with beet wine that he planned to finish on the homeward run.

On leaving the hut, he spotted two figures standing by a barrow several stone throws away. It was rude to ignore visitors to the commons, especially those visiting ancestors, so he altered his route back to the lower meadows to greet his neighbors and show his respects. It was not uncommon for villagers to visit these barrows, bearing keystones fitting a notch on the boulder marking their loved ones’ graves.

But as Bimji approached, he saw that this was no family communing with ancestors. Tarikel, a notorious Nalki sympathizer from Sinta stood with a man clad in the strange clothing of the sort he had seen peregrins wear. But he was not a peregrin himself. The Venep’o might think he was from Gi, but Bimji knew immediately from the way the stranger spoke that he was from Sesei.

Tarikel leaned on a digging spade. The Sesep’o man brandished his like a weapon as Bimji approached. The sod surfacing the barrow was criss-crossed with seams of red earth. It seems the two men had just interred something or someone. Extra soil was scattered among the dry grass at the foot of the barrow.

With only Tarikel and a stranger in attendance this was obviously no ordinary funeral. What were they doing next to a barrow? Disposing of a murder victim? Looting? Bimji now wished he had pretended not to have seen them and had continued directly home from the goat house, but it was too late for that now.

He would need to pay courtesy and convey to the men that whatever they were