The Chronicles of the Pale Books 1-3

By Clare Rhoden

The Outside can be a dangerous place.
But so can the inside.

It’s been years since the original cataclysm, but life has been structured, peaceful, and most of all uneventful in the Pale. The humachine citizens welcome the order provided by their ruler, the baleful Regent.

However, when one of their own rescues a human boy, Hector, from ravenous ferals on the Outside, their careful systems are turned upside down.

As Hector grows more and more human-strange, the citizens of the Pale grow uneasy.

What will happen when the Outside tries to get in?

This book bundle of The Chronicles of the Pale contains: The Pale, Broad Plain Darkening, and The Ruined Land

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odyssey Books
• Release date: Apr 22, 2020

Book preview

Praise for The Chronicles of the Pale

‘A gripping tale of resilience, survival, and how we define the ‘other’—this is intelligent SF that speaks to our time.’

—Jennifer Mills, author of Dyschronia and fiction editor at Overland

‘The sign of good speculative fiction is that you can not only read it for the page-turning story and characters you will come to love and loathe, but also for the way it makes you think about issues relevant to your own world. Clare Rhoden captures both aspects excellently with this great read about a post-apocalyptic world and the four communities within it.’

—Writer’s Epiphany, Amazon UK review

‘A world of biomachines, talking and civilized canines, ferals and complicated futuristic technologies … that captivated me from the start.’

—Katie Mineeff, Reading Time, CBCA

‘The Pale could be regarded as hybrid fiction as it embodies dystopic elements, but also traverses the boundaries of animal adventure stories as the canini packs are never far from the action. Rhoden’s style is literary, with rich vocabulary laced throughout her prose, however, the story is accessible to a broad audience … This is an auspicious debut from Rhoden in the popular fiction stakes.’

—Anne M Gamble, Amazon UK review

The Pale is a simmering read that never goes the way you expect it to … If you’re into intelligent, innovative, feminist science fiction, you can find it inThe Pale.

—Aurealis Magazine

The Pale,in which many sentient species must, as they emerge from disaster, learn to rebuild together, is refreshingly nuanced and complex … The meticulous, deeply thought-out, and intelligent worldbuilding makes it shine.

—Laura E Goodin, author of After The Bloodwood Staff

The Pale is a world of biomachines, talking and civilized canines, ferals and complicated futuristic technologies … that captivated me from the start.

—Reading Time Journal

Rhoden demonstrates tremendous descriptive powers and impressive world building,The Pale reminiscent of the intelligent science fiction novels of old. I am reminded of my favourite science fiction author, Phillip K Dick.The Pale is filled with well-crafted and engaging characters—including dogs—in what amounts to a classy read with an important moral message, making the reader question where we are heading and whose side we are on and what it means to be fully human.

—Isobel Blackthorn, author of Clarissa’s Warning

Rhoden's style is deeply humanist, showing people overcoming prejudices and learning from each other while they deal with dwindling resources and create a better world … It’s a dense, poetic book and probably won’t be for everyone, but if you’re interested in layered world-building, nuanced plotlines, and complex characters, pay attention toBroad Plain Darkening.

—Aurealis Magazine

Some of the big questions inBroad Plain Darkening for me were to wonder at what it really means to be sentient? What is human? Why do some people fear difference? What is family and belonging? How far will artificial intelligence influence our decisions in the future? Will humans merge with machines? What gives rise to ultimate power? Why are people exiled? Surviving on Broad Plain is grim, but this is a warm heart of a story, with inter-species cooperation and care.

—Reading Time Journal

The Pale

Clare Rhoden

Copyright © 2017 by Clare Rhoden

The moral right of Clare Rhoden to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

---

First published by Odyssey Books in 2017

www.odysseybooks.com.au

---

A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia

ISBN: 978-1-925652-02-4 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-925652-03-1 (ebook)

---

Cover design by Elijah Toten

www.totencreative.com

Map of Broad Plain and Schematic of the Pale by Bernard Maher

Contents

Character List

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Interlude: 197pC—198pC

Part II

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Acknowledgments

Character List

Inside the Pale

Élin Patraena, Regent

Jaxon Tangshi, her Senior Forecaster

Hekili, Master of the Immortal Wereguard

Tad, a young serviceman

Jeris, Tad’s senior and first partner

Hallen, Laylene, Milo: other service personnel

Adaeze Patraena, a young paramount

---

The Canini

Tinashe, a canine matriarch

Orfeo, Tinashe’s friend, an aged and wise canine

Mashtuk, descendant of Tinashe and scout for her pack

Zélie, descendant of Orfeo, later Mashtuk’s mate

Callan, a canine pack leader

Aegle, a young canine of Callan’s pack

Waleen, a canine pack leader

---

The Tribes

Kilimajara, Huntmistress of the Storm tribe

Feather, her grandson, hunter and scout for the Storm

Afon of the Rainbow, Hadar of the River, Tehuano of the Terran, Tierre of the Green: other hunt masters of Broad Plain

Marin, a senior elder of the Storm

---

The Settlement

Valkirra Adelriksdottir, the Chief

Talis Jarisson, her spouse

Charm, Jasper and Cushla, their children

Dane Friirsson and his wife Raysa, tailors of the middle town

Jana and Brettin, their twin daughters

Freya Janasdottir, the child of Jana and the tribesman Feather

Maya, Lady of the Temple

Iver, Olinna, Anielka: district representatives on the Settlement’s council

Equii: horse-like animals who have renounced their power of speech

Rat-terriers: small dogs who live with the settlers

---

The Wild Creatures

Wild Men: some humans walk Broad Plain in small family groups or in lawless groups. They do not abide by tribal rules and live in a reduced state.

---

Outclans: some smaller groups are loosely allied with the major tribes but prefer to live in smaller, family-based groups. The Outclans tend to reject some of the tribes’ strict rules about the use of the land and resources.

---

Ferals: these are manufactured creatures that exist solely as killing and feeding machines, with no capacity for rational thinking. They come in a variety of body shapes, sizes, and weaponry and are remnants of the armies that plundered society during the Conflagration.

---

Vulpini: fox-like creatures that hunt the Broad Plain, posing a danger to all live beings.

---

Ursini: large, white-furred predators who mostly live south of Broad Plain, beyond the Broken Ranges.

---

Mammonites: enormous flying creatures that once dominated the plain; the mammonites are now rarely seen.

---

Other animals: longneck deer, patchwork hares, ovines, mastodons, mammonites, wood-adders, strikebeasts, lizards, skinks, blue tongue lizards, crocodylli, pantheras.

Part I

The Post-Post-Aftershock

The Year 197pC

Chapter One

‘How does anything live out there?’ Tad murmured.

He was peering through the cutthroat panels of Alpha Gate, squinting a bit against the morning glare. It was early autumn, and dwindled wrecks of foliage lay strewn on the muddy plain. Shifting clouds refracted a hazy golden light onto the Pale’s stonemetal perimeter. The contrast between the gleaming city and its dirty surrounds was marked.

‘A just question. We citizens of the Pale have done well for ourselves,’ said Tad’s squad leader, Jeris, standing on the observation step beside him. ‘Just look at the Outside. That’s what we’re safe from.’ Jeris shook her head. ‘Vile, dangerous, disgusting.’

Beyond the Pale’s colossal walls, Broad Plain stretched dank and ugly, its sullen red expanse streaked with thin, ground-hugging shadows of shallow dunes. Some leagues in the distance, a ruined mountain on the horizon provided a broken-edged bed for the chilly dawn. Like almost everything that he had seen for the first time that morning, the Outside was much bigger than Tad had imagined. He tilted his head to one side, his eyes narrowed as his personal dataset locked step with his preloaded information. He was aware of Jeris waiting, and once again felt grateful that he had been assigned such an experienced leader to introduce him to his duties.

‘How does anything live?’ echoed Jeris, expanding on his question. ‘The best they can, we suppose. Take the humans. Some of them live together in that settlement to the south, thinking that will keep them safe. Others wander around in big groups, tribes they’re called, hoping to move from one decent living space to another as the seasons turn. And some just scratch around Broad Plain as well as they might. Which is not well at all.’

Tad nodded. ‘And there are others Outside too—canini and mastodons and ursini and—’

Jeris held up a hand. ‘I know!’ she said with a smile. ‘They don’t bother us much, though. Mostly they get killed by ferals.’

Tad frowned. ‘Ferals? They sound horrible. You ever seen one, Jeris?’

‘A few. Ugly critters. Just big gory appetites on legs—or wheels—or treads, depending which type. Always hungry and always vicious. That’s one of our tasks, you know: cleaning up after feral kills around the perimeter.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Tad. He had never yet been Outside. The cleansing patrol was one of the few activities that took any of the citizens of the policosmos beyond their massive walls. He stepped down from the vantage point and followed Jeris.

On the paved inner go-way behind them, other service personnel zoomed along, busy on their rounds of the perimeter. Buildings of stone and plasticite fronted the go-way, each separated from the next by a narrow strip of ordered crops—every square centimetre of the policosmos had its use. Divided into seven districts, the Pale was the largest surviving colony on the continent. The only one worth saving, according to the doctrines of the city’s forecasters. The bucolic settlement to the south and the flimsy camps of the wandering tribesfolk out there on the plain were but poor travesties of survival. Only the citizens of the Pale could be said to have made a successful transition to a post-Conflagration life, and even that had taken almost two centuries.

Tad appreciated the slow pace Jeris set on their first tour together. He needed to become familiar with the physical manifestation of his home, a place that, so far, he only knew from the detailed representation imprinted into his hardware. Like all trainees in every arm of the amenities, he had full access to all the data he needed to undertake his tasks. Also like every other novice, he had never set foot outside the trainee oikos until today, when his preparation was completed.

Jeris had partnered with many new service personnel across the extended decades of her career, and she explained that she always took the first shift slowly. Jeris said that the knowledge of a thing and the experience of it were complementary, necessary, but different components of the working serviceman’s toolkit. Tad was intensely fascinated by the Outside. Jeris told him she understood that too. For now, it was time to move on. She was getting too old, she said, to be taking all day on a single circuit. She rapped Tad’s shoulder.

‘Let’s go, Serviceman.’ Around the next corner, the go-way narrowed to pass through a shadowy arch. Overhead, the vast bulk of the Regent’s Tower straddled the path and the massive wall as well, forming a colossal bulwark that jutted into the Outside. Jeris halted under the arch, looked left and right, and then motioned Tad closer.

‘Know where we are now?’

Tad spoke with certainty. ‘The Regent’s Tower, ma’am.’

Jeris nodded, settling herself onto a stone bench in the shade of the arch. She rubbed at a spot on her heel. ‘These wheels, you know, they pinch your liveware after a few decades,’ she said. Then she looked up. ‘I bet you know all about the Regent’s Tower. Look at your data. Tell me.’

‘Ma’am.’ Tad tilted his head and accessed the information, his large grey eyes dilating to blackness. Jeris pulled him a little to one side to make more room as two passing sanitariat workers slowed long enough for her to run her scanner over them. Tad didn’t notice. In a few seconds he looked up again. ‘Ma’am. The Regent’s Tower is the highest eminence of the Acrocomplexa, the tallest building within the policosmos, built of integrated stonemetal and primary clay blocks with shieldglass inserts and embellishments of rare metals and gems. The Regent’s Throne Room is at the centre and her terrace at the apex of the Tower. The terrace provides a view of 360 degrees over the Outside.’

‘Correct. Anything more?’

Tad blinked. ‘Ma’am. The Acrocomplexa is the most important building in the entire policosmos. Its floor plan is deliberately convoluted. This is a defensive feature dating from the First Days. At the centre of the Acrocomplexa is the oldest structure inside the Pale, the Navel. Inside the Navel the most precious artefacts of the whole policosmos are kept under the constant watch of the Wereguard.’

‘The Wereguard?’ Jeris suppressed a yawn.

‘Otherwise known as the Immortal Guard, ma’am. Twelve specialised service personnel dating from the First Days whose sole task is protection of the Regent, the Regent’s family, and the Navel. The Wereguard have very little liveware but eternal premium hardware. The Wereguard were created at the same time as the policosmos itself and will endure as long.’

Jeris nodded, slapping Tad’s back collegially as she stood up. Her right hip made a loud click, the old cogs interlocking with reluctance.

‘Good work,’ she said. ‘And I have no doubt that you could go on to tell me about the construction of the Acrocomplexa in the First Years after the Great Conflagration, and the Regent’s family, and our role, and so on and so on. You could tell me all that and more.’

‘Yes, ma’am!’ said Tad eagerly, but Jeris held up a hand to forestall him.

‘I thought so. No need.’ She stepped through the tunnel formed by the Tower’s position over the walkway and onto the further go-way. This time, she clasped her hands in the small of her back and inclined her head to Tad. ‘But can you tell me, Serviceman Tad, where the citizens live?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Tad felt on firmer ground. He and his fellow trainees had been given a great deal of information about the Pale’s ordinary citizens. ‘There are three residential oikoi inside the Pale, where our citizens live. These are grouped in the Capitoline district at the centre of the policosmos, guarded by the inner walls. And there are six industrial multiplexi, where the citizens labour. One of these is located at each prime point of the policosmos.’

‘Good. The citizens require most service work. What can you tell me about us? Servicemen?’

‘Ma’am. We work anywhere in the policosmos, wherever we are needed, and respond to all requests. Our primary role is guarding the perimeter, but we can undertake any task for any citizen, and it is our honour to assist all other arms of the amenities.’

‘Indeed. We’ll reach the amenities complex at the end of the shift and seek out your new digs. By the way, it’s your turn to scan now.’

‘Ma’am!’ Tad angled his palm towards a recycler who had just passed them. No alerts. He scooted up beside Jeris again. ‘Yes, ma’am. All clear.’

‘Good. Walk with me now. You’re going to scan every citizen we meet, and tell me about every building we pass.’

‘Ma’am.’ Tad frowned. Her request made him think that perhaps Jeris didn’t consider him sufficiently prepared. At that moment, she turned and smiled at him, the silver plates of her cheekbones reflecting the rays of the morning sun.

‘By the way, congratulations. Most other new personnel have trouble standing the first time they perform a scan right after a data search. Too much information, through too many channels, you see. You’ve done well, youngster. We’re going to get on just fine.’

Tad grinned his relief. He thought so too.

From her open terrace high on the north side of the Acrocomplexa, the Regent gazed up at the virulent colours that flowed across the sky in a constant stream. Yes, autumn was coming to its dramatic conclusion in a flurry of storms, but she hadn’t seen such a sustained display for years. Decades. A chill touched the hairs on the back of her neck, raising a metallic tinkle. Not since the Post-Aftershock, in her long-ago youth, had she felt quite so unsettled.

Élin Patraena frowned, the diamond feathers of her eyebrows catching the sky’s parade of intense hues, a startling contrast against her dark skin. She took a slow circuit of the terrace, observing both the policosmos below and the Broad Plain around it, as well as scanning the night sky. It was clear to her that no alarm had reached the city below. Every gate, from Alpha at the northwest prime around to Sigma in the west, was secure. The hulking walls of the perimeter marked the Pale’s hexagonal expanse, separating it from the barren Outside. Every district showed its regulation number of lights, and no sound other than the constant background humming of the policosmos itself reached her ears. The steady, reassuring progress of service patrols zooming around the perimeter go-ways was marked by an unbroken line of silver light. Nevertheless, Élin was unsettled. She raised a hand, and a servant stepped forward, coming to stand a metre from the Regent’s shoulder.

‘My lady?’

Élin spoke without turning. ‘Fetch the Senior Forecaster to the Throne Room.’

‘My lady.’ The servant muttered into his wristscreen as the Regent swept around and strode towards the stairs.

Very few minutes passed before Jaxon Tangshi, the Senior Forecaster, presented himself. He was just a little short of breath; the Acrocomplexa covered a considerable area of the Palatine district, and he had come from the amenities multiplex on the other side of the city, in the Esquiline. Jaxon, absent-mindedly calming his heart rate, made an internal note: To my Recycler, I require an aerobic enhancement, to elite service level. He frowned; he should not have to schedule such upgrades himself. It was the recyclers’ duty to maintain such important officers as himself and the Wereguard at optimum strength at every given moment.

The problem was, of course, that very few personnel inside the Pale had the longevity of himself and the Wereguard, despite their decades of life. Really, were it not for their dedication, the Pale would long ago have sunk into the same lifeless dust as every other city, or the same filthy muddle as the few other surviving colonies—that pathetic town called the Settlement, for example, or those ridiculous, unsanitary tribal camps. Both he and the Wereguard should be better revered, thought Jaxon, and no doubt they would be, if the other citizens of the Pale had the same intelligence and longevity as they did. However, that was not something to be desired. Jaxon’s task—the task of the Senior Forecaster across the ages—was to manage the policosmos and its Regent so that neither realised the extent of his power. Jaxon reminded himself that the present Regent was one of the more difficult he had ever handled, and walked forward into her line of sight.

Élin halted Jaxon’s advance by swinging around to face him before he intruded upon her personal space, which was, her Senior Forecaster thought, almost as wide as the Acrocomplexa itself. She was known for her unapproachability, and that was exactly as she wished it to be: fair, just, and rational rule could not be delivered by any Regent courting close ties with her officials, and certainly not with her subjects. She was content to have it known that none of her judgments could be swayed by individual appeals or preferential consideration. The taint of emotion would never infect her logical approach. Jaxon was her closest adviser, and the only living creature inside the Pale who knew anything of her beyond the jewelled and gilded image she presented to the entire policosmos. Élin knew his name, as she knew hundreds of others, but she made it a point never to address any citizen, servant, official, Wereguard or service personnel except by the title and status of their profession.

Jaxon considered this an egotistical affectation. Had he been asked, he would have enumerated several shortcomings of this present Regent which, as the decades passed, had diminished his appreciation of her gleaming ebony skin, embedded with gold and gems, and her physical perfection. As a Regent—figurehead of the policosmos—she appeared immutable and flawless, quite beyond the knowledge of ordinary citizens. That was perfectly acceptable, as long as she interfered only marginally in the real workings of the city—as long as he could ensure that she interfered only marginally. Now, mindful as ever of every protocol, Jaxon bowed with the exact degree of deference required between the Regent and the foremost official of the policosmos. He folded his hands across the lightning symbol of his office, zigzagging down the front of his tunic. ‘My lady?’

‘Senior. I want you to look at this.’ Élin indicated the large screen along the western wall of the Throne Room. As she pointed at it, the screen flashed green-yellow-green and then settled into the live image of the night sky.

Jaxon blinked at the sudden intensity of colour. ‘Ah,’ he said, as his eyes went slightly out of focus. Some milliseconds passed while he consulted the appropriate data. ‘Autumn storm season, but with increased flamboyance.’

‘Yes,’ said the Regent crisply. ‘And the air, man, the air!’

The Senior Forecaster tilted his chin. Élin tapped one foot while he sought the correct dataset, visualising the current readings and comparing them against the norms.

‘Pressure is decreasing, and the wind is rising markedly. A mega-storm?’ he proposed with great calmness.

The Regent slapped her hands together. ‘I don’t call you here to tell me there’s a storm looming! Look at the data, Senior: are we building to another shock?’

Jaxon blinked again, his eyes flashing upon the Regent and then turning inwards again, the pupils hugely dilated. Élin rasped her ruby fingernails against the ingrained jewels of her forearm, a scowl of impatience marring the mask-like perfection of her face. The rising wind twisted, howling around the Acrocomplexa.

‘Well?’ demanded the Regent.

‘Of a different order, my lady,’ said Jaxon. ‘You are quite correct. Neither the atmospheric pressure nor the celestial manifestations match the records of the most recent nor of the original aftershock. Something quite, quite unusual is happening.’

‘So I perceive,’ said the Regent. She sighed, an infinitesimal susurration. ‘Much as I regret to say it, my intuition tells me there is another shock coming.’

‘My lady.’ Jaxon frowned. He knew, of course, of the famed Patraena instinct, just as he knew—or, in truth, remembered—all the history of the policosmos. His life and his study covered every topic from pre-Conflagration days till the present hour; his updates were live and he had only to look. Nothing in any of his datasets matched the current conditions, but still he doubted the credibility of a mere instinct.

All his information indicated that the Patraena intuition was an incompletely documented, unsounded, unreliable resource that had raised the Patraenas, ages past, to the peak of their society. Former Regents had preened themselves much on this inherited ability. That the current queen preferred not to rely on her inner perception as a guide to actions and decisions was a factor Jaxon had counted in her favour. Nothing bored him so much as story-tale mumbo jumbo. Tonight, however, as their gazes locked, both Jaxon and Élin assimilated the fact that the Regent’s intuition had indeed proven more alert than any of the data forecasts or sensors.

The realisation hit at the same moment as the Pale cracked apart, gaping from way beyond Alpha Gate right up to the steps of the Acrocomplexa. Both the Regent and the Senior Forecaster were flung to their knees, and neither noticed for long moments how they clung like frightened young.

Tad thought about asking his squad partner to come on to the observation step, but Jeris, her shoulder pressed against the edge of a silo, looked to be napping. How she could sleep with the wind booming around the fencelines, and the pathetic crying of the child Outside, was beyond Tad.

Huh. Maybe she couldn’t hear the commotion. Probably she needed an audio upgrade, one that she would never get now. Jeris was getting on, after all. He wondered briefly what it would be like to reach the end of your allotted upgrades, to know you were soon for the scrapheap—officially known as the Recycling Shed. It was meant to be a time of celebration, a time when you contributed great gifts to the whole community inside the Pale, but Tad wasn’t so sure. He had been in the service long enough to know that no one wanted their parts recycled into something less meaningful, like a victualler or cultivator or sanitariat. Everyone in the service was proud of the active, useful, busy life it offered. A forecaster would be fine, but forecasters were few and precious, even fewer than the recyclers themselves.

Tad shook his head; all that was nothing he need worry about for decades. He was a fully-grown serviceman now, having spent the first twenty years of his life being progressed, grown, fitted out, gauged, and trained. It was usual practice to match up a new serviceman with an experienced squad partner, and he really enjoyed Jeris’s company. She didn’t talk much, but what she did say was worth listening to. She had a glint of humour in her eyes, a quality that Tad had never previously encountered. Jeris could tell him more in one look than most of his comrades in a dozen words. The last couple of days, though, he had noticed a change. Jeris kept nodding off. That was strange. He supposed he should report it. Well, first investigate what that human immature was doing by the fence, and then wake Jeris.

He flicked his wheel switch on and zoomed west along the go-way towards Beta Gate. The sun had set hours ago, but the sky was lit red and orange by bursts of cloud and gas. Some of the flashes were brighter than daylight. In one surge of light more dazzling than any yet, Tad realised that the crying child was not alone. He slowed as he reached the barred gate, and looked through its cutthroat wire panels at the two humans outside.

The immature had gone silent, staring at him. The grown human sank down onto the ground, as if she—or he—Tad wasn’t all that good at lifeform identification, though he could tell a vulpine from a canine, a mastopod from an ursine, and so on. In the service, it wasn’t necessary to know everything. If he’d needed to differentiate human males from human females, then he would have been provided with that information. All that was necessary in this case was to recognise a living being at the fence, and to give the challenge. So he did.

‘Serviceman Tad speaking. You have approached Beta Gate, on the west side of the Pale. What do you seek?’

‘Please.’

‘I repeat, what do you seek?’

The grown human seemed to crumple into a closer bundle of flesh and clothing. The immature reached out a hand and placed it on the back or shoulder of the huddled form. They were both shaking, Tad could see. Neither looked ready to answer the challenge. Tad pursed his lips. Procedure was to issue the challenge three times, and then eliminate any life form that threatened the perimeter, especially if it was near any of the six gates. He cleared his throat, loosened his firearm from its holster, and spoke with deliberate distinctness.

‘I am Serviceman Tad. I ask again, what do you seek here at Beta Gate of the Pale?’

The folded adult hoisted itself into a semblance of posture—maybe it was kneeling. Tad took a hasty step backwards: when the human raised itself, he could see a massive rent in the front of its body. The human spoke again, and Tad dragged his eyes from the ragged, bloody wound to the ghastly face.

‘Ferals,’ gasped the human. ‘The boy. Please.’ With that, the human fell forward onto its dreadful face, and lay still. The immature pulled frantically at its shoulder, but the human had ceased living.

As Tad braced his weapon in both hands, uncertain what to do next, Jeris wheeled up behind him and took him by the elbow.

‘Put that away,’ she said.

Tad obeyed. ‘What now?’ he asked.

‘It is clear they sought shelter from ferals.’

‘The adult one is dead,’ said Tad.

‘Yes.’

‘The immature is not.’

‘So I hear,’ murmured Jeris. The child was wailing fit to wake the trainees tucked into their cocoons over by Epsilon Gate. She tilted her head on one side. ‘Do you think that boy is healthy, Tad?’

Tad grimaced. What sort of a question was that? He was no recycler, to gauge the value of bodies and parts. He shrugged again. ‘Maybe.’

‘Hmm. Bring it in.’

Tad started. ‘Inside the Pale? A human immature?’

‘Yes. It may be valuable to the recyclers. If not, it is easily disposed of.’

‘Yes’m.’

Tad slapped the screen embedded in his wrist, and waited the scant milliseconds while it flashed green-yellow-green and then glowed into fervent life. He tapped a few keystrokes, and then stood back while one of the cutthroat wire gates clicked open neatly, inwards. When the way was clear he wheeled over to where the humans were congealed like a single life form. He touched the immature’s shoulder. ‘Come.’

The child looked up at him, and then down at the figure bent almost to nothingness at his feet. ‘Yes,’ he said, and put his small hand into Tad’s.

Tad flinched, but kept hold. The boy’s fingers were chilly, and they clung to his like tendrils of bindvine.

By the gate, Jeris had struck her own wristscreen into life and was speaking into it. ‘Jeris here, Beta Gate. I request another squad. We have a dead supplicant and some tidying up to do.’

‘Request granted. Squad Levin will zoom to Beta Gate immediately.’

‘Noted, Supervisor,’ replied Jeris. She tapped the keystrokes to close the gate, keeping her eyes on Tad and the boy.

‘What now?’ asked Tad.

‘To the Aventine district, Tad: the isolation cocoons. We’ll ask the recyclers to look at this one when they have time. You go. Levin and I will tidy up here.’

‘Yes’m.’ With the immature clutching his hand, there was only one way to travel. Tad gathered the boy into his arms and zoomed southeast. The shattered lights in the sky flared brighter than he had ever seen them. He thought the air vibrated with the changing colours, but maybe that was just the sobbing of the child in his arms.

On the wider plains of the Outside, scores of creatures scattered at the first sign of strange intensity in the heavenly light shows. Skittering, darting, scampering or crawling across the ground, they sought cracks and crevices where they might hope to live through the coming turmoil.

Huge flying fowl heaved up from the tangled vegetation of the Ravine and flapped south through the tempest. Wild cats and ragged vulpini scurried across the twitching plain in every direction. Massive mastodons settled ponderously into the earth. They folded their vast flexible limbs under the skin-and-metal panoply that covered them from the tip of their intelligent nasal protrusion to the incongruent thatch of vestigial tail. When the convulsion of the earth arrived, they waited it out, closing every sense to the destruction and distress around.

The canini, too, recognised the signals in the air and in the night sky that heralded a shock. Each pack had long ago chosen a safe place to den, near the shared hunting grounds of Broad Plain. Although they provided pairing, birthing, training and community spaces, canini dens were fundamentally defensive in nature. The deepest recesses could only be reached through narrow openings that one canine could guard alone. As the air tightened with the shock’s approach, the aged leader Tinashe whistled the attention signal with her thumb between her formidable teeth.

‘Alert, pack! The dens are unsafe. The ground is hoven. Out, out, into the open! Mashtuk, quick!’

Her descendant Mashtuk never wasted breath on disputing anything his ancient relative told him. He threw back his head, his tremendous voice ensuring that the warning was passed on from canine to canine, from pack to pack, in a cacophony of urgent howls. Tinashe’s pack was the first to reach open ground, but they were not long alone there. When Mashtuk joined them, he saw canini emerging like a dark flood from burrows and caves, rock shelves and warrens, copses and ruins all around the fringes of Broad Plain. They spilled in numbers into the open, loping away from their dens. Some were burdened with youngling cubs who had to be carried, others limped or shuffled with age. None would be left behind. They gathered in a large, loose group, with all the scouts on the outer ring.

In his place on guard, with every sense stretching, Mashtuk observed the ripples that unfolded from one side of the land to the other. Sometimes the massed canini bolted in panic as the ground undulated beneath their paws, sometimes they simply trekked around the earth’s new, jagged features of uplift and crumple to a more even space. Mashtuk scanned the flaring lights in the sky, one hand extended flat upon the rock beneath him, his back bent almost double. He realised that the earth spoke in tremors.

‘Revered Tinashe, pack elders! The earth gives warning. Feel the ground with your hands: it tells the direction of the ripples.’

‘It is so,’ said Tinashe. ‘The cubling is right. This way, canini!’

Other creatures also scattered from the Shock. The reviled ferals steered a course through the rippling and broken land, once so familiar and now so strange. In the ages-long tradition of their kind, they joined or separated as each one read the threat; individual survival was their highest and most binding priority. Ferals had a mix of lifeforms and histories, with an increasing grotesquerie triggered by remnant gene modifications and unwise interbreeding. Ferals were always unpredictable and always dangerous, especially to each other. A comrade one moment might become a predator the next, depending on circumstances. They recognised no leader and despised any sign of weakness. In fact, showing any weakness among their fellows was an invitation to attack. Every other inhabitant of the plains feared and avoided the fleeing ferals as they feared and avoided the dangers of the writhing land.

The last group living on the plains, the roving tribesmen, were not as quick as the canini to read the signs of danger in the air and the sky. They were also much more unwilling to leave their campsites. Some of the elders retained close links to the land and the weather, and sent warnings: Feather of the Storm ran from camp to camp all night, carrying his grandmother’s messages.

Although many tribesfolk moved to open ground in response to Feather’s message, they were hampered by their wish to save the goods they worked so hard to gather. Their camps had grown almost as complex as cities, with elaborate portable structures and considerable quantities of gear. For generations, they had traded with the Settlement, spurning nothing except technology. Fully concerned with their own safety and with securing their belongings, however, they didn’t stop to wonder about how the humans of the Settlement were faring.

Of course, nobody Outside considered the citizens of the Pale, for they never thought of them as human.

Only Feather, whose lover was Jana Danesdottir, a Settlement woman, worried how the aftershock had affected them. Bound by his important role as herald, he fretted for a chance to head down the southern trail.

Chapter Two

The tremulous air of the night sky offered subtle warning signs that none of the settlers recognised. Nobody heeded the frantic howling of canini that rang from the plain, or observed the strange behaviour of the flying creatures weaving through the clouds. Few noted the unusual conduct of their own menial animals. Any poor dumb equo who reared at the stable door, or planted all four hooves to resist being caught under a tiled roof, had been beaten inside. The panicked flapping of housefowl had been cursed and ignored. The whining of the rat-terrier was stifled with a kick; the mournful lowing of penned ovines too common to be given a second thought. No one noted the unusual absence of every creeping thing from underfoot or along alleyways. The tiny skinks and rodents fled the Settlement’s confines before the gates were closed against the coming night and went unseen.

Turbulent lights were to be expected in the billowing clouds that rumpled the night sky at the tail end of autumn. Chief Valkirra little thought that this night would erupt into flames across the compound. Her spouse Talis Jarisson was beside her watching the spectacular lights when they felt the first tremor of the ground beneath their feet. Only moments before, the evening had seemed almost romantic, and Talis had been murmuring ideas to her. Now, grabbing the rail of their balcony on the north wing of the Chief’s house, they looked down from the High City, appalled and amazed as flames erupted below them.

Valkirra never wasted time or words. ‘I’ll rouse the house, you get down to the city,’ she said, leaping ahead of Talis towards the stairs. ‘Douse every fire you see. Get as much help as you can. This place will burn like a beacon if we’re not quick.’

Talis was weapons-trained and always quick to catch his Chief’s meanings. ‘I’ll deal with the Temple too,’ he added, following her down the spiral stairs, though he doubted that she heard him, her own very penetrating voice being raised in calls to action. His last sight of her was the flick of her long auburn braid as she sprinted through to the inner chambers.

He headed for the narrow streets of the High City, guards scrambling to the tasks he assigned them: some to the Temple, some to the gates, some to the stables, some to the Lower Town. ‘Make sure every flame in the Settlement is smothered. Yes, that includes the sacred light in the Temple! Quickly!’

Valkirra had awakened the entire household, her shouts ringing through the corridors. When everyone was gathered in the hall—nurslings, children, elders, servants, guards, councillors, all exclaiming as the ground rippled beneath them—she began to detail duties. ‘Every fire, every lamp, every candle in the house, is to be quenched, now. Now!’ As a half-dozen ran to do her bidding, she gestured at the open door to the courtyard. ‘Some to the water pumps, the rest fill as many buckets as possible. Children, I want you to herd the house cows to safety. Take them down to the Lower Town. Stay with them, out in the open by the Lower Well.’

‘What about the equii?’ asked one of the youngsters.

‘Talis will see to the stables. Off you go. Now, you elders, you mind the littlest ones. Everyone get to open ground and stay there!’

With that, confident that she would be obeyed, Valkirra turned and dashed for the kitchens, where she was among the most efficient and thorough of those extinguishing every hearth and light. That done, she herded everyone ahead of her out into the courtyard and to the precipitous steps that led to the Lower Town. A dozen guards followed her as she turned back, and together they checked that every street lantern in the High City was lowered and smothered. At two places they were late, the rocking ground having already dislodged the burning torch, but Talis, directing the relay of water and sand buckets, already had these under control. Leaving the guards to mop up and follow, the Chief and her spouse hurried down to the Lower Town.

After the first convulsion, the tremors grew weaker and less frequent, and the earth began once more to feel solid under their feet. The initial outcries of dismay around the Settlement subsided as householders applied themselves to the task of containing the fires. The situation was well enough in hand that everyone they passed had time to speak to Valkirra and Talis. Making her way to the Lower Well where their own household was gathered, the Chief breathed a sigh of relief, one not complete until her own children were safe in her arms. The first pre-dawn light was glimmering before the earth was still. Now they had time to look around them and count the cost.

Constructed of precious timber stored and maintained from the pre-Conflagration days, the buildings of the Settlement were to some extent kinder to their inhabitants than the stone and metal edifices of the Pale. Many fewer people were crushed, but some were horribly burnt as domestic and industrial fires burst from their confines and leapt at every stick of timber in reach. In the High City, decorated oil lamps spilled fire onto rugs and hangings. In the Lower Town, tallow candles were upset onto rushes. At least there was running water piped through the entire Settlement, a stalwart Chief to direct operations, and an active population to leap into action. Calamitous as the event was, the Settlement survived and looked ahead.

As he made his way to the isolation oikos, which stood alone in a rare patch of empty ground in the Esquiline district, the shock sent Tad to his knees. He did his best to shield the human immature from the chunks of mortar that dashed down from the perimeter walls. The earth shook repeatedly, and a thunderous boom battered the city. The child put up his hands to cover his ears. Tad hunched his shoulder around him, facing in to the massive metal bastions of the wall. The ground bucked again. The boy uncovered his ears to fix a bindvine hold around Tad’s neck.

Suddenly the youngster’s breathing was loud in Tad’s ear. The whole policosmos was silent; not a whirr or a click sounded. In the distance, a lone clunk reverberated as another single stone fell to the pavement.

Then the noise started again as citizens emerged from doorways, from under debris, from beneath sheltering vegetation, and yet others came running from the north of the city. Tad’s wristscreen surged hot in his flesh and he tried to waken it with a half-handed slap. There was no response. Hefting the child again in his arms, he stood and waded into the crowd. A wiry janitor stepped into his path.

‘What’s happening? Serviceman, what is it?’

The question rebounded, echoed, repeated. Tad realised he was expected to provide answers and reassurance. Service personnel must at all times manage the policosmos for the good of the population. He was surrounded by fellow citizens shaking their wrists, slapping their screens, knocking on the street corner pillars, and calling on him to enlighten them. Tad gestured for quiet while he checked his screen again. His device, like every other, gave no answer.

‘Citizens of the Pale, be calm.’ Tad looked at them over the child’s head. There was a distressing reek of body fluids, fuel and gases, an unknown phenomenon in the rigidly cleansed policosmos. An overlay of charged ions, like the prelude to a storm, crackled in the air, and the wind gusted a strange, earthy smell, as if every bit of arable ground in the policosmos had been turned at once. In the face of an unprecedented situation, Tad could only fall back on his training, raising his voice a little to give them the all-purpose mantra: ‘The service will investigate. Rest assured of your safety.’

A murmuring started. ‘But what is it, Serviceman?’ ‘What do we do?’ ‘Where do we go?’ Tad again gestured serenely, raising his left hand. Near his ear, the human immature gave a deep sigh, and he found himself tucking both arms around the little fellow. Then a tottering citizen emerged from the direction of the isolation oikos, holding his hand aloft in a parody of the service reassurance. Tad saw he was an oldster, one with no upgrades owing by the look of his unsteady steps and the way he peered around him. His out-of-date memory, though, provided an answer that Tad never expected. Half shouted, half muttered though lips stiffened by nerve death, the oldster proclaimed his message.

‘An aftershock! Another aftershock! Run, run, save yourselves, save the policosmos! Save the Pale, save the Pale, save the Pale. To the perimeter, lads, to the perimeter! Ferals! Humans! Canini! Save the Pale—’

A trainee Recycler ran towards them and stopped the oldster’s cracked shouts, taking him by the arm and away from the press of people, back towards the walled isolation oikos. Once they had gone, Tad looked about for a senior officer and was relieved to see three squads approaching from the service amenities.

‘All will be well,’ he said aloud to the citizens around him. ‘The Pale is safe and the service will keep it so.’ But from the look on the faces of the squad leaders, he knew there was a great deal of work ahead.

Tad set the boy on his feet. ‘There, youngster. Stay with me, all right? We’ll see about having you assessed later.’

In answer, the human boy simply took a handhold of Tad’s tunic, his little fingers attaching more firmly than triptrap wire.

From her high terrace the Regent looked down, leaning over the abyss that had opened right to the footings of her tower. Jaxon, his footsteps loud as he caught up with her at last, noted again how impervious she seemed to danger. The Senior Forecaster stepped up beside her and cast his glance down. Once more he envied not only her first class hardware but also the dedication that saw her maintain a unique standard of physical fitness as well as of beauty. She was not even breathing hard, and though her balance was delicately shaken by the last tremors of the shock, there was not a single atom of fear in her whole body as she hung over the void.

‘Damnation,’ said Élin. ‘And every other useless curse word! I have never felt such a warning before. Of course, when the last shock occurred, I was scarcely formed,’ she mused. ‘I remember my sire telling me of it—the shock, and the warning he felt in his bones beforehand. I thought it fanciful. It appears to be true.’ She turned to face Jaxon. ‘I am seriously displeased.’

‘My lady,’ said Jaxon with care. ‘It is true there are scant data on this phenomenon. Your sire also indicated that he may have been mistaken in his memory of his own sensations.’

‘Phenomenon,’ repeated the Regent, mocking him. ‘The Patraena bane, you mean.’ Jaxon noticed a brightness to her eyes that owed nothing to the diamonds in her brows and the gleaming jet of her lashes. She was, for once, in a state of animation. The warning, or the release afforded it by the shock, had rocked her to the core. Jaxon stepped back to a more polite, or safe, distance, and spoke evenly.

‘My lady, think how rare an event this is. Think how little scientific study can have been devoted to it. If ever, I mean, whenever a ruler experiences the warning, it is, that is to say, it has always been followed by a disaster. Scarcely the time to undertake arcane research.’

‘As has happened in this case,’ said Élin. ‘I perceive a massive cleft in the very fabric of the policosmos, so studying me is the least of your worries. Still, you must send me an annalist. I can dictate the data while it is still fresh. Now, to work.’ Élin flung away from the railed parapet and clapped her hands. Servants ran from the stairwell to her summons. As they clustered around her, all discreetly out of arm’s reach, she slapped her bejewelled wristscreen forcefully. A tiny spark, yellowy-green, flared and then died. Élin ground her teeth.

‘Ha! Just as my sire told,’ she said. ‘A severe aftershock disrupts all our communications. However,’ she went on, glancing over her shoulder to where Jaxon stood, his eyes narrowed with calculations, ‘tonight’s disruption appears more dire than that of my sire’s time.’ She looked at the faces around her, lit only by random flickerings from the emergency lights of the policosmos below. ‘I assume that the teshniks are already working to restore contact. Every wristscreen is dead, yes? What of the pillars?’

A teshnik at the rear of the group of servants, a team leader identified by the bright red hand patches on his shoulders, hurried into speech. ‘My lady, we cannot find an active one in the whole of the Acrocomplexa. We have sent personnel to search the wider policosmos. There have been no transmissions from any pillar or screen since the disturbance. Once the scale of damage is assessed, we will provide an estimate of restoration time.’

‘I see,’ said the Regent. Jaxon watched sidelong as she once more tapped her ruby fingernails on her jewel-encrusted forearm. ‘What of the data store? Is the Navel unharmed?’

A black-clad officer of the Wereguard stepped forward. ‘My lady, I am here to assure you of this. Every item has been checked and is safe and in working order. Every master data set is complete. The Navel stands intact.’

‘Ah,’ said the Regent. ‘Thank you, Guardsman. You may return to the Navel. Teshnik Leader, let me know the instant we have a restoration time. You may rejoin your staff now.’ Élin made a shooing motion with her long, red-tipped fingers, but the Wereguard and the teshnik were already on their way downstairs. Then the Regent pinned a young Recycler, abasing herself at the rear of the gathered servants, with a straight look. ‘The liveware?’ she asked.

‘All safe, my lady. Nothing lost.’

‘Good. See that it remains so. You may go, Recycler.’

Turning from the scurrying staff, Élin cast her gaze once more over the policosmos. She gestured Jaxon to her side. ‘It will be well if at least some of the pillars survive,’ she mused. ‘I trust the teshniks are capable of restoring function.’

‘Nonetheless, I imagine that our communications will be disturbed for some time,’ said Jaxon. ‘No matter. We are not a people easily overcome by misfortune. This is why we maintain our standards, so that physical communication is always at our disposal.’

The Regent nodded, and then clapped her hands together. ‘I will see the regimental leaders and the heads of every branch, in the Throne Room, in double quick time.’

The remaining servants darted to the stairs, racing to summon the required officers in person. Jaxon bowed to the Regent, his hands tucked within his robe. ‘We need not fear, my lady. We will ensure the safety and security of the Pale and its citizens. There is no question. No question.’

Élin put a hand to her head, as if it still hummed with the forewarning.

‘In the meantime,’ continued Jaxon, ‘the service will check every micron of the perimeter fence and ensure its integrity. Sanitariat crews will attend to the physical damage. Cultivators will check the status of the silos and the supply multiplexi. Recyclers will tend or dismember the injured. Victuallers will check the status of our provisions. All our systems will fall into place, my lady.’

The Regent looked at him. Her eyes, he noticed, were still bright and gleaming with the same unwonted vividness, but her shoulders were beginning to droop. Her extraordinary energy was fading. ‘Is there anything forgotten? Anything I should do?’

‘I think not, my lady,’ said Jaxon, scanning his data about the most recent aftershock; their recovery from that had been complete. ‘We will have a full report of damage soon, and that will assist in dictating any further actions. I suggest you retire to your Throne Room while the senior officers are gathered.’

‘Indeed, Senior,’ said Élin Patraena. ‘We have a sacred duty. We must save the Pale. We will save it.’

‘My lady, we will.’

‘And Senior?’

‘My lady?’

‘I know what else we can do! We can progress the development of the paramount embryos. The ones generated from my eggs, I mean. It is well to be prepared for all eventualities.’

That startled him. ‘Yes, my lady.’ Jaxon paused. ‘Ah, all of them, my lady?’ The progression of the paramount eggs was an undertaking he had theoretically scheduled for several decades into the future.

‘I wonder?’ said Élin. ‘Let us progress four, and let them contest their legacy. It is long since we had underlings in the Acrocomplexa. They may be amusing.’

‘Yes, my lady.’ Jaxon dipped his head. His brain whirred with speculation, calculation, and the germination of a plan. The advent of prospective new regents was a time that always presented him with new opportunities.

Élin flipped her long fingers at him. ‘Go, Senior. You have your orders.’

Jaxon stood straight before executing a deep bow. ‘I do indeed, my lady.’

On Broad Plain, the new day ushered in an eerie quiet, unnerving after the long night of terrifying illumination, astonishing noise, and shocking movement. The canini packs gathered to assess the damage, blinking at each other in the pale yellow dawn. The scouts visited each of the dens, loping back to Broad Plain with reports of collapsed trenches, fallen rocks, flattened hills, emptied waterholes, and some dozen new gulches to be navigated.

It fell to Mashtuk to put the damage into words: ‘We have no comfort to offer,’ he told the assembled packs. ‘Our news is bad: all our former living spaces are ruined beyond repair.’

The canini, not given to useless lamentation, looked at each other. Mashtuk turned to the pack leaders. ‘We scouts propose to range further, to seek and assess new denning sites. We may be some time.’

Tinashe cocked her head sideways at her fellows, then nodded. ‘Go. We will await you.’ The scouts turned tail, their racing paws raising red dust from the rippled surface of the plain.

The gathered canini settled down, anxious and fretful in the open.

It had been many generations since they were together in one group. Tinashe lifted her hind paw and scratched the back of her ear. They were quite a clan. Not one had been lost to the rolling waves of earth, rock, and water. The problem would be how to shelter and feed such a crowd in the remade land around them. She voiced an invitation to the senior elders. The four of them crouched together to decide the best course of action, while the youngsters kept a wary eye out and the feeding mothers pulled their cubs in close.

The adults could wait a day or two for sustenance, but their endurance had limits. Food and haven were urgent requirements. Tinashe and her group hatched plans, keeping a fraction of their attention for any communication from the scouts.

The tribesfolk had no hope of repairing the damage to their camps and belongings. They usually lodged beside rivers, but the turbulent earth had disrupted the riverbeds. Displaced river-water, mudslides, and rockfalls had wrought havoc among the tents.

As soon as there was light, Feather joined a group of the younger huntsfolk to reckon the extent of the damage. When it was clear nothing could be saved from their former homes, they began to put makeshift huts together.

Feeding the survivors was another matter. Most of the stores were lost. The hunting grounds were unrecognisable. No prey appeared on the buckled land, and food plants were uprooted and scattered. The children were crying, and the ancients trundling hopelessly in the dirt.

Kilimanjara, huntmistress of the Storm, instructed others on how to mix water-damaged grain into flatbread. Children searched for tubers unearthed by the ructions to the land, and these were shared and gratefully chewed. The hunters found and carried clean water. A group of elders sought the missing, but although they discovered a few bodies, most who had been swept away were never seen again.

Long, hungry days of mourning and healing followed. Then, with no other alternative, the tribal families began to move west where the hunters had seen evidence of game. Feather fretted for leave to visit the Settlement to check on Jana and her family, but submitted to the more urgent claims of his tribe in the meantime.

Once they realised their losses and made the decision to travel, it was clear the tribes would have to approach the Settlement, not to offer but to beg for help.

Feather volunteered for the task.

Within the Settlement, the scale of damage was less than it might have been, considering that every settler was inside the walls at the time. A score died; another dozen were injured. Some livestock perished and some stored food was damaged.

It took days to complete an inventory of the losses, and even longer to decide a plan of action. First, the settlers judged their fitness to manage supplies and work until trade time arrived. As long as the Assessed in the High City could be kept from want, the situation was not dire. The working castes of the Lower Town could well do with a little less for a few weeks. Still, the Assembly decided, once all was secure, they would send an embassy across the plains to find the tribes and ask them for an early trade meeting. The Settlement could do with an additional shipment of hung meat, fermented grain, and preserved fruits.

In the first week of winter, when no more tremors or startling light displays had been seen for days, Valkirra Adelriksdottir, Chief of the Settlement, walked down through the High City and descended the steep hill to the Lower Town. Here the elders, labourers, beadsmen, villeins, and helots resided in robust sufficiency. Her officials trailed after her, the wardens of the Temple and the civic officers cross-checking every damaged home and business place. They noted all the lost stock, stores, tools, and goods. Black-robed notaries updated their meticulous records of the dead, the injured, the homeless, and those afflicted by the sickness that had coursed through the Settlement just days after the night of fire and upheaval.

Chief Valkirra, at two metres—almost too tall for Settlement standards—walked rapidly, her spouse Talis Jarisson at her right hand. Behind them Maya, the Head of the Temple, had difficulty keeping up with both the pace and the conversation. Valkirra thought it was time the old woman appointed a successor. Or time the Temple did it for her. However, that could not be considered while the Settlement remained in an uproar.

‘Reverend Maya, do we have sufficient medicines?’

‘Medicine, yes there is much needed,’ said Maya. ‘But we have enough, we have stores, yes.’

‘Have all the deaths been recorded, do you know?’

‘The notaries,’ said Maya. ‘The notaries know. They record everything, you know. This one here is writing what we say even now.’

‘I meant, can you tell me who has died?’