Nightpeople Page 19

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Nah, girl. Go have a closer look.’

  She didn’t want to go any nearer, but Dreamer Gaardi took her arm, Dariand pushed and the two led her over to Dreamer Baanti.

  Dreamer Gaardi crouched and gently tugged her down beside him.

  ‘Come on, he won’t hurt you now. Couldn’t, even if he wanted to.’

  Baanti might have been asleep. His breathing was slow and shallow and he wheezed laboriously, as though fighting to draw the dusty air in and out of himself. His eyes were closed and his head flopped against the blanket, but he showed no discomfort.

  ‘He’s asleep?’

  ‘Not asleep, gone.’

  ‘What do you mean, gone?’

  ‘Feel.’ Dreamer Gaardi placed Saria’s hand on Dreamer Baanti’s forehead and she recoiled in horror. He was cold like the rock walls of the council chamber, his skin hard. The touch chilled her. There was nothing there.

  ‘Look.’ With two fingers, Dreamer Gaardi gently opened the other Dreamer’s eyes and Saria looked into them, expecting the same dark blackness that had watched her thrown into the pit in Olympic. Instead, Baanti’s eyes were nothing. A pale film covered them, and the pupils were little more than pinpricks. She gasped and stumbled back, trying to stand, but h e r legs tangled in her robe and she fell.

  ‘Steady, now.’ Dariand caught her from behind and assisted her to her feet. ‘You don’t need to be scared.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Just what Dreamer Wanji told you. He burned.’

  ‘But he’s still alive.’

  ‘Only his body. Just the outside. There’s nothing inside anymore.’

  In the centre of the room, Dreamer Gaardi closed Dreamer Baanti’s eyes again.

  ‘What happens to him?’

  ‘Nothing. He’ll lie there until his body stops living.’

  ‘Isn’t there some way to bring him back?’

  ‘Saria.’ Dariand took her chin, turned her face away from the figure on the floor, and spoke as gently as she’d ever heard him. ‘There’s nothing left to bring back. Nothing at all.’ He let her go. ‘Come on, we should be getting back.’

  They slipped out into the evening and Saria sucked in a few deep lungfuls of cool night air. At the end of the alley she stopped and looked back at the windowless hut.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I did that.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I was scared when you tried to reach into me at the pool. I didn’t want to end up like that.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Dariand’s gaze dropped.

  ‘I should have. But I didn’t think you’d ever… I mean, I thought Dreamer Wanji should explain it properly.’

  ‘But if I’d known, I wouldn’t have …’

  ‘Yes, you would. You didn’t have any choice.’

  ‘I could have fought it.’

  ‘Saria.’ He locked eyes with her. ‘Don’t blame yourself, alright? Dreamer Baanti made a decision and you got caught up in it, so nobody’s saying this is your fault. But you need to learn from it, so it won’t happen again. After what he did to you in Olympic … ’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. This is much worse.’

  Dariand didn’t answer.

  ‘I’ve killed him.’

  ‘No, you haven’t. He’s still breathing.’

  ‘But there’s nothing there. You said it yourself. I burned him and now he’s gone, and being like that …’ She pointed back at the hut. ‘That’s worse than being dead.’

  ‘That’s why I had to show you. So you’d understand.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have needed to see it if you’d told me in the first place.

  Dariand sighed, then turned and continued towards the common. ‘You’re right, you wouldn’t,’ he whispered, too softly for her to hear.

  The eyes watched her Saria ran, fast, hard, alone. Beneath her feet the ground was cold and hard and without a trace of earthwarmth. A round her, the landscape was a vast plain of nothingness. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to shelter Nowhere to run. All she could do was keep moving. And always, the eyes watched her. Dark. Accusing. She could feel them, the coldness a constant itch at the nape of her neck, one she couldn’t scratch. However fast she ran, however far she travelled, those empty, pale-filmed pinpricks followed her…

  SARIA!

  The surge of the call into her startled her and she awoke with a soft cry and sat upright. In the darkness on the other side of the hut, Dariand rolled on his sleeping mat to face her.

  ‘You alright?’

  ‘Fine.’

  The press of the call still pushed at her. Earthwarmth pulsed against the barriers she’d pulled up against it in her mind. Relentlessly, Saria strengthened them further. She wouldn’t give in to it. Never again.

  ‘The same dream?’

  In the gloom, Saria nodded.

  Dreamer Baanti wouldn’t leave her alone. In her sleep, whenever she was resting, and even during the day as she went about her business, always she could feel those eyes following her Watching.

  ‘You want some water?’ Dariand rose from his mat and retrieved a water-skin from its peg beside the door.

  ‘Thanks.’

  She felt him uncork the skin and press it into her grip. The taste was earthy, as though it had been filtered through sand. Beside her, the dog pressed its cold nose into the side of her neck. Reach for me, the gesture said. It whined softly as Saria pushed it roughly away.

  The dreams were the worst. Awake, she could hold her barriers up against the earthwarmth and the reaching that came with it. Asleep, it was much harder. She hadn’t known how much a part of her the reaching had become until she’d decided to stop doing it.

  ‘You know, perhaps if you’d just listen to Dreamer Wanji and try reaching again then the dreams wouldn’t …’

  ‘No.’ Saria cut him off. ‘Never again.’

  ‘But Dreamer Wanji says the dreams have nothing to do with reaching.’

  ‘It’s not just the dreams. If I don’t reach, I’ll never burn anyone out again.’

  He let it drop. They’d had this discussion again and again during the days since he’d taken her to see Dreamer Baanti. And each time she’d become more determined she’d never reach again. Even now, as she sweated and trembled through the after-effects of the dream, and exhausted herself with the effort of holding the earthwarmth back, there was no mistaking the determination in her voice. Dariand sighed.

  ‘Will you get back to sleep tonight?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I’ll get the fire going again.’

  It had become their pattern. Sometimes she’d sleep for most of the night, at other times just for a few minutes before the dreams would wake her, and once they did, there would be no sleep again for either of them. He’d stoke the fire back up and sit with her through whatever hours of darkness remained. But tonight she stopped him.

  ‘No, don’t. You should go back to sleep. It’s not fair of me to keep you awake every night.’

  ‘It’s no problem.’

  ‘It is. You need to sleep. I’m going out for a walk, anyway.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘I’ll have the dog with me. We won’t go far.’

  ‘What if something happens?’

  ‘Nothing can happen. I just want to walk for a bit. I’ll be back in a while.’

  Not giving him a chance to argue, Saria rose and pulled on her shoes. Even that thin barrier between her and the ground helped to hold back the earthwarmth a little. Then she slid out into the sleeping town, the dog at her heels.

  From the door Dariand watched her go until she vanished into the shadows of the huts on the other side of the common. Despite everything, he felt a surge of pride at the way she moved. She was almost as swift and silent as him now, and that was without using her reaching abilities. He thought about following her, and even took a couple of steps out of the hut, but then stopped. S
he needed this time alone. And it wasn’t like she’d be able to run away, not any distance. Not without reaching.

  At the lip of the shallow rise that surrounded the town, Saria stopped and dropped to the ground. The dog immediately flopped beside her and set its angular head into her lap. Absently, she scratched it behind its ears.

  At first, Dreamer Wanji had tried to continue their lessons. The day after her visit to Dreamer Baanti’s shell, he woke her early, led her a little way into the desert and found a small lizard, still dozy from the cold night, its blood not yet daywarmed. He looked at Saria expectantly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know what to do.’ He gestured at the lizard. ‘Just a simple lizard. Shouldn’t be a problem – not for someone who can reach through the Earthmother like you did yesterday.’

  ‘No.’

  Saria turned and started back to town.

  ‘Girl?’ He stopped her ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m not doing it anymore.’

  ‘Not gonna reach?’

  ‘No.’

  The old man had to scurry to catch up, and the pace she set was clearly too much for him, but she didn’t slow down.

  ‘Is this about what happened to Dreamer Baanti?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t take that on yourself, girl. You can’t afford to. Dreamer Baanti got what was coming to him. If you’d given him even a moment of weakness, he’d have turned you into exactly the same thing.’

  ‘It’s not the same. I didn’t have to do that to him. I could have just held him out. I’m stronger than he was, you said it yourself.’

  ‘That’s as may be, but you didn’t know what you were doing. And if you don’t let me keep on teaching you, then you never will. You can’t just shut out the Earthmother, girl. She won’t let you. Reaching’s not a bad thing and you can’t let what happened with Dreamer Baanti fool you into thinking it is.’

  ‘I don’t care. I’m not going to do it. Not anymore.’

  ‘You’ve got no choice. Earthmother’ll talk to you whether you listen or not.’

  ‘I won’t answer.’

  ‘You will. You got reaching talent something powerful. It’s not in you to ignore it.’

  Saria stopped and faced the old man, surprised again to realise she was taller than him. Down in the quiet, echoing darkness of the council chamber, and even when they walked together out into the plains, something always made him seem larger, powerful. Now all Saria could see were the scrawny flaps of empty, old-man skin hanging from his arms and neck, the dark liver spots dotting his bare arms, the bowed legs and curved back, the thin grey hair and beard.

  ‘I won’t. And if I don’t reach, then nothing else, and nobody else, will ever be burned by me again.’

  ‘You ent ever burned anything before the other day.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It does matter, girl. You gotta listen and talk to the Earthmother, otherwise you’ll end up just like all those old Skypeople who couldn’t feel anything anymore.’

  ‘I don’t care. Leave me alone!’

  She tried to walk away again, but Dreamer Wanji reached out and grabbed her upper arm. His thin fingers dug into her flesh as he spun her back to face him.

  ‘You gotta care. You’re the last of the Darklanders. The last of the Dreamers. Apart from you there’s nobody left to care. You’re the one’s gonna go past the Darkedge and …’

  Saria grabbed his wrist and broke his grip easily, flinging his hand away.

  ‘Don’t say that! Stop saying that!’ she screamed at him. ‘I’m nothing, okay? I’m just a girl who was unlucky enough to get born into this hopeless place, and that’s all I’ll ever be. I didn’t want to leave the valley, and I don’t want your stupid dreams, alright? I don’t want to be part of your future. It’s all stuffed anyway! If you wanted to get out of the Darklands, you should have bloody done it yourself, instead of waiting around to dump all your stupid ideas on me!’

  The words came out of her in a rush. The old man recoiled as though she’d punched him.

  ‘You don’t mean that, girl.’

  ‘I do. And stop calling me “girl”. Call me Saria, or don’t call me anything. But I’m not gonna keep on doing whatever you tell me anymore, and I’m not gonna reach just because you want me to.’

  Dreamer Wanji seemed to shrink inside himself; his shoulders drooped and his head hung low, eyes downcast.

  ‘If you’re serious, then that’s it, eh? That’s the end of the Darklands and us Darklanders.’

  ‘Good!’ She spat the word into his face, then fled into the morning, leaving the old Dreamer gazing mournfully after her.

  She hadn’t seen him since. And now, nights later, sitting with the dog on the sand outside the town, she stared up at the slowly revolving vaultlights and wondered if perhaps she’d been too harsh. A brief pang of remorse shivered through her.

  Beside her, the dog, sensing her sudden change in mood, stirred slightly, and instinctively she felt its mind reach towards her. The temptation to sink into that welcoming consciousness was almost too great to resist, but relentlessly she forced the longing back down, the effort of suppressing it bringing with it a throbbing headache behind her temples.

  ‘Good boy,’ she whispered, as the animal pulled back into its own mind.

  Below them, at the bottom of the slope, Woormra slumbered. She knew it well now, having spent her days since that last aborted ‘lesson’ trailing around behind Dariand, learning the alleyways and surrounding land, following the hunting trails and listening as he explained the movement of the sun and, at night, the vaultlights.

  All the time, though, the pressure of the earthwarmth was there below her, pushing up and trying to run through her, trying to weave itself back into all the layers of her being. Only now, because she was refusing it entry and resisting it with every part of her mind, did she realise that it had been there her whole life, infusing her with its power. Only now was she properly aware of its persistence.

  And through all this, the dead eyes of Dreamer Baanti watched her, woke her, followed her, accused her. Two days ago, Dariand had entered the hut in the early afternoon while she was trying in vain to sleep, and had stirred her with a gentle touch on her shoulder.

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Dreamer Baanti?’

  ‘Yeah. His body finally packed it in just a little while ago. We’ll be carrying him out to bury him later today.’

  ‘Should I come?’

  ‘No,’ he replied, much to her relief. ‘I don’t think that’d be a good idea.’ Then after a couple of moments, he added, ‘Dreamer Wanji says the dreams might stop now.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  They hadn’t, though. Even now, sitting with the dog in the fading moonlight, the uneasy sensation that those pale pinprick eyes were somehow watching sent prickles down her spine. She rose and slowly skirted along the shallow ridge that surrounded the town. Reluctantly, the dog stirred itself back to its feet and trotted beside her. She could sense its puzzlement at her strange behaviour, but it followed all the same.

  Saria!

  Despite her efforts to ignore it, the call still summoned her, pounding through her mental barriers as though they weren’t even there. As always, it came from nightwards, filling her with a sense that somewhere out there, further than the Shifting House, out near the Darkedge, was a place where she belonged, and more than that, a person she belonged to.

  Steeling herself, Saria turned daywards from it, as if simply walking away would somehow lessen its power

  The call faded again, leaving only the lingering sensation of earthwarmth which, even through the thick leather, still tingled across the soles of her feet. Angrily, she increased her pace daywards. Away from Dariand and Dreamer Wanji and the call, and everything that had come into her life and taken it from her control. She ran into the desert, barely aware of the tears that stung her eyes. She ran from the earthwarmth, which pressed after her like a following wave. She
ran until her breath came in short gasps and her heart pounded loudly enough in her ears to drown out the call, and until the burning in her legs was painful enough to take away that itching presence of Dreamer Baanti’s eyes.

  When she finally stopped, and the blurred landscape fell again into detail around her, she was surprised to see a small stunted tree only a few steps away. With the dog still beside her, Saria walked over and slumped under it, and for the first time since seeing the burned-out shell of Dreamer Baanti on the floor of the hut, Saria slept without dreams.

  Saria woke to the warm lick of the dog’s tongue across her cheek.

  ‘Get off.’ She pushed it away, but gently.

  Her back ached from sleeping so long on the hard ground, and as soon as she sat up she felt the angry sting of sunburnt skin stretched tightly across her arms and left leg. The shade of the tree had proven inadequate against the power of the sun.

  She stood up, muscles protesting, and stared at the dayvault, trying to get some sense of how long she’d slept.

  It had been a while, that was for sure. The sun was high in the dayvault, possibly already starting its descent to the nightwards horizon.

  Dariand would be furious with her for being gone for so long. Vaguely she wondered why he hadn’t come looking. Surely a nightwalker would have been able to find her if he’d wanted to.

  With a large yawn, Saria set off back along her tracks towards Woormra. Her mouth and throat were parched with dust, but she had nothing with which to quench her thirst, so she simply tried not to dwell on it.

  Beside her, the dog panted, its mouth wide and its tongue lolling as it too tried to keep itself cool. Saria felt a pang of guilt at having dragged it all this way without thinking about its comfort.

  ‘Sorry, boy,’ she muttered. The dog gave no sign of understanding her.

  She’d run much further than she’d intended. Each time they crested an undulation in the sand, she expected to look down and see Woormra there in front of her, but again and again they were met only with shallow, empty depressions in the earth, their twin tracks vanishing nightwards up the far side. Finally, they laboured up what seemed to be a particularly long, shallow slope, and the ramshackle spread of Woormra sprawled in the dirt ahead.