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More miles passed, and they came to a row of square gray pillars, each about a hundred feet tall and ten feet thick. They stretched off in both directions for as far as she could see—tens of miles. The marchers gathered around one pillar.
Pahtun patted it. “These mark the outer boundary of the old city, before the Mass Wars and the Chaos. Back then the Kalpa was huge—bigger than I can imagine. The middle lands lie two miles beyond these markers. I’ll take you a few hundred yards into the zone, and then we must part company.”
Pahtun stood for a moment, hand against a pillar. Then he straightened and walked on.
“He’s afraid,” Khren said as he drew near Tiadba.
“He can hear you,” she reminded him.
“ I’mafraid,” Khren said, and tipped his finger against his helmet, as if to touch his nose. “But I’m excited, too. What does that mean?”
The others tipped their fingers to their faceplates, and Nico stretched out his arms, folding them like a warden’s wings, and danced over the cracked, dusty plain. His boots—all their boots—were gray with the ashen dust.
“Maybe we’re going aaarp,” Perf said. “That would explain a lot. We’re not even there and already we’re broken.”
Pahtun and the escorts may have been listening, but just kept walking until the low black line they had seen for some while now grew into a glossy black wall, with a narrow gap cut through, barely wide enough for one breed.
“Do all marchers pass through there?” Khren asked.
“No,” Pahtun said. “This gate opened a few minutes ago. The Kalpa has chosen the safest path—for now.”
“Somebody up in the tower is keeping track?” Perf asked.
Tiadba felt the sudden urge to look over her shoulder. She knew—suddenly and completely—where Jebrassy was. He was in the tower—but he wasn’t watching.
No need to turn around. No need to look back at all. She was done with the city. She would never return.
But she was not done with Jebrassy, nor he with her.
He’s coming. But by the time he arrives, you might not care.
“Oh, shut up,” she said under her breath.
“Sorry,” Perf said.
“Not talking to you.”
Pahtun turned sideways and squeezed through the gap. Tiadba went after him. All of the others followed, their armor brushing the exposed i
Tiadba saw Khren mouth Silent Ones,his eyes wide.
Tiadba looked up just long enough to see a sharp gray ribbon arc overhead, and realized the Witness was still rotating its searchlight beam across the Kalpa and around the Chaos. With every sweep, the beam intersected the Broken Tower. The Witness was looking for someone—for Jebrassy—had always been searching for him. But why the Witness would care, couldcare, and why Jebrassy might be there, rather than here, her unreliable i
“Now, follow! Run!” Pahtun said, and he loped off to provide an example. The four escorts stayed behind, kneeling with staffs held out in salute.
The breeds did their best to keep up, but soon the trainer was far ahead. Tiadba could barely see him, clambering over broken rubble, then standing and looking back over their heads—raising his arms. He saw something—but Tiadba knew he shouldn’t just stand there.
A warning—
Something dark covered the sky, and a sound like a hideous siren issued from the bions far behind them, pitched high and then low like mournful keening and growling—a noise that raised the fur under her armor and set her teeth on edge. She ran faster and pushed up against Khren and Nico, both dashing for their lives, but not as fast as Herza and Fri
An intrusion. Like the one that separated us and scarred the Tiers—like the one that took Jebrassy’s sponsors. We were warned!
They were within a few dozen yards of Pahtun, still standing on a high block of gray stone with his arm outstretched, frantically waving them on.
“What’s wrong with him?” Khren shouted.
“Don’t stop!” Tiadba yelled. “Keep ru
The city fought back. A luminosity carved the landscape in simple, ragged patterns of black and white—no grays. The darkness spasmed. They dared not look up, but Tiadba glanced sideways at the block of stone, at Pahtun—and saw him caught in a burning coil of orange and empty black. She saw his armor break apart and blow away in rippling fragments. He shook free of the last scraps, then stood naked on the rock, and she saw—for an instant, but she would never forget—the bare truth of a Tall One, too smooth, too naked, and much too vulnerable.
And then he was gone. A cloud of sparkles rose from the block and flew off. She swallowed a moan and kept ru
All nine marchers slunk around the foot of the arch, squeezing between broken, jagged rocks—rocks everywhere, big and small—and then, exhausted, they slid into a hollow and shoved up against one another, hugging and shivering.
The siren’s keen fell to a grumble, then stopped.
Silence.
Tiadba wept. Herza and Fri
He sacrificed himself. For us.
This suddenly affected her deeply. Now, if they could believe their training—she could almost hear Pahtun’s sonorous voice—they must not stay where they were. Yet they could not move; paralysis gripped them as each tried to sort through what they had been taught, what their armor was saying to their bodies, conveying the depth of their peril. They couldn’t hear a thing except their own breathing and then Tiadba’s soft, trembling words as she encouraged them to get up, to move.
“The Tall One told us to stay low,” Khren said. “Did he go back?”