Tev looked as though he could dispute the point, but nodded.
The commander said, “We’ve finally gotten some word from on high, and I’ll tell you the way it is: Just about all the government has pulled out of Everun. It’s a dead city, strategically, and we’re to leave it to the snipers to pop at each other in. We’ve been ordered to join the regular army, which is ninety kilometers north of here near Sham Waterfall. That’s where Duke Peter is.”
Murmurs at this: “Duke Peter’s alive?”
“So I’m told,” said the commander.
One of the women protested, “But the city? We’re supposed to abandon the city? Our families are still down there! Our friends!”
The commander said, “Those are our orders.”
Tev spoke up. “They can’t be serious. Commander, there aren’t that many rebels left in Everun. If we just clean up the ones here in the hills, we can march down to the city as nice as you please. But if we leave, they’ll just go back and we’ll never get them out—not without firepower.”
Will saw looks exchanged around the circle, as the people there considered the picture of bringing destruction down on the city they’d grown up in.
The commander said tartly, “You seem to be explaining this to me as though I had some say in the matter. I don’t. Chain of command has been reestablished.”
“But, Commander, can’t you—”
“No, Tev, I didn’t make the slightest attempt to clarify our situation to Command. No, I’m a complete idiot. No, I didn’t talk to them for as long as I was allowed to.” Tev swallowed. The commander said, “This is irrelevant. We have our orders. Boy and girls … my friends, we start north as soon as our scouts are back.” He turned and started back toward his tent. He pressed his hands against his back, as though stiffness and pain had settled there unexpectedly. And maybe age, too, for Will saw he was walking like an old man.
North. Will went to pick up his blanket and the remainder of his rations. North. North. It was starting to pound into his head like an icepick. Everun Port was south. North.
He hoped he wasn’t going to have some kind of fit right here in front of everybody. The rations were gotten into his pack with great difficulty; his fingers seemed numb and hard to control. North.
He took a ragged breath and slipped out of camp, past the commander’s tent, heading down the slope toward Sniper Alley and the road to Everun.
The One Newly Awakened stood on a hill just south of the city called Everun. He shivered in the night air. His awareness of the Crown had moved over the past few days; sometimes it seemed deep under the earth, other times high in the heavens. Clearly it was aboard some type of craft.
He pulled his stolen clothing more tightly around his shoulders. The human shirt fit him badly, hanging over his bony frame. He’d stolen these from a house he’d passed, a dwelling with no one in it, and he’d taken a cloak from there, too. A dog had been there—he recognized the species, a sub worker class used by humans— and he’d fed it from a jar of meaty stuff he’d found in the kitchen. It was no more than his duty, for it looked as though no one else was coming to feed it, and the need of the dog had been palpable, its aura sickly grayish-white.
He had taken food from the kitchen himself, ingesting the rotting fruit and stale bread he’d discovered. He considered the dog a long time, but he did not feed on any sacred food; under the circumstances, it seemed not only unlawful but cruel. The creature seemed far from its own kind of sanity as it was.
He was relieved now to see that a city stood where a city had been planned. A fenced area to the southeast marked out a landing field, gridded for short-range craft. Excellent. He almost called for his brother again, before remembering he had promised himself not to do that. There was still a fair margin of time for his brother to awaken, and no need to make himself nervous by calling vainly in the dark. Meanwhile, there was a city, a port, and a Crown, and much do to do if his brother was to be proud of him when he did rise.
He hoped that all was well here, and he could declare himself as soon as possible. He was very hungry.
On the City of Diamond, Tal was becoming a familiar figure in the council meetings. “Purely as a consultant,” Adrian kept saying—but he said it in a way that did not allow for debate.
It was Tal who now finished the report on what he so tersely called “the Crown effect.” Adrian had put the assignment in his lap at the meeting two days previously, adding that “Officer Diamond is excellent at isolating variables.”
“The pattern seems clear enough,” Tal said. “Any human who participated in a ‘sharing’ ceremony within the last two years experienced the effect to some degree. Since Curosa blood elements are involved in a sharing, even though of minute quantity, it seems reasonable to suppose that these elements are somehow involved in the process. I would advise bringing a medtech into the City to begin analysis of some of the blood used in sharing, as well as physical analyses of a sample of those affected. I would also strongly advise that Adrian have a complete check-over by this medtech.”
Adrian glanced at him, an eyebrow raised. Tal had not mentioned this part of his report earlier.
Tal folded his hands, and disagreement broke out at once.
“An Outsider? A medtech! Are you mad? Even for a demon—”
“I really don’t think we can see our way—”
“Even if we assume this report is factual, I don’t see—”
“Gentlemen!” said Adrian. “Brandon, I think you were first.”
Brandon Fischer pushed the
