lightened while the west remained a cold, dark blue. Tall watertrees filled the swamp, forming a tangled roof of dark foliage. It came to life, burning crimson and gold, flames of sunlight running from branch to branch.
I leaned forward to speak to Moontouch. “It would be faster by aircar.”
“It cannot be, Slayer,” she responded. “One must approach the Loremaster with respect. It must be in a boat, at dawn.”
“Is it much longer?”
“Soon, Slayer. Soon.” She had been saying that for hours. It had been a long night. I glanced at Dragon. He checked his tacmod. We knew our location exactly-in the heart of what the locals called the Swamp of Lost Souls. Fully armed, Dragon and I wore litesuits and A-vests. Our comtops hung from our U-belts. Sweat trickled down from my temples. It was going to be a scorcher. Deadeye wore camfax and the other Taka were in skins.
We softly glided up to an ancient, massive pier of stone, now covered with moss and vegetation. A solitary pier in the heart of the swamp, jutting out from a tangled jungle rising from the mists. Ghost ships dock here, I thought.
“We are here,” Moontouch informed me.
The Taka tied the boat up at the pier, and we carefully climbed out. The pier proved slippery, moss and wet grass on crumbling slick stone. The overhanging trees muffled our voices. Dawn burned in the branches above us.
We followed a footpath into the jungle. Eerie clacking noises monitored our progress, and strange jungle creatures hooted and whistled from the tangled canopy above. Dragon and I had our E’s slung over our chests, ready for instant use. The noises of the jungle seemed to meld together into a staccato harmony. I walked behind Moontouch. She wore a short tunic of fine white cloth, and carried a jeweled knife at her waist.
“Here was Southmark,” she said, “proud citadel of the Golden March, city of many tongues, Queen of the Island Roads, Fortress of Flags. This was a great center of learning and culture.”
She gestured off to one side. “The Imperial Library of Southmark rose there-four levels, with the knowledge of the ages. The history of my people from the dawn of time was stored here.”
I could see only jungle, great ancient trees rising up from a misty floor. “What happened to Southmark?”
“Southmark fell before the Horde,” she recited, “flying white flags. Golden walls and crimson streets, in the Year of the Storm. And Southmark was no more.”
“What about the library?”
“Burned to ashes,” she answered. “And the ashes scattered to the winds.”
“Who were the Horde?” I asked. “Beasts?”
“No. We are guilty. The Horde inherited all that Southmark had been. My own ancestors. They burned it all.”
A few shafts of golden sunlight flickered through the forest roof, illuminating a ruined temple covered with vegetation. Burning history-I could not imagine a more heinous crime.
“Do not grieve for Southmark,” she said. “Every nation writes its own end.”
The dead city was cloaked in trees, the roots crushing the stones, merciless, relentless constrictors of living wood, shattering the past. We climbed crumbling staircases, hidden under a tangle of vines, then into the forest, trees rising in rows to either side of us up to a flowery jungle canopy flaming golden with the dawn.
The Loremaster squatted on a shattered marble block before a small campfire, an old man attended by two young boys. Naked to the waist, clothed in rags, his leathery skin was burnt brown by the sun. He had a medallion at his neck, the same as Moontouch’s. He squinted at Dragon and me from a deeply wrinkled face, as if he had trouble with his vision.
He offered us bark tea, a medicinal potion we knew to be clear and light and faintly stimulating. The boys produced stone cups, brown with age, and poured the brew from a battered kettle. It tasted slightly bitter. Moontouch made the introductions, and explained that we wanted to know about the origin of the exosegs.
The Loremaster blinked at me with cold, black, animal eyes and slowly sipped his tea. He suffered from advanced age, a mortal’s disease-easily cured. To me, it was a horror from the Age of Chaos, and the worst possible way to die.
The Loremaster spoke in a brittle, cracked voice. “Slayer from afar, you seek forbidden fruit. The lore of the past is sacred, and easily lost. We guard it like a treasure. Only with knowledge can you understand the past, and you have no knowledge. You are violence, blowing in from the dark like a rainstorm in the night.”
I broke in before Moontouch could interrupt. I could deal with this tough old bird. “We come in the dawn, Loremaster, with respect. I want the knowledge to help your people-if we can understand the origin of the Beasts, we can kill them all and bring peace to this world. We have already stopped the Cult of the Dead. With your help, we can stop the Beasts as well. If you do not help, many more Taka may die.”
“Peace,” the Loremaster said. He cleared his throat, and spat off to one side. “You will kill them all, for peace. Our destiny is to die. The Taka are not afraid of death.” He took another sip of tea, defiant.
I decided to try the direct approach. “Where did the Beasts come from?” I asked quietly. The Loremaster held out his cup, and one of the boys poured in more tea. The boy was very pretty-smooth skin, clean hair-just like the other one. I wondered about that.
The Loremaster sipped tea, and spoke, his gaze far away. “In the Year of the Burning Trees came the first of the falling stars. They fell into the Forest of Bones, and the night sky was red. The Woodmen went to see, but the Woodmen did not return. Then came the Beasts, touched by Death’s black hand, to seal our doom. And the stars continued to fall, and more Beasts came, stealing our people away. Such is the fate of our race. Doomed to die, we kneel before the Beasts.”
I put down my tea, and glanced at Dragon. He did not seem overly impressed. I certainly would not want the Loremaster guarding my back during any disagreement with the exos. He sounded like a devotee of the Cult of the Dead-kneel before the Beasts! Kneel and die, better him than me.
“Has anyone ever returned from the Forest of Bones?” I wanted to keep him talking.
The Loremaster paused, and his eyes dimmed. “The warrior Longwalker, of the Grass People, returned from the dead with the virgin Starlight. He dared the Forest of Bones, and found his way with fire into the House of the Living Dead. He fought the Beasts and freed the virgin and raised the Phantoms of the March. They climbed to the sunlight, and left the dead behind, and visited the land of the living, and touched their mortal kin. And then, cursed by the Gods, Longwalker and Starlight journeyed together into the wilderness, into unknown worlds.”
The Loremaster returned to his tea, his face expressionless. Interesting. Falling stars, and more falling stars. The House of the Living Dead I knew, having visited it myself. And he used fire-smart! Also necessary. Starlight must have been quite a girl. Yet somehow I doubted that Longwalker went in alone-he must have had a little help. Like the Taka equivalent of a CAT force. But something about the story bothered me.
“What did Longwalker see in the hive?”
“He found his way with fire into the House of the Living Dead. He fought the Beasts and freed the virgin and raised the Phantoms of the March,” the Loremaster repeated.
“What does it mean, ‘the Phantoms of the March’?”
The Loremaster’s face clouded over, impatiently. “The March of the Sun, Slayer. The Golden March, when the Men of the Sword carried their flags to the Southern Sea. This is the March-there is no other March.”
“But what does it mean-Phantoms of the March?”
“You have heard the Past, Starman. ‘He fought the Beasts and freed the virgin and raised the Phantoms of the March.’ I am only a Loremaster. I tell you the Past, as it was written. I cannot tell what it means. The Gods have the meaning-ask the Gods.”
Moontouch appeared distressed that I was not satisfied with the Loremaster’s words. When we left him behind, she whispered to me, “Follow me, and trust me. I will take you into the past, and all your questions will be answered.”
She led us to what was clearly a secret place, a crumbling temple hidden behind whispering trees and a collapsed wall of green mossy stones near where the Library had been. Her Dark Cloud escorts waited outside the wall, but Moontouch motioned Dragon and me to follow her.
Deadeye waited with the others, but his face was dark. “Be careful, Slayer-guard your back!”
Moontouch ignored him. I knew the problem-it was sacred ground, the temple of the virgins, and no Taka man would dare set foot within these walls. But the rules didn’t apply to Dragon and me, creatures from another world.
