Age of War

Chapter 29

Jonis’s dreams were a confused jumble of people, places and things, all warring for her attention, disappearing and reappearing at random with no rhyme or reason. The one constant was the fear and disorientation, as well as a noise always just on the edge of hearing: the distant roar of wind. She was running down a snowy hill now, pursued by an avalanche that was gaining on her with every heartbeat. She was bitterly cold and her legs felt like they were weighed down with stones. She turned to confront it at last, resigning herself to her fate, and then she was with Rayke, back in the room they’d shared in Talos. They were lying in each other’s arms. He held her closely and she could feel the warmth of his body, and yet she was still shivering. He didn’t seem to notice. She tried to snuggle closer to him, but he didn’t respond, and when she looked up into his eyes, she saw that they stared sightlessly through her. Blood covered his face. She sat up and looked down at him in horror. His throat had been slashed. In his hand was the Imperial Seal he’d taken with him, clutched against his chest. It was just as bloody as him. She screamed, and the wind rose outside the window, causing the shutters to clatter and bang noisily. She couldn’t stop screaming, but suddenly she was back on the mountain. Her scream echoed around the hills. The avalanche started. The storm rose above her, dark clouds gathering with unnatural speed. She turned and ran, and saw that Atlas was laid out before her, the city inexplicably huddling at the base of the mountain. The wind was lashing at it, tearing its buildings to pieces. Rubble was thrown into the sea, and then there was an almighty cracking noise from somewhere far below: a fissure snaked its way across the city and it began to collapse into the gap, folding like the pages of a book. The sea washed over the harbour, swallowed up streets and houses, laying everything to waste. And still the avalanche came, now gathering her up with it and hurling her down towards the dying city. Black light poured from the pit forming where the Imperial Enclave once was: it looked like a huge, baleful eye, staring into her…

She opened her eyes. She was awake. She expected to be breathless, sweating, fearful. She was none of these things. The chamber was filled with sleeping militia. No one stirred as she sat up. There was no guard on watch. That wasn’t right, but she didn’t give it another thought. She could still hear the wind, but now it was faint – the sound of ordinary weather somewhere beyond the walls of this strange version of her home. She got up, compelled by a force she couldn’t have put a name to, and stepped over the slumbering bodies. There were soft snores and heavy breathing and not so much as a shuffle as she crossed the room. She walked up the short flight of steps and into The Circle. The night was clear, and bright moonlight poured through the hole in the great dome of the ceiling. It was snowing too, only gently, and flakes drifted down in a steady, languid curtain. As they passed through the shafts of pale light, she could see them pirouetting in the frigid breeze, a million tiny sparkling points in the darkness. Curiously, she didn’t feel cold at all. She stood there for she didn’t know how long, just watching the snow fall and listening to her own heartbeat and breathing, until she gradually became aware of something strange happening. She thought that nothing in this place could surprise her now, but as the shadows she had taken for the work of the ghostly moonlight flitted here and there, she saw they were more substantial than she’d first realised. In the spectral glow, the shapes of men and women moved backwards and forwards, indistinct, always just out of view somehow, but nonetheless real. Jonis still felt no fear. She watched the ethereal crowds gather, as if to watch a play in the central amphitheatre, until the whole chamber seemed to be full to bursting with the apparitions. She saw snatches of faces and other details now and then: they looked like her, with the same pale skin, black hair and almond-shaped eyes that were otherwise unknown in Atlantis. None of them bore Keeper tattoos though. She walked forward, pushing through the throng as if they were nothing more than insubstantial mist until she came to the front. There, arrayed around the pit, were eight more people, each standing alone, being given room by the others. These had tattoos like hers on their faces. They each raised a hand, palm facing outwards – four the left, four the right – and the wind’s volume increased again. She felt a ghost of the same fear from her dreams pass through her. She could see threads of dark power rising all around, being drawn to the eight men and women, being somehow channelled into their bodies and directed from their palms. They held them so they pointed downwards, and a snaking thread of black lightning emanated from each to converge in the centre like the spokes of a wheel. She looked down into the pit, not stopping to wonder that she hadn’t done so before. When she saw what was there, she did feel true fear again.