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  “Well, go ahead,” the king orders me. “Better to see the hole that lies in the path and walk around it than fall into it blindly, as the saying goes.”

  “I do not think we will be able to avoid this hole,” I say quietly. “First, as the ice grows thicker on the Celestial Sea, the Hemo will continue to dwindle and eventually dry up completely.”

  Exclamations of horrified shock interrupt me. I wait until these die down.

  “The temperature in the cavern will drop steadily. The light radiated by the colossus will grow dimmer and soon cease altogether. We will find ourselves in a land of darkness, a land of bitter cold, a land with no water, a land where no food will grow—not even by means of magic. We will find ourselves in the land that is dead, Your Majesty. And if we stay here, we, too, will perish.”

  I hear a gasp, catch a glimpse of movement near the door. Edmund—he is only fourteen—stands listening. No one else breathes a word. Several of the council members look stricken. Then someone mutters that none of this is proved, it is merely the gloom-and-doom theory of a necromancer who has spent too much time among his books.

  “How long?” the king asks harshly.

  “Oh, it will not happen tomorrow, Your Majesty. Nor yet many tomorrows from now. But,” I continue, my fond gaze going sadly to the door, “the prince, your son, will never rule over the land of Kairn Telest.”

  The king follows my glance, sees the young man, and frowns. “Edmund, you know better than this! What are you doing here?”

  The prince flushes. “Forgive me, Father. I didn't mean to—to interrupt. I came looking for you. Mother is ill. The physician thinks you should come. But when I arrived, I didn't want to disturb the council and so I waited, and then I heard … I heard what Baltazar said! Is it true, Father? Will we have to leave—”

  “That will do, Edmund. Wait for me. I will be with you presently.”

  The boy gulps, bows, and fades back, silent and unobtrusive, to stand in the shadows near the doorway. My heart aches for him. I long to comfort him, to explain. I meant to frighten them, not him.

  “Forgive me, I must go to my wife.”

  The king rises to his feet. The council members do likewise; the meeting is obviously at an end.

  “I need not tell you to keep this quiet until we have more information,” the king continues. “Your own common sense will point out to you the wisdom of such an action. We will meet together again in five cycles’ time. However,” he adds, his brows knotting together, “I advise that we take the recommendation of the Farmer's Guild and make an early harvest.”

  The members vote. The recommendation passes. They file out, many casting dark and unhappy glances back at me. They would dearly love to blame this on someone. I meet each gaze with unruffled aplomb, secure in my position. When the last one has left, I glide forward and lay a hand on the arm of the king, who is eager to be gone.

  “What is it?” the king demands, obviously irritated at my interruption. He is much concerned about his wife.

  “Your Majesty, forgive me for delaying you, but I wanted to mention something to you in private.”

  The king draws back, away from my touch. “We do nothing in secret on Kairn Telest. Whatever you want to say to me should have been said in the council.”

  “I would have said it in the council, if I were certain of my facts. I prefer to leave it to the wisdom and discretion of His Majesty to bring up the matter if he thinks it proper that the people should know.”

  He glares at me. “What is it, Baltazar? Another theory?”

  “Yes, Sire. Another theory … about the colossus. According to my studies, the magic in the colossus was intended by the ancients to be eternal. The magic in the colossus, Your Majesty, could not possibly fail.”

  The king regards me in exasperation. “I don't have time for games, Necromancer. You were the one who said the colossus were failing—”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. I did. And I believe that they are. But perhaps I chose the wrong word to describe what is happening to our colossus. The word may not be failure, Sire, but destruction. Deliberate destruction.”

  The king stares at me, then shakes his head. “Come, Edmund,” he says, motioning peremptorily to his son. “We will go see your mother.”

  The young man runs to join his father. The two start to walk away.

  “Sire,” I call out, the urgency in my voice bringing the king again to a halt. “I believe that somewhere, in realms that exist below Kairn Telest, someone wages a most insidious war on us. And they will defeat us utterly, unless we do something to stop them. Defeat us without so much as letting fly an arrow or tossing a spear. Someone, Sire, is stealing away the warmth and light that give us life!”

  “For what purpose, Baltazar? What is the motive for this nefarious scheme?”

  I ignore the king's sarcasm. “To use it for themselves, Sire. I thought long and hard on this problem during my journey home to Kairn Telest. What if Abarrach itself is dying? What if the magma heart is shrinking? A kingdom might consider it necessary to steal from its neighbors to protect its own.”

  “You're mad, Baltazar,” says the king. He has his hand on his son's thin shoulder, steering him away from me. But Edmund looks over his shoulder, his eyes large and frightened. I smile at him, reassuringly, and he seems relieved. My smile vanishes, the moment he can no longer see me.

  “No, Sire, I am not mad,” I say to the shadows. “I wish I were. It would be easier.” I rub my eyes, which burn from lack of sleep. “It would be far easier….”

  CHAPTER 3

  KAIRN TELEST,

  ABARRACH

  EDMUND APPEARS ALONE, AT THE DOOR TO THE LIBRARY, where I sit recording in my journal the conversation that recently took place between father and son, as well as my memories of a time now long past. I lay down the pen and rise respectfully from my desk.

  “Your Highness. Please, enter and welcome.”

  “I'm not interrupting your work?” He stands fidgeting nervously in the doorway. He is unhappy and wants to talk, yet the basis for his unhappiness is his refusal to listen to what he knows I am going to say.

  “I have just this moment concluded.”

  “My father's lying down,” Edmund says abruptly. “I am afraid he'll catch a chill, standing outdoors like that. I ordered his servant to prepare a hot posset.”

  “And what has your father decided?” I ask.

  Edmund's troubled face glimmers ghostly in the light of a gas lamp that, for the moment, drives away the darkness of Kairn Telest.

  “What can he decide?” he returns in bitter resignation. “There is no decision to be made. We will leave.”

  We are in my world, in my library. The prince glances around, notes that the books have been given a loving goodbye. The older and more fragile volumes have been packed away in sturdy boxes of woven kairn grass. Other, newer texts, many penned by myself and my apprentices, are neatly labeled, stored away in the deep recesses of dry rock shelves.

  Seeing Edmund's glance and reading his thoughts, I smile shamefacedly. “Foolish of me, isn't it?” My hand caresses the leather-bound cover of the volume that rests before me. It is one of the few that I will take with me: my description of the last days of Kairn Telest. “But I could not bear to leave them in disorder.”

  “It isn't foolish. Who knows but that someday you will return?” Edmund tries to speak cheerfully. He has become accustomed to speaking cheerfully, accustomed to doing what he can to lift the spirits of his people.

  “Who knows? / know, My Prince.” I shake my head ruefully. “You forget to whom you talk. I am not one of the council members.”

  “But there is a chance,” he persists.

  It hurts me to shatter his dream. Yet—for the good of all of us—he must be made to face the truth.

  “No, Your Highness, there is not a chance. The fate that I described to your father ten years earlier is upon us. All my calculations point to one conclusion: our world, Abarrach, is dying.”

/>   “Then what is the use of going on?” Edmund demands impatiently. “Why not just stay here? Why endure the hardship and suffering of this trek into unknown regions if we go only to meet death at the end?”

  “I do not counsel that you abandon hope and plunge into despair, Edmund. I suggest now, as I have done before, that you turn your hope in another direction.”

  The prince's face darkens, he is upset and moves slightly away from me. “My father has forbidden you to discuss that subject.”

  “Your father is a man who lives in the past, not the present,” I say bluntly. “Forgive me, Your Highness, but it has always been my practice to speak the truth, no matter how unpleasant. When your mother died, something in your father died, too. He looks backward. It is up to you to look forward!”

  “My father is still king,” Edmund says sternly.

  “Yes,” I reply. And I cannot help feeling that this is a fact to be deeply regretted.

  Edmund faces me, chin high. “And while he is king we will do as he and the council command. We will travel to the old realm of Kairn Necros, seek out our brethren there, and ask them for help. You were the one who proposed this undertaking, after all.”

  “I proposed that we travel to Kairn Necros,” I correct him. “According to my studies, Kairn Necros is the one place left on this world where we might reasonably expect to find life. It is located on the Fire Sea, and, although the great magma ocean has undoubtedly shrunk, it must still be large enough to provide warmth and energy for the people of its realm. I did not counsel that we go to them as beggars!”

  Edmund's handsome face flushes, his eyes flash. He is young and proud.

  I see the fire in him and do what I can to stoke it.

  “ Beggars to those who brought about our ruin!” I remind him.

  “You don't know that for certain—”

  “Bah! All the evidence points one way—to Kairn Necros. Yes, I think we will find the people of that realm alive and well. Why? Because they have stolen our lives from us!”

  “Then why did you suggest that we go to them?” Edmund is losing patience. “Do you want war? Is that it?”

  “You know what I want, Edmund,” I say softly.

  The prince sees, too late, that he's been led down the forbidden path. “We leave after we have broken our sleep's fasting,” he tells me coldly. “I have certain matters to which I must attend, as do you, Necromancer. Our dead must be prepared for the journey.”

  He turns to leave. I reach out, catch hold of his fur-cloaked arm.

  “Death's Gate!” I tell him. “Think about it, My Prince. That is all I ask. Think about it!”

  Disquieted, he pauses, although he does not turn around. I increase the pressure of my hand on the young man's arm, squeezing through the layers of fur and cloth to feel the flesh and bone and muscle, hard and strong beneath. I feel him tremble.

  “Remember the words of the prophecy. Death's Gate is our hope, Edmund,” I say quietly. “Our only hope.”

  The prince shakes his head, shakes off my hand, and leaves the library to its flickering flame, its entombed books.

  I return to my writing.

  The people of Kairn Telest gather in the darkness near the gate of their city wall. The gate has stood open for as long as anyone can remember, for as long as records have been kept, which is from the time of the city's founding. The walls were erected to protect the people from rampaging, predatory animals. These walls were never intended to protect people from one another. Such a concept is unthinkable to us. Travelers, strangers, are always welcome, and so the gates stand open.

  But then came the day when it occurred to the people of Kairn Telest that there had been no travelers for a long, long while. It occurred to us that there would be no travelers. There hadn't even been any animals. And so the gates remain open, because to shut them would be a waste of time and a bother. And now the people stand before the open gates, themselves travelers, and wait in silence for their journey to commence.

  Their king and prince arrive, accompanied by the army, the soldiers bearing kairn grass torches. Myself—necromancer to the king—and my fellow necromancers and apprentices walk behind. After us trail the palace servants bearing heavy bundles containing clothes and food. One, shambling close behind me, carries a box filled with books.

  The king comes to a halt near the open gates. Taking one of the torches from a soldier, His Majesty holds it high. Its light illuminates a small portion of the dark city. He looks out across it. The people turn and look out across it. I turn.

  We see wide streets winding among buildings created out of the stone of Abarrach. The gleaming white marble exteriors, decorated with runes whose meanings no one now remembers, reflect back to us the light of our torches. We look upward, to a rise in the cavern floor, to the palace. We can't see it now. It is shrouded in darkness. But we can see a light, a tiny light, burning in one of the windows.

  “I left the lamp,” the king announces, his voice loud and unusually strong, “to light the way for our return.”

  The people cheer, because they know he wants them to cheer. But the cheers die away soon, too soon; more than a few cut off by tears.

  “The gas fueling that lamp will last about thirty cycles,” I remark in a low voice, coming to take my place at the prince's side.

  “Be silent!” Edmund rebukes me. “It made my father happy.”

  “You cannot silence the truth, Your Highness. You can't silence reality,” I remind him. He does not reply.

  “We leave Kairn Telest now,” the king was continuing, holding the torch high above his head, “but we will be back with newfound wealth. And we will make our realm more glorious and more beautiful than ever.”

  No one cheers. No one has the heart.

  The people of Kairn Telest begin to file out of their city. They travel mostly on foot, carrying their clothes and food wrapped in bundles, though some pull crude carts bearing possessions and those who cannot walk: the infirm, the elderly, small children. Beasts of burden, once used to draw the carts, have long since died off; their flesh consumed for food, their fur used to protect the people from the bitter cold.

  Our king is the last to leave. He walks out of the gates without a backward glance, his eyes facing forward confidently to the future, to a new life. His stride is firm, his stance upright. The people, looking at him, grow hopeful. They form an aisle along the road and now there are cheers and now the cheers are heartfelt. The king walks among them, his face alight with dignity.

  “Come, Edmund,” he commands. The prince leaves me, takes his place at his father's side.

  He and his father walk among the people to the head of the line. Holding his torch aloft, the king of Kairn Telest leads his people forth.

  A detail of soldiers remains after the others have gone. I wait with them, curious to know their final orders.

  It takes them some time and a considerable amount of effort, but at last they succeed in pulling shut the gates, gates marked with runes that no one remembers and that, now, as they march off with the torches, no one can see in the darkness.

  CHAPTER 4

  KAIRN TELEST,

  ABARRACH

  I AM WRITING NOW, UNDER ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE CONDITIONS. I explain this to anyone who may perhaps read this volume at a later date and wonder both at the change in style and the change in the handwriting. No, I have not suddenly grown old and feeble, nor am I plagued by illness. The letters straggle across the page because I am forced to write by the dim light of a flickering torch. The only surface I have for a tablet is a slab of flint, foraged for me by one of the soldiers. My magic alone keeps the bloodberry ink from freezing long enough for me to put words to paper.

  Plus, I am bone weary. Every muscle in my body aches, my feet are bruised and blistered. But I made a pact with myself and with Edmund to keep this account and I will now record the cycle's events before—

  I started to say before I forget them.

  Alas, I do not think that I w
ill ever forget.

  The first cycle's journeying was not physically difficult for us. The route lies overland, through what were once fields of grain and vegetables, orchards, plains where the herd animals were fed. The paths were easily traversed— physically. Emotionally, the first cycle's journey was devastating.

  Once, not so many years ago, the warm, soft light of the colossus beamed upon this land. Now, in the darkness, by the light of torches carried by the soldiers, we saw the fields lying empty, barren, desolate. The brown stubble of the last crop of kairn grass stood in clumps, rattling like bones in the blasts of chill wind that whistled mournfully through cracks in the cavern walls.

  The almost joyful, adventurous mood that sent our people marching in hope drained from them and was left behind in the desolate landscape. We trudged in silence over the frozen ground, cold-numbed feet slipping and stumbling on patches of ice and frost. We halted once, for a midday meal, and then pushed on. Children, missing their naps, whimpered fretfully, often falling asleep in their father's arms as they walked.

  No one spoke a single word of complaint, but Edmund heard the children's cries. He saw the people's weariness, and knew it was not caused by fatigue but by bitter sorrow. I could see that his heart ached for them, yet we had to keep going. Our food supplies are meager and, with rationing, will last barely the length of time I have estimated will be needed to reach the realm of Kairn Necros.

  I considered suggesting to Edmund that he break the unhappy silence. He could talk cheerfully to the people of their future in a new land. But I decided it was best to keep quiet. The silence was almost sacred. Our people were saying good-bye.

  Near cycle's end, we came to a colossus. No one said a word but, one by one, the people of Kairn Telest left the path, came to stand beneath the gigantic column of stone. Once, it would have been impossible to have approached the bright and shining source of our life. Now, it stood dead and cold as the land it had forsaken.