“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 will 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.