Another time, perhaps, any of them would have noticed. But, tired and worn by their self-enforced march, they were receptive to the change before it was almost too late. Ryan, still in front, had registered that the ground was less certain beneath his boots, but had put this subconsciously down to a minor change in the terrain than anything that should take his attention.
Perhaps it was the night around them dulling his senses. Perhaps it was the dehydration and the introspection that had enabled him to counter this. Perhaps it was nothing more than the tiredness that came from a day’s march without any respite.
Whatever it was, it nearly cost him his life.
One moment the one-eyed man was wrapped up in thought, feeling and yet not registering the ground beneath his feet, the next, he was sliding forward as that ground gave way with an unexpected treachery.
Now the darkness around him made more sense. This was what the people they had been trailing had disappeared into: a fissure in the earth, running deep and almost sheer beneath them. Somehow they had wandered into a small ledge that jutted into space. Those who had gone ahead had known it was there, and had benefited from the light of day. For Ryan and his people there was no prior warning, and as his foot had come down on loose earth and started a slide, the momentum and weight of his body not only threatened to carry him over the edge and into the unknown dark below, but it also carried the risk of making the ledge crumble.
Krysty and Jak were nearest as Ryan’s leg skidded from under him and he toppled back toward the ground. He would have yelled, if not for the fact that his throat was so cracked that little more than a startled croak would emerge. His arms flew out in an attempt to balance himself and spread his weight, to stop the ground beneath him giving way any more than it already had. Without his realizing it, this gave Jak and Krysty the help they needed. As his arms flew back, they were both able to reach out and grab hold of him.
Yet even as they did, both were aware of the earth beneath them trembling and starting to crumble. An ominous groan came from deep within the ground beneath their feet.
Mildred, J.B. and Doc were lagging behind a little. Although it gave them more ground to make up before they could be of assistance, it also gave them the split second they each needed to snap out of their respective reveries and take instant stock of the situation.
To be too close would be to risk their combined weight causing the unstable ground to break up even more. To stay away would be to leave Jak and Krysty to try to haul Ryan back while the rock splintered beneath their feet. They had to move in and lend support while staying back enough to stop the ledge turning to dust beneath them, and dropping all of them into the abyss below.
Ryan had no idea of what was happening behind him. He knew only that the ground was falling away beneath him even as he scrabbled with his boot heels to gain some kind of grip. Each frantic attempt to gain a foothold had only the opposite effect. At the same time, he could feel his legs start to slip and his calves cramp as the jagged edge of rock cut into them. At the other end of his body he could feel an ironlike grip around each wrist, and his shoulders strained in their sockets as he was grabbed and hauled back while his momentum sought to carry him in the opposite direction.
He stopped kicking, realizing that his efforts were counterproductive.
At his back, Jak and Krysty could feel the movement beneath them slow as Ryan ceased to fight. Now more confident, but still cautious in case they started a slide of their own, they began to move back slowly, one step at a time. They staggered their steps so that first Krysty, and then Jak, moved, causing the minimum of disturbance and impact to the fragile earth beneath them. Within a few steps, each felt another hand reach out and grab them in the darkness. Mildred took hold of Jak, and Doc assisted Krysty. Each allowed the others to lean a little of their weight into them, so that it took some strain off the ground beneath, and allowed the stress to be carried over a greater area of ground. At the rear, J.B. planted his feet firmly on solid ground and took hold of arms that were stretched out behind Doc and Mildred. Bearing their weight, he began to slowly shuffle back, taking the strain and helping them to haul back Jak and Krysty.
It was a slow and painful process. Sweating with the effort, despite the chill of the night, J.B. could only relax when he could see, under the wan moon, that Ryan was several yards from the edge, and was able to dig in his own heels and push back.
When they were all back level with the line of the crevasse, they collapsed onto the ground, breathing hard.
Ryan raised himself up on one elbow. In the moonlight he could see the inky blackness that was delineated only by the jagged line of collapsing rock. They had hauled him back only just in time. He could still hear the faint sounds of falling dirt and stone where small sections of the lip continued to fall away.
Just in time. Timing was everything. A few seconds and he would have been gone before they could reach him.
Timing was everything. A day either way and they might not even have been out here on this cold, dark night.
Chapter Two
“Tell me where they are, Morgan. Tell me what they’re doing.”
Baron K leaned into the fire, so that his face was reflected in the upward glow. Shiny, bright and expectant, there was almost something childlike about him as he asked.
The old man sucked his teeth, then spit to one side. “Wish it was that simple, Baron. But if it was, I would have seen them coming, known who they were when they arrived and been able to do something about it.”
The baron shook his head. “When I look back, I should have seen it, too. It’s not like it wasn’t obvious that they were bad news. No, Morgan, they had a magic about them that was strong, and could mask a lot.”
The old man cocked his head to one side as he considered the man who was nominally his superior. Not at present. Right now it seemed that the baron was looking up to him as a superior because of powers he appeared to possess. His faith was touching, if a little misplaced. Morgan mused that if he had been the kind of man who wished to gain and use power, he would have been able to use the baron’s belief against him. For a man who had used a very physical and worldly grasp of power to gain his position, he had a vulnerable point that was unexpected.
But Morgan wasn’t that kind of man. He considered that running his own life was enough of a struggle, let alone taking on the task of telling others how they should live. He also had what he considered to be a sense of perspective. And from that he knew that the baron had overestimated what he could do. The baron believed in magic and power that was beyond the physical and human. Morgan didn’t. All those old stories were crap. It was true that he had a certain ability. He was a doomie, as he had heard others like himself be called. He could see things that weren’t there, or that were happening some way distant. But he didn’t call it magic. He came from a long line of those who carried the history of the time before the nukecaust. This role as a person who could recall the stories of the past gave him a kind of protection. He was treated with a kind of awe akin to those who could cure the sick. Doctors, as they called them once. With a wry twist of humor, he realized that he was one of the few who would know that word around these parts. Just as he was the only one who knew that doomies weren’t some kind of supernatural beings.
But let the baron believe what he wanted. It kept Morgan alive and relatively safe.
It was true, though, that he did possess that kind of doomie gift that enabled him to see from a distance. If he concentrated, then he could see what it was that he concentrated his attention upon. Viewing remotely, as some had once called it.
