第2节

e iron snake which followed, bearing more sand-burrowers in

its belly. When they came, there would be a great dying. The world

would weep but all the tears in the sky would not wash the blood of the

Plainfolk from the earth.

When Mr Snow had finished telling his story to the children, he walked

down to where Cadillac sat with his face turned up to the sky and

squatted cross-legged on an adjoining rock. His long white hair was

drawn up into atop-knot, tied and threaded with ribbon; the aging skin

covering his lean, hard body was patterned with random swirls, patches

and spots of black, three shades of brown - from dark to light and an

even lighter olive-pink.

Mr Snow had said that the bodies of the sand-burrowers were the same

colour all over. Olive-pink from the top of their heads to the soles

of their feet. Like worms.

Cadillac's body was marked with a similar random pattern but his skin

was as smooth as a raven's wing. Some of Mr Snow's skin was smooth too

but in other places, such as his forehead, shoulders and forearms, the

skin was lumpy as if it had pebbles stuffed underneath, or it was

shrivelled up like a dead leaf or the gnarled bark of a tree, That was

the way most Mutes were born. And many were different to Cadillac in

other ways too. As a young child, when Cadillac finally became aware

that his body was different from those of his clan-brothers, he had

felt ashamed; a grotesque outcast. Some of the other children taunted

him, saying he had a body like a sand-burrower. He became alienated

from his peer group; ran away; was brought back; fell sick, refused to

eat.

Black-Wing, his mother, had taken him to Mr Snow who explained that the

things he hated about himself were precious differences that would, in

the years to come, enable him to perform great feats of valour. That

was why he had been made straight and strong as the Heroes of the Old

Time, and had been given a Name of Power. Cadillac, then four years

old, had sat listening wide-eyed as, in the flickering firelight under

a dark sky heavy with shimmering stars, Mr Snow had revealed to him the

Talisman Prophecy.

F. from that moment, Cadillac knew, with a childlike certainty he had

never lost, that everything that happened to him had a meaning, and

that his destiny was bound up with the greater destiny of the

Plainfoak.

Cadillac gave up his search of the sky and turned to Mr Snow. He had

no need to tell the old man what he had been looking for. Mr Snow, his

teacher and guide since early childhood, who spoke to the Sky Voices,

knew these things; knew everything.

'Is this the year of the Great Dying?" asked Cadillac.

'This is the year it begins,' said Mr Snow.

'When will the iron snakes come?"

Mr Snow closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and turned his face

towards the sun. The sky had now turned a deep blue. Cadillac waited

patiently.

Eventually, the answer came. 'When the moon's face has turned away

three times."

'And what of the cloud warrior the Sky Voices have chosen?"

Mr Snow let the air out of his body with a long sigh and dropped his

head onto his chest. His eyes fluttered open.

'His journey towards us begins. He dreams the dreams of young men. Of

feats of valour, of triumph, of power, of greatness." Mr Snow raised

his eyes and looked at Cadillac.

'But like all young men, he thinks these things are gifts. He does not

yet know how much the world pays for such dreams."

TWO

The one hundred members of Eagle Squadron jerked back their shoulders

and sat bolt upright in their desks as the Flight Adjudicator entered

the briefing room. The Adjudicator surveyed them briefly with grey

expressionless eyes then scanned the list displayed on his video-pad.

'Avery - ?"

Mel Avery leapt out of her seat and snapped to attention, thumbs

aligned with the side seams of her blue jumpsuit.

'Sir!" 'Flightline Three."

Avery grabbed her visored helmet, saluted swiftly and headed for the

door at the double.

The Flight Adjudicator keyed in a box co& against Avery's name and

looked up. 'Ayers - ?"