Free Nightpeople by Anthony Eaton

she had some power.

That night, as they walked, there was little conversation.
    â€˜What’s wrong with you?’ Dariand snapped, as Saria stumbled yet again.
    â€˜Nothing. I’m just tired.’
    â€˜I don’t see why. You slept all day.’
    Even through her fatigue it took some effort to stop herself smiling. If Dariand only knew.
    Of course now, as they marched nightwards away from Olympic, she was paying the price of her daylight independence. The full water-skin which Dariand had slung across her back was heavy, chaffing at her neck and shoulder, and her legs and feet had swelled so the leather thonging of her shoes bit into her calves. The exhaustion that usually set in late in their evening’s walking had come much earlier tonight, sped up by lack of sleep.
    And the little rest she’d had during the day had been strange, too, disturbed and interrupted by dreams – the memory of the dog’s terror triggered vivid nightmares which left her sweating. When Dreamer Gaardi had shaken her awake in the early evening, Saria felt as though she’d barely been to sleep. Her eyes were filled with grit and her back and neck ached from the hard ground.
    Dariand wasn’t-much better, either. He’d spent the day hidden in a narrow gap underneath an abandoned hut and by the time he managed to extricate himself and the water-skins from Olympic it was already late into the evening. The waste of time had put him in a bad mood.
    â€˜Sorry,’ she retorted. ‘I’ll try not to slow you down any more. Go on without me if you’d like.’
    Dariand increased their pace.
    After an endless night of slogging across the plains, daylight found them picking across a raised causeway between two dry lake beds. Something was strange about the narrow path. On either side, the saltpans glittered into the distance, but the causeway ran dead straight, directly nightwards without veering. The flat surface on which they walked was high above the old lake, and to their left and right rocky walls of scree fell away down to the dry surface.
    The ground was different too: tiny bluish stones, all angles and corners which poked sharp edges into Saria’s feet, even through her shoes. Odd black rocks, broad and flat, suggested that this broken, crazed and fragmented path had once been smooth. Saria picked one up and was surprised to find it slightly soft, with a strange odour.
    â€˜What is this?’
    She held out the rock to show Dariand, who barely glanced down.
    â€˜Just a stone.’
    â€˜It’s different.’
    â€˜Not here it isn’t. Look around; there’re thousands of them.’
    â€˜But this whole place is strange. Why is it so straight?’
    Dariand snatched the rock from her. ‘It’s already daylight, and unless we get across this landbridge we’ll be trapped in the sun, so start putting your energy into walking, alright?’ He hurled the flat stone off the causeway. It arced briefly, a blur against the growing blue vault, then bounced several times before sliding to a halt, a dark blemish on the pale surface.
    Saria followed sullenly as the pace increased yet again, and was soon too breathless to talk.
    The sun was high by the time they reached the end of the causeway and Dariand angled towards an outcrop a little way off, leaving the pathway of flat black rocks to curve in the other direction, slipping across the landscape as far as Saria could see.
    At the outcrop, Dariand led them into a narrow opening between two massive red boulders. The rocks overhung, forming a natural cave and providing deep shade.
    â€˜Wait here.’
    He slipped back into the daylight and Saria, exhausted, slid to the sand. Dreamer Gaardi crouched at her feet and began to unlace her shoes.
    â€˜Dreamer, what was that place? With the flat rocks?’
    â€˜The landbridge? Funny place, that. Very old. It was old even before the Shifting. Those rocks are strange, but