Free Daywards by Anthony Eaton Page A

recalling the powerful surge that Ma Saria had thrown out there on the night of Da Janil’s death. Surely if something was wrong she’d be able to feel it, or at least the aftermath.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ Jaran’s voice pulled her back into herself before she had a chance to extend her awareness out.
    â€˜Shush!’ she snapped. ‘I’m reaching.’
    Her brother made his usual sound of disbelief, but all the same he fell silent while she tried again.
    It was no good. That wide, deep reach she’d been able to manage so easily earlier in the day eluded her now, and the best she could do was sense a few hundred metres out, where a handful of night creatures were drinking from the creek. With a sigh, she gave up.
    â€˜Feel anything?’ Jaran’s smirk was back.
    â€˜I’m going to sleep.’
    â€˜But what’s your decision? You coming, or going?’
    She regarded her brother evenly.
    â€˜I’ll tell you in the morning.’

For three days they followed the trail north, as it meandered between seemingly endless lines of granite ridges. For the most part the path followed the watercourses, which streamed down from the higher slopes and then wound along the valley floors. Occasionally, though, it would divert, and slope sharply upwards through a higher pass, but then drop down again into the valley on the other side.
    They didn’t talk much. They’d rise with the sun and then walk, both of them swaying easily and steadily along through the day and well into the evening, until either darkness or fatigue stopped them.
    â€˜How do you know the way?’ Dara asked at one point.
    â€˜This.’ Jaran removed a small device from a pocket – a piece of tech Dara had seen him fiddling with on several occasions. ‘It’s a plotter, with the route to the city preprogrammed. If we get off-course by more than a couple of metres, it lets me know.’
    â€˜Give me a look.’
    â€˜No.’ Jaran returned the device to his pocket. ‘Uncle Xani said you weren’t to touch any of the tech.’
    â€˜Shi.’
    A couple of times each day, Dara would try reaching, but, even though she was stronger again now, she couldn’t achieve that same, effortless distance she’d managed on that first afternoon. All she could feel was the local stuff, just the same as ever. Now, though, it felt tight and confining, as though her mind was being trapped or constrained somehow, and she found herself grinding her teeth in frustration, which of course only clouded things still further.
    On the afternoon of the third day, they laboured up a long slope until they reached a barren ridge an hour or so before sunset. As they attained the pass, the horizons opened up – an immense vista, larger even than that from the top of the escarpment back at camp. Below them, the trail fell steeply down the side of the hills, descending in a series of sharp switchbacks until it vanished into a dull green forest, which filled the plain as far as they could see. In the extreme distance, visible only because of the bright sunset, Dara caught the faint glimmer of water.
    They stopped and drank from a couple of flasks which Jaran carried in his pack and sat, side by side, taking in the view.
    â€˜Pretty impressive, eh?’ Jaran finally offered. ‘Xani said the coastal plains were big, but I didn’t expect anything like this.’
    â€˜Where’s the city?’ Dara asked.
    â€˜That way.’ Jaran pointed nightwards and north, into the sunset. ‘Still at least a few days away.’
    The whole world was so much bigger than Dara had imagined. In the old stories there were mentions of distance, of course, but somehow they’d failed to convey the full size, the grandness of it.
    â€˜Shouldn’t we get moving?’
    Jaran didn’t answer immediately. He rubbed a hand against the back of his neck and looked as if he was deep in