Chapter 2

The market was as close to the centre-land as they could make it, but it was still a day's ride to the border, and the other way, a half-day to the threadbare forests and their little clay houses sheltered in between. For those with only their own two feet to carry them, the trip was more than a day and night's walk and so they clumped together, and that company was sometimes all that spared them an eternal slumber amidst their fading tracks in the snow. And they'd learned a long time ago.

Divine, though, had his snow-bike and a stone that would only take three souls' worth of spiritual energy at a time so market trips were both easier and more frequent for him. And his first shop would invariably be the magician that took a transient roost there, to trade his three souls' worth of energy for whatever he needed in exchange: renewing a cast or commissioning a new one or coin if he required neither. Assuming he was there, and there the magician was.

His heat runes needed a recharge, and the magician could tell that as well .Goosebumps ran up his bare arms. "Small transfer," he muttered. "Needed a recharge soon anyway."

And what would you have done if I hadn't been here?" asked the magician, amused, as he took the stone. "Coin's not much good if you freeze to death."

"Like I'd risk running so low if i couldn't help it," Divine muttered, annoyed. "I know well enough how unreliable you are." He paused, then added as an afterthought: "and you're early in any case."

"No more so than the priests," the magician pointed out. "Hmm, not bad. One a kid? Though you've got space for another." Divine knew that. He'd come for the runes, and the magician unhooked his pouch and counted out silver coins.

"Little girl," said Divine, ignoring the comment about the priests. The magician was right anyway. Most unreliable were the rulers of their God-forsaken world: the God, if he existed, who stared from his high and mighty throne and watched them scramble, and the king and his consort in their palace closed in the glass that shielded them from long winters and burning days that were the world's bane. Safe...while the rest of the world froze and burned in turn.

And after them were the priests, glorified garbage collectors that instead wasted valuable resources and how lucky people like him were that there were so few and so slow that he could snatch the fruit they'd let rot from under their feet.

"Five silver," the magician slid them over, "and recharging the heat circle. I hear the hunters managed to bring back a bear," he added.

"Might get a chunk of meat for that." Divine picked up the coins.

"Could buy a whole leg for that, once."

"Really? When was that?" But they both knew the answer. In that paradise world that had died long before they were born.

"You might want to go get your chink of meat," the magician said, though from the years of trading services it was more patronising than kind. "I'll lay you up for the rest of the day."

"You give yourself too much credit," replied Divine, "seeing as I'm pretty much your only source of power in this quadrant."

"You give yourself too much credit," the magician echoed. "Do you think I'd waste my time on just one person? The north-east is flooded with collectors."

"Practitioners too." But Divine didn't press the issue. As long as the magician continued to set up roughly once a week, it was fine. They were the ones dependent on him, and he for one didn't want to have to seek his fortune elsewhere and most others didn't even have the choice. What did attract the magician to the Western Quadrant was something he never cared to share and no-one cared nor dared to push. "Pity they can't send a couple more this way." Or further out, rather, where not even he with his snow-bike tended to go.

"Yes, pity," said the magician, amused again. "So you'll be happy to know there's a new priestess in town. 'Course, that means the old guy's gone. Carted him off so folk like us can't make some silver off his soul."

"That why you're here?" Divine raised an eyebrow. 'Hoping I caught him first?"

"Not you. You're not tenacious enough."

Divine frowned. "Then who?"

The magician smiled. "Who indeed?"

#

It was easy to spot the new priestess, even for someone like him who cared to know very few by name. The black hair of her and her companion flagged them, and the way she hung onto the male's arm confirmed it. He did the leg work: collected more groceries than necessary as all the new ones tended to before they learnt and fur to cover their flimsy eastern garb (while forgoing the tightly-woven but far lighter shirts that were more convenient) while the priestess carried what fit onto one arm.

Those foolish easterners should know by word of mouth from their predecessors the condition of the Western Quadrant, but they were never adequately prepared.

But just as they stood out to him, he stood out to them. The man caught his eye before his gaze travelled up and down, taking in his shaven head under a fur cap most couldn't afford (but the man had already invested in), and the scarred runes peeking out from under sleeves. The bow and arrow - Saturn's rune - on his right forearm was the most telling and it was there the gaze lingered longest, before he knelt closer to the woman and whispered in her ear.

She whispered something back and the man scowled. But he did not look Divine's way again and Divine understood. No quarrel today - or as long as peace-loving priests and their loyal lapdogs stuck to their principles too extravagant for the common west-folk. The same as always - but why should he expect them to break the mould when nothing else did? Nothing but the fleeting sun after long stretches of sunless days.

The woman didn't look his way at all. There was no point when all she'd see was the warm red glow of life. He could see it too if he really tried, but he rarely did. He, at least, could see the colours of the world. Not that there was much to see in their grey wasteland, but at least he required no guide nor aide. Though those aides were bound to loyalty - and wasn't that a luxury in this world where most could barely support themselves? Though there were exceptions. Always exceptions. Like the priests' mindless guards. Like families - but not all families. Always and never didn't go with them. Proof that both nature and magic were fallible and where then was the absolute except in what neither could do: revive the dead and save the world?

But if they did discover the means of resurrection, then they'd lose a valuable pool of magic and the Temple would lose its footing in the world. That footing which led the people to stare ad memorise those faces and one to stumble out of the crowd and beg healing grace, as though the God who'd taken the sun cared enough for a single soul. The God who'd taken the sun and only gave it back long enough to melt the surface of earth as though it were a slab of metal in a blacksmith's forge, and then took it again leaving the misshapen unmoulded surface to cool in the long winter ahead.

Once, the sun was their source of heat and light. And then electricity until the coal ran low and now magic fuelled by the dead souls that flowed back into the earth: pure energy unlike what collectors like him siphoned off in payment for their role as guide. The young child was a crushed seedling while the old a sturdy oak that had survived many a burning days. But the dead had nothing to offer him and neither did a priestess' parlour tricks. He took his palm-sized slab of meat (indeed five silver coins) and returned to his ride.

Where it had once demanded coal, it now took a mix of wood, flame and reconstruction runes because everything was in short supply and people only rationed for themselves, and why wouldn't they? Why did it matter to the masses what happened to the world after they died? There were others for that: silent leaders in their glass dome who stare out at the full canvas painting of the world.

From where he'd parked his snow-bike he could see the road-bed sloping off, and a huddle of people were walking it: little specks in the distance and slowly growing. And beyond them was the village and then the forest and the river that an through it, and ten the watch-tower in the centre of the quadrant, all too far away from his vantage point to see. There was just grey meeting grey: the dirty snow and the cloudy sky. If there was any blue mixed in, it was too thin and too far away. No work nearby.

He went back to the magician. They set up quickly thanks to routine: sleeveless vest acting the part of a mattress instead and the shirt underneath (that he only really wore to mask his hand) now pillowed his head. The erected tent kept out the wind even if the scent of blood would not travel far enough for the beasts. It was a slight comfort, at least. Comfortable and private, for his back was only barred for the magician, kneeling over him in the heavy robes that showed he was an outsider after all this time and wiping a sodden cloth over the runes on his left shoulder. And the chill had barely begun to spread before the magician was cutting: retracing the runes as Divine swallowed his hisses of pain as best he could and clenched his cap tight.

He rarely felt the next part: venom painting slick skin, but it always did its work - let numbness settle in while the fresh cuts still oozed. It came with dizzy pulses as power pushed through open skin and quarrelled with his own spirit already there. He closed his eyes and could almost see their colours - or maybe that was the red of fever taking root.