Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 166
led between more orchards. Low fieldstone walls lined the
laneway, and in the darkness they closed in claustrophobically.
Perce’s eyes stayed down though; he seemed to know what in
the dark he was afraid of, and it was nothing that might lurk
behind those walls.
He had gone perhaps half a kilometer, and was beginning
to stagger desperately, when he heard a ripping sound
overhead. It was a sound almost like a flag in the wind, almost
like the blurred noise of a sword on the downstroke, but it went
on and on, rising to a deafening crescendo. Dust leapt from the
laneway around Perce, and he coughed, and stopped helplessly.
Giant claws crushed him. He shouted blood as they spun
him around and pulled him into the sky.
Perce saw his hands reaching down to the receding lines
of the laneway, then he saw the jewel-box perfection of Lena’s
cottage glowing below him. It was intact. Drops of blood
trailed off his fingertips and fell toward it.
Darkness fell over him like a cloak.
Armiger cursed, and opened his eyes. Megan stood
above him, her expression quizzical.
Something had severed his link to the remote.
"What is going on here?" he asked himself.
Megan laughed lightly. "I was about to ask you that
myself. What are you doing?"
He shook his head, scowling into the night. Suddenly the
shadows Diadem cast across the clearing didn’t look so benign.
I have to leave, he thought. But, looking up at Megan, he
found he didn’t want to say that to her. In its own way, that
was as disturbing as the vision he had just had.
He pushed the heel of one hand against his forehead, a
gesture one of his lieutenants had favored.
"You’re a mess," Megan said sympathetically.