Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 665
are lazy. It is more like an opportunity--a chance to create a
new reality that is more true to nature.
Was she right? Should he have razed the sleepy towns
with their inheritance-bound guildsmen and books of ritual
appeasement instead of her experimental villages--burned the
festival costumes and children’s' storybooks--and helped her
build the hive of the future? Could her love have sustained him
while everything else he had known and cherished whithered
and died? She had claimed she had the permission and advice
of the Winds in all she did; he had known that to be a lie, for
one time they had discussed the lies of great men, and she had
blithely stated that all nations were based on them. Yet, the
Diadem swans did not know the scriptures attributed to them;
even now he could see the priest standing before the pillar of
flame, arms apart, pleading for sense from the masters of the
world. All the traditions Lavin believed in were based on those
ancient scriptures, and the stories that surrounded them. Was
Galas right? Were they all lies too?
The world spun around him in a particularly savage gyre,
and Lavin’s gorge rose. It wasn't just him, though--men were
shouting and running. He forced himself to sit up, and
observed green foliage moving past the open hatchways of the
moon. Crowds of men had begun to cluster there.
One of his commanders hurried over. "We're coming
down, sir. There are some horsemen and the bast creatures on
the ground below."
"All right." He took several deep breaths to quiet his
stomach. "Bring them to me before they speak to anyone else."
The moon took ten minutes to drop the last few meters,
and it didn't actually touch the ground. From his seated
position Lavin saw a long grey metal ramp extend out and
down into the darkness of the moon's shadow. Horsemen