The Darkness Before the Dawn - By Ryan Hughes Page 0,88

masked a deeper rumble that was more felt than heard. Jedra watched people come and go from stairways leading down into subterranean catacombs, but he didn’t feel like seeing what was down there. He felt too closed in already. He had to get out. Wide stairs led up from the main floor to doors on all sides; Jedra fell in behind a large bearded man in a dark overcoat, letting him clear a path through the throng until they made it outside.

It was brighter than Jedra had expected. From inside, under that glaring blue light, it had seemed dark out—and it was indeed night—but he could still see clearly. Bright glowing lanterns atop poles provided plenty of light, and more light spilled from buildings lining the street.

And what a street! The rushing noise here was even louder than inside. Just a few feet from the narrow walkway on which Jedra and a thousand other people stood, hundreds of multicolored beasts careened past, following one another in a dizzying stampede from right to left. Their eyes glowed too brightly to look at, and they growled as they passed.

Jedra stepped back, but he bumped into one of the people streaming by. “Wal finida graben!” the man growled at him, hardly breaking stride. More people shoved past, jostling Jedra aside until he stood by the edge of the street again. Even that was no refuge, however; a man and a woman stepped up beside him, almost into the path of the rushing beasts, and the man raised his arm in a casual wave. He called out, “Gimpel!” and one of the creatures—a yellow one—stopped for him, eliciting angry outcries from the ones behind it. Only when the man reached out and opened a door in its side did Jedra look closer and realize it was a chariot. It had no draft animals or slaves pulling it, so it must have been magically powered. The man and his woman climbed inside, and the chariot roared away with them both inside, leaving Jedra in the throng.

Jedra had thought that Athas was depressing, and that Yoncalla was mad, but this was the insane world. There were too many people, and there was too much activity for anyone to follow. Jedra felt panic closing in on him. He had grown up in a city, but even on market days Urik had never been like this. He needed to get out of this mob. He considered going back home, but he’d only been here a few minutes, and he hadn’t really learned anything about the place yet. If he could just find someplace quiet to observe it all from, he could at least try to figure out what was going on.

Maybe from atop one of the buildings. He looked up… and nearly fell over backward. He’d thought the buildings were tall in the ruined city where he’d met Kitarak, but here they were impossibly high. A stray breeze could blow one over.

A woman laughed when she saw the expression on his face. Jedra blushed and turned away. All right, so the buildings were tall. They would still make a good refuge. He raised his arms and gave a little leap, expecting to fly the way he had in Yoncalla’s world, but he just plopped back to the gray stone walkway. He heard laughter around him, and for the first time the people nearby stepped aside to give him room.

“Thanks,” he said, and tried again, directing his thoughts in a concentrated wish: fly. He didn’t have any better luck this time, though, and now the people around him laughed outright. A few pointed at him and spoke more unfamiliar words, but Jedra didn’t have to know the language to know what they were saying. They thought he was crazy.

Well, that was one piece of information, then. People couldn’t fly in this world. That would explain all the chariots. Blushing furiously now, Jedra began walking through the crowd. The first few people gave way before him, but the ones behind them didn’t know that he was the source of the commotion, or even that any commotion had gone on, so he had to jostle his way along with the rest of them.

He’d gone less than a hundred paces before someone shouldered him aside and he lost his balance. Without thinking, he stepped out into the street to keep from falling over. One of the yellow chariots brushed by him, its hard flank banging painfully into his thigh and knocking him