The Telematrix, Part 15
Four years later: Summer of 993.
The fog gathered around their horses feet like the spreading of blood from a wound. Telematrice stopped as the field in front of her disappeared into the thickening white haze. She hoped her companions sensed her sudden arrest.
“Leve? Memorex?”
Memorex’s voice was the first to call back. “What the bloody hell is this?”
Telematrice’s eyes pierced the fog, silent and wary. In an instant, her instincts kicked in and she became like a tracker, her senses readied against attack.
When she understood at last what was going on, she breathed a troubled breath. For the first time in years, fear began tricking out around the edges of her steely, cool eyes. “It’s them,” she whispered. “The Mysts. They’re here.”
Leve’s horses pulled up almost silently next to hers. It was all she could do to make out his silhouette in the fog. “But it couldn’t be,” he said. “Wisshylna is 500 milometers north. They’ve never traveled so far.”
“At least, according to myth,” Memorex added.
Telematrice knew she was right. “They’re never been betrayed before. The Telematrix remains free. They’ve come to take what they’re owed.”
Screams began to fill the air around them.
“They will take 373 lives tonight,” she continued, “and I don’t think they’ll mind too much which ones.”