Nightpeople by Anthony Eaton Read Free Book Online Page A

between the dunes a few minutes later, she was completely asleep.

Saria woke in the middle of the afternoon, the sun still high overhead. The two men slumbered beside her and the shade where they lay was dappled with brightness. She sat up cautiously, not wanting to disturb Dariand, and crawled carefully out.
    The glare of the sun on red sand painted the afternoon in a harsh, bloody light, which burnt at the back of her eyes. She took a couple of hesitant steps towards a curve in the dune, but leapt back into the shade with a yelp as the sand seared the soles of her feet.
    Above, the dayvault shimmered, a little like the surface of Silver Lake had gleamed in the vaultlights. The rest of the landscape was hidden behind the huge dunes, red sand rippling steeply up to peaks on either side of their bush.
    A clicking broke the silence. Instinctively, Saria closed in on it. It took a couple of minutes to find – a tiny chirping insect, nestled in a fork in the branches. Saria sighed in disappointment. She’d tried reaching insects before, larger ones than this, but only ever with limited success. Their minds were too small, too dependent on instinct to reach into.
    Still, there was nothing else to do. Settling cross-legged on the sand, the tiny creature perched just in front of her face, she examined the feelers and spiderwork-patterned wings folded along its length, then let the earthwarmth flow up from the ground into her body. Finally, her toes and fingertips tingling, Saria closed her eyes, relaxed and reached out.
    It was there immediately: a twittering, skittering little mind, alien and cold, right in front of her, a flickering spark against the afternoon. Sighing with contentment, Saria let herself sink into the insect’s consciousness.
    It was unlike any reaching she had ever done. Even the wild dog, for all its aggression, had not been as overwhelming. With other creatures there was always some sense of being slightly detached from the land, of living in it but with a barrier of intelligence keeping distance between the mind and the core of the land. With this tiny creature, though, there was no protective thought process to hold her separate, only cold, mute instinct. She was sinking into the fabric of the earth itself, drowning in sudden, all-encompassing awareness.
    She could feel every tremble and vibration in the shrub, the coldness of the damp, deep below where the root system twined through living rock. She could feel the warm restless air drifting between the leaves and across the membranous wings of her host. The two sleeping men, a few metres away, pulsed – their size and power almost overpowering the little creature’s sense of its world.
    For a long while Saria stayed hovering at the outermost levels of the insect’s consciousness, barely even brushing it with her own senses and calming herself against the barrage of sensation. Then she slipped deeper, probing out into the surrounding landscape, searching for other life.
    The emptiness of the land almost swamped her and for a moment she came close to losing contact. There was nothing in every direction. Somewhere a long way distant, a few tiny flickers might have been creatures, but they were gone before the insect was even properly aware of them.
    After years in the valley, reaching into creatures surrounded by familiar life, the sudden isolation shook Saria to her core. Desperately needing to find some other indication of life nearby, she dived deeper in.
    When it struck, the pain was blinding; flashes of burning colour leapt across her vision and into her mind and Saria yelped, reflex tearing away her connection with the insect. She fell back, clutching her hands to her temples, and lay curled on the warm sand, sobbing as waves of bright pain washed over her.
    A soft hand touched her lightly on the forearm. Through eyes still blurred, Dreamer Gaardi swam into view, kneeling over her.
    â€˜You gotta sit up. Here.’
    His touch