Thomas Gown has become an important part of the Rossem Project and his contribution may be vital to its eventual success. However, he has also become a pawn in a desperate struggle between ancient powers who care nothing for the civilisation Thomas...
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The two suns beat down on the small boy as he hoed the weeds from between the rows of straggly, stunted turnips.
He worked for hour after hour, paying special attention to those weeds with reddish purple leaves, some varieties of which were so poisonous that the merest touch could bring the skin out in an angry red rash. If a purple weed grew close alongside a turnip, some of the poison could be transferred to the root and then the unfortunate person eating it would die in agony, coughing up blood and screaming in delirium. Fortunately, affected roots tended to have a reddish tinge to them, which made them easy to spot, but accidents still happened. Tak's father frequently called purple plants the greatest danger they lived under. Worse than the tornadoes that swept the land in high summer. Worse than the shologs who could come raiding out from the mountains at any time of the year.
Tak paused in his work to look up at the mountains, just visible on the horizon like a menacing line of dark thunderclouds. Sweat beaded his forehead and glued his sandy blonde hair to his forehead. Rivulets ran down his darkly tanned face, washing clean tracks through the dust, and his white cotton shirt clung damply to his back, revealing the angular curves of his spine and shoulder blades. He'd been working since dawn with only a brief pause for lunch at midday and it was now nearly sunset, but he was only a little fatigued. He had all the energy of youth and he'd been doing much the same work since he was old enough to walk.
Consequently he was as tough and wiry as an old leather bootlace. Skinny to look at but with muscles that bunched as hard as walnuts under his sunburned skin. His hands were as hard and calloused as his father's and the nails were cut as short as they possibly could be without drawing blood in case they snagged on a splinter and tore. He was only six years old, but he already had his fair share of scars, one of which had almost cost him his life when a large tree stump he'd been helping his father dig up had suddenly given way and the splintered end of a root had impaled him through the stomach. He fingered the scar under his shirt, feeling the rough, ridged texture of it. As it shrank it had pulled the skin with it, leaving his side puckered and folded in on itself, but he hardly noticed it any more. It had happened six months before, after all. An eternity for a young child.
Around him, in every direction but the north where the mountains stood, the Plains of Wessom stretched, flat and featureless, all the way to the horizon. Behind him were the few acres of beet, potatoes and barley, in the centre of which stood the crude cabin in which he lived, along with the animal pens and the barn in which their stock was stored, what little there was of it.
A few miles away, beyond the horizon and out of sight, were a few other small homesteads. They visited them every few weeks to keep on good terms with their neighbours and to remind themselves that they weren't all alone in the world. Two days journey to the south was the market town of Jalla, which Tak had visited only once. That was the extent of Tak's world. The only clues he had that anything else existed came from the strangers who would occasionally call by, on their way somewhere. Tak's father would invite them to share a meal and spend the night under their roof, as was the unwritten law in the wild and desolate borderlands, and from them Tak would hear tales of fabulous far off places, some of which existed only in the storyteller’s imagination.
