Pictoria (The Ammonite Galaxy Series, Book 4)

Chapter 23

ON KWAIDE, THE weather was reasonably good, and the shuttles came down into the Valley of the Skulls out of a clear blue sky on a chilly but bright day.

The first one hovered for some time, as its pilot tried to find a safe place to land, and it shone darkly against the sunlight that never reached all the way down into the valley.

At last the pilot seemed satisfied with his position, and the small pod gently descended until it touched the broken rubble which lay strewn over the floor of the valley. There was a pause, and then the hatch was opened from inside, and a tall figure stepped slowly out of the hatch, and negotiated the rungs down the fuselage and onto the floor of the valley. He sighed as he stepped from the last rung; he was the first Kwaidian ever to set foot here, but he didn't feel that it was an honour. Ledin looked around at the dark and damp valley with disfavour.

Grace was the next down, and then she turned to watch as Diva and Six brought their shuttle in to land. The two newlyweds had tried to convince their friends not to come with them, but there had been no gainsaying them. Diva appeared to be under the illusion that the two of them would get themselves lost forever in the mountains up beyond the black peak, and Six was determined to pay homage to Ledin's sister by helping his friend out in this.

"After all," he had said, "we have had quite parallel lives, you and I. It could easily have been me who was being chased across the peaks, and it could easily be one of my sisters lying in the Valley of Skulls now. In a way I feel as if Hanna had been my sister too. It was a part of all of our lives, and I owe this to you, to her, and to that old Kwaide we were forced to live in."

Ledin had stared at him for a long moment, and then clapped him on the back. It was true, he realized. Things had changed so much on Kwaide in such a short time, that this was a way to honour all the no-names who had perished at the hands of the wildest factions of the Elders.

"We will put her to rest wrapped in the flag of New Kwaide," he said suddenly.

The others nodded. "Yes, of course," said Grace. "She would have liked that."

"They all would have." Ledin's eyes were far away.

Six pursed his lips for a moment, and then his eyes shone. "We should put up a monument to the previous generations of no-names," he said. "Then they would never be forgotten."

"Yes!" Ledin was pleased. "But what, and where?"

"That's easy," Grace told them. "The single most evocative thing of the hard life of the no-names on Kwaide is the waterfall over the black peak, the one which turns all objects hung in it to stone. That symbolizes the impossibly difficult life you all had to lead perfectly – even the water you drank was so hard it petrifies things. All we have to do is to add a small shrine to one side, and place one or two significant things inside the waterfall, where they will be petrified. The rest we can leave to time."

They had all agreed, and spoken to the new president of Kwaide about it. He had liked the idea, and a volunteer group was already building what was to be the small shrine. The president had come up with an idea of his own: there was to be a cabin added close by, so that the New Kwaidians could go into retreat there for a few days, and live for that small time fasting and drinking only the rock-hard water. It would be a way of remembering past lives, past friends and past history.

They had left Cimma on Valhai. Vion had recommended at least a week's complete rest before she resumed her duties on Kwaide, so they had asked Tallen and Petra to look after her, left Bennel to take care of all three of them, checked with the man who spoke to canths that the journey of colour could be shared with other people, and then left for Kwaide, transported to the space station by Arcan.