Nightmare journey

for natural causes. But whenever a man who appeared to be in the best of health one day dies the next, I like to take precautions. I remember the plague of a decade ago.”
    “So do we all,” Iswan said. He had relaxed slightly, but was still tense.
    Merka said, “I'll make arrangements for new quarters immediately and place a requisition for a wardrobe. My old clothes, of course, must not be taken from that room. And I wish to make a suggestion that may not be within my province.”
    She addressed this remark to Ober Iswan who said, “Yes?”
    “A new General should be elected posthaste. If anything should come of this plague threat, the existence of Preakness Bay may well depend on having a decisive leader.”
    “I agree,” Iswan said. “I'll convene the committee immediately.”
    The name of Plino Grimwaldowine was first proposed as a replacement for the fallen leader.
    The Committee on Leadership rejected him, soundly, over the course of seven ballots.
    Ober Iswan next expressed faith in Castigone Pei, who had once led a successful campaign against the tainted in the days when the enclave had maintained Nature Cleansers and who now was known for his poetry and gentleness. Such a man, containing violence and peace, must be special.
    The committee disagreed.
    Third: Cooper Hine.
    He was turned down.
    Merka Shanly was proposed as the fourth name.
    She won rapid acceptance.
    While the Military Suite was quarantined, suitable temporary quarters were established for the new General, Preakness Bay's first female leader in eighty-six years. Since the fortress had been designed to provide comfortable lodging for fifty thousand people, but now housed fewer than five thousand, no problem was encountered in clearing and appointing a lavish suite for the new General.
    By nightfall Merka Shanly sat alone in her bedroom, triumphant, having dispatched a dozen orders to her confidants who must now be rewarded for their loyalty.
    In the three months since she had become the late General's mistress conditions in the enclave had gone unchanged. Prewar supplies were wasted, while no provisions were made for survival once they had been used up. On a recent tour of the three hundred storage vaults beneath the fortress she had seen that they could last only another ten years at their present rate of thoughtless consumption. She had worked hard to establish sympathizers and had successfully performed the bold murder of her master. She had earned the right to set a new course for the people she ruled.
    But she worried, now, that she would not last long enough to effect these changes. Only three days ago she had begun to develop a rudimentary telepathic talent.
    27
    LEAVING the mist-shrouded formations of Smoke Den for the civilized land called January Slash, the five espers returned to their routine of travel by darkness and sleep by day. The nearest Pure enclave was the Jinyi Fortress, far to the north of the province, beyond the Hadaspuri Sea, and none of the tainted folk in this region appeared to be aware that esper fugitives might be crossing their land. This should have been, with minimal precautions, a time of peace for the travelers, a time to renew their strength to face more rugged obstacles ahead. Instead they found themselves growing more agitated by the day, partly because the land was parched and sandy and hardly fit for human habitation, and partly because their sleep was ruined every night by the intrusion of dreams they did not understand and for which they had no explanations.
    Jask was the first to dream, on the first night after they departed the field of black glass. His visions were filled with places, people, and concepts that were utterly alien to him. Time and again, he woke, sitting straight up beside Melopina, a scream caught in his throat. He could never remember what the genesis of his terror had been, though it was profound enough to leave him shaking each time. Drifting back into sleep, he would pick up the dreams again, follow them through to the penultimate moment of unknown terror…
    The following night Melopina dreamed as well, whimpering in her sleep so loudly that she wakened Kiera, who tried but failed to comfort her.
    On the third night no one was spared the dreams.
    In the morning, exhausted, they sat around a meager breakfast and discussed the vision they had somehow received: a vast city composed of living tissue, a pulsing mass of inhuman flesh that shaped itself to the needs of the millions who lived