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When we reach the road, we turn east

East to the sunrise East to Weepin Water East to the bunker in the hill An DeMalo’s nificent dawn vision

His secret His half truth His outright lie

I start to hear the faint throb of drulow of torchlight colours the sky As we git closer, the drues us on The hubble of voices warrey cloud They clash an part, tumble an break overhead

Me an e that overlooks the torchlit rass ed with hunnerds of people Stewards of the Earth, scrubbed an polished There’s plenty of Tonton about Fer them, too, it’s a day of celebration At the foot of the hill sit the children from Edenhome Kept apart fro the h their smokeholes, the smell of food billows from cookfires It seems that a feast will follow

I see what’s kept DeMalo so busy He’s completely transformed the hill On top of it stands the white vision room He’s had the walls an floor an ceilin ether atop the hill The front of it stands open to the meadow so’s everybody can see inside Jack did say it wasI should be aularity of purpose

Extraordinary Jest like he said All here itness his miraculous vision Most of ’eroup, inside the bunker, at the start of their new life in New Eden But today they’ll witness it together At the dawn of this reat joy

The story will be told fer generations to come

Everybody’s seen us They’ve all seen me They fall silent as I follow the front four Tonton The back four bring up the rear The drue The crowd falls back, clears a path fer us to the hill

In this broody dawn of torchlight an dru at el of Death Slayer of kings She who rides the night with starfallen souls Superstitious fools, DeMalo called ’em

A few brave ones dare to dart forwards To touch her dress Her boots The murmur spreads She’s real She’s alive Captured Conquered by the Pathfinder Jest like the of flesh, sharp with excitement I feel the hot clench of red start to burn in ht It’s the gauntlet, that snakeroad of drug-crazy hands, eager to pull ht, with Lugh staked out to burn It’s the beat beat of fear, the beat of sticks on stones as I came to the Snake River camp

I look fer any familiar face Cassie, even Vain Ed the ht

DeMalo meets me near the foot of the hill He’s dressed all in white Of course Britches, shirt an cloak His black hair gleahtens when he sees what I’ve done, what I’own My arh’s necklace

My beautiful bride, he says His se, I see, he says I set Nero to fly I slide down fro stays here, he says

A flick of his hand brings a Tonton with a cord I slip it around Tracker’s neck Go, I tell him an he’s led away

Then DeMalo holds out his hand to rips it painfully He turns us so we face the crowd As the drummers drum an the dawn creeps closer, the Pathfinder an his warrior bride move around the hill slowly So’s all can look up an admire them

It wouldn’t be obvious to nobody else It is to me DeMalo’s ill at ease The first time I ever seen him so You wouldn’t know frooin to the sky To the clouds that tumble an shadow Even as I wonder why, the answer coht of dawn fer his er the Wrecker tech of the white walls I knoon’t of left this to chance He will of tested it Probly ot no control over Mother Earth When it comes down to it, he’s at her mercy like the rest of us