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Back Daughter of Eden
Chapters (68)
  1. Title page
  2. Dedication
  3. Part I
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 20. 20:25 MT.
  30. Part II
  31. Twenty-six
  32. Twenty-seven
  33. Twenty-eight
  34. Twenty-nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-one
  37. Thirty-two
  38. Thirty-three
  39. Thirty-four
  40. Thirty-five
  41. Thirty-six
  42. Thirty-seven
  43. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 22. 20:05 MT.
  44. Thirty-eight
  45. Thirty-nine
  46. Forty
  47. Forty-one
  48. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 25. 15:30 MT.
  49. Forty-two
  50. Forty-three
  51. Forty-four
  52. Forty-five
  53. Forty-six
  54. Forty-seven
  55. Forty-eight
  56. Forty-nine
  57. Fifty
  58. Fifty-one
  59. Fifty-two
  60. Fifty-three
  61. Fifty-four
  62. Part III
  63. Fifty-five
  64. Fifty-six
  65. Fifty-seven
  66. Fifty-eight
  67. Also by Chris Beckett
  68. Copyright page

Anyway, whoever found it, David’s Path is only one of many ways across the Dark. And David’s Path itself joins up with dozens of other paths that head off in different directions along the sides of dark valleys, past rock and ice, and above the huge snowslugs. These paths themselves branch, join onto new paths, branch out again, join up again with more paths yet. So it’s all one path, really, a path that isn’t just a single line but a kind of net. You put your foot on any part of it and you know for sure that all over the Dark there are other feet walking that same path with you: human feet and buck feet, and here and there leopard feet too. Some of those feet are coming towards you, some moving away, others again crossing between two places that you’ll never see and have never even heard of. Where human beings have trod is only a small small part of the Dark, and the paths we know of are only a small part of the path.

As Harry and his men rode across the snow, they passed many little groups of people coming the other way. That necklace of shining beads of light was still moving slowly across the snow towards Circle Valley, as the terrified people of Wide Forest tried to get their kids and their bucks out of the way of the Johnfolk. And from time to time Harry came across those little groups of guards who waited at the crossing places by their little red fires. The guards were scared scared too. There were only a handful of them beside each fire. What were they going to do if the Johnfolk came?

When a group of guards saw Harry coming, or a bunch of Wide Forest folk met him in the snow, they saw he was a high man and called out the latest bad news to him in the desperate hope he’d be able to do something about it. The ringmen and their metal spears were winning every fight, they cried. They were taking children from their mums and dads. They were doing for young boys so they couldn’t grow up to be guards. They were making people destroy their own circles of stones. The stories were often true, but they’d begun to have a kind of life of their own like stories always seem to, and, just as some stories grow by feeding on hope and longing, these ones grew bigger and more horrible as they spread by gorging themselves on fear.

But Harry’s guards put an end to all of that. ‘Earth has come!’ they shouted back down. ‘A veekle’s come back to the Circle! Mother Gela herself is there! She’s taller than a man and her skin is black black, just like in the stories!’