These Shadows Remain by B W Powe Page A

shifting again, he turned in another direction. What had been near flitted away before he could fix it with a gaze.
    â€œThey’re spreading?” Gabrielle said.
    â€œThe more people they lull, the more screens they need.”
    â€œMust be billions up there,” Santiago said. 
    â€œAll done without CGI,” Gabrielle said. 
    From below they heard applause ripple.
    This clapping seesawed upwards. The children had the sensation that they stood over a great ocean and its churning. Laughter followed the applause. Up came the words: “More, more.”
    *
    A shadow formed up beside them.
    Â â€œImpressive,” Adina said.
    As the children shouted her name, she was already dowsing her torch and reaching for their hands, while turning from the valley of images to Tomas. She wore a cloak with a hood. He reached out for her with his toon hand, but he knew instantly that she wasn’t the presence he had felt. In a way he expected her to be there. He had from the beginning picked up the thread of her bravery. No, something else hovered close, disappearing when he tried to find it, vanishing when he wanted to make it known to his eyes. It was something that didn’t want to be known directly.
    â€œAdina . . . ”
    It was the first time he’d said her name aloud. When he did so it had power, and it gave form to feelings stirring in him.
    â€œYou didn’t think you could do this without me, did you?” she said.
    â€œHow did you make your way through the forest?” Santiago asked.
    â€œSilly. She followed our steps. We must have left our mark everywhere we went,” Gabrielle said.
    â€œLike a thread through a labyrinth.” Adina recalled that old story. This time it was the children who had provided the path. She’d observed that from the murky imprints in the unstable earth. Their smaller steps had been ahead of the knight’s.
    â€œInteresting special effects back there,” she said. “Like Halloween on drugs.” The words from her former world often erupted in the present.
    â€œLook.” Gabrielle swayed then passed one hand turned flat, palm open, over the glowing scene beneath them. To her brother her gesture looked like a blessing and a steadying motion.
    *
    Their eyes grew accustomed to the bewitching light. Gradually they made out figures on the screen.
    They faced what humanity had become. Gabrielle and Santiago had grown up with images on vibrant surfaces. Now they saw there was no depth, though there was height and width. People swept across planes like flatfish in waves. No risings, no fading, just an endless streaming.
    They thought they heard a word from the screen. But they couldn’t be sure.
    What word did they hiss? What word had been permitted to them?
    â€œYes.”
    All four on the brink of the valley finally heard it.
    â€œYes.”
    It was no affirmation. There was no joyous excitement. It was a levelled “yes” said to everything. It was the one word the wizard had come to permit.
    â€œYes,” came the hiss.
    Excruciating to the children’s ears, more a screech than a comfort, it was a flattened word, meaning nothing.
    *
    In the camp of light and shadows the cloud felt cramped.
    Pluta had the sensation, inexplicable and invasive, that his realm was hemmed in by a strange border.
    He swirled around. What was near? His breath became wheezy. The cloud turned a sullen colour. No one can fence the wind. Yet he had the sensation again that another power encroached.
    â€œIt’s him.”
    He drew out the words in a sustained gasp.
    â€œHow did he get so close?”
    Dangerously, the knight was learning at faster speeds. He had his invisible shield of protective emotion to filter or deflect transmissions and receptions.
    The cloud wondered if the toons had become so mesmerized by the flat-screen images that they no longer paid attention to any portion of the world. Even if the world was