Dan Simmons - The Hyperion Cantos ❲LATEST❳

I had read Martin Silenus’s Dying Earth cycle. The Hegemony considered it decadent filth. The Ousters considered it prophecy.

The Shrike opened its chest. Within, where a heart should be, there was no mechanism, no organ, no crystal. There was a door . A farcaster portal, but wrong—not linking two points in space, but two points in narrative .

It did not move. It replaced space. One moment it stood before the Tombs; the next, it was behind me, a blade resting against my spine.

Ouster, it said. Not with sound. With the shape of pain yet to come. Dan Simmons - The Hyperion Cantos

“What, then?” I whispered.

Do you know who I am? he subvocalized on a band I barely heard. I was the poet.

The Shrike’s hand is on my shoulder now. The blades are warm. I had read Martin Silenus’s Dying Earth cycle

“You’ll hear them singing,” he said, pouring a glass of genuine Château Chiavari. “The Shrike’s tree. The steel thorns. Don’t go into the Valley at night.”

The Consul knew. That is why he smiled. That is why he did nothing.

I was an Ouster. Not the swarm-creatures of Hegemony propaganda, all claws and chitin, but a child of the void decades: webbed fingers, lungs adapted to argon-methane mix, eyes that saw ultraviolet. I had come to Hyperion not to die, but to understand. The Hegemony believed the Time Tombs were a weapon. The Ouster Clergy believed they were a god. The Shrike opened its chest

Transmission ends.

The Shrike is coming back through the door. I have perhaps three of your seconds.

I understand at last. The Consul did not betray us. He simply finished reading the story—and refused to turn the page.