by Brandon Mull
Rising, Cole pointed his sword toward the neighboring tower and as he sprang, he yelled, “Away!” Roller-coaster sensations surged through him as he soared across the intervening space and up to another balcony, again landing gently at the apex of his flight.
The scorpipede let out another screech-roar, the tail flailing down below. He had traveled higher than it could reach. Cole looked hopefully for the lifeboat, but saw nothing. The scorpipede started climbing straight up the tower wall.
Pointing his sword at a higher balcony across the way, Cole said his word and jumped again. Once again he landed smoothly. A glance down showed the scorpipede climbing fast.
There was no time to really strategize, but a rough plan flashed through his mind. When he got to the top, hopefully the lifeboat would be within range. He would either make a final jump to his rescuers or get trapped by the scorpipede with no escape.
If he leaped to the other tower with this next jump, he would be back on the same tower the scorpipede was climbing. But it was also the tower closest to the edge of the castle, which would allow Jed to steer the lifeboat within range at minimal risk.
Extending his sword, Cole jumped up to the flat roof of the opposite tower, landing in a crouch. Battlements surrounded the top like blunt teeth. Cole looked frantically in all directions. The Domingo hovered high above. Other castles floated in the distance.
When he saw the lifeboat, his heart sank.
It was swinging around to come his way, but it was too far out and much too low. They must not have spotted him climbing until a moment ago. Cole decided he could buy a little time by jumping back across to the roof of the neighboring tower before the scorpipede arrived. As he raised his sword, the tail shot up in his way.
Cole hesitated. With the scorpipede crawling up the tower, he would be in full view when he jumped. The tail would skewer him. The head of the scorpipede loomed into view, its weight crushing battlements as it leaned toward him. The tower shuddered as the scorpipede heaved more of itself to the top. The lifeboat would not be within jumping range in time.
But if he waited, he was dead.
Running away from the scorpipede, Cole jabbed his sword diagonally up and away from the tower, shouted “away,” and leaped with everything he had. He launched into his biggest jump yet, testing the sword’s limits. He heard the tail strike the castle behind him, and the scorpipede gave a furious cry.
Still curving upward, Cole saw the castle wall pass underneath him. His trajectory carried him well beyond the edge of the cloud at the castle’s base. As he lost his forward momentum and plunged downward, all he saw beneath him was endless sky, dropping away to immeasurable purple depths.
The shawl flapped above him, held in place only by the clasp at his neck. Fumbling desperately, it took Cole a panicky moment to find his rip cord. He was falling almost straight down by the time he gave it a sharp tug. The parachute blossomed up above him, jerking him as it interrupted his descent.
As he slowed, the shawl draped down over his head. He pulled it off and tucked it under one arm. His heart was still racing. Down between his feet yawned such endless nothing that it gave him shivers.
Above and behind him, the scorpipede let out another screech-roar. It was loud even at this distance.
“We’ve got you!” called a voice from below and off to one side.
The lifeboat appeared beneath him, falling with him to catch him softly. Eli steadied his landing, sat him down, and began pulling in the parachute as it went limp. He bundled it expertly.
Cole sat in shocked silence as the Okie Dokie climbed. He had hoped they would get to him before he dropped below where the skycraft could descend. And they had. He had made it.
He couldn’t believe he was alive. He had been so close to dying that at some level he had known he was only prolonging the inevitable. But now he was safe.
Eli and Jed stayed silent, and so did he. They rose toward the Domingo, glided up above it, then landed on the deck at the rear.
“Quite a performance,” Captain Post greeted as Cole clambered out of the lifeboat.
Cole tried to muster a smile. “I thought I was dead.”
Jace came up and gave him a big hug. “You’re officially my best friend.”
“That was a bad one?” Cole asked hopefully.
“Terrible,” Jace conceded. “You shouldn’t have survived.”
“One down,” Cole said shakily.
“Weeeell,” Jace replied, stretching the word out. “You have to bring something back for it to count.”
Cole paused and then gave a single chuckle. “I forgot to even think about that.”
“What have you there?” the captain asked.
“It has to be something valuable,” Jace explained hesitantly. “Something we would salvage on purpose.”
The captain took the shawl from Cole, shook it out, and held it up. “It’s less than we would normally accept. But that was a brutal first outing.” He eyed the shawl more closely. “It’s in good condition. And it might have useful properties—the other semblances ignored you once you put it on. If nothing else, I know a woman who might thank us for this. Granted, it’s a bit more effort than one would normally make to acquire a wrap, but we’ll count the mission valid.”
Cole slumped with relief.
“Nice job, rookie,” Jace said with a jeering smile. “Only forty-nine to go!”
CHAPTER
10
STARRY NIGHT
A falling star blazed diagonally across the sky, a searing ember of white-gold brilliance with a long tail. After flaring bright enough to cast shadows and make Cole squint, the meteor shrank to a spark, vanishing before it reached the horizon.
Cole’s eyes needed a moment to adjust so he could get back to enjoying the sky. Several of the stars were brighter than any he had seen in Arizona. There was more variety in color as well, particularly in shades of red and blue. He could make out the little spiral smudges of distant galaxies, and cloudy patches of light that were either nebulae or dense clusters of faraway stars.
Stranger than anything was the rising moon. It wasn’t like the moon back home. It was smaller, dimmer, bluer, and more translucent, almost like a glowing ball of ice. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed the difference before.
“You shouldn’t be out after dark without a good reason,” a voice said from behind.
Cole glanced back to find Mira coming toward him across the back porch. “I’m not far from the door. There’s a wall around the whole area.”
“Even the yard can be dangerous once the sun goes down.”
“I needed some time alone.”
“There are places in the caves,” she said.
“Not with stars,” he replied.
Mira stood next to where he sat on the porch steps. “True.” She stared out at the dark salvage yard.
Cole had wanted some alone time, but he found himself glad for the company. He hadn’t spoken to Mira since she’d equipped him the night before. “I just saw a shooting star,” Cole said. “A bright one.”
“We have a beautiful sky,” Mira said wistfully.
“It’s different from the one on Earth.”
“People from outside always comment on it. At least the observant ones do.”
“The moon is really different.”
She gave a faint smile. “That isn’t our most common moon. It’s Naori, the Shiver Moon. We only see it now and then.”
“That makes sense,” Cole said. “I think one of your more regular moons is more like ours.”
“Light can partially pass through Naori, so it’s always full,” she said. “They make a big deal about it in Necronum.”
“How many different moons do you have here?”
“At least twenty,” Mira said.
“Are they ever all up at once?”
“I’ve never seen more than five at the same time. Sometimes there are none.”
Cole reconsidered the glittering sky. “You guys must h
ave complicated calendars.”
“There are no really reliable calendars,” she said. “There isn’t much of a pattern to the moons or the stars. You can never be sure what sky you’ll get. The years tend to be around three hundred and fifty days, but the seasons are haphazard. It can be summer for a hundred days, autumn for twelve, winter for forty, spring for two hundred, then summer for twenty, and on and on without any kind of pattern. The days aren’t trustworthy either. We measure hours, but only to track how many have passed since sunrise. First hour, second hour, and so on. Then we start counting again from sunset. Most days are around twelve hours, followed by twelve hours of night. Without warning, they can be as short as four, or as long as thirty, though the extremes aren’t common.”
“Wow,” Cole said. “Do you have more than one sun?”
“Almost always just one. It usually rises in the east and sets in the west. Sometimes we have duskdays, when the sun seems to be rising in all directions but never does.”
“I saw one of those.”
“That’s right. We had one not too long ago.”
Cole scanned the salvage yard, cluttered with bizarre, shadowy shapes, great and small. Among the discernible objects were statues, potted trees, cages, wicker baskets, outdoor furniture, coiled chains, a huge barbershop pole, a battered jukebox, a canoe, an old-fashioned bicycle with a huge front wheel, and a shantytown of sheds, large and small, that probably housed more fragile treasures. The yard was still, the night cool. The door into Skyport was only a few steps away. It was hard to believe he was in any danger.
“You shouldn’t lurk out here,” Mira said. “They’re still talking about your escape from the centipede. You ought to soak it up.”
“Scorpipede,” Cole corrected. “At least, that was how I thought of it. Part scorpion. It had claws.”
“Whatever,” Mira said. “You should come enjoy the attention. These men have seen it all. They’re not easy to impress, especially on a first outing.”
“I should be dead,” Cole said, suddenly fighting a hard lump in his throat. “This lady . . . she protected me. The scorpipede . . .” He couldn’t continue speaking and keep it together, so he stopped.
“One of the semblances?” Mira asked.
Cole nodded, not trusting his voice.
Mira crouched beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re sweet, but you can’t let that get to you. She wasn’t real. None of them were. They’re just puppets. Dangerous, lifelike, but puppets.”
“She gave me her shawl to help hide me. She seemed so real, Mira. Perfectly real.”
“Some do. It’s an illusion. They’re just temporary. If you had brought her back here, she would have dissolved into dust. Only some of the simplest ones have any chance of surviving outside the castles. That lady didn’t die. She wasn’t alive. She was heading for nothingness in a day or two, when the castle vanishes into the cloudwall.”
Cole stared down at his hands. The guilt had gnawed at him all day, but Mira’s explanation helped. “One mission down.”
“At least the other one was more fruitful.”
Cole smiled at her wordplay. One of his bunkmates, a boy called Twitch, had scouted today for another Sky Raider ship, the Borrower. They had found what looked like a village of big, fancy gazebos. The woodwork was all fragile and ornate, but the raiders were most interested in the extensive gardens, especially the fruit trees. At a signal from the Borrower, the Domingo had joined in reaping the harvest.
The only obstacles had been a few giant carnivorous weeds. Since the weeds were stationary, they were easily avoided once you knew to watch for them. Both ships had spent the day off-loading fruit of all description. Some were familiar, including oranges, lemons, bananas, plums, apricots, apples, pears, and kiwis. Other varieties had looked foreign—fruit protected by stinging tendrils, fruit that grew in clusters like grapes but had thick rinds, fruit they had to chisel out of the trunks like tumors.
“We brought a lot of food,” Cole said.
“We never go hungry here. Some food comes from the castles. Plus, traders go out of their way to bring us goods. They know we can pay or barter.”
Cole looked around. “It doesn’t seem dangerous out here.”
Mira shrugged. “It’s safer inside the walls of the salvage yard than out in the open. But just because you don’t get killed tonight doesn’t mean you won’t get ambushed tomorrow. Bad things come up from lower down the cliffs at night. We seal the caves carefully. We have some tricks that help keep the night stalkers away from Skyport. But it can get plenty dangerous. A lot of people have disappeared because they braved the Brink at night.”
Her words made Cole less comfortable. Certain pockets of shadow suddenly seemed more suspicious. Had one of the sculptures shifted position a little?
“Maybe we should go in,” Cole suggested, standing.
“You go ahead,” Mira said, stepping out into the yard, head craned back to take in the sky. “I just need a minute to unwind after—”
She froze and said nothing more.
“After what? Mira?”
She looked at him, and for an instant he saw unbridled panic in her eyes.
“Are you all right?” Cole asked, looking up for signs of danger. All he saw were stars. What was he missing?
“I’m fine,” Mira insisted with an uncomfortable smile. “I just . . . I remembered something I forgot to do. Something important. I’ll come in with you.”
“Are you sure?” Cole asked. “For a second there, you looked like you’d seen a ghost.”
She gave a feeble smile. “Life of a slave. I forgot to do a chore that could get me in trouble.”
“Need help?”
He followed her through a doorway into a hall. She closed the sturdy door and locked it in three places. “I should do it on my own. Thanks, though. You’ve had a busy day. Go get some rest.”
Cole watched her walk away. He had a strong suspicion that she wasn’t being completely honest with him. While looking up, she had seen something that scared her, and then tried to mask her reaction. Could it have been a winged creature? Did the night stalkers fly? Maybe she’d glimpsed a threat lurking on the roof?
He looked back at the door. He could peek out to see if something had entered the yard. No, if some monster had scared her that badly, he didn’t want to take the risk.
But why would she try to cover up something like that? If she had seen a monster coming for them, why not grab him and race indoors? Why be secretive? Why make up an excuse?
Maybe her excuse was real. He supposed an important task left undone could explain her reaction. Looking at the sky might have reminded her. Or it might have been a coincidence.
Avoiding the boisterous commotion of the common area, Cole made his way to his room. He had already eaten, and decided he would take Mira’s advice and get some rest.
The narrow bunk room had a high ceiling and a pair of stacked bunks on either side. Cole found Twitch seated on a bottom bunk. His head jerked up, as if Cole had startled him, blue eyes wide and round. The short, skinny boy had a young face. He couldn’t be older than ten.
“I didn’t know you were in here,” Cole said. He hadn’t spoken much with him besides a quick introduction the night before.
Twitch licked his lips. “All the people can be . . . a little much. Do you need the room?”
“Not for anything special. I was just getting tired.” Cole had been assigned the bunk above Twitch, across from Slider.
“Don’t let me stop you. I can dim the lamp.” Twitch hopped out of bed and crossed to the oil lantern.
“Nice job finding all that fruit.”
Twitch gave a weak chuckle. “Don’t thank me for the fruit. Spotters handled that. Thank me for almost getting eaten by a plant. I barely got out of the way in time.” The lantern dimmed.
“Those things were scary.”
“They weren’t too bad once you knew what they looked like and could keep out of range.”
Twitch went back to sit on his bed. “A crazy part of me almost wishes the weeds got me.”
“What?”
“Just to end the suspense. It’s too much. If something is going to get me sooner or later, sooner might be a mercy.”
“Don’t think like that,” Cole said. “You have to aim for fifty.”
“I’ve done sixteen missions. I don’t want to even think about fifty. That isn’t the end, you know. After fifty, the danger isn’t gone. The scouts aren’t the only raiders who have accidents. The other jobs are only a little safer.”
“Well, you’ve done fifteen more than me.” Cole stashed his clothes into his trunk. “Is Twitch your real name?”
“Ruben.”
“Why do they call you Twitch?”
“Very funny.”
“No, I’m serious.”
He studied Cole as if measuring his sincerity. “I’m kind of jumpy. I guess I flinch a lot. That kind of thing. Some of them think I scout too slowly. If they don’t like it, they’re welcome to take my place.”
“Nothing wrong with being careful.”
“That’s what I say! It’s my neck I’m risking. I do it how I do it. Helped save me from those killer plants.”
“What item do you use? Jumping Sword?”
Twitch gave him a suspicious look. “Drop the act. Who put you up to this? Slider?”
“What do you mean?”
Twitch considered him. “Nobody knows what item I picked. I’ve never used it. Some of the other scouts are always trying to find out.”
“Why the mystery?”
“It’s not their business. I have little enough privacy. They know my birthmarks and the color of my underwear. My item is mine.” He shared a sneaky smile. “Not knowing drives Slider nuts.”
The door opened and Jace peeked in. “There you are! Man of the hour.” He came inside. “Already going to bed?”
“Long day,” Cole said.
“Busy night, too,” Jace replied.
“What do you mean?”
He wore a teasing grin. “I noticed you hanging out with Mira in the yard. Starry night, Shiver Moon . . . pretty romantic.”