Aurora

by Julie Bertagna

  Fox’s jaw unclenches. The line between his brows smoothes out. Tension seeps from his muscles.

  At last.

  The frozen years of waiting and planning are almost over. The moment he has been moving towards for so long, like the captain of a ship in blank fog, rises up before him like a brand new continent.

  He takes a smooth, deep breath. He feels sharp and clear and sure.

  ‘Alert all Surgents within the empire to begin the attack on the Noos.’ His voice catches in his throat. ‘Let’s begin’

  Kitsune’s eyes sparkle with reflections of Nooswonders unfurling all around. He winks at Fox, then disappears.

  Back in realworld, Fox feels Pandora’s arms enclose him. Her tangled head is cool and soft on his shoulder but Fox seems to feel the weight of a planetful of desperate hopes and dreams.

  HISTORY WHISPERS, HISTORY JUMPS

  All across the Earth, the Surgency waits in tense readiness as the comrades in the sky cities launch the biggest robbery in history upon the Noos.

  Fox leans from a window of the old steepled tower to look at one of the last netherworld nights he will ever see. The sky city is draped in a luminous glamour of phosphorescence. Beads of starlight glitter on the interlinking sky tunnels. He breathes in welcome dregs of coolness from the air.

  It’s hard to believe, this peaceful night, that every sky city on the planet is under the most audacious cyber-atteck there has ever been. If all goes to plan, the trade systems that are the lifeblood of the empire will soon begin to collapse, as if a slow bomb has detonated in the Noos.

  It’s just the beginning. With so many cities vulnerable and their Guardians’ attention fixed on the North, the vanishing of trillions of Noo$dollars will send the masters of the empire into spasms of shock. And all across the world’s oceans as the sky cities are left reeling and exposed, the Surge will break through walls.

  Strike only when the enemy can be taken by surprise.

  The mildewed pages of an old book, his touchstone, hoard these dangerous gems of rebel warfare: Seven Pillars of Wisdom by Lawrence of Arabia, a freedom fighter of another age. Fox knows his diamond words by heart.

  He should grab some sleep and food while he can. Fox scours the nooks and crannies at the top of the tower until he has gathered a pocketful of birds’ eggs, then makes his way back down the tight-winding stairway to the tower room where Pandora is sprawled on a great heap of silk gowns, snoring softly, after a long session updating Surgents in the virtual wreckage of the Weave. She must have raided the museum’s Ancient and Lost Civilization wing too because she has gathered around her a small armoury of luck-infested jewellery – a red scarab-beetle brooch, a small jade frog as green as her eyes, Norse amulets, magic square rings, pendants with crosses and mandalas and stars.

  We’ll need all of it, thinks Fox as he stirs the embers of the evening fire and places the eggs on to roast.

  Nerves gnaw at him. He’s dizzy with exhaustion but he’ll never sleep. So he connects up his godgem and heads for the safe haven in cyberspace where Kitsune and fellow Surgent leaders have arranged to meet: the electric blue haze of the Nowhere that lies like a vast ocean between the virtual universe of the Noos and its long-defunct predecessor, the Weave.

  Fox plunges through cyberspace towards that virtual hinterland.

  Presences all across the Nowhere are buzzing excitedly. It’s difficult to see amid its blinding blue brilliance but Fox recognizes the accents and avatars of the Argent Surgents, rebel leaders from the southern hemisphere of the world.

  ‘Fox!’ shouts a voice amid the waves of crackling static. ‘We pulled all the fake Noofuel companies from the trade networks – all the scam core metal industries to vanish next.’

  Fox watches the eruption of the vivid universe in the far distant ether: an electronic storm of panic as the vast wealth of the Trade Lords vanishes into mysterious black holes.

  Kitsune’s trickster fox materializes from a nearby starburst of static with a soft, satisfied laugh. ‘All gone bust. Go get some rest now, Surgent Fox. You’re going to need it.’

  Fox disconnects with a wry smile for his cyberfox twin and a last glance at the combusting Noos. His years of exile have lead to this moment. He might not come out of the Surge into the city alive, but what does that matter when a whole world is at stake?

  Back in realworld, he peels the hot shells off the roasted eggs and eats ravenously as he moves restlessly through the book-strewn rooms of the old university tower. He stops for a second beside the frantic industry of the genius who inspired his catastrophic attack on the Noos: an aged, fat spider whose web is so vast it drapes all across toppled bookstacks of Stone Age history, past tomes on medieval plagues and exploration, spanning age upon age of war, peace, evolution and revolution, past the shelf where he discovered the mould-ridden Seven Pillars of Wisdom, all the way to the twenty-first-century Oil Wars.

  The spiderweb is a masterpiece. Whether the weather tears it or the rats rip through it, the spider keeps weaving with a ferocity of purpose that only makes the web more deadly still.

  Fox has watched the web grow, measuring the spider’s progress against his own. Day by day, night by night, he has woven his own vast web through the intricate business networks of the Trade Lords in the Noos. The Guardians of the sky cities depend on the backing of their leagues of wealthy trade kings to provide the funds for projects that win power within the empire – like the invasion of the Northlands.

  Volcanfuels, MagmaWelth, Dynamantle were among a small galaxy of fake companies launched by Fox and his rebels among the real new businesses that were springing up to grab their stake in the rich resources of metals, minerals and fuels in the land grab of the North. The Surgents spread trade rumours of all kinds of wondrous new industries that would explode the possibilities of what the empire could do. The lie of Weathergeneermg – satellite-controlled weather patterning to make the Arctic winters more temperate for the invaders – stirred up a rampage for shares in that fairytale company. A phantom Stellarka project was resurrected, with the Trade Lords convinced that the new industries of the Northlands would provide the materials needed for the empire to conquer the stars at last.

  It was easier to create the fairy tales than Fox ever expected. The Trade Lords wanted to believe.

  The tycoons of the sky empire have gambled their vast wealth on companies that do not exist. Now no one knows what is happening, what to believe in, what is real any more . . .

  Shockwaves are radiating across the oceans – from the western sky cities of New Tex and New Tucky to the eastern ones of New Bai and New Hai, across the uninhabitable oceans around the Earth’s middle, to New Zim, New Zeal and New Zil in the southern hemisphere of the planet. Imaginary towers of wealth built on electronic Noo$dollars are vanishing into the ether as the rebels within the empire surge like a swirling hurricane through the Noos, blasting away the cyber-lie of a trade network that was never real, leaving the Trade Lords caught like flies in Fox’s vast and sticky web.

  THE SCAVENGED GIRL

  The goddess of the oceans has woken in a temper. The sound of shipwrecks haunts the shrieking winds.

  Clay rows the walrus-skin umiak through seething waves, his eyes narrowed against needles of rain. Shipwrecks are his mother’s nightmare, but they’re a scavenger’s dream.

  He glances back at his night’s scavenge: a girl wrapped in a fishing net, behind him in the boat. Her soft face, crumpled with fear, has only known fifteen or sixteen winters, he reckons; just one or two less than himself. She stares at him through the netting with terror in her wide eyes. Clay feels a pang of pity. He shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders to get rid of the feeling. A young human scavenge is the best of all finds. Sea-battered junk is all Clay usually nets. Kronk, his Scutmaster, will sell the girl for a good price at market and Clay intends to make sure that he gets the credit for spotting her fire in the dark then capturing her in his net.

  She must be from a shipwreck and washed up o
n the rocks. Wrecks mean all kinds of new scavenges on the tides and the seabed. Clay and his scavenge team searched for other live humans and found none. How many ships, Clay wonders, are sunk on the ocean floor of the world? What leagues of treasure lie there, as unreachable as the stars?

  He digs his oar deep in the water as the sea goddess tosses the umiak sideways into a wave.

  The girl screams in his ear. Wrapped tight in the net, she has no way of holding on. He can’t risk losing her. Clay grips his oar between his knees and signals to his fellow scavengers to go ahead in their boats, while he turns to free the girl from the net.

  ‘Hold on!’ he yells, placing her hands on his waist, in case his language is unknown to her. The ships that sail into Ilira bring people from all over the Arctic and far beyond, who speak with many different tongues.

  A silken flame of hair blows across his face. The girl’s hair, her wide eyes, delicate features and milky skin tell him she is from some distant place, as he is – the true Arctic people have the look of those who have faced the blast of the North Wind for time out of mind. But Clay must keep his focus on the boat now in this stretch of the fjord where the giant waterfalls thunder from the mountains and churn up the sea.

  His scavenge grips him tight and he hears her gasp as they pass the tiny island where the glass palace of the Pontifix, the Great Sea Lord of Ilira, glistens in the early morning light.

  ‘Great Skua!’ she murmurs, as they pass under the magnificent network of bridges that link the mountains on each side of the fjord.

  Clay looks over his shoulder, puzzled at hearing this gentle curse of the Ilirans, an exclamation borrowed from the name of the Pontifix’s magnificent ship.

  ‘You’re not from Ilira?’ says Clay, suddenly uneasy. If he has captured a wandering Iliran girl he’s in big trouble.

  But his scavenge is staring up open-mouthed at the Culpy Bridge as they pass underneath. She is a stranger, Clay is certain. All incomers look at the wonders of Ilira in such a way. The deep moan of a horn makes her jump and once again Clay has to focus on his oars, plunging the umiak through the spray of a waterfall to swerve out of the path of a ship with billowing sails, its decks full of the Pontifix’s guards.

  They emerge from the waterfall gasping, soaked with ice-cold spray.

  ‘Where’s my friend?’ the girl asks, once they are in calm waters near the harbour. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Your friend?’ says Clay. The wolfman is her friend? ‘I don’t know. Where do you come from?’

  ‘Candlewood,’ says the girl into Clay’s ear. The word is spoken so sadly that Clay only just hears her over the crashing waterfalls

  ‘Where did your ship sink?’

  ‘Huh?’

  Clay glances back over his shoulder. The girl looks blank. No shipwreck then.

  ‘Where’s Candlewood?’ he asks, wondering where a pretty girl and a wolfman could have come from.

  ‘Over the mountains,’ she replies, hesitantly then panicking. ‘But where’s my friend? I can’t see him in the other boats.’

  Clay ignores her and squints through a blast of sea spray to look at the wall of mountains that enclose the fjord and its bay.

  There is nothing beyond the mountains, the Arctic legends say. It’s where the sun rests at the end of a day and where it sleeps through the long night of winter. The mountains stop the oceans pouring off the end of the world. The Pontifix’s maps and star charts and ships have proved there is a vast world beyond Ilira’s seas, as do the raggedy boats and ships that venture into his new harbour laden with goods from faraway ports. But Clay has barely thought about what lies inland, behind Ilira’s mountains. They’re just there.

  He’s given plenty of thought to the ocean though. If he could, he’d jump on the next ship and sail out to see the world. But slaves never leave Ilira. They’re bound for life to the Sea Lords and their scavenger Scuts. And if he did escape and go he’d break his mother’s heart.

  During Clay’s short life, the Pontifix has sent ship after ship out on to the world’s ocean and each has returned with tales of the tiny settlements that are sprouting across the Northlands. In recent summers Clay has watched the boats from those budding ports begin to venture up the great fjord into the bay of Ilira – if the Pontifix gave them safe passage through his lethal sea traps. Clay has mingled in the harbour bars with the visiting seafarers who came to see with their own eyes the magnificent new mountain metropolis of Ilira. They’d heard rumours on the Arctic trade winds of its glass palace and the steam gondolas that puff through the fjord’s glistening bridges, of the thundering waterfalls that will soon power the city and the little cable trains that rattle up and down the mountainsides.

  Clay steers his umiak past Ilira’s new port and heads for the rocky harbour at the head of the bay. Kronk, his Scutmaster, is there, stamping his boots, impatient to see if his night scavenge team has found any goods. Clay lets out a laugh as he sees that Kronk is in full sea armour. But his heart sinks when he remembers why – it’s for the wedding, of course.

  He only has a moment left with the scavenged girl before his Scutmaster hauls her out of the boat. Then she’ll be gone to market and he might never see her again.

  ‘What’s over the mountains?’ Clay whispers to the girl. ‘Tell me.’

  She is staring in horror at the bulky monstrosity that is Kronk, in his helmet and vest armoured with the spiky shells of sea anemones.

  ‘Tell me what’s there and I’ll help you,’ Clay lies.

  The girl gives him such a desperate look that Clay wishes he wore a helmet too and could pull it down over his lying eyes. He throws the boat rope to Kronk.

  ‘Lake Longhope,’ the girl whispers back. ‘A lake so big you can’t see the end of it. Forest. Wolves and bears and eagles live in the mountains. The wind doesn’t stink of sea or nip your eyes with salt. Our wind is the breath of the pine trees.’

  The Scutmaster pulls Clay’s umiak into place at the harbour. A sob escapes the girl and she puts a shaking hand over her mouth.

  ‘Please let me go!’

  The sob gets to him. Suddenly she is no longer just scavenged goods; she is a girl in a trip. A girl with a soft face that he likes. But it’s too late. Kronk is beaming at the sight of her. There’s nothing Clay can do.

  ‘Why did you come here?’ Clay hisses.

  ‘To find my father. But my friend,’ she pleads, ‘where is he?’

  The Scutmaster yanks the girl out of the boat by the fur hood of her parka. He looks her up and down then gives a satisfied grin, revealing black stumps of teeth. The girl tries to run but Kronk gives her a slap on the head that stuns her while he expertly lassoes her with a rope that binds the girl’s arms tight to her sides. Clay gets out of the boat, feeling sick and odd

  ‘Good find!’ The Scutmaster claps Clay on the back and rewards him with a black-stumped grin. ‘Best scavenge in a long time.’ He scowls at the others. ‘You lot get nothin’ again?’

  Clay is unable to look at the girl. The Scutmaster’s rare praise means not a thing. Does he want to be the best scavenger in Ilira? Is this what he’s meant to be? He looks at the girls tragic face and knows it is not.

  ‘Wing, where are you?’ she mutters, staring at the mountains that line the fjord. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’

  Clay can’t bear to add to her misery. He saw what happened to the wolfman.

  Where’s your father?’ he asks the girl, wondering why any father would leave such a soft-faced daughter at the mercy of the world. Then Clay remembers the Sea Lord who owns him and bosses Kronk. What a brutal father he is to his daughter.

  The Scut is jumping on the back of his deer, arguing loudly with one of the marketeers. He’ll be back any moment. There isn’t much time.

  The girl flicks him a wretched glance. ‘My father’s across the ocean, in a city as tall as the sky.’

  Clay’s eyes widen. A vision of towers fills his head; a vision he remembers from the stories told to him as
a child by his mother.

  ‘Market’s closed,’ the Scut shouts in disgust. ‘One man gets married and the whole world’s got to stop. Urth,’ he curses. ‘Lock her up in storage for today, dirt-boy.’

  ‘The name’s Clay, crab-face,’ Clay mutters under his breath. Kronk’s good mood didn’t last long. But he knows better than to be heard; a Scut will cut off a slave’s hand for less. At least he’s got more time to find out about the scavenged girl.

  Clay hauls his terrified prisoner along the harbour, across the rocky shore to the warren of sea caves at the foot of the mountain where goods and scavenges are stored. He pulls back the bolts on a rusted door and pushes the girl into a dank darkness – then checks that no one is looking and follows her into the cave.

  THE GIRL AND THE PONTIFIX

  ‘Clay?’ whispers the girl.

  ‘That’s my name,’ he replies, as he takes the long end of the rope that binds her arms and knots it around a rock. ‘What’s yours?’

  Her name is Lily Longhope, she says. He studies the trembling girl in the dim light that filters through gaps in the battered door. The plea in her amber-brown eyes tugs at his heart.

  Look away, Clay tells himself. Tomorrow she’ll be someone’s kitchen slave and you’ll never see her again.

  ‘The wolfman,’ he begins, because if he doesn’t tell her she’ll never know what happened. He can give her that, at least. ‘He – he was killed. The ocean currents took him.’

  Lily blinks. The milky skin of her face grows paler still. She shakes her head slowly.

  ‘Wing’s not dead,’ she scorns, as if that’s something he would never do. ‘I don’t believe you. He wouldn’t drown.’

  Clay makes himself tell her. ‘He got hit in the head with an arrow.’

  She sits in disbelieving silence, shaking from head to toe. Clay takes a step closer and reaches out a hand to stroke her hair but she lunges at him, sinking her teeth into his hand. Clay raises his other hand to retaliate, but his mother’s horrified face flashes up in his mind and he stops.