Aurora

by Julie Bertagna

  Sarah’s eyes turn to molten amber. The door closes between them and his mother is gone.

  WARRIORS OF A WOKEN WORLD

  Earth spins, hurling the sky city towards the dawn.

  Fox steps out on to the top of Aspen Tower as first light streaks across the eastern sky, revealing the awed and stricken faces of the people amassed on the roof.

  People from the sky city have walked out into the first real morning they have ever known and take their first-ever breaths of the world’s wind. Curious citizens have joined the rebel Surgents on the roof and now gaze like woken sleepwalkers at the spectacle of the outside world. Weather-ragged boat people stand dazed and exhausted among them. All across the city Fox sees the gatherings on every tower roof, the people tense and still like solemn wraiths in the misty dawn.

  Dark against the dawn is a strange swarm. As it draws closer, Fox sees it’s an air fleet. The deep scarlet emblems of the empire’s lilies glow on the tails of each ship. The golden names of the eastern sky cities glow on the whale-like bodies. Kitsune has been as good as his word.

  Fox imagines all the unknown masses he reached out to on the Zenith radio and in the Noos breaking out in wonder on to sky city towers all over the Earth: the warriors for the future he appealed for in his last broadcast to the global Surge.

  Air turbulence blasts the vast open space of the rooftop as the giant fleet spreads across the sky. The spiregyres at the edges of the tower whirl and whoop in the sudden wind. People cling to each other against the gale.

  The wind rips at Fox, tearing his makeshift bandage. The blast of air burns like fire on the raw shoulder wound. The fire seeps, warm as honey, across his chest. Faces stare at him in alarm. Glancing down, Fox sees why. His upper body is soaked in blood. It spreads in the shape of a huge dark lily all across the scarlet jacket stolen from the guard Suddenly, he feels dizzy. Nooworlders surround him; faces young and old, full of awe.

  ‘Fox!’ a voice is calling.

  A bugle call sounds. Fox turns towards the voice and the urgent, musical blast.

  ‘Pan!’ he calls back, but his voice is weak with pain.

  Is this the Fox? people whisper. Hands reach out to help him; he is given a sip of water from a flask. He is among friends, he realizes, with a stab of shock.

  Pan finds him at last, pushing through the crowd.

  ‘You came!’

  She is about to grab him in a hug when she sees his wound and stops, placing her hand tenderly over the dark stain.

  Her relief shames him. He can hardly meet the blaze of love in her eyes.

  ‘Who tried to kill you?’ she whispers. ‘Your father? You went to find him, didn’t you? Did – did you kill him?’

  Fox gives a shaky smile. ‘My mother saved us both.’

  The question on her lips is lost. Pan’s mouth drops open and her head falls back, her green eyes widening, as one of the airships pauses overhead. The turbulence calms now as the vessel drops towards the rooftop, quiet and gentle as a cloud. It doesn’t land, but hovers just above the tower on a cushion of air.

  ‘The soundwave,’ Fox gasps through a spike of pain.

  Pan pulls the connector from a pocket and puts it in his ear. ‘I unplugged. Got fed up with Kitsune yelling about you going off-plan.’

  ‘Kitsune?’ Fox cries, hoping the connection is still live.

  ‘At last!’ the voice in the earphone erupts. ‘We’ve been frantic – get on the ship!’

  A pulse of adrenalin overrides the pain of his wound. Fox takes a deep, reviving breath of air and begins directing the exodus of people to the air chute that will suck them up into the huge round belly of the ship.

  The soundwave crackles.

  ‘Never mind the rest of the world now,’ Kitsune insists, as if he knows Fox will be herding people on board before himself. ‘You get on the ship! Move!’

  Dazed Nooworlders and refugees keep pouring from the elevator shafts. They stand blinking like newborns in the grey dawn. Pan weaves her way among them, ignited by their stunned excitement as they look at the wide sky and the mass of airships. They barely notice Pandora. She might be a chattering ghost wafting among them. She touches their arms, their hair, a stunned face or two, as if they are statues from the museum.

  ‘You can still see a few stars. Look! The bright one is Venus, the morning star,’ she tells a throng of excited children. She might be a guide introducing them all to the world. ‘That was the city wall down there. It wrapped around the towers and stopped the outside getting in. See how it’s all bombed now and the boat people poured in. See all the boats and the ocean!’

  ‘Empire guards advancing up the towers,’ Kitsune warns Fox. ‘Everyone on board, now!’

  ‘They’re alive, Kitsune,’ Fox shouts into the soundwave connector, still herding frantic refugees. ‘Mara and my daughter . . .’

  He stumbles over the word.

  ‘Your daughter!’ Kitsune exclaims. ‘But you thought they were dead. Fox, your daughter!’

  ‘I found her in the Weave,’ says Fox. ‘Lily, Mara’s child. She’s in a mountain city in the North with shining bridges, deep in a sea fjord . . .’

  ‘In the Northlands?’ Kitsune breaks into his soft laugh. ‘Well, what do you know – that’s just where we’re headed! So can I assure Steerpike,’ he adds in a dry tone, ‘that it’s not all pirates up there?’

  The Arctic pirates on the radio waves have told all about the burgeoning trade ports of the North. But the propaganda of the empire tells the sky people that the land at the top of the world is empty, just a handful of savage tribes to reorganize, resettle, or where necessary, reduce – the empire’s code words for exile, enslavement, extermination.

  ‘But you have a daughter!’ Kitsune cries again and a smile breaks on Fox’s face as he hears his friend’s astonished delight.

  ‘I have a daughter,’ Fox repeats. It’s still such an unbelievable thought. ‘I have to find them, Kitsune. They matter more than anything now.’

  He motions to Pan to get on the airship. She doesn’t move.

  ‘You go,’ she says bluntly. ‘Go and find them.’

  ‘What?’ Fox snaps at her impatiently. He is trying to hear Kitsune and organize an exodus of people; this is no time for Pan to be awkward and childish. Then he sees the flash of tears in her eyes and, stricken, recalls the words she just heard him say.

  ‘I said get on this airship now!’ Kitsune sounds just as he did when they were young wizzers, racing through glittering speedlinks of the Noos, breathless, on the edge of time. ‘Move, Noosrunner! There’s a gun patrol on its way to the roof. Your battle’s done here, Fox.’

  An electric sizzle cuts through the soundwave. Kitsune’s voice is snapped off. He is gone. Fox is on his own.

  ‘Hurry!’ he roars, and begins pushing people two and three at a time up into the airship’s entry chute. ‘Pan! Come on! Get in.’

  Someone screams. Fox spins around and sees armed guards rushing from an elevator shaft.

  ‘Do not move!’ a voice commands. ‘Do not board the airships. Anyone attempting to board the airships will be shot.’

  Time seems to freeze as the crowd stills. A mass of instant calculations are made. Chaos breaks out as some obey the order and others rush for the ships. Warning shots fire overhead. The police scan the crowd. They are looking for him, Fox knows. His father’s stunned state will have worn off and an order will have been given to stun or shoot him on sight. Though Fox still wears the scarlet jacket, his weather-rugged face stands out like a barnacle among the fine, indoor skins of the empire’s guards. He ducks, glancing around for Pan. The sudden movement attracts a policewoman’s glare.

  ‘Here!’ she shouts. ‘I’ve got him!’

  Her gun points straight at him through a gap in the crowd. She’s too close to miss. He is pinned to the spot, his chance to escape lost.

  It’s all over now, thinks Fox.

  CANDLE COMMANDS

  This is what speed feels like! This is wha
t running is!

  Never in her life has Candle moved so fast. Never has she needed to; there has always been a slave to run for her and do whatever she asked.

  But the glass walls of the palace are full of flames and no one has answered her cries. All the guards and slaves have vanished. Where are Broom and Clay? Where is Tuck? The rooms and corridors are empty.

  Candle runs through the maze of the palace until she is out of breath. Adrenalin deadens the pain of her maimed fingers. She pauses, heart drumming hard as she stares at the flames that seem to blaze through the walls. Surely the palace will melt! She touches the glass but it’s cold and hard. The fire is outside. She is safe. But where has everyone gone?

  ‘Broom! Tuck?’

  She stares down empty glass corridors, feeling blank. And annoyed. Annoyance burns into anger. She is the First Lady of Ilira, the wife of the Pontifix. The brutality of her husband is something she cannot yet see a way around, but how dare everyone else forget about her?

  But of course they have not. Here they come. She listens to the tramp of heavy feet in the corridors.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Candle demands of the guards who rush towards her. One seizes her roughly by the arm. Aghast, she tries to shake him off – and freezes as he pulls his cutlass. The blade glistens as he points it at her throat. She sees the emblem of the Vulture’s claw on the guard’s helmet, and screams.

  A mass of invading guards rush past and Candle sees they all wear the Vulture’s claw.

  ‘Put your cutlass away!’ bellows a voice. ‘That’s Rodenglaw’s daughter, fool!’

  The guard drops Candle’s arm with a stricken look. He gives a sharp little bow and runs off.

  A burly figure with a red, weathered face that Candle knows from her childhood, the owner of the bellowing voice, takes off his helmet, grabs her hand and plants a rough, wet kiss on it.

  ‘Strozzi!’ Candle is dizzy with relief.

  Strozzi, the long-trusted captain of Rodenglaw’s fleet, gives her a smile that steadies her heart. Candle throws her arms around the neck of the fatherly figure who always brought her tales of his adventures in the Arctic seas where he would famously outwit pirate fleets and storms, along with tasty treats and trinkets for her from the port cities he sailed to in her father’s ships. Strozzi could even jolly Rodenglaw out of his dark moods with reports of lucrative trade deals struck on his master’s behalf.

  ‘The very lady I was searching for!’ The burly sea captain winks at her, a shrewd look in his eye.

  ‘Strozzi, what’s happening?’

  ‘Your husband lies dead on the harbour,’ cries the wily captain, never one to waste money or words. ‘Struck down by the Vulture’s claw – as I will be if I don’t keep my wits about me, and you too.

  Candle gasps.

  ‘Now don’t panic, and don’t tell me it was love at first sight,’ says Strozzi. ‘Tuck Culpy was as blind and dangerous as I am fat and you were hardly married a minute. So no tears. Listen to me, Candle. I have a deal to put to you and no time to waste.’

  ‘A deal? Now?’

  ‘The deal of a lifetime . . . No looting! Put it all back! Every last bit!’ he bellows to a bustle of guards trying to sneak past with Tuck’s treasured relics under their cloaks. ‘That is the property of your new sea commander. Quick, now!’ he urges Candle. ‘Let’s get you ready for your big moment.’

  He stares at the bandaged stump of the hand he was about to seize.

  ‘Just as well he’s already dead, my little Candle,’ he murmurs after a pause.

  Candle shoves the bloodstained stump behind her back.

  ‘What big moment?’ she demands.

  If Strozzi’s deal is to marry her off to whoever is the new commander of the combined fleets of her dead father and husband, then she will fight against it with her teeth and the nails of her one good hand. She will never again be at the mercy of a power-crazed brute.

  ‘Who is the new commander?’

  ‘Commander Candle, of course,’ says Strozzi. His clever eyes twinkle at the stunned girl. ‘Why not? Who better than you? These are your father’s guards, this is your husband’s palace. I am your most loyal sea captain, always at your command. Our lives hang in the balance, Candle. Yours too. Ilira’s Sea Lords have scuttled into the shadows like sea rats. Who else can unite us and save us from the Vulture’s claw?’

  THE HEART OF A WOLF

  The burning masts of Tuck’s ship fall with a tremendous groan. The ship gives a boom as the flames consume the Great Skua. Mara plunges off the rocks and swims through cold waves towards the inferno, choking on seawater as she shoutes for Lily until her throat is raw. Her eyes stream. She can barely see through the thick smoke and the litter of burning debris on the waves.

  Did Lily jump into the sea and escape the falling masts? Or was she topped in the blaze?

  Panic screams through her, propelling her towards the sea of flame. Mara’s heart feels ready to burst when she spots Wing’s wolfskin, swimming towards her.

  Alone. Without Lily.

  Don’t let her be gone, she prays. I couldn’t bear that.

  The wolfskin grabs her. But it’s not Wing. She hears the ragged, sobbing breaths inside and knows the sound. She’d recognize her own child’s cry from a million others.

  Mara catches the wretched bundle that is Lily. Clasping her with one arm, Mara struggles to swim back through the seething sea. But the relief of finding Lily alive gives her the strength to steer them both back towards the harbour where dark figures are waiting to haul them on to the rocks.

  Shivering, she and Lily cling together as the Great Skua gives another monstrous groan as it breaks apart upon the dark sea.

  ‘Wing found me!’ gasps Lily. ‘He threw his wolfskin over me then the fire caught him. Oh, where is he?’

  Mara looks out at the fire-strewn waves. She looks along the harbour rocks. Lily screams his name again and again but there is no sign of Wing.

  ‘I thought he was dead and now he really is,’ Lily sobs. ‘I’m sorry, Mum, so sorry. I never meant all this to happen . . .’

  Mara can only hug her daughter. ‘He saved me once and now he’s saved you. Don’t give up on him yet. Wing has the heart of a wolf.’

  Bodies are being heaved from the sea. Lily and Mara rush to see if Wing is among them. Some are alive, burned, others have drowned; all wear the silver crescent emblem of Tuck’s guards.

  Lily sees Tuck’s body. ‘His heart was ice.’

  A ragged heap is dumped on the flat harbour rocks. Some grotesque, wizened creature. Lily pulls away from Mara with a cry and throws herself down beside the poor, drowned thing. Gently, she cradles the head and Mara sees that one side is burned, horribly, the hair razed away. But the unravaged half of the face is Wing’s.

  Lily puts her ear to Wing’s chest and listens.

  ‘He’s alive!’

  She pulls the wolfskin from her shoulders and lays it over Wing, placing the wolf head tenderly beside his. Mara hears her daughter beseech the spirit of the dead creature to help Wing.

  She pulls herself together. There are far more practical things than wolf spirits. Mara takes the flask of milk from her backpack that curdled days ago. Ever so gently, she pours the soothing curd on to the burns. Wing squirms in agony but makes not a sound. Years with the wolves have taught him the contained energy of silence, even at the point of death. Now Mara tips a small flask of pine wine, brought to clean wounds, to Wing’s mouth to numb his pain. Lily soothes him, murmuring in wolf-tongue, until Wing relaxes into a daze of alcohol and pain.

  ‘All that matters is that he’s alive,’ Lily declares.

  There are a thousand things to say but it can all wait. As the last of the Great Skua breaks up in a series of fiery cracks and booms, Mara can only agree with a shuddered ‘yes’.

  THE PARADISE DEAL

  At first Mara thinks the girl on the steps of the palace is on fire. But it’s a dazzling necklace, reflecting the last sparks of the burning ship, th
at seems to flame and sizzle upon her chest.

  The small, sturdy girl walks down the rocky steps of the palace, wrapped in a white fur cloak. On the harbour, Oreon watches her approach with a look of relief. Just a girl, says his face. The girl stops at Tuck’s lifeless body with an unreadable expression. Then she turns to Oreon with a hard, insolent look.

  The look throws Oreon. He was, thinks Mara, expecting tears.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he begins.

  ‘Not as sorry as you will be,’ says the girl, ‘when your brother hears how you bungled his plans. Captain Strozzi, my captain, has told me everything.’

  ‘You are the new bride of the Pontifix?’ asks Oreon, in the manner of someone suddenly struggling to find his bearings.

  ‘I am Tartoq Rodenglaw, known as Candle, the Light of Ilira. These guards are my father’s men and women. This is my palace, my city, my land. I hold the reins of power in Ilira now my husband is dead. What’s your business here, gypsea?’

  Oreon blinks, taken aback. Then he laughs.

  Mara leaves Lily to tend to Wing and steps closer to the power tussle between the bemused gypsea scholar and Tuck’s unexpected young wife.

  ‘I am Oreon,’ says the gypsea grandly, ‘a scholar on a mission from my brother, the Vulture of the North. These guards have sworn allegiance to him. As you can see, many now wear the Vulture’s claw. Tuck’s guards – those still alive – will doubtless join us too.’

  ‘Ah, but what I see is that many haven’t swapped their emblems at all!’ Candle shakes her head as if Oreon has made a silly mistake. ‘Look closer. See how many still wear my father’s emblem, the Rodenglaw claw – which is similar, though somewhat smaller than the Vulture’s. But sharp and deadly, I promise you. Now they have no need to swap allegiance. They will not take second place in the Vulture’s fleet because I, Tartoq Rodenglaw, will take control of Ilira’s fleets with my loyal Captain Strozzi. And my men and women will continue to wear the Rodenglaw claw!’